POOR LITTLE SODS

The saga of the CFZ ramerizi trundles on. As I write there are three left, and although they still look OK, I would not be at all surprised to find one or more dead in the bottom of the tank tomorrow morning when I come down to the office. We have been doing our research (which we should have done earlier), and it seems that we managed to screw up the pH which on this occasion was pretty much our fault.

However, the entire species in aquaculture seems to be pretty much sinned against, which is something that I never realised. Mary Bailey (the doyenne of the British Cichlid scene) wrote to me yesterday explaining the unpleasant facts of ramerizi life:

"Most Rams are mass produced with no quality control, shipped to the UK in little plastic envelopes with virtually no water, and then decanted into asuccession of different water types in the importer-wholesaler-retailerchain. By the time the aquarist buys them they are ready to pop their poorlittle clogs, and it's a miracle they last that long. A lot don't. I can't keep these mass-produced rams alive myself. They're usually all males anyway, as they keep the females for broodstock, or ship different sexes to different countries to prevent aquarists breeding them and spoiling the market".

I don't know about you guys, but I think that this is absolutely bloody shameful. As I get older I get more to the way of thinking that although they have the answers wrong the animal rights brigade really do have a point.

If we want to be able to continue to have exotic pets and zoos, then we - as a community - are damn well going to have to start policing ourselves, and moreover, we are going to have to start doing it properly before it is too late.

MIKE HALLOWELL'S GEORDIE MONSTERS: Stop yer bloody wailing

In the early 19th century, a sperm whale was beached at Cresswell, Northumberland. What follows is an imaginative reconstruction of how locals reacted, and how King George IV capitalised on the situation.
Its true. Every word of it. Well, some.

1822 was a funny old year in Geordieland. Mind you, truth to tell, every year in Geordieland is funny as you can't get a Geordie passport unless you're an incurable eccentric. Being a nation of eccentrics, then, it’s a pretty safe bet that any year between 1,083BC (when our sovereignty was formed) and the present is going to be a bloody peculiar one.


Anyway, I digress. Back to 1822. On the morning of Thursday August 8, a Large Thing shuggied it's way up onto the coast at Cresswell in Northumberland.


"Look!" said a local Calamian deer* farmer. "There's a Large Thing!"
And so it was.
Anyhoo, the farmer's wife went and got a tape measure from B&Q, came back and measured it.
"Bloody hell!" she exclaimed, "Its sixty-eight feet from the tip of the tail bit to the end of the head bit!"
And so it was.
Now after much deliberation and argument, it was decided that the Large Thing was actually a "spermaceti whale".
"That's funny", said the farmer's wife's husband, "Them Large Things are only supposed to live in the South Seas, which are so called because they are seas and in the south. What, pray, is it doing here in Cresswell?"
"Maybe we moved during the night", said the farmer's wife.
"No", replied her spouse. "I can still see the top of the tall, pointy stone thing over there".
"You mean the church steeple?"
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Anyway, we haven't moved. The Large Thing, which I will henceforth call a spermaceti whale, dearest, must have got lost".
"That's a shame. How's it going to get home, then?"
Their discourse was interrupted by another farmer who tilled the land adjacent to that owned by the first one. His farm, for the record, was called The Next One Along.
And so it was.
"Here, what are we going to do about this Large Thing, then?"
"You mean the spermaceti whale over there?"
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Can you see the head bit? Its on my land, that bit is".
"But the bit at the other end, the tail bit, is on my land".
"Exackerly. So who does it belong to, then?"
"Me".
"But I've got the head bit, which is where the important things are, so it must be mine".
"No; the tail bit is where the bum is, and a spermaceti whale can't live long without a bum. Its mine".
Anyway, they couldn't agree, and both proceeded to poke a hole in the Large Thing and drain the oil out of it. One hole was at one end, and the other hole was at the other end away from the first one. According to official records, both farmers drew out a grand total of 9 tons and 158 gallons of oil from the Large Thing. The only thing was, being greedy bastards, they couldn't agree who it belonged to and they weren't prepared to half it.
Now it turned out that the King, known as George IV, on account of his being the fourth one called George, got to hear about it.
"What's this about a Large Thing at Cresswell up in Northumberland?" he asked his valet.
"It’s a spermaceti whale, Your Majesty".
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Anyway, what's the crack about it?"
"Its up on the beach, not far from the tall pointy stone thing. Half of it is on the farm called The First One, and the other half is on the farm called The Next One Along, on account of it being the next one along".
"What, its in two halves?"
"No, it's in one half, but they're arguing about who owns it."
"Well that's easy sorted. It belongs to me, because I'm the King".
"And what about the oil, Your Highness?"
"What oil?"
"They got loads of oil out of it. It's all in buckets. And tankards. And chamber pots".
"How are we off for oil here, then? You know, for the lamps and that."
"Well it never comes in wrong, Your Worshipful Angelicness".
"Right then. Get the lads up to Cresswell with one of those Royal Decree thingies and a load of buckets and tell them I want the oil. And I want all of it. If they try and scam so much as a thimbleful I'll double their taxes. In any event, if they get really bolshy I might just revive that old prima nocte thing, where the King can bonk a woman on the first night of her marriage before her hubby. Edward did that, you know, up in Scotland ages ago".
"And how did that go down, Sire?"
"Like an effing lead balloon, mate. Plus, he got the pox."
And so it came to pass that the oil sucked out of the Large Thing at Cresswell was given to King George, who had a Very Small Thing in his codpiece.
But that's another story.
The moral of the tale is that if you end up arguing with the bloke next door about spermaceti whales, don't.

________________________

* There were no Calamian deer in England in 1822. I just invented this to sex it up a bit.

IF I USE THE WORDS "PLASTIC TOY GOBLIN" OR "PHOTOSHOP" WILL I HAVE A FATWA OUT AGAINST ME?

From the Gulf Times:

A mysterious figure resembling a human being was sighted on the Doha Corniche’s parking lot, according to a report published in a local Arabic daily.The report is based on the statement of an Arab expatriate lady who said she had seen the strange figure near the Oryx statue while walking in the area. Quoting the woman, the daily said she took a picture of it in spite of being terribly frightened.“She was very soon surrounded by a large number of people who also attested to the fact of what she had seen . But it suddenly disappeared out of their sight when they tried to go near it,” the report added.

http://arabist.net/archives/2009/04/23/qatar-has-its-own-gollum/

What nonsense.

TONY LUCAS DOES IT AGAIN

How does the bloody man do it? It is becoming ever more obvious that various members of the CFZ bloggo team have what Charlie Fort would have described as "wild talents". Richard Muirhead and Nigel Wright (for example) no sooner have to walk into a public library before they unearth a hitherto unsuspected treasure trove of data.

Max Blake is equally lucky with tropical fish shops, and it seems that our resident New Zealander Tony Lucas has a similar Lovejoyesque power over auction houses.

Cop a load of this.

He wrote to me saying that this was something in which we might be interested, and the answer is that of course we are (even though we still have some financial problems, even though the worst have now been alleviated).

The description is as follows:

This auction is for some RARE Moa Fragments and other items found Ex Wairau Boulder 28 April 1956 By Jim Eyles who was one of New Zealands best Archeologists at the time.

There are 29 pieces all up. There is a card inside the box which reads Odd Moa Hunt Fragments Etc Ex Wairau Bar (Jim Eyles) Hawkeye 28 April 1956 29 pcs. Jim Eyles was a well known Moa Hunter. Later in life he was the Director of The Nelson Provincial Museum. Please feel free to ask me any questions you have regarding this item and i will answer them as best as I can.

To describe Jim Eyles as a "well known moa hunter" is an understatement. To quote wikipedia:

James Roy (Jim) Eyles OBE (1926–2004) was a New Zealand archaeologist.
Born in 1926, Jim spent his early years living with his family at the Wairau Bar near Blenheim where, in 1939 as a schoolboy, he discovered early human skeletons and associated artefacts including necklaces, stone tools and moa egg. Jim discovered several more burials on the bar, and assisted with the exacavtions carried out by Roger Duff from the Canterbury Museum. The site is regarded as one of the oldest and most important archaeological sites in New Zealand.

So this item is actually quite an important piece of cryptozoological history. We have no money, but of course we are bidding on it. If anyone fancies donating a few quid towards the purchase price we would be very grateful..

THIS IS ENGLAND

I was quite surprised by the reaction that our St George postsings got yesterday. Because so many people these days seem to equate patriotism with right wing xenophobia, and that is merely ridiculous. The fact that we were questioning the historical reasoning behind St George as Patron Saint of England (Wayhay for Edward the Confessor guys!) was seen as us making a stand against racism.

Well, we ain't racist, at least I'm not, and as far as I am aware none of the other members of the CFZ Permanent Directorate are, but most of us are pretty damn patriotic. I always try to Mark St George's day, because it is our national day rather than because of any loyalty to a Syrian bacon-thief (if you are to believe young Freeman's version of events), and I was actually quite shocked at how vehemently some of you greeted any suggestion of English nationalism. So, following a suggestion by reader Robert Schneck, here is a song for you all.

GUEST BLOGGER EMMA BIDDLE: Huffing and Puffing

It is always a great pleasure to introduce a new guest blogger to the CFZ Bloggo. When the guest blogger is a charming young lady it is an even greater pleasure (I hope that doesn't make me sound like some middle-aged sleazebag, because that truly is not my intention). So let me waste no time in introducing you to Emma Biddle, a fishkeeping fortean who has been dating Matty O for several months now...

My blog is about one of my favourites: Puffer fish. I first got into puffer fish about 3 years ago when I purchased my first from a pet shop who knew nothing about him, he was a Tetraodon Suvattii, I bought him home and put him in my tank with my tropical fish. Ummm.... big mistake, as anyone who has ever kept them will know. He killed my entire tankful in one sitting and looking quite pleased with himself. So I thought I would write a little about these remarkable and quirky fish.

Tetraodontidae – Four Toothed: Puffer fish are the second most poisonous vertebrate in the world the first being a golden poison frog.

Puffer Fish Compatibility: One of the most frustrating things about puffer fish is that they usually cannot be kept with other puffer fish or anything smaller than they are as the other fish tend to get eaten !

Jumping Puffer Fish: You will definitely want to cover the surface of your aquarium if you have a puffer fish if they get too stressed in the tank not only can they puff up like a balloon by sucking in air, they can also jump out of the tank in an effort to get away, my dog faced puffer did this on more than one occasion and luckily enough we were in the room at the time and able to quickly put him back, from then on I decided it was best to put a cover over the top to prevent him doing so again!

Puffer Fish Dentistry: Puffer fish have beak like teeth that are fused together and can become problematic if they grow too long. In the wild, puffer fish eat all kinds of things that act to file down their teeth. Puffer fish owners are advised to give their puffer fish things to gnaw on to grind down their teeth, hard shelled cockle is often recommended. If not addressed, the puffer fish's teeth can grow so long that it is unable to eat its food. Many puffer fish keepers actually file down their puffer fish's teeth if they get too long for hard shelled food to correct.

Puffer Fish Are Poisonous!!!!!:A puffer fish's body contains a type of poison called Tetrodotoxin, this is also found in other species such as the blue –ringed octopus and cone snails. Tetrodotoxin is produced within the puffers by bacteria it gets from its diet, the puffer is immune to this poison due to a mutation in the protein sequence of the sodium ion channel on the cell membranes. It can be found in all the organs but mainly the liver, ovaries and skin.

Tetrodotoxin is an exceptionally lethal poison, which is said to be 100 times deadlier than potassium cyanide. It is a sodium channel blocker which paralyzes the muscles whilst the victim is fully conscious and slowly asphyxiates them, at present there is no antidote and is normally treated by trying to support the victims respiratory and circulatory system until the poison wears off.

Fugu is the Japanese word for puffer fish, and also the name of the dish created with its meat normally from the genus Didon i.e porpcupinefish, and is lethal if prepared wrongly hence fugu has now become one of the most notorious dishes in Japanese cuisine

A new drug is being developed called Tectin that is derived from Tetrodotoxin, it is a potent pain reliever, which if administered in tiny doses can help relieve the pain experienced from certain cancer sufferers. It is also being researched to see if it can help opiate suffers through withdrawl

WHO NOSE?

Have you noticed the latest rather peculiar trend in global fortean zoology?

It has always been something that has intrigued forteans, that weird stuff seems to form odd patterns of reality. I have been following these trends for years, but with the CFZ publications coming out quarterly at best it has not been as easy to document them as it is now we are doing what is basically a daily cryptomagazine it is easier to notice and to document these trends.

What they mean, if indeed they mean anything, I have no idea, and it is up to worthier toilers in the fortean vinyard than my humble self to try and extrapolate something of use from all this data.

However, the latest teratological trend seems to be multiple noses. In the past few weeks we have had bunny rabbits, various dogs and now an Israeli calf all with an extra schnozzle.

There is a cosmic intelligence behind the omniverse, and it is a cosmic intelligence with a particularly childish sense of humour, because this new trenche of oddities is obviously based on the crappy old music-hall joke about someone's dog having no nose. (How does it smell? Horrible!)

Karl Shuker was talking about dog deities the other week. I think we have come up with evidence that proves that his descrip[tions of Ancient Egyptian tenets of belief are spot on. In fact the Ancient Eqyptians were spot on. The Great Architect of the multiverse is obviously Basil Brush!



Boom Boom!!