IS IT JUST ME, OR.....

A new monkey species from The Congo may have a relative in Holsworthy...

NEW ADDITION TO BLOGGO NETWORK

http://walkiesdevon.blogspot.co.uk/

As you may have noticed, things are changing here at the bloggo, and - we think - changing for the better. We want to more accurately reflect the true community nature of the CFZ, and the work that CFZ folk do within cryptozoology, natural history, forteana, and animal welfare/rescue.

Our old friends Matthew and Emma Osborne, who will be familiar faces to anyone who came to this year's Weird Weekend, run a dog-walking/pet-sitting business called Walkies. They do a lot of work with animal rescue/re-homing/rehabilitation and have recently set up a new blog about their activities.

I hope that you give them your support....

MATT AND EMMA OSBORNE: Our Zazzle Shop

We have a Zazzle shop which we use to promote our merchandise for the CFZ which raises funds and supports us in the work we do.

For those looking for unique and unusual items of cfz memorabilia please visit the link below and take a look around http://www.zazzle.co.uk/cfzjon.

So far people who have bought merchandise through the site have helped us to raise in total since its launch in January 2010 £40.97 this is good but we can do so much better!

Do not forget that many of these items will not be available at the Weird Weekend event so why not purchase them now to wear at the event itself and we will see you there!

WW SPONSORS: Aren't Matthew and Emma doing well?

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2012/02/sponsors-of-2012-weird-weekend.html

The list of sponsors who are donating things to the Weird Weekend raffle grows daily. Matthew and Emma are heroic in their effots. Well done, guys!

WEIRD WEEKEND 2012 NEWS

So the Weird Weekend machine is trundling into action. Matthew and Emma Osborne came over on Saturday afternoon and bullied me into sorting out the Weird Weekend website, http://www.weirdweekend.org/ which I have to admit I had neglected for a couple of years.

Tickets are now on sale (see advert at the top of the page), and we are well chuffed to announce a new addition to the line-up: our old mate Neil Arnold who will be talking about the mystery animals of Kent and London.

We will also be seeing the world premiere of a film about The Hexham Heads - more details as we get them.

Many thanks to Matthew and Emma for their sterling work in getting sponsors for this year's event. However, there is always room for more. Please check out the sponsorship page HERE.

CFZ PEOPLE: Ragyle

A sad phone call last night from Emma Osborne. Matthew's dog Ragyle, who is well known to attendees of the Weird Weekend cocktail parties since 2006, developed epilepsy some time ago and it has been getting worse. Sadly Ragyle was put to sleep yesterday, and we all join with Matt in mourning his loss....

MATT AND EMMA RESCUE A PUPPY

The Osbornes turned up last night with a ten-week-old puppy they are fostering. As regular readers know, they do dog-walking and pet-sitting (no, that doesn't mean that they sit on pets). This little fellow was deposited with them the other day and the owners simply didn't return.


Watch this space....

MATT OSBORNE: Geography Fail

Irish beef from Cork: 100% British. Asda show their USA parent's opinion on Eire.

MATT OSBORNE DISCOVERS THAT PRUDENCE IS A VERY SOPPY DOG

There really is not much that one can add to this.

GOOD FOR NIGE

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/812917-ufo-sceptic-has-close-encounter-on-bowling-green

I had a telephone yesterday evening from Matty Osborne, who has been somewhat absent from these pages of late (quite understandably so, considering the soap opera his life has been over the past few months). Had I heard about the Exmouth UFO, he asked me, knowing that together with my old mucker Nigel Wright I once wrote a book (The Rising of the Moon) on the subject.

I hadn't, and told him so, and went back to my own somewhat peculiar existence. I then forgot all about it, until this morning when he emailed me with the above link. And guess who was cited in the Exmouth UFO story? None other than Nigel, my erstwhile co-author and occasional contributor to these hallowed pages. Small world innit?

BYE BYE JACK

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to (Jack Mischief Biddle 10 December 1996 - 15 January 2010).

He came to stay with Biggles last summer, bringing Emma and her then boyfriend (now husband), the lanky Methodist git who has been part of the CFZ since the year dot (2006 actually). He made friends with Biggles and singularly failed to teach him any of his tricks.

Now that Biggles is learning to roll over, he was looking forward to showing Jack his prowess, but sadly will now have to wait until they eventually meet up in the great kennels in the sky.

Cheers, pal...

Sing a happy song
'Cause Spring does not last long
A flower blooms and then it's gone
Summer follows fast
Make hay while it lasts
Don't ever dwell upon the past
For one day you are here, and the next you are gone
Every horse has its year and every dog its day, my son
So the only thing to feel sad about is
All the dogs and the horses you'll have to outlive
They'll be with you when you say good-bye
Then the Fall from grace
The lines upon your face
Grow deeper almost every day
Days and weeks roll by
And Winter nights draw nigh
And everything that lives must die
But as the curtains close and the last prayers are said
All my dogs and my horses appear round my bed
They have come to say one last goodbye
Goodbye...

MORE FROM MATT AND EMMA'S WEDDING

CFZ PEOPLE: Emma and Matthew

I had a breathless phone call from Emma Biddle this afternoon. She wanted to know whether she and Matthew could come and see me.

My hackles rose. I distrust surprise visits, because they usually mean something nasty has happened, and following a string of recent events some of which I have put upon the blog and some which I haven't I feared the worst.

Did I mention that I am paranoid?

They arrived ten minutes early, and I limped downstairs fearing the worst. And I got it.

My worst fears were realised. The poor girl has had some sort of brainstorm or mental aberration, and has agreed to marry Matthew. The fact that they both call me Uncle Jon just makes me feel even older and more decrepid and the knowledge that I will be a surrogate Great Uncle to their offspring when they finally arrive just makes me feel even older still.

Seriously, however, congratulations my dears. I am very fond of you separately and together you are a lovely couple. You have a surrogate Uncle's blessing...

PARTIAL ALBINO BLACKBIRD

These photographs were taken in Northam, North Devon by Matt Osborne on his camera phone..

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the newspaper...

Thanks to our friend and colleague Geoff Ward at the Western Daily Press for being kind enough to commission this article....

CONFESSIONS OF AN ALL-ROUND GOOD EGG

Matty looking mean, moody and magnificent.

Unbelievably girls..he's still single!


Poor Matthew Osborne. He works harder than most people at CFZ business, and basically the poor chap ends up being lampooned mercilessly by me, both in writing, verbally, and in our monthly webTV show `On the Track`. However, he was an integral part of the caper last week that saw the intrepid boys of the CFZ go and pinch a decomposing seal skull, and when he saw that both Graham and Oll had written their bit about it, he demanded his say....

Matt (right) and Graham (left) looking furtive

As the mountain of Paperwork once again threatened to engulf our hero, the Hotline rang, “it is J here, mission for you, Body washed up on the beach, we need to deal with this in a suitable manor”, I politely reminded J that he no long had a manor and it would be easier to do it on the beach where it was.

J sighed and asked if I was free, I said I would be free if he sent the Limo to collect me. With the Call over I contacted Home to say I would be late for supper, grabbed Wellies, climbing harness and 2 types of saw, 2 hats, a fleece and a second pair of trousers. and tipped off S there was a mission afoot, and left for the rendezvous.

With in minutes the Mission Wagon Arrived, this was some shock as the last I had heard its engine was on a sunk ship that had been trying to get to Dover.

With the Team all prepared, HawkMan Driving, Super Welsh Boy Filming and me navigating we set off, and very quickly found a chip shop at which to stop, having filled up with chips we set off to the Secret Location, On arrival at Croyde we headed on to the beach, it was deserted apart from the people who were there!

HM and I took the shore line and SWB took pictures of us looking busy, and pointing at random nonexistent things as if we were to be in the next Next Directory.

I headed up to talk to the Group of Young Ladies at the top of the beach, having worked out they did not want to be chatted up I established they had not seen a body lying around, and left them to their Icicle smashing.

I met with HM and head back across the beach to SWB where upon the MatPhone rang
“M this is J, Body is known to be on the rock at Down End”

With which we 3 returned to the car and headed to the other end of the beach, on arriving there I was over heard by a person who knows me as the mild mannered First Aid Trainer Matthew and not as the Super hero Super MattMan, Mr L, who is a great bloke and does the best work for North Devon Tourism you will ever imagine.

HM headed to the sea line which was still going out and would be until 2100 SWB headed north and I headed South, on finding the body I summoned assistance and everyone did what they could do best, HM took pictures, SWB Videoed everything, and I rang my Friend Mr K so as to get my name in the papers again.

With miles of film and plenty of pictures we gained the required samples and headed back to the Wagon.

Wrapping the Sections of suppurating Piniped in Black polyethene we jumped in the Mission Wagon and headed back to Shamwickshire so as to collect the MatMobile.

All we could hope now was that HM and SWB could get the evidence to J and DragonHunter before the smell over came them…

All was well until, the Sun announced the Head STOLEN, I rang J and told him. He advised me to do just 3 things:

1 phone my Lawyer,

2 pack all the burn I could find

and

3 hope I was less pretty than Super Welsh Boy.

I was still doing 3 having failed to do 1 and 2 when the Hotline rang.

“ M, J here. The Police say keep it, you are not going to prison for accessory to decapitating a rotting mammal that no one wants”

WHAT A WAY TO START 2009

For immediate release
9th January 2009

Mystery skull on North Devon beach


Well it's a beast. It was found fairly near Exmoor. But is it the beast of Exmoor? Of course not. It has flippers for one thing.

Two nights ago a carcass was washed up on Croyde Beach in North Devon. The Centre for Fortean Zoology, [CFZ], were informed, and they sent a three-man team of investigators - Graham Inglis (52), deputy director, Oll Lewis (28), ecologist, and Matthew Osborne (28), one time Bideford town councillor, trainee Methodist lay preacher, and all round good egg - to find out what the fuss was about. The CFZ are the world's largest mystery animal research organisation, and they happen to be based less than 30 miles from where the mysterious carcass was washed up.

Various newspapers and media pundits have claimed that what was washed up was the cadaver of the beast of Exmoor - the notorious big black cat which for decades has been selling newspapers and killing sheep with equal abandon. From the photographs we had been e-mailed, it was pretty obvious that this was nonsense, that the CFZ would not be doing their job properly if they just took a cursory look at the photograph on their computers, before dismissing the matter from their minds.

The body was about 5 ft long, and - according to the team - reeked to high heaven. It was obviously a member of the seal family, and is almost certainly the remains of an unfortunate grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), which is a fairly common resident of the wilder parts of the Bristol Channel. However, there is an outside possibility that it could be something more exciting. One of the experts who first viewed of the photographs suggested that it looked like the skull of a sealion. There are seven species in the world, but with the exception of one species found on the coast of Argentina, all sealions are restricted to the Pacific Ocean. However, in the 1980s a Steller's sealion turned up on the Brisons - two tiny islets, a mile out to sea from the west coast of Cornwall. No one knew how it got there, and - as far as we know - it may still be there today.

Experts will be examining the skull and other samples over the next few days, and will hopefully have a conclusive answer. So, although it certainly isn't anything to do with the beast of Exmoor, it might just be only the second sealion ever to grace these shores.

Watch this space.

NOTES TO EDITORS


* The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is the world’s largest mystery animal research organisation. It was founded in 1992 by British author Jonathan Downes (4 and is a non-profit making (not for profit) organisation registered with H.M. Stamp Office.
* Life-president of the CFZ is Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his groundbreaking youth work organising the ‘Operation Drake’ and ‘Operation Raleigh’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.
* CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is the author and/or editor of over 20 books. Island of Paradise, his first hand account of two expeditions to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in search of the grotesque vampiric chupacabra, will be published in the next few weeks.
* The CFZ have carried out expeditions across the world including Russia, Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana, Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and Loch Morar.
* CFZ Press are the world’s largest publishers of books on mystery animals. They also publish Animals & Men, the world’s only cryptozoology magazine, and Exotic Pets, Britain’s only dedicated magazine on the subject.
* The CFZ produce their own full-length documentaries through their media division called CFZtv www.cfztv.org. One of their films `Lair of the Red Worm` which was released in early 2007 and documents their 2005 Mongolia expedition has now been seen by nearly 50,000 people.
* The CFZ is based in Jon Downes’ old family home in rural North Devon which he shares with his wife Corinna (52). It is also home to various members of the CFZ’s permanent directorate and a collection of exotic animals.
* Jonathan Downes presents a monthly web TV show called On the Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.com/) which covers cryptozoology and work of the CFZ.
* The CFZ are opening a Visitor Centre and Museum in Woolsery, North Devon.
* Following their successful partnership with Capcom www.capcom.com on the 2007 Guyana expedition, the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.