This is a story inspired by a article I read this morning.

—

I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed, apart from a queasy feeling in my stomach, were the irregularities in the plaster on the ceiling. They were perfectly clear, like a perfectly white sea, turned upside down and frozen in time.

“Well I’ll be. It worked!” I said, to myself.

“Clear as crystal.” My father’s voice was a mixture of wonder and euphoria. He was not speaking to me, but someone else in the room. “Told you I could do it.” I heard Luke say. “all it took was a thousand lines of Perl and a few microprocessors.”

“and who designed those processors,, eh?” this was mark.

“Oh shut up you two!” said mum. I smiled at the realisation that I was taking my traditional role as spectator in my brother’s arguments. Old habits die hard.

“Quite.” I said “it just occurred to me that I can move my legs with greater precision than ever before, and unless you want me to kick both your arses, I suggest you shut up.”

There was total silence in the room. As usual, I was unsure that anyone had understood even a word I was saying/ I began again “I said…”

“we understood you matt.” Mark said. I heard mum start to weep. I smiled, and decided to try out a few things. Under the hospital coverlet, I touched my index finger with my thumb. “So far so good” I thought ”now for the others. One, two, three, four. Good. Now for the left. One two, three four. Excellent.” I lifted my head, and saw my family at the foot of my bed. They were standing there in silent awe, tears of joy rolling down mum’s face. “now this is rather cool”, thought.

I turned my head to look at the bedside table, upon which sat a glass of water with a straw in it, which I had drank front to swallow the anaesthetic roughly five hours before. A idea occurred to me, both mischievous and poignant. I lifted my hand from beneath the cover, and slowly it glided towards the glass, reaching up and behind me. I must admit it felt odd doing this: there were none of the usual tugs of tension, my arms did not feel as if they wanted to suddenly jerk back into the Moro position; all I felt was freedom.

The processors in my cerebellum were working. They had been implanted by Professor Tipu Aziz, whose pioneering work using computers to replace misfiring neurons successfully treated conditions like Parkinson’s and motor-neurone disease. Similar work had been done by Ed Tarte, of Cambridge, in the area f spinal chord injury. It was, however, my brothers who had posited, after I had made a particularly large mess one mealtime, that similar technology could be used to bypass damaged neurons responsible fore movement.

When quite large amounts of the brain have been damaged, for example, through oxygen deprivation at birth, surrounding brain tissue is gradually trained to replace the function of that which is lost. Such training is never perfect, and thus we get the decreases body co-ordination we see with cerebral palsy sufferers, for example. However, if neural implants could be used to replace damaged tissue, .recovery would be much better because, my boffin brothers suggested, the computer programming would be much more efficient than the tissue the brain uses to compensate with.

Of course, there had been some debate over the possible abuse of this technology. It had been argued that it could lead to a ‘bionic man’ being made. Others had argued that it could lead to a form of mind control, and I had been quite amused that bioengineers at the State university of New York had given one lab rat implants which effectively turned it into a remote controlled toy. Nevertheless, my family had felt, like the majority of the scientific community, that the benefits of this technology by far outweighed the dangers.

Thus these computers, tiny as a grain of sand, were calculating the trajectory of my right arm as I reached for the glass. I suddenly felt he cool container between my fingers and thumb, and knew, in an instant, how much pressure to apply. And then, in a moment that I had waited twenty-five years for, I picked the glass up, put it’s rim gently to my lips, and drank from it.

See Sunday Times magazine, 20th June 2004, p45

I was watching the news last night. Arab terrorists beheaded a man in Saudi Arabia simply because he was an American. I know I’ve been known to criticise the yanks here, but this man didn’t deserve to die. by doing this, the terrorists have shown they do not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, thereby losing any scrap of moral superiority they ever had.

I refuse to believe in ‘barbarians’: no person can be innately violent, so any violent act must have a motive. Yet this rule has been breached by Hitler, Stalin and countless others. If man can be violent for violence’ sake, then these terrorists are indeed barbarians, as were the Abu Grahib guards.

What a disgusting war this truly is?!

I got an email from palinstravels.co.uk, which – as a Palin fan – is enough to make me smile for days!

[quote=”Michael Palin”]Dear all,

I apologise, grovellingly, for not having reported back to you for so long. I thought of making excuse like a severe case of YRMLS (Yak-Butter Related Memory Loss Syndrome) or simply that I’d fallen off a mountain onto my writing hand. The reality is much less interesting as it involves very boring things like writing deadlines and delivery dates.

Our last day of filming in the Himalaya was in early April this year, and as I have had to write the book in breaks between filming trips, over half remained un-written when I got back to London. With the help of my wife, who is getting better and better at ignoring me, and our three cats who say and do very little during the daytime, I was able to sit undisturbed in my room, watching spring turn to summer in the gardens of Gospel Oak and tap out a rough and ready account of 3,000 miles of astonishing travel.

Over in Washington, Basil Pao was working equally frantically, looking through his nine million photos for 300 which would be good enough for my book and a further 300 even better ones that would be good for his book.

Anyway, it looks as if the seven day a week, no alcohol before 7 p.m. regime has worked. Both books – Himalaya and Inside Himalaya by Basil Pao – are just about ready to go to the printers in north Italy, and we’re looking at publication in late September. I would love to go to north Italy and keep the words and pictures company as they churn through the presses in the shadow of the Dolomites, but after a short pause for breath I have to start work writing and recording the commentary for our six episodes. So that’s another summer devoted to the Himalaya!

What makes it all worthwhile is that we have some fantastic material, both written and visual, to work with, and as everywhere we went through was pretty difficult to get to, as well as new and strange to me, there is a real sense of adventure in the project.

The highest point of the journey was just over 18,000 feet (5,500 metres) and the lowest was on the very last shot of the series, floating out into the sunset on the Bay of Bengal. The mountains take no hostages. Conditions above 15,000 feet were always difficult, with lower oxygen levels making moving, breathing and sleeping more difficult. As we had once again set ourselves a lot of ground to cover we had very little recovery or acclimatization time and our ace BAFTA award-winning sound recordist John Pritchard, suffered a bad dose of altitude sickness and was hospitalized in Lhasa, Tibet. He’s now made a full recovery I’m glad to say. Both myself and Basil were struck down by a nasty virus that reduced us too coughing wrecks on one part of the climb. You’ll be glad to hear that all my misery was faithfully and unblinkingly recorded on film by our ace BAFTA award-winning cameraman Nigel Meakin.

All six programmes have now been edited down and I’m very pleased that each one has a distinct and different feel to it. Pakistan starts the series, and that’s very different from India, and Nepal and Tibet are both different again. Yunnan in China, at the far eastern end of the Himalaya is an eye-opener, and very beautiful, and Nagaland and Assam in north-east India are strange and lovely. To round off the trip, we have the high and the lows in Bhutan and Bangladesh, both fascinating places, but as different as chalk from cheese. Though the scenery is breathtaking, it’s the people we meet who, as usual, make the programmes work.

So that’s where it’s at the moment. Can’t give much more detail because we’re still fine tuning everything, but I am quietly excited and looking forward to the first transmission, which we hope will be in early October, on BBC 1.

I shall be doing a book signing tour here in October and hopefully visiting Australia and New Zealand in November and Holland in December. Travel begets travel, but at least I can leave my sleeping bag behind!

Soon we’ll be able to have more material about Himalaya on the site, and we’ll be keeping you updated about where and when you can catch the series. Meanwhile watch the old ones on UK TV Documentary channel!

Thank you for being patient during my absence. Talk soon, as they say.

Michael[/quote]

[img align=”centre”]/images/me-04-06-18.jpg[/img]

This is what happens when you tell a wizard his pointy hat looks gay.

It’s just under 2 weeks till i go to berlin with college, and i cant wait. There are times when i feel i just have to travel, anywhere. of course, watching michael palin DVDs only makes this feeling worse.

I love the feelling of waking up, at maybe 4 or 5 in the morning, and thinking “today, an adventure will begin. tonight i will sleep in a bed 1000 miles from here”. i adore the feelinng of actually moving: watching lanscape go by, perhaps changing gradually. i love new foods, new drink, new people. oh i just cannt wait!

In it’s brief evaluation of Fanfic, the bbc Ouch! website quotes professor Henry Jenkins as saying fan fiction is “born out of a mixture of fascination and frustration”, as the original material captures the imagination but fails to satisfy. Writers placing “marginalized peoples” at the centre of their stories, “play out a drama about acceptance, tolerance, even an embrace of their difference.”

In saying this, Jenkins has seemingly captured the raisin d’etre of Fanfic perfectly. It is a medium where fans can take the components of established, published works and examine them through their own writing. This essay will examine fan fiction as a mode, reflecting upon points for and against it.

Fanfic can be criticised on the basis that it is not original. It is an embellishment upon another artist’s work, and some hold that this makes it less artistically valid. Many philosophers hold that one of the main aspects of all art is originality: Bizet did not copy themes from Mozart, nor Tolkien from Tolstoy. Every art work should be utterly unique. It follows, then, that as pieces of fan fiction have as their basis other works, they are less valid.

Indeed, the ouch article points out, “[i][Fanfic exists][/i] in the grey areas of copyright”, meaning that it is not fully recognised under law. It can be seen as immoral in that writers steal ideas from others. This is certainly true, but writing, I would argue, has no formal rules on this subject: it, like all art forms, is forever evolving and changing in a way similar to genres.

Toderov proposed that genres are in a constant state of flux – elements of one genre move into another, then another. For example, in the Harry potter novels we see elements of fantasy, adventure, melodrama, and so on. Writing is similarly fluid: it comes off the page and forms a life in the readers mind. In this sense, it no longer belongs to the writer but is the reader’s property. By it’s very nature, writing invites interpretation by readers.

There are many ways this can be achieved. Usually, a person will read a book, think about its themes, perhaps incorporate them into his or her world view, then move on to another book. Yet if he or she has the power, money and inclination, a person might chose to make a film out of a book. This is similar to the generation of Fanfic, as a director will ultimately have to interpret the text to make the film. It is unlikely that the text’s original author and the director would have the same vision, so the film can be seen as merely taking the original as its basis.

This is exactly what Fanfic seeks to do. Another form of reflection upon an original texts, it gives the writer the ability to explore certain elements, characters and themes. They are indeed valid forms of writing in their own right, merely having used another piece of writing as a reference point, just as film adaptations ultimately do. They are thus paying tribute to the original text for being versatile enough to allow such exploration. To dismiss Fanfic as somehow less worthy than other art forms is therefore folly, and would, in my view, betray one as ignorant and snobbish.

Worth a look: http://www.fictionalley.org – “FanFic in All Shapes, Sizes & SHIPs!”

I should pooint outt that last night, having watched england lose sso dramatically at football, and having drank one too many beers [stella through a straw is damn daangerous] I made some quite xenophobic comments here. The french are nice people, who make good wine, and i just want to point out that what i said last night did not reflect my world view.

but they’re still lucky!

trafalgar meann anything? we beat hat little arse napolion. and you wwere somewhat quick to surrender to mr hitler, ehh? you got blloody lucky toniight!

We just got back from the cinema, where i saw the new harry potter film. i was glad to see that the film, like the books, are becoming more adult as they progress, and the prisoner of azkaban is thus a much more sophisticated film. This may, of course, have been connected with th change in drector – if ever one needed proofe of “auteur theory”, here it is.

indeed, the differences between chris columbus and Alfonso Cuaron are remarkable: Cuaron employs a far darker, more aatmospheric style; there is mmuch more emotion in the new film; the mise-en-scene is much more textured and is almost painterly – certain shots reminded me of the paintings of John Howe. compare for example the shots of hogwarts in the rain to very similar paintings of middle earth by howe and alan lee.

Thus this is a far more adul film – the ever-present quidditch scene is done in the rain. while alan rickmaans snape is as always broodingly excellent – i’m afraid la guerras unnatural liking for him seems to have rubbed off on me – the other characters, lupin and cirrius black are also highly impressive. They seem to have real emotion and depth. the acting, needless to say, has also improved, although there is hardly a scene without potter, granger and weasly in and i’m a little unsure about the new dumbledore.

while i still think that this series could do with a disabled charachteer, an that miss stanhope runs mr potter into the ground in terms of depth etc (see samples of my work), this is a vast improvement over the last two films, which look like kiddies cartoons in comparrison. I cant wait to see what Cuaron does with goblet of fire.

Contrary to my brother’s beliefs, the pikelet and outcake shop in Congleton can go on hoiliday:

[img align=”centre”]/images/shop-on-holiday.jpg[/img]

twilight is the period between the end of ones exams and results day. its a period when one is suddenly free from all work. theres little point to worrying about exam results. in short, twighlight is bliss, and i look forwward to it all year. I have no work, no revision to do; no exams to worry about; I can just sit and chill: maybe read a bit, maybe do some writing, maybe get out my python DVDs.

ahh…twighlight is good. and in 2 or 3 weeks, i’m off to berllin for 10 days, which is gonna rule!

my final exam of the year, AS history, was tjhis afternoon. think I did o.k. I’m just happy they’rre over, and I now have about 3 monthhs to chill. woohoo. expect lots more blog entries from me guys!

I stood under the branches of the tree which overhung the driveway, a soft wind rustling the leaves.

“Beautiful, isn’t it.” Dad smiled. I could tell he was impressed. He was looking at the bike, but his sight, I could tell, stretched back some 25 years, to his own youth.

“why don’t you start it up, so we can see how it sounds?”

my brother stepped forward with the key. He slotted it into the ignition just behind the two gauges. Almost immediately, like a newborn kitten the bike began to purr.

It generated a gentle put-putting sound which reminded me of old biplanes from the twenties. I suppose my brother can be compared to those first brave aeronaughts. I couldn’t help feeling jealous, and proud.

At length, after the two men had talked about it and eyed it like workmen preparing to build a wall, my brother lent forward and gently squeezed the throttle: the putput disappeared, and the kitten turned into a lion, proud as any in Africa. My father was in love/

Of course, my brother was under strict orders from my mother not to let dad get on the thing. She knew that dad would simply fall in love with the damn machine at first sight, and she was quite right. Mum had been totally against Luke buying what she saw as a toy in the first place.

“It’s dangerous.” She had said, probably half a thousand times. “if you killed yourself, I don’t know what I’d do.”

For my part, I had to agree. I hated the idea of my little brother hurting himself. Truth be told, I’m very fond of him. Yet before me sat this great half-ton lump of plastic and chrome which sang like Hendrix’s guitar, and all I felt was admiration.

Luke’s gone out riding, playing with his new toy. Which, I suppose, is part of the problem: mum still likes to think of him as her littlest son, still wrapped in a white blanket. Today I saw Luke, a man with a damned fine motorbike, ready to make his own way n the world.

this evening, mum cooked the most delicious meal. it had beenn a long afternoon, and i’d had onlyy some bread and pate for lunch. its just me and mum at home tonight – dads away on business, lukes at tesco – so i was just expecting mum to do something simlple, like beans on toast. on the contrary, she usedd the occasion to make a risotto with button mushrooms and a butter and white wine sauce. it was delicious. I had the remaining wine – a rioja, which, althouugh clearly intended for thee cooking pot, was nevertheless palateable – to drink, and we sat and ate and spoke as evening fell through the kkkichin window. It was quite heavenly, and i’ll go to bed happy.

ok, i know its a day in, but so far i’m really greattful 4 this half term. last week shattered me, but now i’m full of vim and vigour. wattched a bond and aa jackie chan film today, and mum got return of the king on dvd! feeling good! revisions going well too.

the debate on how the disabled are or should be referred to often comes up on the ouch messageboards. the debate interests me. just how should we be defined. of course, it depends in part on weather we are a specific sub-group – is there a “we”, or are the disabled merely a set of unrelated humanns with some physical quirks?

The answer, I think, lies domewhere in the middle. Essentially I am no more ‘related’ to another disabled person than I am to eminem – we have different views, diffrent likings and diffrent political stances – yet, o the other hand, all disabled people share certain things: the special school system, frustrations at restrictive beurocraccy, a hatred of steps (especially the blond welsh one).

therefore, given that we are indeed a social subgroup, how are we defined? people who wear black and llisten to thrash metal are usually called “goths”; people who wear socks outside their platic trousers and baseball caps are called “scallies”, although “2complete retards” seems more accurate; so what is the collective term for isabled people?

I often refer to myself as “cripple” or “spastic”: these are derogetory terms which, rather like the term “nigger” in americcan culture, we have claimed for ourselves. they are postmodern terms, used for ironic purposes. Yet were anyone to refer to me as a spastic – that is, anyone other than my close friends and family – I would find it extremely offensive, just as a black person would take offense were I to call him a nigger. Jackie chan illustrates this very point in “rush hour”.

We can therefore see how this debate is so diifficult. euphomisms like “the ddisabled” and “the physically challanged” smack of the medical model, which attempts to treat us like hospital patients; South Park clearly illustrated how “the crips” is already taken; “spastic” reminds me of the 1970s andd is too derogiterry.

Whatevver the word, there will be problems with it, so why dont we just call all bets off. shakespeare wrote “a rose by any other name would’st smell as sweet”, so does it matter wht we are called? I think not. we are disabled, and we are proud!

this week i had three long exams on wednesday, thursday and friday. the thing is, they were all supposed to take place on wednesday, but due to the extra time i get it was thoought that doing examms for 12 hours in one daay would be a breach of human rights. Thus i had 2b persona-non-grata for three days. I was begining to get interne withdraw;l sympoms. At least now i can rest for 2 or 3 days before pressing on with revision. yay!

In other news, my site is getting more and more hits. so welcome newcomers etc.

in other other news, bush iis gettingon my nerves.. I’ll write about him smetime soon, but now it’s tome for fiends. does chanel 4 show anything else?

cp (ceribral palsy) + md (muscular dustrophy) = mp, which explains why all politicians are weak in the hheaad.

ok, its crap, but it amused me. not veryy pc either.

last night was very cool indeed. as planned, I was picked up at 8, and was in crewe by half past, I was aken in by clive and KJ. Strange how people made a fuss of me – finding me a suitable chair [i.e one i could”t fall off], saying “hi” and glad you could come”. I decided I like being made a fuss of.

anyway, i was sitting in a very dark, smokey room with a screen covering the stage at one end, onto which were being projected music videos. I got chatting to KJ, hayley and a few of the guys. Clive bought me a stella, and I sddenly relaxed. I thought “this is cool”, and felt like I was just a normal person out with mates.

I fell into my old habit of watching people as the place filled up. I used to think goths and bikers were scary people, but tonight they seemed, well, normal, and slightly comic for all their talk of death and suicide. I would once have been petrified of setting foot into such a place, but with Clive and the guys about, it felt cool. couldn’t help wondering what all the beardy bikers thought of me, but i’m pretty certain they didn’t mind – one even commented on my h*a*s*h tee shirt.

After we had arrived, with me sipping the Stella through the straw somewhat too quickly, I suddenly heard the opening bars of one of my favourite songs – Basketcase on the big screen! From then on, I knew it was gonna be a cool night!

as 9 approached, Kyle and the guys went backstage. Suddenly, the projection-screen lifted, and the most almighty din ensued. Kyle was shouting into a microphone like something satanic, Mark and Lee were on guitar, Dar was on Keyboard and charles was on drums. it all could have been imposing, if it hadn’t occurred to me that these guys wouldn’t hurt a fly, and indeed a few hours ago had been helping around the student council. Lee often helps me with my coffee. my point is that, i think the goth people have a bad reputation which is unwarranted. appearances often deceive.

Well, theres not much more to tell, other than I bought the 2nd round, had a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and got home shortly before 11. I wonder when their next gig is.

Scapegoat’s site

tomorrow night, i’m going out with a few of the guys from college. theyre playing at the limelight in crewe.. clive, the head of the student council and top bloke, is gonna pick me up from home about 8. after all these years of sitting, getting bored at home, i finally have a social life!

its somewhat liffee affirming!

I am now officially booared. just spent 4/5 hours revising. dulll. so, if anyone wants to msn me randomly, feel free to do so.

I just have to blog this – i was eating lunch at college in a conservitarry-type area thing, and down thee college road comes a big black van with a red stripe which took me right back to the 80s watching the A team with my older bro.

do you have a problem? yes lunch isn’t here yet and no-one else can help. no, esters fetching it.

then you must call…THE A-TEAM. Err, no thanks mr. beraccus, me and my LSA can cope, now go play somewhere else.

I just went downstairs again, and stood by tthe back door. the air now seems clear and fresh. I seldom go in to the garden, or any province of my father much, and so I lack knowledge of it. What I said earlier here was thus unfounded – for the most part. looking from tthe back door into the garden, I remembered the times dad had taken me there, onto the lawn, into fresh air. anger vaniishes like dawn mists, and I thought of Heaney’s poem: [quote=”Seamus Heaney”]DIGGING

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests: snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.[/quote]

to a certain extent, the fate of people with disabilities is to bottle things up: to keep quiet about frustrations, to relax because you know that some people somewhere have things much worse. I can do this usually: the indignity of being fed, getting messy, being spoken down to. But tonight dad was bemoaning how i have it easy; how he suffered most after my birth; how cp ruined his life. well poor you, dad, sitting there with your steaming tea and fluid arms, heranging mum for not having dinner cooked after she’d done a days work; taking the piss out of my speach when you just cant be arsed to listen.

well, bite me! in this malfunctioning body a bad decision gave mme, I put up with about ten times the stresses you do. and at school i saw people with problems ten times greater than mine.

was reading ouch tonight. I found a link tlo the blog of a lad with cp. although he goes to a mainstream school, he faces many off thee problems i face, like exxam board stress, lack of a social life etc.

i feel less and less lonely these days. strange, really heres a link

Last night was the most enjoyable evenig i had in 2 or three years. My taxi drivver ad his wife took me to the pub. they r nice pol, kind enough to pay and even feed me. there is something odd in bung fed – for the duration of the meal, an almost mother/infant ra=elaationship is built, and i’m surprised by how manny ppl are preoared to do it. can be quite spiritual, and poignient.

At this point, tho, let me say thhat what i said to ivan was said in a light spirit. there is no need to be angry at me just because i told them about he toothbrush incident. sheesh!

tomorrow I have a politics mock – nothing serious – so i’m feeling rather political.

I’ve been pondering the vonservatism vs libralism debate. The conservative ethos seemss highly flawed to me: it preaches independencee; the state should hsve a minimal role; the rights of the indevidual outweigh those of the community. this would lead ultimately to a group of indeviduals rather than a society. in such a socciety, selfishness would rule, and only the “fittist” (whatever that is) would survive. this is social darwinism, annd would see the gene pool decreaseing as what is termed fit in our society -i.e selfishness – is not herreditarry. the gene pool would evaporate, and, with nobody caring for one another, we will die out. this would also happen in a zenophobic society, as fear of other people would ultimately cause inbreeding. likewise, fear of change would cause stagnation and ultimately relapse. in darwinian terms, there is no advantage to conservatism.

A liberal society, on the other hand, (and perhaps one on the left of he spectrum) is one that preaches acceptence. every member of that society – not just the fittest – is encouraged to blossom. Moreovver, a person who is not fit iin one field could be am expert in another, and hence were the rules of sociaal darwinism applied, the society would set itself at a ddisadvantage. thus surely it is better to promote a societyy which accepta people of all religions, racees ad abilities, as such a society is more adaptable.

we havent had an evening like this in aa long while: the sky is bright and blue and frecled with cloud. earlier, I was able to sit it the cconservitery and revise while mum and dad did some planting. I came up here to findd a new chapter of summon the lambs had been published, wich he computer read while I did my steps – the book seems to get better anndd better – and then i watched the itv bond film, staple of bank holiday t.v. all in all, a perfect day.

this is funny – i gave a link to the bbc ouch website and they actually posted a link to it. thus, i expect/hope that my readership to expand from..well..friends and family to, well, I dunno. hhow many readers does ouch have. well, if you followed the link ffrom ouch: welcome and salutations.

beter find something to write about. ahh..in iraq, there have been piictures taken if combattants being tortured by americans. is it me, or does this breach the geneva conventions? by rights, the us should be under sanctionnsl, but its way too big to do so. alk about an “evil empire”.

I’m writing from my brother’s house. It’s rather cool. The downside is now I have to think of something interesting to write about. Interesting enough so that Luke doesn’t say “this is boring” and stop taking my dictation. So I will explain my theory of Reciprocal Fate. It’s not the most scientific theory but in fact I think I pulled it out of my arse one night when I was feeling especially got at. Anyway here goes:

I was looking at how my brother’s do well at college. This morning on the way up here we were discussing my younger borther’s predicted grades at A Level and how easy he will get into university. It seems that way to me. And I thoguht that fate must even itself out somehow; that the law of averages must apply. Sometimes, I think I struggle and sometimes it seems that things are harder for me than it is for them. Therefore, I sometimes think that I get all the crap while they do well. This of course is bullshit and unscientific etc. But on the other hand if it is true, in a way I am happy because if I have CP it means that they can do well. I know I sound like Jesus Christ and I don’t really intend to but this is how I sometimes feel.

Anyway, this week Luke passed his motorbike exams, which is pretty damn cool although officially I’m not allowed to support him in this reckless activity. Congratulations bro.

today I have been pondering a popular song. not sure of it’s title, but it’s sole lyrics are “Push me, and don’t just touch me, then I can get my, satisfaction.” On the way home, it occured to me that this song might be referring to disability – the lyrics are born of a voice cynthesiser, similar to my lightwrither. in that the singer cannot get his “sattisfaction”, could this refer to the way disabled people remain loveless?

interesting, but i somehow doubt it.

i just finished reading an article in the sunday times news review. It5 was an accountt of the capture of Baghdad last year, detailing american soldiers actions first hand – one could smell the tank feul, and the blood. So far we have been merely given numbers of dead or captured, but this article i got a glimpse of the real war.

and I remember feeling the same thrill i got when i see battles on film – in sharpe, or when the rohirrim charge. this was exciting stuff; boys-own adventure. and i felt ashamed to feel so, for then i read of the blood, the families fast losing members – sons and daughters. One shouldn’t allow oneself to forget the truith of war.

night has fallen. the sky is deep, dark blue and fringed with low cloud, and there are no stars. I yearn for one. I yearn to leave this room and walk under the sky: under amazonian skies; under african skies. once again, i feel my feet itching. I want to see the far-off corners of the world: camping inv the serengeti, eatinng sushi in tokyo, drinking beer as the sun sets over sydney harbour.

these things will never happen. I am trapped in my body. i will never climb kilimanjaro, or see machu pichu. But in my mind I am free – free to walk in the grasslands of africa and the snows of the rockies. I see the salmoln in the stream, the wildebeast on the plain, and the whale in the sea. I hear music from africa and see pictures of these pllaces.

i am free, and travel must wait. good night, my friiends.

I was bored, and i thought i’dd do some websie stuff. i think it works rathew well

i’ve been watching news with interest this week, as iraq seems to be going awol. bush has also been talking with sharon, and they made a deal over isreal which will almost certainly enrage the alestinians as it senies them the right to return to what they say are their homes. does nobody else see the irony here – israel was built on this very principle. anway, it has long been established that one of bin laden’s major oncerns is palestine, so what enrages palestine wll enrage bin laden, and since bush is unambiguously tle creator of this hipocratic plan, more terrorist attacks will follow.

instead of protecting the u.s from attack, bush is inviting them. i just wrote a 4-page politics hwk in 5 hrs, so exxcuse my typing.

One knows the world has gone haywire when one’s parents take you into a Sex show! Mine did, but then, ma and pa are pretty cool.

We’ve just got back from a long weekend in Amsterdam: it’s a fine, beautiful city, full of wonderful buildings, large squares and excellent views, butt we went for other reasons.

We got there Saturday morning in time for lunch in a small café, then a tour of the city by boat, then a trip back to the hotel, then, in the evening, an exploration of the city’s nightlife. We head for the red light area, for which the city is famous, in an attempt to, um, get me aid, during which time we encountered a stage sex show, which was rather funny, if just to see the dirty oriental businessmen in the audience. Then, we went to see if any thing could be done about my virginity. Err..no. seems I can’t even pay for it. Dents ones ego. Ho hum

Anyway, during this very dodgy evening, we paid a visit to the cannabis museum. Somehow, we talked to the proprietor about medicinal cannabis, and he invited us back the following afternoon for a demonstration of THC – the drug minus the orher weird stuff.

Now, I’ve always thought thee parents to be conservative when it comes to drugs. I was wrong, and the following afternoon, after a visit to the tulip fields (pretty, but dull) they wheeled my chair into the museum. There, at the back, was a nice American lady called Zoe, who, after some talk, showed me the thc apparatus – best termed “hippie bagpipe” – and squirted the drug into my mouth.

I had trouble inhaling in time with the mouthpiece, so Zoe recommended we get some hippie chocolate from a nearby café, which, along with ample puffs from the bagpipe, saw me rather..err. I think stoned is the word. I could relax, move more fluidly, and nothing ached. It worked, and all was well, till I had a beer.

That was a mistake: I got rather depressed, sad etc, for no reason. I decided I hated the drug. I should not have mixed the two substances. Not an experience I want to repeat, ever! I still feel slightly iffy.

Yet, possibly the best thing that happened was in the lift of C&A, which we shared with a mother and her daughter with CP. She was about 5 or 6, I guess. We faced each other – she was wide eyed with curiosity, and realisation that she was not alone.

ii probably should write something. i try to update once a week, but havent had much to write about, bar my dodgy tory taxi driver, who cant stop playing with hiss dick and the dubious loon that i share a taxi with.

oh yah, i noticed a pleasing duality – just as ppl like me are trapped by disability, and the paradox of a social system which ;preaches independence but neverltheless subjigates us to special schools andd daycare, everyone is trapped to a life of servitude in no-hope jobs by capitalism. Moreover, on a natio[nal scale we are trapped into a war on terror which, while we cant possibly win, niether can we do nothing. Perverselyy, noting this made me feel a little less isolated.

we’re all equally trapped. it’s likee a python sketch, really.

After hisory, i returned to the student council, who gave me a birthday card signed by all my friends there. this cheered me up no end!

This afterrnoons history lesson was awful. We had to read short biographies of members of the 19117 bolshevik party then fuill in a table. I couldn’t keep up – I dont read very fast (even though i love reading). I found myselmf dropping further and ffurther behind. I’ll have to caqatch up over the weekend, as well as doing the hwk john set. No point worrying about it, i suppose.

ok, so maybe tv dinners r better than i thought..