First of two days spent in the surreal business of being a movie extra. The film in question is Gambit, starring Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz and Alan Rickman. It’s a remake of the 1966 Michael Caine crime caper, though every film buff I speak to is only dimly aware of the original. Few seem to have actually seen it (I make a mental note to rent the DVD).

Being an extra is hardly the world’s most difficult job: mostly sitting around, catching up on reading, chatting or flirting with one’s colleagues, and sleeping. You also get fed, and (I’m hoping) paid. Today’s call time is 5am, tomorrow’s is 4am, so everyone grabs naps when they can. In one section of today’s location -an ornate, high class restaurant – crowds of spare extras are dozing, heads on each other’s shoulders. As the men are all dressed in suave suits, it’s like a scene from Inception.

So I pretend to be having an expensive evening meal at 7 in the morning (red grape juice for wine, some food real, some plastic), while the proper actors perform their dialogue somewhere behind the back of my neck, to the left. And again. And again with different lighting. And again with different lenses. And again with the cameras set up on the other side.

At one point the director asks us to be a little more animated. So myself and the man opposite on my table start to have a heated (yet entirely muted) debate about the life cycle of lobsters, using increasingly florid hand gestures. We are not then asked to be less animated, so I presume it was okay.

Tomorrow’s alarm set for 2am.

Saturday May 21^st: I manage to honour three invitations in one evening. First: Sam Carpenter’s birthday drinks at The Constitution pub in Camden (7.30pm-8.15pm), then Charley Stone’s birthday concert at the Silver Bullet venue in Finsbury Park (8.45-9.30pm), before heading to the Phoenix in the West End to be guest DJ at How Does It Feel To Be Loved, where I stay till it ends (10.15pm till 3am).

Afterwards: I walk all the way from Oxford Circus to Archway. Nearly 4 miles. Partly because I need the exercise, partly because I’m drunk, but also because I like to avoid night buses whenever possible. I feel utterly safe walking the streets of Central and North London in the dead of night. It’s night buses that can be an ordeal.

Ms Stone’s night  is ‘Charlapalooza’, featuring performances from the Keith TOTP All-Stars, the Deptford Beach Babes and the Abba Stripes, all of whom she plays guitar for.  Her present from David Barnett is a huge poster of her own Rock Family Tree, linking all the bands she’s played in over the years. Fosca is one of them.

Also at the gig are other London Rock Women of note: Charlotte Hatherley (Ash, Client, solo), Debbie Smith (Echobelly, Curve) Deb Googe  (My Bloody Valentine),and  Jen Denitto: once of Linus, now drumming for the Monochrome Set.  Jen D says I’m directly responsible for her being in the MS, via singer Bid’s other band, Scarlet’s Well.

I get a vicarious thrill hearing of friends’ gig-going and gig-playing, as if they’re carrying on with All That so that I don’t have to any more.  From the reports of the Suede shows this week, to news of my brother Tom, who’s currently touring as guitarist for Adam Ant.  I don’t envy his guitarist success (never feeling like a proper guitarist myself), but I do envy his earning a living from doing something he loves, and travelling too. Particularly Paris. The last time I was in Paris was a Fosca gig in 2001 – a marvellous floating venue in the Seine. I have a real urge to go again. Here’s hoping a reason to do so presents itself. Or better still, the money to go there presents itself.

Still not much luck in finding a regular source of income. Offers of work from kind friends keep falling through, from paid blogging to film reviews. I’ve pitched articles to the Guardian without even getting a reply, which makes me feel some random self-deluded lunatic. Maybe I am. But at least I’m a well-dressed random, self-deluded lunatic.

***

Last Wednesday I was invited to Treadwell’s Bookshop, now in a new location off Tottenham Court Road. The event was the reading of an academic paper by Dr Stephen Alexander, titled ‘Elements Of Gothic Queerness in The Picture of Dorian Gray.’ Stimulating stuff, reminding me just how rich Wilde’s novel is. You can link it to so much these days: the tragedy of a young man who doesn’t age pops up in Twilight and the new Doctor Who, for instance. Dr Alexander focussed on the theme of coveting yet resenting objects for their static nature: something that certainly connects with today’s obsession with worshipping the latest version of a must-have gadget. In fact, posters for the original iPad showed Dorian Gray as an example of an e-book to read on it. I’d love to know what made them choose it.

Not only was I delighted to be invited, but it turned out Dr Alexander – whom I didn’t know until now – actually dedicated his paper to me, after my appearance in Eliza Glick’s book Materializing Queer Desire.

I’ve never had an academic paper dedicated to me before. It’s so flattering. And it helps to remind me that I might not be the complete  waste of space the Job Centre insists I am.

Problem is, they’ll say, one can’t earn a living from being a muse.

Well, unless you’re in Muse.

My DJ set at HDIF:

1. Stereolab: Peng 33 (Peel session version
2. Carole King: I Feel The Earth Move
3. The Shangri-Las: Give Him A Great Big Kiss
4. Chairmen Of The Board: Give Me Just A Little More Time
5. The Wake: Carbrain
6. The Chills: Heavenly Pop Hit
7. The Siddeleys: You Get What You Deserve
8. Dressy Bessy: If You Should Try To Kiss Her
9. Camera Obscura: French Navy
10. The Smiths: Ask
11. Spearmint: Sweeping The Nation
12. The Pastels: Coming Through
13. Le Tigre: Hot Topic
14. Prince: Raspberry Beret
15. The Supremes:  Stoned Love
16. Ride: Twisterella
17. Stereolab: French Disko
18. Blueboy: Imipramine
19. Sister Sledge: Thinking Of You
20. Nancy Sinatra: These Boots Are Made For Walking
21. April March: Chick Habit
22. Shirley Bassey: Spinning Wheel
23. Gloria Jones: Tainted Love
24. Mel Torme: Coming Home Baby
25. Dexys: Plan B
26. Orange Juice: Blueboy
27. Blondie: Rapture (a tribute to the real Rapture in the news)
28. Felt: Sunlight Bathed The Golden Glow
29. The Cure: Boys Don’t Cry
30. Style Council: Speak Like A Child
31. Labelle: Lady Marmalade

I’m guest DJ-ing tonight (Saturday May 21st) at How Does It Feel To Be Loved.

It will be at:

The Phoenix
37 Cavendish Square
London
W1G 0PP

Nearest tube: Oxford Circus.

Runs 9pm-3am. My set is 10.30pm to midnight.

Entry: £4 members, £6 non members. Membership is free if you register (quickly!) at

http://www.howdoesitfeel.co.uk/membership.html

I shall be playing 80s indiepop, 60s girl groups, and everything that vaguely fits. Including Blueboy, who were recently the subject of a rather good piece at the London Review Of Books blog here:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/05/10/stephen-burt/young-and-quite-pretty/

To become a UK citizen, the British government requires all applicants to make the following Affirmation of Allegiance:

“I (name) do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law.”

(Source: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/britishcitizenship/applying/ceremony/)

There’s also a lengthy Citizenship Test to take about Life In The UK. Sample questions are:

– Where are Geordie, Cockney and Scouse dialects spoken?

– What and when are the Patron Saints’ Days of the four countries of the UK?

– What are bank holidays?

Well, they’re what we’ve just had, two previous weekends in a row. As a child, I associated bank holidays with a couple of things that always popped up on TV: James Bond films, and ‘Disney Time’, a special programme of clips from Disney movies, linked by a British presenter (Jimmy Tarbuck is the only one I can remember. There must have been others).

This most recent bank holiday weekend felt like a real life Disney film followed by a real life Bond Movie.

On the Friday, a royal Prince – William – married a non-royal girl – Kate Middleton – making her a Princess (Actually, due to those funny rules about heirs and bloodlines she was made a Duchess, but it was good enough). I can’t help thinking of the last woman to get a Royal Wedding at Westminster Abbey – Sarah Ferguson – and how she was excommunicated from this event, while her children were invited instead. It’s suggested that she had her revenge by supplying her daughters with particularly bizarre hats.

Modern ways: I don’t have a TV, but watch the service on the internet, while enjoying the real-time jokey comments from people on Twitter. I enjoy the Abbey music and the sense of history, but find myself wincing at the more jarring anachronisms.  The service includes the phrase “I pronounce you man and wife”, rather than the more up-to-date ‘husband and wife’.

After that, I go down to the Not The Royal Wedding street party in Red Lion Square, Holborn. It’s organised by the pressure group Republic, who are keen to abolish the British monarchy by campaigning through the proper democratic channels, rather than anything that might get them arrested. Actually, that seems to be easier than ever right now: anarchists in Soho Square are bundled away by the police while the wedding is going on, purely for singing “We All Live In A Fascist Regime” to the tune of ‘Yellow Submarine’. Thus rather proving their own point. The reported charges are pure Thought Crime: “on suspicion of planning a breach of the peace”.

One time-honoured tradition of Royal Weddings is the souvenir mug, and the Republic movement has their own for sale today: it bears the slogan “I’m Not a Royal Wedding Mug”. They sell out by the time I arrive. But the Republic lot are keen to point out that they wish William and Kate no ill will personally. This isn’t about heckling a couple in love’s wedding – how mean-spirited that would be – but gently raising awareness that many Britons aren’t happy with  the whole monarchy set-up. Keep the weddings, and the titles, though. Says one female organiser “I am anti-monarchy, but I still want to see the dress. I’m still a girl.”

Also at the party is a stall where one can pledge allegiance to something British other than the Queen, in a reference to the aforementioned UK Citizenship requirements. The pledges take the form of triangular bits of paper pinned to the railings of Red Lion Square – a witty take on bunting. There’s quite a few pledges to Doctor Who by children, some to London, and quite a lot to tea. I pledge my own allegiance to Tim Berners-Lee, the British inventor of the Web, without whom these words wouldn’t have their readership, there’d be no Royal Wedding on the Internet, or Twitter, or Facebook, or so much of what the world depends on today. Bring out the bunting for British inventors, I say.

One of the organisers recognises me and takes my photo:

Then on the May Day Bank Holiday Monday, with the news of Osama Bin Laden, we got the Bond film: a villain craving world domination tracked down by the good guys in his secret lair, then meeting a violent end. It’s not reported if the soldiers who dispatched Bin Laden did so with a corny Roger Moore pun, but The Sun obliges with its front page the next morning: “BIN BAGGED”.  The news shows footage of young Americans in Times Square shouting “USA! USA!” in jubilation at the news.

English people are obviously glad to hear of a terrorist leader put ‘beyond use’ as they say now,  but cheering and shouting “ENGLAND! ENGLAND!” in the streets for any reason other than football is thought to be A Bit Much. That most English trait of all: fear of bad social etiquette. Celebrate a wedding, not a killing.