Will Self

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    • The Book Of Dave
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    • Psychogeography
    • Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
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    • How The Dead Live
    • Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
    • Great Apes
    • Cock And Bull
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    • The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
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Paris

January 4, 2006

Psychogeography 107

At the Trocadero, under the disconcertingly shabby, yellowing facade of the Palais de Chaillot, a group of demonstrators are coagulating into a clot of protest. They all have a certain monumentalism about them. Men and women alike are broad-cheeked with heavy-lidded eyes and jug heads. I suspect a tribal affinity. They’re carrying flimsy homemade placards: “Bas Gbagbo!” the slogans cry. A man hands me a flyer detailing President Gbagbo’s perfidy. As far as I can tell, he has hung on to office despite UN resolutions calling for him to step aside so that free and fair elections can be held. A large BMW comes stuttering round the roundabout and the anti-Gbagboists gather in its train. Bluey exhaust fumes lift and curl in the sparkling wine light. They head off down the Avenue Kleber towards the Arc de Triomphe.   More...

The Fugitive

January 4, 2006

Psychogeography 108

Where is Osama Bin Laden? I only ask because he’s been on the run for years now, and despite the best efforts of the World’s Top Power — its heat-sensors and attack dogs, its agents and bounty hunters — they seem no nearer to capturing him than they were five or even 10 years ago. After 9/11, Bin Laden footage was a staple diet for building up our crusading zeal. There he was: the beardie bogeyman, moving with leisurely awkwardness between the rocky defiles of an Afghan moonscape. A stick-insect of a man with a Kalashnikov in lieu of a cane, his aquiline — yet bilious — face lean beneath his turban. They seek him here! We cried: They seek him there! They seek him bloody well everywhere! Is he in Heaven? Is he in hell? That damned elusive orchestrator of worldwide terror!   More...

Crocodile Dun-Parkie

January 4, 2006

Psychogeography 109

Such a lantern jaw I have never beheld before! It shines with steely stubble – nay coruscates. Its owner sports a wide-brimmed hat, a short-sleeved shirt which shows off his bulging biceps, and still shorter shorts that display his mountainous thighs to even greater effect. He wears Blunstones, the toughest of Australian work boots – all in all he is a most rugged specimen. He’s pulling a dinky little electric cart to which, with a grabber as delicate as a pair of tweezers, he’s adding dry leaves. The contrast between his macho appearance and his effete manual labour is quite entrancing, and I watch him for a while until he straightens up and comes across.   More...

The Ebony Tower

November 27, 2005

The Ebony Tower

There seems, at last, to be a replacement for the “Passion from Protein” man who for so many years promenaded the West End inveighing against the sexual depravity provoked by eggs and cheese. Nowadays I often see an elderly Afro-Caribbean man on Oxford Street, who declaims his own brand of Christian gospel using a curious portable PA system: a tiny speaker hung round his neck like sonic bling, a microphone rasped by his mobile lips. On Saturday this peripatetic preacher came towards me through massed crowds of frenzied consumers: “Life is but a dream!” he squawked with a Jamaican inflection. “An’ dis is not your real ‘ome!” How sage, I thought, how just. “In the midst of life,” he continued, “we are in debt!” Sometimes, I reflected, the truest revelations are quite unintentional.   More...

The Strong Arm of the Law

November 27, 2005

The Strong Arm of the Law

I’ve given Sir Ian Blair the benefit of the doubt since he became Commissioner of the Met. I’ve liked his insistence on community policing and his zero tolerance for racism and homophobia in the force. However, the fact that he’s thick as thieves with his namesake should really have alerted me to his true colours. As last night’s Reith Lecture displayed, Sir Ian is that most curious of creatures – a wholly political animal who understands little of politics.   More...

Foggy Weather

November 27, 2005

Foggy Weather

We no longer suffer the ‘London particulars’ which up until the Clean Air Acts bit in the 1960s laid up tens of thousands every winter with acute respiratory illness; instead we have a strange miasma of hypochondria which descends upon the metropolis once the mercury begins to fall. This season’s outbreak has been set off by anxiety about bird flu. Knowing full well that the standard flu vaccine is no protection against its deadly viral cousin, and never having had a flu jab before in their lives, flocks of ‘worried well’ have descended on their GPs intent on a shot in the wing.   More...

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Will’s Latest Book

Will Self - Will
Will Self's latest book Will is published in hardback by Viking on 14 November 2019.

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

Will’s Previous Books

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
The Undivided Self
The Undivided Self
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  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
   
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