People are familiar enough with Bigfoot and the common descriptions given to him – that being visually identical to how Rosie O’Donnell would look if she always walked around naked and backwards with her face on the reverse-side of her skull. What people don’t often know is that the sasquatch is not the only hairy anomaly out there – oh no.

You see, there’s also the much less reported Agogwe – an animal that’s every bit as hairy as sasquatch but a fraction of the size. There have actually been a surprising amount of sightings of this guy – sightings to be detailed on the next page, sucka.

When it comes to the Agogwe, there are three basic sightings that seem to get reported the most. Let’s get them out of the way right off the bat. Here is what Captain William Hitchens claims to have seen in 1900, in his own words:

“Some years ago I was sent on an official lion-hunt in [east Africa] and, while waiting in a forest glade for a man-eater, I saw two small, brown, furry creatures come from dense forest on one side of the glade and disappear into the thickets on the other. They were like little men, about 4 feet high, walking upright, but clad in russet hair. The native hunter with me gazed in mingled fear and amazement. They were, he said, agogwe, the little furry men whom one does not see once in a lifetime.”

Hitchens didn’t tell his story publicly until 1937. He was, of course, met with ridicule at which point Cuthbert Burgoyne defended him in a magazine with his own Agogwe sighting a year later. Here are his own words:

“As we watched [Africa's east coast from a Japanese cargo ship] two little brown men walked together out of the bush and down amongst the baboons. They were certainly not any known monkey and yet they must have been akin or they would have disturbed the baboons. They were too far away to be seen in great detail, but these small human-like animals were probably between four and five feet tall, quite upright and graceful in figure. At the time I was thrilled as they were quite evidently no beast of which I had heard or read. Later a friend and big game hunter told me he was in the Portuguese East Africa with his wife and three hunters, and saw a mother, father and child, apparently of the same species, walk across the further side of the bush clearing. The natives loudly forbade him to shoot.” Without the quote, an account of Mr. Burgoyne’s making such a report is given in.”

And finally, here is the third frequently given account, as found on Wikipedia:

“Charles Cordier, a professional animal collector who worked for zoos and museums, followed the tracks of the [Agogwe] in Zaire in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Once, said Cordier, [an Agogwe] had become entangled in one of his bird snares. “It fell on its face,” said Cordier, “turned over, sat up, took the noose off its feet, and walked away before the nearby African could do anything”

Well that’s pretty interesting, and if that last account is true it shows quite a bit of intelligence clicking and ticking deep in the skull of that little furry animal. You should know that the Agogwe seems to go by different names depending on where its living. Other names it goes by include the Kakundakari, the Kilomba, the Sehite, the Agogure and Orang Pendek.

We said there were three primary stories available for the curious to read, but that’s only for those specifically researching the Agogwe. If you check under the other names, like the Orang Pendek, for instance, there’s more to find. For example, here’s a sighting from a Dutch colonist. We found it, too, on Wikipedia:

“I saw that he had short hair, cut short, I thought; and I suddenly realized that his neck was oddly leathery and extremely filthy. “That chap’s got a very dirty and wrinkled neck!” I said to myself. His body was as large as a medium-sized native’s and he had thick square shoulders, not sloping at all… he seemed to be quite as tall as I. Then I saw that it was not a man. It was not an orang-utan. I had seen one of these large apes a short time before. It was more like a monstrously large siamang, but a siamang has long hair, and there was no doubt that it had short hair.”

And there you have it. Hairy creatures of various sizes are found absolutely all over the world – and sightings of them are taken seriously enough for National Geographic to be in the middle of a very real effort to catch the Orang Pendek on film.

Good luck to them, that’s what we say. Good luck to them.

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And that's not just us saying that – the UN says so too, so it must be true.

According to a UN bigwig, every time Amy Winehouse glamorises drug-taking, it helps to fuel the African cocaine trade and recklessly creates corrupt 'narco-states'. And worse still, Amy Winehouse is becoming a cultural icon in Africa, and those poor people have got problems enough as it is without feeling the need to stagger round their villages in just their bra shouting "My Blakey!" all the time as well.

You have to feel for Amy Winehouse at the moment – Karma seems to be auditing her quite strictly at the moment. Whenever something good happens to Amy Winehouse – like when she won all those Grammys – Karma swiftly redressed the balance so that, in her next public performance at the Brits, Amy could hardly stand up and generally looked like she was spazzed off her munch on a bucket of giraffe tranquilliser. 

And now, right after Amy Winehouse was cleared of perverting the course of justice, Karma jumped in again to whip the good news away and make sure she gets scolded for ravaging the entire continent of Africa all by her lonesome. The boss of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, has blamed Amy Winehouse for the African cocaine trade, you see. All of it. The Daily Mail reports:

Singling out the singer Amy Winehouse, whom he called the "poster girl for drug abuse", and supermodel Kate Moss, whose career flourished after she was publicly exposed as a cocaine user, Mr Costa said: "One song, one picture, one quote that makes cocaine look cool can undo millions of pounds worth of anti-drug education and prevention. "Coke-snorting fashionistas are not only damaging their brains – they are contributing to state failure on the other side of the world. Amy Winehouse might adopt a defiant pose and slur her way through (the song) Rehab but does she realise the message she sends to others who are vulnerable to addiction and who cannot afford expensive treatment?"

You have to feel a little bit sorry for Amy Winehouse here, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's unfair to single out Amy Winehouse alone for an entire industry with various distinct production stages because – although a furiously annoying goon – she's just one girl with a few problems who's been singled out by the UN because its realised that an anti-drug message will be heard more if it finds a high-profile celebrity with some amount of notoriety to use as a scapegoat.

Secondly, Amy Winehouse isn't even fuelling the African cocaine industry anyway. She's fuelling the African crack industry. Durr-brains.

Read more:

UN drugs boss slams 'coke-snorting fashionistas' like Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty – Daily Mail 

Bono, who is renowned for his messianic charisma and rumoured to heal the blind just with his touch, was criticised by Selassie for not involving grassroots African organisations and saying that such half-baked charity endeavours such as Live Aid are detrimental to the future of Africa. 

African Aid Action chief Selasie said:

"You can't impose change from without. It has to come from within and we won't end poverty with handouts."

Well, we're sure the celebrity multi-millionaire and tax evader philanthropist's friends will disagree, such as war-mongering President George Bush, who supported Bono's efforts at ending world hunger and violence by inviting him for dinner a few years back.

Don't worry Bono, a few more concerts with a range of spoilt and mediocre musicians will put any criticism from real charity workers to bed.

Read more:

Bono and Bob Geldof increase Africa's problems say charity – NME

[story by Paul McLoughlin]