Cryptozoologist, Professor Kettle, has spent a lifetime searching for elusive creatures – all previously unknown to science. From the Abominable Snowman to the Coelacanth he has travelled across the globe in an endless quest, which some less than generous souls have dubbed “his silly and stupid obsession”.

However, the professor is very blaise about his critics: “they fall into two broad camps”, he said. “Firstly, the bone idle ones who can’t be bothered to get out of a chair to do anything themselves. Secondly, the envious types who resent my unrivalled success tracking down evidence of cryptids – or “unknown creatures – as the layman would call them.

Personally I consider myself a touch eccentric and quite frankly what other people think of me is their problem”.

At this point in our conversation the professor said he would like to introduce another member of his research team, Dr. Pott. It turns out that Pott’s doctorate is in Applied Mathematical Environmental Research and he designs most of the unique and intricate pieces of equipment used to track down the unknown. “He isn’t exactly Scully from the X-Files in looks but he does a damn good job” quips Kettle.

Dr. Pott offers us tea and I start to tremble with anticipation. It’s common knowledge within academe that if Professor Kettle respects your work then tea will be served in his unique Nessie shaped tea pot. If he thinks you are mediocre it comes as a tea bag in a mug; the whol thing is a kind of semaphore signal of success or failure.

Well, the door creaked open and a decrepit and wisend old lady brought through the teatray. And there it was! The real, unique Kettle owned Loch Ness Monster tea pot. I felt pure elation, such that I nearly collapsed. Bizarrely all I could think of was the TV series “The Sporanos” and that this is how it must feel to be made a “made man” by the mafia.

“So this is the genuine Kettle’s tea pot?” was all I managed to stutter; I was too awestruck to say more. “Actually no”, said Professor Kettle. Dr. Pott originally pointed it out to me in an antiques shop in Forres and I bought it on the spot. But he saw it first so around here it is known as Pott’s pot.”

No matter. I knew that whether it was Kettle’s pot or Pott’s pot I had received the scientific equivalent of a beatification and now I knew that my own academic papers would always be published in the best journals and one day I would stroll before a camera for the National Geographic Channel.