In Tokyo, you can drop into the local takeaway and grab a whale burger. No shit - Moby is now a Minke on rye and hold the mayo.

Down the street a bit, you can pop in for a whale of a tasty and tangy curry, steak, stew or bacon (and eggs).

So much for whaling in the name of research. It's really not on, you know.

Back in 1850, the Reverend Henry T. Cheever was cruising the Pacific in a Boston whaler, and he wrote a diary describing the adventure. It was a pretty sad and hard life working a whaler, and the idle hours waiting for a whale to blow were spent making scrimshaw.


Pie crimper


Game board

They went to sea for years at a time and in their ships they carried a reminder of all things left behind in their figurheads


Carved figurheads

And, of course, whalers were still in the process of hunting these mainly gentle giants to extinction; whales were still plentiful. But at least they were utilising all of the beast, unlike the wanton destruction of the buffalo in America.

It's all very sad. Things dying always is.