I think I am falling more and more deeply in love with London. As with any major city, I suppose, it can be seen as a microcosm for the entire world, with most of humanity in all it’s diversity represented in one geographical space. But the thing with this microcosm is that it’s not that micro: London is vast, and it takes time to get around it; because of this, the landscape is also quite varied, and I think that is what I really like about London – it just begs you to go exploring.

The area that begs the most is the centre of London – the city of London, down by the river. We were there yesterday, on foot. Dom said he wanted to take us to a cafe he had found. As with all the best trips, I didn’t know where we were going, but when we got there I was amazed. He had taken to an old hydraulic pumping station which hey had turned into a restaurant. It was a truly fascinating place: church- like in size and shape, yet still very recognizable as a factory where some great industry had once taken place. The pumping machines were still there, candles flickering from them. Between these were the white tables and chairs for the customers, as well as televisions showing fashion shows. Thus there was a great juxtaposition of light and dark, old and new, industrial and human in the space; it would make, as Lyn said, a great space to perform in, and indeed she intends to look into the possibility of doing so. As for myself, I would just relish the chance to go back there.

We decided not to eat there, however, and after a coffee walked on along the river. The London of my youth was a London of the car: I think I’ve described on here before how my parents used to drive us down here to spend weekends with my grandparents. I did not usually get to see much of London then, apart from the roads and houses of Harlesden and Kilburn. These days, however, London for me is a London of the river. I get to see Thames quite often; it’s southern banks are easily within walking distance. I see London as a much more watery place these days, with the river a much more prominent geographical feature in my life. We were strolling along it’s north shore yesterday afternoon, when I caught a glimpse of tower bridge, and rarely have I seen a more beautiful site. Aye, I have fallen in love with this city.

We walked for a few minutes, then came to a kind of dock for yachts. It was st. Kathrin’s dock, and we went in. again, I found it fascinating – it was so different to anywhere else in London I knew of. It reminded me of Amsterdam. I could tell, too, that there was a hell of a lot of money about. There were a few nice looking restaurants down there, but we found a pub, The Dickens Inn, and went in.

I think it’s fair to say I have eaten a lot of pizza in my life. Back at university, coming back from late lecturers, it was just something quick and easy I could buy and feed myself. These days, I guess I eat one a week, so,, like life in London itself, pizza has just become normal, run of the mill. Yet the pizza we ate last night was outstanding, and one of the best I’ve ever tasted. Pizza, like London, can vary hugely, and there’s always something new to try; and like London, it still has the ability to excite me, captivate me, take my breath away, even if it sometimes feels humdrum.

I just have a couple of musical links to direct you to today. I’m not sure whether I’ve posted lins to them on here before, but, as both artists are related, they’re worth linking to in one blog entry. First, let me direct you here, where you can hear the melodic, relaxing and incredibly impressive vocal Harmonies of the harmonettes. Charlie is in this group, and their new site looks awesome. Second, I only found out about Hugh’s new site last night. It’s very different to the first, but then it’s rather different to any other genre of music know. Although he does look slightly geeky in his picture (he should never have cut off his dreads) his site is well worth a look. Both, in my opinion, are well worth a gander.

If anyone catches me with a beer before Friday night, they have my permission to punch me in the face. I’m trying to cut down on my drinking; I had intended to have a week of abstinence from Thursday onwards. That was when my parents popped down, and we collectively decided I needed to drink less and take in more vitamins, as that might help with my absences. I spend too much in pubs anyway, so after my detoxification week I’m only have the odd night out.

However, yesterday afternoon I popped over to chopper’s, only to find him in quite a state. He had fallen out of his loft and was obviously in quite a bit of pain. At first I offered to scoot off, to keep out of his way, but he declined that proposition vehemently. Then it occurred to me that what my buddy needed was a pint, so I proposed that he borrowed my manual wheelchair and we go to the Royal Oak.

So we went. I told myself (and Lyn) that I’d stick to Coke or lemonade, but one thing predictably lead to another; pubs just seem to have that effect on me, and needless to say I felt annoyed with myself when I got home. My alcohol free week had been going so well, and I knew that the pint I’d have at the end of it would taste all the better for it, but now I have to start again. On thee other hand, I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on myself for being so weak-willed: mates are mates after all.

Mind you, I keep forgetting that there are much cooler things than pubs in the would: I haven’t been clothes shopping in ages, and, for me, the cool, tight feel of a new leotard easily outweighs an evening in a grotty pub. It’s also kinder to my liver. The next time the C-ster asks if I want a trip to the pub, I’ll propose we go shopping instead.

Lyn and I may have found somewhere new to hang out: the problem is, it’s not the best place to get around in if you use a wheelchair. Yesterday we decided to check out the Westfield Centre in Stratford, a new shopping centre which is apparently the biggest in Europe. It was easy enough for us to get to, and I was certainly impressed at first glance. For my northern readers, just think of the Trafford Centre, pump if full of steroids, remove some of the aesthetics and you will get some idea of what this place is like. It is huge – in fact, I found it too big. I felt constantly lost but thankfully I was following Marta around so I didn’t have to worry about navigation. However, as the day wore on, the place grew busier and busier, so it became harder and harder to keep up with Marta and Lyn as people kept barging in front of me. I usually like such places, but yesterday it seemed half of London had converged in one place and navigating my chair became very, very stressful. I must admit that, tellingly, I didn’t feel my usual childlike pang of regret and disappointment when the time came to come home.

Having said all that, I think we will be going again. Part of me, the masochistic part perhaps, kind of liked he place. As I said, it is easy enough to get to, and it would be a great place to do our Christmas shopping. It lacks some of the aesthetics of it’s northern counterpart – the roman-style columns ad so on – and could do with being just a little smaller, but the place itself is okay. The problem is, I just think it would be even better if we were the only people there.

I’m sorry this link might not direct you to the correct show for long, but on The One show this evening we saw something interesting. Research as recently shown that most non-professional runners, such as those that will enter the great north run this wekend, don’t run correctly. They run heel-toe, as most people do when walking. The most efficient and least painful way to run is, apparently, to run on the balls of your feet. That might not, in itself, be interesting, but I find it very, very ironic. Like many ambulant ‘toids, I walk on the balls of my feet because my Achilles tendon is tight. Growing up, my parents and physios were forever reminding me to walk properly and put my heels down. Now it turns out that I was walking in the best way all along, and I can point to the research that proves it. Win!

On the local midday news today there was a short piece about this website. Tubecrush.net is where people submit pictures of strangers on the tube and rate them for their looks. I have no problem with this, but these days I use the underground every couple of weeks or so. I had to wonder if a photo of me might one day appear on there, but then it occurred to me that, if that happened, there is a very real possibility that I would die of laughing.

Right – how’s your physics? I’m feeling much better today, and my fears over Chopper turned out to be entirely unfounded. He’s a good friend, and when I told him I was embarrassed about what happened on Monday he told me he just accepts it as he accepts any other aspect of my CP. Anyway, changing the subject entirely, I think I’ll just direct you here. I don’t understand any of it, but check out the authors. Go Mark! Go Mark!

I still feel stupid; I always do after it happens. Yesterday was a great day, bright and sunny. Our friend chopper had the day of so about one he came round and invited me out: it seems he was in the mood to do something fun, but wasn’t sure what. We eventually decided to go up into London – we had been planning to have a boys’ day out for quite a while, and yesterday suddenly became the day to do it.

The thing is, I was having one of my off days. I sometimes get odd little absences; according to my parents, they’re not epilepsy, but are related to it. I don’t lose consciousness, but they break my concentration, blur my sense of space, and generally confuse and worry me. I had had one an hour or so before chopper came round so I was feeling a bit low, so I thought a trip out might take my mind off it.

So off we went, making first for the train station, ad from there to the city centre. Chopper said he wanted to show me London as he knew it – the London of a man who has lived here all his life. It was great fun – first we got money, then went to a pub, then decided w needed more money. I won’t tell you everything that happened up there, because that is between me and my friend, but needless to say we ha a really great time. However, at about half eight, around about Leicester Square, I zoned out again. We had just eaten some pizza, and were headed towards soho. I was probably just tired. Chopper noticed, and decided it was time to come home. I couldn’t’ disagree too much, as we had been up there for a good five or six hours, but I couldn’t help feeling a mixture of embarrassment and disappointment. There was much more I wanted to see (he’d promised me ladyboys!) but now I’m worried that he’ll be reluctant to take me up there again. Chopper says he will, and we must wait till we have a bit more cash in our accounts anyway, but things like that make me feel insecure about myself.

I find myself wanting to say something profound tonight. I want to say something aout the events of ten years ago and everything that has happened since on the world stage. 9/11 was terrible, and the two conflicts that happened because of it possibly even worse. But I have no words to sum all that up. The truth is, I said what I wanted to get across yesterday, and I fear anything I write tonight would just be overly emotional, vitriolic or just fall flat, so I think I’ll just send you here instead.

As we all know, this weekend marks the tenth anniversary of September the eleventh, 2001. As with all such catastrophes, we can all remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard of the attacks. I remember I’d just come home after my second day at Macclesfield College. Dad had put the TV on, and was flipping through satellite channels. Suddenly, we found one financial channel showing one of the world trade centres with smoke billowing out of it. At first, when someone said a plane had hit the tower, I assumed it was just a light aircraft, and that some fool had done in reality what I, at the tame, took pleasure in doing on Microsoft Flight Simulator. But then the second plane hit, and I realised this was no laughing matter.

Yet, personally, I can’t help looking back at that date without smiling slightly: it gives me a fixed point in time, a temporal marker. For me, 9/11 was just about the beginning of a decade which brought me almost total joy, and during which I had the best times of my life. As I said I’d just started college: earlier that year, my time at Hebden Green school had ended; I had spent about twelve or thirteen years at that school, so the brave new world seemed rather daunting. I suppose it’s fair to say I was institutionalised. But it had come to a close with the shocking news of the death of my classmate Andrew Fox, so I was also still rather cut up about that. At that time, then, I suppose I was a timid eighteen year old, living with his parents (and at that time intending to do so indefinitely) feeling very uncertain about things. I cannot look back at that boy, watching the news with his parents that day, without smiling. Things for him were about to get much, much cooler.

I didn’t realise that at the time, of course, nor for quite some time after. Looking back, my time at Macclesfield College didn’t go well: I was trying to do A-Level psychology and ICT, two subjects I quickly found I was not suited to. I was also cocky and undisciplined, preferring to have a coffee than get on with work. I used my verbosity to mask my lack of understanding, and I think it’s fair to say I left there, two years later, much less cocky and slightly more mature, and with the D and E I deserved. Probably the best thing I learned at Macc was that I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was.

I then had a problem, though: what to do next? I had always envisioned going to Macc College for quite some time, supposing that it would offer me the same sort of institutionalized security school had. Yet it’s choice of courses for me was limited, so one summers day n 2003, I found myself googling local colleges. As I’ve said on here before, that was the real turning point, I guess. I had a choice – either I let my parents decide what to do with me, or for once show some initiative and do it myself. I vaguely remembered some of my school friends going to a place called South Cheshire College, so I punched that into google, and the rest of my life began.

Lyn and I were at the Southbank Centre last night. We went to se Hugh and his band, Saltwater Samurai, play there. It really was great to see them, and they did a great set. They are getting rave reviews, and Hugh is about to o on tour. Poppy was there too, but not Charlotte, who is at Bestival and whose birthday it is today (happy birthday charlotte). Photos of Charlie hang on the walls of my office; I can glance over at the montage she gave to me to commemorate our trip to Paris as I write. Last night, sitting talking to poppy and Hugh after the gig, in the centre of London, my wonderful girlfriend Lyn sat next to me, I suddenly thought back over the last decade. So much has changed, for me and the world, since that September day. I wouldn’t have been sat there had I not been to university; had I not been there, had I not met people like charlotte, I’d still be the timid, institutionalized little boy safe and secure up in Cheshire. But I was there, in the centre of London surrounded by friends, with the woman I intend to marry sat beside me. The version of myself that watched those terror attacks would not have believed he would one day do the type of things I do these days, or that one day he would settle down in south London with a woman and build an independent life for himself. Indeed I don’t think he believed he’d ever go to university, let alone leave home.

Where I am now sitting seems a million miles from where I was sat, watching the news ten years ago. The bay window of my parent’s front room looks out onto a quiet, leafy close of detached houses; the window of my office looks out onto a London street which, if not exactly busy, joins onto a bustling London road. If I turn left there I could head to Woolwich with it’s bustling Saturday market, stall-holders shouting out prices in thick, south London accents; if I turn right, I can go to Greenwich, with it’s fine park and naval college, or go up to the dome where I can get the tube into the centre of this sprawling, labyrinthine metropolis. Looking out of my study window as I once looked out of the bay window, I am struck by how different my life is now compared with how I thought it would be; yet I am also struck by the idea that, later, I will probably go out onto the street beyond it, into a city which once daunted and scared me, living a life which ten years ago I would have never thought possible.

At about midday today I switched the news on, and saw coverage of the Paralympics event up in Trafalgar Square. CaMoron was there playing tennis with Boris Johnson, and seeing that gave me an idea: what if I could repeat what I did in crewe and somehow get to talk to CaMoron? Now he’s prime minister, getting his ear would be an opportunity not to turn down. So with that I set off up into central London.

Of course, by the time I got there, CaMoron was long gone, but I felt I needed to look around anyway. There was a lot of cool stuff there including a Mountain Trike a new type of wheelchair designed to enable cripples to do a form of parcour. At one point, however, I was struck by sobering thought: in this country, people with disabilities are being hit y cuts to the benefits system, as well as cuts to the services we need to survive. Why should we perform like trained monkeys in the Paralympics next year for a country whose government threatens our very wellbeing? CaMoron and Boris will get praised for hosting the Paralympics, but many in the disabled community, to which most if not all paralypiads belong, might well starve due to their policies. That is surely not right? Why should we perform for such a government? I’m sure I’m not the first to propose such a thing, but wouldn’t a boycott of the Paralympics by both disabled athletes and specators be the clearest way for the community of disabled people to say no to the cuts the government is imposing upon us? Don’t get me wrong: Lyn will be one of those performing next year, and I’m incredibly proud of her for that, but I simply cannot silence these questions in my mind.

I just watched the first prime minister’s questions of the new season. You know, I think I had calmed down politically over the summer, cooled off, and had just about come to peace with having CaMoron for PM. Today, however, once again shouting at the screen, spitting bile and venom and the occasional insult in Klingon at the TV. I’m sure Lyn worries when I get so agitated, but I can’t stand the Tories. They were not, after all, quite elected, yet the way CaMoron behaves at the dispatch box as if he deserves to be there, his arrogance, the way he pretends everything is getting better when people are suffering, the way he blames everything bad on the previous government etc etc, just pisses me off. It’s not just CaMoron himself: the entire parliamentary tory party strike me as sickeningly arrogant. They’re the ones fucking up the economy, while protecting the bankers who got us into this mess in the first place, but they act as if they are better than everyone else. One lady Tory mp asked why CaMoron was listening to the lib dems so much. When I heard her say that, I must say I was absolutely filled with rage: her inference was that, since the Tories were the bigger partner in the coalition, their views alone should be heard. Is it not clear that such an arrogant, narrow-minded bunch of people have no place in power? Even putting aside their selfish, individualist, class-perpetuating ideology, I honestly believe that CaMoron and his party of arrogant bigots deserve to be expelled from government.

Today is not a day for going out. Today is a day for checking emails and Facebook, a day for writing blog entries and catching up on my reading. It is a day for getting on with my thesis, or perhaps even starting some new writing. It is a day for contacting school and asking whether they want me to help them out again this year. A day for looking forward to talking to my parents on skype this evening. Today is a day for drinking coffee while listening to Lyn compose. A day for wondering if chopper will pop by, then listening to the gossip he has for us. A day for settling myself on the sofa watching films. It is, above all, a day for looking out at the torrential rain wondering why autumn came so suddenly, while feeling cozy and warm and loved in here. Nah, today isn’t a day for going out.

I have some very important news today. Lyn is a musician and composer, and I’ve been hearing some of her best work come out of her studio recently. Her productivity puts me to shame. Anyway, one of her recent tracks, Overdone, will be played on radio Caroline this evening between 9 and11. You can listen at radiocaroline.co.uk. I cannot say how proud I am of my fiancee – this is one more step to the recognition she deserves as a composer. Plus, I’m also hoping this is another step towards fame, fortune and an Aston Martin!

We both had a wonderful day out in Greenwich Park yesterday, so that, together with Friday’s trip to Erith, mean that listening to the radio tonight will round off quite a wonderful weekend.

Having not put a picture on here in ages, today I think I’ll do something different and simply post one to commemorate a very pleasant afternoon Lyn and I spent today down by the river at Erith. I hope you like it.

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My brother previously posted a picture of a clown here to see whether my blog still had the capacity to show pictures. Unfortunately the picture he chose was bloody ugly, so I deleted it.

According to reports, up to 85 per cent of disabled people are fearful of cuts to their disability living allowance. While I do not want to say too much about our own financial situation, I think it’s fair to say Lyn and I share this concern. I certainly expected fears like this to arise, and they really are justified in my opinion. People with disabilities stand to be the hardest hit by the government’s cuts; you must ask yourself are they doing the right thing. When disabled people, like myself, are starting to worry about having enough food, or considering turning down the heat to save money, then surely it is time to ask yourself whether this is the right way to go.

Just for a change fro my usual inane waffle, today I’d like to just direct you to this intriguing bit of trans philosophy. I don’t often write about the subject, partly because I don’t feel I know enough about it, partly because part of me says it’s not really my area to talk about it. Yet the writer articulates things that have been whizzing around my brain for some time – there are no hard and fast boundaries, no fixed notions of black ad white, and, I suppose, nobody has the right to tell anyone what s or isn’t their area. It’s a great, well-written article – go read.

We have had quite a weekend: I went to bed early last night and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, not waking ’till about half nine this morning. I was so tired because we had been to a barbeque on Saturday and only got home yesterday afternoon, not that we had been on any Indiana Jones-esque adventures as a result of the barbeque, just that we had stayed too late to get back. Fortunately, it was at Dominic’s house, so Lyn and I were in excellent hands.

Rather less fortunate was the fact that we had to miss Chopper’s birthday party to go to it, a bash which by the sound of it had ruled. I do not regret going to the barbeque in any way, as I met many cool people there, but I have a feeling that, like my friends Steve and Chris at university, Chopper is one of those people particularly adept at throwing parties.

I have been hearing the word morality bandied about a lot recently; people on facebook and other places questioning whether it was moral for the NATO powers to have got involved in the conflict in Libya. This got me thinking: what is morality anyway? It occurs to me that it is quite a silly notion when you think about it. I came up with two main arguments why the term should not be used o back up any argument.

For starters, it is totally subjective. You can argue that just about anything is moral or has a moral bass. I’m sure, for example, that the Nazis claimed they ad a moral basis for committing mass murder. It is an arbitrary notion, set usually by a majority yet ignores the fact no rules ever apply universally. For example, most people believe it is morally wrong to kill, but what if the killing was done in self defence? The same goes with stealing, and I’m sure you can think of a great many other examples. People, especially those on the political right, seem awfully fond of trying to back up their arguments by claiming something is moral, but they forget how intellectually problematic that term is.

My second reservation about the concept of morality is that it completely ignores postmodernity. We live in postmodern times where there are no certainties any more, no hard and fast rules. In fact, I think the concept of morality is the very opposite of postmodernism, as it clings to the old binaries such as right and wrong, true and false which postmodernism swept away. The old grand narratives line religion, politics, even gender have been reread; when placed under scrutiny such concepts disappear; nothing can be said to be absolutely certain any more.

To hang on to an idea like morality, though, is to ignore all this as it maintains that something can be objectively right or objectively wrong, and that there are a set of arbitrary rules everyone should adhere to, rules usually imposed on others by a dominant culture in order to repress and subjugate. To resort to such a notion in an argument means one has refuse to engage intellectually with the necessary concepts; frankly, I think it betrays a certain arrogance, if not stupidity. It betrays an ignorance of the intellectual complexities at hand, which is why I am baffled that some people continue to use it.

Late yesterday afternoon I decided to go for a walk. It had been raining all day, during which time I had got on with some work, so decided to go out for a spot of fresh air. I often go round the corner to Chopper’s on such occasions, but I decided to go for an explore instead. I set off to a place called cherry orchard: this is just past Charlton, and is an area of blocks of flats. I thought I knew it reasonably well, but somehow yesterday I managed to get rather lost. I just couldn’t find the place I was aiming for – a church at the center of the complex.

When eventually I did find myself, about an hour later and having been almost as far as Greenwich, I decided to head home. I was still rather cheerful, as I knew a bit more of the local area. It’s strange, though, how quickly such a small thing can change one’s mood, for, on the way home, I passed a group of boys. they were teenagers, and as I passed them they began to shout insults and snicker. I know I should ignore such things and usually I would just have driven on, but as I once wrote here, I am proud of myself. I’m proud of who I am, what I’ve achieved; I’m proud of being Lyn’s partner, and of becoming a member of the community here in London. Every time kids jeer, it is as if to say ”We don’t know you, but you use a wheelchair, so you’re inferior to us, you’re nothing”. Well, I’m not nothing. I don’t know why but it really pisses me off these days.

I turned around to try to confront the kids . I got nothing but more laughter, so I decided to turn and come home. There was a time when I would have ignored it and kept going, and perhaps I should have done so yesterday, but I’ve had enough of being thought of as inferior by some snot-nosed kids who thin they’re so high and mighty because they can walk properly and kick a ball, but will probably amount to jack and have nothing better to do than hang around on street corners. It’s hard to explain why this gets me so angry; I suppose you have to experience such discrimination to know what I’m trying to say.

As a crip I should probably say something about Jody McIntyre. you may recall that he was the disabled man dragged from his chair during last yeas’ student protests. I just heard that the IPCC has partially upheld his complaint that the police acted unlawfully. Now, I know next to nothing about the specifics of the case; frankly, though, I find it very unlikely tat McIntyre was just sitting there minding his own business – he must have been doing something to agitate the police. After all, I was there earlier in the day and the cops didn’t harm me. Plus, from what I have seen of him, McIntyre does seem to have one of those provocative attitudes found in some crips. But none of this in any way excuses his treatment by the police; they manhandled him out of his chair, stripping him of his mobility. That is like breaking someone’s legs! This may sound like an exaggeration to some, but that metaphor should be taken in all seriousness. The police denied him of his right to mobility, and, no matter what the guy may have been doing, nobody ever deserves that. The fact that, although the complaint was upheld, the cop responsible for this callous act has not been punished apart from slap o the wrist, demonstrates how little the police, the ipcc and society in general think of disability rights.

I suppose I like comedy as much as anybody, and I can’t really come on here spouting bull about what a big comedy fan I am. I have no special interest in it, or knowledge of it – my background is in film and literature, after all. But I still have quite a big soft spot for things like Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, as I might have noted on here once or twice before, so tonight I feel I ought to send you here. Truth is I hadn’t really heard of John Howard Davies before tonight, but I know that tv and film arre art forms where one easily forgets about the people behind the camera, so I just thought I’d use my blog entry tonight to mark thee passing of a man partly responsible for making so many people laugh.

I had intended to go to bed early last night, as I didn’t sleep too well the night before, but after the news, Legends Of The Fall started playing. I’d only seen a bit of it before, so I thought I’d give it a viewing, and I’m happy to report that I was impressed. Granted, it may be nothing special in terms of the philosophy of film, buut in terms of watching a great story well told, with fascinating characters portrayed by outstanding actors, I doubt it can easily be beaten. The film is essentially about the american myth of the old west, populated by independent men with a deep resentment for the state; it’s also about brotherhood and family, so you can see how hese two things play to a specific american notion of itself. I went to bed pondering these myths, and how they may have a bearing on America’s attitude towards guns. Above all, I felt satisfied at having just watched a great film, and slept well, though it was punctuated by several gruesome dreams.

I’m just blogging to tell you all that I have now switched computer: I’m currently using Lyn’s old Mac, which we recovered from the thieves. It’s still much faster than my old pc though, which I think now needs a good old reformatting. I already quite like my new computer, although I must say Im having to squint at this blog entry as I type it, as I don’t yet know how to make stuff appear bigger. Anyway, I have much to explore; for one thing, I’m looking forward to using yootube without it going jerky. I’ll let you know how I get on in this brave new world of apple, but for now I am off to investigate.

This may be somewhat lazy blogging again, but tonight I want to draw your attention to this interview with Daniel Craig. The first clip on the page interests me the most, as in it, Craig discusses the difficulty of making a new bond film which does not quite take itself seriously – as bond films shouldn’t – yet is not a parody of the franchise. The problem, Craig points out, is the Austin powers films, which prevent any new bonds from moving in that direction; yet without the comic, at times camp element, Bond wouldn’t be completely Bond. For a cinephile like myself, it throws up a few rather interesting questions about a film’s relationship to others which are well worth pondering.

This afternoon I decided that it has been far too long since I did any creative writing, so I jotted down the following poem. No prizes for guessing who it’s about.

Herculean Creativity

She rolls her rollerball, an inch a time

Patiently placing notes on the score, Gradually composing. Generating sounds.

New, exotic, and yet rhythmic.

Meticulously making music, building up beats

Unruly hands fidgeting with effort and concentration.

It’s an Herculean effort of creativity;

Yet, every day she rolls back(wards) into her studio, and hours later there comes out a sublime beauty, the type of which I have never before heard or seen.

Lyn has been working on a new track, which can be found here. I really think this track is the best I have heard her create, which is why I don’t want to say much about it but let it ‘speak for itself’. It really is an impressive piece, and I’m very proud of my girlfriend. We’ll now start work on a video for it.

I heard on the news this morning that a man from Cheshire has been jailed for four years for using facebook to try to incite a riot. Now, is it me or does that sound like a very dangerous precedent? If you think about it, we must all now be much more careful about what we say on facebook, twitter, and on blogs. I’ve written on here before now about my hatred of David CaMoron; I may have even called for his assassination once or twice. Of course, I’d never seriously want the guy dead, but I’d claim I do to be provocative and as a display of my anger and frustration with him. Now, though, we can’t state such things for fear of risking a jail sentence. In effect, then, this judgement acts like a censor – we no longer have the ability to write entirely as we want to, but must now be careful that we don’t incite acts of violence, intentionally or otherwise. Thus this Tory government has began to erode our civil liberties, using the riots as an excuse. The riots may have worried us all, but the way in which they are now being used by the government is even more worrying.

The truth is I’m not in the mood to get myself into a frenzy about what CaMoron said today. He claims to offer explanations for recent events, and yet spouts the most simplistic, puerile arguments. He just want to pin the actions of the rioters down to the typical tory scapegoats of bad parents, single mums, and a lack of morals, whatever they are, without realising that the causes for the recent upheavals are far more complex. All I can say is, what an idiot. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so angry.

anyway, my reason for this entry is to link to a new blog about the Woolwich riots, which can be found here. They link to me, so returning the favour is the least I can do.

Yesterday saw the best night out I’ve had in a good long while. I’ve always wanted to go to a festival, and now I have, if only for one evening. We went to canary wharf jazz festival. To be honest it was Dominic’s idea. But he always seems to have brilliant ideas like that.

At first, of course, I didn’t know what to expect; I was rather expecting to hear some old-style jazz music, the type you hear in places like new Orleans. Instead, wart I found was more modern, but still very, very cool. We saw the last two groups of the night, and I was especially taken by The Herbaliser, the headline act. For some reason they reminded me of The cat empire, so I’ll definitely be looking them up.

Listening to the funky music last night in Canada square, surrounded by people, and looking up at the skyscrapers around us, I remember thinking: ”This is what London is really about”. A glance at the list of upcoming events told me that there are many more gigs to go to, many more nights out to be had. In the last week the image of London has become an image of a looter and a thug, but that isn’t it’s true face – the true image of london is the image I saw last night – an image of people coming together, listening to music, and having a great time.

I just saw something incredible, and I don’t just mean england winning the cricket. i decided to take a walk to Woolwich this afternoon, to take a proper look at the damage there. What I saw was really quite life affirming. on the boards outside the burned out pub, people were writing messages. I don’t just mean graffiti – someone had apparently used his twitter account to set it up, first obtaining permission from the police. People from all walks of life are just coming, picking up a marker pen, and having their say. In a way it was a reaction to the violence, a statement from the comunity to the rioters that they can’t win. yet it s a also a forum, a place for people the vent their anger yet also to offer explaintions. While the fire was a manifestation of people s anger in the lacanian real, in a way that wall fuctions to translate that manifestation, as well as our collective reaction to it, in to the symbolic.

Yesterday I was out and about with my friend chopper. I go out with him quite a bit – he seems to like my company, claiming I help him calm down. Although some of his views are rather too right wing for my liking, I like him too. Going around with him helps me to see the more authentic side of south London – chopper seems to know everyone in the area, and seems very well respected. Mind you, I can’t help but wonder what people think when they see him pushing me along in my chair, or whether it damages his reputation as one of the hardest men about.

Anyway, yesterday we were in Woolwich. You may recall that Woolwich was one of the areas affected by the recent riots, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. There is a Weatherspoons pub where we had the occasional pint, which was burned to a cinder; there is nothing left of it but a blackened wreck. More striking, though, was a building half way along the high street which had totally collapsed – you could see right through it. You could tell it was a really old building, as a Victorian fireplace had been exposed; it was like seeing a burned corpse stripped of life. Rather eerily, you could also see blackened books on a shelf, still clinging to a wall. I really was taken by that sight, and I suspect it will stay with me for a long while.

I’m still not sure what all this means, but aster seeing what I saw yesterday, I really hope the riots are now over.

I just want to use this blog entry to commemorate the thirtieth birthday of my brother mark. Did I just write that? Can my big bro really be thirty? It does not seem two weeks since we were playing ‘war of the rooms’ back in Cheshire, but now Mark has become a great man of science, bound for Cern, married to a most excellent woman in Kat. I am truly proud of my brother, and seeing him these last couple of weeks, after so long apart, has made me realise how lucky I am to have him as a sibling. Happy birthday bro!

Yesterday I said that the current uprisings in our cities had no purpose behind them, save the urge to wreck and steal. That may well be the case, but it begs the question, what gives rise to that urge. According to the prime minister, it is a question of a lack of morals and a decent upbringing in some people; in other words, CaMoron thinks the problem stems from the fact that not everyone is like him. How stupid? Seriously, how is this numpty leading the country? As pointed out far more eloquently here, the problem is far more complicated, stemming from the disenfranchisement of young urban men, lack of education and jobs, the cutting of services, and a general discontent with the status quo. While these riots are not overtly political, they are caused by the actions of this government. That is why I was appalled to see Michael gove trying to pretend that the government had nothing to do with this problem on Newsnight, arrogantly ridiculing tedsa Jowell for suggesting that the problem was far more complex than sheer thuggery. We really do not need people this stupid, who see such problems in such simplistic terms, running the country at times like these.

Let me begin this entry by issuing something of a retraction: I once stated on here that I did not recognise David CaMoron as Prime Minister. Of course, the truth is I do; whether I like it or not, he was more or less democratically elected to lead a coalition government, and I will not do anything to alter that. I still fully intend to rant and rave on my blog against him though, and that is as it should be. People have a right to peaceful protest, be that going on marches, writing nasty blog entries, or producing other forms of art, but some sort of order must prevail.

That is why I am so frightened about the recent violence in our cities: there is no order to it, no reason behind it. A political protest I can understand, but the uprisings in London and other cities seem to be mere acts of violence and burglary. Of course, there must be something behind it – some underlying discontent in certain sections of society. To dismiss this violence as mere thuggery is too simplistic, which is why part of me suspects we’re only getting one side of the story from our politicians and our media. Yet the way in which these acts seem to have no purpose behind them, save the urge to wreck and steal, and seem to be brutal and random, petrifies me.

Although I daresay I had rather too much champagne on Saturday evening, later today we will most certainly be cracking open another bottle. The police came round earlier and dropped Lyn’s stolen mac off. She is examining it as I write. I must admit that, when it was first taken, I did not have much hope of ever seeing it again I’ve experienced such a thing once before, when my Lightwriter was stolen, and that episode taught me not to get my hopes up. But I had not factored in the tenacity of Lyn Levett.

Looking back, it’s quite an incredible story, really. I helped Lyn buy a new computer to replace the old one. Using that, she realised that the old computer was still logging on to her network, and was able to see what the guy who had it was doing. She made a film about it and put it on youtube in the hope of getting help finding it. With a little help from my friend Becca, this was brought to the attention of a reporter from channel Four. But then the trail went cold, until a few weeks ago when the Mac appeared back on her network. Lyn and my brother Luke were then able to track it down to an address in Manchester, we told the police, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The story has ended very happily indeed. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to Luke, Becca, and everyone else who got involved, nor how proud I am of Lyn. She never gave up. I can’t help thinking what an awesome film this might one day make. You know, I think I’ll email that guy from channel for again, and then start work on the screenplay.

My list of the best meals of my life now has another addition. I know I said that one could only decide such things in retrospect, but sometimes you just know you’re eating an amazing meal. Yesterday I was sat, with Lyn, in the hall of Balliol College, Oxford, surrounded by a great many of my family, huge portraits of people like Asquith hanging on the walls, and I just thought ‘wow’.

We were there to celebrate the wedding of my cousin Christina to Tom. It was, like Mark and Kat’s wedding, an incredible day: the buildings around us were awesome, the service was touching, and although we’re related I have to say Chris looked beautiful. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.

Not wanting the hastle of having two weekends away in a row, we had decided to go to oxford and back in a day, so we couldn’t stay to the bitter end. It’s a shame, as I don’t know when I will see my extended family again, and I don’t think I said bye to all of them. Oh well, I’ll just have to engineer an excuse to get everyone together again.

I was watching channel four news last night, and a writer of a famous right-wing blog was on there claiming that mainstream politics and media does not reflect the views off the majority. According to him, the majority of people in this country oppose stuff like immigration and our ties with Europe, and support capital punishment. I’ve come across this arrogant point of view before, and would like to address it. There is no silent right-wing majority whose views are being somehow suppressed in the mainstream. Mainstream politics and media is liberal (with a small L) because the vast majority of people in this country are liberal and tolerant people, although, to be fair, you could debate which is the cause and which is the effect. By and large, however, although we could at this point get all bogged down in Marx, I think it fair to say mainstream politics must reflect majority views simply because that is how people vote. many in the right-wing blogsphere delude themselves into thinking they represent a majority viewpoint, when, in fact, they represent the views of a tiny minority of numpties who make the rest of us feel embarrassed. Their views aren’t mainstream because, thank the FSM, the rest of us have thought about the issues at hand and realised how philosophically barren such views are.

Sometimes writing a blog can give you an inflated sense of self importance, and you think that, because people read your entries, people like and agree with what you say. Blogging gives one a sense of power. I know my blog is probably only read by my friends and family – who else would want to read my inane rantings? – but in some, their hitcount goes up so quickly, and they get such supportive comments from the idiots who read the fascist crap they write, that they convince themselves that they are right. In fact, the rest of us can see that what they spout is bull, and, after reading a couple of entries just for a laugh, disregard such writing as the illogical, ill-thought-through dross it is. Thus there is no silent, repressed, right-wing minority, only a bunch of idiots whose views the rest of us see as shallow, illogical and intolerant.

I hate it when these blogger-types talk so much bollocks.

I love the internet. Like most cripples these days, I could barely survive without my computer or the Internet. It’s how I keep in touch with most of my friends and family, do my research, organise my Pas and so on; in fact, I think Lyn and I spend most of our time at our computers. Yet sometimes I think there are cases where you just have to get off your arse, go out into the world, and get stuff done.

Take this morning, for instance. On Saturday we have another wedding to go to, this time in oxford. Now, I know you can book tickets online, but the route we’re going to have to take will be complicated, so after much fretting and trying to work out websites, I said to myself, ”Right, let’s just do it the old way.” I wrote out the following note, printed it, and set off for Charlton train station.

” Hi

On Saturday, me, my wheelchair-using fianc and two personal assistants need to travel from here to oxford. We have an appointment at [omitted] at 3pm. We intend to travel back in the late evening. We need as few changes as possible. Can you help me book tickets and arrange for ramps etc

Your help is greatly appreciated”

I knew I could have typed the message into my lightwriter, but I find sometimes simply handing people notes is faster and more efficient. If memory serves, it’s a technique I used to use when I first started coming to London to visit Lyn. Today, once again, it worked a treat – the woman helping me was bright, attentive, and understood immediately what I needed. It took a little while, but a short time later I rolled out of the station with the tickets, itinerary, and the assistance we’ll need organised. Sometimes, the old ways are the best; the ‘net is great, but there’s nothing like good, knowledgeable people to get stuff organised.