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...




Friday, April 20, 2018

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 MARSHALLS HIS RESOURCES

The Gonzo Daily: Friday/Saturday
Carl went home about half an hour ago, but he will be back soon. In the meantime Graham is fixing the museum roof as a dry run for fixing the roof of the east wing next week. Last night my old mate Paul Whitrow turned up for a couple of hours and played us music from his new project, and told us all sorts of rock and roll war stories. I did a radio interview late last night, and I wish I hadn't bothered; it was one of these puerile, laddish things that never cease to irritate me. Twenty years ago I might have found it more amusing than I do now. I should have known better than to accept, and I hope I will know better next time.

Changing the subject completely, is there anyone reading this who has any experience in coding apps? Even more importantly, if you do, would you be prepared to lend your expertise to us for a few hours? Email me please at jon@eclipse.co.uk.

Forgive me for always banging on about our webTV show, but it matters a lot to me, and I would be grateful for as many people as possible to see it, and spread the tidings of it far and wide:
And if you fancy supporting us on Patreon:
And by the way chaps and chappesses, a trip to the Jon Downes megastore seems to be in order: if you want to make me a happy fellow, you can:

buy my novel:
buy the record by the main protagonist of the novel who isn't me in an elephant mask, honest:
buy my single:
But for now, here is the news:
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
FRANK ZAPPA NEWS
BILL BRUFORD NEWS
COMING THIS WEEKEND
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY:  No Matter What - Badf...
Gonzo Weekly #282
THE GROWING FINS ISSUE
Doug Harr leads us through the latest twist in the Fleetwood Mac saga, as Lindsey Buckingham is out and Neil Finn from Crowded House etc is in. Richard writes on Bill Kreutzmann, post-Grateful Dead, Alan raves about Fifty Foot Hose, and Jeremy goes to see Ferocious Dog, now augmented by he who was Fruitbat from Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. And Jon? He is away with the fairies and writing about a Series of Unfortunate Events...

#Hail Eris!

And there are radio shows from Strange Fruit, AND Mack Maloney, BUT Friday Night Progressive is on hiatus this week, there are columns from all sorts of folk including Neil Nixon, Kev Rowlands AND the irrepressible Corinna, although Roy Weard, C J Stone, and Mr Biffo are sadly absent this week. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and southern dibblers who have stood around in twos (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have paired up under last weekend's blue moon, 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:

Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Beatles, Brett Anderson, Yoko Ono, Yes, Johnny Marr, Justin Hayward, Belle & Sebastian, Laura Marling, Mike Lindsay, U2, Elvis Presley, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Viacheslav Koleichuk, Jacques Joseph Victor Higelin, Cecil Percival Taylor, Ronald Dunbar, Nathan Tate Davis, Yvonne Stapley, Tim Matley, Rick Wakeman, Natural Gas, Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, Michael Bruce, Man, Jeremy Smith, Ferocious Dog, Doug Harr, Fleetwood Mac, Alan Dearling, Fifty Foot Hose, Richard Foreman, Bill Kreutzmann, Kev Rowland, Witchhammer, Alestorm, Ammunition, Amor, Ampline, Anvil, Galahad, Mr Biffo,  Hawkwind, Jon Downes, Wild Colonial Boy, Martin Springett, Simon Young, Ceri Houlbrook, Madness, Keith Moon, Alice Cooper, Grateful Dead, Calpurnia
And the last few issues are:
Issue 281 (Carl Palmer)
Issue 280 (Steve Andrews)
Issue 279 (Biffo)
Issue 278 (The Beatles)
Issue 277 (Auld Man's Baccie)
Issue 276 (Dukes of the Orient)
Issue 275 (Martin Gordon)
Issue 274 (Steve Took)
Issue 273 (Live Dead 69)
Issue 272 (George Butler)
Issue 271 (Mark E Smith)
Issue 270 (Eric Clapton)
Issue 269 (Narnia)
Issue 267-8 (Happy New Year)
Issue 265-6 (The Who)
Issue 264 (John McLaughlin)
Issue 263 (The magic Band)
Issue 262 (DikMik)
Issue 261 (Leonard Cohen)
Issue 260 (Amsterdam Squat Festie)
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 58 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?

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 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: Panic in Narela school after leopard spo...
  • PHOTOS: Extra-large mystery cat spooking neighbour...
  • NEWSLINK: Bolivia’s jaguars facing threat from Chi...


  • NEWSLINK: A leopard dies each week in Rajasthan, r...


  • NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Friday/Saturday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1653 - In England, Oliver Cromwell expelled the Long Parliament for trying to pass the Perpetuation Bill that would have kept Parliament in the hands of only a few members. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • The Houston Zoo launches $150 million campaign, un...
  • Freezing frog cells for conservation – via Herp Di...
  • UK to tighten laws on 'abhorrent' ivory trade
  • Specieswatch: spring ice has made life hard for th...

  • Stand by me: bears adapt to hunting ban on family ...

  • 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)