Recovering from a bout of addiction to nothingness. Even modish onanism, junk food and junkier TV have lost their appeal. And I think I’ve actually developed bed sores.

One fix is to become distracted from the distraction. Put off the procrastination for another day. Creep up on yourself when you’re not noticing it. Take yourself from behind. And bingo – you’re writing again. Just don’t tell the black dog on your shoulder. Or is it a monkey on your back? I’ll settle for a sardonic dodo on the elbow.

A lot to debrief. The other weekend: a wet weekend of old friends.

Saturday: to Ms Charley Stone’s in Crouch End for her birthday barbecue. I stop on the way to pick up Ms Rhoda, who’s just moved to the same area. She was effectively made homeless a couple of weeks ago, by a very unfeeling – if not to say criminal – former landlord. But her friends came through for her in a really rather touching and uncommonly selfless display. In mercenary old London too. They helped her move at extreme short notice, provided her with somewhere to stay, and lent or donated essentials.

What’s particularly interesting is that Ms R used her blog – LiveJournal and its comments system to be precise – to alert her friends to her crisis, and the bulk of the rescue was organised online. I admire her greatly. She says she admires me for NOT having that kind of blog, for deliberately cutting myself off and writing a diary where others can’t comment or chat in the space underneath. It’s not like I can’t be contacted: people can email me easily using the box on my site.

You’d have thought people would prefer the equivalent of private one-to-one tuition over a classroom environment. I think it’s the ‘Have Your Say’ Culture of internet message boards and comment boxes. Apparently this is now called “Web 2.0”, ho ho.

The one-on-one way is the way I’ve always liked it. I tried an evening class recently, and rediscovered my old school habit: I don’t get on well as part of a group. Instead, I’d always be either directly addressing the teacher one-on-one – if not actually sucking up to them – or performing for the rest of the group as if on a stage. I just can’t ‘do’ groups. On school trips I’d always walk with a teacher, and rarely chat to my classmates. The teacher had all the secrets, all the answers. Whereas with groups I felt then – as I do now – that whenever I try to fit into a class or a room of people or join a discussion, the darts suddenly pause in mid-flight. The room goes silent. Or worse, I’m ignored. On top of which, there’s the sensation that a comment left on a blog is given an un-looked for permanence way above its station. Some casual fanboyish query I might make about “Star Trek: Voyager” in a newsgroup circa 1995 can remain on the Web today, staring back at me down the years. Perhaps it will be there forever. And to what end? The chat must stop. If I have anything to say at all, I should say it here alone, the only place it’s actually looked for.

So it’s a gamble of sorts. By not wishing to be at the mercy of others, I may cut myself off from those who could rescue me in hours of need. But this distinction is enough to keep me out of the loop. For better or worse, it’s what suits me. I want people to read me, and go. Like an 80s brand of shampoo.

Naturally, I wonder about myself being in the same position as Ms R. If I were made suddenly homeless, could I rely on the same sort of rallying-round? I wouldn’t like to burn that bridge till I come to it.

There’s a more publicised case of blogs curing homelessness in the news this week. A middle-class thirtysomething London woman had a breakdown, was made homeless and ended up reduced to sleeping in her car for months. By using the internet terminals in public libraries, she kept a blog about her daily struggle to survive, to keep clean, fed, warm and safe. And the good news is she found somewhere to live thanks to the international attention generated by her blog. And yes, she’s now got the inevitable book deal from it.

Incredibly, her blog also attracted some abusive comments accusing the woman of exploiting her own news story, and for placing a donation button on her pages. People can be very strange when they see an apparent patch of greener grass on the other side, even if it’s part of a wasteland. Resenting a homeless person for not suffering enough takes some doing. Well, yes, it IS a form of begging, and I was accused of doing the same the last time I had a donation button on my diary. But I see it more as Busking With Text. What would you prefer: someone collaring you on a train or bus for money? It’s a familiar sound: the train compartment door slams open, and the passengers’ hearts sink… “Ladies and Gentlemen… I’m sorry to disturb you, but…”

Would you prefer someone physically invading your space to ask you for spare change? Or someone playing Bob Dylan songs loudly and badly in a subway? Or someone providing you with entertaining – and silent – reading matter, which you’ve sought out yourself?

Well, apparently there are people out there who DO prefer people in penurious states to be sitting on the pavement with a sign and an upturned cap, or playing a harmonica badly, rather than writing a public journal and asking for donations. I shall take great pleasure in disappointing them.

This is the logic of such detractors:

“Dear Dickon. Just get a sodding job. Preferably one you hate. Like mine. I’m having to work hard at something I hate doing, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t too.”

I’m lucky to vaguely know hundreds of people to nod across a noisy room to, and to be read by thousands more as a public diarist. But though I have many favourite authors, I wouldn’t necessarily want to lend William Burroughs a set of cutlery or leave DBC Pierre alone with my possessions for an unspecified interval. Indeed, many writers I admire on the page would have me crossing the road to avoid them in real life. I’ve ploughed my own aloof furrow for so long, that I do rather have to take the attendant cons with the pros. But it’s what works for me.

At Charley’s bash, I drink and eat too much – for which I’m grateful. And I make a slightly drunk but sincere speech about Constant Friends.

Sunday, to the Queen’s Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. Again with TMC, again for a Q&A with a joint hero of ours. This time, Mr Stephen Sondheim. Introduced by the interviewing critic as just ‘Sondheim’, one word. Like Morrissey or Donovan.

He reveals there’s going to be a movie of Sweeney Todd, directed by Mr Tim Burton with Mr Depp in the lead role. Everyone says ‘Ooooohhh!’.

He describes the Menier Chocolate Factory’s current production of Sunday In The Park With George as one of the most moving theatrical experiences of his life, and I’m rather pleased. Because I saw it myself last December, and spent most of the evening in a mess of gushingly appreciative tears. I’m keen to revisit the show in the West End, though I’ll have to go alone to spare any companion the embarrassment of having me sob on their shoulder for the best part of two hours. At the Q&A, Sondheim particularly cites the opening moment in the show when a slash of animated colour tears across the white canvas backdrop, synchronised with Seurat doing the same in the foreground with his pencil on his notebook, all in time with the musical’s opening arpeggiated chord. Taking a line for a walk, indeed.

Audience member: What’s an ideal day for you?
Sondheim: I’m incredibly lazy. So every day is remarkably pleasant.

A composer after my own heart.

I think about the homeless woman with no friends, finding help – new friends – via keeping a public diary. I think about Ms Rhoda finding who her real friends are via her online ‘Friends’. I think about people I’ve known who come and go through my life, all the people I know only vaguely, but for so long, and the people who are the nearest thing I have to long-term friends. I think about Tim Chipping, and Charley Stone, and lines from the Sondheim song “Old Friends”.

Most friends fade
Or they don’t make the grade.
New ones are quickly made
And in a pinch, sure, they’ll do.
But old friends let you go your own way —
Help you find your own way —
Let you off when you’re wrong —
If you’re wrong —
When you’re wrong —
Old friends shouldn’t care if you’re wrong —
Should, but not for too long —
What’s too long?
Old friends do leave their brands on you,
But old friends shouldn’t compete.
One upbraids you
For your faults and fancies,
One persuades you
That the other one’s wrong.
Here’s to us — who’s like us?
Damn few!

In answer to a few mails…

Thanks so much for the offers of free bandwidth from kind readers blessed with vast unused bits of the Internet.

Supanames seems pretty reliable, and I think I’ll stick with them even if I have to upgrade, in the interests of a simple life. But I might use donated space for hosting images and any large files, particularly if ImageBucket’s free service is found wanting. Readers will recall I previously used a paid Flickr account for image hosting, but withdrew my custom after their ignorant and brutal cancelling of author Dennis Cooper’s account.

Some statistics. Last month the DE site bandwidth usage was 1708770K. This month so far the usage is 2091821K. And rising.

The tariff I would probably upgrade to handles 10GB per month. It would mean paying about £55 for another two years starting now. That’s a reduction on their normal rate; including VAT, their discount and refunding the difference from unused months of my current dirt-cheap tariff. I bought two years’ worth of the latter last October. It’s only May and already I’m too much for them.

Some of you have suggested I set up a Sponsor DE / Friends Of Dickon page with a PayPal donation button. Readers could donate in return for a permanent mention as a site sponsor, unless they wanted anonymity to cover the shame of supporting an elegant wastrel like me.

But for now I’ll keep the images off-site, and wait. If the site starts failing to load, or Supanames send me a definite demand for the upgrade, I’ll implement the donation button.

Thanks for the kind thoughts as ever. It means a lot.

An email from Supanames, the company who host this website and its diary.

Dear Customer,
Our engineers have recently conducted a performance audit of the server hosting your website dickonedwards.co.uk. During this work they identified that dickonedwards.co.uk is one of the top users of server resources…

How wonderful! I’m one of their ‘top users’! Are they going to give me a medal, an award, a reward, perhaps?

… and contributes significantly to the loading of the server, impacting on speed. We’re writing to politely ask that you upgrade to a more appropriate SupaNames hosting package designed to meet your website’s power and resource requirements. We’d like to help by giving you an instant £15 discount off selected hosting upgrades or £50 off a Semi Dedicated server… As you may be aware the terms and conditions of our packages state that we can suspend any website using too many server resources, and we’re keen to avoid having to suspend your website in order to ensure good service performance for other users. By upgrading now you can avoid this happening.

If you sell over 100,000 records a month, your record label showers you with gold discs.

If your novel sells over 100,000 copies a month, it’s bigger than The Da Vinci Code (which currently pegs out at a mere 60,000).

If your website gets over 100,000 hits a month, your hosting company asks you for more money to handle the extra resources.

Okay, so the comparison is shudderingly naive, but you get the general idea where my ranting mind is at tonight.

The Supanames tariff I currently use is commendably cheap and allows an ‘unlimited bandwidth’, as long as I don’t use the service for promoting audio and video downloads. But clearly even ‘unlimited’ has a limit.

I’ve hastily moved a few photos from recent entries to ImageBucket, in the hope of alleviating the burden on the Dickonedwards.co.uk servers. Fingers crossed that brings down the bytes a little. It’s partly my fault for indulging myself with too many photos and vidcaps lately.

What irks me is that whether I like it or not, I have to admit to being a far more successful public diarist than I am a songwriter or recording artist (the things I’m meant to have been successful at), at least to date. While I’m obviously grateful for having the readership, it’s frustrating that not only do I fail to receive a penny for this so-called achievement, but I have to pay for being allegedly entertaining on a mass level. It’s assumed that I can somehow find the money elsewhere. Talk about negative equity.

Fair enough if my diary was a commercial concern. But it isn’t. It’s just me. Hosting garish pop-up display ads is out of the question. But I do need a sponsor. Or something else to point to that gives me an income.

The current trend for giving writers of popular blogs a book deal appears to have amusingly passed me by. Well, I don’t want to make this diary into a book per se, but I do want to have a few books out there between now and the grave. It’s about time I sent those chapters off. There’s a table in Waterstones marked ‘Quirky Fiction’. It includes The Complete Saki alongside a smattering of modern works. I looked at it and thought, for once in my life I know where I want to be. So get on with it and stop moaning! cries the readership.

Till then, I’m forever painting Tom Sawyer’s fence. I don’t mind that so much: I’m living a penurious but pleasant existence getting by on my wits and the long-suffering kindness of friends and relations. But paying Mr Sawyer more money, for doing a job too well, imbues the concept of Performance Related Pay with a wry twist too far. And that’s coming from a Saki fan.

I spend the night after my loosely Scott Fitzgerald-inspired club night with a loosely Scott Fitzgerald-inspired movie maker.

I’m with TMC at the ICA, attending a screening of the 1990 film Metropolitan, though we’re really going for the Q&A afterwards with its writer and director, Whit Stillman.

I’m embarrassed – even ashamed as a Londoner – at what a poor state the ICA cinema is in comparison with the NFT. It’s resembling an aged regional arthouse fleapit, all scuffed black walls and crumbling heaters, and clearly hasn’t been refurbished in years. I don’t usually mind or even notice such things, but the print is outrageously scratchy and grainy: projecting the DVD would have given a clearer picture. They forget to switch on the sound until some time into the credits, the closing credits are completely out of focus, and the ancient Q&A microphone makes the voice sound worse rather than better, like an announcer at a rail station. There’s a line between being charmingly rough around the edges and just plain broken, and the ICA crosses it, at least in the cinema. Welcome to London hospitality, Mr Stillman.

That aside, it’s nice to see the film again, and Mr S gives a good little Q & A. I’m pleased to discover he’s like a character from his own films: well-dressed in a nice dark suit with a pocket square hanky in the lapel pocket, floppy boyish greying haircut, nervous and wary of the world. Clean-shaven, too, unlike the almost predictably hirsute trendy film critic who introduces him. For a man to be seen clean-shaven in the trendy spots of London is currently nothing short of radical. Trendy men have never had it so easy. It’s fashionable to let yourself go. Messy hair, scuzzy beard, trainers, jeans. As long as you don’t get fat.

Mr S is almost a foppish Brian Wilson. If he’d turned out to be a normal person, I’d have been terribly disappointed.

One to tick off the list, as Mr C says. We’re both big fans of the Stillman trilogy (Barcelona and The Last Days Of Disco being the other two), and 15 years on his work is still fresh and original. It certainly holds up better than Kevin Smith’s very 90s Clerks does in 2006. Probably because it was out of time even in 1990.

Very witty, very well-made and well-acted, and actually rather brave. He doesn’t pander in the slightest to the mythical target market – even the arthouse target market. Movies like Me and You and Everyone We Know are very much made with that audience in mind: quirky, wordy, quiet; carrot cake not popcorn. But Mr Stillman’s films are completely in their own genre beyond typical arthouse fare. Which takes some doing. No wonder they sometimes come in for some stick as ‘conservative’. Sometimes daring to be different actually means dressing smartly: see also the cover of Dexys’ Don’t Stand Me Down. You risk being laughed at at the time, but eventually people come round to you and hail you as a genius. (Can’t be long for me, I tell myself daily).

So, the world of Whit Stillman. No sex scenes or Mamet-like swearing. No masturbation references (which in a US indie flick is de rigeur). Instead, it’s quietly wealthy – yet all too inept – young Americans sitting around in a deliberately undetermined New York time setting (anywhere in the 1970s / 80s) talking in elaborate Austen-like sentences, and pretty much every other line is quotable.

“When you’re an egoist, none of the harm you do is intentional.”

“I don’t read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists’ ideas as well as the critics’ thinking.”

“Her father died”
“That must have been awful for her.”
“Yeah… It was pretty hard on him, too.”

And so on.

One Stillman remark from the Q&A abides, mirroring the Quentin Crisp ethos:

“Your style comes from your mistakes.”

3.30am. T-shirt before bed. A quick self-portrait by photo, frozen in the heartless flash of the automatic camera. I see how long it takes me to work out how to upload a photo from camera to web diary, using this new Mac laptop that’s still very unfamilar. And I surprise myself.

Faded make-up. I quite like the end of the evening look.

A very solitary, very silent feeling. 3.45am, 34 years old. Alone in the world? No, alone in a world.

I could do anything. Or I could do nothing.

My first post written on a lovely new iBook. Outside, small boys are talking about Cybermen.

As preparing for it takes up the rest of my day, I should post a reminder that my club night takes place tonight.

The Beautiful And Damned: A Thoroughly Splendid Club Night.
Your Host: Mr Dickon Edwards
When: 18 May 2006 , 9pm – midnight.

Where:
The Boogaloo,312 Archway Road, Highgate, London, N6 5AT, UK

Tube: Highgate (Northern Line). Buses: 43, 134, 263.

Free entry. But please dress up.

Some pasted blurb:

After a successful try-out in March, Dickon Edwards’s hot new club returns to the Boogaloo on Thursday May 18th. He’s already been interviewed about the night in London magazines such as Time Out and The Penny, and this is only the second outing.

The Beautiful And Damned is a new decadent disco curated by dysfunctional dandy DJ Dickon Edwards, with Miss Red. Patrons are encouraged to dress up in their own take on 1920s and 30s glamour, though anything more stylish than the ubiquitous Old Street fashions is welcome. Cigarillos, braces, tweeds, beads, silk scarves, unforgiving teddy bears Drink, dance, and ponder the nights tenderness to an eclectic but discerning mix of Sinatra (Frank & Nancy), Strauss waltzes, soundtracks, musicals, El Records, Gilbert & Sullivan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dory Previn, Doris Day, Bugsy Malone, Cabaret, Chicago, deviant disco, shadowy soul, parvenu pop and insouciant indie.

Selected music from last time:

Bernice Bobs Her Hair – Divine Comedy
Get Happy – Judy Garland
Youve Either Got Or You Havent Got Style – Frank Sinatra
Nice On The Ice – Vic Godard
Initials BB – Serge Gainsbourg
I Wanna Be Loved By You – Helen Kane (1920s recording)
I Feel The Earth Move – Carole King
Casino Royale – Bacharach (theme from the movie)
Dream A Little Dream Of Me – Mama Cass
Anything Goes – Harpers Bizarre (theme from The Boys In The Band)
The Lady Is A Tramp – The Supremes
I’ll Keep It With Mine – Nico
How Does That Grab You Darlin? – Nancy Sinatra
Move Over Darling – Doris Day
The Number One Song In Heaven – Sparks
Mrs Robinson – James Taylor Quartet
Yada Yada La Scala – Dory Previn
Talking Heads – This Must Be The Place
Finale From The Mikado – Topsy-Turvy cast

I realise there’s a few other things on offer tonight. Not least taping The Sultan’s Elephant on BBC4.

Other activities are available.

But only one of them has me.

Thanks to all those who emailed in with laptop advice and thoughts. I had about 50/50 Mac and PC recommendations.

So, aware of all the pros and cons and asking myself what I really wanted on a gut level (or indeed, a lap level), I decided to take the plunge and invest in a brand new Mac laptop.

I definitely wanted a cute, stylish laptop per se, and I’m so fed up with my PCs crashing and freezing all the time. I think the limit of my Windows prowess has been well and truly reached after ten years, and it’s about time I at least had a go at learning the ways of the Mac world.

The iconic affordable Mac laptop is the 12″ G4 iBook. The latest version was revised last July with extra sturdiness and memory and so forth. I ordered it on Saturday, and it’s due to arrive tomorrow.

In that short limbo of days (and Mac fans know what I’m about to say), Apple pulled the iBook from its shelves. From today, the iBook has ceased to be, replaced by a Cyberman controlled by Roger Lloyd Pack. Sorry, I mean the all-new singing and dancing MacBook.

But I was aware of this. Although I could send the thing right back and exchange for a hot-off-the-press MacBook, I’d actually rather have the snowy soap-like iBook, at least as a first Mac machine. I saw a louche young man using one in Muswell Hill Library today, and frankly it was lust on first sight. (insert innuendo here, firmly)

The way I see it, it’s preferable to have the last generation of a tried and tested model than the first version of a new machine altogether. It’s never a good idea to get the first release of any gadget, I find. People act as if new equals final, forgetting that the upgrade after that is just around the corner. After the Christmas-like rush of the first kids on the block dies down, there’s usually a few kinks to be ironed out, for the next revision. There might be a whining noise that manifests itself after a month, or the unit could burst into flames if you look at it in just the wrong way. Or there could be an experimental substance in the battery that leaks out and gives the user a disease that turns them into a parody of Celia Johnson.

My priority is to get used to the Mac world per se, and I think it’s better to do that on something other people are more likely to have had experience of. And then I’ll see about graduating cautiously to the MacBook, if and when.

Given my 4-year old desktop PC keeps crashing more frequently, particularly when I play long videos or try to convert audio files, I’ve been thinking of eschewing the installation of a new processor (and hoping for the best), and replacing the bloody thing with a laptop. Ten years of desktop ownership, while really envying laptop users. I feel I’ve almost earned it. It would solve my DJ problem too.

Alex M has suggested I take the plunge and convert to the world of Macintosh, buying a used G4 iBook on Ebay rather than a brand new Windows laptop. I’m not sure. I’ve been swimming in the Windows seas for so long, I’m rather wary of such a change. Then again, it could be just what I need. Many writers and artists I admire bang on about Macs, but then PC users don’t really say anything: they just get on with it.

Any pro-Mac or pro-PC evangelists out there with advice , please drop me an email. Bearing in mind I have a budget of £500, which rather narrows things down.

I’m preparing for the next Beautiful & Damned night on Thursday 18th. Someone from Time Out is keen to run a feature, so I’ve given them a photo and conducted a short email interview. It’s the third time I’ve been interviewed about the club, and Thurs is only its second outing.

I’m rather concerned about the problem of the CD decks being jolted by enthusiastic dancing on the neighbouring floorboards, particularly by those fond of the Charleston – all that stamping about.

One solution is to forgo CDs altogether, and play mp3 files on a laptop for the whole set, something I’ve seen others do a few times now. I’m told there’s a program called Traktor that’s particularly suitable for the purpose. Thing is, I don’t have a laptop. If any kind London-based soul out there can lend me one for the night, or has alternate helpful advice, please get in touch.

Or perhaps I could try this suggestion from Alex M:

“You could borrow two Sony mobiles and do it off them! My K750 plays mp3s and you can get a standard photo audio lead for it. I don’t actually think it’s been done before and you’d be hailed as the New Streets overnight!”

Another day, another large mechanical elephant.

On many Saturdays, the streets of Central London host some protest or other. Recently, there was a protest against some Danish cartoons. A few weeks later there was a Free Speech protest, to protest against the other protest. I heard there were also a few counter-protesters at the Free Speech protest. So that’s a protest against a protest against a protest. And so on. Everyone’s annoyed nowadays.

So this week, I suppose you could call The Sultan’s Elephant a protest against the lack of giant mechanical elephants and towering puppets of little girls on the streets. Quite right too.

Then to Islington for an acoustic set by The Boyfriends. It takes at least twenty French street theatre performers to work one Martin Wallace. You can’t see the strings, though.