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1. What drew you to depict the City of London in the style of William Blake?

It's not so much depicting the City in his style as applying Blake's mythologizing approach to our contemporary situation.

Blake wrote about the events of his lifetime - including the American Revolution - using his own pantheon of invented angels and demons. It struck me that it could be fruitful to explore our current economic and political situation through a similar lens. It's also great fun as a writer to indulge in some faux-Biblical apocalyptic poetry.

2. Are banks today's dark satanic mills?

The big banks do seem like satanic mills in the sense that they are full of people working in service of the prevailing ideology.

Maybe the industrious banking hordes do a little better out of it than the workforce of the satanic mills, but then perhaps they're more analogous to the factory managers of Blake's day. What I find objectionable about big finance is the way in which its operations have such a massive influence on all our fortunes no matter how involved we wish to be, or whether we subscribe to its peculiar set of priorities. I do think that the present crisis offers us a chance to rethink what we actually want as a culture and to re-imagine what we may all be working for. I have no problem with the concept of a people selling things to each other but, to paraphrase Steve Earle (the singer), it makes a pretty miserable religion.

3. You portray debt as a life-sucking louse. Surely this is a problem as old as humanity?

Yes, I guess debt has been round for a long time and is not in itself a necessarily pernicious thing. But I think that for many, debt becomes a disabling and terrifying problem, particularly in an aggressively consumerist society. My louse image presents debt as a parasite, a monster that enslaves you, shuts down your options. I'm trying to evoke that hideous feeling when money worries burrow into your thinking and make you feel physically sick.

4. Your ‘poor devils' are a lifeless bunch, unlike Blake's rebellious figures. No chance then of an uprising?

Yes, the ‘poor devils' are pretty ground down at the moment, somewhere between slaves rowing a galley and Reggie Perrin at Sunshine Desserts. But it's early days. The plan is to produce a much longer version of Capital City that really gets to grips with the themes involved. Perhaps a Blakean rebel can rise from the ranks yet!

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