New diary discipline: shorter, more regular entries. Well, I'll try.

The more I put off writing up the diary, the more I think I can Get Away with it. Just go back to bed, do it tomorrow, the destructive part of me says. Do everything tomorrow, or the day after. Tomorrow doesn't exist NOW. Anything but now.

Mr Therapist is convinced that I am not, as Mr Tom Jones never intended it, unusual. In his professional opinion I'm not autistic or blighted by Asperger's Syndrome, the #1 syndrome <i>de nos jours</i>. Perhaps that's my dictionary fame to come:

<i><b>Dickonism</b>. Noun. A tendency to feel, after reading about the symptoms of an illness in the press, that one is riddled with it oneself.</i>

Mr Therapist maintains I'm an ordinary man with entirely treatable depression, who just needs help. And needs to admit I need help. This is somewhat of a disappointment as I'd like to be able to blame the Trouble With Me on some medical condition. Illness as absolution. Not guilty, your honour. Society's to blame. My parents are to blame. My illness is to blame. Not me. Here lies Dickon Edwards: it wasn't his fault.

Oh, how one is forever a sentence away from sounding like some ill-informed self-righteous newspaper columnist. (Reader's Voice: Why stop now?). I do envy those columnists in the tabloids: they only have to be self-righteous in a fraction of their broadsheet counterparts' word count. And probably with several times the readership for several times the fee. The central difference in style seems to be that in tabloid columns every other sentence is suddenly picked out and put in bold, underlined italics like so:

<b><i><u>And that's the trouble with young people today. </u></i></b>

My GP is more concerned with my hypochondria than anything else. I've asked to be tested for everything under the sun this year. The verdict comes back time and time again: depression aside, I'm fine. Could do with regular exercise and a better diet, but fine. And that I should seriously talk to my therapist about my hypochondria. I'll add it to the list, I reply.

O Mr Edwards. Such contradictions. Ill but perfectly well. A mess in a tidy shell. Childlike yet not suitable for children. Self-obsessed yet a mirror to others. Never quite part of a group, yet responsible for others coming together, whether by default or design. Proud and vain yet self-hating and nervous. Cynical yet anti-cynicism. Arrogant yet meek. Aloof yet desperate for company. Funny but tragic. Famous yet Unfamous. Reputedly Terribly Clever yet incapable of many basic human activities.

I search for an excuse for this, the first (I hope) in a series of entries that will draw on past events long overdue for coverage. Conveniently, one presents itself as a recent film I rented on DVD, much recommended by the Archway Video staff.

<b>21 Grams.</b> Essentially an episode of Casualty re-edited by a madman. A traffic accident and heart transplant result in characters getting upset, lives changing, relationships at crossroads, secrets revealed, convictions brought to a head, the ingredients of any hospital-based soap opera. Added to which are musings on what Life really means, and what really matters. The title refers to the weight apparently lost by every human body at death – regardless of their own weight, age, gender and so on. All very well. Except that this story is also told in a jigsaw of flashbacks and flash-forwards, cutting between perspectives and time. Some scenes last mere seconds. Blink, blink, blink.

The director is a Mexican gentleman, Mr Iñárritu. He is Foreign, and is therefore a Genius.

Now, the above was admittedly yet another attempt at a quotably arch but glibly offensive epigram to add to my Greatest Hits collection. You'll forgive me for being a creature of habit. I hasten to add that just because a film is made in a language other than English doesn't necessarily mean it's automatically brilliant. But I'm aware this is often an unspoken assumption with some people, particularly guilty monoglots.

Subtitle-phobes may be comforted to know that my German friend Ms Andrei says she can't stand most films made in her native language, and would far prefer to watch Mad Max 2 than anything by Mr Fassbinder or Mr Wenders.

On the DVD making-of documentary, Mr Iñárritu explains that the narrative of 21 Grams is fragmented "because we view LIFE in fragments". It's the sort of statement unquestionably aided by a foreign accent and its attendant hand gestures. For someone with English as a first language to say such a thing may invite accusations of pretentiousness. Or worse, risking an appearance in Private Eye Magazine's Pseuds Corner, an honour to which I secretly aspire. At least two Guardian reviews of the London band Selfish C**t have enjoyed mentions there this year. I also maintain that Ms Tracey Emin would get less criticism if she were from Iran. It's easier to be artier when you're a foreigner. Write that one down too, please.

21 Grams invites comparisons with another favourite recent film of mine, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Both films are made with Hollywood money, Hollywood actors and Hollywood distribution, but have a heavy-accented foreign director and a very art house, indie-flick, world cinema sense of style and narration. Again, it sounds enormously patronising to refer to a non-English language film as "world cinema" or an "indie flick", but while the default movie remains a Hollywood movie (will it ever be otherwise? a subject for a thesis or eight), one has to acknowledge the reigning perspective. My own life is a Cute British Indie Flick rather than a Proper Hollywood Movie whether I like it or not. Thank goodness: I couldn't cope with all the gratuitous explosions and car chases. I couldn't be a non-UK World Cinema film either: all that sex looks like hard work. The Dickon Edwards version of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" would have a U certificate and be translated as "I Get On Terribly Well With People's Mothers."

I rather like the idea of Eternal Sunshine and 21 Grams, two carrot-cake-in-popcorn-clothing movies, being the equivalent of sneaking a foreign film past the eyes of those who scoff, "I don't go to the cinema to READ."

But there's a risk: both have had customers at Archway Video delivering their verdicts as either "Absolute Genius", or "Pretentious Arty Drivel – I like Proper Films." It's a shame, but one has to be careful when recommending such titles. Some people are just popcorn fans through and through. I've also heard of customers who won't watch anything in black and white.

I once went with a very erudite man to see The Dreamlife Of Angels at the Finchley Phoenix. He walked out halfway through and waited for me in the lobby.

"I just remembered I really don't like French films," he said.

"Because of the subtitles?"

"No. Because of the French Film-ness."

21 Grams risks accusations of being Gratuitously Arty more than Eternal Sunshine, as there's no sci-fi element to the story to justify the narrative tricks. Likewise Memento using the protagonist's own amnesia as a stylistic device. Why is 21 Grams cut-up and fragmented like this? The only real answer is because it makes for a thoughtful, gripping film. For the first half-hour, the viewer is all at sea, trying to work out which bit goes where in the narrative. Then the film starts to settle down, and the satisfaction of finding out how the pieces all fit together is so great, I have to declare 21 Grams a work of supreme craftsmanship, and ultimately a downright engrossing experience.

It did remind me a little of the Love & Rockets comics by the similarly Mexican Hernandez brothers, which also tell soap-opera-like tales in disjointed narratives. Often a single panel will be a flashback for no apparent reason. It's the sort of thing that delights me but can infuriate others.

The movie features great performances from the three leads: Mr Del Toro is so good at Acting he converts it to Being. Ms Watts's part is pure melodrama: she spends the film either crying, kissing or snorting drugs. Incredibly, she does all these things without forcing the viewer to look at their watch once. The goofy Mr Penn is an actor I am normally not at all keen on, and I still tend to think of him as Mr Madonna From "Shanghai Surprise". Here, though, he is excellent, managing to bring a black comedic stripe to the proceedings, constantly smoking despite having a messy heart condition. His wife can't understand how he manages to keep his stock of cigarettes replenished while wandering around attached to tubes from a drip-feed apparatus. Neither can the viewer. And this is what gives 21 Grams and Mr Penn's performance that extra appeal.

The casting of his screen wife, Ms Charlotte Gainsbourg, is for me the film's sole let-down. We are meant to believe her character is utterly English, rather than the daughter of the world's most French Frenchman. But her accent doesn't convince. Indeed, at one point she sniffs "I Yarm Going Barck To LarnDarn". It is no wonder Mr Penn's character took to chain-smoking.

Flashback diary entries to come, then.

A lot to write up.

Last Sat lunchtime: interview for RARE FM to plug my various London performances. It's a student radio station based in what resembles an airing cupboard at UCL's Medical School Division of Infection & Immunity. The presenter Mr Jefferson seems nervous, and I wonder if he's nervous of me because of my defensively aloof attitude (something I do try to mitigate), or nervous for me as unproven radio material that might splutter and swear and libel members of the Royal Family within seconds of opening the fader; or just nervous about the temperamental equipment he has to operate while presenting a radio programme. Regardless, I am grateful to him for letting me loose upon his show.

Ideally one would have a separate engineer doing what I believe is termed "driving the desk", but this is community radio so it's naturally all DIY. Recognising the semaphore for "Can you keep talking while I try fiddling with these knobs to get it all working" is essential at such places. The room is actually slightly bigger and easier to get into than the studio of Resonance. There, one has to maneovre oneself up London's narrowest twisting staircase outside of the one in Gosh Comics of Bloomsbury.

No wonder so many local and community radio shows give out their phone numbers and email addresses all the time: one never knows if anyone is listening at all. Thankfully, a reader from Belgium writes in with kind words. God bless Belgium.

I punctuate my interview with some of my favourite music of the year, this being the time when the media starts compiling its Best Of 2004 lists. Lately I have developed an increasingly fogeyish pose of being out of touch of current chart rock and pop, yet am actually more in love than ever with acts such as Scarlet's Well, The Hidden Cameras, Client, and many of the artists featured at the club Kash Point. I play the following tracks:

<b>Hidden Cameras – Music Is My Boyfriend</b>
Taken from "The HCs Play The CBC Sessions", the first of their two albums released on Rough Trade this year. I chose this song particularly because it features prominent harmony vocals from Reg Vermue, aka Gentleman Reg. In Easter readers will recall I did a very John Peel-like gesture with Mr Vermue. I wanted to see him play in the UK, and no one else was getting him over here, so I did it myself. I helped to book his first ever UK live dates and supplied backing guitar. Had I the power to grant him a UK radio session, I would do so like a shot.

<b>Bishi – Uniform and Armour</b>
Taken from the Kash Point compilation album. A perfect pop song, from one of the many young stars in the London nightlife firmament.

<b>Client – Radio</b>
Another perfect glacial pop song. Should really be in the proper Top 5. All these songs should be in the proper Top 5.

<b>Morrissey – Let Me Kiss You</b>
This is where my Robin Hood approach falls apart, as Mr M has enjoyed much chart success and media life in 2004. That said, the Best Of list I glanced in some Magazine entirely overlooked "You Are The Quarry" in favour of some non-threatening trainer-rock groups that journos always seem keen to promote. I could write an entire book about how important Morrissey is to the world, now more than ever, but Mr Mark Simpson has beaten me to it. This song is my Single of 2004: romantic and arch, poignant and pure, subtle and sexy, and a rather 80s meld of jangly guitar and synthi-strings which is right up my cul-de-sac. And yes, I know, some of his 2004 b-sides are even better. But that was always the way. It will be good to see the words "I Have Forgiven Jesus" in the Christmas single charts.

At the radio station, I don't manage to play "How The Cypress Made Apollo" by Scarlet's Well. So it instead goes on my Vox N Roll set at the Boogaloo two days later. Of which, more anon.

Like cliched buses, I appear to have confirmed no less than three performances in London over one short period. Plus a radio interview.

Saturday November 27th
At 1.30pm GMT I shall be chatting about my world and works as a guest of Mr Jefferson on RARE FM, the London student radio station. I think one can listen to it on the Internet. More details about the station here

Then in the evening I shall be appearing at an event called Mildmay Cabaret: A Special Occasion. Mildmay Club, 34 Newington Green, N16 9PR. Buses: from Angel, 73, 476, 341; from Finsbury Park, 236; from Liverpool Street, 141.
“A dazzling night with over 15 local and international cabaret acts, musical, burlesque, comedy, cigar girls, to capture classic 1920s Berlin in this beautiful 1880s theatre.” I’m going on last performing some kind of spoken word piece written during the rest of the show, based on my observations and thoughts of the night. A kind of blogging without computers. Doors 7pm. Tickets £7 / £5. For more details, contact Mr Kevin Quigley at k_astral@hotmail.com or 07951 077661.

Monday November 29th
Mr Edwards Presents Mr Jerome K Jerome at The Boogaloo, 312 Archway Road, London N6 5AA. Onstage 9pm. I shall be reading from the new edition of Jerome K Jerome's classic of Victorian observational comedy, The Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow. This edition is published by Snowbooksand regular readers will recall the book includes a brief Afterword from myself. There should be copies to buy on the night. An ideal gift for that difficult fop in your life. Or even your mother. Or in my case, an ideal gift for difficult fops in my life, my mother AND my landlady. In line with the “Vox N Roll” rules, I’ll be punctuating my short readings with a selection of chosen music. A kind of DJ-ing with literature and records. Free entry.

The previous performer at this venue was a Mr Conor Oberst of a band called Bright Eyes who I’m told have recently made Number One and Number Two in the USA Billboard charts simultaneously. Very nice of him to warm up for me.

Tuesday November 30th
I shall perform some of Mr Quentin Crisp's words at something called the Hanky Panky Kabarett. This is organised by Mr Xavior, he of the band DexDexter and slightly of the band Placebo, and who is also in that Placebo-related band in the film Velvet Goldmine. The event takes place 9pm-Midnight at Bistrotheque, 23-27 Wadeson Street, London E2. Tel: 020 8983 7900. For more details, email: hankypankykabarett@hotmail.com. Hmm, yet another Hackney art cabaret. Something must be in the water.

In indie music news, I see that the band Gene have decided to split up, with their last ever concert at the Astoria in December. I’m rather interested in going – Mr Rossiter the singer does have a certain something, and they were one of the more interesting groups from that dreaded Britpop slipstream. Elsewhere, The Wedding Present have reformed, and have just released their first single in 7 years. What can it all mean?

Mr Eddie N tells me he has found the edition of Italian Vogue featuring the photoshoot of various Kash Point club boys organised especially for the magazine. It appears very few of the people who turned up made the actual piece. The outraged shrieks of sundry men in make-up fill the London air. I too have been cruelly omitted from the magazine. Still, Mr Warboy was also at the shoot, and took a few photos of his own. They can be found here. The photo accompanying this entry is from that day. My buttonhole is an onion flower.

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.

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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.