Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 505

iAddiction

The Capio Nightingale Hospital in London houses England's first technology-addiction centre. Addicts are contracting the computer bug early: according to research published by Cranfield University School of Management in Northampton, of 260 secondary school pupils surveyed, 26 per cent spent more than six hours a day on the internet. The tech-kids admitted to comprising 63 [...:]

'I Really Loved Your First Novel'

Is there any more inadvertently insulting comment ever made to an author? (Unless they're only on their second novel). In an old episode of 'Hancock's Half Hour' Kenneth Williams tells Hancock 'I used to love your old shows – you were very funny in those days.' People loved the 'early, funny' Woody Allens. They don't [...:]

Secret Cinemas

A friend of mine organises private cinema, showing forgotten films and organising one-to-one group discussions afterwards that invoke the Chatham House Rule*. But she's not the only one currently doing this. As the Independent points out, if you're looking for a sign that the age of Odeon is over, the current bizarre vogue for tiny [...:]

Getting 'Stuff'ed

Annie Leonard's video about her book 'The Story Of Stuff' became the stuff of legend. This video has been around for about a year now, but is worth taking another look at because it was one of the first to use added cartoons in a viral that would help explain her ideas. Apart from being [...:]

The Museum Of London's New Galleries

The new £20million galleries at the Museum of London are a triumph. The mistake everyone makes when visiting this smallish museum is underestimating the time it takes to visit. The early sections of the museum are, for me, the dullest – it's hard to make bits of pottery interesting, or to bring to life the [...:]

Re:View – The Surreal House

A house is not always a home. Sometimes it can be a bloody scary place to visit. The Surreal House at the Barbican Gallery in London makes concrete the tensions and disturbances we find in buildings, ranging from paintings by De Chirico, Magritte, Duchamp and Dali to footage by Jean-Luc Godard, Buster Keaton and Georges [...:]

Perfume Bottle London

A short while ago London was awash with plans to stick office towers throughout the square mile. Then came the credit crunch. But now, it seems, all those plans have been reignited, and despite the hard times, a rash of skyscrapers is set to appear across the capital. What happened?

Well, it's not a new boom. [...:]

Shallow Thinking 2

The Guardian's website has a simple but good piece today that furthers the discussion started below. John Naughton points out that a funny thing happened to us on the way to the future. The internet went from being something exotic to being a boring utility, like mains electricity or running water, and we never really [...:]

Shallow Thinking

In his new book 'The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains', author Nicholas Carr argues that the latest technologies render us less capable of deep thinking. His book suggests that our brains are changing as they learn to cope with skimming, browsing and scanning in much the same way that librarians are [...:]

Re:View – The Illusionist

The opening night of the Edinburgh Film Festival was Sylvain Chomet's triumph of old-school detailed animation over the eye-searing primary colours and waxy-looking cyborgs of computer graphics.

The director's first feature, 'Les Triplettes De Belleville' was a quirky, slapsticky pleasure about kidnapped cyclist. 'The Illusionist' is a step forward both visually and in terms of [...:]