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, May 02, 2016

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From CFZ-USA:

CFZ MONTHLY NEWSLETTER #7

Dear Friends,

For those of you not in the know, at the beginning of each month we send out a newsletter to all members of the CFZ. The most recent included articles on yeti sightings, a new Sasquatch group, the launch of Cryptozoological Notes and Queries,  and an Australian sea monster that wasn't.

The infrastructure of the Centre for Fortean Zoology has changed rapidly over the last few years and truthfully doesn’t look like its going to stop changing anytime soon. The newsletter costs a quid a month (or the equivalent in your currency) and is delivered straight into your inbox by a plethora of tiny invisible elves, or email if your prefer it that way. You can sign up for it here: http://tinyurl.com/jz66jgh

If you want to view a sample issue click here: http://tinyurl.com/pw7rw9l

 

THE BANK HOLIDAY GONZO HEN

The Gonzo Daily - Monday
 
My wife does not understand me. I drunkenly bought a dessicator so we can make our own raisins, and then - excitedly - woke her up at about three in the morning to tell her about it. And she was not impressed. So I waited and told her again this afternoon when I was completely sober. And she was still not impressed. "Why on earth would we want to make our own raisins?" she asked. I am afraid I was lost for an answer.
 
So if anyone reading this can come up with a half decent reason why we would want to make our own raisins, please help me out...
 
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Alexis Korner - Get Of...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
Joey Molland interview in the Lightning 100 studio...
Hawkwind - Hawfest 2010 - Interview
BARBARA DICKSON - "BAND OF GOLD" INTERVIEW (1995)
 
And by the way chaps and chappesses, a trip to the Jon Downes megastore: if you want to make me a happy fellow, you can:
 
buy my novel:
buy my single:
buy tickets to the Weird Weekend:
but the CFZ 2016 Yearbook:
 
Gonzo Magazine #180
 
The Beltane issue is here so T Rex, The Who, Stonehenge, Steve Miller Band, Flaming Groovies, John Blaney, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Dogwatch, That Legendary Wooden Lion, Hawkwind, and Yes fans had better look out! After what has been a long and peculiar week, this issue features Doug musing on the spiritual message of The Who, Jeremy going to see The Flaming Groovies, Alan on the Free Stonehenge Campaign, John on the thorny subject of money,
and there
are radio shows from Strange Fruit and Mack Maloney, as well as the return of Friday Night Progressive, the latest installment of the saga of Xtul, and columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons ouyside zoos(OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have escaped from captivity, 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:
Marc Bolan, Zhongyu, Marcelo Paganini, Prince, Adam Ant, Galahad, Roger Daltrey, AC/DC, Rick Wakeman, Strange Fruit, Friday  Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Billy Paul, Papa Wemba, Captain Beefheart, Brand X, Osibisa, Pink Fairies, Gram Parson's The International Submarine Band, Gib Guilbeau, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Sons of Fred, Percy Jones, Norman Wisdom featuring Rick Wakeman, The Who, Alan Dearling, Stonehenge Free Festival, Roy Weard, John Brodie-Good, Steve Miller, Younghusband, Flamin' Groovies, Mr Biffo, John Blaney, Hawkwind, Xtul, 10CC, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Kevin Ayers, Neil Nixon, Vashti Bunyan, Old Corpse Road
 
                                                                                    
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 179 (Gregg Kofi Brown)
Issue 178 (Viv Stanshall)
Issue 177 (David Gilmour)
Issue 176 (Joey Molland and The Raz Band)
Issue 175 (Larry Sanders)
Issue 174 (Keith Emerson)
Issue 173 (Pink Fairies action figures)
Issue 172 (4th Eden)
Issue 171 (Keith Levene)
Issue 170 (Wildman Fischer)
Issue 169 (Wildman Fischer)
Issue 168 (Wakeman/Bowie)
Issue 167 (Paul Kantner)
Issue 166 (Spirits Burning)
Issue 165 (David Bowie)
Issue 164 (Free Festivals)
Issue 163 (Lemmy)
Issue 161-2 (The Christmas Double Feature)
Issue 160 (Frank Zappa)
Issue 159 (Jon Anderson and Matt Malley)
Issue 158 (Billy Sherwood)
Issue 157 (Drones for Daevid)
Issue 156 (Rick and Emmie)
Issue 155 (Pink Fairies)
Issue 154 (Steve Ignorant)
Issue 153 (Martin Barre)
Issue 152 (4th Eden)
 
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 56 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two small 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 the infantile orange cat, and the adventurous kittens?

TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS

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.


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



Examiner.com

Long time investigators of the paranormal know that reports of UFOs, hauntings or cryptids, such as Bigfoot, go through cycles. When many reports ...

WNCN
“Somebody came in one morning and wanted to buy some more buns or rolls, big foot had stole their bread. But I think big foot would have got their ...

NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)




DETROIT - Stories of the Loch Ness Monster have been around for more than a thousand years, but it was on May 2, 1933, that the legend spread into ...

NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Monday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1670 - The Hudson Bay Company was founded by England's King Charles II. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk


  • Hunting wolves near Denali, Yellowstone cuts wolf ...
  • 'Sleepless slugs' on rise, say experts
  • Swaziland unveils plan to legalise rhino horn to p...
  • Sea lion found on farm 50 miles inland dies after ...
  • More tigers poached in India so far this year than...
  • Campaigners urge Elton John to boycott music festi...


  • Analysis of dog genome will provide insight into h...


  • 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)