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...




Thursday, August 24, 2017

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.

  • SIGHTING, UK: Does this amazing footage finally pr...
  • ARTICLE: Captive big cats show stress in different...
  • VIDEO: Could the legendary Durham puma be the star...
  • VIDEO: Fearless cows chase off lions in Indian vil...
  • NEWSLINK: Administration for big cats national par...

  • NEWSLINK: Fife big cat expert dismisses Rosyth sig...
  • AND THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH SAID THAT IT WOULD COME TO PASS

    The Gonzo Daily: Thursday
     
    The events in Mu Mu land continue to unravel, and I am more and more impressed. My copy (bought by Corinna for my birthday) of 2023 arrived yesterday. And it is so much better than the reviews had led me to believe. It is basically a companion piece to Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus Trilogy (from which the JAMMs  were named) and is far easier to follow. It also references enough of my personal mythology to make me happy. Read the bit in 17 where King Boy D describes sitting on the flat roof outside his flat after his other half had kicked him out, and ceremonially eviscerating a copy of the trilogy. If the burning of  the million quid was Act One, with a musical accompaniment by The KLF, the burning of the Illuminatus Trilogy was Act Two, with a musical accompaniment by The17, then this is Act Three, and Badger Kull will provide the Soundtrack. A small ritual over the manhole cover at the end of Matthew Street has made me very happy.There is a big ritual planned for tomorrow, and I suspect it involves the brick made from the ashes of the banknotes, the metal coffin in the back of the Ice Cream Van, and either the smell of ashes underground or a Ferry Cross the Mersey.
     
    But is this a beginning or an end? Or are they the same thing? And does it really matter?
     
    Over to Thomas Stearns:
     
    Time present and time past
    Are both perhaps present in time future
    And time future contained in time past.
    If all time is eternally present
    All time is unredeemable.
    What might have been is an abstraction
    Remaining a perpetual possibility
    Only in a world of speculation.
    What might have been and what has been
    Point to one end, which is always present.
     
    On a personal level I would be very grateful if you could spread the word about our rebooted monthly webTV series after a break of nearly four years. I actually hadn't realised it had been so long, but - then again - my concepts of time and space are fairly abstract at the best of times.
     
     
    But now, here is the news:
     
    Trailer for new series of On The Track
    THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
    THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Kevin Ayers - Clarenc...
    David Peel on John Lennon and the FBI
    LEONARD COHEN IN THE NEWS
    YES feat ARW NEWS
     
    Gonzo Weekly #248
    THE BY THE TIME WE GOT TO WICKHAM ISSUE
     
    In which Alan goes to the Wickham Festie and raves about The Levellers, The Selecter, Edward II, The Dhol Foundation and more. We remember Oz Magazine, look forward to next week’s revisitation by the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, look at what
    might well have happened if Syd Barrett had been completely cured, and spend a weekend with Lennon and McCartney.
     
    Yup, and it’s all free!
     
    And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Strange Fruit, and Friday Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, C J Stone, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and antichinuses in primordial ooze (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have become time travellers and got stuck in a prehistoric swamp, 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 Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, Syd Barrett, David Bowie, Keith Christmas, YES, ARW, Tears for Fears, Prince, Roger Waters, Sinead O'Connor, Neil Young, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Jo Walker-Meador, Kasatka, Benard Ighner, Segun Bucknor, Rick Wakeman, Ashton,  Gardner and Dyke, Third Ear Band, Atomic Rooster, Oz, Richard Neville, Alan Dearling, Wickham festival, Andy Fairweather-Low, Lowriders Band, Levellers, Spooky Men’s Chorale, The Selector, Seth Lakeman, Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin, The Dhol Foundation, Pronghorn, Edward II, Maia, Alan Finlan, Kev Rowland, Karibow, Left Lane Cruiser, Lost World Band, The Midnight Ghost Train, Noothgrush/Corrupted, Pageninetynine, Riverdogs, Seven Spires, Lutz Ulbrich, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elvis, Beatles, Tupac, Michael Jackson, Lemmy, Edward S Dumit
     
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
     
    Issue 247 (Don Airey)
    Issue 246 (Steve Hackett)
    Issue 244-5 (Summer Special)
    Issue 243 (Galahad)
    Issue 242 (Steve Miller Band)
    Issue 241 (Carol Hodge and Steve Ignorant)
    Issue 240 (Midsummer Madness)
    Issue 239 (Miss Peach)
    Issue 238 (Hawkwind)
    Issue 237 (Hawkwind)
    Issue 236 (Manchester)
    Issue 235 (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)
     
    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?

    Trailer for new series of On The Track



    Watch it Now

    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.





    NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)



    Loch Ness' Wallabies, Mysterious Cats, and a Flamingo!
    Loch Ness' Wallabies, Mysterious Cats, and a Flamingo! If you thought that the Nessies were the only strange things at Loch Ness, it's time to think again... Posted ... "Monster Diary;" "Sinister Tales of the MIB;" "Monster Files;" "Close ...

    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Thursday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 0079 - Mount Vesuvius erupted killing approximately 20,000 people. The cities of Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum were buried in volcanic ash. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Climate change could put rare bat species at great...
  • Anthrax: A hidden threat to wildlife in the tropic...
  • Lizard blizzard survivors tell story of natural se...
  • Scientists hope to breed Asian ‘unicorns’ – if the...
  • The color of people's clothing affects lizard esca...
  • Illegal Reptiles’ importation: Nigerian Federal Go...

  • Fungal disease poses real threat to W.Va. snake po...



  • 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.