KNOTS
You’ve got a piece of rope – what possible use could it be? Well, you could use it to make a trip wire across a door, as a possible escape route out of an upstairs window, to attach your supplies to the back of your giraffe or just coil it up and wear it as a hat. The uses for rope are endless, but all of those applications will be less than successful if you don’t know how to tie a decent knot.
Over the centuries people bored with stamp collecting have gone in for the far more thrilling study of knots, learning about both their practical and mathematical attributes. Now, we’re not particularly bothered about the mathematical properties of the simple knot (it is unlikely that you will find much use for the equation J = N – 2 during a zombie apocalypse), but discovering the practical applications and learning to tie strong and effective knots that will hold under pressure could be the difference between you comfortably abseiling to safety down the side of a building or ending up as a mushy paste on the pavement below.
Here is a basic list of knots and their rudimentary uses which you may find handy during the apocalypse:
The Sheet Bend – Used for tying two similar-sized ropes together.
Double Sheet Bend – Used for tying two dissimilar-sized ropes together.
Truckers Hitch – Used to tighten a load and secure it.
Diamond Hitch – Used for loading pack animals.
Spanish Bowline – Used to hoist a person aloft.
Prusik Knot – Used for ascending a rope.
Buntline> – Used for tying a rope to a pole.
Hitchline Bunt – Used for tying a pole to a rope.
Loftys Clump – Used for descending a rope into a pit of fire.
Crabcleft Man Knot – Used for dangling a piano over a large open space from a chandelier.
Drabcan Shamalyn Triple Dogger – Used for sealing Weetabix boxes.
Triple Whore-Maker Frumpline Staple Cran Boogle Knot – Used for attaching a rope to an elastic band that in turn is tied to the back of an articulated lorry that is currently hanging over the edge of a canyon in the south west of America whilst your sister sits at home listening to James Blunt on the radio whilst reading Proust.