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...




Tuesday, August 03, 2021

NOTICE

Dear Friends, 

I have been doing blogs on Blogger/Blogspot for so long that it seems really strange not to be doing them anymore, but as many of you will have found out, dear Louis - who really is a Saint among men for putting up with me during the full-moon - has done a magnificent all singing all dancing website for us. You can find it at cfz.org.uk


As Pete Townshend would have said “meet the new blogs, the same as the old blogs, except they are not, they are much better." These blogs on Blogspot will remain as legacy sites, so never fear that all the stuff that you have read over the years should still be available for you to read, up to and including the day when either the sun goes supernova or the ice caps finish melting and we sink graciously beneath the sea.


Jon


Sunday, July 18, 2021

THEORIES ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE

Including multiple universes, which might explain where certain cryptids come from - and return to. 


now read on....

HOPPING HOPPING HOPPING

 The Gonzo Daily: Sunday

Okay, boys and girls, this is all going to get a bit complicated. As you may know, Louis has been working very hard on the new CFZ website. It has been in beta testing for several weeks, and now we are ready to go in to what Louis calls public beta testing. So, later on today, the CFZ website address that you all know and love will be displaying the new website.
There are still a lot of things to be done. For example, the expeditions pages are only half done, and there are all sorts of other bits and bobs to be added. But we are ready for you to see the fruits of Louis’ hard work, and to test the thing to buggery.
From now on, the daily blogs will change. I will no longer be posting on Blogspot except for the Gonzo blog which will continue much as ever. The current blogs will be linked and archived on the new website as legacy sites. What I do each day as far as CFZ blogs are concerned is still up in the air. I intend to continue running the service as best I can, but as you will see when you look at the new website, what Louis has done is a real game changer, and both my game and that of the CFZ is about to change dramatically.
Hold onto your seats. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Now, changing the subject massively, my friend and Colleague Louis Rozier is carrying out a survey as part of his dissertation for his Masters in Computer Science. If you are interested in helping him please check it out:
GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Hanging Out In the Heart ...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
06-12-2020 – SHOW 387 – Eat Static: Implant
Giant Eels in the Lake District; The return of Wal...
Gonzo Weekly #455/6
Woot Woot the lads are back with another cornucopia of Fortean frolics:
- Gef the talking mongoose
- Lake monsters in the English Lake District
- Richard returns with a Grime DJ
- The Eunuch Eel theory
- The return of Wally the Walrus
- Jon rips off Flanders and Swann with a song intended to offend
- Show and Tell
- Ivory-billed Woodpecker
There are a few crackling staticky sounds which we think that we have fixed for future episodes. This is what comes of having a show put together by a bunch of weirdos who (apart from Louis) don't know what they are doing, and don't really care.
And here we have another shameless plug:
’Wild Colonial Boy’ is the story of my early life in Hong Kong. It is like a darker analog of Gerald Durrell’s memoirs of his childhood in Greece, and I would’ve called it “My Family and other Sociopaths” if I could have got away with it. Find out more and buy it signed from the link below:
C’mon, make a curmudgeonly old bugger happy.
And by the way chaps and chappesses, a trip to the Jon Downes megastore may seem to be in order:
Meanwhile I continue to pretend that I am a popstar, because now I have sold eleven whole copies of my new album Coldharbour. If I continue at this rate I will get a silver disc sometime at the beginning of the next millenium. Coldharbour, by the way, can be found here: https://jondownes1.bandcamp.com/releases
I think it is really rather good, but then again I would say that wouldn't I?
AND THE LATEST ISSUE OF THE GONZO MAGAZINE:
Gonzo Weekly #455/6
THE IRON ZION LION ISSUE
This magazine continues to go off on strange tangents that I never expect, but I am very happy to see it do so. What is in this week? Ooooh lots of things. Such as Pete Townshend, The Who, Zion Train Covid Communications, Dizzy Dustin and Pandamonium, Alan's new music, William Blake, and oodles more...
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney and Friday Night Progressive, AND Merrell Fankhauser, Mr Biffo, Puls8 Radio, and the Real Music Club, AND Strange Fruit, there is a column from Kev Rowland, and C.J Stone but Mr Biffo, and Neil Nixon, are on hiatus. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and dibblers who have got the blues (OK, nothing to do with tiny marsupials who are listening to the new Bob Dylan album, 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!!!
..And the last few issues are:
Issue 455-56 (Zion Train)
Issue 453-54 (Bill Elliot)
Issue 449-50 (Cary Grace)
Issue 447-8 (Gardening Club)
This alphqanumeric issue disappearede into the aether
Issue 443-4 (Rubber chicken)
Issue 441-2 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 441-2 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 441-2 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 441-2 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 439-40 (Prince Phillip)
Issue 437-8 (Yes)
Issue 435-36 (Hawkwind)
Issue 433-34 (Freda Payne)
Issue 431-32 (Kosheen)
Issue 429-30 (Ocean Aid)
Issue 427-8 (2021 ia Bosch)
Issue 425-6 (Paul McCartney)
Issue 423-4 (KLF)
Issue 421-22 (Christmas)
Issue 419-20 (John Lennon)
Issue 417-8 (gIG)
Issue 415-16 (Phideaux)
Issue 413-14 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 411-12 (Extinction Rebellion)
Issue 409-10 (Covid)
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 a recently widowed old hippy of 61 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, three other cats, 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 a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention Archie and the Cats?

Gonzo Weekly #455/6

Gonzo Weekly #455/6
THE IRON ZION LION ISSUE
This magazine continues to go off on strange tangents that I never expect, but I am very happy to see it do so. What is in this week? Ooooh lots of things. Such as Pete Townshend, The Who, Zion Train Covid Communications, Dizzy Dustin and Pandamonium, Alan's new music, William Blake, and oodles more...
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney and Friday Night Progressive, AND Merrell Fankhauser, Mr Biffo, Puls8 Radio, and the Real Music Club, AND Strange Fruit, there is a column from Kev Rowland, and C.J Stone but Mr Biffo, and Neil Nixon, are on hiatus. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and dibblers who have got the blues (OK, nothing to do with tiny marsupials who are listening to the new Bob Dylan album, 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!!!
..And the last few issues are:
Issue 455-56 (Zion Train)
Issue 453-54 (Bill Elliot)
Issue 449-50 (Cary Grace)
Issue 447-8 (Gardening Club)
This alphqanumeric issue disappearede into the aether
Issue 443-4 (Rubber chicken)
Issue 441-2 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 441-2 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 441-2 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 441-2 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 439-40 (Prince Phillip)
Issue 437-8 (Yes)
Issue 435-36 (Hawkwind)
Issue 433-34 (Freda Payne)
Issue 431-32 (Kosheen)
Issue 429-30 (Ocean Aid)
Issue 427-8 (2021 ia Bosch)
Issue 425-6 (Paul McCartney)
Issue 423-4 (KLF)
Issue 421-22 (Christmas)
Issue 419-20 (John Lennon)
Issue 417-8 (gIG)
Issue 415-16 (Phideaux)
Issue 413-14 (Rick Wakeman)
Issue 411-12 (Extinction Rebellion)
Issue 409-10 (Covid)
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.