Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a paid up member of the bureaucracy of compassion and have seen the dead ends of woke liberal culture first hand. There’s barely a social problem that hasn’t been made worse by the benefactions of the liberal elite ( such a cliche but if it fits, what do you do?), and the first chapter dives straight into the homelessness industry which I started off in. If you wanted to test out the iron law of ‘the more you spend the worse it gets’, you couldn’t pick a better start. I’m approaching the comfortable stage of middle aged mediocrity and after Covid the time to publish or be damned seemed right
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest (and first) draws on some themes which I’d previously covered in articles for an Anglo-American conservative leaning journal, the New English Review, but the inspiration to get it out had to be the psychic masturbation induced by a phantom plague. Covid is a problem that can be solved – it didn’t need to desecrate the collective dignity of nations but it did, and a whole heap of bad ideas paved the way
The book is With a Whimper, A Commentary on Cultural Decline. Its vaialble as kindle and paperback on amazon
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I believe its possible to be elegant and appropriately vulgar at the same time. If the subject matter merits it a bit of searing rudeness is all fair in love and war
What authors, or books have influenced you?
My fellow countryman Theodore Dalyrmple started the slum anti-missionary trend by chronicling the induced stupor of the underclass, and he was even less sparing of their social betters who put them there. Life at the Bottom is a great book, and whilst I couldn’t match the hard won insights of a prison doctor I hope I can come reasonably close as an ex-probation officer. Another more dated influence would have to be the great nineteenth century historian Thomas Babbington Maculey ; a great prose stylist and an absolute savage at justified character assasination
What are you working on now?
I work in local government and am stunned by the waste and inefficiency, particularly when its topped up with such smug reassurance. I can’t release it whilst I’m sucking at the teat but one day all will be revealed. British readers in particular will be in for a shock
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’d barely know, this is the first and my book came out this month!
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t be too earnest, and don’t skip your own reading. If you know everything you’re not worth reading ( and its unlikely you know as much as you think)
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
There’s countless variations, but Edmund Burke’s warnings against the great champions of Humanity, stands the test of time. They rarely have time for those close at hand and its usually a form of disguised misanthropy
What are you reading now?
Knut Hamsun’s impossibly depressing but poignant novel – Hunger
What’s next for you as a writer?
A year of sloth and self-indulgence
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Gogol’s Dead Souls
Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The King James Bible