I must confess that I didn’t watch the entire Eurovision Song Contest last night. I needed to get to bed before it’s conclusion. There’s a Sainsbury’s nearby which sells Leffe, my favourite beer, and the two bottles of it I had went to my head. However, it seems to me that events like Eurovision are more important than ever before: such big, public events traverse borders and bring people together, at a time when humanity seems more divided than it has been in decades. There is a great deal of tension in the air, with horrific conflicts raging in both Israel and Ukraine. Of course, both were reflected last night, with Russia being excluded from the competition, and with many people feeling wary about whether Israel should have been allowed to participate too.

Yet, at the end of the day, such big international events are about bringing people together; they are about showing that we are just all one big community. Granted, there is an element of competition, and to a certain extent they allow communities to air their differences (booing one another, awarding points ‘strategically’ etc), but like the Olympics events like Eurovision are about coming together and having a great time. And at a point when we seem to be finding it harder than ever to trust our neighbours, both socially and internationally, I think that is more essential than ever, and why I think we need more events like it.

Ever since I first watched it, I have always dreamed that humanity was heading for the kind of future depicted on Star Trek: a humanity without borders, where we all worked together to advance humanity and explore space. I think this hits the nail on the head.

I think I just ought to record that today was my first jumperless day of 2024 – ie, the first day since last year when it was so warm outside that I didn’t need to wear a jumper. I’m not sure whether to be hopeful that this is a sign that summer will be here soon, or worry that it is a symptom of climate change.

Needless to say, I find this very exciting indeed. It was just featured on the BBC Breakfast program: the European Space Agency is currently training the world’s first amputee astronaut. “Former Paralympian John McFall is working with the European Space Agency on a ground-breaking study to see if it’s feasible for someone with a physical disability to live and work in space.” While some cynics may dismiss this as some kind of publicity or inclusivity stunt, I have to say I find it very encouraging indeed. It sends out a clear message that those of us with physical disabilities have just as much to human progress as anyone else, and that we can participate in endeavours like the exploration of space. And who knows where this might lead: could we one day see someone with a condition like cerebral palsy go up into the final frontier? Now that would certainly be awesome, although I suspect their dribbling might cause a few issues.

Today I think I ought to wish a happy birthday to two men who are, in very different ways, extremely dear to me. Firstly, when I got in this evening the internet reminded me that today is Sir David Attenborough’s 98th birthday. I think I’ve said here before that, as far as I’m concerned, Sir David is hands down the greatest broadcaster ever. There can’t be a single person in the UK who didn’t grow up watching the great man’s fascinating natural history documentaries, or hasn’t been utterly intrigued by the plethora of natural wonders he has revealed to us. We are all extremely lucky to have Attenborough as part of our mediascape, and should find the sheer body of work he has brought us over seventy years truly remarkable.

More personally but no less importantly, today is also Serkan’s birthday. Serkan is officially my Personal Assistant, but he is much more akin to a friend or even brother. Over the last four years he has come to my flat twice a day and washed, dressed and fed me; he has stood by me through thick and thin, including the darkness of the pandemic. I owe him a great, great deal, and hope he has the best of days.

Coming by from my trundle today, I had one another of those ideas which I think needs noting. I have been wearing a baseball cap whenever I go out for years: whenever I’m heading out, it’s now just a force of habit to just pull my cap on. The thing is, they tend to wear out or get lost fairly often, so over the years I’ve got through quite a few. I used to simply buy them off the shelf, but a month or two ago I found a store at the O2 where they would write any message I requested on to the front of a cap. It was a little expensive, but I liked the idea.

The first cap I bought from that shop was a black one with the words “Get out of my way or I’ll eat you.” I thought it would be cool to tell people that I was coming through and I needed them to stand aside, albeit in a humorous way and without actually needing to say anything.

After a while of wearing that cap when I was out and about though, I had another, rather more satirical idea. Taking a cue from all the idiotic Trump supporters I see on TV, I decided to go back to the shop at the O2 and this time bought a red cap with the words “Don’t let America elect that idiot again!” (The guys at the shop wouldn’t let me go with anything stronger than ‘idiot’.) At first I assumed it would just be my joke and wondered whether anyone would actually see or get it, although strangers have come up to me a couple of times and complemented me on it.

This afternoon, however, an idea for a third cap hit me: I was once again on the tube, having to wait for lifts being used by people perfectly able to use the stairs. All of a sudden I found myself absolutely itching to get a cap with the words “Use the frikkin’ stairs you lazy sods!” Then again, if I had such a hat I’d only be able to put it on when I want to use a lift, which could certainly make things complicated.

A cap where I could change the words using my Ipad? Now there’s an Idea.

While I don’t really feel like writing any kind of fulsome review of it right now, if you’re interested in watching films with interesting, innovative camera styles, go and watch Challengers. Essentially a romance about two guys and a woman who play tennis, what struck me the most when I was watching it in the cinema this afternoon was the way the film played around with conventional mainstream film: there were jump cuts, dolly zooms and shooting techniques I had never seen before. It really felt quite refreshing to see so many norms being broken, and mainstream film starting to adopt styles which it may once have regarded as too avante guarde.

I realise I don’t often mention it compared to the regularity with which I enthuse about James Bond or Star Trek, but I’m still a huge Lord of The Rings fan, so I was very sad to hear about the death of Bernard Hill yesterday. His performance as King Theoden in Peter Jackson’s epic adaptations of Tolkien’s novels was arguably one of the highlights of the film: I really think Hill captured the character of the chief of the Rohirrim – this mighty, noble, brave warrior king who could have stemmed from a Shakespearean tragedy or Norwegian epic saga – quite perfectly. More to the point, he was one of the great British actors, capable of delivering a hell of a lot of content with the slightest glance.

“I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed.”

This was just too amusing for me not to nick!

I know I have only myself to blame for this, but a few months ago I asked my Australian friend Darryl to help me upload all the archived entries from my old blog to my new one. It annoyed me to have almost twenty years of writing no longer online. I didn’t know how to do it but Darryl did. Fool that I am, though, I sent him a pdf file rather than the html file I had, so none of the entries Darryl so kindly uploaded had any of their original links. This has recently started to annoy me, and I’ve been spending quite a bit of time trying to restore the links entry by entry (checking that they still actually lead somewhere first). The problem is, there are probably about two or three thousand entries, so it will take me an absolute age. If anyone reading this can think of a solution, I would be eager to hear it.