Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 227

Preaching To The Converted: Are Museums Dumbing Down?

During the war, German bombers were given false information and encouraged to offload their lethal cargoes in the East of the city to protect the centre – understandably perhaps, as direct hits on populous Leicester Square in two terrible raids caused huge casualties. The war and its aftermath wiped out so many beloved buildings that […]

What’s In A Title?

Some years ago I thought about setting up a company to broker unknown world cinema to Hollywood, an exercise doomed to failure because of course Hollywood executives would simply have bypassed me to deal with companies direct. Hollywoodhas a long and illustrious history of using immigrant talent for its product, but their track record on […]

The Most English Films Ever Made

The rubbish line-up of the Oscars this year set me thinking, not that I set any store by these awards; any supposed system of excellence that could ignore ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Singing In The Rain’ and ‘Vertigo’ isn’t worth bothering with – If you were to look down the list of most popular British […]

Are London’s ‘Secret’ Places Really Secret?

When I wrote my latest London book round-up recently, I noticed that the words ‘secret’ and ‘hidden’ cropped up a lot in the titles. Fine, you won’t find St Paul’s Cathedral in these guide books, but you will find an awful lot of venues that could hardly be called ‘hidden’ or ‘secret’ or even ‘relatively […]

So Long, Soho

Londoners should never be nostalgic about their city. We know that if you go away on holiday for a fortnight you’re liable to come back and find your favourite pub gone. It’s just the way things work here. I can’t think of any city that has changed so much, so consistently, over the last sixty […]

Everyone Wants To Do Something Silly Sometimes

Thanks to social media, it’s now possible to stop time. Although not for any useful reason. Or not so that everyone even notices (check out the guy behind the counter):

The Ladies Who Were World-Class Killers

The world of mystery novels is now subdivided into a huge number of categories, ranging from alternative histories to supernatural thrillers, but the film version of ‘Gone Girl’ has reawakened an interest in Domestic Suspense. These are stories which only minimally involve the police, and are often based around marital suspicion and the tensions that […]

Rave On

Burning musical question of the day: What happens to ravers when you take away the techno track and replace it with ‘Yakety Yak’ from the Benny Hill show? You get this searing indictment of youthful foolishness;

Sort Of Great

Yeah, I know it’s been seen by millions already but it’s sort of great.

Art Goes Down The Tube

Back in the 1920s the London underground tube system was updated from its dark-wood Victorian designs and enjoyed a unified modernist look that lasted for the next 60 years – clean lines, matching tiles, elegant lighting and streamlined simplicity. By the time the 1980s arrived, the wheels were really starting to come off the system. […]