So, then, Doctor Emo…

I said, Doctor EMO!

That’s better.

This young fellow, Matt Smith, has just been announced as the next Doctor Who. I’m rather pleased with that. Particularly as the programme introducing him included clips from the drama Party Games, where he was shown singing and dancing to ‘Walls Come Tumbling Down’ by The Style Council.

The least one can expect from a New Doctor Who is an awareness of Paul Weller’s 80s soul-pop combo, frankly. That’s the FIRST thing I look for. In… oh, everything.

Going by the young Mr Smith’s interview, I’d have picked him, too. Young in exterior, but there’s something in his eyes, his body language and style of speaking that’s not only older than his years, but otherworldly with it. More Tom Baker than David Tennant, or even Peter Davison. Multitudes under the skin. Which is what you want.

At first glance, I thought they’d gone with another choice of mine, Jamie Parker. He played Scripps, the Catholic piano-playing pupil in The History Boys, in the original stage cast and in the film. Very much another old mind in a young body, Mr Parker is facially similar to Mr Smith, though without the mad hair:

Hairdo aside, Mr Smith also reminds me of the young Trevor Howard (as does Jamie P):

And also, let’s face it, he looks a little like a singer in an alternative rock band, the type that the Melody Maker used to label ‘Intensely Intense’ in its joke pages. I’m too out of touch to be familiar with the current ‘Emo’ crop of bands, those latest takes on the Chatterton image – the attractive yet angsty young poet figure. But the frontmen of a couple of 90s bands – who shared fans with Orlando  – spring to mind. Patrick Duff from Strangelove:

And Crispin Hunt from The Longpigs:

Add a sprinkling of Helmut Berger in the 1970s Dorian Gray film. How’s this for a Doctor Who costume:

Is it Outer Space? Or just Chelsea in the early 70s?

Actually, why hasn’t anyone written a pre-Dorian Oscar Wilde / Doctor Who crossover story yet?

Wilde: I must say, you have such youthful, boyish beauty, Doctor.

The Doctor: Awfully kind of you. Actually, I’m much older than you think. I just don’t look it.

Wilde: Really? Now there’s an idea…

One thing’s for sure. The 11th Doctor will have no trouble appealing to teens and twentysomethings. They’ll either think:

‘He’s so Intensely Intense with curious hair. I want to be with him.’

Or:

‘He’s so Intensely Intense with curious hair. I AM him.’

They’ll be fine. It’s winning the hearts of the under-13s that’s important. It’s a family show, after all, not a teen show. Doctor Who should never become Skins In Space.

He needs to be friendly and kind and fun to be with, across the board. So I hope they play up the ‘funny and cool older brother’ side of him, and let the ‘sulky yet sexy poet’ aspect take care of itself.

I am sitting here as the direct result of Brian Blessed singing in a leotard 28 years ago.

The London Library’s new wing, TS Eliot House, opened this morning. As I came in at 9.30am, I was told by the staff that I’m the very first member to use it. The redevelopment is still very much ongoing: so far there’s just this Wifi enabled Temporary Reading Room, which looks out onto quiet little Mason’s Yard. It’s a view dominated by the White Cube gallery, that towering, slightly menacing sugar lump of the London art scene. But just one room in the new wing is enough to get me excited. Walking through the familiar old stacks of the main Library – Fiction, 2nd Floor – then stepping through a previously hidden door into the Eliot annexe, I’m breathless with anticipation. It might as well be a childhood birthday. What kind of a person gets excited over library annexes?

TS Eliot House has been named not just to honour the great poet and former Library President, but also to mark his widow Valerie’s gift of £2.5 million from his royalties. It’s the single largest donation to the Library, which exists without state funding. And of course, the lion’s share of Eliot royalties these days is not from sales of The Waste Land but from the enormously successful Lloyd-Webber musical Cats, based on Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats. It opened in 1981 with Brian Blessed and Elaine Paige in the original cast of warbling felines, all decked out in furry leotards.

There’s also some new toilets in the Eliot block. Very modern and shiny, with a range of pretty multi-coloured floor tiles designed by the Turner prize-winning artist Martin Creed. The lightbulb man. As I try the loos out, mindful of who paid for them, I think of that schoolboy anagram of the poet’s name: toilets.

More seriously, though, and as it’s the New Year and a time for resolutions and self-reflection, I muse on that famous line from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:  ‘I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.’ So arresting, so sad, and so sobering. How one’s life gets measured out one way or another whatever you do, and how you’d better make sure it’s measured in something you’re happy with. Or at least, don’t mind too much.

So for 2009, the plan is to try to take charge of the year, rather than just let the year happen. I won’t say yes to doing something out of sheer politeness any more. I spent too much of 2008 agreeing to things, only to find myself pacing Archway Road for weeks afterwards in a blind fury, scolding myself for committing to a project or booking I didn’t actually want to do, whether it was a DJ gig or a music gig, or a writing gig where I wasn’t in the least bit interested in the subject matter (and in the case of reviews, I’ve done more than enough for a CV anyway).

***

Something I have been asked to do recently is to talk about the Orlando album, Passive Soul. Thanks to Tim Chipping and his Herculean persistence, it’s now been given a digital reissue on iTunes, making it officially available for the first time in ten years. He also ensured the album comes topped up with all the b-sides from the same period. Including demos and a cover of the Kenickie track ‘Acetone’.

A quick Google reveals that the album often has a kind of flattering default opinion hovering about it, with people on message boards using it in arguments to show off their knowledge of Great Lost Albums Of The 90s. Which is fine by me, though obviously I’m biased. Regardless, it did pretty well with the proper critics on its release in 1997. NME gave the album 8/10, while Melody Maker included it in their Top 20 Albums Of The Year.

And at about 4AM on January 1st 2009, while staggering drunkenly outside the Boogaloo, I am stopped by a young couple.

‘Are you Dickon Edwards? We’re big Orlando fans…’

It’s the first time I’ve been recognised as Dickon From Orlando in years.

I’ve also just remembered that ‘Prufrock’ is half-quoted in an Orlando song, ‘Contained’ (‘In this life that is measured out / in bus stops and rain’).

Is it a sign of things coming together? Well, it’s a reminder I should write about the album.

Here’s the link to Passive Soul on iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=299601661&id=299601510&s=143444

Tim wants to know how I feel about the songs now, particularly the lyrics. I’d quite like to know too. Let’s find out. Off we go with the iPod…

Furthest Point Away
Hah – this now makes me think of the Go Team, of all people… A case of throwing everything into the mix at once. Dexys, soul records, Spector bluster. Lyrically – the misanthropic socialist, wanting a revolution as long as it doesn’t mean talking to people – and ‘soul-cialist’, too. ‘A wink begets a sigh / you won’t pre-empt so why should I’ is pure Edwyn Collins verbose camp. Am I playing guitar on this one? Probably struggling if I am.

Just For A Second
Great pop song, forged by the producer of Cliff Richard’s ‘Wired For Sound’. Definitely playing guitar on this one – weird, out of time chords strummed upside down. Fantastic vocal performance from Tim. ‘Through no real fault of your own / You were born with a withering tone / You’re out on the town / Making people impress you” is actually more Fosca than Orlando. Going out to impress or trying to impress people is one thing, MAKING others impress YOU is a less expected line. So I’m showing off  on the lyrics front with little bits of wordplay and arch reversal, at the risk of losing the listener.

Nature’s Hated
Prefer the more raw demo version (included with the reissue) but only slightly. Excellent contrast to ‘Furthest Point’ in the arrangement, as it lets the song breathe. The self-pitying in the words grates with me now. Very much a younger Dickon’s lyric. I’m no less free from bouts of feeling sorry for myself these days, but back then even my miserableness had a certain naïve charm. I envy his youth – what right has he to moan with skin that good?

On Dry Land
Never cared for this at the time. Probably out of vanity: I just supplied the words while Tim came up with the music entirely separately (no idea how to play it myself), but today it sounds right up my street…The kind of record I’d track down if it wasn’t by a band I was in. Brilliant stuff. A real 70s musical feel to the music. Stephen Schwartz, A Chorus Line, Paul Williams…

Contained
Okay, this is pretty much one of the best things I’ve ever helped to make. Please, please, download this if you download any one Orlando track. No false modesty here. A ton of influences (TS Eliot as mentioned, but also Billy Bragg, Curtis Mayfield, Prince, The Beatles’ ‘For No One’, The Style Council, Jimmy Webb). Tim sings his heart out, I actually play the guitar without falling over.

Afraid Again
The album is just showing off now. Excellent songs, beautifully realised. I remember coming up with the main riff on guitar, and Tim transferred it to a synth. Very much the  sound of a band who are free from external fashions. Actually, it sounds a bit like Take That are NOW – dreamy, mature pop without being cloying.

Happily Unhappy
This completes the trilogy of ‘showing off’ songs. I came up with the chords in my Bristol bedsit when learning the guitar for the first time. I think I was trying to learn a Carpenters number, and ended up with this flowing ditty instead. Lyrics are a bit lazy – apart from the bit about thinking too much all the time. That’s actually quite a strange thing to hear in a pop song. Of course, that’s the narrator’s dilemma – his mind is out of sync with his heart, and he can’t even relax his own words into the simple language of a ballad.

Don’t Sleep Alone
A rather raunchy sentiment by my standards… Lyrics are rather like late Abba, in that aloof and disdainful way of commenting on a relationship, or the want of one. Fabulous brass solo. Anyone got Mark Ronson’s phone number? Nods to Sondheim’s ‘Being Alive’ in the lyrics towards the end.

Save Yourself
Very much Late Orlando. Thoroughly fed up with all things, and angry with it. Uneasy and personal listening for me – I can hear barbed remarks of the day set down here – from letters, from arguments.

Three Letters
The darkest and most selfish lyric I’ve written, brilliantly arranged by Tim into a desolate torch song turn. Gripping, cathartic.

Here, So Find Me
The one with the big orchestra, Tim outdoing McAlmont & Butler. My position in the band at this point was pretty much faxing lyrics to the studio then going back to bed. Lyrics are about walking the most dangerous possible streets on purpose – hoping to be mugged or worse, purely to get some kind of human contact. Proper orchestration rather than just turning the keyboard bits into strings. Closing piano is sublime.

Hero
The secret track. A cover of the Shelley track from the Sarah Records EP. A surprise from Tim to me.

And of the B-sides:

Something To Write Home About
A very shy song, very proudly sung by Tim. KG RIP.

Fatal
Orlando do TLC-style R&B. Pretty damn well, really. No, really! Lyrics are a bit unwieldy. Sorry, Tim.

Up Against It
I absolutely adore this one. So beautifully realised and performed. Lyrics are possibly a bit too overwrought. And that’s coming from me.

Someday Soon
A favourite lyric: ‘I wish I was a girl / Because you’re only nice to girls…’ Imagine the likes of Oasis singing that! I do, nightly. Should be ‘were a girl’ if you’re a stickler for formal grammar. But ‘I wish I was…’ sounds better here.

You’ve Got The Answer Wrong
Oh god – I’ve just remember this is actually a song I wrote for the Queercore punk band The Children’s Hour. Transformed and vastly improved into this well-dressed cocktail jazz setting. Perfect for El Records.

A Life’s Aside
I’m very fond of this one. It’s rather beautifully strange and otherworldly and woozy.

All in all, Orlando were a pretty varied band. And indeed, invariably pretty. We were restless, fearless, luckless and, sadly for us, commercially hopeless. But never pointless.

Christmas Day – walking around to three North London parties in a row.

One delicious afternoon dinner in Crouch End at the home of Miriam Miller, with Charley S and Matthew R. Lots of wine.

One teatime dinner chez Claudia Andrei in Upper Holloway, while watching Doctor Who. More wine.

And earlier,  one gathering at the duck pond in Waterlow Park with Ms Silke. She brings yet more mulled wine in a flask, I bring the Professional Duck Food in a tupperware tub.

On Christmas Eve I’d gone idly online to check whether it was better for ducks to eat brown or white bread. Turns out that throwing them bread isn’t actually good for ducks at all. That it’s not nutritious enough, and that if the ducks leave it to sink into the pond bed, it rots and clogs up the water. So there goes the bread idea for good.

Thankfully, the pet food shop in Junction Road, the one opposite what will no longer be Woolworths, has a professional duck food product in stock – and the shop’s open on Christmas Eve. No idea what’s in the food, as the bag has no ingredients list whatsoever, but it’s convincing-looking little dry spherical nuggets in a bag with a picture of a duck on the front. That’s good enough for me.

The product is called Wild Things by Spike’s World. They appear to be a hedgehog food firm who have branched out into the duck sector:

http://www.spikesite.co.uk/product.asp?pID=6&dID=1

The idea is that apart from providing a decent amount of nutrition, the food also floats on the water. So if the ducks aren’t hungry at the time, they’ll just come back and eat it later. No pond pollution, plus happier and better fed ducks.

It makes for a more smug and self-righteous duck-feeding experience on Christmas Day. Hey, park walkers! Get me! I’ve got proper duck food. Probably.

Here’s this year’s DE Christmas card image. Photo taken in April 2008 by Phoebe Allen. Digital snow added in December by Daniel Clift.

***

Here’s this year’s DE In Front Of A Christmas Tree In London shot, by Heather Malone. Taken outside the Natural History Museum, Christmas Eve 2008, at about 10pm.

***

And here’s one I took today, while mooching along Parkland Walk to get to a Christmas Dinner in Crouch End. It’s the scary hidden sculpture of a spriggan (an unkind creature from Cornish folklore), by the artist Marilyn Collins. Seems even more magical (or more scary) on Christmas Day:

Christmas Eve 2008 – to the Royal Albert Hall for a concert of Christmas carols, at the invitation of Heather M. We meet for drinks beforehand in a cosy pub around the corner. As I sit down with our glasses of wine, she presents me with a present – one of her burlesque stockings with satsumas and chocolate coins inside.

The man at the next table leans over with his pint. ‘Your Christmas stocking, I take it?’

And we start chatting.

‘We’re off to sing carols in a minute,’ Heather says.

‘So are we. We’re the choir.’

I’m rather taken aback by this. The man seems utterly without ego, showiness or preciousness in the slightest. Just the sort of pint-drinking bloke in a jumper you’d expect to see at a pub table next to you. What I suppose I’m saying is that he doesn’t look like a professional classical musician.

‘Oh really?” says one’s conscience. ‘And what SHOULD a professional classical musician look like, eh? Are you sure you’re not confusing formal stage wear with personality? You just haven’t thought it through.’

No excuse in my case for this petty preconception, either. In my Bristol Old Vic days I use to socialise with theatre musicians – the ones in the ‘pit’ – all the time. They were as down to earth as non-showbusiness employees of any kind, bar merchant bankers. Like most jobs, classical players have to get on with large amounts of strangers for large amounts of time. Any loftiness, egotism or snobbery would mark them out as bad at their job, and so cost them work.

In fact, it’s artists in the rock and pop world who are more likely to be stand-offish and precious and full of themselves. They may dress down on stage, but are much more likely to be buttoned-up as people. It’s not really their fault, though. The trappings of the genre encourage a brat mentality, and all too often talent is equated with ego.

It works the other way too – there’s too many naturally gifted singers and songwriters neglecting a career that could have been, purely because they don’t want to be thought of as vain. “Musical success? Me? Oh, I couldn’t. I just like singing in the shower.’

I’m told artists on the contemporary folk scene are more like classical players in this regard, with even the biggest names steeped in disarming modesty when approached off stage. ‘I’m just doing my best to play the music’ is the default attitude with folk and classical musicians. Better that than ‘I’m in a rock band – aren’t you lucky to be in the same room as me?’

***

The Royal Albert Hall carols show features the Mozart Festival Orchestra, complete with harpsichord-playing conductor and the full ensemble decked in 18th century period dress: wigs, breeches, stockings, the works. Period detail means the female musicians in the orchestra have to drag up in male costume, while the lady soprano gets a billowing frock.

Along with the carols, they do excerpts from Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah and Samson, and Zadoc the Priest. ‘Zadoc’ always makes me think of its brilliant use in ‘The Madness Of King George’, where the piece’s dramatic choral entrance – written for the anointing of a coronation – is matched to the moment the King is strapped to a chair and gagged.

A carol concert is not a carol service, though, and it takes a fair amount of cajoling from the conductor to get the packed Albert Hall audience to join in with the singing. My only trouble is following the tunes to the two less familiar carols on the sheet: ‘It Came Upon The Midnight Clear’, which I only slightly know, and ‘Unto Us Is Born A Son’, which I’ve never heard in my life until tonight.

I’m reminded how much I love the Sussex Carol. The one that goes ‘On Christmas night  / all Christians sing / de dum de dum / de dum de dum.’ That one. There’s also a couple of readings by an actor, who I recognise as the husband from the TV series ‘Tipping The Velvet’. A role memorable for the line ‘You need a man for that, I think you’ll find.’ He reads the end of ‘A Christmas Carol’, and the nativity section from the Bible.

Afterwards we go for hot chocolate at the Natural History Museum’s ice rink, and watch the fetching young stewards in charge (one looks like that boy from the TV series ‘Merlin’, the other that boy from the movie ‘Twilight’), who, in the moments when they’re not helping novice skaters to stay upright, casually show off their pirouettes.

As I write, Radio 4 is broadcasting a profile of Bruce Forsyth by Paul Morley.

So I turn on my cute new portable DAB radio – a Pure One Mini – bought as a Christmas treat to self. It’s the winner of What Hi Fi magazine’s Best DAB Radio for Under £50 This Year. I don’t read the magazine, I just believe the sticker on the box.

The radio crackles into life. Or rather it doesn’t, because it’s digital audio. The sound just sort of enters the room politely. And you get a scrolling text display telling you what station it is and what song or programme you’re listening to.

Not that the text display is needed in this case. The first thing I hear is this:

‘…. he is that cocksure missing link between Salvador Dali and Tommy Handley…’

Only one person on earth would describe Bruce Forsyth like that.

Morley Christmas, everyone!

Further to the last entry, I suppose it’s something of an achievement to be singled out for having funny hair in Camden Town. That perennially youthful hub of North London where the current fashion is for young men to wear their hair in a kind of spilt paint-pot effect. It’s as if their hair has not so much been styled as thrown onto their heads from a great height.

I do like the trend for young men wearing scarves at all times, though. Often indoors. A couple of days ago I saw a fashionable looking boy on the Archway Road with his Ugg-ed up girlfriend. Not just a tangle of scarves and skinny jeans, but sunglasses on his head too. In mid December.

It’s never a bad thing for young men to have to feminize themselves to fit in. Though I’m obviously biased. Make-up is often a leap too far, though. One feels sorry for the ‘brickies in drag’ of the 70s glam rock era, or the 60s hippies who really wanted to be lads, or those backing musicians in 80s New Romantics bands who were not at one with their eyeshadow. Scarves are more do-able.

The fashion also favours the boyish side of androgyny (and again, I’m biased). A scarf hides an Adam’s Apple, or corrects Nature’s omission of one.

***

Where was I? (All over the place, today, Mr E. Still, carry on.)

Yes, the last Fosca gig at Islington. It was fine, no one died (Oh do stop that!). Maybe not as many people as one might hope. Alex S says the heavy rain of the 13th definitely made some people stay at home. He quotes Frank Skinner:

‘You can spend your life trying to be popular, but at the end of the day, the size of the crowd at your funeral will be largely dictated by the weather.’

It’s so true. And it was a funeral, after all. Some kind comments afterwards: great sound, great performance, shame we’re splitting up. That it would be even more of a shame if I never took to the stage again. Well, we’ll see.

Matt Haynes says our one-off line-up and going out with a one-off vinyl single in 2008 reminded him of the equally perverse last Field Mice gig in 1991 or so. There, the band aired brand new songs which hadn’t been released then and never were released afterwards (and remain unreleased even now, I think…). Here’s to perversity.

I’m just glad we managed one last London gig at all. That’ll do, Fosca, that’ll do.

I stand around afterwards with a box of the new single and last album, in case anyone wants to buy them. And as it happens, they do. To my absolute surprise I attract a small queue. I sell all the copies I’ve brought. Including, by accident, my own copies. Oops. And I sign some, too. I’m getting good at signing things in noisy places (or if I’m feeling a bit deaf), asking people to quickly write their name on a bit of scrap paper nearby, then confidently spelling their name correctly on their book or record.

Boy H had to go back to the US (and snow) the same evening. Pretty much for good. What with him and Fosca I had to deal with two big goodbyes in one night. I plumped for my usual tactic. I got a bit drunk.

So: single again. Alone, but not lonely. All kinds of invites from friends who are also spending the festive break in London – dinner there, drinks here, a concert of carols if I fancy it. Too lucky to grumble.

Recent outings? Well, there was the Last Fosca Show on Sat 13th. Islington Bar Academy, as part of the club night Feeling Gloomy. Line up is myself, Rachel, Charley, Tom and Kate. Three guitars, which means I can concentrate more on my singing, such as it is. Excellent professional sound, as it’s a modern purpose-built venue. No style in the shopping centre location, perhaps, but sometimes a hitch-free sound is preferable to a battered PA in a more historic venue.

Downstairs at about 7pm is some kind of under-18s hip hop event. There’s lots of audibly excited dressed-up teenage girls in a queue snaking around the other side of the building. I’d like to say they point or shout out things when I have to squeeze past them on the stairs to get to the soundcheck, but in fact they just go quiet and pull their friends out of the way to let me pass. So I feel rightly shamed by my own paranoia and preconceptions.

In fact, I’ve found this happening a lot lately – having to walk past loud teens on street corners I brace myself for cat calls or worse, only to find they just go quiet, look at their shoes, and politely wait for me to pass. I wonder what has changed – me, or teenagers.

The only Dickon-baiting incident of late has been on my journey to the night shift job on a Saturday evening. It’s arguably the most jarring aspect of the job, soberly commuting to work while surrounded by much less sober people on their Saturday night out. But I’m suited at being the odd one out, after all.

At about 9.15pm at Camden Town tube one recent Saturday, I pass two small party girls who must be about 19, and who have clearly started drinking early. They’re shrieking and falling about with their friends as I walk past them from the corridor onto the platform, hoping not to catch their eye but still curious to see who is making all the noise. And of course the moment I glance at them is the moment one of them sees me.

I try to act ‘invisible’ (hah!), keeping my head down and walking right to the other end of the platform to sit down on the farthest possible seat on the farthest possible bench. But without looking back, I know they’re following me. Here we go again.

I dive into my bag and pull out that ubiquitous cloak of invisibility – the i-Pod. The ‘I’m Not Really Here, Don’t Touch Me’ Pod. Some people use their music players as a social shield. A kind of cowardly retreat and ‘f— off’ statement to one’s fellow man at the same time, particularly if the volume is loud enough. Music as an alibi.

Never worked for me, though. I’m sitting on the far bench, eyes to the floor, iPod in place (though I’m not listening to anything). And I know the two drunken teen girls have sat down next to me. They’ve even left their larger party of friends to come over to me. What DO they want? They’re smiling at me and elbowing each other. I’m the shared joke.

There’s no escape. I take out the iPod earphones and sigh. And I surprise myself with what I say.

‘What do you want with me?’

Said with a smile, mind. A slightly worrying smile.

Never done this before. It’s come from somewhere. Maybe just pure tiredness after all the years of strangers Coming Over to me to helpfully tell me what I look like, or who I look like, when all I want to do is get to where I’m going without incident. Maybe it’s actual anger about feeling At The Mercy Of Others. The notion that I’m a funny little walk-on part of other people’s evening’s entertainment, rather than the other way around. Which I don’t mind, actually.

But there are times when I’m feeling fragile, when I’m trying to psych myself up for going to work, and the thought of having to play the Funny Blond Man On The Tube Platform We Saw Tonight for the 756th time isn’t always something I feel up to doing. Is that bad of me?

‘What do you want with me?’

It surprises me more than they can know, but it does the trick, and they find themselves wrong-footed from the off, alcohol or not. They blurt out a few questions about why I look the way I do, and where I’m going, but the power balance of the encounter is now in question. And they go back to their friends.

Yet I feel a little guilty about daring to question them back, for the sinister utteration, because it’s out of character for me. I never like to ruin anyone’s fun. Even if it’s at my expense. It’s just that sometimes even lifelong figures of street ridicule need a sick note.

Two further abiding tidbits from the Victorian Boxing Event.

One is discussing with Diva Hollywood where this whole New Cabaret and New Burlesque scene sprang from, given there was nothing like it in the 1990s. After grunge, there were all those 60s Mod clubs and Britpop bands. Oh, and Romos. Then Radiohead put out ‘OK Computer’ in 1997, giving birth to Coldplay, and suddenly art had to mean dressing down and moaning about it with choirboy reverb. Which is why I love the reformed Take That records – Gary Barlow and chums taking the listenable bits of Coldplay but adding costume changes and Vegas dance routines.

One theory is the release of the movie Moulin Rouge earlier in the decade. It may not have been everyone’s cup of tea (or rather, hollow cane of absinthe), but it certainly had a reaching out effect. They say that everyone who saw the Sex Pistols on tour in 1976 went home and started a punk band. Likewise, I like to think those who were knocked out by all those eye-popping sequences with Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman came away and devised acts or turns of their own.

I love the notion of ‘pass it on’ art. Inspiring people to join in, not to follow a fashion, but to use a genre or format to bring out something of themselves. That’s what a ‘scene’ should always mean.

After the boxing show, I meet the escapologist in the backstage area, and am impressed that his Victorian moustache is real. He tells me how escapology has always been a viciously competitive field, with acts forever suspicious of their rivals in case they steal their ideas, or even sabotage their props. He imparts a shocking rumour that Houdini once put acid in the tank of a lady escapologist.

I say it’s a shame performers in a niche field can’t be more supportive of each other. That escapologists should unite, as they have nothing to lose but their chains.

(Except of course, I only think of this after I’ve gone home).

Last Weds -  I attend a Victorian boxing event at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. I’m there as the guest of Heather M, aka Crimson Skye. She and her fellow burlesque performer Diva Hollywood are there  to strut around the ring in naughty ensembles, holding up cards to announce the next round. This means they have to sit right at the side of the boxing ring for quick access, and as H’s guest I get to sit with them. So I have an actual ringside seat.

The audience, hosts and live acts are all decked out in Victorian costume: lots of refugees from Dickens adaptations in bowlers, top hats, braces, ladies in big music hall frilly dresses with those miniature hats on the side of their heads. Men in impressively groomed moustaches both real (specially grown?) and stuck on. There’s an escapologist in chains who also does a spot of bullet catching, and Whitechapel sing-a-longs with song sheets (‘Roll Out The Barrel’, ‘Down By The Old Bull & Bush’ and so on). A pianist plays versions of the ‘Rocky’ theme in a tinkly, vamping music hall style.

I don’t know anyone in the audience, but by the looks and sounds of things it’s a curious mix. Some are middle or even upper class, out for a dressed up jolly wheeze (it’s a charity event – there’s £100 tickets in a VIP area). The lady at the table next to me has a cut glass Celia Johnson accent. She tells me she’d never have managed to get into her vintage corset if if weren’t for her ‘assistant’. Others are East End locals with a sense of heritage, always ready with historical facts about this Spitalfields building or that Bethnal Green pub. There’s even a few pensioners, who know all the words to the music hall singalongs, of course, and who join in sincerely rather through any prism of kitsch.

I’m reminded of Louis Armstrong’s version of ‘Cabaret’: a singer from the 1930s, recording a 1960s pastiche of a 1930s style. Likewise Sinatra’s ‘New York New York’ – a late 70s pastiche of a Sinatra-type 40s style. How levels of pastiche can be cancelled out when reflected through their own subject.

Another aspect of this Victorian dress-up evening where levels of knowingness can have no place is the actual boxing. Although the combatants are volunteers, many of whom have no boxing experience whatsoever, they’ve been given a small amount of professional training. Each man has to wear those very non-Victorian modern helmets to protect his head, and arrives with two proper boxing coaches at his side, wearing very 2008 gym tracksuits. Meanwhile the referee – who slightly resembles Ralph Fiennes, much to Ms H’s delight – meets the occasion halfway in a plain white dinner shirt and black suit trousers. As the evening goes on, his shirt becomes flecked with blood.

There’s five bouts during the evening, all of which are incredibly exciting on a very visceral and non-ironic level, particularly from my close-up view. I make myself useful by judging the best moment for my burlesque lady friends to enter the ring and hold up their ‘Round 2’ placards. ‘Not yet – wait for them to sit down… I’ll hand you your placard when you’re in… Take your time – the guy with the bell isn’t going to start the next round till you’re off…At least, I think so…’

And I always love the things people in the audience shout on these occasions, often thinking of a phrase which sounds good, then just repeating it:

‘Go for a body shot! Go for a body shot! Oh…. great body shot! He really knows his body shots.’

Or better still:

‘Hit him!’

At half time, plates of pie and mash are served by hostesses in Moulin Rouge grab. So the night has something of a unique aroma: blood, sweat and pies.