Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 394

Ghosts For Christmas

'Meriel The Ghost Girl' was a play that appeared as part of 'The Mind Beyond' TV series in the 70s, back when genre-TV was still intelligent. It has now turned up on YouTube – thanks to Mark Pilkington for the alert.

Round The Clock!

A friend of mine wrote to his MP because he knew that as a registered voter he was entitled to attend Parliament, but he also wanted to visit Big Ben. He got this reply.

'UK residents can arrange a tour of the Clock Tower through their local MP or a member of the House of Lords. [...]

Why Words Make Me Cross

Okay, I've a confession to make. I spend my life being creative with the English language, and I can't, for the life of me, do word games – and this is the time of the year when they all come out. I stare at a crossword until my eyes drop out and fail to understand [...]

London's Inside-Out Buildings

You often expect to find an ultra-modern room lurking inside a Victorian or Georgian exterior in London, but how many examples are there of the reverse? I can think of a couple. The exterior of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, looks like a seventies' car park, yet behind its walls lie a complete Victorian theatre.

Even more [...]

Re:View – 'Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows'

I'm not a purist when it comes to reinventing well-known characters. Messing around with tradition doesn't affect the originals, and in the case of Sherlock Holmes, merely adds to the canon. Holmes pastiches are easy to write but hard to write well; I've done a few myself. I enjoyed the first Guy Ritchie Holmes immensely, [...]

Christmas Film Alternatives

Having fought my way through London's Primark and War Horse brigade, up from the shires to clog the streets with tinsel and sick, I'm heading home with thirteen Christmas family film alternatives…

Toys
Barry Levinson's strange Christmassy fable about toymakers and warmongers bombed spectacularly, even though it was co-written by SNL's Valerie Curtin and featured the wonderful [...]

How America Lost A Visitor

Not just any visitor, mind – this was the Australian DJ/VJ Pogo, who has appeared on this site several times, and has successfully toured the US in the past. Pogo is no stranger to hassles. His genius mash-ups of old Disney songs landed him in hot water with the litigious mouse, who promptly tried to [...]

The Ghost Train Now Arriving…

A story I wanted to feature yesterday got moved so that dear old Maurice could grin out at the top of the page, but it's this, from Michael Williams' book "On the Slow Train Again: More Great British Railway Journeys", published in paperback by Arrow Books on 12 February, price £6.19.

There are, apparently, ghost trains [...]

Maurice Dons His Last Spangly Waistcoat For Heaven

Just like NYC's 42nd Street, London's Soho has slowly been sanitised over the last few years, and even though we still at least have the raucous chaos that is Old Compton Street at night, what's lacking now is human warmth. The larger-than-life men and women who ran or inhabited the bars, clubs and restaurant, like [...]

Springtime For Hitler, Winter For Aidan Burley

Aidan Burley, 32, was the parliamentary private secretary to the transport secretary, and had been fast-tracked for political stardom by David 'Eton Mess' Cameron. Perhaps Burley thought he could shake off the dusty old image of Tories being connected to the hard right by showing us the modern caring face of Conservatism.

So his decision [...]