Today I would just like to draw everyone’s attention to a bit of a coincidence. Something I noticed quite some time ago, which strikes me as an uncanny coincidence personally but would no doubt pass totally unnoticed by anyone else. These days, one of the places I go to for my regular daily trundles is the Westfield Centre in Stratford, a huge American shopping mall. The truly odd thing is, Westfield Flats were the name of the four student rooms one of which I used at university. That in itself would obviously be nothing notable for anyone but me; but the weird coincidence is, Westfield also happens to be the name of the small village my Dad’s family comes from down in Sussex. It’s only the reuse of a name which isn’t that unusual, but I think it’s kind of cool to see one area of my life echoed in another. Going shopping in the one always reminds me of the other two, although as I was going through the cavernous mall today I couldn’t help reflecting that you can barely get much more different. Finding such names being reused or echoed is enough to catch your attention.

When I was growing up, up in Cheshire, Jodrell Bank was a place which was always not that far away but which I rarely actually visited. There were plenty of road signs to the observatory in my local area, but before I started using a powerchair getting myself there was far out of my range. Coming from an extremely scientific family though, my brothers and I understood how important the observatory was to scientific discourse; and it felt great to have such an awesome bit of kit so close, peering up into the fascinating realms of space.

I was therefore astonished to read that funding for the world famous, important observatory is now going to be cut.” The Jodrell Bank Observatory, which has housed the UK’s largest telescope for nearly 70 years, has lost its funding and could now close, the BBC understands.” How stupid and regressive can you get? While I know how important it is for a country to save money, Jodrell Bank is a vital facet of the UK’s contribution to world science: How else are we going to look into the final frontier? I’m thus just as appalled by this news as guys like Professor Brian Cox and every other British scientist; I really hope the scientific community takes firm action to keep the observatory up and running.

I just came across this New York Times article flagged up by one of my friends on Facebook, and was listening to it while eating a bit of brunch. What caught my attention, quite apart from the idiocy it details about Donald Trump, was that there’s a full, free to access audio reading of the text as well as the written article. I must admit that interests me: I often prefer to listen to online text rather than reading it, so usually just bung it through a text-to-speech tool. To see a publication as mainstream as the NY Times implementing a feature like this on their website is surely rather noteworthy, as it implies they want to encourage people with a wide range of abilities, including learning difficulties, to access their output. If so, then surely this is quite a good sign; it suggests such publications are becoming broader and more accommodating. I find it great to see such large media companies being so accommodating of peoples’ diverse needs.

Mind you, the details it goes into, about Trump’s increasingly lunatic behaviour, is considerably more frightening.

Today I just want to draw your attention to something which I think is rather cool: while I still write the majority of my blog entries on my desktop computer of course, I have taken to writing more and more using my iPad while I’m out and about. It gives me a flexibility which I didn’t have before. Thus yesterday, while I was at the pride event and then coming home from it, I found myself jotting down my entry sentence by sentence into the notes app, ready to put online the next time I found a WiFi connection. I sometimes call it trundle-blogging. There is something awesome about blogging on the tube. Of course, any links I want to include have to wait until I get back to my computer as copying and pasting links is slightly too fiddly for me to do using a touchscreen, but I find it a great way to generate blog entries. Perhaps it gives them an extra immediacy; it certainly helps me make sure I don’t forget anything. Mind you, given that I also use my iPad as my communication aid, I just need to make sure that I don’t dent the battery level too much.

You may remember my fixation on the short film Happy And Glorious, in which James Bond is shown to escort the Queen to the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. It would suddenly appear that Glasgow has come up with an answer. I didn’t actually watch last night’s commonwealth games Opening Ceremony as I was out, but caught up with the news this morning. I must admit I let out a bit of a spasticated squeal when I read that King Charles had been delivered to the games in the Tardis by Doctor Who: I still find it awesome to see such mashups between authority figures and fictional characters. Of course, you could say that the one was a direct reply, reference and response to the other; and I remember how disappointed Doctor Who fans were that their hero was seemingly completely cut from the London ceremony. Perhaps the guys at Glasgow wanted to redress that balance.

Although I personally don’t find simply having the King and Queen step out of the Tardis quite as cool or jaw-dropping as Queen Elisabeth parachuting from a helicopter with 007, and the focus of the full film seems to be more drawn to Sir Chris Hoy and comedian Greg McHugh, the sketch has quite a few nice comic touches. Check it out here.

Some films can get away with just being viewed once; or at least, you can watch them and then not give them a second viewing or thought for some time. Other films, however, are so intriguing that they virtually demand to be rewatched as soon as possible: they stick in your mind, throwing up all kinds of questions which only a second viewing can answer. Synthetic Sincerity is a prime example. I saw it yesterday evening at the Barbican, and rolled out of the cinema wondering what on earth I’d just watched.

Calling it a film in the conventional sense would be doing it a disservice. Synthetic Sincerity is more of a creation – one which plays with the viewer, leaving you constantly trying to work out what you are watching. It plays with the very apparatus and grammar of film, making you wonder whether what you’re watching is supposed to be real, fictional or what. Obviously that’s the entire point, given the film is a comment on reality, AI and it’s use in film; yet the effect is to leave you simultaneously intrigued, confused and captivated. Without doubt, Synthetic Sincerity is proof that cinema still has the power to fascinate, to the extent that all I want to do is watch it again.

Check out Mark Kermode’s thoughts on it here.

I realise I did exactly the same thing yesterday and linked to exactly the same creator, but I’d be an absolute fool if I didn’t direct everyone here today. From time to time, the online world has a cool habit of throwing up surprises, and Steve Shives has made a video which I really didn’t expect – in a good way. In this video essay, Shives looks at Captain Christopher Pike from Star Trek and his fate in relation to disability representation. You may remember that Pike was one of the few disabled characters in Star Trek: able-bodied in the pilot, he was shown severely disabled in a later episode, needing to use a beeping communication aid and rolling around in a wheeled tumble drier. Thus Shives looks into whether his fate ought to be regarded as that horrific.

Now, much of this analysis concerns episodes of Star Trek Strange New Worlds, which to be honest I haven’t really bothered with, so I can’t really say much more until I catch up on that series. Nonetheless, I find this a highly noteworthy piece of criticism, not least coming from a guy who doesn’t usually deal with these sorts of issues. It even touches on contemporary disability rights discourse. and concepts like the Social Model of disability: when I heard Shives start to speak about that, I almost spat out my morning coffee in joyous surprise. Once again, this is another great example of just how articulate and advanced online film and TV criticism is becoming. It’s also extremely interesting, and indeed very encouraging, to see disability representation being explored so astutely from the perspective of a non-disabled person.

There’s a hell of a lot in it to unpack for a fifteen minute video, but I really need to direct everyone to this gem by Steve Shives. In it, Shives starts to explore the use AI in making films, and the implications that may have for human creativity. He says he’s not absolutely opposed to artificial intelligence, but I think the issues he flags up are certainly worthy of consideration. Film has always been man-made: it has always had a personal, human element, be that via the input of directors, writers, actors or whatever. AI has now seemingly removed the need for that input: you can now just bung a set of prompts into an app and it churns out something resembling a film. As technically wondrous as that may be, the concern is that it removes something vital at the heart of film. Chris Keathley tells the story that early cinema-goers were enamoured with film not because of what was happening in the foreground of the shot, but because they saw the wind stirring the trees in the background: it made what they were watching seem real. I doubt AI could generate the same effect; but without such reality, film is just a series of meaningless pictures.

I posted this on a few Facebook pages a couple of days ago – you should see the number of likes it has received. I feel we ought to get behind this guy, although some of the policies he has announced since then, such as drilling for oil in the North Sea, are a bit dodgy.

Hemingway was ultimately right: there is something normal about London- something mundane. The hum of the bus engines, the swoosh of the traffic as it passes, the rattle of the tube trains. It’s all so regular. London might be a mighty global metropolis, but it’s one that runs like clockwork. An ornamental grandfather clock in the hallway of your grandparents house which you have passed countless times and has been ticking for decades, but which you have never really noticed. The thing is, there comes a point where you start yearning for something different: something not so regular or predictable. Somewhere away from the wealth and monotony; somewhere where the signs aren’t all in English and the automatic announcement voices on the trains don’t all sound bored. Somewhere which isn’t so used to being able to fund and create anything it takes a shine to, that billion pound building and infrastructure projects become just another part of daily life. Somewhere a little less stable; somewhere more chaotic, where there is a chance for things to go wrong and for adventures to happen. Somewhere where there’s a medina. Where there is a chance you might not get home in time for dinner – or at all. Somewhere a little less normal.

I went to bed last night, having watched the match, obviously feeling very disappointed: As usual I had got myself extremely worked up and emotionally invested, and was feeling rather angry. But I told myself the best thing to do was probably just to accept the result and go to sleep. This morning, however, I don’t think that is an option, having seen this disgusting news. The Argentinian team used the result of last night’s match to stage an overtly political stunt, something they have been warned against before: “After the final whistle, Argentina players celebrated while holding a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, which translates as “The Falklands are Argentine”.” Such politicisation in sport should surely be unacceptable, and as such Argentina should be disqualified.

The Beeb et al seems to be playing it down a bit, but I now seriously think pressure should be put on FIFA, possibly from the FA, maybe even from the UK government, to take action. To call it unsportsmanlike is a gross understatement; behaviour like this has no place in international sport. Argentina should be disqualified and victory awarded to England. I’m not just being a sore loser or an overexcited spaz here: if events like the World Cup are about the global community coming together, then surely such international sporting competitions should not be hijacked for such overt, barefaced political provocation.

I’m afraid this will be yet another “everyone needs to watch this” entry, but I really think it’s worth checking this out. It’s one of the best, most insightful pieces of political analysis I’ve seen in a long time: Dr. Vinay Raniga looks at the psychology behind the Trump/MAGA movement, and explains that, while urban liberal elites too eager to dismiss such people as uneducated or backward, their mentality has a lot to do with deep feelings of disenfranchisement and being ignored. People who perceive themselves as members of “traditional” communities are feeling increasingly drowned out, and so turn to people like trump to restore their status. He approaches the topic from a very understanding, educated perspective, so while I’m not sure I agree with absolutely everything he says, he’s certainly worth hearing out.

I went to Tate Modern again with John and his girlfriend Marta yesterday. Among the wide range of exhibitions, we found a series of fairly short statements printed on the walls. There wasn’t much info about their providence, but we felt this one suited me rather well…

It’s a curious, liminal moment: those few seconds after you wake up. The universe is in a state of flux, given that you went to bed not knowing the result of the match the night before. Things could have gone either way. You watched most of the match, but at about midnight, the score level and the tension unbearable, you elected to just go to bed. Thus, probably unlike most of the country, you don’t know the result. England could have won, and the nation could be euphoric; or Norway could have won and things could be catastrophic. Hence, before you get out of bed and check the result, both states are equally possible, bringing about a strange, liminal hyperreality in which both essentially exist at the same time. Victory or defeat? Misery or euphoria? In a way you don’t want to get up, but instead cherish this flux of unknowing: warm, comfortable and pleasant. But you know you eventually have to face reality and find out the score.

Of course, the flux collapses the moment you turn your computer on and find out England won: a moment of instant relief and slight surprise. Perhaps you should have stayed up after all. Euphoria has prevailed – for now at least.

With so much having happened this week, part of me feels duty bound as a blogger to say something about the political situation. The thing is, I have no intention of feigning any kind of grief or sorrow for a woman who I frankly despised, and who I thought was the embodiment of the kind of selfish, arrogant, uncaring politics that I loathe: Ann Widdecombe was the kind of woman who would have thought her narrow-minded, intolerant views would have outranked anyone else’s simply because of who she was, and that she had a right to dismiss anyone who disagreed with her as a “liberal snowflake.” At the same time, we seem to have reached a point where the hopes of anybody with any sense of decency or progressiveness about them now lie with a dude dressed as a bin. As hard as I am trying to think of something astute or meaningful to say about either of these things, probably the best I can do is to wave a tired, cynical hand in their general direction.

If you want (another) example of just how advanced, articulate and interesting online TV and film analysis is becoming, I really, really think you should check this out today. It’s Steve Shives’ review of classic Star Trek episode Let This Be Your Last Battlefield, and I certainly think that, as a piece of incisive, balanced textual analysis, it couldn’t be better. As Shives points out, the original Trek episode has a lot of pacing issues, and many might criticise it for being a tad heavy-handed; yet, like much of Star Trek, it still has a lot to say about contemporary American culture. Star Trek was at it’s best when it was making overt political and social comments, and Let This Be Your Last Battlefield was arguably the pinnacle of that. Above all though, as a witty, entertaining review, I think this is definitely worth a watch.

Quite some time ago, I mentioned that I was planning to read Matthew Parker’s book on Goldeneye. The odd thing is, I don’t think I ever got around to it, so, a. couple of weeks ago, the paperback eying me from my shelf, I thought I’d finally put that right. Like all texts about Ian Fleming however, it has left me with extremely mixed feelings. There’s no getting around the fact that the creator of James Bond was quite a sickening imperialist and snob, and I think Parker makes that even more apparent in his book about Fleming’s luxury house in Jamaica than Lycett or Shakespeare do in their biographies. He was a gut-churning conservative who despised the welfare state, any form of social progressiveness, and essentially thought black Jamaicans should just accept white British rule.

The thing is, what comes through in Parker’s book is far more nuanced and intriguing: he juxtaposes summaries and short reviews of Fleming’s writing against what he was doing as well as what was happening in the wider world at the time he was writing, so that we get a very interesting idea of where bond came from. He may certainly be an imperial figure, but his was an empire very much in decline. Fleming may have resented the demise of Britain, but he could neither avoid or deny it. What Parker gives us, then, is a picture of an anachronism at odds with the modernising world he was being drawn into: a man not all that comfortable with the open, liberal values of the postwar world, who fled to Jamaica to write far-fetched adventure stories to escape it. Yet ultimately who, despite his flaws, was one of the most intriguing cultural figures of the twentieth century: nuanced, enigmatic, but ultimately a likeable guy who didn’t take himself – or his creation – too seriously.

As Parker puts it in his closing remarks, “​It is this complexity, born in the Jamaica of Fleming’s time, that gives continued life to James Bond and projects an image of Britishness that makes us likeable to ourselves, and to the rest of the world – who no doubt enjoyed the appearance of Bond in the Olympic opening ceremony almost as much as we did.” Frankly, I couldn’t put it better.

Why the zark was the news this morning once again dominated by stories about a family of sickeningly rich, privileged aristocrats whose affairs don’t have any bearing on our lives and who do not make any actual contribution to society or culture? Once again, I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about this, but the way in which our breakfast news was dominated by a story about Harry Windsor really does irritate me, especially given there’s so much else going on in the world right now. How does what this family of snobs effect any of us in any way? I think it’s their arrogance which gets to me most: they seem to expect to be the centre of national attention as though it’s their birthright, haughtily waving to the cameras like roman emperors waving at lowly minions. I find it perverse, especially given we are supposed to be striving for equality. The snobs would probably argue that they do a lot of charity work, but if it was up to me I’d dethrone the lot of them and make them work for a living, like everyone else.

Can a city ever be said to be finished? This is something I began thinking about a few days ago, trundling around central London. There was so much building work happening there, so many building sites, that it almost seemed like the metropolis was being built from scratch. But of course, London is two thousand years old, so the buildings being constructed there would have replaced older ones, and they in turn would have replaced even older ones. And presumably the huge complex buildings that saw being constructed will themselves one day be demolished and replaced. After all, a medieval Londoner, a Victorian Londoner and a contemporary Londoner would presumably each think of theirs as the definitive London, yet they will ultimately inhibit three totally different landscapes. It makes me wonder: will this cycle of urban renewal ever end? Can a city ever be said to be finished, like other art works are? Or are they just so dynamic that they transform and evolve into eternity, like living beings?

I’m really feeling the need to point out that the more overt and blatant sociocultural bandwagon jumping becomes, the less meaning the notion of cultural pride has. I took myself to pride London yesterday, and to be honest it aroused quite a lot of conflicting, if interesting, feelings in me. Truth be told I had only  got wind of it a day or so before, and yesterday morning decided that going to check it out would be an interesting way to spend my Saturday.

For the most part, there is no denying that what I saw yesterday was absolutely incredible: just like last year, it was a huge celebration of inclusivity and tolerance, worthy of a twenty first century world city. There were bands and floats and drag queens; a vast array of communities and groups were represented; the music, costumes and colours were fantastic. The thing is, I couldn’t help sensing a darker, more cynical undertone to it. For one, many of the floats in the parade were sponsored by big corporations like Sky, so it was as if a huge advertisement was rolling past, or that a huge cultural event had been appropriated to make money. This left a very nasty taste in my mouth. On top of that, I got the distinct impression that many of the people there were there just to be seen to be there. That is, they had no real connection with the LGBTQ community, but it’s now so fashionable to be a member of a minority that a lot of people would have gone just for the politics of it. Now that it’s so cool to be gay or trans, more and more people seem to be suddenly discovering new identities they had never revealed before. Perhaps that could explain why there were so many people there yesterday.

But by far the most repugnant, abhorrent thing I came across yesterday was a group of religious bigots at the side of the parade route preaching about how homosexuality was ‘a sin’ and how everyone there would burn for eternity if they didn’t ‘repent’. I know I shouldn’t get so upset about such things and that I should just ignore it, but I found what those people were doing utterly, utterly disgusting. My cynical gripes aside, yesterday was a celebration of inclusion and diversity; it was a demonstration of how wonderful and vibrant the metropolis is. Those scumbags were blurting out how it was all wrong, forcing their homophobia and hatred onto everyone within earshot. Under any other circumstances no doubt they would have been arrested, but because they disguised it with their religious bullshit the police couldn’t do anything. Frankly, that’s what I find most disturbing, and what makes me most furious. In the midst of such a wonderful, happy day, those bigots were there spreading hate, claiming their god justifies their acrid intolerance.

As I trundled home on the extremely crowded Jubilee Line late yesterday afternoon, then, my mind was abuzz with mixed, even conflicting feelings. What I had just seen was, for the most part, absolutely wonderful; yet it had been tainted by far darker, bitter undercurrents. A celebration of inclusion and diversity had, at least in part, been intruding upon by people preaching the exact opposite, using their religious delusions to spread hatred and intolerance. Yet as sickening as anyone capable of rational thought will surely find that, the fact is if we truly value inclusivity and tolerance, we have no choice but to tolerate such bigotry.

I just watched the Beeb’s interview with Sir Kier Starmer. While, like many political interviews, you could find it a tad dull and monotonous, what I felt came across most was Starmer’s humility and humanity. This is clearly a man who really is motivated to do the right thing: he isn’t about greed or personal ambition, but came into politics to try to make people’s lives better. Whether he succeeded in that or not is obviously a matter of perspective, but frankly I think Starmer is – or was – a downright better man than any of his Tory predecessors combined: he simply wanted to help people. If you have the time and inclination, the interview is well worth a watch/

Just to follow up on yesterday’s entry, a bit of googling this morning told me that the ship I’d spotted in the Thames was heading to St Katherine’s dock. Thanks to the DLR, I popped that way today, and found the ship was the Nao Victoria, a replica of the first vessel to successfully circumnavigate the globe. Unfortunately I didn’t get any further as it looked too small and precarious for me to try to get on without help (when I explored the Endeavour in Sydney almost twenty years ago, I had my bro Luke to help me around). But I had already had a fascinating morning going along the cobbled streets and past the old warehouses of Wapping, before coming to an area of the metropolis which put me in mind of Monaco.

I had quite a magnificent maritime surprise today. I was in Woolwich as I had a question to ask at the library, but had been told to return later. To kill a bit of time, I thought I would trundle along the Thames for a while, probably as far as Thamesmead, and then head back. It was turning out to be quite a humdrum afternoon: I’m fond of London’s river, but it can seem pretty dull and docile.

All of a sudden though, I caught sight of something I had not expected at all: a seventeenth or eighteenth century galleon, her sails furled but flying a large Spanish ensign, was cruising gracefully towards central London. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes: it was as though a vision from four hundred years ago had suddenly cut it’s way into modern London, or the fabled armada had finally arrived.

Obviously some kind of replica, what she was doing here I’m not sure, and strangely I never saw her again even when I turned around and headed back to Woolwich. Yet it was just such an uncanny, surprising sight that I instantly felt I needed to record it here. I love this city for all it’s wondrous surprises.

I think I’ve said here before that one of the biggest differences I noticed when I moved to London was in public transport. Here in the capital, busses are pretty much as accessible to me as they are anyone else; the tube may not be perfect, but it certainly makes getting around the metropolis a lot easier and faster. When I was still living in Cheshire, I was pretty much stuck in my old home town: busses still had manual wheelchair ramps, and to be honest I didn’t go anywhere near the trains.

With all this talk of diverting investment away from London, I’ll be extremely interested to see if and how Andy Burnham plans to address this. Good public transport is obviously key to any kind of economic redevelopment, so I can’t help wondering whether the government will soon propose a kind of Northern Crossrail, linking Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, or a light rail system between the towns of Cheshire. Helping people get around is key: that is surely as true in London as it is anywhere else.

Something happened yesterday afternoon which I think ought to be recorded. It had been a pretty pleasant afternoon: I’d popped over to Harlesden to visit mum, and, full of biscuits and having found a swift, convenient new route there and back via the Elisabeth Line, I was on a bus home from Woolwich. Just coming into Kidbrooke though, all of a sudden I heard two teenage girls sitting behind me start to jeer “Stephen Hawking” at me. Hearing such things is not that uncommon for me these days, and is in fact happening more and more. And while there is nothing wrong per se with being likened to one of the world’s greatest scientists, it is an intolerant slur I simply refuse to put up with.

As soon as I heard the little twits, I turned towards them and told them to shut up. They started to laugh, which made things even worse, so I immediately pressed the nearest normal (ie non ramp request) stop request button. When the bus stopped, I pointed towards the opening doors and told the girls as clearly and firmly as I could to get off the bus.

Of course they initially ignored me, but the point was that I could not let myself be treated like that. Things persisted and amplified until the next stop, by which time I was quite furious. I was shouting my head off, even using a little Klingon, but it was obviously working: the girls had quietened down, and when the next stop came, rather sheepishly exited the bus.

It was only a minor incident, but one with an outcome I’m rather pleased with. I cannot let myself be jeered at like that, so it’s up to me to assert authority and show such little brats who’s boss.

Truth be told I don’t know much about Andy Burnham, so I can’t really say much about him. He seems to be a nice, level headed Labour MP who I would of course vote for over any Tory. What I do know, though, is that as the former mayor of Manchester, he seems to be quite a steadfast northerner, and has mentioned intending to shift investment away from London. That certainly interests me: for some time now I have been aware what a disproportionate amount of money is being poured into London compared with the rest of the country. I hardly have to leave my flat before I encounter huge building projects; and I regularly cross the capital via transport systems which cost billions to create – the kind of jaw-dropping investment which you just don’t see elsewhere. How Burnham intends to address this imbalance of course remains to be seen, but from what I’ve been hearing he seems to want to shift the country’s economic and cultural centre of gravity entirely. I haven’t been to anywhere like Manchester or Liverpool for quite some time; but if the disparity between London and the rest of the country is now as huge as I suspect it is, there is a great deal of work to do.

I am, more or less, a cinephile: I think film is a phenomenally powerful artform which can be used to say things about the human condition that no other can. It has tremendous beauty and resonance. How should I feel, then, when this supreme mode of expression is dragged into the gutter and reduced to something unspeakably childish and infantile? I just came across Mark Kermode’s review of the latest Jackass film, and quite frankly I’m appalled that such films are still being made, let alone watched and enjoyed. Call me a prude, highbrow or whatever all you like, but I don’t see how anyone can find amusement or joy in watching someone get hurt or hurt one another. The entire premise of the film and it’s predecessors seems to be someone exclaiming “Look at me! I’m going to do something idiotic!” like a badly behaved child in a playground. They then somehow expect plaudits for it, when they should just be stripped of their filming equipment and told to get jobs. To see film as a medium intentionally being reduced to something so degenerate is frankly insulting; although I suppose you could argue that it’s just symptomatic of contemporary America.

And before anyone moans at me for blogging about a film without having actually watched it, frankly, I’d rather have a labotomy.

Shortly after posting yesterday’s entry, I came across this extremely interesting Channel Four video assessing whether Brexit has been a success or a failure. Somewhat predictably of course, it doesn’t really come down on one side or the other, although the evidence of the economic and political damage which it puts on display is so colossal that you would have to be a simpering idiot not to conclude that Brexit is one of the most idiotic mistakes any country has ever made. Towards the end of the film, though, there is an interview with Matthew Elliot: I’d never heard of him, but he was apparently one of the chief architects of the Leave campaign – presumably anyone more well known on the Outist side is too cowardly and tired of being shown to be a lying scumbag to appear on such programmes. However, Elliot came across as so arrogant and slimy, refusing to accept any form of responsibility for the damage Brexit has so clearly dome to the country, that I instantly felt compelled to make this.

I’m not being hyperbolic when I say such people are criminals. Thanks to their lies, our ties to our European neighbours were severed; our links to an international community were cut and we became nothing but a pack of inward-looking xenophobes in an unregulated, ultra-capitalist dystopia where the privileged few are free to bully and persecute anyone they like. And all p’tahks like Elliott can do is insult us even more, and claim to have been right all along. I know I shouldn’t get so wound up, but such shortsighted disgraces to humankind really do make my blood boil with rage.

I hardly need to point out that today marks ten years since I wrote this entry: ten years since I woke up to the worst (political) news of my life; ten years since the country took a sharp turn towards somewhere very, very dark. Ten years on since fifty-two percent of the voting population were fooled into stripping us all of our right to work, live and politically participate across an entire continent through a campaign of lies. Needless to say, I’m still bloody angry about it. I don’t want to go on about it, other than to point out that the mainstream media doesn’t seem to be making that much of the occasion. I think that’s rather telling: if Brexit had been an enormous success, surely they would be making a huge song and dance about it. Instead, as the consequences of the crime of 2016 get clearer and clearer, there seems to be a tendency to shove it into the sidelines and play it down, like the huge national embarrassment it still is. There wasn’t a word about it on this morning’s news bulletins; although, if anything, much more should be being made to rejoin the international body we were so idiotic to leave.

I actually have to feel quite sorry for Kier Starmer. He is, fundamentally, a good man: unlike most politicians, he was actually interested in improving people’s lives, as opposed to just being motivated by self promotion or preserving an unfair, unjust socioeconomic status quo. The problem is, the political atmosphere he was elected into not that long ago is becoming more disturbing by the day: people are steadily losing their minds and becoming more reactionary and draconian; mislead by charlatans like Farage and Trump, people are turning their backs on the voices of reason and logic and are being given permission to listen to hate-ridden instincts and uneducated gut reactions we should have outgrown long ago. Guys like Starmer don’t have the communication skills to counter this narrative, and, depicted as dull career politicians and “liberal elites”, inevitably get cast aside. Thus I fear what we saw happen this morning is just a sign of these worrying, dark times.

Wheelchair use is obviously rising rapidly: these days I see more and more people going around in wheelchairs and powerchairs. I have no idea why this might be, but the problem is when it comes to busses. Buggies aside, there was a time not long ago when I could pretty much assume that I could get on to any bus I wanted. My fellow wheelchair users were so rare that finding a bus wheelchair space already occupied was quite unusual. These days, however, it’s happening more and more often, and I have been left waiting at a bus stop more than once recently. Just having one wheelchair space on a bus is obviously no longer sufficient, making me wonder how long it will be before buses need to be redesigned.