There was another student protest today up in London. Ordinarily I feel very eager to go, and I have to fight the urge to get on a bus to go join my fellow students in rebelling against the system. Admittedly, it’s not a strong urge, and is usually overcome by the need to do other things, but it is, nevertheless, there. I want to see for myself these protests; I want to show my opposition to the injustice. Today, however, the urge was overruled completely by the weather. Frankly, in this snow, going anywhere in my chair is suicide. I went to school this morning, which was scary enough, and that’s just around the corner. I guess my curiosity about whether the authorities will allow a guy in a wheelchair be ‘kettled’ will have to wait for better weather, as will my eagerness to rebel. I know this is a cop-out, but I guess I have to be a fair-weather revolutionary.

I am suddenly rather pleased. I just checked the cricket score, expecting to read of the Australian victory, only to find the match was drawn. This is terrific news, as it means we’ve already improved on the last tour of Australia. It means England are saved from the indignity of a five-nil drubbing, which, to be honest, was all I was hoping for. I’m sorry if this sounds negative, and I know the English team are much improved, but, after the fiasco of three years ago, it’s quite a relief.

And I know this has nothing to do with anything I’m supposed to write about on here, like crip-related stuff, but there’s nothing more important in my book than ashes cricket.

If I ever become prime minister, I think one of the first things I’d do is legalise the use of guns, but only for disabled people and only in specific circumstances. I ordinarily oppose the use of violence, but there are times when I have badly wanted a gun, such as last night. We were in a pub, having a quiet beer, when a guy started to talk to us. At first he was okay, but he soon got offensive – very offensive. He started to insult our PA, Marta, trying to tell her how to do her job; he was condescending and rude, and he didn’t understand why he wanted to go away. I became very angry – Marta does her job very well indeed, and I will not have her insulted. At that moment, I whish I had a more effective means of making the guy clear off, like a gun.

I admit this might not be my best idea: letting inebriated wobblies like myself use firearms may be particularly unwise. Yet the fact is, people like me and Lyn seem to get this abuse quite often, ad I’m starting to tire of having to put up with it.

I listened to the first hour of the cricket, hoping to hear an Australian wicket or two fall, when I suddenly thought ”Man, I could kill some VB”. VB, or Victoria bitter, is a local brew down inn Sydney and Brisbane; it’s nothing special, but I missed it last night. It didn’t seem a day since we were there at the last ashes tour, sitting in the sun, singing with the barmy army. We were on the holiday of a lifetime: I had not one but two helicopter rides; we saw Uluru and spent a day on Moreton island. Sitting on the sofa late last night, listening to Jonathon Agnew describe the scene, brought it all back, and I suddenly felt thirsty. Cricket is the only sport I know with such evocative power.

I was watching Michael ‘Pob’ Gove’s announcement on education yesterday, and I was shocked to hear that he plans to remove the emphasis from coursework and put it back on exams at GCSE. I was genuinely taken aback: I know the Tories are stupid, but I didn’t realise they were that stupid. Coursework gives a far more accurate idea of a pupils ability, especially in the arts; it gives you a chance to build arguments properly, rather than hurridly and under pressure. Moreover, it places people like me at a huge disadvantage: if all my qualifications had been exam based, I doubt I would have passed many of them – in exams, one tenses up, tires, and cannot work at your best. Thus this move constitutes a huge step backwards in terms of disability equality.

I can’t believe they are doing this. all the progress made over the last thirteen years is being undone to suit the Tories’ narrow, bigoted view. It is utterly wrong – even callous. They may pretend to be forward thinking and progressive, but you only need to look at Howard Flight’s remarks to see what the Tories really think. They are nothing more than a bunch of arrogant arseholes with no right to be in power, but they think they are somehow superior to the rest of us, and can undo things that ensure equality for the sake of their narrow-minded ideology.

I was going to say something about Australia today. The ashes, of course, begin tomorrow, and I was going to write about our trip there during the last ashes tour of Australia. I was going to write about Uluru and Darling Harbour and rides in helicopters. Yet, as coincidence would have it, I received this link today. Annie Macdonald, one of the leading lights of the disability rights movement and an inspiration to everyone who heard about her, died last week at her home in Australia. I remember reading about her in university after Becca told me about her: she was institutionalised between the age of four and eighteen: because of her CP, she was supposed to have severe learning difficulties, but through sheer will and determination, he managed to show herself and free herself. I suspect, from what I have read, that she would object to this eulogising, yet I fear the disabled community and human-kind itself has lost one of it’s biggest characters. Through her writing and through her being, Anne Macdonald made us ask questions about ourselves no other person could. I deeply regret never contacting and getting to know her.

I just watched something on the news that I am quite disgusted at: a city ‘academy’ in London has rejected an application from a girl with cerebral palsy. The school, which professes to be inclusive in it’s prospectus, claims it cannot cater for the girl because ”the school had narrow corridors, small classrooms, steep disabled ramps, only one disabled toilet and two lifts.” This sounds like a pisspoor excuse to me, and the fact that this is still happening makes me furious. I know that inclusion is not the black and white issue I thought it was, but surely people have a choice about where and how their kids are educated, and that choice shouldn’t be infringed by disability. Anyway, go read.

I was speaking to a friend online the other night. He said he had stopped reading my blog because I’d become predictable. I think this is certainly a valid point: I do tend to go over the same ground again and again. I guess I try to give readers an idea of what life is like for a twentysomething guy with CP, settling down and building a family in the infant years of a new millennium. This is why I sometimes write diary-type entries. But I think the guy I was talking to was referring to my political blogs, and my attacks on the government. Here he definitely has a point: I am a student of film and writing, not politics. I am no political pundit, and I certainly don’t fully understand the economic situation. My entries on politics may well be becoming repetitive and tiresome because of this. yet politics is something I am very angry about, and, as evidenced here, I’m not the only one. Many people, especially those with disabilities, are very worried about the government; for the first time in centuries, there is a faint whiff of revolution in the air. I’m not the only one who sees this government as illegitimate, and the Lib-Dems as traitors. I therefore think I’ll continue to blog as I have been, attacking the Tories, trying to show things from my perspective, but I will try to write on a wider variety of topics from now on.

Tonight is children in need night; a night where we are all supposed to give to help the poor innocent children. I still don’t quite know what to make of charity. On the one hand, I know it can be a good thing, based on selflessness and compassion. Yet charity traps those they claim to help into a cycle of dependence – they become slaves to the organisations which help them. It’s scary how swiftly the urge to help becomes the urge to dominate. This is why I prefer state organised forms of welfare, bit with the Tories in power, I suspect those who need a helping hand are trapped into dependence for the time being.

We were just at Charlton house, having a leisurely cup of coffee. Lyn was telling us how, at the turn of the millennium, she could see the dome from where she then lived so she watched the fireworks there first-hand. It made me think of how different my life was back then, and how radically things have changed over the last ten years. In 2000, I was still at school – a quiet, out-of-the-way special school with very low expectations of it’s students. I suppose my expectations were equally low: after school, I expected to start at Macclesfield college and stay there for a long time, commuting every day between my comfortable life with my parents and a comfortable life at college. University was a pipe-dream, but I was still kind of scared of thee prospect of ever leaving home, so I intended to put it off for as long as possible. After all, I thought, who would look after me? The idea of ever finding a person to love me was frankly ludicrous.

Looking back, I was young and immature. I’ve grown so much over the last decade, or at least I think I have. University taught me so much: in a way I grew up there, for it gave me so many experiences, and I met so many friends there that it revolutionised my whole being. It turned me from a young, home-loving child to a young man, eager to try new things, meet new people. I am no longer afraid of life away from home, or, rather, I have found a new home, and a new family, safe in the knowledge that the one I left up north will always be there for me. The last decade gave me so much in terms of life experiences and friends. Who would have thought, as I watched the fireworks on television that night ten years ago, that the woman I would fall in love so deeply with was watching them from her bedroom window.

I was struck by something I heard on a bbc4 programme about Aristotle last night: science is an endless conversation. This is no doubt true, I thought, but art is, among other things, the means by which we have that conversation. I’d evenn go oe step further than aristotle by saying that every field, not just science, is a conversation All forms of communication are on some level, artistic: even the precise, stripped down unadorned form of writing found in scientific papers. (my physicist brother, Mark, may be alarmed to find that he, too, is an artist, but he makes artistic decisions each time he composes a sentence). Even in writing these words, I am making a piece of art, contributing to the never-ending conversation about the world around us.

All art contributes to that conversation. I find writing the most direct and specific, which is of course why it is usually the art form used to explain and communicate complex ideas. But I see all arts as capable of enhancing and clarifying the world around us. Film or photography, for example, have the ability to shed light on the world particularly sharply. Even the programme on Aristotle contributed to the conversation

But it got me thinking again about those who can’t contribute, who can’t communicate – what of their voices? I think I can make my thoughts known quite well, and enjoy doing so, on various subjects, on my blog. Lyn can express herself artistically through her music and paintings. Yet as a disabled person, I find myself regularly preoccupied by the fact there are those who are unable to express themselves. Often, if you are unable to make your thoughts known, you are seen as a lesser person. I have this fascination with film and it’s relationship with language; I think it stems from my fascination with communication. Most people, I guess, take communication for granted, but even what I am doing now, in typing these rather disorganised words, is a very valuable skill. Those who do not possess it, for whatever reason, are seen as non-people. The ability to make one’s voice herd seems central to society: it’s as though, if you are unable to contribute to the great human conversation, as I once wrote here, then you are not fully a person. Being a VOCA user makes one realise how central the ability to express oneself, in whatever way, is to human society.

I heard earlier that the banks are considering cutting their bonuses from 7 to four billion quid. This made me feel sick: it was the financial sector fat-cats who got us into this mess in the first plaice – it was because of the stupidity and greed of such people that we are now in a recession, and the public sector has to be cut so drastically. Of course, the people in that sector claim that they deserve such bonuses, but I don’t see how they contribute to society in any way. They just move money around, investing in stocks and shares which rise and fall arbitrarily. I may be being stupid, but how does that system contribute in any way to humanity? It does not teach our children; it does not expand our knowledge; it does not help people care for their selves. All it does is arbitrarily create wealth. Why the fuck do we need it, then? These ‘economists are greed-merchants, who, through the flaws in the system they created and sustain, have screwed us all over. Why should they get any bonuses? The bastards should all be in jail.

Lyn made a blog entry today. Quite frankly, I find her words shocking and haunting. I could say more, especially about her amazing talent for drawing which I only found out about today, but I think I’ll klet her speak for herself. go here

I know I am not supposed simply to ‘Plug’ things I’ve seen on tv on* here, but today I’ll make an exception. I think everyone should watch ‘David Attenborough’s first Life’ – it is a magnificent, fascinating programme about how life on earth began. I’m something of an Attenborough fan; he has amassed an immense body of work cataloguing life on this planet. Each one of his series is a gem in itself, but when viewed as a whole, his contribution both to television and the nation’s understanding of science astounds me. This latest programme just adds a final masterstroke to that body of work. I entreat you all to go watch.

Charlie just popped by with her mum for a bit of a flying visit. She didn’t stay long – we just had time for a natter over brunch. She brought teacakes with her, and it was good to catch up on what the joneses are up to. Charlie is still teaching, but hopes soon to go freelance so she can tour more with her band; Hugh, her brother, has apparently turned his hand to inventing musical instruments, and the two younger joneses are growing up fast. They had to go all too soon. I would have liked to take them for a walk around the village, but they had to go. Nevertheless, it feels good to know I have such good friends – uni feels an age ago already, but I think the experiences and friends I gained there will last a lifetime.

This maybe somewhat controversial, but I cannot say I condemn what happened yesterday at Millbank. While I do not liike seeing anyone get hurt, part of me whishes those students had raized the Tory party offices to the ground. That is, after all, what they deserve. They’re imposing cuts on us all, making us suffer for crimes we did nt commit just so they can keep taxes low. As far as I’m concerned, what happened at that student protest yesterday was a fair and proportionate response to the coalitions cuts, and the tories have only theirselves to blame. I expect – and indeed hope – to see many such actions in the near future. Maybe then the government will see it doesn’t have the people’s backing, and move aside for someone more intellegent.

I am still fretting about the subject I took up yesterday. It might not seem very relevant here, but if something with the philosophies of the tea party movement gets established here, as Farage seems to intend, then I think it cause for great concern. As I noted yesterday, I think the party itself is composed mainly of moderate but disenfranchised people, but is being hijacked by those on the far right. Indeed, yesterday I came across footage of Christopher Monkton, still calling himself Lord Monkton although he lost his hereditary peerage in 99, railing against global warming. He was trying to use the movement to spread his own ultra-conservative agenda. He was also singing the praises of Fox News. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t worry what such a lunatic spouts, but Monkton is also UKIPs second in command.

How is it that such insane people are gaining power on both sides of the Atlantic? If he has views in line with fox, presumably he would do away with the BBC and the NHS, two of the things which define Britain as Britain. In other words, there is nothing British about values such as his, so why are people like him gaining sway. This is important, because if they are, it threatens my way of life, as presumably like the republicans he would have people like me dependent on charity rather than the state. In short, I would be a beggar. I find his views repugnant, and the fact that people actually listen to the crap he spouts baffling. He is not even a climatologist, and clearly does not have a clue what he’s talking about. I think that such people really should be made to shut up before they do real damage. The first thing to do, apart from demonstrating global warming is real once and for all, is to expose such people for the foolish bigots they are and to outline the dangers in heeding them. That’s what I attempted to do today.

If there is anyone I loathe more in British politics than David CaMoron and thee Tories it is Nigel Farage and UKIP. I may joke about the Tories being closet racists and xenophobes, but that’s only me trying to be provocative. UKIP, on the other hand, really are racists and xenophobes – they just don’t admit it, even to themselves. The fact is, as all sensible people realise, Britain must be part of the European Union – most of our trade is with the EU. Being part of a wider European community makes sense, and the protests of people like Farage, however sensibly and reasonably they might like to frame them, amount to little more than the ravings of a lunatic.

Amusingly, though, Farage has claimed the American teaparty movement as kindred spirits. As anyone reading this will probably know, the teapaarty movement are even more right-wing than republicans, and advocate small state individualism. They call themselves libertarians. It’s supposed to be a grass-roots movement, but I suspect that is an illusion – I suspect the whole thing is a construct generated by the right and their allies in the media, plying those worst hit by the crunch with platitudes and slogans about ‘taking back our country’, but more on that soon. Such philosophies have always struck me as very short-sighted, as while they sound like they advocate freedom and tolerance, in reality they generate freedom for some and servitude for the many. Those with the ability and resources cease power while others are left to starve. I firmly believe we need a large state as both a safety-net and a mechanism which guarantees fairness and equality for all. Everyone has a right to free healthcare and a decent free education; everything else simply ensures inequality and suffering. Thus it is very telling that Farage would ally himself to the teaparty movement: both pretend their politics are reasonable, fair and adult when in fact they are self-centred, narrow-minded and frankly stupid.

It has been quite a hectic couple of days. On Friday, we had a meeting about finances with a lady from social services. I don’t want to go into detail here, but it was rather stressful for all involved, especially Lyn. Fortunately, luck had it that dad was here at the same time, so he an Paula were able to give us some back-up. Dad had only come to drop off my other chair, as defiant needed to be taken for a service, so I rather sprang it upon him. Nevertheless, dad was superb.

My brother Luke was equally superb yesterday. My copy of Word hadn’t been working all week; we tried to fix it but nothing we did seemed to work. So we dragged Luke all the way here from up near Muswell hill. When he got here, he popped my computer on and found it working perfectly. I felt pretty awful, but it was great to see him and my machine needed a look at anyway. It’s now functioning well, and I can spell-check my blog entries again!

Yet best of all I got to see my brother, whom I hadn’t seen since Christmas – perhaps I should get my computer to go wrong more often. As I keep saying, life with Lyn is awesome, and I am more independant than ever, but it feels great to know I still have a family like mine behind me.

I should probably update you all on the status of my foor. I was out of my wheelchair in time for tea yesterday, as by then it was feeling much better. I think I just needed to rest it, which would imply that it was twisted rather than broken. Wednesday night I was really contemplating having to take a trip to A and E, a prospect which I did not relish, so I’m glad it turned out okay. Mind you, I think having Cp gives you a higher pain threshold: to a certain extent, you have so many bumps and twists that you can take more paiin than usual. On the other hand, that could be just me, so I’d be interested to speak to other CP-ers on the subject.

I suppose I am, as mum usedd to put it, ‘in the wars’. I was coming home yesterday from Woolich, zooming along, when I heard a noise behind me. I turned around, and realising it was just a gate banging in the wind, I turned back. It was then I felt a severe – and I mean severe – pain in my left foot. I’d trapped my foot against a metall box. At first I thought it would just ease, so I iggnored the pain, but it got worse over the evening.

This morning, it was slightly better, but it still hurt to walk on it. One of the advantages of beng a cripple is having a wheelchair at ones disposal, so I’ve been using it. When at home, I like to be ambulent – I prefer to walk about the house; yet it’s odd to reflect that I am, for the first time, descovering what life is like for those with no walking ability at all. This is my first day wholly in my chair. It isn’t that bad, actually: reading is probably better from my chair as I could park by the bedroom window and have a quiet, well-lit spot to read. Reaching stuff is more of a poblem, as is picking things up from the floor. On the other hand, I can zoom around the house without using very much energy.

I think, though, that once my foot is better, I’ll go back to walking. There are advantages to being ambulent, and, contentious as it may be to some in the Crip Comunity, I think walking should be encouraged. Of course, as I’m apreaciating today, it isn’t the be-all-and-end-all, and I still agree with a sticker on my friend Katie’s chair which reads ”walking is overrated”, but it is a useful skill to have.

I was just watching newsnight, and it looks like Obama is about to take a kicking. It’s hard not to feel sorry for the guy; it’s also hard not to feel that america is nought but a bunch of morons. Obama attempted to enssuure every american was ensured a decent standard of medical care, among other things, while trying to steer an economy through troubled waters, but according to the pundits, obama is almost universally hated. Problem is, obama is a victim of his times: he was / is a visionary, but the people of america, fed so much right-wing bull from the likes of Fox, don’t seem to undderstand what he is trying to do. He seems to have a more european, state-oriented attitude to things, but because this stands to jeopodize the monopolies certain businesses, like Fox and private medicade companies had over the people, the average americans were fed so much crap about Obama being unamerican.

It really makes me sad, as well as stiking me as ironic, how it was american capitalism got it’as people into so much trouble, yet that same system has such a stranglehold over the people that it dupes them into blaming other ways of thinking for their woes. In a way, they can’t accept that it is their indeviduallism, which they perceive Obama as challenging, which is the root cause of their prroblems. Obama is trying to grow the economy by pumping money into the state, but is accused of being unamerican buy investing too hard. Sorry if I’m not being very coherent tonight, but can america not see it;’s trapped in a way of thinking, and if it doesn’t escape, this soort of thing will happen over and over again. Obama offered solutions caused by the american system by proposing to change that system, buut in doing so Obama was blamed for those very problems. It seems the american status-quo is too rigid, with too much wsway over the mindset of the american people.

I think I’ll change the tone slightly today, having become too ranty and indignant recently, and direct you all here. It seems a transwoman has won the world scrabble championships. Mikki Nicholson, who is 32, says she only started playing the game five years ago, so it’s quite incredible. Maybe you could say it’s another small step forward for transpeople everywhere. Mind you, I think her pink wig might have put her opponent off, giving her an unfair advantage; and since when were ‘duh’ and ‘pee’ real words?