From the Radio Times website:

TUESDAY 5th DECEMBER
BBC1 London & South East
10:35pm – 11:25pm

“Alan Yentob journeys into the world wide web to find out how it began, who’s out there, and where it’s taking us. He meets Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the web, and explores how Lee’s creativity has fuelled the creativity of millions of others – such as Dandy blogger Dickon Edwards and sex blogger Abby Lee, the hardcore members of the Arctic Monkeys message board, masked animator David Firth, and Ewan Macdonald, the young Scot who wrote the millionth entry in Wikipedia.”

So I’d better start writing entries more regularly, then. Maybe this is the slap up the arse I need. Or is it a kick in the face? I always get those confused.

Saw Dad last Friday in Suffolk. He seems pretty much his old self now, and is recovering slowly at home. The only lasting damage from the dreaded stroke is a lack of grip in his drawing hand, and severe fatigue, though he’s not bed bound. It seems entirely possible that these symptoms will improve too, though it has meant his 70th birthday bash I was to DJ at has had to be postponed till another time. I put all the songs he’d requested for this occasion onto one CD compilation, and included it with his birthday present. Which was a DVD of Miyasaki’s ‘Porco Rosso’, as he’d ogled it when we were last out shopping in London.

Happy 70th Birthday for tomorrow, Brian ‘Bib’ Edwards.

Let’s get my own ailment stuff out of the way, as it’s so boring when people bang on about their health. Forgive me. But I do feel that writing it down helps to purge it from the ever-babbling maelstrom of anxiety in my mind.

Have been feeling a bit sorry for myself lately, and thus have neglected my diary. The aches and pains are still there, despite my bodily fluids being tested for everything possible (all clear), along with two different checks for hernias, appendicitis and what they now euphemistically call Men’s Health Issues. At the Naughty Health clinic, I am poked and prodded in every known orifice, including the tiny one that you’re meant to wince at. I don’t wince, not really. I’ve never seen this as my body, just a kind of vessel I’ve been set down in and asked to deal with. I harbour lifelong fantasies of being entirely genderless between the legs, after all. I must try that as a chat-up line.

I’ve always felt genitals should be applied for as an optional extra, with proper licensing from the authorities. Like firearms. Indeed, the gun analogy goes further: they’re too often the source of trouble across the world, and in my mind are best restricted to the movies.

Yesterday, the GP gives me a full examination, finds nothing worrying, and just sends me away saying ‘It’s just one of these things. Come back in two weeks if the aches are still there.’

He didn’t even give me anything to deal with the pain. It really is bothering me. I may have to ask for some kind of painkiller at one of those new NHS drop-in clinics, or try a third GP. It can’t be right to be in pain whenever you sit down. Unless you’re in love. (Yes, I know, couldn’t resist it).

The only explanations that spring to my mind are nocturnal probing by extraterrestrial aliens, or that someone out there is sticking pins into a voodoo effigy of me, having previously secured clippings from my hair.

Which reminds me.

“Nice syrup!” shouted a van driver at me, on the Archway Road the other day.

[Cockney rhyming slang: syrup = syrup of figs = wig]

The response to which is of course, who would dare pay for a wig that looked like this?

And who would want to make a voodoo doll of me? Don’t answer that.

I’ll end on another couple of clippings, and promise to have another entry written tomorrow morning. I know there’s a lot of catching up to do.

These are reviews of The Decadent Handbook, to which I’ve contributed. Published by Dedalus Books, out now. White gift-book style hardback with a shiny gold spine, for obvious Christmas present compatibility. Also features Rowan Pelling, Vanora Bennett, Robert Irwin, Belle Du Jour, Michael Bywater, Salena Godden, Louise Welsh, John Moore, Xavior Roide, and Sebastian Horsley.

“The book is an antidote to bland modernity…It covers everything from decadent sex (we’re talking fornicating with lobsters) to decadent death styles, and includes contributions from contemporary libertines such as Dickon Edwards (Shane McGowan’s New Romantic Butler’, pictured left with pet lobster), to the godfathers of decadence – The Earl of Rochester. J.K.Huysmans and Oscar Wilde. Five stars.”
– The Leeds Guide Book of the Fortnight

“…’El Hombre Indelible’ by Dickon Edwards seems to send up rock journalism by accompanying Shane MacGowan of the Pogues to Tangier, but the piece has a wonky charm of its own, with sentences such as, ‘He re-reads Finnegans Wake every day.”
– Duncan Fallowell in The Daily Telegraph.

‘Wonky charm’, indeed.

Dear Creature (if you’re in London)

Last call for this.

Tomorrow night, right near Highgate tube. Oh, the RELIEF it exists!

THE BEAUTIFUL & DAMNED – NOVEMBER EDITION
Date: Thursday 23rd November
Times: 9pm to 12.30am.
Venue: The Boogaloo, 312 Archway Road, London N6 5AT, UK. 020 8340 2928.
Tube: Highgate (Northern Line). Buses: 43, 134, 263.
Price: Free entry, but do please dress up.

More information on the News page.

Malcolm Ross plays the Boogaloo. He was once in the bands Josef K and Orange Juice, two favourites of mine, and tonight I’m delighted to see he still sings and plays guitar in that rather delicious and unique Postcard Records style. A cute geek croon over an effervescent, crunchy and zingy disco guitar. I feel Franz Ferdinand carry on at least one side of this tradition. Aesthetically too: like Alex Kapranos, Mr Ross still looks boyishly angular, with that David Byrne kind of mathematical cleanliness about him. Worth noting at a time when it’s rare to see men in bands who’ve even had a shave. He performs tracks from a new compilation of his solo stuff, ‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’, including a song that was written for the movie Chocolat.

In support is a rather impressively intense artist called Simon Breed, who vaguely resembles Howard Devoto. The Boogaloo actually shuts up and listens to him, so he clearly has something. Also on the bill is an immaculately-dressed keyboardist called Louis Vause, who plays a blissful lounge set. I’m told he also backs Graham Coxon.

Mr Ross’s musical cohort Edwyn Collins is rumoured to appear, but doesn’t. I presume he’s still on the mend from the dreaded haemorrhage.

The lady on the door looks for my name on the guest list:

Her: Oh, are you ‘Edwyn C’?

In my dreams.

An update from Mum. Dad’s back at home, recovering slowly. He’s lost the ability to grip in his left hand, and he’s a left-handed artist. But thankfully the other effects of the stroke have improved: he can walk, climb stairs, speak and see again. So we’re hoping for the best with his hand too.

Some cheering Victorian sarcasm from WS Gilbert, via John Julius Norwich’s ‘Christmas Cracker’.

This is the opening of his letter of complaint to the station-master at Baker Street, on the Metropolitan line:

Sir,

Saturday morning, although recurring at regular and well-foreseen intervals, always seems to take this railway by surprise.

Mum phones. Dad’s had some sort of stroke and is in Ipswich Hospital. A brain scan has revealed no damage, but otherwise things are bit unclear and undefined. Mum is waiting to hear from the doctors, and I’m waiting to hear from Mum.

They’re treating him with something called a ‘lumbar puncture’. I look it up.

It’s also known as The Spinal Tap.

Saint Shane’s First Letter to the Internetians.

Mr Edwards is typing this on the bar of The Boogaloo with his laptop. It’s gone 1am, and we’re the only ones here. Mr MacGowan speaks – slowly. Mr Edwards writes it down. Without editing.

Take a letter, Mr Edwards.

DE: So how are you, Mr MacGowan?

SMG: It’s been a great day. People collapsing all round me. I’ve decided there’s no such thing as a heterosexual. Omnisexual. That’s the word you used. I just went to see Borat. It’s sickeningly sexist, racist, anti-PC. And I love it.

DE: How was Vegas?

SMG: I was nine grand up on the roulette table. And then something happened that jinxed me. But I got out before I lost my original stake. Though the next night I was banned from the roulette table. Victoria won at Blackjack. And then walked away, which is a really hard thing to do. And then she walked back. And lost it.

[Footnote: Ms Clarke vehemently denies this last sentence.]

Spider and Louise got married by the pool. And I was the Best Man. I was also the Elvis Imitator in the ’68 Special get-up: leather suit, red neckerchief, shades etc. I sang the song they chose: Love Me Tender. Backed up by most of the Pogues. We had a great time in Japan as well. And San Francisco. And L.A. Hope to see you soon; hope to see ALL those old faces soon. Sayonara to Nippon. And Howdy Doody; and Happy Trails to you.

In San Fran I met once again with the great Clay Wilson. He gave a personally autographed copy of his new book of underground art. His personal selection from the mid 60s till the present day. I was really made up. Thanks to Rudi Fernandez and Del Zamora…! I was shocked to hear of the death of Luis. May he sleep in peace. May the helicopters in his eyes fly forever.

DE: What was it wanted to say about your sister’s music?

SMG: My sister made one great album and did a few live dates before she decided she wanted nothing more to do with the music business. She has been throughout the years a brilliant barmaid, a brilliant office worker for an insurance company in Lloyd Baker St. And an invaluable part of the Pogues administration. And an invaluable part of Van Morrison’s administration. She was an original follower of the Anti-Nowhere League. Whose lead singer Animal’s sister married and then broke up with my cousin Paul. He is now happily married again. After that she made her own album Chariot with a bunch of cowboys from Limerick who ripped her off. That situation has been rectified. And the album has been re-released – with the help of my father – including the single I Love Him With A Grace, and its original B-side, which wasn’t on the original album. And it’s available on her section of my website. (DE locates it: http://www.shanemacgowan.com/siobhan.shtml). It’s absolutely brilliant: it’s like Enya with real guts and heart and soul and spirit. The best female Celtic Soul album. And that’s my totally unbiased opinion. No, honestly, really, it is. Paradoxically, considering the hardest drugs she indulges in are booze, Xanax, and cigarettes, it is the ultimate spaced-out chill-out album. Just stick the big cans on and lie back on the waterbed and let her take you away to a world of timeless Gaelic mysticism. It also features my mother and father talking a love duet in Irish.

She’s also finishing off her first book based on the early Irish legends or history as you will have it. She’s already proved her writing and graphic art skills as an early Pogue Mahone poster designer (for gigs etc). And then editing and designing the original fan mag. Previously edited by Julie Pritchard. Siobhán re-christened it Ord na hOne. Inspired by the Irish Catholic magazine The Messenger Of The Sacred Heart. Her various graphic art is available also on that website, including her portraits of me personally signed by me and for sale, of course…

DE: What would you like to say to those curious about your work who have just heard Fairytale Of New York and nothing else?

SMG: Check out the five Pogues albums I’m on. And if you like, try the two I’m not on. And also the SMG & Popes albums: The Snake and The Crock Of Gold (ZTT Records). And the official live album: Across The Broad Atlantic; recorded mainly in Dublin and partly in New York when for some reason there were two St Patrick’s Days.

DE: Which 5 Pogues / solo tracks would you recommend them to legally download for starters, Fairytale aside?

SMG: That’s an impossible question. But off the top of my head right now I’d say – personally – Star Of The County Down, Rainy Night In Soho, Waxie’s Dargle (The Pogues), Yeah Yeah Yeah (Pogues), Victoria (SMG & The Popes).

Incidentally the Popes have an existence of their own that grew out of being my backing band and friends. I would recommend listening to their recordings. I was heavily involved in the recording of the first album they put out without my name: Holloway Boulevard. I did SOME singing, writing and producing and wrote the sleeve notes. However the second album is as different as it is more accomplished. Take it from there, yourself…

That’s all for now, folks.

Érin go Bragh!!!
Seán Mac Gabhan.

Eleven days since the last diary entry already? Time goes, goes and fades. Days through fingers like refined sand. Aches and pains are at least partly to blame. Aches which make sitting down painful, or standing up painful. Or walking painful. Or lying down painful. What a disappointment this body is: I should have kept the receipt.

I’m off to the Naughty Clinic tomorrow to get the aches between my legs investigated. It’s my first time to such a place, though I’ve found fellow males have been only too happy to weigh in with their experiences as soon as I mention the appointment. I’ve not done anything vaguely risky in THAT area for at least five years, but apparently I still have to go for a check up in case. If some religions are forged around The Virgin Birth, perhaps I can start one around The Celibate Clap.

Some days I’ve felt too busy, or too ill, or too sleepy. And then I think there must be more to life than feeling too tired or too ill to do anything with it. I need time to recover, to get better. I need to eat more healthily, drink less alcohol. And as ever, I need to say no to kind friends inviting me out all the time. I’m just not as hardy as they are. And I’m not just talking about Mr MacGowan.

Speaking of which, the other day I set up my laptop on the bar of the Boogaloo and took dictation from SMG as he wrote his first blog entry. In a locked pub, in the early hours, no one else about.

It’s called Saint Shane’s First Letter To The Internetians, and I’ll post it here shortly. Mr O’Boyle and Ms Clarke have already read it and given it their blessing, so it’s effectively a piece of Authorised Biography. I quite like the idea of Shane MacGowan – who doesn’t own a computer – having a blog. We’ll do it again if people like it. As he says, I’m like an occasional Boswell to his Dr Johnson.

Taylor Parkes has stopped reading blogs and online diaries. He says the entries where people are having a sad life are too depressing. And the ones where people are having a happy life are too depressing too.

Exchanging our various valetudinarian moans, he says that if he never could have sex again, he’d have to commit suicide.

This is, of course, where our views rather differ. He in turn has never harboured fantasies of having an operation to create a smooth, hairless, Barbie patch where one’s genitals should be.

In a world ruled by me, sexual organs would have to be applied for as an optional extra.

Halloween. My friend Ms Lucy Madison organises a spooky walking tour of the Middle Temple, Fleet Street and environs. Why? Because she likes doing it. Appropriately, she’s come straight from the set of Most Haunted Live, the popular TV show on which her boyfriend works. Some 30 odd people turn up, and it’s all great fun. She tells us dozens of local ghost stories, and points out locations like The Blackfriar pub – an outrageously ornate Art Nouveau hostelry. I later discover this was saved from demolition by Mr Betjeman.

Other tour highlights: the oldest working clock in London. A cavernous pub intact since 1666. Dr Johnson’s House. The banqueting hall in the Temple which the Harry Potter films use for the school hall. Temple Church, where we hear choirboys practising into the night. Actually, the whole Temple area of London is far more like Oxford than the capital. A different world. People ‘ssssh!’ each other as they pass in the lanes. The Sweeney Todd barber and pie shop locations, which she reassures us are fictional. I did know this, yet still need reminding. A clear indication of the strength of the tale. And a LOT of Dickens locations as featured in his novels. I do like fictional guided tours. They always seem more real than any actual history.

“This is the flat where, in Great Expectations, Pip discovers that his mysterious benefactor is –”

“Oh no, I’m in the middle of reading that!” complains David B. He’s not joking. So I’ve edited out the end of Ms Madison’s inadvertent spoiler, just in case you too have yet to finish Great Expectations in any form, Dear Reader. In which case, what are you waiting for?

I return home to find my front door refreshingly free of egg splatters. Happy Halloween.

To Kilburn to see David Barnett’s band The New Royal Family. He’s fantastically confident, entertaining and generally impressive as a frontman, and they make a splendid sound as a group. Vainly, I can’t help imagining him singing my lyrics. But then, I think the same while watching most bands I’m fond of these days. The frustrated lyricist’s lot.

I feel it’s still quite unusual for male singers (at least in bands) to agree to sing another person’s words. Which is a shame, as a kind of healthy competition tends to come forth: the singer doing their best to show off as a performer, putting their own spin on the words; the lyricist trying hard to impress the singer, frustrated with their own vocal shortcomings. A standard kept up on both sides. Showing off to each other, before showing off to a crowd.

I’m snuffling somewhat due to a cold that tediously seems to come and go. I inwardly grumble and whine on the journey, feeling that Highgate to Kilburn is the most difficult journey in the world. It isn’t actually: I just have to plan it better.

Last time I went to Kilburn was to the Luminaire, and I hung about too late, resulting in waiting for a night bus connection at Brent Cross at some ungodly hour.

Public transport has really been getting to me lately. Either I’m dwelling on the shortcomings of the tubes and buses, or I’m actually cursed. At the weekend, those on the Northern Line know all about these things called Rail Replacement Buses. The idea is, because of engineering works, Transport For London commandeers a fleet of lovely old Routemaster buses to cover the route that the tube trains would be taking. All very well, except these temporary drivers seem to be from a dimension much like this one, but not entirely. Out of the four or five Rail Replacement buses I’ve taken in the last month or so, two have led to an unexpectedly long excursion along rail routes which only exist in parallel worlds.

On one of these acidic trips, the driver decided to suddenly veer off into a maze of residential streets off Kentish Town Road before reaching a dead end. Then we all heard him phone his fearless leaders, and sheepishly retrace his trail to rejoin the main road at the point he left off. This was after about twenty minutes. No one on board said or did anything, of course. Too English.

On the other, a full double-decker of people expecting to travel from Archway down to Camden suddenly found themselves travelling down the Holloway Road, and then up Seven Sisters all the way to Finsbury Park. Which is, it’s fair to say, a somewhat loose interpretation of the Northern Line. To cap it all, the driver didn’t even use the bus lane. We were stuck in traffic AND on the way to the wrong destination. Some people did finally get up and say something to the driver, once we were on the Seven Sisters Road. Thus can be measured the limit of English Reserve – half the length of the Holloway Road.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job!” came the driver’s snarled response. One of those men who, given the choice between plunging off a cliff and admitting to having made a mistake, would take the pebble-dashed coffin look every time.

Thankfully, he relented to opening the doors to those who wished to take their chances elsewhere. Which was everyone on board. Muttering darkly, yet still not quite talking to each other, we walked the remaining yards to Finsbury Park tube.

It’s a minor waking nightmare. A vehicle full of people, all of whom know where they’re going, except one: the driver. And he thinks everyone else is wrong.

So now at weekends I avoid all Rail Replacement Buses. Instead, I take the normal 134 which covers the same tube route. It stops more often, but at least my pulse isn’t given any nasty surprises.