Wayne Holloway is a writer and film director whose debut novel, Bindlestiff, is a satire on race, identity, film, friendship and almost everything else. Blending prose and screenplay, Holloway tells the stories of an ex-Marine journeying across a semi-apocalyptic America, and an English screenwriter trying to hustle his way in Hollywood. Holloway’s previous work includes a short story collection, Land of Hunger, and he is currently working on a film adaptation of Lee Rourke’s novel The Canal.

The Momus Questionnaire was created by musician Nick Currie, and is designed to identify the aspects of the subject’s personality which give them a positive self-image, or ‘subcultural capital’.

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Have you rebelled against someone else’s dreary expectations of your life, and become something more unexpected?

I remember teachers who said I was ‘riding for a fall’ at 15, stupid phrase to say to a kid, (although a sick John Holt track). May have had a few falls over the years, but am still riding, so fuck them ones.

What in your life can you point to and say, like Frankie, ‘I Did It My Way’?

I’ll get back to you when I’m same age as my Nan, 101, and probably say wasn’t world’s worst dad or partner or friend, or writer or film-maker, or…

What creative achievements are you most proud of?

My supportive/minor role in my missus’ studio, watching her work evolve (she’s a weaver…). Am working on a book which in part lionises some of the people who disappeared in the 80s, and hopefully fulfilling an obsessive fantasy about getting Christian Bale to star in a movie riffing on the free festival movement and the life of Phil Russell aka Wally Hope, from the Isle of White festival to the Battle of the Beanfield, titled ‘I am the Fox.’ Might have to start life as a novel first…

If there was one event in your life which really shaped you, made you the person you are today, what would it be?

The Soviet defeat of Hitler, Oh wait I’m not that old, but discovered what was then a little known fact when I was a teenager. Fake news always comes from the good old USA, usually by way of movies…

If you had to make a song or rap boasting about your irresistible charm and sexiness, how would you describe yourself?

Bushwhack Bill’s song Ever Clear says it all…obvs this being the fantasy projection of myself

‘And I’m glad that I’m here, gee
But it’s fucked up I had to lose an eye to see shit clearly’

or maybe even as an answer to Curtis Mayfield’s question ‘what do i want to be when grow up’ – ’I wanna be a muthafuckin’ hustler’

Have you ever made material sacrifices because of your integrity?

Inadvertantly, deffo. You never know how magnetic your moral compass is until it pulls you..

Describe a public personality who exemplifies everything you’d like to be yourself, then another public personality who incarnates everything you’d least like to be.

In the following registers..Matt Goss/Elton John…Jakob Sverdlov/Benjamin Netahanyu…Cardi A/CardiBb….Mosadeq/Bin Salman and finally/oddly Jenny Zhang/the endless great white male Bot that is an amalgam of Letham/Frantzen/Foster Wallace/Ford/Cohen/ et al..But TBH I would love to be Emanuelle Carrere…

If you were an Egyptian Pharaoh and had to be buried with a few key objects to take to the next world, what would they be?

A bottomless supply of vino from Noble Rot, Khrushev’s memoirs to bore everyone to death with (yes..), 20 white tip Marlboro lights to be enjoyed sans anxiety, cherry red doc martin 6 holers for stomping various, Astral Weeks and Marjory Razerblade on vinyl, and lastly all my fam and peeps…plus Richard Pryor

Do you have a favourite joke, quotation or proverb?

‘There’s no business like shoah business’ (Mel Brooks), ‘You gotta crack a few eggs to make an hommelette (Me/Stalin – attrib – mash up) and all of Richard Pryor.

What’s your favourite portrait (it can be a song, a painting, a film, anything)?

Robert Wyatt Shipbuilding/Brandenberg concertos/Forever Changes/and when Donny Glover plays Chris Hani in a movie about him, that would be it… the perfect portrait.