Perhaps I better post this on here, just so everyone knows what happened. I’m fine, slept well, but I’m still in quite a bit of pain. I was out in my powerchair yesterday, coming back from Lewisham. Ir was getting late, so I thought I’d head up into Eltham to get supplies for the evening before coming home. To do so, though, I needed to cross this dual road/carriageway, which doesn’t have any kind of pedestrian crossing. The curb is lowered there, so you’re obviously supposed to cross at that point, but there are neither lights nor a zebra crossing. I waited ages for the cars to stop for me, and when they finally did I started to cross. I made it across the first lane and started to cross the second, but then a car darted in front of me, from my right to left.

Had I been just a few centimetres further across the road things would have been far, far worse. However, the car caught my left foot which was sticking out in front of my footplate. I felt an excruciating pain as it went over my toes. I was dragged from my chair. I yelled out in agony.

Fortunately the traffic stopped: a few drivers got out of the cars, asked if I was ok and helped me back into my chair. They didn’t seem very concerned however, and nobody called an ambulance. I was in intense pain, so typing into my Ipad was hard. They helped me finish crossing the road, and set me on my way.

My foot hurt so much that I thought I better get it looked at. I went up the hill to the small NHS surgery in Eltham, but was told they don’t handle Accidents and Emergencies there, so I caught the bus to the hospital. Fortunately the pain was steadily easing, so I surmised my toes couldn’t be broken. I still thought it best to get it looked at.

Twenty minutes or so later, I was at the hospital. They took my name, date of birth etc and I was escorted to A and E. There I waited and waited. Fortunately they have a decent wifi network so I was able to update Serkan using my ipad, but even so as evening drew in I grew anxious to get home for dinner: I was tired, hungry and still in considerable pain. After about an hour or so of waiting, I decided to tell one of the staff my concerns, only to be told I would have to wait another three hours to be seen. At that I decided to go home – broken or not, there wouldn’t be much they could do for my foot anyway.

At the moment I’m ok; walking is still rather painful though. I’ll take it easy for the next few days as my foot is rather tender. I find it slightly ironic, however, that the day on which Starmer said that the NHS had to ‘reform or die’ was the day I visited a hospital, only to find it so busy that I gave up and went home. I just wanted someone to take my shoe and sock off, and check my foot was ok. As it was, Serkan checked it when he got here yesterday evening, and couldn’t see any bruising. Yesterday was quite an awful day, although I’m relieved it wasn’t far worse.

In all, I think it’s fair to say that I found the four ceremonies of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games a little if not gravely disappointing. I was expecting so much, yet got relatively little. This, after all, is the city of light, the city of love, and the city of art. I had high hopes of witnessing something jaw dropping, but in the end I’m afraid to say my jaw remained firmly in place. In 2012, London gave us moments we all still remember, or at least were thinking about for a long time after: moments like Bond meeting the queen, or Eric Idle getting shot out of a cannon before singing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. Moments which leave us collectively spellbound. Think too of Brian May thrashing out the national anthem from the top of Buckingham Palace, or Stephen Hawking singing the Galaxy Song – while they did not have anything to do with the Olympics, they were similarly awe-inspiring: Iconic cultural moments which had us all collectively asking “How the zark did they make that happen?”

Yet I can’t remember seeing any such moments in Paris this year. Of course I could be wrong, and I would be happy to be corrected, but to my mind we didn’t see anything really spectacular or phenomenal this year. I can’t help feeling rather disappointed about that. I had such high hopes and expectations, but in the end all four ceremonies seemed rather dull and uninspiring. That is not to say that I found them bad, just lacking the je ne sais quoi I was kind of hoping for and expecting. Paris was centre stage for the first time in a century; it had the world’s attention. To be honest it could probably have done so much more.

In a way, you could argue that Paris 2024 was more of a sequel to London 2012 than the games of Rio or Tokyo were. That is, there is more of a direct comparison. Rio 2016 had huge financial issues; and, of course, the Tokyo 2020 games were badly affected by Covid. Then there’s the fact that both London and Paris are cosmopolitan European capitals, renowned for their glamour. Thus, like many others, I think last night we saw the French follow up to London.

The thing is, for me, there is no comparison: I live in London, and lived here in 2012. I have firsthand experience of the games; I remember what it felt like to be here in 2012; I even still remember what it was like with Lyn and the Paraorchestra as they waited backstage, before going out to play before the city, country, and entire world. How can I possibly compare what I experienced that night twelve years ago with what I watched on my computer screen, interrupted by adverts, last night? For me, the two are entirely different.

That said, last night our French friends put on a bloody good show. As others are saying, the Paris 2024 paralympics were every bit as good as the London games were in terms of disability inclusion, and foregrounding disability rights. I thought some of the dancing in the ceremony was phenomenal. Of course, I was rather disappointed not to see a full blown French Paraorchestra – they really missed a trick there. The inclusion of Jean-Michelle Jarre was cool, and made me naturally think of Lyn, although thanks to the ad breaks I couldn’t really appreciate it.

Thus, Paris 2024 has come to a close, and the baton has been handed to LA. I still wish I could have gone to Paris during the games this summer, to experience it just as I experienced London 2012, but c’est la vie. Now we have Los Angeles to look forward to, and I’m already fascinated to see how the Americans will put on their paralympics.

There is pretty much just one question on my mind today: are we going to see a French Paraorchestra in tonight’s Paralympic Closing Ceremony? I think it would be fascinating if we do. What will it look like? Might it replicate the British Paraorchestra’s performance in 2012, or could it be more emphatically French? Cripples wearing berets playing accordions?

Needless to say, you can expect my review/reaction to the ceremony here tomorrow.

Returning to American politics today, I think everyone even remotely concerned about disability rights need to watch this. It’s a fairly short documentary highlighting Donald Trump’s attitude to his grand-nephew, who is severely disabled. We all know Trump’s a prick, but if you want an idea of just watch a despicable disgrace to human civilisation he is, you need to watch this. Surely someone who advises his own relatives to let their disabled son die is categorically unfit for any political office.

Upon John’s suggestion, I went to see Kneecap yesterday. I had never heard of it, but from the trailer and review John showed me it looked very interesting. It is a semi-fictional account of a band in Northern Ireland which performs rap/hip hop in Gaelic. They do so to ‘keep the language alive’.

As I rode the bus home last night, I remember thinking to myself that to write any kind of thorough review or exploration of Kneecap would inevitably have to go into the vast, complex history of Ireland. To be honest I didn’t find the film unproblematic: it seemed to me to emphasise Irish victimhood. That is, it went out of it’s way to depict how bad the British were, and how great the young rappers were in fighting against oppression. According to the film, the UK police are nothing but blundering, violent thugs. In reality, the central protagonists are two able bodied, white, straight young men born after the troubles. Their contention that trauma and hardship could somehow be inherited from their parents or ancestors struck me as abjectly idiotic. They, and the film itself, seemed to want to rebel, when they had nothing to rebel against; they were not being oppressed, nobody was trying to eliminate their language. It’s a common trait these days: everyone claims to be an activist, even the most privileged people in society.

It’s slight one-sidedness aside, Kneecap is definitely worth a watch. It’s an exploration of an area of our culture we see very little of. The fact that the events it depicts are more or less true make it even more interesting. I just wish it was slightly more balanced.

According to this video which I found earlier, cricket is fast gaining popularity in the USA. To be honest that came as quite a shock to me; I had always assumed that Americans preferred their own sports like Baseball and American Football. Yet largely due to immigration from India and Pakistan, cricket seems to be undergoing something of a resurgence on the other side of the pond. Mind you, I’d be willing to bet good money that this is because of the rise in the shorter, faster formats of the sport. Can you imagine one of our American friends sitting through a full five day test match?

I don’t have much on it yet, but I’m currently working on a concept I’m calling Realcrips. For some time I have been thinking about a way to differentiate between people like myself, who were born with disabilities and who grew up around other disabled people; and the growing numbers of people who seem increasingly eager to define themselves as disabled for political purposes, despite having never previously done so, or the fact that they will never have faced any of the hardship or discrimination people with severe physical disabilities face throughout our lives. Such people weren’t forced to go to special schools, have never been mocked or stared at by kids in the street, and are perfectly able to care for themselves, yet seem to like the sociopolitical aura of being defined as disabled.

Of course, I realise how contentious such a demarcation will be, and so far I’m struggling to think of anything even remotely academically rigorous. After all, people can become disabled at any point in their lives; and disabilities aren’t just physical, but can be psychological or neurological, and can take a vast range of forms. As I wrote here, however, it just seems to me that guys like me are gradually being pushed out of our own minority, our political voices usurped by people who know nothing of what we go through. Whereas it was obvious that I have a physical disability from my birth, just as it was clear that my school friends were disabled usually from their infancy, people seem to now be identifying as disabled for more and more tenuous reasons, at least in part simply for the political cache. Thus, from now on, I’m not just a cripple but a Realcrip.

This might be slightly lazy blogging, but today I just want to reiterate what I wrote a year or so ago here. My aversion to schoolchildren seems to be getting worse. These days, whenever I’m out and about and catch sight of a group of teenagers, I automatically feel the same fear, the same dread that I’m about to be taunted or mocked. In fact I think it’s getting worse. Last night, on my way home, I had some trouble from a group of girls up at North Greenwich station; and today, I was on a bus earlier when I had a group of teenagers around me, looking down and sneering. Kids seem to be getting progressively cockier and more big headed. I know I should just ignore them, but it seems utterly unfair that I should have to put up with being looked down upon by a kid who is younger than my blog.

I was on the bus earlier today, en route to what turned out to be a lovely lunch with my family, when I noticed a new sign above the exit door. It encouraged passengers to shout thanks to the driver in whatever way they liked as they left the bus. The examples the sign gave included “Thanks driver.” “Cheers.” or “Ta.” I have, of course, noticed my fellow Londoners shouting similar things as they get off busses – it’s sort of the local custom, usually in their thick London accents – yet I hadn’t seen anything overtly encouraging it. It made me wonder whether I should start doing so too, but how? It was then that I had one of my amusing ideas: Perhaps I should start shouting the Klingon word “Qa’pla!” at the driver as I get off busses. “Qa’pla” technically means “Success!” but it can be used as a way to thank someone. The bus drivers won’t know that of course, but, then again, most of the time they won’t understand what I’m saying anyway. That, then, is what I plan to do from now on. After all, what’s wrong with introducing a bit more Klingon into your daily life?

Mostly as a nod to what day of the week it is, I have fallen into the habit of wearing my red Charlton Athletic shirt every Saturday. The thing is, I don’t actually pay much attention to football. It isn’t usually a problem, but I was out and about this afternoon when, several times, people came up to me and asked me what I thought of the football result. Of course I had no idea: all I could do in reply was smile and pretend to chuckle. (Charlton lost to Reading, apparently). It was rather embarrassing to be honest. The irony is, I spent much of today trying to find Lord’s to watch the cricket. I suppose it will teach me not to wear this shirt on Saturdays.

Not that anyone particularly wants to know what I just ate for breakfast, but Serkan just made something rather interesting. He has his breakfast here with me, and I saw him eating it yesterday: a curious-looking mixture of granola, grated apple, cranberries, nuts and various other things. I asked him about it, so he told me, telling me what to buy if I wanted to try it. Adventurous chap that I am, I did as he instructed, and so this morning had quite a delicious breakfast which made a nice change from my usual pate on toast. It was very healthy too, although it must be said that it took quite a bit of effort to chew, and due to the dynamics of my mouth I spluttered quite a lot of it across the table.

As someone who used to play Dungeons And Dragons with his family as a child, as well as someone who adores both Lord Of The Rings and Monty Python, this was just too funny for me not to nick.

To be honest, despite mulling it over all day, I don’t think I can write much about last night’s paralympic opening ceremony, in terms of a critical or analytical response. There were plenty of awesome moments of course, such as the fiery hot air balloon, but nothing which I felt I could get really enthusiastic over. There were probably quite a few references to French disability culture which I just didn’t get. For me to try to write anything lengthy about it thus wouldn’t do it justice. I will say, though, that it was a clear continuation of a legacy now stretching back beyond London 2012: a vivid celebration of global disability culture. Every four years, it seems to me that disabled people get a chance to show the world who ‘we’ are. We are at last given the chance to take centre stage and show the rest of the world that we have just as much to contribute as everyone else. I think that that is what we saw last night in Paris. They’re clearly going to have a great Paralympic games there, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store.

If you want my recommendation for a film not to watch, don’t bother watching Between The Temples. I just got back from watching it with John, and I honestly doubt I have ever seen a more boring film. It was so dull that there were points at which I seriously considered walking out. There was no plot. It was just a bunch of friends who happen to be Jewish interacting with one another. The film seemed to go out of its way to highlight how different or unusual the characters were in their Jewishness, yet didn’t seem to be making any discernible social, political or cultural points in doing so. It was so slow and drawn out that both John and I were glad to see the end credits roll.

You can hear what Mark Kermode made of the film here.

Just in case anyone was wondering, after this morning’s news I’m not going to suddenly start claiming to be an Oasis fan. Two brothers who were talentless, arrogant dickheads thirty years ago are still going to be talentless, arrogant dickheads today. And besides, even thirty years ago I was more into proper rock bands like Greenday or Aerosmith than a couple of whiny, nauseating, vastly overrated Mancunians.

As a disabled blogger who has an interest in travel and public transport, I think it would be extremely negligent if I didn’t flag this story up today. Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson was apparently forced to crawl off a LNER train from Leeds to King’s Cross. She had booked ramp assistance, but when nobody arrived to help her after twenty minutes, she had no choice but to crawl off the train herself. Fortunately this has never happened to me, but I have heard many, many similar stories of disabled people being stranded on trains. Mind you, if this did ever happen to me, I have no idea what I would do: in my big powerchair, I’d be completely alone; and if the train started moving again, zark knows where I would end up. That thought alone is enough to make me shudder.

Surely there must be some way of ensuring this does not happen to wheelchair users.

Let me first apologise to my parents and brother Luke for missing our weekly family Zoom meeting last night, but yesterday was quite an extraordinary day. As you can probably guess from my last two entries, I took myself to check out the Notting Hill Carnival yesterday afternoon. I had heard a lot about it on the local news recently, and huge such cultural events fascinate me. While there was a small voice in the back of my mind saying it would be safer and more sensible to go with a PA like John, an even larger voice was screaming that I shouldn’t be such a wimp.

Indeed, there were two or three points yesterday afternoon when I asked myself what the hell I was doing there: I was suddenly in a huge throng of tens of thousands of people from all over the world – most would be good hearted, but I had no way of telling what any of their intentions were. Then again, it quickly became far too fascinating to turn my back on it. There were all kinds of people in all kinds of exotic costumes there; all kinds of music booming out from speakers. I began to reflect to myself that it was supposed to be a celebration of Caribbean culture, but most of the people around me would never have set foot in the Caribbean. Most would be affluent city workers who enjoy life in a sprawling, gentrified, twenty-first century metropolis, not the native Jamaicans they were dressed as. It began to feel like a bit of cultural appropriation, frankly.

However, my reflections were interrupted when a young lady I was passing caught my attention. She asked me to join her group of friends, as she was concerned that I was on my own. I was happy to take her up on her offer – new friends are new friends, after all. They were a group of five or six young people. Unfortunately I don’t remember their names, apart from that one was called Charlotte, but I spent the next hour or so with them chatting, drinking beer and enjoying carnival. Sadly however, amid all the crowd, at one point I lost sight of them, and not having exchanged any contact details, I doubt I will ever see them again.

Shortly after that, I decided it was time to find my way home. If had been a long, fascinating afternoon. I love how, for a few hours each year, central London becomes somewhere completely different. All the traffic stops, and the place becomes a giant, sprawling party, full of music and joy; a celebration of the metropolis’ rich diversity, contrasting starkly with the parade of right-wing morons I had the misfortune to attend a few weeks ago. It reminds me why I love this city. Next year’s carnival will probably be even bigger, and I’m already looking forward to going to it.

Has anyone else ever taken their self out in the rain, to a part of their city they don’t know, expecting to find it full of music, noise and culture, only to find it deathly quiet and seemingly deserted? And then you realise that the carnival which you were expecting to find at it’s height was actually going to happen the day after.

I admit it: I’m a complete idiot.

This weekend may well turn out to be an interesting one. As a Londoner, I have obviously been hearing a lot about the Notting Hill carnival recently. John and I went to check out last year’s carnival, but Lying in bed just before I got up this morning, it occurred to me that Notting Hill was an area of London I’d barely visited and didn’t know much about, apart from its link to a 1990s film with Hugh Grant. Perhaps it would be cool to go and check out the area, and perhaps find out a bit more of what this Carnival business is about.

That, then, is what I did this afternoon. Getting up there was straightforward enough: I just took the Elizabeth line from Woolwich to Paddington, and trundled from there. It was obviously quite a wealthy area which I had found myself in. To be honest I didn’t actually see much: people were obviously preparing for some big event, with many shops being boarded up. It almost looked like they were expecting a colossal battle or riot to take place. You could tell that something awesome was about to happen; it was rather fascinating in itself.

I didn’t stay up there long, as I was nervous of straying too far and getting lost; nothing was happening there yet anyway. Now I know how to get there though, I think that’s my plan for tomorrow sorted. Going up there without John might be a bit risky, but I’m sure I can manage it. Expect at update  on this soon.

As a disabled guy who loves to travel, I think I need to flag this website up. Rights On Flights was just featured on BBC Breakfast. It’s a website/focus group dedicated to guaranteeing the rights of disabled air passengers. “The Rights on Flights campaign was founded in March 2023 by British TV Presenter Sophie Morgan to combat accessibility and safety barriers for disabled travellers.” If you ask me, this is exactly what is needed: as a wheelchair user, I have experienced firsthand the pretty disgraceful way airlines can treat disabled people. Lyn had it even worse because she was totally non-ambulant. We were constantly shoved to the back of the queue, and treated as second class passengers, or as if we were a burden. Hopefully attitudes, especially the attitudes of airline staff, might begin to change thanks to this new group.

This morning I had a bit of a dilemma: what to do, and where to go, for breakfast? I think I’ve mentioned on here before that Serkan currently takes Wednesday mornings off, so I only occasionally have a PA to help me get dressed and breakfasted. It isn’t that much of a problem, as after about half an hour struggling to get my socks and shoes on, I head out in my chair, usually towards Eltham, to get breakfast and coffee in Costa.

The thing is, a few weeks ago, the guys at the Costa on Eltham high street asked me not to go there any more as I apparently made too much mess. I’ve been fine for the last few Wednesday mornings as Dominik or John have been around to help, but this morning I was alone again. That left me with an issue: where to go?

After a while struggling to put my new shoes on (I swear, writing my MA thesis was easier!) I headed out in my powerchair. At first I thought I would head down to Woolwich, as there are plenty of decent cafes there. Then, trundling along, I saw a bus for North Greenwich approaching, and, remembering there was a branch of Costa up on the peninsula, decided to get on it. This was a bit of a gamble, as people who work in and around the O2 aren’t always that cordial towards me, and wherever I went I would need to explain to the staff what I needed them to do to help me, but I thought it was worth a try.

I was, however, very pleasantly surprised. Going into the branch I was made to feel very welcome; I selected what I wanted to eat and found a table. The staff were very helpful. I suppose my experience at the Costa in Eltham had kind of put me off, and made me feel that I shouldn’t go into such cafes alone, but this morning there was no problem. I selected my usual large cappuccino and cheese and ham toastie and ate it without an issue. It might be slightly further than Eltham high street, but it now looks like I have a new place for Wednesday morning breakfasts.

I must admit that I’m becoming quite a big fan of the Elizabeth Line. I use it quite a bit, as it’s the quickest and easiest way up into central London. I don’t think I’m alone in this either: every time I use the Lizzie Line, there seems to be quite a few other people on the train too. I’m no expert, of course, but I would say the line has been quite a success. I was coming home on it this afternoon, and noticed that my fellow Londoners had taken to it as enthusiastically as every other tube line. That makes me wonder, though: if the first crossrail has been so well received, might it be time to start work on the second? I know the mayor effectively kicked the project into the long grass, but I’d be interested to see whether momentum starts to build on it again soon.

Today I’d just like to flag up this very interesting Steve Shives video. I’ve been watching Shives’ vlogs for a while now, and he posts about all kinds of things, particularly Star Trek and American politics. In this video, though, he responds to the criticism he’s obviously received that he doesn’t stick to one subject: that is, when people go to his Youtube channel, expecting to watch something about, say, Deep Space Nine, they find something about the recent antics of Donald Trump. Shives also doesn’t always stick to the same subject within his videos, and a few people have obviously been irritated by that.

I find that interesting, or at least mentioning here. I obviously write blog entries about all sorts of things, from Bond films to bus rides – whatever comes to my attention on a given day, frankly. I think it’s important that, as a disabled guy, I can be concerned about, and my attention can be drawn to, a vast range of subjects, just like anyone else’s can. The same will naturally apply to anyone who vlogs on Youtube.

Yet Shives’ video nonetheless raises some fairly interesting questions about modern online culture. Is there now a growing tendency for compartmentalisation? Do internet users now want to only find certain things in certain places, and object to anything which strays from that? Should people concerned about their weight only produce content about being fat, or musicians just about making music, just so we all know where to go to see or read certain things? and what might the rise of such attitudes tell us about the need for a growing sense of order in contemporary culture, both online and off? Such a stick-to-the-subject approach would certainly lend more structure and rigidity to the web, but I fear it would tie internet users down too much, and take a lot of the variety and diversity out of online discourse. If I were to only write blog entries about being disabled, only talking about my powerchair or the treatment I got in the local shop, I daresay a lot of readers would get very bored very quickly. I’ll continue to blog about whatever I want, then, and assure vloggers like Shives they can do the same.

Now this certainly is a captivating idea. I’d absolutely love it if John Cleese somehow appeared on Star Trek.

The question is, what could he be? A member of the Q Continuum? A stressed-out Ferengi hotel manager? Or – my favourite – a Klingon with a passion for killing parrots.

Yesterday, Serkan advised me to buy a new pair of shoes. The shoes I’m wearing are beginning to get worn out, and he thinks I should take a little pride in myself and get new ones. He’s the type of guy who likes to look good and thinks I should be the same, taking great time to comb my hair, brush my teeth and giving me the best shaves I’ve ever had. The thing is, I’ve always thought that shoes don’t need replacing unless they have holes in them. I grew up wearing piedros: specialist shoes shoes for disabled kids supplied by school. I had no say In what footwear I wore, so it still doesn’t really concern me what gets put on my feet every morning, as long as I can walk in them. The shoes I currently wear seem perfectly fine to me, and don’t need replacing – they don’t have any holes in them, for one. Yet how, then, can I explain that to Serkan?

If, like me, you have heard Project 2025 being mentioned quite a bit in relation to American politics, but are only vaguely aware of what it is, I suggest checking this out. It’s a video summary of what these Republican nutjobs want to implement, but I must warn you: it’s very, very scary. This video isn’t easy viewing for any educated, tolerant person who respects people’s rights; and in fact I would go so far as to say that, if this fascistic project is ever implemented in the US, the rest of the world must take action.

There’s nothing like the blissful relief you feel when you have a vivid nightmare about having to do an exam you know you haven’t revised for, but then you wake up and remember that your last exam was twenty years ago. I had such a dream a few nights ago – they’re apparently quite common.

Coincidentally, today is A-Level results day, and I just watched a big item about it on BBC Breakfast. That made me wonder: what is the current situation for disabled students? A couple of years ago, I blogged about how glad I was to have gone to university when I did, as I probably couldn’t have gone under the current climate of Tory cuts, Brexit and Covid. But that was during the pandemic, so I’m now wondering whether things have changed: are students with disabilities going to university again? Where could I find the figures? I know it’s early days, but might the new Labour government help to restore things to how they were twenty years ago, with more of an emphasis on inclusion? Mind you, the picture is probably muddied by the fact that far more people are identifying as disabled these days, so there might be lots more ‘disabled students’, but that won’t necessarily mean guys like myself. Even so, the questions remain: could I have gone to uni in the current climate? and how many students with physical disabilities like CP are going to uni this year, vs twenty years ago?

Stonehenge during the Perseid meteor shower last night.

This picture, taken by Josh Dury, was simply too incredible for me not to nick!

Shortly after posting my entry earlier, I casually flipped on the news, only to hear that some wanker had defaced the artwork I’d just been blogging about. I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about things like this, but hearing that kind of annoyed me: some barely literate runt had obviously assumed he had a right to put his mark on a piece of art before it could be enjoyed by others. Whoever he was, he obviously thought he was being bold and brave, but had only shown himself to be a mindless chav.

Slightly bothered by this, after breakfast I set off back to charlton to see what was happening down there. To my pleasant surprise, I found that two men were at work, putting a clear plastic sheet over the artwork to protect it. The car the rhinoceros had seemingly been mounting had been moved.

The white graffiti scrawl was, however, clearly visible and to my mind spoiled the image. I went up to the wall and tried to scrape it off with my thumbnail, but without much luck. Soon the picture would be covered by a plastic sheet, inane scrawl and all. It seemed such a shame: as soon as something beautiful or interesting appears, some tosser thinks they have the right to deface it. Oh well. At least the fact that it’s now protected shows how much the wider community values such art.

It isn’t every day that you get to see the work of a famous yet very mysterious artist, but yesterday turned out to be rather cool. It had already been quite a long day, trundling along the canals of North-East London, but at about five last night I got a text from my mum telling me that some kind of artwork by Banksy had appeared in Charlton, up by the Thames Barrier. At the time I was on my way home, feeling rather hungry and slightly hot; I just wanted to head to Tesco for supplies, then come home. Yet, after a bite to eat, my curiosity rekindled, so I set off on the bus to Charlton to see what I could.

That area of Charlton by the Thames is a bit rough; it has yet to see the redevelopment other stretches of the riverside have, although glimpses of it can be found here and there. Getting down there was easy enough for me, but finding the specific road Mum had mentioned took a bit of time. When I did, though, I saw a crowd had formed opposite a wall of an old abandoned warehouse. By the wall was a broken down car which clearly hadn’t moved in ages. On the wall, however, someone had painted a huge rhinoceros, one set of hooves on top of the car to look like it was mounting the vehicle. This was clearly the work of the mysterious Banksy.

I spent a few minutes there, looking at the artwork with the growing crowd around it. What could it mean? What could this Banksy dude be trying to tell us? What would a rhinoceros be doing in Charlton? I had no idea, so after a brief while looking at the artwork, I decided it was time to head home for dinner.

I hadn’t given much thought to Banksy before yesterday evening, but it is pretty weird when you think about it: these murals suddenly appear, seemingly instantaneously, in all kinds of places. Nobody sees them being created apparently, but they just seem to appear. We don’t know who creates them except by a single anonymous name. I find this phenomenon very strange, and will now look into it a bit more. For starters, this morning I’ll go to Charlton again, to check that the rhinoceros is still there.

I’m afraid that all I have to say about last night’s ceremony is: yawn! After getting so excited and intrigued that we might see something incredible, all we got was the rather lame sight of Tom Cruise being lowered into the stadium on a rope and then riding around on a motorbike. This wasn’t the convention-breaking fusion of fiction and reality we got from Danny Boyle twelve years ago. I found it very disappointing: Paris had the opportunity to make our collective jaws drop, not just last night but in their opening ceremony too; instead, I think they just made us all yawn.

Over the last few days I have grown extremely curious about tonight’s closing ceremony in Paris. The rumours that Tom Cruise is somehow going to be involved as his character from Top Gun really intrigued me, I must admit. I read that it has something to do with the handover to LA28. That is fairly logical, although if you ask me it also raises several questions: why select the Top Gun franchise for this role? Whereas James Bond was probably the obvious choice for his inclusion in the opening ceremony of London 2012, American cinema has hundreds of hero and superhero characters the guys behind this could have chosen from. Moreover, whereas Happy and Glorious was special in large part because it drew together one of British cultures most beloved icons with our longest reigning monarch in a way that nobody would ever have thought possible, it is not clear that what we will see this evening is going to make such a surprising juxtaposition. As a result, I suspect it will fall entirely flat: it’s clearly an attempt to steal 007’s thunder and inflate Top Gun onto the same cultural level, but it lacks any understanding of what actually made Bond meeting the queen so awesome.

Of course Farage should take responsibility for the riots. Or rather, it should be divided squarely between him and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. That such scumbags spend their lives stirring up social animosity, then try to deny all responsibility when such hatred manifests itself in violent riots, is sickening.

I just caught up with the evening news and, as a blogger, I can’t help being more than a little troubled by this story. Three men today received jail sentences for provoking racial hatred on social media. Of course, racism should be shut down wherever it rears it’s ugly head, including online; yet I can’t help worrying that this will open a very troubling floodgate, and pretty soon we’ll all have to watch what we write on the web. Over the years I’ve written some pretty provocative things here on my blog, particularly criticising the Tories – might such criticism now be classed as a kind of cultural hatred? Thus while I’m glad to see racism isn’t being tolerated, as someone who values free speech I’m very worried where today’s news could lead.

I’m very pleased to report that yesterday was a much more positive day than the one before it. After a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, John and I set off to explore Oxford a bit more. It’s an intriguing city, although in these summer months tourists outnumber university students. First we had a short walk through a few parks, then we decided to visit the Ashmolean museum.

To be honest the Ashmolean was a real treat: for starters it’s free to get into, but apart from that I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many fascinating objects. There are fragments of history from across Europe, Egypt and the Middle East. Of course, you could say it’s all a result of British imperial pillaging, and that none of the thousands of ancient artefacts we saw yesterday should be in Oxford. Yet, that aside, I can’t remember the last time I was so engrossed. I lost John at least three times, and didn’t really want to leave.

After a couple of hours in the Ashmolean, we went for a lovely long walk through a huge park which the River Cherwell runs through, before heading back to the city centre to catch our train. It had been a lovely couple of days. Finding the Eagle And Child closed was hugely deflating, but I suppose there are still positives to look towards. Just getting out of London once in a while is cool, and it also whets my appetite for more such trips.

I suppose it must be admitted that yesterday was a bit of a sad day, or at least it was rather disappointing. Since our last visit here about five years ago, John and I had intentions to return to Oxford so we could have a beer in the Eagle and Child pub. When we first briefly visited, I was still abstaining from alcohol; but since then it had been a huge wish of mine to have a beer in the very pub Tolkien once drank in. A few weeks ago, when John suggested returning to Oxford for a couple of days, I thought it was a great idea.

We traveled up by train yesterday morning. The journey itself went smoothly enough, and by late morning we found ourselves among the dreaming spires of Oxford. The problem was, Oxford didn’t seem to be playing ball: the more we explored, the more museums we found shut or inaccessible, or the more footpaths we found unnavigable. While we had a good afternoon exploring a few of the parks, to be honest it began to get a little wearing.

The greatest disappointment of all, however, came in the early evening when we eventually decided to make our way to the Eagle And Child. It was just a short walk from the city centre, and I was really looking forward to getting some Inkling vibes: a pint or two in my favourite author’s favourite pub would be so awesome! However, the closer we got to the place, the clearer it became that nothing was happening there: it was empty and boarded up, and looked like it had been for a couple of years.

It was a sad, draining sight. There would be no Tolkien fan worship, no drinking where he drank. It seemed like we had gone all that way for a boarded up door, and it made me feel very low indeed. With nothing to tell us why it had shut or whether there was any chance of it ever reopening, there was nothing else for us to do but go and find our hotel room.