Will Self's Blog, page 36

In conversation with Matt Thorne

Will Self is going to be in conversationwith the novelist Matt Thorne on 21 May at 6pm as part of the Brunel Author Series, where he will be reading from his work and discussing his writing. The event is free, but ticketed. For more information, email library.events@brunel.ac.uk.

On satnavs

Listen to Will Self talking about satnavs on the Today programme at the 1hr 52min mark here. Available to listen to until 17 May.

On location: Manchester

Read Will Self’s latest On location column for the New Statesman here.

Live Intelligence Squared debate

Watch Will Self in a live Intelligence Squared/ITV panel discussion about the role of smartphones in news-gathering, here at 6.45pm on Thursday 8 May.

The death of the serious novel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w478daLAZM

Watch Will Self discussing the death of the serious novel on Newsnight on Friday, and read an edited version of this year’s Richard Hillary memorial lecture, to be given tomorrow at the Gulbenkian theatre, StCrossBuilding, Oxford, at the Guardian here.

Real meals: Cereals

Let us recast the riddle of the Sphinx: who snaps, crackles and pops in the morning; snaps, crackles and pops in the afternoon; and snaps, crackles and pops in the evening? Answer: me – and probably you, too, for if there’s one food that unites infancy and extreme old age, the toothless and those defanged by time-the-devourer, then it’s breakfast cereals. Indeed, to allocate these comestibles a given slot within the daily-go-round is just asspurious as confining them to any point in the human...

A Living Wage for Ritzy staff

Will Self joined the staff on the picket lines at the Brixton Ritzy cinema recently to lend his support for their campaign to be payed a Living Wage. You can watch what he had to say here, on the A Living Wage for Ritzy Staff Facebook page, and sign the petition here.

The madness of crowds: Eye contact

In Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Man of the Crowd”, the unnamed narrator chances upon a strange old man in a London tavern. Following him through the streets after closing time and then throughout the night, the narrator realises, with mounting horror, that his quarry is compelled to seek out his fellow men – the waifs and strays of the urban night – simply so he may continue to be part of the generality rather than a singular individual. The poor fellow cannot otherwise exist: he is the man o...

On urban explorers

‘A bizarre trial begins on Monday at Blackfriars Crown Court. Its proceedings are predicted to last at least six weeks, and the costs — no doubt extravagant — will be largely borne by taxpayers. At the centre of this legal circus are a group of so-called “place-hackers”, people who get their kicks from gaining access to derelict, secret or otherwise off-limits parts of the city. In recent years such “urban explorers” have become increasingly bold in challenging the official demarcation of pub...

The madness of crowds: Going off-grid

As this is a special technology issue of the New Statesman, I thought I’d use the opportunity to write about the new generation of hi-tech wristbands that is coming on-stream. These stylish, lightweight devices enable you to keep track of a range of bodily functions – heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and so on – while continually monitoring your physical activity so as to present you with optimal targets, updates on these and pings of various kinds when you’re lagging. Linked upto sma...