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...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



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...




Saturday, October 12, 2013

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IDIOCY: "..and the ones employed by councils, they have no brain at all..." (Dave McMann)

Classic character: The caterpillar featured in Disney's 1951 Alice in Wonderland animationAn environmental health officer stunned a florist by claiming her display model of Alice in Wonderland’s caterpillar was breaking anti-smoking laws.

Debbie Schofield, 32, had put the wooden model of the hookah puffing character from the 1951 Disney movie in her front window to attract customers.

But instead she got an unexpected visit from a council officer who noticed the model, which was sat on a wooden toadstool, was in possession of a real shisha pipe and looked as if it was smoking.


MATT LYONS ASKED US TO POST THIS

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN WORKS UNDER VARIOUS ALIASES

The Gonzo Daily - Saturday
 
I have been a fan of Gary Clail for many years. Last night I spoke to him about his massively cool comeback record in what was one of the most peculiar interviews that I have ever done. The thing that impressed me most about the whole thing wasn't that Gary was massively excited (as a newt) and completely off on one. It was coming up midnight on Friday for heaven’s sake, and if it wasn't for the fact that I try not to drink two nights in succession I would probably have been in the same state, but that both the lyrical content of the whole thing, and the zeitgeist of the interview as a whole tie in perfectly with the way that my head has been going every since I read John Higgs’ massively peculiar biography of the KLF last week. Since then I have been reading about the Discordian movement; I have read Principia Discordia by Malaclypse the Younger, and am now finally reading Illuminatus! And – as I discovered many years ago when my old friends Tony “Doc” Shiels and John Michell took me (both together and separately) on a psychometrical journey which hatchecked both reality and sanity at the door, Gary’s ranting and rapping about church, state and money have the Discordian mindset scrawled all over them. Like Mick Farren and Bill Drummond, he is as mad as a hatter, and completely and utterly spot on. Even when he was claiming to be either Jesus or a Roman Emperor (I am not quite sure which), it was a privilege to speak to him.
Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet.
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_8189.html
 
 
 
Fairport Convention lead first acts for Acoustic Festival of Britain
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/fairport-convention-lead-first-acts-for.html
 
 
 

*  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/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
 
* 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 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) 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 orange cat?

DALE DRINNON: Updates

New at the Frontiers of Anthropology:

New at the Frontiers of Zoology:

New at Cedar and Willow:

And Benny has had quite a run on his two blogs while I have been out of the picture, probably two or three dozen postings. Latest at his blog for Thelma Todd was:
and on the Ominous Octopus Omnibus a whole lot of postings about the "My Friend Irma- alternate comic strip "Moronica",
 an article about comics artist  Al Williamson:
and culminating in the epic story of KHATPOTTIE!

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

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. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.








TODAY'S BIG CAT ROUND UP



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. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.




  • US SIGHTINGS: Big cats in the Adirondacks - Adiron...
  • AUSTRALIA SIGHTINGS: Big cat mystery solved - YouT...
  • US SIGHTINGS: Couple insist big cat prowling nearb...
  • NEWSLINK: American voters support nationwide ban o...
  • NEWSLINK: Correction: Truck Stop Tiger story
  • NEWSLINK: New Jersey: Mystery of the decapitated c...
  • UK SIGHTINGS: Big Cats Gazetteer
  • US SIGHTINGS: Mountain lion reported in Southeaste...
  • AUSTRALIA SIGHTINGS: Big Cat Story 9th October 201...
  • UK SIGHTINGS: Scotland-Non-native Cat Sightings in...
  • US SIGHTINGS: Mystery Cats Indiana “Bobcat” Kille...
  • US SIGHTINGS: Big Cat Attacks
  • FEATURELINK: Zoologger: The amphibious Asian myste...
  • UK SIGHTINGS: 9 Aug 2013, BIG CAT sighting Cannich...
  • VIDEO: NEW SIGHTING OF THE BIG BLACK CAT!
  • UK SIGHTINGS: Large Cat Sightings & Witnesses (Doc...
  • SIGHTINGS USA: Big Cat on the Loose Shot by Neighb...
  • VIDEO: BBC Lion Battlefield 4
  • VIDEO: Hyenas kill Lioness cub and two lions kill ...
  • NEWSLINK: Circus roars into DCU Center


  • NEWSLINK: Call for boycott of Queensbury big-cat c...
  • OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

    Yesterday’s News Today
    http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

    On this day in 2013 Pokemon X and Y will be released worldwide. New pokemon based on cryptids this time round include Noivern (based on Kongamato) and Malamar (based on the sea monk) and a new mega-evolution for Abomasnow (based on the yeti obviously). I'm getting my copy at a midnight launch event (this blog gets written hours in advance sorry for spoiling the magic) and I'm rather excited. In the words of Gary Oak “Smell ya later!”. (this should have lots of baby-boomers reading this scratching their heads and feeling confused as to what this blog was about)

    And now the news:
  • Female Frogs Prefer Males Who Can Multitask – via ...
  • Salamanders Under Threat from Deadly Skin-Eating F...
  • Rare turtle saved from cooking pot is found dead a...
  • Stroking Could Stress out Your Cat
  • Couple flee new home infested with venomous green-...
  • Tarantula Mating Season 2013: Lust-Filled Spiders ...
  • Hooded Seal Barely Affected by Brucella Pinnipedia...

  • WWF alleges British oil company violated environme...

  • One of the many trailers for Pokemon X and Y:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bki3s5LDF1c