will-self.com

Archive for May, 2008

Barking mad

Posted by Chris H on May 27th, 2008

To paraphrase Oscar: “Some people come to resemble their pets, that is their tragedy some people don’t come to resemble their pets, that is theirs.” I think in this context of the German woman I have met twice now walking her Leonbergers down the road near Clapham Junction where the boys and I wait to get the bus on the way back from school. The woman is frowsty with a leonine head of pink, dyed hair, thick round the middle – she’s only 5ft 2in, or thereabouts, and must weigh getting on for 10 stone – and as for the dogs… well, they’re not called Leonbergers for nothing. This is the nearest thing you get to lion that’s still canine. Their dotty owner – who snapped “Leonberger!” at me, when I asked what breed they were (as if it were entirely obvious) – must have to go out with a shovel to pick up their dung.

Outtakes from The Word

Posted by Chris H on May 20th, 2008

Further to an interview with Will in the May edition of The Word magazine, here are some extra bits

The Butt review

Posted by Chris H on May 14th, 2008

Michael Bywater reviews The Butt in The Independent.

Boomtown stats

Posted by Chris H on May 14th, 2008

Last time I was in Dublin, Vivian drove me round in a big black Merc; this time it’s a still bigger and blacker Chrysler. “I should’ve bought a cement truck,” he observes, as we ooze past the Point, a massive new shopping-cum-entertainment complex that’s sprouting a small forest of large cranes. “I’d be coining it now.” Last time I was in Dublin, the old city seemed teetering on the edge of being metropolitan – now it’s fallen over. Last time I was in Dublin, the joke was the group of three pyramidical office blocks on the bank of the Liffey that were known locally as “Canary Dwarf”; now it’s them that have been dwarfed – or, at any rate, flanked by acre upon acre of plate glass and steel.

Guardian ‘Why I write’

Posted by Chris H on May 14th, 2008

An interview from May 9 2007

An Amazon reader review

Posted by Chris H on May 14th, 2008

of The Butt can be found here

Back in 1985 I was an inpatient at a drug rehab in the West Country and had genital warts that required regular and painful treatments.

Each week I went to the STD clinic at the nearby hospital, where a middle-aged consultant applied an acidic preparation to the glans of my penis. One day, while he was actually holding the afflicted portion, he remarked — quite casually — that the best way to rid the country of HIV/Aids would be to “castrate all you junkies — and the queers, too”.

Olympic hurdles

Posted by Chris H on May 11th, 2008

Read Will’s latest Psychogeography column here
10.05.08

Book panel with Simon Mayo

Posted by Chris H on May 9th, 2008

To listen to Will talking about The Butt on Simon Mayo’s Radio 5 Live programme on April 24 2008, sign up to the podcast.