You know things are going badly politically when the Americans start taking the piss out of you on Saturday Night Live. I know it’s already a couple of weeks old, and the impressions are fairly cringeworthy,  but   it goes to show just how risible the rest of the world is finding the Brexit debacle when the Americans, whose own political situation is fairly ludicrous, decide we’re fair game for a pisstake. It really is getting embarrassing; let’s just hope things start to right theirselves in the new year.

Last night I read that one of my all-time favourite film and tv personalities, Michael Palin, is to get a knighthood in the new year’s honours. Call me silly, but I’m frankly over the moon for him; he really has earned it. Mind you, as he himself points out, he has been a knight  before, but I wonder if he’ll say ‘Ni’ this time.

Ever since I first heard about  Cuba in relation to Hemingway, I’ve been quite curious about it. Cuba looks  very exotic from the pictures, but you don’t hear much about what life is like there. I just came across this quite fascinating bbc  report on it though, and I’m more intrigued than ever. I won’t say much about it, other than it seems fairly thorough and balanced. You have to wonder, with the Castro period now at an end and the fuckwit the Americans now call their president having undone Obama’s good work in restoring relations, what the future holds for the island. Either way, it’s  definitely a place I want to visit soon.

I was just doing a bit of reading to follow up my entry on the Crystal Palace. It was, of course, built in Hyde Park for the famous Great Exhibition of 1851. When  I read that, I naturally looked  up exhibitions, wondering what they were and what became of them. I’d assumed they’d stopped, but they’re still going. That strikes me as odd, I must say: they appear to be quite  regular, so why don’t we hear anything about them? Why doesn’t the media make as much of a song and dance about them  as they do over the Olympics? Surely they are the cultural equivalent of the olympics, in that they both  draw the world’s attention to one specific city. And, more to the point, why hasn’t London hosted a world exhibition since 1862? Surely putting one on would mean the world’s greatest metropolis can show what it can do once more.

Moment of the day: two   people with unclear speech trying to explain to a Polish guy with English as a second language why Elfis would be the best singer at the north pole. Ahh, the joy of Christmas cracker jokes. Merry Christmas everyone!

I don’t want to go into detail on here, but yesterday I received a bit of news concerning a family member which, while not innately bad, was sufficiently ominous to make me worry. Between that and a couple of other unpleasant things recently, it’s safe to say I’m not in a very good place right now. Yet, the way I look at it, there are plenty of worse places to be. I think I’ve written on here before how I grew up with three lads with muscular dystrophy, who, despite knowing their condition would slowly sap away their strength, never once complained about their condition. Lyn has the same fortitude. It’s just a case of keeping your head held high and refusing to give in.

Moreover, I know that every day has the potential for something awesome to happen. I have done so many incredible things over the last few years, from meeting Patrick Stewart and Danny Boyle to watching Monty Python Live, The Cat Empire and Greenday. All those events arose completely by chance: for example, when I wheeled up to the park cafe that day last summer to discover a film crew at work up at Charlton House, I had no idea I would end up meeting Danny Boyle, one of my all-time filmic heroes. You never know what each day will bring; each day has the potential for something incredible to happen.

Mind you, I think another bit of awesomeness is long overdue, not just for me but for the whole country. The uk is torn in two right now; it’s getting worrying. I know I probably don’t help with my accusations of fascism and ’embarrassments to human civilisation’. Half the country loathes the other half. But I keep thinking about the summer of 2012, and how united we were: the country was behind London, cheering us on; and we felt proud to be British, and what we, together, were capable of. I’ll always feel proud of being a Londoner that summer.

That summer now seems a very distant memory. Where we were once united, we are now utterly divided. Putting the politics of Brexit aside for now – and I still think it’s totally, totally moronic – the fact we are all constantly arguing over it, online and off, isn’t good for anyone. We desperately need another huge public event we can all get behind to bring us back together again; something awesome to lift us all out of this quagmire. What that could be I’m not sure, but I think Theresa May was talking about something similar when she suggested a ‘Festival of Britain’ – although I haven’t heard anything more about that.

Both personally and in general, history has taught me that, no matter how crappy things might get, there is always potential for something awesome to happen. At any moment, you can receive news of a new event or new idea, or you could meet a new person, which could lead on eventually to something you’ll never forget. Right now, part of me thinks that it’s high time I had another moment like that. Yet, at the same time, these incredible moments can only happen if you look out for them: when you’re feeling low it’s all too easy to shy away from life. The 2012 olympics only happened because London was brave enough to apply for them, just as I only met Danny Boyle because I had the cheek to wander up to Charlton House and ask.

To do that meant leaving the house and going out into the world. Life can be incredible, but only if you do not shy away from it. You cannot let all the dire, bleak things happening in the world beat you into submission, because then you stop looking for all the special, incredible things which make life so wonderful. After all, who knows what tomorrow may bring: just as I may meet another of my heroes or find another of my favourite bands is doing a gig nearby, the country might be awarded another international event which we’ll all end up uniting behind. While I now have a feeling that my next few years may not be as easy as the last few, experience tells me to never rule out the potential for awesomeness.

Given that Corbyn just committed himself to  pursuing full brexit (thereby relinquishing any right whatsoever to claim to be a socialist), this seems very apt.

The vast majority of the labour party aren’t stupid; they know how   utterly foolish Brexit is. So why is their leader refusing to listen to them? Doesn’t corbyn realise brexit is a plot to set the most  perverse form of neoliberalism loose in the UK?

I better warn you, once you hear it you won’t be able to get it out of your head for days, but this song is too awesome not to flag up. Who’d have thought a song about humble sausage rolls could be so catchy?

This entry finds me and John on the train south again, back to London, another journey at an end. We have just left a remarkable city; what a place Liverpool is. It had been well over a decade since I was last there and it was completely different to how I remembered. There are many outstanding museums, including the rather humbling museum of slavery.

Samual Pepys once famously wrote that to be titled of London was to be tired of life, yet after almost a decade of living in the metropolis I find myself wondering about finding somewhere new. As much as I love the capital, I think I have noted here before that it’s simply too big. I want somewhere more compact and homely, but no less vibrant. Today, in Liverpool, I think I have found it.

I just had quite a special morning. John and I are on our travels again, this time exploring Oxford and Liverpool. We traveled up to Oxford yesterday. Truth be told , the hardest part of our trip was getting out of the capital due to confusion over wheelchair ramps. Once we got to Oxford, albeit later than we had planned, we had dinner at the Eagle And Child, the famous pub Tolkien used to drink in, before exploring a bit of the city after dark.

I can’t remember exactly how,  but two or three weeks ago I began to wonder about Crystal Palace. You hear  the name quite a bit, especially in relation to Football, but I had never actually been there. I had heard it was  named after a big glass building which once  stood there but which was destroyed. I grew curious about it: from old photographs, the place looked magnificent – how does it look today? Are there any plans to rebuild it? Given   the renovation of other parts of london, such as in Stratford  or North Greenwich, could Crystal Palace be next  in line for such treatment?

Curious, I set off down there this afternoon. I’d seen there was a bus there from Blackheath a couple of days ago, and, hungry for some fresh air, I headed out for some exploration.

What I found made me very curious. There is a park, crystal Palace Park, which I had a look around. Without wanting to get too poetic or pseudy,  it felt like an echo: I could tell something magnificent once stood there but it was long  gone. It had the aura of a place that was once thriving and vibrant, but whose mighty heyday was now a long-faded memory. The park is on the side of a hill looking south. The views are incredible – you  must be able to see for miles southward. The hillside is terraced, cut into levels; on the topmost of these  you can tell once stood quite a large building, but now only  stone barriers and  a few old, moss-covered statues remain. Between the terraces runs quite a dilapidated and potholed path, badly in need of maintenance. I spent a while exploring; I could tell what it must once have looked like, but today, bepuddled and rather  cold,  it felt forgotten.

From looking online  I know there  are plans to rebuild Crystal Palace  and renovate the park, and now I’m fully behind them. By and large, South London hasn’t had  quite the attention the north has: Look at, say, Stratford or  the North Greenwich Peninsula, and you see sleek thriving areas full of shiny modern buildings. I couldn’t help thinking that the area  I visited this afternoon had been forgotten about, but must surely be next in line for such treatment.

And how awesome would it be: a brand new Crystal Palace, fully modernised  yet referencing it’s victorian predecessor. While it could be used to hold exhibitions,  London already has plenty of exhibition spaces, so I would make it a performance area too. Done right, it could even rival the O2 in terms of being a cool cultural centre. There was a lot of potential there, and given that the  park already has a  decent railway station serving it, I can’t help wonder what the Mayor is  waiting for. While some say the past should be allowed to remain in the past, in a thriving modern metropolis like London, surely the future is what matters. If Crystal Palace got the Stratford treatment, there’s no reason why south London can’t become as  funky as the North.

How dare that bunch of uneducated right-wing morons on the other side of the Atlantic still claim to be the world’s preeminent  nation? I just came across this tragic story, and America lost the last fragment of my respect. The faecal smear on human civilisation whom it is currently  calling it’s president has overseen the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s great achievement which at last gave americans something approaching  a civilised healthcare system. Now a halfwit who laughably calls himself a judge in Texas has ruled it unconstitutional, so our American friends will soon be forced to go back to paying insurance companies for their healthcare. I just feel sorry for people with disabilities and long term conditions, who will now need to start worrying about how to pay for their  healthcare. Ffs how  can a country dare  to call itself even remotely civilised when it prioritises the rights of capitalist fatcats to make a profit over the wellbeing off it’s poorest citizens?

I’m beginning to think that Outism – the compulsion to back Brexit – can almost be categorised as a mental disorder or illness. It is certainly a profound delusion. I’m not saying that just because I disagree with it, and I’m not trying to be funny. Online, I’m starting to come across the most ludicrous comments from those who support Brexit. This morning, for instance, I came across one guy commenting on the bbc Question Time Facebook page who seemed to think that  Brexit was an extension of World War Two, and to  remain in the EU was somehow letting Germany win. The comments were so ludicrous you had to wonder whether they were really genuine and not some kind of spoof. Yet if they were made in earnest you have to wonder what sort of deranged mind could produce such thoughts; whoever it was, they clearly had a very tenuous grip on reality. I think I encountered people with the same delusion last Saturday.  They aren’t just ill informed; I think it is more profound than a lack of education or  knowledge. This is a genuine delusion verging on the obsessive;  their grip on reality is so loose that  it begins to  recall a form of psychosis. How else can you explain the belief that the EU is equivalent to  Nazi Germany or the conviction that every expert and sign of a coming disaster is  wrong, and the uk will flourish outside the eu? Patriotic optimism is one thing, blind obsession quite another.

(Sorry, but this seemed too apt – and too corny – not to steal)

I suppose as I head to bed having just turned Newsnight off, the country still  having the same inept prime minister it woke up with, the only question to ask this evening is, can things get any more stupid?

I was just down at Charlton Train station trying to get tickets for a trip John and I are taking to Oxford and Liverpool. It’s a small station with a single counter. I’m there  quite often these days, so the staff know me. It was going quite  routinely at first: the guy had come out to read what I wanted from my Ipad; he had just gone back behind the counter when something happened. I couldn’t  see what because he was behind the serving window, but through that  I saw his colleague come over and say his name. I was slightly confused – I thought he was  still processing my request. I waited a few moments, but then the colleague pulled down the window blind and I heard him calling an ambulance – the guy had had some kind of seizure.

I waited in the station for a while, unsure what to do, worried about the guy. The station was empty but for me. I thought about making suggestions, like to put the guy into the recovery position. The ambulance came and the medics went into the  staff area. Shortly after that I was asked to leave and go back tomorrow. I did and I will, but  it was rather scary.  I really hope the man is ok.

I think I should have stayed in Charlton yesterday; it probably wasn’t good for my heart. I had heard there was going to be a pro-Brexit protest in Westminster, along with a counter-demonstration, and the temptation  to go join the latter proved too strong. I  know everyone has a right to their views, but what is  now happening in this country must surely  be stopped, and those who would see Brexit pushed through in the name of nationalism must surely be countered.

I set off  up there after my weekly Skype with my parents, and took the Jubilee Line to Westminster. When I got there, there was no sign of any protest, so I  waited around a while. I first browsed the statues in Parliament Square, then went into  Whitehall. There I saw barricades erected and police gathering:  something was about to happen. I then  began to notice people carrying signs supporting  brexit,  and it soon  became clear that I had arrived at the wrong end of Whitehall. The Anti-Brexit march, I was told, was then in Trafalgar square.

I decided to stay where I was – perhaps I would learn something. That proved a bit of a mistake as pretty soon I was surrounded by people – bald thuggish men, mostly – carrying UKIP and Brexit signs. My heart began to race and I  began to get upset. I tried to talk to a few of them but that proved futile. In the end I swung round along the river to join the other protest.

This seemed quieter and more peaceful to me. There were also more nonwhite people there. On the other side of the barrier was a different kind of protest, made up of people who, like me, were appalled by what is going on. There was music followed by speeches, but then it disbanded – I had only caught the tail  end. It was then that I  had the stupid idea of going back  to the other protest, rather than  head home.

I don’t know why I did it. I wanted to talk to them, tell them why they are wrong, but I knew that I would only end up getting more pissed off.  I was,  however, able to establish a few things by watching that demo. I’m afraid to say that it only confirmed my opinion that brexit is  driven by nationalism, and that the people trying to push it through have no real understanding of what they’re advocating. I spoke to a few  of them, and their knowledge was very limited. It now seems to me that, rather than being a stereotype or assumption, the educational difference between Brexiteers and Remainers is very real and very stark. People there were deeply misguided and ill-informed. They did not seem to realise what they thought was an expression of national identity and pride was actually a scheme intended to transform the uk into an ultra-capitalist tax haven where human and consumer rights will be slowly whittled away.

It also reinforced my opinion that Outism is a far-right position. Most if not all of  the morons there were outright xenophobes, and the speeches I heard being given only confirmed that. One was an  utterly baseless diatribe about how climate change isn’t real, with nothing to do with  brexit. Hearing such rubbish spouted from that stage in order to brainwash those people even  further into fascism made  my blood boil.

What also struck me was  how pointless it was  too. These fools were demonstrating against May’s plan, which they saw as too light a brexit. Don’t they realise that it’s either that plan or no brexit. They were marching in aid of a nationalistic delusion. When you think  about it, the brexit they want isn’t going  to happen, so all that hate and anger was for nothing. It was totally unclear what they wanted or why, but they  were  clearly angry and frustrated.

And that is the dangerous thing. Yesterday in  Whitehall I saw two or three thousand people all feeling ignored and persecuted, all clearly  unable to properly understand what was going on. They feel disenfranchised and left behind by the contemporary multicultural world; a world which  has outgrown the simplistic  certainties of nation  and race – certainties they derive  a sense of belonging  from. Such people are therefore getting angrier and  angrier, not only in the UK but all over the world. Nationalism is on the rise again. I saw it firsthand yesterday in Whitehall, and it chilled my heart.

A while ago I wrote on here that I wanted to take  up psychology again. I think that is still the case. These days, I’m becoming more and more interested in mental  health. It is an area I know very little about, but as a writer and filmmaker I want to now start to articulate stories about  all kinds of disability,  including less obvious ones. Of course, I can go on telling the world what life is like for a guy  with cerebral palsy, but now I want to start exploring what life is like for people with types of disability which are less obvious. I’ve been conveying my thoughts,  feelings and experiences on my blog for the past fifteen years. I’ve also written a few scripts and made a few films. Yet it seems to me my type of disability is straightforward in that the problems I face are relatively obvious; I’ve also been lucky in that I have the ability to communicate my thoughts and experiences to the outside world. Now I want to give a hand to those who might not have that ability, or whose impairments are less obvious. If anything, people with mental health issues get even less representation in mainstream media than  those of us with physical disabilities. As I say, it’s an area I don’t know much about, but from what I’ve seen and read  so far it’s quite fascinating.

I just got back from quite an awesome event at the o2. Charlton Park Academy also house an organisation called Cenmac, which specialises in creating  and adapting technology to access education. Today to celebrate their fiftieth birthday, they were doing a screening of three films looking at what they do. A few days ago I got an email from the teacher I work with there, Kathryn, asking if they could also screen my 1000 Londoners film there today.

When I read that email it blew my socks off! As a filmmaker, the opportunity to get your work shown on the big screen in a proper cinema  must be seized and relished. I  also felt honoured that they chose to show my work beside theirs. I quickly dashed off the necessary emails  to make sure it could happen.

Heading up there on  the bus earlier today, I was a bundle of nerves. I was very excited, but was getting fretful something might go wrong. And it almost did: when I got up to cineworld at the o2 arena, Kathryn greeted me with the news that she had just been told that something  was wrong with the framerate of the copy of my  film Chocolate films had couriered across, and they wouldn’t be able to play it. Needless to  say, when I  heard that I was devastated.

I followed the crowd  into the screening room anyway. I recognised most of the  people there from the academy, but there were a few new faces – people to network with. Kathryn gave the opening address, and some of  the students did a welcome for the audience. The piece I was most  interested in, though, was a speech by a guy called Abdi, an AAC user with CP who has a Youtube channel with well over three thousand views, about the history of communications technology. It was witty and informative, and I was  struck by the idea of introducing myself to Abdi and perhaps creating something with him.

Then came the films: the main Cenmac piece was shown first: a fascinating piece about their work, no doubt intended inform parents, potential investors and so on. What came across is  how crucial the work they do is for students, and how innovative and creative the solutions they find are. The next film was a case study of a student; what struck me most was the artistry behind it.

Then something happened which made my day. All I  can say is, thank zark for the internet. The projectionists had borrowed a laptop from an audience member, plugged it into their projector and screened  my film  straight from youtube. I felt so grateful that they had persevered. It took one or two attempts to get  the sound to work, but when it did, and I saw my film up on the big screen, I was over the moon.

Today’s event has solidified my urge to make more films. If I can  work with  Cenmac, as both a writer  and filmmaker, to create more films like those screened today, then perhaps we can show the wider populous the work they do. in a way I think the media aspect of what they do is  quite central, as it helps those who are unaccustomed to disability learn what people like me ate capable of  with a little technology.

A couple of days ago my Ipad wouldn’t connect to the net when I was away from our home wifi network. A good  web connection is quite crucial to  me these days, so off I went to the o2 shop in  Woolwich, where I was told I needed to top my sim card up. This I did, and I got a confirmation email. Assuming everything was now tickety-boo, today I was having my usual coffee in  the cafe park when I thought I’d check my emails on my Ipad. Strangely, it wouldn’t connect.

I quite naturally assumed my payment hadn’t gone through for some reason, so sucking up the rest of my coffee, off I set back to Woolwich. I took the long way today, just for the sake of variation, and I’d arrive in woolwich high street closer to the  o2 shop. When I got there,  however, I saw I didn’t need to go in at all: there was a big handwritten sign on the door stating that o2 was suffering a massive network failure, and nobody’s phones were working. I just saw it was so big that the bbc website has the story on it’s front page. Talk about epic fail.

If  you’ve ever wondered what an american might make of Red Dwarf, check this out.  I thought  it worth flagging up because the dude is clearly coming to Dwarf as  an outsider. It has been ages since I last  watched an episode of Red Dwarf, but I grew up with it. My brother Luke was quite a fan, and we had several episodes on vhs. It’s interesting to see someone approach it from a completely different position: from the other side of the atlantic, in the contemporary internet  age. He gives quite a thorough analysis, as if explaining it to someone completely new to Red Dwarf, so he mentions things I had never really thought about. It’s interesting to see something I grew up with and basically took  as part of the background  analysed as if it were new.

I think it was on Friday that I saw Lost Voice Guy, Lee Ridley, on Live at the Apollo. Of course, for a communication aid user to appear on a mainstream stand-up comedy program like that is pretty momentous in itself, and I think it represents quite a large step forward. He put on a good act, but as with all comedians, especially those still finding their feet, some of his jokes amused me more than others. Yet what caught my eye was Ridley’s shirt. His blue shirts with a wisecrack about disability in white writing seem to be part of his image as a performer. The one he was wearing on Friday’s show said ‘I was disabled before it was popular.’

While it is rather contentious, and he was probably just trying to be facetious, I think I know what he was getting at. More and more people seem to be defining theirselves as disabled these days, when in the past they would have just ignored whatever mild impairment they have, classed theirselves as normal and got on with their lives. Without wanting to sound too much like the nonsense spewn by the likes of the Daily Mail, it’s as if certain people want to be seen as disabled or as belonging to an oppressed minority. I see more and more people using crutches or scooters these days; and on the web, message boards are filling up with people saying they are disabled and calling themselves disability activists, but who seem to have lead relatively normal, able-bodied lives. There also seems to be quite a concerted effort by those with mental health problems to group theirselves with those of us with physical disabilities. Everyone wants to be a member of a minority these days – an activist standing up to an oppressor.

As I think I have written on here before, I do not necessarily have a problem with this. After all, who am I to say who is disabled and who isn’t? I just fear that, with this influx of people into the disability community, voices like mine will get drowned out. We all feel so disempowered these days, people seem eager to widen the definition of disability so that it includes the most minor of impairments. In the modern world, resources are becoming more and more scarce, so people seem to want to justify their access to resources by emphasising whatever impairment they have. The problem is, those with more profound impairments who cannot stand up for theirselves get pushed to the back of the queue. At least that might be mitigated by guys like Lost Voice Guy appearing more and more on TV.

There was an evening of programs about animation on BBC Four last night which I found fascinating. I have never really thought  about animation before now, but what struck me was the huge variation in  styles between the short films I watched. Each piece looked very different – far more different than live action films, even given the vast diversity of shooting styles there is  in live action. In animation, each  frame is drawn, created from scratch, so the  style of each piece really hits the viewer in the face; it also makes style much more salient to a piece’s meaning.   One piece in particular, Frankie’s Joke by Andrew Eu, Sheren Ali and Edwin Bulmar, mixed puppetry and animation  – 2d and 3d – in a way  I had never come across before but which  I found fascinating: here was a way of creating images which I found  new, novel and  captivating. It was still film, but it was using an entirely new visual vocabulary.  The film  itself was unquieting and slightly disturbing, about a character essentially in the throws of a mental breakdown, but I think the style and mise en scene was used to  enhance the feeling of discord,   as if the 2d and 3d components of the image were at odds with each other. By the end of the  evening I was fascinated and hungry for more; here is a new art form I can see myself getting into.

I just found this on a facebook page and decided to  share it here

It sums up modern british society, doesn’t it?

I really had fun last night. Since I gave up booze I have tried  to avoid pubs, fearing that the temptation to break my abstinence would be too great. I used to enjoy pubs as social epicentres,  but on the whole steering clear  of them was the best way  to stay sober. Recently, though, I’ve found myself in a pub two or three times: with Charlotte, when I was  up in  Edinburgh, and again last  night  for Terry’s birthday. Each time, the urge to throw caution to the wind and  ask for  a bitter  has grown less and less, and last night I was quite content with a coke.

It was a  really nice evening.  At about midday I had had a text from Debbie inviting me to Terry’s birthday bash in the White Swan, both of whom we know from the park. I replied that I would be happy to go. I  got there about seven, Lyn arriving shortly after, just as a band was setting up.  It was pretty tricky to navigate my powerchair through the crowded room, but at the back  of the pub I found my friends. En Route I bumped into Steven, my fellow film festival  organiser, and got chatting about Peter Jackson’s   new Dambusters remake. The  rest of the evening was  spent sitting and laughing, sipping my coke listening to the band. Terry, who was turning eighty, was clearly having a great time. As the evening wore on, things grew mellower and mellower, friendlier and  friendlier, and I couldn’t  help feeling very lucky indeed to know so many wonderful, kind-hearted people: Debbie,  Terry, Lyn  and everyone. Rolling home with Lyn, both of us stone-cold sober, I realised I had made the happy discovery that  I could go into pubs and have the same great time I always did without getting stupid. A good  social night out with friends  does not mean getting drunk; if anything it was even better, because I  could get myself home without breaking anything.. Now I want to keep it up.