I must admit to being slightly miffed today. As you probably know, last night was the Oscars. We were watching the press report of the ceremony, and I was getting excited as there were three films which I like the look of. I decided that I Need – and I mean NEED – to see The Artist, Hugo 3d and Midnight in Paris. I told Lyn this, who asked me why on earth I hadn’t, then. With that rhetorical kick up the backside, I went to google the local cinema listings. There is an Odeon within easy wheelchair-riding distance, but, to my great astonishment, none of the films I want to see are on. Hurrumph! That put a swift end to my excitement, but I’m still very eager to watch these three films, as all three seem to herald the return of an artistic facet that mainstream film has been missing recently. Mind you, when I put this to Alan, my old film lecturer, he wasn’t quite so sure.

There are two more things I need to do on here today:

firstly, I need to draw attention to the fact that it is my brother Luke’s 26th birthday today. I barely see luke these days, as we both live our own lives, but I often thin little bro. I hope Yan spoils him, and that Yaiya gives him lots of koftas!

Secondly, I’d like to send you here, to a new video by lyn, about how she uses her ipad to compose. It is pretty detailed and very interesting – go check it out.

This article in the Daily Mail had me enraged yesterday, and I am still very angry indeed about it. It concerns a child of five who lives as a girl yet was born male. I personally think it’s a case of a kid being disinhibited enough to explore her identity; recent research indicates that Gender Identity Disorder is manifesting itself at younger and younger ages. But according to the daily mail, the child is mixed up and a result of the growth of the gender identity ‘industry’. Never have I read anything born of more hatred and judgementalism: rather than exploring the subject fairly and evenly, the article’s author, Paul Bracci, makes accusations left, right and centre, virtually accusing the child’s parent’s and authorities of abusing her, and encouraging her to be some sort of freak.

I have had enough of this: I have had enough of feeling I should tolerate other people’s intolerance. This girl can no more help being transgender – if that is hat she is than I can help having cerebral palsy. It’s a part of you, nothing to be ashamed of, and something that nobody has a right to judge. What can be helped, however, is what others decide to think about it. That is a conscious decision, so of others decide to take a prejudiced stance, why should that be respected? Yesterday I think I resolved the paradox of liberalism, the contradiction of having to tolerate intolerance, by assuming that intolerance is conscious. People can decide what to think; they can decide to educate themselves about a subject, but instead they choose to cling to narrow-minded ideas of how the world should be and everything else is wrong. Thus it is they who are at fault, they who have a problem, and they, rather than this transkid or her parents, who warrant social stigma.

The mail can similarly decide what to print; it chooses to spew all this bullshit. It prints tosh about how it’s views are backed up by evidence and born of ‘common sense’, when in fact most of the evidence on the subject supports a more tolerant stance, and to invoke ‘common sense’ seems the height of arrogance. How then does this sickening, unthinking hatred qualify as journalism? Such articles serve only to stir intolerance and sanction ignorance; why should this be part of our press? A lot will be made about the launch of the Sun On Sunday, about how it is gutter journalism. The Sun may be a lad’s mag in the form a newspaper, but it is nowhere near as harmful and deserving of scorn than the Daily mail. The sun does not pretend to be highbrow; the mail thinks it is highbrow journalism when it is nothing but the rancid ravings of the ignorant, arrogant and intolerant. Give me Page three over that classless, puerile crap any day. Mail readers seem to sneer at Sun readers, but at least sun readers don’t think they’re reading anything other than a rag.

It has been a long old day, although today wasn’t as silly as last friday. Today has been the type of day where you get to grips with adult life, yet nothing particularly noteworthy happens. I guess it is days like these which define adult life, but which, growing up, you don’t realise life will ever be this way. A day or reflecting upon the sheer normality of day to day life. Most of all, though, it has been a day where all I could think of is the prospect off curling up to Lyn later, a thought which made everything seem right, even though it was hours away.

To be honest I was feeling rather low today. One or two things, which I won’t bore you with, have been worrying me. However, this afternoon I decided to watch a thing about Stanley Kubrick from The Cinefiles, a YouTube channel where three guys sit round a table and talk about film. Little did I realize, I was in for a treat:

these men, Edwin Samuelson, Michael Foltz and Eric Cohen, clearly have the mixture of absolute passion and near encyclopedic knowledge that is a primary feature of cinephilia. It was like watching, say, Bazin, Barthes and Durgnat sitting round a table talking about film. They certainly have the desire to put films in some sort of canonical order that is another prime feature of the cinephiliac discourse, as well as it’s infectious enthusiasm. On the other hand, the barely touch on the philosophy behind films, discussions of which pervade cinephiliac journals like cahiers du cinema. To my mind, their discussions have an aspect of fandom to them. For example, while a cinephile will discuss film in terms of directorial intent, a film’s meaning and its relationships with other arts etc, a fan will discuss film in terms of the internal fiction, the behavior of the dramatis personae, and so on. Both discourses are equally intense, but have slightly different focuses. Anyway, before I get too anal, I best direct you to what I find to be a fascinating discussion, part one of which can be found here, part two here and part three here.

I was sitting here in my office earlier when, all of a sudden, I heard Lyn start to chuckle in her office. After a minute or so she hadn’t stopped, so I decided to go and see what she found so funny. I immediately saw the source of her mirth. I don’t like posting pictures on here too often, especially those I’ve just come across, but this one is worth it:

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I have seen quite a few fan-films in my time. Most of them, to put it bluntly, are crap, consisting of footage from original films some idiotic teenager has recut in his bedroom and added new sound effects to. From time to time, however, you stumble onto a jewel. this film, called Born of Hope, is one such marvel. Based on The lord of the Rings, it tells the story of Aragorn’s father, Arathorn, and how Aragorn was born. It is essentially a love story, but it has a few impressive fight sequences.

This is not, however, your average made-on-a-wet-weekend fan-film: it had a budget of £25000 and a cast of 400. All the shots are original, with an original script (based, apparently, on an account found in the Lord of the Rings appendices). The acting is of a fairly professional standard; the shooting style bears the mark of someone who knows how to direct. The director, Kate Madison, does not try to emulate peter Jackson stylistically but uses her own technique, including one or two awesome sudden changes of filter. It is also clear that this film was not made by those who came to LOTR through the films, but by those with a deep respect for Tolkien and his languages.

All of this has me very excited indeed: I never realized fan-films could be this good. This film apparently won the London independent film festival award for best micro-budget feature. It just makes me want to get back to film-making myself. I’ve recently made a couple of shorts which I showed to you guys, and I’ve written a script for a third, but what I really need is a new camera so I don’t need to use the camera on my computer. I really love fiddling about with shots and capturing interesting images and image-sequences. But I digress – it’s just that amateur film-making like this really does excite me.

I was thinking at least semi-seriously about going up into London today to try to tell those attending the meeting on the nhs what I thought. Lyn had to go see the doctor, though, so I thought I better stay home. Nevertheless, I do feel quite strongly that the Tories’ proposed reforms to the health service: despite the dissembling and the bull, any fool can see that what they are proposing is privatisation. However, I now wish I went, as then maybe I could have seen this for myself. It seems I’m not the only person who feels strongly enough to go up to downing street today; part of me wishes that this woman had gone further and punched the sonofabitch, although I suppose we better leave that sort of thuggery to boxers. If you ask me she deserves a medal for telling Lansley what the rest of us think.!

I have noted on here before how living in London seems to skew one’s sense of geography and distance. As a kid I lived in Congleton, a small rural town up in Cheshire. There, I could tell how far a place was by how long one had to sit in the car to get there. For example, the nearest major town, Macclesfield, was about six miles away, which took about twenty minutes to half an hour. This also gave me a good sense of place. Yet because of the traffic and the road systems, hat rule does not hold true in London: I find myself having to adopt an entirely new mental approach to geography, my ability to roughly gauge distances having had to be disguarded.

To remedy this, I decided to do a simple exercise. In google chrome I opened two tabs, both with google earth. One was centred on Congleton, the other Charlton. Both, of course, had the same magnification level. What I found was rather cool, and drives home just how gigantic the city I now live in is. For example, Winsford, the town where I went to school for fourteen years, is to Congleton where Wembley is in relation to Charlton, or thereabouts. I remember it taking us about forty minutes to drive to school every day; I seriously doubt we could get to Wembley in that time. Romford is my new Macclesfield, but I daresay if I told Lyn we were going to Romford to do some shopping, she would look at me as if I had suggested we go to Timbuktu for our groceries. Thus London has this strange warping effect on distances: the distances between places bear no resemblance to the time it takes to get there; you could say it has its own rules when it comes to geography. On one level it struck me how big London is inasmuch as it is just one city, one place; yet on another level it is very small inasmuch as it is a self-contained world.

This is probably interesting only to me, and hardly worth noting. Yet it just strikes me as one of those oddities I have noticed. I suppose it’s just another of those instances where urban life skews one’s sense of perspective, and where another set of rules apply.

Yesterday I started to ponder something I decided to call Chronological transvestism. We all know that ordinary transvestism is when someone wears the clothes of the opposite gender – in common parlance, it usually refers to men dressing up as women. Chronological transvestism is completely different: it refers to boys dressing as men and girls dressing as women. When you think about it, it is from some perspectives justt as profound a subversion as ordinary transvestism, yet for some reason, I noticed yesterday, I find it very irritating.

Chopper and I had another of our stupid days yesterday. I might have known I was in for one of those when I rolled up to his place, just after noon; the first thing he did was offer me a beer. Mind you, this one was better than last time, as later Lyn came and joined us in the pub, and we had a fairly good evening. Anyway, earlier, on our travels around south-east London, I had seen a boy who can’t have been mire than twelve dressed as many of the older lads around here do: he was in the padded sleeveless jacket, tee-shirt and cap of a guy in his late teens or twenties. I know this is reverting to stereotype, but that look is associated with the violent, drug-filled culture of the urban male. The way in which this boy was seeking to emulate that look irritated me, although I’m not sure I can fully explain why. Of course, the boy just wanted to be like the older boys around him, but what does he know of that culture? What does he know of drugs and guns? It sort of felt like he was intruding on adulthood, pretending to be something he wasn’t.

Reading that last sentence back, it sounds silly, and indeed almost hypocritical. Yet part of me thinks that kids should be kids and should stop pretending to be more grown up than they are. After all, that kind of urban male culture is no place for a child. Replicating that culture, almost glamorizing it, perpetuates it, and, unlike the harmless donning of skirts and dresses, I’m not sure that’s such a good thing.

Hemingway once called London ‘too noisy and too normal’. He much preferred Paris or Havana, and other exotic places where one could chase women and be chased by bulls. But London to me is just as fascinating as those places: of course, they aren’t the same, but no two places ever are. London has a character of its own; one which you can only make out after you have lived here a while. Part of this character comes from the sheer size of the place: it’s so big that sooner or later you start thinking that London is the world and the world is London. It expands seemingly endlessly in every direction, not just geographically but culturally – there are people here from all over the world. The sheer expanse of this metropolis gives it the feel of a near-infinite labyrinth where there is always more to explore.

Lyn and I went to Bromley today, an area which I’ve only been to once, briefly before. We needed to get there early, so we took a taxi. On the way there, it occurred to me that even if I live here for the rest of my life, I’ll probably never know London in it’s entirety. I didn’t know what to make of that thought: I knew every nook and cranny of the small town I grew up in, but I can never know London that way so I cannot quite feel it is my own. But on the other hand I revel in it’s enormity: it seems endlessly varied, each sub-area having it’s own distinct feel so, as I say, it feels like a world unto itself. Thus, London may indeed be noisy, but it is never normal.

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”Letting this goal in proves our strategy is working.”

The blog entry I made yesterday was crap. It isn’t that now disagree with what I wrote in it, but it wasn’t nearly as incisive a it needed to be. I just didn’t go deep enough into the subject. Truth be told, I don’t think I have written anything particularly incisive on here in ages. It isn’t that I think all my recent blog entries are crap I’m quite proud of one or two, like my ‘Desert Island Disks’ entry – it’s just that they lack a certain depth.

Dad came over today: I always forget how astute my father can be. We had a good long talk about this and that; at one stage I felt like I was using him to catch up with what was going on in the world. The problem is I have fallen out of the habit of reading around subjects. Dad made the point that Abu Qatada hasn’t done anything wrong; he is a highly educated, very intelligent person with a particular interpretation of the Qor’an. He uses the Muslim writings to incite hatred and war. The problem the authorities face, my father explained, is that if they do deport this guy it would be due to what he says, which would run contrary to the liberal value of freedom of speech. Arguing theocratically with this guy isn’t an option either, because he can back up everything he says with chapter and verse. In a way he’s rather like these fire and brimstone televangelists in the states, spewing hatred and backing it up with the bible.

Thus this dilemma is far more complicated than my summery yesterday. Most such debates are far more intricate than can be detailed in a simple 200 word blog entry. Yet when you have something on your chest you jut have to get it off. My discussion with my father earlier today, however, reminded me that it’s sometimes worth taking a closer look, stepping back and thinking a while. Yu also need to talk to other people, and ask their opinions. I have long known that perfect, absolute truth is unobtainable; all you can do is ask others what they think. I’m not alone in not knowing what to think about Qatada – nobody does.

The problem then is they might argue that there is such a thing as perfect truth, as often happens when I start debating online. I am, perhaps, not as wise as my father, and get into these online debates with right-wingers who demand I tolerate their right to be intolerant. I recently got into ne such debate over ‘Spastic ballet’: when I pulled them up for calling it ‘disturbing’, I was told I have an ”inability to accept that people have different opinions from you”. In other words, I was wrong for not tolerating their intolerance; they had a right to express their judgementlsm over my expression of personality, yet I was wrong in being judgemental about their judgementalism. Now tell me, where’s the logic in that? And where’s dad when you need someone to talk some sense?

I just watched the news at six as usual, and I feel I ought to say something on here about the main story, simply because I feel so conflicted about it. We heard today that Abu Qatada is to be released from Long Lartin jail. This is a guy convicted of plotting terrorism; it is very likely that he still poses a threat to this country, yet, despite the fact that e is wanted on terrorism charges in Jordan, the government refuse to deport him. Now I can’t make my mind up about this: ordinarily I take the liberal left stance and say that he’s served his time so should be let be. One cannot be tried for crimes one is yet to commit. But on the other hand the guy is obviously dangerous. He has been convicted in a Jordanian court in his absence. Given that he poses so much of a threat to the people of this country, why not, for once, put their rights ahead of his? But then my lefty side chimes in and points out he probably wont get a fair trial in Jordan, and that we must uphold our civilised values no matter how much of a threat this guy is. And so I must admit, not for the first time, to being in two totally opposing minds about this: my liberals instinct against my concern for what this lunatic might do.

I just want to note the not unexciting news that Channel four has comissioned a series of I’m Spazticus. I don’t know too much about it, other than the fact it was a pilot of a disability-based comedy show with two of my associates, Toby Hewson and Simon stevens. The glorious original can be seen here. If, however, it is being turned into a full series, it is great great news – such comedy is a great way of fighting prejudice against disabled people.

A few days ago I posted a link on here to an article about a guy with muscular dystrophy who had taken his own life over the cuts. In that entry I speculated that it would be the first of many such cases, and it seems I might be right. I just came across this article about Paul Reekie, a scottish writer who also committed suicide after having his benefits cut. He left no note, but the benefits letter was laid on the table near his body. What a tragic waste of Life? I ope people see what the tories are doing – I hope they see what pain those tory scumbags are causing for people with disabilities. They need to be removed fromm power before their ideologicallyinspired cuts lead anyone else to such despair.

Lyn and I took a walk though charlton park this evening, where Marta took this picture. Again, I thought I’d share it on here.

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I just had a quick gander at this video at the new Lightwriter. To be honest I have major reservations about whether I would be able to use it. No doubt it would be good for other people who can use their thumbs, but it would be way too fiddly for people like me. I need something I can put on my lap or on a table, with fairy big keys I can press. However, as soon as I saw it I began to wonder whether it could also be used to kill Borg or Jem Hadar. That spawned an idea for my next YouTube film. Watch this space.

Today marks five years since I made this entry. It has been five years since I found out about he death of my friend Richard. My memories of that day still disturb me – they still seem quite fresh. Most of all, I remember the long drive back to campus, the words of those men still ringing in my ears. That was a bitterly cold day, much like today. You could say I am being morose by writing about this; you could say that I should blog about more cheerful things, and forget about that sad chapter. Yet I suppose this is something I must do, as part of the way in which I remember my friend. I still feel angry that he didn’t have the long life he deserved, so commemorating such an occasion is a way to vent that anger, as well as to ensure I don’t forget the man Rich was.

Bugger – I failed! I was trying to see how long I could keep u blogging every day, and was about a week a way from having posted a blog entry every day for two months, but didn’t get round to making an entry yesterday. It’s a shame, but at least I ca still say that I’ve posted one entry at least every two days for over two years. Yesterday was a busy day: the right front wheel of my main wheelchair is broken, and I was trying to get it fixed. So off I went to ask chopper if he knew someone with a van who could drive us and the chair to the mobility shop inn welling.

I found my friend in the front garden of one of his neighbors, digging out an old post. It as not easy, and he was clearly putting a lot of effort into it. I decided to keep him company, hoping that when he finished we could go get my chair fixed. Time, however, drew on, and I suddenly realized I had been sitting there for two hours. When the job was done, of course, it was clear that my friend’s mind was on things other than my chair: the time had come for the imbibing of alcohol!

It had been a few weeks since I went to the pub with Chopper, so I didn’t see any harm in having a pint or two. We went to my bank first, as I needed cash, and then to a nice quiet place in eltom. As happens all too often, one or two pints turned into four or five, and then what I had intended to be a little trip round the corner became a fully-blown night out. For some reason, when chopper starts talking about having a good drink, I take it as my duty as a northerner to show this townie what drinking really is. To cut a long story short, when I got home I just had my dinner and headed straight for bed, ruing the fact I hadn’t just stayed home, read a bit, and blogged. And on top of that, my chair still isn’t fixed!

Lyn and I are just having a lazy Sunday. There is rather thick snow outside, so it’s a perfect day to stay in, catch up on TV we missed, watch time team and top gear, and so on. I have been trying too organize a trip to my parents in march, which is proving harder to get my head round than perhaps it should. There are so man different parameters and logistical factors to take into account: if I can get a degree surely I can get two crips and their PA to Cheshire and back. I’m sure it’ll become easy once I put my mind to it, but that can wait till tomorrow: now, it’s time too grab a drink f something nice, put my feet up, and look forward to watching three idiots talk bolloks and drive cars. After all, that is what Sunday night is for.

I take no pleasure at all in directing you here. It would seem a guy with MD, no longer wanting to be burden his family, committed suicide by driving his electric wheelchair into a stream. From what I read online, it seems, as the cuts bite, more and more people are starting to feel that way, even if this particular tragedy was not related to them. Poor sod.

Once again I don’t have much to contribute to the general discourse other than to direct you to some article or webpage I have found online. I seem to have been doing rather a lot of that recently. The article I want to direct you to tonight, however, is noteworthy due to two things: firstly because it is firm evidence of something

I have long suspected, and secondly because it is found in the last place I thought you would find such an article. This article in the daily mail (YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT) states that scientists have found a possible link between conservatism and low intelligence. It states: ” Cognitive abilities are critical in forming impressions of other people and in being open minded,’ say the researchers. ‘Individuals with lower cognitive abilities may gravitate towards more socially conservative right-wing ideologies that maintain the status quo. ‘It provides a sense of order.’ ” I knew it – Tories are morons!

Joking aside, I don’t mean having low cognitive abilities makes you a bad person, and nor does being Tory for that matter. It is, however, firm evidence of something which I have long suspected: the right wing ideology is much more simplistic than that of the left. It is almost child-like in its need for rules, security and its dislike of change and difference. Mind you, this may now mean I have to rethink my personal rule which says anything in the Daily Mail should automatically be disbelieved.

A couple of days ago I wrote on here that the disability rights movement does not appear to have a figurehead. I still think that’s true, but what it does have s various leading lights: there appear to be various charismatic figures in our community who have the ability and authority to speak for the rest of us. While it appears to be something of a fashion to brand yourself with a title like ‘disability consultant’ and try to persuade people you are some kind of expert on disability issues, the true leading lights of our community do not overtly seek such positions. They get to where they are through their actions, and because what they have to say is true.

I have two such individuals in mind. There will, of course, be a great many more, but these are the two I know in person. The first is Clair Lewis, known also by the name Dennis Queen. Lewis is quite a formidable person – one of the old guard of DAN activists, or at least one of those who has her metaphysical roots in that old guard. She is eloquent and persuasive and not afraid of a good fight. I met her briefly on Saturday, and was proud to introduce Lyn to her. She probably just thinks herself a normal crip, doing what she has to do to fight injustice,, but to me, her passion for our cause coupled with her vast knowledge and understanding make her one of the prime figureheads for the disability rights movement.

Another person for whom I now have great respect is Darryl Sellwood. I used to think of Darryl just as an average crip and a good friend, but earlier today I came across a video of his keynote address for AGOSCI, an Australian organisation concerned with AAC. It blew me away, so much so that I began to feel a little ashamed of myself: Darryl’s knowledge and eloquence, not to mention his skills as a presenter, make him an ideal spokesperson for communication aid users. I also think Darryl is one of those people adept at presenting the struggles people with disabilities face to non-disabled people, making him a perfect ambassador. Anyway, part one of his excellent presentation can be found here, part two here and part three here.

These are people I have great respect for, as, in completely different ways, they are helping improve the lives of their fellow disabled people. I know there will be many more such people, like Alan Holdsworth, who documents our struggles through his music. Above all, they are the ones out there, in their own ways making the world a better place by allowing their lights to shine. The disability rights movement may not need leaders per se, but the more leading lights there are, the brighter the world will become for disabled people.

I just came across this video of a seemingly very nice fellow in his car taking about ‘our’ protst on saturday. Although I find his tone ever so slightly patronizing, and I’m not sure what he would like to replace the government with, it’s good to know we crips have at least some support in the general public.

According to this, scientists are getting closer and closer to directly decoding the brain functions which form speech. In other words, they are getting close to being able to map which parts of the brain we use when we want to say certain things. I don’t have much time to write abou it in full now – what is there to say other than ”go read the article” anyway – but this may have profound and exciting implications for people who use augmentative and alternative communication.

This letter, from a former slave to his old master, must be, if authentic, one of the most remarkable documents I’ve ever come across. It’s well worth a read, and was simply too fascinating for me not to flag up. I especiaally like the line ”Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.” To be honest, though, I’m in two minds about what I think of him asking for his back-paid wages: on the one hand, I think he had every right to do so, but on the other, it does seem a tad cheeky, but perhaps that’s just me being a bit British.

in part reply to my blog entry yesterday, Claire/Dennis has written this this on her own blog. It would seem there was much I misunderstood about DAN and its relationship with the greater disability rights movement. I obviously have much to learn, but the truth is, as the Tories start cutting harder and deeper, and start making crips suffer for no clear reason other than sheer malice, this stuff matters more than ever. Disabled people must fight back!

This may sound kind of stupid, but I realized earlier that, despite now calling myself member, I know next to nothing of DAN. What it stands for is clear enough: on it’s Facebook page, it states ” The UK disabled people’s Direct Action Network, DAN, is a grassroots network of proud, angry & strong disabled people from all backgrounds and of all ages, who use non-violent civil disobedience as a means to fight for freedom and equality. DAN has taken action AGAINST: patronising charities who profit from and perpetrate disabled people’s dependence, the warehousing of disabled people in institutions, welfare cuts, care charges, assisted suicide and euthanasia. DAN takes action FOR: equality and freedom, such as independent living, inclusion, accessible transport, fair access to work and welfare.” That is clear enough, and those aims are broadly my aims too. Yet I find myself asking – purely out of curiosity- what is dan, and how is it organised? Is it a pressure group? Does it have a leadership or hierarchy?

Of course, I also completely agree with the use of nonviolent civil disobedience as a means of fighting injustice. Now more than ever, the tactics of Gandhi and Dr. King must be utilised in order to fight what seems to be becoming the overt oppression of disabled people by the Tories. Yet unlike the campaign for Indian independence or the American civil rights movement, the British disability rights movement appears not to have a single leader. What it does appear to have, however, is DAN. DAN appears to be the central body of our movement, our figurehead; a group within a group through which we all have a voice. That’s why I am so curious about it: I’ve read that, contrary to what I wrote in my entry yesterday, Saturday’s action was not a DAN action but what DAN itself calls a ”cripple’s picnic.” If that wasn’t a dan action, what the hell is? And who is in a position to use such language, and how did he or she get there, wherever there is? This confuses me greatly, as I don’t understand the structures involved. As I say, I fully support dan’s aims and modus operandae, I also think , in a way, DAN now takes the place of a central figure in terms of crip liberation; I just wish someone would clarify what it is for me so I can be a better activist.

While I am still not sure about whether I can call myself a proper DAN (disabled People’s Direct Action Network) activist now, I think yesterday was a good day. Well, let’s put it this way: it wasn’t a total failure. You may have heard on the news that some disabled people were protesting against the cuts in oxford street. That was the protest we intended to attend, only we got there after the protest was over. Getting in to central London from Charlton is not as easy as you might think, especially on a Saturday. We got there as quickly as possible, but the protest had been broken up by the police by the time we arrived: as we were going down oxford street to the scene, we saw two or three cop cars whizzing past.

I was quite pissed off about that. I waned to add my voice, and feel guilty about not being able to. Writing about things is a very good way to get your view across, which is why keep my blog, but there comes a time when words become insufficient: a time when you have to take to the streets and show others that you object to something. That’s why DAN was on oxford street yesterday, and why I, at least tried, to join them. Many, like my friends Dennis and Becca, had come from as far as Manchester to join in*; you must ask yourself what would make these people, for many of whom getting around the country is not straightforward, come and protest?

The answer to that is that we are deeply concerned about what the government is doing. Their reforms will hit people with disabilities the hardest, so much so that many will be barely able to survive. It is a deep concern for themselves and their fellow disabled people that forced DANners onto Oxford Street yesterday. They, like me, are very worried about what the government is doing, so much so that they are prepared to risk arrest to show it. These are well informed, politically astute people; that in itself must force you to ask questions about what the government is proposing.

After finding oxford circus deserted, I was eventually able to track Becca and the guys down to a pub not too far away. It was great to see them, and I was especially thrilled to be able to introduce Lyn to Becca. I managed to do a bit of networking, so the day wasn’t a complete loss for me personally. For DAN and disability rights activism, on the other hand, the day was a complete triumph, with ITN, sky and the Guardian, among others, covering the protest. I think that they/we now need to keep it up, and I really hope there will be many more such protests – maybe I will actually be able to get to some.

*Another reason why I felt like such a shambles: if they came from Manchester but still got there on time, how committed does that make me seem?

After posting my list of Desert Island Disks on thursday, I realised I had missed a very important track out. How could I possibly forget to mention this, the very anthem of my life, and my personal motto. For one must, surely, always look on the bright side of life.

The entry I posted yesterday took me ages to write, and I’m quite pleased with how it tuned out, but after I put all the links in and put it online, I found something else I need to draw your attention to. It seems the journalist Rod Liddle has been talking crap about disabled people in the Sun. according to him, it’s rather nice being a crip, as we get lots of cool stuff. It is becoming ‘increasingly fashionable’, as it brings government cash, you don’t need to work – and you can even get a car parking badge. He also seems to think that conditions like ME are somehow made up.What an asinine, half-witted comment: liddle obviously knows nothing abut what life is like for disabled people, nor anything of the discrimination we face. He’s obviously trying to curry favour with The Sun’s idiotic readership by picking on one of the current political scapegoats. Twat!

I heard today that Desert Island Disks is about to celebrate its seventieth birthday; the anniversary episode will be with David Attenborough, presumably as a tribute to his equally awesome sixty years at the BBC. I find that pretty incredible: I suppose the programme is so successful because music itself is so potent. It is everpresent, supplying a sound track to our lives. There is something about music that is hard wired directly to the soul: more than any other art form, it taps directly into emotion, raising you up to the heights of bliss or crashing you down to the depths of despair. That’s why it’s such powerful medium for allowing people to talk about themselves.

Thinking about this earlier, I began to think, as I’m sure most other people do, about the pieces of music I would choose were I ever famous enough to be asked on to desert island disks. It’s an intriguing question to ask yourself. As with my list of my favourite meals, you can only decide such things in retrospect. And, as with Cinephiliac Moments, the pieces one chooses are all deeply personal, so your choices say a lot about yourself.

Which disks, then, would I take on to my dessert island? As soon as I started to think about it, I realised that my list would probably longer than the usual eight. I suppose I better start at the beginning, with my first ever favourite song: I must only have been two or three when my parents first sat me down and put a tape of the Frog Song into the video player. They probably regretted it, as I instantly fell in love with it and cried my head off when the video finished. My crying would only stop when they had rewound the tape and pressed play again, a situation which repeated itself for hours. I don’t know why, but there was something I found in that song which I found as comforting as a cuddle from my parents; even today there’s something in it which tugs at my heart every time I hear it. It’s a similar story with the snowman, another of those song-based childhood cartoons which still holds sway over me.

If I am going to mention those two, embarrassing though it is I must say that I would take A whole new World from Aladdin onto my island. It is a song I once adored: My brother mark played the piano, and I remember forcing the poor boy to play it again and again as a child. The last few times I’ve heard it, it has seemed rather cheesy, but even as a teenager there would be nothing I would rather hear.

The times I spent listening to mark play the piano, in the dining room of my old family home, now seem a lifetime ago. It seems like so much has happened since then, so many other pieces of music have acquired so much personal resonance for me. Maybe the next track I should mention is He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother by the Hollies. That piece means a lot to me too, but for not such happy reasons. It was the first song played at Andrew Fox’s funeral, eleven years ago. Andy was one of my school friends; he had muscular dystrophy, and passed away when we were eighteen. I vividly remember his coffin being carried in as the first notes of that song struck up, so much so that even today every time I hear them my mind flies back and my heart fills with the rage I still feel at the injustice of his death. After the funeral it was a long time until I could bear to hear that song again, for it was a piece of music which captured Andy’s fortitude perfectly.

Andy, like me, was a trekkie. Star trek has been a big part of my life, and I find the theme songs to Star trek inspiring. Of them, I love none more than the theme to First Contact. It is a film that inspires me, allowing me to hope hat one day humankind will overcome it’s petty differences and work together to build a better future. Mind you, it’s a film which also predicts that before that happens we will go through a third world war, in which six hundred million people die, so perhaps it isn’t such an optimistic film after all. Nevertheless, the theme from first contact is still a piece of music which fills me with hope.

I suppose you could say that I find the James Bond series just as inspirational. Through him, one can live one’s fantasies: to me, he is a figure in full control of his world. I’m not sure why, but something in this misogynistic, anachronistic character appeals to me, even though in many respects he is my antithesis. I remember, lying in bed one night in my late teens, watching TV. The Alan Partridge show was on. I didn’t usually watch it, but I caught the episode where Alan decides to reenact The spy Who Loved Me. Something that night caught my attention, and ever since then I’ve been into bond, and especially the theme to that film. Charlie used to sing it to me when she was Pushing me home after a night out, so I have fond memories of bellowing out the words ”Nobody does it /quite the way you do / baby you’re the best.” into the dark of a Cheshire evening.

But I have many such memories concerning charlotte. She is quite a musical person, and I remember her singing constantly. Another song I associate with her is ”When the Night Feels my song’‘ by Bedouin Soundclash, which she taught to the University Gospel Choir; it was also charlotte who introduced me to the Cat Empire, so she would be the reason why I would take Days Like These to my desert island. Most of all, the song I will forever associate with my friendship with Charlie is You’ve Got A Friend in me by Randy Newman. As I describe here and here, it was a song that I heard being played at Disneyland; it is thus a song I associate with kindness, friendship and warmth.

Given that there are songs I associate with my friend charlotte, the question is raised about what songs I associate with Lyn. After all, she is dearer to me than anyone has been before. I was thinking about this before, and was worried to realise that, despite the fact she is a musician, there is no single song I associate with Lyn. But then it occurred to me that such things can only be discovered in retrospect: songs can only resonate with times when such times are over, and since my time with Lyn will not come to an end for a long, long time, I cannot pinpoint any one song I associate with Lyn. Mind you, this one might be a candidate; Our house by crosby, Stills and nash holds within its lyrics the feelings of warmth and tenderness I feel when with lyn.

That is the list of songs I’d take to my island. I may have missed something – I probably couldn’t go without some Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, and how could I leave Sweet Home Alabama behind? But it’s getting late, and were I to try to list all the songs that had ever touched me, I’d be typing till dawn.

Last night was really rather cool, as I got to indulge in a bit of real cinephilia. Dom had brought small projector with him, so we drape an old window blind over our

TV, dimmed the lights and set up a small cinema. The great Andre Bazin would have been proud, especially as the first film we saw was ‘The Man with A Movie Camera’.

I was initially ere excited about it – the film is a classic of early pioneering cinema. I remember watching it at university, so I relished the chance to watch it again. The thing was, I quickly realised that it wasn’t the original version: someone had re-cut Vertov’s 1929 original and set it to a modern score. At first I was totally appalled by this act of sacrilege – part of me still is. I usually have nothing against modern adaptations of originals, or postmodern fusions of old and new, but the original score for this film was beautiful, and the new one hey had replaced it with seemed out of place. I quickly got into the type of huff I revel in getting into when I see something I take umbrage with, and began to thin of ways I could express my opinion on this piece of cinematic blasphemy. Yet Lyn and Dom, who are more into music than film, were obviously quite enjoying it, so I told myself to stop being a puritanical, pretentious nonce and chill out.

The second film we saw was called Another Earth, which I didn’t really have a problem with and therefore can’t write much about it. It was typical, modern Hollywood fare. All in all, then, last night was really cool. It was an evening I spent on the sofa, trying to remember the names of writers and theoreticians from cultural studies, immersed in an art form I love.

Took my dog to the dole office to see what he was entitled to. The bloke behind the counter said: ”You idiot! We dont give benefits to dogs!” So I argued: ”Why not?

He’s brown, he stinks, he’s never worked a fucking day in his life and he can’t speak a word of English!” The man replied: ”His first payment will be next Monday.”

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I came across the above joke on Facebook earlier. Needless to say I didn’t find it at all funny; I told the person who made it as much, and that he as being puerile and childish. He told me that I should get a sense of humour, and that all jokes are ” all derogatory about us in some way or another-that’s why they’re jokes! If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re going to have a hard-up life, mate. Get over it.” He went on to explain that racism is an ideological belief that one race (whatever the hell that is) can be innately superior to another, and thus jokes could not by definition be racist.

I replied that he was talking crap, and that he could not hide behind so-called humour to uphold arbitrary distinctions between groups of people; it was like saying ”all men from Birmingham fuck their sisters” and then crying ”ahh but I was joking so I’m allowed to say such things”.

However, before the conversation got much further, he deleted the entire comment thread, which is a shame because I was about to explain to him why his joke was so unfunny. Many jokes have at their core some degree of truth, or expose a truth by framing it in a new, novel way. Take, for example, the old, old joke about the horse walking into a bar and the barman asking him ”why the long face?’ we laugh – at least the first few times – because barmen do ask such questions, and horses o have elongated faces, but we are surprised to hear these two truths come together. That’s why we laugh.

The problem with the joke above is that it seeks to expose truths which some presume to exist but don’t. it panders to an ideology with no basis in reality. The reason some may laugh at such things is that it reinforces ad legitimises their belief that immigrants are dirty lazy, don’t speak English and are allowed through the benefit system with great ease. Or that the benefit system panders to dirty lazy people who don’t speak English. That is, of course, total crap: there is no truth in it, and therefore it is not funny. Some want to laugh at it, though: they want to impress upon others that it is funny because they want to believe this joke has some truth at it’s basis. Like children in a room full of adults, making farting sounds and giggling hysterically, the people who make such jokes are laughing at things most other people find utterly immature.

I feel I have a fairly good sense of humour, but, as with sexist or disabledist jokes, there’s nothing funny about trying to reinforce stereotypes and social boundaries. In fact, we should all be laughing at the idiots who still adhere to such flawed notions in the first place.

I found the following image at the head of this blog entry from Johnny Void, eloquently and brilliantly explaining how much damage the Tories’ benefit reforms will do to the poorest members of our society, and found both the image and the article just too brilliant not to flag up. It might be too christian in tone for my liking, but what Void essentially says rings very true. How IDS has the gall to even utter the word ‘fairness’ when what he is doing is innately unfair staggers me. 

Lyn and I watched Inside I’m dancing last night. She hadn’t seen it before, and I was interested to hear what she thought about it. To be honest, I don’t think I was as impressed as when I was when I first saw it in the cinema: there seemed to be more flaws in it, things that did not seem realistic. Now I’m living more or less independently, employing my own staff, I was sitting on the sofa picking holes in it, like a MI5 agent watching a bond movie. Mind you, when I asked Lyn whether institutions are really like ho they are presented in the film, with adults just sat in their wheelchairs, parked in front of the TV to watch mindless cartoons for hours on end, to my disappointment she said that it was.

The biggest thing that got to me this time, though, was the quality of the acting. What I didn’t know when I first watched the film was that the two central disabled figures were actually played by nondisabled people. Looking back, I’m aghast that I missed that – it’s obvious. Nobody can portray a guy with CP if thy don’t have CP. Despite the thousands of out of work crip actors out there, they go and choose two non-crips, who probably know nothing of the realities behind what they are portraying, to take the lead in the biggest crip-themed film of recent times. Pathetic! On top of that, last night the film seemed mawkish and sentimental, as if it romanticised disability in a way. Although I got into bed last night feeling like I had just watched a good film, it did have it’s flaws; it’s a shame because it could have been a great opportunity to increase awareness of disability issues; instead we got something safe and inoffensive to the general public, and no doubt two actors got lorded for their oh so heroic portrayal of disabled people.

I jut noticed I posted my entry about the article with the misleading title twice. Oops! Not wanting to leave it that way, nor being able to think of to put in it’s place, I’ll think I’ll just send you here. It’s a short video about last years disability protests, the second wave of which will no doubt soon follow. The coalition ain’t seen nothing yet!

When I first saw the title of this article, I prepared myself to get angry. With a headline like ‘Do disability Rights cost too much” you expect it to be one of those pieces of bullshit arguing that disabled people are nothing but worthless parasites. It is, however, nothing like that. It’s actually quite an interesting potted history of the disability rights campaign, from it’s origins to the present day; it covers things like DLA.

It ends with the following: ”All of this was largely uncontentious in years of plenty, but austerity has brought with it demands that the welfare state be cut back. DLA costs billions and the Treasury is committed to finding an alternative that will see the rising bill reduced by a whopping 20%. No wonder there is such concern among disability campaigners. A struggle for rights which began half a century ago is threatening to go into reverse.” Well worth a read

Following on from yesterday’s entry, I think I need to draw this to your attention. I usually watch This Week; I missed it this week, but wish I hadn’t. Francesca Martinez was absolutely blinding on it, speaking powerfully on how much harm the tories are doing to people like myself. She kicks michael Portillo’s arse. As she puts it, the government is ”morally disabled”. It is well worth a watch.