Table talk for 23 October 2008

From Karl Miller's TLS piece on Rodge Glass's biography of Alasdair Gray:

1. "Gray is shown peeing into the sink in mid-dictation. A close woman friend is cited: 'He’s the nicest man I’ve ever met – I just couldn’t take the drinking.'"

2. "He grew up in the Riddrie district of the city, was a 'dreamy' pupil of the sort that used to be detected in the Scottish schools of the period, went to Glasgow Art School, and became a reluctant teacher. He had begun, and was to continue, to suffer from eczema and asthma. Success, when it arrived, could be arduous too. 'I thought to myself – I am now a famous and established man! I must now be able to make some kind of living . . . . I soon realised this was going to be more difficult than expected, and I thought, Oh fuck!' The expletive is overused now in print: here, it is exquisite."

3. "'Being bad at sex' was 'one of his favourite subjects.'"