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, January 08, 2018

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN CONTINUES

The Gonzo Daily: Monday/Tuesday
 
This morning was the first ‘normal’ Monday of the year, and I have spent most of the day so far dictating wallages of deathless prose to my darling step-secretary, who – as always – is a veritable angel for putting up with my poor grammar and frequent expletives. There are all sorts of things in the air, but I can’t really talk about them until later this week or - probably – the next. But never mind. It will give you all something jolly to look forward to, as Britain shivers through a nasty, grey wetness.
 
I actually quite like January. I certainly prefer it to December. The days are getting longer, and – once again – I am presented by the peculiar conundrum of what biological imperative drives the local frog population to arise from hibernation long enough to lay their first spawn of the year when – invariably – the resultant tadpoles are killed by frosts within weeks. The frog population then waits until March or April, when it does a second spawning, a goodly number of which actually metamorphose into frogdom. This has happened for decades, and so the people who argue that it is a result of climate change are completely mistaken. There must be some reason for this, and I have been wondering what it is since I was a child.
 
Can anyone help me?
 
Forgive me for always banging on about our webTV show, but it matters a lot to me, and I would be grateful for as many people as possible to see it, and spread the tidings of it far and wide:
 
 
And if you fancy supporting us on Patreon:
 
But for now, here is the news:
 
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY:  Van der Graaf Generat...
RICK SPRINGFIELD IN THE
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
GRAHAM FELLOWS IN THE NEWS
LEONARD COHEN'S LAST BOOK
 
Gonzo Weekly #265/6
THE RING IN THE NEW ISSUE
 
In this first issue of 2018 we take a look at the best albums of 2017, John B-G’s review of the year and hopes for this one, Graham’s review of the year for Hawkwind, Alan’s interview with Matthew Smith about Exist to Resist, and his rave review of Canadians the Slocan Ramblers, while John makes sense of the novel by the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu.
 
Hail Eris!
 
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney AND Strange Fruit, AND Friday Night Progressive AND 'cos it was a full moon last week, Canterbury Sans Frontieres. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Neil Nixon, Roy Weard, C J Stone, Mr Biffo and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and southern dibblers who have blown a fuse (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who are not good at household electrics, 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:
 
Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Bono, Steve Hackett, Procul Harum, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Canterbury Sans Frontieres, Nathan Strayer, Dave Christenson, Michael George Haynes (Michael Prophet), Richard Dobson, Ralph Carney, Kevin Bryant Mahogany, Jim Forrester, Leo "Bud" Welch, Reggie Joseph Osse (Combat Jack), Roswell Hopkins Rudd Jr., Halvard Magne Kausland, Jordan Feldstein, John Ray Sechler (Curly Seckler) Melton "Eahsaan" Mustafa Sr., Pam Warren (Pam the Funkstress), Roe Erister "Rick" Hall, Tony Calder, Erica Garner-Snipes, Barbara Dickson, Jessica Lee Morgan, Rick Wakeman, Billion Dollar Babies, Tangerine Dream, Roger Waters, Gorillaz, Neil Young, British Sea Power, Peter Perrett, Gogol Bordello, Tricky, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Morrissey, Tim Bowness, Alan Dearling, Slocan Ramblers, Matthew Smith, Exist To Resist, John Brodie-Good, Kev Rowland, Richard Wileman, Secret World, Hollow Earth, Steelheart, Steve Hobbs, Sxuperion, Silhouette, Tankard, Threat Signal, Antisect, Trojan Horse, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Simon Wright, Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Springett, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, Pink, Michael Jackson, Prince, Queen, David Bowie
 
And the last few issues are:
 
Issue 265-6 (The Who)
Issue 264 (John McLaughlin)
Issue 263 (The magic Band)
Issue 262 (DikMik)
Issue 261 (Leonard Cohen)
Issue 260 (Amsterdam Squat Festie)
Issue 259 (Out come thee Freaks)
Issue 258 (The Devil's Jukebox)
Issue 257 (Judge Smith)
Issue 255/6 (John Lennon)
Issue 254 (Mr Biffo)
Issue 253 (Dana Gillespie)
Issue 252 (Cropredy)
Issue 251 (Scott Walker)
Issue 250 (Jamms)
Issue 249 (Bill Bruford)
Issue 248 (The Selecter)
Issue 247 (Don Airey)
Issue 246 (Steve Hackett)
Issue 244-5 (Summer Special)
 
 
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 58 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.



BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



The Increase in Bigfoot and Cryptid sightings
Mattsquatch Presents writes "There seems to be an increase in Bigfoot reports over the years. People are also seeing more of the lesser known cryptids like.


British Bigfoot?
There's not too much out there on the possibility of there being a British Bigfoot, though some claim there is such a thing. Whilst looking for something interesting to post on the subject, I came across this – West Country Tales an early 1980s supernatural drama series based on real-life […]

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.

NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Monday/Tuesday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1642 - Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk


  • Citizen scientists help capture wild mammals on ca...
  • Stress test: New study finds seals are stressed-ou...
  • New algorithm recognizes distinct dolphin clicks i...
  • Radar tracking reveals how bees develop a route be...
  • Guelph street gets underground frog crossing – via...
  • World of Intricate Muscles Revealed Inside Velvet ...


  • 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).