Different Just Because They Want To Be

We all know that antisemitism is worryingly on the rise, but I feel slightly nervous to confess that there is something about the whole issue which I simply do not understand. Earlier today I came across this video of Miriam Margolyes, Michael Rosen & Alexei Sayle discussing being jewish and their experiences of antisemitism. They talk about being picked on as children and othered. The thing is, it seems to me that to all intents and purposes, there is nothing to differentiate them from anyone else: to look at them they look like any other European or Anglo-saxon. They are white, able-bodied and straight; there is ultimately nothing to other them from any other ‘normal’ member of society. What puzzles me is, why talk of yourself as other, unless you want to be other? Why rhetorically split yourself off from the norm unless you want to derive a form of political capital from it?

I have written fairly often here about my experiences as a disabled man and going to a special school: being educated separately from other kids will inevitably make you feel different or separate from most other people. The same goes for things like needing to use lifts when people use stairs, or having to use special entrances. Yet ultimately the reasons behind such differences are physical ones: my body simply works differently. Look at me and I look different. I am, whether I like it or not, ‘other.’ So why would these three comedians want to emphasise there supposed other-hood, especially given it has historically caused so much suffering? Why go out of their way to split themselves off from the norm, if not simply because being normal is culturally too boring, and it’s far more interesting to identify as a member of an oppressed minority these days? The problem is, in doing so they reinforce the artificial cultural divisions which have brought about so much turmoil. I have even heard being jewish referred to as a ‘race’, when the notion of race – as in a biological subcategory of humanity – is one of the most problematic and harmful notions ever. Certain people seem to want to actively reinforce it though, if just in order to say some people are inherently ‘different’. If everyone simply forgot about being ‘gay’ or ‘black’ or ‘jewish’, and just saw ourselves as ‘human’, it seems to me that there would be a lot less animosity in the world. Thus clinging to such identities, particularly those with such non-physical basises, seems totally illogical to me.

I’m not writing this to cause offence; I don’t want to sound antisemitic or anything. As I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, this is something I genuinely don’t understand. Why reinforce the very divisions we need to be outgrowing?

Platforming the Agents of Division

While I admit that the ‘disease-ridden rat’ part may have been over-egging the Sunday morning omelette, I felt inspired to make this after watching Zia Yusuf on the Laura Kuenssberg show this morning. How he had the audacity to sit there and say that his pimp Farage had nothing to answer for, and in fact had somehow acted ‘bravely’, in the light of his utterly disgraceful behaviour this week, was truly an insult to us all. Such abject spectacles always work me up. Mind you, having posted it on a few Facebook pages a couple of hours ago, you should see the reaction it’s getting.

Addendum. If you want to watch Femi’s thorough debunking of the toxic nonsense Yusuf spouted earlier, and his explanation of why it was so foul, please go here.

How Is America Putting Up With This?

I go up to Westminster quite a bit. Not every day or every week, but regularly enough. Thanks to the Jubilee Line, I can get up there very easily; and I think I’ve written here before about my reverence for the statues in Parliament Square. Crowded with tourists though it often is, I think it’s fair to say that that is an area of national pride and solemnity, with police officers on patrol and MPs going in and out of parliament. Now, imagine if one day we somehow elected a complete idiot as Prime Minister. Even more imbecilic than Boris Johnson or Liz Truss put together, they decide that, to mark the occasion of a great national celebration, it would be a fantastic idea to erect a boxing arena in the midst of the Square and to have crowds of people come to watch men fight. In between the statues of great historic figures like Churchill, Gandhi and Mandella, crowds of people would be invited to come, drink beer, shout and scream while watching people pretend to beat eachother up. How degrading would that be and and how collectively insulted would we feel?

It appears that that is exactly what is going to happen in Washington this summer. To mark the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the United States, Donald Trump now plans to create a UFC ring in front of the White House. I just read about it, and I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I burst out laughing. Trump’s ball room was bad enough – he seems to think the seat of his nation’s government is little more than a hotel or holiday resort – but this is frankly so crass it is frankly beyond words. Americans are usually quite renowned for their patriotism, and surely that will extend to a certain reverence for their national infrastructure; so how the flying fuck can they let Trump trample all over it and use it as his own egotistical plaything? Reducing it into the stage for something so infantile and vulgar? The spectacle of that hoard of fascist morons in Parliament Square two weeks ago was bad enough, but this is so abject it is frankly horrifying.

…Or would be if it wasn’t so hilarious. In all honesty I don’t see how America or Americans can currently be taken seriously, given that they continue to allow Trump to treat their state with such abject disrespect.

Not All Tiers Are An Evil

While I can’t say I’m absolutely cool with it, I think I need to flag this very interesting little piece by my friend James Cullis up. The notion of social tiers has cropped up in the national discourse, and James argues that adapting to everyones need is an essential result of human diversity, so to a certain extent social stratification is inevitable. As he puts it, “We prioritise, we triage, we judge. Society works because we discriminate — not in the moral sense, but in the literal one: we distinguish between cases.This is why the Novak scandal was so disturbing. It was a grotesque parody of justice, and yes, anyone who manipulates religion to game the system should be condemned. But here is where I part ways with Starmer: tiered policing exists because society itself is tiered. It is not a glitch in the system; it is part of the system.If we truly wanted “one tier,” then let’s be honest about what that would mean. Remove the ramps from buses. Rip out the lifts. Tell disabled people and the elderly to climb the stairs. Abolish sign language. Scrap subtitles. Eliminate every accommodation that acknowledges human difference.”

I think that, on the face of it, this is quite incontestable, and very well put. The thing is problems arise when such ideas are taken too far and this stratification is used to justify inequality and injustice. We are indeed all different, everyone has different needs, and society should accommodate those needs; but that should not be allowed to give rise to some kind of social hierarchy. Accepting that everyone is different should not then be twisted into the idea that some people are inherently worth more than others. If anything, the fact that there is no such thing as a “normal human being” means precisely the opposite: we all have equal potential and equal worth, so society/the environment needs to adapt to help everyone fulfil that potential, whatever their needs may be. Somewhat paradoxically, treating everyone equally does not automatically mean treating everyone the same. If some people are more capable than others, then surely those with more ability should assist those with less, be that help practical, physical, financial or whatever. Diversity should thus not be used to underpin notions around socioeconomic class. That is why, in spite of his otherwise solid argument, I find Cullis’ use of the term tier in the quazi-positive sense he does seems to leaves a slightly nasty taste in my my mouth, as it carries with it overtones of the very social stratification that we need to be breaking free from. Yet Cullis seems to imply that such tiering, in this context, is a good thing.

The notion of tiers can therefore be taken either way: used as the basis for equality and acceptance, or abused to justify discrimination and hierarchies. We are currently watching it being taken both ways. The scandal around Henry Novak is now being hijacked: such stratification is being sold to people in the name of tiers, and used as evidence for the perverse notion of “two tier policing”. The fact that some people’s needs differ from other’s should not be used to argue that some people deserve more than others simply because of who they are, or to stir up animosity between groups of people. That’s what makes what we saw yesterday in parliament so sickening, and this cultural impasse so dangerous.

A Disgrace To Parliament

I have just watched Prime Minister’s Questions for the first time in a while. I rarely watch PMQs these days because it winds me up too much, but my parents were visiting and they asked me to put it on. Rather inevitably, of course, I soon started to shout at the screen: The issues around the death of Henry Nowak of course were one of the main topics for discussion, and I have to say I was utterly disgusted by the abject spectacle of Nigel Farage trying to exploit the tragedy for his own ends. To see him trying to warp the story to suit his baseless bullshit about two tier policing was sickening.

I will obviously know as much about this story as anyone else: I’ll have only seen what everyone else has. The footage is of course horrifying. Yet I don’t think it can be used as the basis for a highly political, right wing argument that members of ethnic minorities are treated differently or preferentially to white people. I don’t know anything about police training, but I think it is reasonable to assume that, like all members of the social services, they are rightly taught to respect the diversity of contemporary culture, and that, as such, members of different ethnic or religious minorities might need treating slightly differently. That is just a product of the complexity of modern culture, and as such ought to be valued and welcomed. What might be acceptable to a member of one minority might not be acceptable to another: I would be quite comfortable to take my cap off if I was asked to by a policeman, whereas a Sikh man might not want to remove his turban.

To see this being exploited to fit a sickening, reactionary agenda in parliament earlier was appalling. It wasn’t just Farage – many Tories seemed just as eager to warp and bend it for their own xenophobic gain, arguing it means that white men are treated worse by the police than members of ethnic minorities. Doing so not only panders to the pathetic sense of victimhood increasingly felt by straight white poorly educated men being fermented by the likes of Tommy The Ten Named P’Tahk; it also ferments inter-communal division and tension. Nowak’s family had explicitly asked that the murder of the son not be exploited, but today we saw Farage doing precisely that, using a horrifying murder to stir up hatred and to suit his own petulant, abhorrent ends. I honestly think he is a disgrace to parliament and should be expelled from it immediately: we shouldn’t have such divisive, reactionary charlatans. anywhere near our government.

Mind Your Own Toes, You Snooty Cow!

Tell me, would you not feel highly insulted if, wheeling into the lift at the Woolwich Elisabeth Line station last night, an elderly couple gets in with you, and you hear the woman exclaim haughtily to her husband “Mind your toes!” Given that you haven’t driven your powerchair anywhere near anyone’s feet, upon hearing this you instantly feel extremely insulted. But then, when you try to confront the couple about it, they both completely ignore you and, upon reaching the ground floor, make straight for the station exit as though you didn’t exist. You pursue the couple for a few metres, until they head into the M&S next to the station, obviously thinking it was the only place people like them should do their evening shopping, at which point you give up and head for the bus stop. So, what would you do? Would you not feel indignant at being so patronised and spoken over? Would you not want to call them out on it and explain that such language and attitudes were not acceptable? Or would you just ignore it, accepting it as just part of the background discrimination which you know you’re going to have to put up with all your life?

Or would you mentally chalk it up as material for your next blog entry….

Video Games are Not Films

Everyone probably knows I’m a bit of a James Bond fan, but if you were expecting me to say anything about the new Bond video game which apparently came out, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. It isn’t only that I see such games as an infantile waste of time and would probably have no interest in playing them even if I had the dexterity to; more that I don’t see how such games can have any kind of relationship to the character or narratives that they claim to be based upon.

As much as certain teenage doofuses might want to pretend otherwise, video games are not films. Films, like the novels that they are often based on, are pieces of narrative art: they are the creation of a director, and, our personal reception notwithstanding, do not change each time they are watched. Like any other form of art, film has a definite, discernible meaning. Video games operate on an entirely different basis. They are basically distractions which players enter into to achieve a goal, changing every time they are played. To see the two as somehow on a par is thus meaningless: playing a video game is not effectively acting out a movie. That is why it really irritates me when all these numpties on YouTube, who have previously often posted some excellent James Bond film reviews, start playing games and talking as though they’re of the same order.

Of course I know that a lot more could be said about the relationship between films and games, and I realise I have plenty more to explore. When you start to think about it, the relationship between the two is not that straightforward, and could actually be quite intriguing. Yet I simply cannot deny that the cinephile in me finds the notion of 007 being turned into a computer graphic in a game and used to do little more than shoot his way through labyrinths, an absolute insult to the intriguing enigmatic figure I know Bond to be. The character Ian Fleming created was so much more than a man with a gun: to see him commercialised and rendered into an adolescent plaything in this way really does bug me.

Down House

I initially took Thursday to be quite an uninteresting day. I got home tired and frustrated, having set off to explore the area around Orpington, but not having come across anything especially remarkable. My plan had been to go to Orpington and from there try to finally get beyond the M25, but I took a few wrong turns and ended up getting rather lost. To my surprise I ended up going along country lanes like the ones I used to know in Cheshire. An afternoon of this lead me to somewhere called Downe, from where I fortunately found a bus I could take to Bromley, and then home.

Sitting at the bus stop, Downe struck me as such a quaint, rural place that I was rather taken by it. It felt like I’d somehow been transported a few hundred kilometres away from the metropolis and was suddenly sitting in the rolling fields of rural England. Once back at home I therefore naturally punched the village name into google, if just to find out where the zark I had taken myself to, only to find something extremely cool. Down House, a place I had noticed sign posted from the bus stop, was once the home of Charles Darwin. A bit more trundling would have seen me come across the home of one of the greatest scientists of all time.

To be honest when I saw that I felt slightly frustrated, but at least I now knew how to get there again. Thus yesterday I set off, simply reversing the journey I had made the previous evening. This time it was nice and straightforward, although I was still taken by how rural that area of Greater London feels, while still being within the M25. It honestly felt like I could have been back in Alsager or Swettenham.

A short ride from the bus stop found me at the house, and I instantly felt like I was on hallowed ground. Of course, Down House has now been converted into a museum run by English Heritage, so I was able to go in for free. There was a working, well maintained lift, so I was able to go up to see a quite fascinating exhibition on the journey of the Beagle, including a video narrated by David Attenborough. The information on display was incredible, although you could still tell that the place had once been someone’s family home.

As usual I didn’t stay long before feeling the need to start finding my way home, but as with my visit to Eltham Palace last week I determined that it would not be long before I head back. To have stumbled across somewhere so remarkable as a result of getting so lost is something I find truly awesome, and is why I venture out in my powerchair every day. London , it would seem, still holds many more surprises up it’s sleeve.

Shut Up Sadiq

It will come as no surprise that I still keep an eye on news related to the Olympic Games, and talk of potential future UK olympic bids. The matter cropped up on the breakfast news this morning, albeit fleetingly, in reference to a potential future bid to host the 2040 games in the North-West. If that comes about, it would be incredible: I may live in London, but I was born and brought up in Cheshire, so the prospect of my home area being thrust onto the world stage is something I’m completely behind. With a view to updating myself on what is being said about this bid, I naturally hit Google, only to find this story from two weeks ago which automatically put a very nasty taste in my mouth. “Sir Sadiq Khan has criticised the government’s plans for a possible north of England bid for the Olympics and Paralympics, saying that excluding the capital city would be “a missed opportunity”.”

I’ve written here before multiple times how enamoured I am with London and how captivating I find it: it is surely one of the greatest cities on Earth. Yet there comes a time when it can grow all too presumptuous, and assume the world revolves around it. This is obviously such a point. We all remember how awesome the 2012 olympics were, but surely it is time to give other UK cities their crack of the whip and their chance to shine. Assuming that any UK olympic bid must involve London is the epitome of London-centrism. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see cities like Liverpool and Manchester become the centre of global attention, just as London was fourteen years ago? And why should London be allowed to muscle in on that? More to the point, such remarks create a nasty discordant rivalry between north and south, the capital and other cities, which I’m not at all comfortable with.

Even so, this is something I’ll be keeping quite a close eye on. After losing out in Manchester’s bids for the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, surely it’s time for the North of England to get it’s turn.

Sickening Corruption

This is getting sickening. I’ve recently watched quite a few Youtube videos on just how appallingly corrupt the USA is becoming, of which I think this is one of the best. There was a time, just after the second world war, when America was lorded as the world’s saviour and bastion of democracy: everyone loved American culture, film. and music. From what I’ve been hearing, it acted magnanimously and selflessly. Quite frankly, the contrast with the US we see today couldn’t be more gut-churning: a vile, selfish culture of arrogant luddites, lead by a wannabe despot. With more and more people crying out in genuine anguish and bewilderment at the direction the country is heading in, surely the time is fast approaching for the rest of humanity to step in.

Just A Laugh

It was just a laugh: a fleeting expression of mirth and amusement to another as they passed me earlier today. It barely lasted a second, and didn’t hurt or harm me in any way. Why, then, did I feel so enraged by it? Why did I let it get to me enough that it made me want to leap out of my chair and punch them both? Was it their impertinence – the sentiment of arrogance, superiority and derision I perceived beneath their chuckle? Its suddenness – the fact it came from nowhere out of the blue, just as I was setting off on my daily trundle? Or the simple fact that they would never laugh so openly at anyone else, yet I will always have no choice but to accept such mockery.

An Umbrella, Mate? Seriously?

I know how important it is not to take the piss out of other people’s cultures or traditions, but from time to time I see something that really does stretch my incredulity. We all know how unseasonably hot it is in the UK: in fact I had to stay home yesterday afternoon because it was so warm. Today though, not wanting to be confined to base, I ventured out. No doubt like most other people I was wearing shorts and a T shirt, but crossing a nearby road I saw something that I frankly found utterly baffling: a man, who I presume was Jewish, wearing a thick heavy suit and large coat. He must have been absolutely boiling! Even more bizarrely though, he was carrying an umbrella*. I realise that it may be part of his culture, and that such things have to be respected; but surely there comes a point where the stupidity and weirdness of such things has to be pointed out.

*To be fair a while later I spotted two women carrying open umbrellas, which I presume they were using as parasols; but from the way the man was carrying his closed and under his arm, I got the impression that it was part of some kind of custom or cultural uniform.

Big Buggies

I was enjoying a cappuccino in Kidbrooke yesterday morning when I saw something which kind of perplexed me. When I was very, very young, I remember being pushed around in a pram. Before I got my first manual wheelchair, I suppose it was the easiest way to move me around when I was outside. Probably like most people, I remember my mum pushing me around shops and the town centre. When I grew too big for it, when I was five or so, we switched to using a small manual wheelchair. Yesterday though, when I was in Starbucks, a man entered pushing his obviously severely disabled son in what looked like a large buggy. It was more or less exactly the same as those used to ferry babies around, only bigger; there was no way the boy in it, who was probably around seven or eight, could push himself around.

Of course, there could be a wide range of reasons why it was a good idea to use this kind of transportation device with this young man. The thing is, I can’t help feeling it infantilises disabled young people: it is like they are still babies, only bigger. At least when I got my first wheelchair I could attempt to propel myself; the young man I noticed yesterday didn’t have that option, but would always be passively pushed from place to place. While I wouldn’t quite say I find that troubling, it nonetheless puts a slightly nasty taste in my mouth. Wheelchairs and powerchairs are something which you see adults using, but such enlarged buggies, however practical they may be, will always limit the person in them to the role of an infant. At least in a manual chair you have the potential to move yourself around, but such buggies seem to me to deprive young disabled people of that agency.

When Water Becomes A Problem

Water has suddenly become quite a major problem. While just a few days ago I was desperately trying to keep my powerchair dry from the rain, all of a sudden I’m internally complaining that it’s too flipping hot. It’s like someone has flipped a switch or accidentally turned the local thermostat up to maximum. Of course, such things don’t prevent me going out on my daily trundles, but I know how essential it is to keep hydrated. The issue is, how? For most people it’s just a matter of carrying a bottle of. water around and taking regular swigs, but I feel the need to explain that it’s not so simple for me. I go out alone: I’ve explained here before that my daily trundles often last for hours, and I can go miles, following paths and getting on and off busses. Having a PA following me around would be impractical.

That usually isn’t an issue as long as I’m home in time for dinner. In this heat, though, the issue of drinking water regularly becomes prominent. Of course, I carry a bottle in the bag on my chair, but in order to drink any I need someone to get it out, open it, put my straw in and hold it up to my mouth for me. That means I need to find someone I can trust to do so, which isn’t always as straightforward as it might sound: you can’t just roll up to random people and ask them to do such things. Thinking about it as I was going through Greenwich earlier, I realised it would have to be some kind of community warden or police officer; you have to be very careful who you ask to perform such a task. On the other hand, the only alternative is to return home. In the end one of the staff at the Cutty Sark Museum kindly helped me.

I know this might seem trivial, but I don’t think people realise how much of an issue such little things can be for guys like myself. IE, when I say I asked someone to help, I mean typing into the communication app on my Ipad what I needed them to do and why. I feel almost indebted or subservient to the person helping me, like a baby suckling it’s mum. To a certain extent, this creates if not a barrier then a restraining dynamic between myself and others which I’m not sure people realise exists, which is why I think it’s worth writing about here.

A Place where one can Imagine Enjoying a Martini

I came across a tantalising tidbit of information yesterday which made the Bond fan in me go into overdrive. Believe it or not, I had never visited Eltham Palace: I trundle along the paths around it’s grounds quite regularly of course, but before yesterday I had never payed the admission fee to go in. It turning out to be such a sweltering day though, and my curiosity having been growing for a while, I decided it was finally time to investigate.

Thanks to a National Trust card kindly lent to me by John specifically for this reason, I was let in for free. I was expecting to find the remnants of an old medieval stately house or castle, which in itself would have been interesting; but what I found pricked my interest in a way I did not expect. After exploring the gardens, which were their selves pretty enough for me to decide I needed to take my parents there, I went into the Palace. Unfortunately the lady at the gate told me that the lift was broken so I wouldn’t be able to go up to the second floor, but the ground floor wouldn’t be a problem. Looking at the pictures, it appeared extremely 1920s chic, making me remark to the lady that I wondered whether Ian Fleming had ever visited. It was just a casual question, but to my astonishment and excitement, the lady replied that, while she hadn’t seen any record of Fleming visiting, the owners of Eltham Palace at the time, Stephen and Virginia Courtauld, did indeed have connections to the SOE, the Special Operations Executive.

Hearing that in itself was enough to have me break into spasticated squeals of excitement. The Special Operations Executive was formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local resistance movements during the Second World War. Essentially the precursor to MI6, Ian Fleming had a close involvement in it, as personal assistant to Admiral John Godfrey, director of naval intelligence. The prospect that his path could indeed have crossed with the Courtauld’s, or that Fleming may even have been to Eltham Palace – certainly a place where one can imagine enjoying a martini – was enough to make my day.

I clearly had some Googling to do, so after exploring the palace with it’s intriguing juxtaposition of 1930s rooms and medieval hall, I made a beeline home. Unfortunately my investigations didn’t get much further, as I couldn’t find any record of Fleming’s path ever crossing with the Courtauld’s. Yet the notion that one of my favourite authors could have a link, however tenuous, to somewhere so nearby is just too tantalising for me to abandon. After all, we know that Fleming took the number 007 from a bus route which used to run through Eltham; and it’s extremely likely that he and the Courtaulds mingled in the same bourgeois metropolitan social circles. Quite frankly, I find the prospect that I could one day come across a photograph of the creator of the world’s greatest spy casually lounging in one of the sitting rooms I glimpsed yesterday, vesper in hand, simply too delectable to forget. Having said that, the question of what role the Courtaulds played in the SOE is probably just as intriguing. This is obviously something I need to look into.

An Epic Public Transport Adventure

Not that I think anyone else will be particularly interested in things like this, but yesterday I went on a bit of an epic public transport adventure. I’d been wanting to check out London’s tram line again for quite a while: I’d been rather impressed with it a couple of years ago, but I’d been kind of itching to give it another go. On top of that, I had recently realised that I always tend to head to north London on my trundles, without ever exploring the south properly. Thus, my curiosity growing and not much else to do, I set out yesterday. My route was simple, although it took all afternoon to complete: the 122 bus to Lewisham, and then the 75 to Croydon. After checking out Croydon and it’s almost empty shopping mall, I hopped on tram all the way to Wimbledon.

Wimbledon is quite a swanky, affluent area of the metropolis, although, strangely, it’s mall was also eerily quiet. The tram ride there had been smooth and straightforward, although after checking out Wimbledon I din’t really want to ride it all the way back to Croydon. I therefore caught the District line to Paddington, then the Elizabeth Line to Woolwich, from where I caught the 122 home. All very smooth and accessible.

I’m aware that this entry might just read like a list of public transport routes and train stations, and might be rather dull. Yet, to be honest, this is something I am really excited about. I love exploring this city, and part of that joy comes from knowing I can get around it. Now I’ve used the tram I know I can go back and explore more of the places along it’s route; now I’ve been to Wimbledon I know how to go back there to explore more of it. Such adventures open the city up for me more and more, which to be honest strikes me as awesome. I love how the huge, labyrinthine public transport system makes such escapades possible, bringing the entire Metropolis virtually to my doorstep, to the extent that wheeling through it’s step free corridors and up it’s lovely automatic bus ramps almost makes me feel like a child at Christmas.

Having said that, I still find it striking how little transport infrastructure there is in South London compared with north of the Thames: there are the trams, but that’s about it, and they only hook up with the rest of the tube network at Wimbledon. This makes getting around south London far harder and slower, especially for guys like me, so that Croydon felt almost out-of-the-way and unconnected to the rest London. Geology-related issues aside, you’d think there must be some way of extending the tube network south a bit more, and linking areas like Croydon to the rest of the metropolis. Even so, adventures like yesterday’s give me such a euphoric sense of freedom and potential – I feel an almost constant urge to find out what might be around the next corner – that writing about them here, even if it’s just a list of bus routes and train lines, fills me with just as much joy.

I think at least part of that euphoria stems from the fact I know how different things could be: I come from a relatively small town in Cheshire where busses were infrequent, bus ramps still manual and trains or trams more or less non-existent. I know how different things could be, and would still be without the progress made in the last twenty or so years. London’s transport system is still far from perfect and it still has a lot of work to do; but adventures like yesterday’s show me how amazing and global standard-setting it is gradually becoming. That, to be honest, fills me with tremendous pride.

If Trump wins mid-terms

I know I shouldn’t just send everyone to watch videos on Youtube, but I think anyone concerned by the political situation in America needs to watch this. It’s the most recent episode of Chanel Four’s podcast TrumpWorld, and goes into detail about how political maps are being redrawn by the Republicans to deliberately disenfranchise black/Democratic voters. If that is so, it would be the overt reversal of civil rights laws. It’s rather long but lease watch. If what they are saying is correct, I really think we should all be very, very worried.

Artificial Groupings

There is something which I’ve been mulling over for the last few days which I just can’t figure out. It might be slightly controversial, but I think I’ll just come out with it. Historically, black people have been persecuted because of the colour of their skin; gay people have been persecuted because of who they love; disabled people have been and are being persecuted because of our lack of ability. Of course I’m both simplifying and generalising quite a bit, but this is what discrimination boils down to: a difference from the perceived norm. The thing is, such features are an integral aspect of people’s identities: a black person can’t change the colour of their skin any more than I can suddenly stop having cerebral palsy.

The thing is, that is not the case when it comes to religion. Broadly speaking, a religion is a set of stories which one can believe in or not. Such beliefs are often handed down from generation to generation, but there is no inherent biological aspect to them. A person can stop believing or choose to believe something else if they want.

Why, then, are people discriminated against on the basis of their faith? Why would someone ostracise someone else because of something so superficial? Some of the most sickening crimes against humanity ever have been committed along such religious divisions. If they are so corrosive, why do we as a civilisation cling so fervently to such groupings, maintaining barriers between people which don’t really need to exist? After all, unlike skin colour for example, where there is no reason why white people and black people can’t get on perfectly harmoniously, to a certain extent at least religions are mutually exclusive: stating that one deity exists by definition negates all others.

Obviously discrimination in any form is abhorrent and must be opposed; yet if what we find repugnant is a form of animosity expressed by a member of one group towards a member of another group, simply because of their membership of that group, then surely it is logical to simply abandon such groupings where we can.

Humanity is one: one rich, diverse, fascinating plethora. We may have our differences and we may put ourselves into groups, but that is one of the things which makes us all so rich. Some people are white and some are black; some people are straight and some people are gay; some of us have disabilities and some people don’t. There is therefore no such thing as a normal human being, and we are thus all equal and of equal worth.

The problem comes when we put ourselves into artificial groups which don’t really need to exist, and then when such groups are pitted as rivals against each other. Religion is being used to legitimise vitriol more and more; you can watch a truly horrifying explanation of that here. As much as someone’s personal beliefs may mean to them, if religion is such a divisive force, surely it is time humanity grew beyond it.

Why Are We So Divided?

There was an item on the breakfast news this morning about how divided society currently seems to be, and about how an upcoming television drama, apparently set around Gareth Southgate, will address the issue. This is a subject which troubles me very much: we only have to look at what took place in London on Saturday to see the extent to which society is now very much riven into two mutually opposing camps. It’s not just happening here but in the USA and all over the world, and is frankly becoming frightening. Thinking about it during my shower earlier, I started to think about what could be causing this division: Class? Language? Education? The issue soon started to appear very, very complicated, and would probably require a PhD thesis (at least) to look into. But then it occurred to me that the answer might actually be rather simple and obvious: could it just be that society has always been this fractured, but the advent of social media has simply made the fractures more visible? We’ve always placed ourselves into various camps, but the web has simply brought those camps into open contact with one another. The result, unfortunately, is the intensification of social rivalry and open intolerance.

Protest and Division, Light and Dark

The first thing to say about yesterday is my fears proved to be foundationless, and the apprehension I’d been feeling melted away quite quickly. Pretty much immediately after posting yesterday’s entry, I decided to cut the crap, grab the bull by the horns and head up to central London. After all, events like this don’t happen very often. I got the Elisabeth Line up to bond Street, then the Jubilee one stop to Green Park, mainly because I like the interchange tunnels at bond street. From there, it was just a short trundle through Green Park, beautiful in the spring, before reaching Horseguards and then Westminster.

It was at that point that I started to feel slightly nervous: in the distance I could see a seething mass of people, waving England flags and chanting. Quite frankly it was a repugnant sight. I’ve had my dealings with such p’tahks before, and part of me wanted to go up to them and tell them to naff off home – they had no place there, in the heart of this great, metropolitan, multicultural world city.

But instead I walked on in search of the other protest. It wasn’t that long before I began to see people waving Palestinian flags. It was at that point that I began to feel a slightly different kind of apprehension – did I really want to get involved in this? I know how contentious the issues around Israel and Palestine can become, and that there will be people who perceive participating in such marches as itself a form of bigotry and intolerance. Yet I have also seen the images of the devastation in Gaza; I know what the Israeli government is doing there, with many people saying it amounts to aphartied or genocide. This is no longer an issue we can remain passive and silent over. Therefore at that point I joined the march.

Apart from a few uncomfortably loud speaker systems, the march was very peaceful and friendly. There was a huge diversity of people there, giving me the impression that this was the march, rather than the gathering in Parliament Square, which actually represented London. There was a lot of singing and chanting. At one point there was a group of Orthodox Jews showing their support – a vital detail, given Israel and it’s lackeys have gone to so much effort to denigrate such marches as somehow antisemitic. The action I participated in was about love, not hate; it was about standing up for an oppressed people against tyranny. The people I was wheeling alongside didn’t loathe or despise anyone simply for being who they are; they, like me, simply find the sight of brutal, overt oppression repugnant. Not only that, but the protest I participated in yesterday was about opposing all forms of bigotry, intolerance and fascism, wherever it manifests itself. I fear that this action will now be slandered as being as violent, uncouth and discriminatory as the one in Parliament Square, but what I saw yesterday was precisely the opposite: nobody was causing damage, nobody was shouting abuse. I didn’t manage to speak to anyone, but got plenty of fist bumps and complements on my ‘Make America Think Again’ cap.

At the end of the protest route a stage had been set up, where people like Jeremy Corbyn and Dianne Abbot were giving speeches. When I got there, I stayed for an hour or so, listening – I couldn’t see anything for all the people standing in front of me. Most of the speeches were very interesting and extremely powerful, giving me an urge to look into the history of the conflict being discussed a bit more deeply. At one point, the attendance figures of both marches were announced: 250,000 on the Palestinian march, vs. just 25,000 for the other one, causing a massive cheer from the crowd.*

At about half four, my appetite building, I decided it was time to head home. It had been a fascinating day, and my concerns about going to check it out had proven entirely unfounded. Yet the fact remains that what we saw yesterday is symptomatic of a fractured, divided society. Two mutually opposed protests took place, one advocating love and tolerance, the other division, arrogance and hate. As much as I felt compelled to participate, we must all be concerned about such social and cultural fractures.

*According to the Beeb, “An early police estimate was that the numbers on the Unite The Kingdom march were around 60,000, less than half the numbers estimated for September’s march.”

Politics or Cricket?

I’m writing this sat in the Elizabeth Line station at Woolwich, desperately trying to board a train into central London or not. You will no doubt have heard about the two protests that are happening there today: a march in favour of Palestinian solidarity, and a gathering of far right halfwits. Part of me wants to go up there, not so much to get involved in either action as much as to just observe what is going on. Yet I know full well how dangerous things could get; I also know how angry and provoked the sight of such events would probably make me. Part of me thinks I should change my plans and head to Charlton to watch the cricket instead. Thus, sat here I find myself utterly torn between the desire to get involved in the bigger events unfolding in this city today, and an almost tangible apprehension about what might happen.

Tube Lines, Balrogs and Balls

Since the Elizabeth Line opened, I have tended to avoid the jubilee line. It’s still perfectly usable of course, and in fact I used it yesterday ahead of a lovely trundle along the South Bank. It’s just that, compared to the newer line, the jubilee line’s uncomfortably noisy. The strange thing is, the Jubilee line isn’t that old; yet as it goes through its tunnels it frankly sounds like a balrog getting it’s balls bitten off. The Elisabeth Line now seems so much quieter and more pleasant in comparison, I can’t help wondering whether anything could be done to bring the Jubilee up to the the same standard.

Tories Have No Right To Giggle

To be honest I have been slightly reticent about saying anything about the political maelstrom the government currently seems to be going through, as it is just too much of a brewery-bound pissup to go anywhere near. Yet I think I will say the following, simply because I feel compelled to do so: No Tory or right winger has any right to mock, gloat or feel superior to what is currently unfolding in the Labour party. Firstly, I hardly need to point out that they went through very similar turbulence while in government, getting through four leaders in about as many years. Secondly and more profoundly, this current turmoil is a direct, incontestable result of their idiocy. The trouble the UK and it’s economy is going through stems directly from brexit, and would impact any government whatever their colour. Last week, so many barely literate morons voted for the Tories or reform out of disquiet with the status quo and a desire to protest, not understanding that such thinking was what got us into this mess in the first place. Thus I get the feeling that the Tories are giggling at the trouble Labour is going through, but they have no right to do so.

Calm Down Dear

While much of what she says is perfectly valid and very interesting, I can’t help thinking that the woman presenting this video has some pretty significant issues. It’s a fairly coherent analysis of why Americans are – or are perceived to be – so stupid: She goes into detail about things like their education system, and why it was set up decades ago to keep students obedient and unquestioning. It’s quite revealing and well worth watching; yet the Australian woman in it presents with such fury and venom that it took me aback. It is as if she feels personally insulted or wronged by the subject at hand. That might just be her cultural manner, but I think it really detracts from what she is saying. That is a shame, because what she is discussing certainly needs to be said. Perhaps that is one of the drawbacks of online video content versus traditional prose, with everything being delivered with so much gusto to attract hits, it ends up actually detracting from what is being said.

Glasses: Half Full and Unbroken

There are famously always two ways of looking at the same thing: half a glass of water can be half full, half empty or both. I just got back from my daily trundle. It started out as quite a lovely one, heading to Lewisham and then along the river Ravensbourne. There is a very pleasant linear park with a path that I sometimes like to follow. However, just when I was beginning to reflect on how it would be a good place to bring my parents, I somehow suddenly hit a pothole and fell out of my powerchair.

The next thing I knew I was on the floor, having hit my face. The few moments after a fall are always the worst, as you don’t know how much damage has been done or how you’re going to get back up. I stayed there for a few seconds before starting to call out for help. Fortunately within a few more seconds a man had seen me, then a young woman; they helped me back into my chair.  My face felt scratched but wasn’t bleeding.

And just like that I was on my way again, almost as though nothing had happened. People seem to regard such falls as absolutely catastrophic events which ruin one’s day, but I know that it could have been far worse. Nothing was hurting or bleeding and I didn’t need to go to the hospital. For a moment I had been worried that I’d damaged my glasses and the lens had come out, but to my surprise and huge relief they were fine. 

I know how much worse such falls can be, which is why I feel far more relief than dismay when such things happen.  For one, broken glasses would have meant my day would have taken a significant negative turn. There are indeed always two ways of looking at such things, but I think having a disability means that you learn to accept them. Such things inevitably happen, but if nothing is damaged and you can continue on your way afterward, then what is the point of worrying about it? After all things could have been far worse. More generally, people seem to see needing to use a powerchair as something which must be catastrophically depressing; but when you grow up in a special school and have lived your life around other seriously disabled people, you learn that there is always cause to hold your head high. Accidents happen, but there will always be people around to help you up; catastrophes happen, but if you remember that things could be far worse, and carry on through your struggles just as your friends did, things will be okay.

One Thing That Bugs Me About The Elisabeth Line

I’m not sure whether I’ve blogged about this before, but it’s definitely worth reiterating. I’m now a big fan of the Elizabeth Line. I use it quite regularly, and to think that such a system could be created from scratch still makes my jaw drop. I enjoyed a lovely lunch with my family yesterday at a Chinese restaurant in Brent, and so used the Lizzie Line to get to the other side of the metropolis. 

However, what bugs me is the fact that none of the stations on that side of the city are step free, so I have to ask for someone to be waiting for me with a ramp to allow me to get off the train. It obviously isn’t that much of a problem, and yesterday it went without a hitch. Yet, you would think that, given it’s a completely new railway line, surely all of the platforms could have been made level with the train.  That way, guys like me could just get on and off when we want, without having to tell the station staff of our intentions or having to commit to a fixed destination. Joking aside, the need to tell TFL staff where I want to go makes me feel kind of awkward and special;  would it have been so difficult to lump a little more concrete onto the platforms in the right places to make journeys like mine slightly more seamless?

While a small part of me thinks that perhaps I should just pipe down and be satisfied that so much of the public transport network is as accessible as it now is, the fact is the need to ask for a ramp, rather than being able to hop on and off trains as I want, makes me feel singled out. What other London commuters need to tell station staff where they are going? More to the point, given that they spent such an eye-watering sum on the Elizabeth line, to be honest it baffles me that it isn’t quite perfect.

Is World War Three Coming?

I’m not going to pretend I understand/get everything he’s talking about, but this must be one of the most interesting pieces of Star Trek related analysis I’ve seen in a long time. Basically, according to Star Trek’s mythos, humanity is supposed to have a third world war, and the utopia it depicts will rise out of that cataclysm. The guy in this video looks at the extent to which that might be coming true: we are indeed now living in an ultra capitalist dystopia with far right politics on the rise. While the delivery is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, he makes several fairly in-depth philosophical and scientific references, making what he has to say well worth checking out. Mind you, one thing I would point out that he doesn’t seem to pick up on is that the future Star Trek depicts is not in fact a worldwide global utopia at at all, but simply an Americanised globe or the world remade in America’s image; something which, especially at the moment, is looking distinctly repugnant.

The Sudden Return of Summer

It would seem that summer has suddenly arrived like the reappearance of an old friend after a long, dark absence. I just got in from my usual daily trundle. It was nothing special, checking out Greenwich Park and then heading down to its busy Saturday market. Before heading home though, I thought I would head to Charlton park, mostly because it had been so long since I had last been there. I still have very fond memories of watching cricket in that lovely little park, but I had assumed it was still too early in the year for matches to have resumed.

However, to my great and joyous surprise, there was a match being played. There is no better sight than that of men in white dashing between wickets or about a green pitch, under a sky of pure blue. Even better, as I was rolling up to the pitch, the guys recognised me and called out. It suddenly felt like a decade of happy summers had come sweeping back in one blissful wave. There really is no better feeling. I was suddenly among good friends – guys who read my blog and know how to help me eat sandwiches.

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay long as I needed to get back, but my mate James told me that they would now be playing every Saturday. Summer, it would seem, has returned, and I suspect it’s going to be a great one.

The Centenary of a Truly Great Man

Today we are celebrating the hundredth birthday of someone truly wonderful. A broadcaster without peer, who over the last seven decades has done far, far more than anyone else to open our eyes to the beauty of the natural world. To be quite honest, I am at a loss for what to say here today: I have written before of my sheer admiration for Sir David Attenborough. I hold him to be the greatest broadcaster ever, and probably always will. To think he started making television programmes before either of my parents were born, and is seemingly still going strong, is quite, quite incredible.

I fear that if I go on I would risk becoming too nauseatingly melodramatic, something which I doubt the great man himself would appreciate. How could I possibly list all the fascinating, beautiful things he has shown us or all of his astounding televisual triumphs in one short blog entry? I will therefore simply wish Sir David a very happy birthday, and say that absolutely nobody does what you have been doing for the last seventy years better. Thank you.

Hislop And Co. On The Beeb

I think I’ll direct everyone here this morning, to the most recent edition of the Private Eye podcast. I think it is worth a watch because, amid the usual mixture of political comment and wit, about half an hour into the programme, Hislop and co. start talking about the BBC. They aren’t entirely complementary of course, but I found their conversation notable for the way they outline just how much soft power the Beeb exerts. As an organisation it is almost unique, known across the world as a source of reliable, dependable news. It is used as a bastion of information not just by english speakers or UK expats, but by a vast range of people. Thus, as the guys in the podcast lay out, things like the World Service are something to hold dear and defend.

Surviving Earth

By and large, I think it’s fair to say that we watch films to be inspired or entertained: we go to the cinema to be uplifted, or to momentarily escape our humdrum, everyday realities. I’m afraid to say that the film I watched yesterday evening at Peckhamplex did precisely the opposite. Surviving Earth must be one of the most depressing, miserable films I’ve ever seen. It is essentially thee story of one man’s struggle with addiction. We see his descent into depression, estrangement from his daughter, battle with drugs and eventual suicide. It is truly a bleak, dark film, and I frankly left the cinema feeling quite distraught. Things might have been different if the guy was someone you could sympathise with, but to my mind he treated everyone around him so abrasively and appallingly that I felt no pity for him. Of course, I know that, like all art, film has a duty to reveal such realities and not just focus on the uplifting aspects of life; yet Surviving Earth felt overtly bleak and depressing, almost as if it was wallowing in it’s own misery.

Check out what Mark Kermode said about it here.

Is Delboy Still Around?

When I was very, very young I remember watching Only Fools And Horses with my parents and brothers. I was so young that I barely understood it, although I remember it making me laugh a great deal. One thing I do remember though, was that it was set in a place called Peckham. At the time I had no idea where that was: I probably assumed it was another town out in the countryside somewhere, a bit like my own. I could never have imagined that one day I would know exactly where Peckham was, visiting it fairly regularly.

Peckham is a vibrant, fascinating part of the capital. I am currently sat in it, waiting for John to meet me here to watch a film. The thing is, I can’t help wondering how it matches up with it’s depiction in Only Fools And Horses : that old BBC comedy was set forty years ago, so it must have changed quite a bit. Like the rest of London, it is now extremely multicultural, throbbing with African and Eastern European shops. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to have undergone the same gentrification and investment which is happening in many other parts of London, so it still feels very working class. There is still a raw authentic feel to the area, so I can almost imagine that Delboy Trotter might still be around here somewhere. I wonder, is this a place he and his brother Rodney would still recognise, or has it, like the rest of the metropolis, been propelled into the twenty-first century so far that it has become a completely new area?

Fahrenheit 11/9

Chilling as it is, I think it would be remiss of me not to flag this eleven minute scene from the Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 11/9 up. Truth be told, I just came across it while looking for something else completely, but found it very resonant. In it, an overt parallel is drawn between the rise of Trump and MAGA, and what happened in Germany in the 1930s. Moore’s film may have been about American politics and Trump’s first term, but it seems to speak louder today than it ever did; not just with respect to what is currently happening in america but here too, with politicians now talking about curtailing our right to protest. We live in increasingly dark, worrying times, if such doom-laden films can be so salient.

Beth Moulam on AI

Just when I started to wonder about what to blog about today, I came across this absolute doozy by Beth Moulam. Beth, like me, uses AAC, but she has obviously had quite a few issues over people doubting the authenticity of what she types into her communication aid: she describes how people have sometimes assumed that what she is ‘saying’ is AI generated. I can certainly see how that could be an issue, although to be fair I have never really encountered it, probably because I have always typed what I want to say word for word. However, Beth writes “I’m battling thoughts around if a speaking child said the same words an AAC user outputs, would we accept it as typical development and assume their competence? Or because someone is using AAC with an AI interface, are we holding them to a new standard, different to their speaking peers? Are we forgetting to presume competence and assuming it is the AI speaking, and clearly cannot be the person?” People are obviously starting to raise questions over whether a young person using a communication aid is actually choosing the words they use, or whether the device is doing it for them; a very ominous, concerning turn of events.

With the rise of Artificial Intelligence I can see this becoming more and more of an issue, which Moulam begins to explore really well. As a writer too, AI is starting to seem like a growing threat. Frankly, the last thing I need is people starting to question the authenticity of what I’m saying or writing. Historically, people have always doubted the intelligence of people who can’t communicate ‘normally’, and the issue Moulam lays out here may well compound that.

Vampiric Transvestites In Cambridge

What would the reaction be if I wrote a musical play about a pair of white guys who go driving at night. They get lost, and find an old gothic mansion. They are welcomed in by a group of black people who revel in black culture, singing, rapping and everything. At first everything seems fine, but then the black people turn out to be murderous vampires, and then aliens. Things get darker and darker, with distinct overtones of Mary Shelly and other horror films. But then, at the end of the piece, everyone but the white characters gets shot, leading the audience to erupt into rapturous applause. Would my play not be considered abhorrently racist? But instead my play becomes a classic and grows a cult following, with many people viewing it as a celebration of black culture. What would you say?

That is the issue I have this morning. For the most part yesterday was an awesome day: John and I went up to Cambridge, largely just to have a look around, and as part of my ongoing aim to get out of London a bit more. Cambridge is a stunningly beautiful city. To be honest we spent most of the afternoon walking through the botanic gardens, parks, and along the pretty little river. There was a photography exhibition which we both wanted to see, which included some absolutely incredible natural history images.

At about eight though, after a bit of dinner, we made our way to the theatre to watch a live performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Of course I had heard a lot about the musical, but surprisingly I’d never actually seen a performance – it had never really crossed my path before yesterday evening. I may have stopped dressing up a while ago, but I’m still very interested in gender bending and trans culture; and of course, Lyn’s memory still means a lot to me. I was thus very much looking forward to what we were about to watch.

I’m afraid to say, however, that within about five minutes of the show starting, the semiotician and cultural critic in me kicked in. It quickly became clear that something very, very odd was going on. Gender norms were being bent, but in a way which still distanced it from the audience: transpeople were dancing and singing merrily on the stage before me, but they turned out to be vampiric aliens from another galaxy. The show seemed to have a nasty subtext which I’m afraid I could not ignore. Slightly more concerning, though, was the fact that the audience around me, many themselves dressed in all kinds of weird costumes, seemed to be revelling in it, taking the performance to be some kind of kinky celebration of trans culture. I’m afraid to say that, given where we were and their apparent age, I couldn’t help wondering whether many of them had actually met a transperson or had many transgender friends. Could such performances just be about accommodating them, allowing them to feel inclusive while maintaining a ‘safe’ distance to the topics at hand?

Perhaps I’m overreading things once again; perhaps I’m just being grumpy. It was a great show and a fun night. But as we rode the train back from Cambridge last night, I just couldn’t silence the troubled voices in the back of my mind. To me, the show seemed to alienate the very culture it claimed on the surface to celebrate; it was a celebration of transvestism and gender nonconformity, but kept it at a safe rhetorical distance. The cross dressers turned out to be cannibals from another galaxy. I’m afraid this gave what I watched a disquieting contradiction which I couldn’t really shut my eyes to.