Thursday 8th November 1984

Hello again

I've got good plans for the diary tapes. But I'm not writing them down yet.

Bev read Bks 12 and 13 today. Good for her. *

I might be getting a La Dusseldorf LP (Who?) **

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I think Lesley read all of Bk 11 because she asked me about "Love and hate" and my (non existent) play ***. No-one knows what "MFL" stands for.

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Ok cruelty corner. Newton gave me four tapes**** for Bk 11 and I've been told to make one master and three copies. I've almost finished the master and apart from one or two hiccups at the start, it's brilliant. My use of record lyrics for the Rachel / "Pocket calculator" sequence is great. Anyway cruelty corner. I'll make one copy and give it, out of the kindness of my heart, to Rachel. The other two tapes will contain (a) guitar feedback for Newton and (b) blank for the auction. Everyone will accuse Newton of conning the public and Rachel will have a copy of Bk 11. Screw Newton, the bastard!

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* The question has been asked "Why did I keep taking my diary into school?" The answer is complicated. My diary had a controversial birth and everyone in my year group knew about it and were interested to know what I'd written. Back in Autumn 1982 my English teacher Mrs Chater gave everyone an exercise book and told them to use it as a diary which she would then "mark" every week. Yes really. Everyone else in my class gave this clear invasion of teenage privacy the minimum amount of effort it deserved and didn't do it. But I'd never had a diary before and found it a good way of expressing myself and organising my thoughts. It was a remarkable time in my life, just discovering (a) the music I loved and (b) the opposite sex and the early books of the diary record me crushing on Debbie and buying my first records. Bk 2 though was where it became controversial because I wrote "The Teacher Files", a one line review of every teacher in the school. Mrs Chater went apeshit, ripped the pages out and told me to never do it again. I just told her I'd stopped the diary and didn't hand it in to her, but carried on anyway. Everyone in my year knew about the incident and soon the conversations went from "What did you write about Mr Lewis?" to "What did you write about me?" The easiest way to answer that was to take books into school from time to time. Was I writing for an audience then? Forty years on it's hard to say. These words read like my mind at the time, and it's clear that sometimes I'm horrified by how people had interpreted my words. Maybe my thoughts were controversial anyway. I am editing out the most egregious thoughts (some of the language I use about certain girls I find uncomfortable and unjustifiable) but the majority of this is how I felt at the time. Was I attention seeking? Probably. It did make Rachel talk to me, if only for the occasional sentence, which was clearly a massive victory for me. The mentions of "publicity stunts" is interesting because I had nothing to promote except myself. I was putting myself forward as someone interesting, different, someone willing to chronicle the times. Forty years on it's an intriguing time capsule. But did it make me popular? I doubt it. But it made people want to know what was in the diary and the only way to find out was through me, so I took books into school then incidents happened and I wrote about them in the diary then people wanted to know what I'd written so... You get the picture. The simple answer to the original question is possibly "Because I'm an egotistical show off". 

The other answer is "Undiagnosed Autism" which has always made me do stupid things to draw attention to myself. Hence this blog. 

** Ah the random joy of mail order record shopping. Every three months GEMA Records would send us a wad of closely typed A4 paper, their quarterly mail order list. My brother, my father and I would peruse the list (usually with a magnifying glass), choose some records and send off a cheque. About a month later some of our choices would be sent to us, sometimes everything we wanted, sometimes nothing. In this case I'd heard Midge Ure play "Rheinita" by La Dusseldorf on a radio show during the summer and I liked it and noted the name. An album by La Dusseldorf was on the GEMA list that quarter so I chose it. A quick search on Goldfish for GEMA Records reveals how the random mail order element led to their choices falling through the letterbox at life changing moments in my life (March 86, August 86, February 87). 

*** "Love and hate" was a musical play based on my non existent love life at the time, there's a list of songs and suggested cast list in Bk 11. This would naturally come back to bite me on the bum. The play didn't exist but the songs did. 

**** I've still got one of these tapes, it was an old Open University tape that I recorded over. I must listen to it one day.