Tim C recounts a conversation overheard at a bus stop in Camden last night, at about 10pm:

Man: Do you know the comedian Jerry Sadowitz?

Girl: No

Man: Well that's him over there.

Girl: (silence)

Man: You don't recognize him off the telly?

Girl: No.

Man: He's on Channel 5.

(Girl gets up from bus stop and moves to the other side).

Today's word is <b>logophobia</b>. Fear of words.

<img src="http://www.shink.dircon.co.uk/fadinghands.jpg"></img>

Today's word is <b>pteridomania</b>: an intense desire for ferns.

Proof that life is not meant to be taken seriously #378: The news bulletins on Channel 4's breakfast programme "RI:SE".
Newsreader stands in front of screen displaying the six stories of the bulletin. The screen reads:

"1.CRASH 2.TERROR 3. VIOLENCE 4.CANCER 5.DOG 6.STARS"

Watching Big Brother, I am appalled at many of the housemates' propensity for reducing the entire spectrum of human emotions to just two words:

They are either feeling:

"wicked"

or:

"gutted".

And that's it. It's gotten to the point where I feel physically sick every time I hear one of them say "gutted".

There are so many other words to choose from. Words are great! Use them! Learn a new one every day!

I'll start you off. Here's one: <b>tripsolagnia</b>. That's sexual arousal from having one's hair shampooed.

Please leave your favourite English words in the comments box. Nothing fictional. And not "elbow" either, because, yes, I too have seen <i>The Singing Detective</i>. Or "serendipity", because that topped a recent national "favourite words" poll, and is therefore disqualified.

Matt discovers a good review of our first album, from <a href="http://www.musikexpress.de/">"musikexpress"</a>, which apparently is the biggest German music paper. It also acts as quite a good "Dickon Primer", for those of you stumbling upon this diary, and indeed me, for the first time. I'm clearly having a self-aggrandising day.

Kate D translated it. Her notes are at the bottom.

——
<i>FOSCA
"On Earth To Make The Numbers Up"
(Shinkansen)

Cool, elegant British electropop between Pulp and Pet Shop Boys – without spectacular gestures and compulsive rhythms, but so charming and intelligent that it's irresistable regardless. Dickon Edwards is an incurable romantic. He lost his heart sometime in the early 80s and since then has sought the future in the past, knows himself to be forever misunderstood and apart from the teeming everyday run of things – "I nearly had a T-shirt made saying: Lose Friends in Days – Ask Me How", he sings in "Storytelling Johnny". Dickon is also a great dreamer, who has never relinquished the hope deep inside of one day living in a world full of intelligent, tasteful beings who mix volubly and insightfully with one another – one of his most melancholic songs is called "Live Deliberately", including the immortal line: "I found the truth, and it was of no use."

Dickon hit the big time</i><b>[*]</b> <i>a couple of years ago. Then the revival of the cool Britain of the 80s under the slogan "Romo" ("Romantic Modernists") was going like a cold wildfire through London, and Dickon's band Orlando belonged to the innermost circle and the most joyful phenomena. Their album "Passive Soul" was numbered by the critics of the Melody Maker as amongst the best of 1997, and the singer, lyricist and co-songwriter kept a safe foot on the parquet of vanity. His meticulous appearance filled the gossip columns, he wrote much-observed essays on the Style Council and Manic Street Preachers, appeared as an eccentric fashion model – and disappeared overnight into thin air after the Romo fashion disintegrated like an Autumn lichen.</i><b>[**]</b> <i> From 1998 he appeared under the name Fosca – more a project than a band, with changing lineups, sole live shows, a pretty self-produced single ("Nervous", 1999) – and wrote an internet diary enjoyed with great, silent admiration by insiders.

Without haste Fosca took shape step by step – Rachel Stevenson came as (also singing) keyboardist, cellist Sheila B and multi-instrumentalist Alex Sharkey completed the line-up. After a highly regarded debut outing supporting the spiritually incestuous</i><b>[***]</b> <i>Trembling Blue Stars at London's Spitz club, in April 2000 the band worked with St. Etienne and Kylie Minogue producer Ian Catt to record eight songs that for me beyond doubt number amongst the most beautiful and intelligent of this year – from the fragile joy of the dance-hymn "The Agony Without The Ecstasy" to the intimate, tearless September-Sunday-melancholy of "Assume Nothing", from the 80s disco masked ball sounds of "It's Going To End In Tears (All I Know)" to the hymnal warmth of "On Earth To Make The Numbers Up" – a potential hit, a favourite song like the others, with lyrics that Jarvis Cocker would be very proud of. "I dreamt the film of my life as directed by Joseph Losey / It was eight minutes long, and cast as me was Parker Posey / It had a limited run in the small hours on Channel Four / And all of my scenes ended up on the cutting room floor." – that's just the beginning of "The Millionaire of Your Own Hair".

There aren't many bands whom I can love without reserve and in every detail – here is one of them.
5 and a half stars.
Michael Sailer</i>

I don't know out of how many stars that is, though.

Kate's translation notes:
<b>[*]</b> <i>"hatte eine grosse Zeit" = "had a big time". you go figure</i>
<b>[**]</b><i> it's actually Autumn mushroom but I think something gets lost in the translation!</i>
<b>[***]</b> <i>yes, definitely something getting lost in the translation.</i>

Actually, I think it <i>gains</i> something in the translation.

Opening dialogue from The Naked Civil Servant:

Quentin's Father: Are you going to spend all day in front of that mirror?
Quentin: If I possibly can.

<img src="http://www.fosca.com/mememe.jpg"></img><img src="http://www.fosca.com/mememe.jpg"></img><img src="http://www.fosca.com/mememe.jpg"></img>

Awake from a dream akin to that scene in "Being John Malkovitch". A world where everyone, male and female, looks like me.

Except for me, it's not a nightmare.

Living as we are in an age of celebrities-uber-alles, I take great comfort in the most useless instances of name-dropping and celeb spotting.

I have once spoken to Morrissey. I said "'Scuse Me." He was standing in front of me at a gig.

I've emailed Mo Tucker of the Velvet Underground to tell her that her website had an error on it. She emailed me back. "Thanks."

Feel free to add your own stories. On no account must they be interesting or impressive.

Thing is, I'm outdone by magazines and gossip columns who actually print such accounts as entertaining and revelatory. For example, "Spotted: Dale Winton in a road, yesterday". That sort of thing. It's beyond parody.

Heat Magazine is a trashy and fun magazine that I shamefacedly confess to enjoying. But it does have an irritating habit of extending its net of celebrity definition a little too far. They recently published a two-page photo spread on Radio 1 DJ Dave Moyles spotted having a cigarette outside Broadcasting House, his place of employment. It was the photos that got me. What is the reader's reaction meant to be? Surprised? Impressed?

A few weeks ago I attended <a href="http://www.promnight.co.uk/">"Prom Night"</a>, a London club which plays the music of 80s John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, Some Kind Of Wonderful, and so on. A bit like those School Disco clubs, but with much more style and class, and much less of a hen night / stag night / office party element. In England, we don't have Proms at school. We just watch them in countless US films and TV series and grind our bad teeth in envy.

They even nominate a Prom King & Queen for the night. Needless to say it was me as soon as I walked in:

<img src="http://fp.promnight.f9.co.uk/Prom%20Night%20site/06-02-king-queen.JPG"></IMG>

Bucket of pig's blood not pictured.

The Prom Queen, amusingly, was so reluctant to be with me it wasn't true. So it really was just like being back at school. She handed back her Prom Queen sash soon after the photos were taken. So I snatched it up and put that one on too. I intend to wear it at the next Fosca show.

To be fair, though, her reluctance, as she explained to me later, was mainly due to not having her best ballgown on. She'd been a regular to the club, and you can only get crowned once. And the club isn't on again for a while.

I requested "High Fidelity" by The Kids From Fame. And they played it, too. A wonderful record, with one of the campest opening lyrics of all time:

<i>"Other boys may turn me on / But I let temptation slide…"</i>

The new Fosca album is released on August 12th. The same day as the "Sapphire and Steel" DVD. A fitting coincidence.

Not only that, but on the sleeve of the former, I happen to be wearing the same tie as David McCallum on the latter:

<img src="http://www.fosca.com/traycardback.jpg"></img>

<img src="http://www.blackstar.co.uk/img/video/cover/front-sorted/7000000/07/16/31.jpg"></img>

"All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension."

Handle me! Handle me!

Last night, I managed to be very clever and fit all of my week's nightlife into one evening.

I met up at the Dublin Castle in Camden with the aloof Johnny Johnson, who was once the singer in <a href="http://www.siddeleys.com/">The Siddeleys</a>. She remained my escort for the first three of the four outings.
<img src="http://www.howdoesitfeel.f9.co.uk/twodickon.jpg"></img>

After catching the set there by the talented <lj user=linusland>, managing in the process to say hi to <lj user=jinty> and <lj user=andypop>, we quickly relocated up the road to Dingwalls and caught most of Cinerama's set. After greeting <lj user=mzdt>, it was off to Tottenham Court Road to investigate <a href="http://www.popstarz.org/naginfo.htm">"Nag Nag Nag"</a> at The Ghetto, which is a Popstarz-offshoot club that plays "electroclash". I'd been given a flyer at The Liquid Lounge the previous Saturday, and told I'd fit right in there. Well, I did and I didn't, really. Plenty of dressed-up young things dancing away, but after being there for an hour, I still didn't recognise any of the music. To my out of touch ears, it just sounded like hard industrial dance music, with a synthy edge. Not really my sort of thing. Maybe I came at the wrong moment, but I was feeling restless, and retired to the club next door,"The Rabbit Hole" at The Metro, where they play, well, pop songs that I did recognise.

Some things learned:

-Johnny Johnson will not get on a tube train.
-Cinerama are a fantastic live band. Better than The Wedding Present ever were. Even when they actually <i>become</i>The Wedding Present for a few songs, they're still better.
-David Gedge fans aren't <i>just</i> thirtyish men with thick necks, tidy little sideburns, and faces like Rodney Bewes. Although it did seem that way when I last saw Cinerama a couple of years ago, the audience tonight was much more healthily mixed. Lots of nubile young things of all sexes. And Sean Hughes, who passed me by the toilets and pretended to not know who I was, the fool.
-Mr Gedge still looks exactly the same as he did on the sleeve of "George Best". Same initials as Dorian Gray.
-Dingwalls is far too small for Cinerama. And too hot.

At the Rabbit Hole, a man sat next to me:
Man: Where's your bird?
Me: I haven't got one.
Man: But you must be here to pull birds, right? All dressed up like that?
Me: (shocked silence)