Rented out "Girl, Interrupted". Winona Ryder's opening dialogue is now unintentionally amusing:

"Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you had the cash?"

I'm new to this LiveJournal game, so when you click on my "Memories", it says "user has no memories".

Which suits me fine.

I do have a terrible trouble remembering names and faces. And this in turn often gets me into terrible trouble with people whom I haven't seen for some time. They take great umbrage if I can't remember their names, or anything about them at all.

But I can't help it. My brain is connected up so badly. I think Andy Warhol said something similar: that there were chemicals lacking in his brain which other people had and he didn't.

My ambition is to leave my name to a new syndrome.

Admittedly, there are some painful, unhappy memories of my past I have deliberately blanked out in order to look myself in the eye of a morning.

That time I sat through all of the "The Horse Whisperer", for starters.

My stock apology is the the same as God's Last Message To Mankind, taken from the missing final verse of The Book Of Revelation. This has been lost for centuries, and was only recently discovered by myself in a wet hedge near Brentford.

I'd better impart it to the world now, before I forget that too:

<i>Revelation 22:22:
And I heard the Lord God's last message unto every man:
<center><b>"DON'T

TAKE

IT

PERSONALLY".</i></b></center>

One of my favourite jokes heard recently was by Jeremy Hardy:

"My daughter asked me to buy her a pair of Nikes. I told her, 'You're 11 years old, you can make some yourself.' "

I couldn't actually go to Mardi Gras, as <a href="http://www.fosca.com/">Fosca</a> were rehearsing all afternoon, but I did go to the Liquid Lounge in the evening, where many revellers had ended up, including Suede in their little VIP aftershow area of the club.

Pretty much everyone I know who's in the least bit lavender was there, including <lj user=charleston>, whom I hadn't seen for some time, holding court with a gaggle of admirers as usual. She compared me to her friend Katherine Gifford from <a href="http://www.snowpony.com/">Snowpony</a> for some reason. I still don't know what she meant by that. But then, the whole night was clouded by an alcoholic haze. This is something I really should address: I like to have a nice night out, but I could do without the amnesiac element of several jars too many. Not to mention the effect on my wallet.

Matt sends me a small review of the new <a href="http://www.fosca.com/">Fosca</a> single from "Unpeeled", the unofficial paper-only fanzine for the John Peel show:

"FOSCA: Secret Crush On Third Trombone

"The "A" track is a bit of accomplished and muscular whimsy, if there is such a thing, pushed along by a seriously overweight bass. An attractive noise, 80's bombast saved and beyond by sharp lyrics and impeccable timing. Neat, but not a patch on… "Diary of an Antibody", spoken diary entries, increasingly odd, funny and poignant "of course I blow my own trumpet, anyone else's would be unhygienic" and "sex is the PE of adult life and I've got a note from my mother…" I'm afraid it's one of those "must have" records, please buy it, or at the very least get on to Uncle John, hassle him to play it and then tape it."

Reviewed by "Zak Ordinance Jnr of the Fifth U.S. Tactical and Social Gathering Bombing Wing".

I don't <i>think</i> that's anyone I know.

This is cut and pasted from my fosca.com diary, in order to see what it looks like. If I DO find it aesthetically preferable, and find myself writing more often, then I'll use LiveJournal proper for diary entries. Despite what I've said recently.

In the Observer of a week or so ago, Barbara Ellen, the Julie Burchill you can eat between meals, <a href="http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,738178,00.html">criticises the male dominance of Meltdown</a>, the annual unabashed middle-class, middle-aged, but definitely not middlebrow music festival held on the South Bank. This is the big London arts centre where everything is taken very seriously indeed. The people there even know how to mike up live bands properly. Despite my aversion to the general air of snobbiness, of an elitism that is genuinely connected to the real elite, the people who actually do run things (it includes the Royal Festival Hall, after all), I do prefer it to the more smelly venues in town, and would be quite happy if Fosca could play there forever.

Meltdown is 'curated' by a different person each year, usually a well-known figure of a certain age and the right kind of reputation: Scott Walker, John Peel, Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, Robert Wyatt, and now David Bowie. Mr Bowie has a new album out, the critical consensus calling it euphemistically "his best for years". Which is what they've said about every single album of his since "Tin Machine 2".

Once appointed, the curator then gets to choose the bill of the festival. And then a man in charge reminds them that their best mate's favourite Nigerian gargling jazz quartet are all very well, but they need to sell some tickets here. The curator then suggests Level 42, featuring Mark King's effortless mastery of the slap bass. The man in charge shakes his head sadly and draws out a list of a few choice crowd-pulling, but broadsheet-compatible names from the world of Fashionable Rock. "Whatever", shrugs the curator, and mutters sadly into his cocoa about how things were better in the old days when you could leave your paedophile unlocked and still get change from a pound. Later, he does an interview about how he was always a big fan of The Radioheads ever since their first album, "Dummy" was played to him by his granddaughter Plectrum Adenoid.

Barbara Ellen complains that, in ten years of Meltdown, only one curator has been female: Laurie Anderson, "who nobody remembers or cares about". She doesn't mention that earlier curators Magnus Lindberg, Louis Andriesson and George Benjamin aren't exactly household names either. And <i>I</i> care about Laurie Anderson. And I think Lou Reed does too. So that's at least two.

She goes on to bemoan the male dominance of the Matedown bills over the years, and equates this with misogyny. Misogyny is one of those strong words frequently misused and freely bandied about a little too quickly by columnists who hope that by doing so, they'll be immune to such accusations themselves. Foreign regimes punishing adulterous women with public stonings might be more deservedly described as misogynist. Booking Supergrass and Coldplay over Pam Ayres or Maureen Lipman is just careless.

Ms Ellen finally extends her complaint to the implicit sexism of the music business, which is fair enough, except that she claims female artists get overlooked in awards and critics' polls. This is quite untrue. Every time Polly Harvey gets out of bed she wins some tacky gong somewhere. And Kate Bush recently received a Q Magazine award for not even doing that.

So, there's really nothing to complain about after all. Ms Bush gets an award without having to make a record for years, Ms Ellen gets her column done without having to check her facts, and I get something to write about in my diary without doing anything involving heavy lifting.

Am extremely happy with my hair. It gives me an inordinate amount of pleasure and is my one true friend.

Because it's currently as short as possible, the minimum length for forcing a side-parting, I haven't recently had any Andy Warhol or David Sylvian catcalls on the street from strange men of no woman born.

No, instead, on my way to Baxendale at 93 Feet East, I got "Fucking Hell – It's Pee Wee Herman".

Pee-Wee Herman isn't even <i>blond.</i>

<a href="http://www.sweetbutdeadly.co.uk/">Kate</a>'s flyer for the next Fosca gig is wonderful:

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