Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 91

Underground Myths

Yesterday I asked readers to work out why I had chosen Trafalgar Square & British Museum as my favourite tube stations. Interestingly, although there were hints of a correct answer nobody actually got it right. Both are now closed, and have now passed into London mythology. Trafalgar Square – which I can remember using – […]

My Home Library Part 1

When do your bookshelves become a library? At some point you probably found you had too many books to fit tidily into your home. You looked around and found them by the bed, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, on the floor. At this point you need a library. First, define your space. I will […]

Never Mind The Balkans

Mr Trump may not know his Baltics from his Balkans, but I suspect many others would have trouble sticking a dart into the right part of a map. The Balkans cover the countries in the Balkan Peninsular, roughly South-Eastern Europe below the Balkan mountains. You’ve got about twelve languages, give or take a few, in […]

A London House

In the evening paper is a house for sale in Hampstead, a gothic Victorian monstrosity of the kind beloved by hedge fund managers. It’s selling for five million and will probably get it. The interior rooms are covered in gilt, with Latin phrases and improving proverbs etched into the ceilings, figurines and stained glass and an […]

Why I Tried To Hate JK Rowling

I was once on a tube train sitting opposite a young punk who was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan; ‘Mother Theresa Is A C*nt’. I was shocked, but also had to stop myself from laughing. It had been a long time since I had been surprised by someone insulting an untouchable treasure. When […]

‘Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour’

I was planning to do a nice reveal of the new artwork for ‘Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour’, which is coming to you on March 21st, but my publisher beat me to it by putting the art on Amazon. But I have a nicer, bigger version, and the original sketch. The story takes place […]

Movie Locations No.2: ‘Wake In Fright’

Kenneth Cook’s book ‘Wake In Fright’ is a reminder that a short sharp shock of a novel can be infinitely more memorable than a 400-page thriller. Also known as ‘Outback’, it presents the Australian wilderness as a Dantean cauldron where men’s worst instincts surface. It’s a deeply uncomfortable but highly vivid read. Kenneth Cook is […]

New Ways Of Seeing Conflicts

There’s a bit of a war theme running through my head this week because of the Armistice commemorations, and the sense that the passing of one hundred years since ‘the war to end all wars’ might bring some sense of closure. I hadn’t watched the BBC documentaries made by Adam Curtis about post-war life for […]

Thud & Blunder In The Theatre

Theatres have a unique place in British history and remain a sacrosanct and vital part of our culture, moreso than in any other country. There are 230 of them in London alone. Old buildings have been repurposed to create new places for fringe productions, but new large theatres also get built. The Other Palace opened […]

A Richer Dust

If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s, […]