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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Wednesday, September 13, 2017

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS RUNNING OUT OF BEATLES ALLUSIONS

The Gonzo Daily: Thursday
What? Tomorrow's blog today? Am I trying to prove a point? No, not really. But I have not been feeling too bright this last few days, and as I feel quite good at the moment I wish to make hay whilst the proverbial sun shines. However, despite feeling queasy, in the past two days I have interviewed Judge Smith and Dana Gillespie (two separate interviews I should add), sorted out the typography of a book on Frank Zappa, and uploaded the second episode of our relaunched webTV show, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp3yg5XmN6w&t=139s
Check it out you funk soul wassnames and please do me a favour and disseminate the news as far and wide as you can.
By the way you can watch last month's episode of OTT:
But now, here is the news:
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Rachmaninoff: Symphony...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
JOEY MOLLAND IN THE NEWS
SAD NEWS FOR YES FANS
FOR THOSE OF YOU INTERESTED IN JON'S DAY JOB: On T...
Gonzo Weekly #251
THE DEMONS OUT FROM MONTAGUE TERRACE ISSUE
Jon muses on the recent concert featuring the songs of Scott Walker and the arrangements of Wally Stott aka Angela Morley, Tim interviews Edgar Broughton, Jon interviews Don Falcone of Spirits Burning, John says goodbye to Walter Becker of Steely Dan, and Jeremy encounters some Fisherman’s Friends.
And is there more? You can bet your pondohs there is. And it is all free/buckshee/gratis
Wooooot!
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive and Canterbury Sans Frontieres (cos wednesday was a full moon). 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 potoroos who have done some poos (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have defecated, 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:
Scott Walker, Angela Morley, Nile Rodgers, Sinead O'Connor, RAZ Band, Adam Ant, Mick Fleetwood, Ian Gillan, Strange Fruit, Canterbury Sans Frontieres, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Holger Czukay, Earl "Wire" Lindo, John Byrne Cooke, David Lawrence "Dave" Hlubek, Hedley H.G. Jones, Michael Softley, Mary Hopkin, Man, Arthur Brown, Tony Ashton and Jon Lord, Martin Springett, Third Ear Band, Benjamin Britten, Don Falcone, Spirits Burning, Tim Rundall, Edgar and Luke Broughton, Alan Dearling, Aggelos Bolotos, Marie LaforĂȘt, Caterina Caselli, She Past Away, Local Blood, Death in Vegas, John Brodie-Good, Walter Carl Becker, Steely Dan, Jeremy Smith, The Fisherman's Friends, Kev Rowland, Dave Stryker, Dawn of Disease, De Profundis, Disengage, Dyscarnate, Hawkwind, Beatles, Prince, David Bowie, Beatwoven, Elvis, Neil Nixon, Bob Dylan
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
Issue 250 (Jamms)
Issue 249 (Bill Bruford)
Issue 248 (The Selecter)
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 58 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?

CRYPTOLINK: Sea Serpents Return to the Monterey Bay?

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. 

Sea Serpents Return to the Monterey Bay?

Press release from: Bizarre Bay
Could Lightning Awaken Sleeping Sea Serpents?
Could Lightning Awaken Sleeping Sea Serpents?
Although it has been decades sine the last sea serpent was officially spotted in the water of the Monterey Bay, we may be on the edge of a major change.

Global warming and climate change has brought strange weather patterns to the entire planet and the Monterey Bay has felt a couple of particularly strong effects. With changes in water temperature come changes in wildlife. Migratory patterns of animals, rare whale, dolphin and bird sightings are all effects of climate change.

This week brought a spectacular lightning storm to central California that may bring about the biggest change yet. With over 1000 cloud to surface lightning strikes confirmed over the span of hours on September 11th 2017, what possible effects could they have had? Could this be the catalyst to finally awaken long sleeping sea serpents, driving them out of hiding and into the pubic eye once again?

Read more about the Monterey Bay Sea Serpents on Bizarre Bay: bizarrebay.com/weird/hundreds-lightning-bolts-awakened-se...

Bizarre Bay and BizarreBay.com are dedicated to bring the best adventures and secrets of the Monterey Bay from the shadows and into the light! Join Bizarre Bay as they explore the Mysteries of the Monterey Bay!

Jon Rawls
Bizarre Bay
3330 Winkle Ave.
Santa Cruz, CA 95065

This release was published on openPR.

On The Track (of Unknown Animals) Episode 77



Here we have the second episode of the relaunched webTV show by the Centre for Fortean Zoology, written and presented by John Downes and Charlotte Phillipson, their families and other animals. This episode contains: • We say goodbye to Syd Henley • Richard and team in trouble at Moscow airport • What is an Almasty? • Almasty makes nest in old lady’s garden • Jon examines recent lake and river monster videos • The beast of Dartmoor • Dr Max Blake on unlikely hybridisation • Introducing Colin Schneider • Do almasty plait horses manes? • Charlotte and the sea hares • Unlikely visitors to the North Devon coast • Battery chicken rescue • Watcher of the skies • New and rediscovered: Indian purple frog • New and rediscovered: New flying squirrel • New and rediscovered: New porcupine fish • The team says goodbye until next month

NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Thursday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1969 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band made their live debut at the Rock 'n' Roll Revival Concert. Eric Clapton was on guitar.
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Summer washout drowns hopes of UK wildlife bonanza...
  • Monkeys with Parkinson's disease benefit from huma...
  • Paleontologist aids in new discovery 33 years afte...
  • Established story about how humans came from Afric...


  • 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.

    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.






    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN LOVES YOU, YEAH YEAH YEAH

    The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
     
    Half way through the week, and we are eagerly awaiting Charlotte's arrival so we can put the latest issue of OTT to bed. It will be posted today (or at least I sincerely hope it will). The schedule is deliberately vague with is not specifying a broadcast date other than "the middle of each month") but Charlotte is here on Wednesdays so one does one's best to coordinate them.
     
    The most exciting news of the day comes from Java where there is a report of mysterious deaths of livestock in the past few weeks.The most interesting thing about this story is not the attacks, although they are interesting in themselves. It is this: "Head of Gunung Kidul's Agriculture Agency Bambang Wisnu Broto suspected that the predators were tigers or wolves, which have seen their prey numbers dwindle following a prolonged drought in the region".
     
    The interesting thing about this is that there are no wolves in Indonesia, although this may be a mistranslation or a local name for the Sumatran dhole. However Javan tigers have been generally considered to be extinct with the last known specimen shot in 1984, and the last positively identified pugmarks a few years later.
     
    Finally, our collective condolences go out to the friends and family of Virgil Howe (brother of Dylan, son of Steve) who died unexpectedly yesterday aged 41.
     
    By the way you can watch last month's episode of OTT:
     
    But now, here is the news:
     
    THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
    Virgil Howe dead at 42: Little Barrie drummer and ...
    EXTREMES MOVIE REVIEW
    YES feat ARW NEWS
    THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Virgil Howe - Someday
     
    Gonzo Weekly #251
    THE DEMONS OUT FROM MONTAGUE TERRACE ISSUE
     
    Jon muses on the recent concert featuring the songs of Scott Walker and the arrangements of Wally Stott aka Angela Morley, Tim interviews Edgar Broughton, Jon interviews Don Falcone of Spirits Burning, John says goodbye to Walter Becker of Steely Dan, and Jeremy encounters some Fisherman’s Friends.
     
    And is there more? You can bet your pondohs there is. And it is all free/buckshee/gratis
     
    Wooooot!
     
    And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive and Canterbury Sans Frontieres (cos wednesday was a full moon). 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 potoroos who have done some poos (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have defecated, 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:
     
    Scott Walker, Angela Morley, Nile Rodgers, Sinead O'Connor, RAZ Band, Adam Ant, Mick Fleetwood, Ian Gillan, Strange Fruit, Canterbury Sans Frontieres, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Holger Czukay, Earl "Wire" Lindo, John Byrne Cooke, David Lawrence "Dave" Hlubek, Hedley H.G. Jones, Michael Softley, Mary Hopkin, Man, Arthur Brown, Tony Ashton and Jon Lord, Martin Springett, Third Ear Band, Benjamin Britten, Don Falcone, Spirits Burning, Tim Rundall, Edgar and Luke Broughton, Alan Dearling, Aggelos Bolotos, Marie LaforĂȘt, Caterina Caselli, She Past Away, Local Blood, Death in Vegas, John Brodie-Good, Walter Carl Becker, Steely Dan, Jeremy Smith, The Fisherman's Friends, Kev Rowland, Dave Stryker, Dawn of Disease, De Profundis, Disengage, Dyscarnate, Hawkwind, Beatles, Prince, David Bowie, Beatwoven, Elvis, Neil Nixon, Bob Dylan
     
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
     
    Issue 250 (Jamms)
    Issue 249 (Bill Bruford)
    Issue 248 (The Selecter)
    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 58 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?

    THYLACINES IN THE NEWS



    PETER GEE: The last known Tasmanian tiger may have died nearly a century ago but the rumour mill surrounding possible sightings of the elusive ...
    Tasmanian tigers — also known as thylacines — were declared extinct in 1986, 50 years after the last captive animal died in a zoo in Tasmania but the ...

    BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    MN.BRT Radio with Tim Stover 9/11/17
    Join Elusive1 & Henry May as they welcome long time friend & brother in Bigfoot Research back on the show, Tim Stover, Tim is the Owner/operator of ...

    CRYPTOLINK: Interesting case from Java

    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. 


    Shock and confusion has gripped a village in the southern part of Yogyakarta following the mysterious deaths of livestock in the past few weeks.

    The most interesting thing about this story is not the attacks, although they are interesting in themselves. It is this: "Head of Gunung Kidul's Agriculture Agency Bambang Wisnu Broto suspected that the predators were tigers or wolves, which have seen their prey numbers dwindle following a prolonged drought in the region".

    The interesting thing about this is that there are no wolves in Indonesia, although this may be a mistranlation or a local name for the Sumatran dhole. However Javan tigers have been generally considered to be extinct with the last known specimen shot in 1984, and the last positively identified pugmarks a few years later.

    Search for the Javan tiger - Telegraph

    www.telegraph.co.uk › News › Earth › Wildlife

    22 Dec 2011 - The discovery of paw prints and cat droppings in an Indonesian parkland has triggered a search for the Javan tiger, declared extinct in 1994.

    Why did the Javan tiger disappear? | Awely Tigers

    www.awely-tigers.org/why-did-the-javan-tiger-disappear/

    17 Jul 2015 - The Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica) is a subspecies of tiger that lived uniquely on the island of Java, in Indonesia. It became extinct at the ...

    The Last of the Sunda Tigers - Rainforest Trust

    https://www.rainforesttrust.org/news/last-sunda-tigers/

    10 Apr 2015 - The Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sundaica), which is more similar to the Sumatran, held on longer into the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1975 ...

    MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: Snakes with three heads

    It is well known that snakes can turn up with two heads, what is much less well known (including by myself until yesterday) is that very very occasionally snakes with three heads are born!

    I typed in the phrase "snakes with three heads " in the Geneaologybank.com database on September 10th and six examples turned up using that phrase. I reproduce some of them below. The first example is from the Jeffersonian (Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania) of July 7th 1853, the one below that is from the Mirror and Farmer (Manchester, New Hampshire) of Jan 23rd 1858. Robert Twomley, an American herpetologist who also happens to be a Facebook Friend, passed on the following information to me:"The Aberrancy of two heads within snakes is scientifically referred to as axial bifurcation, dicephalism and somatodichotmy. Axial bifurcation is not unfamiliar within herpetofauna. The first known example of axial bifurcation within Reptilia is of a 120 million-year-old Choristoderm (semi-aquatic diapsid) fossil found within the Yixian formation of Northern China. With the earliest known example in historical times been"

    "The Aberrancy of two heads within snakes is scientifically referred to as axial bifurcation,  dicephalism and somatodichotmy. Axial bifurcation is not unfamiliar within herpetofauna. The first known example of axial bifurcation within Reptilia is of a 120 million-year-old Choristoderm (semi-aquatic diapsid) fossil found within the Yixian formation of Northern China. With the earliest reliable reports in historical writing, history was documented by Aristotle in BC 350 and Aelianus in BC 250."

    Eleven possible cause has been proposed for the condition of axial bifurcation. 

    1. Incomplete division of a simple embryo 

    2. Partial fusion of two embryos.  

    3. Abnormally low or high temperatures during incubation or gestation. 

    4. May occur due to regeneration after an embryonic lesion 

    5. Anoxia (low oxygen supply) during embryonic development 

    6. Toxic effects of metabolic secretions during a prolonged sojourn in the oviduct 

    7. Inbreeding depression from a small gene pool 

    8. Hybridization 

    9. Environmental pollution 

    10 Chemical toxins in captivity (1)


    1. E-mail from Robert Twomley and Facebook message, September 3rd 2017. 

    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Wednesday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1759 - The French were defeated by the British on the Plains of Abraham in the final French and Indian War. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Why some baby bees are destined to become workers—...
  • American pika disappears from large area of Califo...
  • Say hello to the 3-D Obama ant
  • Jackie Chan joins the fight for endangered pangoli...
  • STSR tests confirm that dogs have self-awareness


  • 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.