Today is fast turning out to be another glorious day. Lyn and I had a late breakfast in a local cafe, then, while she headed home, I went to watch a bit of the cricket in the park again, after which I decided a short walk was in order. 'Short' turned out to be a misnomer, however: after a meander through the park, I decided to go take a look at the river. Not far from here, there is a lane called Anchor and Hope Lane, which runs alongside the Thames; it has beautiful views across the mighty river, forming, as it does, a part of the river walk. I think they have renovated it slightly recently ahead of the Olympics.

London and her river looked serene today. Interestingly, while I was up there I had my first look at the new cable car. I had thought that was still in the planning stage, but it now looks like it is almost ready. Indeed, while I was there they started to test it: it looked quite fast. No doubt it ill be slower when carrying passengers, but even so I can't wait to have a ride on it with Lyn.

After that I took a brief look at what was happening at the dome, and then wended my way home. Not such a short walk, but I find such strolls useful for clearing my head, thinking, and getting to know a city I now love even more intimately.

Sometimes the best days are those I better not blog about, or wouldn't know where to begin anyway. Yesterday was just such a day. You'l know all about it soon enough, but for now let it suffice to say Lyn and I are involved in something very big. Well, Lyn is - I just go with her for the ride. Mind you, it's shaping up to be a hell of a ride! Just stay tuned, as they say; this is going to be awesome!

While I don't think I would go as far as equating what the Tories are doing to the Nazi T4 program, as such comparisons usually just work to make one seem far too militant, I think I'll just direct you here, to a call to arms by Bob Williams-findlay. It is certainly true, of course, that people with disabilities are being hit hardest by the cuts; the cuts have indeed caused deaths. Thus such a battle-cry is needed; as Williams-Findlay writes: ''We MUST mount a resistance, fighting cuts and oppressive policies, is not enough in relation to this ideological onslaught - it is a State run 'hate campaign' and more and more disabled people will die.'' We must all unite under a single banner and combat this foe together; that is, after all, why there needs to be an 'us' and a 'we'. I just fear that using language that is too strong, going too far in our comparisons (and, the flying spaghetti monster knows, I can be just as guilty of that as anyone) might actually alienate people who would otherwise be on our side, putting people off by looking like a bunch of teenagers moaning for the sake of it.

My dad came to visit us this morning. It was great to see him, talk a bit, and eat lunch together. While he was here, he read to me a few pages from Pomerance's The Horse Who Drank The Sky. Dad has a fine reading voice. He only read a page or two to me, but in a way it would have been quite hilarious if he had read a page or two more. I read on to myself after he had left, and got to a passage concerning the filming of Antonioni's 'Bow up' (1966). As shown here, there's quite a famous scene in the film set in a park - a park not a stones throw from where we were sitting. Blow up was filmed in Maryon park, and in fact pomerance describes walking there himself in 2005. I could have taken dad there myself, shown him the very scene described in the book. But, nevermind, that walk will have to wait; I'll just have to go myself, if only to celebrate finishing a great book. Interestingly, though, pomerance describes a spooky aesthetic to these scenes: what he did not mention, possibly because he did not know, was that this was part of the 'hanging wood', where highwaymen were put to death in the nineteenth century. What a place to set a film about a murder. To those who do know, I personally think this fact adds another eery dimension to the scenes in question, and certainly complements what Pomerance was suggesting, although that might just be an historic irony.

[Edited 15/05/2012 at 18:29:44 - added a bit]
[Edited 15/05/2012 at 19:52:11 - grammar]

I must say how concerned I am about government plans for disability living allowance. While I think it safe to say that Lyn an I fall well over the threshold for qualifying as needing state benefits, I have come across, in some quarters of the disability sphere as well as outside of it, a notion that too many people are claiming it who are just lazy. While I have come to expect such tosh from the political right, would you believe I have heard fellow crips starting to suggest some people claiming to belong to our community shouldn't, and are jumping on the political bandwagon yet have no experience of 'real' disability, whatever that is.

I have no idea how widespread such views are; I hope they belong to a tiny, easily ignored, minority. The ,moment one disabled person starts casting doubt on a fellows' right to call themselves disabled is the moment our community begins to fragment from the inside, and that must not happen. A forty year old with CP has no more right to call himself a member of the disability community than a twenty-five year old diagnosed with bipolar last year, simply because they didn't go through the hell many crips went through in the 70s or the special school system. Such thinking is just plain wrong; I find it abhorrent, and, while I know freedom of speech is sacrosanct, part of me says that such voices must be countered lest they be taken as something other than the tiny, ill-informed minority they are.

[Edited 14/05/2012 at 21:54:14 - spelling]