Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 55

The Lie That Will Be On Your Tombstone

Reading today that Emilio Estevez says ‘Brat Pack’ will be carved on his tombstone, I’m reminded of Bette Midler’s line that ‘She started at the Continental Baths’ will be stamped on hers. Everyone is cursed to have the origin of their success marked on their grave because people don’t realise that when they’re starting out […]

Dracula AD.2020

Dracula and I have a long history. I had read the book at an early age – it was the sort of novel my mother preferred to keep over say, ‘Pride and Prejudice’. I was not old enough to see the definitive Hammer Dracula – I’d watched the Bela Lugosi version on TV and found […]

London Puzzles 3: The Lost Banks Of The Thames

I’m out and about doing London research today, inspired by our erstwhile commenter Jan, who sent me a couple of shots of the Thames foreshore. (She knows her history but the camera could do with a bit of an upgrade). Jan points out that the beach of the South Bank runs parallel with Shad Thames […]

London Puzzles 2: Dr Johnson’s House

Dr Samuel Johnson once predicted the drawbacks of aviation. In his philosophical novelThe History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) he thought about the advantages of flying and concluded; ‘What would be the security of the good if the bad could at leisure invade them from the sky?’ While he was working on his dictionary […]

Hooray For Wakaliwood!

I’m tired of seeing worthy, earnest dramas this awards season. Sometimes you just want to see stuff blown up. After Bollywood and Nollywood (Nigerian productions) we have Wakaliwood, Ugandan productions shot on half a shoestring, which somehow capture the free spirit of the 1970s cheapies from the Hollywood independents, the kind of films they used […]

London Puzzles 1: Bear-Faced London

My local area of King’s Cross was traditionally connected to hunting deer, and the psychogeographic connection remains when you walk around the neighbourhood and spot the number of either accidental or deliberate references to deer and stag horns – they adorn buildings and pubs, often tucked into decorative motifs. Having just read Dr Matthew Green’s […]

Bear-Faced London

My local area of King’s Cross was traditionally connected to hunting deer, and the psychogeographic connection remains when you walk around the neighbourhood and spot the number of either accidental or deliberate references to deer and stag horns – they adorn buildings and pubs, often tucked into decorative motifs. Having just read Dr Matthew Green’s […]

The 5 Creepiest Agatha Christie Books

Being a contrarian, I probably wasn’t the first choice to be placed on a crime writers’ panel dedicated to Agatha Christie. I wasn’t prepared to sit there praising her uncritically, but I figured her audience was there to hear exactly that, so when official Christie doyenne Sophie Hannah declared that there was no other author […]

Creating The Right Atmosphere

In the writing of any story, atmosphere plays a far larger part than most readers realise. It’s something you have to consciously select when setting out a scene. I often set London in the rain because it is emphatically not a sunny city. The ‘invisible rain’ which cannot be seen falling but makes the streets […]

The Old Boys On Audio

Well, none of us saw that coming! The makers of ebooks, touted as the biggest thing since actual books, have discovered that they have a finite audience. They’re mostly purchased by readers who buy more than the average number of paper books. I love ebooks, especially if I’m travelling or the book I’m reading […]