I was brought up using metric measurements. Although I sometimes refer to distances in miles, the truth is I have no real idea how long a mile is. At least with the metric system I know how long a metre is, and that a kilometre is a thousand metres. That, to me, seems sensible, as does having the freezing point of water at zero degrees and it’s boiling point at a hundred. These basic, logical figures are what I grew up with, and I’m sure the same goes for the vast majority of people born after, say, 1980. Why oh why, then, are the Tories now talking about bringing back imperial measurements? Do they not realise that it would be completely foreign to most people nowadays? More to the point, it would make doing trade or working with any other country a thousand times more complex. The tories are obviously desperate to distract everyone from the fact they are a bunch of rule breaking scum, as well as to throw some red meat to their core vote, so they’ve introduced this anachronistic idea to appeal to them. Yet that does not stop it being an act of utter stupidity.

Whether anything will come of this moronic scheme of course remains to be seen, but if it does I think we should all keep using the metric system. I certainly plan to. The Tories want to look like they’re taking the country back to some kind of golden, independent past which never really happened; so rather than fall for their con I think it’s now more important than ever that we continue to use the measurements we were educated using, and which are used by our European neighbours. At least then we will show that we won’t be duped by a charlatan who should have resigned days ago.

This letter apparently appeared in the Guardian a couple of days ago. I think it’s certainly worth reposting here as it demonstrates just how arrogant and self-important the scumbags currently running the country are.

The least the tories can do is show a bit of humility and admit their mistakes, but they don’t have the honour to do even that. Instead they claim to deserve to do what they did, deserve to break the rules, while the people who really deserve our gratitude, such as Mrs Needham, diligently stuck to them.

Just how insane does someone have to be to think that the best way to prevent school shootings is to arm teachers so that they can shoot back? When I heard that Donald Trump has proposed just that earlier, my jaw hit the floor in disbelief – I’m sure most other people’s jaws did too. Having studied psychology to a certain extent, I know how disabling and serious mental illness can be, so I don’t use the word ‘insane’ lightly; but what Trump proposed at the NRA meeting is obscene. It surely betrays an unhinged mind. While Trump might have been playing to his audience, his comments suggest a highly disturbed mind and extremely distorted sense of reality, one in which the only way to combat violence is with yet more violence.

The web is now rife with memes reminding us that the only place where such horrific massacres occur is in America, where guns are so easy to get hold of; and that they almost never happen in countries with strict, sensible, firearms laws. In the UK, for example, the last such shooting was in Dunblane. Soon after, struct handgun laws were introduced and there have been none since. The only way to prevent these atrocities is to remove such harmful weapons from society, and thus stop people intent on harming others from getting hold of them. That seems blindingly obvious to me, so how on Earth could anyone seriously propose that the solution isn’t to remove these weapons from circulation, but to introduce more of them. All that will happen then is that guns would become more and more commonplace, and society becomes more, not less violent. Arming teachers is a truly disturbing idea, and it’s beyond belief that anyone has seriously suggested it. What concerns me more, though, is that there are people who actually agree with Trump.

Which of the three following statements is the more stupid: “The world is flat, not round”, “Leave means leave”, or “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. All three are pretty damn moronic if you ask me, yet the fact that such inane comments are now heard with such regularity surely says something about the state of affairs the world is now in. All three betray a blatant disregard for the evidence right in front of you; all three show a contempt for authority, an attitude of “I know best no matter what”. It is a narrow-minded, right wing rejection of the advice of academics, simply because it came from academics. Such attitudes lead to both Trump and Brexit, and probably also brought about Johnson. What worries me is, such attitudes seem to be becoming more and more popular.

I must admit I didn’t just write the second entry I posted yesterday for my blog. I also posted it, word for word, onto a Facebook politics page which I’m a member of. To be honest, after watching the news, I needed some way of venting my frustrations. The cool thing is, the post went down a treat: at the last count, it has had 177 likes and 51 comments, almost all agreeing with me, making it possibly the most ‘liked’ thing I’ve ever posted. I think that’s quite an achievement and one worth recording – I must be doing something right. I’m glad to see too that so many people agree with me about Boris Johnson and the rancid collection of scumbags that is the Tory party.

I couldn’t put it better myself.

It is now apparent that the current prime minister of the United Kingdom is a man who thinks he has a right to break the law, leading a political party who will defend him no matter what, regardless of his crimes. This afternoon it was put beyond doubt that Boris Johnson not only broke COVID lockdown rules, playing fast and loose with them as if they didn’t apply to him, he then knowingly lied to parliament about doing so. To add insult to sickening injury, the Tory Party now seems to be closing ranks behind him, pretending nothing has happened and asking us all to move on. If they had a shred of honour among them, let alone respect for either the law or any of our feelings, they would all be demanding Johnson’s resignation. But they don’t and aren’t. This is a group of people, born into privilege, who think they have an innate right to power, no matter how badly they hurt or insult anyone else. To a man they are manifestly unfit to be in the government of any western democracy; the events of this afternoon has put that beyond all doubt. They will continue to run roughshod over the law, bending and distorting any rule they need to to suit their own selfish, arrogant ends. I honestly believe something must be done. As much as I advocate democracy, any objective person would surely say that this group of people is not governing the country for the good of all, and so is utterly unfit for political office. If we truly love our country and care about our collective futures, we have to do something to get the tories out of office as soon as possible.

I just got up and turned on my computer, and the first thing I saw was this horrific, inexplicable news. “Nineteen young children and two adults have died in a shooting at a primary school in south Texas. The 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in the city of Uvalde before he was killed by law enforcement, officials said.” This is as breathtaking as it is heartbreaking: these were children, for zark’s sake. Of course, such things wouldn’t happen, or at least be much less common, if guns weren’t so easy to get hold of in America. When will America grow up and do something about it’s gun control?

I just got home from an afternoon which can only be called interesting. It started well enough: I set off to Woolwich earlier full of enthusiasm to try out the newest addition to London’s underground network. The new station there was incredible, gleaming and clean. The train arrived, the doors opened and I got on without a problem. The thing was, I hadn’t actually decided where I was going to get off. Looking at the map though, I had an idea: if I got off sat Liverpool Street I could then take the other branch of the Lizzie Line just to see how well it worked. Whereas the branch I was on was marked as fully wheelchair accessible, the Liverpool Street to Shenfield via Stratford Line was marked mostly as step free from street to platform, but not platform to train. That made me want to clarify what the situation was at Liverpool Street.

There, however, the fun started. Getting off the train at Liverpool Street proved easy enough, with nice, smooth new platforms. Finding the way to the other branch of the new line wasn’t as easy as I assumed it would be though: the huge station is pretty labyrinthine, and in the end I had to ask a member of staff to guide me, needing to exit the station to go back in another entrance. I was then quite disappointed to find that there, there were no level platforms so the staff had to put ramps up to allow me on to the train. As it happened, it wasn’t much of an issue, but nonetheless I would have preferred to have been able to get onto the train on my own. They told me that, in a few months, such issues would be resolved.

The trip to Stratford seemed surprisingly short; it was also as smooth and comfortable as the first leg. As at Liverpool Street, ramps were needed to let me off the train, but staff were waiting so it wasn’t a problem. My afternoon was then a matter of a short walk to the Olympic park avoiding the showers, before getting the Jubilee Line back to North Greenwich and the bus home.

This was obviously only a brief preliminary investigation: a short jaunt into central London and back – I didn’t want to stay up there for long due to the rain. Yet I must say, what I experienced today was pretty amazing. Of course there are some things to be ironed out in terms of accessibility, and I really wish such issues weren’t always delayed and deprioritised, to be resolved in the autumn. However, that aside, what London has achieved with this project is phenomenal. The Elisabeth Link really does feel like no other tube line I have ever been on, it is so fast, smooth and sleek. Today feels like the start of a new chapter in the epic tome that is London’s public transport.

At the risk of sounding like a sad transport geek, I must admit I’m looking forward to Crossrail opening tomorrow. I’ve now lived in London for twelve years, but as I was saying here a couple of weeks ago, for all that time most of central London north of the Thames has been pretty much out of bounds for me, simply because the tube lines were inaccessible. Getting up there would have been more trouble than it was worth, so I tended to avoid central London. From tomorrow, however, a vast amount of the metropolis will become far easier to reach: I’ll be able to just hop on a bus down to Woolwich, and from there the Elisabeth Line will take me to Paddington, Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road or wherever. The upgrading of the Northern Line will also help with this, of course. I see myself being able to explore Central London like I’ve explored eastern London, and I really can’t wait to see a few more of the famous sights and royal parks up there.

Expect a few entries on that, including one about my first trip on the Elisabeth Line, on here soon.

Bill, where Ben had had “had had”, had had “had had had”. “Had had” had had the examiner’s approval.

I realise I’m just flagging up another Independent article, but as someone who firmly supports scientific progress and cooperation, this really does take the biscuit. “UK scientists are being stripped of leadership roles for Europe-wide projects…The EU has told a Cambridge University astrophysicist studying the Milky Way that he cannot be in charge of a new project – because the UK is not part of the £80bn Horizon Europe programme.” Alongside all the damage it’s doing to Northern Ireland Peace, the UK economy, and so many other things, Brexit is rendering our scientists irrelevant and excluded from the mainstream discourse, unable to take the active leadership roles they used to have. This travesty surely cannot be allowed to continue.

These days, I can’t help getting more and more furious at the bunch of arrogant charlatans currently running the country; my anger now grows daily. I just came across this Independent article. The Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is now trying to deflect the blame for Tory cruelty by claiming that people who appeared in a 2010 Channel Four documentary were actually actors. “The documentary show featured four MPs, including Ms Dorries, spending time living on deprived housing estates around Britain.” It was presumably an expose of the savagery of Tory cuts to social support at the time, and now the Tories are claiming it was all a stitch up, effectively accusing Channel Four of lying. I find that utterly sickening: rather than own up to and apologise for the suffering the Tories are knowingly causing, they would have us all believe that they are good people who mean us no harm, and the increasingly negative light they are being cast in is all a big mainstream media conspiracy. Why Oh why must we put up with this bunch of lying, deceiving scumbags running the country?

Today was the first Communication Works conference in two or three years, and the first to be held at Charlton Athletic Football Ground rather than Charlton Park Academy. I’m pleased to report that it seems to once again have been a roaring success: held in a conference room overlooking the pitch, there were about thirty exhibitors, each displaying a new piece of communication technology. Most, but not all, seemed to be geared towards touch screens or tablets, although there were some very impressive eye gaze systems. During my time there, I had a chat with Abdi Omar, a very interesting guy who uses his head-pointer system to deliver motivational speeches.

Communication Works seems to be going from strength to strength. Although conferences obviously had to be suspended due to the pandemic, now that the crisis is over I’m very glad to see that events like Communication Works are making a return. It now even has a northern sister conference too, I’m told. With communications technology being used to help more and more people, especially young people, it’s brilliant to see such events flourishing and becoming more pronounced.

I finally got around to taking myself down to the cinema yesterday afternoon. While Operation Mincemeat got slightly bogged down in details about relationship issues at times, on the whole I found it an intriguing film which skilfully brought to life a less well known episode of history. There were great performances from Colin Firth and Jason Isaacs, among others, wonderfully bringing to life the mavericks in three piece suits who ran the country and it’s intelligence services at that time. Of course, I especially liked the appearance of Ian Fleming: while he played a relatively minor role in the plot to deceive Hitler that the Allies would invade Greece rather than Sicily, it was great to see the creator of James Bond, 007, at the meetings where everything was planned. Even better, the film revealed the origins of names like ‘M’ and ‘Q’, although it resisted the temptation to get too ‘Bondish’. Above all, Operation Mincemeat is a great World War Two story of espionage and drama, intrigue and tension which keeps viewers guessing until the end.

Brexit is now threatening peace in Northern Ireland; it is bolstering the cause of Scottish independence and the break-up of the UK. Surely the only rational solution to the chaos Brexit is causing is to cancel it and rejoin the EU. Yet the Tories won’t even contemplate doing so as, having called the referendum, backtracking on it’s result would render their party a feckless, powerless joke. If that’s the case, so be it: the conservative party are the problem; they need to be removed from office as soon as possible. As I wrote here, this group of people and their refusal to face the consequences of their own actions are fast bringing about the fragmentation of the UK. The very stability of the country is now at stake due to Brexit. It is a monumental act of stupidity which needs to be undone. The Tories won’t and can’t because the status of their party is more important to them than the wellbeing of the country, so they need to go.

The story goes that, during the Hundred Years War in the Fifteenth Century, the French would cut the two longest fingers from the hands of English bowmen to prevent them firing their bows, and since then the famous ‘two fingered salute’ or ‘V sign‘ has been used as a show of defiance or antagonism. I think it’s fair to say that, last night, Ukraine and Europe put up the V sign to Vladimir Putin and Russia. For Ukraine to win the Eurovision Song Contest really is a great move as it demonstrates that, contrary to what Putin might want his subjects – and the rest of us – to believe, Ukrainian culture is alive, thriving, and is valued by Ukraine’s European, democratic neighbours. What happened last night was a continent-wide display of defiance, directed towards a megalomaniac dictator who thinks his neighbours are his to play with as he sees fit. It was a huge show of solidarity; an enormous ‘screw you’ to Putin. Of course, it certainly helped that Ukraine’s entry was one of the best songs, and definitely among the catchiest; but at a time when we all needed to get behind the Ukrainian people in standing up to a bully, I think we succeeded.

I had just decided on a subject for a blog entry and was settling down to write it, only to find I wrote pretty much exactly the same entry last year. Once again tonight is Eurovision night, and once again we’ll all watch an event dominated by English. From what I saw of the semi-finals this week, at least three quarters of the entries were sung in English. Does that not strike anyone else as very, very weird? For a continent which values its cultural diversity so much, surely more of an effort should be made to encourage a bit more variety. At least the Ukrainian entry (the favourite) isn’t in english; now more than ever, we need to get behind Ukrainian culture, so that’s who I’ll be cheering on tonight.

With that said, I’m off to buy a bottle of Bacardi.

With Johnson now treating the British state like it’s his to play around with, acting like he and his party is above the law, it beggars belief why we’re not all up in arms demanding the jumped up piece of shit’s resignation.

A couple of days ago I began to ponder what London’s next big project could be. For the last twenty-five years or so, London has almost constantly had some kind of colossal project on: first there was the Millennium Dome, then the Olympics, and most recently Crossrail. There have been other projects, obviously, but those three got the most attention. Well, the Dome has been up and running for over twenty years; the Olympics were ten years ago, and the Lizzie-line is about to open; so what’s next?

And then the blindingly obvious hit me: before London does anything else, before it starts work on yet another crazy, sickeningly expensive scheme, it should first make sure all it’s existing tube stations and lines are wheelchair accessible. While newer lines like the Jubilee Line and DLR aren’t that bad, there are huge swathes of central London I still have never been to because the tube isn’t step free. I know they are working on it, for instance as part of the Northern Line renovation; but the process seems painstakingly slow. As a twenty-first century social, cultural and economic powerhouse, making a public transport system accessible by all should be London’s top priority.

The last twenty four hours or so have really served to remind me how much of a home London now is for me. First of all, sitting at home on my computer last night, I heard my doorbell ring. I had just got in from my daily trundle, and was answering emails and preparing for a quiet evening. I got up to answer the door, only to see my two old friends Mitchel and John. They were apparently in the area and had thought that would call in on me to see how I was. Because of the pandemic, it must have been over two years since I had last seen them. Well, the rest of the evening was spent taking, eating and drinking. It really was wonderful to see them. Mitch and I were both amazed at the fact that it has now been eight years since we went to see Monty Python Live; and John was just as bemused to note that it’s now three years since we returned from India. Time really does fly in the metropolis.

Then today, I was out on my trundle, heading across blackheath towards Greenwich . I had stopped to read an information board when a lady suddenly ran up to me. It turned out she was the very same person I had met and got chatting to on a bus about two weeks ago. A sculptor called Margaret Higginson, she had recognised me and had decided to say Hi. It made me feel suddenly very at home in the city, as if the metropolis isn’t so vast after all. Yet such things seem to be happening more and more these days: people recognising me in the street, or inviting me to have a coffee with them in a park. London really is a very welcoming, friendly place, once you get to know it.

I was getting slightly worked up over the Beergate farce, but this Phil Moorhouse vlog has given me pause for thought. The rightwing rags which now seem to dominate our print media seemed to be pouncing on Kier Starmer for having a beer with colleagues during lockdown, and calling him a hypocrite for criticising Boris Johnson over the parties he had in the Downing Street garden. Yet, as Moorhouse points out, that may turn out to be a colossal own goal on the part of the Tory press: they may want Starmer to resign, but the second he does, questions will start to be asked about why Johnson did not do the same. After all, a simple take-away with colleagues does not compare to the flagrant breaches of lockdown laws clearly committed by Johnson. As Moorhouse sees it, the Tory Press have handed Labour the high ground: they can now address the relatively minor misdemeanour they allegedly comittee, making Johnson and co. look pathetic in the process. That’s why the Tories are now trying to avoid talking about the issue. I really hope Moorhouse is right, and the obnoxious mudslinging of the right wing rags bites them on the arse.

I came across some news recently which could turn into something very, very interesting indeed. Disney is currently working on a film whose central character is a communication user with Cerebral Palsy. Called Out Of My Mind, it will be an adaptation of a book by Sharon M. Draper and directed by Amber Sealey. Details are rather sketchy as yet, but the girl Disney has cast to play the central role is herself an AAC user with CP: the film is apparently going to focus on her as she struggles to get a decent education at a mainstream school. That, of course, is something many, many young people with disabilities have been through, so it will be fascinating to see how Disney handle it. I daresay this film has the potential to be quite revolutionary. Mind you, by the same token it could suck donkeyballs. Only time will tell.

This, frankly, is a statement of the obvious. To be honest I don’t want to get into this ‘beergate’ farce for fear of getting myself too worked up. The tabloid press have cooked it up out of nothing whatsoever, and it has reached a point where the police are investigating. The way in which these rags have attacked and victimised Starmer, in an effort to divert heat away from Johnson, is utterly sickening. We shouldn’t have this rancid, blatantly biassed dross polluting our public political discourse.

I don’t feel I can say much today. What can I say, apart from that I am very encouraged by the election results. Of course I posted my vote off a week or so ago, and it now looks like the Tories have been given the slap in the face they deserve. Whether these results will translate into a shift at the next general election naturally remains to be seen; but it really was pitiful to watch all those smarmy tories on tv this morning trying to defend Johnson and tell us that things weren’t as bad for them as they looked. Surely this is a sign that the whole country has had enough of the Tories – London certainly has – and the sooner those p’tahks are booted from office, the better.

I saw this BBC report yesterday evening and, truth be told, it broke my heart. Ukrainian kids with severe disabilities are being abandoned in institutions, more or less being left to die. With everyone fleeing the country due to the war, no-one is staying to care for them. It is truly, truly chilling. As it says in the report, under the right circumstances these young people could thrive as well as any, but they’re now being left to fester. I’m afraid this is yet another often overlooked consequence of Russia’s barbarity. My response to this report hasn’t changed from when I saw it last night though: these young people should be evacuated to the UK or another country with adequate support systems immediately.

Today we learned that Crossrail/The Elisabeth Line will at last open later this month on the 24th, so I’d like to take this opportunity to put forward a bit of a theory, or more like a hunch. This year, of course, marks the interception of quite a few special occasions: not only will Crossrail open, but it is also the Platinum Jubilee and the tenth anniversary of the London 2012 Olympics. All of that sounds to me like a reasonable excuse for quite a good pissup at least. But how could this occasion be marked? Might it be used as the opportunity to announce the next actor to play a certain character we all get excited about? After all, events this summer are bound to take on a somewhat patriotic dimension: if I was producing a certain long running film franchise synonymous with the UK and even linked to royalty, I would see it as foolish not to capitalise.

Just a hunch, but we’ll have to wait and see.

I genuinely can’t believe that Johnson is so far up his own arse that he thinks he’s Churchill. Just how pretentious and arrogant can anyone get? He’s obviously desperately trying to appear statesmanly and bolster support ahead of the local elections, where it looks like he’ll be trounced.

Today, I’m informed, is Eid, the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but I don’t think it would really be appropriate for me to wish anyone Eid Mubarak. It’s not that I have anything against Islam in particular, and I certainly feel muslims have as much right to live in the UK as anyone else. It’s just that, as a committed atheist who has written so much about religion being such an oppressive, regressive force, it would be rather hypocritical to say those thoughts apply to some religions and not others. I deliberately did not wish anyone happy Christmas or Easter this year, my feelings about religion have grown so strong; it would be wrong for me to suddenly say ‘Eid Mubarak’, just because I want to appear tolerant and multicultural. At the same time I don’t want to seem intolerant or discriminatory, or say that I don’t hope our Muslim friends and neighbours enjoy the day. Of course everyone has every right to celebrate any religious festival they wish, as long as I have a right to call it an outdated, repressive, ultimately divisive form of social control.

It may have been one of the first things I came across this morning, but I just want to flag this up. It’s a Variety article about the struggle Barbara Broccoli now faces to recast James Bond. This is something I’ve been pondering quite a bit recently: how on earth are they going to replace Daniel Craig? Craig made such an impact on the franchise I think it’s a bigger ask than ever before. As the article says, the Bond franchise is arguably cinema’s greatest, longest lived phenomenon; culturally it is enormous. Even before Craig, it was unlike any other media franchise, but his five films took it to a new level. Craig added a gritty realism and depth to Bond unlike anything we had seen before. Frankly, I don’t see how he can be followed: whoever is cast, they will be starting from square one, trying to inhabit a character with greater cultural prominence than any other. The pressure to live up to their predecessors will be enormous. Part of me thinks it can’t be done and that they should leave the franchise there, but as Broccoli says that clearly isn’t an option. Either way I think it will be quite some time before we find out who will play 007 next.