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.

I know I don’t often comment on issues like this, but out and about today, it occurred to me how clean and quiet London’s roads were. Largely thanks to things like the ULEZ, I can now trundle around the metropolis quite safely and happily. But then it occurred to me that that risks being all undone if London is foolish enough to elect a Tory mayor later this year.

Yesterday saw me and John at the Barbican again, this time to watch Monster, a 2023 Japanese film by Kore-eda Hirokazu. I’m not sure that it would be fair to say much about it, other than that it is an intriguing, complex film. It’s the type of film which is best discussed after you watch it, rather than explained afresh to those who know nothing about it. It isn’t that the plot is particularly complex or nuanced – at the end of the day, it’s just a story about the friendship between two young boys- rather that the story is delivered in such a way that no two audience members are going to agree what actually happened. It’s the sort of film which questions truth itself; an exercise in, and meditation upon, film as a means of communication and expression. For me to say much more, though, wouldn’t do it justice, so I’ll just encourage everyone to go and watch it, and say that I would be staggered if it wasn’t one of the greatest films of the year.

Check out Mark Kermode’s much more informative review here.

Nearly all of my Friday nights over the last four years or so have been spent watching TV in my flat, so last night was quite a nice change. I went to the Barbican to watch a concert by Max Cooper, an electronic audio and visual artist. It was the first live music performance I had been to in quite a while, although how I came to be going was a little odd: poor old John had tickets to go on Thursday evening, after we had been to the cinema, but as we were leaving our film my other PA Serkan texted me to say he was ill. That left me in the lurch for dinner, so John had to forgo his concert and come back with me. Needless to say, I felt incredibly guilty. Luckily, yesterday morning, John told me that there was going to be a second Cooper concert last night; and even better he could get two-for-one tickets. That’s how I came to be travelling along the Elisabeth Line yesterday evening, to meet my friend and go to my first concert in months.

To be honest I had never heard of Max Cooper before, so I didn’t know quite what to expect. John had told me it was electronic music, so I presumed it would be like the stuff Lyn used to make, or my friend Hugh Jones. What we encountered was a bit of a shock: a highly intense bombardment of sound and visual artistry, as much to do with the intricate patterns being projected onto the screens around the auditorium as the music/audio. While much of it was incredibly beautiful, merging Italian aesthetics with mathematics and postmodernism, the truth is at times it grew too much, and the lights and lasers began to grow painful on my eyes. Frankly towards the end it also started to feel a bit more like a rave than a concert. Even so, as I rode the train home last night, it felt good to see the return of such evenings out – hopefully it will now be the first of many more.

Just to mark First Contact day

If I can just update Monday’s entry, I just got back from my second viewing of Perfect Days, this time with John. We actually managed to rendezvous at Peckhamplex today, and I certainly think it was worth it. Wim Wenders must surely be one of the most interesting filmmakers around: as I said last time, this is a lovely, slow, meditative film. It’s about taking life easy, and not getting too stressed. If doing a job cleaning public loos in Tokyo and collecting cassettes is what makes you happy, then surely that is all you need. I think that could be a great lesson for us all right now.

Mind you, if you ask me, exactly the same can be said about spending quiet afternoons watching such intriguing films with friends as outstanding as John.

I just watched another excellent Steve Shives review video, this time discussing the various film adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. To be honest I was slightly surprised to see a piece like this coming from Shives: I had thought of him as more of a popular culture, science fiction kind of guy, so to see him delve into literature like this was kind of refreshing. Yet it must be said that, as with his other work, what Shives does here is pretty phenomenal, essentially delivering a thorough, informative essay exploring one of the great pieces of American literature and it’s subsequent adaptations into film, in the form of a Youtube video. It is certainly well worth a watch, especially if you’re interested in the relationship between literature and film.

Yet things like this often make me reflect on my own work too. I was talking about this a few days ago with John: My Master’s thesis looks into the relationship between cinephilia, with it’s written explorations of film, and fandom, which explores film more physically and creatively. Since finishing my MA ten years ago though, that relationship seems to have moved on phenomenally, and a whole new literature seems to be appearing. Fans on Youtube like Steve Shives are now reacting to film just as articulately and inquisitively as the cinephiliac magazine writers before them, yet retain the sense of fun and play found in fan output. The dynamic between the two seems to have changed fundamentally, and I can’t help wondering whether my thesis is now kind of redundant. The narrowing of the relationship between the two manifestations of filmic love may well explain why my thesis has been referenced by other people, as interest in the idea increases. Might it now be worth going back to my thesis, revising it to incorporate the new types of filmic love and fascination we are now increasingly seeing online? That is what John put to me a few days ago, and the proposition is finding it’s lure the more things like this on Youtube I come across.

When all is said and done, JK Rowling is a talentless, transphobic bitch who should never have been published. While the fact she got so many young people into reading is obviously a good thing, when viewed in the context of literature, the Harry Potter books are nothing but tacky, amateur, lightweight piffle. I never used to have any issue with them, of course – Rowling’s books are perfectly enjoyable, the same way that vanilla ice cream is enjoyable, if there’s nothing better in the fridge – but now that the vile cow has started to use her fame as a platform from which to spread blatant transphobia, it’s time to recognise her books as the utter crap they are. Rowling stole most of the ideas in the Potter series, and the rest is soap opera fluff which is barely worth reading. If she is so arrogant that she thinks she has a right to deliberately misgender transwomen, and that would presumably have included Lyn, then surely I have a right to criticise her books as the derivative bullshit they are, and would encourage others to do the same.

While I wouldn’t call yesterday a perfect day for me personally, it did involve a Perfect Day. I was supposed to meet John at Peckhamplex again: We were going to watch Perfect Days, Vim Vender’s  new film. One way or another, though, our wires got crossed and I ended up going to the cinema alone. It was a shame because the film was his suggestion, having flagged up the trailer and Mark Kermode’s review for me.

Perfect Days is a very interesting, meditative piece of work. It focuses on three or four days in the life of a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. I wouldn’t say there was a plot or narrative in the usual sense. The film is more like a portrait of a lowly but likeable man’s life as he goes through his daily routine washing public toilets, listening to music and collecting old cassettes. It is thus a complete departure from what we usually expect a film to be, but that struck me as a refreshing change more than anything. After a while I felt myself getting into the rhythm of the film, starting to see what it was trying to say: this was film being used to hold a mirror up to humanity. It tells us that the lowliest of people can often be the most content; and that those of us who live the most lavish, elaborate lives aren’t necessarily the happiest. As I rolled home last night, I decided that Perfect Days definitely deserved a second viewing, preferably next time with John. Films like this are surely meant to be shared.

I think I’ve mentioned here before how proud I am to have kept my blog going for over twenty years. I think that’s quite an achievement, and of course I have no intention to stop; but it seems to me that those two decades are nothing compared to the seventy years Sir David Attenborough has now been presenting his wonderful natural history documentaries. Last night we saw the first episode of his new series Mammals, and I just want to say how in awe I am of someone who is surely the greatest of all broadcasters.

I know I have blogged about this before, plenty of times, but Attenborough must have done far more than anyone else to open our collective eyes to the wondrous workings of the natural world. To think that he started broadcasting before most people alive today were born, and is still an integral part of possibly the best programs on television, blows my mind. The photography we saw in last night’s episode was incredible, capturing such vivid, evocative images of animals in the pitch dark, although we have probably come to expect nothing less from the Beeb’s natural history unit. Yet to be honest I don’t think enough is being said about Attenborough’s epic career; he surely is a national treasure beyond compare, and ought to be really cherished.

Supplemental to my cricket related entry last Saturday, today I went to Charlton park again to see if there was a cricket match. Unfortunately there wasn’t, so a trundled from there on to the cricket club. There wasn’t a match there either, but rather cooly I found some of the guys I know from the Mighty Eights cricket team there for training. They were sat outside the clubhouse with a large jug of beer. I spent a while there catching up with them, not having seen them in several months.

I was told that their first match will be in two weeks, so that’s something to look forward in. It seems that summer is certainly on its way. Having been watching the Blackheath Mighty Eights for over a decade now, I have got to know them, and regard many of the players as friends. Of course they recognised me earlier, and greeted me rather warmly. To be honest. outside of my visit to the cinema with John, it felt like my first whiff of social activity in a while. It was nice to catch up with them, but I better say that I left before I was offered any of the beer.

I was just watching the BBC breakfast program, and I think I ought to flag up something rather horrifying which they just informed the country of. A primary school in Scotland has apparently been issuing two different class photos which parents could choose between: one version with students with disabilities or additional needs, and one without. “A council has apologised after parents were offered a choice of class photos with or without children with complex needs in them. Parents at Aboyne Primary complained after being sent a link from a photography company offering them alternative pictures.” That strikes me as appalling, as I hope it would any thinking, politically conscious person. The photography company claim they didn’t want to offend anyone, but this is no better than offering parents class photos with all the black kids taken out. It is effectively saying that disabled kids might not look good enough to be in the class photo, and that some parents may prefer to have their kid’s class photo taken without their crippled classmates. I was stunned to hear about this just now, and find it chilling that things like this can still happen, and that some people can still have such vile attitudes.

Black hole or maniacal demigod?

I just hope the scientists have got it right!

I still keep an eye on what is going on in America politically, of course, and have recently been watching quite a few Youtube videos about Donald Trump. It honestly staggers me to realise that anyone can be so self important or up their own arse. This video, for instance, documents how Trump is a massive golf cheat: he’s actually quite appalling at the sport, but would have everyone believe that he is one of the greats, up there with Tiger Woods and insisting his name is placed at the top of club leadership boards. The impression you get is of an utterly, utterly pathetic man who deserves only to be ridiculed; it even makes the Tories look respectable and level-headed in comparison.. I suppose the more pressing question, though, is why America or any other self-respecting, serious nation would even contemplate letting such a disgrace to human civilisation anywhere near it’s government.

I never realised I was capable of almost emptying an entire cafe, but that’s just what happened today. I was out on one of my longer trundles in Bexleyheath. It had taken a while to get there, it was spitting, and I was getting hungry. I think I’ve mentioned here before that, usually for lunch, I buy a couple of pre-made wraps from Tesco, which I then take home to eat. Today, though, hungry as I was, I decided to pop into a cafe I was passing and try a wrap from there.

It was going well at first: using my Ipad I told the staff what I wanted before selecting a table and getting out of my powerchair. My lunch was soon brought to me, and looked quite delicious on its plate. The problem came when I tried to pick it up. Tesco wraps are nice and compact, holding together enough for me to lift easily into my mouth. This wrap, however was warm and floppy, falling apart as soon as I touched it.

I spent the next few minutes trying to eat as much as I could without dropping any on the floor. Needless to say, the sight must have been quite unseemly, as pretty soon I noticed my fellow customers around me starting to leave the cafe one by one. By the time I was trying to scrape the last remains of my lunch off the plate with my fingers, the cafe was almost empty. But then, I don’t think I should make any apology: at the end of the day I was hungry, and have as much right to eat what I want, where I want, as anyone else. If other people can’t stand the sight of me eating a spot of much needed lunch, it’s their problem, not mine.

I have to say, this is another great, great video by Steve shives. In it, he discusses the representation of disabled people in science fiction and fantasy TV shows. As I blogged here, Shives has touched upon this before, but some people responding to him seem to have had trouble getting their heads around what Shives was trying to say. They cannot accept the idea that those they perceive as different or inferior would want to exist in the kind of world narratives like Star Trek project. Yet I like being who I am: My CP has effected me throughout my life, causing me to meet some incredible people; it is part of what makes me who I am. I wouldn’t want to change that – I don’t want to be cured. I also relish seeing characters with disabilities appear on shows like Star Trek, because it is a statement that people like myself are just as much a part of humanity’s future as anyone else.

Wow, you can hear their howls of rage and indignation already!

Just to follow up on this entry from a couple of days ago about why the BBC should not have apologised to Reform, I really think anyone interested would do well to watch this Youtube video. The guy speaking in it is obviously very articulate and well informed. He makes many of the points I tried to in my blog entry, but goes far deeper. Reform is obviously just a bunch of right-wing bigots – it isn’t even really a political party, I just learned – but the disgraces to human civilisation who lead it get their knickers in a twist when someone calls them what they so clearly are.

I had quite a lovely surprise out on my trundle today. For a change I thought I would head over to Charlton park via a different route to the one I usually take: I headed along Well Hall road and past the hospital. I thus entered Charlton park from the opposite end to the one I usually do. Going into the park it seemed fairly quiet. But then, in the distance, I glimpsed something awesome: the criticism pitch was in use!

Things suddenly seemed a lot brighter and in my head I heard the theme to Test Match Special. I didn’t expect to see any cricket being played for at least another couple of months. It was as if summer had suddenly begun early, despite the spots of rain in the air. This was certainly a sign that the gloom of winter is passing.

Naturally I rolled a bit closer to see who was playing. Unfortunately it wasn’t my mates in the Blackheath Mighty Eights, whom I’ve spent many wonderful afternoons playing cricket in Charlton Park. I didn’t recognise either team, so mainly due to the growing wind I only stayed to watch a few balls. Nonetheless it was a cheerful, encouraging sight for me, and a nice surprise to happen upon. Of course, they may have been playing a mach before cricket season proper begins for some strange, obscure reason; but even so, the very sight of bowlers and batsmen is enough to make me feel the warmth of a summer afternoon. As I rolled away, I resolved to look up when the Mighty Eights are next going to play.

A flag is basically a sign – a symbol or image intended to impart some sort of message or information to the person viewing it. In the case of flags, that symbol usually represents a country, nation, area or place. As Ferdinand de Sasseur famously pointed out, the relationship between a sign and what it symbolises is arbitrary, so flags have no relationship with the places they represent: the Union Jack does not look like anywhere in Britain; the American flag doesn’t look like anywhere in the USA. Changing what a flag looks like won’t alter the collective personalities of the community it represents in any way. Why oh why, then, are so many people getting so uptight just because a sportswear company changed the colours of a flag on the back of the collar of the English football shirt?

It is a tiny detail which nobody will notice, but judging by the furore it has caused, you would think it was the end of the world. I was listening to people phoning in to talk about this issue this morning, and they were saying all sorts of things about it being an insult to our national identity. How ridiculous! After all, the Saint which the cross on the English flag supposedly represents, Saint George, never even came to Britain, but was Turkish! Yet the people phoning in were speaking as if someone had just spat in our collective face.

Of course, the sportswear company in question could have made this change just to cause some upset and attract some media attention, which is why I won’t name them; but I nonetheless find it staggering that people are getting so furious about this. FFS it’s just a flag you cretinous, nationalist buffoons!

I just saw this Guardian article from a couple of days ago flagged up on a Facebook page, and it instantly sent me into my usual spasms of rage. The Beeb has apparently been forced to apologise for calling thee Reform Party ‘far right’. WTF? That is utterly, utterly absurd, and I find the fact that Reform made such a demand sickening. The BBC, possibly one of the greatest, most trustworthy broadcasters on Earth, has nothing to apologise for. The group of reactionary, judgemental xenophobes known as Reform don’t want to be grouped together with the type of knuckle-dragging scumbag which comes to mind when you call someone far right, but if something looks like shit, smells like shit, and squishes like shit, it’s a shit! Reform can try to deny it all they like, but they are the kind of reactionary, intolerant, arrogant bigots which any enlightened twenty-first century society needs to outgrow, and the BBC had every right to call them what they are.

Today I just want to note a funny little correlation which has sort of been playing on my mind recently. I’m sure many people would say it was just a random coincidence with no meaning and ignore it, but it strikes me as charming enough for a blog entry. These days, I go into Costa coffee shops quite a bit: I often go there for breakfast, and I enjoy their cappuccinos. Possibly more importantly, though, all Costa coffee shops have fast, free wifi, meaning that all I have to do if I need to connect to the web when I’m out and about is pop into a Costa shop. As exciting and enthralling as London can be, it can also sometimes feel rather alienating; so it’s reassuring to know that, if I ever need urgent internet access to get in touch with someone like my parents or PAs, there’s bound to be a Costa somewhere nearby.

The thing is, the name Costa – or Costas – has an extra resonance for me: not only is it now the second middle name of my nephew Elias, but it was the name of my Greek grandfather or Bappou. He lived in London throughout my life, and I think I’ve described how, when I was growing up, we used to drive down to the capital every couple of months to visit him and my grandmother. I have thus always associated my Bappou with London.

Bappou sadly died about twenty years ago. The weird thing is, these days I see his name almost everywhere, looking for it whenever I need a coffee or internet connection. It’s obviously only a coincidence, but I can’t help reflecting that it’s as if he’s still looking out for me. My grandfather was always such a kind, caring man; in a way it feels like he’s still here in London as I make my way through this vast, alienating labyrinth he knew so well.

Just popping my James Bond fan hat on, if anyone is interested in the ‘mounting speculation’ over who will be cast as 007 next, you should go here. “Speculation over which actor will take on the role of James Bond has been mounting once again, after reports British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson has been offered the role.” For my part, I’m pretty open minded about who they cast, as long as they do it soon. It feels like it has been ages since the last Bond film came out, and I think we could all do with a bit of martini-fuelled escapism. Mind you, as I think I’ve written on here before, after Daniel Craig and the legacy of his five absolutely monumental Bond films, whoever they select will have bigger shoes to fill than ever.

If you ever begin to suspect that all the creativity and art has vanished from contemporary American film, just watch American Fiction. When John suggested going to watch it in Peckham yesterday, I was in two minds: from the trailer it just looked like some trashy American rubbish which played with ethnic stereotypes. However, what we watched yesterday was a real fourth wall breaking treat with a hell of a lot to say about film and the entertainment industry itself. In fact I would go so far as to say it even has whiffs of the French New Wave in how it sort of plays with itself as a film. It truly is a treat for any cinephile, and I now think I’ll suggest it for this year’s film festival.

Today I just want to wish my sister-in-law Yan a very happy birthday. As I wrote a few weeks ago to mark my brother Luke’s birthday, I’m becoming more and more conscious of just how long my family all got together. We speak every week on Zoom of course, but due to things like jobs, geography and the pandemic, it has been years since myself, my parents, my brothers and their families were all in the same place. That seems a shame to me, as we are actually quite close. That aside, I hope Yan has a great day, and that she is still keeping my younger brother in order!