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...




Wednesday, January 11, 2017

RICHARD IS OFF TO AUSTRALIA TODAY

Image may contain: 1 person, beard and indoorReturn to Tasmania

In  January of 2017 Mike Williams of CFZ Australia and Richard Freeman will be returning to Tasmania as part of the on-going search for the Tasmanian wolf. The expedition will follow an exciting new lead in the north east of the island as well as returning to an area of central Tasmania that has produced many recent reports.

Using new equipment, the team hope to get film of the thylacine and/or hair/or droppings for analysis. We are hoping to again join forces with former logger and thylacine witness Jo Booth.

JOSE ESCAMILLA'S NEW CROWDFUNDING PROJECT

Hi Jonathan

Just letting you know that I have launched the Crowd Fund for my next film; SKYFISH - The Discovery of The RODS. Your donations will help me make this discovery a world event. I ask that you join me in making this film. View the video at the top of the page for you to make a decision.

Please contribute or share: http://skyfishrods.com/ - Have a wonderful holiday. Cheers.

Sincerely, Jose Escamilla 

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From Nick Redfern's World of Whatever:
From CFZ-USA:

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS SURPRISINGLY CHEERFUL

The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
 
And so, Professor Jon's Academy for Young Ladies is open for business for the first time in the year, and Little Miss Pupil and I are talking about dialects, idiolects and vocabularies. Later there will be pizza and ice cream. I went to the clinic yesterday, and the abscess on my heel is not as bad as the podiatrist had at first thought, and so - as long as I am sensible - I won't be legless just yet.
 
Hey ho.
 
And here is the news:
 
Spirits Burning Polish review translated
Maggie Reilly Interview
Talk to Al Jazeera - Vangelis: A message of hope
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: David Bowie - Lazarus
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
 
Gonzo Magazine #215-6
THE SUPER DUPER 2017 WTF IS GOING ON DOUBLE ISSUE
 
In this bumper issue, Jon muses about the return or otherwise of the Justified Ancients of MuMu, Doug remembers one hell of a year gigweise in words and pictures, so does John, Jeremy rants righteously, Alan spends 24 hours in London, revisiting the Jazz Age, going to parliament and hearingabout RAF offiocers who don't like Man, Jon reviews a delightful book of short stories and there is a competition to win ARW tickets.
 
And there are radio shows from Strange Fruit, Mack Maloney, and Friday Night Progressive. 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:
 
KLF, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Rick Wakeman, Kurt Cobain, Ozzy Osbourne, U2, Richard John "Rick" Parfitt, OBE, Betty Loo Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Frances Fisher, George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou), Alphonse Lee Mouzon, Vera Cooper Rubin, Richard George Adams, Piers John Sellers OBE, Mick Zane (born Michael Landauer), Frank Murray, Allan Richard Williams, William Christopher, Mark Reiser, Richard E. Aaron, Deddie Davies (born Gillian Davies), Tilikum, Absolute Elsewhere feat Bill Bruford, Al Atkins, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Adrian Legg, ARW, Steve Hackett, Sting/Gabriel, The Cure, David Gilmour, LCD Soundsystem, ELO, Coldplay, Adele, The Who, Alice Cooper, Bad Company, Rodger Hodgson, Styx, Ambrosia,  Atomic Rooster, Lord Buckley,  Tony Ashton & Jon Lord, Alan Dearling, All-Party Writers' Group, 1920s Jazz Age and South Bank, John Brodie-Good, Danny Thompson, Ryley Walker, Paul Kantner, Steely Dan, Arthur Brown, Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle, Soft Machine Legacy, Nigel Kennedy, Pink Fairies,  Jeremy Smith, Mr. Biffo, Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Srpingett, Richard Foreman, Madonna, Wham!, Cher, Pink Floyd, Toscanini, Neil Nixon, Alice Cooper
 
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 215-6 (New Year 2017)
Issue 213-4 (Yule 2016)
Issue 212 (Greg Lake)
Issue 211 (Phil Collins)
Issue 210 (Nico)
Issue 209 (Pink Fairies)
Issue 208 (Leonard Cohen)
Issue 207 (Tibet)
Issue 206 (Raz)
Issue 205 (Pink Fairies)
Issue 204 (Gas Tank)
Issue 203 (The Gardening Club)
Issue 202 (Gong)
Issue 201 (Auld Man's Baccie)
Issue 200 (Deep Purple)
Issue 199 (Yes)
Issue 198 (Steve Ignorant)
Issue 197 (Gilli Smyth)
Issue 196 (Paul May)
Issue 195 (Dave Brock)
Issue 194 (Auburn)
Issue 193 (Genre Peak)
Issue 192 (Rick Wakeman and Brian May)
Issue 191 (Karnataka)
Issue 190 (Erik Norlander)
Issue 189 (Rick Wakeman at the O2)
Issue 187/8 (Yer holiday special)
Issue 186 (Beatles)
Issue 185 (Judge Smith)
Issue 184 (Mick Abrahams)
 
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?

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 - Wednesday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1569 - England's first state lottery was held. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Tilikum, orca that killed trainer, dies at SeaWorl...
  • Arctic sea ice loss impacts beluga whale migration...


  • 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.)