Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 486

Loopy London

Londoners tend to think of themselves as hard cases who don't breathe what they can't see, but in case the skies clear long enough to actually take a walk, how about a 150 mile stroll around the entire city?

The London Loop is a circular trail that's easy to reach by public transport, and can be [...]

Face-To-Face Time

Last night I was in Covent Garden at the London Film School, where I had chosen the film 'Witchfinder General' for the Speakeasy Cinema Club, an event that hosts a guest speaker, a favourite film, dinner and discussions afterwards. I can't say what we talked about because it operates under Chatham House Rules, but the [...]

English Peculiar

The English have a long history of surrealist comedy, particularly on TV and radio, although there are wonderful books as well. I was reminded of this when, visiting my mother in Sevenoaks, Kent, I found a little record shop (remember those?) that stocked an album I had as a child, the precursor to Monty Python [...]

Celebrity 5: Shaping The Script

The tickets for 'Celebrity', priced at a very reasonable tenner, go on sale in one week's time. Am I terrified yet? Not really, because I'm learning some good new habits. And as everyone gets to know one another, we're working as a team.

We've now nearly finished blocking the play, and I'm starting to see why [...:]

Halloween Dogs

Our American cousins seem to be very keen on humiliating their pets around this time of the year, as any quick search for Halloween Dogs will show you on the interweb. My particular favourite was a Dracula dog with its pointed teeth bared, but these are pretty funny too.

Anyway, this is by way of [...:]

The Latest Thing In Zombies

What more, you ask, can be done with zombies? Well, Stephen Jones has created something new. He convinced us to write a zombie novel, each taking over one section of the carefully constructed storyline, tell the story of a nightmarish outbreak in future London, which is told in the form of e-mails, notes, bulletins, blogs, [...:]

No-Tourist London No.2

Hatton Garden is traditionally where many Londoners go to buy their wedding rings. It's a street and area near Holborn, and its name is derived from the garden of the Bishop of Ely, which was given to Sir Christopher Hatton by Elizabeth I in 1581. Hatton Garden has been the centre of London's jewellery trade [...:]

No-Tourist London No.1

I'm always amazed that there are parts of London few tourists get to. Leadenhall Market goes right back to the first century, when a basilica and forum existed on the site. We know the site was acquired by Dick Whittington, and survived the Great Fire in 1666, when it was first covered in. It was [...:]

Growing Up Too Fast

One of the comments on this site talked about feeling disconcerted by the sight of a 10 year-old boy singing overtly sexualised lyrics on TV. With the Second World War's 70th anniversary documentaries filling our TV screens at the moment, I was thinking about how the dislocative effects of the war changed children's lives across [...:]

Re:View – 'Enter The Void'