Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 364

Read, White & Blue

On Tuesday the 5th of June I’ll be publishing a short story I’ve written especially to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. I’ll be putting it online here for you to download free, so that you can print it out and keep it should you so wish (there are actually people who do this!). When people [...]

The Planned Obsolescence of Electronics

Everything has its sell-by date – the question is, are those dates planned in?

In my writing career I’ve covered the entire arc of electronic devices, from the IBM Golfball Selectric to Amstrad, BBC Wordstar and eventually the intuitive joy that is the Mac. I haven’t used a PC for decades and the closest I’ll ever [...]

Yet More London Books

A veritable avalanche of London books has appeared lately, and I’ve been remiss in rounding them up. Let’s start with ‘Night Haunts’ by Sukhdev Sandhu, which feels like a poetic addition to Craig Taylor’s masterly ‘Londoners’. Here we have detailed but spirited reportage of the night lives of Londoners, with interviews from cleaners and cabbies [...]

The Day The Builders Went Away

Remember the old joke about the man waking up in New York one day to find that all the building work had been finished?

I think it’s happening here in London. With the Diamond Jubilee next week and the Olympics approaching, it seems the scaffolding is coming down all over the city, revealing buildings that have [...]

It’s All Gone A Bit 1952

Union Jacks – they’re everywhere you look this week. Carnaby Street has a cool glittery one which only reads as a flag when you reach a certain angle, like the Channel Four logo. Liberty has one made of flowers, Aquascutum one made of diamonds, and they’re appearing in ethnic colours and in shop window displays [...]

eReading: Only For The Masses?

Not Available Online

Lately I’ve noticed something blindingly obvious about the Kindle and its kin; the majority of recent ebooks seem to be largely aimed at mass market readers. At first I thought there were simply rights issues around books I was trying to buy on Kindle, but then I realised that they might be [...]

When Characters Come To Life

This weekend I was up against a number of excellent nominations in the category of ‘Funniest Crime Novel’ at Bristol Crimefest. I was surprised that ‘The Memory Of Blood’ had been nominated at all because it’s considerably darker than the usual Bryant & Mays, but it’s always nice to be nominated. The winner was not [...]

Multiplex Horrors No.1: ‘Taken’

Made by the French presumably as a cruel joke against Americans, this Luc Besson-produced film is uncomfortable from its first shot and just gets creepier by the minute. Liam Neeson, who couldn’t look more awkward if he had been made to perform without pants, was clearly the tenth choice for the role of action [...]

Do We Still Need Critics?

I think I probably bought every issue of Time Out from its very first copy to my last, about three months ago. It guided me through London from Cheap Eats to Agitprop, and listed all the peculiar little cinemas with daily-changing repertory double bills, fringe theatres and clubs. It was essential to survival in a [...]

Between Old & New London

Frederick Wilfred’s crisp black and white images of London street life are to go on display at the Museum of London from 16 June 2012 as part of the London festival of photography. They were taken between 1957 and 1962, in a London that had not quite yet begun to swing…