h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

While the reckless use of Infanite Improbability Drives has had a well documented history of creating and later exploding (with assistance from, hmmm, what shall I call it, hmmm, Gravity, that's a good name) Whales, it is rarely an occurance that occurs in the natural world.

A recent report on BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3437455.stm has documented a natural occurance of this very event.

The dolphins are reported to be secretly ammused by this event, though for oceanic poltical reasons, this is unlikely to an official stance.

The report does not mention if any petunia plants were present at the time.

Yikes!

I'd hate to have to explain that one to the boss:

"Sorry, I was on my way to work actually, when this sperm whale suddenly exploded and... hello...?"

Someone posted a link to a video clip of an exploding whale in California (I think); it's probably around here somewhere, if it hasn't been moderated.

It's a TV news report of a brilliant plan to remove the mortal remains of a festering dead whale from a beach. The plan called for massive amounts of explosives to be strategically placed beneath the whale which, when detonated, would lift the whale (exactly as drawn) up into the air and safely back out to sea. Well, needless to say, it didn't quite work out entirely according to plan. Granted some of the whale found its way back into the sea, but most of the rest spread itself around, in a fairly general way, all over the news crew and everyone else within a radius of several hundred yards, some fairly large bits raining posthumous sea mammal destruction on a line of parked cars.

JTG

and

I may have had a near miss. In the 70's a sperm whale was toured through Zimbabwe on a truck. We went to see it on a vacant piece of ground in the Harare (Salisbury at the time). They had a lot of ice packed round it, but still.

Not the best way to see whales . I've always thought it was a really odd thing to have done. There was a charge, and I don't think it was being transported for any other reason than as an exhibit.

Waz

PS I'm not following you around JTG, just following your ad. in the AWW .
PPS Those were the days, when the Eds would add their own comments.

When you think of it that way, it's a pretty enterprising thing to have done, load a whale on a truck and exhibit it in places where there is hardly likely to be any wale-related competition. I'm sure the red tape would make doing something as interesting as that impossible here, worse luck, even if you could afford the insurance.

JTG

ps Enjoying the company

pps Those were the days alright. I think it might actually pre-date Sub-editors, when we fully expected to be rejected after weeks of anxious waiting. It never did us any harm, of course, all that rejection.