Plot summary
Danny Skinner and Brian Kibby both work for Edinburgh's restaurant-inspection team as environmental health officers.
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.
Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. Environmental health is focused on the natural and built environments for the benefit of human health. The major subdisciplines of environmental health are: environmental science; environmental and occupational medicine, toxicology and epidemiology.
Skinner is a hard-drinking man, who is involved in football hooliganism and supports local team Hibernian F.C.. He is reading a book by Edinburgh chef Alan de Fretais called The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. He conceives a strong dislike for Kibby and bullies and undermines him mercilessly at work. He relaxes by reading Hugh MacDiarmid, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Schopenhauer, and watching Federico Fellini films.
Football hooliganism or soccer hooliganism is the term used to describe disorderly, violent or destructive behaviour perpetrated by spectators at association football events.
Hibernian Football Club, commonly known as Hibs, is a professional football club based in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland. The club plays in the Scottish Premiership, the top tier of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), finishing 4th in the 2017–18 season.
Christopher Murray Grieve, known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid, was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. Grieve wrote his earliest work, including Annals of the Five Senses, in English. However, he is best known for the work he published in "synthetic Scots", a literary version of the Scots language that he himself developed. From the early 1930s onwards MacDiarmid made greater use of English, sometimes a "synthetic English" that was supplemented by scientific and technical vocabularies.
Kibby is shy and inward-looking, and drinks Horlicks, collects model trains, and obsessively plays a computer game called Harvest Moon . Kibby's social life revolves around a hillwalking group called the Hyp Hykers and attendance at Star Trek conventions.
Horlicks is a malted milk hot drink developed by founders James & William Horlick. It was first sold as "Horlick's Infant and Invalids Food," soon adding "aged and travelers" to their label. In the early 20th century it was sold as a powdered meal replacement drink mix.
Star Trek is an American space opera media franchise based on the science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry. The first television series, simply called Star Trek and now referred to as "The Original Series", debuted in 1966 and aired for three seasons on the television network NBC. It followed the interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and his crew aboard the starship USS Enterprise, a space exploration vessel, built by the United Federation of Planets in the twenty-third century. The Star Trek canon of the franchise includes The Original Series, an animated series, five spin-off television series, the film franchise, and further adaptations in several media.
Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of the speculative fiction genre, science fiction. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expression as films, television, comics, animation, and games.
The plot describes Skinner's relationship with alcohol and his search for his unknown father. His alcoholism causes him to lose his girlfriend Kay. Gradually it dawns on him that the damage that ought to accrue to his body from his lifestyle is instead inflicted on Kibby. For a while he enjoys this, particularly relishing his promotion at work, but when Kibby becomes mortally ill he realises that he needs him. When Kibby comes out of hospital after a liver transplant (caused vicariously by Skinner's heavy drinking), they both realise that their dependency is mutual.
Alcoholism, also known as alcohol use disorder (AUD), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems. The disorder was previously divided into two types: alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. In a medical context, alcoholism is said to exist when two or more of the following conditions are present: a person drinks large amounts over a long time period, has difficulty cutting down, acquiring and drinking alcohol takes up a great deal of time, alcohol is strongly desired, usage results in not fulfilling responsibilities, usage results in social problems, usage results in health problems, usage results in risky situations, withdrawal occurs when stopping, and alcohol tolerance has occurred with use. Risky situations include drinking and driving or having unsafe sex, among other things. Alcohol use can affect all parts of the body, but it particularly affects the brain, heart, liver, pancreas and immune system. This can result in mental illness, Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome, irregular heartbeat, liver cirrhosis and increased cancer risk, among other diseases. Drinking during pregnancy can cause damage to the baby resulting in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Women are generally more sensitive than men to the harmful physical and mental effects of alcohol.
Kibby (who has retired on health grounds) puts on weight and becomes a heavy drinker in his own right. Skinner resigns and goes to San Francisco in search of someone who might be his father. He is disappointed in this as it turns out the man was exclusively homosexual during the period in question, but does find love at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, in the shape of American Dorothy Cominsky.
Skinner returns to Leith where he continues the search for his father and starts a relationship with Kibby's sister. When he discovers de Fretais having sex with Kay, he tries to kill them both, succeeding in killing the chef and gravely injuring his ex-girlfriend. By the end of the story Kibby is strongly alluded to be Skinner's half brother, with Brian's father, Keith Kibby being the man Skinner had been searching for. Skinner knows this with reasonable certainty, as he dies at Brian's hand.
Themes
The book marks a departure for Welsh in that, although ecstasy, cannabis and cocaine are mentioned in passing, there is little reference to the dance club scene of most of his other work. On the contrary, it is alcohol abuse which punctuates the novel, along with the themes of personal identity (touched upon in Marabou Stork Nightmares ) and romantic love (The Undefeated, from Ecstasy ).
The story is told against the backdrop of the 2004 U.S. elections and the war in Iraq.
Skinner's mother is a former punk fan, and although the question of her son's paternity is as good as answered by the end of the book, a possibility remains that Joe Strummer, the late Clash singer, could also have been a candidate.
Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror, with Stephen King describing it as "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language." He is also well known for "The Bowmen", a short story that was widely read as fact, creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.
Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh, first published in 1993. It takes the form of a collection of short stories, written in either Scots, Scottish English or British English, revolving around various residents of Leith, Edinburgh who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are implicitly portrayed as addictions that serve the same function as heroin addiction. The novel is set in the late 1980s and has been described by The Sunday Times as "the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent".
Frank Skinner is an English writer, comedian, TV and radio presenter, and actor. At the 2001 British Comedy Awards, he was awarded the Best Comedy Entertainment Personality.
A Grand Don't Come for Free is the second studio album from British garage and hip hop act The Streets. It was released on 17 May 2004 and is listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It is a rap opera which follows the story of its protagonist's relationship with a girl named Simone, alongside the mysterious loss of £1,000 from his home. The album can be considered a concept album, since the tracks on the album together in the exact order form a larger scenario overall.
The Chinese Feast is a 1995 Hong Kong film co-written, produced and directed by Tsui Hark, and starring Leslie Cheung, Anita Yuen, Kenny Bee, and Law Kar-ying.
The Black Dahlia is a 2006 French-American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Brian De Palma and written by Josh Friedman. It is drawn from the novel of the same name by James Ellroy and stars Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank. The widely sensationalized murder of Elizabeth Short inspired both the novel and the film. The film was screened at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2006, and was released in the United States on September 15, 2006. Despite its failure both critically and financially, it was nominated for Best Cinematography at the 79th Academy Awards, losing to Pan's Labyrinth. Mia Kirshner's performance as Short was also widely praised.
The Black Book is a 1993 crime novel by Ian Rankin, the fifth of the Inspector Rebus novels. It is the first book to feature Siobhan Clarke and Morris Gerald Cafferty appears as a main character. It is also the first book where Rebus is based at St Leonards police station.
Dead Souls is a 1999 crime novel by Ian Rankin that features Inspector Rebus. The title refers both to Joy Division's song "Dead Souls" and to the 1842 Nikolai Gogol novel Dead Souls; quotes from the latter appear at the beginnings of the two divisions of the book. The novel won the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière upon its publication there in 2004.
"Gas" is the second episode of the first series of British sitcom Bottom. It was first broadcast on 24 September 1991.
Paul John Ferris is an author and reformed criminal. His books The Ferris Conspiracy, Deadly Divisions, Vendetta and Villains led to controversy over the possibility of criminals profiting from their crimes.
Crime is a 2008 novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is the sequel to his earlier novel, Filth.
Holy Rollers is a 2010 independent film written by Antonio Macia, directed by Kevin Asch, and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Bartha, Ari Graynor, Danny Abeckaser, Q-Tip and Jason Fuchs. Holy Rollers is inspired by actual events in the late nineties when Hasidic Jews were recruited as mules to smuggle ecstasy from Europe into the United States.
Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance is a collection of three novellas by Irvine Welsh.
The Words is a 2012 mystery romantic drama film, written and directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal in their directorial debut. It stars Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Olivia Wilde, Jeremy Irons, Ben Barnes, Dennis Quaid, and Nora Arnezeder.
Miles Gonzalo Morales is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by the American publisher Marvel Comics, as one of the characters known as Spider-Man. The character was created in 2011 by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli with Marvel then-editor-in-chief Axel Alonso.
Kudiyirundha Koyil, is a 1968 Indian Tamil-language spy film directed by K. Shankar, starring M. G. Ramachandran, Jayalalithaa, Rajasree, M. N. Nambiar, Pandari Bai, Nagesh and L. Vijayalakshmi. The dual role by MGR and the Bhangra dance sequence in Sardharji role with L. Vijayalakshmi were a major hits. All songs were popular and it became the box office hit of the year 1968 and crossed more than 100 days in Chennai and other major cities. The movie is a remake of the 1962 Hindi movie China Town.
Young & Hungry is an American sitcom created by David Holden. The multi-camera series stars Emily Osment, Jonathan Sadowski, Aimee Carrero, Kym Whitley and Rex Lee, and premiered on ABC Family on June 25, 2014. On March 7, 2016, Freeform renewed the series for a fourth season, which premiered on June 1, 2016, and concluded on August 3, 2016. On October 24, 2016, Osment announced via Twitter that Young & Hungry had been renewed for a fifth season.
T2 Trainspotting is a 2017 British black comedy drama film, set in and around Edinburgh, Scotland. The film was directed by Danny Boyle and written by John Hodge, based on characters created by Irvine Welsh in his novel Trainspotting and its follow-up Porno. T2 was released in the United Kingdom on 27 January 2017, and worldwide throughout February and March 2017.
