MISSING THE BLOODY POINT

* Here is the review of my latest book Island of Paradise in Fortean Times. The reviewer clearly thinks that I should stick to writing about the chupacabra rather than about my own experiences.

* Someone made a terse comment on the latest edition of On The Track: "Too much soap opera." they wrote. I know what they mean - my life is a bloody soap opera, and has been for years.


In my opinion both commentators have missed the point. Neither the book nor the webTV show are meant to be straightforward books on phenomena. Back in 1994 I met Tony `Doc` Shiels for the first time, and he gently guided me into a life path that I have followed ever since (and I don't mean borderline alcoholism). He showed me how everything is interconnected, and how if one wishes to study forteana one has to grok forteana, and open one's life to the myriad possibilities of the universe.

"Not a bottle of catsup can fall from a tenement-house fire-escape, in Harlem, without being noted — not only by the indignant people downstairs, but — even though infinitesimally — universally — maybe — affecting the price of pajamas,[sic] in Jersey City: the temper of somebody's mother-in-law, in Greenland; the demand, in China, for rhinoceros horns for the cure of rheumatism — maybe —
Because all things are inter-related — continuous — of an underlying oneness. So then the underlying logic of the boy — who was guilty of much, but was at least innocent of ever having heard of a syllogism — who pasted a peach label on a can of string beans".

So if people buy my books, or watch my webTV broadcasts expecting an Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World-type of thing, they are going to be sorely disappointed. What I write, and what I film are basically slices of my life and life experiences from which I try and extrapolate stuff. I have never pretended to have all the answers; indeed I don't think I have ever pretended to have any of the answers - my books and films are just as much of a journey for me as they are for the viewer/reader. They are merely one man's attempt to make some semblance of sense of an infinitely confusing omniverse.

Now, go out and buy the bloody book. I need the money!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Paradise-Chupacabra-Retrievals-Accelerated/dp/1905723326/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249383685&sr=1-2

And here (just in case you missed it) is the latest `On the Track`. Enjoy the soap opera.

ISLAND OF PARADISE REVIEWED

Dear Naomi has written a really sweet review of Island of Paradise (which, if you didn't know, was my last book). When she and her family were here the other day, I gave her copies of The Blackdown Mystery (which is basically amusing tosh) and The Owlman and Others (which has sold far more than any of my other books and records put together). It will be interesting to find out what she makes of them....

Island of Paradise is the story of a cryptozoological investigation built into an odd but cohesive web of history, politics and biographical reminiscences. Jon Downes and Nick Redfern travel to Puerto Rico to make a documentary investigating claims of livestock killed by the legendary Chupacabra. Jon's admitted ulterior motive is, however, to find a snail specimen that he had encountered in a cave on his first trip to the island several years before.

READ ON

Buy it on Amazon and help the CFZ make their mortgage payments

SCOTTIE WESTFALL (Retrieverman) TAKES A LOOK AT JON'S THEORIES RE. THE CHUPACABRA

http://wildlifemysteries.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/what-is-the-chupacabra-here-is-the-most-rational-explanation/



In what is rapidly becoming our favourite new blog, Scottie takes a long, hard, and sometimes critical look at the theories that Jon includes in his latest book Island of Paradise. Never let it be said that we don't post opposing viewpoints. It has to be said that his slightly different theory to Jon's has a heck of a lot going for it...

In a totally cynical attempt at raising a few more quid during the midst of the recession, you can buy a copy of the book at the link below:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Paradise-Chupacabra-Retrievals-Accelerated/dp/1905723326/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242423022&sr=8-1

JON DOWNES HAS A BEARD BUT WALT DIS'NAE

The other day in his article about the wild dogs which escaped in Kent, Richard had a brief pop at the Disney Corporation. Just to show solidarity, here is a brief excerpt from my book The Island of Paradise.....

My mother introduced me to the works of Rudyard Kipling when I was still a toddler. She started off reading me the Just So Stories when I was about four years old, and we soon progressed to the Jungle Book. I fell in love with his prose, and soon came to agree with my mother that his poetry - which always had the meter: `tum te tum te tum te tum` - were unsurpassable.

By the time I was six and a half I could read it for myself, and at an age when my peers were struggling with godawful books explaining that Janet had a red ball, and that Spot the Dog could run, I was immersing myself deep within Kipling's glorious usage of the English language.

I was particularly fond - and still am - of the poem The Law of the Jungle from the Jungle Book:

Now this is the Law of the Jungle
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

This was heady stuff for a seven-year-old, but it introduced me to one of the concepts by which I have lived my life ever since; that there are inexorable laws of the universe, with moral values which greatly surpass anything from the law of man.

Another poem, Mowgli's song against people from the story `Letting in the jungle` also had a great effect on me.

I have untied against you the club-footed vines
I have sent in the Jungle to swamp out your lines!
The trees-the trees are on you!
The house-beams shall fall;
And the Karela, the bitter Karela, Shall cover you all!

The story tells how, Mowgli has been driven out of the human village for witchcraft, and the superstitious villagers are preparing to kill his adopted parents Messua and her (unnamed) husband. Mowgli rescues them and then prepares to take revenge. The karela (Momordica charantia) is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown for edible fruit, which is among the most bitter of all vegetables.

Most seven-year-olds believe that the world is permanent; that what is, always was, and always will be. Kipling taught me differently.

Another lesson from this remarkable book came in 1967 when Walt Disney produced a full-length animated feature film "based" on the Jungle Book. When I heard that it was going to be a film, I was so excited. At last I would see the visions from my head on the big screen . Like my school friends I went to see it at the cinema, but unlike them, I was appalled. Where were the characters I loved so well? Where was the deep, spiritual poetry? Why were the wonderful poems replaced by those stupid songs? And why - when all the other children were enjoying themselves, and singing along to the trite melodies - did I feel like bursting into tears?

I learned my third valuable lesson that day. That crass commercial concerns will override anything of genuine substance. That most people in the universe have absolutely no taste. And that corporate multinationals, like the Disney Corporation, are the enemy.

Nothing has happened in the intervening 42 years to change my mind.