Last night a man gave a speech he had no right to give, claiming to be president of a country which the world now views as a joke. Being forced to watch that embarrassment to humanity Trump give the state of the union address, claiming to lead a country he has no idea how to run, makes me want to vomit. How did we get to this? How did we get to the sight of this egotistical jackass from reality tv giving the State of the Union address? The fact that Trump was so reconciliatory towards the Democrats and America as a whole shows that the p’tahk knows what a mess he is in: Trump’s in a whole world of trouble, from dismal approval ratings to being investigated by the FBI; but instead of admitting his failure or that he has torn his country apart, he acts all nicey-nicey, trying to look like the good guy. At the same time, the fact that the speech itself was a load of cliche-ridden nonsense devoid of any substance, delivered in short, clipped easily-recited sentences demonstrates the fact that Trump is not a politician but a showman, more concerned with looking powerful and authoritative than with the welfare of his country.

How could any serious nation, let alone the world’s foremost superpower, put up with having tis fool as it’s leader? It really is laughable.

I’ll say it again: the USA is a joke, and the longer it calls this arsehole it’s president, the more of a joke it looks.

I dreamed about my grandma last night: a strange, sad dream where I was walking around her empty house. I have, of course, been thinking about her a lot recently. Yesterday, for instance, I was eating an orange and suddenly remembered how grandma used to give me an orange when I got home from school each night.

We are currently sitting in the airport waiting for the flight home. After an awesome holiday it’s time to get back to London and reality. It has been a wonderful week, and we’ve done some incredible things, but the news of my grandmother’s death has put a dampener on things. Waking up from my dream I remembered where I was, got up, and started to prepare to go home. Grandma was quite awesome in her own way and I think all the family will miss her. I think I’ll Skype my parents pretty soon after we get back, and then start to organise going up to visit them. Holiday over its time to get back to reality.

I’m rather pleased with myself this morning. At time of writing (although not posting as I don’t have a wifi connection) everyone else is still in bed. Manolo rejoined us last night, as the plan to visit him in Fueta Ventura proved to be too expensive, and it was cheaper for him to come back. We had just got in from a lovely long walk along the coast and were starting to think about dinner, when he came in, guitar in hand. It felt like seeing a long lost friend, although I only met the guy the other day.

We started to chat in the hotel reception area, and pretty soon John went to get some drinks. I’m still off the booze so I just had coke, but everyone else- including Lyn- was on the hard stuff. They hit it fairly hard, and I soon lost count of how many rounds they got. Manolo got out his guitar and began to play. He’s a pretty awesome guitarist and singer, and pretty soon other people started to gather around to listen. At one point he played the House Of the Rising Sun, Lyn joining in on her iPad, and it was truly, astonishingly beautiful.

However, one thing lead to another, and the guys began to get fairly tipsy. We hadn’t eaten yet so we ordered pizza, eating it there in the hotel reception. Although John and Dominik cleaned most of it up, we made quite a mess – I hope the hotel staff don’t mind. I headed to bed at about twelve completely sober, but by then everyone else was definitely the worse for ware, Manolo slouched in his chair, fast asleep. Nevertheless it had turned out to be a great evening, and we all had an awesome time.

Im currently waiting for the guys to wake up. I just hope everyone isn’t too hung over; I, on the other hand, feel as fresh as a daisy. God I love not drinking sometimes.

A couple of evenings ago, at the end of a lovely dinner at a nearby restaurant, dominik asked whether to ask for the bill. In an attempt at comedy I quipped that we could ask for Ben too. Dom and John looked nonplussed: of course our Polish personal assistants didn’t get the reference.

I explained that Bill and Ben was an old children’s tv show in the U.K. Dom’s reply, though, had lyn and I in instant fits of laughter. ”Ahh,” he said ”like Lollock and

Bollock in Poland”

He continued to talk for a few seconds after, but I just had to stop him. Had I heard correctly? Was he joking? Surely my friend was pulling my leg: no kids tv program could have such a hilarious name. But he wasn’t: in Poland they really do have a program called Lollock and Bollock. I know I shouldn’t find it so funny, and that it’s just a case of language differences, but I simply can’t help bursting into laughter when I hear that name; and to think that it’s from a children’s tv show akin to bill and Ben somehow makes it even funnier.

Mind you, it then took a while for us to explain why lyn and I were suddenly so amused, and then what the word Bollock means.

I don’t want to go into it much, but I just got some very sad, although not entirely unexpected, news from back home. My grandma, dads mum, passed away last night. It would seem that even here in paradise, you can’t escape reality. Let it suffice to say I hope everyone who reads this is ok. I love you grandma.

This island really is quite fascinating. I mentioned the geology yesterday, but it’s intriguing in terms of culture too. I have never encountered such a mixture of languages, cultures and traditions. Almost everywhere you look, signs are in at least two languages; every restaurant menu I’ve seen here is written in at least three. More than that, though,European, American and North African culture seems to collide here: of course the modern, western commercial influence is obvious; yet below that one senses a much older, deeper cultural tradition stretching back centuries. It’s hard to detect, obscured by decades of being a package holiday destination, but if one looks you can still see the remnants of a much longer history of North African, Islamic and Spanish people making this island their home. It is trying to discern that older culture from the modern, commercial stuff which I find both challenging and fascinating. Across the road from our hotel, with its trendy bar, swimming pool and wifi network are houses of a distinctly Spanish or even Moroccan style: the legacy of this island as a mid Atlantic crossroads, long predating it’s existence as a holiday destination, lives on it seems.

John’s friend Manolo went home this morning. John invited him to stay with us for three days as a kind of local guide. To be. honest I wasn’t sure about the idea at first, but as soon as I saw the dudes Pink Floyd T shirt, I knew we were going to get along. In fact he reminded me of Charlie or James so much that I asked him if he had heard of the Cat Empire. He had a very relaxed, laid back air about him, but one of a man who knows what he is doing. He was with us for the last three days , taking us to the most beautiful spots. He had to return to his home in Fueta Ventura today, but we hope to go visit him there in a day or two; if not hopefully we can meet up in London. He was such a great, kind guy I really hope I haven’t seen the last of him. Friendships with people like him are worth working on.

Far be it for me to judge my fellow brits, but I must say how astonished I am that so many of my countrymen come here just to sit by the hotel pool. We have been going about, exploring every day, coming back to see the same people sitting by the pool, more or less in exactly the same spot, as when we left. I know I shouldn’t be too critical – each to their own and all – but I just don’t see the point. Going around these last few days, this island has struck me as staggeringly, staggeringly beautiful. One barely has to be a geologist to appreciate the sheer awesomeness of some of the rock formations around here; yet some of my fellow guests barely leave the hotel, and react with incredulity when we tell them that we actually go out to experience the country we are in. At the risk of sounding like a middle class snob, brought up on lengthy driving tours through Europe and America, I just don’t see the point. Why leave home just to lie on a lounger all day, especially when the landscape beyond the hotel is so stunning?

If you look at me and see only what I cannot do,

You see nothing. My char isn’t me,

It’s only how I get around.

My talker isn’t me, it’s only how I speak.

With them I can walk and talk

And dance and sing,

And blog and graduate and explore this vast world The same as anyone else.

If you look at me and see only what I cannot do

Then you see nothing. For I can do anything at all.

Something happened this afternoon which I doubt I could ever possibly forget. I ,better not go into too much detail or my mum will have kittens and never allow me to go abroad again, but, believe it or not, this afternoon lyn and I went caving. We were taken there by a very cool local friend of johns. It was well maintained and adapted for tourists, but even so we were not sure if it would be possible for us to go in. We decided to give it a try, so, leaving our wheelchairs at the surface, L on John’s back, we followed the path down into the ground.

It wasn’t too difficult at first, but as the stairs steepened and the ceiling dropped lower and lower, I began to realise that, under any other circumstances and with any other people, it simply would not have happened. And yet, it did: at one point we had to crawl on all fours the passage was so tiny, but somehow lyn and I, with the help of three incredible people, made it through the cave system.

And by god it was worth it. The rock formations and stalactites in there were awe inspiring. I could not help but be reminded of the Mines of Moria, or something from an Indiana jones film. The place was carved out by an ancient lava flow, so in places the walls looked as if they were melting. I have rarely experienced anything so beautiful, yet which I had to strive so hard to see. The sense of accomplishment I felt as I again saw daylight was comparable only to finishing my masters, and after today I will never see anything as impossible again. If lyn and I can go caving, then surely we are capable of absolutely anything.

I’m sitting by the sea watching the sun set in a clear blue sky. Were my memories of Australia not still so strong, I would find it hard to believe that it is still only January. We got here late last night, and only had time for a quick bit of dinner before crawling into bed. However, a new day has brought with it a chance to assess my surroundings, and I must say I’m quite taken with what I’ve seen of Lanzerote so far. Admittedly, this is not much more than the inside of a hotel full of my fellow Brits, but nonetheless the signs are very encouraging. For one thing, we have already managed to get hold of a charger for Lyn’s powerchair. Mid flight yesterday she suddenly realised she had forgotten to pack it.

Now, chair all charged and back online, I’m eager to get going. We want to explore the whole island, and see the mountains of the north. I’ve read about an observatory up there I really want to go see. All being well, we should have an awesome few days ahead of us. Expect more reports to come.

Sitting in a departure lounge, heading for some sun.

Life in London was getting dull,it was time for some fun.

A few days before Christmas, Lyn proposed the idea:

I’m bored, she said, let’s get outta here.

Before I knew it, everything was all booked.

I didn’t help much, but instead just looked.

And now I find myself about to board a plane

Soon to find myself amid the islands of Spain.

To the Jacobeans, a monarch was appointed by, and thus got their power directly from, God. A king’s authority derived directly from religion; to the Jacobean mind, a king sat directly below God. Yet the idea of a leader being elected by the people negates any need for god. Democracy is therefore atheistic: a leader gets power from the people, not god. Why is America so religious, then? And why is the role of president apparently becoming more and more kingly? The american revolutionaries thought that a country should be ruled for the people, by the people; yet the president seems to currently be worshipped like a monarch, by some at least. Trump especially seems to think he has been created king, regularly refers to God in his speeches, and seems to think he should be venerated.

It strikes me as odd that a country which was apparently created to escape the rule of a monarch should now effectively have created it’s own. And a country which has religious freedom written into it’s constitution should now be so insanely christian that some of it’s citizens have began to dispute the fact that the world is spherical. Americans prise their democracy, yet the notion of democracy is fundamentally atheistic. Would that not contradict America’s increasing – and increasingly worrying – religiosity? To me, this seems a fundamental paradox at the heart of the modern american state: it seems to yearn for a king, a central autocrat in charge of everything and capable of putting everything right.

Of course, this only applies to certain americans. Others see trump for the joke he is. Reading Michael Wolff’s book it is becoming clear just how fucked up the situation is over there: the nation is being lead by a man who is essentially a child, capable of only the most simplistic thought processes and driven by basic gut reactions. Most educated americans, including many Republicans, realise how farcical the situation is; yet Trump is being presented to working class americans as a kind of everyman ruler – someone outside of the university-educated bourgeois currently branded as a type of elite. Thus Trump is simultaneously a king and an everyman, an once an ‘ordinary Joe’ and an all powerful executive, citing God and deriving power from him. Through this charade he is becoming increasingly worshipped by ultra-conservative fundamentalists, whose numbers and influence are rising. It has reached the point where Trump supporters believe his word over any other source of information, even when faced with undeniable evidence. Anyone who criticises Trump is automatically viewed as an enemy; the president’s word taken by his supporters as sacrosanct. Mainstream Media is thus ‘fake news’, unfairly criticising a great president.

What worries me is where all this is headed. Others have noted the increasing parallels between trump and the European fascist movements of the thirties. There too we saw men purporting to represent ordinary, working class people gradually taking more and more power until they became dictators. While I doubt Trump personally has the intellect to achieve such a status, as I wrote yesterday, there are powers behind his throne whom I suspect would love to get their hands on such an all-powerful puppet. Reactionary conservatism combined with religious fanaticism is a heady mix which leaves the door open to strong authoritarian figures, eager to grab – or be used to grab – more and more power until, before you know it, it’s too late. Either way, I very much doubt this was what the American founding fathers had in mind.

I saw yesterday that Trump had been given a clean bill of health by his doctors, and that his mental state and intelligence were apparently normal. It would seem that I was wrong, then, when I speculated that he might have learning difficulties. To be fair, I was far from alone in thinking that, and still think there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that Trump does not process information as well as the rest of us. Everything I have seen and read of his behaviour suggests he has some kind of learning difficulties. Indeed, I just read that, online, people are refusing to accept the doctors’ verdict, and are smelling some kind of cover-up: ”[T]the results of Donald Trump’s recent medical check-up have sparked an online conspiracy theory – the girther movement….But the girther movement, propelled mainly by critics of the president, posits that Mr Trump is shorter and heavier than the report suggests.”

I suppose it’s just a sign of the times in which we live, where people even refuse to believe a medical report; yet I agree that something about that report does not ring true. I still think that something is gravely amiss with the present occupant of the White House: Trump has no idea what he is doing or what is expected of him, and doesn’t even realise. He is a pawn being manipulated, but if that is true, who is controlling the pieces?

Anyone who still thinks Brexit was not about the erosion of our human and consumer rights should just go here. ”MPs have voted against including the European Charter of Fundamental Rights in UK law after Brexit.” It is becoming clearer and clearer that, away from European safeguards, this country will be turned into a capitalist hell. That was their plan all along: they want neoliberalism to rule, and for the rich to be free to lord it over the rest of us, a la the USA. Those who say that we’ll come up with our own human rights safeguards are frankly either lying, or they don’t know what they’re talking about. This is what Brexit is all about. Anyone can see through tory claims that such safeguards will be retained; this is what the Brexit project was all about from it’s inception. Our human rights are now set to be drained away one by one, and we must do something to reverse the folly of 2016 before we lose them all.

I never watched Friends when it first aired. It just struck me as irritating, and I didn’t see the point. I think I’ll flag this beeb article up, though, about how badly Friends has aged. Time has not been kind to the nineties sitcom, with many contemporary viewers finding it homophobic and sexist. What interests me is how revealing the article is about how much our views have changed in the quarter of a century since Friends first aired: what was once one of the most popular comedy programs on the box now seems flawed and fairly repugnant. Might this mean our culture is maturing about issues like homophobia and sexism, given that we no longer find such things funny? I certainly hope so, although we still clearly have a long, long way to go. Indeed, as it says at the end of the piece, no doubt in forty or fifty years, people will be finding programs made today just as antiquated.

I think I’ll just pop this here to invite feedback and suggestions. Idea for book: chronicle of my time at university (2004-2010) as a disabled man. How it changed me, how I got on, how I interacted with others. Mix of autobiography and exposition. 40,000 words or so. Possibly fictionalised. Deal with my semi outsider position. Slowly finding my place and gradually making friends. Incorporate my position as a blogger?

It’s only a rough idea for now, but pretty much my only writerly output these days is here on my blog, and while I’m enormously proud of my work on here, I’m beginning to think that perhaps it’s high time I got something longer and more sustained going too.

I wasn’t going to post an entry today, as I’ve blogged daily for ages and want to start taking the occasional break again, but I think it’s absolutely essential that I direct you all here. Carly Fleischmann is an autistic VOCA user who has a show on Youtube. She became so well known that she was invited onto the Stephen Colbert show to do an interview. This is the truly awesome result. Fleischmann goes toe-too-toe with Colbert, and I think comes across as eloquent and witty. I think this truly is groundbreaking stuff for us communication aid users, and Fleischmann is someone to keep an eye on from now on. Given that Colbert is the current era’s equivalent of Jay Leno or David Letterman, it really is a positive, encouraging sign to see a VOCA user on his show.

I just came across one of those nauseating, saccharine news stories about a chap with Downs Syndrome starting up his own business selling socks, albeit with his father’s help. Stories like this are, presumably, supposed to inspire and uplift us, but I can’t help suspecting that they are part of an agenda to press people with disabilities off benefits and into work. After reading reports like this, a guy in the street might look at guys like me and think ”why hasn’t he got a job?” As great as they might seem, there is an insidious dimension to news stories like this; they are about forcing capitalist dogma upon us, demonstrating that we cripples can in fact work as much as anyone else, so we don’t actually need state benefits. Hell, the fact that it’s something as twee and cliche as a sock shop says it all. Sorry to be so negative about this, but stories like this really get on my nerves.

If anyone is looking for something rather weighty to read on a Saturday morning, then I would direct you here, to a report by US congress detailing how much the Brexit referendum was influenced by Russia. It is truly shocking: as this Guardian article on it explains, Putin tried to sway the vote directly, with a view to destabilising Europe and increasing russian influence. Long though it may be – and I’m still trying to get through Fire And Fury – I thought it well worth flagging up, if only to illustrate just how utterly fucked up what happened in 2016, and is still happening, was.

It would seem things have just become interesting, and indeed rather funny. It is surely a sign of how bad things are going with Brexit when one of the leading outists starts calling for a second referendum. The winds are turning against Brexit, Farage could see it slipping away, so he starts calling for another vote in the hope of shoring up support for it. What more evidence do we need that Brexit is falling apart? If things were going well, there’s no way Farage would want to risk the outcome of the first referendum. I find it quite, quite funny.

As for a second referendum, I say bring it on – it may finally be a way out of this mess. He is obviously desperate to show that the public is on his side, but I really think Farage is utterly deluded if he thinks he will get a bigger pro-Brexit majority in a second vote. The public have glimpsed the catastrophic damage Brexit would do, and this time Remain campaigners would do everything they can to make sure they win. Farage has played right into the hands of those who want to undo the damage of 2016, and after what he said yesterday we should start campaigning with all our hearts for a second vote.

Yesterday afternoon I tapped the following question into a Remain Facebook group I’m a member of: ” There’s something I don’t understand, so could someone explain. Corbyn is a socialist but wants to leave the eu because it is too neoliberal and capitalist. Yet the very reason why assholes like Farage wanted to leave is because the eu hindered free market capitalism; Leavers would now see the most perverse form of capitalism imposed upon us. So which was it – they can’t both be right.” It was a genuine question – I honestly didn’t know the answer. I’ve always thought the EU held the worst excesses of capitalism at bay, which is why so many right-wing tossers wanted us to leave it. But if that is so, why would an avid leftie like Corbyn want us to leave? Wouldn’t that just invite the capitalists?

The answers I got on Facebook went some way to clearing things up. The EU was neither capitalist or socialist, but moderated between both extremes: it does have neoliberal tendencies, but also ensured it did not get out of hand by regulating business. As one response I got put it:

[quote]The original idea was to prevent France and Germany continuing to fight as they had done for centuries, as it just damages everyone else. The best way to do that was by economically linking them, initially through coal, driven by the notion that people like to have money, that free market economics and friction-less cross border trade unites countries. That’s the liberal economic, capitalist, basis of the EU. That’s the socialist objection to the EU – that is is based upon trade and markets. However, the EU also has a social mission, and a distributive function, and, more recently, a cultural mission based on shared values. This is what economic liberals don’t like. So, both can be right, both can be wrong. The EU is a strange beast that works if you don’t peer at it too intently.[/quote]

Reading that made it suddenly clear: the EU can be said to be about capitalism and it’s restraint – it just depends on how you look at it. What I hadn’t twigged was that, for people like Corbyn, the European Union didn’t go far enough in holding capitalism back; the way it allowed neoliberalism to proceed, albeit under strict continent-wide rules, effectively made it a pro-capitalist organisation. The sad thing is that, by siding so strongly with the Outists, and by not opposing Brexit like an opposition leader should, Corbyn is leaving the door wide open for the most perverse form of neoliberalism to be foisted upon the UK. Free of EU regulation, the strong will be now be set free to dominate the weak, and things like the welfare state will be gradually worn away.

I suppose it goes back to the debates I touched upon a while ago over whether the EU was for or against TTIP and so on. It comes down to how you look at it: it needed to foster a certain amount of free-market enterprise, or else the european project would just stagnate. Some trade is necessary. The thing is, to people like Corbyn, that made it too capitalist; but to p’tahks like Farage, it was too restrictive. Thus they both opposed the same organisation from opposite directions, and I fear the former has ended up inadvertently serving the latter.

Moreover, even though my views are fairly socialist in that I believe in a strong state, supported by taxation from the wealthy, caring for everyone within it, I’m also an internationalist. I believe in the peoples of the world coming together and working as one, whereas I think Corbyn is more of a nationalist. I have also heard that Corbyn objected to the EU because some of it’s regulations would have prevented him from implementing his left-wing policies. While I have some sympathy with that argument, he and I thus differ in our views, and I’m increasingly unhappy about his pro-Brexit stance. More and more people in the UK now see Brexit as the inane folly it is, and it’s about time Labour, as the official opposition, stood up for their views. Yet the biggest thing I don’t get is how Corbyn can’t see Brexit for what it is: an opportunity for far-right nutjobs to impose the most sickening form of capitalism on this country. Yes, the EU may have had neoliberal elements, it may have had it’s faults, but faced with the alternative now facing us, it was surely worth sticking with. Europe helped to regulate, moderate, and hold the extremes back; extremes which I now fear will be free to exploit and manipulate the people of this country however they like.

For the record, I must say that I fully support Virgin Trains no longer supplying the Daily Mail to commuters. The Mail is not a newspaper but a rag, an insult to journalism. Virgin trains were right to take it off it’s shelves, for all the hatred and xenophobia it stirs up. I know I should defend freedom of speech, and that people have a right to choose what they read, but rags like the Mail and Express go far too far in forcing their hate-filled agendas onto others. I saw what lies they were spewing every time I looked at the paper rack at the local Co-Op – it usually made me boil with rage. If they had their way, they would turn the british public into a bunch of bumbling, halfwitted xenophobes. Someone had to take a stand against such an insult to journalism, and I’m glad to see Virgin has.

Just to follow up on this entry posted last week, the Tories have now sacked Toby Young as universities regulator. They say he resigned, but it’s pretty clear what happened: the anti-inclusion bastard was totally the wrong man for the job, and attracted so much criticism that it would have dragged May down. The p’tahk is now protesting that he has been caricatured and is in fact ‘a passionate supporter of inclusion’, but that sickening act shouldn’t wash with anybody. Young had to go; we need far better people than him in public office.

I would just like to flag up this rather glowing tribute to Michael Palin which the BBC broadcast last night. I think Palin is one of my all-time favourite TV personalities, and it was great to see his epic fifty year career celebrated last night. I’ve always loved his travel programmes, and getting to watch Monty Python Live in 2014 will probably always be one of the highlights of my life. When a clip of that evening was shown last night, I had a fit of the squeals. As I wrote here after I went to see him speak live, something about Palin’s travelogues makes me want to go out and explore. I really hope he makes more, although I think that’s now rather unlikely. Nevertheless, it was good to see the beeb pay this timely, well-deserved tribute to him.

If they’re genuine, I think these two tweets sum up the current occupant of the White House quite perfectly.

We’re beginning to see just how immature Donald Trump is: no proper statesperson would ever stoop to such name-calling. Yet I’m increasingly beginning to think that it’s unfair to mock trump. We all laugh at him, we all call him an idiot; but should we? Evidence is mounting that he doesn’t really understand what he is doing. As I wrote a couple of entries ago, he might have learning difficulties. What we take to be arrogance and ego might simply be the spewings of a disabled man, in which case mocking Trump would be unfair. Thus, while I think America should be taking immediate action to replace trump with someone more qualified for the job, I don’t think we should continue to laugh at Trump. He might have many failings, but he does not necessarily properly understand what is expected of him. Mocking him in that case would be as unfair as mocking anyone with learning difficulties; we should concentrate instead on getting him replaced.

Yesterday I came across a post on one of the disability groups on Facebook about the wheelchair space on busses. It said that the sign should not specify wheelchair users, but reserve the spot for people with disabilities more generally. I was in two minds about it: while I could see their point, I think wheelchair users should take priority when it comes to that space. After all, things like walking frames can be folded and their users can sit nearby. Thus I replied that an ambulant person who just uses a crutch or walker does not need this space as they can sit on a nearby seat and fold the walker. They were effectively saying that I, as a powerchair user, would have to wait for the next bus because they didn’t want to make room for me. A little churlish perhaps, but I would maintain that space is specifically for those of us who use wheelchairs.

Yet I think this hints at an issue which I brought up a few weeks ago. It’s almost as if certain people see their selves, and want to be seen as, more disabled than they are for political and social reasons, and therefor think the standard social image of disability should be expanded to include them. I realise how contentious that might sound, but the impression I get is that these people, for whatever reason, actually want to belong to the disability community. They feel excluded from it because they do not fit the standard image of a wheelchair-using cripple, so they want that image to now be expanded. They want to be allowed to use the bus wheelchair space, even if they might not necessarily need it.

Up to a point I have no problem with that: people can see themselves however they like, disabled or not. At the same time, and as wary as I am of constructing any sort of hierarchy of disability, I think people are now expecting entry into our community where once they would have just seen theirselves as able bodied, albeit with a few physical abnormalities. Being allowed to use the bus wheelchair space would, consciously or unconsciously, signify that they are as disabled as the rest of ‘us’. On the other hand, it might be more a case of wanting their disabilities to be as visible as others’, so they are less vulnerable to being seen as mere slackers or scroungers.

I get the impression that, in a way, these people want to feel oppressed; they want to belong to an oppressed minority, perhaps in order to justify their political activism. As fury and frustration towards the current government grows, people consciously or unconsciously seem to want to justify feelings of personal persecution by claiming membership of a group which has fared the worst from the Tory cuts, even though they might be straight, white and more or less able bodied. The problem is, the disability rights movement risks being saturated by such activists, so that the voices of those of us who have borne the brunt of disability persecution in terms of special schools and long-stay care homes – those of us who actually had to fight to get the wheelchair space on the bus in the first place – risks being drowned out by people who would divert our movement to fit their own agenda.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the united States is currently being lead by a person with mental health issues and/or mild learning difficulties. I say that in all seriousness. I came across this Young Turks video earlier: watching it, one gets a picture of an American President who literally has no idea what he’s doing. The staff at the white House are becoming exasperated; Trump simply can not comprehend information they give to him as a person usually would. They say it’s like they’re dealing with a child. It reminds me of a guy with learning difficulties, brimming with confidence but who is unaware of his limitations.

Trump only got to where he is with the help of others. It is well documented how, as a businessman, he was an utter failure, and needed bailing out by people like his father. He was not responsible for his own success, then, yet he thinks he is. Trump thinks he’s a great businessman; he thinks it was all his own doing. That sort of reminds me of a child with learning difficulties, whose Learning Support Assistant has helped to make some kind of model, yet takes the credit for it. Trump might not be arrogant – he might simply be unable to understand his limitations, not realising how much he does not understand. He has been pandered to and spoiled to the extent that he has failed to realise that he has limitations. He thinks he is a great man, and cannot understand why so many people are now so critical of him when they have always been so flattering in the past.

It all points towards the guy having some kind of learning difficulty or mental health issue. And as much as I support the inclusion of people with any kind of disability in mainstream society, I think questions must be asked about letting this man go on living out what is essentially his delusion, especially given so much is at stake.

It has been a while since I wrote anything to do with the olympics on here, but I was interested to see how the imminent winter games in Pyongyang are now being used to thaw hostilities in Korea. The north is going to send a delegation to the games in the south, the first move of it’s kind in years. I think it’s quite awesome how these big, global sports events have a practical, political effect. I’m not particularly interested in who wins what medal, but in the Olympic Games as a force for good in the world. It may only be a delegation being sent to an Olympic Games, but who knows what a chain of events a simple act like this might set off? Is it too naive to hope that the simple act of playing sport together could lead to something far more profound?

It would now seem that I was very lucky indeed to go to university when I did. I owe quite a bit to Jenny and Jane back at South Cheshire College: they were the ones who first suggested I start to think about going. I always thought I would leave it until I was much older. Had I done so, it now seems I might never have gone. The Tories have now appointed Toby Young as universities regulator, a man famously opposed to inclusive education, and who thinks wheelchair ramps are an eyesore. With such a dogmatic tory prick now in charge of unis, I now fear students with disabilities will start to become discouraged from going into higher education. Young will attempt to refocus admissions policies to favour a kind of narrow elitism, meaning students like the one I was simply won’t get a chance. The tories are now slowly wrecking the culture of inclusion and tolerance Labour did so much to foster. How lucky I was to go to university, and get so much out of it, when I did.

I watched Spectre again last night. It was, I think, the first time I had seen it since watching it in the cinema in 2015, and it struck me as still a very good film. As I was watching it, though, an interesting question occurred to me: the Bond films have been part of our cultural lives for over fifty years, and they have always changed to reflect the time in which they were made, so how might they now change to reflect Brexit? While the central character remains broadly the same, the Bond films are always set in the contemporary period, so how might they now adapt to reflect the UK’s new place in the world?

I think this is quite an interesting question. There hasn’t been a new Bond film since the stupidity of 2016, so it will be fascinating to see how the producers of the franchise react to this brave new contemporary Britain. Where once we were a bold, outgoing nation sitting at the high table of world affairs, I fear we are now a small, inward-looking, irrelevant little island. We have been greatly diminished; the entire world looks at us in a different way. What use would such a small, inwardlooking state have for a mega-spy? 007 was an actor on the world stage; he was part of our international image. You only have to look at the 2012 olympic opening ceremony to see that. Bond is our projection of ourselves, sleek and powerful, into the world; he also forms part of how the rest of the world sees us. Post 2016, that image has sadly changed: we can now no longer call ourselves a world player. I have a sense that the rest of the world now sees us differently, so will it still be so willing to accept that we have a set of suave masterspies running around the world saving everyone from evil?

Sadly, I think not. The uk is now a changed country. We are now no longer the place which put on such awesome olympics in 2012, no longer quite the place where monty Python performed. As I once wrote here I am still proud of such events, but that’s only because they happened before we showed ourselves to be so gullible and inward-looking. After that bloody referendum, this place has changed; I’m no longer proud of it, and don’t think it is a place superspies would bother with. I suspect the Bond Producers will think that too, both Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Willson being opposed to Brexit: why would they help such a small-minded bunch of fools represent itself to the rest of the world with such a suave, heroic figure? If I were them, I simply wouldn’t bother.

Can Bond survive Brexit? Of course it can as arguably cinema’s greatest franchise. The question is, how will it change to reflect our troubled contemporary world? Will a diminished UK mean a diminished Bond? Where once we were seen as a suave, sophisticated outward-looking nation alert to the subtleties and nuances of world affairs, our global image is now that of a bunch of gullible fools easily duped by xenophobic jingoism. When the rest of the world looks at us, they don’t see Bond any more, or anything respectable or fine, but a nation of inward-looking halfwits no longer worth engaging with. The image of the UK projected by Bond simply no longer fits.

I didn’t mention it in yesterday’s entry, but perhaps I should also note that 2017 was a completely dry year for me. Apart from maybe the odd drop in a pudding or something, I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol. I’m rather proud of that fact, although it wasn’t that difficult: after a while, I started to find the idea of alcohol rather stupid. Why would I want to drink something which would make me fall over, crash my powerchair and need to go to bed early? As I wrote here on the anniversary of my stopping drinking, I feel so much better for it, too. I think much more clearly, and I no longer find myself simply looking forward to friday and Saturday evenings. Looking back, it was effecting my entire mental outlook – surely we can all do without such crap. 2017 was my first dry year in a while, then, but I can now assure you that there will be many more.