The talented Master Of Webs Mr Neil Scott has kindly upgraded the machinery behind this site, in the interests of vaguely keeping up with the Internet Joneses. Or at least, vaccinating against the latest security risks. So this now comes to you courtesy of WordPress 2.0.5. The new colour scheme for the diary entry box (which readers can’t see) looks a bit like one of those stylish notebooks from Liberty Of Regent Street’s Gift Room on the ground floor. So, many thanks for the Christmas present, Mr Scott.
One side-effect of the implementation appears to be a few recent entries inadvertently re-sent on the RSS feeds, looking like I’ve having November’s Beautiful & Damned all over again. In which case, please forgive such erroneous electronic burps as the new system’s stomach settles.
Tuesday Dec 5th – the BBC1 documentary about blogging (“Imagine: www.herecomeseverybody.co.uk”) is transmitted. I’m only in it fleetingly, but the visitor statistics for the web diary quadruple.
My volume of email multiplies. Including the spam email, the swines. I get a few volleys from bored loafers, but also a number of kind emails from friends and regular readers, plus a few messages of praise from newcomers.
I pass my next door neighbour, Ms V, in the street:
“Saw you on the TV the other night. I didn’t realise you were into computers.”
At one point in the programme, Mr Yentob is shown reading this diary. It’s the entry where I talk about having already been filmed for the same programme, particularly the part where I say I’m disappointed with the lack of tie-wearing among current BBC staff.
So this entry is about me observing a programme… which observes me observing… a programme which… is observing me.
Snakes are eating their tails, cameras are filming their own playback monitors, mirrors are held up to each other. The pool loves Narcissus only because it sees its own beauty reflected in the boy’s eyes. Still, it keeps us off the streets.
Among the emails is one from a TV production company. They saw me on the programme. Would I be interested in meeting them with a view to working on new TV projects?
Well of course I am. But I’ll see what they have in mind.
If I could do ANYTHING on TV… however unlikely…
– Writing for Doctor Who. Obviously.
– Appearing in Doctor Who. “I could play all day in my green cathedral.”
– Presenting BBC4 type documentaries on JK Huysmans, Paul & Jane Bowles, Saki, HP Lovecraft, Donald Barthelme, Dennis Cooper, Hans Christian Andersen, the Arabian Nights, Quentin Crisp, Whit Stillman, Lindsay Anderson, Stephen Tennant, Tom Lehrer, ghost stories, the history of transgenderism, deviant sexuality in Greek & Roman myths, Lars Von Trier, Mary Renault… Oh, they’ve already done that last one.
I’ll have a serious think about what I might be good at – or good for. Any burning suggestions to the usual address, please.
As long as it’s not Reality TV. I’ve never been very good at Reality.
A frequently asked question in the mail.
Dear Dickon,
Why don’t you just get a job?
Answer: Because I’ve got too much else to do.
Answer: Because I’m too busy to get a job.
Answer: Being unemployed is a full-time job in itself, involving skills and time in order to survive. So I do have a job. It’s just atrociously paid.
Answer: Because I’ve never lasted in the many wage-slave type jobs I’ve had in the past. It’s only a matter of time before I’m dismissed, or have to leave to avoid collapsing in tears on a daily basis.
Answer: I AM trying to find something, it just has to be something I can do well, as opposed to pretend to do well.
Answer: I’m too far gone.
Answer: This IS my job. It’s a kind of busking with text. I just haven’t managed to earn money from it. Yet.
Answer: Don’t you know who I AM?
Having said all that, of course, I do engage in a small amount of perfectly normal things for the Green Party: envelope stuffing, posting leaflets through hundreds of letterboxes, helping out here and there. It’s just that that’s all voluntary work.
Oh, I nearly forgot. This year I stood for election as a Green Party councillor in my local ward. Though I didn’t win a seat, I DID beat all three Labour candidates. Which hadn’t been done by a Green in Haringey before.
There, I’ve gone a small way in reminding myself I can actually get things done. Sometimes.
Here’s the latest email sent to subscribers of the DE mailing list.
*****
Dear Creature
At the moment, when people come up to me and ask “what do you do?”, I splutter and worry. I feel I’ve done next to nothing in the last year but loaf around, drink, consume, skulk in Highgate, wait for public transport, sit on public transport, moan, worry, and generally get upset.
Then I remember. There ARE a few things to mention where I’ve vaguely left my mark.
1) UK TV APPEARANCE – IMAGINE
Tonight, Tuesday Dec 5th, BBC1, 10.35pm. “Imagine”.
The producer assures me that I AM appearing on this BBC documentary about blogging, talking about being an online diarist for nine years and counting, and how anyone else who has a blog started after 1997 is frankly copying my idea.
2) BOOK – THE DECADENT HANDBOOK
Out now in bookshops. Edited by Rowan Pelling. Published by the 20-year old independent Dedalus Books. It’s a white gift-book style hardback with an Aubrey Beardsley woman on the front, plus a shiny gold spine. I’ve contributed an account of my trip to Tangier with Shane MacGowan, plus a set-list from my club night Beautiful & Damned, plus a photo of me with Anne Pigalle, walking a lobster. It’s £15 RRP, but I’m told you can order a discounted copy for £13.50 including p&p by phoning 0845 458 9910 and asking for ‘The Dickon Edwards Offer.’ Or buy it at Amazon.
‘The book is an antidote to bland modernity…includes contributions from contemporary libertines such as Dickon Edwards (pictured left with pet lobster), to the godfathers of decadence – The Earl of Rochester. J.K.Huysmans and Oscar Wilde. Five stars.’
– The Leeds Guide Book of the Fortnight
‘…’El Hombre Indelible’ by Dickon Edwards has a wonky charm of its own….’
– The Daily Telegraph.
3) MONTHLY CLUB – THE BEAUTIFUL & DAMNED – CHRISTMAS EDITION
Date: Thursday 21st December. Times: 9pm to 12.30am. Venue: The Boogaloo, London N6.
‘Unmissable!’ – Time Out.
‘A divine London night out’ – The Penny Magazine.
This month’s club will include a few of the classier and less painful Christmas songs by the likes of Ms Garland, Mr Sinatra, Ms Day, the Cocteau Twins, Big Star, and the Carpenters.
4) MUSIC ON CD:
SCARLET’S WELL – BLACK TULIP WINGS (Siesta Records)
Buy online.
Scarlet’s Well are a fantastic baroque-pop band fronted by Bid, formerly of The Monochrome Set. I can heartily recommend all the Scarlet’s Well albums; they’re little treasures of secret joy. On their latest release, “Black Tulip Wings”, I’ve written the lyrics to a Gilbert & Sullivan-esque song called “Narcissus In The Maze”. Hearing a musical hero such as Bid sing my lyrics is a complete dream come true.
VARIOUS – THE KIDS AT THE CLUB (How Does It Feel Records)
Buy online.
I also have my own band, Fosca. We’ve been releasing albums and gigging for years. John Peel played us. We’ve got fans who make their own videos for Fosca songs (now on YouTube). The next Fosca album is still a work in sporadic progress, due to my spiralling anxiety and general bouts of minor ill-health, physical or mental. But in the meantime, you can hear us on “The Kids At The Club”, a compilation of current indiepop bands. Fosca contribute a track from the current sessions, “I’ve Agreed To Something I Shouldn’t Have”, which is about as straight-ahead indiepop as we get. The rest of the new album will be more… deviant. A quick Google reveals that the track has been played on a number of radio stations from Texas to California to Germany, Portugal, France and Sweden. It’s great when you get emails asking when you’re playing Austin, Texas, but also rather frustrating. The answer is, “when we get some kind of decent backing in our own country”. Will that ever happen with Fosca? Well, let’s get the album done first.
5) MUSIC ON ITUNES
As of this month, you can download Fosca songs legally from the iTunes Store. This includes both albums and “The Kids At The Club”.
6) WORDS IN MAGAZINES
I contribute a smattering of film reviews for the monthly alt-music magazine Plan B, edited by Everett True.
7) OTHERWISE
Finishing the Fosca album… writing more lyrics for Scarlet’s Well and the composer Martin White… writing stories… possible lyric-writing work with various different London characters… “The Dickon Edwards Songbook”… moping about the British Library… trying to stay healthy, energetic and staving off the sadness and madness… trying to do more as opposed to just thinking about doing more…
RECOMMENDATIONS
I’ve also spent a lot of time enjoying the works of others. Here’s some favourite things of 2006:
FILMS: Breakfast On Pluto, Capote, The History Boys, The Queen, Red Road, Wild Tigers I Have Known, Brothers Of The Head.
DVDs: Happy Endings, Oh! What A Lovely War, Peep Show Series 3, Doctor Who (2006 series).
ALBUMS: Xiu Xiu ‘The Air Force’, Dresden Dolls ‘Yes, Virginia’, Hidden Cameras ‘Awoo’, Doris Day ‘Darling: Songs From The Films’, Joanne Newsom ‘Ys’, Jarvis Cocker ‘Jarvis’, Tender Trap ‘6 Billion People’, Morrissey ‘Ringleader Of The Tormentors’, Final Fantasy ‘He Poos Clouds’, The Organ ‘Grab That Gun’, Elizabeth Taylor ‘In London’, Maria Friedman ‘Now And Then’,
AUDIOBOOKS: Alan Bennett – ‘Untold Stories Parts 3 & 4’, ‘That Mitchell & Webb Sound’
BOOKS: Pat McCabe ‘Winterwood’, Jake Arnott ‘Johnny Come Home’, Karina Mellinger ‘A Bit Of A Marriage’, Tony O’Neill ‘Digging The Vein’, Herbert Rosendorfer ‘Grand Solo for Anton’, Rupert Everett ‘Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins’, Sarah Waters ‘The Night Watch’, The Dedalus Book Of Finnish Fantasy, The Portable Edgar Allen Poe (Penguin – 2006 Edition), Sophie Parkin ‘Best Of Friends’.
GIANT MECHANICAL ELEPHANT: The Sultan’s Elephant, London.
Thanks for reading this,
Mr Edwards
