In a bookshop, I spy the Kurt Cobain diaries and take a quick look. The book falls open at a late entry that refers to Calvin Johnson of the band Beat Happening and legendary indie label K Records:

<i>"Last year I made five million dollars. And I'm not given a red cent of it to that elitist fuck Calvin Johnson."</i>

Later on he talks about how selling out feels good. I'm paraphrasing from memory here (feel free to correct me if you have the diaries to hand):

<i>"I exploited Riot Grrl. But then, the girl who invented it is exploiting the fact that she fucked me, so she's exploiting me too. Everything is exploitation of a kind."</i>

I presume he means her out of Bikini Kill, now in Le Tigre.

This week's NME bumps Jarvis Cocker from the front cover in favour of The Strokes. I know this because the Pulp info mailing list said "look out for Jarvis on the cover of NME this week." <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=dickon_edwards&itemid=17220&thread=84804#t84804">[Since writing this entry, it transpires the mailing list made a mistake, and Pulp were never planned for the cover. See these comments.]</a>

As Pulp are releasing their Hits album and calling it a day (for now), you'd have thought that would warrant some attention. But instead the Cocker interview is tucked away inside, at a page and a half, most of which is taken up by a photo. The piece isn't even referred to on the cover at ALL.

The Strokes cover story, meanwhile, is a three page "news" article by Steve Sutherland. The news? The Strokes play a gig in LA and go down quite well. They haven't even got a new record out.

Sample text: "[A bunch of Strokes fans]… look so like a band, if you were in A&R you'd sign them on the spot and worry about songs and record sales and shit like that later."

And:
" 'Dr Julian says get fucked up!' Sounds cool. Let's get to it!"

And:
"Join us at the Whiskey later, and provided you're down with a chick on the guestlist…"

Without a hint of irony anywhere. The piece is deeply embarrassing to read.

Just how old is Steve Sutherland?

I recall he was once a champion of Orange Juice in the 80s, that famously anti-rockist band. A band who, like Jarvis Cocker, had a little bit more to say than how great it is to get fucked up and rilly rilly out of it, maaaan.

NME is now officially Darwin's Waiting Room.

Thought: I want to Appear In More Things. I want to put the way I look to good use. If I must be attacked at bus stops, I want the flip side.

The article in Sleazenation has sparked off a burning desire in me to be painted, drawn, written about, photographed, to appear in videos, adverts, films, the sides of crisp packets, and so on. I can't act, but I can pose. I DO pose. Accidentally.

While watching 'Tipping The Velvet", I envied Alexie Sayle and Sara Stockbridge for their appearances: they got about three lines each to say (not particularly well), but looked wonderful.

So I'm gathering phone numbers of agents that handle extra work for People With A Look (unusual as opposed to good-looking) as well as those who book models for life drawing in art schools, and, well, having a go.

Any advice is most welcome.

If you go to <a href="http://www.googlism.com/?type=1">Googlism.com</a> and type in your own name, you can find out what you are according to web pages found by Google.

My results made me laugh out loud. Here are a few of them.

dickon is the most attractive of these characters because he is able to look after wild animals and birds and they seem to like him
dickon is quick to defend his position
dickon is the convivial host tonight
dickon is curious when she asks him to get her garden tools
dickon is happy to acknowledge andrew richardson of ucl chemistry for much assistance with the production of the gifs
dickon is a throwback to a less liberated age
dickon is joking about providing pancakes when he arrives at ian’s without any
dickon is the cornerstone of the gents
dickon is still my hero
dickon is preposterous
dickon is very cheery if slightly simple
dickon is a "common moor boy" rather than a member of the "privileged class"?
dickon is clearly studied and careful
dickon is an older member of the thieves' guild who now only works on drawing floorplans of houses to be robbed
dickon is a bit over the top
dickon is nearly silent
dickon is a legendary boy
dickon is like no other
dickon is right
dickon is delightfully funny and looks like he has been drinking to much carrot juice for his own good
dickon is up to now? for dickon's profile in the thisisromo who's who section click here
dickon is a boy that is friendly to all animals
dickon is an ideologically sound secret
dickon is growing up
dickon is allowed to make his own entertainment out on the moors
dickon is associated with natural forces
dickon is our prefab expert
dickon is in such extreme pain now with corey dead
dickon is really good with the sword
dickon is an inspiring speaker and now bitten with the exploration and endurance bug
dickon is singing "you're the square in the social circle"
dickon is tons of fun
dickon is a jerk to ditch you for an opportunity to grovel at thomas hassan's feet

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/uk/newsid_1944000/1944376.stm">S Club Juniors</a> is a chart pop band made up of children aged 11-14. Their image, and the fact they're marketed as pin-up idols, brings back, for me at least, memories of a notorious 80s TV show called Minipops.

Me: What's that CD you've got?
Miss Senay: The S Club Juniors album. It's really good.
Me: I have a friend who fancies one of them, I'm afraid to say. (points to blonde girl on CD cover). That one, I think.
Senay: Ugh, that's really sick.

(pause)

Senay: If you HAD to, it'd be that one (points to black girl).

Some of my friends do have a sick sense of humour. Still, underage kids in pop bands are nothing new. The Jackson Five, for one. I hesitate to say the hits of S Club Juniors are as good as that, but apparently their album IS good 2002 pop music.

But what do I know? I haven't bought any actual new music in ages. The last CD I bought was Alan Bennett's "Poetry In Motion".

Today I met my father and found out something new.

If I had been born a girl, I would have been called… Eleanor.

This prompted me to ask my friends if they knew what their own alternative-sex-name was. Tim Chipping knew his instantly: Esther Mary.

So, in some alternative-sperm-meets-egg universe, there was a band called Orlando featuring Eleanor Edwards and Esther Mary Chipping. We sound more like a couple of old ladies running an antiques shop in Long Melford.

Thanks to all those other LJ users who have added me as a Friend. Please note that I can't reciprocate, purely because I wouldn't have time to read them all if I did. The Friends I have in my User Profile were all added the week I started on LJ, as they are the ones that convinced me to move the diary to LiveJournal in the first place. So it's nothing personal.

However, if you have added me, I WILL naturally take a sly look at your diary now and then… How could I resist?

I’m sure there’ a “Which ‘League Of Gentleman’ Character Are You?”quiz somewhere on the Web.

But, before anyone else writes to tell me, yes, I AM aware of this one:

Enough said.

As promised, I’ve scanned the Sleazenation article in which I talk about the Dickon Edwards style, ie Being A God.

Link here.

<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,49201,00.html">Here's a interesting news story</a> on how people called Dickon, Dick, or even Dickens can come a cropper at the hands of parental-protection filters on computers.

Americans who have a go at me for having a vaguely silly name have a bit of a nerve, given that even their own politicians have names like <a href="http://shop.store.yahoo.com/politicsus/dicswetforgo.html">Dick Swett</a> and <a href="http://www.otter4idaho.com/page.cfm?id=689">Butch Otter</a>.

Musing further on the subject of my own name, I decide to do <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Dickon&btnG=Google+Search&meta=">a Google search on "Dickon"</a>. I've searched for my full name many times (I think the term is an 'ego-search'), but never for just "Dickon" per se.

This diary comes an impressive third, even beating a webpage on 'The Secret Garden', from which my parents found the name. The top two results belong to the pages of a Cambridge man who does something complicated with computers. <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~dr10009/">Dr Dickon Reed</a>. Here he is:
<img src="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~dr10009/dr.jpg"></img>

Well done, Dr Reed. You are officially the biggest Dickon on the Web.

I'm #1 on the <a href="http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Dickon&sa=N&tab=wi&meta=">Google Image search</a>, mind. Second is a bald man with glasses. Third is a bridge.