I buy the new single from Client, "Radio". This turns out to be the unknown stand-out song I enjoyed when I last saw them in concert; it remained spiralling in my head all the way home. A superb slice of rain-riven, panoramic, velvet synthpop. Highly recommended.

<img src="http://www.client-online.net/client/radio.jpg"></img>

Weds – to the NFT to see <a href="http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0040746/quotes" target="_blank">Rope</a>. My favourite of Mr Hitchcock's films, indeed one of my favourite movies full stop; I'm surprised more people aren't familiar with it. So much to love about this film. Made entirely of innovative ten-minute shots, only cutting when the reel runs out. Hitchcock inventing a 1940s version of Steadicam to film it. Gay young men in suits (based on Leopold and Loeb) killing a fellow student purely for Nietschean supremacy reasons, then inviting the victim's girlfriend and parents to unwittingly dine from the body's casket. James Stewart, fresh from It's A Wonderful Life, as the arch school teacher they took too seriously. The beautiful young Farley Granger – a Uranist in real life – going deliciously to pieces over 80 minutes. 1948 Technicolor on the big screen, every frame looking as if it's painted. Forgotten just how Wildean and funny it is. Favourite line from the Lady Bracknell-like Mrs Atwater:

Mrs A: Do you know, when I was a girl I used to read quite a bit.
Brandon: Oh, we all do strange things in our childhood.

My companions for the film are two lovely, stylish Americans In London: Mr Wren Gullo (<lj user=tzarohell>) and Ms Jennifer Connor. Though it's fashionable to be unkind to the country at the moment, particularly its politicians and its companies, I do rather love the company of its people. Such positivity, such better teeth.

Ms Connor wears a scarf that was formerly a Christmas tree decoration. She is literally like that line in Mr Brel's song "Jackie": decked out like a Christmas tree.

To my delight, Mr Gullo tells me his aunt is the actress Patricia Charbonneau, who played Cay in the classic 80s lesbian film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089015/" target="_blank">Desert Hearts</a>. I promise to make him a copy of the sublime Field Mice song, "So Said Kay", whose lyrics are based on quotes from the film; notably "Where'd you learn to kiss that way?", the title of the band's <a href="http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/field_mice/295809/album.jhtml" target="_blank">best-of compilation</a>.

Photos are taken at the steps of the Hungerford Bridge on our way home.

Mr Gullo and Mr Edwards:

<img src="http://www.fosca.com/WrenDickon-sep2004.jpg"></img>

Ms Connor and Mr Edwards:

<img src="http://www.fosca.com/JenConnorDickonSep2004.jpg"></img>

***

Thursday: To the Boogaloo with Ms Spivack (<lj user=my_name_is_anna>) for the launch of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0233000704/dickonedwards-21/">the new Kirsty MacColl biography</a>. The author Ms O'Brien wears a striking Mary Quant-like black and white dress, and looks rather like a singer herself. She reads anecdotes from the book about Ms MacColl's life, and reveals that the sleevenotes for the mid 90s compilation Galore were based on a Shangri-Las sleeve, where journalists sung the girl group's praises. For Galore, Ms MacColl got her pop star friends to provide quotes, notably the following one from Morrissey:

<i>"Kirsty is a voice gradually added to a body. She has great songs and a crackin' bust. She is a supreme original but not – as far as I know – one of the original Supremes. Everything shows in the voice. The best of the last of. Furthermore, a full set of teeth. What more? NOT cursed."</i>

Ms O'Brien comments, "The 'crackin' bust' line must have caused confusion among some Morrissey fans. As if they weren't confused enough."

Here’s a jolly photo from my birthday a few weeks ago, posing with a copy of kiddie rehab classic The Secret Garden. Photo taken by Dr Adrienne Cullum at the club How Does It Feel To Be Loved, Brixton. My thanks to her and to Ian Watson.

That evening, I had a sense of a convergence of my personal history. On my birthday, I tend to dwell on my past and present regardless. So to be surrounded that day by people from different periods of my life somewhat intensified the sensation

Amelia Fletcher was DJ-ing, playing Kenickie at one point. In a nutshell, that’s my early 90s meets my mid 90s. It also occurred to me that the first time I met Ms Fletcher and Rob was again in Brixton, at a Heavenly gig, The Fridge, 1990. I got all the band members to sign a fanzine called The Fine Art Of Shoplifting. "Mathew is cool". "Yes, but only in The Fridge – Rob." It was the first of umpteen Heavenly gigs for me. Over the next four years, I would hitchhike around the country to see them play.

Others from my past that night at HDIF, equally at no invitation of mine: David Kitchen, who ran my old band Orlando’s mailing list; Claudia Gonson of the Magnetic Fields, who I fondly remember supporting The Divine Comedy at the Water Rats in 1996, with Ms Fletcher on guest vocals wearing an Orlando badge; Justin Pearce – my more recent past.

In the same room were Martin White, Jennifer Denitto, Neil Scott, David Kennedy – all from my present.

Dickon Edwards, This Is Your Life. Who are you now? Who were you then? Are you happy? Were you happy?

The story goes on. I’m neither the gushing indie music fan I was in 1990, nor the troubled music biz hustler I was in 1996. But there's remnants of those characters in my current make-up. The pun is definitely intended.

Amelia and Rob are now in the band Tender Trap. I've just been listening to their latest, highly witty EP on Elefant Records, "Como Te Llamas? (Tell Me Your Name)". I wouldn't hitchhike to see them anymore, but then I wouldn't hitchhike to see anyone any more. But I still adore Ms Fletcher, whose biography really must be written one day. And I’m looking earnestly forward to the next Tender Trap album.

Sample lyrics from the EP:

Indie girl seeks the same
I'll be wearing a check shirt and a denim skirt
And a hairgrip with a cat on it

– "Como Te Llamas? (Tell Me Your Name)

I don't know anybody.
Now I am disembodied.
I found affection here online.
Oh be my Catcher In The Rye
I'll be your Postcard singles

– "Friendster"

Last night – to the 269 Gallery in Portobello Road for a private view. I'm trying to go to more art shows and book launches, as opposed to clubs and gigs. There's usually free drink, conversation that doesn't involve shouting in people's ears, and they're over by 9pm. And one never feels as if one's too old to be there.

I grumble at having to go to West London, so it's just as well the exhibition turns out to be utterly marvellous. "Evolution: A Fusion of Fashion and Film" is a multi-purpose affair; serving as an art installation, a fashion retrospective and a fund raiser for a forthcoming short film, "Eye Of The Beholder." <a href="http://www.elizabethemanuel.co.uk/" target="_blank">Ms Elizabeth Emanuel</a> is the artist. Chiefly a fashion designer, her name is associated with many a celebrity wardrobe from the early 80s onwards. One memorable example being the wedding dress of Princess Diana.

One end of the gallery is decked out to resemble an abandoned film set, featuring a dingy room with a flickering table lamp. Negatives and photos are pegged on a clothes line, countless magazine clippings featuring Ms Emanuel's past creations coat the walls. There's a sewing machine, dresses on hangers and designers' dummies, notebooks covered in writing, pages from a film script, and an antique typewriter on a desk. The proposed film is a latter-day film noir-ish take on the Pygmalion story: male obsession with controlling female beauty; "Seven" meets "Vertigo". It's principally a manner of showcasing the designer's latest collection, but using celluloid and narrative rather than the catwalk.

The rest of the gallery is more conventionally decorated: prints of costume designs, digitally processed and coloured. Somewhat reminds me of the 80s airbrushing style: women looking like they're made of aluminium. Other prints are in sepia. Many have handwritten excerpts from the Pygmalion and Galatea myth down one side, like those Pre-Raphaelite portraits accompanied by passages of Tennyson or Shakespeare. Echoes of both the 1980s and 1880s pervade. All of which suits me to a tee.

I down several glasses of free champagne, but can't find room for the oysters. Discuss the problem of English Erotica with a nice chap I've previously met at the vintage dress club Modern Times, and enjoy the works of the other artist on the bill, Ms Louisa Elizabeth Loakes. These are silhouette-like photograms on wooden blocks of dragonflies and feathers, mostly in an antique-looking glass cabinet. Fits in well with the Victorian and sepia elements of the Emanuel show.

Pass the Boogaloo on the way home, realise it's only 10.30pm, and pop in for a drink. It's weekly music quiz night. Ed Mole and his team (Cat Rogers, Tim Chipping, Chris Stevens) are there, as is skinny Mr Bernard Butler and his. A lot less crowded than the last movie quiz night, despite the Radio 1 attention of a few weeks ago. I try to help, but all I can do is mistake a picture of Lol Tolhurst from the Cure for Jerry Harrison from Talking Heads. Scare off one of the pub's black cats with a library copy of the punctuation bestseller "Eats Shoots and Leaves". And so to bed.

An exciting package in the post. A copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1905005040/dickonedwards-21/" target="_blank">The Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow by Jerome K Jerome</a>. With an Afterword by Dickon Edwards. A beautiful new edition of a Victorian comic classic. I recommend it highly, regardless of my contribution.

My literary début, then. The thought that I'm now in bed with Mr Jerome in the British Library, until the end of civilisation, thrills me immeasurably.

To order it from your local bookshop, here's the full details:

Title: The Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow
Author: Jerome K Jerome
ISBN: 1-905005-04-0
Publisher: Snowbooks, London
Price: £9.99 (hardback only)
Date Published: 24th September 2004

Rent the DVD of Shaun Of The Dead. An absolute gem of a film, and I don't even like zombie movies.

At Archway Video, deliciously, it's several times more popular than Mr Gibson's Passion Of The Christ film, which kept it off the UK #1 spot at cinemas. Months later, I have to wait a week for a rental copy of SOTD to be free, while DVDs of POTC remain noticeably unloaned upon the shop shelves. Jesus is not for renting.

For Archway Road, SOTD is a local concern. The pivotal location, The Winchester pub, is based upon The Shepherds, now The Boogaloo, the nearest bar to this computer. Mr Pegg and Mr Frost, the film's stars, used to frequent the pub when they shared a flat in the area. The sole reason for the name change in the film is a plot device necessitating the acquisition of a Winchester rifle kept above the bar. The next pub along Archway Road from The Boogaloo is also called The Winchester, but this is an absolute coincidence which no one believes. Such is art.

I've read reports connected with the film that The Shepherds is now a theme pub or "gourmet pub", a description which really needs correcting. This was certainly many people's impression of The Boogaloo when it started, including my own. However, <a href="http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/comments.shtml/21/" target="_blank">anyone going there now</a> will tell you the theme corners have long since been knocked off; its gourmet menu, if there was one, indefinitely shelved. I think it's fair to say The Boogaloo has acquired its own lived-in character and soul, its own friendly, laid-back attitude. Perhaps a little of the Shepherds spirit has even percolated through from the walls. It's not The Shepherds anymore, but neither is it a soulless gourmet pub. Put it like this, The Boogaloo made the likes of me its First Ambassador. You can't get much further from "gourmet" than me.

The other day I was physically dragged in there by one of the regulars as I passed the building, who refused to let me NOT pop in for a drink. He's also an old Shepherds regular, so I mentioned that Shaun Of The Dead depicts the pub's previous owners John and Bernie as zombies. He thought I was joking. It's true. The zombie landlord gets a memorable scene in which he is beaten rhythmically about the head with snooker cues to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", before being thrown head first into the jukebox.

"Blimey. Did they make Henry (the Shepherds dog) into a zombie too?" he asked.

"No."

"Ah well." As if the film-makers missed an important trick.

I'll write more on Shaun Of The Dead another time, but for now, here's the answer to a Frequently Asked Question. I am indeed in the film as a zombie crowd extra, though you have to play "Where's Wally" to spot me. To save your eyesight, <a href="http://www.fosca.com/dickon-of-the-dead.jpg" target="_blank">here's the appropriate vidcap.</a> (Thanks due to Mr Chipping).

After looking over my old diary entries from 1997, written before the coming of blogs and Livejournals, a sense of nostalgia for my own writing has convinced me to switch the default comments box setting to "Screen All". Nostalgia for a website – it was always going to happen.

This is purely for aesthetic reasons: feedback is still very much welcome. The change will, I hope, loosen up my writing a little and render it more unguarded, more personal. As personal as I get, that is. Also, the screened box is a quick method of sending me a private message without resorting to email, so it's not as if I'm cutting myself off from the world.

===============

Watching the Mercury Awards ceremony on TV. Franz Ferdinand are wearing make-up and suits. They look fantastic. I'm so pleased they won.

Of the other performances, Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch is singing confidently and faultlessly, with in-ear monitors, while his band are polished and perfect. Quite a difference from the nervous, sometimes inaudible 1997-8 concerts.

===============

My thanks to all the kind readers who sent birthday wishes. I spent the evening of my 33rd anniversary of woe at How Does It Feel in Brixton, posing for photos with a copy of The Secret Garden. Met some people I've known on and off for a decade or more: Amelia and Rob from Tender Trap, Ms Claudia Gonson from the Magnetic Fields. Justin Pearce, who is now a MF fan and so was delighted to be introduced to Ms G. Greg from the Razorcuts / Sportique also wished me a Happy Birthday, which was terribly nice of him.

Jennifer Denitto's present was to drive me all the way home – something which I really treasured. Night buses are starting to prove such hard <i>work</i> for me, particularly at the weekend. It's the noise – teenagers carrying on their parties on the bus. Nothing new, so it must be me who's changed. No escape. The bus stops at every possible stop, crawls, stops. Crawls, stops. Interminably.

On a recent night bus trip, I had two girls sitting next to me, one on the other's lap, while they exchanged drunken banter with their red-cheeked male counterparts, drinking but not yet shaving. After a while, the girls grew tired of their seating arrangement and both decided to squeeze themselves onto my seat, pushing me up against the glass. Not even asking me if I minded. I didn't say anything, but I was in hell. At least on tube journeys one can switch to a different carriage. With night buses, I increasingly feel one is at the mercy of the less meek and the more drunk. It's a terrifying combination for a fragile fop old enough to be their slightly peculiar uncle.

Last night – with Mr Wren Gullo to the reopening night of the club Electrogogo, at the invitation of host Mr Mark Moore, once of S-Express.

The venue is called Zoo and is off Leicester Square, so one has to brave unwelcome attention from a few tiresome men in order to gain entry. Ms Sam, in her skin-baring French Maid From Hell ensemble suffers the most as we gather outside. I never understand how such men think. Do they honestly imagine they're going to meet with a favourable response?

Inside, Zoo turns out to be underground and MC Escher-like: chrome, neon, space-deceiving mirrors, unexpected changes in levels. A bizarre canopy festooned with lights covers the main bar. Two live acts on the stage. First on are The Modern, arguably the most 80s-like band I've ever seen. And from my gig-going lifetime, that's saying something. One keyboard player even does robot elbow dancing. Excellent pop songs, and a thoroughly enjoyable live act. I learn that the female singer is also a working actress, just back from filming a Miss Marple with Geraldine McEwan.

Then it's the turn of Mr Steve Strange, a genuine 80s New Romantic icon if ever there was one. Spiky black hair, semi-realised skeleton suit, Janet Jackson radio mic, more physical and macho than I'd expected. Looks a little like Mr Numan does these days. He performs a few of his Visage hits, ending with – what else – "Fade To Grey". This is a 2004 remix, accompanied by a young vocal group called DV8. Two boys, two girls. None of whom can have been born when the song first came out in 1980. Never mind that – one boy looks like he can't have been born when S-Express had their first hit.

Catch a nightbus from the stop on Trafalgar Square's east side. The stop has four hours to live. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/3643654.stm" target="_blank">At 6.40am a dust cart ploughs into it, putting two people in hospital.</a>

Last Wednesday – the Boogaloo Movie Quiz. My previous attempt at hosting any kind of a gathering was my birthday party in Ipswich 1990. About 3 of the 30 people I invited turned up. In the end the four of us just sat around morosely and watched Vic Reeves's Big Night Out like the good college students we were. I've never hosted a party since, birthday or not. Like Miss Havisham at the altar, I can take a hint. Unlike her, I hasten to add, no vengeful feelings upon malekind were harboured. Even back then I'd learned to resist that particular daily temptation.

So for this film quiz fourteen years later I ask nine people to come, being a selection of film fans, London social butterflies, or both. This way, even if the 1990 party trauma repeats itself, I reason, I'll still be left with a respectable team size. I also impose a slight dress code: dress stylishly, make an effort, and on no account wear trainers. We may not win the quiz, but at least we could win in the Most Stylish Team In The Room stakes. To make our mark further, I bring a vase of fresh white lilies. As Mr Wilde says:

<i>"White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream,
The fallen snow of petals where the breeze
Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam
Of boyish limbs in water, – are not these
Enough for thee, dost thou desire more?</i>

In fact, all nine team members turn up, plus Ms Ruta brings Mr Atomic:

<img src="http://www.biggerboat-filmquiz.co.uk/images/SEPTquizPic12.jpg"></img>

[photo by Mr Hupfield, from the <a href="http://www.biggerboat-filmquiz.co.uk/" target="_blank">quiz website</a>]

Clockwise from front: Mr Atomic, Ms Ruta, Ms Andrei, Ms Mann, Mr White, Mr Kennedy, Ms Welch, Mr Edwards, Ms Frost, Ms Madison.

It's just as well the organizers aren't strict on team size. I feel a bit guilty that we are occupying seats while some teams are forced to stand. Still, I am the quiz guest of honour, invited by the organizers to form my own team and see what I make of their event. They have no need to publicise the quiz among my readers – it couldn't be more packed – but they do want to read my take on it.

Although I'm a regular at the pub – indeed, I'm the place's official First Ambassador – I've not attended the movie quiz till now. This is partly because I've not been invited to join anyone's team, but mainly because the films featured tend to be popcorn blockbusters with lots of guns and explosions, which aren't really my cup of tea. I do not know the locations of Executive Decision or Sudden Impact 2, nor can I recognise the theme tune to Mortal Kombat.

As it turns out, the quiz is vastly enjoyably even if one's knowledge proves wanting. A general sense of fun prevails, with the tying winners decided by a game of Scissors Paper Rock. The two organizers, Mr Hupfield and Mr Williams, let their personalities fall into an agreeably entertaining yin-yang double-act – the grumpy one and the cheery one. Though both are equally charming and kind, even sending a drink to my table. I am quite touched.

Another tension-disarming element of the quiz is having all the questions subtitled upon a large screen especially provided for the occasion. Keeping a packed pub absolutely silent while questions are read out can induce a certain stress, and might even suggest a pub quiz is meant to be taken terribly seriously. The use of subtitles loosens up this element considerably, so the air of playful nonchalance remains unfettered.

The screen is also used for rounds featuring movie posters and trailers, and for celebrity questions. On this occasion, we have a bemused and be-jet-lagged Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughan obligingly addressing the Boogaloo, presumably filmed by a film journo friend while the actors were doing the London press for that new film they're in, whatever it is.

As you've probably gathered, Dear Reader, I turn out to be not much of a team player. More a sedentary cheerleader, content to provide moral support. Although I do know a few answers, not least which musician appears in O Lucky Man, I don't think I provide anything exclusively. For instance, Mr White not only knows about O Lucky Man but can recognise the poster for "BASEketball", my ignorance of which is unlikely to trouble me between here and the grave. With his suit and scarlet cuff links, Mr White personifies the melding of gentleman style with impressive movie trivia content. Mr Kennedy bought new shoes especially for the occasion. The others are elegantly turned out in black dresses, or in Ms Ruta and Mr Atomic's case, their usual takes on self-fashioned anti-fashion.

Our team includes a lecturer in film studies, a worker in the best video shop in North London, and a DVD reviewer for a glossy magazine. Despite this and our outrageous team size, we come joint seventh. But that matters little – I enjoy myself immensely and book a table at the next quiz in October.

As far as I'm concerned, it's not the winning that counts. It's the taking flowers.

Today is my 33rd birthday. I share it with Charlie Sheen, Princess Michael of Kent, and the outbreak of World War Two.

Tonight I shall be celebrating or commiserating this tragedy at <a href="http://www.howdoesitfeel.f9.co.uk/club.html" target="_blank">How Does It Feel To Be Loved</a>, the Brixton version. All are welcome to join me.

Between now and then… what? Seems a vaguely pleasant day. I may go for a long, long walk and consider things.

This time last year I went to Crystal Palace Park to look at the newly-restored <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/yourlondon/crystal_palace/virtual_tours.shtml" target="_blank">Victorian Dinosaur park</a>. It was something I'd been meaning to do since childhood, when I'd been excited by photos of the stone beasts in books. I finally got around to meeting them last year, though they seemed not as large or as impressive as the images I'd carried around in my head for decades. The restoration made them look too clean, too new. The rest of Crystal Palace Park is a museum in absentia with only two Sphinxs, the staircase and a solitary statue surviving from the original Palace.

Visiting this place alone on one's birthday turned one's mind to gloomy metaphors. Adulthood as a desolate park, slightly out of the way of where Life really goes on, consisting of a handful of relics from the past, the spaces where the past used to be, and nothing else. The mossy, unrestored remnants are intact but forlorn, and suggest failure. The newly painted, rejuvenated artifacts should suggest coping with the present, but in fact engender desperation and disappointment. Adulthood forever failing to live up to the publicity.

Yet, thinking further, the dinosaurs can become joyous and idiosyncratic tributes to the past. They are steeped in factual inaccuracy. But they're stylish mistakes, entertaining mistakes, personal mistakes, original mistakes, created as they were by the man who invented the very word "dinosaur".

Unlikely, incongruous, improbable, ridiculous, pointless, useless, possibly disappointing in the flesh, but ultimately I'm glad they exist.

This, then, is the way you find me thinking about my life this morning.

I'm often told I should just "grow up". I regard this as the equivalent of receiving a postcard from Hell, saying "Having A Horrible Time. Wish You Were Here."

It's just as well I find being gloomy and alone enormously enjoyable. Yet I also love chatting and dancing in clubs and bars with friendly company. I am a sociable recluse. One should always be able to have one's Victorian Dinosaur cake and eat it.