Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 388

The Duplicity of Walking in London

I spend too much of my life underneath London. But yesterday was one of those days that blasted through every possibility in the English weather lexicon, from soaking drizzle to blazing sunshine and windstorms. Obviously the ideal day for a city walk. Starting at King's Cross, I headed to Clerkenwell and the city, stopping at [...]

The Stay-Or-Go Dilemma

When I was a kid I felt close to the US mindset because I read so many US books and magazines. When I went there to live, people thought I was American because I quickly adopted the language tropes if not the accent. They probably just thought I went to an old university.

I was always [...]

Bryant & May Locations

Here's a new one – it's the flat Arthur Bryant and his landlady Alma move to in 'Bryant & May and the Invisible Code'. It's in an Edwardian block in Whidbourne Street in Bloomsbury. It's social housing, very quiet and rather graceful in the rain.

Four Wheeled Frights

'Killing people for fuel is not racist – it's patriotic.'

Idiotic, more like. But fun. My friend Graham Humphries went to see this film at Bloomsbury's legendary fleapit the Horse Hospital last night. Sure, the acting's crummy, the girls look like they're one stop away from making porn and the effects are thrown on from a [...]

When In Rome, You're In London

All right, it looks like a boring bunch of bricks, but there's a story.

In grey, grimy 1954, some workmen clearing a site for Legal & General in the City were about to go over the pub when they saw the head of a god poking out of the rubble – it was Mithras, whose temple [...]

Great Minds Think Alike

Obviously, old titles get re-used (particularly if they have words like 'die' or 'kill' in them) but it seems over the years people have used titles I've created with alarming regularity. Here are some of them:

Disturbia –
My version:
Young couple trapped in commuter town take revenge on neighbours.
Their version:
Awful teen US remake of 'Rear Window'.
Psychoville:
My version
Rich [...]

Time For A Change

Running websites is a trial-and-error system, and you learn more with each passing day, so there will shortly be some changes. It's becoming clear that the Peculiar Crimes Unit site isn't working for several reasons – it's consistently targeted by massive amounts of spam and requires a lot of maintenance. And in many ways it's [...]

The Invisible Code Is Nearly Cracked

I'm just putting the finishing touches to 'Bryant & May and the Invisible Code', the tenth volume in the series. It'll be bigger than recent volumes, because there's a lot to get through, and will be published by Transworld on August 1st 2012.

Here's a jacket synopsis;

Two children play a game called 'Witch-Hunter', and place a [...]

Why I Did Not Go Into Journalism

Perhaps one shouldn't be exercised by the kind of journalism that's merely 'the rattle of a stick in a swill bucket', but 't you're going to lie, I always think you should at least try to make it convincing. Clearly this did not cross editor Lisa Byrne's mind before the Leveson inquiry about OK! magazine's [...]

Films From Another World

My pal Rick D sends this link to an alternative universe where today's films might have been made long ago…see the rest here.