In Time Out, a piece on the singer Amy Winehouse is saturated with references to how it’s a shame she’s not Lily Allen. If I were the editor I’d tell the writer to go back and do it again. Once more with feeling, please.

This is to my mind music journalism at its worst: too busy looking over the shoulders of what everyone else is writing, or so they think. All this piece tells us is that the writer is hopelessly at the mercy of some mystical zeitgeist. Worst, he or she believes such a position to be an ideal.

It’s important to snoop around at the world, but for actual inspiration one should read works with a good coating of dust, as it were. Or read a writer who’s clearly of a much older generation and therefore exists in a different world anyway.

Never, ever, read the works of your contemporaries or those younger, just before putting pen to paper yourself (or fingers to keyboard). You will not be yourself. Being yourself is the whole point of writing, where you’re unfettered and unshackled by body language, bad teeth, a silly voice, a face that doesn’t match your mind. And yet journalists like the author of this Amy Winehouse piece seem only too happy to timidly cower in the face of Getting On. Likewise far too many people on the Web.

Never worry about Getting On for fear of losing out. You will not lose out. Stand your ground, stare the world in the eye, and witty, kind friends will buy you surprise birthday lunches.

Never write anything on the internet after just reading something else that’s just been written on the internet. Read something from a bygone age, or by a bygone author. You will bring to it your own modern persona, and the resulting giddy, original cocktail will be worth everyone’s time. Which will make a refreshing change.

Otherwise, it’s just the equivalent of in-breeding.

A: Apparently Lily Allen has a famous dad.
B: Yes. It’s that comedian man, isn’t it.

(pause)

B: … Dave Allen.
A: I think you mean…
B: I think I mean….
A: Woody Allen.
B: Yes.
A: And you know who else has a famous dad too?
B: Who?
A: Peaches Geldof.
B: Really, who’s her dad, then?

(pause)

A: … Dave Geldof.

(death all round, frankly)

The new album by The Hidden Cameras, “Awoo” is out now, and needless to say it’s my favourite album of the year. Though the Morrissey, Sparks, Scott Walker and Xiu Xiu releases come close.

Long term readers will know I’ve been raving about The Hidden Cameras since their first releases a few years ago, and though I no longer wish to jump on the next plane to Toronto and stalk them, I still think the world of them. Please, please get this album. It’s utterably, unnameably gorgeous and joyously intoxicating. I almost literally cannot stop playing it.

Anyway, here’s a YouTube video for the title track.

Wolf mask dancers, sparklers, “The Box Of Delights”, gay glockenspiels… How anyone can NOT fall in love with The Hidden Cameras is beyond me.

Some film recommendations, while I think of them:

As the cliche goes, if you see only one film in the next month, go and see “The Queen”. It’s essential viewing for anyone who’s heard of England, frankly.

“Snowcake” is rather good, too, even though it looks like sentimental mush. Alan Rickman’s greatest performance, finally getting a stab at a lead role in what seems like an eon.

“Little Miss Sunshine” looks good and has its moments, but isn’t quite enough compared to the rather similar “Pieces Of April” or “The Daytrippers”.

“Trust The Man” is a fluffy but enjoyable enough “Sex And The City” type comedy, which is fine if like me you’re happy to watch Julianne Moore and Maggie Gyllanhaal in absolutely anything. Though the ending is such a romcom cliche, it makes Richard Curtis look like Fassbinder.

Lost Days: Birthday

Whenever I fail to write a diary entry covering the day before, it’s either because absolutely nothing of note happened that day, or because I’ve not managed to get near a computer before my energy sags and the broken bedsprings beckon. Experience has also taught me that it’s not advisable to write an entry just before bed if I’ve been drinking steadily in the evening. It does rather show.

Drinking in order to get over the nervousness of the blank page, though, is a different matter altogether. You just have to get the balance right. Or rather, get the imbalance right.

I do want to debrief myself for the sake of marking Time before Time marks me. Hence ‘Lost Days’. Nothing of interest happened to me yesterday (I shopped, I read, I ate, I tried to write). So this is the time to catch up on the days where things did happen.

Sept 3rd 2006: My 35th birthday passes without too much blood on the carpet. Ms Kirsten takes me out the night before to Soho lesbian venue The Candy Bar, where I drink so much that some of the clientele start to resemble convincing clones of Pete Doherty and Leonard DiCaprio, which is nice. Though to be fair, those gentlemen don’t look entirely unlike boyish girls themselves. Made a complete fool of myself saying “Do you know you who I am?” to a few people, staggered onto a night bus and loudly addressed the entire top deck that this was my last ever ride on such interminable carriages of drunken drivel. I’ve done enough Night Buses for one lifetime, I declared to no one in particular. Ticked that off. Taxis or walkable Highgate nights or early nights from now on. Well, that’s how I felt then and there and in that state, anyway.

Awake on my birthday at about eleven, ridiculously hungover from the night before. Dad rings, and I’m ashamed that I can barely string a sentence together to speak to him. Feeling that the price one pays for over-indulging is spending most of the following day in an even more dazed state than usual, I’m finding nights on the tiles are increasingly poor value. Still, one improvement of sorts is that I no longer throw up when over-indulging. It’s been years since the contents of my stomach have taken a wrong turning. I’m a less messy drunk these days. This is not quite the stuff of redemption, but I like to view it as a small mercy of sorts.

Ms Charley Stone has kindly arranged to buy me lunch in Highgate Village to help take my mind of this depressing anniversary, so off I stagger to Cafe Rouge. Where I am greeted by something of a surprise party: not just Charley, but Kirsten, David B, Anna S, and Rhoda B too.

As I sit down with barely a word, I think they seem slightly miffed that I don’t appear to look grateful or even surprised. I am, I’m just not very good at looking it. This is one of the many entries in that bulkiest of volumes called The Trouble With Dickon Edwards. It’s a character trait which some have claimed is a touch of Asperger’s Syndrome. The bit about being unable to pull normal expressions and show normal emotions when socializing. Even more so when I’m hungover and am thus not entirely sure how to exist full stop. During the course of this lunch, I am treated to my first ever Bloody Mary, which rather perks me up somewhat, particularly when David B mixes it to a suspiciously potent strength.

Given I feel increasingly removed from the human race, I’m utterly grateful for this kind and undeserved attention, just as I am for the many text messages and emails I get wishing me a happy birthday. More than I’ve ever had before, it seems. Rhoda’s card to me is a printed gem: “Good News! You’re Pregnant!”. Charley’s is along the same lines: a suitably gushing snow-covered Christmas card with the words “Merry Christmas” crossed out and “Happy Birthday” inserted in biro.

In the pile of presents, to which Ms Suzi has contributed in absentia, I get a copy of my colonial correspondent Lord Whimsy’s beautiful book, a classy little notebook from Rhoda, a bottle of champagne (if you’re ever inclined to buy me a present between now and the grave, Dear Reader, you can’t go wrong with nice notebooks or champagne), a fantastic 1945 anthology from Dad called “Come Not, Lucifer”, comprising various gothic tales by Poe, Melville, Le Fanu et al, all illustrated by R.A. Brandt; vouchers to spend on Ebay from Tom, and various CDs including the album by The Organ, a new band fronted by a strikingly androgynous young lady who sounds like Morrissey, which is obviously right up my cul-de-sac.

The champagne is still in my fridge, unopened. I think a part of me is hoping for some suitably happy occasion to come along. Well, speed the day, O world.

In the evening, I repair to The Boogaloo as ever, having treated myself to a copy of the new Morrissey track-by-track book by Johnny Rogan (typically dull but anorak-pleasing) and a paperback of Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories (typically brilliant). Anna and David are there, as is Jonathan Norton, who gives me a CD by the band which Ultrasound used to be, Sleepy People, and who tells me I currently look like Nicholas Cage.

Not exactly a stadium-filling turn-out, heigh ho, but as Claudia A points out to me on the tube the next day, I probably should have given people more than one day’s notice of this birthday drinks do. If you want London people to come to your gathering, you have to ram it into their heads regularly over the preceding weeks.

[In which case: Beautiful & Damned, Thursday Sept 21st, Boogaloo, 9pm.]

Taylor Parkes turns up, and I point out that he’s in the Rogan book’s index, there between “Parker, Dorothy” and “Parsons, Tony”. I tell him this juxtaposition just about sums him up, and he calls me a c—.

I’m gratified to hear that, on relating my recent outbursts of drunken arrogance to strangers, ie “Do you know who I am?” or “Oh, just Google me”, my friends find this utterly amusing rather than shameful. A silver lining, perhaps, but I’m happy to come across as laughable, as long as it’s endearingly, harmlessly laughable. And not pathetically, dangerously laughable. But it’s not up to me to decide that.

At the Boogaloo recently, a woman kept coming up to me to say “Oh you, you’re just so funny!”, and I don’t think I actually said or did anything at all in her presence; I was just standing around.

Last night: to the Italian Institute in Belgrave Square with Suzi L, Lawrence G and Alison, for a classical recital with narration presented by Handel House. It’s about castrati singers such as Farinelli et al, with a rather excellent title, “Machines Made For Singing”. Three performers: an older gentleman as narrator, who I suspect is a stage actor; a good-looking, tousled-haired young man on harpsichord who appears to have his own female fanbase, and on vocals Nicholas Clapton, who’s a leading expert on those curiously castrated opera singers of yore. I understand that his range as a counter-tenor isn’t quite the same as a real castrato (the last one died a century ago), but the notes he hits sound pretty damn high to me. Higher and purer than the pop-soul range of Jimmy Somerville, for instance, or the vaudeville shrieks of the singer from the Tiger Lillies.

Typically, my mind wanders at a tangent, or disappears into its own world altogether through exhaustion. I’ve been going out too much lately, and vow to concentrate my meagre energies on my own work from now on, as opposed to enjoying the work of others all the time. At least until I finish a few projects.

I’m rather struck with Professor Clapton’s lack of facial stubble, and wonder if it’s connected with his innate ability to sing in such a high voice.

“There’s nothing funny or odd about a grown man singing falsetto” he tells the audience, suggesting that he’s been subject to a lifetime of innuendo-laden queries about his talent. “Stick a pin into any man and you’ll hear falsetto notes.”

Even so, he does have a slightly otherworldy and angel-like (as opposed to angelic) quality about him, falsetto or not. And when he takes questions from the floor after the recital, I’m tempted to ask him about his personal skin care programme. But I resist.

Afterwards, we walk out onto the Institute’s balcony, where I feel tempted to wave – or salute like Mussolini.

“I sometimes wonder if I was a Nazi in a former life”, I wonder out aloud to Suzi and company.

I then hastily add, “In which case – if anyone asks, I was Schindler, okay? Schindler.”

Yesterday: Early afternoon. Back to the Boogaloo for a solo photoshoot with Time Out. It’s for some kind of feature on London Scene types. I think.

I pose on the pub roof, near the cage of Mr O’Boyle’s homing pigeon. Mr O’B has told me he genuinely uses the pigeon to send messages to North London acquaintances. I presume he takes care to ensure the venue’s two black cats are kept well away from the bird. Otherwise, that would really put… no, I refuse to finish that sentence.

I pose with a cigarette at the photographer’s request, purely for aesthetic reasons. It’s untrue to say I’ve given the habit up entirely, but it’s also untrue to say I smoke regularly; this was my first for weeks.

“I have to say, you look a bit like David Sylvian”, says the photographer as he snaps away. An all too regular observation, but I don’t mind in the slightest. I find it easy to be gracious and polite, as long as I’m not drunk at the time. As we’ll see in a few paragraphs’ time.

I give a smattering of words to Ms B from Time Out to go with the photo. She emails me back, “Are you really 35 or is that a typo? Surely you’re 23?” It’s enough to make one take out a year’s subscription.

Late Afternoon – toss off a 150 word album review for Plan B. The band is Tilly And The Wall. A slight but jolly sing-song band from Omaha, Nebraska whose main distinguishing feature is having a be-tutu’d tap dancer rather than a drummer. The tutu and dancing element is, as you’d imagine, rather compromised on the audio recording. But the songs are fun enough. Very B52’s at times.

Evening – to Trash Palace in Wardour Street for the Popjustice £20 Music Prize. Popjustice is a colourful website for grown adults who enjoy current chart pop music, without being too serious about it. Clearly influenced by the classic Smash Hits style, the tone is just right: affectionate for the acts and the music they like, sardonic without being too obvious about it. I particularly like the inspired little touches they’ve featured in the past, like the Pop Protractor of Doom. This is where they maintain that on a certain type of sleeve design used for many female pop singers – an airbrushed close-up photo with sans serif text set at an angle – the angle itself is an indication of the artist’s state of mind. They conclude that, “in these difficult pop times, an angle of 30° or lower should be allowed.” This is soberly illustrated with respective diagrams, like a GCSE maths question.

Such commendable, original silliness is conveyed in the Popjustice live contest tonight, essentially comprising a number of the website’s London-based readers arguing in a bar. Most of them are wearing casual t-shirts and jeans: it’s hardly the Oscars. But I decide to dress like it’s the Oscars anyway, and turn up in a white suit. I’m not really a big enough fan of current pop to fit in here, white suit or not, but I am keen to satisfy my curiosity about the evening.

The whole event is a response to the more distinguished Mercury Music Prize, which is taking place at the same time. This awards the best British album in the last 12 months, with the winner receiving £20,000. Popjustice’s award, naturally believing that the single is mightier than the LP, is for the best British single, with a prize of £20. It’s all very jokey of course, but does make the fair point that £20 is “a figure no more or less arbitrary than £20,000”. And in turn, it’s suggesting that the Mercurys are a bit pointless and stuffy, aimed as they are at the dinner-party set. Certainly they practice a degree of genre tokenism: there’s always a few folk or jazz acts, rather insincerely included out of some vague intention of eclecticism.

If I were one of these remit-filling genre acts, I’d feel uneasy about accepting the nomination if it wasn’t for the added publicity my record would be getting. Publicity is the only real justification for music awards, ideally applied where it would do some good. A cover sticker with the words “Winner” and “Award”, or even “Nominee” and “Award” must help sales of an otherwise sidelined artist.

And not just sales. There’s a public service element, showcasing ways of being. I’ve always maintained that modern music should be about Otherness of image as much as the music itself. Last year’s Mercury winner, Antony, was so unusual-looking, that his increased exposure can only have helped the tenderly strange out there feel less alone. So I felt that particular Mercury award was entirely justified. Last night though, the Mercury went to the Arctic Monkeys, an already over-exposed group of entirely unremarkable-looking young men playing rather non-descript, Dad-pleasing, punky guitar rock. What signals are being sent out here? If this is the best that British music gets, God help us all, frankly.

The line-up for the Popjustice prize is far more interesting, the process mostly consisting of arguing over which is better of two singles, through a series of elimination rounds. Two favourites of mine are the melancholic robot-pop singles from Ladytron (“Destroy Everything You Touch”) and Goldfrapp (“Number One”), though these are knocked out early on, deemed as not quite poppy and memorable enough compared to, say, Lily Allen’s “Smile”. Fair enough. It doesn’t help that when I stand up to say something in favour of Ladytron, I can’t even get the name of their song right.

In fact, when editing this diary entry a day later, I get the Ladytron song title wrong yet again. “Destroy Everything You Own”, indeed.

However, I still feel both tracks wipe the floor with anything by the Arctic Monkeys.

For a round between Matt Willis and Will Young, the result is decided by two judges listening to each song on headphones while plotting a line on a cardboard graph. The horizontal axis is Duration Of Song, the vertical is Aceness Of Song. Each graph is then cut out along the wavering line, and the resulting jagged pieces of cardboard are then weighed on a portable electronic scales. The heaviest piece of cardboard decides the best single. Frankly, I think this sort of activity is far more inspired than the records involved. Though I do quite like the Will Young song (“Who Am I”). He lost to Mr Willis, by the way.

The winning single is “Biology” by Girls Aloud, which I have to concede is utterly superb, even though the song structure is all over the shop. It sounds like about five singles in one.

However, I’m appalled that Muse are in second place. Muse are essentially an overwrought Radiohead tribute band fronted by a dead weasel, whose record company has now forced them to crowbar their whining, ugly drivel beneath Ms Britney Spears’s chord changes. I still think they’re dull and dreary and awful, and now think they’re dishonest on top of it. Luckily for them, an enormous amount of people who should know better have fallen hook line and sinker for their new schtick, even including the Popjustice gang. So that’ll be the feeling of feeling utterly alone once again.

At this point I should go home, but I make the mistake of drowning my Muse-inflicted sorrows with too many cheap drinks. The upshot of which is when someone says “You look like David Sylvian”, just like the Time Out photographer did hours earlier, this time I genuinely feel like starting a fight. It’s just as well I have no idea how to do such a thing.

In fact, I do actually snap when a perfectly nice young lady approaches me to say: “I think I read an interview with you. Who are you again?”

My response is to get annoyed, exasperatedly indicate my Popjustice name tag and bark this utterly outrageous and impossibly rude answer:

“Oh – just Google me, will you?”

I can’t quite believe it myself, and can’t even remember saying such a thing. Just the embarrassment afterwards. I even wince at typing such uber-haughty words. It’s a new low. Who the hell do I think I am?

Bleating that a certain amount of drink puts me on the verge of breaking down, feeling the weight of 35 years of frustration, that this was “the last straw” is no excuse; no excuse for anything at all.

Never forget that the last straw thinks it’s the first straw.

“Just Google me” is even worse than saying “Do you know who I am?” Which I’m afraid I have actually done recently, when trying to get into a club at 3AM. Again, I was utterly riddled with alcohol, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse.

The correct response to which is of course, “Yes, we know exactly who you are. Which is why you’re not coming in.”

There’s not enough breath in my remaining life to say quite how mortified and sorry I am about such booze-triggered arrogance. I vow to teach myself about knowing when to go home before reaching this sort of state again. It’s been happening a lot lately.

So at this late point in the Popjustice evening, my mental state not helped by not really knowing anyone at this event and arriving alone, my drunkenness has left me feeling old, upset, arrogant, alone and angry with the world. It’s just the way the alcohol has morphed me, I protest weakly in my defence. It’s not because the world loves Muse and not me. Well, not JUST because the world loves Muse and not me.

“Just Google Me”

It sounds like the title of a trendy new Channel 4 sitcom.

Thankfully, the lady I snap at forgives me when I approach her later and profusely apologise. And I tell her everything she could possibly want to know about me. And I make sure I ask about her life – and listen – in return.

I then move to another seat, where a young man says:

“Hi… So…. who are you, then?”

But it’s okay; I’ve learned my lesson now. Even though I’m still drunk. I know the right answer now.

“Me?” I reply. “I’m no one, really. I’m just a guy in a suit.”

I go home.

So much in my head. Where to start? Where to stop? Write it down, that’s all that matters.

Tomorrow, Sunday Sept 3rd, is my 35th birthday. I shall be marking this unpleasant event with a few drinks at The Boogaloo, from about 7pm. Consider this your invitation, Kind Reader.

The next Beautiful & Damned is on Thursday Sept 21st. The Boogaloo, again. Do come – and do dress up. More info on the News page. Recently, the club was featured in a local newspaper, the Enfield Advertiser, with interview quotes and a nice photo of me. I would scan it in, but I don’t have a scanner. About time I bought one, really.

I’m performing one epic Fosca song, ‘File Under Forsaken’, at the H-Bird event on Sept 18th at the Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road, EC1. Charley Stone is accompanying me on guitar, just as she did on the Fosca recording.

Fosca are still tinkering away on the new album, “The Painted Side Of The Rocket” before playing further concerts. Though the end is in sight. The album is now being made on a Mac as opposed to a PC, so we’ve had to transfer all the bits from the earlier sessions. And Tom’s bought a more expensive vocal microphone, so I’m redoing most of my vocals.

What else? I’m featured in the current issue (September 2006) of ‘Inside Out’ magazine. It’s one of those ‘Homes and Gardens’-type lifestyle publications. I think the target market is people with well-paid jobs who own their own properties and spend lots of money on making them look nice. So having me in there, a technically unemployed man with less than no money at all, who rents a furnished bedsit, must surely be the height of perversity for the editors. But I’ve always been good at bringing out the perverse in people. I specialise in making darts pause in mid-flight.

My photo caption is “Dickon Edwards: Dandy, 34, London”. It’s in a piece on people who live out of time or somesuch. Nice colour photo of me standing before my landlady’s curtains, as if they’re theatrical curtains. Which makes sense: in the interview I describe the bedsit as a dressing-room with the world as my stage.

The photographer left behind his big silvery flash reflector, collapsed and zipped up in a flat circular canvas case. I phoned him to impart this information about a month ago. He still hasn’t collected it. Perhaps he’d rather lose the reflector than speak to me again. When he was taking my photo, his phone rang. A job from the Guardian. He must be far too busy and rich to even pick up his own equipment.

This week I’m going to be photographed by Time Out for a feature on ‘New London Scenes’ or somesuch.

Soon after that I’m going to be filmed by BBC1’s ‘Imagine’ programme talking about why people keep diaries on the Internet. The programme is called ‘Here Comes Everybody’, which pleased me – a nice little James Joyce reference.

I’m also writing up a lengthy interview with Shane MacGowan for a magazine. It’s a cover feature, and – whisper it – I’m actually getting PAID. Perhaps the real world has finally let me in, one step at a time. Happy Birthday, indeed.