Friday evening. I’m in the Queens pub in Crouch End with some friends. Charley S, Anna S, Suzi L, Rhoda B. Also at the table are friends of these friends: Ms Miriam, and the bleached-hair couple Ms Francesca and Mr Rory. And later we’re joined by Ms Miriam’s friend Mr Steve (it helps that to me he has a slight resemblance to Miranda’s boyfriend Steve in Sex & The City), and later still, Ms Seaneen and Mr Rob.

On introduction – or even re-introduction – I have a little difficulty getting the names right of some of the Friends of Friends. It’s always been a problem for me. My brain works in such an odd way that if I’m not in regular contact with someone, their face and name can just fade from memory completely. Someone I’ve met only in clubs looks completely different to me if I see them in the open air, or in daytime. They can be terribly annoyed with me if I can’t recognise them or recall their name.

It’s as if there’s only a limited amount of names and faces I can store in my memory, and too many of those spaces have been taken up by people on TV or in magazines or figures from literature and history, who don’t even have the courtesy of knowing who I am in return. I know how to spot AE Housman in a crowd, and indeed know exactly where he lived when he wrote A Shropshire Lad. Yet visiting my friend Anna S’s for my haircut yesterday, a place in Archway I visit fairly often, I still have to take a piece of paper with her address on. Admittedly there’s a blue plaque at the former building, and none at Anna’s flat. Though I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. “Dickon Edwards came here to have his hair cut”.

Despite meeting in the pub’s beer garden, we all have to move to a table indoors as the evening progresses. It’s currently deceptively sunny during the day, but really rather chilly after five. Charley looks positively upon these changes of the season, rejoicing that she’s just seen her first swift of the year. By way of contrast, Suzi L bemoans the first flying ant.

At one point in the evening there’s a sudden cloud of potential violence, as a man at the bar shouts at the staff “Don’t tell me what to do! No one tells me what to do!”

It looks as if he might throw his pint glass at someone – anyone. Or do worse. But thankfully he just storms out the door and the atmosphere is calm once more. What’s particularly unusual is his appearance – not your usual pub troublemaker in sports wear, with a convict’s haircut and a face that’s permanently screwed up in knife-edge anger at the world. This forty-something gentleman has long, almost pirate-like brown hair and an expensive black suit over an arty black jersey. This being Crouch End, he could well be a playwright that’s just had a terrible career setback. Or a hugely expensive divorce settlement that’s not gone his way.

Also in the pub I bump into Emily Dean. Which is a bit of a coincidence as it’s the same day her sister sends me a clipping from her rather fun ‘Giving Fag Hags A Voice’ column in Boyz Magazine. It says terribly nice things about me. Here it is. (click on the image to view the page as a PDF file).

You can see the white marabou shrug worn by her sister in the photo, the one donated by one of their mum’s oldest friends, the glamorous 70s pop star and hit songwriter Lynsey De Paul. One of my earliest TV pop memories was watching Ms De Paul and Mike Moran performing Rock Bottom, their Eurovision Song Contest entry for the UK. This would have been 1977. Other people remember Punk Rock, I remember Lynsey De Paul. Much as I love the Sex Pistols, between clothes passed on by Johnny Rotten and clothes passed on by Ms De Paul, I have to say the latter is more ‘me’. So I’m absolutely delighted to be in the presence of her shrug.

Rachael Dean adds:

“Over the years Lynsey has given us some classic pieces. Favourites include a peacock blue velvet, jewel- encrusted, bell bottom jumpsuit and a pair of bell bottom jeans with red feathers and beads sewn along the seams, and a couple of floor length mink coats (very Joan Collins in The Stud).

I’m in heaven amid such descriptions. Just typing the words ‘Lynsey De Paul’s white marabou shrug’ gives me an almost criminal sense of pleasure.

I once saw an early live version of Little Britain, where Matt Lucas played a male police officer called Inspector Lynsey De Paul. It was joke you either got and found funny or didn’t, like their naming of council estates after contestants from the 90s comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway, or calling a pub The Scarecrow And Mrs King. It’s a kind of Half Man Half Biscuit approach to comedy: names and references which can surely only make a limited amount of people smile.

Equally, last night’s Doctor Who had the Doctor ‘reversing the polarity’ of a wicked machine. This reference to the Jon Pertwee days would have made no difference to the viewing experience of most normal people, but the hardcore Doctor Who fans of a certain age would have been terribly pleased.

The Boyz photo is from a DJ gig I was booked to do for the Dean sisters, the same evening I returned from Tangier. I think I look pretty good considering I’d been awake for nearly 72 hours and had just flown in from Africa. I haven’t smoked since then, so the photo also features my last cigarette. Well, up to now.

I’m fairly sure this is my third appearance in Boyz Magazine, the lively if naughty weekly magazine supplied free to gay bars and clubs in the UK. The first time was as part of the band Orlando, the second as part of Fosca in a piece on Club V, and now I suppose this is the Third Age Of Dickon Edwards: dandy and occasional DJ until I can find something else to be Best Known For. Not that I’ve quite finished with Fosca, though.

The editor of Boyz used to be a chap called Hudson, who wore a Parka and was very much into indie music and guitar rock, rather than the more stereotypical choices of the average gay club attendee – techno, Kylie, trance, disco. Essentially, repetitive dance music made by computers for sweaty gentlemen to frolic to. Though the 90s did see the coming of clubs like Popstarz where Uranist boys were allowed to enjoy Blur and The Strokes, I don’t think the tide was ever completely turned in this direction.

But it did mean that for years Boyz happily featured indie guitar bands alongside the latest news on whatever DJ remixes were ‘having it large’ in the clubs. There’d be an interview with some band, and then a large pull-out photo of a young gentlemen appearing only as Nature intended him, for the purposes of what society used to call Against Nature.

The last section of the magazine was always a generous helping of pages containing adverts for the kind of pleasures one would expect in a colourful gay publication. The bands come and go, and the DJs come and go, but the adverts always stay the same.

Lynsey De Paul’s white marabou shrug. Me. The same paragraph.

Happiness.

(more on the provenance of this clipping tomorrow)

P.S. The next Beautiful & Damned is May 24th.

Just back from the doctor’s, where I am given a second gentle grilling by the ADHD specialist in the presence of my GP. He’s delighted that I’ve managed to get down to a new work discipline with the diary, with the help of the sponsorship scheme. It proves I can focus on one thing and get it done, and on a daily basis. Which rather negates any ADHD de facto. That’s one thing cleared up.

I also don’t appear to be quite as depressed any more. They both remark on a real outward change since they last saw me. Well, what can I say? It’s the Diary Angels sponsorship: not charity or benefits but investment in work I can do, work which only I can do, work which I take pride in, and work which I work AT. We’re back to the stadium full of U2 fans who are there out of pity or sarcasm. Less an idea for a comedy sketch, more a philosophical model about the reasons why people part with a little of their money and time for some things, while other things are free.

Some people make sense of their life through anti-depressive drugs, some do so through routine, some with religion and some with the love of a significant other. I’ve tried the first one (and preferred not to), feel the second one isn’t enough, haven’t found a calling for the third, and haven’t had much luck with the fourth. Yet. One thing at a time. But the Diary Angels works for me. It just took me ten years to find out.

Money should never just be meagre compensation for time wasted doing something you hate, which is the way I viewed it while doing all those minimum wage jobs in the past. It should be a due reward for worthwhile work done well.

I’m reminded of a terse conversation with my boss at the Bristol accountancy firm I once worked at. He passed by my desk, dumped a huge amount of documents on it and told me to process them by lunchtime.

I must have pulled an expression of sheer unhappiness.

Boss: What’s the matter?

And then I made a mistake. I gave him an honest answer. Which was the wrong answer.

Me: Um, I’d really rather not do this.

This is an example of my occasional bouts of disastrous honesty. You can either interpret them as a yen for the philosophical, or a touch of Asperger’s, or both. These days, I’m a lot better at this particularly adult game. Every day, I find a new way of politely saying ‘no’ to something without actually saying ‘no’. They should really put it on the school curriculum. But I digress.

Me: Um, I’d really rather not do this.
Boss: (suddenly angry) WELL THAT’S JUST WHY YOU’RE BEING PAID AND NOT DOING IT FOR FREE, THEN, ISN’T IT!

He stormed off, and I was sacked the following week. Which I can understand. The pile of documents didn’t need me and me only to do them. There was no way I could have processed them in a particularly Dickon Edwards style. In fact, I tended to make more mistakes than the average typist, which on statements of figures is particularly crucial. I was bad at my job, and had no desire to become better. I admire all those who can hold down jobs they’d rather not do, but persevere purely for the money. I’m just not one of them.

At our first meeting, the ADHD specialist had suggested that I consider becoming a mature student and get myself an English degree. This would give me a sense of improvement and purpose, bring ‘closure’ to my dropping-out at 17 when I was trying for Oxford or Cambridge, and I could then, he said, work towards becoming a teacher. To be fair this was only on his first impression of me. I have the air of someone who knows about things; hence teaching.

But from my time in the evening class last year, I know I’m just no good in a class environment, whether as student or teacher. I’ve written before about my inclination to befriend the teacher against my fellow students – and how the universe responded at the evening class by sending a teacher who happened to already BE a friend.

As for me teaching, well that WOULD be a comedy sketch. Every third utteration of mine would be something searingly inappropriate or irrelevant. Interesting, certainly. But I would be sacked. Actually, that’s more or less what Richard Griffiths’s character is like in The History Boys. The students have an inspirational figure, but at what cost to him?

Today, I realise there are types of work I CAN do, which people want me to do, and which I want to do. Not typing up accounts for huge companies, badly. Not teaching, badly.

Something like this.

Well.

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.)