Whale oil be blowed!

A 50-tonne sperm whale has reportedly exploded in the centre of a Taiwanese city, covering buildings, cars and pedestrians in “blood, blubber and stinking entrails”. According to The Times newspaper, the beast was being moved from one of the island’s beaches to a research laboratory when the explosion happened in the centre of Tainan City. The newspaper reports that local television showed “shops, parked cars and pedestrian walkways splattered with putrid scraps of whale. Piles of intestine were strewn along the roads.” Prof Wang Chienping, of the national Cheng Kung University, reportedly said: “Because of the natural decomposition process a lot of gases accumulated and, when the pressure build-up was too great, the whale’s belly exploded.” The professor said 50 men with three cranes had spent some 13 hours lifting the 56-foot monster on to the back of a flat-bed lorry.