Richard Muirhead is one of the longest standing members of the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ). When the CFZ started a daily blog in 2009, Muirhead was one of the first contributors, and over the intervening years has contributed hundreds of fascinating articles. A trained librarian, he has what Charles Fort would have called a 'wild talent'; he has a remarkable attitude for unearthing arcane data from obscure archives. CFZ director, Jonathan Downes, has known him for nearly half a century, and considers him to be the best researcher he has ever known. Read this, the first selection of his blog postings to be anthologised and we expect that you will agree with him.