WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Sunday, August 10, 2008

It's that time of the year again folks...

I got an email from Darren Naish yesterday. It was a very jolly email, but one line disturbed me. He wrote that he had not seen any new blog postings for a while. I started to get self-righteous about it, until I realised that he wass perfectly right. It has been six weeks since my last entry (bless me blogsphere for I have sinned), and it is about time that I got on with it.

This has been a particularly unpleasant week. Firstly it is nearly the Weird Weekend again, and organising this year's event has been a bloody nightmare. I am several staff down, and have been all summer. One (John F) has gone on to pastures new. One (Mark) is on semi permanent leave looking after his parents. Richard has been in Russia and at the zoo, and Dave has had his GCSEs and work experience to do. In vain did I argue that hanging around with his Uncle Jon was the only work experience that he would ever need because once I have finally worked myself into a premature grave he can take over my job, but his mother seems to think that he needs more conventional qualifications.

So we have shuddered on. Last week the ceiling of the porch collapsed, one of the finches died and I had a disturbing letter from the Tax office. This week one of my dearest friends told me that he has cancer (quite possibly inoperable) and I lost a long-standing dispute with a printing company. So, all in all life ain't good at the moment. On top of that, as anyone who has seen the latest `On the Track` will have noticed I have not been very well, and look like a self-ambulatory member of the walking-dead (and that is not a West Coast beat group c. 1967).

But. The WW is less than six days away. So far we have only lost one speaker - Paul Vella, who has had to pull out due to a family matter. Everything in the garden is rosy (or it would have been if the torrential rain hadn't knacked my roses), and next weekend is looming upon us like an out of control juggernaut.

I am sure that it will all be OK in the end. It always is! However, do me a favour and keep your fingers firmly crossed for me.

My darling wife will be doing a running commentary of events on her blog, so keep her in mind.

slainte

1 comment:

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Sorry to hear about all your bad news, Jon. About your mate with cancer, and the finch. Hope things get better for you soon. Good luck with the Weird Weekend. Sorry I won't be there myself, but I hope you'll do the CFZTV films again of the event this year.