My brother, again.
As part of his air force training, my brother had to go through various survival courses - and other courses just in case of capture. (Incidentally, they no longer do the name, rank and serial number thing. The rubric now is just to talk, because people only ever know a small part of the big picture, the loss of a plane'll mean that plans are changed anyway, and it's just not worth pissing off your interrogator.)

Part of the capture thing involved his being held in a stress position for howevermany hours it was. Part of the trick here is to concentrate really hard on something else. There's a story of one guy who built himself a mental house - he calculated all the dimensions and how many bricks he'd need, and when he left the forces, built the thing. I'd like to imagine that it fell down - but apparently not.

My brother's strategy was simply to count - for several straight hours. If he lost count, he'd start again. At the debrief, he was telling his instructor about this strategy.
"Crist, Enzyme's brother," his instructor said. "That's the most boring thing I've ever heard. I'm glad I'm not you."
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 13:19, 4 replies)

A friend of mine did something similar in the Army...
... but he occupied his mind by singing Half Man Half Biscuit songs. Well, one song, to be more precise. "24 Hour Garage People", over and over again. Just loud enough to hear. If he was interrupted, maybe by someone shouting at him, or asking him a question, or pushing him over, he'd just pause for a few seconds, and start again. From the beginning.

Apparently it wrecked the whole training thing. It seems it's impossible to take being "interrogated" seriously when all you can hear from the next "cell" is "Aaaaaand yoouuuu.... curse my soul 'cos I don't want petrol, curse my soul 'cos I don't want petrol, I only came down for a tube of Pringles, sour cream and chive".

Oh, and the loud shouty sergeant doing the "interrogation" was the first to break. I'm told that if you walk up to him and even *say*, never mind sing, the words "I fancy I'll open a stationer's..." then he starts to whimper and clutch his head.
(gordonjcp, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 15:40, closed)

HMHB
I used to work in a call centre and sing Half Man Half Buiscit songs to myself as I waited for the incoming shouty customers. Because of that, no one ever monitored my calls so I didn't get the sack when everybody else got caught trying to slip rude words into the conversations with customers.
(herefromthere, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 21:42, closed)

HMHB are playing round my way this year.
WOO!
( Slippery Mick ‏, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 22:59, closed)

You bastard
I've now got "I'll have two Scotch eggs and a jar of Marmite" going round my head and I'm officelolling!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 9:08, closed)