Will Self

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The Never-Ending Tour #4: The curate’s egging on

April 23, 2008

A children’s TV presenter had hanged himself at Paddington Station and his body wasn’t found for six days. Grim, but then big city rail terminuses always are: the temporary repositories of vice and despair; gutters through which the pure waters of the provinces are sluiced into the urban cesspit. Paddington isn’t helped by being within yards of St Mary’s Hospital, where, in the 1890s, heroin was synthesised for the first time. The station always has this peculiar smacklight: diffuse, dreamy, brown, and desperate. In my 1993 story Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo, the adulterous lovers rendezvous close to Paddington, at Sussex Gardens. The antihero parks the eponymous Volvo by the needle exchange Portakabin on South Wharf Road. A woman has written into the site, apropos of this blog, and asks is there any part of my life that is unobserved, unrecorded? All I can say in reply – paternalistically, patronisingly, and now, illegally – is that you don’t know one half of one half of one ten-thousandth of it, love.

So, five cookies for £2.99 from Millies (three milk chocolate, two white chocolate and lemon – if you’re asking), and then the 16.30 to Bath Spa. In Bath, I ate at Waggaponytail, with all the other little pink-lip-glossed Tamsins and Georgies, oh, a girl like me loves a noodle bar, so she does. One gripe: the green tea was the temperature of dishwater. What is it with me and tea nowadays? It does arouse the most fearful indignation in me, the way that on the trains they now hand you a cup of hot – not boiling water – and then the tea bag. Am I the only one, or is this a disgusting approximation of the national beverage, dictated to us by the Health & Safety ninnies?

I digress.

Topping’s bookshop in Bath is owned and run by the redoubtable Robert Topping, who was exiled from Waterstone’s in Deansgate after protesting at the introduction of central buying. His two shops – in Bath and Ely – are everything good independents should be: home and welcoming, staffed by erudite and engaging booksellers. Last time I read there, I had people stretching away to either end of the shop, so had to perorate in the round. This time they’d thoughtfully enlisted the local church, St Michael’s-Without-Bath.

The curate was most keen that I not feel restrained within the sacred precincts from delivering my homily wholly unexpurgated. However, there was a quid pro quo: he would lead the extempore congregation in a small prayer before I began. I had no objection at all – after all, it was his gaff, and I’m a militant agnostic. Moreover, as he appealed to his Lord to aid and assist my creativity, I felt a great surge of scurrilousness building up in me, and became convinced that my satirical weapons were being mightily honed. Who knows, I may yet become a regular communicant.

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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
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