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...




Friday, June 02, 2017

GLEN VAUDREY: The Teresa May bridge it’s weak and wobbly


The Teresa May bridge it’s weak and wobbly

In this charming painting we see folk having trouble crossing the Teresa May bridge

When it was designed by architects Lynton and Crosby the new bridge was claimed to be the best, strong and stable they said. 

Turns out it wasn’t and as soon as people started to cross it they found it weak and wobbly

The Teresa May bridge it’s weak and wobbly
16 x 24 inches oil on canvas

The vampire painting sold years ago after it appeared in the sun twitter feed. the weak bridge is still wet but any one wants it they can get in touch with me via this https://www.facebook.com/Glen-Vaudrey-1381061508883332/?ref=bookmarks

GLEN VAUDREY: Jeremy Corbyn chases away the Tory vampires

Image may contain: sky, grass, outdoor and nature

A painting of mine from 2015

Nothing scares a tory vampire more than a red flag apparently 
Jeremy Corbyn chases away the tory vampires 

12x9 inches

Oil on canvas

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF




One man saw a 7-foot-tall brownish-black animal stand up after bending over a stream near Lebanon in 2001, according to the Keystone Bigfoot ...

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.





WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE KIDDING MR GONZO?

The Gonzo Daily: Friday/Saturday
 
Nearly a quarter of a century ago, I left my little house in Exeter and rushed into town to buy Roger Waters' album 'Amused to Death' on the day it was released. I bought it, and then excitedly rushed home again. And you know what? I hated it, and even now - although I have mellowed to it - I think it is massively overrated, bombastic, and although the bombast is something that has been in Waters' music for a long time, in 'Amused to Death' it was often counterpointed with schoolboy sarcasm which in a man of his age was just embarrassing. The worst offender was a cod-C&W song about Tiananmen Square which irritates me to this day.
 
So, today, with the release of his first album of new rock material since then, I was not over-optimistic. The three songs he had released as tasters were OK, but nothing to get excited about. And the reviews I have read were not exactly positive either. However , I was still childishly excited at the prospect of being able to find out what the old bugger’s new record was like. And guess what…
 
I REALLY LIKE IT
 
Unusually for a Waters album there is no bombast. Indeed the absence of his big cinematic reverb is the most notable aspect of the sound of this record. The drums even sound, in some places, as if they are from a hiphop record. (That is a good thing, by the way).
 
Producer Nigel Godrich has crafted an oddly confessional sound which is totally 2017, although one suspects many of  the people who will buy this record have their mind set back in the 1970s. At least that is what other reviewers have suggested, and those reviewers have implied that such Pink Floyd fans will only listen to this record a handful of times. Just on a couple of listens this record is one of my favourites of the year so far, and — and I realise that I am going out on a limb here — might even be the best of his four solo albums.
 
The word-play is clever, and  the musicianship is beautifully understated. And the three songs that I had heard individually work so much better within the context of the album as a whole. It revisits many of the themes of previous albums, but never becomes mawkish. And the orchestration, for the first time ever on a Waters album, and possibly even on a Pink Floyd album post Atom Heart Mother is subtle, tasteful and adds to the overall feel rather than compounding the bombast.
 
Good show Rog!
 
And now, here is the news:
 
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Renée Fleming: Casta D...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
John Lennon - Rare Full Interview (09/24/1980)
FAIRPORT CONVENTION IN THE NEWS
COMING THIS WEEKEND
 
Gonzo Magazine #235
THE OLD SCHOOL DANCE GOES ON FOREVER ISSUE
 
We ponder the horrific events of last Monday, Jon waxes lyrical about Wreckless Eric, John goes to see Ryley Walker, Alan isbeing Green in Denmark, Graham talks about Hawkwind, and Corinna is as groovy as ever.
 
And listen up Kiddies: It’s all free!
 
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Friday Night Progressive,and Strange Fruit. 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:
 
Wreckless Eric, The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast, Ariana Grande, Yes, Rick Wakeman, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Sir Roger George Moore, KBE, Granville William "Mickey" Roker, Kenneth Cordray, Jimmy LaFaye, Paul Blake "Frankie Paul", George Reiff, Kid Vinil, Mary Hopkin, This Misery Garden, Martin Stephenson and The Daintees, Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, Jeremy Smith, The Doctors of Madness, Alan Dearling, Hyldemor/Hyldest, Skousen & Ingemann, Christiania, John Brodie-Good, Ryley Walker & Band, Kev Rowland, Oliver Lake & The Flux Quartet, Orange Clocks, Perspire, The Phans, Rog Patterson, Ronald Murphy, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Springett, Elvis, Pete Doherty, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Neil Nixon, Dick Dale
 
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 234 (Jon Anderson)
Issue 234 (Al Atkins)
Issue 233 (Richard Strange)
Issue 232 (Roy Weard)
Issue 231 (Allan Holdsworth)
Issue 230 (Curtis Womack)
Issue 229 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 228 (Space Pharoahs)
Issue 227 (Chuck Berry)
Issue 225-6 (The Rites of Spring)
Issue 224 (Hibernal)
Issue 223 (Beatles)
Issue 222 (Cruise to the Edge)
Issue 221 (Deke Leonard)
Issue 220 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 219 (Martin Stone)
Issue 218 (Mark Reiser tribute)
 
 
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?

TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS

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. 

The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why sometimes you will read stories here that appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking.



NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Friday/Saturday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Tree-climbing goats spit out and disperse valuable...
  • Wild boar gives British ambassador to Austria a sc...
  • 38 million pieces of plastic waste found on uninha...
  • Tree clearing may have killed 180 koalas in Queens...
  • Incredible! Most Well-Preserved Armored Dinosaur W...
  • Cannibal 'T. Rex' Ants Seen Live for 1st Time Ever...
  • Shearing of alpacas is necessary, but also stressf...
  • Sweating the Details: Polar Bear Hits the Treadmil...


  • 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.)