I knew I had good cause to be proud of London. The Evening Standard is reporting that seven in ten Londoners now back remaining in the European Union. Of course, the outist p’tahks will say it means the  capital is full of snobby cappuccino-drinking poshboys, but to me it just reinforces my fondness for this outward-looking, forward-thinking metropolis.

I am beginning to think I have a  serious problem with my rages; they are worse than ever. These days, even the simplest thing can make me go ballistic. I have known that my CP effects my emotional control for a while now, but it is really getting stupid. I get wound up over the simplest things: it’s what brought on that rather juvenile blog entry about Lee Ridley a couple of days ago; and whenever I see anything pro-brexit online, I go baserk. It’s reached a point where I’ve been waking up at night and winding myself up so much that I end up banging my mattress with rage. I have quite a bit on my mind at the  moment in my personal life, and I’m worried about my future, but even if they last only a few seconds, these rages cannot be healthy. For a few moments I think the whole world is out to get me, or  that I have enemies  who have screwed me over and whom I must find and kill. It really is getting ridiculous. I really need to chill out.

I’m afraid to admit that I’m not at all surprised by this news.  ”Online disability hate crime has hit record levels in England and Wales, surging by a third in one year, figures show.”  As  alarming as that is, I’m afraid it’s  just a sign of the times: everyone seems to be getting angrier  and angrier, lashing out at minorities including those of us with disabilities. Arseholes like Trump and Farage have given the green light, in some, to express prejudices which would previously have been frowned upon, so that these uneducated, unthinking trolls now think  its big or manly to call people names and resort to the most  base, disgusting insults. The result is increased anger and hostility all round. With everyone getting so angry, especially online, I dread to think where this is heading.

There’s no denying the country is currently utterly divided, possibly more divided politically than it ever has been. Brexit has torn us in two, and, despite Corbyn’s laughable attempts to straddle the fence, I don’t see the country coming back together anytime soon.  Now, this might be a silly idea, but it seems to me that what we could do with now is a great big party. Think back to 2012, when the country was all cheerfully united behind London  (the Lib Dems recently invoked the same  idea in a recent ad). I wish we could get some of that united feeling  back. As much as I despise Brexit, this current widespread hostility isn’t good for anyone.

What we all need, then, is a great big party. I  think this is what the tories were getting at with there widely-ridiculed ‘Festival of Britain’ idea. But cruising around a rainy Woolwich yesterday,  I had an idea: what if Crossrail had an opening ceremony? We’ve all been waiting ages for this new zarking tube line, so we might as well have a party when it finally opens. Why not? It could be a big,  grand affair; and since one of it’s main termini will be up in stratford, why not put the show on in the olympic stadium.

The only question is, what would be in the show and who would direct it? I recon it should be on similar lines to the 2012 opening ceremony, although, given old Liz would be at least eight years older by the time Crossrail opens, and 007 will probably have another actor playing him, reusing this film might seem a little dated. Even so,  just think what could be in it   and what a party could be thrown. I definitely think it should include at least one rendition of this song. The  only thing is, it would have to steer clear of politics: if it appeared to  celebrate Remain or Leave, it would only deepen already dangerously deep divisions. Better just celebrate trains, tunnels, and stuff we all agree about.

I think this is worth  flagging up today. A large proportion of musicians with disabilities are being denied work because they can’t   access venues, or their disabilities can’t be accommodated in some other way. To be honest I’m not surprised. The flip side of the coin, of course, is that  we disabled punters can’t go to a lot of gigs because the venues are still inaccessible. Having said that, things have improved vastly from how they  were, especially in London. My trip to India really drove home how good London is for accessibility. Sure there’s still quite a long  way to go, but having visited a  place where I would have struggled to get anywhere if I had not had a PA like John, I now think london is quite advanced in terms of accessibility.

I honestly don’t know what to make of this. The beeb are running a competition to find the best use of David Attenborough’s voice in a piece of electronic dance  music. When I said we ought to have some kind of awesome  national tribute to  Sir David Attenborough, using his voice on dance tracks isn’t quite what I had in mind. At first glance, I thought it might be a cool idea, especially given  the article says the music uses Attenborough’s early audio recordings for Zoo Quest; but, having listened to the tracks  and not being a fan of trancey-dancey music  anyway, I can’t say I’m that enthusiastic about it. Mind you,  I know at least a couple of people I could  encourage to enter.

Edit, 19 may 2019. When I first heard that Lee Ridley had published a book, I got quite jealous and made a lot of stupid assumption. Having finally got round to reading the first chapter of the book itself, I’m quite frankly furious I ever wrote such a bollocks entry. I’ll try to write a full review when I’ve finished it, but I’m Only In It For The Parking is shaping up to be a seminal text on disability. It is both informative and funny. It has a type of self knowledge ideally suited for introducing  nondisabled people to what I instantly recognised as my world. Ridley is clearly a very good writer indeed I’m embarrassed that I was ever so childish and arrogant.

Yesterday afternoon I came across a reference to a film called Denial, drawing links between it’s subject and contemporary attitudes and events. The film, the Facebook post said, was about a historian who tried to deny the holocaust, but the post attempted to draw a parallel between it and Trumps attempt to rewrite history over the size of his inauguration crowd. Intrigued, I decided to look the film up, and I found what I saw very interesting indeed.

When I say interesting, in this case, I do not wish to imply the film is not troubling: what Denial deals with – the deliberate rewriting of history for political purposes – is obviously very troubling indeed. It is a BBC film from 2016, directed by Mick Jackson, which concerns a court case between Deborah Lipstadt, an American holocaust scholar, and David Irving, an arrogant holocaust denier who has built a career trying to rewrite history. Irving is suing Lipstadt for libel, accusing her of defaming him as an academic. Because the burden of proof lies with the accused in the UK, it is up to Lipstadt and her team to demonstrate that irving knowingly lied about the holocaust.

Back in my third undergraduate year at university, our cultural studies course was on Heimat, a german television series which dealt with the cultural fallout of the holocaust. Some of the background reading we needed to do touched upon the historiography of the holocaust, and the philosophy of history as a discourse. Ever since then I have been rather interested in what history actually is and how we know what happened in the past actually happened. It isn’t as certain as one at first assumes. All one has to go on are contemporary records and accounts, accounts which, of course, are invariably subjective and open to scrutiny. Rather than being fixed, then, history is open to revision and change.

When it comes to highly emotive, political issues like the holocaust, however, you can see how that can become very problematic. Bigots like irving who want to redraw figures like Hitler claim that documents confirming the holocaust were somehow falsified by the allies; they seek to let the Nazis off the historical hook. Some claim it is a jewish conspiracy made up in order to justify the creation of Israel. It then falls to people like Lipstadt to show they are actively and dishonestly trying to deceive us. History is always going to be subjective; the danger comes when people try to use that subjectivity for their own political advantage. The murder of six million jews must never be forgotten to history, but there are people who want it erased from the historical discourse in order to justify their own views. It falls to the rest of us to remain true to the overwhelming evidence and see that the past is not rewritten.

I think I can see what the post I initially came across on Facebook was getting at. Of course, holocaust denial and the size of Trumps inauguration crowd are two entirely different kettles of fish; but in both cases we find powerful forces trying to reshape and redraw what we think happened in the past, for their own ends. While you can go too far in trying to liken Trump to a Nazi, he nonetheless seems to want to dispute what the rest of us know to be fact: we all know that his inauguration crowd was nowhere near the biggest in history, and there are photographs confirming that. Like people like Irving, he would have us believe something other than what we know to be true.

In the film, David Irving is played excellently by Timothy Spall as a smarmy, obnoxious arrogant arsehole. He has a massively overinflated ego, and thinks he is far more important than he actually is. The world seems saturated with people like that at the moment, Trump, Farage and Rees-Mogg being just three. They are full of their own importance, and seem to demand a respect they are by no means owed. Thus, while it was set around twenty years ago, Denial seems to speak to the contemporary political world, about men who think they have the power and the right to reshape our perception of reality. Just as Irving was set on portraying himself as a great historian trying to rewrite history, a david against the Goliath of the political elite, twats like Farage and Trump like to depict themselves as political underdogs up against a so called liberal elite. The irony is, they are highly privileged white men out to maintain their inherited social and political dominance. Thus in irving we see a forerunner of what we see now: smarmy white male liars trying to distort reality for their own ends.

The frightening thing is, Trump and co seem to be succeeding where Irving failed. People are falling for their rewriting of history, believing what they are told rather than going back to the evidence. Hence in some areas, Trump has succeeded in rewriting history: some people believe his outrageous claims, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, just because it was Trump who said it. This strikes me as very dangerous indeed. It implies a personality cult the type of which we haven’t seen in years. Just as people like Irving go to great lengths to exonerate Hitler, so people perform astonishing acts of self delusion to believe the bullshit Trump spouts.

I daresay that may be part of what Jackson was trying to point out in making this film three years ago: the human capacity for self delusion is staggering. Yet in spite of the fact that access to information has never been so easy, now more than ever people are willing to believe what they are told against all contrary evidence, simply because they favour the person telling it. Thus the fragility of the historical discourse and the notion of historiography have never been so relevant. Certain people seem to think their gender, ethnicity and wealth means whatever they say should hold more authority than any other contribution to the discourse, historical or political. People like Irving, Trump and Farage would bend history to their own ends, perverting people’s perceptions simply to add to their own power; it is up to the rest of us to see that they don’t succeed.

I took myself to watch Tolkien yesterday, the new Biopic of one of my favourite writers. I had been looking forward to it, and whizzed down to the cinema as soon as I could. Now that I’ve seen it, though, I can’t say I was that taken by it. JRR Tolkien was a great writer, philologist and intellectual, no doubt about it; but that does not necessarily make a good subject for a film. I find myself agreeing with the good Dr. Kermode here: the film felt quite pedestrian and dry, without much inherent drama to it. Of course, there was an attempt to dramatise Tolkien’s relationship with Edith and the loss of his friends in world war one, but such stories could also be told about many other men. As Kermode says, had Tolkien not been the writer behind what is now one of the greatest cinematic franchises ever, it’s hard to see this film ever being made. Don’t get me wrong, it was a lovely tribute to a man once deemed ”The creative equivalent of an entire people”; yet rather conservative, religious oxford dons don’t necessarily make the best subjects for cinematic spectacles. Perhaps a second viewing would help, but until then I am not as enthusiastic about this film as I hoped I would be.

Not that I think it’s just a bbc problem, but I thought this was certainly worth nabbing

The tories are now apparently spouting the line that they got walloped in the local elections, not because the electorate is fed up with Brexit and want it stopped, but because we’re all eager for Brexit to happen. Have you ever heard so much bullshit? It’s easily disproved  by the  simple fact that parties who promise a second referendum did so  well. If the tories were correct, surely most people would have voted for Outist parties. What I find disturbing, though, is that it gives us an idea of the extent to  which  the Conservatives are willing to distort reality: they would have us  believe things which are patently untrue, just so  they can force through a project which they know full well will ruin the country. It is really becoming sickening, and smacks of an arrogance I cannot abide. They are trying to warp the obvious truth so much that surely it insults our collective intelligence.

I’m inordinately proud to announce that the  first three chapters of the podcast of my university memoir, Sweet Home Alsager,  are now online and can be listened to here. My thanks of course go out to Caroline Fielding and Tracey Iris Francis at Charlton Park Academy who helped me put it together, and William Jones who recorded it for me. You’re all stars! To everyone else, have a listen, enjoy it, and let me know what you think. More chapters will be uploaded shortly.

I’m not sure  that I ever actually will, but after coming across it yesterday I have a hankering to go and check this band out. ‘Q The Music’ markets itself as a James Bond tribute band, specialising in playing the themes from the bond  films. Of course,  massive 007 fan that I am, I’ve always been into the music; the  themes are arguably one of the primary aspects of the franchise. The very mention of James Bond is prone to automatically bring songs like this, this or this to mind. Yet  it’s interesting to note, I think, that the Bond franchisee can be explored (or exploited) in this way: what other series of films could you do this with? What other franchise even comes close to Bond’s impact on popular culture, not just in terms of music but clothes and iconography etc.? Of course, you can name things like the Harry Potter or Marvel franchises, but  Iim not sure they even come close to Bond’s position as a recurring aspect of mainstream popular culture for almost sixty years. The question which still puzzles me is, why?

Earnest Hemingway once famously said that he found London rather dull, and, believe it or not, I thing I now know what he meant. I took myself up to Stratford this afternoon, just to withdraw some money and have a walk around the olympic park. That area is developing nicely, with swanky modern buildings popping up all over the place, but what struck me most was how quiet and orderly it was: everything worked, and everybody obeyed the rules. Tube trains came and went on time; electric doors opened and shut as they should. On the roads people drove calmly and considerately, obeying the  traffic laws. Compared to where I was a couple of weeks ago, in fact it felt quite clinical. Compared to Delhi or Jaipur, there is a sterility to London which now seems rather boring. The pavements are well maintained and the grass is nicely cut, and while such things are normally very welcome, London now seems unexciting. There are a lot of cool new things in development here, but that will always be the case in any thriving first world city. What I found myself missing this afternoon was character and excitement – a type of exoticism I found in Indian cities which went hand in hand with the noise and chaos. Perhaps I have simply been living here too long, but after nine years in London, for all the cool cultural stuff which happens here, it’s starting to feel a bit too tame. I know I can get to where I want to go on public transport, but that now almost seems inhuman and sterile to me, as if it is too efficient in a way. The chaos of Indian cities gave them a feeling of excitement which London seems to lack: it now feels quiet and small, orderly and boring.

I can now declare summer to be officially here. It might not be quite as warm as it was a couple of weeks ago, but this afternoon I came across a glorious sight in the park: the first cricket match of the year. All right, it’s technically not the first cricket  I’ve seen this year as I saw a  few snippets of the IPL when I was in India, but nonetheless it was a very  welcome sight. I didn’t stay to watch long as I wanted to continue my stroll, but it really put a smile on my face. Such things remind you that, no matter how grim or screwed up things may be getting, there will always be a few things you can rely on. It also reminds you that long, hot days are just around the corner. I daresay a balmy summer is the very thing the country needs right now.

This will sound rather pathetic of someone who professes to be a cinephile, but I’ve never really been into Stanley Kubrick. 2001 A  Space Oddysey was fine, but when I saw it in my late teens I found a Clockwork Orange a very difficult film, and never bothered to go back to  it. However, this might give me the incentive I need to go back  to Kubrick. There is a huge exhibition about him at london’s  design museum, and from Will Gompertz’ review it sounds intriguing. I now really want to go up there to check it out. I still really want to find something new to get into, and with any luck this could be it. The way Gompertz describes some of the fragments of cinematic history is enough to get my cinephhiiliac juices flowing all over again.

According  to the Huffington Post, Jeremy Corbyn has announced he will boycott Trump’s upcoming  visit, on the grounds that he does not want to show his support for the misogynist buffoon. I just came across the story linked to on a facebook page (where else do you find news these days?) but my reaction was to smirk. Just who is Corbyn trying to kid? True, Trump is a repugnant asshole, but how can Corbyn pretend to be repulsed by his far right,  ultra-capitalist politics while refusing to oppose Brexit? Trump and brexit are virtually the same thing; they both stem from the  same time of nationalist, reactionary, moronic mindset.

It’s  as if Corbyn is trying to  reclaim his leftist, liberal activist credentials. He knows most of his party want him to come out in support of a second referendum. He  knows  he looks useless as he leaves the door  open to a hard brexit, so he’s itching to get his Trotskyite image back, and thinks boycotting Trump’s visit will do the trick. After all, he knows how vile Trump is to anyone even remotely capable of indipendent  thought. Well, Corbyn should pull the other one: pretending to hate figures of hyper-capitalism while leaving  the door wide open for the most sickening form of capitalism to be imposed on the UK just won’t fly these days.

Although it states that there’s only a limited chance it could be used to help people with cerebral palsy, I find the technological developments described here very exciting. Scientists in California have developed a brain implant that can read people’s minds and turn their thoughts to speech. It apparently identifies neural signals and feeds them through a speech synthesiser. Interestingly, though, the brain needs to have known which muscles do what in speech in order for  the machine  to decode the signals, so it might have limited application for guys like me, but nonetheless it’s a pretty intriguing development.

If I can just put my 007 fan hat on for a moment, the web is  currently buzzing with speculation that the announcement for the twenty-fifth  007 film will be made in the next couple of days. As usual, there’s lots of chatter about possible titles, with The Property Of A Lady or The Hilderbrand Rarity apparently the  frontrunners. I still suspect that, being already confirmed as Daniel  Craig’s last Bond film, there’s not much incentive for the producers to put on a particularly good show. On the other hand, with so much  bollocks currently going on and everyone getting so pissed off with one  another, a good bit off Ian Fleming escapism  could be the   very thing we all need right now.

Things are getting scarier and  scarier politically, both in the uk and all over the world. I know it’s a few days old, but I just came across This Channel Four news story about the tricks the Outists played and the lies Aaron Banks  told. I had a break from all this shit while I was in India, but it really is getting sickening. How much clearer does it have to be that the Leave campaign cheated and told lies, and that Brexit is an act of geopolitical suicide. Brexit is a crime, nothing more, and no sensible community or state would let it continue.

I took myself up to the olympic park yesterday. It had been a while since I last went up there and I wanted to see how it was developing. But what I found myself being most struck by was the contrast between that part of London and where was a week or two ago. Compared to Delhi or Jaipur, say, it is quite staggering how clean and quiet London is. I would in fact go so far as to say that I even found it slightly disturbing. India has a huge, quickly developing economy; the wealth of it’s cities can’t be that different from those of the uk. Why, then, were Indian cities so underdeveloped? Why was the contrast so striking and stark that it is impossible to ignore? When I was in India, we saw vast swathes of crumbling buildings desperate for repair, either side terribly maintained potholed roads. Pavements were rare, steps frequent. Without someone like john there was no way I could have got around. Litter was everywhere. We could tell there was certainly money available because of the pockets of modern, stylish buildings of the kind you find in any modern european or american city; but these were amid seas of crumbling disrepair. I couldn’t work out why everywhere seemed so dirty, dusty and smelly – was it due to the climate? As I wrote here, that stark contrast, that juxtaposition, struck me as perverse. Moreover, even on a saturday afternoon with crowds heading for the West Ham football match, Stratford felt less busy than any indian street. There, tuktuks and mopeds surge down any and all alleyways no matter how narrow, so that you have to constantly look out. Compared to that, London feels startlingly tranquil and well maintained.

The question is, why? Why should there be such obvious disparities, both between european/american and Indian cities, and within Indian cities theirselves? There’s obviously plenty of money in the Indian system, it’s just not going to the places which need it. That’s what I find perverse. The money is going to places where the Indian government know visitors will go instead of being used to help their own communities. It’s as if they want to keep a facade of a modern, urban, economic superpower up while allowing everything behind it to fall apart. Of course, that part of east London only looks like it does due to being transformed for the 2012 olympics, but even so no part of London looks like the widespread disrepair I saw in India. London’s roads and infrastructure, as with the vast majority in the uk, is well-maintained and clean, whereas in Delhi and Jaipur there was dirt, dust and rubbish almost everywhere. I simply couldn’t work out why it was like that, and why there were such disparities. Coming home has really brought that contrast into focus.

I couldn’t help wondering yesterday whether being awarded something like an Olympic games, or a major international sports or cultural event, could somehow help India: maybe it would provide authorities there with an incentive to drop the facade and tidy up a bit. It certainly helped in Stratford, after all. There are so many wonderful things there, such as the ashram at Rishikesh, which are just being left to fall apart, while large, modern, glass and metal buildings are being put up elsewhere to give the appearance of a modern twenty-first century superpower. That is a disparity and an illusion which I found quite troubling, to be honest.

I still want something awesome to associate with Sir David Attenborough. That probably sounds a bit weird, so I’ll explain. I now have incredible things or memories which complement most of the things I’m into in terms of the media. For instance, for Star Trek, I have the fact I went to the 2014 Destination Star Trek London Convention and met Sir Patrick Stewart; for Monty Python, I have the memory of going to their 2014 reunion show, and for James Bond; I have his meeting with the queen in 2012 (it had been too long since I mentioned that on here). I still think all these things are incredible; they act as my personal crowning glories for the associated fandom. Now, though, I want something just as cool to associate with Sir David Attenborough.

I once, ages ago, blogged that I thought Attenborough should have appeared in one of the 2012 ceremonies. As they included my favourite song, wizard and physicist, I thought the greatest natural history tv presenter was definitely worthy of the same esteem. The question was, what could Attenborough have done? I still think he deserves that type of enormous tribute. I have been watching his new Netflix show, Our Planet, and it seems to me that no other TV personality or presenter comes close to his astonishing career: well over sixty years presenting some of the most beautiful natural history programmes ever created. Everyone has grown up with his warm, knowledgable voice describing natural wonders most of us would probably never see; he’s a massive part of our joint cultural heritage. If that isn’t worthy of some kind of massive tribute, I don’t know what is.

The question is, of course, what kind of tribute could Sir David be given? It should definitely be of the order of an olympic ceremony appearance, but I can’t see the UK hosting the Olympic Games again any time soon, so that’s a non-starter. But it wouldn’t really be fitting anyway: the tribute I’m thinking of would be culturally enormous, yet in keeping with Attenborough’s devotion to science and nature. When 007 escorted the queen to the olympic opening ceremony, it attested to the Bond franchise’s position within British culture, but it was also in keeping with the character – a spy on her Majesty’s secret service. There must be some way to make a similarly resounding statement about Sir David Attenborough in keeping  with his devotion  to the natural world. Of course, it was good to see a great big research vessel named after him (even though Boaty McBoatface would have been a far more amusing name), but I think we need some sort off grand, national event honouring him too..

Sir David deserves some sort of awesome cultural event associated with him, other than, of course, his peerless body of natural history programmes. When the Monty Python team reunited in 2014, it said something about their standing as possibly the nation’s greatest comedy act ever; the fact I was actually able to go and see them still fills me with joy.  The fact that Stephen Hawking was in it made it even cooler for me. What I need and what the nation needs now is a similarly brilliant memory associated with sir David Attenborough.

I didn’t think I’d post an entry today, but I just came across this piece of absolute genius. While I haven’t yet found who to correctly attribute it to, Opinion Rhapsody is both hilarious, and a spot on comment on how tense and fraught online debate is becoming. It really is getting frightening how angry everyone now  is – it isn’t just me. I suppose  the anonymity the web gives us allows us to depersonalise the people we are debating with. The danger comes when such tension and anger seeps into the real world, as it increasingly seems to be doing. It’s good to see that some  people to make  creative, witty comments about it  though.

I’m back taking my usual powerchair cruises around south-east London, but what  I find most striking  now is how  clean and  well-kept it all is. After seeing a bit of India, I can’t help but be struck by how little litter there is, how none of the buildings look  like they’re about to fall down, and by how fresh the air smells. In Delhi  and Jaipur, say, the roads were totally unmaintained and most of the buildings looked decrepit.   As I mentioned here, there are a few modern, stylish buildings,  but they are surrounded by seas of crumbling concrete. Some say it’s due to the Indian caste system, with everyone expecting someone else to take responsibility  for the maintenance, but my return to well maintained London streets really has put it into sharp focus for me. I used to think Woolwich, with it’s famous market, was quite grubby and bustling, but I trundled through it with ease along the type of pavements I never saw  in India. Believe me, compared to Delhi, London is staggeringly clean, quiet and small.

As a science fiction fan,  I hope this  will give the country it’s collective smile back. “The BBC Proms will blast into hyperspace this summer, with a series of interstellar concerts marking the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings.” Apart from Holst (obviously) they  are also planning to have a sci-fi concert.  I really hope they play a few of my old favourites, particularly the theme from Star Trek The Next Generation –  how cool would that be.

I had been feeling quite tired today, until a good, strong dose of caffeine about two. I think my Indian adventure has caught up with me. Despite that, the urge to travel has already returned: last night’s news about  Notre Dame made me reflect upon how long it has been since I  last visited Paris, and I now want to go there as soon as possible. It  is still one of my favourite  cities, and to see one of it’s greatest buildings on fire last night was so sad. It’s only a couple of hours away by train, which is nothing  compared to the journeys I’ve been taking recently, so I see no reason why I shouldn’t head down there sometime soon. Mind you, I think I  need a bit more rest before going anywhere again.

I was  doing a bit of research about tuktuks yesterday (yes, I’ve finally learned how to spell tuktuk), and when the Wikipedia article  reminded me that they feature in Octopussy, I couldn’t resist the temptation to put this video together. It’s only  rough, and could probably do with a better outro/ending, but it  made me chuckle.

John’s girlfriend Anna is a photographer. Of all the amazing photos she took in India, this is my favourite, taken at the ashram in Rishikesh the day before we left.

John worked unbelievably hard on this trip, far harder than would ordinarily be expected of a PA. My gratitude to him cannot be put  into words. Without his support, I could have done none of the amazing things I did. I now regard him as one of my best friends, something akin to a brother, and hope that, one day, I’ll find a way to repay him.

The journey home yesterday was just as long and tiring as I expected it to be. In all, John worked out, we were on the go  for over forty hours. We got back to Charlton at  about twelve last night absolutely knackered, but both extremely proud of ourselves for having made  it. India was a trip of a lifetime; it was absolutely incredible. My head is now buzzing with ideas and questions. It is a place of so many contradictions. For one, I was struck by  how in places like Delhi and Jaipur, there  are modern, up-to-date buildings of the kind you find in any western city – the cinema we went to, for example – while all around them are vast swathes  of derelict, dilapidated shanties desperate  for repair. It struck me as a kind of perverse juxtaposition, as if the city was  trying to appear modern while not giving any attention to the areas which need it most. I now want to research it to find out why India is the way it is.

Most of all, though, I want to start working out where we’re going  next.

To be honest I’m not looking forward to tonight. This is our last day in India: this evening we catch the night bus back to Delhi, then after a few hours wait there, we board the plane to the uk. However at this very moment I feel I can deal with anything. I just had the most sublime ayervebic massage from two local experts here in Rishikesh, and it feels like I just downed about five beers. The feel of their hands as they nimbly rubbed my body felt like nothing I have ever experienced before. My body is loose and relaxed, my mind is clearer. The trip home suddenly seems much less daunting. What a great way to end an absolutely amazing trip.

I honestly think that what John did for me yesterday was nothing less than superhuman.  Not far from here, across the Ganges, is a cleft in the rock which people can climb up to see a waterfall. John and Anna wanted to go see it yesterday,  so we caught one of the local jeep taxis there. It was totally inaccessible, of course; there was no way you could get any type of wheelchair up those steep steps. Instead John proposed to give me a piggyback all the way up.

The last twenty four hours have been quiet something. I don’t feel tired, although technically I haven’t been to bed.   We are now in Rrishicesh,up in foothills of the Himalayas,  having caught the night bus here.  It was an eleven hour journey, but on Indian night busses passengers get their own compartments with full sized beds, so I was able to sleep most of the way.   Believe me it was quite an experience.

Yesterday was more lazy and relaxed than the long,  busy days previous. I think we needed it. After breakfast we came back to the hotel and pottered around a bit; i wrote and surfed  the web while the guys sorted a few things, and in the evening we went to the cinema. Anna wanted to see Dumbo, and, simply because it was by Tim Burton, I shelved my reservations about Disney and went along with it.

Yesterday we went to Pushkar. It was quite a long taxi ride in the intense heat, and by the time we got there I was already felt rather tired and tetchy. Pushkar is a vibrant town popular with tourists and westerners.  There is a lake there sacred to Hindus.  Getting down to the lakeside,  though, proved rather difficult as there were only stairs down.

The photos have already appeared on Facebook, so I might as well confess that yesterday I went swimming using a child’s inflatable ring. It was offered to me by the staff, and the pool was rather deep, so I took it. We had driven to Neemrana, to an ancient fort now hotel, where the swimming pool overlooks the countryside below for miles and miles. It was an absolutely staggering view. Mind you getting to the pool was quite an experience in itself: the fort was riddled with stairs, so four guys had to carry me in a special chair. I felt like one of the old maharajahs. That was after a three hour car ride. It was definitely worth it, though, if just for the view. Sitting there, overlooking the pool and the country beyond after a good swim, as the sun set and the lights of the century began to shine, was absolutely magical.

I’m getting better and better at getting in and out of tooktooks, the uniquely Indian three wheeled taxi. John and Anna have been to Jaipur before, so they know a very accommodating tooktook driver called Khalil. For the last three days he has been driving us all over this hot, dense city, taking us to all the sights. I am finding it fascinating, if increasingly hot.  Yesterday we went up to Tingetor, and today we saw the Monkey temple, where I had a great time being a climbing frame for primates.To be honest the bustle and heat can get too much at times- not to mention the grime and dust – but the mere thought that I am in a part of the world I thought I would never see, zooming around the streets of Jaipur in a tooktook, is enough for me to see well past that to the exotic awesomeness beyond.

I’ve never particularly liked hot, spicy food. Growing up I used to prefer baked beans to my mums curries. This holiday, then, I decided it was time to do something about that, and forced myself to eat hot things. After all, what’s the point of coming to India if you refuse to eat the local food? So far I’m pleased to report that it appears to be working: I don’t always eat the hottest stuff, but it’s been getting easier and easier to enjoy really spicy things. The samosas I had last night,for example, were particularly potent, but I still really enjoyed them. Mind you, I have to say, they also had quite a reaction when it came to going to the loo this morning.

Yesterday was quite a long, slow day. We are now in Jaipur, having come here by taxi from Agra yesterday afternoon. The trip took about six hours as we kept getting stuck behind pilgrims following vans playing loud indian music, presumably for a festival. We took the taxi because it’s safer and quicker than by train, but I had to feel sorry for our driver: I doubt when he got up yesterday morning, he thought he would end up in Jaipur, sat in a hotel car park at ten pm, having driven three tourists 300km. And on top of that, the bill I couldn’t get my head around was the fact he only wanted the equivalent of forty quid for it.

It has been another of those days which I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Alongside seeing the Grand Canyon and visiting the Louvre, I can now say I have been to the Taj Mahal. Even before that, though, today was already rather special,  as this morning I had my first real shave with a cut throat razor. We drove to Agra from Delhi yesterday and, my face overdue for a trim, John suggested we visit a barbershop after breakfast.

Late yesterday afternoon I realised something astonishing. We were walking along a bustling Delhi street: at first glance it seemed like total chaos, with cars, motorbikes and tooktooks hurtling here,  there and everywhere. Drivers seemed to just go wherever they pleased, and the idea that there were actually rules to obey seemed ridiculous. But then I realised, nobody was getting angry. In London, I would expect such a situation to be accompanied by intense fury, with drivers hurling all kinds of obscene abuse at each other; but here, everyone was totally calm. What at first I took to be chaos was in fact serenity: drivers waited patiently as people cut in front of them, as if they expected it, as if it was just part of driving. Horns were hooted liberally, not as a form of aggression but merely to alert other drivers of ones existence. That realisation was incredible to me, and it made my jaw drop. They may have been going all over the place, but nobody was getting hurt or injured or angry. It was utterly amazing, and it struck me that we could all learn from it.