Will Self

  • Books
    • Will
    • Phone
    • Shark
    • Umbrella
    • The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker
    • The Undivided Self
    • Walking to Hollywood
    • Liver
    • The Butt
    • The Book Of Dave
    • Psycho Too
    • Psychogeography
    • Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
    • Dorian
    • Feeding Frenzy
    • How The Dead Live
    • Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
    • Great Apes
    • Cock And Bull
    • Grey Area
    • Junk Mail
    • My Idea Of Fun
    • Perfidious Man
    • Sore Sites
    • The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
    • The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
  • Journalism
    • The Big Issue
    • Daily Telegraph
    • Evening Standard
    • The First Post
    • GQ
    • The Guardian
    • High Life
    • Independent
    • London Review of Books
    • New Statesman
    • The New York Times
    • Observer
    • Prospect
    • The Times
    • Walk
  • Radio and Audio
  • Television
  • Appearances
  • Book Will Self For An Event

Still Sylver-Surfing

January 31, 2006

I’m back at the Sylver Surfer. I wanted to post a blog in Primrose Hill yesterday, when I staggered out of the dentist. But although this part of London may heave with the sexual antics of fashionable underpants designers and pretty-boy actors, pay-per internet access is thin on the ground.

When I come to think of it – and must we not all come to think of such things eventually? – cyber cafes are the tanning salons of the infosphere, they beckon you inside to bombard your cerebellum with sinister radiation; they encourage you to fritter away minutes and then hours playing the plastic piano of trivia.

But I digress. I’d wanted to post a blog while my entire jaw was numb, because frankly that’s as close as I get to a mood-altering experience nowadays. Louise, my dentist of 20 years standing, was trying to give me yet another crown. Like an old sheep, the relentless rumination of decades of troubled sleep has resulted in the wearing down of my back teeth. In the grey hours of dawn I awake to a crumbly gorge of amalgam and dentine, cough, choke, spit and discover that another molar has bitten itself into dust.

Each new, gold tooth is about £500 a pop – not cheap. But Louise couldn’t pump enough procaine into me to prevent the pure-pain laser of the water drill lancing into me. Eventually she gave up and said she would carve a niche in the stup of the tooth (somewhat in the manner of Joe Simpson placing a piton on the North Face of the Eiger), and ‘anchor’ a filling on to the tooth. Result: it cost 400 shitters less than the crown would. She averred that: ‘The nerves must be deranged in there.’ Next time she says she’s going to shoot me up with a stronger local anaesthetic, one with adrenaline in it. Woo-hoo! As Homer would say.

When I was in rehab in the 1980s I knew a geezer called Pete whose scam was to visit all the dentists in England and blag the glass sheets from them, on to which they’d smeared the leftover silver amalgam from filling teeth. Pete said he could make a nice little earner flogging this stuff to scrap metal merchants. I thought this such a bizarre example of the division of labout that I put it into my novel ‘Dorian’. Now, of course, silver amalgam and scrap metal merchants are just part of a bygone age. But I’m still here – with my ground-down teeth.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pocket

Will’s Latest Book

Will Self - Why Read
Will Self's latest book Why Read will be published in hardback by Grove on 3 November 2022.

You can pre-order at Amazon.co.uk.

Will’s Previous Books

Will Self - Will
Will
More info
Amazon.co.uk

  Will Self - Phone
Phone
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Shark
Shark
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Umbrella
Umbrella
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
More info
Amazon.co.uk
  Walking To Hollywood
Walking To Hollywood
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Butt
The Butt
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Grey Area
Grey Area
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Junk Mail
Junk Mail
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Great Apes
Great Apes
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Cock And Bull
Cock And Bull
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Sweet Smell Of Psychosis
The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
More info

Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  My Idea Of Fun
My Idea Of Fun
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Book Of Dave
The Book Of Dave
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Psychogeography
Psychogeography
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Psycho Too
Psycho II
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Liver
Liver
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
How The Dead Live
How The Dead Live
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Dorian
Dorian
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Feeding Frenzy
Feeding Frenzy
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Sore Sites
Sore Sites
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Perfidious Man
Perfidious Man
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  The Undivided Self
The Undivided Self
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Bloomsbury  
Penguin

About / Contact

will-self.com is the official website for British novelist and journalist Will Self. The site is managed by Chris Hall and Chris Mitchell.

If you want to get in touch, you can email us at info@will-self.com

All email will be read, but we can’t guarantee a response.

PR agencies, please DO NOT put this email address on any mailing lists.

If you have a specific request for Will regarding commissions, book rights etc, you can contact his agent via agent@will-self.com

Will’s Writing Room

Will's Writing Room
– a 360 degree view in 71 photos

Recent Posts

  • ‘The Queen is dead – and let’s try to keep it that way’
  • Why Read to be published in November
  • On the Road with Penguin Classics
  • The British Monarchy Should Die With the Queen
  • Arvon Live Writing Day: Writing about place
  • On Damien Hirst
  • On Glastonbury
  • Ports Fest evening
  • Roughler Club, west London
  • On the n-word

© 2005–2023 · Will Self · All Rights Reserved