Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 313

Danger: Observational Humour Ahead!

For your delectation, the annual round-up of elephantine butchers’-shop rough that is Aintree Ladies Day. I’m so glad I went on all those feminist solidarity marches where Germaine Greer spoke always passionately in Trafalgar Square, so that the good ladies of Liverpool could totter about in the colours of car air-fresheners. I presume this was [...]

Lights Out London

I’ve reported before on the emptying backstreets of expensive London neighbourhoods – now the phenomenon has become so widespread that the New York Times has published a piece on it.

We talk about the Easyjet Generation, where, thanks to the UK’s cheapest (and IMHO best) airline, twentysomethings routinely hold weekend parties in other countries because they [...]

Forgotten Authors: The Cult Spreads

I had never intended to produce my ‘Invisible Ink’ columns in the Independent on Sunday as a book, but Mark Pilkington at the superbly offbeat Strange Attractor Press suggested that readers might like a guide of forgotten authors in a single handy little volume.

One criticism of the book has been that the entries on [...]

Iain Banks Not Dead: Official

Iain’s trademark black humour has been in full force lately. I first heard that he was extremely ill some weeks ago, when he texted several friends with the news and made some cracking jokes about his mortality. I’d met him a little while back, and we went for a drink. Now the Scottish SF author [...]

KX / BCN

There was a time when I wrote surrounded by huge stacks of books and newspapers. Research was immensely time-consuming, and had to be factored into the writing of any novel, short story or article. Not any more; for first drafts I just need my eyes, ears, an internet connection and my laptop. For second drafts [...]

Film Freak: First Review

This early review just appeared in Shots magazine, courtesy of Mike Ripley, so perhaps you’ll excuse me on this occasion for running it. Sometimes when you’re writing a book, you have little idea whether it’s any good, and it’s great to get feedback.

‘Christopher Fowler’sFilm Freakis the confessions of a film nut determined to get into [...]

April Fool Roundup

Is the practice of hiding a false story on the front page of a national newspaper on April Fool’s Day purely a British thing or does everyone do it? The august New York Times doesn’t appear to do it.

Over here it seems to go back to the ‘Panorama’ programme’s infamous ‘spaghetti tree’ report. This was [...]

Fleeing Easter

As you rightly discerned, I Am Not Here Again.

Having finished the first draft of the new Bryant & May novel, I could actually stop thinking about books for a few days and take a break, soI vanished from freezing wet London to sunny Barcelona, and it appears we’re not the only ones fleeing the English [...]

Three London Questions No.3

Where is London’s most unique museum?

12, Crooms Hill, Greenwich. The Fan Museum is the only one of its kind in the world, and has over 4,000 fans, on display in a Georgian house with an orangery and a Japanese-style garden. The earliest fans go back to 3,000BC, but the oldest on display here is 11th [...]

And remember – it’s Crimplene, for men!

Thanks Evrim Ersoy for reminding me how utterly crap past cinemagoing used to be…I’m really sorry to have missed his April Fool’s night of turning on and getting down at the Duke Mitchell Film Club…love the desperate-to-be-cool trailer for ‘Skidoo’, but the trailer for ‘Exorcist 2: The Heretic’ made me want to see it again!

This [...]