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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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...




Wednesday, December 24, 2014

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.


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THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN HOPS AND SKIPS MILDLY

The Gonzo Daily - Christmas Eve
 
My views on contemporary Christmas are well known and I shall not bore you by repeating them today. However yesterday I heard an advert which brought me to the edge of apoplexy. It was from the National Lottery, and I shall quote as well as I can remember. "Christmas is not just about baubles and tinsel, it is about the chance of winning prizes". In a country where 20% of kids apparently think that Jesus Christ plays for Chelsea, maybe it is. I find myself retreating further and further into reclusive grumpy old sod territory with every week that passes.
 
 

The Gonzo Weekly #109/10
www.gonzoweekly.com
 
Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Minstrel's Ghost, Jack the Ripper, Corky Laing, Merrell Fankhauser, Sendelica, Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Yes, Hawkwind, and Daevid Allen fans had better look out!
 
The latest issue (The Christmas DOUBLE issue - there won't be one next week) of Gonzo Weekly (#109/10) will soon be available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/. It has Yusuf and Stevie Wonder on the front cover,  and features gig reviews of both artists and Fleetwood Mac, my totally subjective top ten albums of the year, excerpts from books by Corky Laing, Merrell Fankhauser and Neil Nixon, interviews with Minstrel's Ghost about their new meisterwork based on the life of Jack the Ripper, and Sendelica, we send Tim Rundall to a desert island, and there are shows from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the titular submarine dwellers are back with another episode of Sub Reality Sandwich (except its not). There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and anteaters wishing to snooze (OK, nothing to do with dozy edentates, 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/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit…
 
* 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?
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TOP TWENTY ALBUMS FOR 2014

1    Damon Albarn: Everyday Robots
2    Morrissey: World Peace is none of your Business
3    Steve Ignorant's Slice of Life: Love and a Lamppost
4    Jack White: Lazaretto
5    Auburn: Nashville
6    Prince: Art Official Age
7    Yusuf: Tell 'em I'm Gone
8    Mike Oldfield: Man on the rocks
9    Yes: Heaven & Earth
10   Sleepyard: Black Sails
11   Rubella Ballet: Planet Punk
12   Rocket Scientists: Refuel
13   3RDEYEGIRL: Plectrum Electrum
14   Scott Walker and Sunnn 0))): Soused
15   Noura Mint Seymali: Tzenni
16   Leonard Cohen: Popular Problems
17   The Ghost of a Sabre Toothed Tiger: Midnight Sun
18   Flaming Lips: 7Skies H3
19   Faun: Luna
20   David Crosby Croz

If you want to know how, why, what and where, check out the latest edition of Gonzo Weekly www.gonzoweekly.com

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NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Wednesday

ON THIS DAY IN 1828 - William Burke who, with his partner William Hare, dug up the dead and murdered to sell the corpses for dissection, went on trial in Edinburgh. 

  • New North American Species: Neaves Whiptail Lizard...
  • Hands and Fins Share Common Genetic Origin
  • One extinct turtle less: Turtle species in the Sey...
  • The complex sex lives of gold swift moths
  • Tiger and wild cat trade from Myanmar to China gro...
  • Group to sue feds for reptile, amphibian protectio...
  • 4.1 Million People Watch Man Not Getting Swallowed...
  • 'Lost' grey seal rescued from field in St Helens

  • Seals May Have 'Natural GPS'

    • 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)
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