FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 23rd November 2007

GUYANA MONSTER HUNTERS ‘PHONE HOME

Five British explorers from The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ], based in rural North Devon, are deep in the little known grasslands of Guyana, South America on the track of unknown animals. The expedition is sponsored by Capcom, one of the world’s leading video game manufacturers, and is led by Richard Freeman (37) a British zoologist and explorer. The team have been in the wilds of South America for over a week now, and despite setbacks such as injury, heatstroke, equipment malfunction, and even a burgeoning political crisis which many commentators have described as an “invasion” of Guyana by neighbouring Venezuela, their initial findings appear remarkable.

They have obtained a wealth of anecdotal evidence for the existence of the three animals that they went there to investigate.

Didi
Giant anaconda
Water tiger

They have secured this evidence in the form of filmed interviews with eye-witnesses in this remote part of rural Guyana. Amongst these are two chilling accounts of young women being abducted by the didi (pronounced ‘die die’). None of these stories have been published in Europe or America before.

Perhaps the most important results so far are evidence for two completely hitherto unknown animals: a tiny brown crocodile, and a three-foot high hairy creature that walks upright like a man, and has a bright red face. They also have secured the first video footage of a living specimen of a recently discovered species of green scorpion.

The team do not return to the UK until Wednesday, 28th November, so there is plenty of time for you to join the thousands of people worldwide who follow their adventures on http://cfzguyana.blogspot.com/

CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is available for interview, and photographs of expedition members, and other images, are also available. Please telephone Jon or Corinna on 01237 431413.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

+ The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is the world’s largest mystery animal research organisation. It was founded in 1992 by British author Jonathan Downes (48) and is a non-profit making (not for profit) organisation registered with H.M. Stamp Office.
+ Life-president of the CFZ is Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his groundbreaking youth work organising the ‘Operation Drake’ and ‘Operation Raleigh’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.
+ CFZ Director Jonathan Downes is the author and/or editor of over 20 books. Island of Paradise, his first hand account of two expeditions to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in search of the grotesque vampiric chupacabra, will be published in early 2008.
+ The CFZ have carried out expeditions across the world including Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana, Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and Loch Morar.
+ CFZ Press are the world’s largest publishers of books on mystery animals. They also publish Animals & Men, the world’s only cryptozoology magazine, and Exotic Pets, Britain’s only dedicated magazine on the subject.
+ The CFZ produce their own full-length documentaries through their media division called CFZtv (www.cfztv.org). One of their films Lair of the Red Worm which was released in early 2007 and documents their 2005 Mongolia expedition has now been seen by nearly 30,000 people.
+ The CFZ is based in Jon Downes’ old family home in rural North Devon which he shares with his wife Corinna (51). It is also home to various members of the CFZ’s permanent directorate and a collection of exotic animals.
+ Corinna and Jonathan Downes are shareholders in Tropiquaria – a small zoo in North Somerset (www.tropiquaria.co.uk).
+ Jonathan Downes presents a monthly web TV show called On the Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.com/) which covers cryptozoology and work of the CFZ.
+ The CFZ are currently building a Visitor Centre and Museum in Woolsery, North Devon.
+ Each year the CFZ presents an annual conference (www.weirdweekend.org)
+ Following their successful partnership with Capcom (www.capcom.com) on the 2007 Guyana expedition, the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.

Going to the Wars

These last few weeks have been strange ones here at the CFZ. Not only have I been particularly unwell, and as mad as a bag full of cheese for a large portion of it, but also I have had to cast aside my madness as best as I can and co-ordinate the running of the Guyana expedition blog (see the link on the side of the page).

I have spent much of the rest of the time in bed, and I have been re-discovering the writings of an old friend of mine: Sir John Verney. He is probably best known for his semi-autobiographical book Going to the Wars, which recounts his spectacularly exciting military career, but he has always been most important to me through his alter-ego, journalist and harassed father Augustus “Gus” Callendar, one of the central characters of a series of children’s books which were written between 1959 and 1972. Much to my grave disappointment, they remain spectacularly obscure, and very few people have heard of them. However, they all have a worthy message to those of us of a fortean persuasion, and have peculiarly surrealchemical plot twists and anarchistic themes, which are all the more peculiar when you discover that the author is not only a notable war hero, but also a minor Peer of the Realm.

The five books are:

Friday’s Tunnel (1959)
February’s Road (1961)
ISMO (1963)
Seven Sunflower Seeds (1968)
Samson’s Hoard (1972)

The last three books, in particular, are very fortean in their outlook, in that at every twist and turn of the plot you find out that, as Lloyd Pye said, “everything you know is wrong”. And all preconceptions are demolished, as Verney plays surreal word games worthy of Tony Shiels upon the hapless reader. Whereas, on the surface at least, these books appear to be stuck well within the genre, which was popular 50 years ago of ‘middle class children, with ponies, having adventures and thwarting the adult world’, in reality these books are far more complex. Where else in the canon of children’s literature do you find two novels about a mythical global anarchist group founded in Italy by an Italian aristocrat posing as a pop singer (who has always reminded me of the late Richard Chanfray, who alongside a not very successful career as a third rate Jacques Brel or Claude Francois, copyist, claimed to be the immortal and invisible Count of Saint Germain)? And, furthermore, where in the canon of children’s literature do you find novels in which the concept of anarchism, at least as practised by the CFZ, is portrayed not just in a positive light, but as a jolly good idea?

Although I hope that you will all continue to follow the adventures of the Guyana Five (as Nick Redfern has dubbed them), to download my latest album from www.cfz.org.uk/music and watch On the Track (see the new link on the side of this page), if you have a few quid left during the inexorable run-up to what is euphemistically described as the festive season, I urge you to go to Abe Books www.abebooks.com and have a look for one or more of the above titles. I guarantee that you will not be disappointed.

FIRST NEWS FROM THE EXPEDITION

http://cfzguyana.blogspot.com/

If music be the food of whatever.....

My new album, together with every piece of music that I have released since 1995 (except for the CD with Lionel Fanthorpe which is copyrighted to Voiceprint) is now up on a dedicated section of the CFZ site.

Please check it out HERE

Feel free to download as much as you like, but if you are feeling generous, make a donation to CFZ funds.

Enjoy!

PS. My earlier albums, together with a selection of live recordings and some other odds and sods will be posted over the next few months, as and when I have the energy. And for those of you who are Amphibs fans, you may be interested to know that Dave Penna is visiting us on wednesday, and a reunion of some sort may not be as out of the question as I have always implied..

Normal service will.... etc etc

Guys,

forgive me for having been somewhat elusive over the past few days. Ever since the horrible events of early September my health has been shot to buggery, and both my bipolar disorder and my diabetes have gone from being reasonably controlled, to being all over the place.

At the moment it is the turn of my bipolarshite and I am feeling as mad as a bagfull of cheese. No doubt it will pass - it usually does, and I will be back in the driver's seat, but for the moment I am keeping my head down, playing twelve year old computer games, listening to Al Stewart, and sucessfully resisting the temptation to drink myself into a coma.

Dealing with bipolar was much easier when I could drink or drug it away, but now I am completely drug free, and I only drink occasionally, so the twin crutches that helped me deal with this filthy bloody disease for years have disappeared. And when I am in this condition I know that I am an even bigger pain in the arse without drink or drugs than I would have been with them. So I am drinking diet ginger beer, trying not to smoke too much, and attempting not to be irksome to my loved ones...

Remember me in your thoughts, and prayers to whichever deity you favour. I need them

love

J

On The Track Episode 2 and other stuff...

Just in case that you thought it would never happen, may I suggest you have a look at On The Track a new permanent home for the new CFZtv project: a monthly webTV show giving all the latest news from the CFZ and cryptozoology news from around the world.

The second edition is now up, and I think that it is a marked improvement on the first!

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions after episode one last month, and you should be glad to see that I have taken them on board. Many thanks especially to those of you who said such kind things about my music. I can, therefore, happily announce that I have a new album due out in the next few weeks. It is called Twilight over England and following in the worthy footsteps of Radiohead it will be available as a download, with the payment being via paypal in the form of a voluntary donation of whatever you want to give to CFZ funds.

There are fourteen tracks:

1 All because of You
2 The Unknown Terrorist (Usama's Hymn)
3 Leap of Faith
4 Ratop (Instrumental)
5 Underwater Chicken Music (Skippo)
6 Amerikan Synergy (The King is Dead)
7 Time after Time (Picnic beneath the Lake)
8 I've been bitten by the yellow shark (Instrumental)
9 Wardance
10 Sing me to sleep
11 The man who killed the moon (Your mother is a slut)
12 Bernadette
13 Endgame
14 Opium Tea

The two instrumental tracks are featured on this month's edition of `On the Track`. Track 6 features an astounding guest appearance by CFZ stalwart David "Geordie Dave" Curtis, doing his best Elvis impersonation while I vent my spleen on the current American president. (Note to all my American friends, and other US readers of this blog - I have always had great fun in the USA, and I have many American friends. It is merely the upper echelons of your present government that I find repellant. There is a heck of a lot that I admire about the USA, and I would hate to be accused (again) of xenophobia.

I am also not anti-military. My brother is a high ranking officer in the British Army, and I come from a military family. It is the political motivations for recent events that I find dubious. Some wars are sadly justified. The recent spate have not been.

Whilst on the subject of covering my back, I have made a few comments about Young Earth Creationists in this month's `On the Track`. On the whole I live and let live, and I know that some of my theories about life, the universe, and everything do not meet with universal approval, but I am getting severely annoyed by being inundated with eMails claiming that I will go to hell because I believe that our planet is over 4.5 billion years old!

I am not coming at this from the viewpoint of an atheist either. Although I rarely mention either my political or religious beliefs on this blog, I am a churchgoer, and I do believe in both a creator and an intercessionist God. I merely have no peoblem with reconciling this belief with any of the scientific evidence for the true age of the Universe, or for the mechanisms of evolution.

Anyway, off my soap box! I hope that you enjoy our new ventures, and I look forward to reading the feedback (though not the inevitable hate mail).