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Things I learned from watching 'How I Live Now'

posted 10 years ago by markbowen
36 replies | jump to latest

Well, I just couldn't resist. Here is a list of things I learned from watching "How I Live Now."
1. Americans don't take news about war or terrorism seriously, and will not allow an impending insurrection in the UK stop them from sending their child there for the summer.
2. Likewise, British people are so hospitable, said impending insurrection will not deter them from welcoming their teenaged American relative, whom they have never met, for a visit.
3. Even in times of high tension with heightened military alerts, in the UK, it's totally OK to illegally park your Land Rover near an airport, leave it unaccompanied, and slip through the airport security fence to fetch your American cousin. No one will ask what the hell you are doing, or shoot you, or surround your suspicious-looking abandoned vehicle and detonate it.
4. 14 year-old children can drive with impunity in the UK, even through military checkpoints.
5. British civil servants dedicated professionals. Even having seen the projected casualty figures of a imminent nuclear/chemical conflict in their country does not give them pause before hopping a flight to Geneva and leaving the children to fend for themselves for several days
6. British country folk have the gift of "cow whispering."
7. Sucking the blood from someone's cut finger will make them love you. Forever.
8. The cure for mopey, uptight, obsessive-compulsive, manic depressive teenaged American city girls is to push them into a stream. They will instantly have fun and feel at home in the countryside.
9. There are apparently so few Americans visiting, living and working in Britain at any one time that, in case of war, someone from the American consulate will be able to personally visit each and everyone of them, even in remote rural areas.
10. After just one night with a British boy, teenaged American girls will almost always choose to remain in a dangerous war zone over a safe flight back the running water and speedy 4G connections of home. Must be the finger-sucking.
10. Swiss chocolates are formulated specifically not to melt even slightly in case of an air crash.
11. When entering a creepy, abandoned military base with a small child, it's best to leave her alone at the gate with the wild dogs. What could possibly go wrong?
12. When running with a small child from woodlands rapists, holding her hand so she can keep up would probably only slow you down, so don't bother.
13. American teenaged girls can shoot powerful sidearms with deadly accuracy. (Probably more true than I care to believe...)
14. Sucking the blood from someone's cut finger cures post-traumatic stress disorder.

Please, feel free to join in...

[–] rathmy7 10 years ago

This is absolutely how I felt ! Hilarious. (Still enjoyed it, though)

15. It is perfectly normal to fall in love and sleep with your first cousin. No one from the family will frown upon it. It's also okay to have sex when your other cousins are sleeping just above you (no doors or wall).
16. Even if you know the water is poisoned, you can still use it to tend to someone's open wounds and burns.

"My life at the moment is a bit like my wardrobe. Organised chaos." - David Wenham

[–] VanBooter 10 years ago

18. All you need for a long stay holiday is a small holdall, this will provide up to two changes of clothing every day.
19. Just place a few sections of security fencing to secure the airport perimeter but leave it so you can walk around it, whereas the stupid people will break through it.
20. You need to build a proper scout fire to burn a small document.
21. The best way to remain undetectable after an attack is to light fires and allow barking dogs and screaming kids to run around in the open.

[–] markmagennis 8 years ago

It IS perfectly normal to fall in love and sleep with your first cousin here in Ireland. Not common, but not abnormal. I did it and we've been married 20 years. Nobody has ever expressed a problem. We were married in a Catholic church and the Bishop gave it his blessing.

[–] charli3 8 years ago

If you're happy god bless you!

[–] snepts (11123) 3 years ago

I did once read that having intimate relations with a first cousin is more of a social taboo rather than an invitation to inbred birth abnormalities. Unlike with the purposeful inbreeding of animals, the off chance that relatives might grow close and reproduce shouldn't be seen as inherently wrong, at least it seems to me.

[–] Little_Tyke 8 years ago

I puzzled about the water. If it's all poisoned and the teenager forgot to pick up the purifier tablets, what the heck did they drink for days? They only had half a botte of water between them and that went quite early on in their escape. I don't see how a few blackberries would help much. But Ray Mears would know how to get fresh water from a tree, probably.

[–] Movie-Jay 10 years ago

17. When a nuclear bomb is dropped close enough to where you are that a thick film of radioactive ash covers the entire countryside, all you have to do is think of it as pretty to make it not adversely effect you in any way possible.

[–] Uberlim 10 years ago

22. You can survive a 7 days walk in the woods without water.
23. Platinum blonde & bright ginger are good camo.
24. After taking a checkpoint, terrorists will gently wait at a distance for the only workers running away truck to get unstuck.
25. Having a residential home covered in plastic makes for easier cleaning when you are welcoming 2 refugees.
26. Soldiers will shoot at a barn scarface style if they suspect anyone is inside.
27. You are not a curse (non-ironically saying its a very good line, but like what with all the memes & stuff, so geekish, not that it bother me.)

''As Imbecile examines finger, Wise man sees who's watching Imbecile, & Moon gets intimacy.'' H.E

[–] interestedparty2013 10 years ago

28. An American teenager, upon her first visit to the UK, can navigate through unknown woods x5-6 days and know exactly where she's going.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] julian_paul 10 years ago

29. An American teenager (stuck-up b!tch no less, well, till the finger-sucking and stream dunking at least) from New York, can expertly navigate unknown woods using a compass and map, and later when she loses them, can put her head to the ground to invoke the spirit of the hawk which will then lead her home.

Fixed.

[–] Sneakypanda29 10 years ago

She had a map

[–] takashi_kupo 10 years ago

And a compass.

Let's be friends!

[–] alexandrianphilosopher 10 years ago

In regards to #13, she was shooting at point blank range and a pistol has very little recoil. The rest were very entertaining.

[–] ethermusic1981 10 years ago

Hahahaha Some of these were great! Thanks for the laugh. :)

[–] crej-1 10 years ago

Love it, only saw this movie last night and was compelled to login, give it 1 out of 10, and leave a comment...

30. It is perfectly acceptable (and great motivation) to tell a dehydrated small child with blistered feet that she's a whinging annoying little *beep* and that if she doesn't keep up with her much older and stronger cousin that she'll be left alone in the woods, in the dark, with no water, to die.

31. It is such a relief that when digging through dead corpses in search of your 2 cousins, that the one you find dead was thankfully not the one you were bonking.

32. Parenting during times of war in the UK involves locking yourself in a room, chain smoking, and then pissing off to another country not even leaving a babysitter during times of impending invasion.

[–] rushknight 10 years ago

33. It is ok to ignore orders of evacuation. They probably don't mean anything anyway.

34. It is also ok to take a little girl with you back into enemy territory because you had a dream about your hot cousin.

35. Nuclear bombs explode several times, and in several different places, and are generally used for incendiary purposes. (Sorry, but did you watch the news report about London being bombed?)

36. The capitol of England, the City of London, appears to have perhaps 10 thousand or perhaps tens of thousands of people in it.

36. American fathers who can't put up with their teenage daughter's crap anymore will send them to die in a warzone. (No really. We do this. All the time.. trust me.)

[–] Strazdas (2328) 3 years ago

>36. The capitol of England, the City of London, appears to have perhaps 10 thousand or perhaps tens of thousands of people in it.

Well, the actual casualties from nuclear explosion would be very minimal. Its the radiation sickness afterwards that gets you. But even then, its not as much as you think. Hiroshima and Nagasaki has shown us that even dropping them on population centres does not actually kill that many. Maim them for the rest of their lives - yes. Kill - no. And our modern nuclear bombs are much cleaner than the WW2 ones. In such a nuclear attack on London there would be more people die of starvation due to transport breakdown than the warhead itself.

[–] blacknyellowsquid 8 years ago

31. It is such a relief that when digging through dead corpses in search of your 2 cousins, that the one you find dead was thankfully not the one you were bonking.

YES this rubbed me the wrong way, even if it could be true in a way. seemed a bit mean though

[–] c_frejya 10 years ago

15. Don't worry if you lose you compass and your map while walking across a war territory. There will always be a well known hawk to show you the way back to home.

[–] Tarinder041 10 years ago

#29 and #31 are awesome

[–] ashirayukan 10 years ago

I loved it! Everything is very true.

I'm highly disappointed with this movie, I was expecting a masterpiece but it's just a teenage nonsense movie about being obssessed by your cousin during times of war.