I have just come home and turned on the local London news to hear something which I find highly, highly problematic. London mayor Sadiq Kahn today took part in a conference on climate change organised by the Vatican and chaired by the Pope in Rome. Of course, I have no objection to climate change conferences – climate change is irrefutably one of the most urgent issues humanity faces – but why on earth are we allowing the catholic church to use it as a tool to bolster it’s authority? By organising this conference, and by inviting so many important people to it, the vatican is using one of the most pressing issues we face as a tool to boost it’s political and cultural relevance. It is framing itself as an international political body without anybody voting for it, and despite deriving it’s authority from a set of anachronistic myths and ‘traditions’. After all, since when did christianity give a zark about global warming? It is simply using one of humanity’s most crucial issues to try to regain it’s fading importance, something which I find utterly sickening. Religion has no right to intervene in such matters, or use them to gain attention and authority.

I really think everyone should watch this documentary about assisted suicide, which aired last night on the Beeb. To be honest I have been thinking about what to say about it all day, but ultimately I can only agree with it’s conclusions: legalising assisted dying in any capacity would open a very dangerous doorway, and sooner or later we risk people being coerced into ending their lives for more and more tenuous reasons. Ultimately there is a danger that non-terminally ill disabled people might be given the ‘option’ of ending their lives simply because they feel like a burden to the people around them. The presenter, Liz Carr, does a good job of presenting both sides of the debate, but when all is said and done the idea that people like me might be better off dead just because we have a disability is truly sickening.

I relish my life. Every morning I wake up knowing that the potential for something incredible to happen is infinite. I also wake up remembering all my friends who aren’t here any more, who lived their lives to the full in spite of profound disabilities. They taught me that life isn’t something to be thrown away, or opted out of just because you might no longer be able to do all the things you once did. That’s why I find the idea of assisted suicide so repugnant, and those who advocate it no more than self pitying cowards.

It’s fairly long, but if anyone, like me, is interested in the early history of the contact between aboriginal Australians and Europeans, I think this documentary is worth a watch. I came across it two or three weeks ago: while I must admit that it strikes me as a tad anti-European and anti-British, and overtly plays into an ‘Aboriginals are victims’ narrative, on the whole I feel it’s fairly well balanced. However, what caught my attention the most was the story of Yammerrawanne, one of the very first native Australians to be brought (some say kidnaped) back to Britain with Captain James Cook. Of course, I’ve been interested in Cook and his voyages for ages, but the detail I want to flag up this evening is that, when he died in 1794, Yammerrawanne was buried at Eltham Parish Church, a church about ten minutes away from my flat and which I pass every time I go shopping, to the pub or to get cash.

You may have been slightly surprised that I didn’t say anything here about the big Tolkien-related news which broke over the weekend. The word is that Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens are returning to the franchise in some capacity. That is indeed pretty massive news: I regard Jackson’s adaptations of Tolkien’s novels as absolute masterpieces, and the news that they could now be added to is very exciting indeed. Yet, to tell the truth, part of me is concerned. I don’t see where they can go from what they have already without effing it all up. Tolkien’s two main texts, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, have been successfully converted into cinematic epics; what remains are much more fragmentary, scholarly texts which would be much harder to translate onto the big screen.

As pleased as I am to see Jackson back behind the camera, then, I still have grave concerns about where this is leading. As I wrote here last year, Tolkien’s work seems to be being reduced down to just another big, mainstream Hollywood franchise: as bold and epic as the initial adaptations were, the risk is that they will now just be rendered into generic pap as they are added to and added to in the hunt for money. While at least we can rest easy that Jackson knows what he’s doing (Andy Serkis is also apparently on board, which is awesome), for the most part I still wish that the first two trilogies had been left at that. What is left of Tolkien’s work won’t convert as easily into film, and the risk is that the result will be a generic, confused mess.

I must confess that I didn’t watch the entire Eurovision Song Contest last night. I needed to get to bed before it’s conclusion. There’s a Sainsbury’s nearby which sells Leffe, my favourite beer, and the two bottles of it I had went to my head. However, it seems to me that events like Eurovision are more important than ever before: such big, public events traverse borders and bring people together, at a time when humanity seems more divided than it has been in decades. There is a great deal of tension in the air, with horrific conflicts raging in both Israel and Ukraine. Of course, both were reflected last night, with Russia being excluded from the competition, and with many people feeling wary about whether Israel should have been allowed to participate too.

Yet, at the end of the day, such big international events are about bringing people together; they are about showing that we are just all one big community. Granted, there is an element of competition, and to a certain extent they allow communities to air their differences (booing one another, awarding points ‘strategically’ etc), but like the Olympics events like Eurovision are about coming together and having a great time. And at a point when we seem to be finding it harder than ever to trust our neighbours, both socially and internationally, I think that is more essential than ever, and why I think we need more events like it.

Ever since I first watched it, I have always dreamed that humanity was heading for the kind of future depicted on Star Trek: a humanity without borders, where we all worked together to advance humanity and explore space. I think this hits the nail on the head.

I think I just ought to record that today was my first jumperless day of 2024 – ie, the first day since last year when it was so warm outside that I didn’t need to wear a jumper. I’m not sure whether to be hopeful that this is a sign that summer will be here soon, or worry that it is a symptom of climate change.

Needless to say, I find this very exciting indeed. It was just featured on the BBC Breakfast program: the European Space Agency is currently training the world’s first amputee astronaut. “Former Paralympian John McFall is working with the European Space Agency on a ground-breaking study to see if it’s feasible for someone with a physical disability to live and work in space.” While some cynics may dismiss this as some kind of publicity or inclusivity stunt, I have to say I find it very encouraging indeed. It sends out a clear message that those of us with physical disabilities have just as much to human progress as anyone else, and that we can participate in endeavours like the exploration of space. And who knows where this might lead: could we one day see someone with a condition like cerebral palsy go up into the final frontier? Now that would certainly be awesome, although I suspect their dribbling might cause a few issues.

Today I think I ought to wish a happy birthday to two men who are, in very different ways, extremely dear to me. Firstly, when I got in this evening the internet reminded me that today is Sir David Attenborough’s 98th birthday. I think I’ve said here before that, as far as I’m concerned, Sir David is hands down the greatest broadcaster ever. There can’t be a single person in the UK who didn’t grow up watching the great man’s fascinating natural history documentaries, or hasn’t been utterly intrigued by the plethora of natural wonders he has revealed to us. We are all extremely lucky to have Attenborough as part of our mediascape, and should find the sheer body of work he has brought us over seventy years truly remarkable.

More personally but no less importantly, today is also Serkan’s birthday. Serkan is officially my Personal Assistant, but he is much more akin to a friend or even brother. Over the last four years he has come to my flat twice a day and washed, dressed and fed me; he has stood by me through thick and thin, including the darkness of the pandemic. I owe him a great, great deal, and hope he has the best of days.

Coming by from my trundle today, I had one another of those ideas which I think needs noting. I have been wearing a baseball cap whenever I go out for years: whenever I’m heading out, it’s now just a force of habit to just pull my cap on. The thing is, they tend to wear out or get lost fairly often, so over the years I’ve got through quite a few. I used to simply buy them off the shelf, but a month or two ago I found a store at the O2 where they would write any message I requested on to the front of a cap. It was a little expensive, but I liked the idea.

The first cap I bought from that shop was a black one with the words “Get out of my way or I’ll eat you.” I thought it would be cool to tell people that I was coming through and I needed them to stand aside, albeit in a humorous way and without actually needing to say anything.

After a while of wearing that cap when I was out and about though, I had another, rather more satirical idea. Taking a cue from all the idiotic Trump supporters I see on TV, I decided to go back to the shop at the O2 and this time bought a red cap with the words “Don’t let America elect that idiot again!” (The guys at the shop wouldn’t let me go with anything stronger than ‘idiot’.) At first I assumed it would just be my joke and wondered whether anyone would actually see or get it, although strangers have come up to me a couple of times and complemented me on it.

This afternoon, however, an idea for a third cap hit me: I was once again on the tube, having to wait for lifts being used by people perfectly able to use the stairs. All of a sudden I found myself absolutely itching to get a cap with the words “Use the frikkin’ stairs you lazy sods!” Then again, if I had such a hat I’d only be able to put it on when I want to use a lift, which could certainly make things complicated.

A cap where I could change the words using my Ipad? Now there’s an Idea.

While I don’t really feel like writing any kind of fulsome review of it right now, if you’re interested in watching films with interesting, innovative camera styles, go and watch Challengers. Essentially a romance about two guys and a woman who play tennis, what struck me the most when I was watching it in the cinema this afternoon was the way the film played around with conventional mainstream film: there were jump cuts, dolly zooms and shooting techniques I had never seen before. It really felt quite refreshing to see so many norms being broken, and mainstream film starting to adopt styles which it may once have regarded as too avante guarde.

I realise I don’t often mention it compared to the regularity with which I enthuse about James Bond or Star Trek, but I’m still a huge Lord of The Rings fan, so I was very sad to hear about the death of Bernard Hill yesterday. His performance as King Theoden in Peter Jackson’s epic adaptations of Tolkien’s novels was arguably one of the highlights of the film: I really think Hill captured the character of the chief of the Rohirrim – this mighty, noble, brave warrior king who could have stemmed from a Shakespearean tragedy or Norwegian epic saga – quite perfectly. More to the point, he was one of the great British actors, capable of delivering a hell of a lot of content with the slightest glance.

“I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed.”

This was just too amusing for me not to nick!

I know I have only myself to blame for this, but a few months ago I asked my Australian friend Darryl to help me upload all the archived entries from my old blog to my new one. It annoyed me to have almost twenty years of writing no longer online. I didn’t know how to do it but Darryl did. Fool that I am, though, I sent him a pdf file rather than the html file I had, so none of the entries Darryl so kindly uploaded had any of their original links. This has recently started to annoy me, and I’ve been spending quite a bit of time trying to restore the links entry by entry (checking that they still actually lead somewhere first). The problem is, there are probably about two or three thousand entries, so it will take me an absolute age. If anyone reading this can think of a solution, I would be eager to hear it.

I was just browsing Facebook when I came across some news which made my jaw drop: Ben Elton has recently been hinting that we could see the return of Blackadder. When I read that headline, I was stunned. The final scene of Blackadder the Fourth is one of the most famous and moving in British comedy history – how could those characters be brought back, particularly after such a long time? But of course, reading a bit more, you learn that Elton is talking about doing a stage show rather than fifth TV program, rather like how John Cleese adapted Fawlty Towers for the stage. To be honest that makes much more sense, and I think such a show could work well, although it would be very strange indeed to see the great Blackadder being played by anyone other than Rowan Atkinson, or someone other than Sir Tony Robinson playing Baldrick.

Not that this will particularly interest anyone expect perhaps for my immediate family, but today I came across a little path with a very familiar name. I was out on my trundle in Woolwich, exploring back streets I had never been down, when suddenly to my right I caught sight of a narrow footpath called Swettenham Walk. I realise that that won’t mean much to most people reading this, but Swettenham is the name of a tiny little village up in Cheshire, just to the north of Congleton, where I grew up.  It’s barely more than a few houses, a church and a lovely old pub where I first worked out that ordering beer wouldn’t be such a problem after all. To suddenly come across it’s name amid the sprawling metropolis came as such a surprise that I instantly thought it worth noting here. I mean, hardly anyone has heard of Swettenham, so I’m very curious how  that little path got it’s name especially given, if memory serves, there’s also a Congleton Grove somewhere in that area too?

ADDENDUM: you can see the walk here, if you’re interested.

Breakfast today was a bit of an ordeal – things often are when I need to go somewhere new – but things ultimately ended well. I think I’ve mentioned here before that I currently don’t have a PA on Wednesday mornings, so I have to get myself dressed and breakfasted. It isn’t such a big deal: after a few minutes of struggling to get my shoes and socks on, I usually just pop to a local coffee shop.

Until recently, I used to go to costa up in Eltham. A couple of weeks ago, though, I was there with John when, towards the end of our visit, one of the staff members pulled him aside and told him that they didn’t like me coming there alone because of the way I sometimes choked slightly on my food. The way in which the lady spoke to John rather than directly to me, together with the implication that I am too messy or repugnant to not have someone looking after me, pissed me off to be honest, and I resolved not to go there again.

Fortunately this morning I remembered there is a Starbucks in Kidbrooke, just a few minutes’ trundle from my flat, so I set off there instead. Kidbrooke is one of those newly gentrified, stylish areas which seem to be springing up all over London. I had never been there before, but there was always the alternative of just buying some doughnuts from the Sainsbury’s next door. Going in, I felt strangely apprehensive and a little self-conscious: getting people whom I’ve never met before to understand what I need and want can be a bit difficult; even getting them to twig that I communicate by typing into my Ipad can take a few minutes. Today, though, hungry as I was, I persevered, selecting the toastie I wanted for breakfast and giving it to the guy at the check-out. I thought it was important that I didn’t make a mess or anything, and to give the right impression, given that I would probably want to go back there.

It was only after I’d found a table and got out of my powerchair that I started to relax a bit. The only problem was, when it came, the toastie was baking hot, dripping in melted cheese, and not easy for me to pick up: I could see it going everywhere, and getting a repeat of what happened in Costa. Whenever I need to feed myself in public I start to feel self-conscious, as though everyone is looking at me like some disgusting monster.

Today, however, that turned out to be entirely paranoia. In the end, I managed to eat my breakfast without a problem. After the usual initial hesitation, the staff turned out to be friendly and helpful. The coffee may have tasted a little different to the stuff I’m used to, but that was probably just down to the beans they use. Thus, given it’s so close, it now looks like I have a new place for breakfast.

I just came across something pretty zarking awesome. I was watching Steve Shives’ latest video on how he prefers to play games on the easiest mode: to tell the truth I wasn’t that interested, but about halfway through he mentioned how, when he was growing up, one of his favourite games was Doom 2. That rang a bell, as it was a game me and my brothers used to play too (remember those deathmatches, guys?) But then came the cool part: he went on to say that he still plays Doom, and that you can now play it online on an internet game archive. Naturally that got me interested, and after a bit of googling I found This bit of epicness. The entire game, just as I remember it from my childhood, is there, to be played online for free! I instantly felt like I was twelve again.

(The only slight problem is, I now use sticky keys on my mac, which interferes with my need to press ‘control’ to shoot in the game, but I’m sure I can find a way around that…)

For those interested in the farce currently unfolding in America surrounding Donald Trump, I really think this is worth a watch. It’s an analysis of the way Trump speaks, and I think it’s very revealing. If you actually listen to his speeches at his rallies, press conferences or whatever, it soon becomes clear that Trump doesn’t talk like educated, eloquent politicians or businessmen usually do. Rather, he essentially spews streams of nonsensical word soup. Even his sentences lack the structure found in everyday conversation. Watching the video, it struck me that what was being described was someone with some kind of fairly severe neurological condition: I’m no expert, of course, but it put me in mind of people I’ve met with conditions like Autism. Autistic people sometimes struggle to find the words they need to express themselves; I’ve also heard them talk in loops and string random words together, just as trump seems to. I’m not saying he has Autism specifically, just that some kind of neurological condition may help to explain his bizarre behaviour.

Just for the record, I better note that I was up in Stratford again today, but instead of having to wait absolutely ages for a lift empty enough to get into, this afternoon one arrived just as I was rolling up to the doors. I was in, up and out within seconds! Rather than getting infuriated, the three or four people already in the lift cheerfully welcomed me in. It was kind of funny because weekends are usually when those two lifts are most crowded. To cap things off, as I rolled towards the Olympic Park I noticed the sun was starting to come out.

Things are obviously not all doom and gloom.

I have just watched a very, very interesting film indeed, although I must admit that, three hours ago, I’d never heard of it. After brunch today Dom suggested watching a film, which from the look of the sky struck me as a good idea. He went to my computer, loaded Disney+ and put on Free Guy. I was completely oblivious to it and didn’t have the foggiest idea what it was about.

Five or ten minutes into the film, I thought I was watching a very silly piece of crap indeed: it was set in a city, but it was exceedingly violent with people getting killed willy nilly. I just took it to be one of those puerile, gratuitous American action films I usually avoid. But then Dom pointed something out to me: this wasn’t supposed to be reality but a video game, and it suddenly became interesting.

The film is essentially an exploration of the relationship between the Real and Imaginary. What if a background character in a computer game could somehow become self-aware? What if something usually no more than a few pixels on a screen controlled by a few lines of code suddenly became aware of his own existence and the ultra-violent world around him? On one level, that notion is extremely silly, and the film does indeed have some very silly, contrived aspects; yet at the same time it raises some quite interesting philosophical questions, like how do we know we are real, and what is reality? If a character in a computer game became aware of their reality, what would they make of it? The film thus draws our attention to the unnecessary violence of modern video games as well as some of the bizarreness of video game culture. It also makes two or three extra-textual references which I liked.

When the end credits rolled I was intrigued. It’s only a 2021 film made for a streaming service, but it had given me a lot to think about. I would recommend checking it out if and when you can. After all, aren’t we all just characters in one giant role-playing game?

We have probably all been there: when you wake up too early, start thinking about stuff, and something starts to bug you. Yesterday afternoon I was mucking around on Facebook when I came across a video tour of the International Space Station. It was pretty cool as it showed you all kinds of cool stuff, following an astronaut as she floated gracefully around the station. What caught my attention most, though, was how the film lacked any sense of up or down. In usual films, we know that the ground will be at the bottom of the screen and the ceiling or sky will tend to be at the top. In the ISS video, however, the camera was able to roll and turn and we didn’t loose any sense of up or down because up and down don’t really exist in space. That struck me as cool.

Thinking about it in bed, though, something started to bug me. I remember, from GCSE Science over twenty years ago, that our sense of balance is controlled by a part of the ear: that in some piece of our ears we have some kind of liquid which keeps us steady. We feel dizzy when this ear-goo is disturbed. What is currently puzzling me is that, presumably, the goo depends on gravity pulling it downwards and keeping it level. In space there is no gravity, so can someone please explain why astronauts aren’t permanently dizzy? I hope I’m not being stupid here, but this really struck me as odd: why wasn’t the lady in the video, her hair floating like seaweed in the ocean, not constantly disorientated?

While it’s obviously all about vote-grabbing, I must admit that the announcements detailed here caught my attention. “Sadiq Khan has said that he would aim to bring WrestleMania, Superbowl and NBA to London and put together another winning bid for the Olympics in 2040. The Mayor of London – who is seeking re-election on May 2 – also announced today a ‘new boost’ into grassroots sport and underrepresented communities via City Hall’s £20 million Go! London fund.” While I’m not that fussed about wrestlemania or the superbowl, you know how excited I get about the Olympic Games. I see it as the world’s biggest sporting and cultural event; to see it held in London for a fourth time (my second) would surely be awesome. Mind you, in 2040 I’ll be 57, and there’s a very long time before then. That aside, it’s great to see that Kahn is eager to put London forward to host such events and to get this great city the attention it deserves.

I know it’s very grim reading indeed, but I think I need to direct everyone to this Guardian report that the UK has been accused by Amnesty International of multiple human rights violations. “In its annual global report, released today, the organisation said Britain was weakening human rights protections nationally and globally, amid a near-breakdown of international law.” It goes on to detail how violations have also been made by both the US and Israel. “The damning Amnesty report also criticises Israel’s allies for the failure to stop the “indescribable civilian bloodshed” in Gaza. In a stark warning to world leaders, the organisation said the world was reaping a harvest of “terrifying consequences” from escalating conflict and the near-breakdown of international law.” The report paints a pretty bleak picture of human rights in general, as politics becomes more reactionary and right-wing. It is now becoming clearer and clearer that the world is becoming less and less stable; as much as I don’t want to sound too melodramatic, but it feels to me like we have reached, or at least are reaching, an impasse akin to the 1930s. I suppose we can only hope that things don’t get any worse.

Today I just have a quick question: when you saw yesterday’s amazing news that contact had been re-established with Voyager 1 after months of just receiving gibberish from it, who else instantly thought “V’Ger!” and felt like watching Star Trek The Motion Picture?

I think I better open this entry by stating the blindingly obvious: the UK needs immigrants. Not only do we need people to come here to work and keep our economy and society going, but people coming to live here have contributed to our country culturally for centuries. More to the point, if desperate people come to this country in need of help and safety, surely we have a duty as civilised human beings not to turn our backs upon them. I think that that’s quite boilerplate, and no intelligent, educated person would try to argue with it.

Yet, ultimately, I think it’s also true that we cannot allow people to continue to risk their lives trying to come here by crossing the channel in small, dangerous boats – it is simply inhumane. Now, there are arguments to be had over how many people really try to make such journeys as a proportion of the overall number of people trying to migrate to the UK; whether threatening to deport them to Rwanda will really act as a deterrent; or whether this is all just a tory plot to distract us from their catastrophic failures while playing to their xenophobic core voters. Yet if people really are risking their lives trying to cross one of the busiest strips of water in the world, surely we must do something to either stop – or even better help – them.

Thus I guess I find myself in a bit of a spot. Again, I’m the type of person who welcomes people coming here with open arms: My grandparents migrated here from Cyprus in the early 1950s, and all my PAs are from either Poland or Turkey. It is essential that the UK is an open, welcoming, tolerant society. Yet I find myself asking myself, would I have wanted my grandfather and grandmother to risk their lives getting onto a small, dangerous boat?* Of course not.

I must therefore agree that ‘stopping the boats’ – preventing people trying to come here by risking their lives crossing the channel – is indeed a problem. The trafficking gangs who send them here are a problem. The thing is, if we guarantee them all safe, secure homes once they get here, there is no denying that that would just encourage more people to take such dangerous journeys, so simply welcoming them is not a solution. But that plays into the right-wing narrative that we should turn everyone away and not help anyone coming here looking for a safe, happy life.

Perhaps one solution might be to make sure that everyone who wants to come here, for whatever reason, has a safe way to get here; but I don’t know how practical that would be given the numbers of people involved. It may not solve the problem anyway, as people would probably still feel the need to avoid official, above board routes. I therefore don’t know what to think about this: Deporting these people to Rwanda is brutal, inhumane, and ultimately a Tory stunt to distract us. Yet simply letting these channel crossings continue is too dangerous. Whether it is just a right-wing ploy to whip up support or not, we can’t allow these poor people to risk their lives.

*At this point I must stress they came here legally and safely.

I hope I’m not going too far with this, but I made it after listening to Sunak speak this morning. I find the Tory attitude towards immigration and ‘stopping the boats’ utterly sickening.

As you may know, I’m quite a fan of the BBC, so I think I should draw everyone’s attention to the fact that this weekend marked BBC Two’s sixtieth birthday. I think that’s quite awesome: if you ask me, alongside Channel Four and now BBC Four, the Beeb’s second channel brings us the most interesting and innovative things to watch on telly. Over the past sixty years, it has been a cultural powerhouse, although I’ll always personally remember it as the place where I first saw Star Trek. To be honest I’m slightly surprised that the BBC is not making more of this birthday. Mind you, with the rise of streaming, it’s debatable whether TV channels will be ‘a thing’ for much longer.

It hasn’t been all that interesting a day: I went to Blackheath cricket club and watched a few overs, but it was a bit chilly so I came home slightly earlier than usual. No interesting films, no nice trundles, no arguments with people in lifts. However, around an hour ago it could have turned out differently. I was just mucking about on Facebook when on one of the local Eltham groups I caught sight of photos of an anti-ULEZ protest, including placards attacking Sadiq Kahn. As I’ve said here recently, I support ULEZ and the de-pollution of London quite firmly, and it really winds me up to see these petrol headed idiots opposing it. The background of the photo looked familiar, and according to it’s caption the protest was being held at a place about ten minutes away from my flat.

Of course, when I saw that I was up and out like a shot, preparing to give these protesting idiots a piece of my mind. If they think they have a right to oppose something so vital for the future of London, I have a right to tell them to go home like the shortsighted, selfish arseholes they are. I just went there in order to tell these petrol-headed morons what I thought of them, but luckily for them their ”protest’ had already stopped. There was no sign that anything had happened. It had obviously only been a small, short, insignificant action held by people with no understanding of what they’re protesting against. Even so, it really gets to me just how selfish people can be.

To be honest, when I first turned on my computer this morning and saw the headlines, my initial reaction was “Oh shit.” Israel had struck back at Iran, and I assumed it was the news we had all been dreading: that a massive, catastrophic war had just kicked off in the Middle East. As many readers will know, politics and international politics is one of the things I like commenting on, so I’ve spent the day trying to think of something to say about it. Yet I’m just a cripple living in a flat in South-East London; I know as much about such issues as anyone else – probably even less. There isn’t much I could write on here which would cast light on the situation. It is just such a troubling turn of events though, that I feel compelled to say something, if just to convey my concern. Watching the evening news just now, the commentators are currently saying that things could go either way, and there’s a good chance that Iran could just ignore Israel’s strike given that it caused so little damage. Let’s hope they do. Ultimately, though, I fear we are standing on the brink of something utterly devastating this evening, so let me just wish everyone reading this luck, peace and hope.

There is absolutely nothing better than a trundle along the river Thames in the spring sunshine. London truly is the greatest city on earth. For reasons I won’t bore you with, I was up and out slightly earlier today, so I thought I would go on a nice long stroll. I didn’t know where to head at first, so I opted to cross Blackheath and see what was happening in Greenwich Park, before heading down to Greenwich market. Whenever I usually head that way, I often then use the old foot tunnel to go up to the Isle of Dogs, or head east to the O2. Today though, I thought I would see how far I could go west along the south bank of the Thames.

It was a lovely long trundle. I don’t think people realise how pretty London can be. The path was well maintained and accessible, so for two or three hours I followed the river in the sunshine. The Thames is quite historic, so every so often I came across signs and plaques explaining the history of the area. For example, in Rotherhithe, I found the very point where the Pilgrims set sail for America aboard the Mayflower. A couple of times, however, I was blocked by barriers or steps, which meant I had to divert away from the river and find my own way down back alleys and charming cobbled streets; but even then I was intrigued as I could almost smell the history in the air.

Believe it or not I made it as far as London Bridge and the former City Hall, currently being transformed into a shopping mall. Part of me wanted to press on, but it was getting crowded, and I wanted to get back here to check things. I simply hopped onto the Jubilee Line and was home within half an hour. It had been an amazing trundle: London is such an incredible city with so much to see, it’s mighty river flowing through it like some stately old sage, the sun shimmering off it’s surface. After getting so wound up a couple of days ago, there is nothing like a walk along the Thames to put everything back into perspective.

I just heard on the BBC Breakfast program that today marks a hundred days until the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic games, and I just want to reiterate what I wrote in this entry in February. Part of me is curious about what it feels like in Paris right now: I was living in London in the spring of 2012, and I remember that curious mix of apprehension and excitement which hung in the air. Presumably the atmosphere in Paris will be similar, only, as they just said on TV, Paris is under quite a bit more pressure than London was. The world has changed substantially since 2012; there is much more risk from things like terrorism; there is an ongoing, brutal war in Eastern Europe. Things feel far edgier in general.

2012 was a very special year for me, and I still remember it with immense pride and fondness. To have not only lived here in London that year, but to be living with one of the people who performed at the climax of the paralympic closing ceremony, will always be one of the highlights of my life. I realise that, for me personally, that experience can never be repeated or recaptured, so whatever happens in Paris this summer, from my perspective it cannot possibly come close. Having said that, I fully expect to see something spectacular from our French neighbours. I want their opening ceremony to blow me away just as the London 2012 opening ceremony blew me away; I want to get the same sensation of jaw-dropping spectacle and exuberant optimism. I know it cannot take me back in time to 2012, but in a way I want Paris to bring back a whisp of the feeling I experienced back then, if just on my TV screen.

Above all, though, I wish anyone reading this living in Paris this year good luck: I hope their summer at the centre of the world goes well, and advise them to relish it while it lasts. With the world currently so fractured and in such turmoil, it seems to me that we need such a festival of global unity now more than ever.

I have honestly rarely if ever been more furious than I was for a few moments earlier this afternoon. Out on my trundle up in Stratford, I went to use the lift up to the bridge which leads from the station into Westfield, only to find it full of ambulant people perfectly capable of using the nearby stairs. As I’ve mentioned here before, very little enrages me more than being prevented from getting into a lift by people too lazy to use their legs. Today though, my fury was like nothing I have ever felt before: it was white hot, and my ears sort of cracked and felt like they were bleeding. It had already happened three or four times, so I had been waiting for about twenty minutes by then, just to go up a single flight of stairs. In that moment, if I had any way of doing so, I honestly think I would have massacred every single person in that lift: it seemed so arrogant, so selfish; and the way they always refused to move when I told them to get out, as if they had as much right to use the lift as I do, made it even worse.

In the end, of course, I had to give up and use the next lift. I felt my heart beating in my chest more violently than it ever had before. How is it right that people like me should have to put up with such arrogance and laziness. Given that this happens so frequently these days, I’m now seriously considering starting a campaign to make all lifts, at least on the transport network, strictly wheelchair user only. After today I will not tolerate such arrogance anymore. Naturally, half an hour and a short trundle around the Olympic park later, I’d had chance to calm down. To loose your temper, much less hurt anyone, over something so insignificant, is foolish. Even so, it frustrates me how lazy, arrogant and shortsighted people can sometimes be.

I must admit that, when I first came across it and started to watch it earlier, my gut reaction was to dismiss a video discussing the gay and transsexual elements in The Lord Of The Rings as something of an insult to one of my favourite authors. Tolkien was, after all, a highly conservative catholic – the notion that any form of homosexuality or sexuality in general could be read into any of his work was an utter nonsense. Yet the more I watched this fairly long Youtube video doing just that, the more intrigued I became. I won’t try to summarise or relay any of the arguments presented here, other than to say it is an impressive, scholarly video essay: the speaker admits that it is a reading that Tolkien obviously did not intend, but nevertheless as modern readers we can find queer elements in his work if we look. The character Eowen, for example, could be read as trans, or as having trans elements. Naturally, not everyone will agree, but even so I think this is another great example of how sophisticated online analysis is becoming; it is well worth a watch.

Yesterday was one of those wonderful days which had been a long time in coming. I’ve mentioned here before how, when I was growing up, we often used to travel down to visit my grandparents at their house in Harlesden. That large, comfortable house is now a kind of London base for the family. It’s easy enough for me to get to, and I often go up there to see my parents, for example at Christmas. Yesterday, though, was the first time my whole family had all been together in over five years: Me, my mum and Dad, and both my brothers and their families. Due to the pandemic, work and various other factors, it has been so difficult to coordinate getting together as a family again.

Yet yesterday we managed it, and it was incredible. Of course, my brother Mark’s two children, my nephew and niece, had grown quite a bit, and are now energetic and rambunctious, if a little stubborn. I also met my brother Luke’s newborn son, five months old, for the first time yesterday, and it was truly incredible to watch him look around the back room, lying on the very floor I remember once crawling over. I also managed to hold him yesterday – the first time I had ever held a baby to cuddle him – and I was utterly, instantly besotted. Naturally, I was trying hard not to drop or hurt him, but the minute or two my young nephew was in my arms was one of the most precious, beautiful things I have ever experienced.

There isn’t much more for me to write about on here. It was one of those family days spent chatting, eating and playing with the children; it ended all too soon, and part of me really didn’t want to come home. It had been far, far too long since we had all been together, and I really hope it isn’t long until we can all get together as a family again.

As I have so many other times in the last few weeks, I have just rolled home from the cinema thinking I have enough to write about to fill an entire thesis, or at least several lengthy essays. I just watched Civil War, once again with John. It struck me, above all, as a dark, brutal story which a deeply divided nation is telling about itself to itself. In the film, we find the United States of America embroiled in a brutal civil conflict, with militias roaming the country shooting one another. The interesting thing is, we aren’t given much detail about the background of the conflict or how it came about: apart from a few hazy references to things like a California/Texas alliance, that is a space which is left open for the audience to read what we will into.

The film is thus deliberately ambiguous: we know it’s about contemporary America and the scary social and political divisions opening up there, but the film does not overtly state which side the four main protagonists are on, who is fighting who, or indeed who is the goodies and who are the baddies. Yet that is obviously the whole point of the film. It does not matter why these guys are fighting, just that the USA is destroying itself. It is a warning about where the country may be heading, figuratively if not literally.

Mind you, as a brit, I couldn’t help noticing the total lack of references to other countries. Apart from an extremely fleeting mention of Canadian dollars, it was as if the outside world didn’t exist. If the world’s biggest economy was really tearing itself apart, you would think other global powers would try to intervene. Instead, it was as if the USA was the stand-in for all of humanity, and the rest of us didn’t matter. I think we can read quite a bit into that: even when Americans tell stories about how fractured their nation is, they cannot escape their own self-importance. It kind of reminded me of a hypochondriac bemoaning their own woes, yet refusing to acknowledge that other people may have bigger problems, or that other people might be around to help. In this sense, this film was about the current fashion for self pity written onto the scale of a state: these days, so many people are destroying their selves internally without any real, definable reason for their suffering. In reality, the USA is not at any risk of tearing itself apart. Some Americans just fear it is, so we start to see the appearance of fictions in which it has, just transposed up onto the scale of some kind of global armageddon. In other words, In Civil War and films like it, we can read a type of nationalistic paranoia: a sense of American greatness and importance, undercut by an intense fear that it could squander that greatness at any moment.

That, however, may be an overreading on my part. Above all, Civil War is one of the most interesting, engrossing films I’ve seen in a long time. I still want to write plenty more about it, but better do some research first. For example, I want to look into it’s relationship with films like Apocalypse Now. In the meantime, I would once again encourage everyone to go and watch it, and to check out Mark Kermode’s review here.

Yesterday was a bit of a mixed day: in large part it was woefully disappointing, but also had some good points. Continuing our season of watching Japanese films, John and I intended to go and watch The Boy And The Hare. The only place it was screening was at The Odeon in Covent Garden, which, we assumed, wouldn’t be a problem as getting into central London is now easier than ever thanks to the Elisabeth Line.

I headed up there early, meeting J as we had planned in Soho Square Garden at around half past five. From there we walked to the cinema, looking forward to seeing a bit of Japanese animation. It was then, however, that our plans took a nose dive: we found four or five large steps up to the entrance to the cinema. There was no way I would be able to get my powerchair in, and I certainly didn’t want to leave it out in the street while I watched the film. John went in to ask if there was a ramp or something I could use, but it turned out that only one of the cinema’s screens was accessible, and that wasn’t screening the film we wanted to watch.

We were both very taken aback. London has made so much progress towards accessibility in the last two decades or so; I now feel I can go anywhere, without much problem. When it comes to places like cinemas, I simply assume I can just roll in. To find my entrance blocked so severely was incredibly shocking; I felt very disappointed indeed. It was bewildering.

There wasn’t much we could do. We just walked on into Covent Garden, exploring a bit of the market, at that point winding down for the night. The fact that I could wheel around the market perfectly easily made what had just happened even more exasperating. I suppose, though, that the cinema is in a building from the 1920s I’d guess, and is probably listed, so may well be exempt from accessibility laws. All the same, you would think that, in this day and age, in the centre of a modern, global metropolis, wheelchair users like myself would be able to go anywhere we like.

After a short walk around the area and a bite to eat, we came home. It was fascinating to see how pleasant and pedestrianised that area of central London now is: entire streets, previously choked by traffic, are now paved arcades which Londoners leisurely saunter up and down. Yet as I sat in the city’s wonderful new tube line as it carried me swiftly and smoothly back home, I couldn’t help but reflect that London clearly still has work to do before it is as welcoming as I’d assumed it was.

This might be slightly lazy blogging on my part, but I really think I need to direct everyone here, to the Beeb’s collection of pictures of yesterdays eclipse over north America. It’s not just because they’re interesting scientifically, but because most of them are absolutely stunning. I just took a casual look, and my jaw immediately hit the floor: the sun, half covered by the moon, yet framed behind the statue of Liberty, must surely be one of the most beautiful, incredible photographs I’ve ever seen.