“You’re a bloody bugger”, says Peter. He is, like others, rather frustrated by my current lack of activity and willingness to get Fosca up and fighting again. With no one like Tim around to goad me into action (Tim would give me deadlines for providing the goods in Orlando), I am ashamed to report that I have been tending to not so much seize the day as let it slip sinfully through my pampered paws. Perhaps it’s a fear of the future, a fear of action, a glut of passivity and indulgence and a new surge in hermit-like isolation in Highgate, being part misanthropy, part agoraphobia. On the odd occasions I’ve stepped outside the house, I’ve been careful to avoid going anywhere I might bump into someone I know and, heaven forfend, have to speak to them. Why be actively creative when there’s so much creativity to passively enjoy? Why go out and see some derivative band in a Camden cave when I can lie in bed and listen to the wonderful Orange Juice album “You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever”, recently published on CD? I weakly justify this as taking a Holiday in Heaven: being by myself in one room in a quiet leafy avenue of North London with all my favourite things. But it has to stop, and it will stop.

One of the songs we recorded with Sav, “Leopard of Lime Street” looks likely now to appear on a forthcoming indie compilation CD, one of the “Snakebite City” series on Bluefire Records.

Meanwhile, the other Fosca cohorts are playing gigs you can troll along to if you’re in the UK:

Doctor David and Prince Peter are performing in the band Ackercocke on Sunday 3rd May at London’s Islington Red Eye, billed as “Satanic Death Metal” so bring the favourite of your mothers.

Lady Charley is on tour in the UK with the band Gay Dad, supporting Superstar, taking in a town near you (Leicester, Chelmsford, Middlesborough, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford, Brighton, Bristol, Exeter, Birmingham, Reading and London’s Garage) from April 22nd to May 11th.

If you’re going to one of these gigs, do approach the above alumni and tell them Dickon sent you.

My Least Liked Words at present:

Career
Professionalism
Bluetones
Musician and Musicianship
DUH! or WELL, DUH! (and other USA slang banalities threatening to prevail on these shores)
CD1 & CD2
Millennium Bug
Busy
Person Under A Train
Waiting List
Paisley
Sophomore
Why Did You Leave Orlando They Were Good

My Favourite Words at present:

Snog
Abba
Juno 6
Rebate
Nit
Twist ‘n’ Squeeze
Baudrillard
Jude Law
Discount
Chuffed
Keep An Open Mind Or Else
Aren’t You Dickon?

Here’s the working titles of some Work In Progress.

“Clearly I’m Going To The Wrong Sort Of Parties”
“Banned From The Cutie Disco”
“Minimum Wage Love”
“Speech Therapy Junkie”
“Stalker Of The Century”

I hasten to add that it’s not the songwriting that’s taking up the time. Johnny Marr wrote “Still Ill”, “This Charming Man” and some other early Smiths gem in one evening. Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” before breakfast one day. James Joyce took ten years to write “Finnegan’s Wake”. And it’s rubbish.