Best Watches for Office Wear

 The purpose of a survival kit in this kind of situation is to keep you alive and to help you attract attention of rescuers.

With these aims in mind the kit suggested has options for spending money on proprietary equipment and options for home-made equipment that is just as effective but, in these credit crunch days, cheaper or free. I'm going to describe a generic all-weather survival kit; obviously use your own common sense if you are planning on going somewhere 'extreme'; the Sahara and the Arctic will require different approaches to a North American wilderness camping trip or a charity trek along the 'Freedom Trail' across the Pyrenees. Best Watches for Office Wear

1. It is worth considering an emergency battery/charger for your mobile phone. Remember if you do pack one to update it each time you upgrade your mobile. You can't make these yourself (unless you are an electronic engineer) but there are plenty of inexpensive generic models even before the standardization of charger plug sockets which is due in 2011

2. A signalling mirror is always worth having, it will 'carry' across several miles, even in low light conditions. DON'T get a glass mirror, they break too easily. Get a steel one, if you want to go for the home-made option you can use a sheet of metal (or the inside of the lid of your survival kit if you are using a tin). Rub it with valve grinding compound or auto colour restorer to achieve a mirror polish.

3. Hi-viz tape is very good for creating words (HELP or SOS) or for making direction markers. It is available from hardware stores and builders merchants.

4. Bizarre though it may sound a brightly coloured kite, one shaped like a modern parachute, is also a good way to attract attention in rural areas. Most toy shops and gadget shops sell 'pocket' kites for a few dollars that squish up really small and are therefore perfect for a survival kit.

5. Smoke is also a good attractor of attention so you need to both have fire making equipment AND a knowledge of what fuels make good smoke; damp straw and damp leaves make good smoke, as do many plastics. It doesn't matter if the smoke is black or white, just so long as it is thick enough to be seen.

OK, now let's look at the things that are worth taking to keep you alive; you need heat, water and first aid

6. Fire will help you to stay warm as well as perhaps helping you to eat, purify water and attract attention. You need to have something to start a fire and the simplest option is to pack a disposable lighter! Yes, it is a bit non-purist but when you are trying to survive you can drop your principles. If you want to be more 'authentic' then you can go for weatherproof matches; make your own by using non-safety matches and dipping the head and top quarter inch in melted candle wax. You can also get a 'flint and steel' from pretty much all camping shops if you really want to go for the cave man survivalist approach. One of these will outlast a disposable gas lighter by several years so if you are going to end up stuck on a desert island it is a good bet! Getting a spark is only half the battle, you need something that is going to start to burn quickly and hot, short of learning all about shaved birch bark and may dust the simplest and best thing is lighter fluid. You can sometimes buy little rubbery pods of lighter fluid which you can squirt onto your main fuel for a fast start fire, failing that pack a small atomizer of lighter fluid. A tampon is highly compresses cotton wool, which, when teased out can also be used as tinder.