I'm generally feeling better, not least because I've been recruited by a musical hero of mine, Pirate King Bid, also known as frontman for The Monochrome Set, to join the live incarnation of his current arcane pop band, Scarlet's Well. Not entirely sure what I'll be doing yet, perhaps a bit of guitar, bass, and vocals, but I'm happy to just share a stage with him and hold his plectrums if needs be. And also, to put about the call for other possible SW players. It's unlikely to be a full-time engagement, in fact I'm expecting it to help me cure my sinful apathy and fecklessness of late, and generate more activity with Fosca, with writing and with life in general.

I've sung the estimable praises of Scarlet's Well before, but if you're still not aware of the group's albums, released in stunningly beautiful sleeves by Siesta Records, I really must insist you investigate them forthwith. They're available online from http://www.siesta.es/

The world of Scarlet's Well often resembles to that of arch Victorian poetry, with some lyrics written by Christina Rossetti, but set to tunes somewhat more exciting than "In The Bleak Midwinter". If you think there should be more pop songs about water shrews, werewolves lurking in glades, parrots, pirate crews and jellyfish, and referring to a ship with words like "doxy" and "draggle-tail", I can't recommend the albums highly enough.

There's audio samples tucked behind illustrations at the band's own website, http://www.bid.clara.net/swell. Click on "Albums" to hear them.

While there, also click on "Live" to read Bid's open appeal for fellow musical musketeers for live concerts, even if not based in London. Do please pass on the information to any curious (in every sense) musicians you may know, as long as they are prepared to not wear trainers onstage. It's all very open-door and unfixed at the moment. Drummers and percussionists are particularly sought, I hear. It was ever thus. My acqaintances Ms Dornan and Mr White have already tentatively answered the call. I rather enjoy being Captain Bid's recruiting lieutenant.

All concerts, once booked, will naturally be included in this diary. Onwards and fopwards!

Still feeling ill. General dizziness, headaches, nausea, dryness and tightness in the throat as if I'm gulping for oxygen, blurred vision, disorientation, unable to concentrate, fatigue. If this is still that "carsickness virus", it's hanging around too long. This is on top of the usual depression.

So, off to the doctor's again on Tuesday. I won't leave this time until I've been tested for everything. Or I'll change doctors yet again. Last time, while in the waiting room, I leafed through a copy of Diabetes Today. So naturally I insisted on a test for that. They took a urine sample. Results – negative. But in the magazine John Peel talks about how he too was fobbed off with urine tests, and that blood tests are far more efficient, though the results take longer. He is, of course, now a diabetic. The fact he's twice my age and there's diabetics in his family (unlike mine) doesn't of course bother me. I now won't sleep till I get the absolute, blood test all clear. And while they're at it, I'll insist they test my blood for everything else I might possibly have. They shouldn't leave those magazines out for people like me. It's like those government announcements that there may be a terrorist attack. Exactly what are we expected to do? Just go about our lives as normal, just riddled with more anxiety than ever.

Still, I maintain I'm not ENTIRELY a hypochondriac, as there clearly IS something wrong with me. I DO feel ill and I don't want to be ill. It's stopping me from doing things, and I want to get better. So I prefer the term 'gossamer valetudinarian'.

Of course, my Lifestyle and general attitude are probably not helping. I have just realised that from December 23rd to January 2nd, a day did not pass without me not only drinking, but mixing my drinks. I never exercise, sleep at irregular hours from day to day, hide from the sunlight and eat very badly. If this is the sole cause of my ailments, fine. I just want to make sure it is.

Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbour. Drink is the poison that kills slowly, and life is a terminal squeak of experience bookended by vast eternities of nothingness. The spot on my lip has faded, so that's all that matters. I can go out. Best be ill in public rather than be ill alone. Cafes, bars and clubs beckon me away. Vast quantities of coffee or alcohol do make me feel better, after all.

I've been directly invited to a number of things and it'd be wrong not to go. It's always important to go where you're invited. That way, it's someone else's fault. "What are YOU doing here?" "I got an invite". Can you blame me? Don't answer that. I have limited finances, so I have to be selective with what I do of an evening, and with how many times I go out in a week. Direct invites therefore tend to swing it. I am the recluse who goes to parties.

So, tomorrow: birthday drinks for Lucy Madison in Islington, then onto the Buffalo Bar yet again for the Crimes Against Pop club. I never mind going to the Buffalo Bar. It's not too much of a dark hole, has nice sofas, and is a quick bus ride or affordable cab ride home.

On Saturday, birthday drinks for Darren Beach at the Boogaloo here in Highgate. Then on Sunday, off to the Great Eastern Hotel for "Modern Times", a 1920s / 30s/ 40s themed club that people have raved about to me for some time. Maybe for once that will be a club free from Nike-d up Default Men with trainers and bad beards.

Even <a href="http://www.kashpoint.com/">Kash Point</a> on New Year's Eve had an alarmingly high representation of them, along with the usual fantastically dressed. At one point, the DJs play the Divine Comedy's Europop, and it fits in perfectly with all the recent electroclash records. Not least the songs by Baxendale and Simon Bookish from the Kash Point album, both of which find eager appreciation on the packed dancefloor.

I enjoy performances by the likes of the excellent Gene Serene, who boldy carries on dispite there being a truly drunken woman also onstage, making whooping noises on the other microphone. No one removes her. Mr Glamorre is torn between keeping the dressed-down bores out of his club, and having a friendly, open-house, Utopian policy akin to Warhol's Factory, where self-expression is encouraged, not quashed, and Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Thing is, how do you tell people off?

I feel in a similar dilemma a few nights before Christmas. At a pub in Tooting, a drunken woman starts dancing on the seat next to our table, and to no one's surprise FALLS directly upon me and Mr Rhodri Marsden. I feel the need to say something to the young lady, but, as I'm rather intoxicated myself, and we're in a pub, and it's nearly Christmas, I have no grounds to tell her off. Also, I have never told anyone off in my life, and wouldn't know where to start.

Thankfully our party includes Ms Jenny, who speaks fluent Drunk Woman, and gently but firmly convinces her to continue to "express herself", but quietly and away from others. And not on top of Dickon. That's all that's really required.

Back at Kash Point NYE, and when the group No Bra perform, singer Fanny (male, bearded) deals with a similar sozzled barfly heckler by rushing over and snogging him so violently that they both tumble over the edge of the bar. That's the way to do it. Discipline in character.

The beautiful Mr Patrick Wolf says hello to me. His bleached hair is now shorn off, leaving a natural, dark crop. I also meet the glamourous likes of Ms Chiara, Ms Misty, Mr James Ward, and Ms Alexa from Riviera F. And I stay till the very, very, end.

Thankfully, it transpires that Matthew Glamorre doesn't shrink from ejecting badly-dressed bores after all. Some hours into New Year's Day, after he's performed a solo medley of Minty songs (Plastic Bag, That's Nice, and Useless Man), he tells me, "I have thrown a lot of idiots out tonight. I ask them, "Did you pay to get in? Yes? Good, because you're leaving now." "

Ah, Default Men. They plague my every step, and kill my kind for our soft pelts. On the tube, recently. I am walking down a long station corridor, with a barrier separating the tunnel into two lanes of pedestrians. A man passes me on the other side, then on seeing me STARTS WALKING BACKWARDS along with me, trying to get eye contact. It won't work. Without my glasses, I'm short sighted. And I am near-blind with heavy mascara and eyeliner. And I never look unless invited to look. He doesn't call out. Later, I am sitting on the train while it's at a station. Another Default Man bangs on the tube window nearest me. I don't look. He walks off, the train moves on.

Back at Kash Point on New Year's Eve. I am pursued and cornered in the toilets by a gang of Nearly Default Men Trying To Be Funny, as they mean well and are just drunk and confused. One of them starts talking to me as if I'm David Sylvian. That's the joke. "Didn't you make Tin Drum?" "Didn't you and Mick Karn chase the same bird?". "Didn't you collaborate with… what's his name?"

"Ryuichi Sakamoto?" I helpfully supply.

"That's right!"

This is a new one: I am actually AIDING a detractor in making fun of me in front of his mates, in the gents toilet.

I don't mind. I find it faintly amusing, and it makes a good diary entry. Plus it's New Year's Eve, and I feel Kash Point is more My Place, safer ground than a tube station.

In the aisles of Muswell Hill Sainsburys, a few days into 2004, another Default Man with his Default Girlfriend chuckles and points at me. "Andy Warhol!". He says this <i>triumphantly</i>, as if I'm a walking "Guess Who I Look Like" contest.

This time, for the first time ever, I snap.

"Oh THANK you. No one's EVER said that to me before."

I feel instantly angry with myself for reacting that way.

"But you love it really, don't you?" says Laurence.

"I do want to be recognised", I whine. "But as myself."

"Perhaps you should put up posters of your face all over London. 'THIS IS DICKON EDWARDS'. With the web address of your diary."

We are at Waterlow Park Duck Pond, Highgate, London N6. It is 2.30pm on December 25th 2003. Like me, Laurence is spending Christmas alone. Feeding these ducks is my Christmas Day ritual. Like some English villages have their strange Wicker Man-like folk dances on certain days, I can't remember how I started doing this, or why I do it. But this year I am accompanied. Last year, Laurence had Roast Duck for Christmas, so his presence is poetically appropriate. We learn a way of seeing off any Default Gulls who muscle in on the meek mallards in make-up. You just clap your hands once, and the idiot gulls will fly away, while the ducks remain. Try it next time you're at a duck pond. After seeing "Finding Nemo", it's hard not to imagine the gulls' noisy cawing as "Mine!" "Mine!"

Laurence and I pull a cracker by the side of the pond. We both regret not bringing cameras to immortalise the occasion. It must have been a sight for the few others in the park on their post-Christmas dinner walks. Two grown men, by themselves, one of whom looks the way I do, the other is <a href="http://www.lah.freeuk.com/laurence.htm">a classical composer in his fifties</a>, pulling crackers on Christmas Day by a duck pond. It had to be done.

An email the other day from Kate P in Australia, who I always think of when seeing pictures of Sophie Ellis-Bextor. The same striking, angular beauty. Kate used to be a boy. She tells me how a club in a Sydney transsexual bar played Fosca, and she danced. I am delighted.

Shamefully, I am smoking on New Year's Eve. Tim C suggests, "Every time you want to take out a cigarette, take out a pen instead."

He is absolutely right. I haven't smoked since. I wanted to today, and instead wrote this entry.

This year has not, I admit, been the most visibly productive of my life. I released no records with Fosca, or succeeded in having any other written work published, save contributions like the one to Smoke Magazine. My diary went for weeks without entries.

It's true that I've been stricken with various illnesses, bouts of paralyzing depression, and general addiction to procrastination, but the chief excuse is a general fear of failing. Or rather, of producing anything that might be substandard. This, I now realise, is just not good enough. One must never be afraid of releasing material that might not be up to scratch. Writing anything is better than writing nothing. Work calls down work, just as apathy calls down apathy. As long as something is centred on Personal Truth, any idea of "failing" can only be based on the criteria of others. Criteria, which ultimately is irrelevant. This is your own life you're living, after all, not the life of others.

On the day the accompanying photograph to this entry was taken, at Somerset House here in London, England, I visited a retrospective exhibition in the building, which celebrated that great British children's illustrator, Mr Quentin Blake. His work, often best known through working with Roald Dahl, is sketchy and spiky and brimming with joy, energy, and wit. Yet, in that day's issue of Metro Newspaper, the exhibition was given a dismissive review. The critic, whose name fortunately escapes me in this season of forgiveness, attacked Mr Blake's work for being… spiky and sketchy. As far as the writer was concerned, Mr Blake's entire 50 year career (he'd been illustrating for Punch Magazine in the late 40s), was a complete waste of time. His crime was Being Quentin Blake.

This example of the way many are all too quick to race for blank judgement based on their own personal reflexes, for refusing to even try and see both wood and trees, to condemn Mr Pope for being Catholic, is a particularly insidious vice. It is one that exists in everyone, and one that must be resisted with great force. Mr Bernard Shaw pointed out that, contrary to the motivational saying, one should NOT do unto others as you expect they should do unto you: their tastes may not be the same.

With this in mind, I look back at the diary entries I DID manage to write and put on the Web this year. For me, they do constitute "work" of an equal value as any record or concert or properly published piece of writing. Leafing through past entries of 2003, the longer ones, I'm rather pleased with them. Otherwise I'd be feeling extremely jealous. It's not what one DOES that matters here, so much as what one THINKS.

I may have physically done very little in 2003, save from the occasional Fosca gig, not least the trip to Athens, but I've Been Dickon Edwards more than ever. The edges are a lot smoother. As long as one can keep that up, and put out as much work as possible (even if it's just diary entries) that springs directly from Being Oneself, one will never "fail". And this applies to anyone who too feels they are at the mercy of the Achievement Criteria of others.

Through self-awareness, comes self-belief. Through that, a way of dealing with the rest of the world. And then, of appreciating the work and lives of others more than ever. The paradox is this. Narcissism, once developed properly and for some time, skips hand in hand with Consideration. It is often those who think they are speaking as One Of The Crowd who are really selfish, self-deluding and blind to the ways of others. The House Of Commons is full of them.

The other paradox is that, in order to BE more and more, one must DO more and more. The edges will always need as much smoothing as possible.

And so, I look to 2004 with an eye on restricting my tendency of this previous year to fall through cracks in time and cracks in make-up. Enough is enough.

Dickon Edwards
Highgate, London N6

<i>Photo by Simon (<lj user=mzdt>)</i>

A Very Merry Christmas to all my readers.

<img alt="Somerset House, 23.12.03. Photo by Simon Storey" src="http://www.fosca.com/xmas2.jpg"></img>

Many thanks to <lj user=mzdt> for the photo.

A weekend of being laughed at.

I am standing outside the Astoria box office in Charing Cross Road. Inside, Hawkwind are playing. Outside I am getting cold. I have been standing here for one hour and five minutes.

What's the longest acceptable time to wait for someone?

I am here because Plan B Magazine want to illustrate my piece on the band Ackercocke with a photo of me and the band, together. I agree to this, replying, "just tell me where to be and when, and I will be there." Comes the response, "6.45pm, Sunday, outside the Astoria."

I am on time. The person meeting me, the band's press officer, eventually turns up at 7.50pm. She apologies for being stuck in traffic, and gets me into the comparative warmth of the Mean Fiddler, the smaller venue next to the Astoria, where an endless queue of heavy metal fans snakes around the block. Tonight, in concert: Arch Enemy and Ackercocke.

She goes away for a few minutes, comes back, and informs me that the photo shoot has already taken place, without me.

Thankfully, she buys me a drink. I watch Ackercocke perform, and catch a bit of Arch Enemy, another Black Metal band whose angle is having a female singer that can do that Satanic Growling as good as any man. It's an impressive party trick (how's that for damning with faint praise), but after a few minutes of their headbanging antics I've had enough. I feel miserable, unloved, and still have vestiges of flu. I want quietness. I badly need to go home and have a good cry. I only came to get my photo taken. I don't actually LIKE heavy metal music, after all. That, of course, is why the magazine think a piece about by me will make for a Good Read. Granted, I admire the likes of Ackercocke for their waistcoats-and-ties appearance and obvious mastery of their chosen craft. But, the individuals who admire it aside, and with a few exceptions, I believe that all Rock Music per se is a mistake. Heavy metal, doubly so. I shall enjoy saying these things in a rock magazine.

When I arrange meetings myself, something I insist on is that the location be somewhere indoors, where people can sit down. Ideally, a cafe or bar. Then, if one person is late, at least the other one can sit and drink and read and think, limiting the inconvenience incurred. This, however, is a rendezvous organised for me, rather than by me.

In this instance, owning a mobile phone would make my life a lot easier. I do possess a pager, so people running late can send me a message with their phones. But they rarely do. What instead happens is that I somehow have to phone their mobiles to find out where the hell they are. This means either badgering a passer-by to borrow their phone, something I can only do if I have the nerve, or, as I usually end up doing, trying to find a phone box that is empty and which works. And then I have to have about £9,000,000 in coins in which to call a mobile for more than a few seconds. On this occasion, I have 50p, which instantly is eaten by the Charing Cross Road phone box, without registering credit on the little screen. I am being laughed at from all sides.

Somehow, the pervading feeling is that it's all MY fault, for the crime of not owning a mobile phone. Indeed, when the press officer turns up, she says, "you really must get a mobile you know." As if me being on time at the time she specified, and at the location she specified, and owning a pager, is not enough. Somehow, it is MY fault that I have to wait outside a Hawkwind concert in the cold for an hour and five minutes, for a photoshoot that does not happen.

The thing is, it IS my fault. In 2003, the mobile-less person is just unacceptable. They are a prejudiced-against minority. Second-class citizens. You're at a disadvantage if you're not a chattering, yattering, space-invading, silence-intruding, bleeping and texting phone user. It doesn't seem right or fair, but that's the way things are.

Don't get me wrong – I like mobiles, and one reason I shun them is out of simple penury. If anyone reading this wants to get me one for Christmas, one that costs little to run, I'd be delighted and extremely grateful. I think they're amazing, powerful little inventions. But with power comes responsibility – a cliche, but a truism. Arguably the world's least heeded truism. A little etiquette is all I ask. Being aware of those physically around you. Not using a phone as a crutch. Only using it when absolutely necessary. Turning the wretched thing off if you have company in the flesh. At the very least, if you're a man, refraining from using it when standing at a urinal or peeing at a street corner. As if that latter spectacle isn't revolting enough already.

I have a general dislike of the telephone regardless, whether mobile or not. That rude, bullying, noisy yelping of the ring ring, the sound of someone who's not even physically present, the disembodied demanding priority over the persons and events that really are there. When I'm in a shop, about to be served, and the phone goes, the assistant will give the call priority over myself, even though I've taken the trouble to be there in person. Even the very first phone call ever made, by Mr Graham Bell, was a bullying, solipsistic, demand: "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you."

I am old enough to remember a world without mobile phones. You'll be amazed to learn that the world still turned. People still managed to somehow meet each other. When they did start to appear, mobiles were thought to be the status symbol of greedy, selfish young stockbrokers. Indeed, anyone in the music world seen with one was jeered at. I recall an early 90s story in the music press – David Gedge of The Wedding Present was seen using a mobile phone backstage at the Reading Festival. He was utterly pilloried. Now, it's the phoneless who get the jeers.

On the train to Nottingham yesterday – a designated Silent Carriage. As if every other carriage is ablaze with cacophony. Truly, a sign of these times. They used to have special non-smoking compartments. And then special smoking compartments. Now, everywhere is non-smoking, but noise pollution is the default way of life. Naturally, our booked tickets are in one of the other carriages.

At the Nottingham soundcheck, the sound engineer has trouble with our set up. "I'm not used to handling quiet bands."

During our last song, we are almost drowned out by the constant chatting, joking and laughing of the people at the bar, all of whom are in one of the other bands on the bill.

After our gig, the person who promised weeks ago to put us up for the night in Nottingham (one of the provisos of us playing) is nowhere to be seen and is not answering HIS mobile. We can't find anyone else who is willing to have us sleep on their floor. It's all very Christmassy. No room at the inn for Fosca.

Thankfully, the other band on the bill, Chris T-T, are saints in disguise. Incredibly, they manage to pack the three of us plus our instruments, into their London-bound van. We have proper seats, too. They even drop us off in Highgate. Not only do we have somewhere warm to sleep, but it's in our own beds. God bless The Chris T-T Band: Chris, Jen, John, and Johnners. Whenever I am in a foul mood (as I am right now) and start deciding that Other People Are A Mistake, I shall do my best to remember this act of kindness, and think again.

I mentioned that this entry was about being laughed at. As in the sense you feel laughed at when:

– Someone you arrange to meet is an hour and five minutes late, and leaves you waiting that long in the cold.
– Someone talks loudly through your quiet songs when you're performing, and they're one of the other bands on the bill.
– Someone has vandalised the payphone you're using, and your money is swallowed pointlessly.
– Someone who agreed to provide accommodation has gone AWOL, leaving you effectively homeless in a strange city for the night.

I forgive all but the unknown phone vandaliser. The mockery of the others was clearly unintentional. Goodness knows, there's plenty of occasions in the past when I've been hideously late for meetings myself. It wasn't the press officer's fault she got stuck in traffic. I'm sure our would-be host in Nottingham had a good excuse, too. It just doesn't change the way one feels when on the receiving end, though.

Also, Noise laughs at Quietness. Sly, shy Fosca smirks will never win over uproarious rock guffaws. Fosca's Nottingham gig barely attracts twenty people. The Arch Enemy concert attracts hundreds, possibly thousands of people, happy to queue for hours in the cold. Fosca make The Wrong Kind Of Music.

The meek will never inherit the earth. Just one carriage. But it's already been booked up. By Belle and Sebastian.

I mind being laughed at in the ways mentioned above. Yet, strangely, I don't mind at all when I'm laughed at in person, directly, for my appearance.

I do realise I look funny, have a funny voice, and funny attitudes. Just writing the words "I am standing outside a Hawkwind concert" can't help but solicit a small smirk. So when I am literally laughed at to my face, as long as there's no physical violence involved, I am entirely grateful for the attention. It is the only language, after all, I truly understand. Which is why those reading between the lines of this entry will suspect that the real reason for this whole burst of grumpiness is just because I was denied a promised photoshoot… How to vex a narcissist, indeed.

I want to finish this entry on Silence, Noise, and Being Laughed At, with something else that happened to me. It illustrates my other, preferred manner of being laughed at, and also suggests that, in some ways, Silence is still Golden. Or at least, a silent person can be considered Golden.

Sunday night, December 21st 2003. Central London. I am standing outside the Astoria. There are people milling all around me, but I am alone. It's nearly Christmas. I have to be here. I have been here for some time now. I feel ill, unloved, unwanted, laughed at, frozen by the weather, deafened by the laughter.

Whilst I wait, musing on whether Hawkwind have Samantha Fox with them, or Lemmy, or if they're doing "Silver Machine" (that's my sum knowledge of Hawkwind), three Christmas partygoers stop and point at me.

Girl: Oh! I thought he was a model! Oy! Look!

She beckons her companions over, and all three of them gather around me like I'm a sideshow attraction. Which I suppose I am.

Girl 2: Oh yeah! I thought he was a dummy!
Me: No, I'm just frozen stiff.
Girl 1: He's got make-up on!
Man: Go on. Do it again?
Me: Do what?
Man: Stop moving again?

I stare at the man and stop blinking.

Man (squinting): Oh…. yeah.
Girl 1: He reminds me of that 80s band? What's their name? No, they did that song? Oh yeah!

She sings, loudly, right in my face.

Girl 1: GOLD! ALWAYS BELIEVE IN YOUR SOUL! YOU'VE GOT THE POWER TO KNOW! YOU'RE INDESTRUCTIBLE! ALWAYS BELIEVE IN….! 'CAUSE YOU! ARE! GOLD!

She skips away with the others, still singing.

And do you know, she was right.

Loose Ends on Radio 4 last Saturday. A new interview with Stephen Sondheim is followed with a performance by the BMX Bandits. This really happens, and cannot be an aural hallucination engendered by my current illness. I apparently have some kind of carsickness-like strain of flu virus whose symptoms are sporadic burning sensations in the head (often at the back of my head), dizziness and nausea. Plus the usual aches and pains, coughing and snuffling.

At the doctor's:

Doctor: You're the seventh person I've seen today with those symptoms. There is (wait for it!) a lot of it about.
Me: So what can I do?
Doctor: Nothing. Wait until it finishes.
Me: How long is that likely to last?
Doctor: Three weeks.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

I have to go back if the condition lasts longer than three weeks, or if I start <i>staggering</i>. As I'm fond of a good stagger or two of an evening, I may well not notice.

To Kash Point in South London, the latest club to be run by Mr Matthew Glamorre. Mr Glamorre was a member (and for all I know still is) of the exotic performance art pop group started by Leigh Bowery, Minty. In the 90s, Mr G was the MC at a popular London club called Smashing. This was peopled by many a Britpop "celebrity" of the time, and took place in a dark room under Regent Street known as Eve's Club, where the walls, ceiling, and columns were covered with Eden-like plastic vines. I consult the blurred half-memories of my mind, and in them it's 199X, I can see the wet, crowded underlit dancefloor, the tiny overpriced bar, Jarvis Cocker and others from Pulp, Alex James from Blur, pretty much all of Menswear, Courtney Love getting "married" to another Stevie Nicks-like girl, the time when people in there were picked to appear in Pulp's 'Mis-Shapes" video. They didn't pick me. I clearly wasn't mis-shapen enough.

However, mingling with music industry types per se has never attracted me as much as mingling with the fantastically dressed, regardless of who they are. I'd much rather spend an evening with a group of five unknown pretentious art-fag types who don't really "do" anything, than be surrounded by a hundred dressed-down famous and important types. Just because you're famous, it shouldn't mean you should "slum it". Typically, it's the men who let the side down rather than the women. Famous women still tend to dress up in public, even though they don't need to. Famous men often grow ghastly proto-beards, and sport awful trainers and t-shirts. As soon as Menswear became well-known, most of the band ditched their trademark suits at once. This, I thought, was a terrible shame. There really is NO excuse for dressing down in a club known for its dressed-up crowd, but many men still do it. At Trash you can see many a stylish girl on the arms of an absolute gorilla of no woman born. They can't ALL be drug dealers.

[Idea for character in a "cool" film. A drug dealer played by Michael Palin, clean-shaven in a nice suit. Nothing violent happens.]

As a self-confessed narcissist, you might think I prefer those around me to be less aesthetically appealing, in order to make me look better by comparison. But it simply isn't true. I want everyone to look beautiful. Or at least for the men to have had a shave that day. Call me eccentric, then.

At Kash Point, the ratio of the dressed up to the dressed down is, I am delighted to discover, admirably high. Once inside, I am convinced I'm in a scene from one of my favourite films, "Liquid Sky" (now frustratingly deleted on DVD). A colourful mixture of Nu-Hoxton and Nu-Romo peacock style abounds. Extreme hair, extreme make up. Outfits that are created rather than just worn. It's Stay Beautiful with electropop rather than rock, or NagNagNag without the crowds of scruffy dull people just trying to be Where It's At.

On this occasion, Kash Pont is at Crash in Vauxhall. I get off at Vauxhall station, and suddenly realise I am alone, lost and terrified in South London at 11pm. As you exit the station, there's a veritable labyrinth of confusing subways, barriers, scaffolding, roundabouts and dozens of unmarked streets. No signs to help pedestians, except for one apologising for the inconvenience of the road-works.

A typically English trait – to spend energy on apologising rather than on what people affected might really want. After the recent devastating postal strike, London residents received letters of apology from Royal Mail, adding that by way of compensation, the company had donated £1m to the city's bid to host the Olympic Games. The idea of spending this money on preventing future strikes or on improving the postal service must have seemed far less important.

North London has its share of violent crime, but the stereotype about the Dreaded South permeates. I wander in exactly the wrong direction for half an hour, and am convinced I'm a yellow Police Notice sign waiting to happen:

"THURSDAY, 11PM. Did you see a man with bleached hair, suit and make-up being stabbed to death? If so, don't you agree he was asking for it?"

At one point, I find myself outside a huge building marked "British Interplanetary Society". I feel like banging on the doors and shouting "Never mind other planets. Where on Earth am I?".

After much wandering, I eventually find the venue. Echoing across the nameless lanes and darkened railway arches is a siren-like unmistakable electroyelp:

"METAL HORSE!"
"METAL HORSE!"
"METAL HORSE!"
"METAL HORSE!"

Turn again, Dickon Whittington… Mr Simon Bookish is clearly onstage.

Tonight, Mr Glamorre looks and comperes like Club Smashing was only yesterday, resplendent in a customised red mechanic's boiler suit and visor shades. Tonight's PAs comprise a veritable electropop festival, with each act doing two or three songs. I manage to watch the likes of Simon Bookish, Cantankerous, Replicant, Silence is Sexy, Baxendale, Bishi, Super Studio, and Viktor. The latter has a couple of go-go dancing girlish boys, with slogans on their chests and enormous false eyelashes. The music is all blips and beeps and backing track-heavy, though far more pop song-based than electroclash. Alex Baxendale ditches his guitar to do some robot dancing. Even Tim Baxendale has a suit on. Everyone looks marvellous, and I adore it all.

Alex Baxendale, afterwards (mock-sniffily): I notice we're the only act tonight with proper middle-eights.

One booked act doesn't turn up, but it's just as well as the bill over-runs and Baxendale leave the stage sometime past 2am. The missing group is the problematically named band Stupid C—, whom I've still yet to see. I am known to the singer, young Mr Martin Tomlinson, with whom I appeared in a fashion show some years ago. Martin is a beautiful boyish dandy and model, and when I bumped into him at the Hidden Cameras ICA gig earlier this year, he told me about his band. When he mentioned their name, I assumed he was taking the mickey. A few weeks later, Stupid C— appears in The Guardian newspaper's list of The 40 Best Bands In Britain.

Back at Crash, and the bar staff and security are all unusually friendly, a welcome change in a London club. There's a Finnish brand of bottled beer on sale for £1.50. It's called Lapin Kula, which presumably translates as "Cheapskate". But Kash Point tends to skip from venue to venue. Its next location is the Purple Turtle in Mornington Crescent on Dec 31st. So that's my New Year's Eve sorted out.

For some reason, there's fair amount of photographers with, appropriately enough, anachronistically large and clunky 80s cameras and tripods. At one point Mr Glamorre cries at them from the stage, "Stop making my club look like Ibiza!".

If anything, I fear my appearance may not be <i>enough</i> for the club. But, once again, I am taken aside by a female photographer, and an imprompu photo session takes place. She asks what I call my "look". I reply, "Twenty-First Century Fop". Later, I realise I should have used a description suggested by Ms <lj user=antiutopia>, "Ice Prince".

Still feeling unwell as I post this. Am comforting myself with the splendid "Saint Morrissey" by Mark Simpson. The first Smiths biography to be well-written as opposed to just researched. About time.

To the Camden Palace for my first Heavy Metal rock festival. Going by the adage that maximum interest is at the point of maximum contrast, this entry refuses to be avoided.

A magazine that does not yet exist, Plan B, contacted me. "Go forth and write about the Stylish Satanic Metal band, Ackercocke. We have chosen you for this exploit, partly because you are amusingly related to them in a Rock Family Tree way (of which more below), but mostly because, like you, they stand out by wearing nice suits. You will be on the guest list for the festival they're playing. Do not expect to be paid".

I sigh ungraciously at this latter caveat, but can't think of a reason to refuse. After all, I've never been to a heavy metal festival before, and this one is only a fifteen minute tube journey away. I patch together my wretched frame and journey to Mornington Crescent, possibly the only London Underground station to be saved from closure by a Radio 4 comedy show, "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue".

Queuing around the block are hordes of Henry Ford's loose children. Dressed in any colour, as long as it's black. I conduct the interview with the band first, in a pub across the road. Kindly granting me a portion of their time before a proper journalist arrives, I speak to Mr Jason Mendonca and Mr David Gray. When I was touring in the band Orlando, they were among our hired hands. Jason was the guitar tech, and David was the drummer. In Ackercocke, the former sings, the latter drums. And presumably now curses the head-wobbling singer-songwriter who has stolen his name.

Their official press release contains spelling mistakes and gets the band roles mixed up. An accompanying biography, by the band themselves, is better written and better spelt. I ask about the tacky t-shirts, ringtones and mobile phone "wallpaper" catalogue that rudely interrupts their otherwise beautifully designed CD booklet (created, Mr Gray says, by the man behind the sleeve to Japan's Tin Drum album). They admit the ringtones are nothing to do with them, but par for the course these days, and a depressingly important source of revenue to boot.

When the next proper, professional rock writer arrives, from some glossy heavy metal magazine or other, I can't resist placing my MiniDisc recorder (androgynously invisible controls) next to hers (voluptuous, moulded controls) on the table, to see if they fight, or breed. She is not in the least bit amused. It its palpably obvious I am new to this interviewing racket and refuse to take it seriously.

Which is just as well. I'll never forget an occasion where Mr Momus warned me to never become a journalist – "it means losing a bit of your soul." Advice which I saw repeated earlier this year, amid the barrage of obituaries on Mr Johnny Cash. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1043491,00.html"> A somewhat affected writer recounted how her interview with Mr Cash marked the end of her journalist career</a>, because he had shown her the importance of creating rather than spectating, if that's who you really are. She turned to fiction. Though I expected the article to end "…and I've been starving ever since."

Inside the Camden Palace, the place is rammed full with heavy metal fans, whose appearance is far more varied than I'd previously imagined. More women than you'd think, fewer trolls than you'd think. Quite a lot of virginal, flower-skinned teenage boys, who are presumably to be sacrificed on an altar later. I watch Ackercocke perform, and am surprised to find myself utterly mesmerised by their aural pummelling and growled invocations to The Goat Of Mendes. Although they insist on sporting the type of long hair so beloved of the genre, the suits and waistcoats make all the difference. The performance connects with far more parts of my brain than if they had the standard uniform of leather trousers and t-shirts. Experiencing their set, with all its bowel-quavering frequencies and foundation-shaking noise packaged so stylishly, is the closest I've come to rough sex for some time. Which admittedly rather says more about me than them. Scenes from Dennis Cooper novels, the ones with references to Slayer in them, suggest themselves. I fully understand the appeal of this sort of music, if not the haircuts.

The bands that follow, Nile, Destruction, and Deicide, are dressed entirely traditionally for the genre, and all sound similar to these delicately ignorant ears. I have drunken enough to appreciate their sets, in the same way that I can still stay in a pub if there's a football match on the TV, but it's safe to assume I will not be converting to the heavy metal cause. Still, even I can tell that Ackercocke have honed their sound to a far greater degree than these other bands, as well as honing their appearance. I hereby approve of Ackercocke. Bet they're pleased.

Despite this alien outing, some normal Dickon Edwards things still happen. At one point, a girl with a foreign accent asks to take my photo. We retire to a corridor and it becomes an impromptu Dickon Edwards photo shoot. I have no idea who she is, and she refuses to tell me what the photos are for. This is all in order.

Also, despite the type of occasion, the darkness, the size of the venue and the immense crowd, I still manage to bump into people who know me, albeit whom I haven't seen for some years. Mr Matt Platts, of the band Nightnurse, who is currently performing in a group called <a href="http://www.twisted.org.uk/interlock/standard/standardframe.htm">Interlock.</a> Also, Mr Jonathan Selzer, a music writer who started out interviewing the likes of Talulah Gosh before converting to the heavy metal cause. He now writes for magazines like Terrorizer.

Mr Selzer is at first surprised by my connection to bands like Ackercocke and Nightnurse, but then remarks on how one could play Six Degrees Of Dickon Edwards. My nature is to wander alone like a powdered peripatetic, in and out of scenes and social circles without ever settling down. In this aspect, I am like the 80s TV dog, The Littlest Hobo. In only this aspect.

A few days later. In Archway, an old man with a walking stick notices me as I pass and stares. I am wearing my glasses. A new one for the book:

"Cheer up – you look like Michael Caine."

It's true that the more I do nothing, the more I do nothing. John Mortimer's excellent new book, "Where There's A Will", points out that writing calls down writing. It's important to write something – anything – rather than nothing. A fear of making substandard diary entries has rather put me off doing any entries at all. The thing is, I do rather have a reputation as a Minor Celebrity Diarist, and the more I think about that, the less I approach my keyboard.

However, I have now found a treatment for apathy. Whenever my brain says "I can't be bothered to write a diary entry", I now convince it instead that "I can't be bothered <i>not</i> to write a diary entry". Doing nothing at all can be such hard work.

Thankfully I've taken notes whenever anything vaguely interesting has occurred to me, and will now go about clearing the backlog of memories.

Removal of distractions helps. I was spending long hours playing the only computer game I've ever enjoyed – Age Of Empires. The solution was simple. I threw the game away. My epic clearing out of possessions on EBAY is nearing conclusion, too. Lately, I've discovered that it's almost impossible to get anyone to buy a signed Divine Comedy album for £4. I had to resort to relisting the thing for another ten days. O, Mr Hannon, victim of the vagaries and vicissitudes of pop fashion. This is what happens when you insist on dismissing your suited persona as taking some kind of Mike Flowers Pops shilling, in favour of dressing down and employing the Radiohead Producer. Dickonist Rule Number One – Never, Ever, Try To Fit In.

Meanwhile a Ruthie Henshall CD went for £101, the most I've ever received for a single item. Mr Lloyd-Webber, who is richer than any rock or pop musician, is quite right – the real money lies in musical theatre. Musicals will always win in the end. They carry a connotation of accessibility, of Proper Entertainment. When Mr Bush was interviewed by Mr Frost about coming to London, the first thing he remarked about his previous trip there, was that he had gone to see "Cats". Whatever one thinks about the work of Mr Lloyd-Webber, becoming a Tourist Attraction can never be dismissed.

Mr Blaine knew this too. If he <i>hadn't</i> wanted to be a Tourist Attraction, he could have conducted his little starvation show in a room on a webcam, or in a TV studio. Or he could have chosen Ipswich, Romford or Hull in which to have his perspex cell suspended in the air. But no, he chose the heart of London, just by Tower Bridge. People came to watch, even if they disapproved. This, then, is the ultimate aim of the Dickonist – to become a tourist attraction. Perhaps I should apply to stand on the spare plinth at Trafalgar Square for a while, now that Mayor Livingstone has had all the pigeons deported. Though unlike Mr Blaine, I would insist on a dressing room in which to recharge my appearance every now and then.

Such a stunt isn't even particularly original. I'm reminded of an local anecdote concerning the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. While a schoolboy in Highgate, he once bet a fellow pupil that he could survive the longer without taking any liquids. He won after a few days, by which time his tongue had turned black.

Also, in the mid 90s, I went to see the actress Tilda Swinton sleeping in a transparent box in the Serpentine Gallery. She remained as still as the glass around her, and was there for a week. This was intended as Art. Mr Blaine simply added tourism to the equation. He suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous paintballs, but came away rich in the currency of Cable TV Sponsorship, and in the Currency of Attention. The latter being by which all things are truly bought and sold.

Watching TV and listening to music has proven less of a distraction too, thanks to my continued waning of blanket enthusiasm in both mediums. I've found that if anything is My Sort Of Thing, someone somewhere will alert me to it. Whether it's The Hidden Cameras (music), or Curb Your Enthusiasm (TV), or I Capture The Castle (film), or even clothes – I'm writing this while wearing a pair of two-tone bowling shoes chosen for me by Mr Chipping. All these things came to me via others. Other people do tend to know Dickon Edwards as well as, or even better than, myself. Keeping In Touch is no longer necessary. Anything that might matter to me will come to me. If I am ignorant on any particular topic, it's more often than not something people wouldn't expect me to know much about, like Justin Timberlake, text messaging, or bungy-jumping. In these instances, I give the Dickon Edwards take. That is what people expect, and we both go away happy.

To this end, I have been recruited by Plan B Magazine to cover the besuited Black Metal band Ackercocke this weekend.

Before I forget, I should alert my readers to two new instances of my attention-grabbing on the Web.

Firstly, Secret Crush Records of New York is the first record label to be named after a Dickon Edwards song, as far as I'm aware. I am immensely flattered. If that weren't enough, the label's website currently has a recent photo of me on the front page: http://www.secretcrushrecords.com/

Secondly, there's a new lengthy interview with me at The Mind's Construction website: http://www.geocities.com/themindsconstruction/ It's the most personal interview I've ever given. And it's accompanied by a few nice photos of me in Highgate Wood.

My thanks to them, and to you, for the attention. My apologies for the hiatus. But I am back.

Apologies for the lack of recent entries. Normal service will be resumed shortly, when I shall tackle the backlog of matters waiting to be written about.

In the meantime, here is an announcement of my next public appearance.

This Friday November 21st, I shall be guest DJ at the gently legendary London club, How Does It Feel To Be Loved.

This takes place at the Buffalo Bar, beneath The Famous Cock Tavern, next to Highbury & Islington tube station.

The club runs from 9pm to 2am, with my DJ set between 10.30pm and midnight.

I shall be playing lots of 60s girl group gems, sprinkled lightly with 80s indiepop haircut anthems.

Please come if you can. It shall be joy on toast.

More on HDIFTBL here:
http://www.howdoesitfeel.co.uk

Fosca are playing a Strange Fruit event at Bush Hall tomorrow (Sat Nov 1st), supporting Sodastream. Details here:

http://www.bushhallmusic.co.uk/SODA.html

We shall be onstage 9.30pm, off 10.15pm, approximately.

I'm rather excited about performing at this particular venue. Ornate Edwardian plasterwork, cherubs and chandeliers in abundance. I shall forgive it for being in West London.