* 19 February 1981, Friday 2.30am

These old diary entries were all written so late at night, have you noticed? What a night owl I was.

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I have been very busy. I’ve organised handbills and today I pasted a painting by Hieronymous Bosch onto Carl’s drumskin. In about six hours Christine and I have to return her mother’s car. I must take with me the photos for Tony Harding : he is doing our record cover. [Scarecrow – pictured in an earlier post]

I snapped at Christine today and I could see she was hurt because she walked straight out of the room without finishing her cantaloupe. I had made a bad error with Carl’s drumskin and she’d laughed.

- Christine, don’t laugh. It really irritates me.

She’d sounded so derisive. But there has always been a sort of mocking tone in her laugh. I should have known a time would come that it annoyed me.

I could not apologise right away.

We’ve been watching Craig Elrick’s huge colour television here all night. Christine made dinner. Troy refused to make coffee. I am jealous of Troy, you know – the way he flirts with Christine – even now I hear the sounds of her laughter from the other room … it sounds so pathetic … God, what am I writing?

It doesn’t hurt me now. I’ve turned off my emotions. But with eliminating the jealousy, I must also lessen my love for Christine. I’ve been wondering all day if this thing is waning [Oh, how I would flourish in the pain of a break-up [!]] But, admittedly I have been tired and in a grumpy mood.

We moved most of Christine’s possessions here today – they’ll stay till she gets a house.

I have what Christine believes to be warts on my cock. I must go to one of those family planning centres. Who’s planning families now? … I am embarrassed to go …

Now my flat is annoying m. I’d like it much simpler. There is tinfoil over the walls and yesterday I added to the film jungle [once again] with milk-bar type streamers over the door


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Re: the drumskin. The Boys Next Door had a song called The Red Clock by Rowland Howard… the red clock goes tick tock … and someone had decorated the skin of their bass drum with a very cool looking interpretation of the title. I think that’s what drove me to make sure ours was a cool one too.

I think it was about this time that I ate my first avocado. It was Christine’s sister Anne, who introduced me to it, halved, with vinegar poured into the seed-hole. Believe it or not, avocados were a very rare thing prior to 1981. Mangoes came even later.

And with regards to those warts - now that I've made the mistake of mentioning them - they were successfully frozen off shortly afterwards.

Diary of 1981 - index