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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Tuesday, November 04, 2014

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



Non-Bigfooter Reviews "Exists"
From Blair Witch director Eduardo Sanchez, Exists is a brand new from about Bigfoot terrifying people in the woods. It's out on theaters and iTunes 

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES


What has Corinna's column of fortean bird news got to do with Cryptozoology?

Well, everything actually!


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.



THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN SINGS AGAIN

The Gonzo Daily - Tuesday
 
Today is Prudence's birthday, well actually it isn't. It is the anniversdary of her coming to live with us aged five. It has been four years, and so we mark the day from then. Actually, its not even that. I thought it was the 4th November, Corinna thought it was the 3rd, so we have reached a compromise. Like Her Majesty, and Paddington Bear, Prudence has two bithdays, or rather one birthday that carries on for two days. But despite all the confusion I would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to the sweetest and nicest natured dog I have ever known, even if she does look more like a pygmy hippo than a canid.
 
 
 
Steve Hillage, Supertramp, Jon Anderson, Yes, Joy Division,  Hawkwind, and Daevid Allen fans had better look out! The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#102) IS available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/.
 
It has Steve Hillage on the cover, and features an interview with him inside. But there's more! There is news about Daevid Allen, Doug Harr critiques the Supertramp live DVD, and people make wild speculations about a new Galahad side project. Xtul are still in the deep woods, and Corinna finds a brilliant board game from the Swinging Sixties. Jon muses on Peter Hook's recollections of Joy Division, and we send Carl 'Blue' Wise to a desert island and Jon is very rude about the third album by The Ting Tings. There are also new shows from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the massively talented Jaki and Tim are back with their submarine and Maisie the cow. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and turtles having a snooze (OK, no soporific chelonians, 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!
 
You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/
 

*  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 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat 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 infantile orange cat?

NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)



Is The British Government Hiding The Loch Ness Monster?
Loch Ness is Britain's most famous monster. Officially it's a myth - but could it really have been found, and is now hidden by the U.K. government?


RAINES EXPLAINS: Calpurnia lays an egg

CFZ "PEOPLE": Birthdays: Prudence



Happy Birthday, Prudence.  9 years old today (or around 61 in human years!)

CRYPTOLINK: John Gould: an enduring witness to Australia’s lost mammals

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. 

Thylacine
The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, now extinct. Photograph: HC Richter/National Library of Australia
That old cliche “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” has a truly hollow ring when applied to Australian’s awareness of its lost mammals.
Most Australians are barely aware of the creatures that still inhabit their island and couldn’t tell the difference between a bettong (a shin-high kangaroo) and a wambenger (a small marsupial carnivore) if they got kicked in the eyes by one. A bettong that is. A wambenger would more likely target the jugular with its sharp little teeth.
It wasn’t always so. Early European settlers were keenly attuned to the foibles of bettongs. Native mammals were part of their daily lives, raiding gardens, stealing poultry, eating pasture, a source of fur, and more often than not of free meat, too. And it was into this world of abundant native mammals that John Gould arrived.

Read on...

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From CFZ-USA:

NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Tuesday

ON THIS DAY IN 1952 - In the United States, the National Security Agency (NSA) was established. 

  • Spanish shepherds guide 2,000 sheep across Madrid
  • Todd Ray Stumped Over What To Name Latest Two-Head...

  • Monkeys can work out abstract properties of object...


  • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day)