I don’t think I have a choice but to direct everyone here, simply because it’s a piece of (American) political satire worthy of Ian Hislop himself!

I’m afraid this entry will have to be another medical update. I had intended to go up to the Rejoin march yesterday, but got delayed. Sunny as it was, I thought I’d take a walk along the river before heading to the protest. I went down to Greenwich before heading west. The Thames Path is mostly wide and flat. There are stretches of it, though, where it veers away from the riverbank and you have to follow it down back streets and alleyways, where the pavement can be neglected and uneven. I was following one of these paths early yesterday afternoon, just past Deptford, when my chair hit bump in the pavement and I fell out. Luckily some people were nearby to help me back in, but the arm of my glasses had broken off. I had hit my eye, but otherwise felt fine.

However, my specks were my main concern, as without the ability to see I can’t do anything. I caught the bus to North Greenwich, and then one to my opticians in Charlton. When I got there, they immediately saw something bad had just happened. My eye apparently looked bad, so they insisted upon calling an ambulance. While I waited, they kindly repaired my glasses.

When the ambulance guys came, there was not much they could do apart from clean my eye – nothing was cut. They checked me over, but after that there was nothing I could do but return home. I felt fine, even heading back out a bit later to get the tube to Westminster to see what remained of the protest, but I was too late.

All this just goes to show how much London needs to do something about these windy, neglected backstreets. I just got up, and when I looked in the mirror this morning I saw that I had the biggest black eye I have ever seen; it honestly looks like I was in a boxing match. But then, perhaps I have, and this is just my cover story….Trust me, you should have seen the other fella!

I wanted to go to a protest, but left it too late.
That’ll teach me not to wait.
When I got to Westminster, everyone had gone home,
So I was suddenly there all alone.
I really wanted to join the Rejoin march
Going down Whitehall and under Marble Arch.
But of such protests there will be more to come,
The campaign to Rejoin the EU has only just begun.

I think I need to flag this up, simply because it got me chuckling so much. It’s Mark Kermode’s review of Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s new film, and he absolutely hated it. In fact, Kermode says it is one of the worst films he has ever seen, but the way he rips into it, almost getting comically enthusiastic about how terrible it is, makes the review well worth watching.

I have caught myself doing something a bit odd recently. When I’m out and about, going along a high street say, and I hear a child call, I automatically look round and assume they’re shouting abuse at me. Of course, most of the time they’re just chatting with their friends; but my concern about these youngsters seems to have reacted a point where I just assume they are going to be nasty. I don’t know if I’m being paranoid or not, given how regularly these little shits do indeed think they’re being clever by mocking me. I probably am, but kids seem so abrupt and brazen these days that I inevitably feel a pang of concern whenever I’m around them. It just seems like a sad point to have reached, when just hearing a child shout puts me on edge, not just with respect to my own psyche but in terms of what it says about youth culture more generally.

I just came across this and felt compelled to nab it. It reflects my feelings on the matter entirely.

There is little more grotesque, politically, than Tory hypocrisy.

I really, really think anyone interested or concerned about world affairs and politics should watch this excellent Channel Four documentary about Donald Trump. It makes it perfectly clear just how unhinged and maniacal Trump is. Frankly, I find it baffling that America is even considering such a dangerous, unstable person; the prospect of such an arrogant, small minded megalomaniac regaining the world’s most powerful political position is genuinely frightening.

Perhaps the biggest thing I took away from yesterday is that I have to get out of London more often. As epic as it is, for the last fourteen years the metropolis has been virtually my entire world, and I have sort of forgotten that there are other equally fascinating places to discover. I’m not quite sure how it came about, but yesterday morning Dom made a suggestion: why not spend the afternoon down in Brighton?

Naturally my reply was “Why not?” Spending some time at the seaside would be cool. Dom had some stuff to do down there, but he suggested that I came with him, just for a change of scenery. Thus, early yesterday afternoon, I got the tube to London Bridge, re-meeting Dom there before getting the train to Brighton. It was only a short journey, and in about an hour we were on the coast, walking down to the sea.

I instantly felt the difference: the architecture was so different, and things already felt far more laid back. We grabbed a quick lunch in a Wetherspoons before heading on to the beach. There, slightly to my surprise, Dom left me for an hour or so, saying he had something to do. That meant I was left to explore the seafront on my own, which was rather cool: there was so much going on, as well as so many interesting pieces of history. One thing which particularly caught my eye was a long line of old arches towards the eastern end of the promenade. Called Madeira Terrace, they are a series of about thirty to forty green cast iron Victorian archways. They had obviously been left to deteriorate for some time, but from what I read on the nearby information boards, they will soon be renovated.

Even more interestingly, towards the eastern end of the terrace, I found some kind of bar or music venue, from where I heard some cool music being played. Naturally I went to investigate, and was told that a Guns And Roses tribute band would be playing there later in the evening. Watching them would obviously be awesome, but by then it was time to go find Dom again.

A while later, I found him where we had agreed to meet. I told him about the Guns and Roses gig, but ultimately we agreed that, given we had to get the train home at about nine, it wouldn’t be worth the entrance fee. The rest of the evening was spent enjoying another beer on the beachfront, before getting the train back to London. It had been a very cool afternoon: naturally I thought of all the times I went to Brighton with Lyn, particularly this one, which now seem so long ago. Ultimately, though, it just reinforced my desire to get out of London a bit more – staying here week in, week out gets a bit much after a while. It’s time to see other parts of the country, and indeed the world.

The problem with the guys from Monty Python is, you never quite know when they’re joking. I’ve recently been reading a lot of guff in the news about how John Cleese has supposedly fallen out with Eric Idle: they seem to be rowing about the appointment of Terry Gilliam’s daughter as Python Manager. The thing is, I don’t think it’s really clear whether they are having a proper, full-blown row, or whether they are just being sarcastic and calling each other names in the jocular-yet-intelligent way they always have. Is the bitterness real, or merely a pretence?

Of course, the print press seems to be reporting it as a major dispute between the two men, as if they now genuinely loathe eachother: Yet, it may be my imagination, but I can’t help detecting a touch of humour in their tweet exchanges, as if they are just trying to wind everyone up by exchanging insults. In many of the interviews the Pythons have done together, they often take the mickey out of one another- this apparent dispute is probably just an extension of that playful, feigned animosity. After all, I refuse to believe that two such highly intelligent men and lifelong friends could fall out over something so insignificant. Mind you, if that is the case, then either the press has been resoundingly duped, or are deliberately trying to make things seem more dramatic and fractious than they really are.

More to the point, though, I can’t help wondering: if the Python guys are having financial issues again, could it give rise to them doing another live show, as it did in 2014?

I’m a member of two or three James Bond themed pages on Facebook. Last night, on one of them I came across a reference to some kind of 007 shop in an arcade off Piccadilly. This naturally pricked my interest, and today I decided to go check it out. Getting there would be easy enough, as it looked like it was only a short walk from Green Park station.

Indeed it was. I must say, though, I’m not sure I’ll go that way again in some time: Piccadilly is teeming with toffee nosed snobs who think nothing of stepping right in front of me, and then accusing me of going too fast. And when I found the arcade, Burlington Arcade, I was staggered by the sheer opulence: it was like stumbling upon some kind of alternate reality where everyone was a billionaire.

The good news is that the arcade itself is wheelchair accessible. That slightly surprised me to be honest, as those old Victorian arcades in central London often have steps into them. However, it seems that a ramp had been built into the old steps. That was where the encouraging part ended, as none of the shops in the arcade were fit for wheelchair users – the doors were too narrow.

Sadly, this also went for the shop I had come to check out: from the outside, it looked like it was chock full of cool Bond memorabilia, and I even heard the theme from Goldeneye playing in the background. There were so many lavish 007-related pieces of merchandise it looked awesome. But I quickly saw that there was no way I could get in, let alone negotiate the three floors that the shop occupied. There was nothing I could do but look through the windows at all the model Aston Martins and Golden Guns.

After a few minutes of this, one of the members of staff from the shop came out and asked if I was okay. Naturally I replied that I was, so he asked if I wanted a drink. There were a few tables outside the store which customers could sit at.

Temptation suddenly shot through the glass roof above me: a martini there would surely be fantastic. I began to type that I would love a vesper, but then realised that he wasn’t offering it for free. At that point I asked the price, and was told it would cost £24. Given too that it was only 2pm, and I had yet to nagivate my way home, I quickly changed my mind, declined the offer and went on my way.

In all, then, it was a redundant, disappointing trip. But, as a Bond fan, at least I now know where the shop is, ready to return when my thirst for a decent martini grows too much.

After what I saw earlier, I’m starting to get concerned about scooters. By scooter, I mean the four wheeled mobility aids with handlebars usually used by old people, rather than the skateboards with handlebars kids ride instead of bikes (although the electric versions of them are also becoming quite dangerous). I was in Woolwich again earlier, going along the high street at my usual steady pace, when all of a sudden, two or three scooters zipped past me. Something had obviously been done to them, as no mobility aid should ever have been going that fast. They were being driven by young men, who I would guess were in their twenties. I only caught a fleeting glimpse, but the way they hurtled down a busy high street, far faster than I have ever gone in my powerchair, struck me as extremely dangerous. They had obviously souped up the scooters and were riding them for fun. As someone who needs his powerchair to get around, I really hope this isn’t the start of a ridiculous new trend.

Say you’re out and about in your powerchair, trundling peacefully along. You have decided it’s time to head home, so you’re heading towards the entrance to a DLR station. All of a sudden, however, you go down a step which you didn’t see: it isn’t very big, nothing is damaged, but the jolt is enough to bring you to a halt, wondering why the blazes you didn’t see the drop coming. Then, some random woman who apparently saw the incident chimes up with the words “Careful, there’s a step!” She delivers these words so dryly and with such a lack of irony that surely the only possible response you or anyone else could give is “No shit!”

I think I’ll just vent about this here, mostly because I don’t know who to contact to complain about it properly. In Woolwich there is a large screen in a public square, General Gordon Square, where people can gather and watch public events. I think it was construction for the 2012 Olympics, and has been there ever since. I often pass through the square on my way to Woolwich town centre or the Elizabeth line station. When it isn’t showing any particular event, it usually just screens the BBC news channel, which I think is sensible enough.

The last two times I’ve gone that way, however, I have noticed it showing sky news instead. Now, I have no idea why it made the change or who decided it should change, but it really riles me up. The BBC is a widely respected broadcaster, renowned the world over for its objectivity and impartiality; Sky is not. Sky just churns out commercial pap, designed to exploit its viewers. I find it sickening, frankly,  that anyone in Woolwich would want to make such a switch, or think that people there should be watching a repugnant Murdoch-owned tool rather than one of the world greatest news agencies. I know that this might seem silly, but the two channels are by no means equal, and letting Sky, the company responsible for the general degradation of British broadcasting, screen in the square where we should be watching the BBC gives it a gravitas it does not deserve.

You know that life is truly awesome and that you live in a wonderful city, when you’re out and about, trundling along in your powerchair, and you turn a corner to see four men dressed as medieval knights in full armour, riding horses and carrying lances. That’s exactly what happened to me yesterday afternoon: I was pootling along in my powerchair, and I thought I’d go past Eltham Palace and down King John’s path. It’s a pleasant route I take fairly often as the path runs between large, ancient fields on either side. There are often horses grazing in the fields, and there is a fantastic view across London.

Yesterday, though, something unusual was going on. I could hear something was afoot as I approached the path: crowds cheering and a man speaking over a tannoy. Then, as I turned the corner into the footpath, I found four horses in front of me, each with a guy in full shining armour riding it. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, but instantly decided it was something to blog about. The ‘knights’ were being lead towards one of the fields, where I could hear a crowd had formed.

I had obviously stumbled across some kind of event. Following the horses, as I got closer to the field I could see there were a lot of children in the crowd. This was obviously some kind of medieval-themed jousting show run by Eltham Palace. Interestingly, you can tell that jousting actually took place there because one of the nearby roads is called Tilt Yard Approach; I just didn’t expect to encounter it yesterday.

I didn’t go into the field because I didn’t want to get my chair muddy, and from the path I couldn’t see too much so I didn’t stay long. From the sound of things, though, people were having great fun, with crowds cheering, trumpets sounding and hooves thudding. After a few minutes I continued on my walk, remarking to myself how incredible it was to suddenly come across a medieval jousting tournament.

You might be why I posted such a grim entry yesterday, and why I went into so much detail over it – why not just keep such matters to myself? The thing is, I knew I’d have to tell my parents about what happened on Thursday somehow. That means I would need to email them, message them over Facebook, or video chat to them. All three methods would cause them to worry, and I probably wouldn’t be able to explain myself fully without getting interrupted or sidetracked. If I blogged about what happened, however, I could explain myself fully in prose, outlining all the details. The downside to that, of course, is that Mum and Dad would only get to know what happened when they read my blog, which I admit is pretty a cold and impersonal way of finding out your son had been run over by a car; the advantage is that I could also show the entry to whoever else I needed to, making explaining far quicker. More broadly, such entries also give readers in general an idea of the kinds of things people like me go through fairly regularly.

As it is, the blog entry proved to be a great help. Upon the advice of several people, I went back to the hospital yesterday to get my foot checked. It was a long, slow afternoon sat waiting in A+E. I wasn’t an urgent case, so all I could do was sit there, fiddling with my Ipad for about four hours. I’ve never been more pleased to have Wifi, frankly, although at one point I found myself reflecting that hospital waiting rooms should have bars, they’re such grim, depressing places.

When I did eventually get seen, at around four after arriving at about midday, things happened remarkably quickly: I was taken to a room, the nurse took my details, took my shoe and sock off and at last examined my foot. I showed her my blog entry so that she had a clear idea of what happened. I was then taken to have it X-Rayed, which I must admit was rather fun. Then, after a bit more waiting, I was taken back to see the nurse to be told that nothing was wrong with my foot, nothing was broken and I was free to go home.

To tell the truth, my foot feels fine this morning. I can walk as normally as I ever do. A day sitting in my chair, resting it yesterday probably helped. Even so, it was worth going to check it out. The NHS may be at breaking point, overused and understaffed, but we should all be bloody grateful that it is there. That I can get into such scrapes and be able to go and get myself checked over, without having to worry about paying, is frankly the very definition of a modern, civilised society. It may have taken an entire afternoon, but it was good to be reminded how great the NHS is.

Mind you, it’s also good to be able to blog about such things, getting my thoughts out onto the internet – it makes explaining stuff so much easier.

Perhaps I better post this on here, just so everyone knows what happened. I’m fine, slept well, but I’m still in quite a bit of pain. I was out in my powerchair yesterday, coming back from Lewisham. Ir was getting late, so I thought I’d head up into Eltham to get supplies for the evening before coming home. To do so, though, I needed to cross this dual road/carriageway, which doesn’t have any kind of pedestrian crossing. The curb is lowered there, so you’re obviously supposed to cross at that point, but there are neither lights nor a zebra crossing. I waited ages for the cars to stop for me, and when they finally did I started to cross. I made it across the first lane and started to cross the second, but then a car darted in front of me, from my right to left.

Had I been just a few centimetres further across the road things would have been far, far worse. However, the car caught my left foot which was sticking out in front of my footplate. I felt an excruciating pain as it went over my toes. I was dragged from my chair. I yelled out in agony.

Fortunately the traffic stopped: a few drivers got out of the cars, asked if I was ok and helped me back into my chair. They didn’t seem very concerned however, and nobody called an ambulance. I was in intense pain, so typing into my Ipad was hard. They helped me finish crossing the road, and set me on my way.

My foot hurt so much that I thought I better get it looked at. I went up the hill to the small NHS surgery in Eltham, but was told they don’t handle Accidents and Emergencies there, so I caught the bus to the hospital. Fortunately the pain was steadily easing, so I surmised my toes couldn’t be broken. I still thought it best to get it looked at.

Twenty minutes or so later, I was at the hospital. They took my name, date of birth etc and I was escorted to A and E. There I waited and waited. Fortunately they have a decent wifi network so I was able to update Serkan using my ipad, but even so as evening drew in I grew anxious to get home for dinner: I was tired, hungry and still in considerable pain. After about an hour or so of waiting, I decided to tell one of the staff my concerns, only to be told I would have to wait another three hours to be seen. At that I decided to go home – broken or not, there wouldn’t be much they could do for my foot anyway.

At the moment I’m ok; walking is still rather painful though. I’ll take it easy for the next few days as my foot is rather tender. I find it slightly ironic, however, that the day on which Starmer said that the NHS had to ‘reform or die’ was the day I visited a hospital, only to find it so busy that I gave up and went home. I just wanted someone to take my shoe and sock off, and check my foot was ok. As it was, Serkan checked it when he got here yesterday evening, and couldn’t see any bruising. Yesterday was quite an awful day, although I’m relieved it wasn’t far worse.

In all, I think it’s fair to say that I found the four ceremonies of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games a little if not gravely disappointing. I was expecting so much, yet got relatively little. This, after all, is the city of light, the city of love, and the city of art. I had high hopes of witnessing something jaw dropping, but in the end I’m afraid to say my jaw remained firmly in place. In 2012, London gave us moments we all still remember, or at least were thinking about for a long time after: moments like Bond meeting the queen, or Eric Idle getting shot out of a cannon before singing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. Moments which leave us collectively spellbound. Think too of Brian May thrashing out the national anthem from the top of Buckingham Palace, or Stephen Hawking singing the Galaxy Song – while they did not have anything to do with the Olympics, they were similarly awe-inspiring: Iconic cultural moments which had us all collectively asking “How the zark did they make that happen?”

Yet I can’t remember seeing any such moments in Paris this year. Of course I could be wrong, and I would be happy to be corrected, but to my mind we didn’t see anything really spectacular or phenomenal this year. I can’t help feeling rather disappointed about that. I had such high hopes and expectations, but in the end all four ceremonies seemed rather dull and uninspiring. That is not to say that I found them bad, just lacking the je ne sais quoi I was kind of hoping for and expecting. Paris was centre stage for the first time in a century; it had the world’s attention. To be honest it could probably have done so much more.

In a way, you could argue that Paris 2024 was more of a sequel to London 2012 than the games of Rio or Tokyo were. That is, there is more of a direct comparison. Rio 2016 had huge financial issues; and, of course, the Tokyo 2020 games were badly affected by Covid. Then there’s the fact that both London and Paris are cosmopolitan European capitals, renowned for their glamour. Thus, like many others, I think last night we saw the French follow up to London.

The thing is, for me, there is no comparison: I live in London, and lived here in 2012. I have firsthand experience of the games; I remember what it felt like to be here in 2012; I even still remember what it was like with Lyn and the Paraorchestra as they waited backstage, before going out to play before the city, country, and entire world. How can I possibly compare what I experienced that night twelve years ago with what I watched on my computer screen, interrupted by adverts, last night? For me, the two are entirely different.

That said, last night our French friends put on a bloody good show. As others are saying, the Paris 2024 paralympics were every bit as good as the London games were in terms of disability inclusion, and foregrounding disability rights. I thought some of the dancing in the ceremony was phenomenal. Of course, I was rather disappointed not to see a full blown French Paraorchestra – they really missed a trick there. The inclusion of Jean-Michelle Jarre was cool, and made me naturally think of Lyn, although thanks to the ad breaks I couldn’t really appreciate it.

Thus, Paris 2024 has come to a close, and the baton has been handed to LA. I still wish I could have gone to Paris during the games this summer, to experience it just as I experienced London 2012, but c’est la vie. Now we have Los Angeles to look forward to, and I’m already fascinated to see how the Americans will put on their paralympics.

There is pretty much just one question on my mind today: are we going to see a French Paraorchestra in tonight’s Paralympic Closing Ceremony? I think it would be fascinating if we do. What will it look like? Might it replicate the British Paraorchestra’s performance in 2012, or could it be more emphatically French? Cripples wearing berets playing accordions?

Needless to say, you can expect my review/reaction to the ceremony here tomorrow.

Returning to American politics today, I think everyone even remotely concerned about disability rights need to watch this. It’s a fairly short documentary highlighting Donald Trump’s attitude to his grand-nephew, who is severely disabled. We all know Trump’s a prick, but if you want an idea of just watch a despicable disgrace to human civilisation he is, you need to watch this. Surely someone who advises his own relatives to let their disabled son die is categorically unfit for any political office.

Upon John’s suggestion, I went to see Kneecap yesterday. I had never heard of it, but from the trailer and review John showed me it looked very interesting. It is a semi-fictional account of a band in Northern Ireland which performs rap/hip hop in Gaelic. They do so to ‘keep the language alive’.

As I rode the bus home last night, I remember thinking to myself that to write any kind of thorough review or exploration of Kneecap would inevitably have to go into the vast, complex history of Ireland. To be honest I didn’t find the film unproblematic: it seemed to me to emphasise Irish victimhood. That is, it went out of it’s way to depict how bad the British were, and how great the young rappers were in fighting against oppression. According to the film, the UK police are nothing but blundering, violent thugs. In reality, the central protagonists are two able bodied, white, straight young men born after the troubles. Their contention that trauma and hardship could somehow be inherited from their parents or ancestors struck me as abjectly idiotic. They, and the film itself, seemed to want to rebel, when they had nothing to rebel against; they were not being oppressed, nobody was trying to eliminate their language. It’s a common trait these days: everyone claims to be an activist, even the most privileged people in society.

It’s slight one-sidedness aside, Kneecap is definitely worth a watch. It’s an exploration of an area of our culture we see very little of. The fact that the events it depicts are more or less true make it even more interesting. I just wish it was slightly more balanced.

According to this video which I found earlier, cricket is fast gaining popularity in the USA. To be honest that came as quite a shock to me; I had always assumed that Americans preferred their own sports like Baseball and American Football. Yet largely due to immigration from India and Pakistan, cricket seems to be undergoing something of a resurgence on the other side of the pond. Mind you, I’d be willing to bet good money that this is because of the rise in the shorter, faster formats of the sport. Can you imagine one of our American friends sitting through a full five day test match?

I don’t have much on it yet, but I’m currently working on a concept I’m calling Realcrips. For some time I have been thinking about a way to differentiate between people like myself, who were born with disabilities and who grew up around other disabled people; and the growing numbers of people who seem increasingly eager to define themselves as disabled for political purposes, despite having never previously done so, or the fact that they will never have faced any of the hardship or discrimination people with severe physical disabilities face throughout our lives. Such people weren’t forced to go to special schools, have never been mocked or stared at by kids in the street, and are perfectly able to care for themselves, yet seem to like the sociopolitical aura of being defined as disabled.

Of course, I realise how contentious such a demarcation will be, and so far I’m struggling to think of anything even remotely academically rigorous. After all, people can become disabled at any point in their lives; and disabilities aren’t just physical, but can be psychological or neurological, and can take a vast range of forms. As I wrote here, however, it just seems to me that guys like me are gradually being pushed out of our own minority, our political voices usurped by people who know nothing of what we go through. Whereas it was obvious that I have a physical disability from my birth, just as it was clear that my school friends were disabled usually from their infancy, people seem to now be identifying as disabled for more and more tenuous reasons, at least in part simply for the political cache. Thus, from now on, I’m not just a cripple but a Realcrip.

This might be slightly lazy blogging, but today I just want to reiterate what I wrote a year or so ago here. My aversion to schoolchildren seems to be getting worse. These days, whenever I’m out and about and catch sight of a group of teenagers, I automatically feel the same fear, the same dread that I’m about to be taunted or mocked. In fact I think it’s getting worse. Last night, on my way home, I had some trouble from a group of girls up at North Greenwich station; and today, I was on a bus earlier when I had a group of teenagers around me, looking down and sneering. Kids seem to be getting progressively cockier and more big headed. I know I should just ignore them, but it seems utterly unfair that I should have to put up with being looked down upon by a kid who is younger than my blog.

I was on the bus earlier today, en route to what turned out to be a lovely lunch with my family, when I noticed a new sign above the exit door. It encouraged passengers to shout thanks to the driver in whatever way they liked as they left the bus. The examples the sign gave included “Thanks driver.” “Cheers.” or “Ta.” I have, of course, noticed my fellow Londoners shouting similar things as they get off busses – it’s sort of the local custom, usually in their thick London accents – yet I hadn’t seen anything overtly encouraging it. It made me wonder whether I should start doing so too, but how? It was then that I had one of my amusing ideas: Perhaps I should start shouting the Klingon word “Qa’pla!” at the driver as I get off busses. “Qa’pla” technically means “Success!” but it can be used as a way to thank someone. The bus drivers won’t know that of course, but, then again, most of the time they won’t understand what I’m saying anyway. That, then, is what I plan to do from now on. After all, what’s wrong with introducing a bit more Klingon into your daily life?