I'm back, I'm back, as a matter of fact...

Apologies for having disappeared off the radar in the last few weeks, but things have been ridiculously busy.

The reissue programme of the CFZ Yearbooks is continuing apace. So far the 1996, 1999, 2004, 2007 and 2008 yearbooks are all available perfect bound, and the 2003 volume will be available in the next couple of days. I have to admit that I take a childish delight in typing ` Centre for Fortean Zoology` into amazon.co.uk and seeing all of them displayed there on the same page. I am very proud of the yearbooks, and am already soliciting articles for 2009 volume.

The Guyana expedition report has also been published, and I would like to apologise to everybody who has been waiting so long for it. However, I hope that you'll think it was worth the wait.

Last weekend we attended the second annual conference from BCIB (Big Cats in Britain) which was held at Tropiquaria - the small zoo in north Somerset which is co-owned by Chris Moiser, Jane Bassett, and my darling wife Corinna. I had the honour of been the compere for the weekend, and I believe that a great time was had by all. Sadly, Mark Fraser, the head honcho of BCIB was unable to attend due to a back injury. Poor chap must have been gutted.

Last weekend also saw the launch of the 2008 Big Cat Yearbook - the third in the series. For those of you not aware of these books, they contain a comprehensive list of every reported big cat sighting in the UK over a 12 month period, together with a series of articles written by various luminaries of the big cat research community.

My biggest news is that last night, after having worked on it, on and off for nearly four years, my new book - The Island of Paradise - is finally completed. It is, I believe, the most comprehensive book ever written on the subject of the mystery animals of Puerto Rico, and it tells the story of my two expeditions there in 1998 and 2004. Weighing in at over, 120,000 words, it is going to be a fairly massive tome. Because Nick Redfern accompanied me on the second expedition, and also because I have libelled him unmercifully throughout the volume, I am allowing him a right of reply, and, the manuscript is presently with him, so he can add his comments to the end of each chapter.

On a personal level, I am going through quite a strange time at the moment. At the end of last year, my consultant changed my medication, putting me on to a drug called tegretol. Backalong, as they say in North Devon, I was a nurse for the mentally handicapped, and as such familiar with psychoactive drugs. Stop that giggling in the cheap seats! You know perfectly well what I mean! Tegretol, or carbemazepine is a well-known medication for epilepsy, but in recent years it has been found to have two other uses; a palliative for trigeminal neuralgia, and as a mood stabiliser. It is this last property which has caused it to be prescribed for yours truly.

Well it seems to work. However, some of the side-effects are quite unpleasant. Whereas I have to admit that my rapid mood swings, and days of bleak depression, have been considerably curtailed, every day now when I wake-up, I feel sick, dizzy and disorientated. Sometimes these symptoms go off after an hour or two, and sometimes they last all day. This is a filthy bloody disease, and what makes it worse, is that I know that I may not end up dying of it, but I will certainly die with it. I just have to make a continual series of decisions; choosing between the living hell of the down times of Bipolar II, which are not with me all the time, and this new, debilitating ickiness which - more often than not - is with me 24/7.

I am sorry to be such a pain in the neck. Nobody wants to listen to (or read) a load of whingeing from some stupid bloody invalid. The way I see it, in life, you play the cards that you are dealt, and if you are me, you do your best to have a spare, and marked deck up your sleeve. However, it does help sometimes to have a good old moan when the cards are stacked against you.

I almost forgot...................

........OK I did forget

The latest one, and goodness me I have a hangover. Oll and I were still editing this magnum opus at 5.30 this morning. We had actually finished at about 1.00 but somehow the bloody file became corrupted and we had to start editing again from scratch.

Four bottles of vino later we finished, but we both feel a little frail today...

Well, it's that time of year again

I really don't believe that we are coming up to our ninth annual Weird Weekend. It seems only yesterday that we were promoting (in an incredibly half arsed way) the first event. However, we know what we are doing a heck of a lot more now than we did back then, and the 2008 event looks like it is going to be a stonker.

This year's speakers include:

PAUL VELLA: Bigfoot for kids

RONAN COGHLAN: Theology of extraterrestraials

GEOFF WARD: Spirals in nature

JONATHAN DOWNES: TBC

RICHARD FREEMAN et al: Guyana 2007 Expedition report and results

DR KARL SHUKER TBC

JONATHAN MCGOWAN TBC

LEE WALKER: New Ferry after Dark

MIKE HALLOWELL: Invisikids

GAIL NINA ANDERSON: TBC

CHRIS MOISER: Tropiquaria Zoo - tales from a zookeeper

DARREN W RITSON & MIKE HALLOWELL: Tyneside Poltergeist case TBC

MICHAEL WOODLEY: classifying sea serpents

Dr MIKE DASH: Lake Monsters title TBC

TIM MATTHEWS: TBC

NICK REDFERN: Planet of the Ape-Men

PAUL ROSE: A year of monsters

OLL LEWIS: tbc

and more to be confirmed soon.

To give you a taster, here are some videos from last year's event, edited by my beloved nephew David. I really don't know what I would do without him...

errrrrrrrrm

I really did intend to write more regularly this year, but I have been ill again! I don't know whether this bloody disease is getting worse, or whether I was just completely unprepared for this latest bout. My consultant changed my medication just before Christmas to Carbemazapine, which - from my days as a nurse - I recognise as an anti-epileptic. However, (and this I did not know) it can also be used as a mood stabiliser, and I have to say that (at the moiment at least) it is working fantastically.

I had the most untroubled five weeks that I have had in years, and I have felt saner than I have for a long time. But boy, when the disease hits, it bloody hits! I was practically catatonic on friday and saturday, and yesterday all I managed to do was to stagger to the computer and lose magnificently at Age of Empires until I went back to bed.

I would like to thank young David (with a fond Uncle-esque manner) for having edited the first batch of films from last year's Weird Weekend. They are being posted on the CFZtv site now, and will be followed by the site for the 2008 event, together with an online thingy to buy tickerts in the next day or so.

I am involved with the annual Big Cats in Britain [BCIB] conference on March 7-9 which is being held at Tropiquaria which, as regular readers will know, is a small zoo owned by our old friends Chris Moiser and Jane Bassett, together with my lovely wife Corinna. I urge you all to come, because not only is it an important event, but will be lots of fun as well, and a chance to see behind the scenes of a lovely little zoo.

Issue 3 of Exoric Pets is now available..



The final contents are:

3. EDITORIAL
6. THE NEWS: Year of the Frog (guest editorial)
10. ZOO NEWS
11. Ryedale A.S Christmas Tree project
12. CRYPTO NEWS
13. THE BUGNATION COLUMN
14. CLUB NEWS: British Cichlid Association; Phasmid Study Group
17. RIO CAUCA CAECILIANS: Lure of the Black Worm by Jon Downes
20. TALES FROM THE BUSH: BBC bloke in Guyana by Stephen Backshall
23. DECIDUOUS DARLINGS: Dead leaf mantids by Graham Smith
26. CLIMBING PERCH: Fish out of water by David Marshall
30. AMAZING ANURANS: Horned frogs by Corinna Downes
33. VELVET UNDERGROUND: Peripatus by Matt Baillie
36. A CHANCE IN A LIFETIME: Behind the scenes at Durrell Wildlife by Ben Tapeley
40. TREVOR’S TALES
41. EMONIC LUCY
42. A SILK PURSE: Trapdoor Spiders by Hugh Jeal
45. RAMPANT RODENTS: Pouched rats by Oll Lewis
48. PECULIAR PHASMIDS: Leaf insects by Janice Holt
50. THE EYES HAVE IT: Ocellated skinks by Graham Smith
52. KILLER IN THE HOME: Assassin Bugs by the Bug Doctor
55. HELP: I need somebody
57. BOOKSHELF

CONTRIBUTORS Jon Downes, Graham Smith, Graham Inglis, Corinna Downes, Janice Holt, Richard Freeman, David Marshall, Shaz Hagan, Dr. Darren Naish, Stephen Backshall, Oll Lewis, David Phillips, Matt Baillie, Lucy Henson, Trevor Smith, The Bug Doctor, Hugh Jeal, Ben Tapeley

Our first breeding success of the year...

The west African armoured millipedes have bred, which is very encouraging. We were at the AES show back in September, when Graham and Janice Smith (who were sharing a stall with us) let us have a couple of pairs of these glorious creatures that were wild caught and had just come in from The Congo.

They were shagging themselves senseless, and continued to do so throughout the winter until the adults began to die off (we only have one, rather battered looking old chap left.





But look at this (using the cherry tomato as a size-comparison). There are at least a dozen of them and maybe more, but they won't reach adulthood for another 8-10 months or maybe more..

The first CFZ breeding success of 2008 (well, the second if you count Arabella's egg yesterday)


Aren't we doing well?

She's a big girl now

The universe is a peculiar place - well, mine is anyhow. I am going through one of my bipolar blips at the moment, and I feel completely useless and as mad as a bagfull of cheese. However, life has to go on, and I still do my best to get out of bed and actually achieve something, even if that something is merely a pointless story about chickens,

Which it is today.

Those who know me will already be aware that I have somewhat of a fascination with chickens, and have had for many years. For my birthday last year dear David - my quasi-nephew - bought me a pair of chickens from his friend Chris. They were duly installed into a magnificent coopy thing wot we bought from eBay, and which Oliver - in hus usual fashion - immediately named 'Cluckberry Mansions'. Someone (I think it was Graham, but I cannot be sure) even fashioned a tiny TV antenna and put it on top of this veritable poultry palace.

I am always very find of Graham when he gets whimsical. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does it is a thing of wonder to behold. Remind me one day to tell you more bits of InglisWhimsy.

But I digress.

The two chickens were named `Arabella Cluckburton` and something else I gorget, because within a few weeks it became slowly obvious that Arabella and the other one were not sisters under the skin after all, but that the divine Ms Cluckburton was shacked up (cooped up?) with The Hon. Percy Feathergirdle (as Corinna christened him).

But that was mid October, and Arabella showed no signs of developing her secondary sexual characteristics. We even wondered whether she too was a he, and would turn out to be Lord Percy's gimp, or something equally tasteful.

But today we have proof of her femininity. My little girl has grown up! Arabella laid her first egg!

The proud parents

Arabella

Her first egg