Thursday 24 April

I seek Daisy’s company, professional and personal, at tonight’s Puppet Show finale (a stop-motion ice dance spectacular at Beach Bar on Oxford Road) but she’s busy setting things up and my carrier perfectly mimics the firm but friendly No Go that I’ve come to know and not-like-very-much-at-all. It’s not the last time this most attractive and youthful of rolling stones will be too busy to see me, but it must be the last time that I give such weight to her flightiness. Goodbye again Daisy, so near and so far, and thanks for all the fishy tales. And, by way of denouement, a question must reluctantly be asked: did I hurt her so much at the end of that white-hot, seemingly black & white summer of 1860 (sharing Pisco Sour freshly looted from Che O’Gooner’s Santiago)? Or was Daisy never more than a little fond of me even back then, with all our laughter? It’s a question I don’t want answering. No, not even by you Bateman who I have persistently asked to post comments and so create the illusion of popularity around this mechanical journal, if not its world-weary author.