What to do after the apocalypse

You have probably watched a lot of competence porn and enjoyed it, without even realising.

Competence porn is the name that's been coined for entertainment - novels, films or TV shows - where enjoyment is garnered from witnessing impressive feats of human capability. We're talking about men and women who succeed against expectations, either by their own wits and expertise or with the technology they wield.

They inspire jaw-dropping awe by being far more proficient and accomplished than you at certain tasks. But - and this is important - competence porn doesn't make you feel inadequate or incompetent. It makes you feel empowered. We've become addicted to the kick we get out of watching people who are just damned good at what they do.

Think about the fast-talking dialogue and political strategising of the characters in House of Cards, the medical acumen in House, the deductive brilliance of Sherlock, and the ingenious bushcraft of Bear Grylls. All of these are classic examples of competence porn. And we can't get enough of them.

In fact, there's nothing new about this phenomenon.

One of the first examples of the genre was Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel, in which the shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe must start from scratch to build a civilised life for himself.

The story itself was based on the real-life misadventures of Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, and it's a trope that was repeated in Swiss Family Robinson, and Jules Verne's Mysterious Island during the following century.

But competence porn is grander than even this. Imagine that global civilisation has collapsed - from a lethally virulent pandemic, say.

You've woken up with the mother of all hangovers and fallen in with a community of other post-apocalyptic survivors.

What could you do to help yourself survive and thrive in the aftermath, and begin the long process of rebuilding from the ashes? Would your practical know-how stand up to the test?

I've explored the science and technology of rebooting civilisation in my latest book The Knowledge: Howto Rebuild Our World from Scratch.

Here are the five crucial skills you would need for this ultimate expression of competence porn:

• Scavenge. You'll not starve: an average supermarket contains enough canned food to keep you going for more than 50 years. So stock up.
• Jury Rig. You can maintain an electrified lifestyle even after the grid goes down by scavenging deep-cycle batteries from caravans and golf buggies. Keep them recharged by fitting car alternators onto windmills.
• Modern civilisation rests not just on machinery, but also on the production of essential substances. Soda, for example, is crucial for soap, paper and glass. You can extract it from the ashes of burned seaweed.
• There's no one left to drill the oilfields, so petrol supplies are going to run out in no time. But you can still keep motorised transport running by using wood. During World War 2, many vehicles were adapted with gasifier units that burnt timber to release combustible gases to be piped into the engine cylinders.
• Even if all electronics have been lost, you can still construct a transmitter based on a spark discharger and a receiver based on an old rusty razor blade.