I have nothing against manned spaceflight. I’ve always seen  the exploration of space as essential for humanity: devout Trekkie that I am, I hold that, if we are ever to grow as a civilisation, we must take those steps into the final frontier. However, I must say, I’m not sure I like the way our american friends are currently going about it. Research and exploration must surely be done for their own sake, not in order to brag to the world about how great you country is, while you completely ignore it’s huge and growing social problems.

Yet that is exactly what the USA is doing. Yesterday it restarted it’s space program to great pomp and ceremony, at the very moment that the biggest wave of civil unrest in years is starting to unfold. Such civil unrest will obviously have many causes, but one of the prime factors is surely the social inequality brought about through the lack of investment in basic state infrastructure we see there. The perverse kind of capitalism we see championed in America will inevitably lead to inequality and unfairness, where those who have exploit and ignore those who have not to the point where they can’t take it any more. That’s what we are now seeing in the states, at the very moment when the egotistical halfwit they currently call their president brags about launching rockets into space. Not only that but, since this was the first privately funded space mission, he uses it as evidence that american capitalism works, as if to tell the world to ignore the starving, suffering, dying people, look at his mate Elon’s rocket instead.

America is not the great nation it thinks it is, and you only need to peek behind the veneer it presents to the world through the endless sitcoms, TV programs and films to look at the way poor people, members of minorities or people who can’t afford health insurance to see that. As I once wrote here, I now very much doubt that I could live as independently there as I do here in the UK. America has lost my respect, and the longer it puts on this arrogant pretence of greatness while leaving those who need help to rot, it will not regain it.

The beeb reported on their breakfast program that Take That got together for an online concert last night. I’m no fan of Take That, and those talentless old prats obviously just wanted to reclaim a bit of the fame they once had, but  the story got me thinking: if such online gigs can work for those guys, could other bands or comedy troupes do something similar? Could lockdown inaugurate a wave of such online reunion gigs? How cool would that be? We’ve already seen the bbc do a socially distanced edition of Comic Relief a few weeks ago; could we now see, say, the cast of Blackadder reunite? What  if Edina and Patsy from Ab Fab had a Champagne-fuelled Zoom meeting? Could Harry Enfield’s Kevin the (now thirty-something) teenager reappear. In these very uncertain times, everyone seems up for a bit of nostalgia: with everybody stuck at their computer desks more than ever, the conditions may be set for a wave of webcam-based comedy where we see old, familiar characters reappearing on computer screens. Who knows: unlikely though it is, I’m hoping we’ll see a socially  distanced reappearance of Monty Python, although I’m not sure how the Parrot Sketch would work over webcams.

Ipads make pretty good communication aids. That is, however, only until you get too much dribble on their screen, causing it to start going crazy, triggering endless strings of buttons you didn’t press, rendering it virtually useless.  To make matters worse, you can’t get to an Apple store or anywhere selling screen  protectors due to lockdown. Oh well, it’s just as well I hardly speak to anyone when I’m out and  about these days.

For me, the biggest question this BBC article raises is, why does  it focus on parents rather than people with disabilities  theirselves? It details how the lives of two or three fairly severely disabled kids have been effected by the lockdown, yet completely ignores the points of view of disabled people  ourselves. If these parents feel ”cut off and ignored”, how do they think their children feel?

I heard back from Paul, Lyn’s brother, yesterday. I  had messaged him a few days ago, but it probably just took him a bit to get back  to me. Lyn’s funeral took place on May the Sixth, and was a small family event; her ashes are going to be spread at Eltham Cemetery.  It relieved me to be told that a bit: of  course I’m heartbroken that I couldn’t go to the funeral, but there is going to be a larger commemoration of Lyn’s life later  in the  year, and Eltham Cemetery is a short, pleasant walk from my new home, so I’ll be able to visit her, so to speak.

However, rolling there yesterday afternoon, I found the cemetery gates  shut and locked: you can currently only visit at weekends. Sat there, in  front of that notice in my powerchair, I felt like crying: Lyn  my best ever friend, the most  amazing person I’ll ever meet, was dead,  and  not only could I not attend her funeral, I  couldn’t visit the place where her remains are. It was a bleak, desperate feeling. To be honest for a few moments, I’d have given anything for a cuddle from my Mum or  Dad.

But they weren’t there.  Due to corronavirus I am  prevented from seeing them, just as the virus prevented me from attending Lyn’s funeral or going in to the cemetery. Yet it’s somehow alright, according to this government, for a public official to drive 200 miles for no good reason, even though he was infected. Sorry, but watching this snivelling piece of scum justify himself last night, blatantly lying his head  off, just hours after I had felt probably the bleakest emotion I had ever experienced, made my blood boil with rage. Do they not realise what the rest of us are going through, or do these people just not give a fuck?

I can’t bear to  write anything about the utter farce UK politics  has descended into this evening, but this just about sums it up…

This week’s castaway on Desert Island Disks was Charles Hazlewood.  I emailed Charles a few weeks ago to tell him Lyn had passed away. He talks about the Paraorchestra on the show, although he doesn’t mention Lyn, probably quite rightly. It’s  an  interesting, bittersweet program in which Charles reveals the truth about his horrific childhood, and can  be listened to  here.

One  of the things I most associate with Lyn’s bungalow in  Charlton is a large painting which hung in the passage  leading to her living room. It was of a man sitting at a table playing a Bouzouki, and hung in the same spot since  long before I met Lyn. I’m not sure how she came by it, but it suited her musician’s personality well. Living there for almost ten years, I walked passed it every day; it felt like an innate part of the house. I remember  when Mum first visited us in Charlton, she commented  on the picture, telling Lyn how I had Greek relatives who used to play Bouzouki.

Lyn’s place in Charlton has now stood empty and quiet for some time. Paulo has been there to look after things and feed Guy, and I’ve been visiting  him, but it isn’t the same. Without Lyn there, going there makes me feel down. When I last visited, though, Paulo told me that the council would probably soon get rid of Lyn’s things, so I asked if I could have the painting. It is such a wonderful image, intertwined so  fundamentally with my memories of my life with Lyn, that the thought of it just being scrapped was too sad  to contemplate.

Paulo said I could have it, so yesterday Serkan went and brought it here. We’ll hang it later today. That has made me very happy indeed: this momento of lyn and her wonderful life is now here. It feels like a fragment of that life has now been brought into my new one.. I’ll now be able to  look at it every day, remember the passage where it once hung, and the incredible person who owned it.

Yesterday was quite a sad day: it would have been Lyn’s sixtieth birthday. I didn’t post an entry because I didn’t know how to mark it, or indeed whether I should. Her passing still feels very raw, and I kept thinking about Lyn all day. Of course, she would not have wanted me to get down and gloomy about it, and would probably have preferred us to celebrate by playing lots of music; yet the truth is yesterday didn’t feel like a day for a party. Lyn’s passing feels like it has left a gaping void, not just in my life but in many others’; this wonderful, fascinating, creative personality is suddenly no longer there. It is an absence which I suspect I’ll feel for a long, long time.

Today I’d like to wish my dad a very happy birthday. Complete nonse that I am, though, I totally forgot about  it, and it took me a few moments to twig why dad was listing so many things he   had received from my brothers in our (currently) daily  webcam chat. I hope he has an excellent  day all the same. Recent events have made it clear how dear him (and mum) are to me.

That means, though, that tomorrow would have been Lyn’s sixtieth. To be honest I feel rather down about it: These days, I try to keep my  spirits up, but thinking about all the excellent Twenty-Firsts of May we had over the last twelve  years won’t make that easy. Either  way I’ll probably raise a glass to both dad and Lyn this evening.

Happy birthday Dad.

It might be slightly long (45 mins), but if you want a treat, especially if you’re a Tolkien fan,  go here. Andy Serkis recently recorded a  reading of The Hobbit from end to end for charity. To listen to him reading the pivotal chapter, Riddles In  The Dark, complete with his Gollum voice, is an absolute pleasure. For a moment I felt like I was nine again, tucked under a warm duvet, listening to my dad read the same chapter.

”What has it got in it’s pocketses?”

I have probably just watched one of the worst, most nauseating, most infuriating films I have ever seen. Mucking around on Facebook as usual earlier, I came across a poster for a film called I Am Potential, flagged up by Can-Do Musos. They’re an organisation for musicians with disabilities, which L had links to. Curious, I thought I’d check it out, and  found it  on Amazon Prime.

What I found myself watching, however, was staggeringly crap. It’s  about a disabled young man in the deep south; blind and a wheelchair user, he finds he has a talent for music, teaching himself to play the piano and then the trumpet. What follows is a nauseatingly saccharine  American family drama: we see him  growing up and  the pervails his  family goes through. His dad works in an office, which is drawn straight from a cartoon,  complete with a big bad one-dimensional boss. We see all the sacrifices they go  through as he grows up, nurturing his talent. We get virtually every cliche and  stereotype hurled at us – I swear I can pull better writing out of my arse.

Then, to cap it off, the guy decides he wants to be in  his school marching band, or rather, he is told he can’t be in the ordinary school band if he hasn’t been in  the marching band first, or some meaningless reason. The problem is, he can’t wheel his chair and play his trumpet at the same time. This causes the main moment of tension in the film, before, at the last moment, his dad quits his job, steps in, and pushes his son in the formation. We then  see them both practicing and performing as  part of the marching band, as though it  was some great boundary-breaking achievement, when in reality any real disabled musician would probably be inconsolably  embarrassed  at having to be pushed around a field by their dad like that.

I know  I probably shouldn’t be so critical about what is probably a children’s film, but as a piece of disability  representation, surely we can do better than this cheesy, cliche-strewn shyte.

This afternoon I became  aware of a phenomenon which I’m not sure I like at all. I suppose  I’d known about it vaguely for a while, but had not focussed any attention onto it enough to get angry about it. Parents with children  who have cerebral palsy seem to have started to use their kids to gain social  media  cache, branding theirselves ‘parents with cerebral palsy’ as a sort of marketing ploy. Ted Shires explains it fairly eloquently here.  As he puts it, he is hacked off at Twitter users describing theirselves as ‘cerebral palsy parents’, as if that was the most important detail about their child, and as if they were the ones bearing the burden of cp. They seem to be using the fact their child is disabled to  stand out in social media, which, like Ted, I find pretty galling. As he puts it, ”Cerebral Palsy is our burden, not yours!”

Shortly after watching Ted’s vlog, I stumbled upon the Youtube channel of a lady in the States which seemed to confirm everything he was talking about. Tamara Weeks makes videos depicting the daily life of her teenage daughter, who seems to have fairly severe cp and profound learning difficulties. After watching a few of her videos, I must say I was appalled: the young woman was being treated almost like a pet, or exhibit  in a zoo. They went into quite some  detail about her daily routine, showing her  being dressed, washed, having her teeth brushed etc, as if this person was something  to be marvelled over. I was horrified.

Let me put it this way: over the years I have written quite a lot on my blog about what I get up to. I think it is important that I tell people what life is like for a guy with cp, exhibitionist that I am. But what if it wasn’t  me writing my blog, but my Mum or Dad? What if they described everything I had been up  to and how I was feeling? The dominant voice would be theirs, and I would effectively become no more than a  character in someone else’s drama. People with disabilities  need to tell their own stories, however they can, not have stories  told about them. Otherwise we become puppets, pushed and  pulled about like that poor young lady in America.

I know I shouldn’t just flag up random Youtube videos, but there is a moment in this at just after the 4:15  mark  which is simply  awesome. Zark knows how he managed it, but somme random American guy got the cast of Back To The Future together for a Zoom meeting,  and the  result is frankly incredible. They clearly get along,  exchanging banter and stories. They even re-perform some of the script at  one point. The result is nostalgic and funny, and frankly has made  my day.

The speech app I use on my Ipad is Proloquo2go, a very kind gift from the guys I work with at school.  It’s quite an advanced app, as far as such  things go: it is a Minspeak-based system, but also has an ordinary qwerty keyboard mode which I use. For those who don’t know, Minspeak is a symbol-based system where you select combinations  of symbols to get  the device to say words or sentences. I’ve never got into it, but I’ve had friends/acquaintances who swear by it, and say it’s a far quicker form of AAC.

A few days ago, then, I began wondering  whether it was worth giving it a go. After all, Proloquo2go  always boots up with the symbol screen,  and I have to deliberately switch to qwerty. Having always typed ‘normally’, can I now learn a new system?  How hard can it be? Might I indeed begin to ‘talk’ more quickly? Having watched a  couple of Youtube videos about it, I must admit I’m curious. I’ll now sit down and fiddle with my Ipad, and see if I can get it to say anything. After all, in  the current lock-down circumstances, teaching myself a new skill seems  like a good idea.

I stopped watching PMQs a while ago, but if the reports of Kier Starmer’s performance yesterday are true, I may start watching it again.

I binge watched Unorthodox on Netflix yesterday, and found it really, really fascinating. I heard about it a  few days ago, and thought I’d give it a go. Without wanting to spoil anything for others, it’s a series of about six episodes about a community of ultra-orthodox Jews from New York. One girl, Esther, breaks from them and goes to find a new life in Berlin. What fascinates me is how it gives viewers an insight into a minority otherwise totally ignored by mainstream  media: to many people including myself, this type of orthodox Judaism can seem mysterious, reclusive and even a  tad scary; this program helps to part the curtain somewhat. By using as it’s central protagonist a young woman trying to find a balance between her community and that of the modern, twenty-first century, we glimpse a community whose rituals and beliefs seem extremely foreign to us, but which occupies the same cities we do. They even speak their own language, Yiddish. At the same time, the show goes to some length to explain how this community came about and why it behaves as it does. At one point, for example, an elderly rabbi at a dinner party explains the theology behind why the community is  so separate and why it sees itself as different from others. As a member of a ‘community’ (albeit a fare looser one)  which is  similarly marginalised, I must say that struck me as food for thought – why would any community want such outsidership, to the extent that it is a core aspect of it’s identity? Either way, such  questions certainly make Unorthodox worth checking out.

In case anyone else is interested, I read earlier that Star Trek: Picard has officially been renewed for a second season set to air in early 2021. Having spent the day indoors due to the sudden cold snap, I can’t wait. The first season set up the programme really well, and it was so great to see a few of my all-time favourite fictional characters back in action, I’m really looking forward to seeing where they take it – there are even rumours of the  return of Worf.

I have always had a link to London. My mum’s parents lived here, so growing up my family used to visit them every few months. Then, ten years ago, I moved to Charlton to live with Lyn, and through her I got to know south London. Over the last ten years I have got to explore the metropolis for myself, sampling it’s wonders enough to fall in love with it. Yet suddenly those links are both gone: Lyn’s house in Charlton lies empty, as does Yaiya’s in Harlesden, and I cannot escape the feeling I am suddenly alone.

Of course, I still have many friends here, built up over the past decade of adventure. But the two people I most associate with this city and who tied me to it are all of a sudden absent, and I have started to feel that uncanny sense of urban isolation Walter Benjamin wrote of. London will always be a booming, thriving place, even during lockdown, and sooner or later I know the fun I now associate with this city will return. It won’t be the same, though, as that link will not be there. I doubt things will ever be the same, as London, for me, will have changed.

Looking out over the city from Greenwich Park earlier, as I have many times before, I saw a view I now know well: greenwich Palace, the Thames, The Dome, the growing forrest of skyscrapers at Canary Wharf. Perhaps it was the changing air pressure or grey skies, but things seemed different. Now I have this house and I am settling in to my new life here in Eltham, the idea of moving again any time soon is of course ridiculous. But with any link I had to this city now gone, things feel more lonely, and I must admit the thought of moving on to discover new adventures elsewhere has occurred to me more than once of late. The city has brought me so much fun, joy and happiness over my time here, and indeed may bring yet more; but with the person I most associate with those times no longer here, perhaps by the end of this decade my life in the metropolis will have run it’s course.

There isn’t much I feel I can say about yesterday’s socially distanced VE Day street party.  That is not to say it wasn’t great fun – I have a fabulous set of neighbours, and we have a wonderful little community developing – but, the problem is, I don’t actually remember much about it. People kept giving me beer after beer, then I think shots got involved. I haven’t got that drunk (or been that stupid) in years. Zark knows how I got to bed.

I’m actually quite angry with myself. Old habits, it seems, really do die hard. Then again, I probably needed to let off a bit of steam after a very tough few weeks, like everyone else I suppose. Either way, I have promised myself I’m not going to drink again for the rest of the month.

I’ll surely not be the only person to note the staggering contradiction in having a day  of commemorations, marking the end of  the bloodiest war ever, while simultaneously leaving the very institution founded to ensure such a conflict never happens again. Of course, I’ll probably join in what local celebrations there are later, as well as doing a bit  of sucking (as if I needed an excuse), but you cannot escape the fact that our leaving the EU pretty much undoes all the  progress made towards a peaceful Europe over the past 75 years. Indeed, one of the heroes of the moment, Churchill, promoted the foundation of a European Common Market to ensure cooperation across the continent. The Tories seem to want to use this day to ‘bring the nation together’, and  arouse some patriotic spirit by drawing parallels between the uk during the blitz and the current pandemic crisis; but, when you think about it, that is merely distorting  history to suit their own ends, which I find quite perverse.

Something about this reminds me of The Simpsons. NASA has announced that it plans  to launch Tom Cruise into space in order to make a film up there. While they emphasise it won’t be a Mission: Impossible sequel, they hope it will boost interest in space exploration.  Jim Bridenstine of NASA tweeted  ”NASA is excited to work with @TomCruise on a film aboard the @Space_Station! We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make @NASA’s ambitious plans a reality.” Of course I’m all for the human exploration of space – boldly going where no man has gone before, and all that – but  why am I suddenly put in mind of the Simpsons episode where Homer gets sent into space just because NASA wants to boost its TV ratings?

A couple of days ago, in the late afternoon or early evening, sitting home alone I suddenly heard my doorbell ring. I pressed the switch and opened my door: one of my neighbours, who I hadn’t met before, had brought round a tub of fried rice. I hadn’t asked for it, but they were offering it in case I  wanted it. I thanked the elderly gentleman, and of course accepted it.

It was a  very kind gesture, totally out of the blue. The problem was, I wasn’t sure where they lived. Fortunately, my local community has a Facebook group I’m on, so I popped a question on there to find out where they were. I  duly got my answer, so this morning I went and introduced myself, their tub now cleaned and filled with Quality Street. It was the least I could do in return for an act  of such kindness. It really is great to know that I have found myself in a community of such  warm, caring neighbours.

Late last night, just before going to bed, I came across something on Charlotte’s facebook page which I found utterly remarkable. It was a short video of a group of people singing a medley of 1940s songs, probably to commemorate VE day this week. What made my jaw drop, though, wasn’t the quality of the singing – though it was high – but where it was filmed and who performed in it. It  seems that a community of people living on the same street up in Chester had all got together and decided to dress up and perform, using the street as the set. I find that incredible, as it obviously implies a  level of community cooperation which is  unheard of these days. While I know a few of my neighbours and am on the local community Facebook group, the idea  of approaching any of them and suggesting we  do such a project frankly seems absurd. It’s good to see such community spirit still exists somewhere, though, and I now can’t wait to see what they do next.

It turns out that the stories I came across with horror and alarm yesterday about my favourite tv personality  Michael Palin being caught in a house fire were complete baloney. He is perfectly fine, and the whole thing was an exaggeration. In  fact, he was so not dead that he gave quite an interesting  interview on the Andrew Marr show this morning.  Good to see.

I just finished watching Devs. I had heard it mentioned a couple of times, such as on last week’s Click, so yesterday afternoon I thought I would binge-watch it. Having now  watched all eight episodes, I  find myself  rather torn over what I just watched: I can’t decide whether it was the most deeply philosophical program I’ve seen in years, or the  biggest load of pretentious bollocks. I’m afraid to say that the last  episode probably tips it towards the latter.

When I first started watching it yesterday afternoon, it felt  like something I should be able to get a nice lengthy review out of. However, having reached the denouement, I don’t know where to begin: what began by presenting some fairly interesting scientific and  philosophical ideas, by the end had collapsed into gibberish. The idea of a computer so powerful  that it could see the past and predict the  future required some suspension of disbelief, especially  for anyone even remotely familiar with Heisenburg, but I was willing to go with it. After all, my favourite science fiction show involves Warp drives and Transporter Beams, so who am I to complain?

The problem was, as the series went on, it became clearer and clearer that whoever wrote it  was about as scientifically literate as a potato; or rather, they were trying to map poorly understood scientific concepts onto overtly religious ones. I began to get a sense that  something was amiss when the first  thing our protagonists apparently ‘saw’ when they look back in time was Christ on the cross. By the finale, however, the religiosity was  overt: the super-computer turned out to be a stand-in for god, and the guy who created it wanted to somehow resurrect  his dead daughter. What annoys me was the pretence that this was supposedly underpinned by actual science. In the fourth  or fifth episode, there’s a nice little cameo from Liz Carr as a university lecturer giving an interesting summary of the Double Slit Experiment; yet this was used to try to underpin the idea that there are many parallel worlds which the super-computer could apparently discern. Thus real scientific ideas and debates were hijacked and dressed up to reinforce religious dogma, so what begins as a fairly interesting science  fiction series with a promising hint of espionage finishes up as theological mumbo-jumbo with a large helping of gratuitous violence.