Julian Gough on the Banking Crisis


CRASH! How I Lost A Hundred Billion And Found True Love will be released by Amazon, as a Kindle Single, on July.

“Being an Irishman living in Berlin, I probably have an unusual perspective on the crisis,” the former Toasted Heretic frontman tells hotpress.com. “I hope I’m fair to both sides. It’s the elites in both countries who screwed up, and the ordinary people who were dropped in the slurry pit. So I’ve changed all the names, obviously, to protect the guilty, which means I can let rip without worrying about the lawyers. And I wanted to play with the national stereotypes, too. I mean, the Germans don’t really understand their part in the crisis. They think they are these frugal saints, and we are reckless squanderers.”

The central character of CRASH! is the hapless Tipperary orphan Jude, star of Gough’s comic novels Jude: Level 1 and Jude In London (a third instalment, Jude in America, is set to follow next year).

“The story takes place in a country called Squanderland,” Gough explains. “My hero is Jude, a profoundly unsuccessful chicken farmer from County Fripperary. At the start of the story, he finds himself living in a henhouse with no roof, that he bought as an investment property at the height of the Celtic Tiger, for ten million euro, off a senior Irish banker, who shall remain nameless. But he still owns a lot of golfballs bearing the logo of his bank. Er, the investment didn’t work out… 


“And now Jude’s debt has been declared, of all the debts in Europe, the one most likely to default. It is small, but symbolic. So Bertrand Plastique, the head of the European Bank of Common Sense and Stability, and the Chanceller of Frugalia, Helen Dunkel, fly to Fripperary, along with the, ah, senior Irish banker. They reckon if they can stabilize Jude’s debt, and put a roof on his henhouse, they can reassure the markets, and end the Eurozone crisis. 
“But, you will be unsurprised to hear, it all goes horribly wrong. I won’t tell you the ending, but if Hollywood had to film it, it would bankrupt them. Epic finale. Epic. Gone With The Wind meets Transformers 4 meets World War Z.”

Following on so soon from the release of the Anglo tapes, Gough may well have found himself in the right place at the right crime.
“Jesus, I’ve been laughing and crying listening to the Anglo tapes this week. Some of the more ridiculous lines sounded like they were taken straight out of my novella.”

In related news, President Michael D. Higgins will be in the audience for a rehearsed reading of Gough’s stage play about economic disaster, The Great Goat Bubble, with the original cast from last year’s premiere at the Galway Arts Festival. That’s on July 7 at the Swift Satire Festival, in Trim (4 days before the release of the Kindle Single.) 
[link]swiftsatirefestival.com/whats-on/a-bite-of-satire-in-the-company-of-president-michael-d-higgins[/link]

Watch him alongside HP's own Olaf Tyaransen for GAF TV: