I was just on Youtube looking for a clip of Cartman saying ‘Respect my authority’ for the entry I posted earlier, and I quite randomly came across this rather interesting video about disability representation in South Park. It’s only twenty minutes long, but it goes into quite a bit of depth: despite it’s reputation for vulgarity, South Park was actually quite progressive in terms of it’s representation of minorities, including people with disabilities. Yes, it took the piss, but it took the piss out of everyone; and when you actually examine how people with disabilities were represented in South Park, it is actually quite cool, and indeed intelligent. It was unafraid to say things and expose truths which other programs may have shied away from.

This definitely seems apt today.

Gosh, he really does look self-important in this picture, doesn’t he? His face says it all: “I’m at Eton! I am elite! Respect my authority!” How apt that Johnson will just be remembered as one of the most epic failures in British political history.

Today I’d just like to outline a new urban problem which has recently cropped up, as well as to suggest a new term for it: two wheeled litter. I have recently kept seeing bikes lying around everywhere, on pavements and patches of grass. Not just any bikes, but a specific brand of green and white delivery bike. At first I just ignored them, but a few days ago I heard that they were part of a new business where people could rent bikes and then just leave them anywhere. Someone from the company would then come and pick the bike up.

This wouldn’t be a problem, but I keep seeing these bicycles all over the city. They are starting to make places look untidy, and I can see a point where paths start to become blocked. Of course anyone on two feet could just walk around them, but I can see this new two wheeled litter becoming a bit of a problem for guys like me.

I was chatting to my old friend Esther a bit earlier. She’s fine. During our conversation, she told me that she still works at South Cheshire College, the very further education college where I first met her almost twenty years ago. This made me slightly curious, so naturally I tapped the college name into Youtube and found this. The new college building looks amazing I must say: it even has a bar and a barbershop. It looks very, very different to the place I went to. Yet when I remember that SCC was where my journey to university began, which would then lead to me meeting Lyn and eventually moving to London, I still get a warm feeling. I wonder whether they have any students like me there at the moment.

Like any sensible, educated person, I feel that violence should be avoided at all costs. It should only be used as a last resort, wherever possible: surely there is always an alternative to war, bloodshed, pain and death. Yet I’ve just been watching the news, and today marks a year since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan. Watching events unfold there, I have to wonder, how can we just sit back and watch these religious nutcases wreck a country? The reports coming out of Afghanistan are shocking, with women being totally stripped of their rights, children as young as seven being sold into marriage with one another by their families. While I know how vital it is to respect other cultures, I also see this as an example of the damage religion can do to humanity, and why such zealotry must be eradicated, whatever form it takes. Say what you like about the 2001 invasion in the first place, given that it was the West’s withdrawal from Afghanistan which invited the Taliban to take back control, I just think surely we now have a responsibility to go back and once again relieve these religious nutters from power.

Nobody knows who wrote this originally, but it’s doing the rounds on the web and definitely strikes me as apt.

I wouldn’t call myself a fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, but it’s one of those big, international events which pulls everyone together which interests me; a big show full of pomp and ceremony which can reveal a lot about how a city or country wants to present itself to the rest of the world. While I think it’s fabulous that it’s going to be hosted in the UK next year, I must say I’m quite bemused to hear that London isn’t in the running to be the host city. As reported here by the Beeb, “The shortlist of UK cities that could host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest has been revealed, with seven locations in the running. Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield will vie to stage the event in May. Twenty cities expressed an interest, the BBC said, and those not making the shortlist include London and Belfast.” I can’t help raising an eyebrow upon hearing that. Surely London is the obvious choice: we already have the infrastructure in place. One of the obvious possible venues would be the O2, which has a capacity of thousands, good if not great public transport and is well used to hosting mega events. Are there any similar venues anywhere else in the country?

Of course, it could be argued that London has hosted so many large, international events, it’s about time somewhere else got a turn. I certainly think that’s a valid point: as the UK’s capital city and largest metropolis by far, I think London is a bit of a default venue for such events. Perhaps it’s time somewhere else got a turn on centre stage – after all, look how well Birmingham just did hosting the Commonwealth Games.

Yet I still think London would be the logical, sensible option, simply due to the infrastructure the capital already has; we have the experience and cultural gravitas here, and a Eurovision Song Contest hosted by London would surely have been incredible. Perhaps I’m slightly biassed having lived here for twelve years, but I can’t help feeling slightly bemused that the capital is already out of the running for this. The drive to ‘level up’ the country and let other towns and cities have a bit of the limelight is all well and good, but might it have caused the UK to miss a trick in the process?

Everyone knows about the Thames. When you think about London and rivers, the Thames is probably the first thing which comes to mind. It’s London’s biggest, most well known river; the waterway London is famous for. Yet people often forget that there are many more rivers and streams around Greater London than just the Thames.

For one there’s an entire canal system. While perhaps not as advanced as the canal networks of Venice or Amsterdam, London’s canals are a charming relic of a long gone past. Running behind houses and through parks, they weave throughout the metropolis, slightly hidden but there nonetheless if you care to look. On them you will discover a blossoming riverboat culture which you would never realise existed, if you didn’t come across it like I did. In the north-east of the city especially, there is an entire labyrinth of waterways to explore: canals, streams and even fully-formed rivers like the Lea, waiting to be walked along.

And I can. Largely thanks to the restoration work of recent times, most of these waterways now have very accessible, perfectly flat towpaths running beside them, meaning I can trundle in my powerchair along them for hours. As I wrote here, one of my favourites is to start over the Thames from the O2 at the mouth of the Lea, and go all the way up, through Cody Dock and past the Amazon warehouse, to Stratford and sometimes beyond. There is an intricate network of streams and canals there, many created over two centuries ago and possessed of rich histories, begging to be explored.

A lot is said about London’s transport system. There are obviously roads everywhere, and it’s underground train network is one of the most famous and well-developed in the world. Yet before any of them were the canals, down which barges, usually pulled by horses, plied their trade setting the foundations for a metropolis and a nation. Such waterways remain, fragments of a long-superseded past yet still bustling with activity. Yesterday, for instance, I saw a bit of the Regent’s Canal, which first began to be dug in 1812. These days it’s a quiet little waterway running for miles across north London in a semicircle. While it once bustled with trade, it still bustles with activity: people living in barges, small cafes set up on the bankside, even one or two book shops. It’s a wonderful, thriving community which is often strangely forgotten about; a fragment of a quickly fading past which is nonetheless still there, helping to give London the rich character and diversity I love it for. And when I reached Camden, I was awe-struck that such a quirky little area, so full of life, could exist without me even having known about it before.

My explorations, it seems, have barely began.

I just checked my blog archive, and I find myself wanting to re-type this entry today, pretty much word for word. It’s my brother Mark’s birthday again today, and just like last year I find myself struggling to come up with something to say here due to the extreme heat. It has still been too long since I saw Mark and his family – years, in fact. Of course we talk over the web quite frequently, but even then Mark’s appearances on the weekly family Skype call seem to be growing rarer and rarer, he’s so busy these days. While I met my parents up in Stratford yesterday for a lovely lunch, it now seems far too long since all my family were in one place, largely due to the pandemic. Now that has subsided, it’s probably high time that we started to organise a family get together. Lots of families like mine will be in a similar position, so family reunion organisers must be making a fortune.

Happy birthday Mark, have a great day.

When I was four or five, one of my favourite videos was the Snowman. I used to sit in our front room for hours, demanding my parents rewound it and played it over and over again, bawling my eyes out every time it came to an end. Thus to mark the sad news of the death of Snowman animator Raymond Briggs, I’d just like to direct everyone here.

I know I once said that I wouldn’t use my blog just to link to random Youtube videos that I’ve found, but I have to say this one strikes me as interesting enough for an entry. As someone interested in language and communication, I’ve always been fascinated by etymologies and where words come from. This video looks into Geordie and where the Newcastle accent comes from. It’s far richer than you might at first assume: there are fragments of Norse in there, old English, French, Gypsy…. It’s well worth a look.

I was out yesterday evening at a very nice grill at Mitchell’s place in Brockley, so I didn’t watch the commonwealth games closing ceremony. I just caught up with it, but to be honest I can’t say that I found anything about it particularly noteworthy here. It was basically one long concert, although I wouldn’t have necessarily associated most of the acts involved with Birmingham. (Ozzy Osborne perhaps, but he’s more of an American these days.)

I have to raise an eyebrow, though, at the fact there’s now talk of a Birmingham Olympic bid. I suppose it’s only natural that now Birmingham has hosted one multi sport event, it would want to try its hand at another, even bigger version. But are such ambitions realistic? I don’t want to come across as patronising or big headed here, but from what I have heard over the past couple of days, Birmingham seems to suddenly be referring to itself as a great world city, the peer of London or Paris. Of course, by all accounts they did a terrific job with these commonwealth games, but the Olympic Games are another order of magnitude entirely. Only places with the infrastructure and transport systems of cities like London have their bids accepted, which is famously why New York has never hosted the games. Thus I have to say that I think this recent success has lead Birmingham to get slightly ahead of itself. As a born northerner, I also think that, if any uk city is going to bid for the Olympic Games within the next twenty years, surely it should be Manchester.

One of the things I love the most about London is it’s architecture, and how it’s buildings vary so much from area to area. Before I moved here, I assumed London would be boring, just like an average British town only bigger. Living here, though, has made me appreciate London, and buildings like the Dome, Shard and Gherkin. One of my favourite buildings in the capital is Shakespeare’s Globe, and how the recreation of a seventeenth-century playhouse sits sweetly by the Thames.

John and I were there again yesterday. He’s visiting me again, and I think wanted a bit of culture. Just before the pandemic hit, we watched The Merry Wives of Windsor there. This time, instead of a comedy, we saw The Tempest, one of the great tragedies. That, in itself, was a thrill for me: The Tempest was one of the Shakespeare plays I studied at school at both GCSE and A-level, but I had never seen it live. Thus to watch it properly, in the round among the groundlings was a real treat. Sat there watching the action unfold before me felt like I was being reacquainted with an old friend.

I thought the performance itself was great. Those guys really know how to act, although the initial sight of the guy playing Prospero in rather skimpy swimming trunks came as a bit of a shock. I must say, too, that this time I didn’t have the best views, as there were people standing right in front of me for most of the performance. Those things aside, though, it really was a fantastic thing to do on a sunday afternoon, and I feel so fortunate to live in a fantastic metropolis where such joys are so readily at hand. The Isle is indeed full of wonders.

I couldn’t agree more

Alex Jones really is an embarrassment to human civilisation, isn’t he? Apart from an odd glimpse, I’d never really seen him ‘in action’ before – I try to avoid such nutcases. But I just saw a news report on the Sandy Hook trial which Jones was involved in, and the guy is an utter dick. He was found guilty of spewing bullshit, and ordered to pay $60m for falsely claiming that the Sandy Hook massacre was a set-up. Yet to watch Jones act, you would think he was the victim: he was trying to squirm and twist things to make it sound as if he had been right all along, he was in charge of things and everyone else was out to get him. We see precisely the same behaviour in Donald Trump: Jones, like Trump, is an ultra-privileged white male who vastly overestimates his own intellect and who has had far too much media attention for his own good. And like Trump, Jones is an embarrassment which humanity could well do without.

Apart from the odd highlight, I haven’t been watching much of the Commonwealth Games. Ironically given my interest in the Olympics, athletics isn’t really my thing. However, for me the interesting thing about these games is that the ‘ordinary’ events and the para-events are being held at the same time. Of course, at the olympics, the paralympics happens after the olympics, so they are two separate events, each with their own opening and closing ceremonies. But with these Commonwealth Games everything happens at once, so we see able-bodied athletes competing alongside disabled athletes, albeit in separate sports / categories.

That interests me as it rather changes the dynamic. I think there is a debate to be had over which is better: is it better in terms of the representation of disability for para-athletes to have their own event, or for everyone to compete at the same time? To be honest I’m not sure. One of the great things about London 2012 is that it really foregrounded the disability community, in the UK at least. It was aired on Channel Four whereas the Olympics aired on the Beeb, so it felt really distinct and separate. Channel Four really made an effort to give the Paralympics it’s own set of shows such as The Last Leg, so it really felt just as important as the Olympics, rather than a tagged on afterthought.

With the current games in Birmingham everything is happening simultaneously, so Para-athletes and sports are not getting that foregrounding. Thus on the one hand all the athletes are competing side by side, making them all feel as central to the action as each other; on the other hand, we loose the enormity of having a distinct Pararlympic games. It’s thus a bit of a case of swings and roundabouts, and I’m not sure which model I prefer.

I have no idea where this picture was taken so I can’t verify it, but as a big fan of Sam Gamgee and as someone who has loved the potato scene ever since Dad read it to me, I really hope someone put this sign up in a supermarket somewhere.

I love it. It just goes to show what a big part of popular culture those films (and books) have now become.

I really want to flag this remarkable story up today. “Brazilian twins who were joined at the head have been successfully separated with the help of virtual reality.Three-year-olds Bernardo and Arthur Lima underwent surgeries in Rio de Janeiro, with direction from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.” That such a procedure could be performed at all is amazing in itself, of course, but what strikes me most about it was how international the effort was. Doctors from all around the world worked together to prepare for and conduct a twenty-seven hour operation in which a hundred people were involved. Mostly working over the web, they combined the knowledge and expertise of dozens of professionals to save the two boys. For me, surely the biggest thing we can take from this is the importance of cooperation: nationality didn’t matter to these professionals; what mattered was helping the boys, irrespective of where they were from. Surely that is how all medicine and science should be conducted. I have long felt that humanity should start seeing beyond borders, beyond nationality and start working together. This is a prime example of that principal in action.

As a Star Trek fan, I think it would be remiss of me not to note the sad death of Nichelle Nichols. The truth is, having been born in 1983, I am one of those Trekkies who came to Star Trek through The Next Generation, and never really watched The Original Series. However, I know full well the cultural impact TOS had, and that the importance casting of Nichols as part of the command crew of the Enterprise cannot be over-stated. For Gene Roddenberry to show a society as racially divided as America was in the sixties a vision of the future where black people could hold just as much status and authority as white people was truly commendable. Thus what Nichols did by appearing on the series was nothing less than revolutionary: it was a game changer, the impact of which is still being felt today.

Alas, we have lost another of the greats. Of course, I know the character Uhura primarily through the Star Trek films which came out in the Eighties. Yet those films were a huge part of my childhood: I love them, and how the crew kind of played off one another while retaining their own characteristics, rather like a family. That crew is now slowly leaving us, one by one, but they leave behind a cultural legacy which is surely beyond comparison.

Quite a bit is being said in the news at the moment about climate change, but the crisis was really driven home for me yesterday. I was out for my trundle in Greenwich Park yesterday afternoon, and it was like I was rolling through a field of hay or straw. Ordinarily the park is fairly green, but the grass looked completely parched, with several dusty paths weaving through it. To be honest it was quite alarming, especially given how green and resplendent the park usually is. It looked like it hadn’t have a drop of rain in weeks or even months; it really was a shocking, even horrifying sight. And of course, it’s the same situation in every other park and patch of grass around here. Such stark sights really make the climate crisis clear, and I think we should all be very concerned.

I just came across this. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but if this is the way things are going under the tories, we should all be very worried for the future of the NHS.

I had planned to write a reaction entry to last night’s commonwealth games opening ceremony in Birmingham today, but all I can say is “meh”. I sat down to watch it expecting something I could get my teeth into, but it turned out to be rather dull. Don’t get me wrong: there were some good bits, like the huge puppet bull and the Union Jack made from cars, but apart from that it wasn’t very interesting. Apparently it was supposed to tell some kind of story, but without the TV commentary that wasn’t at all clear. Frankly, pretty soon into it I found my mind wandering off to other things. There was nothing which thrilled me, no moments of awesomeness. And then it just ended with three rather lacklustre songs by Duran Duran, a band nobody has been particularly interested in for about thirty years.

Sorry Birmingham, but this was no follow-up, no long-awaited second album to London 2012. To be fair I know this show may not have had the budget London did, but my overall impression was that it was not as spectacular as it could have been. This was Birmingham’s opportunity to shine, but I don’t think it really did.

To my left is a book shelf. On it I have an array of books and DVDs, including my James Bond and Lord of the Rings box sets, as well as my copies of Dune, Lacan’s Ecrites and Ian Fleming’s biography. I know that if I wanted to, I just have to go over to the shelf and take a book down to read it, or ask someone to pop a DVD into the player to watch it. My collection will remain there for as long as I want it, and to add to it I simply have to trundle out to the shops to buy a text I want, or failing that order it online. It would then be mine to read or watch indefinitely. Simple.

Or that’s how things were until recently. These days online streaming is getting more and more popular. Of course, streaming has definite advantages, especially for people like me: instead of needing to ask my PA to put a disk in the drive, to watch a film I now just need to go to a streaming website and select the film I want to watch. The thing is, there are more and more streaming services on the web – Amazon, Netflix, Disney etc… – so to watch a specific film you need an account with one of those websites. If you don’t have an account you can’t watch the film; and you can only have an account if you pay a (usually monthly) subscription. Your ability to watch a specific filmic text is therefore no longer as simple as owning a DVD, but depends on which streaming services you’re subscribed to and your ability to pay. That has, in my opinion, reduced rather than opened up our access to film.

For example, I just came across a reference to a new Beavis and Butt-Head film, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe. I used to love Beavis and Butt-Head, so was interested to see their return to the screen. I was also in the mood for some inane puerile humour, so I punched the title into Google and found it was available to watch on Amazon. That would have been fine as I can access Amazon, but when I clicked on the link I was told I could only watch the film if I was signed up to Paramount Plus, which would cost me seven quid a month after a first free week. This I was loathe to do: subscribing to more and more streaming services would just cost me more and more, and end up spiralling out of control. It would also mean paying for content, the vast majority of which I have no interest in watching. I thus couldn’t watch the film: it had not been released on DVD or in any other format, and could only be viewed via Paramount.

In theory streaming is great: having access to films over the web should make them more available than ever before. Only, the streaming system is becoming more and more monetised; putting films behind online paywalls makes them harder to watch, and once you have watched them you can’t actually keep them to watch again in a few weeks or months unless you keep up your subscription. Such sites have effectively made themselves gatekeepers for certain – usually very popular – films. It kind of makes me miss DVDs: at least they remain on your shelf, indefinitely, rather than having to pay a plethora of different companies again and again, whenever you want to watch a certain film. DVDs might not be as convenient as watching a film online, particularly for the likes of me, but, like books, they are single, specific texts rather than bundles of films and shows, most of which you might not be interested in. Once you have bought a DVD it remains yours, and you don’t have to keep paying a company which may have played no role in their creation, whenever you want to watch them.

Ten years ago this evening we all saw something which, for me at least, put it beyond all doubt that the potential for awesomeness in life is infinite. We saw something so cool, so epic, that I still get a thrill from thinking about it to this day; something which would have been seen as unthinkable before it actually happened. Ten years ago this evening, James Bond 007 was shown to escort Queen Elizabeth the Second in a helicopter to Stratford in order for her to open the London 2012 Olympic Games. It was an absolutely breathtaking cultural moment, and no doubt most of us remember where we were when we first saw it. A bit like September 11, then, that moment can be seen as a type of temporal anchor: a demarkation point in time with a discernible ‘before’ and ‘after’.

To be honest though, thinking about that evening I can’t help feeling very mixed emotions. So much has happened since then, I won’t even try to summarise it. I vividly remember watching the 2012 opening ceremony, lying on the blue sofa in the living room of Lyn’s bungalow in Charlton. When the short film involving the Queen and Bond started, I suddenly sat up straight, as if I could sense something incredible was about to happen. I then remember my mouth gaping open in amazement and awe as one of cinema’s greatest characters was shown to fly with the reigning monarch across the city, climaxing with a union jack emblazoned parachute jump nobody could ever have expected. It struck me as incredible, and I became instantly obsessed.

Yet now, of course, that old two seat sofa, which I once spent so much time lying on, is no longer there. Lyn isn’t there, and that life in that happy little bungalow has ended. That’s why my memories of that night fill me with such mixed emotions. Add to that the fact that Lyn herself participated in the Paralympic closing ceremony – something absurdly incredible in itself – and you see why my emotions are so conflicted today; my memories so bittersweet.

This evening London celebrates the tenth anniversary of an event the likes of which I doubt it will see again in my lifetime. In 2012 London performed before the entire world and showed the world how awesome it is. To have been living here in London that year was a privilege of a lifetime. In one sense it seems like just yesterday, yet in another it seems an age ago, so much has happened, so much has changed since then. The person I was watching the ceremony with that evening is no longer here, tinging my memories with a sorrow I doubt I’ll ever get over.

I’ve just come across something which is utterly, utterly chilling. This short documentary appeared today on BBC Iplayer. It’s about the treatment of disabled young people in Ukraine, who are locked away in institutions for years and just neglected. I defy anyone to watch it and not feel both heartbroken and appalled. Most are starving to death and barely let out of their cots, yet with the right support and equipment could probably live full, productive lives. Or to put it another way, here I am in my own flat, dinner in the oven and powerchair on charge; but that could so easily have been me, left to rot in a filthy dormitory with no way to communicate. I find this film extremely disturbing and extremely hard to watch. That such horrors are still happening anywhere in the world is truly chilling.

I have nothing to say about last night. I didn’t even try to watch the TV debate between Sunak and Truss because I knew it would just wind me up and get me throwing things at my screen; and having just seen a few clips of it on breakfast TV, I think I was right to do so. The show appears to have been acrimonious and bitter. The clips I just saw were a display of two spoiled, overgrown schoolchildren squabbling over things which neither has any real idea about. Why would I have any interest in watching that, especially given that I have no say in the outcome of this contest? If you ask me neither Sunak nor Truss are in any way fit to become Prime Minister. What we need is a general election. That way the whole country can decide who leads us, rather than a group of spoiled, selfish, toffee-nosed scumbags. Only, the Tories won’t hold one anytime soon because they know they would probably loose it, and they are desperate to cling to power for as long as possible.

The overground may have it’s uses after all. I was out and about again today. As I’ve said before, I go up to Stratford fairly often, but today I wanted to see how the ten year anniversary of the Olympic Games was being marked. As usual I got the jubilee line up there, and then looked around the Olympic park a bit. I found there was a small event happening, but it wasn’t very exciting so I pressed on north intending to explore a part of the park I had never seen before. A few weeks ago I had gone that way with John, and we had seen two large lakes which I wanted to find again.

The paths in that area are the kind of paths which just make me want to go on and on. They are flat and smooth, winding through parks and across charming little rivers. Following them you soon forget that you are anywhere near a metropolis. They take you further and further north, further and further from Stratford.

I rolled forward like that for quite a while, until I suddenly realised that I had no idea how to get home. Simply retracing the path wasn’t really an option, and would take too long. I told myself to stay calm and look for a bus back to Stratford. Leaving the lakes I found a road, and found myself in a place called Tottenham Hale. I had never heard of it before, and still had no idea where I was. Luckily though, I soon found a bus station, and then a train station adjoining it. With a bit of luck I would be able to get some kind of transport back to Stratford.

Which is basically what happened: I requested help at the desk, told the staff there where I needed to go, and soon found myself being escorted onto an overground train platform. To my surprise, though, I soon found the train heading through open countryside – had I really gone that far? Nonetheless, about twenty minutes later I found myself back at Stratford, feeling quite relieved and making a beeline for the Jubilee Line, eager to get home. I had at last used London’s overground train service though, and it had worked without a hitch: the train was on time, and the staff put out the ramps with no problem. Now I know I can use it perfectly well, I won’t be so apprehensive about using the overground.

First, though, I’m going to Google where Tottenham Hale is.

I’m suddenly rather excited. I just turned my computer on and came across this, the trailer for the third and (probably) final season of Picard. It looks like the whole cast of Star Trek The Next Generation are getting back together for one last fling. The minute-long trailer does not tell us much, and is just a montage of appearances from the old characters, but nonetheless it is very enticing. I wonder whether any of those actors thought they would still be performing in Star Trek when they took up those roles forty years ago.

According to this Radio Times article, the new season will hit the airwaves next year, so it’s definitely something I’ll be looking forward to. Star Trek TNG was such a big part of my childhood and adolescence, seeing the entire crew of the Enterprise D back together one last time will be such a treat.

Today I decided to resolve something which had been bugging me for a couple of weeks. First though, let me say that I know Saturday was not the best day to do something like this as the London transport system is always chaos at weekends, but I wanted something to do and it was a sunny day. When I tried going to Wimbledon a couple of weeks ago, I chose to go on the tram because the tube looked too complicated with too many changes. Looking at the underground map a couple of days later though, I saw that that was nonsense: I would just have to get the Jubilee Line to Westminster, and the District Line from there. All the stations I’d need were marked as accessible.

That, then, is what I did this afternoon simply to see whether I could, and it could hardly have been more straightforward. Apart from a short, unexplained delay on the Jubilee line, getting there was no problem at all. Once there I had a short look around, found Wimbledon Common (but sadly didn’t see any wombles) before setting off back home. The entire outing, there and back, took about four hours.

There isn’t much more I can report really, although I have to say that trips like this do wonders for my confidence. London once felt so vast to me, but it now seems smaller and smaller. I know I can get around and go where I want. Not all stations are accessible, but that just means I need to be organised and work out an accessible route. And besides, as I wrote here a couple of entries ago, progress is constantly being made on that front. You know, as I think I’ve said before, if I had been told, aged eighteen or so, that I would one day be living independently in London and roaming the city on my own, I wouldn’t have believed it; as a disabled young man I had no idea what I would be capable of. Yet here I am, the metropolis my oyster – although, ironically enough, I have never owned an Oyster Card – constantly exploring more of this wondrous, vibrant city. It just goes to show, you can never rule anything out.

I just woke from a nasty, horrible dream – the type of dream you feel relieved to wake from, and to find they are in fact just dreams. In it, me and my younger brother Luke were kicking the shit out of one another. Luke was being nasty to me, taunting me and winding me up just for fun, and I was trying to kill him for it. It got really brutal. For some reason we were in Greenwich Park with the rest of our family. The thing is, I rarely see Luke these days, except on the weekly Skype call. He has matured into a kind, extremely hard working man who loves his wife dearly; I have the greatest respect for him, and know he would never try to taunt me or beat me up (except to threaten to put me in a plastic bag and roll me down a hill, but that’s another story). I therefore have no idea why I would have such a horrific dream, so I just want to say: Luke, if you’re reading this bro, I’m thinking of you. I know you’re insanely busy with work these days, but it has been far too long since we met for a chat, a meal and perhaps a drink.

The same goes for my other brother Mark, for that matter. I suppose the last two years have driven families like mine further apart; it’s also probably an inevitable consequence of time, as both my brothers now have their own lives and families to tend to. Yet, bloody violent though it was, dreams like the one I just woke from remind you that your siblings still exist, that they are important, and that sooner or later you’ll have to do something to get them all together again.

I’m now pretty good at getting around London on the bus, and I use the tube quite often, but the one mode of transport I’ve never really got a grip of is the overground. For some reason I have never used it. Of course the main reason for that is because it’s not really accessible: to use it I would need to arrange for ramps to be put out for me, meaning I can’t use it on the spur of the moment. The tube may be far from perfect, but the great thing about more and more stations gradually becoming step free is that I have the option of getting on and off trains on the fly. That isn’t possible with the overground rail network, so I’ve never got to grips with it: I don’t know which lines lead where, as I do with the underground. That to me seems a shame. This metropolis has made a great deal of progress in making it’s public transport accessible for people like me; as far as I can tell, it is leagues ahead of the rest of the country. Yet there are still massive, gaping holes in it’s coverage which I wish TFL would get it’s act together on.

If anyone is wondering what the Americans are saying about yesterday’s heatwave, watch this. Believe it or not, they noticed what was happening here, although this guy does make some dodgy comments about Bangers and Mash, Spotted Dick and warm beer. More seriously, between witticisms, he also makes some very valid, pertinent points about global climate change: this is a problem which now clearly is effecting the entire world, and something we all need to do something about.

I just tried going out. Having spent yesterday at home out of fear of something going wrong in the heat, I was getting fed up of YouTube and Facebook, so I chose to risk going for a short walk. I have described on here before how much I like to get out and about, but the problem is there’s a lot that can go wrong: I fear my powerchair motors could overheat, or my iPad, which I keep strapped to my lap, could be permanently damaged in the sun. Yet there is only so much I can take of these four walls; and besides, I had shopping to get.

As soon as I went out of my front door I could feel the heat: it was quiet astonishing. Before I left I checked with John: the temperatures we experienced in India got to around 45 or even 46, compared to the 38 or 39 we’re currently experiencing. Yet somehow today felt hotter, as if a wave of heat hit me as soon as I opened my door. I instantly regretted my decision, but decided to persevere: I still had things to do, and still didn’t like the idea of staying home all day. As uncomfortable as it was, life had to go on.

In the end I got home in one piece. I first went to The Depot again for a cool, refreshing Coke, then up to Eltham for my groceries. I tried to be as careful as I could be, driving in the shade wherever possible. It wasn’t a particularly long trip, but when you know that there is a chance that your powerchair could suddenly cut out due to the heat, or your communication aid could burn out leaving you effectively voiceless, it leaves you almost constantly on edge. Of course, in the grand scheme of things these are relatively minor problems when it comes to climate change; yet if the temperatures we have experienced over the last two days are indeed a sign of things to come, I think we should all be very concerned.

The long fight to retake our rightful place among our neighbours has begun.

I probably spoke too soon on Friday. Judging by the weather forecast and feeling how hot it already is, things are about to get very uncomfortable indeed. I can already feel a kind of horrible humidity in the air. Yesterday was bad enough, but it looks like it’s going to get even worse in the next couple of days. Probably the best thing I can say on here would be to advise everyone (if you’re reading this in the UK or Europe) to try to stay cool, stay in the shade and drink plenty of water As it is, I think I’ll need to avoid going out for fear of my chair overheating. This isn’t going to be pleasant.

I remember Florida. I remember, in about 1995 or ‘96, my parents took me and my brothers to Florida on holiday. A couple of years before, my dad had more or less been forced to promise to take me there after I had refused to leave Disneyland in California, jamming my wheelchair breaks on until I was sated with the prospect of a return visit. That’s how we came to visit Florida

The main thing I remember from that trip is the heat. The heat from the Florida sun was unbearable, at least for people like us, used to much milder British summers. I think the problem was the humidity which came with it. I remember feeling desperately uncomfortable as soon as I left anywhere which was not air conditioned. That was real heat.

Going out trundling today, I thought about that trip. It is hot, of course; yet the heat isn’t stifling like it was in Florida, or India for that matter. I could bear it without feeling the urgent need to return to somewhere cooler.  What concerns me, though, is what may be to come: if this is just the beginnings of a trend which sees temperatures get hotter and hotter, year on year, it won’t be long until things are indeed unbearable, and the hot weather poses quite an overt obstacle in how we live our lives.

Just in case anyone is wondering why I haven’t written anything about the Tory leadership election yet, let me say that I probably won’t be blogging about it. I hi no intention to get myself worked up about a contest between a group of people who I basically loathe. As I’ve explained before, I oppose everything that the Tories stand for. They are people who dress greed, arrogance and intolerance up as virtues, and do not care about anyone less fortunate than their selves. Their advocacy of an unregulated, low tax state is nothing but a pathetic little conscious-soothing euphemism for their desire to create a society where the privileged can manipulate the underprivileged at will, inherent social inequalities are left unchecked, and the rich are allowed to hoard their wealth while the very fabric of society, including mechanisms which people like me rely on to live, is left to fall apart. I thus have no interest in commenting on a contest between people, each as abhorrent as the other.

This morning I had brunch in a nearby place called The Depot. It’s one of those new pubs which sells good coffee in the morning, good beer in the evening, and decent beer all day. Long story short, I was dying for something to eat earlier, so the first thing I did when I got through their door was to type into my iPad that I wanted a cappuccino, a pint of orange juice and a bacon sandwich. I then went to set myself up at a nearby table.

My order was duly brought to me – and very good it was too. As I was eating my brunch though, it occurred to me that I had asked for a ‘bacon sandwich’ rather than a ‘bacon butty’. Growing up in the North-West of England, I had always heard them referred to as buttys; yet these days, after over ten years in London, ‘sandwich’ seems to be my default name for them. That is what they are called around here. Yet as I was tucking into my brunch, it struck me that ‘sandwich’ just didn’t seem right: of course, things like cheese sandwiches and jam sandwiches are fine, but somehow, grilled pieces of bacon between two thick-cut slices of bread should always be referred to as a butty.

With that, I determined to make it my mission to convert the capital. I want to get everyone calling bacon buttys, buttys or butties. Telling someone that you had a bacon sandwich for breakfast just doesn’t sound right. London seems to have so much of a say over the rest of the UK culturally, it would be good to see the metropolis adopt something from The North.

I think it would be wrong of me not to note the sad news of the death of Monty Norman. Huge Bond fan that I am, I see his theme for Dr. No as one of the defining features of the series. As soon as anyone mentions James Bond, that theme automatically comes to mind; it’s as integral to Bond films today as it was in 1962. And of course, Norman wrote the themes for many other films, including The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), Call Me Bwana (1963), and the TV miniseries Dickens of London (1976). It seems we have lost yet another great of classical Hollywood cinema.

I just saw this and burst out laughing. I’m sorry, but it was just too funny not to nick.