Drilled

Remember "When the Wind Blows?"

Have you ever been so scared that you actually shit your knickers? No, I mean actually shit yourself.

I'm not talking about watching The Blair Witch Project, riding the Oblivion at Alton Towers when I was 14, or crying with fear whilst watching BBC's Ghostwatch in 1992. This was different. Scarier, probably.

This, for about ten minutes, was the real deal, folks. At 2pm on Wednesday 18^th May, an ear-piercing nuclear emergency siren split the Taipei air. It lasted for what felt like an age. All the while, me and my flat mates stared at each other across the kitchen table. When the wailing stopped, everything became silent. Cars froze in the street, bicycles were left in the road, pedestrians disappeared as they sought shelter in the closest building. The only noise you could hear was the sound of a policeman's whistle... well, that and my bowels being evacuated.

There were three of us in the house at the time. And we're all lucky enough to have no prior experience of pulling a face at each other that says, “so this is it then, you are the last people I'll see before I die”. And, just to let you know, when I thought I was about to kick the bucket, “a sense of amazing peace” did not wash over me. Instead, I was inflicted by a feeling that an utter wimp would get (confusion, panic, hysteria).

Thankfully, we pulled ourselves together enough to switch on the TV and call the tourist information hotline. They told us that, far from being on the end of an impending Chinese nuclear onslaught, we were in the middle of an emergency drill. The government wanted to “practise a bit”, in case we get a repeat performance of March's Fukushima earthquake.

But we, living in a bubble as we do, didn't know in advance. And now we each own a pair of dirty underpants. Thanks, Taiwan.