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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Thursday, July 25, 2013

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES:WAS THE EURASIAN LYNX EVER IN HONG KONG?


File:Lynx lynx poing.jpgYou never know what surprises you`re going to uncover at about 7 a.m on a humid Thursday morning when most rational people would still be in bed,but I couldn`t sleep,which is fortunate as it turns out as I added yet another bit of data to the already huge mountain that is the would-be `Mystery Animals of Hong Kong` bestseller!

So here we go, is or was the Eurasian Lynx part of Hong Kong`s fauna? After at least 6 months I took a look at the Gwulo Hong Kong History Forum and to my surprise found the following exchange of messages:

January 24th 2013 Gary Liddell to David (the moderator of the Forum): The fauna of Hong Kong

Is there any truth in the rumour (much passed around when I was a kid) that a Japanese patrol boat shot a tiger swimming across the harbour during the occupation.

I recall  vividly being baled (sic) up by a very grumpy lynx type cat in the Golden Hill Shingmun area (pointy ears bob tailed & spotty coat very large) Can any one throw some light on what the cat was?

Regards Gary Liddell

Someone called `Jill` replied on January 28th.


There are some good photos of the Eurasian Lynx in this pdf article http://www.catsg.org/catnews/03_specialissue/cats_in_china/Bao_Weidong_2010_Eurasian_lynx_in_China.pdf

Do they look like your bob-tailed cat,Gary?


Gary replied:

Good morning Jill, That`s definetely the fellow. From memory the year was 1961 & I was walking along the Golden Hill road from the direction of Tai Po Road along side the reservoir when he came out of the bush about 20 ft in front of me stopped looked at me & started hissing and spitting. A fine carry on . Needless to say I was quite put off with all the carry on.

Finally he went about his business leaving me in quite a state. I know according to your map [in the pdf link above, showing the Eurasian Lynx`s “official “ range is West and North China,hundreds of miles away.- R] these grumpy critters aren`t supposed to be in Hong Kong but there you have it.

Thank you so much for enlightening me.

Kind regards Gary Liddell.

So I have written to Gary albeit about 6 months late!   

INAPPROPRIATE CORNER: Let me spend my money my way


A PENSIONER who spent £6,500 in nine weeks on a prostitute is having to limit his sex life after social services took control of his money.
Pensioner Albert SkipperPensioner Albert Skipper
Albert Skipper sold his maisonette in Eltham 18 months ago, to move into sheltered housing in the borough following the death of his 73-year-old wife, Anna, from emphysema in December, 2001.
The 81-year-old began to see a 35-year-old call girl to take away the loneliness and, in just nine weeks, spent the entire £6,500 deposit he had received from the house sale.
Once his doctor found out about the lavish spending, social services took control of the pensioner’s finances through a court of protection order to stop him squandering the £85,000 from the sale of his maisonette.
But Mr Skipper, who has no children, says he can now only afford to visit a brothel once every few weeks as social services give him just £90 a week.
He said: “They are stopping my money because they don’t want me to spend it on call girls. What do I want to save money for? I’m 81.
“You can’t stop nature. I like to enjoy myself. Being on your own is a killer. I spend money on women because I lost my wife.
“We were married for 55 years. My wife was a professional singer. I really loved her. I miss her.” He added: “After my wife died, I saw a call girl for four months. She didn’t tell me she was a call girl at the time. I took her out and rigged her out.

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

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. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.


Lone mother swan struggling to bring up her flock ...


THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN BUMBLES AROUND

I had a long chat with Jack Lancaster yesterday, and our topics included The MC5, The Young Communist Pioneers, and Saint-Saƫns; "Carnival of the Animals". This has to be the only time in living history that three such disparate subjects end up being discussed in the same conversation. This weekend we are off to Kent to the Summer of Love festival, and are taking Jessica with us. She is fifteen and it is her first festie and she is massively excited. I hope that it turns out to have been worth it for her...

So... What's new on the Gonzo Daily?
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com
 
 
Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet.
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/07/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_25.html
 
 
 
 
 
RUIGOORD’S THIRD FUTUROLOGICAL SYMPOSIUM ON FREE CULTURAL SPACES
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/07/ruigoords-third-futurological-symposium.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 same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link:
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
 
* 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 53 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. 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 the orange cat?

TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS ROUNDUP



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. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.








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  • CRYPTOLINK: Bigfoot sighting reported to RSPCA by timewasting caller

    A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me.







    Rex
    The RSPCA’S cruelty hotline is being overloaded by time-wasters, the charity reveals.
    One man claimed to have spotted Bigfoot, while a wife shopped her husband for not walking their dog.
    In another call a woman rang to report an animal being attacked – on TV in the film Call Of The Wild.
    And one complained of birds sitting on telephone lines outside her home.
    Hotline calls have risen 65% this year.
    RSPCA chief inspector Dermot Murphy said: “We haven’t enough staff to deal with this.”

    Read on... 


    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today


    Yesterday’s News Today

    On this day in 2010 Wikileaks published classified American documents relating to the Afghan War, Iraq War and the so-called “War on Terror”. To put it mildly the American secret services were not best pleased with the fact that everyone now knew that they had been calling their allies silly names behind their backs.
    And now the news:
  • More Than 600 Water Monitors Relocated After They ...
  • Elusive Amphibians Chronicled Along Stikine, Alask...
  • Cashmere trade threat to snow leopards
  • Endangered Northern Right whale saved by local fis...
  • Mystery over walrus found in coffin at St Pancras
  • UK forests still feeling the impacts of 1976 droug...
  • Man charged with smuggling 70 turtles into Canada ...
  • A new fly species for Britain found in Epping Fore...

  • I can't find any genuinely funny or interesting vids about wikileaks so lets have another Carpenters song for no reason whatsoever instead: