A preliminary report by Harry Simpson (B.Sc. Incomp.) Cryptozoologist, Furniture Removalist and "Mr Snappy Dresser", June 2005.
[Transcript of his speech given at the inaugural Syndey Convention of the Unconventional, August 2005.]
Thank you, Bernard, for your kind words.
It has been a great pleasure getting to know you, and especially your wife.
Thank you all for being here.
Before you all I can announce that to the ranks of mysterious human-like creatures such as the Yeti, Sasquatch, Bigfoot and Amanda Vanstone, we can add a new and exciting member: the Fyodor - or simply 'Fyodor' as he is known to the locals.
The recently discovered, and far from completely explored, country of Ozblogistan has continually proven itself to be a treasure-trove of wonders. In the mere decade since it's discovery, Ozblogistan has constantly delighted sociologists, historians, economists and the general public as new finds come to light.
There are many who are still ignorant of the existence of Ozblogistan. And of those who do know of it few think it is a real place at all; and even fewer have chosen to immerse themselves in it's splendour to find those half-glimpsed phantasms for themselves.
It is no wonder that Ozblogistan and it's denizens are so misunderstood because the place willingly straddles the boundaries of what we have conventionally thought of as hard-and-fast reality and the most sublime of fantasy. The ease at which the real and the unreal slip past, and even absorb and supplant, each other means that Ozblogistan produces surprises of the highest complexity and the emergent possibilities are enticingly endless.
One of the most fascinating artefacts that has newly come to light is that most elusive of creatures: the Fyodor; and that is the topic of tonight's speech.
Tentatively termed Homo sapiens dostoyevskii, the Fyodor appears to be a highly intelligent and engaging individual. (I use the term 'individual' advisedly, since we only have evidence for one creature so far.) The paradox of Fyodor is his extreme shyness which, as with all the crypto-species, makes the study of him very hard indeed. Luckily he has left my team of researchers and I a number of clues as to what sort of animal he is.
Strangely enough it is possible that the Fyodor is known from antiquity. There is an intriguing description from Herodotus who makes passing mention of a strange tribe who's dominant males have silver tongues. We know that Herodotus described gorillas as a tribe of men, whose dominant males have silver backs, so it is entirely possible that the Fyodor was known to ancient Africans. However, as many scholars have pointed out, Herodotus' description of the hippopotamus was patently wrong showing that he never actually saw these animals, so we should treat this reference with caution.
A far more tantilising Egyptian heiroglyph from the tomb of a well travelled scholar does show a humanlike being in a characteristic oratory pose with the inscription '...and [not translated] delivers a witty repost unto the [tentatively translated as 'tosspots'].' It has been suggested by several luminaries of Egyptology that the kartouche relating to the figure reads Phe-akh-doh.
But that is all the evidence we have until what appeared at the start of this year. The wealth of information that has arrived in the last few months has been a staggering boon to the field of Cryptozoology.
It is without doubt that Ozblogistan is Fyodor's natural habitat; with the most likely site for his real-world anchor being in Sydney's Inner West. Since this discovery my team of researchers has been able to glean much information.
Firstly, he identifies himself as male, and has often shown a romantic or sexual attraction to various human females. From this we deduce that, like the Yeti, he is closely related to humans and may attempt copulation with human females.
We have asked for volunteers in a desperate attempt to flush him out into the open, but so far these efforts have yielded no confirmed sightings as not even the preliminary stages have been successful.
We have also tried to bribe him with beer, which has had some anecdotal success with Sasquatches, but this has similarly failed.
Secondly, he is a MASSIVE NERD. His frequent references to the Simpsons, Joss Wedon creations, Star Wars, Star Trek and Role Playing Games (amongst others) prove without doubt that he is a nerd of the highest order (which is, +10, for those who don't know). His social skills in the virtual world are highly developed this procludes him being some sort of Geek or Dweeb.
Thirdly, he is well read, educated and cultured.
Various paleontologists claim that a Neanderthal could be dressed in a suit and put on a bus in peak hour and no-one would be any the wiser as to it's true identity, we have concluded that Fyodor does _exactly_ this!
We think that he has mingled, not just within our culture, but in the cultures of other countries - perhaps even spending a significant part his childhood in Europe. We do not think he has chameleon like abilities, but just enough nouce to stay 'below the radar' and pass for a 'normal' human being most of the time (this is a common attribute of geeks and dweebs who can successfully pass for the more nerdy side of humanity until engaged in conversation in a real-life social setting, at which point their extreme boringness and/or gross undesirability is revealed in all of it's horrid glory). This charade of Fyodor's is sufficently plausible to have allowed him a secondary and tertiary level education; to eat at resturants; to travel and to even gain employment.
Fourthly: From the combination of his nerd-dom, time spent on the internet separately to that and the additional time he must spend reading books we can make the accurate prediction about his colouring: white. Or,more accurately, pasty white.
Fifthy: We estimate him to be approximately 35 years old. We place a lower limit at 32 and an upper limit of 40 years old.
Based on these main points my team has made an over-arching blueprint of what the Fyodor is most likely to look like and, more importantly, how he would behave. We strongly suggest that it will be his behaviour that gives him away to a suitably attuned person.
Accordingly we have started searching the real world for the Fyodor and... we think we have a sighting!
This photo, while lacking in important detail, was taken in an inner west pub at lunch time on a Sunday. My team and I were disguised as bloggers from Ozblogistan and had selected this spot as a likely place for a sighting. We had no specific intelligence that he might be there, just the intuition born of years of fieldwork.
What we think is the Fyodor is seated on the left. He was dining with an attractive woman and both were dressed in a way that suggests they were trying to impress each other. The meal was unpretentious but classy. A bottle of wine had been ordered and was totally consumed. The conversation was peppered with literary refernces and even a few quips were made in languages other than English.
This, we believe, is characteristic behaviour of the Fyodor, and we are extremely excited to have brought this to you this evening.
We will shortly be embarking on a trapping program, the results of which I will present to you in a few weeks time.
Thank you once again.
Further research published at Cut Price Commentariat, Flop Eared Mule, CrazyBrave, and the latest report in from Dr Hisselbottom via LP
uite as tall, okay not anywhere near as tall, but I do have dark hair and blue eyes so that's close enough for me.
