Cheeky and childish though it is, I’m pretty sure I won’t be the only person to think this. I just saw on the breakfast news that there has been a charity concert in California, to raise funds to repair the damage caused by the wildfires there. “Stars including Billie Eilish, Pink, Katy Perry, Nirvana and Dr Dre performed at FireAid on Thursday, a benefit concert in Los Angeles to help the area recover from two of the largest fires in its history.” It sounds pretty awesome, but I have to admit that the first thing which popped into my head was to wonder whether anyone played this, causing me to chuckle into my breakfast.

My mum and dad popped over this morning. It was a lovely little visit, spent chatting over some coffee and toasted sandwiches made with my brilliant new toastie maker. My parents visit every few weeks or so, and it’s always good to see them. I know I have probably said something like this on here before, but once again I can’t help reflecting that if someone had told my teenage self that I would one day be living independently in south east London, and that mum and dad would be periodically visiting for coffee, I wouldn’t have believed them. Back then I just assumed I would always be living with them, effectively never having grown up. Now, instead of being reliant on my parents, they now visit me for morning coffee just as they occasionally visit my brothers, and just as any other parents might drop in on their forty-something-batchelor-son.

I thus take great pride in having got to where I have, living on my own in one of the world’s greatest cities like any other Londoner. More to the point, by writing this, tapping it into my iPad sat in Greenwich Park, I hope I can tell young people in similar positions to the one I was in that it would be wrong of them to assume that their futures are somehow limited, and that they can achieve anything they put their mind to. It might have only been a fairly regular coffee morning with my parents, but at the same time, in the context of the timid young man I once was, it is in a way also rather significant.

As a Londoner who also loves to travel, I have of course been keeping an eye on whether or not Heathrow will get a third runway. Heathrow is the other side of London to where I live, so it won’t effect me on a day to day basis; yet I think I’m broadly in favour of the idea. London is a constantly expanding world city which perpetually needs new investment. Anything which could entice that investment here is surely a good thing, especially as we compete ever more vigorously with other European economic hubs like Paris and Berlin. However, I must also say that this is surely another example of London getting all the expensive new infrastructure while the rest of the country goes without. Looking at the plans, this new runway won’t be cheap. But this comes just two years or so after London got a brand-spanking-new tube line costing billions of pounds. To be honest the imbalance between London and the rest of the country seems to be getting ever more unfair, so before the new runway gets built at Heathrow, I’d like to see some equally bold projects unveiled for other UK cities and towns.

Today we mark the eightieth anniversary of history’s most horrific, horrifying crime. It is of course vitally important that we continue to commemorate it, lest we risk it happening again, although I’m not sure there’s that much I can say about it. However, I will say this: I’m sure that I’m not alone in feeling deeply unsettled by the fact that this commemoration comes during a time when the leaders of the homeland set up for the jewish people in the aftermath of the holocaust, seem to be acting towards the Palestinians with exactly the same venomous bigotry which the Nazis once showed to them. That now includes strongly backing Trump’s plan to forcibly resettle tens of thousands of people living in Gaza into other neighbouring Middle-Eastern states – if that isn’t ethnic cleansing, I don’t know what is.

Nor can I be the only person to feel great unease at the fact that this is also a time when the United States, one of the Allied Nations which fought so stridently to end the tyranny of fascism, is itself swiftly gliding towards that very darkness. As we watch the commemoration events on our televisions today then, it is very difficult not to reflect that, if we are truly serious about not repeating the depravities of eighty years ago, we must be ever more conscious of what is happening at the moment.

Frankly, even after only his first week back in office, this is pretty much spot on.

Trump has already sank so low, it is sickening to contemplate the depths he might drag America down to over the next four years.

Something rather interesting, and more than a little problematic, has just come to my attention. I didn’t watch The Traitors for the most part as that kind of reality TV doesn’t really appeal to me, but I caught glimpses of it. I watched the finale last night over a few beers. In the follow-up coverage this morning, though, it was mentioned that one of the finalists, a guy called Jake, claims to have Cerebral Palsy. That obviously immediately pricked my interest.

If he has CP, I didn’t notice it. Of course, not everyone’s CP is as obvious as mine; but he was clearly perfectly ambulant, as dexterous as anyone else and could speak perfectly clearly. Thus the way in which he seemed to be going out of his way to emphasise that he was disabled didn’t sit well with me. A disability should surely have a significant effect on one’s ability to perform day to day activities; otherwise, what’s the point of categorising yourself as disabled? If you can do anything which anyone else can, you’re not disabled. Admittedly, I didn’t get a clear, long view of the guy, but at a glance I’d have said he was perfectly normal.

I hope everyone can understand why this doesn’t sit well with me. My Cerebral Palsy has caused me to struggle all my life; I’ve known people even more profoundly effected by it, including Lyn. It isn’t my place to judge other people’s disabilities, but frankly this smacked of bandwagon jumping, or what I call Cultural Intrusion. Jake was claiming to have a disability which he doesn’t really have, or which effects him only very mildly; yet he was going out of his way to emphasise that he has it for social gain. That is like someone claiming to be gay, trans, jewish or even black when they have absolutely no experience of any of those minorities, but then trying to speak on behalf of all other members of that minority. Would you not feel offended by someone appearing on national television, claiming to be a member of the minority you belong to, speaking for you or as though they shared your life experience, when they clearly know nothing of the discrimination you face on an almost daily basis? Unfortunately this is a social phenomenon I’m now seeing more and more of; this simply makes me more certain that I’m not just imagining it.

Going back to geopolitics, I really think this interview between James O’Brian and Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is worth watching. Ahmed is an expert in fascism, and he says that the recent deplorable behaviour we saw from Elon Musk was no accident: his nazi salute was clearly intentional, and a result of a covert resurgence which far right extremism has been making over the last two to three decades. Such people seek to end liberal democracy and return society to a sickening neo-Darwinian, elitist, discriminatory state where power resides only in the hands of a wealthy few. If that is true, then surely we must fight back. We cannot let ignorant, arrogant disgraces to humanity like Musk and Trump undo the precious steps towards equality and tolerance which we have made over the last sixty to seventy years. All thinking, intelligent people need to be aware of what is going on, in order to fight against it for the sake of humanity. If we don’t, there is a real risk we could return to history’s darkest days.

I think I have said here before that what interests me about the Olympics is not so much the sport, but how it is ultimately a huge cultural festival: for two months or so every four years, the attention of the entire world is focussed on one city, giving it a unique chance to show off. Paris got it’s turn last year, and before that Tokyo, Rio and London. The problem is now, as I have been mulling over recently, an American city is next. Los Angeles is due to host the games in 2028, when Donald Trump will still be in power. It would frankly be sickening to see what is supposed to be a celebration of global unity and diversity being hosted by a country whose head is so xenophobic, arrogant and vainglorious, and who believes it’s rights come before all others’.

Of course, before now I had no problem with LA hosting the 2028 games, and in fact was looking forward to seeing what the Americans did with their opening and closing ceremonies. Hopefully by then they will have got over the horrific fires currently engulfing California. But now they have elected such an egotistical charlatan, I can’t help worrying that Trump will try to commandeer the games and make them all about him. After all, 2028 will be his last year in office: might he try to use the games to big himself up and feed his sickening ego? If so, the IOC could well have handed the world’s biggest cultural and political platform to the world’s biggest egomaniac, and I’m sure nobody wants to see that. People are already noting, for example here, the alarming fascist traits Trump and his cronies seem to be exhibiting – I can’t help worrying that LA28 could become another Berlin36. If so, I am starting to think it might be wise to reallocate the 2028 games.

A known liar, crook and charlatan is now in charge of the world’s most powerful country; a man who seems to think he should be in charge just because of who he is. Many respectable, authoritative figures are earnestly calling him a fascist. I honestly dread to think what the next four years might bring, both for America and the entire world. Rather than try to pass comment or analyse things, I think the best thing I can do here this evening is wish everyone luck. History may well have just taken a very dark turn.

A couple of days ago I touched upon the bewildering phenomenon of flat earthism. Tomorrow we will see the second inauguration of a proven charlatan and criminal. Needless to say, I am dumbfounded by both. Yet I think it’s worth pointing out that I think they boil down to the same highly concerning social trend: both are about the knowing, deliberate rejection of mainstream knowledge and the shunning of what most people think is obvious. Both stem from a profound mistrust of society as a concept, and the belief that one’s own point of view outranks and overrules everyone else’s. I think we should find this trend very worrying indeed, as history shows us that it leads somewhere horrifyingly dark.

I come from a town in Cheshire called Congleton: a small, quiet place where there is very little to see or do. As much as I love life in the sprawling metropolis, there is no denying that I come from Congleton, and that I was born there. Earlier, however, I was mucking around on Google Streetview, as I often do while waiting for the day to start proper. I was guiding my online avatar around my old home town, when I suddenly reflected to myself how much it had changed. There are now brand new roads there which I have never physically gone down; passing through housing estates on land I remember as fields.

It was quite an odd realisation. Once I came to think about it though, it occurred to me that I can only have gone back there three or four times in the last fifteen years. Naturally, there are quite a few reasons for this, but it was strange to reflect that I have fallen so out of touch with the place I grew up, to the extent that parts of it now look completely different to how I recall. Obviously, one of the advantages of websites like Google Maps is that it can remedy homesickness; but, at the same time, they can just remind you how quickly the places you once knew can change.

I don’t know how many other people are keeping track of this rubbish, but I’ve recently been watching quite a few ‘Flat Earth’ videos on Youtube; or rather, I have been watching videos both debunking it and looking into it as a psychological and cultural phenomenon. As a rule, I try not to watch anything by people who actually claim that the world is flat, as it just gives them the attention they clearly crave. While this may at least be partially due to my search algorithms, there seems to have been a recent surge in interest in it, especially since the so-called ‘Final Experiment’, which apparently sent a group of people to Antartica to establish whether the sun was visible for twenty-four hours there.

I think you can call both my brothers scientists: Mark is a physicist and Luke is a bioinfomatician. They both have PhDs and conduct their own research. When I asked Luke whether he had heard of the Final Experiment over christmas however, he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Thus I think it’s fair to assume that the scientific community proper is completely uninterested in such things, and you might as well be debating which kind of cheese the moon is made from.

Where academia might be interested, though, is in the psychology underpinning this phenomenon. As I touched upon a while ago here, a lot of this boils down to a general feeling of disenfranchisement: people are increasingly feeling sidelined and downtrodden, so they are more and more eager to find things which make them stand out from the mainstream – lone champions of free thought against the indoctrinated heards. The problem is, that seems to be forcing them to take more and more ridiculous positions, and seems to have now reached a point where people are trying to argue against the absolutely incontestable. Thus online we’re now seeing videos trying to debunk the final experiment, claiming it was all done against a green screen in a studio and so on.

As ludicrous as all this is, I really think this sociological phenomena needs to be looked at. Of course, plenty has already been written about the psychology of conspiracism; but I think there is a lot which can now be discerned from this particular (online) trend, it’s apparent surge in popularity, and the way in which it’s adherents seem to be going to more extreme, absurd lengths to maintain their position. Frankly it is becoming weirder and weirder, more and more astonishing, to the extent that I think it can be used to discern a lot about contemporary culture, politics, and the increasing rejection of the so called establishment. For one, I don’t think it is a coincidence that this nonsense has come alongside the rise of right wing populist figures like Donald Trump, who openly advocate rebelling against what they dismiss as ‘the establishment’. Whatever is being taught in schools, universities and through mainstream media is being deliberately and overtly rejected in favour of increasingly idiotic ideas, regardless of how little evidence there is to support them. The problem is, as it becomes more and more extreme, more and more ridiculous, you have to wonder where such phenomena may lead us socially, and whether that might be somewhere very dark indeed.

Sorry to go on about this, but I grow more appalled by the news coming from over the pond every day. It’s now clear that Trumps primary reason for getting himself re-elected was to escape jail for the crimes he committed in 2020. Frankly, if I was American, I would be embarrassed to see my parliamentary system being used in such a sickeningly cynical way.

I saw in the news this morning that Jeff Bezos was planning to launch a rocket today, furthering the millionaire rivalry between him and Elon Musk. The launch was apparently called off at the last moment, but even so it is another event in the space race the two men seem to have entered into. I’m sorry to say this, but does this strike anyone else as pathetically childish? As with all of science, the exploration of space is supposed to be about casting light on nature and the human condition; yet here we have two obscenely rich American men treating it like some sort of game, as if demonstrating who has the better rocket also demonstrates who has the bigger penis. Frankly, to see space exploration reduced down to this is galling, and to be honest only increases my current disdain for American culture in general. After all, what kind of community would actively encourage two obscenely rich men – who never actually earned their wealth in the first place – two spav all their wealth on what are, essentially, enormous fireworks? If humanity really is to explore space, surely we must do so together, as a community. What is either man basically doing other than showing off.

I can’t be alone in thinking this.

Yesterday turned out to be a surprisingly interesting, rather cool day. I was out on my usual trundle, enjoying the sunshine, when I thought I’d pop into the Excel Centre to see if anything cool was happening there. I go there quite frequently, as I never know what kind of exhibition or conference I’ll find. Yesterday I was in for a treat though, as I happened upon Rupaul’s DragCon in full swing. I had not heard it was on this weekend, but as soon as I entered the exhibition hall I knew I was in for a treat – in fact, it made me wish I had gone to the effort and dressed up, as there were countless guys in drag and all kinds of exotic costumes. There were possibly even more than last time. To be honest it was rather awe-inspiring to see so much openness and playfulness around subjects like gender; I had never seen so many drag queens in one place. I couldn’t help thinking that Lyn would have adored it, and resolved to myself that I’ll have to go to the effort and attend it properly, possibly in a pink tutu, the next time such an event comes to town.

The obvious subject for me to blog about today is what is currently happening in California. I turned the news on earlier to a scene of absolute horror. I’m sure most people will be just as concerned as I am; I dread to think how people with disabilities are coping amid such hellish devastation. However, I’m not sure there’s much I can say about it: I know about as much as anyone else with access to the news. I could speculate about the causes, but I’m no expert in global warming or climate change. Naturally I can express my profound hope that everyone currently at risk there is safe, but I somehow doubt that anyone in California at the moment is going to bother to read this blog entry.

I still count myself as a huge Star Trek fan, but if you want to understand why I, like so many other long-term Trekkies, have lost interest in the program over the last decade or so, then I thoroughly recommend watching this Dave Cullen vlog. Cullen is spot on: since the 2009 reboot, Star Trek has lost it’s way, getting bogged down with ‘alternative timelines’ and ‘mirror universes’, playing around with cannon, and rewriting fan-favourite characters like Spock to the extent that they become nearly unrecognisable. Frankly, the franchise is a mess, and apart from Picard I haven’t bothered watching the latest few series. However, it’s good to see that I’m not alone in this, as it would seem that most Trekkies want to see the return of the kind of star Trek most of us grew up with: Stories about a set of interesting, well written characters going out and exploring the final frontier.

This blog entry was not written by Matt. His parents told him about Chat GPT recently, and he tried it out with Dominick yesterday. He was so impressed that he decided to just let it write all his blog entries from now on. After all, what’s the point of going to the effort of typing a blog entry every day when you can just let a website do it and go out for a trundle instead?

Have a nice day.

I was about to try to write something about Trump’s comments yesterday about America invading Greenland, which would frankly be hilarious if they weren’t so stupid or scary. I personally think that the time has come for the European powers to take back control of their former American colonies, the colonists having proven themselves completely unfit to govern themselves, although this might be an even better solution.

I’m sure that, from time to time, everyone experiences tiny, fleeting events which just prick your interest. Small details of your day which catch your attention and make you pleased. Something happened on my way home this afternoon which I need to record.

It had been quite a nice afternoon: I had taken one of my favourite walks along the river Lea to Stratford. I was getting hungry so I had taken the Jubilee Line back. At North Greenwich, though, there was a bunch of kids whizzing around on rollerblades. They were going quite fast, and one almost crashed into me. There are signs throughout the station saying that skating of any kind is not allowed.

I began to get a bit pissed off, so I decided to go and find a member of station security. Luckily that didn’t take very long, and a woman with a young daughter was already talking to him about the very same problem. The security guy explained that they had had a lot of complaints about the skaters, but there was very little they could do about it. What stuck in my ears, however, was that he actually said “There is nowt we can do.”

“Nowt” is a word which I don’t think I had heard anyone use in over fifteen years. It is, of course, a word used in the North-West of England which means “nothing”. You never hear it here in London, so it instantly caught my attention, sending me back to the place where I grew up. To hear someone use a word like that was very surprising – even shocking, in a way.

After the conversation about the skaters was over, I asked the security guy where he was from, and he told me Manchester. Of course, he had quite a thick Mancunian accent which contrasted with the Eastern London accents which I’m now so used to. I naturally replied that I am from Cheshire. It was only a brief incident, and I was soon on my way; but as I rode the bus back to Eltham I couldn’t help reflecting how unusual it was to hear such a word, even in this metropolis of so many languages. Hearing someone use it felt homely and rural, whisking me instantly back to the small towns and villages I grew up in, reminding me that perhaps they weren’t all that far away after all. You know, such small reminders of where you come from can really brighten your day.

I have recently invented a new pastime for myself. Admittedly, some people may think it’s a complete waste of time and that I should be doing more productive things, but I have taken to doing something I call bus-trundling. I have written about trundling on here before, when I go out in my powerchair and sort of follow my nose. It has recently been too cold to go out in my chair though, so instead I take myself to the bus stop and get on the first bus that comes. I then go wherever the bus takes me, getting off either when I feel like it or when I see something interesting. I then catch the next bus and the next, until eventually I decide to head home.

As I said, it’s a bit of a waste of time, but at least it’s a way of getting out and about while staying relatively warm. It take’s advantage of London’s free (for me), accessible public transport to explore the city; I can go to places I wouldn’t usually head to. While some may chuckle at the idea of swapping from bus to bus all afternoon, it’s far better than getting bored at home or freezing my arse off out in my powerchair.