As I keep saying on here, no doubt to some of your increasing irritation, I go up to Stratford fairly often these days. It has become kind of a default destination for my daily trundles. I can take a stroll through the Olympic park or, if the weather isn’t so good, wander through the massive Westfield shopping centre.  That area of London is now so built up and busy, it staggers me to think that, only twenty years ago, absolutely none of that was there: no shopping centre, no stadium, no riverside walks. It was all just a waste ground: deserted and rotting.

Yet that raises a question in my mind: are there currently any other areas, in London or beyond, in need of the attention which Stratford received? As I wrote here a few weeks ago, east London in particular is steadily becoming gentrified beyond recognition, and I have yet to come across an area larger than the occasional house which I would describe as derelict or neglected. Yet I’m sure that there will be areas of the country in need of the same kind of investment that that area of north east London got. I would now be interested to know where they are and what the prospects are for them. If we’re going to get serious about ‘levelling up’, Stratford and London in general cannot be the only places receiving such mind-boggling redevelopment.

As is explained in this fascinating Youtube video (among many), there’s a current school of thought which says that the age of the universe may be double what we previously thought: 27 rather than 13.8 billion years old. I find that intriguing I must say, although I just have to raise one small point: Could it be that the universe just feels older than it is? We all know what it feels like to age: you tire faster, your muscles feel tighter, you loose your temper more quickly. These days I sometimes feel closer to eighty than forty. Maybe this is what the scientists mean by ‘tired light’. If the universe now seems far older than it did, then, I can sympathise.

A lot is currently said about the Bibby Stockholm barge. For what it’s worth, I find it utterly repugnant that any country, let alone the UK, would choose to detain people coming here seeking refuge on what is essentially a prison hulk. The tories obviously just want to appear ‘tough on immigration’ in order to appeal to their thuggish electorate, but they are making the entire country appear as inhumane and heartless as they are. Here’s an idea though: why don’t we lock xenophobes like Braverman and Farage up in barges, and house asylum seekers humanely in our communities?

I just have a bit of a question to air on here today: what are the rules regarding wheelchairs using cycle lanes? When I’m out and about in my powerchair, it is often easier and smoother to trundle along a cycle lane than continue along a pavement. They are often clearly separated from the roads, so there’s no chance of me getting hit by a car. London’s cycle lane network may not be up there with European cities such as Amsterdam, but it is slowly and surely improving; I can tell that a lot of work and money has gone into it. However, when I decide to use a cycle lane in my chair, I occasionally get some very dodgy, grumpy looks from cyclists. Am I allowed to use the cycle lanes, or should I stick to the often degrading pavement? After all, as I wrote here a few days ago, cyclists themselves seem to think that the rules don’t apply to them and that they can go where they want – pavement, road or wherever. Why, then, shouldn’t I?

I was going through Westminster earlier when I came across a protest. It was only fifty people or so, but it struck me as so shortsighted and repugnant that it compelled me to make this picture.

I was out and about again earlier. Today I chose to stay local and explore a bit more of the nearby parks. I was going through Sidcup, though, when I suddenly heard a man’s voice telling me to stop. Slightly puzzled, I came to a halt in my powerchair, and was approached by a scruffy looking man. I didn’t recognise him and was slightly taken aback. The guy then started to explain that he was homeless and asked me for two pounds.

To be honest I felt slightly afraid. I chose not to say anything but just drove away in my chair. I didn’t want to seem rude or heartless, but what could I have done? If I wanted to give the man some money, it would have meant inviting him to open my bumbag and get it out himself – something which, I think you’ll agree, would have been downright idiotic. I think saying nothing and just driving away was the right thing to do, yet beggars always make me feel awkward and uncomfortable: part of me really would like to help them, but ultimately I know I can’t. As I said here last year, surely such people should have access to the same social support structures anyone else is entitled to, so why do they come up to people like me in the street, asking for small change? And why do I still feel so troubled for not being able to help?

I never learned to ride a bike, of course, so you could say I don’t have the experience to comment on this, but I really am starting to think that cyclists should have to pass some sort of Highway Code qualification before they’re allowed out on the road. This morning, before it began to bucket it down, I was on my way to Lewisham for my stroll. It’s a route I take quite a bit these days, of course sticking to the pavement as the road is so busy. As I was trundling quietly in my powerchair though, a cyclist swept out in front of me and tore right in front of an oncoming bus, nearly getting hit. It could have been utterly horrific, and I had to draw a sigh of relief. It made me wonder, though: do cyclists not know the rules of the road? I see things like this more and more these days. Some cyclists seem to think they own the road and can do whatever they like, from swerving in front of traffic to totally ignoring red lights. Not only is it arrogant, but it is downright dangerous. I really think that, as more and more people start to use bikes, they should have to complete some kind of road safety course.

One of the things I love most about London is, no matter how lost I get, no matter where I find myself, I know I can just hop on a bus and eventually I’ll get home. I just got back from quite a crazy afternoon: my initial plan was to just get the tube up to Stratford and have a nice walk around the Olympic park. Once up there, however, I happened upon a stretch of canal which I hadn’t followed before, and temptation soon overcame me.

I followed it and followed it. Pretty  soon I had left the Olympic park, trundling north. It was still fairly early so I wasn’t worried. The canal was pretty, and I was heading through some wonderful little parks. An hour or so later, though, I was beginning to wonder how to get back to Stratford, having suddenly realised that I had absolutely no idea where I was.

I decided to leave the canal and look around for a bus. After all, I couldn’t be too far from Stratford, so there was bound to be a bus which would take me back there. When I found a bus stop though, there was no sign of Stratford on any of the destination lists. And it was then that the afternoon became interesting.

I put my hand out to request the first bus which came. I had no idea where it went, but I reasoned that it would get me back to Stratford somehow. Once aboard, however, I soon realised that the bus was not going anywhere near where I wanted to go: it was headed into central London rather than to Stratford.

I knew that I would get home eventually so I told myself not to panic. After all, the reason I leave my flat every day is to explore the city. The bus was going further and further into London though, and I had no clue how to get home. Of course, some would say that this was a stupid predicament to get myself into, and that I shouldn’t go off on these aimless wanderings all over London. Yet I have found that my trundles are the best way to get to know this wonderful,beguiling labyrinth in all its fascinating diversity. Thus simply retracing my steps seemed too much of a surrender. I thus stayed on the bus until it reached its destination at Wood Green, before getting off and looking for ways to get either to Stratford or somewhere I was familiar with, and from where I knew how to get home.

I looked around for a while. Wood Green seemed like a charming place which I told myself to revisit some time. Unfortunately when I investigated the tube station I found it was completely inaccessible, so getting home that way was out of the question. Luckily outside the station I found a bus stop with one of the buses going down to London Bridge.

Fortune, it seemed, was once again on my side. London Bridge station is on the Jubilee Line, of course, so getting home from there wouldn’t be a problem. The only down side was that I hadn’t realised how long the journey would take, and I then spent about two hours on the bus as it wound its way through central London. Oh well. At least I got to see a bit more of the metropolis, typing this blog entry into my iPad as we went. And at least I now know that, no matter how lost I get, I will always be able to find my way home. The system is far from perfect, but it is only because so much of London’s public transport system is now accessible that I can make such trips, and go out confident that, whatever happens, no matter how lost I get, I will be able to get back in time for dinner.

Given their moronic announcement on oil drilling this morning, I genuinely and passionately believe that the Conservative party need to be removed from office and disbanded immediately. Those arrogant idiots are unfit to lead us. That may sound a bit extreme, even a bit deranged, but it is becoming clearer and clearer, almost week by week, that human activity is having an increasingly adverse effect on Earth’s climate. If we don’t alter course, if we don’t do anything to stop pumping carbon into our atmosphere, the consequences will be catastrophic. The science shows that to be beyond doubt, yet the idiots currently running the country would wantonly, knowingly ignore the evidence in order to keep the economics as they are and to avoid jeopardising the profits of their rich friends in the car and oil industries. Surely such shortsighted, arrogant people cannot be allowed to continue to run a country, if they think wealth should take priority over the wealth of our planet. I’m sure any sensible person, aware of the danger climate change poses as well as the stupidity of refusing to switch to renewable forms of energy, would agree: for the sake of our climate, these fools must go.

I have something a bit more cheerful to note here today. You might remember, a few months ago, I was moaning about how yet another of my local parks had been boarded up and appeared to be about to be built over. Well, it now looks like my pessimism in that entry was premature. Truth be told, I hadn’t noticed anything being built on that bit of ground for a while, and now I know why: it isn’t being used for housing at all, but is just being remodelled. Passing the park just now, I saw a cool new BMX bike track had been installed and pretty new trees had been planted. It looks like it will be a nice little park to wheel round in a few months. I think that’s great news, and restores my confidence that not every green space is going to be built over.

I got back from my afternoon trundle earlier quite hungry and tired. It had been a lovely afternoon rolling along the Lea up to the Olympic park, but I was eager to get home. I had taken the DLR back, and was waiting for a bus in Woolwich. When one arrived, though, the wheelchair space was taken up by two prams. I think I have noted here before how irritated I get where that happens: wheelchair spaces are wheelchair spaces, not pram spaces.  Besides, prams can be folded.

When this has happened in the past, there have been times when I have just accepted it and waited for the next bus. Today, though, as eager to get home as I was, I decided to stick to my guns. I started to shout, demanding that space was made. Things became somewhat heated, but eventually the driver extended the ramp and I got on the bus.

The thing is, this meant that the mums with the prams had to get off the bus and wait for the next one, rather than just folding them and taking seats. Of course this instantly made me feel rather guilty: I know that, as a wheelchair user, the bus wheelchair space is rightfully mine, but having said that the last thing I want to do is impede anyone’s journey. What should I have done, then – held my ground, or waited? I find myself torn between knowing that I too have a right to use busses, and the guilt which comes with knowing that I made someone suffer for me to access that right. I honestly can’t decide what the correct attitude towards situations like this is.

This is as good a reason to switch banks as any, if you ask me.

Just as an update to this entry from three years ago, late last night John sent me a link to this clip, and I was immediately in stitches. Beavis and Butt-Head, it would appear, are back, only now as fat middle aged slobs. The clip John sent me was only a short taster, but having just rewatched it post my morning coffee, I am now desperate to watch more. The program seems to have lost none of the cynicism it had in the nineties, but seems to now be dealing with contemporary issues. For all it’s silliness and juvenility, cartoons like Beavis and Butt-Head have always functioned as forms of social commentary. Judging from this clip, that is now truer than ever.

I can see why John sent me the clip he did. In it, Beavis realises he needs to get a job, and is instructed by his social worker to start work as a personal assistant (no prises for guessing who he is told to work for). It immediately had me in balls of laughter, and did so again this morning. Beavis and Butt-head were a large part of my childhood and adolescence, so to see they have reappeared in such a cynical, topical way really is great. To see the return of these two morons really is awesome, and I’m now dying to see more.

On Monday I went to the cinema to watch Asteroid City with John. I think it’s fair to say that we both left the screening quite baffled: as many others are currently saying, it’s a very cerebral film, better described as art than entertainment. It obviously wasn’t your usual Hollywood fair, although it is difficult to say what was going on or what the director was getting at. I felt compelled to write something about it here, but I had no idea what or where to begin writing any kind of review. There isn’t so much a discernible plot but a series of scenes set in a midwestern American city, themed around an asteroid crater and a visit from an alien. Although I enjoyed the film, I came home thinking that I would need to watch it a second time at least before I could write anything about it.

Interesting films, it seems, are like the proverbial London busses: you don’t see any in ages, and then two come along at once. I just got back from watching Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan with my parents. It was a film we were all interested in watching, so they popped over to this end of the metropolis and we went to my local Odeon. I again left the cinema resolving to watch the film again, although I must say that I was more engrossed today than on Monday. Interestingly, I think it’s worth pointing out that both Asteroid City and Oppenheimer are set in roughly the same area at roughly the same era – midwestern America in the forties and fifties – but are, of course, two totally different films. One is a lightweight, postmodern quandary by Wes Anderson: there is no plot, the film doesn’t really ‘say’ anything, and to a great extent can be dismissed as a garbled artistic mess, but nonetheless it leaves viewers intrigued. The other is based far more in reality and history, and is a retelling of the events surrounding the development of the nuclear bomb during and directly after the Second World War, followed by the descent into McCarthyism. Oppenheimer therefore carries much more gravitas through the historic importance of the events it depicts. Thus these are, to a great extent, completely different texts. Yet both clearly exceed the conventions of film; both play with how stories are told. Perhaps most notably, both use both monochrome and colour, and both play with conventions of time.

More to the point, both films deal with the same era of American history in very different ways. After all, it seems to me that the midwest in the middle twentieth century is a key aspect of the American mythos: it is an area and era where many of the stories Americans tell about themselves, are set, from Roswell to the tales of the travelling Motown singers. It was a period of great concern and anxiety about scientific progress, when people weren’t at all sure where inventions ranging from the Atomic bomb to space rockets to television may lead – an insecurity which may have resonance today. It is thus interesting that American culture seems to be revisiting that era in both these films.

Both films intrigued me and reminded me that I really should go to the cinema more often. I daresay we’ve all become so used to the usual superficial pap that when anything really interesting comes along it takes us by surprise. Yet both Asteroid City and Oppenheimer are great pieces of film in their own way. Of course they are very different, and both have very different relationships with reality, storytelling and film. Yet at their core, at least to a certain extent, in both we can read the same return to a facet of the American mythos which seems a central aspect of their culture.

This meme, or variants of it, is doing the online rounds today. As a Python fan, it’s just too topical for me not to nick.

I must admit that, apart from Picard a few months ago, I haven’t really got into any of the so-called ‘New Trek’ – the new variety of Star Trek currently being produced. A large part of the reason for that may be because it’s being aired on various streaming services which I don’t have access to, but it just doesn’t appeal as it once did: Trek seems to have become a mess of re-readings and re-tellings of stories and characters which we were all fascinated by thirty years ago, which just does not appeal. The producers now seem to want to take the show in new directions which I have no interest in.

I just turned on my computer, and almost immediately had my first ‘What The Smeg?’ moment of the day. The word was that Star Trek is now producing it’s first musical episode. I was baffled, of course, so I googled it and sure enough found this bewildering news. ”The upcoming ninth episode, “Subspace Rhapsody,” of Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be a musical themed episode, the first ever in Star Trek franchise history, premiering on Thursday, August 3! The special musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody” will feature 10 original songs, plus a “Subspace Rhapsody” version of the series’ main title…”

Of course my jaw immediately hit the floor: Star Fleet officers do not suddenly burst into song; Star Trek is supposed to be a serious television program about humanity’s future exploring the cosmos, with awesome space battles, warp drives, quotes from Herman Melville and ‘Tea, Earl-Grey, hot.’ Why are it’s producers now taking it in these bizarre new directions so unlike what we who grew up watching The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager are used to? On the other hand, guys like me must remember that the Star Trek franchise has always reinvented itself: back in the eighties, Trek fans would have been similarly aghast at the idea of a completely new Captain and crew on a completely new Enterprise, totally separate from the stories about Kirk and Spock. Perhaps this is just a facet of the natural artistic evolution of Star Trek, and something that guys like me just have to accept: art, after all, is all about constant change and reinvention. Plus, given that I got to see my favourite crew reunite on my favourite star ship for one last time earlier this year, I suppose I can’t really complain.

Nonetheless, it still seems like a weird direction to take the Star Trek Franchise. It is so unlike anything we have seen on the show before. There have been occasional songs, such as in Vic Fontayne’s bar on Deep Space Nine, but Star Trek isn’t a drama I automatically associate with music. I’m afraid to say that, on the whole this news just reinforces my distain for New Trek: the producers seem to want to play with the franchise and take it in new directions. They appear to want to make it lighter and more comic. While to a certain extent such reinvention may be a good thing, they risk loosing the science fiction gravitas which attracted so many of us to Star Trek in the first place.

After just checking the outcome of the Test Match, all I have to say today is that I wish someone would design a dome big enough to cover a cricket stadium. Seriously, these days it must surely be possible to create a dome enormous enough to cover a cricket pitch – it could even be retractable, or perhaps transparent. It could be magnificent. Otherwise we’ll have to continue putting up with draws like the one we had today, which I assure you nobody likes!

Something peculiar has been happening over the last few days which I think might well be worth mentioning here: I keep coming across film crews. Out on my trundles, I have stumbled over four or five people or groups of people making films. I don’t mean big, professional film crews, like when I happened to meet Danny Boyle himself, but small groups of amateur or student filmmakers. This afternoon for example I came across two girls up near the O2, making some kind of fashion video. They obviously weren’t just having fun: the young lady being filmed was wearing a very expensive-looking dress, her hair very intricately styled, and the young woman doing the filming was using a phone in a professional camera mount. Yesterday, too, I came across a group of lads in the park making a film with high end equipment. In both cases I stopped and watched what they were doing for a while.

Film is obviously becoming more and more prevalent as a form of expression and communication: we all consume the moving image like never before in our online, interconnected lives. It’s probably no surprise that more films are being made. These days, anyone can pick up a camera phone, put a short film together and get it online in hardly any time. I just have to raise an eyebrow at the fact that I’ve come across so many recently: as film, especially short, online film, becomes a more and more important means of communication in our everyday lives, I think we’ll be seeing more and more people making films and filming things, and coming across two or three people in the process of making a film will probably become quite commonplace. As someone interested in film and how films are made, I’ve found it very cool.

Something happened yesterday which I’m not very happy about, and which I probably ought to confess. I’ve written here before about how irritated I get when able-bodied people use lifts, particularly on public transport. They’re perfectly able to use escalators or stairs, so why don’t they? Over using lifts wears them out, leaving people who have no choice but to use them, like me, stuck. I get really, really irritated when I come across a lift so full of able-bodied people that I can’t get into it: I usually start shouting my head off at them.

That’s exactly what happened yesterday. I was up at Stratford, once again heading for the olympic park. To leave the tube station there, you have to use a lift which is always busy – I almost always have to wait, despite there being a perfectly good flight of stairs nearby. Yesterday as usual, both lifts were crammed: I rolled up to them and had to wait a few minutes for one to arrive. Then, when one did, it was chock full of people – mostly, it appeared, able-bodied women who would have no problem using the stairs. Of course I immediately lost it and started to shout my head off, telling them to get out. One or two of the ladies replied, telling me to wait for the next lift. Of course that pissed me off even more, and I started to try to roll forward and force my way into the lift.

Things naturally then erupted into a full-blown argument. The women in that small space were all looking at me with such seething contempt. One of them, a black lady, seemed particularly angry with me, shouting at me to get out and wait for the next lift. Of course this pissed me off even more, and I started to mouth my head off at her, calling her all kinds of foul things and ordering her out of the lift. She was standing, so I assumed that, like everyone else in that space, she was perfectly able to climb stairs and was just being lazy in using the lift. I called her all sorts of foul things, although I don’t think she understood most of what I was saying.

When the lift got to the right floor, however, everyone started to move, and it was then that I saw that the lady I was so angry with was using a crutch. She wasn’t able-bodied at all and had every reason to use the lift. Needless to say I shut up immediately; I felt about ten centimetres tall and couldn’t look the lady in her face. I shouldn’t have started to shout like that, and I shouldn’t have made the assumptions I did. This episode has taught me that perhaps I ought to chill out when it comes to other people using lifts.

Out on my trundle today I suddenly had the idea of starting a dog walking business. I go for quite long walks in my powerchair every day anyway, so might it be cool to earn a few quid taking other people’s pets for walks at the same time? But then I realised that I would also need to clean up after the dogs too, so that was as far as the idea got.

Something happened out on my trundle today which I think would be worth recording here. I was over in Canary Wharf. I like variety, and so try to trundle somewhere different every day. Today I was exploring the Isle of Dogs when, going down a small backstreet, I came across a very unusual car: it had a large can of Red Bull attached to its roof, obviously some kind of advert. There were a young man and women standing next to it, so I decided to stop and jokingly ask them to swap vehicles.

I was in my powerchair of course, my hand firmly on its control, so I elected to make the joke offer using my natural voice rather than stopping to type it into my iPad. As a communication aid user, people sometimes seem to forget that I still have the option of speaking with my natural voice, especially around people who know me well. It’s sometimes easier just to try to say something rather than type it. I have heard that kids who are first starting to use communication aids sometimes need reassuring that it’s all right to still use their natural voices if they want, and that they aren’t breaking the rules of communication aid use in doing so. Yet I have often found that using a combination of whichever method seems right at the time is best, particularly when dealing with a metropolis of eight million people.

Truth be told, I wasn’t really expecting the people to understand what I was saying or get my gag, but I made the effort to pronounce the short words as clearly as I could, and to my surprise got a response. We then had a conversation, albeit a short one, without me using my iPad. It must have been the first time in quite a while that I have had such an exchange with a complete stranger without typing anything.

I must admit that this short incident made me feel quite pleased. These days when I meet people, I usually expect to have to use my iPad for them get them to understand what I’m telling them. Vocalising things isn’t always easy, and I often have to say and resay what I want before I get myself understood. Passing people and just talking to them only using my voice thus feels rather refreshing: knowing I can still make people understand me is quite a confidence boost, and it certainly makes a change from needing to type everything.

I got up slightly early today, waking up to quite a grey, bleak sky. I have, however, just come across something rather interesting, flagged up by one of my facebook friends. Growing up, one of the most prominent film franchises during my childhood were the two Terminator films: I remember being allowed to watch them and feeling like such a big boy. What I never knew, though, was that Terminator 2 has an alternate ending: it seems James Cameron, the director, created two endings for the film. You can watch a short comparison of the two here. The lesser known ending – the one left on the cutting-room floor – seems a lot more upbeat and optimistic if you ask me. It makes you wonder why the director chose to go with the ending he did.

To tell you the truth I feel a little bad about yesterday’s blog. You may have noticed that I try to use pictures sparingly, fearing that posting too many picture-based entries will make me look lazy and clutter up my webpage. But yesterday, possibly for the first time ever, I posted two pictures in a row! I really hope nobody now thinks my standards are slipping. To be honest, after over twenty years of writing on here almost every day, I think it could do with some variety – surely people are bored of just reading line after line of my ramblings. Also, you may have noticed, both entries were images which I put together myself, rather than just nicking them from elsewhere on the web, so it did require a little effort on my part. I like making such images, and often find that I can say things with them that I can’t easily say with prose. Thus I hope nobody minds if I put a bit more imagery here from now on, if just to make a change from just writing stuff.

Thinking again about what I wrote a few weeks ago about finally going beyond the city limits of London, I thought up this retake on a John Masefield classic while out on my trundle today.

This is something I’ve been wanting to get off my chest for a while…

I’m sure that, these days, fewer and fewer people doubt the reality of climate change. Not many people would try to wontonly argue against the growing mountain of evidence that humans are changing the environment, or that we need to break our addiction to fossil fuels. Why, then, would a group of self-proclaimed climate activists feel that they needed to forcefully interrupt several high profile public events to draw attention to a cause most of us are already convinced of?

Like most people I was appalled to see activists from Just Stop Oil interrupting the first night of the proms last night. It’s not that I disagree with their cause, just with how they are trying to articulate, and indeed distort, it.by breaking into such high profile events, these activists seem to think that they are drawing attention to an issue nobody else knows about or realises the importance of. They are behaving like the sufferagettes, hurling themselves in front of the Kings horse for the sake of true democracy. Yet the difference is we are all aware of the need to control climate change, just as we are aware that women have a right to vote.

The result is totally counterproductive, damaging the climate cause far more than helping it. Such activists seem like antisocial hooligans, shouting about things we all already know about to draw attention to their selves, yet ironically eroding the credibility of the wider issue in doing so.

I had a bad absence last night. It was my first in well over a month, and it was quite severe. I was eating my dinner, rather tired. I felt one coming, and the next thing I can remember is that I was sitting back on my chair, the plate which had been in front of me was gone, and my glasses no longer felt straight. I had no idea why my glasses suddenly didn’t feel right, but I had apparently fallen off my chair and twisted them.

I think that is the worst thing about my absences: it isn’t the seizures themselves, which are over within seconds, which upset me, but not being able to remember what happened in the fifteen minutes or so after them. Anything could have happened and I would have had no control over it. Fortunately last night Serkan was still here to get me up again. I have a spare pair of glasses I can wear, but I’ll go to the opticians later to see if I can get my specs straightened. Nonetheless, this morning I still feel rather edgy about what happened: I know those things come in clusters, so I can expect one or two more over the next couple of days. What if I have one when I’m out and about, or alone here at home? Of course, the chances are that I might not have one at all, and the vast majority of the time they pass entirely without incident or issue; yet the prospect of that empty, amnesiac feeling is what worries me.

I can’t help but feel upset and on edge, in a way which probably has little to do with the direct effect of the seizures themselves. I know I can’t help them or stop them, but in a way that is the problem. Writing entries like this helps though, as it lets me get these thoughts and frustrations out of my brain and into the wider world. Articulating them, structuring such thoughts and feelings into sentences, certainly helps. Few other people have them, so they make me feel rather isolated and alone. It thus feels like a relief to tell others what they feel like and why they are so upsetting.

I just got back from watching the latest Mission Impossible film. While it was definitely an improvement on the latest Indiana Jones, it still struck me as a pile of absolute silliness. We had disappearing submarines, as well as magic keys which resemble crucifixes: nobody knows what the key does or what it unlocks, but it still has the power to end the world – the Christian iconography was so overt it was nauseating. We had computer programs which are intelligent and can somehow determine what truth is. It was mysteriously called The Entity, a name which to me sounds vaguely like the Lacanian notion of “Das Ding”, which in turn recalls Hitchcock’s McGuffins. And to top it all off there was  a runaway steam train. At one point it was full of passengers using modern stuff like mobile phones even though the train was still powered by steam, but they all suddenly disappear after the train falls off an exploded bridge.

I know it’s only entertainment and that you’re supposed to take it with a pinch of salt. I also realise that as a massive James Bond fan perhaps I shouldn’t be too critical, but this really was pushing the limits of what we, as viewers, can be expected to  accept. I think the bottom line is, can someone please tell me precisely when Hollywood got this absurd?

I was watching a Youtube video on London public transport yesterday, and it mentioned that the main reason why the vast majority of London’s Underground network is north of the river is because, south of the Thames, the rock is different so it cannot be tunnelled through. Thinking about it, that made a lot of sense: I’ve often wondered why so much of the tube is concentrated in north London, and why south London seemed so neglected in that respect. To be honest I had just assumed it was down to economics, and because the majority of London’s wealthiest areas are in the north.

Knowing that the reason is more to do with geology is far more pleasing, to be honest. Now that I know that the issue isn’t down to money, though, I began to wonder about alternatives: If we can’t dig tunnels this side of the river, what else can we do? After all, good public transport is key to a growing economy and healthy society.

I was pondering this out on my trundle earlier, going through the beautiful Danson park, I was struck by an idea. At first it seemed so preposterous that it made me chuckle, but the more I thought about it the more I began to feel that I just might be on to something. If we can’t travel underground here, why can’t we travel over it? A couple of years ago, I wrote that I would love to see more cablecars in London: The London Cablecar, running between the O2 and City Hall, is awesome, so why not construct more? At the time I meant it as a joke, but if you think about it, is it such a silly idea?

What if a network of cablecars was somehow constructed across south London? They could transport commuters from area to area, ferrying them high across the cityscape. Most of South London is quite low rise, with not many buildings taller than five stories, so I think this might actually be possible. After all, I’m sure 150 years ago the notion of an underground train network, running beneath the metropolis between hundreds of stations, would have seemed just as absurd. Imagine it: a network of cablecar lines, possibly with several dozen stations, ferrying people across South London. The advantages of such a system seem obvious to me: It would mean that fewer people would need to use busses, reducing pollution. Also, far less existing infrastructure would need to be demolished than if the surface rail system was being expanded. All that would need to be built would be the tall, thin towers supporting the cables, presumably a few hundred metres apart; and the stations/termini, which would be far smaller and easier to construct than tube stations. The surface impact of such a system would thus be quite negligible.

Of course, I’m not sure precisely what this South London Cablecar Network would look like or how it would function: there are lots of questions for me to look into, such as whether the cablecars could travel between several stations, or whether they would just need to run between two points, like London’s existing cablecar. Further, where could such stations be built, and could the support towers be constructed between them? How large an area could the network be and how many lines could it have.

Nonetheless, I think this is a cool idea which could be taken seriously. Such a network would obviously be very expensive, although I daresay it would probably be cheaper than Crossrail. Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to go from Charlton to Woolwich or from Eltham to Lewisham in minutes, floating peacefully above the cityscape below in a clean, accessible cablecar gondola? Could we one day hop on the cablecar like people in north London hop on the tube, to be effortlessly be taken from place to place? Naturally, these are just the ramblings of an ill-informed cripple who knows nothing about whether such a system is actually feasible, yet nonetheless I think it could be fantastic.

I was on the DLR earlier, coming back from my daily trundle. It was about mid afternoon and the carriage was nice and quiet. That was rather fortunate for me as, for various reasons, the trip had been slightly stressful. Towards the back of my carriage, though, I started to hear someone listening to some kind of recording, obviously on their phone. It was too quiet for me to make out properly, but the recording sounded like it was of a frantic voice with an American accent. I couldn’t hear what they were saying though. It then struck me that there were two possibilities for what it could be: it was either an American evangelical preacher, furiously ordering everyone to repent and demanding money for it; or it was someone commentating on an American wrestling match. Both employ the same high pitched, frantic tone of voice oscillating between awe and fury. Yet what amused me most was that, if that was the case, then at the end of the day, it didn’t matter which it was, as both are just as nonsensical. The person speaking so rapidly in the recording was doing so to convince those listening to believe either that the world was created by an omnipotent god who will send us all to hell if we doubt his existence, or that two weirdly-dressed men are beating each other up, when they are obviously only pretending to do so. Both use the same tone of voice to try to sell things which are equally absurd.

In terms of mainstream news, not that much has been happening over the last few days that particularly interests me. The current fuss about the bbc personality and the underage person just seems like a lot of baseless nonsense contrived by the Sun: an attempt to discredit a widely respected national broadcaster by an Outist rag. Frankly I don’t care enough about it to get a blog entry out of it. However, there was one thing recently that caught my attention: TFL has just announced that it is working on making more tube stations accessible. “Ten stations have been named on Transport for London’s priority list to be converted to step-free access. They are: Alperton, Arnos Grove, Burnt Oak, Eastcote, Finchley Road, Northolt, North Acton, Rayners Lane, West Hampstead and White City. TfL said it hoped to have the first station converted by 2026 “

This strikes me as very encouraging news indeed. I have long wished that more of London’s tube network was wheelchair accessible, of course, but I never heard any news or saw any evidence that work was being done to improve it. At last  I can now see progress is being made, or at least is being planned, allowing me to stay hope that one day the entire system will be fit for the twenty-first century. It may be painfully slow, but if you ask me it’s better than no progress at all

That moment when you’re trundling contentedly along a pavement in your powerchair, fortunately not far from home, when you suddenly hear a loud pop. You look down to find that you have just ran over a small pack of chilli or barbecue sauce, probably from a nearby fast food restaurant, and it has exploded all over your trouser legs. You do your best to clean it up before returning home to get a clean cloth and freshen up, but you know you’re going to smell of that cheap, sweet sauce all afternoon. And suddenly you know that it’s going to be one of those days.

I had one of my silly ideas yesterday, but one which, in the end, turned out to be quite cool. One of my Australian friends is James Morrison, who I know from Blackheath cricket club. Yesterday they were playing in Charlton Park, where I first met them. I was eager to see James, who everybody calls Tesco due to his second name, to speak to him about the Ashes and the Bairstow furore. However, getting to the park about mid afternoon, I found the team in play but without James: it was only a friendly, so he had decided to stay home. The other guys on the team told me that they would probably be going to his place in Peckham for a post-match barbecue though.

It was then that I had an idea. I had never visited Peckham before, but what if I could go crash the party, rather like showing up randomly at Charlotte’s house in Chester all those years ago. I came home to message James and ask him for his address. Obligingly he gave it to me, provided that I didn’t post him any plastic cocks. I checked the address on google maps and then set off.

It would take me two busses to get to Peckham, but getting to my friend’s house didn’t look too difficult. By then, however, it was about 4pm and I knew I needed to be back in time for dinner. I got the bus to Lewisham, and from there a second bus to Peckham. That was straightforward enough, but then the fun started. Of course I had checked the address on google but couldn’t remember the directions I needed to take. Fortunately I had noted the address on my Ipad, so I started to ask people whether they could point me in the right direction. Most were very helpful, but Peckham turned out to be a complete labyrinth: it took about an hour of going down random suburban streets and getting lost before I found Tesco’s place, eventually with the help of two pretty young women on their way out for dinner.

The look of my friend’s face when he opened his front door to find me on his doorstep was incredible. He asked me what I was doing there so I explained. Unfortunately, I had arrived too late for the barbecue; even more unfortunately, the house didn’t look very accessible. Nonetheless we chatted there on the street for a while. Predictably my Australian friend was wearing a T-shirt with Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey on it, supposedly to taunt us Poms.

By then it was getting late, and I soon needed to head home. Fortunately the journey back was much less complex than the one there, and I was back here by about eight, in good time for dinner. You could say that it was a pretty pointless trip, going all the way to Peckham and back for a ten minute chat. But such adventures, going to parts of the metropolis I have never visited before, fill me with more and more confidence. I now know that I can get to an area like Peckham and back in a couple of hours. Navigating the city is becoming easier and easier. That was ultimately the real point of yesterday’s exercise; surprising Tesco was a cool bonus.

Yesterday was a pretty normal, uneventful kind of day: I took myself on one of my usual trundles around the Olympic Park, typing yesterday’s blog entry into my Ipad as I went. On my way back on the Jubilee Line, however, I was joined by a fellow wheelchair user. He asked me whether I too had just come from the disability exhibition at the Excel Centre. Somewhat surprised, I replied that I didn’t know there was one happening, so he kindly told me about The Disability Expo, a huge showcase of disability equipment and services. Naturally this got me instantly interested. Luckily the guy told me that it was on for two days, so I still had time to see it.

That, then, is where I’ve just come home from. It was pretty amazing I must say, and there was a lot of new equipment on show, especially powerchairs and mobility aids. Mind you, I didn’t see much in terms of communication aids. I stayed there for a couple of hours, browsing the stalls and talking to people about things like accessible holidays. I bumped into a couple of friends and even got to try out some eyegaze technology, although I soon decided that it wasn’t for me.

I love it when London does this to me: The metropolis seems to have the ability to make such cool events crop up when I least expect it. It was really interesting to see all the new technology there now is for disabled people, although if I hadn’t bumped into that guy on the tube yesterday, I would never have known about it.

I have written on here before about how wound up I can get about certain things. If I am emotionally involved in something, I can work myself into such a state that it becomes almost a matter of life and death or the end of the world. Of course it is a consequence of my cerebral palsy: a result of the brain damage I suffered at birth, at least in part. However to others it must seem very odd indeed. I can become very aggressive, which to others must seem very immature. I can be whipped into such rages over absolutely anything, from politics to religion to other peoples opinions of Star Trek, and even to things like people using lifts when they can climb stairs.

I am of course an English cricket fan, so it’s probably safe to say that this week has been an interesting one. Needless to say the Bairstow incident made me quite furious. It seemed so opportunistic, dishonerable and unsportsmanlike: like many I felt a real scorn for the Australian cricket team. Yet while I know it’s just a game, that scorn seems like a real burning hatred in me; a profound loathing for the Australian cricket team and in turn Australia itself. This leads me to make childish, stupid statements on Facebook about things like revoking Australian independence. (“Why don’t we just cut the crap and rule Australia directly again! The Kangaroo-shagging p’tahks won’t be so cocky then, will they?”)

I don’t like having such thoughts or feelings. Australia is a great, great place: it is mind bogglingly beautiful, it’s people are friendly and welcoming. I have some great Australian friends and I would dearly love to go there again. Yet within me, the sporting rivalry between our two countries is amplified into full blown animosity in a way I cannot seem to control. Strangely such thoughts feel justified and embarrassing at the same time, especially given how arrogantly the Australians have been behaving – you should see some of the arrogant nonsense coming from them which I’ve been reading online. At the end of the day though, I know it’s all in jest: I wish I didn’t get so furious, and above all I hope  my outbursts don’t offend anyone too badly.

I could hardly agree more with what Sandi Toksvig writes here. I’ve written lots about my thoughts on religion before: it is nothing but a profoundly opressive, outdated form of social control which humanity urgently needs to outgrow. It seems Toksvig agrees, as in today’s Guardian she has written a very interesting piece arguing that bishops shouldn’t have a place in the House of Lords. I think that’s pretty obvious: as she points out, the only other country in the world where religious leaders automatically become members of the government is Iran. We are supposed to be a democracy, so why the zark do we have men whose only authority is derived from an imaginary sky-fairy which few believe in any more, anywhere near our government? It is profoundly undemocratic, completely anachronistic, and should be abolished.

A few days ago, I was pratting about online as normal when I thought I would see if I could find anything about the history of Woolwich. I go to Woolwich fairly often these days, either on a walk, to get some shopping, or to catch the DLR or Elisabeth Line. It’s a vibrant, bustling place in the midst of constant development: there’s a high street full of shops, a huge Tesco, and a public square with a massive screen where people gather to watch public events. Yet I get the impression that Woolwich is an area with a lot of history behind it: there are remnants of the past everywhere, from creaking old pubs to the old gatehouse to the famous Arsenal, once a secret, closed-off military compound.

With that in mind, I thought I’d see if I could find anything on Youtube which would show me what Woolwich used to look like. Like most of London the area feels so modern and up to date, but I wanted to see what it looked like before the big screen, DLR and Tesco. I wasn’t disappointed: I soon came across this treat of a Youtube channel, dedicated to the history of Woolwich and the Royal Arsenal. From the look of it, the channel was only recently created, but it already has dozens of films, some dating back decades, showing us what Woolwich used to look like.

I was instantly struck by just how much that area has changed. Cars used to drive down the high street, which I only know as a pedestrianised shopping street; there used to be a road going through the market square, in front of the old gatehouse where it now goes behind it. Woolwich looked like a noisy, dirty, run-down place, and you get the impression that people there felt very cut off from the rest of London. One of the videos which fascinated and thrilled me the most though, was this one about the Arsenal itself. Thirty or forty years ago the Arsenal was a secret, dying area: it’s old munitions factories were by then dormant and unneeded, and it was still closed off to the public. All the buildings were empty and crumbling. As it says in the video, for four hundred years that riverside area had been a cacophonous warren, making artillery for the British Empire, but by then had become an unused wasteground.

What I find awesome is that, these days, tens of thousands of people go into and out of that area every day on their way to the Elisabeth Line station. The area itself seems to be thriving, it’s old warehouses and military buildings converted into theatres, dance studios and trendy bars. You can still, however, recognise what was there before: watching the video, I could clearly see buildings I trundle past quite regularly; they look so forsaken in the film, compared with how I know them. For instance, one of the buildings, the Dial Arch, was once a cannon foundry, but I now know it as a trendy pub. In the video it is empty and roofless, but I now know it to be full of life. The cool thing is, it still has the big sun dial over it’s entrance: the countless factory workers who must have once passed under it have been replaced with revellers, many coming out of the nearby tube station. Moreover, where Woolwich once felt so cut off, you can now get into central London within minutes on the Elisabeth Line, the pleasing irony being that we go through what was once it’s most neglected, forgotten areas to do so.

Things like this captivate me. I’ve written here before about how interested I am in London’s history, and how thrilling I find it to see glimpses of the city’s past underneath all the glittering modernity. The city is thus a palimpsest: an old document which has been erased and written over, yet you can still make out fragments of what was written there before. If you look, you can still make out such fragments, perhaps nowhere moreso than Woolwich, making it the ultimate palimpsest.

Outists – those who still cling to the blatantly irrational idea that Brexit was a great idea which hasn’t utterly crippled the UK – really are simple things, aren’t they? Yesterday afternoon I got into an argument with someone over Brexit on Facebook. I otherwise have a lot of respect for this person, so I’ll not name them. However, beneath one of the memes criticising Brexit I had shared, they had posted the full text of an article by someone called Zoe Strimpel. Looking Strimpel up, I found she is an ‘academic’ who writes for the Torygraph.

Reading the text, I soon saw it was nothing but a tract of bilious nonsense. The general line of argument was that European countries have many internal problems too, it isn’t the paragon of bliss and virtue we ‘remainiacs’ apparently imagine it to be, Britain does things better, so we were right to leave the EU after all. I’m sorry, but is this the type of bollocks Outists read and swallow these days? For starters, nobody is saying other European countries don’t have problems: we saw another violent night in Paris last night; far right parties are gaining popularity across the continent, and so on. But such internal issues do not mean the European Union has failed or that we were wise to leave it. In fact at such times unity is more vital than ever, as it is only through working together that we can solve our problems.

The reasoning behind this article is blindingly obvious: point out a list of problems in other European countries in order to make readers feel better about their hostility towards Europe and the EU. It’s a simple ploy, but people are falling for it, if only because it allows Outist readers to keep telling their selves that they haven’t really ruined the UK because the rest of Europe is ruined too. Yet, reading the article, the issues listed had nothing to do with the EU, or if they did, they were no reason to break the union up. What worries me is that people are falling for this moronic guff; reading it and thinking that their Europhobia has some kind of intellectual legitimacy. That such shit is being published is also very worrying in that, by using words like ‘remainiac’, it splits British culture even further, making the Leave/Remain voter chasm even wider, and ultimately making it even harder to reverse the damage caused by the Crime of 2016.

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day – the second Saturday in a row which reminded me how much I love living in London. Of course, I had heard Pride was happening because it was all over the media, but to be honest yesterday morning I was in two minds about going: did I really want to go to a massive LBGTQ+ march in Central London? Wouldn’t it be easier to stay local and perhaps watch some cricket. However, as usual, my curiosity won the day and at about noon I was heading up there on the Elisabeth Line.

My initial plan had been to head for Bond Street. Truth be told I didn’t really know what was happening, where: I just wanted to go see what was going on, then probably come home. On the tube, though, I noticed a lot of people in all kinds of costumes getting off at Tottenham Court Road, so I decided to do the same.

I instantly saw that was a very good decision: right outside the station I rolled straight into a huge party. There was music and dancing and people wearing all kinds of weird, cool costumes. I followed the crowd, and further down the road I found a stage had been set up. All kinds of acts were being performed there, from drag queens belting out Tina Turner classics to gay men’s choirs. It was still early, and the audience was still relatively thin. Feeling slightly out of place, I began to wonder whether I had time to rush home and put my tutu on then make it back, but decided it would complicate matters too much.

I sat there in the street among the growing crowd for a bit, before noticing a nearby pub. It looked old but accessible. Feeling thirsty, I rolled up to the door but the security guy there initially refused to let me in. On my Ipad I asked him why, a couple of people in the pub got involved, there was a short argument about inclusivity, and eventually I was let in. It was a great old place: rather small, clearly centuries old with real ales on tap, but with a great view of the stage through the window.

The rest of my afternoon was spent there, talking to all kinds of people and having my beers bought for me. (I offered to pay every time). I had all kinds of conversations, most quite deep and well informed, about things like whether the gay community, like the disabled community, is expanding. With all the music coming from the stage outside, it was a marvellous afternoon.

At about five I decided to head home. By then things were getting really, really busy. I would love to have stayed, but circumstances dictated otherwise – besides, I hadn’t eaten all afternoon. Nonetheless, having gone to my first Gay pride event feels fantastic: it’s such an inclusive, welcoming community. With such stages having apparently set up all over central London, not just the one I stumbled onto, I couldn’t help wondering whether the disability community could do something similar on a similar scale: a festival of disability pride would certainly be awesome. Either way, I’m now sure that yesterday won’t be the only Gay Pride event I’ll ever go to. Yesterday gave me a taste of something truly fantastic, and I’m now looking forward to the one next year. It was a wonderful celebration of human diversity, inclusion and love. Next time, though, I’ll definitely have to wear something far more exotic.