I now think I’m going to make a conscious effort to get out of London a bit more. That probably sounds a bit weird, but for the last fifteen years or so my entire world has sort of been bounded by the capital. Of course, there have certainly been occasions when I have ventured beyond the M25, most notably my trips abroad; yet my day to day life seems to have been very London-centric. I realised recently that I can easily go for weeks and even months without going outside of the encircling motorway. To be honest it seemed like anywhere outside London would be too far away to reach, or that I would be taking a risk heading anywhere not under the jurisdiction of TfL. There was also a small, nagging voice in the back of my mind protesting that wanting to venture outside of London would be a sign that I no longer loved London or thought it the greatest city on earth.

However, as incredible as I still think London is, I’m becoming more and more aware that there is more to life than just one metropolis. I now feel a real urge to go beyond its limits a bit more. My daily trundles for the last fifteen years have broadly been a matter of heading to the same places within the city: as incredible as that once was, it also now has a faint feeling of captivity. It is almost as if they are becoming too familiar, too well known, and as bright and glittering and fabulous as they may be, too dull.

Part of me now feels that there must be places outside of London I can get to, beyond the tarmac circle of the M25. Greener, quieter places; places far from the hubbub of traffic and the chatter of countless people. Quaint little villages and market towns, connected via lanes winding through fields. The problem is as it always has been: London is so huge that actually getting outside of the city just using public transport takes so long that it becomes unpractical for me to try to get anywhere before I have to start heading home. Yesterday, for example, it took me an entire afternoon to get to the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent and back, using two buses. Obviously if public transport was a bit better I would have had less of a problem; but even so I now really want to find more ways of getting outside this vast urban sprawl. As I wrote a couple of days ago, thanks largely to the Elisabeth Line, getting across London and particularly into the city centre is now extremely easy; yet I now feel a growing urge to get out of the metropolis and into landscapes more akin to those I grew up with a bit more.

The breakfast news this morning was topped by the story that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is being criticised by the Tories and the tabloids for breaking housing rules when renting out her family home. I must admit hearing this wound me up instantly. If anything it is a total non-story – an honest mistake which Reeves has already dealt with. Yet the way in which the Tories and the right wing were pouncing on it, demanding that Reeves resigns and calling her position ‘untenable’, I think tells us everything we need to know about them. How many tories will have made similar mistakes? How many of them will have second homes which, being tories, they’ll have refused to pay tax on? Does the reactionary press make a fuss about them?

Of course not. Thus in reacting like this the tories have made their characters clear: they are immature and ignorant; they cannot accept honest mistakes and think only they have a right to lead. They think that only they should have things like second homes, and if anyone they see as inferior to them dares to transgress their rules, they run to the gutter press as though some unspeakable felony has been committed. They see the world in reductionist, simplistic terms, and are as juvenile as the man-child currently leading America. Reeves has nothing to answer for, but the tories’ grotesque reaction tells us all we need to know about such infantile, hypocritical people.

I know I have rarely if ever referenced it here, and although I wouldn’t describe myself as a Fawlty Towers fan to the extent that I’m a James Bond, Star Trek or Monty Python fan, of course I can’t help but be touched by the sad passing of Prunella Scales yesterday. It was an absolute classic of British comedy, and it seems that we have lost yet another great actor.

I’m not sure how much sympathy or agreement I’ll get with this, but I’m seriously starting to think that no child under the age of sixteen should be allowed onto London public transport without an adult with them. That might sound a bit harsh or mean spirited, but more and more these days I see kids or groups of kids getting onto buses without adults with them, and and quite frankly it makes me feel nervous. I’ve written here before about the trouble I’ve been getting more and more from young people. When I’m on a bus and they are unsupervised, to be honest it feels like their jeers, jibes and comments are inevitable. It’s worst at around three or four PM, when they leave school and get on with their mates, finding it funny that a drooling guy in a powerchair is also travelling home. I would far rather see a grown, responsible adult accompanying them, rather then letting them think they have free rein to mock people like me.

It’s strange to think that London once felt so vast and labyrinthine. Not that long ago, it seemed like an almost endless urban sprawl which I could barely begin to comprehend. I suppose that part of the problem was that actually getting up into the city took so long. Travelling into central London, on either the Jubilee Line or a bus from Charlton, took at least an hour. Now though, thanks to the Elizabeth Line, getting into central London is so much easier. Within twenty minutes from Woolwich I can be somewhere like Tottenham Court Road or Bond Street, ready to explore the metropolis.

It feels like the city is at last within my grasp, so that somewhere which once seemed so incomprehensible and endless now seems far smaller and more homely; places which once seemed so distant and almost foreign now feel as reachable as my local shops. This morning, for instance, I was able to pop into central London on the spur of the moment, curious about the shops on Bond Street. The sky was blue and I felt ready to explore again. I was able to go and take in the beauty of Hyde Park and Regent’s Park in the autumn sunshine. Such places are now feeling more and more familiar to me, as if they have been transported from somewhere extremely remote and unreachable to almost my back garden. It makes me wonder whether this shrinking is going to continue, and what future innovations might make getting around London even easier. More to the point though, London is obviously becoming increasingly accessible to guys like me, so that thanks to incredible advancements like the Elisabeth Line, sooner or later wheelchair users will be able to get around the metropolis as quickly and easily as anyone else.

I really must say that I’m having a far more cheerful, less acrimonious day than yesterday. I just got in from my daily trundle, through the park and down into Greenwich. The thing is, now that the days are shorter, I’m not going to be able to go out on my longer rolls any more. On the other hand, that also means that I’m much more likely to go to the cinema, and I think this will be the film I go to see next. I’m not usually a big horror fan, but from Mark Kermode’s review, Sketch sounds intriguing: given that it apparently involves drawings somehow coming to life, I would say it sounds fairly Lacanian, but the fact that it has been described as “a cross between Jurassic Park and Inside Out” really sold it to me. Expect my review/reaction here soon.

The breakfast news this morning was topped by the story that the so-called king has gone to meet the so-called pope. Surely I can’t be the only person to find that utterly, utterly absurd: the fact that the head of one anachronistic institution has gone to meet the head of another is not news. When all is said and done, both monarchy and religion should have no place in modern society. Both are forms of authority based on a set of antiquated myths; they both demand we believe in an absurd creator-being which can’t possibly exist, in order that a very limited set of privileged people can continue to be revered and treated as special and above the law by the rest of society.

I have written about what I think about both the monarchy and religion here before. If we really are as enlightened as we want to be, if we really want everyone to be equal, surely we should have outgrown both anachronisms long ago. Yet here we are, watching the activities of both being reported on the news, as though it was two heads of state meeting, rather than simply the meeting of two men who both hope society doesn’t wise up to their charade.

I was in my building society earlier, where I caught sight of Prime Minister’s Questions on the TV there. I stopped watching PMQs ages ago because I was getting too wound up. Looking at Kemi Badenoch on the screen, it struck me that, for all her insults, taunts and baseless accusations, she doesn’t even realise that she’s nothing but the puppet of a group of rich white men responsible for the mess that the country is now in. I know that holding the government to account is the opposition’s job, but if the Tories had a modicum of humility or integrity, they would be begging for our collective forgiveness, not mouthing their heads off, making out it’s all Labour’s fault. The fact that the Tories refuse to accept their culpability for the country’s diminishment and isolation is bad enough; but the fact that they are currently using a black woman as their figurehead, in some perverse effort to appear open, inclusive and tolerant when they are still the collection of hyper-privileged white bigots who think power is their birthright which they always have been, is what makes it even more sickening.

The Trekkie in me is simply demanding that I direct everybody here today, to quite a fascinating Youtube video discussing thirteen easily missed details about Star Trek The Next Generation. As the video says, TNG belonged to something of a golden age of TV sci fi which we seem to have now sadly grown out of: It held a mirror up to contemporary society, creating a seemingly utopian future which was not quite as wondrous as it first appeared. This video reflects on that, illustrating thirteen fairly dark details we otherwise would probably have ignored. The Ferengi, for example, weren’t just cartoonish villains, but a quite biting commentary on contemporary capitalism. Online analysis like this is increasingly pointing such things out, becoming more and more observant, which is why I definitely think it’s worth watching. Alas, it is only in retrospect that we can realise how incredible such programmes were, as well as what they told us about. ourselves.

I haven’t been very political recently, but this must be the most reassuring graph I’ve come across in a long, long time.

Surely this is a clear indication that the country is waking up to the reality of Brexit. It is becoming clearer and clearer what an epic mistake leaving the European Union was, and the sooner we re-take our position among our neighbours, the better.

I would just like to direct everyone’s attention to this incredible bit of news today. Sir David Attenborough has become the oldest person to ever win a Daytime Emmy for his Netflix film, Secret Life of Orang-utans. “The 99-year-old came out top in the outstanding daytime personality, non-daily category, with the Netflix film – which follows a group of apes living in the jungles of Sumatra, Indonesia – also coming away with two other awards.” Needless to say, I find that draw dropping. I’ve written about my admiration for Sir David on here before, yet the fact that not only is he still making television programmes after seventy years, but those programmes are still coming head and shoulders above anything else being made, is absolutely jaw-dropping. He surely is a national treasure if ever we had one.

I just have one question on my mind today. I think it is fairly pressing:

Have I fallen into the nasty habit of just blogging for the sake of it?

I think I’ve said here before how much I like London public transport: as a wheelchair/powerchair user, I really appreciate the fact that I can easily get on and off busses and increasingly the tube, and pretty much go where I like. In a while I plan to head out into the metropolis and head where I want to go with ease. However, the fact remains I was born and grew up in the North of England. As a wheelchair user up there, I found myself very much restrained. For one, the ramps on busses weren’t even automatic, so bus drivers had to grudgingly get out of their cabs to put their ramps out for me. Getting between towns was a real hassle, so it wasn’t until I moved to London, with it’s world-class metropolitan transport system, that I experienced the type of public transport freedom most other people have.

Interestingly though, I just came across this video from TLDR News about the so-called Northern Powerhouse Rail Project. The plan is to create a world-class rail network, uniting cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. Not that I’m turning into some kind of railway geek, but I must admit I find that pretty exciting. Presumably, any new infrastructure will be accessible, so guys like me are going to be able to get across the region, between towns and cities far, far easier. The whole area will be opened up for wheelchair users and become far more inviting. As a Cheshire Lad I certainly find that positive: it seems the rest of the country is at last receiving the investment and attention London alone has got for far too long. Surely guys like me have as much right to get where we need to go as anyone else, and I frankly find the fact that there’s still a sizeable imbalance between London and the rest of the country, in terms of public transport, especially accessible public transport, rather perverse.

This evening, given what is currently unfolding in the Middle East, I think I better direct everyone back to read what I wrote here. Events in Israel are an issue I have actively chosen to avoid. It isn’t that I don’t care about what is going on there – what self-respecting political and social commenter would turn their back on such a major world issue? – but what is unfolding there is always so thorny and contentious that I find whatever I write it is bound to wind someone up. Now that Trump has become so involved, opinions will have become even stronger and commenting has become even harder to resist; yet I think it is wiser to take a step back and continue to just watch events unfold.

It has been a while since I said anything particularly political or blogged about Brexit here, but I think the best thing I can do today is direct everyone to this very astute vlog by Supertanski. In it, I think she sums up the current, rather perverse state of affairs really well: how Reform are capitalising on and manipulating people’s fears, ignorance and naivites. Farage and co. are essentially conning people, generating a form of warped, fake patriotism; scapegoating immigrants in order to ensure they go unchecked. It’s something such charlatans have always done. It is really quite perverse when you look at it, but the degree to which it is going unnoticed seems to be growing more and more extreme. I’m just glad some of us can still point it out.

I can really get hurt by people sometimes. I was going along a pavement this afternoon, pretty much as normal, when as often happens a woman came walking the other way. There ensued the usual unspoken back-and-forth over who was going to step which way. It actually happens fairy often when you use a powerchair, but usually ends with an amicable smile. Today, however, I couldn’t fail to notice quite a bitter, sarcastic “I’ll get out of your way! It’s probably safer if I do it.” I probably ordinarily wouldn’t have noticed, but she uttered it with such resentment and contempt that I felt instantly concerned; it was as though she suddenly thought I shouldn’t even be out on my own. I really hope it isn’t the sign of the direction public spirits are heading in which I fear it is.

I have come across a very interesting new fiction today. Well, it isn’t that new given that it has been running for ten years, but it’s new to me. I had a shower this morning, during the process of which Dominik gave me a shave and haircut, as he sometimes does. When he was finished, he commented that my hair was now so short that I looked like a character from the series Breaking Bad. I had never watched it, so I didn’t know who he meant. However, I then checked out the first two episodes of the series on Netflix, and was pretty much instantly hooked: I don’t think I have ever watched such a witty, intelligent program. The quality of the writing, which fuses chemistry with criminality, was first rate. I’m just slightly embarrassed that I had never watched it before, but it is now something I certainly intend to get into, especially since I now look like one of it’s lead characters.

I’m not sure how healthy this is, but I have started reacting very negatively indeed to any glimpse I get of anything to do with  JK Rowling or Harry Potter. Ever since she came out as such a deplorable transphobe, as I wrote here a while ago, I haven’t been able to abide anything to do with the bitch. I honestly and quite passionately believe that her dire fourth rate books need to be taken out of print immediately, as they give a huge sociocultural platform to a woman who clearly doesn’t deserve it. Rowling has obviously used the recognition she got from the Harry Potter books as a platform from which to insult and denigrate the entire trans community, which, as someone who once loved a transgender woman, is something I cannot forgive. Earlier today on the bus, for instance, I saw a young woman carrying a Harry Potter book, and it took all the will I could muster to resist knocking it out of her hands, or at least stop myself giving her a piece of my mind.  In fact I’m starting to think that those of us who are concerned with the rights and representation of transgender people should unilaterally go into every book shop we can find and rip the bitch’s shit from the shelves. I realise that might sound rather thuggish, but surely these days, intolerant, closed minded views such as hers are no longer acceptable.

I think I should just congratulate Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who, it was just announced, has won the Nobel Peace Prize. She has campaigned for years against the dictatorship in Venezuela, and it’s good to see that she is recognised for her struggles. I’d far rather see the Nobel Prize being awarded to someone like her, who genuinely deserves it, than to a self-important, egotistical fool who seems to think he should be awarded it just for being who he is. Mind you, I suspect this decision will spawn a few tantrums in the White House.

You might have watched the BBC Panorama programme a couple of nights ago about how the incidences of conditions like Autism and ADHD seem to be increasing quite rapidly, and how many more school children now have Special Educational Needs than they did just ten or twenty years ago. Of course I was very interested in it, but was in two minds about commenting on it here: I know as much about what is causing this increase as anyone else. I would, however, just like to pose once fairly obvious question on here: How does this surge in neurological conditions compare with the incidences of more physical conditions? I would be interested to see whether the rates of physical disabilities like cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy have also increased, or stayed the same. That would at least give us a sort of control or comparison.

I may be being too simplistic, but I can’t help suspecting that this upsurge has a prominent social or cultural aspect which physical disabilities won’t have, given their obvious, unambiguous physical causes. Thus a similar increase in the incidence of conditions like CP would presumably help to rule the possible cultural dimension out. Without such a control and comparable increase, I’m afraid my suspicion that this trend in people purporting to have neurological conditions is just that – a sociocultural trend – will not be going anywhere. As I have said here before, I know autism is a profoundly debilitating disability; yet these days more and more people are said to have it, and in fact it has become quite common. That can’t fail to strike me as extremely odd, especially if the prevalences of other conditions aren’t going up as well.

‘Woke’ is increasingly being used as an insult, particularly by those who don’t seem to realise what it means.

…All the more reason to take pride in calling yourself woke, frankly.

I know I really shouldn’t just direct everyone to random, deranged Youtube videos, but if you want a glimpse of just how bizarre the world of AI is getting, as well as to see what Elvis Presley would look like if he was captain of the Starship Enterprise, just check this out. Seriously though, such footage puts me in awe of just how advanced, how realistic, AI-generated mashups are becoming: we’ll soon reach the point where we’ll be unable to tell reality and fiction apart any more.

As deeply uncomfortable and horrified as it makes me, I think anyone who cares about the current state the USA is in needs to watch this. It’s a Times Radio documentary on American evangelical megachurches and their links to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, and you won’t be surprised to read that I find it utterly obscene. What such ‘churches’ do in manipulating people, brainwashing them, even extorting a significant amount of their income from them, goes well beyond the comprehension of any rational person. What makes it even worse is that it is overtly political: these people believe with all their hearts that Trump was somehow ordained by ‘god’, and anyone opposing him is an evil demon. While the film does not give us any idea of just how widespread the cult it is depicting has become, leading me to hope that it is a small, fringe group, the fact that such absolute insanity exists at all in America is very, very frightening.

When I came across this appalling news earlier, that the Tories now plan to take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights if they win the next election, my automatic reaction was to wonder where they plan to build the gas chambers for everyone the tories deem ‘useless eaters’? I was, of course, being rather facetious – I don’t actually think the Tories intend to exterminate anyone. Nonetheless, I think there is a grain of ugly truth at the bottom of that sentiment. The ECHR has guaranteed and safeguarded our human rights for decades. Without it we would all be defenceless, open to the most sickening manipulation and persecution. The rich and powerful would be able to do as they please with the vulnerable and weak; racism and intolerance would become commonplace, even lauded. It opens up the prospect of a future so hideous, so unjust, that it doesn’t bear thinking about. Thus, while the Tories might not go as far as creating execution camps, I seriously think taking us out of the ECHR would be a horrifying step in that direction.

I had a shower this morning. I shower fairly often of course, but these days I have four personal assistants, so different chaps help me each time. This morning it was Dom’s turn, and as usual he was also helping me to shave. Sitting there getting wet earlier, something fairly interesting occurred to me: everyone uses a slightly different method of shaving my face. Artur uses long, deep strokes; Dom uses shorter, lighter strokes, re-applying shaving foam. Dad, if memory serves, was somewhere in the middle, shaving sessions often infused with cries of “Keep still you fool!” Ultimately, though, they all achieve the same goal: I always end up with my face nice and smooth and well-shaven. It just interests me to reflect upon how much variety there can be for such a simple, everyday task. It occurs to me that probably only someone like myself would ever notice such variation, as most men only shave themselves, no doubt using the same method day after day. Everyone has their own way of doing things, their own method of reaching the same end. At the end of the day though, it all serves the same purpose. We all have the same needs; all men have faces to shave. It doesn’t really matter how they do it, as long as their faces our smooth by the end. As a community we seem to be forgetting that fact, and turning simple differences into outright divisions. Ultimately, though, it’s all air-filled foam to be washed down the drain.

I don’t really have much to say today – not much that is blogworthy anyway. Following on from yesterday, I thought I’d take the Bakerloop up to Waterloo again. Today though, rather than crossing the river to come home from Westminster, I thought I’d trundle west along the river a bit – that is still an area of the city I don’t know much about. It started as quite a lovely roll, but I soon realised that the area I was heading into was becoming more and more built up. I eventually got as far as Battersea Power Station. I must say, however, that what I found there was astonishing: I last headed that way about three years ago, and even then I found the amount of money being poured into that area jaw-dropping. Heading that way again this afternoon, it had grown even more obscenely flamboyant and gentrified. Walking into the shopping mall was like being teleported to Dubai, not that I would ever buy anything from such a place. To get a glimpse of what I mean, watch this. Then again, it’s the same situation all across London: the whole city is turning into a kind of perverse, hyper-wealthy distortion of reality, in which the people who live here gradually are loosing their grip on what really matters.