In Which I Marvel at Proper Hard Special Forces

A very short article today due to apathy/time constraints.

*EDIT I liked what I was writing about, so I lost track of length- often a problem*

In fact, this article might owe a teensy debt to Wikipedia (other unreliable publicly edited encyclopaedic sources are available). So. The Norwegian special forces, or the Beredskapstroppen, Marinejegerkommandoen, Forsvarets Spesialkommando, Minedykkerkommandoen and the Hærens Jegerkommando, as you know of course know they're called.  They are proper hard- they train the SAS in Arctic warfare and are generally considered the best soldiers where it's a bit on the nippy side. They also venture south of the Arctic Circle to blow stuff up occasionally, despite the fact they're almost exclusively vampires and as such do not react well to the sun.  If you see some soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq who are inexplicably wearing skis and putting on the factor fifty, that'll be the Norwegians.

...going up hills is a bit of a bugger.

As I've said, they are proper hard. Granted, they were on their own turf, but in an international Special Force exercise in 2007, a single Norwegian Special Force unit destroyed the SAS, the Navy Seals and a French unit. One night they infiltrated the Navy Seal camp. The Navy Seals are the U.S's special forces, and they are whiny bitches. There shall be an example of this in tomorrow's blog. Now I should add some background here- to a Norwegian, a backpack is an icon. In fact it's a kind of portable shrine to the God of Useful Things, Stor Funksjonalitet-Ryggsekk. An Englishman's home is his castle, and a Norwegian's backpack is his spiritual portal to Valhalla or Fólkvangr. 

ANYWAY. These proper hard Norwegian special forces tippytoed into this Navy Seals camp and they did the equivalent of an Arab throwing their shoe at someone- they defiled the U.S rucksacks, and by defiled I mean put bricks in them so that the next day these Americans were exhausted and had broken backs. I love the idea of stealthing around just to dick with people. I suppose if I was in the SAS and wasn't allowed to capture Bin Laden, I'd have approached unnoticed at night and drawn a cock on his chin while he was asleep.  Also, when the Navy Seals were supposed to be guarding an American warship in another exercise, Norwegian frogmen swam under it and wrote "Greetings from Norway." The Americans were left with what was estimated to be a four egged omelette on their face. These Norwegians are ICE NINJAS.

 

Google image search says Hærens Jegerkommando= this

Did I mention that they're proper hard? One of the reasons that one of these units was set up is because Norway owns most of the North Sea oil and as such were mindful that oil rigs and platforms might be targets if Norway actually managed to annoy anyone in the international community. Actually, I seem to remember that there was a jihad declared on Norway, which they were most confused about. It may have been something to do with Denmark publishing that image of the Prophet Mohammed. In the Middle East, there were more than a few instances of muslims burning Norwegian flags by mistake, but hey, that's understandable. I'm sure if flag burning was one of my fetishes I could burn Yemen's flag when I meant to burn Syria's. Though I WOULD make sure that if I were to declare a holy war, it would be declared on the right country. Imagine the paperwork in trying to get that annulled.

Right. Got distracted. So. Norwegian Special Forces. Proper hard. One of their jobs is to be a rapid response unit in case of trouble on North Sea oil platforms. Now presumably one of the commandos tasked to do this thought he wasn't able paid enough Norsk Kroner to buy enough lutefisk (cod or ling soaked for days in a jus of kerosene) or designer rucksacks- this would explain why he broke ranks and testified in court that some of the training that they did was an ickle bit dangerous. Their training had previously included parachuting onto helicopter pads platforms at sea. Now here's a thing. Where these platforms are is not exactly windless, so the parachuting will be tricky. It's not exactly cloudless, so they'd often have to jump from a low height. And if they landed in the water, well, that's all she wrote. There is a reason that the SAS considered this a suicide mission. I've saved my favourite until last, and I'll just give you the direct quote from Wiki:

In the past, the training has included "sitting duck" exercises, where a soldier had to sit still while live rounds were fired, missing the soldier's head by only a few centimeters.[19][17] The stated purpose of the exercise, if any, is lacking from records.

Comments made about the exercise include "There probably is a reason why one does not conduct this exercise today."

Today's Tune

In Which I Recall a Spot of History

Right. A true story today, because to quote the great Withnail, "I feel like a pig shat in my head". This is not at all self inflicted, and as such you should all club together and form a collection that will aid my convalescence. This story is from memory, mind, but there is no embellishment here.

*EDIT This article seemed to make me keep writing, so it's a long one. You might want to make camp and check you have suitable provisions*

So. Back in the days when everything was black and white and the Nazis and their allies had taken over Belgium and the Netherlands and Luxembourg and Poland and France and Austria and Denmark and Norway and Greece and Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia and Sicily and Crete and the Balkans and Hungary and a massive chunk of the U.S.S.R (I know I've missed somewhere out), trouble was a-brewing. I have to say whilst Nazism was, no, IS, abhorrent, they were bloody good at war- until they invaded the U.S.S.R, of course. As Eddie Izzard so rightly pointed out, when playing the board game Risk, you get reinforced by seven soldiers when you manage to hold Asia, but it's bloody impossible. I have played a fair bit of Risk in my time, and I have managed to hold Asia for ONE turn in a Risk game only once. I say only (big breath now)- it was like winning five games of Risk simultaneously whilst making love to Paloma Faith's face whilst blowing up the mothership by uploading a virus to its mainframe whilst riding a Harley Davidson and drop kicking Hugh Dallas- very tricky to do, but extremely gratifying. I suppose in my way I'm a better military leader than Hitler. But I have completely and utterly distracted you and I from the point. Trouble WAS a-brewing.

Originally a French game called Hisser le Drapeau Blanc (chortle)

Hitler was getting an awful lot of raw materials and manual labour from these occupied territories, but the country that the Allies were arguably most concerned with was Norway. You see, in the early 20th century, the Norwegians had built a hydroelectric powerplant whose main purpose was to power a neighbouring factory converting nitrogen into fertiliser. However, the factory also gained the ability in the mid 30's to create deuterium oxide, also known as heavy water. Now bear with me, because a nuclear physicist I am not, but heavy water is an ingredient necessary for a hydrogen bomb. Ingredients necessary for a hydrogen bomb? Hitler researching into the A-4 rocket (later designated the V-2), and making headway into an intercontinental ballistic missile programme? You can see why the Allies were a bit worried that London could get quite a bit melty if the Nazis got enough heavy water. And as I remember, this Norwegian plant was the only place they had a chance of getting it from.

They parachuted  over some specially trained Norwegian commandos familiar with that area of the country to scout out the target, and when they were in place sent over some British sappers in gliders towed by bombers. This was an utter balls up because of bad weather and there were crashes and crash landings- the sappers who survived were tortured and killed due to Hitler developing cataracts whenever reading the Geneva Convention. The main effect of this enterprise was that the Germans worked out the British were targeting the hydro plant and stepped up security. Still, the Allies had to press on and parachuted in more Norwegian commandos who linked up with the first lot, and they duly went on with the mission. To get to the place, they descended one side of a ravine and climbed up the other side that was considered impassable. Now I seem to remember that the second lot of commandos were just before on the piss in London and swapped something of theirs for a bolt cutter which helped them in the actual raid on the target. They popped over to the bit that made the heavy water where they encountered a Norwegian caretaker eager to help. This next bit I love- they were about to detonate the explosives but the caretaker realised that he'd misplaced his glasses and as new glasses were like hen's teeth during the war, the commandos felt honour bound to help him look for them. Imagine, you're pissing yourself because you're in a heavily fortified installation and could be discovered at any time and you have to help some old dodderer find his spectacles. Well, they found them, set the timers and retired to a safe distance, and the heavy water and heavy water facilities were destroyed. Nevertheless, in a documentary one of the Norwegians said "Then the explosion happened- it was like two or three cars crashing- quite disappointing, really." The handful of  commandos escaped, despite thousands of Germans being specifically assigned to find them.

Here's something I read today that I don't think I'll be able to shoehorn in anywhere else.  The first bloke to swim the English Channel was called Captain Matthew Webb- I'm sure you already knew that, dear reader, but crack on and you'll probably learn something nice. The French, who have a quaint habit of mispronouncing and spelling the English Channel as Le Vagin de la Mer, said it was impossible. Une folie anglaise, they said. Now we all know that Webb showed the defeatist Frenchies what was what, but he was really taking the piss out of them. This is a man who said "Actually, other swimming strokes aren't as gentlemanly, so let's do this with the most impractical swimming one- the breaststroke." This is the equivalent of a sailing ship having tracing paper for sails. But he managed it in style, and when I say style, I mean style. He actually stopped in the water for a pint and later on a snifter of brandy. Brilliant. Utterly brilliant. The equivalent of smoking a blunt before running a marathon. Let's really show the French by making things stupidly difficult. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he did it in a tweed suit. But do it he most certainly did. When asked by the journalists in France how he felt, he said, and I am quoting DIRECTLY, "...a peculiar sensation in my limbs, somewhat similar to that which is often felt after the first day of the cricket season." Amazing.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to get across with this article because it was ages ago when I started the bugger. I suspect it was something along the lines there being so many important things that have shaped the world today massively that we have no idea about. Perhaps it was that I enjoy understatement. Maybe both. Hmm. To be honest, I really do enjoy understatement. And that's an understatement...

Today's Tune (Because it's an understated version of the final product)

In Which I Write a Bloody ESSAY About Football

Right, apologies for the length of this piece (and the girth, said the priest to the altar boy). Last night I was watching the football. It was an under par performance against under par opposition in an under filled stadium and a late penalty managed to salvage some respectability for the scoreline. Welcome to the strange and frustrating world of watching Norway play football. Being half Norwegian has its benefits- it helps me explain why I am one of those mutants with brown hair that manages to grow a ginger beard. However, if you support them in the field of football, it's been a catalogue of errors. Watching Norway is an exercise in optimism. The best way I can explain it is it's a bit like mugging Mike Tyson- it's going to be a thoroughly unpleasant experience, but in the unlikely event that he has a brain haemorrhage you might do well out of it. Actually, that's not such a great metaphor. Maybe if Norway were someone who was supposed to be hard like Jason Statham and he was trying to mug Dame Judi Dench and Judi unexpectedly laid the smack down on him. No, even that doesn't cover it. It's like Norway is Jason Statham and is being forced to mug Dench and is very surprised indeed when it comes off. Norway played Slovenia last night who are a blind and incontinent Dench, and Norway even had trouble doing them over.

Slovenia after winning an Oscar for her Shakespeare in Love performance

There is something that makes all of this even worse. Norway used to be good. Properly good. Back in the day, they could draw with the world champions to be and beat the world champions. In fact, Norway remain the only side to have played Brazil and not lost, with a record of two wins and two draws. They were even number two in the FIFA world rankings at one point (oh fuck off! They WERE, check it out if you don't believe me). Back in the day, there were 24 Norwegians playing in the Premier League(perhaps even more, but this writer is a little shady on this) and three in the champion's first team alone. Nowadays there are 2 Norwegian players that start in all of the Premiership teams put together. They have the same manager as when they were good, and it's not that he's gone mad- he's always been like that. That's a man who's memorised the height of every mountain in every country, the size in square metres of every country in the world and every nation's population, because... well... And when he managed Wimbledon, he was soon seen running after smokers on Wimbledon high street demanding they stop, because... erm...

Anyway, an unusual thing happened last night- for about 23 or so minutes, Norway played well. Slovenia were, as they say, toilet, which meant that Norway could have demolished them if they had any direction in their play. As it was, Slovenia were winning by scoring one of their two shots on target, Norway eventually equalised. The problem with Norway is back when they were good, they could launch it route one to one of the three 8 foot tall supermen that they had. Norway still try and launch it up to a target man now,  but they only play one striker nowadays and he's only 5 foot 11. And he was taken off at half time. And replaced by someone who was playing as a winger. Norway were essentially trying to pass to people who weren't there, and who haven't been there for more than ten years. Eventually, they decided to ignore the manager and play it along the ground a bit, and eventually won a penalty in the very last seconds of the game. Step forward John Arne Riise.

Riise's teammates are amused to see his top trying to eat his head

John Arne Riise is a Norwegian left back who Norway love in exactly the same way (and for exactly the same reasons) as England loves Ashley Cole. But Riise endears himself to me as he is very dedicated to his football and has a left foot more powerful than God's. This isn't hyperbole, he actually does. Has God ever managed to destroy someone's career by kicking a football at them? Has he bollocks. During Riise's Liverpool days, Alan Smith made the mistake of trying to charge down a John Arne Riise free kick, and Riise struck the ball so powerfully that it broke Smith's leg and ankle.  Smith went on to have 6 more seasons playing football before he scored again. Despite playing 98 games. And despite being a striker.

That's liquid morphine Smith's swigging

Yesterday was a record 106th game for Riise, which is very impressive considering Norway haven't qualified for the last 6 tournaments- at least 18 more games that Riise could have played in. That would have taken him two short of England's most played player, Peter Shilton. Just to give you some perspective Shilton debuted at the age of 8 when England had their first ever game back in 1872 and played his final game in the Italian World Cup in 1990. Ever since Riise started to play for Norway, I have fallen in love with him. Whether he's twatting a ball past the goal and killing a spectator, or twatting a ball and bending space and time, he's always a player who you think can do something spectacular. And when he took the penalty to win it for Norway with the last kick of the game, he managed to somehow blast it underneath the keeper. I've seen it several times in slow motion and I'm still not sure how he did it- it should be impossible. I love John Arne Riise. And what makes that especially amazing is that he has ginger hair.

Zamora wonders if you can get AIDS from hugging a ginger

Today's Tune