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.

One for the Tracy Chevalier fans:

Highgate Wood Cafe, Autumn 2003.

Photo by Neil Scott.

Happy Birthday Mr Wilde.

<img src="http://www.fosca.com/PDVD_019.jpg">

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Two announcements to the curious:

This Friday, my group Fosca are performing at the Buffalo Bar in Highbury Corner. More information at <a href="http://www.fosca.com">www.fosca.com</a>

Also, the <a href="http://www.fosca.com/DICKONphoto.jpg">Sarah Watson portrait</a> of me features in the current issue (#2) of <a href="http://www.marmalademag.com/">Marmalade</a>, a trendy London art & style magazine. The image has been given a two-page spread (pages 86 – 87 if you're in a hurry). Available in Magma (Earlham Street, Covent Garden) and Borders Books. Or <a href="mailto:mail@hotbed.org">email them</a> for mail order details.

I'm also on the cover of another art magazine, yet to appear. Further details when I have them.

I've just found a spare copy of the Orlando album, "Passive Soul". Mint condition, unplayed.

<a href="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1057&item=2563128364">It's on Ebay for this week only</a>, starting at 99p as usual. If you know someone who may be interested, now is the time to tell them.

Here's something you don't see every day:

<img align=left src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brentford1/misc/jp/02.jpg" width="304" height="404"></img>
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<p>This was taken at Ms Scott's barbecue in the suburbs of Oxford last weekend. No tiresome attempt at irony or any similarly deviant commentary on this apotheosis of Surburbia was in the least intended. However, the comparatively bohemian nature of many of Ms Scott's jolly acquaintances did mean the event couldn't help but feature a few Bloomsbury Set-like elements. Certainly ones that would be uncommon at the kind of barbecue documented in, say, the works of Mr Ayckbourn. Not least my own brief stint at the grill, as pictured.

One criteria of the modern garden barbecue is that a man, ideally the most testosterone-charged of men, should do the cooking, often with an unamusing apron. Rarely a man who looks the way I do. And so Mr Storey considered this, quite rightly, worthy of a photograph.
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<img align=left width="152" height="202" src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brentford1/misc/jp/01.jpg"></img>
<p>&nbsp;<p>The gathering was soundtracked by a vintage Dansette-like gramophone that had been wired up to an mp3-playing I-Pod (see photo). Just the kind of dangerous juxtaposition that, it was observed, would have Sapphire and Steel on the scene at once. Thankfully, Time, as far as we were aware, did not "Break Through" at any point.
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<img align=left width="202" height="152" src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brentford1/misc/jp/06.jpg"></img>
<p>A further unusual element documented by Mr Storey was this impromptu Study In Malt Loaf by the artist Ms Dennis. "Maltzilla", seen here menacing an innocent teacake, was created at an impressive speed when no one was looking. "Quite a good modelling material, as cakes go," she commented. "Holds together well."

<p><p><br>&nbsp;<p>&nbsp;<p>(with acknowledgements to <lj user=mzdt>)

To Waterstones, Hampstead, where majesty of comic conciseness Ivor Cutler reads from his new book, "Scots, Wa' Straw". It is his only public performance this year.

Despite arthritis doing its utmost to prevent him keeping the pages still, Mr Cutler's writing and delivery remain wry, sly and spry as ever.

"When I say that I am stupid, I am not making a comparison."

Occasionally, his mind fails him mid-anecdote and he apologies to the audience:

"Try not to live far too long."

A brief, immeasureably sad silence.

Then:

"Thirty-five is about right".

His accidental backdrop is a large display of books about The Atkins Diet.

A new 21st Century spectactor sport – Ebay Racing.

The rules are as follows. One puts a large amount of unwanted items of a similar format, in this case vinyl records, all on Ebay at once, pricing each one at a blanket 99p. This is just enough to cover fees and maximises the chance of a curious, impulsive buyer taking the plunge. Then you sit back and watch, placing mental bets on which ones will sell quicker and for a higher price, and which ones will have the world turning its collective nose up at them.

<a href="http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=wowasfriend&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=50">Click here for all the action.</a>

So far, The Stone Roses are way out in front, while the likes of Shock Headed Peters lag behind. A criminal shame, as "I Bloodbrother Be" wipes the floor with anything those Mancunian purveyors of indie disco comfort food did, and if that record remains untaken after auction closure, I shall take a very low view of humanity indeed. As this is part of my ongoing "Life Laundry", anything unsold goes into the crusher, with no exceptions.

How interesting that the Sugarcubes singles, of all things, have been quickly snapped up, while a Smiths single with b-sides unavailable on CD remains unloved. Fair enough that one such b-side is the somewhat lacklustre "Work Is A Four-Letter Word", but "I Keep Mine Hidden" is the very last Morrissey & Marr composition, and surely warrants 99p of somebody's money.

I'm reminded of a visit to an indie disco where the floor cleared for The Beach Boys' "Darlin'", but filled for Belle and Sebastian. I think it's far to say that even Belle and Sebastian themselves would comment in a "without whom…" manner.

The thing I will miss most about vinyl is the joy of wrap-around gatefold sleeve artwork. Not least as evinced on <a href="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=27343&item=2556911662">this Nancy Sinatra album</a>.

Newsflash! Spiritualized have suddenly taken the lead! Over to you, Gary…

"Well, Dickon, this is a turn up for the books. "Lazer Guided Melodies" is perfectly available on CD, but clearly its vinyl incarnation is not to be sniffed at…"

Update a few minutes later:

"And there goes I Bloodbrother Be! Could a sinister 80s indie-cabaret classic give Jason Spaceman's druggy furrow-ploughers a run for their money..?"

Well, it beats watching the cricket.