Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 448

Why The Window?

Ah, Walkers Court, that insalubrious alleyway full of neon strip clubs between Brewer Street and Berwick Street, where you might bump into a trannie hooker or Sir Ian McKellen (Silk Sound studio is just behind the market stalls) – it has always felt oddly safe down there, but then I've rarely walked it after midnight.

And [...]

SRO In London

Pigs, astronauts, ghosts, shoes & umbrellas – it must be a new theatre season in London…but you probably won't get in to see much of it.

Being an arts addict in London and actually finding decent seats can be a pretty expensive pastime unless you keep your ear to the ground and get in early. One [...]

Things You Don't Want On The Interweb

Tired of Charlie Sheen clogging up your interweb browsing? Try the new Sheenaway removal system here that blocks all mention of the poor drug-addled babblehead appearing on your 'puter.

Hopefully there will soon also be one that blocks Justin Bieber, and the mentally ill fan who called me a 'Faggit' and threatened to kill me on [...]

Lit Up In London

Forgive these shots, taken on the hoof with my phone, but they illustrate the power of lighting, something I was thinking about as I tromped back from the studio, where I'd been ensconced with The Big Star (all to be revealed in July) and watched the low but fierce winter sun spotlight buildings I had [...]

Hidden London: New Statues

New statues and memorials appear in London more frequently than you think (not all of them good, as we've seen here). A memorial to the Bali bombing was unveiled in 2002, and four years before that, Westminster Abbey gained ten discreet new statues.

These have been placed in empty alcoves in the same design as others, [...]

Soundtracking 4: Haunting Sounds

You can tell a John Barry score in three notes. His haunting music seems to stand the test of time better than most – John Williams, for example, wrote great sweeping soundtracks but appears to have lately fallen from favour in the lists of best scores.

Meanwhile, David Arnold has made a decent fist of mimicking [...]

London's Old Department Stores

These pictures appear ancient, but they're just about the only ones I could find.of three of London's venerable department stores, all of which are gone. A fourth, Bourne & Hollingsworth, lingered on until the late seventies, and others – one in Brixton, one in Holloway – went very recently.

As a kid I went to [...]

Apparently Words Wear Out

And so it begins.

To the champions of eBooks (which I am, in principal) this feels inevitable; the time-limiting of texts. HarperCollins has announced that US libraries will be allowed to lend ebooks only up to 26 times. Its sales president, Josh Marwell, believes that's only fair: 26, he claims, is the average number of loans [...]

Hidden London: The Other St Paul's

This website is not really a 'London Oddities' site, although I do feature items that take my passing interest. And I had a particular interest in this one.

In my novel 'Disturbia', the hero Vince spends a long, stormy London night trying to outwit the villain, Sebastian, in a series of twelve challenges, tracking down solutions [...]

London Gems: Broadway Market

In an unlovely part of Hackney near London Fields, a park described by my mate Martin as 'All you can say about it is it's an open space' there's a gem of a market.

London markets evolve very quickly from local beginnings (Chapel Street) to overblown tourist traps (Camden). Broadway Market is on the up and [...]