http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-psychogeography-859535.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-psychogeography-859535.html <p>For years now pressure groups such as Living Streets and the Ramblers Association have been urging the Government to produce a co-ordinated national walking strategy. With almost geological slowness a "discussion paper" has been circulated, limping from not very interested party to indifferent one; in the meantime local authorities have pushed ahead with their own walking strategies. If you feed these words into Google you'll come up with plans advanced by councils as various as Luton and Cheshire. Reading them is to stroll into a petrified forest of bureaucratic jargon, where a Sits (Sustainable Integrated Transport Strategy) sits on the rotten boughs of verbiage.</p> Will Self Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-psychogeography--down-and-out-in-beverly-hills-855002.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-psychogeography--down-and-out-in-beverly-hills-855002.html <p>Nobody much talks about the homeless in Los Angeles. My hunch is that there's a kind of collective denial: in this, the most illimitable &ndash; and yet curiously individuated &ndash; of megalopolises, the homeowners tend to assume that being without one can't be that bad; after all, the weather's always good &ndash; there's benches, and 70-odd miles of white sand beach. The homeless &ndash; they can just hang out, then stroll the boulevards; while those who're saddled with the upkeep of mile after mile of Tudor revival, Spanish Mission, and Art Deco have to feel the acid burning through their duodenums, while the oil price hikes, and they sit, marooned, for hour after hour on the Harbour Freeway.</p> Will Self Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self--hebridean-interlude-850886.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self--hebridean-interlude-850886.html <p>For the second year we returned to Jura in the Hebrides for summer half-term. The weather was, frankly, absurd: sunshine and 70-degree heat from dawn to dusk &ndash; and so far north that's a very long, very bright day. Sea mist lay on the sound, making of the mainland another floating island. Local people said the fine weather had lasted three weeks; it was so dry that the annual Isle of Jura Fell Race was completed at a brisk clip-clop by the ungulate fell runners, and the winning time of three hours and seven minutes (by Robb Jebb of Bingley), was just shy of the record. Madness! For going up and down seven peaks, 16 miles and 1,500 feet. Not our style: we arrived two days after the race to take up residency of Jura House, learning only later that the runners who'd been staying previously, eschewed its considerable comforts for a trip to the wild west of the island, where they trained by living solely on limpets and sleeping on beds of bracken and deer ticks for several nights.</p> Will Self Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-psychogeography-845829.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-psychogeography-845829.html <p>Personally, I'm sad to see her go, but I'm astounded by how little public attention the departure of our reigning monarch from these shores has received. Perhaps it's something to do with the credit crunch and rising interest rates? So geared to the prayer wheel of the property market has the British collective psyche become that if the market stalls we can think of little else, and when house prices start falling you can chop the arms off the average homeowner, while he or she contemplates your bloody hatchet with Buddhist detachment, only muttering, "But they said buy-to-let would be a sure-fire investment..."</p> Will Self Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-psychogeography-841566.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-psychogeography-841566.html <p>A disturbing tale comes from Ralph in New York. I'm not sure we're going to be able to let him out on his own in future. Apparently in an antic state, he decided to take a party of friends over from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ferry. Being Ralph &ndash; and committed to the transgression of all norms &ndash; he wanted his party to dodge the ferry fare, assuming that since his first trip stateside, in 1970, it would've risen five-hundredfold, from a nickel to $25. Much to his chagrin, the ferry was entirely free, having been subsidised in a vote-grabbing move aimed at improving the Islanders' self-esteem. </p> Will Self Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-homebound-841569.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self/will-self-homebound-841569.html <p> I got home the other evening after two weeks away in the US. Even as I stepped from the door of the aircraft on to the gantry I felt as if I was home: the grey frayed carpeting, the crap-flat lighting, the odour of Heathrow Airport &ndash; the busiest in Europe &ndash; was at once chilly and cloacal, suggesting the presence of many thousands of (albeit invisible) bodies. It doesn't sound too good this, does it? </p> Will Self Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100