Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 515

Why Smoking Stays Cool

A new survey shows that kids in the UK are smoking back to their old levels a decade ago, and nobody is entirely sure why. Evidence that anti-smoking messages make young people more likely to light up has been mounting for eight years, with one group of researchers finding that "quit smoking" campaigns appear to [...:]

Re: View – 'The Little Stranger'

Sarah Waters' Gothic supernatural novel, long-listed for the man Booker prize, has become a bestseller, but all is not what it seems. On the surface it's a very traditional ghost story complete with a grand old house and a haunting, but there's more going on here, something which not all the readers who have posted [...:]

Still Hung

As we wait to find out just how much politicians are prepared to compromise their ideals for power (in that sense, at least, we'll be joining the rest of Europe), the jokers are having a field-day. I spotted this yesterday while having a Ruby Murray down Brick Lane. Further along the road, another sign pointed [...:]

How Do We Know?

Think of a number, double it, add your shoe size

How are we meant to understand what the election voting means in this country? Ben Goldacre points out that there is no central or open record of local election results. The Electoral Commission's website passes the buck to the BBC, where you can find [...:]

Re:View – 'Daybreakers'

The poster says it's a cross between 'The Matrix' and '28 Days Later' (because all films have to be the love-child of two other films these days) but it's closer in tone to Kathryn Bigelow's 'Near Dark'. Ethan Hawke is a hematologist at the company harvesting humans for blood in a world overrun with vampires, [...:]

British Character Actors No.11: Lionel Jeffries

It seemed as if he was in every postwar British film (and probably was), often playing an exasperated prison warden, ship's captain or other authority figure, but he's fondly remembered for his role in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang', and for turning director and making 'The Railway Children' (a film which, for British kids, had the [...:]

London Pubs: The Edgar Wallace

Tucked into the back of Temple near the law courts is the Edgar Wallace, a perfectly nice traditional pub in an alley crowded with lawyers, but I wonder if even Londoners remember who Edgar Wallace was. The English crime writer, journalist, novelist, screenwriter and playwright wrote 175 novels and 24 plays. His 'Edgar Wallace Mysteries' [...:]

What The Troops Are Doing In Afghanistan

Well, at least they're staying well and not hurting other people, although why Lady GaGa should inspire quite so many virals is beyond me.

Huxley, Herrmann and Humanity

In 1979, a CBS broadcast of Aldous Huxley's dark, dystopic novel 'Brave New World' was issued as an LP, narrated by the author and staged as a radio play, with music links by Bernard Herrmann. It's worth listening to Huxley's comments at the start, because he suggests that although the book is set 600 years [...:]

Hung Out To Dry

Steve Bell in today's Guardian captures how we all feel about the election. Not since the first Thatcher win of the eighties has politics been so much on everyone's lips; it's all you hear in cafes, restaurant, pubs and the media. The televised debates have opened up new areas of conversation but also proved that [...:]