Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 447

Arguing In Public

I spotted this little row heating up on the side of a building in North London, and was quite intrigued by the fact that someone should mention spam fritters in a put-down! (Click to enlarge)

Where Yellow Lines Come From

I once ran a writing class at an archive that (for me at least) proved disastrous, because unbeknown to me the class was filled with archivists, and they were less concerned with fiction than accuracy.

It's a complex thing – I'm currently rewriting 'Hell Train' and researching the origins of the Great War, but it's my [...]

No Comment

Readers may have found themselves unable to leave comments yesterday after WordPress had a bit of a meltdown. You should have tried it from my side – about a thousand hits of spam masquerading as comments, all 'I am really like this blog', that required weeding out by hand, when I should have been writing. [...]

The Gloves Are On

'Red Gloves' will be the title of my first new short story collection in four years.

To celebrate my 25th year of writing short stories, it will contain 25 new stories. 'Red Gloves' will be a two-volume Limited Edition Collectors' Set from PS Publishing in time for Hallowe'en this year.

The first volume will contain [...]

Public Taste Is Suspect: Official

The 2011 Olivier Awards gave a 70 year-old forgotten Terence Rattigan play, 'After The Dance' four awards last night, which suggests that Rattigan is finally coming to be recognised for his brilliant work again, after years in the wilderness.

The rehabilitation of Rattigan's reputation began with the Almeida's revelatory 1993 revival of The Deep Blue [...]

The Lives Of Writers

A shameless plug for the Independent On Sunday today – I write each week about the easily lost works of writers, and this is part of this week's column. Eventually I hope to gather them altogether into a book under the column's new title, 'Invisible Ink'.

For the rest of it, see the Indie.

Few careers [...]

Hidden London: The Players' Theatre

The Players' Theatre, under the arches of 'the London, Chatham & Dover Railway' in Villiers Street, is no longer what it once was. But it may rise again.

Until relatively recently, you went through a low door into a Victorian theatre with a bar at the rear and were given a songsheet for an evening of [...]

You Can Explain That

Recently, ranting Fox chimp Bill O'Reilly put his foot in his mouth again during a debate with American Atheists president David Silverman. O'Reilly tried to prove God's existence of God by citing tidal patterns: "Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that. You can't explain why the tide goes in." [...]

Not Many People Got That Right

Apparently, Michael Caine never said 'Not many people know that'. It was Peter Sellars.

Democracy has found itself a new website. ICorrect has turned up to set the record straight about what people say and do in public. Here's how it describes itself on its site.

ICorrect is the website to set the record straight. So far, [...]

The Peak Of Victorian Gothic Restored

Minimalism be damned! As the St Pancras Grand Hotel nears its opening date (the 'Midland' part of the name has gone now that it's not connected with the Midland Railway), an old friend, photographer Morley Von Sternberg, has photographed the interior for the next issue of the Sunday Times.

It certainly looks as if, after years [...]