It’s official! Sir Patrick Stewart will  play Captain Jean-Luc Picard again. He announced it yesterday at a Star Trek convention in Las Vagas, and I got wind of it when my bro Luke sent me this video clip  of it. (The Beeb  is also reporting it now,  so it must be official!) In the clip, Stewart states that, in the planned new series, both he and Picard will be twenty years older  than  he was in Nemesis. That came out in 2002, so does that mean that the new series will air in 2022?

I think this Left Foot Forward is certainly worth a read. It gives us a rough idea of what a dangerous place the UK is in. The Brexit referendum has opened the door to a very dark place indeed, with all kinds of far right nutcases thinking it legitimises their moronic views. Scumbags like Steve Bannon now think they have  a platform here, and if we aren’t careful we could end up being lead somewhere truly abhorrent as a society.

Earlier I came across a video on Facebook of a young woman weeping into her mobile phone camera. She was sat on a chair in a train carriage, a large mobility scooter behind her, and she was claiming that the train authorities were kicking her off the train because of it. The woman was clearly extremely upset, telling the guard – and her camera – that she was having a panic attack. It was obviously a very uncomfortable situation for her, but I must say something did not feel quite right about it. The analyst in me kicked in, and I got the impression we were not being told the whole story: train guards do not throw people off trains just because they have a scooter or wheelchair. I take my powerchair on trains quite regularly these days, and I have never had a problem like this.

From the way the woman was describing it, though, it was just a problem of her having a scooter. I got the sense that that was how she wanted it to appear – a case of clear-cut disability discrimination. She kept emphasising her disabilities, and the fact that she had recently had surgery. The top part of a crutch was clearly in shot,  as if on purpose. Something was amiss here.

Naturally I tried to look on google for more detail. I found this short ITV article about it, and not much else. It says the woman has autism and Ehlers-Danlos syndromes, a condition which effects the skin and may loosen the joints. I could not find her name, or any other firm background detail. It felt to me like someone trying to claim they were being discriminated against in an attempt to claim victimhood, as if there was some other, hidden, side to this story. Given the woman was sat in an ordinary chair she was clearly ambulant; anyone with a significant mobility impairment would have a powerchair. It felt as if she was deliberately trying to play the cripple card, and that there could be some other, hidden, reason why she was in trouble. If you used a crutch, wouldn’t you lie it down somewhere? The analyst in me told me that a  story was trying to be told here.

I could be wrong, of course. It was only a short clip, and googling threw up very little further details. And the fact remains people with disabilities are discriminated against like this with alarming regularity. Yet the way she was videoing it, emphasising the fact she was disabled, seemed to me like she wanted it to appear like she was being discriminated against, and there were things we weren’t being told. It could have been  because she wasn’t actually in her scooter, but  was sat on a chair; in which case the train authorities would have been in the right – she should have bought an ordinary ticket, and was using a seat another passenger might need. Forgive me, but sometimes I think that more and more people with minor impairments tend to take advantage of disability discrimination legislation to get their own way, without ever having felt the full force of the oppression ‘we’ have faced…or am I just being bitter and cynical? Either way, she just seemed to be totally overreacting, making the situation seem like an overt attack on her rights when it may not have been. Mind you, that overreaction may be an aspect of her autism.

Today I got the answer to a question I have been wondering about for ages. My bro Luke  sent over my full weblog archive  in a single  document yesterday. Since my old website went down I had been fretting about all my old entries. Fifteen years’ work is fifteen  years’ work, and there were a lot of cool memories in that archive. I opened the  document earlier today, and, out of pure curiosity, did a wordcount: I was amazed to find out that  I  had written 932,898 words on that blog, and the document was 1360 pages long. I think that is rather impressive, and worth noting here at least.

I try my best to convey my thoughts and feelings on here, and I’m proud to have kept my blog  up  this long. Most of my old entries may not be online at  the moment,  but at least I know they are safe. That alone is enough to keep me blogging.

I think I need to flag up  this interview with Madeline Albright in the economist, about her new book, In it, Albright warns that fascism, or a new form of it, is once more creeping into world politics: the same forces that lead to the rise of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco in the thirties  can be seen now. “Today, we will be lost if we abandon faith in the institutions and values that separate democracies, however imperfect, from tyranny. History is replete with bullies who seemed formidable for a time only to crash by attempting too much or by underestimating the quiet courage of honourable women and men. Scanning the globe at this moment, I see abundant cause for worry, none for despair.” Populists who scapegoat minorities in order  to gain power are gaining dominance once more. Albright is right: we are now  in a very precarious position.

We may laugh at things  like this, but Brexit is becoming a serious, serious worry. The country is slowly waking up to reality, and I’m now fairly confident that, sooner or later, it will be stopped.

Last night I saw on the news that the Blue Badge scheme is now going to be expanded to cover so-called ‘hidden disabilities’. They are going to allow people with conditions like autism and mental health problems to park in disabled spaces. This may be a bit controversial, but I’m not sure I  approve. Those spaces should be for people whose impairments effect their mobility. They are wider specifically to allow people in wheelchairs access to their cars; I don’t see how a person with a  condition which does not effect their mobility would qualify. It would surely mean fewer spaces for wheelchair users. What stops anyone with  such a non-physical condition waling as far as anyone else,  and  why would they physically need wider spaces? Forgive me, but it’s almost as if they want these badges to validate their claims to be just as disabled as those of us with  mobility impairments.

As someone with no choice but to speak with an electronic  American accent, the regional variations in how people talk has always intrigued me. I just came across this neat little  run-down of all the major accents of great Britain. I find it quite call, and was especially amused to see where they took their examples from – for the Liverpudlian accent, they selected Lister from red Dwarf. I’m fairly familiar with British accents, of course, so it would be interesting to now see if I can find a similar video exploring variations in how Americans or Australians talk (mind you, they all sound the same to me…)

I caught the first Bourne film on telly last night. I had seen it before,  of course, but not for a long time. Add breaks aside, I was quite taken with it. Bourne is not Bond: he is an agent at odds with the system which created him, unsure of his  relationship to it. I was impressed, and decided to do what  I did with the Bond series: sit down and watch them in order. Last night I glimpsed a character worth exploring. It has been a while since I diid any proper, decent film analysis so I’m quite  looking forward to it.

Acceptance and tolerance are all well and good when it comes to impairments and disabilities, but there comes a point where you just have to worry about some people. At the cafe in the park Lyn and I go to, there are quite a few regulars.  One of them is a man who has quite obvious mental health issues. I see him there almost every day, usually around the same time. The thing is, he always wears the same thing: two  rather thick jackets and a thick woolen hat,.

It’s boiling out there today – one of the hottest days I can remember. Heading to the park for a coffee earlier, I thought, if I saw the guy in question there, he would have to be wearing less today. I thought it impossible, in this heat, for him to be wearing the same thick stuff he always wears.

But I was wrong. Sure enough he was there in his usual clothes, including the hat. To be  honest, I was both alarmed and concerned: it must have been over thirty degrees out there; wearing so many clothes in heat like today’s could do serious damage to a body. I know he has a right to wear what he wants,  but surely there comes a point where we have to intervene.

I spoke to Mike, who owns the cafe, about it. He went over and spoke briefly to the guy. I heard a nonsensical response indicative of someone  with severe mental  issues, and Mike left him alone. What else  could he do? Should we have intervened? In today’s heat,  wearing what he was wearing, there was a real chance  he could lose consciousness. If someone saw me about to hurt myself due to my CP – if I was about to fall over, say – I would hope they would step in. Doesn’t the same principal apply here?

There are  now several things I’m looking forward to.  This morning I got  wind that the twenty-fifth Bond film will be released in December  next year. I think I have mentioned on here before how excited I was at the news that Danny Boyle is directing it. The gossip is that he now plans something completely new and original in this film – something which would make it stand out from the rest of the Bond canon. I’m something of a Boyle fan, and know what he is capable of, so I think we’re in for a real treat  next year. The guy who gave us Happy and Glorious will surely bring us something new to the franchise.

Before that I  have other things I’m looking forward  to though. In a couple of weeks  Lyn and I set off for  Poland to go to the same festival we went to last year. Immediately after that we’re going up  to Chester for Charlie’s wedding. That  will certainly be an interesting, adventure-filled  few days.

After that, I’m quite looking forward to the opening of Crossrail this December, believe  it or not. The  metropolis still fascinates me, and I feel this new rail network will add a new dimension to it.  We’ll be able to  go all  over the city so much easier. It will add something new to this fascinating place, and my explorations will probably increase tenfold.

There are other things, but you get the idea. I mentioned the biggie – the return  of Captain Picard –  the other day. When I think about it, I have a load of cool stuff to look forward to. My weblog archive should be restored soon too (hint to the Lukester there!). I lead  an awesome life full of great memories, both already existing and yet to be created Thus, as worked up as I get about politics, I can never get too down.

Today I tried to do more of the exploring I noted here, getting the tube up to stratford and then trying to find the Lea.  It really is lovely up there, and very picturesque. I am certainly going to have to take Lyn up there soon. Oddly, though, I found it much harder going this  time. A lot of the pathways were  blocked off for work. I managed to make it back to the north shore of the Thames though, before getting the cablecar over the wide, majestic river and rolling home.

I put this together a  day or two ago  in an attempt at visual satire. I know it’s very rough, but I think it sums up the current brexit situation quite nicely.

I have probably been a rather lax disability commentator this week as I have failed to mention two quite large disability-related stories. The first is the news of a woman with dwarfism who allegedly held  up a train because someone refused to move their prom for her mobility scooter. I think that is disgusting: the woman was put through hell for sticking to her rights. The train company even tried to blame her for delaying the train. It’s a problem I encounter quite frequently on the busses, but I’ve never been as traumatised or humiliated as this woman was.

The second disability-related story I want to bring to everyone’s attention is the news that Dwayne Johnson will be playing a leg amputee in his next film, Skyscraper. It’s probably the former wrestler’s usual action-packed guff. The problem is, I’m not sure things like this should be acceptable. Of course, I’m all for as much onscreen disability representation as possible, but this is a clear case of an actor ‘cripping up’ to get attention. Surely characters with disabilities should be played by actors with disabilities. After all, it is definitely no longer acceptable for a white actor to ‘black up’ to play a black person; he has very little real experience of having a disability. Johnson has drawn widespread criticism from the  disability community for this, and frankly, so he should.

 

Frankly, the whole affair is getting so pathetically stupid that surely it’s only a matter of time before they get real and call an end to the   entire Brexit episode.

Last night I set up a Google alert for Patrick Stewart and Star Trek. To be honest I haven’t been this eager for  news about something since the announcement of 007’s  involvement at the London Olympics or the  reunion of Monty Python – I might  be even more excited this time. I haven’t written anything about it on here before now because there isn’t really anything  definite to go on:  there is speculation that Picard might appear on Discovery in a cameo, or as an admiral  in his own series, or as a tutor in a series about Starfleet academy. As you can imagine, the fans are going crazy trying to glean anything they can from the sparse information we have at this point, and I better not join them. Nonetheless, this is a news story I will be keeping a very, very close eye on: the possible return of Picard,  my favourite Star Trek character, has me squealing like a kid on Christmas morning. I just can’t wait until we get a first glimpse of Stewart  back in that role, or even striding up to a replicator and uttering the immortal line once again:  “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.”

I went climbing with Dominik again today. It had been  ages since I went the first time and, to be honest, I  found it much harder today.. I think they reconfigure the walls down there fairly often, so this time, the ‘easy’ routes weren’t that easy. It was harder for me to find the grips, and I ender up banging against the wall and scratching myself a lot more. Nonetheless, I told myself not to give up  and eventually I made it to the top. Thus it was simultaneously excruciating and exhilarating. It’s probably also great physio for me, so, a few cuts and bruises aside, I fully intend to go a lot more.

I was over in Woolwich this afternoon on one of my usual walks. I saw an  awesome coat which  I  really wanted  to get, either for me or Lyn. It was sparkly, fluffy and pink. I was  about to buy it, but then I checked the price: seventy quid. I was out of the shop  like a shot. It’s a shame, because I haven’t had a good dress-up session  in ages.

I would have forgotten about it, only I  just came across  this ITV story. A  group of  students with disabilities have begun designing clothing specifically for people with disabilities. “A TV producer has set a group of final year fashion students at Leeds University a new challenge. Chaz McAlpin, who runs a channel for disabled people, says no-one designs a range of clothes that are both fashionable and functional, for people with diverse physical needs. He asked the students if they could come up with a range of clothes suitable for everyone and they have now revealed what they created.” What makes this story even more  interesting  for me is that it includes Nadia Clarke, one of the VOCA-users I know from onevoice. It’s great to see her  doing so well.

After the events of today,  surely the  only question any reasonable person  will be asking is,  how long before the Americans get  a  grip and throw Trump out. Before today,  the notion that they could do so has  always seemed  vaguely fanciful, but after Trump’s embarrassing performance in Helsinki today, surely it is becoming a realistic prospect. How could any self-respecting nation bear to be  shown up by such an egotistical  moron, willing to discredit his own intelligence services for his own self interest? Even Republicans are denouncing Trump for his behaviour today. In all seriousness, it  can now be only a matter of time – weeks, I suspect – before  America finds a way of  replacing Trump with someone more qualified.

Smeg I miss Michael Palin. There currently seems to be a flurry of travelogues on Sunday evenings: first we  get to watch Simon Reeve exploring Russia,  which I find quite interesting but which Lyn says is ‘Russia bashing’. However, we then get to watch something I find very strange indeed: The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan seems  unable to make it’s mind up to the extent that I find it rather irritating. Ranganathan is  followed  by a camera  crew, as a presenter ordinarily would be; but, at one and the same time, he seems to pretend that he is a naive ingenue separate from the camera crew, while still doing voice-overs. He addresses the camera crew as if  he is just some ordinary guy who just happens to have a camera team following him  about, and in the next shot we hear him deliver  a professional voiceover. The result, I must say, is rather patronising: it feels like Ranganathan is trying to con us. The program is clearly fully planned out with thee presenter at the centre of the team, but  it’s as if we’re expected to believe everything on-screen is unplanned  and unscripted. Ranganathan  is clearly desperate to be presented as a naive wisecracking everyman separate and removed from the camera team he is working with. It is the fact that  that is  clearly a fiction, and that Ranganathan is a travel show presenter just like any  other which I find very odd, and rather condescending.

I can think of no finer name for an artic research vessel than the name of the world’s greatest natural history TV presenter. The RRS Sir David Attenborough was launched in Merseyside today by her illustrious namesake, who said he was honoured that his name was chosen. If you ask me,  though, it is the least we can do for  the man who, over the last 65 years, has opened everyone’s eyes  to so many of nature’s wonders. Mind  you, part  of me still thinks it would have been cool if they had stuck with the name the public originally suggested: Boaty McBoatface.

Perhaps I should have gone up into London  today to join the protest against Trump, but after  yesterday’s adventure I rather thought a day at home was in order. From the look of it, there  were more than  enough people  there anyway. As much as I loathe that insult to human civilisation,  he does not deserve my afternoon. Besides, lyn and I had a lovely time drinking coffee in the park then going for a stroll  by the river – surely that is a much nicer way to spend a few hours than railing against the scumbag the Yanks currently  refer to as their president.

I decided to go to Kew today. I had been intending to go for a while, but it seemed such  a long way away that I had been putting it off. I really wanted to explore a bit more of the south-westt of the city, though,  so today I set off to see if I could get myself to kew and back.

Getting there proved easier than I expected, although it  took a while: Jubilee  line to Westminster, then the District line. It was all perfectly accessable. I saw a bit of Kew first, popping in to the national archives, which was remarkable in  itself. Then, after a short detour, I entered Kew Gardens.

It was magnificent. I found the place fascinating and beautiful in equal parts. The plants were extraordinary,, the architecture amazing. I especially  liked the Chinese pagoda. Truth be told, I didn’t have time to explore as thoroughly as I had wanted, and I had to head home all too soon. On  the way back I wanted  to see  if there were any anti-Trump protests at Westminster, but there were none at the time.  Now  I know how to get there, though, I think I’ll definitely be going back to Kew: I found yet another of London’s jewels today – a place full of beauty and life, which seemed to beg me to explore it more.

I got back from Donno’s funeral quite late and tired last night. It had been a long, hard day. We got to Warrington on Monday afternoon, settled in and had a little look around before going to bed.  I honestly think yesterday was one of the  hardest days of my life: John and I got to the crematorium slightly late, but walked in to find a chapel full of people, among them Liam and Phil – two of my old classmates; boys, like Lee, I grew up  with.  For a moment it seemed like the last eight years of life in the capital had just been a happy holiday, and I had returned to a darker, bleaker reality.

Yesterday saw me attend the funeral of someone with one of the most vibrant personalities I’ll  ever meet. I spoke briefly to Lee’s mum  and dad at the wake after, and my heart almost broke – no parent deserves to go through  what they did. Lee was  the  first person to show me that life was there to be seized. He loved American wrestling and rock music. Truth be told, what happened yesterday has left me feeling bitter, short-tempered and angry: Donno deserved a long,  happy life, and the fact that someone so vibrant has been ripped away from all of us seems the very definition of injustice.

This evening finds me in a fairly dark mood, truth be told. Tomorrow morning will see me and John on the train to Warrington for the funeral of Lee Donnelly, one of my oldest and best school friends. I hadn’t seen him for quite some time, but after what happened with Richard eleven years ago, I really wanted to make the effort to  go up and  say goodbye. That group of friends is nearly all gone now: from ten, there are now only four of us left. The lads I grew up with have all passed away one by one, so that, although I have a new, fascinating life here in London,  every now and again my old life catches up with me. Those lads all deserved  a life as long and as vibrant as mine: their deaths seem so unjust and unfair. They all relished life, and taught me to never, ever give up. Tuesday sees the funeral  of one of my greatest, best friends;  a guy who I wanted to introduce to  Lyn and Charlotte and all the rest of them one day. The fact that I no longer  can makes me want  to cry. Frankly, a world without Donno seems very dark and unjust indeed.

I wasn’t very interested in the football today. Barring those marching up at Pride, I must have been the only bloke around not glued to a television screen at four o’clock this afternoon. It was, however, rather interesting to observe events as I made my way through Charlton and Woolwich on the hunt for a new bumbag. Every pub I went passed seemed to be packed; I could hear each one from metres away. And as the afternoon went on, the general atmosphere seemed to get merrier and merrier. When I got to General Gordon Square in woolwich, hundreds of people crowded in front of the big screen there, things were starting to feel like a carnival. I had  assumed we would lose today, which is why I  chose not to watch it; but  if this goes on and England continue to do  well, I  may be forced to pay more attention.

My loathing  for Brexit has just been redoubled. According to this article in The New European, Sir David Attenborough – a man who deserves the nation’s unconditional respect – has effectively been told to shut up by the p’tahks at the Daily Mail for criticising Brexit. “It’s a measure of the McCarthyite times in which we live that Sir David Attenborough – without question the nation’s most revered broadcaster – has been told to desist from making any more disparaging comments about Brexit.” Things are indeed becoming increasingly McCarthyite: this vividly illustrates how badly Brexit is going and how desparate and angry the Outists are becoming,  that they would stoop to attacking a man who has brought the nation so much joy and fascination over the last sixty years. This is a new low, even for those scumbags.

Back in 2012, Lyn performed with the British Paraorchestra in the paralympic closing ceremony. I was therefore involved in the most phenomenal cultural event to hit the UK for a generation. No doubt everyone remembers how the country seemed to unite behind this event: it was incredibly powerful. The olympics and paralympics had everyone’s attention; they brought the country together, and we showed the world how awesome we could be.

A lot has changed in the six years since 2012. the referendum seems to have divided the country irrevocably. Our future has been stolen by lies and stupidity, and a lot of people are incredibly angry about it. At the march in westminster a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that what we in the Remain camp need is an event: bigger than any protest, we need to create something phenomenal to show our objection to where the country is now heading. It would be a sporting and cultural event with opening and closing ceremonies, utilising all the cultural know-how we have. It could even be held at the olympic park in Stratford. It would not only demonstrate the huge dissatisfaction with Brexit which now exists in this country, but could also be used to change outists’ minds. The question is, does this idea have any legs, and how might I get it off the ground? Surely there must be some way to culturally reunify the country, or at least demonstrate it’s  disquiet at what is going on.

Growing up, my brothers were for some reason forever quoting Rainman. I just came across this and instantly knew it was too awesome not to steal…

And check  out the hilarious original here

To be honest, the news of Lee’s death has hit me hard. I’m trying not to show it: the next few weeks are going to be busy  for me and Lyn, with weddings and trips to  Poland to organise. Yet  on top of that, I have to go to Warrington in a few days to say goodbye to one  of my best friends.  Lee was a kindhearted, optimistic fellow  who I grew up with  from the age of six. I knew what would happen to him after I learned what Muscular Dystrophy did  to people; yet I was dreading it. I was sort of thinking about  going up  to  visit him and Phil at the neuromuscular centre before it was too late, just to catch up: I’d have told them about University, about Lyn, about life in London…

But now it is too late. Last week I received the news which I knew was inevitable, but was nonetheless hoping would never come. And the thought of my friend no longer being here, that we’ll now never have that long overdue catch-up, or that his cheeky rebelliousness and  dry sense  of humour no longer  exists, is utterly heart wrenching.

I recentlyy finished reading/listening to Andrew Lycett’s biography of Ian Fleming. As I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, the text in the book version I got from Amazon was too small for me to read comfortably, so I went looking for it in audio form. That has proven a great success, and I was able to whizz through the 450 page book in no time. It has, however, left me with a mixed view of James Bond’s creator. In many respects, Ian Fleming was a complete arsehole: a racist, sexist snob who seemed to think men like him should rule the world. The way he treated his wife Ann was abominable. At the same time, it would be unfair to completely dismiss Fleming: as Lycett points out, he was also capable of great acts of kindness and humanity. Thus, after finishing his biography, I really don’t know what to make of him, and I find myself wanting to know more. After all, Fleming created one on cinema’s most enduring characters. What on earth would he make of what his creation has now become, Olympic appearances and all? I want to reread the text in case I missed anything, or go on to other books about Fleming in order to get other perspectives. I also now want to read all the Bond novels. Thanks to Audible, that now seems much easier.

It always amazes me that, no matter how far you’ve already been, there will always be more London to explore. A couple of days ago I noticed the River Lea on a map and became curious. There’s a big powerboat event on in the docks this weekend which I went to take a look at yesterday, but apart from the occasional visit to the Excel Exhibition Centre, I haven’t seen much of the part of London between the Olympic Park and the Thames. Looking at the map, the Lea snakes it’s way from it’s mouth just across the Thames from the O2 to Stratford. I reckoned a path along it’s bank might be very pretty, or worth exploring at least.

I had seen a path marked on google maps, so, hoping it was fairly wheelchair accessible, I caught the bus to North Greenwich then crossed the Thames via cablecar. I then went looking for the mouth of the Lea. What struck me most about that area was it’s age: it’s still heavily industrial, so it contrasted very strongly with the sleek, modern buildings around it. Dockers and workmen still go about there business there, the same as they have done for hundreds of years. This was the real east end.

I found it fascinating. Coming upon the Lea (or Bow Creek) near where it joined the Thames, I had to navigate the maze of factories and warehouses on either side of the river. The path I had seen on the map proved elusive. It wasn’t until Bromley By Bow that I got a glimpse of the river proper with the path running by it, but that was down some steps so I could not join it. What I saw, however, reminded me instantly of the canal paths of Cheshire, with narrowboats and old jacobean buildings. It instantly made me want to explore some more: the metropolis seems a place of endless variety, and here was another unique, fascinating area.

This is the first entry of my blog’s new wordpress home. To be honest, it feels weird: after  fifteen years of being master of  my own domain, I  now need to get used to a new blog style and format. In a way it feels like I’m starting all over again, which can be seen  as both good and bad.

Quite a bit has happened in  the last three or four weeks,  and I’ve  missed the ability to blog; my site acted as an essential vent  for my feelings. In particular, I received the devastating news of the passing of my old school friend Lee D. I got it  last  Saturday via my Ipad while I was protesting up in parliament square. Truth be told I’m quite devastated about it: he was one  off my oldest friends, whom I grew up with. Emotions have been raw all week, and I’ve found myself longing for the ability to express myself  as I have for the past fifteen years.

At least I now have my blog back, albeit in a different form. It’s quite a change, and a lot to get used to,  but please expect my ill-informed ramblings to resume here.

 

This is Matt’s new blog. This is a holding entry until Matt makes an entry of his own. Archived entries from the original blog will be added during the summer. Please bear with us until then!