Compulsive hoarding is pretty out there, no? I mean what kind of a weirdo saves all that cardboard and bubble wrap, ties it up with string and wedges it in on top of crappy old wing chairs and fake-veneer TV cabinets stacked high with bundles of old newspapers and books, then tops the whole teetering pile off with 30-or-so cat litter trays (full), leaving the felines themselves – perhaps 40 of them – to smarm along the alleys carved through this dreck (for this is but one room of an entire semi so engorged), shitting and pissing wherever?
Will Self: Journalism
A Point of View: The future of Europe
Listen to Will Self on Radio 4 tonight at 8.50pm where he reports back from Germany and wonders whether we should consider an end to the EU in its “current banjaxed form”. Listen again here.
The Queen: she’s boring
“The truth is that the pictures are almost insufferably dull. If you’re a monarchist you’d be better off staying at home, painting a Union flag on your living room wall and watching it dry than venturing out to see this tat. And the principal reason why the images are so banal and uninteresting is because, gasp, nobody – least of all the artists and photographers who confected them – knows the sitter at all well … these snappers and daubers have difficulty with depicting the Queen’s personality, because – gulp! – she’s a perfectly ordinary, rather uncultured, rather sporty, elderly upper-class Englishwoman, who just happens to be a monarch. In two words: she’s boring.”
The madness of crowds: Transvaginal probes
The transvaginal probe is a long, dildo-shaped instrument used to detect foetal heartbeats – or, at least, that’s what an unholy alliance in the US of state legislators, anti-abortion campaigners and their medical henchmen see as its purpose. Increasing numbers of states are demanding that women seeking abortions be subjected to the probe, so that they can hear the beating heart of the “person” they are about to murder. One doctor interviewed on BBC’s Newsnight – standing in front of the examination couch, probe in his hand – explained that the procedure had no medical utility and was simply a way of traumatising these women.
Will Self’s choice for London mayor
“I like the cut of Jenny Jones’s jib. I like the way she said she wouldn’t be Mayor even if all the others died – it showed a commendable humility. I have a few quibbles about some of the Greens’ attitudes, but I’m roughly in tune with them. I like Boris, he’s always been nice to me, but he is also ruthlessly self-centred and ambitious. I’ve never believed the mayoralty was an end in itself for him. I loathe Ken, I think he has come to resemble one of his newts. In a sense I would like to vote for the Labour candidate, but I can’t vote for Ken.”
Real meals: Noodle bars
In keeping with the convergence of downtown Los Angeles – as depicted in Blade Runner (1982) – and Britain’s metropolitan regions, there is an increasing number of noodle bars throughout the realm. I speak here of London, because that’s where I live – but I’ve noodled about in cities as diverse as Sheffield, Bristol and Cardiff. The basic noodle bar format is refreshingly bare bones: strip lighting, melamine-topped tables, wipe-dirty floor and a clientele with its faces over bowls of broth.
Jacob Rees-Mogg’s egregious slur
“Years ago I appeared on Newsnight with Jacob Rees-Mogg and we had a little barney – I think I accused him of being both a snob and a nob, and he, taking umbrage, asked me to explain what defined these derogatory appellations. I think I told him that it all basically came down to cufflinks; that in the great index of social classification – inscribed up there on a Laputa-like cloudly domain – the wearing of cufflinks really marked a man off as a snob and a nob.
A Point Of View: In Defense Of Obscure Words
Both general readers and specialist critics often complain about my own use of English – not only in my books, but also in my newspaper articles and even in radio talks such as these. “I have to look them up in a dictionary”, they complain – as if this were some kind of torture.
Follow the link for the full transcript of Will Self on A Point Of View: In Defense Of Obscure Words. You can also listen to the radio broadcast through the BBC iPlayer.
Will Self’s Dream About David Cameron
Will on a disturbing dream about the current British Prime Minister for the FT magazine.
The Minor Character on Sky Arts 1
Fun interview between Will Self and David Tennant in the Evening Standard about Will’s short story The Minor Character, which has been turned into a short film on Sky Arts, and which stars David Tennant as “Will”, 12 April, 9pm on Sky Arts 1 (sky.com/arts).