JFK, Martin Luther King and Princess Diana and now the London whale - where were you when they died? The appearance of a northern bottle nosed whale in the Thames last week sparked a media frenzy including round the clock coverage on Sky TV, a special supplement in the Evening Standard and several blogs.
The Observer described the demise of the whale, nicknamed Gonzo after one of the Muppets, as "poignant". The paper's leader column contrasted the compassion it stirred with the baser emotions provoked by Celebrity Big Brother: "Leviathan's strange and forlorn visit to London was a moment of reality television that provoked only the finest emotions - pity and wonder, and finally sorrow - among thousands of onlookers."
But back in the days before 24-hour rolling news, the arrival of a whale in London provoked little media interest. And this wasn't just some overgrown dolphin, but a 65 foot, 70-tonne blue whale - imaginatively named Jonah by someone with apparently little biblical knowledge. The whale apparently toured around mainland Europe before being unveiled on the South Bank under Waterloo Bridge on April 2 1954. Preserved and daily re-coated with formalin, the whale's innards had been scooped out and a refrigeration unit placed in its belly, which produced a sinister hum. But the Manchester Guardian's coverage only amounted to a photo and a single paragraph.
Steve Deput has set up a website dedicated to the whale and his quest to prove it wasn't just an urban legend, which contains bizarre reminiscences from people who walked through Jonah's carcass. Jim Appleby in the Bradford Telegraph & Argus recalls that the whale was put on tour by the Norwegian government for educational purposes.
"Educationally, we learned that if you drive a sea creature towards the shore then fire exploding harpoons into it, it dies," he said. "We also learned that if you put it on tour for a number of years, it has a traumatic affect on the olfactory senses of your audience."
Appleby reckons that the advent of television has fostered more enlightened views towards wildlife, but watching the coverage of Gonzo's ill-fated trip to Chelsea, it seemed that he was seen as little more than celebrity big blubber.
