Lost Days: Birthday

Whenever I fail to write a diary entry covering the day before, it’s either because absolutely nothing of note happened that day, or because I’ve not managed to get near a computer before my energy sags and the broken bedsprings beckon. Experience has also taught me that it’s not advisable to write an entry just before bed if I’ve been drinking steadily in the evening. It does rather show.

Drinking in order to get over the nervousness of the blank page, though, is a different matter altogether. You just have to get the balance right. Or rather, get the imbalance right.

I do want to debrief myself for the sake of marking Time before Time marks me. Hence ‘Lost Days’. Nothing of interest happened to me yesterday (I shopped, I read, I ate, I tried to write). So this is the time to catch up on the days where things did happen.

Sept 3rd 2006: My 35th birthday passes without too much blood on the carpet. Ms Kirsten takes me out the night before to Soho lesbian venue The Candy Bar, where I drink so much that some of the clientele start to resemble convincing clones of Pete Doherty and Leonard DiCaprio, which is nice. Though to be fair, those gentlemen don’t look entirely unlike boyish girls themselves. Made a complete fool of myself saying “Do you know you who I am?” to a few people, staggered onto a night bus and loudly addressed the entire top deck that this was my last ever ride on such interminable carriages of drunken drivel. I’ve done enough Night Buses for one lifetime, I declared to no one in particular. Ticked that off. Taxis or walkable Highgate nights or early nights from now on. Well, that’s how I felt then and there and in that state, anyway.

Awake on my birthday at about eleven, ridiculously hungover from the night before. Dad rings, and I’m ashamed that I can barely string a sentence together to speak to him. Feeling that the price one pays for over-indulging is spending most of the following day in an even more dazed state than usual, I’m finding nights on the tiles are increasingly poor value. Still, one improvement of sorts is that I no longer throw up when over-indulging. It’s been years since the contents of my stomach have taken a wrong turning. I’m a less messy drunk these days. This is not quite the stuff of redemption, but I like to view it as a small mercy of sorts.

Ms Charley Stone has kindly arranged to buy me lunch in Highgate Village to help take my mind of this depressing anniversary, so off I stagger to Cafe Rouge. Where I am greeted by something of a surprise party: not just Charley, but Kirsten, David B, Anna S, and Rhoda B too.

As I sit down with barely a word, I think they seem slightly miffed that I don’t appear to look grateful or even surprised. I am, I’m just not very good at looking it. This is one of the many entries in that bulkiest of volumes called The Trouble With Dickon Edwards. It’s a character trait which some have claimed is a touch of Asperger’s Syndrome. The bit about being unable to pull normal expressions and show normal emotions when socializing. Even more so when I’m hungover and am thus not entirely sure how to exist full stop. During the course of this lunch, I am treated to my first ever Bloody Mary, which rather perks me up somewhat, particularly when David B mixes it to a suspiciously potent strength.

Given I feel increasingly removed from the human race, I’m utterly grateful for this kind and undeserved attention, just as I am for the many text messages and emails I get wishing me a happy birthday. More than I’ve ever had before, it seems. Rhoda’s card to me is a printed gem: “Good News! You’re Pregnant!”. Charley’s is along the same lines: a suitably gushing snow-covered Christmas card with the words “Merry Christmas” crossed out and “Happy Birthday” inserted in biro.

In the pile of presents, to which Ms Suzi has contributed in absentia, I get a copy of my colonial correspondent Lord Whimsy’s beautiful book, a classy little notebook from Rhoda, a bottle of champagne (if you’re ever inclined to buy me a present between now and the grave, Dear Reader, you can’t go wrong with nice notebooks or champagne), a fantastic 1945 anthology from Dad called “Come Not, Lucifer”, comprising various gothic tales by Poe, Melville, Le Fanu et al, all illustrated by R.A. Brandt; vouchers to spend on Ebay from Tom, and various CDs including the album by The Organ, a new band fronted by a strikingly androgynous young lady who sounds like Morrissey, which is obviously right up my cul-de-sac.

The champagne is still in my fridge, unopened. I think a part of me is hoping for some suitably happy occasion to come along. Well, speed the day, O world.

In the evening, I repair to The Boogaloo as ever, having treated myself to a copy of the new Morrissey track-by-track book by Johnny Rogan (typically dull but anorak-pleasing) and a paperback of Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories (typically brilliant). Anna and David are there, as is Jonathan Norton, who gives me a CD by the band which Ultrasound used to be, Sleepy People, and who tells me I currently look like Nicholas Cage.

Not exactly a stadium-filling turn-out, heigh ho, but as Claudia A points out to me on the tube the next day, I probably should have given people more than one day’s notice of this birthday drinks do. If you want London people to come to your gathering, you have to ram it into their heads regularly over the preceding weeks.

[In which case: Beautiful & Damned, Thursday Sept 21st, Boogaloo, 9pm.]

Taylor Parkes turns up, and I point out that he’s in the Rogan book’s index, there between “Parker, Dorothy” and “Parsons, Tony”. I tell him this juxtaposition just about sums him up, and he calls me a c—.

I’m gratified to hear that, on relating my recent outbursts of drunken arrogance to strangers, ie “Do you know who I am?” or “Oh, just Google me”, my friends find this utterly amusing rather than shameful. A silver lining, perhaps, but I’m happy to come across as laughable, as long as it’s endearingly, harmlessly laughable. And not pathetically, dangerously laughable. But it’s not up to me to decide that.

At the Boogaloo recently, a woman kept coming up to me to say “Oh you, you’re just so funny!”, and I don’t think I actually said or did anything at all in her presence; I was just standing around.

Last night: to the Italian Institute in Belgrave Square with Suzi L, Lawrence G and Alison, for a classical recital with narration presented by Handel House. It’s about castrati singers such as Farinelli et al, with a rather excellent title, “Machines Made For Singing”. Three performers: an older gentleman as narrator, who I suspect is a stage actor; a good-looking, tousled-haired young man on harpsichord who appears to have his own female fanbase, and on vocals Nicholas Clapton, who’s a leading expert on those curiously castrated opera singers of yore. I understand that his range as a counter-tenor isn’t quite the same as a real castrato (the last one died a century ago), but the notes he hits sound pretty damn high to me. Higher and purer than the pop-soul range of Jimmy Somerville, for instance, or the vaudeville shrieks of the singer from the Tiger Lillies.

Typically, my mind wanders at a tangent, or disappears into its own world altogether through exhaustion. I’ve been going out too much lately, and vow to concentrate my meagre energies on my own work from now on, as opposed to enjoying the work of others all the time. At least until I finish a few projects.

I’m rather struck with Professor Clapton’s lack of facial stubble, and wonder if it’s connected with his innate ability to sing in such a high voice.

“There’s nothing funny or odd about a grown man singing falsetto” he tells the audience, suggesting that he’s been subject to a lifetime of innuendo-laden queries about his talent. “Stick a pin into any man and you’ll hear falsetto notes.”

Even so, he does have a slightly otherworldy and angel-like (as opposed to angelic) quality about him, falsetto or not. And when he takes questions from the floor after the recital, I’m tempted to ask him about his personal skin care programme. But I resist.

Afterwards, we walk out onto the Institute’s balcony, where I feel tempted to wave – or salute like Mussolini.

“I sometimes wonder if I was a Nazi in a former life”, I wonder out aloud to Suzi and company.

I then hastily add, “In which case – if anyone asks, I was Schindler, okay? Schindler.”

Yesterday: Early afternoon. Back to the Boogaloo for a solo photoshoot with Time Out. It’s for some kind of feature on London Scene types. I think.

I pose on the pub roof, near the cage of Mr O’Boyle’s homing pigeon. Mr O’B has told me he genuinely uses the pigeon to send messages to North London acquaintances. I presume he takes care to ensure the venue’s two black cats are kept well away from the bird. Otherwise, that would really put… no, I refuse to finish that sentence.

I pose with a cigarette at the photographer’s request, purely for aesthetic reasons. It’s untrue to say I’ve given the habit up entirely, but it’s also untrue to say I smoke regularly; this was my first for weeks.

“I have to say, you look a bit like David Sylvian”, says the photographer as he snaps away. An all too regular observation, but I don’t mind in the slightest. I find it easy to be gracious and polite, as long as I’m not drunk at the time. As we’ll see in a few paragraphs’ time.

I give a smattering of words to Ms B from Time Out to go with the photo. She emails me back, “Are you really 35 or is that a typo? Surely you’re 23?” It’s enough to make one take out a year’s subscription.

Late Afternoon – toss off a 150 word album review for Plan B. The band is Tilly And The Wall. A slight but jolly sing-song band from Omaha, Nebraska whose main distinguishing feature is having a be-tutu’d tap dancer rather than a drummer. The tutu and dancing element is, as you’d imagine, rather compromised on the audio recording. But the songs are fun enough. Very B52’s at times.

Evening – to Trash Palace in Wardour Street for the Popjustice £20 Music Prize. Popjustice is a colourful website for grown adults who enjoy current chart pop music, without being too serious about it. Clearly influenced by the classic Smash Hits style, the tone is just right: affectionate for the acts and the music they like, sardonic without being too obvious about it. I particularly like the inspired little touches they’ve featured in the past, like the Pop Protractor of Doom. This is where they maintain that on a certain type of sleeve design used for many female pop singers – an airbrushed close-up photo with sans serif text set at an angle – the angle itself is an indication of the artist’s state of mind. They conclude that, “in these difficult pop times, an angle of 30° or lower should be allowed.” This is soberly illustrated with respective diagrams, like a GCSE maths question.

Such commendable, original silliness is conveyed in the Popjustice live contest tonight, essentially comprising a number of the website’s London-based readers arguing in a bar. Most of them are wearing casual t-shirts and jeans: it’s hardly the Oscars. But I decide to dress like it’s the Oscars anyway, and turn up in a white suit. I’m not really a big enough fan of current pop to fit in here, white suit or not, but I am keen to satisfy my curiosity about the evening.

The whole event is a response to the more distinguished Mercury Music Prize, which is taking place at the same time. This awards the best British album in the last 12 months, with the winner receiving £20,000. Popjustice’s award, naturally believing that the single is mightier than the LP, is for the best British single, with a prize of £20. It’s all very jokey of course, but does make the fair point that £20 is “a figure no more or less arbitrary than £20,000”. And in turn, it’s suggesting that the Mercurys are a bit pointless and stuffy, aimed as they are at the dinner-party set. Certainly they practice a degree of genre tokenism: there’s always a few folk or jazz acts, rather insincerely included out of some vague intention of eclecticism.

If I were one of these remit-filling genre acts, I’d feel uneasy about accepting the nomination if it wasn’t for the added publicity my record would be getting. Publicity is the only real justification for music awards, ideally applied where it would do some good. A cover sticker with the words “Winner” and “Award”, or even “Nominee” and “Award” must help sales of an otherwise sidelined artist.

And not just sales. There’s a public service element, showcasing ways of being. I’ve always maintained that modern music should be about Otherness of image as much as the music itself. Last year’s Mercury winner, Antony, was so unusual-looking, that his increased exposure can only have helped the tenderly strange out there feel less alone. So I felt that particular Mercury award was entirely justified. Last night though, the Mercury went to the Arctic Monkeys, an already over-exposed group of entirely unremarkable-looking young men playing rather non-descript, Dad-pleasing, punky guitar rock. What signals are being sent out here? If this is the best that British music gets, God help us all, frankly.

The line-up for the Popjustice prize is far more interesting, the process mostly consisting of arguing over which is better of two singles, through a series of elimination rounds. Two favourites of mine are the melancholic robot-pop singles from Ladytron (“Destroy Everything You Touch”) and Goldfrapp (“Number One”), though these are knocked out early on, deemed as not quite poppy and memorable enough compared to, say, Lily Allen’s “Smile”. Fair enough. It doesn’t help that when I stand up to say something in favour of Ladytron, I can’t even get the name of their song right.

In fact, when editing this diary entry a day later, I get the Ladytron song title wrong yet again. “Destroy Everything You Own”, indeed.

However, I still feel both tracks wipe the floor with anything by the Arctic Monkeys.

For a round between Matt Willis and Will Young, the result is decided by two judges listening to each song on headphones while plotting a line on a cardboard graph. The horizontal axis is Duration Of Song, the vertical is Aceness Of Song. Each graph is then cut out along the wavering line, and the resulting jagged pieces of cardboard are then weighed on a portable electronic scales. The heaviest piece of cardboard decides the best single. Frankly, I think this sort of activity is far more inspired than the records involved. Though I do quite like the Will Young song (“Who Am I”). He lost to Mr Willis, by the way.

The winning single is “Biology” by Girls Aloud, which I have to concede is utterly superb, even though the song structure is all over the shop. It sounds like about five singles in one.

However, I’m appalled that Muse are in second place. Muse are essentially an overwrought Radiohead tribute band fronted by a dead weasel, whose record company has now forced them to crowbar their whining, ugly drivel beneath Ms Britney Spears’s chord changes. I still think they’re dull and dreary and awful, and now think they’re dishonest on top of it. Luckily for them, an enormous amount of people who should know better have fallen hook line and sinker for their new schtick, even including the Popjustice gang. So that’ll be the feeling of feeling utterly alone once again.

At this point I should go home, but I make the mistake of drowning my Muse-inflicted sorrows with too many cheap drinks. The upshot of which is when someone says “You look like David Sylvian”, just like the Time Out photographer did hours earlier, this time I genuinely feel like starting a fight. It’s just as well I have no idea how to do such a thing.

In fact, I do actually snap when a perfectly nice young lady approaches me to say: “I think I read an interview with you. Who are you again?”

My response is to get annoyed, exasperatedly indicate my Popjustice name tag and bark this utterly outrageous and impossibly rude answer:

“Oh – just Google me, will you?”

I can’t quite believe it myself, and can’t even remember saying such a thing. Just the embarrassment afterwards. I even wince at typing such uber-haughty words. It’s a new low. Who the hell do I think I am?

Bleating that a certain amount of drink puts me on the verge of breaking down, feeling the weight of 35 years of frustration, that this was “the last straw” is no excuse; no excuse for anything at all.

Never forget that the last straw thinks it’s the first straw.

“Just Google me” is even worse than saying “Do you know who I am?” Which I’m afraid I have actually done recently, when trying to get into a club at 3AM. Again, I was utterly riddled with alcohol, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse.

The correct response to which is of course, “Yes, we know exactly who you are. Which is why you’re not coming in.”

There’s not enough breath in my remaining life to say quite how mortified and sorry I am about such booze-triggered arrogance. I vow to teach myself about knowing when to go home before reaching this sort of state again. It’s been happening a lot lately.

So at this late point in the Popjustice evening, my mental state not helped by not really knowing anyone at this event and arriving alone, my drunkenness has left me feeling old, upset, arrogant, alone and angry with the world. It’s just the way the alcohol has morphed me, I protest weakly in my defence. It’s not because the world loves Muse and not me. Well, not JUST because the world loves Muse and not me.

“Just Google Me”

It sounds like the title of a trendy new Channel 4 sitcom.

Thankfully, the lady I snap at forgives me when I approach her later and profusely apologise. And I tell her everything she could possibly want to know about me. And I make sure I ask about her life – and listen – in return.

I then move to another seat, where a young man says:

“Hi… So…. who are you, then?”

But it’s okay; I’ve learned my lesson now. Even though I’m still drunk. I know the right answer now.

“Me?” I reply. “I’m no one, really. I’m just a guy in a suit.”

I go home.

So much in my head. Where to start? Where to stop? Write it down, that’s all that matters.

Tomorrow, Sunday Sept 3rd, is my 35th birthday. I shall be marking this unpleasant event with a few drinks at The Boogaloo, from about 7pm. Consider this your invitation, Kind Reader.

The next Beautiful & Damned is on Thursday Sept 21st. The Boogaloo, again. Do come – and do dress up. More info on the News page. Recently, the club was featured in a local newspaper, the Enfield Advertiser, with interview quotes and a nice photo of me. I would scan it in, but I don’t have a scanner. About time I bought one, really.

I’m performing one epic Fosca song, ‘File Under Forsaken’, at the H-Bird event on Sept 18th at the Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road, EC1. Charley Stone is accompanying me on guitar, just as she did on the Fosca recording.

Fosca are still tinkering away on the new album, “The Painted Side Of The Rocket” before playing further concerts. Though the end is in sight. The album is now being made on a Mac as opposed to a PC, so we’ve had to transfer all the bits from the earlier sessions. And Tom’s bought a more expensive vocal microphone, so I’m redoing most of my vocals.

What else? I’m featured in the current issue (September 2006) of ‘Inside Out’ magazine. It’s one of those ‘Homes and Gardens’-type lifestyle publications. I think the target market is people with well-paid jobs who own their own properties and spend lots of money on making them look nice. So having me in there, a technically unemployed man with less than no money at all, who rents a furnished bedsit, must surely be the height of perversity for the editors. But I’ve always been good at bringing out the perverse in people. I specialise in making darts pause in mid-flight.

My photo caption is “Dickon Edwards: Dandy, 34, London”. It’s in a piece on people who live out of time or somesuch. Nice colour photo of me standing before my landlady’s curtains, as if they’re theatrical curtains. Which makes sense: in the interview I describe the bedsit as a dressing-room with the world as my stage.

The photographer left behind his big silvery flash reflector, collapsed and zipped up in a flat circular canvas case. I phoned him to impart this information about a month ago. He still hasn’t collected it. Perhaps he’d rather lose the reflector than speak to me again. When he was taking my photo, his phone rang. A job from the Guardian. He must be far too busy and rich to even pick up his own equipment.

This week I’m going to be photographed by Time Out for a feature on ‘New London Scenes’ or somesuch.

Soon after that I’m going to be filmed by BBC1’s ‘Imagine’ programme talking about why people keep diaries on the Internet. The programme is called ‘Here Comes Everybody’, which pleased me – a nice little James Joyce reference.

I’m also writing up a lengthy interview with Shane MacGowan for a magazine. It’s a cover feature, and – whisper it – I’m actually getting PAID. Perhaps the real world has finally let me in, one step at a time. Happy Birthday, indeed.

Fosca have a brand new song on a compilation album that’s just out now, “The Kids At The Club”. It’s been put together by former Melody Maker scribe and club promoter (and now label owner) Ian Watson, and is connected with his club “How Does It Feel To Be Loved”. There’s a been a healthy amount of praise for the album from quarters of the press and various radio DJs.

The Fosca song, “I’ve Agreed To Something I Shouldn’t Have”, is tucked away at the end, just before a wonderful track by the group Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, whose music manages to be as impressive as their name. The other bands include Tender Trap, whose singer Amelia Fletcher made me the man I’m not today, and I’m From Barcelona, a rather splendid Swedish indiepop choir named after a Fawlty Towers catchphrase. The video for their song is terrific and quirky in a Napoleon Dynamite way, or creepy in a Waco-esque religious cult way, depending on your mood. But do take a look at it at YouTube, it’s quite striking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwwbXHNGsjU

The Fosca song has far too many guitars on it, but works quite well as a grumpy pop anthem for strange children. I get to play a Wedding Present-like guitar solo at the end, too.

It’s going to be a while before the Fosca album proper comes out due to no small dilly-dallying on my own part, so this is technically the only Fosca release for the time being. I do hope you’ll buy it, Dear Reader. It’s worth buying. Also included is an eight page booklet, with sleeve notes and photographs from the first four years of HDIF.

Full details about “The Kids At The Club” and instructions for purchasing it online can be found at:

http://www.howdoesitfeel.co.uk/hdiflabel.html

To the offices of Tartan Films in Dean Street, where I interview Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, the directors of the new film Brothers Of The Head. It’s on behalf of Plan B magazine, so I give them a sample copy, eager to get this interview thing right. In the interests of proper research, I not only see the film beforehand and take notes, but I also rent out their previous work Lost In La Mancha, the documentary about Terry Gilliam’s failed Don Quixote project. On top of that I go to the British Library and read the out-of-print Brian Aldiss novel that inspired their film. The original edition with Ian Pollock’s typically grotesque illustrations. And I go online and read every previous interview I can find with them.

Problem is, although I arrive at the Tartan offices with a notebook full of well-researched details and topics to talk about, I forget one important aspect of an interviewer’s technique: I forget to shut the hell up. Typically, I confuse a conversation with my need to show off if a clever phrase or theory about the subject pops into my head. Like those audience members at arts event Q&As who waste everyone’s time with a question that begins “Don’t you agree that…” and then rail off their entire idiotic thesis for five minutes.

I even interrupt them a few times – the one thing you should never do. Well, unless you’re Mr Paxman. And I don’t notice the dictaphone switching itself off halfway through. A common problem for the inexperienced interviewer, but even so. Yet another job I’m just not cut out to do, I suppose, though I do appear to be a slightly talented researcher. At least, they tell me I’m the first hack to ask them about their aborted late 90s Clive Barker film, “From Oz To 42nd Street”. Even their publicist hasn’t heard of it.

If I’m honest, I don’t feel any desire to interview anyone at all. About anything. I prefer imagining the subject is like most of my favourite authors and artists – dead for at least a century. And therefore is unavailable for comment. I’m happier reading press statements, books, other people’s interviews with the subject, and then putting my own interpretation on it, with a little obscure research thrown in.

Still, they called me the best-dressed interviewer they’ve had. Clearly they’ve yet to meet Kim Newman.

The more I think about it, the more I realise Brothers In The Head is something very special indeed, at least aesthetically and intellectually. “The Elephant Man meets Velvet Goldmine” would be a fool’s phrase for the poster (which annoyingly apes the Trainspotting design of ten years ago), but at least that’s a start when trying to describe what is essentially one of the strangest, most genre-defying films of the year.

See the film of The History Boys at Fox’s Soho Square screening room. Muscular security guards insist on confiscating everyone’s mobile phone on the way in, placing each phone in little polythene bags like evidence from a crime scene. It’s not clear whether such a measure is to prevent people disturbing others with their phones going off, or to stop them recording the movie and making bootleg DVDs. I’d have thought even the flashiest, latest type of phone isn’t enough to film a 2 hour movie to any degree of passable quality. So I presume it was because even well-known journalists – Hugo Young is there – can’t be trusted to switch their phones off.

I spy another familiar looking attendee who signs in as Peter-something in the guestbook, and I try to chat with him, thinking him to be Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian. He’s rather unforthcoming and stand-offish with me to say the least, even by London standards.

“I’m not really a film critic”, he says to me when I try to press him for his thoughts on the film.

“Yes you are!” I retort, thinking he’s joking and trying to joke archly back. “Your name is all over Archway Video’s World Cinema section! It appears on more DVD front covers than any director.” (which is true)

“I think you’ve got the wrong man. My name is Hitchens.”

I apologise profusely and back off. I’ve clearly got my Broadsheet Peters in a twist.

Still, I think it’s fair to say that annoying Peter Hitchens the Mail On Sunday columnist isn’t exactly difficult to do. I should be grateful he didn’t have me deported on the spot.

Watch ‘An Angel At My Table’, the Jane Campion film about New Zealand author Janet Frame. I’ve seen it before, round about the time it came out in the early 90s; but when I see a copy in the library on my way home tonight I feel an urgent need to watch it again. Sometimes the best books and films read you, rather than the other way round. I’m impressed by how much I can recall; it’s full of poetically vivid little moments that connect on a searingly personal level, for me at least. Something about the character of Ms Frame having this almost terminal anxiety and awkwardness, yet attracting attention with her beacon-like hairdo: a cartoonish bubbly mass of red curls. All my favourite writers have haircuts that can been seen from outer space.
The pivotal scene is her last attempt to be a teacher, in 1945. She stands at the blackboard about to begin a class, with a kindly school inspector watching amongst the children. She takes a piece of chalk and is about to apply it to the blackboard when she suddenly stops. Absolute silence. The children are waiting. The inspector is waiting. Time seems to halt. She stares at the chalk. Cut to a close up. It looks like the most alien object on earth. After this excruciating pause, she finally looks up and asks the inspector if she can be excused for a minute. And she walks out. Weeping, she walks out of the school grounds, and keeps going. She seems like the most ill-fitting and useless person on earth.

Receive an anonymous message regarding my previous self-pitying entry.

What do you think it says, Dear Reader, given my melancholy cri de coeur? Words of encouragement? Constructive advice? Perhaps even an offer of work?

Here’s what I get. It rather serves me right:

“35 on september the 3rd? my sister used to know you and reckons you are at least 5 years older than that”

Thoughtful letter in the post from Lloyds Bank. They’re going to charge me £35 for a returned Direct Debit. This would be for my contact lenses. £30 a month, and I just didn’t have the money this time. So no lenses, and I end up paying more money for nothing.

This is, I believe, how the debt trap works, how the poor are kept from getting out of being poor. “We are charging you for not having any money”.

I shall get on the phone and beg that they waive the fee, as I’ve done in the past. But I fear I’ve used up all my Get Out Of Jail cards with them. And with the world.

BT want an unreasonable amount of money from me too, ho hum. And Haringey Council refuse to pay me the increase in my housing benefit. Something to do with Rent Officer Decisions: the rent was fixed last March and has to stand for the year. So I have to find the extra £6 a week somehow. Or -whisper it – get a job.

I have to laugh at all this, really. I know it’s my fault for never taking money very seriously. But how can I, when banks charge me for being poor? As you know, Dear Reader, I shall maintain to my death that the world owes me a modest living. I’m Dickon Edwards. That’s my job.

My thirty-fifth birthday is on Sept 3rd. Continuing to live like this, depending on the endless kindness of friends and family, with minus money and bouncing payments just like when I was a student, is getting a bit tiresome for all parties, frankly. When considering life ambitions and choices, you’re meant to say “where do you see yourself in five years’ time?”

Well, I see myself as a poor, debt-ridden, frustrated, lonely, unfulfilled, bitter, anxious and unhappy man of 40, owning no property, living in a rented furnished bedsit. And that’s putting it nicely. Best to keep one’s hopes at ground level. That way, one can only be pleasantly surprised. And I live in a state of constant surprise. Dinner is a success!

The other day I was at my kind friends Charley and Kirsten’s place for a party. They’d laid on food and drink in their lovely Crouch End garden, and I was effusively grateful and happy for it all. There was one slightly upsetting point where everyone else discussed mortages and buying flats as a couple, and I have to confess I saw my life stretched out before me – and behind me – and I nearly started to cry. The drink probably had something to do with it. But I had no right to, of course. I’ve made my own narrow, single, haughtily eccentric bed, so I must lie in it. It’s a statement I’ve said before and must say again, daily. And without wishing to sound too Frank Capra about it, I’m rich in kind and funny friends, and will take them over an income any day. The lack of money is a bore, but I refuse to be judged as a ‘loser’ on that level alone. I can only ‘lose’ if I stop being the way I am.

Ah well, I shall just have to sell more of the possessions I never use, and make serious pitches for writing work. Paid writing work. And try to balance the budget a bit better. Which means not going out much.

Till then, I’ll get by, I always do. I’m not shackled to a day job I loathe and can pretty much do whatever I want to do every day, as long as it doesn’t cost money. I’m not in any physical pain, and whatever the news says, I’m unlikely to be shot at or bombed compared to being in the same situation in a less stable land. So I have no right to complain. I’m surrounded by millionaires here in Highgate. There has to be some way of channelling a small amount of that wealth in my direction, without resorting to illegality or trying to do some job I’m incapable of. Answers to the usual address. And no, I won’t do Boy George’s community service for him.

I continue to live as a beggar with a choice, and I’m not giving in now.