Further to my previous entry slightly mocking EM Forster for predicting a world of ‘pneumatic mail’, I’m now told this was indeed what many thought the future would be like in 1909. This Wikipedia entry on the subject points out that more than a few cities not only adopted a pneumatic postal system in the 19th century, but some kept using their systems long into the era of fax and email. Prague’s pneumatic post lasted until 2002, and only stopped then because of the floods.

I love this Italian P-Post stamp from 1945:

***

To the Curzon Soho to see the film Moon. A somewhat sleepy, low-key sci-fi tale in the vein of Silent Running, Solaris, 2001 et al. Not that much happens: a lone astronaut on a moonbase finds something odd has happened. He works out what it is, and decides what to do about it, and it takes him about 97 minutes, all in.

Much as I like quiet, slowburning indie films – Red Road springs to mind – I’m surprised here to find myself hankering after more biff-bang-pow fare, such as the recent Star Trek film. In that, a life-or-death sword fight on a vertiginous mining platform is immediately followed by a life-or-death race to teleport two people before they fall to the ground, right before a life-or-death race to save Young Spock’s parents as their home planet explodes. The whole film is like that, and yet it never feels ‘dumbed-down’, or banal: just proper, unabashed value-for-minutes plot. Pure, 100% What Happens Next. The new Doctor Who is similar – 45 minute adventures compressing the same amount of plot as the old 4-part, 100-minute tales.

Maybe it’s because sci-fi is all about on the ability to DO so much more, that one expects the principle to apply to the amount of story as well. Or perhaps it’s because Moon feels more suited to a 30-minute episode of a series like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits rather than a movie.

Still, 97 minutes essentially staring at the face of Sam Rockwell isn’t so bad: he has the kind of existential hangdog canvas highly suited for the purpose, much like Paddy Considine’s.

What’s most unexpected is that the film makes entirely logical use of the song ‘The One And Only’ by Mr Chesney Hawkes. Really! Given the director is Mr Bowie Jr, who presumably has easy access to any of his father’s many space-themed popular hits, his choice to eschew the likes of ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Life On Mars’, ‘Ashes To Ashes’ and ‘Hello Spaceboy’ in favour of Mr Hawkes’s less artistically acceptable 1991 opus is entirely commendable.

***

I watch the film with Charley S and her friends Pam and Tristan. Always nice to meet brand new people, or so I think. Pam says she met me at the club Stay Beautiful some years ago, and Tristan tells me he met me 13 years ago when Orlando played a gig in Cambridge. One vain part of me wonders (as ever), how can I convert this so-called ability to be held in the minds of so many for so long into a modest income, while another thinks, well, you just have a silly name and silly hair. That’s all. Now get on with that book.

The first properly hot, dry day in town after so much rain, so the insects are out in force. Walking down Dartmouth Park Hill today, the pavements are crawling with ants, flies, and indeed flying ants.

I pass by the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, currently hosting Anthony Gormley’s hourly parade of Britons. The woman up there at this hour is an entirely ordinary-looking thirty-ish lady dressed in casual summer clothes, smiling while chatting on her mobile phone. I guess she’s calling her mates (‘I’m on the plinth’). In contrast to those who make big statements, raise worthy awareness, hire wacky costumes or treat the plinth like Britain’s Got Talent, I realise she is closest to the spirit of Mr Gormley’s idea: an unfussy celebration of everyday contentment, simply taken out of the crowd and put on display. It’s surreal in its sheer real-ness.

I read EM Forster’s sci-fi novella from 1909, The Machine Stops. Startling to think that the author of Howard’s End and Room With A View predicted virtual reality and the internet era, albeit as a warning against dependency on technology. He doesn’t quite get email right, though: letters have been replaced by ‘the pneumatic post’. The lady on the Plinth is the counter-argument to Mr Forster’s story: she clearly has a  certain amount of dependency on her mobile phone, but it facilitates her first-hand life, rather than replaces it. One assumes she will meet the people she calls at some point.

(All of which says rather more about me than it does her. I do have a mobile phone, and it’s something of a lifeline when away from home. But when back in London I rarely use it, even switching it off for days on end. I realise it is me that is the strange one.)

Quick announcement before it gets any later, for anyone attending the mighty San Diego Comic-Con this weekend. I’m not, but my words are.

The fanzine Phonogram vs The Fans, which was made especially for SDCC and includes the Phonogram-inspired short story I’ve mentioned earlier, is on sale at the convention. Worth getting for the cover alone: a Jamie McKelvie pastiche of that striking Jenny Saville painting which adorns the latest Manics CD. You really do have to see it in print to properly appreciate it, I think.

It’ll be at the Image Comics booth (#2729). More info at curator Matthew Sheret’s blog:

http://matthewsheret.com/2009/07/17/sdcc/

The comic Phonogram itself – highly recommended – is in the middle of its 7-issue second series, The Singles Club. Each issue comes with ‘B-side’ stories drawn by guest artists. Inspired stuff indeed. Latest info on the comic is at:

http://www.phonogramcomic.com/blog/

I can’t think of San Diego without hearing the superb 6ths song ‘San Diego Zoo’ in my head.

Thurs afternoon: Meet Rachel Stevenson in St James’s, so she can borrow a rare novel from the London Library via my card. The book she’s after is ‘Rain On The Pavements’ by Roland Camberton, a first edition from 1951. It’s London-based, and eponymously enough we get caught up in one of the current sporadic showers while walking to the Tube. I also take Ms S on a tour of the Library, something I love doing ever since I found out members are allowed to bring in visitors.

In the members’ suggestions book, someone has remarked that the British Library now has a summer dress code, and that the LL should follow suit.

‘It may be hot but there is no need for singlets (sic), shorts, and all that goes with them.’

The Library’s reply on the page opposite is ‘We prefer to trust the general sense of forbearance of members.’

While walking through Waterstones Piccadilly, Rachel notices that the in-store music is one of Keith Girdler’s later jazzy bands – Beaumont or Arabesque. I check later on – it’s actually ‘Chadwick’ by Blueboy, from their last album on Shinkansen. In Waterstones, it’s followed by the Cocteau Twins’ ‘Blue Bell Knoll’. We take guesses at which staffer on the tills must be the resident indie kid.

Perhaps the band name triggers something on my inner London To Do list, because walking back through Leicester Square, I impulsively decide to finally visit the Jean Cocteau mural in the French Catholic church, Notre Dame De France. The church is next to the Prince Charles cinema in Leicester Place, mere steps away from the noise and chaos of the square: those eternal Bob Marley caricature pavement artists and the seemingly daily red carpet movie premieres (security barriers and crowds tonight assembling for the new Tarantino with Brad Pitt).

But then, Cocteau was a film star too. According to the church guide, when he painted the mural in situ over a single week in 1959 he was so famous that the church had to set up anti-paparazzi scaffolding so he could work in peace. The mural’s in a side chapel and comprises a gaggle of figures from the Crucifixion and Ascension, all rendered in that unmistakable naive line style.

The artist even gives himself a cameo:

Quite why an original Cocteau mural remains relegated to ‘Secret London’ guidebooks is beyond me. More people really should see it, along with the striking altar tapestry by Robert De Chaunac, where the Virgin resembles a Disney princess:

By of contrast to all this Franco-Catholic colour and noise, I stop off to catch the evening Quaker meeting at the Friends’ House in Euston. No murals or tapestries there, needless to say. Just a modern meeting room with chairs arranged in a circle. In fact, given the building is a warren of similar rooms available to hire, I have to double check to make sure I’ve not stepped into Alcoholics Anonymous.

‘You’ll have trouble keeping that suit clean!’ laughs the 537th person today.  Yet when I take off my jacket and neckscarf and pretend to be normal, I find myself envying some other besuited dandyish guy walking about.

I just like to look like myself. Only problem is, to most people I am not myself, I am ‘Oy! Suit!’ until further notice. Roll on further notice.

***

Latitude is more eclectic than ever: this year’s bill includes Mew, Squeeze (the two following each other), Patrick Wolf, and Chas And Dave.  Not Patrick Wolf AND Chas and Dave. But I would never rule out such a team-up here.

A group of 11-year-old boys passes me. A plump, posh one – clearly the leader – suddenly shouts  ‘Hands up who wants to see Spiritualized?’

***

My Friday is very much a day of bits. Bits of acts watched, bits of bands heard. The way sound carries from the various PAs, it’s possible to stand in the woods some distance from the main stage, and hear a kind of organic remix. I can make out the Pet Shop Boys, sounding half underwater, with Bat For Lashes over the top, plus the occasional angry burst of existential swearing from the Poetry Arena. As the wind changes, the mix changes.

Today, I don’t see a single act from start to finish. It starts with me sticking my head inside the Literary Tent for a few minutes to catch Shappi Khorsandi, the Iranian-born comedienne who is currently everywhere. She’s reading from her book, ‘A Beginners Guide To Acting English’, specifically a conversation held at cross purposes with a taxi driver. The cabbie assumes that because she is a lone woman doing two ‘pub gigs’ in one night, she must be a stripper. When he asks her, ‘What do your parents think about your job?’ the daughter of an exiled Iranian satirist replies innocently, ‘Oh, my dad doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he does something similar himself…’

John Joseph B says hello, and I catch a bit of his show in the Cabaret Arena, called I Happen To Like New York. It’s a cross-dressing, picaresque monologue in the vein of Hedwig And The Angry Inch. As it’s more of a scripted story than a cabaret turn, one really needs to see the whole thing from start to finish, and I feel a bit guilty when I pop in about halfway through.

The latest score from the Ashes (or Test Match, or whatever it is), is displayed on a special hand-made board outside the festival’s Supermarket Tent. Years ago, one would assume the person doing the updating would have had a portable radio. These days they could be getting the score from their iPhone. But the score board is still hand-affixed numbers on bits of card, and that’s what pleases me.

I catch a little bit of Lykke Li (though miss her actual song ‘A Little Bit’). By this point I have Fickle Festival Goer syndrome, deliberately wanting a brilliant artist’s next song to be less than brilliant, so it’s okay for me to go and get my jacket from the yurt, or get a drink, or go for a pee, or whatever. Her opening number is heart-stoppingly wonderful, and I am happy. Her second song is just okay, so I am happier still. It means I can get my jacket.

FFG syndrome applies even more to established acts, as nostalgia enters the equation. When the Pretenders are on, you don’t want to be in the toilets for ‘Brass In Pocket’, so the more recent stuff has the Time For A Pee feel. But it can work the other way around. For some, dusty old hits might feel overfamiliar, even stale, and thus toilet-break bound. Going through the motions in every sense. Tracks from poor-selling recent albums may sound fresher live, performed with more gusto.

It depends what people want from their concerts, and what the artists think they might want. Cosy old destinations, or trips to unknown territory? It’s odd how people prefer new material to come from younger acts only (when everything is new), with the exception of Seasick Steve. He’s the Right Kind Of Old.

In my case, I flinch when bands reform just to play the old stuff, if I’ve already seen them first time around. My Bloody Valentine and the Pixies – whom I both saw circa 1990 – are back, but with no new albums. Take That can come back with new hits which eclipse their old stuff, so why can’t MBV and the Pixies?

Every other friend of mine has been raving about the concerts by the reformed Blur. As much as I like a few Blur singles, I can’t get over the sense of Pavlov’s jukebox – a conditioning for nostalgia. It’s as Philip Larkin described his later appearances when his poetry was drying up – ‘pretending to be myself’.

Is the appeal of the Pixies playing ‘Doolittle’ live any different to the appeal of ‘Mamma Mia’? And is there a Pixies musical yet?

There’s hypocrisy here, though: last year I watched the Buzzcocks run through all their old hits, and utterly loved every minute.  So there goes my own argument.

***

Never quite a nostalgia act themselves (I think they’ve resisted the ‘classic album in full’ gigs), the Pet Shop Boys typically pull out all the visual design stops, transforming a standard rock festival stage into their own Devo-meets-Gilbert & George installation. The theme of this one is cubes, squares, boxes and pixels, with a backdrop of white cubes as a projection screen, somewhat recalling Pink Floyd’s The Wall, of all things. Both Boys start off in blocky, Lego-like costumes with gauze cubes over their heads, accompanied by two robot-mannequin dancers whose cube heads revolve in sync. I notice how the older Neil Tennant gets, the higher and sweeter and more nasally-androgynous are his vocals. It’s like Leonard Cohen in reverse.

Despite all the synchronised videos, backing tracks of umpteen synth parts and programmed drums, the only aspect which feels unreal is Mr Tennant swaying slightly on his legs, or indeed moving about at all. Anything other than deadpan stillness seems too much like Rock. Which would never do.

The PSBs do a medley blending ‘Can You Forgive Her’ with a newer track in the same 6/8 time signature. This really does test my ‘old v new’ feelings. ‘Can You Forgive Her’ is one of my favourite songs by anyone ever. By playing snatches of it alongside bits of an unfamiliar new song, I feel frustrated. Medleys are not trying something new: they’re  non-commital dips, unsatisfying gestures, the musical equivalent of a DJ playing the start of a record for it to morph into a bootleg ‘mash-up’ with something else. Which might please the head (‘how clever!’), but rarely the heart (‘Aw… my favourite song. Where’s the rest of it?’)

On the recordings of Noel Coward’s 1950s supper-club performances, his medleys are outrageously cheeky: 20 seconds of one hit, followed by 15 seconds of another and so on. Just enough for the audience to recognise the song and to do that irksome thing of clapping to show they know what it is:

‘Don’t put your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington (CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP)…. Someday I’ll find yooooooo (CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP)… Mad dogs and Englishmen go out – (CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP).’

Ultimately I’ll always want a whole song over any messing about with it. It feels okay to wander about a festival, sampling little bits of different acts, but not okay for the acts to do the same thing to their own material.

***
I meet up with Charley Stone and company (including Charlotte Hatherley) in one of the open-air Obelisk Arena’s raked seating sections. Combined with the huge video screens either side of the main stage, magnifying the performance with lots of  camera angles, it’s far and away the most comfortable audience option. At least, if like me you’re getting to that stage when you crave A Nice Sit Down, and can’t sit on the ground. My days of standing with the packed crowds Down The Front and braving the constant shoving are over. The only problem with the Obelisk Arena seats is being exposed to the elements, but it’s easily solved with an umbrella-cum-parosol.

[Update Sat morning: A strong wind turns the umbrella inside out and splits its spokes irretrievably. I did wonder why it was so cheap. Duration of brolly ownership: less than 24 hours.]

Charlotte H is playing twice this year, as guitarist for Bat For Lashes and as a solo act. Charley and I go to watch her with ‘The Lashes’, headlining in the Uncut Arena. It’s the largest marquee, with standing room only. The options are either standing at the back if you like a little space, though with a severely obscured view, or going further forward into the crowd and suffering the constant pushing and shoving. I remember how I used to deliberately follow bands with limited fanbases but brilliant records, so I’d never have to worry about this happening.  The Garage or New Cross Venue was my limit for standing-only gigs (or The Luminaire today).

Although I’m pleased that BFL’s brand of unbashed artiness and love of dressing-up (the singer enters in a big gold cape) is so popular, after two songs I am nearly kicked in the face by a child sitting on their dad’s shoulders. I read far too much symbolism into this.

By half past ten I’m in bed, utterly exhausted.

At Latitude, typing this in my rented mini-yurt. What bliss to have the space, the head room for standing up, and the hut-like sturdiness of the bamboo frame. Plus a perfectly comfortable fitted carpet; no need for an air bed. The ‘tent hotel’ field has extra security and the nicest showers I’ve seen to date.

Yurtpics:

Space to stand, to hang up one’s suits and shirts…

Note the little girls’ umbrella in the first pic. It was all the festival market had left in the way of rain protection, apart from thoseponcho things which are not really me. Walking about with a little girls’ brolly rather gives onlookers even more reason to point at giggle at me as I pass (or maybe call the police), but compared to being drenched in one of the sudden showers and lightning storms which have hit this year’s Latitude so far, it’s by far the lesser of two humiliations. Were I an enterprising sort, I’d rush to the nearest town, buy up all the cheap umbrellas I could find, and sell them at the festival for twice the price. Brolly and wellington boot stalls at Glastonbury must make an absolute fortune.

I had brought my own, thinking how prepared I was, only to leave it in the wings of the Film & Music Arena while I was DJ-ing. After we finished the set, the umbrella had vanished. I managed to get about 1 minute’s mileage out of it, walking from our dressing cabin to the stage during last night’s storm.

(Update: I’ve just found a different stall which sells proper man-sized brollies, and inexpensively too. It even matches my silk scarf. Third umbrella owned in two days.)

Miss Red outside our dressing room. Cigarettes ‘n’ alcohol ‘n’ ukelele.

So, last night: Miss Red and I DJ in the Film & Music Arena. Five sets throughout the evening, including an hour at the start (accompanying excerpts of ‘Pandora’s Box’ on screens to the side of the stage) and 90 minutes at the end, when we turn the place into a nightclub:

One happy dancing Film and Music Arena, Thursday night 1AM

We also play mini-sets in between the live acts: the ‘live silent movies’ show called ‘1927’, Patti Plinko, Smoke Fairies and Camille O’Sullivan, just the kind of acts I’d go to see anyway.

I provide several bunches of chrisanthemums bought in Southwold market earlier that day – Red’s idea. They’re perfect for dancing with, throwing about, wheeling around one’s head (to ‘Panic’ by the Puppini Sisters), and triumphantly tossing into the crowd at the end of selected songs.

Bump into Edwyn Collins and Grace Maxwell in the backstage area just before we go on. Tom is playing guitar for him, so that’s my handy reason for going up and saying hello. Tom apparently told them, ‘You’ll definitely notice my brother when you see him.’ Although Mr Collins isn’t singing at Latitude, Ms Maxwell is appearing in the Literary Tent to talk about her book on his recovery, which bears the perfect title: Falling and Laughing.

Photo by Grace M:

Now it’s Friday afternoon, and as ever I’m missing lots of acts I’d wanted to see. Last nights exuberance, not to mention consumption of the generous rider the festival laid on, has rather left me wanting to do little but lie in this lovely, airy yurt and recover from my various aches and pains (tired feet, hangover, friction rash from lots of walking in hot weather – made worse by wearing a suit). I know I should investigate a few acts, but fun is such hard work.

I get the kid-in-a-sweet-shop feeling so often these days. Overwhelmed with so much choice, I find myself doing nothing at all. It happens in libraries and book shops, when deciding what to pick, unable to decide and leaving with nothing, or choosing something then wishing I’d gone for the other thing afterwards. But it’s so silly – all life is missing out. One thing at a time means nothing else at one time. I suppose I want someone to just tell me, ‘Do this today. Read this. Watch this act. It’ll definitely the best possible choice.’ I can sometimes get high on sheer indecision.

But then, the one thing I was most excited about doing Latitude this year was renting A Yurt Of One’s Own. So it  isn’t really such a waste. I’m enjoying the private space, somewhere to go which isn’t just somewhere to sleep (which was the only thing I could do in the little tent last year).

I find myself scanning the Latitude programme photos and going by unfair rules. I say no to watching any rock act in checked shirts, or any photos of four gruff blokes in coats on a windswept beach looking into the middle distance (which is meant to say ‘hey, we’re a broadsheet compatible rock band’), or any comedian who pulls that wide-eyed, eyebrows aloft, mugging expression (indicating ‘hey, I’m a comedian’).

Ah well, off into the festival, to miss things I wanted to catch, but hopefully catch things I didn’t know I’d like.

Walking through the woods between the Guest Area and the lake, my white suit gets a comment from two passing young men (that eternal formula):

‘Excuse me, are you Jesus?’

An ant has just crawled inside the keys of this laptop.

In Southwold for one day before Latitude. I’m staying with Mum & Dad in the cottage they’ve rented every year for decades, their choice of week conveniently coinciding with the music festival nearby. Two things hit me most after coming straight from London: the palpably fresher air, and the almost sinister tidiness of both beach and street. Modern changes: smoothies on the tea room menu. Less modern: small boys playing football on Gun Hill, using – yes – jumpers for goalposts.

I’m wearing my new chalk-white linen suit: more Alec Guinness than Man From Del Monte.

A couple of young men chatting by a ladder stop and snigger as I walk by. The first time I came here during Latitude week, walking around Southwold High Street in my cream suit, a young man stuck his head out of a passing van and shouted, ‘Hello, Poof!’

I’ve had the same treatment on Shaftesbury Avenue, though. And indeed, in the toilets of the South Bank Centre the other day. I was there for a discussion on the future of literary magazines, hosted by Erica Wagner from the Guardian.

Two young men in shorts and backpacks were at the urinals. As I went in to check my hair in the mirror, the boys looked at me, then at each other, then one started to pretend he was having a loud orgasm, while his friend laughed. Seconds passed and his friend exited, yet the orgasm boy was still making his faux-ecstatic racket. As it was just me and him in the toilets I felt the need to say something.

‘Are you all right?’

He stopped.

‘Yeah, yeah. Just…. having a wee…’ He smirked feebly, zipped himself up and headed for the door without washing his hands.

Then as he left, his tone turned to a half-muttered playground retort: ‘No, are YOU all right… white suit!’

I saw them both walk off into the Centre to attend a talk on the legacy of Swinburne. Okay, no I didn’t.

Maybe I’d still get catcalls at The International Conference for Allegedly Poofy-Looking Men In White Suits. (‘Oy! White suit!’ shouts Tom Wolfe).

***
A Jeremy Hardy joke, not unrelated. ‘A sign on the back of a white van: ‘No tools left in this vehicle overnight. During the day they’re in the front seat.’

***

Also in Southwold I pass by the putting green opposite the pier, and remember Grandad took me and Tom for games there over twenty years ago. Once I actually managed to score a hole in one, though by a sheer fluke. Otherwise I was less interested in the actual putting as I was by the vintage-looking yellow score card that came with the putter and ball.  Sport was baffling; stationery divine.

Sunday morning – attend my first Quaker meeting at Muswell Hill. I go out of curiosity, having read a little about George Fox and Quaker practice in advance. It really is people of all ages just sitting silently in a room for an hour, chairs arranged in an oval shape around a table, with no indication of who’s in charge. No hymns, no sermon, no dressing up. In fact, I worry if I’m a bit over-dressed for attending a famously minimalist form of worship.

Sometimes people get up unprompted to speak about a matter of personal faith (‘giving ministry’), but they keep it brief, and it’s back to the silence. I find it all intriguing and mind-opening, if a little baffling (the organisational structure of the Quaker church still confuses me). What I do approve of is the concept of a religion based on shutting the hell up for once, particularly in these times of blogging and Having Your Say and Twittering and Comment Is Unqualified. Like the night job before, it also helps to knock the corners off my ego; I even find atheism too ego-heavy these days.

For the first twenty minutes, though, this hoped-for Quaker silence is rather compromised by a neighbour’s electric strimmer right outside a (closed) window. Eventually someone from the room goes outside and asks them very, very nicely if they could desist until after twelve. ‘But I’ve nearly finished,’ replies the female neighbour, off. It must have worked, though, and there’s no more irritations for the rest of the hour. Not even an accidentally left-on mobile phone.

This dilemma of Quaker tolerance leads to a couple of speeches made as ‘ministry’ at the meeting: is it right to ask a non-Quaker to stop using their powered gardening tools between 11am and noon on a Sunday? Given that the neighbour must be aware they live next to a place of worship whose main purpose is this very hour of silence once a week? Would this one person mind awfully turning off the thing until afterwards, in consideration for the forty or so people gathered next door for centuries-old worship? Is that so unfair? ‘But I’ve nearly finished!’

Afternoon – tea and cake with Suzi, Minerva and Torquil (from the New Sheridan/ Chap scene) at High Tea in Highgate, followed by drinks at The Angel across the road. We discuss, among other things, preferred pets. It occurs to me that I’d rather like a cockatoo. Yes, yes, double entendres aside. Either that or a macaw. I often look out for the London Zoo macaws when walking through Regent’s Park: they can be seen from the park’s Broad Walk. I find them a cheering sight, and wonder if I could ever share a house with one.

***

Speaking of ancient but still droll innuendo… Yesterday – to the Apollo cinema in Regent Street to see Bruno, the new Sacha Baron Cohen faux-documentary. I have a low tolerance of much laddish, bad-taste TV prank humour, but I do have a soft spot for Mr Cohen’s style, which must now border on the vintage. I love his sheer fearlessness, his devotion to deep cover (he’s clearly had his body waxed for Bruno), and the sense he’s out on his own with an original angle rather than playing to a crowd.

As in Borat, he combines prank interviews and filmed set-ups alongside lots of fleshing-out of the title persona amid a rather flimsy narrative arc. We don’t really care about the actual plot (gay Austrian reporter Bruno seeks love, fame and fatherhood), and it’s annoying when the film tries to make us. You can’t have it both ways: a satirical avatar used in the real world doesn’t cut it in a fictional universe (as the not so funny all-fiction Ali G film proved), so it’s hard to care about Bruno’s emotional life with his assistant. We’re aware they’re both actors playing characters, while all around are real people who may or may not be in on the subterfuge.

The only times the fictional bits DO work is when the reaction sought is not that of an on-camera victim but of the audience, thanks to a smattering of decent jokes  like Bruno’s reference to Hitler as ‘just another Austrian guy who only wanted to try something new’. Then there’s the explicit glimpses of Bruno’s inventive sex life, which venture into regions of deviancy that must still be fairly uncharted for a mainstream audience. One scene combines close-up male nudity and surreal special effects with an imagination worthy of Dali.

Just as Borat had to go to America and only meet Americans (and certainly no one really from Kazakhstan), so the film contrives to surround Bruno with straights, preferably homophobes. At times, he’s like a swiss army knife of reaction comedy: he is The Lone Gay Man baiting homophobes (pure Bruno), The Lone Foreigner baiting Americans with his mispronunciation of English (Borat), or if all else fails, he is just The Lone Irritating Idiot (Ali G style – mistaking Hamas for hummus while discussing Israel and Palestine). On occasion the audience must fear for Cohen’s personal safety – he spends a night camping in the hills with a group of suitably gruff huntsmen, and even tries to creep into one of the men’s tents naked. He gets the reaction he was hoping for – abuse – but one wonders if there were a few less funny threats or even acts of assault off camera.

Sometimes the victims escape with their dignity intact. When Bruno tries to marry his boyfriend at a Californian registry office – where gay marriage is currently illegal – he dresses up his other half in unconvincing bridal drag. To his credit, the marriage clerk reacts calmly, apologising that he can’t go ahead with the ceremony.  He isn’t a redneck homophobe or an open-mouthed Everyman, or an anti-gay politician or evangelist. He’s just a man doing his job, being very sporting about having his time wasted by British comedians in prank mode.

I also felt sorry for the perfectly likeable locksmith called to assist when Bruno is stuck on his hotel bed chained and strapped to his boyfriend in a tangle of leather and toilet brushes. This sheltered-life locksmith walks away from the scene shocked, which is funny, but also upset, which isn’t. I assume – I hope  – that the joke was explained to him as soon as the scene was in the can.

The theory that Bruno is about breaking taboos and playing games with innate homophobia is debatable: ultimately it’s just about making audiences laugh. They get the big joke about what’s real and what’s not.

At least, I hope they do. I’m reminded of a British comedian’s tale of meeting an Australian who didn’t go to the movies much:

‘You seen that Mr Bean?’ the Australian said, deadly serious. ‘The guys a f—ing idiot!’

I’m DJ-ing at a new club called Decline and Fall this Friday 10th. It’s hosted by the elegant burlesque artiste Vicky Butterfly and takes place at the Albert & Pearl in Upper Street, which I’m told is a suitably opulent venue:

http://www.timeout.com/london/cabaret/event/152346/decline-and-fall.html

***

So. I’ve left the news clippings night shift job in order to concentrate on writing jobs like the ‘Forever England’ book. On my last night at the office, many colleagues who normally dressed down gave me a surprise send-off. They came to work wearing suits, or shirts and ties, or evening dresses and high heels. On top of which I was given a lovely leaving card, boxes of Fortnum & Mason fudge and shortbread, a notebook and a luxury ballpoint engraved with my name. I was so touched.

The secret Dress Up for Dickon Day was the chief delight. If that’s what people think of me – that I like to be surrounded by the dressed-up – well, they’re absolutely right. Just as well I am me, really.

***

Now. There’s been an awful amount of Silly Tosh written about Mr Jackson since his untimely death, and frankly I don’t see why I should be any different.

His music has been ubiquitous in London’s coffee shops, cafes and bars ever since, which actually I don’t mind too much. I didn’t realise until now that I do slightly like the Eddie Van Halen guitar solo which occurs halfway through  ‘Beat It’. And then there’s those rather startling lyrics to ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’, which straddle the awful-brilliant axis:

You’re a vegetable (you’re a vegetable)
You’re just a buffet (you’re a vegetable)

Indeed. Just, as the man said, a buffet. And people have been helping themselves to that particular buffet even since he departed to that great Moonwalk dancefloor in the sky. Which I guess means… the Moon. (Shall I stop this now? I’m so sorry, I have to tickle myself back to the diary after a fallow period. Silliness is as good a way as any).

I’ll never forget where I was when I heard the news. I was reading the news. No, I really was. Thursday June 25th was my last night at the news clippings job. It was fun watching the BBC site hold onto those get-out-of-jail-free quotation marks in its main headline for as long as possible. They went from ‘Michael Jackson “rushed to hospital”‘ to ‘Michael Jackson ‘is dead'”, the sub heading carefully adding ‘according to reports’. By which they meant, ‘Some news sources are saying Michael Jackson is dead, but frankly they’re all American ones, or Sky, and we’re the BBC, damn it! We won’t take the quote marks away until Jeremy Paxman has personally walked into the hospital and checked his pulse.’

The news broke too late for most of the morning newspapers, which led with the story of BBC executives’ expenses. One morning paper with a late enough press time took advantage and splashed the Jackson story all over its cover. That it was City AM, the London-only financial daily which normally wouldn’t touch showbiz stories with a hedge fund bargepole, didn’t stop it one iota.

The days of news media saying ‘that’s enough, let’s move on to other events’ are long gone. The phrase ‘And in other news’ is still used – but only just, and never soon enough. The proliferation – 24 hour channels in particular -  should in theory mean more diversity in news. It would have been nice to see a little of all that extra time used for more coverage of, say, the passing of Sky Saxon and Steven Wells. Just because they’re less well-known shouldn’t mean they receive less coverage; on the contrary, because they’re lesser known they should get more attention. I suppose I naively want a kind of Robin Hood approach to media attention. Or just a little less reheating of the one buffet.