A weekend of being laughed at.

I am standing outside the Astoria box office in Charing Cross Road. Inside, Hawkwind are playing. Outside I am getting cold. I have been standing here for one hour and five minutes.

What's the longest acceptable time to wait for someone?

I am here because Plan B Magazine want to illustrate my piece on the band Ackercocke with a photo of me and the band, together. I agree to this, replying, "just tell me where to be and when, and I will be there." Comes the response, "6.45pm, Sunday, outside the Astoria."

I am on time. The person meeting me, the band's press officer, eventually turns up at 7.50pm. She apologies for being stuck in traffic, and gets me into the comparative warmth of the Mean Fiddler, the smaller venue next to the Astoria, where an endless queue of heavy metal fans snakes around the block. Tonight, in concert: Arch Enemy and Ackercocke.

She goes away for a few minutes, comes back, and informs me that the photo shoot has already taken place, without me.

Thankfully, she buys me a drink. I watch Ackercocke perform, and catch a bit of Arch Enemy, another Black Metal band whose angle is having a female singer that can do that Satanic Growling as good as any man. It's an impressive party trick (how's that for damning with faint praise), but after a few minutes of their headbanging antics I've had enough. I feel miserable, unloved, and still have vestiges of flu. I want quietness. I badly need to go home and have a good cry. I only came to get my photo taken. I don't actually LIKE heavy metal music, after all. That, of course, is why the magazine think a piece about by me will make for a Good Read. Granted, I admire the likes of Ackercocke for their waistcoats-and-ties appearance and obvious mastery of their chosen craft. But, the individuals who admire it aside, and with a few exceptions, I believe that all Rock Music per se is a mistake. Heavy metal, doubly so. I shall enjoy saying these things in a rock magazine.

When I arrange meetings myself, something I insist on is that the location be somewhere indoors, where people can sit down. Ideally, a cafe or bar. Then, if one person is late, at least the other one can sit and drink and read and think, limiting the inconvenience incurred. This, however, is a rendezvous organised for me, rather than by me.

In this instance, owning a mobile phone would make my life a lot easier. I do possess a pager, so people running late can send me a message with their phones. But they rarely do. What instead happens is that I somehow have to phone their mobiles to find out where the hell they are. This means either badgering a passer-by to borrow their phone, something I can only do if I have the nerve, or, as I usually end up doing, trying to find a phone box that is empty and which works. And then I have to have about £9,000,000 in coins in which to call a mobile for more than a few seconds. On this occasion, I have 50p, which instantly is eaten by the Charing Cross Road phone box, without registering credit on the little screen. I am being laughed at from all sides.

Somehow, the pervading feeling is that it's all MY fault, for the crime of not owning a mobile phone. Indeed, when the press officer turns up, she says, "you really must get a mobile you know." As if me being on time at the time she specified, and at the location she specified, and owning a pager, is not enough. Somehow, it is MY fault that I have to wait outside a Hawkwind concert in the cold for an hour and five minutes, for a photoshoot that does not happen.

The thing is, it IS my fault. In 2003, the mobile-less person is just unacceptable. They are a prejudiced-against minority. Second-class citizens. You're at a disadvantage if you're not a chattering, yattering, space-invading, silence-intruding, bleeping and texting phone user. It doesn't seem right or fair, but that's the way things are.

Don't get me wrong – I like mobiles, and one reason I shun them is out of simple penury. If anyone reading this wants to get me one for Christmas, one that costs little to run, I'd be delighted and extremely grateful. I think they're amazing, powerful little inventions. But with power comes responsibility – a cliche, but a truism. Arguably the world's least heeded truism. A little etiquette is all I ask. Being aware of those physically around you. Not using a phone as a crutch. Only using it when absolutely necessary. Turning the wretched thing off if you have company in the flesh. At the very least, if you're a man, refraining from using it when standing at a urinal or peeing at a street corner. As if that latter spectacle isn't revolting enough already.

I have a general dislike of the telephone regardless, whether mobile or not. That rude, bullying, noisy yelping of the ring ring, the sound of someone who's not even physically present, the disembodied demanding priority over the persons and events that really are there. When I'm in a shop, about to be served, and the phone goes, the assistant will give the call priority over myself, even though I've taken the trouble to be there in person. Even the very first phone call ever made, by Mr Graham Bell, was a bullying, solipsistic, demand: "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you."

I am old enough to remember a world without mobile phones. You'll be amazed to learn that the world still turned. People still managed to somehow meet each other. When they did start to appear, mobiles were thought to be the status symbol of greedy, selfish young stockbrokers. Indeed, anyone in the music world seen with one was jeered at. I recall an early 90s story in the music press – David Gedge of The Wedding Present was seen using a mobile phone backstage at the Reading Festival. He was utterly pilloried. Now, it's the phoneless who get the jeers.

On the train to Nottingham yesterday – a designated Silent Carriage. As if every other carriage is ablaze with cacophony. Truly, a sign of these times. They used to have special non-smoking compartments. And then special smoking compartments. Now, everywhere is non-smoking, but noise pollution is the default way of life. Naturally, our booked tickets are in one of the other carriages.

At the Nottingham soundcheck, the sound engineer has trouble with our set up. "I'm not used to handling quiet bands."

During our last song, we are almost drowned out by the constant chatting, joking and laughing of the people at the bar, all of whom are in one of the other bands on the bill.

After our gig, the person who promised weeks ago to put us up for the night in Nottingham (one of the provisos of us playing) is nowhere to be seen and is not answering HIS mobile. We can't find anyone else who is willing to have us sleep on their floor. It's all very Christmassy. No room at the inn for Fosca.

Thankfully, the other band on the bill, Chris T-T, are saints in disguise. Incredibly, they manage to pack the three of us plus our instruments, into their London-bound van. We have proper seats, too. They even drop us off in Highgate. Not only do we have somewhere warm to sleep, but it's in our own beds. God bless The Chris T-T Band: Chris, Jen, John, and Johnners. Whenever I am in a foul mood (as I am right now) and start deciding that Other People Are A Mistake, I shall do my best to remember this act of kindness, and think again.

I mentioned that this entry was about being laughed at. As in the sense you feel laughed at when:

– Someone you arrange to meet is an hour and five minutes late, and leaves you waiting that long in the cold.
– Someone talks loudly through your quiet songs when you're performing, and they're one of the other bands on the bill.
– Someone has vandalised the payphone you're using, and your money is swallowed pointlessly.
– Someone who agreed to provide accommodation has gone AWOL, leaving you effectively homeless in a strange city for the night.

I forgive all but the unknown phone vandaliser. The mockery of the others was clearly unintentional. Goodness knows, there's plenty of occasions in the past when I've been hideously late for meetings myself. It wasn't the press officer's fault she got stuck in traffic. I'm sure our would-be host in Nottingham had a good excuse, too. It just doesn't change the way one feels when on the receiving end, though.

Also, Noise laughs at Quietness. Sly, shy Fosca smirks will never win over uproarious rock guffaws. Fosca's Nottingham gig barely attracts twenty people. The Arch Enemy concert attracts hundreds, possibly thousands of people, happy to queue for hours in the cold. Fosca make The Wrong Kind Of Music.

The meek will never inherit the earth. Just one carriage. But it's already been booked up. By Belle and Sebastian.

I mind being laughed at in the ways mentioned above. Yet, strangely, I don't mind at all when I'm laughed at in person, directly, for my appearance.

I do realise I look funny, have a funny voice, and funny attitudes. Just writing the words "I am standing outside a Hawkwind concert" can't help but solicit a small smirk. So when I am literally laughed at to my face, as long as there's no physical violence involved, I am entirely grateful for the attention. It is the only language, after all, I truly understand. Which is why those reading between the lines of this entry will suspect that the real reason for this whole burst of grumpiness is just because I was denied a promised photoshoot… How to vex a narcissist, indeed.

I want to finish this entry on Silence, Noise, and Being Laughed At, with something else that happened to me. It illustrates my other, preferred manner of being laughed at, and also suggests that, in some ways, Silence is still Golden. Or at least, a silent person can be considered Golden.

Sunday night, December 21st 2003. Central London. I am standing outside the Astoria. There are people milling all around me, but I am alone. It's nearly Christmas. I have to be here. I have been here for some time now. I feel ill, unloved, unwanted, laughed at, frozen by the weather, deafened by the laughter.

Whilst I wait, musing on whether Hawkwind have Samantha Fox with them, or Lemmy, or if they're doing "Silver Machine" (that's my sum knowledge of Hawkwind), three Christmas partygoers stop and point at me.

Girl: Oh! I thought he was a model! Oy! Look!

She beckons her companions over, and all three of them gather around me like I'm a sideshow attraction. Which I suppose I am.

Girl 2: Oh yeah! I thought he was a dummy!
Me: No, I'm just frozen stiff.
Girl 1: He's got make-up on!
Man: Go on. Do it again?
Me: Do what?
Man: Stop moving again?

I stare at the man and stop blinking.

Man (squinting): Oh…. yeah.
Girl 1: He reminds me of that 80s band? What's their name? No, they did that song? Oh yeah!

She sings, loudly, right in my face.

Girl 1: GOLD! ALWAYS BELIEVE IN YOUR SOUL! YOU'VE GOT THE POWER TO KNOW! YOU'RE INDESTRUCTIBLE! ALWAYS BELIEVE IN….! 'CAUSE YOU! ARE! GOLD!

She skips away with the others, still singing.

And do you know, she was right.