Trainspotting (1996) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 31 titles created 30 Nov 2011 a list of 22 titles created 04 Mar 2014 a list of 45 titles created 31 Aug 2015 a list of 35 titles created 10 months ago a list of 23 titles created 8 months ago Search for " Trainspotting " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 20 wins & 26 nominations.

See more awards » Videos A botched card game in London triggers four friends, thugs, weed-growers, hard gangsters, loan sharks and debt collectors to collide with each other in a series of unexpected events, all for the sake of weed, cash and two antique shotguns. Director: Guy Ritchie The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep. Director: Darren Aronofsky Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewelers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond. Director: Guy Ritchie "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: William H.

Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.3/10 X In future Britain, Alex DeLarge, a charismatic and psycopath delinquent, who likes to practice crimes and ultra-violence with his gang, is jailed and volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem - but not all goes according to plan. Director: Stanley Kubrick A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients. Director: Milos Forman A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend. Director: Sam Mendes After a simple jewelry heist goes terribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant. Director: Quentin Tarantino Amélie is an innocent and naive girl in Paris with her own sense of justice. She decides to help those around her and, along the way, discovers love.

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet A troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes, after he narrowly escapes a bizarre accident. Director: Richard Kelly When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a procedure to have each other erased from their memories. But it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with. Director: Michel Gondry Edit Storyline A wild, freeform, Rabelaisian trip through the darkest recesses of Edinburgh low-life, focusing on Mark Renton and his attempt to give up his heroin habit, and how the latter affects his relationship with family and friends: Sean Connery wannabe Sick Boy, dimbulb Spud, psycho Begbie, 14-year-old girlfriend Diane, and clean-cut athlete Tommy, who's never touched drugs but can't help being curious about them... Written by Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk> Never let your friends tie you to the tracks.

See more » Genres: Drama Motion Picture Rating ( MPAA ) Rated R for graphic heroin use and resulting depravity, strong language, sex, nudity and some violence | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 9 August 1996 (USA) See more » Also Known As: £4,703,433 (UK) (15 March 1996) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia There has been some confusion over the title as none of that particular activity actually takes place in the film. Irvine Welsh has since gone on record to explain the title, comparing the unusual hobby to heroin addiction, ie, something that only the people who indulge in that pastime truly understand. To them, it makes perfect sense. See more » Goofs Length of the ash on the joint that Renton and Dianne share after Renton visits Tommy. See more » Quotes [first lines] Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : [narrating] Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments.

Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck ... Profile pictures of the cast are shown during the beginning of the end credits. See more » Connections Words and Music by Ian Craig Marsh (as Ian Marsh) / Martyn Ware / Glen Gregory Published by EMI Music Publishing Ltd/Sound Diagrams Ltd/Warner Chappell Music Ltd Courtesy of Virgin Records Ltd (United Kingdom) – See all my reviews Renton is a heroin addict. He is one of a group of friends who live their lives day to day and hit to hit. When he tries to kick the habit he manages it for a while but eventually falls back into his old way. Meanwhile his friends are as messed up as he is, whether it be Spud's pathetic addiction, Begbie's violent rages or the fact that he is sleeping with a girl who still goes to school. When it came out this film was very hyped, the poster became a must-have on every student's bedroom wall and the media went nuts over it's supposed glamorisation of drug use.

The plot is very difficult to summarise, as it doesn't really have a narrative flow other than the very disjointed experience of Renton. However it manages to be very funny and imaginative all the way, using many different tricks and touches to be funny. The dialogue is very well written and I must admit I found it a lot funnier than the last few comedies I watched. The media may have condemned this film as promoting drug use, but I can only imagine that they watched a different film from me. Sure, the film shows drugs as being fun and enjoyable but, like Renton says, `why else would we do it?' However the film clearly shows a massive downside where people's lives are destroyed, people OD and lives go day to day just trying to get high. True, it does show this downside in a stylish and funny way but there is no question that the film is promoting drug use in any sense. Too often I see films that are style over substance; Trainspotting gets it just perfect, stylish but not at the expense of dialogue, character or film. It is helped by a great cast. McGregor jumped to stardom off the back of this role and he deserved it.

He keeps his character both likeable but repulsive at the same time and carries the film with surprising ease. The support cast is excellent, even if they lack the same good character of Renton. Whether it is the comic Bremner, the violent Carlyle or the tragic McKidd. While not all their characters are well developed, they do all give good accounts of themselves, whether it is comic or showing the effects of heroin on their lives. Overall this is a great film that is refreshing to see now without all the `cult student cool' hype or media feeding frenzy over it's supposed pro-drug approach. It is stylish, funny, depressing and downright sobering. 207 of 255 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Trainspotting declared Scotland's favourite novel | Books | The Guardian Irvine Welsh Trainspotting declared Scotland's favourite novel Irvine Welsh's tale of addiction in Leith voted best work from the last 50 years in poll run by Scottish Book Trust High scoring … some of the cast from Danny Boyle's 1996 film of Trainspotting.

Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar Close This article is 3 years old Irvine Welsh's grimy novel of addiction Trainspotting has emerged as the public's favourite Scottish novel of the past 50 years in a poll which was run by Scottish Book Trust . The book featuring heroin addict Mark Renton and a cast of transgressive characters including con artist Sick Boy and sociopath Begbie, won the most votes from a total of 8,800 cast by Scottish readers from around the world. Alasdair Gray's Lanark , combining depictions of real and dystopian fantasy Glasgow was voted as second favourite. Ian Rankin's eighth novel featuring his much-loved Inspector Rebus, Black and Blue, was third favourite. Readers voted for their favourites from a suggested shortlist of 50 novels by Scottish writers which was put together by literary critic Stuart Kelly and Scottish Book Trust. The late and much-missed Iain Banks, who died this June, makes two appearances in the top 10: once for Excession, an interstellar tale written as Iain M Banks, the name he used for his science fiction work; and once for The Bridge, a very unconventional love story published without the middle initial.

Alan Warner 's debut novel Morvan Callar , about a young woman who wakes on Christmas morning to discover that her boyfriend has committed suicide, leaving behind the manuscript of his unpublished novel, was at number seven. And in 10th place, Docherty by William McIlvanney. McIlvanney is best know as the "godfather of tartan noir" with his detective Laidlaw, but this portrait of working-class life in the west of Scotland is much revered. This was the second success for McIlvanney this week, after he was named as winner of the Spirit of Scotland award for writing . The shortlist was made up of William Dalrymple, David Greig, Robert Galbraith, and McIlvanney, with the winner determined by a public vote. Galbraith – real name JK Rowling – was omitted from the Scottish Book Trust list of 50 best Scottish novels because her books for adults were deemed not good enough to make the cut .

The 10 favourite Scottish novels 1 Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh 2 Lanark by Alasdair Gray 3 Black and Blue by Ian Rankin 4 The Bridge by Iain Banks 5 One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre 6 Excession by Iain M Banks 7 Morvern Callar by Alan Warner 8 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith 9 The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway 10 Docherty by William McIlvanney Trainspotting - seat of your pants Productions - The Elephant Theatre Trainspotting Disturbing. Gruesome. Funny. Entertaining and shocking in equal measure, Harry Gibson's stage adaptation of Irvine Welsh's cult novel about Scottish heroin addicts charts the harrowing, but at times hilarious, disintegration of four friends as they hurtle towards self-destruction in a world peopled by psychos, junkies and drunken Scottish fathers. seat of your pants Productions extends its acclaimed production of Trainspotting, a guest production at the Elephant Theatre, through June 2.

A disturbing, gruesome and darkly funny stage adaptation by Harry Gibson of the cult novel by Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting is not for the faint of heart. Featuring profanity, nudity, cigarette smoking, simulated sex and drug use, it’s a bleak, black, tragically humorous tale of a wasted generation, a journey to the heart of a world peopled by psychos and junkies. “Pulls no punches… A story about hopeless heroin addicts [that’s] fun to watch,” wrote Blog Critics. Agreed Backstage, “Thought provoking… strong direction and performances… finds the right balance between grim and funny.” The Los Angeles Post raved, “A brilliant piece of work… Put this on your must see lists.

If you are not familiar with the small LA theater scene this will make a believer out of you… pretty much as good as it gets for a drama.” Life In LA stated, “I’ve never enjoyed a live theater production more than I did Mathey’s rendition of Trainspotting,” Neon Tommy wrote, “Crude, racy, and completely unfiltered… genuine and deeply emotional,” Stage and Cinema called Trainspotting, “A trip worth taking,” EyeSpyLA hailed it as “pure intensity” and the LA Weekly said, "GO!" Trainspotting continues through June 2, with performances on Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 pm and Sundays @ 7 pm. Tickets are $20 on Fridays and Saturdays, and $15 on Sundays. The Elephant Theatre is located at 6233 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90038 (1½ blocks west of Vine). For reservations and information, call 323-960-7785 or go to Presenter / Producer: seat of your pants Productions Listed Categories Trainspotting (Literature) - TV Tropes Babies Make Everything Better : Until they die.

Bar Brawl : In the movie, Begbie starts one by tossing his empty pint glass off the balcony to the bar below, and shatters on a young woman's head. Slamming his knife on the table and rubbing his hands together with glee, he goes downstairs and declares that nobody is to leave the bar until the culprit is found. When asked by the girl's boyfriend who he is, Begbie simply kicks him in the balls , starting a massive brawl. The scene is slightly different in the book—Begbie begins to furiously interrogate the entire bar, playing detective and shouting at the bartender to call the police. The girl's boyfriend sets off the brawl by punching another man. After the massive bar brawl is over, he and Begbie together kick another man to a pulp, and he cheerfully extends his hand to Begbie. Who promptly kicks him in the groin and punches his face in. Batter Up : In the novel, Sick Boy makes use of one to kill a dog who had attacked its owner (who had done so because Sick Boy shot him in the balls with an air rifle ). He lampshades its use, noting that nobody on the east side of the Atlantic ocean keeps a baseball bat for playing baseball.

Berserk Button : Begbie has myriads of them. Better Than Sex : Several of the heroin junkies praise their drug of choice as being better than sex. Significantly, such comparisons are what lead Tommy to take up the habit after his girlfriend dumps him, with devastating consequences. Allison: It beats any meat injection. That beats any fucking cock in the world! Bi the Way : Mark ends up hooking up with a few men over the course of the novel, and doesn't see it as a big deal, although he feels more comfortable with women. Mark's flings with men are absent from the film, but the relaxed attitude towards same sex relations remains in place, making him Ambiguously Bi in the film. Black and Gray Morality : At least among the major characters. Some of their family members are good, responsible citizens. Chained to a Railway : The teaser trailer for the film, even though it doesn't happen. Also has Gallows Humour in spades. Character Development : The novel is about, in part, Mark's development from heroin addict into the mature adult that appears in Porno.

The first time around, both book- and movie-wise, Dianne is portrayed as a sex-crazed, club-hopping teenager; by the time Porno comes up she's toned her recreational drug use down and she matured into a pretty well-adjusted university student, working on her thesis and being more than capable to hold her own in a conversation. She still loves to party, though. The prequel focuses on Sick Boy's descent into villainy , showing how he developed from a Lovable Rogue to a borderline-sociopath . By the time of Porno, Second Prize has embraced sobriety (not that he had much of a choice) and religion , having distanced himself from the lads after getting ripped off by Renton. Begbie has gone through some by The Blade Artist, becoming more well-read, amicable and accepting of others, though his violent, psychopathic tendencies and urges - apparently stemming from what American analysts diagnose as intermittent explosive disorder - tend to resurface. Character Filibuster : Renton's "Choose life" rant. Serves as an Ironic Echo as this is what Renton states he intends to do with the money he stole from his friends.

Character Focus : Trainspotting is centered mostly on Renton, whilst Porno shifts the focus to Sick Boy. Skagboys has the two sharing the limelight. Cluster F-Bomb : This is made all the more obvious in the film that was based on this book. Comforting the Widow : Spud's mother receives this from Renton and his parents, but Begbie twists it into a rant that blames her for her son's imprisonment. In the book, Renton says: "There were no sacred cows for Begbie. Not even old ones from Leith whose laddie had just gone to prison." Additionally, Mark puts in a great deal of effort comforting his brother Billy's widow immediately after his funeral. Composite Character : Several in the film. Justified in that the book had such a huge cast that they had to be trimmed for the film. Matty's death is given to Tommy in the film, whilst Spud inherits some of Second Prize's character flaws. The unfortunate incident involving Davie Mitchell is also given to Spud in the film. Contemptible Cover : Look up the cover to Porno. Go ahead. Country Matters : Probably one of the most frequently occurring words in the dialogue.

A particularly notable example (almost Lampshading?) occurs when Mark accuses Sick Boy of being a "sexist cunt", following which Sick Boy points out the absurdity of using the words "sexist" and "cunt" in the same sentence. Crapsack World : Renton and his pals use drugs as an escape from the drudgery and misery of mundane life. The dives they shoot up in are, as you'd expect, completely disgusting and filthy, but the rest of Edinburgh isn't exactly portrayed as a cultural beacon either. In fact, the whole place is bleak, grey, and blighted with urban decay. Irvine Welsh cameos as Renton's dealer Mikey Forrester. Screenwriter John Hodge plays a policeman in the opening scene. Producer Andrew Macdonald cameos as the man who Renton tries to sell the "Victorian Townhouse" to. Gavin: The kitten was fine. Descent into Addiction : Not the major characters, most of whom are addicts at the outset of the story, but several minor characters undergo this, most notably Tommy, who is introduced to heroin by Renton after his girlfriend dumps him and ultimately contracts HIV.

Despair Event Horizon : It's implied that, for all his faults, Sick Boy is still a pretty decent guy. Until his daughter dies of starvation. What Renton says about this afterwards provides the page quote for this trope: "It wasn't just the baby that died that day; something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned." Tommy goes past the Horizon after his breakup with Lizzy. It doesn't end well. Disgusting Public Toilet : "The Worst Toilet In Scotland". Dramatic Ellipsis : In the movie Renton, while narrating his own inner thoughts in the third person, says them out loud. "Dot, Dot, DOT." Drugs Are Bad : Seemingly averted at first, but ultimately played straight. Renton gives an articulate and fierce defence of his lifestyle in the beginning, and the gang seem to be living fast and carefree at times, but tragedy and horror strike often. Ultimately Renton leaves the life. Renton's mother is on Valium, making her, as Renton sardonically observes, also a drug addict, albeit in a more socially acceptable way. Renton He's always been lacking in moral fibre. Swanny He knows a lot about Sean Connery .

Renton That's hardly a substitute. Sick Boy definitely cultivates the image, but it is Renton (at least in the book) that is perhaps closer to actually being this, constantly ruminating on his views on the world, quickly getting a grasp at psychoanalytical ideas when he is being examined and having an understanding on the overall ideas of Kierkegaard. Spud in the book is a failed example of this, constantly saying vaguely coherent rants on the importance of love and taking care of animals. However, he deserves credit for his astute observations regarding other characters, and is fairly well read despite some of it being beyond his comprehension e.g. Crime and Punishment . Fun with Subtitles : In the film, a scene set in a club uses a more realistic audio balance of club music and the characters talking, and as such features subtitles included to let the audience know what they're saying. Also, if you watch the movie with the subtitle track, certain lines of dialogue have been changed to sound somewhat cynical. The best example is "the worst place in London" being subtitled as "one of London's most desirable properties".

Gambit Roulette : Used and lampshaded in the novel's Bad Blood chapter, where the HIV-positive character Davie pulls this on Alan Venters, the man who gave the HIV to the former's girlfriend by raping her, thus leading to Davie's own contraction of the virus. His plan is to make friends with a dying Venters, so that he is allowed to visit him in hospital, and also seduces the mother of the rapist's only son so that one day she may trust him enough to let him babysit for her. When this happens, Davie drugs the child with a sleep-inducing substance and takes pictures of him, making it look like he violently raped and murdered the boy. Then he shows the pictures to Venters on his deathbed and suffocates him with a pillow, thus filling his last moments in life with immeasurable suffering. The Plan depended greatly on random chance (most significantly on Venters staying alive long enough for all the pieces to fall into place), a fact that Davie is well aware of. Going Cold Turkey : Renton tries to break free of his heroin addiction this way, but doesn't go all the way.

After his overdose his parents lock him in his room and force Cold Turkey on him. Good Times Montage : In the film, there's a cool montage when Spud, Renton, and Sick Boy start using heroin again. Predictably, though, the good times don't last. Groin Attack : Renton does this to a pitbull with an air rifle. For a vegetarian, Mark, you're a fucking EVIL shot. Begbie also tends to fight dirty. Hair-Trigger Temper : Francis Begbie is almost as dangerous to his "mates" as he is to everyone else. Renton even outlines a number of Begbie's myths that the gang must play along with, so as not to get beaten up. Heterosexual Life-Partners : Tommy and Second Prize. Renton and Sick Boy prior to Porno. Home Porn Movie : Renton makes off with one made by Tommy and Lizzie. Hilarity does not ensue. I Ate WHAT?! : In the novel, a girl jobbing in a restaurant is hit on by some drunken English Jerkass tourists. She retaliates by putting all kinds of squicky stuff in their food, from blood-soaked tampons to urine.

Idiosyncratic Chapter Naming : Some of the more chilling heroin problems are narrated by Renton in, well, Junk Dilemmas No. 63-67, with italics for emphasis. He only manages to get up to Straight Dilemmas No. 1 by the end of the novel, although his chapters in Porno could easily have been named as such. More significantly, each grouping of chapters juxtaposes Renton's long and hard transition from a full time junky to a reforming addict against his need to leave Leith behind: Kicking, Relapsing, Kicking Again, Blowing It, Exile, Home and Exit. Improvised Weapon : As an accomplished brawler, Begbie makes plenty of use of these. The book mentions that he has an arsenal of Stanley knives, knuckledusters, sharpened screwdrivers, and knitting needles (because there's less chance they get stuck in the victim's ribcage). Renton states that he does not actually rate Begbie as a terribly strong fighter without his blades. In Da Club : Well, sort of, since there are two clubbing scenes, but it's subverted.

The music isn't always banging, the lighting isn't always perfect, and not everyone is attractive, stylishly dressed, or having fun. Least of all Renton. Infant Immortality : Averted when Sick Boy's baby daughter Dawn dies of starvation and neglect. Informed Attribute : An in-universe example: Begbie fondly says of Mark: "This is a useless bastard; but he's goat style. A man ay wit. A man ay class. A man not unlike my good self." Immediately following this, Mark snarkily narrates: "Begbie always constructed imaginary qualities in his friends, then shamelessly claimed them for himself." He also notes that in spite of Begbie's fearsome reputation, he's not that good at fighting without using a weapon. The sleazy, drug-dealing, pimping Sick Boy is supposedly an extremely disgusting human being, but compared to Francis Begbie and Alan Venters, he comes off as just a lovable rogue. He does become a lot worse in the sequel. He's not above blackmailing city officials and pimping out girls for his own ends. Subverted when you look at the trilogy overall.

Sick Boy wants you to think of him as a loveable rogue, all the better for him to manipulate you. He's fooled his friends, anyone he can get business off of, his mother and sisters, Renton's parents (and they are also taken in by Franco and Billy's public personas so clearly aren't the best judges of character ) and of course the innumerable women he's been with. He only had two narrated chapters in the original, but got many more in Skagboys and Porno which go a very long way to show you what a scumbag he really is. Combined with other characters narrating about finding out sooner or later about his true nature, the reader is in no doubts he that is an extremely ropey, unlikeable individual. It was to his benefit that Renton and Spud could have been interpreted as giving him a bad press in the original. A more subtle one: Renton is, presumably, supposedly good at football . We never really get to see his skills, but he does wear the sacred #10 jersey. Ironic Echo : The "Choose Life" speech. The first time Renton delivers it, he's being sarcastic and cynical.

The second time, he's fully sincere about living that life. In the movie, the opening chase scene is replayed again with different music and narration after the baby dies, with devastating effect. Jumping Off the Slippery Slope : Not exactly, since the "heroes" are the ones who introduced him to the habit in the first place, but Tommy goes from soothing the pain of a breakup with drugs to ruining his entire life with drugs in the space of a few scenes. Karma Houdini : By the end of the story Renton in particular escaped any particular punishment, besides his life threatening withdrawal and his guilt. Subverted or averted in other cases: Spud did time near the middle of the movie. Sick Boy and Allison lost their child. Begbie lost his money and presumably had to deal with the cops in the end. The sequel establishes that he does end up going to prison for manslaughter. Mother Superior got his just desserts only in the deleted scenes. He lost one of his legs due to injecting too much heroin into it, and became a homeless beggar. Alan Venters, a rapist who knowingly gave AIDS to his victim, gets one of the most horrifically justified comeuppances of any character in fiction.

Limited Social Circle : Averted, at least in the book, where there are tons of people in the main group. Literal Metaphor : Early in the film, when Renton goes to Mikey Forrester to get his last hit, Mikey gives him opium anal suppositories instead. Realizing that they're the closest thing to heroin that he's going to get, Renton takes them and inserts them into his anus. Cue the following exchange: Mikey: Aye, you feel better the now right? Mood Whiplash : Over and over again. Mushroom Samba : Inverted - most of the characters' hallucinations take place when they AREN'T on drugs, and aren't pleasant at all. The Napoleon : In the book, Begbie is a tattooed and physically massive bully, but director Danny Boyle cast the relatively short Robert Carlyle on the belief that smaller guys are more foul-tempered. Nightmare Face : The scariest thing we see of Baby Dawn after she dies is her soulless, discolored face.

Nightmare Sequence : Renton ends up locked in his old bedroom by his parents to be forced through withdrawal, and as a result suffers vividly unnerving hallucinations; although they aren't all terrifying, the scariest one has to be Baby Dawn crawling on the ceiling and turning its head 180 degrees before suddenly falling on Renton. Nobody Poops : Thoroughly averted in a disgusting scene where Spud has a hilarious accident with shit, piss and vomit (in the book, semen as well - and Davie is the victim, rather than Spud). Also averted in Renton's sudden attack of diarrhea where he soils his pants. In the film, he goes diving into a filthy public toilet. The filmmakers in the commentary note that the water he swims in was supposed to look disgusting and filled with excrement, but it actually looks quite pleasant. No Periods, Period : Even more thoroughly and explicitly averted than Nobody Poops , and even more Squicktastic . In fact, almost every chapter narrated by a female character features an aversion of this. (Welsh possibly has some difficulty writing female characters.) Oh Crap!

: Begbie's reaction in the movie when he discovers that the girl he just picked up isn't quite what she seems . As it comes shortly after a lot of extremely dark stuff it's quite a welcome change of mood. — Begbie Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck... FUCK! One Steve Limit : Averted. Renton has Davie the father, Wee Davie the disabled brother, and Davie the workmate/friend. Parental Abandonment : In the book, Begbie abandons his and June's son. He's previously had kids with other women as well. It's implied that the same thing happened to him as a child; Renton and Begbie run into an "auld drunkard" in a train station who Renton only later realizes was Begbie's father (this scene also provides the book's title, as Begbie's father asks the two if they are "trainspottin'"). Posthumous Character : Mark's heavily disabled brother Davie. He's present in Skagboys , until his unfortunate passing. Potty Emergency : Renton's leads to his encounter with the famed "Worst Toilet In Scotland".

Renton: (narrating) Heroin makes you constipated. The heroin from my last hit was fading, and the suppositories had yet to melt. [moans loudly, doubles over] Renton: I'm no longer constipated. Potty Failure : Spud has a memorable one, when he fills his girlfriend's bed with thin alcohol-vomit, semen, piss and diarrhea. When the girlfriend's mother tries to take the soiled bedsheets, Spud is so embarrassed he holds them back, and they get into a tugging match - which ends with the whole family getting sprayed with it. Pragmatic Adaptation : The screenwriter John Hodge has said he considered the book unfilmable, so huge amounts were cut and new bits added to give the remaining fragments some sense of being part of an actual narrative. The Sociopath : Begbie, an Ax-Crazy psychopath who glasses a man for spilling his pint , carries around sharpened knitting needles to stab people with, and beats his pregnant girlfriend , all without a hint of remorse. Sick Boy is a borderline example: he manipulates everyone , pimps out young girls, and is completely self absorbed .

Despite this, he is shown to have some redeeming qualities , though these are mostly pushed aside by his opportunistic nature and growing heroin addiction. Alan Venters, a rapist and wife beater who knowingly infects a girl with HIV and shows no remorse for his actions is a pretty clear cut example. His one redeeming trait is his love for his son . Sociopathic Hero : Begbie's friends try to treat him this way, though he turns his rage on them often enough. Soundtrack Dissonance : Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" plays as Renton has a near-fatal heroin overdose, though the song is probably about Lou Reed's heroin addiction. Smug Straight Edge : Second Prize, Begbie and Tommy initially take this attitude, pouring scorn on their junkie mates. As it turns out though, they're not much better. Second Prize drinks like a fish, above and beyond any other character. Begbie is a heavy drinker, coke and speed user, and of course has his violence addiction. And Tommy has done every recreational drug available... up to and including the skag, to his great cost. Unless you drink as much as Second Prize, you're not really an alcoholic in Irvine Welsh 's literary universe.

This is Scotland, after all. Switching P.O.V. : In all three books in the trilogy, each chapter is narrated by a different character, with Renton being the most prominent narrator in Trainspotting, Sick Boy being the most prominent in Porno, with the two getting more or less an equal share of focus in Skagboys. Tall Poppy Syndrome : Self-inflicted by Renton. There Is Only One Bed : In the film, Begbie robs a jewellery shop with a replica pistol and hides out in Renton's bedsit. They end up having to share the bed, where Begbie twitches and convulses in his sleep. When Sick Boy joins them and the three of them end up sharing, Renton decides he's had enough and sends them to a flat he has trouble renting out. In the book, Renton ends up in the dilapidated basement apartment of an Italian homosexual he meets at a porn cinema, they share the only bed, Renton expecting that, since they're both fully clothed, nothing can happen. He wakes up a few hours later with a face-full of the guy's semen.

Throw the Dog a Bone : Spud spends most of the movie as a semi-coherent walking joke , but in the end he's the only one who gets sent his fair share of the loot from Renton. The Troubles : Referenced. Mark's brother is killed by the IRA while on a tour in Northern Ireland. The Unintelligible : Spud, particularly when he's been shooting up. For most of the movie, an incoherent Scottish mush comes out of his mouth that's impossible to understand for people outside Edinburgh. In the book, his narrated chapters feature the thickest dialect. Most readers probably have this reaction as soon as they start reading the book's dense phonetics. One gets used to it, however. Begbie's chapters in the books are often unreadable because he's so full of profanity and swears so much at the expense of actually describing what's going on. A particularly memorable chapter is the very short one in which every single person is referred to as 'that cunt ' with maybe the odd character attribute thrown in to help you along your way. Unsettling Gender Reveal : In the movie, but not the novel.

One of Begbie's club hookups turns out to be packing a salami surprise. His reaction is predictable , though much less violent than might have been anticipated. In the book, this happened to Renton, not Begbie. However, as opposed to panicking, Mark admits to probably just being bisexual and ends up getting to third base with him. Eventually, the violently homophobic Begbie caught Renton fondling the transvestite and beat him until he couldn't walk for a couple days. Unusual Euphemism : The "Morningside speed" Spud takes for his job interview is a slang term for cocaine. Morningside is one of the more affluent suburbs of Edinburgh, with the implication that people there are rich enough to afford cocaine rather than using amphetamines. Unwitting Instigator of Doom : Tommy and Lizzie's relationship might have been on very shaky ground, but Renton secretly swapping their personal pornotape, pushes it over the edge as Tommy cannot explain why it is missing and can't deny that someone else might have gotten their hands on it when him and Lizzie discover the swap.

The lonely Tommy turns to drugs in an attempt to mend his broken heart, decays severely both physically and mentally, gets infected with HIV after using drugs for just a few months, sinks into extreme poverty, suffers a stroke, and finally dies completely alone while lying in a pool of his own sick, and his body is first discovered when the neighbours complains about the smell. The Verse : A rough example. All of Irvine Welsh's books take place in the same universe, so the Trainspotting characters sometimes have fleeting cameo appearances in Welsh's other works. The extremely disturbing book Marabou Stork Nightmares (which is Nausea Fuel on paper) was his second book, and the rapist Lexo from that book makes an appearance in this one. Scary as he is, he is terrified of his "friend" Frank Begbie. Villain Protagonist : Mark Renton. He is after all, a heroin addict who shoplifts, sells drugs, takes sexual advantage of his late brother's widow, and steals thousands of pounds from his friends. He promises the audience that he's going to lead a normal life from then on, however. Violent Glaswegian : BEGBIE, and plenty more besides.

Vitriolic Best Buds : Renton and Sick Boy. In the book, Renton notes that the back-and-forth insults which began as jokes are becoming more and more deeply meant. By the end of the novel it becomes barely concealed mutual hatred come Porno. In a way, Sick Boy would understand, even have a grudging admiration for his actions. His main anger would be directed at himself for not having the bottle to do it first. Where Did We Go Wrong? : Renton's parents had this basic reaction towards his addiction. With Friends Like These... : Everyone is terrified of Begbie, and they all understand that he could turn on them at the drop of a hat. In the book, Renton elaborates that Begbie's friends have to pretend to believe several myths about him to keep in his good graces. Word Salad Title : The title seems to be nonsensical, but it's a shortening of the original short story's title "Trainspotting at Leith Central Station". The joke is that the station is long-closed and derelict, so trainspotting there is an utterly pointless, dull and squalid experience, like most things the characters do.

No one " trainspots " or even says the word in the film. In the book there is a brief scene where an old drunk later implied to be Begbie's father asks Renton and Begbie if they are trainspotting. The term is a slang reference to a junkie's search for a vein to inject drugs in. Fans often speculate as to the various levels of significance the title has to the story's themes. Wouldn't Hit a Girl : Viciously averted by Begbie and Alan Venters. Subverted by Second Prize: when he sees Venters beating up his girlfriend in the pub, he remembers his dad telling him never to hit a girl, advice he claims to have followed; but then observes that holding his girlfriend so she can't walk away from their arguments doesn't really count. Renton disagrees, and says it's the same principle. Also, when Second Prize and Tommy try to stop Venters publicly beating up his girlfriend, the woman suddenly turns into a Violently Protective Girlfriend , and viciously attacks Tommy with her nails. Even though he's shocked by the sudden assault, his "don't hit girls" instinct is so strong that instead of doing anything to her, he turns around and punches Venters instead.

:: Indexes :: Irvine Welsh - YouTube Irvine Welsh Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on May 11, 2016 Irvine Welsh catapulted onto the literary scene with his debut novel "Trainspotting," a lurid, frenetic and hilariously squalid tale of Scottish drug addicts and other lowlifes, which came to define 1990s Britain. His interest in the language and mores of Edinburgh’s working class has continued over 13 novels and short story collections, including his latest "A Decent Ride," which follows the adventures of a drug-dealing, sex-obsessed cab driver. Now based in Chicago, Welsh joined CHF to talk about his distinctive literary style and influences with Jessa Crispin, founder of Bookslut.com. This program was recorded on Mar 8, 2016, as part of Chicago Humanities Festival's annual Winter/Spring programming.

See upcoming CHF events: Help us subtitle and translate our videos: Subscribe for more thought-provoking videos: Support CHF with a donation: Follow CHF on Twitter: Like CHF on Facebook: Subscribe to the CHF podcast on iTunes: Help us caption & translate this video! Irvine Welsh: 'I'm the same kind of writer as I am a drinker. I'm a binger' | Books | The Guardian The G2 interview Irvine Welsh: 'I'm the same kind of writer as I am a drinker. I'm a binger' The Trainspotting author has returned to Renton, Sick Boy and Begbie with Skagboys, a prequel to his best-selling debut novel. He explains why he continues to explore those 'dark places' Irvine Welsh photographed in Leith, Edinburgh. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian Sunday 15 April 2012 15.00 EDT First published on Sunday 15 April 2012 15.00 EDT Share on Messenger Close When Irvine Welsh began writing 20 years ago, he hadn't much of a clue how to set about a novel.

To get himself going, he hammered out 100,000 words, telling himself it was "just my launch pad to get into what I need to write about" – and sure enough the trick worked. The first 100,000 words were duly discarded, and lay forgotten for years, while the debut novel – Trainspotting – turned its author into a literary superstar. Six more novels later, Welsh had an idea to dig those old words out again. They were stored on floppy disks he couldn't even read, so he found a data recovery expert on the internet, posted the disks off, and wondered what, if anything, would come back. "I was terrified that it would just get lost in the post. But if it was meant to be it was meant to be. I just thought: 'Oh well, I can't even remember what was on them anyway.'" When the words returned safely, Welsh figured the next step would be straightforward. "Naively, I thought, well, I've got 100,000 words here, this should be all right," and so he sat down to write a prequel to Trainspotting.

But immersing himself once again into the violent, darkly comic, chillingly affectless, uproariously chaotic world of his famous fictional junkies , Welsh ended up writing an epic so weighty and sprawling, it leaves Trainspotting looking like a footnote. "I just got into it," Welsh grins cheerfully. "It was fun. It was like meeting a bunch of old pals." The book revisits Trainspotting's cast of Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie and co, following the group's early flirtations with heroin before they slowly descend into full-blown addiction. I found it an enjoyable but increasingly frustrating read, because for all the brilliance of Welsh's dialogue , and the compelling dramas of his characters, the lack of any discernible narrative momentum defeated me before I could get to the end. To his critics , Skagboys will probably confirm that Welsh only ever really had one good idea for a novel, and has been trading off it with diminishing returns ever since, indulged by editors too in awe of his fame to impose editorial discipline. To fans of Welsh's disregard for literary convention, on the other hand, a bumper second helping of their favourite characters will probably only make them love him even more.

This impression of a semi-delinquent literary gatecrasher played a big part in Welsh's early popular appeal, and I think he must be fond of the identity too, because it's still how he presents himself today. We meet in an Edinburgh bar, and he's not just smiley and relaxed but astonishingly inarticulate, getting tangled up in sentences that stop and start and wander off at will, until a great gust of his laughter swallows them up. "I was in this shop in Edinburgh one time," he chuckles, "and this wee guy comes up to me like: 'You're Irvine Welsh , aren't you?' And I goes: 'Aye, I am.' And he said: 'I've read every one of your books.' And I said: 'Oh that's great.' And he goes: 'I fucking stole them all, I never paid for one.' Well that's brilliant!" People who secretly take themselves very seriously sometimes pretend not to by confecting an elaborate pretence of irreverence. But in Welsh's case, I would guess that the mischievous amusement is entirely authentic.

I tell him I'm not sure if he's a poster boy for recreational drug use – "Or the warning sign," he interjects, laughing. "I'm not sure myself sometimes." Trainspotting's influence on drug education campaigns does, he admits, entertain him. "If you look at all the drug education stuff, the anti-drug propaganda, it's practically been lifted right out of Trainspotting. And did I get a CBE or a knighthood or anything like that? No!" But he's not very comfortable about adopting any public position on drugs. "Obviously you want people to look after themselves and be safe, but it's basically up to them, you know. I don't really give a fuck what people do in terms of drugs." Whether he likes it or not, though, Skagboys draws Welsh into this moral territory. A prequel to Trainspotting must explain why young men in the tenements of Leith swapped traditional Scottish working-class family life for the squalid despair of heroin addiction, and the novel implicates everything from Thatcherism to family bereavement. But Welsh tried very hard, he says, not to write a crude socio-economic polemic.

"Not, 'Oh, they shut down this factory and now we've got nothing to do, let's take drugs,' kind of thing. But just to show, without making a big point about it, that the dynamics within the relationships and the family relationships started to change. The idea of people who were basically stuck in a house with nothing to do all day long, it's like the Christmas syndrome, when you all get together at Christmas and think this is going to be great, but it's a fucking nightmare. Everyone needs some kind of compelling drama in their life, basically. You could look at it from the other way around, and you say why wouldn't people take drugs, because there's nothing else." In that respect, Trainspotting's prequel is uncannily timely, for the very unemployment and social deprivation it catalogues is happening again today. "Well I didn't quite see that coming," Welsh laughs. "It wasn't like, as soon as the Conservatives got back into power, oh I must get this book out!" Welsh himself is an interesting case study because despite growing up in the poverty of Leith, he didn't suffer any serious damage in his childhood.

"I wasn't gang-banged by five uncles, you know?" Leaving school at 16, he muddled through a series of manual jobs before heading off to London in the 70s, where he wound up working for Hackney council and getting married. And yet along the way he nevertheless managed to get heavily addicted to heroin. Why did he ever try it? "Stupidity, really," he admits. "And ignorance." Having been told by everyone that one spliff would kill him, the discovery that this was not in fact true discredited every other drug warning he'd ever heard. "So after that it was like, oh, a line of speed? Yeah. Smack? Yeah." But unlike many of his contemporaries, he had enough of a life beyond addiction to be worth fighting for. He went cold turkey, kicked the habit, and the couple returned to Edinburgh, where Welsh worked for the council and studied for an MBA. Post-heroin, he was quite scared of drugs – until the early 90s rave scene and ecstasy seduced him, and inspired him to write. Welsh's famously enthusiastic recreational drug consumption has slowly diminished in recent years, but only because it's no longer worth it.

"I used to be able to go out, get fucked up, get up the next day and be fine. Now I just want to go back to bed and feel sorry for myself and kind of lie around sweating and groaning and all that." The trouble is, fans keep trying to give him drugs. "I'll be doing a reading or a signing and people will come up to me and …" He mimes slipping drugs into his hand. "It's like: 'Oh fuck, there's a couple of grams of charlie and loads of fucking dope.'" Some of them even hand him heroin. "They want to be able to say they've given you something. But it's like, it's a waste, because it goes down the fucking pan all the time. And I really have to watch it," he adds, starting to chuckle, "because if I'm doing a book tour in America, for example, because it's a long distance, you're on planes all the time. There's been times where I've just forgotten and I've been sitting on the plane, put my hand in my pocket and found a little packet. I really do have to watch that." Irvine Welsh and his wife Beth Quinn in 2009.

Photograph: Barbara Lindberg/Rex Features Welsh's life today is unrecognisable from the one he evokes in Skagboys and Trainspotting. He divides his time between Chicago, Miami and LA, and recently married for a second time, to a woman 22 years younger than him who rides dressage horses. The couple recently bought a horse, and Welsh admits: "I'm totally embarrassed, but I love this fucking horse. I don't ride him and ask him to do any work, I just talk to him and feed him nice treats so he loves me and he always tries to kiss me when I come into the stable. We've become new pals, I go out all the time to see him." At 53 he remains childless – to his immense relief, for having felt too young to be a parent in his 20s and 30s, he says he missed the "10-minute window" and now feels too old. "I'm probably a natural uncle. I can take the kids out and have fun with them and look after them, and I can be Mr Popular. But actually having to do the grind?

That stuff just doesn't appeal at all." If the 31-year-old Mrs Welsh decides she wants children, he will go along with it. "Well, you have to roll with it. But I still dread it. I live in fear." Children would help solve the problem of isolation, though, which comes with being a writer. Welsh's solution used to be to DJ in nightclubs. "Otherwise you're sitting there alone with people that don't exist, and it's not good for me. I go fucking nuts. I just become weird and antisocial." These days, on account of the hangover problem, his remedy is film. "I go to Hollywood, and meet people, and it's fun. I've been doing a bit of screenwriting, and producing, and even a bit of directing." A movie of another Welsh novel, Filth, will be released later this year, starring James McAvoy, and the author thinks it's going to be bigger than Trainspotting. "I just can't see anything as good coming out of Britain in a long, long time. This is just so different from anything else.

Completely original." Welsh doesn't seem to suffer much angst or self-doubt, which is part of his enormous charm, and perhaps not surprising, because as he says himself: "Writing has been handed to me on a plate." He never even had to find an agent; the first big London publisher he submitted Trainspotting to snapped it up, and his publishers have been happy to print pretty much whatever he writes ever since. "I come up with a blurb at the beginning, but the book'll always be completely different by the time it's finished. They say: 'Where's the book you were going to write?' And I say, forget about it, it doesn't exist." On the face of it, this should be every writer's dream, but in truth none of Welsh's novels have come close to the impact of his first, and I wonder if such sensational early success was in fact a mixed blessing. "Oh aye," he jokes, "it's all downhill from there." More seriously, he goes on: "You have to see it as a calling card, rather than an albatross around your neck, and you have to go into it with that attitude.

I think I've written a lot better books than Trainspotting. Mind you," he adds, grinning, "I've written some really shit ones as well." Which ones are which? "I'm not going to tell you! I've still got to try and sell these things, for God's sake!" Any attempt to impose discipline on his creativity would, by the sounds of it, probably be futile anyway. "It's just a big mess," is how he describes his approach to plot. "And I think, all this shit here has got to be put into some kind of order. It's like a police kind of thing, I've got the whiteboards on the walls and I've got all the pictures I've taken of different things, and stuff that I've taken off the net, and Post-it notes that I've scribbled on all over the wall. And there I am mixing it all around, taking it off the wall, putting it back up again." The writing process itself is equally chaotic. "I'm the same kind of writer as I am a drinker. I'm a binger . Abstinence followed by ...

well it's an addict thing, I'll sit there and my eyes will hanging out my head, it'll be five days later, unshaven not changed, really, really bad. And eventually I'll just get told: 'You fucking minging bastard, get a shower, for fuck's sake.' And then I'll get in the shower and be like, this is good, I'm going for a walk. I'm off down the pub." For such an untortured soul, the puzzle for many readers is why he always writes about transgression and darkness. Some grotesque sort of sexual or violent abomination is pretty much ubiquitous in his novels, and critics have accused him of being a literary shock jock, but Welsh says mildly: "Well everybody that writes has their own area of inquiry. And mine has always been kind of, why is it that when life can be so hard and difficult, we compound it by self-sabotage, doing terrible things. That's always been my main area of inquiry, and it does lead you to dark places." But success has, of course, led him away from the poverty of his youth, into a sunny life of dressage horses and Hollywood parties.

A suspicion of inauthenticity – or worse still, of misery tourism – has attached itself to Welsh ever since he wrote Trainspotting, and I wonder if he's experienced a form of survivor's guilt for escaping the tragedy of his old friends' lives in Leith , chiefly by writing about them. "No it brings massive fucking relief, to be perfectly honest. You can get into that drug-taking competition, and there's always somebody who's done more drugs than you, is more fucked-up than you. But they've got to actually write a book about it. Nobody's going to sign a royalty cheque because they've done more drugs than me, you know what I mean?" When his debut first came out and sold 10,000 copies, "I was like the hero. 'You're fuckin' tellin' our story, good on yer, telling it as it is. Go on son.' But when it sold 100,000 copies they said: 'What the fuck?' About the same book! I mean, every psychopath in Leith thinks they're Begbie.

And whenever there's a book out, everyone looks at me kind of funny when I come back, almost like to see if I've changed." They're checking to see if he's turned into a tosser? "It's a bit late for that," he laughs. "Cos I started off at that point." • Irvine Welsh will be reading from Skagboys at the Caves in Edinburgh on 20th April. For tickets go to The Real-Life Scottish Addicts Who Taught the 'Trainspotting' Cast How to Be Junkies - VICE The Real-Life Scottish Addicts Who Taught the 'Trainspotting' Cast How to Be Junkies On the 20th anniversary of the cinematic release of 'Trainspotting', we speak to members of Calton Athletic, the football team-cum-recovery group that was brought in to keep the film authentic. Craig Broadley is standing in the pissing rain on the Kingston Bridge, an ugly motorway flyover that cuts Glasgow in two, his mobile pressed to his ear like it's the only thing that can save his life. In just over a year he's spent £20,000 on cocaine.

He's lost his roofing business and he's on the verge of losing his girlfriend and his baby daughter, too. He is crying his heart out; spewing great big sobs. On the other end of the phone, John Ferns of the Calton Athletic Recovery Group – who's been there and done things with drugs you can't even imagine – is telling him he is going to fucking die. It's time to make a choice. Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electric tin openers... But why would I want to do a thing like that? Those opening lines of Trainspotting, Danny Boyle's 1996 film of Irvine Welsh's classic novel, are so iconic they're almost a cliché. The film – starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Johnny Lee Miller and Kelly McDonald – defined a generation. This was drug taking like we'd never seen on screen before – injecting, snorting, cooking-up, all done with gusto by junkies in Edinburgh's underbelly. There were the clubs, the parties and the sex.

Then there were the comedowns, overdoses and terrifyingly trippy withdrawals. And the reason it felt so real? "They got it from the horse's mouth," Willie Burns, one of the founding members of Glasgow's Calton Athletic Recovery Group, tells me. "The Trainspotting team came here and got clued-up. These were also our stories that they were depicting," says the ex-addict turned mentor. The Trainspotting cast on the left, Calton Athletic on the right, from the opening five-a-side scene (Screen shots via ) The Calton Athletic crew appeared in the Trainspotting credits as "special advisors", keeping the script writer, director, producer and actors right on everything from how to shoot up authentically to what withdrawal really felt like. "Danny Boyle, Ewan McGregor and Johnny Lee Miller used to come to our meetings and sit up the back as part of their research," says Colin Nelson, whose claim to fame is that he booted a football into McGregor's face in the opening five-a-side scene .

"They'd listen to what the life of a drug addict was like; the places it would take you." Set up by former alcoholic and drug addict David Bryce in 1985, Calton Athletic Recovery Group is in Glasgow's East End. It's a working class area, once known for its violence – the territory of infamous gang the Tongs. Even now the life expectancy of a man in these parts hovers just under 70. Then, it was even lower. Drug addicts were dying in their hundreds. Those in impoverished schemes and once-industrial areas decimated by Thatcher suffered most. Before Calton Athletic, if you wanted off heroin you signed up to a script for a sickly-sweet, bright green dose of methadone. Calton Athletic founders, Davie Main and Willie Burns. But these guys are not about half measures. This was about abstinence; getting fit and getting clean the hard way with other former hard men who had learned how to open up and cry about what had gone wrong. This was about creating a new sort of peer pressure. "I was 20 when I came," says Davie Main, who met David Bryce at a treatment centre. "There was no drink, no drugs, no going out.

I thought my life had ended. But though I didn't like what I was hearing, I liked what I was seeing. They were healthy; they were smiling." By 22 he was David Bryce's right-hand man and they went on to run a seven-day-a-week service for men and women, as well as a hugely successful football team and a schools outreach programme. But they clashed with authorities over their outspoken opposition to methadone: "It doesn't work. People are being sold down the river," he says. Funding dwindled. In 2011 David Bryce died and now, more than 25 years later, Davie runs the show on a much reduced, voluntary basis. Irvine Welsh Essay Examples | Kibin Irvine Welsh Essay Examples A Struggle of Boy vs the World: An Essay on Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting Trainspotting A Novel By Irvine Welsh Trainspotting is a captivating story of the random events that occur during a critical time in a group of Scottish junkies' lives. Irvine Welsh illustrates the confusion, anger and turmoil many heroin addicts are subjected to and what happens once they try to quit. The story...

564 words Trainspotting is a captivating story of the random events that occur during a critical time in a group of Scottish junkies' lives. Irvine Welsh illustrates the confusion, anger and turmoil many heroin addicts are subjected to and what happens once they try to quit. The story is centered around Mark Renton, an ordinary twen... 558 words A Glimpse at the Lives of Scottish Junkies in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh Trainspotting A Novel By Irvine Welsh Trainspotting is a captivating story of the random events that occur during a critical time in a group of Scottish junkies lives. Irvine Welsh illustrates the confusion, anger and turmoil many heroin addicts are subjected to and what happens once they try to quit. The story is cen... 566 words English Writing Essay Mia Warner Trainspotting is a captivating novel by Irvine Welsh. It tells the stories of the random events that occur during a critical time in a group of Scottish junkies lives. Irvine Welsh illustrates the confusion, anger and turmoil many heroin addicts are subjected to and what happen...

1,701 words An Overview of the Novel Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh Trainspotting: A Novel By Irvine Welsh Trainspotting is a captivating story of the random events that occur during a critical time in a group of Scottish junkies' lives. Irvine Welsh illustrates the confusion, anger and turmoil many heroin addicts are subjected to and what happens once they try to quit. The story is... 564 words An Analysis of Irvine Welsh's Captivating Story "Trainspotting" Trainspotting A Novel By Irvine Welsh Trainspotting is a captivating story of the random events that occur during a critical time in a group of Scottish junkies¹ lives. Irvine Welsh illustrates the confusion, anger and turmoil many heroin addicts are subjected to and what happens once they try to quit. The story is cen... 566 words The Tumultuous and Violent History of Wales Welsh History Wales has a tumultuous and somewhat violent history. During the early years A.D., the country was in turmoil with the Roman invasions, and the biggest defenses that the Welsh had were the deep, dark hills scattered all over the country. Without the safety of these hills, Wales would certainly have been tak...

960 words 2 pages A Look At the Rancho Alamitos High School Which Belonged to Garden Grove School Unified District It is not a big or popular high school compared to Irvine High School, Los Angeles High School, or Mater Dei Catholic High School. The school I am mentioning is Rancho Alamitos High School. It belongs to Garden Grove School Unified District. Rancho Alamitos High School considered as the smallest high school in the district,... 883 words The Important Economic Questions in the Article Rates Agony by Jessica Irvine ECOP 1001: ECONOMICS AS A SOCIAL SCIENCE – 2008 MINI-ESSAY The article titled ‘Rates agony: expect to be bitten again and it could be next month’ by Jessica Irvine (2008) raises important political economic questions. It is a perfect example of how current economic issues are discussed in the public sphere and highlight... 893 words The History of Welsh Identity and Nationalism How accurate is Gwyn A. Williams assessment of Welsh identity in the eighteen century when he states that they were A people who, apart from their language, lacked practically every attribute of a nation except for the perverse and persistent belief that they were one?

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Question: Irvine Welsh wrote which novel about Scottish heroin addicts?
Answer: Trainspotting