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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Thursday, October 15, 2015

NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)




Is this mysterious wave evidence of the Loch Ness Monster?
Amateur photographer David Elder took this video of 'something large' lurking beneath the waters of Loch Ness at Fort Augustus. Could it be Nessie?

THE GONZO BLOG DOO DAH MAN IS WHISPERING

The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
 
Although this has been a fairly low key year as far as unusual butterfly visitors have been concerned, this Autumn has been a remarkable one for unusual British moths. Fraxini, for example, which is probably the holy grail for British moth-ers has turned up four or five times in the last couple of months, and there have also been quite a few sightings of deaths head hawkmoths, with caterpillars even having been found. One of the weirdest things about this species is that although they reach Britain and breed here occasionally, according to the immortal P.B.M Allan (whose books I would really love to re-print if anybody knows his next of kin) British bred specimens are invariably sterile. As someone who believes that everything within a Biotope has its purpose to play, I have been pondering recently on the ecological purpose of such transient visitors. The normal biological imperative that of passing on DNA to the next generation obviously does not apply here.
 
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Galahad-Empires Never...
John Mayall The Early Years
A ROUNDUP OF GAIL ZAPPA STORIES
AndersonPonty Band Better Late Than Never
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
 
Gonzo Weekly #151
www.gonzoweekly.com
 
Mountain, Corky Laing,Steven Wilson, West Coast psychedelia, Dennis Wilson, Frank Zappa, Santana, Joy Division, anarchopunk, Digitiser, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Dogwatch, That Legendary Wooden Lion, Hawkwind, Jon Anderson, Mack Moloney, and Yes fans had better look out!
 
The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#151) is available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/. It has Corky Laing on the front cover together with an interview with the legendary Mountain sticksman inside, Doug goes to see Steven Wilson at the Royal Albert Hall, Jon muses on the mystickal aspects of Joy Division, interviews Carl "Blue" Wise, and hears the latest music news from Nashville. We review a delightful book about the philosophy of punk, and Xtul are back in the deep woods. Neil unearths a hidden gem, Thom waxes all poetical like, whilst the legendary Roy Weard continues his regular column. We welcome new columnist Mr Biffo with regular slices of insanity from the world of Digitiser 2000, and there is a radio show from Strange Fruit and another from our latest addition to the team Mack Moloney. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons wanting a snooze (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who stayed up too late last night, 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:
 
Genesis P. Orridge, Bill Drummond, Joy Division, Dennis Dunaway, Alice Cooper Band, Madonna, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Rod Stewart, Glen Hughes, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Sir Tom Jones, Adam Lambert, David Bowie, System 7, Steve Hillage, Miquette Giraudy, Strange Fruit, Adelaide Gail Zappa, Joseph "Smokey" Johnson, Billy Joe Royal, David Samuel Pike, Coleridge George Emerson Goode, Denis Winston Healey, CH, MBE, PC, Brand X, The Raz Band, Johnny Winter, Alexis Korner, 13th Floor Elevators, Nucleus, Spirits Burning, The Pirates, Corky Laing, Steven Wilson, Carl "Blue" Wise, John Brodie-Good, Frank Zappa, It's a Beautiful Day, Doobie Brothers, Santana, Dennis Wilson, Roy Weard, Mr Biffo, Hawkwind, Xtul, Robbie Williams, Rolling Stones, Spice Girls, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, John Lennon, Jackson Five, Yes, Alan White, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Jean Luc Ponty, Jon Davison, The Foo Fighters, Neil Nixon, Captain Beefheart, Sylvatica
 
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 150 (Roger Dean)
Issue 149 (Tony Palmer in Space)
Issue 148 (Wally Hope)
Issue 147 (Thom the World Poet cover)
Issue 146 (Bee and Flower cover)
Issue 145 (Dave Brock cover)
Issue 144 (Percy Jones cover)
Issue 143 (Billy Sherwood cover)
Issue 142 (Daevid Allen and Spirits Burning cover)
Issue 141 (Rick Wakeman cover)
Issue 140 (Jaki Windmill cover)
Issue 139 (Raz cover)
Issue 138 (Galahad cover)
Issue 137 (Chris Squire cover)
Issue 136 (Neil Nixon cover)
Issue 135 (FNP cover)
 
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.com/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit…
 
* 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 56 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and a small kitten 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, and sometimes a small Indian frog. 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 the infantile orange cat, and the adventurous kitten?

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.

  • NEWSLINK: Kaliasot dam hotspot for big cats
  • ARTICLE: Panthersville likely named for big cat
  • 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.



    BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    Native Carving “Bigfoot Sighting”
    From Swinomish WA. Master Carver Kevin Paul comes the proof that Bigfoot has been spotted in the Northwest! At aprox. 12" x 6", this "big" foot.

    An Early Encounter With A Bigfoot?
    Demonstrating that beasts such as Sasquatch are not the creations of 20th and 21st century movie-makers, and hoaxers, are the surprisingly large ...

    The Harlan Daily Enterprise
    Photo courtesy of Facebook.com Michael Cook, founder to the Kentucky Sasquatch Team, will be a keynote speaker at the the Big Sky Bigfoot ...

    NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Thursday

    ON THIS DAY IN 1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte began his exile on the remote island of St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Wolf hunters deployed to French Alps
  • Is the eco-tourism boom putting wildlife in a new ...
  • Quenda quest: volunteers take stock of Perth's 'lo...
  • Turtles Groom Warthog in Never-Before-Seen Behavio...

  • We’re risking a mass extinction of frogs — and the...

  • 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)