http://will-self.com The official website of novelist and journalist Will Self Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:30:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en "Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841), to which this column owes its title, devotes a chapter to the subject of men's hair and beards. However, while Mackay locates the fashion for western men to wear their hair short in St Paul's declaration that 'long hair ... http://will-self.com/2010/03/10/facial-discrimination/ To watch Will Self on last night's Question Time along with Carol Vorderman, the Transport Secretary Lord Adonis, London Mayor Boris Johnson and Liberal Democrat peer Shirley Williams, visit the BBC iplayer here. The Question Time website has the clip about Jon Venables that partly accounted for the fact that ... http://will-self.com/2010/03/05/question-time-regained/ In Walk, the magazine of the Ramblers, Will Self argues that urban-fleeing walkers’ tunnel vision of the countryside is both damaging and self-defeating: "The modern rambling movement began with a mass trespass on Kinder Scout in the Peak District, but in my view what’s needed now is a mass exodus. The ... http://will-self.com/2010/03/04/four-wheels-bad-two-legs-good/ Jason Solomons from the Guardian talks to Will Self about half-Jews and Jews on the margins – and explains why he believes that his American mother was a self-hating Jew. Listen to the Jewish Book Week podcast here. http://will-self.com/2010/03/03/jewish-book-week/ "At what mute, inglorious juncture in the history of British cuisine did the 'all-day breakfast' make its appearance? I can't recall it being scrawled on a yellow cardboard sunburst in Magic Marker until the early 1990s - which makes sense, dating it to the same era as 24-hour rolling news ... http://will-self.com/2010/03/01/naked-breakfast/ Will Self is going to be appearing on Question Time from Canary Wharf on March 4, along with Boris Johnson, Shirley Williams and Carol Vorderman. http://will-self.com/2010/02/25/question-time-appearance/ Will Self is going to be talking about Alice in Wonderland tonight at the British Library, 6.30pm. http://will-self.com/2010/02/24/on-alice/ "Conspiracy theories are articles of faith for the masses in an age of unbelief. You will have had the same experience as me on numerous painful occasions: a perfectly ordinary exchange with someone about current political events suddenly veers off-piste and disappears down a crevasse yawning with credulousness. 'Everyone knows,' ... http://will-self.com/2010/02/24/conspiracy-theories/ Will Self kicks off a series of Lent Talks on Radio 4 on Wednesday February 24 at 8.45pm, reflecting on the relationship between art and spirituality. There is also a version of Self's talk in the New Statesman here. http://will-self.com/2010/02/23/lent-talks/ "Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time has become something of a badge to be worn with pride by the contemporary British dilettante. I often find myself groping for conversation, when my interlocutor, perhaps sensing my abstraction, will reveal that she listens to – and loves – the Radio 4 discussion programme ... http://will-self.com/2010/02/20/in-our-time/