Will Self
Will Self: Initiates in a special ritual
Published: 12 September 2005
A very fat man, the waistband of his nicotine-coloured trousers tightly cinched about his paunch, was struggling to get over the row of tip-tilt seats. It would've been hard enough if he were unburdened, but he was clutching two plastic bins of urinary beer. "Oof!" he exclaimed and half-fell into the lap of an amiable, snowy-haired pipe smoker who was listening to the Channel Four match commentary on a rental earphone. The very fat man regained his seat and his composure. He supped his beer and there was an audible sigh of relief from the other overweight, middle-aged men sitting nearby. A few rows down, towards the front of the Lock Stand, younger, leaner, drunker fellows started up a chant: "Super Freddie! Super Freddie..!" but it soon died out and we were all left, staring at the rain which fell leadenly from a pewter sky.
PsychoGeography #92: A bird's eye view
Published: 09 July 2005
As I've had cause to remark upon in this column before (surely a phrase that will spark an electric thrill up the spine of every reader), the black-backed gull is a most curious animal.
PsychoGeography #91: Taking the bull by the horns
Published: 02 July 2005
"Warning – Bull in Field". The sign could not be more explicit nor, to the solitary walker in the English countryside, more exciting. Here, at last, is a challenge. After all, about the only hazards you are likely to face toddling over the rolling landscape of the South East of England are being mown down by a 4X4, or specked with spittle by an irate Nimbyist. But a bull – that's stimulating. My mind turns to Knossos, to ancient ceremonials of bull-vaulting; to Pamplona, pelting through narrow streets with fluid masses of horned beasts and foolhardy Antipodeans on their gap year.
PsychoGeography: #90: The buddleia of suburbia
Published: 25 June 2005
My friends Tony and Elaine have hit upon the ultimate solution to gardening - they've carpeted their backyard. When they moved in a couple of years ago they told me laying this 15ft square off-cut was purely to stifle the great hanks of bindweed which infested the little plot, and soon they'd begin tilling with a vengeance. Recently, however, they've discussed recarpeting the garden on account of the stench of rotten underlay. Well, to carpet your garden once may be a weedkiller, but to carpet it twice looks suspiciously like a lifestyle.
