Everyone else seems to be watching The Apprentice at the moment. Including the strangers who tell me what I look like:

‘You remind me of Rafe from The Apprentice‘ – said to me by a man in the Boogaloo the other day.

I’m not a fan of The Apprentice, so this is lost on me. All I know about Alan Sugar is that he reminds me of the officers in Catch 22. The ones who offer Yossarian everything he wants: get him out of war, give him a medal, be a hero back home, if he only does one thing for them… ‘Like us’. Mr Sugar knows that money can’t buy love, or make a dull rich man any less dull, but it can buy TV stardom, and so it can buy TV love.

As reality TV shows go, I prefer Big Brother‘s shameless encouragement of dayglo, party-girl narcissism. Rather that than a programme where everyone’s heart’s desire is to tug their forelocks and defer to a successful businessman who wants to be on TV, in TV studios pretending to be boardrooms.

I’d only agree to be on the show if I could bring a camel and a giant needle with me.

***

Wednesday night: with Ms S to Holloway Odeon for the Sex And The City movie. Something of a current hot ticket, as we plump for Holloway after failing to get into showings at three other cinemas the same evening. Our preferred venues, Islington Vue, Bethnal Green Rich Mix, and Barbican Screen are all sold out in advance. And as we go in to take our seats, there’s a tannoy announcement that Holloway has sold out too, and we pass a queue of disappointed couples and women on a girls’ night out, now having to decide whether the latest Cameron Diaz romcom would be an adequate substitute.

Unlike those artier areas of London where you’re never more than ten feet from a discussion about The Kite Runner, Holloway Road’s pavements are resentful at best, putting the tension in unpretension. I don’t take it personally: the street glowers at everyone regardless, with its unruly length and width, struggling not to be known as somewhere to go through, rather than go to. It’s not quite rough with a capital R, but neither is it up there on the Top 10 Happiest Roads Of London chart.

Accordingly, Holloway Odeon is no stranger to the requisite bored, aggressively unquiet teenagers who go in order to throw popcorn at other people with one hand, while having loud mobile phone conversations with the other. Last time I was there, two girls down the front kept turning round to point at me and discuss my own appearance among themselves – and on their mobile phones – rather than watch the film. And this was in the dark. Admittedly, the film in question was the third Pirates Of The Caribbean flick, full of actors who seemed curiously distanced from the watery antics themselves, but I digress.

Although the Sex And The City movie isn’t exactly Citizen Kane, or even Citizen Carrie, the film is still a definite event. Its roaring success despite lukewarm reviews – and despite the high price of cinema seats – says something about current trends in what people want from their movie-going.

The first scene of the SATC film depicts the main characters sitting around discussing Naomi Klein’s book No Logo. Then they start seeing Western consumerist greed for what it is, boycotting designer labels, and finally donning burkhas and veils and converting to fundamentalist Islam, where they find true happiness… because they’re worth it.

Well, okay, no it doesn’t. That’s the whole point. Some films offer a journey to somewhere you’ve never been. Others take you along a tried and tested, familiar and favourite route to a known destination. This is very much in the latter camp, in every sense.

Whether it’s Indiana Jones 4, The Simpsons Movie, or adaptations of the Harry Potter books, these films celebrate – and exploit – past conversions to previously existing material. They turn cinema audiences into congregations of the faithful. They are made, quite simply, for fans. Cinema tickets are so expensive, after all, so why risk any surprises?

What happens is that by trying so hard to please the fans and carry no surprises, such films let the fans down. The fans want it the same as it was, except different. Except not too different. It won’t be as good as it was, but they’ll go along and buy it anyway. But there’ll always be a certain settling-for feeling.

Angry Fans: That was so formualaic.

Studio: But we thought you were fans of that formula?

Angry Fans: We are. We just want it different. But not too different.

Studio: (sulkily) Well, why don’t you just write your own wretched movies or novels?

Angry Fans: Have you seen the Internet lately? Fan fiction, you know…

Studio: But that’s breach of copyright. Invent your own characters!

Angry Fans: But we want to see THOSE characters…

Studio: Well, they’re OUR characters.

Angry Fans: But we know them better than you do.

***

And so on. I keep thinking of a quote by Stevie Smith.

Fan: I loved your last novel and can’t wait to read another.

Stevie Smith: Well, read it again, then.

One exception to this diminishing returns rule is the revived Doctor Who series. I think one of the reasons for its success is that it forgets about pleasing the fans, and concentrates on pleasing non-fans. Which means the old fans can finally feel less alone.

Unlike The Apprentice, I ‘get’ Sex And The City. It’s not about happiness through the pursuit of wealth, ruthless enterprise and never turning your back on Sir Alan Sugar. It’s more about allowing the pursuit of expensive things because they’re pretty and shiny expensive things. And providing a few dirty laughs doesn’t hurt. Maybe I don’t care for The Apprentice because it’s just not funny, or pretty and shiny. Sir Alan has all that money, but does he even once experiment with a new lipgloss? Or even once wear a gold lame suit? No.

What the SATC film IS like is a box-ticking reunion gig for fans of the TV series. Except, curiously, there’s far less bawdy conversation. Some of the TV episodes actually broke a few Tynan-esque taboos concerning the various ins and outs of, well, ins and outs. Though the movie has a few Rabelaisian moments, not least one particular instance of male nudity, there’s still far less sexual content than you’d find in an average arthouse drama.

It used to be the case that you had to go to the cinema for more sexual content than TV would allow, and TV would only show such movies in frustratingly bowdlerised versions. These days, it’s all on (and all out) on late night TV, particularly the digital and cable channels. While in the cinema the money-making factor is now so important that any racier scenes that might pare down audience numbers have to go. More bums on screen equals fewer bums on seats.

Even so-called sex comedies like American Pie have to hold something back, in order to sell the DVD to people who have already seen the movie. Inevitably, the DVD cover comes emblazoned with promises of extra naughtiness.

But the sexed-down Sex And The City film still makes for a memorable night out. The latter-day Mae West quips are present and correct, and the designer clothes are given their widescreen due.

But my most abiding memory is of the audience around me. Not just overwhelmingly female, but fans of the series, and so happy to be there in the first place, particularly when the film is selling out so quickly every night. The Odeon shakes with hundreds of women laughing uproariously, or cooing ‘Awww…!’ or cheering and breaking out into applause. I feel unusually safe and comforted – mothered, even – in this huge dark cave of happy ladies.

Then I remember what else this area is known for. Around the corner from the cinema is HMP Holloway. Another huge dark cave of ladies. Albeit less happy.

Photo from the Guardian, from Saturday night’s Tube drinking spree. I suppose this is the Tube equivalent of stealing traffic cones:

I wonder what they’re saying to each other?

Woman on left: When Boris put up posters all over the tube announcing a drinking ban at midnight, but with weeks to go, it was like a red rag to a Blue Nun…

Woman on right: And oh, the irony of the Circle Line’s ‘vacuum flask’ look on the map… Good old Harry Beck! Here’s to topological design classics!

Boy In Middle: Actually, the ‘flask’ look wasn’t in Beck’s original 1933 design, it was a revision by a later designer, Paul Garbutt.

Woman on right: If you’re going to split hairs, I’ll glass your face.
***

Today’s Evening Standard front page headline: ‘TUBE DRINKING BINGE LEADER IS CITY BANKER’. The photo is of a dinner-jacketed man, looking like a Steve Bell cartoon of a stereotypical 1980s yuppie, standing in a Tube carriage, raising a glass of champagne to the camera.

The Standard reveals this apparent ringleader ‘did it because a female friend who worked for Ken Livingstone lost her job following Boris Johnson’s election victory.’

It’s impossible that any single person was behind all of the revelry, of course, given it was a more a whispered ‘pass it on’ wheeze rather than anything else. But that’s the thing about chaos: you can take from it what you want. Including a causal argument that completely demolishes the point any protesters were trying to make about responsible drinking. Says the editorial:

‘The Mayor’s prompt delivery on his Tube ban is welcome… Alcohol bans on public transport are an inevitable result of the inability of some drinkers, like those on Saturday, to drink responsibly.’

But the Saturday night train-based boozing wouldn’t have happened if the ban hadn’t been trumpeted in the first place. Why didn’t Boris just quietly bring the ban into action with immediate effect? Why not at, say, 11am on a Tuesday morning rather than midnight on a Saturday?

Well, to remove freedom from people, it helps to encourage people to act as if they need to have their freedom removed. Clever stuff. So Boris is made to look smarter than ever, while Londoners – and as the Standard insists, Livingstone voters – are painted as naughty, stupid children that need to have their privileges taken away.

A paradox of causality: a protest used to justify the thing it’s protesting against.

But this is all part of a much longer trend in treating people en masse like naughty children. From the Quiet Carriage signs that seem to invite bad behaviour rather than prevent it, to a set of other Tube posters – brought in under Ken – which depict a series of cartoon baby-like figures promising ‘I won’t have my music on too loud’, ‘I’ll offer you my seat’ ‘And I’ll say thank you’.

The only response allowed – and encouraged – seems to be one of Pavlovian reaction. A drinking ban on the Tube provokes… irresponsible drinking on the Tube. Unhappiness with Labour equals Conservative landslides. To exercise free will, people are currently meant to react only in terms that consolidate whatever it is they’re reacting against. Whether it’s knee-jerk Conservatives or knee-jerk Anti-Conservatives (and knee-jerk liberals), as long as the knee is jerking to a worse option – for the sake of option at all – it can’t be good.

From all accounts, I understand there were plenty of mini-parties taking place on the Tube of perfectly harmless, responsible, light-hearted and fluffy-tailed (and in the case of Boris-dressed groups, fluffy-wigged) young people enjoying themselves, and having fun without others suffering; special hats off to young Ally Moss and her portable brush and dustpan alongside her evening dress. But – sigh – the majority of coverage goes to the archetypal loutish lads and ladettes. The meek shall never inherit the headlines.

Admittedly, my whole philosophy is to be wary of crowds, fashions, crazes and trends, and resist the herd instinct, however well-meaning it might appear. There is danger in numbers. And not much opportunity for individual style, either.

Well, unless it suits me, of course. If the Facebook-based Flash Mob is now the only true way to make hordes of young people act en masse, I wonder if I should start a group there called ‘Sock It To Boris and Feel Part Of Something – Buy The New Fosca Album!’

A quick plug I promised to Wynd of the Last Tuesday Society. He’s promoting a play about the life of that decadent hero – or anti-hero – Stephen Tennant.

Mr Tennant was a 1920s Bright Young Thing – i.e. a full-time socialite who at the time was famous for being famous. He appeared in novels by Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford, canoodled with Siegfried Sassoon, then spent the rest of his life in bed. Essentially, if it’s 1920s England, and there’s a camp male character who’s entertaining but doomed, it’s probably based on him.

The Immortal Dropout- A Monologue devised by Hugo Vickers.

Date: 2 & 4 June 2008, at 7pm. Doors open 6.30pm.

Venue: The Cabaret Room at Bistrotheque, 27 Wadeson Street, London E2 9DR – transformed into Stephen Tennant’s bedroom at Wilsford Manor.

Tickets £10 (limited availability) from www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org

A monologue in two short acts. Stephen Tennant, once the brightest of the Bright Young Things, lived at Wilsford Manor all his life. Once a family home, filled with conversation, chatter and laughter, it is now the retreat of its lonely owner, who chooses to spend most of his time in his bedroom, mulling over his life, the people he has known, and his literary endeavours and enjoyments. Stephen Tennant is played by Charles Duff, an international actor, director, author and lecturer, who was raised in Stephen Tennant’s milieu.

The play then transfers to the Jermyn Street Theatre in the West End, from 28 July to 2 August.

Recommended reading: Philip Hoare’s biography Serious Pleasures. Now something of a cult read, I’ve seen it cited as a favourite book by both the bar manager at the Boogaloo and Little Britain’s David Walliams. All of which makes sense.

Just found this review of the Hoare book by film director John Waters, from 1991:

Aubrey Beardsley, Ronald Firbank, Denton Welch — believe me, Stephen Tennant made them all seem butch.

I am stopped outside Archway tube station by a beggar who strongly resembles Karl Howman, star of the 80s sitcom Brush Strokes and several long-running adverts for Flash household cleaning products. If it is Karl Howman, his life has clearly taken a turn for the worse. And he’s now acquired a strong Scottish accent.

‘Excuse me? Excuse me. Hey, Billy Idol! Only joking. You’re better looking than Billy Idol. Nice suit. Can you tell me how to get to Glasgow from here? Only joking. That’s what I do. I tell people jokes for a pound. Okay?’

At this point he has put his face a little too close to mine. And I’m effectively pinned up against the wall of what used to be Abbey National.

‘Well…’

‘No, here we go. A joke for a pound, right? That’s fair, eh? Okay, did you hear the one about the Jewish Santa Claus? You’re not Jewish, are you? I mean, I think if we can’t laugh at ourselves WHO CAN WE LAUGH AT, right? So, okay, did you hear about the Jewish Santa Claus?’

‘Um… No.’

‘The Jewish Santa Claus comes down the chimney and says to all the kids, “So where’s all the f***king presents, then?” Oh, wait – I messed that last bit up. But anyway, c’mon, that’s worth a pound isn’t it? C’mon.’

Out of sheer terror more than anything else, I hand over the pound. Karl Howman pats me rather too hard on the shoulder and lets me go.

I come away from this encounter with a inexplicable urge to boycott Flash cleaning products.

Just as the Summer Bank Holiday weather is an English cliche – freezing rain – I spend mine mostly indoors, doing the equally corny and blokey Bank Holiday activity of 21st Century DIY – to wit, backing-up my computer’s hard drive. It is necessary, mind, as the iBook’s weird crashing effect is recurring to the point where the thing is impossible to use, and I now have to take it in for repairs. Am typing this up in an internet cafe in Highgate.

So over the weekend I go through all the mp3s, photos and text documents I’ve accumulated in the two years since I bought the laptop, listening to as much of the music as possible before deciding to copy it onto CDR or delete it. All the various Fosca mixes and demos take up enough space as it is, and I guess they do need to be archived (why? I should just delete the demos too), but there’s also the music by others that I somehow feel I need to have at my disposal. I’d managed to build up about 12 days’ worth of continuous sound. Thousands of songs, over 10GB of computer memory. That’s not an achievement, it’s a symptom.

And so the old arguments raise their heads. Just how much Leonard Cohen does one person need? How many albums by The Fall or Stereolab are entirely necessary? The answer, of course, is none. Or, if you ask any of their fans, all of them. And once again I’m finding myself in that whittling-down argument: it’s just as well I’m not a Fall fan, because if I were, I’d have to own all their albums. And I don’t want to own all their albums.

After hours – days – of this dithering and choosing, I end up wishing I didn’t like music at all. Which is ridiculous – you can like music without having to collect the wretched stuff in quantity. I should just delete the lot and go out and talk to human beings. But I don’t.

I’m currently reading Ted Hughes’s Collected Letters, which contain (as one would expect) more than a few ruminations on Modern Man falling out of step with Nature. There’s an instance where he’s visiting a village in Africa, remarking enviously how the local fisherman seem so entirely happy with their lives, as they don’t want for anything they haven’t already got. They live in the moment. Though admittedly, it’s a fairly fish-based moment.

Thing is, I don’t think of myself as acquisitive, or even much of a collector. My problem is more that I hoard things automatically, then find it so hard to know what to throw out. I still feel the need to own SOME music. When I’m not looking, it quickly turns into Too Much, and the upshot is I’m sitting alone in a room in Highgate at 3AM, staring at a screen, fiddling with blank CDs, trying to work out the exact degree to how much I do or don’t like Martha Wainwright.

I bristle at this very English – and very male – connection I’ve made between liking things and having to own them. I think of that stereotypical view of Englishmen that other countries are meant to hold. That we all have (a) bad teeth, (b) collect things needlessly, and (c) are secretly homosexual.

Well, two out of three isn’t bad.

(wait for it…)

I’ve had my teeth fixed.

This iBook laptop is starting to throw worrying little fits. Without warning, the display suddenly darkens to black (as if I were pressing the F1 key), the windows slide away to the Desktop – and keep sliding back and forth after that (the equivalent of repeatedly pressing the F11 key), any discs in the drive are ejected (F12), and most annoyingly, if I’m writing, the cursor deletes some text or the web browser flips back in its history several pages. It’s as if a ghost is leaning over my shoulder and merrily bashing several keys at once. I fear an expensive trip to a Mac repair shop may be on the cards.

***

Last night: to a pub quiz at the Prince Of Wales in Highgate Village. Pub quizzes are of course deeply unflattering, but it’s really an excuse to catch up with the friends who invited me: Rhoda, David B, Anna S, Miriam. We come about halfway in the final scores. My contributions include the following:

– the ‘Grumpy Old Man’ who wrote the play An Evening With Gary Lineker is Arthur Smith.
– the 1970 children’s film whose child star appeared in a 2000 remake is The Railway Children (Ms Agutter being the star).
– the 80s Oscar-mopping David Lean film is A Passage To India.

More than a few questions about sport, which I always know nothing about. It’s that very mid-30s sentiment:

I am glad I do not like football.
Because if I liked it, I would have to watch it.
And I hate it.

Heading past the age of 35, there’s a crossing out process. You find things not to like – and let them fall happily through your fingers like water. It’s okay not to have an opinion about The Foals (or whatever trendy band people in their 20s are meant to have an opinion about). It’s okay if, like my hairdresser, you never watch movies – at all – because life is short and you’d rather watch football. You get a stronger sense of what you DO like, and if something doesn’t seize your heart at once, you shrug it off rather than waste time forcing yourself to like it.

Books take on a page limit – if you don’t care about the story by the time you’ve hit Page 50, you put the book down and look for one which DOES keep you reading. It is the author’s fault, not yours. There is the worry that you may be missing out on The Perfect Book, coupled with the dawning realisation that you’re never going to read everything. If you’ve ever wanted to read Proust, for instance, you feel you should probably give it a go sooner rather than later. So this whittling-down process takes on a new urgency.

But whereas the youthful version is a shrugging, sulky ‘whatever’ or ‘bothered?’, the late thirtysomething’s act of letting things go has a certain slinky serenity. Other people will always do the football-liking thing for you. You see the world as your stunt doubles.

‘No, no, you go ahead, dear boy. That football won’t watch itself.’

***

Some noting down of overdue events. Recent nights of over-indulgence: twice at the Boogaloo with Mr MacGowan, once at the Idler party on May 1st, in Clerkenwell. My attendant hangovers last throughout the following day. I do like to go out for a few drinks, but can’t manage more than once or twice a week. Physically as much as fiscally.

The Idler bash on Clerkenwell Green – which is more of a traffic island than a green – involves May Day festivities: prancing performers in medieval dress, acting out St George & The Dragon antics with the requisite dragon head prop, lutes and bawdy singing, plus a real roast pig on a spit. While this is going on, I spy a more latter-day attired man in jeans – who is clearly NOT part of the event – passing among the crowd and furtively offering bootleg DVDs for sale. A very 2008 sight juxtaposed with the medieval. The spotted and the chatted-to include Neil Scott, Rhodri Marsden, Salena Godden, John Moore, Sophie Parkin, Susan Corrigan, Sean Hughes, David Quantick, Tom Hodgkinson.

Boogaloo the other day. At one point I find myself sitting among famous drinkers. Shane MacGowan on my left, Johnny Vegas on my right. A drinking musician and a drinking comedian. I introduce myself to Mr Vegas. He looks me up and down.

‘Your name’s Dickon? Blond hair, pinstriped suit? I’m sorry, but if I took you back to my parents it would be The End of Christmas. They’d say, “You’re never going to London again!”‘

***

A Spanish blog has reviewed the Fosca album, and I’ve put the text through the Babelfish web translator in an attempt to read it. Needless to say, this will always produce a combination of inadvertent humour, odd poetry and gibberish, but I particularly like the results on this occasion:

Somebody remembers Orlando? No, the graceful ones do not become: it did not refer to me to Orlando Marconi but to the pioneering English group of that one moved that the pirate press had denominated like Romo. Good, the singer of Orlando (what it is sharp well with English accent: Orlandou…) Dickon was called (and still it is called) Edwards. After to separate the mentioned band that failed in great form it formed Fosca with a select group of London musicians. The first rule that maintained is the strict one ‘prohibited to use slippers’. It is not a joke, not: it is an obsession of Dickon not to ‘espores’ (entrerriano pure) or, as a Uruguayan would say, the championes. Both first discs of Fosca were produced by Ian Catt of Saint Etienne. After years that happened remote of music wrote for magazines besides some longer article and several tests. It was rumored on his endeble health and, after all that, it recorded the third disc of Fosca in a cellar of Hackney. The result is one of best learned discs indie-MGP of the last pair of years, the influences are extensive but always within the scope of the MGP British, by far of The Smiths, The Cure, The Pastels, Orange Juice, the Pulp de Separations and Freaks and also something of Momus. Notable.

(from eloasisdelta.blogspot.com)

Pleased to see the diary has been linked to by a blog entirely about Chopin, thanks to my entry the other day about the film Impromptu (plus the use of Chopin pieces by Take That and Monty Python):

http://chopin2010.blogspot.com/2008/04/chopin-currency-april-22-2008.html

Radio 3’s In Tune last Friday features a pianist playing some Chopin live in the studio. Every time presenter Sean Rafferty finishes chatting with her and introduces the next piece, there is about eight seconds of footsteps and chair creaking while she walks across to the other side of the room to sit down at the BBC Piano. I presume there is some technical reason why she cannot be interviewed at the piano seat, but I actually prefer it this way, making the live performance all the more alive, and less like a CD. More footsteps on the radio, I say.

You can also tell the pianist definitely isn’t wearing Flip-Flops.

After this, Mr Rafferty plays a familiar-sounding symphony on CD. Slow, stately and haunting, it’s one of those pieces which leaves me racking my brain, trying to work out if I know it from on a film soundtrack, or (as is shamefully often the case) a TV commercial. A quick look at the Radio 3 Website and its handy playlists reveals it’s Gorecki’s Third Symphony. Specifically, the early 90s recording with Dawn Upshaw that looks like this:

Then I remember. When I worked in the Hampstead branch of Our Price in 1995, this was the biggest selling classical CD at the time, so no doubt it would have been playing on the shop’s sound system on a regular basis. The other big favourite with customers was the first Portishead album. Gorecki’s Third and Dummy: the sound of mid-90s Hampstead dinner parties in a nutshell.

***

I pop into the huge branch of Zavvi at Piccadilly Circus, the one which didn’t stock the Fosca album a couple of weeks ago. Am now delighted to find there’s three copies of the Fosca album in their racks, which is two more than HMV. Thank you, Zavvi.

***

Having a new album out, if nothing else, gives you something to say at parties. What do I do? What am I up to? Well, I have a new album out with my band. Three copies in Zavvi, 1 copy in HMV. There you go. Well, you did ask.

The truth is, right now I’m not really doing anything. Not really. I loaf around at home, or I drift around Central London and Highgate, install myself in cafes and libraries (either the British or the London), read, try to write, think, and sip tea. Sometimes I go for days without speaking to other human beings, beyond my mumbled transactions with shop staff, supermarket cashiers, and street beggars.

Beggar at Holborn Tube: (standing around, approaching people at the station exit) Can you spare any change? I’m waiting for my benefits to come through, and I need groceries.

Me: Okay, sure. (fumbles in purse)

Beggar: I don’t suppose you can stretch to a tenner?

Me: (slight snort) Ah! Sorry. But I can give you 50p? (looks in purse) Or 70p? I’m on benefits myself, you see.

Beggar: Really? You don’t look it.

Me: Well, just because I’m on the dole I don’t see why I should look it.

Beggar: Yeah. (thoughtful pause) I don’t really look it either.

And he says this half approving of the sentiment, and half sorrowfully, as if the problem with his lack of begging success is that he just doesn’t look poor enough. He’s in a nondescript but untattered jumper and jeans, is clean-shaven and doesn’t smell. By making himself comparatively presentable and clawing back a bit of personal dignity, the worry is that he’s washed himself out of the begging market.

As I turn to leave, he pats me on the back in a ‘good for you’ way, presumably for dressing as if I can afford to give beggars £10. Of course, the men of my age and younger who CAN afford to give £10 to beggars tend to dress scruffily, as it’s the fashion of the day: unkempt beards or stubble, baggy jeans, battered trainers, uncombed hair.

The beggar doesn’t look poor enough. The unemployed Mr Edwards doesn’t look unemployed enough. And the monied young men of London don’t look as if they can afford a razor.

Two bouts of usefulness today.

First is a paid stint as a clue-giver in a Treasure Hunt. Sarah H has hired me to stand on the bridge in St James’s Park as ‘a suited man’, for about an hour. Various teams find me, I give them the clue to the next bit of the hunt, and they move on. It’s work even I can do okay, it’s fair to say. Particularly the being distinctive in a suit bit.

One small boy passing me checks to see if I am a living statue.

Second usefulness is on the way home, waiting at Tottenham Court Road tube. I am sitting on the bench closest to one end of the platform, when a couple of tube mice begin scampering around close by. I rather like the sight of mice scampering around the floor, dirt-covered or not, but the lady sitting next to me on the bench has a rather different attitude. She suddenly grabs my arm and shouts, ‘Oh my god! Oh god!’ Clearly not a mouse person.

‘It’s okay, they won’t come near, but I’ll shoo them out of sight,’ I offer. Which isn’t exactly a Herculean task. It only takes a sudden movement in the mice’s direction to clear them off the platform and into the tunnel. But the women is effusive in her gratitude, with audible relief in her voice, and for once I feel almost manly.

Just as well there are no Tube Snakes.

(smackle. smuckle. smackle. smuckle. SMACKLE. SMUCKLE.)

I am walking along an empty avenue between Highgate Village and Hampstead Heath, and this is what I hear. It’s the sound of footsteps getting steadily closer. I know it’s a man, because the sound has a determined, competitive force. Except it’s not a stern clomp-clomp, but a ludicrous, sticky smackle-smuckle.

He is, of course, wearing Flip-Flops. It is heatwave weather in London.

Sumer is icumen in / Lhude sing flipflop

Well I say heatwave, but just as Mr Coward sang all those years ago, it only takes the merest hint of noonday sun to trigger an Englishman’s mad switch to full-on beachwear mode, even though the nearest beach is fifty miles away.

If said men were showing off their waxed feet and painted toenails, a la Quentin Crisp, I could understand it. But funnily enough, most of the gentlemen who have opted for this silly shoe are not exactly of the Crisp stripe.

My grumblings over the aesthetic qualities of these plastic foot-thongs aside, I can’t see how Flip-Flops are the most practical choice for getting on and off escalators on the Tube, hot weather or not. And the wearer can’t walk anywhere without going smackle and then smuckle. Which I think is a bit silly, at least for ostensibly manly men walking the streets of a metropolis.

But of course, it is me that is made to feel silly. I’m wandering around in my usual attire – today it’s my pinstriped navy blue suit and knotted silk scarf, because:

(a) it’s actually not as hot as people are implying. In fact, there’s something of a chilly breeze, and I need to wear a jacket.

(b) my own legs and feet are unsightly, and I feel it’s my duty to keep them covered up in hot weather. And the rest of the year too.

and (c) because I am me. I look better in a suit. I think all men look better in suits. Beautiful weather shouldn’t mean ugly clothes. Which would Michaelangelo’s David look better in: Flip-Flops and shorts, or a pinstriped suit and silk scarf?

But I realise I’m in the minority on this one. And guess what, I can’t walk a few yards from my home without strangers helpfully reminding me of this fact.

On Highgate Village High Street a couple pass me, both wearing Flip-Flops. The man hisses to the woman – but in a volume clearly intended for me to hear:

‘What the HELL is that bloke wearing?’

A few doors along, outside the Gatehouse pub, a sunburnt bald man in short sleeves clutching a pint shouts at me:

‘Oy mate, where’s the funeral?’

I’m in a pretty bad mood by now, and stop to address him.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said, where’s the funeral?’

‘Funeral? What do you mean?’

‘Well, why are you dressed like that?’

‘Because it suits me.’

And I walk off, shaking my head in what I hope is that ‘stupid bloody question’ way. Except I quickly increase my stride, as it dawns on me that he might take my reply as an insult – and give chase.

Needless to add, I already regret this somewhat pathetic attempt to defend my sartorial choice. I should have either smiled sweetly and walked past, or better still, come up with a much better retort:

‘Oy mate, where’s the funeral?’

(triumphantly, arms aloft) ‘Ah, I am in mourning for my own life…’

Awoken by the doorbell, I run downstairs only to greet a Jehovah’s Witness brandishing a magazine with a candle on the cover. Next month: a different candle.

‘Not interested, sorry.’

‘Ah.’ She turns to go. ‘Still, lovely day, isn’t it?’

And it is. Sunshine has finally hit London, with something of a solar vengeance. I stop sneezing from my on-off cold, only to start sneezing from hay fever.

Outside, everyone’s in shorts and sandals (though not me), where only a few weeks ago it was winter coats, torrential rain, hail and even snow.

Later, I saunter through Trafalgar Square, which now looks like the postcards: pristine fountains, blue sky, happy crowds in sunglasses. I fully expect a musical number to break out at any moment.

I don’t always give to beggars but when I do, I slightly overdo the pleasantries, pleased to find myself in a good mood.

Today, a forlorn-looking fifty-something man standing near Tottenham Court Road asks me for spare change.

‘But of course! Certainly! There you go!’

‘Thanks,’ he says, taken aback. And then: ‘If only more people were like you.’

Which in turn takes me aback.