When Icebergs Attack

Following Up On Yesterday's Threat
Or promise, I suppose it depends how you see Conrad's daily dose of scrivel.  As long as you see it, I don't really mind.
     Picture the scene: summer 1944 during the Second Unpleasantness, and the Allies are poised to land on the coast of Occupied France, where a sweating Teuton minion dashes into a command bunker, his immaculately dressed officer sitting reading Goethe.
     "Gott im Himmel*!" blurts the minion*.  Also "Donner und blitzen*!"
     Annoyed at being disturbed, his officer, complete with monocle and duelling scars on his cheeks**, marks his place and replies.

(Minus the Goethe)

     "Schweinhund*!  Dumkopf*!" he responds.  "Vot is der matter?" because we can't afford to subtitle the scene (budget cuts in the imagination department).
     "Herr Kapitan!" replies the hapless minion.  "Ze English - they attack mit icebergs!"
     Raising an eyebrow and thus dropping his monocle, the officer struts to one of the viewing-ports of his bunker and his jaw drops when he witnesses (after putting his monocle back in), indeed, several flat-topped icebergs approaching the French coast, each of them easily massing several million tons.
     - well, it might have happened, because of that wonder material Pykrete.
     
Pykrete
Nothing to do with either the fish or the island, this is a remarkable substance looking for a use.  It is named after it's inventor, Geoffrey Pyke.
     "Yes, yes," I hear you query.  "Why don't you tell us more?"
     Oh I thought you'd never ask.  Very well, it's a mix of 15% sawdust and 85% water, which is then frozen, and which is consequently as strong as concrete - hence the "-rete" part of the name.  

Pair of Pykrete with scarring from bullets

     The original idea had been to build a carrier able to cover the mid-Atlantic gap where land-based aircraft could not reach.  There was a bit of what's called 'mission creep' where the so-called bergship needed to be torpedo-proof, able to stand up to the biggest waves recorded, steerable, and be big enough to allow heavy bombers to take off from it.  Not only that, it would need to have an embedded refrigeration system to ensure it didn't melt.  By the time all these specs had been added the whole thing would have massed well over 2 million tons (!).

Like this but with lots of guns

     In fact it was never built because the lead time was so long the invasion of Europe would have been long underway, which is a bit of a shame, as Conrad would love to have seen transcripts of Teuton radio messages if they ever witnessed the bergship.  That's Perfidious Albion for you, subverting Mother Nature herself.
     The biggest drawback, as mentioned, is that the whole thing had to be kept at zero degrees C, if not lower.  Now, which country do we know that has an Arctic coastline and has been rattling sabres recently?
     That's right - Canada!  British America!  Watch out, mapleleaflanders ...

Target: Toronto

I'm A Terrible Person
I know, you probably realised that already.  What Conrad enjoys particularly is what the Teutons call "Schadenfreude", which is a lot handier than having to say "malicious enjoyment of other people's misfortune".  You know, laughing like a drain when witnessing a hapless passerby fall down a manhole, that sort of horridness.

Conrad looking gleeful.  For him.

     "Yes, yes," I hear you quibble.  "Do get on with it, 'N.C.I.S.' is on in a minute."
     Pausing only to acknowledge that you have an appreciation for the very finest in popcorn for the mind, I shall expound.
     Conrad has no interest in sports of any variety and has always found other people's obsession with the ballfoot game puzzling, shading into bafflement when the big tournament thingies come round.  So I was delighted to see a Beeb webpage about Rayne Wooney that had Comments enabled, because the amount of venom that gets spat around on these columns is unbelievable and hilarious.
     And so it proved.  

This might be the right one, I really don't care

     There were 54 pages of Comments, and at a guess about two-thirds of them were <ahem> less than appreciative of Ol' Roon.  One in particular had me laughing out loud - it began "My hatred of Rooney vibrates at the sub-atomic level".
     There was actually a consensus of criticism, but since that would make this sound sensible, I can't be bothered typing it up.

And there we have it for today's first, as I now need to go get my second pot of tea.



*  All German language taken directly from "The Victor" comic which is practically real life.
**  The cheeks on his face.  Just so we're clear.