Saturday – to High Tea in Highgate to be interviewed by an Italian fashion mag lady (for being a Modern Dandy), over the shop’s home made cakes and pots of tea. And eventually, scones. Turns out Ms Nunzia has never encountered the concept of Afternoon Tea or cream teas before. So I do my ambassadorial bit and order some, which she enjoys. I also explain to her what Marmite is, which she saw in her hotel and which absolutely fascinates her: the consistency, the taste. Given London is rapt to Italian food and drink everywhere you go – types of coffee, types of sandwich, types of cheese to put in the sandwich – it’s nice there’s a few less glamourous, flat-named items on the table that hold an unlikely sense of the exotic and mysterious to visitors from other lands.

You’re meant to either love or hate Marmite, but I actually don’t feel strongly about the stuff either way.  Don’t really mind it, I suppose. S’all right. There’s my slogan.

==

Monday night at the night shift goes on forever, as we have to deal with all the stories about swine flu. More work, while there’s new people to train and others off sick. I’m there till 7.15 in the morning, trying hard not to fall asleep at the desk.

A slovenly-dressed man standing near me on the tube home is sneezing in a loud and ostentatious way. I keep my distance. Not just paranoia after reading 150 articles about swine flu, I tell myself. He IS shoving his hand down the front of his tracksuit bottoms repeatedly, as well as keeping up the thunderously liquid sniffing, and having a fiddle down there. Uncaring – or perhaps oblivious  – of others in the carriage, here at half past seven a.m. on the Northern Line. You swine, I think.

Last night: to the Only Connect theatre in King’s Cross for ‘Future Me’, a superb new play about a liberal, middle-class lawyer convicted of paedophilia, and how it affects those around him. On the surface it looks in danger of being a box-checking and hand-wringing Issue Play,  but thankfully the writing is strong enough to keep it as a good, gripping drama about people first, topical debates second.  Though that’s arguably an issue in itself: daring to look at society’s modern ‘monsters’ as even the slightest bit redeemable is too much for some. Had the play been written by, say, a tabloid editor, all the characters would have had to kill themselves in the first five minutes.

In fact, there was a Louis Theroux documentary on TV only this week – which clocked up a few complaints -  where he visited a Californian institution of correction for sex offenders. Just like ‘Future Me’, this real-life jail featured a sympathetic, rather sweet man who’d taken up guitar playing, and a female prison therapist who spoke entirely in therapy jargon. The phrase ‘Future Me’ is a rehabilitation term used by the play’s therapist character, who actually seemed more human than her real-life Californian counterpart in the TV programme.

I’d been made aware of the play because I’m acquainted with the actor David Benson, who appears in it as an unrepentant fellow inmate, chillingly peddling intellectual pederast theories. Something of a departure from his one-man show about Kenneth Williams.

Then I heard from my fellow Beautiful & Damned DJ Miss Red at the Boogaloo, aka Robyn Isaac, that she was in it too, as the main character’s girlfriend. And it turns out the music is by Simon Bookish, whom I slightly know from a third London social scene. So that clinched my attendance.

A play about paedophiles in a theatre in King’s Cross may seem hardly a big draw for a Friday night, yet the venue (a former Baptist church) is pretty much packed. In the audience I spot the comedian David Mitchell, of Peep Show and Mitchell & Webb fame. I presume he’s not entirely like his Peep Show character, reluctantly dragged to the theatre by a girlfriend, secretly wishing he was at home watching a DVD of ‘Heat’ (‘So much cheaper than seeing a play. And you get Al Pacino AND Robert De Niro.’)

I go for a drink afterwards with Miss Red and Mr Benson at the nearest pub, The Carpenter’s Arms, round the corner in King’s Cross Road. Nice old fashioned place, looking unchanged for decades, and not yet affected by the ongoing gentrification of King’s Cross. Turns out Sheila Hancock grew up there in the 40s and 50s, when her parents ran the bar.

Saturday afternoon + evening: to Wanstead for a screenplay writing session with Stuart N. Never done this style of writing before: two people in a room throwing ideas about, writing them down. It does force you to get something done: I refuse to leave until we’ve plotted out the rest of the story and given it an ending. And we do.

The distraction with two-person writing sessions is, of course, to just sit and chat about shared interests, or gossip about friends or people in the news, or show the other person a book or film or internet article that they’d like. We do that too, but just about manage to keep it in its place. The sense of needing to get back to work is doubled, and harder to avoid. It’s easier to work than not work.

We both chat about the excellent film In Bruges, for instance, but Mr N also praises the deleted scenes on the DVD, which I hadn’t seen. So he shows me them on his TV – but only AFTER we’ve finished writing.  And indeed, there’s two memorable cut scenes which are frankly better than some entire non-deleted movies.

One scene stars Matt Smith, now known as the next Doctor Who. He plays the younger version of Ralph Fiennes’s Kray-like gangster in a flashback to the early 70s, strolling casually into a London police station to enact revenge on a detective. The revenge itself is violent, surreal, highly unlikely, and really rather brilliant.

I can see why the scene was cut, but given the expense and effort that went into it – period hair, clothes and locations not used elsewhere, actors hired purely for that one scene – plus one special effect – it must have been a pretty hard decision.

Another quick scene features Ralph Fiennes on the Eurostar, quietly dealing with an irritating passenger via a fantastic put-down straight out of Derek & Clive. Like the Matt Smith scene, it justifies the invention of DVD extras, those digital alibis of the cutting room floor.

Yesterday – meet with Dad in town. We take a look round the London Transport Museum together, and I see the bits I didn’t see at the DJ event the other day. There’s a couple of horse-drawn vehicles on the top floor which are jaw-dropping objects of beauty in anyone’s book.

Then I take him for dinner at the Wolseley in Piccadilly. Something I couldn’t do for years while on the dole. Now I have a bit of cash, it’s the one of the most searingly rewarding things I can spend money on. As Michael Bywater points out in his book-sized rant on modern society, ‘Big Babies’, even the word companion means ‘with bread’. Friends are meant to eat together, not just ‘add’ each other online and eat alone. Parents, doubly so.

I used to hate being seen eating – equating it with being caught on the toilet. Nowadays I love cafes and restaurants, whether cheap or pricy, and hate being seen buying one-person food to take home.

Recent outings. Three birthday parties in London pubs, one for Mr Stephen Harwood (Browns, St Martin’s Lane), one for Ms Shanthi Sivanesen (The Duke, Roger Street), and one for  Ms Heather Malone (Big Red bar, Holloway Road).

At all three I notice I’ve cast myself yet again as the lone invitee who knows the birthday person but who doesn’t really know any of the other friends there. So I do wonder what the others think when I turn up and greet the birthday person affectionately, but politely wave and try to catch the names of everyone else. To this end, I’ve been sometimes mistaken for a boyfriend, or a hoped-for boyfriend. Though I’ve yet to be taken for that other role fitting such a position at parties – the birthday drug dealer.

Big Red in Holloway Road is a curious place. The decor is a kind of crossover rockabilly, heavy metal and Goth – black walls, low lights, barmaids in gingham and punkish hairdos. Two pinball machines: one based on the band Kiss, the other on Doctor Who. With Sylvester McCoy as the main Doctor.

In amongst this tattoo-compatible gloom, one rare source of brightness  is a small TV mounted high above the bar showing, inexplicably, a golf match.

Friday before last was an early evening event at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. Organised by Travis Elborough. I’m employed to do a spot of DJ-ing, Cathi Unsworth reads a short story of hers (Ms U being a Good Hair Author), and the band The Real Tuesday Weld – who once supported Fosca in Athens – play a set, starting with the singer and clarinettist performing on the open top deck of one of the vintage buses in the museum. Even better – the singer holds an umbrella. Their set is slightly curtailed by a power failure towards the end, and I’m now wondering if it’s to do with the use of an open umbrella indoors, thus invoking bad luck. Worth it for the bus top performance, though.

I get the impression the LTM is one of those word-of-mouth museums in London which more people really need to know about. Since it was revamped a few years ago, everyone I know who’s been sings its praises to the hilt. Favourite exhibit for me is the London Bus Conductor’s Dressing Mirror, with a list of cardinal London Transport rules from a time outworn printed along the side, such as ‘Always Be Clean Shaven’.

My DJ playlist:

Tom Lehrer – The Masochism Tango (single version)
Louis Armstrong – Mack The Knife
Eartha Kitt – I Want To Be Evil
Bugsy Malone Film Soundtrack – Bad Guys
Peggy Lee – Fever
Andy Williams – House of Bamboo
Frank Sinatra – Let’s Face The Music And Dance
Ella Fitzgerald – Night And Day
The Chordettes – Mister Sandman
Louis Armstrong – Cabaret
Buddy Greco – The Lady Is A Tramp
Marilyn Monroe – Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend (Swing Cats Remix)
Dory Previn – Yada Yada La Scala
Bryan Ferry – These Foolish Things
Topsy Turvy Film Soundtrack – Three Little Maids
Anita O’Day – You’re The Top
Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Are Made For Walking
Ute Lemper – All That Jazz (solo album version)
Glenn Miller – In The Mood
Alessi Brothers – Oh Lori
The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes For You
Shirley Bassey – Big Spender
Serge Gainsbourg – Initials B.B.
Brigitte Bardot (subject of the above song) – Everybody Wants My Baby
Blossom Dearie – I’m Hip (contains the lyric ‘once again, play Mack The Knife.’ So…)
Bobby Darin – Mack The Knife

Am determined not to let the day disappear without a diary entry. It’s going to be one of those, I’m afraid.

But what have I done since waking? Lying in bed, feeling utterly awful for the first part. I can feel the sheer anger of my body clock at me – it was just getting used to 7 days of daylight waking, night time sleeping, then I force it back into night shift mode again. And it’s screaming at me. Waking up after a forced delayed sleep isn’t a refreshed feeling at all. It’s a feeling of being more tired than ever, and it’s no use to anyone.

Last night, I was fighting sleep at the workstation – so hard not to drift off then and there, sitting at the computer, surrounded by people. First night of a 7-night shift tends to be like that. But my main response is sheer anger: why is it just ME that can’t seem to cope? (It’s not – I always hear of one or two others). How does everyone else do it? What’s their secret?

(Can I get a sick note from Life? No, I’ve done that. Didn’t make me any happier.)

But then, I’ve felt that about other people all my life. How do other people manage to get things done at all? I have days on end when everything feels piled up and impossible to overcome. And it’s nothing – most others have far more things to worry about than me: partners, live-in relations, children. Even pets. And I think, I can barely cope with taking care of one creature in my life (me), let alone others. Everyone else is a superhero.

Started work on the screenplay. Got some ideas down. But then I hit problems. Lots of ‘argh’ moments. Because it’s had two other people working on it, I keep finding it hard to just plough my own furrow while trying to take in their characters and ideas. AND they want it days ago. And the pressure of knowing people are waiting doesn’t help me focus at all, like it’s meant to – it just makes me upset and unable to think straight. I either send off something that’s not good enough, or I do nothing at all.

The time just leaks away, and I don’t know what to do. It takes me a while to get going, to get in the mood for writing. And just when I feel warmed up, it’s time to go to the night shift. Argh. An ocean of Argh.

My room is starting to get untidy again. Piles of unread, unprocessed stuff piles up in corners. Magazines not read. Things people send me: CDs, DVDs books. ‘Have you read it yet?’ No, no I haven’t. ‘Can I interview you? I’m from another country…’

And I think, why do you want to interview me? I don’t feel particularly worthy right now. Should be an ego-boost, that kind of request. But I just feel… nervous. One more thing to find time for. Oh, poor you, Mr Edwards!

I feel absolutely stewed in my own anxiety today. Stir-fried in angst. Over nothing. It’s so silly.

Still pulling at my eyebrows as furiously as ever. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

And so… Time to go to the night shift. Well, at least it’s an honest entry. I’ll be better.

***

I’m told it probably wasn’t a queen bumblebee I saved yesterday. Queens don’t rely fly. It was more likely to be a very large drone. A bit like this entry.

For far too long in the past seven days I’ve been sitting around at home, wasting time, shamefully thinking ‘I’ll just read this, or watch that, or listen to that, then I’ll get on with writing…’.  And before I know it I’ve managed to spin out this ugly habit to fill up most of my 7 days off. Utterly deplorable.

Today, the afternoon is starting to look like yet another procrastination write-off, when suddenly there’s an incredibly loud sound of buzzing. Twofold. It’s a huge bumblebee – presumably a queen – accompanied by an equally large wasp, bashing against the window from the inside. The first flying insects I’ve seen this year. They’re complaining furiously, if somewhat justifiably, about the magical invention of glass. So I grab one tumbler (pause to let the joke about circus acrobats subside… all done), along with one side of a flattened cardboard box which previously housed a Cadbury’s Flake Easter Egg. Then I steel myself into valiant insect rescue mode.

The easter egg was a gift from my kind landlady. All her tenants received one.  One chocolate egg, in one box which doubles as a bee rescuing machine.

Watching both creatures fly off into the beautiful spring afternoon, I feel for the first time in over a week that I’ve actually been of some abiding use. Oh, and today someone emails to say how much they like reading my diary. So I take the hint and start writing again.

Why do I let myself get into these do-nothing spirals? It’s such a false temptation. Any pleasure gained from watching that TV programme or that DVD or reading that book or scrolling through The Entire Internet is nothing compared to the pleasure of accomplishment. The feeling of contribution.

The thing is with spending hours on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, I’m just not at my best there. I make a mess of it and feel out of place. I also become disproportionately irritated by the usage of Internet catchprases and slang terms.

Particular irksome bugbears are ‘EPIC WIN’, ‘MASSIVE FAIL’ , ‘who knew?’, ‘what’s not to like?’ or  ‘meh’. It’s understandable coming from young creatures of  high stretch hair and low crotch jeans, but when I read a posting by someone who can remember free milk at school who has a mortgage and a proper career writing things like ‘WTF?’, I become unreasonably irritated.

What’s exposed here, though, is not others of my age adopting a kind of linguistic Botox, but my own reluctance to adapt fully to the ways of the Net. Which is fine, but then I have no excuse to spend large amounts of time in a place where I’m out of place. I should spend more time writing up this diary, and more time writing per se, and more time selling my writing. Otherwise, well, my gravestone will have to read… epic fail.
***

I’ve noticed that writing about things here which haven’t happened sometimes nudges them into happening. When I once casually mentioned it’d be nice to have a ‘fetchingly epicene bedfellow’, by the end of the week I met Boy H.  I moaned about wanting a job that paid well but gave me plenty of time off, and soon afterwards found one. And I archly mused about envying eunuchs, then suffered mysterious pains in my nether regions that baffled my GP.

As I was not just writing such half-wishes down but publishing them online, I suppose people might call it an example of ‘affirmation’ or ‘manifesting’, or just a kind of subconscious trick. Well, right now what I really would like to happen as soon as possible is the following. If nothing else, it’s a record of what I’m thinking today, April 13th 2009, aged 37. I’ve saved a Queen today. Maybe she’ll grant me a few wishes.

I wish for the ability to finish the projects I start. And finish them quickly. Starting with the screenplay I’m collaborating on with two others. That’d be nice. To properly tear myself away from all Not Writing distractions and get the writing done. A good habit.

I wish for the ending of another bad habit – pulling at my eyebrows. I started doing this a year or so ago (why?), and have been idly tugging away so often I now have to pencil in the gaps where my eyebrows used to be before going out. It’s ridiculous, and I want it to stop, please. If that’s okay with you.

I wish for writing work which is actually paid. A book deal. I’d quite like to read a few books written by me, and I’d like to find out if others would too. I’ve been on the front of a book by someone else. I’ve written bits inside books by others. I’ve been quoted in books by others. The next logical step is to actually fill the bit between the covers completely.

Greater lifelong wishes, life plans even? Go on, be honest. It’s allowed. You don’t have to be in a bedsit all your life. You used to want that, but not any more. Fifteen years it’s been! More than enough. So what do you actually want?

Really? All right, then. A place in Tangier. Or Paris. Or New York. Or Dublin. Or Stockholm. People manage to live there all the time, I hear. Maybe I could. I used to think that ‘impossible’ thought about London, once upon a time, and found an affordable place in an unreasonably lovely part of the city. I’d like to see if I’d be any good as An Englishman Abroad. I’ll never know unless I find out.

Relationships? It’d be nice to have someone else there. But I equally wouldn’t mind living alone forever, as long as there were always friends to meet for drinks, for tea.

Right now, I’m wearing my first properly tailored bespoke three-piece suit – with a bespoke shirt. That used to be a wish, too.

A while ago I received an email from Professor Elisa Glick of the University of Missouri.

She asked if she could use the 2004 Sarah Watson portrait of me for her new book on queer studies, which takes a Wildean and Warholian slant. I said okay. Ms Watson said okay too.

Today she got in touch to say the book’s out in August, and that I’m actually on the cover:

More on the book here.

Glad to be of use, Professor G.