COLD COMFORT
The team of Arctic explorers had lost their way in an appalling week-long blizzard as they tried to reach the North Pole. Realising their plight and in survival mode, they decided to build themselves a rudimentary igloo to keep out the weather.
With little space inside the igloo, all they took with them was a small stove that provided some heat and the means to warm the meagre supplies they took inside with them.
When the storm finally subsided and they ventured outside, they discovered to their horror that the sleds carrying all their spare rations had disappeared, along with their guns and radio, leaving them with no means of hunting food or calling for help. Desperate, they began digging into the snow all around in an effort to find the precious sleds.
Three days went by and they found nothing, despite having excavated a huge circle around the igloo.
"We'll have to dig deeper," said the leader.
Deeper they dug, soon encountering ice, rather than snow, when suddenly one of the party cried out: "I've found something!"
They all rushed to look and painstakingly uncovered a large block of ice with something inside it. Hacking away at the ice, slowly they saw appear the perfectly preserved figure of a Viking warrior, complete with beard, armour, horned helmet and sword. "That's amazing," said the leader. "He must have been frozen in the ice for something like a thousand years."
The discovery did not, however, solve the problem of no supplies. Weakening, the explorers found it harder and harder to dig, as their hunger got ever greater. Slowly, unpleasant thoughts of cannibalism began to form in their heads, although nobody dared pronounce the word.
A week after the storm, barely able to move from the cold and lack of food, the leader addressed his men, knowing that they were all thinking the same as him, gazing at the small stove and thinking of their amazing discovery outside.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I don't know about you but, quite frankly, at this point in the journey, I could heat a Norse."
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