Will Self

Oh.

He was semi-detached then for several years.

And that was bewildering.

I mean, people wonder about, you know, I often get asked as a satirist, you know, where this huge contempt for the English comes from.

And I don't really have a huge contempt for the English.

What I am is a proper satirist.

So I see societies from outside.

The English take it amiss because they think I should be one of their own and not see it.

But the thing is, I grew up estranged from the society I was in.

In part, yeah, and the Jewishness is interesting, because it was very odd, the Jewishness, because Mum was an anti-Semite.

I mean, she really didn't want to be identified as a Jew.

She was delighted that she had blonde children.

She would say to us, do not make a big deal about it, you pass.

You can pass.

My immediately older brother, although he's philo-Semitic, has always passed.

And in the 1980s, when there was still casual anti-Semitism among the middle class...

I would say, what do you do about it?

Because I would call it out.

You know, I had a boss who said to me, oh, you don't want to go and pitch to them over there, Will.

They're all yits.