The Gonzo Daily - Tuesday
Before we go any further, I have been informed by
my legal advisor (Corinna) that I am not allowed to use the words unctious,
smarmy or egregious in this next paragraph. And I nearly always do what my wife
tells me.
I am very proud to have been involved, albeit in a
very minor capacity, in Hawkwind's campaigning against the badger cull, but
although it has largely been a success - the cull in most of the UK is on hold,
the killings (of reduced numbers) are starting again in Somerset and
Gloucestershire.
There has been a lot of speculation about the
reasoning behind the latest round of government sponsored badger culls which are
being carried out despite the vast weight of evidence suggesting that they are
cruel, expensive and pointless. Dan Holdsworth, who has in the past been vocal
in support of the cull writes: "The EU's Veterinary Health department has
recently spoken to the UK government, instructing them to do something about
bovine TB levels. As any keep fan of "Yes Minister" can tell you, something
clearly must be done. This is something, so by the orders of Sir Humphrey, this
must be done..." If all the research papers are WRONG and badgers are indeed the
primary reservoir of bTB in the countryside, then the numbers of badgers to be
killed this year will make no appreciable difference.
So what is behind this latest waste of mustelid
life and public money? There is a General Election next year, and already I can
hear the Party Political Broadcasts claiming "We are a Nation of Animals Lovers,
but Government is about taking difficult decisions, and we decided to do just
that in order to save our great farming indiustry whch is the backbone of the
countryside. Rule Britannia etc". It is cheap electioneering and nothing more or
less. Either that or those set in power over us are even more stupid than they
appear to be.
It has the lovely Jaki Windmill, the chanteuse of
The Pink Fairies, (and all sorts of other things) on the cover. Hawkwind fans
should check out the news of a charity auction of Bob Calvert memorabilia, and
Doug Harr was there in the audience when Kate Bush played live on Friday
evening. Dean Phillips revisits the events of 40 years ago when Wally Hope and
the other Wallies of Wiltshire appeared in the High Court, with an amazing
collection of pictures and clippings from the time, nearly all of which I had
never seen before. There are also new shows from the wonderfully eccentric Jaki
and Tim on their Submarine, from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit
and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive. There is also a collection of
more news, reviews, views, interviews and ursine tree kangaroos (OK, no weird
arboreal marsupials from New Guinea, but I got carried away with things that
rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's
ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you
have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly
dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power
chaps, we have to share it!
To make sure that you don't miss your copy of future issues make an old
hippy a happy chappy and subscribe
http://eepurl.com/r-VTD
As well as the Gonzo Weekly, there is a daily service called - wait for it
- The Gonzo Daily, and you can subscribe for free HERE:
http://eepurl.com/OvPez
* 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 - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this
link:
www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to
things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not
responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest
guv!
* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several
others) is an old hippy of 54 who - together with an orange kitten named after a
song by Frank Zappa puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a
tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and
sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna,
his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection
of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange kitten?
Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...
The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. 
What has Corinna's column of fortean bird news got to do with Cryptozoology?
Poppy is 15 years old today, or 76 in human years. 
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