Because I’m not privy to the inner workings of the Browser, that great blog, I’m not quite sure why the Five Books Interviews are being moved to a discrete site, though I hope it means those folks can be profitable and continue doing such wonderful work. Via the Browser, a passage from a great Telegraph obituary of Jungleyes Love, who made his way for 56 years as a fruitarian with a taste for psychedelics:
“Descended from privateers, Charles Gibaut Bissell-Thomas was born in Jersey on March 13 1956. He shed his given name while a teenager, changing it several times, first to Charlight Utang, then Soma Love, then (by deed poll) to Jungleyes Cism Love. More recently he called himself Jarl Love.
During assembly at primary school, he questioned his orthodox Christian headmistress about why the school was not also worshipping the Devil. Later, at Harrow, he contacted the Chinese Embassy and persuaded staff there to send 725 complimentary copies of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, which were promptly returned by the school authorities.
Several terms later his mother received a call from his housemaster stating that he was being sent home in the middle of term, not because he had been expelled but because he contacted the headmaster of Latymer School, Hammersmith, and had secured himself a place.
After entering Latymer he would never cut his hair again, and from his mid-20s no longer brushed or combed it. While perhaps hoping to achieve a neat Rasta-dread style, he ended up with a matted construction which was later long enough to use as a cushion while waiting at bus stops.
After graduating in Neurobiology at the University of Sussex he travelled extensively in Asia, spending several years with a witch doctor (or dukun) in Indonesia called Waktu Lemak (Fat Time).”