Will Self

called Et in Suburbia Rego the last few months about the warts I took before I went into hospital because I realised that everybody, you know, the modern obsession is with the idea of the bucket list, that somehow when you're terminally ill...

You're going to drag yourself to Machu Picchu.

What I realized when I got seriously ill and realized I might die, there's a one in five chance of dying from the procedure I've gone through within two years, was that, in fact, I've lived all my life effectively in London.

All of it.

And that thing that torments any proper city dweller, which is I always go to the tube this way, why don't I go that way, was what I decided to do in the months leading up to going into hospital.

So what I did was I walked 500 miles around London suburbia.

And I think I probably, I already knew London probably far better than most people.

I've walked out of the city from the centre at least 10 or 15 times.

I used to do it twice a year.

But curiously enough, I've tended to avoid outer suburbia in all of this.

Absolutely.

These long walks.

Dickens would leave from Doughty Street for Gad's Hill in the evening, walk overnight composing two books, alternate chapters in his head.

I can only do one book at the moment.

Well, I feel I know her quite well.

I wrote a novel about her that came out when I was in hospital called Elaine about her life in the 1950s.

She was born in 1921 in Columbus, Ohio.

Her father, Jack Rosenblum, was...

Looked quite like me.

He was a loud wiseacre, is what you would call Jack.