Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 390

Could This Be The Death of The Editor?

If you're a professional writer, this story will either make you want to cheer or kill yourself.

28 year-old Amanda Hocking writes vampires novels and paranormal romances, and is obsessed with the Muppets. She lives in Austin, Minnesota, and wanted to see a live Muppet show that was being brought to Chicago, so to finance her [...]

In With A Bullet (Train)

Well, this is a nice surprise. Even before the advertising campaign has started (oh, savour the words – 'tube ad campaign' – do you know how many years it's been since I had one of those for a stand-alone book?) 'Hell Train' has shot into the Bookscan bestselling lists. Dang, I knew that book had [...]

What Girls Say To Gay Guys

This is from the chameleon-like standup who did those fifty US accents in 5 minutes in the popular viral video a while back. Channeling gay doing female appears to be no stretch for him. The 'Is one of my breasts larger?' bit is a particularly common line.

TV Experiments & 'Taxpayers' Money'

Every few years there's an attempt to change people's idea of what opera might be. I'm not much of a fan of long, impenetrable Wagnerian opera, or trippery-frippery Italian plots involving mistaken identities and dying courtesans. Some of the music is wonderful, of course, but too much is demanded of modern audiences who can't relate [...]

Another Reason To Find The French Annoying

My mother was such a bad cook that we always lost weight at Christmas – nobody could get through her overroasted meals. But with the new year here, I've been looking at the French Paradox, which is the fact that French people have low heart disease but a high fat diet. Apparently it comes down [...]

London's Classical Revolution

How I caught up with this so late is a mystery. It seems there's clearly a movement to reinvigorate classical music in this city at the moment. I started noticing events at unusual venues like the Village Underground in Hoxton (the one with the tube train on top of it) and now at the Roundhouse, [...]

Pothole Gardening

Whenever we lose a tree in my very urban neighbourhood we work to find a way to replace it, either by donating to the council or by paying for a new tree ourselves. Here, a guy called Steve has found more hands-on way to brighten city life. On his blog, he chronicles his efforts to [...]

Food Fights In London

It seems London foodies owned the city this Christmas, with pop-up restaurants and new openings defying the credit crunch with a vengeance. Dalston launched The Long Table, London's only food-exclusive night market, while Secret Cinema launched Secret Restaurant, the 'social-media-event-driven' (my new favourite phrase) dining experience which requires you to dress up like a Russian [...]

Another Load of Old Pants

Was Like This

Now Like This

What unites London, New York and Mexico City today? Apparently it's 'No Trousers On The Tube' Day, so for some unearthly reason (the papers cite a 'social-media-driven event') people are wandering about with their kecks off on the tube. Luckily it's very mild here today. Personally speaking, with my [...]

Bat Wings Over London

On April 16th, 1951, in a banquet room above a pub in Pont Street, South Kensington, London, Dracula had come home to roost…

Bela Lugosi was rehearsing his British tour, getting ready to make an appearance across the dying music halls of Bram Stoker's homeland, from the Golders Green Hippodrome to the Alma Theatre, Luton. He [...]