Will Self

Celebrated author of novels, short stories and non-fiction, Will Self contributes to many publications and regularly appears on radio and television. Fifty of his PsychoGeograpghy columns from The Independent have recently been collected in a new publication featuring art by Ralph Steadman.

Down and out in Beverly Hills

Will Self: PsychoGeography

Recently by Will Self

Will Self - Hebridean interlude

Saturday, 21 June 2008

For the second year we returned to Jura in the Hebrides for summer half-term. The weather was, frankly, absurd: sunshine and 70-degree heat from dawn to dusk – and so far north that's a very long, very bright day. Sea mist lay on the sound, making of the mainland another floating island. Local people said the fine weather had lasted three weeks; it was so dry that the annual Isle of Jura Fell Race was completed at a brisk clip-clop by the ungulate fell runners, and the winning time of three hours and seven minutes (by Robb Jebb of Bingley), was just shy of the record. Madness! For going up and down seven peaks, 16 miles and 1,500 feet. Not our style: we arrived two days after the race to take up residency of Jura House, learning only later that the runners who'd been staying previously, eschewed its considerable comforts for a trip to the wild west of the island, where they trained by living solely on limpets and sleeping on beds of bracken and deer ticks for several nights.

Will Self: PsychoGeography

Saturday, 14 June 2008

Personally, I'm sad to see her go, but I'm astounded by how little public attention the departure of our reigning monarch from these shores has received. Perhaps it's something to do with the credit crunch and rising interest rates? So geared to the prayer wheel of the property market has the British collective psyche become that if the market stalls we can think of little else, and when house prices start falling you can chop the arms off the average homeowner, while he or she contemplates your bloody hatchet with Buddhist detachment, only muttering, "But they said buy-to-let would be a sure-fire investment..."

Will Self: PsychoGeography

Saturday, 7 June 2008

A disturbing tale comes from Ralph in New York. I'm not sure we're going to be able to let him out on his own in future. Apparently in an antic state, he decided to take a party of friends over from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ferry. Being Ralph – and committed to the transgression of all norms – he wanted his party to dodge the ferry fare, assuming that since his first trip stateside, in 1970, it would've risen five-hundredfold, from a nickel to $25. Much to his chagrin, the ferry was entirely free, having been subsidised in a vote-grabbing move aimed at improving the Islanders' self-esteem.

Will Self: homebound

Saturday, 7 June 2008

I got home the other evening after two weeks away in the US. Even as I stepped from the door of the aircraft on to the gantry I felt as if I was home: the grey frayed carpeting, the crap-flat lighting, the odour of Heathrow Airport – the busiest in Europe – was at once chilly and cloacal, suggesting the presence of many thousands of (albeit invisible) bodies. It doesn't sound too good this, does it?

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