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...




Tuesday, January 31, 2017

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS EARLY

The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
 
We are all saddened by the news that John Wetton has died of cancer. I was aware it was likely, but it is always a shock when iut happens. He was one of my favourite bass players up there with Paul McCartney and Dave Pegg. Yesterday was an excellent day. Chloe and I achieved a great deal. Today, however, I have been vaguely on the sick list, and have spent most of the day asleep in my armchair with Archie. However, in a burst of energy I have done tomorrow's blogs this evening if that makes some sort of sense (or even if it hasn't)
 
Toodle-oo
 
And here is the news:
 
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
THE DURRELL WILDLIFE RAINFOREST BALL
PINK FAIRIES US REVIEW
1960'S IRISH POP SINGER JACKIE LEE AKA “JACKY” REL...
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Al Stewart - Shah of ...
 
Gonzo Magazine #219
THE 'MARTIN PLAYED GUITAR' ISSUE
 
The legendary Martin Stone played with many classic rock bands including Mighty Baby, Snakefinger, Southern Comfort, Pink Fairies, the The 101ers, Wreckless Eric, and the Gibson Girls. He died at the end of last year, and Richard Foreman says goodbye to him. Alan eulogises Sendelica, Doug Shoop describes the Sweet Colleens, Kev trawls through more strange music, Doug Harr praises Circuline, and Jon reads about ”My Favourite Manson Girl", and remembers The Word magazine...
 
It’s all free!
 
And there are radio shows from Strange Fruit, Mack Maloney, and Friday Night Progressive (Jeremy Smith's new project The Seven Deadly Sins will be back next week). 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:
 
The Word, Gene Simmons, Bruce Springsteen, Cindi Lauper, Rod Stewart, Marillion, Ted Nugent, Billy Bragg, Bob Dylan, Richard Ashcroft, Rod Argent, The Zombies, Madonna, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Michael Alexander "Mike" Kellie, Jaki Liebezeit, Peter Overend Watts, Maggie Roche, Gil Ray, Claude Hudson "Butch" Trucks, Gordon Fitzgerald "Gorden" Kaye, Marvell Thomas, Mary Tyler Moore, Joseph S. "Joe" Ruggiero, Ronald “Bingo” Mundy, Karl Hendricks, Charles “Chuck” Stewart, Absolute Elsewhere feat Bill Bruford, Al Atkins, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Atomic Rooster, Lord Buckley, Tony Ashton & Jon Lord, Adrian Legg, Circuline, Alan Dearling, Sendelica, Doug Shoop, The Sweet Colleens, Richard Foreman, Martin Stone, Kev Rowland, Echoes, Henning Pauly, Horricane, Iluzjon, The Intersphere, Invisigoth, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Springett, Led Zeppelin, Ramones, The Beatles, Rat Pack, George Harrison, Neil Nixon,
Country 'n' Irish Accordion
 
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 218 (Mark Reiser tribute)
Issue 217 (Dig Doug Harr)
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?

CFZ NEWSLETTER #16








































Dear Friends,


For those of you not in the know, at the beginning of each month we send out a newsletter to all members of the CFZ. The most recent (which went out this evening) included articles on The Tasmania expedition, an electric snake, and a new deer species, the return of OTT, Expedition Profiles for 2017, Notes and Queries etc.

The infrastructure of the Centre for Fortean Zoology has changed rapidly over the last few years and truthfully doesn’t look like its going to stop changing anytime soon. The newsletter costs a quid a month (or the equivalent in your currency) and is delivered straight into your inbox by a plethora of tiny invisible elves, or email if your prefer it that way. You can sign up for it here: http://tinyurl.com/jtsq7ew



If you want to view a sample issue click here: http://tinyurl.com/pw7rw9l

38 DEGREES: Scottish dolphins

Tons of oil being blasted from one ship to another in a tricky operation in an area of outstanding natural beauty. What could possibly go wrong? Cromarty Firth Port Authority wants to pump crude oil between ships off the Moray coast in Scotland - putting bottlenose dolphins, seals and birds at risk. [1]

Over 20,000 of us stood together to say no to these risky plans - and last week the Maritime and Coastguard Agency threw them out. But the port are saying they’ll try again, so that’s where you come in. [2]

The port have been told they have to hold a public consultation before they do anything else. They may try and ignore the opposition to these risky oil transfers - but if more of us join the campaign right now, together we’ll be too loud for them to push aside.

If you agree that Britain’s natural beauty and amazing sea life shouldn’t be put at risk, sign the petition now. It takes less than a minute to add your name:




Right now the Port Authority will be licking their wounds and planning their next steps. They might be trying to figure out how they can hold a consultation and still get their way - despite the huge opposition.

38 Degrees members have joined up with local campaigners, Cromarty Rising, to make sure this kind of dangerous procedure is kept out of the Moray Firth. It can feel impossible to make a difference, but last week’s news shows that when we all come together and take a simple action, like signing a petition, we can have huge impact.

So please will you sign the petition today? Let’s make sure whatever schemes the port authority come up with next, they’ll be met with overwhelming public opposition at every step of the way.

Please sign the petition now:





Thanks for being involved,

Megan, Stewart, Robin, Becca & the 38 Degrees team


PS: Ship to ship transfers do already happen elsewhere in Scotland, but in more controlled environments, and even then there are lots of fears. Click here to help make sure the Moray Firth is kept safe from risk:
https://link.38degrees.org.uk/ship-to-ship-seg


NOTES:
[1] The National: Warning oil plan could ‘wipe out’ eco tourism industry:
http://www.thenational.scot/news/warning-oil-plan-could-wipe-out-eco-tourism-industry.17398
The Herald: Concern for dolphins in Cromarty oil transfers:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14164918.Concern_for_dolphins_in_Cromarty_oil_transfers/
[2] The Herald: Oil transfer plan is scrapped, but port firm chiefs set to try again:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15040447.Port_authority_told_to_start_again/
BBC: Moray Firth campaigners to fight oil transfer plan:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-35412484

DR BEACHCOMBING: A very old carp

This is an uncommonly good fish story. It appears in a curious book entitled: Johann Heinrich Cohausen, Hermippus redivivus, or, The sage’s triumph over old age and the grave. If you want to achieve immortality you should probably give said book a read. In any case let’s move on to a centuries-old carp.
It is not only the Inhabitants of the Land and Air that attain to such vast Ages, such as dwell in the Waters seem to have yet a larger Share of Life, of which I will give one well attested Instance out of many. In the Year 1497, in a Fishpond in Suabia, near Huilprin in Germany, they took a Carp of a prodigious size, which had in his Ear, a Ring of Copper, with these Words in Latin. I am the first Fish that was put into this Pond by the Hands of Frederick II, Governor of the World, the 5 October, 1230. This Carp appeared to have lived 259 years, and probably might have lived much longer, had he not been taken out [95].
Beach does not know whether medieval fish were tagged. He does not know whether Frederick II had a fish pond. He does not know whether in 1497 an abnormally large fish was caught in Swabia. He does know that there is good evidence for decade-old carp and more difficult but not impossible claims that carp can make it to a hundred. He also knows that there are a series of stories about animals being discovered with messages on them proving their great age: there are several, for example, involving tortoises.

Read on...

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

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

From CFZ-USA:

RICHARD FREEMAN: Return from Tasmania

In January of this year I embarked on my third trip to Tasmania in search of the thylacine, or Tasmanian wolf. Together with Mike Williams of CFZ Australia we spent a fortnight searching the north and central regions of the island for the elusive marsupial predator. We interviewed witnesses and set camera traps, as well as conducting night drives with windscreen mounted cameras. 

Our cameras failed to film thylacines, but we were shown a short sequence of film captured on a trail cam by some other researchers known to us that seems to show a Tasmanian wolf. We can say no more at the moment, but it appears that, much as we expected, this amazing animal is not extinct after all.

NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Wednesday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1606 - Guy Fawkes was executed after being convicted for his role in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James I. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Study finds parrotfish are critical to coral reef ...
  • Sharks show novel changes in their immune cancer-r...
  • Corn turning French hamsters into deranged canniba...
  • Surprise emergence of the first cabbage white butt...
  • Restoration reveals human remains in famous Carneg...
  • Never-before-seen photos of English village which ...
  • Human-pig 'chimera embryos' detailed
  • Extinct E.T.? Alien-Like Insect Found Trapped in A...


  • 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.)