The Weird Weekend, the largest predominantly cryptozoological conference in the English Speaking world is only five months away. You can read all about the 2009 event, and buy tickets, at http://www.weirdweekend.org/ or by clicking on the logo at the top of the page. Corinna will be covering the preparations for the event, and profiling the speakers over on Her Blog and there will be lots of other fun stuff in the months to come. However, completely unprovoked, Mike Hallowell, who was one of the speakers at the first event, relives his memories over five mornings this week...Don't believe a bloody word..
Many moons ago, when the world was dark and England's greatest cultural hero the Great Thatcher was yet to be born, a convocation took place in a distant part of the kingdom called "The South". I journeyed to this arcane gathering, and, for the first time, have decided to release my diary notes from the time. Laydeez and Gentlemeyn....let me now recall for your edification the life and times of a traveller who attended the very first Weird Weekend...
Newcastle Central train station is an absolutely crap place to be in February. Mind you, it’s not the place itself which is crap, for as train stations go Newcastle Central is a sexy little number. It had a face-lift a few years ago, in fact, and now flaunts itself outrageously like a tart in a new frock. It’s also full of interesting things, like, er…trains. Sometimes you’ll even see one which works, although you may have to wait a day or two.
Nevertheless, it’s still a crap place to be in February. This is largely because its cold enough to freeze the brass off a bald monkey [Are you sure this is right? Ed]. After five minutes standing on the platform in winter your fingers cease to function. This renders the ritual pulling down of the trouser zip an impossibility. To urinate, one must enlist the help of a porter who, for a suitable tip, will guide the frozen traveller to the Great Tiled Temple and – with the aid of a freshly ironed handkerchief - point them in the right direction, if you get my drift.
After ten minutes in this sort of permafrost one begins to hallucinate. Male commuters will stare down at the ground and imagine that they see a cute, wrinkly, hairless water vole crouching sweetly beside their left shoe. Entranced, they will stare at its bulbous head, strangely - pursed lips and rather rotund hips. Truth to tell, what they can actually see is their own willy, which has frozen solid, dropped off and rolled down their trouser leg. Such is the Arctic temperature at Newcastle Central train station in February.
To prevent the onset of more worrying symptoms, such as death, emergency treatment may be required. As dedicated facilities to this end are not to be found within the precincts of this grand city, critically hypothermic passengers must make their way to one of the several Emergency Medical Booths dotted hither and thither throughout the streets. These are known colloquially as cafés. For a mere £15.99, the nurse will supply the frozen sojourner with a styrofoam receptacle which looks no bigger than a pixie’s commode. In the bottom will be a mouthful of scalding hot brown stuff hiding beneath four inches of froth. The froth tastes like nothing and the brown stuff tastes like micro-waved camel dung. It will possess a fancy Italian name, a few drops of almond essence and enough heat to melt your tongue to the roof of your mouth.
Newcastle Central train station is an absolutely crap place to be in February. Mind you, it’s not the place itself which is crap, for as train stations go Newcastle Central is a sexy little number. It had a face-lift a few years ago, in fact, and now flaunts itself outrageously like a tart in a new frock. It’s also full of interesting things, like, er…trains. Sometimes you’ll even see one which works, although you may have to wait a day or two.
Nevertheless, it’s still a crap place to be in February. This is largely because its cold enough to freeze the brass off a bald monkey [Are you sure this is right? Ed]. After five minutes standing on the platform in winter your fingers cease to function. This renders the ritual pulling down of the trouser zip an impossibility. To urinate, one must enlist the help of a porter who, for a suitable tip, will guide the frozen traveller to the Great Tiled Temple and – with the aid of a freshly ironed handkerchief - point them in the right direction, if you get my drift.
After ten minutes in this sort of permafrost one begins to hallucinate. Male commuters will stare down at the ground and imagine that they see a cute, wrinkly, hairless water vole crouching sweetly beside their left shoe. Entranced, they will stare at its bulbous head, strangely - pursed lips and rather rotund hips. Truth to tell, what they can actually see is their own willy, which has frozen solid, dropped off and rolled down their trouser leg. Such is the Arctic temperature at Newcastle Central train station in February.
To prevent the onset of more worrying symptoms, such as death, emergency treatment may be required. As dedicated facilities to this end are not to be found within the precincts of this grand city, critically hypothermic passengers must make their way to one of the several Emergency Medical Booths dotted hither and thither throughout the streets. These are known colloquially as cafés. For a mere £15.99, the nurse will supply the frozen sojourner with a styrofoam receptacle which looks no bigger than a pixie’s commode. In the bottom will be a mouthful of scalding hot brown stuff hiding beneath four inches of froth. The froth tastes like nothing and the brown stuff tastes like micro-waved camel dung. It will possess a fancy Italian name, a few drops of almond essence and enough heat to melt your tongue to the roof of your mouth.
Drinking this medicament will raise the body temperature just enough to avoid cardiac arrest, but not quite enough to make you grow a replacement willy.
It is because Mr. Jonathan Downes invited me down to Exeter in the far more clement month of May, as opposed to the sod-awful month of February, that I have steadfastly refrained from calling him an absolute bastard. Mr. Jonathan Downes is and always will be a scholar and a gentleman, providing he never makes me stand in the cold at Newcastle during the month of February, thus precipitating the dropping off of my willy, to which I am extremely - and hopefully permanently - attached.
But I digress. The aforementioned Mr. Downes is the leading light in a group called the Centre for Fortean Zoology. The words “centre” and “zoology” should not tax the reader of this diary too greatly – one hopes – but the adjective “Fortean” may prove troublesome to those who have not as yet traversed the more exotic plateaux of the Fourth Dimension.
Charles Fort was a strange dude in the USA who collected strange stories about strange things. The assassination of presidents and the rise and fall of nations he met with a scarcely stifled yawn, but tell him that there was a goat in Canada with seven legs and he’d be on the first available train.
Charles Fort loved weird tales. He revelled in legends about fish falling from the sky, delighted in reports of vampires and hairy monsters and would kiss the feet of anyone who could point him in the direction of a bona fide mermaid. In time, Fort’s name became associated with the weird, the strange and the bizarre. Fortean zoology, by definition, then, is the study of weird, strange and bizarre animals, in which taxonomic bracket I firmly place both Mr. Downes and myself, as neither of us are sure exactly which branch of the evolutionary tree we sit upon.
Jon – as his best friends are allowed to call him – was also one of the luminaries of the Exeter Strange Phenomena Research Group. Within the inner sanctum of this motley collective one could always find strange things are on the agenda of items to discuss. Is there really a Loch Ness monster? Are people really abducted by aliens? Do mediums ever become extra-large? Who was that bird you wuz wiff last night, then? These and other philosophical conundrums were dissected, ingested, masticated, and, eventually, digested with great vigour.
Jon – God bless ‘im – wields a papal-like influence within the world of strange phenomena and paranormal investigation. If Mr. Downes (who is both a physical and an intellectual giant) points his finger at you, you either grow wings or pooh your pants. I was more than a little flattered, therefore, when this large and legendary personage invited me to speak at a conference he’d organised in his home town of Exwick in Exeter. And thus it came to pass, in the merry month of May in the year 2000, that I awaited the train which would deliver me into his economy-sized presence. As you will see in the next instalment, it was to be a journey of nightmarish dimensions...
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