A FEATHER BRAINED SCHEME

Tony Lucas, who is rapidly becoming my antipodean right-hand man wrote to us this morning. He found the following item on an auction site in New Zealand:

"I've had this guy get in touch with me and is selling a Moa feather.

The guy rang and spoke with me tonight, the feather, that was in a first edition Maori bible that had been locked in a metal trunk since 1900, has apparently been authenticated by Te Papa Museum in Wellington as the genuine article. I was wondering if the CFZ museum would be interested in purchasing this item"

Well, despite the fact that we are skinter than we have been in a long time, with enormous printer, garage and council tax bills on our plate, I am interested, yes.

But then came a second e-mail:

"Just done some research and Dont think this is a Moa feather, if you look at the bottom of the second pic of the feather you can see the split where asecond spine came off, Yes there were two feathers attached,The only bird to have such feathers after extensive research is - You guessed it an EMU.Sorry to get your hopes up Its not the genuine article by the look of it soforget it.Feel a bit of a dumb ass now. Still who knows one day perhaps the real thing."

Tony, I will not have ANYONE badmouth members of my team. Not even the members themselves. You have done a remarkable piece of detective work, and deserve to be congratulated, so be warned that I will be really cross with you if you EVER describe yourself as a `dumb ass` again.....