Weird Weekend - Day One

I have suddenly realised with a horrible jolt, that it has been over a month since I last posted on the blog. But have I been sitting back, lazily fanning myself under the big beech tree in the garden? Has some horrible mishap hit the CFZ?

Nope.

It's just that we have been gearing up for the annual Weird Weekend; our annual conference, held here in the sleepy North Devon village of Woolfardisworthy (Woolsery).

It is now the ungodly hour of 8.30 - an unprecedented time for me to be awake, up, dressed (and even wearing a tie!) and for the CFZ Office to already be a hubbub of activity. Mark North and John Fuller are printing out programmes, and young Michael Ingrams (8), the son of one of our speakers is lending a helping hand, whilst bouncing around the room to the jolly sounds of the Afro-Celt Sound Sytem.

Mark Martin is wandering around the garden together with Matt Osbourne (a member of Bideford Town Council, who somehow has found himself co-opted as a roadie for the weekend), Dr Darren Naish is asleep on my kitchen floor, and in the drawing room Nick Redfern, and notoious circlemaker Matthew Williams can be found sleeping the sleep of the just (or the hungover, I'm not sure which). On my dining room floor is Dr Lars Thomas (fresh in from Copenhagen), and Ronan Coghlan (from Northern Ireland), and upstairs, in my bedroom, trying desparately to wake up, and probably wondering how she managed to become alpha-female of this madhouse, is my darling Corinna!

We have been working solidly for weeks on this event, and it all started to happen on thursday night when ovcer sixty people piled into the CFZ grounds for the annual Weird Weekend Cocktail Party! The day has been an exhausting one, with speakers arriving at intervals throughout the day, the aforementioned Matt Osbourne arriving with an enormous marquee, my future elder step-daughter, Shosh, and future step-son-in-law, Gavin, arriving in a large white van packed to the gunwhales (errr... do vans have gunwhales?) with impressive model cryptids and dinosaurs kindly lent to us by Anthony James of Nuneaton, and the whole afternoon was punctuated with Graham to-ing and fro-ing from Barnstaple station with yet another speaker, or yet another case f tequila.

The cocktail party was a resounding success, and a splendid time was had by all. Highlights included Nick Redfer's raucous singing, Larry Warren's expert work as a cocktail barman, and the sight of dozens of small children beating the living crap out of a pinada kindly donated by Lisa Dowley.

Our new policy of pitching the CFZ at a family audience, rather than just as a bunch of confirmed cryptodudes and cryptochicks is certainly paying-off as we are rapidly becoming a truly community audience; albeit a community-based organisation which has room for shaven headed, gloriously drunk, Brummie ufologists (I mention no names ... snigger), singing So What by the Anti Nowhere League at the top of their voices in my garden during the wee small hours.

Friday was hectic, and top of the list odf people who deserve to be mentioned in

Mark Martin is wandering around the garden together with Matt Osbourne (a member of Bideford Town Council, who somehow has found himself co-opted as a roadie for the weekend), Dr Darren Naish is asleep on my kitchen floor, and in the drawing room Nick Redfern, and notoious circlemaker Matthew Williams can be found sleeping the sleep of the just (or the hungover, I'm not sure which). On my dining room floor is Dr Lars Thomas (fresh in from Copenhagen), and Ronan Coghlan (from Northern Ireland), and upstairs, in my bedroom, trying desparately to wake up, and probably wondering how she managed to become alpha-female of this madhouse, is my darling Corinna!

We have been working solidly for weeks on this event, and it all started to happen on thursday night when ovcer sixty people piled into the CFZ grounds for the annual Weird Weekend Cocktail Party! The day has been an exhausting one, with speakers arriving at intervals throughout the day, the aforementioned Matt Osbourne arriving with an enormous marquee, my future elder step-daughter, Shosh, and future step-son-in-law, Gavin, arriving in a large white van packed to the gunwhales (errr... do vans have gunwhales?) with impressive model cryptids and dinosaurs kindly lent to us by Anthony James of Nuneaton, and the whole afternoon was punctuated with Graham to-ing and fro-ing from Barnstaple station with yet another speaker, or yet another case f tequila.

The cocktail party was a resounding success, and a splendid time was had by all. Highlights included Nick Redfer's raucous singing, Larry Warren's expert work as a cocktail barman, and the sight of dozens of small children beating the living crap out of a pinada kindly donated by Lisa Dowley.

Our new policy of pitching the CFZ at a family audience, rather than just as a bunch of confirmed cryptodudes and cryptochicks is certainly paying-off as we are rapidly becoming a truly community audience; albeit a community-based organisation which has room for shaven headed, gloriously drunk, Brummie ufologists (I mention nio names ... snigger), singing So What by the Anti Nowhere League at the top of their voices in my garden during the wee small hours.

Friday was hectic, and top of the list odf people who deserve to be mentioned in dispatches are Lisa Dowley, who did her site-managerial thing witgh flair and aplomb, David Phillips, who despite being only 14 did a remarkable job on sound and lights, and his younger brother Ross whorushed about the room after every talk taking a roving radio mic to everyone who wanted to ask questions of the speakers.

The first days events were:

1. The introduction and welcome, by me and Rich, ably assisted by the children from the Woolsery Children's choir who sang some illitterate doggerel that Freeman had written so sweetly, that one's faith in human nature was restored.

2. Bob Morrell MBE from APRA books who gave a fascinating lecture on the beast gods of the ancient world. Everyone enjoyed this mightily, and this set the tone for the whole event.

3. Brian Butler, from the Village Hall management committee who explained how pasties are an increasingly rare species of Devon animal, that can be found deep in Devoin hedgerows (and which were on sale in the bar).

4. Dr Lars Thomas from Denmark gave a smashing talk on Scandinavian Lake Monsters, and there were so many questions at the end, from both the cryptozoological community, and the people of the village (note that I don't say `Village People` because I don't want to imply that there a bunch of openly gay folk rushing around dressed as red induians), that we seriously over-ran.

5. Matthew Williams talked about crop circles to an enthralled audience, and one local friend of mine was heard to mutter "I gotta get myself a laser pointer and a compass", as he wandered away from the talk, deep in thought.

We ended with the raffle, with generous prizes donated by Lisa Dowley (a silver Ninki-Nanka pendant that she brought back from the Gambia expedition,
anjd Simon Wolstencroft who kindly donated a year's subscription to Tropical World

The evening ended with a suitably psychedelic experience from Matthew Williams and his laser show. We all went home (except for Lary Warren who ended up sleeping in some chick's car), and had a few glasses of wine before staggering to bed and awaiting the morrow...

What a strange week it has been....

I have spent a large part of the past week, sitting at this computer waiting for news to arrive from the expedition in the Gambia. But not all of it by any means...

To start off with, we had a housefull! Nick and Dana Redfern (all the way from sunny Texas), and my old mucker Nigel Wright (from not-quite-so sunny Texas). The three of them arrived on the friday afternoon, and (to my chagrin, because I am doing my best to persuade Baldy the Bandicoot and his lovely missus to move to North Devon), the weather was chilly with intermittent showers. However, I still maintain that it wasn't as bad as all that, and Fig 1 will show how Nick and Dana overreacted to the weather. Poor Dana; usually it is nice to sit outside at night during July. It was lucky that one of my late mother's anoraky things was hanging up in the porch for her, but it doesn't excuse her hubby dressing up like a scouse drug dealer...

`ere Chuck, you wanna buy a hooky dvd player?

The saturday was the Village Fayre. Now, I have always wanted to use the headline `A fete worse than death` but I can't, cos it was great fun and a splendid time was had by all. Helen the CFZ Housekeeper, (and generally believed to be the brains behind the whole operation), and Lynsey (who filled the same role before going off to have a baby), were absolutely marvellous and manned the CFZ stall all afternoon ably assisted by Nige, me, and the Redferns although it has to be said that Helen's little girl Jessica tooke one look at Dana R, totally fell in love with her, and took her by the hand and paraded her around the fayre all afternoon...

Lynsey (L) and Helen (R) do their own inimitable thing
Nige (L) Helen (middle) and Baldy the Bandicoot (R) trying to flog tickets to the Weird Weekend..
Nige, back doing what he does best

A splendid time is guaranteed for all

Dana and Helen understand the value of product placement for the Owlman book

But that wasn't all. I had to disappear half way through saturday afternoon to collect Corinna from Barnstaple railway station. Cos monday was her 50th BirthdayParty. We showed her that the CFZ may not be very good at a lot of things but we can't half throw a memorable party. Lots of people came, lots of cake was consumed, lots of champagne and tequila was drunk, and several hangovers ensued.

But I think that the reason that Coinna and I are going to be blissfully happy when we get married next year, can be summonned up by the two main gifts that I gave my darling to celebrate her half-century on this planet: a broadsword, and an Argentinian horned frog (below). Any girl who can not just be happy with such things, but actually expressed a desire for them some months before has got to be the most perfect bride, some fat weirdo who runs the world's largest cryptozoological research organisation could possibly ask for.

Happy Birthday Darling!

Catfish Rising

At the CFZ it sometimes seems that we go for weeks and weeks with nothing more interesting to do than do admin work, mow the lawn, or argue with the Inland Revenue, and then along comes a day when everything happens at once. Today is one of those days. Not only have we had the saga of the Lincolnshire dolphin (see below), and the ongoing adventures of the boys and girls in The Gambia, the kids from the village who have dran the Ninki Nanka piccies but the plumber is here removing a downstairs toilet, and we have just taken receipt of a delivery of catfish. These were kindly donated to us by Helen Bond (our long-suffering housekeeper), and her family.

These catfish are of particular interest to cryptozoologists because they illustrate how new species are found all the time, and will be part of the South American exhibit in the museum when it is finally built later in the year. The saga of the "L Numbered Catfish" is an interesting one.

As my colleague David Marshall wrote in issue 9 of Tropical World magazine:

"In the late 1980's a small variety of loricarins new to the U.K. aquarium hobby began appearing in aquatic retail outlets. All of these fish were given exotic-sounding common names so a small white fish with black stripes was sold as the emperor or zebra peckoltia, a fish with wavy black and yellow markings the scribbled plec, and one with a dark black body and white spots was sold as the vampire plec.

From the scant information that could be obtained, mainly through friendly retailers, U.K. aquarists were led to believe that all of these fish had originated from the Rio Xingu area of Brazil and were vegetarian by nature. It would take sometime for this information to be corrected, and make aquarists realise that these particular loricarins’ natural range extended beyond the Xingu area and that their dietary requirements were actually very varied.

As more of these loricarins began to appear, the sales tickets on their aquaria (first seen in Yorkshire through L 018 - Baryancistrus niveatus 'golden nugget') began to show a sequence that began with the letter L"

There are now dozens of these fish, all still awaiting categorisation. We hope that our exhibit will illustrate what is one of the most interesting developments in contemporary aquaculture. However, back to the story:

This morning, chaos reigned at the CFZ, and so we got Graham to storyboard the events so we can share our activities with you all out there in Internet-land....

Helen arrives clutching a bucket containing four or five disgruntled catfish. Because tank space is at a premium here at the moment, she puts them into a sexagonal viv which we are reserving for treefrogs. Don't do this at home kids...

This may look unfortunate, but it is the best way of transferring these hardy little fish

The last fish in, we have two delightful (but unexpected) visitors.

Ross and Greg stare, fascinated, at the armoured catfish

They may look a little cramped, but they are happy and healthy

Mark North essembles a flat packed table for the tank to rest on

The kids help Mark and Helen get the equipment from the car. Ross demonstrates a firm grasp of the CFZ ethos..

It was only afterwards that Graham remarked that by happenstance both Mark and Helen were wearing almost identical clothes which made them look (or so he claimed) like a pair of deliverymen from B&Q

Helen enjoys a cigarette as she admires the aquarium she has gifted to the CFZ

Another mystery solved

Over the years I have discovered a fascinating fact about cryptozoology, or rather about cryptozoological researchers (and, I suppose, fortean researchers in general). Newspapers around the world are full of stories about local mysteries. Often this is the first (and the last) that anyone has ever heard of the story.

This week saw a case in point. The Louth Leader in Lincolnshire ran this story yesterday:

MYSTERY SURROUNDS SKULL DISCOVERY

A MYSTERIOUS skull has been found in woodland in Little Cawthorpe.

The skull - thought to be from a marine animal - was discovered by
Graham Houlden of Haugham Pastures lying on the ground in an isolated
area on Wednesday. Mr Houlden said he was not nervous when he came across it even though he originally thought it was a human skull.

Mr Houlden, a game keeper, carried it home to his cottage and after
showing it to his wife Nancy, the pair decided it could be from a dolphin. Eager to find out more about their find, Mrs Houlden took the skull along to Louth Museum where the opinion was also that it came from a dolphin.

Local naturalist, Phil Trevethick who viewed the skull said he was
fascinated by the find and said: "I think it belongs to a bottle nose
dolphin."

Mr Trevethick also pondered on how it got to the wood, adding that it didn't swim or fly there".

This story was intriguing, particularly becauseif left unsolved, it is precisely the sort of story that would end up - years down the line - in some book on British mysteries. To make sure that this did not become the genesis of some convoluted Lincolnshire seaserpent story in years to come I contacted the newspaper.

I am used to such email enquiries going unanswered, so I was very pleasntly surprised to receive the following email this morning:

Dear Jon

We have found out that the doplhin skull was found on a beach in Lincolnshire two years ago by a local man. He then buried it in the woodland because it was so smelly and fleshy. Please find attached a photo of the skull. Thanks for your interest.

Kindest regards
Beverley Peck.

So, the mystery has been solved, and more importantly I have managed to banjax the best selling book which would (on an alternate time-stream) have been written several decades since: The Lincolnshire Seaserpent - a nameless horror in blood.

Ha!

So, they have gone!!!!

It is always a weird feeling being the bloke left behind during an expedition. This is my fourth year running doing this (OK, during most of the 2004 expedition I was off on a foreign trip of my own, but that is another story). I find myself sitting at the computer in my study, The Pogues blaring out of the hi fi, and me chainsmoking like an
expectant father in a bad TV sitcom from about forty years ago.

Yesterday both Chris Clark and Chris Moiser telephoned. Chris was already at Gatwick, and they both expressed their hopes for the success of this expedition. The rest of the gang left Exeter on the night train in the wee small hours, and they left the UK at nine this morning.

Eight hours later and they should be in the dark continent by now, and I am pressing the `send and receive` button on Outlook Express ever few minutes hoping to receive the first email dispatch.

Watch this space (I'm just about to have another cigarette)

CFZ TV

It was a nice bloke called Elliot Saunders who really dragged us into the 21st Century. We have had a website since 1997, but in 2003, while Richard and the boys were on their first major expedition to Sumatra, Elly contacted us, and over the next few months taught us more about the changing face of the internet than we had ever dreamed of. He gave us our first proper forum, and helped put the website on the track to where it is today.

I have to admit that backalong (to use an old Devon Dialect phrase that my father was fond of), even when we first accessed the web, I was somewhat disappointed by much of it. It was too static, staid and dull. There was an over proliferation of information but much of it was flawed. But the worst problem was that it was often just plain dull. I soon discovered a whole world on interactive internet activity from IRC groups to mailing lists and chatrooms to online games, but I was still mildly disappointed with the way most websites worked. That was why Elly was so important. He started making the CFZ website interactive, which was something that thrilled the heart of a certain ex-hippy who still liked to quote Marshall McLuhan at innapropriate moments.

Over the years we progressed further in this directiuon, but a few months ago I read an article in http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/"> Word Magazine which mentioned a concept called `Web 2.0`, and the aforementioned ex-hippy thought "bugger me, I want a bit of that!"

Wikipedia which is itself a fine example of the term defines Web 2.0 as follows:

"The term Web 2.0 refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online. In contrast to the first generation, Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages. Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs (dating from 1998), Ajax (1998), and web syndication (1997). They often allow for mass publishing (web-based social software). The concept may include blogs and wikis."

Back in 2003 Elly helped us put video footage on our site for the first time. It was a great success, and I had grandiose dreams of having a website called CFZ TV which would broadcast CFZ video material around the clock. However, Elly explained, my idea would be prohibitvely expensive, purely becaue of the bandwidth issues involved if more than a handful of people tried to watch the site at the same time. I shrugged, accepted what he said and forgot about it. However, three years later technology has changed. Harold Wilson is once quoted as having said that "a week is a long time in politics". If this is so, then three years is an aeon in the world of technology. We now live in a world of podcasts, webcasts, and mobile phones that people can use to watch TV. A world where small children have mobile phones and their own websites, and a world where if one doesn't do one's best to keep up, one will soon be left behind.

A few weeks ago I had an email from a geezer called John Gledson. He wanted to collaborate with the CFZ with a project to utilise the new technology to our advantage. He and his colleagues (who are all frighteningly young), have an impressive background in the new technology. Between them they have worked on popular television programmes, space programmes and the latest all singing all dancing websites. They can also drink the way that I could at their age, and want to make CFZ TV a reality, three years after Elly and I reluctantly agreed that it couldn't be done.

It is very early days at the moment, and as I know to my cost, there are ever so many potential slips between an infinite number of cups and lips, but we hope that we shall be premiering CFZ TV at the Weird Weekend, with outside broadcasts, interviews and whatever else the team can put together between trips to the off licence.

The future's bright. The future is CFZ TV!

Open Gardens

This weekend we participated in the Open Gardens scheme which happens every year in Woolsery. We were expecting, say, fifteen or twenty people, but with half an hour left to go we have has 203!

We decided to open up our collections to the public for the first time, and Richard, Oll and I (but particularly Oll), spent all weekend showing the animals and the beginnings of our museumexhibits to visitors. We had a remarkable response, with only one adverse comment from someone who claimed to be picking up negative psychic emanations from our softshell turtle.


However, the weekend was a great success and we are all looking forwardto the next open day, which will by on the friday of the Weird Weekend...