Gridskipper

How many artists do you know who've been crucified? As in nailed to a cross? British underworld dandy Sebastian Horsley did the whole Christ thing, had it filmed by Sarah Lucas to a soundtrack by Gavin Rossdale, and then fell off, ripping his hands open on the way. He's been a junkie, a whore, and a gangster's bit of rough, and he spent the GDP of a small African country on hookers and H. Harper Perennial publishes his Dandy in the Underworld: An Unauthorized Autobiography next March — one misery memoir that won't make it into Oprah's Book Club.

We're going to imprison you in the city of your choice for the rest of your natural life. You can do anything you want there, but you must stay in that city forever. Where would you choose?
I'm already imprisoned in the city of my choice for the rest of my unnatural life. I will stay here forever. Soho. London. I never travel. I hate travel. My preferred form of travel is to lie on a divan and have the scenery carried past me.

You can travel all you like. The knowledge you gain from your voyages is bitter. You grow up to discover the unpalatable truth. That life is shit. You can discover this without going anywhere. Your journey into your own interior will be enough. Go to the lavatory. Sit in it. Smell the shit. You got it. Life is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable. A solitary cell whose walls are mirrors. Look in the mirror. We are all imprisoned in our own skins, for life. And it is dangerous to free people who prefer to be slaves. A slave is a free man if he is content with his lot, a free man is a slave if he seeks more than that. Fancy a fuck?

In a minute. Why would you live in this city forever and not somewhere else?
Because I love London. The city has a blackness almost as hideous as my heart. And the city changes more quickly than the human heart. The sinister and the beautiful in its dusks and dawns. It is a monstrous city. London is all that is beautiful and all that is ugly, a place where ugliness reveals its own beauty where every outrage blossoms like a flower. For in London, every human flaw, from a single wound to the corrupt heart, has been sealed in the amber of artifice. The great city : That majestic stone, those spires whose fingers point to heaven. I love the bustling city crowd - so tolerant in its indifference. The twisting, swarming streets of London, snaking their way like arteries and veins through a body are where I feed the great need. Like a suicide I shall open these veins to freedom. I love you horrible life. I love you horrible city.

In what part of the city would you reside?
Soho. Did you ever wonder if this world is just another planets hell? Have a look at Soho. Hell is the red-light district of Heaven. God made the country and Satan made Soho. Soho is proof that hell is full and the damned walk the streets. The lost, ruined, and shipwrecked moving across the chaos of the living city. The debris of humanity. Soho shows society in the process of committing suicide. Soho is a whore with syphilis, her knickers pulled down, her face abandoned; a mess too revolting to complete. If you cram rats into a small room they will attack, sexually assault and even cannibalize each other. I am a God in the body of a man living happily in the Soho zoo. Living in Soho is like coming all the time.

Where and what would you eat?
I cannot tell you how disinterested I am in food. The only thing I know about it is that, generally, the better food tastes, the worse it is for you. I personally stay away from natural foods. At my age, I need all the preservatives I can get. Health nuts are going to feel pretty stupid someday, lying in hospital, dying of nothing. And of course the trouble with eating food is that it doesn't work. Five or six days later, you're hungry again. The only case for eating is that the impact of the drugs is substantially enhanced.

What would you do for fun?
Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all. It is ghastly. Middle age is the time of life when the most fun you have is talking about the most fun you used to have. When your medicine chest is better stocked than your drinks cabinet. What can you do? I don't know. If you can't laugh at yourself, make fun of cripples. I guess I would go off to the brothel to get a good housemaids wank. And then lose my penis to a whore with disease.

Where would you go for a night on the town?
My flat. It is lighthouse for losers. They get off at Dover and make their way over.

What kinds of shops are worth going to?
None of them. A shop is a place where people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't like. I always enjoy strolling down Bond Street. I like being reminded of all the things that I don't want. Shops seem to me rather like charities (and, as you know I hate charities). They help the super rich (and the vulgar) to unburden themselves of their cash. They don't actually sell objects - lizard-skin cufflink boxes, gold plated noughts-and-crosses sets — they sell more exclusive commodities: Aspiration, Smugness, Eternal Life. And you can take all that and shove it all the way up. I am sure there is ample room.

Now, now. And on the flip side: What city would you never, ever visit again, if you had a choice?
Hull. Hull is basically a cemetery with traffic lights. A must for suicides. Not that you'd need to bother. The transition between Hull and death would be unnoticeable. It is nowhere of a place that has never really recovered from the war. One half of it appears to be burnt down, and the other not to be built up. The docks are a special zone where no single nationality is dominant and where civilization has begun to dissolve into the sea. Even the name "Hull" is ghastly — the weariness of it, its connotations of emptiness, dullness and destitution. Nope, it is not necessary to have relatives in Hull to be unhappy. So my dears, if you're ever passing Hull — keep going, it's a dump. I am the most exciting thing to come out of Hull apart from the A1. Fancy a fuck?

Not just yet. Despite your claims, you have traveled a little — the Philippines and Amsterdam, for example. What's the first thing you look for when you arrive in a new city?
My knob. Nine inches of angry gristle.

Can you recommend a good brothel?
My house. 7 Meard Street. Black Bell. Come to my room at 7 p.m. If you're late I'll start without you.

Are your publishers making you travel over to New York to publicize the book? Any plans for what you'll do in town if that's the case?
God knows. I've always hated New York. It's so smug and pleased with itself. They think that they are years ahead of Britain, whilst the reality is they are just about six hours behind it. Also you can't sin in New York since they cleaned it up. In fact there is not the slightest scent of sin in the whole dustbin. It's curious that they bothered to invade the puritanical, tyrannical Iraq when they are exactly the same. You can't smoke, drink, take drugs, or fuck. The only real difference seems to be that you can shop and see the women — they have replaced Purdah with Prada, communism with capitalism, and sneaked up on extremism from the other side. But in all of this conspicuous consumption their only real greed is to feed so they have all got extremely fat. At least the veil protects us from a lot of rather ugly women.

Thank you. I think I'll pass on the fuck though.

Debriefer is a weekly interview of random individuals about their favorite cities. If you'd like to be interviewed for Debriefer, let us know.