Lyn is my love, and lyn is my life.

Godspeed the day lyn becomes my wife.

Curled up in bed, side by side

She is my happiness, my honour, my pride

She completes me, and makes me feel new

Picks me up when I feel blue

I feel so lucky, so glad she’s mine

So fortunate to have Lyn as my valentine.

I just gave License to Kill another viewing. As I noted here, I don’t think I quite managed to follow the plot when I went through all the bond films in my mad marathon, so a second viewing was in order. I just got around to it, and, altogh I think I missed a few details, I think I was much more comfortable with it this time. It is rather more nuanced than it’s predecessors – there seems to be more in terms of plot and character, full of double-crossings and deceits. I do feel Dalton made a fine, convincing bond: his is a three-dimensional bond, capable of making errors and acting out of vengeance. Above all, the film is a rip-roaring adventure with the right balance of wit and intrigue. It’s also a film wich came out in the late eighties, so it made me feel young again. Two hours well spent, then.

One of the best things about having an iPad strapped to one’s lap is I can now blog on the move. I am writing this, believe it or not, waiting to pay in an apple store. Lyn and I have been rather artistic recently: this afternoon we visited the national portrait gallery, and while up here I thought we may as well visit Lynn’s favourite shop. The pictures were ok, but, as far as lyn is concerned, computers are much more interesting.

Another cool thing about having an iPad is that I can check my email on the move. My parents are away at present, and I just got their last message from brazil. It is full of news of exotic foods carnivals and uncle David’s farm. It even mentions the noble steed Shadowfax. Life in London might be fun: this may be the city of the queen, the tube, bond and several apple shops, and I find it utterly thrilling, but in brazil they know how to party…and, I have to say, the weather sounds much better there.

Ahh, time to pay.

Something odd just happened on the way back from London. As I said earlier, we went to the Apple store. After we had finished there, it was time to eat. We had a nice dinner in covent garden, and then came home. everything was going as per normal: at north Greenwich, we have to transfer from the tue to the bus, so Lyn and I split up. Lyn got on the first us- a 422 – and I waited for the second. This happened to be a 472, which I was in two minds about boarding as it’s slow and doesn’t go quite where I need it to. I got on anyway. One of my fellow passengers, a fairly young girl, asked where I was going. I told her ‘Charlton village’.

”This doesn’t go there.” She replied. I tried to tell her I was fine, and capable of getting home, but she insisted on ‘helping’ me. She asked the driver to let us stop at the next stop, and told me she would help me get home. I tried to explain I didn’t need helping, that I was fine, but she ignored me. The diver stopped and put his ramp out. I protested, but, mostly for the sake of the other passengers, got off. The girl followed me, so I decided to just peg it home under my own steam. After all, I wasn’t that far from home, and I needed to get rid of this irritating girl.

Pretty soon I had left her behind me, and was preparing for a chilly walk home. But that is when something quite remarkable happened. A 486, exactly the bus I needed, drive up and stopped next to me. I wasn’t even at a stop, but it put it’s ramp out and let me on. Heaven knows what that girl had done or said, but I was instantly grateful to her – it even stopped as soon as I hit the button, which was rather odd because you’re supposed to hit it before you get to the stop you need. In all, then, a pretty cool end to a pretty cool day; If I ever see that girl again, I intend to buy her a drink.

I was watching jacob rees-mog on TV Earlier lamenting the secularisation of society, and I felt suddenly incensed. It occurred to me that If a child says they tak to their imaginary friend, and that it guides them, you smile and hope they grow out of it soon. If an adult claims to hear voices which guide him, you send him to a doctor. So why shouldn’t we do the same for those who believe in god and use that belief to dominate, discriminate and oppress others? Those on the right look down on atheists: I get the impression that they think they’re better than us, that they 6hink we are bespoiling society by taking God out of it, and that we should respect their point of view. Well, it’s time to cut the crap. to believe in god isn’t a mark of wisdom or superiority: it just means you’re a gullible idiot clinging to superstition because you”’re unable to cope with reality. why should we be forced to tolerate these morons opposed to secularisation when they perpetuate intolerance? god cannot exist – get over it, and stop sneering at those who base their ideas on religion. If we are ever to have a free, open and tolerant society, it must not privilege one belief over another, which means basing it on reason.

I suppose it has been quite a nice little weekend, all in all. Nothing much happened…Well, I say that when what I mean is, compared to some weekends Lyn and I share, nothing much happened. No gigs at the palace or appearances with Coldplay. We did, however, go out to a very nice exhibition at the South London Gallery, Peckham, yesterday, to see an exhibition about gender. Although getting there was a bit of a trek (sorry guys – my bad), we saw a couple of interesting short films about transsexuality, crossing gender lines and so on. Right up our street, and definitely something I’ll have to follow up. It was there that, inspired, I jotted down yesterday’a poem. Great stuff!

Today was also cool, but far more chilled out. I’ve mostly spent it on the sofa, reading at first, then watching TV. Believe it or not, I dob’t think I’ve ever seen ‘The Search For Spock’ until today, or at least I hadn’t since I was small. Those early trek films can be hit and miss, and I mus say I wasn’t very impressed. Nevertheless, it was good to see the old crew played as they should be; as usual, I found myself wondering whether Bill shatner could ever play Kirk again. I doubt it, but stranger things have happened: after all, we live in an epoch where the queen can be escorted to the olympics by 007. (I know I’m obsessed by it, sorry!). True, he may be too old, and but has been just under twenty years since he pulled on that uniform, but part of me wishes he would. The same applies for Patrick Stewart – I long to hear him say ‘Make It So’ one last time. Perhaps that era is gone, and I should let it become history, but what is the harm in a little nostalgia on a wet sunday afternoon.

In all, then, a pretty nice weekend. Time, then, to get dinner going, go back to my sofa, and look forward to Top Gear and then the Baftas. Here, I wonder what clarkson and his pals would make of a crippled trekkie, presently sporting a nice purple leotard…

Gay and straight. Man and woman. What are these

But words? Constructs and creations,

Reducing and reductive. Intended to imprison. There are no absolutes, no binaries and no constants

Save one. Love.

And that sets us all free.

Much is currenty being said about benefit system reforms, disability tests and ATOS. On that subject, I think I can do no better than to direct you here. It is a forceful video blog by the artist taxi driver. I must say he is surprisingly well informed about disability issues and this issue in particular, and I think he gives voice to many of the concerns ‘we’ currently have, as well as the shock others are no doubt experiencing.

I know I said I’d stop blogging about Olympic matters, but this is disability related. Team Gb have won an impressive haul of medals at the Special Olympics Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. They have picked up thirteen medals, including six golds. The Special Olympics movement is the third sibling in the Olympic Family and at least on paper it is equal with the other two: the Olympics, the Paralympics and the Special Olympics. It is for elite athletes with cognitive rather than physical disabilities, although there is some cross-over.

This is great news, but I have to ask, if these games are on a par with the Olympics and the Paralympics, why isn’t this story headline news? Last summer every time team gb won a gold it topped the news bulletin. This story is not even at the front page of the beeb’s sport page! Do people with cognitive impairments matter less? Do they not deserve the same fanfare? Indeed, before this morning, I didn’t realise these games wee happening – why wasn’t it’s opening ceremony (assuming it had one) on TV? Where were the fireworks? This strikes me as very unfair, and indeed very disrespectful to athletes who no doubt work just as hard as any other.

Part of me thinks I should be writing more entries about Lee, and that not to blog about my old school friend would to be somehow disrespectful to him and his memory; writing about other subjects implies that I have forgotten about him, and that I don’t care about his death. But how can I? Where Do I begin? What can I possibly say on here that would convey what I feel. A guy who I went through my adolescence with is now dead, as indeed most of my classmates are. I can find nothing to say about that simple, brutal fact. So I’ll continue to blog about other things, and keep that issue off here from now on – it is probably best I keep that issue personal. I will never forget Lee Mayer, or indeed any other of my classmates, even if I might not mention them here.

Intolerance. Pure intolerance.

Pure unthinking prejudice,

Which, although denied vigourously

Is there, plain and undeniable

As it has been since the beginning of time

Binding the Other, shaping him to a norm he does not fit

And doesn’t even exist!

The gay marriage debate really does piss me off. Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn’t give a damn: I know enough sociology to realise that, in many ways, marriage is an outdated institution often trapping people – usually women – into violent and abusive relationships. Yet surely if we are going to keep marriage s an institution, it must modernise to stay relevant to the twenty-first century: it must broaden it’s scope or else we may as well do away with it altogether.

I therefore get angry when those on the (far) right demand we keep it as the pairing of a man and a woman. They say they are defending marriage; they speak of the necessity to respect cultural tradition. Given that if they had their way a symbolic devision between straight and gay coupling will be maintained, their views reduce down to a type of homophobia, but when this is put to them they deny it completely. they even have the gall to claim they are the ones being discriminated against as their religious views aren’t being respected. What bull! They are effectively saying that if you believe in x you have a right to discriminate, and that it is unfair for atheists to impose their secular views on them. Although it doesn’t directly effect me and Lyn, such poppycock infuriates me as it opens the door to all kinds of abuse and intolerance defended by cynical two faced cries of discrimination against ‘traditional values’ – using such logic, all kinds of barbarity can be defended.

I just came across this brilliant australian program about disability. I’m not sure which channel it aired on, but it is hosted by disabled people, about disability issues . This episode is about AAC and supporting kids who use communication aids; there is an excellent interview with Rosemary crossley, a personal hero of mine. ‘The Last Leg’ aside, I wish we had something like this, on mainstream tv, in the uk. Bravo australia!

I realised yesterday that It has reached the fucked up point where there are fewer of my classmates left than have snuffed it since we left school. The really obscene thing, when you think about it, is that I sort of knew it was coming: I knew it had been a while since I lost someone, so I kind of guessed that sometime soon I would get a letter or email or phonecall. That sounds pessimistic, but it’s the truth – a truth arising as a consequence of having been to a special school. Thus I find myself wanting to write another entry like this, wanting to tell you about the good times. Lee Mayer was a good bloke: I wrote about him in a piece of my GCSE coursework; he came to see me when I was at uni, and even cooked for me once or twice. I was eager for him to come and see me and Lyn down here, and I was looking forward to showing him around south London. That isn’t going to happen now.

Not again. Fuck.

The following appeared this morning on my friend Lee Mayer’s Facebook page. His Cousin told me last night. I don”t know what to say – another of my classmates, and a good friend, is gone.

”Just to let you all know that Lee passed away peacefully yesterday 31st January

His family would like to thank you for your support over the past few years.

He will be greatly missed by us all.

RIP xx’

Just a quick entry to say that Lyn’s second single is out today. Floating on Sound is available on Itunes. If yo ask me it sounds great, ad I’m very proud of my wonderful girlfriend. Anyway, go BUY IT!

I’m sick to the back teeth of david CaMoron standing in the house of commons and lying to the nation. That might sound strong, but he is indeed lying: he is perpetuating the untruth that the tripple-dip recession this country is about to enter is not his and George osbourne’s fault. He still blames labour, shamefacedly claiming that he is cleaning up a mess they left. I’m sorry, but only a total ninny would buy that. Labour had to borrow large amount in order to clean up the mess they inherited in 1997. I may only have been 14 in ’97, but I knew enough to see how truly awful things were. Thus, to see caMoron try to pretend Labour owe us some sort of apology when they were on the verge of seing growth, and to se that smug asshole George osourne nodding beside him, galls me. If they had any honour they would resign.

I watch the news these days with an increasing sense of foreboding. Events in north africa seem to be going from bad to worse, and we europeans are being drawn into a conflict there which many respected commentators think will last for decades. I cannot help but think what a wonderful, mystical part of the world that is; I think of the sahara’s history and cultures, and about how so many manuscripts and mosques are now being set ablaze. The very name Timbuktu evokes adventure and travel to me, exotic ideas which capture the imaginations of so many wanderers. Thus I think I’ll send you here today, to the record of one such Englishman’s adventure in that city, and quote the following words, written in happier times:

[quote=”Michal Palin, Saharaurl:www.palinstravels.co.uk”]Timbuktu remains well off any beaten track. There is an airstrip from which tourists are flown in and out, but it remains a city at the end of the road, centre of an administrative region but not much else. Yet its appeal remains almost as potent as it was for Laing and those who risked their lives to follow him. To the almost certain puzzlement of the locals, Westerners remain drawn to Timbuktu like moths to a candle. No other city remains as synonymous with the fabulous, the lonely and the remote. Timbuktu, la mystrieuse, they call it in the tourist brochures – a Holy Grail for the adventurous traveller.

It’s hard to remain unexcited as we glide slowly in to the little inlet at Kabara, the port for Timbuktu itself.

[/quote]

And so we watch as yet another piece of our collective heritage is torn apart in the name of religion.

WhenI I showed Lyn my blog entry yesterday, her reaction was ”You’re obsessed!” She was, of course, pulling my leg, but I do see her point: I do tend to harp on about certain subjects, and can probably get fairly repetitive. The Olympics caught my imagination last year, filling my had with questions and ideas. After all, it isn’t every day that one finds oneself in an olympic city. Yet that moment has come and gone, and the title of my blog is The Ill-Informed Ramblings of a Cripple, not The Ill-Informed Ramblings of an Olympic commentator. Time, then, for me to go back to writing more about crip-related things, or at least finding other things to enthuse over. Having said that, though, there’s no denying that hosting the Pralympics last year changed crip politics in this country quite considerably: we now have higher profile than ever as evidenced by channel four commissioning a crip-related chat show for friday night, and the fact that disability sport now has a higher profile than ever. There is some cross-over between the two subjects then. And besides, I don’t think I could resist obsessing about my favourite sketch for too long.

I was thinking about the olympics again yesterday. It occurs to me that, after last year, we brits are now in the not unhappy position of observer: that is, now we have had our olympic moment, we can sit back for a while and let other counties bid. Given London is the first city to host three games, I don’t think the IOC will be awarding another olympics to London any time soon; and, if we ar honest, there isn’t really another city in the UK which is big enough or has the infrastructure to host such a massive event. Thus, our mission having been gloriously accomplished last summer, it’s time to sit back and watch others fight it out.

What interests me, though, is that it is indeed a fight: Hosting the olympics brings a great amount of prestige to a country. Despite the expense, the right to host the olympics is keenly fought over, as hosting them brings a sense of pride to a country. Moreover, I get the impression that, after last year, the competition is now even more intense for the other european capitals. I was reading last night that, among others, Berlin, Paris and Rome all plan to bid for the games of 2024, as does new york. I kind of think that they might be at least partly motivated by London-envy: both paris and new york lost to London in their bids to host the 2012 games, and I suspect all four cities would like what London had last year. Of course, they will also have their own individual reasons too: in 2024, as I touched upon here, it will have been a full century since paris last hosted the olympics, so Parisiens will want to catch up with their great rivals in London; Berlin will want to exorcise the daemons of 1936 and 1972; New York, as I note here, has never hosted the games and I get the impression that they are extra eager to do so after what to them was a humiliation in losing he bid to us; as for Rome, which last hosted the games in 1960, well, they too want a piece of the olympic pie.

Thus we have four major world cities, three capitals and one global business centre, all competing for the same event. Is it just me, or is that not potentially very interesting indeed? Who will the ioc go for, and how will the disappointed parties react? All four cities seem to have a vested interest in hosting the games: they all seek both the cudos and the financial gain. This is a source of national pride at a time when governments all over the world are going through rough patches, so any government will see it as highly desirable to win these games. Therefore, although they are still twelve years away, and we have the host of the 2020 games to resolve yet, we will see a very tight competition for the 2024 games start quite soon. It interests me that the IOC seems to hold an extraordinary amount of power, given the importance of it’s decision to individual cities and countries. It also seems to me that their decision also gives us considerable insight into the prevailing attitudes to and tween various respective states My bet is sparks will fly over this. And we brits get to sit back and watch events unfold, trying to work out the geopolitical implications of the IOC’s decision.

Although it has largely melted here, I just had to share this with you. I’m not sure who mede it, but this has to be the coolest snowman ever!

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I don’t want to say too much about this, because a) I don’t know much about it, and b) the odious bitch isn’t worth wasting typing time on, but I heard through the grapevine today that Claire Khaw has een arrested. You may recall this was the nutcase who advocated killing disabled people on radio 5. she was apparrently arrested with regards to a blog entry she wrote suggesting a woman called Jessica Thom who has tourettes might be faking the condition. Well, hopefully that’ll teach her not to spew her mindless bile then cynically hide behind the freedom of speech.

My mum grew up in London, but I was born in rural cheshire. Growing up, we would often visit the city, as my greek grandparents lived in harlesden, but I never got to know it. Our visits to the metropolis were usually short, and, save for trips to the park, we seldom strayed far from the house. Thus I did not truly get to know the metropolis until I moved in with Lyn, three years ago. But get to know it I have, and I have fallen in love with it.

I just came back from a walk. The last two days were too cold and snowy to go ut, but today I thought I’d risk it. I headed towards Greenwich. There is usually something on at GAD on thursday afternoons, but today, as I realised when I got there, nothing was happening, so I headed on into the historic naval town. Going that way always makes me think historic thoughts: I become conscious that I am going through a very old landscape. At the same time, I never forget that I’m exploring just one minute part of a hug metropolis: a city the size of cheshire itself, a humming, throbbing labyrinth, endlessly diverse, full of life. A not so microcosm for the entire world; and one which indeed played host to the world last year.

I was thinking about the events of last year today. I truly am a lucky guy: I got to live in a city which was hosting the olympics; I was a Londoner when the world’s eyes were on London; a Londoner when London was at it’s peak. London may not see a summer like the one of 2012 for many years, so to be here during the olympics was something to look back on, something to be proud of. Not only that, but I got to see my girlfriend play at the ceremony marking the end of that golden summer. I can’t help but wonder how the fates conspired to arrange that: when you think about it, it truly is incredible, and also reminds me how lucky I am to have Lyn.

London has returned to normal, but for me it is still a special, remarkable place. To me, it is a place I’ll forever associate with the year 2012, as that is the year London showed me, and the world, just how great it can be: the place and time of this this and this. But the city still seems full of life, full of potential: an Olympic city in which you never know what is around the next corner. 2012 may be over, but london is still great and can achieve great things. I may be a cheshire lad used to the smell of manure, but I am now a Londoner too, and proud of my adopted city. It feels, I realised today, like home: not, perhaps, the home of my childhood, for that will always be up north; but the place of my adulthood, of my learning to live, and of my love.

As you might have gleaned from my entry yesterday, I am something of a trekkie – I always have been (although I am still in two minds about the recent ‘reboot’). One of the things I love the most about Star Trek is it’s optimistic vision of the future: the star trek universe is one where humanity has come together to solve it’s problems; a place where the nation-states of earth have been abolished and we work as one unified people. This may sound naive, but I believe such a unified humanity possible, desirable and indeed vital.

I think I blogged about this revently, but I’ll say it again. It is true that no two people on earth are alike; we are all different. But at the same time we are all the same: we all have similar needs, desires and dreams. If you think about it, is the question ‘why do we cling to these arbitrary national boarders so vehemently?’ such a stupid one? What is stopping us coming together as a species to work towards a united peaceful future? That is why I see organisations like the European union as so important: The e.u arose from the wreckage of the second world war, when someone finally had the intelligence to see the bigger picture. In order to avoid repeating that horror, organisations that cross national boundaries must be established. I see the e.u as a step towards that future of a united humanity.

I’m not against a referendum on our membership of it per se, then, but fear that those who wish us to leave it do not see in terms of this big picture. For to want to leave the eu is a step backwards, away from that ideal. Those who advocate it surely see things only in terms of nation-states, an ‘us and them’ philosophy which, in the long-run, gets us nowhere. To see things only in terms of yourself, your family and your nation is forever to take a limited viewpoint. Moreover, if we take into account the facts of climate change and diminishing world resources, it is also a foolish viewpoint. Such problems effect us all, so we cannot afford to see tings in such limited, individualistic terms.

The time has come, then, to get hard on such people: they advocate a step backwards. We need, as a species, to grow up, to put aside essentially arbitrary national barriers. We need to talk to one another, trade more, exchange ideas; and we need to solve our problems, financial or ecological, together. That will certainly not happen if we leave the european union.

This may be an od thing to blog about, but I just watched the old Star Trek episode ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’, repeated on CBS. I had never seen it before…yet I had. I knew that episode well, but only due to the Deep space Nine Episode which revised the original. I loved watching it, and spotting the gaps into which the ds9 characters were inserted. Yet it struck me as rather odd: we have a piece of tv, made about forty years ago, which was retured to in a late television series, and I, as someone born after the original was made, only know it trough it’s later modernisation. When you think about it there are some quite complex structures at work, all symptomatic of a form of modernity where thing are endlessly revised and remade. I mean, I love the ds9 remake, so it strikes me as ironic to realise that I had never seen the original until this evening, especially given that I call myself a Star trek fan. You should have seen my reaction when I heard it was coming on – Lyn was quite bemused.

Last night I realized something important had slipped under my radar in relation to my fascination with bond – something quite epic: Bourne! Lyn and I watched the latter three quarters of a Bourne film last night, and I was hooked. Almost instantly, of course, I saw how much they had had a bearing on the more recent Bond films: it’s obvious that, stylistically, the Craig-era bonds draw a lot from Bourne. But, more than that, I was intrigued by the character; with how, unlike 007, Bourne works against rather than with the agency who trained him. On that level, dare I say it, he is much more interesting than Bond.

Time, then, for me to go shopping. What I need to do now is to get my hands on a bourne DVD box set and give them a serious viewing, just as I did with Bond. I was surprised to realise just how little I know about this franchise, especially given it’s importance in contemporary mainstream cinema. Time for me to do something about that: time to engage with Jason bourne. Although there are clearly huge differences, it is also clear that there is a relationship between the two characters, and that, to some degree, Bourne is a response to bond: perhaps Bourne can be seen as a modernized, Americanized version of bond, or one film company’s attempt to muscle in on the most successful film franchise ever, or an expression of American jealousy that film’s most successful hero is, if fact, British, or a bit of each.

Either way, I was struck by an intriguing idea: if Bond can escort the queen to the Olympics, that seems to beg for an American, Bourne-based response. But what could he do? If you think about it, as I touched upon in this entry , bond was an obvious choice: the situation with Bourne is more complicated than with 007, as with Bond you can just assume that M simply asked 007 to go to the palace and escort her Majesty to the stadium. They might even have made a short sketch showing the two talking, perhaps with bond complaining, trying to get out of what he sees as a mundane task in order to go and hunt villains instead. However, his attitude was conveyed far more subtly through a cough – a touch I felt very Bondish, managing to demonstrate something of 007’s character as both part of the established hierarchy yet not entirely respectful of it. With Bourne, of course, things aren’t so straightforward: he does not follow orders, so what would such a Bourne-based stunt look like? What could he do, and at what event?

To me it is an intriguing prospect: in making this short film, it seems to me that Danny Boyle threw down a gauntlet – surely more such postmodern juxtapositions are in order? Indeed, would it not also be cool if bond and Bourne actually met somehow? I must say I’m just itching to work on that idea. Who knows, given the current appetite for such crossovers, maybe I could write a script and put it forward to someone.

It’s snowing heavily here, and we’re stuck in.

It’s much to early to open the gin.

Lyn’s in her studio, I’m in here

Where snow once aroused joy now I feel fear

I slip and slide so much in my chair

I definitely don’t want to go out there.

So I’ll just stay here, where it’s warm

Perhaps Skype my parents, still where I was born.

We’ll talk about days when I was young

We went out in the snow, me clinging on to mum.

For although the snow may look pretty

For us wobbly crips, it can be quite dangerous.

I think I’ll just flag this story up today. A waiter at a restaurant in Washington refused to serve a group who objected to being placed near a family with a boy with down’s syndrome. They asked to be moved, but were later heard to say ‘Special needs children need to be special somewhere else.” After that, they got no more food and quite rightly too. Good on the waiter, I say! I wonder if any such ignoramuses have ever asked to be reseated because of me. I hope not, but hell itself would open if I found out some did.

I had expected to be able to write a good, long, ranting blog entry about CaMoron’s speech on Europe today: I had expected it to be something I could get my teeth into, and give my keyboard a good hammering over. Alas, it wasn’t to be, and now we must wait even longer for this long awaited speech. Truth be told, though, the fact that he backed out of it kind of scares me: you might be expecting me to accuse him of cowardice, and of using this emergency to get out of giving a speech he was afraid to deliver. But I think that would be too easy and too simplistic. If we give CaMoron the benefit of the doubt, if we assume he would have given this speech if he could, then the current emergency in north Africa is huge – it could well be even bigger than the media is currently letting on. Of course, you could point out that we have a lot of oil interests in north Africa, so it’s natural a Tory PM would be very concerned with what goes on there. But the reports also suggest that this is a new front on the war on terror, and that al-qa’ida could now establish a base in north Africa. Surely that must be cause for concern, no matter how cynical one tries to be.

I just came across this quite unsettling news about cuts to care for people with Disabilities: ‘Adults with disabilities in England are being deprived of basic care and support and are at risk of being forgotten in the wider reform of the social care system, campaigners say.” That is shocking, but dare I say not really surprising. Time and time again throughout history, whenever a society comes under any kind of pressure, social, economic or whatever, those with disabilities are always the first to suffer. Right now, Lyn and I are fairly okay – we both have the support we need. But such news items make me worry, and wonder how long it will be before we get a letter through or door saying our support will have to be cut. My heart also goes out to the increasing numbers of people who have already received such letters.

I think I have been a good little cripple of late: I’m reading again, work on my thesis is picking up, and I haven’t got blotto in a pub in over six months. In all seriousness that had to stop: when I was hanging around with chopper, I was going to the pub three or four nights a week, and spending thirty or forty quid each time. It was getting inane. Fortunately, with the help and wisdom of Lyn, I got out of it – chopper was a bad influence all round, and, to cut a long story short, I don’t expect to see much of him any more.

I am, however, still quite partial to a good real ale. Recently, I’ve thought it wise to drink only at weekends; but that just lead to me waiting till Friday then downing four or five beers – not good either. Simply trying to go tee total seems not that fun, so I have decided the solution might be to take a ‘little and often’ approach – just have one or two beers with or after dinner two or three nights a week. That way I do not get drunk, and it gives me a chance to try lots of different types of beer now that I’ve found the shop in Greenwich I noted a few days ago. I’m also considering using it as a self reward system, perhaps for working on my thesis. A good solution all round I think, and much more sensible than propping up a south London bar.

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It looks like I’ve been beaten to it. I have been thinking about making my own version of Gangnam Style for a while now – after all, I’m still not satisfied I’vve come up with a decent sequel to Spastic Ballet – but yesterday I came across this awesome version from a group of disabled people in Panang. Too be honest, they probably did a better job than I could have, but I still can’t help feeling that I’ve been beaten to the punch-line. Oh well, I’ll just have to work extra hard to be the first crippify the next meme.

I thought about going to the football match again yesterday. The cones were out once more, meaning Charlton were playing at home. A quick check online told me that their opponents this week were blackpool. Yet it was very cold out, and we had a heating system to oversee the repair of, so I decided not to go. In the end, though, I went out anyway – my optician called to say that they had a replacement frame for me.

I decided to couple my trip to the optician with what I initially thought would be a short walk. I have written many times on here about how I like to go for drives in my electric chair: I think I now have a favourite. I head, from Charlton, to the royal standard, skirt Blackheath; turn into Greenwich park (beautiful at any time of year). There I drive up to the observatory and the statue of Woolfe, taking in the magnificent view. I then press on through the park into Greenwich itself, with it’s market and shops. I now have a new incentive to go here, as yesterday I came across quite a nice little wine shop which had a good selection of speciality beers.

There I bought something to drink with dinner yesterday and today, by which time, with a shocked look at the clock on my Ipad, I saw it was time to get home. Luckily, it was not far, but the ironic thing is, as I approached Charlton, I hit the pedestrian traffic coming out of The Valley. I might as well have gone since I had spent the time outside anyway. Oh well, there is always the next match (football matches being hardly uncommon events), and I now have a couple of good beers to enjoy.

Why is euroskeptisism still seen as a valid political position this weekend? After this week it should be dead, and those who still cling to it should be perceived as outdated and irrelevant. It is surely now clear that they have lost the argument: America has made it apparent that it wants Britain to stay in the European union, and it thinks that it is in Britain’s best interests to do so. Were we to leave the EU, the United States would simply ignore the UK and just do business with Europe; we would loose our position as bridge between the two trading blocks and in so doing relegate ourselves to a tiny third rate power. It is only if we keep our place in the European union that Britain can have any say in world affairs. Euroskeptics and Europhobes claim to act out of patriotism and in the best interests of the county, but how can they be patriotic when their views, if put into action, would be so disastrous for the country? I don’t think the European Union is perfect – it could do with being a tad more democratic for a start – but it is surely clear to any thinking person that leaving it would be the biggest mistake this country could make, and thus euroskeptics should be seen on a par with racists, wife-beaters, homophobes, and those who want to see hanging reinstated.

Dentist, dentist, oh how I loathe

The things in my mouth you do shove

Prodding and picking at my teeth

Grinding away at the grime beneath

***

Dentist, dentist, oh how I hate

The sounds made when at my teeth you grate

Rubbing pulling, the noise hurts my ear

Oh man, when this is over, I need a beer!

I just finished reading ‘Bond on Bond’, the book by roger Moore Lyn gave to me for Christmas. Truth be told, it is quite a thin volume full of pictures, so I probably should have finished it days ago. Intellectually, I found it quite lightweight: it is more of a coffee table book than anything else. That its not to say I found it silly or without value. Moore writes in a chatty entertaining way I don’t often come across, but the book is packed with little anecdotes, titbits of information you only get from someone who actually worked on set, and who personally knows (and as drank with) people like Cubby Broccoli. On one level, then, it is the sort of book film academics might be dismissive of: there is not much in the way of theory in it, and you could just say it is just Roger Moore prattling out a mixture of recollections and opinions. Yet on another level it is a brilliant, fascinating text: reading between the lines one can build up a picture of a unique piece of film history and culture. Moore has, somewhat unintentionally, painted a self portrait; his book supplies us with the type of insight no academic text can. I therefore found wonderful read, and, although he sometimes comes across as a dirty old man, I cannot help feeling rather fond of roger Moore. In all, then, an excellent book, and a great Christmas present from Lyn.

I think in this entry I should direct you to this stunning short film by Alan Martin. In it he tells us a bit about his life: you really get a sense of his willpower and determination – Alan was a fine example to any disabled person, and he will be greatly missed. Please watch.

A few days ago I picked up a copy of Empire magazine. It had a picture of the upcoming Star Trek film on it’s front cover, so I thought it might be worth a look. I am, after all, something of a trekkie. However, I just got round to reading the article within, and was filled with a mixture of despair, disappointment and horror. The franchise I grew up with, the characters I loved as a child, are gone; they have been replaced with dramatis personae that, although they hare the names of the originals, bear no resemblance to them. JJ Abram’s, it seems, has stolen Star Trek from it’s fans: he has pissed all over gene Roddenberry’s vision, claimed it as his own creation and replaced it with something which is something more akin to batman. Since when, for smeg’s sake, would spock have a relationship with uhura?

I’m not against reboots: after all, Casino Royale rebooted the bond franchise, and the last three films have been the best ever, thanks largely to Daniel Craig. But bond is a unique sort of franchise: it is ancient in Hollywood terms, and has often changed itself. Unlike trek, it has no cannon to adhere to, other than a few set pieces and lines which are easy(ish) to include. In a way it is more like it’s own genre, and different films of the same genre can be taken in completely different directions. Granted, sometimes they can stray too far, as they did with moonraker, and bond is not a genre in the strictest sense, but the bond franchise is nevertheless very flexible. Trek is different. It has a massive cannon held semi-sacred by it’s fans, but which Abrams has almost totally done away with. It is as if Peter Jackson had taken the hobbit, stripped it of all the little details Tolkien worked so hard to define, and turned it into a sloppy romance on the same lines as twilight and all the other sloppy teenage shit currently in our cinemas. It is a complete insult to star trek fans. I understand why they had to do this reboot: it was either that or the death of the franchise. But I loved star trek as it was, conforming to the original rules, the original forma, the original cannon. Frankly, part of me would have preferred them to let it die than have to see the great Kirk and Spock changed so drastically. Mind you, this tension between what is cannon and what is possible with reboots strikes me as interesting vis-a-vis postmodernism and fan studies, so I think I’ll look further into it,)

I think I’ll just flag this cool little documentary up today. L found it last night. It concerns a young transwoman trying to become ‘Miss England’. Not only does it give us a glimpse of the beauty pageant circuit in all it’s vapidity, but it paints a portrait of a woman with true character and charisma. I know it is lazy blogging just to post links we find on Youtube, but I really must say how much I admire Jackie Green: she is determined to be who she sees herself as, and to hell with the bigots and bullies. That is also in part why I love and admire Lyn so much: she, like jackie, is a determined, confident woman, an example to the whole world that we must always be ourselves, no matter what the bigots who cling to outdated, simplistic binaries may say. They show the world there is more to life than conformity, and that we must all grab the freedom to express ourselves however we wish. That applies not only to gender, but anything else: yes, it might not be ‘normal’, but who the hell is?