Of course, people’s views change over time, and there’s no shame in that. There’s nothing more common than for a youthful socialist to evolve into a middle-aged Tory. What is distasteful about Welsh’s apparent volte-face, however, is that he has made his fortune from exploiting a grotesquely picaresque community whose brutal existence has provided the most colourful, horrifying, virulently anti-establishment material for fiction since Balzac’s backstreet Paris.
\nWhile with one hand Welsh was guddling a hungry readership, many of whom had scarcely seen a book since school, with the other he was holding a champagne flute at Edinburgh’s New Town soirees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
From the start of Welsh’s career doubts have been raised about just how closely his widely reported wild behaviour matched reality. Former colleagues at Edinburgh City Council remember a dapper, punctual employee who, they said admiringly, “could have gone right to the top of local government”. Even as his novels were being devoured by the poverty-stricken, the addicted and the terminally unemployed, he is believed to have been dabbling in the property market, and we’re not talking council houses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Needless to say, I think she’s an idiot, even when she concludes that drug dealers are the “most successful capitalists of our time.” After all, Renton doesn’t really want to deal; he just wants to get away to Amsterdam, be a DJ, and live with a model. Is that so wrong?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My buddy Mitch once praised the Grateful Dead, not for their music–which he detested–but for their ability to get money out of hippies. He considered that one of the strongest legacies of the 60’s. Conversely, this writer at the Herald (UK) contends that Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, who recently “came out” as a Tory, is … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “noToryous?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,4,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amsterdam","category-literature","category-politics-implicit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-gJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9039,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-135-irvine-welsh-dmitry-samarov","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":0},"title":"Episode 135 – Irvine Welsh \/ Dmitry Samarov","author":"Gil","date":"September 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show #135: Irvine Welsh \/ Dmitry Samarov \"What would young, pre-Trainspotting Irvine Welsh think of you now?\" \"He'd think I was a total wanker.\" Irvine Welsh has created unforgettable characters in his novels, beginning with the cast of\u00a0Trainspotting in 1993. We caught up in his Chicago home and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chicago"","block_context":{"text":"Chicago","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/chicago"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/19879284434_945767beaf_o.jpg?fit=1174%2C1200&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/19879284434_945767beaf_o.jpg?fit=1174%2C1200&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/19879284434_945767beaf_o.jpg?fit=1174%2C1200&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/19879284434_945767beaf_o.jpg?fit=1174%2C1200&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/19879284434_945767beaf_o.jpg?fit=1174%2C1200&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":288,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/irvine-welsh-explains-it-all","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":1},"title":"Irvine Welsh explains it all","author":"Gil","date":"July 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Wit and wisdom from the author of Trainspotting: Hopefully you grow old, but never up. My whole life's been a midlife crisis. Dunno whether it's a prolonged adolescence or a premature menopause, it's seamless to me. Failure teaches you everything. Success teaches you nothing at all. You learn things about\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":372,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":2},"title":"ObservationsI've now spent a minimum\u2026","author":"Gil","date":"September 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"ObservationsI've now spent a minimum of several days in three European capitols in the past 5 weeks. Here are two things I've noticed:Europeans only have two kinds of Coca-Cola: Coke and Coke Light (Diet Coke). A couple of places had Vanilla Coke, but it was rare. This contrasts with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9917,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-188-hayley-campbell","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":3},"title":"Episode 188 – Hayley Campbell","author":"Gil","date":"October 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show #188: Hayley Campbell \"I love finding people who are obsessed with things. People who devote their lives to things are my obsession.\" Writer and Twitter provocateur Hayley Campbell joins the show for a conversation about her inability to describe her job (don't call her a \"content provider\").\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/29993554956_b8c114e6de_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/29993554956_b8c114e6de_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/29993554956_b8c114e6de_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/29993554956_b8c114e6de_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/29993554956_b8c114e6de_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5804,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-17-2010","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 17, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"December 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm in true batshit-crazy work mode, thanks to a couple of salespeople who don't know the meaning of the word \"deadline,\" but that won't stop me from posting a nice batch on Unrequired Reading for you! Only project. * * * These Amazon reviews of $6,800 stereo cables aren't quite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9280,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-148-the-guest-list-2015","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":5},"title":"Episode 148 – The Guest List 2015","author":"Gil","date":"December 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show: The Guest List 2015 It's time for our year-end Virtual Memories tradition: The Guest List! I reached out to 2015's podcast guests and asked them about the favorite book(s) they read in the past year, as well as the books or authors they're hoping to read in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"poetryape","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/poetryape-297x440.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}