The British state is happy to kill you
In my late twenties, I became clinically depressed and prone to bouts of suicidal ideation — “suicidal”, in un-medical English. From 1993 to 1998 I lived in northern Italy; paradise, apparently, but to me it felt more like a J.G. Ballard novel.
Everyone was partnered, successful and “shiny”. I — an Iris Murdoch-obsessed homosexual statistician — lay on the lakeside beach, dully hungry from the latest pointless attempt to lose weight, surrounded by the mountains about whose majesty everyone insisted. I saw nothing but rocks. No bildungsroman lurked, waiting to be written: just pointlessness mixed with failure.
