I know why people are wearing poppies today: it is to commemorate a war, now over a century ago, in which hundreds of thousands of people died. People wear poppies this time of year to make sure we remember that brutal conflict, because if we forget it, we risk repeating it; and that must never happen. That’s why I have no problem with wearing poppies. Yet more and more these days I fear that poppy wearing has become interwoven with nationalism, and that some people, especially outists, are trying to usurp remembrance. They would whip us all up into a nationalist fever, so that Europe is perceived as the enemy and old rivalries with states on the continent are revived. Or, worse still, they would frame the goal of European Unity as the betrayal of all those who died, when in fact the EU was created to make sure we never have to see such bloodshed again. That’s the problem with poppy wearing: as a symbol it is being usurped, and used by some to say precisely the opposite of what it was intended to.

I have just got back from Eltham Palace, but disappointingly I don’t have anything cool to report. When I got there, filming had obviously wrapped and men were sweeping up the fake snow I saw being sprayed around yesterday. I’d set off feeling so optimistic – who might I meet and what might I see today? – but it just goes to show awesomeness can’t happen every day.

Up until around a couple of hours ago it had been shaping up to be a pretty lame day: I didn’t sleep at all well last night, and it had been grey and drizzly all day. At about three I thought I’d try to cheer myself up by going on one of my usual, shorter trundles. I set off for nearby Kidbrooke first to see how the construction work there is coming along, then up Middle Park Avenue, intending to pass Eltham Palace en route to Tesco before returning home. As I was rolling up to the Palace, though, I began to notice something was happening there: it was lit up with powerful light, and there were lots of people outside the main gate. As I got closer, I came across two pristine vintage cars from the nineteen twenties.

This was certainly worth interrupting my trundle for. Turning back, I rolled up to one of the people and asked him what was going on, and what do you Know? I’d stumbled upon another film shoot.

This got me instantly excited. After all, the last time this happened, I got to meet Danny Boyle. I couldn’t see much of the film equipment as it was through the gate near the palace, but the road outside the palace grounds was obviously being used as a back drop. Old, expensive-looking cars were parked on either side of the road and fake fog was being sprayed into the air as it grew darker. It looked wonderfully evocative. I got talking to the lady spraying the fog, and she told me they were shooting a film called Wonka, obviously a remake of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. I was also told the name of the director, but I didn’t recognise it this time. Apparently, though, Matt Lucas is in it.

I stayed for a while, watching them do a take before continuing to Tesco. However, they’ll be shooting there tomorrow, I was told, so that’s where I’ll be heading after breakfast. This is why I adore London: you never know when you’ll bump into a film crew next.

I had another of my random little ideas last night which, short of much else to blog about, I think I’ll note here. I was watching a tv program about a painting created in Paris in the 1920s. It was a wonderfully evocative image of some ladies sitting in a cafe or bar by post-Impressionist painter Edouard Vuillard, instantly transporting viewers back to Jazz Age Paris. Of course, the twenties was when Paris was arguably at its coolest: writers like Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald drank in the bars with jazz musicians and philosophers. If I had a time machine, that is the time and place that I would probably choose to go back to.  Now we are in the twenties again, I can’t help wondering, when the french capital hosts the Olympic Games in three years, will it reference that era in the opening ceremony? After all, 2024 marks the centenary of the last time Paris hosted the games; wouldn’t it be cool if they referred back to the last time Paris became the world’s heady, hedonistic playground? Not that I want to preempt our french friends, or indeed get into the habit of speculating about an event which is still three years away, but I think it would be very interesting if that was the way they chose to go.

The oddest thing just happened, although I’m not talking about what is going on in parliament. Long-term readers – if I have any – may remember me mentioning going up Giantswood lane in my powerchair when I lived with my parents in Congleton. It’s an old country lane backed onto by the housing estate where I grew up: I used to take my chair down it, trundling along it for hours trying to get to the Swettenham Arms. I haven’t been that way in well over a decade.

However, since I moved to London, a new bypass has been built around the north of my old home town. Not having been up there in two or three years (at least), I haven’t seen anything of it, and only know what my parents told me about it. Being quite a fan of Google streetview though, a few minutes ago I thought I’d see whether they had driven their famous camera-car along the new road: they hadn’t the last time I checked, but it was worth another look.

I think what I found was kind of uncanny, but worth noting. The new bypass is marked on the map, and came up blue when I selected streetview; so Google had obviously ‘done’ the new road. But when I selected the view from Giantswood Lane, it showed the lane as I remember it, with green, unspoiled fields on either side. It was only when I selected the view from the new road that I finally saw the bypass, with Giantswood Lane now running over it via a brand new bridge. Obviously Google have yet to send their car along the old road since it changed, so you can only see how it looked twelve years ago. It strikes me as strange to now be able to glimpse the same spot of land, divided by a decade and radically changed. It’s also strange to now explore roads on Google which I’ve never actually been down, yet which run under lanes I once knew quite well.

I just turned my computer on, but I already think this will be the best thing I’ll be able to flag up today. I know I said I’d be steering clear of the COP conference, but the news that the largest body of delegates attending it represent the interests of the fossil fuel industry is just too stupid to ignore. “There are more delegates at COP26 associated with the fossil fuel industry than from any single country, analysis shared with the BBC shows….They found that 503 people with links to fossil fuel interests had been accredited for the climate summit. These delegates are said to lobby for oil and gas industries, and campaigners say they should be banned.” I wholeheartedly agree. How can we expect any progress on any issue, when people advocating the very activity we’re trying to curb are there trying to get in the way? Of course they’ll say they’re there to help, and try to present alternative solutions which won’t hurt the petrochemical industry quite so badly, but at the end of the day they just want to make sure they can continue to make fortunes by pumping harmful gasses into the atmosphere. Ultimately they’ll do whatever they can to hinder progress. The only way any conference like this will ever be able to move forward is if such lobbyists simply weren’t there. After all, as the article points out, “the World Health Organization didn’t get serious about banning tobacco until all the lobbyists for the industry were banned from WHO meetings.”

A lot is currently being said on Facebook about fireworks scaring pets. I don’t know about dogs and cats, but this evening I’m jumping out of my skin every few seconds. I’m just trying to browse the web a bit, when I suddenly hear a colossal boom! from outside. Either I send my rollerball spinning or I completely screw up what I’m trying to type. Stupid startle reflex!

All I have to say today is, what kind of contemptible sleazeball is found guilty of corruption, then tries to use his wife’s suicide to make us feel sorry for him, as if her suicide was because of what was happening to him? The suicide of anyone is tragic, of course, but for Owen Patterson to attempt to leverage his wife’s death for sympathy, portraying himself as some sort of victim when the only thing we ought to be hearing from the outist p’tahk is a grovelling apology, is despicable.

Here is a man who was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by private companies to lobby on their behalf in parliament, then acts as if he has a right to do so, as if government should turn a blind eye to such blatant corruption just because he’s a Tory. He only resigns after the press rightly turns on him and his Tory mates when they try to let him off the hook, preferring to save face than face the consequences of their corruption. Even then, Patterson acts as if he’s been hard done by, claiming that the press is portraying him unjustly simply because he’s a Brexiteer.

The behaviour of the people currently running the country really is sickening: surely we are better than this.

If you want to see just how technically advanced Star Trek fan films are becoming, check this out. Obviously, the guys who made this short film don’t have the budget of Paramount Studios, so the CGI etc isn’t quite up to spec; but I have to say, given it was produced by amateurs during lockdown, A Long Way From Home is pretty impressive, If this is a glimpse of the production values of fan art these days, as well as a taster of where the movement is heading, I think it has an exciting future ahead of it.

Changing the tone after getting so heavy yesterday, this is just a quick housekeeping entry. A couple of times now, I’ve found entries in the wrong place; that is, my blog randomly changes the date of old entries so that they suddenly appear where they shouldn’t be. You might have noticed, a couple of days ago, an entry from about four years ago randomly appeared as my latest entry. I’m not sure why it happens, although it is easy enough for me to put right. If you come across an entry in my archive which seems to be out of step, please let me know.

I think we can agree that there are attributes that are inherent to people, and those we can consciously choose. I am right handed and always will be; there is nothing I can do to change that. On the other hand, I wear a blue baseball cap: I wear it every day, but I could change it if wished. What you choose to wear comes and goes with fashion; the hand you prefer to use does not. Thus there are things about ourselves which we can change and those we can’t, sitting at either end of a continuum.

Yet where does gender exist on that line? We are usually either men or women, and I think most people are comfortable with that distinction. Sometimes, however, there are people who feel that they were born into the wrong body, or assigned the wrong gender at birth. They feel so uncomfortable with their assigned gender that they need to transition from one gender to another, often taking hormones and/or undergoing surgery to do so. In many cases it is a choice between that or committing suicide, the dysphoria is so intense.

Nobody has any right to claim such experiences are not genuine. In recent years, though, people have begun to view gender as more and more interchangeable: less an inherent attribute of people and more like a fashion to be selected as and when social trends dictate. These days we hear people describing their selves as gender fluid or non conforming, but apparently without having experienced the intense dysphoria transgender people describe. It seems to have become trendy not to conform, recalling the kind of cultural intrusion I wrote about here. Gender identity arises from a complex interweaving of biology and psychology, not politics or the conscious, socially motivated desire to break social barriers.

There’s no doubt gender is a continuum: people can be male, female or a bit of both. The problem is, people have started to treat that line more and more flippantly, like something they can play with or politicise at will. It has become politically fashionable not to conform, or claim that you don’t. Rather than being an inherent attribute of one’s personality, gender is becoming a political plaything which can be changed or subverted as fashion demands. People seem ever more eager to distance theirselves from positions of social privilege as if being white, straight and able-bodied disqualifies you from political activism: activists need something to rebel against, so they place theirselves into social categories they might not previously have done. That, however, seems to me to make a mockery of the experiences of those for whom this is not so flippant, but far more vital.

Truth be told I’m at a loss over what to write about what is happening in Glasgow. As a half-assed political blogger, the conference there is the obvious subject for blog entries at the moment. Yet I have no special perspective on environmental issues: I’m just as concerned about it as anyone else, of course, and wholeheartedly support the efforts to cut emissions and save the environment. Yet, as much as I love nature and natural history programs, conferences like this don’t really get my juices going as a blogger. I don’t feel there’s all that much I can contribute to the debates. So if I tend to veer away from the Cop conference over the next two weeks, forgive me: it isn’t that I’m not interested or don’t care; more a matter of just letting the politicians in Glasgow get on with it.

To be fair this must have occurred to a lot of people: for all their talk of cutting emissions, our leaders seem all too happy to fly around in air fuel burning planes.

I had intended to just post a picture on here today to keep things simple, but something just happened in my local Tesco which I think ought to be noted. I was just there getting a few bits and pieces: when I need more than two or three bits of shopping, when I enter the shop I roll up to the counter and wait for a member of staff to become free. They know me in there now, and are used to the routine. Most staff members there seem happy enough to give me a hand, following me around the shop so I can select what I need. However, this afternoon something happened which I felt was quite hurtful: as usual, I rolled up to the check-outs and waited. I wasn’t in a hurry so that wasn’t a problem. Yet when one of the staff became free, she began talking to one of her colleagues in a language which wasn’t english, clearly trying to get someone else to assist me. I don’t know why, but she obviously didn’t want to help. Of course, I realise helping disabled customers might not be in their job description, but it felt like I was being shunned; like I was something dirty which she didn’t want to go near. In the end, another member of staff helped me get my shopping; yet in front of four or five other customers the incident was hurtful nonetheless, and I’m seriously considering taking it up with the shop’s manager.

ADDENDUM: I better add that, a short while after posting this entry, I needed to go back to the shop having realised I’d forgotten to buy cheese. The person who assisted me to pay then was the lady who had apparently refused to help me the first time, oddly enough. It could have just been a misunderstanding on my part, although this afternoon wasn’t the first time the member of staff in question has acted so abrasively.

I’m seriously considering starting a campaign to make all lifts on the London Underground legally wheelchair only. I’m fed up of having to wait for people who are perfectly able use the escalators, using the lifts. It pisses me off almost as much as prams taking up the wheelchair space on busses, and the mums refusing to move them. Of course there will have to be exceptions such as crutch users (actual crutch users mind, not people who just carry a single crutch around for show while being perfectly ambulant), but people who can use stairs or escalators should be made to do so. Now, I don’t want to generalise or resort to stereotype, but certain types of people seem more likely to use lifts – doing so as if they owned them – than others. How such a law would be enforced is another question, although personally I think fitting wheelchairs with tasers might be the way forward.

Rather cooly, today I got wind of a drama to be shown on BBC2 over christmas which will tell the story of how disabled people campaigned for and won their rights in the UK, culminating in the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act. As described here, the film will be “based on the remarkable true story of the people behind an irrepressible campaign of direct action that lead to significant steps forward in the battle for disabled civil rights in Britain”. I better not say how I came to learn about it, other than that it involved coffee, but I certainly think this hour long drama, whose working title is ‘Independence Day? How Disabled Rights Were Won’, is something to look out for.

I couple of days ago, coming back from my usual trundle, I bumped into someone I knew in Charlton. We hadn’t seen one another in a while, but we used to hang around quite a bit, especially in the early days when I was still settling in to life in London. Back then, he addressed me as The Northerner. It was kind of his nickname for me, and having moved down from Cheshire so recently, I suppose it suited me. The other day, though, he referred to me as a northerner again, yet this time something about it didn’t feel quite right: I’ve now lived in London for well over a decade, and I know London, particularly South-East London, far better than I ever knew any northern city or town. I now feel at home here, among the red busses and black cabs, skyscrapers and intoxicating cultural vibrancy of the metropolis, so if anything I’d call myself more of a Londoner than a Northerner these days. Mind you, that is not to say that I don’t still occasionally yearn for the fields, streams and oatcakes of the place where I was born.

If anyone can somehow still be in any doubt over how catastrophic Brexit will be for the UK economy, just direct them here. “The impact of Brexit on the UK economy will be worse in the long run compared to the coronavirus pandemic, the chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility has said.” It was the first thing to greet my eyes when I turned my computer on just now, and really puts the bullshit spewed by Rishi Sunak and the Tories yesterday into perspective. Apparently, inflation could hit almost 5% and the cost of living could be at it’s highest point in thirty years. I’m no economist, but things certainly aren’t looking good: institutions are starting to tell the truth about Brexit; reality is beginning to bite. The sooner we stop this stupidity the Tories are making us go through and rejoin our neighbours in Europe, the better.

I couldn’t watch Sunak deliver his budget today. Any time I try to watch him or any other Tory speak these days, I fly into a white hot fury. Whatever comes out of their mouths can be assumed to be a tract of self-serving, self-congratulatory bullshit which I simply can’t watch. To listen to them would mean respecting them, and I simply cannot respect a group of people whose policies I know have intentionally caused so much suffering, inequality and division. However, I just turned on the beeb’s six o’clock news, and I think I need to point out the first thing I noticed: after all the furore over that arrogant scumbag Jacob Rees-Mogg trying to tell us that the Tories didn’t need to wear masks, almost everyone sitting on the Tory benches had a mask on their face. Obviously someone had given the hypocritical scumbags a speaking to and decreed that it would be better for the party’s image if everyone wore a mask. The one exception to this, of course, was Rees-Mogg, who still thinks himself too superior to the rest of us to wear a mask; why should he care if everyone else has to breathe in his contaminated breath? Does not his life take precedence over everyone else’s? Thus, instead of having to listen to all the lies and guff, all the misleading half truths about a recovering economy and fiscal responsibility, all you had to do was take one look at the tory front bench to grasp the depths of the hypocritical vermin currently governing the country,

Before today I knew next to nothing about Dune. I vaguely remember, when I was very little, a VHS video marked Dune on the family video shelf next to the Disney ones. It was Dad’s: I think he put it on for me and my brother’s once, and I remember finding it scary and not liking it at all. However, a few days ago I came across Mark Kermode’s review of the new Dune adaptation: Kermode seemed so enthusiastic about it, saying it was the type of film which simply has to be viewed in a cinema, that I resolved to go watch it as soon as I could.

Kermode wasn’t wrong by any means. I just got back from my local cinema, and I was simply blown away. Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel is incredible. As I say, I know nothing about the original text, but this is the type of film which really draws you in. I couldn’t help becoming engrossed in the politics and drama of what was going on, even from the start. And, as Kermode says, the film looks incredible, from it’s desert landscapes to it’s huge, majestic space ships. It really felt as if there was a totally new fictional universe before me all of a sudden, waiting for me to explore. I left the cinema thinking ”Giant worms and mechanical insects which people fly around in rule!”

I don’t wan’t to say much more: I want to get on with exploring this fictional universe I just came across, so fresh and enticing. I can’t wait for the next instalment of this trilogy. I will say, though, that now I know where George Lucas got so many of his ideas from, including the idea for the Force. Seriously, watching Dune this afternoon, I could see so much Lucas blatantly ripped off: galactic empires, imperial politics, rebellions, controlling people with your voice. Frankly, Dune makes Star Wars look like a cheap, childish rip-off. What I saw this afternoon was far more engrossing, textured and enticing.

As a powerchair user so keen on travel and flying, I really need to send everyone here today. Someone has, at last, designed a wheelchair accessible aeroplane. “Last month, a report released by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the securement of wheelchairs on commercial aircraft is technically feasible, and that many wheelchairs already meet or exceed the minimum horizontal crash standards used by the FAA to certify airplane seats….The system is designed so that different powered wheelchair types can be certified for flying and will be able to interface with a wide range of airline seats.” Until now, of course, I’ve only been able to take my manual wheelchair abroad with me, and needed to get out and walk onto the plane, but this development means that I’ll be able to roll onto planes without getting out, and take my chair all over the world with me. Mind you, rather strangely, the article says the adaptation is currently only for powerchairs, not manual wheelchairs, but assures us that that will follow soon. Nonetheless, this is a great step forward in making travel accessible for all.

I have a serious issue with street preachers. For the second time this weekend, this afternoon I encountered some in Eltham high street. I’ve blogged about my problems with religion before, but to me it seems perversely arrogant to stand in a street, disrupting everyone’s day demanding we all believe what they do. Were these people shouting so loudly about anything else – some other fictional narrative perhaps, rather than one recognised as an organised religion – no doubt they would be sectioned or at least told to move on for disturbing the peace. Yet because they are ‘preaching’, and they have the correct license, they stand there insisting that the only way to be ‘saved’ – whatever that means – is to believe what they believe. Frankly I find that perverse: the concept of a loving, omnipotent god is laughable enough, without having it hurled at me on my way to the shops.

I’m starting to worry we’re going to have another Christmas in lockdown, all because the Tories refuse to admit their failures.

I’m not quite sure how I came across it now, but a couple of weeks ago I found myself attending a small music group for people with special/additional needs at Greenwich Carers Centre in charlton. It was a social event really, where everyone sat round a lady using a laptop, taking it in turns to suggest music for her to find on Youtube. The whole group would then sing to the requested song. I was quite taken with it: I can’t sing for toffee of course, but here was a chance to make friends, chat, listen to music and participate in the community. Who knows, one day I could even make a film about it.

The group meets every Friday afternoon, so today I rolled along there curious to see what would happen or who I would meet. To be honest I didn’t really expect to stay very long before continuing my daily trundle. I got there a bit early, so I bought myself a cappuccino while I waited for the participants to arrive. As they were slowly filtering in, though, I had an idea: I asked to talk to the lady who used the computer, only to be told I was already talking to her (silly me). Through my Ipad communication aid, I told her about Lyn, about how I’d been her partner and how she had passed away; I then told her about Lyn’s Song, and asked her to play it. She looked it up on her mobile phone, and agreed to play it.

I’m not really sure why I thought of the song Charlotte and I wrote about Lyn in that moment. There, in Charlton, among other disabled people, it somehow felt appropriate: I wanted to see what everyone would think. It was the first piece that she played, and I’m very pleased to say it went down a treat; everyone in the room seemed quite taken by it. To be honest it was quite a profound moment for me which brought a tear to my eye.

The rest of the afternoon was spent listening to music, suggesting the occasional rock anthem (as well as a bit of Cat Empire), before trundling home. To my knowledge, that was the first public playing of Lyn’s Song. It feels appropriate that it happened in Charlton, not far from Lyn’s home, at an event focussing on the social benefits of music for disabled people.

Time for a bit of archaeology/history. This is far too interesting for me not to flag up. A viking settlement in Canada has been dated to 1021AD, exactly 1000 years ago. “Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, eight timber-framed buildings covered in sod stood on a terrace above a peat bog and stream at the northern tip of Canada’s island of Newfoundland, evidence that the Vikings had reached the New World first.” That means it predates Columbus’ voyage by 471 years, and is evidence of European interaction with Native Americans far earlier than previously thought. The article goes on to say the settlement could be dated due to a rare solar storm affecting the tree rings from the wood used in the settlement, but the buildings themselves match the design and construction of Viking buildings from that period. I find that utterly fascinating, I must say: the settlement was probably only inhabited for ten years by about a hundred people; but imagine what life was like there, out on the edge of what was, for them, the known world.

I think I need to flag this fascinating blog entry by Beth Moulam up. In it, Beth discusses disability, AAC and identity, going into quite a bit of depth about the relationship between the three. I don’t really want to say much about it here: identity – what constitutes us as individuals – is an extraordinarily complex subject which, once you begin to analyse in any detail, you find requires entire thesises to explore properly. It’s a subject which touches upon the ideas of thinkers ranging from Marx (class) to Benjamin (subjectivity) to Lacan (mirrors). Instead of getting into all that though, I would rather let Beth’s work speak for itself than try to offer any commentary upon it, especially given how vibrantly her own personality and ideas come through in this piece of writing.

There is something sickeningly, perversely ironic in supposedly being lectured on disability rights and inclusion by a woman who treats her disabled sister so patronisingly. I just came across this video from Hannah and Becky Cheetham. On the face of it, it’s a follow-up vlog relating to a previous video the sisters made about their mistreatment at Alton Towers: they had visited the theme park, and had been treated so appallingly – denied access to rides, facilities – that they felt they had to complain. This visit, it would seem, things are much better.

Yet I still have the same reservations about their dynamic that I had back in January. Watching the video, it’s still apparent that the older, able bodied sister, Becky, is speaking for her sister, no matter how much she tries to claim otherwise: she talks down to Becky, cuing her to speak, asking her patronising questions. The infuriating thing is, this is in a video claiming to be about disability rights, trying to highlight the discriminatory treatment Hannah got at Alton Towers. Yet from the very beginning of the film Becky Cheetham talks to her sister like she’s addressing a five year old, who is just shown squealing a bit and speaking only when cued. It is clear that the able-bodied sister is in charge: in fact, I’d go even further and say that she clearly wants the video to be about her and how she looks after her disabled sister. Hannah’s mistreatment by the theme park is a good way to attract viewers, striking back against discrimination of minorities being all the rage on Youtube. Yet for all that, the video is clearly being made by and about Becky. Note, for example, the couple of half-second cut-away close-ups of Becky making ironic/sarcastic comments. It is clear she is the one in the editorial driving seat, and is merely using her disabled sister to play off.

Perhaps I should just keep out of it; perhaps I should just let these sisters make their videos in peace. Hannah seems quite content participating with them, although, having not been able to communicate with her directly, I can’t be sure. Yet, were someone to try to treat me like this, expecting me to sit there and squeal, pushing buttons on my communication aid when cued while someone else does all the talking for me, I think I would like to be told that there are other options, and ways in which I could describe my experiences for myself.

This evening we mourn another great man. I’d just like to flag this sad news up: “Tributes are being paid to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has died of Covid-19 complications aged 84.” I have a lot of respect for Powell. He was a good, decent man who did his best to hold the Bush administration in check, and had the decency to admit his mistakes. I’m sure he will be missed.

Last night I watched Venom on Channel Four. It was after dinner, and I was settling down to watch a serious film. I had never heard of it before, but from the adverts I had seen the previous evening it looked like a fairly good action/sci-fi/horror film – something along the lines of Alien. I still need something new to get my analytical teeth into, so I thought I’d give it a watch.

My hopes were raised even further when, just before the film, the Channel Four announcer told us that Venom was connected to the Marvel film franchise, although it needed no prior knowledge of it. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to break my Marvel duck and start to explore comic book films. However, about half an hour into the film, I realised it was not what I had been expecting: Blobs of CGI goo, supposedly from space, were entering people’s bodies, communicating with them (in American accents) and going around killing people. To call it infantile is to put it mildly. Yet, the weird thing is, the film seemed to take itself seriously; it seemed to still think it was a high budget, action/sci-fi film deserving of attention and respect. It sought to be frightening and comic, serious and playful, at the same time, as if the film couldn’t decide what it was.Combined with the fact that the ‘science’ component of the film was utter hogwash even by Hollywood’s standards, that left me aghast that such poor drivel could have been made. If this is the way the American film industry is going, then I fear for it’s future. Frankly it felt like I was watching a children’s film, yet it was being aired at nine on a Saturday evening. Thus as I headed to bed once the closing credits rolled, I could only wonder what on Earth I had just watched.

Last night we learned of the murder of Tory MP Sir David Amess. No murder is acceptable, of course, and I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but my gut reaction was to note that I struggle to feel pity for people who champion greed and selfishness; who campaign to ensure the rich dominate the poor, and that the weak remain subservient to the strong; who find it just that historic inequalities remain unchallenged, in order that they and their wealthy friends can live as they always have, while so many others are left to suffer. The fact remains, however, that a man was murdered just for doing his job. Whatever your political beliefs, surely that cannot be tolerated. A man who had a family, who are now left to mourn.

Of course I feel pity for them – what human wouldn’t? Yet I struggle to divorce this man from his party, and the political from the human. The problem is, I’m not alone: since 2016 and since the advent of social media, people are becoming more and more furious politically, more and more partisan. People are increasingly forgetting that politicians are people, and reducing them down to what they and their party advocate – beliefs they may vehemently disagree with. When that happens, we see horrors like the one last night.

Upon hearing of this crime, my reaction was to see Amess as a tory more than a man. I could not forget, even for a moment, what he and his political party are doing and stand for and the suffering they have caused. I am ashamed to admit that, but it’s true. The problem is, when we are bombarded day after day with news that gets us ever more furious, how can one not feel that way?

As much as I have a soft spot for the queen, and as much as I’ve obsessed about her meeting with 007, I really don’t think she should be getting involved in politics. Apparently, she has “appeared to suggest she is irritated by people who “talk” but “don’t do”, ahead of next month’s climate change summit.” Of course she is as entitled to her opinions as anyone else; yet as astute as they may be, I don’t see why those opinions should be payed any more attention than anyone else’s. The queen is, after all, an unelected figurehead: nobody voted for her, so she represents nobody but herself. I thus have trouble with the fact that her overheard opinions are being given so much weight in the media. In a democracy, aren’t we all supposed to be equal, or are some people more important than others simply because they were born into certain families?

It horrifies me to read that things like this are still going on these days. “An investigation has been launched into “organised abuse” at a special school in London after CCTV was discovered of pupils being physically assaulted and neglected…. The videos, found by staff, show pupils being mistreated in padded seclusion rooms between 2014 and 2017.”

Now, as I’ve said on here before, I grew up going to a special school, and I have to say I never saw any hint of such abuse. Educationally, of course, things there weren’t really up to speed, and we weren’t pushed as hard as our able-bodied peers might have been. We were entered in for five basic C to F GCSEs, but nothing higher.* Yet that was due to a variety of factors, not least the fact that most of my class of about eight pupils knew they weren’t going to live past their twenties – if that – and didn’t see learning as a priority. It’s pretty pointless trying to write essays when you can barely lift a pen. Nonetheless, the fact that staff at school were more concerned with making sure pupils there were happy and comfortable than pushing us to achieve academically does not constitute the kind of abuse being reported in this article.

I never witnessed any hint of what is being reported: kids being actively mistreated, shut away in ‘seclusion rooms’. Of course, the crucial difference is, whereas I and my classmates had physical disabilities such as CP, Muscular Dystrophy and Spina Bifida, the conditions these abused students have are more likely to be neurological or behavioural. If we screwed up, we probably just needed a good telling off, but that doesn’t always work with kids with things like severe autism. I know from my voluntary work at Charlton Park Academy that these kids often need time and space to calm down, so seclusion is sometimes necessary: when some of these young people get over-stressed and over-stimulated, they sometimes become violent and dangerous.

It would seem, however, that at some schools, such calming methods are being over used and lapsing into abuse, and that’s the problem. Not being an expert by any means, of course, I can’t offer a solution. Some so-called activists might use this story and those like it as another reason to argue for the closure of all special schools, but I fear that would make things worse: there is no way a child with severe autism could cope in a comprehensive. Some kids need the support they can only get at a special school. The problem is, at such secluded, quiet, out of the way places, catering for young people who often can’t speak out for themselves, abuse can go unreported all too easily.

*I did higher level GCSE english, going to lessons in a comprehensive school next door.

I vaguely remember my old film lecturer Alan once quipping that to only watch a film once is forever to watch the same film. Thus this afternoon I went to watch No Time To Die again: I wasn’t really satisfied with my first viewing as I think I missed a few plot points. It was a spur of the moment decision, my curiosity having been growing for a couple of days. Now that I have rewatched it though, I’m very glad I did so. What I found myself watching this afternoon was a real bond film which reminded me why I love the Bond franchise in the first place: contrived plots, nefarious antagonists, great music. Most of all, I was blown away by Daniel Craig’s performance this time. I really think he stole the show this time, with an almost Shakespearean sense of tragedy which had overtones of George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. He was still the cold brutal killer Bond should be, but he also had a humanity and complexity to his character which this afternoon I found myself taken with. What at first seemed like defects because they didn’t quite fit with the usual Bond story arc, today felt well justified, bold and fitting.

What I found myself watching this afternoon then wasn’t just a good film but a great one. It might not quite fit al the bond tropes, but it was an outstanding addition to the series: a loving tribute not just to Bond, but also Craig’s portrayal of him, and a fitting end to his tenure as 007. Daniel Craig made an outstanding James Bond – as I once wrote here he was Bond as his creator intended – and this was the tender yet honourable farewell he deserved. Who knows what the future will bring for Bond, but I’m now certain he will return. As for when that will be, it might take a while, but we have all the time in the world.

Just to follow up a bit on this entry, the beeb just announced that the Blue Origin rocket with Bill Shatner aboard will now blast off on Wednesday. I still find it pretty awesome that Captain Kirk himself is actually going to go into space – possibly second only to Patrick Stewart going up there, but I suppose there’s time for that yet. Of course, I hope the hour long flight goes well, but above all, I really really hope that Shatner gets to set the rocket off with the word “Engage!”

I stopped watching Question Time ages ago, simply because I kept getting too angry at what the politicians on it were saying, but I just came across this appalling news. Comedian Rosie Jones appeared on QT on Thursday, but has since received a torrent of online abuse, mostly concerning the fact she has CP. She tweeted “The sad thing is that I’m not surprised at the ableist abuse I’ve received. It’s indicative of the country we live in right now. I will keep on speaking up, in my wonderful voice, for what I believe in.” Surely voices like Jones’ (and mine) matter more than ever these days. Yet I’m afraid that the fact that people are getting so much hatred just for being who they are and airing their opinions is sadly indicative of the times we are living in. So many morons think ‘winning’ the 2016 referendum means they now have a right to air their intolerant, xenophobic views, as if it somehow proved they were right all along. To some, the fact that Remain lost means that we on the educated liberal left should now just shut up. One of the most sickening social consequences of Brexit is that it has galvanised intolerance, and so we are seeing more and more reports like this.

I value my independence a great deal. I love living on my own here in south London, getting up when I want, eating and drinking what I want, going where I want, just with a bit of help from my PA. If you had told me twenty years ago that this is where I’d be in twenty years, I wouldn’t have believed you. Yet the truth remains I still need my parents help with certain things: for one, they’re about a thousand times better at admin and paperwork than I am. This morning, for example, they came to visit, and we spent about two hours sorting through my box of unsorted letters, receipts and statements. It had needed to be done for months, but I didn’t know where to start (well, that and I had much more interesting things to do). Joking aside, I am very relieved indeed that I have parents like mine: I may not still be living with them, as I once assumed I would be; but the fact remains that without my Mum and Dad I simply wouldn’t be here.

I just came across this interesting seventeen minute video analysing why James Bond has endured so long as a character. I thought it worth flagging up here not only as a discussion of one of my favourite fictional characters, but also of how commentaries like this, until recently dismissed as the province of fans and amateurs, are becoming more and more academic. Giving an overview of the history of the Bond character as portrayed by Connery, Moore, Brosnan and Craig (the four main Bond incarnations), the guy presenting the vid points out how 007 has always adapted to suit the era each film was made and set in: as he points out, Bond is a ‘blank’ or void, into which we pour our contemporary concerns. That is a point which has been made by several academics writing about Bond, and he cites Christopher Linder, who, rather cooly, I also reference in my master’s. Thus commentaries like this are becoming more articulate and knowledgable.

The question remains, though, where does 007 go from here? If the Bond franchise has survived by adapting, what is it’s next adaptation? I’ve heard it said recently that the Craig films have set such a high watermark, and have redefined the character so drastically, that he will be impossible to follow. Craig was the definitive Bond of our era. Given No Time To Die concluded with such dramatic permanence, moreover, I suspect the only way for the franchise to continue would be to completely reset it; by which I mean it needs to be taken in a totally new direction. Perhaps they should set the new films in another era, such as during the cold war; or perhaps new films should be about one of the other Double-O agents. If they keep casting a straight white male in the lead role over and over again, the franchise will sooner or later stagnate; audiences will get bored, especially in the current climate of so many cinematic mega-franchises. The blank spaces Bond has filled until now have become so vast and vague that they can no longer be filled by one figure: we no longer confront one enemy – Russia, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussain etc – but a complex array of antagonists, visible, invisible, and somewhere in between. While it would probably send the knuckle-draggers apeshit, perhaps it’s time for Bond himself to retire, and make way for a more diverse array of agents, licensed to kill, who would we more suited to fight our diverse array of contemporary concerns.

Being an at least partially political blogger, you might be expecting me to comment on Boris Johnson’s speech to his party earlier, but I’m not going to. As far as I’m concerned, whatever that disgrace to human civilisation said today is irrelevant, and the media are wasting valuable airtime reporting it. The only valid thing which that p’tahk can possibly utter is an immediate resignation, preferably with a grovelling apology. Anything else coming from him should be ignored as just one more piece of shit in an already contaminated, diseased sewer.