Monday, September 13, 2004
Rejoice they sing
They worship their own space
In a moment of love,
they will die for their grace
Don't kill the whale
- Yes
Way, way up north in Scotland there's a small coastal town whose name I can't remember. Sometime in the 1950s a whale decided he would beach himself on the shores of this pretty little town and duly exhaled his last big whale breath during the night. In the morning the townsfolk discovered this huge beast on their beach and set about trying to remove it. They tried dragging it with tractors back into the ocean, they tried cutting it up, they even tried burning it, but to no avail. Soon enough this quaint seaside town way, way up in the north of Scotland began to smell very, very badly of rotting whale.
One man had an idea. He'd served in the Black Watch during World War II and had a number of un-used grenades, dynamite and un-exploded mines, and after consultation with the rest of the town, decided that the best course of action was to simply blow the bugger up. All through the night he worked, surrounding the leviathan with explosives so that by morning, at 9am he stood on the road overlooking the beach, detonator in hand. The townsfolk hid in their homes watching through crossed fingers as with a flourish the man pressed the button.
The explosion was heard from miles away and was so forceful it blew in the windows of every beachfront property and paralysed the man holding the detonator. But worse was to come because for the next ten seconds after the explosion, fat, bone, blubber and rotting whale flesh rained down covering the town in a pulpy, putrescent slime. As you can imagine, the clean up took some time, but it was the smell that took years to leave, and many residents left before it did, never to return.
I only tell you this story because after watching Tom Hanks ham his way through half an hour of the interminable Terminal I was imagining the mess he would make if he too were exploded on the beach of a quaint seaside town way, way up in the north of Scotland.
They worship their own space
In a moment of love,
they will die for their grace
Don't kill the whale
- Yes
Way, way up north in Scotland there's a small coastal town whose name I can't remember. Sometime in the 1950s a whale decided he would beach himself on the shores of this pretty little town and duly exhaled his last big whale breath during the night. In the morning the townsfolk discovered this huge beast on their beach and set about trying to remove it. They tried dragging it with tractors back into the ocean, they tried cutting it up, they even tried burning it, but to no avail. Soon enough this quaint seaside town way, way up in the north of Scotland began to smell very, very badly of rotting whale.
One man had an idea. He'd served in the Black Watch during World War II and had a number of un-used grenades, dynamite and un-exploded mines, and after consultation with the rest of the town, decided that the best course of action was to simply blow the bugger up. All through the night he worked, surrounding the leviathan with explosives so that by morning, at 9am he stood on the road overlooking the beach, detonator in hand. The townsfolk hid in their homes watching through crossed fingers as with a flourish the man pressed the button.
The explosion was heard from miles away and was so forceful it blew in the windows of every beachfront property and paralysed the man holding the detonator. But worse was to come because for the next ten seconds after the explosion, fat, bone, blubber and rotting whale flesh rained down covering the town in a pulpy, putrescent slime. As you can imagine, the clean up took some time, but it was the smell that took years to leave, and many residents left before it did, never to return.
I only tell you this story because after watching Tom Hanks ham his way through half an hour of the interminable Terminal I was imagining the mess he would make if he too were exploded on the beach of a quaint seaside town way, way up in the north of Scotland.
