THE MOST PECULIAR BOOK YOU WILL SEE REVIEWED HERE THIS YEAR

The CFZ is a very broad church. Its membership and associates include three Peers of the Realm (two of whom are distantly related to the Royal family), various eminent scientists, famous authors and researchers, at least two rock stars and a plethora of less famous musicians, lots of artists, more computer programmers than you can shake a stick at, various second hand book dealers, at least four publishers, two convicted drug dealers (one of whom who is in prison as we speak), at least three other inmates of prisons in the UK or the USA, three ex members of the IRA, several people with far right wing affiliations, four Christian priests/padres/vicars/preachers, an imam, members of at least seven religions, and Lord knows how many ethnic groups, and people ranging in age from eleven to 87. We also have a male stripper.

Now, what a person does in his or her private life is none 0f my affair, and quite a few of the people listed above are close friends of mine, and as far as the stripper is concerned - I have known him since he was in his late teens.

The only reason that he and his profession are mentioned here on the bloggo on this particular saturday night is because he has written a book about his adventures, and how he has used his stripping career to finance his cryptozoological researches, and although not for the faint hearted, it is a surprisingly good read.

Nick is a good writer, and I have been publishing his work in Animals & Men and the CFZ Yearbooks for years now. Indeed we are planning to publish another book of his, about zoological predators (I had to promise Corinna that he would keep his kit on in the cover picture) later this year.

It gives a dispassionate account of a world that most of us never knew existed and a lifestyle that I cannot imagine, but one is left with the impression of a decent man (albeit a decent man with more than the average amount of demons) who has adopted a non-standard lifestyle in order to do non-standard things with his life. It is jaw-dropping at times, and tells me more than I wished to know about the life of someone that I have considered a friend ever since the CFZ started, but I am glad that I read it.