Bill Gates speaking on eliminating poverty from the world, onstage at the Live 8 event –

“The best thing that humanity has even done… And now, Dido.”

Something cheering. Today’s mp3 offering is ‘Library’, a fantastic song by Cursor Miner, released far too quietly in December 2003.

It’s a bouncy, impossibly catchy and entirely sincere laptop-synthpop song with rough-boy vocals, all about how wonderful public libraries are. Possibly the only track regularly played at Kash Point that could also feature in a children’s educational programme. Dedicated to all the gorgeous librarians among my readership. As Mr Miner says, their kind are indeed ‘often sexy’. Though perhaps not in the case of Mr Philip Larkin.

There’s also a terrific animated video to go with the song, which I thoroughly urge you to watch.

Cursor Miner plays in London tonight, at Club Hemisphere. I shall attend before going onto Mr Price’s Stay Beautiful.

the library the library
it’s a place where books are free
the library the library
it’s a lot better than watching tv

the library the library
it’s a place where books are free
the library the library
librarians are often sexy

A thought-provoking comment from Momus, made while he was railing against the state of 2005 London:

I admire your dandyism, I think you’re basically what people become in Britain when they remain defiantly defensive of basic aesthetic values. But I think the danger is the same as the danger of being a satirist: there’s a possibility that you become nothing more than the mirror image of the things you hate and revile, a walking challenge to the challenge. And there are so many other things you could be, in so many other cities. You might even find that there are places where people think, dress and feel as you do, and that it’s nice to be part of a community rather than some sort of stubborn sacrificial lamb out on an increasingly fragile limb.

Granted, he was speaking from the point of view of a Grumpy Old Ex-Pat passing through the capital, seeking evidence to fit his argument. But it has made me think. I’ve lived in this one room in North London since February 1994. It was Bristol before that, Suffolk before that. I always loved the idea of living in London when I was growing up, and regard it as a kind of ambition realised in itself. But have I now been here too long? Are all my current problems just symptoms that the moss is beginning to choke? How can I know if somewhere else is better for me right now, unless I up sticks and see for myself?

I always admired Mr Quentin Crisp’s ability to live in a Chelsea bedsit for most of his life, but then he was really waiting until he could afford to move to New York. I am not and will never be Mr Crisp. Thank goodness – I’d have to say nice things about Mrs Thatcher and unkind things about music, and I’d have to happily speak on the phone instead of using email. I detest speaking on the phone; particularly in these mobile-dominated days where most callers have to shout against traffic noise, and then the signal breaks up. Added to which most calls to my landline number are by automated recordings of Americans trying to sell me something. Thank you, Alexander Graham Bell.

Which is where you find me tonight, Dear Reader. Considering my life, feeling too tired too often, feeling every one of my 33 years and more, feeling that I will never be anything more than too many people’s Less Close Friend (another possible song title…), that people drift in and out of my life with their Dickon Edwards phases. I have one of those too – it’s just lifelong.

And still no closer to finding and retaining An Appropriate Source Of Regular Income. I need something to get me out of this turgid, soporific, failing state where every waking hour is spent just wanting to go back to bed. Lately, I’ve found myself ashamedly spending energy trying to get out of clubs, gigs and gatherings I’ve been invited to, plumping for an Unquiet Night In. I realise it’s rather hard to elicit sympathy for that, Dear Reader.

‘Poor Mr Edwards. He gets invited to too many London parties. It must be awful for him.’

I could say I enjoy being alone, but that’s clearly not true either.

But what is it I need? A Sex Life? A Proper Relationship? Or could it be A Move? Certain cities suggest themselves: Edinburgh, Oxford, Brighton, Toronto, NYC, perhaps even Gothenburg or Stockholm. I’ve still not even been to NYC or Toronto.

Right now, I do feel weighed down by the might of my life’s To Do list. Where to start? And I feel weighed down by this room’s decade of accumulated possessions. Evidence of time passed rather than a life lived.

My mother told me the other day, ‘If there’s something troubling you, you either do something about it, or you stop worrying about it and accept it.’

So, I must do something. But oh – the effort!