I’m supposed to be a writer: a man of words, able to express himself using the English vocabulary, telling others what I think and feel. Yet there are times when experiences go beyond words; times when all I can really do is squeal and wave my arms around in spasticated, ecstatic joy. I think I’ve recorded a few such moments on here over the years, but this morning, having just watched the latest episode of Picard, I think I had one of the greatest. I know that not everyone will have watched it so I better not say much, but what I saw this morning filled me with awe and joy. For a moment I became my ten or eleven year old self again, so thrilled by watching Star Trek The Next Generation on Wednesday evenings, itching to then go and play with his Starship models. Without wanting to give the game away, in this episode we see the return of something – an icon – which we all thought was long gone; and to see it back, to see these characters return to places they belong yet left long ago, feels very, very moving. Yes, you can call it nostalgia, you can call it audience manipulation, you can call it contrived, but nonetheless it is truly incredible. The episode of Star Trek Picard I saw this morning has filled me with a joy the kind and intensity of which I haven’t felt in a very, very long time.

What’s the difference between a Wetherspoons and a Waterstones? Well, in one you can get all kinds of information and learn all sorts of stuff about the human condition, and the other is a good book shop. Mind you, I might get a few dodgy looks if I start drinking beer in my local Waterstones.

(I began pondering this one a couple of days ago – let’s call it a work in progress…)

If you watch anything on Youtube today, please watch this Owen Jones video. It draws our attention to quite a disgusting story about a pub in Essex whose landlords think they have the right to decorate it with racist iconography. The landlord decided to hang a load of golliwog dolls behind the bar, and when people started to object, the right-wing tabloid press and then Suella Braverman stepped to the scumbag’s defence. Having only just watched the video myself I don’t feel I can say much about the story, but as Jones points out this is part of an extremely concerning cultural trend in the UK where bigots are becoming bolder and bolder in expressing their abhorrent views, and whenever anyone calls them up on it, they are dismissed as ‘woke’ or ‘snowflakes’. It was probably started in 2016 by Brexit, but is now getting really repugnant. I fear that if something isn’t done to counteract it soon, the open, inclusive, tolerant society those of us capable of rational thought have striven so hard to build will be torn to shreds. The alternative is to watch public discourse descend into hatred and bigotry.

Perhaps the first step would be giving the White Heart Inn, Greys, Essex to a decent landlord who deserves to own a pub.

I suppose I have always liked to think that, at the end of the day, the human ego would have it’s limits; that, when push comes to shove, everyone has just a smidgen of humanity or humility. However, it looks like that assumption has been proven well and truly wrong by Donald Trump. I would defy anyone to read this BBC article and not be utterly aghast by just how far up his own arse he is. Trump claims that, at his court hearing in New York, staff were besotted with him, addressing him as ‘sir’, almost in tears and wishing him well in the next election. To hear Trump tell it, it’s like he was the persecuted man of the people, the entire country on his side, fighting for the little guy against the nasty elite oppressor. It makes you wonder just how anyone can be so self-important or so deluded. More to the point, it also makes you wonder how Trump expects us to believe this bollocks: it is blatantly obvious he is misrepresenting the entire situation, trying to cast himself as the hero. For one, there is no way court officials would be so deferential. If Trump really expects America to believe this hogwash, he really is insulting it.

To my knowledge, the word “P’tahk” has never been formally defined. It originates, of course, from Star Trek, where it is used by the Klingons as an insult. As a word it is usually spat out with great wrath and venom, giving viewers the sense that a p’tahk must be something truly disgusting and utterly devoid of honour, but further than that we have no clue what the word means.

 I would therefore like to propose the following: as far as I am concerned, from now on a p’tahk is a person who is perfectly capable of climbing stairs, yet uses lifts out of sheer laziness. At the risk of getting hyperbolic, such people have really, really started to infuriate me. Whenever I go to cultural centres such as Stratford, the lifts are always occupied by people who are able to use stairs but don’t out of idleness and arrogance. I am often left waiting, or even worse the lift breaks due to over use. 

Needless to say, that is exactly what happened earlier this afternoon. I was prevented from entering Stratford station by a lift full of people too idle and entitled to use the short flight of stairs nearby. I tried asking them to get off, but they all refused, sneering back at me l was something dirty, or ignoring me like I had no right to make such a presumptive request. Things became heated, and some little shit of a boy tried dragging my chair backwards, tearing the bag on my back rest. Tempers instantly flared, some very heated words were exchanged, but fortunately things got no further than that,

The bag can be, and indeed already has been, replaced, yet that does not lessen the shock and rage I felt for some time after this happened; in fact I still feel quite shaken by it. I have no words for the kind of verminous child who assaulted me like that: who thought he had a right to shout at me, insult me and try to manhandle me. I can only resort to fictional insults coined on television programs, as I do not know how else to express my indignity. Apart from that, given that I have no way of identifying the kid and no idea where he was going, all that I can do is vent my frustrations here.

This evening, we mark twenty-five years since the signing of the Good Friday peace agreement, an agreement which resolved almost a century of conflict in Northern Ireland. Since then, peace has flourished there, and the paramilitary turmoil which once blighted that area of the UK is now far behind it. Yet surely the thing that must now baffle us all is how that peace has now been endangered by Brexit. How could any civilised, educated society knowingly allow violence to potentially return, or at least withdraw from the political body which made peace possible, just to satisfy a sense of nationalistic arrogance? How could any society be so stupid? Of course, I hope we do not see a return to the troubles, and I’m not saying we definitely will, but Brexit has made it a possibility. If that is so, as monumental as this anniversary is, how could we be so foolish to allow such progress to be potentially undone?

I must admit that I have become a bit of a bastard when it comes to the bus wheelchair space. I really have started to stick to my guns when I need to get on a bus, but the wheelchair space is taken by a pram. I used to just let it slide and wait for the next bus, but I have recently started to refuse to let the space which I technically have a right to, be taken by someone who does not ultimately need it. After all, prams can be folded and babies carried, so why should I be left waiting on the pavement?

I’m becoming more and more aggressive in this: these days I have started to put my foot through the open bus doorway so that the driver can’t close the door and drive on, until he puts the ramp out and asks the mother to move her pram. It has had mixed results: yesterday afternoon, en route to Lewisham, I delayed a bus for about ten minutes before my guilty conscience forced me to give up. Today though, coming back from my daily stroll, using this strategy lead to two mums being made to get off the bus to make room for me.

That was not ultimately my intention. It would have been fine if the mums had just moved their prams so we could all ride home together. Nonetheless I got on the bus, feeling guilty but knowing that I can’t let this sort of thing slide. As a wheelchair user I know I have a right to that space; as I describe here it was extremely hard fought for and won by disabled people and our allies. They did not campaign so vigorously just so I can give the space up to any pram-pushing mum who thinks it was their birthright. And if that means standing firm and refusing to let a bus continue it’s journey until a space is made for me, so be it.

I know that means becoming a bit of a bastard. Making mothers get off busses which they have already boarded is not pleasant; nor is delaying the journeys of so many people. It gives you a huge guilty conscience. Yet I have come to realise that it is something I must do, because the alternative is being a total pushover, allowing others to usurp my rights, and never getting anywhere.

It looks like it has already been out for a couple of months so it must have crept under my radar somehow, but I really must check out this documentary as soon as possible. It looks like it will still be a while until we hear anything about the next Bond film, but this doc apparently looks at the guys who actually are named James Bond. Of course, that includes the famed ornithologist who Ian Fleming borrowed the name of his fictional spy from in the first place; but can you imagine growing up with the name of perhaps the most famous fictional character ever? A character known almost universally, and strongly associated with traits ranging from his style of dress to the type of cocktail he drinks, to the cars he drives and even how he introduces himself. As huge a Bond fan that I am, to actually be called James Bond would be awful. I really don’t envy the guys whose parents were silly enough to make such a mistake.

Fortunately I only share my name with a rather obscure artist.

I’m not sure who created it, but the sooner this picture becomes a reality the better. At least if they’re busy packing boxes, Gove and his Tory chums wouldn’t be able to do any more damage, inflicting their anachronistic views on the rest of us.

As I said a couple of entries ago, it’s very pleasing to see more and more actors and characters with disabilities on TV. It really has seemed to have shot up over the last decade or so. I remember a time when the sight of a cripple on telly was a remarkable, blog-worthy event, but now, while it’s not quite an everyday occurrence, it’s becoming increasingly commonplace. I just came across this article on the BBC website about it. Actors with disabilities are especially eager to appear on television these days in order to express to others what being a disabled person is like. For so long we have been one of the most sidelined and marginalised groups in society; but at long last we are getting the chance to show others that we do indeed exist and that we have something to contribute. I can certainly sympathise: that is, after all, why I write.

While the article itself notes that there is still a long way to go before we achieve any kind of parity in terms of representation, it’s good to reflect on how much progress there has been made recently. With guys like Lee Ridley and Tim Renkow appearing on TV more and more, disability is slowly becoming normalised and accepted. We are gradually becoming seen for who we actually are – as just normal people.

What else can I blog about today other than to note that it marks ten years since I wrote this entry, and thus marks forty years until humanity makes first contact with the Vulcans? Of course, I’m not seriously predicting it’ll actually happen, but as I wrote ten years ago, it’s a nice little date we Trekkies seem to cling to for a bit of hope. I’m still a huge fan of the film, First Contact, so noting the date today kind of gives me a link to it: wouldn’t it be cool if, forty years from now, we actually do make first contact with alien life? Wouldn’t it be brilliant if humanity one day grows beyond national borders and state differences, and one day works together to explore the galaxy? Mind you, Star Trek also predicts that, before that happens, humanity goes through a catastrophic third world war, so we better just hope that only part of the prophecy comes true.

I just got back from a very pleasant lunch with my parents. We have taken to meeting, every few weeks or so, up in Stratford at the Olympic park. It’s nice to have a walk together and then a bite to eat.

I was struck by a thought earlier though: there was a time that I would have thought such an arrangement was absurd. I have described here before how I once thought that leaving home was something I would never, could never do. I was wedded to the notion of a long, stable family life with my parents, and drew great comfort from the thought I would never leave home. The idea that I would one day live independently in London, miles away from Mum and Dad, would have felt ridiculous and probably have reduced me to tears. For their part too, I daresay my parents once felt similarly: they probably expected me to be permanently tied to them as my primary caregivers, having to feed me, wash me and take me wherever they went. Of course they would have been thrilled if I did become independent of them, but when I was little or in my teens, I don’t think they were certain I ever would be.

Could they have imagined, back then, one day sitting in a cafe outside the olympic Stadium waiting for me, having told me on Facebook when and where to meet them? Naturally, it’s something any parents would do with their grown children; yet they may have once thought such an arrangement with me far fetched. I’d have to have my own house with my own care; hell, before they got me my first powerchair the thought that I would one day move myself about was probably implausible. Yet there I was this morning, meeting them just about on time, showered, shaved and breakfasted – as independent as their other two sons.

I know that, on the whole this isn’t much, just a small reflection on the fact I took myself to have lunch with my parents. Yet I find myself wishing that I could tell the timid boy I was, so afraid of ever leaving home, what was going to happen and how awesome life in the big wide world would be. He did not realise what he was capable of. But at least I know now, and I know enough to tell others not to be so afraid.

I’m not a fan of soap operas. I find the way in which they go on and on, with no real narrative destination, rather pointless. However, I just came across this story, flagged up on the Beeb, that a Coronation Street character called Paul is going to be diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. I never watch Corrie so I can’t really comment much, but I find it really interesting that a character in a major British soap is going to be presented as having a profound disability. This is obviously quite a major step forward in disability representation. After all, even though I don’t watch it, Coronation Street is the most watched TV program in the UK, and has been running for decades. It’s great to see disabled people, and especially communication aid users, getting a larger and larger media profile.

Watching the Sunday morning political shows earlier, I was appalled to the point of vomiting. I now honestly think that Suella Braverman isn’t fit to work as a pub toilet cleaner, let alone as Home Secretary. How can we allow such a cruel, malicious, dissembling bitch to be a member of our government? She clearly doesn’t care who she deports or where they go, as long as she pleases her vapid, heartless fanbase by appearing to ‘control’ immigration. That she is now claiming that Rwanda is a safe third country, despite very strong evidence to the contrary really is shocking. But she doesn’t give a damn as long as the people she refuses to care for are sent packing.

Things like this only strengthen my conviction that the Tory party, as a group of people, is manifestly unfit for government and ought to be disbanded.

I don’t think that many people outside London, especially east London, will have heard of the Docklands Light Railway. Of course, most people in the UK will know about the famous London tube lines like the Jubilee or Elizabeth Line, even if they never come to London to use them, but the DLR seems significantly less famous. Before I moved to London I had certainly never heard of it. These days, though, I use it quite regularly: it’s one of my favourite ways of getting around east London. What makes the DLR cool is, much of it runs on a raised track, elevated about twenty meters above the ground , giving you great views of the landscapes you’re going through. The best thing about the DLR, however, is that all the stations are perfectly accessible, so I never have a problem getting from place to place.

The DLR is about thirty-five years old. I recently began to wonder whether anywhere else in the UK could do with something similar. Unlike other London tube lines, the DLR is not a straight line but functions on a cross shape, terminating at Stratford in the north, Woolwich in the east, Lewisham in the South and Bank in the East. Passengers can thus get around the old docklands rather efficiently. I’m now curious whether such a public transport system could work in somewhere like Manchester, Liverpool or even Stoke. Would making getting around such cities far easier help to boost their economies? They might not be big enough to warrant a full blown underground rail system, but a light rail network along the lines of the DLR could be what they need.

Does anyone else think this is a cool idea? Perhaps we could go even further and create a light rail system running between the cities too. After all, so much money is spent on London’s transport infrastructure, other UK towns and cities surely deserve a larger piece of that pie.

It seems that the British Isles have somehow suddenly moved from North-West Europe to somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. We must have – how else can you explain the fact that our politicians are now trying to strike a trade deal with states in Asia and the Pacific? Why else would we leave a trading bloc with our closest European neighbours, only to have to force our way into one based on the other side of the world? The country must have physically moved – there’s no other explanation for such abject stupidity. Then again, if the UK has been transported to the Balmy Pacific, why is it still raining, and still so cloudy? And why aren’t we all suddenly outside playing cricket and drinking beer? Don’t tell me that our politicians were so desperate to do whatever deal they could, they were forced onto a deal with countries we have no real links with, and which are so far away that importing and exporting goods is going to cost a fortune.

While on the whole I prefer cricket to football, it’s fair to say I like watching the odd football match, either in person or on TV. However, I really do not like some of the cultural aspects now associated with professional football: I find it arrogant and yobbish. In particular I really don’t like the obscene amounts of money now involved with the sport. The fact that men are being payed millions of pounds to kick a ball around a field, at a time when other people with sensible, practical jobs are struggling to pay for meals, seems ludicrous. My objections have just grown even stronger upon hearing this news that “Premier League football clubs may have avoided paying £250m in tax over a three-year period, financial experts have estimated. It follows analysis looking at how football agents are often paid to represent both players and clubs in negotiations, including transfers.” I find that frankly galling. Football and footballers, especially at the professional level, has become too self-important: there seems to be an attitude that only it matters, and that the status of our chosen football team is the only thing anyone should care about. To a certain extent broadcasters like Sky are to blame for creating this culture, as it was such companies which ploughed vast sums of cash into the sport, turning it into a business. That these absurdly wealthy clubs are now trying to avoid paying tax really pushes things over the threshold: it is surely time we got to grips with the ridiculous amounts of money now involved with football.

I could swear London is shrinking. The city seems to get smaller and smaller, year on year. What felt thirteen years ago like a vast, sprawling metropolis now feels almost walkable. I just got in from my first proper trundle of the year. Truth be told, it only started as a routine afternoon stroll to Lewisham. Halfway there though, I felt the urge to explore, and go somewhere I hadn’t gone before.

Getting to Lewisham town centre, I trundled past the shops heading westward. I wasn’t altogether sure where I was going, but knew that if the bus stops I was passing still showed the route numbers I was familiar with, I could get myself home easily enough.

The scenery gradually growing more and more urban, basically following the A2, pretty soon I found myself in New Cross. That was an achievement in itself, further than I had ever trundled in just my powerchair before. I was in the mood to keep going though, relishing my new lithium batteries my parents bought me for my birthday.

The afternoon was fast turning into a cool one. Before long I found myself in Southwark with its grand, well maintained park. Pushing on even further, I noticed The Shard growing bigger and bigger in my path; I began to wonder whether I could get all the way to London Bridge, and from there get the Jubilee Line home.

Yet that is exactly what I ended up doing. Southwark had seemed miles away, reachable only by public transport, but it turned out to be closer and more accessible than I thought. About two hours after leaving home, I found myself looking around the famous Borough Market, feeling bloody impressed that I had managed to get so far. Then, after a bit of difficulty finding the right entrance to the tube station, I caught the Jubilee line back to North Greenwich, the city suddenly feeling more traversable, navigable and homelike than I could ever once have imagined.

I have written here before about how infuriated I get when Scottish nationalists invoke the National Health Service, as if it was part of Scotland. The NHS is one of the greatest facets of UK state or social infrastructure, yet people who want to split the country up and become a separate nation think they should still have a right to it if they get their perverse, shortsighted way. But they can’t have their cake and eat it: the NHS is funded by the UK and maintained by the UK; it therefore belongs to the UK, not Scotland, and Scotland should instantly lose any right to it if it decides to break away from the rest of it.

This kind of entitled attitude in the SNP really gets on my nerves. Scotland has been an integral part of the United Kingdom for the last three centuries, and together we have flourished. To think that it can now go it alone smacks to me of an extreme arrogance, as if the SNP think that the UK hasn’t done anything for it. Their new leader, Humza Yousaf, is probably a case in point: as a child of immigrants from Pakistan, his family would have been supported by UK infrastructure, educated in british schools through the national curriculum, housed via our social services, looked after by the NHS. Does it not strike anyone as a slap in the face that he now seeks to break the very country which welcomed his family apart? After all, unlike most SNP members or supporters, he will have probably no scottish ancestry.

Of course, I know I need to be careful, or risk veering into bigotry. Anyone can hold any political views they want, irrespective of where their family came from. Nor do I think that immigrants should necessarily be grateful to the country their family emigrated to. It just strikes me as odd that someone like Yousaf would now want to break the UK apart when it was structures put in place by the UK, not just Scotland, which supported him and his family. Wouldn’t such a person want to remain a part of the country which had taken him in and want to contribute to the wider community, rather than identifying with only a section of it and effectively abandoning the rest of us to the fate he and his fellow Scottish Nationalists would escape from?

There’s no denying that having unclear or distorted speech can be a pain in the arse. It is, after all, why I need to use a communication aid. Yet I must admit that there are times when not being understood has its advantages.

I think I’ve touched on here before how much I loathe papers like the Sun or Daily Mail. They are nothing but right wing tabloid rags, responsible for perpetuating the cult of Brexit. I find the fact that they get away with printing hall the bigoted shit they spew quite sickening. As such I seem to have fallen into quite a nasty habit of giving a nazi salute and crying “Zeig heil!” whenever I come across anyone carrying a copy of the Express or Mail, simply to show my revulsion at what they have chosen to read. This morning for instance, I was in my local shop buying a loaf of bread when I saw an old man at the checkout buying a copy of the Mail: as I was passing him in my chair I flipped my arm up and shouted the notorious nazi greeting at him, but he didn’t notice. He just went on his way with no inkling that I had just called him a fascist.

I realise that it is a childish, petulant act which I don’t advise anyone to copy. It just amuses me that I can get away with it: people don’t understand what I’m shouting or why I’m waving my arm. They have no idea that I’m trying to speak German, or take the piss out of their abhorrent political views; all they see is a disabled man waving his arm around and mumbling something indistinguishable. It therefore causes no insult, but nevertheless constitutes a small act of defiance on my part against the growing right wing Brextremist faction which seems to be taking hold in the country. Oh how I love being a cripple sometimes.

Just when we were all hoping that humanity had grown out of its imperial age, Putin proves us wrong. Of course, I’m by no means an expert and I’m sure I’m not the first person to point this out, but the Russian president seems to think his country is still an empire, and that it can do what it wants with its (former) vassal states. His plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus is widely being condemned, of course, but it smacks of a mentality which refuses to accept Tsarist Russia never broke up, and still thinks Russia should have total dominion over almost all of eastern Europe. If that is the case, then we are in a very dangerous situation indeed: anyone who knows anything about Russian history knows how desperate things got under the tsars. They were despots with absolute power, who thought they had a divine right to rule. We now see many of the same traits in Putin, especially in his attitude towards former soviet states and his refusal to tolerate any form of opposition. It thus seems tsarism has returned to Russia, and it chills my heart to think where it will lead.

I didn’t get up to much yesterday: it was quite a relaxed day trundling around south-east London, telling street preachers to be quiet. I did notice something which I think it’s worth noting. Watching one of the news bulletins, for the first time I heard someone give the year as ‘Twenty-three’ rather than ‘Twenty-twenty-three’. That caught my ear somewhat: When I was growing up in the nineties, I remember people always giving the date as ‘ninety-five’ or ‘ninety-eight, and forgetting to say the ‘nineteen’ before it. Since the turn of the millennium though, they have always seemed to say the year in full. It just struck me as noteworthy that the societal habit of just saying the last part of the year is starting again, as though we have all now become so used to the century that we can take it as read again. Has anyone else noticed this?

It’s time that I admitted, to myself as much as anyone else, that I am a just perpetual tourist. There is little I like doing more than trundling around the city in my powerchair, exploring, finding out everything I can about this fascinating metropolis. Now that winter is ending especially, I have have taken to going up into the city proper in order to really get to know it. The Elizabeth Line has made getting up there easier than ever.

It must be said, though, that something really irks me about London’s newest tube line: why on earth aren’t all its stations completely step free? While the stations which were built from scratch, such as the one at Woolwich, are step free from train to street, others such as those on the branch of the line out to Shenield, are only step free from platform to street. That means that if I want to get off at such stations, I have to ask for someone to be waiting for me with a ramp. That would be fine, of course, and it’s better than a totally inaccessible station, but it just spoils my spirit of spontaneity. I want to be able to get on and off tube trains as I please, rather than having to plan my routes and tell the station staff where I’m going. After all, following my nose is half the fun.

It therefore baffles me that stations like the one at Stratford are not totally step free. The platform for the Jubilee Line is fine, but not for the newer Elizabeth Line. This has been bugging me lately, so today I decided to go and investigate. Catching a bus to Woolwich, I caught the Lizzie Line to Liverpool Street; then, after a brief trundle there, went to catch the tube to Stratford, asking the man at the gate whether there were plans to make the platform at Stratford step free.

To my total surprise he said there weren’t. Apparently, the issue isn’t just a matter of adapting the platform, but lies with the type of train being used: the platform is fine but the trains are too high for them, so there is a gap. The newer Elizabeth line trains don’t quite hook up with the older platforms, such as the ones at Stratford. That simply struck me as even more absurd, and even more frustrating: as great as this city is, and as huge as the strides it has made towards inclusion are, there are still things that it really does still need to get right. It seems absurd to me that a brand spanking new, multi billion pound infrastructure project still has  such issues. In the event, I got to Stratford without a problem, and a guy was waiting for me with a ramp. I just wish that I didn’t have to make such an event of my whimsical little excursions into central London and could come and go without having to ask for help or tell anyone where I want to get off, like everyone else.

I was out and about for most of the afternoon, so only caught the end of today’s Johnson circus up at Westminster, but I must say how much what I saw struck me like watching a student try to be the lecturer, or defendant presenting himself as judge. Boris Johnson seems the type of person who always has to be in charge, no matter who else is in the room. That has been pointed out before by others, of course, but this afternoon it really was on show. There is no way this man will ever admit he is in the wrong, even when it has been put far beyond reasonable doubt: we can all now see they were partying like hell in Downing Street while the rest of us were sheltering from COVID, yet Johnson will maintain black is white that the party’s were ‘work events’. And then, when his parliamentary colleagues bring him to book about it, he acts personally wounded, as if wrongly accused of something which everyone else can supposedly see he didn’t do. He is so arrogant that he presumes he has the authority to tell others what to think and what the comittee will find, posturing as though he was in charge of the entire hearing. It really was a sickening, even insulting spectacle. Boris Johnson is just a dishonest, manipulative public school bully, with an extraordinarily exaggerated sense of entitlement.

On a day upon which Sunak published his tax records, presumably gambling that they wouldn’t get much attention amid all the furore about Bojo or that we wouldn’t notice how little the tory Prime Minister contributes to society overall, you have to wonder, how the hell can we continue to allow these spoiled, selfish bastards to run our country?

I’m not completely sure this warrants an entire blog entry, but, watching the BBC news just now, I noticed a fairly minor detail which I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to. It was just a fleeting shot, but very telling about the news story being covered. Of course, we all know about Partygate and how the shit is really about to hit the fan for Boris Johnson (or it should be). How he has the gall to somehow maintain that he didn’t knowingly or intentionally mislead parliament is beyond belief. In the shot which caught my eye just now, there were clearly a load of press outside a Tory or government office in central London. The short clip showed Johnson getting out of the back seat of quite a smart looking car dressed in shorts and beanie hat and immediately springing into a jog. He then pretended to jog the short distance from the car to the office, clearly wanting to appear as if he had jogged all the way there from his home.

If this doesn’t tell us all we need to know about Boris Johnson, then I don’t know what will. It was only a brief, fleeting shot, not picked up upon by the news reporter, but I think it is very telling. How superficial does anyone have to be to make such a pretence? Johnson is a man of extreme privilege — hence the chauffeur-driven car – but he is so eager to look like a normal, everyday bloke that he starts to put on an act as soon as he gets out, hoping nobody notices. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so perverse and insulting.

As I said, this is only a small detail amid much graver, pressing issues, yet one I wanted to make sure was noted. Such details tell us so much about Boris Johnson and the kind of people currently running the country. I’m sure I won’t be the only person who noticed it, but it’s only by noting such details that we see people like Johnson for the cynical charlatans they really are.

I went out for dinner in a pub with Dominik last night, so I missed it when it aired, but I just caught up with the latest episode of Sir David Attenborough’s Wild Isles on Woodland, and all I can say is: ‘Wow!’ The photography in the program blew my mind. Attenborough and the beeb have, it seems, done it again, bringing the natural world to life in a way nobody else seems able to. In this week’s program there were shots of birds flocking, taken at night so that it looked like a million tiny glowing particles circling one another in majestic, intricate patterns. Watching it, my jaw dropped it was so mesmerising. Amid all the current bollocks and corruption of the world, and amid all the other pathetic drivel being thrown at us on TV and in the cinema, surely it is things like this – The Attenborough Phenomenon – which remind us just how outstanding things can actually be.

Just to pick up on what I touched upon a few days ago about my bus-related issues, I doubt that many people will have experienced the problem I just had: Say you’re sat on a bus, in your chair in the wheelchair space. Your bus stop is coming up, so you need to press the special button to alert the driver to put the ramp out so you can get off. The problem is, the button is mounted on a pole by the wheelchair space, against which is currently leant a young black boy, his face fixated on his mobile phone. If you put your hand out to press the button, your fingers would go straight into the young man’s arse crack.

So what do you do? You don’t want the guy to think you’re touching him up – he might punch you! But your bus stop is quickly approaching! Oh, the dilemmas of being a disabled guy in twenty-first century London. In the end I just tapped the guy on the shoulder and motioned that I wanted to get off; but I think this is another of those little issues that only guys like me experience, so it falls to me to record it.

There isn’t much I want to say here today. I’ve had a nice, quiet birthday so far, including an incredible lunch with my parents. All the troubles and complexities of the wider world can be put aside for the moment, and I think I’ll just direct everyone to this bit of randomness again.

I have admitted here before that I don’t know anything about computer programming or coding, although I sometimes wish I did. I have, however, just come across this absolutely remarkable short film about a young woman with severe Cerebral Palsy who coded with her eyes. Becky Tyler uses eyegaze technology to create code for Minecraft. She controls her computer exclusively with her eyes, but with it she is as adept as anyone, accessing, participating in and adding to the Minecraft community. It truly is a remarkable watch; it just goes to show that, with the right adaptations and the right support, there really are no barriers.

I think I just need to clear up an issue which arose from my entry on Monday, given that it has now been raised with me by two separate people. In that entry, I predicted that the kids who mocked and taunted me would never get Master’s degrees. It was a silly, throwaway comment I shouldn’t have made: of course, I know full well that there’s nothing to prevent any young person from growing up and getting any academic qualification they want. After all, if I can do it, so can they. It’s just that, in that moment, when you are being made fun of by a child who hasn’t got a clue how hard you had to work to get where you are, how many good friends you’ve lost to their disabilities, or how fucking proud you are of the 40,000 word MA Thesis sitting on your bookshelf, it is really, really difficult not to begrudge them the achievements you cherish the most.

I have written on here before about how wonderful I think London busses are with their automatic ramps. Outside of the metropolis, busses still seem to have manual ramps, so a driver has to get out and unfold it whenever a wheelchair user wants to get on a bus. Here in London, though, wheelchair ramps push out at the touch of a button, so getting on and off busses is much less of an issue for everyone involved.

Or rather, it is usually much less of an issue. Nine times out of ten the ramp works without a hitch and I can get onto the bus within moments. Sometimes, however, things don’t go so smoothly: the driver presses his button, the rather nauseating warning alarm starts to sound, but the ramp refuses to move. The driver tries again and again, but still nothing happens.

So there I am all of a sudden: stuck either on a pavement or in the bus wheelchair space, with no way of getting on or off the vehicle. The driver keeps trying to get the ramp to come out, so the bus can’t go anywhere. And I can suddenly feel the eyes of about thirty people upon me, all getting angrier and angrier about the delay in their journey. Things can persist like this for ten or even twenty minutes, everyone slowly getting increasingly impatient.

In such moments I feel about ten centimetres tall: it’s just so embarrassing. Of course I know I shouldn’t feel like that: I didn’t stop the ramp working properly. In that moment though, knowing that you have disrupted the journeys of so many people, I would defy anyone not to feel just a little guilty.

Rather like what I was writing about yesterday, this is one of those things which, I would guess, most people would have little knowledge or experience of. Surely it therefore falls to guys like me to start to try to articulate such experiences in order that others can understand them better. That’s why I have kept my blog going for so long. If I can help others understand what life is like for people with disabilities, articulating experiences which will be foreign to most, then perhaps I can help make the world a little better.

I may well be becoming a bit paranoid when it comes to schoolchildren. I’ve described here before how, from time to time, kids seem to think it’s funny to try to wind me up: they see me coming along the street in my powerchair, and start mocking and jaunting me, calling me things like “Stephen Hawking”, “Spazz” or “Mong”. I know I should just ignore it and that they’re just trying to get a reaction, but part of me is too proud. Why should I have to put up with it, after everything I have achieved? I doubt any of them will ever get anywhere near a Master’s. It feels so unfair, so hurtful, I just want to tell them to shut the fuck up.

The thing is, it only seems to happen when they’re in groups. A group of three or four kids, usually boys between about eleven and fourteen, try to impress one another by taunting me and trying to get me going. On their own there usually isn’t a problem. It has thus reached the stage where, whenever I see a group of boys ahead of me, I feel a pang of trepidation. My adrenalin rises slightly, as if something bad is about to happen. Of course, most of the time when I come across such groups of boys, nothing bad happens and we pass without a word; yet I somehow can’t help worrying that I’m about to be taunted or mocked.

I just got back from Tesco. It was a simple, routine trip for supplies. It was about half three though, and the local schools were just emptying. On my way I passed quite a few groups of young boys in my chair, and I couldn’t help noticing feeling slight pangs of caution, fear and even anger as I passed each one. Nothing actually happened as it turned out, and the trip passed totally without incident. Yet, coming home, I couldn’t help reflecting to myself that I had reached this stage: that I have got to the point where the sight of a group of kids makes me fearful, or even angry. How can that be right? Why should I need to put up with this? Do other people fear kids like this? If anyone else described having such feelings – say, an elderly black man – society would rightly be appalled. Why, then, is it okay for me to be cowed by schoolchildren, just because I drive a powerchair and drool a bit?

We all know what an absolutely ridiculous week it has been, at least nationally. I fear public trust in and support for the BBC has taken a real blow. To be honest I still don’t know what to make of it all: the beeb is the broadcaster I have most respect for; I see how it is funded, via the license fee, as akin to the NHS inasmuch as it guarantees us all access to a world class broadcaster free of adverts, irrespective of our ability to pay. Yet this week it has been shot to pieces on all sides, it’s independence from Tory control brought into real question. There is no doubt that the way it so obviously bowed to Tory pressure to get rid of Lineker, at least temporarily, has severely damaged it’s standing.

However, I’m very glad to see some facets of the beeb remain above all that crap. Tonight will see the airing of Sir David Attenborough’s new series, Wild Isles, about the nature of the British Isles. You can check out a few clips from it here. Needless to say, it looks spectacular, but that is what we have come to expect from the world’s greatest ever broadcaster. I find Attenborough utterly remarkable: when you remember that he joined the BBC in 1952, before either of my parents were born, and has fronted program after program, series after series, educating us about the natural world and bringing it’s beauty into our homes, one’s jaw can only drop in awe.

As dire as things are getting for the BBC, as large and ridiculous as this current shitshow is growing, I must say it still has my full respect, if simply because it still has the ability to produce such wonderful materiel. Hopefully when we watch Wild Isles this evening, we’ll all be reminded why the Beeb, as a national institution, is so precious, and why it needs defending against Tory attempts to compromise it.

From time to time, we get to a point where things have become so stupid – so mind-numbingly moronic – that you can’t actually say anything. A point at which a situation or news story grows so moronic that it becomes pointless to pass comment on it, simply because everyone can already see how stupid it is. I think we have reached that point regarding Gary Lineker, the BBC and the Tories. I know I’m supposed to be a political and social commentator, yet as much as I care about the Beeb and as much as I despise the current government, I seriously doubt I could say anything meaningful about the complete shitshow that seems to currently envelop the British mediascape. Digging into all that hypocrisy and selfishness would just wind me up too much. Besides, I’m sure we all have far more pressing issues to consider than who will present Match of the Day, such as what to eat for dinner or which pub to go to. Thus I think I’ll just wish anyone reading this a great evening, and hope this farce blows over as soon as possible.

The breaking news this evening is that Gary Lineker has been asked to temporarily step down from presenting Match of the Day due to the row over his tweets. Needless to say, I am appalled. Surely Lineker has just as much a right to share his thoughts and opinions as anyone els. The fact that he presents sports programs for the Beeb shouldn’t matter – working for any company, mainstream media or otherwise, surely shouldn’t mean you have to tie your personal opinions to that company, or censor what you say unless it goes against it’s regulations. I don’t think I’m pissed off about this simply because I agree with Lineker: this is clearly a matter of freedom of speech, and writing tweets shouldn’t put anyone’s job at stake. Having said that, his tweets obviously ruffled a few feathers in the tory party; they hit a raw nerve, and were getting a lot of publicity, which is probably why, explicitly or not, the government forced the Beeb to do something. However, if you ask me, that’s all the more reason why we should demand Lineker be reinstated immediately.

I’ve described on here quite often how much I like to go out and about in my powerchair: I find just following my nose very relaxing. I usually head out in the mornings after breakfast, usually when Serkan needs me out of the way so he can clean my flat properly. When I’m out on such trundles, I’ve recently taken to trying to say ‘Good morning’ to the people I pass in the street, just out of politeness or friendliness. The thing is, when I try to do so I know I have to speak as clearly as possible for them to understand – there is no time to stop and type what I want to say into my Ipad – otherwise people won’t realise what I’m saying and just walk on. To say the two words as quickly and clearly as possible though, I tend to inadvertently just shout them out, raising my voice in the hope I’ll be understood. The result is that I head down the road shouting ‘Good Morning!’ at every stranger I pass, probably looking like a complete maniac. Believe me, it has earned me a few very strange looks.