He has written columns for The Observer, New Statesman, The Times, and Evening Standard. He has regularly appeared on television series such as Have I Got News for You and Shooting Stars. Self won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for the Quantity Theory of Insanity in 1991. He won the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction for Tough Tough Toys for Tough Tough Boys in 1998. In 2008 he won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for The Butt.