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Welsh interviews...
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Irvine Welsh This is a time that the Scottish press revel in their power. before the festival. Thu suddenly becomes the thl/ Trina, they really fancy themselves — W: l is: as well! [laughs]
Will Self I never say anything bad about the Scottish press because it's just not worth my while. My wrfe's Scots. my parents in law are in Mothervvell — they‘ll be at the Festival. There's no escaping.
Welsh What I’ve found is that the tabloids are just following your family and good friends round. I’ve had a lot of fucking crap. And it‘s made me pretty Circumspect in the things I say because of it.
Self So where are you living at the moment? Welsh I‘m living in Dublin. One of the reasons I wanted to live there was because I don‘t know all that many people there. so I can just get on with stuff. I‘ve got into that mode now. For the last five years I‘ve been in San Francisco. Chicago. London. back to Edinburgh. I've not stayed in one place for more than a year and it kills you. It's fun, but it does your head in. and I want to be in one place.
Self Any panicular reason for choosing Dublin? Welsh It just feels like a decent place to be. I always get asked about the tax thing. but I don‘t need to do it for tax reasons. If I'd wanted to do it for tax reasons. I‘d have done it five years ago. for making serious money.
Self Yeah. it's a bit late now. The Rolling Stones paid 1.6% tax on £260 million earnings. This is the band that had their world tour sponsored by an underpants manufacturer. These are not subversive forces at all. they're the arch conservatives. they‘re the Blairs of rock music.
Welsh I just had the Mail really disappointed that I‘m not a Tory. I‘ve always fucking loathed and detested Blair. I just thought that Cameron was exactly the same. a fucking oily little bastard with no principles at all. But I said I think he'll probably win the election because he‘s got less baggage than Blair.
Self I think he will win. The British public now have a reliable appetite for style and no substance. Welsh It's amazing. Blair's got no credibility now with Iraq. He‘s done all these things. and then Cameron's saying. ‘Well I would have done exactly the same thing.‘ So you‘ve got somebody who's totally morally bankrupt. and you‘ve got someone else who's saying. 'Well I'd be just as morally bankrupt as him.‘ Blair‘s just so much his role model. Self Actually. tactically. what he'll do is hell allow his front bench to stake out slightly alternative positions. He‘ll write down a vacuous ponfolio of a manifesto. and it'll all be pulled in again if they win it. Politics is a very tedious business in this country. there‘s no doubt about it. I mean look at the current conflict in the Lebanon: there's very few positions of opposition that can be stated now. Galloway‘s a . . . I don't know what he is. but you don't want to throw your lot in with Respect.
Welsh You want someone with a bit of political muscle and wider credibility.
Self You‘re throwing your lot in with Galloway. and essentially a kind of revoltist Muslim gr0up.
Welsh That‘s it. There's no broad based thing. And it‘s also the Gorgeous George cult. because he‘s a
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14 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE ‘ .‘-—‘ T A...) 336
twisters ‘
ln Will Self’s new book his characters speak in a Cockney dialect, and Self acknowledges that in writing it down he looked to Irvine Welsh’s dialect-heavy writing for inspiration. So Welsh sat down with Self to chat about language, cycling and ‘oily little’ David Cameron.
one man band. You become one of his groupies. Self I'm interested because your books remain quite rooted while you've been peripatetic.
Welsh Yeah. I‘ve finished one which is coming out next year. The stories are not set in Edinburgh at all. Self I haven‘t started a new one. and I don't think I'll start writing until the end of the year. I don't like that feeling of being in abeyance. but it's also quite powerful to get very pregnant with ideas. But I‘m the antithesis of you because I never go anywhere. I was born about 500 yards from here. and I've become more and more rooted in London as the years have gone on. Some of my latest book [The Book of Dave] is in this trans-literated Cockney. phonetically translated. But it has its own diacritical marks. It‘s mixed up with text language as well. You know. you and to some extent. James Kelman. were the guides on that. I remember with your books that once you get into them. quite quickly you just hear it in your inner ear. And I think if you're really familiar with a hard Cockney accent. it‘s a lot easier.
Welsh It's a visualisation as well. You notice the words written down on the page, and you have to say it out. I think people are used to that now.
Self You start to internalise it yourself as a writer. I mean. you've been doing it for years. I've flirted with phonetic transcription. but this is the first book where I‘ve done huge sections of it. I wanted to do what you do. and also do what Russell Hoban does with his book Rid/er ‘fl/a/ker with a deteriorated English. If you can imagine what English is like if it’s decayed. like an Isotope that‘s gone through a half life. you‘re groping for meaning in it. You. Irvine. you‘re doing a different thing. because you’re writing a living tongue. a demotic tongue. But those
sections of my book ‘ 700 h IF YOU f:::f....:5::r.:; To telling me it's 700 years ' h f t I tt DO A ROAD usevrhga ° MOVIE IN rzausaa'tils‘a present. I've got YOU HAVE TO START IN CAITHNESS'
teenagers and the way that they speak. Teenage slang at the moment is fantastically vibrant. I'm amazed. People of our generation wrote off
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teenagers as not having militant sub-cultures any more. But linguistically it‘s fantastically rich. It’s a lot to do with the immigrant influx over the last 20 years. Welsh In Edinburgh it's weird because kids there have been influenced by that. but it's gone onto another hybrid now that's totally unrecognisable from say. Trainspotting kind of dialogue. but it's got elements. It would take me a long time to try and replicate that. I wouldn't even try and get into doing it. because it would just be too difficult for me. I don't know if I'd have the ear for it any more.
Self There‘s something I want to do. There‘s a stOry I wrote ten years ago about a guy who's driving from Caithness down through Scotland to England. and it’s got a character in it who's got a strong Caithness accent. I'd like to write it up as a screenplay. I've always had this idea that if you want to do a road movie in Britain you‘ve got to start in Caithness. You‘re never going to get enough fucking road otherwise. But I was thinking how I