Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 400

Red Gloves Compo -The Winning Answer

And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.
And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car-park till twenty to one,
And now I'm engaged to…

Except he wasn't. His love for her [...]

London Eccentrics: Tom & Roxy

This is an occasional series on London's odder inhabitants. My pal Paco was looking for a Holborn pub or bar in which to hold a directors' meeting (they're vintners), and I recommended 'The Seven Stars', which appears in my novel 'The Victoria Vanishes'. Paco ended up being in there for about five hours; it's that [...]

Win 'Gloves' Tomorrow!

To celebrate the launch of "Red Gloves', my massive double-volume of short stories, I'll be giving away a signed limited first edition of the book to the person who can name the site I'll cryptically identify in central London. I'll be posting the clue tomorrow morning at 10am on this site, and the first correct [...]

Stop The Clocks!

The Bryant & May Casebook continues to grow in scope. It seems Mr Keith Page and myself will be adding to the Casebook in order to turn it into something more than a mere graphic novel – there'll be features and art as well. Here's the latest to the growing collection of 'alternative' covers provided [...]

Re:View – 'Mimic – The Director's Cut'

Unlike the head of Universal (see further down), Guillermo del Toro doesn't compromise his ideas. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the film we had planned together had been made (Guillermo mentions it on the DVD extras here, bringing a lump to my throat) but at least he had a chance to partially [...]

Sales Tools: How We All Became Unpaid Company Employees

I'm lucky enough to have very supportive publishers, but the emphasis is more and more on the author selling him or herself to the public via social networking. When I started this site, it was with the intention of directing readers to books, but it very quickly became an enjoyable way to talk about all [...]

Why Hollywood Fails

By no-one's imagination has it been a fine year for Hollywood movies, but Ron Meyer, Universal's outspoken chief, may just have had his Gerald Ratner* moment, labelling his studio's output as 'crappy' and 'junk'. In the new Variety he describes 'Cowboys & Aliens' as 'not good enough' and 'mediocre', and 'Land of the Lost' as [...]

Two Cities, Two Solutions

London and New York both currently have Occupy protests, but with markedly different reactions. The tents outside St Paul's in the heart of the financial district were met with argument about the right to protest, dithering clergymen, three ecclesiastical resignations, and a final agreement to let the protestors stay until the new year.

On Wall Street, [...]

I Hope We're Not What We Eat

Having dinner in a field in November may not sound like an enticing prospect, but this weekend we were in a Mongolian yurt, courtesy of friends Guy and Lou, which proved warm, cosy and perfect for lamb couscous and convivial conversation. As you get older, you can choose to become more or less adventurous, and [...]

Eat Your Heart Out, Kindle!

This, my friends, is not a bookshop; it's a stairway to a place of enchantment. It's what happens when a passionate shop owner creates something far greater than any mere shop.

In this case, it's a place modelled on the legendary Paris bed-&-bookshop Shakespeare & Co – for the Sanctuary Bookshop, Lyme Regis, is a [...]