I really feel ashamed of myself sometimes. I was in Woolwich again earlier, coming back from visiting Battersea. There is an array of bus stops there, and I was waiting for a bus to Kidbrooke as I needed to buy a few things before heading home. I had waited about ten minutes for the bus, and when one came I put my arm out to hail it as usual. It came to a stop just passed me, and when I swung my powerchair round to start to get on I saw a lady pushing her young daughter in a manual wheelchair towards it. What I now feel deeply ashamed of is my reaction: I just exploded, shouting my head off as though someone was robbing me. The lady let me onto the bus, obviously taken aback, but I now deeply regret my behaviour. I don’t know why I reacted so indignantly, and obviously should have allowed the woman and her daughter onto the bus; as it rolled away with me in the wheelchair space, I reprimanded myself that another would have been along in a few minutes. I have always had such outbursts due to my CP, but that doesn’t make me any less embarrassed by them.

I have a bit of a confession to make this evening. When I was small I was really into Disney films. I used to get my parents to play the videos again and again. I’m not sure why, but I think a large part of it was the music: as I touch upon here, I used to adore songs from films like Beauty And The Beast and Aladdin, to the extent that I used to insist my brother Mark played A Whole New World ad nauseum on the piano. When I was ten it was just about all I would listen to.

Something rather strange happened earlier though. I was going through Woolwich as usual, where there was a small funfair for children in the square. One of the rides was playing music, and as I was passing I caught a hint of the song: A Whole New World. Today, however, I was immediately struck by how cheesy it was. It sounded so saccharine and grating, as I rolled away I was astonished at how I could ever be so besotted with it.

Perhaps I’m just getting old.

I admit I might be developing expensive tastes, but I seem to have developed a liking for toffee flavoured coffee syrup. It seems to add an extra dimension to my morning brew. The thing is, I have only been able to find it in Marks and Spencer’s food stores. That usually isn’t a problem, as there seems to be more and more of them popping up all over the place. Today, though, needing some more syrup I visited the one at the Woolwich Arsenal. I’ve been there quite a few times before and things seemed to be going well, but when the time came to pay the guy who was assisting me treated me so roughly and impatiently that I was really taken aback. He insisted that he could not find my wallet, even though I was pointing to the zip of my bumbag where it was. He quickly became rougher and rougher, more and more angry, and in fact he started to frighten me. No matter what I did, how hard I tried to indicate where he should look, he wouldn’t open the right compartment.

Fortunately in the end he found my wallet, and the incident only lasted a minute or so; but nonetheless it was extremely uncomfortable and undignified, and I immediately asked to speak to the manager. To have been treated in that way, to the point of almost being shouted at by a shop assistant, was completely unacceptable.

Today I thought it would be a great idea to go back to Knockholt. If returning from there had proven so easy two days ago, I reasoned, maybe it would be interesting to go back in explore the area some more. The thing is, what I hadn’t realised on Monday was that only half of the station was wheelchair accessible, and that the southbound platform could only be accessed via a footbridge with steps. That is why, at about two this afternoon, I found myself stranded on a platform with no way to go anywhere or get back onto a train. Needless to say it was extremely disappointing, as I’ve come to expect so much better from transport services in and around London.

Extremely fortunately, a group of maintenance guys were starting to work on the opposite platform: they spotted me, and one came across the bridge to see if I needed help. About half an hour later I was back on a train to Sevenoaks, then one back to the right side of Knockholt, from where I was able to enjoy a leisurely trundle home involving several long country lanes and several busses. Things turned out well in the end, but what baffles me is that, when I got onto the train at Lewisham, nobody warned me that I wouldn’t be able to leave the station I was heading for, and why only half a train station would be accessible.

I’ve just got back from quite a long afternoon out and about in the south-east London, so I’m feeling slightly worn out. One of the first things to greet me upon getting back to Facebook, though, was a picture of a Torygraph headline in which a Reform donor, Ben Delo claimed that his autism meant he cannot cope with lying, which is why he supports Nigel Farage. I won’t repost the image here as I don’t want to smear shit on my website’s carpet, but it was enough to instantly make my blood boil. The scum of Reform are obviously trying to pervert current trends to their own sickening ends. For good or ill, people are now much more aware of conditions like Autism than they were ten or even five years ago; many more people are now said to be on the autistic spectrum. Delo is now blatantly trying to exploit that trend and use it as some kind of justification for his fucked up, reactionary politics.

As a survivor of the special school system, I know how profound and debilitating Autism can be – it’s nothing to be laughed at. To see the term being thrown around like some kind of sociocultural frisby, as it currently is, was bad enough. Yet to see this wretch of a man attempt to commandeer it for his neo-fascist politics, obviously thinking that people are more likely to vote for him if he claims to have autism as they might do, really is beyond sickening. By making this claim, he is either trying to state his membership of some sort of ‘in group’, or to say that his autism somehow makes him more capable to discern the political truth. Either way it’s a crass exploitation and politicisation of a very serious medical condition, and I find it utterly perverse.

Part of me is rather disappointed that I didn’t go up to Westminster yesterday, to join the protest opposing the Assisted Dying bill. It’s obviously an important issue, and the kind of thing I think I should get involved in. As I said a couple of years ago, the danger of such pieces of legislation is that, while they might seem well intended at first, the danger is they start us down dangerous, dark paths. “I want help to end my life” can become “wouldn’t it be better if you ended your life, now that we can help you” with alarming ease. Thus I was relieved to see the vote went the right way in the end, albeit narrowly. Mind you, while part of me regrets not actually being there yesterday to show my support, this is the sort of thing I can see myself getting extremely worked up about, so in the end it’s probably better that I went elsewhere.

I’m not quite sure why, but today I thought I would pop up to the 9/11 memorial on the Olympic park, just to pay my respects. I didn’t head up there in any hurry, but more to check out what was going on. As fortune would nonetheless have it though, I got there in time to watch the commemoration ceremony happening there.

We all know what happened twenty-five years ago today: most of us can remember exactly where we were when we first saw the dreadful image of the world trade centre wreathed in smoke. I don’t need to go over it. The thing is, while in that moment of pain the whole world stood with our American friends, since then and particularly in the last six years they have done everything they can to dash away that friendship. Trump has reduced America to an outcast and a laughingstock. To be honest I currently see the country as a sickening disgrace no longer worthy of my respect. 

Thus, as I sat outside the London aquatics centre earlier, listening to the speeches and recitals, I couldn’t help feeling a strange mixture of sadness tinged with deep frustration. After all, the catastrophe we are commemorating today was born out of the same kind of animosity and hatred which has now become so rife. Speakers there pointed out that, due to things like intelligence sharing another attack on the scale of 9/11 is now extremely unlikely; but I can’t help thinking that, if we as a society continue down this current path of reactionary intolerance, all the tears shed today may be in vain.

Truth be told, with regard to blogging I’m now in a bit of a predicament. Particularly since the events of a few weeks ago, I’m now worried that if I fail to post an entry everyone will worry whether something catastrophic has happened to me again. That results in me forcing myself to blog, if just to make sure everyone knows I’m okay. Thus it’s probably best that I make it clear that if you don’t see an entry appear here every day, it doesn’t mean that I have been taken to hospital, exploded, or lost a cripple chicken contest with a granny on a scooter. After all, finding stuff to write about every day can be hard.

Picking up on what I was saying yesterday about AI generated videos and how advanced and impressive I find them, later in the day I came across this video rather putting that chain of thought into a different light. It’s an interview/conversation with Richard Taylor, the guy behind Weta workshop in New Zealand, the studio behind The Lord Of the Rings adaptations. To be honest saying it puts AI generated film in a new light is quite an understatement: it’s more like a direct conflict. It becomes very clear just how much care, love and attention guys like Taylor and Jackson put into adapting Tolkien for the screen, creating thousands of props and sets. Their effort was remarkable, and I think it shows on the screen. Over twenty years on, these films still look incredible.

The point these guys are making of course is that such films would never be made today – it just wouldn’t be an option. A studio would just go down the simplest, fastest, cheapest route and do everything using CGI. As stunning as I found the Star Trek videos I came across yesterday, I think it shows: it was ultimately obvious that I wasn’t watching real actors performing. The result is that something is taken away from film, which I think boils down to a form of love and passion for film-making. Frankly, as I touched upon here a few weeks ago, I think that goes some way to explaining the bland, uninteresting pap we see in cinemas these days.

I don’t know who the zark made it or how, but I don’t think I could possibly call myself a Star Trek TNG fan if I didn’t flag this up. Not that I want to spoil it for anyone, but it’s a fan made video where the crew of the Enterprise find out they are actually a TV show. The thing is, it looks identical to how the show appeared in the 90s, with all the actors having been de-aged. I daresay it was created using some kind of AI tool, but nonetheless I find it remarkable (not to mention very funny!). I know I keep saying things like this on here, but if such videos are a sign of how advanced and sophisticated such fan production is becoming, then it really is jaw-dropping.

Just to follow up on what I was talking about a couple of weeks ago about islands in the River Thames, I just came across this fascinating video about that very subject. London’s largest river, it would seem, has quite a few islands, mostly upstream to the west of the metropolis. The majority are apparently small and difficult to get to, or protected wildlife habitats; but a few are large enough to visit or even live on. I’m not sure why this interests me so much, and I can see why you might find it boring; yet I just love how London still has the potential to surprise me through it’s vast geography, history, culture and everything else.

I love how London always has the ability to surprise me. It had already been a fairly interesting afternoon: today I thought I would have a bit of a change and take a trundle along the north bank of the Thames, before finding my way up to Farringdon and catching the Elisabeth Line home. Perfectly pleasant, but nothing that noteworthy. Heading to the bus stop in Woolwich though, all of a sudden I found myself in the middle of a dance routine: a band was playing, an audience was gathering, and people, who were dressed like anyone else there, were staring to perform carefully choreographed routines. It was obviously part of GDIF. The square I had been passing through was suddenly filled with energy, music and joy, almost as if someone had flipped a switch. It was obviously a well planned piece of street art, but what excited me is the fact that I had just trundled straight into the middle of it: five minutes earlier or later and I would have missed the whole thing. It makes me wonder where else I could encounter such surprises.

The only possible place I can direct everyone to this morning is here. Farage and his mates have been filmed discussing how to get around UK electoral law. It’s disgustingly brazen of course, but to be honest it just shows how arrogant the scum behind Reform are: they think they are above the law, and have a right to do whatever they like just because of who they are. To add insult to injury, Farage is now denying any wrongdoing, claiming the footage is a hoax by climate change activists. If he had a shred of honour in him he would resign immediately; but of course he doesn’t, so he ought to be booted out of Parliament.

She’ll be fine you silly spasticated fool! Charlie is now a mother caring for her baby daughter. That and the fact that she always has about a thousand things going on means she is too busy to bother with social media these days. Not hearing from her or seeing her on facebook for about three months is no reason to leap to silly conclusions; and besides, the last thing she’ll need right now is you messaging her every few weeks or months just to ask how she is. Charlotte is a healthy, vibrant, able-bodied young woman. She isn’t like the guys at school: they all had serious life limiting disabilities. Thus there’s no reason for anything to have happened to her; no reason to expect an email, message or call from mum and dad with news which, this time, I simply would not be able to bear. No reason to continue to feel that chilling, agonising sense of dread in the base of your spine just because your old university friend hasn’t been on Facebook for a while. The same goes for Esther, Steve, Chris and the rest of them. Now cheer up, stop worrying and get on with the day.

With regard to politics, all I really have to say today is that I would far rather the country was taken back to the 1970s, with it’s well regulated economy, properly funded state and membership of the European community, than the 1870s, with millions starving in the streets while the privileged, untaxed few looked down on the rest of us. For all Badenoch’s hollow words, the difference between Labour and the Tories has never been more stark: an open, progressive, left-wing party aware of the wreckage caused by Thatcherism and Brexit over the last forty years and keen to undo it’s damage; or a party of rich, ultra-privileged white toffs, craving the ability to exploit, dominate and persecute as they wish, resenting every penny of tax they pay, using a black woman as their puppet-leader while being as intolerant and racist as they come. In Andy Burnham, at last we once again have a voice of hope in British politics: someone aware of the mistakes and eager to undo them for the good of all. The Tories, on the other hand, just deny such mistakes were ever made as they seek to drag us all back into a neoliberal, Thatcherite cesspit.

You could say that it’s just another bit of nostalgia, and yet another revival of a nineties cultural icon, but I would be quite fascinated to check this film out in a few weeks. I remember Ali G being on way passed my bedtime, and only catching fleeting clips of him: Although I found it funny, I don’t think I really ‘got it’ at the time. Thus I’d be interested to see what my contemporary, urban self makes of him. In a world of wannabes and pretenders, I suspect that a spoof wannabe gangsta will have quite a bit to say.

What is the point of events celebrating cultural diversity in an era when the notion of diversity is being rendered increasingly meaningless? If the Notting Hill Carnival is supposed to be a celebration of the immigrant or outsider, having begun as a celebration of Afro-Caribbean migration into postwar Britain, now that everyone has assumed the role of the sociocultural outsider, could it have lost its point? If we all now perceive ourselves as different, abnormal or other, how can there be a normal left to differ from? And now that we have all started to take one another’s cultures and identities as our own so shamelessly and blatantly, I fear the whole point of such celebrations is being eroded.

After all, the vast majority of people attending carnival today would have come from London, and I daresay would never have actually experienced the exotic African or Caribbean cultures that they were trying to evoke. While many would obviously have had parents or grandparents who emigrated from places like Jamaica or Ghana, the vast majority of carnival goers today would have been born and educated in the affluent suburbs of London. A celebration of immigration and diversity has become a cacophony of horns and electronic music played so loudly that nobody can hear the lyrics, devoid I fear of any connection to the cultures it is supposed to celebrate. Two days of sound and fury in the gentrified streets of one of the worlds richest metropolises, essentially signifying nothing. Immigrants to this country and their descendants have every right to be proud of who they are, yet I feel the loud, overbearing parade of basically identical floats that I went to this afternoon isn’t the respectful thank you they deserve.

I thought I would rewatch the Bond Prom on TV last night, just to check that I hadn’t missed anything, or to see if it would be more inspiring when watched on telly. To be honest, when Mum and I went to the Albert Hall on Tuesday, we weren’t in the best spots: tucked away in a supposedly accessible area at the side of the stage, sitting on seats with very little leg-room. Perhaps my discomfort affected my opinion of the performance. Frankly, though, it wasn’t much better when viewed from the comfort of my arm-chair: a quick fire rendition of the Bond themes delivered without much passion. It never really hit the mark I was hoping it would hit, ultimately leaving me rather disappointed.

If it’s ‘religious’, it appears the police won’t do anything, no matter how hateful the bigots are.

(incidentally, this was my first foray into AI image generation. I think it worked quite well)

I was just watching breakfast TV as usual, and I think I’ll point something out so obvious that just about everyone would have noticed it, but I feel compelled to blog about it anyway. One of the Beeb’s main news items this morning was of course the follow up to the horrific events in Cleveland, in which seven people were killed in a car crash following a police chase: teenagers baiting the police, thinking they could get away from the cops, their juvenile arrogance resulting in cataclysmic tragedy.

But then, just a few minutes later, the BBC has an item about the release of Grand Theft Auto 6, a video game where players steal cars and drive recklessly away from police; in which crime seems to be glamourised and presented to it’s naive young players as a sign of male bravado and masculinity. I surely can’t be the only person to see the blindingly obvious connection here! On the one hand we are lamenting carnage caused by teenagers stealing cars, while giving them games to play which glamourise and fetishise that very activity. The link is so obvious it’s idiotic. The weird thing is, nobody on the breakfast programme seemed to note it.

Can someone please tell me why oh why the Beeb is still flogging the dead horse which is Top Gear? I just got in from today’s trundle and saw this on their website. “Top Gear is to return to TV, the BBC has confirmed, four years after the show was ‘rested’ when co-host Andrew Flintoff was injured in a crash during filming.” I must admit I was once quite a Top Gear fan about twenty years ago, when Jeremy Clarkson was hosting it. Back then, the program seemed to have a rebellious feel to it, but it wasn’t rebellion for rebellion’s sake. The guys fronting the programme seemed to have both a genuine love of cars and seemed to know what they were talking about, so their stunts and items had a genuine point to them. Since they left, Top Gear has just felt like a lousy imitation of it’s former self, it’s hosts poor wannabe stand-ins for their predecessors.

In this garden time stops.

So sat here, outside this Harlesden house,

It is thirty years ago. 

My brothers and I play on the lawn before me

And all the turbulence of the last thirty years 

Has yet to happen, kept at bay by the garden fence.

Isolating this place from the ever changing maelstrom beyond 

So that all the plants and flowers, 

Tended so lovingly by my much missed grandfather 

Still grow strong. So that he could still be here 

Watching over me and my brothers.

For in this garden, time stops.

Believe it or not I’m still rather fond of the Olympic Park. I head up there every week or so, just for a trundle. I especially like how the River Lea meanders through the park. Yesterday though, I noticed something that I was not so happy about, and in fact rather pissed me off. When the park was first created, there was a large flat grassy area next to what had been the media centre during the Olympics. With a path running alongside it, it was just like any other area of grass in any other park, giving it a feeling of openness.

I had presumed that those spaces were part of the park. A couple of years ago, however, half of the space was hoarded off and builtover, and is now two rows of upmarket blocks of flats. I remember being quite dismayed about it at the time, but I accepted it. Yesterday, however, I noticed that the rest of that grassy space had been hoarded off, ready to be built on. I must admit I felt quite angry when I saw that. It’s as if the whole park, once so open and peaceful, is being eaten up one part at a time. It isn’t that I don’t know that the country has a housing crisis, and that new homes need to be built wherever possible; yet we seem to have reached the point where absolutely no value is placed on how pleasant a spot is. Any and all open areas are now just being concreted over and built upon, making the city feel more and more enclosed and claustrophobic. The Olympic Park, once the purpose built site of such awesomeness, is slowly seeing’s its character drained away into just another generic London suburb. The city may well need housing, but what about our need for open, grassy areas?

Probably like most other people these days, I watch quite a few political videos on Youtube, including ones about American politics. Most are made by Americans, and are of course highly critical of their current government. One thing I’ve noticed though is that, while they drop at nothing to criticise Trump, they all seem to think that the problem lies just with him, and that things will return to normal once Donald Trump is removed from office. That is to say, in terms of both content and tone, such videos are framed as if American economic and cultural preeminence is not under threat, and will simply continue once they get a new president. Even the more balanced, level-headed of such commenters don’t seem to have realised that the respect and veneration their country once commanded has now been shredded, and it is now nothing more than an international laughing stock. The makers of such videos don’t seem to appreciate that the era of American dominance is over, just as the British one ended around a century ago; so they carry on as if their culture is the only one that matters. But whether they realise it or not, Trump has rendered the US a joke, and other cultures and economies will soon take it’s place. Which they will be I’m in no place to say; but the sooner our American friends realise their time is over, and stop carrying on as if they run the world, the healthier it will be.

I think I ought to note that the plan today was to go and watch a screening of Trainspotting at an arthouse cinema in Angel which John seems to like. I was looking forward to it. However, J just phoned up to double-check accessibility, and was told there were steps into the building, and no safe space where I could leave my powerchair. Well, that’s scuppered that plan.

It’s a shame to see that there’s still so much more work to do before the world becomes truly accessible.

I just thought I’d take a glance at my archive and, coincidentally enough, today marks twenty-two years to the day since I wrote this entry announcing my A Level results. I can barely believe it: twenty-two years since I received the exam results which meant I was going to university; twenty years since the beginning of the incredible adventure which I am, more or less, still on. I didn’t know it at the time of course, but my experiences at uni saw me evolve and mature in a way which at the time I’d never have thought possible. It made me realise what I was capable of, and that I wouldn’t need to spend my life at home with mum and dad. That eventually gave rise to my current life here in London, via meeting Lyn.

Part of me wishes I could go back two decades and tell the guy getting those results of the awesomeness about to happen; but that would be giving the game away. Instead, I can just hope that everyone receiving their results this month has the same good fortune, and experiences the same wonders I have.

I made this last night, immediately after hearing about Reform’s plans for the welfare system. The party’s online advocates are now desperately trying to backtrack and say people who genuinely need disability benefits won’t be affected; but, as I said a couple of days ago, it simply boils down to their selfish, spoiled worldview and refusal, wealthy, arrogant snobs that they are, to need to help the most vulnerable people in society. Such people frankly sicken me, and I honestly believe there is no place for such inhumane vermin in our political discourse.

I have written here before quite a few times about my passion for trundling: my love of going out in my powerchair and exploring the city, following roads and paths for whole afternoons, just to see where I end up. The thing is, in all my trundles over the years, I have still never managed to get outside Greater London.

There’s obviously a hell of a lot of this city to explore. Even with such a great public transport system, getting around it takes hours. Yet, for all its vastness and for all its diversity, London is still essentially one place: one of the richest, most affluent economic centres of the world; where billions can be spent almost on a whim, the busses and trains run like clockwork, skyscrapers shoot into the sky like corn in a field, and the loudest sound I hear all day is the one that accompanies the bus wheelchair ramp. I started to reflect on this a few months ago: The fact that for all my trundling and bus riding I still haven’t managed to find my way beyond the M25 is starting to feel weirder and weirder, almost as if I’m trapped here, it has become my entire world and nothing exists outside it’s encircling motorway.

London is a great world city, capable of fantastic things. Yet great does not always mean exciting or exotic. Hemingway once famously called London boring, and think I can at last see what he meant. London is wealthy, orderly and privileged. It once seemed so awesome, but I think I have reached the point where I yearn to go beyond it. What about the grittier, more earnest parts of the world? Places which aren’t so privileged, and which haven’t been gentrified beyond recognition? Where people aren’t so used to having access to everything they need or being the centre of national attention? London is a fantastic, stable base; yet the adventurer in me is becoming keener and keener to go beyond it, back into more down-to-earth places. There comes a point where order and privilege begin to feel dull, and you become increasingly curious about the smaller, wilder, less well known corners of the world.

I was of course sickened to get to my computer a bit earlier and read of Reform’s plans to overhaul the welfare system. “‘Reform UK says it would aim to cut about £50bn from the benefits bill and scrap the disability payments system, Pip, if it comes in to government.” I was initially in two minds about blogging about the subject for fear of giving these scoundrels attention they do not deserve. But given this is an issue which would effect me directly and slashing Personal Independence Payment would have a dramatic impact on my life as a disabled man, I don’t think I can let it slide. It is blatantly obvious that Reform are just trying to A) present themselves as a credible, serious political party by coming up with policies on subjects unrelated to the xenophobic bile they usually spew; and B) distract us from their fhurer’s corruption.

In doing so, however, they have done nothing but reveal how callous and unfit to govern they are. Like any modern, enlightened society, we should care for those most in need of help: that means having a robust, properly funded welfare state. Surely a society can only really be judged by how it cares for those most in need. Yet the disgraces to human civilisation in Reform would do away with that completely, forcing the most vulnerable members of society to just fend for ourselves – probably even begging – just so they can slash tax rates and allow their rich, privileged friends to hoard their wealth. At the end of the day, that is the entire aim of their neoliberal, greed-is-good worldview. It frankly staggers me that we are continuing to allow this group of neofascists to pollute our political discourse, and that so many people are shortsighted enough to vote for them.

I think I better write a bit of a follow-up to yesterday’s entry, because to be honest it didn’t end quite as merrily as I would have liked. Getting home frankly turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. In order to get to the area of London we wanted to visit, Dom had advised me to take the Jubilee line to Waterloo and then the overground to Hampton Wick. On the face of it that sounded perfectly doable: I would take the train while Dominik would ride his bike. Getting to Waterloo though, I found the lift from the tube to the main station broken, so was told by the staff to go back one stop to Southwark, get up to the surface and trundle from there.

The two stations are fairly close so that in itself wasn’t too much of a problem, although it annoyed me and made me slightly worried about being late. It would have been fine if that had turned out to be the only issue of the day. When I reached Waterloo I managed to get on my train smoothly enough; but as it approached my destination I was told that Hampton Wick wasn’t step free so I would have to get off one stop early, at Kingston.

That, again, was fine, but the problem then was finding my way to the rendezvous point I had agreed with Dom. That took at least an hour, and involved asking four or five people for directions. When I eventually spotted my friend and his folding bike down a side street near the river, my relief was all the more palpable.

The rest of the afternoon went without a hitch. To get home, however, instead of returning the way I had come, due to the lift issue at Waterloo I thought I’d investigate the local busses to see if there was one which would take me to an Elisabeth Line station. From there I could get back to Woolwich and be home in no time. And, as luck would have it, I found a bus heading for Ealing Broadway, which of course I then hopped onto.

I didn’t realise it, but that was the beginning of a total nightmare. For starters, even though it gave me the opportunity to type my blog entry en route, the bus took a lot longer than I had expected; but getting to Ealing Broadway I was told that the Elisabeth Line wasn’t running due to a power failure, so I’d have to get the Central Line to Bond Street instead. I obviously had no choice but to accept this. The problem was, the Central Line is far older and much less accessible than the newer tube lines; it was also far slower and more crowded. It thus took far longer to get to Bond Street than I would have on the Elisabeth Line; and to make matters far, far worse, when the train reached the station, there was nobody waiting for me with a ramp.

I frankly began to panic. Stuck on the train, I tried to tell my fellow passengers what the problem was. Rather foolishly perhaps, this meant they lifted my powerchair off the train at the next station, Oxford Circus, but that made matters even worse as that station isn’t step free at all. That gave rise to a total farce where I had to wait for someone to find a wheelchair ramp from another station, in order for me to board a train back to Bond Street, from where I just caught a Jubilee Line train home. Apparently the guys at Bond Street had been told that I needed a ramp, which carriage I was in and so on, but ridiculously and insultingly had simply forgotten about me. It had been a long, slow, frustrating journey, and by the time I got back I was hungry and tired. Yet because nowhere near as much as the TFL network is as accessible as it should be, my journey back from that yet to be explored half of the city was far longer and more frustrating than it might have been.

Just when I was starting to feel like I had begun to get to know this incredible metropolis, after today it once again feels totally alien. Dominik invited me to join him on an expedition to Kingston: he was planning to meet some friends on an island in the Thames there, Trowlock Island. Of course I was immediately intrigued, never having ventured that far into West London, and not having realised that the Thames actually had any islands in it. What followed was an incredible day of discovery, exploration and happy meetings of the kind I love the most. An afternoon of following paths I had never been down, and getting to know a part of London which felt completely different to the one I knew. To be honest it let me feel the surge of excitement and wonder I always seem to get when exploring somewhere completely new, even though I was technically still well within my home city. Above all, it made me realise how little I know of that pretty part of west London, where the Thames is far narrower, more tranquil and picturesque. Now I know how to get there though, I’ll almost certainly be heading back.