‘Am I 68? 69?’ Irvine Welsh on growing old, getting clean, bashing out his new novel – and flirting with guns

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Three decades after he channelled his heroin addiction into the cult classic Trainspotting, the Scottish author has discovered the joys of yoga, breathwork and standing desks. But is he quite as ‘Zen’ as he claims? By rights, Irvine Welsh ought to be photographed somewhere gritty, looking grumpy, he says: “That’s the brand.” Beside a graffitied wall or at the docks, with a beanie pulled low, and definitely not smiling. But here he is, clear-skinned and wholesome in shorts and a T-shirt, drinking tea and – it’s hard to think of anything more off-brand – talking about the health benefits of yoga. Given his reputation for having lived in the worlds his books portray, he should or could look a lot worse. He guffaws at this, eyes a delighted blue, and repeats the phrase as if he’s found a new personal tagline: “Could look a lot worse!” Over the three decades since his cult debut, Trainspotting, was published in 1993, Welsh’s fiction has explored with humour the darker side of life. Drugs, c...
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‘Reminded me of Agatha Christie’: the shocking true story behind Ron Howard’s Eden

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Author Abbott Kahler, who inspired the film starring Jude Law and Sydney Sweeney, tells the stranger-than-fiction tale of mayhem on a remote island

“Was Dr. Ritter, With His Steel Teeth, Poisoned in Paradise? Was ‘Baroness Eloise,’ Known as ‘Crazy Panties,’ Who Ruled the Island With a Gun and Love, Murdered by One of Her Love Slaves After She Had Driven the Other to His Death? And Why is Frau Ritter Going Back to What She Once Called ‘Hell’s Volcano?’ – the Mystery of the Galapagos Island Which Germany Covets, to Be Solved At Last?”

This florid passage from a tabloid newspaper caught the eye of the author Abbott Kahler decades after it was published in 1941. “Basically it was the equivalent of a record scratch,” she recalls. “I was thinking: what the hell is the story?”

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