I have turned my computer on simply to record this feeling. This evening’s gospel choir concert was wonderful. It was beyond beautiful. The singing itself was extremely good, but it was something else that made the concert so bittersweet. It acted as a swansong for the entire third year, and once again I found myself wanting to cry.

Charlie did an excellent job. No doubt about it. It was almost intended to make us cry – why else should she include tearjerkers such as Joe and sally singing ‘eye of the sparrow’ and John singing ‘what a wonderful world’? there was sort of a terrible beauty about it, for the entire third year saw it as a final assembly. We all know what’s about to happen; we know our parting is inevitable, but none of us want it to happen.

Of course, there were happy tunes too. It would not be a concert by Charlie if it did not include a bob Marley medley. I suspect that she had me in mind when she left my favourite – ‘hey beautiful day – to last, allowing me to dance with Emma. In all probability, that moment was, at one and the same time, both the happiest and saddest of my life.

Charlie’s most apt inclusion was her own song, Smile When you say Goodbye, written for her brother. It truly is a happy song; yet, as I ay, we all know we will soon part.

At the end of the concert, I just felt…well, I can’t describe it. Both elated and desperately sad. It is both happy and heartbreaking. I find myself wanting time to stand still, to live forever in this moment, with all my friends. But I know it won’t. Time never ceases – there will be other people to meet, other places to see. If uni has taught me anything, it is that there are no barriers.

Sitting there, after the concert, I suddenly remembered a line from what was once my favourite book, and one which I still cherish. The words of a wise old man, delivered at a parting of friends: ”I will not say do not cry, for not all tears are evil.”

It’s been a long long day. I’ve been filling in forms and sending off letters and going to meetings. I’m just knackered, and irritated by all the little things that go wrong, and short tempered. I got the feeling that all my applications for funding would be rejected. I simply do not have experience in those things. I shouldn’t be so down because today Dave told me my mark for my heimat essay – 72, a first. I should be feeling happy, but for ome reason I’m not. Maybe later, after dinner, when I get time to relax, I’ll calm down and cheer up. Anyway, it’s the gospel choir concert tonight; they’re raising money for 1voice. Maybe by then this mood will have passed.

Forms suck. Or rather filling them in sucks. These days my life is devoted to filling in forms. Applications for funding. Applications for support. I understand why it’s necessary, and they come purely through choice – nobody is, after all, forcing me to do a master’s – but they still suck. I suppose they are the best way to do things, so they can’t be avoided. They’re just irritating, and, more to the point, dull.

On a happier note, comments are back. My brilliant brothers have re-established comments with a new improved spam-filter. Hopefully my website will no longer clog up with spam. The downside of this is you can once again disagree argue and prove me wrong once more. Boo.

Ho hum. Back to silly form-filling.

Two couples, one old one young, were walking round b and q. it’s a big massive store so they both manage to lose their wives. The husbands meet each other, and decide to seek their missing better halves together.

‘what does your wife look like?’ Asks the older man.

‘She has nice, long legs; blond hair and is wearing a short black dress. ‘ the younger man replies, ‘what’s yours look like?’ The older man thinks a moment, and then says ‘Oh, forget her. Let’s find yours!’

ever since our visit to australia, I have wanted a helicopter. go here to see why.

Last night was emotional, and as much as I enjoyed it in parts I felt like crying. Last night was my last summer ball, or at least my last as an undergraduate. Therefore it was the last one my whole cohort of friends would attend. I’ve grown to love all pf them these past three years: they are rather like a family; they all care enormously for each other, and it will be hard to say goodbye to them.

Pretty soon – too soon – we will all go our separate ways. It’s inevitable that sooner or later we will loose contact, and I don’t want this to happen. With all my heart I don’t. people like Vikki and Dan, Nicky and switch, Rocky, Steve and Chris. becky, scott and vanessa

Emma. And Charlie.

You know, I sincerely believe Charlie is one of the most beautiful humans ever. Not just aesthetically – although I daresay she is very pretty – but inwardly. She is deeply caring, always smiling, frequently singing. She’s like that to everyone. She’s also genuine. I have grown to know her and her family – Hugh, her brother, frequently visits campus – and they really are nice people. Saying goodbye to Charlie will be especially difficult.

Last night, I realised this, and I wanted to hug each one of them and not let go. It was a wonderful evening. Apart from the casino tables (which I didn’t have a go on) there was a chocolate fountain, a high roller ride, a food stall, a duck-fishing thing, as well as the disco in the bar. Last night, they had a Robbie Williams tribute band in there, and dancing showgirls! I told myself I wouldn’t get drunk, since I wanted to stay to the very end this year. With the help of trusty old Red Bull, I succeeded. I was dancing most of the evening, as, each time I sat down, another of my friends got me up for yet more dancing.

It was great fun, although not completely wholesome, as a few of my friends thought they’d treat me to a lap dance. They were very good at it too!

I ache this morning, but it’s a great ache to have. It’s a sign of a great evening. Indeed, it was an evening I never want to forget, at the end of the best three years of my life.

Its going to rule. It is my small fantasy that commander bond will actually show up, that, when we get there, a grey Aston martin will be parked outside brandies. Quite what business 007 would have at the end of term summer ball at an obscure university I did not know. It could have something to do with the group called the jocks. Either way I know for a fact that nobody behind the bar knows how to mix Martini. No doubt he would have kicked up a stir in M’s office:”Why do I have to go there? Can’t you send somebody else?” M would have replied that he was the only man available and that besides they were having casino tables. At this Bond’s eyes would have lit up.

I wouldn’t be surprised if as we are all partying away in Brandies, we hear the low rumble of a sports car, or the roar of a harrier overhead, preparing to land on the football pitch.

Yes tonight’s going to rule.

As a kid my family and I used to play dungeons and dragons. I loved it – that type of fantasy world appeals 2 me. I often whished it could somehow be more real; I wanted to go charging off into the woods to slay orcs and goblins. Apparently I wasn’t alone. Go here.

I want a go

Btw I got my mark for my exhibition. 70% – a first!

It is as typical as it is ironic – if that isn’t a contradiction – that when I rolled up to use the fund finder software in the student advice centre, I was told that it was housed in a completely inaccessible part of the building. I need to find funding for my MA and was told this software could help me find people to ask. It’s typical its as if they don’t expect us crips to do master’s degrees. Mind you, I was once told I wouldn’t be able to do GCSEs and now look! Anyway, the staff there are looking for me, so, for the time being, I might go watch the cricket.

I went to see new British film This is England with a few friends last night. To be honest I was very ambivalent about the whole thing – I couldn’t quite decide which side of the fence the film sat. it’s about neo-nazis in 1983. a young boy befriends a group of men on the extreme right of the political spectrum. These boys seem very friendly to the boy, who, having a father killed in the Falklands, seems to be taken in by their rhetoric.

This makes for very uncomfortable viewing. These thugs seem like nice people – they are after all, human. They are friendly and tender to the lad. The film is therefore brave in that it does not simply dismiss such people as mindless thugs. It is, I guess, all too easy to do so, and much to simplistic. We must concede that they are not Neanderthals, for were we not to do so would make us as bad as them.

And yet, at the same time, the film almost seemed sympathetic to what they were saying. I disagree utterly with what they were saying – there was not even one tiny grain of truth in it. The fact is, this country needs immigration: without it, we would simply cease to function. Moreover, I think back to the story of my own family: my maternal grandparents came over from Cyprus in the late forties, met, and married. My bappou (grandfather) was a tailor, and had a shop down in London. They worked their socks off all their life: I can still remember watching bappou and yaiya working at their sewing machines up until their retirement. Their offspring are all equally hard working – my aunt doula is a teacher; my uncle is a journalist; my mother is an information scientist (hi mum). They then had six grandchildren: let’s see… at last count, they all have or are doing degrees; two are about to complete PhD’s (hi mark and Chris) I think alex is doing a Master’s; I am about to graduate; I’ve not spoken to my cousin Cyril in a while – does he graduate this year or next year? Luke is also about to enter his final year of his four year bioinformatics degree. That is, all told, one physicist, two biologists, one bioinfomatician, one neuroscientist (something like that) and one film student. So much for this ‘immigrants don’t work’ bullshit.

I reckon it’s a load of urban myths that ‘immigrants take our jobs’ or ‘they just collect benefits’ or ‘they get priority over housing’. Bull. This to me smacks of paranoid xenophobia. I also seriously doubt that they get priority over jobs: while employment quotas do exist, what employer in his right mind would choose anyone because of their ethnicity alone? It is true that most come seeking a better life – which I take as a complement – but it is also true, and often forgotten, that most are fleeing persecution, deprevation, extreme poverty or even torture. Why else would they come all this way. At this point, of course, many point out that migrants could have stayed in the first EU country they came across, and conclude that Britain is seen as a soft touch. I do not think this is quite the case: they come to Britain because they speak the language, or have family here, both of which are the direct result of our former colonial days. Hell, we invited many such people over ourselves after losing India, and windrush. We have a history of welcoming migrants to this country, where they subsequently prosper. Is it any wonder that they want their families to do the same?

There is just so much crap being spoken about the immigration ‘problem’ these days. It plays straight into the hands of the far right, especially when CaMoron starts telling people ‘it isn’t racist to worry about immigration’. It is, because it is born of xenophobia.

I love it when films get everyone talking. This one certainly has. The debate got quite heated on the way home last night. It is also quite important to me too, as I worry that the public mood might be swinging back to the right, which is never a good thing. I fear we are being duped by the Tories once again, and then, as the film I saw last night illustrated clearly, it’s back to the dark days of Thatcherism, but this time with a nice smile.

I came across this yesterday, and laughed my head off when I did. The boys on wheels give us such songs as ‘my balls are ok’ and ‘making love in the handicap toilet’. Of course, it’s obscene filth, and may just give the bloodhound gang a run for its money, but it strikes a chord. It’s the articulation of the sexual repression imposed upon us by the able-bodied. Or just smut.

Yesterday was bliss. Pure, undiluted bliss. Once again graham has asked me to help him with one of his plays – this time an adaptation of camus’ The Outsider. It’s a short book, which I whizzed through in two days, so yesterday I was out on the field reading his script. It was hot and sunny and lovely.

We ate dinner outside too. Charlie and I decided to lay out a couple of towels on the grass just outside my room and eat there. I’d planned to eat a ready meal, but had accidentally put it in the freezer rather than fridge, so, rather than wait for it to defrost, I had a pizza. Emma came round later on. Charlie had quite an excellent new Zealand rose which we shared, and all three of us talked while the sun set before our eyes.

It was a moment of heaven: good wine, good food, and the best friends ever.

a day or two ago, est and I were talking about this advert. not sure why. for nostalgias sake, I’ll post a link

Can the people of this country be so stupid as to fall for the obviously hollow promises of that half-brained smiling jackass Cameron? Do they not realise who he is? Sure, he may sound reasonable; he may have a nice smile. But a Tory is a Tory, and 18 years of misrule and mismanagement showed us that they cannot be trusted.

I love my life here at uni. I have flourished. As things stand, I’m on course for a 2:1. (got my film essay mark today; 64% – well within the 2:1 range). But the fact is, under the Tories with their cost-cutting initiatives and reluctance to fund anything which doesn’t help them directly, I simply would not be here. If we once again chose the Tories, disability rights take a step backwards.

I am very scared and very angry at today’s election result. More cursing to come.

Now that my course is over, I guess I can reflect upon it. The old adage that one should never study the books you love does not hold: I have an increased love of both writing and film now I have finished my course. I can probably also appreciate them more. Take Heimat, for instance: in all probability, I would once have dismissed it as boring. It is afterall 15 hours long and in German, but now that I’ve seen it I’ve done the background reading which goes with it, I find myself really liking it. It is problematic in its relationship to the war and the Holocaust and I can see how some can accuse Edgar Reitz of revisionism. But at the same time I can also see his problem – how can you represent the Holocaust paradoxically, you cannot and yet you have to. This is, I think, quite a profound and interesting debate.

Thus I find myself loving films more than I ever did; I wish to know more about them. I also love learning more than I ever did, be it science, or art, or history. At school I met kids who turned their backs on learning completely; while this is a great shame, it also represents a worrying trend more and more I see kids claiming that it is uncool to learn. They value ignorance over learning, they are only interested in Playstations, and ironically films. It is only now that I see the extent to which they are missing out – both academically and socially (for the two go hand in hand) university is great fun.

I was recently asked to prepare a paper on my experiences of uni. I think I’ll write it along these lines. It is vital that we re-envigour the enthusiasm of the youth, both for their sake and that of the country.

I really think life can’t get much better. Today was just spent chilling. Many people finished their degrees today, or are quite close to doing so, so there is quite a festive mood on campus. The sun helps too. I am doing what needs to be done, honest, but have been advised to rest a while before continuing with my master’s.

The firsts were playing cricket. I had intended this blog to be about how glorious watching cricket is, but, before heading across to the pitch with the four-pack I’d just bought, I noticed a few friends sitting on the grass by the wes. I went to join them, and ended up whiling away the afternoon with them. I gave them three of my four cans of Stella. Believe it or not we ended up playing wrestling. Adults my butt!

I eventually got to the cricket just before teatime, and again just before close of play. It was glorious – there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. What’s more, we won.

I’m off out again – can’t waste an evening like this inside!

Oh, before I go, if anyone knows about file recovery on the music programme sebelius, please contact me

It gives me great, almost infinite pleasure to record that I handed in my final essay today. Part of me still can’t believe it, and yet another part of me says I might have forgotten something, even though I’ve checked with my peers a thousand times. If there are no nasty surprises, I reckon I can afford a brief period of respite before organising master’s funding. Now I cant wait to get on with my master’s in september!

I think I will stay at college for some time – I work better here than at home – access to books and films etc. I also need est helping me. besides, all my friends are here. To be quite honest, I don’t want uni to end. mind you, this bit will probably be harder than my dgree!

I must admit, I’m pretty adept at bullshit. Most students are. Whether undergrad or post grad, you become good at writing bull. Well, not bull in general – we leave that to politicians and newspaper writers – but a specific, academic type. This type is particularly refined; you can smell academic writing a mile off. It is dense, impenetrable to the uninitiated, and enough to make one cringe or scratch one’s head in bemusement.

My brother had his PhD viva on Friday, and it makes me the proudest sibling in the world to report that he passed, and, once he has corrected the five spelling errors his examiners pointed out and submitted his thesis, he will officially become Dr. Mark D. Goodsell. He came down to my parents house on Friday night so that we could all eat together; I was just in awe.

Mark and Kat stayed the weekend, going to a wedding on Saturday, then staying with us on Sunday. Luke buggered off after tea on Friday, to everyone’s disappointment, but he had things to do in Manchester. Yesterday afternoon, after a very good pub lunch, while we were sitting out on the lawn (by which time, I must admit, I had had a bit to drink) mark went and fetched his draft thesis. We all knew full well that we would not understand it, but just for the sake of pride, we had dad read the abstract aloud

I understood some words, such as ‘the’ and ‘and’, but it was impenetrable! If one can judge the quality of an academic work by how understandable it is or isn’t to a lay person, that was very good indeed.

Today is another good day; mind you, me and Esther haven’t done much. It’s the day of the rest of the class’s exhibitions – I did mine earlier this year, a fact which, I feel, gives me certain advantages: for instance, I had the entire gallery, whereas the rest of my class have to share it. I had a week to exhibit my work, whereas theirs is just on this afternoon. Mind you, they too had free wine, two glasses of which have made me feel smug.

Last night was the neon party. I’m not telling you what I wore, but I’ll just say it ruled out going to the loo. I therefore did not drink and stayed sober. I still had a really good time.

Uni rules; I’m going to miss it so badly!

Art is usually but a plaything; a distraction. We turn the box on or open a book of an evening purely to be distracted. I, however, have the good fortune to be a student of art – I produce it n my writing, and I study it’s filmic incarnation. Yet art – be it painting, literature, film or whatever – is more than a distraction. Reitz’s Heimat means something, Moby-dick means something, and that which I saw on Monday evening at half past seven meant something.

My friends were in a play; a short piece, written by Vikki, directed by rocky, about three friends who are involved in a car crash en route to a festival. The piece was commissioned by the council, and they are currently doing a tour, performing it in schools, encouraging kids to wear seat belts. By god, it is powerful – the pen can truly cut to the quick like no other tool or weapon I know. This is why we are here; this is what art is for. That play can save lives, and, as such, it is profoundly noble.

What my friends are doing will save lives, and I salute them all.

I got the best ever email today. It ran as follows

”Matthew,

Defiant is repaired, when would be a good time to bring it back to you?

Love

Dad”

I had expected it to take an age to fix. in the end it took a day. dad just came and dropped my chair off. I’m once again independent

I read today that the Sinclair spectrum is 25 this month. Spectrums? Spectrums? Oh I remember those. The mark had one, and I used to watch him play on it for hours, sitting on his bedroom floor, looking up at the screen. I don’t recall ever having a go, though.

Of course, today gaming has come a long way since the days when games came on cassettes. I recently read of how one can turn your pc into a flight sim – you can get things like altimeters which plug into computers. People have, for example, got old 747 cockpit shells, mounted a yoke and these peripherals on it, used two or three screens or a projector for the visuals, and then played ms flight sim 2000! How cool. Don’t believe me? Go here! I want one, and I bet it doesn’t scream at you while its loading.

link

It occurs to me, in my conversations with Simon Stevens, that there seem to be a shortcoming in the social model of disability. We were talking on msn this morning about his plans to do a PhD on disability and online gaming. games like ‘second life’ are now massive, with thousands, if not millions of players. Matrix like, they recreate the world; yet that world is perfect. As such, disability does not need to exist.

Yet it does. This fact seems to contradict both models of disability: the contradiction with the medical model does not interest me, as it is too obvious; the contradiction with the social model is, however, more subtle. If disability is a social construct, then, in a world where the real, as it were, is determined by the imaginary, then disability shouldn’t exist. In a world where we are free to be ourselves, without the barriers imposed on society, then disability shouldn’t exist.

The fact that it does lead us to something of a revelation: the social model takes no account of pride. Disability is part of who I am; yes, it’s a pain in the ass yesterday my wheelchair broke – but it’s part of who I am. I like being Matt, the guy who zooms round campus in a chair; matt who uses that odd contraption in the wes; matt with more friends than he could count! I love being me, and wouldn’t change it for the world!

As Simon pointed out, what is needed is a cultural model of disability. We see ourselves as disabled because we want to. This is, of course, very problematic: who, after all, would choose a world where most of your school mates die? Its not all peaches and cream. This gives rise to a contradiction: do we or do we not want to be disabled? I am proud of being disabled, yet… I still see those men in Weston, and the road back home; such images haunt me. Time and time again, I have been given such news. Granted, had I not gone to special school, things would have been different, so disability and such things are not intertwined completely, but the two are associated. Nevertheless, I would not change who I am; I am proud to have known those boys. In a way they are the reason why I would not take the magic pill, for were I to be cured of my cp I would be denying my roots and my history. To do so would be a betrayal.

This is why disability must exist in things like second life. Disability is part of who I am. If I hated my disability I would hate myself. It was Ahab’s hatred of his disability which destroyed him and his ship, for it inspired his insane quest against the white whale, although this is one reading of Melleville. I am not Ahab. Whales may be ‘dumb brutes’, as Starbuck put it, but they are also beautiful animals, gliding so gracefully though the water. Like Ahab, I can hate my own disability, and like Ahab I can ”shoot my hot hearts shell upon it”, but I choose instead to swim with it.

Thus I think there is a place for a cultural model. I think it has it’s limits, and it needs work – it doesn’t for example explain how disability arises – but, unlike the social and medical model, it opens a space where we can be proud of who we are.

One way or another, yesterday was rather busy. The only accessible busses are at 9 and 11.45, and given we didn’t want to be late for a lecture at 12, we caught the one at 9. this gives us three hours to kill, so est and I worked on my essay; well, she went through the spelling while I had a nap! (nodded off anyway) After my lecture, there’s another wait – till 3 – for the bus home. When we got back, we did some housekeeping, tidied my wardrobe, then suddenly it was teatime; then off to go watch graham rehearse. After this I met Charlie again, with her rather dubious but likable friend peter, for a night at brandies.

My what a hard life I lead.

I had a meeting with Trish, my culture tutor this morning; I wanted to discuss my essay. To be honest I was nervous – this essay counts for 80% of the unit mark, and, to me, there was a distinct possibility of her saying I had grossly misunderstood the question and that I should start again.

She didn’t do this. in fact, she said that, although I couldn’t spell or use apostrophise, it was the best piece of work she had seen from me. She seemed really impressed! Woohoo! This is great news, especially given how worried I was. Apparently, it is less dogmatic than my other pieces, and more academic. I’m very happy now.

My older brother flagged something extremely interesting up for me yesterday (mark may have his uses after all!). he heard on the radio how the university of Sheffield are trying to design a Voice Input Voice Output Communication Aid (VIVOCA) – a device which translates disordered or unintelligible speech and outputs it via speech synthesis. As a person with ‘disordered or unintelligible speech’ this means I could speak into this box and understandable words come out. While this looks promising, I see a major problem in that I never say the same word twice in the same way – people have to rely on context to understand me – so how could this device translate for me? I think one would have to use it in combination with traditional vocas.

Interesting stuff nevertheless. Cheers bro.

go here and here

ever wanted to see a french dalek? go here

Yesterday we took my computer back to uni while I was still home, so I was sans pc for much of the day, and therefore unable to blog. Anyway, I’m here now, and in a good mood. Why? The door into the canteen is fixed!

For three years, almost, I’ve struggled with the main door into the wes. It was heavy and very inaccessible. But today I got there to find that there is now a big button with which I can open the door. Hurrah! No more pulling the heavy handle or kicking it,

Mind you, after I broke it the second time I think they got the message.

I need to record this for posterity: it’s 14 april, and we are able to sip beer outside. In the sun, it feels quite warm, hot in fact! Me, mum and dad were sitting in the garden drinking beer. As dad said, having spent Christmas down under, it feels like we skipped winter entirely. How glorious!

I ate lunch in the pavilion in the park today. Regrettably I haven’t told dad, so he’s probably still wandering where I am. It’s expensive stuff, but nice, and I enjoy the ambiance there.

Not much else to report today, so I’ll just post a link to the ouch pod cast. It seems to be getting more and more obscene by the month – this time, they seem to be alleging that Stephen hawking is a nymphomaniac. (mind you, all cripples are.) listen here

I was out on my usual roll today, thinking. As I’ve said before, rolling helps me to think; it’s far better, anyway, than staying indoors, especially with the weather as nice as it has been. Today, incidentally, is my first jumperless day since Australia. My essay’s almost finished apart from the final touches, which I’ll do when ii get back to campus, so I’m happy.

Anyway, rolling along, in full flaneur mode, I realised how many establishments remain inaccessible. Even after the dda 2004, a lot of shops have huge steps up to their doors, rendering them inaccessrable. It’s quite disgusting. If I want to go in, I have to get out and walk in, which, while ok for me, might not suit others.

In a way, it’s like having a sign saying ‘no cripples allowed’. There’s a semiotic equivalence. All it would take is a bag or two of concrete to put in a ramp, after all. Would we, these days, have signs outside guest houses saying ‘no colourds’? Of course not. So why are we still being discriminated against?

I would strongly advise you all to listen to this year’s Reith lectures. The first was broadcast this morning; in it, Jeffrey Sacks explains why and how the world must change if we aren’t all going to starve. Professor sacks is a highly eloquent, persuasive speaker, and although much of what he says is doom-laden, his overall message is one of optimism. I only hope the right people are listening. go listen

I’m slowly polishing off my Himat essay, and it’s giving me some grievance. While I’m pretty pleased with the content, I fear it is poorly structured and I repeat myself somewhat. This causes me to cut and paste paragraphs, which, rather than having the desired effect, muddles it up. I think I will leave it till I get back to uni; writing it is relatively easy; its editing that’s hard!

I was down in London yesterday visiting my grandmother with my parents. It’s a strange year, this year, as all Easters, regardless of one’s denomination, fall on the same date this year, where usually they are slightly out of alignment.

I must admit I have a problem with religion, or rather I did have. I decided, once, that I hated god, if he existed. What god would kill off over3 half my school friends? What god would do such a thing? God I reasoned is a bastard, and all those who believe in him were cretins.

But they aren’t, though. They aren’t morons, just people trying to make sense of everything. The promise of god brings people hope; to them, death isn’t death, but the next step. In other words they believed in god for exactly the same reason that I refused to. Thinking about this on Saturday night I realised these things – why people needed to believe. Then I realised that I needed to too.

It’s against all my logic, all science, but part of me wants them to be right. I want there to be an afterlife; I want rich, Andy, Dave and Andy w to be up there, sipping beer, talking and laughing. (‘oh god no! matt’s putting on another leotard and writing stupid things on his blog. Let’s go watch lee’). What is the alternative? It’s too sad for me to contemplate.

But that sadness would be pointless. Who would you level your anger at? God? but to be angry at god means one believes in him, which means one can also believe in heaven, which means one needn’t be angry at him. Without god, one cannot be angry, or sad; it would render all grief pointless, which is, I find, heartbreaking.

I understand why the church was packed on Saturday night. Belief in god may be illogical, if not downright stupid, but without the hope that stupidity gives us, we’d all go insane. Part of me, I must admit, needs that hope too. It is easier to believe a lie than to believe in oblivion. The old adage holds true: ‘if god didn’t exit, we’d have to invent him.’

I strongly suspect there’s more to this Iran thing than meets the eye. Of course there is – I doubt we are being told half of what’s going on behind the scenes, yet it still sounds highly dubious.

Take the release of the sailors yesterday. Why did Iran do that? It was a sudden move that meant Iran lost all it’s bargaining chips. If those sailors had been in Iranian waters Iran had every right to keep them. One explanation, therefore, is that they weren’t in Iranian waters in the first place, and Iran released them before everyone found out. Thus Iran made a shrewd move – it appears magnanimous, and nobody has to find out the inconvenient truth. It’s all very iffy.

I saw quite an odd programme on bbc3 last night. It was about ginger people and their place in society. The fellow (who professed to have ginger hair, although it looked more like brown to me) claimed gingers are an oppressed minority, on a par with gay and ethnic minorities.

I think I agree with him. Poor ginger folk have a raw deal, with their pasty faces and terrible acne. They must have such terrible times at school, too. To protect them from bullies, wouldn’t it be better to put them in special schools, where they’ll be among kids just like them? Surely carrot tops can’t cope in comprehensives, even though they are so brave!

Ha! Sarcasm rules. Once I realised this chap wasn’t being serious, I read the programme as exposing the ridiculousness of all prejudices. Interestingly, much of what this chap was saying – increased ginger representation on TV, etc – is akin to what the disabled community seek. Obviously, the programme was meant to be taken with a pinch of salt (or else this guy had an extremely large chip on his shoulder), and so the programme can be taken as a kind of synecdoche: the absurdity of the programme mirrored the absurdity of all prejudice.

It is indeed absurd. Just as my idea about schools for gingers is ridiculous, so is any idea about schools for cripples, but there is still support for the latter. However, whenever I bring the subject up with certain people they accuse me of being dogmatic and akin to a creationist. This is both insulting and untrue; I have a firm belief in inclusion, and know it can be made to work. I have also seen firsthand how damaging special schools are, enough to know exactly why they cannot be allowed to continue. This is not dogma, but a profound desire to improve the education system. Moreover, likening me to a creationist really riled me: given that the vast majority of (peer reviewed) academic research suggests inclusion is the way forward (see http://inclusion.uwe.ac.uk/csie/) this seems a case of pots calling kettles black. Most arguments against inclusion are as baseless as they are patronising, and I have yet to see any academic research opposing it.

Thus the programme serves a purpose. Prejudice of any kind is laughable.

I have been thinking about god again. Oddly the subject of religion is never far from my mind; it is interesting to muse over the existence of a metaphysical being. Until recently, I discounted totally the existence of god – I found it illogical and profoundly unscientific. I must admit there was a time when I laughed in peoples faces when they spoke of god.

To be sure I still find it illogical. To base one’s worldview on a single archaic book still seems rather silly to me, especially when there’s so much support for stuff like evolution which seem to directly contradict the biblical story of genesis. Moreover, events in my life have lead me to reason that god, if he was truly all powerful, could only be a god of hate.

Soon after finding out about rich, one morning in the wes, I began to write something about god. in it I began to dismiss all believers as fools, calling god a bastard. I wanted to pour all my hatred onto god and all those idiots who believed in him. Yet I could not complete it or publish it; it would have been wrong of me to do so.

A friend of mine changed my mind. She is a Christian. If I had posted that ahabic tract, I would have greatly disrespected her. I could not do that.

It was not long after that that I got talking to this friend about rich and Andy, and she said something which was quite beautiful. She said she had prayed, and had seen rich in a dream. As an atheist, I usually do not like such talk, yet something in that gesture I found profoundly comforting. It let me know what I am cared for; that I am loved, which, I suppose is the point of religion.

I don’t know how but she seemed to strike a chord. Maybe god isn’t so bad after all. I’m deeply grateful to her for performing such a kind act. Science is irrelevant what counts is love, kindness and hope.

Progress on my Heimat essay continues apace. The videos still haven’t arrived yet, so I’m composing it mostly from ‘theoretical’ stuff (Freud Lacan etc) and not much close textual analysis. The problem is, while I’m confident that what I’ve written is fairly good, I’m aware I may be waffling. Oh well, there’s time left, and plenty of it since the right-hand motor of my chair broke this morning. No more jaunts down town for a while for me, then! Just my essay. Hmph!` wordcount: 3030 of 4000

I haven’t written much about international politics in ages. this is due,, in part, to my general cynicism about it all – Britain has lost all credibility over Iraq. Besides, this site is supposed to be focussed on disability, my life and so forth. Since the latter is going well (my main worry is my essay, funding, and the safety of my clothes I left at uni) its time I said something about the current situation with regard to Iran.

The first thing to say is that we have no idea where the ships were. Who does one believe: the British or the Iranians? My gut tells me to believe the British, but that’s only because I myself am a brit. Mind you, we are the democratic party, and the most advanced technologically. However, regardless of where they actually were, the Iranians saw fit to capture them.

Here, things get fishy. Why did they let themselves be captured? Why didn’t the Cornwall protect them? If they were in Iraqi waters, why were the Iranians there? If not, why were we in Iranian waters? Its all very odd, if you think about it.

Either way, the question is how to get out of this mess. Send troops in, and all hell breaks loose; likewise with the SAS. Diplomatic methods won’t work, as Iran won’t listen. The language coming out of Tehran is overwhelmingly hostile, and they only have to point to guantanamo bay to make us look hypocritical.

Its all very messy. However, this may be great for Blair in the end. Would he not be hailed as a hero if he somehow brought those sailors home? With that segregationalist jackass CaMoron gaining in the polls, that is surely something to hope for.

I just returned from my second wheelchair excursion of the day. It’s a nice day, if a little breezy, and I like being out and about. This morning I went shopping,,, visiting the wine shop, book shops etc. this afternoon I had a look in a few charity shops for clothes, but returned empty handed.

I noticed in the park that my batteries were getting low, so I decided to head home. Now, one off my oldest memories is of my dad showing me the weir on the path from the park up jewson’s hill. This is a waterfall with an old mill by it. I was in my buggy trying to get dad to push me closer and closer to the edge of the river. I was a fearless little brat!

I was going that way again today; there was the mill, whose wheel had long stopped moving. I don’t suppose it has been used for centuries. Yet it was then I heard a bagging: on the wheel, a man was working. The ancient trap door was open to the platform. This could only mean one thing – restoration.

I’m not sure what anyone would want to restore a mill for today – maybe its for a museum, maybe for gryff Rees-Jones. We seem to have a strange relationship to history – our desire to restore ad preserve the past almost indicates a desire to stop time, to live within history. Perhaps because the world is progressing so fast we desire to make stand still. It’s rather ironic then that the paddle-wheel of that mill,, which has stood still for so long, should, in a way, make time stop by turning once more.