Am currently waking up with BBC Radio 3, whose morning programme is presented by the gentle-voiced Rob Cowan. I’m far from an expert on classical music, but something without vocals tends to work better in the background when getting on with something involving words, such as writing.

The spoken word stations shout too much or depress me with their insistence on everything being soundbite-friendly and summarised “very briefly” (the pop song attitude to news reporting), while the pop music stations tend to play something that deeply irritates every bone in my body every few minutes. And the DJs shout too much too. Classic FM is punctuated with banal adverts like all commercial stations (ie non-BBC ones), though I quite like the movie soundtracks show they do on Saturdays. Thanks to that I’ve been introduced to the excellent likes of Danny Elfman’s ‘Ice Dance’ from ‘Edward Scissorhands’, with its exquisite choral hook. In fact, I heard it while supping coffee alone in the iconic New Piccadilly Cafe, Denman Street, which tends to have Classic FM burbling away in the background.

But listening to Rob Cowan’s breakfast show there’s also a feeling of loyalty to one’s extended family. Mr Cowan’s daughter Vicky married my brother (and Fosca guitarist & producer) Tom last year, and this week marks their first anniversary. I can confirm he’s an entirely nice man who made a poignant and quite lovely speech at Tom’s wedding. He had no choice in being related to me, granted, but he’s been very civil about it. The first time we met, we chatted about Radio 3’s late night ‘Other Music’ show Late Junction, possibly the only BBC programme to play selections from the last Scott Walker album The Drift. Which is, shall we say, somewhat more avant-garde and ‘difficult listening’ than the Walker Brothers hits. People are always banging on about the genius of Mr Walker, and rightly so, but there can’t be many radio stations that gave The Drift the attention it got in the monthly music press. What’s the use of making music that’s written about or talked about but not actually listened to? Hats off to Late Junction, I say.

Other family connections with non-shouting BBC presenters: my mother knows the BBC TV & radio presenter Martha Kearney’s mother. Mothers chat about what their offspring are up to, so when Mother K heard about my tentative dips into TV, being sought by producers and so on, she asked (or rather cajoled) Daughter K to phone me with advice. Which happened yesterday. So I’ve taken down her kind notes of tips and names to approach. “You’re to do with blogging and Shane MacGowan, aren’t you?” Well yes but no, I think. I tell her I’m this sort of London dandy character that dips in and out of many social and artistic spheres, and wince slightly at having to say so. But one must be careful not to be Best Known For something which isn’t quite what you want to be best known for.

More leftover thoughts from Cambridge. At the book festival, I attend one of the other events, a panel discussion on how to get published which features two literary agents and two publishers. The audience is presumably made up of unpublished authors, and I note there are far more women than men, and far more people over 50 than under. A lot of their advice is common sense: do your research about who you’re sending your manuscript to, approach agents not publishers, target the agents of the writers you’re more likely to be compared to, and so forth.

A man from Weidenfeld & Nicholson talks about the trend in biography publishing. It used be quite normal to put out lives of the great and good in large tomes, often carried over several volumes. These days, he says, people are less keen to wade through door-stopping biographies, regardless of who it is.

“There’s just been this huge biography of Kingsley Amis doing the rounds… [presumably he means the one by Zachary Leader] But does anyone in 2007 really want to slog though 1000 pages of Kingsley Amis’s life? Of anyone’s life?”

One of the panelists is from the noted feminist publishers Virago, and I think of that incident when they once accepted a novel from someone called Rahila Khan. It was about the life of a young British Asian woman, and was just the sort of thing they were looking for. Close to publication, they finally got to meet the author. Ms Kahn turned out to be a white male vicar called Toby, writing under a pseudonymous persona. He didn’t see himself as a hoaxer or trying to make any kind of satirical point; he just had seen the novel turned down when submitted under his real name everywhere else, and wondered if this approach might not be better. Virago disagreed, felt deceived, pulped all the copies and asked for their advance back.

I sympathise with both parties here. Yes, a book is a book, and the author’s identity shouldn’t affect its merit, particularly in these equality-driven times. But people like a bit of truth in their fiction, a handrail to grasp on the ride into another world. If Zadie Smith turned out to be an elderly man using an actress as a stand-in (as in the case of JT LeRoy) I do think it would affect the present reception of his / her books.

But it works the other way. Monica Ali’s follow-up to her bestseller Brick Lane hasn’t done nearly as well as her debut, and some observers have put this down to it being about villagers in Portugal rather than Bangladeshi Britons. She was doing what authors are meant to do: use her imagination. And her fans rewarded her by giving the book a miss. There’s probably other factors at work here (it’s had mixed reviews), but the connection between author identity and the reading experience must surely be one.

I wonder what Virago’s policy is on the transgendered? Do they now insist on a medical examination of a debut author, to check they are biologically female? Or give them a investigative fondle like Crocodile Dundee did with that transvestite? (a scene which seems appallingly homophobic until you find out the drag queen in question was played by the androgynous actress Anne Carlisle, star of Liquid Sky, making it curiously radical whether by intention or accident)

But facetiousness aside, I see Virago’s point. It shouldn’t matter, but it does matter. Virago is for women authors; it’s their raison d’etre. And it’s not like there’s a shortage of other publishers.

Likewise, I never buy a book if I don’t like the haircut or the clothes in the author photo. I don’t care how acclaimed a novelist is, if he dresses like Man At C&A he can never ‘only connect’ with me.

The centre of Cambridge at the weekend rather resembles Oxford Street. True, there are the more obvious landmarks unique to the city, not least the river with its punts, and King’s College, the world’s preferred source of Christmas choirboys. But away from those is an extremely busy shopping area with all the expected names of the day. HMV, Boots, Costa Coffee, Starbucks, Borders, and so on. I’m gratified to see that Heffers, the large bookshop synonymous with Cambridge, is still going despite being run by its old Oxford rivals Blackwells. It still has the old green-on-black Faber-like logo which looks a little dated (70s to early 80s), but dated is only what people call something from another time that has yet to achieve period charm. The 80s get better and better every year.

What is distinctly Cambridgey is the bicycles. Far more of them than Oxford. They’re nicer for a city than cars, obviously, though there’s a couple of bicycle-related aspects that slightly irritate me during my brief stay.

One is the ambiguity of the pedestrianised streets. Some streets are people only, but there’s some which allow bikes to pass through, and it’s not always clear which is which. On crowded weekends, people spill across the middle regardless because there’s plenty of people about and no cars. Sometimes the road area is the same level as the pavement, adding to the confusion as to whether one should look out for bikes or not. This means that one often hears cyclists ringing their bells to avoid running people over, and pedestrians constantly have to be on their guard.

Ringing a bell is not enough for some. A stern lady in her 70s with cut glass vowels cycles through one crowded area shouting “THIS IS A ROAD! THIS IS A ROAD!” She does this all the way along the street.

The other irritating aspect of the bicycles’ domination is the mirror of this scenario: cyclists taking to pavements in the normal streets. The ones that do allow cars. A couple of times I have to dodge bikes on the pavement while trying not to fall into the road to be hit by a car. On this occasion it’s clearly the cyclists that are in the wrong, though the bike-friendly air of the city must make it hard for them to resist going where the hell they like.

Outside King’s College, a young man is holding a white cardboard sign saying ‘FREE HUGS’. I presume he’s a student.

I don’t take him up on his offer, suspecting an ulterior motive. Perhaps something other than hugs is being advertised, or it’s one of those tiresome hidden camera stunts. Which is a shame, as I can never get enough hugs myself. I certainly prefer hugs to kisses on cheeks. With the latter, I never know if the person I’m meeting expects a peck on one cheek or both, or even on the lips. Or whether I should kiss them or they should kiss me, or both. And who should go first? It’s a very London dilemma. Frankly I’m surprised the Casualty wards of London aren’t stuffed with victims of forehead-collision who attempt this social manoeuvre without a stunt double.

At dinner, I mention the Free Hugs Boy to Michael Bywater. He remarks that by offering his services for free, the young man is ruining the hugs economy and skewing the hugs market.

He is hogging the hugging.

In Tomorrow’s Entry: Which BBC Breakfast DJ is related to me by marriage? Which Newsnight presenter phones me with career advice? And just how much does anyone really want to read about anyone else’s life: a biography publisher’s expert opinion.

It’s Sunday afternoon. On the way to a picnic on Jesus Green, Rowan Pelling asks me a very good question.

“Do you intend to live alone in a bedsit on benefits for the rest of your life?”

The answer is…

The answer is…

Oh, I’ve lost it again. I need a little guidance from well-wishers. I need focus in pursuing the Unusual Life I’m meant for, but with confidence and deliberation. I need Diary Angels.

I’ve tried Normal Life on so many occasions. By which I mean, doing a job you utterly feel at odds with purely for the money. It seems to work for many people, and I admire them immensely. But for me it’s living a lie to the point of nausea. I feel a trespasser. A fraud.

The World Of Work doesn’t like me very much. It brings out all my most useless qualities, though they make for quite good reading in a diary. It’s my Borderline Autistic Buffoon side that is brought to the fore in such jobs. I have spilt soup in an old lady’s lap when working as a waiter, and have been sacked. On more than one occasion, I have accidentally deleted an entire firm’s computer records, in circumstances bordering on the poltergeist-esque, and have been sacked. I have broken the frame of a priceless gilt mirror and kept quiet about it, but decided it was best to leave the employment of the museum in question, before it happened again and I was sacked. I didn’t break the mirror itself, just a bit of the frame.

Actually, I wonder how that works with the superstition about seven years bad luck? Because this would have been seven years ago.

I have been sacked from your basic office admin job. Admittedly, this was because I kept phoning in sick and deciding instead to go to the cinema or the park. I don’t really blame them for sacking me. But on most days, the idea of going into that office per se made me feel sick, so I phoned in sick. I was merely being honest.

I’ve just remembered that this office job involved being the secretary of a lady lawyer. The weird thing is, although she’d been to university and I hadn’t, I had a much larger vocabulary than she had. She would ask me how to spell words, and what words meant.

She once asked me, “Dickon, what does the word ‘pretentious’ mean?”

I resisted the temptation to reply, “You’re looking at a definition.”

I seemed over-qualified for the job, though I have no A Levels, let alone a degree. To remedy this, I have considered Adult Education, and enrolled for an Evening Class last year. But all I learned was that I have trouble working in a class environment, that I really need help meeting deadlines and finding an incentive to write (hence the Angels). And when the teacher of the class in question turned out to be someone I knew, whose pyjama party I’d once attended, it was hard not to take a hint from the universe. I was always closer to the teachers than the pupils.

At the age of 35, I have learned beyond a reasonable doubt that the World Of Work is mutually incompatible with me. It makes me ill, or I break valuable things, or computers mysteriously crash in my presence. We are better off without each other. It’s a waste of time all round, just adding to the amount of sackings in the world.

I cannot convincingly play the role of a normal person in a class, or a normal person in a group workplace. But I can be Dickon Edwards. So if we’re all agreed about that, it’s just a question of developing a work ethic and treating Being Dickon Edwards like any other job. The only problem is how to earn money from it, and how to develop it so it produces something people might want. And want to pay for.

Though I know some people regard my entire existence as a form of sarcasm, I am serious about the Diary Angels scheme. I no longer view the diary as busking with words. From now on, this is Work With Sponsorship. I write to a regular body of readers and seek to provide an interesting and unusual read which they cannot get anywhere else. Tales of dipping in and out of worlds, of being a London Dandy, of oddness against the world, of being the unlikely connection between many diverse people and social scenes. I feel I don’t particularly belong anywhere. This is my greatest hindrance, but also my greatest asset.

A select few (so far) are willing to show their appreciation, enjoyment, trust and support in a way that is both useful for me and gives me a concrete reason to sit down and write. They buy a year’s membership of Dickon’s Diary Angels. In return, they have given me a new sense of professionalism towards both the diary and my life. I’m now looking towards seriously getting off benefits from being Too Strange To Work, forever bubbling against the poverty line and living like things will always be this way. In ten years, the Angels are my biggest ever step towards permanently earning a living from writing and all other symptoms of Being DE, paying tax regularly instead of having to live off the tax of others.

Though I’m happy for others who like living that way, it’s not made me happy at all. I get emails from Professional Shirkers, telling me of all the dodges with which one can live well in London not just on benefits, but also claiming free Tube travel, getting one of the nicer council flats, all without employment. I realise one could argue that Professional Shirking is in itself as skilled a vocation as any real job. But I’ve done it for long enough now, and am appalled that the true Shirkers see me as one of their own. It’s nice not to have to endure the sullen choreography of the morning commute to do something I resent, but I’m not actually happy doing nothing with my life.

The truth is, Work does make me happy. As long as it’s work I can actually do without feeling out of place, and which people want me to do. Hence the Diary Angels.

My answer to Rowan Pelling’s question about whether I’m going to stay living like this to the grave, or change, is therefore contained within my pledges below. I am in the hands of the Angels.

THE ANGEL PLEDGES

I, Richard “Dickon” Edwards, being of almost sound mind and body, hereby make the following Pledges to my Diary Angels in this, the tenth year of my Online Public Diary.

1. I pledge to write a diary entry every day, comprising not less than 500 words. On a day when this is not possible, I pledge to write two entries the following day.

2. I pledge to treat it as if it were a formal commission for a professional publication. Though with the added benefit of not having to fit in with a house style or agenda. I can also write without fear of having an entry censored or delayed or rejected or edited to its detriment.

3. That said, I also pledge to be my own brutal whip-cracker of an editor, my own tutting sub-editor and my own wary libel lawyer. I will nag myself to meet my daily deadline, and strive to eschew self-indulgence or baffling references of little import to the wider world.

4. I pledge to write as if the whole world is reading, and as if whole worlds to come are reading too. I do not believe in ‘Friends Only’. All writing, if it is any good, is about inviting all possible readers for a one-to-one dance. Even those who do not like dancing. The writer merely provides the dance steps. Simply, I write to be read.

5. I view myself, and my diary – which is possibly the longest running blog in the UK – as public property, like a listed building that’s also a tourist attraction. Likewise, the Diary Angels are the equivalent of a donations box by the entrance or a ‘Friends’ association, keeping the diary free for others by contributing a subscription.

6. Other ways of viewing the Diary Angels are:
(a) A vote of support in the worth of Mr Edwards’s life and writing.
(b) Sponsoring A London Dandy.
(c) The Dickon Edwards Fan Club.
(d) A Tip Jar.
(e) Serious investors in artistic projects who are looking to see a return, like the Angels of Showbusiness.
(f) Keeping Mr Edwards away from the World Of Work so nothing more is broken.

7. I pledge to use this new discipline as a route to proper paid writing work outside of the Diary. In the hoped-for event of my finally earning a regular income from Being DE-related work, I will ensure all Angels receive something proportionate to their investment, or even just their money back. I also pledge to get off benefits, and stay off them.

8. Until that time, I pledge to listen to the Angels if they have comments about the Diary. Within reason.

9. When I put out new books or CDs or perform at events, said Angels will be offered free or discounted copies wherever possible. I also pledge to produce exclusive Angels-only items.

10. As a Sponsored Dandy, I pledge to always maintain my appearance with the diligence and zeal of any other worker’s uniform. I shall never leave the house without a tie or silk scarf. Even when I’m off to the laundry or the nearest shop, or going to have my hair cut. In the latter instance, I shall take a change of clothes to the hairdresser. Thankfully, she is also an Angel who cuts my hair at her flat.

Signed, this First Of May 2007,

Dickon Edwards

If you haven’t already done so, please consider making a donation using the PayPal button below. Amounts over £10 enroll you into the Diary Angels for one year.

Thank you!

In tomorrow’s entry: Cambridge, hugs, and being shouted at by old women on bicycles.

Saturday evening. I’m in Pizza Express, Jesus Lane, Cambridge. The restaurant is huge and plush with room after room of dark wood panelling, like a temple to the pizza. One table has a tab for the guests of the Cambridge Word Fest, whose main venue is the ADC Theatre next door. Different performers and authors appearing at the festival stop here to eat and drink and move on. I’m there with Rowan Pelling and the Decadent Cabaret lot when Billy Bragg suddenly appears and takes a seat, and chats to whoever is at the table that time.

What on earth do I say to Billy Bragg?

“Hullo, you’re Billy Bragg. You’ve made some great records.”

He probably knows that. Plus he’s here in a non-musical capacity, to discuss a book he’s got out about modern English identity. To ask him about his music when he’s here about his book, which I haven’t read, might annoy him. So I don’t say much after I’m introduced to him. Instead, I look on as he holds court at the dining table. He assumes people know who he is, as everyone around the table is introduced to him but he never says “I’m Billy” in return. I can’t decide whether this is rather arrogant, or alternately, if he thinks introducing himself is enormously patronising – an act of false modesty – and thus arrogant in that sense. After all, these are all fellow performers at a small book festival, and he’s one of the biggest names there, with a famous face and voice. It’s fair to assume they will know who he is without introduction.

What’s not in dispute is that he has an amazing sense of self-belief, as if he’s unlikely to ever admit he’s wrong about anything. Like Mr Geldof he’s a self-righteous bully; but in a good way, with good intentions. Most importantly of all, he’s funny with it.

“Phew! I’ve just come straight from Manchester. I was on the radio there, discussing the history of conscientious objectors,” he says as he sits down. And I’m struck by just how thick his Essex accent is. He is more like Billy Bragg than ever before.

Rowan Pelling asks him about a TV show he made with Boris Johnson about Glastonbury, and she confesses she’s never been to the festival. Mr Bragg tells her she really must go – at whatever age. I don’t say anything, but I’ve never been to Glastonbury either. I’m not sure if it’s very ‘me’. I fear all those people, and all that mud, would just make me more lonely, really. But if I ever received an invitation and had a nice travelling companion, I wouldn’t refuse. Put it that way.

Michael Bywater is a grumpy, Falstaffian, fogeyish, white-haired Character of a man with a capital ‘C’. At the dining table, he produces his black MacBook and revises a naughty piece to read at the Decadent Cabaret, typing away while the wine arrives. The event’s MC, Alex, reads it, but suggests cuts. He passes the laptop back to Mr B, and I note he’s indicated the cuts by highlighting them in translucent blue on the screen, using the word processing program. Very Proper Editor stuff.

I tell Mr Bywater that I recently saw his face on my own iBook. I had downloaded a torrent of The South Bank Show special on his friend Douglas Adams from about 1992, and he was in it as an actor, playing Dirk Gently. Pretty good casting, as he inspired the character in the first place. I tell him the name of the excellent torrent site, where you can also get the latest Have I Got News For You.

Me: You need to know how to work torrents, though.
Bywater: Oh, I know all about that.

When I get home, I look him up and find out he’s as big on computers as the late Mr Adams was: co-writing computer games with him, currently writing columns on technology for the Telegraph and so on. So yes, yes, he does know how to do torrents.

Among other things, we discuss the underrated 80s film Clockwise, and I’m pleased he likes it as much as I do. He points out two things I hadn’t noticed before. (1) That it follows the patterns of Aristotle’s tragedies to a tee. (2) That the shot of the schoolboy caught smoking in a doorway is a reference to The Third Man.

I recite my favourite Clockwise quotes. One from John Cleese’s character:

It’s not the despair. I can deal with the despair. It’s the hope.

And, from Penelope Wilton:

This is just like being nineteen again! (tearful pause) I HATED being nineteen!

Then Ali Smith’s party of celebrated lady authors arrives, and we’re all booted out to make way. I recognise Jackie Kay, but sense she’s a bit reserved and so don’t talk to her. But Ali Smith has a more open and friendly air about her, and doesn’t seem as haughty as your average literary figure. She seems to actually like meeting people, and has a rather magical glint in her eyes. So I go over to her as our party is leaving.

Me: Ms Smith, I just want to mention a connection we share which is vaguely interesting. We have both been the muse for songs by Mr Nick Currie, aka Momus.

She inspired his mid 80s song ‘Paper Wraps Rock’ and one other from the same period that escapes me. I inspired something from his 1997 period called ‘Pale Young Men’. Though he never released it, I like to think it counts. At least, when thinking of something vaguely interesting to say to noted authors.

We discuss the Tove Jansson book she wrote an introduction to, The Winter Book. She mentions there’s a new Jansson novel coming out in the same vein called Fair Play. Well, new to most British readers: Ms Jansson still insists on remaining dead, of course. And she offers to send me a copy. So I scribble down my address and thank her profusely.

Oh, look, 952 words already and still no Diary Angels Pledges. I have so much to say, tales to tell. It’s just as well that I now know there are definitely people out there who want to read these tales; enough to put coins into the slot of my mind.

In Tomorrow’s Entry: Mr Edwards lists his Pledges To The Angels at last.

No chance in Cambridge to write diary entries, so today the world gets two.

Sunday, 10pm. Back in Highgate. Phone back an odd voicemail message from an elderly couple, and it transpires they have a wrong number. Could I please go and let my Uncle Jack into his flat as he’s locked himself out? I have to shout down the phone to convince them I’m not the nephew in question.

“No, you’ve got the wrong number, really… I have no Uncle Jack. Well, actually I think there is a Great Uncle Jack in the family somewhere, but he’s either remote or mad or dead or fictional… No, my name is DICKON! DICKON! Do you have a Dickon in your family?”

“Oooh, no. No Dickon, no…”

“Well, there you go.”

I probably shouldn’t have shouted. But they did seem rather confused at the other end. I thought it only proper to alert them to their error so they could re-dial more carefully and chase the nephew in question. Hope Uncle Jack didn’t spend a night on the street.

Travelling on trains on a Sunday isn’t currently the Great British Escape it should be. Sunday is The Day Of Engineering Works, for trains which are already less frequent than normal. One often has to allow an extra hour or more.

I sit opposite a woman with artificially coloured hair who spends the hour-plus journey to Liverpool Street in silence, while I read and a young man to my right enjoys his iPod. I would love to say I wonder what he is listening to, but he’s already made it clear. The volume is high enough for the music to leak out and reach me. I can hear the drum patterns, and the guitars, and what the vocals sound like, if not what they are saying.

It is Heavy Metal, or perhaps Death Metal. And whether from an iPod earphone or not, it all sounds exactly the same to me. After a while, though, what initially threatens to be an hour-long irritation becomes curiously bearable. That the music all sounds the same to my ears means it’s like any other repetitive background noise, like traffic or the ticking of a clock, or the white noise of a fan heater or air conditioner. Its repetition actually becomes soothing, and even helps me concentrate on my reading.

As the train pulls into Liverpool St, the silent woman with the coloured hair suddenly speaks to me.

“I enjoyed your guitar playing.”

The event she means is my slot at the Decadent Cabaret at Cambridge Word Fest on Saturday night, the whole reason for this journey back. I’m thrown by both the unforeseen nature of her utterance and the meaning behind it.

She smiles and gets off the train.

Her words are the only thing said to me by another human being in the last hour and a half, though I’m surrounded by people on a packed train. And I start to go gently insane inside my head.

It’s always a combination of things that start my mad thought-streams off. Thoughts flailing through the haze of post-gig fatique, compounded with walking alone through miles of bicycle-saturated streets in Cambridge with a heavy guitar and overnight bag. Add to which the draining nature of negotiating Sunday Engineering Works on the railways and knowing the Northern Line on the Tube will be similarly affected. Top off with the effects of sleeping and rising in a hotel Family Bed by oneself, and of lately feeling more lost and alone in my life than ever before.

The thoughts gibber and panic, brooding on her words.

Just my GUITAR PLAYING? As in not my singing or the self-penned song I performed? (Rude Esperanto, off the Fosca album Diary Of An Antibody). Does she mean she dislikes my singing and songwriting, that I should do less of that and more guitar playing? How does that equate with the fact I’ve been sacked by three bands in the past for not being a good enough guitarist, and that even many of my guitar parts on Orlando and Fosca recordings are by someone more proficient on the instrument, with my full blessing? Or was she being sarcastic? That I was truly dreadful all round and I should know it, and in particular my guitar playing? I did mess up one of the chords… Was she being patronising and unkind, or kind and taking pity on me? Or was she drunk, and all bets are off?

What the HELL did she mean?

Why can’t ANYONE just say what the hell they really mean to me, for once?

(the universe gets its coat)

This is all temporary madness, of course, and I soon calm down. But it does hint at another reason I’ve set up the Diary Angels. It’s one thing to say “Dickon, I like your diary”. It’s another altogether to pay for it. Money is concrete proof of approval, of confidence, of encouragement, of enjoyment, of worth, of work done that’s not been a waste of time. Of wanting more, and more often.

It’s an unassailable reminder that if the better parts of my decade-old online diary were set down in text, say in a newspaper or magazine or book, some people out there do think it’s worth paying for. Most of whom I’ve never met. Ten pounds for 365 entries of at least 500 words each (as detailed in my forthcoming Pledges To The Diary Angels). Works out at 3p an entry, or 20p for a week’s worth. And no adverts, either. And as I have to make abundantly clear at all times I mention the Angels, it’s not even my idea. It’s something two separate readers have suggested. The price is their idea, too.

Next entry, to be posted later today: I finally make my Pledges to the Diary Angels. Plus I meet Billy Bragg, Michael Bywater and Ali Smith. And I tell the latter about something interesting that we have in common. Something she mustn’t hear from strangers too often.

Oh, and the second Fosca album’s title Diary of An Antibody is a reference to the Grossmith book. I suppose a proper antibody in the human world is a police officer or community worker, but I like to think this suits this the double-edged nature of many Fosca song narrators – or so I attempt, anyway. Everyone thinks they’re doing good, even when they’re doing bad. Or doing nothing.

I have a list of Pledges To The Diary Angels which I’m still honing, but it’ll have to wait till I get back from Cambridge tomorrow.

Yesterday: to the Flask pub in Highgate for drinks with Jennifer C, her boyfriend Chris, Bill M, and their friends Kate, Dan and Hannah. Have started to drink strawberry beer, which has begun to pop up in London bars. Terribly faddy of me, like limited edition chocolate bars. But I don’t entirely dislike it, so I drink it for now. If I order something I don’t entirely like, it’ll last longer than if I order a drink I entirely enjoy and wolf down in minutes. This is actually a variation on something in Andy Warhol’s book From A To B And Back Again. The Andy Warhol Diet is to only eat food you don’t entirely like, and therefore don’t finish, or at least don’t wolf down and ask for seconds.

Noted connections from Friday. While writing my diary, a ladybird crawls onto my hand. I pop into Archway Video and chat with Ms M, who mentions she sometimes leaves the house in her pyjamas, if she’s only popping out to the a shop for a few minutes. I presume this isn’t your actual classic stripey ensemble, but whatever casual layers she wears AS pyjamas.

Looking for a lightbulb in Archway Woolworths, I note the shop sound system is playing Savage Garden. That hit single from years ago that goes “I wanna stand… dum-dum-de-dum-dum, I wanna dum-dum-do-be-dum…” It’s the only pop music I hear all day.

Later at the Flask, we’re talking about relationships when Jen C tells me about a friend of hers dating the Savage Garden singer without realising who he was. She is wearing a ladybird brooch. And a kind of shawl affair which she tells me is effectively her pyjamas.

Jen’s friend Kate P co-edits the long-running literary magazine Ambit, which I’ve bought on occasion over the years. She gives me a gratis copy of the latest issue, No 188. As usual it’s a beautifully made, spined affair with colour plates; half magazine, half book. What I didn’t realise is that it’s put together in Highgate, near the woods. They have little literary parties at the other editor’s place there.

Some mail:

I’ve been idly flicking through some early installments of Dickon’s Diary; is there any way I can get hold of the early Fosca recordings you mention (‘Leopard of Lime Street’, ‘Girl Selfish’ etc)?

Not from me. Those are from my 1998 dark-haired rockist period, when I was trying to make music normal people might like. One should always have a go at being normal, just in case you can do it sincerely. It wasn’t really me though, and the bleach soon came out of the cupboard again. And the Nirvana-y rock songs went away. I’d wince to hear those recordings these days, though I have since recycled the tune to one of those two mentioned above, on the next Fosca album. Waste not.

From reader Mr M, whose idea the Diary Angels was (along with Victoria Clarke):

…asking at the end of the month just as people are getting paid by their slave owners was good timing.

Oh yes, I didn’t realise that.

Right, off to Cambridge I go.

My contretemps with the Hoxton venue owner wasn’t entirely represented by the dialogue set down in the previous entry. As with most arguments, there was more to it than the argument itself. I could sense he just didn’t like the look of me from the start, as one does, and I suspect he happily gave a free drink or two to performers he did like the look of. Particularly young women. It was a reminder, apart from anything else, that I’m not for everyone. You find that some people take a complete dislike to you above and beyond the call of duty, continuing to hold their position even when you try to befriend them and be nice to them, and listen to them.

I think the more you try to change someone’s opinion, the tighter they cling to it. People DO change their minds, but prefer to do it themselves, in their own time. The best you can do is shut the hell up. And give a friendly smile. And they may come around.

Rather than go into a doomed talk with the bar owner about the nature of work and fun and getting paid, I should have just said I didn’t have enough money to pay for the drink, apologised, and asked for tap water. He was hardly going to change his mind about his no-free-drinks rule, at least for me.

People rarely say “Oh, yes, you’re right, I’m wrong” in arguments. Which is such a shame, as most arguments descend into purely soliciting that very response. Once the different positions have been stated, that should really be it. A third party needs to then step in and change the subject, whether it’s the host of a panel TV programme like Question Time, or a moderator on a web forum. Otherwise it goes on and on and rarely ends tidily or happily. And it stops being about the argument and more about personal pride. Names are called. Apologies are demanded. Coats are gotten by everyone else.

There’s a wry internet adage known as Godwin’s Law, which states: ‘As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.’

I would add a new law along these lines: If someone doesn’t like you instinctively, they’ll look for reasons to justify it. Try not to give them any false ones by accident. Better to be disliked for what you are than for what you’re not.

But this also works the other way. If someone likes you instinctively, they’ll look for reasons to justify that too. There’s a Wendy Cope poem that goes something like, ‘You’re my favourite poet. And I quite like your poems too.’

However, it’s hard to dissuade people who like you for being something you’re not, if it’s something flattering that you can’t complain about. I’ve been called ‘flamboyant’, which I really don’t think I am compared to some of my more glitter-loving friends who go to clubs such as Stay Beautiful. But next to the average man on the street, I suppose I must be. Depends which street. Perhaps not Old Compton.

Equally, I’ve been called terribly clever and knowledgeable about all kinds of subjects. Which is nice, but isn’t entirely true. I know little bits here and there, particularly anecdotal connections and nuggets of trivia which light up the odd wirings of my mind. Some people are startled to discover I never went to university or even took ‘A’ levels. I evince the arrogance of the auto-didact. Which is just the sort of ridiculous thing someone like Dickon Edwards would say. It’s just as well I am me. And as Victoria Clarke says, ‘at a mere £10 a year, rather good value…’

Which brings me back to my rather rambling point about the Diary Angels.

Yesterday, I meet Victoria Mary Clarke in the Highgate Wood Cafe for a chat, and I tell her about the diary patronage scheme, which she suggested in the first place, echoed by another reader. She’s delighted about its success so far, consents to being on the Diary Angels list, and thinks I should contact a couple of her friends in the media about it. It might make an interesting story for a newspaper or even one of those ‘And Finally…’ TV news items. Particularly if you tie it in with the tenth anniversary of blogging, and the fact that this is the UK’s longest-running blog, until someone writes in to tell me otherwise. No one has, so I suppose I must be.

Not that I think the diary’s apparent Guinness Book Of Records-baiting longevity matters in any useful sense. It’s just another of those little nuggets of information that light up the odd wirings of my mind. Like the fact that the actress Hedy Lamarr, star of Samson And Delilah, invented WiFi. And Lord Byron’s daughter Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program. And there was a Canadian film about her starring Tilda Swinton which I’ve seen. And tripsolagnia means sexual arousal from having one’s hair shampooed. And I can help out my German friend Claudia when she asks:

They started this really funny 4-part series on BBC4 called Diary Of A Nobody – starring Hugh Bonneville as Mr. Pooter – a pompous Edwardian character who chronicled his daily life. Usually consisting of all sorts of mishaps. Do you know anything about this Mr. Pooter – what was so special about him that they would make a series about his life?

I tell her that Diary Of A Nobody is a work of fiction, a classic of British humorous writing from the late 19th century (so not Edwardian, strictly speaking, but it’s only a few years earlier). There’s even a word – ‘Pooteresque’, which means to be pompous and self-important in that very English, lower middle-class way. One running joke is that he lives in Holloway, which was then – as now – an unassuming, working-class to lower-middle-class district of North London. He is frequently looked down upon for it by those to whom postcodes matter more than personality, an element of Englishness which very much endures today. He also represents an early version of a familiar archetype in British comedy and tragicomic drama: the self-deluding, self-regarding and pompous protagonist. As seen in Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads (which has clearly inspired the BBC4 adaptation), or Michael Palin’s Arthur Putey character from Monty Python, or many of Mr Palin’s Ripping Yarns heroes, or Tony Hancock, or Adrian Mole, or Alan Partridge.

Pooter’s co-creator George Grossmith was also a famous comedian and actor of his day; he was in all the Gilbert and Sullivan operas as the one who gets the patter songs like ‘Modern Major General’ and ‘I Have A Little List’. He’s portrayed in Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy as a haughty star with his own dressing room and a secret drug habit, and was played by Martin Savage. Who in turn is better known as the overly camp scriptwriter from Ricky Gervais’s Extras… and so on.

All these little bits of information, whether useful or useless, just spill out of me.

(The generosity of the Diary Angels has spurred me into increased productivity. But no daily diary entry should be longer than 500 words. I shall stop at 1, 205 and continue tomorrow. Which is a very Pooter-esque thing to say.)

The list of Dickon’s Diary Angels has begun to grow, and my gratitude to those who have already sent donations. I’ll put up a Page For The Angels on the site shortly. Like the ‘angels’ of showbusiness, ie the investors in a new production, I am keeping careful records and intend there to be a proportional return, whether taking the form of free or exclusively discounted copies of future DE products, or something special in the vein of those fan club-only records some bands do. Perhaps a Diary Angels Christmas card is in order.

I’m truly honoured by the response from these Patrons, most of whom are people I’ve never met. I could say that, like Blanche Dubois, I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers. But that would be enormously insulting to the long-suffering generosity also shown to me by my friends and family.

A couple of people have said setting up what is effectively a DE Fan Club is a “great wheeze”, that it made them laugh with its own sheer nerve, and that to do so was worth £10 alone. I like the idea of stretching that to an extreme elsewhere. An audience of U2 fans in a stadium, all of whom are there out of sarcasm. People queuing up to get the latest Harry Potter book purely because they think JK Rowling has such a nerve, writing those books and expecting anyone to pay for them. “We only buy them and read them in order to humour her, the tragic, self-deluding booby.”

In discussions about work, money and fun, an example I always drag out is the famous fence-painting scene from Tom Sawyer. Tom manages to get out of a day’s work whitewashing a fence by implying to a group of passing boys that it’s the most enjoyable fun in the world, and they’re missing out. Eventually, the other boys not only paint his fence for free, but pay him for the privilege of doing so. I like the double way of looking at this scenario – the idea that anything that seems exclusive and fun can’t be work and vice versa, and then turning that around to comic effect.

He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while — plenty of company — and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn’t run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village. Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger- coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.

I once brought up a similar line of thinking in a disastrous conversation with the owner of a certain Hoxton venue, where I was performing for free.

Me: A glass of wine please.
Bar Owner: (pours it) £4.50, please.
Me: Um, am I allowed it for free? I’m onstage tonight, I’m not getting paid, and I can’t afford a drink otherwise.
Bar Owner: No, you can’t. You have to pay for drinks. But anyway, you perform for fun, don’t you?
Me: Well, yes, but entertaining is what I do. And one should get paid for what one does. Even if it’s only in drink.
Bar Owner: Ah, but you enjoy it. This is work. I have to make a living. So I can’t give drinks out for free.
Me: Well, how do you expect performers to perform for free?
Bar Owner: They enjoy it. In fact, I’m thinking of asking them to pay me for performing in my bar.
Me: Well, I’m asking you to pay me for entertaining your patrons. If only in drink, which costs you less than money.
Bar Owner: But you ENJOY doing it! So you shouldn’t get paid.
Me: Do you hate running a bar so much, then?
Bar Owner: Well, no, that’s not the point! Running a bar is hard work. I do it because I need to do something, I’m my own boss, the money’s good, and I really enjoy it.
Me: Well then.

An awkward pause. The bar owner grabs my arm, and takes me through to a room behind the bar.

Bar Owner: (menacingly) Look, you can buy this drink, or you can f— off out of my bar and stop taking f—ing liberties. I don’t need this.

He tips the £4.50 glass of wine down the sink. I go onstage, perform with zero enjoyment, then quietly leave, never to return. On the long bus ride home, I start to think about my life.

(entry to be continued)

There was an article in the Guardian the other day about blogging celebrating its’ tenth anniversary, the term coined in 1997. I do wonder if this diary is the UK’s longest-running blog. If anyone knows of a British online diary that ‘went live’ earlier than December 1997 and is still going today, please do tell me. It would be interesting to find out.

Am more penurious than usual. I could go into detail, but reading about other people’s lack of money bores me to tears. Suffice it to say that I write stiff letters to the various bodies and authorities who owe me and are dragging their heels, but take it no further. I suppose I could sit in some waiting room all afternoon and try to speed things up, or be put on hold on the phone for an hour, but really I’d rather spend this time doing something else. Stiff letters are my limit. I can pay the rent and just about eat, but anything else I have to be careful about.

I wonder if I’m the poorest person to book a table at the Ivy? I rather like the contrast of phoning the Ivy from a furnished bedsit where the larder only contains packets of noodles, 29p each from the corner shop. The booking was on behalf of Mr MacG, of course, but even so. There’s a certain tragic glamour to it all.

I mention to Rowan Pelling that I’m perhaps the most destitute person she knows. She buys me a few glasses of champagne and presents me with a full bottle of Hendricks Gin as payment for my DJ-ing stint a few months ago. This is at the Academy club in Lexington Street, Soho, and we’re here to discuss the Cambridge event on Saturday.

Haven’t been to the Academy before, but I love it. It’s one of those old-fashioned first floor Soho clubs which you have to know about rather than stumble into off the streets. Once you find the unmarked door, which could be to someone’s flat, you ring one of an ancient line of bells to be buzzed in and walk up a staircase past a ground floor sign on A4 paper pointing down the corridor, saying ‘Merchant Ivory Productions’. Yes, the same film company who make all those lavish costume dramas. I like the idea of ringing the wrong bell and ending up in some high-collared EM Forster adaptation.

Upstairs, the Academy Club turns out to be a lot like the Colony Room, with a cosy little bar area plus a few tables. Full of character and characters, with shelves of books, and a general air of unchanged 50s and 60s Soho. People at one table are playing a game of bridge on green baize. There’s a small terrier in a corner, which at one point lets out an unearthly yelp, presumably because someone’s trodden on his tail. It’s a noise only small dogs can make.

At one table, a man called Brock Norman Brock and another called Sam rehearse some songs for the Cambridge gig on accordion and banjo respectively, and it suits the Academy to a tee. I am told that one night here the tables were moved aside and Mr Brock wrestled the writer Sam North on the floor, half-naked, Fight Club style. Not over any disagreement, just for the members’ entertainment. Maybe that’s the next step for Beautiful & Damned – all-in wrestling. Or maybe not.

John Moore is also there for the meeting. I’ve been listening to the Jesus and Mary Chain singles compilation, and ask him which ones were his era. “April Skies“, he says. What a truly great song that is. And what great hair the band’s guitarist William Reid had: an impossible pile of gravity-challenging tousles.

Mr Moore currently writes for the Guardian music blog, who pay. I suppose I should really hustle and pitch to write a paying blog for some professional body too: my friend Rhodri Marsden does one for the Radio Times site. Or rather will be at some point – according to his personal blog, they’ve just put it back by six weeks. That’s the trouble with working for other people.

I’d rather just do this blog alone, where I choose what appears and where I’ve got uncensored control, and pursue some sort of sponsorship or patronage for the times I’m more hard up than usual. One idea suggested by a reader is setting up a Patrons Of DE page at dickonedwards.co.uk. People could become Diary Angels. The idea being, in return for their investment, I would promise to keep the blog up daily, and the patrons could have a say in the sort of things I write about. Within reason. And then when I do put out books or CDs or perform at events, they could get free or discounted copies. Maybe a minimum of £10 for a year, said reader proposes. Victoria Clarke has also suggested something similar.

Anyone who thinks I should just get a job clearly isn’t a regular reader. The World Of Work has never gotten on well with me, and the sentiment is mutual. Everything should be in its place. I may not be certain where my place is, but I do know where it isn’t. Being DE and writing about it has rather become my job. At least, at present.

So for now, here’s a Tip Jar in the form of a PayPal button. If you like this diary – all ten years of it – and you’re feeling kind, please consider showing your appreciation. Anyone sending £10 or more is automatically enrolled as a Diary Angel, and I’ll compile a list of names. Just like they do in fringe theatre programmes. You too can join Shane MacGowan and my parents in possibly the only thing they have in common.

Thank you!

Apropos of nothing, I watch the film Fight Club for the second time since it came out. This time, I view it with knowledge of the big plot twist, so it really is a different film. The twist itself is utterly ridiculous and doesn’t bear close inspection, but then one could say that about the entire film. It doesn’t matter, because the ideas themselves are so brilliant and original, thinking one step ahead all the time, that whether or not they could happen in real life is entirely by-the-by.  You just sit in awe of all the dazzling ideas and aphoristic wit. Wit of a rather different stripe than Oscar Wilde, certainly, but wit all the same. It’s a film that’s entirely high on its own world.

It’s also a brilliant adaptation of the Chuck Palahnuik novel: the director Mr Fincher  takes his murky, jittery Seven palette and paints the novel onto the screen, happily ignoring the popular film-making tip about never using a narrator. I think Mr P has said he takes a shop window-dressing approach to writing novels. You stuff the story with as many ideas as possible, with no padding. The more over-the-top, the better. He’s not to everyone’s taste, but I admire the way he writes. It’s as if he’s constantly terrified of the reader giving up and reading someone else’s work. You imagine a Chuck Palahnuik book that’s just been put down shouting “No! Wait! Come back! How DARE you!”

The opening idea in Fight Club of someone perfectly healthy attending support meetings for the terminally ill, out of a need to feel grateful for living, and then meeting a woman who’s doing the same, is enough in itself for many lesser writers and directors.  That Fight Club then fidgets and ploughs onto further ideas while the previous one is stilll sinking in, is all part of its brilliance.

I mentioned here the other day how much I get upset at any show of aggression in public, and here I am celebrating a film that’s rather full of aggression. Well, that’s they way I like it. In its place, in inspired and imaginative stories. Fight Club is as much a glittering fantasy as Lord Of The Rings.

A news story I rather enjoy, if only because of the closing quote (source: pinknews.co.uk):

The songwriter-cum born-again preacher George Hargreaves has accused the “pink press” of peddling hatred of Christians. Mr Hargreaves is standing as a candidate for his Scottish Christian Party in the Scottish parliamentary elections on May 3rd.

“This is not about gay rights, it’s about gay wrongs,” he told The Times. Mr Hargreaves has funded the SCP with royalties he continues to receive for co-writing and producing the 1980s anthem So Macho, sung by gay icon Sinitta… He defended the thousands of pounds he continues to earn every month from the hit song.

“It says in the Bible that so long as Earth remains there shall be seed time and harvest. You could say that So Macho was the seed I sowed and now I’m reaping the harvest,” he said.