Thoughts at the halfway point of Generation of Swine

This is a collection of columns that Hunter S Thompson wrote for the San Francisco Examiner over a two year period back in the 1980s.

As you can imagine because these were topical weekly columns written for a local readership they have not all aged or translated well to a wider more modern readership.

What dates it fairly quickly are the regular political references to politicians and campaigns that have in some cases faded into the ether or were not things that managed to make a dent on the memory in the first place.

The second issue is trying to relate to a column that is referring to news events that barely registered a blip on the UK news radar even at the time of them happening.

So aside from these problems what you are left with is the writing. it is the usual HST fare with fabulous tales of drinking, madness, guns and politicians.

In some cases you find it hard to believe what he says took place actually happened - starting with the first column where his girlfriend gets a tattoo just so he has something to write about - but that of course is the way you have to read this stuff. You need to believe it happened, or at the very least suspend your disbelief, because if you go with him then this is very entertaining.

But I'm finding half way in that it is the problems with the way this collection of columns really hasn't aged well that is causing me problems and finishing it will be a relief.