Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 418

Nothing Looted From Bookshop

London's famous 'Gay's The Word' bookshop in Bloomsbury was attacked during a night of riots in London.
The country's only LGBT bookshop in Marchmont Street, was left with smashed windows, but presumably no swiped stock, as I can't imagine many of these particular rioters read.

A group of kids on bikes kicked in the glass and [...]

More Cool London Books

Another month, another slew of London books – how many more angles can there be to the city? Quite a few, as it turns out – I'm enjoying the excellent 'Hubbub' by Emily Cockayne, about filth and muck in old London, and want 'World Film Locations: London' ed. by Neil Mitchell, a history of London [...]

Loot! 2

In an entirely unrelated story to the looting, Silvio Narizzano had died. A Canadian-born film director who made his home in the UK, he was responsible for many of the lighter sixties comedies, including 'Georgy Girl' and the critically reviled film of Joe Orton's 'Loot!'.

In many ways, the film of 'Loot!' is exemplary and worthy [...]

Loot!

Although I have a view pretty much across the whole of London, I can see only one grey plume of smoke to the North-East. If it's simply true that teens feel there are 'no jobs, no future, no prospects' it seems odd that their targets are not the homes of the rich, not aimed at [...]

'Recreational Rioting'

That's the nickname for it. A comment from a bystander in Hackney: "Young people who feel vulnerable feel that there's no jobs, there's no future, there's no prospects." Maybe, but it's not a political act if you're just trying to nick a plasma screen. This is the same depressing scene being seen around the world [...]

The London Mob Redux

Another summer, another series of riots in London's most impoverished ethnic boroughs – but this time, although the spark-point was the fatal police shooting of a man in possession of a gun, the rioting appears to have little to do with politics, and spread to unconnected boroughs via social networking.

The rioters, most of whom are [...]

Now Buy The Plate

Live within sight of a London icon? Then you may well be able to own the matching crockery. I live within view of Gasometer 8, the only remaining King's Cross gasometer (currently dismantled but soon to rise again). I never thought of them as pretty, but together they formed an indelible part of the skyline.

Now, [...]

Britain's First Technohead

This is too delicious not to share, via The Guardian. Daphne Oram had a cut-glass accent, looked like Margaret Thatcher and laid the way for modern techno music.

She began her career at the BBC as a sound balancer in 1943 and composed instrumental pieces while working in their radiophonic workshop, before setting up on her [...]

You Can Be Dickens's Proof-Reader

Charles Dickens wrote this in a column of his weekly magazine 'Household Words':
"I know that we English are an angular and eccentric people – a people that the great flat-iron of civilisation will take a long time smoothing all the puckers and wrinkles out of – but I was scarcely prepared for the following announcement [...]

You Can Be Dicken's Proof-Reader

Charles Dickens wrote this in a column of his weekly magazine 'Household Words':
"I know that we English are an angular and eccentric people – a people that the great flat-iron of civilisation will take a long time smoothing all the puckers and wrinkles out of – but I was scarcely prepared for the following announcement [...]