Coming in 2005 to a book emporium near you is this little effort. I’m not inside, but I am on the cover. Regular readers will know the genesis of this photo. My companion is Ms Anne Pigalle. The lobster is called Susan.

Some details, from the Dedalus Books catalogue:

I would have lost my wager: the back of the box for the Olsen twins' "Winning London" doesn't have a Big Ben on it after all. I try to put the film on in the shop, but Ms Welch isn't having it. She suggests I watch it at home, but I'm not THAT curious. Instead, I plump for renting the DVD of "A Canterbury Tale", the lesser-known Powell and Pressburger film.

Troy.Two and a half hours of aesthetically pleasing men in skirts and sandals, but the script is more wooden than the horse. No excuse, given Mr Homer is the father of storytelling. Mr Sean Bean is given too little to do as Odysseus. The battle scenes are all very epic, but not quite up to the standard of the Lord Of The Rings films. Given her reputation, Helen of Troy's beauty is rather ordinary – a face that bored a thousand CGI ships. Hector's wife, played by Ms Saffron Burrows, is far more striking, and one gets the sensation young Mr Bloom is far more in love with his lipbalm. Still, when this film came out at the cinemas, I spotted many people on public transport suddenly reading The Iliad. So Troy is ultimately redeemable.

Yesterday I received a cut to my eyebrow, courtesy of being hit in the face by a Disney video that had toppled from a high shelf. "101 Dalmatians 2: Patch's London Adventure". Yes, it does feature a cartoon Big Ben on the front sleeve. And a red double-decker bus on the back. Straight to video, to Mr Edwards's forehead, to Whittington Hospital's Casualty ward. Which in itself sounds like a creation of a hasty kid flick set in "Londonshire".

I was given a tetanus injection just in case. You can't be too careful with attacks from singing cartoon dogs.

<p>In the waiting room, I muse upon a strange affliction that movie producers have suffered lately.

<p>It appears to go like this. While planning the sequel to a previously successful children's film, and ideas are thin on the ground, take the characters on a cliched tourist trip to London. Make sure Big Ben is on the sleeve. And, if possible, a dog.

If no dog is available, see if a former member of S Club 7 has any space in her diary.

<img width=300 src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000764FF.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg"></img><img width=300 src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002I834U.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg"></img><img width=300 src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00022FWTA.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg"></img>

My Beefeater hat is raised, however, to the designer of the box for the Olsen Twins' inevitable offering. Incredibly, Big Ben is nowhere in sight:

<img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005U2KH.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg"></img>

I'll wager it's featured on the back, though.

It's certainly on the film's <a href="http://www.winninglondon.com/" target="_blank"> website,</a> where one can "get the 'how-tos' on having a funky London party."

Another sample quote from the site: "Vivian is London's rock and roll designer. She takes traditional English garb and makes it her own. She has suited up a load of celebs including the kind of punk Johnny Rotten."

******
On my streetwalking rounds, a black woman in the passenger seat of a passing car makes loud kissing noises at me. Then, as I glance in her direction, she shouts back "NOT REALLY!".

Which gesture do I believe? In a matter of seconds she has introduced herself to me as a liar, after all. The sad clown takes any affection, even joke affection. It's all a big joke. It's all so serious.

I want to follow her and ask her questions. Why the kisses, then why the disclaimer? What does she want me to think? I think far too much about the incident and what it means, what it says about her, about me, about people in cars, about the world. Perhaps she would respond, "I was just having a laugh". I want to know everything about her. I take everything extremely seriously, especially jokes and sarcasm and what people mean EXACTLY when they say they're "having a laugh". I want to put the entire cast of the half-hearted TV impersonation programme Dead Ringers in an interrogation chamber. Too much of the world's laughter is nervous laughter.

*****

Weds of last week – Boogaloo movie quiz. Present in my team this time are Mr White, Mr Lawrence Gullo, Dr Dave Kennedy, Ms Anna Spivack, Ms Lucy Madison, and Ms Madison's companion Mr Dale Shaw. I rather liked the latter's early 90s band Blood Sausage and his comic strips, but I think this is the first time I've spoken to him properly. He's affable and charming, and even apologises for wearing trainers. He also knows a lot of the answers: it transpires he's worked in a well-stocked San Francisco video shop.

The quiz seems harder than ever, though I am pleased to be able to spot a song from "Xanadu". We mistake Jonathan Pryce's singing voice from Evita for Mr Bowie in Absolute Beginners. Mr White retold a scene from "Kentucky Fried Movie" rather well, after a question arose featuring titles of the spoof films within that film. But could we name the other female lead in Lost In Translation? Could we name the new film starring Mr Robocop from its trailer? Could we Hellboy.

Celebrity questions this time came from, as they unkindly described, "borderline celebrity Har Mar Superstar" and "Giovanni Whatisiname with the odd face". The medic in Saving Private Ryan. You know.

One of the bar staff I'd not spoken to before said I looked like Dorian Gray. I do hope she meant the character rather than the painting. A man asked to take my photo by phone, and I obliged. A woman came over and complimented me on my lilies. The flowers were a bit too fresh this time, with not enough open petals for my liking. As the evening wore on, though, a few of the closed buds were beginning to open, so clearly the quiz was good for them. Perhaps it was the Xanadu question.

Recently rented:

<b>Connie and Carla</b>. Starring Ms Toni Collette and the woman who wrote and starred in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, plus Mr David Duchovny and Ms Debbie Reynolds. The eponymous ladies are struggling cabaret singers, who hide from criminals by disguising themselves as drag queens. Their new act in disguise is, of course, a hit – the innovation being drag queens singing rather than miming. Ms Collette, with her strong jaw and talent for camp clumsiness evinced so well in Muriel's Wedding, adopts far more easily to passing as a drag queen than her more indelibly girlish companion. Which is a shame, as it's the latter who gets the romantic subplot with Mr Duchovny. When watching the scenes where Mr Ex-X-Files finds himself curiously attracted to his overdressed friend, it's hard not to shout "it's so obviously a real woman, Mr David! Are you blind?".

The film's conceits aren't particularly original. In reality, there's plenty of showtune drag acts who sing rather than lip-synch – springing to mind is the wigged-up Barbra Streisand impersonator who's put out his own albums in character. Also, the comic potential of women dressing as men dressing as singing women has already been brought memorably to celluloid by Ms Julie Andrews in the Blake Edwards film, Victor Victoria. Connie and Carla is no "Adventures Of Priscilla…", but for an easy ride through well-researched drag queen make-up tips, frocks and showtunes, it's enjoyable enough.

Mr Bush Junior gets a second term as President. I spit blood at the news.

Tonight, I shall be drowning my sorrows captaining my team at the <a href="http://www.biggerboat-filmquiz.co.uk" target="_blank">Boogaloo Movie Quiz</a> with the usual lilies and whichever beautiful friends can make it.

Here's a photo from the last one, which rather captures my life at the moment: the two people I see most often. Ms Welch, who I spend time with at my Slight Job. Mr Gullo, The Houseboy in my Slight Social Life. Blurred photo by Mr Hupfield of the quiz people.

<img src="http://www.biggerboat-filmquiz.co.uk/images/octQUIZ1.jpg"></img>

Standing in the shower, I realise something has followed me in there.

By the plug hole, left of my feet, it's one of the many little yellow printed tags I've made for the World Cinema section at Archway Video. One tag for each director that the shop stocks at least three films by. Fans of non-English language films tend to follow a particular auteur's work, so filing the back catalogue this way seems to make sense. I've printed out about 50 such tags. My inner librarian is satisfied.

Thought: So many diarists I know are librarians. I've just realised why this is. Every diary keeper is a librarian of sorts. A diary, as opposed to a LiveJournal, is an attempt to put some sort of order upon the seemingly chaotic. Place a gentle order upon things. Make sense of them. Understand. Learn. And now, I file away foreign films just as I file away moments in my life.

I try to outstare the sticky label in the shower. Somehow it has survived a trip down Archway Road, a disrobing and a full night's sleep. What does it want? Is it a stalker? A reincarnated lover like Ms Kidman's new film, "Birth?" If her husband had come back as a sticky yellow label rather than a small boy, the film would have been far more interesting. Once again, Hollywood fails to ask my opinion and the world is a poorer place.

I read the label – its only true message to me. Which film director wants to share my shower so badly? Place your bets now, Dear Reader.

Staring back at me, Canute-like against the relentless swirl of water, is the word "BUNUEL".

Happy 150th birthday for yesterday, Mr Wilde. In the evening I toasted him at the Boogaloo with a few brandies and reading Mr McKenna's biography. I should really have carried a lily.

Aptly enough, I have been spending a lot of time recently with the Wilde-loving young man I currently introduce to friends as my "houseboy", Mr Lawrence Gullo. A 20-year-old androgynous artist and award-winning playwright from New York State: every home should have one. Fear not, Dear Reader, I shall refrain from adding what Mr Gullo's fellow countrypersons call Too Much Information about our relationship. Suffice it to say he is just what the doctor ordered, worth any amount of serotonin-enhancing prescription drugs. I shall recommend him to be made available on the NHS at once.

To those cynics who might suggest Mr G's status as a polyamorous American and registered FTM transsexual fits in conveniently well with the Jolly Universe Of Mr Edwards – he's like a character from a Fosca song – I can only answer, in an entirely unconvincing attempt at a US accent, "well, DUH".

Another American catchphrase I've been thinking about is "you do the math". Whether it will quite catch on over here remains to be seen, as the British abbreviate mathematics to "maths", plural. I'm reminded of a scene in the recent TV comedy series I'm Alan Partridge where Dan, a ghastly, pretentious businessman that the lonely Mr Partridge is trying to bond with, spouts the phrase:

Dan: You do the math.
Partridge: (unable to stop himself) "…ths"

******

Friday night – to the 291 Gallery in Hackney Road. The place is terrific: an echoey converted Victorian Neo-Gothic church with the highest ceiling of any venue I've ever played in. Apparently it was a former meeting place for Hells Angels, and they used to have bonfires in the main hall. I can well believe it. One gets a sense of vertigo just looking up.

I'm there to perform a short set of acoustic songs, as part of a bill curated by Ms Bishi, a star in the firmament of the London underground art-pop scene whose own debut album, when it emerges, will be promoted to the hilt in this diary.

I trot out a few ditties, but do rather feel too lonely onstage to be doing this regularly. I can't wait to regroup Fosca and perform with them soon. Plus there's the forthcoming series of Dickon Edwards Songbook shows that I'm planning, where different singers take turns to voice a song from my back catalogue, backed by myself and others. Tribute concerts to myself.

I stick around to catch Joan and Josephine, a splendid tranny band on ukelele and drums, followed by a mesmerising performance of opera-singing acrobats on ropes. Spot a few Hoxtonite people wearing Ironic Townie Chic. I suppose one has to say the word <a href="http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-cha2.htm" target="_blank">"chav"</a> rather than "townie" now. Though I'm rather uneasy about that personally, as the term reminds me of tiresomely sneering Popbitch-style journalists and unfunny website builders.

Still, thanks to the tabloids, Chav has become the new definition of rough trade, and now features in the wording of some escort ads at the back of gay magazines. One imagines curb crawlers opening their transactions with the likes of:

"Hello young man… Want to earn a new pair of those lovely Nike trainers? Well, then, as the slogan goes, Just Do It…."

Afterwards, I cab it to the packed grand re-opening night of Mr Price's club Stay Beautiful, now at The Purple Turtle in Mornington Crescent. Where everybody knows my name. Though it's not quite enough when getting a drink. I want the crowd by the bar to part like the Red Sea, and the bar staff to instantly serve me. No chance. Spend far too long getting a drink, trying to avoid the swaying drunken couple on the barstools next to me, wielding their cigarettes dangerously close to my suit and eyes. I'm not the only one who hates this aspect of clubbing: one poor girl tells me she's just had her eyebrow singed by a particularly careless smoker.

****

Read an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1328663,00.html" target="_blank">article in the Guardian</a> by a particularly paranoid American playwright, Ms Carol Gould, who's convinced London is currently a hotbed of Anti-American feeling. It's taken from a <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/" target="_blank">right-wing website</a>, so one should really bear that in mind.

Citing an encounter with a <i>London minicab driver</i> as an example of blanket consensus rather undermines her argument. However, I do think she's right about the edition of Question Time broadcast a few days after 9/11, where a former US Ambassador was on the verge of tears, if not quite breaking into them. Whatever one thinks, it's really not tasteful to open a debate so soon after the event with a question along the lines of "Aren't the events of last Tuesday proof of the failure of American foreign policy?" As if the foremost thing on the victims' minds that day was the ins and outs of US foreign policy. The BBC subsequently apologised for the tone of the programme, and rightly so.

It's true that the screenings of Mr Michael Moore's films I've attended were packed with applauding Londoners, but that's really an indication of UK feeling towards Mr Bush and company (including Mr Blair), rather than his fellow citizens. I have heard the occasional anti-US arguments starting up between strangers when an American accent is overheard, but these were entirely on Night Buses, where the speakers were audibly intoxicated, and are therefore as much as as an index of general local feeling as the rantings of cab drivers.

I for one adore the company of Americans In London. They are so less guarded and reserved than the British, so less shifty and bitter, and they have such better teeth. If I die before visiting the Big Country, I shall be extremely annoyed.

*****

There are those among my readers who think one solution to my lack of drive and creative activity is for me to get a job, or a relationship, or both. They will be pleased to know I now have small measure of both in my life. As well as spending time with Mr Gullo, I am now investing a smattering of hours assisting my friends at Archway Video, a few doors down from The Boogaloo. Community service indeed.

This is undoubtably one of the greatest shops in North London, with a back catalogue of some ten thousand videos and DVDs. If it's ever been released on the format in the UK, and is half-decent, they probably stock it. Not just films, either. One can rent the complete 24, West Wing, Buffy, Angel, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ripping Yarns, and this week, Little Britain.

I've been a regular customer for the best part of ten years. The shop is a casually-run independent affair and family business, slightly resembling the shop in Mr Cusack's film "High Fidelity", but with women. And videos. Very handy for those impetuous whims when one suddenly wants to watch the complete Fellini oeuvre, or "Plein Soleil", the original adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley, starring the young Alain Delon instead of Matt Damon. The shop is an essential service to the North London film lover – like a National Film Theatre for the sofa. I'm only too happy to do my bit.

On Friday 15th, I shall perform a brief set as part of a cabaret called <b>"Candy is Dandy but Liquor is Quicker"</b>. Not sure exactly what I'll do, but it'll involve an acoustic guitar. The venue is a Victorian Neo-Gothic church, and I'm told acoustic guitars sound particularly wonderful there.

Venue: 291 Gallery, 291 Hackney Road, London E2 8NA. More details at http://www.291gallery.com
When: Friday, October 15, 2004. 10pm-early hours. I'm on at 10.30pm.

From the website:

"This month, 291’s late night cabaret is joined for a one-off spectacular event by Bishi (Kashpoint, The Siren Suite).
To celebrate the imminent release of her album she has selected some of her favourite friends and performers to entertain you for one night only. Other artists include Bishi, The $hit, Simon Bookish, Anat Ben David (Peaches, Chicks on speed), Rosie Cooper, Marlene, Dickon Edwards; Film: Norioko Okaku, Susanne Oberbeck; DJ’s: Sebastian (Silence is sexy, Caligula) and Jo Apps. Entry: £5."

"DISCLAIMER: Apparently some people don’t like nudity, ideas and a polysexual selection box of fun wrapped up in a beautiful church with a ribbon of love. So if you are of a delicate constitution, you’re probably better off with your jumbo crossword book. "

My own disclaimer to their disclaimer: it definitely won't be me supplying the nudity.

After my set, I'll be dashing off to the grand re-opening of Mr Price's club <a href="http://www.staybeautifulclub.co.uk" target="_blank">Stay Beautiful</a>. A difficult decision, as I'd love to stay and catch some of the other Hackney performers, but I've been in such a Stay Beautiful-ready mood ever since I heard it was returning to Camden. Must be nostalgia for its first venue in Inverness Street. Or possibly for the Camden clubs I frequented in the mid 90s.

====

Last Saturday I managed to cram three clubs into one evening. The excellent comedian Mr Stewart Lee performed his latest set at Monkey Business in Camden, and I dragged Mr Chipping with me. A packed room above a bar, standing room only. I don't go to many comedy gigs, and the comic on before him reminded me exactly why. Never mind Default Men, this was Default Male Stand-Up. His routine was entirely composed of cliched blokish observational comedy targets: a typical example being legalise-cannabis campaigners getting (yes, you guessed it), the "munchies". If no one's laughing, insert swear words and they might laugh at those instead. Ye gods. He appeared to be one of those men who think they're funny just because their girlfriend, pub mates or workmates humour them.

What is it about men thinking they're automatically funny? That's the opening line from my own proposed routine. I've already got the suits.

Thing is, he actually went down rather well. Tourist-heavy audiences like this one prefer their comedy re-heated, blokish, characterless and predictable. When Mr Lee took to the stage and made observational quips on his own act <i>as it was happening</i>, then came out with lines like "all football-watchers are evil and scum", "Gary Lineker is sexually aroused by children becoming fat and dying – I do believe it", along with equally unkind sniping at comedic sacred cows Eddie Izzard and Graham Norton; the response was mostly sparse, nervous laughter, compared to the majority approval afforded to the first comedian. His style is intelligent, sly and uncompromisingly unique. Rarely does he care about pandering to the archetypal pub room crowd – the Default Audience trying to bond with itself over easy, fake-common-ground humour, or even Ageing Student Deadpan humour beloved of Internet users (another bugbear of mine – I really should get this anti-comedy comedy routine onstage). Thing is, he actually does do toilet humour. It's just a drawn-out, lateral and deliciously deconstructed take on toilet humour.

Mr Lee is far too smart to be doing stand-up gigs. This is exactly why he should keep doing them. And why I strongly urge you, Dear Reader, to catch him at <a href="http://www.sohotheatre.com/comedy/" target="_blank">his Soho Theatre run next month</a>.

After this, I attended Crimes Against Pop in Highbury Corner for about half an hour, then onto the The Fanclub in Kentish Town. Danced to deathless pop at the former, found myself being whipped with a bar mat at the latter. The mat-brandishing perpetrator was a bald man in a suit and make-up (yes, Dear Reader, even I can concede it's possible to dress well and act stupidly). He turned out to be a member of one of the Fanclub bands. I confronted him about it in his dressing room, fuelled by a fraction of the Dutch courage he had.

Me: Excuse me. Stop walking away. Why did you whip me with a beer-soaked bar mat while I was innocently dancing to Hazel Dean? I don't even know you.
Him: Oh, just trying to attract attention…

Another idiot, a visibly drunk blonde girl, approached me within minutes.

Her: Aren't you in a band? Isn't your name Duncan or something? Dominic?
Me: (snapping) Buy me a drink.
Her: Sorry? Are you serious?
Me: Yes I am. You've approached me because you're drunk and I look like A Drunk's Fair Game. I've just been whipped with a beer-soaked bar mat by a complete stranger for much the same reason. If I must deal with drunken idiots, which is admittedly an occupational hazard for me, I'd like to be at least as drunk as they are.

She didn't oblige. But she did leave me alone.

I'm not usually this angry with people and feel terribly guilty as I type the above. It must have been the bar mat talking.

Snowbooks, publishers of Jerome K Jerome's "The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow", featuring an Afterword by Dickon Edwards, have kindly put together a mail order offer exclusive to readers of this diary.

For those interested in purchasing this classic of Victorian observational comedy, email <a href="mailto:dickon-offer@snowbooks.com">dickon-offer@snowbooks.com</a> to order a copy, and Snowbooks will provide a 10% discount plus <b>free postage and packing*</b>.

Alternatively, look out for it in Waterstone's, among the "3 for the price of 2" displays.

*For non-UK readers, p&p is free for surface mail, £4.50 for air mail.

<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0860682633/dickonedwards-21/"><img align=left width=180 src="http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0860682633.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg"></img></a>Yesterday- I have to be in W2 at 8.30am. So, like any other good commuter, I rise at 6am and put on a suit and tie. Then, less like any other good commuter, foundation, mascara and lipgloss. Off to the tube station.

Once again, I'm an extra in a film. This time, it's <a href="http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0421229/fullcredits" target="_blank">Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont</a>, an adaptation of the 1971 novel by Elizabeth Taylor.

From a description of the novel:

<i>"One rainy Sunday in January Mrs Palfrey, recently widowed, arrives at the Claremont Hotel in the Cromwell Road. Here she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are a magnificently eccentric group who live off crumbs of affection, obsessive interest in the relentless round of hotel meals, and undying curiosity. There is Mrs Burton with her mauve-rinsed hair, her costume jewellery, and her drinking; Mrs Arbuthnot, bossy and arthritic; Mr Osmond with his risque stories, his endless stream of letters to the press. Together, upper lips stiffened, teeth gritted, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and the grim Reaper. And then one day Mrs Palfrey encounters the handsome young writer, Ludo…"</i>

Today's scene is at a party in someone's (real) flat. Mr Pushaun, who I've met at various clubs, is in charge of recruiting suitable party guest-like people. And so here I am at 8.30am in a top floor Bayswater flat, pretending to chat while not making a sound, pretending to get drunk on coloured lemonade, practising the film extra art of being seen yet not being seen, in order to provide background decoration to the performances of Ms Joan Plowright, Ms Millicent Martin, and Mr Rupert Friend. The latter, who plays Ludo, is a beautiful young floppy-haired man with a passing resemblance to Mr Orlando Bloom. I'm sure <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth9" target="_blank">Mr Paul Bailey</a>, the original inspiration for Ludo and editor of "The Stately Homo: A Celebration of the Life of Quentin Crisp", would approve.

Some of the other extras are from an interesting social scene: the Serpentine Swimming Club, who spend most mornings taking their natural highs from bathing among the waterfowl in the Hyde Park lake. They are a jolly, friendly gang of all ages, and their quietly exotic company provides a welcome relief from the usual long periods of waiting around during takes.

After spending the day pretending to be partying, I go straight to a couple of real parties in Mayfair. First, the album launch for glacial electropop duo <a href="http://www.client-online.net" target="_blank">Client</a> at Infinity in Old Burlington Street. A sold-out gig, but Mr Martin White and his chums are already there and have saved me a seat by the sofas. Client, in their yin-and-yang turquoise stewardess uniforms, manage to satirize the trappings of women in both pop music and the world of work, while putting on a winning full-length pop show. They are the feminist thesis you can dance to. The new album in question is called "City" and is highly recommended to all my readers. Support act <a href="http://www.thesohodolls.com" target="_blank">The Soho Dolls</a> put on an equally sturdy set of catchy synthpop with feral party girl attitude, including their delicious debut single "Prince Harry".

I then slink round the corner to Number 3, New Burlington Street to see more pop hostesses in uniform. This time, DJ nurses. Ms Val, Ms Clare and Ms Alicat have just relocated their excellent club <a href="http://thefanclub.info/popklinik.htm" target="_blank">The Pop Klinik.</a> to this afterhours drinking den off Regents Street. They are simply the most impossibly charming trio of DJs in town, always playing a marvellous selection of old and new pop records; following, say, Franz Ferdinand's Tell Her Tonight with Adam Ant's Dog Eat Dog. The club remains high on my list when asked to suggest unpretentious, affordable nocturnal haunts for those new to London.

Therapy session. The Problem is my current crippling refusal to connect or commit to, well, anything at all: the real world, people, love, sex, sexuality, writing, sensible money management, sorting out my past from my present and future, adulthood.

On the way back, my mind ablaze with reflection, I go Life Shopping.

I buy new bed linen for the first time in 14 years. The previous coverings were bought when I moved to Bristol in 1990.

Then… hair bleach, foundation, vanilla lipgloss.