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

*arrives late*
*reads thread*
*sniggers*

QI - Wisdom.

AKA: The wise man caries a large umbrella because you never know when to expect an exploding whale*

The most common time whales and high explosives come into contact is when an animal has beached itself and lies dead on the shore. These animals are huge, weigh several tonnes and are a massive draw to scavengers

November 12, 1970, a small 8-tonne sperm whale was discovered dead on the beach at Florence, Oregon.

At the time, the Oregon highway division had jurisdiction over the beaches. Burying it was ruled out; as was the idea of cutting up or incinerating it. So some enterprising and practically minded person suggested an alternative and it was agreed that the carcass could be removed in the same manner and technique as the agency was used to clearing the roads of errant boulders, that is to say with half a ton of dynamite.

But whales aren't like rocks. No-one had ever done anything like this before. They weren't sure if they'd placed it right or used enough or too little. They did decide that placing the explosive underneath the animal would propel the remnants towards the sea, so they dug a trench alongside and wedged the dynamite underneath.

As this now LEGENDARY news reel footage will attest, they failed to consider matter pertaining to...how delicately can I put this? blast radius and high velocity projectile whale fragments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBgThvB_IDQ

(1:50 begins the explosion and the soft patter of the raining whale meat, blubber and the evacuation of the sand dunes of the 75 -or-so spectators and assembled television crews)

The exploded carcass was eventually buried with bulldozers, when it was determined that the chunks that had survived were too massive for even the most determined of scavengers, who it was also noticed had stayed away, possibly because off all the activity on the beach and the extremely loud noise.

And from this so small a beginning was the association between desiccated whale blubber and dynamite forged - and it continues to this day.

For instance in 2001, Kangaroo Island Australia, a dead whale became an attraction for tourists to stand on and have their prographs taken whilst, from below it was torn at by several Great White sharks. Needless to say to put a swift end to this fantastically stupid activity the coast guard and state police had the whale towed out to sea destonated and sunk.

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/more-whales/20010731-australia/


But what were the coast guard or the highways authority doing blowing up a whale in the business district of a major Taiwan metropolis? Well the answer is they weren't. It did it all by itself.

The purtification of dead tissue is, as any perenial watchers of the riot of CSI programmes on the telly will tell a Quite Interesting topic and benefits from serious scientific study.

One of the many things that happens post mortem is the production of large amounts of gas, notably ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and methane as bodies starts to decompose.

Whales being fairly large have a substantial body cavity, which as bacteria yield increases and putrefaction really gets going, pushes out the fluids from the cells and tissues and starts to build up.

Whales are a naturally sturdy species, able to withstand massive external pressures at depth, and it should be noted, their thick blubber and tough outer skin is quiet adept at keeping pressure on the inside too. Indeed so effective the bloat of the rotting carcass is liable to be mistaken for body mass.

However in the later stages of putrefaction the blubber and skin are less effective at containing the build up of toxic and foul vapours, and can undergo catastrophic failure, which is a polite way of saying the whale can burst, distributing rotten innards and entrails over a very wide area.

The most celebrated incident of a whale undergoing spontaneous detonation was in the city of Tainan in 2004, when a whale 56 feet in lengths and weight a happy 60 tonnes which had earlier expired upon beaching was being transported back to a research laboratory for dissection, via a route through the city streets.

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/wp-content/expwhales/20040126/ex1.jpg
http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/wp-content/expwhales/20040126/ex2.jpg

The unnusual site had drawn a crowd of curious onlookers, and traffic was slow..when suddenly..

POP !!!

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/wp-content/expwhales/20040126/2.jpg


Well I'll let you try to imagine the smell.


===============================

These are not the only occasions under which Cetacean Detonation occurs and you can read up on all the delightful details at:

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com

I'll now start determining points.

*The prospect of a whale dropping out the sky is, admittedly a rare one, but stranger things have happened. So consider yourselves warned - and watch the skies !!

QI - Wisdom.


QI +6
--------------
TRiG (Umbras and Umbrellas)
Matt (Sea Cucumbers)


Correct +3
--------------
JHawkesby (Sea Creature)
Oops (Whale)
Mini (Whale)
Matt (Exploding Whales)



Klaxon -5
--------------
TRiG (rain)
Oops (blowholes)



Elf +1
Clive



Aggregate scores.
==========

TRiG = +1
Oops = -2
Matt = +9
Mini = +3
Jhawkesby = +3
Clive +1



Klaxon penalties:
==========

Conventional uses of umbrellas:
--------------------------
Rain
Snow
Hail

Unconventional uses:
--------------------------
To fly (a la Mary Poppins)
To defend yourself with
To assassinate Bulgarian dissidents.
As protectino from falling bridges or large rocks (a la Wile. E. Coyote)

Conditional of correct guess : whale.
--------------------------
The Blue Whale. (QI Tradition)
Blowholes.



Exeunt. I hope you enjoyed it.

Clive.

I certainly enjoyed it. So far I have enjoyed all your QIs Clive, they are very logical and challenging but above all, code like.

Thank you, that means a lot to me.

I hope I think about them long enough make them sufficiently taxing and skewwed to the right end of difficult and obscure, but I'm always amazed and pleased when people crack my 'codes' as you put it.

Look at the Correct answers in the points above, you can see people closing in on the answer - and as usual the pursuit is always the best part.

I think that news footage is hilarious though,

Another good one, Clive. Keep going...

I'll try

I've just realised the links to the photos don't work (which is odd because they did when I previewed it) must be a copyright thing, I'll be back with some proper links shortly, for posterity's sake.

All the photos are from this page.

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/taxonomy/


The Suicidally Stupid Tourists and The Great White Sharks.
http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/more-whales/20010731-australia/


The Tainan Putrefaction Explosion.
http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/more-whales/20040126-taiwan/

The BBC obviously pitched this one at the right audience:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid_3443000/3443017.stm

That's kind of disturbing.

I didn't come across that page in researching this question.

Even more disturbing is the photo on the bottom third of this page, right-hand column where a dead whales inflated stomach has pushed up the throat and is protruding from the mouth.

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/taxonomy/

Which should give you are fairly decent idea of what was going on inside the Taiwanese Whale, immediately before it's innards became it's outards.

Yes, I saw that one, Clive.

I'm frankly amazed that someone can sustain a website dedicated to exploding whales.

Oh, will this one be gracing the Edited Guide? It has a certain London Beer Flood black humour about it

It could do.

I'm still sorting myself out to do the electric telegraph and the kings cross fire.

but short of procrastination I think we could make it work.

>>I'm frankly amazed that someone can sustain a website dedicated to exploding whales.<<

It must be a more common occurrence than either of us had hithertofore believed.

Did you see they had a google map with location markers?