Scott Walker said it best ...

"the good news you cannot refuse,
the bad news, is there is no news ..."
Scott Walker Tilt 1995

This is the fifth time in as many years that I have spent at home in Britain while Richard Freeman and Chris Clark lead a major foreign cryptozoological expedition. I do not mind doing it, because I am only too aware that each expedition involves physical rigours with which my poor battered middle-aged body is no longer able to deal. As many of the readers of this blog know, I am seriously disabled, and although I have been on foreign expeditions in the past, and no doubt shall do so again, sixteen-hour treks into the jungle are sadly a thing of the past for me. However, in my opinion, my job; staying at home and collating the information that we receive is just as important as being on the front line. No army marches without its logistical support from GCHQ, and the CFZ expeditionary force is no exception.

The way I see it, is that the CFZ in funded by public subscription, and therefore, you - the public – deserve to be kept up to date with the progress of each of our expeditions. We have every intention of posting the news as and when it happens. However, sadly, the world’s an imperfect place, and sometimes technology does not work as well as we would have hoped.

I am particularly unwell at the moment, and have been in bed most of the day. Indeed, it is only through the kind offices of my wife Corinna, who is sitting typing this as I dictate it, that the news bulletin you are reading now is being typed.

We know that the Caribbean Airlines flight arrived in Georgetown at lunchtime GMT, and we have been anxiously waiting for some word from the expedition team ever since 1.00 pm.

At about 6.30 tonight, we had a brief ‘phone call from Richard. Oll Lewis was manning the office ‘phone:

“Richard ‘phoned and said: ‘Hello is that Jon?’ To which I replied ‘No, it is Oll. I shall patch you up to Jon now’, and the line went dead.”

Oll has been trying to contact them ever since.

He says: “I have got through to the ‘phone twice, but both times British Telecom’s automated bionic disembodied voice has cheerfully announced ‘we are sorry, but there is a fault on the line’. The second time I got through it briefly announced that I was through to the ‘phones voicemail, before the annoying voice of BT informed me of a fault again. I shall be trying to contact them again every 15 minutes.”

My old boss in the music industry, a very well-known pop star, once told me that one of my greatest talents was being able to concoct press releases out of nothing. Richard laughed when I told him this, and pointed out that I managed to get an eminently readable 120,000-word book after 4 days spent at the side of a lake in Lancashire. This bulletin, however, really takes the biscuit. We have had four words from Richard, from which we can assume that they are:

a) safely in Guyana, and
b) that none of them, as yet, has been eaten by giant ground sloths. (I am waiting, with

glee, for the first time that someone points out that ground sloths are exclusively

vegetarians).

I promised you the news as and when we have it, and so far this is it. There will be more bulletins as and when more news is available.

Watch this space,