Everything is connected in the news. Arthur Miller dies, out of protest at the disappointing first episode of "Nathan Barley".

Charles and Camilla to wed, in tribute to Little Britain's success. Ikea opens a new store in North London at midnight, and as people are hospitalised in the ensuing rush, Julia Roberts has twins: Ikea and Barley.

A crazed dream where Heat Magazine's staff are visited by three non-celebrity ghosts in the night. The next morning, the lives of Ms Jade and Ms Kerry are removed, replaced by pictures of John Donne and the words "No man is an island…. Do not send to ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee".

(I always think of the joke I heard from John Cooper Clarke. "No man is an island… Except the Isle Of Man.")

Then it's the M word. Miller = Marilyn. Radio 4's Front Row only mentions his marriage in the context of whether he referred to it in his plays. This isn't good enough for newspapers, who print pictures of Ms Monroe as if it was her that died, not him. Husband of Marilyn Monroe Dies. Plays? What plays?

Attention must be paid. But, Mr Miller, you should have asked, "Is it the <i>right kind</i> of attention"?

That dreaded phrase: Best Known For.

Ikea customer interviewed on radio. Why was it so important to get a cheap sofa in the middle of the night?

"Well, it seemed like something to do."

It all seems like something from "Nathan Barley" itself. Drunk on the zeitgeist. "As the flatpack crushed his skull in the midnight chaos, his last words were, we think, a Little Britain catchphrase. Death Of A Sales-Obsessed Man".

My main criticism of the NB programme is that Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker aren't referred to themselves. When Mr Barley introduces himself, the response would really have been, "Oh, you mean, like the TV Go Home character?". It's a satire that can't quite be real enough. Mr Barley refers to Freddie Starr as the original Bill Hicks. These are real names. So why can't he say "Freddie Starr – he was the original Chris Morris"?

It was the same with The Fast Show's Colin Hunt. An office bore whose conversation was made entirely from repeating TV comedy catchphrases. But he never did any Fast Show catchphrases. Pick and mix fiction. A satire on real life that can only make specific references to real life.

This makes NB more traditional than, say, Lee and Herring's TV comedy, where Mr Herring would point at his colleague and say "Hey look, you're that Stewart Lee off the television."

Still, NB made me laugh a few times. You can't expect much more from a comedy. A critic would ask: but was it the right kind of laugh?

Last Thursday. I DJ at How Does It Feel To Be Loved, Ian Watson's internationally-renowned 80s indiepop + 60s-pop club.

It's now too popular for the Buffalo Bar in Highbury Corner, so Mr Watson is trying out new venues. Tonight it's The Phoenix in Cavendish Square, round the back of John Lewis in Oxford Street. A nice little place with very comfy sofas.

The only slight on the evening is a common one. Non Club Regulars. Possibly local workers, or regulars to the Phoenix if not to HDIFTBL, just in there for a drink after work.

Now, it'd be fine if they kept quiet. If they accepted finding themselves in someone else's little world. They could either decide the music isn't for them, and go somewhere else for a drink where their ears are unassailed by McCarthy songs played loudly. Which, I think it's fair to say, is pretty much every other bar in London. Or they could stay out of curiosity, the unconverted happy to be preached to.

My only real complaint is with the more arrogant of the breed, who actually bother the DJ. Who think that the Club is Wrong. Always the bane of the specialist club DJ. These are the ones who approach me to say:

"Can't you play something more danceable?"
"Can't you play something less gloomy?" (after The Chills)
"Here's one – can you play some Japan? Do you get it? Do you?" (points at my hair)
"Got any Motorhead?" (oh, the Non Regular Trying To Be Funny! My sides!)

What I should say is, very gently, "I'm sorry this music isn't to your taste. I believe other London clubs and bars are available. This club is for people who have paid to hear McCarthy played loudly."

What I really want to say is, "Do you park in disabled spaces too?"

But of course, this only occurs to me several days later.

Still, the majority of those present seem to enjoy dancing to my DJ set, and I really enjoy myself playing it. The set is as follows (not in order):

The Blow Monkeys – It Doesn't Have To Be This Way
Belle and Sebastian – Women's Realm
Shirley Bassey – Spinning Wheel
The Smiths – Ask
The Bodines – Therese
Echo & The Bunnymen – Seven Seas
The Chills – Heavenly Pop Hit
McCarthy – Keep An Open Mind Or Else
Spearmint – Sweeping The Nation
The Pastels – Simply Nothing To Be Done
The Sundays – Here's Where The Story Ends
Vaselines – Son Of A Gun
Shangri-Las – Give Him A Great Big Kiss
Lesley Gore – Sometimes I Wish I Were A Boy
Nancy Sinatra – How Does That Grab You Darlin'
Wedding Present – Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now
Supremes – Come See About Me
Velocette – Get Yourself Together
Chairmen Of The Board – Give Me Just A Little More Time
Morrissey – Pregnant For The Last Time
Darling Buds – Burst
Supremes – Stoned Love
Aztec Camera – Oblivious
B & S – Boy With Arab Strap
Frank Wilson – Do I Love You
Sea Urchins – Pristine Christine
Stereolab – Ping Pong

Afterwards, I drink too much wine and end up falling asleep on the night bus home. Wake up in some North London wilderness. Catch another night bus back. Fall asleep again, miss my stop. Wake up back in Central London again. Catch another northbound night bus. This time, Mr Taylor Parkes gets on and ensures I alight at Highgate.

I really must enforce my new rule of One Drink per night. Apart from anything else, I'm starting to really prefer sparking mineral water over wine. And it's cheaper.

<img align=left src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/Owen/backs.jpg"></img>
My friend Mr Laurence Gullo (<LJ user=tzarohell>) is performing in Hackney this Sunday evening, telling a story via his beautiful shadow puppets. I shall be involved too, possibly narrating. The music has been specially selected by Mr Martin White (<LJ user=martylog>).

However, we desperately require an extra puppeteer. If you're free and willing, or just want more details, please email Mr Gullo asap at:

alienlovemessiah@gmail.com

Much thanks.

Event information:

Hanky Panky Cabaret (MC: Xavior)
Sun 13th Feb 2005
From 9-Midnight
At Bistrotheque,
23-27 Wadeson Street,
London E2
Directions: Walk up Wadesdon St away from Hackney Rd, and it's the first doorway on the left.

Things I have learned this weekend:

Whenever Brian Eno and David Bowie chat these days, they tend to speak in 'Pete And Dud' voices, as in the flat-capped Dagenham characters from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's 60s TV sketches. (from Alan Moore interviews Brian Eno, "Chain Reaction", BBC Radio 4).

The director of the video for Abba's Knowing Me Knowing You was Lasse Hallstrom, who went on to direct The Cider House Rules and Chocolat. (from 100 Best Pop Videos, Channel 4).

I keep seeing references to 'Chocolat' wherever I look lately. An old lady at the Lyric Hammersmith cafe suddenly sat herself at my table (while plenty of other tables remained empty) and talked about it. I keep noticing the movie and the Joanne Harris book on shelves in shops, as if it's calling to me. Perhaps I should see it.

Recently: I attend Ms Jennifer Connor's birthday party at a house in Tufnell Park. I choose her event over the three other parties I've been invited to the same night. Partly because she asked first, but mostly because the evening includes a screening of the 80s John Hughes film, 16 Candles.

The film (rented from Archway Video, naturally) is projected upon a wall in the living room, and we watch in darkness. Just like a proper cinema. But even better: chocolate brownies and Rice Krispie cakes are passed around. I am in heaven.

I'd forgotten just how brilliant 16 Candles was. Like Some Kind Of Wonderful it's often overshadowed by the more iconic likes of The Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink. It features Ms Molly Ringwald as the ultimate sulky teenager. Mr Anthony Michael Hall stealing every scene as The Geek. Mr John and Ms Joan Cusack aged about 12. An extremely unlikely plot – her parents forget her own birthday. And all that fossilised, nay, <i>crystallized</i> period music. Proustian rather than nostalgic.

The only flaw in the film is the Chinese exchange student character, included for comic stereotypical effect. Just like Mr Mickey Rooney's Landlord in Breakfast At Tiffany's. And now we have Lost In Translation. You can't have a classic American movie without a Worryingly Stereotypical Use Of Far Eastern Characters, it seems. Perhaps it's in the screenwriting masterclasses.

I ask another American chap at the party: was it just Mr Hughes's own taste, or did US teens in the 80s really listen to all that British pop, rather than anything from the US? Simple Minds, Altered Images, Nick Heyward, Specials, Stray Cats, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran… He assures me they did. So much fuss is made these days about new UK acts needing to "break America"… Robbie Williams trying again and again, for one. In the 80s, US success for a British pop group appears to be automatic. On this evidence, I wonder if The Stray Cats have sold more records than Mr Williams?

<img align=left src="http://www.fosca.com/alexm-dickon.jpg">
Here's another photo taken earlier the same evening, at a pub on Fortess Road. I'm speaking to Mr Alex Mayor, of the band Baxendale and now in the exciting new group, <a href="http://www.alexandersfestivalhall.org" target="_blank">Alexander's Festival Hall</a>, who are playing at RoTa this Saturday. He's one of the most deliciously arch London men I've ever met. Which as you might imagine, is saying something.

At Trash the other day, some stranger accused me of trying to look like… Mr Peter Cook. Not heard that one before. I wonder if my face isn't taking on Cook-like qualities as I get older and more dissolute.

Looking at this photo, though, I think I do slightly resemble Mr Cook… though as played by Mr Rhys Ifans.

I have no idea why, in the photo, my hand is holding my drink in such an unlikely manner. Alex and I appear to be holding an Unconsciously Effeminate Wrist competition. That's the one remaining sport the British can still beat the world at. I must write to to the UK Olympic Committee at once.

I could even be an alternative Action Man prototype. The Dickon Edwards Doll – Inaction Man. With darting left-to-right Eagle Eyes to quickly see Who Else Is At The Party. Comes with Unrealistic Gripping Hands.

Email from Tim Chipping. The ICA Artist Tino Sehgal has read my diary entry about him, presumably searching the web for mentions of himself. It was only a matter of time before Mr S realised his life is just a part of the Work Of Art that is this diary. It’s the ultimate Pro-Choice argument. You’re not a proper human being until you’re in Dickon Edwards’s diary.

Sadly, Mr S gets paid for his Art. While I do not get paid for this thing. Yet.

Surely it must just be a matter of time. I’ve kept this web diary for eight years now. That must count as some kind of ‘experience’. I suppose I just have to Hustle. It worked for Ms Belle De Jour.

Successful Art is ten per cent inspiration, ninety per cent prostitution.

Speaking of which. Piece in The Guardian the other day about bands of the past who were touted as Next Big Things, then failed to deliver. Orlando are included.

I knew about this beforehand. One of the writers (the piece took two people to write, never a good sign), contacted me. I told him that if Orlando had gotten some publicity in The Guardian in 1995, rather than in a piece in 2005 about publicity-hyped bands that failed, maybe we wouldn’t have failed. Not what he wanted me to say in the piece, of course.

But it’s the un-simple truth. Orlando were only hyped in the Melody Maker, nowhere else. That was the whole problem. We’d have loved a few crumbs from the Guardian table back then, when it mattered. So our first ever appearance in the newspaper is instead ten years later, in a piece about apparently having too much press. I thought The Guardian was meant to know all about the nature of irony.

Of course, the real reason for our inclusion is that they couldn’t get Terris, Tiger or Gay Dad. And to be fair, Melody Maker readers of 1995 have, like the writers, probably moved to The Guardian now.

I hesitated to help the journalist, wanting like anyone else to Be In The Guardian, but only on My Own Terms. It goes against my whole philosophy to be part of any crowd. That was another problem with Orlando, too. Roped in with Romo in 1995. Roped in with Adorable in 2005. Journalists – or rather, their editors – always want there to be A Pitch, A Reason, An Angle. A way to box things together, compare, organise, present, explain. Because if something can be explained, it can be explained away.

But I realised it wasn’t me the journalist was after, just Someone From The Band Orlando Who Acts Vaguely Human. So I gave him Mr Chipping’s number.

The piece came out with no mention of my name, and Mr C’s quotes, he tells me, pay scant relation to what he actually said. Shame. Still, it could have been worse. And it was a nice photo of Mr C.

And good to see coverage of the divine Ms Virginia Astley, too. I’m reminded that in 2003 Rough Trade re-issued her wonderful album, From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. This is as good a time as any to recommend it. Available to buy here. You’ll absolutely adore it. I suppose it would now be called ‘Ambient’ music.

I don’t mind Orlando being roped in with her at all. She’s another original that wanted to give the world something they weren’t getting from others. Unlike Adorable and Five Thirty, who were just Bandy Band Bands, and don’t deserve to lick the impeccable, well-chosen boots of Ms Astley and ourselves. There’s always another Five Thirty just around the corner. That’s the whole problem.

Ah well. More people read this diary than read The Guardian.

(Told you I was good at attracting attention)

No, I withdraw that claim. But the diary does seem to have a talisman-like effect on all kinds of people, good and bad. I wonder. If I type the the words LOVE, WEALTH, and SUCCESS here, and publish them online, will they too eventually look me up?

I’ll settle for ABILITY TO GET MANY THINGS DONE QUICKLY. Find me. Find me, please.

Even though I now screen the comments on my diary, I still receive a few messages from, how shall I put this nicely, the sanity-challenged and ill-wishers. Not quite death threats, not quite stalkers (though the line is sometimes blurred) but certainly sinister little calling cards, or anonymous attacks. It makes no sense. I'm not rich, I'm not famous, I have no money or property and I live in a bedsit. It's like I've inherited the detriments of being successful and famous without the benefits. Why do they do it? Is it something about me? If so, can I convert this something into attaining actual fame and success, so I can then hire my own personal bodyguard?

Actually, the latter has always been a bit of a fantasy for me. I think it may even be a fetish. Having one's Honour Defended by someone who can Take Care Of Things physically. Any gender. I need an Insecurity Guard.

I just have to remind myself that, if one replies to such comments, it's an insult to the well-wishers and kind friends one IS lucky to attract, who probably would prefer the attention. Who send me proper <a href="mailto:dickon_edwards@hotmail.com" target="_blank">emails</a>, but whom I often don't get around to replying to. Contain the fear and the worry, convert it to positivity. Use it for positive ends, and for attending to kinder friends.

Onwards and upwards.

<IMG align=left alt="Portrait of George Romney." src="http://www.dalton-in-furness.org.uk/dalton-online/history/photos-plates/romney-s.jpg" border=5>I'm playing DJ next Thursday, in Cavendish Square, once home to Lord Nelson and the painter George Romney.

Club Night: 'How Does It Feel To Be Loved' – A Central London Winter Special.
Date: Thursday February 3rd
Venue: The Phoenix, 31 Cavendish Square, W1G 0PP. Three minutes walk from Oxford Circus tube
Time: 8pm – 2am. D.E. set between 10.30pm and midnight.
Cost: £3 members, £5 non members, membership is free from the site: http://www.howdoesitfeel.co.uk
Music: 60s girl groups, 80s indie, and any other jolly selections that I think could fit in.

Also starring: The Sarah Records Jukebox from 8pm.

Mr O'Boyle invites me to see the band Yeti at the Boogaloo. The place is packed even more than it was for Bright Eyes. Yeti are a pleasant group of young men, two of whom are the Other Two in the Libertines, the popular UK combo of late.

Yeti aren't entirely my cup of tea, but they have a pleasant enough jangly-guitar line in pop-rock. The singer wears a large wide-brimmed hat. One song, "Insect Eating Man", is impressively rendered in a Bonzo Dog / Scarlet's Well style croon. Mr Shane McGowan joins them for a version of "The Israelites", wearing a top hat.

I have one glass of wine, then switch to Perrier. My new routine. Nothing to do with trying to be more healthy. I enjoy a drink, but have had enough of being drunk. It's also cheaper.

No more cigarettes, either. My last smoke was a rather nice long and ultra-thin foreign cigarette kindly given to me by Ms Sophie of the Boogaloo staff two months ago. Possibly more than two months ago. That I can't remember the exact date helps immensely. None of this "34 days since my last cigarette" nonsense. It's in the past, that's enough.

An unintentional last cigarette, but I'm glad it was that one. As the days went on, I found I wasn't missing smoking after all. Perhaps I was never really addicted in the first place.

I took up smoking at the age of 27 in order to make buses come sooner at bus stops. I quit at the age of 33 because I've finally realised photos of me smoking look like I'm trying to be someone I'm not. The End of that story, then.

Struggling at AV. The whole shelving system has been changed, so just as I was getting used to knowing where things were, I have to re-learn all over again. I feel the kind of grief associated with moving house.

Customers asking for Clive Owen or Mike Leigh films now, thanks to the Oscar nominations.

One customer moans about something I'd not noticed – that Channel 4 hardly ever show subtitled foreign language film these days. They just shove them onto Film Four, their digital subscription channel.

We discuss <b>The Barbarian Invasions</b>, Mr Arcand's recent sequel to <b>The Decline Of The American Empire</b>. It then occurs to me that the only reason I watched the first film was by accident, idly flicking through TV channels in the late 80s or early 90s, and catching it on C4 at about 11pm. I was intrigued, so I watched it.

Now, the channel's idea of late night foreign culture is by filling the same slot with live footage of Brigitte Nielsen cleaning her teeth. Even fans of Big Brother themselves complain about these pointless live feeds on the terrestial channel, as the sound is muted whenever anything interesting happens.

The BBC are just as bad. I look through the Radio Times trying to find one foreign language movie on the BBC that's not just been shoved on their digital channel BBC4 in the hope no one will watch it. They market this channel as "a space to think". Presumably this means all their other channels are for absolute idiots, and they're pleased to encourage things going this way.

Apologists would tell to me to subscribe to BBC4 and Film Four and shut up. They don't seem to realise the whole point of public service broadcasting, at a time when terrestial is still considered Proper, Superior and Default TV to digital, which is Option TV.

One shouldn't hide away acclaimed, thought-provoking TV and film from the possibility of accidentally flicking onto it, staying there, and being transported somewhere new.

Quentin Crisp talked about his success being entirely due to The Naked Civil Servant being shown at a time in the 70s when there were only three channels, and one of those (BBC2) was not transmitting most of the time.

He imagines a couple at home.

"What's on the telly?"
"The queers."
"What's on the other side?"
"The news."
"Oh. As you were"

"And this," said Mr Crisp, "is the spirit in which The Naked Civil Servant was watched."

If The Naked Civil Servant were made in 2005, it would be shoved on BBC4 or Film Four at 3am and left there to die. It would be for the most part unwatched, except for a few gay men and dedicated liberal arthouse film fans. That it was instead seen by millions of Normal People accidentally, who weren't seeking it out deliberately, is crucial.

These days, there is no Other Side. There is just This Side Of The Camera, and That. And one must pick which side they're on.

Good taste and intelligence shouldn't be an OPTION. If they gave me the keys to TV today, I would put all the makeovers and reality tv shows on the digital only channels, the foreign films and plays on terrestial, and see what happens. Would there be complaints? I really doubt it. I have more faith in the intelligence of the viewing public than current channel bosses. Though admittedly that isn't very hard to do.

Branding thinking as a minority interest is a dangerous use of media reponsibility. I wonder where it will lead us.