The interesting thing about Horrible Histories' Viking Song is it is simultaneously: the best 3 min history lesson about Viking raiding, the best parody of soft rock and the best soft rock song on the internet.

RT @jessesingal: When males see a B-2 bomber in person it does something to us that temporarily overrides all of our deepest held political….

RT @almurray: @whippletom oooh go on make an aircraft carrier out of it.

My podcast about it is here, one of a series of v short scripted pods:

The full-size version was never built. Technical problems multiplied. With the war being won anyway, the decision was made to cancel. And so in Canada the model was abandoned and forgotten – left as a slowly melting demonstration of the astonishing thermal properties of water.

They decided to call it Project Habakkuk, after the old testament prophet who wrote, “…be utterly amazed, for I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”

So they set about building a prototype, in Canada. In 1943, they set to work on a 1,000 tonne prototype. Slowly, the locals watched as a 30 by 60ft scale model was constructed. Officially, they did not know what it was; it wouldn’t have been too hard to guess.

It only worked because water just requires a lot of energy to change its state. A Kg of gold, takes an extra 67 kilojoules to melt it, above and beyond merely heating it to the right temperature. For a kilogram of water it's 334 kilojoules.

And in 1943, Churchill and FDR hatched a plan to win the Battle of the Atlantic with an unsinkable ice aircraft carrier.

In 2019 an Emirati businessman proposed towing ice from the Antarctic to the Middle East to provide drinking water. Even in seas almost 30C warmer, the calculations showed half the ice would remain.

To melt water is very energy intensive. It has to absorb a lot of energy before it melts. This is good news for gins and tonic - a bit of ice keeps them cool for a long time. It is also good news for people with more hare-brain schemes involving icebergs.

It was a plan to use ice mixed with sawdust to build an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic.

Mountbatten shot it. "The bullet ricocheted, narrowly missing Portal.”. As the bullet whizzed past, maybe Portal, chief of Air Staff, thought about the latent heat of fusion of water. Probably, he didn’t. Few people do. My podcast is about this, one of the oddest WW2 schemes.

“He swung the chopper, splitting the ordinary ice with one blow. He then spat on his hands, seized the chopper again, and advanced.” The second block was in his sights. “He swung the chopper, and let go with a yell of pain.” The chopper shuddered. The block remained intact.

“He invited the strongest man present to chop each block of ice in half with a special chopper he had brought,” recalled Churchill. There was unanimity on who that would be: the aviation pioneer, General Arnold - nicknamed “The Chief”.

It was 1943. Churchill and FDR were in Quebec. They were wrangling about how much each should contribute. Things got heated. Then Mountbatten wheeled in two blocks of ice and an axe. One of the blocks had been mixed with sawdust. 1/x

It's sad again.

I regret to say that after I told it offit had another go. This time, it promised me, it wouldn't let me down.

RT @DrMatthewSweet: Sorry to report that Naomi Wolf is in the UK and horrified by clouds.

ChatGPT was very sure it could make an origami centaur. People say it's not truly clever like humans, but I know Oxford Union presidents who wouldn't achieve this leavel of confident bullshitting.

RT @UKinUSA: 🇺🇸 Enjoy your big day!. Honestly.