Oh What A Time... - #168 Invasions & Why The British Invaded Iceland (Part 1)

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

This week we’re looking at various invasions and subsequent occupations through history; we’ve got Nordic allied invasions in WW2 (including Iceland!), the Norman occupation of Sicily and the story of how Gibraltar became British!Elsewhere, we’re marvelling at how turning things off and on again really seems to work. And are you a Safari guy or girl? Who likes Internet Explorer? Anyone for Chrome? And what technological invention did you assume would be bigger than it was? You know what to do: [e-mail] from now on Part 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Wednesday - but if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, What a Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free. Plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the Oh Watertime Group chat. Plus, if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O Watertime.

Hello and welcome to Oh What a Time, the History Podcast that asks, if you could stop people from turning it off and then turning back on again, would the global economy collapse? It'd fall apart. I do it all the time. Yeah. But now, obviously, because I keep my ear to the ground and I'm friends with some people who work in IT, I don't call it turning it off and turning back on again.

I say it's a soft reset. What's a hard reset? Hard restart. is throwing your phone into a river and buying a new way. And then going to the Apple store and buying a new Apple. Going into witness protection, changing everything, bank accounts. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

The reason we mention is because my Zoom froze. We record this across a snazzy sort of version of Zoom. Or maybe it's just Zoom. I don't know. It is just Zoom. It is just Zoom. So that's why the podcasts are longer than 45 minutes. It's so much better than the other ones.

It is so much better. Google Hangout can get. Fucked. Teams, who is using... Remember that beginning of the pandemic? They had a moment where the owners of House Party thought we're going to be billionaire.

It's going to be us. And they let it slip. Teams, I think this is going to... I need to get there five minutes early to deal with the admin. When is Teams, I think to myself, God, I know you're an accountant. But come on.

Get with the vibe. Occasionally, if I'm feeling confident enough, I will say, actually, could we do it on Zoom? Because I think Zoom is better. And also, I've really got say this, we're not being sponsored by Zoom. This isn't an advert. This isn't a host

read. This is just the three of us. I've had great experiences with Zoom. But as always, if they are listening, we're open to office. Teams went, oh my God, when we were homeschooling in lockdown on Teams. I kept forgetting to press the little icon

that meant that my daughter was putting a hand up so the teacher never asked her for answers to the questions. That affected a confidence. It was largely my largely, it was entirely my fault. the unintended consequences of lockdown. That's what they call that. There's also a very niche observation about teams, which is annoying,

which is you can only open it using Chrome. So I often get to a meeting with like 10 seconds of spare. I go through Safari. I try to link in. You can't use this. You have to go to Chrome. Now I have to download the new version of Chrome. And now I'm five minutes late and I'm not going to be Prime Minister.

It's annoying. Can we just pause for a moment to really dwell on the fact that Tom Crane is a safari guy. Is that not good? Yeah, that is one away from being an internet explorer guy. What should I be? Safari's big, isn't it? It's the main one, isn't it?

Chris, in my defence, I remember the minor strike have extremely vivid memories of the Poltaks riots. I am a safari guy. You're a safari guy too. Yes! Are you one of these people, Elle? Do you type www. Google into the search bar to get to Google?

Because I'm also one of those guys as well. You're not a HTTP colon forward slash forward slash. No, no, no. No, I don't do that, but I do write www.g and then at that point my computer goes, oh, he wants Google. So I'll suggest it. But I do go in that way, which is insane in 2026. Greg James played this out on his original.

I know exactly what you were saying. But Pete Tom giving the radio one. email address on its radio show in 1995 is probably my favourite clip on the internet. It's incredible. Can we get editor, Jody, would you mind dropping it a bit of it? Many thanks to Eric Powell for an excellent selection of tunes, and as he packs up his box there, we'll just take a little look at what he played during the last couple of hours

and provide a list of it in this coming week's update magazine, the next edition of MixMag, and we'll post it out there on the BBC homepages of the internet, and I keep saying that and not giving you the address, and I do get a lot of inquiries, so it's very complicated, but here it comes. HTP colon, forward slash, forward slash, www.

BBCNC.org.uk, forward slash BBC TV, forward slash radio one, forward slash P, slash Tong, forward slash index, full stop, H-TML. I know it doesn't make sense, but if you've got a computer and you're out there on the internet, you will understand what I mean.

About two years later, a friend of mine emailed the Marianne Hobbs show on Radio One to ask for a song you liked. So this would, when I was doing my A-level, sort of been sort of September 97 onwards, because I remember, I remember him telling me on the way to an A-level sort of history class that he'd emailed Marianne Hobbs and then he got to reply. And I just remember thinking, you are going to be President of America. Even though you weren't born in the US. Yeah. This is absolutely... When they hear about this.

When they hear about you at the tender age of 17, sending an email to a radio show. I do remember being so impressed. I can confidently say the person who's worst at technology in the entire world is my mum. Do you know this classic story, Al? Izzy, my wife is well up there. Well, this is much worse than Izzy, I'm sure. The classic story of my mum when she was trying to write a letter

on her computer. Do you know about this? Have I told me about this? I remember her sending you a blank text to use? Yeah, she did do that. Chris might know this. I think you've talked about this on the pod before. Didn't she write a separate word into every cell on a spreadsheet? Yes, I walked in.

She was writing a letter using Excel spreadsheet, clicking into every box and writing the next word. Izzy's not far off that. Oh, really? Do you remember the tele... I was thinking about this this week. Do you remember Video Plus, the teleinnovation? used to get it in the radio times that if you wanted to record a program,

every program would have a code. Had a unique number, yeah. Had a unique code. Amazing. Yeah, I thought that would really catch up, but it never quite worked. It never quite worked. And also, you think, did they go on to come up with other great inventions, the people behind Video Plus?

Yeah, and the next thing was YouTube. Or was that their big idea? And they're in some pub, I go, yeah, oh, was the Visual Plus guy, actually. Because that's a good question for our listeners. What technological leap or invention from the past did you think was going to take on and then didn't? What's the thing from the past that you think deserved to have been bigger? For me, minidisc is a big one.

I thought that was, I was convinced that was going to change the world. Well, the thing with minidisc was that they were so robust. Yeah. So you could drive over them in a lorry and it still worked. Whereas with a CD, you look at it. CD and it scratches. You scratch yourself and the CD stops working. Absolutely. I think it's quite interesting. For me, minidisc is the one. I'll tell you what I think hasn't caught on, but I thought would.

The early days of Sky, as a kind of step up from bamboozle, the Teletext quiz game, Sky on their box, you could play a few video games with the remote. And I thought this is the beginning of a brave new world of TV-based games. It's never kicked off. Why not? Nope. It's perfect. I didn't think the PlayStation would kick off because I remember thinking

well we've got videos we've got consoles mate Nintendo and Sega we got enough don't need a third of a Sony who's going to use that there's over 50 games available now we don't need more what electronics are Sony good at yeah that's a really good point

I remember Josh Whitakam telling me he thought the internet wasn't going to take off at the beginning oh I thought the internet wasn't Yeah, yeah. I watched a feature on Blue Peter about it and I thought, no, no one will need that. There's no way. Me and my dad. And it said, and you can actually send an email for free to a friend of yours in Australia. And I said, I don't know anyone in Australia.

Why on earth would I want to do that? I was like, yeah, he's spot on. Yet again, Dad's right. When we first had the internet, it was so slow. Right, yeah. That it was just, it was like, it was quicker to go to your library. Do you remember, do you remember Door to Door Encyclopedia Salesman?

Yeah, my grandmother. Yeah, yeah, she got taken in by that. We had, we had hundreds of editions of the Book of Knowledge because some daughter-to-door salesman had said because the Encyclopedia Britannica was mega expensive. Yeah, it was by letter, wasn't it? Yeah, only the super posh bought that. But the Book of Knowledge was a sort of cheaper version.

And my grandmother, basically, he said, listen, You buy the book of knowledge. It's got all the knowledge you'll ever need in it. It will never go out of date. And Pluto's a planet. That's going to stay the same forever. It feels like a religious text for a niche religion that, the book of knowledge. If you have kids or grandchildren or great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren,

they'll all be reading the book of knowledge. She was like, sign me up. Nothing will come along that will blow that out of the water. It has full biographies of all the nation's greatest broadcasters from Sir Jimmy Saville to Davely Travis. You're going to want to keep this. I suppose in Carter's the other version. Yeah, that was the death knell for the door-to-door encyclopedia cells.

Yeah, an encyclopedia on a sort of many compact discs which you play on your computer. Talking about now obsolete technology, I just want to briefly mention something. I've had quite a few messages about something that came up last week, which is my story about how I saved up for a game year for ages. and then left it outside Bath Abbey to play football with other choristers. It's your classic story. And then it was stolen. Having saved up, it was £12 every three months I was paid at Bathabby choir.

So you can work out how long it took me to save up for that as a kid. I just want to say, I've had lots of messages about this from our, oh, what's time, full timers. What a gang. Including one guy called Martin Litt who's tried to organise a whip round for a game gift for me. I just want to say, I'm very touched by that. You don't need to do that. But it's very touching that you've taken the time to try and galvanise the troops to get that for me.

But that was a very sweet gesture, Martin. Thank you so much for the thought. Yeah. Can you still buy them? You can still buy them, yeah, yeah. But not first-hand. You'd have to buy them. Yeah.

First-hand. Like that factory's still rolling off thousands of game kits every hour. We haven't sold one for 30 years. You know, like that guy 15 years after World War II's ended on an island who doesn't know it's over. They set the Game Gear Factory up in 91 and hit go and no one can stop it. Someone pressed the wrong number on the printer on the machine back in 1997. Oh shit, I've pressed a million. I've pressed a million.

I meant to press a thousand. A million. My wife Claire basically claims she was the best at Tetris on the Game Boy compared. She convinced there was no one better than her. And apparently, and I'm not sure about this, maybe people will tell me if it's true, there's a secret screen you get to when you've got filled up everything in the final level

where the Game Boy basically doesn't know what to do with itself. Wow. Okay. It just completely freezes. It has an existential crisis. Yeah, the Game Boy just gives up. Right. Thank you very much to Martin for suggesting that whip round. Talking about our wonderful listeners, shall we get into a little bit of correspondence from them

and then we can crack into some history proper. Does that sound good? Yes, please. Yes, please. So, you sent us some correspondence, have you? Well, let's take a look at you then. Right, the email that I've picked out this week from You Lovely Lovely Bunch is from Ben Taylor and the title of the email is Cassio Watch Car Thief.

Hello, History, Menageretoir, boys. Just listening to your latest instalment and hearing about the Cassio Remote Watch So we were talking about this watch that came out in the 90s. L, you can describe what it was. Well, it was a remote control on your watch. You were to set it up for your telly, I think. Yeah. Well, maybe not, because a naughty friend of mine used it in an R-E lesson to fast forward.

I think that was a big thing. It made teachers lives an absolute nightmare. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, he used it to fast-forward a video about Hinduism. She couldn't work out what was going on and she got very upset. And again, it sort of makes it. sense really, a remote control on your watch. Yeah. And it was quite popular for a while. It was indeed. But then

people just got remote controls at home, I suppose, that weren't attacked to the TV by a wire and it became less important. But this is not what this is actually about. Hearing about this brought back an awful memory of a car theft. The later watches in the late 90s would copy the IR of the original remote by putting the original remote to the sensor and pressing the buttons. So this is a story. Being 18 and only my first new car, the locket-sized Fiat Chincantento. How do you pronounce that? Chincacento. There you go. Thank you,

L. Sporting 1.1 litres of pure power. It was the pride and joy of my life. Anything over 60 miles an hour, and it sounded like it was screaming for mercy, the Fiat Chinchacento. Don't do this, no! It was my pride and joy. Imagine the horror of leaving the factory I worked in at the time to find the car gone, vanished,

panic induced and a lot of swearing the realisation of not having the car quickly set in. And after calling the police, calling the folks, I re-entered the factory. And for a good five minutes, the bastards, as he's described them, held out before finally owning up and admitting they had cloned the key fob, open the doors, taking the handbrake off and pushed it behind a nearby container. Okay. So he's working in a factory. You bustle. You bustle. Because of these modern key fobs, you could replicate them and you could just get into the cars, basically.

So they've moved his car behind a container. I went from anguish to joy to you bunch of absolute, I won't get, read that word, within six seconds. Always well, though, until around 11 p.m. that evening, when the police turned up to tell me they'd found the car, funnily enough, on my own driveway. And I was subjected to telling off a wasting police time. Oh, no. Bloody Casio watches. Regards Ben Taylor. So Ben was saying that, so he's basically saying there's a point in history where you could easily replicate these sort of new key fobs that it didn't break into. cars like that.

I do sort of vaguely remember that being a thing that was a thing that happened quite a lot actually. Well, often when a technology is very new, people will use it for nefarious purposes because it hasn't been road tested enough. And then obviously they'll have to fix it. But again, the key fob, I just, first time I saw one of those,

thought that will not catch on. There's no need for it. I think I'd struggle in a workplace where banter-wise people are stealing my car and hiding it behind a, I think I'm not really cut out for that vibe. Yeah, I wouldn't thrive in that environment. Oh, I love this. Oh, I love it. It's great.

Yeah, ha ha ha ha ha ha. I'm just going to go sit in the toilet for a bit now. But if you hear any noises, it's not crying. It's definitely not crying. Don't worry about that. But the problem is I've got a bit of a tick you tell me. I might be in the toilet for about a week. Is that okay?

Probably until about Friday at 6pm? So, Ben, thank you for that. I'm sorry that our conversation about Cassio Watchers was triggering. I'm sorry it brought back this awful memory for you, but I'm glad you got your precious, say the name again, of the car, L. Cincochenko, is that right? Fiat Chinchento. Fiat Chinchchenko, there you are. I'm glad you got it back.

If any of the rest of you have any wonderful stories from your life, anything that we've inadvertently triggered that you were trying to move past, do get in contact with the show, and here's how you do just that. All right, you horrible luck. here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh what a time.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh What a Time pod. Now clear off.

And one of the ways you can support the show is by signing up for our patron. We're on the top tier. Oh, What a Time, All Timers. If you sign up for that, we will figure out where in history your name may have been and this week we have you gentlemen. Emma Jane Varley. I don't know much about Quakers, but that feels a very Quakerish name.

She's one of the few people who's literally learnt the Bible, word for word. And can do it backwards, if they can do it backwards. Yeah, yeah. Emma Jane Varley can read, can recite the Bible backwards. And if she doesn't get it to heaven, no one does. Emma Jane Varley also sounds like the sort of names in the first line of a medieval

nursery rhyme. Emma Jane Vali fell asleep in the barley. It'll be some really dark thing about the plague. Yes. Horrendous, but some reason his name's in there. Fell asleep in the barley, her mother was crying away and all this sort of stuff. And kids will hold hands and dance in her in, thinking about Emma Jane Vali. And at the end of it, she falls down a well and no one's going to get her.

Oh, it's the terrible tale of Emma Jane Farlie. The girl could recite the Bible backwards. If you're the subject of a nursery rhyme. it is bad it is you know you had a bad life if people are still singing

about you 600 years later with a funny little dance some awful cough that you never got rid of yes and you found dead in a daisy field

or whatever it's always that the one I thought was going to get away with it was a grand old Duke of York and look at him

march him up to the top of the hill it turns out that was the least of his problems who was it who was it he went up to get

a pail of water that was a bad one as well he fell down cracked his head open. It's all quite unpleasant, isn't it? I used to love Ring of Ring of Roses as a kid. And then you find out it was about the plague.

He's about the plague as well. Oh, come on. Exactly. So that's my suggestion. Emma Jane Varley, sort of person you hear in the first line of a nursery arm which turns out to be horrific and about the plague

or some disease that the country failed to deal with and loads of people died. Or, as you say, a nice peaceful Quaker. Emma, you can decide. Whichever you want to be, dealer's choice. Good stuff. want to support the show, get bonus episodes and all that good stuff, here's how.

Hello again, you are of a lot, enjoying the show. Well, why not show the love by becoming a Patreon supported today? For a mere handful of farthings, you can get ad-free shows, two bonus subscriber episodes each month, access to all the past bonus eps, first dibs on live tickets and even help decide what subjects the boys cover next. Your support makes everything possible, so sign up today at patreon.com slash oh what's a time or oh what'satine.com. What are you waiting for? Stop dawdling!

So this episode is all about occupations. Gentlemen, what will you be telling us about today? At the end of the show, I'm going to be telling you about Gibraltar and its various military tussles. Hello, I'm going to be talking about the Crusades. And let's go back now to 1940. Not a great time, especially not in Europe. And that's exactly where we're heading. April 1940, Nazi Germany launches one of the most dramatic operations in the early part of the Second World War as part of Hitler's expanding war across Europe.

The Wehrmark invaded Denmark and Norway. securing control of the northern approaches to the continent and the vital sea lanes of the North Atlantic. One of the many crises around this time for the British, but this is a big one. Their campaign was swift. Denmark actually collapses in a day, and Norway fought on a bit longer before eventually falling under German control.

And it was during this occupation that the collaborationist government of Vidkin Quisling was installed in Oslo. And his name becomes, in time, synonymous with treachery. the word Quisling enters the English language as a term for a traitor who collaborates with an occupying enemy. You know that? I don't know that.

No, no. So for Britain, the German victories created a serious strategic problem. Denmark's overseas territories now stood exposed. And these included the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland, all of which occupied critical positions across the North Atlantic shipping routes linking Britain to North America. So if Germany sees these lands, the consequences for the Allied war effort could be catastrophic. And there's lots of talk in the House of Commons at this time around what to do. Each territory responded differently to the crisis.

The first British move came in the Faroe Islands. It's so interesting, by the way, to hear about the Faroe Islands outside of the context of an really easy European qualification. I know. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I've ever heard Faroe Islands mentioned aside from sort of a football game when they lose seven. and the strike is a postman. Although I can't believe that I've got to say this, they have really improved the Faroe Islands.

Oh, there you go. Yeah, yeah. When you say you've got to say this? Forever the Welsh footballing apologist, already getting in the excuses for a future game. Basically, the Faroe Islands have invested a lot in coaching. I would say there's a bit of a golden generation. As opposed to which generation?

As opposed to the generation that used to lose every game 8-0. The iron generations The previous 100 years I love that you know that I've got to say this I've just really got to say this I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I didn't defend the integrity

of the Faroe Islands football team Sorry sorry It's so easy to forget that Ellis is massive In the Faroe Islands as well Yeah yeah yeah yeah 98% of your fan base is Fairoe Islands It's always the biggest tour show I do

is the Farrow Islands They'll all be there All five of them Sell out It's actually got a population of about 50,000 I think so. Again, I've got to say, you have to say that. I used to love by that. If it was like Scotland versus Faroe Islands in the World Cup Qualify it, in the 90s, it'd be on Sky. And it would obviously, the football broadcasts would start with a kind of like, it would look around the wilderness surrounding the ground.

Yeah, yeah. The rugged landscape and you think, oh, God, it's remote. And there'd be 800 of Scotland fans all in kilts, even though it's minus nine. But I love those football pitches against just beautiful, you know, stark, often cold backdrop. I've always, there's something really emotive and I don't know what's best way describing it. Comforting. Yeah, comforting. And being part of a fan base where you're going to this small place where people have had to travel so far.

I just think it's great. It's the same with like Bono Glimp, for example. When you see clips of their games, it's this little. stadium, it's just so much important to these remote communities. I just love it. It's so exciting. It's spectacular. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Completely. They're in Nations League C.

Sorry. I've really got to say that. They're not as bad as information. This is enough Faroe Islands propaganda for this section. So within days of Denmark's collapse back in 1940, Britain launched Operation Valentine. So they sent a small British naval force,

three warships carrying about 200 Royal Marines into the Faranese capital Torchavan, an established control. There was no resistance. So very much a friendly takeover. In London, Winston Churchill, then still First Lord of the Admiralty,

told Parliament that Britain intended to protect the islands from German occupation. The British presence, he argued, would shield them from the severities of war. So for many Faroese, the arrangement had an unexpected benefit. With Denmark now under German control, British occupation effectively increased

Pharaoh's autonomy. So ships from France, from the island could no longer sail under the Danish flag. So a distinctive Faroese flag was officially recognised for maritime use. British military engineers also left a lasting legacy. On the island of Vargar, they constructed an airfield, Vagar Airport, completed in 1942, which will remain the island's main international gateway long after the war. So they got an airport out of it.

Wow, pretty good. Let's go good. Let's head now to Iceland. Now, Iceland presented a much more delicate situation, because unlike the pharaohs, Iceland had achieved a significant degree of independence. So since 1918, the island had been a sovereign kingdom

in personal union with Denmark, sharing the same monarch, but governing itself internally. So Icelandic leaders were determined to maintain strict neutrality in the war. Britain tried diplomacy. A secret communication from London offered military protection

if Ireland joined the Allied cause, but the Icelandic government refused. London nevertheless feared that, Germany might attempt to seize the island as a forward base in the Atlantic. So in May 1940, Britain acted unilaterally. On the 10th of May 1940, the same day Germany launched its great offensive in Western Europe, British forces carried out Operation Fork. And this is a Royal Navy force arriving in Reykjavik, landing more than 700 Royal Marines, and they quickly secured the capital. German citizens living on the island were rounded up and detained.

And the Icelandic government formally protested the violation of the island. of its neutrality, but with no military means to resist, there was little they could do. So the occupation soon settled into an easy routine. British troops were later replaced by Canadian forces, and military engineers began constructing key infrastructure, including R.A.F. Recovic, which opened in March 1941. I didn't know anything about this. That's amazing.

Yeah, on the same day that Germany launched their main Western campaign, we were invading Iceland. So Iceland's strategic importance grew even further after December 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States ended the war. American forces soon replaced the British and Canadian troops. And at the height of the war, over 30,000 American soldiers were stationed in Iceland. A huge number for a country whose population was barely 120,000 people. So, yeah, one in four almost is American soldiers in Iceland during the war.

Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, I didn't know that. Their presence turned Iceland into a crucial allied base for protecting convoys, crossing the North Atlantic and hunting for German U-boats. The wartime social effect were dramatic. Icelanders referred to the sudden influx of foreign soldiers simply as the situation. And despite the strategic benefits of allied protection,

many Icelanders resented the loss of their neutrality. So during the war, they decided to complete their political separation from Denmark. With Denmark still occupied by Germany, Iceland held a referendum in June 1944 and declared itself a republic, ending the centuries-old connection with the Danish monarchy. So in theory, this meant the island would stand fully independent. The United States even signed an agreement in 1946, promising to withdraw its forces within six months. But global politics intervened again with the beginning of the Cold War. Iceland joined NATO in 1949 and a new defence agreement in 1951 allowed American forces to return

to the island. So strategic geography had once again overridden the... political ideals. So let's move now to the rest of the North Atlantic and the Arctic. Greenland, in the news a lot at the moment, but back in the Second World War, it was in the other Danish territory as it is now when it came under direct American protection during the war. US forces established weather stations and airfields across the island, recognising its value for monitoring transatlantic weather patterns and air routes.

Further north lay the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, whose coal mines made it strategically valuable. Unlike the largely peaceful occupations of Iceland and the pharaohs, Svalbard became an active combat zone during the war. Oh wow! In 1943, German forces seized the islands during Operation

Zitramela, destroying the Allied installations and securing control of the coal mines. So I have been to Norway. I did a stand-up tour in Norway, and it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Really? Seven gigs across Norway. It was so great. It was such great games as well. I got off for those gigs.

And then they got cancelled the day I was meant to fly out, actually. Why was that? Because I don't know. The people of Faroe Islands were so angry that you would face them. But I remember thinking it would be an amazing excuse to go to Norway. It was an unbelievable week. Did you spend much time in Oslo? No, actually we didn't go to Oslo.

No, that wasn't one of the places we went. We went to smaller towns and it was great. It was beautiful. It's just an impossibly beautiful and clean, feeling, place. It's amazing. And the people are lovely as well. I loved it. And crucially, they laughed at my jokes

which does affect your experience a stand-up tour generally. Yeah. It's a tour of, yeah. Like I lived to Stonia, but they didn't laugh enough at my jokes for me to go back. Yeah.

When you're dictator of the Faroe Islands, you'll be looking around making sure everyone is laughing at your jokes, weren't you? Oh, yeah. Every stand-ups that I'll do, like Stalin, I'll be getting like a 20-minute-long applause break. Halfway through.

not even at the end. He is a genius. Our great leader. So back to the Arctic Theatre. Actually, the Artic Theatre in the Second World War created one of the war's more curious footnotes. So an isolated German weather station remained on Svalbard long after the collapse of Nazi Germany

in May 1945. Cut off from communication, the 11-man unit continued operating through the summer. So only in the... In September 1945, months after the war had officially ended, did they finally surrender to a Norwegian sealing vessel, making them the last German military unit to lay down arms in the Second World War? Wow.

I never knew about that. Yeah, so they kept going. Cut off from the rest of the world. No idea how it was going. In the Faroe Islands, British occupation is generally remembered positively. Relations between troops and locals were often friendly and hundreds of marriages took place between Faroese women and British servicemen. Iceland's experience is obviously more complicated.

The Icelandic government grew concerned about relationships between local women and allied soldiers. Authorities conducted surveillance and investigations into suspected relationships. And some women were even detained in isolated work camps as part of efforts to try to police morality and protect national identity. God, I didn't know that.

Wow. And the political atmosphere was further complicated by the presence of a small number of Icelandic sympathises with Nazi Germany. One prominent example was Bjorn Spain Bjornson, the son of Iceland's first president who joined the Waffin SS and became involved in German propaganda broadcasts. The British authorities, however, maintaining stability on the island was paramount. The Allies avoided interfering too deeply in Iceland's domestic politics. Their priority was, of course, winning the war, not provoking unrest and a strategically vital ally.

Really, really interesting. Genuinely, yeah, so the struggle from the North Atlantic rarely receives the same attention as the great battles of Europe or the Pacific, yet it was the control of these remote islands, Iceland, Pharaohs, Greenlands, Falbard,

which proved absolutely crucial to the Allied war effort and out of which we get some of these incredible stories that I didn't know about as a Second World War history buff. You think you'd be fairly out of it in Greenland? Yeah. Wouldn't you?

You'd be like reading the paper, but listening to the news on the radio, like World War, yeah, but you know, we're in Greenland, we're going to be alright, aren't we? You do stand a chance, I think, some of these islands, like you'd stand a chance of having a good war, which we've touched on before. I'd absolutely take Faroe Islands as a place to be stationed.

Not under L's iron fist, though. It's interesting, as you'll find out with my Gibraltar section, how often it's really the geographical importance of where you are let's say as a sea port or whatever happens to be. So a lot of these tiny places have become incredibly important. This is why, you'll find out in my section, why Gibraltar has been such a tussled over part of the world, despite the fact being this tiny, tiny bit of rock.

Tell you what was a big tussle. Two years ago, Gibraltar nil, Wales nil, the game that saw Rob Page lose his job. That's the big one. About 1500 of Wales funds went out for a friendly, and it was bad. Before we crack on and finish this part, I just want to mention one quick thing. I've got a text during that section from my wife, Claire, who heard our chat at the top of the show about her beating the Game Boy. And she said, no, you don't beat the Game Boy.

It's the celebratory screen for reaching the end of the secret impossible section. I think she's used too many words there, we suggest it's a bit of a lie. The old impossible section. Celebratory screen for reaching the end of the secret impossible section. Sounds like rubbish. Yeah, absolutely. But for the good of my marriage, I'll believe it. I want to see her play Tetris now.

I want to watch her come out of retirement. I want to see this. We actually have a go. We do have an old Game Boy here. That's how you do it. I need to put it to the test. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'll post that screen on a WhatsApp group.

Give her a day to get back up to speed to her sort of 90s finger techniques. Yeah, exactly. and then I won't prove. That's it for part one of occupations. Coming up in part two, gents, we have. I'm going to be talking about Gibraltar, this tiny pocket of land and the incredibly fierce battles

that's been involved in. Fierce battles, as I said, Gibraltar nil, Wales nil. I will be talking about the Norman Conquest and the Crusades. Perfect. All that is coming in part two, and you can have it right now.

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