Today I met my father and found out something new.
If I had been born a girl, I would have been called… Eleanor.
This prompted me to ask my friends if they knew what their own alternative-sex-name was. Tim Chipping knew his instantly: Esther Mary.
So, in some alternative-sperm-meets-egg universe, there was a band called Orlando featuring Eleanor Edwards and Esther Mary Chipping. We sound more like a couple of old ladies running an antiques shop in Long Melford.
Thanks to all those other LJ users who have added me as a Friend. Please note that I can't reciprocate, purely because I wouldn't have time to read them all if I did. The Friends I have in my User Profile were all added the week I started on LJ, as they are the ones that convinced me to move the diary to LiveJournal in the first place. So it's nothing personal.
However, if you have added me, I WILL naturally take a sly look at your diary now and then… How could I resist?
I’m sure there’ a “Which ‘League Of Gentleman’ Character Are You?”quiz somewhere on the Web.
But, before anyone else writes to tell me, yes, I AM aware of this one:
Enough said.
As promised, I’ve scanned the Sleazenation article in which I talk about the Dickon Edwards style, ie Being A God.
<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,49201,00.html">Here's a interesting news story</a> on how people called Dickon, Dick, or even Dickens can come a cropper at the hands of parental-protection filters on computers.
Americans who have a go at me for having a vaguely silly name have a bit of a nerve, given that even their own politicians have names like <a href="http://shop.store.yahoo.com/politicsus/dicswetforgo.html">Dick Swett</a> and <a href="http://www.otter4idaho.com/page.cfm?id=689">Butch Otter</a>.
Musing further on the subject of my own name, I decide to do <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Dickon&btnG=Google+Search&meta=">a Google search on "Dickon"</a>. I've searched for my full name many times (I think the term is an 'ego-search'), but never for just "Dickon" per se.
This diary comes an impressive third, even beating a webpage on 'The Secret Garden', from which my parents found the name. The top two results belong to the pages of a Cambridge man who does something complicated with computers. <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~dr10009/">Dr Dickon Reed</a>. Here he is:
<img src="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~dr10009/dr.jpg"></img>
Well done, Dr Reed. You are officially the biggest Dickon on the Web.
I'm #1 on the <a href="http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Dickon&sa=N&tab=wi&meta=">Google Image search</a>, mind. Second is a bald man with glasses. Third is a bridge.
An enjoyable evening at <a href="http://www.trashclub.co.uk">Trash</a> last night. I went by myself, loafed around by myself, chatted to people I knew, took compliments from people I didn't, had my photo taken by a magazine, did a spot of people-watching, saw a live set by Gonzales, drank a little, danced a little, left by myself. That's the way to do it.
One person at the club (Swedish – naturally) said they recognised me from Sleazenation magazine, which is virtually Trash Monthly. So today I went to buy the issue in question to see for myself. I'm on page 22. A small piece, squeezed next to an article on yet ANOTHER of those garage rock bands, but I take what I can get. It's Distilled Dickon: soundbite-heavy, and containing all the bare bones of my philosophy of life. And clearly it was enough to be noticed by someone.
I shall endeavour to get it scanned forthwith.
Something for fans of my old group, Orlando.
Tim Chipping has put up a <a href="http://www.timchipping.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/earmedicine.html">webpage</a> where you can download rare songs, with some "liner notes" from him. They may not stay up there for long, and other tracks may be added in their place, so you're advised to bookmark the page.
Fosca played their last gig in their series of monthly London headliners the other night. From now on we're going to be like Only Fools And Horses: just special events whenever we feel like it. We're also concentrating on non-London shows and seeking out support slots with bigger acts.
The venue we played on Thursday was The Arts Cafe, at Toynbee Hall in Commercial Street, E1. I'd not been there before, but it's now my favourite small venue in London. Getting off at Aldgate East tube, the platform has signs to Toynbee Hall that are clearly part of the station's original 1930s decor.
There was more history to come. At the venue, there's a stairwell covered with posters of previous gigs hosted by "The Sausage Machine", legendary promoters of early 90s London concerts who appear to still put on gigs at the Arts Cafe. Fascinating stuff. The posters stretched back to 1991, perhaps earlier. Bands who became big, bands who didn't. Bands who gave up, bands who didn't: Ricky Spontane, and LOTS of Linus gigs (<lj user=andypop> must have a few memories).
Other poster of past gigs that you can see at The Arts Cafe… The Asphalt Ribbons (before they became the Tindersticks) supported by Huggy Bear. Bands who were hyped at the time as The Next Big Thing but sank without a trace, like Mint 400. A pre-fame Suede in a pub room for £2, who presumably featured Justine Elastica on guitar at the time. PJ Harvey third on the bill to Midway Still and The Becketts. I saw The Becketts in Bristol at about the same time. The most memorable thing about them was that they featured Paddy Ashdown's son.
The Arts Cafe itself proves that it is possible to have a civilized venue without being pretentious and chrome-laden. A proper stage too, rather than a corner of a bar on the same level where people can't see you if they're not at the front. Lots of paintings and artworks in the wall. A sound engineer called Percy.
"Where can we plug in?"
"The power points are behind the Art."
The gig was a much more celebratory affair than our last depressing show at the Garage. People actually turned up to this one. Even Rachel The Artist's Model who works at Archway Video.
[Archway Video: the greatest video rental shop in London… Missed "But I'm A Cheerleader" and "Robinson In Space" when they spent 3 days on the arthouse cinema circuit? Never seen "Liquid Sky", "O Lucky Man" or "Happiness"? Rent the videos here… They stock absolutely everything, mainstream to obscure. Lots of foreign language cinema. The complete Buffy and Angel videos. I Claudius. Brideshead Revisited. Every film by Woody Allen, Hal Hartley, Derek Jarman. But not that Aaliyah film "Queen Of The Damned", though. They deliberately refuse to stock that "on account of it being the worst film in recent memory".]
I managed to actually catch and develop a streaming cold <i>during</i> our set, but that appealed to my consumptive valetudinarian aesthetics. "When I grow up I want to be an invalid." Nothing like running mascara and a failing voice to add a bit of frisson to a concert. Luckily we currently do at least one number where I don't have to sing, in this case, the spoken word "Diary Of An Antibody", with Sheila and Rachel on vocals.
It was also National Poetry Day, so during the set I decided to recite an Ivor Cutler poem, "Breasts", in full:
<b><i>
"If your breasts are too big,
You will fall over.
Unless you are wearing
A rucksack."</b></i>
Looking at other LiveJournals, I notice that choosing to eschew a pseudonym seems quite unusual. My reason for plumping for "dickon_edwards" and not something like "kittenboy666" or "glitter_librarian" is that I want anyone looking for me on the Web to find me as easily as possible.
That, and because there is no need for a comedy pseudonym when one's own given name is comedic enough.
I once tried out one of those programs that's meant to elimate your computer of potentially offensive "adult" material, in case it discovered something lurking on my hard drive I hadn't previously been aware of.
It came up with hundreds of archived emails and text files. Because they all contained the word "Dickon".
It's happened elsewhere. I once got thrown out of an internet chatroom within seconds with the words "change yr nickname".
"But it's my given name. I went through school with it."
"change yr nick or B banned."
"It's NOT my 'nick'! Are you an American who's never been exposed to "The Secret Garden", by any chance?"
"wtf?"
"Never mind."
There's a collection of Peter Cook's writings out this week. Worth getting for the cover alone:
<lj-cut text="Photo here">
<img src="http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0712623981.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg"></img>
</lj-cut>
Alan Bennett wrote the following words about Mr Cook, words of hope from which I take great comfort myself.
<i>"One thinks of one of the stock characters in an old-fashioned Western: the doctor who's always to be found in the saloon and whose allegiance is never quite plain. Seldom sober, he is cleverer than most of the people he associates with, spending his time playing cards with the baddies but taking no sides. Still, when the chips are down, and slightly to his own surprise, he does the right thing.
"But there is never any suggestion that, having risen to the occasion, he is going to mend his ways in any permanent fashion. He goes on much as ever down the path to self-destruction, knowing that redemption is not for him – and it is this that redeems him.
"The message of a character like his being that a life of complete self-indulgence, if led with the whole heart, may also bring wisdom."</i>
You'll forgive this entry for being like one of those cover versions that say more about the singer than their own songs.
