Listen to Will Self talking on Radio 4 about texting and textspeak.
What texting owes to the literary enlightenment
Chris Addison explores the links between modern-day text-speak and the language of the 18th-century literary enlightenment. He examines the expressive elements of text language, or “textese”, and how it can be seen to echo a ludic art form that became popular in the Romantic era, via insights found in the letters of Jonathan Swift and later works by Lewis Carroll and James Joyce.
The programme will be broadcast on March 10, Radio 4 at 11.30am and will feature contributions from Will Self and Ian Rankin, the poet Scott Tyrell and professors Jeremy Tambling, John Sutherland and David Crystal.
Recessive spleen
Click here to listen to Will Self talking about the role of satire in a recession, first broadcast on the Today programme on February 6.
Free Thinking lecture
You can now watch, as well as listen to, Will giving his Radio 3 lecture, here.
A Visit from Mrs Wells
Resonance FM
Those good people at Resonance FM have provided us with a link to download Will’s interview, but we’re not sure how long it will be there for, so best visit sooner rather than later.
Resonance FM
Will is going to be on Resonance FM on Thursday November 20 at 4.30pm. He is a guest on Interesting Conversations. You can listen via 104.4FM or go to www.resonancefm.com. An MP3 version will be available to download later. Will is to discuss The Butt, Liver and “his intumescent back catalogue”.
Book of Dave podcasts
Here are Will’s Penguin podcasts around the time of the Book of Dave in 2006.
The banks have buried their heads in the sand
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.
Free Thinking lecture
To listen to Will giving his Free Thinking lecture in Liverpool on Radio 3, and then being interviewed about the ideas contained in it click here.
