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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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Friday, March 11, 2011

25 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT RICHARD FREEMAN

1. I have a strong dislike of domestic cats (wantonly destructive and stupid as well as being responsible for wholesale decimation of small mammals and birds) and common chimps (filthy and vicious). Pigmy chimps are fine, however.

2 I have a phobia of large moths

3 My favourite countries are Japan and Australia

4 I once closed down the BBC bar with Brian Blessed and Jon Downes.

5 At the Fortean Times conference in 2001 I met a man whose only claim to fame was that he was felt up by a tramp in Dorchester.

6 I once helped to dress a little girl up as Captain Beefheart for a tropical fish magazine

7 I’m allergic to Penicillin, blue cheese and seafood.

8 I once met a boy who thought he could create a ‘chicken man’ by impregnating an egg he had gently cracked into a plastic cup.

9 I believe in the literal existence of dragons and have written two books on the subject

10 I have been a Goth for 24 years man and boy

11 I have been bitten by a venomous snake

12 I used to be a zookeeper

13 I think tramps and bag ladies bring joy and wonder to the world

14 My favourite animals are crocodiles, rhinos and the Tasmanian marsupial wolf, thylacine

15 I love British Cult TV

16 I prefer World Cinema to Hollywood

17 I once had a dog named after Spike Milligan

18 I find football to be the most disinteresting subject in the world

19 I like Chinese food but I hate Indian food or indeed anything remotely spicy

20 My favourite bands/ artists are Echo and the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Fad Gadget, Bauhaus, Klaus Nomi and Joy Division

21 I think Jon Pertwee was the greatest Doctor Who ever

22 I have never seen The Wizard of Oz or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

23 Of all the countries I have visited I liked Mongolia best of all

24 I think vampires and werewolves have been ‘done to death’ in horror films. Come on: let’s have some more interesting monsters

25. I was at school with a girl who would eat jammie dodgers after they had fallen on the floor and got ants on them.

8 comments:

LesleyinNM said...

Sorry, but domestic cats are incredibly smart. Also, far less wantonly destructive than humans.

Retrieverman said...

I'm with Richard on domestic cats and common chimps.

Cats are actually part of the destructive things we do the ecosystems. If someone released a pollutant that caused as much destruction as cats do, we'd want that person fined or thrown in jail.

But in North America, the coyote has proven to be best friend of native birds and small mammals. It is a major cat predator.

http://www.michaelsoule.com/resource_files/124/124_resource_file1.pdf

LesleyinNM said...

Once again, as far as domestic cats - it is the fault of humans, not cats. People allow their cats to roam. My cats do not, they live in the house and they go outside when I am outside to watch them. I do sometimes allow them to kill mice that may get into the house (only if I can't catch them to put them out), but outside I always scare away birds or anything else. The whole point is they are suppose to be pets, when people allow them to be wild they go with nature, which has made them an extremely efficient predator.

It doesn't matter if it is cats or chimps - it is really evolution that has made them that way over millions of years -- not because they have come up with some plan to destroy every creature they can.

Let me also say that as far as domestic cats go, I find such posts about them rather alarming. Who knows how many are abused and abandoned by humans every year? Why give more reasons of why they are bad and encourage abusers that they may be doing the right thing by being abusers? Why not instead mention how humans can stop this by merely keeping their cats in the house?

LesleyinNM said...

Just to mention -- my dog is just as keen on killing things, but not nearly as good at it. So I guess wanton destruction is only applicable if you have the skill and brains to accomplish it. Otherwise you are some sort of furry, cute thing.

purrlgurrl said...

Whether or not a pet (dog or cat) is destructive or wantonly vicious is the fault of an owner who's had the animal since its infancy. Just as human children need to be trained not to be wild animals, so do household pets.

I've known people who's homes I've avoided because of the behavior of their dogs. Many people train their dogs to be vicious and challenging toward all "strangers".

We regularly hear and read about people being mauled by a neighbor's dog. How often do we hear and read about a child or adult being mauled to death by a neighbor's cat?

I "inherited" a dog from a very ill friend, and after that canine experience I would never again have a dog as a pet. The amount of damage that little dog inflicted on my household far exceeded any done by all of the cats I've had as pets.

And by the way, any house cat that wants to take out some vermin that's gnawed its way or crawled into my home is most welcome to do so.

Richard Freeman said...

I said nothing about being crule to cats, i just don't like them.
As was pointed out on this blog a while ago a recent scientific study has proven that dogsare more intelligent than cats.

Retrieverman said...

In general, the cat family has evolved for stronger jaws, larger teeth, and more muscular frames than dogs. Dogs have evolved for larger brains and more endurance.

Domestic cats are a mesopredator. They serve about the same ecological role as brush-tailed possums or gray foxes.


The problem in North America is that mesopredator abundance is now much, much higher than it once was, and the bulk of that increase is in introduced Mesopotamian wildcats. Contrary to popular belief, domestic cats were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, not Egypt. The subspecies is the same, which is unfortunately still called the African wildcat, even though it is also found in the Middle East.

But it's not just cat numbers that have skyrocketed since North America became "civilized." We have many more opossums and raccoons than we once did. This, coupled with pollution, excessive hunting, and habitat destruction, are destroying our native songbird populations.

That's why I am glad that coyotes are stepping into the void left behind by the wolves that we exterminated. They are the saviors of so many species. We just now are starting to realize it.

Retrieverman said...

BTW, dogs do have an ecological impact in some areas.

However, dogs tend to have less of an impact, because, unlike cats, dogs have to learn much of their predatory behavior. They have the inherited motor patterns for predation, but they have to learn how to implement it efficiently. That's why most feral dogs just scavenge.

The cat just has to learn which prey to hunt, and once it learns that, it becomes a very efficient predator.