Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 19

I wait impatiently for my brain fog to lift. I am Phileas Brain-Fogg. My mind is a tabula rasa, each day vanishing into grey smoke. The howling wind and rain outside, constantly tearing at the new planting in its determination to point out that last year’s pleasant  summer was a freakish anomaly, never lets up in […]

I wait impatiently for my brain fog to lift. I am Phileas Brain-Fogg. My mind is a tabula rasa, each day vanishing into grey smoke. The howling wind and rain outside, constantly tearing at the new planting in its determination to point out that last year’s pleasant  summer was a freakish anomaly, never lets up in […]

I expect my readers to be a little smarter than average. Dear Diary, it’s Friday August 6th, and I’ve started feeling like Joan Crawford trapped in Bette Davis’s house in ‘Whatever happened to Baby Jane?’ But at least she got to be in Santa Monica. I’m in King’s Cross. I am a prisoner. The Prisoner. […]

We got to five on this site last time around: I reviewed very obscure films to the complete disinterest of my readership. Here was I eager to discuss bonkers storylines with anyone who’d listen and you lot were like middle-class housewives at a book club; two minutes of interest followed by a heated discussion about the […]

We got to five on this site last time around: I reviewed very obscure films to the complete disinterest of my readership. Here was I eager to discuss bonkers storylines with anyone who’d listen and you lot were like middle-class housewives at a book club; two minutes of interest followed by a heated discussion about the […]

I normally have a certain admiration for pointless follies and architectural foolishness. However, this story features something far less loveable. Oxford Street has for a long time attracted a rougher clientele than Regent Street or Bond Street. As its fortunes declined into discount stores new ways were sought, most of them misguided, to bring back foot […]

A quick health check on the average writer reveals that the patient is not doing so well. The average median income from writing for those who spend more than half their working life on books is around £10,000 p.a. It gets worse; Between 2006 and 2018 the average income for authors fell by 42%, according […]

It’s the only large Central London park I’ve never been inside, and it’s just two miles from our home.  To be sure, there are other spots missing off the Fowler Patented Scrutinizing Map of London but this is the largest unknown territory. Buckingham Palace Garden, 39 lush acres lying behind high spiked walls, magically screens […]

Yesterday I swung from the hospital, where I was getting my usual dose of radioactivity for another scan, through a rainstorm to the cult paperback pulp fair, which has moved homes from Bloomsbury to Great Portland Street. Except that hardly anyone was there, the tables were empty, the punters absent. No dealers or buyers, thanks […]

Closure is so satisfying Well, the old boys began at death’s door and somehow remained there for twenty books, but regular readers know why this has happened. The side effects of my failed chemo, combined with a truly bizarre sequence of global events, have conspired to imprison me at home and push my stress levels […]