Last night – to the London Review Bookshop in Bury Place. It's one of their occasional Shopping Evenings. The shop stays open for a couple of hours later than usual, lays on free wine, bowls of crisps and the like, and gives 10% off everything. Of course, once one's had a couple of wines, the temptation to spend more on books than one can possibly afford is overwhelming, but that's the idea. I look forward to their shopping evenings and save up in preparation, giving myself a limit: three books maximum.

After much browsing and agonizing over what to leave for another time, I go home with the following:

– <i>The Smoking Diaries</i> by Simon Gray. Memoirs and rantings from the playwright. It's a word of mouth hit I've always meant to get around to. Another excellent book of his, Fat Chance, covers the mid-90s debacle of Stephen Fry having a breakdown and walking out of Mr Gray's play Cell Mates, leaving the playwright to pick up the pieces. This has just been re-published too, in a similar jacket design to The Smoking Diaries. The success of both books is a good example of Life upstaging Art. But at least it's Mr Gray's life upstaging his own plays, rather than Mr Fry's. That's the trick – if someone is upstaging your work, the only solution is to upstage it yourself. I open it at random, and the sentence "my masturbation is sponsored by London Transport" leaps out at me. So naturally, I have to buy it.

In fact, this is my preferred manner of how to decide on any book purchase, and for choosing a book at the library. I read a few random lines, sometimes from the middle, sometimes from the start, and make my decision then. That way, I quickly know whether I want to spend part of my limited time on earth with the book or not.

Good writing is like a stick of rock – you should be able to cut into it at any point to find its message.

I also equate choosing what to read with choosing someone interesting or wise or entertaining to chat with, or rather listen to, at a party. Often with the added bonus of them being dead for some time.

– <i>The World of Simon Raven</i>, edited by Howard Watson. I'm already a Raven admirer, and this is another on my Must Get Around To List. It's an anthology of his non-fiction and autobiographies, packaged as a Humour Classic. I open it at random, and the line that leaps out is, "I loved Burgo; not physically, for no one, except the lady with the erectile clitoris, ever did that; but with my heart." So into the basket it goes.

– <i>Natural Novel</i> by Georgi Gospodinov. A curious new Bulgarian novel written in a fragmented style, which comes highly recommended by the bookshop. Random line: "I'm taking Salinger out in the train compartment. I'm not the talkative type and I see books as my shield against those endless conversations that always start with destination inquiries and flow over to kids and kidney problems."

Some previous evening – I find myself in a Tufnell Park room full of Czechs and Slovakians. They are all watching a Depeche Mode video with quiet intensity. Mr Dave Gahan uniting them like a kind of Basildon Tito.

****

Last night – to Brixton for Martin White's birthday drinks. On my way there at Brixton Tube, there are shouting touts for whoever's on at Brixton Academy (the band Interpol, I think). They loiter right by the station ticket barriers and are impossible to avoid. The Tube staff seem blissfully resigned to not doing anything about these intimidating, frightening, Awful Men. "Tickets! Buy or Sell Tickets!" is their mantra.

Idea for parody of that scene from Oliver!, where London street vendors' cries become the song 'Who Will Buy This Wonderful Morning':

"Who will buy my sweet red roses?Two blooms for a penny…"
"Ripe strawberries, ripe!"
"Who will give me their wonderful Direct Debit details? I've a clipboard of a charity brand… "
"Spliff? Weed? Ganja?"
"Minicab, mate?"
"Spare change?"
"BUY OR SELL TICKETS! BUY OR SELL TICKETS!"

Cut to Oliver Twist looking out of the window. He can't hear anything. He is blissfully hooked up to an I-Pod.

Back at Brixton Tube station, I am in my glasses and no make-up mode, which I like to think is Minimum Risk. Not minimum enough. As I exit the barrier, the tout I pass feels the need to adjust his ugly chant:

"Buy or Sell Tickets! Buy Or Sell Tickets!"

He sees me.

"Faggots Night Out?"

He shouts this comment loudly enough that the man in front of me, also attempting to exit the station, thinks it is aimed at <i>him.</i> He turns around and walks back to the tout. He is rather large. I wish I could see what happens next. But I have my head down and, as ever, am just trying to reach my destination without incident.

***

Weds night- Boogaloo Monthly Movie Quiz. Last one with Messrs Williams and Hupfield. The previous month my team actually won. But this time we go out at our usual placing of, oh, 10th place or something like that. Even after spotting the themes to Eyes Wide Shut, Boogie Nights and so on. Still, a fun time was had by all. Managed to get the Who Sung Which Bond Theme question right, of course. But ask me to recognise the theme to Blade 2 and I just giggle.

I put the previous win down to a combination of luck and a good amount of film fans on the table. The team then included Val, Clare, Alison and Adam – all four of whom are the dressed-up DJs at their new club Airport (every Weds 10pm-3am, at The Roxy, 3-5 Rathbone Place W1.).

Mr Adam works for Tartan Films, so lately he's been handling the UK business of films like The Woodsman and Palindromes, the new Todd Solondz. If a new movie has got paedophiles or serial killers, but with a quality 'indie' feel, it's probably a Tartan film. I'm rather a fan of the <a href="http://www.tartanvideo.com/" target="_blank">Tartan DVD label.</a> Last year they put out the likes of Capturing the Friedmans, Wisconsin Death Trip and Control Room. All three of which are highly recommended to you, Dear Reader. Must write about them in depth some time. Naturally, my first question to Adam was 'When are Tartan bringing out Liquid Sky on DVD'? No plans. Some problem with rights, apparently.

Team members this time were myself, the stalwart Dr Dave Kennedy, the dedicated Mr Martin White (who travels all the way from Croydon to do the quiz), plus Mr Wren Gullo and Mr Andy, Ms Silke and Mr Sam, Ms Amelia From-The-Dedalus-Book-Launch and – a pleasant surprise – Mr Ian Watson of How Does It Feel club fame. Turns out Ms Amelia knows Mr Watson behind my back, in some kind of writing-for-the-Guardian context. Mercifully, I make it a rule never to utter the expression 'small world'.

I sit down and think about all the people who've been on the quiz team since I started attending last September. Invited from all the different London Worlds I drift in and out of. Can one be defined by the sort of people one attracts – a Venn Diagram intersection labelled People Who Don't Mind Being Associated With Dickon Edwards? Well, they all seemed to get on with each other, and I think they enjoyed themselves. No one died. It's been a lot of fun.

This curious group has included:

– people from England, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, France, Australia and the US
– males, females and transsexuals in their 20s, 30s and 40s
– at least 5 people who play in bands or manage bands
– at least 5 workers in cinemas or video shops
– at least 3 playwrights who've actually managed to get their work performed in public
– at least 4 journalists who apparently manage to get paid regularly
– at least 6 DJs who know how to fend off requests from drunken Non-Regulars at their clubs
– 1 x editor of early Belle and Sebastian videos
– 1 x offspring of the man who wrote the song Blame It On The Boogie
– 1 x runner of a fan club for the TV series, Lexx
– 1 x runner of a fan club for the Kenickie offshoot band, Rosita
– 1 x actor from the 80s TV series The Tripods
– 1 x Suicide Girl (Suicidegirls.com being a kind of Playboy for the Marilyn Manson set)
– 1 x contestant on Channel 5's Make Me A Supermodel
– 1 x vocalist from the bands Blood Sausage and The Lies, on the 'Kill Rock Stars' label
– 0 x concert ticket touts

I need a job, and there appear to be no less than three job vacancies in the newspaper to take charge of a popular and enduring franchise. Previous incumbents have all been slightly silly white males.

I don't fancy running about all the time, so that excludes applying for the New Doctor Who or the New James Bond.

But I DO have a talent for being inexplicably popular with some people, while resented by others just for existing. And I spend most of my waking life in a befuddled state, wanting to sit down and fall asleep.

So, New Pope it is.

Feeling curiously fragile and anti-social lately. Well, more than usual. Extreme Garbo-itis. Trying hard to conserve money, which is rather whittled away when going out and buying drinks. Even two drinks an evening makes rather a dent in one’s resources when living on National Assistance. Which is a pity, as I keep being invited or alerted to all kinds of nice events.

It’s made harder now that I’m no longer working regularly at Archway Video. Still, I’m earning dribs and drabs by doing pleasant computer-based work for them, such as updating their website, typing work, compiling charts. All of which I rather enjoy and do so in the comfort of my own room whenever I like. Mr Benson has got me doing similar work for him too. I’ve just transcribed an interview he did with Quentin Crisp in 1996 for Gay Scotland Magazine, so he can put it on his website. I’ve been listening to his original interview tape for reference. Talk about work one can take pleasure from.

It’s such a cliché for writers to carp on about sub-editors distorting rather than enhancing their words, but the published article does contain a particularly baffling revision on the part of the magazine staff. In Mr B’s hand-typed manuscript, as on the tape, Mr Crisp quotes Saint Theresa:

St Theresa said, “We must treat all people as though they were at least better than ourselves.” Isn’t that a wonderful thing to have said? But God is so angry. All that power, and so mean with it. If I were God – and I never understand why I’m not – I should say, “Shop around, I don’t think you’ll find a better bargain than here.”

In the finished magazine, however, the quote reads “We must treat all people as though they were at least better than themselves.” Thus changing the whole sense of the saint’s message.

Perhaps the sub-editor thought ‘ourselves’ was a typo; that the quotation was just too humbling to be correct. Magazine Sub-Editor Finds Saint’s Words Too Saintly Shock.

And I’m back on the dreaded Life Laundry again, selling heaps of CDs and books on Amazon Marketplace rather than Ebay, where one can just look up the item, see what other people are asking, and muse on whether it’s worth selling your own copy, or just chuck it out.

Today, someone in Mottingham has bought my copy of Kylie Minogue’s Enjoy Yourself, original PWL CD version. I thought ‘Mottingham’; was a typo, but it appears to be somewhere dark in South London. They need all the vintage Kylie they can get down there.

Someone else in Dorset has just bought my copy of The Divine Comedy’s Promenade. It’s the original Setanta release, with a bonus 2nd CD EP of “A Promenade Companion”. I sold it for £5.99, a price off the top of my head, and it went within minutes of listing it. So I have a horrible feeling I’ve ripped myself off. I suppose I should obtain a Rare Records price guide, but I can’t be bothered. So it serves me right if I lose out. Moreover, I’m aware that just because one prices an item at what it’s worth, doesn’t mean it will actually sell quickly, or at all.

Still, I cheered up when I saw a book I’d purchased for 50p in some dusty basement currently listed on Amazon for £200 ‘Sandel’; by Angus Stewart. The bestselling novel of unconventional love, says the cover, by a photo of a solitary naked young man against a black background. “Coolly witty” – Sunday Times. “Bizarre, accomplished” – Times Literary Supplement. So says the jacket in 1970. Mr H thinks it would never get re-published in the Current Climate. Where Mr Jonathan King is regarded by some newspapers as several degrees worse than Mr Milosevic.

So, gushing over homoerotic rarities aside, I’d like to recommend the following events, even if I can’t attend them all myself.

Tonight: Mr Martin White, accordion master, playing at The Book Group, a comedy night hosted by Robin Ince at the Albany on Gt Portland Street. Also features the excellent comedian Dan Antopolski.

Thursday:Kash Point at Moonlighting, 10-3. Theme of which is Leigh Bowery Tribute Night. I rather thought every Kash Point was just that, but this occasion features the late Mr Bowery’s widow Nicola in her first Minty performance since, oh, 1892.

Friday: The Boyfriends at The Islington Bar Academy, N1 Centre. A very English, very London guitar band featuring some of the capital’s most charismatic male specimens.

Saturday: Kenneth Williams – TV Gems and Rarities, presented by Mr David Benson. 8pm, The Plough Inn Theatre, Wood Street, E17 / Walthamstow. Then Club Bohemia 8.30pm-2am, Buffalo Bar, Highbury Corner. If I go to the former, I’ll miss the marvellous band The Irrepressibles at the latter. I’ve seen them before, though. The singer has a wonderful falsetto croon, slightly reminiscent of The Tiger Lillies.

Being unsure how The Tiger Lillies spell their name, I check the Web and find an amusing unkind review of a Boston concert. It’s a fine example of how a bad review for some can be a good review for others. A good note to leave this entry on.

The Tiger Lilies [sic] weren’t much better-they were worse. A white-faced eunuch with an accordion strapped to his chest came out on stage and began singing falsetto songs about children masturbating and other trite Theatre Major shock matter that seemed more like an obvious (unskilled) perversion of a Tim Burton children’s book and Marlene Dietrich’s back catalogue than anything original or conceptually redeeming. Well, they are from Britain, so I guess they at least have some sort of excuse.

A recent cover of Time Out Magazine features a close-up portrait of the actor Sean Penn. Only instead of a photo they've used a hand-drawn coloured-in artist's sketch. It's truly awful, like one of those courtroom drawings. I try to work out the reasoning. Perhaps the artist is a Name. Names are usually enough to excuse all kinds of evils.

Then I see displays of the magazine cover at kiosks in Piccadilly, right next to those stalls of street artists displaying similarly poor black and white portraits of Bob Marley, Tom Cruise and other celebrities. Which I suppose tourists must buy in numbers great enough to justify this ridiculous practice continuing. So perhaps the Penn cover is a sly jokey reference to this. The implication being: you're not a true Hollywood star until you're a bad drawing in Leicester Square.

Mr Penn is not known for always getting sly jokes. According to the Time Out article, he reacted badly to being lampooned (as one of a group of knee-jerk Anti-Bush liberal actors) in the spoof movie Team America. He responded by personally offering to take the creators out to war-torn countries with him. "When we return, make all the fun you want". Then at this year's Oscars, he took umbrage to a Chris Rock joke about Jude Law's screen ubiquity.

So perhaps the Time Out cover is in itself a deliberate Joke Sean Penn Might Not Get.

Or maybe it's just a very bad drawing per se, and I'm thinking too hard about things again.

Last night: with Daniel Clift to the Jacksons Lane Community Centre. We see David Benson's brilliant one-man stage show, "Think No Evil Of Us – My Life With Kenneth Williams".

It's the same play he's been doing since 1996. He revises it slightly to keep it 'current'(the ghost of KW makes references to weapons of mass destruction at one point) and improvises around it (asking the audience halfway through if they want an interval or not, based on a show of hands).

The show defies your expectations all the way. Portrayals of the 'Carry On' star are blended with excerpts from Mr Benson's own arguably more interesting life, featuring his mentally ill mother who was eventually, as the euphemism goes, 'taken away'. Sample quote from her: "It's only the voices in my head that keep me sane." The show is at turns, hilarious (most of it), unexpectedly erotic (a shower scene from Mr Benson's schooldays) unsettling / tender (the sections on Mr B's mother), and tearjerking (a KW death scene – the one moment where it seems he really is possessed by the spirit of Mr Williams).

Mr B connects directly with audience members when he speaks of his formative years as a zealous fan of classic BBC comedy . Yet it was Spike Milligan, not KW, he wanted to be. At this point in the show, he says "Now, I know not everyone is keen on Spike Milligan. (addresses young woman in front row). You, madam – your expression suggests you don't like Spike Milligan, do you?"

Woman: (deadpan, far too quickly) No.

It's the voice of a thousand wives of Goon Show obsessives.

Elswhere, he recounts one vivid scene from the age of five. The Benson family are seated at dinner when his mother suddenly hurls a fork in the child Benson's face. The boy is sent to his room, but after a few moments can't resist peeking in through the door. He sees his parents locked in a standing grapple, the father holding back the mothers' fists above her head.

Father: (<i>still struggling to keep being hit</i>) What did you do that for? You could have blinded him!
Mother: He was trying to KILL ME! (<i>spies the boy looking in, voice switches to light motherly cooing</i>) Hello David! Come in, give your mother a hand!

This last line gets a big laugh. Black comedy doesn't come much blacker than this.

Mr Benson plans to keep touring 'Think No Evil Of Us' sporadically, so if the show plays at a venue near you, I highly recommend you see it, Dear Reader. <a href="http://www.thinknoevil.com/index.htm">Check the On Tour page of Mr Benson's website</a>. Londoners can see him at Highgate tonight (Sat March 5th).

I can also recommend the BBC double CD album <a href="http://www.bbcshop.com/invt/0563529369">"The Private World Of Kenneth Williams"</a>. Here, Mr Benson reads entries from Mr W's diaries, punctuated with appropriate clips from the BBC radio and TV archives. This was the programme recently broadcast on Radio 4, but the CD version has about a third more clips and readings.

Afterwards, I go to the club Stay Beautiful to see the band Client. Perfect glacial pop music for a snowy London night. Far too many gorgeous young people there. One has the conflicting sensation of lust and resentment. I say hello to Ms Davina, Mr Price, Mr Gullo, Ms Seaneen, Ms Anwen, Mr Sarll, Mr Jeff Automatic, Ms Hazel & Ms Groom, Ms Laura, Mr James Nemo, amongst others. Then I leave in time to catch the last tube home.

That's the right party etiquette: arrive at a point when most people will be there, say hello or make eye contact with everyone one is familiar with (easier to do with contact lenses), then don't outstay one's welcome.

I am accosted by a drunken Default Man who insists on comparing me to someone in front of his similarly Nike-wearing mates. Business as usual, except it's one I haven't heard before:

"Hey Niles Crane! Where's Daphne? Har har har!"

Mr Clift enjoys Client, whose new songs are even better than the ones from their second album, 'City'.

DC: The singer's voice really reminds me of someone.
DE: The chanteuse from Dubstar, perhaps?
DC: Yes, exactly.
DE: It is she.
DC: That would explain it.

I write this wearing prescription contact lenses for the first time in my life. The brand is Johnson & Johnson Acuvue 1-Day. I chose daily disposables as I'm terrified of getting an infection, I like the convenience, and the brand was recommended as the most comfortable. As if I’m somehow going to plump for the leastcomfortable choice in order to save money. When it comes to sticking a foreign body in one's eyes on a regular basis, I rather feel comfort features highly in the equation.

At the opticians, I swear, struggle and sigh for what seems an aeon as the staff kindly teach me how to stick the things in and fish them out. At the time, it seems difficult to believe millions of people go through this farce every day. Then a few days later I get used to both the process and the sensation, and it's now as easy as falling off a bisexual. Like most things in life, it's just a matter of getting used to it.

I don't intend to wear the things every day, but it's nice to have the option. Some days I’m in a Clark Kent (or, as Mr Gullo remarked, Dr Strangelove) glasses mood. Other times I rather enjoy seeing the world a little out-of-focus. Without glasses or contacts, I can still read books, and my near-sightedness isn’t (yet) prominent enough to endanger my life when, say, crossing the road.

I always think of Dusty Springfield conquering her stage-fright by deliberately giving concerts without optical correction of any kind. She didn’t fear the audience because she couldn’t SEE the audience.

Short-sightedness can also be the forgetful narcissist’s alibi. If I'm on the street or in a large crowded party or club, not being able to see too well can help remove accusations of deliberate showbiz blanking.

"I waved at you, but you didn't recognise me. You've forgotten who I am, haven’t you?"

"Not necessarily. I literally can’t see who you are. Not in this light… without contacts… from this distance… (delete as cowardly applicable)."

In the kingdom of the wined, the short-sighted man is king.

Last night- to Snowy Brixton to DJ at Mr Slocombe's Offline club. The venue is The Dog Star, and I am essentially playing music to a large pub room. Apparently there's lots of Goldie Looking Chain fans present, fresh from the group's Brixton concert.

I'll always associate GLC with family members. My brother played me their music in his car as we drove to our grandfather's funeral. Shortly after that, I was with my father in Piccadilly Circus when we got caught up in a fake "protest march", which was really a publicity gathering for the new GLC single. I don't think I'll ever forget the sight of my 60-something father standing trapped and utterly confused on the street as throngs of waggish young people pushed past him with banners proclaiming "Your Mum's Got A Penis" (the name of the single).

The club Offline is part of the Urban 75 people-power internet community, and there's footage from Reclaim The Streets marches projected on one wall of the club. Rather works well with my set of Blow Monkeys and Olivia Newton-John songs, I think. I do now regret not going on the big London anti-war march in a nice suit, with a banner featuring a still of Charles and Sebastian from Brideshead Revisited, captioned "WAUGH NOT WAR".

One girl at the venue helpfully tells me I am "a complete 80s looking man", though she doesn't mean it nastily. She just wants to say something to me, and thinks this is the best thing to say. She herself is sporting the kind of white-person-dreadlocks and t-shirt look which equally lends itself to snap judgements, one might say. Protestor chic. I wonder what the connection is between protest marches and caucasian dreadlocks? It must rather single you out to the police. Though even my own hairdo is trouble enough for some people. I've been followed around by security guards in some London shops. Even when I'm wearing a suit and am without make up, a big coat or even a bag. It must be the Deliberately Unconventional Hairdo.

Not unconventional enough, that's the trouble. I read that Pete Burns of Dead Or Alive once used his exotic appearance to shoplift with impunity, simply because security guards were <i>terrified</i> of such an electrically androgynous peacock.

I imagine the shop security guard's thoughts. "I'm not stopping and frisking THAT. It might LIKE it. And I might like it too."

Walking through Euston tube corridors on my way home, I am stopped in my tracks by a poster advertising a new album by the artist 50 Cent. The image is of a half-naked young man, presumably Mr Cent himself, showing off the kind of oiled, rippling, ultra-muscular torso more at home on the sleeve of an Ian Levine Hi-NRG compilation. His cap reads "G-Unit". Indeed. Mr Cent lately annoyed the gay world with some unkind comments he'd made. I suppose here he's making up for it in kind.

Such an arrestingly sexual image. I may have to buy this album for all the wrong reasons.

Worrying news about the esteemed Mr Edwyn Collins.

I shall be DJ-ing this Thursday at Offline, a free-entry cabaret club in Brixton. In addition to the dancefloor goings-on, there's spoken-word poetry, acoustic performances, videos, and presumably some kind of bar.

Venue address: The Dogstar, 389 Coldharbour Lane, near Brixton tube, London SW9 8LQ.

My set is just after 11pm, following Mr Lester Square, who was in the Monochrome Set, and preceding Offline host Mr Mike Slocombe, who also was in the Monochrome Set (drumming on the Dante's Casino album). It's a Monochrome Sandwich for Mr Edwards.

I will be playing – what? I'm still not sure. But I'll ensure it's worth braving Brixton In The Snow for. Dickon's Winter Warmers.

I wonder if they like Olivia Newton-John in Brixton? I may be killed. Still, what a way to go.

Please come if you can, Dear Reader.

More details:
http://www.urban75.org/offline/