Will Self

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    • The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
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  • Appearances

The banks have buried their heads in the sand

November 11, 2008

Over the past decade, as British culture has become steeped in pop psychology, one expression has come to be bandied about with increasing abandon: “She’s in denial.” Much as I deplore such psychobabble, sometimes “in denial” is the mot juste. Since the British economy began to hit the buffers, while interest rates have been slashed and consumer demand plummeted, so people’s denial has increased. Of course, ours being an unequal society, this denial has not been spread about evenly; on the contrary, the highest concentration is among the richest and most powerful.

To read the rest of Will’s Standard column, click here.

Whatever the BBC’s faults, we must save the licence fee

November 4, 2008

With all the leaden predictability of an EastEnders plotline, the brouhaha over Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, and those blindingly unfunny phone calls to septuagenarian Andrew Sachs has mutated into a good old row about nonagenarian Auntie and her uncertain future. The BBC’s director general, Mark Thompson, came out fighting on Sunday with an impassioned plea: “I do not believe the British public wants us to lose our creative nerve.” He admitted the wrongs that had been done but was forthright about the BBC’s need to nurture talent and to provide content including risqué content for all licence-fee payers.

Read the rest of this article here.

Necessary Steps

October 25, 2008

For those of you suffering withdrawal pangs since the end of the Psychogeography column in the Independent, here’s another instalment of Necessary Steps, this time about travelling to Foula in Shetland, from the New York Times. And to offset the loss of Ralph Steadman’s artwork, there’s Will’s photographs instead.

Why should it be a crime to help a person die?

October 21, 2008

Following the death of Daniel James, the young rugby player whose parents helped him to go to Switzerland for euthanasia, I agree with Mary Warnock: Britain should decriminalise assisted suicide. But I’m not convinced that the means should be legislation alone.

To read the rest of Will’s Standard article, go here.

I’m a diehard leftie but my son is going to private school

October 14, 2008

If England, according to Oscar Wilde, is the native land of the hypocrite, then the contortions achieved by former Left-wing supporters of state education in order to justify sending their kids to private schools have to be some of that land’s most curious rituals. When I was a child in London my parents schooled me privately to begin with, and then when the inherited dosh ran out sent me to a state school. It was at that point that my mother began to trumpet her great belief in comprehensives. Even aged 13, I couldn’t help seeing hypocrisy in this.

Read the rest of Will’s Standard column here.

14.10.08

The last Psychogeography column

October 7, 2008

Sadly, the weekend saw the last of Self and Steadman’s Psychogeography columns in the Independent Magazine.

Brown’s 42 days: just a cynical pose on terror

October 7, 2008

Will’s Standard column from today.

Will’s teddy bears

October 4, 2008

Will talks about teddy bears in today’s Guardian. No, really.

A new age of the train?

October 1, 2008

Will’s Standard column focuses on the Tory plans for a new high-speed rail link.

Holy cow!

September 27, 2008

I well remember sitting at a bar in Logan Airport, Boston, and watching the great cattledammerung of the mid-1990s on a flickering TV: mechanical grabbers lifting up tons of twitching steak tartare and dropping it into enormous trenches. It looked like the smorgasbord of the Devil himself. Ruminating over a few fluid ounces of Miller Lite, it occurred to me that this could well be The End. But no, because in ’01, I found myself walking across the causeway to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, shod penitently in £1,300 calf leather walking boots, while behind me a 30-mile swath of the Northumbrian coast was visible in the sunlight: the smoke from scores of death barbecues wavering up into the heavens, as once again the British cattle industry was near-annihilated.

To read today’s full Psychogeography column, click here.

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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
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

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