Christopher Fowler's Blog

London’s Lost Film Studios

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:10:17 +0000

News that Twickenham Studios is to close reminds me of other now-vanished studios. At the time of its construction, close to the start of the 20th century, Twickenham was the largest studio in the UK. It made films like ‘Call of the Sea’, and steadily produced forgotten films like ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Rembrandt’, [...]

More Gems From Old Guide Books

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:04:52 +0000

Once again I set off to discover whether another peculiarity suggested in old London guide books might still prove to exist in our rebuilt city.

St Katherine Cree Church in Aldgate is the only church in the City of London that still rings its church bells of a Sunday morning. But there’s a stranger event [...]

How the Daily Mail Sees EU Rule

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:51:12 +0000

Traders in Frankfurt followed a long tradition by turning up to work in costume to celebrate carnival this week, thereby confirming the Mail readers’ worst fears.

The Responses To That Letter

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:58:41 +0000

Well, THAT was an interesting exercise! ‘An Open Letter To Harper Collins’ generated five times the normal amount of mail ranging from the outraged to the unprintable. I had to weed out the comments carefully, something I don’t usually do, in order to get a proper range to them – there were some which were [...]

Re:View – ‘Endeavour’

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:59:32 +0000

I finally had a chance to catch up with ‘Endeavour’ after missing it on TV. I imagine it’s been a puzzle for TV executives looking to wring more mileage from the Morse brand; ‘Well, the ‘Lewis’ spinoff bombed’, you hear them say, ‘what about a prequel?’ So this precursor to ‘Morse’ saw unlikeable ginger pipe-cleaner [...]

‘Red Gloves’ Nominated for Bram Stoker Award

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:54:51 +0000

I heard yesterday that ‘Red Gloves’ has been nominated for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection by the Horror Writers Association. This is a world event and the awards are announced at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 31. The full list of nominations is as follows:

Voices: Tales of Horror [...]

Gunfire For Beginners

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:43:57 +0000

I don’t believe you have to kill a shark in order to write about it, Hemingway-style, but a writer needs a certain amount of experience in order to write about anything. I suppose that’s not always true; HRF Keating’s Inspector Ghote novels were written without him visiting India. But some writers end up writing about [...]

Things To Make & Do

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:17:05 +0000

Last night a friend told me that she watched in amazement as a two year-old operated an iPhone with dexterity. When I was a kid there was, of course, no internet, and I spent an insane amount of time with paper, cardboard, paints, glue, knives, gunpowder-style chemicals, thinners, balsa wood, plasticene, rubber cement, varnish and [...]

A US State Of Mind

admin — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 07:43:32 +0000

When I was a kid I was incredibly influenced by the American mindset. It wasn’t that I saw many Hollywood movies – I saw a few, but largely grew up with English comedies starring annoying idiots like Charlie Drake and Norman Wisdom, who seemed to have a new film out every week.

Rather it was American [...]

An Open Letter To The Publisher

admin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:42:47 +0000

Dear Harper Collins,

I see that you are to pay Amanda Knox £4 million for her memoirs. Apparently she hired a top lawyer used by Barack Obama and George W. Bush to negotiate a book deal about being jailed in Italy for her part in the murder of Meredith Kercher, a British student.

I see that she [...]