I was going  up into Eltham yesterday just for some refreshments, when across the road out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a young woman  waving madly  at someone from McDonalds. I didn’t recognise her at first and assumed she was waving at someone else, so I carried on. Yet the waving continued, and I couldn’t see anyone waving back: was she waving at me? My curiosity aroused, I  crossed the road to investigate. Who was this person?

”Hi Matt” I heard her say in a voice I recognised. I then realised it was Poppy, sister of my old University friend Charlotte. Completely at random, in a city of eight million people, we had bumped into  one another. I really love how such things happen sometimes. We chatted for a  while,  and it turns out she now teaches at a primary school not far away. What are the chances of that? After the obligatory selfie was sent to C, we agreed to meet up for a coffee or something soon. Yet  it amazes me to think that if I hadn’t been passing McDonalds at that precise moment, I’d never have known she was even in the area.

If you have ever wondered what star Trek  has to say on the issue of gender, I suggest you check out this video essay.  It is a thorough overview of how Trek has explored gender, language and dehumanisation over the years. As someone interested in such matters, especially how language can be used to dehumanise or other certain people, I found it quite fascinating to realise how much Trek has to say on the subject.  It also goes to  show how complex and articulate online discourse and vidding is becoming..

The time has come for me to wish my brother Luke happy birthday on here once again. I still don’t see enough of him. He’s a very busy man, and I suppose we lead quite separate lives. Yet he should  know that I often think about him,  and of course Yan. Whatever they’re up to, I hope they have a great day. I’d like to remind Luke too that he has yet to carry out his long-term threat to put me in a plastic bag and roll me down a hill.

A couple of days ago Dom mentioned something  to me about seeing a poster for a new Star Trek  film or series  at a bus stop. At first I presumed that he was just talking about Picard, so I thought nothing of it. Shortly after, though, it cropped up again  on facebook, so I decided a Google was in order. And sure enough, two new series are now in the works, as well as  a new film. Although the latter seems like it will be set in the Abramsverse  (ie naff), the series will hopefully be more like the  Trek I  fell in love with as a child. When Enterprise got cancelled I feared we had seen  the last of star Trek; I now see how wrong  I was. Mind you, these more recent incarnations  have a long way to go before they return Trek to it’s TNG/DS9 heyday.

Am I a cultural influencer? I watched something  on the bbc earlier about young millionaires from Wales, most of whom seem to have made their fortunes from fashion or gaming. One, known as Gonth, was a vlogger who seemed to talk inane hyperactive bollocks about  football on Youtube, yet had earned enough money from it that he could afford supercars and big houses. He was known  as a cultural influencer, which made me wonder, am I a social influencer? I have been blogging far longer than  he had been vlogging, and as far as I could tell, my blog entries are probably far more informative than anything he spouts. Does that mean I can call myself a social influencer? More to the point, why don’t I have a supercar (leaving the fact that I can’t drive aside).

Well, who wouldn’t cringe if you were sat next to such obnoxiousness?

The Tories, especially London Tories, really are desperate to return to the halcyon days of 2012, aren’t they? You know, when the country wasn’t tearing itself apart and the tories weren’t seen as the bunch of lying scumbags they are. I was just on Google looking for something totally unrelated when I came across this two day old Reuters story. Shaun Bailey, the Tory candidate for mayor of London, has suggested that London could host the 2020 Olympics if Tokyo can’t because of coronavirus. He pointed out that all the infrastructure from 2012 still exists; it would just need a bit of work and we would be ready to go again.

I just find that hilariously pathetic. It’s obvious that he’s desperate to take the country back to a time when it was united, happy and glorious, rather than the disunited laughing stock his party turned it into four years later. We all remember that epic summer; Bailey is so urgent to get that time back that he’ll go as far as to make a suggestion as absurd as this. In this insane proposal we can read a party desperate to return to a time when it was respected by a city which now despises it.

The Japanese are, of course, furious at the idea. Tokyo is more than capable of hosting the Olympic Games, having spent seven years preparing for them. If I was from Tokyo, I would be seething at the proposal that London would try to use the current medical emergency as an excuse to steal the games, simply in an attempt to take the edge off their own current political catastrophe. It just goes to show how utterly pathetic the tories are.

After a week without my extended keyboard, it’s now back from being repaired. It feels so good to be able to type properly again. I was having to make do typing via my ipad or the on-screen keyboard using my rollerball, both of which were slow and rather difficult. I suppose one of the hazards of being a disabled guy who relies so heavily on technology is that it tends to go wrong, and when it does, you’re screwed. Yet the key is patience: one has to remember that other people have it far  worse than I do, but still have the fortitude to keep going. If they can do it, so can I. After all, what’s a week of having to type via my Ipad in the grand scheme of things? Mind you, that is unless the zarking Ipad starts playing up too…

I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but after seeing this performance of Billie Eilish’s theme for No Time To Die, I now think it’s surely up there with the great Bond Themes. It is replete with the atmosphere, that sense of brooding power, that has come to define the themes for Bond films. And in the background we hear that four note pattern as synonymous with 007 as his vodka martinis. I love it.

Say that you’re a member of a minority. You’ve been part of that minority all your life, or at least since childhood. It’s one of the most marginalised groups in society, frequently oppressed by the mainstream. You’ve had to fight for your rights all your life, and even to be included in mainstream society.

Then, gradually over time, you find that more and more people are saying they are members of your group: how do you feel? It isn’t altogether clear whether they do or don’t, but they have never done so in the past. They call themselves activists and become the most vociferous members of the community, despite seeming to only have fairly tenuous links to it. What has always been an innate part of you, to them has been a choice; that is, they seem to choose to call theirselves members of your minority for political reasons, for instance by suddenly emphasising aspects of their personas previously left ignored. They belong to some of the most privileged groups in society but like the politics of fighting oppression without ever really having experienced it. Ashamed, perhaps, of their status as white, straight and able bodied, and attracted by the glamour of being a persecuted rebel fighting for social justice, they adopt the pretence of being a member of a minority, often going so far as to apparently fool even theirselves.

So what do you do? Do you just accept them, giving them the benefit of the doubt? Or do you see it as a form of cultural usurpation or intrusion? While you have, for the most part, escaped the worst of the persecution, there are people you know in your minority who have suffered horrifically. These newcomers know nothing of such experiences, yet still seemingly presume to speak as if they had, adopting the language of activism as though they pioneered it. Would you not feel indignant at this usurping of your life experience? And to add insult to injury, when you try to question them, they dismiss you as a bigot, as though you were one of those people you have resisted all your life. Would you not feel frustrated and angry at such apparent audacity? Or do you just accept it as an aspect of the very principle of inclusion for which you and others have struggled all your life?

If you didn’t see it last night, might I just suggest you check out David Attenborough’s program. It has a shot which made my jaw drop in awe: the great Sir David narrating from a boat, keeping up with a flock of birds as it flies low across a lake. It was a truly magnificent bit of photography. You could even see the glint in the eyes of the birds as the boat kept pace with them perfectly. It was a shot worthy of any Oscar winning director. Once again my hat goes off to David Attenborough and the BBC NHU.

After watching the fantastic Lee Ridley on tv last night, I decided I want one of these t-shirts

As I wrote here, I think it’s right that I get priority with regard to the bus wheelchair space. But what do you do when, getting on to a bus after a long, greying day, you force two mums with prams off the bus to wait for the next one? Should I have stuck to the rules and got on, or got back off? While the former might have been the legally correct thing to do, the latter feels far kinder and more noble. I may have had a right to get on the bus, but I felt like a total bastard all the way home.

Yesterday was quite a long day, but a productive, rewarding one. I was up at 7.30 (early for me) to go to help at a communication class at Charlton. They asked me to help in a 9.30 session. I was there to encourage the kids, who had very low ability, use their communication aids, so I thought it was worth the early start. Then, in the evening, we had the first film festival organisation meeting of the year. It was again in charlton, but fortunately Serkan gave me a lift to and from Charlton House. It was a great meeting with lots of good ideas about which films we could show this year. I chipped in a few suggestions too. In all, then, a great day; one upon which I really felt I was participating in the community.

I just came across this story on the bbc news website. An eight-year-old girl in Wales has had to be home schooled for twenty months because of a lack of accessible toilet facilities. ”Imogen Ashwell-Lewis has cerebral palsy and has not been able to find a school with suitable facilities since leaving Rogiet Primary in June 2018. Monmouthshire council said it was following Welsh Government guidance.” Now, while a lack of government funding is obviously a big part of the issue, it occurs to me that this might also be a side  affect  of the inclusion debate. Inclusive education is a great idea, but it should only be implemented  if schools are ready to   support all kids, whatever their needs. I fear certain people have been too eager to push the inclusion agenda, putting politics before practicality, resulting in cases like this. After all, not all children will be able to cope in a comp.  In the hurry to close down special schools, we risk leaving certain children with nowhere to go. That aside, I hope Imogen finds a place; I’m not saying that I think she ought to go to a special school by any  means, as long  as she finds a school which meets her needs and where  she can flourish.

If the Queen can meet James Bond, wouldn’t it be cool if Sir David Attenborough met Jean-Luc Picard. Watching Sir David’s programme on the history of natural history broadcasting last night, it occurred to me that he ought to get his own colossal national tribute. For most people in the uk, he has been part of our media landscape for most of our lives, informing and inspiring us. The 007 franchise got a massive tribute in 2012 when James Bond was shown to escort the queen to the olympics; I now think Sir David Attenborough deserves his own equally awesome tribute, and what better way than to be taken into space and shown the earth from orbit by the captain of the enterprise himself?

Think how phenomenal that would be, and how excited I would get over it. The question is, what form could it take and what could they do together? Could Picard take Attenborough on a tour of the solar system, the great Sir David narrating as they fly past Mars and Venus? More to the point though, how on earth can I make this happen?

I’m not going anywhere today for obvious reasons, so it’s probably just as well that I went out last night. Late yesterday afternoon  J suggested we meet in Peckham to eat dinner and watch The Lighthouse. I’d never heard of it, to be honest, but I thought I’d give it a try. After all, a saturday night out is a Saturday Night out..

After a hearty meal (Weatherspoons might be owned by an Outist p’tahk, but they do a damn good chilli), we went into the cinema to  watch what must be the weirdest, most disturbing film I’ve seen since Requiem For A Dream. It’s about two men slowly going mad manning a lighthouse on a desolate island. Shot in monochrome with an unusual aspect ratio, some  of the imagery is  chilling. There was very little plot, and it struck  me as so random and uncanny (in the Freudian sense) that my first reaction when the credits rolled was ”What the hell was that?”

This morning, however, I began to look a bit deeper, first watching this review by Mark Kermode.  It suddenly started to become far more interesting: the film is partially based on a poem by Edgar Allen Poe; I also think there were one or two references to Herman Melville. I think it is the type of film where context is a great help: once I understood a bit about where the director was coming from, things began  to make more sense. As with 1917, it is less a piece of entertainment than a work of art – a cinematic poem about isolation and loneliness. And as with 1917, I certainly think a second viewing is in order. A text which at  first seems quite jarring may, upon reflection, turn into something quite eloquent.

I really am starting to like this pleasant little corner of the capital I now call home. I just got in from my usual wander. This  afternoon I decided take a look  at Well Hall Pleasaunce. It’s a small park not far from my place; I came across it when I moved but hadn’t been in for a couple of months, despite going past it almost every day on my way up to the Town Centre. Today, though, the weather clear and the flowers just starting to bud, I decided to give it another look, going further  into the park; and what I found really was quite special: a well laid out formal garden with a large  ancient moat in the centre, with several pretty little streams running  through it. Well-maintained paths lead you around, practically demanding you follow them as they weave in and out of the flower beds and across the streams. The flowers aren’t out yet but you can tell that, come the spring, it will be absolutely stunning. And then, when you grow thirsty, the magnificent Tudor Barn pub is there too. It really is a pleasure to walk around, less than two hundred metres from where I am writing this. You can tell that a hell of a lot of work has gone into maintaining that little corner of London. Come the summer, I can see myself going there quite often.

If the Queen can parachute out of a helicopter with James Bond; if Monty Python can  reunite and perform again after thirty years; and if Sir Patrick Stewart can play Picard again after twenty (which I’m enjoying immensely, by the way); then surely nothing is unthinkable. The question is, what next? What could happen now which could come close to all three in terms of awesomeness? What could be our next collective Wow moment? Because, zark knows, we could all do with one soon. Suggestions in comments.

I read earlier that Donald Trump’s son has now written a book called Triggered, apparently about ‘owning the libs’. It was mentioned at the end of a Guardian article about Trump’s state of the Union speech, by all accounts (well, all that count) one of the most aggressive, vitriolic, hate-ridden tracts of absolute bullshit ever spouted. It occurs to me that that just about sums the modern political right – particularly the American Right – up: they seem to want to wind those of us on the left up. They want to wind us up; they want to do and say things which they know will infuriate us. Why?

They seem to think it’s a sign of strength and dominance, but the truth is they do it because they cannot counter our arguments in any other way. Culturally, the liberal left now has the upper hand: we now live, for the most part, in multicultural, inclusive societies; everyone has rights and we are all, theoretically, equals. Any form of discrimination is frowned upon. Those are liberal, left-wing values that the vast majority of people now just accept as the way things should be.

Only, there are those who still don’t: those on the right who refuse to accept they have lost the argument. The problem for them is, they have no counter argument, no way to oppose the logic underpinning tolerance and acceptance. Deep down, they know everyone is equal and discrimination is bad, but they still want to think of theirselves as superior, so like children deliberately misbehaving, they break the rules to cause a reaction. These straight white males resent the diminishing of the social dominance they think should be their birthright, yet lacking the intelligence to understand the logic underpinning modern egalitarianism, they lash out by saying and doing things they deep down know they shouldn’t. They have no other way of countering liberalism other than to wind us up.

Theirs is a simplistic, immature worldview. After all, it takes a certain level of intelligence to see beyond one’s immediate needs to realise that, when we see ourselves as members of a wider society which we can contribute to, everyone benefits. By working together as equals, by contributing to society through taxation or otherwise, we can make the most of everyones abilities, irrespective of class, background, education or whatever. Put this to a conservative, though, and they’ll just accuse you of spouting Marxist propaganda, without being able to give any sort of counter argument. They would rather hoard their wealth, not caring about others, and lacking the intelligence to see the wisdom in working as a community, or indeed to realise they are only in the positions they are in through blind luck and selfishness. Thus when their social positions are threatened, their only recourse is to lash out with jibes and insults, baiting and enraging us rather than trying to engage with our arguments.

They may think they’re being big or brave or clever by spouting all this bilious bigotry, but like trolls on the internet, it betrays a deeply insecure person at odds with – and resenting – modern society. What they say may enrage us with it’s arrogance and bluster, but we must remember that they say it, not because they think they actually have a chance of resetting social values, but to lash out at a world they do not understand and feel disenfranchised by. Their bluster and arrogance are displays of power these men think they should have, but are in fact signs of deep insecurity, inadequacy, and an inability to accept, or comprehend, modern, liberal society.

Just as a follow up to this entry  a couple of weeks ago, the co-creator of Mash, Gene Reynolds, has sadly died today, aged 96.

I just read that the Irish are now petitioning the EU to have Irish English replace British English as it’s primary working language. Of course, a lot of jokes abound about having to begin sessions with the phrase ”Top of the mornin’ to ya”, but the  gist of the argument is that, now the uk has left, switching to Irish English would be the most convenient because it will mean the least change. All the documents etc can stay in the same language. But I must admit my initial reaction was, wouldn’t the French be dying to convert the EU to french? We all know how proud the french are of their language*. But then you have to ask, why not German, Dutch, Finnish or Spanish? It would mean the European Comission having  to make an essentially arbitrary choice, so I suspect they’ll continue to use English. Plus, that will make things nice and easy for when we re-enter.

*French is already one of the EU’s official languages anyway.

I went to the Peckhamplex cinema in Peckham on saturday. I’ve been  going there quite a lot recently: It’s one of London’s leading independent cinemas, in the heart of one of it’s most  vibrant, fascinating suburbs. I really like Peckham, with it’s intoxicating mixture of cultures, high street thriving with colour and music and chatter from across the globe. You could ask why I go all that  way (two quite long bus rides) just to go to the cinema, especially when there are at least three cinemas much closer. There is something about this small cinema, screening films which mainstream cinema chains like Odeon don’t, which sets it apart: something about it’s small screening-rooms of less than a hundred seats, full of people  there out of a genuine interest in film, which makes the longer journey worth it.

Given that I watched The Irishman on Saturday, you could also ask – and I can already hear my parents doing so – why I would go all that way to watch a film I can watch at home on Netflix. But the experience is simply not the same: watching a film at the cinema makes it an event – something  you go specifically  to do. Watching a film on your computer, at the same desk where you  work, check the news  and browse Facebook, turns it into something different. Watching a film  becomes something less special and more throw-away: something to be done five or ten minutes at a time, before pausing it and doing other things. It strips film of it’s aura and turns it into  something you just watch to pass the time, like watching sort clips on Youtube. I’d  rather still award film the dignity it deserves.

This new mode of viewing interests me, though, especially in the way it contrasts with the type of cinephilia writers like Bazin and  Keathley describe. It’s completely new, brought about by new technology, so I don’t think much has been written  about it yet; but  I think it’s worth going far deeper. I’ve started to make a few notes on the subject, but   I can see this project potentially becoming something thesis length.