It was answered by a huge belch - a vast explosive rise of flame.
However, with the explosive rise in costs of city living, I'm not sure this still holds true.
However, the explosive rise in computer use by military and intelligence agencies has sharply increased the chance of computer-based espionage.
For one thing, they said, China's explosive rise as a low-cost manufacturer does not mean that prices will fall year after year.
The difference between then and now, they say, is the explosive rise of managed care.
Herd behavior helps us understand not only the explosive rise of this market segment in the 1990's, but also its imminent collapse.
But the explosive rise of electronic commerce threatens to turn a leak into a flood.
While some big stocks slipped last week, the explosive rise in smaller stocks continued.
Indeed, the explosive rise of the Web, going from nothing to everything in one decade, has encouraged us to believe in the impossible again.
At the moment it is the explosive rise of the Internet that scares him most.