Call me Ishmael. [why should I call you Ishmael? Your name is matt] Some years ago — never mind how long precisely [one o’clock this afternoon] — having little or no money in my purse [twenty quid, having spent the rest already], and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. [err..no. you actually thought you would cadge a lift off Jim, who took you all the way to Congleton to get more money from nationwide. No water; no whales, and no silly quests for revenge. Just a very kind Jim, an afternoon off campus and a bit more money in my wallet.] If only mr. melville had heard of building societies…

I feel good. This weekend, I’ve finally knuckled down to work. I’ve read the whole of camera Lucida and have already nearly finished my essay on it. Oddly, I’m most comfortable writing essays – dealing with ‘facts’, arguing points. I even prefer it to writing fiction, although, according to Barthes, all writing is fiction because it can never correspond directly to reality. Either way, it’s nice to have been able to sit down, read, and type – to get lost in argument, thought, and language. Mind you, whether my essay is any good remains to be seen.

I aint passing any comment but just wishing this sprog a happy 3rd birthday.

shes a fighter

Yes yes, I know this isn’t the cloaking device I want it to be, but it’s still damn interesting. It seems scientists have started to create devices which bends em radiation round objects. So far, only microwaves can be distorted, but the prospect of a cloaking device which bends years in 5 or ten years has me squealing with excitement.

Quite a weird thing happened yesterday. I was walking over to Jim’s place last night. We had arranged to go out with Jim driving, so I didn’t need my chair – it would just have complicated matters. Jim lives in the houses along daisybank, at the back of campus, away from the hurly-burly of life in halls proper. From my little flat, its about 350 metres, but given that I’d arranged to meet Jim after he got out of a lecture at 8, and he’d not shown up, I’d decided to pop over to the theatres first. Earlier, I’d taken the lightwriter and bumbag off, for obvious reasons, expecting Jim to pick me up outside my flat.

He didn’t show, so, basically, there was I, walking along daisybank, trying not to drop my lightwriter or bumbag. Not easy. Then, four or five youths on bikes appeared in the distance.

I could hear them talking about me. Its odd they seemed scared. I was slightly scared myself.

Then: clunk. I dropped my stuff. Not hard, but the lightwriter fell out of it’s case. Now I was in trouble – I couldn’t put it back. I started to panic slightly.

Then suddenly, a kid started to approach. Now I was scared – he could easily have pushed me over. But then:

”Need a hand mate?’

”Y..yes please.”

”Here”

he helped me. I suppose he was both curious and scared of me – I’d heard them talking: ”whets wrong with him? Does he need help?” etc. of course, I hasten to add that if these kids had gone to school with kids with SEN, they might have been less apprehensive. We crips don’t bite. As it was, this ended well enough; I just wish I didn’t appear so much of a monster coming over the hill to them.

I freely admit that yesterday I was being stupid, but I reserve the right to recourse to self pity every now and again, just to recharge my emotional batteries – kind of a system reboot. In the end, I was ready for bed by about half seven, and spent a very enjoyable evening re-listening to the 2003 Reith lectures (to be found here), which, as you may recall, were given by VS Ramachandran on synesthesia. I listened to them all, hoping to gleam something from them.

As with all public lectures, they were very cursive, and didn’t go into much academic detail. I’m sure the fields of psychophysics and neuroscience are much more complex than professor Ramachandran made them seem. Nevertheless, they were thoroughly enjoyable to listen to, full of humour which is sometimes lacking in Dave or Alan’s lectures. Mind you, I must remember that the Reith lectures are for a wide public audience, and I’m sure neuroscience can sometimes be as dull and confusing as when Alan goes on and on about Lacan! Remind me to ask Cyril, a cousin who does neuroscience up at UMIST.

Jokes aside, listening to that lecture recharged my thirst for knowledge and liking for academia. I cant help wondering if synesthesia can be applied to film – I am convinced it forms the basis for language, but they’re two different kettles of fish. However, for the time being, I have more pertinent questions to explore. The copy of camera lucidia I ordered should be in the library today, and I have stories to write. Oh yeah, and a screenplay!

Life is good again!

It’s an odd thing really. I’m not sure if my cp is actually worse, or I’m just paranoid, but today seems a bad day. My shoulders and legs ache, I feel less co-ordinated, and typing is a little harder. I’m also prone to go into the moro-position more. I strongly suspect that this is because I have a cold, and I have had far too little sleep recently. I guess it’s that type of year too – kind of SAD meets CP. It doesn’t help that today’s culture seminar was about the impossibility of representing the holocaust. Bound to make you miserable.

Ho hum. I’ve had far worse. Every time I burn my mouth, my tounge cant stop twitching, so I’m perpetually tense. The last few times my biceps ached. As a disabled person, you aren’t supposed to complain (too medical model) but sometimes you just have to have a good old whinge.

Either way, tonight, I have decided, is bath night. A nice long soak in a hot bath relaxes anyone; I’ve even bought myself some aroma therapy stuff too. Besides, baths make shaving seem less of a chore. You know, I’ve never really liked baths, but now they remind me of the domestication of home as opposed to utilitarian showers before breakfast at uni. It’s enough to make me relax just thinking about it.

At time of writing, the university network is down and has been since Saturday evening. It’s a pain in the butt, as my main means of communication with me family is email, and I want to know if I’m in trouble. After I write this, I’ll go find the techies.

Anyway, something interesting has occurred. I was talking to Jim, a mature student, yesterday, about his plan to put me in a show. It’s about masks, and my part is about how society forces the mask of thee humble little retard onto me; about how people just see the disability, not the person.

I like this idea, for it is in line with my thinking. Most people, I fear, do not see us cripples for who we truly are, but just male assumptions based on who we are. I got talking to Jim about his show, and I felt I needed to tell him about disability culture; I also told him a bit about school, and about Wheetabix and foxy. I brought him back here to show him some of my writing on the subject, and, and as well as my more recent writing about 1voice etc, I kind of ended up showing him some of my older, more bitter stuff.

It is that I am worried about. He said he would like to make an exhibition off my work. This is very flattering, and does wonders for my ego, but I see two problems with it:

1.it is wholly too bleak and cynical. Yes, there are very dark aspects to disability – what can be more tragic than having two of your best mates succumb to MD, or knowing that there were and are kids like you still in long stay hospitals? – but there is also some very bright stuff too. With the right support, threes nothing I cannot do. I love my life, and think my cp makes it even cooler. Who else gets to zoom about campus in a wheelchair?

2.why me? I am not unique. There are three or four disabled people on campus, who must have similar recollections to mine. I do not stand for all disabled people, and this makes me very apprehensive about the whole idea; there are far better stories than mine to tell.

Yet part of me wants it to happen. There are some tales that need to be told. Very few people know what goes on behind the gates of a special school, and this could, perhaps, help reverse that. Yet I do not want to make disability into some wallowing festival of self pity. after all, I have no more to complain about than any other person, AB or crip. I am in two minds about the whole project.

the following was sent 2 me by my friend nicky:

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so profound that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, “It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,” and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct……leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting “Oh my G**.”

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY “A”.

I am finally realizing something almost fatal to my world view – Marx is wrong. My culture lecture today was on his theory of historical materialism. It is now clear to me that his prediction of the Cultural Revolution is basically nothing more than a leap of faith. Christians believe in the Second Coming, Jews believe in the coming of the Messiah, Marxists believe in the overthrow of the Bourgeoisie. The way in which Marx describes history (thesis + antithesis = synthesis) also seems inaccurate, I find it more likely that the struggle between classes will have many bastard offspring. These will be random. After all, nobody can predict the future. Thus, history unravels along Darwinian lines. If one rejects religion for being illogical, one must also reject Marx for the same reason.

Yet mankind remains a social animal. All the higher primates live in groups. Thus, to think we can leave society open to the ‘free market’ and survival of the fittest would be a mistake, and I reject social Darwinism. We must value all members of society,, as we all have something to contribute; if we allow everything to run along the principals of the free market, only those with attributes like opportunism, ambition and greed do well. Those without those attributes are stymied, although they may have attributes just as important; social Darwinism is therefore wasteful. It is worth noting that Darwin was simply describing and drawing conclusions from natural phenomena, not producing a political manifesto. Thus, just as I reject Marx’s predictions, I cannot lurch to the other end of the political spectrum. Free market capitalism is just as flawed and baseless as Marx.

If you ask me, this exposes Cameron for what he truly is: bullshit. I frankly welcome anything ridiculing Cameron – the man irritates me Intensely by trying to appeal to the masses, be progressive, while if you actually look at what few solid policies he actually has, it’s the same old Tory tripe. that’s what conservatiism is by definition – rigidity and illiberalism.

I mean, case in point: inclusion. Cameron has promised to reverse inclusive education, actually building more special schools, thereby appealing to the masses who fear that teaching poor defenceless cripples alongside their able-bodied peers would be too much for them. Nevermind that segregated education is innately and incredibly damaging to children, and something the disabled community has fought against for years, if it’ll grab voters, Cameron will do it. Same applies to immigration, law and order, etc etc. same old Tories, new baseball cap.

Its very weird. This morning, work had been slow going. I had an essay to write for culture. Usually I can write with no problem – words just flow, and on my expanded keyboard, on a good day, I can trot out 1000 words in a morning. I couldn’t this morning, and I decided to go out after about two hours and only 250 words. I went to talk to friends. When I came back, it occurred to me to take my shoes off, since they had felt odd all morning. I’d fallen after breakfast too. When I did this, with a wiggle of my feet, I typed merrily away, and soon doubled my wordage. How odd

Tonight we celebrate the birthday of my good friend Marcie, known, alternatively, as rocky. She is a most kind and gentle person; whenever I need a hand she’s always there.

Well, tonight we celebrate! There’s a big party at Steve’s place – it’s fancy dress,, and we all know what that means! I have selected my costume ready to change into later! I do not, however, intend to drink much tonight. Tomorrow I plan to start my 2000-word culture essay, and besides, alcohol does not do spandex any good.

Mind you, I’ll probably catch cold, lol. Happy birthday marcie

An interesting thought occurred to me while drying myself after my bath last night o the subject of language. I was going over the relationship between langue (written language) and parole (spoken language). As a voca user, langue is more closely related to parole simply because, when out and about, I have to type all my utterances. It seems to me that langue has evolved.

However, this is not in the most obvious sense. Most people think evolution just change over time, and they would be correct, but that is only one type of evolution the broadest. There are various mechanisms through which animals evolve: one, I believe, is called specialisation. Say I had a group of primates: it’s getting rather large so part of the group splits off to find new food. Say they go to a part of the wood with trees with fruit with hard rind. Over time, through natural selection, they adapt to possess stronger hands which can tear through the rind. Thus, while remaining primates, they have developed into a new species.

I believe we can observe this in language today. Of course languages change – Germanic to old English, old English to middle English, etc. thus we can observe linguistic evolution in the broad, macro sense. Yet I believe we can observe it in the sense of the primate example too, in the area of electronic communications. Of course, I refer only to langue – parole has continued to change at it’s standard rate. The written word seems to be developing a new subspecies, but isn’t in itself changing. We still use traditional forms of writing – syntax, spelling etc – to compose documents, but with the advent of electronic forms of communication, a new subspecies or sublangue has developed. This is not, however, a sublanguage, for the way we pronounce words has not changed.

Just as with our primate example, there is a definite cause for this. today, in text messaging, msn, and indeed on machines like my lightwriter, there is a need to write quickly. Hence, the phrase ‘good to see you’ becomes ‘good 2cu’. The way in which we pronounce this phrase verbally hasn’t changed, but the way in which we write It in texting has. Certain letters, such as C U and R, have ‘evolved’ to become not only letters but hieroglyphs, and nor represent words. Of course, one must mention that this seems to bear out de Sesseur’s statement that the relationship between sign and signified is arbitrary, and therefore subject to change.

This process is not purely random, so the purely Darwinian paradigm does not strictly apply. Only certain letters, that is, those which are pronounced like words, have been modified – a process which is not arbitrary. However, it is interesting to note how closely natural speciesisation resembles the evolution of texting. I therefore see it as natural, and would ask those who decry texting as something akin to sacrilege, as I once did, not to despair too much.

Due to the beer I had at lunch, I don’t feel like writing much. Coming home always makes me feel lethargic, and I think I’ll just go watch TV all afternoon. Either way, I just found this article on a hoard of fossils found up in the artic; they’re of extinct marine reptiles, which swam in the northern seas at the time of the dinosaurs.

Improbable though it may be, it’s interesting to note the resemblance to Nessie- might some have survived?

The nature of science, and indeed the entire academic spectrum, means that we can never be sure of anything. Granted, we can be almost certain of a fact, but we cannot be absolutely certain. Yesterday, I attended a fascinating lecture on historiography given by Dr. Dave Roberts, my head of unit. The nature of history is that we must never be dogmatic: when, for example, asking questions about the causes of the first world war, we must not snap to the answer ‘the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand’. History is much more complex, and much more interesting than that. Yes, the assassination did play a role, but there were a plethora of other factors: what if his chauffer had not made that wrong turn, etc? indeed, one historian cites the inflexibility of train timetables as a cause, for once the troops had started to be transported to the front via train, there was no way to recall them. Moreover, we must rely on sources, which essentially we can never be sure of the providence of; once we factor in bias too, we can see how elusive historical truth is.

We can say the same of all sciences, both social and natural (by which I mean physics, biology chemistry etc). I need hardly remind you guys that any scientific paper carries alternative hypotheses, admitting that results can be explained by other means. Science can only give us probabilities. Despite the vast quantities of data to support evolution, even Richard Dawkins admits god may still exist. Granted, as is the case with the theory of evolution we now have so much evidence that we can be 99.999% sure of something, but we must never proclaim ourselves absolutely certain of something. To do this would render the whole scientific field absolutely pointless.

I also see parallels between this and politics. One party proposes a bill, and another disagrees. No politician or person interested in politics should be so obstinate as to say that they are absolutely right on a subject. This is why politics, like academia, is a never-ending debate.

The problem comes with dogmatism. I refer to religious o political dogmatism. I go onto blogs and comment because I have a right to do so: I may disagree utterly with what a person has posted, but I can respond because truth is transient. I do not believe in the existence of truth, only opinion. Dogmatic people such as religious fundamentalist (Islamic, Christian or whatever) insist that there is no truth but there’s, as do, I find, many people on the right wing. This is why, I think, the two are often bedfellows. Thus my problem with religion is not beliefs in themselves – as suggested, we can never rule god out entirely – but the rejection of the transience of reality. Once we believe in one truth, we stop making progress; people who believe that there is no truth but theirs have closed their minds to alternatives.

This is why I am scared by George bush and Osama bin laden. Both men are fighting to impose their version of the truth; both are doing the same thing. If they don’t stop, the result can only be bad. Very bad.

If there’s a single phrase that can wind me up these days, it’s the phrase ‘political correctness gone mad’. It’s being trotted out ad nausiem by those on the right – often people fed up with, for example, ramps being put up to shops, or signs being translated into urdu, just because it inconveniences them. Well, they wouldn’t say that if they only spoke urdu, or used a wheelchair. Political correctness is just that: correct. It is the tendency to be liberal and accepting of others.

I can accept and respect other people’s points of view. After all, I would contend that, since there is no absolute truth, all viewpoints are valid (but should be weighed according to the evidence supporting them). Yet I have trouble with these conservative-types making such statements as if the majority of people agreed with them.

Then, when you try to debate the subject with you, they accuse you of being the dogmatic one. Liberalism is innately undogmatic, whereas I find conservatism is.

Thus, the propensity to dislike political correctness is linked to a reluctance to change, to accept new ideas etc, especially when it interferes with one’s own business. I’m sorry; I accept they have a right to think as they wish, but conservatism, with it’s barely hidden racism, audacity, hypocrisy and stubbornness, is pissing me off right now.

There are very few lessons that truly inspire me these days. I don’t mean normally inspire, as I ‘what a good lecture’, I mean, ‘holy pigcrap. Now I wanna write my thesis’. Writers Contexts this year is such a lesson. The tutor who takes us seems almost infinitely learned in writing and art history. He’s drawing parallels between art and painting which I hadn’t known about, but now seems obvious. I now intend to employ the things I learn of art within the context of filmic semiotics. Can we extrapolate the principals of the static image to the moving one. It is this question which now intrigues me.

A few days ago, my friend graham asked me to help him with his Masters. It’s a stage adaptation of 100 years of solitude, and graham wants me to help him with the details. I have to read the book, and give graham guidance.

Why he asked me to do this I don’t know. I think he likes my love of literature, a passion which we share. To be honest, this project sounds like fun – something to do in the evenings, and now I have another book to get my teeth into, full of Latin passion. Yay!

But I had to laugh. Last night graham had gathered his cast to start rehearsal, and, upon meting me in the canteen, had invited me along. You will never see anything weirder than a drama session, I can tell you. It was like a series of party games: they were tossing fake balls of energy around etc. it was like a big game of lets pretend or charades. We writers are much too refined for such tomfoolery. Actors, bah! Mind you, it was fun when I joined in!

So, today I have a book to read; I’m meeting graham at 10 and Julia at 12; there’s a 1voice phone meeting tonight too. It should be a good day!

Would someone please explain how this guy is making his guitar produce such noises. How?

stolen from here.

Now I’m jealous! Apparently a few crips have got to go to Africa courtesy of the bbc. It’s not fair. They get to trek over sand dunes and stuff, while I get to watch the rain in alsager. I can’t even watch them.

Mind you, what’s the point of that program anyway. Crips going over deserts? So? If they want to film someone making a challenging trip, they can film me walking home from the bar. Now that’s challenging.

Day 1: matt starts walking home.

Day 2: Esther finds matt under a bush, still asleep.

Well, it’d be better TV than 99% of the crap they put on these days.

I just noticed that my hitcount has passed the 200,000 hit threshold. This means that my site as been accessed 200,000 times; I’m not sure why, it’s not that I’ve had much of interest to say recently. Well, thank you all for coming, even if you did wander here by accident, or had googled ”dwarf tossing”, or were looking for cripple porn (hmm, that might be an idea…) Either way, I hope you enjoy your visit – more ill-informed ramblings to come!

It’s been a busy couple of days. Well, it’s not that I’ve been doing anything useful, just that I’ve not had much time at my pc, and thus not much time to blog. I never thought uni could be this exhilarating nor this knackering. My conversation these days ranges from Barthes’ ideas on the death of the author, to the best way to light farts, which is apparently very dangerous, and is probably responsible for some deaths, including those of authors. Believe it or not, both these subjects cropped up last night, at a party me Steve and Chris attended.

It was a house party, and it was a fairly dull affair. I don’t know why, but some parties have that spark while others just don’t. it’s odd, as if there’s a special secret element which sets off hedonism and madness. People just sat around and talked, and we left for the pub at about half ten.

Nevertheless, this, along with cultural elevation on Friday (which deserves a blog entry unto itself) means that it’s been quite a mad two days. Today, I have some reading to do, which I’ll do in the fresh air.

You know, I’ve never felt quite so alive.

I just found out about a new sport – dwarf tossing. It’s where you get a little person and chuck them as far as possible. It’s mostly played in pubs, which, if you asked me, seems fitting. presumably, you must catch said dwarf first… hmm…wheres my net?

proof of the existence of dwarf tossing

This year, Thursdays will probably get on mine and Esther’s nerves. It’s just so hectic. For one, my first lesson’s at 9, and I’m of the opinion that 9am lectures should be illegal, especially the morning after the Wednesday disco. I had to go to bed at 11 just to make sure I was up! It’s positively barbaric. Then, this afternoon, I had a film lecture from 3 till 6 – SIX would you believe. That’s after teatime. How dare they make me wait for dinner?

Mind you, both these lectures were fascinating. In writer’s contexts, instead of the usual wishy-washy ‘we say a sentence and you continue writing’, we actually learned something of art history. At last, I thought, something I can get my teeth into.

Film was even better. We learned mostly about philosophy in relation to film (too tired to relate it here) but I found it very stimulating. Alan seemed enthusiastic about my doing a PhD too!

This year is gonna be a good one!

I’m just looking at my PhD application form – you almost need a degree to fill it in, but I suppose that’s the whole point. I have put aside this afternoon to get on with it; to be honest, I just want to do the research and the reading, never mind the stupid forms. I also need to get my head round funding, which, coming from a man in an almost perpetual state of confusion, might be a tall order.

Forms are silly!

How to write a paper in college/university:

Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lit place in front of your computer.

Log onto MSN and ICQ (be sure to go on away!). Check your email.

Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it.

Walk down to the vending machines and buy some chocolate to help you concentrate.

Check your email.

Call up a friend and ask if he/she wants to go to grab a coffee. Just to get settled down and ready to work.

When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lit place.

Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it.

Check your email.

You know, you haven’t written to that kid you met at camp since fourth grade. You’d better write that letter now and get it out of the way so you can concentrate.

Look at your teeth in the bathroom mirror.

Grab some mp3z off of kazaa.

Check your email. ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR YET?!

MSN chat with one of your friends about the future. (ie summer plans).

Check your email.

Listen to your new mp3z and download some more.

Phone your friend on the other floor and ask if she’s started writing yet. Exchange derogatory emarks about your prof, thecourse, the college, the world at large.

Walk to the store and buy a pack of gum. You’ve probably run out.

While you’ve got the gum you may as well buy a magazine and read it.

Check your email.

Check the newspaper listings to make sure you aren’t missing something truly worthwhile on TV.

Play some solitare (or age of legends!).

Check out bored.com.

Wash your hands.

Call up a friend to see how much they have done, probably haven’t started either.

Look through your housemate’s book of pictures from home. Ask who everyone is.

Sit down and do some serious thinking about your plans for the future.

Check to see if bored.com has been updated yet.

Check your email and listen to your new mp3z.

You should be rebooting by now, assuming that windows is crashing on schedule.

Read over the assignment one more time, just for heck of it.

Scoot your chair across the room to the window and watch the sunrise.

Lie face down on the floor and moan.

Punch the wall and break something.

Check your email.

Mumble obscenities.

5am – start hacking on the paper without stopping. 6am -paper is finished.

Complain to everyone that you didn’t get any sleep because you had to write that stupid paper.

Go to class, hand in paper, and leave right away so you can take a nap.

Having just got my first assignment, posting this seemed appropriate!

It would appear that the ouch podcast is getting increasingly political, as the most recent has David Blunkett as it’s guest. His appearance there raises a few interesting questions though, such as to what extent should a disabled MP be expected to speak about disability issues, even if he was elected to do something else? This the programme itself explores: should a disability be incidental, or an innate part of one’s being? I personally believe that one should balance the two: be proud of one’s disability, but don’t be consumed by it.

link

All I can say to this is ‘well, D’uh!’. I could have told them that attacking Iraq would make matters worse; a million people who went to the march in protest could have done so. But no, we went to war in the terrifyingly stupid belief that by killing terrorists their numbers would decrease.

How idiotic can you get?

I would dearly have loved to see the burrow again. Most of my friends are in Chester this weekend, at charlotte’s; she invited me – in fact she invited me almost as soon as we saw each other on Monday morning – and I told her that I would think about it. I certainly wanted to go, as almost my whole cohort of friends were going, and I knew it would have been a lot of fun, but as far as I could see there were two problems:

1.transport. How was I going to get there? Of course, I could always have cadged a lift of someone, or asked Steve if I could go with him via train. This was, I knew the most minor of the two problem

2.this is my first weekend staying at university, and as such it’s the first time home help have come to me of a Saturday morning. JB, who arranges things like my care, had gone to a lot of effort to arrange a weekend call for me. The last thing I wanted to do was confuse the whole system by cancelling my very first call. Okay, I know what some of you are thinking:; ‘if you had a personal assistant for breakfast instead of homecare, there’d be no problem.’ This is true, but homecare do offer certain advantages, inflexible though they are, such as reliability. Plus, I’ve only had my new PA a week, and I better build up some time with her before actually doing the mad stuff.

Oh well; I think I did the right thing, but this didn’t stop me getting rather bitter about it last night. It was okay, in the end, though – I took myself to brandies and had about five pints of tetley’s.

At this rate I’ll die of exhaustion. I went to another party last night, this time in Crewe. I was invited by Rob, and, having turned him down in favour of going to the pub on Tuesday, I felt I better go. Jim gave me a lift.

I swear, rob’s going to be the end of me. As on Wednesday, nobody was dancing to the rock band on stage. As a 3rd year, I thought I had better respond to rob’s request and set an example by dancing. So, with his help, I walked down the steps onto the dance floor, and…well…danced. Surprisingly, I didn’t fall over, even after the couple of beers I ad been drinking with some freshers! I jigged about; Rob ran about like a mad thing; my good friend Martin came over too, and a good time was had by all. Rob told me that th band – whose name I forget – are touted as ‘the next big thing, and I could certainly believe it.

I better say, as new student activities officer, Robert Crol is brilliant. I have never seen this place so buzzing. He has so much lined up; I only hope he can maintain the momentum.

Mind you, I might not be able to.

I was wrong yesterday. I had expected a regular disco, but with samba beats; what I got was a real samba band. It was set up in the axis theatre, where the samba band had been hired in from Birmingham – after the show, the audience was supposed to o to brandies next door.

The English are a funny lot. The seating platforms in the theatre had been pushed back, leaving the flat floor which could only mean one thing – they wanted the audience to dance. Being British and reserved, however, they just sat on the floor, like primary school children in an assembly. To them, this was a performance, and the right etiquette had to be followed. Thus, to begin with, nobody was dancing.

I tried to lead by example by jigging my chair about, and towards the end of the show, most people were on their feet – my mate rob (now student activities officer) was jumping around like a loon. But some people stayed sat on the floor. Weird.

Anyway, last night was cool after all. I still say Christina would have shown everyone how to do it, but she’s way too clever to even be on campus! Nevertheless, if this is the type of thing Rob’s going to organise, I’m looking forward to this year.

Tonight is, apparently, samba night at brandies. I heard this last night, and my eyebrow instantly rose – I had visions of lines of northern girls trying to do something resembling a samba, thinking they look good but failing.

It also reminded me of quite aa cool night out I recently had in London. My Brazilian aunt and cousin took me, Luke and my parents to a pagodgy – a Brazilian / Portuguese bar. There, over a few beers, my cousin Christina taught my folks to samba, which was rather an amusing image. Chris certainly has rhythm, and I’m tempted to invite her up from oxford so she an show everyone how samba should be, although I doubt she could come at such short notice. Oh well, I should have a few giggles tonight anyway, especially given that most girls will be very scantily clad indeed. hmm

I was just looking for a video my bro Luke showed me about the universe, and I stumbled on to this. it’s about a camp in America which apparently intends to teach children to be ‘soldiers of Christ’. Now, I do not mind people being religious – until I read hawkin, I used to be very religious myself. But when kids are being so obviously brainwashed, and told they have to believe in the bible without question, I think we should all be worried.

I need hardly remind you guys: academia is all about questions. It’s about debate. One researcher poses a question, another might answer, but it does not stop there. Research is a never ending debate where we can never be and must never be absolutely certain of the answer. We must always be open to new ideas, and weigh each idea according to the evidence supporting it.

This type of religion closes minds, brainwashes even. It teaches kids that ‘there is only one truth – mine’, which is very unhealthy. As a person who relishes academic rigour, I see such camps as betraying children. I am very worried.

I’m back at uni. Right now, I’m sitting in my old university room, mum having dropped me off about half san hour ago. Because it had adaptations which suited me, like special keys and buttons to open doors, I’ve always had this room when at university; thus it feels rather like a homecoming. The place hasn’t changed much, apart from a pair of curtains and a lick of paint, and I’ll have to get Esther to put my posters up later. Nevertheless, my third and final year should be a good one, and I really am looking forward to lectures starting next week.

This gives me time to settle in, sort out my timetable and get a head start on work. Hopefully I’ll see a few friends around campus later today.

Hope everyone has an equally good day.

Last night I watched with horror Tony Robinson’s documentary on ‘End Timers’ – people who believed that the world is about to end in accordance with the book of revelation. It was an excellent, well rounded documentary, and a clear antidote to the other tripe usually on TV of a Saturday evening; what it exposed, however, horrified me.

It is deeply worrying that people actually believe this ‘end of the world’ garbage. After all, as Robinson pointed out towards the end of the programme, it was probably written on an island by a man whose intention was to write some anti-roman propaganda. However, some people still believe in it, as they believe in the story of creation over Evolution.

As with creationists, one’s first reaction is to dismiss such people as lunatics. However, while I am convinced of their abject stupidity, so much so that I want to go up to them and cry ‘it’s just a frikkin book!’, these people are too numerous to be ignored. Moreover, they seem to be in a position of power, especially with Bush in power in the u.s.

This is worrying. If you believe that the world is going to end soon, what’s the point in planting crops? More importantly, what’s the point of caring about the environment if you believe that global warming is just evidence of the coming apocalypse?

And here, I think, we get to the rub. Although Mr. Robinson does not say this in his programme, it seems obvious to me that such thinking plays straight into the hands of the petrochemical companies. With people thinking like this, they can have carte blanche to dig where they want. Indeed, one American on last nights programme said he was intending to dig under the holy land, claiming he had scripture backing him up.

Thus it is clear that, in America, we have a toxic mix of fundamentalism and oil: people are using religion for their own personal gain, using it to distort realty and make money. People are being manipulated, yet seem too arrogant and sure in their own narrow beliefs to notice. It is very very scary and something we should all be worried about.

I heard earlier today that the children’s commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green has described education provision for kids with autism as ‘shocking and appalling’. I have no reason to argue with him, but fear that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Provision for kids with SEN in general is dire, not just those with autism; my fear now is that people will start the whole ‘inclusion isn’t working’ gig. The opposite is the case: it is segregation that’s the problem, as special schools are innately damaging. This is not to say that I advocate dumping all kids into comprehensive schools as is; this will do more damage than good. The solution is more complex. My fear, however, that this report will cause a backlash from those who think segregation is the way forward – it isn’t; and I doubt it was the author’s intent to say such a thing. Nevertheless, the inclusion debate has just warmed up a bit more.

read more here

This link is just incredible. It’s about a woman with a bionic arm, controlled only by thought. I am totally amazed by what…

TRANSMITION INTERUPTED

SUBSPACE FREQUENCIES OPEN

WE ARE BORG. LOWER YOUR SHIELDS AND PREPARE TO BE INVADED. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

just kidding

Previously, I had been worried that the new bbc 3 comedy I’m with stupid. This afternoon, however, I read this article by Alan martin, which does go some way to assuage my concerns. He points out that, after all, this is a bit of fiction, not intended to mirror reality. Of course, one can point out that programmes with crips in come about so rarely, this is our one chance to get it right; yet for the same reason, if we moan too much, we risk putting off program selectors, and programmes about disabled people won’t be commissioned. Anyway, go read

i think this dude can play guitar:

go check this out now!