Begrudging contributing to society through tax so it can be used to sustain a society is the mark of a spoiled, arrogant brat whose arsehole parents never taught him to share. That Johnson has the audacity to try to liken the government to addicts, when they are trying to sort out the catastrophic mess he and his friends left the country in, is utterly sickening.
New project idea. Extended essay. Close textual analysis of the Loretta scene in Life Of Brian. Does it mock or support transgender people and politics? Given that the scene was created in 1978, I would be interested to see how it holds up in the context of contemporary attitudes. Trans politics was still in it’s relative infancy in the late seventies of course, so how have the attitudes depicted in the scene aged? I was on one of the Monty Python Facebook fan groups yesterday, and many of the commenters seemed to think it was transphobic. However, they meant it in a good way, which of course didn’t really sit well with me. I therefore think it’s now worth me going back to the scene and doing a bit of proper analysis, just to try to work out what the Pythons actually meant with it. I’d be interested to hear what everyone else thinks of it too.
I still wouldn’t call myself a royalist, nor am I a big supporter of the military, but I think I ought to flag this video up as essential viewing. The incident it details is almost beyond belief: Donald Trump’s son Eric apparently recently tried to make one of the Coldstream Guards at Buckingham Palace break with protocol and salute him, simply for being the son of the current US president. What followed was a truly repugnant diplomatic incident in which Trump Jr showed himself to be the entitled, arrogant piece of shit he is. It is detailed really well in the video, so I’ll let it speak for itself; yet it tells us all we know about what a pathetic scumbag Trump is. What kind of vermin demands to be saluted by Palace guards, simply because they are the offspring of the criminal who the Americans currently call their president? All I have to say is, huge respect for the guard in question for holding his cool; although it strikes me as a bit odd that so little is being said about this despicable event elsewhere.
ADDENDUM Many people are now pointing out to me that the video I linked to is a fake and the incident never happened. To be honest I feel quite embarrassed to have fallen for it. I should have spotted it, although you must admit it’s the type of thing you would expect from Eric Trump.
Is it just my imagination, or are many more people using powerchairs all of a sudden? I don’t mean mobility scooters – I’m used to seeing elderly people going around on scooters with handlebars at the front. But suddenly many more people seem to have started using the kind of powerchair I use, and which I think of as mobility aids of people with serious physical disabilities. Not that I want to make any assumptions or generalisations, but the people I saw using powerchairs today weren’t that old, and didn’t seem to have any physical disabilities I recognised. I saw at least four or five on my trundle today, whereas it would previously be rare for me to spot any. I can’t help finding this very odd indeed: if my perception is correct and more people have started using powerchairs, I have to wonder why. It isn’t as if those things are cheap! Might powerchairs somehow be becoming fashionable?
By rights I should love streaming: it makes films and television programs so easy to watch. All you need to do is sit down at your computer, and you can now watch virtually anything you can think of, no matter how obscure. There is no need to muck around hunting down rare videos or DVDs, and no need to store them on shelves and put them into drives whenever you want to watch them. From my perspective, streaming should be awesome.
The thing is, I still don’t think it actually is. Of course, as I wrote here, streaming has many advantages, especially if like me you can’t physically use things like DVDs. Yet it seems to me that the rise of streaming has brought about an entirely new paradigm in how we consume film. Before now, if you wanted to watch a specific film, you just either went to the cinema or bought a video or DVD from a shop. It would then be yours to keep. It wouldn’t matter which shop you bought it from or the chain of cinemas you went to; the same films were available anywhere.
What bothers me these days, however, is the way in which certain streaming services are effectively the gatekeepers of certain films or programs. Instead of owning a film on disk which I could then watch whenever I wanted, Ad Infinitum, these days to watch certain films you have to subscribe to certain streaming services. The only way you can maintain access to that film is to keep up your subscription to the streaming service it is hosted by, of which there are now several.
I can’t help thinking that this is a fundamental change in how we consume and access film. Whereas we might previously have had a shelf of videos or DVDs alongside our shelves of books, to watch certain films we now need to be subscribed to certain streaming services. They are now no longer texts which we can get off the shelf whenever we want, but the products of streaming platforms without which we cannot access certain films. In a way this renders them products, like forcing people to keep buying bottles of water when previously it had been always available through taps.
A couple of days ago I bought all three seasons of Picard on DVD. I have seen all the episodes before of course, and it was little more than an impulse buy. Yet I think the purchase is something I will now cherish. Obviously, to watch the episodes I will need to ask someone to put them in my DVD drive. Yet simply to own them as a physical artefact, just as I own box sets of James Bond and The Lord of the Rings, is something I find very satisfying: simply to know the episodes are there, ready for me to access and indulge in whenever I want, without having to update a membership or keep paying a subscription, gives me a sense of contentment.
I love film, of course: I love how it really ignites the imagination, taking us to a plethora of different places. I love how different directors use it to express their selves and say different things. Yet instead of being the expression of directors, film now seems to be the product of online platforms, without which we cannot watch certain films. This renders them commercial products rather than works of art; pieces of entertainment to pay for rather than meaningful expression of thought.
It amazes me what a numpty I can be sometimes. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a James Bond-related video on Youtube, which concerned a biography of Ian Fleming which I thought sounded interesting. I have read a couple of good bios of Fleming in the past but not this one, so I determined to try to look it up. A day or so later, I set off for Waterstones in Lewisham, and put in an order for the book I was interested in. A few days after that, of course I went back to Lewisham, payed for the text and brought it home.
Truth be told I don’t read that much these days as I get too distracted by the internet, but I told myself to make the effort to read the book I had gone to that much effort to buy. It wasn’t until that point, however, that I glanced at my book shelf to see that a copy of the very same book had been there all along! At that moment I felt so infantile and stupid – I would have died of embarrassment, if anyone else had known what I had done.
Fortunately for me they didn’t, so today I was able to pop back to Lewisham and exchange the book for one I don’t have, on Hitchcock and Truffault. It’s not that I think this is particularly noteworthy or blogworthy – many people probably do similar things every day. Yet, on another level, in a way it’s pretty amazing: if I had been told as a ten or even fifteen year old that I would one day be trundling around South-East London, living independently, doing my own shopping, talking to strangers and even buying books I already had, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Every once in a while, it stuns me how differently my life has turned out to the way I always assumed it would growing up, even down to the ability to go out on my own and buy my own things. That is why I think it’s so important that I help to encourage young people in similar positions to mine. When you have a disability which effects how you communicate, you often don’t realise that you can interact with society just like anyone else.
Something bloody stupid happened this afternoon. It’s one of those slow, cloudy Sundays, so I thought I would pop up to Stratford for a trundle around the Olympic park. Up there, to get from the station to the park you either have to go up a flight of stairs or use a lift, as I do. This leads to a large foot bridge over the railway station, which is the only way between the older and newer areas of Stratford. The two lifts are really over used, and over the years I have had quite a lot of trouble with them.
Today, however, really took the biscuit: One of the two lifts was clearly completely out of order, and I must have had to wait at least ten minutes for the second to arrive. When it did, though, it was already full of people who were obviously perfectly able to use the nearby stairs. What followed was quite a furore over who should be using the lift and who should not. Things become rather heated, and to cut a long, stupid story short it was around another five more minutes before I was eventually able to get into the lift. They seemed to think they had as much right to use the lift as I did, if not even more. I’m not sure what happened then: as I was entering the lift I might have knocked the door with my powerchair or something, because it then completely refused to go up to the floor I needed to get to. No matter how many times the button was pressed, the lift wouldn’t move.
After a few minutes two other wheelchair users got in. By then the ambulant people had got out to use the stairs, but those of us who had no choice gradually began to panic. For a while the zarking lift seemed broken. Fortunately things ended well, the lift started working again and finally went up to the bridge without the engineer having to be called out. As I trundled towards the Olympic park though, I found myself reflecting once again that such things would happen far less often if lifts in places like that were only used by people who need to use them; and that the episode would probably be good material for a blog entry.
I was just watching BBC Breakfast News as usual, and came across something which really, really got on my nerves. They were running an item on Pulp, Jarvis Cocker and Britpop, about how it was so influential and the legacy it left, especially on places like Sheffield. Towards the end of the piece, they quite predictably interviewed a few fans: what I found so annoying was how such fans saw themselves as outsiders. They were saying how, to be into a band like Pulp, you had to be a bit weird, strange or unusual, gleefully emphasising how different and abnormal they thought they were. The thing is, the people saying this were white, male, able-bodied and (I assume) straight. Sorry, but I couldn’t help getting rather wound up by that. They obviously belong to the most mainstream, advantaged cohort of people there is; one which faces the least discrimination of all. Liking a certain band or genre of music does not make you an outsider, yet they seemed to regard theirselves as oddities swimming against the mainstream current.
As someone who faces various kinds of discrimination every day, down to being unable to get where I want to go due to places being inaccessible for wheelchair users, to hear such a person trumpet how ‘different’ he felt he was, really felt like a piss-take. He would know nothing of the kind of persecution a member of any real minority faces. But then, these days it seems to be culturally fashionable to be a member of a minority: nobody wants to be seen as a member of the advantaged, privileged few, so rather like Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen will jump at anything that makes them seem hard done by, persecuted or different. The thing is, liking the music of a certain band, and being educated in a special school alongside seven or eight quite disabled young people, are hardly the same thing.
I know I don’t post about it much on here, but I am of course very interested in technology, innovation and computers. I just came across this CNBC interview with an American entrepreneur called Paul Tudor Jones, and what he says is frankly alarming. He was apparently recently at a conference in the States where the future of Artificial Intelligence was discussed, and it seems to now pose quite an imminent threat: AI is now becoming so advanced and powerful that it poses an ‘imminent threat’ to humanity. The technology is becoming so advanced, and developing so quickly due to the competition between Russia, China and America, that it is thought that within twenty years it will put us all at risk. Of course, we should always treat such predictions with caution, but nonetheless I think what he says is quite an eye-opener. These days, we treat apps and websites etc which use AI as just a part of daily life; to think that it could soon become so problematic is alarming.
I’m very pleased to report that today was the most interesting day I’ve had in a long while. A couple of weeks ago I emailed Kathryn,the lady I used to volunteer with at Charlton Park Academy, to ask whether I could do anything for her. I initially got no reply, so I slightly forgot about it; but a couple of days ago I got an email back from her inviting me to this year’s Communication Works event. I have been to a couple of these before: they are yearly conferences, organised by the school, about Augmentative and Assistive Communication technology. They are always very interesting, so naturally I jumped at the suggestion.
The event seems to be getting bigger and bigger every year. Today it was at The Valley, Charlton Athletic’s football ground. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as I headed that there this morning, but I was treated to a fascinating day of exhibitions and seminars related to communication technology and education. As a communication aid user, I find things like that extremely interesting. I found it incredible to see how advanced such technology is becoming, and especially how it is being used to help young people with extremely complex needs. My eyes were opened up to a plethora of new devices and apps which I was totally unaware of. The area around artificial intelligence seems to be especially flourishing. It really was a great day, and perhaps even better I have got back in touch with the guys from school, so perhaps I can start going in and helping out there again.
Once again, today would have been Lyn’s birthday. I still miss her, and think of her fairly often: I usually start to imagine what she would have said when I get into certain situations. She had the kind of guiding personality which you could always look to for support. Dom, John and myself were discussing recently that she was never given a funeral or any kind of celebration. I checked at the cemetery again yesterday, and like last year they told me that they never heard from Lyn’s brother Paul. I now think it’s high time we put things right, and did something to honour this remarkable person.
Just a quick entry to note that I passed the political billboard I was so taken with last week on a bus yesterday, to see that all five of the faces had been daubed with white paint. I suppose not everyone must have been as appreciative of it as I was.
I watched From Dusk till Dawn last night with Dom. I don’t think I had seen it before, but it proved to be a complete joy. It’s written by Quentin Tarantino, and was a clear demonstration that he is truly one of the all time great film makers. I don’t want to give anything away, but I loved how half way through the plot, the film you think you’re watching completely changes it’s tone and even genre, in a way totally different to any other mainstream film. What begins as one type of film essentially suddenly morphs into another in a way I found very cool indeed.
Going back to this entry from a few days ago though, it predictably made me wonder: if a well established director like Danny Boyle can direct the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, what’s to stop Tarantino directing the one of LA28? Just think about it! How awesome would it be to watch a magnificent world ceremony involving thousands of people, performing before us all, directed by the man who gave us Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs? Just imagine what he could do on such an enormous stage. It’s obviously only a vague dream right now, but the prospect that he could – that it could even be possible – strikes me as just to exciting not too note here. Mind you, more to the point, you have to wonder what he might do in relation to the current political state of affairs there.
A lot is being said on the breakfast news this morning about how the trade deal the Labour government has struck with the EU effectively mean UK businesses will now have to abide by European rules which we now have no say in setting. I’m sorry, but I just feel compelled to post an entry to state the blindingly, stupidly obvious: we would still be participating in making such regulations if we had remained a member of the EU. This is exactly what the Remain campaign warned would happen! Everyone knew that UK businesses would still have to abide by EU rules, but have no say in setting them. Thus for Pritti Patel to just come on the Beeb breakfast program just now, and for the right wing tabloids to accuse the government of ‘betraying brexit’, when brexit is what caused these issues in the first place, really is too stupid to ignore! If these Outist idiots really cared that we had control over such trade guidelines, they would not have advocated breaking away from the body which sets them. The government is thus undoing the ongoing mess the outists made; for them to complain about it, calling it a betrayal or relinquishment of sovereignty when it was brexit which caused these issues, really is an insult to our intelligence.
This equasion occurred to me while I was watching Ocean yesterday. It seems quite a good way to sum the great man up.
If you think about it, Sir David possesses features of all three of my biggest fictional heroes: the wisdom of the ancient wizard Mithrandir; the curiosity and fascination of Captain Picard; and the tenacity and resilience of 007. Is there any wonder why I think he’s so incredible?
It was turning into quite a dull day so this afternoon I decided to take myself up to the cinema to watch Ocean with David Attenborough. I was, of course, extremely eager to watch it, although a (small) part of me was hesitant as I tend to associate Attenborough with the BBC, and he didn’t work with them on this film. However, what I found myself watching a couple of hours ago was truly, truly remarkable. First of all, Ocean is a beautifully shot piece of non-fiction cinema: some of the scenes we are treated to as an audience are jaw-dropping. More to the point, it is a highly compelling film. As many others are noting, unlike Sir David’s TV work, this film has a clear agenda: in large part it is about the damage we are doing to the oceans, mostly through over-fishing. We glimpse the ruin trawlers inflict on the seas, which it would be hard not to find compelling. In this sense it was clear to see why this film could not have been made by the beeb as it couldn’t have had such an overt agenda. At the same time it does not go too far or slip into dogma: it is not anti-fishing, but emphasises how balanced, sustainable methods could benefit everyone.
However, the aspect of the film I was most drawn by was how it highlighted Attenborough’s own incredible career. We are treated to clips of him diving as a young man fifty or sixty years ago. This allows the film to highlight how much the oceans have changed over that time, and how they also have a remarkable capacity to recover if we allow them to. Thus we are treated to a view of the oceans very much through Attenborough’s own wise, compelling eyes, and the film is all the richer for it.
The vast majority of us have spent our entire lives with David Attenborough on our television screens, treating us to insights into the natural world nobody else comes close to. I think I have said here before that I regard him as the greatest broadcaster ever. To my knowledge this is his first foray into cinema, and the result is an absolute pleasure. If I had a single criticism of the film, however, it is that it does not touch upon how the damage we are currently doing to the seas has it’s underlying roots in economics, or what causes it socio-economically. The issue is essentially one of capitalism. After all, people are compelled to catch fish to make a living; if this motivation was got rid of, surely over-fishing would be far less of a problem. The only way the issue of over-fishing can be dealt with is if we address our appetite for seafood. The film does not focus on this broader aspect of the issue though, but seems to shy away from the underlying economics. That aside, we are treated to a wonderful piece of natural history cinema – one which I would passionately encourage everyone to go and watch on the big screen as soon as you can. David Attenborough has treated us to yet another delightful insight into the world around us; but then, we expect nothing less from this great, great man.
One of the first things I came across on Youtube this morning was this rather fascinating 1989 BBC2 Omnibus documentary on Monty Python. I think it’s well worth a watch, especially if like me you’re into Python. It’s rather dated by now of course, but what I find interesting about it is that it gives us a snapshot of the group just past their heyday: It opens with Graham Chapman’s funeral, and we really get a sense that these men had, until fairly recently, been the comedy equivalent of rockstars. More to the point, what I’m also interested in is how much things went on to change since then. Quite a lot happened since this documentary was first broadcast, and the various members of the group went on to pursue their individual careers. They speak as though the Python phenomenon was well and truly over; they could barely have imagined that they would get back together twenty-five years later. Watching this thus makes going to watch their reunion in 2014 feel even more special.
I just got back from another trip to Westminster, and I think it’s fair to say that I’m absolutely furious. I went up there again today, this time to check out the protests about the assisted dying bill. To be honest I don’t have that strong an opinion on the issue as I can see both sides of the argument, but by and large I share the fear that it could lead to vulnerable and disabled people being pressured into ending their lives.
I got to Parliament Square to find it slightly quieter than I had been expecting: this event obviously wasn’t as big as the last one I had been to up there. It took me a while to find the protest, slightly along the road from the Houses of Parliament. When I did, though, I was almost instantly appalled. I had been expecting to find plenty of my fellow disabled people, but instead the action was peopled by able-bodied religious nutcases! There were speeches being made about how this act would go against the will of god, the commandments and everything. While disabled people and our rights were mentioned once or twice, the emphasis seemed to be on religion, particularly Christianity. To begin with I could just about tolerate it, but when the lady speaking invited everyone to pray I had had enough.
Political protests are, by their very definition, political; and religion has no place whatsoever in politics. These people were close imposing their religious views on quite a critical issue, and essentially using it to promote their anachronistic belief system. You don’t need to believe in any gods to be concerned about what might arise from this change in the law, and that, sooner or later vulnerable people may start feeling pressured into opting to end their lives when they otherwise might not. That would strike anyone with a grain of human decency as problematic. Yet the people there were trying to make it seem like an entirely religious issue, and that they were acting on behalf of their god.
I have written many entries on here about what I think about religion: it is a harmful, dangerous anachronism which humanity needs to outgrow. Thus to find these people there, usurping the issue at hand for their idiotic belief system, really pissed me off. Fortunately the event was drawing to a clear by the time I got there, but it really pissed me off to see it being hijacked like that. This is quite a sensitive political issue: it needs to be dealt with rationally and thoughtfully, not by people who derive their entire worldview from a set of bronze age fairytales.
I was watching the breakfast news as usual earlier, when a quite unsettling item caught my attention, particularly as a blogger. According to the beeb, “The wife of a Conservative councillor who was jailed after she posted an online rant about migrants is due to have her appeal against the sentence heard on Thursday. [ie today]” Lucy Connolly had been jailed for 28 days after apparently tweeting that she thought a hotel housing asylum seekers should be burned down. If you ask me, of course, twenty-eight days in jail is nowhere near enough punishment for such a vile, disgusting xenophobe: being married to a Tory councillor, she obviously thought she had a right to voice such reactionary, inflammatory tosh with impunity. I find such arrogance sickening of course, and my gut reaction was that she had no right whatsoever to complain.
The obvious problem is, that raises all kinds of issues about the freedom of speech. I naturally believe that anyone should have the right to say whatever they want, online or off, no matter how disgusting or abhorrent other people may find it. Here on my blog, I’m sure I have written things plenty of people may disagree with over the years – does that mean I should go to jail? What would happen if one day I wrote an entry accusing Kier Starmer of raping chipmunks – does that constitute defamation? Thus as vile as any sensible, intelligent person will find what this woman tweeted, her right to voice her opinions must take priority. The moment we start censoring people, the moment we start putting people in jail just for voicing their opinions online, we all loose something extremely valuable.
Of course I am torn by this: I cannot deny that a large part of me thinks that what this repugnant woman tweeted has no place in modern public discourse. We see it more and more: such barely literate morons think it’s cool or trailblazing to go against the politically correct grain, resulting in a slide further and further to the reactionary right. It seems to be becoming fashionable to discriminate, belittle and bully, as people try to imitate so-called online ‘influencers’ like Andrew Tale. People are also feeling more and more pressure to attract attention online, resulting in ever more wild, distasteful things being spouted in an effort to stand out and get noticed. No doubt such factors were what was behind this woman’s vile tweet: I’m not sure she deserved punishing for them or not, but the fact that she has been clearly sets an unsettling precident.
I think the best thing I can do here this evening is direct everyone to this astonishing speech by Robert de Nero given yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival. In it, de Nero openly and quite brutally criticises Donald Trump. Of course, political criticism is a normal, healthy part of democratic life, but what I find astonishing – even slightly unnerving – is the immediacy and danger in de Nero’s words. He uses words and speaks with a tone we are totally unaccustomed to at such occasions, and which we would never usually encounter in any form of public discourse. But then, day by day it becomes clearer and clearer that these aren’t normal times: something truly ominous is happening, especially in America, and the sooner we’re all aware of that the better.
Needless to say I am appalled by the direction our current government are now taking on immigration. As I’ve said here before, the UK should be an open, tolerant, welcoming country. In going down the path Starmer is now taking, he’s obviously just trying to pander to the right-wing knuckle-draggers who think we should close our borders and declare the country a white-only zone: the type of barely literate p’tahk who think Nigel Farage walks on water, and who Labour is now desperate to appease for fear of losing support and votes. As someone who relies on three extremely hard working Polish immigrants for his daily support, and as someone who relishes the cultural diversity he experiences every time I wheel out of my South London door, it is clear to me that this is an extremely dark, dangerous path to take the country down. Spout as much bullshit as you want about housing and infrastructure capacity, this is nothing but an attempt to appease the xenophobic imbeciles becoming more and more dominant in out political discourse.
This is clearly not the Labour Party I backed and voted for.
I just came across something which caught my eye on my friend Beth’s Facebook page: Communication Matters is hosting some kind of awards project for communication aid users. The text said “Here’s your chance to nominate an inspirational, supportive or forward thinking AAC user, family member or carer, professional or team, project or product.” To be honest the idea initially struck me as a bit odd – what would be the point? To me, a communication aid is just a fact of daily living; I use mine for everything from telling the guys at Tesco what I need to buy to asking people to help me get my powerchair out of the hole I have driven it into. I don’t think I would deserve an award for that. It’s just how I communicate, the same way everyone else uses their (natural) voices. As a blogger, I try to do my bit to show the world how someone like myself can lead a productive, independent, happy life, but that’s about it.
When you think about it though, this is actually a nice way for Communication Matters to encourage AAC users, especially young ones. They clearly want to foster a culture around communication aid use, in which good examples are highlighted and rewarded. In that sense, then, this scheme is clearly a very good idea. You can read more and indeed nominate people to receive an award here. And if I were to actually receive such an award, well, I would be honoured….
I saw this billboard through a bus window earlier, and instantly realised that I’d found today’s blog entry.
I was on a bus as usual this morning, heading up to North Greenwich when, approximately here, I spotted this billboard. It naturally caught my eye, and I instantly decided to get off. I don’t know who put it up, but it struck me as unusually provocative and political – the kind of thing you don’t see very often, and which don’t last very long before they’re taken down. With that in mind, I dashed back home to fetch Artur, who very obligingly came with me to take photos. This just could not be ignored! I wonder: has anyone else come across the same poster? If so, where? Might this be the beginning of a new trend in overtly political street signage?
Alcohol-free rum is like football without the actual ball, or cinema without the films. I tried it last night, having found a bottle in a nearby shop, but was distinctly unimpressed. Frankly, it just tasted like hyper-sweetened orange juice. I have been off the drink since the nightmare in Cyprus, of course, but last night I really felt like a little fun. Needless to say I do feel a lot better for having stopped drinking, and certainly plan to keep it up; yet I must admit that part of me feels slightly conflicted.
Ever since school I told myself that, when my friends such as Lee Donnelly passed away, all caution would be thrown to the wind and I’d start drinking as much as I wanted. I planned it to be my way of remembering those guys; and after all, how else was I going to cope in a world where such bright lights can be extinguished so young? I didn’t intend to become an alcoholic, but rather ignore the voices of caution in the back of my mind and live life as full as I could. Now that I have once again cut booze out completely, and am not sure whether I can ever return to it, that plan has fallen by the wayside, and I must admit that part of me feels faintly sad about it.
Nonetheless, as I say I do feel far better these days. Last night’s experiment with alcohol-free rum may have been a disappointment, but I think it was born of a desire to let off a bit of steam, the way I used to. There is so much serious stuff going on in the world right now – so many wars, so much conflict, so much stomach-churning idiocy – that when Friday night comes round, you can’t help fancying something tto drink.
Why is the world so concerned about a group of geriatric old men choosing the next leader of their anachronistic death-cult? If they want to do it, fine – just don’t report it on the evening news as though it’s of any importance to anyone, particularly at a moment when the other items of the bulletin are so concerning. Moreover, for the leader they end up selecting to then speak of somehow being a force for reconciliation and peace, when religion is perhaps the most divisive and oppressive socio-political phenomena there is, really takes the biscuit. As I have said before, it really is time humanity grew out of such idiocy; for such matters to be treated with such solemnity and importance by the evening news broadcasters just reinforces an authority which was neither earned nor deserved.
Just to follow up on this entry from a couple of weeks ago, not that I think anyone will be particularly interested, but I’m pleased to note that the lifts at Star Lane DLR station are working again. On the whole, it must be said that I’m quite impressed at how quickly TFL seems to fix such things. I have encountered broken lifts several times in the past, only to find them fully functional upon my next visit. Obviously it just goes to show how much money there is in TFL and London in general.
In contrast, this morning on the news I heard that one of the very last potteries in Stoke on Trent is about to close. The item mentioned how the pottery industry there has been decimated, bringing the economy of the entire city with it. As someone who was brought up quite close to Stoke and who visited it regularly as a child, I can’t help being struck by the contrast between London and other parts of the country. I know that manufacturing pottery was once part of the very identity of that area, so it might be difficult to see how it could live on after this decline. But surely with the right investment, Stoke can be as vibrant a place as anywhere.
I see wonderful new things being built every day in the capital; each time I go out I find yet another highly gentrified redeveloped new area as I explore the metropolis using it’s state-of-the-art, multi-billion pound transport network (the overground notwithstanding). I know I have touched on this before, but to what extent does all this come at the expense of elsewhere in the country? Frankly, it sounds more and more like places such as Stoke are being left to go to ruin while the front facade of the nation, it’s capital, is endlessly spruced up.
I got up this morning planning to write all about what happened yesterday and the trouble I had with the train. As soon as I turned my computer on, however, I came across something far more interesting and blog-worthy. In my opinion, Sir David Attenborough is by far the greatest broadcaster to ever live: over his seven decades of programme making, he has done more than anyone to open our eyes to the natural world. My jaw dropped, then, when I saw this morning that the great mans career would seem far from over.
Attenborough’s new film, Ocean, will have it’s premiere this evening and will be in cinemas from Thursday. Although it’s a stand alone film rather than a multi-episode series of the kind Attenborough is almost synonymous with, and made by an independent company rather than the BBC, there is little doubt that it will be just as fascinating as his previous work. Mind you, from the sound of it, Ocean will have a more overt agenda: that is to say, it seems to focus on the damage humanity is doing to the oceans, particularly through fishing.
Nonetheless I’m still looking forward to watching it. To think that Attenborough started making films before either of my parents were born, and still seems to be going strong, is something I find utterly, utterly remarkable. Across countless programs he has opened our eyes to the wonders of nature and the beauty of the world, and in doing so has himself helped make it better.
Yesterday proved to be a complete waste of time – albeit an interesting one. After breakfast, I thought I’d go up to Westminster to see what all this. VE day fuss was about. After all, it’s only a few stops away on the Jubilee line, so what would be the point of just staying at home and watching it on TV? A few minutes after leaving the flat, though, I came back for a coat; the hints of summer we had a few days ago were definitely a deception.
My trip up into London proved easy enough. Once up there however, I almost immediately saw that staying at home would probably have been the better idea: the area was teeming with people, so much so that I could barely move. Watching the parade, even getting a glimpse of it, was off the cards – all I could see from my powerchair was other spectators’ backsides. I tried to move around a bit, up and down Whitehall, to try to get a decent view, without avail. Mind you, it must be said that I lost count of the number of people who complemented me on my ‘Make America Think Again’ cap.
After a couple of hours or so I gave up. I caught a glimpse of the flyover, which was fairly cool, but that was about it. With the parade over and the crowds slowly dispersing, I decided to go for a bit of a trundle up The Mall and through St James’s Park. I rather like that area of central London with it’s parks, ponds and fountains. I initially intended to find my way to Bond Street in order to get the Elisabeth Line home, but somewhat predictably I got lost. I eventually found myself at Victoria Station: at first I thought I would just ask for directions there, but then, on the tannoy, I heard that a train would be stopping at Kidbrooke. Catching it would make getting home far easier and quicker, I presumed.
I found one of the station staff and asked, using my Ipad, if I could get on that train. They duly obliged, and I was helped to board the train, only to be asked to get back off two or three minutes later because nobody would be at Kidbrooke to help me with the ramps there. I got off the train and was told to wait for the next one.
That wasn’t so bad: I just connected to the station Wifi and checked my Facebook. Twenty minutes or so later, though, exactly the same thing happened: I was helped to board the train only to be told to get back off at the last moment. Needless to say I was furious. Back on the platform I demanded to see the station manager, only to be told, rather condescendingly, to calm down. If other people can get on and off overground trains with such ease, why couldn’t I? London public transport has come on in leaps and bounds in terms of accessibility over the last few decades, so why is the overground still so shitty?
To once again cut a long story short, I got home an hour or so later: it wasn’t late, but I was hungry. I would have been home far earlier if I had just taken the tube; although it must be said that, sat in the train carriage, I was treated to some intriguing views across South London. More to the point, if I had stayed home I would also have had a much better view of the entire parade. Yet trying out the London overground is something I had been wanting to do for a while – I now know it sucks.
Film is a fantastic international art form. I love how films can be made across the world, so you can go to your local cinema and watch things from many, many different perspectives. There is a tendency to associate the film industry with America and Hollywood, but that’s obviously a complete misrepresentation: film is global. This, then, is beyond the pale. “US President Donald Trump says he will hit movies made in foreign countries with 100% tariffs, as he ramps up trade disputes with nations around the world.” The p’tahk-in-chief says he wants to revitalise the American film industry by making it far more expensive to import films not made in the US. Just how moronic can he be? To think that films should only be made in America by americans is like saying that only English people should be allowed to write books, or only Italians should be allowed to paint. As a cinephile, I have never heard anything more draconian or regressive. More to the point, in politicising film in this way – in giving it an American nationalist dimension – Trump is taking it down a very dark, dangerous path.
We can probably let out a small sigh of relief this evening. I just read that Trump says he is not considering running for third term, despite previously repeatedly promising he would. It’s reassuring to see that he is not self-important enough to think he has a right to trample on US law and become a de-facto emperor, although I suspect his advisors may have convinced him to reconsider his position. That, at least, is a bit of a relief. Mind you, with Reform doing so well in the local elections this week, and with people now speaking quite earnestly about the hideous, chilling prospect of Nigel Farage somehow becoming Prime Minister one day, we are clearly far from past this spell of right-wing idiocy.
A couple of days ago I looked up when Danny Boyle was selected to direct the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony. The answer was 2010, obviously two years ahead of the ceremony itself. I was wondering when we might hear that Los Angeles had selected someone to direct its opening. I know it’s still some time away, but believe it or not I’m already becoming curious about what LA might do.
Such events still fascinate me. It seems to me that Olympic opening ceremonies are unique artistic events in that they draw the entire world’s attention onto one city for a few hours. They thus give a city and the country it represents the once in a lifetime opportunity to show itself off before the entire world. When else do we see incredible spectacles like James Bond meeting queen Elizabeth, a huge flotilla of boats gliding down the Seine or Eric Idle (apparently) being shot out of a cannon, before bursting into Always Look On The Bright Side of Life?
What, then, could we see happen in LA in three years time? To be honest it’s a question which I’m beginning to feel nervous about. I keep hearing that Trump is now trying to turn VE Day in the US into some kind of birthday parade for himself. Frankly, it sounds a bit far fetched but I wouldn’t put it past the self important prick. The question is then, assuming Trump is still in office in 2028, to what extent could he try to turn the ceremony into some kind of sickening spectacle of self-aggrandisement? Again I wouldn’t put it past him; but imagine how utterly repugnant it would be to see the world’s most awesome cultural event commandeered by such a vainglorious charlatan? I’m sure nobody wants to watch that! That’s why I am already so keen to know who might direct the ceremony; it’s something that I plan to keep a fairly close eye on.
I have had a bit of a strange day so far. Physically, it has actually been quite good: a nice, fresh, jam-filled breakfast followed by an interesting trundle to Lewisham. However, it was also one of those days when I have felt rather edgy about my absences. That is to say, throughout the morning I repeatedly thought I could feel one was about to happen, only to be fine. I’m not sure whether I imagine such feelings or not, but it makes me very nervous. I don’t suppose many other people will know what it feels like to suddenly get a dreadful sensation that you might to be about to loose all your sense of spatial awareness, and then come to around a minute later with a gap in your memory. My biggest fear is that something might happen during that gap, and I’d be totally unable to control or remember it. It’s an extremely disconcerting, unpleasant feeling: at the same time, I dread my absences, but when I feel like I did earlier I sort of want it to happen, simply so it can be over and I can get on with my day without worrying that I could suddenly blank out. This morning, however, I was fine in the end; the brief spasms of panic died away and I didn’t have an absence.
I used to keep such things to myself; I used to think it was better not to make a fuss and get on with life. After all, as I touched upon here, very few other people have such experiences so nobody would know what I was talking about; and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them anyway. Recently, however, there seems to be a growing trend in open about such things, especially online. More and more people are opening up about their disabilities and impairments, however minor. In the grand scheme of things, that’s probably very healthy. Why, then, shouldn’t I join them? If everyone else is now being so open, why keep my anxiety about my absences hidden? As I say, it’s a very unpleasant feeling; but it’s one I’ve always experienced every few weeks or so. Writing this won’t make such feelings go away, but nonetheless it feels good to be more open.
I felt compelled to make this after someone who I won’t name became slightly confused when he overheard part of this quite excellent review of Star Trek TNG episode The Wounded this morning.
I watched my second episode of Race Across The World last night. To be honest I have never bothered watching previous series, but a couple of weeks ago it caught my eye. It is essentially a competition program in which teams of two people compete to reach a destination first spending the least amount of money. This time they are trying to get from Northern China to Southern India. It caught my eye with all it’s exotic locations: as someone who loves to travel, I’m naturally captivated by such television.
As I was watching it last night, I was struck by the inevitable idea: wouldn’t it be cool if I competed on the show with John? After our awesome adventures in India and North Africa, surely it would be possible. And think what incredible, enlightening TV it would make: a guy with Cerebral Palsy crossing the world with his best mate. And think what fun it would be. But then it occurred to me that it would hardly be fair, as John would probably do all the hard work in terms of packing, planning and pushing, and all I would have to do is sit in my wheelchair shouting at people to get out of our way. That aside, I still think it’s a great idea which BBC studio execs would probably love, so I’ll mention it to J the next time I see him.
The Ill-Informed Ramblings of a Cripple 