I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves.

You can only live in the world you ken. The rest is just wishful thinking or paranoia.

We have to accept that capitalism is coming to an end. We can't provide paid employment for people, all the industries with technology are counter-intuitive to profit, and we have to have a transition to the conceptualist society. The only way to do it fairly is as a social democracy, a radical social democracy, which isn't compromised by neo-liberalism and isn't compromised by the rich, and isn't compromised by hegemonic, authoritarian interests: to have that balance between the government, the private sector, and then the individual citizens again.

It's different in Scotland. People who come to readings are more interested in literature as such, but the readership in general is really quite diverse. It's a cliche, but it's said that people who read my books don't read any other books, and you do get that element.

Ah suppose man, ah'm too much ay a perfectionist, ken? It's likesay, if things go a bit dodgy, ah jist cannae be bothered, y'know.

Now there is apparently a causal link between heroin addiction and vegetarianism.

I spend so much time on the screen when I am writing, the last thing you want to do is spend more time on the Internet looking at a screen. That's what I hate about all this technology.