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...




Monday, October 08, 2012

DALE DRINNON: Bigfooty stuff

New at Frontiers of Zoology:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/10/bigfoot-evidence-hybrid.html
And
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/10/supposed-bigfoot-photo-from-utah.html

And

I'M YER GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN

Monday morning and I have the same old blues again, if I can quote the immortal Captain quoting J.J.Cale. We have practically finished the design work for our exhibition in Barnstaple museum, and Corinna comes home tomorrow. She is collecting Mama and a pair of Chinese toads this evening. I am not my brightest and best and will be out of action until Matthew and Emma arrive this evening..

A great interview with Michael Des Barres. I had no idea that he started off his rock career when Andre Lloyd Webber saw him in a nude revue called 'The Dirtiest Show in Town'. Golly!

Bizarrely, yesterday I was helping one of my nieces with a project involving Greek Mythlogy. Well someone who has entered modern day Greek mythology as a legendary keyboard player is Erik Norlander. Check out these two Hellenic reviews...

Our regular daily visit to Thom the World Poet who - today - is investigating merfolk in the southwest of England, which is pretty much what we do all the time.

Ever since I first heard that Rick Wakeman was going to New Zealand, I have been looking forward to hearing how it went. Here is the first review, and it seems that our Mr W has been in top form.

The legendary Jefferson Starship are about to perform their 2,000th show

A taster for the new album by the mighty Atkins/May Project. I, for one, am very impressed

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 Editor is an old hippy of 53 who - together with his orange cat - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange cat?

CRYPTOLINK: Monsters from Mesopotamia

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/201204/monsters.from.mesopotamia.htm

People have long used fear as a tool to entertain.

Tales of monsters have been with us since the dawn of time. They are part of every people’s traditions and folklore, whether told around a prehistoric campfire or projected on a wide screen with digital sound for 21st-century audiences.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, shown here in part of the 11th tablet, mentions several types of monsters, and an older Sumerian tale says Gilgamesh's father was a Lillu, or blood-sucking demon.

In all the stories, the monsters take their shapes from our fears of the unknown—be it apprehensions about nocturnal noises from a forest, or worries over the ominous intentions of races in far-off lands described by returning sailors. Evidently, some monsters that first materialize on a remote continent find ways to migrate to one’s own land and take up residence in a nearby wilderness or wasteland.

Read on...

HAUNTED SKIES: Sun (The) 12.11.69.


WATCHER OF THE SKIES: Today's Fortean bird news

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. So, after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo, Corinna has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.


  • RSPB launches its ever popular Avocet Cruise winte...
  • On the wing: Birds eat the darndest things
  • Rescued egret chick grows up fast, is released alo...
  • Being smuggled out: Rare falcons’ trip to Kuwait c...
  • Rare birds sighted during survey of Kerala coast


  • TODAY'S 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 should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012, Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.




    Here is the latest tranche of news...



  • NEWSLINK: Mystery cat of Inverclyde
  • SIGHTINGS: Puma in Idaho
  • SIGHTINGS: Big cats in Dorset
  • THANKS KITHRA
  • OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today



    On this day in 1939, Paul Hogan, Australia’s greatest movie star was born. You may scoff but lets be honest the first Crocodile Dundee film is pretty damn good and kicked off a bit of a craze about all things Australian across the world such as the music of Mozart, building cellars, Freud and being the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also if it weren't for Crocodile Dundee Steve Irwin might have had to find fame by dubbing himself the real life Dame Edna and his on-screen persona and Crocodile Hunter show would have been very different. Indeed the world may not have been ready for a bloke in a dress wrestling crocodiles. So we have a lot to thank him for (but not 'Almost an Angel', that was mank).
    And now the news:
    That's not a knife...