<img align=left src="http://freespace.virgin.net/jones.586/sw/16.jpg"></img><b>[Photo by <lj user=mzdt>. <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/mzdt/152150.html">Click here to see more from the same concert</a>]. </b>

<i>Thinking back – May 26th 2004</i>
One of the highlights of my year thus far. I play a concert as part of the <a href="http://www.scarletswell.co.uk/">Scarlet's Well</a> band. This marks frontman Bid's first official UK performance in eight years, and the first since his former group, legendary New Wave dandies <a href="http://www.bid.clara.net/mset/">The Monochrome Set</a>, split up. In addition to playing on all the marvellous Scarlet's Well esoteric folk-pop songs, I get to sing an impromptu duet with Bid on the MS classic Goodbye Joe, and to emulate the Lester Square lead guitar part on Eine Symphonie Des Grauens, the Set's second single, originally released on Rough Trade in 1979. It's less a gig for me than a letter to Jim'll Fix It. The Monochrome Set and Scarlet's Well may not be household names, but to me they are household gods.

Meet Lester Square himself afterwards (tall, handsome, affable), and the other main Monochrome Set member, Andy Warren (small, wary, cynical). Someone from the Adam Ant fanclub was there to video the concert, which Bid rightfully finds odd. Apart from the fact it was really Messrs Warren and Square, not Bid, who had more of a connection with the young Adam Ant's first musical steps, I've personally found Bid's music far more enjoyable and closer to my heart than Mr Ant's oeuvre, and do wish a small number of lazy souls would cease regarding the MS as little more than a footnote in the Adam Ant story.

That there should be someone applauding at a Scarlet's Well concert saying "thank you, Bid, for being vaguely connected with Adam Ant over twenty years ago" is a depressing thought indeed. Thankfully, the effusive cheers tonight are in approbation of the Scarlet's Well songs, and for the band members passionately transforming this previously studio-bound project of Bid's into an impossibly engaging and infectiously entertaining live show. Scarlet's Well has quickly become the London concert world's best-kept secret. Elements of Kurt Weill, of sea-shanties, of Russian folk songs, of Disney musicals, of timeless melody. What better night out?

What the uninitiated make of it all, goodness knows. If a band is easier to put into a category, they are easier to play on a radio programme (even a specialist one), easier to review, easier to market. See also the band Keane. Why be different when you can be easily marketable? We're back to that dreaded question of St Peter at the gates of Heaven… "What do you bring to the party?" "Something you've heard before. Someone other than myself".

The music of Scarlet's Well is in a genre of its own, and defiantly so. Bid is a man more likely to say no to most things than yes. He's turned down playing support slots to certain big name groups, and is no way interested in the schmoozing and hustling side of the music industry. One half of me finds this frustrating, while the other admires it as an entirely praiseworthy trait, especially in a business saturated in sycophancy and the desperate urge to Keep In Touch.

One can never underestimate the power of deliberately saying no. In the music business, and in London media life in general, there are usually only two responses. Yes, and Anything Other Than Saying No. This latter can take the form of "We'll let you know", or simple non-responsiveness. Phone calls not returned, emails not replied to, a name silently crossed off the party invite list. I imagine people suddenly waking up and saying aloud, "Oh, I don't like that Dickon Edwards any more. I've gone off him."

People go through their pro- and anti- Dickon Edwards phases. I do too, it's just that mine are lifelong.

Also on this bill at the Spitz is the last set of the week by Gentleman Reg, whom I once again accompany on extra guitar. I get an enormous buzz out of Reg Vermue borrowing Bid's guitar – two very different worlds, generations, countries, scenes, genres, meeting as a direct result of me getting out of bed and doing something about the music I love. What have Scarlet's Well and Gentleman Reg got in common? Answer: Dickon Edwards is rather fond of them both, he wanted to see both in concert, so he did something about it. The Spitz was my suggestion to Bid when he asked about where to play this first SW UK gig, while Toronto-based Gentleman Reg travelled to the UK for the first time, to play the SW support slot I'd got him. I suppose for me it's a very small version of the Meltdown Festival. What have Alan Bennett and The New York Dolls got in common? Morrissey. Ivor Cutler and Lou Reed? Laurie Anderson. Scarlet's Well and Gentleman Reg? Yours truly. I note that Morrissey compares his festival to an i-Pod. Booking one's favourite groups as the ultimate DJ set or personal compilation. One does so to entertain others, to introduce acts one likes to the uninitiated, and to communicate one's own thoughts and personality via other people's music.

The day after, I receive an email from Bid asking me to leave the SW live band. After I've had a good cry, I concede that this is for the best. I'm keen to get on with my own creative affairs, and lack the energy to hold down several projects at once, unlike musical multi-taskers Martin, Jennifer and Kate in the band. It was always my assumption that I couldn't be in the Scarlet's Well band for long, not while Shinkansen Records (and the others in Fosca) are patiently awaiting a third Fosca album.

Bid's reasons are that he feels I'm too much of a frontman in my own right, and am miscast in the role of the backing musician. He's also frustrated that I'm not an innate lead guitarist. We're both essentially rhythm players. Meanwhile Peter Momtchiloff, lead guitarist in the bands Talulah Gosh, Heavenly and The Would-Be-Goods, offers his services a few weeks after I join. From that moment it feels silly for me to be there when he could be doing a better job. Given that I used to hitch-hike around the country to see Heavenly in the early 90s, I am only too happy to see him joining Scarlet's Well. Even if it means me stepping down. Mr M <i>understands</i> the guitar far better than myself. I'm just glad Bid didn't ask me to sling my hook before the Spitz concert.

The thing is, I am starting to admit I've never WANTED to be a guitarist – it's just the instrument I find the easiest to use as a songwriting tool. Or even, just somewhere to put my hands to stop myself from being arrested. I've played the thing on stages for over ten years now, and it's fair to say my six-string skills have barely improved one jot. In my music exam at school, I'd frequently get full marks for the theory, and shockingly low marks for the practical. Anyone out there who regards themselves as a guitarist would be able to see that I'm not the best man for the job.

When Martin and Jennifer hear the news, I find myself having to convince them on the phone that I agree with Bid's decision. Jennifer says, quite understandably, "I can't believe that you're arguing in favour of someone else's decision to dismiss you!"

It's not the first time. After I toured the world for the best part of a year playing guitar for Spearmint, my musical talents were found wanting and I was fired. Singer Shirley Lee invited me to a cafe in Muswell Hill one afternoon.

"Would you like a drink? Wine? Spirits?"

"It's a bit early", I reply, taking my seat at the bar table. "Tea would be fine, thanks."

"Are you sure?" he insists.

"Yes, yes. So what's this about?"

Shirley pauses, stares at me and smirks sheepishly. I cotton on and roll my eyes.

"Oh, god… You're sacking me."

He nods, with the expression of a kindly vet confirming the worst about a doomed sheepdog.

I sigh heavily.

"In that case…. Triple vodka and tonic, please."

Still, this is all fair enough in the world of music. Whatever is best for the songs must come first. I still wonder just how bad the other candidates at the Spearmint guitarist audition must have been.

Thankfully, I remain friends with Mr Lee and his bandmates. They seem to like my skills at Being Dickon Edwards, if not my skills at Being A Backing Guitarist. Shame, as I do love sharing a stage and strumming along with a band I'm fond of. Not a day goes by without my wishing, if only momentarily, that it'd be nice to not be Dickon Edwards sometimes. But I remain the best man for the job. If only that job.

With Scarlet's Well, I prefer to see my walking the plank as good party etiquette – arrive, make your mark, ensure everyone knows you were there, move on to the next party. For those that missed the Spitz concert, there'll be a Scarlet's Well live album out soon, which I'll be on, and which will also serve as a handy "greatest hits" collection for those needing an introduction to Bid's estimable talents. I shall also be contributing or co-writing new songs for future SW albums, which is really what I was meant to be doing in the first place.

Something I <i>do</i> seem to have an innate talent for is being a catalyst, a connection, a matchmaker, whether by default or design. Bid was after a drummer, keyboardist and accordion player, and I found him the three best ones for the job. <b>Scarlet's Well play again at the Kings Cross Water Rats on July 7th</b>. I shall be there, proudly watching a beautiful multi-headed creature I had a small hand in creating.

Apologies for the delay in updates. One reason is trying to write about the Scarlet's Well concert, and about what I'm doing now, in a suitably definitive fashion. It's worth getting right. I'll try and clear the backlog over the next few days.

What I am doing RIGHT NOW, as in the next 24 hours, is something new. A short Dickon Edwards solo set. Myself singing and playing electric guitar with no other backing, at the excellent monthly event, "Club Bohemia", which I recommend to anyone in London on the 4th Saturday of the next few months. The spirit of the 1970s meets that of the 1890s. I think it's fair to suspect that the organisers have seen "Velvet Goldmine" more than once. Which is no bad thing in my book. More details <a href="http://www.glam-ou-rama.co.uk/bohemia.asp">here</a>.

Their website says I'll be taking requests, but that's rather impractical on the night. If someone reading this is coming, and does have an Orlando or Fosca song they'd like to hear me attempt in the solo Billy Bragg-esque style, do email me in time. The club always sells out on the night, so those interested should get there early. Why am I doing this? Because I rather like Club Bohemia and want to lend it my seal of approval. The club is about the unusual, so here's unusual me doing something unusual for me. And because I want to ensure I catch the Wilde Thing performance this time.

Yesterday – walking through Parliament Hill Fields to Highgate Library (Camden Council branch). I'm not wearing any make-up, but I am wearing braces on my suit trousers (US readers know them as "suspenders"), without a jacket to disguise them. I used to wear belts, but braces seem more me. Had to go to an old-fashioned suit shop to get them.

As I pass, a group of black youths shout "Batty Man! Batty Man" at me. I don't say anything. But I am tempted to blow them a kiss. Or turn around and say "You really must try gay sex some time, dear boys, it's Da Bomb". Their response would make a good diary entry. Parliament Hill Fields is hardly South Central LA, and boys like these are, I suspect, a lot less tough than they make out. But my cowardice, or rather, crippling passivity, gets the better of me. I walk on. The earth remains distinctly uninherited by the meek.

An article in the Independent about the plight of black comedians on TV. I seem to have as much talent as Mr Lenny Henry at making young black people laugh. They just can't seem to help themselves as I walk by. Perhaps I am what he needs for his current disastrous programme, where he is, it's fair to say, dying on his batty. "It's not going well, Mr H. Better bring on Dickon Edwards to give them a REAL laugh." I wouldn't even have to say anything.

Matthew Glamorre recently defined the clientèle of his club Kash Point as people who get shouted at in the street. Half of me is pleased I've still got "it", even when my appearance is at half-mast. The other half just wants to have a good cry.

Typing this while Big Brother Live is on in the background. Hysterical, shouted arguments and genuine threats of violence have sparked off. All very disturbing, and then we go to the cosy, soft-voiced adverts. "Talk Talk, for all your communication needs." British TV in 2004.

<a href="http://www.client-online.net"><img align=left src="http://www.client-online.net/client/cover.jpg"></a><i>Monday 14th June</i>
A particularly intense therapy session. Normally I shed a tear or two at some point during the 50 minutes, but this time I actually break down completely. Progress of a kind, I suppose. Feel much better afterwards, but it's a rather draining experience. Afterwards I decide to treat myself – I feel I need some kind of reward, so off to the Swiss Cottage shops round the corner from the clinic. I suppose one is meant to buy a new dress or a large amount of chocolate, but I settle for some Doctor Scholl ankle pads in Boots, as my new loafers are somewhat of a loose fit.

Someone taps me on the shoulder to say hello. Ms Sarah Blackwood, charming singer, formerly of the synthy indie dream-pop group Dubstar, whose music I'm rather fond of. She's now with the office-worker-fetishising, ill-fitting corporate uniform-sporting (<i>deliberately</i> ill-fitting, of course) electro band <a href="http://www.client-online.net">Client.</a> She is all smiles and sympathy, and is just what I need here and now. She invites me to her gig that night, but the heat is too much for me, and I can't go in the end.

I learn that Client have an excellent, brand new electro-pop single out this very week, "In It For The Money", or, as Ms Blackwood sings in her deliciously unfettered Halifax accent, "mURNey." (Is this the first time the words "Halifax" and "delicious" have been used in close proximity?). There's a chance the single could make the proper UK charts, though it's touch and go. So, by way of saying thank you to the unasked comforting company of Ms Blackwood, and because I couldn't make her gig, I use the money I'd have spent on gig drinks buying the single in a number of formats.

I strongly urge you, Dear Reader, to <a href="http://www.toasthawaii.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=495">do the same</a> before Sunday, if you feel like buying a Dickon-Edwards-endorsed £1.99 pop single this week. And if you agree that the pop charts should feature more people who are spontaneously kind to fragile fops in Swiss Cottage chemists. The B-side features guest vocals from Mr Doherty of the Libertines if that sways your decision. Buying chart-potential pop singles these days, as opposed to downloading them, is as much a form of voting as anything else. Vote Client, I say.

<a href="http://www.kashpoint.com/"><img align=left src="http://www.ju90.co.uk/ssp/kp/showboat_front2.jpg"></a>Client are also playing the London Metro this Thursday, but I shall be attending An Evening With Alan Bennett at the Morrissey festival on the South Bank (doubtless Mr M will be in the audience too), followed by <a href="http://www.kashpoint.com/">Kash Point's</a> triumphant return to the newly refurbished Tattershall Castle boat, moored opposite the London Eye on the North Bank. Alan Bennett, Morrissey and the Kash Point club. Good examples on what it means to Be Defiantly Oneself in 21st Century England. Kash Point remains less a disco, more a sanctuary for exotic blooms.

<i>[My thanks to <lj user=automatique> for <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/automatique/79081.html">creating the current inevitable user picture of me</a>. Entirely unsolicited, naturally. I particularly like the Trooping The Colour goings-on in the background.]</i>

Thursday June 10th – To Jacksons Lane Community Centre to vote three times: for the London Mayor, for members of the London Assembly, and for the European Parliament.

British Democracy in 2004 is currently defined as the right to choose between Shifty, Shifty, Nazi, Looney, Obviously Shifty, Rich Person Possibly Running As A Tax Dodge, Lately Shifty, More Nazis, George Galloshifty, Liberal Shiftycrats, The Joan Collins Nazi Club, and the Green Party.

I place my Mayor Of London X next to Cuddly Ken Livingstone (whose first volume of autobiography was called "If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It") , and put Green for everything else. The Greens are, The Observer points out, an established anti-war party, not one that becomes anti-war when it suits them, like the Liberals. I don't entirely agree with some Green policies, like being anti-Euro because the Euro is, they say, a tool of globalisation, and they're anti-globalisation. Funny how the Nazis and Greens can have some things in common for different reasons. And The Greens do have rather too many silly beards in their gallery of candidates. My second choice for Mayor is the Green's openly-gay, beard-free candidate, Darren Johnson. If London can't have Ken, a Gay Green Mayor would surely be the next best thing. Also, the Greens are endorsed by Peter Tatchell, Joanna Lumley and Twiggy. What a dinner party!

I know I should vote "tactically", which really means voting Liberal, but it's not what my heart dictates. What I really want to do is vote Labour. But not while Mr Blair is still in charge. So Green it is.

It is the first time in my life I've not voted Labour across the board. Mr Blair says that if people disagree with him taking the country to war, then "they know what to do at the ballot box". All the protests, marches and petitions mean nothing to him. With that in mind, I take him at his word and quietly register my own anti-war protest with a small pencil on a string. I hope Mr B notices, if as he implies, voting is the only language he understands. If anyone who goes on anti-war marches doesn't use their vote as well, they are whistling in the wind with those loud football whistles of theirs.

Friday June 11th- Mr Livingstone makes it in to a second Mayoral term, but only just. A frightening thought that thousands of people seem to trust Stephen Norris, the shiftiest Tory around. And that takes some doing.

The Greens lose an Assembly seat, and Mr Johnson gets less votes than his rivals in the BNP, Respect (George Galloway's new vanity party) and UKIP. Rather depressing, but I'm glad Ken's staying.

The best news is that the country-wide local election results are translated as a serious disaster indeed for Labour. Even the Deputy PM, John Prescott, admits that voters have shown their anger at the Iraq mess, and now Attention Must Be Paid.

Stereotypes would have us believe that voting is a pointless, unsexy, waste of time that the young eschew, while marching is more visible, done by dancing youths with dreadlocks who possibly don't wash after sex.

Today's lesson appears to be that, when it comes to political protest, dogs on strings are nothing compared to pencils on strings.

The worrying side-effect is the Conservative Party becoming a serious political force for the first time since 1997.

Strange echoes of last night's dream pervade, though I can't remember anything more. Something about The Pope being interviewed on Radio 4's Loose Ends, and a discussion about falling in love with buildings. The word "Archisexual". Image of someone in bed with the St Pancras Hotel. "Buildings are better than people. They don't let you down and tend to still be there in the morning."

Currently fighting off permanent fatigue. Heard that cutting down on caffeine, even cutting it out altogether, increases alertness and energy in the long run, and might help reduce my general anxiety and stomach aches. Haven't had any coffee, or caffeinated fizzy drinks, for some days now. Feeling more tired and work-shy than ever. Cold turkey? M.E.? Last Tuesday I insisted the doctor test my blood for pretty much everything under the sun. "We'll get the results next week. If you're clear, we then have to look at your susceptibility to believe you've got every illness you hear about." He takes my hypochondria very seriously indeed.

My grandfather died recently, and left me a little money. Not much, but enough to enable me to buy the £150 off-white Italian linen suit I see glowing with temptation in a Highbury menswear shop window. The shop stands out all the more as all the surrounding shops are all fast food takeaways. I try on the suit, and it fits so well it's not true. About time I had a decent, lightweight, light-coloured summer suit. I look at the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?id=2735">BBC weather forecast for Highgate</a> with some dread. Temperatures over 25C on the way. But I now have the suit to fight the battle. Keeping it clean will be the hardest thing, and I consider getting another. At the Hidden Cameras gig, John Moore tells me about £50 machine-washable linen suits in a shop in Chalk Farm. One can never have too many summer suits.

Monday May 27th. To the 12 Bar for the third Gentleman Reg gig. The 12 Bar Club has a tiny stage best suited to acts consisting of one or two people, ideally the archetypal solo acoustic singer-songwriter. Despite this, full bands with drummers often squeeze themselves bravely onto the platform, and when Justine Rutledge, another Canadian, performs here tonight, his keyboard player has to sit at the side of the stage, amongst all the empty instrument cases. While he's playing a delicate, alt-country style piano part, I sheepishly have to mutter "excuse me" and retrieve my guitar case from the side of his left elbow. I time it so I can act while he's not playing any bass notes.

Why bands with full line-ups put themselves through this awkwardness says something about the status of the 12 Bar as a much-loved venue. It's centrally located, in the shadow of the Centrepoint tower, by the junction of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road. It's neither too touristy and off the music industry map like the Rock Garden, or too smelly and beery like the Monarch or Dublin Castle, though one does has to brave the smells of the alley outside, Denmark Place, which clearly doubles as a lavatory. The 12 Bar is just about trendy enough while being unpretentious and friendly.

More recently, the venue's expanded to take in a cafe in Denmark Street and a second bar area, with TV monitors so one can watch the acts while buying a drink. Thankfully, the two most unique aspects of the place, which anyone who's been there will tell you about, are still in place. One is the seventeenth-century blacksmith's forge, with its chimney next to the stage, a plaque proudly displaying its birth as 1635. I point out to Gentleman Reg he's playing a venue older than his country. "Do you have dates like that in Toronto?" I remark, surprising myself with an air of a Peter Ackroyd-like popular historian. Must remember to apply as a tour guide at Highgate Cemetery, in training for a possible future career to follow Messrs Ackroyd, Schama and Starkey as a Slightly Camp English TV Historian. "Dickon Edwards's Limpwristed London."

The other feature of the 12 Bar is a low balcony area where one can watch mere inches from the artist's scalp. I once saw Momus play here in the mid-90s, and now know the top of his head like the back of my hand. I think it's the same year I see The Magnetic Fields here, to promote the album "Get Lost". Just Stephin and Claudia. The next time they headline a gig in London, it is in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

The 12 Bar performer in turn is at close eye level with the balcony viewers' shoes, seen through railings. Mr Rutledge's backing band know all about staring at shoes, as they are members of Mojave 3, who in turn were once called Slowdive. Along with Lush, Moose, Chapterhouse, and Ride, Slowdive were part of an early 90s UK indie scene nicknamed "shoegazing", because of the bands' tendency to perform sullenly without moving their eyes from the floor. Dreamy, fuzzy guitar music, heavily influenced by My Bloody Valentine, with lots of effects pedals, 60s haircuts, and nebulous, quasi-psychedelic lyrics about falling down in a breeze. Perhaps because of their name and wispy girl vocals, Slowdive were spotlighted as the quintessential shoegazers, often used unkindly as a personification of the whole scene by those aware of its music paper coverage. At the time, the Manic Street Preachers remarked "We hate Slowdive more than Hitler". Right Said Fred, in the proper pop charts at the time, told a TV interviewer in defence of their novelty pop status that "Well, we're not Slowdive."

Perhaps even Slowdive hated being Slowdive, as a few years later they re-invented themselves as Mojave 3, and played a more roundly unthreatening, alt-country-style music. Quietly acclaimed, annoying no one. Mr Rutledge's songs suit their playing well, and it's impossible to dislike a live slide guitar player.

When I play with Gentleman Reg, some of the chatter from people at the bar is so loud I can't hear my own guitar. I do something out of character, and which I disapprove of in other live acts: I tell a punter off. The garrulous culprit is a blond woman whom I can see through the bar doorway. Her lone natter is carrying from a separate room, and is drowning out my playing. As bad a guitarist as I am, I like to be at least given a chance to hear myself. On top of which, I have personally brought Reg across from Toronto to play these gigs, he's only on for a short set, and there are people other than me who have come to hear him. So I do hope any jury would support my decision to stare directly at the woman, put my finger to my mouth, and offer a deeply annoyed "SHHH!" at the top of my lungs. This is something I instantly regret, and expect her to shout back at me, or worse. But, to my surprise, she does in fact shut up.

For an encore in doing out of character things, I later make an ill-advised onstage remark. Reg introduces "Statement" and "Give Me A Chance" as songs featured on the soundtrack to the US version of the TV series "Queer As Folk". "Your British version is probably much better, though", he adds, speaking to me. "I don't know," I say, in an attempt at onstage banter. "Does your version have rimming in it?"

Silence in the audience. A word too far, Mr Dickon. I imagine mouths agape. Darts, had there been any, would have paused in mid-flight. Across the road in the Astoria, Skipknot and their audience of pierced Jeremys pause in mid-mosh and stifle a collective gasp. I feel like <a href="http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/British%20Comedy%20Awards">Julian Clary at the Comedy Awards.</a>

Sunday May 23rd. To Stockwell for a lengthy rehearsal with Scarlet's Well, then onto the second Gentleman Reg gig. Rather conveniently, Reg is playing Brixton tonight, a short bus ride from Stockwell. The venue is The Windmill, a delightful little place near the nineteenth century landmark of the same name. To my shame, I've lived in London for ten years and never realised there WAS a windmill in Brixton. As it's still daylight outside, I go to take a good, tilting look. The windmill is in a small park, with Brixton Prison on one side and a children's playground on the other. A group of small boys are playing football, and as I approach their ball falls over the separating railings and lands at my feet. I try to affect an air of jovial, avuncular mateyness, as I loosely imagine one is supposed to do in such situations. I make some remark about the prison and not being able to kick a ball to save my life sentence, and throw the thing over to them. They have become completely silent and are staring at me in utter terror. I walk back to the venue, glance over my shoulder and see they are still looking at me. I do hope they got to resume their game. Perhaps I represent the sort of Stranger they've been told to not speak to.

Inside the venue, the bar prices are refreshingly cheap – certainly cheaper than Highgate. A small stage is at one end, the main bar at the other. Somehow the place manages to have the former area in atmospheric darkness, the latter with enough lighting to chat and drink. People watching the band are unusually quiet, people at the bar can chat away happily without affecting the performance and being able to hear each other speak. It's a perfect small venue.

A jovial, fortysomething Irish gentlemen appears to be glued to a bar stool, his Scottish Terrier occupying the adjacent seat. The dog is remarkably well behaved. The Irishmen less so. He throws an unsolicited comment at every single person who walks by.

I get "You remind me of…"

"Oh yes?"

"…Jools Holland."

Perhaps it's my voice, I muse. Later, he collars me again.

"No, sorry, I didn't mean Jools Holland. I meant The Young Noel Coward."

"Well, I can live with that one a bit better."

During the rest of the evening, whenever I have to cross from the stage to the bar, somewhere in the darkness I hear an automatic "How yer doing, Noel?".

<i>Resume 7am-9am daily diary writing routine, after putting it off for some days due to an attack of the dreaded black dog. Backlog of activities to be cleared. Awake to hammering of rain against the window, which always makes me happy. Hurl myself out of bed, pull open the curtains to see Highgate leaves gratefully bobbing in the morning downpour. London is meant to be this way, though doubtless someone somewhere is flooded out of their home. City of extremes – all or nothing. Switch on the computer. To work.</i>

Saturday May 22nd. Play the first of four London gigs in five days. Having personally managed to get Gentleman Reg to come all the way from Toronto to perform his first UK concerts, I push my luck as a fan by e-mailing him in advance and asking if he'd like me to add a bit of supplementary guitar and backing vocals. He agrees to the first (on some songs), and I decide to spare him the second. Partly out of fear of squawking wrong harmony notes, which are all the more likely given we have no rehearsal. But mostly because Mr Reg Vermue's vocals need highlighting alone, I feel. Backing vocals can sometimes provide a sense of "mateyness" which isn't always appropriate for artists trading in loneliness, longing, and other personal emotions.

Saturday evening, and The Clerkenwell House is the first venue on this mini-tour of the capital. The surrounding streets are deserted, shops and offices closed in that strange weekend ghost town way parts of the City can resemble. I'm constantly fascinated by the on-off noise extremes of central London experienced by simply turning street corners, particularly in the tea time limbo between working hours and nightlife. The spaces left by people going home, the spaces to be filled by people going out.

I stand alone in Hatton Wall, EC2, with my guitar, peering at the door numbers, when a man passing along the other side of the street suddenly calls to me. "Clerkenwell House? Over there." He is the only other human in sight, and correctly assumes that, if I'm holding a guitar and looking lost in Hatton Wall, I must be seeking The Clerkenwell.

I make my entrance to the usual internalised applause. The venue is a trendy concourse bar with extremely comfy sofas surrounding a performance space marked out at floor level. Meet Mr V for the first time – slim, smiling, luminously blond. I joke about my being a wannabe albino, once compared to the besuited pink-eyed assassin in the Goldie Hawn / Chevy Chase comedy thriller, "Foul Play". My mistake – Gentleman Reg is not actually an albino, he's just often mistaken for one with his white eyebrows. "I sometimes feel I might as well be an albino," he adds. "I get the stares."

I also meet his manager, Ms Melanie, who has dyed bright red hair. In her first email to me, she says "I hear you're a bit of a character".

They are both charming company, all Canadian utopian optimism and tolerance, though I find myself frequently apologising for the detrimental attributes of London, which even they are openly frustrated by. The way tube trains are overpriced and under-developed, the way bars and clubs can be so expensive yet seldom appear to spend any of the profits on maintaining decent toilets, the way mobile phones run Londoners' lives like chirping electronic comfort blankets, yet to phone a mobile from a phone box costs an absolute fortune, the poor choice of food on offer, the extremes of things. In the longeurs dividing soundcheck from performance, I give them a list of recommended attractions to enjoy while on a low-budget stay in London, and reassure them that there ARE so many things one can do without spending much money. The umpteen free art galleries and museums, the countless parks and green spaces, the way one should look up whenever walking about to discover unique and frequently ornate architecture above the corporate franchise shop fronts. I'm intrigued that they most want to go to the Tate Modern – along with the London Eye it really has become an instant favourite attraction for discerning visitors and Londoners alike. Far better that than the tacky likes of Madame Tussauds. Though I have to break the news to Reg and Melanie that the enormous Weather Project installation (featuring a gigantic sun simulation and mirrored ceiling) is no longer at the Tate M. I recall that The London Eye was originally a temporary feature that became permanent through overwhelming popular demand, and it's a shame the same couldn't be done with the Weather Project, given its success.

I warn Mr V in advance that London gigs are typically saturated in audience chatter, and that he shouldn't take it personally if people talk throughout his sets. Londoners demand to discuss their fashionably baggy jeans. We have a quick impromptu rehearsal on acoustic guitars, and I add some six-string doodlings to the songs "Make Me Pretty", "Statement", "Give Me The Chance To Fall", "Untouchable" and "Anthem For Self-Confidence". I've managed to work out the chords and hooks by ear, referring to the album "Make Me Pretty" as well as <a href="http://www.justconcerts.com/concerts/concert.cfm?Concert_Id=190">a solo Canadian radio session available online</a>. Thankfully he allows this indulgence on my part as a fan, and his London sets begin with himself playing a few numbers solo, before I join him onstage. Reg's stage clothes are a matching grey waistcoat and trousers, shirt and tie. Along with my own usual besuited apparel, we look appropriately Gentlemanly.

<img align=left src="http://www.fosca.com/ladybench.jpg"></img>
<b>{I'm using more of Mr Hughes's photos to illustrate entries. Always helps to keep readers informed what one currently looks like.}</b>

Over the next few days, I can be found at London concerts, either as a spectator or performer, or both. Here's the full details.

GENTLEMAN REG – DEBUT LONDON GIGS

Angelic-voiced albino and Toronto indie troubadour Gentleman Reg, aka Reg Vermue, is playing his first ever London UK dates over the next 7 days. He's performing by himself, with the possible danger of back-up vocals / guitar from myself on selected songs.

Recommended album: "Make Me Pretty" (Three Gut Records). Echoes of Nick Drake, Cat Power and Sarah Records. More info at http://www.gentlemanreg.com . In addition to his excellent solo work, Reg is a member of fabulous Canuck homo combo The Hidden Cameras and sings on both HCs Rough Trade albums.

Those Gentleman Reg London dates (note FREE entry to first one):

Sat May 22nd: Clerkenwell House, as part of 'The Medicine Show'.
9pm. FREE. 23-27 Hatton Wall, EC1N 8JJ. 020 7404 1113. Chancery Lane or Farringdon tube.

Sun May 23rd: The Windmill, Brixton, with Charlemagne + Justin Rutledge + Denison Witmer.
7.30pm. £3. 22 Blenheim Gardens (off Brixton Hill), London, SW2 5BZ. 020 8671 0700. Brixton tube.

Mon May 24th: The 12 Bar Club. with Justin Rutledge + Ryan Bishop + James & Jason
7pm. £5. 22-23 Denmark Place (off Denmark Street), WC2H 8NL. 020 7916 6989. Tottenham Court Road tube.

Weds May 26th: The Spitz. with Scarlet's Well, Fiel Garvie and MPE Band.
7pm. £8/ £6 109 Commercial Street, Old Spitalfields Market, E1 6BG, 020 7392 9032. Liverpool St / Shoreditch / Aldgate East tube.

This last gig is headlined by SCARLET'S WELL. SW is the solo incarnation of ex Monochrome Set frontman Bid.
The show will be Bid's first UK gig in 8 years. Needless to say, I am rather excited about this. So excited that I joined the band. So with Gentleman Reg in support, it's possible I will be onstage twice that night. More SW info at http://www.scarletswell.co.uk

Last night- to the home of Ms Denitto and Ms Spivack in Camden, for a party. Enormous fun, in as much as I have fun. Discussed which season of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" is best at one point. Typical party talk. Still, beats chatting about Star bloody Wars.

Annoyed that I missed Morrissey on Top Of The Pops. Apparently he wore a Jobriath t-shirt. Still haven't bought his album yet, out of my ludricous anti-following-the-crowd snobbery. I tend to shy away from Joining In with something everyone else does, equating it with eschewing the popular people at school and preferring to chat to the person in the corner with no friends. All very well, but applying that analogy to buying records or seeing films is just ridiculous. I still haven't seen Shaun Of The Dead or read the last Harry Potter for (mostly) the same reason. Why not? I approve of them, after all. Sometimes my own Robin Hood-like philosophy is my own enemy – why rush to follow the crowd and give to the PR-rich when others are starving, the voice in my head tells me. It's true that Morrissey doesn't NEED me to buy his album, but so what? That doesn't mean I won't enjoy it. Besides, I'm entirely happy for Mr M's impressive comeback into blanket popularity, even if his new album's reviews are more mixed than I predicted.

But the voice won out, and I instead bought the last Delgados album, on sale at £1.99. Partly because I genuinely love their recent material (especially "Come In From The Cold"), and so it's a bargain, but mostly, if I'm honest, for the feeling that they deserve my purchase power more than Morrissey. How patronising can one get? What skewed criteria. Today I will snap out of this madness and buy the Moz album. I'm additionally galvanised by reading this Guardian article on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/editor/story/0,12900,1218921,00.html">What To Think About Morrissey</a>. Fair enough monitoring what the press are saying, but the implication is that one doesn't need to find out for oneself and make one's own mind up. There's a character in Whit Stillman's film Metropolitan who doesn't read novels, just reviews and literary criticism. That way he gets a clear idea of what the author intended, and an opinion to produce at dinner parties. All without having to read the actual novel. In one later scene, however, a copy of "Mansfield Park" is at his bedside. He's been shown the error of his ways.

There's nothing wrong with appearing to follow the crowd, as long as one stands out from it.

And besides, the child in the corner with no friends sometimes turned out to hate me.

The news is full of yet more appalling photos of US guards taunting or abusing Iraqi prisoners, or pictured smiling over their corpses. One is a sunny, white-toothed young female soldier, delighted to be posing over a body wrapped in plastic. I tell myself it's all a bit Starship Troopers meets Twin Peaks, in an attempt to stop myself feeling sick at the reality.

Still, there is humour to be found. The Commons had to be cleared when someone in the gallery threw condoms full of purple flour at Mr Blair. Despite all the lectures to the public of vigilence and security, the Honourable Members were utterly clueless as how to react, some sprawling out of the building in self-seeking confusion, some milling around in a bemused fashion. They appeared to have had no drill training whatsoever. It's said that Ian Duncan Smith, the sacked former Tory leader, was the only one who reacted swiftly, shouting "Sit down! Stay still!" No one paid any attention to him. Faced with possible death and being told what to do by Mr Smith, the MPs took their chances.

After other news of another intruder at Windsor Castle – again a benign one – one can't help thinking of missed opportunities. What if, say the newspapers. But there never is an If. From the man who fired a starting pistol at Prince Charles some years ago, to the "comedian" who gatecrashed Prince William's party, to this new intruder and the Commons condom-hurlers, our Royals and Leaders must project some aura of playful invulnerability. Help yourself to taking a pot shot, the effect seems to be, but you wouldn't try anything serious. The only thing that can kill a Royal, or depose a power-mad Prime Minister, is a drunk chauffeur or, in the case of Mrs Thatcher, other party members. Members of the public? Tug your forelocks, wear your silly fancy dress and throw your flour. It's all so English, and ultimately my feelings are ambivalent. I'm glad and sorry.

The Commons attackers were from Fathers 4 Justice, whose cause was also represented (albeit independently) by a man dressed as Spiderman holding up the traffic on Tower Bridge last year. All very well, but if you're convincing the world that you're a Good Father, dressing up in bad fancy dress, performing publicity stunts and wasting police time in a climate of potential terrorist attack do not immediately spring to mind as traits of responsible paternity. Giving the news reports, the protesters' grievances as fathers have been utterly upstaged in MPs' minds by the security implications. It's difficult to feel that their cause has been advanced.

And is the irony of rueful fathers misusing condoms lost on them?

<img align=left src="http://www.fosca.com/CamPic95.jpg"></img>Yesterday – A ghastly sunny day. Spend the first part of the day lying in bed wishing the world would go away. Thankfully, Mr Hughes comes by, and passes on the results of a photo session we had in Highgate the other day. Myself posing against trees, reading "The Lady" on a bench in Pond Square, loitering with arch intent outside the public lavatory, that sort of thing. I can never have too many photos taken of myself.

The Mens' loos in Pond Square are marked with a Camden Council sign in shockingly bad English: "GENTLEMENS". I wouldn't be at all surprised if this has been the subject of angry letters to the editor of the Ham and High.

On the way up to the village, a grey-haired man collars us. "Did you know this is the steepest slope in London?" he tells us for no reason at all. "It was on The Weakest Link".

I'm rather distracted by his baggy shorts, which advertise his lack of underwear from some distance. The effect of gravity on the ageing male body all too gruesomely illustrated.

Mr Hughes has brought his umbrella. He's just come back from Sri Lanka, where silvery parasols are quite common. One doesn't see people walking with them very often in London, which I think is a shame. We are two grown men walking on a hot London street, sharing a large tilted umbrella as a parasol. I get an extremely dirty look from a young black man as I pass, and enjoy it immensely. I feel like Audrey Hepburn at the races in My Fair Lady.

At one point, Mr Hughes grumbles about Ms Greer's recent book "The Boy In Art", which he'd been browsing. "If such a tome were written by a man, the police would be round in an instant."

We sit in the Gatehouse pub and watch the schoolboys emerging from fee-paying Highgate School in their appealingly old-fashioned blue and red uniforms, on this occasion coupled with camouflage combat trousers. It's clearly been a Cadets day. The pub has pictures of past alumni of the school including Mr Betjeman, and Mr Gerard Manley Hopkins. I didn't realise until now that Mr Hopkins strongly resembled Nicholas Lyndhurst from Only Fools And Horses.

Mr Hughes shows me a tree in a quiet corner of Hampstead Heath where he used to come and sit in his schooldays, some thirty to forty years ago. We languish there in the balmy afternoon, quoting Keats and playing I-Spy Cruisers with the occasional passing lone man, who passes again rather too often.

With birdsong the only background noise, it's difficult to remember we're in the middle of a metropolis. It's moments like this that remind me why I love London, and how best to deal with it on hot days if one is lucky enough to be one's own boss. The ability to quickly find a quiet leafy space, or in the case of the Heath an actual field, and settle down beneath the shade of a tree to read, write and think, or not think.