Here is a photo of me taken at The Rabbit Hole club, Oxford Street, last week. It's from the <a href="http://www.irlondon.co.uk">irLondon website</a>.

<lj-cut text="Photo here">
<img src="http://www.fosca.com/DSCF0023.jpg"></img>
</lj-cut>

Last night's "Four To The Floor" night was great fun.

At one point during his Prince set, Mr Price held up a sign saying "PRINCE INVENTED TEXT MESSAGING."

A thought occurred to me while Ms Minogue's "Step Back In Time" was played. It's a hit from about 1990, when she was with Messrs Stock Aiken and Waterman. Mr Waterman always boasted about having "Woolworths Ears". By this he claimed to know the secret of writing pop lyrics that appeal to small children, who were Ms Minogue's sole target market at the time.

On this occasion, though, he seemed to forget himself:

Kylie: (sings) <i>Do you remember the O-Jays?</i>
Small children: No.

Dickon wears white socks.

I often get into terrible trouble for this. My own reason is that, at school, the 'White Sock Brigade' was the term for the English equivalent of rednecks. 'Townies' is another. So one reason for me wearing them is simple reclamation of territory. Even townies don't wear white socks anymore. They're that rough. Another reason is that I rather like them. Their current status as fashion anathema gives them, in my eyes, a sly degree of forbidden fruit fetishism.

Or so I thought. In Q Magazine this month, the boy in The White Stripes, possibly the most fashionable band of the moment, can be seen displaying a palpably white-clothed gap between his black shoes and red trousers.

Does this means white socks are finally back in? And, like a stopped clock, I am fashionable simply by brazening it out?

There's a kind review of our album in today's Independent On Sunday. Four stars out of five.

Soundbite heading: "daft synthpop". Which rather makes us sound like Frank Sidebottom. Daft as in ridiculous, though, is fair enough. I'll be the first to admit that my entire existence is the result of some cruel practical joke.

Generous quotes of my lyrics, which I always approve of. I exist to please.

And I still can't sing. Well, I am all too sadly aware of the fact. That's why there's no cover versions. I'm actually only too happy for the songs to be sung by someone else. They just have to be right, that's all. If someone out there thinks they're the ideal exponent for Dickon Edwards songs, do get in touch. Seriously. I always dreamed of there being the equivalent of "Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Dickon Edwards Songbook". Or "Johnny Ray Does Dickon."

Thought: if anyone reading this ever has the urge to buy a Coldplay record, please don't. Buy a <a href="http://www.tbstars.co.uk/">Trembling Blue Stars</a> album instead. They do the whole doleful pop thing much better. They always did. Much better lyrics, much better songs. You won't regret it.

So, it's been launched. "Diary On An Antibody" by Fosca. A new album on CD. Out in the shops officially on Monday. Available directly from the Shinkansen label online <a href="http://www.shink.dircon.co.uk/mailorder.htm">here</a>.

And the album launch gig last night was a good evening, if truth be told.

Kings Cross Water Rats, one of my favourite venues, on a nice balmy evening, with many old friends and acquaintances in attendance. C33X and Vermont were both wonderful, and we played fairly well, I like to think. After warming up with "Storytelling Johnny" from the first album, we played all of the new album in order. Just like those recent gigs at the Royal Festival Hall where Mr Wilson played all of 'Pet Sounds', and Mr Bowie all of 'Low'.

Kate had a glittery ball-gown on for the occasion, and debuted her recorder solos. And I debuted my shock-horror fuzzbox to get the noisy guitar sound at the very end of "Letter To Saint Christopher". The only reason I hadn't used it in concert before was that it didn't fit in my bag. I managed to finally solve the problem this time. I brought a bigger bag.

Another first was myself wearing a buttonhole, a red knitted (or should that be crocheted?) affair, given to me at Ladyfest by a kind reader of these diaries. Thank you, thank you, o buttonhole-giver, if you're reading this.

We wrote a special programme for the evening, containing notes on all the songs of the new album. If you're interested, you can read the text <a href="http://www.fosca.com/foscaprogramme.htm">here</a>.

I promised Tim Chipping I'd plug his one-off club night / birthday party. It's called "Four To The Floor" and takes place on Sunday August 18th 7pm-midnight, at The Buffalo Bar, Highbury Corner, next to Highbury & Islington tube. £3 entry.

Basically, the club night consists of songs from only four artists: Kylie, Madonna, Prince and Morrissey. One-hour segments of each. No one else.

More details here:
http://www.tc015b8209.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/flyer1.jpg

Please come if you can.

Somewhere or other today, I read a description of Fosca as 'winsome'. The dictinary definition is "charming in a naive or childlike way", which would be fine, but currently, more often than not the word tends to be used pejoratively.

I recall that Alan Bennett takes particular umbrage when the term is applied to him. One story goes, that, when an interviewer used the word, Mr Bennett replied "Winsome? Lose some", and promptly got up and left.

This morning at 9am, tickets went on sale at the Royal Albert Hall for <a href="http://www.nme.com/news/102555.htm">Morrissey's latest London shows</a> there. I fancied paying my respects to the great man, and decided to go to the venue's box office in person, to check the seating plan and ensure I could get one of the ground-level seats at the side of the stage, where one can have a perfectly close view without braving the moshpit.

The question was, how early should one get there, in case there was a queue round the block? After some thought, I eventually decided on a mere 45 minutes before they opened. Partly because this is my limit for queuing time, and I loathe queuing, but mostly because I suspected that things are different from his 1988 gratis solo debut gig in Wolverhampton, where hordes of Mozphiles queued for hours on end, even overnight.

In 2002, London Morrissey fans, I suspected, tend to be a little more demure in their worship and eschew any sense of occasion when they can instead, for an extra fee, phone or book online with their credit cards, not minding too much where they sit. And £27.50 per ticket sees off any casual gig-goers. It certainly curtails my nightlife for a while. But it <i>is</i> Mr Morrissey.

I was right. There were only four other people there. A dozen more turned up at about ten-to-nine, but that was it. I got the ticket I wanted with no problem at all.

Amusingly, two journalists from Q Magazine were also in attendance, covering the whole tour. They were hoping for a nice photo of a big queue around the block. They were very disappointed at how much they'd misjudged things. But then, one of the journalists had a beard, so he is forgiven.

I suggested they cut out the queue from the Queen Mother's lying-in-state earlier this year, and stick it over this one.

Some of the four other people in the queue had their individual pictures taken and were interviewed, but they left me alone. Perhaps I don't look like a typical Morrissey fan. Bleached hair combed into a side-parting isn't that heavily associated with the Salford singer's iconography. But I may well feature in a photo of the whole queue, quietly reading my book.

This will probably be the only form of coverage Fosca get in Q Magazine. The singer being accidentally in a photo of a queue for tickets for somebody else's gig. And yet Fosca are the ones with a new album out in the shops on Monday, while Morrissey remains without a record deal after five years, and there's still no sign of a new release from him.

How very Fosca. And how very Morrissey.