On days like today one is supposed to be respectful of the dead. Whatever one’s views, we are told, we are supposed to put aside our differences and mourn the deceased. Well, I for one refuse to be a hypocrite; I refuse to stifle my conscious and dance to the Tory tune. To hell with respect, to hell with thatcher! We just watched as thousands lined the streets in reverence to a woman who ruined lives and livelihoods; who destroyed industries and with them the towns which relied upon them; who said there was no such thing as society.

That means, by the way, exactly what the left took it to mean, despite Richard Chartres’ fatuous protestation that that wasn’t what she actually meant. Thatcher, like those on the right in general, perceive humanity as a collection of individuals: everyone should care only for themselves, greed and selfishness are good, and the poor and week are so through their own ineptitude, and therefore should be left to starve. Chartres’ crap about Thatcher actually valuing interdependence is no more than the rewriting of history; an attempt to make an essentially heartless woman seem more caring. If she really believed in society, why did she do so much damage to the welfare state? Why did she lower tax and nurture a greed-is-good culture in the banks, thereby sewing the seeds of our current crisis? Why is her name synonymous with greed, selfishness and everything bad about capitalist neoliberalism?

For it is, and thus to see this woman who did so much harm being lorded and praised, given a state funeral costing ten million quid at a time when those on benefit are starving, makes me feel sick. Frankly, I’m disappointed there weren’t more protests. This country is hurting right now due to the tories, so to see the arch tory get such a send off, as if she did no harm, sickens me. I would simply have thrown her body into the river.

While you might well be right to say it was a bit of a waste of time, given that I didn’t achieve what I set out to, I feel I just came in from a glorious walk. I’m currently looking for activities with which to occupy myself – Lyn has her music and the Paraorchestra, so I think I need to hav soe sort of occupation apart from reading and blogging too. With that in mind, today I had the idea of going up to London and investigating it’s famous film school: perhaps courses there would e more hands on and activity-oriented. I have recently felt the need to go out there and start making stuff, doing stuff, rather than just tapping away at my keyboard for hours on end.

thus this afternoon I set out. first I headed for the local bus stop, boarded a 53 bound for whitehall, and instantly realised it was going to be a long afternoon. There were two prams in the wheelchair space. The driver asked the west-indian guardians to move them, as per the signage, but they misheard him and thought he was asking them to get off the bus altogether. You should have heard he argument that ensued – I felt so embarrassed I almost got off and headed home. I felt like hiding, and fixed my eyes to my Ipad for most of the trip.

I was still wondering what ‘bloodclart’ means when we got up into the city. In Parliament Square, of course, they were busy preparing for tomorrow. Strangely, it felt like the build-up to the olympics all over again, for there was the same sense of activity and anticipation, albeit under ver different circumstances. Not wishing to dally, though, I rolled on, down the now-quite-familiar whitehall, across trafalgar square, towards here google maps said the London Film School should be. It took me some time to find, and when I found it I was rather disappointed. I had rather expected a quite grand building, but the entrance to the London film school, it turns out, is no more than a normal looking door in a normal looking building. A door which, even more disappointingly, was quite firmly locked for the Easter break. I had trundled all the way up there for nothing.

Nothing, that is, apart from a great walk in central London. She looked glorious today, in the spring sun. Before I came home, I had a look round Parliament square, at all the statues, journalists and armed police. Then, not wanting a repeat of my inward journey, I took the tube home, resolving to do the sensible but boring thing and email the film school instead.

To my great relief, today I got my chair back, so I went to school and then for a walk. I had missed my flaneur-like strolls, but I didn’t go far: I just trundled up to the o2, where I noticed a poster for a steriophonics gig in october. I didn’t know whether Lyn likes them, but I know how she loves all music, and knowing too how quickly tickets for such gigs sell, I went ahead and bought tickets. Of course, I told her when I got back, and was met with a huge grin! Happy day, and we now have a gig to look forward to. Man, how I love living in this city, where one can stroll along ad buy tickets for a supergroup as if hey were a band playing at a local pub.

I was thinking the other day that pretty much my only real criticism of the Olympic ceremonies is that none of them involved Sir David Attenborough. They still fascinate me, believe it or not; they matter as we won’t have another chance to show off to the world like that again for a very long time. They were an opportunity to show the entire world what we can do, and for the most part I think danny Boyle and his fellow directors did an excellent job. Yet if I had directed it, I would have included David Attenborough in there somewhere: watching this and this just now reminded me what a national treasure Attenborough is. He has a great intellect and is fascinating to listen to. I do think he should have been included in last year’s festivities. Mind you, that raises the question, what could he have done? He is above all a documentary-maker and storyteller, more suited to talking and discussing than performing in such spectaculars. Perhaps that’s why Boyle left him out, but I still think it was a shame this great man was not included. And I also think that if Thatcher is getting a state funeral, David Attenborough will deserve one too, when the time comes.

Today marks ten years since I started blogging; a full decade since I wrote this entry. Blimey – that’s quite a achievement when you think about it. I know I’m not the best of bloggers: I’m not particularly astute, and I don’t always have anything interesting to write about, but I think I’ve written one or two reasonable entries over the years. I have made an effort to keep it up, which, considering most blogs are only active for a few months, is something to be proud of. Indeed, today also marks six months, give or take, since I missed a day: although I might soon return to posting an entry at least every two days, I reckon this is my longest ‘chain’ of consecutive entries. That’s also quite an achievement, I think.

In a way, this website is a record of my life over the last ten years it’s highs and lows, it’s achievements and follies. It has indeed been quite a decade: my first entries were written in my old bedroom at my parents house; then I blogged from my room at uni; now I blog from my little office in the house I share with the woman will one day marry (on that note, congratulations are due to my good friend from uni, Chris, who is getting married to day). I don’t know why, but something compels me to keep it up, to come in here and type out my innermost thoughts for the world to see. While that compulsion has got me into trouble once or twice, I can’t see it abating, so all being well I’ll probably be blogging for at least another decade.

I wouldn’t be much of a disability blogger if I failed to flag this piece of protest ar up. ‘Bedding Out’ is an interesting piece of performance art by Roaring Girl, drawing attention to the realities of life for many people with disabilities. As Liz Crow says, ”It is the peddling of myths about disabled people and those in poverty that bear no relation to our lives as they really are. It is the notion of us, in and out of paid work, as feckless and shiftless, fraudster and scrounger, as workshy and morally bankrupt that ignores the many influences of a person’s capacity to work and sets us aside as ‘other’.”

Check it out while you can!

I was going to let my entry yesterday stand as the last entry I’d write about thatcher, at least until next week, but last night it occurred to me that the tories appear to have decided to try to use her death to their advantage. As I noted on Tuesday, she is a highly politicised figure: given that those on the left are using the occasion of thatcher’s death to show the damage she and the tories did, those on the right are trying to do the exact opposite. That is to say the tories are trying to turn her death to their advantage, using it to celebrate conservatism; they are trying to make Thatcher out to be some kind of great patriotic hero.

We can se this in the way CaMoron recalled parliament yesterday, at great expense to the taxpayer, and in the fact that she is getting a state funeral in all but name: the tories are trying to turn her death into some grand state occasion. Nothing would please CaMoron more than the image of thousands lining the streets next Wednesday for her send off, as it would allow him to claim he and his party has support, that they are heirs to a national hero, and so on. In other words, the tories stand to make enormous political capital from the pomp and ceremony of the state funeral of one of their heroes, as then they could suggest she was our hero too, and that opposition to her, and thus them, is smaller than it actually is.

What we need to do, then, is ignore the entire affair. Rather than going and protesting, nobody should go at all. Riotous protests can too easily be ignored, but imagine what a bold, infinitely more profound image it would send if her hearse has to pass through empty, deserted streets. Two years ago, I wrote rather foolishly that the disabled community should boycott the Paralympics in order to send a message to the government. Obviously that was never going to happen, but now we have an even better opportunity: I get the impression that the tories want this to be an occasion like the olympics, where everyone comes together as one nation, but in order to honour one of their heroes rather than to celebrate an international sporting event. They surely aim to foster a similar level of patriotic emotion, but one which is to their advantage. Of course, the mood will be entirely different, but they are seeking to generate the same kind of nationalistic fervour, the same kind of nationalistic imagery with crowds lining the streets, but with a pro-government, pro-tory accent. What if they were denied such images? what if the streets are simply deserted next Wednesday? can you imagine a starker message of opposition to thatcherism, toryism, and thatcher’s current manifestations?

I think under the circumstance I better resist temptation to launch into another anti-thatcher rant – although I was pretty pissed off at the condescending arrogance of DDP’s comment yesterday (you would think someone who brands the entire left idiotic and immature would not be so cowardly as to hide behind three letters) – and instead lighten the tone by directing you here, to my favourite thatcher-related clip. Mind you, unlike the queen, I don’t think maggie played herself in this one.

You know, I kind of had a feeling that a big event was due: before yesterday lunchtime, it had been some time since anything big was in the news – the type of story that grabs all the headlines and dominates internet chat. My money was on north Korea: I thought that any moment Kim Jong Un will finally go crazy and seven shades of shit would hit the fan in the far east. It still might, of course, but the british headlines are now preoccupied with maggie thatcher and preparations for her funeral.

I feel as if I should write a fairly long entry about her. After all, she is a very significant figure in british politics. But I don’t feel I can, really. She was the PM when I was growing up, and as child I think I was hazily aware of her presence of her as an authority figure. In that limited sense I think I liked her. Of course as I matured and became politically aware, I realised the damage she did and the harm she caused. She saw the rise of neolibealim and nurtured greed and selfishness: despite tory attempts to rewrite history and try to somehow blame everything on Blair and brown, it was the rise of this -everyman-for-himself attitude which lead to the current financial mess. I get very angry when I see them trying to make thatcher out to be some kind of saint ho saved the country, when in fact she ruined it.

What I find interesting right now when I watch the news, then, is how people are reacting. In 1997, for example, when Diana died, we saw an almost universal outpouring of hysterical grief. I’m struck by how that contrasts with today, with half the country mourning, while in parts of the country people are actively celebrating. Amusingly, I read earlier that the song Ding Dong The Witch is dead is now heading for the top of the chart. I must say that really surprises me – I never expected to see british people revel in anyone’s death. I suppose it just goes to show how loathed she was, and the damage she did; but I also think it might be a reaction to what is currently happening too, with the Tories so deeply unpopular. Indeed, with CaMoron seen by many as a reincarnation of thatcher, might we read these celebrations of her death not merely as a dark, somewhat juvenile reaction to the passing of an elderly woman, but as an outpouring of opposition to her legacy and a rejection of the self-centred philosophy she gave rise to, under which so many are currently suffering?

Today, to mark the passing of Margaret Thatcher, one of the primary authors of the neoliberal ethos under which so many disabled people are currently suffering, I’d simply like to direct you here.

I heard earlier today that A teenager who became Britain’s first youth police and crime commissioner (PCC) has apologised for her inappropriate comments on Twitter. She had apparently made homophobic and racist comments. My initial reaction was, of course, to dismiss her as yet another youngster who now thinks it is somehow clever to resort to homophobia and xenophobia: I get the sense that, in certain communities and sub-culture, to spout such crap is to show oneself to be a free thinker, free from the much-maligned dogma of political correctness. I therefore muttered ‘stupid bitch’ and thought no more of it.

But then I saw who printed the story, and my blood boiled.The Mail on Sunday, the very paper which, along with it’s weekly counterpart, is leading this abhorrent trend against immigrants, benefit claimants and which is feeding the ostracisation of any other minority; the very rag which rails against political correctness, had deigned to hypocritically pounce on the poor girl. Have you ever heard such sickening hypocrisy? Such a appalling display of seizing a moral high-ground it had no right to. My sympathies instantly fell with the little girl: for the mail to attack this girl for being xenophobic and homophobic, when they are one of the principal forces behind the resurgence of xenophobia in this country, tells us all we need to know about this two-faced little tabloid.

The sun is at last shining upon south London. On days like today, I usually like to go for a roam – that is, I go out and explore the streets in my electric wheelchair. However, since monday my chair has been boken, so today I asked our PA minika to push me out for just a short walk. Of course, she can only push the one us, so we left Lyn at home listening to her funky funky music. It was a peasant enough outing: we went through the park (I waskind of hoping there would be a cricket match on, given the weather, but no luck) and then round, through the village and home again via the shop. Not as long as my usual jaunts, but useful: I find travelling, the very act of moving, helps me to think. I also reckon you notice more when you’re being pushed. Moreover, while there is nothing wrong wit staying at home – for our little house is very cool indeed – days like today just sem too rare at the moment to waste inside, broken chair or not.

Not that I’m crazy enough to think it will happen, but today marks fifty years until the day upon which, according to star trek, humans will make first contact with alien life. Trek ore says that, on 5 April 2063, Zefram Cochrane tests the Phoenix, demonstrating warp drive by achieving Warp 1 for approximately one minute in the Solar system. A passing Vulcan ship, the T’Plana-Hath, detects the warp signature and lands in Bozeman later that evening, officially making first contact with Humans, changing our attitudes forever. I just thought I’d draw that to your attention, and direct you here.

I watch the news bulletins with increasing concern, aware that, by the time I come to write tomorrow’s entry, the first shots of a dangerous war could have been fired. I feel I shuld be writing about Korea. That was my initial plan for today’s entry, but I just stumbled onto something much more positive. Here you will find a very interesting interview between Mark Kermode and Sir Danny Boyle (he may ave turned down the knighthood, but I choose to award him the respect he is owed). I must admit I did not know much about boyle, and still don’t really: I was too young to see Trainspotting when it first came out, and still haven’t, believe it or not; I think I’ve seen Shallow Grave once. On the other hand, I thought Slumdog Millionaire a masterpiece.

After watching this interview, then, I think I better go back and watch a few of his older works: the man is quite clearly a genius – one of the greatest directors working today. He is also responsible for what must be the greatest television spectacle this country has ever seen -the Olympic Games Opening ceremony. I’m sorry, but I still think that ceremony, and this sequence in particular, was a work of utter genius. I just think Boyle was so brave to do something so brave, so left-of-field, so surprising and yet so utterly british. Thinking about that ceremony still makes me feel proud to be british and a Londoner. Yet it also makes me feel creative: part of me says that if boyle can produce such remarkable things so can I. Interviews like this make me want to create, to write my own scripts and make my own films. On that front, I’m happy to report that I do have an idea or two I’m working on, but I still have yet to put pen to paper, as they need fleshing out. In the meantime, I now want to engage properly with Boyle’s work: he struck me as a director highly in tune with film as both an artform and mass entertainment. I’m just in awe of him – I wonder what else I can learn from the man responsible for making he entire nation gasp, the demi-god who had the queen parachute out of a helicopter with James Bond.

I have started to worry that I’m getting a little boring on the political front. I’m getting more and more upset at what our current government is doing: the only recourse I have is to come to my computer and lambast them on my blog. And yet there are only so many ways you can insult the government, only so many terms of abuse you can use before you either hav to write something more substantial or turn to another subject. The thing is, while I know with every fibre of my being that what CaMoron and co. are doing is wrong, I do know know enough to suggest any alternative. In a way this is the problem labour has: pretty soon they will have to start suggesting valid alternatives or they will loose credibility. I know the deficit must must be reduced, and that it is therefore vital for the government to reduce spending. At the same time, I know that reducing benefits will harm thousands of disabled people…Yet i occurs to me, somewhere in my mind, that I could be only worrying about myself – that is, worrying about the money I, as a disabled man, will no longer get. On that level, am I, and indeed all disability activists, bing as selfish as the tories? We know the benefits system must be reformed, or else it’ll collapse, and then we truly would be fucked. Yet we also know that that reform will inevitably mean a reduction, which means a severe drop in our income. Not to fight the cuts is folly, but if nothing is done about the economy the system will disintegrate and we would hav no benefits to cut. Thus I’m beginning to think we are stuck: we rightly dread reform but all parties agree reform must happen. All I feel I can do, then, is sit here and type, hurling unwarranted insults at people I’ll never meet, often going too far (as happened with a status update I posted yesterday on Facebook) yet not being able to offer any alternative. Thus think I’ll leave the whole depressing subject, await whatever doom is coming to us in peace, and try to blog about other subjects.

Earlier we bore witness to George Osbourne term criticisms of his ideologically-inspired cuts ‘ill-informed rubbish’. I couldn’t believe what I was watching: this pestilent little man, currently inflicting untold suffering on thousands of households, actually said ‘Now, those who defend the current benefit system are going to complain loudly. These vested interests always complain, with depressingly predictable outrage, about every change to a system which is failing… defending benefits that trap people in poverty and penalise work is defending the indefensible.” Can you believe this arrogant piece of shit? Those who defend the poorest in society have ‘depressingly predictable outrage’, and act out of self-interest. Those words filled me with rage: a millionaire accusing those who stand up for the poorest in society of self interest; speaking as if the justifiable outrage he has caused is no more than the whim of a few malcontents; insinuating that those who disagree with him do not understand. Have you ever heard such patronising, arrogant bullshit?

We who protest do understand – we understand far better than any toffee nosed tory. We understand the state s there to support people; we understand that, contrary to tory ideology, the benefits system does not trap people. That is an argument the right stole from the left: it is charities, which conservatives favour, which trap people. They have a vested interest in keeping people reliant on them, whereas the state needs people to be independent. Thus that argument is bull, usurped fro the left in order to justify lowering taxes. We also understand that we exist in society who should care for one another, instead of caring only for yourself. The able should help the less able, not hoard their money in a system based on greed and selfishness. Only then can everyone’s abilities be fostered.

So to see that arrogant asshole stand there and lamast those who care for thei fellow being and see these cuts for what they are as acting out of self interest fills me with rage. Surely someone so selfish, so arrogant, so ill-informed and so hypocritical has no right to hold public office. Sorry, to me such people are on a par with the very worst of humanity. Osbourne must go!

Duncan Smith, Duncan Smith

You really do take the piss

Your idea of fairness is a myth!

You hit the poor hardest with your avarice.

So resign now Mr Duncan Smith!

This afternoon, just on the spur of the moment – Lyn being otherwise occupied – I decided to go up to Stratford, to take a look at how the Olympic Park was evolving. I had been planning a trip up there for a while: it isn’t far, just two stops on the tube, and you know how interested I am in what happened there last year. In my head that place is the site of something remarkable.

Off I went, then, just after lunch. I’ve been there before, of course, but I was interested to see how the place had changed in the six months since the paralympic closing ceremony. Truth be told, I’m not sure what I expected to see: I knew that the place would be largely a building site, and it would probably be better to wait until the park reopens fully, but hey, I’m a curious little cripple. Besides, certain birthdays are approaching I need to start thinking about, and a tour of the Westfield shopping centre could help with that.

Now that I’ve returned, though, I don’t find there is much to report. Sure enough, the place is a building site: you can’t get into the park, so I just whizzed round the shopping centre for a bit. Even in there, though, half the shops were shut, it being Sunday, so just returned home after a while. Mind you, I did see a couple of shops I’d like to return to when they are open: I’ll probably wait a few months for that though.

I got the sense that that area is now in a state of flux or transition. Stratford’s time in the spotlight, for which it was (re)designed, is over: cruising around it’s streets this afternoon, I got the impression I so often get in London, of the old butting up to the new. There, victorian and Edwardian terraces, remnants of an old east London, Butt up to modern buildings built especially for last year. Now, though, it’s even more curious as the event those new buildings were built for is now passed, so they too have become part of history: they are passed their heyday just as the terraces are. I suppose in a way they are a synecdoche for London itself, full of history, constantly pressing forward into the future. And is stratford is part of this city which could stand for the whole, so London could stand for the world itself.

Wow! Amazing how prosaic I get after a Sunday afternoon drive.

I am currently nice and warm. As a matter of fact, I’m currently in quite a fun little black dress, but that’s beside the point: I shouldn’t be here, in the warmth of home, but out in the cold of central London protesting agains the bedroom tax. This obscenely unfair tax – and it IS a tax regardless of what CaMoron might like to pretend it is – will hurt millions of the poorest people in society. The impoverished and most vulnerable are bearing the brunt of Tory ideological cuts. As I type, thousands of people are out on the streets of the nation protesting against it.

The strange thing is, it’s not being reported in the news. We have had the bbc news channel on for most of the day, and haven”t heard a jot. I only know about it through facebook: I saw a poster about it on there last night, by which time it was too late to make plans. I hope it is going well, and gets noticed. As stated here,

[quote=”Welfare news service”]Several hundred people gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square on Saturday to protest against the government’s welfare cuts and the controversial ”bedroom tax”.

Simultaneous protests were held in towns and cities across the UK ahead of the cuts scheduled to come into force in April. In Glasgow, around 2,500 people, including trade unionists and people from disabled groups, marched from Glasgow Green to George Square in the city centre.[/quote] Yet we don’t hear a peep about it in the mainstream media. How very odd…

I think I have mentioned on here before that part of my family lives in cyprus: my maternal grandparents came here after the war, met and set up a family. Many of my relations still live on the island, so I’m very worried about the current state of affairs there. While my parents assure me that, as far as they know, my aunts and uncles are okay, the fact that I feel I barely understand the economics does not help. I know the cypriot government has taken to taking directly from people’s bank accounts – Dad just explained to me that, given the size of the cypriot economy they had no choice, there isn’t anywhere else to take the money from. Nevertheless this seems a dire step indeed. I just hope my family and friends are okay, that they can weather this storm, and that things on that beautiful island do not get much worse.

I just came across this quite cool piece of footage from bbc scotland. As reported here, ”Iain Duncan Smith’s appearance as keynote speaker at a conference supporting welfare reform organised by welfare pimps Capita in Edinburgh ended up a farce of Carry On proportions when activists smuggled themselves into the conference hall and disrupted his speech, with Willie Black, a veteran social rights campaigner telling IDS ‘We dinna want you, we dinna need you & we got more panda’s than you’.” Good on the protesters, I say! These unelected liars need to be shown the pain they are causing: they deserve noting but derision, contempt and ridicule. What angers me, however, is hearing IDS lie about not actually cutting benefits – he may not technically be reducing them, but benefits are indeed falling in real terms. People are suffering due to his policies – policies he has chosen to enact – so to hear the arsehole trying to defend himself, trying to make out he is working in the national interest instead of that of the rich, is galling. I hope the unelected goit gets the heckling he deserves.

You know, we cripples know how to rock, especially here in London. Last night, Lyn and I went to an event called Club Attitude, an anual event run br disability organisation attitude is everything. It took a while to get there, and we stopped for a curry on the way, but once we had reached the venue in Shoreditch, I wondered why we had never been there before. It was not unlike a normal nightclub, complete with bar and band, but people with disabilities were everywhere. I instantly thought ”This place rules – I must come here again.” The whole place was fully accessible, geared to accomodate the needs of people with various disabilities: a bar well stocked with straws, part of it lowered to accomodate wheelchair users; there was even a sign language interpreter on stage – the sight of someone trying frantically to interpret grunge metal into BSL totally ruled!

I’m sure this is not new to some people, and I expect to get comments asking why I’m writing about this as if it is a novelty, but I’d never been to such an event before. Lyn, however, had played there before we met each other. Of course, I’ve been to clubs – love ’em! – but none run by, for and about disabled people. I was taken by the idea, and what an awesome expression of crip culture it was: it did not seem like one of those patronising events run by norms intended to let the poor little cripples have fun, but simply a normal club run with disabled people in mind.

A short while into the evening I got chatting to one of the organisers: I was eager to ask when the next even was. Much to my great disappointment, he told me that they can only put it on once a year due to funding – were they to have more such events, they would have to charge a great deal more for tickets. I saw his point: the venue alone wouldn’t be cheap. Yet such events strike me as great opportunities to chill out, network with fellow crips and show the world that ‘we’ can party just as hard as anyone else. Surely after the Paralympics there must be something one can do – we crips need more parties!

I am very concerned indeed about a recent change in the Uk’s political discourse. Yesterday we saw CaMoron stand up and deliver a speech concerning capping immigration. Implicit in his diatribe was the presumption that to worry about immigration is to have a legitimate concern, and that such concerns have their basis in something other than xenophobia. Politicians from across the spectrum are talking as if it is or might be rational to oppose immigration: there seems to have been a tidal shift in the discourse, so that now such talk is no longer the province of the far right.

But that is where such talk still belongs. All other arguments aside, the moment we start to talk about immigration negatively, we play straight into the hands of the far right. From the way CaMoron was talking yesterday, it seemed that the closet racists of UKIP had won the argument: ‘mainstream’ politicians are now dancing to their sickening tune, mindlessly parroting the lie that it is not racist to worry about immigration. It is! The desire to cap immigration is the desire to stop ‘other’ people coming from other places and claiming what we have. It boils down to a simplistic us an them discourse, no matter how much they try to hide it under arguments about whether we have space or resources in this country . It is all about rejecting people who are different and trying to keep what we have for ourselves, never mind the fact that we get from immigrants more than they take.

I find it sickening, and worry about where it will end. The second we start to talk about immigration negatively, we take the first step down a dark path, one where our discourse is dominated by simplistic binaries, one where it is acceptable to view anyone who looks different or speaks with an unusual accent with suspicion. That must not happen — the political discourse must not be hijacked by xenophobes. We cannot allow the idea that it is okay to worry about immigration to become mainstream and acceptable, for it woud change the discourse, diverting it to a place we had long since escaped. Yes, there is no denying resources are limited, but the far right are using that fact to gain a foothold, to present themselves as something other than the lunatic xenophobes they are. And once people in mainstream parties start dancing to their tune, people forget the dangers that come with such attitudes, and the paradigm shifts back to a place it has not been to in decades: first it becomes acceptable to worry about immigration, then it becomes acceptable to suspect immigrants. Then people start to shun anyone not speaking with a british accent: you’ll start noticing the odd incident in, say, a shop, where an english woman is allowed to step in front of a foreigner in a queue, and nobody will say anything. Then such things will become more commonplace, until blatant discrimination becomes standard. Landlords will be allowed to refuse to let out rooms to black people; by then, nobody will see it as racist, just a natural response. Eastern europeans will no longer be served in pubs – after all, the standard mainstream attitude will by then that they shouldn’t even be here. Not long after that, other minorities will become resented: people will start tut-tutting about having to have ramps everywhere: we crips will find ourselves increasingly shunned, and discrimination will be rationalised through saying we are an economic burden. Pretty soon people will start earnestly arguing for our widespread institutionalization, couched in terminology which pretends to care for our well-being, but is actually about taking us from mainstream society. And we all know what horrors await us behing the walls of care homes.

I know this might sound far-fetched or reactionary – no doubt some might accuse me of melodrama, and not for the first time. Yet history tells us that as soon as we allow the right-wing discourse to take hold, as soon as it becomes acceptable to question things as immigration, such things sooner or later follow. Thus we cannot allow the discourse to change; we cannot allow suspicion to become the norm. We cannot let questioning the motives of everyone with an unusual accent to become acceptable. History tells us what always follows as soon as we start down that path. That”s why we must take back the discourse; thats why we must say ‘No! It is not okay to worry about immigration!” Immigrants need our help, not our hatred or suspicion. As soon as it becomes normal to eye anyone foreign with resentment, we have lost our way, and risk repeating the follies of the past, and what I have so darkly predicted here will be made real. Thus this change in discourse must be stopped, for now we see but through a glass darkly.

I just rewatched The Man With The Golden Gun, which, given that I recently gave Live and Let Die a second viewing, I think just about wraps up the reappraisal of Roger Moore’s Bond that I embarked upon two or three months ago. I know there are three more, but I think For Your Eyes Only and A view to a Kill can wait, and I don’t think I can be arsed with Moonraker. What I wanted to establish is whether I’d been too hasty in dismissing Moore’s bond in my initial marathon viewing; I suspected that my Judgement had been clouded by having recently tasted the other Bond Vintages. I now think there is an element of truth in that – Moore played the character quite differently to those who went before or came after him. However, I now see him as less camp than I thought he was: as I wrote here, Moore initially struck me as a cartoon version of bond, but in the Man with The Golden Gun, I saw a reassuring bondish brutality. Mind you, I must say that the plot stil struck me as incomprehensible this afternoon: I used to think the problem was with me, that I had missed plot points, but having paid proper attention, I think it was just badly written. Frankly, it struck me that the writers may have just made it up as they went along.

That is not to say that I thought it a bad film – there have certainly been worse. There are a few good stunts in this film, and I love the character of JW Pepper, who appears in both Live And Let Die and Golden Gun. This film also resolves my personal debate over whether 007 would use a taxi: when he arrived at buckingham palace in a black cab to do his Olympic assignment, I wondered ether it was in keeping with the character. But sure enough in Golden Gun he hails a taxi twice, so that’s okay then. I ove the character Nik Nak, an indeed the nefarious Scaramanga, played to perfection by the great Christopher Lee.

Nevertheless, I still think Moore is my least favourite bond, simply because, from a purist’s point of view, he is the least like Fleming’s character. Bond is supposed to be a cold, hard, callous man, not the camp figure in a safari suit Moore played him as. And yet, for all that, I like Moore’s bond -he is the fun bond, the bond of my childhood. For that, I suppose, I’ll forever have a soft spot for him.

I don’t think I’d be much of a disabled blogger if I didn’t send you here, where you can watch a charity gig by Lost Voice Girl. As you may know, Lost voice Guy is a VOCA-using stand-up comedian currently rising through the ranks. Here, we see a performance from his alter-ego, Lost Voice Girl, apparently done in aid of comic relief (although I daresay that dress and wig do suit him).

I think I am a fan. It is all too easy to dismiss such performers as mere gimmicks, getting laughs through pity. Yet Lost Voice Guy has a definite talent – he wittily exploits his communication aid for comic value, playing with things like pronunciation and perception. He makes fun of it, gently illustrating both the advantages and disadvantages of being a VOCA user. I think that is precisely what we in the voca-using community need: he functions as a type of ambassador for ‘us’, humanising voca use, showing voca-users to be jut the normal people they are while allowing people to laugh at the funny side of things. A voca-using comedian really is a great step forward; it needed to be done, and Lost Voice guy does it so well. I hope we meet one day, and maybe collaborate.

Once again I have just had the misfortune of watching Nigel Farage speak, and once again I felt the urge to come to the computer to denounce the imbecile. This man represents the biggest threat to peace and stability we face – he is part of the second rise of fascism across Europe. What I find so insulting is his claim to be proEuropean inasmuch as he wants Europe to return to a diverse divided collection of nation-states. Surely he doesn’t think we’re all stupid enough to fall for that. The european union isn’t about the merging of cultures: it is an effort we never again see a return to the status quo of Europe in the thirties. But then, I suppose Farage would love to see a return to an era when people thought in such limited terms, when xenophobia was the norm, and the welfare state didn’t exist. He is essentially a fascist railing against immigration and windfarms. The irony is, he thinks himself to be some kind of anti-fascist standing up to a european monster, defending the interests of ordinary people. What bull: the only interests Farage defends are his own and the capitalist bigots who follow him.

Given that the economy relies on immigration, and that windfarms are an absolutely necessary part of the fight against global warming, isn’t it time that people saw Farage for what he is? he is a madman,, a throwback to an era long past; he an his deluded followers have nothing to contribute to the political discourse but hatred and stupidity. They would have us all seeing the wold in such petty one-dimensional terms. Surely it is time to nip this folly in the bud – time to dispand UKIP before Farage does any real damage. We cannot allow this dissembling xenophobe to carry on peddling his folly a wisdom.

I am currently sat in a church in north London. Lyn brought me along to a Paraorchestra rehearsal: she was here yesterday for their first rehearsal of a new season, but I had other commitments. Today, however, I got to come with her, and I feel like a child among adults. I have suddenly found myself in a room full of supremely intelligent, talented individuals; each one of them capable of creating the most Devine sound. I feel as if I have sneaked into somewhere I should not be, as if I have not earned the right to be sat here, or as if my mortall ears are not fit to hear this. In short I feel inordinately privalaged to be sat here, among what must be one of the foremost disability arts groups.

Oh, how I love life, and where it continues to take me.

To be a tory is to care only for yourself; it is to see yourself as an individual rather than part of a community. Therefore, to tories, you work only for yourself, and the welfare of anyone else is of no concern of yours. I thus see it as an ultimately childish, selfish philosophy which refuses to admit man is a social being. To those on the right, taxation is theft by the state; but to those on the left to pay tax is to contribute to the wider community – it is a necessary part of being part of society. I’ve always thought that man should alter his entire mindset: he should perceive himself not in terms of what he an earn for himself, but what he can contribute to the community, and humanity as a whole. The very idea of money should indeed be done away with, as it only motivates greed, the selfish desire to have more than others. in the long run, that gets us nowhere: the focus should be on society rather than the self, as it is only through working together that we can solve the problems we face, and only then can we let everyone shine regardless of other factors which otherwise hold them back. I know I’ve written this before, probably more than once, but I thought it worth saying again the day after the chancellor delivered such an ill-thought-through budget based on individualism rather than community thinking.

I just got home from school; I stil go there twice a week to help out, just do a little role-modeling etc. This afternoon was a bit odd because they had some visitors in from Argentina, so the usual class was rather cut up, but at the end of the session, just as things were winding down, we were back in class. In such moments when I’m not needed I tend to just fiddle about on my Ipad.

Suddenly they turned the lights out and started to sing Happy Birthday, and I noticed a cake being brought out. That is not unusual. I just assumed it was one of the student’s birthdays, but I hadn’t caught whose, so I thought I”d just wait for their name to be sang in the middle of the song.So I did, but to my surprise and astonishment, I heard my name sang and saw the cake come towards me. They must have remembered. In that moment I felt truly humble, grateful, valued and warm. I could have cried. It was on of the most remarkable moments of my life.

In that moment I decided to volunteer more often, and fiddle with my ipad less.

Last night was very cool indeed – well, what I remember of it was anyway. I must admit I got rather drunk. Yet I do remember it being a most awesome party, kicked off rather early when Lyn started to play tunes. Se kept playing all night putting on most of my favourite songs, from Carly Simon to Baker street. I just sat at the table for most of the evening, drinking beer after beer, as all my friends fo the area popped in. I felt like a kid again, being the centre of attention. The guys made an awesome dinner, including a home-baked pizza which probably ranks as one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had; John and Matt popped by, and told me about two more fiction-meets-reality scenarios – one with Blair and one with Brown– which I’ll soon get my analytical teeth into; the girl I told you about from GAD came; and all the While Lyn played song after song. The place was buzzing with people and music all evening: it really was a hell of a party, and to think that it was all in my honour makes me feel very lucky and special indeed.

I’m thirty today. I suppose that means my post-adolescence adolescence is over, and I now have to settle down, become more sensible and drink less.. To be honest I think I have settled down and matured quite a bit of late, largely thanks to Lyn. If you told me ten years ago that the coming decade would see me go to uni, get a degree, leave home and become engaged to the most wonderful woman on earth, I would not have believed you. It makes me wonder what the next ten years will bring: if it is as gloriou as the one just gone, life will be good.

Last night was special. Tomorrow marks my thirtieth birthday (a fact which, incidentally, I’m not at all happy about) and today is Yan’s birthday too, so yesterday we had a bit of a family get together up in Holburn. Nothing too big- just a meal at a very nice Belgian restaurant – but it was great to see my parents, Luke and Yan. Lyn and I got there early (I have yet to master the skill of estimating journey times in the metropolis) giving us time for a crafty aperitif and a look at the menu. The others didn’t take long to get there, though, and we were soon chatting away, enjoying a meal which might well have a place on this List. The evening came to an end far too soon, and it seemed only five minutes before we were in a taxi on the way home. I do, however, have two odd things to note: firstly, on their way there, the guys apparently bumped into Dominik, our PA, on the tube (a strange coincidence indeed). Secondly, Luke and yan gave me the DVD of the olympics; They seemed to think I was interested in it – now, I wonder whatever gave them that idea.

I watched a bit of comic relief last night, but I can’t say I was very impressed. Somewhat predictably, I soon became annoyed by it: it struck me as patronizing and tedious. If we truly cared about less fortunate people across the world, there are far better ways to help them than spending half a night letting a few comedians give us guilt trips. Wile I did enjoy the odd moment, such as the return of David Brent, I must say I was rather unimpressed. Mind you, I should say I wasn’t glued to the box – I spent the evening flitting in and out of the front room, so I probably missed bits. That doesn’t matter, though: I’ll flip through the highlights this afternoon, just to check for anything noteworthy (after all, I discovered this wek that Bill shatner had reprised the role of Kirk for this years oscars – surely this could be a step towards him playing the captain again in earnest) but I doubt there’ll be much. I’m interested in the juxtapositions of fiction and reality you often see at such events – these odd little frissions of the real, imaginary and symbolic. However, watching it last night, the whole thing struck me as crass and forced, and very condescending; either that or city life has turned me into a cynic.

It’s red nose day today.

A day upon which we’re made to play, a day for having ‘fun’, a day to help those we usually shun.

—

Hurrah for the organized kindness they cheer as the number rises kidding themselves that they’re helping

Like they ‘help’ save the poles from melting.

—

I will probably watch tonight, over a beer

Parts interest me, as I wrote here

That’s not to say I don’t realise the harm

It oppresses people, but I’ll keep calm.

—

People mistake charity for something great

Not realising things are better handled by the state..

Charities trap people, needing people to need

While remaining fronts for their administers greed.

—

So watch tonight, if you must only don’t think it’s right or just.

To think that is to be a fool

For to charty we are but tools.

I hear there is a new bishop of Rome – a new Pope. A man who, despite all the talk of reform, seems as conservative as the last one. Forgive me for trying to discuss something I am quite ignorant of, but I cannot see the catholic church reforming in the way it needs: it is essentially a medieval institution trying to stay relevant. Frankly, I’m baffled that it is still so strong. I suppose it gives people something solid to hold on to, but that can only last so long.

i had one of my odd but interesting thoughts recently. If I were the Pope’s PR guru (and what’s the betting he has one) what woud I advise the pontiff to do in order to maintain a modicum of relevance? How could we dispel the myth that the pope is an out of date institution dedicated to maintaining a power it does not deserve and protecting it’s peadophile priests? Why, I’d follow the example of the british queen and have il papa perform in a stunt alongside a major film character – what better way to show the 76-year-old Francis to be in tough with the Facebook generation? How about having him be flown to the cathedral by superman, or he could sing some frank zappa, or he could do a version of this old Pyhton skit.

Now, I know what you’re saying: no such thing will ever happen, even a version which didn’t use my suggestions. But why? if the queen could do it, so could the pope, or what is he above which the queen isn’t? I mean this as a serious question: if an institution like the british monarchy can be open to such play, why not the catholic church? At least it would show it to be capable of modernisation and engaging with popular culture. Yet it won’t: it sees itself as Holy, above such things, and thus it has no place in modern culture.

I daresay it’s high time I brought you some proper disability news, so I think I’ll send you here. A legal challenge has been mounted to try to stop the closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) which thousands of disabled people rely on for their survival. The government say they want to replace it with more local systems, but that just means passing the buck to local councils in order to save money. Given that such councils don’t have the funds to replace it, thousands of disabled people stand to loose their independence. The ILF MUST be saved, then, and I really hope this challenge succeeds. I’m really sick of these tory bastard putting their selfish desire to lower tax before the needs of disabled people.

It would seem that I’m not the only person to lament the loss of a wheelchair. I came across this eulogy by Stella Young earlier. It’s a beautifully written piece (especially for an australian) articulating the emotional attachment some of us crips feel for our chairs. They’re not just mobility aids, not just tools for getting from A to B: they are liberators. As Young points out, most norms se them as signifiers of weakness, illness or desease, but to us they are objects of supreme pride and strength. Poetically addressing her chair, young writes ”You have been an integral, unwavering support to me. With you I have finished high school, had my first kiss, moved away from home and begun my adult life. I have fallen in love in you, had my heart broken in you, lost my virginity… beside you. I have jumped for joy on your trusty seat, turned my head and sobbed into your backrest. I have danced and laughed and become someone.” Our chairs are part of who we are, and a source of power. They are metonyms for disability, this supremely vibrant community full of wonderful people in which I’m proud to belong, and as such my chair is part of my very being.

I suppose the ironic thing about the fact that I’ve been rabbeting on about the Olympics so often for the last few months is that I don’t give a fuck about the sport. Apart from Cricket and occasionally football, to be honest I don’t give a damn about who beat who in whatever event. What interests me is the social aspects which come with sport: the cultural and artistic side-effects, as it were. That, to me, is the true value of events such as the olympics: as stated here, in quite an interesting piece about the potential effects of Mumbai hosting the games, being awarded the olympics can have profound and positive consequences for a city.

Yet, at the same time, that’s all bull. In the long term what good would having a few hyper-fit people running around a track for a couple of weeks do for one of the poorest cities on earth? Indeed, what good did it do London? Glorious though it was, it’s central focus is still about sport, about winning and loosing, about very lucky, privileged people competing. At the end of the day, the only bits that interested me were the ceremonies, and they were just book-ends to the main event – an event in which competition, not articulation, was the focus. While works of art have meanings which last forever, sporting events produce results lists which loose value the next time the event is played. Thus, although it was fun while it lasted, now the olympics is over, it is over, and all that matters is the next event. All we have left is the bill. The only thing left to debate, as I so often do, is the content of the ceremonies.

What I’m beginning to ponder, then, is how we can remove sport from the equation yet retain the cultural aspects of the olympics. What I want, I suppose, is a festival on an olympic scale; an event in which art replaces sport, but in which the city is still emphasised. All the nations of the world would come together, but instead of competing in sport, they would show off works of art. There could still be opening and closing ceremonies, of course, which would produce the same spectaculars I’ve been writing about, but elite athletics would be replaced with painting, music, film and any other artistic genre you can think of. Expression would replace competition; creativity would replace the fetishisation of physical ‘superiority’.

I’m not necessarily calling for the replacement of the olympics, but for a properly instituted cultural Olympiad to sit alongside it. After all, all humans are creative, on some level, but not all humans do sport. Therefore it seems to me that such an event would appeal to far more people, and have far more meaning. It would allow people to express themselves, both in terms of world culture and that of the host city. Moreover, such an event would probably be far cheaper to host than the olympics, as fewer venues would need to be built. It would allow people to sample cultures from all over the world, just as the olympics does now but with much more emphasis on those cultures. Why does the only major event which truly unites the world have to be one devoted to competition and the pursuit of physical ‘perfection’? Why not also have one devoted to human creativity? Frankly, I’d far rathe see a city like Mumbai spend it’s money on an event like this in which everyone can participate, than two weeks in which a few lucky people with ultra-fit bodies compete in competitions whose results have no possible bearing on anything else.

I just want to post a short little entry today wishing my Mum a happy mother’s day. Mum and Dad just got back from new york, where they celebrated their thirtyfifth wedding anniversary. Great going guys! Have a fantastic day, mum – love you lots!

Although I think I have said all I want to about the meeting of Bond and the queen, having gone back and added repeatedly to entries like this, this and this one, I find myself still fascinated by it. I am intrigue by the way it blurs fiction and reality; with how it forces together two aspects of british culture, one real and the other fiction, making it apparent that the two are interchangeable. In our postmodern world, there is no longer a definite boundary between fiction and reality: everything is a construct, part of the Lacanian symbolic which mediates the gap between the Real and the Imaginary. Thus this sketch simultaneously confirms the Bond franchise as a huge central part of our culture, and reveals the queens position as existing within the same sphere of cultural iconographies rather than above it, on a par with James Bond and any other fictional construct.

I am interested in where and how such fissions happen. The stunt with her majesty at the olympics was huge: under what other circumstances could you get a head of state to act, especially one held in such high regard. Whatever you think about the monarchy, you must admit that this was quite a big event, a big deal. It was, therefore, a one off – the queen will never act in a fiction again. I keep trying to find other such colossal events: it seems to me that examples of this type of cultural textual play only occur at events like the olympics. The only other place I can come up with is at charity telethons. Only there can you get the same strange type of forced entertainment, the same type of attention-seeking stunt, overtly intended to grab headlines. The only other example I could come up with is Can’t smeg, Wont smeg, where the cast of Red Dwarf appeared in character in an episode of Can’t cook Won’t Cook for red nose day. It isn’t on the same scale, of course, but there too you can see the same intrusion of imaginary-symbolic characters into something which calls itself real.

While I am aware of the repressive effect charity has, such events interest me, then, as they bring about the same type of circumstances where fictional spaces are opened up to reality and vice-versa. While they might seem mere bits of fun intended to grab attention, it seems to me that such devices open up realms where reality can be seen as the fiction it is, cultural iconographies are blurred and distorted, renowned institutions are shown to be constructs and constructs become real.Indeed, as my old film tutor Alan said after I shared my thoughts with him, ”What if Daniel Graig was really James Bond and the actor Daniel Craig was just an imaginary figment of the symbolic formation/fiction that we call ‘ordinary life’, the kind of entity that masquerades as part of social symbolic reality but is in fact a merely fictitious emblem of our collective desire for hero worship.” That is to say, for all we know, it is daniel Craig the actor who is a fictional construct, and the olympic film therefore showed a real man called James Bond walking alongside the queen.As I wrote here, though, that implies this country has a highly secret group of government assassins running about the place who are above the law – something totally undemocratic and very, very scary. Nevertheless, my point is that sketches like this raise such questions, in turn saying something of our culture. Given the large stage upon which they appear, they have a unique resonance too: yes they are forms of play, but I am starting to think they can be seen as lapses into the real through which certain truths about the constructed nature of society can be glimpsed.