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...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



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...




Showing posts with label bloggo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bloggo. Show all posts

Friday, February 03, 2012

LARS THOMAS: A little something for the blog


Hi Jon,

Whilst pursuing one of my minor hobbies (the life and times of Leonardo da Vinci) I stumbled upon this drawing done by the great man probably in 1513, intitled 'Studies of cats and other animals.' All well and good - I see several cats, something looking like a lion and perhaps a couple of bears fighting. But what is that thing just below and to the right of the middle of the drawing? I know Leonardo did several drawings of costumes and set pieces for theatre, one of which a large dragon, but he usually labeled his drawings and made various notes about them. But this creature is just inserted in between all the 'regular' animals. Ideas anyone??

Lars

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

LIZ CLANCY: APOCALYPSE 1080p: Last Day of the World

It's been a long time since my last post for the CFZ bloggo but I have several incredibly good excuses. One is that I'm currently working on a film project and would like to invite CFZ bloggo readers to get involved. And CFZ TV.

In Montreal, back in January 1999, a couple of friends made a simple bet between themselves: produce an original short film every month until the New Millennium and the End of the World. Twelve months later these friends were disappointed to learn that the Apocalypse had been postponed, but they had kept their bet and 200 short films later, KINO was born!

http://www.planetekino.com/index.php?s=kino&lang=en

Twelve years later, as the year 2012 looms and the 'Mayan Doomsday' silly season appears set to strike with full force, we thought we’d commemorate KINO’s apocalyptic origins by posing ONE simple question:

IF the world is ending on 21st December 2012 (as doomsday theorists claim) how would YOU spend the world’s very Last Day?

Fulfilling your wildest ‘bucket list’ desires? Saying your last goodbyes? Getting plastered? Cowering inside your bomb shelter? Making passionate love?

Partially inspired by the Ridley Scott documentary ‘Life in a Day’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘Behind the Mask’ music video, Manchester Making Films Inspirational [MMFI] and SirClancelot Films are inviting Kino filmmakers worldwide to star in the ‘Apocalypse 1080p’ cinema project by sending us your most creative films showing how YOU plan to spend the Last Day of the World. The best footage will be used to create an amazing world-sourced, feature-length science fiction movie to be released in December 2012.

From something as basic as a 30-second mobile phone video clip of your last will and testament before the '2012 apocalypse' to the most elaborate 'countdown to Armageddon' flash mob, feel free to have all the fun in the world in creating your masterpieces.

WHAT WERE YOU DOING ON THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED?
Imagine it. Film it. Send it in.

Pull out all creative stops. Think outside the box. Let your creativity (and cameras) run wild and send us your most amazing 21/12 'bucket list' films!

Submissions may be filmed with mobile phone, camcorder, DSLR or any other means. They may be of any length and should strive for a minimum resolution of 1080p HD (though films of lesser resolution will be accepted).

Open a Free account and upload your films to Vimeo at:

http://vimeo.com/

Then send us the web link to your film (along with your full name, phone number and email address) via Facebook Message.

Alternatively, you can post your entries on CD or DVD to:

SirClancelot Films
88 Abbey Crescent
Heywood
Lancashire
OL10 4UG

(Remember to enclose your full name, phone number and email address. Submissions are non-returnable and may be re-edited as needed.)

Closing date for entries: 30 June 2012. Please disregard the 'Tuesday, March 20, 2012' closing date indicated at the top. (For some reason Facebook will not allow you to create an event that lasts for more than 4 months.)

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Could all participants refrain from adding any names, titles, dates or any other visual information to the films they submit. These will be added in post-production. Furthermore, in submitting material for this project you are doing so under the terms of the Creative Commons Public License.

MAKE THE LAST DAY OF THE WORLD COUNT FOR SOMETHING.
Imagine it. Film it. Send it in.


Saturday, January 14, 2012

NEXT WEEK

Corinna and I are going to be away for five or six days from tomorrow. We will still have access to a computer so as far as I know the blog will continue as normal. However, Graham is running the CFZ in my absence and will take over bloggystuff if necessary.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

ANOTHER PAT ON OUR BACK

This morning I posted the 6,000th post on this blog. When you add nearly 5,000 posts on the news blogs and all the posts on the other blogs in the CFZ Bloggo network, and realise that this is all since January 2009, I think we have all done remarkably well. I would like to thank everyone who has worked together to make this possible. But enough of complacency; there is plenty more work to be done!

Thursday, March 31, 2011

ISSUES WITH BLOGGO AND AMAZON

Both Blogspot and Amazon.co.uk appear to still be being recalcitrant: formatting commands disappear at will on the blog, and according to Amazon.co.uk, all of our new books will still take several months to arrive. This is most unfortunate because it means that our new titles are just not being given a chance, and I would hate them to sink without trace. However, the situation at Amazon.co.uk is being worked on (so we are reliably informed) and there are so many complaints about the formatting issues the Blogspot help forums that one would like to think that the owners - Goofle - will do something about it.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

BLOWING Ojavascript:void(0)UR OWN TRUMPET





Somewhere in the last few days whilst the Core CFZ Team here at Myrtle Cottage were spluttering around in a sea of phlegm and bad attitude, the hit counter on the blog passed the 1.5 Million mark!


I would like to say that I am feeling quietly pleased with this result, but in reality I would be rushing around the house shoutinmg `HUZZAH!` if I didn't still feel so bloody ill.


So here is a picture of a prawn playing a saxophone, instead!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

A BRIEF NOTE ON THE BLOGGO

Like the Pony Express and the Windmill Theatre during The Blitz, we are proud that the bloggo remains open come rain and shine, no matter how ill its principal guiding lights become. However, I would like to apologise to Dale Drinnon. I have six unposted blogs by him but they are all rather complicated ones. I am able to post things but in my enfeebled state of the moment, I am not able to post anything complicated because my brain is just not up to it....

Thursday, December 02, 2010

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO

Richard and I always used to crow and feel proud of ourselved whenever we thought that we had done anything spectacularly clever. If the weather was good we would march around the garden with saucepans on our heads having a parade! Well, I think a parade would be in order if it wasn't that it is too bloody cold. We have won an award!

http://www.forensicscience.net/best-cryptozoology-blogs

We are #1 with two other blogs in the listing. Thanks guys!


5,000 POSTS - Bloody Hell

Yesterday our post tally passed the 5,000 mark. That is purely on the main blog, not counting the newsblog, Corinna's, Karl's, CFZ Australia's, or any of Nick Redfern's. Haven't we done well?

Sunday, November 21, 2010

BLOGGO ON FACEBOOK

A few days ago Rebecca from CFZ Australia e-mailed me, suggesting that I post the blog updates on the CFZ Facebook group. It was a jolly good idea, I thought, but had no idea how to do it. With the help of Karl Shuker and Oll Lewis I worked out (eventually) how to do it, and I left it for a couple of days to make sure that it was working properly (it is) before crowing to the world at large how clever I had been.


But it works. Hooray! (It's even on Twitter)

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Beachcombing's baby-eating eagles

As I have noted before, the `Beachcombing` blog has been one of my favourites for some weeks. It often includes snippets of great fortean zoological interest like this:

When Beachcombing first came to Italy, many years ago, he spent a summer in a room with an enormous wardrobe – the stuff of C. S. Lewis fantasies. This wardrobe was not only huge, but it also had a memorable print on the front. An eagle was being attacked by a weepy mother and in the eagle’s claws was a small baby that the mother had foolishly left in a meadow. The image entered Beachcombing’s dreams – be careful what you put on your wardrobes – and Beachcombing has set himself, in an act of nostalgia, a question: is there a single well-documented case of an eagle carrying off a baby or child?

Read on...

Saturday, November 13, 2010

HELP WANTED

We are always looking for new people to get involved with the bloggo, but specifically we are looking for someone to impliment a new feature that I have in mind. It won't take more than 20 minutes a day, and involves slight knowledge of html. If you fit the bill and want to join the bloggo family please email me on jon@eclipse.co.uk

Sunday, September 12, 2010

NORMAL SERVICE IS OUT THE WINDOW

These next few days are going to be confusing ones at the CFZ. My lovely step-daughter Shosh gets married on Friday, so I will be away from the office as I prepare for another one of those rights of passage; becoming a father-in-law for the first time. As those who regularly follow the ins and outs of the CFZ will know, Graham is currently on the Isle of Man helping his mother prepare to move house.

Therefore, although I promise that the bloggo will continue because like the Pony Express we always get our man (or was that the Mounties? I can’t remember; my arteries must be hardening at a faster rate than I had imagined), it will be done from a number of computers in a number of different places. Hopefully, Graham will still be able to do whatever arcane stuff he does from his mother’s laptop on the Isle of Man, whilst Lizzy, who has very little internet access at home, will be taking her laptop down t’pub in Rochdale like something out of a 1970s Hovis Wheatgerm advert. I will be going online on an as-and-when basis, but certainly on the night before the nuptials as (being a mere man) I have been banished to the Travelodge up the road as all three aspects of the goddess as personified in my womenfolk (wife, mother-in-law, and both step-daughters) will be carrying out the ancient rituals and blood sacrifices that womenfolk have always done since before homo became sapiens (what no woman can tell and no man shall ever know).

Everything will return to normal sometime over the next weekend, so keep your fingers crossed and watch this space.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

LOST IN A ROMAN WILDERNESS OF DOGS, WHERE ALL THE CHILDREN READ THE BLOGS

Dear Lizzy, who - as her health and her internet access improves - is rapidly becoming my hawk-eyed blog sherriff (that sounds like a song by Joanna Newsom, whose new album is - by the way - absolutely outstanding) wrote to me this morning:

Haven't checked YouTube but the following vids have disappeared from the blog for some reason:
WEIRD WEEKEND 2010: RICHARD FREEMAN ON YOKAI
WEIRD WEEKEND 2010: SILAS HAWKINS (2)

WEIRD WEEKEND 2010: RONAN COGHLAN AND GARY CUNNINGHAM
WEIRD WEEKEND 2010: THE QUIZ


I am putting them back up again, but has anyone any (sensible) ideas as to how and why they have gone?

Friday, September 03, 2010

WEIRD SCENES INSIDE THE BLOGGO

I was having an afternoon nap yesterday when Lizwiz telephoned. Apparently, she said (all apologetic about having woken me up), the YouTube links for a number of the Bloggoposts from last week had disappeared. These included Kara's birthday and most of the Sunday talks from WW2010, including my keynote speech. I have no idea what happened and have replaced them, but it is somewhat disturbing to find that whole swathes of bloggythings can disappear in such a cavalier manner. Any ideas?

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

TWO MORE LANDMARKS

Over on the news blog Gavin has racked up 3,000 news items. I don't want to appear patronising but I am massively proud of him. He has achieved a remarkable feat of tenacity and I think he deserves congratulations. There is another milestone looming: if today goes the way that I think it will, we will clock up a million hits on this blog. Of course that does not equate to a million different visitors, just a million visits. But it is still a pretty impressive milestone and it is nice that it happens on the fifth anniversary of the founding of the new CFZ.

Thursday, April 01, 2010

CALLING ALL BLOGGERS

We have been going for well over a year now, and - being the day after April Fool's Day (a day of considerable importance to those in the Fortean community) - it seems an appropriate time to appeal for more contributors. 'Tis time for all good men and women out in bloggoland to come to the aid of the party. Contributions to jon@eclipse.co.uk please.


I look forward to reading them....

Monday, March 01, 2010

LIZ CLANCY QUOTES THE BEATLES

HELP!

Okay, that was particularly lame but I DO need help, though only a little. As Jon has already said in his own blog today, he and Corinna are going to Texas on Thursday and I'm helping man the bloggo till they come back.

So, if any of you have blog postings you would like to submit, for the next wee while, could you send them to me, please, at lizzy@cfz.org.uk ? Or Graham or Oll at their email addresses, which are exactly the same as mine, just with 'graham' and 'oll' instead of 'lizzy' to begin with....

Toodlepip

Saturday, January 09, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US

A year ago today we were surrounded by all sorts of weirdness and controversy after a dead seal washed up on Croyde beach. Various papers and pundits announced that it was the carcass of the Beast of Exmoor when it was obviously no such thing. We retrieved the skull for posterity and got attacked in the national press for having done so.

Of course I blogged about it, and as we discovered that putting multiple blogs out on the same day suddenly upped the hits on the blog from about thirty a day to nearly five hundred we decided to continue. Quickly it evolved into what was essentially a daily magazine, and eventually into what you are reading now.

So I would like to thank everyone who has been involved over the last year. There isn't room for me to list everyone, but I would like to single out my wife Corinna, Richard Muirhead, Dale Drinnon, Oll Lewis, and my sub-editor Lizzy Clancy who are involved on a daily or pretty well a daily basis. It takes a lot of committment, and I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me.
Now for year 2.