Will Self's Blog, page 4

On the betrayal of Afghanistan

Will’s latest column for The New European.

Radio 4 bonanza

If you missed Will’s Point of View, A Sense of Home, on Radio 4 earlier on, you can listen again here.

Also on Radio 4, Will returns to the Moral Maze for a special end-of-year debate on Meaning, with Rowan Williams, Alice Roberts and Bonnie Greer on 29 December at 8pm.

Sastrugi: a new short story

Pick up a copy of the brand new INQUE magazine to read Will’s new short story. Other contributors include Margaret Atwood, Max Porter, Joyce Carol Oates, Ocean Vuong, Tom Waits, Ben Lerner, Alexander Chee, Kae Tempest and Hanif Kureishi.

A journey to the bottom of my bin bag

“Click-clack goes the kitchen bin flap and it’s as if some definitive barrier has fallen into place in our minds and we forget — we forget about our rubbish. You may be like me, and have a dedicated recycling bin in your kitchen as well, in which case where you deposit your detritus delivers you either a little positive stroke — see how virtuous I am, carefully discarding this cardboard packaging — or a tiny demerit: perhaps I should have exhaustively washed out that yoghurt pot, so as to avoid ...

On prejudices

Confirmation bias and its role in culture and society.

On driving too fast

In this week’s Multicultural Man column, Will writes about his second speed-awareness course, this time a virtual experience.

A Posthumous Shock: How everything became trauma

A long essay in Harper’s Magazine argues that the symptoms we now call PTSD are only an extreme version of a distinctively modern consciousness.

The Great British Bake Off

On the politics behind the nation’s beloved baking show.

A Point of View: Car hatred

Will’s blistering attack on cars and their drivers, who are “told they have the ability to go anywhere when the truth is they’re shackled to a grotesque and Sisyphean go-round: they have to make the money, to pay for the car, to sit in the traffic jam, to make the money to pay for the car” for A Point of View on Radio 4.

On Daniel Craig

This week’s Multicultural Man column considers the James Bond actor’s comments on his fondness of gay bars.