I glance at the news. I know I really shouldn’t. One wants to keep up with what’s going on in the real world. But one only finds out what some people think about some of the events in the real world. And what some people think some events mean in the wider scheme of things. And that’s rather different from the events themselves.

One story that’s dominated the front pages for a while is that of a missing little girl. Which, sad as it obviously is to those involved, isn’t normally an event that should affect the country more than war or politics. But now it does. The case has been given such a massive amount of media coverage, it’s now gone into a phase of reporting ABOUT the coverage. Countless articles about how much is too much, how long should elapse before newspapers let the story fade from the headlines after no further developments, and so on. The coverage IS the news, which would have pleased Marshall McLuhan. Like those celebrities who become famous after going on TV programmes about celebrity, not before, the parents are now treated as if they are members of the Royal Family. Photos of them at every moment, every tear caught and published.

Emotional blackmail is thrown about from columnist to columnist like a self-righteous pie fight. This coverage is an insult to all the missing children who get far less attention, say one side. Have you no heart, say the other, the parents just want their message spread as much as possible. That’s just the point, say the antagonists. And so on. Heartless versus tasteless. If you’re not one, you’re the other. Do I find all this spiralling debate distasteful, or do I find the finding of it distasteful, distasteful?

The unasked and the entirely unrelated weigh in with their opinions, and I suppose by setting these thoughts down I’m doing just the same. But I quite enjoy the meta-news, the discussions and debates about what matters, to whom, and for how long.

The sad thing is, there will always be photos of lost children, all heartbreaking stills of frozen potential, repeated day after day as now. Until one starts to think one knows the victims’ faces better than one’s own. Which for me is saying something.

With this current case, people are starting to hold minute silences, keep vigils, and wear ribbons. The modern way of shared sadness. I personally wish people would stop being unkind to each other in general, with no exceptions and no singling out. I want a wristband or a ribbon which means “I’m against bad things.” All of them. All the diseases. All the syndromes. All the poverty. All the wars. All the bomb attacks. All the lost girls. But also all the lost boys and all the lost adults. The lot. No favourites. No selections. What colour ribbon is that?

This is the fine art of making the personal matter to strangers, until they care more for faces in the newspapers than they do for people they really know and should phone more often. Dreams, ideals, aspirations, are all thrown into the mix. And then there’s one of my favourite themes – what it is that makes people want to join in, to smother their individuality. To not look ‘other’. To not be out of place, or off-message, or have any sentiment that differs from the one being sold to the masses.

I try not to be cynical about sensitive popular concerns (Reader’s Voice: Are you sure?), but I do worry at how easily – and how often – good intentions can be fanned into a kind of hysteria.

Monday – to Hackney to Alex Mayor’s studio. We work on a Fosca track, “It Only Matters To Those To Whom It Matters”. Kate turns up to add backing vocals, while Rachel and Tom are laid low with illnesses. I feel guilty about dragging Tom from his sickbed to his computer in his Hemel Hempstead cottage, to remotely oversee some tracks which haven’t transferred from his sessions properly.

The track is deliberately free of all synths and keyboards, because I’m fairly sure Fosca haven’t recorded an electric guitars-only uptempo pop song before. I always loved those mid-80s New Order songs when the band would go from the computer-heavy likes of ‘Blue Monday’ to songs like ‘As It Was When It Was’, a simple guitars, bass and drums indie pop tune. I think there’s also a rather pompous liner note on a Queen album boasting that it was recorded without synthesizers.

Deliberately going guitars-only for a synth-heavy band is a more androgynous, bisexual approach to making music. And yes, I did just type that last sentence. Somebody has to.

Last Thursday: I meet up with Lucy Munro in the British Library cafe, to receive a copy of the enormous and brand new RSC Complete Works Of Shakespeare. Rather brilliantly, each play has a little running glossary in the Arial font. So it’s less stuffy and more friendly. Ms Lucy is responsible for editing the version of Pericles, and is rightfully excited that the next time the Royal Shakespeare Company perform the play, they will use her version.

I used to belong to the RSC Fan Club – or the Friends Of The RSC or whatever it was – in my teens, and my first trips up to London unsupervised were to see the likes of As You Like It at the Barbican, with Alan Rickman, Juliet Stevenson and Fiona Shaw. This would be about 1985. There’s a photo from this production in the new Complete Works, alongside similar stills covering the company’s history. I look fondly on all the ones I saw myself, and enviously at those I’ve missed: David Tennant in Romeo & Juliet circa 2000. Not that you can tell it’s him: his face is obscured by someone’s arms – presumably the Juliet of the day – in what looks like a fairly passionate embrace. The photo section ends with a still from the Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter version of Antony & Cleopatra. Which has only just finished in London.

A visit to the British Library rarely goes without one noticing some beautiful students around the building. I think this isn’t so much because the place attracts the good-looking, but that a typical visit to such a large and popular place will involve one’s eyes scanning the faces of hundreds of lone strangers, and it’s more a question of statistical probability than anything else.

Moreover, such students tend to be in the flattering state of lone contemplation, because reading is not a shared activity. Libraries are no place for couples or families. They separate people, sending them off to commune with the words of strangers and the dead. Even though many of these comely specimens might be dating, they appear to be single purely through the serene act of lone study. Reading in public makes one look tantalisingly available.

Last night – watch Doctor Who with Anna S and David B, having just been on Amazon ordering a Dalek 3D Bath & Shower Gel dispenser for my 70-year-old father, at his request. Proof positive that children’s TV is often wasted on children.

Today is the first time this year that London is warm enough to open one’s front room windows, and A&D worry that their new cat will jump out into the main street. We watch him – over the back of the TV – climb onto the sill and look out onto the road for a minute. It’s his first time. As soon as he hears a car approach, he jumps back into the flat and runs into the other rooms. It’s as if he fears the vehicles are likely to crash into the front room. I think of that story about the audience to the cinema pioneer Friese-Green’s early experiments, rushing out of his screening room when they see a film of a train heading towards the camera.

Actually, I did once witness the kind of occurrence that the cat was worried about. It’s a year or two ago, and on Junction Road, close to Archway tube, my northbound bus stops and everyone is told to get out. The main road ahead is blocked by another double-decker, parked but filling the street left to right, at a perfect ninety degrees to both lanes. It seems to have emerged from the left-hand side street near the bus station, as all the Archway buses do, but due to some sort of brake failure (or driver madness) must have continued dead ahead and crashed into the grocery shop immediately opposite. Not quite embedded in the architecture, but it’s a head-on collision. “Wasn’t my fault,” I imagine the bus driver saying later. “The grocery shop refused to swerve.”

I try to imagine what that must have been like for the people in the flats around the shop. I should ask the cat.

In the latest adventure, 42, the Doctor is up against two possessed men wearing bug-like helmets with a horizontal eye guard. It’s Doctor Who versus the band Daft Punk, who posed for their publicity photos in similar helmets. I suspect this is an observation made elsewhere on the Internet. In fact, I’ll lay money on someone editing the episode to a Daft Punk song like ‘One More Time’ or ‘Digital Love’.

Aferwards, we repair to a Crouch Hill pub, The Noble, and meet a long table of gentle friends. At the bar one of the other customers asks me “What’s the occasion?” He means my black suit. All around are in lighter summer clothes. It’s a perfectly good question, but I’m honest in my answer. “It’s the way I like to dress.”

However, at this point I develop an absolutely searing headache and start feeling a bit sick, to the point when I can’t think straight or hold a conversation. Being me, I start to wonder if I have some terminal virus. I wonder what it could be, but know that the best thing to do is go straight home and straight to bed. I manage to find a minicab office and am safely tucked up within minutes, two Ibuprofen duly downed. Sunday morning, I wake up in a pool of sweat but feel utterly recovered.

A taxi ride to a waiting bed in a quiet and private room.

It’s rather unambitious definition of heaven, perhaps, particularly as there’s no one else in the bed. But for me it’s a phrase representing utter bliss, always worth every penny of the expense. Leaving the pub early without buying more drinks probably paid for the cab, anyway.

A taxi ride to a waiting bed in a quiet and private room.

In the London Library today, the Less Quiet Reading Room – the one for laptop users – is in thrall to one gentleman who has the noisiest keyboard tapping technique in the history of the world. I’m amazed his poor computer survives. I’m typing this near the Rose Macaulay Corner, which has a photo of the lady in question, a big red comfy chair, and a plaque saying the corner was furnished in her memory by her friends. Given she’s noted for that wonderful opening line about the camel, I’d have put something camel-related in the corner too.

On Ebay, I finally win a copy of an album for which I’ve been bidding in vain for years. Passive Soul by Orlando, released on Warners UK 1997 and now deleted.

Seems a bit odd, even tragic to make such a purchase. But I’ve long since run out of spare copies, and feel the need to bid on any Ebay ones for the times when I want to give a copy out. In this case, to Dennis Cooper, whose novel Frisk forms part of the CD booklet’s montage of the band’s favourite things.

Up to now, I’ve been outbid. Which is as good a definition of mixed feelings as you’ll get. I want the CD, but I’m glad someone else wants it too. Whether finally winning one means anything in the broader scheme of Orlando things I have no idea. It doesn’t matter.

The seller emails me afterwards, and I think I was grumpily hoping he was going to waive the £15, seeing as it was me. But no, he wanted to say he saw Orlando play in 1856 and enjoyed it.

I suppose it could have been a lot worse, given he’s selling the CD in the first place. Around the time of the album, I was watching some other band at the Dublin Castle when a young man approached me, with his friend in tow:

Him: Hey, are you in that band Orlando?
Me: (pleased to be recognised) Why, yes, yes I am…!
Him: Well, I just wanted to say… (he pats me on the back) you’re really, really s–t.

I wonder if that sort of thing happens to Russell Crowe? Who would dare?

Needless to add, there were perfectly nicer collarings at the time by well-wishers and fans. But as ever, it’s the detractors and hecklers that pull the focus from any amount of praise, that unfairly stick in the memory. If I can remember anything at all in my history, it’s the bad things, more than the good. Which seems a terrible shame. But I think artists in general spend more thought and time on the unkind reviews, when they should be concentrating on the good ones, or at least the more constructively unkind ones. The band The Dresden Dolls happily archive all their bad reviews on their website in a dedicated section. To me that’s like distributing sting-enhancers to the world’s wasp population, but I admire them for it.

People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise. – Somerset Maughan.

Creating anything vaguely artistic in public involves a tug-of-war between hubris and humility, and you have to be careful to not let one side skew the balance. “I’m brilliant, I’m wonderful, I’m special” is of course not true. But neither is the false narcissism of “What do I know? I’m just like anyone else. Just giving it a go. Don’t mind me.”

I think I prefer people being aware of my work at all, even in an unkind capacity, as opposed to being unknown or ignored. But what I really would dread is being unable to write. Men with heavy-handed laptop techniques are doing their best today, but when I get into the swing of writing, I’m probably tapping pretty loudly myself. Irritation at others’ industry can sometimes generate competition.

Restarting my routine of walking into town whenever possible, I make it from Highgate to the British Library for the first time without feeling at the end like I’ve been beaten up. I suppose I must be getting fitter. The only problem is, in the first days of getting back to a working-in-libraries routine I find it harder to get down to writing than I did at home, despite the BL and the London Library being full of serious writers – far more serious than me. Though the atmosphere of quiet study is preferable to the distractions at home – comings and goings in the shared hallway, next door’s screaming babies – a change in setting is initially a distraction in itself.

The trouble with getting into a routine is that the first few days are harder than whatever went before. It’s like cold turkey from the drug of sloth. As a result, I owe the diary two more entries this week.

What did I do on these missing days? I started and stopped, and then wandered about, then leafed through a book, then another book, then checked my email, then took too long answering it, then started and stopped, then read some websites and blogs, then wandered about some more, then went home and felt too tired to do anything but sleep. And now, late into Friday, I feel just about ready to hurl myself at the page.

As for the routine of exercise, I’ve made some little promises to myself. It’s now okay for me to go without the kind of activities which would be out of character, ie sit-ups, going to the gym, jogging. I’ve pretty much given up on the running anyway, as I just couldn’t bear to be seen in jogging trousers any longer. It’s just not me.

In return, I tell myself, I must always take the stairs, wherever there are stairs alongside lifts. And I must walk more and take public transport less, which means allowing for extra time. But that’s okay, too. I save money and minimize the chances of being at the mercy of the more tiresome passengers, and indeed at the mercy of the more tiresome failings of the transportation itself.

Walking is exercise with a point. All those miles people clock up in the gym on those treadmills – and after all that, they’re still in the same place. Not only that, but they PAY an average of £45 per month for the privilege of running while staying in the same place. This amazes me. They could be enjoying a scenic route, taking unexpected corners, pondering architecture, brainstorming ideas (going for a long walk is a commonly prescribed cure for writer’s block).

That said, I appreciate it’s worth going to the gym to look upon the comelier. I once had my photo taken with four outrageously well-developed young men, for some Soho fashion event. Me in a suit in the middle, flanked by four muscular boys in their requisite muscle-bearing outfits. Two on one knee, two standing, all with Charles Atlas grins. I can’t remember what expression I was pulling. But Hell’s elbows on toast, how I wish I had a copy of that photo.

This ancient event also featured a fine example of the opposite aesthetic: a skinny, ultra-pretty young man called Martin T, the kind Mr Wilde and his friends would have embarrassed themselves over. I bumped into Martin a year or so later, and he told me he was starting his own band called Selfish C—. I thought he was joking. Not only did this problematically-christened group go on to release real records and play real concerts, I note they’re now supporting the reformed Jesus And Mary Chain at this year’s Meltdown festival. The JAMC initially baited controversy with their name, too. But at least you can print it.

I was terribly pleased to find that a reader of this blog files it on their computer under ‘Safe For Work’. Like the jogging bottoms, swearing isn’t really me.

Have started using Google Mail for the times I’m not at my laptop. Though the adverts are annoying, I have to say I rather prefer it over any other Webmail interface. It’s very clean and instant. I like how the emails sort themselves into ‘conversations’. And it seems to have the one spam filter that actually works. I get terribly embarrassed if I’m checking my mail at a public terminal, and the subject lines of obscene spam mails fill the screen. No longer. In your face, Mr Generic Viagra. Which admittedly sounds like one of those very subject lines.

Oliver Twisted in Tokyo (twisting_oliver@yahoo.co.uk) sends me this Warhol-esque sample of his artwork, based in turn on Ella Guru’s portrait:

Miss Red tells me that she’s booked a live act for Beautiful & Damned on the 24th: a barbershop quartet called Scales Of The Unexpected. They do pop cover versions in that style. I rather like a good genre cover version, such as the Puppini Sisters’ takes on Wuthering Heights or Heart Of Glass, in the style of the Andrews Sisters. Or Paul Anka’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Wonderwall in the proper big band, swing style.

I know some friends aren’t keen on such tracks, seeing them as ‘comedy’ cover versions with limited life, a bit like sketches on impersonation shows like Dead Ringers. But I disagree in some cases. I think the Puppini and Anka versions are so brilliantly done, one can enjoy them for what they are. The joke level aside, such tracks are enjoyable pieces of music, pure and simple.

Frank Sinatra’s New York New York (as in “Start spreading the news…”)is Mr Sinatra in the late 70s covering a Kander & Ebb 70s pastiche of a 50s Sinatra-style song. It’s arguably as much a pastiche on Mr Sinatra’s part as Mr Anka’s cover of Nirvana. Now, you can either rub your post-modernist beard and enjoy that level of it, and feel terribly smug in the process, or you can enjoy it for what it is, and let the levels of meaning handle themselves.

This is the spirit of Beautiful & Damned versus the proper retro clubs. Though when I DJ I do try to mix the pastiches in with the proper 20s and 50s stuff as well, in an attempt to keep everyone happy. I’ve seen Bugsy Malone tracks fill the floor at some clubs, and clear the floor at others. One just has to do one’s best, feel unafraid to make mistakes, and generally not worry about it.

When I played something by the Puppinis at the club night ‘Lost’ recently, a lady came up to thank me. It was the lead Puppini Sister herself. She said she had never heard her own stuff at a club before. So now I feel even more well-disposed towards them. Meeting the artist and finding out they’re nice shouldn’t cloud one’s judgement upon their work. But let’s face it, it does.

If playing the pastiche tracks and the crowd pleasers makes me more of a ‘Wedding DJ’, so be it. I have been booked for a few actual weddings, after all. Myself and Miss Red are off to do one in Cumbria on Saturday week. I don’t hustle for such engagements, and am DJ-ing less and less often these days. But this one in particular sounded like a bit of an adventure, so I agreed.

That said, I try to begin the B&D night with something I’ve not always heard in a club or bar before, whether it’s Kermit The Frog doing Paul Williams’s Rainbow Connection or the entire ten-minute opening of Fiddler On The Roof.

I’m still not sure how long I’ll continue to do the regular monthly Beautiful & Damned at The Boogaloo. It’s been going a year now, and I do feel the pull of other projects. This may be the last time for a while. We shall see.

A drizzly Monday. So I write about something else that happened on the sunnier Saturday.

Saturday: I visit the V & A Museum. Utterly packed, particularly the cafe. With permission from the staff, I stick my head in the Members Room, to see what it’s like. Its door is hidden on the top floor, in the wall of mirrors to one side of the Glass Room. The Members Room itself is large and comfortable, with a small manned cafe, second level of desks, lots of books and art magazines and sofas. And barely three people in there. However, as the V&A is an old building, it’s also a bit stuffy, the only air conditioning on this warm day being an open window. Am in two minds as to whether I should join, at £40 per year. I do want to visit the Surrealism and Kylie exhibitions, plus the forthcoming Lee Miller show, and joining up would mean I could just pop in to these shows without queuing, and probably save money in the long run. But I’m also trying hard not to spend money full stop.

I’ve already joined the Tate as a member, a present from my parents. The Tate Modern Members’ Room has amazing views of the London skyline, and some people actually sunbathe on the Room’s south-facing terrace. Going to an art gallery to sunbathe is perhaps an unlikely pastime. But people do it. Not today, though.

The Gilbert & George show is very up my street, of course. I even dress like them. The Tate shop includes G&G cufflinks.

Some emails:

I am one of those people who thought Fosca were coming to play in Milan… Is the concert on, at all?

I guess not. Sorry. The promoter asked us, we agreed, then they just stopped replying to my emails.

This has happened before. The trouble is, the people who book us are often just fans having a go at being promoters, rather than professional promoters. So it’s all on the hobbyist, amateur level. Which has its benefits, but we’ve had our share of being let down and feeling a bit used. Their intentions were good enough: they just let their enthusiasm get away with them, forgot about the promises made, and hoped we’d sort ourselves out somehow.

There’s been times when we’ve been left outside venues long after closing, alone and vulnerable on the street of a strange city with our heavy and expensive instruments, wondering what’s happened to our promised accommodation and transport. And then it starts to rain.

I once heard of a Swedish indie band being treated in a similarly shabby fashion by an amateur London promoter, who vanished into the night. The sound man, of all people, let them all stay at his house. When I next saw the engineer in question, I commended his actions.

“Very noble of you,” I said.

“Oh… not really,” he replied, pulling a sheepish smile. “I wanted to sleep with the drummer.”

Whether he succeeded in this intention or not, he didn’t say.

I saw the pic of your hair on Easter Monday and I was fearing you might be becoming a hippy.

It was getting rather long. But no, it’s now freshly shorn and freshly bleached once more. I spent a couple of days between the cutting and the bleaching looking like a badger assassin.

This isn’t a great entry. I keep starting and stopping at it, then giving up. I think I’m just having a rather unclever day, and that’s fine. At least there’s been recent diary entries which have spawned three lines I’m pretty pleased with (“My CV has only one sentence: ‘Don’t you know who I AM?’; “Happiness can be so depressing”; and “Crowds can make one feel so lonely”).

If there were three novels which each had one of those lines as their opening sentence, I’d buy them. That’s the benchmark for me. The only point-scoring is with oneself.

Much of this sluggishness is probably just being hungover. Last night I happily polished off a bottle of extremely pleasant Bulgarian Chardonnay while half-watching the Eurovision Song Contest with Taylor Parkes.

Suffice it to say that there is no way on earth I would watch this broadcast alone or sober. Getting drunk with a friend in front of bad TV (by which I mean the kind which invites talking over, or indeed shouting at) is such a simple and lovely pleasure. Particularly with someone with whom there’s less than zero chance of any tipsy snogging. There’s a line from one of the newer Fosca songs where a character accidentally says out aloud “If alcoholic sex doesn’t count, I’m a virgin”.

And again, because I’m not feeling particularly clever today, just typing out that lyric is terribly comforting. I find my daily life is a constant battle of self-justification, and I now realise why there are so many award ceremonies. I’ve yet to won a proper award of merit myself, unless you count a poem I wrote at school about South Africa, which won Highly Commended in the Suffolk Free Press. Ye gods, it was terrible. Like those films which win Oscars purely because they contain the things Oscar-winning films are meant to contain, I was only too aware I was writing to an award-baiting formula, writing to please the competition judges, not to please myself or to find out new things about myself. I also suspect there were no other entries.

Similarly I’d much rather read and indeed write a strange but fun novel about, say, a sarcastic iguana driving a lorry full of eyelids to a winking conference, than some brow-beating tome about characters ‘finding themselves’ and ‘learning a valuable lesson about life’. Unless it’s the iguana with the eyelids doing the self-discovery in question.

But this approach can work against oneself, too. There’s a notorious cliche of pompous rock interviews that goes “We just do what we do and if anyone else likes it it’s a bonus.” Still, that’s entirely fair enough, however hoary and common the sentiment.

I would say I do write to be read, or to be listened to. But I also write in order to make what doesn’t exist, and should exist, exist. Whether or not I’m successful in this, and how original or not it appears to be is down to the reader or listener. I start some dance steps, and offer my hand, and try my best. With this entry I’m tripping over my own feet somewhat, but better that than sitting it out and leaving the dancefloor empty (or indeed my metaphors flailing like dying insects).

Of all the songs released since time began, I’m fairly certain not one contains the lyric “If alcoholic sex doesn’t count, I’m a virgin.” And I really want there to be one. That’s why I want to make the song, finish it, and release it to the world.

Yesterday I applied this approach to deciding what to do with my daytime. “Today, I must see new things and visit new places, within my budget of next to nothing,” I promised myself.

So I visited a giant squid preserved in a tank, touched specimen jars from Darwin’s Beagle voyage, opened a beehive door to take a look inside, and drank a coffee in the quiet yet airy and stylish RIBA cafe.

(All of which win Highly Commended at today’s Dickon Edwards Awards for Nice London Things. The squid and specimens are on the Natural History Museum’s Darwin Centre tour, and the beehive is a new addition to its Wildlife Garden outside. The RIBA cafe is at 66 Portland Place, first floor.)

Just as well I need to write a second entry today to make my weekly quota. Because I’ve got so much more to say about band life.

Regarding my group Fosca in 2007, I’ve started to wonder about the point of continuing with the band. What’s frustrating is that we do have fans who absolutely adore us, all over the world. Just not enough in any one place. Or not enough fans in positions of music biz power who could take the group to a higher rung on the ladder. Certainly no one that wants to be our manager or handle the nuts and bolts of the band machinery like website updating, hustling for gigs, hustling for labels and so forth.

There’s so many undignified, unstylish trappings – being one’s own roadie, dragging instruments around, paying for pricy rehearsal rooms reeking of sweat from the countless bands that have been in the room before you. I feel the weight of every loathsome soundcheck accumulated through my life, ever polite humouring of every disinterested in-house sound engineer. Having to round up band members who have day jobs and busy lives and find a time slot which they can all agree on. Having to rehearse against the noise of the band in the studio next door, who are going through their 20th take on ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’ for their residency at The Beergut And Firkin the following month. It’s a truly graceless world. I want less and less of it these days. Not when there’s books and libraries and cafes and gardens and parks and cathedrals and galleries and natural history museums with stuffed lemurs.

Whenever I see someone carrying a guitar about on public transport, I actually feel nauseous. Well, unless they’re female: that’s still far less of a cliche. The whole blokiness of the rock world is still very much in evidence. I would enforce a quota – only so many males are allowed to make rock music. And they have to justify being different to all the other males. On pain of having their guitar taken away. I would also apply the same capping to rock music journalism. There must be only a certain amount of writing about music by men.

There must be no more books or reviews or articles about Morrissey and The Smiths unless all the ones by men have been matched in quantity by pieces by women. That could only be a good thing. If you go to a Morrissey gig, there’s a healthy half-and-half gender representation in the audience. In fact, the fans who actually follow a band around on their tours, who send letters and honest fanzines (as opposed to fanzines written by budding music journalists) are more likely to be female. Yet the vast majority of published books and articles about rock are by men. Women are more honest and intimate about their love. Men prefer to work out their devotion in professional writing. The only truly useful kind of music criticism is a kiss. I’d far rather be hugged than analyzed. Who wouldn’t?

(By the way, the only honest book about Morrissey and The Smiths is the Mark Simpson one.)

I now tend to not go to gigs at all unless someone I want to be with invites me out. The awfulness of the lone not-young man at the indie gig is not a part I have any wish to play. Without a companion, something will annoy me about the evening sooner or later. Someone will dance too close to me and jostle me. The bar staff will take too long to serve me. There will be couples kissing and canoodling in my view. Happiness can be so depressing. Crowds can make one feel so lonely. And I feel I’ve DONE all this before. There’s so much else I could be doing which I’ve NOT done before.

You don’t mind the more tiresome trappings of band life when you’re young and more carefree. At thirty-five, life in general drags you down, age drags you down, younger people drag you down, and you have to really, really, want to do anything that you end up doing. It all requires more justification and arguing of the pros and cons. Every day I wake up and ARGUE with myself about how I’m going to spend the day. Aloud. It’s quite a sight.

Rachel in the band thinks we should avoid the whole ‘toilet’ circuit of small venues altogether and just play the gigs we know we’ll enjoy, if our expenses are met by the promoters. I have to agree with her. In Sweden, we are far more likely to be worshipped than politely applauded and talked over. One must never pass up any opportunity of being worshipped.

The last time we played in Sweden, people invaded the stage and hugged us. That’s what we do it for. That’s the only reason anyone should do anything for.

Before I rant on about the continuing problems of continuing with Fosca, I want to post a couple of recent photos.

Here’s one taken by Noted Author Travis Elborough, in the Boogaloo. Mr Elborough has written a bestselling book about the old London Routemaster bus. He also wears rather nice pointy boots. In this photo I am clearly drinking, and am either drunk or about to become drunk. Our mutual friend Ms Jennifer Connor is on the right. I think it’s rather like one of those distorted scenes from ‘Love Is The Devil’, the film about the painter Francis Bacon.

And here’s one taken by Ms Connor, in Pond Square, Highgate. Which is haunted by the ghost of a chicken that killed the other Francis Bacon. The 17th century F.B. who didn’t refuse a knighthood (“So AGING!” is what the 20th Century Bacon said, refusing his own chance to be a ‘Sir’).

As part of an experiment in food preservation, Sir Francis of old stuffed a Highgate chicken with snow, caught a terrible chill, and died. The half-plucked chicken’s ghost has been seen howling and flapping around Pond Square in the centuries since. If by chance it appears in this photo, do let me know. I do like a good chicken ghost story.

This is also a handy guide to How To Spot Dickon Edwards From Quite A Long Way Away.

Dad writes to comment on my entry on the changing attitudes toward recycling. He lists the three Stages of Innovation, which apply to anything from the Internet to the Horseless Carriage:

1) Eccentric / mocked
2) Trendy / worthy
3) Official / commonplace.

Onto some ranting. Living alone and aloof as I do, I find all too easy to succumb to the general sense of wondering ‘what’s the point?’ about anything. You know the sort of line of thinking. Life is just too hard. So much annoys or goes wrong, or so it can seem if I let one of my spiralling funks descend. Hence the need for Diary Angels.

But this is more about Dickon the Eccentric Writer, Dickon the Wandering Flaneur, Dickon the Gentleman and Dandy. I can do those things from now to the age of 99. And I intend to. Dickon the Indie Band Leader is a different matter. Music is far more complicated, both to make and to disseminate.

If you have something to say to the world, choosing to do so by music can be wonderful, but can also be a gamble. You can reach far more people than if you were to put out your message in, say, a book, but you can also reach far fewer. And musical success is about so much more than just the music. There’s the right timing, the right packaging, the right media buzz, the right hair, the right comparisons, the right gigs, the right string-pullers behind the scenes. So much has to be aligned in just the right way. And then you realise that not everyone likes your style of music, or indeed music at all.

I’m in danger of sounding like the Mark Gatiss ‘failed rock star’ character in The League Of Gentlemen. But then, I’ve met similar figures in all spheres of creativity. At some function or other I was collared by a very forlorn gentleman who used to have a column in a national newspaper, but was booted out in order to make way for some brasher, younger columnist. He’d failed to make himself into a Name, he said. He thought it was enough to just be a good writer.

All creativity is narcissism in the end. I’m just more honest about it than most.

My CV has only one sentence:

“Don’t you know who I AM?”

(another one for the Book of Dickon Quotations, there)

I’ve also been chatting to some of the older figures in both the music world and book world. At a recent music industry launch:

Record Label Man: You’re best out of the music game, Dickon. These days, it’s full of self-deluding fools. I think you should get into the author scene – your image would have more effect. So many successful songwriters are just failed authors, anyway.

And then, at a recent book launch:

Publishing Man: You’re best out of the literary scene, Dickon. These days, it’s full of self-deluding fools. Have you thought about being in a band? Your image is very striking and would have more effect in the music world. So many successful authors are just failed rock stars, anyway.

The publisher had no idea about my past, suffice it to say. And he thought I was about 25.