I feel it’s about time I thanked a few people for recent help and generosity.

Thanks be to, in no particular order:

The London Library Trust, for approving my application to one of their grants, without which I couldn’t have afforded the membership fee. It probably wasn’t the President himself, Tom Stoppard, who handled the application. But I like to think it was.

Dr. Lesley Hall, for being my referee in the above application.

Mr Neil Scott, for maintaining and upgrading this website, transferring it to the new hosting server, and for generally knowing about such things.

Mr Rhodri Marsden, for providing the aforementioned new hosting and associated help.

Le Cool London, for calling me ‘one of London’s favourite characters’.

Mr Julian Lawton for putting ‘Scorpio Rising’ onto DVD for me.

Mr Gary Cook, for designing the current Beautiful & Damned flyer.

Mr Lawrence Gullo, for the flyer before that.

Mr Laurence A Hughes, for remote-control guidance and discipline.

Mr T Chipping, for sending me the Sondheim interview and massive hardback biography of Diana Ross.

Mr Gerry O’Boyle, Miss Red, Miss Lou and all at The Boogaloo for their continuing kindness and patronage in general.

Mr MacGowan and Ms Clarke for their supreme generosity.

… and my long-suffering mother and father who have frequently, suffice it to say, kept me Out Of Trouble. Or at least, the more dull forms of Trouble.

And that’s just the most recent lot.

Thank you.

I’ve been interviewed by the trendy online magazine, Le Cool London.

Here’s the introduction:

If you’ve encountered an extremely blonde man and thought you’d backtracked into Brideshead, then you’ve met Dickon Edwards. One of London’s favourite characters, this contemporary flâneur makes a living – just – through doing very little other than being himself.

.

The interview is here

Photo by Tom Medway.

To a screening of Black Gold, a brilliant documentary about the connection betwen African poverty and unfair trade in the global coffee industry. It hopes to do for Starbucks what Supersize Me did for McDonalds. Everyone who buys coffee should visit www.blackgoldmovie.com.

In the New Piccadilly Cafe, which is handy for The London Library, the band Friends Of The Bride are having their photo taken. They are young and gorgeously dressed in sharp suits, and they say hello to me. I don’t know them, but they saw I mentioned them favourably in the diary.

I’m trying to recall other people who’ve said hello to me in the streets of London lately. They stop me, rather than the other war round. I prefer it that way. I’ve long since banned myself from bothering others. I’m always happy to meet people, but never assume people are always happy to meet me. I think you have to be in a DE mood to say hello to me. Anyway:

Phil King, a friendly foppish muso chap who gets everywhere. Stops me on Oxford Street to say hi. He’s rehearsing with the newly-reformed Jesus & Mary Chain, playing bass. Off to Palm Springs. Beat that, indeed.

Sina Shamsivari, comic artist and illustrator specialising in gay-themed work. He’s now lecturing in Queer Studies. Stops me on Charing Cross Road, and as he does so the drag queen singing in Molly Moggs opposite walks out of the pub and sings to passers by, radio mic in hand. Mr Sina clearly has the power to make a whole street gayer.

Billy, the Glam Lesbian from the post-Romo, Club Kitten days. Stops me at the lights by Angel. I think there was a time when I must have said just the wrong thing to her, because for years I’m sure she blanked me at parties. Then I think I must have said just the right thing to her, because she doesn’t blank me anymore. Anyway, always nice to see her. And anyone. I like being hailed kindly.

As opposed to the other sort of being hailed. Crossing Angel again, a man says “Chase me! Chase me!” in a camp voice to his girlfriend as they pass me. She giggles. Bit of an ancient catcall that one: Duncan Norvelle.

Ah well, I suppose I do dress like an idiot’s idea of a homosexual.

***

Some quotes from Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader:

Patron of the London Library she had seldom set foot in it and neither, of course, had Norman, but he came back full of wonder and excitement at how old-fashioned it was, saying it was the sort of library he had only read about in books and had thought confined to the past. He had wandered through its labyrinthine stacks marvelling that these were all books that he (or rather She) could borrow at will.

Which is entirely true. I got lost in the LL’s stacks on my first visit. Once you become a member, they let you loose among the step ladders and ancient shelves.

On the briefings for people meeting HMQ at the openings of swimming pools and the like:

‘Her Majesty may well ask you if you have had far to come. Have your answer ready and then possibly go on to say whether you came by train or by car… You get the idea? Small talk.’

Mundane though these conversations might be they had the merit of being predictable and above all brief, affording Her Majesty plenty of opportunities to cut the exchange short. That perhaps the most eagerly anticipated conversation of their lives had only amounted to a discussion of the coned-off sections of the M6 hardly mattered. They had met the Queen and she had spoken to them and everyone got away on time.

A couple of already familiar Bennett sayings:

You don’t put your life into books. You find it there.

And, said while HMQ glumly contemplates all the classics she’s never read:

I’ll never catch up.

Joe Orton says this in the Bennett-scripted film Prick Up Your Ears. I’m pretty sure one of The History Boys says it, too. A truly Alan Bennetty sentiment if ever there was one.

It’s also the first time Alan Bennett has written about eBay. Which nearly had me falling off my chair.

Alan Bennett’s just sprung a brand new story on the world, published exclusively in the current issue of the London Review Of Books. Doubtless it’ll later emerge as a little Profile Books volume, BBC audiobook, Radio 4 serialisation, and eventually end up in some anthology, as Mr B’s work is as repackaged and reissued as, oh, The Beatles. He has a pretty unique position as an intellectually rated author who can also take on the Harry Potters and the Da Vinci Codes in the bestseller charts.

His new story is called The Uncommon Reader, and muses on The Queen becoming an avid bookworm in recent years, a move which upsets her staff and Government. Rather timely given the success of the Helen Mirren film, though Mr Bennett has put words into HMQ’s mouth before, in A Question Of Attribution.

In both cases, the Monarch is the heroine, and is as sharp and as witty as a Noel Coward character. Is it patronising to make The Queen wittier and funnier than she could possibly be in real life? Than anyone could possibly be in real life?

Alan Bennett’s tale asks, what if The Queen suddenly stopped exchanging small talk with local dignitaries on all those visits, and started discussing Proust or Jean Genet with them. I do wonder if the real Queen will read it, and what she will make of it, just as I wonder what she makes of the Mirren film. The Palace is reportedly keen to set up some official reception to meet Dame M post-Oscars, so presumably she approves of the latter. But what about a tale where it’s implied Elizabeth R lacks a strong, individual voice and needs to become better-read in order to find it? Well, it’s certainly an interesting idea, and beautifully told. The story also features the London Library, which I’ve joined as of today.

An email from an Orlando fan:

I’ve just been hearing part of Blueboy’s Unisex album… I always consider that to be a kind of brother/sister album to Orlando’s Passive Soul, although I’d concede that any similarities are lyrical rather than musical.

That’s interesting. I’ve certainly been a gushing fan of the band Blueboy (once of Sarah Records), and occasionally even find myself idly picking out their song Popkiss on the guitar. I’ve never sat down to write a Blueboy-esque song, but it’s fair to say their lyrical influences cross over with mine. The usual suspects.

I promised an old friend that I’d find her a copy of Passive Soul one day, without her having to pay silly money… What I found on www.amazon.co.uk rather skewed my idea of things. There are two copies for sale, and the asking prices aren’t quite as daft as I’ve seen, but they’re still above what most people would call remotely sensible.

Indeed. And ‘Orlando (Artist)” indeed.

Given that there seem to be so few copies of Passive Soul in existence, wouldn’t it have been fun to hand-number them all, like art prints? With the tenth anniversary of the album’s release this year, how about your offering to hand-number copies for anyone prepared to send theirs to you?

Not my sort of wheeze, but I appreciate your appreciation. I remember some Belle And Sebastian fans once set up an online register of all 1000 copies of ‘Tigermilk’ in its original pressing, but there’s more to life than numbering things and making lists, isn’t there? Don’t tell Channel 4. Or any of the more bearded music magazines.

As for procuring a copy of Passive Soul at a less silly price, all I can suggest is to write to Warners UK and ask them very nicely to re-issue it or license it to a re-issue label, pointing out the price it goes for as a rare CD. I suppose it can’t do any harm. Extreme optimism has a certain beauty, doesn’t it? I say that as a Green Party member.

Orlando’s Passive Soul album. Ten years on.

No, I can’t really feel anything about that. Like birthdays, you don’t feel it, you’re just told it. But I’m glad the album is being listened to in 2007, or even thought about being listened to.

Friday – to the offices of North One TV in Islington, to meet a couple of producers. It’s a bona fide company: they’ve made all manner of jolly programmes in the entertainment and factual sphere of things. It wasn’t, I was relieved to have confirmed, some single dingy office on the third floor where I was quickly asked to take my clothes off ‘for the role’.

They’d spotted me on the Yentob programme last December, and wanted to talk about the possibility of me either presenting or contributing to future TV projects. The meeting goes okay: notes are taken. I think I did okay, but how can you tell? No one died.

At present, I don’t have any single burning vocational projects in mind to foist upon the viewing public, but I do have lots of little suggestions, so I make those. My slant on culture in general, Modern Englishness, how to be young – or not care about not being young, how to be happy, the importance of avoiding the crowd, outsider writers, cult British films, underground authors; essentially, a TV extension of this diary. I go away promising to keep them posted as to further ideas. One thing I do want to do is practice my public speaking technique, and speaking to camera. I was thinking of investing in some easy-to-use digital affair – a webcam, perhaps. But it would probably be better if I recorded with someone else at the camera. Maybe I could do a bit of both. Put up a few examples on YouTube, which this week has just gone legit with the BBC.

I’ve found that although I’m often nervous and prone to gabbling and stammering with people, with cameras I actually tend to become more still and composed. And indeed, posed without the ‘com’. Ask anyone who’s taken my photo.

I think this may be because with people, I’m always thinking they might be about to hit me. Camera operators can still hit you – not least with the camera itself. But there’s more chance of being able to get a head start in running away.

In the evening I phone The Ivy and book a table, even though the reservation line is closed.

Well, yes, it’s not my name that does it, but Mr MacG’s, who’s invited me out. He’d been to see Equus – the one with Harry Potter, naturally – and had stormed out halfway through, because his seat was one of those actually on the stage, and apparently you’re not allowed to have drinks there. If, as I understand it, the bulk of the auditorium can see this section of the audience in the darkened background, I rather think Mr MacGowan would have upstaged the proceedings regardless. As it was, he told the staff “I’m not ready for another Nazi Germany… yet.” and left.

It’s the “…yet” that makes the quote funnier.

So I join him and Ms Clarke at the Ivy afterwards, and have one of the best meals I’ve had for some time. Wine, fish, more fish, more wine. Dessert is frozen Scandinavian berries in a hot white chocolate sauce. Absolute heaven. I take a look around, but it seems we’re the most famous people here tonight, disappointingly enough. “Probably all at Ms Hurley’s wedding”, says my mother, when I phone her later.

So what IS the celebrity-favoured Ivy restaurant like? Well, once you get pass the top-hatted man on the door and get downstairs, the food is fantastic, and the staff are friendly and well-dressed (as opposed to just smartly dressed), and it actually doesn’t feel terribly exclusive or snooty, just a really nice place to go for a meal. That happens to be hard to get a table for. Most of the clientele tonight are just fairly ordinary-looking people with money.

On the way out, I’m struck by the flash bulbs of a couple of paparazzi photographers, who must be having a quieter night than usual. Their flashes are a thousand times whiter and brighter than your average camera. They really want to get some shots of Shane, of course, which if used will doubtlessly be captioned with the word ‘hellraiser’.

We repair, as ever, to the barstools of the packed Boogaloo. At chucking-out time, a bevy of young people whip out their camera phones and actually queue up to get their photos taken with Shane MacGowan. I’m used to seeing this happen once or twice, but not an actual queue. And I wonder how many of them are actual fans, and how many are just keen to photograph themselves next to a celebrity per se, whether it’s Sue Pollard or Robert De Niro. All famous people are the same to some: tourist attractions. Still, he doesn’t seem to mind. At least, not tonight.

A fair amount of such photos must feature the drunk young person in question grinning happily, next to Shane MacGowan grinning graciously, next to me glowering in supremely haughty irritation. The irritation, it shames me to admit, is probably less because my friend is being bothered by strangers, and more because I really want them to photograph… me.

By this point, I’m pretty drunk myself. And when this queue of Shane-snappers continues and I mutter “not another one”, I clearly do it too loudly. Because one tipsy young woman bleats defensively to me, “But I don’t want to take a photo, I just want to talk to him. That’s better, isn’t it? That’s better.”

Am writing this all alone in the Coleridge Room at the top floor of the Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution, which I’ve just joined.

As a library junkie, I’d been in a mood for joining a Secret Library or two for some time. Well, by secret, I mean independent subscription libraries, but there’s the same atmosphere. You pay up for the year ahead (and in the case of the London Library, obtain a reference to prove you’re vaguely decent AND pay), then browse, read and write in studious comfort without the encumbrances of many public lending libraries: the trilling of mobile phones, the odour of fallen men, the chatter of loose children. There’s also the sense of commitment and dedication: if you’ve actually paid to join a library, you better damn well use it.

I’d also worked out that I’d been spending a fair amount of money in the free libraries anyway: on fines for late books at my local public outlets, and on the pricey Wifi service at the British Library. With subscription libraries there’s no fines, and free Wifi.

So here I am at the HL&SI, off Pond Square. It’s a curious entity, somewhere between a village hall, a Women’s Institute, and a gentleman’s club, with a library attached deep within the building. There’s all kinds of lectures, film societies, classes, art exhibitions and so forth. But I’m more interested in the Secret Library and the Members’ Room, with its newspapers and open fire.

On entering the place today, I bump into my neighbour Ms L from upstairs. With outrageous synchronicity, she’s decided to join up too. I can only assume we gave each other the same idea telepathically through the ceiling that separates our beds. Or that we had it programmed into us during the night by an alien who works part time for the Institution.

Ms L says she used to naughtily sneak into the place when the door was opened by an exiting  member, in order to sample the heating, the big armchairs, the lovely fire and the decent selection of newspapers. She was found out and asked to leave. But clearly there’s no hard feelings and they’ve let her join legitimately.

Evening – to the Apollo Lower Regent St, for a press screening of Sunshine. This is the new sci-fi film from the 28 Days Later team: director Danny Boyle, screenwriter Alex Garland, star Cillian Murphy. Best summed up by a comment overheard on exiting:

“I had no idea space was so noisy.”

Just a test post to check the diary is working on the new server. Excuse me.

Ms W the life model tells me about her recent work posing for the artists of London. Some are famous: she’s been to Bridget Riley’s house to sit for her. Synonymous with those much-reproduced mathematical abstract works in her name, it transpires Ms Riley is keen to rediscover the more old-fashioned art of drawing or painting nudes. While Ms W was there, a package arrived for the great artist: an original Renoir, newly purchased for her own private collection.

Ms Riley preferred silence or conversation for the sessions, but some artists like to have music on in the background while they daub at the canvas. According to Ms W, art teachers in schools and colleges often go for albums by wispy girl singer-songwriters such as Dido or Norah Jones. “Girl singers who look like art teachers’ girlfriends,” she muses. While, indeed, she muses.

She says that sculptors, on the other hand, prefer Led Zeppelin or ranting on about conspiracy theories. Or both.

Feb 21st: My brother’s Tom’s birthday, who shares it with WH Auden.

Today is the 100th anniversary of Auden’s birth, and I watch an unusually old-fashioned South Bank Show from the weekend about the dead poet in question. Various solemn talking heads all queue up to sing his praises, which is fair enough, including Andrew Motion, the Laureate who seems happy to come across as more of a poetry groupie than a poet in his own right. Just like he did at the Betjeman plaque ceremony, he can’t resist mentioning that he met Auden in person. “It was like meeting God.” I can’t help thinking that Mr Motion sees himself as a carrier of the classic British poet torch if only because his surname ends in an ‘n’ sound.

Lark-in. Aud-en. Betjem-en. Mo-tion.

More endearing, as ever, is Alan Bennett. He appears on this TV celebration to confess that he actually prefers other poets and doesn’t always get what Auden is on about: (paraphrasing a little)

Alan Bennett: The fact you don’t quite know what the poems always mean adds to the fascination.

Melvyn Bragg: Why is that, do you think?

AB: Well… (he flinches with slight irritation, as if his answer was enough)… it’s the same principle as why the Book Of Common Prayer is a magical book, because you don’t always understand what the prayers mean.

MB: So where is Auden on this… pecking list of favourites?

AB: Well… I’m lazy, and you can’t be lazy and just pick it up as you can with Larkin. Larkin has you by the hand throughout the poem. With Auden you have to concentrate on it to find out what it means, at least with the longer poems. So I don’t get as much pleasure out of Auden as I do out of Betjeman or Larkin. But I think he’s probably got more clout and not merely because you don’t always understand him.

(satisfied pause)

MB: Why, then?

AB: Oh Melvyn! (laughs, shrinks visibly into chair) Oh…. Um… Oh… I don’t know! Poems and discussions like The Sea And The Mirror… I’ve no idea what they’re about. Commentators have said there’s wonderful things in them, but… they need far more work than I’m prepared to put in…!

MB: I’m very relieved to hear you say that.

(both laugh)

That said, Mr Bennett goes on to impressively recite an Auden poem from memory: his memorial to Yeats.

The programme also features some fascinating interview footage of Auden himself, constantly interrupting the presenters’ questions mid-sentence, like a big rude old prune. He’s happily puffing away on a fag, a vintage TV detail that’s instantly shocking these days. It’s an old clip, we can tell, not because we know the interviewee is dead, but because we can see he is smoking. I think that famous 90s Dennis Potter interview where he’s terminally ill – swigging from a flask of morphine AND smoking – must be one of the last instances.

Auden’s disowning of one of his biggest hit poems, ‘1st September 1939’, makes him seem like the George Lucas of poetry. It’s the one about war with that incredibly simple yet powerful line, much quoted in times of mass grief or fear, such as 9/11:

we must love one another

or die.

Yet Auden himself later found the poem too simple, and jejune, and actually requested it to be omitted from the Collected Works published in his lifetime. “It doesn’t even make sense!” he splutters during one interview. “We must love one another and die ANYWAY, for a start.”

Ridiculous behaviour. If you’re lucky enough to create something that becomes loved by the public, it no longer belongs to you. You can collect the royalties, sure, but you no longer have the right to mess with it, like Mr Lucas messed with the Star Wars films. You may create a world, but fans live in it. It belongs to them now, not you. Box sets of rock CDs must be curated and overseen by fans, never by the original artists. ‘Director’s Cuts’ of perfectly successful movies must be viewed with suspicion. People liked it: so you mustn’t mess with the bits they liked.

we must love one another

or die.

Another favourite line (from Auden’s memorial for Freud) which I find equally inspiring:

able to approach the future as a friend

without a wardrobe of excuses

Why do I bother even checking my Myspace messages, when most of them are either along the lines of this:

“Hey, I noticed in your profile that your [sic] into interesting music,
you may like to check out ours…”

Or:

“Do you want to track who is visiting your MySpace page? Sign up here.”

Or:

“This user has had their profile deleted before you’ve even read their message. A waste of time all round, really, isn’t it?”

I have a perfectly serviceable email address. Quite why this has to be eschewed in favour of a message system that’s saturated with ads and doesn’t even work properly is beyond me. My MySpace profile even tells people I only regularly check my direct email, not my MS page. And yet, I get streams of pointless advertising and bored souls suddenly popping out of the ether to tell me they quite like my funny name, or my funny look, or that they quite like one of my favourite films. Direct email has more consideration, in every sense. Which surely makes it more attractive. Consideration and deliberation.

I would delete the page, but feel I should hang onto it for the same reason I hang onto a mobile phone. It’s not so much going with the crowd – which is the very reverse of my philosophy – but knowing that you must never turn your back on the crowd’s preferred methods of communication. You have to be contactable on others’ terms, in order to exist on yours.

My three DJ gigs last week were all very enjoyable. I’m not exactly one of those DJs who show off their mixing and matching of tempos and the like – I just play records.

I suppose I’m a DJ who doesn’t like DJ culture (which is also the name of a rather tuneless single by the Pet Shop Boys). I can barely bring myself to even type the phrase ‘mash up’, let alone attempt such a thing on the ‘decks’. My aloofness helps – I like to think I’m playing to the one person in the room who feels the most alone. It’s all too easy to feel alone in a crowded room, far more so than when you’re at home by yourself.

At How Does It Feel on Sat, I manage to play Judy Garland, Ute Lemper, Bugsy Malone selections and so on alongside the Chills ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ and Dressy Bessy’s fantastically sassy two-chord delight, ‘Girl, You Shout’, with HDIF host Ian Watson’s specific encouragement. He pointed out that the whole idea of being a guest DJ is that you play the sort of thing a club doesn’t normally hear. That said, I was torn between playing what I wanted to hear, and what I thought people would get up and dance to. Still found myself reaching lazily for ‘Roadrunner’ when I should have gone with Dory Previn’s ‘Yada Yada La Scala’ or the Shock Headed Peters’ ‘I Bloodbrother Be’. Next time, I’ll be more assertive. This Thursday is Beautiful & Damned, and if I can’t be assertive in my own club, where can I be?

The aloofness also helps bat off people requesting something you haven’t got. I’m getting quite good at maintaining an expression evincing something along the lines of “I suspect you’re going to ask me to play something I haven’t got. Don’t even think it. I am not of your world. Not with those shoes.”

Taylor Parkes tells me of his newly born son. For the name, I suggested Dickon. It was worth a shot. He’s toying with ‘Mohammed’, if only to make life more interesting; the boy is Caucasian. He was joking.

I’m happy for Mr P, though I wonder if this means he’ll gradually revise his social circle to increase the parent to childless wastrel ratio among his friends, as many parents naturally do. Most of my acquaintances are childless, even the ones over 35. It’s not that I find the childless more interesting, it’s that people with children rarely seek to know me. Babies are narcissists by default, and I’m a narcissist by admission. There may be a conflict of self-interest.

Actual children I tend to get on with, having baby sat for years, though never for actual babies. It’s the under 3s I can’t deal with. All that lying in bed and screaming for undeserved attention: I get enough of that at home.

What does fascinate me is the business of naming. If you don’t name your child within six weeks of its birth, the Government fines you. And then, I wonder, does it allocate a name itself, like orphans and foundlings, going through the alphabet? “We’re up to C. We haven’t had a Carruthers in this parish for a while, so…”