Could someone explain to me how the condescension, patronisation and the way they make the girl perform for the camera on this video does not qualify as abuse? While there may well be good evidence to suggest that stem cells can help people with CP, the way in which these ‘therapists’ infantilise their so-called patient does her far more harm than the good that might come of injecting her with medications. Frankly, I wanted to see her punch the woman hauling her around in the frikkin’ face.

I just watched Proud and Prejudiced on channel four. Muslims against crusades and the edl strike me as two groups as confused as each other, both as crazy as each other. The one wants to impose a fucked up version of Islam on Britain, the other wants to protect Britain from what it sees as intolerance and so becomes intolerant. Part of me sympathises with the edl, as they seek to protect our society from religious extremism. Yet in so doing they become as extreme as they seek to fight. The irony is, both groups intolerance is born of the same thing: they both misunderstand islam. Muslims against crusades is as extreme as the edl which fears and so opposes all of islam; It does not want to see the imposition of shari’ah. But the muslims against crusades advocate the imposition of shari’ah as a reaction to what it sees as the western oppression of Islam: it perceives western tolerant values as being intolerant of Islam… both groups are formed in part as reactions to each other, and thus ironically become the embodiment of the very thing the opposing group is reacting against. I realise this is a mass oversimplification, and there are many more factors involved, but this is how the situation struck me as I was watching Proud and Prejudiced. It’s all fucked up, and in a way strikes me as darkly funny.

I must admit to being slightly miffed today. As you probably know, last night was the Oscars. We were watching the press report of the ceremony, and I was getting excited as there were three films which I like the look of. I decided that I Need – and I mean NEED – to see The Artist, Hugo 3d and Midnight in Paris. I told Lyn this, who asked me why on earth I hadn’t, then. With that rhetorical kick up the backside, I went to google the local cinema listings. There is an Odeon within easy wheelchair-riding distance, but, to my great astonishment, none of the films I want to see are on. Hurrumph! That put a swift end to my excitement, but I’m still very eager to watch these three films, as all three seem to herald the return of an artistic facet that mainstream film has been missing recently. Mind you, when I put this to Alan, my old film lecturer, he wasn’t quite so sure.

There are two more things I need to do on here today:

firstly, I need to draw attention to the fact that it is my brother Luke’s 26th birthday today. I barely see luke these days, as we both live our own lives, but I often thin little bro. I hope Yan spoils him, and that Yaiya gives him lots of koftas!

Secondly, I’d like to send you here, to a new video by lyn, about how she uses her ipad to compose. It is pretty detailed and very interesting – go check it out.

This article in the Daily Mail had me enraged yesterday, and I am still very angry indeed about it. It concerns a child of five who lives as a girl yet was born male. I personally think it’s a case of a kid being disinhibited enough to explore her identity; recent research indicates that Gender Identity Disorder is manifesting itself at younger and younger ages. But according to the daily mail, the child is mixed up and a result of the growth of the gender identity ‘industry’. Never have I read anything born of more hatred and judgementalism: rather than exploring the subject fairly and evenly, the article’s author, Paul Bracci, makes accusations left, right and centre, virtually accusing the child’s parent’s and authorities of abusing her, and encouraging her to be some sort of freak.

I have had enough of this: I have had enough of feeling I should tolerate other people’s intolerance. This girl can no more help being transgender – if that is hat she is than I can help having cerebral palsy. It’s a part of you, nothing to be ashamed of, and something that nobody has a right to judge. What can be helped, however, is what others decide to think about it. That is a conscious decision, so of others decide to take a prejudiced stance, why should that be respected? Yesterday I think I resolved the paradox of liberalism, the contradiction of having to tolerate intolerance, by assuming that intolerance is conscious. People can decide what to think; they can decide to educate themselves about a subject, but instead they choose to cling to narrow-minded ideas of how the world should be and everything else is wrong. Thus it is they who are at fault, they who have a problem, and they, rather than this transkid or her parents, who warrant social stigma.

The mail can similarly decide what to print; it chooses to spew all this bullshit. It prints tosh about how it’s views are backed up by evidence and born of ‘common sense’, when in fact most of the evidence on the subject supports a more tolerant stance, and to invoke ‘common sense’ seems the height of arrogance. How then does this sickening, unthinking hatred qualify as journalism? Such articles serve only to stir intolerance and sanction ignorance; why should this be part of our press? A lot will be made about the launch of the Sun On Sunday, about how it is gutter journalism. The Sun may be a lad’s mag in the form a newspaper, but it is nowhere near as harmful and deserving of scorn than the Daily mail. The sun does not pretend to be highbrow; the mail thinks it is highbrow journalism when it is nothing but the rancid ravings of the ignorant, arrogant and intolerant. Give me Page three over that classless, puerile crap any day. Mail readers seem to sneer at Sun readers, but at least sun readers don’t think they’re reading anything other than a rag.

It has been a long old day, although today wasn’t as silly as last friday. Today has been the type of day where you get to grips with adult life, yet nothing particularly noteworthy happens. I guess it is days like these which define adult life, but which, growing up, you don’t realise life will ever be this way. A day or reflecting upon the sheer normality of day to day life. Most of all, though, it has been a day where all I could think of is the prospect off curling up to Lyn later, a thought which made everything seem right, even though it was hours away.

To be honest I was feeling rather low today. One or two things, which I won’t bore you with, have been worrying me. However, this afternoon I decided to watch a thing about Stanley Kubrick from The Cinefiles, a YouTube channel where three guys sit round a table and talk about film. Little did I realize, I was in for a treat:

these men, Edwin Samuelson, Michael Foltz and Eric Cohen, clearly have the mixture of absolute passion and near encyclopedic knowledge that is a primary feature of cinephilia. It was like watching, say, Bazin, Barthes and Durgnat sitting round a table talking about film. They certainly have the desire to put films in some sort of canonical order that is another prime feature of the cinephiliac discourse, as well as it’s infectious enthusiasm. On the other hand, the barely touch on the philosophy behind films, discussions of which pervade cinephiliac journals like cahiers du cinema. To my mind, their discussions have an aspect of fandom to them. For example, while a cinephile will discuss film in terms of directorial intent, a film’s meaning and its relationships with other arts etc, a fan will discuss film in terms of the internal fiction, the behavior of the dramatis personae, and so on. Both discourses are equally intense, but have slightly different focuses. Anyway, before I get too anal, I best direct you to what I find to be a fascinating discussion, part one of which can be found here, part two here and part three here.

I was sitting here in my office earlier when, all of a sudden, I heard Lyn start to chuckle in her office. After a minute or so she hadn’t stopped, so I decided to go and see what she found so funny. I immediately saw the source of her mirth. I don’t like posting pictures on here too often, especially those I’ve just come across, but this one is worth it:

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I have seen quite a few fan-films in my time. Most of them, to put it bluntly, are crap, consisting of footage from original films some idiotic teenager has recut in his bedroom and added new sound effects to. From time to time, however, you stumble onto a jewel. this film, called Born of Hope, is one such marvel. Based on The lord of the Rings, it tells the story of Aragorn’s father, Arathorn, and how Aragorn was born. It is essentially a love story, but it has a few impressive fight sequences.

This is not, however, your average made-on-a-wet-weekend fan-film: it had a budget of £25000 and a cast of 400. All the shots are original, with an original script (based, apparently, on an account found in the Lord of the Rings appendices). The acting is of a fairly professional standard; the shooting style bears the mark of someone who knows how to direct. The director, Kate Madison, does not try to emulate peter Jackson stylistically but uses her own technique, including one or two awesome sudden changes of filter. It is also clear that this film was not made by those who came to LOTR through the films, but by those with a deep respect for Tolkien and his languages.

All of this has me very excited indeed: I never realized fan-films could be this good. This film apparently won the London independent film festival award for best micro-budget feature. It just makes me want to get back to film-making myself. I’ve recently made a couple of shorts which I showed to you guys, and I’ve written a script for a third, but what I really need is a new camera so I don’t need to use the camera on my computer. I really love fiddling about with shots and capturing interesting images and image-sequences. But I digress – it’s just that amateur film-making like this really does excite me.

I was thinking at least semi-seriously about going up into London today to try to tell those attending the meeting on the nhs what I thought. Lyn had to go see the doctor, though, so I thought I better stay home. Nevertheless, I do feel quite strongly that the Tories’ proposed reforms to the health service: despite the dissembling and the bull, any fool can see that what they are proposing is privatisation. However, I now wish I went, as then maybe I could have seen this for myself. It seems I’m not the only person who feels strongly enough to go up to downing street today; part of me wishes that this woman had gone further and punched the sonofabitch, although I suppose we better leave that sort of thuggery to boxers. If you ask me she deserves a medal for telling Lansley what the rest of us think.!

I have noted on here before how living in London seems to skew one’s sense of geography and distance. As a kid I lived in Congleton, a small rural town up in Cheshire. There, I could tell how far a place was by how long one had to sit in the car to get there. For example, the nearest major town, Macclesfield, was about six miles away, which took about twenty minutes to half an hour. This also gave me a good sense of place. Yet because of the traffic and the road systems, hat rule does not hold true in London: I find myself having to adopt an entirely new mental approach to geography, my ability to roughly gauge distances having had to be disguarded.

To remedy this, I decided to do a simple exercise. In google chrome I opened two tabs, both with google earth. One was centred on Congleton, the other Charlton. Both, of course, had the same magnification level. What I found was rather cool, and drives home just how gigantic the city I now live in is. For example, Winsford, the town where I went to school for fourteen years, is to Congleton where Wembley is in relation to Charlton, or thereabouts. I remember it taking us about forty minutes to drive to school every day; I seriously doubt we could get to Wembley in that time. Romford is my new Macclesfield, but I daresay if I told Lyn we were going to Romford to do some shopping, she would look at me as if I had suggested we go to Timbuktu for our groceries. Thus London has this strange warping effect on distances: the distances between places bear no resemblance to the time it takes to get there; you could say it has its own rules when it comes to geography. On one level it struck me how big London is inasmuch as it is just one city, one place; yet on another level it is very small inasmuch as it is a self-contained world.

This is probably interesting only to me, and hardly worth noting. Yet it just strikes me as one of those oddities I have noticed. I suppose it’s just another of those instances where urban life skews one’s sense of perspective, and where another set of rules apply.

Yesterday I started to ponder something I decided to call Chronological transvestism. We all know that ordinary transvestism is when someone wears the clothes of the opposite gender – in common parlance, it usually refers to men dressing up as women. Chronological transvestism is completely different: it refers to boys dressing as men and girls dressing as women. When you think about it, it is from some perspectives justt as profound a subversion as ordinary transvestism, yet for some reason, I noticed yesterday, I find it very irritating.

Chopper and I had another of our stupid days yesterday. I might have known I was in for one of those when I rolled up to his place, just after noon; the first thing he did was offer me a beer. Mind you, this one was better than last time, as later Lyn came and joined us in the pub, and we had a fairly good evening. Anyway, earlier, on our travels around south-east London, I had seen a boy who can’t have been mire than twelve dressed as many of the older lads around here do: he was in the padded sleeveless jacket, tee-shirt and cap of a guy in his late teens or twenties. I know this is reverting to stereotype, but that look is associated with the violent, drug-filled culture of the urban male. The way in which this boy was seeking to emulate that look irritated me, although I’m not sure I can fully explain why. Of course, the boy just wanted to be like the older boys around him, but what does he know of that culture? What does he know of drugs and guns? It sort of felt like he was intruding on adulthood, pretending to be something he wasn’t.

Reading that last sentence back, it sounds silly, and indeed almost hypocritical. Yet part of me thinks that kids should be kids and should stop pretending to be more grown up than they are. After all, that kind of urban male culture is no place for a child. Replicating that culture, almost glamorizing it, perpetuates it, and, unlike the harmless donning of skirts and dresses, I’m not sure that’s such a good thing.

Hemingway once called London ‘too noisy and too normal’. He much preferred Paris or Havana, and other exotic places where one could chase women and be chased by bulls. But London to me is just as fascinating as those places: of course, they aren’t the same, but no two places ever are. London has a character of its own; one which you can only make out after you have lived here a while. Part of this character comes from the sheer size of the place: it’s so big that sooner or later you start thinking that London is the world and the world is London. It expands seemingly endlessly in every direction, not just geographically but culturally – there are people here from all over the world. The sheer expanse of this metropolis gives it the feel of a near-infinite labyrinth where there is always more to explore.

Lyn and I went to Bromley today, an area which I’ve only been to once, briefly before. We needed to get there early, so we took a taxi. On the way there, it occurred to me that even if I live here for the rest of my life, I’ll probably never know London in it’s entirety. I didn’t know what to make of that thought: I knew every nook and cranny of the small town I grew up in, but I can never know London that way so I cannot quite feel it is my own. But on the other hand I revel in it’s enormity: it seems endlessly varied, each sub-area having it’s own distinct feel so, as I say, it feels like a world unto itself. Thus, London may indeed be noisy, but it is never normal.

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”Letting this goal in proves our strategy is working.”

The blog entry I made yesterday was crap. It isn’t that now disagree with what I wrote in it, but it wasn’t nearly as incisive a it needed to be. I just didn’t go deep enough into the subject. Truth be told, I don’t think I have written anything particularly incisive on here in ages. It isn’t that I think all my recent blog entries are crap I’m quite proud of one or two, like my ‘Desert Island Disks’ entry – it’s just that they lack a certain depth.

Dad came over today: I always forget how astute my father can be. We had a good long talk about this and that; at one stage I felt like I was using him to catch up with what was going on in the world. The problem is I have fallen out of the habit of reading around subjects. Dad made the point that Abu Qatada hasn’t done anything wrong; he is a highly educated, very intelligent person with a particular interpretation of the Qor’an. He uses the Muslim writings to incite hatred and war. The problem the authorities face, my father explained, is that if they do deport this guy it would be due to what he says, which would run contrary to the liberal value of freedom of speech. Arguing theocratically with this guy isn’t an option either, because he can back up everything he says with chapter and verse. In a way he’s rather like these fire and brimstone televangelists in the states, spewing hatred and backing it up with the bible.

Thus this dilemma is far more complicated than my summery yesterday. Most such debates are far more intricate than can be detailed in a simple 200 word blog entry. Yet when you have something on your chest you jut have to get it off. My discussion with my father earlier today, however, reminded me that it’s sometimes worth taking a closer look, stepping back and thinking a while. Yu also need to talk to other people, and ask their opinions. I have long known that perfect, absolute truth is unobtainable; all you can do is ask others what they think. I’m not alone in not knowing what to think about Qatada – nobody does.

The problem then is they might argue that there is such a thing as perfect truth, as often happens when I start debating online. I am, perhaps, not as wise as my father, and get into these online debates with right-wingers who demand I tolerate their right to be intolerant. I recently got into ne such debate over ‘Spastic ballet’: when I pulled them up for calling it ‘disturbing’, I was told I have an ”inability to accept that people have different opinions from you”. In other words, I was wrong for not tolerating their intolerance; they had a right to express their judgementlsm over my expression of personality, yet I was wrong in being judgemental about their judgementalism. Now tell me, where’s the logic in that? And where’s dad when you need someone to talk some sense?

I just watched the news at six as usual, and I feel I ought to say something on here about the main story, simply because I feel so conflicted about it. We heard today that Abu Qatada is to be released from Long Lartin jail. This is a guy convicted of plotting terrorism; it is very likely that he still poses a threat to this country, yet, despite the fact that e is wanted on terrorism charges in Jordan, the government refuse to deport him. Now I can’t make my mind up about this: ordinarily I take the liberal left stance and say that he’s served his time so should be let be. One cannot be tried for crimes one is yet to commit. But on the other hand the guy is obviously dangerous. He has been convicted in a Jordanian court in his absence. Given that he poses so much of a threat to the people of this country, why not, for once, put their rights ahead of his? But then my lefty side chimes in and points out he probably wont get a fair trial in Jordan, and that we must uphold our civilised values no matter how much of a threat this guy is. And so I must admit, not for the first time, to being in two totally opposing minds about this: my liberals instinct against my concern for what this lunatic might do.

I just want to note the not unexciting news that Channel four has comissioned a series of I’m Spazticus. I don’t know too much about it, other than the fact it was a pilot of a disability-based comedy show with two of my associates, Toby Hewson and Simon stevens. The glorious original can be seen here. If, however, it is being turned into a full series, it is great great news – such comedy is a great way of fighting prejudice against disabled people.

A few days ago I posted a link on here to an article about a guy with muscular dystrophy who had taken his own life over the cuts. In that entry I speculated that it would be the first of many such cases, and it seems I might be right. I just came across this article about Paul Reekie, a scottish writer who also committed suicide after having his benefits cut. He left no note, but the benefits letter was laid on the table near his body. What a tragic waste of Life? I ope people see what the tories are doing – I hope they see what pain those tory scumbags are causing for people with disabilities. They need to be removed fromm power before their ideologicallyinspired cuts lead anyone else to such despair.

Lyn and I took a walk though charlton park this evening, where Marta took this picture. Again, I thought I’d share it on here.

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I just had a quick gander at this video at the new Lightwriter. To be honest I have major reservations about whether I would be able to use it. No doubt it would be good for other people who can use their thumbs, but it would be way too fiddly for people like me. I need something I can put on my lap or on a table, with fairy big keys I can press. However, as soon as I saw it I began to wonder whether it could also be used to kill Borg or Jem Hadar. That spawned an idea for my next YouTube film. Watch this space.

Today marks five years since I made this entry. It has been five years since I found out about he death of my friend Richard. My memories of that day still disturb me – they still seem quite fresh. Most of all, I remember the long drive back to campus, the words of those men still ringing in my ears. That was a bitterly cold day, much like today. You could say I am being morose by writing about this; you could say that I should blog about more cheerful things, and forget about that sad chapter. Yet I suppose this is something I must do, as part of the way in which I remember my friend. I still feel angry that he didn’t have the long life he deserved, so commemorating such an occasion is a way to vent that anger, as well as to ensure I don’t forget the man Rich was.

Bugger – I failed! I was trying to see how long I could keep u blogging every day, and was about a week a way from having posted a blog entry every day for two months, but didn’t get round to making an entry yesterday. It’s a shame, but at least I ca still say that I’ve posted one entry at least every two days for over two years. Yesterday was a busy day: the right front wheel of my main wheelchair is broken, and I was trying to get it fixed. So off I went to ask chopper if he knew someone with a van who could drive us and the chair to the mobility shop inn welling.

I found my friend in the front garden of one of his neighbors, digging out an old post. It as not easy, and he was clearly putting a lot of effort into it. I decided to keep him company, hoping that when he finished we could go get my chair fixed. Time, however, drew on, and I suddenly realized I had been sitting there for two hours. When the job was done, of course, it was clear that my friend’s mind was on things other than my chair: the time had come for the imbibing of alcohol!

It had been a few weeks since I went to the pub with Chopper, so I didn’t see any harm in having a pint or two. We went to my bank first, as I needed cash, and then to a nice quiet place in eltom. As happens all too often, one or two pints turned into four or five, and then what I had intended to be a little trip round the corner became a fully-blown night out. For some reason, when chopper starts talking about having a good drink, I take it as my duty as a northerner to show this townie what drinking really is. To cut a long story short, when I got home I just had my dinner and headed straight for bed, ruing the fact I hadn’t just stayed home, read a bit, and blogged. And on top of that, my chair still isn’t fixed!

Lyn and I are just having a lazy Sunday. There is rather thick snow outside, so it’s a perfect day to stay in, catch up on TV we missed, watch time team and top gear, and so on. I have been trying too organize a trip to my parents in march, which is proving harder to get my head round than perhaps it should. There are so man different parameters and logistical factors to take into account: if I can get a degree surely I can get two crips and their PA to Cheshire and back. I’m sure it’ll become easy once I put my mind to it, but that can wait till tomorrow: now, it’s time too grab a drink f something nice, put my feet up, and look forward to watching three idiots talk bolloks and drive cars. After all, that is what Sunday night is for.

I take no pleasure at all in directing you here. It would seem a guy with MD, no longer wanting to be burden his family, committed suicide by driving his electric wheelchair into a stream. From what I read online, it seems, as the cuts bite, more and more people are starting to feel that way, even if this particular tragedy was not related to them. Poor sod.

Once again I don’t have much to contribute to the general discourse other than to direct you to some article or webpage I have found online. I seem to have been doing rather a lot of that recently. The article I want to direct you to tonight, however, is noteworthy due to two things: firstly because it is firm evidence of something

I have long suspected, and secondly because it is found in the last place I thought you would find such an article. This article in the daily mail (YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT) states that scientists have found a possible link between conservatism and low intelligence. It states: ” Cognitive abilities are critical in forming impressions of other people and in being open minded,’ say the researchers. ‘Individuals with lower cognitive abilities may gravitate towards more socially conservative right-wing ideologies that maintain the status quo. ‘It provides a sense of order.’ ” I knew it – Tories are morons!

Joking aside, I don’t mean having low cognitive abilities makes you a bad person, and nor does being Tory for that matter. It is, however, firm evidence of something which I have long suspected: the right wing ideology is much more simplistic than that of the left. It is almost child-like in its need for rules, security and its dislike of change and difference. Mind you, this may now mean I have to rethink my personal rule which says anything in the Daily Mail should automatically be disbelieved.

A couple of days ago I wrote on here that the disability rights movement does not appear to have a figurehead. I still think that’s true, but what it does have s various leading lights: there appear to be various charismatic figures in our community who have the ability and authority to speak for the rest of us. While it appears to be something of a fashion to brand yourself with a title like ‘disability consultant’ and try to persuade people you are some kind of expert on disability issues, the true leading lights of our community do not overtly seek such positions. They get to where they are through their actions, and because what they have to say is true.

I have two such individuals in mind. There will, of course, be a great many more, but these are the two I know in person. The first is Clair Lewis, known also by the name Dennis Queen. Lewis is quite a formidable person – one of the old guard of DAN activists, or at least one of those who has her metaphysical roots in that old guard. She is eloquent and persuasive and not afraid of a good fight. I met her briefly on Saturday, and was proud to introduce Lyn to her. She probably just thinks herself a normal crip, doing what she has to do to fight injustice,, but to me, her passion for our cause coupled with her vast knowledge and understanding make her one of the prime figureheads for the disability rights movement.

Another person for whom I now have great respect is Darryl Sellwood. I used to think of Darryl just as an average crip and a good friend, but earlier today I came across a video of his keynote address for AGOSCI, an Australian organisation concerned with AAC. It blew me away, so much so that I began to feel a little ashamed of myself: Darryl’s knowledge and eloquence, not to mention his skills as a presenter, make him an ideal spokesperson for communication aid users. I also think Darryl is one of those people adept at presenting the struggles people with disabilities face to non-disabled people, making him a perfect ambassador. Anyway, part one of his excellent presentation can be found here, part two here and part three here.

These are people I have great respect for, as, in completely different ways, they are helping improve the lives of their fellow disabled people. I know there will be many more such people, like Alan Holdsworth, who documents our struggles through his music. Above all, they are the ones out there, in their own ways making the world a better place by allowing their lights to shine. The disability rights movement may not need leaders per se, but the more leading lights there are, the brighter the world will become for disabled people.

I just came across this video of a seemingly very nice fellow in his car taking about ‘our’ protst on saturday. Although I find his tone ever so slightly patronizing, and I’m not sure what he would like to replace the government with, it’s good to know we crips have at least some support in the general public.

According to this, scientists are getting closer and closer to directly decoding the brain functions which form speech. In other words, they are getting close to being able to map which parts of the brain we use when we want to say certain things. I don’t have much time to write abou it in full now – what is there to say other than ”go read the article” anyway – but this may have profound and exciting implications for people who use augmentative and alternative communication.