Truth be told, now that I’ve sat down to write my annual summary of the year, I simply find myself wanting to echo what I wrote about 2024. Rather like the last one, it wasn’t that spectacular a year: my trips to Cyprus and Paris were obviously great, but that’s about it. More widely, the picture grows ever more concerning, and I’m afraid that it now darkens every time I watch the news. If anything things are now even more ominous. The situation is now so unpredictable that what the new year will bring is anybody’s guess. Yet every morning I still wake up knowing that there is potential for something incredible to happen, so we can’t get too downhearted. I really hope everyone reading this has a great new year. The wider world might well be going crazy, and sociopolitical forces which humanity should have outgrown long ago may now be resurgent, but that’s no reason not to go out and have fun.

I wrote recently about my experiences of growing up going to a special school, and about how that meant I came into contact with young people with a wide range of disabilities. That includes kids with autism. While, to my knowledge, none of the young people in my class was on the autistic spectrum, many of the kids at school were quite profoundly autistic, and my experiences there have done a great deal to inform my conception of what autism is. It is a profoundly debilitating condition, as severe and serious as any other disability. The young people at school who had it were profoundly disabled and could barely do anything for their selves.

The problem is, as I started to explain here, these days the term seems to be being used more and more flippantly. This morning, for instance, I was on the tube up to Stratford when I overheard a teenager describe someone as “Obviously on the spectrum”. I must admit it immediately caught my ear: the statement was made so flippantly and casually that it could almost have been a joke, as if Autism is now nothing more than a mere social trend. People have apparently began to pin such labels upon one another at will, probably thinking they sound clever for doing so but obviously having no understanding of what being autistic really entails. Yet in so doing the terms they use so casually loose all meaning. When I think back to the young people I saw at school, barely able to do anything for them selves, I can’t help finding it sickening to hear such terms now being used in this way, as if being autistic just means you have a few personal quirks, and is no more significant than someone’s hair colour.

A couple of days ago I wrote how comforting it was to spend Christmas Day with my family. We were in the very North London house which used to belong to my grandparents, and which I still have extremely warm, happy memories of. For that day, the woes of the wider world seemed unfathomably distant. I have, however, just come across this article by John Simpson, and the woes of the wider world have come crashing back. I’m not sure how much of it is hyperbole or exaggeration, but it is the first time I have seen someone talking so openly about the prospect of an imminent Third World War. Simpson writes “I’ve reported on more than 40 wars around the world during my career, which goes back to the 1960s. I watched the Cold War reach its height, then simply evaporate. But I’ve never seen a year quite as worrying as 2025 has been – not just because several major conflicts are raging but because it is becoming clear that one of them has geopolitical implications of unparalleled importance.”

With Russia more warlike and confrontational than it has been in decades, and Putin’s puppet now installed in the States, the world clearly now stands at an extremely dangerous juncture. For the most part, my generation grew up in a world of peace: It’s all we have known, and it is what we have come to expect. Yet, from the sound of it, that is about to come to a crashing, catastrophic end. Largely thanks to things like Brexit and the rise of Trump, the old certainties we once depended upon have now evaporated. Russia is growing ever stronger and eager to dominate; America is becoming isolationist and inward-looking; Europe is becoming weaker and more powerless to intervene. As much as I hope this is just exaggeration and melodrama, reading articles like this should make us all gravely concerned.

Sorry to get slightly heavy, but as someone becoming increasingly concerned about the rise of Christian Nationalism and religious fundamentalism, particularly in America, I think I need to flag this Jimmy The Giant video up. While I’m not sure I agree with absolutely everything he says, it is quite an excellent summary of the rise of the religious right in America, and how Christianity is now being used as an overtly political, reactionary tool with which to justify all kinds of bigotry and xenophobia. Whatever your personal religious beliefs, it should be becoming increasingly clear that what we’re currently witnessing in America is the rise of fascism. It’s leaders shroud it in the guise of religion, and that unless it is called out, it is on a path to somewhere truly horrific.

I suppose as usual, writing about a problem is the best way to find its solution. I’ve written before about the increasing issues I’ve been having with kids: when I’m out and about, young people seem to be talking more and more pleasure in winding me up and taking the piss. To try to combat it, for Christmas this year my parents gave me a body worn camera, the thinking being that if I could record the obnoxious youngsters perhaps it would deter them. On paper it was a good idea, but the problem is I’m not the world’s best camera person. When I ventured out yesterday afternoon, my new camera pinned to my jacket, it invariably drooped and panned down to take a shot of my knees. No matter what I did, I couldn’t keep it level and facing forward; we just got a long, steady film of my lap. It’s quite a shame, not least because if I’m going to give people an idea of the issues I’m having with young people these days, such a camera would obviously be the way to do it. I’m now trying to come up with ways to mount the camera on either my jacket or powerchair, and would be very much open to suggestions.

Long term readers of this blog will probably know that I’m not a religious person. Today I could launch into a tirade about how Christmas is nonsense, and essentially a pagan midwinter festival hijacked by a Middle Eastern death cult. Yet I really, really don’t think it’s the day for that: This Christmas finds humanity more divided than it has been in a long time, with people finding it harder than ever to see eye to eye. The news from America especially gets more troubling by the day. It is becoming genuinely disturbing, and I frankly dread to think what news will come next. Yet, personally, this Christmas Day morning finds me with my parents, in the same old family house in Harlesden where I spent many Christmases as a child. It is quiet and warm, and there is the smell of roasting turkey in the air: there can be little more comforting or comfortable. It almost feels like my life has regressed thirty years, just for the day. Thus, as divided as the world is right now, and as furious as the news may make us, it is always good to remember that there are still some constants you can depend upon.

Slightly political for Christmas Eve, but I couldn’t resist it!

I’ve opted to stay home today and just stick to watching stuff on Youtube. I was just watching a video about New York, and caught myself thinking that it would be fantastic to go there. Perhaps, one day in a few months, I could head that way with John. The thing is, can I? These days, the news from the US is getting worse and worse: it is getting truly frightening, with Trump becoming more deranged and fascistic by the day. I don’t want to be melodramatic, but I can’t help wondering whether such a trip would be a good idea under current circumstances. Thus as awesome as a trip to New York might be, and as interested as I’d be to see how New York’s subway compares with London’s tube in terms of accessibility for example, as things stand I honestly have grave reservations. Frankly, that once shining beacon on the hill full of glitz and glamour and possibility, is starting to look like a cesspit of reactionary division, intolerance and hate.

It has been absolutely ages since I came across any particularly interesting literary analysis or criticism, but particularly given the time of year, I think I need to flag this Steve Shives video up. As a piece of political commentary, I think it’s especially astute. In it, Shives compares Donald Trump to Ebenezer Scrooge. The two obviously have quite a few touching points; both are utterly selfish, self-important bastards. But what I find cool is how Shives uses Dickens’s famous Yuletide miser to make astute points about current American politics: Scrooge may have had his faults, but at least at the end of the story he realised he had to reform, and was shown to have a modicum of humanity and compassion about him after all. At the end of the day, Scrooge listened to what he was being told, rather than just dismissing the three ghosts as some sort of woke conspiracy intended to manipulate him. It is frankly great to see classical literature still being used to make such wry, observant political points.

I’m fairly pleased to report that I finished Nicholas Shakespeare’s 2023 biography of Ian Fleming, The Complete Man, a couple of days ago. Although I mentioned that I have a hardback copy a few days ago, it’s quite a thick, dense text, so I opted to be lazy and find an audio version too, enabling me to relax while getting through it. As a Bond fan, Fleming is still a historical figure who continues to intrigue me: obnoxious, arrogant, privileged, yet somehow also fascinating. For example, Shakespeare goes into a lot of detail about Fleming’s involvement with secret services during World War Two and the formation of 30AU and SOE, and you get a good idea of how such experiences could have lead to the creation of the character James Bond and the mythology surrounding him. For one, it was particularly clear the extent to which Admiral John Godfrey, Fleming’s intelligence boss during the war, was the basis for the character M. Shakespeare also takes care to place such information in quite a bit of contemporary context, updating the narrative with any relevant subsequent details. Thus I couldn’t help but get drawn in.

Shakespeare also includes a lot of cool details, such as about the meeting between Fleming and the actual James Bond, the Caribbean ornithologist. As I said about Andrew Lycett’s biography of the same writer, Fleming may have had his faults, but it is only through such background information that we can get any real understanding of the origins of a character which went on to be so prominent in popular culture. He may have been an arrogant snob and an anachronistic remnant of a fast fading empire, but the fact remains Fleming made a huge contribution not only to post-war literature and popular culture, but British history and wartime intelligence. Frankly, I find him as fascinating and enigmatic as the character he created, and biographies like this help bring that to light.

Not that I like simply directing everyone to Youtube videos, but I think anyone as disgusted as I am at the fact that Trump is suing the BBC needs to check this analysis out. In it, Truth To Power lays out precisely what is going on. What the disgrace to human civilisation who Americans currently call their president is doing is actually rather disgusting: he’s actively, knowingly misleading people, overtly attacking a hugely respected public broadcaster, accusing them of something they manifestly did not do. I must say, as much as I like hyperbole, and as strongly as I think we should all get behind the Beeb, what Trump is trying to do as laid out in this video is beyond obscene; the broader picture of what he’s doing should frankly make us all furious. For one, what I didn’t know is that he’s now accusing the BBC of altering his Capital Hill Speech using CGI, to make it appear that he said things he didn’t – even though he actually did. It would be comic if it wasn’t so perverse; completely ignorable if it wasn’t so dark and ominous.

I’m glad to say yesterday was quite a treat. I went with John to see It Was Just An Accident at the Barbican, and I honestly don’t think I’ve seen a more compelling, interesting film in a long, long time. I would highly recommend everyone goes and sees it if you can, as you couldn’t get much more different than the usual, commercial tripe you see in cinemas these days. Essentially an experimental Iranian film, it has kind of a ‘chain of thought’ format, with one event leading to another in a fascinating way. I’m not going to say much about it, but direct everyone to Mark Kermode’s review here.

However, as a disabled commentator I have to point out that one of the things I found particularly interesting and striking was the fact the entire narrative was fuelled by the fact a character had a prosthetic leg. A lot can be said about the politics underpinning the film, and the fact that it was made by a maverick Iranian director; but I really think this disability theme needs to be pointed out, lest it gets ignored. The only reason the chain of events the film depicts is set in motion is because one of the characters has a fake leg. As fascinating and brilliant as the film is, from a disability perspective that detail left a nasty taste in my mouth. Call me a stickler if you wish, but I really don’t think such uses of disability, or the fact that a character can be identified by their disability in this way, can really be overlooked.

Even so, It Was Just An Accident is certainly one of the great films of this year.

It is awesome to see that, in these days of such turmoil, there are at least some constants we can still rely on. You may have already heard that the great Sir David Attenborough is about to present a new nature documentary, due to air 1st January. I must say I find that utterly remarkable. When you remember that this man has been a stalwart of the UK’s cultural life for the past seventy years, it is frankly jaw-dropping. The cool thing is, this new series will focus on the wildlife found in London: people often think of the city as a sprawling concrete labyrinth, and often don’t realise that there is far more natural beauty – and indeed peacefulness – than you might think.

More to the point, Sir David has done more than anyone to open our collective eyes to the beauty and sophistication of the natural world. These days, people make a lot of fuss about all kinds of things, but I honestly think we collectively need to do a bit more to show our appreciation for such a remarkable man, broadcaster and father figure.

Most mornings after I’ve been to the cinema, I often wake up wondering what my parents might say about the film I’ve just been to see. Many films are so interesting that I’d be rather fascinated to get Mum and Dad’s opinion. This morning, however, was different. John and I went to see Pillion last night, and while I personally found it very interesting indeed, I really don’t think it’s one for my parent’s generation. That is not to say I don’t think they should watch it, but rather that it’s not quite their cup of tea.

At it’s best cinema opens our eyes to new worlds, and that’s exactly what Pillion did for me: I was totally unaware of the secretive biker BDSM society it depicts. Of course I like to think of myself as an open-minded, worldly sort of guy, but the culture I became aware of last night seemed truly, truly strange. Men being submissive to other men in a kind of kinky, fucked up yet somehow consensual relationship. It certainly wasn’t the kind of thing I’d expect to encounter at a cinema in Peckham on a dark Tuesday evening. At one point I found myself wondering why it was being shown to us, and given the nationalities of the two central characters, whether it was some kind of analogy for Anglo-American relations. Why was this specific culture being depicted; and – perhaps more to the point – how widespread is it inn reality? It was unexpected, illuminating, and to be honest quite fascinating. But then, isn’t that what all art is supposed to be?

Check out Mark Kermode’s review here.

I think I’ve said here before how passionately I support the BBC: as far as I’m concerned, it ranks alongside the NHS as one of the publicly funded institutions which make the UK worth living in. Thanks to the Beeb, I know I can wake up to fair, impartial news every day, as well as ad-free entertainment and first class documentaries. That is why I am, needless to say, appalled at the news that Trump is now suing it for defamation. I’m obviously not a legal expert, so I’m not going to say much about it; although surely I’m not the only person to suspect that Trump’s pal Nigel Farage had a lot to do with this, in his acrid quest to get the BBC out of his way. Nonetheless, this should be just another piece of news to deepen our contempt for the disgrace to human civilisation who the Americans now call their president. If we all respect the BBC and the cultural treasures it has brought us over the years, surely we must get behind it to oppose this bully.

I wouldn’t be able to justifiably call myself a Star Trek fan if I didn’t direct everyone here today. While it may essentially be a list of rumours, I have a lot of trust in the source, Trek Culture, and the projects he notifies us of are potentially too thrilling or interesting to ignore. They include a lot of actors reprising their roles, including Scott Bacula as Captain Archer; but the one which caught my attention was the potential of A Star Trek-Dr. Who. crossover. Frankly that seemed too crazy for me to ignore. I may not be a Dr.Who fan, but Russel T. Davies has been talking to the guys at Paramount. This gives rise to the potential for something truly crazy, but given such strange mixtures are happening more and more these days, this is something I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on. It would be very interesting to see how the Beeb and Paramount might coordinate, and how they might fit the two fictions together in a convincing, satisfying way. After all, you know how excited I get about such crossovers and extra-textual play.

That aside, judging by what is outlined in this vid, it seems we Trekkies have quite a bit to look forward to.

I just got wind of an absolutely fascinating tidbit of information. I’m slowly getting through Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography of Ian Fleming, which I’m thoroughly enjoying. On page 599, Shakespeare writes how, in 1959, Fleming was desperate to have a director like Alfred Hitchcock adapt Thunderball, going so far as to write to Hitchcock’s wife. He, however, was busy filming Psycho. Yet it seems to me that this is one of those great ‘what ifs’: What if Hitchcock had made an early Bond film? What if he had contributed to the foundation of the franchise? Would they have turned out the same way? Or might they have become edgier, darker and more suspenseful? I must admit I find that possibility tantalising.

Just to expand upon what I was saying about the view from Greenwich Park a few days ago, today I found another, possibly equally wondrous view. I was trundling the other side of Lewisham, where I found a small park called – appropriately enough – Hilly Fields. It’s rather high, and from there you can see all of south London stretching out flat below. If ever you get chance it’s definitely worth a look. Unfortunately Google streetview doesn’t do it justice, but as soon as I saw it I knew it was worthy of a blog entry.

London may have a reputation as an ugly concrete, tarmac and steel labyrinth; yet the more I explore the city, the more beauty I find here.

I saw on the news over breakfast today that the eleventh annual video game awards have just been held. You can probably tell I’m not much of a ‘gamer’: the last time I played anything resembling a computer game was well over twenty years ago. Yet the fact that there are now awards ceremonies associated with the computer game industry seems to me to give rise to a few interesting questions. These awards were established in 2014, and obviously attempt to emulate the Oscars. If so, could it be said that these awards are an attempt by the game industry to put itself on a cultural parr with film? An overt statement of equal intellectual and cultural importance; sort of like declaring computer games to just be films which you can play. After all, look at any first person game and it’s aesthetic is very similar to that of a film.

However, if that is the case, that gives rise to some quite interesting questions. If computer games can now be categorised alongside other art forms like film or literature, to what extent can they now be studied? Academic film studies has it’s origins in the 1950s (at least); it is a fascinating, complex intellectual discourse. Might a similar discourse now arise around games and gaming? After all, people have begun talking about games in great detail, particularly online: the question that interests me is whether such discussions have reached the same intellectual and philosophical level film studies reached largely due to the work of writers like Roland Barthes and Andre Bazin.

I now honestly believe that by law it should be illegal for anyone physically capable of climbing stairs to use the lift, at least at railway and tube stations. I know that might sound a bit extreme, but this problem is getting worse and worse. I keep coming across lifts which are broken, obviously due to overuse. Most of the time there are perfectly good escalators nearby, but it leaves those of us with no other option stuck. For. much of this week, for example, the lift at Woolwich’s Elisabeth Line station was broken, simply because so many people can’t be arsed to climb a short flight of stairs. It’s obviously only about two years old, so presumably would be perfectly fine if it was just used by people who needed to. Making unnecessary lift use illegal might be a big step, but I’m afraid this is another of those problems that the authorities need to get serious about.

Mind you, how it would be punished is another question: a fine? Community service? Jail? A day in the stocks? …I obviously need to think this through.

It worries me how much of an ignoramus I can be sometimes, especially when it comes to the arts. I was once again wasting time on Youtube earlier, when I came across this fantastic video recreating views of seventeenth and eighteenth century London. I naturally love that kind of thing, but interestingly it referred to a painting called One Tree Hill created in the mid seventeen hundreds. It is a painting of the Royal Greenwich Hospital, the Thames and the Isle of Dogs beyond, prefiguring almost exactly the view I wrote so adoringly a few days ago here. It would seem that that view has been popular for centuries.

The stench coming from America is now growing by the day. I know I shouldn’t just keep directing everyone to videos I’ve just watched on Youtube, but I think this one is worth your attention. It details how Trump is now using the American Department of Justice to target his personal and political opponents, as if it was his own organisation to use as he pleases. This is the type of thing you hear about in Tsarist or Stalinist Russia. We may try to joke or brush it aside, but this is getting serious. I now see news and analysis like this coming from the US almost every day.

Of course, my concern may be being aroused by the videos Youtube suggests I watch, and other points of view will be being expressed elsewhere; yet more and more people are highlighting these issues. Trump is behaving like an autocrat, and saying that is no longer hyperbolic. We are fast reaching the point where something will need to be done, or not just America but the entire world will regret it. While I’d hope that the American political system has safeguards in place to prevent megalomaniacs taking total control, with Trump usurping their justice system like this, and with MAGA so rancid and fervent, that is looking more and more unlikely. That means outside forces will have no choice but to step in and restore order. The question is, what on Earth can we do?

I’m sure we have all seen the repugnant images this morning of Trump receiving his ‘award’.

If FIFA plans to act with such abject, sickening sycophancy toward this monster, we should have nothing to do with the World Cup next year.

I think I’d be doing my blog, and everyone who reads it, a grave disservice if I didn’t direct everyone to watch this video essay by Jessie Gender. At over two hours it’s fairly long, and gets quite heavy at times, but it is the most impressive, interesting piece of Star Trek analysis I’ve come across in a long time. It is essentially an exploration of free-market neoliberalism and the role it plays in Star Trek and the future it presents to us: the utopian future of global unity and exploration which Gene Roddenberry set out for us, and which drew so many to Star Trek, has seemingly now been usurped and distorted by American hyper-capitalists intent on perverting it to suit their worldview. While I don’t want to offer any kind of half-baked synopsis, the conclusions it draws are far more complex and intriguing than you might at first assume. If you have the time, it’s certainly worth watching from beginning to end.

A few days ago my mum told me something really interesting. Ever since I was very, very small, my family have been friends with a local Congleton family called the Pells. There was Carol, the mum, and two children: Andrew and Becky. We used to see each other quite regularly, crossing town to visit one another’s houses. It started well before I was born, and to be honest my memories of them are now fairly vague. However, a few days ago my Mum told me something I’m now keen to follow up: not only is she still in touch with Carol, but apparently Becky reads my blog! I can’t have seen her in over thirty years, so I think that’s rather incredible. Experience tells me how important to keep in touch with old friends, so Becky, if you read this, please drop me an email.

I don’t know whether anyone else does this, but once in a while I find myself asking myself how on earth I could ever get so lucky? I just got back from an early evening trundle to Greenwich Park. There is a vantage point there by the observatory which looks out over almost the entire metropolis: London stretches before you like a microcosm, with The City, Canary Wharf and The Dome laid out, left to right, in a panorama. I go there fairly often. This evening though, with the sky so clear and the lights of the city twinkling before me like the stars in a galaxy, I honestly don’t think I have ever seen anything quite so beautiful, evocative or inspiring. The moon was full and clear, shining down like a benign, caring night-light; the Thames snaking around the Isle of Dogs like a mother’s hand holding a newborn baby’s head. To think that I can just trundle out of my flat for a few minutes and have the greatest city on earth lying before me like that makes me realise how incredibly lucky I am.

Going back a few entries to this one about statues, I was up in Stratford once again today and it struck me that it would be very cool indeed if there was a statue of James Bond in the Olympic Park. He would be walking beside the late queen in order to celebrate both her and the 2012 opening ceremony. Well, it is the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park after all. Frankly I think this idea could actually have legs and that such a statue would be rather popular, although I don’t have a clue who I could take it to.