Yesterday – a day of being stared at by middle aged men.

1040: first weekly psychotherapy session at the Tavistock Clinic, Swiss Cottage. This is my new routine for the next six months. The sessions are paid for by the NHS, and they pay for my bus pass, too. So I can gad about town the rest of the day easily. Having the session on Monday morning is ideal, as it sets me up for the week. If it were on Friday afternoons, I'd just be dreading it all week. The therapist is a rather stern headmaster-like fellow, 40s-50s in a suit. Today's session was really to see if he was "right" for me. I don't think it makes much difference, a listening stranger is a listening stranger.

The sessions are really me doing all the talking, with him putting in little guides and pointers, taking me up on things I've said etc. He asked me "you realised you may not be "Dickon Edwards" anymore after this treatment." I think he meant as in more of a Normal Person that speaks fluent Relationship, Mortgage, and so on, as if my foppishness is just an empty pose. A common criticism, but messed up as I am, by the age of 32 and having tried all kinds of attempts at Real Life, I like to think I have a vague idea of what the Real Me is like. I just need the courage of my convictions in order to channel it into making a living from Being Dickon Edwards, and beat the paralysing depression. So that I rise in the morning, write something that can generate an income (prose, poetry, articles, songs, fiction, drama, comedy, anything), and go about pitching and hustling to a potential publisher or editor. The ideas are no problem, and neither are the contacts. The real problem is the 90% perspiration bit. The work and the hustling. Just seizing the day and getting things done. And that's what I hope these sessions will do for me.

Therapist thinks one of my main problems is a desire to entertain, a fear of intimacy, and fear of other people in general. "You know so many people, but you don't have any <i>confidants</i>? Don't you trust <i>anyone?</i>" He's entirely correct, but I don't regard these things as problems. What's wrong with a desire to entertain? The things I say may make people laugh, but I'm always deadly serious. I'm after bittersweet, tragic, self-mocking smirks, not telling the one about my mother-in-law. I don't have a mother-in-law.

As for being celibate, one reason is I view sex as an entirely public act, for which I'd be badly cast, so it's pointless auditioning. As soon as the last coital gasp is uttered, the other person can't wait to get to meet their real friends (ie not their lovers – note distinction) or update their internet diaries with their blow-by-blow accounts. Pun intended. Sex is not a private act of love or even lust. It's done only so it can be talked out, thought about, used with guilt, used in writing, used, used, used. Ones underwear being taken down and used in evidence against you. A brief event indelibly haunting you for the rest of your life. Sex is, apart from anything else, appallingly bad <i>value.</i> This is all fair enough, so if you can't cope with that, and have not got the decency to kill the other person afterwards, like spiders, you shouldn't do it at all. Hence celibacy. I was careful to point out to the therapist that that last statement was a joke. I've been known to get in trouble for my jokes. But I'm only ever <i>slightly</i> joking.

But that says more about me than the world.

It's true I don't trust anyone. If I started to open my heart to anyone, they'd just retort with their own problems unhelpfully. No, that's unfair. I don't trust anyone, it's true, but I don't care if they go around gossiping about me – that's what I live for, after all. Gossip shouldn't be seen as an attack. It's a homage. My real worry is that I'd have trouble remembering which friends I've told which secrets of the heart to. I would see Friend A as The One That I've Told This To, Friend Q as The One I Told That To, and so on. It's just too complicated to remember. And also, I live in London, where people say "I'd love to listen to you, but I'm so busy right now… oh, there goes my mobile phone. It must be my boss / lover / dealer."

So this is what the therapist is for. I tell him I'm entirely happy being single and celibate until the grave, but he doesn't seem to believe this is possible. I come away from the session thinking it said more about him than me, but that's the way I feel when speaking to anyone. I'm the narcissist that's fascinated by other people. It's like that Wilde poem about Narcissus being stared at and loved by the pool, but only because the pool saw its own beauty reflected in Narcissus's eyes. I know plenty of people who think of themselves as Normal types, but are actually far more self-obsessed than me, though they'd deny it. False modesty being just that: false. I'm arguably the least narcissistic person I know. I am my friends' more unabashed mirror.

And that was only the first session. Six months of this, once a week. After which, the therapist may need therapy.

* * * *
Current ailments: bloated feeling, with sporadic unpleasant aches and pains in stomach and chest (or thereabouts). Have occurred since last Wednesday. That was, though, when I really did punish myself somewhat. Umpteen cigarettes and glasses of wine, binge eating, being sick, then a ghastly fry-up at the cafe the next day. Still, I haven't smoked since. Will see doctor if this goes on. Typically, I assume it's terminal and compare myself to Louis MacNeice when reading about him. Mr MacNeice wrote his best stuff in the late 50s, despite being labelled as a 30s poet. But then, the book says, "he hadn't much time left". Slightly odd death, he contracted pneumonia in 1963 from going down a Yorkshire pothole while recording sound effects for a BBC radio programme. That's devotion for you. I am extremely fond of BBC Radio, but one must really draw a line somewhere.

That phrase "not having much time left" resonates in my mind, and I feel every one of my 32 winters. My new aches and pains may well just be that, but they do make me think that if I were to die tomorrow, I'd be terribly annoyed more than relieved. Despite all my suicidal thoughts. So this, combined with the weekly therapy right at the start of the week, has galvanised me into getting done the things I really want to get done.

Thus, new daily routine – rise at 7, get a diary entry written by 9AM. That should set me up for getting other things done in the rest of the day. Two hours for a diary entry should be plenty. I like to take time and ponder over my writing, diary entries included. But It's already 9 as I type, and I've only spoken about yesterday morning. Thing is, when I do write something, it's usually because I've had thoughts of dying the next day. So the diary entry, article, song, poem, review, is often forged as if it were my last message to the world. The result is (I hope) something that can only be pithy and aphoristic, and therefore has the tone of Essential Reading. Why write at all if you don't consider what you're writing Essential Reading?

Here Lies Dickon Edwards – he was Good Value.

The only problem is, of course, being put off writing at all by fear of not coming up to scratch. So that mustn't happen. Better to write something than nothing. That thought has to take priority. But it all helps to get one's mind pointed in vaguely the right direction. And indeed, in the Write Direction.

* * * *

So, rest of yesterday. I swanned about on buses in London. Fairly mild May weather. Indulged myself in Borders and decided to treat myself to a luxury item. <A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841954594/dickonedwards-21">"The Assassin's Cloak". Edited by Irene and Alan Taylor.</a> The latest edition is £9.99, which swung it for me, as the previous version cost £14.99. I sat in the shop and carefully compared the editions. Both are paperbacks. Exactly the same pages and content. The only difference is the older version's cover was made of slightly thicker card, extending to flaps on the inside cover. Five pounds for a couple of cardboard flaps, ultimately.

The book is a hefty anthology of diaries. I'm fascinated with The Art Of The Diary, and this is a superb reference tool worth owning rather than borrowing from a library. Like a LiveJournal Friends page made up of all the great and the good (and the bad) across the centuries, but with the highlights kindly selected for you. Mr Pepys never bored the world (and himself) with a "Which Lord Of The Rings Character Are You" poll. Though he did make some pretty dull entries about his financial accounts. The book's introduction cites the case of Mr William Soutar, the Scottish poet who was confined to his sickbed for 13 years, and could only sit in his room, read, and write. A good example that one doesn't have to go out having adventures, witnessing important historic events or going to celebrity gatherings to keep an interesting diary.

I can't help thinking that poor Mr Soutar would be regarded by some today as "not having a life". "Get a life" is an odious modern phrase frequently used by someone whose own life is rarely enviable. When people say "get a life", they really mean "get a life like mine". Completely forgetting that the criteria of others can't possibly apply to oneself. They just haven't thought it through. Indeed, therein lies the root of many a war and conflict. Dickon sums up the problem of the Middle East. People saying "get a life like mine – or die." Other people thinking they know what is best for others is fine. The problems start when they enforce such "advice".

I'm not saying that if everyone in Hot Countries On The News suddenly swanned around in bleached hair and suits burbling about Louis MacNeice things would be much better, but…

What am I saying? Of <i>course</i> things would be much better. No real work would get done, so infrastructures would crumble overnight, and the world would end, but what a party.

While in Borders, I also leafed through <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/080505894X/dickonedwards-21">The Wilde Album (ed. Merlin Holland)</a>. Incredible photographs. Wilde on his deathbed. Wilde and Bosie at a table in Paris after the prison years. Talk about uneasy body language. Bosie looking beautiful and cruel, surprise, surprise.

Also – a <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747568553/dickonedwards-21">biography of Patricia Highsmith, "Beautiful Shadow" (by Andrew Wilson</a>). Author of Strangers On A Train and the Ripley books. She appears to have set the world record for Most Lesbian Lovers By An Acclaimed 20th Century Author, yet her books are mainly about gay men. Albeit murderous, anti-hero gay men. Photos of her various companions remind me of a few people I know – cat-loving boyish types with pageboy haircuts, one Berlin girl in male drag and uniform whose real preference is clearly the camera, never mind girls more than boys. Sad that she tried so hard to get herself "cured". Slightly shockingly for a lazy lunchtime in a bookshop, the spine of the book has a nude photo of her in her early twenties. One doesn't usually think of dead authors in the nude. It was taken by a gay German called Rolf, who was so taken with her boyish frame that they decided to try sleeping together. I think this must happen more often than you hear about – slender dykes whose frame is so boyish and haircut so handsome that gay chaps get terribly confused. The Lady Caroline Lamb effect. Problem is when getting down to the bedroom antics. Nothing boyish about <i>that</i> aspect of the female anatomy. Taxi for Lord Byron!

Posters in Oxford Street for the new Morrissey single. First new record by him in seven years. "Irish Blood, English Heart". As he gets older, the Irishness of his ancestry certainly has become more visible in his face and build. No longer the pale skinny bookworm of the 80s. Just that little bit more thick-set. By coincidence, I find myself thinking of a line from a song on his last album, "Trouble Loves Me", <i>"Otherwise, kill me"</i> Which is also a line in Mr MacNeice's poem Prayer Before Birth. "I am not yet born; O hear me… Otherwise kill me." Is Mr Moz quoting MacNeice?

Passed by the internet cafe on Archway Road, where I'd been a few days before to scan in a newspaper article. I'd left the piece in the machine. Kind young man of Far Eastern descent and whose first language is not English rushes out of the shop as I pass to give me the piece back. It's in an envelope marked as follows (sic):

<i>"Customer Forgot bring this Newspaper when he finished scanning he forgot get back he is gold hair."</i>

* * * *

Evening – invited to the LSE to see Pink Grease and Selfish C***. Vaguely enjoyable, though I find it hard to get excited about loud rock music concerts these days. Meet people I know, meet new people I've not met who read this diary, am spoken to by people I thought would blank me, am blanked by people I thought would speak to me. All in order, then.

Drink chocolate-flavoured Vodka Mudshake. One of which is heaven. Two of which makes one feel quite sick.

Pink Grease certainly dress up and make an effort to put on a gaudy rock show. They remind me a little of Plastic Fantastic. Just then, the singer of Plastic Fantastic, Stuart, speaks to me. I tell him I feel a little sorry for the PG singer, as his bandmates are doing their utmost to upstage him constantly. "I only wish my bandmates would have done that", he replies.

Generally, people here seem to love PG's live act, and their fans, comprising regulars to clubs like Kash Point and Stay Beautiful, are very well-dressed. Perhaps too well-dressed. A male photographer spies me and remarks, as if my appearance is something to reply to (which it is), "I was just saying to someone, this is one of those gigs where the audience are more interesting than the bands".

Selfish C*** follow, fresh from appearing in Private Eye's Psueds Corner twice running, and for once are strangely tame. By comparison with PG and their own gigs, at least. I saw them at Trash a while ago, and the show was riotous. Singer Martin is a charming, friendly, and very beautiful young man. Onstage, though, he adopts a Mr Hyde persona, and tried to cause as much aggression, mayhem and destruction as possible. Often, he throws himself into the crowd and starts fighting the nearest person. He's so skinny that it's fair to assume he'll be the one worse off in such an encounter, so it's all very enjoyable to watch. At Trash, a girl was standing by the stage holding three full bottles of Becks beer. Martin grabbed them off her, and emptied the contents over the entire front row of the audience, then chucked the bottles in after them. He then proceeded to jump into the crowd, and emerged with his slinky top thoroughly ripped to shreds.

After their Trash set, I saw the girl grab Martin at the bar and shout "Hey – you owe me three beers". "Yes, okay. Sorry. I get carried away". And he bought them for her. This is, I think, one of the best aspects of SC. Iggy Pop with a conscience. Rock and roll is all very well, but Niceness is the pinnacle. Niceness is the ultimate state of Rock. I am a SC fan. Ms Lucinda is wearing a white visor, in case Martin tries to spill beer on her. He grabs it and throws it into the distance. But I see her later with it on again. All very SC.

One SC song goes "PRO-PATRIOTIC! GAY-BASHING! PRO-PATRIOTIC! FOOTBALL WATCHING!" Not all football-watchers are gay-bashers, needless to comment, but one can never have too many anti-football-fan songs, I feel.

Ms L takes my photo at one point. This makes it a Good Evening in my book. If I go out and NO ONE takes my photo, it is officially a Bad Evening. One of Ms L's friends pinches my bottom. I only ever get this from men older than me.

Likewise, on the tube home, a middle-aged man in a suit cruises me. Vaguely like Matthew Parris, the Tory MP turned journalist. But not as good-looking. Follows me into the compartment. Keeps throwing me looks all the way home. An uneasy journey. Gets off at Archway. I stay on and think of what would have happened. But this is the Dickon Edwards diary, not Joe Orton's. Still, it's nice <i>somebody</i> can still want me for my body.

Stop in at the chip shop on Archway Road. Middle-aged American man gasps as I walk in and insists on taking my photo several times. We end up discussing poetry and translations of Rilke.

Well, not a bad diary entry. It's now 11.17. Ah well. My apologies, but it just poured out of me and I couldn't stop. Will try to be more brief tomorrow. I've compared myself to Louis MacNeice and Lord Byron. Solved the problems of the Middle East. Read about dead lesbian authors and bed-bound poets. Enticed the eyes of men much older than me, but no one else. Discussed Rilke with a stranger in a chip shop at midnight. A typical day.

Searching the web for a shop that sells the <a href="http://www.librarygiftshop.com/porofwritfin.html">Alan Bennett chocolates</a>, I find one which also peddles <a href="http://www.librarygiftshop.com/viwomape.html">Virginia Woolf finger puppets</a>. The blurb is as follows:

"Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was a distinguished novelist, essayist, and critic and a central figure in the Bloomsbury group. Her writing explores concepts of time, memory, and inner consciousness, and is remarkable for its humanity and depth of perception. Suffering from frequent bouts of depression, Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse in 1941. This finger puppet can also be used as a refrigerator magnet."

Alan Bennett's 70th birthday today. For someone who is arguably England's greatest living writer in terms of acclaim and public profile, the media seems to be keeping this strangely quiet. But perhaps it's at Mr Bennett's own request. As someone who's turned down knighthoods and CBEs, he doesn't like a lot of fuss made over the achievement of being Not Dead Yet. "If you live to be 90 in England and can still eat a boiled egg, they think you deserve the Nobel Prize."

There was one time where he did acknowledge an award, in order to refuse it. It was an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, which he declined publicly in protest over them naming a Chair Of Communication in honour of Rupert Murdoch.

Last Autumn, I went to a festival of Alan Bennett's screen works at the National Film Theatre. The tickets revealed it to be part of a larger TV festival, sponsored by Sky Plus. Which is owned by Mr Murdoch, of course. He'll always get you somehow.

Some Bennett quotes buzzing around my mind.

From Prick Up Your Ears. Kenneth Halliwell on Paul McCartney:

"He's my favourite Beatle. I've always liked him. The others are too… <i>instinctive.</i>"

From A Visit From Miss Prothero. The narrator:

"Miss Prothero didn't laugh. She vaguely flinched. She was one of those people who only saw jokes by appointment."

From A Lady Of Letters. Miss Ruddock:

"I sometimes catch myself thinking it'll be better the second time round. But this is it. This has been my go."

Last Tuesday – to The Poetry Cafe, Covent Garden. I've been there before, to see musical performances, to play board games with sensitive indie music fans, to get a drink and leaf through the cafe's books, but this is my first visit to actually hear some poetry. Including my own. It's an "open mic" event called Poetry Unplugged, where anyone can foist their attempts at verse upon a room of people. Naturally, such an audience is likely to suffer the worst doggerel in the world, but they might also witness something magical in embryo, and be able to tell the performer they would like to hear more sometime. Mercifully for all concerned, a slot lasts no more than five minutes.

In theory, it'd be better to go on earlier rather than later, before other speakers vanish after their own spots conclude. But then, even though they're watching, their thoughts may be too focussed on their own imminent performance to take in anyone else. I know mine were.

I was accompanied and emotionally supported by Ms Angel Dahouk, who works at the Poetry Society and who kindly bought me rather a lot of wine. Dutch courage is one thing, but in this case I just went from nervous to nervous and drunk. Still, I blurted out a couple of efforts, both of which had really been written that afternoon. Typically for me, I arranged the appearance first, then worried about what I was going to do later. Oh, I had ideas, all right. The ten per cent inspiration is never a problem. It's that other 90% I'm not so good at.

To ensure I got the work done, I went to the British Museum Reading Room in the centre of its Great Court, with the self-deluding notion that the ghosts of all those great writers who had sat and created masterpieces in that hallowed dome over the years would be channelled and funnelled through me. The reading room is now open to absolutely anyone, as long as they follow the rules – absolute silence, no food or drink, respect the studying of others. No membership or elitist application hoop-jumping necessary. Which is something that's always put me off applying for a British Library ticket – it's as if they're saying "How dare you want to LEARN? What, YOU? Prove you're not wasting OUR time. These books belong to the nation. So we don't want just anyone reading them."

Incredibly, at the British Museum, it's quite easy to find an empty desk. I think it must be the ban on noise and mobile phones. I'd extend this to people who wear trainers. Just for aesthetic reasons. Vote Dickon – guess what I'll ban first. There goes that deposit.

The place is, I imagine, noisier than the proper reading rooms at the St Pancras British Library, given that visitors to the rest of British Museum keep coming in and out to take a look (the space by the doors is technically part of the museum), and one can just hear the tourist hubbub of the Great Court outside reduced to a background Babel burble. But it's still admirably conducive to writing, when one thinks of its assets: none of the New British Library intimidation, and all of the Old British Library history.

Anyone whose mobile phone goes off is, I hope, ritually disembowelled on the spot. Silently. I find the tap-tap-tapping of the man with the laptop behind me slightly annoying. They should be banned too. Get one of those courtroom laptops with a silent keyboard if you're planning to word-process in public.

But I get the poems done, and the Poetry Cafe is the first to hear them. One piece, "Alibi", features me finally putting a stock phrase of mine to creative use. "Sex is the PE of adult life / and I've got a note from my mother". That's the opening line. Afterwards, someone comes up to me and says that's one of the best opening lines they've ever heard at "one of these sort of things".

I thought it would best suit a poem, partly as the line has a rhythm found more in poetry than song lyrics, but mostly because so many poets rattle on about their wretched lovers. Poets are notorious flirts, lotharios, nymphomaniacs. Far more interesting to write a poem about NOT wanting any of All That. Maybe it'll connect with people who have Dickon Edwards Phases. I have one of those. It's just lifelong. As ever, all I want to give to the world is something it can't get anywhere else. A sly smirk, some wry tears, joy on toast, pain on the rocks, Something Other, thank you and goodnight.

The piece wants to be described as pitched somewhere between Mr Larkin and Ms Stevie Smith, if I'm honest. Of which I prefer the latter. Ms Smith had better hair. And her brand of English Tragicomedy is more playful – there's more jokes. There should always be more jokes. As long as they're good jokes. When people go to see the most serious of plays, they still laugh at anything remotely jokey in the text. Not only does it give any serious message a more rounded form, it also is a good way of avoiding pretentiousness. If you must do something that teeters all too easily on the brink of pretentiousness, like spoken word, like poetry, for God's sake, use humour.

I don't prefer Mr Allen's early, funnier films. I prefer his later, funnier films. Because of the not funny bits.

So, a new experience for me. Hearing my words clear, not compromised by music or gig venue chatter. Strangers laughing at the funny bits – even if I wasn't entirely joking. Strangers shutting up and listening to what I'm saying. My appearance seems to make them think "my god, what's HE going to say…?". And so they listen. And not having to pack away a bloody guitar case at the end of it. I want to do this again.

<img src="http://www.fosca.com/spitz-340.jpg" alt="" align=left>
Here's the final MP3 single from the new <a href="http://www.scarletswell.co.uk/">Scarlet's Well</a> album. This song is called "Blubberhouses" and is written and sung by Bid. It's a prowling, Kurt Weill-esque portrait of the Mousseron butcher's shop. I rather like the line about "raw chicken… smelling like crocodile", inverting the cliché of unusual meat dishes (e.g. crocodile, or human meat) predictably described as tasting of chicken.

It also contains the origin of "Offal Manipulator", one of the higher ranks people can reach at the <a href="http://s6.invisionfree.com/Scarlets_Well/">Scarlet's Well Message Forum</a>, by posting regularly. Other ranks include "Scurvy Scum" and "Bilge Pumper".

Link: http://www.fosca.com/Scarlets-Well-Blubberhouses.mp3

<b>Blubberhouses</b>

<i>Down a greasy alley by the harbour
There's a foggy window in a bay
If you wipe away the dirt
With your filthy little shirt
Oh, you'll see what keeps the sailors all away
It's not the prices that sting
It's the look of the thing
Bright red, bright red, bright red mutton
Glowing in your hands
In a bowel-splattered apron by the counter
Lurks a tatty, gibber-ridden man
As he cackles in his beard
I try not to look weird
Thus, manipulate some offal in my hand
It's not the feel you mistrust
It's the mystical gust
Raw chicken, raw chicken
Smelling like crocodile
The sausages are standing to attention
On a chessboard made of little squares of silk
On the waxwork of a Prince
There's a wig of turkey mince
And some kidneys bobbing in a bowl of milk
And on a sign is writ neat
"Come to my garden of meat"
Give me, give me, give me your liver
Liver like it used to be</i>

If you like it, do investigate its excellent parent album, "The Dream Spider Of The Laughing Horse", out this week on Siesta Records. It's available to buy online from <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001ZXOW0/ref=sr_aps_music_1_1/026-6467729-9354057">Amazon</a>, or <a href="http://www.siesta.es/pags/disco.asp?codigoSiesta=194">from Siesta themselves</a>.

There's a review in this weekend's Independent On Sunday newspaper, by Simon Price:

"Descended from Indian royalty (it's technically an offence for the Queen of England to step on his shadow), the man known only as Bid is minor indie royalty himself. The former leader of cult 80s heroes The Monochrome Set has been namechecked by the likes of Franz Ferdinand, whose Alex Kapranos is one collaborator on his new project, Scarlet's Well. With Bid's handsome croon alternating with Alice Healey's fragile tones, The Dream Spider Of The Laughing Horse draws on gypsy music, Francopop, showtunes, sitar psychedelia, and rolling indie-folk a la Belle and Sebastian. 3/5 stars."

All very good, but I should mention that the lovely Mr Kapranos's song in question, "The Spell", appears on the <i>first</i> Scarlet's Well album, "Strange Letters" (1999, Siesta). Still, for many that may as well be a new release too.

Tickets for the first Scarlet's Well London concert (May 26th, The Spitz) are available to buy online <a href="http://www.wegottickets.com/gig.asp?3025">here</a>.

Last night, I spent eleven hours in a nightclub.

The first eight or so of those were as part of a shoot for "Kash Point TV". I have no idea whether this is for cable, Internet or tea-towel, but I am grateful to Kash Point for letting me in free so many times, feel the club is the best in London, and am happy to help them out in any way I can. I trot along to the venue "Moonlighting" in Greek Street at 4pm, and do not leave until 3am.

During the shoot, I play a dancer in a video for the artist Crazy Girl, help out with a bit of make-up, button pushing, sound mixing, and even a spot of emergency microphone repair. I also perform a couple of short "Dickon Edwards – Letter From Hysterica" monologues to camera. I draw on my diary, but it quickly becomes apparent that writing to be read and writing for speaking to camera are very different genres indeed. This is my debut as a spoken word solo artist. Foolishly, I thought that the combination of being able to look striking and write striking things to read out would be enough. It is not. I am a mass of nerves, and will be quite understanding if my footage is not used.

But I will do it again, and do it better. It has made me want to work harder on the art of speaking in performance. I'm keen on trying one of those Open Mike nights at various London performance-poetry or alternative comedy nights. Dickon Edwards – stand up comedian? Why not. I'll try anything once, except bungy jumping and bestiality. Of course, I would be careful not to be one of those wretched two-a-penny blokey comedians who point out the difference between cats and dogs, the trouble with their girlfriend, or something to do with Star Wars. I would not certainly not try and appeal to the audience as if I was one of them. My own observational comedy would have to be along the lines of "Don't you really hate it when you're sawing up the body and the blood won't scrub off the walls?"

If I DID try something like that, I wouldn't tell jokes or even try to make the audience laugh. Just make their attention toward the stage vaguely worthwhile. Give people something memorable they can't get elsewhere. It would be more akin to Mr Alan Bennett's Talking Heads monologues, with Thora Hird as David Byrne. I think they call it character-based comedy. In my case, it would be as The Tragicomic Character Of Dickon Edwards.

I know comedy doesn't have to be funny – I have seen "Coupling". But I am an admirer of humour that is more unusual and engrossing than laugh-out-loud funny, whether it's the Kids In The Hall, the third series of The League Of Gentlemen, or the fourth series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. I still haven't seen "Nighty Night", but I am told it's My Kind Of Thing. I also enjoy the show-and-tell style of performance verging on anecdotal monologue, from the late Spalding Gray and Laurie Anderson's more wry pieces, to Dave Gorman, and Richard Herring's Talking Cock show.

It's true I am cruelly disfigured with a comedy speech impediment, and am given to gabbling, nervous stutters, and people asking me to repeat myself. But I was gratified to recently discover that, as unlikely as it could possibly sound, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, lately in the news for refusing an OBE, has a similar vocal affliction to me. Yet he manages to perform his work fluently and articulately. So it's just a case of practising like mad. And then practising more. And then trying out the work at open mike spots. Perhaps that's how I should bill myself – Dickon Edwards: A Speech Impediment A Bit Like Benjamin Zephaniah's.

Back at Moonlighting, the Kash Point TV shoot finishes as the Kash Point nightclub begins, the last weekly KP ever. The club will return in the summer, on board the Tattershall Castle boat, but will be monthly, perhaps even members-only. I think this is entirely advisable.

I keep Mr Matthew Glamorre company as he puts on his own make-up, a process of titivation (not transformation, mind) which takes even longer than my own. Truly someone I can learn from. Tonight's Kash Point theme is Hat Night, with champagne and prizes for the most exotic form of Easter Bonnet. I myself wear a brand new top hat made personally for me by Bid. He once made hats for Alice Cooper.

Little Richard, one of the club's resident Superstars and described earlier in this diary as Kash Point's dancing Pillow-Biting Lobster, tonight wears an all-over hat suit. It is a creation of his trademark gaffa tape (does he buy the stuff in bulk?) and cardboard, dotted with silvery spaceboy domes and topped off with a long horizontal box enclosing his entire head and extending the best part of a metre before him. To speak to him, one has to press one's face against the end window of the headpiece's viewfinder and peer deep inside. Naturally, he spends some time on the dancefloor like this. Watching him drink a bottle of beer is a sight to remember.

The winning hat-wearers are a couple decked out in lights and arrows, but mention must be made of French Thierry wearing a colourful silky butterfly hat affair, and very little else below the neck. Likewise the gentleman with a gigantic foam letter "A" on his head.

Once again, having a costume parade packs out the club to the rafters, and I am told all sorts of horror stories going on at the door upstairs – even death threats from people refused entry. Mr Glamorre and his brave crew do their utmost to ensure the badly-dressed are directed elsewhere, but some always manage to slip in. Even a guest DJ does the equivalent of playing badly-dressed music. There is a strict ban on any four-four music one might get in Normal Clubs, and when the DJ puts on "Gay Bar" by Electric Six, Mr Glamorre storms onto the mixing desk, slams the fader down, and firmly tells the DJ , face to face and terrifyingly serious, "NO. SHIT." Quite right too.

What we do get towards the giddy end of the night is Mr G performing Minty's "Useless Man", which is always a sign he's in a good mood. And the last tune played at Kash Point Weekly is "One Singular Sensation" from "A Chorus Line". Perfect music for top hat wearers.

I make it back to my bedsit at close to 5am, thankful that my next appointment isn't until 3pm the next day, and in Highgate too.

I wake up at just after 3pm, realize the time in horror, and dash outside. Ms Claudia Andrei, photographer and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1902588118/qid%3D1081537769/026-5023342-2176401">"Transgender London: London and The Third Sex".</a> who I have kept waiting, remarks that I look as if I've just crawled out of bed. She is entirely correct.

She brings an interesting bit of news for those who think I look vaguely like David Sylvian, the singer with the band Japan. Though I quite like his music, I am not an expert on it and have never made any deliberate attempt to emulate his 80s look. Or indeed anyone else's. But after the umpteenth such comparison, I can't help but be intrigued to hear that Ms Andrei has recently shown her photos of me to Steve Jansen, also of the band, who in turn has shown Mr Sylvian. The response from the latter was that he was "amused".

I wonder what Mr Sylvian thinks of "Coupling".

Work continues apace in the <a href="http://www.scarletswell.co.uk/">Scarlet's Well</a> camp. Tickets for the London Spitz concert <a href="http://www.wegottickets.com/gig.asp?3025">are now available to buy online</a>, and the fourth album, "The Dream Spider Of The Laughing Horse" is released on May 3rd. It may not trouble the Real Charts, but it will delight those in search of some… luminous creatures in their pop music.

In rehearsal, we're now tackling a few select Monochrome Set songs alongside the Scarlet's Well repertoire. The Spitz show will be Bid's first UK gig in eight years, and the spreading of a little happiness to M Set fans who never got to see his old group in concert seems only fair. I wonder what it must be like for the under-25-year-old members of the Scarlet's Well band when one's lead singer teaches you a new song to play, saying, "Here's one I wrote a few years before you were born…"

The new album is sold in typically luxurious Siesta Records packaging: gaudy digipak with full colour 16 page booklet. Visually and aurally, it's utter joy on toast:

<img src="http://www.bid.clara.net/swell/booklet-dreamspider.jpg" alt="">

When I'm trying to get the album reviewed, the expensive artwork means I can only send out promo CD versions in simple cardboard wallets.

But this is fair enough, I feel. The full package is too beautiful to give away en masse to indifferent whelks of no woman born. Some PR campaigns, like the one for the new Morrissey album, won't even let journalists own a copy of any kind. They have to go to the record company's own office, listen and take notes. When Taylor Parkes reviewed the last Morrissey album in 1997 for Melody Maker, he had to make do with a cassette. It's interesting how the more "important" an artist is, the more paranoid their record company is about losing sales to bootlegging. Yet they are exactly the sort of artists who can afford to lose such sales.

One more interesting way of getting a full, proper shop copy of "The Dream Spider Of The Laughing Horse" for nil pounds is by entering the Caption Competition at the SW website, featuring our esteemed accordion player, Mr White (<lj user=martylog>):

<img src="http://www.bid.clara.net/forum/bamboomartin.jpg" alt="">

Oh yes! Feel free to devise your own caption and post it on the new Forum at http://www.scarletswell.co.uk

To Bethnal Green for the wedding reception and party of Ms Esther and Mr Paul. The venue is the local Working Mens Club, but despite my being a man in make-up allergic to most forms of work, I am allowed inside without there being any kind of anti-matter explosion. I am Worst Man at a wedding.

Bethnal Green at night initially seems scary. But then, I find most modern life scary, walking as I do with a fearsome tremble in my step, ready for the next attack from my fellow man. Very unfair on my fellow man, I know. And in the case of Bethnal Green I feel I owe the area a silent apology. The strangers I meet on the street from tube station to venue are far more polite and friendly than those in the apparently "safer" area of Muswell Hill. At the cashpoint on Bethnal Green Road there is an exchange of "After you", "No, after YOU" which goes on for quite some time.

To consolidate my faith in the better aspects of humanity, the reception is a rather joyous and extremely touching affair. In his Best Man speech, Mr Alex Kapranos remarks how the couple are genuinely, palpably, visibly, impressively in love, and this is something with which no one can argue. Real Love, indeed.

Early on in the evening, the DJs play The Glitter Band followed by The Smith's "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" – a rather inspired segue, give the latter is a lesser Morrissey hit musically akin to the style of Mr Glitter's hits, as well as being appropriate to the noted lengthy engagement period of the couple. Certainly more appropriate than Freda Payne's "Band Of Gold", a song inexplicably popular at weddings, given it's about a marriage breaking up.

Performing live is Ms Sophie Heawood and her impromptu band, formed to sweetly serenade the newlyweds with "Chapel Of Love". Ms Sophie sat next to me at the wedding service (it was the only free seat) but thankfully appears to have suffered no ill effects. She is one of the visionaries behind the new magazine <a href="http://www.planbmag.com/">Plan B,</a> which I've promised to write for. I started some things, and unlike Mr Morrissey I do intend to finish them.

There is also a set from a chap called Ben who wears a cowboy hat and sings in a Leadbelly bluesy- country fashion. Despite, or perhaps because of the occasion, he decides to perform some gloriously inappropriate songs for a wedding reception. One is "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean", another is "Goodbye Cruel World", the unsubtle suicide song from Pink Floyd's The Wall (arguably the world's least subtle album as it is), and then <i>another</i> song from the same album, "In The Flesh", the one about a rock star whose Nazi-rally-like arena concerts have made him such a paranoid crypto-fascist that he wants anyone he doesn't like the look of shot at once. It all seems deeply incongruous at first, but it transpires that at least one of the couple is a fan of the album.

One observer might interpret playing such covers as a wry jab at the groom's newfound status as an internationally successful rock star (his band Franz Ferdinand are playing a cavernous arena near you), and a possible warning that he had better not let it all go to his head. On the evidence of this occasion such fears are entirely unjustified. Though Mr Paul and his bandmates are now no strangers to Top Of The Pops, this is not a Celebrity Wedding festooned with the rich and famous, just friends (and a few Friendster Friends) and family. Many here are worryingly skinny indie band types who clearly could do with a few extra slices of wedding cake.

I suppose the one person there, apart from the band, who IS a celebrity of a kind is the DJ Mr Erol Alkan, who turns up to play a wedding set, and he is someone regarded by some baggy jeaned magazines as one of London's most fashionable DJs. But, like the groom's band, he is neither outwardly different or embarrassed by such success, being undoubtably grateful – though, crucially, not boastful (only that way lies accusations of Selling Out) – for being able to make a living from doing what one enjoys and would do regardless.

Now, this is a position to which we all aspire, and goodness knows I aspire to it myself. Being finally, securely able to make a living from Being Dickon Edwards is really something I'm striving to do at present – the only vague "goal" I have beyond basic food and shelter. I am quite happy to reside hand-to-cheap-lipglossed-mouth by myself in a London bedsit for the rest of my life, where there is no room to swing even the skinniest indie form of cat. The world is a stage, and this is my dressing room. What matters to many thankfully doesn't matter in the least to me – owning a flat, speaking fluent Mortgage or Pension, making money, a, dare I say it, lifelong Love Life, or even a nightlong Sex Life. All those things are pursuits which other people seem happy to engage in and perpetuate, though they are as alien to me as terrorism, war and bungy jumping.

But I am happy for such people, if they are happy in turn. All I do want is to be able to answer the dreaded Frequently Asked Question, "What do you do?", with something approaching a confident and definite description. My interviewer may not be able to keep a straight face when I reply "I Am A Professional English Eccentric", but that doesn't matter. My own face must be deadly serious. In fact, what's important is that I am able to not stare at my shoes at this moment, as attractive as my shoes are.

Ideally, I could get paid for writing this diary for a publication (one which kindly puts its content online as well as existing in paper form), as it does seem one thing I find myself doing anyway, which strangers seem to enjoy. If I could get this diary sponsored by Prada, then my life would be complete.

But back to the wedding reception. When I said it was refreshingly devoid of Celebrities, I didn't for a second mean to imply that it was full of Ordinary People. Heaven forfend. Superstardom in the Warhol sense of the word has always been my preferred state of being. Though that's rather unfair on another act performing tonight, Mr Simon Bookish, who unlike many of those notorious peacocks draped around the Bacofoil walls of Mr W's Factory in all those silly films, actually has talent.

Mr Bookish is unlucky enough to have to suffer a day job, which he tells me is something to do with Amnesty International. From all accounts, it sounds like torture.

So the sooner he can make a living from his Art, the better. He not only is capable of singing for his supper, but singing for The Last Supper. Charismatic, engaging, and always a joy to watch, he is one act on "The London Scene" that I fully recommend. If anyone deserves to be on Top Of The Pops, it is Mr Bookish. I can imagine the bored parents of England spitting out their TV dinners in mock-outrage, secretly glad that the TV programme is once again sporting music where "it's just Bang Bang Bang" and "you can't tell if it's a boy or a girl". That, after all, is what Top Of The Pops should always be about. And what pop music should be about.

Tonight's Bookish Set includes a cover version of the homoerotic Franz Ferdinand song, "Michael", performed in his trademark style of intense electronica and direct interaction with the crowd. By that I don't mean he starts fights with his audience, but acknowledges their attention and repays it mutually, dancing with them, or to them, performing as if all that exists is that one location, that one point in time. It may be back to the office with him on Monday, but upon a stage, or in front of it – his real work is done.

Afterwards, Mr B remarks how strange it was singing "Michael" knowing that the person the song is based upon, the real Michael, is in the room. The muse in question is pointed out to me. He is wearing white dancing jeans – what else?

Another song on the Franz Ferdinand album is a similar example of the Artist As Magpie, taking from Life what should be preserved in Art, or in Song. It's the track "Jacqueline". When I first heard it, I wondered it it were based upon a Scottish indie girl called Jacqueline I've met a few times, whose old London flat is still in my address book. I am happy to have this confirmed by Mr Kapranos – it's the same girl.

Again, it's like the Warhol Superstars, immortalised in song by Lou Reed's Walk On The Wild Side, or by The Monochrome Set's "Goodbye Joe". "Michael" and "Jacqueline" are Franz Ferdinand song characters based on real people, but they also represent a modern archetype, a mini-scene, made up of stylish outsiders that are mini-celebrities in their own social circles (or even just "famous" for one other person), past and present. Social Legends, if you like. And it's the duty of The Writer, and The Songwriter to record this.

Whether it's Alan Bennett writing down the utterations of The Lady In The Van, or Christopher Isherwood making more use of Sally Bowles's life than she ever did, paying homage to The Secret Celebrity is a common theme in all the best art, music and literature. Mr Paul would, I imagine, have a Franz Ferdinand song written about him if he wasn't already in the band.

I try to use this public diary in a similar manner to Mr Isherwood, documenting not just my life, but the lives I see around me at the places I am invited to go. I often spend hours upon a single entry, and try to take pains not to write anything or photograph (badly – I Am An Out-Of-Focus Camera) anything I think might offend the people unwittingly dragged in. There's only been three occasions in this diary's seven year history that I have received requests to remove a reference to someone, and I've happily complied each time.

At the wedding party, I told Mr Kapranos about my diary. In the same way that (I think) he checked with the real "Michael" and "Jacqueline" if it was okay to immortalise them in song, I said I hope he didn't mind I'd written about the wedding. I added that if there was anything in my diary he objected to, I'd remove it at once.

To his undying credit, he shrugged and replied "You write what the hell you like, Dickon." Truly, a living saint. Franz Ferdinand records are available to buy now, folks.

For me, and I suspect Mr K understands this too, the greatest honour is to be written about, photographed, or even sung about, as has happened to me in the case of "Son Of Dorian Gray" by the band Tender Trap. One of the greatest sadnesses of my life was the time Momus told me he'd written a song about me… only to not release the thing. Even if it's unflattering, inaccurate, mocking or cruel, attention has been paid. Your mark has been made on the consciousness of an Artist, no mean feat in this world of a million distractions and corporate advertising inciting you to pay attention to anything but a person with no PR agent.

A quick glance at any magazine rack or TV channel will tell you that many so-called Real Celebrities fail to evince the slightest degree of anything interesting or intelligent whatsoever. Indeed, their careers are so carefully stage-managed, they cannot give a single answer in a single interview without a Press Officer being on hand to consult first, in case any signs of Personality are allowed to leak out.

Mr Warhol said in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. He was slightly wrong. It is now the future, and everyone is on television, which is an entirely different thing. As it is, that quote is so over-used and over-interpreted, that someone really should have shot him for saying that.

People who would make much better celebrities are, more often than not, entirely unknown beyond their social circle. Looking around and chatting to the people at the wedding reception, seeing "Michael", thinking about "Jacqueline", I could see many more such unsung superstar types in abundance. Perhaps they will all have songs written about them one day. Perhaps many of them already have.

In this sense, it was a Superstar Wedding indeed. It finished with the superstar couple themselves given a proper send-off outside their flat by the gathered crowd, covering them with rice and "Chapel Of Love" in a multitude of harmonies. Happy Honeymoon, Paul and Esther.

A very modern day. I receive a free digital camera in the post, which I suppose is a fairly modern thing to receive. It is in response to a coupon I sent off months ago for some product whose name escapes me. It does not have one of those handy screens at the back where one can instantly check the picture, and has no flash facility, but then it is free. I look upon it as a sort of digital Lomo, the analogue vintage toy camera favoured by arty sorts, and take it with me to my first engagement of the day.

Today's engagement is a wedding. It's the second wedding I have been invited to in my thirty-two years. The first was of my cousin, who married a TV chef from the Carlton Food Network. I feel a little sad that I'm not invited to more weddings. It's true that I rail and rant against coupling of any kind when given the air space, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy a good wedding. At base, after all, I am a romantic. A new-new-new romantic.

I received my wedding invite via Friendster.com on the Internet. This, surely, makes it a very modern wedding indeed. A marriage made in Friendster.com.

The couple in question are a Ms Esther and a Mr Paul. Mr Paul is the drummer in the band Franz Ferdinand, who are that rare thing – I band I like who manage to be liked by real people too, even though they don't wear trainers onstage. My faith in humanity is tentatively restored.

Despite being Scottish, Mr Paul has not brought his weather with him, and today appears to be warm, dry and gently pleasant. Spring finally starts in London.

Like any self-respecting fictional scientist, I try out the camera upon myself first, in Moorgate Tube station:
<img src="http://www.fosca.com/friday-april-2nd19.jpg"></img>

The ceremony takes place at Bromley Public Hall in Bow Road, well within the sound of Bow Bells. This is deep within London's East End, and so signs of this kind, a few steps from the hall, almost have a sick, romantic tinge of their own, if you're in a dark, Kray Brothers mood.

"Mug me, mug me do! It's been so long since I last felt the touch of a man…"

<img src="http://www.fosca.com/friday-april-2nd15.jpg"></img>

Inside the registry office, Mr Paul is sporting a rather fetching hat with a feather in its band, and signs the marriage register with the gorgeous Ms Esther. Then, fully bonded within the eyes of The Law, they retire to the grounds outside for more photographs. I have rice in my pocket ready to throw. An American Girl tells me this is bad for pigeons, and makes them explode. This makes me throw the rice with more gusto than ever.

Many more photos are taken, some with myself ("Okay, now, let's have all the people who like The Monochrome Set").

I spend time chatting to everyone who will speak to me, and retire to the nearest pub with Franz Ferdinand's manager, Mr Cerne. Apropos of nothing, he shows me the latest list of Franz Ferdinand merchandise awaiting approval. It includes mugs, dart flights, and underwear for both genders. I suggest he adds pens and ties – not ties with a logo (far too tacky), but ties in the logo's striped colours, a la Eton. If such articles become reality, you heard it here first.

Disembarking at Highgate Tube Station, I call in at the Boogaloo for an ill-advised additional drink:
<img src="http://www.fosca.com/friday-april-2nd20.jpg"></img>

My flu appears to have vanished, and I am keen to go out tonight. Club "Soul Mole" at the Enterprise in Chalk Farm it is, then.

<p><i>Postscript, April 6th.</i>

I originally illustrated this entry with more equally atrociously blurred photos from the wedding, but on discovering they had been featured elsewhere, out of the diary context and without my knowledge, I thought it was better to remove them. Also, on reflection, my photos really didn't do the occasion an iota of justice. Far superior snaps were taken by others present. So, my apologies.</i>

Hit rather heavily by a bout of flu, I find myself confined indoors for most of this week, and have to give any clubs a miss for the time being. Which includes Kash Point tonight, much to my chagrin.

Snuffling and coughing, I remember that it’s time to set the world to rights with another instalment of the Scarlet’s Well Mp3 Singles Club.

This rather beautiful, jaunty uptempo track is as good at relieving cold symptoms as anything Mr Beecham might muster. Titled Big Dipper On The Spearman’s Floor, it’s sung by some of the motley Hesperus crew walking back to Mousseron from the Underworld… via the sea bed. The Spearman being the sea god Neptune, the Big Dipper being the constellation of The Plough.

Bid takes lead vocals on this one, and it features a rather gorgeous E-Bow-like soaring instrumental break.

Link:

Like the previous mp3, it’s taken from the album The Dream Spider Of The Laughing Horse, released on May 3rd on Siesta Records.

In the current issue of Q Magazine, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex suggests a track listing for the ideal Art-Rock CD compilation. He includes The Monochrome Set’s “He’s Frank”, written by Bid circa 1978, and played by me at the club Stay Beautiful when I DJ’d there. From the same songwriter twenty-six years on, “Big Dipper…” may not be Rock enough for some, but it’s definitely Art. And I know what I like.

More info: http://www.scarletswell.co.uk/

Big Dipper On The Spearman’s Floor

Can you see the Dipper, the twinkle of the Dipper
Look up to the ceiling of the vasty deep
It points the way to where we’ll find our sleep
If you hear a fiddle, the scraping of a fiddle
Coming from the hull of a passing yawl
It’s just a jolly, praying for us all