You may have noticed that I didn’t post an entry on here yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks. I take pride in keeping my blog updated, and get sort of fretful whenever I miss a day. That is rather silly, of course: it’s sometimes difficult to find something to write about on here every single day, and forcing myself to do so just leads to blogging for the sake of it. Besides, I posted every day in 2016 and 2017, an achievement I’m still quite proud of, and I still hope my brother Luke will one day upload my pre-2018 weblog archive so I can prove it (although he is quite a busy fellow these days, and there are about fifteen years of entries.) It makes me wonder, though: Does anyone know of any other personal blogs which have been updated at least every second day since around 2004, give or take the occasional break for holidays? I would be surprised if there were that many other bloggers who have posted so regularly for so long.

Now that I have a second backpack (thankyou Serkan) it seems I have two practically identical powerchairs. Both are fully charged and in good working order. I’m about to go out for my daily dose of fresh air, so the question I find myself mulling is, which chair should I take out? I’m seriously considering flipping a coin or doing ”eany meany miney moe” every day, but it may just be easier to alternate them, so they get equal use.

While I haven’t gone up to the North West in ages and frankly can’t see myself going up there any time soon, I now definitely want to visit the pub mentioned here. “A Merseyside pub has been cheekily renamed in an act of defiance towards the Government’s new lockdown restrictions in the area. The James Atherton in New Brighton, the Wirral, has renamed itself “The Three Bellends” – with a sign featuring the faces of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his close adviser Dominic Cummings and Health Secretary Matt Hancock. The sign appears as pubs were forced to close in the Liverpool area on Wednesday as part of the Government’s new three-tier system of coronavirus restrictions for England.”

You really have to take your hat off to the Merseyside sense of humour, although it’s probably also a sign of how frustrated and angry people are getting across the country. The pandemic has been woefully mismanaged, and people’s fury is rightly being directed to the idiots in charge. The pub’s landlord says he’ll change the name back once the current situation is over, but I really hope I have a chance to go and have a drink there, perhaps with Charlie, while it still has it’s current name.

I came across something last night which had me quite puzzled. It was a double episode of Storyville on the BBC about north Korea. While it claimed to be a documentary, watching it, it felt more like some kind of scripted, directed drama pretending to be a documentary. It was supposedly about a spy who was planted as a ‘mole’ in the Korean Friendship Association, a group trying to change perceptions of North Korea, in an attempt to gain access to the secretive state. While it was very interesting, to my eyes, something about it didn’t make sense. It was supposed to be shot entirely on hidden camera, and while many of the shots seemed that way, some of them were straight out of standard television dramas. There was no way the film’s makers could have got those shots through entirely hidden footage. And then we have the problem that some of the scenes we were shown seemed too convenient; we were privy to conversations which were too unlikely, yet too central to the plot, to have been captured purely through chance. Thus something about this film didn’t ring true, and I couldn’t quite make out whether I was watching a documentary or drama. Of course, answering these questions would mean rewatching and analysing the program shot by shot, but given that the subject of the program is currently so critical to geopolitics, for the BBC to air such an ambiguous film in the first place strikes me as very puzzling indeed.

I’m still a huge Michael Palin fan, and watching Travels Of A Lifetime these last two Sunday nights has been wonderful. It was through Palin’s travelogues that I was introduced to Monty Python. Something about watching this calm, pleasant, intelligent Englishman explore the more exotic parts of the world of a Sunday evening really captured my imagination: not only did it make my feet itch and want to see what Palin was showing us for myself, but it also made me curious about what else he had done. Hence I was introduced to, and fell in love with, dead parrots and transvestite lumberjacks.

Those shows were first broadcast in the early Nineties, when I was eight or nine and still at school. I remember them giving me a warm, cozy yet reassuring feeling, like when my Dad or Mum were reading a bedtime story, but tinged with curiosity and wonder. They told me that the world was out there to be explored, with great cities to see and adventures to be had; but whatever might happen, there will always be friendly people, good food and a warm bed at the end of the day. Binge-Watching Pole To Pole just now, I felt precisely the same coziness; but I now view it through adult, educated eyes. In Episode Two, for example, Palin visits St. Petersburg and shows us the Winter Palace. My mind immediately went back to AS History and what I learned of the Russian Revolution, which gave what Palin was saying far greater depth. This might be homely Sunday evening TV, but there is a depth and profundity underlying it. After all, we’re being shown parts of the world most of us would never normally see.

No wonder the beeb is screening a four part retrospective of Palin’s work in the same time slot that his shows originally aired; right now, I daresay it’s what most of us need. It’s great to see these programs recognised as the pioneering TV they were, and also to hear people like Joanna Lumley and Ade Adepitan noting what an impact Palin’s travelogues had on their later shows. Added to that, the input of the greatest broadcaster ever, Sir David Attenborough, make this fantastic Sunday night telly.

I must note, though, that Michael Portillo has been conspicuous in his absence, at least for the first two episodes of Travels Of A Lifetime. Surely he too owes a lot to Palin for his new career making programs about train journeys, but I somehow get the impression that the old Tory sees his shows as separate from others, as if he pioneered his own genre. (Is it me or does Portillo think he is Palin, or the Conservative equivalent of him?)

That aside, this really is succulent, outstanding television – the best type of telly for cold Sunday evenings.

This is going to sound a bit silly, but I think it’s worth noting. I have two powerchairs, so if I break one I can use the other while it’s being repaired. I’m supposed to use them both equally in order to level out wear and tear, but I must confess I tended to just use one while the other gathered dust. I suppose it was kind of a habit. I realised the other day why this was, though: only one chair had a bag on it’s back, and because of the way it was attached, couldn’t easily be swapped. So if I needed to buy anything when I was out and about, I could only take the one chair. It’s silly but true. The solution is, however, simple: I now intend to buy a second backpack as soon as possible.

Are Americans seriously supposed to believe that a man who claims to have contracted Corronavirus just a week ago is now perfectly well? A clinically obese, fairly unfit man in his seventies, who did nothing to avoid catching the virus and thus caught a fairly bad case of it, is now suddenly well enough again to resume holding campaign rallies? Is america seriously supposed to believe that?

And is the rest of the world seriously supposed to still respect this buffoon or the country he leads, after he has spent four years turning it into a laughing stock? After he has reduced political discourse there to the level of primary school playground bickering, and encouraged fascist thugs to reduce cities to ash? A once great, proud country, sunken to the level of petulant, horrifying bickering through the election of this imbecellic egomaniac with no idea how to lead a superstate; who claims to have caught a fatal virus but then suddenly recovers just a week later. Are we seriously supposed to respect that? Seriously?

Every Thursday evening recently, BBC Four have been airing a film from the Golden Age of Hollywood. It has been wonderful to watch a few of the classics, such as Doctor Zhivago. However, The Searchers was on last night, and it left me with a very nasty taste in my mouth.

Widely regarded as an all-time classic, this John Ford western has John Wayne going in search of a young woman apparently abducted long ago by Native Americans. I must say, though, the way the film is shot, with Wayne and co going off to deal with savage, backward ‘Indians’, appalled me. Viewed from Twenty-First Century eyes, the imperialism in this film is sickening. No attempt was made to explore things from the Native American perspective, but they were just dismissed as savages who had kidnapped a white girl and were bringing her up as one of their own. She thus needed rescuing. The Europeans, or those of European descent, on the other hand, were presented as noble, brave, and always doing the right thing: the settlers are depicted as out on the west, civilising it, trying to make a living for theirselves. Whatever faults they had (arguments, fights etc) were quickly, often comically dismissed. Wayne’s character in particular struck me as sickeningly racist and right wing, yet he is presented as heroic and brave. When he eventually finds the girl they’re searching for, she just flings herself into his open arms, no questions asked, no debate offered.

Perhaps at the time it was made, such issues would be taken as read; but viewed today, knowing what we now know about history and politics, so called classic westerns like this are shocking in their imperialism and arrogance. I know a lot more can be and has been written about this film, and, not having watched The Searchers since my undergrad days, this is only meant to represent my gut reaction to my viewing last night. Yet it nonetheless struck me as very problematic and dated indeed. I’m tempted to say that I’m glad we have grown past such attitudes, but I’m not sure all of us have.

A day or two ago, again on a disability facebook page, I came across a post by a young woman and her sister with quite severe CP. Obviously very energetic and fun loving, Hannah and Becky Cheetham made videos on Youtube of theirselves doing all kinds of amazing things like skydiving and parasailing. They had also made a couple of interesting little films about how the younger sister used her communication aid. However, their most recent video, tho one they posted to Facebook, was about how they had been very badly mistreated by the staff at Alton Towers. What the young woman, Hannah, was put through – spoken over and down to, ignored, and generally not treated like a sentient human being – was appalling, although sadly not that unusual, and I almost blogged about it on here.

This morning though, I turned on my computer to find this story on the BBC homepage. The beeb had obviously got wind of the video and had taken the story up. Alton Towers has now apparently apologised to the sisters, whose Youtube page can be found here.

Today we have all been subjected to two absolutely hideous spectacles: not only have we had to endure the sight of Boris Johnson lying his head off into a camera, claiming to be a man of optimism and energy and fairness, when we all know he’s a self-serving, selfish scumbag who’ll sell his own mother for his own advancement. Johnson seems to think people like him, and see him as cordial and charming, when in fact he’s deservedly loathed. The whole country is suffering at the moment, largely due to his government’s ineptitude; we’ve had balls-up after balls up. Thousands have died, and rather than try to condole everyone and admit his recent shortcomings, he spouts a load of fantasy twaddle. For one thing, for Johnson to suddenly claim to care about the environment when until recently his party was ridiculing the idea of green energy really takes the biscuit. If you ask me, instead of spewing all that bullshit this morning, the p’tahk should have been on his knees offering us his immediate resignation and begging our forgiveness for the damage he and his wretched party have done to the country over the last decade.

The second spectacle was even more galling, if that is possible. Now, I’m no fan of the military – I think there are always other ways to solve problems than with tanks and guns – but the sight of donald Trump standing there trying to look all stoic and brave, saluting as if he was some kind of mighty soldier, really boiled my blood. This is a man who famously dodged the draft for Vietnam; he’s a snivelling coward too self-important to fight for his country. How can America bare the sight of this p’tahk putting the health of all those around him at risk in order to go and wave to his moronic supporters? And then, returning to the White House far too soon, he has the audacity to claim to be brave and noble, congratulating himself like some mighty hero. I find such arrogance abominable.

Both these sights sicken me. The audacious arrogance of both is too much for me to stand. For all my life I have known people, mostly in the disability community, who were humble and stoic; who never complained even though they had been dealt appalling hands. These are the people I respect the most. The sight of these self-aggrandising apaths, so spoiled yet so full of shit, seems to me the very antithesis of such fortitude. Neither Johnson nor trump know what it is like to suffer, but have had life handed to them on a plate, or at least have lied and cheated their way to where they are. Yet both seem to think they were born to rule over the rest of us, as if being white, male, straight and wealthy automatically makes them superior to everyone else. They expect us to automatically respect them and believe whatever they say, even when they are blatantly lying and clearly have no idea what they’re doing. Neither man deserves to be where he now is, and having to watch them both act out their hideous, despicable charades is utterly, utterly sickening.

Given the subject of my MA I suspect everyone is expecting me to write something about the forthcoming closure of cinemas, but what can I say? Of course I’m depressed, but what can you do about it? I was looking forward to watching No Time To Die as much as any other Bond fan, and hearing it has been delayed yet again, after already waiting so long to see it, made me sigh such a deep, pained sigh. Yet in a way we all knew it was coming; it is typical for this woe-begotten, crappy year. If the government put as much into preserving the cinema and theatre industry as they put into the pub and brewery industry, things might be different; but the Tories get a hefty chunk of their donations from pubs, and not much from the arts. The cinemas have therefore been left to close, taking with them a vibrant, valuable aspect of our culture. We’re left to watch films online, longing for the day when we can go back into a nice, big, cinema screening room, perhaps with a few friends, take our seats, wait for the lights to dim, and then be carried away to places where only the cinema can take us.. There is something peculiar to the cinema which enhances the viewing experience, which is why, as explained here, EON chose to once again postpone the release of No Time To Die until the Spring. Until then we must wait, hoping that cinemas, like so many other things, survive the winter.

You would probably be appalled if I told you that, in Britain today, a certain group of people is effectively barred from certain pubs and other establishments. While the Guardian celebrates the fascinating life of a man who, fifty years ago, fought to overthrow the so-called colour bar which made pubs no-go places for black people, the fact is there is still a group of people for whom certain pubs are inaccessible. The circumstances may be different, but the result is the same.

If you use a wheelchair or powerchair, there are still pubs and other places which you simply can’t get into. Either there will be a step up to the door, or the doorway will be too narrow, or (pandemic aside) the place will be just too crampt to navigate through. Fortunately these days, thanks to legislation intended to ensure accessibility, such places are becoming rarer and rarer, at least in London, but nonetheless they still exist. And that’s even before you get to the problems of getting the bar staff to understand you.

Of course, I’m not claiming this is akin to overt ethnic discrimination; but surely it has to be pointed out that people with disabilities still can’t go into certain places because of issues which are entirely avoidable. While historic buildings, which often includes pubs, can be exempt from new accessibility rules, it can’t be that hard: Install a ramp, redesign your table layout and Bob’s your uncle. While this is very different to being told to leave a pub because of your skin colour, it is only when we start to frame such issues as forms of discrimination that they start to be dealt with.

The Tories apparently now plan to establish a second headquarters up in Leeds. They claim it is in order to encourage support in the north or some such rubbish, but I think they’ve realised they are becoming less and less relevant in London and so need to establish a base elsewhere. London is a liberal, multicultural, vibrant world city; the stagnant, selfish, repressive politics of the right has no place here. London consistently votes Labour, and also voted Remain. No wonder the Tories are going packing. They say they’ll keep their Westminster HQ open of course, but surely this is a sign that they have realised their fetid, selfish worldview has no place in a global metropolis, and so need to look elsewhere for zombies to trick into voting for them. Good riddance I say.

Yesterday afternoon I received a tenancy renewal form in my email. I’ve now lived in Eltham for almost a year, so I suppose it was time for it to arrive. I opened the form and set to work on it, thinking that it shouldn’t be too much of a problem – I do have a masters, after all. To my horror, though, I soon realised I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. It asked all kinds of random, irrelevant questions. In desperation, I did what I usually do with such matters and sent it to my parents for help. (My new motto: When in doubt, delegate.) Fortunately they got a bit further with it, although mum and dad admiited it wasn’t at all straightforward, and told me I was right to ask for their help. The form asked for details which I just don’t have access to.

The form is now on it’s way to where it needs to go, and once again I’m left feeling relieved that I have such capable, wonderful parents; a cuddle with them both is frankly long overdue. Yet that relief is tinged with worry as well as self criticism: what if my parents weren’t there? Isn’t this the sort of thing I ought to be able to do myself? Why couldn’t I access the information I needed to fill out the form? Lyn seems to have been able to handle such issues, so why can’t I? Delegation is all well and good, but surely I should be up to things like this if I’m to be an independent member of the community. More to the point, though, why do they have to make such forms so damn complex? Even my parents, who are used to such things, had a tough time sorting through this mess, so where would it leave someone even less capable than me who doesn’t have such a wonderful mum and dad to fall back on?

I just got back from a trip to Boots where I needed a couple of things, one of which was deodorant. In the deodorant aisle, though, I saw something that made me do a double take – something so weird that I instantly resolved to note it here. Would you believe that Linx now produce a deodorant which smells like Marmite? How odd is that? I mean, I have nothing against Marmite – in fact I rather like it – but who in their right mind would want to smell like a sandwich? Needless to say, I left the shop feeling very bemused.

Today marks my niece Elise’s fourth birthday. Earlier I contacted my brother Mark to ask him to wish her a happy birthday, and he sent back a video of Elise with her cake. It was great to see, but the truth is it now feels like far, far too long since I last saw Mark, Kat and the children. I always had visions of myself as the type of zany, quirky uncle who would make his niece and nephew laugh, and who they would look forward to seeing. As with everything else. I suppose, the pandemic has forced those plans to be put on hold. Oh well, there’s time yet, so I’ll just wish Elise a wonderful birthday, and hope that she enjoyed her cake.

I just came across something truly heartwarming on Facebook which I think deserves noting. I’m a member of several disability and cp-related Facebook groups. A few days ago on one of them, I saw a post by a young man explaining that he had broken the wheel of his rolator walking frame and couldn’t afford to have it repaired. As such the Man United supporter was stuck at home. I couldn’t do much to help other than suggest he contacted his social worker.

Well, this morning a picture appeared on the same facebook group of the young man with a brand new red walking frame. Someone had apparently seen his facebook post and bought it for him. It really is heartwarming to see that social media has the power to do things like that, especially these days when society seems so fractured. Indeed, if social services did it’s job properly in the first place, such acts of online charity, incredible though they are, wouldn’t be necessary.

All I can say in response to this is, ”Where can I get one of those powerchairs?” The land speed record for an electric wheelchair has been broken by a guy with Motor Neurone Disease: ”Jason Liversidge, who has motor neurone disease, reached nearly 67mph (108km/h) at Elvington Airfield, near York. The father of two, from Rise in East Yorkshire, had been aiming for the record for about three years. The world speed record for an electric all-terrain mobility vehicle was previously 62mph.” I’ll tell you now, 8mph feels fast in a powerchair, so seventy would be scary. Mind you, it would make the trip to Tesco and back a bit quicker.

Say that you’re a production executive at a big media company. Due to the pandemic, audiences are thirsty for new, interesting things, but the media landscape is largely stagnating due to the problems associated with filming new things at the moment. People are getting bored of watching repeats, so what do you do? Easy: just recomission a classic satirical show from the eighties which used puppets to make fun of current political events. That way, no actors need to risk their lives, but not only does it satisfy an audience’s need to poke fun at the current political farce, it also appeals to their sense of nostalgia.

To be honest I was never into Spitting Image; I was too young to appreciate political satire when it first aired in the eighties. My only real contact with it was when my brother Mark played The Chicken Song on his ghetto blaster, but even then I didn’t realise where it came from. Yet it’s return to screens, albeit online ones, this Autumn seems very timely: when you think about it, it’s the perfect show for these crazy times, with politics more farcical and suited for satire than ever, but with no actual actors involved. Of course, it remains to be seen how well the new series goes down – there have been attempts to revive it before – but personally I have high hopes.

Truth be told, I’m not completely sure what to make of this news that the producers of the Simpsons have elected to recast the voice of Homer’s friend Carl so that he’s voiced by a black man. On the one hand, I can certainly see where they’re coming from: of course black characters ought to be portrayed by black actors, just as disabled characters should be played by disabled people. It applies to any minority, and lends a degree of authenticity to a role. On the other hand, does it matter as much when dealing with cartoons? Audiences don’t actually see actors, just hear their voices, so does the same principal apply? In animation, just about anything can be anthropomorphised and given a voice, from mice to trains to toys: it’s up to an actor to step into a role. Given Carl has been voiced by Hank Azaria for thirty-odd years, moreover, won’t audiences notice the change? It’s a toughie.

With a second Scottish independence referendum now looking more and more likely, and support for a united Ireland growing, both due to Brexit, today we begin to wonder how long it will be before Kent declares itself independent from the UK. Quite unbelievably, the Outists are now saying that there will now need to be a border around Kent in order to control customs to and from the EU. Can things get any sillier? If that happens, I reckon it won’t be long before Kent starts it’s own independence movement. After all, in the so-called dark ages, Kent was it’s own kingdom; things are now so insane that, if this border is established, it won’t take much for some kind of Kentish independence movement to start to appear. If Brexit goes as catastrophically as any sensible person thinks it will, it could well motivate Kent even further to leave the UK and rejoin the EU on it’s own, benefitting from the trade through it’s ports as well as the Channel Tunnel. How amusing would that be? And the crazy thing is, it might not be that far fetched.

Yesterday NASA announced plans to send people back to the moon for the first time since the seventies. Ordinarily, I’d be bouncing up and down with excitement at such news: I’m all for anything that advances humanity’s exploration of space. These days though, I can’t help suspecting that this is less about science and more about geopolitics. With China having announced it’s own plans to send people to the lunar surface, America seems desperate to retain – or reclaim – what it seems to feel as it’s inherent position as the world’s leading spacefaring nation. The position the US once had, or thought it had, as the most advanced nation on earth is slipping. It assumed the cosmos was theirs alone for the taking – we can see that in it’s plans to mine the moon, as if it automatically belonged to America. The fact that other nations are catching up and possibly overtaking America is why it now seems desperate to repeat it’s great triumphs of fifty years ago. Thus while I’m all for the exploration of the final frontier, I can’t help feeling this has more to do with a once great nation trying to restore its prominence.

Saint Aigur Blue Cheese and Jam (preferably my mum’s home made strawberry jam) spread in equal measure on toast may sound a bit weird, but as I learned this morning, it’s absolutely delicious. I’ve seen serkan making it for himself a couple of times, and today curiosity got the better of me. He says it’s his own invention. What at first glance might seem like a very strange combination actually goes together really well, the sweetness of the jam offsetting the musky bitterness of the cheese. I dare you to try it.

Compared with London, Congleton is a small, dull place; so why am I craving once again strolling around it in my powerchair? I have now lived in the capitol for over ten years, and I still love it for it’s energy and vibrancy. I love the feeling of being in a world city, one of humanity’s major cultural hubs. Yet recently I’ve been thinking about the small Cheshire town where I grew up. I’ve been back there a few times since I moved to london, of course, visiting my parents; yet I didn’t take my powerchair with me, so I couldn’t wander around the town as I once did.

I think that’s what I’m missing. It’s not that there’s much to see, especially compared to the metropolis: there’s just something about following the roads, lanes and paths I have known since infancy which I find myself craving. I used to go out for hours in my powerchair, to the town centre or through the park, where I still remember being pushed on the swings as a child. Either that or up the lanes between the fields towards Swettenham, trundling along listening to the birds. These days I can go to Eltham or Woolwich or Greenwich, or anywhere in this vast urban expanse; yet there’s something about trundling about that quiet northern town surrounded by countryside which I’m starting to crave. Something about those streets which I once knew so well, which I have so many memories of, but which I last went down a lifetime ago.

I’m obviously just feeling nostalgic. Many people are, these days: this year has been so relentlessly depressing that we all want to return to happier times. All the same, I hope that, soon enough, perhaps next spring, I’ll find myself heading in my chair down Rood Hill or through Congleton Town Centre, trying to spot anything or anyone I recognise. I will probably be feeling rather snooty and superior about now being a Londoner, but beneath that there will be a great deal of affection. I may have changed a great deal over the last decade as I have grown used to the cut and thrust, the speed and noise of life in a great metropolis; but I will always be from that small town up in Cheshire, surrounded by fields.

The details are fairly complex so I better not try to summarise them here, but I want to flag this quite important Disability News Service article up. As I touched upon a few days ago, the new Coronavirus Act looks like it is going to have a lot of worrying consequences for people with disabilities. While as the article says, it is up to individual county councils whether to trigger the particular ‘easements’ which would threaten peoples’ right to social care, people are now nonetheless very, very worried about now suddenly having their support taken away.

To be honest I hadn’t heard of Ruth Bader Ginsburg before this morning, but her sad death has made me aware of the loss of a very important figure in American politics. From what I’m now hearing, this news should concern us all. Ginsburg was a liberal, a champion of women’s and minority rights; one of the few remaining figures tethering American politics to any form of sanity. If she is now replaced, as now seems likely, with a far more right wing Supreme Court Judge, it would only accelerate America’s drift towards the right. Under Trump, it is already frighteningly conservative as it is, with some even calling his perverse plans for the teaching of a one sided view of American history fascist. If Bader Ginsburg is replaced with someone as reactionary, intolerant and stupid as trump, one who is likely to side with him over any election dispute, the world’s foremost economy would effectively have become a fascist state. My, what truly frightening times we live in.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve been watching The Joy of Painting quite a bit recently. The classic series from 1985 is being repeated every evening on BBC Four. There’s something enormously therapeutic and relaxing in watching a weird, but obviously very talented, American guy create a painting from scratch. Of course, the program was designed to teach people various techniques of landscape painting, but given I can barely hold a paintbrush let alone replicate anything the great Bob Ross shows us, I think there is something else in this television show which fascinates me. There is something about watching an image being created from a blank screen over half an hour which is both relaxing and compelling. The pictures Ross creates are usually quite beautiful and evocative. Who knows whether a program like that could be commissioned these days, but in repeating them I suspect BBC Four is trying to tell us all to chill out a bit.

This just about sums up the utter stupidity of Brexit.

At PMQs earlier today, the new Lib Dem leader Ed Davey told Bojo (and the country) how new Coronavirus legislation is unfairly impacting people with disabilities. Unfortunately the exchange, as well as Johnson’s reply, was fairly vague, so it isn’t clear what impact Davey thinks the new Coronavirus Act will have, but he seemed to imply that people’s ability to get their care needs assessed will be affected. Getting such an assessment is hard enough these days as it is, so this could mean a lot of trouble for a lot of people. From what I’ve read, though, it will also remove local social services’s duty of care for disabled people, effectively undoing whatever progress we have made towards independence and equality over the last forty years. Councils will no longer be legally required to provide support for people like me to live independently. Typically, of course, the snivelling little p’tahk we currently call the Prime Minister just waved the question airily away, saying he’ll write to the Lib Dem leader, obviously indicating he doesn’t fully understand the implications of his own legislation.

I think this may well be worth a watch. BBC America is going to screen a series of monologues by and about disabled people. Fronted by Mat Frasier, Crip Tales will apparently be a series of fifteen minute shorts in which a person with a disability talks about life from their perspective. That certainly sounds interesting, although I suspect they’ll have to be very careful not to let it cross the line into either self pity or self parody.

At least today we have some incredible news to take our minds off all the other awful stuff happening on planet earth: scientists have detected phosphene in the atmosphere of Venus. They say it may be evidence of life there. On earth, the gas is associated with biological processes. I find that very exciting indeed. A few weeks ago, I heard similar speculations about Pluto, so it’s starting to look like life, in all kinds of forms, may be fairly abundant in our solar system. If that is true, think of the implications for the galaxy, and indeed the universe: could it be that the cosmos is, in fact, teaming with life?

What should you do when one of your old special school friends starts to write nonsense on their Facebook page about how we should end social distancing, stop testing for coronavirus, and about how more people will die from suicide than covid this winter if things don’t go back to normal? Do you try to convince them that they’re wrong, potentially upsetting them? Or do you just leave them be? They have obviously been hooked by one of the many lies and conspiracy theories now spreading rampantly across the web. The problem is, after over six months of social distancing etc, you can see how tosh like this might start to appeal to people, especially if they aren’t so familiar with the actual facts. But to let rubbish like this go unchecked and unchallenged surely risks it spreading, which in turn will obviously lead to the virus spreading more too.

I just got in from my daily stroll. It’s quite a nice day, so I thought I’d take myself to woolwich to look at the river. The riverside there is developing quickly, and apparently hopes to one day compete with The South Bank as an arts/cultural centre. On my way there, though, I passed through General Gordon Square, and was astonished to find a carnival in full swing. There were stalls, rides, samba bands – the lot. I was flabergasted I must say – had nobody there been told about the pandemic? Very few people there were wearing masks. I don’t want to sound like a spoil sport, but given that we had to cancel the local film festival, it seemed rather unfair.

I didn’t stay long before rolling on, trying not to get within two metres of anyone there. It makes you worry, though: with the R rate rising again, and events like that cropping up more and more, could a second lockdown now be necessary?

I just came across something very interesting indeed on my friend Mark Rowland’s facebook page. Mark was an old friend of Lyn’s from long before I met her. He’s a musician who participated in the Drake Music Project, which twenty one years ago appeared on the Jools Holland show as part of the Edinburgh Festival. As you can see, the video is a quite fascinating insight into disability music at that time; Adele Drake’s project was quite groundbreaking in finding ways for musicians with disabilities to make music. This short film, in a way, shows the very beginnings of a revolution which would eventually lead to things like the British Paraorchestra.

On Facebook Mark writes, ”I think that this concert showed true diversity of true musicianship with disabilities and able-bodied playing on a stage. I have not seen that since really. I think that is sad…” It is certainly true that concerts like this gave the wider audiences their first glimpses of what guys like Mark and Lyn are capable of; yet, rather than being a one-off, this concert was the beginning of something incredible. It may have been the first time musicians with disabilities were showcased on national TV, vintage computers and all, but things like this open doors to bigger, grander things (check this out for one). Thus I think this is a pretty awesome glimpse into the history of disability music.

What sad news to hear that Dame Diana Rigg has passed away today. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is still one of my favourite Bond films, and Rigg’s portrayal of Tracey – loyal to Bond, yet very  much his equal – helped make that film the masterpiece it is. Yet that was just one performance of a great many which secured Rigg’s place among cinema’s greatest actors. Alas, film has lost yet another great from it’s Golden Age.

While I don’t think I can expand much upon it since I haven’t seen the films it references, I think this Guardian piece is definitely worth a read. Science fiction, it argues, is getting ‘serious’. That is, there is a wave of new films about time travel which go to some effort to engage with the philosophical ideas underpinning the notion. We therefore see things such as characters trying to get to grips with the grandfather paradox, and referencing thinkers like Nietzsche. As the article itself says, that sort of stuff can get rather heavy and off-putting pretty quickly, but I think it’s great to see the return of this kind of cerebral sci-fi, unafraid to play with difficult ideas and stretch audiences a bit. These days, there’s so much action-based, comic-book–derived dross saturating the genre, I think something a bit heavier would be quite welcome.

Sorry my blogging has been a bit patchy lately. I take quite a bit of pride in the fact that I keep my blog updated. I blog every day if I can. Recently, though, the situation with my health has meant that my blog has taken a back seat: it’s rather hard to find a subject and write a blog entry about it when it feels like there is a great big hole in your tongue. I’m pleased to report, though, that I’m on the mend: while my last full night’s sleep was about two weeks ago. I can feel my mouth returning to normal. Perhaps soon I’ll be able to concentrate on other, more interesting, things, rather than moping around feeling sorry for myself.

My parents came to visit yesterday. It was the first time we had physically seen eachother for over six months, so it was great to at last have their company. We just spent three or four hours having coffee before going up to Eltham Palace for a walk. Mum and dad couldn’t stay too long before needing to get back to north London – they were concerned about the tube, and how few people were wearing masks. Nonetheless it felt great to see them: I’m still quite close to my parents, and being able to catch up with them physically felt good. It felt odd not to be able to cuddle them – it seems this pandemic has ruled out even simple, natural things such as hugging one’s parents – but let’s hope that that situation changes soon.