Sebastian Horsley – Mr. Horsley is a very naughty man, even the United States government agrees and would not let him enter this April siting his moral turpitude. That may be so, but he is also vicious, witty, intelligent and dare we say, wise. He has made being a dandy and outlandish his life’s work. Although his book, Dandy In The Underworld, is, as we’ve said, quite, quite naughty he is, in our minds quite a sympathetic and likeable person. We’ve been writing to him off and on and he has been with us a sublime combination of dangerous and gentleman. The perfect 21^st century Lord Byron. If you are old enough we heartily recommend his book, please though, the following questionnaire is quite rude, if you are under eighteen look away! Or at least tell you parents you did.

Photograph © Nick Cunard

The Pomegranate Questionnaire
 

1. Can you tell us a little about what you do?

I don’t have to do anything really, the authority of royalty should be effortless. I walk, I sleep, I talk, I eat, I fuck whores, I shun bores, I think, I drink, I take drugs, I love jugs.

2. Why that?

Why not? It’s a real problem in life ; to do something boring or to do nothing at all. Fancy a fuck?

3. Does it pay the bills? Does it matter?

No it does not. I think it is disgraceful that a coal miner earns more money in a year than I do in a whole hour. Oh well. Nothing matters very much, and very little matters at all.

4. What book did you last read?

But I astonish myself! Where do I find all the time for not reading so many books?

5. What is your idea of prefect happiness?

Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis : that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The search for happiness is one of the main sources of unhappiness.

That said : I dream of sumptuous boudoirs where the terrors of the world fade in a haze of eroticism and I am buried deep in an abyss of sensuality. In voluptuous calm, gorging our luxuries with stroking palms – one arm wrapped around Rachel 2, the other an opium pipe.

6. What achievement are you most happy about so far?

My book. In prose of incomparable grandeur I express thought of an unparalleled brilliance. Am I the best writer of my time? I’d say I was in the top one.

7. What is your most treasured possession?

Freedom comes from lack of possessions. Possessions possess you. My desire in life is of course to be a dandy … to have no obligations, no attachments, no wife, no child, no occupation, no possessions, no obvious means of support, visible or invisible. Basically no use whatsoever.

8. Have you swooned in the cinema?

I always swoon in the forgetting chamber. Any movie, even the worst, is better than real life. No other activity or art form provides so reliable an antidote to life, just so long as we can bring to it the necessary surrender.

9. Do you have a hero?

We have only to open our eyes to recognize our own heroism. Just getting through the Armageddon of everyday life is enough. That said I do. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Wilde, Byron; Tintin, Marc Bolan, Johnny Rotten, Quentin Crisp; Paul Stanley, Francis Bacon, Axl Rose and the Dadaists: there they were ahead of me, all dandies, roped together like mountaineers heading for the highest summits of beauty.

10. What is your motto or favourite expression or both?

If you can’t laugh at yourself, make fun of cripples.