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, April 19, 2017

THIS IS RADIO CLASH FROM PIRATE SATELLITE

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NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)



A New DNA-Based Search for the Loch Ness Monster is being Launched
A university professor from New Zealand is planning to put our modern knowledge of genetics to work in solving a decades-old mystery: does the Loch ...

Loch Ness Monster 'missing'
The Loch Ness Monster has been posted missing - after eight months without a sighting.Gary Campbell, keeper of the Official Loch Ness Monster ...

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.





HO HO HO HOP WITH THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN

The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
 
I don't really know where to start. Monday night I was scheduled to do an episode of Colin Schneider's excellent Crypto Kid radio show at midnight. Only I had forgotten that the clocks had gone back so it was actually at one in the morning. So there I was sitting up in my armchair listening to Roy Weard's excellent new album and Brian Eno's 1974 LP 'Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy'.
 
THEN:
 
...in came Corinna clutching something small and feathery: it was a fledgling robin that had been brought in by Dotty Periwinkle the small cat with a peculiar half moustache. She put it in a small box in the dark and left it to calm down. Twenty minutes later in came Dotty with another one. Then my iPad packed up, which was a problem, because I needed it to do Colin's radio show via Skype. I managed to fix it with minutes to spare and was able to do the radio show as planned.
 
BUT THEN:
 

Corinna went in to the office to show Julia how to feed baby birds, and the little buggers a#escaped and flappily scurried around the room. By the time they had recaptured the errant fledglings I was in full flow about the breeding biology of the European eel.
 
AND THEN WE WENT TO BED...BUT:
 
The next morning in came Dotty with a third fledgling. Corinna took the three babies into the Conservatory to find the big flight cage that Graham made for Martha the baby pigeon a few years back. But more by luck than judgement they all escaped again and scurried to the four corners of the conservatory. On top of this, there were a pair of frantic adult robings scurrying about the outside of the conservatory and divebombing the cats when they came close.
 
SO:
 
Graham and Corinna opened the window just wide enough for the adult robins to come in and feed their offspring, and this has worked remarkably well. Two of the babies are still alive this morning and the one that we can see is being remarkably bouncy, hale and hearty. Last night had diabetic ice cream and interviewed Roy Weard about his aforementioned excellent new album, and today I am sat in my study with the door open top let in the fresh air, and am awaiting the arrival of little miss pupil for her weekly English lesson.
 
Good 'ere innit?
 
And now, here is the news:
 
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Alexis Korner - Get Of...
FRANK ZAPPA IN THE NEWS
YES IN THE NEWS
JACKIE LEE REVIEW
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
 
Gonzo Magazine #230
THE HEARTFUL OF SOUL ISSUE
 
In order to provide a perfect literary counterpoint to you guzzling chocolate eggs and waving your arms around in delight, here is an issue in which Jon meets Binky Womack (yes, folks, he is one of those Womacks), Doug writes about Kate Bush, Neil writes about the Great Beast, and Alan roams the highways and byways of Lithuania in search of musical delights. And yes, there is lots more, and it is all free...
 
Groovy huh?
 
It’s all free!
 
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Friday Night Progressive, Strange Fruit, the sixth of Jeremy Smith's Seven Deadly Sins radio shows, and because it was a full moon this week another episode of Canterbury Sans Frontieres. 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:
 
ate Bush, Elton John, Rick Wakeman, David Bowie, John Otway, Roger Daltrey, New Order, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Jeremy Smith's Seven Deadly Sins, Canterbury Sans Frontieres, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Brian Matthew, Glen O'Brien, Ben Lacy Speer, John Warren "J" Geils Jr., Toby Grafftey-Smith, Mika Vainio, Eric Cook, Emmie Beckitt and Rick Wakeman, Supertramp, Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, Al Atkins, Arthur Brown, Atomic Rooster, Mary Hopkin, Binky Womack, Alan Dearling, Rasa Serra and Saulius Petreikas, Kamaniu Silesis (perhaps Pinewood of the Bumblebees), Baltik Postfolk Alternative, Esatis, Skyle, Justin 3, Matt Winson Band, Kev Rowland, Jadis, Matthew Parmenter, Lioncage, Marduk, Tony Daunt and the Dauntless, Soniq Theater, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Springett, Sex Pistols, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Linkin Park, Neil Nixon, Aleister Crowley
 
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 229 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 228 (Space Pharoahs)
Issue 227 (Chuck Berry)
Issue 225-6 (The Rites of Spring)
Issue 224 (Hibernal)
Issue 223 (Beatles)
Issue 222 (Cruise to the Edge)
Issue 221 (Deke Leonard)
Issue 220 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 219 (Martin Stone)
Issue 218 (Mark Reiser tribute)
 
 
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: SGNP officials help big cats cool down e...
  • NEWSLINK: Leopard scare in Maharashtra village aft...


  • VIDEO: Former circus lions making themselves at ho...
  • NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Wednesday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1587 - English admiral Sir Francis Drake entered Cadiz harbor and sank the Spanish fleet. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Three quarters of deep-sea animals make their own ...
  • How many dolphins are there in Hong Kong waters?
  • How domestication can change animals' facial featu...
  • New shrimp species named after Pink Floyd
  • Killer of rare butterfly given six-month suspended...
  • Dead bat found in bagged salad sold at Florida Wal...


  • 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.)