Thursday – to Highgate library with Miss Rhoda and Mr David B for what we think is a free talk on local London history. Which we’re all interested in. It’s billed as “U3A – A Sideways Look At History”. We take the “U3A” to be some kind of module code, like “101” in American colleges.

We walk into a small room upstairs in the library where half a dozen people are sat, not facing one speaker as I’d envisaged, but each other in a circle. In the style of Alcohol Anonymous meetings. It’s also immediately evident that the three of us are the only ones there under 75. We feel outrageously out of place, but being British, we try not to make a fuss and sit down anyway.

The lady in charge starts talking about, – what? All a bit vague. History in general, learning in general. And she talks about what U3A is. Turns out to stand for the University Of The Third Age. Initially I panic, equating this phrase with Scientology or the like. I start to look for an open window to dive out of; first floor or not.

Then it turns out to be an organisation that provides educational classes and discussions for those in the ‘Third Age’; the elderly and the retired. It’s safe to say Rhoda, David and I have some decades to go yet till we qualify. But we still sit there and listen, even though we clearly shouldn’t be there. They haven’t asked us to leave, and we haven’t politely made our excuses and left. Because it’s harder not to. We’ll just sit there and listen, we think. It’s only an hour. We could still learn something.

Because we’re in a circle, I try my best to look directly at the main speaker. Or at my shoes. And I try hard not to look conspicuous. Of course, I stand out like a sore …. six-foot younger man in a suit and bleached, parted hair among seven pensioners arranged in a close circle.

And then she starts to ask us questions. Not only is it not a talk by one person, it is a freestyle discussion group. Which I was really not banking on.

“I wonder what the young men think?” She says, and all eyes turn to myself and David. And I start to think about that open window again.

She asks us about history, learning, and could we please explain how that thing the Internet works? We have suddenly become representatives of everyone young ever. And we’re in our thirties. Though pretty youthful with it, if I say so myself. David B even more so than me.

I stare at my shoes so much, I think they may take out a court injunction on my eyes.

But I can’t get out of it. So I start talking about, oh, everything ever. I ramble in the manner of someone who knows what they’re talking about. About how to teach history to children. About how people learn more when they find out things for themselves, to not be left out of the current consensus. I use the example of The Cutty Sark fire, where thousands suddenly remembered their school trips to the place and hastily refreshed themselves about the ship’s history as a tea clipper, via the Internet and newspapers. Just so they can keep up in pub conversations. And yes, I once again manage to refer to that Tom Sawyer fence-painting scene, because I’m discussing why people do anything of their own volition. And how to use that in education. Like Peter Sellers in Being There, I am a fool who has stumbled upon wisdom. But only because I’m stumbling anyway.

I talk about how I grew up in Gainsborough country, but it took my working at Kenwood House in London, standing all day around some of his best portraits, to really take an interest in the painter’s work and life. How I used the Kenwood staff library to give myself a crash course in Gainsborough purely so I could talk about the paintings to visitors. An organic, useful approach to history and learning.

In fact, I speak for longer than anyone else there. Possibly including the lady in charge. This is my typical group reaction. I either dominate a group, or I shut up and stare at my shoes. I can’t do the give-and-take bit in the middle. I’m very good at giving the impression of someone who knows what they’re talking about. And well, I was asked. Ask me to speak about anything, and you’ll find me hard to shut up. You have been warned.

Some of what I say is – frankly – pretty damn pithy, unusual, pertinent and insightful. Other parts of my rambling are just that. Much like this diary. But I do it with 100% confidence. It has been suggested in the past that I could use this so-called ability to work as a tour guide or even an eccentric college tutor. Well, if I could get paid decently, I would.

Among the chatting about learning, I shut up for long enough to hear one of the older attendees explain why London post codes are numbered that way, apropos of nothing. It’s in alphabetical order of the district. Thus, Angel is N1, Highgate is N6, Wood Green is N22. Never realised that before. So I do learn something.

The hour passes quickly, and leaflets are passed out about how to sign up for the classes we’re obviously not eligible for, as we’re not pensioners. The three of us file out, and head for a drink at the Flask. We decide that the event was more interesting than not. Anything unusual is never a waste of time.

Thing is, this sort of sitcom-like mistake leading to an accidentally inappropriate attendance has happened to me before. At about the age of 16, I worked in an Ipswich bookshop. On one Saturday, I was sent to look after their stall at some kind of schools conference in the area. My boss drove me out there, we set up the stall (books of and about childrens’ literature) in a large hall, and she left me there for the afternoon, to collect me later.

No one bought a single book. It wasn’t that sort of conference after all. What it was was a debate on teaching young children from ethnic minorities, and the state of childrens’ books featuring non-white children as protagonists. Suffice it to say I had zero copies of said books on my stall: just your Narnias, your E Nesbits and your Beatrix Potters.

Chairs were arranged in a huge circle, facing each other. People took their places, papers were given out. All the people there were lady teachers, many from ethnic backgrounds, in their thirties and forties. I was a very white, very 16-year-old boy with spots. The only young person, the only male. I sat sheepishly at my book stall in the corner while they started the meeting.

I couldn’t get away. They couldn’t ignore me.

So they asked me to join the group.

An hour or so later, my boss came to pick me up. I explained what had happened, and why I hadn’t sold anything. She was both mortified and annoyed – clearly there had been a breakdown in communication somewhere along the line. A description of the event which wasn’t quite clear enough.

I can’t remember if I said anything at that meeting. I think I got away with my eyes taking it out on my shoes. I hope.

It occurs to me that I am somebody who is told off, but who rarely tells others off. Or at least that’s how it seems. I feel my innate passivity is sometimes exploited, because people know I’m not going to pick an argument with them. That I just want a quiet life. So they tell me off with impunity, because they can.

Again, there’s times I wish I could take, say, the Russell Crowe approach to disagreements. I’d like to tell many such people to just get stuffed to their faces, if not actually punch them. I want to turn the tables for once, have a raging rant at them, release a volley of character assassinations, tell them to get over themselves, say that actually they’re in the wrong here, or even just to say f— off, frankly.

“Dear Sir, F— Off. Yours, Dickon Edwards.”

But I’m not that sort of person. And they are. Except that these days I have found a way around it. It’s called ignoring the comments. Or saying nothing. There’s a quiet power to it, and I must really do it more often.

To such detractors: you’ll forgive me for deleting your ranting messages and mails in order to concentrate on my kinder, less grumpy readers and friends. Anyway, enough of me being annoyed by people being annoyed. So deep breath, group hug, move on.

Here’s a nice photo of me recording my vocals at Alex Mayor’s studio on Monday:

I should add that Mr Mayor the producer was wearing a nice silky waistcoat, and that his studio is located in deepest, darkest, dangerous Hackney. I like the idea of soft boys in hard places. Though like most places, Hackney has its perfectly nicer streets and gentler Victorian avenues. It doesn’t look like downtown L.A.; it only gets reported that way.

Here’s an older photo which I don’t think I’ve seen before. It’s by Claudia Andrei, so it must be from the last 3 or 4 years. I love my slicked-down hair here. It doesn’t always work so well:

Finally, I’ve been enjoying a couple of recent pop videos, which I heartily recommend looking up on YouTube.

One is “Tonight I’m Going To Leave It” by the Shout It Out Louds. A Swedish band, very classic Bunnymen. The singer pronounces his “s”s unusually, which I can sympathise with.

The other is “1234” by the Canadian lady songwriter Feist. A perky, skipping, clapalong sunshine pop song; with a truly amazing video that features impeccably organised dancers in primary colours, and a single take camera that swoops and swivels. It’s like an indiepop Busby Berkeley sequence. Perfect for cheering you up when you’re feeling a bit down or when, as in my case, someone has pointlessly gotten to you, when you were at your most fragile. I highly recommend the video as an alternative to Prozac.

So I delete the unkind mails rather than take them on, and I watch the Feist video for the umpteenth time. There are attitudes more people should have more often, and this video is one of them. Be nicer, or be nothing.

Tonight is definitely my last Beautiful & Damned for the time being. The club night was conceived by Mr O’Boyle of The Boogaloo, and ultimately belongs to him, so I leave it in his hands. I’m so glad to be able to take a break from regular DJ-ing. I’ve been doing it for about a year now, and want to put it aside for a breather. Occasional gigs as a guest DJ are fine, but I really need to get the Fosca album done, along with other pursuits.

Boogaloo last night – some sort of Scandinavian bands playing. Well-dressed, 60s style. Miss Red confirms our joint DJ-ing engagement at a Cumbria wedding this Saturday. Mr O’Boyle confirms my amicably being ‘put out to grass’ from B&D, as he puts it, so it’s good to get that sorted out. Mr MacG is kind to me once again. I tell him I have to go home to get something to eat, and he insists on taking me down the road to the Spanish-run fish restaurant. We are the only ones there.

In the news: Cambridge elects a Mayor and Mayoress who happen to both be male-to-female transsexuals. And who are a couple themselves. I think this is wonderful, though it’s a shame they’re Liberal Democrats. You can’t have everything.

Abiding memories of Keith Girdler that I feel I can share. A parting embrace by the steps to Leicester Square Tube, and some passer-by decides to comments sarcastically on us. “Oooh, can I have a hug too?” Well, that passer-by can get knotted.

Annoying that this is effectively yet another memory of a heckler, taking up space in my mind that should be reserved for nicer things.

Yesterday – to Hampstead Heath Men’s Pond for the first time. It’s an outrageously hot and sunny day, so it makes sense to go for a swim in the open air, under a particularly glorious blue sky. I walk down the leafy path and pull open a big, obscuring door marked ‘MEN ONLY’, feeling like I’m marking a rite of passage.

The Men’s Pond is an old-fashioned institution and is a lot larger than I’d imagined, the banks mossy and muddy, the water punctuated with ducks and moorhens. A handful of gentlemen there, of all ages, and the water is a lot less cold than anticipated. In some parts of the pond where the sun has been beating down for most of the day, it’s actually warm. Out of practice for years, I panic slightly as I get in and realise there’s no shallow end, but thankfully my ability hasn’t entirely deserted me, so no need for the lifeguard. Imagine that: I think the fear of embarrassment propels my desperation to keep afloat more than anything else. Never underestimate the healing power of potential embarrassment.

So although it’s a relief to discover I can still swim, I’m very slow with it and have to stop by the various duck-covered floats along the way. When I get out, my limbs suddenly feel like lead weights. A sign that I really am out of shape. But like the long walks, it’ll get easier if I keep it up. I promise myself to return.

Most of the men in the enclosure are not in the actual pond, but sitting around and sunbathing: some in the designated nudist area, some in the changing section where costumes are required. Men together, gay and not gay, young and old. Seeing teenage boys swimming together, away from women and girls, one can’t help thinking of those paintings by Henry Scott Tuke.

Last time I went swimming, it was a few years ago at the indoor pool at Archway. There were lots of women friends chatting in the Shallow End about life, and often about husbands. The Men’s Pond denizens do chat, but what I overhear is rarely about women. Tips on fitness, sport, work, cars, culture. But mostly they lie about quietly, naked or not naked. It’s an unique and uncommon London atmosphere, and I rather like it. Even if I feel like the palest, worst swimmer there.

The singer and songwriter Keith Girdler dies. Cancer. He must have been not much older than me. That’s him on the sleeve of SARAH 99, above. The one after my one with Shelley.

I have extremely fond memories of his band Blueboy, who existed on the labels Sarah and Shinkansen during the 90s. A fantastic band on record and in concert. I still know how to play ‘Popkiss’ on the guitar. All the way through.

For a while I knew Mr Girdler. We exhanged letters in the days people did such things. Then we got to know each other in person, a little. I could go into all kinds of naughty anecdotes, which would probably please him, but maybe not everyone else.

I find out about his death just after my first visit to Hampstead Heath Men’s Pond. He’d have certainly liked that.

Suffice it to say he represents more than a few moments of happiness for me, musically and personally. Oh, and he’s in a few of my lyrics – both Orlando and Fosca.

Actually, I never told him that. And now I wish I had.

I owe him.

I still have the letters.

God bless you, Mr Girdler.

Following on from the remark about all-purpose charity ribbons in the previous entry, I have to of course admit to my own cause celebres, like anyone else, based on my personal experience, interests and beliefs.

The one story in the news which I do follow and harbour passionate feelings about is the arrested transman case in Lahore, Pakistan.

A couple who married for love, Shumail Raj and Shezina Tariq, have been sent to jail. Their crime is merely being different. The 31-year-old handsome groom, Mr Raj (who looks vaguely like a Pakistani Jake Gyllenhaal), was born a woman, but after two sex-change operations he’s lived as a man for 16 years. The couple married to prevent Ms Tariq being forced into an arranged marriage with someone else.

Mr Raj initially went to the courts – Wilde-like- seeking protection from harrassment of his father-in-law, who was rather unsympathetic about the union. The father voiced the specifics of his complaint in return, and the courts got in a doctor to decide Mr Raj’s gender. He was declared legally female, despite his operations and male appearance (including a beard few biological men of my acquaintance could match). Now the judge has sent them both to jail as perjurers (“lying” that Mr Raj was male), and for committing “unnatural lust” – the court sees them as lesbians – which is also illegal. On top of which, sex-change surgery is against the law in Pakistan.

For an encore, the judge has ordered police to arrest the doctor who performed the gender reassignment surgery on Mr Raj and anyone who had sheltered the couple, including a charity worker. (Source: The Times)

“The couple told journalists that no boundary can separate them as they deeply love each other and cannot live without one another… They said that President Musharraf who believes in enlightened moderation must support them in such dire consequences… They have appealed to the International Communities to help them.” (Source: Pakistan News)

If this isn’t a human rights issue, I don’t know what is. Count me in on this one.

My credo is individualism against the crowd, style against fashion, standing out against fear of difference, being oneself against the odds. I view transgenderism as a truly noble and Utopian form of being true to oneself, and true to one’s heart when Nature gets its combinations in a twist. Changing one’s sex should be as easy and as affordable as changing one’s hair colour, and attitudes towards it should be no different.

Collector types who boast ‘some of my best friends are…’ are always depressing and should be slapped, but I am proud to know (and to have dated) transsexuals from all kinds of backgrounds and countries, and I support various transgirl and transguy-related causes and campaigns.

One of my proudest moments over the last year or so was when my manliness was brought into question by a typical shouting man, sticking his head out of a passing bus window (actually, he looked like an aging punk). I was standing at a bus stop with a young male friend who happens to have been born female. He had begun his course of testosterone injections that very day; I gave him a ‘Happy Puberty Day’ card.

That this passing heckler was shouting at me for looking effeminate, while my transgendered companion remained unjudged, pleased me enormously. Though I did consider asking to share his testosterone supply.

I glance at the news. I know I really shouldn’t. One wants to keep up with what’s going on in the real world. But one only finds out what some people think about some of the events in the real world. And what some people think some events mean in the wider scheme of things. And that’s rather different from the events themselves.

One story that’s dominated the front pages for a while is that of a missing little girl. Which, sad as it obviously is to those involved, isn’t normally an event that should affect the country more than war or politics. But now it does. The case has been given such a massive amount of media coverage, it’s now gone into a phase of reporting ABOUT the coverage. Countless articles about how much is too much, how long should elapse before newspapers let the story fade from the headlines after no further developments, and so on. The coverage IS the news, which would have pleased Marshall McLuhan. Like those celebrities who become famous after going on TV programmes about celebrity, not before, the parents are now treated as if they are members of the Royal Family. Photos of them at every moment, every tear caught and published.

Emotional blackmail is thrown about from columnist to columnist like a self-righteous pie fight. This coverage is an insult to all the missing children who get far less attention, say one side. Have you no heart, say the other, the parents just want their message spread as much as possible. That’s just the point, say the antagonists. And so on. Heartless versus tasteless. If you’re not one, you’re the other. Do I find all this spiralling debate distasteful, or do I find the finding of it distasteful, distasteful?

The unasked and the entirely unrelated weigh in with their opinions, and I suppose by setting these thoughts down I’m doing just the same. But I quite enjoy the meta-news, the discussions and debates about what matters, to whom, and for how long.

The sad thing is, there will always be photos of lost children, all heartbreaking stills of frozen potential, repeated day after day as now. Until one starts to think one knows the victims’ faces better than one’s own. Which for me is saying something.

With this current case, people are starting to hold minute silences, keep vigils, and wear ribbons. The modern way of shared sadness. I personally wish people would stop being unkind to each other in general, with no exceptions and no singling out. I want a wristband or a ribbon which means “I’m against bad things.” All of them. All the diseases. All the syndromes. All the poverty. All the wars. All the bomb attacks. All the lost girls. But also all the lost boys and all the lost adults. The lot. No favourites. No selections. What colour ribbon is that?

This is the fine art of making the personal matter to strangers, until they care more for faces in the newspapers than they do for people they really know and should phone more often. Dreams, ideals, aspirations, are all thrown into the mix. And then there’s one of my favourite themes – what it is that makes people want to join in, to smother their individuality. To not look ‘other’. To not be out of place, or off-message, or have any sentiment that differs from the one being sold to the masses.

I try not to be cynical about sensitive popular concerns (Reader’s Voice: Are you sure?), but I do worry at how easily – and how often – good intentions can be fanned into a kind of hysteria.

Monday – to Hackney to Alex Mayor’s studio. We work on a Fosca track, “It Only Matters To Those To Whom It Matters”. Kate turns up to add backing vocals, while Rachel and Tom are laid low with illnesses. I feel guilty about dragging Tom from his sickbed to his computer in his Hemel Hempstead cottage, to remotely oversee some tracks which haven’t transferred from his sessions properly.

The track is deliberately free of all synths and keyboards, because I’m fairly sure Fosca haven’t recorded an electric guitars-only uptempo pop song before. I always loved those mid-80s New Order songs when the band would go from the computer-heavy likes of ‘Blue Monday’ to songs like ‘As It Was When It Was’, a simple guitars, bass and drums indie pop tune. I think there’s also a rather pompous liner note on a Queen album boasting that it was recorded without synthesizers.

Deliberately going guitars-only for a synth-heavy band is a more androgynous, bisexual approach to making music. And yes, I did just type that last sentence. Somebody has to.

Last Thursday: I meet up with Lucy Munro in the British Library cafe, to receive a copy of the enormous and brand new RSC Complete Works Of Shakespeare. Rather brilliantly, each play has a little running glossary in the Arial font. So it’s less stuffy and more friendly. Ms Lucy is responsible for editing the version of Pericles, and is rightfully excited that the next time the Royal Shakespeare Company perform the play, they will use her version.

I used to belong to the RSC Fan Club – or the Friends Of The RSC or whatever it was – in my teens, and my first trips up to London unsupervised were to see the likes of As You Like It at the Barbican, with Alan Rickman, Juliet Stevenson and Fiona Shaw. This would be about 1985. There’s a photo from this production in the new Complete Works, alongside similar stills covering the company’s history. I look fondly on all the ones I saw myself, and enviously at those I’ve missed: David Tennant in Romeo & Juliet circa 2000. Not that you can tell it’s him: his face is obscured by someone’s arms – presumably the Juliet of the day – in what looks like a fairly passionate embrace. The photo section ends with a still from the Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter version of Antony & Cleopatra. Which has only just finished in London.

A visit to the British Library rarely goes without one noticing some beautiful students around the building. I think this isn’t so much because the place attracts the good-looking, but that a typical visit to such a large and popular place will involve one’s eyes scanning the faces of hundreds of lone strangers, and it’s more a question of statistical probability than anything else.

Moreover, such students tend to be in the flattering state of lone contemplation, because reading is not a shared activity. Libraries are no place for couples or families. They separate people, sending them off to commune with the words of strangers and the dead. Even though many of these comely specimens might be dating, they appear to be single purely through the serene act of lone study. Reading in public makes one look tantalisingly available.

Last night – watch Doctor Who with Anna S and David B, having just been on Amazon ordering a Dalek 3D Bath & Shower Gel dispenser for my 70-year-old father, at his request. Proof positive that children’s TV is often wasted on children.

Today is the first time this year that London is warm enough to open one’s front room windows, and A&D worry that their new cat will jump out into the main street. We watch him – over the back of the TV – climb onto the sill and look out onto the road for a minute. It’s his first time. As soon as he hears a car approach, he jumps back into the flat and runs into the other rooms. It’s as if he fears the vehicles are likely to crash into the front room. I think of that story about the audience to the cinema pioneer Friese-Green’s early experiments, rushing out of his screening room when they see a film of a train heading towards the camera.

Actually, I did once witness the kind of occurrence that the cat was worried about. It’s a year or two ago, and on Junction Road, close to Archway tube, my northbound bus stops and everyone is told to get out. The main road ahead is blocked by another double-decker, parked but filling the street left to right, at a perfect ninety degrees to both lanes. It seems to have emerged from the left-hand side street near the bus station, as all the Archway buses do, but due to some sort of brake failure (or driver madness) must have continued dead ahead and crashed into the grocery shop immediately opposite. Not quite embedded in the architecture, but it’s a head-on collision. “Wasn’t my fault,” I imagine the bus driver saying later. “The grocery shop refused to swerve.”

I try to imagine what that must have been like for the people in the flats around the shop. I should ask the cat.

In the latest adventure, 42, the Doctor is up against two possessed men wearing bug-like helmets with a horizontal eye guard. It’s Doctor Who versus the band Daft Punk, who posed for their publicity photos in similar helmets. I suspect this is an observation made elsewhere on the Internet. In fact, I’ll lay money on someone editing the episode to a Daft Punk song like ‘One More Time’ or ‘Digital Love’.

Aferwards, we repair to a Crouch Hill pub, The Noble, and meet a long table of gentle friends. At the bar one of the other customers asks me “What’s the occasion?” He means my black suit. All around are in lighter summer clothes. It’s a perfectly good question, but I’m honest in my answer. “It’s the way I like to dress.”

However, at this point I develop an absolutely searing headache and start feeling a bit sick, to the point when I can’t think straight or hold a conversation. Being me, I start to wonder if I have some terminal virus. I wonder what it could be, but know that the best thing to do is go straight home and straight to bed. I manage to find a minicab office and am safely tucked up within minutes, two Ibuprofen duly downed. Sunday morning, I wake up in a pool of sweat but feel utterly recovered.

A taxi ride to a waiting bed in a quiet and private room.

It’s rather unambitious definition of heaven, perhaps, particularly as there’s no one else in the bed. But for me it’s a phrase representing utter bliss, always worth every penny of the expense. Leaving the pub early without buying more drinks probably paid for the cab, anyway.

A taxi ride to a waiting bed in a quiet and private room.

In the London Library today, the Less Quiet Reading Room – the one for laptop users – is in thrall to one gentleman who has the noisiest keyboard tapping technique in the history of the world. I’m amazed his poor computer survives. I’m typing this near the Rose Macaulay Corner, which has a photo of the lady in question, a big red comfy chair, and a plaque saying the corner was furnished in her memory by her friends. Given she’s noted for that wonderful opening line about the camel, I’d have put something camel-related in the corner too.

On Ebay, I finally win a copy of an album for which I’ve been bidding in vain for years. Passive Soul by Orlando, released on Warners UK 1997 and now deleted.

Seems a bit odd, even tragic to make such a purchase. But I’ve long since run out of spare copies, and feel the need to bid on any Ebay ones for the times when I want to give a copy out. In this case, to Dennis Cooper, whose novel Frisk forms part of the CD booklet’s montage of the band’s favourite things.

Up to now, I’ve been outbid. Which is as good a definition of mixed feelings as you’ll get. I want the CD, but I’m glad someone else wants it too. Whether finally winning one means anything in the broader scheme of Orlando things I have no idea. It doesn’t matter.

The seller emails me afterwards, and I think I was grumpily hoping he was going to waive the £15, seeing as it was me. But no, he wanted to say he saw Orlando play in 1856 and enjoyed it.

I suppose it could have been a lot worse, given he’s selling the CD in the first place. Around the time of the album, I was watching some other band at the Dublin Castle when a young man approached me, with his friend in tow:

Him: Hey, are you in that band Orlando?
Me: (pleased to be recognised) Why, yes, yes I am…!
Him: Well, I just wanted to say… (he pats me on the back) you’re really, really s–t.

I wonder if that sort of thing happens to Russell Crowe? Who would dare?

Needless to add, there were perfectly nicer collarings at the time by well-wishers and fans. But as ever, it’s the detractors and hecklers that pull the focus from any amount of praise, that unfairly stick in the memory. If I can remember anything at all in my history, it’s the bad things, more than the good. Which seems a terrible shame. But I think artists in general spend more thought and time on the unkind reviews, when they should be concentrating on the good ones, or at least the more constructively unkind ones. The band The Dresden Dolls happily archive all their bad reviews on their website in a dedicated section. To me that’s like distributing sting-enhancers to the world’s wasp population, but I admire them for it.

People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise. – Somerset Maughan.

Creating anything vaguely artistic in public involves a tug-of-war between hubris and humility, and you have to be careful to not let one side skew the balance. “I’m brilliant, I’m wonderful, I’m special” is of course not true. But neither is the false narcissism of “What do I know? I’m just like anyone else. Just giving it a go. Don’t mind me.”

I think I prefer people being aware of my work at all, even in an unkind capacity, as opposed to being unknown or ignored. But what I really would dread is being unable to write. Men with heavy-handed laptop techniques are doing their best today, but when I get into the swing of writing, I’m probably tapping pretty loudly myself. Irritation at others’ industry can sometimes generate competition.

Restarting my routine of walking into town whenever possible, I make it from Highgate to the British Library for the first time without feeling at the end like I’ve been beaten up. I suppose I must be getting fitter. The only problem is, in the first days of getting back to a working-in-libraries routine I find it harder to get down to writing than I did at home, despite the BL and the London Library being full of serious writers – far more serious than me. Though the atmosphere of quiet study is preferable to the distractions at home – comings and goings in the shared hallway, next door’s screaming babies – a change in setting is initially a distraction in itself.

The trouble with getting into a routine is that the first few days are harder than whatever went before. It’s like cold turkey from the drug of sloth. As a result, I owe the diary two more entries this week.

What did I do on these missing days? I started and stopped, and then wandered about, then leafed through a book, then another book, then checked my email, then took too long answering it, then started and stopped, then read some websites and blogs, then wandered about some more, then went home and felt too tired to do anything but sleep. And now, late into Friday, I feel just about ready to hurl myself at the page.

As for the routine of exercise, I’ve made some little promises to myself. It’s now okay for me to go without the kind of activities which would be out of character, ie sit-ups, going to the gym, jogging. I’ve pretty much given up on the running anyway, as I just couldn’t bear to be seen in jogging trousers any longer. It’s just not me.

In return, I tell myself, I must always take the stairs, wherever there are stairs alongside lifts. And I must walk more and take public transport less, which means allowing for extra time. But that’s okay, too. I save money and minimize the chances of being at the mercy of the more tiresome passengers, and indeed at the mercy of the more tiresome failings of the transportation itself.

Walking is exercise with a point. All those miles people clock up in the gym on those treadmills – and after all that, they’re still in the same place. Not only that, but they PAY an average of £45 per month for the privilege of running while staying in the same place. This amazes me. They could be enjoying a scenic route, taking unexpected corners, pondering architecture, brainstorming ideas (going for a long walk is a commonly prescribed cure for writer’s block).

That said, I appreciate it’s worth going to the gym to look upon the comelier. I once had my photo taken with four outrageously well-developed young men, for some Soho fashion event. Me in a suit in the middle, flanked by four muscular boys in their requisite muscle-bearing outfits. Two on one knee, two standing, all with Charles Atlas grins. I can’t remember what expression I was pulling. But Hell’s elbows on toast, how I wish I had a copy of that photo.

This ancient event also featured a fine example of the opposite aesthetic: a skinny, ultra-pretty young man called Martin T, the kind Mr Wilde and his friends would have embarrassed themselves over. I bumped into Martin a year or so later, and he told me he was starting his own band called Selfish C—. I thought he was joking. Not only did this problematically-christened group go on to release real records and play real concerts, I note they’re now supporting the reformed Jesus And Mary Chain at this year’s Meltdown festival. The JAMC initially baited controversy with their name, too. But at least you can print it.

I was terribly pleased to find that a reader of this blog files it on their computer under ‘Safe For Work’. Like the jogging bottoms, swearing isn’t really me.