It wis like auld times, but in a sense that only served tae remind us ay how much things hud changed.

Most people with good jobs, middle-class occupations, what have you, are only one pitfall away from social embarrassment and destitution. It's so precarious. Even salaried people in the West now feel this sense of being trapped, not having the freedom to strike out.

What worries me is the professionalism of everything.

I think [Ecstasy] was a really good stab. It wasn't my strongest book or my strongest material, but they wanted to make a kinda "rave culture" movie.

I think, ironically, the media's been good for America, but Trump's been good for the media. He's revitalized The New York Times and CNN - it's never had so much integrity and so much power ever, and that's because being attacked by constant authoritarians and fascists with an agenda has actually got them to sharpen up and to get back to base principles about what the media should actually be. It's also that the circulation boost has removed this horrible, incipient commercial pressure that compromises media.

[Margaret Thatcher] was the invisible hand behind it. Without that, there'd be no Trainspotting and no Filth.

If there's very strong civic unrest you can see a strong party of the Right emerging, whether it's UKIP [The UK Independence Party] or an even further-right party.