I think I’ll just flag this up tonight, simply because it’s such a perfect illustration of the hypocrisy of modern religion. A texas televangelist refused to let people effected by hurricane Harvey take refuge in his multi-billion dollar ‘church’ for fear that they might damage the building. I find that staggering and utterly disgusting. A man who professes to be christian, who makes huge amounts of money claiming to speak for god, would only offer people shelter after his initial refusal to do so was reported on national television. What else do you need to know about these evangelical tosspots?

I’m afraid I must agree with this article. Brexit has made Britain a hostile, divided nation. Since the referendum, we seem as a country, to have been torn in two, with 48% of us despising 52%. I’m as guilty of it as anyone: every piece of news makes me resent those who voted to leave even more. I wonder how they could be so stupid; I wonder how they could allow theirselves to be fooled by such obvious, manifest folly. Yet this cannot go on – we cannot continue to hate eachother.

The problem is, I think it will. As the shit really starts to hit the fan, the resentment will grow. The remain group will get more and more angry that their warnings were ignored, while the outists will get increasingly defensive and start to thrash out as their dreams crumble and their lies are exposed. It will reach the point where they start denying reality, even when it becomes so obvious that it will be like arguing day was night. We’re already beginning to see this happen as the leavers start to blame everyone but theirselves for the disaster they have brought about. Those they fooled into voting for brexit will either admit their mistake or become equally defensive, refusing to admit what to anyone else is patently obvious. This will cause a schism in society, a schism which will just get wider and wider as the reality of last year’s folly sinks in. Half of us will feel they have been proven right yet are powerless to stop the coming catastrophe; the other half will feel unfairly blamed and resent having been duped, their mighty act of defiance falling to pieces just as the experts predicted it would.

Oh how we’ll all soon wish that last year never happened.

I am still off the booze, but I might have to suspend my abstinence to visit this pub. The Unbrexit is a newly-opened pub in Ahaus, Germany. It’s an english-style public house complete with carpets and real ale, and is a reaction to the current brexit farce. It ”claims to be ‘the last British place remaining part of the EU.’ With English football on the TV, lager, and fish and chips, it’s the perfect refuge for Britons in Europe.” I love it. At least someone is still laughing – mind you, this absurdity is fast reaching the point where there is not much else one can do.

I just came across this piece from Scotland, and I am suddenly appalled. A nineteen year old man with cerebral palsy has been told that he cannot pass his journalism course because he cannot do shorthand. I find that absurd: he’s fine at everything else, but because he cannot physically write using shorthand, he can’t pass. That’s a bit like me failing Film Studies because I can’t physically handle a camera. That this sort of thing still happens these days is frankly utterly ridiculous. Do any professional journalists still use shorthand these days anyway?

Lyn and I were out yesterday in the local parks enjoying the sun when I decided to take her to the place I mentioned here, simply to enjoy the view with her. It’s a nice stroll up Shooters Hill, which we would both enjoy. It went well and we had a lovely time. After I showed her the view I’d found, Lyn guided me into a nearby park which had an even better view. When we got home, out of curiosity I decided to tap ‘Shooters Hill’ into youtube to see what came up. I found this Time Team episode. It’s from about 2008, I think, so before I got here; but it goes into the history of the area. Shooters Hill was a major road the nazis would have used had they invaded in 1942, so it was heavily defended. The program looks for and finds the remains of some of those defences. I find that fascinating. The program actually shows some of the places we passed yesterday, so I may pop back up there later to see if I can find any of that history myself, now I know what to look for.

A few days ago I came across an article on the bbc’s website about The State, Channel Four’s recent four part drama around Isis. Everyone seemed to be praising it and saying how gritty and realistic it was, so I decided to give it a watch. The events it concerns are still quite current, so I was interested to see what it had to say about them. I just finished giving all four episodes a watch, and must say I am quite intrigued.

I’m in two minds about it. I found the Mise-en-scene somehow too clean and sanitised. No matter how gritty the film tries to be, it still looks like a commercial tv program. The use of things like computers, the internet and mobile phones gives the piece too much of a western aesthetic. While people out there must of course use such technology, it seemed oddly at odds with the brutality the piece was trying to portray. It was as if, no matter how hard it tried, the film couldn’t escape the fact that it is a western interpretation of what is happening in the middle east.

Moreover, the actors feel less like desperate freedom fighters and more like…well, actors, fresh out of drama school. They were trying to portray half-crazy religious fanatics; they seemed too sane, and not unhinged enough. The situation they are in is absolutely brutal, yet they still felt to me like westerners. Don’t get me wrong: this is indeed a brutal piece of television, definitely worth watching; yet it couldn’t escape it’s status as a piece of western art made, presumably, by western, highly educated people, trying their best to depict a scenario from the outside. At times it felt like a history or geography lesson, with characters going into passages of exposition, seemingly tagged on for the benefit of the viewer. These jarred with the flow of the piece, and almost seemed included just to demonstrate how much the writers knew. On the other hand, I like how Arabic terms were given on-screen definitions. In films like these, one must balance the need to educate with the need for verisimilitude, and unfortunately I don’t think this one quite struck it.

I did indeed learn quite a lot from this film, as i’m sure many people did; yet something about it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t gritty or dirty enough – there wasn’t enough sand or dust. The hospital scenes, for instance, could have been filmed at our local NHS: such scenes did not feel like depictions of a hellish, impoverished hospital in some bombed out Syrian city, but like something from Holby City. The problem might have been that this was a television program, and I did not feel as drawn in as I might have had this been a piece of cinema. Others have praised it for it’s grittiness and realism, but although it certainly tried to depict the brutality of what is currently happening in the middle east, to me it didn’t seem real enough. It felt to me like just another television drama, it’s script full of cliches and it’s characters nowhere near politically or religiously radical enough. To my mind, the audiovisual language used was too conventionally televisual when perhaps, given the subject matter, it should have been more full bodied, weighty and cinematic.

I feel bad about saying that though, because what this program was trying to achieve was quite monumental. Very few of us can possibly imagine what is happening out there right now. For Channel Four to try to amend that is praiseworthy. This was it’s attempt, as best it could, to show us a horrifying reality; yet it would appear that that reality, that Real, might be just too horrifying for it to truly show.

You know, you can see all the bands you like; you can meet all your heroes and shake hands with all your favourite film stars; you can eat in the best restaurants and drink all the top class wines. You can visit all the beautiful landscapes on earth. You can do whatever you like, but I know now that all I need to be truly happy is a nice long walk out with Lyn. I realised that this afternoon, as I trundled behind her through Greenwich Park. In that moment, as we steered our powerchairs under the ancient trees, the whir of our motors mingling with the birdsong, I felt truly content: if I wanted to be happy, that was all I really needed.

I’m not sure whether or not I’ve mentioned this on here before, but it’s a pet theory I’ve had for a while. Can the current cultural conflicts of brexiteer vs remainer and trump supporter vs sane person have their roots in the recent increase in university graduates, and a rebellion against that perceived intellegencia by those who were left behind? Fed up of being talked down to and told what to do, people did the exact opposite of what the experts said; might that have been an unintended effect of more people going to uni? The authorities apparently want fifty percent of us to be graduates: I can’t help wonder whether this has created a feeling of resentment by those ‘left behind’, those who chose to work instead. As often happens in a tiered system like that, this lead to mistrust and resentment. People deliberately rebelled against what their supposed betters were telling them and voted in the opposite way to how they were advised, even though it would completely screw us all in the long one. How else can you explain such foolishness? An unexpected consequence of the creation of a generation of graduates may have been a mistrust of academics in the other half of society.

I was apalled the other day when I saw that a group of researchers from Cardiff had started to claim that Brexit could turn out to boost the economy. I didn’t write anything about it on here because I don’t know that much about economics, but it seemed like it ran directly counter to everything everyone else has been saying. I knew too that the outists would pounce on it, claiming it added validity to their spoutings that all the other experts were wrong and that Britain would be fine after it leaves it’s nearest, biggest market. My gut said that was utter bollocks and this report should be ignored as the utter tripe it is, but I had nothing solid to base that on.

Now, however, I do. According to this independent article, that study should never have been published, much less pounced upon by the likes of the bbc. It’s lead author, Patrick Millford, has a history of making such claims, and has been refuted and shown to cherry-pick evidence many times. He just gave his outist friends what they wanted to hear with total disregard for intellectual honesty. He has at least allowed them to claim that the jury is still out on the impact of Brexit: it could be good or bad.

Only, it isn’t. The vast, vast majority of accredited economists – and anyone capable of thinking clearly, for that matter – can see what a disaster Brexit will be. The shit is already starting to hit the fan and we haven’t even left yet. The problem is, tripe such as Millford’s allows the outists to cling to their beliefs, refusing to accept the truth even when it becomes as obvious as day and night. We see the same bewildering behaviour in Trump supporters in America. No doubt they’ll now claim that this Independent article is biassed and that millford is right; Brexit is reaching a point where facts, no matter how demonstrable, do not matter, and the brexiteers will continue to claim they are right an everyone else is wrong no matter what. It has now reached a dangerous point psychologically, the fanaticism behind it almost religious, and we should all be getting pretty worried about it.

Just a quick techie note today. I’m a big fan of using backspace to go back in my web browser, and I’ve been using it for ages. It’s a lot easier than faffing around with my rollerball when I want to quickly return to the page I was just on. My new mac didn’t have that function though: apparently the guys at Chrome had had loads of complaints about it. It was irritating me though. Luckily a quick search resolved the issue. There is an add-on you can install to restore the function, which you can find here. I can now go back to my heart’s content.

I recently came across Calvin Dyson’s speculations about the next Bond film in 2019. obviously it was made before the recent confirmation that Daniel Craig will be returning to play 007 for a fifth time, so it’s slightly outdated. However, Dyson makes a couple of points which pique my interest. First, he mentions that there has been speculation that the next bond film could be a remake of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. While Dyson seems quite dismissive of the idea, I rather like it: OHMSS, as I wrote here, is the most touching bond film. Bond is more human. Rather than having his usual meaningless relationship, he falls in love and marries, but in the end his wife is killed, leaving Bond alone. If in the next film they worked around that core motif, it could really fit with what we have seen of Craig’s bond until now. His bond is as broken as Lazenby’s, but also just as cold and heartless. Thus I think that the idea of a OHMSS remake, albeit a fairly loose one, could have legs to it; it has the potential to be a truly beautiful swansong to Craig’s innings. I must add, though, that part of me is hoping that they will do it just so they can include this delicious theme.

The other rumoured possibility dyson mentions is the creation of a Bond ‘cinematic universe’. That is, making all the Bond films made from now on link in to each other so the stories join up, like the Bourne films, and all the other franchises out there. Dyson objects to that idea, and I know where he’s coming from. As a cinematic and cultural phenomenon, 007 is utterly unique. Rather than a set of interlinking stories, a la Harry Potter, the bond films are about a character more than a plot. This character is used to act in narratives which exist independent of one another, yet he still retains his core traits. Thus, as I noted here, concepts like canonicity do not apply to the Bond series as they ordinarily would – they are suspended. To suddenly invoke them now, as dyson points out, would change the whole dynamic of the series and take something unique and special away from it. I agree with him totally on that.

But what if that is not what they mean by ”creating a Bond cinematic universe”? What if that isn’t the plan? There is potential to build upon this phenomenon; after all, after 65 years it might be time to take it in a new direction. Given we know bond is 007, there must presumably be other double-O agents – six, at least. What about them? Could stories be told about them. Create other such agents, and a whole range of possibilities opens up: for one, this could be a way of putting to rest the question of a female bond. Create a new female double-O, and you satisfy both purists who say James Bond should be played by a man (and I’m still one of them) as well as those who feel it’s time that the franchise diversified. Take this idea a step further, and they could even invent an agent who had a disability. After all, nobody would suspect us cripples of being spies, licensed to kill, would they?

I realise that this may not, in fact, be what the producers have in mind; I also know that there have been attempts before to create Bond spin-offs, without much success. Yet if this is indeed what they mean, I think it has potential. The 007 films are a firmly established part of popular culture; hell, how much more established can a character get than being used to escort a monarch to an olympic opening ceremony? If I held the reins of the Bond franchise, I would use that foundation as a concrete central beam from which to branch off: the main bond films would continue as they have done for over half a century, with their periodic changes of actor. Beside them, however, could be developed new, interesting characters, each with their own traits and backstories. They could occasionally reference Bond, but develop independently.

Whether this idea of mine has any legs, of course, remains to be seen. And of course, whether Bond fans would take to it is anybody’s guess. Yet I think this could be a nice way of helping the franchise diversify without causing it to changing it’s core character too much. Bond would stay the same, yet around him would open up an entire range of stories and characters. I think this could be a way of giving it the new life it needs to survive without changing the core idea which we all know and love too much. It could be taken forward, built upon and adapted to fit this new era, yet the character at it’s core would remain 007.

It might not be especially blogworthy, but I feel like this needs recording at least. Five years ago, after the documentary on the paraorchestra aired and after it was taken off 4od, I asked the guys at What Larks Productions for a dvd copy of it. That was quite an incredible moment for me, so I wanted a record of it. They kindly sent a copy, but for some reason it didn’t work on my computer. It was odd: no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to play. After a while, thinking the disk was a dud my mac didn’t even recognise that it was even in the disk drive – I asked for another copy. They ever so kindly sent me one, but the same thing happened. With that, not wanting to push my luck or annoy people, I let the issue rest.

Last week when I got my new computer, though, I thought I’d give it another try; perhaps there had been an issue with my old disk drive. I put it in and….exactly the same thing happened. Even worse, now it wouldn’t even eject. I just sighed and turned my attention to something else.

Yesterday evening, however, I thought I had better try to get the damn disk out of my machine. I looked at it, only to see it wasn’t even in – part was sticking out. I tried to remove it completely, only to push it even further in with my clumsy fingers. And then the strangest thing happened: the documentary started to load. It had been working perfectly all along, and I can now watch it to my heart’s content.

There is a part of London I really want to explore but have yet to get to. I have recently thinking about what west London is like, places like Kew, Richmond and Wimbledon. I’ve of course seen pictures of these places, and they look very pleasant indeed. The problem is, I can’t work out a simple way there on public transport the tube stations out there aren’t accessible. L was out yesterday, and I briefly thought about getting myself to Beckenham to get the tram from there to Wimbledon, but the rain put an end to that plan. There’s also the Thames Clippers: I’d have to change at Westminster, and it might take a couple of hours, but that trip would probably be a pleasant one. Either way, after hearing so much about west London, and how pretty and quaint that area is, I think this is something I’ll keep working on. After all, how can I claim to have explored London properly when I still haven’t seen one off it’s finest areas?

Work recently began on the construction of the skatepark I mentioned a few months ago. It’s coming along nicely, and over coffees at the cafe I’ve watched it slowly being turned from a patch of grass into something which promises to be pretty awesome. Yet, the other day, I was struck by a thought: there is still something missing from Charlton Park. What it needs now, to complement the skatepark, is some sort of performance space, a modern version of an old-fashioned bandstand. That way, plays could be put on and concerts could be held; people could enjoy a bit of open air theatre – Shakespeare, perhaps – or chill out to some Mozart. Local musicians like Lyn could perform there, or we could bring bands in. Where this area would be positioned I’m not sure – up near Charlton House maybe – but this seems a pretty cool idea to me, and I think I’ll suggest it to others. Sitting there enjoying some good music as the sun sets on a warm summer’s day would be lovely.

Something really cool happened yesterday which I want to record as an example to others. After posting yesterday’s blog entry, I went back to facebook. The debate thread I was adding to was still getting replies, but things were getting increasingly heated and I was getting more and more angry. My fellow responders didn’t seem to be listening to what I was saying, and in my fury I was getting increasingly arrogant and wild. I went too far, saying things I perhaps ought not have. Things got so bad, and I was getting so frustrated, that I decided to contact one of them directly: maybe I could defuse the situation, calm things down and explain where I was coming from. But that just made things worse: I could not make him see the utter folly of leaving the EU, and I was getting more and more pissed off.

It reached a point where my heart was pounding in my chest so hard and fast I could feel it. My typing was becoming more and more erratic; at one point my caps lock got stuck on. This lead the guy to ask, quite understandably, whether I had taken any drugs. In desperation I showed him my blog entry.

At that point things suddenly changed. He read my entry and said he understood. From then on the tone of our discourse altered completely: things calmed down, and we began to chat. He said he understood my frustrations, suggesting that I tried to calm down. He took the time to explain where he was coming from: far from being ignorant, he was a businessman who had travelled extensively throughout Europe, and had heard arguments from both sides. He also told me about his friend’s daughter, who had had cerebral palsy but had passed away in her teens.

We continued our chat, off and on, throughout the afternoon and into the evening. It became clear that he was not a monster, an idiot or a bigot. Of course, whenever the EU issue cropped up, we still disagreed. He just didn’t see the coming disaster which to the rest of us is now so clear. But, by the end of the day, rather than take issue with such positions, I just let it slide – after all, one shouldn’t let politics get in the way of building a friendship.

I think this could be an example for the rest of us. The country is being torn apart by this; every day, the folly of last year’s vote becomes clear – currently it’s the Irish border issue. Yet that is no reason for forty-eight percent of the country to hate fifty-two percent of it. He was right: we need to come together, stop hating or resenting eachother, and start chatting again.

After all that huffing and puffing this morning, I suddenly feel much better. I just saw this story. After months of speculation among fans, Daniel Craig has confirmed he will play James Bond for the fifth time. 007 fanboy that I am, that has made my day; I’m still hoping he’ll at least equal Connery and Moore’s seven. He is the greatest bond — the character as his creator intended, to whom nobody does it better. And who could forget Craig’s appearance in the most awesome Bond moment of them all?

My anger issues are currently worse than ever. In fact they are getting frightening. Whenever I read the politics news or go on a Facebook page and see something I disagree with, I just erupt into a white hot fury. It’s usually something to do with trump or brexit. Every morning I read of another stupidity which makes my blood boil: either Trump has said something, or Farage has wound me up with his arrogance. I know I can’t do anything about it, so then I go on to a Facebook forum to vent my anger, but the responses I get only make matters worse. I get so angry that, for a few moments, I cannot control my body; I shake with rage, wanting with all my heart to tear the subject of my anger apart. It is truly frightening.

I know it’s related to my cerebral palsy: the damage to my brain also affected the system which regulates emotions. I also note that they pass pretty quickly. As I said on Monday however, the problem is, everyone else is getting furious too, and they don’t have my excuse. In the uk, one side is angry at the other for voting to completely screw the country, and the other side are getting increasingly defensive about their ‘victory’. In america, tensions are reaching fever pitch, stirred up by the moron they currently call their president. I now see the intense anger I feel in the eyes of others, only with them it does not go away after a few seconds: the fury stays and builds. If they do indeed feel the uncontrollable fury I feel, then this is a situation we should all be very, very worried about. That is a degree of rage nobody should feel, yet stirred up by fools like trump and farage, emotions are getting so intense that I now fear where this will all lead.

Sorry but I just have to send you here today. I just came across an article entitled ‘Why Liberals are Wrong about Trump’. That sort of thing usually really gets me going, but I thought I’d give it the benefit of the doubt and read it. I clicked on the link, and what I found was awesome.

Scone, anyone?

I think I ought to flag this up. It’s a bbc program I caught the end of last night and just rewatched. It discusses the impact technology has had on politics, particularly how platforms like Facebook are being used to target voters with increasing accuracy. I hadn’t realised that Facebook had played such a major role in the election of Trump. I’d like to point out, though, that I fear that the use of social media has contributed to the alarming amount of anger in politics there is at the moment. Everyone is getting so angry – not just me. Both the uk and america are now utterly divided, each side hating the other. We saw this sickeningly demonstrated in Virginia yesterday.

The situation is highly volatile, emotional and dangerous. I can’t help but suspect that such online targeted campaigning, as well as increased interaction between people, helped bring this situation about. Online, where it is confined to harmless name-calling, people are becoming increasingly aggressive. You can’t get arrested for assault for writing a nasty facebook post. That has lowered people’s self-restraint. The problem is, that anger and aggression now seems to be spilling over into the real world.

Something very, very strange is happening with my new computer. I got it on friday, after my old one started blanking out on me. It was second hand, but seemed okay. I had just about configured it to how I like, when turning it on yesterday, I found the keyboard had switched spontaneously from qwerty to fou mode. I couldn’t use it like that, and we couldn’t find a way to switch it back. We tried all day, and by the end of the day I was feeling rather frustrated. The strange part is, as you can probably tell, I just turned it on to find it back to normal working perfectly. I am befuddled I must say, but relieved: at least I can type properly again.

I just hope it doesn’t just suddenly switch back.

I was feeling quite dismissive of this video when I first saw it, but the ending is, frankly, truly beautiful. A nauseating kids film suddenly became quite profound, and worth linking to.

I just got in from a good long walk. Today I decided to do some exploring up Shooters Hill behind Woolwich. I find the mix of cultures around there rather fascinating: Asian mixes with African, Victorian/Edwardian mixes with modern in a way I find utterly captivating. I was just following my nose, checking out the lay of the land near the old military academy, when, going down a road I hadn’t been down before, I stumbled onto a view which took my breath away. This view made my jaw drop. Google Streetview doesn’t really do it justice, but I must have been able to see for miles from there: all of London lay before me, northward into the distance, perhaps even to the fields beyond. It was staggering, and reminded me why I go out exploring. I found several views like that in that area; here is another. I’ll definitely be taking L up there to show her soon. Finding views like that only makes me love this city even more.

Today has turned out to be quite special. Shortly after posting this morning’s entry, charlie contacted me over facebook. I had been supposed to meet up with her and her siblings last night up in north London, but decided not to go in the end. She asked me to meet them for brunch in Shoreditch instead. I thought for a moment or two, and decided to go: Shoreditch didn’t look too hard to get to on the map.

On my way there, something very special indeed happened. I got a message from Mark containing a single image and the words ”guess where we are”. I guessed in an instant: the picture was of my dad and Oliver. My little nephew was sat on a rusty old tractor; the very tractor at Amerton Farm I remember sitting on as a young child, and which had brought me endless joy. It was an incredible image which brought a tear to my eye. I was quite lost for words, but simply replied ”Oh my”.

My meeting with Charlotte, Poppy, William and friends went well. They’re their usual hyperactive selves, whizzing up and down the country, teaching, partying and gigging. It was wonderful to see them, and we had a good long brunch. It’s will’s birthday too today, so cake was involved. Yet all the while I thought about that photo of Oliver on that tractor, of how it echoed my own childhood, how it brought back memories of my own childhood with the most loving parents anyone could ever hope for, who would now give that love to their grandchildren. And in that moment, sat there, among my friends, I suddenly felt utterly content. How could life get more perfect?

Mark and his family are at my parents’ for his birthday. They got there on wednesday, and I expect they’re having a great time. Oliver and Elise are probably being spoiled rotten by their grandparents. It’s been ages since I saw them – I don’t think I’ve even met little Elise yet – and frankly I really need to catch up with them. Thus today I’ll just wish my brother mark a happy birthday. I’m sure they’ll have a great time at yeaya and bappou’s, and I’ll see them all on skype later.

Not that I have ever been much of a gamer, but I think I’ll flag this up today. So called eSports are being considered for inclusion in the olympics, possibly at Paris 2024. Of course, the debate rages about whether playing computer games qualifies as sport: on the one hand, it doesn’t require much physical activity or training; on the other hand, the field has become far more intensive and serious in recent times. Competitive gaming is serious business; as I wrote here, as an art form it is starting to come alongside others in terms of how political it is. It is no longer seen as just something kids do in their bedrooms, or as a way to fill time when one should be doing something more productive – that’s a change in status which I find quite interesting.

Let me get this straight: on the one hand we have a country lead by a nutter who thinks it is his birthright to rrule. He’s a spoiled overprivileged dictator who demands his people worship him as a god. On the other hand, we have a superpower which, while ostensibly a democracy, is currently lead by an egotistical man-child who seems equally unhinged and likely to act without thinking. Both states are lead by children, yet one loathes the other, and both seem now to have nuclear weapons. Forgive my pessimism, but it seems that the world is in a very dangerous place right now. We might not be able to do anything about north korea, but surely the americans must act and replace Trump with someone less likely to bring about armageddon.

I was very worried to hear about the memo at google yesterday. I just read that it’s author has now been fired, but the fact he wrote it at all is a symptom of a very dark, worrying trend. There now seems to be a growing backlash against liberal, tolerant values, both here and in america. People seem to think it’s cool to speak out against political correctness and tolerance. The vogue is to say it’s some kind of mind control, as if to be racist or sexist is to speak some sort of repressed truth. Of course that is utter bollocks: no truth is being repressed; political correctness exists to ensure people are treated fairly, irrespective of gender or ethnicity. But spurred on by bigots like Farage and Trump, certain people now think it’s cool to be racist and sexist, claiming to be repressed by the mainstream. It’s as if these straight white male morons want to reclaim the social advantages they had fifty years ago, and still think they are entitled to. They think that seeing these bigots on tv gives them a right to be bigots in public; they no longer need to think things through like the rest of us, but can give voice to their simplistic, arrogant and judgemental views. It’s an extremely worrying, but growing, trend; far right bigotry is gaining confidence – surely it must be dealt with before it gets out of hand.

I am, by and large, something of a fan of London public transport. It’s far from perfect, of course; nowhere near enough tube stations are accessible, for one. But having come from a place where it was a real bitch to get anywhere unless you could drive, I know how much worse it could be. I really like the Clipper Boat service along the Thames, and the cable cars between North Greenwich and the Excel Centre is also very cool. However, if you ask me, it could really do with one final component.

While on my way to Kilburn yesterday, I decided that what this city needs is a helicopter transport service. It could either be run as a taxi service, where you would book a chopper to take you somewhere, or as a bus service, where helicopters would fly along fixed routes, landing at scheduled stops. I think the latter format would be better as it would be more efficient. I think it’s a great idea: it would certainly speed up getting across this vast city, and as I wrote here, helicopters are probably my favourite mode of transport.

Of course, this idea isn’t without it’s problems: helipads would have to be built; we’d have to sort out which routes they would take (it would probably just be for long distance, cross-city trips). And how would it be payed for? I doubt the Oyster card system could be used. And of course, special helicopters would need to be created, capable of getting lots of people on and off quickly, including wheelchair users. Yet the fact remains that it often takes hours to get anywhere in this city, and with the population rising that’s only going to get worse. The tube system is a century old in places, and is almost at breaking point. The metropolis is expanding rapidly, and the tube only really serves the central few boroughs. With that in mind, is this idea as silly as it might at first seem? Rather than digging more tunnels or laying more track, wouldn’t it be easier just to let people fly around London? While some may point out that such a system would cost a fortune, London is growing at such a pace and is becoming so congested that I can conceive of a time, in the not too distant future, when such an addition to the public transport system could make sound economic sense.

I went to see my aunt, uncle and cousins this afternoon. They are currently staying with my yaiya up in north London. It was a long overdue visit to be honest, but London is so vast that getting across the city sometimes seems like trying to cross a vast mountain chain or ocean. Yet circumstances made it imperative that I visit, and it was truly great to see them. Sitting at the same kitchen table that I have sat at since I was small, being fed all kinds of delicious food, I felt warm and comfortable inside. It was the feeling one gets when catching up with members of your family that you haven’t seen in quite some time, as if returning home after a long expedition in the wilderness. The problem is, I don’t know when I will see them again, especially my uncle David. Everyone’s so busy these days it’s hard to keep track. I suppose there’s only one solution: I must start making plans to visit them in Brazil.

I sometimes worry about the lack of comments on my blog. I post an entry every day yet seldom get a response, so apart from the hitcount going up, I have no way of telling whether anyone is reading what I write. However, I was just in the park enjoying my daily burst of caffeine, when a lady I sometimes talk to came up to me. She told me that she had been reading my site, and thoroughly agreed with my recent entries on Trump and Brexit. Hearing that made my day: it is so gratifying to know that people like what I write on here. I felt humbled and proud. This blog is a hobby, but it’s one I’ve kept up for over a decade; such comments are all I need to keep it going. Mind you, if anyone feels like leaving a comment below, please feel free to do so.

While part of me worries that I’m being too optimistic or just reading sources favourable to my point of view, it now really looks like the days of both Brexit and Trump are numbered. It’s only a matter of time before the stupidity of last year is put right. With Brexit, day after day evidence mounts of the damage it’s doing, it’s irrationality. I may just be reading what I want to read, but it now seems only a matter of time before the whole moronic farce is forgotten about. It’s a similar story with trump: surely his impeachment is now imminent. Evidence of his links with Russia is now impossible to deny; the fact that he continues to do so, portraying himself as the victim of some sort of conspiracy, is utterly laughable.

Dare I let myself believe that both farces will soon come to an end. Part of me doesn’t want to believe it; part of me says it’s too good to be true, and that I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Yet every day the evidence mounts: another report comes out, another poll is issued, saying that sooner rather than later both these stupidities will be undone. I’m feeling more optimistic now than I have felt in months. This isn’t just opinion or bias but cold hard facts which neither trumpists or outists can deny:

on both counts they have been found wanting, and both their neofascist games will soon be up. Wouldn’t it be cool if trump was removed from office and brexit reversed on the same day? I’m starting to think that that day might not be too far off.

It might be a couple of years old, but having just stumbled onto it I think this Tolkien Society discussion of Peter Jackson’s adaptations is worth flagging up. I expected them to be very negative about the films, but I was pleasantly surprised, and found myself agreeing with much of what is said. Of course the film’s aren’t perfect adaptations of the books, and there are points at which Jackson took considerable liberties with the source material, but in terms of legacy, in terms of bringing people to Tolkien and getting people reading him, they have done wonders. I would add, too, that these adaptations are probably as good as they were ever going to be; just think how awful they could have been if, say, Disney had decided to turn it into one of their saccharine children’s cartoons. No film adaptation is ever going to be a word-for-word replica of a book: they are two different art forms, different languages. To a considerable degree, the films were Jacksons interpretation of Tolkien. At the same time, as the society concludes, the films were pretty incredible, a great tribute to the author, and will probably have people reading him for years.

Before he was elected, Donald trump rose to prominence by playing a role: that of the stern business executive who had to fire people every week. He might have claimed to have a business background, but that role was as much a fiction as any other. Trump is thus more of an actor than a businessman, intent on nursing his ego. After all, what real business executive would waste his time on a reality tv show? Trump was performing then, and is still performing. Look at him: he speaks in clipped soundbytes like a president in an action film; he swaggers as if he has gravitas, clearly thinking that if he acts like a president, people will respect him. The guy seems not to realise that there’s a hell of a lot more to running a superpower than that. Even more absurdly, the American electorate, in it’s turn, didn’t realise that it needed to vote for a proper politician capable of leading a country rather than a tv personality with a strong-sounding catchphrase.

America needs a proper politician to lead it, not some overgrown child playing a game, a role which he seems somehow to have mistaken for reality. It’s as if Trump doesn’t even realise he was employed to perform in The Apprentice, yet has clearly internalised and continued in that role, mistaking being cast in a role of authority for real authority. To me, that lack of understanding, that confusion between fiction and reality, hints at some kind of neurological disorder. Indeed, as discussed here, Trump seems to have profound ego issues; he is an extremely insecure individual. Might that mean that, deep down in his unconscious, he knows he has no place being where he currently finds himself and is in way, way over his head?

Just as an update on an issue I’m still rather interested in, it now looks like the host city for the 2024 and 2028 olympics are a done deal. Los Angeles has agreed to stand by and let Paris host the 2024 games, while it will host the 2028 games. This is the first time two hosts have been announced at once. If you ask me, this is rather cool: an olympics in paris in 2024 is what I wanted to see. It feels only fair, after the french faced so much disappointment, especially in 2005. Plus we get an American olympics to look forward to too, which is sure to be spectacular, assuming that current joke of a nation has it’s affairs in order by then. For now, though, I’m looking forward to seeing what the french do, how they go about preparing the city of love and light for the world’s greatest fiesta, and especially to watching their opening ceremony.

Mind you, this sets a precedent for announcing two host cities at once, which might have implications for the future. It might really change how olympic host cities are awarded. Several might now be found at once. That could effect a future olympics in the UK. If you ask me, it’s already time to start thinking about that. I would still love to see an olympic games in Manchester in 2032, and now might be the time to get the campaign for that going.