Irvine Welsh

Ah thought that every cunt over twenty was a toss an no worth speakin tae, until ah hit twenty. The mair ah see, the mair ah think ah wis right. After that it's aw ugly compromise, aw timid surrender, progressively until death.

That's all very well as an abstract moral principle, Avril, a coffee-table theoretical construct, but there's no denying the sheer gratuitous pleasure to be derived from seeing members of the ruling class in pain and torment.

Ah cannae feel any remorse, only anger and contempt. Ah seethed when ah saw that fuckin Union Jack oan his coffin, and that smarmy, wimpy cunt ay an officer, obviously oot ay his fuckin depth here, tryin to talk tae my Ma. Worse still, these Glasgow cunts, the auld boy's side, are here through en masse. They're fill ay shite aboot how Billy died in service ay his country n all that servile Hun crap. Billy wis a daft cunt, pure and simple. No a hero, no a martyr, just a daft cunt.

That cunt Nietzsche wis wide ay the mark whin he sais ah wis deid. Ah'm no deid; ah jist dinnae gie a fuck. It's no fir me tae sort every cunt's problems oot. Nae other cunt gies a fuck so how should ah? Eh?

The duty sergeant was going through his routine of asking each brawling set of prisoners who the Billy and who the Tim was. If the handshake is right he will let the Billy go and slap the Tim around a bit. That way everybody's happy. The Billy gets to feel superior and delude himself that being a non-churchgoing 'protestant' is somehow important; the Tim gets to feel persecuted and indulge his paranoia about masonic conspiracies; the sergeant gets to slap the Tim around.

The rhetorical question, the stock-in-trade weapon ay burds and psychos.

Funny scene, likesay, how aw the psychos seem tae ken each other, ken what ah means, likes?

The only people that ever made a difference to Billy were the Provos, and they were cunts as well. Ah've no illusions aboot them as freedom fighters. The bastards made ma brar intae a pile ay cat food. But they jist pulled the switch. His death was concieved of by these Orange cunts, comin through every July with thir sashes and flutes, fillin Billy's stupid head with nonsense aboot crown and country and aw that garbage. They'll go home chuffed fae the day. They kin tell aw thir mates aboot how one ay the family died, murdered by the IRA, while defending Ulster. It'll fuel thir pointless anger, get them bought drinks in pubs, and help establish their doss-bastard credibility wi other sectarian arseholes.

Rents once sais, thirs nothin like a darker skin tone tae increase the vigilance ay the police n the magistrates: too right.

That beats any meat injection … that beats any fuckin cock in the world … Ali gasps, completely serious. It unnerves us tae the extent that ah feel ma ain genitals through ma troosers tae see if they're still thair.

"We are all acquaintances now". It goes beyond our personal junk circumstances; a brilliant metaphor for our times.

Sometimes ah think that people become junkies just because they subconsiously crave a wee bit ay silence.