12 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 945 Aug 2001
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Just because he’s come face to face with the Bilderberg Group, the Ku Klux Klan and the Perrier panel doesn’t mean JON RONSON isn’t paranoid.
Words: Brian Donaldson
s the wind blows menacingly through the trees. the man sitting opposite stares at me through dark glasses. Sipping coffee from his Knights Of The Ku Klux Klan: The Last Hope For Amerieu mug. he tells of the time when his house was under surveillance. ‘1 was convinced they were spying on me out there. A car would park below my office and I‘d be sure they were watching. You start putting two and two together and everything fits and everyone‘s out to get you.‘ Yet. there‘s no need for me to fear: I'm not in the company of some white supremacist. paranoid patriot. with a gun under each pillow and a soul rammed full of loathing. For I‘m sitting in the peaceful lslington back garden ofJon Ronson. ‘the humorist from London' as he described himself to the British Embassy while being pursued across Portugal by a henchman of the shadowy cabal called the Bilderberg Group. The shades are protecting his mild hangover from the sun: the mug is a souvenir from his adventures hanging out with the new. improved. PR-conscious Klan: and his paranoia has thankfully receded. trapped in a time when his research into a book (Them) and TV series (The Seere! Rulers Of The World) was leading him up some very dark
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‘For a while I didn‘t want to tell lilaine [Ronson‘s Cumbemauld-born partner and mother of their three-year-old son Joel] about my paranoia because I didn’t want to worry her.‘ he says. ‘So. we’d have these stilted conversations: she'd say “right. are we going to the shops?" And I‘d go “YES. WE . . . WILL". Generally. though. I am paranoid. If we leave Joel alone for five minutes. is he going to drink bleach'.’ l was paranoid last night about whether I was being shit. I think that‘s why I get on so well with my interviewees. because we share that genuine sense of paranoia. Though mine comes from being Jewish while theirs manifests itself in a hatred of the Jews.’
Last night. Ronson was on stage at an intimate North London venue. the Horse Hospital. sucking on Silk Cuts (‘I worry more about the fact that I smoke too much than I do about the sweatshops in Indonesia: a terrible but true admission') before a packed room ( “l was paranoid that no one would turn up') discussing his adventures with extremists.
While the audience was filled mainly with like- minded souls out for a laugh at the expense of ideological obsessives. there was also a fair number of conspiracy theorists. a few fundamental ecclesiasts and a relative of Denis Healey. upset by the portrayal of the former Old Labour heavyweight in the closing scene of The .S'eeret Rulers ()f The World (the closest Ronson came to having to deal with a heckler).
Arranged by www.strang eattractorcouk. the event was billed as a discussion forum about Timothy McVeigh and the issues surrounding the Oklahoma Bombing. Was it a straight-forward case of a