Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 403

A Platform For Music

Yesterday I nipped out to get croissants in St Pancras station (they bring in French bread every morning on the Eurostar), and missed this by minutes – a sudden pop-up symphony orchestra. Bugger!

How I Finally Learned To Love Stephen King

I first read 'Carrie' on a plane from LA, and it set the tone for my lifelong love/hate relationship with Stephen King. I thought the plot was brilliant in its simplicity – why had nobody thought of it before? But I loathed the toe-stubbingly flat language. What I could't see was that King's lack of [...]

Wittering, Dithering & Whygo

Okay, that headline was a tortuous pun only the film critic Kim Newman will get, but it applies to the absurdities enveloping the 200 'Occupy London' tents now gathered outside St Paul's Cathedral in protest at, well, the state of capitalism. It's a very vague brief for a protest, more a bit of a grumble [...]

Book Now For Next…Autumn?

The paradox of London, as noted elsewhere on this site, is that while the wealthy properties might now be owned by SE Asians who visit twice a year, leaving richest parts of the city feeling oddly dead, the rising number of tourists and general visitors means that an immense amount of planning must go into [...]

Off The Rails Again!

You wait for a thriller about trains and two come along, honestly. The first lovely copies of 'Hell Train' have just tipped up at my front door, and very sexy they are too, with nice spot gloss on the cover. I'll be having a comp next week (or maybe before, if I can think of [...]

Does Anybody Live In London?

Property in London is really expensive, which is a bit odd when you think that it's a huge city unconstrained by real borders. Manhattan has nowhere to go except up, but London can theoretically spread out. But as prices continue to climb, more and more of the long-term residents are disappearing. Businesses are leaving too, [...]

Why People Deny Geniuses

An interesting piece in the Independent today here, about historical revisionism. The history books were grew up with were short on detail and followed a clear through-line, but as everyone except Creationists improve their understanding of the world, certain things become clear; slavery was a bad thing, many regimes and wars have proven disastrous, capitalism [...]

Silent Britain

80% of all the silent films produced in Britain were destroyed, leaving just a tiny handful of films and pieces now in the vaults of the BFI. Matthew Sweet, who wrote 'Shepperton Babylon', also made a documentary about these forgotten silents called 'Silent Britain', which is a real eye-opener. We'll probably never get to see [...]

Who Reads Reviews?

It's the standard answer from actors – 'I never read reviews', and we used to think 'Oh, I bet you sneak a peek at them all the time.' But lately there's been a fundamental change in the way the press works. With everyone and their dog's sitter learning how to type in a rudimentary manner [...]

Re:View – 'Melancholia'

Depression is a planet-sized weight that's unstoppable, so you might as well accept how terrible life is and be positive; that's Lars Von Trier's message, and perhaps it has never wavered; from 'Breaking The Waves' to 'Dancer In The Dark' and 'Dogville' his women sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

But at first it's hard to [...]