Coming home from Greenwich on the bus today, having had to cut my trundle short due to a torrential downpour, I was struck by quite an interesting question.Back in Cheshire, I used to drive my powerchair down old, winding lanes heading off into the countryside. The one I remember best was called Giantswood Lane, which ran from Congleton to Swettenham. It was a quiet, pleasant road: the kind of road which comes to mind when you hear the word lane.

The odd thing is, these days I come across roads called lanes all the time; Greenwich seems especially fond of them: roads with names like Anchor And Hope Lane, Charlton Lane or Old Post Office Lane. None of them, though, is what I would call a lane. They are not very long and do not really meander. Yet I can’t help wondering if they once did. Did these so-called lanes now running between houses, shops and factories, once run between fields? And if any of them did, what might they once have looked like? What was this area like before it became a metropolis? I get the impression that the vast, urban landscape around me wasn’t so different to the landscape I knew as a child, not that long ago; and that you can perhaps glimpse that past like a palimpsest in the layout of the roads and the names of places. It’s as if, below this vast, sprawling, hectic maelstrom lies a quieter, more peaceful past which can still, just about, be glimpsed if you look hard enough.

I just watched the first episode of Man Vs. Bee on Netflix. I’d heard a bit about it recently, and thought I’d give it a go. I like Rowan Atkinson from his Blackadder days, and the notion of one long film-length narrative divided into ten minute segments sounded interesting. However, having just watched the first such segment, I only have one thing to say: No. Just No.

It astonishes me to contemplate why anything like Man Vs. Bee was ever made, let alone why anyone would want to watch it. It is utterly stupid. A man, played by Atkinson, is hired to housesit for a wealthy couple while they go on holiday. What follows is a series of totally cringeworthy yet completely predictable set of ‘accidents’ which we are meant to find funny but which see the house wrecked. There is no plot or character development, just awful accident after awful accident. I gave up after the first episode, but I could see it just becoming more and more contrived and inane as it went on. There is nothing funny about watching a man get himself into more and more trouble, and becoming more and more desperate. Frankly, I have better things to do with my time than watch such shyte.

(We may joke, but I wouldn’t put this past the entitled, arrogant p’tahk.)

Surprisingly perhaps, there isn’t that much I feel I want to say today. Obviously I’m very pleased with the local election results in both Tiverton and Honiton and Wakefield. When I got to my computer this morning and checked the headlines, I gave out a small whoop of joy. Perhaps the tide is at last turning against the Tories, and the country is waking up to the damage these arrogant charlatans are doing to the country. Yet we must remember that these were only bi-elections, and that it would be slightly dangerous to get too excited about these results. This could be the result of a protest vote, and things could swing the other way come the next election.

I hope with all my heart that they don’t though. I hope that the country has indeed woken up and is now seeing the Tories for what they are. Of course, Johnson and co. will try to deny that these results are a reflection of their government – they always do: we’re already seeing Johnson trying to frame these results as merely a message telling him to listen to people but carry on, rather than as a damning indictment of his entire administration. Yet it is blatantly obvious that the people in these small towns have spoken for us all overnight: we are sick to death of Johnson and the tories running roughshod over the law, and treating the UK like it is theirs to play with; we are sick to death of Brexit and the catastrophic damage it is now undeniably doing. The country is waking up, and the tide is turning against the Tories.

At last!

I’m afraid America just got even more scary. According to this BBC report, “The US Supreme Court has struck down a New York law restricting gun carrying rights. The law required residents who want a license to prove ‘proper cause’ to carry concealed weapons and that they faced ‘a special or unique’ danger.” After all the trouble they have there with guns, and with people going into schools and massacring students, you would think that American society would be desperate to tighten it’s firearms regulations. Surely the only logical way to curb gun violence is to severely limit who can own a gun. You can’t drive a car without passing a test, so why should people have the right to use a far more dangerous, lethal object such as a gun, totally unvetted and unregulated? Yet today, the American Supreme Court has loosened the restrictions on who can carry guns there, so you don’t even need to justify carrying one. I fear this will just lead to an even more murderous, violent society in America, where a human life can be extinguished upon a whim. I’m glad I don’t live there.

I’ve forgotten who it was that suggested it, but yesterday I heard an idea which I think is worth repeating here. Now that, strikes aside, Crossrail is up and running, perhaps it’s time to move the country’s focus north and start work on a new railway between Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds. The new line would run overground between the cities, but go underground, Elisabeth Line-like, when it reaches the cities themselves. This way, trade between the three northern powerhouses would be boosted, and they could potentially start functioning like one large financial district.

I think this is an excellent idea. It’s becoming more and more obvious that colossal amounts of money are being spent on London’s redevelopment, but the rest of the country is just being forgotten about. Perhaps because it’s a famous world city and cultural hub, London gets all the attention to the detriment of anywhere else. Maybe beginning work on a new Northern Crossrail, the focus might shift north a bit, and parts of the country which have been relatively forgotten about compared to London might begin to boom.

To that end, I would like to add something to this idea: It has been a while since I wrote anything on here about the Olympics, but I’m still interested in it as the world’s biggest sporting and cultural event. If Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds become linked by a high-speed, high-capacity railway, why don’t they launch a joint Olympic bid, perhaps for the 2036 games? While I’m not completely sure how it would work logistically, it seems to me that it would be an awesome way to celebrate the new northern powerhouse. London got so much attention ten years ago in 2012; just think how much of the world’s attention and and esteem the three great northern cities could get, with athletes, spectators and media commentators whizzing between them on a brand new railway.

These are just ideas, of course: whether they actually have any legs or not is anybody’s guess. Having been born in Cheshire though, I’d love to see my old home area get the attention I now see London receiving. Whenever I ride on the tube or DLR, I wonder what things are like outside of the metropolis, especially for guys like me. Now that London has it’s fabulous new Elisabeth Line, it’s time for the so-called ‘levelling up’ to really begin.

As much a pain in the arse as rail strikes are, I support workers’ rights to take them. We need to stand up to the government as the cost of living rises higher and higher, while the tories lower tax rates for their rich friends. Without the right to strike, the proletariat is powerless. I doubt I’ll be going anywhere for most of the week, at least on the tube; but I stand wholeheartedly with those striking today. We are currently being bullied by a government of megalomaniacs, seemingly intent on taking British society back to the seventies, and treating the working class and public sector like shit. The tories must be reminded that society does, in fact, exist, and can stand up for itself.

I heard in the news this morning that the Emirates Air Line cable car now needs a new sponsor. The ten year contract has now run out, apparently. The cable car is still one of my favourite modes of public transport, and as coincidence would have it, today was the day I went on it with my mum, dad and aunt Toula, visiting in celebration of the events I mentioned yesterday. It was a lovely little trip which we all enjoyed: I love how you can see for miles across the ever changing metropolis as you sort of float, suspended about three hundred metres up, across the Thames. When you follow it, as we did, with a lovely family lunch at the O2, you realise that things like the cable car are part of what makes London special. It may not be that popular or make much commercial sense; it may now be struggling to find a new sponsor. Yet I can’t help loving this iconic piece of modern London.

Today, of course, is father’s day, and while I didn’t note it here this year, it was my Mum’s birthday on Wednesday, so I would like to use this blog entry to tell my parents that I’m thinking of them both. Although we talk over the web quite regularly, I don’t physically meet mum and dad that often these days: I have my own life here in London, just as they have theirs. Yet I know they think of me regularly; I know I often worry them, just as I always have. I’d therefore like to assure them that I’m fine, that I love them both immensely, and that I’m looking forward to seeing them really soon.

Yesterday on YouTube I came across a video of a young American woman attempting to do the eleven plus practice exams. To be honest, if you ask me the Eleven Plus should have been consigned to history long ago: streaming children at the age of eleven is obviously just a way for the Tories to perpetuate class divisions. They have obviously reintroduced these exams in order to take us back to the dark days of social stratification. Under such a system, only kids who have parents with the time and resources to teach them, to make sure they are up to speed with english and maths, will have any chance of passing the test and getting into a decent school. It’s just a sickening way to set in stone the social inequality which lies at the heart of conservatism.

Watching the YouTube video yesterday, though, it became clear just how fucked up the Tory education system now is. The questions were staggering; there was no way I would expect a normal eleven year old to know such things: stuff like quite complex algebra, which I didn’t come across until I was fourteen or fifteen at least. Of course I’m not an expert in such things, so please take a look at the video I’ve linked to and tell me if I’m not being realistic. But surely streaming kids at such an early age according to whether they know such advance things only reinforces class inequality.

Why should we all have to sit back and watch as the Tories turn our society into a neo-Victorian hell where the rich, spoiled few oppress and exploit the disenfranchised many? I say again: none of these arrogant Tory arseholes are fit to be anywhere near government.

Just a short entry today, and I think I simply direct everyone here. Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen was one of my favourite songs when I was a teenager; I remember listening to it on the way to school. It popped into my head this afternoon for perhaps obvious reasons. It’s sweltering out there, and to be honest I’m starting to go a bit red, so a song about the necessity of wearing sun cream seemed rather apt. Mind you, it’s also a weird yet interesting piece of music which is probably worth listening to again.

I’m not the kind of person who gets embarrassed very easily, after all the ridiculous things I have done over the years, but I must say I’m embarrassed to be a UK citizen right now. More specifically I’m embarrassed by our government. What they are doing in trying to deport refugees to Rwanda is appalling. These people are coming here looking for help, but the Tories want to deter them by threatening to send them to Africa. It’s a move obviously designed to appeal to their heartless, brainless voter base, relishing the opportunity to treat immigrants as inhumanely as possible. As an open, tolerant nation we ought to welcome whoever comes here looking for help; yet the Tories would turn us into a society of hate-filled xenophobes, suspicious of anyone who looks new or different. It’s an absolutely disgusting, truly embarrassing place to be in for any country, and only renews my already solid conviction that none of the people currently governing the country has any place being where they are.

Kate Mulgrew really is a jealous bitch, isn’t she? The actor, who played Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek Voyager, is now talking about creating her own live action Star Trek spin-off series. Mulgrew is obviously jealous of Sir Patrick Stewart. She clearly thinks that if Picard got his own revival show, Janeway should have one too. But she’s oblivious to the fact that Janeway was not half as good as Picard: she didn’t have his gravitas or depth, and was frankly just an annoying cow. As an actor, Mulgrew had none of the pathos or depth Stewart brought to Trek: Where are her equivalent of episodes like The Inner Light or The Best Of Both Worlds? I also doubt she had anywhere near as much impact on fans, most of whom were, by the final seasons, frankly just watching Voyager to ogle Jerri Ryan, it had become so crap. Star Trek The Next Generation had episodes which stood with you and you remember; and included a cast which was lead by a captain who was three dimensional. Picard had flaws, but we admired him. The same could be said of Captain Ben Sisco in Deep Space Nine, especially by the latter three or four seasons. Yet Janeway and Voyager had none of that depth: both series and character were poorly written and lightweight. Thus as a Star Trek fan I think Mulgrew is being both arrogant and presumptuous here: if she thinks Janeway has the status of Picard, Kirk or even Sisco, she is gravely mistaken.

This may sound a bit controversial, but people like Martin Hibbert really irritate me. He is a wheelchair user, badly injured in the Manchester Arena bombing, who has now climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. Don’t get me wrong: that is a remarkable achievement and I have every respect for it, but does he have to sound like he’s the first cripple ever to do anything great? Or like he has been appointed leader of all disabled people and is now speaking for the rest of us? It could be my imagination, but to hear Hibbert talk sounds like he thinks he’s the first and only disability rights campaigner. He talks about sending people ‘a message’ and ‘showing people ‘we’ can do anything’, forgetting that there have been disabled people achieving things since long before he started using a wheelchair. To be honest this is typical of people I’ve heard called ‘New Crips’ – those who become disabled later in life, instead of being born disabled. Without having grown up around other disabled people, they, perhaps unconsciously, retain society’s condescending attitudes, and think that, having once been able-bodied, they are now best placed to represent the rest of us. Thus we see the stoic, brave Martin Hibbert climbing the African mountain (or being pushed up it, more like) to benefit the rest of us. Yet that is to forget that we already know what we are capable of: we know we can achieve anything we put our minds to, and don’t need someone who has experienced comparatively little of the prejudice, discrimination and social exclusion we have had ti deal with since infancy, trying to speak for us.

I was watching the Sunday morning newspaper review on BBC news earlier when someone mentioned a detail which I couldn’t help finding very, very disturbing. They were talking about gun laws in America and school shootings. We were told that one of the first things teachers in the States are taught as part of their training is how to save kids from classroom shootings: they are trained in telling kids to hide under their desks and take cover. Sorry, but I find that utterly, utterly fucked up. Most of my old university friends are now teachers: they want to teach, not experience moments of terrifying violence, or to protect kids from being shot. Imagining any of them going through such a nightmare is abhorrent. If this is true – and I certainly hope it isn’t – then surely it goes to show how warped American society now is.

I went over to the Excel Centre and the docklands for a look around today. (I know, I know, but when you get around in a powerchair and don’t need to be in payed employment, you can do these sort of things) I was curious to see how easy it is to get from the Emirates air line and thus the o2 to the new Elizabeth Line station. Getting over the river is easy enough, and there I took a nice trundle along the dockside. It’s strange to think that, not that long ago, that area was a hive of industry and activity, with huge ships lining the dockside and men in their thousands hurrying around to load and unload them. It is now quiet, the water still apart from a new canoes and sailing boats.

Anyway, once there I thought I would pop into the Excel, just to check out what was going on, if anything. It had been quite some time since I had last been there – since well before the pandemic. As it happened the place was rather busy, with some kind of medical conference in action. I rolled into the building a bit further, along it’s wide central boulevard.

Pretty soon, though, I was approached by one of the security staff, who asked me where I was going. I replied to her that I was just on a walk, with no particular destination, at which point I was told that I wasn’t supposed to be in there today and better leave.

Of course I started to leave immediately – I had had no idea those were the rules. Before going, though, I mentioned to the security person, who was rather friendly, that I had once met Patrick Stewart there. To my surprise, in reply she asked me if Patrick Stewart was a friend of mine – she had absolutely no idea who he was – but before I could explain, I thought I ought to get going. I was, however, stunned: imagine not knowing who the great Sir Patrick Stewart, captain of the USS Enterprise D, is. It was so remarkable that I immediately decided it was worthy of a blog entry.

The rest of my afternoon was spent finding my way to Custom house Station, then getting the Elisabeth Line home. It was, in the end, quite easy, and I have now found a new, rather cool route to get on to Crossrail. Nonetheless, I’m still rather perplexed to find that not everyone knows who Patrick Stewart is.

I’ve had a busy day. I was out and about for most of it, which means I wasn’t at home to watch Prime Minister’s Questions. That’s probably a very good thing, to be honest. These days, even the shortest clip of PMQs is enough to fill me with rage. The way Johnson and his Tory mates deflect every question, blatantly refusing to give anyone a straight answer and instead trying to turn everything around, is just sickening. PMQs is supposed to be one of the cornerstones of our democracy, where, every Wednesday afternoon, parliament holds the Prime Minister directly to account by asking him to justify his actions and policies. Yet now, we have a pathetic pantomime where the charlatan we have for our prime minister pompously deflects anything put to him, answering every question with an accusation solely intended to appeal to his supporters, and completely refusing to take responsibility for any of the enormous problems he and his party have caused. It really is a crass, sickening spectacle which ultimately achieves nothing, and I’d rather just go for a walk.

One of the things which infuriates me the most about the Tories is that they have the gall to boast of ‘delivering the COVID vaccine’ and ‘overcoming the pandemic’, when we all know that it is the NHS which we have to thank for that, an institution to which the Tories are fundamentally ideologically opposed. They would have privatised the National Health Service decades ago had they been able to, but now that we all owe our wellbeing to it, the Tories are claiming to have always supported it; or rather, they are trying to steal the credit owed to an institution which wouldn’t exist, had they had their way. Had it been up to the Tories, we would all now be trying to survive under an ultra-capitalist, American-style healthcare system where the best care is reserved for the wealthiest while the rest of us are left to be scammed by insurance companies.

It really is sickening. The word “hypocrisy” seems too mild for such brazen two faced word duplicity. My conviction that the Tory party should be removed from power and disbanded is now stronger than ever. None of these self-serving, credit-stealing scumbags should be anywhere near government. It was despite, not because of the Tories that we got through the pandemic; the vaccine roll out would have been a catastrophe were it not from the NHS, and had the Tories been left to it. To hear them now claim credit where they deserve only derision, contempt and ridicule boils my blood.

There’s not much I want to say today. It has been a mad, hectic sort of day, to be honest. Yesterday’s street party was cool, but nothing really noteworthy. I am, of course, keeping an eye on the news: The current Tory farce would be hilarious if I didn’t loathe the vile scumbags so much. They may be destroying themselves, but they’re taking the whole country down with them. All I really have to say today is, if Boris Johnson is still Prime Minister at the end of this week, or even tomorrow morning, then there is something very, very wrong with our political system. All anyone can do now, though, is watch and wait.

I have had quite a good weekend so far: yesterday afternoon I went over to Charlton Park to watch my friends in the Blackheath Mighty Eights cricket team for the first time this summer. Unfortunately the Eights lost, having batted first and set a woefully low target of 109, but it was still a great, quintessentially English, afternoon.

Then, yesterday evening, of course I settled down to watch the Platinum Jubilee concert. I had heard that Sir David Attenborough would be participating in it, so I was optimistic to see if anything awesome or noteworthy – the type of thing I get obsessed with for months or years – would come up. In the event, I must admit that I wasn’t really taken by it. Attenborough was involved, of course, but he just gave quite a short, pre-recorded speech about conservation. And if you think I’m going to write pages of analysis about the queen ‘meeting‘ a CGI Paddington Bear as I did with Happy And Glorious, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. As amusing as it was, and as well as Her Majesty acted, it just wasn’t in the same league as when she parachuted out of a helicopter alongside 007. The rest of the concert was just a few musical hits really, and nothing to get my teeth into.

Today promises to be interesting too, overcast though it is. There is some sort of local street party here later, which should be worth a look. If anything particularly cool happens, expect an account on here tomorrow.

Going up into central London today probably wasn’t one of my better ideas, to be honest. At around midday I was at home, wondering what to do with the afternoon. At such times I usually just go up to Stratford for a trundle around the Olympic Park, but today I thought it would be cooler to check out all the Jubilee festivities. Getting there would be easy enough: a few stops along the Jubilee line takes me to Westminster, and from there I could roll into St. James Park and see what was going on.

As soon as I got there though, I realised I should have stayed at home: the park was thronging with people. I could barely move. There was scaffolding and fences; the crowds were kicking up dust from the paths which got into my eyes. These certainly weren’t the conditions for the kind of nice, leisurely stroll I usually enjoy. Nonetheless I pressed on, eventually finding the Mall.

From there I had a walk around the area, taking in Whitehall, Downing Street and Trafalgar Square, before finding my way to Green Park tube station and returning home. Believe it or not it had been years since I last went up there for a walk, but now I’m not so concerned about riding the tube or encountering Outists in Parliament Square, I think I’ll go more often. As I said a few entries ago, I really want to get to know central London a bit more. Today really wasn’t the best day to start my exploration though.

I’ve obviously been thinking about the queen again today. There was an event celebrating the Platinum Jubilee in Charlton Park earlier, which I went to. Of course, we all know that the concept of a monarchy in this day and age is a bit of an anachronism: the idea that someone can hold a position, political, social or otherwise, simply because they were born into a certain family is totally outdated. Yet I think most people still have a soft spot for the queen. I for one am not one of those numpties who rails against the monarchy just to sound provocative or rebellious; I understand that the issue is far too nuanced just to cry “Down with Liz!” For starters, being a constitutional monarchy is part of the cultural identity of the UK; it’s part of who we are, setting us apart from other countries. For another thing, I’d rather have a queen as our head of state than a president with unchecked authority. Can you imagine how sickening it would be if Boris Johnson was our president rather than Prime Minister, doing as he pleases as if the country was his personal possession? The scumbag is bad enough as it is, but at least he has to answer to the queen. That holds him and all other governments in check. In theory at least, our monarchy acts as a regulatory body, making sure governments never go too far.

That’s why I think we should keep things as they are with regard to the queen. As many other people have already pointed out, for seventy years, she has been a rock of stability for the country. A mother or grandmother figure, most people don’t know anything else. Whether the situation will change when someone else takes the throne though, remains very much to be seen.

Bradford won it’s bid to be UK City of Culture last night, so let me first congratulate it’s citizens on their win. I’m sure 2025 will be a marvellous year for them. My knowledge of geography being what it is though, I just looked up Bradford on a map, and I’m sorry, that is not a city. As far as I’m concerned, cities have to be big, impressive places, but I could probably get from one side of Bradford to the other in my powerchair within half an hour. It is tiny, and qualifies as a medium-sized town at most. Mind you, if I’m going to get into that debate, I must admit that, compared to the vast, bustling metropolises I encountered in India, London is barely more than a sleepy little English village, so I suppose it’s all subjective. Whatever it’s called though – town, city, village or farmstead – it’s great to see a northern community getting it’s time in the limelight. As I and so many others keep saying, London and the south-east get so much investment and attention, while the rest of the country gets largely forgotten about. It will be fascinating to see what a relatively small yet extremely diverse community like Bradford does with this award.

I was brought up using metric measurements. Although I sometimes refer to distances in miles, the truth is I have no real idea how long a mile is. At least with the metric system I know how long a metre is, and that a kilometre is a thousand metres. That, to me, seems sensible, as does having the freezing point of water at zero degrees and it’s boiling point at a hundred. These basic, logical figures are what I grew up with, and I’m sure the same goes for the vast majority of people born after, say, 1980. Why oh why, then, are the Tories now talking about bringing back imperial measurements? Do they not realise that it would be completely foreign to most people nowadays? More to the point, it would make doing trade or working with any other country a thousand times more complex. The tories are obviously desperate to distract everyone from the fact they are a bunch of rule breaking scum, as well as to throw some red meat to their core vote, so they’ve introduced this anachronistic idea to appeal to them. Yet that does not stop it being an act of utter stupidity.

Whether anything will come of this moronic scheme of course remains to be seen, but if it does I think we should all keep using the metric system. I certainly plan to. The Tories want to look like they’re taking the country back to some kind of golden, independent past which never really happened; so rather than fall for their con I think it’s now more important than ever that we continue to use the measurements we were educated using, and which are used by our European neighbours. At least then we will show that we won’t be duped by a charlatan who should have resigned days ago.

This letter apparently appeared in the Guardian a couple of days ago. I think it’s certainly worth reposting here as it demonstrates just how arrogant and self-important the scumbags currently running the country are.

The least the tories can do is show a bit of humility and admit their mistakes, but they don’t have the honour to do even that. Instead they claim to deserve to do what they did, deserve to break the rules, while the people who really deserve our gratitude, such as Mrs Needham, diligently stuck to them.

Just how insane does someone have to be to think that the best way to prevent school shootings is to arm teachers so that they can shoot back? When I heard that Donald Trump has proposed just that earlier, my jaw hit the floor in disbelief – I’m sure most other people’s jaws did too. Having studied psychology to a certain extent, I know how disabling and serious mental illness can be, so I don’t use the word ‘insane’ lightly; but what Trump proposed at the NRA meeting is obscene. It surely betrays an unhinged mind. While Trump might have been playing to his audience, his comments suggest a highly disturbed mind and extremely distorted sense of reality, one in which the only way to combat violence is with yet more violence.

The web is now rife with memes reminding us that the only place where such horrific massacres occur is in America, where guns are so easy to get hold of; and that they almost never happen in countries with strict, sensible, firearms laws. In the UK, for example, the last such shooting was in Dunblane. Soon after, struct handgun laws were introduced and there have been none since. The only way to prevent these atrocities is to remove such harmful weapons from society, and thus stop people intent on harming others from getting hold of them. That seems blindingly obvious to me, so how on Earth could anyone seriously propose that the solution isn’t to remove these weapons from circulation, but to introduce more of them. All that will happen then is that guns would become more and more commonplace, and society becomes more, not less violent. Arming teachers is a truly disturbing idea, and it’s beyond belief that anyone has seriously suggested it. What concerns me more, though, is that there are people who actually agree with Trump.

Which of the three following statements is the more stupid: “The world is flat, not round”, “Leave means leave”, or “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. All three are pretty damn moronic if you ask me, yet the fact that such inane comments are now heard with such regularity surely says something about the state of affairs the world is now in. All three betray a blatant disregard for the evidence right in front of you; all three show a contempt for authority, an attitude of “I know best no matter what”. It is a narrow-minded, right wing rejection of the advice of academics, simply because it came from academics. Such attitudes lead to both Trump and Brexit, and probably also brought about Johnson. What worries me is, such attitudes seem to be becoming more and more popular.

I must admit I didn’t just write the second entry I posted yesterday for my blog. I also posted it, word for word, onto a Facebook politics page which I’m a member of. To be honest, after watching the news, I needed some way of venting my frustrations. The cool thing is, the post went down a treat: at the last count, it has had 177 likes and 51 comments, almost all agreeing with me, making it possibly the most ‘liked’ thing I’ve ever posted. I think that’s quite an achievement and one worth recording – I must be doing something right. I’m glad to see too that so many people agree with me about Boris Johnson and the rancid collection of scumbags that is the Tory party.

I couldn’t put it better myself.

It is now apparent that the current prime minister of the United Kingdom is a man who thinks he has a right to break the law, leading a political party who will defend him no matter what, regardless of his crimes. This afternoon it was put beyond doubt that Boris Johnson not only broke COVID lockdown rules, playing fast and loose with them as if they didn’t apply to him, he then knowingly lied to parliament about doing so. To add insult to sickening injury, the Tory Party now seems to be closing ranks behind him, pretending nothing has happened and asking us all to move on. If they had a shred of honour among them, let alone respect for either the law or any of our feelings, they would all be demanding Johnson’s resignation. But they don’t and aren’t. This is a group of people, born into privilege, who think they have an innate right to power, no matter how badly they hurt or insult anyone else. To a man they are manifestly unfit to be in the government of any western democracy; the events of this afternoon has put that beyond all doubt. They will continue to run roughshod over the law, bending and distorting any rule they need to to suit their own selfish, arrogant ends. I honestly believe something must be done. As much as I advocate democracy, any objective person would surely say that this group of people is not governing the country for the good of all, and so is utterly unfit for political office. If we truly love our country and care about our collective futures, we have to do something to get the tories out of office as soon as possible.

I just got up and turned on my computer, and the first thing I saw was this horrific, inexplicable news. “Nineteen young children and two adults have died in a shooting at a primary school in south Texas. The 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in the city of Uvalde before he was killed by law enforcement, officials said.” This is as breathtaking as it is heartbreaking: these were children, for zark’s sake. Of course, such things wouldn’t happen, or at least be much less common, if guns weren’t so easy to get hold of in America. When will America grow up and do something about it’s gun control?

I just got home from an afternoon which can only be called interesting. It started well enough: I set off to Woolwich earlier full of enthusiasm to try out the newest addition to London’s underground network. The new station there was incredible, gleaming and clean. The train arrived, the doors opened and I got on without a problem. The thing was, I hadn’t actually decided where I was going to get off. Looking at the map though, I had an idea: if I got off sat Liverpool Street I could then take the other branch of the Lizzie Line just to see how well it worked. Whereas the branch I was on was marked as fully wheelchair accessible, the Liverpool Street to Shenfield via Stratford Line was marked mostly as step free from street to platform, but not platform to train. That made me want to clarify what the situation was at Liverpool Street.

There, however, the fun started. Getting off the train at Liverpool Street proved easy enough, with nice, smooth new platforms. Finding the way to the other branch of the new line wasn’t as easy as I assumed it would be though: the huge station is pretty labyrinthine, and in the end I had to ask a member of staff to guide me, needing to exit the station to go back in another entrance. I was then quite disappointed to find that there, there were no level platforms so the staff had to put ramps up to allow me on to the train. As it happened, it wasn’t much of an issue, but nonetheless I would have preferred to have been able to get onto the train on my own. They told me that, in a few months, such issues would be resolved.

The trip to Stratford seemed surprisingly short; it was also as smooth and comfortable as the first leg. As at Liverpool Street, ramps were needed to let me off the train, but staff were waiting so it wasn’t a problem. My afternoon was then a matter of a short walk to the Olympic park avoiding the showers, before getting the Jubilee Line back to North Greenwich and the bus home.

This was obviously only a brief preliminary investigation: a short jaunt into central London and back – I didn’t want to stay up there for long due to the rain. Yet I must say, what I experienced today was pretty amazing. Of course there are some things to be ironed out in terms of accessibility, and I really wish such issues weren’t always delayed and deprioritised, to be resolved in the autumn. However, that aside, what London has achieved with this project is phenomenal. The Elisabeth Link really does feel like no other tube line I have ever been on, it is so fast, smooth and sleek. Today feels like the start of a new chapter in the epic tome that is London’s public transport.

At the risk of sounding like a sad transport geek, I must admit I’m looking forward to Crossrail opening tomorrow. I’ve now lived in London for twelve years, but as I was saying here a couple of weeks ago, for all that time most of central London north of the Thames has been pretty much out of bounds for me, simply because the tube lines were inaccessible. Getting up there would have been more trouble than it was worth, so I tended to avoid central London. From tomorrow, however, a vast amount of the metropolis will become far easier to reach: I’ll be able to just hop on a bus down to Woolwich, and from there the Elisabeth Line will take me to Paddington, Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road or wherever. The upgrading of the Northern Line will also help with this, of course. I see myself being able to explore Central London like I’ve explored eastern London, and I really can’t wait to see a few more of the famous sights and royal parks up there.

Expect a few entries on that, including one about my first trip on the Elisabeth Line, on here soon.

Bill, where Ben had had “had had”, had had “had had had”. “Had had” had had the examiner’s approval.

I realise I’m just flagging up another Independent article, but as someone who firmly supports scientific progress and cooperation, this really does take the biscuit. “UK scientists are being stripped of leadership roles for Europe-wide projects…The EU has told a Cambridge University astrophysicist studying the Milky Way that he cannot be in charge of a new project – because the UK is not part of the £80bn Horizon Europe programme.” Alongside all the damage it’s doing to Northern Ireland Peace, the UK economy, and so many other things, Brexit is rendering our scientists irrelevant and excluded from the mainstream discourse, unable to take the active leadership roles they used to have. This travesty surely cannot be allowed to continue.

These days, I can’t help getting more and more furious at the bunch of arrogant charlatans currently running the country; my anger now grows daily. I just came across this Independent article. The Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is now trying to deflect the blame for Tory cruelty by claiming that people who appeared in a 2010 Channel Four documentary were actually actors. “The documentary show featured four MPs, including Ms Dorries, spending time living on deprived housing estates around Britain.” It was presumably an expose of the savagery of Tory cuts to social support at the time, and now the Tories are claiming it was all a stitch up, effectively accusing Channel Four of lying. I find that utterly sickening: rather than own up to and apologise for the suffering the Tories are knowingly causing, they would have us all believe that they are good people who mean us no harm, and the increasingly negative light they are being cast in is all a big mainstream media conspiracy. Why Oh why must we put up with this bunch of lying, deceiving scumbags running the country?