Will Self on the ****ing London mayor, Boris Johnson.
Why Us?
A review of James Le Fanu’s Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, published in the Evening Standard.
It’s not just vicious dogs who need to be leashed
“The tragic death of baby Jadon Smith after being attacked by family pets should be taken to heart by all dog owners. While it’s also tempting to demonise certain breeds — such as the Staffordshire bull terrier, one of which was involved in this killing — we need to acknowledge that the most lethal canine is actually a weird inter-species chimera: the aggressive dog and his irresponsible owner.”
To read the rest of Will’s Evening Standard column from February 11, click here.
New Labour is sacrificing our Army in Afghanistan
“Speaking of the 143rd British soldier to die, in combat, in Afghanistan, the secretary for defence, John Hutton, said: ‘Corporal Nield was clearly an extremely professional Rifleman who was making a real difference in bringing stability to Afghanistan. My thoughts are with his family and his friends at this very sad time.’
Setting to one side the ascription of ‘professionalism’ – a quality I’ve always found it difficult to associate with toiling in the killing fields – let’s examine the rest of Hutton’s statement. ”
To read the rest of this article, go here.
You can’t back down on clean air, Boris
“Monday was Boris’s proverbial ‘good day to bury bad news’, for while he reassured Londoners of what a splendid job Transport for London had done responding to the Siberian conditions, a far more important mayoral statement was being slipped out. This was Boris’s decision to delay the third phase of the low emissions zone, due to come into force in October 2010.”
You can read the rest of Will’s latest Standard column here.
Hold the hot sauce
Will has confessed that kebabs are virtually all he eats:
“I’ve no idea if my being espaliered in this fashion on an almost daily basis is what’s responsible for my trim form and excellent health – but it must all add into the mix. I dare say that when I die and go to hell, I’ll appreciate the irony as Satan threads me on to his pitchfork and stokes up the brimstone. I wonder if I’ll have the sangfroid to cry out: ‘Hold the hot sauce! And the coleslaw!'”
The First Post
To read Will’s more or less weekly contributions to thefirstpost.co.uk, go here.
Questions for the new ‘Gissa job’ generation
‘Back in the early 1980s, Alan Bleasdale’s TV drama Boys From the Black Stuff gripped the nation. It followed the fortunes of a group of unemployed men. One of them, Yosser Hughes, went around Liverpool saying “Gissa job” to anyone he came across who was working, following it up with the more plaintive, “I could do that.”‘
To read the rest of Will’s Standard column, go here.
Two novels you must read
Two of Will’s novels have been chosen by the Guardian for their 1,000 novels you must read series:
Great Apes (1997)
“Planet of the Apes meets Nineteen Eighty-Four. Simon Dykes wakes up one morning to a world where chimpanzees are self-aware and humans are the equivalent of chimps in our world. Simon has lived a life of quick drugs, shallow artists and meaningless sex. But this London, much like a PG tips advert, has chimps in human clothing but with their chimpness intact. The carnivalesque world is humorous, gripping and provocative.”
How the Dead Live (2000)
“In Self’s irrepressible, motormouthed third novel, you take your emotional baggage with you into the next life – literally. When Lily Bloom dies, she simply moves house: to a basement flat in Dulston, north London borough for the deceased, which she shares with a calcified foetus and her surly, long-dead son. There’s the usual druggy underworld and dazzling wordplay – the book is worth reading for its linguistic fireworks alone – but it’s Lily who gives the novel its emotional resonance and profundity. She’s a wonderful creation: sarcastic, frightened, smart, infuriating and humane.”
Come off it, Gordon, take over the big banks now
“Vince Cable, the Lib Dems’ Treasury spokesman, describes the latest raft of measures aimed at freeing up the supply of credit as being like ‘giving the kiss of life to a corpse’. He’s right: the British banking system is floating face down in a pool of its own illiquidity and it’s pointless us chucking it another lifeline. The problem with the Government’s bail-out last October is that while it may have stopped the patient flat-lining, it left him on taxpayers’ life support, in a persistent vegetative state.”
Read the rest of Will’s Standard column here.
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