It’s been good to do a couple of tours for people who are really into Trainspotting. I have a DIY tour I can send if you would like. Some folk ask for a tour which I can’t manage, but with help you can get into it a little bit on your own. The book is the real guide, of course, but we can have a good couple of hours together if you book me. It’s always nice to meet enthusiasts and people who are searching.
And I’m getting the book out to a few outlets other than bookshops. They range from The Station Bookshop, Pitlochry – run by volunteers and all profits go to national and local charities – to a couple of eat-ooteries just round the corner, at North Fort Cafe and Ostara. Pop along to either of them and have a chat with folk. If you know any places – they don’t have to be bookshops – that would like copies, be in touch with me. Tomorrow it’s Stockbridge Library, where we’re expecting a film crew. If I get better at this digital carry-on, I’ll try and post a link to the shoot or at least an image. I wasn’t brought up to this, you have to understand.
We’ve all been enjoying the warm weather these last few days, but it comes at a terrible price, to be paid in the next weeks and for ever. To the younger generation: sorry about that, we’re screwing up your world, big time.
Meantime, let’s enjoy life. It pays to wise up on all forms of addiction, and substance abuse is only one form. Unless you live in a pretty isolated rural area, there several and probably a lot of addicts within a mile of you. I went to the exhibition HOOKED in London before Christmas. One of the most harrowing exhibits was a short representation of a woman who loses her personality to an avatar on her mobile. She becomes a slave. It gets more and more sad. It’s addiction alright.
Welsh’s Trainspotting speaks from the depths of addiction to heroin, and my book opens it up and interprets it on location. Trainspotting isn’t set in some mythical abstraction. Addiction happens to real people in real places.