Will Self

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Killer Kaleidoscopic

June 3, 2010

A migrainous day: suitably, perhaps, as the research I’m doing at the moment jumps off from Oliver Sacks’s Awakenings – a book that deeply impressed me when I first read it, and continues to do so – and he is notoriously a sufferer. My mother had skull-splitting three-day migraines that sent her, reeling like a Mafioso gunned down, to the mattresses. Mine are somewhat different, and only appeared after I’d banged my head on a wall in frustration during a holiday in Lanzarote.

The symptoms are precise: a patch of prismatic distortion grows in the left-hand corner of my visual field, then expands in semicircular bands until it covers the whole field of both eyes (I also have binocular vision due to a strabismus, and so am insistently aware of the duality of my visual field, perhaps this explains my liking for fictions that take place in parallel worlds?), in a pattern that can best be likened to a kaleidoscope. It’s pretty, and would be quite like the effects of a hallucinogen, were it not that instead of euphoria there’s only a dull thrum of a headache. It doesn’t disable me, I don’t have to lie down, it fades fairly rapidly – usually within 20 minutes; yesterday’s all-dayer was an exception – and it appears brought on either by caffeine/physical exertion, or – and most bizarre this – hill walking over 3,000 feet.

Nevertheless, when these migraines first appeared a few years ago, I foolishly embarked on the usual battery of tests courtesy of our great socialised medicine, and ended up seeing an ophthalmology consultant at St Thomas’s in London. They did the test where they squirt a dilator into your eye and then scan the retina (my GP’s assumption was that I had a tear). While the nurse was doing this, the consultant – who appeared to be playing up to some idea of himself – scanned the drawings I’d made in my notebook of what I could see during the attacks. “Didn’t you look at these!” he expostulated. “Haven’t you examined this man’s very helpful drawings!” he berated her: “This man has migraine! This is a classic migraine! We’re wasting his time – and ours!” When he calmed, I asked him who, if not he, I should consult about the kaleidoscopes intermittently rammed in my eyes. “Oh, I don’t know,” he spluttered, “a neurologist, I suppose – if you can be bothered. After all … ” I had told him about the lack of headaches and the 3,000-foot onset point “it’s not like you have a bad case!”

All in all a most gratifying waste of public resources.

***

Newsnight calls asking me to go on this evening to discuss the Cumbrian shootings: ‘We’re looking for someone to speculate on what it is about these remote, rural communities, largely white – ’

“Look,” I interrupt, “I’m going to stop you right there; much as I’d like to come on the programme I know next to nothing about remote, rural, largely white communities – I’m very much your urban, multi-coloured kind of a guy … ”

But am I? After all, plenty of people have been shot dead in the immediate purlieus of my south London home over the past few years, and I know just as little about the socio-cultural nexus of their motivations (if such a thing could be said to exist) as I do about those of this killer. Still, I’m confident someone will be persuaded to shoot their mouth off on Newsnight in my stead – if there’s anyone more trigger-happy than a gun nut, it’s a member of the London commentariat.

Will’s Latest Book

Will Self - Elaine
Will Self's latest book Elaine will be published in hardback by Grove on September 5 2024 in the UK and September 17 2024 in the USA.

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

Will’s Previous Books

Will Self - Will
Will
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Amazon.co.uk

  Will Self - Phone
Phone
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Amazon.com
Shark
Shark
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Amazon.com
  Umbrella
Umbrella
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Amazon.com
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
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Amazon.co.uk
  Walking To Hollywood
Walking To Hollywood
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Amazon.com
The Butt
The Butt
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Amazon.com
  Grey Area
Grey Area
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Amazon.com
Junk Mail
Junk Mail
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Amazon.com
  Great Apes
Great Apes
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Amazon.com
Cock And Bull
Cock And Bull
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Amazon.com
  The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
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Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Sweet Smell Of Psychosis
The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
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Amazon.com
  My Idea Of Fun
My Idea Of Fun
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Amazon.com
The Book Of Dave
The Book Of Dave
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Amazon.com
  Psychogeography
Psychogeography
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Amazon.com
Psycho Too
Psycho II
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Amazon.com
  Liver
Liver
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Amazon.com
How The Dead Live
How The Dead Live
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Amazon.com
  Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
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Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
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Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Dorian
Dorian
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Amazon.com
Feeding Frenzy
Feeding Frenzy
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Amazon.com
  Sore Sites
Sore Sites
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Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Perfidious Man
Perfidious Man
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Amazon.com
  The Undivided Self
The Undivided Self
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
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