I just came across this little gem. It seems Mike Myers has waded into the Sony/North Korea debacle by ‘hijacking’ Saturday night Live, in character as Dr. Evil, and taking the piss out of the entire affair. As serious as some say it is, in a way it is also quite farcical, and definitely worth lampooning. This is one of those fiction-into-reality moments I like too, and the speed at which Myers filmed and put this out is also rather impressive.

I think I better flag this highly salient film-related piece up. By Will Gompertz, it discusses Selma, a forthcoming biopic of Martin Luther king, demonstrating it’s relevance today. In the sixties, a black president was unthinkable; yet despite Obama being in the white house, racism is still a major problem, both in America and here. As Gompertz points out, events in Furguson this year made the timing of the film’s release quite uncanny, bringing the question of police racism front and centre once again; the situation is as tense as it ever was. We also have the issue of censorship and free speech cropping up this week in relation to North Korea: I don’t quite know what to make of that row, but Gompertz makes a link, stating that, given freedom of expression is enshrined in the American Constitution, Sony’s decision not to release that film is quite staggering. I think I agree; sony seems to be kowtowing to despots, effectively setting a very worrying precedent. Are all American film houses going to have to restrain themselves for fear of offending someone from now on? That would blunt this sharpest of tools. What would Dr. King have said?

I am currently in a pub full of men of either Jamaican or African ancestry. It’s fairly brusque; the rap music, which I do not recognise, is loud. The atmosphere is very male, very competitve. Yet, as I sit here in this south London pub, I cannot help wondering what would happen if these highly masculine men ever found out that the guy in the wheelchair is wearing a pair of knickers with read heart-shaped polka dots. Oh how I love this irony.

Today is a very good day for disability and comedy – I have some great news. Lost Voice Guy, a comedian who uses a communication aid, lat night won the prestigious BBC Radio Two New Comedy Award. To my knowledge, this is the first time a VOCA user has won an award for stand up comedy. I have been aware, albeit fairly vaguely, of Lost Voice Guy for quite a while, having seen bits of his act on Youtube and so on, but now I really want to go see him live. It’s great to see one of ‘us’ being so prominent. The good thing is, his material is genuinely funny; this is not about tokenism but true comic talent. His star is rising, too, so with any luck we will be seeing a lot more of Lee Ridley from now on. Who knows – in a few years, maybe Lyn and I will go see him at the o2. For now, though, it’s great to see voca users being taken seriously.

Is it me, or is this article just a string of disability-related cliches tagged on to one another? By RJ Mitte, who plays a character with CP in Breaking Bad, no doubt it is intended to sound inspirational: I just scanned through it, an was struck by how little it actually says. While I of course think it’s terrific that through him we at last have a character with a disability on mainstream tv – albeit american – I think he could do better than trot out such pukeworthy phrases as ”It’s time to show people that disability has ability in it. People look at a disability as a weakness but it should be seen as a strength”. Oh well – on the whole I suppose it’s a step in the right direction. Mind you, even more concerning is that the article mentions that, in an upcoming program, Mitte will be playing a character with Muscular Dystrophy. Do they not realise that cp and md are two very different conditions, or do they just think physically disabled people are all the same?

Dominik just sent me this fascinating short Polish film. Teija Gumilar comes from Indonesia, as a country that touts several thousand islands. He has lived in Poland for thirteen years. Teija teaches advanced equipment designs at the Adam Mickiewicz University . To understand the world of people with disabilities, decided to adopt our point of view by using a wheelchair for extended periods. Frankly, I think that is an experience any architecture or design student should have: even these days, far too often I come across things and spaces obviously designed by people with absolutely no idea what life is like on four wheels. Thus this great, uplifting film is worth a watch.

My thoughts today go back to Sydney, to that wonderful bright city I visited seven years ago. Of course, I know as much about this as anyone else, but it appears that the siege there has now come to an end. I was shocked to learn of it when I turned the computer on this morning – I immediately contacted my friend Darryl, who lives in Adelaide: naturally he knew about as much as I did. This is a very worrying event, and what it means I know not; but given that this gunman, lone though he seems to have been, appears to have aligned himself to so-called Islamic State, this may be a sign of something much wider and more violent. That is truly worrying, yet that aside, tonight my memories go back to a city I love – it is truly heartbreaking to see such horrific violence there.

Mostly because I saw it yesterday, Tonight I’ll flag this mashup of The Hobbit and the Office up. I usually like the stuff Saturday Night Live do: most of it is well made and very funny, and indeed this little sketch did make me laugh. Yet it seems more parody than anything – an attempt to laugh at rather than with the source material. I can’t help but worry that this is what Tolkien’s epic creation has now been made into – another mainstream narrative; fodder for programmes like SNL. It was to be expected, I suppose, and certainly stands as testimony to the breathtaking success of Peter Jackson’s adaptation. Yet, having loved Tolkien’s books for most of my life, I can’t help feeling that they have now been changed. Something once personal has been made universal, and has been altered for me in the process.

I a am just on the way back from watching the Battle of five armies, and I don’t think I have ever felt in two minds so much about a film before. On the one hand it just seemed like one battle sequence tacked on to another, while Jackson plays fast and ,loose with Tolkien cannon. On the other, this is a tale I love, and characters I grew up with. To see this film cycle come to an end, after so long, makes me feel rather sad. What I need to do now is sit down with the DVDs and watch them all in order. Think what an entry that will make,

Last night’s question time was the best edition I have ever seen; I mean, I found it truly entertaining. To see Brand and Farage duke it out was a spectacle to behold. To tell the truth, though, I’m not sure who came off the better: Brand laid into Farage, and got some very good points in, yet at times he seemed like a one-track record, too eager to score points and go on the attack than to deal with the questions at hand. This irritated me slightly, and I think he could have been better – he gave his detractors too much ammunition. Farage was, of course, classic Farage: arrogant, assuming a superiority he does not deserve, and dissembling his head off The way he tried to neutralise a report proving his views on overcrowding wrong by simply attacking it’s author tells you all you need to know about this puerile little man. But he didn’t say anything to make me too angry: at no point did I feel the urge to throw anything at the tv, or leave the room enraged, as usually happens hen that p’tahk is on. In all, then, quite an awesome episode, and one I’m sure we will be hearing quite a bit spoken about in the coming hours and days.

Russel Brand goes on question time tonight with Nigel Farage. I’m really looking forward to it; it will probably turn out to be rather epic, even historic, although I better hold back from writing much about it ’till tomorrow. Let’s hope Brand humiliates farage, and the dissembling little xenophobe gets the arse-kicking he deserves. In the meantime, let me just direct you here, to a video of brand explaining exactly what damage the tories are doing to the NHS – it will make you sick.

It appears I may have been a bit too pessimistic in my recent entry about what I call ‘the bus wars’. The ruling was actually more accommodating than I/we first thought. A summary of it can be found here. In fact, if you look at the detail, some reasonable progress has been made on the issue. For example, ”The bus company MUST provide training for bus drivers and devise strategies that drivers can adopt to persuade people to clear the wheelchair space”. The problem is, how many bus drivers or pram pushers will realise this, and simply assume that prams can now hog the wheelchair space?

Marta, our PA, just caught me out. I had just come in from a walk and we were snacking on some bread and cheese, when she asked me ”Are you staying here or going home this christmas?” Before I could think, I replied that I was staying here. A second or so later, my mind went into gear, and I added ”But this is my home!” I felt slightly bad about it – part of me must still think of our family home in cheshire as home; as a northerner living in Londoner, I still feel a bit of an outsider. Yet that was her point: as somebody from Poland, Marta added, people ask her that very question all the time, yet she is now as much a Londoner as they are. It’s odd, when you think about it: what exactly is home, and why should London be more of a home to one person than to another? Why would one group of people get asked questions like that, ad not another, in this great maelstrom of the world’s peoples. London is my home, now, as it is Marta’s. We are both home for christmas.

Today, it seems, is not a good day for the disability community. As well as the abysmal news concerning busses I flagged up earlier – which was, by the way, just covered on the bbc lunchtime bulletin – we have also lost a major case which tried to save the Independent Living Fund. This is tragic, as it means millions of people who rely in the fund to live independently now have a very uncertain future; quite possibly it will mean institutionalisation for many. On top of that, it sees we have lost our excellent comrade Stella Young. Stella, who I had the good fortune to meet back in 2012, was a high profile disability rights campaigner. It is reported that she died unexpectedly in Melbourne on Saturday, aged 32. Not a good day for our community at all.

I was in a good mood this morning, but having just got back to my computer, this has suddenly muddied my temper. ”Bus companies are not required by law to force parents with buggies to make way for wheelchair users in designated bays on vehicles, senior judges ruled.” Are you zarking kidding me?! Do you know how many times I have had to wait out in a cold, wet bus stop because some selfish mum has refused to move? Prams can easily be folded, wheelchairs cannot; yet the Judge in question said ”It has to be accepted that our conclusion and reasoning in this case means that wheelchair users will occasionally be prevented by other passengers from using the wheelchair space on the bus.

”I do not, however, believe that the fact that some passengers will – albeit rarely – act selfishly and irresponsibly is a sufficient reason for imposing on bus companies a legal responsibility for a situation which is not of their making and which they are not in a position to prevent” How naive can he be? Mums will simply seize on this ruling and use it as an excuse never to move, even though they have an alternative we chair users do not. Believe me, some of those bitches can be vindictive and spiteful. Thus this ruling is an absolute travesty, and boils down to an act of gross, blatant discrimination.

As I noted here I am a bit of a Stephen hawking fan. His surprise appearance singing The Galaxy Song at Monty Python Live ruled, as did his appearances in Star Trek, the Simpsons and so on. I just think it’s good to see a communication aid user being so prominent. On the other hand, you could say he has become a stereotype, an absolute self-publicist keen to trot himself out whenever anyone needs a token crippled genius. Indeed, when I first read a couple of days ago that Hawking would like to be in a Bond film, I thought it was an excellent idea: he’d be perfect, say, making a cameo in Q-branch. But then I read on, and thought a bit more. In fact, Hawking would like to be a bond baddie, and that is highly problematic. Is the guy deliberately trying to reinforce stereotypes?! Does he like being used as a human cliche? It would be so crass, so obvious; no wonder the disability community hates the idea. A small, unobtrusive cameo would be fine, but please, prof, don’t degrade yourself like that – don’t become your own caricature!

Quite a bit is currently being made of Nigel Farage’s recent comments on breastfeeding. At first I thought little of it – I try to ignore that irritating little xenophobe.

But then, late last night, an interesting question occurred to me: what would he feel about the sight of people being fed in public? Might he have similar objections? At home I use a device called a Neater Eater to feed myself, but it isn’t very portable, so when I’m out and about my PA feeds me. I wonder whether UKIP’s leader would object to the sight of me or Lyn being fed in, say, a swanky London Restaurant. No doubt he would never admit it, but I deeply suspect, given the snooty little twat he is, that he would discreetly call over a waiter and ask them to ask us either to go into a corner or to leave. We’ll probably never know for sure, although I’d put good money on it. Either way, his recent comments must raise such interesting questions; after all, the two instances are quite similar.

It’s not related to anything much, but I think I’ll flag this up. It’s a fascinating article on fluid dynamics, exploring some of the intricacies and complexities of splashes. Some of the videos and pictures are just stunning. Besides, given how much I dribble, especially on a Friday night, an article about puddle-making seems oddly relevant.

In the light of yesterday’s epic Bond-related news, I just rewatched Skyfall. Believe it or not, I hadn’t given it a viewing in ages, but it’s one of those cloudy days when all you want to do is put on one of your old favourites. I must say I was once again blown away with it: this is 007 taken seriously, with a razor-sharp script and plot. They have finally made Bond seem like a three-dimensional character, capable of making mistakes yet still possessed of that certain jenu se qua* that seems to have made him arguably one of the core parts of British culture. After all, he must be pretty damn important to us to have been used to escort the queen to the olympics. How glad I am that Sam Mendes, director of Skyfall, has been asked to direct the next film; I have a feeling it is going to be just as awesome.

*Sorry, but my spelling in French is even worse than my spelling in English.

I know I said I want to start focussing on other things, but I just came across this epic 007-related news: Spectre will be the title of the 24th official James Bond film, its makers have just announced. There is not much in terms of detail yet, but it’s enough to have me excited. It will be directed by the brilliant Sam Mendes, and the cast they have lined up for it looks awesome, but, more to the point, the title implies the return of Bond’s classic adversary. Squeal-worthy stuff indeed! It’s scheduled to be out on 23 october next year – I can’t wait!

One of the things which boils my blood the most about watching the Tories talk is when they joke. I was just watching the autumn statement, and I was struck by how angry I got when Osbourne tried to crack jokes about Labour. How can these bastards joke when they are causing so much suffering? It is as if they assume ownership of the discourse; an air of superiority in their ideas, as if their opinions are the only ones that count. They sneer condescendingly at those who want to raise taxes, who want to ensure the wealthiest in society contribute to helping those who need help. It is as if they assume their greed-based paradigm is the only valid one, and that they have a right to look down upon anyone with a less selfish worldview. Such arrogance, such selfishness, gets to me – perhaps more than it should. Yet when Labour try to show a bit of compassion, the tories laugh, and assume they have a right to look down. It feels like they are laughing at everyone they have taken benefits from, at every person they have driven to suicide. These fuckers have no right to laugh! They should be apologising and resigning; begging forgiveness for the suffering they have caused. Thus the sight of CaMoron and Osbourne laughing their empty heads off, filing their pockets while causing so much suffering, boils my blood, filling me with a rage like no other.

I am almost at a loss for words at the gall of what the tories are doing. How could they?! At a time when thousands of those needing support are dying through want of funding, the tories decide to spend billions on high-profile infrastructure projects which will benefit only the wealthy southerners of the tory back yard. I have been trying not to think about it all day, but now that I do, now that I read reports like this and this, I feel the rage come flooding back. The tories will tell you that these projects are somehow vital, but how can they be vital when they are having to cut so much from social support, education etc? How can these unellected insults to humanity be so selfish? Do they have no compassion, no humanity? Building self-serving vanity projects in order to get votes while leaving desperate people to starve – surely that says it all about the scum we currently have lording over us.

I didnt think I would post an entry today, having largely been busy on Google, but I just turned the evening news on and felt compelled to flag this chilling story up. How is it possible, in a modern, liberal country, that the oldest and most vulnerable people in society are left lonely and alone for hours on end, day after day? I am lucky: through Lyn I have the support I need, but I could easily have been in such a position. It’s chilling, but the ones to blame are the Tories and their cuts. See what suffering they are causing? They can prevent it, but instead they cut taxes for their rich friends. It is utterly, utterly abhorrent.

A safe, slow, Sunday, spent staying in;

Messing around on Facebook and google, listening to Lyn.

Skyping my Dad, getting news of Mum, Luke and Mark.

Chilling out indoors, while outside it grows dark.

Aye, a truly nice sunday, not doing much at all,

Snug in my office watching evening fall.

True, I often like to be out, relishing every bit of life;

But today I just wanna be here, at home with my future Wife.

I wouldn’t be much of a blogger, internet denizen and media commentator if I didn’t say anything about the new star wars trailer. I came across it last night on my ipad, when I was in the pub, and have just rewatched it. What can I say? Oh Please! I still maintain that this is a film that should never have been made: the Star wars story, the rise and fall of Aniken Skywalker, has been told; what remains is fluff, a sequence of oversaturated images, shown in quick succession, intended to appear dramatic and ominous yet totally lacking any artistic merit. Neither star wars fans nor the hacks who make it can face the fact that their franchise has now been eclipsed by far more complex, deeper narratives, like Lord of the Rings, so they start to churn out cliched bull like this. It’s a kid’s film, made by disney, directed by that total muppet JJ Abrams, but you just know it will have fanboys the world over wetting their pants with glee. Give me a bat’leth over one of those laughable new lightsabers any day!

I still think I need something new to squeal about. I’ve had my three filmic fascinations for years, but Bond, Star Trek and Lord of the Rings are all so mainstream, I now need to get myself off the beaten track. Of course, I’ll probably always love all three: I wrote about my fascination with bond and trek in my thesis; I’m still more than a little obsessed with 007’s Olympic appearance, probably in part because it echoes the parachute jump in The Spy who Loved me, one of my cinephilliac moments; and meeting Patrick stewart was undoubtably one of the most special events of my life, again in part because it relates to my work. Thus it seems to me that all my obsessions are interrelated, usually having some sort of connection with London 2012 Olympics, my masters thesis, or London in general. In fact I once tried to roughly sketch out those relationships; what I want to do now is get away from that network.

In other words, I think it’s time to expand my horizons. I still have the problem I wrote about here. I need to find something more niche, less well known. Similarly, having been to mega-events like the paralympic closing ceremony and python’s final performance , I think I now need to start hunting down smaller, more intimate gigs. It is as if the big stuff can now be ticked off, so I can now start to investigate the smaller things. The question is, how? One cannot deliberately search for an obsession – they usually just spring on you when you least expect, just as pieces of awesomeness can occur at any given time. What I need to, the, is keep my eyes open, be vigilant and curious, and try to stop reverting to my usual mainstream interests.

Having got politics off my chest earlier, I find myself wanting to write about so much today. There are the riots in america, which, while one can never condone violence, I cannot help but agree with and back. There’s the appalling news that people with learning disabilities are being abjectly failed, thrown into homes – surely a step backwards towards the darkest days of disability. There’s the slightly better news that advertising on video blogs is going to be regulated slightly more. Personally, I am utterly contemptuous of people who use their blogs to get money by flogging stuff – what a sell out. Now, excuse me while I sip my delicious Coke. Above all, though, inspired by this news about a singing nun rising through the Itallian nun with such hits as ”Like A virgin” (you really couldn’t make it up, could you?) I feel utterly compelled to direct you to this Frank Zappa classic. Amen.

(As you can probably tell, I have my computer back. Yay!)

It’s wednesday again, and once again I have spent the last half hour yelling at the tv, becoming angrier and angrier as that arrogant, unelected prick CaMoron tells us how wonderful he is, how well he and his party are doing, and how fortunate we all are to have him as prime minister. I’m sick of it. It really rubs me up; I find myself shaking with rage as I think of the suffering he and his party have caused through their cuts, only to watch him try to blame all our woes on labour. It was Labour who started the recovery, and the economy is doing well despite, not because of, what that barely numerate prick George Osbourne is doing. But now we have to watch the tories hijack the credit, thinking they can sneer and jeer at those who actually care, patting themselves on the back for lowering taxes while people reliant on benefit starve. It is utterly infuriating. I’m sure it worries Lyn to get so angry, but too see those tory scumbags impose their childish neoliberal views on us is almost too much to bear. I want the fuckers out!

As we drove home in the taxi last night, I was struck once again by what an awesome city we live in. London had done it again. Last nights screening up at the Royal College of Physicians went very well indeed: the shot film with Lyn and myself was played film, then the main film, followed by a question and answer session. It struck me as a triumph, although I suspect that a few of my friends in the crip community may raise one or two questions. They used lyn’s score well: it was not too overt, but really helped set the mood of the film, just as non-diagetic music should. It made me feel really proud to hear it: whenever it was introduced, I thought, that’s my Lyn!

What remains, of course, is for the film to be marketed. It is apparently doing well in Spain (after all, it is a documentary about Spanish paracyclists). With any luck, someone at channel four or the Beeb will see it and pick it up, but time will tell. Now, though, I feel very excited: what I saw last night has very great potential indeed, and is gaining momentum. I cannot wait to see what happens next.

Link

I suppose I can’t complain, given the frequency with which awesome things happen, but today has been a dull, slow day. I have barely moved from the sofa. It has been raining all day, which always dampens my mood. Tomorrow, on the other hand, should be much more interesting: you may recall me noting a while ago that Lyn was asked to compose the score for The Unstoppables, a Spanish documentarry about paracyclists. Well, tomorrow is its first screening, up at the royal college of physicians, and guess who is invited! I can barely believe we are going to my first proper premier. I have been wondering what to wear all day – part of me really wants to go in my tux.

I was just watching an old episode of the Simpsons and I was struck by a thought worth noting. It was the episode where the homer and marge are judged unfit parents and are fostered by Flanders. Ned then learns that Bart, Lisa and Maggie were never baptised, and has an apoplexy. I noted how he immediately resolves that Homer and Marge were indeed bad parents. I know it is a cartoon, but that struck me as a perfect example of religious hypocracy of religion and the folly of it. How does being religious make one in any way a better person? Indeed, I would argue that ned is by far the worse parent, for it is he who indoctrinates his children into a strict conservative worldview, demanding they believe all kinds of fiction and refusing to let them think. From an objective standpoint, surely that counts as abuse, yet society allows people like Flanders, even praising them. That strikes me as troubling: through religion, kids are being lied to and abused, and society hypocritically allows it.

I don’t usually like the army. I try, as a rule, to avoid the military. There are far better ways to solve the problems of the world than through bombs and guns. But when your heading out for your Friday night drink, and the bolt on your front wheel breaks just outside the woolwich barracks, those guys can be very helpful indeed. Thanks guys – I owe you.

I was right: watching monty Python live on DVD didn’t even compare to watching them in the flesh up at the dome. Yet last night, having gone to buy a new DVD player in Woolwich, I was glad I did. Not only did it refresh my memory, but, of course, I was able to get more out of it through a second viewing. My studies in both film and literature teaches me that one should never adress a text just once. Thus late last night saw me on the sofa howling my head of, yet also remembering that fabulous night, and trying to spot myself in the audience.

This morning, though, sees me on the sofa again, worrying about a completely different set of jokers. The March of ukip is more frightening than any killer bunny, and what stands to happen in Rochester tonight concerns me very much indeed. We have a group of people with a simplistic, xenophobic worldview, who, by grouping together to call themselves a political party, seem to have completely hijacked the politics and mindset of the country. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sickening and stupid; how I wish Professor Hawking would come and run that twit Farage over.

While I realise it won’t come close to the experience of actually being there, I just bought the DVD of Monty Python Live. I was just up at Stratford with Dom, dropping off my computer for repair (if you’re ever in a similar position, remember to cite Consumer Law and the repair will be free if the machine is young enough).

We were going to come straight home, but I thought I might as well check if the recording of that awesome night was out yet. It is, and I am now the proud owner of Monty Python Live on DVD.

It’s odd, when you think about it: that night was a truly special event for me, and watching it on screen will probably seem but a shadow of it. To have been there, witnessing that moment of cultural history, was awesome. A recording is just an echo, yet it will keep those cherished memories fresh. That’s why Barthes was so intrigued by the photograph; and why I wish I had a photo or video of when I met Sir Patrick Stewart. The past is gone, but we must relish precious memories. The photograph or film stops times, extending the moment into eternity. The only problem is, without my desktop, I am now counting on Dom to get our DVD playa working.

Bob has bashed out band-aid again:

Do you not see we’re his tools

Guilt-tripping us over Ebola, and then

Entreating us to buy his record, like fools

Using suffering to gain attention and air time

Pretending to act so pure

His ego trip should be a crime

He’s just after his face in every store

I just caught Psnelope Keith’s programme about village life on more four, and feel compelled to have a rant. I can usually let such things slide, but I have to ask, what the smeg is Channel Four playing at, making such a cloying, conservative, short-sighted bit of tripe? While I have nothing against village life, the way in which Keith romanticises tradition and seems to yearn for some idyllic heyday when somehow everyone looked after everyone else and a benevolent local Lord cared for his subjects made me cringe. She contradictory professes to embrace change yet laments the passing of some bygone era. The entire programme was a jumble of cloying cliches; it was just an ego trip for Keith – Channel Four obviously just allowed her to make a program on her chosen subject, which, while it might seem sweet and innocent, has a form of repressive conservatism at its core. The whole thing really wound me up – I expect better from Channel Four.

It has been a while since I directed you guys to anything on YouTube without much comment – it’s a bit lazy on my part – but today I think I’ll direct you here. Whatever you think of Russell Brand (and I think he can be a bit up himself), he is spot on in this wittily written restyling of a Blur classic.

Rather appropriately for a blog entry composed on a bus, albeit one stuck in traffic, I would like to direct you guys here, to an article covering the pram vs. wheelchair row. I should have covered it a couple of days ago, but other things took my attention. Yet it is an issue I feel strongly about: indeed I often get really angry when I can’t get on a bus when a buggy is in the wheelchair spot. In fact I have come to resent pram users. I know they need to get from A to B too, but prams can be folded, and when mums refuse to do so, one cannot help but feel discriminated against. After all, as the article says, people with disabilities had to fight long and hard in the nineties for the right to ride on busses; to see that right usurped and denied to us by those who have alternatives but don’t use them through laziness, just feels wrong.

I would just like to use this entry to send my hearty congratulations to the European space agency. I just got in from my daily roll, and, being interested in such matters, turned on the tv to see how their probe was doing. To tell the truth, I rather expected to hear the dissapointing news that it had crashed, yet, incredibly, it has touched down safely. When you look at the technical detail, it really is a remarkable feat; as someone who sometimes struggles to park his wheelchair in its correct place of an evening, I am in awe of what the ESA has apparently achieved today. And, as they point out, we stand to learn so much from this mission. This is quite a historic day, all things considered – time to sit back and wait for the data to roll in, hopefully telling us something about the origins of life on our own planet.

I think I know what you are expecting to read on here tonight. You are probably expecting me to launch into my usual prosaic bollocks about the futility of war, or about sacrifice; perhaps the word ‘folly’ would be in there somewhere. But why should I write that entry? What would be the point? We all know the score; we have all seen the pictures of the poppies and the devistation. You have read and heard what I have read and heard, so what could I, a man with no experience of war, possibly add. Today was pretty normal for me: up to Stratford to try to get my Mac fixed, then down to bexleyheath to get some shopping. A day of rolling around South london, free to go as I please in my chair. Yet that too is the best thing I can write about today, for those men whose deaths we mark today gave their lives so I can enjoy such freedoms. (Or so we are told, although to question such things is in itself to excercise a freedom).