10/02/2009: "Fun With BabelFish (Irvine Welsh Edition)"

Hi All,

Three posts in quick succession! You'd think I was an indolent lotus eater and unemployed or something, able to sit around all day with nothing better do than to make blog posts ... let's not go there, shall we?

So the other day I get an email from a regular reader of this blog:

http://laescuelamoderna.blogspot.com/

who also happened to have read my short story collection. He pointed me to this interview with Irvine Welsh, who is a huge favorite of mine---FILTH is one of my all-time favorite books, but I like everything the man's ever written---since apparently he'd mentioned my book. Well, this was nice to hear. Of course, the interview is in Spanish. No problem, I said to myself, that's why they invented Babelfish, the wonky, wildly innaccurate, and often paralyzingly funny online translator. So I plugged Mr. Welsh's interview on into the translator and presto! here it is, in all its obscure and perplexing glory.

Pioneers! #5: Irvine Welsh

Q: At what moment of your life you have been happier?
Right now.

Which is your greater fear?
To die without to have seen the Hibs gain the Scottish Cup/That the Hibs gains the Scottish Cup being I with life.

Which is your first memory?
A light bulb. To watch upwards from my cradle. My father removing my rabbit from peluche by the door to say to me good night.

To what person (he lives) you admire more and why?
Iggy Pop. Cool of the planet is cabrón more and an authentic horseman.

Which is the characteristic that less you like of same you?
The aggressiveness.

Which is the characteristic that less is accustomed to gustarte of the others?
The meanness.

Where you would like to live?
Sydney.

At what historical time you would like to have lived?
In years 50. The Hibs had a great equipment at that time.

Which would be your superpower?
Iran.

What gets depressed to you?
The climate in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

You have sometimes been in a fight?
If, when he was younger in a few. But I have stopped doing it, is much less worthy when you age.

You would kill?
By all means, in self-defense. Only an idiot would not do it.

Who would do of you in biopic of your life?
I do not believe that nobody was sufficiently stupid to accept the paper.

Haznos a list of your (4 or 5) favorite books.
Diary de Chuck Palahniuk
Crime and Punishment of Dostoievsky
The Fighter de Craig Davidson
There is to Bonnie Fitba Team de Ted Brack

If it is possible, Haznos a list of your (4 or 5) favorite discs/songs.
Colin Is “Overkill (acoustic version)”
I a.m. Kloot “Gods and Monsters”
The Jam “Pretty green”
Joy Division Half Man Half Biscuit
“Oven Gloves”

Vinyl, CD or MP3?
All.

Haznos a list of your (4 or 5) favorite films.
Trainspotting
They piss
Streets
The Dolce Bollard
Orphans

You have favorite shoes?
Yes. Of red leather.

Which is your favorite scent?
Cocaine.

And your food?
Haggis.

And your drink?
Beer in summer, red wine in winter.

How you define yourself politically?
It carries far left in a 90% of the subjects, center in a 5%, and rights in a 5%.

What is what less you like of your aspect?
I am too attractive.

Which is your guilty pleasure?
To see a whole box of series of TV in a pair of days.

You must what to your parents?
My good education and my sense of humor.

To who you would invite to your ideal celebration?
The people whom I me would like that she attended that celebration are my present friendly. They know who are.

What words or phrases you more often use?
Too much often: I will not return to drink. Insufficiently: I must happen to me through Tynecastle and see as they play the Hearts.

If you could change your past, What you would change?
When he was yonqui I swindled to a few people. To repair this damage always is painful and occupies long time.

When it was the last time that you cried, and why?
Reading an article of John Hughes, manager of the Hibs, on its childhood in Leith next to its brother.

How you relax?
I go to the pub and I lie down a laughter with the colleagues.

You have sometimes been on the verge of dying?
I have close been a few times. The time in which I saw more close by was a day in which I fell by the stairs; luckily my friend Bill took hold me to Hillman of the arm he rescued and me to the Spiderman.

What you consider your greater profit?
To marry to me with my woman. She is an exceptional woman.

What makes you sleep badly?
Histories that I write.

What song or songs you would like that they sounded in your funeral?
"Sunshine on Leith” I will sound in my funeral likes or no. Also I am considering “Hypo full of love” of a3.

Where you would like to be right now?
In Miami Beach!

Which is your appraised possession more?
My laptop.

How you would describe yourself same?
Like a good type able to be cabrón, or like cabrón able to be charming.

(Irvine Welsh does not need presentation. He is the pelotudo Scottish writer, working class and ex--punk, that wrote - between many other Trainspotting, one of best books on youth of working class thrown to lose that they have never been written. Thanks to Welsh the cosmic-literary pilaster is made level towards the good side, and the honest thing of its work resists the aerofágica slowness of all the pomposos writers who live on the story and the metaliteratura. Welsh is one of ours, to forever. Their answers are exclusive for the Modern School)

... oh, lord, I love babelfish. Apparently when Irvine Welsh was young, he swindled a few people. I love that word. Swindled. I would love to swindle someone, to be a known swindler, to swindle my idle days away. And I too love to go to a pub and 'lie down a laugher with my colleagues.' I mean, who doesn't? Any colleague of mine who doesn't like to lie down a laugher won't be a colleague for long! And look at those movie titles! They Piss? How could I have missed that one? La Dolce Bollard? La Dog's Bollocks, I say! And I think there must've been some translational confusion in that 'superpower' question, although Irvine's answer cracks me up. And thank God he's got a good buddy who, after a near-death experience, rescued him to 'The Spiderman.'

Anyway, that's all for now. I have a long day of swindling ahead of me, after which I plan to lay down a laugher or two with my good colleagues The Spiderman and Iggy Pop (or, as he likes to be known: 'The Authentic Horseman'); later on tonight I'm catching the midnight showing of "They Piss."

All best, Craig.