PLEASE MR POSTMAN - Enter the Triffids

Our postbag is always a rich and peculiar thing. In amongst the general detritus of everyday life such as telephone bills and final demands are a selection of arcane letters and packages which keep us sane. Today was no exception....

Another wonderful inclusion in our postbag came with a package marked 'Costume Jewellery', which arrived yesterday. Forewarned, I gave it to Graham, told him to open it and plant the contents in some plant pots full of potting compost. He looked at me as if I had finally lost the plot.

"Why do you want to plant costume jewellery in the garden?" He asked.

"I don't," I replied. "It is not costume jewellery."

"But it says it is costume jewellery," replied Graham in the sort of exasperated voice with which one talks to a particularly recalcitrant idiot child.

"I know it does," I replied smugly. "But when you open it you will find that it is actually peculiar onions that look like triffids, which were sent to us by a Bloggo reader who shall remain nameless (although his future as an international plant smuggler is in doubt, because he put his real name on the packet). He only labelled them `costume jewellery` in order to bypass any unpleasantness from the authorities, about sending biological material through the post."

"Oh," said Graham, whose eyes had glazed over by this time, and went off to plant the triffid onions.

I forgot to photograph them as they arrived but photographed them at an unholy hour of the morning after I had been outside with Biggles....

(Thank you very much to our un-named benefactor)

PLEASE MR POSTMAN - A tiger in a box

Our postbag is always a rich and peculiar thing. In amongst the general detritus of everyday life such as telephone bills and final demands are a selection of arcane letters and packages that keep us sane. Today was no exception....

Bloggo reader and CFZ supporter Aubrey Menezes is a very talented sculptor, and we have featured his work before. A couple of weeks ago he was kind enough to tell us that he was giving Corinna and me a carved thylacine as a present. It arrived yesterday and is absolutely exquisite.

As you will read elsewhere in today's bloggo, we had an exciting Biggles-fuelled night, so instead of a carefully prepared photograph showing the thylacine in pride of place in the sitting room bathed in natural light, you have a picture of my beloved wife looking half awake at about 6:30 this morning after having spent the night up Biggles-sitting.

The thylacine, however, is a wonderful gift and means a lot to both of us. We shall treasure it immensely. Thank you Aubrey....

CFZ ARCHIVING PROJECT: Forteana Part 17

As you know, Oll has been working on the archiving project since early February 2009 and he is now working on a general mish-mash of a section known as `General Forteana`. This fifteench collection once again really is a general mishmash of completely uncategoriseable stuff, including including a pregnant lion in an Aphganistan Zoo, animal mutilations, an exhibition of pornographic paintings done by a nun, the bodies of dead German children used in road safety tests and a fisherman who claimed to have netted an alien. It doesn't get much better than this. Good stuff.

HERE

Richard Freeman is massively impressed by this important technological breakthrough

ROBERT SCHNECK: Educated eels #2

We have always been interested in eels here at the CFZ, and in particular the freshwater eels of the genus Anguilla. Indeed, there is a fat and rather smug specimen of A. anguilla who lives in a 48in tank in the corner of my study. Oll, with his fetish for all things Welsh named him Ee-I Jenkins after the Vicar in Under Milk Wood and we are all rather fond of him.

Knowing of our interest in all things anguilliform, Robert Schneck has sent us three classic clippings about educated eels which prove, (as if any proof were needed) that eels are very peculiar fish. This second one is from Syracuse (NY) Herald Dec. 2, 1906.

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1918 Tsar Nicolas II and his family were executed/murdered. For many years rumours persisted about the survival of Princess Anastasia due to the fact that until 2007 the remains of Prince Alexei and one of his sisters were unaccounted for among bones found in a mass grave in 1978 and DNA tested in 1998. However, the remains of Alexei and the remaining sister, which turned out to be Maria were identified from bone fragments that showed signs of burning from a site near to the mass grave.
And now, the news:

Giant panda holds newborn cub in mouth, cub lives
Official: spiders are not afraid of conkers
Woolly mammoth hunters helped change climate
Cologne Zoo's newest addition
Zebra herd allowed to stay
Big fish
Moose on the loose in shopping centre
Hot Rod Biker Dog Enjoys Life As Ruff Rider
Eager male llama chases female onto highway
Swarm of 30,000 bees that 'turned the sky black'
Man eats poisonous snake for bet
Corrie cat ashes up for auction
Trapped manatees looking for love rescued

Song time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf9wuRwvTE8

ROBERT SCHNECK: Educated eels #1

We have always been interested in eels here at the CFZ, and in particular the freshwater eels of the genus Anguilla. Indeed there is a fat and rather smug specimen of A. anguilla who lives in a 48in tank in the corner of my study. Oll, with his fetish for all things Welsh, named him Eel-I Jenkins after the Vicar in Under Milk Wood and we are all rather fond of him.

Knowing of our interest in all things anguilliform, Robert Schneck has sent us three classic clippings about educated eels, which prove (as if any proof were needed) that eels are very peculiar fish. This first one is from the Lubbock (TX) Evning. Jrnl-Nov 7, 1952.