Today was the first day in months when I actually did something – by which I mean something other than muck about on my computer or trundle around at random in my powerchair – and it feels very good indeed. A week or two ago, Sue Elsegood from the Greenwich Association of Disabled People (GAD) invited me to a meeting in Greenwich Park. The park management was redesigning an area of the park, and had asked for feedback on the plans from disabled people. Not knowing quite what to expect yet eager to make a contribution to my local community however I can, I set off to the arranged meeting point this afternoon feeling quite optimistic.

I felt the event went well: I met up with Sue and another lady, Anne, on time, and we were met by a very nice lady from Royal Parks. She walked us through the plans, which were for a wide-ranging redesign of an area if the park I had never been into. Called The Wilderness, they included designs for a new wildlife centre and Learning Centre. I tried to contribute where I could, pointing out access issues I noticed, but in all I found it quite a happy, social event. Apart from the fact that they would need to cut down a few elderly trees, I think the plans met with our approval. Most of all, I think it just felt good to be actually doing something after so many months of idleness.

After the meeting, I went for a socially distanced coffee with Sue, her PA and her mum outside the park cafe. I think that was my first proper, face-to-face conversation with someone other than Serkan in months; to be socialising once more felt incredible. You may not have heard of Sue Elsegood, but she is nothing less than a legend. She was among the group of disabled people who fought for and won accessible public transport in London, at one point by famously blocking Westminster Bridge. As she talked to me about it over our coffee, I suddenly realised that only reason I could get onto a bus to get to the park in the first place was due to what the woman in front of me and her friends had done. I owed her so much, and told her so.

Sue being Sue of course, she said that I didn’t owe her anything. Nonetheless I was then struck by the thought of making a film documenting those events. I suggested it to Sue, who liked the idea. At that, though, it was time to wend my way home, relishing the spring air, the blossom of the trees, and the promise of things to come.

If you ever wonder just how far up their own arse anyone can go, just read this. “Donald Trump has launched a new website celebrating his time as US president that includes a very selective retelling of the history of his time in office…The centrepiece of the site is an 885-word history of the Trump presidency, listing the achievements of what it describes as “the most extraordinary political movement in history”.” I can’t decide whether it’s more comic or tragic to see a man so deluded, whose image of himself is so divorced from reality, that he is willing to go to such lengths to preserve his narratives. Trump obviously thinks that if he shouts loudly enough, the bullshit he spews will be accepted as the truth. It’s a sign of a profoundly disturbed mind. What is even more worrying, though, is that some people still believe what Trump says, against all the evidence that he is nothing but a lying, egotistical conman. Less businessman, more bullshit-merchant.

I just came across some photos on my aunt’s Facebook page of an interesting looking exhibition on the Champs Elysees in Paris. The pictures were of sculptures, purportedly of cats, but looking to me more like strange, anthropomorphised hippos. It made me miss the french capital more than ever, of course, but what caught my eye was the fact that the statues were titled not just in french but in English too: that is, beneath each statue was a plaque bearing it’s title both in French and English. Does that not strike you as odd? I’ve been to quite a few exhibitions here in london, and everything has always been in English. If they started naming things in french, there would probably be some sort of nationalist outcry. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing – it’s good to see our French neighbours being so inclusive – but why is English becoming so predominant? It seems it’s even taking over the French capital, which must frankly be galling to any french person even remotely proud of their history and culture. Just imagine if the shoe was on the other foot. And why are they using English rather than any other European language, given we aren’t even members of the EU any more?

I will always be baffled by how can’t some people realise that, if they are able enough to earn a decent amount of money, it’s only fair that part of their earnings should go towards helping people less able than they are. And why can’t they acknowledge that surely the most efficient way to render such aid is through the state? Or do they realise both, but are simply to selfish to admit it? Hoarding money while knowingly letting others starve is not economic prudence but simply greed: a mark of spoiled children who were never taught the value of sharing. We seem to have such a spoiled brat currently running the country; a man too blinded by his ego, his vision of himself as worldly yet likeable statesman, to realise most people see him as the fraudulent, lying charlatan he is. A man so despicable, so spoiled, he thinks he has a right to use public money to fund his affairs. What baffles me is how we could allow such blatantly, manifestly unfit people call theirselves our leaders, even after all the hardship and suffering they have put the country through.

It seems Boston now has to be added to my list of cities I want to visit. According to this TrekMovie article, “Today, March 26, 2021, would have been the late Leonard Nimoy’s 90th birthday. And to honor [sic] the legendary Star Trek actor the City of Boston declared today Leonard Nimoy Day. And the Boston Museum of Science just announced they are partnering with the Nimoy family to develop a memorial honoring [sic] him and his famed Vulcan Salute.” I must say that strikes me as a very cool tribute, especially given Nimoy, and Star Trek as a whole, has done so much over six decades to encourage a fascination in science and exploration in so many people. After all, it was Star Trek which first made my brother Mark interested in physics, and now he has a PhD in it, although I’m still waiting for him to invent a warp drive for my powerchair.

Today probably wasn’t the best day to go exploring, but a couple of days ago I began thinking about the Crystal Palace again. Basically, I’d come across something on Facebook about next years Festival of Brexit, which got me thinking about the Great Exhibition: I wondered whether the Tories could be daft enough to try to invoke one with the other by doing something in Crystal Palace park. Wanting a trip out anyway, I decided to go take a look – it’s only a single half-hour bus ride from the end of my road. What I found, though, didn’t fill me with enthusiasm: I had more or less the same reaction that I had the last time I visited the place in 2018. While there were one or two new buildings such as a cafe (open for take-away only, so I couldn’t have a coffee) the place was still crumbling; the paths were a nightmare to roll along. I trundled past the Crystal Palace Bowl, an open-air music stage where famously Bob Marley played his last ever UK concert, now derelict and so badly in need of repair that local people refer to it as The Rusty Laptop. The park had the aura of a place of long faded glory, especially in the rain. Whatever plans there were to regenerate it seem to have come to nothing, or at least very little. It seems that not every part of London gets the same treatment when it comes to regeneration.

Everyone seems to be getting so excited that the coronavirus rollout is going so well and the infection rate is now so low, things may at last soon return to something vaguely resembling normality. Yet I must now point out, cases are increasing in Europe at a worrying rate. That means that we are not out of the woods yet: it wouldn’t take much for a new variant to pop  over the channel and we’d be back to square one. The pandemic won’t be over until it’s over everywhere. Yet surely that demonstrates the importance of working together with our neighbours rather than cutting ourselves off. Had we still been members of the EU, perhaps we could have better coordinated a continent-wide response, rather than bickering like children over vaccine supplies. It is only due to Brexit that the Astrazenica mess ever happened, not that the Tories would ever admit it: they benefit politically from the division such scandals cause, and actively try to stir up animosity towards Europe.

That is, when they aren’t trying to credit greed and capitalism for the success of the vaccination process, when it was in fact the altruism, kindness and sense of community which underpin organisations like the NHS which we have to thank. As a Tory, Johnson ideologically opposes the NHS, preferring profit-based systems where the richer you are, the better healthcare you have access to; he’ll never admit a socially-based system has saved the country. Contrary to the moronic claims of the scumbag now in Downing Street, capitalism gets in the way and hinders the process, when in fact we all need to work together. This year has demonstrated that beyond doubt. The Tories might try to take the credit, but it is despite, not because of, their perverse world views that we are at this point; and had it been soley up to them, things could have been far worse.

The Tories are thus ideologically opposed to both the NHS and EU, but it is only thanks to the bloody hard work of National Health Service staff that we are doing so well; and if we were still members of the European Union there would be much less risk of a resurgence. Why then, in the name of all that is good in the world, do we let these fools run the country?

I just came across something very, very interesting indeed. Huge Star Trek fan that I am, when I was growing up I used to watch The Next Generation again and again. It was on BBC 2 every Wednesday for years, repeated ad nauseam. I had always assumed I’d seen every episode of every season. However, I was messing around on Youtube earlier when I happened upon this video about the ten Star Trek episodes which pissed people off the most. In the number nine slot was an episode of TNG called The High Ground, which according to the video had the crew of the Enterprise visit a planet upon which a group of terrorists was conducting a campaign for independence. The episode was rather controversial in that it explored the terrorists’ motives, showing their side of the story. It was so controversial, in fact, that the episode had never been aired on either the BBC or RTE, particularly given that it was first released in the early nineties at the time of the troubles in Ireland. (The episode even refers to the troubles directly).

My curiosity, predictably, was too strong: Googling the episode’s season and episode number (Season 3 Episode 12) I headed straight for Netflix. What I found myself watching was a complex, nuanced and ambiguous piece of television. While it did not take the terrorist’s side, nor did it totally condemn them; both sides were shown to be at fault and capable of brutality. Perhaps most controversially of all, it went so far as to say terrorism could sometimes achieve it’s goals, for example even referring to it leading to Irish Unification in 2024. I could certainly see why the episode could be considered so politically sensitive and why the Beeb may have been so reluctant to screen it, especially when it was produced. At the same time, I thought it was a great, thought-provoking episode which reminded me why TNG was so ground-breaking; I’m really glad to have finally seen it.

Today, we are told by the media, marks the miserable anniversary of the beginning of a miserable year. I know I should probably say something to commemorate it, but what could any writer write about anything so hideous? Instead, I think I’ll just direct everyone here once again, and ask you all to turn your volume up and join in.

Ipad passcodes are all well and good when it comes to making your device more secure, but when you use your Ipad as a communication aid and are required to type in a six digit code each time you want to say anything, they can really be a pain. I suppose it’s one of the drawbacks of communicating via an ipad, and particularly annoying if the function activates itself automatically after an update; although fortunately, as I found out earlier, it can easily be deactivated.

I first read this article on Thursday, but decided it would be a bit too curmudgeonly to flag up on my birthday, yet I think it’s the best piece of political and semiotic analysis I’ve read in a while. It’s a fairly long Guardian article examining Johnson’s clownish persona and the way he seeks to present himself as jovial, likeable and friendly while belying a much meaner, nastier reality. I don’t agree with it completely as I think Johnson thinks of himself as more of a statesman than a clown, but nonetheless I think it”s very well written and well worth reading.

Given I got so excited about Bond’s appearance on Comic Relief yesterday, I’m probably expected to say something about it today. To be honest, though, I don’t think there is that much I can sink my analytical teeth into: they obviously played it for laughs ass befitted the occasion, but these were more chuckles than full on belly laughs. There were one or two references to things like Bond’s sexuality and carbon footprint, as well as to the pandemic, but apart from that the skit did not strike me as particularly noteworthy. There was no moment of awesomeness I was kind of hoping for. That said, it was good to see Daniel Craig back in the role, and I liked the way Cathrine Tate’s Nan cheekily made fun of Bond while Craig tried his best to keep a straight face, but failed ever so slightly at the end. Both actors were obviously having fun, and I think this sketch should just be seen as a bit of lighthearted frippery more than something to delve deeply into.

I just heard something which is simply too hilarious not to flag up here. According to this TrekCulture video, when Star Trek Deep Space Nine was being produced, whenever the USS Defiant cloaked, shooting had to be stopped while the production crew changed every light bulb on the set. The reason I find that so funny is, as the chap in the video says, it will ring a bell with Red Dwarf fans everywhere.

Not that I wholly approve of charity fundraising events as a means of supporting society, but this news about tonight’s Comic Relief has predictably raised my interest. Daniel Craig’s 007 is apparently going to appear in a sketch with Cathrine Tate’s character Nan. “The Bond-themed skit will see Nan – now a cleaner at MI6 – take an unexpected call from 007 while cleaning M’s office.” While I doubt we can expect anything as incredible as Happy And Glorious (although I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a reference to it) this has the potential to be one of those interesting crossovers which fascinate me. From the stills, it looks like they will just be interacting via webcam, but even so I’ll now be looking forward to seeing what they do with this all day.

This awesome cake just arrived from my brother Luke and sister in law Yan, ahead of my birthday tomorrow. It needs to thaw before I eat it, but it looks so delicious I just had to blog about it. Thanks bro!

For the first time in my life, I honestly think I have a belly. I was looking in the mirror yesterday, and my stomach looked bigger than it has ever done. I’ve always been rather thin, probably because I constantly move, yet recently I’ve started to notice a distinct paunch. I can certainly no longer fit into all the dancewear I used to muck around in. Why this may be I have no idea: I’m not really eating more than I used to, and I’m exercising about as much as I ever did. Perhaps I’m just getting old.

Yesterday I had a brief look at how to get to Clapham Common from here in Eltham. It’s an area of London I’ve never been to, and I was curious about checking out the events currently unfolding there myself. I therefore did what I usually do in such situations, and headed to the TFL website. However, there I came across a problem: Clapham Common tube station, on the Northern Line, is not wheelchair accessible, and I couldn’t see any other route to get there. At that I ditched the idea. Yet in a way it strikes me as ironic: women are currently their protesting their right to cross the Common – a well-known cruising zone – without fear of sexual attack, but at least they can get there in the first place. Of course, I’m not disputing a woman’s right to go anywhere they wish without fear of sexual assault; they just seem to forget just how lucky they are to have the option, or perhaps they wouldn’t feel so hard done by. They claim they are not free, yet these mostly straight, white, middle class, able-bodied protesters don’t seem to realise how free they really are. Or to put that another way, they have every right to protest; I’d probably be there with them, if only I could get there.

It has been a long, hard year for everybody. Although we speak daily over the web, I haven’t met my parents physically in months, and to be frank I feel their absence. I have always been close to my parents: we are a close, tactile family in which hugs were always at the ready when needed. Today of all days, I am missing my mum. I miss her cuddles and kisses, her infectious laughter, jokes and wit, and especially her delicious cooking. I know it won’t be too long now until we can meet again, but today I just want to note how much I miss my mum, as well as just how much she means to me. I know I’m not always the best of sons, particularly when it comes to sending cards, but I know how lucky I am to have her. Happy Mother’s Day mum; I’ll see you soon.

Late yesterday afternoon I came across something on Facebook which I found very disturbing indeed. My friend Luke F. had posted an account of his experiences at his special school. It’s quite a well known school, so I won’t name it for fear of breaching confidentiality, but what Luke described was chilling. From what I read, the school forced Luke, who has fairly severe CP, to take pills (I’m not sure what pills) against his wishes, bribed him, and made him wear arm restraints.

Now, I know I wrote on here not long ago about how I can see the need for special schools in certain, specific instances: I am not an ‘all means all’ guy because I believe that trying to educate the most severely disabled children – those with, say, severe autism or learning difficulties – among their able bodied peers would put so much pressure on the child it would probably be cruel. I also don’t think this is an issue one should be dogmatic about. Yet cases like Luke’s give me pause for thought. While I never encountered such cruelty at my special school, I’ve heard many accounts of children being similarly mistreated; teenagers being put to bed at seven; kids barely being fed; students getting the most cursory, half arsed educations imaginable. Indeed, Lyn went through such an ordeal. I had hoped such travesties were well in the past, but Luke told me he only left school in 2003.

This cannot be right; it cannot be legal. Of course disabled children should be educated alongside their able-bodied classmates where at all possible, for the benefit of both. Yet while I feel there are select, specific instances where segregated, special education is necessary, surely horrific accounts like Luke’s cannot keep cropping up.

Just to back up my entry yesterday, I just came across this Youtube video by the IOC about the legacy of the 2012 Olympics. As expensive as they were, the games totally transformed that area of North East London; their impact is still being felt in terms of sport, society and education, nine years on. Frankly, I’d far rather public money was spent on such projects than pissed up the wall by the Tories on systems which don’t work, and are really just mechanisms for channeling money back to their donors.

If anyone is in any doubt that the Tories are nothing but a bunch of incompetent money-wasting morons, you now only need to point out the alarming fact that they have now wasted £37bn on a test and trace system which was totally useless. Frankly, I find that staggering, particularly when you remember that the London 2012 Olympics only cost about £9bn. The Olympics, of course, were a mega-event: entire stadiums had to be constructed; London got a completely new park, which you can still walk around; four awesome ceremonies were organised and performed; and so on. How, then, could more than triple the cost of the games have been spent on a test and trace scheme which almost nobody used, did not work and was obviously useless in preventing the UK from having one of the highest mortality rates on Earth? At the end of the day it was just an app: no expensive buildings needed to be constructed, no events needed to be organised. More to the point, how the hell can nobody have resigned or got the sack over this jaw-dropping waste of money? When you think of all the ways that that obscene sum could have been put to better use, I think we should all be very angry with the entitled scumbags now running the country.

Perhaps I shouldn’t admit this, but my daily trundles are gradually growing longer and longer. Yesterday, for instance, I made it across the city to Wembley. It was quite a long trip on public transport, but there was something in that area I needed to check (family business). Everywhere I go, though, it seems something is being built. Vast swathes of London are being regenerated; I was only there briefly, but Wembley is starting to look like Stratford, with sleek, modern shopping arcades and housing blocks replacing what was until recently a fairly run-down area. The case is the same all over the city: huge amounts of money are obviously being pumped into London. Woolwich, for example, now looks completely different to how it did twenty years ago, with it’s bright, open public square, complete with large-screen TV for special events.

It makes me wonder, though: what about other parts of the country? Are other cities in the UK receiving the same attention as London? Are, say, Glasgow, Birmingham or Stoke seeing the same kind of redevelopment? Or is London being singled out as the capital for preferential treatment, supposedly representing the country on the world stage, to the detriment of other areas? I’ve been in London so long I couldn’t say, but if this is the case, I daresay it would give rise to the burning resentment we now often see pointed towards the capital from elsewhere in the country.

I don’t want to breach confidentiality etc, so I won’t say too much, but today I just want to extend my huge and heartfelt congratulations to Beth M. upon gaining a first class degree in Social Policy. A fellow Communication Aid user, I first met Beth at Onevoice over fifteen years ago: back then, I could tell she was a little bundle of vast potential. It would seem that that potential is starting to be realised, although I have a strong feeling that this is only the beginning of Beth’s achievements.

I’m not even going to try to say anything about the Operah Winfrey interview last night, not least because I didn’t watch it. Frankly, the notion that everyone should watch an ultra-privileged woman bawl her eyes out about supposedly being mistreated by her husband’s absurdly wealthy family, when there are so many other things to worry about and so much real suffering aroundd these days, really takes the biscuit. After all, they chose to step back from royal duties, but now they’re complaining about not getting enough support from the royal family. It’s almost like a country choosing to leave an international community of nations, and then complaining about loosing the privileges it got from being a member of that community. More to the point, I don’t see why we have to endure this bollocks on prime time TV as if it was some sort of soap opera, when we have so many other things to worry about: it’s almost like someone is trying to. distract us…

One of those minor-yet-awesome events happened today: I got a census form through my letterbox. That might not sound much, but when you consider it’s my first census as the sole owner of my own home, it’s pretty epic. I haven’t filled it in yet – I need help from someone capable of using a pen – but when I do it will be quite historic, at least for me. And when I do, I have every intention of registering my nationality as European.

Surely this must be the picture of the day, as well as the coolest thing I’ve seen in months:

Fortunately, there’s a rational – and rather fascinating – explanation, which can be read here.

By modern standards of course, BBC Micro computers are slow, quaint and very outdated (understatement of the week!) Yet I think it’s fair to say I owe a lot to them. They were the first sort of computer I ever knew. I remember, age five or six, my parents sat me in front of one and told me to write stories. In a way that was probably my first opportunity to demonstrate how much I understood about the world around me. The stories I wrote were naturally quite childish, and it took me ages to tap out just a few words, but nonetheless that was the beginning of my love of writing.

This year the BBC Micro is celebrating it’s fortieth birthday. The (other) BBC has made a short film to mark the occasion here. These days computers are part of our everyday lives; it’s amusing to think that the smartphones and Ipads we all now use to chat to one another have far, far more processing power than you could ever dream of back in the eighties. Yet I think it’s fair to say that the BBC Micro is at least one of the machines which kicked the computing revolution off, and with out it we wouldn’t be where we are today. It’s fair to say I owe a lot to it, but so do many others.

I am very perturbed by this news. I can’t say I read the New Scientist regularly these days, but my parents subscribe to it, so growing up I used to occasionally read it’s fascinating articles. It’s one of the best sources for news of the scientific world. However, to read that the magazine has now been bought by the group which publishes the Daily Mail, a rag I wouldn’t wipe my arse with for fear of insulting my shit, has me very concerned indeed. Of course, the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) claims it will guarantee the magazine’s continued editorial independence, but this is coming from the publishers of a rag known to lie through it’s teeth in order to impose it’s highly conservative, narrow minded, socially intolerant worldview onto public discourse. Zark knows what they plan to do with the New Scientist, or the unscientific, anachronistic codswallop they’ll have it churning out. It’s quite sad, really: a fascinating little magazine now stands to be taken over by people for whom most scientific, progressive ideas are an anathema; yet another victim of the ever-deepening culture war.

In my opinion, this is probably the most interesting news of the day, or perhaps week. After six years based online, the Beeb has decided to relaunch BBC3 onto ordinary television. Now, I was never a particular fan of BBC3, although there were a few fairly interesting shows on there, but what interests me about this news is what it might imply. The Beeb moved Three online because, at the time, that was the way things were going: websites like Netflix were just starting up, and it looked we were getting more and more entertainment from the web. The BBC was thus reacting to a trend: the internet was the place to be for funky, cutting edge audiovisual output. Does this U-Turn imply things are now going in the opposite direction? Is the Beeb returning to it’s traditional routes as a response to consumer trends? Or is it turning it’s back on younger, online audiences in order to appease older, more socially conservative viewers, still unused to the Web and the new ideas which come with it.

I can’t claim to be very up to date with French politics (keeping track of uk politics is bad enough at the moment) so all I can say about this news that Nicolas Sarkosy has been jailed for corruption is, our french neighbours definitely have the right idea. If our politicians had more of a threat of jail sentences hanging over them, perhaps they would behave themselves a bit more, and not lead the country down blind alleys which they know it will take us decades to recover from.