Will Self's Blog, page 35

Stephen Gill’s Best Before End

‘A few years ago, I was walking with a friend in some fields on the southwest coast of Rousay, one of the northern isles of Orkney. There were a fair amount of cattle about, but we weren’t paying much attention to them and nor were they to us. True, one beast did look significantly bigger than the others, and I said to my friend, “Oh, d’you think that might be a bull?” at the exact moment that this rather larger kine lurched into a trot and began heading our way.

‘My friend – whose guiding spi...

The Orkney satanic ritual abuse panic

I’m in Orkney again: it’s a micro-society up here off the north coast ofScotland, where the preoccupations are farming, fishing and the sort of intense human interactions that often occur when folk are compelled to rub along together a little too vigorously. True, there is the annual “Ba”, or town football game, wherein a benighted bit of leather is fought the length of Kirkwall’s main street by snorting, roiling gangs of islanders, but overall these sparsely populated islands are not where y...

Real meals: Simpson’s-in-the-Strand

To Simpson’s-in-the-Strand for dinner with my old pal Martin Rowson, the cartoonist. It’s said of cartoonists that they always grow to resemble their caricatures (or perhaps it’s vice versa) but Martin bucks the trend. As the years go by, his politicians’ faces become either more oleaginous and orange or more brownish and creased; he, meanwhile, has the sea-green complexion of the truly incorruptible. Martin likes a restaurant – for a while now he’s been campaigning to save the Gay Hussar in...

On architecture

Will Self is going to be exploring the theme of capital in relation to new architecture in the city, in a lecture entitled When Liquid turns to Solid: the Spatialisation of Capital Flows in 21st Century London at Kings Place next Monday. This will be followed by a conversation with Andy Beckett and a Q&A.

For more details and tickets, go here.

On location: Outdoor smoking

Books do indeed furnish a room– but tobacco smoke gives it volume, substance and an aroma. The decline in smoking has important consequences for our perception of space and place. When I was a young man I’d meet my father at his club, the Reform in Pall Mall, and we’d sit on the balcony smoking cigars and blowing long, pungent plumes into the cloistral atmosphere of the main hall. The calibration of lung capacity with exhalation length was, I think, akin to the automatic calculation we make i...

Real meals: The pancake production line

Most weekday mornings I get up and make pancakes for the two of my children who still live at home. I can cook a passable Irish stew or lasagne – I’ve been known to attempt a ribollita or caldo verde (the peasant soup is a particular love of mine, of which more later) – but most parties agree that I excel at pancakes. I’m not talking about the big thin pancakes the English sprinkle sugar on and douse with lemon juice – these, the floppy wafers of the Anglican Communion, are quite alien to me....

Selfish, Whining Monkeys by Rod Liddle – review

Read Will Self’s review of Rod Liddle’s Selfish, Whining Monkeys at the Guardian Review here.

The Future of Work and Death

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FO-107eeq0

Will Self has contributed to a documentary entitled The Future of Work and Death that explores how imminent technologies may – or may not – have a seismic effect on how society operates. The film chiefly focuses on artificial intelligence, “negligible senescence” and silicon-based immortality.

There’s a Kickstarter page here too.

Self on Ballard

A chance yet again to listen to Will Self’s hour-long Radio 4 programme on JG Ballard, here (for six days).

Madness of crowds: The House of Commons

It was difficult to contain one’s emotions: after 42 years’ service, the Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir Robert Rogers, has retired. A fluffy-wigged and bearded presence who sat below the Speaker dispensing advice on procedural matters, and who heretofore made little or no impression on the wider world, Sir Robert was given a lengthy round of applause by MPs following the reading of his resignation letter. I say it was difficult to contain one’s emotions – but I wasn’t even particularly ne...