OK, I’m staying with the Welsh theme – you’ll have to translate the heading yourself – although I’m back in the homeland now and I’ve had a couple of excellent tours over the Hogmanay. The level of knowledge and enthusiasm is wonderful. I’ve taken note of a couple of points made during the conversations, and I’ll be checking my drafts. Can’t afford to be even slightly wide of the mark in a published piece of work! Thank you, everyone.
There’s much discussion about T2, Boyle’s film of the sequel to which he can’t give the title of the book. It’s due out in a few weeks, maybe this month. Let’s start a hare running. In Trainspotting Sick Boy has a recurring fantasy conversation with Shir Shean Connery. Boyle picked it up and made something out of it in the film. In Porno Big Tam (as Shir Shean was known in his Edinburgh days) is replaced by Alex McLeish, then manager at Hibs FC. They go in for some macho man-management discussions, all feeding Sick Boy’s ego and giving the reader a wee smile. I’m betting Danny Boyle will give Sick Boy a fantasy interlocutor in T2, it’s a continuation element of the whole project. But it can’t be McLeish. Who then?
My guess is that Boyle will give expression to his hatred of identity politics and nationalism. Looking around Scotland, who would match Sick Boy’s gambling instincts, carelessness with facts, readiness to make wild, unsupported claims? There are a few candidates, but the king of all would be Alex Salmond. He could make Sick Boy’s efforts look like schoolboy stuff. Could be a laugh. Let’s see.