11th July 2002. Sloppy sloppy timetable for updating - if you're reading this on-going story. If you haven't been - best go to the beginning. Aimed to intersperse it with other things but enjoying it. And trying to get thrown hither and thither in a social whirlpool. Trying. What's happened to taxi fares? Eighteen - Farringdon to Archway. Eighteen frickin quid. Tss. I blame accountancy irregularities and thwarted expectations in the dot coms. Oh, friend Mr Whetter and his 'Black Madonnas' are in The Face magazine next issue. Good band. Ooh look - more people I haven't seen for ages half smashed and carrying on! Getting hitched and stuff. It's just like Hello or somesuch -

22nd June 2002. Noticed this in the Local Gazette - "Paint everybody - grey. Yeah. Grey. Yeah! Between Ken Clarke And Hilldale. Our nation's elected representatives awoke on the Parliamentary lawns this week 'still trippy' after Arthur Lee - sensitive chanteur with seminal psychsters Love and the subject of an Early Day Motion by the MP for Ealing North Stephen Pound - suggested mescaline as the appropriate gateway to the alternate dimension New Labour promised in their original manifesto. Pound, on record as a fan of 'collecting comics' and 'walking', fell to his knees at the sight of Lee. Tim Yeo - still watching his own soul ascend - and Alastair Campbell (cradling his head 'post-spin') aside - everyone retired to the chamber in time to catch Roky Erickson from the Thirteenth Floor Elevators approach the bench to praise a more transparent and 'holistic' democracy. Harriet Harman thanked the member for Texas but pointed out that even one rock of crack cocaine, when mixed with mescaline, was still harmful during the first eight weeks of pregnancy. Dissenting loner voice Eric 'Bickle' Pickles toted an imaginary gun at the whole stunt as a precursor to techno and therefore 'stank' and 'nineties'." A break from the fussballs, I guess.. um .. we wuz rubbed.. that geezer's an.. er. fowling ball-ponce.. er.. the ump needs better eyeballs .. er..

30th May 2002. A couple of days ago I was going to write this - "I don't know about you but this warmer weather keeps elbowing me in the sides and whispering - HUMAN BIOLOGY. Personally I carry Dettol and a wire brush in my bag at all times, for purification should my guard be down and I find myself gripped by bad thoughts. You might be different. One of those Flash Dans, Glad Alices, woo-woo kids. Loose. A swinger. At it. Morning, noon and night. You will then, I have no doubt, be joining the cool, upcoming Playlouder Singles Club. Well, good luck to you. That's all I can say. Running around meeting people is no way to meet people. Just lie about monged under a tear-soaked pillow cursing this shitty world and let nature take it's course." Then the weather changed and I discovered that the aforementioned club will be an orgy of downloadable mp3s and live gigs. London is safe - cocoa, jim-jams and pillows in a strangely obedient way.

Half a zillion US readers courtesy of the new BTG site. Nobody does it wetter. Welcome. Post-structuralist Celinian Vonnegutian fun. Or something. You tell me. On-going and at some revolving-point. No connection between this chapter and recent reports of three women in the UK convicted of making "crush" pornography. Or maybe there is. Could go for a Hollywood ending or move into your neurotic European art-house zone. There's a third way, kids. And an expanded song cycle. Void fill. Necessary. Good. Heavily hit and graced the speakers of the more discerning West Coast grindhouses. Buy.

11th May 2002. This week - Daniel Miller sells Mute Records to EMI. Not sure why this is saddening, it's only a business. Sole proprietors have the same raft of financiers to deal with as majors. But they seemed a symbol of something independent, familial, in it for the art. And I've met people who work for both these organisations and the pleasant anecdotes always seemed to come from the Mute offices. Like the idea of creative jobs but hard to see anything interesting being made for anyone but Gawd. Say this as I've reached a point in this story where I have to know where it's going, and I had to know the next section before doing this one. An index. Fortnightly seems to be the cruising speed. Vroom.

26th April 2002. This Sunday 28th there is an actual fact anti-Le Pen demonstration outside the French Institute in London. Might go along - register remote protest, sit around a solidarity fondue, holler at any postal voters furtively returning overdue Tintin videos - who knows. And local elections in the UK too, don't forget. It's all go. More ongoing fiction, shall pepper around it with decidedly non-French things - and this was written before unconnected events in the news recently.

13th April 2002. Hey, it's my birthday soon and I need a pseudonym-de-plume from you. Mail suggestions. Feedback is mostly from Google strays to complain about the lack of barnyard eye-pop. I'm doing my best. Shoot to hell besmirching words, let's picnic. No sign of DPS3 on Peoplesound. Not sure why I keep this part in diary form, the highlight of the week has been a much needed haircut (Mr Toppers Goodge Street, the place since what's-her-name left Fish).

1st April 2002. 'Battle Royale' is now in the hands of Consignia, destination Peoplesound.com. I left out most of the electronic 'experimentation' - sometimes it feels like everyone is doing the same experiment when it comes to electronica - and kept to songs proper - it's a filling, non-flashy third slice. Or just as flashy as the other two. Sheesh, can it rollick. And as nourishing as a novel, friends. Roll up. Response from friends has been good - 'real beauty in this madness' 'sexy and sweet'.

Here's some sleevenotes. Thank you again for visiting this site or downloading songs. You grow up fast putting the contents of your - what a girl called Amerikan Science once described as - 'friendly neighbourhood artschool bum' inky jotters - on-line. The default artschool approach, whilst not being opposed to cold academia, was simply to take anything real you might be feeling and to use it, whatever it may be. It hardly reaches 'primal scream', but the internet does tend to fill you with odd desires and ambitions, then flashes of self-consciousness - a mixed bag of benefits and risks. Learning not to care is the preferred solution, so long as you keep quality in your thoughts.

Right now how I feel is not the kind of thing anyone would want to read. If you've ever finished something important to you - you don't feel like having a launch party - you feel quite empty, grieving - like the come-down after a good holiday or a break. I've been writing off-line, but back soon - I'd like. Thanks again.