I don’t have much to add to it, but you may be interested in this intriguing news that astronomers can now detect light from the earliest stars formed in the universe, just 250 to 350 million years after the big Bang. “The team analysed six of the most distant galaxies. They were so far away that even with the world’s most powerful telescopes they appeared as just a few pixels on the computer screen. They are also among the earliest to have emerged in the Universe and so, by the time their images are captured by telescopes on Earth, they are seen not long after the Big Bang.” As Mr. Spock (and Data, for that matter) might say: “Fascinating!”

Surely we can’t sit back and let the Tories inflict nationalistic rubbish like this upon the country. They have just launched a sickening plan to force schoolchildren to sing a nauseating, ‘patriotic’ song as part of a scheme to bring the country back together. “The government has been criticised on social media after supporting a campaign encouraging schoolchildren to commemorate “One Britain One Nation” day on Friday….The campaign, led by former policeman Kash Singh who is chief executive and founder of One Britain One Nation (OBON), says it needs the support of schools to “celebrate the day in the spirit it is intended”. The site says “OBON is devoted to galvanising the efforts of people from all backgrounds to rejoice in their pride in Great Britain.” ” I can barely think of anything more cringeworthy: after they irreconcilably divide the nation by dragging us out of the EU, these snooty p’tahks try to paper over the cracks they created by trying to foster a sense of national pride, hoping it will make us all forget the blind fury and social and economic devastation Brexit has caused. Who do these wankers think they are? How deluded, how far up their own arse do you have to be to think that a condescending, patronising scheme like this can erase the divisions of the last five years? If anything, such a shallow gesture will probably divide the nation even more through it’s sheer arrogance.

Just to follow up what I was thinking about yesterday about the accessibility of London public transport, earlier today I decided to look up what progress was being made in making the entire network usable by wheelchair users, and came across this cool nugget of information. Apparently, if no accessible route can be found, TFL will pay for a taxi for the wheelchair user: “If you arrive at a Tube, TfL Rail or Overground station and the lift is unavailable, staff will help you to plan an alternative journey to your destination. If there isn’t a reasonable alternative route, we’ll book you a taxi (at our cost) to take you to your destination or another step-free station from where you can continue your journey.” While it may only apply to lifts which are broken rather than non-existent, I find that pretty cool I must say, and quite reassuring: I now know that I can in theory get to anywhere I want across this city, although it makes me wonder whether it’s the same situation for disabled people in the rest of the country.

I think I have written on here before about how I once saw London as a big, scary, intimidating place. I grew up in a relatively small town in the north west of England; a ten minute powerchair ride from our old family home would find me trundling down a lane between fields. Every few weeks, though, we would drive to London to visit my Greek Cypriot grandparents up in Harlesden; their house was where I was yesterday. Dad would drive me, mum and my brothers down for a weekend, but I remember always finding the metropolis huge and intimidating, far preferring the quiet green fields of Cheshire to the concrete sprawling labyrinth.

I got back to my place here in Eltham an hour or so ago. It was a nice, straightforward trip: a bus up to Wembley Park, the Jubilee Line to North Greenwich and then another bus to Eltham. All accessible and unproblematic. Having lived in London for eleven years now, I find I can move around the city with increasing confidence. That isn’t to say it’s perfect: nowhere near enough tube stations are wheelchair accessible, so TFL still have a lot of work to do. But when such problems crop up, I am now confident that I can find a work-around so I can get to where I want to go.

If I had been told, aged fifteen or so, that I would one day be living on my own in London, I would not have believed it. Back then the thought of always living with my parents brought me great comfort; the idea of riding the tube or even the bus on my own would have struck me as absurd – surely I needed help to do such things. That attitude began to change when I went to university, but it was completely thrown out of the window when I met Lyn and moved in with her. Living in Charlton with Lyn changed my perspective completely, both towards London and in terms of what I am capable of. I found I could organise my life, live how I wanted, and do what anyone else could, without needing the support of mum and dad. All of a sudden I had a huge great metropolis to explore, full of life and culture. I will always thank my lucky stars that I met Lyn; zark knows what I would be doing right now if I hadn’t. Thanks to Lyn, thanks to London, I know I’m capable of living my own life on my own terms, just like anyone else.

And so here I am, a happy, independent Londoner, just returned from a nice weekend with his parents (my brother Luke visited yesterday too), competent enough to live alone and navigate his way through one of the world’s greatest cities. A place which was once so frightening is now enthralling: if only that timid fifteen year old knew what I know now.

The smell of fresh, homemade mousaka is currently massaging my nostrils, as it must have proliferated this house a thousand times before. I’m currently with my parents at my grandparents house in Harlesden for Father’s Day, having come over on the tube yesterday. It’s good to see them. I know this house very well indeed: it’s a place I have been visiting since I was an infant. Indeed, just a metre from where I’m typing this is the armchair where my Greek grandfather, my Bappou, used to sit me on his lap and sing a Cypriot nursery rhyme to me, swaying me gently before lowering me to the floor in a ball of laughs. My grandparents, of course, are not here any more, yet what remain are my memories of this old family house, still being used as it always has been: as a meeting point for my family, where we can get together, relish one another’s company, and eat delicious Greek food.

The obvious thing for me to post on here today are my congratulations to the Liberal Democrats for winning the true blue seat of Chesham and Amersham. As is being widely reported elsewhere, “The Liberal Democrats have pulled off a stunning by-election victory, overturning a 16,000 majority in a seat that has always voted Conservative.” I think this is really encouraging news. Perhaps the tide is, at last, turning against the Tories; perhaps the country is finally waking up to what an absolute mess the Tories are making of it. After all, despite being a previously solid Tory seat, Chesham and Amersham is a degree-rich, Remain-voting constituency. Of course there’s only so much you can read into a local election result like this, but I really hope it suggests the very worrying slide to the right which has been happening in the UK over the last five or six years may be coming to an end. Of course, that may just apply to relatively well educated, affluent, urbane areas of the country; there are probably many others still taken in by the shallow, vapid falsehoods of the nationalist right.

I’m not sure how it crept under my radar, but I just came across this absolutely awesome BBC article. A man from Yorkshire who has CP launched a campaign to get his communication aid adapted to have a Yorkshire accent. Fed up of having an American accent, Richie Cottingham, from Howden, East Yorkshire, asked local people to come forward and record their voices, so that he could have an accent which suited his personality more. It’s an issue I’ve always had: if you think about it, a guy born and brought up in Cheshire having a generic American accent is rather out of place, but I have always just put up with it. Cottingham obviously feels a stronger link with where he is from. Now I know it is possible though, maybe this is something I could look into too. How awesome would it be if I could at last greet people with the words ”Ayup duck!” with the correct accent?

I think I need to lighten the tone after yesterday’s entry by directing everyone here. The trailer for Season 2 of Picard hit the web a few hours ago, and I must say it looks pretty good. It doesn’t give much away of course, but to just see the magnificent John de Lancie return as Q has me buzzing with excitement. (His faux-French accent could almost bee taken from the French Taunter scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Also, seeing the return of Seven Of Nine may be a hint that the Borg play a prominent role in this season. After all, it was Q who introduced the federation to the Borg in the first place. If so, I will be interested to see whether they make reference to the Ahab Scene in First Contact. I suppose we’ll have to wait until next year to find out.

Just as an update to this entry written in February, after watching this Democracy Now video, it’s now clear that the Tokyo olympics should be cancelled. With COVID cases peaking in Japan, and so few of the population there having been vaccinated, I think it’s fair to say that holding the mega-event there would be nothing less than stupid.

Yesterday I watched Rising Phoenix, a great 2020 film on Netflix, charting the history of the Paralympic movement. I found it quite rousing I must say, as it really brought into focus the strength of the games in bringing everyone together and showing the world what we as disabled people are capable of. Did you know, for instance, that the ‘para-‘ in ‘paralympics’ is meant to denote that the games are parallel to the olympics rather than having anything to do with the games involving paraplegics or disabled people. The film also speaks highly of London 2012 as the first time where the paralympics were taken just as seriously and greeted with as much enthusiasm as the olympics. I will always feel very privileged indeed to have been here in London that year, and watching Lyn and the Paraorchestra perform at the Paralympic closing ceremony will always be one of the greatest, proudest moments of my life.

Since then I have seen the Olympic Movement as a force for good: a giant celebration, bringing the world’s focus onto one city in the spirit of tolerance and friendship. It is just as much about cooperation as competition; as much about culture as sport. I like too how it can be a force for reform and improvement, as well as how it celebrates each city’s uniqueness in turn. Now, however, things seem to have taken a far darker turn: the IOC is apparently insisting the games in Tokyo go ahead no matter what, even though scientists are warning that this could lead to the formation of a new ‘Olympic Variant’ of the virus. The influx of people to Japan this year would have deadly consequences. Framed like that, any sensible person would say the Games have to be cancelled. For the International Olympic Committee to still be insisting that the games go ahead anyway frames them in a very bad light indeed, as it tells us they want their event to go ahead no matter how many people it puts in danger and regardless of how much local opposition there is. According to the Democracy Now video, the IOC have the power to override a local government, so even if the Japanese government asks for the games to be suspended or canceled, as seems increasingly likely given the growing opposition, they could be overruled.

If the IOC does so, it would be an act of unforgivable callousness and arrogance. London 2012 lead me to think that the Olympics were a great big glorious party where everyone came together, and where disabled people were cheered and celebrated alongside everyone else. With the IOC acting as it is, as if it has a right to impose a dangerous event onto a city which does not want it, merely to avoid risking it’s billion-dollar profits, that romantic view now seems very misplaced indeed.

Today is my Mum’s birthday, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish her a very happy one. You might have noticed, though, that I didn’t wish my dad a good birthday on here a month or so ago, as I usually do. That is because, for the last decade or so, I blogged my birthday wishes to Dad and Lyn in a single entry as their birthdays were so close, and the prospect of having to post my salutations to one and not the other this year gave me a heavy heart. But it didn’t feel right for me to write a birthday blog for mum today after having left out dad, so today is a good occasion to rectify that: I would just like to say how much I love both my parents, how much they mean to me, and how I can’t wait to see them very, very soon. Happy birthday!

I just watched the third episode of Time. I had intended to binge watch it a week or so ago, but between one thing and another I postponed watching the finale. Not everyone will have seen it, so I won’t say too much about it, other than that I found it quite brutal. It does not hold any punches about the realities of prison life, and you really feel sorry for the main character Mark, played by Sean Bean. There are times, such as when he’s getting bullied or beaten up, when I found myself wishing Bean would show a glimmer of Sharpe or Boromir and hit back. Having said that, the show is ultimately about redemption, and fighting back wouldn’t have been in Mark’s nature: this is a drama about a man atoning for something which he knows he did wrong, trying to make up for his foolishness. Mark does not deny his flaws, and he also knows he can never fully make up for what he did. Thus, for all it’s brutality, Time is ultimately rather uplifting, in that it shows a man learning to live with his mistakes and coming to peace with himself.

I wonder if I could do something similar in my powerchair on the streets of south London.

I think I’ll flag this interesting little video from Granada news up, not only because it is about a nonverbal young man with severe autism finding employment, but also because he’s from my old home town, Congleton. I found it on my old school’s facebook page, so I suspect he might be a former pupil. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the kind of supported employment it details, though: the young man is clearly happy in his job, and he’s apparently very good at it, but I’m worried schemes like this could lead to people with severe disabilities being forced off benefits and into work more and more, when they aren’t really up to it. It makes me ask myself whether I could do a proper, regular, payed job? While I want to contribute to society, as opposed to mucking around on the internet or trundling around London in my powerchair all day, I think the type of support I’d need to do a nine to five job every day just would not be worth it. I only got my degree with the support of people like Esther. I volunteer when I can at Charlton Park Academy, but my physical limitations and the support I’d require would make trying to hold a regular job simply too complex. I worry that schemes like the one detailed in this film send out the message that disabled people can get jobs if we want to, but are just lazy cripples happy to leech off the state, when the truth is not so simple.

Why is Michael Gove still anywhere near the government of this country? It has been proven in court that he broke the law; surely any respectable, responsible MP would resign. Only Gove, like most of his Tory colleagues, is neither respectable or responsible. He is a man of clearly very limited intelligence and ability who has somehow been promoted to a position of authority he has no right to be in. He and his Tory mates seem to think that political power is their birthright, and the rest of us should defer to them and humbly just let them get on with it. Yet the mess these idiots have made of the country is becoming clearer day by day, both over Brexit, the pandemic and a range of other issues: the tories keep up the pretence that everything is fine, but they know the UK is heading for a massive economic slump and the return of conflict in Northern Ireland. Now that they are actively breaking the law but carrying on as if it doesn’t apply to them, isn’t it time we stood up to these inept, arrogant morons and got a proper government?

Just to illustrate what I was saying a couple of days ago about Tolkien and the web, one of the first things I came across on facebook this morning was this rap battle, supposedly between Tolkien and George R R Martin. While it’s obviously quite amusing and very well made, it’s hard to see Tolkien – famously quite a conservative person – approving of his image being used in things like this. I suppose it’s just one of the consequences of his work having been opened up to mass media and online culture. While the people who make videos like this clearly know what they are talking about, and you might even call it a form of commentary or analysis, to see Tolkien being played around and made fun of like this sort of makes me frown.

A couple of weeks or so ago, my colleagues at the Greenwich Association of Disabled People were contacted by someone from BBC Radio Four’s File On Four about the impact of benefit cuts. The radio show apparently wanted to interview disabled people about how badly the government’s changes to social care charging had impacted them. I didn’t feel I could help much, so chose not to contribute, but you can listen to the show this evening at eight, here.

I think the best thing I can do here today is flag this Guardian article up. In it, Frances Ryan writes about the impact lockdown has had for disabled people, both good and bad: “[J]ust as it took the non-disabled public to experience a dose of what disabled people have for years before access was improved, the fear is that any gains made during the pandemic will be discarded now that the wider public no longer need them themselves.” The pandemic forced nondisabled people to adjust to things like social distancing, Ryan writes, giving everyone a taste of the type of isolation we crips have had to put up with all our lives. She fears that the adaptations made during the pandemic such as holding meetings online will be reversed once the emergency is over. I certainly agree. It will be all too easy for everyone to just go back to normal, which is why we must make sure people don’t forget about the last eighteen months and the isolation and restriction they felt. At last everyone got a taste of what some of us endure every day: we cannot let them loose that perspective.

I think I’ve mentioned on here before, a while ago, that my Dad read Tolkien to me when I was eight or nine. I grew up loving the books of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and they were possibly the biggest reasons why I wanted to become a writer. When it was announced, in 1997 or so, that the books were going to be adapted into films, I remember being over the moon with excitement: I just couldn’t wait to see my favourite characters brought to life on the cinema screen. At that point, it remained to be seen whether Peter Jackson’s adaptations would be any good, but I really looked forward to seeing stories which had been such a big part of my childhood finally becoming mainstream. At last my classmates would get to see what I had been going on about for all those years.

In the end, of course, the films proved a great success; I don’t think anyone could have done a better job of adapting them than Peter Jackson. I think he was as faithful to the books as he could possibly be. The Fellowship Of The Ring premiered in 2001, the year I left school, so the irony is I never got to ask my old friends what they thought of the story. The bigger problem I have now, however, is that it has perhaps become too mainstream: a narrative and characters which was once something private and personal – something I shared with my father – is now a massive part of popular culture. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are now everywhere, not only in film form but as computer games, Youtube videos and facebook memes, and I can’t help thinking it has gone too far. I fear this narrative has now become too divorced from Tolkien’s original books, which were, after all, about language and text. They have become the plaything of thousands of internet fans with no regard for what Tolkien was trying to originally achieve.

To a certain extent this is a natural result of the success of the film, and some of the things I have seen online, such as videos which explore Tolkien’s mythos in detail, clearly have a great deal of love and respect for his writing. Yet alongside that comes a lot of childish, lighthearted rubbish which thinks it’s being clever by trying to poke fun of a narrative most people are now familiar with. Perhaps it’s my perception, but I’m seeing more and more of it these days, and it’s becoming cruder and cruder. To see something which was such a huge part of my childhood being played around with and turned into something so lightweight and adolescent, by people who obviously have no knowledge of or respect for Tolkien’s work, really is disheartening. More to the point though, I can’t help wondering what Tolkien himself would have said if he saw his life’s work being turned into this tripe. Would he have approved of his stories being used like this? I doubt it, which in a way makes me think that perhaps these stories should have been allowed to remain as books, in their original form.

Today I just want to note a couple of television programs which have caught my eye and which I’m looking forward to. The first is Time, on BBC One tomorrow evening. I don’t ordinarily go in for prison dramas, but I’ve been a fan of Sean Bean since Sharpe, and will be interested to see his return to tv after such an absence playing roles like Boromir, Alec Trevellyn and Ned Stark. The second thing I’m looking forward to watching is a PBS documentary series about Earnest Hemingway. I have been interested in Hemingway since watching Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure in 1999. I saw an ad for the new series on BBC Four a couple of days ago (I think), and it looks like it will explore how he became the gritty, adventurous character he is famous for being. I haven’t yet found out when it will air, but no doubt I will really get into it (and probably blog about it) when it does.

Apart from the splendid weather of course, this is possibly the most interesting news of the week. NASA has announced plans to send two probes to Venus. They will be launched between 2028 and 2030, with the intention of investigating why Venus’s atmosphere differs so drastically from Earth’s. I think that’s very promising indeed. Venus can, in a way, be seen as a sister planet to the Earth, so exploring why Venus is a barren ball of molten rock while life flourished here might give us clues about how to better care for our own planet.

I heard earlier that the plans have been announced for the Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations next year. Can you guess what my first thought was? I wonder whether James Bond will be involved again. Sad git that I am, I can’t help thinking it would be cool if they did something similar to the stunt they performed for the London Olympic Opening Ceremony. That was,  after all, the Queen’s golden jubilee year. Could they keep up the tradition? Or, better still, could they use the occasion to announce the next actor to play 007? (Forget the queen, I’m more interested in James Bond.)

If anyone could be in any doubt over whether or not the NHS is one of the greatest aspects of the UK, they just need to read this. An experimental gene replacement therapy, which would have cost millions to pay for privately, has been used to save a young boy’s life. Stories like this make me very relieved indeed that we have the National Health Service. Under a private healthcare system like America’s, this treatment would have been prohibitively expensive to all but the richest of parents, so this child would have been left to die. But due to the NHS, we as a society collectively funded the millions of pounds this treatment cost, so together we gave him a chance to live. A baby’s right to life – or anyone else’s – should not depend on how rich anyone is; anyone should be given the best treatment possible, if they need it. Surely only a community which recognises that, which cares for all it’s members equally, has any right to claim to be civilised.

It’s a lovely spring day, and I just got in from a fairly long walk. I went through Greenwich Park (twice) and I have to say it was the busiest it has been for a long time: I go through the park quite often, and it hasn’t been that crowded in ages. I had to swerve my chair to avoid people every few metres. Of course, this being a bank holiday, maybe that is to be expected, but I can’t help worrying that we might now be returning to ‘normal’ too quickly. Everyone seems to have suddenly assumed that the pandemic is over, and that they can act as they did before it. Every pub, restaurant and cafe I passed today seemed packed. To  a certain extent I can’t really criticise, as I’d be in there with them under other circumstances; yet I can’t help worrying that if we take things too fast and snap too eagerly back to normal, this nasty little virus could return with a vengeance.

The country’s up shit creek due to Brexit etc. The tory’s solution? A bloody expensive boat! ”A new national flagship is to be commissioned by the government in a bid to boost British trade and industry globally, the prime minister has said. The vessel will be the successor to the Royal Yacht Britannia, which was retired in 1997.” I realise that this doesn’t make for much of a blog entry, but after the Tories made such a big thing of austerity, and after their ideologically-driven benefit cuts caused so much harm, to spend £200m on an outdated symbol of a long-faded empire really is taking the piss.

I just want to send huge congratulations to my old school friend Dan Holt on becoming a barrister. Dan was two or three year groups younger than me, so we didn’t cross paths much at Hebden. A couple of years ago, though, we bumped into one another at powerchair football in Woolwich: people kept saying his name, and it struck me as familiar. It turned out he had moved to London to study Law at Queen Mary University. He has now completed the exams to enter the legal profession; you can read a bit more about his awesome achievement here.

I realise that this might make for a bit of an odd or unusual blog entry, but for a couple of weeks I’ve been puzzling over a question I’m not sure how to find the answer to. It’s not that it’s particularly complicated, just that I’m not sure which words to tap into google to get the answer. Ever since moving to London eleven years ago, I’ve used the big red busses quite frequently. When I first moved here, I remember being impressed with how all the busses had automatic ramps which the driver extended only by pushing a button on his dashboard. Up in Cheshire, whenever I wanted to get on a bus, to go from Alsager to Crewe say, the driver had had to get out from his seat and manually unfold the ramp for me. It was quite time consuming and laborious, and I think they resented it. What I want to know now is, has the rest of the country caught up with London? I haven’t had to use a bus outside of the capital in ages, so I don’t know the type of ramps they use. Of course, it is only due to activist groups like DAN, who campaigned for accessible public transport in the eighties and nineties, that busses have ramps at all; but I think they focussed specifically on London, so the rest of the country got rather left behind. Can anyone tell me what the situation is? What sort of wheelchair ramps do bussed outside London have? Does it vary from town to town, area to area? Have busses outside the capital been modified, or is this yet another situation where all the resources get poured into London and the rest of the country gets left behind?

As a James Bond fan, I’m not quite sure yet what to make of this news that MGM was today bought by Amazon. Of course, MGM has always been American, but the danger now is that Amazon will now seek to put it’s own mark on cinema’s longest running franchise as it tries to establish itself as a media giant. It has already said it plans to “reimagine and redevelop” it’s acquisitions, although what this means is unclear. While all art inevitably changes and evolves over time, I just hope they don’t go too far in trying to remake Bond in their own, perhaps American, image.

I think it worth noting that, for the first time in months, I had lunch in a cafe today. I went out for a walk with Dominik: we were passing through Woolwich at about four, and we were both getting hungry. It was just a simple sandwich, but having had just about all my meals at home for the last year, to finally eat something in a good old south London cafe complete with other Londoners, really felt like the return of something I had been missing. It wasn’t so much the food as such, although it was quite a good sandwich, as much as a hint of the type of culture which used to see me sitting in cafes and drinking coffee for hours. We didn’t stay long, but hopefully it won’t be too long now before such lunches become a regular occurrence.

I’m very pleased to report that I just had my first Covid vaccination dose. In the end I was given the Astrazenica vaccine, not that it matters at the end of the day. I’m just happy to have done my bit for society, to get past this wretched pandemic. Mind you, I’m very glad that I took Serkan with me to the pharmacy rather than going alone: rolling up there, joining the queue and giving my details, I was initially told that I couldn’t have my jab today for some reason and would have to re-book; yet Serkan stuck to his guns, fought my corner and got them to reconsider. It was quite a relief as I was eager to get it over and done with. I currently feel fine: my arm hurts slightly, but apart from that I’m rather perky. I suppose it’s the knowledge that I’ve done my bit to get past this pandemic.

If you ever start to feel hard done by by the current situation, I think this is worth remembering. Very sobering indeed.

As everyone will no doubt be aware, it’s the Eurovision Song Contest tonight. Say what you like about it, I have a bit of a soft spot for it. Now more than ever, we need this sort of big, international cultural event to bring everyone together and forget our divisions and differences, if only for an evening. One of the main things I watch out for every time it’s on, though, is the language each entry sings in: Do they sing in their own language, or do they use English or another language? I think it is a choice which is becoming increasingly telling, with English becoming more and more dominant, not just across Europe but the globe too. Largely thanks to the growing ubiquity of American film and culture, English is now almost a default tongue. Thus it’s always interesting to see which performances in tonight’s contest opt to sing in English, knowing it’s more likely to be understood by others, or have the cajones to use their own tongue in order to try to maintain a bit of cultural authenticity.

I know I shouldn’t just post links to Youtube videos on here, but I think this New York Times vid, comparing the cost and efficacy of the American Healthcare system to others across the world, is very, very telling. When looked at properly, it’s jaw-dropping to see how much worse the American system is – it’s focus on profit makes it almost draconian. It’s good to see Americans themselves at last realising this, and perhaps admitting to their selves that their country might not be quite as great as they like to think.

As I noted a few entries ago, seeing my parents last week felt great. After so much time apart, at last being able to cuddle Mum and Dad, after such a turbulent year, was long overdue. Today is dad’s birthday. Believe it or not, I (just about) remembered this time. I got dad a book, which I gave to him when he visited last week. I really hope, though, that it won’t be too long before we can meet again, hopefully this time involving one of mum’s excellent meals. After all, we can’t let dad hog all his birthday cake to himself, can we?

If you need any reassurance that not all Americans are total nutters when it comes to the issue of guns and gun control, just check this video out. Frankly, it’s refreshing to see an American talking coherently and rationally on the subject. I sometimes get the impression that firearm ownership is so ingrained in American culture that questioning it is seen as unpatriotic. It’s thus good to see an American state the obvious truth that the only way to reduce the number of gun related deaths is to reduce the availability of guns, and that not owning a gun does not mean you are any less ‘free’.

Perhaps someone isn’t as popular as he would have us believe

You may be expecting me, as a social and political commentator, to say something about what is currently unfolding in Israel. It really is a frightening situation there which seems to be worsening by the hour. The problem is, that is a subject I have learned over the years to steer well clear of. For starters, it is far too complex a situation for me to ever do justice – how could anyone say anything meaningful about it in a couple of hundred words? The bigger problem is, though, as soon as anyone tries to criticise Israel, you risk being accused of antisemitism. No matter how fair or objective you try to be, as soon as you point out the heavy handedness of the Israeli military or the illegality of their settlers, you open yourself up to being accused of antisemitism. The result is that, over the years, people like me have learned to avoid the subject altogether, not wanting to offend anyone or invite trouble. Indeed, even in pointing this out I’m worried I’ll invite criticism, as someone might say it paints Israel in a bad light.

Yet surely the only way we are ever going to be able to resolve problems like this is if we articulate them: we must not shy away from such issues for fear of offending others. Nor can we let Israel and it’s advocates hide behind this, accusing anyone who speaks out against them of being antisemitic; otherwise they will be allowed to get away with whatever they like. It is not antisemitic to point out that Palestinian men, women and children are being killed, or treated as second class citizens in their own country; yet as soon as anyone tries to point this out, they are accused of being antisemitic, resulting in everyone turning a blind eye to what is happening. I have nothing whatsoever against Jewish people, most of whom will probably be just as appalled by what is happening in Israel as anyone else. And of course, it goes almost without saying that what is happening in Israel should not be used as some kind of perverse excuse for discrimination against Jewish people. Yet surely what the Israeli government is currently doing to the Palestinians is against international law, with some likening it to apartheid. We must not be afraid to state that, or the situation will only continue.

In the weekly family Skype chat this morning, my brother Mark mentioned that he has been introducing my niece and nephew to Star Trek, and the renowned episode The Inner Light cropped up. Appropriately enough, I just came across this IOS article about that episode and it’s making. Apparently the episode stands out, not just in relation to Star Trek but generally, as an incredible piece of television. Even thirty years after it first aired, it is remembered for it’s pathos. It was pretty much the first episode of TNG where we were shown what an incredible actor Patrick Stewart could be. As the article points out, from then on future incarnations of Star Trek attempted to come up with their own equivalent of The Inner Light, such as DS9’s Hard Time, but for my money could never quite match it for it’s haunting, timeless quality. I suspect at least part of the reason for that is because only The Inner Light has this theme.

My parents paid me a visit yesterday, just for a couple of hours at lunchtime. It was great to see them, as we hadn’t met in person like that for about a year. I was in two minds about noting it on here, but thinking about it in the context of the past year, it was highly significant: perhaps it was a sign that we have almost come out the other end of this long, dark tunnel. More to the point though, I must say that getting to cuddle mum and dad yesterday felt astonishingly good. My parents have always been highly supportive of me and I’m still very close to them, so getting to hug them at last, after so many months of them just appearing at the end of a computer screen, was simply blissful. It hopefully won’t be too long until I see them again, but for now, the memory of those cuddles yesterday will keep me going.

This is as true as it is perverse

Yesterday on Facebook, for the first time ever, I noticed someone other than myself spelling a certain Tory Prime Minister’s name CaMoron. I was shocked. Of course, I’ve been spelling his name that way on here since he came to prominence over fifteen years ago, but that was the first time ever that I noticed someone else using that spelling. I can’t help wondering whether I have started something. I suppose it could just have been a coincidence, and somebody else might have thought it up independently of me; but if that spelling now takes off as a fashion, or if I see anyone else using it, I have every intention to take all the credit.