This morning: to the office of the Ugly models agency in Edgware Road, to see if they think I’m right for their books. Ugly specialises in providing people with ‘strong looks’ for TV, film and advertising, and over the years various friends have suggested I at least attempt to register with them.

They’re seeing dozens of people, so many that I have to queue in the corridor outside. Their registration form asks if the client would object to being in adverts for alcohol, cigarettes or furs. I didn’t think ads for cigarettes and new fur coats were even allowed these days, and wonder where they still go on.

When it’s my turn I have my photo taken and am briefly interviewed on video. Then I’m told in classic fashion not to call them, they’ll call me, once they decide. And they only call if they decide it’s a yes.

They also give me a copy of their latest directory. It’s fascinating: a swatch book of human set dressing. Need a 50-something white guy to convincingly run a newspaper kiosk? There’s one pictured doing just that. Need a barrel-chested Asian man who has his own police uniform? Take your pick.

There’s the expected models that Ugly is associated with: people with faces riddled with piercings and tattoos, toothless old men who can ‘gurn’ their face into a fleshy funnel. What surprises me is that they also represent more conventional-looking models. Many of them are downright ordinary. Just deliberately ordinary, I suppose. Ordinary and proud.  Ordinary for hire.

Afternoon: to the planetarium at Greenwich Observatory. I’d been thinking about the old 1950s one in Baker Street, now defunct, and wanted to see this successor. It’s now the city’s only public planetarium, and is brand new – built in 2007.

The Observatory is in today’s news, too. It’s about to start charging an entry fee, in order to cope with overcrowding. Today there’s the usual gaggle of foreign schoolchildren outside, posing for photos as they straddle the Meridian line. But inside the planetarium there are barely ten visitors. Maybe because it’s tucked around the corner of the Observatory itself, I don’t know. Whatever the reason, it’s a shame.

The show I catch, ‘We Are Astronomers’, is a dazzling and uplifting celebration of the subject, from Galileo to Hubble, to the Large Hadron Collider and the yet-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope, all with cutting edge animation and a narration from David Tennant. There’s even a real live astronomer introducing the show and taking questions afterwards. More people should know about it.

I take the Thames Clipper back into town: any excuse to enjoy the only part of London’s public transport network where you can legitimately order a gin and tonic.

There’s now a new sight from the river since I last took the boat – The Shard skyscraper, at London Bridge. Finally, a 21^st century building that’s not obsessed with glass and transparent walls. Blocky yet arty, The Shard has a touch of Jacob Epstein about it, or something out of Metropolis.

***

In the Royal Observatory gift shop, you can buy Meridian ponchos.

One of the casting agencies emails me an application form in the Microsoft Word format. I usually open such things with the program Open Office, as I resent the assumption that one always has to buy expensive, world-dominating software like Word, so I try to use free alternatives like OO. Only thing is, Open Office mangles the application form. Lines are broken up, boxes are a mess, and lumps of text go strolling to different parts of the document where they frankly have no business to be.

I try another free alternative, Google Docs. This time the form looks perfect in the web browser, but when I print it out, some parts are missing. I go online and beg friends for help. They suggest Microsoft’s free alternative, Word Viewer, which I take time to download and install. But I still end up with formatting errors.

So I solve the matter by walking to the internet cafe in Archway Road. There, logging on to my mail and printing out the form using the cafe’s copy of Word 2007 takes mere minutes, as opposed the hours I wasted fiddling with the other programs.

Later, I actually realise I could have used the Word Viewer program after all: I just needed to download a separate ‘compatibility pack’ and install that. Oh, and I had to open up Internet Explorer and check for Microsoft Updates for the program too. And so it goes on. Upgrade, install, upgrade, install.

All of which reminds me how limited my patience is with computers, despite my reputation as a veteran blogger. What particularly vexes me is the constant need to keep up with owning and upgrading the right software and gadgets to properly interact with society.

There’s a comedian who has a routine about moving to London and being annoyed at the constant appearance of cranes, road works and building sites. ‘When will London be FINISHED?’ she wails.

That’s exactly how I feel about computers and software. And it reminds me how much I love paper books – the invention that requires no upgrade. Books never need compatibility patches or the right region player, or power or recharging. They just work.

I speak as no Luddite, however. I’ve had a Kindle e-book reader for several months now. It’s wonderful for reading when travelling, and I love the ability to resize fonts and check words in the built-in dictionary. But it can’t be signed by an author and can’t exist without being charged up (if only once a month). It also lacks the stand-alone nature of books, as well as their freedom from accidental file deletion and their irreplaceable aesthetic pleasure.  E-books won’t replace books just as paperbacks never replaced hardbacks. But computers will always frustrate. At least, they will with me.

In the morning I speak to the very helpful Consumer Credit Counselling Service. They advise me what best to do with a punishing overdraft when living on the dole: how to open a new account with a different bank, manage all my ingoings and outgoings away from the debt, and how to ask Lloyds very nicely if they can waive their charges, in return for a sensible-looking payment plan.

Then my parents phone and bail me out.

I hadn’t asked them for help – they’d read yesterday’s blog. Although I take no pleasure in accepting their long-suffering generosity like this, particularly at the age when I really, really should be able to manage on my own, I accept, am impossibly grateful, and am viscerally aware of how lucky I am to have them. And I intend, of course, to pay them back.

I’m worried now that this could sound like I use a public blog to tell my parents what I can’t tell them in private. But that’s not true. I don’t know what I’m doing a lot of the time full stop. The diary is a way of cattle-prodding my general… flailing into order, controlling myself, coming to terms with things I’m trying to avoid, and using the Web as a witness.

I think I said as much in the BBC1 documentary on blogging. One reason why I took to blogging before the term was even invented was because it seemed to fit the way my mind works. Or rather, doesn’t work. I don’t write to say something. I write to find out what I have to say.

Anyway, it’s such a sobering, mind-clearing, clean slate feeling to see my balance, little as it is, without the minus sign forever in front. This time for good. Overdraft cancelled.

***

Dad has just scanned and uploaded his comic book project, Captain Biplane, to the Web. A true labour of love, he’s worked on it since the 1960s, off and on. It can be found at: http://www.mml.co.uk/cb/

***

Some cultural adventures of late. In order to see more films on the big screen, I’ve become a member of the Prince Charles cinema near Leicester Square. The cheapskate Londoner’s first port of call for films. Matinee screenings are a mere £1.50.

Last Saturday: I see Richard Herring’s latest solo comedy show, ‘Christ On A Bike’, at the theatre next to the Prince Charles. He pulls apart the inconsistencies and downright silliness in the text of the Bible to great effect, but I think the highlights are when he blends the fixed script with brand new, topical material – namely the case of the Christian B&B owners who refused to admit a gay couple.

Four films seen in the last month, all four touching on ways to tell the truth. In reverse order of merit:

CATFISH
Documentary (or so it seems) about a New York photographer who has a long-distance relationship with a woman, entirely via Facebook and phone calls. When he works out he’s being hoaxed, he decides to turn up on her doorstep, unannounced, and find out what’s going on. It’s an interesting internet-based twist on 84 Charing Cross Road, with much to say about they way people are using the Net to live their lives – or to live fantasy lives. The only thing is, I can’t quite believe much of the film itself isn’t staged reconstruction, if not downright fiction. Something a bit fishy about Catfish.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK
A dramatisation of the creation of Facebook itself, with a lot of license. Even though Mr West Wing peppers the script with quips and retorts throughout, rarely does one get an iota of depth and empathy from this parade of awful and sexist little college boys, jabbering constantly about how to get rich from computers. As much as I like witty American screenplays, I like my slick banter mixed with a little sadness (Holly Hunter in Broadcast News), or madness (Peter Finch in Network). The pursuit of money alone just isn’t interesting enough. Still, Jesse Eisenberg’s lead performance is incredible – all autistic monotone and shifty eyes, never letting his defences slip until the final frame.

THE KING’S SPEECH
Pretty much a perfect film. Unlike The Social Network, the script is taut and engaging but allows for plenty of emotion and doesn’t draw attention to itself. With delicious irony, at my screening the projector’s audio breaks down. The sound effects and background music are fine – it is just the dialogue that is inaudible. So I hop on a bus for five minutes and catch the film all over again at another cinema – a very London thing to do. In the gents afterwards, I chat about the film with a man who says he taught the director Tom Hooper, at Highgate School, and is so proud of him now. A perfect footnote for a film about the power of teaching.

THE ARBOR
A stunning work of art that deserves every award in the book. On the surface it’s a documentary about the unhappy life of the 1980s playwright Andrea Dunbar. It follows how she failed to leave the Bradford council estate that both inspired her and held her back, and what became of her children after she died at the age of 29. It mixes scenes from her plays with archive TV footage, fictional framing devices, dramatisation and art installation. Actors lip-sync to the voices of real people being interviewed, and their perspectives differ from person to person, reminding you that documentaries aren’t really so different from dramatisations after all – it’s all versions of the truth. Where the Arbor goes further is not just the unique style, but the unflinching yet unjudgemental examination of its subject, from the personal to the political. Age-old questions are asked with searing freshness: how much of a person is determined by their upbringing and how much by choice? Is the past an excuse? Is a neglectful mother a wicked one? How intrusive should society be?

The subject matter, though off-screen and spoken about rather than shown, is so harrowing I can’t recommend The Arbor to everyone. But it’s one of those films that you’re desperate to show to others the moment the credits roll.

Am somewhat struggling with getting myself into a routine and finding work. Or as they call it now, ‘sustainable employment’.

A few thoughts on the matter:

• I am not interested in job competitition. I believe in filling gaps, not treading on others’ toes.
• Better to focus on one’s uniqueness.
• Look upon applications as adding a new dish to a menu, however cluttered. You may not be to their taste, or you may be exactly what they want.

***

One advert asking for freelance reviewers now looks likely to be some kind of scam, possibly where one’s details are used for junk mail. Still, it got me to put together a portfolio of clippings and a CV anyway.

The constant motto of the optimist: ‘Ah well, it’s a lesson learned.’ I just feel I’d like to start earning alongside all the learning, if that’s okay with the world.

Forgotten just how much I’d done over the years: a cover feature for Rock ‘n’ Reel magazine, a column in Select Magazine (the magazine folded before it was printed, but I was still paid), and quite a few full page review columns in Plan B, of films and exotic CD reissues.

***

To make my life just that little bit less lovely, Lloyds TSB has introduced a monthly £5 ‘usage fee’ for their agreed overdrafts. That’s on top of the £15-£20 monthly interest I’m already paying them for the privilege of being in the red. I’m on the dole, so paying off an overdraft isn’t possible until I get a regular wage again.

Stupid thing is, I paid off the overdraft when I last had a job, eighteen months ago. I was in the black. And it felt… unnatural to me. Just as cancelling my dole would have felt unnatural. Over the years, both dole & overdraft had muted from being fiscal crutches to actually becoming a part of me. An addiction, of a sort. Like heroin, just less cool and more pathetic. Even more pathetic.

But there’s another reason. Part of my depression manifests itself as a constant self-hating, self-harming voice telling me that I’ll always be like this. That it is my place to be on the dole and in the red from here to the grave. Now, I know this is not true. But it is something I have to struggle with every day, and it’s something that keeps holding me back. Living alone doesn’t help. But right now, just writing this diary entry means today is a success.

I read recently how Andrea Dunbar, the tragic Bradford playwright and subject of the film The Arbor, was taken to court by the dole office: she hadn’t declared her royalties from the film Rita, Sue & Bob Too. I can’t help thinking the same thing applied – a fear of change, even a change for the better. I also think it was why Quentin Crisp never moved out of his rooming house in New York, even though he had the best part of a million dollars in savings.

A phone call to Lloyds reveals the new £5 fee replaces their unauthorised fees for going over agreed limits, which I’m careful to avoid anyway. So effectively it’s a punishment for being good.

Amusingly, the staffer on the phone got quite annoyed with me when I made this point. ‘So it’s all about you, is it?’

Similarly, I was actually told off on Twitter by a financial journalist, for quipping that bailed-out bonus-scoffing bank executives weren’t even good at their job, de facto. Good luck to him if he’s going around Twitter attacking everyone who shares the sentiment.

This kind of unexpected defensiveness – for bankers, footballers and Government alike  – is very much in the news. There’s just been a debate on BBC4 on the ethics of pay, in which the footballer Wayne Rooney’s salary (£10.2million) was compared to that of a care worker (£12,000).

‘Well, he is worth it,’ said a young woman in the audience. ‘He runs about more than a care worker.’

Still, I have to face my own part in my penury. I could have avoided having an overdraft, depression or no.

And just as the Government and I agree that once I start earning the first thing I need to do is cancel my dole, the bank and I know that I need to cancel the overdraft as soon as I clear it.

The good thing about all this is that rather than sit and stew in my own anger, it’s spurred me into making three new applications for work today. This time as a TV & film extra. I’ve sent off photos to The Casting Network, Guys & Dolls, and Ugly.

If it were offered, I’d even appear in an advert for a bank. And that would be me told.

My 2011 gets off to a shaky, wary sort of start, to which this late entry pays witness. Still, I’m feeling more hopeful about life than I have done in months. One simple physical act is doing wonders – I air my room every morning. On top of the instant rush of fresh air, there’s the pleasing symbolism of opening a window at the start of a new day. Works better for me than tablets, anyway.

December 30th and 31st: I DJ for the Last Tuesday Society once again. With typical LTS perversity, the event on the 30th under the arches at London Bridge is about ten times the size of the one on New Year’s Eve, with nude people painted gold languishing on banqueting tables, chocolate fountains, orchestras and so on. The latter is a relatively modest do in a restaurant in Bishopsgate. I see in the New Year with LTS types David Piper, Wynd & Suzette. Empty bottles of Bollinger litter the all-night tube home.

I am paid in art: framed drawings by Stephen Tennant. Very lovely and Cocteau-esque they are too. Little pieces of the Bright Young Things on my wall. I look at them and think of the things the hand that drew them did – all those parties, Tennant living the life that inspired characters in Waugh and Mitford. One drawing is on Wilsford Manor notepaper, as in the tastefully crumbling mansion in Salisbury where Tennant spent his later years, mostly in bed. From your mansion to my bedsit, dear Stephen. I’ll look after them.

(More on Stephen Tennant’s effects in this blog by Graham Ward)

On January 1st I cope with a tiresome cliche of an hangover by walking all the way from Highgate to Soho, via Regent’s Park. A gin and tonic in the Coach & Horses and I feel so much better. Memo to self:  hair of the dog works so much better than any attempt to ‘detox’. The pub has just opened when I get there, so while I sit at the bar and sip it’s just me and the ghost of Jeffrey Bernard, there on New Year’s Day 2011, in the middle of the metropolis, silent and serene. But not sober.

My resolution for the year is one I’m sure the Government, the world and I will all be happy with. I resolve to do my utmost to get off the dole and earn a living, this time from freelance work.

Now, I’m all too aware what a ludicrously competitive area this is, and how hard it is to make a living. So I promise to really, properly work at it. Writing arts articles, doing reviews of films & music, delivering talks, popping up on radio & TV – all things I have been paid for before, after all. I’ll also seek out this kind of work abroad. I keep being told by strangers around the world how I’ve featured in their college essay on flaneurs, dandies, diarists, London eccentrics and so on. And kind Proper Writers have pointed me to websites where magazines in lonely English-speaking corners of the earth are paying £100 a time for half-decent articles and reviews. That would suit me to a tee. I can’t do the Everyman style of writing (all those ‘we’s and ‘you’s bandied about like I’m an example of an average, in-touch human being) and have no wish to. But I can do the opposite thing rather well. The Not So Everyman. I just need to find the right place for it. The right place for being professionally out of place. I know I’m fairly good at stringing together connections from diverse worlds, and I always strive to come up with something vaguely original, rather than duplicating what people can get elsewhere.

All I need to earn to get off the dole is £175 weekly. I’m going to contact at least one editor a day until I get somewhere.

So here’s to that. Wish me luck.