On the tube to Liverpool St (last Thursday), I see a baby literally throwing its toys out of the pram. Insert David Cameron joke here.

Next to look out for: a dog running past with a string of sausages in its mouth, pursued by an angry butcher.

***

An email I rather expected: Time Out say no to my application for that Staff Music Writer job. Ah well. Hope Emily gets it. As I was told by one kindly author, when one door closes… you’re ready to hack another door down with an axe. It’s put me in the spirit of hustling for work, and pitching ideas for projects. Less of the ‘don’t you know who I am’ attitude and more emphasis on the things I can do, how well, how fast and how regularly.

***
Quite a lot to write up of late.

To a design studio in Giesbach Road, Archway, to be interviewed and filmed for a project about the philosophy of blogging. Jonathan Hawkes is the interviewer, his company is called Evolve. I speak about what blogging means in terms of the future of consciousness. What keeping a digital diary, published free on the Web, means culturally, economically, spiritually. And why I started keeping this one in 1997, when it was considered a very odd thing to do indeed.

I give my answer to the latter as ‘osmotically’. Osmosis being the natural process of particles moving from an area of high concentration to one of less concentration. In my school biology class, I was taught the process via lengths of something called Visking Tubing. If you want anything from school to stick in the mind decades later, make it a joy to speak aloud. Visking Tubing.

In my case, I moved to blogging mainly because the Web seemed less populated than the real world, which I’ve never really understood properly. Depression can take the form of not so much wanting to stop living, as wanting to go someplace better. Somewhere you can call your own. And preferably, somewhere affordable. Hence the New Frontier of blogging in 1997. No Blogger, Livejournal, or MySpace; just simple HTML.

The last time I had my picture taken in Giesbach Road it would have also been about 1997. Erol Alkan’s old home a few doors down. Or rather, his bedroom in his parents’ place. That long ago. I can see him taking a photo of me playing his acoustic guitar there, and the photo then being on his wall, part of a montage. I have very short blond hair in this photo. The one on the wall, the one in my head. And I can also see a time when the beautiful Neil Codling from Suede came to visit.

Amongst the clutter of the last weeks’ clearance I find a sheet of Orlando lyrics that I must have faxed to Tim in the studio. Underneath it, I’ve written ‘Am at Erol’s’. This would have been Giesbach Road.

Today, Erol is a highly-acclaimed London DJ and remixer. I don’t see him so much, but I did bump into him under Suicide Bridge the other day. He gave me a hug.

Me: Hey, congrats on playing that big Trafalgar Square event with the Chemical Brothers!
Erol: Well, I would have done. But they forgot to set up my decks in time.
Me: Ah well. I presume you still were paid…?
Erol: Oh, my agent handles all that.

I wince at setting this exchange down. What bad form it is to refer to the money side of things. It’s an attitude I’m trying to get out of. But how nice to have an agent to deal with the unpleasant detail of payment. It’s about time I got one.

There’s been a few instances in the last few weeks when people I know and like have asked me to DJ at their events:

Event Organiser I Know And Like: Will you DJ at my club night in New York?

Me: Gosh! Yes, of course! Never been to the US, let alone NYC.

Organiser: Thing is, I can’t afford to pay your air fare. But maybe you can set up other gigs at the time to help top it up?

Me: Um, it’s unlikely.

Organiser: Well, how about my next London night? Can’t pay you much more than what you’ll have to spend on the tube there plus the taxi home, though…

So I had to say no to both offers, the second because I’m already doing White Mischief in November, plus a private party in Norwich next weekend. Add to the Stockholm appearance on the 19th, and that’s more than enough DJ bookings for a while. Apart from anything else, I’ve become rather fond of going to bed at a decent hour.

It really is about time I started earning proper, regular money. Or at least, earn the income I give the impression I already earn. Pass me that axe.

Oh all right, the fluffy, spongey axe.

Am in Bildeston, Suffolk once more. Just me and Dad. Mum’s in Cornwall. This time it’s a practical reason; my Highgate place is being redecorated, re-plastered and generally upgraded. It makes more sense for me to move out for a week than try to sleep amongst it all. So here I am.

Just completed an hour-long interview on the phone with a Swedish daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. I’m being flown to Stockholm on Oct 19th for about 24 hours, during which I shall sing with the band Friday Bridge, DJ briefly at a club, and give interviews about the new Fosca album.

Nice to be able to get on with the present after two weeks of dithering and mithering over my past. There’s still about 15 boxes left to clear, but I’ve gotten rid of about 1000 books, 500 CDs, 20 DVDs, all my videos, my TV, VCR, Freeview box, turntable, stereo, speakers, and my noisy old desktop PC. And after that, I’ve cleared about five boxes stuffed with paperwork.

Have tidied up my vanity products by buying stackable vanity boxes from Muji. Because I’m very vain about vanity boxes.

After mentioning that I was chucking out photos I’d taken from the Orlando v Kenickie tours of 1996 & 1997, I get emails from Emma Kenickie and Tim Orlando asking that they’d like to have such doomed snaps if they’re going, or at least see them before oblivion beckons.

My first thoughts are, well, it’s not as if Kenickie and Orlando were rarely photographed at the time. But of course, it’s the fact they were taken by me on my own camera that piques interest. And once it’s mentioned but not shown, I’m like one of those irritating ‘Wicked Whispers’ gossip columnists, all tease and no delivery. ‘Which Peter Pan of Pop was seen kissing a mystery elf in Hornsey Londis at elevenses? Shhh!’

These days, everyone has a camera or camera-phone, or expects there to be one close at hand. Perhaps this new lust for photo-recording everything engenders a yearning to back-date. Tim says he didn’t take photos himself on those tours, but if it were now, such a tour would be photo-documented within an inch of its life. And I wonder if Emma was camera-less too, that packing a camera was in fact an unusual idea back then, at least for bands that were already regularly photographed by the media. Maybe I was being weird as usual, what with my camera and my text message device (pager) and my email address in 1996. Right things, wrong time.

To my mind, the photos I’ve jettisoned were blurry and red-eyed and dull and unflattering to those depicted. Contrary to what Bucks Fizz sang (or was it Stephen Poliakoff?) the camera often lies.

But of course you just can’t win, and I ponder being in fearful conversations like these:

‘I found an old photo of you from 1896. It’s not great, but don’t worry, I’ve thrown it out rather than embarrass you or imply that it’s all been downhill since then.’
‘You weird fool! I’d love to have seen it. I’ll be the judge of whether it’s embarrassing or rubbish, thank you very much. Some friend you are.’
‘Hmph. Look, okay. Here’s one of you I didn’t throw out, which I really like.’
‘Oh, I’ve already seen that one. It’s rubbish.’

Versus this:

‘I found an old photo of you. Here you go.’
‘You weird fool! What are doing keeping rubbish photos of me for so long? And so badly taken! You’ve just reminded me that I was having a terrible hair day that… year. Thanks a lot. Some friend you are.’

It’s my fault, I know. Mention photos at all, and people want to see them. My boxes become Pandora’s. I think the best approach is just to keep quiet about the photos you do have to throw out – for whatever reason- but keep the rare ones you like, and share the ones you keep. So I’ll do that from now on. And sorry, Tim and Emma.

When it’s 3am and you’re on your hands and knees going through endless piles of old things, feeling uncertain about which ones you need to keep, and becoming increasingly tempted to just throw everything out rather than go insane, there’s inevitably a few casualties in the Out pile. And some I’m already regretting myself.

One person’s nostalgia is another’s clawing open of old wounds.

Now, okay, the above sentence doesn’t apply to those Kenickie tours, which were on the whole a pretty happy time for me. And indeed, happily pretty. Certainly it was an absolute privilege to tour with Kenickie, and to do so twice. But there’s times when the phrase does apply to some sections of my past, and it can be hard not to let the painful bits upstage the fun bits. Thus comes the appeal of trashing everything from the same period regardless, like the culling of uncontaminated animals during epidemics.

And as I sit there, thinking of all these things, sighing over the endless sifting, I notice that I’m late for the Neil Gaiman talk in Piccadilly. As I run for the tube, I am absolutely seething with anger that all this dithering, all this endless poring over items from the past has made me late for something I really do want to do TODAY. And the thought of just binning everything I haven’t touched for years and getting on with the rest of my life appeals greater than ever. What use is a past if it’s literally stopping me living in the present?

Besides, there were other people at those gigs with cameras, I tell myself. Or, they write and tell me:

your latest entry gave me goosebumps, partly cos of the idea of the old pics you were looking at – i was doing the very same at the end of last week! (and of the same Kenickie tour too). So if you fancy a gander at old pics on t’web rather than cluttering up physical space, you and Tim might (i said ‘might’!) enjoy reading this post…

Hail and farewell to old photos – the past making way for the present. Just as well, as most of them are pretty badly taken.

Backstage on tour with Kenickie, 1996 / 7. Some ghastly prefab Uni room acting as a backstage area. Lauren L and Marie grinning madly at the camera, Emma carrying drinks. A lot of alcohol is about. The Orlando tour bus:- thank god we got one that was effectively a long, moving dressing room, where you can walk around. You go to sleep in a bunk and wake up in another town. I think we were all surprisingly well deodorised for a bus of men, too. Here’s Momus with flowing blond hair, on the same reel of film. Orlando fans in feather boas. Including a schoolgirl Kate Dornan, of course. Again, I only keep what I consider to be the bare essentials, just enough to tell the tales. Besides, sometimes it’s more fun to make things up. Particularly when witnesses tell me I’ve got it all wrong.

From another box: a list of all the gigs I attended, May 1990 to July 1992. The band Heavenly, seen in concert 19 times. I hitch-hiked around the country to see them on tour. Notes: ‘threw flowers. Stayed at Jason’s. Stayed at Marty’s. Stayed at Amelia’s. Gave cuddly toy devil to Amelia’. Said devil then appears in a Heavenly photo shoot in the NME. Other bands, too. The Field Mice – 7 times. Brighter – 5 times. This would have been when I was at Bristol Old Vic, trying to learn a trade. What I did learn, of course, was that going to gigs and following a favourite band when you’re 19 means everything to you. Something about that age really connects with the whole fandom experience.

Here’s a flyer for a gig at Tufnell Park Dome, where an early version of Orlando is the SIXTH support to the TV Personalities. Other bands: Blueboy, The Carousel, Comet Gain, Timbertoes (TMC’s band). This would be about 1993. Fourteen years later, and I’m… supporting the TVPs in Sweden. Though this time Fosca is second on the bill. That’s progress.

Thing is, I could write a 500 word entry from the thoughts generated from that flyer alone. But there’s piles and piles and boxes and boxes of such things. I’m too young to spend my entire waking life curating my past. I must grit my teeth and be brutal, and move on. Otherwise, this will be just become a Dickon Looks Back life.

Which would be fine if I were in prison.

But… not just yet!

***

Yes, the best thing to do is throw the stuff out now. Quick notes, but say goodbye.

Best not to think of what others might say. Because you just can’t win. Some people out there might be annoyed you’ve ditched a photo, or jettisoned their letters. But others might be equally annoyed that you’ve held onto them, decades later. I recently showed a friend the first letter they wrote to me. They were appalled I’d kept it. So, one man’s doting archivist is another’s creepy stalker.

‘I kept that love letter you sent me in 1894.’

‘Oh you haven’t! I was on heavy medication at the time and wrote a lot of nonsense…’

I think I’ve said that before, haven’t I? Proof positive I need to press on with new adventures.

***

Just read – quickly – through another pile of letters. A lot are about a fanzine I wrote called ‘Studbase Alpha’, saying terribly nice things about my apparent writing talent. And now, of course, I view such work as little more than jejune, self-deluding tosh. But then, I often think that about old diary entries I’ve written. From, ooh, days ago.

What’s useful to me now is that many of these letters to me represent remote affection, however fleeting. So I note a few quotes to keep me warm in my lonelier moments.

Maybe this was the last real age of letters, the early 90s. I’ve started to write handwritten cards and notes to people recently, sitting in cafes, re-learning the art. I miss the days of real pen on real paper. The postal delay of sending and receiving. The romance of the recognised handwriting on the envelope.

***

More school reports. ‘Fantastic.’ ‘Outstanding.’ ‘An outstanding start to Dickon’s Upper School career.’ ‘Really excellent! He has a tremendous appetite for work.’ ‘A creditable success story.’

Career? No money was made. What good is a good school report if it doesn’t lead to an outstanding real career? I worked too hard, too early, and burnt myself into a nervous breakdown halfway through the sixth form. From Oxbridge potential to the dole at 17. The therapists I’ve seen always mark this breakdown as The Big Traumatic Event, from which all my failure to get on in adult life stems.

The darkly funny thing is, the day I dropped out of school and considered, well, suicide, I went into Ipswich to see the latest big movie, hoping that might cheer me up.

It was Dead Poets Society.

***

In fact, the lesson learned from today’s clutter-shifting is this:

A good school report is actually a bad school report. Because to read back on some glowing praise from teachers, you can only see your life as a downhill plunge, like a child prodigy. What you’re MEANT to get is a bad report, so you can react against it in later life. Similarly, the successful comedian is always meant to have been the class clown at school. ‘I was always telling jokes, to stop being beaten up.’

Read a recent interview with Paul McKenna, the motivational author and hypnotist.

He quotes one of his school reports which said: ‘If he carries on like this, he’ll never amount to anything.’ When, several years later, he published his first book, he sent a copy to his English teacher with ‘F— you’ written inside the front cover. ‘Very childish, I know, but also very satisfying.’

So a good report is actually a bad report. And vice versa. If not, you make up some other ‘conflict’ for the newspaper profiles. Their Struggle. So many celebrity biographies are essentially the same story. First they were not successful. And then they were. The End. From The Conflict to The Happy Ending. It’s the tried and tested template.

Whole sections of bookshops are now devoted to ‘Abuse Lit’, thanks to Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called It. They all have the same typeface and the same cover: misty photo on a white background. ‘First I was not okay, now I am.’

It’s all Mr Larkin’s fault, of course. I think it was Alan Bennett who remarked if your parents DON’T f— you up, then you’re f—ed good and proper. My failure was to live the wrong way round: the successful pupil, told he would indeed amount to ‘anything much’.

But I can now fit the template. Because my ‘bad report’ phase is this state I’m in today. Not amounting to much. So (ideally!) the biography goes, ‘First Dickon won, then he failed, then he won again’. It’s a glib currency, but a currency nonetheless. Some people prefer the tried and tested path over any unknown scenic route. Not everyone, but it helps those who do. And then you take them somewhere new.

I refuse to go by Mr McKenna’s ‘f— that’, though. I prefer ‘get knotted’.

Off to the refuse depot this morning, with a minicab’s worth of possessions and bin liners stuffed with demons. I do have friends with cars, but don’t want to trouble them. They’re all getting on with their present lives and careers. It’s just me that’s literally hemmed in by the past, living pretty much as I did when those school reports were written. I even have the same TV and stereo. Until today. About time.

And all it took was the roof falling in on me, directly on the spot where my head has been ‘at’ for so long. My pillow.

My original aim, to clear out all the unprocessed paperwork before Thursday, is looking rather optimistic to say the least. There’s just so MUCH of it all.

How much do I keep?

How much must anyone keep?

Just threw out a huge file of work from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, my one and only period as a full-time student, 1990-1992. It represents two year’s worth of note-taking on their Technical Theatre course, covering the techniques of lighting, sound, stage management, and so on. A waste of time? Well… I’m unlikely to start on that particular career path now, so I guess it has to go. I wasn’t particularly good at any of it, and I have no innate desire to jump-start such meagre skills.

I can’t possibly keep it, because if I do it means keeping everything else I’m not using at the present. Like every school exercise book.

Here’s a CV written circa 1993, when I was looking for work. Any work. Used it to get an office job, from which I was sacked a few months later for non-attendance due to sheer despair. Do I keep it?

This is what comes of viewing the boxes as me, rather than the person I used to be. And it’s turning into a tear-stained, madness-inducing exercise. I feel completely all at sea. And drowning. Help.

What do I do with the school grades and certificates of GCSEs? The school reports? How many photos? I know one must be brutal with anything not being used right now, but… will I ever need to mention my GCSE results at any point in the future?

The clutter-clearance books (which are taking up too much space…) say you must throw out everything connected with any periods of your life that represent frustration and unhappiness.

Fill in the wry retort yourself.

Oh, okay then. Some school report quotes. Great Cornad Upper, Summer Term, 1986.

Maths: ‘Sometimes Dickon forgets that he is not the only pupil in the class!’

English: ‘He has a great talent for this subject. He has a range of vocabulary, a precision of technique and a maturity of thought and expression which makes his work a pleasure to read. There is, occasionally, a tendency to over-elaborate…’

Chemistry: ‘… he must learn to be a little less intense… Relax a bit, it’s good for you!’

Geography: ‘I think he would benefit by spending a little less time debating more minor issues…’

Incredibly the PE report is favourable, and mentions me knowing my limitations but still doing my best. The Headmaster singles this out for his comment on my whole term.

I’m going to have a cup of tea, then go for a walk. And then I’m going to try and tackle the piles again.

Am now onto the disposal of my old PC, TV, VCR and stereo. The VCR has gone to a lady on the local Freecycle list, though I can’t seem to give the portable colour TV away. Which is a shame as it works as perfectly as the day it was made – circa 1981. The analogue RF-only input can’t help in these days of SCART and digital compatibility. I’ve happily watched digital channels on the set via an RF convertor, but it’s one more gadget to hook up and find a power socket for, and perhaps that’s what puts people off.
Still, the council will take it away for free, along with everything else. The TV and stereo have been with me since my teens in Suffolk.

So nice to clear out all these big bulky things with their noisy cooling fans and cathode ray hums, and replace them with a single sleek and silent laptop that does everything.

***
I should really say something kind about Music & Video Exchange, having singled them out earlier. It’s more the ordeal of standing at the counter to receive tooth-sucking judgement that puts me off doing much selling in person, but this is obviously something that all second-hand shops have to do, not just M&VE. At least M&VE take your unwanted piles off your hands. The used bookshops I’ve visited tend to hand back the books they won’t buy, so you still have to find a charity shop on the way home to get rid of the things.

Even some charity shops have refused my donations, saying they’re inundated or that they can’t sell my particular items. Though to be fair, perhaps I WAS rather asking for trouble when I took a copy of Selfish C—‘s vividly-labelled single ‘Britain Is S— / F— The Poor’ to a charity shop staffed by the primmest, frailest looking elderly ladies. On purpose. Only joking.

From my Inbox:

M&VE are not rip offs. They just know what things sell for. Which is how they’ve managed to stay around so long while others have gone bust. And if you take exchange (which I always do) then it’s a very fair price… I try and sell to the sweet smiley man in Berwick St… I recently turned about thirty CDs by rubbish indie bands into one of those amazing new Motown Complete singles collections that come packaged in a book. A luxury I could never have afforded and one that takes up a lot less space than thirty rubbish indie CDs. So I say hurrah for the most miserable record shops in Britain!

My favourite disposal outlet has to be the 24 Hour Oxfam Donation Banks, the ones that take clothes, books and CDs. I like to sneak up to them in the middle of the night with my carrier bags. Though last time I popped my unwanted items through the hatch circa 3AM, I could have sworn I heard something. Was it my imagination, or was the metal bank making scornful teeth-sucking noises…?

***

Finding my energy levels are all over the place at present. I’ve been falling asleep at odd moments, drifting through the days. Clearing out the mountains of old paperwork has really become a life-scrutinising experience. This IS my life in paper form. Letters, flyers, clippings, postcards, documents. I’m trying to whittle it all down to just the most important examples. Going from keeping everything to keeping just enough to tell the tales. Just the one letter from someone, say, not dozens. Rules have to be applied. I take notes whenever I’m throwing out something that still demands a nod of permanence. A respectful last salute.

Most of all, I feel like a sensible descendent going through the possessions of a crazy uncle, who’s died and left me the boxes in his will. The clutter represents joy, pain, frustration, love, adventure; the usual. Yet my reaction today while going through it all is more the curiosity and fascination of a third party biographer.

Today it’s been chilly enough indoors for me to keep my long overcoat on while I’m sorting through the boxes on the floor. I must look like a character from Shooting The Past.

Sitting here, going through all the CDs I’m disposing of, waiting for this laptop to convert the songs I want to keep (or haven’t even listened to yet) into mp3s.

Last night – to the Drill Hall for a private view of painter Sadie Lee’s new show, And Then He Was A She, comprising her new portraits of Holly Woodlawn, the transgendered Warhol Superstar immortalised in the opening line of that Lou Reed song. Ms Woodlawn is depicted at the age she is now in raw, excoriatingly vivid poses: half-dressed, undressing, getting dressed, topless without wig or make-up but with a walking frame and cigarette, in gigantic close-up on huge canvasses. But instead of playing to the archetypal stranger’s prurience of wondering what goes on beneath a transsexual’s clothes, these are exquisitely rendered celebrations of defiance; the individual taking on the unfairness of gender, flesh, age, infirmity, the smoking bans, the world. And triumphing, surviving. For context, it’s accompanied by a second room full of biographical material through the years: looped footage of Ms Woodlawn in those Warhol films, selected 1970s portraits and so on.

I say hello to Ms Lee, who’s in a marvellous silver suit and lipstick, playing host. I also chat to Ella Guru, to Maggie Hambling, to Zoe who I used to work with at Kenwood House, to Pippa Brook who was in the bands Posh and Shopgirl and is now in a band called All About Eve Babitz, and to Lea Andrews of Spy 51 and her girlfriend Gemma, soon to be married.

Another famous Holly, Holly Johnson the singer (of Frankie Goes To Hollywood fame), is there. I sign my name in the guest book under his. He puts a PO Box, under something like ‘Pleasuredome Enterprises’.

***

Email re Music & Video Exchange:

whatever you do dont go back to soul and dignity exchange – they are the worst rip offs in the world.

Time Out Magazine featured MVE in their ‘Worst Customer Service’ feature the other week, but I do have a couple of perfectly lovely friends who work there. I think it depends which branch and which employee you get. I also appreciate they have to take into account their own storage space, avoiding duplicating items, and so on. And snootiness tends to be part and parcel of any record shop that knows its stuff, a la High Fidelity.

That the person behind the counter might be some dusty acquaintance of old makes it even harder to want to go there as a seller. The awkwardness would be doubled. After both parties have been forced into the requisite teeth-sucking and pained expressions, meeting in a social capacity afterwards might never quite be the same. Going there as a buyer, though, no problem.

Other people run marathons for charity. I walk for days and miles between the charity shops of London donating items. I can’t face going back to the same Oxfams again and again, so it means a tour of London’s many charity shops. It’s a marathon.

I suspect I’m losing out on a lot of potential pocket money selling online or in used goods shops. But I really feel I’ve made all the trips to the Post Office and Music & Video Exchange that I can bear for one lifetime. Well all right, for the time being.

In fact, I’d happily pay NOT to suffer the belittling process at second-hand shops where the assistant sifts through the pile, makes all kinds of sneering noises under his breath, until he offers you barely a tenth of what you were hoping for. Or worse, gives you back your pile.

All I really wanted to do was get rid of the things, not make money. So, I’ll just get rid of the things. They must surely raise something. The complete Beyond The Fringe on triple CD. All the Bill Hicks albums. All the Pet Shop Boys albums with the second discs and booklets. And lots more like that. Many of which are in near-mint condition.

When I’m crouched on my hands and knees at 3 AM, sifting through a endless pile of possessions, trying to decide what might sell, and what won’t, and what to keep, and what to throw away, and getting upset rather than enjoying the art of trading, I know that the marketplace gene just isn’t in my DNA. If I was a trader in a former life, I’d be one of those that gets really annoyed whenever any customer comes into the shop. At all. No, it’s not for me.

And I still haven’t even started on the paperwork. Or the DVDs. So I need to get these things out of my home at once.

But at least the books have been pruned down so much that I now have gaping spaces in the bookcase. I should probably stop there. The audio cassettes have all gone, except for my most recent demos; I’m consulting those when writing new songs.

The videos have gone, too. Didn’t have as many as I thought. The width of VHS spines can be really quite deceptive.

I must keep some CDs, but how many? How few? Books do furnish a room, but CDs do become A CD Collection. And I’m not sure if I want a collection. Just the ones I’m listening to.

How many Fall albums are you meant to own? How many Stereolab albums? I have some friends who’ll say ‘all of them, of course!’ That’s about fifty CDs for a start.

It’s more practical to be a fan of artists who aren’t so prolific. God bless them, for they save us our holy shelf space:

‘I’m a massive fan of Mary Margaret O’Hara. I’ve got all her album.’

Never ask the prolific artists themselves. They will say ‘Just get the latest album – it’s my best yet.’ And they will be wrong. Until they see sense, like Prince. Alan Partridge was right – sometimes you only ever really want The Best Of The Beatles.

Thoughts of Edwyn Collins presenting the TV nostalgia show, ‘I Love 1995’:

‘Hi! I’m Edwyn ‘A Girl Like You’ Collins.’

He actually said that, too.

I think of Joseph Heller and a rude interviewer, and the great retort:

Interviewer: It must be hard having to promote your latest novel. Let’s face it, you haven’t written anything as good as Catch 22, have you?

Heller: No… But then neither has anyone else.

More clearance. It’s getting unusual to wake up in a room where I can’t see tottering dust-covered piles of things from previous lives. It’s Zen and the Art of Being Dickon Edwards.

Monday eve. I walk over to Crouch End with my 80s Technics turntable, as Charley Stone is interested in taking it off my hands.

At her flat, I realise the lid is broken and won’t stay open without assistance. A mere detail – it just means you have to keep holding it open while changing the record – so we try it out. But the rascal refuses to work. I then realise the little belt thing has come undone in transit and twisted itself around the innards. I then take about twenty minutes trying to work out where it’s meant to reattach, while Charley searches the Web for help. I look all over the bottom section of the turntable, with its cogs and wheels, until I realise it’s the actual underside of the wheel itself that the belt attaches to. Which was the very part I’d taken off in order to look underneath. It’s the turntable equivalent of looking for your glasses, when all the time they’re on your head. Not so much Occam’s Razor, more Occam’s Specs.

Anyway. Ms C says the Web is officially rubbish when it comes to turntable-fixing advice. So there you go.

After all that, while putting the thing back together, I manage to snap a tab off the fiddly pop-up EP Adapter in the middle. Still, the adaptor is only for those 7 inch records with bigger holes in the middle; as seen on old singles. And indeed on those new singles which pretend to be old. You can get removable adaptors separately, so again it’s not a big deal. We apply blue-tack to the adaptor to keep it flush, replace the mat, and put a record on. In fact, Charley puts on the New Royal Family EP.

Even without amplification, I can hear David Barnett sounding like a chipmunk. So I switch it to 33RPM. That’s better.

Or it would be. When Charley connects it through her Hi-Fi amp, we realise it’s barely audible. This, as you can imagine, IS a big deal.

Seems you should only use it on a hi-fi with a dedicated turntable channel, one that automatically boosts the level. Which is what the original parent unit does. I suspect this is Technics’ way of ensuring you don’t break up the set. Which is annoying when bits of the set don’t work.

Still, Ms C tells me about a shop in Park Road called Audio Gold, which might buy what’s left of the system and use it for parts. I have to send them a JPEG.

On to the Boogaloo, where I meet David Barnett and his brother Andy, and return a couple of David’s books. I’m drinking vodka and cranberry, without the vodka. It feels the most acceptable non-alcoholic drink to order in a bar; there’s something about the grown-up tartness that sets it above orange or apple juice. This morning, though, I have something of a headache. I wonder if it’s possible to get Cranberry Juice Hangovers.

Monday sees the disposal of yet another 25-30 books, some at the Black Gull Bookshop in East Finchley High Road, N2. They pay an acceptable amount for my huge Cole Porter and Lorenz Hart lyric books, which are rare but would be a pain to send in the mail.

I mention this to the Asian man at the dry-cleaner’s when trying to pass on my old coat hangers (no good – these are coat hangers with a decade of dust). He’s amazed at the idea of reading song lyrics without the music. I spend a few minutes telling him who Cole Porter was, and the whole history of the craft of witty lyrics in Western songwriting, while I stand there clutching my unlovely hangers.

This clutter clearance is effectively my day job for the next week and a bit. I’m trying to say no to things in order to get it done, but at 1pm I’ve got to go to Archway to be interviewed on film for some study about blogging, and then in the evening it’s Simon Price’s 40th birthday in Mornington Crescent. Around those I have to clear out dozens of CDs and audio cassettes, put a dozen rare items on Ebay with photographs, post the things which have sold on Amazon, and maybe start on the umpteen boxes of ancient paperwork.

‘It’s going on so long,’ says Donna, ‘that it looks like you’re buying up stuff from charity shops in order to take them to other charity shops. Do you really only live in the one room?’

I had a feeling it would happen. Having re-plastered the ceiling with nice new brown plaster and cleaned up the surfaces affected, my more DIY-minded neighbours Mr K and Ms L in cahoots with my utter saint of a landlady have offered to do the following. They will repaint and re-paper my room, clean the mould and mildew from my window frames, replace my bed and fridge and maybe more besides. If it’s okay with me.

It’s that Tom Sawyer bit again. Some people would love to have their homes improved free of charge. I, on the other hand, prefer to go through life with as little fuss as possible. Plus I don’t like to put other people to any trouble. Plus (and this is the main reason, obviously), I know it means I’ll have to bite my lip and… tidy up. And my place is in dire need of not just tidying up, but a full-on clearance of thirteen years’ worth of clutter and unsorted paperwork, along with more than a few dust-gathering possessions, unused for years. In some cases, unused since I moved here.

Liz: I couldn’t live in a place where a portion of the ceiling was brown while the rest was white, left unpapered like that. I’d couldn’t bear to look up.

Me: Well… I don’t look up that much.

But this time I’ve relented. Because the alternative was hardly making me happy. And though I don’t mind being compared to Quentin Crisp in some respects, the bit about not cleaning your home EVER isn’t so attractive. Not anymore. And especially not when other people are happy to do it for you. I can live with being like A Slightly Cleaner Quentin Crisp, if I must.

They’re going to do the improvements in ten days’ time. To make things easier for all, I’m going to stay somewhere else for the four days they’re at work here. Maybe with my parents, maybe with friends.

Between now and then, I need to seriously prune my things down to the manageable essentials, so they can be easily gathered under dust sheets while they paint the walls.

I know I’ve spoken about my battles with the ‘life laundry’ process and my need for clutter clearance before, but this time I really, really am doing it for good. Thirteen years of living alone, thirteen years of unfinished things. And the evidence is eating away at me.

A recent repeated dialogue I’ve had with various friends:

Me: Do you want that book back, the one you lent me a decade ago?

Kind Friend: Sure, if you’ve finished with it. Just bring it along when we next see each other.

Me: No, I have to post it to you now. Is that okay? Have I got your current address?

KF: Are you sure? It’s more than likely we’ll meet up soon. Just bring it along then…

Me: No look, you don’t understand! I can’t stand the burden of additional uncertainty. I can only remember to do so much, and my life is currently one big To Do list as it is. It’s post it, or dispose of it. If I don’t get rid of it NOW, I will be physically sick.

KF: Jesus, all right…!

My friends do understand these little bouts of madness. Eventually.

I’m even getting rid of my TV, VCR, Freeview box, and Hi-Fi with its turntable and speakers. I just don’t use them anymore. I use this laptop for playing CDs, DVDs, downloading video files of everything that’s half-decent on TV, and listening to the radio. I haven’t played audio cassettes or watched VHS tapes regularly for years. And I don’t watch TV on the TV.

I suspect I could make a bit of pocket money if I properly sold these things. But I just don’t have the time or interest. Everything I am not using has to go before Thurs Oct 4th. It’s all rather exciting, actually.

In the case of the portable TV and Hi-Fi, these are things I’ve had since my teens. They’re over twenty years old. Purging them could only do me good mentally.

It’d be nice if I can find anyone willing to part with a little cash for them (particularly as the VCR is only three or four years old, the Freeview box months old), but otherwise I’ll just take them to the local charity shops. Or use the FreeCycle mailing lists, where you advertise to your local area what you’re giving away, in the hope that someone will come and take it off your hands. The tip is obviously the very last resort.

These machines are still in working order. Just about. Well, one of the hi-fi tape decks is broken and the other is temperamental. But the speakers, FM radio, amp and turntable all work fine.

The benefit of renting a furnished bedsit is that these improvements are at no cost to me. The detriment, of course, is that I’ve no property to sell, and I’ll be at square one when looking for a new place. If I ever move. I’m not going to be here till the grave, am I. Am I?

So this is as close to ‘moving up’ as I get. Improving the place I’m in already. And hopefully, improving my life too. Which I’m also only renting.

Happier news. The ear is nearly back to normal, and the ceiling will be replastered in the morning.

Liz wonders if the Africa shape is some kind of sign to heed. A trip to the Sahara to find My Heart’s Desire? Tangier for a third time? Which reminds me: when I chatted to Sophie Parkin at the Horsley party, she told me her new book for children is set in Tangier.

Sebastian’s book has been getting lots of typically polarising reviews, from sheer hatred to sheer love (six out of six stars in Time Out). I think it’s the sort of book that reminds me of the Gillray cartoon Tales Of Wonder. Three prim ladies sit at a table wearing shocked yet riveted expressions, as a fourth reads from the latest Gothic novel. “It’s so disgusting. Keep going!”

Get Mr H’s remarkable memoir here.

One more plug. I’m DJ-ing at the Scala on November 10th, as part of the White Mischief mini-festival. British Sea Power are playing, there’s a Steampunk / Jules Theme theme, and a myriad cabaret delights will be on the stylish menu. It’s put on by Ms Alex De Campi, who directed that Schema video I was slightly in, and Mr Toby Slater, who I first met in 1995 when he was a schoolboy DJ. Should be quite an event. There’s a discount on tickets if you follow the instructions at the White Mischief Website.

Learned today: what exactly the ‘lath and plaster method’ means. I’m all for education though exposure (the rubbing-off method of learning), and they don’t come much more exposed than my ceiling. Its beady laths are now following me around the room via the three-foot peep hole. The Lath As Voyeur.

Seems it’s not at all unheard of for lath & plaster ceilings to collapse when water even looks at them in a funny way, and I’m lucky it was just a small area rather than the whole ceiling.

LH emails to say he was rained on as a child by an old ceiling collapsing in its entirety:

My mother rushed in to find me slightly dazed and white from head to foot, like people are in films after being booby-trapped with flour-bombs…