To L’Escargot on Greek Street for a Christmas dinner with the Teaists. The Teaists being an assortment of bohemian types who meet in the city’s expensive but stylish dining parlours (The Wolseley, The Savoy, The Waldorf etc), even when some of their number are living on the dole.

One definition of style is to dress well on little money, while those who are swimming in riches dress like they’re on a minimum wage. The Teaists are often the most stylishly dressed people in the room, while fashion dictates that the richer you are, the poorer you’re meant to look. Prince Charles hasn’t worn his coronet since his investiture, though (I’ve just checked) he’s allowed to wear it whenever he wants. I’d wear my coronet on the 134 bus.

Style is spending your last crumb of Income Support on a charity shop waistcoat, rather than food. The food will come anyway. You hope (rather than beg) some kind soul will offer to treat you, in return for the currency of interesting and unusual company (which is what the Fosca song ‘The Millionaire Of Your Own Hair’ is about).

Even though the Teaists spend money like any other customers, they still manage to solicit the odd steely gaze from waiters. Gazes that say ‘What are you doing here?’ and ‘This is a respectable establishment.’ Sometimes there’s bemused smirks, other times it’s expressions of sheer terror, akin to the pensioners in the tea room scene from Withnail & I. Maybe it’s because the Teaists are of a unusual mixed-generational range (at all points between 20 to 40); maybe it’s the odd haircuts, or the vintage mix-and-match clothes; maybe it’s just the whole atmosphere of Otherness.

I realise this is starting to sound like the lyrics to a Suede song, though I’d never say the Teaists were ‘trash’. More like harmless if gently exotic variations to the decor. The scenic route.

Present for this Christmas outing (champagne, wine, three courses, snails) is Lawrence, Xavior, Hazel, Tallulah, Mathieu and Suzy. Tallulah is a young lady I associate with glamorous clubs like Kash Point and Stay Beautiful, and a strong contender for the ever-discussed notion of the female dandy. She asks me if I’m aware of a band called Blueboy. Of course I am: Blueboy were on Sarah Records, I was a big fan, I was close to the singer for a while (who died earlier this year), and they were the first band I ever supported (Orlando, Camden Monarch, April 1993). They later appeared on Shinkansen Records, as did Fosca.

Turns out that young Tallulah is currently dating the Blueboy guitarist, Paul.

Now, this at first seems such a ‘small world’ collision of my past and present lives, it reinforces the notion that behind my back, all the people I’ve ever known are getting off with each other.

But it makes more sense when I’m told they met as fans of The Chap magazine. Blueboy were a link between two unique and distinctive indie labels of the late 80s / early 90s period: the pastoral, pristine ‘twee pop’ of Sarah Records and the dandy-compatible, elegant and jazz-tinged El Records. From El Records, it’s a short step to The Chap, and thence to the dandy side of the dressing up spectrum, and so to the sort of clubs Tallulah goes to.

Arrogantly, I used to think I was the one person linking so many scenes, capable of shifting from the world of Momus to the world of Shane Macgowan, from Doctor Who fans to Beau Brummel fans, from the Field Mice to Romo, from the jumpers and jeans of the Belle and Sebastian ‘cutie’ types to the flamboyant costumes of London’s polygendered peacocks.

But then someone shouts ‘Oy! Rhydian!’ at me on the street, and I’m reminded that, no, I’m really not at the centre of the universe after all. (Rhydian being a bleach-haired singer on TV’s X-Factor).

Oh, and those pretty black-clad boys I met at the Shane MacGowan party turned out to be in the band The Horrors, whom I have approved of aesthetically in the past. I just couldn’t recognise them in person.

The one I spoke to said his name was Rhys. I went up and complimented him on looking fantastic, completely oblivious that he was in a popular band of the moment. Just as well I didn’t suggest he should be in a group. But I feel slightly smug that I thought he looked like he was in a band. Too many people in bands dress down, as if they’re hoping no one will notice they’re on a stage.

I wonder if the drummer of (say) Blur gets recognised like this? ‘I just wanted to say… I really love your look.’

***

Also at the Teaist dinner, Hazel gives everyone presents of books – lovely old Penguin editions. Mine are Henry James’s The Europeans and DH Lawrence’s The White Peacock.

She raves about Ted Hughes’s Collected Letters, which she’s just been reading. In the Telegraph, Sam Leith suggests that, thanks to email, such volumes are on the way out:

Hughes being, realistically, of the last generation that wrote letters consistently enough and well enough for it to be worthwhile or even possible to collect them into a book. I reckon in two decades’ time the Collected Letters will have ceased to exist as a literary object. But cheer up. No doubt something good will come along to replace it.

Well… there is the ‘blook’. The book based on a popular blog. Not quite the same thing, though.

Thing is, even though I’ve written plenty of paper letters in the past, and kept the other person’s correspondence, I’ve never kept copies of the outgoing letters. That’s what you were meant to do if you had any interest in the art of letters at all: put carbon sheets between the pages, make copies, keep the replies, and file it all carefully away. Seems a world away now. I wonder if those carbon sheets are even still available.

Emails, however, automatically keep both sides of the exchange preserved, and take up no room whatsoever (one CDR can hold a lifetime’s output of text). It’s just that few write emails in the style of the old letters.

Except when it’s a commission. The Swedish mag 00TAL has asked Martina Lowden and myself to discuss diary writing and fiction via email. The plan is to publish the emails in a future issue.

The Swedish radio programme I was interviewed for – a special on Sarah Records by P3 Pop – is online here.

I’m told it was broadcast on 19th Nov and will remain online for another week or so.

This Year’s Model, whose album booklet features stories by Vic Godard, Jessica Griffin and myself, has just been given a very nice review at Indiepages.com.

Here’s a scanned version of that Dagens Nyheter interview, which appeared in October. DN is Sweden’s biggest selling morning newspaper.

***

Have installed an imaginary word-processing filter that automatically deletes any sentences smacking of self-pity. Which explains the gap in recent diary entries.

Still, it’s something many diarists and bloggers could do with. I believe one’s moans and gripes can indeed be lanced by writing them down; it’s publishing them for others to read that’s unnecessary. So I now use my Silvine Exorcise Books for that sort of thing. Get it down, and get it out. Then write something people might actually be interested in reading.

***

A: The trouble is, every time I sit down to write, the Microsoft Paperclip pops up and says, ‘You appear to be steeped in your own suppurating self-pity. Would you like some help?’

***

Fed up of missing things due to feeling too ill or too tired. Last straw has to be missing the Puppini Sisters video shoot, in which I was going to be an extra. Kicked myself for pulling out of that one, particularly as extra work is one job where disguising your tiredness and ailments is fairly easy to do, what with all the time spent doing nothing.

So, doubly keen to vanquish the dreaded IBS pains, I’ve now switched to a vegan-esque dairy-free, caffeine-free, gluten-free, every-bloody-thing-free diet. It means a lot of munching on rice cakes, a food which my mother accurately describes as ‘amiable polystyrene’.

Find it strange to read that raw fruit and veg are considered avoidable in some anti-IBS diets. Smoothies and cooked vegetables are actually preferable to the fresh stuff, when encouraging the entrails to recover. It seems there really is no such thing as a universal ‘good for you’ food.

Well, apart from water. That’s one thing people pretty much agree on, despite what WC Fields said.

The first time I tasted soya milk, at the age of 18 or so, I instantly said a prayer for all the masochists who drink the stuff out of choice. Now my taste buds have altered to the point where I really don’t mind it either way. Which is just as well.

Peppermint tea is the other staple of this new regime, but is surprisingly easy to get in cafes. Including the BFI Imax cafe, the British Museum cafe, and even Munchkins, the touristy fish and chips cafe opposite the Museum. These being the three stops Dad and myself made on Monday, when he came up to visit. Must find a suitable non-tourist cafe to replace the New Piccadilly, though.

We saw the new Beowulf animated movie at the Imax, in 3D. Utterly enjoyable fare. Seeing it on DVD (or downloading it) really can’t be the same experience at all. It’s unabashed spectacle, hooked on proper storytelling. Something happens because something else has happened. That’s what makes a story a story, as opposed to a parade of random spectacles for the sake of it. The trouble with so many recent blockbusters is that something happens – AND then something else happens.

Beowulf has its roots in a very old story indeed, though this version has a few twists that have predictably annoyed the Anglo-Saxon academics. They forget that movies are movies, and books are books. The only real insult to an original text is to make a dull movie. Produce a dazzling piece of cinema – such as the Lord Of The Rings trilogy – and all deviations from the books are forgiven.

***

Last Sunday evening was Shane MacGowan’s 50th birthday party at the Boogaloo. Mr MacGowan’s actual birthday is on the 25th, which he shares with Quentin Crisp and Jesus Christ, but given the Pogues are on tour till Christmas, I assume this was the most convenient date for all concerned. Like The Queen, it always helps to have more than one birthday. I was invited, and it was great to see the Boogaloo extended family assembled, including John & Sharon, Ms Red, Eddie, Jemima, Bernie, Sophie, The General, Ronnie, and Ms Lou.

Shane sang Van Morrison’s ‘Gloria’, though the backing band (Bap Kennedy and co) rather cunningly turned it into the Nips’ ‘Gabrielle’ halfway through. Spider Stacy (Pogues) also performed a couple of numbers.

At the pub I also recognised: Jem and Darryl (Pogues), Shanne Bradley (from The Nips), Kevin Rowland (Dexy’s – pencil moustache), Tim Burgess (Charlatans – glasses and stubble), and Chas Smash (Madness).

There were also a few striking young men in eyeliner, deliberate hairdos and skinny black attire. If they weren’t in some famous band, they dressed like they were. Some papers said members of The View and Arctic Monkeys were there, but although I’m aware that these groups exist and are popular with today’s loose children, my passing interest stops short of identifying their members’ countenances, particularly in a dark room full of similar trendy young things.

Maybe I could just about recognise the Arctic Monkeys singer. He reminds me vaguely of Chris Gentry from Menswear. Ask your Britpop dad.

Ms Kate Moss sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Mr MacGowan, via Ms Victoria Clarke’s mobile phone. And there was a proper cake, with candles, which he duly extinguished before the happy gathering.

***

Email on Jake Thackray, one of those recording artists on my To Do list:

There’s a very good 4CD box set called Jake In A Box which can usually be found cheap in the sales…otherwise I’ve only seen iffy compilations. If you can find individual albums, the usual favourite is his debut, The Last Will And Testament Of Jake Thackray. I think you’d like him.

Thank you. It’s on the ever-extending list.

***

Sad to find out the Charles Dickens Museum is going to be closed this Christmas. Last Boxing Day it was the only London museum open, and I went along to enjoy readings from A Christmas Carol (with mince pies and wine) by one of his descendents, the author Lucinda Hawksley. So my Boxing Day is now something of a blank canvas.

My New Year’s Eve, however, is claimed by the Last Tuesday Society. They’ve booked me to DJ at their Masked Ball, at the Arts Theatre in Covent Garden.

A kind of compromised good news. My wallet has been handed in after all, though the UK notes are missing. The odd thing is, the UK change and the Swedish notes are still there. Still, I’m grateful to get any of the money back at all. My neighbour David thinks I may be able to claim some of the missing UK cash, via my travel insurance (which the festival bought on my behalf).

***
Had my last chat at the Tavistock yesterday, regarding my past course of therapy and whether I should look for a new course. I’ve been recommended to research a kind of shrink’s shopping list, to see if it might do me some good: cognitive, cognitive behavioural, cognitive analytical, psycho-dynamic, ‘solution-focussed’, and more.

I think therapy in some cases is just a substitute for the kind of close friend who really checks up on you, gives you a slap on a regular basis, stops you wasting days and months on sheer dithering about what best to do with your life. Not everyone takes to such ‘tough love’ friendships, certainly not myself. But God knows I need something along those lines, even if I have to pay for it.

***

One modern problem is knowing just how best to keep in touch with one’s friends. Myspace, Facebook, Livejournal, texting, mailing lists. By the time you’ve checked all these things and sorted through the various messages for events, it feels like you’ve not done anything else with your day. I can just about stay on top of emails, and that has to be it. It’s not that I feel I’m slower than the rest of the world, it’s that I find my mind can’t cope with checking and processing so many different messaging accounts, and keeping up with them. I find myself putting so much energy into worrying about what’s expected of me (must I reply? what if they reply back? how long is this chat going to go on for? how I can I get out of this and get some fresh air?) I feel I’m in danger of dying from an overdose of pure choice.

***

Sometimes, my thinking bristles like this:

Thank God I don’t like football. Because if I liked it, I would have to keep up with it. And that would be awful, because I don’t like it.

***

London Life:

A: Help me!
B: Okay.
A: Not you!

***

Emails:

hello there…my name is Joz, from Indonesia.. i just want to say thanks for the music that fosca made…can’t stop hearing “The Millionaire Of your own hair”, brilliant!!!

I always like the thought that bits of me – my recorded voice and words – have reached far-off lands without the rest of me, and have been of some use. Particularly as Fosca have enough trouble getting any kind of attention in the UK, let alone Indonesia. Thank you, and please tell others.

***

From: Sue George, London

Dear Mr Edwards, I always read your online diary when I remember to and I was particularly fascinated by it this time. When I was youngish (18? 19?) I saw the first TV showing of the Naked Civil Servant and was so inspired that I looked Quentin Crisp up in the phone book and wrote him a fan letter to which he replied! …Even now, he is an inspiration to me. Does Xavior Roide do these Quentin Crisp walks for the general public or simply for his friends? I am sure I am not the only person who would love to go on one.

The walk was an impulsive bit of fun, but I think he had belated interest from bohemian acquaintances requesting another outing. If Xavior does it next year, and assuming it’s an open invite, I’ll mention it here.

I should also mention this exciting piece of TV news:

An Englishman in New York 2008, ITV1 – A sequel to the award-winning 1975 drama The Naked Civil Servant. John Hurt reprises the role of Quentin Crisp (aka “the stately homo of England’), following his life in the 1980s and 1990s when he lived in New York.

I also see that you have linked to an essay by Matt Houlbrook. I am currently reading his book Queer London which is one of the most fascinating books I have read for years. Do you know it?

I do now, and have just borrowed it from the London Library…

Another mail:

The live Fosca CD arrived last night… This has been my first exposure to the new, guitared-up Fosca, and if this is an indication of how the new album is going to sound, then I’m even keener to hear it than before. There’s a real celebratory feel about the new songs, and indeed the new treatment of older numbers… you’ve never sounded so emphatic and alive…but maybe that’s because I haven’t seen Fosca live before. Is it always like this?

Oh, we come alive like Mr Frampton. I think my own sense of being the odd band out adds a certain defiance to the mix. Or an attempt at it, anyway.

Fosca have never sounded better, and I really hope that the new album is going to get the recognition it looks like deserving – let me know if there’s anything I can do to help with this, like plugging it on the various internet forums I use, or submitting reviews.

Please do tell the world, and try to get it reviewed wherever you can. Contact the record label (But Is It Art Records) and talk to them for press copies.

I should mention that the live album is now available to download free, albeit without the limited edition artwork.

… you really should play live more often. Even if it means moving to Sweden. Live likes you, and you seem to like it.

Actually, going by the live album sales, it turns out Fosca are bigger in the UK than Sweden after all.

I’d really love Fosca to play live more often myself. It depends on many things beyond my control (such as four differently busy people finding the same time slots free, and then matching those to gig offers, and then having to organise equipment transportation and hard cases and rehearsals, and getting paid and oh, we really need a manager…). But I hope it happens.

From: Allan, Hackney
Message: Do you have a Jake Thackray affinity?

No. Should I? Where’s best to start?

No word from the lost property people.

In my case, my wallet was not so much ‘lost’ as ‘left’. I know exactly where it was: on the floor in front of my seat on the plane. I’m absolutely convinced it would have been found by now by the plane’s cleaners, and that the finder would hand it in rather than pocket it. I was also hoping the finder would take into account that people who travel on low cost airlines tend not to be millionaires. That they could really, really do with the money back.

Perhaps I’m part of some divine plan, where a cleaner has found themselves in dire need of extra money – the exact amount in my wallet matching the fare to visit their dying relative, say – and this is the way their prayers were answered. Perhaps they’ll see my photo on my card inside the wallet, and think the blond hair means I am a part-time Angel.

In which case, I forgive them. All part of the heavenly service. He said through gritted teeth.

It’s rather hard to shrug ‘heigh ho’ about this one. The best part of £300. All my wages earned on the trip. At a time when I’m barely earning at all. But heigh ho. Heigh ho.

***

So that aside, I had a pretty splendid trip, really.

I did the three sets okay, the musical back-up for Martina Lowden being the main reason I was there. She read a piece in Swedish, telling me it involved a fox, snow, and Love despite everything. I sat to one side and picked out slow, shimmering Robin Guthrie-type melodies in single echoey notes, using digital delay and chorus pedals, trying my best to play under and around her words rather than against her. Though I couldn’t understand her text, I could still use her tone and rhythm to respond in shades of melody.

After I got home, Martina emailed me to say ‘I’m still smiling bigger and brighter than I’ve done for weeks.’ So that made me feel happy.

For my solo set, I played ‘Storytelling Johnny’ and ‘Confused And Proud’, before host Madeleine Grive pulled me back onstage to do a third, ‘Rude Esperanto.’ Just me, my guitar and my laptop. Because the venue was a theatre with fixed seats on a steep incline, and the event a poetry festival, for the first time I could hear my vocals way above the music. Hundreds of people in the audience, and all of them silent and paying attention. Which is rather different to playing rock venues, of course.

A little later, I joined Friday Bridge to sing and play on their song ‘Pigeon’, before ending with Fosca’s ‘It’s Going To End In Tears’. Always interesting to play a dance number in a venue where people can’t stand up to dance. It meant the song became more serene, serious, glacial.

From what I could make out, the audience was a real mixture of literature fans (all ages), and hip festival goers (arty twentysomethings). The nearest London equivalent would be the ICA.

Which reminds me. In Stockholm there’s a chain of supermarkets called ICA. Didn’t go inside one, but I like to think they sell pints of milk rated by Alan Yentob as culturally influential.

The festival was a curious schedule: three separate shows in one day, from 3pm till midnight. I spent much of the Friday recovering from the hangover incurred by the party at the Governor’s palace, but I stuck around afterwards for a drink at the bar. Three parties in three days, including one at the Polish Institute on the Wednesday. Two TV interviews. One morning rehearsal. One sushi dinner with Niklas and Ylva. One meeting with the record company. And lots of being looked after by the kind organisers. Who booked me taxis on account, which I only had to sign for. Who provided backstage catering including little chocolate cubes containing different jelly flavours: orange, mint, Turkish Delight.

Who put me up at the lovely Mornington Hotel with its eat-all-you-like-and-all-you-can-think-of breakfast buffet and its unique ‘library bar’. Thousands of books – some in English – lining the walls while you eat and drink. Not just for show, either: you’re encouraged to borrow them during your stay.

My thanks to Ester, Hanna, Kristina, Anne, Johanna, Hilary, Jessica, and all at 00TAL Magazine whose names I forgot to remember.
***

I wandered about the city for a lot of my stay. Had lunch in a cafe in Stortorget, the ancient square in the Old Town, currently host to a Christmas Market. Lots of sweet-smelling market stalls. I like a town square that smells of sweets. Tried a drink called Glogg, which is a bit like mulled wine, but with a small cup of raisins and almonds on the side. I gathered from the waitress that you’re meant to add the raisins and nuts to the drink and stir it. Very nice, anyway.

I know it’s still too early for Christmas, but Stockholm is a great Christmas destination. They have your actual snow and your actual reindeer. Well, there was snow on the Wednesday.

In the Sweden Bookshop in Slottsbacken, after hours spent wandering a foreign city alone, I bought a Greta Garbo fridge magnet. Seemed like the right thing to do.
***

Popped my groggy (and Gloggy) head into the Nationalmuseum, home to Sweden’s largest art collection (and comparable with the National Gallery in London). Enjoyed an exhibition on Swedish illustrations to Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Which was particulary fitting as I’d brought Ali Smith’s Girl Meets Boy to read. This is her modern-day take on one of the Ovid myths: the tale of Iphis and Ianthe, a favourite of mine and very probably the first female-to-male transsexual love story.

Girl Meets Boy has a rather excellent opening line:

Let me tell you about when I was a girl, our grandfather says.

When I saw Ms Smith’s book I felt a degree of envy and chagrin, as the Iphis story is the one myth I’d most like to retell myself. But I can still do my version one day.

Set in the world of Inverness bottled water corporations (‘Eau Caledonia’) and drawing on her gift for sisterly relationships (as in The Accidental), Girl Meets Boy has a sweet and dreamy atmosphere, with lots of pop culture references. I’ve complained before how one of the contributors to the Iain Sinclair anthology couldn’t get the title of Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’ right. I was also stunned to read Colm Toibin’s review in the London Review Books of Rupert Everett’s memoirs, where he confesses to never having heard of the actor before:

‘In my head I had him slightly mixed up with Kenny Everett, who was a disc jockey during my youth…’

Ali Smith, on the other hand, gives the impression she does know who Rupert Everett is. Because she peppers Girl Meets Boy with references to Judi Dench in Notes On A Scandal, Johnny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribbean, Daniel Craig coming out of the sea in Casino Royale, and, you guessed it, Facebook. Not in a tokenistic way, but in the way that makes perfect sense when writing about people who live in the real world (and yet don’t quite), and it helps to stop the book taking itself too seriously. If you only write books for people who only read books, you’re in a danger of a kind of literary in-breeding. Authors are meant to have their eyes open to the wider world, not just to the world of books and other authors. Books are meant to be connect, not breed academic ghettos.

Anyway, Girl Meets Boy is also a little thing of gorgeousness to look at: lovely red font for the page headings and embossed title, red endpapers, simple matt white covers with a line drawing and cool Helvetica lettering. For me, this makes all the difference between buying a hardback book (which I rarely do) and borrowing it from the library. That, and it being £2 off in Waterstones.

Stansted, Saturday evening. I’ve just arrived back from Sweden, and am walking through customs when I realise something really rather inconvenient.

I’ve left my wallet on the plane.

In it is my sole bank card, my Oyster Card, some safety cash for going abroad, plus the cash I was paid by the Stockholm Poetry Festival. On top of that, there was the cash I was paid by the TV company for thoughts on dandyism and fashion, etc.

And all because RyanAir planes don’t have mesh pockets on the backs of their seats.

Well, all right, it’s my fault, I’m an absent-minded fool. But the lack of a mesh pocket was why I put my wallet on the floor and forgot about it. I had wanted to buy something to eat on the journey, so took out my wallet from my bag. But there was nowhere to put it during the flight. My hands were used up wrestling with Ali Smith (her new book Girl Meets Boy, of which more anon). I had no pockets for once: the plane was so warm, I’d taken my jacket off. So on the floor and out of mind went my wallet.

(And as it turned out, I didn’t use my wallet after all. The couple between me and the aisle said ‘no thanks’ whenever a stewardess passed by. I felt that piping up and asking for food across their glaring, Le-Carre-reading laps, would seem like contradicting them. Too much like Making A Fuss. Yes, I know. My fault entirely. I think the fact they were a couple intimidated me. I often feel intimidated when forced to sit next to a couple in public places. It feels like two versus one.)

So at the airport, having realised what I’ve done, I tell the people at the RyanAir desk. They say the plane is now locked up for the night, and that I have to contact the firm who cleans their planes, allowing at least 24 hours, in case it’s been handed in.

(Sunday evening as I write this, in Highgate. I’ve emailed and left a message with the plane cleaners. No word about my wallet yet.)

There is the small matter of how to get home on the tube without an Oyster card or money for a ticket. And I’ll have to borrow some cash from somewhere, if I’m to eat this weekend.

What does everyone else do when they’re stuck without money, and need to get home? Just start begging on the spot? With my guitar and laptop? I suppose I COULD give an impromptu gig. People might drop enough coins to get me to stop.

The most logical option is a slightly embarrassing one for the age of 36. But I AM lucky enough to know two people with a car and a spare room in nearby (ish) Suffolk, who will be happy to rescue me (as long as it’s Stansted, not Gatwick or Heathrow), and who are also the least likely to be out at a gig, pub, or getting ready for a nightclub.

Mum meets me in the car park an hour later, shrugging off the inconvenience, happy to see me. I spend a cosy evening in Suffolk (they’ve now replaced my childhood ‘graffiti’ duvet cover with something arty and tasteful), and catch the lovely two-carriage Sudbury train to London the next day. Last time I took this Adlestrop-like branch line, which passes through the village of Bures and the East Anglian Railway Museum at Chappel & Wakes Colne, it was to see R.E.M. play at Wembley Arena on the ‘Green’ tour. Late 80s. Straight from school.

While waiting for Mum at the airport, I sit on some plastic seats, surrounded by the bored and the tired of the travelling world. Airports really should be happier, prettier places. But they rarely are. They all conspire to associate flying, the very dream of humanity for aeons, with the stuff of bland drudgery, of identical shopping malls. Of overpriced coffee. Of scratchcards.

I love flying. It’s airports I have a fear of.

Tired Frenchman: Hey, cheer up. I’m waiting too. I see you have a guitar. Could you play it for a while?

Me: Can’t, sorry. It’s an electric. Needs plugging in. Sounds wrong otherwise.

(pause)

Me: Actually, even when I plug it in and play it, people say it still sounds wrong.

I don’t think he got the joke.