My jaw quite literally hit the floor when I news of the car written about here. I’ve always been a fan of new tech, but can’t help thinking things are now getting silly. “A new version of Tesla’s Roadster electric sports car, equipped with thrusters which apparently allow it to hover and turn in mid-air, has been unveiled in Texas.” The sight of the car quite literally jumping from the ground was enough to kick-start my day. It’s just a demonstration model of course, and probably won’t be road legal, although I can’t help wondering whether they plan to make a powerchair version.

Quite some time ago, I began to think about what I called the Paradox of Liberalism: the contradiction at the core of liberal/progressive philosophy which says one must be open to and tolerant of all views and perspectives, apart from the perspectives which say you cannot tolerate any views or lifestyles apart from your own. Of course, it still seems to me that this is still a valid problem for those who call ourselves liberals – how can one tolerate intolerance, or accept bigotry as a valid point of view like any other? The thing is, yesterday I came across something which is far more paradoxical, hypocritical, and even insidious for those currently in the opposite camp.

I was out and about as usual, trundling around the estates near Plumstead. It’s a fairly affluent area which I hadn’t really explored. Many of the roads were named after great writers like Chaucer and Keats. All of a sudden I came across something which really got me going: a well maintained, semi-detached house flying a Reform flag in the front garden. That in itself would make me want to vomit, but what I found truly objectionable was the fact that there were also several Help For Heroes banners and silhouettes in the garden too. It was quite clear that this was the home of someone who thought of themself as a patriot, but had confused, like so many other fools are currently doing, extreme right wing politics for patriotism.

What I find provocative is the fact that the ‘heroes’ and veterans who this person was obviously demanding we support all either died or risked their lives resisting the very political forces whoever was flying this flag also advocated. The Second World War was fought against people who espoused the very grotesque nationalist notions Reform now promote. Indeed, the EU was created specifically to ensure Europe never lapses into such brutality again. By flying this flag, this person was insulting every one of the heroes they claimed to support; that they had the gall to obviously be so proud and vocal about it made it even worse. It was a contradiction and juxtaposition which I frankly found truly vile when I came across it on my trundle yesterday; yet it is clear evidence of the sickening delusion at the heart of current right wing, reactionary politics. Liberalism may have it’s paradoxes, but they are nothing compared to such perverse self-deception: you can’t claim to support veterans while advocating the very politics they were fighting to resist.

I’m extremely glad to hear that our politicians are getting real about Brexit. In the news yesterday evening, we heard that ‘Andy Burnham has said it is “inconceivable” to think that Russia did not try to interfere in the 2016 EU referendum’, adding that it was clear that there had been interference from Moscow. Of course, that is more or less a statement of the blindingly obvious: anyone who knows anything about the crime of 2016 knows that it was all a ploy by Vladimir Putin to weaken the European Union. What has really wound me up last night, however, is the fact that Nigel Farage has the barefaced audacity to call Burnham a liar in response. This is a man who, backed by his Russian handlers, knowingly mislead the country into voting to leave our nearest, biggest market. The consequences of such idiocy are now becoming clearer by the day, yet p’tahks like Farage still have the nerve to defend what they did. I’m just glad we finally have a PM who is unafraid to get real about Brexit, so the crime of 2016 might just be undone before it’s too late.

This will probably be a bit of a lament (or moan) but I’ve been reflecting quite a bit recently on the fact that, since moving to Eltham six years ago, for some reason I don’t seem to have made many friends. When I was living back in Charlton there were various people who I used to see and interact with quite regularly, such as at the park, who I counted as mates. These says, though, I have no real regular acquaintances. Of course, I count my three personal assistants, John, Dom and Artur, as firm friends – if not almost brothers – but apart from them and the guys I keep in touch with online, I have no real frequent mates. I daresay the pandemic made quite an impact on this situation, and things have never really recovered. Well, there’s obviously only one thing for it: time to make an effort to restore my friend count.

I just came across this quite long but interesting PBS documentary on the German-American Bund, a fascist movement in America in the 1930s. Of course, it rose in large part out of the aftermath of the First World War, Jim Crow Laws, the great depression and so on, and the historians speaking in the film go to some length to emphasise that it was very much a minority movement. They also stress how much opposition there was to it. Yet to be honest, in the light of what is currently happening in the US, I can’t help thinking that this dark chapter of American history is suddenly becoming very salient, and that the Bund could well have been more popular than these historians will be comfortable with. In the film we see pictures of huge parades with people waving swastikas alongside American flags, and rallies in Maddison Square Garden. As much as mainstream liberal society may want to deny it, there always seems to have been a dark, racist or xenophobic undercurrent in American culture, stretching back to their civil war and beyond, which is sadly currently enjoying a resurgence.

Like most people I suppose, I grew up with American culture: watching American films, cartoons and TV programmes. I suppose I have always had an affinity with our friends across the Atlantic. However, I take no pleasure whatsoever in saying that that respect has now been torn to shreds, and I frankly view America and Americans as utter embarrassments to humanity. I know how reactionary that might sound, but this news this morning has put the country far, far beyond the pale. Capital punishment is barbaric enough, and the news of the failed execution of Christa Pike earlier this week was already absolutely sickening; but any nation which would televise an execution can only be regarded as little more than a cesspit. Obviously, my disdain for Yankland had been growing since the re-election of Trump, and I had been becoming less and less comfortable with the news coming from there; but I fear this morning’s news drops them over the precipice into the swamp of outright fascism.

I know how reactionary this might sound; I also know that not all americans support their current government, or advocate vile things like this. Yet as it stands as a nation, the USA can no longer be respected and can only be seen as a fascistic cesspool which deserves little more than our collective disgust. Far from being the greatest nation on earth, it ought to be viewed, for the time being at least, as little more than a self-important backwater which should never have been allowed to rise to the prominence it now enjoys. Any nation which would make such a spectacle of death has no claim to be civilised let alone great, and for all it’s cultural ubiquity now deserves only our revulsion. Of course, as a country it may one day redeem itself, and I profoundly hope it does; but the news we received this morning absolutely dashes any standing the United States ever enjoyed. Any culture or society which could even contemplate something so abhorrent surely deserves nothing but our collective disdain and revulsion.

Here’s quite a weird realisation: every day I go out as usual, exploring London, hopping on and off buses. I’m now quite used to it. At certain times of day though, children also ride the bus, obviously on their way to or from school. The thought I currently can’t get out of my head, however, is that those kids would have been born after I moved down to London in 2010. Most are obviously now quite able and independent young people, yet the realisation that I’ve been living in this great metropolis for longer than they have been alive is one I must admit to finding rather astonishing. I still remember when this city felt new and alien to me, but I’m now riding public transport alongside kids born after I moved here. It certainly puts things into a new perspective, I must say.

If there is one thing I can’t stand it’s littering. My parents always taught me and my brothers that rubbish should always be put in the bin, so I find the sight of people dropping litter utterly repugnant. I was on a bus earlier today: I was on my way home from my usual trundle, and the bus was becoming more and more crowded as it approached the centre of town. Sat in the wheelchair spot but facing towards the front of the bus, a man was sat in the chair almost opposite me. He carried a cane and wore quite an unusual bowler hat. I had to watch as he scoffed quite a large bag of crisps. That in itself was rather unedifying, but I didn’t say anything. However, what made me instantly furious and pushed me over the edge was the sight of him scrunching the empty crisp packet into a ball and stuffing it down the side of the bus seat. I don’t want to sound like a puritan or goody two-shoes, but it seemed so disrespectful that I couldn’t help shouting at him. There are bins everywhere in this city; it just takes a little care and respect to keep it clean. Needless to say the exchange didn’t end well: he obviously didn’t understand what I was saying, and I should probably have just kept myself to myself. Yet I suppose I’ve now grown so fond of London and its transport system that the sight of people treating it so disrespectfully really does boil my blood. But then, given that there is so little we can do to get such slobs to take more care of their surroundings, I suppose the most I can do is record the episode here.

I don’t have anything to add to this, other than that I couldn’t agree more.

It’s becoming more and more obvious that this county’s only logical option is to undo the crime of 2016. As the blatant damage of Brexit becomes clearer and clearer, the movement to rejoin is only going to get louder and louder.

I honestly think I may have a new favourite film this evening, or at least I urgently want to watch again. John suggested going to watch Digger this afternoon. To be honest I hadn’t heard of it, so I was torn between that and going on my usual trundle, but frankly it came as a reminder of just how intriguing an artform film can be. I know I shouldn’t spoil anything or give anything away, but Digger is the kind of film which knows what it is: it knows it is a work of fiction and admits it. I would call it very rhyzomic in the way it reflected in upon it’s own status as a film, somehow simultaneously breaking the fourth wall, admitting it’s own status, yet also maintaining it’s fiction. I couldn’t help detecting distinct whiffs of Monty Python or Terry Gilliam, quite. frankly.

Having said that, it’s also the kind of film which it is hard to say what it is about, or whether it should be viewed as a comedy or taken deadly seriously. It can be seen as overt political satire and theatrical drama in equal measure. There were also more film references than I could shake a stick at, including a very Bondian white cat. I left the cinema absolutely dying to do some background reading. Just when I was beginning to worry about the quality of cinema these days, I’m treated to a doozy like this.

It’s a bit of a long watch, but probably the best place I could direct everyone today is to this Newsnight interview with Ian Hislop. Many are saying that we live in increasingly troubled, fractured times, and as guys like Hislop are often first to point out, the only real remedy to such division is humour. To that end, I was glad to see the return of Have I Got News For You to TV last night. As The news we receive becomes more and more absurd with every bulletin, such satire obviously acts as a sort of release valve, giving us all permission to laugh at the sheer insanity of what is happening. We probably have a joint habit of treating politics and current affairs with the utmost reverence and seriousness, and we forget that, at the end of the day, it boils down to a bunch of over-privileged twits talking rubbish about things they barely understand.

I’m finding it more and more annoying that kids are now just grunting at me when I’m pass them in the streets: they grunt or make weird noises at me, their implication being that I have some kind of learning disability. It happened again this morning. I know that I should just ignore it, but it feels so derogatory and disrespectful, as though they think they are being clever in forcing a label onto me that I don’t necessarily want. The thing is, if they just took a few minutes to stop and talk to me, they would probably find that I’m not too different from them. But they never do, so all I can do is put up with them grunting at me in the street.

Something very strange is clearly happening with regard to the number of disabled people around. I just got back from a trip into central London, and the number of people who I saw using powerchairs, wheelchairs or wearing sunflower lanyards was far higher than it was ten of even just five years ago. Back then, it was rather rare for me to come across just one fellow powerchair user, but it now happens every time I go out. I must have seen at least four or five fellow powerchair users today. I can’t help wondering why. Could I be imagining it? Is it just occurring here in London? Is my perception biased because I live in a large urban area, or is this rise happening elsewhere too? Part of me thought I was just being bitter and cynical when I started speculating about what I called cultural intrusion, and I told myself that if more people were identifying as disabled for whatever reason, I had no cause to be upset about it. But I’m becoming more and more certain this rise in disability rates is real, possibly caused in large part by the pandemic, and that I probably need to start looking into it properly. As easy as it is to dismiss it as a kind of sociopolitical bandwagon jumping, it’s becoming apparent that something more complex is now happening which is probably worth taking the time to explore. As I wrote with regard to autism a few days ago, the definition of such conditions seems to be becoming wider. Perhaps the same is happening with our perception of what constitutes ‘a disability’.

I know this is going to seem rather random and out of the blue, but I’ve recently become interested in the fact that Los Angeles is now trying to re establish its river. It stems from my interest in the Olympic Games, and how different cities use them as occasions to present themselves to the world. LA is now going to host the games in 2028 of course, but they are now apparently trying to breathe new life back into their river, which has been largely concreted over since the 1930s. What pricks my attention is how it might change the character of the city. The river appears in films like The Terminator, but it isn’t something which immediately comes to mind when you think about Los Angeles, and looks rather forgotten and drab from the pictures. I’ve written here before about how fond I am of London’s waterways, so I can’t help wondering how Los Angeles might change in light of this. Flowing water seems to give a new dimension to lived in areas, so I wonder whether they could be trying to break the city free of its image in popular culture as a concrete sprawl ready to host the world in two years time. Perhaps more to the point, you’ll recall how their respective rivers were large features of both the London and Paris olympic opening ceremonies, so I’d be very curious to see whether the Angelenos take up that thread.

Something happened a few minutes ago which made me feel very out of date. My PA Dom has an Ipad, and he was using an AI function on it to ask it about coffee. He was just kidding around, but what made my jaw literally drop was the way in which Dom was able to have quite a natural conversation with it: The machine seemed to be talking back to him, thinking, hesitating, considering it’s answers, switching between Polish and English on request.

I must admit to being rather behind the times on this. AI isn’t something I use much. I tap the occasional question into Google, but because I don’t speak clearly, I have never had the kind of conversation with my Ipad which Dom seemed to be enjoying. It thus amazed me how responsive it was, and how lifelike – you could have thought it was a real person talking back to my friend. Just how advanced are these systems becoming? As enthusiastic for new technology as I usually am, what I saw earlier was so astonishing that it made me feel rather behind the times. Such tech seems to be primarily controlled with your voice, so I can’t help feeling somewhat left behind.

Just to update this entry from last Sunday about taking up the bus wheelchair space, I ought to report that something rather similar happened today too. I was up at North Greenwich after quite a long trundle. It was getting cloudy and I was getting eager to go home for lunch. If you don’t know, at North Greenwich there is a large bus station where all the local bus routes converge. It’s also by the O2. It was really busy there today because there was a tennis tournament on.

I got to the right stop for my bus , and found there was not only a lady pushing a pram there, but also a fairly young man wearing a disabled person lanyard and pushing a walking frame. To be honest I assumed it would not be a problem: he could fold his walker up, sit on a bus seat and the driver could let all three of us on. However, rather to my horror and shame, after he had let me on in my powerchair, the bus driver shut the back door and retracted his wheelchair ramp. The, after letting the lady on with her pram through the front door, he refused to let the guy with the walker on because I was in the wheelchair space. I didn’t say anything, but it immediately struck me as blatantly unfair – the dude had been there before me. I thought I’d better blog about it because, with so many more people using wheelchairs and mobility aids these days, I suspect things like this are going to become more and more of a problem.

It’s rather long and involved, but I certainly think this video by Jimmy the Giant is worth a watch. In it, he summarises the current status of the British far right. As we’ll all be aware, the movement, born largely from 1980s football hooliganism, is now seeing a resurgence. Certain demographics of people seem to be being drawn towards figureheads like Tommy Robinson through a misguided sense of insecurity. He highlights a few of the oddities and contradictions in the kind of nationalism we’re currently seeing becoming more and more prevalent. I wont’t try to summarise what he says, but to be honest it’s as interesting as it is horrifying.

I went to see Coyote Vs Acme this afternoon. I must admit I was sort of looking forward to it, but left the cinema in Peckham rather puzzled. Don’t get me wrong: the animation was first class, and a reminder of just how advanced it is becoming, especially when it comes to the fusion of cartoons and live action. The thing is, I’m not sure what the film overall was trying to say. It is famously about a law suit between Wiley Coyote and the Acme corporation, but I was left wondering what there was to read into that: some kind of comment on big business? Capitalism? The American judicial system? The way in which neither of the two animated characters spoke but communicated by holding up written signs even made me wonder whether something about nonverbal communication could be read into it. Yet to be honest I felt it didn’t make any firm statements on any of these things. Thus While the film has quite a few cool jokes, and it was nice to see a few of the cartoon characters I grew up with making a comeback, to be honest it ended so openly and blandly that I was left very puzzled over what it’s whole point was.

Check out Mark Kermode’s much fuller review here.

Not that I’m a very military guy, but does anyone else find all the pictures we’re currently seeing of Donald Trump saluting revolting? I just came across this report of President Xi’s visit to the US, and the bastard is pictured saluting like some kind of war hero or great general, hand pressed to his forehead as if he had spent a lifetime in the army. Don’t forget that this is a guy who famously dodged the draft to get out of being sent to Vietnam. Only a minor point perhaps, but surely there is no more vivid an illustration or demonstration of what a pretender Trump really is.

I had an absence this morning, just before breakfast. It wasn’t a particularly bad one and nothing to worry about, but it was one of my first in a while so it was more or less due. I was thinking recently, though, about how I always tried to ignore those things, even convincing myself that I was imagining them: on the whole I think playing them down was far healthier than letting them get to me. Yet that seems to me to contrast starkly with the prevailing attitude today: sorry to go on about this, but people currently seem very eager to play up whatever medical conditions they might have, even blatantly exaggerating them and using them as the basis for their online personas. As someone who was always taught to play down his disabilities and just get on with life, this growing mass hypochondria is starting to seem very strange. Surely it is wiser not to focus on whatever disabilities or impairments you might have, rather than using them as the basis of your entire personality in order to attract attention and pity.

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.