Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 480

Re:View – 'Terror 2010′

Hallowe'en allows a variety of dodgy entertainments to be foisted on the public – as the event grows in importance in the UK and starts to eclipse Guy Fawkes Night, which has no merchandising possibilities, we look for fun things to do around that time. Southwark Playhouse, a wonderful damp-reeking venue in a railway arch [...]

Chav & Have Not

So, has Harry Hill gone too far? The web is alive with pros and cons about his single 'I Wanna Baby'. The Guardian is wringing its hands over the content and crying that he's lost his audience in a Sachsgate-type moment. But has he really done anything different?

Hill has been on a roller coaster [...]

Chimps' Tea Party

How We Read Now

Let's hear it for the unsung web designers.

Readability is very important to me. If it's not there, I usually go to The Daily Beast here (and to Al-Jazeera) for a quick fix of clear thinking online. The beast is, of course, the press, as christened by Evelyn Waugh, and I'm struck by the fact that [...]

The E-Reader Test

I'm toying with the idea of getting the next generation iPad when it comes out, so, in this fantastically unscientific test, I decided to compare general electronic reading with paper reading. I chose the works of H G Wells for this test.

First, I purchased both books. Online, my download was free because Wells is out [...]

Dirty Old Father Cleans Up Act

It seems that times have changed for Old Father Thames. In 1957 it was filthy and stank of rotten eggs, and was declared biologically dead thanks to soaring pollution levels. The Thames was paying the price for decades of human use – and not for the first time. The "Great Stink" of 1858 was a [...]

The Future Of 3D Looks Dim

I've always loved 3D, right since I owned a Viewmaster, and clicked the disk to look at bendy-toy versions of Pathfinders To Mars. Then it was 3D cinema with red-and-green lens cardboard glasses that cut the bridge of your nose, then Andy Warhol's Frankenstein in Polarised vision, which worked really well, and finally Avatar, which [...]

His Nibs

Here's a topic that hasn't crossed my desk for a while – handwriting. Do you still do it? Or even, can you still do it?

The author Joanne Harris and I regularly write to each other, but now we've switched to keyboards. My two beautiful fountain pens have been consigned to a drawer, and even my [...]

Lantern Jack

I didn't grow up with Halloween – it seems to have been imported into England some time in the late seventies but hey, pumpkin ravioli works for me. When the Independent On Sunday asked me to write them a spooky Hallowe'en story I realised the only spooky thing I knew about Halloween was the movie [...]

Is There A Widening Tolerance Gap?

Two stories jump out at me from the press this week. The first involves a rash of gay suicides in the US caused by bullying, coupled with horrific attacks on gay men in New York, of all places, and the rise of homophobic comments by Republicans, including the Republican candidate in the New York governor [...]