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...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



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...




Thursday, October 22, 2015

CFZ PEOPLE: Jess Heard

Chinese Royal Clown Loach, (Leptobotia Pellegrini)

I am a subscriber to the online fishfinder service, and once in a while it means that I receive an email about a particularly desirable fish which has turned up for sale somewhere in the UK this week I received a notification that was of particular interest to me. As you all probably know I spent my childhood in Hong Kong and therefore am particularly interested in Southern Chinese creatures. I have a Southern Chinese fish tank that I have set up in my sitting room and I am always vaguely looking for new fish from the area. So when I received the following email I was quite excited: 

“Rarity alert : Chinese Royal Clown Loach, Leptobotia Pellegrini is now in stock at Wildwoods. 16th October 2015. Wildwoods have taken delivery this week of a very rare loach, the Chinese Royal Clown Loach, Leptobotia Pellegrini.. This is the first time Wildwoods have had this particular species in stock and we believe it is only the second time we have seen these fish for sale on Tropicalfishfinder. This is a large species of loach that can grow as big as 20cm and the examples Wildwoods have in stock are between 15cm and 18cm in length. These fish would work particularly well in a large community tank. There are only 8 fish available so be quick if you don't want to miss out on the loach opportunity of the year! The good news is that they are now available on the Tropicalfish2yourdoor shop for overnight delivery direct to your door. The photographs on the left and right are of the actual fish that are for sale” 

They are an undeniably handsome species, and furthermore one that I have never seen before so I looked at the price I don’t care how handsome they are, but at £65 a pop, I'm afraid they will not be gracing the CFZ aquaria any time soon.

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



Four types of bigfoot
I have tried to parse out the various kinds per Will Jevning. But he might not be right, of course. Let's see if we can collaborate to come up with ...

Montana will get a peek into the world of cryptozoology on Oct. 24, when the first-ever Big Sky Bigfoot Conference is held at the Symes Hotel in Hot ...

CREEPY footage has emerged claiming to show BIGFOOT with red hair and green eyes scurrying around a forest. By Rory McKeown / Published 21st ...

Bigfoot in the UK
I'd like to tell you my 'encounter' with a Bigfoot. It was around 1982 and I was nine years old. Where I lived was a place called The Halewood Triangle ...

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

The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
I don’t know what it is about Jessica, she is a very nice girl in lots of ways but she just doesn’t get Robert Wyatt. It was only a few weeks ago that she threatened to report me to Childline if I ever played it to her again so I bet she would hate what’s coming up on TV tomorrow evening. Many thanks to John Brody-Good who wrote me this:
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed but there is a 1 hour documentary at 2200 Psychedelic Britannia followed by Totally 60s Psychedelic Rock at the BBC at 2300. Both supposed to be good. You might wanna mention on your daily thingy.”
i think it looks great and I am very much looking forward to it. In yesterdays post I received a copy of the Wally Hope movie and so I have a whole weekend of hippy television to watch, probably along side my 86 years old mother-in-law. She is far more accepting of the hippy nonsense I watch than either Jessica or my lovely wife. She even sat down and watched ‘Lucifer Rising’, and ‘Invocation of my Demon Brother’ and one night she even sat in the corner happily while Max and I got noisily drunk and listened to Comus. I haven’t even dared playing Comus to Jessica yet…
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: BARBARA DICKSON AND EL...
PREVIEW: Steve Hackett, O2 Guildhall Southampton
YES CONFIRM FULL EURO TOUR
Roger McGuinn of The Byrds Makes Stop in Livermore...
Gonzo Weekly #152
www.gonzoweekly.com
4th Eden, David Gilmour, Pink Floyd, Hard Meat, Transmetropolitan, Patto, Steely Dan, Little Feat, Neil Young, Digitiser, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Dogwatch, That Legendary Wooden Lion, Hawkwind, Jon Anderson, Mack Moloney, and Yes fans had better look out!
The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#152) is available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/. It has 4th Eden on the front cover together with an interview with him inside, Doug goes to see David Gilmour at the Royal Albert Hall, Jon muses on Patto and rock and roll archaeology. We review volume one of Transmetropolitan, and Xtul are back in the deep woods. Neil unearths a hidden gem, Thom waxes all poetical like, whilst the legendary Roy Weard continues his regular column, C J Stone does his, and Mr Biffo has more of his regular slices of insanity from the world of Digitiser 2000, and there is a radio show from Strange Fruit, one from Friday Night Progressive and another from our latest addition to the team Mack Moloney. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons wanting a snooze (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who stayed up too late last night, 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:
Patto, Hard Meat, Damon Albarn, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, James Dean Bradfield, Sting, Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, Guy Garvey, Steve Hackett, ELO, Frank Zappa, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Smokin' Joe Kubek, John Russell Murphy, Steve Mackay, Carey Lander, Ronald Gordon Honeycombe, Robert Cooper Phillips, Robbin  Thompson, James "Jim" Diamond, Michael Hugh  Scully, Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Brand X, The Raz Band, Johnny Winter, Alexis Korner, 13th Floor Elevators, Nucleus, Spirits Burning, The Pirates, Martin Eve, 4th Eden, David Gilmour, John Brodie-Good, The Allman Brothers, Steely Dan, Little Feat, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Xtul, Hawkwind, Yes, Billy Sherwood, AndersonPonty Band, John Lennon, Rod Stewart, Grateful Dead, The Osbournes, Chris Bell, Tuatha de Danann
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
Issue 151 (Corky Laing)
Issue 150 (Roger Dean)
Issue 149 (Tony Palmer in Space)
Issue 148 (Wally Hope)
Issue 147 (Thom the World Poet cover)
Issue 146 (Bee and Flower cover)
Issue 145 (Dave Brock cover)
Issue 144 (Percy Jones cover)
Issue 143 (Billy Sherwood cover)
Issue 142 (Daevid Allen and Spirits Burning cover)
Issue 141 (Rick Wakeman cover)
Issue 140 (Jaki Windmill cover)
Issue 139 (Raz cover)
Issue 138 (Galahad cover)
Issue 137 (Chris Squire cover)
Issue 136 (Neil Nixon cover)
Issue 135 (FNP cover)
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.com/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit…
* 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 56 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and a small kitten 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, and sometimes a small Indian frog. 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 the infantile orange cat, and the adventurous kitten?

NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Thursday

ON THIS DAY IN 1797 - Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump. He made the jump from about 3,000 feet. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk


  • Pilot Program Aims to Save Jamaica Bay’s Shrinking...
  • Rat race: With complaints on rise, NYC redoubles e...
  • WWF-Pakistan, Sindh Wildlife Department rescue 62 ...


  • Florida adds another feature to winter tourism - a...

  • 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)