My computer is playing up and keeps freezing (I think the technical term is ‘hanging’) so I have to turn it off and turn it on again to fix it. This is happening more frequently lately, often when playing music on iTunes or importing songs from CDs. Particularly annoying when I’ve written about 500 words in an unsaved diary entry.

Friday – to the Boogaloo for St Patrick’s Day. There’s one of those tacky spongy Guinness top hats in attendance. It’s fair to suspect anyone who wears such a thing is an absolute idiot, and probably about as Irish as me, ie not at all. See also jester hats or Santa hats at Christmas. People who think they’re terribly funny rather than tiresome. All the actual Irish people I know instead plump for a piece of real shamrock in their suit lapel. Some non-regular in the Boogaloo stares at my appearance as I walk past, and says to their friends, “Is he taking the piss?” No, I say inwardly, that would be the ones in spongy corporate top hats made for idiots.

The special guest artist playing tonight is Barry McGuigan, the famous Irish boxer. Who it turns out actually has a rather good singing voice. Though if he didn’t, who would dare tell him? So I watch him sing various well-known numbers by Squeeze, U2, Van Morrison, Beatles and the theme from ‘Footloose’. Some wag shouts out for ‘Eye Of The Tiger’. I bet Mr McGuigan’s heard that one before. I’d personally like to hear him do ‘So You Wanna Be A Boxer’ from Bugsy Malone.

I take a first drag on my cigarette holder (my smoking is still on-off, sad to report, but I welcome the public spaces ban that starts next year). I realise to my disgust that the crystal filter is used up. The taste of stale tar residue in the mouth is revolting beyond belief, and I have to go somewhere quickly to spit. Of course, as I rush into the men’s toilets, someone says hello. It’s Mark Beaumont, the NME journalist.

MB: Hi, how are you?
DE: (spits heavily into urinal)
MB: Oh, I get that a lot.

I return to the main pub room and am pleased to find an empty sofa seat. Then I realise why it’s vacated: the girl sitting next to me is being sick on the floor.

Troop off later to Nambucca for the club How Does It Feel, which has moved from the West End to Holloway Road. The place is absolutely packed. There are one or two of those dreaded spongy top hats in sight, but then this is the heart of Irish North London. I use the toilet there too, and some loutish London boy bursts in to announce, ‘Are we all having a good St Patrick’s night, yeah? I’ve got an Irish cousin myself, yeah? Let’s all get pissed!’

Some woman arriving on the door (as I’m chatting to the staff) also announces she is a 64-th part Irish or whatever, as if she’s hoping for a discount. Still, Ian Watson reports that he only gets one record request from someone who’s unaware that it’s the HDIF club night. He plays the Trashcan Sinatras’ ‘Obscurity Knocks’, an all-too-self-aware song title if ever there was one. It’s a very witty jangly guitar pop song from about 1988, and I suddenly remember they’re an Irish group. If you’re going to bang on about Irishness for one night only, a Trashcan Sinatras button badge would be far more cool than a ridiculous spongy top hat. He also plays some terrific songs by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Hidden Cameras and the 60s Brazilian pop group Os Mutantes.

I say hello to David Barnett (now of Morrissey approved band The Boyfriends) and Rachel Stevenson and am bought one drink by a kind Morrissey fan who enjoyed what I wrote the other day about that Smiths book. We talk about how great ‘Ringleader Of The Tormentors’ is. My favourite song on the album is definitely ‘In The Future When All’s Well’.

Am later bought a second drink by a girl on the bar staff, because she says my hair reminds her of her absent boyfriend. Not me, just my hair. I sometimes wonder if I should just send out my hair to social occasions. It’s in danger of getting a solo career.

Walking back up the Holloway Road circa 2am, I step over a spattering of fresh blood on the pavement.

(Footnote: I’m later told that the Trashcan Sinatras are in fact Scottish, and not Irish. They hail from Glasgow.)