At about this point every year or so, I often like to post a summary of everything that happened in a particular year, just to round it off. Years like 2012, 2014 and 2017 were particularly awesome and needed recapping. This year, though, I find myself struggling to find even one positive thing to say. It has been a downright miserable year for everyone, to be honest: I haven’t done anything or been anywhere nice; it was mostly spent either here at home, or trundling around South-East London. And as I’ve said before, Lyn’s death in April was a blow I doubt I’ll ever get over.

I suppose the only good thing about this otherwise wretched year was having Serkan around. When he moved in in February it was only supposed to be temporary, but as the year wore on and the pandemic grew worse, it made more and more covid sense for him to stay. I frankly don’t know what I would have done without his company or support: being here alone most of the time would have been unbearable. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank him from the bottom of my heart.

I think I need to thank my parents too. Of course I haven’t physically met mum and dad in months, but we now chat every morning over the web. They’re usually just brief, simple calls just to check up on each other – I think they just want to make sure I’m still alive and haven’t done anything too stupid – but it’s reassuring to know they’re looking out for me.

I suppose it just goes to show that, even in the bleakest of years, you can still find positive things to say. I’d like to end this entry on a high note, and assure everyone that 2021 will be much better than 2020. But I don’t think I can: it looks like the pandemic isn’t going anywhere, and Brexit is going to make things even harder and nastier. The truth is I don’t feel very optimistic at the moment. Then again, if life has taught me anything, it is never to rule anything out: something incredible could be just around the next corner.

As incandescently furious and exasperated as I am at what is happening politically today – and the Brexit battle isn’t over, not by a long shot – I think, just for perspective, I’ll just direct everyone here. Sometimes we just need to chill out a bit, and be reminded of our place in this amazing and expanding universe.

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs.Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you’ve had quite enough

Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power.

I won’t go into much detail about it here, but I rolled home this lunchtime to discover that I have been blocked from posting anything on Facebook for three days. Basically I posted the meme I made yesterday onto an anti-Brexit Facebook group, and needless to say it caused quite a stir. Most of the responses were favourable it must be said, but a few people took offence. One particularly stupid blonde woman demanded the post be deleted, and when I defended myself things became increasingly shirty and she reported me. Needless to say I’m not happy, and have lodged an appeal with Facebook. That she had the gall to accuse me of bullying her when she was the one completely out of line only adds insult to injury.

I realise that the comparison I drew yesterday might not be to everyone’s taste, and for some it might go too far. Yet I think it’s time for the gloves to come off; we need to make people realise the potential consequences of what is now happening in the uk. All our rights now stand to be eroded. Yesterday I attempted to show people the potential destination of our country’s current course, albeit in a particularly emotive way, but it seems some people can’t accept that.

I put this together this afternoon. I know it may be a bit emotive and controversial, but to be honest I think that was the point. Of course I know nobody’s lives are under direct threat as a consequence of brexit, but the rights of people, especially people with disabilities, now stand to be eroded as British society becomes far more self-centred and neoliberal. I’m now genuinely concerned for my ability to, say, use public transport or even live independently. Sometimes you need to be provocative to make people think.

Maggie Simpson was a baby when I first watched the Simpsons in the mid nineties. I hadn’t watched an episode in years, until earlier today when I decided to try out the subscription to Disney plus Luke got me for Christmas (thanks bro!) by watching the first episode of the latest season. The program was as amusing as I remembered it being, packed with all the contemporary cultural references it has always had. Yet what struck me as strange was the fact that Maggie was still a baby, and none of the characters had aged at all from when I first encountered them, despite the program still feeling very contemporary. As I began to explore a couple of years ago here, this is obviously only possible because program is a cartoon; the cast would have visibly aged had The Simpsons been live action. Yet it is odd to see characters we have known for about thirty years seemingly occupying the perpetual present. In the episode I watched earlier, for instance, there were references to YouTube, a website which didn’t exist when the show first aired; yet the characters speaking about it were the same age they were thirty years ago when they were referencing things like Bill Clinton being president. To put that another way, I find it strange to think that, were the Simpsons a real family, Maggie would have grown up, graduated from university and got her own family by now; yet she still sucks the same red dummy that she did when we first ‘met’ her. Only a program like The Simpsons can constantly comment on the contemporary world, using the same set of unageing characters.

My Christmas day was rather quiet yesterday. It was very different to any I have spent before. I’m glad Serkan was here, or it would have been very lonely indeed. We enjoyed each other’s company, and I think he liked the fluorescent cycle jacket I gave him. I took a roll over to Charlton in the afternoon, just to pay my respects to Lyn’s place. There’s currently no grave I can visit, so passing by the old bungalow every now and again seems a good way to keep my memories alive. The highlight of my day, though, were the group chats I had with my family and extended family over webcam: it was great to speak to everyone all over the world. As pleasant as that was, needless to say I’m already really looking forward to one of my mum’s Christmas dinners next year.

Is it my imagination, or hasn’t her majesty cheered up over the years?

I have now decided upon my New Year’s resolution: learn how to clean my own glasses. For some reason, whenever I try to clean them, they always end up dirtier than when I started. The problem is, poor old Serkan seems to be getting fed up of me asking him to clean them several times a day, so there must be some way for me to clean them myself. After all, how hard can it be compared to, say, doing a Masters or living in one of the world’s greatest metropolises during a global pandemic?

It interests me to read today that the comedian Eddie Izzard has elected to use the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’ from now on. On the one hand, this is an incredibly bold move which is to be welcomed and celebrated. I have long thought that society should be more open to and welcoming of this form of gender diversity. Yet another, perhaps more cynical part of me, is just a tad concerned that this might just be another instance of the kind of cultural usurpation I sometimes write about on here. As I know from my former partner, being transgender is a serious psychological process; transpeople often go through severe trauma, including years of hormone replacement, to become who they always believed themselves to be. These days, though, the idea of transitioning between genders seems to be taken more and more flippantly, as if the idea of being trans is fashionable; or that gender is no more fundamental to a person’s identity than a game to be played by swapping pronouns. In the article, I note that there is no mention of Izzard starting to take hormones or having gender reassignment surgery; merely that she wants to use female pronouns from now on. I also note that she still seems happy to be known as Eddie. While that choice has to be respected, it feels to me a long way from the profound life changing decision of transitioning. To be honest there is a kind of flippancy to it, as if it was more motivated by politics than anything more innate. She says she has boy and girl ‘modes’ – well, don’t we all? As I wrote here, I sometimes dress up and have a fascination with womanhood, but I’m perfectly comfortable with my pronouns as they are. It seems to me that surely the politics of gender are too serious to be played around with, yet more and more people seem to be doing so.

On one level, of course, such a decision simply has to be accepted, before we all give ourselves permission to start judging everyone else. Yet on another level, this strikes me as one more example of a hitherto straight, white able bodied person feeling embarrassed of their relatively privileged cultural position and seeking entrance into a minority. That might be fine, but it just seems to me to steal something from those for whom being transgender is far more profound and painful.

Many readers probably won’t find this as interesting or amusing as I do, but anyway…

I just came across this video on Facebook, and it intrigued me enough to want to flag up here. It’s a clip from 1981 of a man doing rhythmic gymnastics dressed as a woman. It’s clearly supposed to be a piss-take, but it soon becomes obvious how much skill the guy actually has. ‘Pauletta’ Hunt is wearing quite a tight purple leotard, and flips and falls like a clown, but beneath that, if you look at the guy’s actions, it is clear he’s a very skilled gymnast. I suspect he was trying to highlight the overt sexuality of rhythmic gymnastics, but I think this warrants looking into a little deeper.

It’s really awesome to know that, even in such mucked up, chaotic times, there are still some constants we can rely upon. Not even a global pandemic, it seems, can hold back the greatest ever broadcaster. Sir David Attenborough will soon be appearing on our TV screens once again with a new series, Perfect Planet, focussing on humanity’s impact on the natural world. Filmed largely using drones, the series promises to transport us all to far flung corners of the globe, but also to give us an idea of the effect we’re all having upon it. To be honest I think it’s a little of what we could do with right now: after a year mostly stuck at home, I reckon we all need a glimpse of the exotic. Attenborough’s programs afford us an insight into life on earth we get from no other broadcaster. Yet what I find most staggering is that Sir David has been supplying us all with such fascinating glimpses for almost seventy years – since before my parents were born – and still shows no sign of stopping.

I just had a pretty pleasant afternoon. After bumping into Charlotte’s sister Poppy in February, we didn’t manage to meet up again, perhaps for obvious reasons. A couple of days ago though, I received a message from her suggesting we meet sometime this week. Of course I gratefully agreed, so this afternoon we had lunch together by the Cutty Sark at Greenwich. It felt good to see her and to just be doing something social again. Pops is doing well, working at an infant school in Eltham. Like me she loves life in the city, but can’t wait for thing to return to normal. Sat by the river, we talked about this and that over a beer and a sandwich. We began to make a few sketchy plans before the tIme came to part; yet sat there, a few glimmers of blue sky breaking through the clouds, it just felt good to meet someone I knew from before the world went haywire.

I certainly think something much more upbeat and positive is in order today, and this fascinating article fits the bill nicely. In it, Srinidhi Raghavan argues that simply viewing access issues as a matter for those with impairments limits our perspective. Better access to things like buildings can benefit everyone, not just disabled people. ”If we began to see access in society as a starting point to build from, it would benefit not just disabled folks but so many of us, both on the margins and at the centre. For instance, though ramps are meant to ease movement for wheelchair users and others, I know that dragging my suitcase through a ramp is much easier for me than carrying it up a flight of stairs.” I think that is a very good point indeed; one which, if acted upon, could make the world generally much more accommodating for everyone.

I suppose it isn’t just politics I get worked up about, although as I wrote a couple of days ago, it often makes me lose control. It has been a long, awful year, the likes of which I hope we never see again. Other than online, I haven’t seen family or friends in months; I have barely been anywhere. Most of all, Lyn’s death this year was a blow like no other. Even thinking about her these days is enough to trigger a maelstrom of emotion: pain, anger, regret, loss. The thought of that empty bungalow will haunt me always. Of course I try to keep my mind on other things, but every so often the fact that I’ll never see or speak to this wonderful, vibrant person, part of my daily life for a decade, again hits me like a pain worse than any other. On top of everything else, that simple fact is for me what is so fucked up about this year, yet it amplifies my fury at all the other things to a point where my frustration goes beyond words. I think that’s why I get so worked up about things like politics. Lyn and people like her put up with so much; if only the self-entitled, arrogant scumbags running the country had a fraction of her patience, humility and wisdom.

I couldn’t agree more.

My rages are currently worse than ever, at least where Brexit is concerned. I have mentioned my rages on here before: momentary spasms of white hot anger when I just seem to loose all control of myself. Apparently such emotional outbursts are common in people with athetoid cerebral palsy, but these days whenever a Brexiteer appears on the news, I just feel an intense, absolute fury the likes of which I have never felt before. These selfish, lying disgraces to humanity would rob me of everything I hold dear, and for a moment I begrudge them every breath they draw into their worthless chests. They stand counter to everything I see as good in the world – peace, unity, equality, tolerance – and seek to establish a world of division and greed, where the few are given free reign to lord it over the many, the strong are allowed to persecute the weak, and people are judged simply by where they come from or what they look like. I loathe their arrogance and selfishness with all my heart, and I seem to loose control for a moment. It got so bad earlier, I was so visibly angry, that it scared Serkan; yet whenever I see any of these selfish scumbags speak all I feel is intense, raw fury. My body shakes with rage, and I just want them to shut the fuck up and keep their baseless, xenophobic opinions to theirselves. I know I shouldn’t get like that, and that it probably looks stupid, but at the moment such arrogant, lying scumbags seem to be getting their moronic way, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Just how arrogant and self important do you have to be to think that a well-established coalition of twenty-seven other nations would just roll over and give in to the demands of one lone nation? How deluded do you have to be to think that we could leave the European Union, but retain all the advantages of membership? Surely no serious, well-informed person would think that the UK was so important to the EU that it would just give in to all our demands, effectively driving a wrecking ball through the very idea of membership. And yet here we are, about to crash out of the EU without a deal, forced through by people clinging to those very delusions. In the months or years of hardship which will now surely follow, we must never loose sight of the fact that Brexit was started by a Tory trying to silence the Euroscaptics in his own party, and then forced upon us by tories who could see how damaging Brexit will be, but chose to proceed with it rather than ruin their party’s credibility. They alone are to blame for this utter, utter mess.

The European Union is about people across the continent putting aside the divisions of the past and working as one. In an act of colossal stupidity and arrogance, the Tories are about to break the UK off from that peace project in the name of sovereignty and nationalism. How can anyone be so clearly detached from reality, yet still be permitted to govern a country? Brexit ruins all our futures, but these selfish, arrogant disgraces to humanity do not care. While nobody must be hurt or killed, I honestly think Brexit must now be resisted as vehemently as a subjugated country under a force of occupation. Our rights are under direct threat; Brexit cannot be allowed to stand.

Today finds me feeling rather down. Until now, the plan was for me and Serkan to rendezvous with my parents for Christmas at the old family house in Harlesden. We thought that might be wiser than me going up to cheshire or Mum and Dad coming to visit me here, pleasant though both may have been. The news of the rising infection rate in London has, however, now scuppered that: the last thing I want to do after such an awful year is to put my parents at risk, so we agreed this morning to spend Christmas apart. While I’m sure Serkan and I will make the most of it (he’s already started working out how to cook a turkey) it is nonetheless quite a blow. Chatting over the web is all well and good, but truth be told I was looking forward to a good, old fashioned parental cuddle. After such a bleak year, I think that’s what everyone needed after so many month physically apart, but I suppose it will have to wait a bit longer yet.

Just to follow up on this entry about Trump scheduling five executions in his final days in office, I just came across this utterly chilling BBC article. “As President Donald Trump’s days in the White House wane, his administration is racing through a string of federal executions. Five executions are scheduled before President-elect Joe Biden’s 20 January inauguration – breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition.” To put that another way, Trump is obviously using his last vestiges of power to lash out against what he feels as the injustice of losing the election by sending five people to there deaths. I defy anyone to read that and not feel sickened by such a shallow, childish, horrific act. How can anyone be so spiteful?

To tell you the truth I was planning to post a picture on here today: a lovely photo of my new, freshly decorated christmas tree which I’d have bought earlier and decorated with Serkan this evening. Alas, things didn’t go quite to plan: all I found at my local pound shop was a few measly bits of tinsel and some borbals; and I still haven’t got my hands on a tree. That photo will have to wait. Looking on the bright side though, there’s much more impressive news on the vaccine front, with the role-out beginning today. I may not have an evergreen tree in my living room, but it’s hard to feel too down when such awesome scientific feats are being made.

The notion of decorating my flat for Christmas has crossed my mind a couple of times recently. It’s kind of weird: for the first time in my life, I am living in my own home, where I’m the one who gets to decide whether to put Christmas decorations up or not. While that thought feels rather empowering, it’s not as simple a decision as it sounds. When I was living with Lyn in Charlton, she had a plastic tree which was kept in the loft for the rest of the year, so it was simply a case of getting it down every December. My new place has no loft and not much storage space. More to the point, should I really decorate my home in celebration of a festival I don’t believe in? I’m a confirmed atheist, so wouldn’t decorating for Christmas be rather hypocritical? And do I really want to go and buy glitter and borbals to strew them around my home, just to take them down in a few weeks? After such a horrid year, part of me doesn’t see the point.

And yet, another part of me, the part with fond memories of growing up with dad putting a large live tree in the corner of the front room every year ready for Father Christmas to put his red-wrapped presents under; the part which also remembers decorating the tree with Lyn before watching it twinkle from the old blue sofa; that part of me says things just wouldn’t be the same if I don’t decorate for Christmas. It has been a long, dark, shitty year, ending with a Christmas like no other, but a bit of tinsel might just be what this place needs.

I just heard on the BBC London local news that fans at the Millwall match yesterday were heard booing when players took the knee to protest against racism, and I must say I am appalled. Taking the knee is a gesture of solidarity, a protest against discrimination we must surely all support. To boo it obviously means that you think prejudice should be allowed, and that people are wrong to take a stance against it. I find that utterly disgusting, and would honestly like to see anyone caught booing banned from attending football matches for life. After all, they were bloody lucky to be at that match in the first place; for these moronic thugs to use it as an occasion to display such blatant racism surely means they don’t deserve to be there.

Paul just flagged this up for me. The Unlimited Festival, an arts festival focussing on disability now in it’s fifth year, will be online this year. It’ll run from the 13th to 21st of January, and it looks like they have a pretty interesting lineup. It’s usually held at the Southbank, but hopefully being online will mean more people take a look.

I just came across this, and I’m suddenly surprisingly emotional. The house in Oxford where JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings is now up for sale, and there is now a campaign to buy and preserve it for future generations. Called Project Northmoor, it is spearheaded by stars like Martin Freeman and Sir Ian McKellen – Mithrandir himself. Tolkien’s work still means a lot to me, so this campaign to preserve the place where he created so many vivid, wondrous tales has my full backing.

It really is quite staggering when you think about it: how can educated, intelligent people elected to govern a country, be so delusional that they think an international body comprised of twenty-seven other states would just roll over and compromise it’s integrity by allowing one state to leave without facing any consequences? How can the Tories even think that the EU would let thee UK leave but retain all the advantages of membership? can they not see that there is no way the EU will let us both have our cake and eat it, because it would make membership meaningless? It would simply cause Outist movements across the continent to spring up with equally ridiculous demands, and pretty soon the future of the entire European project would be under threat. It’s blatantly obvious, even to a naive dunce like me, that there is no way that the EU can let the tories get their way, so why are they persisting in the delusion that they can? Or put another way, why are the Tories continuing to patronise the country by refusing to admit the blindingly obvious: Brexit will ruin the country if it isn’t abandoned and we retake our place in the EU?

Just as a quick update, I couldn’t resist the temptation to go to the pub yesterday afternoon, just for a quick, sneaky pint. It had been too long. I found the answer to my quandary fairly quickly. I explained the situation to one of the bar staff, about not being able to use cutlery. She phoned her boss, who said I needed to eat, but that it could be something like a sandwich; ie it didn’t have to be a full blown meal. So in the end I had a cheese and gammon sandwich: slightly messy because the cheese was grated, but I was getting peckish anyway.

As pleased and amazed as I am about the incredible news that a new covid 19 vaccine could be on it’s way to us as soon as next week, today there’s another question on my mind. If you want to go to the pub, but can’t feed yourself food, can you still go? The new lockdown rules say you must have a substantial meal if you want a drink in a pub, but what if it’s physically impossible for you to feed yourself? I can’t feed myself with cutlery in the usual way – when I eat out, someone has to feed me. But I sometimes like to have a beer or two at my local pub, on my own. If I needed to eat a meal, I would need to take my PA with me, which might make things more complex and less ad hoc, or not go at all.

I defy any thinking, intelligent person to read this or this and not to be utterly, utterly appalled. In his dying days as president, Trump has sanctioned the executions of five people, the first time a lame duck president has done so in over a century. They are all scheduled to take place before Joe Biden’s inauguration. How can anyone be so cruel, callous and spiteful? You know you’re leaving office, so one of the last things you do is use your executive power to send five people to their deaths. I find that sickening. Trump knows Biden, like any rational person with anything resembling a conscience, opposes capital punishment, so he uses the last glimmers of his authority to carry out these acts of pettiness. How can anyone sink so low? When I first saw this earlier it made me feel sick, and has been on my mind ever since. It really shows you what a monstrous, vile person Donald Trump is. He really is an utter disgrace to human civilisation.