As a kid growing up a lot of the TV shows I watched seemed to feature the hazard of quicksand. It could be James Bond, The A team, Monkey or the Bionic Man, whomever it was; at some point there was the quicksand ready to cause all sorts of problems to the protagonist and usually spell the end of the antagonist, generally because they stupidly refused help. Don’t even mention the loss of Artax in Never ending Story. That scene still haunts me today (and I saw it as an Adult!) so don’t watch the link I’ve set up. You have been warned. One think that you won’t sink in is Cheltenham Sand. The town of Cheltenham is sat on it and it’s an interesting geological feature. So if you are looking at Cheltenham houses for sale don’t worry and follow this link http://www.completepropertygroup.co.uk/ instead of the Artax one, it’s much nicer.
What then should you do if you are being pursued by some scary heavies and the area is littered with pockets of the stuff? Let’s replay the scenario. You’ve just manged to escape from the villain’s secret lair and rescued a girl or recovered some lost Sword or something and now you have to get back home whilst traversing the surrounding environment of the secret lair. As is the way with these people they have chosen to live in a right dump of a swamp or something. Rather than pick a nice fragrant place like a garden or forest, though they’d probably go for a dank one, villains choose a swamp. So, as you rush away with Princess Flowerchild or the Sword of Brian in your desperate attempt to get away, horror of horrors you fall into the dreaded quicksand!
First of all, don’t panic. It’s very important that you don’t as this will make the situation worse. I’m about to save you with science. Getting technical what you’ve fallen into is a load of sand covered with water. The problem is while that sand compacted is pretty solid as soon as you out any weight on it becomes loose or “agitated”. The water can’t escape from the sand and everything becomes all sucky. It’s not a pleasant experience by any means but you are in no danger. Honest. If you start flapping about you’re putting more weight on the sand substance that can no longer take any weight.
So, all you the Princess, the Sword of Brian, whatever the Villain is called should they fall in, need to do is relax and distribute your weight. In other words, you’ll float. You as a human will never generate the force needed to move in quicksand but because the stuff gets so dense the further down you go it is impossible to sink in it. Even a heavy object like the Sword of Brian, unless it starts moving, will float. The worst thing will be when the pursing guards turn up you’ll be up to your waist in it looking embarrassed. It’s all TVs fault.
