Thursday night’s Beautiful & Damned is certainly interesting. Miss Red and Mr O’Boyle have booked some live acts, which means that my contributions are limited to a couple of short DJ sets and the provision of the silent movie, The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari. Which has the most wonderfully designed caption cards I’ve ever seen. Not the usual white text against a black blackground, but shaded greys and boxes and chunky fonts at slanted angles, almost like the speech balloons in those Roy Lichtenstein paintings.

First up is a cheery band from California called The Procession, who are bouncy and listenable in that Donovan, Ben Folds-y way. We also have the gentlemen known only as The Rabbi, a fellow Boogaloo character and chum of Mr Doherty. Plus we get a song from Shane MacGowan himself, who sings something unkind about the English.

And there’s another act called Frank Sanazi, an actor friend of Miss Red’s. His act entails dressing as Hitler and singing Sinatra numbers with excruciating puns on the names associated with the great unkind of history. Osama Bing Crosby. That’s Reich! That sort of thing. “Have you seen me before?” he asks the audience. “No!” “That’s just how it starts…”

I’m reminded of “Heil Honey, I’m Home”, the notorious sitcom which never made it beyond its first episode. Much like that doomed TV series, some people find this act entertaining whether at face value or because of the coupling of bad taste with bad puns. But some find it not just unfunny but offensive and upsetting. As he continues, persons from the latter camp make their position abundantly clear by first vociferously heckling him, then actually taking to the stage and wrestling the mic from his hands. I squirm uncomfortably in the corner. Then I squirm even more when I realise that one of the hecklers is a friend of mine. Then Miss Red goes over and remonstrates with the act’s ill-wishers, and my squirming is taken to record levels. I understand the differences of opinion, but given my position as both a co-host of the evening and as someone who doesn’t like to see one’s friends in a heated dispute, I know I should take firm, decisive action and intervene in the only way I know how.

So I stare silently at my shoes until the moment passes.

And then I play Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’, which at least is a response you can dance to. Mr Ferry has recently been in the news, accused of saying nice things about The Nazis in some interview or other. He’s had to do the inevitable embarrassing apologies, setting the record straight and so forth. It’s all so unnecessary, but some people do like to spend passion and energy finding things to get upset about. Sometimes it’s warranted and worthy, but sometimes it’s self-righteous; the accuser is getting a buzz just from being an accuser. And an accuser often has the air of immunity by being on the better end of the finger. Their rule is: let he who casts the first stone be without sin. It’s all aggression of a kind, and I’m ultimately against aggression. In a very passive way.

On the subject of heckling, I’m not sure if it’s best to deal with an atmosphere of tension, ie finding an entertainer excruciatingly un-entertaining, by eclipsing it with an atmosphere of more tension, ie heckling. I never wake up and think “You know what the world needs? More tension!” Though that’s clearly how many people DO wake up, otherwise there’d be nothing to read about in the newspapers.

Some people – including performers who relish dealing with a heckler – think tension makes them feel alive, makes life worth living. To which I say, fine, but go and see it in its proper place, like at a wrestling match. I like music, but I don’t think it should be broadcast everywhere you go, or loudly through walls. Everything in its place. Consideration. Moderation.

I’ve never heckled in my life, though God knows I’ve sat through enough bands and acts I wished would just leave the planet. I either go to the toilet, or I leave, or I grit my teeth and sit it out. Like backpacks, there’s just no style to heckling. It’s not just a vocal, instant, critique; it has an aggressively solipsistic side, coupled with the danger of being lost in translation. It forces everyone in the room to pay attention to someone they can’t necessarily see, who has decided to be part of the show. It colours the event with a third party view rather than forging your own. It’s a reaction that demands a reaction. On some occasions, an ugly pack mentality. And alcohol and peer pressure are nearly always included in the equation. I’ve seen hecklers who were clearly just performing for their friends around them.

In the dark of a venue, a halo can resemble a burning pitchfork.

And it’s just all so aggressive.

Yet on the other hand, I may not ever feel the buzz from being a heckler, but I can’t deny the buzz of being around uneasy situations of conflict. Anything for an interesting life. Heckling is still a show.

I’m just trying to think if there’s ever been such a thing as a beautiful heckle, a stylish heckle, a gentle, kind heckle. Or just a really brilliant one that merits applause in any context. One that springs to mind is from a routine by David Baddiel:

Heckle: “Everybody hates you. You must know from school.”

Anyway, this is actually only one small element of the Beautiful & Damned evening. Like heckling itself, it’s pulled the focus of this diary entry, but isn’t representative of the whole event. A couple of women come up me later to say how much they enjoyed the club’s music.

“It’s all so relaxing,” they say.