Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 434

Big Day Out In London

When you're a tourist to a new city, you tend to cram in a spectacular amount of walking and sightseeing. At the moment London seems to have more tourists than I can ever remember being here at one time. What would it be like to use their busy day-long schedule on a bunch of things [...]

I'm Having The Spam

Spammers are getting craftier. After deleting the one thousand spam messages in my inbox that read 'I hate your blog' or 'this is really interesting', I came across one that said 'I remember we met and you're going to the party next week, look forward to seeing you' , from Sienna Miller.

I'm just about to [...]

Cannes Of Worms

This is the scene you don't get to see at Cannes; the glamour, the glitz, the stars. Well, you do if you're in the accredited photographers area, but even those have a hierarchy. What you get to see is fat gawkers wandering along an overcrowded Croisette carrying plastic bags full of flyers.

Every Cannes Film Festival [...]

Singing In The Rain

The start of the open-air theatre season in London's Regent's Park is usually a cue for the weather to change. Last year I saw two sodden, soaking, rained-off shows. This year has been the driest on record so far, so of course it will be about to change.

And instead of the usual bloody boring Midsummer [...]

Favourite Writing Rooms

Working solely on a laptop frees you to work in any environment. I wrote four books sitting in this room, which overlooked the Med on one side, and was mirrored on the other, so that it felt like you were floating in the sky. A wonderful working environment where you were completely free to create. [...]

Invisible Ink Appears

Each week in the Independent On Sunday I search out an author who has been unjustly neglected of late, either because their books have gone out of print, or they're currently not what publishers are looking for, or sometimes because they themselves have decided upon a career change.

As the series heads toward a hundred columns, [...]

When Words Aren't Enough

…you set them to music. Certain clients are vexing me today. Time, then, for the velvety (is that a word?) Cee Lo Green to respond with his very 'Little Shop Of Horrors' backing group. Lily Allen, the two of you should duet your identically-titled songs (Lily's is on here, somewhere, in the cupboard above the [...]

Problem Solved

So Google's new Chromebooks use Google's own operating system. They'll coordinate with Google's "cloud" online services, and have almost no capacity to store information. Instead, they act as web browser that make users email directly on the web, instead of storing software like Outlook or Word.

Google's is hitting Microsoft's PC OSs and Office software by [...]

The Romance Of The Keyboard

It weighed the same as a boiler, and the keys were always getting jammed. Threading a ribbon turned your hands black and red. Tippex and Snopake, scissors and glue were required for the simplest documents. I bloody hated the typewriter. I do not find them remotely romantic. And yet this was the first picture my [...]

Rich And Poor In London

This is what 35 million quid (close to 60 million US dollars) buys you in London, a nice gaff in tasteful, dull St John's Wood that looks like a cross between a high school locker room and Josef Fritzel's dungeon. The key is that it overlooks Regent's Park, the prettiest park in London.

At the other [...]