Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 345

Looking Back Part 2

The thread on the last entry ‘Don’t Look Back’ was hilarious, especially the way it morphed from Liv Tyler to Andy Murray, so I thought I should continue. The photos above span thirty years. (I think the one with Doug ‘Pinhead’ Bradley is on the shoot for our dentist horror short with Charlie Boorman.) The [...]

Don’t – Please Don’t – Look Back

I mean it. I really wish I hadn’t. Being limited for space at home, I decided to throw out my old paper reviews and articles, including those that my mum had insisted I keep in a scrapbook she bought for me (bless!)

When these became too numerous to track I kept just the well-written ones, [...]

Who Needs Hollywood?

Hollywood may offer up slick entertainment for kids, but when it comes to cheesily mad robot chases, Bollywood makes Hollywood eat dust. This is courtesy of film critic Anne Billson, who knows wa-a-a-ay too much about this sort of thing…

The Triumph Of Pleasure

There was a lot happening in London this weekend, Damon Albarn’s African Festival could be enjoyed from my kitchen door, while the Thames Festival is expecting a huge turnout, to be followed on Monday by a million arriving for the Olympic Parade. As it seems that the wettest summer in a century is determined to [...]

Am I The Only One Watching This?

‘The best thing about being smart is that you can get through most of your life without doing any work.’
So says one of the characters at the community college – ‘college for losers’ – where a disparate group of socially awkward people take study classes together under the tutelage of Chevy Chase (who has now [...]

Luring Londoners Underground

The above poster, ‘No Wet, No Cold’, is by Frederick Schneider Manner and dates from 1929.

With the possible exceptions of the art nouveau Parisienne metro posters and JC Leyendecker’s Arrow Collar ads, the London Underground posters represent one of the most astonishing collections of advertising art ever assembled. But what they also do is provide, [...]

Ten More Things You Didn’t Know About My Books

1. In the cinema commercial we shot for my novel ‘Roofworld’, the neon set we used came from the National Theatre’s production of ‘Guys and Dolls’ because it had just finished its run and was going cheap.

2. In my collection ‘Demonized’, the story called ‘The Green Man’ is mostly true. It was written after I [...]

The Fine Art of Swearing

Anyone who doubts the power of words should look at the history of swearing. For centuries in England (until my generation, in fact), the words ‘bloody’ and ‘bleeding’ were unforgivable. ‘Damn’ is harder still to understand until you realise that most swears came from religious roots. Blood was associated with the blood of Christ, damn [...]

Six Things You Didn’t Know About My Books

Here’s the first of a couple of columns about things that crossed my mind as I was wandering through Bloomsbury today, nearly getting hit by buses. They’re details you probably don’t know, and certainly didn’t need to know;

1. James Bond might be the Devil. In my upcoming memoir ‘Film Freak’ there’s a story about the [...]

Bryant & May: The Verdict

Well, that was fun! As well as the extremely constructive and thoughtful comments posted on the site, I’ve received a huge number of emails about where to take my decrepit duo next, and I’ve acted accordingly.

I already had a loose raft of ideas mapped out, but I have now been able to shape them into [...]