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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Thursday, June 13, 2019

CFZ PEOPLE: Mother (Joan James) is 90 today

Image result for cfz mother

LAKE AND SEA MONSTER NEWS

The hunt for Lake and Sea Monsters is probably the most iconic branch of Cryptozoology. Following our successful Mystery Cat and BHM Study Groups, we feel that these sightings should also be archived and published in a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. Curated by Sally Watts and Richard Muirhead.



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.



BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



John Bruner documents sightings across the country and runs the Bigfoot 911 Facebook group. "It was huge," Bruner said. "It was on two legs.

Purported Bigfoot DNA samples were recently revealed to be of deer hair, according to NBC News. The news came as the FBI declassified a wealth of ...
Back in 1976, Peter Byrne of the Bigfoot Information Center and Exhibition in The Dalles submitted a specimen of unknown origin to the FBI (some ...

IT AIN'T WHAT THE GONZO BLOG DOO DAH MAN DOES, BUT HOW HE DOES IT

The Gonzo Daily: Thursday
The biggest news today is that it is Mother's 90th birthday, and she is more than slightly mardy about it.
It was lovely to have Charlotte back yesterday. We had a very productive, highly enjoyable and slightly silly afternoon's filming, and I am very pleased with the results. Poor Corinna is still in considerable discomfort and some pain with her Gastritis, and the treatments that have been tried are not really working. But hopefully the torrent of good vibes which are flowing across the aether towards her each day will - once again - save the day. Poor girl has not been well since her initial hospital procedure last July when they found her tumour.
Toodle-pip
YER EDITOR SEZ:
THE DIGITAL PRAYER FLAG
You guys out in readership land recently did massive amounts of praying for my wife Corinna. And that now - at least at the moment - she appears to be cancer free. I am convinced that these two things are related, with the outpouring of good vibes transmitted electronically, being a little like a Tibetan prayer flag. Having used it to such good effect - I want to try it on a larger scale. I am still trying to work out the details, so watch this space.
Blessed be.
ALL TODAY'S GONZO NEWS WOT'S FIT TO PRINT:
For those of you who are interested in such things, the Gonzo Privacy Policy is here:
CHECK OUT THE GONZO STORES:
AND OTHER STUFF FEATURING VARIOUS GONZO CONTRIBUTORS:
And if you fancy supporting it on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/CFZ
And by the way chaps and chappesses, a trip to the Jon Downes megastore may seem to be in order:
https://gonzotesting.blogspot.com/…/a-notion-of-shopkeepers…
Meanwhile I continue to pretend that I am a popstar, because now I have sold eight whole copies of my new album Coldharbour. If I continue at this rate I will get a silver disc sometime at the beginning of the next millenium. Coldharbour, by the way, can be found here: https://jondownes1.bandcamp.com/releases
I think it is really rather good, but then again I would say that wouldn't I?
AND THE LATEST ISSUE OF THE GONZO MAGAZINE:
Gonzo Weekly #341/2
THE HORSE WITH NO NAME ISSUE
http://www.gonzoweekly.com/
In this peculiar issue we meet the legendary America as they release a box set Live at the Palladium, Alan goes crazy in Lithuania, John goes to see the Sun Ra Arkestra and Chris Botti, Jeremy goes to see Sylfest and Peter Perrett, Jon is concerned about the Green Party backlash, and Graham talks about the Technicians of Spaceship Hawkwind (TOSH).
Hail Eris!
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney and Friday Night Progressive AND Strange Fruit there is a columns from Kev Rowland, but Mr Biffo, C J Stone, and Roy Weard, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna are on hiatus. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and potoroos who are fallen for a ruse (OK, nothing to do with tiny marsupials who are easily obfuscated, 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:
Green Party, Paris Jackson, Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Glastonbury 2019, Marillion, Morrissey, Lincolnshire Time and Tide Bell, Biff Vernon, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, José Gabriel de Souza Diniz, Jaroslav Erik Fric, Jake Black, John Gary Williams, Pier Borha, Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson, Paddy Fahey (or Fahy), Ðelo Jusic (born Ðevalhudin Jusic), Tony "Little Sun" Glover (born Dave Glover), Willie Lee Ford Jr., Lawrence “Lo” Leathers, Rick Wakeman, Arthur Brown, Greg Kofi Brown, Norma Waterson feat. Richard Thompson, Martin Carthy, Danny Thompson and Eliza Carthy, Paice, Ashton & Lord, The Mitchell Trio inc John Denver, America, Alan Dearling, Lithuania, Uzupis Independence, Thomas Freer, Munich Pub Choir, Romas Viciauskas, Brayden Drevlow, Lucid Electric Feel, John Brodie-Good, Chris Botti, The Sun Ra Arkestra, Jeremy Smith, Sylfest, Peter Perrett, Kev Rowland, Follow the Cipher, The Glenn Crytzer, Graveyard, Gyre, Hatred Reigns, Ihsahn, Jean Beauvoir, Tony Klinger, Beverly Hills, Hawkwind, Jonathan Downes, The Wild Colonial Boy, Veep, Armando Iannucci
And the last few issues are:
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/
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 59 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, three other cats, 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 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.




NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Thursday

ON THIS DAY IN -  1415 - Henry the Navigator, the prince of Portugal, embarked on an expedition to Africa. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Tasmanian devils 'adapting to coexist with cancer'...
  • Killer frog disease 'part of Earth's sixth mass ex...
  • Widespread losses of pollinating insects in Britai...
  • Future of elephants living in captivity hangs in t...

  • The Serengeti-Mara squeeze -- One of the world's m...

  • 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)