Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 344

Re:View – ‘Take Shelter’

I missed this from director Jeff Nichols at cinemas – you’d have had to be fast to find it anywhere – and avoided it that Michael Shannon was doing his mad act again, something he’ll be typecast by if he doesn’t start to smile soon in a way that won’t terrify children. The problem, I [...]

Today’s Favourite Word: Emeute

There should be a word for thinking a word means something it doesn’t; for a long time I thought an emeute was a cudgel. It’s not, it’s an uprising. Although the word is French, it slipped into the English language because of WS Gilbert, who used it in the policemen’s chorus in ‘The Pirates of [...]

I’m Trying To Read A Book!

Yes, you’re a tourist and you stop at the top of the stairs in the tube entrance to look up at the building opposite and get your bearings, but you stop so suddenly that I barrel into you because I’m TRYING TO READ A BOOK.

I understand I agreed to go ice-skating with you of all [...]

It Came From Behind The Shelf No.6

When Punch magazine folded after 150 years in 1992, a raft of familiar cartoonists vanished with it. A handful of artists, like the wonderful surrealist John Glashan, also evolved stories as well as one-off panels. The most epic and peculiarly English of these is Bill Tidy. His strip ‘The Cloggies’ gently ribbed Northern customs through [...]

The British Boozer Bounces Back

For years now the British pub has been in decline, due to two key factors; the economy of drinking supermarket brands at home and the real estate value of pubs, which are usually on corners, have huge basements and three floors.

Most older streets in London had at least one pub on them. You can [...]

The Rebranding of Adulthood

I just passed a dad wheeling his son along the street in a pram. The dad was wearing shiny red leather trainers, red and white stripey socks and white trousers that stopped mid-calf, and a white sleeveless T-shirt. He looked more like a baby than his son, who was wearing little jeans.

The British film certification [...]

Today’s Favourite Word: Eprouvette

This is cool, and kind of dangerous too. When guns were packed with gunpowder one of the problems was knowing how much gunpowder to put in. So the eprouvette was used to test the strength of gunpowder. It went out of general use by the middle of the 19th century. A carefully weighed quantity of [...]

London’s Missing Beach

For over thirty years London had a beach, although I for one would not have wanted to go bathing from it.

The Tower of London children’s officially opened on 23 July 1934, after King George V gave his permission for children to ‘have this tidal playground as their own forever’. For many years prior the [...]

Today’s Favourite Object: A Planisphere

I go to a lot of museums, and thought I’d start an occasional column about unusual objects.

This is a planisphere, a star chart-computing instrument that’s in the form of two adjustable disks which rotate on a shared pivot. It can be adjusted to display the visible stars for any time and date. It is [...]

Is Social Networking Still Fun?

Last week another sock-puppet fell, this time at Pan Macmillan, where one of the marketing heads was caught faking reviews for clients. It’s hard to feel aggrieved about this, given the pressure everyone’s under to perform and get out there online pushing books. Over-enthusiastic writers and publishing PRs have simply overstepped the line, and at [...]