According to the BBC, a dead sperm whale has been washed up on the beach at Roseisle in Scotland, aka pretty much the middle of nowhere. I notice from the report that "Council officials have ruled out using explosives to destroy the body."
This is a Good Thing.
A similar thing happened at one of my favourite beaches back in 1970. November 1970 to be exact, when a rather large whale carcass washed up on the beach just south of the Siuslaw River at Florence, Oregon - near where I used to fly my Flexifoil. On this occasion, because there were no rendering plants that wanted a whale carcass, they decided to blow it up. That's quite the decision making process, I'm sure you'll agree.
(Apologies to anybody to whom this is old news: I've known about this for about 10 years, but there are plenty that haven't. Be nice. Bear in mind that I work in a place where, out of 91 people, I am the only person who can actually name a Velvet Underground song. There were two people, but the other one got promoted to Head of Service. There's hope in that - or a terrible portent for the future. You decide.)
Here's the KATU channel 2 (Portland, OR) coverage of the event. It's pretty classic, particularly reporter Paul Linnman's alliteration fest. All TV reporters dream of a moment like that, I'm sure. Few achieve alliteration Zen quite like Linnman, though.
For more information on the great Oregon Exploding Whale fiasco of 12 November 1970, in fact for all your Exploding Whale needs, visit TheExplodingWhale.com where, amongst its resources, it has eight columns by Bob Welch. Mr Welch, although a bit schmaltzy at times, is a fantastic columnist who really gets to the heart of the community he serves. I probably learned more about Eugene's heritage from Mr Welch than from all of my friends put together.
(Do you like the way I went all The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage then?)
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