Tuesday, July 19, 2016

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: A strange fish in Macclesfield Canal

It`s always pleasant to be able to report a cryptozoology or Fortean story from  my home town of Macclesfield. You may well quote the sceptics comment to Jesus “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” or “can anything of Fortean worth come out of Macclesfield?” Well,obviously,yes,as in the mystery black helicopters scare of the 1970s, and wallabies near by etc.

So the Macclesfield Express of June 22nd 2016 contained a letter from R.W. Hughes of Congleton under the headline CANAL FIND WAS A GIANT (FISH – word missing )

Recently my wife and I were travelling along the Macclesfield canal on our narrowboat `Aurthora Celtic Prince.` At bridge 64 near Macclesfield I noticed a massive dead fish in the water which I managed to pull to the bank,and my wife Susan took a photograph which I enclose ( paper contains the photo which shows a brown fish with a hint of orange – R).

Not being an angler I don`t know what breed of fish this is, but I am sure some of your readers can enlighten me. The size of the fish was 24 inches by 8 inches wide, weight 26lb. This monster had been in the water for some time as it was beginning to decompose, I would be interested to also know what age a fish like this could reach. As an observation, from Bosley locks until Marple junction there is (sic) over 20 miles of canal without locks, a vast length of water capable of supporting a fish of this size*.

I thought this may be of interest to your readers.

RW Hughes

* I happen to know the Macclesfield Canal supports quite large crayfish. I asked for more information on the Macclesfield Express Facebook page but got no replies.


SAVE THE HENS

My name is Lucy and I’m 14. When I started a petition earlier this year asking Tesco to stop selling eggs from caged hens I never imagined that 280,000 people would sign it or that I would get a face to face meeting with Tesco's Head of Agriculture. But it all really happened and now the supermarket giant has pledged to stop selling eggs from caged hens!
This is an incredible moment and I can’t thank everyone that backed me enough. Now with this victory secured, I believe we can get all UK supermarkets to stop selling eggs from caged hens: 
Morrisons and Asda, still intend to sell caged eggs without any obvious intent to change. So I have started a new petition calling for Asda and Morrisons to stop selling eggs from caged hens. Please join me.
Caged eggs come from hens that spend 72 weeks cramped in restrictive cages, unable to spread their wings or experience the outside world. After this time, many of the hens are barely feathered and close to death. No animal deserves to live like this. 
The fact that Tesco, the biggest supermarket in Britain, has decided to stop selling caged hens’ eggs proves that no matter how big the company, the prospect of a free-range future is not impossible.
The power to make this change is in our hands, now it is clear that supermarkets really do listen to public pressure I know we can make this change happen again.

From
Lucy Gavaghan

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 SINGS QUIETLY IN A CORNER

The Gonzo Daily - Tuesday
 
Yesterday I wrote "What a weird year this is turning out to be". But yesterday took the biscuit. The car packed up (fixed for a tenner this afternoon but hairy while it lasted), I got bitten by a snake (the Mexican black kingsnake in the sitting room) and someone very dear to me who has been unable to drive for health reasons got her driving license back. Add to that two teenage girls giggling maniacally on my sofa, and you will see it was a very weird day. And I wasn't even drinking.
 
And now I am on the want again. Ticket sales for this year's Weird Weekend are the slowest ever. I strongly suspect that it is because of the financial insecurity that so many people are feeling at the moment, but I hope that it will turn itself around in the next four weeks. This year's Weird Weekend featuring our very own Steve Ignorant, sponsored by our very own Erik Norlander, compèred by me and the return of  Nuneaton's Mr Entertainment, Barry Tadcaster with his pal Orang Pendek, and featuring a whole cornucopia of high strangeness and cerebral silliness. It would make me very happy if I could sell some more tickets..
 
find out all about the Weird Weekend
buy tickets to the Weird Weekend:
 
And now for the news................
 
SAVE THE HENS
Nightwish interview - Troy (part 1)
Dave Brock Interview
Eric Burdon & The Animals on "The MIke Douglas Sho...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Melting Euphoria - Ley...
 
 
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: The Beatles - Don't Le...
Brand X interview with Phil Collins & John Goodsal...
Arthur Brown gives an interview.
Eric Burdon - Interview 2010
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
 
Gonzo Magazine #191
 
We interview Ian Jones from everyone’s fave Welsh rockers Karnataka, Doug muses on Rush, Alan grieves for music venues under threat, John goes to see Santana, and Jon expounds on hippydom and reviews a book by John Lennon’s mistress, while Biffo goes Ghostbusting!0
 
And there are radio shows from Strange Fruit, Mack Maloney, and Friday Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a thrilling and slightly disturbing episode of Xtul. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons outside 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:
The RAZ Band, John Shuttleworth, Yoko Ono, Dolly Parton, Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman, David Gilmour, Meat Loaf, Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Randy California, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Steven Young, Danny Smythe, Gladys Hermiston-Hooper (née Nash), Arthur Brown, The Beatles, The Golliwogs, James Young, Cymbalic Encounters, Richard Brautigan, Karnataka, Ian Jones, Rush, Alan Dearling, John Brodie-Good, Santana, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, Xtul, John Lennon, May Pang,  Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Glastonbury, Paul McCartney, Neil Nixon, Cantona,
                                                                                  
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 190 (Erik Norlander)
Issue 189 (Rick Wakeman at the O2)
Issue 187/8 (Yer holiday special)
Issue 186 (Beatles)
Issue 185 (Judge Smith)
Issue 184 (Mick Abrahams)
Issue 183 (Daevid Allen)
Issue 182 (Wally)
Issue 181 (Beatles)
Issue 180 (Beltane)
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)
 
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?

NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)



Scotland Now

The 53-year-old is recognised by the Guinness Book of Records for the longest continuous monster hunting vigil of Loch Ness and says he had one ...

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF




Campers Have Several Bigfoot Encounters In Washington State
Via the Bigfoot Evidence "campers make up a large percentage of bigfoot eye witnesses. In this interview a story is told about several campers in a ...

New York Residents Experience Bigfoot First Hand
Some call it the Yeti or Sasquatch, but it's best known as Bigfoot. And some residents in Whitehall, New York say they have seen it first hand.

Those who study Bigfoot and other mysterious creatures are called cryptozoologists. One of them is Stan Gordon, a researcher from Greensburg, ...

NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Tuesday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1553 - Fifteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey was deposed as Queen of England after claiming the crown for nine days. Mary, the daughter of King Henry VIII, was proclaimed Queen. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Euro 2016 moths take wing from Paris and head to B...
  • Drones to unleash vaccine-laced M&Ms in bid to sav...
  • Cougars could save lives by lowering vehicle colli...
  • Why do islands give rise to such unusual creatures...


  • 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)