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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Wednesday, February 15, 2017

CFZ PEOPLE: John Downes (1925-2006)

Image result for j t downes

Eleven Years Gone

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF




The measure says that Sasquatch – also known as Bigfoot or Forest Yeti – has “made immeasurable contributions to Washington state's cultural ...

Giant Bigfoot Stalks Hunters
This man had a Sasquatch encounter that caused him to look at the activity on his property. The Bigfoot in Missouri seem to be huge at least in this ...

A Bigfoot film festival and conference
Come to San Francisco for three days of classic Bigfoot and Yeti movies with documentaries on both screens in the haunted and historic Balboa ...
Retreat From Bigfoot Lake
From Bono Russell and Mojo Encounters: Billy McDonald from Oklahoma shares with us some creepy Bigfoot encounters plus much more!

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 BAND MUSTERS HIS RESOURCES

The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
 
Binky Womack, Barbara Dickson, Pink Fairies
 
Bloody hell, where has this week gone? In fact where has the winter gone? The thing that so many people burble on about time seeming to pass so much quicker as you get older is certainly a truism. Spring always seems to start on Valentine’s Day. I first noticed it on the 14th February 2006, because that was the day that my Father died. We went to the hospital on the evening if the 13th and the garden was still cold, grey and dormant, and the next morning as we came home, newly bereaved, the flowers were out. I wondered then, and I wonder now, whether the feast day of St Valentine - a Roman Saint so obscure that he could have been any one of three blokes called Valentinus - was shoehorned onto an earlier Pagan fertility festival. Or could it, of course, refer to Valentine Michael Smith?
 
And here is the news:
 
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Hawkwind - Master of t...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
Barbara Dickson Show (Part One)
PINK FAIRIES: George Butler interview for 'Groove ...
BINKY WOMACK REVIEW
 
Gonzo Magazine #221
THE MOONMADNESS ISSUE
 
In this week’s issue Jeremy says goodbye to the legendary Deke Leonard, Doug goes to see Adam Ant, Alan reminisces about Runrig and other heroes of Scottish Rock and Roll with Ivor Johnston,Christopher goes to see Julian Cope, Jeremy goes to see Black Sabbath, and Martin Springett enthuses to Jon about A Series of Unfortunate Events. Plus Hawkwind, The Gardening Club, and all sorts of other things. Good huh?
 
Groovy huh?
It’s all free!
 
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Friday Night Progressive, and Strange Fruitwhereas Jeremy Smith's new project The Seven Deadly Sins will be back next week. We also have 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 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:
 
Lemony Snicket, Black Sabbath, David Cassidy, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Davies, Roundhouse, Sigur Rós, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Svend Asmussen, Emmett Peter "Sonny" Geraci, Steve Lang, Noel Bartholomew Simms, Robert, Dahlqyist, Ritchie Yorke, David Axelrod, Granddad, Supertramp, Tony Ashton and Friends, Lutz Ulbrich featuring Nico, The Pink Fairies, Jeremy Smith, Deke Leonard, Adam Ant, Alan Dearling, Ivor Johnston, Christopher Johnson, Julia Cope, Kev Rowland, Loonypark, Mindfields, Moonrise, Moloken, Ophidian Forest, Mr Biffo, Hawkwind, Roy Weard, Xtul, Martin Springett, Grateful Dead, Brian Jones, Beatles, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, Elvis, Quentin Crisp
 
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 220 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 219 (Martin Stone)
Issue 218 (Mark Reiser tribute)
Issue 217 (Dig Doug Harr)
Issue 215-6 (New Year 2017)
Issue 213-4 (Yule 2016)
Issue 212 (Greg Lake)
Issue 211 (Phil Collins)
Issue 210 (Nico)
Issue 209 (Pink Fairies)
Issue 208 (Leonard Cohen)
Issue 207 (Tibet)
Issue 206 (Raz)
Issue 205 (Pink Fairies)
Issue 204 (Gas Tank)
Issue 203 (The Gardening Club)
Issue 202 (Gong)
Issue 201 (Auld Man's Baccie)
Issue 200 (Deep Purple)
Issue 199 (Yes)
Issue 198 (Steve Ignorant)
Issue 197 (Gilli Smyth)
Issue 196 (Paul May)
Issue 195 (Dave Brock)
Issue 194 (Auburn)
Issue 193 (Genre Peak)
Issue 192 (Rick Wakeman and Brian May)
Issue 191 (Karnataka)
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)
 
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 57 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two half grown 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 Archie and the Cats?

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.

  • NEWSLINK: ‘Obese’ Siberian tigers in China zoo rai...
  • SIGHTINGS, U.S.A: Multiple Mountain Lion Sightings..
  • NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Tuesday/Wednesday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1758 - Mustard was advertised for the first time in America. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Bright lights, big city, tiny frog: Romer’s tree f...
  • 44 invading species 'loose' in North Atlantic, stu...
  • Fish show cheating can be better than playing by t...
  • Plan to return the lynx splits friends and familie...
  • Hedgehogs now a rare garden sight as British popul...
  • Fall armyworm 'threatens African farmers' liveliho...


  • 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.)