Fosca t-shirts:

The slogan is taken from a line in ‘Storytelling Johnny’:

I was getting so afraid / I nearly had a t-shirt made / Saying ‘Lose Friends In Days’ / ‘Ask Me How’

***
Niklas corrects me re that Nojesguiden review I mentioned last time:

Actually the smiley is the rating, so the magazine has given the album 5 out of 6. The dots below have to do with comments and listeners rating (which in this case is 4 and a half…)

***

I’ve more or less got the hang of this Garageband program thing. Just. Have programmed the two songs Fosca are recording on Thursday in Karlstad. I’m looking forward to bashing the arrangements into shape with Rachel and Charley. The main dancey one is called ‘The Man I’m Not Today’, as in ‘you made me the man I’m not today.’ The other Magnetic Fieldsy one is still called ‘The Magnetic Fieldsy One’. But it will have a proper title by this time tomorrow or there will be trouble.

Being asked by a record label to write new songs and go on tour – as opposed to hustling your recordings and forcing your gigs on people – is a privilege. Quite why this doesn’t make any difference to cracking my ‘why bother?’ barrier is beyond me. I guess the entry level DIY-ness doesn’t help, not after years of it. All the heavy lifting. Why can’t they make lightweight, fold-up guitars and keyboards?

***

I DJ’d at How Does It Feel To Be Loved, on the Saturday before last. Venue: The Phoenix, off Oxford Circus.

Here’s what I played.

Would-Be-Goods – Fruit Surprise
Aislers Set – Hit The Snow
Aztec Camera – Oblivious
The Wake – Crush The Flowers
New Order – Age Of Consent
Monochrome Set – Jacob’s Ladder
April March – Chick Habit
Spearmint – Sweeping The Nation
The Angels – My Boyfriend’s Back
The Smiths – Is It Really So Strange?
Carole King – I Feel The Earth Move
Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Are Made For Walking
Cast Of ‘Bugsy Malone’ (1975 movie soundtrack): My Name Is Tallulah
The Supremes – Stoned Love
Gloria Jones – Tainted Love
Shirley Bassey – Spinning Wheel
Peggy Lee – Fever
Stereolab – Ping Pong
Felt – Penelope Tree
Chairmen Of The Board – Give Me Just A Little More Time
The Shangri-Las – Give Him A Great Big Kiss
Mel Torme – Right Now
Belle & Sebastian – Woman’s Realm
Le Tigre – Hot Topic
The Sundays – Here’s Where The Story Ends
Dressy Bessy – If You Should Try To Kiss Her
The Vaselines – Molly’s Lips
Orange Juice – Blue Boy
The Supremes – Come See About Me
The Chills – Heavenly Pop Hit
Sister Sledge – Thinking Of You
David Bowie – Young Americans

I enjoyed it. Still the strange mix of Felt fans who’ve come from far and wide, with a smattering of West End Girls and Boys who are just there because it’s a club in Central London on a Saturday night.

While I was waiting at the bar to be served, someone pinched my bottom. No idea who it was, though there were a couple of widely-built lads in matching white tops behind me making repetitive, loud jokes in my ear about how the drink Bulmers sounds a bit like ‘Bummers’. I hope it wasn’t them.

Without knowing the identity of one’s posterior pincher, there’s no way of discerning cheeky affection from ironic comment, or indeed unkind attack. If it’s the latter, it’s a bit tiresome and childish. I did feel a little upset, because of the implication that a complete stranger presumed I’m ‘fair game’ for the pinching. If it was someone I knew – or indeed fancied – it’d be different.

The last person to pinch my bottom before that was Sebastian Horsley. I’m never quite sure when he’s joking, either. But at least I know who he is.

***

Yet again, I’ve spent too much time falling into the addiction to doing anything else rather than the thing I should be doing. There’s been a lot of going to bed earlier and earlier, and rising later and later. Then as if for an encore (or applause), I’ve started sleeping twice during the day. Sometimes I sleep so much I start to hallucinate, from whatever is the opposite of insomnia. Far from relaxing or recharging me, this over-sleeping whittles down my ability to function at all. My brain starts to seize up, and the thoughts I do produce are shrouded in a dull headache.

A change is very much needed. A move? I’ve been in this Highgate bedsit for fourteen years now, and though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, I feel I’ve ‘done’ this bit of my life. Ticked it off. Maybe I should try living outside of London for a while. I have other favourite cities: Stockholm, Gothenburg, Tangier, Brighton, Paris. NYC and the Chelsea Hotel are still very much on the To Do list. Too obvious? Won’t know until I give it a try. When I have the money. If I ever have the money.

I can’t quite travel at the absolute minimum level, though. From last year’s Tangier trip, I know that I get nervous around luxury and expense, even if someone else is paying. But I also feel uneasy in the ‘romantic cheapskate’ places: the hostels and the £10 a night pension-style hotels where one has to share a bathroom with the backpacker next door.

I like to think this ambition is amusingly humble, but of course I haven’t thought it through:

Mrs Hypothetical: What do you REALLY want out of life, Dickon?
Me: I just want my own bathroom. Not sharing with someone I don’t know.
Mrs H: Well, I’ve had to share a bathroom with my husband for decades. And I don’t really know him either.

From getting drunk on one’s own dreaming to the solipsist’s nightmare; the more I withdraw inside my head, the more the real world seems surreal, going on without the dreamer’s permission or involvement. Whose dream is it, anyway? Well, it’s currently a pretty one: snow flurries in late March.

Better pack the winter coat for Sweden, then.