Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 160

There Can Only Be One Subject Today

WTF. HFS. Initials don’t even cover it. The placing of a monstrous thuggish Putin ally in the White House plays right into the novelist’s hands. Especially if you’re writing satire. Back when Nixon got elected, grassroots protest movements sprang up across America. Let’s see if today’s more self-interest focussed youth will do the same and […]

8 Things That Confuse Visitors To London

1. The more elegant a London restaurant looks, the worse it is. All the best restaurants are funky and scruffy, and may look like you’re sitting in a carpentry shop or a foundry. If it’s got white tablecloths and candlelight, avoid! The Angus Steak House may look inviting but don’t be fooled. No Londoner has […]

London Bridge Is Lighting Up

So London’s bridges are to get new lighting – you probably already heard about it if you live here. Frankly, this is just an excuse for me to run shots of my favourite contenders!

Off The Tourist Track: Night London

Autumn in London is pukka this year – crisp, cold and clear-skied, so the perfect time for a wander. Having recovered from the first norovirus of the season (every year I’m like the canary down the mine, first to fall so that you can get out of the way), we bundled up and set off, […]

Writers of the New Disillusionment

I was just having a book purge, getting ready to move back into my flat later this month, when I discovered a stash of dark novels. Often with supernatural overtones, this genre experienced a mad final fling beginning in the late 1970s before being watered down into new genres, mostly involving adolescent fables of sexual […]

Who Are The Enemies Of The People?

The nation’s media is in trouble again. It started with a small story. In the Sunday Times, critic Camilla Long horrified many with her condescending review of Ken Loach’s well-meaning polemic ‘I, Daniel Blake’. In doing so, she revealed the widening gap between the press and the public. Last year Kate Winslet and Judy Davis […]

Chocks Away!

There are certain books your dad had on his dad shelf, and if he was anything like my father, he’ll have had a few dogeared Nevil Shutes and Eric Amblers. I was going to feature these two authors in my forthcoming book ‘The Book of Forgotten Authors’ from Quercus, but the editors feel that Shute […]

Anybody Up For Fanny?

It was quite hard (sorry) finding an image for this article. We’re British of course, and the avoidance of discussing anything to do with gusset-bothering was once (along with having a splendid navy) what made our nation great. Prudery in public, licentiousness in private resulted in the peculiar situation set out here. Novelist John Cleland […]

The Reinvention Of The London Club

A former employee of mine asked an LA cab driver to take him to Soho House and was told, disdainfully; ‘You’ll never get in, it’s exclusive.’ London’s old private clubs like Whites and the Garrick were anachronistic and really only suited for filming ‘Sherlock Holmes’ episodes in, so a new generation of private clubs had […]

Why You Need To Watch Korean Films

Hollywood’s most original thrillers tend to come from the smaller studios. Films like ‘The Invitation’ and ‘The Guest’ worked really well, but they’re relatively low budget chamber pieces. A great action film needs more than just stunts and set pieces (and we must know now after sitting through endless identical Tom Cruise films). Korean cinema […]