Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 466

Signs Of The Times

One sweet one from London Underground staff via my friend Annie Mole, and the other, rather more worrying, from Venice…

11 Reasons For A Winter Weekend In Venice

1. Virtually no tourists except nice sophisticated French
2. Murano Christmas baubles!
3. Much less smelly
4. Hilarious illuminated Nativity scenes
5. Mulled wine followed by hot chocolate
6. No queuing for museums & galleries
7. Vaparettos readily available
8. Desperate gondelieri touting for business
9. Tinsel on everything!
10. Can actually get room overlooking Grand Canal without having to bribe bellhop
11. Perfect time [...]

Last Chance To See

My photos show Venice, Italy and Little Venice, London. No more posts for 48 hours – I'm going to the former for the weekend.

Thanks to global warming and underfunding from the Italian government there may not be too many more chances to wander around the place pretending you're in 'Don't Look Now'.

St Pancras Coroner: A True Story

He's young, he's posh, he's got a creepy assistant, it's Giles Kershaw, a recurring character in the Bryant & May novels who has recently become the coroner for the parish of St Pancras (for photos of that establishment, see articles passim).

And now it turns out that he has a real-life precedent. My great friend Bal [...]

Re:View – 'Love Story'

Howard Goodall is one of the nation's most consistently interesting composers. His sacred music and chorale work is admired, his scores for 'The Hired Man' and other 'plays with music' are sumptuous and heartfelt. His music for the WW2 drama 'Girlfriends' is masterful (a snippet is lurking around on this site somewhere). But in coupling [...]

Perhaps We Should Make All MPs Do This

Barking Tory (I mean her mental state, not the borough) Ann Widdecombe's appearance on 'Strictly Come Dancing' or whatever it's called is probably the most inept and shameful thing a politician has ever done in public.

And here I'm including David 'Minger' Mellor's affair with Antonia De Sanchez, who described his lovemaking technique as 'like [...]

Paperboy's Back

Thanks to Transworld's continued enthusiasm and my Green Carnation award – plus complaints from those of you who couldn't find it – 'Paperboy' is making a comeback. The book is being reprinted at the moment, and will be back in shops very shortly.

Hopefully it'll be a Christmas stocking filler, you know, like Jeremy Clarkson's [...]

Did I Write That?

Still more covers turn up that I barely recall seeing before. I look at them and wrack my brains, trying to imagine what on earth they might be – could this be the Cambodian pirate edition of Red Bride? (Such a thing, dear reader, actually exists – I saw it there). But no, my lovely [...]

Re:View – 'Armadillo'

It's another documentary about soldiering, but one with a difference; it caused a furore over the behaviour of soldiers during the conflict, and may have you changing your thinking about their attitudes.

In February 2009, a group of young Danish soldiers were accompanied by documentary filmmaker Janus Metz on their first six month tour of Afghanistan, [...]

Re:View – High Society Exhibition

The Wellcome Exhibition provides a relatively small space, but co-curator Mike Jay has done a clever thing with the new show, High Society: Mind-Altering Drugs In History & Culture. By subdividing the room into topic areas he's able to give a broad overview of the subject but has also made it a curiously discombobulating experience. [...]