Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 237

Re:View – ‘Interstellar’

NO SPOILERS – FIRST HOUR DISCUSSION ONLY! A friend I love but whose taste is suspect complained to me last week that ‘Interstellar’ was three hours of his life he’d never get back. I loved every minute, but during the comedown afterwards I was hit with the ‘Interplanetary Ming-Mongs’. ‘Interplanetary Ming-Mongs’ is a device named […]

Food From Hell

Notice anything weird about this burger? (Answer at the end of the column) Gold-Coated Cockerel, Anyone? My mother has no taste. I mean that literally; she’s 90 and says she can’t taste anything unless it’s incredibly sweet. It’s a medical fact that we veer to sweet from savoury in old age. I was thinking […]

The Witches Of Knole

My mother lives very close to 600 year-old Knole House in Sevenoaks, Kent, and on a sunny day we visit the house.Knole is vast,complex and full of hidden treasures. Originallyan Archbishop’spalace, the house passedthrough royal hands to the Sackville family –Knole’s inhabitants from 1603 to today. There are paintings byReynolds, Gainsborough and Van Dyck, 17th-century […]

Blog From The Bog 1: James Bond And The Creeping Landlord

I have now accumulated a pretty high number of blog entries, considering this site is run by one bloke armed with a Mac and a bookshelf – its volume comes from a/blogging every day and b/ the insomnia that kicks me awake at five each morning, leaving me time to research/write such things. Thinking of […]

One Night In London, Three Choices

The things I do for you lot. London has three new music-based shows to choose from, all of which I’ve now seen. So which would you see if you had just one night in town? Answer at the end. Sunny Afternoon First up is the most critically acclaimed of the three, the story of the […]

When Life Was A Banquet

No, it’s not his anniversary or anything like that – I just finished reading one of his books, that’s all, and decided to investigate further. The vagaries of fashion killed off author Patrick Dennis; he finally left the writing profession to become a butler, working for the founder of McDonald’s, and never admitted to having […]

Acker Goes To The Far Shore

When my father died, we played his favourite jazz song (if it can be called that) at his funeral rather than classical music, for which he had no ear. The track was ‘Stranger On The Shore’ by Acker Bilk.Born Bernard Stanley Bilk on 28 January 1929, he changed his stage name to ‘Acker’ – the […]

Re:View – ‘The Wind Rises’

Put two men in a room and they’ll eventually talk about drainage. We like discussing the nuts and bolts of invention, and to that extent ‘The Wind Rises’ could be called a boys’ film. But it is also achingly beautiful, surreal, fragile. I first fell in love with the work of Miyazaki Hayao, animation director […]

An Autumn Abundance

After the relative doldrums of summer, London always goes a bit barmy in autumn. Not that we’ve had such a season so far this year, with temperatures in Central London hitting summer peaks as late as November. But in the evenings mists are now rolling in from the river, and there’s a hint of […]

An Autumnal Surfeit

London goes a bit bonkers in autumn. Not that we’ve had such a season so far this year, with temperatures in Central London hitting summer peaks as late as November 1st. But in the evenings mists are now rolling in from the river, and there’s a hint of burning children in the air so it […]