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-from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, wherefrom Mr Edwards's parents took the name.

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Mr Edwards is a London-based writer, flâneur, 21st Century Fop, pontificator, songwriter, musician, nervous narcissist, dysfunctional dandy, occasional DJ and artist's model.

Since 1997 he's kept a sporadic and slightly celebrated Internet Diary, now located at his own website, here.

Mr Edwards spends his days in cheap cafes where the seats are bolted down. He enjoys drinking sake, reading Saki and being sarky. He is a dandy gadfly that gads about London, stinging strangers into reaction. One side-effect is fronting the exotic and disdainful band Fosca, who have released two albums and four singles (and counting), and performed concerts in France, Greece, and Sweden as well as countless London shows.

He has also contributed to Scarlet's Well, the exotic musical incarnation of Bid, erstwhile frontman of The Monochrome Set.

Lately, Mr Edwards has started to appear on the shelves of bookshops. He's written the Afterword for a new edition of Jerome K Jerome's 1886 work, The Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow (Snowbooks, Autumn 2004), and will soon be gracing the cover of The Decadent Handbook, a new anthology edited by Rowan Pelling (Dedalus Books, August 2006). He's currently working on a series of linked novels, featuring his own curious, tragicomic brand of English Magical Realism.

However, he is perhaps best known for being "that man who looks like that."

Livejournal Friends Policy
Since moving his diary to his website, Mr Edwards now uses this LiveJournal account partly to peer into to the lives of his readers (readers of DE tend to be interesting, intelligent and gentle, after all), and partly as an indication of readership. If you have a LJ account and enjoy reading his words, please do 'Add' him as a LJ Friend to register your reading presence. He will probably reciprocate the kindness. However, please don't do this if you expect comments from Mr Edwards on your own LJ. Just because he doesn't comment on a diary doesn't mean he isn't reading it. And besides, he has a reputation of tantalising aloofness to maintain. Also, he can only view 'Friends Only' posts via this account.

LJ Guestbook
Readers are invited to sign a quasi-guestbook here.

Is Dickon his real name?
Yes. Although born Richard Edwards, his parents called him by the archaic derivative of Richard, "Dickon", from as early as he can recall. He was Dickon Edwards throughout childhood, school and college.

What does he do for a living?
Currently struggling by on National Assistance until he can finally earn an regular income from a symptom of Being Dickon Edwards.

Past Side-Effects.
Prior to Fosca, Mr Edwards was the lyricist and co-tunesmith in the cult "romo soul" group Orlando, who released several singles, including one under the name Shelley (Sarah, 1995), two subsequent Melody Maker Singles of The Week (1996), and an album, "Passive Soul" (WEA/Blanco Y Negro, 1997), which achieved 8/10 in NME and made it into Melody Maker Critics' Top 20 Albums of 1997.

He once wrote an article in Melody Maker on the Manic Street Preachers, subsequently quoted in various biographies of the band, including, deliciously, "The Manic Street Preachers - In Their Own Words."

He has also been officially wished dead by Melody Maker magazine.

In 1999 and 2000, Mr Edwards played guitar for the band Spearmint, whose tours enabled him to indulge his Rock God fantasies in many exotic locations he'd previously not visited: Tokyo, Oslo, Paris, Middlesbrough...

Current Disposition
Sometimes described (at best) as a harmless character and idiot savant, he remains happy to slide down what Tom Lehrer calls "the razorblade of life". Having failed at all the things most other people seem to accomplish with relative ease (love, sex, a permanent income), he has accepted his station in life as a sad clown. He maintains his appearance so his friends can spot him in a crowd and his enemies can see him coming.

He keeps a diary for the reason many people do: to try and slow time down. He puts his diaries on the Internet because he can't bear to wait until he's notorious enough for them to be published in book form. He tries not to include anything about the other real people who are helplessly dragged into his entries that they'd rather not have broadcast to the world, mind. His own life is pretty much fair game. That said, he endeavours to limit the diary to matters that might be vaguely interesting to the outside world. A Good Read is foremost in his thoughts.

Mr Edwards lives alone in one extremely cluttered room in Highgate, London N6.