Watch Will Self and John Gray talking about JG Ballard at the recent Bristol conference Festival of Ideas.
Will Self: Television
Newsnight: The London Olympics
Watch Will Self on Newsnight tonight at 10.30pm on BBC2 talking about the Olympics with, among others, Seb Coe and Iain Sinclair.
You can watch Self’s appearance again here.
Newsnight
Watch Will Self on Newsnight tonight at 10.30pm BBC2 talking about the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks’ appearances at the select committee today. Other guests include Carl Bernstein, Michael Grade, Earl Spencer and Alan Rusbridger.
Newsnight: Is this a watershed moment for British journalism?
Watch Will Self tonight on BBC2′s Newsnight, where he’ll be one of the guests answering the question: Is this a watershed moment for British journalism?
You can watch the programme again here until July 15. Self appears with Steve Coogan and others at around the 36-minute mark.
This Green and Pleasant Land
Watch Will Self tonight on BBC4 talking about the history of British landscape painting at 9pm.
Newsnight austerity discussion
Watch Will Self on Newsnight last night in discussion with Polly Toynbee and Jacob Rees-Mogg about the financial squeeze, a little after the seven-minute mark here.
A mountain of Montaigne
There’s a short, edited version of Will Self’s recent talk on Montaigne at the Institut français that can be seen here. There’s also a write-up of the event at the Literateur here.
Self recently wrote about a trip to the remote Orkney island of Rousay “fleeing a broken marriage and the physical objects of my addiction – if not the psychic furies that screamed attendance on them” and how he ended up reading Montaigne’s Essays for the first time. Here’s a little peak over the Times paywall:
The deep topography of Nick Papadimitriou
There was a short feature on Will Self’s friend and colleague the “deep topographer” Nick Papadimitriou, who most recently helped with the research on Self’s The Book of Dave, that included contributions from Self, Iain Sinclair and Russell Brand on Newsnight last night. You can watch it again here – it starts around the 36-minute mark. Papadimitriou’s book Scarp is due to be published next year by Sceptre. His podcasts on Resonance FM can be downloaded here, and there’s a short clip from The London Perambulator here.
Birth of the British Novel
Watch Will Self talking about Jonathan Swift (and Martin Amis on Henry Fielding) in BBC4′s Birth of the British Novel here. Self’s contribution appears at about the 16-minute mark.
Will Self: In Confidence
Watch Laurie Taylor interviewing Will Self on the Sky Arts series In Confidence, posted on You Tube in various parts beginning here.