Back in Highgate after an immensely pleasurable day and a half in Dublin. I’ve seen the doctor about my left hand / wrist / arm, and she’s ruled out Carpal TS and anything major. It’s definitely RSI. So on her advice I’ve invested in a gel wrist rest, the thin and long sort you can get for keyboards and laptops. I don’t use a mouse these days, just the trackpad on this iBook G4.

Apart from anything else, the gel wrist-rest I got from Ryman is rather pleasing aesthetically. Colourless and transparent with sunburst designs in black on the inside, which distort pleasingly when you press a finger hard onto the surface. It’s like one of those more unusual jelly sea creatures with no apparent front or back end, or mouth, or face of any discernible kind. But a pretty thing nonetheless.

In Dublin, the pedestrian crossings make the following noises.

When you press the button to cross, there’s a steady, low sound:

“Putt… putt… putt…”

Then, as the signal to cross appears:

“PEEYOW! Putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt…”

This is in contrast to the London pedestian crossings, which make no sound whatsoever to register the button has been pressed. Presumably blind people in London have to hope for the best that the ‘Wait’ sign has lit up. The ‘cross now’ sound for London is a stressed-out series of high beeps. I prefer the Dublin putt-putt noise. It’s a little more laid back but it does the job perfectly well. I could go on about other aspects of the city, but I think this is Dublin v London in a nutshell. Always judge a city by its pedestrian crossings.

Spend much of the 36 hours with Miss Hattie E, who is charming company full of tales from her days as a jetset pop journalist. We sit in a series of pavement cafes and sup tea and scoff strudels. We visit the Wilde statue with its quotation-covered columns (“Punctuality is the thief of time” is my favourite for the day), the Joyce memorial in St Stephen’s Park, the Book of Kells and the impossibly glorious arched library in Trinity College with its JM Synge exhibits, and the National Gallery with its Vermeer and all the Irish artists that you’re amazed aren’t more noted internationally.

Also at the National Gallery there’s a temporary exhibition called The Fantastic In Irish Art. So that was me happy. Harry Clarke’s works from the early 20th Century are a highlight, with a spindly elfin style echoing Aubrey Beardsley. Many artists have depicted Shakespeare’s Ophelia in a languid and sensual pose, but few, I think it’s fair to say, have set her in the loving embrace of a gigantic lobster. Jack Butler Yeats’s Pippa Passes is exquisite, and I highly suspect it has been used on the cover of some Angela Carter book. A barefoot girl running through a wood, head thrown back in a rather unusual pose, making her arms look like angel’s wings.

Which makes sense, given the event I’m really here for. The Victoria Clarke book launch – for her ‘Angel In Disguise’ memoir – is a lot of fun, and I get my first taste of a bar where everyone is drinking but no one is smoking. The ban reaches London in July. Though I feel sad for those who like a good cigarette or cigar, it’s nice to come away without one’s suit stinking of second-hand tobacco.

Ms Clarke is decked out in black PVC and angel wings, the venue’s walls are covered in paper cut-outs of angel shapes, and there’s free angel-themed cocktails. I play my set of angel songs, and manage to NOT play the Robbie Williams one. The Style Council’s “Angel” has aged remarkably well, particularly as it comes from the time when people had started to give up on Mr Weller’s blue-eyed soul combo. Madonna’s “Angel” (from her Like A Virgin period) and ABBA’s “Angeleyes” are the other refreshing favourites. Minor hits for them, but so much better than major hits for, oh, pick any name from the dart board.

Last night in the commercial break for the marvellous new series of Peep Show, there was a series of ads for current bands: Bloc Party, Klaxxons, Maximo Park. And it sounds typically old man-like of me, but I genuinely can’t tell them apart. Pleasant enough young men standing around playing guitars, playing pleasant enough, slightly-alternative guitar rock. But their choruses don’t have an iota of the catchiness of even the verses of those ABBA and Madonna singles, or the blissful class of the Style Council. There will always be young men keen to stand around with guitars, but too many are keen to join in when they should blaze their own trail. It’s not hard to be different from the rest. Look, I’ve just written about the joy of Dublin’s pedestrian crossings and giant lobsters cuddling maidens. Why can’t Maximo Park sing about that?

At the book launch, Shane MacGowan sings “Devil In Disguise” with his sister Siobhan. I hear he’s had a fall on tour in the States, and has spent a few weeks in a wheelchair. But tonight he only needs a stick, and he refuses my offer to help him up the stairs when we all repair to a restaurant later on. He’s had a short-back-and-sides haircut that makes him look a decade younger. I meet his mother, and Ms Clarke’s mother and step-father, and I drink too much. Siobhan tells me off for being snooty about MySpace users. I have my photo taken with a gorgeous lady DJ called Poppy, and the other besuited dandy of the night, Sebastian Horsley. We look pretty good together, in a Gilbert & George sort of way. The next morning, he leaves me a very sweet message at the hotel reception, all arch credos and reminding me to keep up the idolatry of the self.

So, please do buy Angel In Disguise by Victoria Mary Clarke, because she’s a wonderful writer and has a unique take on the world. And because she’s been extremely kind to me. Advert over.

The day after the launch, Shane & Victoria make the front page of various local papers, including The Irish Sun. They’re getting married later this year. In a castle.

Now, in addition to the RSI jellyfish rest, I’ve decided to make little changes in my lifestyle. A general clearing out of the things that are stopping me do the things I really want to do, and an increase in the things that actually help.

So, no more takeaways or cakes or sweets junk food, at least not by myself. The strudels I shared with Miss Hattie are a good example that cakes eaten alone are depressing and self-deluding, but cakes eaten in company are heaven.

I also need a general cutting back on my exposure to the culture of sneering and the use of cruelty for cheap laughs. There’s so much of it about – not least in my own world. I watched the new Harry Enfield comedy show last night, and much of it seemed to me to be about sneering at people for the sake of it, taking joy in new stereotypes of the day: fat children, Polish coffee shop girls, American tourists, builders, Stephen Fry, dinner party types. All of which would be okay if it were actually funny, like the better bits of Little Britain. Without the laughs, it just comes across as a portrait of aging comedians feeling increasingly frightened of the modern world. The highlights were the parts with the least small-minded sneering and the most silliness, such as “Bono And The Edge At Home”. Which has been done by Vic Reeves and Slade already.

“Peep Show” will always command far less ratings, steeped as it is in the world of the British aging-slacker generation, but is far better written than any other UK TV comedy since “The Office”, and far more honest. The stars, Mitchell and Webb, must be millionaire comedians themselves what with their Apple Mac adverts, but their targets for cruelty are themselves, or rather their self-deluding Peep Show characters, not everyone else.