Sunday July 15th 2001

Two comments from strangers yesterday.

Walking on Archway Road. Young man in baseball cap mutters at me as I pass, finishing with “….batty boy.”

Later, a stranger in a club hisses to me: “You’re one of those that only act gay in order to pull a better class of girl.”

Wednesday July 11th 2001

A beggar sits against a wall in Leicester Square Tube Station, chatting to a tall man who I assume is a passer-by giving him money. I catch a line of the conversation as I walk by:

“So, are we okay for tennis on Tuesday?”

Sitting at a table in a quiet pub in Highgate by myself, nursing a sullen pint. I’m not wearing any make-up. I am “off duty.” Despite this, a man opposite on a bar stool, stares directly at me for ages. I look away. He suddenly shouts at me, “Are you gay?” I say nothing. A pause. “You look it.” Woman next to him says “Shhh.” The pub becomes quiet again.

This sort of thing happens to me all the time. Dickon Edwards: Celebrating Nearly Thirty Years Of Being Out Of Place.

The whole point of me realising that I have this innate talent for Inviting Comment is that I chose to put this talent to good use, to get it to work for me rather than the other way round. I look like that Dickon man because I am that Dickon man. Somebody has to be. Hence the Fosca lyrics: one one level they are adverts for my own persona, explanations as to who I am and why I am who I am. The records are out there now, and there will be more. The work has only begun. I have too much unfinished business with this world. If only for the sake of providing an answer to strange men in Highgate pubs.

Awake from a dream which, unusually for me, I recall vividly. I am quietly ejected from a shop via the staff entrance, on account of “ruining it for the other customers” and “lowering the tone”.

The shop is Woolworths.