Diary: Alone on Earth

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To the Rio to see Female Human Animal. This is an experimental thriller based loosely around the work of Leonora Carrington. One of the cast is the artist Philippa Horan, who lived at the Boogaloo in Highgate for a while: I used to go to parties with her. At the screening I chat to the man in the seat next to mine.

He turns out to be Brian Dillon, author of Essayism, which I read and enjoyed. He asks me about Momus. One way of dealing with illness is embrace the outer world more forcefully. I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my nose holes — everywhere. Thursday 11 October He sometimes asked untested authors to pay for the production costs themselves. Like Firbank, she had to pay for some of the costs of her first book The Dark Tide But she credits Richards with starting her writing career, and for enabling more lasting happiness.

This turned into a correspondence, and then a courtship, and then marriage and children.

On the same theme of queer publishing, today happens to be Orlando Day. Woolf must have added it when editing the final proofs. Indeed, these days many books appear on Amazon with a release date and even a cover, long before the text itself has been finished. Despite all the in-jokery between her and Vita Sackville-West, Orlando really connected with the public. Friday 12 October I realise that this must be an early appearance in the world of letters by Brigid Brophy. Sunday 14 October A copy of the new book Bus Fare arrives. This is an anthology of bus-related writings, edited by Travis Elborough and published by the AA.

Thursday 18 October He is caught in the ultimate transgressive embrace: This can be no bad thing. Either that or pink beanies. The OED announces that it is adding new adjectives to describe styles of filmmaking: Perhaps Harry Styles now uses it. Friday 19 October To the Gielgud Theatre with Minna Miller, to see the new revival of Company , the Sondheim musical, originally from In the wake of Doctor Who this might at first smack of some sort of concession to a zeitgeist.

In fact it fixes a lot of the problems of doing the original show as it was. The plight of a single thirty-something man is now a lot less interesting, whereas with a woman one only has to point to Bridget Jones and Sex and the City. Sunday 21 October Now, Mr Moore is an establishment figure himself. Unexpectedly, Barack Obama comes under fire, over not doing enough about a water pollution scandal.

The overall message is that real hope lies with younger activists rather than the present run of politicians. Tuesday 23 October That eternal writing dilemma: One always needs to say more, and always needs to say less. Thursday 25 October Two s easy chairs with headphones are set up as if to illustrate Life in a Scotch Sitting Room, one of his works. One set of headphones is connected to a vinyl turntable. Dandruff , Jammy Smears. There is a brand new LP here too: Gruts For Tea Again , a bootleg compilation on blue vinyl. The exhibition next door involves some sort of noisy mechanical installation, the clunking and whirring of which leaks into the Cutler show.

Cutler himself was a member of the Noise Abatement Society, so I wonder what he would have said about this. We only go because Mandy sold out in the other screen. This fact shapes the whole film. What it is full of is ludicrous inaccuracies, terrible impressions apart from the Brian May actor, who is excellent , bad prosthetic teeth, and irksome attempts at pathos.

High Art was never going to be high on the list.

How To Be Punk And Camp

The film ends with an extended recreation of the Live Aid gig, even though the real version is available for free on YouTube. But presumably there are lots of people who pay to watch Queen tribute bands, so who I am to deny them? The fairest thing I can say is that this film is not unwatchable. Friday 26 October Despite the vast choice of recorded music now available, high street shops in London still insist on imposing the same few songs on their customers.

I quite like the song, or at least I used to. I wonder how this happens, and who is responsible, and whether they were ever really loved as a child. Tuesday 30 October In London, people are on the streets in costumes night after night, particularly on the weekend before October 31 st. Still, the upside of this pumpkin-based Lebensraum is that the retreating forces of Christmas have finally been pushed back into early November.

Retailers have admitted that even they cannot put fake cobwebs and fake snow on the same windows at the same time. To everything there really is a season; even to seasons. Thursday 1 November William Sitwell, the editor of the free food magazine at Waitrose, is under fire for being unkind about vegans.

Diary Lyrics

Osbert confuses Vainglory with Inclinations , the fool They are pretty similar, though. Friday 2 November In the British Library reading rooms, St Pancras. When I go to the desk to collect my books, I am recognised by one of the staffers. Oscar Wilde to Andy Warhol. Perhaps I should have denied this to make things more interesting: Saturday 3 November Specialization is the way forward now: One can see the evidence in newsagents.

The general music magazines like NME have withered away, while magazines on prog rock or metal or just David Bowie are thriving. It is all about recognising that, more than ever before, people want to feel less lonely. Sunday 4 November Tuesday 6 November I go on a binge-watch of Killing Eve, managing five episodes before finally going to bed. Senate House Library is a location once again, this time doubling as MI5. They both dare to mix comedy with serious situations, and they do it with an individual own sense of style.

Wednesday 7 November I enjoy it immensely: And for all her liberties with the text, she still captures that core Carter tone. I have always felt like a not-man , but without wanting to be a woman either. Sunday 11 November Whenever Noel Coward needed to go to the toilet, he would say: Tuesday 13 November On the cover is the Fabritius painting The Goldfinch , the subject of one of her essays.

I wonder now if Ms Tartt was influenced by Brophy. Wednesday 14 November Thursday 15 November Ideally, a 3-minute morning bulletin on a music station is all one needs. That way, the reminders of humanity at its worst news can be quickly compensated with reminders of humanity at its best music. Friday 16 November I think of the title for my chapter on theorising camp modernism: Sunday 18 November The other is The Body of a Poet , from , a more experimental film which is inspired by Lorde, but actually features the work of other poets.

Still, this screening is sold out, so perhaps that indicates what has happened. Art films now need to be sought out at cinema screenings like this rather than stumbled upon while flicking through channels on the TV. While this means one is more likely to find the sort of thing one already likes, it does mean being less likely to stumble upon works that you never realised might speak to you.

Serendipity is becoming harder to find. Saturday 24 November My landlady Ms K hosts a cheese and wine party in the shared kitchen. I wear a seahorse brooch for the same reason. Always wear something a stranger can remark upon. One can then talk about seahorses, or the art of weirdness, or just favourite animals. Even though most people at the party are at least forty, people hang around late into the night. But I weaken and go up to bed at about midnight.

But the upside is that my stomach is stronger. Monday 26 November I hand in Chapter Two of my thesis to my supervisors. Thankfully, this is what supervisors are for. Tuesday 27 November I see the film Widows with Jon S. Essentially a crime drama — a remake of the Lynda La Plante series from the s, moved to contemporary Chicago and touching on modern issues of race, class, and gender. Even the inept people in Widows are still gritty and cool, because the genre demands it. Perhaps I should visit Chicago myself, to prove that someone like me can even be allowed to exist there.

Wednesday 28 November To the Barbican for their current major exhibition, Modern Couples. All one can do is wolf as much down as possible and try not to feel overstuffed. In Modern Couples everything is interesting: The Barbican gallery shop sells novelty pairs of socks, illustrated with the faces of famous artists. They have punning names: The woman behind me in the queue is buying great fistfuls, or rather footfuls, of these nearly amusing items. Perhaps I need to do my own line. I buy a postcard and hand over some money to the young woman on the till. Monday 3 December Acquiring two degrees in English literature has made me disproportionately intolerant of errors.

I no longer just read: This week I see an article in a mainstream newspaper, which uses this quotation: I know that this is not the invention of Dorothy Parker at all. The quip is much older as it is.

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Friday 7 December Pete Shelley, singer of the Buzzcocks, dies. Edwyn Collins and Pete Shelley both believed that arch humour could have its place in serious rock music. In the film Shelley says: It was this sort of thing that made him so easy to love. Though, as so often with camp, it also made him easy to underrate. Today, brooding on my lack of money, I feel punished for wanting to do different things in my life, as opposed to picking one thing at 18 and sticking to it.

But to be fair to myself, there is one form of work I have stuck at: On February 5th, I will be speaking at a British Library event about diaries in general:. It depends entirely on donations by readers to keep it going. Wednesday 22nd August I read Beverly , the graphic novel by Nick Drnaso.

Beverly is a series of short tales with overlapping characters, set mainly in the suburbs of contemporary Illinois. Various drab and mundane lives are examined, with hints of psychosis lurking beneath the surface. Perhaps this is unfair: It is difficult to tell. Hardly anyone else is in there tonight: Thursday 23rd August This is enough for me to love the group forever. I also realise that Neil Tennant is a rare example of a male entertainer today who has never been tempted to grow a beard.

I take some comfort from this. The accompanying photo is of two young men playing video games. They both resemble George Bernard Shaw. In my case, despite the excuse of age, I feel that growing a beard would be fraudulent. It would signal to the world that I felt the slightest bit manly , and that would not do.

Here We Go Again. This was the Richard Curtis-esque lesbian romcom that was a flop when released in the mids, but which has now become a cult favourite. In the Abba film Lily James, playing the young version of the Meryl Streep character, has the most to do: On the way out of the screening room two teenage girls are walking ahead of me. One girl is in such a good mood that she spontaneously does a cartwheel while walking down the corridor. Friday 24th August Mr L talks about the group Sleaford Mods, two men who were too old for the Radio 1 crowd, and who made no concessions to joining in with current trends whatsoever.

Instead, they just worked on their music and put it out, to the point where an audience came to them. By this time their work sounded confident and defiant and lasting. A more intense version of the same thing happened to Russell Brand, though only after he exaggerated his image into a cartoonish, camp blaze. Sebastian Horsley was on the verge of a similar, neo-dandy success when he died. One is on the s record producer Joe Meek, the other on the s playwright Joe Orton.

Both were gay men called Joe who lived in small flats in North London, and who both met with untimely deaths in Travis Elborough introduces the films, and points out the irony of being the year of the partial decriminalization of homosexuality; indeed, also saw the death of a third gay pop culture figure: Mr Cattini just got on with making music. Saturday 25th August I am wearing a chalk-white suit today.

Collins had a lifelong boyfriend, Garry, whom he married this year, just before he died. Nevertheless, the two were devoted to each other. The younger man has a tattoo of a seahorse on his arm. But I never had the chance to speak to him. I wish I had, if only to show him my seahorse cufflinks. Some more thoughts on Smiling in Slow Motion.

Vintage are planning to reissue At Your Own Risk and Chroma next year, both of which were written in the period covered by these diaries. Interesting to compare the old book covers with the new: In perhaps his selling power relies more on the work, not least the garden. Jarman himself says somewhere that he should have been a gardener rather than a film director. He also reminds the reader that although usually labelled as a filmmaker, Jarman was rated by the art world as a painter, so much so that he was shortlisted for the Turner prize in the s.

He wrote the diaries with a fountain pen in a decorative hand — a page of which is reproduced in Smiling in Slow Motion — and kept writing until he was physically incapable of continuing. Certainly, the book is evidence of the way that in the early s gay people were not just struggling for their rights, but for the right way of struggling. It is the old dilemma of speaking to power: In his case, despite the tonal finality of Blue , he was working on even more films when he died: Meanwhile, Keith Collins is the hidden star.

The book is now a memorial to Collins as well as Jarman. It is required reading for those who live an artistic life against the odds. Monday 27th August To Broadway Market, my first visit since moving to Dalston. I can either take a cramped and infrequent bus that winds through residential streets the , or I can ride the smooth Overground train from Dalston Junction to Haggerston, then walk east along the canal.

Unlike Dalston, where social worlds collide, Broadway Market is more overtly arty. I have a sandwich at La Bouche, a busy deli where one can barely move for all the laptops. I like the space of the high ceiling here, the clear lines of the new building. My other favourite local restaurant is Mangal 2, which is smaller but cheaper, and one often sees Gilbert and George in there.

Tuesday 28 August It smacks too much of the testicular. Wednesday 29 August I note how the first image is briefly a blank blue screen, just before the credits start, which makes for a neat bookending with Blue. The infamous erection shot now seems unusual rather than shocking, and entirely fitting to the dreamy, loving ambience. The film is now tame compared with what one can see on the internet, and yet still daring in terms of what is seen in the cinema. Once, people went to cinemas in central London to enjoy pornography.

Now they go to the cinema to escape all the pornography online. I look around at the audience, which is half the pleasure of going to the cinema in the first place. Students of film, I decide. And one or two elderly heterosexual couples. All of which hints about my own prejudice. One can never tell who will enjoy what.

He is making a Ronald Firbank film. The details are at theflowerbeneaththefoot. Thursday 30 August This confirms that the first set of rules indeed allowed books and magazines — two of each per person. Most of the other books taken into the house were cookbooks, self-help and spiritual books, or self-teaching manuals for languages or science, brought with the hope of learning new skills. By the second series, the books were banned. Friday 31 August Southend is very quick by train from East London: I love the little pier train, which exists purely to take people from one end of the pier to the other.

I also love that one can send postcards from the postbox at the sea end. Then I escape back to London before the infamous Essex nightlife kicks into action.

My white suit is already getting comments. The book asks whether a female artist should have children, in terms of having a fulfilling life. Well, I think, that depends on the reviews. This seems an incredibly rude thing to say, even for an arts critic. It is as if the book is criticising them personally for being a different person.

Updike went from judging a literary novel to judging all gay people ever. This was not a question posed by the novel, but Mr Updike rushed forward to answer it anyway. Between parents and the childless, one would have thought it would be the latter who would be more defensive about their choices. With these critics it seems to be the reverse. All reviews review the reviewer. Saturday 1 September I wander around Battersea Park.

The Pump House Gallery is closed for a wedding. One of them beckons to me I think. Near the Old English Garden I find a s monument to animals abused through vivisection. The memorial is a small statue of a dog. A plaque reveals that it in fact replaces a much older memorial from , which a subsequent council decided was too controversial, and removed. Fergus was saved from a lab. He died this week of old age, at two and a half years. The Peace Pagoda is another s fixture of the park.

Like the dog statue, it was paid for by the left-wing GLC, and symbolises another protest, this time against nuclear war. The view of the Thames standing on the Pagoda platform is superb, and underrated. Monday 3 September This is a slight cheat, as I was in Hastings once before. Spearmint, the band in which I briefly played guitar, played a gig there circa After the gig I was left sitting in the tour bus by myself, for some reason.

Outside the van, which was parked near the town centre, a group of laddish young men appeared, clearly on their way back from a pub. They then proceeded to have a vicious fight with each other for no other reason than it was a Saturday night. This went on for some minutes: I had no choice but to sit there until this depressing sight ended.

That said, afterwards I noted the pleasing resonance of witnessing a real life battle in that particular town. So here I am. Tonight the upstairs room is hosting a session of role-playing games. Mum has been to Hastings before, albeit not to the Aleister Crowley bar. I spend a pleasant hour or two just leafing through the hundreds of books they have, with bookshelves coating every wall, ceiling to floor. I look through The Abba Annual As I walk past a pub in the town centre, some pint-downing men outside nudge themselves at my white suit. Hastings really needs to get a better class of idiot.

The pier has been refurbished. Many of the plaques are engraved with the usual memorials. Some mark happy memories of youth, such as the time in the s when the pier hosted concerts by the likes of The Who and Dusty Springfield. Others are mysterious in-jokes: Tuesday 4 September One benefit of living in London without much money is that one can take advantage of last minute tickets. If you turn up at a show with minutes before it starts, there are often cheap or even free tickets available. Particularly at industry events, where the guest lists are large.

The show is a comedy directed by and starring Desiree Akhavan. The Bisexual is more of the same, except in East London. She points out how many lesbian films are directed by men: The first two episodes, which are screened tonight, are very funny and engaging. Except more queer and more female. It deserves to do well. Saturday 8 September To the Rio for another Desiree Akhavan project: The Miseducation of Cameron Post , a new film.

This time Ms A stays behind the camera and adapts a novel about a gay conversion camp for teenagers, with s period details. The protagonist listens to an album by the Breeders — on cassette. I wonder what the young actors made of cassettes, those obsolete if mostly unmissed little objects. That film had the same plot, was also directed by a queer woman, and was in every sense much more camp. Cameron Post is made in a traditional realist style, so it feels like a straight text about gay people.

If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer

This might be what reading Ronald Firbank novels and watching Derek Jarman films has done to me, though. It can be a style of dialogue: The Bisexual is conventional in form, but the catty quips and bon mots bring the required amount of style. People are typing away too quickly, posting, tweeting, churning out the content, all the time valorising quantity and frequency over individuality. Writers are terrified of sounding different. As a result, so much content reads the same and sounds the same. Monday 10 September This one has the Shell Grotto at Margate, which I have visited.

Wednesday 12 September The library encouraged me to pick books that were in stock at local independent shops, such as GTW. Very happy to given this shop as much business as possible. Now that Foyles has been taken over by Waterstones, independent bookshops need more support than ever. I ask Jim at GTW which books have been recurring bestsellers at the shop over the years. Friday 14 September The programme is adorable. Some lines from At Your Own Risk: Saturday 15 September The Woolf and Whistle bar has a modest Woolf theme to it.

There is a large, glossy black decoration on one wall, made up of lines from Mrs Dalloway. Monday 17 September I offer my research regarding the often-quoted joke about the Bloomsbury Group: Most sources give no attribution. Martin did say it in a column in , but he was quoting someone else:. The Margaret Irwin source was recently identified in an article by Stuart N. Wem knew everyone who was a philosopher or politician or artist or writer or thinker, or rather, everyone whom he counted as such, which did not mean that his acquaintance was at all wide.

It was in fact limited to a part of London that Peregrine had referred to in his absence from lunch as Gloomsbury. The joke would have been pleased the Bloomsbury gang themselves. For them, gossip was a force for social progress. As Virginia Woolf wrote herself: The sixties were infatuated with the Bloomsbury Group — upper-class Bohemians who led open and ambisexual lifestyles in the twenties and thirties.

Keynesian Camp

There was a spate of biographies. The lives of the upper-classes were being popularised. This broke the secrecy that surrounded us and we pitted ourselves against the old moralities. Jarman put this sentiment into his film Wittgenstein One of the supporting characters is Maynard Keynes, who is shown in a relationship with a young man, played by Keith Collins. Tuesday 18 September This is a good reminder that one should consult human librarians over Google, whenever possible.

Librarians are the keepers of the Un-Googleable things: So here I am in the LCC, an imposing modern building by the roundabout, where the computer terminals are state-of-the-art Macs. Today, like many former zine writers, Olivia Laing is a professional arts critic herself. I wonder if her band made any records. Even if we are not parents, many of us now feel a need to pass on our knowledge and experience — our cultural genes — in a wider sense. I recently came across an article on the Bustle website bustle. It needs a film adaptation NOW. Best make everything you do part of your own work as with this diary and put it out there.

Wednesday 19 September Two women and two little girls are sitting or standing around in a rather staged manner. The painting was originally a commission to mark the Festival of Britain. The idea was that a number of artists would provide works on large canvases, in line with the spirit of life coming off the ration. The painting appeared in The Listener magazine, in its original form with the seated woman looking entirely different.

Bell reworked the painting afterwards, making the figure more like the adult Angelica. Saturday 22 September For the last tour only one visitor turns up, so it becomes more of a conversation. It turns out that she was at the Sebastiane screening at the BFI. So I make more of my Jarman-Bloomsbury connections.

Monday 24 September One wants to tell them: Tuesday 25 September Thursday 27 September When I put this on Twitter, Richard Hamblyn replies: And often it is. Please donate if you can. Friday 13 July A group of women calling themselves Get the L Out made their own mini-protest against the main march. Before the procession could begin, they lay down in the road, preventing the others from setting off. This argument was soon condemned by more established lesbian voices, such as DIVA magazine.

This year marks the 30 th anniversary of Clause Or it meant abseiling onto the floor of the House of Lords. These were actions aimed upwards in society, against authority. To protest against trans people, whose lives are much more compromised, is manifestly kicking downwards. There are surely worthier fights for the same passion. Around the world LGBT people as a whole still have a hard time of things. Division among the ranks cannot help. The cover is a decadent illustration by Georges Barbier, of fantastical, semi-nude tango dancers circa Saturday 14 July A comment from my PhD supervisor on my latest work: Now I realise that, contrary to the misconception, many academics value the art of elegant prose.

Still, nice to know that Dr B associates me with good writing. Sunday 15 July No TV screens, for once. The film follows the usual arc, rags to riches to the tragic early death, with the bonus that the riches are indeed from rags. McQueen played up his Cockney background as a career move — his relatives admit as much. Someone Exotic, I Hope. Still, I find myself drawn to his daring and artistry. He was a rare example of someone in fashion with a sense of individualism, as opposed to joining in and keeping up.

Monday 16 July Like Barberette in Hackney, they favour a gender neutral approach. With no pun intended, this does appear to be a growth industry. Many high street hairdressers seem stuck in the s. My heart sinks at the implication that in order to have a trim I need to talk knowledgeably about football, or am fine about having The Sun or The Mirror as reading matter while waiting. Open Barbers has a library of queer A5 fanzines, and even offers its own fanzine on the way in. The general atmosphere of social progressiveness extends to a pay-what-you-can service.

They certainly do a good job with my ludicrous mop, which seems thicker than ever. Thursday 19 July Reading a couple of books about books. When Big Brother started in the UK, they allowed books. These were soon banned, as images of people reading made for bad TV. This is why appearing on a reality TV show is less appealing than going to prison. In Wormwood Scrubs they at least allow books. Mr Manguel relates an anecdote about Noah Webster, author of the eponymous dictionary. One day, Webster is caught by his wife locked in an embrace with the family maid. Friday 20 July The green grass in Russell Square is giving way to a rash of yellow.

Tempers on the tube flare like forest fires. The original, for once. They fit the franchise theme of replication: On the walls of Caffe Nero are photographs of people drinking coffee in an idealised Italian setting. I once asked the staff of a Pret if they had ever thought of tuning the speakers to a local radio station, like greasy spoon cafes do. They looked as if they were going to set fire to me.

Today I sit and listen to the original Cyndi Lauper record, properly. How tempting to impose a narrative: I look him up: The film is set in the New York club Studio 54 in the early 80s, but now, twenty years on, I see the film as a nostalgia piece for my own youth in Tuesday 24 July It occurs to me that at the age of nearly 47, I still have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life. I was rather hoping something would suggest itself.

This is a government initiative designed to make sure as I understand it that British universities are doing Good Work with Proven Impact. I can only assume that the main purpose of the REF is to put people off a career in academia. The irony of acquiring qualifications in English literature is that they give one an increased intolerance of the literature of the workplace. In your forties, you start to feel like a ghost.

Less visible to the swim of things, but able to slip between worlds more easily. And you know more things. Friday 27 July Today thunderstorms are forecast. I find myself desperately willing them to arrive. On the tube the Victoria Line is especially unbearable. What with the current temperatures, it would be cheaper to put the body on the Central Line and just give it a couple of hours.

Linguistic sticking plasters, over gaping social wounds. I see conversations about the s which are clearly made by people too young to remember them — millennials, as the generation is now known. Two suggestions are sent to me: Thursday 2 nd August This is from a review in the New York Times. Vidal came to dislike Waugh in later life, but the truth of the quote still stands. Friday 3 rd August A suggestion for renaming the Death Star in Star Wars: The Bauble of Unkindness. Sunday 5 th August A headline from an article in Pitchfork: If they are taking donations, they are struggling. Wednesday 8 th August Depeche Mode became globally massive around this time.

Depeche Mode whine in much the same way, and yet are much more popular around the world. I wonder why this is. Their image is of two men, one of whom seems embarrassed to be there, while the other one seems even more embarrassed to be there. Whereas Dave Gahan is more giving of his whining English flesh: Neil Tennant was never one for tattoos. Moore adds that this was not a compliment. The speaker was really admiring the knotty sophistication of the other writers, and was being patronising to her. But Ms Moore took it as a compliment anyway — which is a very Lorrie Moore thing to do.

Better quirky than dreary.

Thursday 9 th August The bookshop appears in the diaries page , in the entry for 30 November , though rather unflatteringly. Jarman rages against the shop for declining to stock Love Bites , a book of sexually explicit photographs by Della Grace now known as Del LaGrace Volcano. Jesse Helms was a homophobic American politician at the time. I mention this to Jim MacSweeney, the shop owner, who was there in the early 90s. I like to think he might have changed his mind were he alive today.

The shop is still independent and still going strong, even in this age of Amazon, and is still fending off instances of homophobic window-smashing, as recently as this year. Still, I love that a bookshop is not just stocking but celebrating a book which criticises it. Stonewall and Ian McKellen come in for similar treatment in the diaries. I think many readers today will politely disagree with this side of Jarman, and focus on the more positive and inspirational examples of his life and art.

His face was his brand — a celebrity of the early 90s. Indeed, the diaries themselves relate people asking him for his autograph those paper versions of selfies. These days his work takes the focus. One might say his garden is now more Brand Jarman than the films. Certainly the diaries frame his garden as his magnum opus, with the films almost as diversions from the flowers: Edward II, Wittgenstein , Blue.

The new edition has an introduction by Neil Bartlett. Tonight Mr B is at the bookshop to give not just a talk but a tree-planting at the Marchmont Community Garden nearby. Something about the juxtaposition of the concrete Brunswick with this defiant little garden seems fitting for a Jarman tribute. Mr Bartlett tops up the hole with a spade and poses for photos: Wednesday 15 th August Irritations over ambiguities in English. This sort of thing keeps me awake at night. Thursday 16 th August I watch some of the new Celebrity Big Brother.

Friday 17 th August My favourite flower name in his Dungeness garden has to be jack-go-to-bed-at-noon tragopogon pratensis. Closely followed by eggs-and-bacon lotus corniculatus , which I imagine Jack, a night shift worker, having for breakfast before turning in. Saturday 18 th August And not meant kindly. I feel threatened and so leave, though a bleakly positive response occurs to me: What I would have liked to have done is something like the actions of Nick Hurley, a young man whose anecdote became a popular tweet this month.

He had been walking in the streets of Manchester on his way to Pride, and was wearing coloured glitter on his face. Mr H caught up with the car at the traffic lights, and emptied a tube of glitter through the window. Donations to the Diary Fund convince the author of his abiding worth. Sunday 17 June Breakfast at Dalston Superstore, my regular Sunday habit. I sit there quietly by myself at one of the tables, usually reading the Sunday Times for the book charts, careful to finish before the lunchtime cabaret performance by a drag queen.

A audio version of Alice in Wonderland is singled out for verging on the experimental. I discover that the British Library owns an analogue recording of this. It will only be digitised and made accessible if someone puts in a request. I put in a request. Also in the nonsense book, Mr Elliott discusses nonsense in music, both experimental and pop.

I love the section at the end when Vivian Stanshall performs a spoken word ramble. It is a mission statement for misfits; a freak manifesto:. Tuesday 19 June What to believe in, when one writes? Strive for the perfect sentence? Strive to be quotable, too. I like how Hamlet is essentially a string of quotations. Alice in Wonderland likewise. Wednesday 20 June Mr Everett writes, acts and directs the whole thing himself: Both films have scenes in which Wilde reads the story to his sons.

His Wilde is a broken, complicated man at the mercy of his feelings. Young angsty gay men are fine Call Me By Your Name , as are older happy ones with partners, or groups of friends, or poodles. But single, angst-ridden gay men of an older age? So this film does not care who cares for it, and that in itself makes it admirable. With long blond hair he is barely recognisable, and threatens to steal the film. Bosie after the trial: Still sexy in a reptilian way, but still destructive. Actually, I think Another Country has fallen off the radar somewhat.

Thursday 21 June Finished writing the review for The Wire. Why not your own Review for this book? That is, until it actually happens. David is a senior citizen who has reasons for wanting to cut himself off from the rest of the world. He finds an isolated house outside of a small town in Alabama, where he plans to spend the rest of his days with his faithful dog, Ralph. One day, the whole world is menaced by a strange humming sound. The media is full of speculation as to the cause. Several hundred people are driven to suicide, including one of David's neighbours.

Countries are ready for war, convinced that their 'enemy' is about to attack. David goes to bed. The next morning David wakes up to no electricity, and no battery power, either. Even new, freshly charged batteries are dead. David travels to the houses of his neighbours, to find them deserted. He visits the small town, a place called Axis, to find it also deserted.

He finds a motorcycle that he can push start, and visits Mobile, Alabama. He finds hundreds and hundreds of abandoned, burning cars, like people were in a panic. But there are no people, not even dead bodies. He finds the same thing in Atlanta, along with signs that people tried very hard keep something out, or in. The book turns into something of a psychological battle between David and a being that he calls The Blackness.

David feels that it wants him dead, but it can't kill him, so it torments him constantly. David hears Ralph barking, but no matter how much he calls out to Ralph, he doesn't come. David also hears voices that he should recognize. David and The Blackness meet late in the book think 'demon from hell'. David decides to travel west to keep looking for any other people. For some reason, he feels that answers will be found at the end of Interstate 90, in the town of Van Horn, Texas. As he travels, with The Blackness making it as hard as possible, David has to manoeuvre around thousands and thousands of smashed and burning cars, but still no people.

• The Visionist
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