Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 28

What Did You Do In The Apocalypse? Part 1

I feel like one of those determined cellmates in a prison movie, the one who finds new ways of exercising in a tiny space and keeps peering at a shaft of sunlight falling through the bars. Except that there’s no sunlight. I’m not after a physical workout but a mental one. For those who just […]

A Disruption To Your Usually Fine Service

Advance warning for an approaching problem; regular readers will know that this summer was especially challenging for me. Unfortunately the pandemic delayed my scans by several months in the autumn and now the challenge has returned. The reason I’m forced to mention this is that it will soon affect my output. It seems my cancer took […]

London Without Its Londoners (Updated)

  So, after trawling through comments on this site going back some twelve years and stumbled across Snowy’s description of a statue of a man in a lead tricorn hat who functioned as a rain gutter on the roof of a London house. He  thought it was boring and apologised for mentioning it. If Snowy […]

London Without Its Londoners

  Over the endless hours stuck at home this winter, buried in projects that will probably never see the light of day, I trawled through comments on this site going back some twelve years and stumbled across Snowy’s description of a statue of a man in a lead tricorn hat who functioned as a rain […]

At Year’s End, Some Trickery & Whimsy

Rowland Emett was an inventor who found fame in the 1950s. He said, ‘The first principle in science is to invent something nice to look at and then decide what it can do.’ His fussy, whimsical automata were exhibited at the Festival of Britain and became hugely popular. He designed clocks and trams, trains and […]

A Merry Christmas From Raymond Land

The Old Warehouse 231 Caledonian Road London N1 9RB   A Message from Raymond Land:   Hullo there. As the Chief of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, London’s oldest specialist police division, I’ve been asked to bring you a message at this very special, magical time of year, when we celebrate the tradition of Christmas. My […]

The Best Films In The Worst Year

We may well look back on 2020 as the year cinema died. The battle between exhibitors and studios reached a head in the pandemic, especially in America where the cinemas remained closed, and ended with Warners shutting theatrical windows and leading the charge to its loss-leader streaming platform. The major studios decided to bottle up […]

The Christmas Quiz For Those Of A Certain Age: Answers

A still from a later edition of ‘Crackerjack’ and yes, it has blackface cannibals, a standard comic trope based on cartoon clichés divorced from anything real, but still awkward now. I have an ambivalent attitude to nostalgia. Is it fun to look back? Yes. Would I want to live there? No. The Answers 1. George Cole […]

A Christmas Quiz For Those Of A Certain Age

I’m fed up with popular quizzes about Taylor Swift, Little Mix and Tik Tok. I for one gave up chasing the Yoof vote long ago. I love the young because the remnants of our world are in their hands and I have a feeling they won’t screw up this time, but they get enough coverage, […]

What’s Your Background?

  [I’ve rewritten one of my favourite pieces on London, of which you’ll notice there are a great many on this little site. I thought it was worth revisiting. Coming later this week, a Christmas quiz. I love to watch old London-set films as much for what’s going on in the background as the story, […]