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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Friday, August 11, 2017

CRYPTOLINK: North Carolina lake monster

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. 

Loch Ness Monster redux? 'Dinosaur-like-creature' reportedly spotted in North Carolina lake
He noted it was around 10-feet-long and reminded him of the mythical Loch Ness monster. No photos were taken of the creature as it was only visible ...

TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS

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 are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. 

The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why sometimes you will read stories here that appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking.

  • NEWSLINK: French police search for 'big cat' spott...
  • PHOTOS: Super rare tigers photographed in the wild...
  • NEWSLINK: Kenyan lions kill 1 person grazing lives...
  • NEWSLINK: Palamu reserve brings captive sambars to...

  • NEWSLINK: Mountain lion P-55 crosses 101 and 118 f...
  • 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 IS OVER THERE SOMEWHERE

    The Gonzo Daily: Friday/Saturday
     
    I was very proud of my cover headline (or should that be strapline?) for this weekend's issue of Gonzo Weekly featuring the legendary keyboard player Don Airey, who has ably filled Jon Lord's boots in Deep Purple for the majority of this century. As you may or may not know, he made a concept album about the mountaineers why tried to climb the Himalayan peak known as K2.
     
    So the headline (to me at least) was obvious. But it seems that everyone to whom I have spoken about the aforementioned headline were unaware of the line in 'All things bright and beautiful' which goes:
     
    The purple-headed mountain,
    The river running by,
    The sunset and the morning
    That brighten up the sky:
     
    However, I note with some amusement that one verse has been entirely expunged from the online hymnals:
     
    The rich man in his castle,
    The poor man at his gate,
    God made them high and lowly,
    And ordered their estate.
     
    Hmmmmmmmmmm. Apparently the Inner London Education Authority positively banned this verse in 1982. And, it turns out, he cheerfully swinging tune, Royal Oak, was arranged by Martin Shaw in 1915 from a traditional melody celebrating the restoration of Charles II in 1660.
     
    Who'd a' thought it?
     
    And then to cap it all off I thought of as totally different headline (or whatever the bloody hell one is supposed to call it) that it is now far too late to use. But William Allingham's p[rose is even less likely to be in the public consciousness than are the less well known verses of the aforementioned children's hymn:
     
    UP the airy mountain,    
      Down the rushy glen,    
    We daren't go a-hunting    
      For fear of little men;    
    Wee folk, good folk,            
      Trooping all together;    
    Green jacket, red cap,    
      And white owl's feather!
     
    Hey its Friday, and poetry is where its at! Julia is still in hospital, but is likely to be out over the weekend. I have veggie Indian food and cold beer in my gunsights for later on.
     
    But now, here is the news:
     
    THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Napoleon Murphy Brock...
    YES IN THE NEWS
    COMING THIS WEEKEND
    Location and dates set for new Hunter S. Thompson ...
    THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
     
    Gonzo Weekly #246
    THE ALL AROUND THE WORLD ISSUE
     
    A globetrotting issue in which Kev sees Steve Hackett in New Zealand, Alan goes to The Braille Satellite Festival in  Lithuania, Jon burbles about the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu in the canyons of his mind, and John writes about Peace, Love and Skunk in California for the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love.
     
    Yup, and it’s all free!
     
    And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Strange Fruit, and Friday Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, C J Stone, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and numbats with the right to choose (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have become eligible to vote, 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!!!
     
    This issue features:
     
    The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, Steve Ignorant, Spirits Burning, Steve Took, Mega Dodo, Penny Rimbaud, Rolling Stones, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Charles Samuel "Chuck" Loeb, Jeanne Moreau, Hussain Saveeduddin Dagar, Doris Leon "D.L." Menard, Michael Johnson, Billy Joe Walker Jr., Snooty, Urs Alfred "Polo" Hofer, Bobby Taylor, Errol Dyers, Kenny Shields, Benjamin Paapa Kofi Yankson (aka Paapa Yankson), Samuel Shepard Rogers III, Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy, CBE, FSA., John Raymond Goadsby, Hywel Thomas Bennett, Rick Wakeman, Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, Third Ear Band, Atomic Rooster, Steve Hackett, Alan Dearling, Braille Satellite Festival, Joseph B. Raimond, DWM – Doc Wor Mirran, Chickass, From Nursery to Misery, Twoonky, John Brodie-Good, Summer of Love, Kev Rowland, Datura 4, Machine Mass, Faunch, Colin Schneider, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, Billy Joel, Elton John, Cream, Demi Lovato, Elvis, The Three Stooges
     
     
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
     
    Issue 244-5 (Summer Special)
    Issue 243 (Galahad)
    Issue 242 (Steve Miller Band)
    Issue 241 (Carol Hodge and Steve Ignorant)
    Issue 240 (Midsummer Madness)
    Issue 239 (Miss Peach)
    Issue 238 (Hawkwind)
    Issue 237 (Hawkwind)
    Issue 236 (Manchester)
    Issue 235 (Jon Anderson)
    Issue 234 (Al Atkins)
    Issue 233 (Richard Strange)
    Issue 232 (Roy Weard)
    Issue 231 (Allan Holdsworth)
    Issue 230 (Curtis Womack)
    Issue 229 (Larry Wallis)
    Issue 228 (Space Pharoahs)
     
    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:
     
    SPECIAL NOTICE: If you, too, want to unleash the power of your inner rock journalist, and want to join a rapidly growing band of likewise minded weirdos please email me at jon@eclipse.co.uk The more the merrier really.
     
    * 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.co.uk
     
    * 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 57 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two half grown kittens, one totally coincidentally named after one of the Manson Family, purely because she squeaks, puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. 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 Archie and the Cats?

    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Friday/Saturday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1877 - The two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos and Deimos. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk



    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.