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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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Saturday, September 22, 2012

CRIPTOZOOLOGIA EN ESPAÑA: Strange animal killed in Valencia, Spain.

Right from the Spanish cryptozoology blog, Criptozoologia En España:News in Criptozoología en España :


News in Criptozoología en España :
Strange animal killed in Valencia, Spain.
It could be a rare wild pig.
All information in :
Best regards!!
Javier Resines
Criptozoología en España
http://criptozoologos.blogspot.com/

MYSTERY BEASTS IN WASHINGTON

DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG
Photo taken by Dale Parker of field near the Fort Totten Metro station platform on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 Photo taken by Dale Parker of field near the Fort Totten Metro station platform on Wednesday, September 19, 2012


Photo taken by Dale Parker of field near the Fort Totten Metro station platform on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 

WASHINGTON - Along the lines of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster comes a new animal mystery. This one is here in the nation's capital. The question this time: Were those two large, dark animals spotted in a field near the Fort Totten Metro Station Wednesday afternoon black bears? Fort Totten is the transfer point for the Green and Red Line trains where thousands of commuters spend part of their workdays. And they see all kinds of things.

"I know there are some wild critters," says Metro rider Victor Akosile. "But a black bear? That's something out of a story you hear." This story comes to us from Dale Parker. He was on the platform Wednesday when he and other commuters saw something unusual out in a field next to the station. He snapped a photo. He put it on Twitter. We saw it and gave Parker a call. "They looked like bears," Parker tells us from his home in Silver Spring. "There were two of them. And they were starting to walk toward each other. But they can't be cats. They were too big."

Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/19600220/animal-mystery-were-those-black-bears-near-fort-totten-metro-station#ixzz275qDwW5z

CRYPTOLINKS: More on the Siberian Lake Monsters

Remote lake 'may be home to Siberian Loch Ness monster'
Newstrack India
Melbourne, September 20 (ANI): While on a mission to Lake Labynkyr in remote Siberia, an associate professor of biogeography recorded "several seriously big underwater objects" with the help of sonar readings, it has been revealed. According to The ...
See all stories on this topic »
Is Siberia's Lake Labynkyr really home to a monster?
Courier Mail
It has become known as “Russia's Loch Ness Monster”. But talk of this creature actually started before anyone spoke of Nessie in Scotland. They say fishermen saw some strange waves before their boat suddenly shook. There was no wind, no other boats to ...

CRYPTOZOOLOGY: Richard Freeman comments on the latest Russian `Lake Monster` pictures


The recent pictures from Lake Labynkyr are, like most lake monster photos, dim, far away and inconclusive. The shape of the ‘head’ actually looks more like the head and shoulders of a swimming human  than anything else. The sonar readings are far more interesting.

The suggestions of prehistoric reptiles in these cold northern lakes seems to hold little water. The landlocked killer whale idea is not much better, as the animals would been seen when breeching in order to breathe. However I heard another story of ‘fresh water killer whales’ whilst hunting the almasty in Russia back in 2008.

Anatoly Sidorenkot, a Ukranian archeologist who was a member of our team old us some interesting cryptozoological snippets. Some years ago a friend of his was on a boat in the Lena River in Siberia when he encountered a strange creature. It had a black humped back and a 2 metre tall fin. It reminded him of a killer whale, but they were thousands of miles inland at the time. A man on the boat took two shots at the beast with a rifle. It turned and swam at speed towards the boat. The man pumped three more bullets into the creature and it dived under the boat and swam away. The description recalls creatures described from Lake Vorota in Siberia. The beasts here are up to ten metres long, have a dorsal fin and a wide head. Could they be some form of colossal fish?

Lake Labynkyr itself, and several other bodies of Siberian water have monster lore attached to them.

Lake Labynkyr lies on Sorongnakh Plateau in Eastern Siberia. It is a big lake nine miles long and 800 feet deep and also has an evil reputation. Locals are convinced that The Devil inhabits the lake. Gun dogs that have leapt into the water to retrieve shot ducks have been eaten by the monster. One man told of how the brute pursued his raft. He described a dark grey beast with an enormous mouth. Some reindeer hunters observed the monster coil up out of the water to snatch a passing bird.

In 1963 a small expedition visited both of these lakes. Four members observed an object 800 metres out on Lake Labynkyr. It emerged and submerged several times. They could not take photographs as the sun was setting. The following year three teams, each replacing the other in shifts visited the lakes. The third and final group saw the Labynkyr monster in the latter half of August.

Two expedition members saw a row of tree humps 100 metres from shore. They ran after the humps trying (unsuccessfully) to photograph them. The humps dived and rose together. It was not clear if they were separate animals or parts of one creature.

In 1964 two journalists from the Italian magazine Epoca visited Lake Labynkyr whilst travelling to Oymyakon. They were told that some time before a party of men saw a reindeer swim into the lake. The deer vanished and did not resurface. Then a dog swam on and vanished as well. Suddenly, and shrouded in a mist, a vast black monster rose snorting from the lake. One of the observers, apparently a scholar, was convinced the beast was a dinosaur. The locals flatly refused to take the journalists out onto the lake.

Another story concerns a hunter’s dog who swam out into the lake and was eaten by the monster. The grieving hunter constructed a raft out of reindeer skin and filled it with hot coals. He floated the smouldering raft out onto the lake. The monster snatched it and dived. It reappeared shortly making terrible sounds.

In the 1970s a lame horse belonging to some geologists was attacked in the night by some unknown predator. Alerted by the horses screams the geologists got up out of their sleeping bags to investigate. They were too late. Something large and powerful had already dragged the horse down into the lake. Locals said that they often found holes in the ice with strange tracks around them.

In a letter published in Komosomol’skaya Pravad on January 21st 2000 Vladimir Osadchy from Moscow stated that he and a group of tourists had visited the lake in November 1979. The tourists made their way out onto the frozen lake heading for a reservoir  two kilometres from the shore. Halfway there they stopped for a rest. An object like a black pillar was seen to rise up in the distance. A number of the tourists ran to investigate.

They reached the spot fifteen minutes later and ascended a bank two metres high. They discovered a patch of unfrozen water a metre across. The edges looked like they had been licked. It looked as if some aquatic animal had created a breathing hole. Upon returning they were told, by those who stayed behind, that they had observed the “pillar” rise several times again whilst they were gone. In the morning they search the area and found another breathing hole with licked edges.

In August 2000 a group of journalists from Komosomol’skaya Pravad travelled to the lake. Using sonar they detected two large moving objects at the bottom of the lake. The bigger of the two was eighteen metres (sixty feet) long.

In July 1953 a prospecting party led by Geologist VA Tverdokhelbov travelled to the Sorongnakh Plateau. The party arrived at Lake Vorota on a bright sunny morning. Tverdokhelbov and his assistant Boris Baskator observed an object some 300 metres out on the lake.

At first they thought it was a floating oil-drum, but soon realised that this was not the case as the object swam closer to shore. The pair climbed a cliff to get a better view. In Tverdokhelbov’s own word’s…

“The animal came closer, and it was possible to see those parts of it that emerged from the water. The breadth of the foreparts of the creature’s torso, evidently the head, was as much as two metres. The eyes were set wide apart. The body was approximately ten metres. It was enormous and of a dark grey colour. On the sides of the head could be seen two light coloured patches. On its back was sticking up, to a height of half a metre or so, was what seemed to be some kind of dorsal fin which was narrow and bent backwards. The animal was moving itself forward in leaps, its upper part appearing at times above the water and then disappearing. When at a distance of 100 metres from the shore it stopped; it then began to beat the water vigorously, raising a cascade of spray; then it plunged out of sight.”

Siberian lake monsters seem to be highly aggressive as the sightings from a lake in Southern Siberia seems to show.

One of Russia’s largest lakes seems to be the home a large, powerful and dangerous creature that locals say has killed 19 fishermen. Lake Chany is virtually unknown in the west but it is a vast expanse of water covering 770 square miles. Its is 57 miles long by 55 miles wide but is fairly shallow at only 23 feet deep with an average depth of only 6 feet. Lake Chany is in the southern part of the province of Novosibirsk Oblast close to the borders of Kazakhstan.

The creature involved in the attacks is described as serpentine and huge. The beast claimed its latest victim, a 59 year old fisherman last week. 60 year old Vladimir Golishev was in the boat then the creature overturned it and dragged his friend away. He told the Daily Mail...

“I was with my friend some 300 yards from the shore. He hooked something huge on his bait and stood up to reel it in. But it pulled with such force it overturned the boat. I was in shock-I had never seen anything like it in my life. I pulled off my clothes and swam for the shore, not daring hope I would make it. He didn’t make it and thy have found no remains. It’s time to find out the truth.”

In 2007 a 23 year old special services soldier, Mikhail Doronin was lost when something capsized his boat. His 80 year old grandmother Nina was watching from the shore and said that the lake was calm. Her husband 81 year old husband Vladimir said “Something on an awesome scale lives in the lake, but I have never seen it.”

Official figures say that 19 people have vanished in the lake in the past three years. Locals say the figure is actually much higher and that remains have washed ashore with bite marks showing large teeth.

Now fishermen are demanding an official probe.

Lake Chany is too far north and far too cold for crocodiles.

In Kazakhstan there is a tradition of gigantic black snakes 10 meters long. On my almasty expedition in 2008 the Ukrainian archeologist Anatoly Sidorenko told me that he had seen such a serpent in Kazakhstan and his father, an experienced hunter in his youth, had seen one as well. Snakes how ever swallow their food whole and do not bite it into pieces.

The creature could be a gigantic eel or alternatively something unknown to science. It may be a giant semi-aquatic reptile, possibly one that hibernates in winter. The case brings to mind medieval stories of lake and mire dwelling dragons. The long and short of it is that as it stands there is too little information on which to make a decent guess at the nature of the beast.


Our recent postings on this subject:

HERE, HERE and HERE

CRYPTOZOOLOGY: Richard Freeman on Africa's Mystery Rhino

Today is World Rhino Day and to join in the celebrations, Richard Freeman has written about a putative cryptozoological rhino, which - if it exists - will make the World Rhino Day motto obsolete forever..

An English ex-pat that gathered  information on a supposed horned giant  animal said to lurk in  Lake Bangweulu. J.E. Hughes was born in Derbyshire in 1876 and attended Cambridge. The British South Africa Company offered him a job as assistant native commissioner in the newly formed civil service of north-east Rhodesia. After 7 years of service Hughes resigned and became a hunter/trader. He lived for the next 18 years on the Mbawala islands on Lake Bangweulu. He recorded his life in a book, Eighteen years on Lake Bangweulu, in which he writes of the monster...

"For many years now there has been a persistent rumour that a huge prehistoric animal was to be found in the waters of our Lake Bangweulu. Certainly the natives talk about such a beast and "Chipekwe" or "Chimpekwe", is the name by which they call it.

I find it is a fact that Herr Hagenbeck sent up an expedition in search of this animal, but none of them ever reached the Luapula of the`, owing to fever, etc ; they had come at the wrong time of year for newcomers.

Mr. H. Croad, the retired magistrate, is inclined to think there is something to the legend. He told me one night, camped at the edge of a very deep small lake, he heard a tremendous splashing during the night, and in the morning found a spoor on the bank- not that of any animal he knew, and he knows them all.

Another bit of evidence about it is the story Kanyeshia, son of Mieri-Mieri, the Waushi Paramount Chief, told me. His grandfather had said that he could remember one of these animals being killed in the Luapula in deep water below the Lubwe.

A good description of the hunt has been handed down by tradition. It took many of their best hunters the whole day spearing it with their "Viwingo" harpoons- the same as they use for the hippo. It is described as having a smooth dark body, without bristles, and armed with a single smooth white horn fixed like the horn of a rhinoceros, but composed of smooth white ivory, very highly polished. It is a pity they did not keep it, as I would have given them anything they liked for it.

I noticed in Carl Hagenbeck`s book "Beasts and Men", abridged edition, 1909, p.96, that the Chipekwe has been illustrated in bushman paintings. This is a very interesting point, which seems to confirm the native legend of the existence of such a beast.

Lake young is named on the map after its discoverer, Mr Robert Young, formerly N.C in charge of Chinsali. The native name of the lake is "Shiwangandu". When exploring this part in the earliest days of the Administration, he took a shot at an object in some floating sudd that looked like a duck ; it dived and went away, leaving a wake like a screw steamer. This lake is drained by the Manshya river, which runs into the Chambezi. The lake itself is just half-way between Mipka and Chinsale Station.

Mr Young told me that the natives once pulled their canoes up the Manshya into this lake. There were a party of men, women, and children out on a hippo-harpooning expedition. The natives claimed that the Guardian Spirit of the lake objected to this and showed his anger by upsetting and destroying all the men and canoes. The women and children who had remained on the shore all saw this take place. Not a single man returned and the women and children returned alone to the Chambezie. He further said that never since has a canoe been seen on Lake Young.. It is true I never saw one there myself. Young thinks the Chipekwe is still surviving there.

Another bit of hearsay evidence was given me by Mr Croad. This was told to him by Mr. R. M. Green, who many years ago built his lonely hermitage on our Lulimala in the Ilala country about 1906. Green said that the natives reported a hippo killed by a Chipekwe in the Lukula- the next river. The throat was torn out.

I have been to the Lukulu many times and explored it from its source via the Lavusi Mountain to were it loses its self in the reeds of the big swamp, without finding the slightest sign of any such survival of prehistoric ages.

When I first heard about this animal, I circulated the news that I would give a reward of either £5 or a bale of cloth in return for any evidence, such as a bone, a horn, a scrap of hide, of a spoor, that such an animal might possibly exist. For about fifteen years I had native buyers traversing every waterway and picking up other skins for me. No trace of the Chipekwe was ever produced; the reward is still unclaimed.

My own theory is that such an animal did really exist, but is now extinct. Probably disappearing when the Luapula cut its way to a lower level- thus reducing the level of the previously existing big lake, which is shown by the pebbled foothills of the far distant mountains."

Perhaps, if we are to believe Mr Young`s tale the creature`s ferocity kept it from being hunted very often. A picture is emerging of a huge, dangerous, semi-aquatic animal with a single horn and an antipathy towards hippos. Many have come to the conclusion that these are Ceratopsian dinosaurs. These were a sub-order of Ornithischia (bird hipped dinosaurs) and contained such well known horned dinosaurs as Triceratops and Styracosaurus. They were all herbivores and were typified by bearing horns and a bony frill like an Elizabethan ruff that grew from the rear of the skull to protect the animal’s neck. The number of horns varied between the species, some such as Monoclonius bore only one horn on the snout.

There are two main stumbling blocks with the dinosaur theory. First and foremost there is no fossil evidence for any species of non-avian dinosaur surviving beyond the Cretaceous period (which ended 65 million years ago). Secondly there is no indication of any species of being aquatic, let alone Ceratopsians. So we need to look elsewhere for this beast's identity. Let us examine some more evidence.

 C.G. James, a gentleman who had resided in Africa for 18 years wrote to the Daily Mail. His letter was published on December 26, 1919.

"Sir, I should like to record a common native belief in the existence of a creature supposed to inhabit huge swamps on the borders of the Katanga district of the Belgian Congo - the Bangweulu, Mweru, the Kafue swamps. The detailed descriptions of this creature vary, possibly through exaggerations, but they all agree on the following points:

It is named the Chipekwe; it is of enormous size; it kills hippopotami (there is no evidence to show it eats them, rather the contrary); it inhabits the deep swamps; its spoor (trail) is similar to a hippo's in shape; it is armed with one huge tusk of ivory"

It is useful at this point to realise that Lakes Bangweulu and Mweru are connected via the Luapula river-system (were supposedly specimen was killed).

Identical reports have come in from elsewhere in the dark continent. Lucien Blancou, chief game inspector in French Equatorial Africa collected stories of unknown animals between 1949 and 1953. Some of these seem to refer to an animal like the Chipekwe.

"The Africans in the north of the Kelle district, especially the pygmies, know of a forest animal larger than a buffalo, almost as large as an elephant, but which is not a hippopotamus. Its tracks are only seen at long intervals, but they fear it more than any other dangerous animal. The sketch of its footprint which  they drew for M.Millet is that of a rhinoceros. On the other hand they do not seem to have said that it has a horn, though they certainly not said that it has not. While M.Millet was at Kelle, in 1950 if I am not mistaken, one of the best known African chiefs in the district came several days march to inform him that "the beast had reappeared". Unfortunately, this is all I can say, for M.Millet left the district in 1951, and I have not been able to go there myself. The rewards in kind which this official offered the pygmies for tangible proof of the animal's presence yielded no result.

Around Ouesso, the natives talk of a big animal which does have a horn on its nose- though I don`t know whether it has one of several. They are just as afraid of it as the Kelle people.

Around Epena, Impfondo, and Dongou, the presence of a beast which sometimes disembowels elephants is also known, but it dose not seem to be as prevalent there now as in the preceding districts. A specimen was supposed to have been killed twenty years ago at Dongou, but on the left bank of the Ubangi and in the Belgian Congo"

This report is particuly interesting as the man in question recognised the print as that of a rhinoceros, one of the few animals capable of killing an adult hippo.(The hippopotamus is one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. Despite the cuddly Disney image this animal has it is in reality totally unpredictable and highly territorial. It also possesses a huge mouth armed with immense curving tusks that can bite a man in two or rend a boat asunder.) In the Congo this horned animal is called Emela-ntouka, this translates as "killer of elephants". Places were both hippos and elephants are scarce or absent are reputed haunts of this aggressive creature who gores the former animals to death with its horn.

Iise von Nolde spent 10 years in eastern Angola and reported in 1930 events much like the ones related previously. Natives told her of a monster called “Coje ya menia” or "water lion". The name seemed to relate to the roaring sound the animal produced rather than to any resemblance to a lion. She herself heard its rumbling cry on several occasions. It was said to inhabit  water but was also seen on the bank. In the rainy season when the Cuanza river was in flood it moved to smaller rivers and swamps.

One day she met a native in hippopotamus skin sandals. She asked him if he had killed the hippo and he replied that he had found the animal dead, killed by a Coje ya meina. On another occasion a Portuguese lorry driver of how he had herd of one of these creatures killing a hippo on the pervious night. He intrepidly set off to investigate with several native hunters and found the tracks. The hippo's tracks ran for several miles and seemed intermingled with the tracks of its persuer that none of them could identify. Finally they came upon an area were the grass and bushes had been smashed and crushed. The mangled cadaver of the hippo lay in the centre of the devastation. It looked as if it had been hacked and ripped by a huge bush knife. None of the carcass had been eaten. It would seem that the only thing capable of inflicting such wounds would be a massive horn.

For me the clinch in this animal's identity  is a photograph taken in 1966 in the Congo by French photographer and naturalist Atelier Yvan Ridel. The photo shows a large three toed foot print, one of a set that led out of a mass of reeds, up a steep bank, across a small beach and into the river.

The tracks are instantainiouly recognisable to any zoologist worth his salt, they are the foot prints of a rhinoceros. The nearest rhino populations to the Congo are 1000 miles away in the Cameroons and the Central African Republic. These are black rhino (Dicerocs bicornis) the smaller of the two African species and much smaller than the reports of the Emela- ntouka . The toes seem a little more elongate than those of other rhinos and this may be an adaptation to a marshy environment. The rhino's close relatives in the order perissodactyla (odd toed ungulates) the tapirs display slightly elongated toes and are invariably found in swampy biotopes.

The Emela-ntouka /Chipekwe is most likely to be not a ceratopsian dinosaur but a giant semi-aquatic rhinoceros. The idea of a water dwelling rhino may seem strange but the great Indian rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) spends almost as much time in water as a hippopotamus. It feeds mainly on lush water plants such as reeds and water lilies. The Indian rhino also bares only one horn much like the Emela-ntouka and unlike the two savannah dwelling African species who both bare two horns.

This unknown species must be a veritable giant. Natives say it rivals the elephant in size. The largest known rhino is the African white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) that can reach 5 tons in weight and is second only to the elephants as largest land mammal. A white rhino would have no trouble despatching a hippo but if the Emela- ntouka does indeed kill elephants it would need to be even more massive. One prehistoric rhino Indricatherium was the largest land mammal of all time reaching 20 tones in weight, bigger than the largest mammoth. One group of rhinos the Amynodontids specialised in an aquatic lifestyle. These flourished in the Oligocene epoch 38 to 25 million years ago finally dieing out around 10 million years ago. Could one species have survived into the present? This is by no means impossible but it is perhaps more likely that our unknown giant is a modern species that has avoided detection rather than a prehistoric survivor.

But what of the ivory horn? Rhino horn is made from keratin a fibrous material that also forms human finger nails and very different to ivory. This is the only sticking point with the rhino theory, could the natives be mistaken on this point? I think the answer is yes. However much we want this creature to be a dinosaur the bulk of the evidence points towards a giant aquatic rhino.

WATCHER OF THE SKIES: Today's Fortean Bird News



After about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo, Corinna has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.




HAUNTED SKIES: Sunday Mirror 14.7.68.


TODAY'S BIG CAT ROUND UP

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 should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012, Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.

DALE DRINNON: Genetic traces of unknown humanoid/Cedar and Willow/ Benny's Blog


New at Frontiers of Anthropology:

OK, big Soap Opera Superheroes Tie In at Cedar and Willow:

And my blog touches on a character in Benny's current blog:

I'M YER GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN



I eventually got to sleep yesterday afternoon at about 3:00 only to be woken up again by a visitor half an hour later. However, today I am refreshed and invigorated and ready to join battle...
 
Nick Deriso from 'Something Else' sent us this rather spiffing little Rick Wakeman piece. Thank you Nick...
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/link-shows-ill-never-forget-rick.html
 
It is nice to read a review that is really analytical about its subject. Like this excellent look at the new ABWH live album..
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/anderson-bruford-wakeman-and-howe_22.html
 
This weekend the Brisfest festival at Ashton Court, Bristol takes place. It includes appearances by my old faves De La Soul, and Gonzofolk Hawkwind and Arthur Brown...
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/brisfest-this-weekend.html
 
Another visit to the suniverse of Thom the World Poet, who celebrates the Occupy Movement, so we have helped him out with a soupcon of background information. Anarchy and Peace.
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_22.html
 
Mimi Page is a sensitive girl, and we couldn't resist reposting this little piece she wrote about a very special fan...
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/link-mimi-page-writes.html
 
Michael Des Barres described this review as "The Smartest Yet", and it is hard not to agree with him...
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/michael-des-barres-describes-this.html
 
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 Editor is an old hippy of 53 who - together with his orange cat - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange cat?

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today



On this day in 2890 of the third age Bilbo Baggins was born. Baggins was a Hobbit adveturer (a rare thing to be) who obtained a very powerful magic ring that his nephew, Frodo (also born on this day), was tasked with destroying. Baggins was also present at the battle of the five armies, but invisible for most of it.
And now the news:

  • Mysterious 'Crazy Ants' Identified
  • Evolutionary History of Lizards and Snakes Reconst...
  • WWF-South Africa announces a five-point plan to sa...
  • Another ‘Tiger Task Force’ launched
  • Reindeer at risk from new extreme snow sport
  • Bolivia enacts law to protect Amazon pink dolphins...
  • US Feral cats spreading ‘serious public health dis...
  • Good on them - Supermarkets come out in support of...
  • Rare lizards released in Surrey

  • A classic song: