I just want to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that the Olympic torch, also known as the stick o’ fire, passed through Congleton this morning. As luck would have it, I was up early, remembered, and was able to watch it live over the ‘net. To be honest it wasn’t that interesting, but it was good to see the town where I was born and grew up become part of such an epic event; indeed, the route ran not that far from my parents’ home, and I got a bit nostalgic for the old place.

Right now, the website is showing the drive from Congleton to Macclesfield. I suppose they must drive between towns rather than walk the whole way, the lazy buggers. Whatever your feelings about the Olympics, at least his torch relay lets us see bit more of the country.

We decided to do some gardening today – one of the bushes in our back garden has become fairly overgrown. I thought I’d have a go. Needless to say, it’s harder than it looks, but at least the lift mechanism on my chair came in handy.

Dad will be proud!

It hasn’t been a bad day at all. I spent much of it reading, From Hobbits to Hollywood continuing to fascinate, but the guys next door put some music on – loud, urban music of the boom boom boom variety – so I decided to go for a stroll. On my walk I began to ponder the history of charlton, as I often do. Despite being in the middle of one of the world’s largest and most populous cities, Charlton still feels like a village. I wondered when it became consumed by london, and when was it last a village proper – ie, surrounded by fields. Strangely, it still feels like it is. What were the boundaries of the original village.

When I came home I naturally did a little googling, but then I stumbled upon the following quote from daniel defoe, too good not to share, simply as it is a great, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, description of the village today.

[quote=”Daniel Defoe – a tour through britain”]a village famous, or rather infamous for the yearly collected rabble of mad-people, at Horn-Fair; the rudeness of which I cannot but think, is such as ought to be suppressed, and indeed in a civiliz’d well govern’d nation, it may well be said to be unsufferable. The mob indeed at that time take all kinds of liberties, and the women are especially impudent for that day; as if it was a day that justify’d the giving themselves a loose to all manner of indecency and immodesty, without any reproach, or without suffering the censure which such behaviour would deserve at another time. [/quote]

The horn fair has long since been abolished, sadly, but I can assure you the spirit behind it still lives on in the locals, and is not just confined to one day a year. A

‘collected rabble of mad-people” indeed; let me just say I have a tale or two I can tell, but would be wise not to share on a public blog. Well, good to see the place hasn’t changed since 1727; perhaps this uniqueness explains why Charlton still feels like a place unto itself, and why I have grown so fond of it.

Short of anything much better to blog about at present, and given that I appear to be turning a nice shade of red, I think I better just advise you to go here. I’m not sure how long this hot spell will last, but while it does, I intend to enjoy it; I’m going back into the garden.

Oe thing that makes a meal great, allowing you to compile a list like this, are the days that go with them, and today must be recorded as just such a wonderful day. Although I am afraid to say we lost the cricket today – and by we, I should say I mean Blackheath, who currently play in charlton park – I was there for the full match, apart from a short trip home to get my straw and take a pee. It was glorious out there again today; I had the pleasure of sitting out there in the sun for the entire afternoon. I have seldom had a more wonderful afternoon, despite the team I was supporting – and now think I’ll take as ‘my team’ – losing. Sitting there, out in the park, sipping beer and watching a run chase, I was at a loss to think of anything finer or more perfect; the only thing missing was lyn at my side, but she finds cricket dull. Oh well, you can’t have everything, although it means I have something even more wondrous to return home to.

Staying with my filmic/artistic mood, today I think I’ll direct you here. I’m currently reading a book on the Lord of the Rings films called From Hobbits to

Hollywood: basically a collection of essays about the film. Thusfar I must say I’m enjoying it, although some of the collection are better than others. This essay is on a similar theme, and although shorter and not quite as academic, it is no less interesting. It is an argument that the Scouring of the Shire should not have been dropped from Jackson’s films; I had never thought about it, but, now that I have, I must admit I’m quite convinced. the scouring is an important lesson in the books, showing that nowhere is safe, not even the idyllic Shire. It also shows, as the writer points out, the character progression of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. In the other hand, the films are often criticized for having too many endings already, so I can see why Jackson left it out.

You know, its funny. As a teenager I was obsessed with tolkien; growing up it was often all I could think of. But then, one day, I grew out of it and moved on to other texts; even my love for books morphed into my love for film. Sitting on the sofa yesterday, reading, it suddenly occured to me that thins had come back to Tolkien somehow, that my old obsession had somehow merged with my current academic pursuits. There is something rather ironic in that, and I can’t decide whether t’s a good or bad thing.

I finally got round to watching the trailer for Skyfall today. How it has eluded me before now I’m not sure, but it did. Now that I have watched it, though, I’m not sure what to make of it: it didn’t quite send me into the fits of squeals such things usually do. Bond’t quite seem bond in it: he seems a different character, somehow, from the last two films. That could, of course, just mean they’re taking Bond in a new direction again, which I suppose must be seen as a good thing given that originality must always be welcomed. It could also mean, I suppose, that I’m becoming more critical and discerning, but we’ll have to see about that one. Mind you, I was interested by the fact that. in one of the trailers I saw, someone had rather clumsily tagged on an ad for the video game too, This irritated me, to be honest: films and games are different cultural artifacts, and should be treated as separate cultural entities, yet they have somehow been conflated in popular culture; they form the same audiovisual nexus – the same Lacanian Symbolic, in a way – so that one medium is seen to blur into another and anther, turning texts into commodities perfect for depriving people of their cash. That has been noted before, but what irritates me is that the ‘gamers’ have reached the point where, to them,film and game are the same thing: they enter into the dupe. All I am saying though, is that I want a film to be a film again, an artistic text, and not a video game, happy meal, or whatever. At the same time, it is interesting to observe how such art forms are evolving and merging, especially online.

Lyn’s birthday went without a hitch, although I will just say that I must remember to organise a better meal for her next year.

On a completely unrelated topic, I stumbled across this yesterday, which seemed too stupid for me not to flag up. I mean, I know I should be above such things, but in a fight between darh vader and Gandalf, Gandalf will always win. As for my reasoning, I can only point to the fact that gandalf is a 5,000 year old demi-god, and vader is the creation of a hollywood hack with as much talent and originality as my little finger. End of story. Mind you, this film does seem rather well made it must be noted, and ties in too to the musings I made in this entry.

I find myself simply wanting to repeat my blog entry of a year ago, as nothing has changed. Today is my dad’s birthday, and he is still absolutely the best father anyone could wish for. And tomorrow, of course, is Lyn’s birthday, who remains the love of my life. Both these people I love dearly, and I count myself very lucky indeed that they are both part of my life. I hope they both have amazing days!

Today is fast turning out to be another glorious day. Lyn and I had a late breakfast in a local cafe, then, while she headed home, I went to watch a bit of the cricket in the park again, after which I decided a short walk was in order. ‘Short’ turned out to be a misnomer, however: after a meander through the park, I decided to go take a look at the river. Not far from here, there is a lane called Anchor and Hope Lane, which runs alongside the Thames; it has beautiful views across the mighty river, forming, as it does, a part of the river walk. I think they have renovated it slightly recently ahead of the Olympics.

London and her river looked serene today. Interestingly, while I was up there I had my first look at the new cable car. I had thought that was still in the planning stage, but it now looks like it is almost ready. Indeed, while I was there they started to test it: it looked quite fast. No doubt it ill be slower when carrying passengers, but even so I can’t wait to have a ride on it with Lyn.

After that I took a brief look at what was happening at the dome, and then wended my way home. Not such a short walk, but I find such strolls useful for clearing my head, thinking, and getting to know a city I now love even more intimately.

Sometimes the best days are those I better not blog about, or wouldn’t know where to begin anyway. Yesterday was just such a day. You’l know all about it soon enough, but for now let it suffice to say Lyn and I are involved in something very big. Well, Lyn is – I just go with her for the ride. Mind you, it’s shaping up to be a hell of a ride! Just stay tuned, as they say; this is going to be awesome!

While I don’t think I would go as far as equating what the Tories are doing to the Nazi T4 program, as such comparisons usually just work to make one seem far too militant, I think I’ll just direct you here, to a call to arms by Bob Williams-findlay. It is certainly true, of course, that people with disabilities are being hit hardest by the cuts; the cuts have indeed caused deaths. Thus such a battle-cry is needed; as Williams-Findlay writes: ”We MUST mount a resistance, fighting cuts and oppressive policies, is not enough in relation to this ideological onslaught – it is a State run ‘hate campaign’ and more and more disabled people will die.” We must all unite under a single banner and combat this foe together; that is, after all, why there needs to be an ‘us‘ and a ‘we’. I just fear that using language that is too strong, going too far in our comparisons (and, the flying spaghetti monster knows, I can be just as guilty of that as anyone) might actually alienate people who would otherwise be on our side, putting people off by looking like a bunch of teenagers moaning for the sake of it.

My dad came to visit us this morning. It was great to see him, talk a bit, and eat lunch together. While he was here, he read to me a few pages from Pomerance’s The Horse Who Drank The Sky. Dad has a fine reading voice. He only read a page or two to me, but in a way it would have been quite hilarious if he had read a page or two more. I read on to myself after he had left, and got to a passage concerning the filming of Antonioni’s ‘Bow up’ (1966). As shown here, there’s quite a famous scene in the film set in a park – a park not a stones throw from where we were sitting. Blow up was filmed in Maryon park, and in fact pomerance describes walking there himself in 2005. I could have taken dad there myself, shown him the very scene described in the book. But, nevermind, that walk will have to wait; I’ll just have to go myself, if only to celebrate finishing a great book. Interestingly, though, pomerance describes a spooky aesthetic to these scenes: what he did not mention, possibly because he did not know, was that this was part of the ‘hanging wood’, where highwaymen were put to death in the nineteenth century. What a place to set a film about a murder. To those who do know, I personally think this fact adds another eery dimension to the scenes in question, and certainly complements what Pomerance was suggesting, although that might just be an historic irony.

I must say how concerned I am about government plans for disability living allowance. While I think it safe to say that Lyn an I fall well over the threshold for qualifying as needing state benefits, I have come across, in some quarters of the disability sphere as well as outside of it, a notion that too many people are claiming it who are just lazy. While I have come to expect such tosh from the political right, would you believe I have heard fellow crips starting to suggest some people claiming to belong to our community shouldn’t, and are jumping on the political bandwagon yet have no experience of ‘real’ disability, whatever that is.

I have no idea how widespread such views are; I hope they belong to a tiny, easily ignored, minority. The ,moment one disabled person starts casting doubt on a fellows’ right to call themselves disabled is the moment our community begins to fragment from the inside, and that must not happen. A forty year old with CP has no more right to call himself a member of the disability community than a twenty-five year old diagnosed with bipolar last year, simply because they didn’t go through the hell many crips went through in the 70s or the special school system. Such thinking is just plain wrong; I find it abhorrent, and, while I know freedom of speech is sacrosanct, part of me says that such voices must be countered lest they be taken as something other than the tiny, ill-informed minority they are.

Yesterday was quite a glorious day: just after noon I went for a walk, and found a cricket match in the park. If you ask me, there is simply nothing better than sitting on the grass watching a good game of cricket. To be honest I decided to come home after a couple of hours as if I had stayed there I would have started drinking. As it turns out, Lyn wanted to take a trip to Woolwich anyway.

If getting to watch some cricket was not glorious enough, The Lord of he Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring was on Channel Four Last night. Despite cherishing that film, I rarely watch it, so last night I indulged myself. I still say it is a masterpiece, and, while it isn’t an absolutely faithful reproduction of the book, I am extremely greatful to Peter Jackson for staying as true to Tolkien as he could. Just think of the mess it may have been if a lesser director got the rights to it, or the Disney corporation. Mind you, a version of LOTR directed by, say, quentin Tarrantino would have been interesting.

Thus I was very happy at ten last night, having reacquainted myself with an old friend. I turned the TV over, looking for the news, only to discover some girl with a dog had won britain’s got talent. The contrast hit me hard, being instantly transported from a masterpiece of post-classical film to the banalities of saturday evening tv; from a world intricately and beautifully created by Tolkien and Jackson, to a world in which people have voted for a not-that-talented woman doing some tricks with a not-that-talented dog to win half a million quid. I can hardly think of a greater juxtaposition, although it wasn’t enough to spoil such a glorious day.

Rather an odd thing happened today which I think I should note, although I’m not totally sure it did happen. I was on the 422 bus to Bexleyheath; it must have been around half three as there were a lot of school kids around. I was in the wheelchair space, facing back towards a group of teenagers at the rear of the bus. At first I paid no attention to them, or very little; but then I began to overhear fragments of their conversation: they were saying things like ”That’s the guy…” and ”That’s him”; I also think I heard them say the word ”Tutu” once or twice. Is it possible, I wonder, that they recognised me from Spastic Ballet on YouTube? The chances of such a thing must be infinitessably small, but the thought thrilled me: are me and Lyn, in a small way, now YouTube celebrities? The video has over fifty thousand views now, as well as a couple of duplicates, so it is not outside the realms of possibility. They may not have been talking about me, but if it turns out those kids were, and I am indeed famous for dancing around in a pink tutu, I might well die laughing.

This has nothing to do with anything in particular, but if you ever want a bit of creative, lighthearted fun which doesn’t require too much brainpower, go here. Plink by dinahmoe is one of those natty little websites which lets you make music with your friends. I just came across Lyn and mitch on it; Mitch told me how to join in, and I was hooked instantly. Check it out – it’s probably good stress relief.

I am still pondering yesterday’s incident in the park. After she read my blog about it, Lyn wisely pointed out that those boys couldn’t help acting as they did, any more than I can help having cerebral palsy; getting angry and aggressive won’t help. She’s right, of course, but it’s the intolerance of it I can’t stand: the unthinking intolerance which dictates difference must be stamped out. Mind you, it occurred to me earlier that the irony is, they don’t know the half of it: had they seen me in my tutu and tights, or at least known what I had on under my trousers, they would have had an aneurism.

I know I should have ignored it, just as I knew I should have ignored it yesterday, but the thing is, as I once wrote here, I am proud of who I am. Lyn and I were just taking a walk; it’s a reasonably pleasant evening – the first in a while, in fact – and we needed some groceries. We thought we would couple the shopping trip with a walk in the park. It was going well enough, when we encountered three late teenage boys. I should have recognised them: they were the same three lads I came across when out and about yesterday, one of whom had shouted ‘Retard’ at me. Then I was with chopper, who had a word with them.

They did the same today. I know I should ignore it, I know they do not know any better, but I really don’t like being the but of some child’s joke. Fool that I am, I saw red and tried to chase them. Of course, that only made things worse; it only encouraged them. I got the impression that they were trying to score points with each other, trying to look big and manly in front of their pals. That would mean that, given that it looks like they live around these parts, I can expect more of it. But part of me just can’t just roll over and take such abuse; it makes me so angry to hear them laugh at me, as if for all my accomplishments, for my degree, for my more-or-less independent life, I am nothing but a figure of derision, some ‘retard’ in a chair, there to be poked fun at by kids who will probably never achieve what I have. It’s something I must learn to take, and next time I know I must ignore them, but for me that seems easier said than done. Mind you, its the thought they might take the piss out of Lyn which really angers me.

It’s highly geeky, and nothing to do with disability, but a few days ago I was struck by an idea which has been begging to be noted. One of my academic interests is in fans and fan art. Some people see a distinct divide between fan art and professional art, but to me it’s silly to make such a divide. After all, one does not automatically become a professional; every artist – be they a writer, painter, musician or film-maker – started essentially as a fan. Most great directors, for example, started by making what are essentially fan movies. Even the great Godard took inspiration from the great American directors of the forties and fifties. Moreover, as attested by born of hope, fan movies are drawing close to the ‘real’ thing in terms of production values. Thus I think a distinction between professional and fan art is obsolete; both are equally valid.

To me, however, this raises some interesting prospects. What about things like crossovers, when two mainstream texts are merged? This is quite easily achieved in narrative prose, and there are many, many examples online: stories where harry potter goes to middle earth; where james bond fights darth vader, and so on. But what interests me is whether this could be achieved filmicaly: could you somehow merge the aesthetics of two different screen narratives? How would, say, the USS Voyager look landing in Farmer Maggot’s fields? For years I have had an image in my head of a squadron of x-wing fighters providing air support for the rohhirim. Is there a way to combine the mise en scene of two separate texts. Now, I know what you’re thinking: why would you want to? But I’m interested in fiction’s relationship with culture. We live in postmodern times, and it seems that the crossover fan film is the next evolutionary step. A few examples already exist on YouTube, mostly consisting of recut scenes; needles to say they vary in quality, most lying somewhere at the poor end of the scale. Yet, as I said, some fan films are drawing close to professional standards, and I find the prospect of such well-made filmic textual play intriguing. Were would such hybrid fictions take us? What brilliant new images could be made? Time to go back to looking for such things.

As I mentioned a couple of entries ago, Lyn was supposed to be in the Mail on Sunday today. I went to the shop first thing to pick up a copy, but alas there was no sign of my beloved fiance in there. It’s a pity: thy must have cut the story for some reason; I daresay it may have been too liberal a story for that Tory rag.

Of course, I never go anywhere near the Mail, but having bought it, I thought I might as well take a gander at George Osbourne’s article in it today. Needless to say, if you don’t have the opportunity to read it you aren’t missing much. The only thing I find more nauseating than Osbourne’s economics is his writing style: he uses so many cliches, presumably in an attempt to make himself sound approachable, that it makes him seem even more of a prick than he is already. A more serious concern of mine, however, is his emphasis on cutting tax: I get how cutting tax benefits some people, but at a time when everyone is going on about how little money the state has, and how the state must pay off it’s debts, the state should be taking more money from those who can afford it. taxes should be going up, not down. Thus the whole article smacked of Tory thinking, where things are seen in terms of the individual rather than the collective. And favouring the individual over the collective invariably favours only the most able in society. Thus, for all his jocular tone, for all his claims to occupy the centre ground, for all his delusions that the majority of people believe he is doing the right thing, this article was nothing more than the ravings of a right wing neoliberal trying to justify his ideologically motivated actions.

And, believe me, another article with Lyn in it notwithstanding, that’s the first and last time I buy the Mail.

I have two or three things on my mind today, and there’s a lot I could write about. I was pleased to see the tories got the trouncing they deserve, but the down side to that is boris got re-elected as London mayor. That is not good news: the electorate needed to send a clear, unambiguous message to david CaMoron that we are not happy with his ideologically-inspired cuts. Nationally we did that, and indeed almost wiped out the lib dems. Bu now, with this Tory fuckwit still in the Mayors office, that message has been tainted; indeed it allows idiots like Peter Bone[head] to say that it’s time to end the coalition and for the tories to rule as a minority government. If that far-right freak gets his way, we would be living in an unelected dictatorship. Such people really piss me off: to hear him talk of liberals as he does, to see him talk so arrogantly as if he has an innate right to rule, as if he think he was elected and has a mandate, embodies everything I hate about the Tory party. The election results suggest to me that the country has had enough of the tories; it is time for CaMoron to leave number ten and a liberal-labour coalition to be set up, or at least for another general election. The country has had enough of people like CaMoron, Osbourne, that slimy cow Varsi and Bone arrogantly patronising us, dictating to us, making us suffer while they and their friends stay rich. The election results should have sent that message clearly, but, with the re-election of Boris, it has been dulled. When seen in those terms, London has betrayed itself and the country.

While a few of the opening comments make me cringe, I’d just like to send you to this cnn report about Lost voice guy. It is quite impressive, and it’s good to see us VOCA users going up in the world. Mind you he’s not the only one: lyn had a gig last night, which was awesome. I got to see her jamming! She is also going to be in this weeks Mail On Sunday, where you’ll be able to read all about the super cool thing I alluded to on tuesday. I can’t wait to see it, even if it does mean I have to buy the Mail. Grrr!

Glorious though it was, my day of reading yesterday meant that I fell out of touch with what was going on in the world. The first contact I had with the news was, in fact, when I heard Newsnight starting at half ten. It was then, of course, that I discovered that the shit had hit the fan for Rupert Murdoch in a most amusing way. I rushed to the living room.

This is, of course, a very complex story, but an intriguing one. Phone hacking is nothing to make jokes about, but last night the entire story took on an air of a farce, too. To state the obvious, it is very telling how the committee was split in their decision to explicitly condemn the Murdochs, with Labour and Lib dems wanting to take the logical step of placing blame at their door while the tories attempted to hold them back. With the committee split like that, their report looses impact, and MPs on both sides would have known that, so why did they do it? They have given Murdoch a get-out clause: now he can just say ”ah, the committee was split! the labour members were politically motivated, so everyone can ignore it.”

Why, then, did they do this? Is it, as Louise Mensch claims, all Labour’s fault – did they go too far in wanting to ascribe blame to the murdochs? Were the labour and lib dem members carrying out a personal vendetta against the media tycoon, while the tories were merely trying to keep the report within it’s remit? What I find more likely is that the tories wanted to protect the murdochs at all costs, and therefore deliberately opposed the condemnation in order that they might A) curry favour with newscorp for their party, and B) deliberately render a report which they knew would damn the Murdochs obsolete, again to curry favour. In other words, the tories wrecked this report for their own gain. After all, why would Labour members of the committee deliberately insert a clause blaming the murdochs when they knew it would render their report moot, or at least be opposed by tory members, if they didn’t think it absolutely necessary? Personal vendetta or not, they wouldn’t be that stupid. They were drawing the logical conclusion, that the murdochs can no longer be seen as fit and proper people to run a media empire, a conclusion that the Tories don’t want anyone to make. Given that, surely they don’t expect us to believe that the Mrdochs knew nothing of the phone hacking scandal, the Tories must have some ulterior motive for protecting the murdochs. That I find very dodgy indeed, and I think Lousise Mensch and her Tory colleagues need to be investigated for links to the Murdochs.

I suppose my original plan was slightly too optimistic, but today has been a good one nevertheless. I had planned to read an entire book in a day – something I have only done once or twice in my life, and is a pretty tall ask at the rate I read. Lyn has been out today on a secret mission I can’t tell you about, so, as I had not done any serious reading in ages, I thought I’d plonk myself on the sofa and reacquaint myself with the sweet, subtle smell of paper. I used to read regularly, but I’ve fallen out of the habit, so today, I’m pleased to report, was quite blissful. In the event, I got through two chapters (sixty pages) of ‘The Horse Who Drank The Sky’ by pomerance, which I’m rereading ahead of getting his book on Lord Of The Rings. It is a good read if you are into film. I started at about eleven, had a pee at about half two, and the next time I looked at the clock it had gone six. That was a power I had forgotten the written word had: an ability to whisk one away, to warp one’s sense of time. It felt wonderful. Reading at length is a habit I certainly intend to get back into.