Like the flick of a switch, the power grid goes down, leaving people disorientated, cold, hungry and completely immobilised...

It's fiction of course... for now

COMMENT By Alice Jones

A TRIP abroad with the incumbent flight and lounging around at Gate 19 requires a distraction and, for me, the guilty pleasure is a new book. My choice this time was to delve into Kyla Stone’s ‘Edge of Collapse’ – an apocalyptic series of books which revolve around an EMP attack plunging the US into total chaos.

In the dead of freezing winter, like the flick of a switch, the power grid goes down leaving people utterly disorientated, cold, hungry and completely immobilised. Within days the land is lawless, people are frantic, looting is rife and only a few of the older, wiser generation are remotely prepared. It’s fiction of course… for now.

On April 28 this year, only three weeks after I’d returned from my trip, Spain, Portugal and the south of France suffered a catastrophic power outage. I had a little goosebump or two as my recently read novel was fresh in my mind and akin to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ among others, there’s a sense of these works of fiction running a little close to the bone. And let’s not forget, we’re pretty much living through a real-life version of ‘1984’.

A matter of days later and a cyber attack disables M&S and the Co-op supermarkets, the latter being the only source of food supply for rural areas of Scotland. Add in the continual ferry disruption which plagues the islands off Scotland and it would take a very short time before inhabitants might be wishing they hadn’t mocked the ‘preppers’ as this stuff gets real VERY fast.

• Can you spare £3.50 a month? Or maybe £30 a year? That will provide full access to News Uncut’s content – including the remainder of this column – and will help us grow stronger in our bid to bring you more information the mainstream media refuse to report. Thank you.