Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 494

Pope In The Park

When Martin Luther nailed up his 95 theses in 1517 and we began the long trip toward the separation of the Church of England from Rome, who thought it would one day lead to the arrival of His Royal Popeness in London's Hyde Park amid a flurry of merchandising?

The Vatican has issued a list of [...:]

'Do You Want Better Grammar With That?'

This story reaches me from OUPBlog via Mike Cane. Apparently an English professor was ejected from a Starbucks on Manhattan's Upper West Side for not deploying Starbucks' mandatory corporate-speak. The story immediately lit up the internet, turning her into an instant celebrity. Lynne Rosenthal cared so much about good English that she finally stood up [...:]

London Old & New

My picture shows one of those lovely juxtapositions you see in London all the time. So here's an extract from a piece I wrote about the city for a US website a while back…

It's a tourist FAQ in England; When you live in cities a couple of thousand of years old, how can you maintain [...:]

Plinth Charming

Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth is down to its last few contenders for next sculpture, including this mountain range that, when flipped or viewed from above, is revealed to be the British Isles.

The other contenders are a sagging chunk of Battenberg cake made in glazed and unglazed Victorian bricks, a vivid blue cockerel, a copper [...:]

The Other Christopher Fowlers

Obviously we all have name-doppelgangers. I know of another Christopher Fowler who's also a sometime writer – the husband of the excellent author Pat Cadigan sometimes comes along to our writer lunches, although he and I probably have little in common but our names. My Google alerts tend to keep me up to date with [...:]

The Celebrity Blog: Two

Amber Armitage, real-life daughter of white witch Maggie Armitage in the Bryant & May books, is my director for our fringe play 'Celebrity', and has lined up our casting for the day I return from Provence. We need to find a strong woman in her mid-forties who can be funny and scary, a young man, [...:]

The Celebrity Blog: Day Two

Amber Armitage, real-life daughter of white witch Maggie Armitage in the Bryant & May books, is my director for our fringe play 'Celebrity', and has ined up our casting for the day I return from Provence. We need to find a strong woman in her mid-forties who can be funny and scary, a young man, [...:]

Why Summer Reading Got Smarter

The Independent devoted a long column recently to the idea that Britons are reading much smarter books on holiday this year.

They say 'The Big Beach Read has changed. It has grown a bit smarter, and a bit deeper. Pure escapism has given way to a more solid grounding in character, history and even social reality. [...:]

Re:View – 'How I Escaped My Certain Fate'

I've been an admirer of the stand-up comedian Stewart Lee for some time, never moreso than since his reinvention after the collapse of 'alternative' comedy. Now he has taken three shows and dissected them int how and why they are so clever and funny, wrapping these masterclasses up with a biographical rundown of the circumstances [...:]

Retreating To The Sun

This week I've hopped the Eurostar to France and am blogging from a small village in Provence, where the clear nights mean you can see the tail end of the amazing Pleiades meteor shower. I know it's a holiday month, but as we drive through villages devoid of any human life, I feel like I've [...:]