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.

Have started using Google Mail for the times I’m not at my laptop. Though the adverts are annoying, I have to say I rather prefer it over any other Webmail interface. It’s very clean and instant. I like how the emails sort themselves into ‘conversations’. And it seems to have the one spam filter that actually works. I get terribly embarrassed if I’m checking my mail at a public terminal, and the subject lines of obscene spam mails fill the screen. No longer. In your face, Mr Generic Viagra. Which admittedly sounds like one of those very subject lines.

Oliver Twisted in Tokyo (twisting_oliver@yahoo.co.uk) sends me this Warhol-esque sample of his artwork, based in turn on Ella Guru’s portrait:

Miss Red tells me that she’s booked a live act for Beautiful & Damned on the 24th: a barbershop quartet called Scales Of The Unexpected. They do pop cover versions in that style. I rather like a good genre cover version, such as the Puppini Sisters’ takes on Wuthering Heights or Heart Of Glass, in the style of the Andrews Sisters. Or Paul Anka’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Wonderwall in the proper big band, swing style.

I know some friends aren’t keen on such tracks, seeing them as ‘comedy’ cover versions with limited life, a bit like sketches on impersonation shows like Dead Ringers. But I disagree in some cases. I think the Puppini and Anka versions are so brilliantly done, one can enjoy them for what they are. The joke level aside, such tracks are enjoyable pieces of music, pure and simple.

Frank Sinatra’s New York New York (as in “Start spreading the news…”)is Mr Sinatra in the late 70s covering a Kander & Ebb 70s pastiche of a 50s Sinatra-style song. It’s arguably as much a pastiche on Mr Sinatra’s part as Mr Anka’s cover of Nirvana. Now, you can either rub your post-modernist beard and enjoy that level of it, and feel terribly smug in the process, or you can enjoy it for what it is, and let the levels of meaning handle themselves.

This is the spirit of Beautiful & Damned versus the proper retro clubs. Though when I DJ I do try to mix the pastiches in with the proper 20s and 50s stuff as well, in an attempt to keep everyone happy. I’ve seen Bugsy Malone tracks fill the floor at some clubs, and clear the floor at others. One just has to do one’s best, feel unafraid to make mistakes, and generally not worry about it.

When I played something by the Puppinis at the club night ‘Lost’ recently, a lady came up to thank me. It was the lead Puppini Sister herself. She said she had never heard her own stuff at a club before. So now I feel even more well-disposed towards them. Meeting the artist and finding out they’re nice shouldn’t cloud one’s judgement upon their work. But let’s face it, it does.

If playing the pastiche tracks and the crowd pleasers makes me more of a ‘Wedding DJ’, so be it. I have been booked for a few actual weddings, after all. Myself and Miss Red are off to do one in Cumbria on Saturday week. I don’t hustle for such engagements, and am DJ-ing less and less often these days. But this one in particular sounded like a bit of an adventure, so I agreed.

That said, I try to begin the B&D night with something I’ve not always heard in a club or bar before, whether it’s Kermit The Frog doing Paul Williams’s Rainbow Connection or the entire ten-minute opening of Fiddler On The Roof.

I’m still not sure how long I’ll continue to do the regular monthly Beautiful & Damned at The Boogaloo. It’s been going a year now, and I do feel the pull of other projects. This may be the last time for a while. We shall see.

A drizzly Monday. So I write about something else that happened on the sunnier Saturday.

Saturday: I visit the V & A Museum. Utterly packed, particularly the cafe. With permission from the staff, I stick my head in the Members Room, to see what it’s like. Its door is hidden on the top floor, in the wall of mirrors to one side of the Glass Room. The Members Room itself is large and comfortable, with a small manned cafe, second level of desks, lots of books and art magazines and sofas. And barely three people in there. However, as the V&A is an old building, it’s also a bit stuffy, the only air conditioning on this warm day being an open window. Am in two minds as to whether I should join, at £40 per year. I do want to visit the Surrealism and Kylie exhibitions, plus the forthcoming Lee Miller show, and joining up would mean I could just pop in to these shows without queuing, and probably save money in the long run. But I’m also trying hard not to spend money full stop.

I’ve already joined the Tate as a member, a present from my parents. The Tate Modern Members’ Room has amazing views of the London skyline, and some people actually sunbathe on the Room’s south-facing terrace. Going to an art gallery to sunbathe is perhaps an unlikely pastime. But people do it. Not today, though.

The Gilbert & George show is very up my street, of course. I even dress like them. The Tate shop includes G&G cufflinks.

Some emails:

I am one of those people who thought Fosca were coming to play in Milan… Is the concert on, at all?

I guess not. Sorry. The promoter asked us, we agreed, then they just stopped replying to my emails.

This has happened before. The trouble is, the people who book us are often just fans having a go at being promoters, rather than professional promoters. So it’s all on the hobbyist, amateur level. Which has its benefits, but we’ve had our share of being let down and feeling a bit used. Their intentions were good enough: they just let their enthusiasm get away with them, forgot about the promises made, and hoped we’d sort ourselves out somehow.

There’s been times when we’ve been left outside venues long after closing, alone and vulnerable on the street of a strange city with our heavy and expensive instruments, wondering what’s happened to our promised accommodation and transport. And then it starts to rain.

I once heard of a Swedish indie band being treated in a similarly shabby fashion by an amateur London promoter, who vanished into the night. The sound man, of all people, let them all stay at his house. When I next saw the engineer in question, I commended his actions.

“Very noble of you,” I said.

“Oh… not really,” he replied, pulling a sheepish smile. “I wanted to sleep with the drummer.”

Whether he succeeded in this intention or not, he didn’t say.

I saw the pic of your hair on Easter Monday and I was fearing you might be becoming a hippy.

It was getting rather long. But no, it’s now freshly shorn and freshly bleached once more. I spent a couple of days between the cutting and the bleaching looking like a badger assassin.

This isn’t a great entry. I keep starting and stopping at it, then giving up. I think I’m just having a rather unclever day, and that’s fine. At least there’s been recent diary entries which have spawned three lines I’m pretty pleased with (“My CV has only one sentence: ‘Don’t you know who I AM?’; “Happiness can be so depressing”; and “Crowds can make one feel so lonely”).

If there were three novels which each had one of those lines as their opening sentence, I’d buy them. That’s the benchmark for me. The only point-scoring is with oneself.

Much of this sluggishness is probably just being hungover. Last night I happily polished off a bottle of extremely pleasant Bulgarian Chardonnay while half-watching the Eurovision Song Contest with Taylor Parkes.

Suffice it to say that there is no way on earth I would watch this broadcast alone or sober. Getting drunk with a friend in front of bad TV (by which I mean the kind which invites talking over, or indeed shouting at) is such a simple and lovely pleasure. Particularly with someone with whom there’s less than zero chance of any tipsy snogging. There’s a line from one of the newer Fosca songs where a character accidentally says out aloud “If alcoholic sex doesn’t count, I’m a virgin”.

And again, because I’m not feeling particularly clever today, just typing out that lyric is terribly comforting. I find my daily life is a constant battle of self-justification, and I now realise why there are so many award ceremonies. I’ve yet to won a proper award of merit myself, unless you count a poem I wrote at school about South Africa, which won Highly Commended in the Suffolk Free Press. Ye gods, it was terrible. Like those films which win Oscars purely because they contain the things Oscar-winning films are meant to contain, I was only too aware I was writing to an award-baiting formula, writing to please the competition judges, not to please myself or to find out new things about myself. I also suspect there were no other entries.

Similarly I’d much rather read and indeed write a strange but fun novel about, say, a sarcastic iguana driving a lorry full of eyelids to a winking conference, than some brow-beating tome about characters ‘finding themselves’ and ‘learning a valuable lesson about life’. Unless it’s the iguana with the eyelids doing the self-discovery in question.

But this approach can work against oneself, too. There’s a notorious cliche of pompous rock interviews that goes “We just do what we do and if anyone else likes it it’s a bonus.” Still, that’s entirely fair enough, however hoary and common the sentiment.

I would say I do write to be read, or to be listened to. But I also write in order to make what doesn’t exist, and should exist, exist. Whether or not I’m successful in this, and how original or not it appears to be is down to the reader or listener. I start some dance steps, and offer my hand, and try my best. With this entry I’m tripping over my own feet somewhat, but better that than sitting it out and leaving the dancefloor empty (or indeed my metaphors flailing like dying insects).

Of all the songs released since time began, I’m fairly certain not one contains the lyric “If alcoholic sex doesn’t count, I’m a virgin.” And I really want there to be one. That’s why I want to make the song, finish it, and release it to the world.

Yesterday I applied this approach to deciding what to do with my daytime. “Today, I must see new things and visit new places, within my budget of next to nothing,” I promised myself.

So I visited a giant squid preserved in a tank, touched specimen jars from Darwin’s Beagle voyage, opened a beehive door to take a look inside, and drank a coffee in the quiet yet airy and stylish RIBA cafe.

(All of which win Highly Commended at today’s Dickon Edwards Awards for Nice London Things. The squid and specimens are on the Natural History Museum’s Darwin Centre tour, and the beehive is a new addition to its Wildlife Garden outside. The RIBA cafe is at 66 Portland Place, first floor.)

Just as well I need to write a second entry today to make my weekly quota. Because I’ve got so much more to say about band life.

Regarding my group Fosca in 2007, I’ve started to wonder about the point of continuing with the band. What’s frustrating is that we do have fans who absolutely adore us, all over the world. Just not enough in any one place. Or not enough fans in positions of music biz power who could take the group to a higher rung on the ladder. Certainly no one that wants to be our manager or handle the nuts and bolts of the band machinery like website updating, hustling for gigs, hustling for labels and so forth.

There’s so many undignified, unstylish trappings – being one’s own roadie, dragging instruments around, paying for pricy rehearsal rooms reeking of sweat from the countless bands that have been in the room before you. I feel the weight of every loathsome soundcheck accumulated through my life, ever polite humouring of every disinterested in-house sound engineer. Having to round up band members who have day jobs and busy lives and find a time slot which they can all agree on. Having to rehearse against the noise of the band in the studio next door, who are going through their 20th take on ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’ for their residency at The Beergut And Firkin the following month. It’s a truly graceless world. I want less and less of it these days. Not when there’s books and libraries and cafes and gardens and parks and cathedrals and galleries and natural history museums with stuffed lemurs.

Whenever I see someone carrying a guitar about on public transport, I actually feel nauseous. Well, unless they’re female: that’s still far less of a cliche. The whole blokiness of the rock world is still very much in evidence. I would enforce a quota – only so many males are allowed to make rock music. And they have to justify being different to all the other males. On pain of having their guitar taken away. I would also apply the same capping to rock music journalism. There must be only a certain amount of writing about music by men.

There must be no more books or reviews or articles about Morrissey and The Smiths unless all the ones by men have been matched in quantity by pieces by women. That could only be a good thing. If you go to a Morrissey gig, there’s a healthy half-and-half gender representation in the audience. In fact, the fans who actually follow a band around on their tours, who send letters and honest fanzines (as opposed to fanzines written by budding music journalists) are more likely to be female. Yet the vast majority of published books and articles about rock are by men. Women are more honest and intimate about their love. Men prefer to work out their devotion in professional writing. The only truly useful kind of music criticism is a kiss. I’d far rather be hugged than analyzed. Who wouldn’t?

(By the way, the only honest book about Morrissey and The Smiths is the Mark Simpson one.)

I now tend to not go to gigs at all unless someone I want to be with invites me out. The awfulness of the lone not-young man at the indie gig is not a part I have any wish to play. Without a companion, something will annoy me about the evening sooner or later. Someone will dance too close to me and jostle me. The bar staff will take too long to serve me. There will be couples kissing and canoodling in my view. Happiness can be so depressing. Crowds can make one feel so lonely. And I feel I’ve DONE all this before. There’s so much else I could be doing which I’ve NOT done before.

You don’t mind the more tiresome trappings of band life when you’re young and more carefree. At thirty-five, life in general drags you down, age drags you down, younger people drag you down, and you have to really, really, want to do anything that you end up doing. It all requires more justification and arguing of the pros and cons. Every day I wake up and ARGUE with myself about how I’m going to spend the day. Aloud. It’s quite a sight.

Rachel in the band thinks we should avoid the whole ‘toilet’ circuit of small venues altogether and just play the gigs we know we’ll enjoy, if our expenses are met by the promoters. I have to agree with her. In Sweden, we are far more likely to be worshipped than politely applauded and talked over. One must never pass up any opportunity of being worshipped.

The last time we played in Sweden, people invaded the stage and hugged us. That’s what we do it for. That’s the only reason anyone should do anything for.

Before I rant on about the continuing problems of continuing with Fosca, I want to post a couple of recent photos.

Here’s one taken by Noted Author Travis Elborough, in the Boogaloo. Mr Elborough has written a bestselling book about the old London Routemaster bus. He also wears rather nice pointy boots. In this photo I am clearly drinking, and am either drunk or about to become drunk. Our mutual friend Ms Jennifer Connor is on the right. I think it’s rather like one of those distorted scenes from ‘Love Is The Devil’, the film about the painter Francis Bacon.

And here’s one taken by Ms Connor, in Pond Square, Highgate. Which is haunted by the ghost of a chicken that killed the other Francis Bacon. The 17th century F.B. who didn’t refuse a knighthood (“So AGING!” is what the 20th Century Bacon said, refusing his own chance to be a ‘Sir’).

As part of an experiment in food preservation, Sir Francis of old stuffed a Highgate chicken with snow, caught a terrible chill, and died. The half-plucked chicken’s ghost has been seen howling and flapping around Pond Square in the centuries since. If by chance it appears in this photo, do let me know. I do like a good chicken ghost story.

This is also a handy guide to How To Spot Dickon Edwards From Quite A Long Way Away.

Dad writes to comment on my entry on the changing attitudes toward recycling. He lists the three Stages of Innovation, which apply to anything from the Internet to the Horseless Carriage:

1) Eccentric / mocked
2) Trendy / worthy
3) Official / commonplace.

Onto some ranting. Living alone and aloof as I do, I find all too easy to succumb to the general sense of wondering ‘what’s the point?’ about anything. You know the sort of line of thinking. Life is just too hard. So much annoys or goes wrong, or so it can seem if I let one of my spiralling funks descend. Hence the need for Diary Angels.

But this is more about Dickon the Eccentric Writer, Dickon the Wandering Flaneur, Dickon the Gentleman and Dandy. I can do those things from now to the age of 99. And I intend to. Dickon the Indie Band Leader is a different matter. Music is far more complicated, both to make and to disseminate.

If you have something to say to the world, choosing to do so by music can be wonderful, but can also be a gamble. You can reach far more people than if you were to put out your message in, say, a book, but you can also reach far fewer. And musical success is about so much more than just the music. There’s the right timing, the right packaging, the right media buzz, the right hair, the right comparisons, the right gigs, the right string-pullers behind the scenes. So much has to be aligned in just the right way. And then you realise that not everyone likes your style of music, or indeed music at all.

I’m in danger of sounding like the Mark Gatiss ‘failed rock star’ character in The League Of Gentlemen. But then, I’ve met similar figures in all spheres of creativity. At some function or other I was collared by a very forlorn gentleman who used to have a column in a national newspaper, but was booted out in order to make way for some brasher, younger columnist. He’d failed to make himself into a Name, he said. He thought it was enough to just be a good writer.

All creativity is narcissism in the end. I’m just more honest about it than most.

My CV has only one sentence:

“Don’t you know who I AM?”

(another one for the Book of Dickon Quotations, there)

I’ve also been chatting to some of the older figures in both the music world and book world. At a recent music industry launch:

Record Label Man: You’re best out of the music game, Dickon. These days, it’s full of self-deluding fools. I think you should get into the author scene – your image would have more effect. So many successful songwriters are just failed authors, anyway.

And then, at a recent book launch:

Publishing Man: You’re best out of the literary scene, Dickon. These days, it’s full of self-deluding fools. Have you thought about being in a band? Your image is very striking and would have more effect in the music world. So many successful authors are just failed rock stars, anyway.

The publisher had no idea about my past, suffice it to say. And he thought I was about 25.

Fosca have confirmed a rare concert on Saturday 7th July. It’s in Saffle, deep in Northern Sweden. Two hours by train from Gothenburg, fairly close to the Norweigan border. Suits me.

The event is a little indie festival called Rip It Up, and we’re playing alongside veteran Sarah Records act St Christopher. Whose album ‘Bacharach’ is rather glorious; airy and graceful and really rather lovely, like The Walker Brothers on an indiepop budget. I think the last time I saw them play was in 1990 at the Kentish Town Bull & Gate, when I was just starting to realise there was a whole underground scene of bands that strove for a certain gentle pop beauty rather than joining in with the usual drug-loving noise merchants. At that gig, the opening synth line of ‘The Thrill Of The New’ went straight through me in just the right way. It hit the spot. In fact, it remains one of my favourite gig moments in all my years of concert-going.

More details on the Rip It Up festival here:

http://www.facetterad.net/ripitup/english.html

Line-up will be myself, Rachel Stevenson, Kate Dornan and Tom Edwards. It will be rather fantastic. We have our most devoted fans in Sweden, with their home-made videos of Fosca songs on YouTube and the like. Can’t wait to unveil our latest giddy work to them.

An email from Taiwan:

I don’t suppose there is *ANY* possibility of you making a recording of this concert available to fans….? Even just a standard, un-mixed soundboard recording made available on CD-R to people from this list would be awesome… and certainly wouldn’t lose you any money! Consider it! Some of us will most likely NEVER get to see you live.

I think any live recordings should be organized and circulated among the fans. All I can suggest is to contact the Swedish Fosca fans and see if they’ll help. They’re out there somewhere. Or better still, perhaps someone will film our set and put it on YouTube, as seems to be the fashion these days.

In the meantime, we still have an album to finish. Since we started work on it in 1867 or whenever it was, I’ve dithered and hit a slough of despond. I’ve acted just like a heroin addict, but without the actual drug. It’s cheaper. Heroin addicts let time drift by because they’re busy enjoying the comfort of the drug. I let time drift by because I was enjoying the comfort of either the sadness, or the nothingness itself.

In the hiatus, the other band members have moved house, worked with other bands, changed lovers, got married, got back with lovers, changed careers, changed genders, changed species, changed trains in 1930s Berlin… Well, maybe not all of the above.

This new Diary Angels discipline has shaken me up, however, and I’ve enlisted a third-party producer, the extremely clever Alex Mayor, to help finish the Fosca album in his Hackney studio. First session on Monday week.

I think self-production is all very well, but Tom and I were tending to tweak and twiddle each track forever, until we couldn’t hear anything anymore. The best thing about DIY recording is there’s no pricy by-the-hour studio fees to worry about. It’s also the worst thing about DIY recording, as you have no deadline to work to. And now Tom’s busy pursuing a career as a session guitarist in tandem with his day job, so he just can’t don his producer hat at present. A fresh element is required. Enter Mr Mayor.

(to be continued in a second entry, later today)

To the Scala venue in King’s Cross, guest of Ms Charley Stone, to see the bands Congregation and Electrelane.

Shall I say something interesting about the Scala? It’s a 1920s cinema. And it continued to be a cinema for sporadic periods all the way up to the early 1990s. Iggy & The Stooges played their only London gig there in 1972, and it’s the setting for the cover photo for their album Raw Power.

It’s also directly responsible for the classic Neil Jordan film The Crying Game. The film’s producer Stephen Woolley was also the Scala’s manager during its 80s life as a popular art-house cinema. To help finance the film he borrowed directly from the Scala’s box office takings. No Scala, no Crying Game.

Citing the fable of the scorpion and the frog crossing the river, The Crying Game is about the nature of things and the nature of people, versus situations that play on such natures. Its principal theme is that very Neil Jordan concern (whether it’s lonely vampires, werewolves, transvestites, prostitutes or IRA soldiers) – individuals caught up in situations that suppress individuality. His heroes are not so much rebels as gentle souls trying to do the decent thing. Accidental rebels.

So, as I think about this 1920s cinema which gave birth to The Crying Game, I think about how these connections neatly fit with the band headlining tonight, Electrelane.

Like The Crying Game, they tilt at a level of gender issues and androgyny which isn’t what they’re actually about, but is undeniably a part of their appeal. On paper they are four ladies on drums, bass, guitars and keyboards – the usual rock set-up – but their music is very removed from the identity of its players. They are as unlike personality-driven girl bands such as The Bangles or The Go-Gos as one could imagine, playing a brand of shifting art-rock; mainly instrumental with vocals as instruments more than carriers of lyrics.

Sometimes there’s elegant flourishes of intricate melody, sometimes there’s all-out noise. A lot of very studious, serious noise. Some pieces – as opposed to ‘songs’ – start and stop, slow down and speed up, become suddenly quiet or suddenly loud. And back again. They have a classical music approach to the rock band.

I am told they are more ‘Kraut Rock’ than ‘Prog Rock’, but I’m not the kind of boy to argue over musical pigeonholes. If you think I’m going to comment more on their appearance than their music, you’ve come to the right flaneur. Though their music has an androgynous ‘don’t look at me’ approach, they are better dressed than most all-male groups of a similar musical style. Their haircuts are elegant, and whether intentionally or not, Eletrelane’s hair is compatible with the flapper bobs, thick wavy partings and boy-cuts of those 1920s screen stars the Scala was built to worship in the first place. Same haircuts in the same space, eighty years apart. A temple to the 1920s ladies’ haircut, worshipped then as now.

Their thin, boyish-haired and boyish-dressed drummer has a distaff Crying Game appearance – an exquisite androgyny that steals hearts of all persuasions, that soldiers would die for. One imagines her journeying to the Trenches in male dress, writing letters home to her Violet Trefusis-like sweetheart.

Stage right, their guitarist is dressed in the kind of timelessly elegant dress that suggests she is about to launch into the ditties of Noel Coward, rather than wrestling ear-splitting feedback from her Gibson SG guitar. She handles the instrument in the manner of a Wodehouse character playing a game of whist, yet the sounds she produces are as muscular as the labours of the most swaggering and sweaty rock god.

One more fact about the Scala: Hawkwind played here in their 70s prime. And indeed, Electralane have their moments that recall Silver Machine, that chugging guitar hit beloved of regional indie discos from my youth. Admittedly, these are the moments where I decide to go to the toilet. When a band face each other on stage and grind away noisily at their guitars for extended periods, I can only salute so far. But that’s just me.

The Scala is packed to capacity, and it’s hard to find anywhere to stand without being jostled by strangers. A man keeps bumping into me as he dances, so I move to another part of the crowd. Then the new man in front of me also starts bumping into me as he dances. So I move right to the back. Then a woman treads squarely and painfully on my foot as she passes. I take the Universe’s hint and spend the rest of the gig in the bar.

Electralane are just too big for the Scala. Good for them, but they really should play larger venues next time. It’s hard to enjoy a band fully when one’s attentions are drawn by sweaty strangers constantly shoving themselves at you.

Also present at the gig are people I’ve known on and off since the mid 90s: Emma Jackson and Adrian L, and Rory M the Romo club doorman of old. They all look exactly the same as they did in 1996. Emma J was once in the teen band Kenickie writing unkind songs about the ugliness of Sunderland school dinner ladies. These days, she subscribes to the London Review Of Books and is a full-time academic and lecturer. But she’s still funny with it. Electralane do attract a certain chin-stroking type of intellectual (Emma J calls them Wire Magazine Types), but they also attract perfectly fun-loving people who enjoy music because it delights their heart, not because it lends itself to analytical essays. Brightly-dressed young and not-so-young girls and boys, dancing along even to the most seriously arty bits.

I did want to describe the Electrelane fans as either:

1) Gentlemen who intensely collect records.
2) Ladies who intensely collect other ladies.

But that’s unfair. Though both tribes are in evidence tonight – lots of men in glasses and half-beards, lots of women with boyish haircuts – there’s also plenty of, dare I say it? I think I will dare. Normal people. Blokes who are real blokes. Ladies who like real blokes. Straight couples. There’s even a few beefy lager lads, who stand to my right at the bar in football tops, all convict haircuts and ruddy cheeks, arguing over which of their many pints is Grolsch and which is Carling, as one of their number orders a seemingly endless amount of lager for his friends.

Before the gig, Ms Charley and I have dinner in a cheap but lovely cafe across the road. On the laminated menu are different fillings for jacket potatoes. One description in particular makes Charley laugh:

“Tuna – all styles.”

Many domestic refuse collection services in the UK are winding down from weekly to fortnightly, for the first time in my lifetime. Or they are threatening to do so, and it’s not always clear when it may happen. Which I entirely approve of.

Whether the more densely-populated areas such as my own dear Haringey will make the switch and stick with it is going to be interesting, what with the dangers of increased vermin and aroma concerns. But in terms of making what Americans terms a ‘wake-up call’ to the wasteful UK populace, it really seems to be working.

People are visibly recycling more and ditching less. Or rather, they’re purchasing fewer items which cannot be easily recycled. It’s the plastic tubs, carrier bags, fast food cartons, ready meal trays and other plastic food packaging that Haringey Council can’t take away (ho and indeed ho), even though many of these items are themselves marked as recyclable with those cute little symbols. It’s all very well saying there’s special depots to go to to dispose of such materials (eg for the long-term batteries used in electronic devices), but on the whole many people are just going to put everything their council can’t collect automatically into their normal dustbin.

Now that there’s this threat of fortnightly collections, however, people are really starting to enjoy the challenge of reducing their waste. Seeing one’s dustbin liners contain fewer and fewer items feels rather good for the soul. Even neighbourly one-upmanship can be used to do good in this regard; recycling is now seen as a matter of civic pride rather than the hippy-like eccentricity it once was. The curtain-twitchers have become the ‘alternative’ types they once feared.

To be the household on one’s street with the most black bin liners outside its gate is now utterly shameful. Black bags are black marks. This is the secret of real social change. Once you can harness the power of public embarrassment, you can make the English do anything.

Maybe some sort of 21st Century ASBO stocks should be brought back for certain repeat offenders; not to pelt burglars with rotten fruit, but just to embarrass them in public. Perhaps they should be forced to wear a pair of Mickey Mouse ears and nose. Or just dress them like me. There could be a sign above the miscreant’s head saying: “Here is a local criminal. Doesn’t he look gay?”

Maybe that wouldn’t work in the case of the Krays. I haven’t thought it through.

But I digress.

For my own anti-waste part, I’ve reduced my ready meal intake dramatically. I rarely buy them anymore. When you’re made more aware than ever that plastic tubs and trays just take up a landfill site for no good reason, it’s really hard to ever buy them again. And of course, there’s just no style to them. Not even those really nice ones at Marks & Spencer.

Wax-lined drinks cartons have had to go from my life, too. However ‘innocent’ the smoothies within say they are, if your council cannot recycle them in their weekly collection tubs, they’re the work of Satan.

A pressing concern is the recycling of CDRs and old VHS tapes. But thanks to the Web, I’ve now learned you can send away your piles of unsellable CDs to be made into burglar alarm boxes and street lighting:

http://www.london-recycling.co.uk

Here’s a company that will take your old VHS tapes off you for 20p a go:

http://www.tapesuk.co.uk/acatalog/Tape_Disposal.html

That trendy anti-waste shopping bag which people queued up for the other week has come under fire. Its slogan ‘I’m Not A Plastic Bag’ has been parodied as ‘I’m Not A Smug T–t’ by one Brick Lane stall holder who makes her own bags. Of course, to advertise to the world that you’re NOT smug is extremely smug in itself.

The news coverage of such bags will only last so long, and I suspect the irony is that they’ll be put out for recycling themselves in a few months, replaced by some other trendy bag. But what will stay is a general sense of people cutting down on their conspicuous consumption. Good news.