RAY NELKE SENT THIS...

CFZ PEOPLE: Hannah Blake

Max's sister Hannah isn't very well at the moment, poor dear. Remember her in your thoughts and prayers...

And whilst on the subject, Jon isn't well again, so if you have written to him in the past 48 hours do not be too surprised if you don't get an answer just yet.

ANOTHER TERATOLOGICAL TURTLE

Another strange turtle freak from the peculiar website that Fleur found...

Yes, two heads!

This Yellow Belly was that one in a million born with two heads.

It was born in June, and has been doing very well ever since.

It is well past the early fragile stage. The head on the turtle's left is the dominant one.

Both heads feed and move independently.

Considering it's extreme rarity, special care should be given to be sure the turtle is set up in an easily navigated, turtle-friendly environment.

The keeper who orders this turtle will truly have something very special....

I am in a moral conundrum here. On one side I think that there is something very morally dubious about selling lusus naturae to people as pets. The whole ethos of responsible pet keeping as promoted by our magazine The Amateur Naturalist is that when wild animals are kept in captivity it should be as a celebration of the diversity of wildlife in the world, and in as natural a habitat as possible. This is the most un-natural wild animal that one could possibly hope for.

But golly, I want one.

http://www.theturtlesource.com/turtle_subcat.asp?id=125698412

ALAN FRISWELL WRITES

KATONA ICELANDICUS: a new species?

I was very interested to see Richie West's Blabbermouth snake; certainly not a creature that you would want to meet in a dark alley, or indeed after a few glasses of Old Peculier, but here is an amazing--and totally authentic--picture of a semi-legendary cryptid that until recently was considered to be fabulous, if not the result of the intake of too many samples of the local brew.

First sighted off the end of Southend Pier, shortly after Arthur Mullard played the Cliffs Pavillion in 1990, this animal has reportedly been seen disporting itself up and down the East coast of Britain, coiling itstelf around beachfront properties, pie-and-mash shops and hair-extension consultancies, and inserting it's head into the windows; thus interrupting viewer's enjoyment of such local televisual gems as Eastenders and The Jeremy Kyle Show.

"It made a noise like Chas and Dave! Honest!", reported ex-Pearly King, Herman 'The Toff' Spooner, just recently retired from the cosmpolitan hubbub of Stepney Green. "I'm a good old Cockney boy from the sound of Bow Bells, I didn't come all the fu****g way up to Southend to have to put up with this sh**! It came up out of the water and started singing: 'Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit'; I was so shocked, I dropped my plate of jellied eels! We wouldn't have this sh** if Reggie and Ronnie were still about. The East End was safe when they were around."

Further to this, several other eye-witnesses, while shopping in a sea-front outlet of Iceland, claimed to have seen the creature staring through the window. "I don't care what anyone says," stated local debutante and runner-up in Miss Essex 2008, Channelle-Tiffany Nutsack, "that thing was eyeing-up the cheap cider!" Tottering about precariously on her white stilettos, Ms Nutsack did indeed point out that the local supply of Frosty Jack (alc 7.5% vol) was going like hot cakes for £5.50 for two bottles. "Blimey," she said, "I'm always in here for a couple of bottles as it helps my co-ordination when I'm dancing around my handbag, so you can imagine how I felt when I saw that thing looking through the window! My boob implants tightened up so much, my nipples fell off! I haven't been the same since!" In a later--unsubstantiated--comment, Ms Nutsack was heard to say under her breath: "I swear that thing was a dead-ringer for Kerry Katona!"

While sales of alcohol skyrocketed, Southend locals began to boycott fish-and-chip shops and cockle stalls claiming: "We don't know where it's been!" Viewing figures for Jeremy Kyle and Eastenders fell dramatically as both the interlectually-challenged and the clinically obese set down their Special Brew and chicken nuggets, and set out to the beach, hoping to sight the bizarre creature.

Things came to a head, when the Trisha programme attempted to sue Southend council for stealing their audience, and loss of earnings, and Iceland approached the Natural History Museum to enquire if it would be possible to sign-up an unclassified animal to promote their latest line of alcopops to teenagers, with the advertising line: "If you haven't seen it, you haven't drunk enough!" The last straw came when Dale Winton wanted to star the animal in a new day-time show, to be called 'Super Serpent Sweep.'

Realising that enough was enough, CFZ director Jon Downes rapidly dispatched Fortean stalwart Richard Freeman to the Southern coast to, as Jon said: "Sort this bo*****s out!" Freeman was no mug. He was a man with a predilection for strong drink and stronger women. He knew where the bodies were buried--and he was more than willing to dig them up. He'd soon sort out these Southern nancies.

On his arrival at Southend, Freeman immediately fortified himself with a Cornish pasty and a fruit beer. He wasn't messing around. A newspaper reporter tried to engage him in polite conversation, but Freeman let him have it: "You numb-nuts!", he retorted to the shocked hack, "Don't you realise that this animal is the best thing to ever hit this God-forsaken craphole? Do you really think that anyone with three brain cells would rather watch Jeremy f*****g Kyle with his media assassin's eyes, surveying the scene of his semi-conscious, terminally sub-social-strata 'guests' with the cold fury of an anorexic tryrannosaurus who's just recieved the news that an asteroid is due in somewhere along the Yacutan Penninsula next Tuesday at approx 3:30 Eastern Standard Time? Give me a break! And while we're at it, Eastenders!! Don't get me f*****g started on Eastenders!!! A bunch of walking out-takes from The Day of the Dead, shuffling around an endless, pantomime market-stall like some repetitive time-loop from hell, only to be thrown into a jump-leaded semblance of animation when dodging out of the way of Peggy Mitchell barreling insanely around Albert Square like some crazed, peroxide oompa-loompa! Get thee from me Satan!!!"

Picking himself up off the floor, the reporter said: "Ah yes, but what about the sea-serpent? is it real, or is it merely the subconscious accumluation of a wish-fullfilment delusion, manifest in the greater burden of societies lower order?"

"Are you taking the piss?" asked Freeman.

Before things could turn nasty, there was a shout from the beach. "We've got it, we've got it!"

Freeman and the reporter ran down to the sea front, and there it was. Obviously bloated with hype, overpublicity, and the accusation of resembling Kerry Katona, the serpent had expired in a surfeit of media glare and cheap, liver-corroding alcohol. Freeman instantly dubbed the creature Katonus icelandicus, and of all the thousands of photos that were taken, mysteriously, only this one survives....

EDITOR'S NOTE: You are all mad

CFZ PEOPLE: Kithra is back online

http://kithraskrystalkave.blogspot.com/2009/07/computer-saga-ends.html
Computer Saga Ends

Fingers crossed, all will be well now, but if anyone sent me anything urgent please re-send it as I've lost all my mail due to having to mess around with my new rig to get it working properly. Thanks.

Liz R

WEIRD WEEKEND TICKETS BEING MAILED OUT THIS WEEK

Those of you canny folk who have already purchased advance tickets to this year's Weird Weekend starring:

Tim The Yowie Man: Australia's Yeti
Rat Scabies: The Punk Rock `Da Vinci Code`
Alan Murdie: Colombian Forteana
Tim Matthews: Crop Circle Confusion
Nick Redfern: Stalin's Ape Men
Ronan Coghlan: Atlantis
Max Blake: Unknown animals in pet shops
Julian Vayne: Cabinet of curiosities
Andy Roberts: The big grey man of Ben McDhui
Jan Bondeson: The Basilisk
Darren Naish: British Big Cats in Deep Time
Neil Arnold: Monsters - Zooform Phenomena
Michael Woodley: A new system of classification for cryptozoology
Glen Vaudrey: Mystery animals of the Western Isles

And lots more

will be glad to know that your tickets, plus money off vouchers for meals in the local pub, and 50% off voucher for The Big Sheep an award winning North Devon tourist attraction, are being posted out this week.

Those of you who have not yet spent out £20 on the best fortean weekend of the year bar none, had better get yer skates on. Buy your tickets at this link:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Weird-Weekend-tickets-2009_W0QQitemZ380096466148QQihZ025QQcategoryZ1306QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

LAZARUS LONG: "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity"

On the 15th and 17th of this month we posted the story of a carcass found on a New Zealand beach by our old mucker Tony Lucas.

We stated clearly in the second story that it was an opposum. Furthermore our mate Scottie (Retrieverman) stated clearly that it was an opposum in comments.

So why was this story posted in something called "Phantoms and Monsters" from some bloke called `Lon`?:

I received an email from a reader in New Zealand stating that this carcass was found earlier this week in Gisbourne, North Island, New Zealand. Actually, it looks a bit like the infamous Long Island 'Montauk Monster'...the reader had no idea what this creature was. A few others and myself have been bouncing it around and no Kiwi mammal comes to mind...Lon

http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2009/07/mystery-carcass-found-on-new-zealand.html

Apparently it is also on `The Angels and Ghosts Message Board`

http://angelsghosts.ning.com/profile/LCDuplatt

FROM `THE GUARDIAN` - Dragonfly Fact Sheet (Posted without comment)

Dragonflies: fast facts

. The dragonfly family has more species than any other mammal

. The wings of a dragonfly beat at up to 35 times a second

. The insects can fly forwards and backwards at up to 18mph

. The eyes of a dragonfly cover a field of vision close to 360°

. The largest species have been known to fly across the Atlantic Ocean

. Dragonflies don't sting humans

CAMPAIGN: Sea Turtles in the Bahamas

http://takeaction.oceana.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25180

While you might think of the Bahamas as a place of great natural beauty, believe it or not, it is perfectly legal there to kill every species of sea turtle except the hawksbill. Since turtles are highly migratory, what happens in the Bahamas affects turtle populations in the U.S. We need your help today to get the Bahamian government to end the killing of sea turtles.

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday’s News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/


What day is it kids? That’s right, it’s Stereoscopic Sunday! Glasses at the ready for today’s 3D photo.

You have no idea how hard it is to resist the temptation to make a load of Carry On movie-style jokes at this point, but I am made of stern stuff and the only pun you shall receive today will be related to one of the cryptozoology related news stories from our news blog. Speaking of which…

Holst's trombone scared sheep into lambing early
Best Pals: The Blind Dog and The Guide Dog
Snake hides from owner in Renault chassis for three months
Meet The Rat Pack - animals who play instruments

I hear they specialise in gangster ‘rat’. I should also use this opportunity to remind you to get Weird Weekend tickets in advance to make sure that you get to see Rat Scabies’ Talk on the Holy Grail.