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, December 09, 2012

TODAY'S BIG CAT ROUND UP

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.

NEWSLINK: Who killed Macho B?

DALE DRINNON: Possible Further Support for Continued Plesiosaurian Survival, Cedar and Willow and Benny's Blogs

New At Frontiers of Zoology:
 
New at Cedar and Willow:
 
New at Benny's Blog for Thelma Todd:
Weight loss in the 1920s (when the "Boyish" figure was all the rage:)
 
The plot to kill Charlie Chaplin:
 
And on the Ominous Octopus Omnibus blog:
 

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES (CFZ)

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that - whereas the study of out of place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot, or lake monsters - it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean Zoologist to be interested in. So, after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo, Corinna has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.

turtle dove in danger of extinction, says RSPB

THIS CHRISTMAS FROM CFZ PUBLISHING GROUP: Wildman! by Nick Redfern

In Search of a British Man-Beast: The huge forests of the United States are home to Sasquatch. The Abominable Snowman roams the Himalayas. Australia has a similar beast, the Yowie. In China there lurks a giant, bipedal creature called the Yeren. From the Caucasus Mountains in Eurasia stories of the Almas circulate. And then there’s the highly controversial matter of Bigfoot in Britain.

A Menagerie of Monsters: For years, Nick Redfern has been on the trail of this mystifying monster of the British kind – one that provokes fear, amazement and controversy whenever it rears its horrific, hairy head. The Shug-Monkey, the Beast of Bolam, the Big Grey Man, the Man-Monkey, and the Wild Man of Orford are just a few of its many names.

The Strangest Sasquatch of All: But, the wild men and Bigfoot-style beasts of Britain are not what many might assume them to be. They’re not just strange. They’re beyond strange. In Wildman, Nick Redfern presents controversial data that places the British man-beast in a definitively paranormal category.

A Supernatural Monster: Lycanthrope-style shape-shifting, occult rituals, the human dead returned in beastly form, animal sacrifice, thought-forms and monsters of the mind given a semblance of life, UFO activity, and amazing encounters at sacred, historic and ancient sites all across the British Isles, are just some of the many issues covered in Wildman, the first, full-length study of a bizarre and nightmarish phenomenon of appropriately monstrous proportions. 

CFZ PEOPLE: Karl Shuker

Happy Birthday Dude

I'M YER GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN

Sundays are a special time
when I produce this blog in rhyme
sometimes to people's bemusement
always for my own amusement

I know that it is now't but doggerel,
and sometimes my rhymes are worse than horrible
but this is a tradition that never ends
of bad poetry between friends

So now the posts have just begun
with Judy Dyble and a terrible pun
and computer issues that don't fit
technofear and the lowest form of wit

Jefferson Starship are great fun,
with their singer Cathy Richardson,
and I've got great news for you here
they're touring again for us next year

And now we go to Austin City
where the poets are great and the girls our pretty
and we do what we do every day,
go see Thom the World Poet wayhay!

Now here's a video to please
Rick Wakeman in Buenos Aires
(the land of Carmen Miranda's birth)
playing Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Now something important I must say
Newsletter #3 went out yesterday
and from the hgits we got last night
I guess I'm doing something right

And lastly time to take a look
at vids of Ms McCookerybook
Helen and the Horns - a band that's fine
there's lots more stuff of theirs online

And that's it from this rhyming freak
I'll be back again like this next week
but if you cannot keep away
there's gonzo postings every day

*  The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...
 
*  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginitavely - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

*  Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures is an old hippy of 53 who - together with his orange cat - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange cat?

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today


Yesterday’s News Today

On this day in 1980 people in the UK woke up to the news that John Lennon had been murdered.
  • Maine Lobsters Are Cannibals: They Eat Their Young...
  • Scientists track great white shark hanging out at ...
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  • Lobster Farming Breakthrough: Doubling Survival Ra...
  • Could High Insulin Make You Fat? Mouse Study Says ...
  • 'Cognitive Big Bang' Discovered in Tiny Sea Worm
  • New contender for oldest dinosaur

  • In tribute to Lennon and continuing the theme of Christmas songs, a song as relevant today as when it was first written: