My original aim, to clear out all the unprocessed paperwork before Thursday, is looking rather optimistic to say the least. There’s just so MUCH of it all.

How much do I keep?

How much must anyone keep?

Just threw out a huge file of work from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, my one and only period as a full-time student, 1990-1992. It represents two year’s worth of note-taking on their Technical Theatre course, covering the techniques of lighting, sound, stage management, and so on. A waste of time? Well… I’m unlikely to start on that particular career path now, so I guess it has to go. I wasn’t particularly good at any of it, and I have no innate desire to jump-start such meagre skills.

I can’t possibly keep it, because if I do it means keeping everything else I’m not using at the present. Like every school exercise book.

Here’s a CV written circa 1993, when I was looking for work. Any work. Used it to get an office job, from which I was sacked a few months later for non-attendance due to sheer despair. Do I keep it?

This is what comes of viewing the boxes as me, rather than the person I used to be. And it’s turning into a tear-stained, madness-inducing exercise. I feel completely all at sea. And drowning. Help.

What do I do with the school grades and certificates of GCSEs? The school reports? How many photos? I know one must be brutal with anything not being used right now, but… will I ever need to mention my GCSE results at any point in the future?

The clutter-clearance books (which are taking up too much space…) say you must throw out everything connected with any periods of your life that represent frustration and unhappiness.

Fill in the wry retort yourself.

Oh, okay then. Some school report quotes. Great Cornad Upper, Summer Term, 1986.

Maths: ‘Sometimes Dickon forgets that he is not the only pupil in the class!’

English: ‘He has a great talent for this subject. He has a range of vocabulary, a precision of technique and a maturity of thought and expression which makes his work a pleasure to read. There is, occasionally, a tendency to over-elaborate…’

Chemistry: ‘… he must learn to be a little less intense… Relax a bit, it’s good for you!’

Geography: ‘I think he would benefit by spending a little less time debating more minor issues…’

Incredibly the PE report is favourable, and mentions me knowing my limitations but still doing my best. The Headmaster singles this out for his comment on my whole term.

I’m going to have a cup of tea, then go for a walk. And then I’m going to try and tackle the piles again.

Am now onto the disposal of my old PC, TV, VCR and stereo. The VCR has gone to a lady on the local Freecycle list, though I can’t seem to give the portable colour TV away. Which is a shame as it works as perfectly as the day it was made – circa 1981. The analogue RF-only input can’t help in these days of SCART and digital compatibility. I’ve happily watched digital channels on the set via an RF convertor, but it’s one more gadget to hook up and find a power socket for, and perhaps that’s what puts people off.
Still, the council will take it away for free, along with everything else. The TV and stereo have been with me since my teens in Suffolk.

So nice to clear out all these big bulky things with their noisy cooling fans and cathode ray hums, and replace them with a single sleek and silent laptop that does everything.

***
I should really say something kind about Music & Video Exchange, having singled them out earlier. It’s more the ordeal of standing at the counter to receive tooth-sucking judgement that puts me off doing much selling in person, but this is obviously something that all second-hand shops have to do, not just M&VE. At least M&VE take your unwanted piles off your hands. The used bookshops I’ve visited tend to hand back the books they won’t buy, so you still have to find a charity shop on the way home to get rid of the things.

Even some charity shops have refused my donations, saying they’re inundated or that they can’t sell my particular items. Though to be fair, perhaps I WAS rather asking for trouble when I took a copy of Selfish C—‘s vividly-labelled single ‘Britain Is S— / F— The Poor’ to a charity shop staffed by the primmest, frailest looking elderly ladies. On purpose. Only joking.

From my Inbox:

M&VE are not rip offs. They just know what things sell for. Which is how they’ve managed to stay around so long while others have gone bust. And if you take exchange (which I always do) then it’s a very fair price… I try and sell to the sweet smiley man in Berwick St… I recently turned about thirty CDs by rubbish indie bands into one of those amazing new Motown Complete singles collections that come packaged in a book. A luxury I could never have afforded and one that takes up a lot less space than thirty rubbish indie CDs. So I say hurrah for the most miserable record shops in Britain!

My favourite disposal outlet has to be the 24 Hour Oxfam Donation Banks, the ones that take clothes, books and CDs. I like to sneak up to them in the middle of the night with my carrier bags. Though last time I popped my unwanted items through the hatch circa 3AM, I could have sworn I heard something. Was it my imagination, or was the metal bank making scornful teeth-sucking noises…?

***

Finding my energy levels are all over the place at present. I’ve been falling asleep at odd moments, drifting through the days. Clearing out the mountains of old paperwork has really become a life-scrutinising experience. This IS my life in paper form. Letters, flyers, clippings, postcards, documents. I’m trying to whittle it all down to just the most important examples. Going from keeping everything to keeping just enough to tell the tales. Just the one letter from someone, say, not dozens. Rules have to be applied. I take notes whenever I’m throwing out something that still demands a nod of permanence. A respectful last salute.

Most of all, I feel like a sensible descendent going through the possessions of a crazy uncle, who’s died and left me the boxes in his will. The clutter represents joy, pain, frustration, love, adventure; the usual. Yet my reaction today while going through it all is more the curiosity and fascination of a third party biographer.

Today it’s been chilly enough indoors for me to keep my long overcoat on while I’m sorting through the boxes on the floor. I must look like a character from Shooting The Past.

Sitting here, going through all the CDs I’m disposing of, waiting for this laptop to convert the songs I want to keep (or haven’t even listened to yet) into mp3s.

Last night – to the Drill Hall for a private view of painter Sadie Lee’s new show, And Then He Was A She, comprising her new portraits of Holly Woodlawn, the transgendered Warhol Superstar immortalised in the opening line of that Lou Reed song. Ms Woodlawn is depicted at the age she is now in raw, excoriatingly vivid poses: half-dressed, undressing, getting dressed, topless without wig or make-up but with a walking frame and cigarette, in gigantic close-up on huge canvasses. But instead of playing to the archetypal stranger’s prurience of wondering what goes on beneath a transsexual’s clothes, these are exquisitely rendered celebrations of defiance; the individual taking on the unfairness of gender, flesh, age, infirmity, the smoking bans, the world. And triumphing, surviving. For context, it’s accompanied by a second room full of biographical material through the years: looped footage of Ms Woodlawn in those Warhol films, selected 1970s portraits and so on.

I say hello to Ms Lee, who’s in a marvellous silver suit and lipstick, playing host. I also chat to Ella Guru, to Maggie Hambling, to Zoe who I used to work with at Kenwood House, to Pippa Brook who was in the bands Posh and Shopgirl and is now in a band called All About Eve Babitz, and to Lea Andrews of Spy 51 and her girlfriend Gemma, soon to be married.

Another famous Holly, Holly Johnson the singer (of Frankie Goes To Hollywood fame), is there. I sign my name in the guest book under his. He puts a PO Box, under something like ‘Pleasuredome Enterprises’.

***

Email re Music & Video Exchange:

whatever you do dont go back to soul and dignity exchange – they are the worst rip offs in the world.

Time Out Magazine featured MVE in their ‘Worst Customer Service’ feature the other week, but I do have a couple of perfectly lovely friends who work there. I think it depends which branch and which employee you get. I also appreciate they have to take into account their own storage space, avoiding duplicating items, and so on. And snootiness tends to be part and parcel of any record shop that knows its stuff, a la High Fidelity.

That the person behind the counter might be some dusty acquaintance of old makes it even harder to want to go there as a seller. The awkwardness would be doubled. After both parties have been forced into the requisite teeth-sucking and pained expressions, meeting in a social capacity afterwards might never quite be the same. Going there as a buyer, though, no problem.

Other people run marathons for charity. I walk for days and miles between the charity shops of London donating items. I can’t face going back to the same Oxfams again and again, so it means a tour of London’s many charity shops. It’s a marathon.

I suspect I’m losing out on a lot of potential pocket money selling online or in used goods shops. But I really feel I’ve made all the trips to the Post Office and Music & Video Exchange that I can bear for one lifetime. Well all right, for the time being.

In fact, I’d happily pay NOT to suffer the belittling process at second-hand shops where the assistant sifts through the pile, makes all kinds of sneering noises under his breath, until he offers you barely a tenth of what you were hoping for. Or worse, gives you back your pile.

All I really wanted to do was get rid of the things, not make money. So, I’ll just get rid of the things. They must surely raise something. The complete Beyond The Fringe on triple CD. All the Bill Hicks albums. All the Pet Shop Boys albums with the second discs and booklets. And lots more like that. Many of which are in near-mint condition.

When I’m crouched on my hands and knees at 3 AM, sifting through a endless pile of possessions, trying to decide what might sell, and what won’t, and what to keep, and what to throw away, and getting upset rather than enjoying the art of trading, I know that the marketplace gene just isn’t in my DNA. If I was a trader in a former life, I’d be one of those that gets really annoyed whenever any customer comes into the shop. At all. No, it’s not for me.

And I still haven’t even started on the paperwork. Or the DVDs. So I need to get these things out of my home at once.

But at least the books have been pruned down so much that I now have gaping spaces in the bookcase. I should probably stop there. The audio cassettes have all gone, except for my most recent demos; I’m consulting those when writing new songs.

The videos have gone, too. Didn’t have as many as I thought. The width of VHS spines can be really quite deceptive.

I must keep some CDs, but how many? How few? Books do furnish a room, but CDs do become A CD Collection. And I’m not sure if I want a collection. Just the ones I’m listening to.

How many Fall albums are you meant to own? How many Stereolab albums? I have some friends who’ll say ‘all of them, of course!’ That’s about fifty CDs for a start.

It’s more practical to be a fan of artists who aren’t so prolific. God bless them, for they save us our holy shelf space:

‘I’m a massive fan of Mary Margaret O’Hara. I’ve got all her album.’

Never ask the prolific artists themselves. They will say ‘Just get the latest album – it’s my best yet.’ And they will be wrong. Until they see sense, like Prince. Alan Partridge was right – sometimes you only ever really want The Best Of The Beatles.

Thoughts of Edwyn Collins presenting the TV nostalgia show, ‘I Love 1995’:

‘Hi! I’m Edwyn ‘A Girl Like You’ Collins.’

He actually said that, too.

I think of Joseph Heller and a rude interviewer, and the great retort:

Interviewer: It must be hard having to promote your latest novel. Let’s face it, you haven’t written anything as good as Catch 22, have you?

Heller: No… But then neither has anyone else.

More clearance. It’s getting unusual to wake up in a room where I can’t see tottering dust-covered piles of things from previous lives. It’s Zen and the Art of Being Dickon Edwards.

Monday eve. I walk over to Crouch End with my 80s Technics turntable, as Charley Stone is interested in taking it off my hands.

At her flat, I realise the lid is broken and won’t stay open without assistance. A mere detail – it just means you have to keep holding it open while changing the record – so we try it out. But the rascal refuses to work. I then realise the little belt thing has come undone in transit and twisted itself around the innards. I then take about twenty minutes trying to work out where it’s meant to reattach, while Charley searches the Web for help. I look all over the bottom section of the turntable, with its cogs and wheels, until I realise it’s the actual underside of the wheel itself that the belt attaches to. Which was the very part I’d taken off in order to look underneath. It’s the turntable equivalent of looking for your glasses, when all the time they’re on your head. Not so much Occam’s Razor, more Occam’s Specs.

Anyway. Ms C says the Web is officially rubbish when it comes to turntable-fixing advice. So there you go.

After all that, while putting the thing back together, I manage to snap a tab off the fiddly pop-up EP Adapter in the middle. Still, the adaptor is only for those 7 inch records with bigger holes in the middle; as seen on old singles. And indeed on those new singles which pretend to be old. You can get removable adaptors separately, so again it’s not a big deal. We apply blue-tack to the adaptor to keep it flush, replace the mat, and put a record on. In fact, Charley puts on the New Royal Family EP.

Even without amplification, I can hear David Barnett sounding like a chipmunk. So I switch it to 33RPM. That’s better.

Or it would be. When Charley connects it through her Hi-Fi amp, we realise it’s barely audible. This, as you can imagine, IS a big deal.

Seems you should only use it on a hi-fi with a dedicated turntable channel, one that automatically boosts the level. Which is what the original parent unit does. I suspect this is Technics’ way of ensuring you don’t break up the set. Which is annoying when bits of the set don’t work.

Still, Ms C tells me about a shop in Park Road called Audio Gold, which might buy what’s left of the system and use it for parts. I have to send them a JPEG.

On to the Boogaloo, where I meet David Barnett and his brother Andy, and return a couple of David’s books. I’m drinking vodka and cranberry, without the vodka. It feels the most acceptable non-alcoholic drink to order in a bar; there’s something about the grown-up tartness that sets it above orange or apple juice. This morning, though, I have something of a headache. I wonder if it’s possible to get Cranberry Juice Hangovers.

Monday sees the disposal of yet another 25-30 books, some at the Black Gull Bookshop in East Finchley High Road, N2. They pay an acceptable amount for my huge Cole Porter and Lorenz Hart lyric books, which are rare but would be a pain to send in the mail.

I mention this to the Asian man at the dry-cleaner’s when trying to pass on my old coat hangers (no good – these are coat hangers with a decade of dust). He’s amazed at the idea of reading song lyrics without the music. I spend a few minutes telling him who Cole Porter was, and the whole history of the craft of witty lyrics in Western songwriting, while I stand there clutching my unlovely hangers.

This clutter clearance is effectively my day job for the next week and a bit. I’m trying to say no to things in order to get it done, but at 1pm I’ve got to go to Archway to be interviewed on film for some study about blogging, and then in the evening it’s Simon Price’s 40th birthday in Mornington Crescent. Around those I have to clear out dozens of CDs and audio cassettes, put a dozen rare items on Ebay with photographs, post the things which have sold on Amazon, and maybe start on the umpteen boxes of ancient paperwork.

‘It’s going on so long,’ says Donna, ‘that it looks like you’re buying up stuff from charity shops in order to take them to other charity shops. Do you really only live in the one room?’

I had a feeling it would happen. Having re-plastered the ceiling with nice new brown plaster and cleaned up the surfaces affected, my more DIY-minded neighbours Mr K and Ms L in cahoots with my utter saint of a landlady have offered to do the following. They will repaint and re-paper my room, clean the mould and mildew from my window frames, replace my bed and fridge and maybe more besides. If it’s okay with me.

It’s that Tom Sawyer bit again. Some people would love to have their homes improved free of charge. I, on the other hand, prefer to go through life with as little fuss as possible. Plus I don’t like to put other people to any trouble. Plus (and this is the main reason, obviously), I know it means I’ll have to bite my lip and… tidy up. And my place is in dire need of not just tidying up, but a full-on clearance of thirteen years’ worth of clutter and unsorted paperwork, along with more than a few dust-gathering possessions, unused for years. In some cases, unused since I moved here.

Liz: I couldn’t live in a place where a portion of the ceiling was brown while the rest was white, left unpapered like that. I’d couldn’t bear to look up.

Me: Well… I don’t look up that much.

But this time I’ve relented. Because the alternative was hardly making me happy. And though I don’t mind being compared to Quentin Crisp in some respects, the bit about not cleaning your home EVER isn’t so attractive. Not anymore. And especially not when other people are happy to do it for you. I can live with being like A Slightly Cleaner Quentin Crisp, if I must.

They’re going to do the improvements in ten days’ time. To make things easier for all, I’m going to stay somewhere else for the four days they’re at work here. Maybe with my parents, maybe with friends.

Between now and then, I need to seriously prune my things down to the manageable essentials, so they can be easily gathered under dust sheets while they paint the walls.

I know I’ve spoken about my battles with the ‘life laundry’ process and my need for clutter clearance before, but this time I really, really am doing it for good. Thirteen years of living alone, thirteen years of unfinished things. And the evidence is eating away at me.

A recent repeated dialogue I’ve had with various friends:

Me: Do you want that book back, the one you lent me a decade ago?

Kind Friend: Sure, if you’ve finished with it. Just bring it along when we next see each other.

Me: No, I have to post it to you now. Is that okay? Have I got your current address?

KF: Are you sure? It’s more than likely we’ll meet up soon. Just bring it along then…

Me: No look, you don’t understand! I can’t stand the burden of additional uncertainty. I can only remember to do so much, and my life is currently one big To Do list as it is. It’s post it, or dispose of it. If I don’t get rid of it NOW, I will be physically sick.

KF: Jesus, all right…!

My friends do understand these little bouts of madness. Eventually.

I’m even getting rid of my TV, VCR, Freeview box, and Hi-Fi with its turntable and speakers. I just don’t use them anymore. I use this laptop for playing CDs, DVDs, downloading video files of everything that’s half-decent on TV, and listening to the radio. I haven’t played audio cassettes or watched VHS tapes regularly for years. And I don’t watch TV on the TV.

I suspect I could make a bit of pocket money if I properly sold these things. But I just don’t have the time or interest. Everything I am not using has to go before Thurs Oct 4th. It’s all rather exciting, actually.

In the case of the portable TV and Hi-Fi, these are things I’ve had since my teens. They’re over twenty years old. Purging them could only do me good mentally.

It’d be nice if I can find anyone willing to part with a little cash for them (particularly as the VCR is only three or four years old, the Freeview box months old), but otherwise I’ll just take them to the local charity shops. Or use the FreeCycle mailing lists, where you advertise to your local area what you’re giving away, in the hope that someone will come and take it off your hands. The tip is obviously the very last resort.

These machines are still in working order. Just about. Well, one of the hi-fi tape decks is broken and the other is temperamental. But the speakers, FM radio, amp and turntable all work fine.

The benefit of renting a furnished bedsit is that these improvements are at no cost to me. The detriment, of course, is that I’ve no property to sell, and I’ll be at square one when looking for a new place. If I ever move. I’m not going to be here till the grave, am I. Am I?

So this is as close to ‘moving up’ as I get. Improving the place I’m in already. And hopefully, improving my life too. Which I’m also only renting.

Happier news. The ear is nearly back to normal, and the ceiling will be replastered in the morning.

Liz wonders if the Africa shape is some kind of sign to heed. A trip to the Sahara to find My Heart’s Desire? Tangier for a third time? Which reminds me: when I chatted to Sophie Parkin at the Horsley party, she told me her new book for children is set in Tangier.

Sebastian’s book has been getting lots of typically polarising reviews, from sheer hatred to sheer love (six out of six stars in Time Out). I think it’s the sort of book that reminds me of the Gillray cartoon Tales Of Wonder. Three prim ladies sit at a table wearing shocked yet riveted expressions, as a fourth reads from the latest Gothic novel. “It’s so disgusting. Keep going!”

Get Mr H’s remarkable memoir here.

One more plug. I’m DJ-ing at the Scala on November 10th, as part of the White Mischief mini-festival. British Sea Power are playing, there’s a Steampunk / Jules Theme theme, and a myriad cabaret delights will be on the stylish menu. It’s put on by Ms Alex De Campi, who directed that Schema video I was slightly in, and Mr Toby Slater, who I first met in 1995 when he was a schoolboy DJ. Should be quite an event. There’s a discount on tickets if you follow the instructions at the White Mischief Website.

Learned today: what exactly the ‘lath and plaster method’ means. I’m all for education though exposure (the rubbing-off method of learning), and they don’t come much more exposed than my ceiling. Its beady laths are now following me around the room via the three-foot peep hole. The Lath As Voyeur.

Seems it’s not at all unheard of for lath & plaster ceilings to collapse when water even looks at them in a funny way, and I’m lucky it was just a small area rather than the whole ceiling.

LH emails to say he was rained on as a child by an old ceiling collapsing in its entirety:

My mother rushed in to find me slightly dazed and white from head to foot, like people are in films after being booby-trapped with flour-bombs…

Still deaf in one ear. I now think the hole in the ceiling is ear-shaped. Perhaps my right ear is spending a holiday as a three foot hole in a ceiling, out of sheer caprice.

My ceiling, today:

A few small pieces of dark plaster and dirt have fallen through overnight, and the patch on the carpet is still damp. The room absolutely reeks of clay and plaster dust, so I’m off out for a bit. Another 25 books to get rid of. Found a signed copy of Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest, then remembered it wasn’t mine.

On closer inspection, the hole may be trying to impersonate Africa:

My ceiling has unzipped itself.

I come in at 7pm to find water dribbling steadily onto my bed, and look up to see an ominous bulge in the ceiling. I show it to Kahlil and Liz from upstairs – who thankfully haven’t quite moved out yet – and they explain it’s due to a misfitting hot water joint they’ve installed. ‘Ikea pipe meets Victorian pipe.’ The joint is now fixed, but a fair amount of water has already leaked through the floorboards during the day, when everyone was out. Including me.

They apologise like mad, but I assure them it’s hardly their fault. These things happen. And it could have been worse. It could have happened when I was in the bed.

They fetch a broom and bucket, and use the broom to flatten the bulge so the remaining water drains into the bucket, ending the drips. I thank them, then wash and tumble-dry the bed linen and apply several rolls of kitchen towel to the puddle on the carpet. It could have been worse.

And then the ceiling collapses.

Lumps of damp, ancient plaster tumble onto the bed, exposing a dark three-foot oblong of wooden boards in the level above. The strip of wallpaper that held them in place peels down in its entirety, tearing noisily across the width of the ceiling until it reaches the other side. The effect is like a giant unzipping his fly. It takes the best part of ten seconds, and I blankly sit there and watch it happen, like Laurel and Hardy. Not thinking ‘I should act fast’, but ‘This is interesting. I wonder what’s going to happen next?’

After the dust settles, I go upstairs again and tell the neighbours. They’re mortified – far more than me – and spring into action, clearing up the mess, hoovering up the dirt and the dust, including the dirt which was there before the plaster fell in. Jokes suggest themselves about my room looking like a bomb has hit it – but how can anyone tell?

They clear the debris into bin liners, load me up with new bedding, do my washing up, and move the bed away from the gaping dark hole that now punctuates my ceiling, just in case anything else falls through. That’ll do for tonight. Watch this space. In case it falls down.

This has happened just as I was thinking that my life needed shaking up, that I could do with a real change. Well, the ceiling now needs to be re-plastered and papered, and to do that I’ll have to finally hone down my possessions and clutter so they can be easily cleared or packed away. Just as well I’ve been paring down my books and audio cassettes already.

The room now smells of clay and plaster dust. Which isn’t entirely unpleasant. It’s the smell of work. Of work past (the fallen plaster must be Victorian), and of work to come.

The drenched items on my bedside table – Ground Zero – include the Dalai Lama’s Little Book Of Wisdom. Maybe the plaster is a big fan of the Chinese Army. Plus a bookmark advertising a new work on Quakerism, Ground And Spring, which has a photo of a bubbling water feature. The caption is ‘Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing affright you.’

***

Earlier that day, I nearly collide with Cherie Blair as she comes out of the British Library Conference Centre. After that, I accompany Claudia A as she takes a terrified Sevig to the vets’ for his annual cat jabs. Given the relatively devastating events of the evening, these details now sound like witches’ omens.

Quite a lot to type up. The trouble is, whenever I start to go into any amount of depth, it often takes me so long that I don’t even finish the diary entry. I have to remind myself that it’s better to write little entries, than none.

Yesterday – to the New Piccadilly Cafe for the last time. I bring Claudia Andrei and she takes my photo in this now doomed vintage setting, taking in the decor, formica tables and the horseshoe menu that has remained in place since the 50s. I shake hands with Lorenzo and the other staff. Goodbye, Piccadilly.

In the London Library earlier that afternoon. Quite crowded, so I have to share a table opposite an intense young man in glasses. I half-mumble, half-whisper something in the manner of ‘is this seat free?’ and he gestures back that it probably is. Though I sense he’s doing so begrudgingly.

After a few minutes I look up from my book, and note he’s staring directly at me.

Another quarter of an hour or so, and I dare myself to look up. And yes, he’s still staring right at me.

The problem with being stared at – and I speak with some experience – is that one never really knows the cause. Does he stare at me because he recognises me? Or because he thinks I look like someone who should be recognised? Or because I look unusual? Or because he finds me attractive? Or is there something on my face – a white smear of rushed toothpaste around my lips? How do you tell one type of stare from another?

I should add that I am wearing a little make-up. But what’s modern life if a gentleman can’t wear a discreet dab of Touche Eclat in The London Library?

In the cafe afterwards, Claudia says, ‘You’ve got a tidemark of foundation on your chin.’

***

Monday evening: soiree in the flat upstairs hosted by Liz & Kahlil, who are moving out after seven years, to live on a boat somewhere in Kent. Other neighbours past and present are there, including Hugh and Zoe. Zoe brings some South African Jewish biscuits she’s just baked.

I’m finding conversation a little difficult as my right eardrum is entirely blocked up, and my left isn’t great either. I can just about hear others okay, but when I speak, my voice sounds like it’s underwater.

This is my fault entirely. I’d been finding external noises more distracting than usual lately, whether it’s hedge-trimming in the street outside in Highgate, or readers stomping about between the desks in the British or London Libraries. So I’ve started using earplugs; the foam kind you insert. Best brand appears to be Hearos Ultimate Comfort, as available from the counter at the drum shop in Denmark Street. If it’s good enough for drummers, it’s surely good enough for me. The Hearos do the trick perfectly, but after using and extracting a pair, I note with disgust that they are absolutely coated in earwax.

So I do what you’re now not supposed to do – shove Cotton Buds (or in my case, rolled-up bits of tissue) inside my ears in an attempt to clean them out. And yes, I make things worse, pushing all the wax together at the other end. This effectively renders me hard of hearing in one ear, and completely deaf in the other. A cautionary tale of wanting silence too much.

I know what has to be done next, because I have made the same stupid mistake before. I book an appointment with my local NHS nurse to have my ears syringed. But first, she chides me, I must spend five or six days in Earwax Purgatory, putting olive oil in them twice a day. This softens the wax up, so it can then be properly syringed.

And as I squeeze a pipette’s worth of Extra Virgin into my auditory orifices, I think of Hamlet’s father.

***

At the Neighbours’ Soiree, talk turns to Northern Rock, the mortgage company whose financial woes are currently dominating the headlines. There’s people queuing up outside high street branches to get their money out, like that scene in It’s A Wonderful Life. Or indeed, Mary Poppins. The government have said ‘No need to panic.’ Which of course, is the quickest way to make anyone panic.

Apparently it’s to do with a credit butterfly flapping its wings in the US, producing a fiscal tidal wave for this particular company in the UK. Or is it the domino effect? Maybe it’s butterflies flapping their wings near some dominoes. I may know nothing about banking, but I do know it’s a bad idea to invite butterflies to an exhibition of standing dominoes. Butterflies will only give you butterflies.

Anyway, I’d never even heard of Northern Rock before this week. I thought it meant Oasis.