Having just caught up with the evening news, I think I need to reiterate what I wrote here. I seriously believe that the Tory party needs to be broken up and disbanded, more than ever after today. The last few weeks has been an utter farce politically; the world is laughing at us, and now Truss has gone and the Tories need to elect a new leader, things can only get even more stretched out and silly. We’re being lead by a group of idiots with no idea how to govern a country, yet think they were born to do so. At the very least we need a general election, as that would be the only way that the country could have any confidence in any government. Otherwise, it would be a case of a deeply unpopular, thoroughly discredited laughing stock of a party clinging to power with no real right to.

This total car crash would be hilarious if it wasn’t so infuriating.

I just have a web-related query today. I’m a big fan of google maps. I think I’ve written on here before about how I like to use the website to explore places I’ve never been, and get to know more of the geography of the world. Streetview is sometimes a nice surrogate for my daily trundles, particularly when I can’t actually get out and about due to the weather. A couple of days ago though, I found I could no longer use my keyboard’s arrow keys to get around the map. I found it easier to move the map up, down, left and right with my keyboard than with my rollerball, but the keys no longer did anything. Plus and minus to zoom in and out didn’t work either. It was quite perplexing. I was using Google Chrome but, oddly, I found the keys still did what they were told in the standard Mac browser. Does anyone know anything about this, or how I can put it right? How I hate it when these irritating little bugs crop up.

Putting my media critic hat on, I think I need to flag this intriguing bit of analysis by Steve Shives up. In this Youtube video, Shives begins to outline some of the issues when it comes to narrative structure in modern streaming. He points out that the advent of streaming platforms/websites like Netflix around ten years ago has brought about a change in how fictional series are now structured: they’re still episodic, as they were/are on traditional TV, but on streaming services, narratives seem to be far more drawn out and stretched, so that a story which may have traditionally been told over five episodes is now drawn out over ten. Shives goes into some detail about how this works, drawing a comparison between the structure of such series and the structure of music albums, outlining how both work to gradually coax the reactions of the audience.

What interests me about this is it is the first bit of such analysis I’ve come across: of course, I did lots about narrative structure back at uni, but that dealt mostly with the structure of traditional, established texts like books and films. For the most part, they both use self-contained narratives. Now that streaming has come about, the structures filmmakers are using for the series they are making for websites like Netflix are changing; they’re becoming much more drawn out, often slower in the middle. In a way, it has caused quite a radical shift in film and TV texts as they adapt to new ways of consuming film such as online viewing and binge-watching. To my knowledge, not much has been written, academically, about this change (although I haven’t been anywhere near a university library in years) so it’s very interesting indeed to see a Youtube user start to articulate and explore the way in which online streaming is starting to change things like narrative structure.

Something rather weird cropped up earlier this morning. My friend John is currently back in Poland. He drew my attention to the photo below over Facebook. It has apparently appeared in a book by Japanese artist Aki Onda, and was taken in Sokolowsko a couple of years ago. That must have been when Lyn and I were there, although I can’t say I remember anything about it.

I was thinking about religion again yesterday. As atheists we usually just accept a given religion as simply a different way to view the world: everyone has a right to think or believe what they like, no matter how flawed we may find it. Yet when we frame religion as being a form of social control which uses a set of myths as a source of authority, and which is used to dictate to people what they should think and how they should behave, then religion becomes something which should be overtly opposed and combatted. In America especially, Christianity has become a political force used to dominate people: the threat of God or Hell is used by self-proclaimed preachers to force others to submit to their views. Such views are often very intolerant and right wing. That’s why I feel we should now be more active in opposing religion: it can no longer simply be accepted as just another aspect of social diversity, but needs to be openly challenged and spoken against.

At the end of the day, no matter how friendly or fatherly a priest may try to appear, say, he is using a set of myths and dogmas to assume almost the same authority as an elected politician. He cannot allow such dogmas to be questioned or challenged, but through them he grants himself the right to give others weekly lectures on how to live their lives and what attitudes to adopt. This has been going on for centuries. If these preachers were using any other set of myths to be so dominant and controlling, no doubt they would just be ignored or regarded as mentally ill; but because christianity has been part of our culture for so long, their assumed authority goes unchallenged. Priests, cardinals or bishops are even often asked onto political programs on TV to talk alongside politicians and scientists and given the same type of esteem, even though they did nothing to earn it.

Isn’t it time that we, as a society, put an end to this? In any modern community, authority is either earned democratically in the case of politicians, or through years of study and training in the case of doctors and teachers. Yet religious preachers assume a similar degree of social authority simply by invoking a set of myths, most of which have been shown, academically, to be nonsense. That’s why I have begun to view religion as oppressive and as something to be spoken out against. Those who defend it and say religion shouldn’t be criticised simply do so to preserve it’s – and thus their – authority. As I wrote here, street preachers should be asked to move on and keep their doctrines to their selves, as I particularly object to the way they force their dogma onto others. In other words, we should be active in our opposition. Religion holds too much cultural authority when it should be seen as the manifestly oppressive form of social control it so obviously is.

This sign has appeared somewhere in America. The thought that it is the most powerful country on Earth is enough to make me despair.

To be honest it has been quite a crazy, yet ultimately very pleasant, twenty four hours or so. My parents are currently in London, staying, as they often do, at the old family place up in Harlesden. Three or four days ago, they arranged to visit me here in Eltham today. The thing is, whenever my parents visit I get nervous, as they, being my parents, get rather critical about the state of my flat. Lying in bed on Wednesday night, however, I had a pretty wild idea: if I went to see them the day before, I could beat them to it. We could all see each other and they wouldn’t need to come here. After all, it’s only a tube and bus ride away – not hard to get there at all.

That, then, is what I did, setting off after brunch yesterday. My plan was to go and surprise my parents, spend the afternoon with them, and be back here in time for dinner. The looks on my mum or dad’s faces when they opened their front door would be priceless. Fool that I am, of course, I forgot that, as people too, my parents may have their own plans, and weren’t necessarily going to be in when I got there; yet I put that to the back of my mind as I rode the Jubilee line to Kilburn. As a ‘Step free from platform to street’ stop, rather than a completely step free stop, part of my reason for going on the entire trip was that I wanted to see how easily it was to arrange for access there.

Fortunately, I’m happy to say it worked without a hitch: a man was waiting for me at Kilburn station with a ramp, and pretty soon I was trying to look for the right bus stop to get on the bus I needed. Then, after a while, I was on a bus being taken to the North London house once owned by my grandparents and which I first knew as an infant.

It was then that things got slightly silly. Rolling up to the door, I rang the bell, and waited….and waited….and waited. It slowly began to dawn on me that no one was in, and that I had made the entire silly trip for nothing. Part of me – the sensible part – wanted to just give up and head home: if I set off then, I would probably be back in time for the evening news, not to mention Serkan and dinner. Yet I have a foolish streak which can also be very stubborn, so I decided to wait, telling myself that my parents could be back from wherever they had been at any moment. Crossing the quiet little cul-de-sac to find some shade, I tapped yesterday’s blog entry into my Ipad. An hour or so passed.

This was getting silly, I decided. Perhaps if I could get a web connection I could contact Mum to ask where they were, so I asked a friendly lady passing by whether anywhere in that area had a wifi network. She kindly suggested a pub a few hundred metres down the road, so I set off towards it, hoping for a happy conclusion to an afternoon which was becoming a bit embarrassing.

Finding the pub, but avoiding the temptation to have a beer, they kindly connected me to the web. I tried to contact my mum, but frustratingly got no answer. I waited there about half an hour, fast realising that perhaps today wasn’t such a good idea, before going back to try the doorbell one last time…

You should have seen the look on my father’s face when he opened that door! His disabled middle son had appeared totally out of the blue, inexplicably rolling his powerchair across London to see them, having given them absolutely no warning that he was coming. My parents had only just got in from an afternoon in central London, and were just settling down to a quiet cup of tea. Nonetheless, Dad invited me in, helping me out of my powerchair.

My plan had been to just spend an hour or two with my parents, before heading home. They, of course, had other ideas: heading back across London at that time – rush hour near enough – would be absurd. That’s how I came to be eating dinner with them and then spending the night. Mum being mum, she instantly started to cook extra food and making a bed for me to sleep in. I know they’re my parents, but their warmth and generosity struck my heart.

It turned out to be a lovely, quiet, family evening like the ones I knew growing up: we ate dinner together, watched TV and went to bed. Of course, now connected to the house wifi network, I messaged Serkan to tell him he didn’t have to come. Sat there in that old family house, I suddenly felt a great warmth, as though I was being told that, no matter how chaotic or uncertain things get, my family will always open the door to me. That feeling was well worth the journey yesterday.

In the end, I suppose my plot failed. This morning after a night in Harlesden, my parents came back to Eltham with me, visiting just as they had planned. Yet it was nice to travel back with them, and lovely to have them here; I shouldn’t have got so uptight about them nit-picking. As it was, Serkan had given the place a thorough clean, so it was pretty spotless. We spent a lovely couple of hours together here, having a great lunch at a local pub, before they set off back. It had been great to see me, my parents said, and I’m free to visit them, only next time, it would probably be better to tell them I’m coming.

I suppose I have begun to refer to people as insults or embarrassments to humanity quite haphazardly recently.  It’s my favourite insult when it comes to scoundrels who I feel nothing but contempt for. I know that if I use it too much though, it would loose its meaning and impact. Yet when it comes to someone like Alex Jones, I think most people would agree that it certainly applies. Here we have a man who assumed he had a right to shout his head off on American radio, about how he thought one of the worst, most sickening school shootings in history was a hoax, staged to strengthen the argument for greater gun control. In doing so, he branded dozens of grieving parents, who were already going through unimaginable suffering, liars without a shred of evidence or justification . If he had a shred of honour, Jones would be on his knees begging those people to forgive him; yet he is now claiming that his freedom of speech has been violated, as though he is some kind of victim, and promising to not pay the money he now owes. Sometimes you have to wonder how we, as a civilisation 200,000 years old, can allow such despicable, contemptible people to rise to such prominence.

Having just watched a shortened version of PMQs, at which Truss blatantly refused to answer any question put to her but just hit back at Starmer with baseless, idiotic accusations, this seems more apt than ever.

Seriously, Truss needs to go: she has no idea what she’s doing or how to govern a country, but is just interested in scoring points over the opposition. We need a Prime Minister actually capable of leading.

Why do people still think they need to beg in a city like London? I hope that I don’t sound uncompassionate or heartless here,  but this is something I’m genuinely curious, indeed concerned, about. Whenever I go to somewhere like Woolwich or Stratford, in the pedestrian areas there are frequently one or two people begging for money. They either kneel on the street, hands outstretched in a pitiful pose; or, more troubling for me, limp up to people, cap in hand, as though they have some kind of disability. If they were disabled, I would very much hope they would be entitled to the same benefits I am. As a modern, twenty first century state, the UK has support structures in place to ensure that those who need help get it. I live as comfortably as I do thanks largely to such support. 

I thus genuinely don’t get why there are still disabled people who feel they need to beg for money in the street. Do they not know about the support they are probably entitled to? Or is it all an act, and they just pretend to be disabled to get pity? To be honest as abhorrent and cynical as that idea is, and as loathe as I am to accuse anyone of faking their disability, I think it’s a distinct possibility. They don’t seem to have any conventional disabilities that I recognise, but walk around with heavily emphasised limps which could probably be easily put on. Yet that would imply that disabled people are still objects of pity, and that being disabled is still seen as something to be looked down upon and helped. I find that deeply, deeply troubling, both in that it implies that I might still be pitied, and by the fact that people might be exploiting the idea of being disabled to scrounge money which they have not earned. As a disabled man, I am proud of who I am and what I have achieved. The notion that someone might imitate me in order to attract pity or charity is, frankly, highly insulting.