I think everyone will be pleased to hear that I have quite a cheerful follow up to yesterday’s entry to post here today. I was obviously pretty pissed off about not getting served at that pub in Lewisham, so today I thought I would head back there to see if I could talk things through with the manager. I wasn’t at all happy that I had just been ignored, but was confident that if I could discuss things with the manager we could reach an understanding.

That, then, is what I did: after breakfast I headed over there, reasoning that, at the very least, I would have a good trundle. The place was a little less busy than it was last night. Going in of course I was recognised of course, and got one of two suspect looks from the staff. Nonetheless I asked to speak to the manager, explaining that I didn’t want to drink anything.

I had to wait a while for the manager to join me from behind the bar, during which times I think I overheard one of the bar staff explaining to her that they didn’t like having to touch my straw, although I can’t be sure of this. Either way, when she arrived the manager recognised me from last night and we started to talk.

It was a little tricky at first, and she seemed slightly hostile. Yet when I began to explain where I was coming from and what I wanted, things became less tense. I told her why I didn’t have a personal assistant with me, why I need table services and why I payed with cash rather than a credit card; but in the end things were settled quite quickly, with her assuring me that I was welcome to come back. That pub has quite a young staff, and I think they were nervous about me more than anything. This afternoon, however, the manager was very apologetic. She then rather predictably asked me whether I wanted a beer, but as tempting as it was I replied that I better not: it was still early, and I had a blog entry to write.

That, then, is the pub I’ll be going back to next Saturday afternoon. It just goes to show how much you can resolve issues like this if you just talk them through.

I have just arrived home absolutely furious. For the last few months I’ve been going to the Wetherspoons in Lewisham. It’s a reasonable little place not far from Eltham, which I could get to easily for my once a week pub visit. I had taken to going there every Saturday, and I think the staff there were fairly used to me. They knew I like to drink Leffe in a pint glass, and were fine to rince my straw before I left,

However, for some reason this afternoon things were different. I rolled in there at about five, expecting to see a face i recognised and be taken to a table as usual. Yet today I got a totally different response: nobody seemed to be helping me. I got myself to a table and waited for a staff member, only to be told that I would not be served as I didn’t have a “carer” with me.

I was quite taken aback by this: I had never been told that I needed someone there with me in the past. Ordinarily I’d sit there for an hour or so drinking two or three pints of Leffe, arrange payment without issue, then get the bus home in time for dinner. I couldn’t work out what the problem was this evening. I sat there for twenty minutes or half an hour, hoping to be served but steadily losing my patience. I asked to speak to the manager repeatedly, only to be ignored.

In the end I’m slightly ashamed to admit I called it quits and left. Needless to say I felt furious and still do. All I wanted was a pint or two, just like any other guy on a Saturday afternoon. Frankly it felt like I had been overtly discriminated against: after all, they would never refuse to serve anyone due to the colour of their skin, so why was I denied service because I’m disabled? Needless to say, I now intend to contact Wetherspoons head office over this.

If any of them had an ounce of human compassion, they would feel deeply ashamed. But then, they’re Tories, and as such they don”t give a toss about anyone but their selves.

What a perfect way to sum up modern social network culture.

Earlier I was watching another Owen Jones video in which he says he no longer thinks we should rejoin the EU for fear of starting a new culture war. Truth be told, Jones has a point: there’s no denying that brexit divided the nation like never before. Since 2016, you have been either Leave or Remain; European or (supposedly) patriotic; educated and outward looking, or an unenlightened halfwit. Starting a full scale campaign to undo brexit and rejoin the EU would obviously just reopen those fractures.

Yet, if you ask me, I think it would be worth it. The damage brexit is doing becomes clearer by the day, not just economically but politically. Peace in Northern Ireland hangs by a thread; investment in this country is at an all time low. If we really believe in the European project, and that the future of humanity is only secure if we abandon national divisions and work together, then the Uk must rejoin the European Union.

If that brings about a cultural civil war, I say bring it on! Surely some causes are worth struggling for.

Heading back home from a lovely trundle around the Isle Of Dogs just now, I thought I would pop in to the shop I blogged about yesterday, just to show them what I had written. I just wanted to be open and honest, and thought that explaining things from my point of view might help improve matters. The staff there, however,  didn’t really seem the kind of people who knew much about blogs, tablets or the internet, so I decided to let the issue drop; although I really hope nobody thinks I’m taking the piss when I record that they very kindly offered me another free sandwich.

I better promise, here and now, not to go there again. I can’t be that cynical.

Yesterday I stumbled into a bit of a quandary which I think might be worth exploring here. I think I’ve noted here before that I don’t use credit cards much these days, simply to avoid fraud. It’s safer to stick to cash, so I don’t carry a credit card with me. I have probably also noted how, more often than not, I feed myself wraps for lunch, which I usually buy from Tesco.

Yesterday, though, I had a bit of an “out and about” day. I was coming home, quite hungry, through North Greenwich tube station when I passed a small Pret A Manger shop: the shop was actually underground within the station itself, which struck me as rather cool.  I therefore went in, and spotting quite a nice looking cheese and pickle sandwich, indicated to the staff that I wanted to buy it. Of course I knew it would be slightly more expensive than my usual lunches, but yesterday I fancied something tastier.

As usual, I then indicated where my cash was and how to get it. However, somewhat aghast, the assistant told me that they didn’t take cash in the shop- it was card only.

We were both silent for a few moments, wondering how to get out of this predicament. To be honest I have been in similar situations before. The lady then asked her manager what she should do, and she kindly said that I could have the sandwich for free. 

That wasn’t too unusual. Hence, not being able to articulate what I wanted her to do vocally and not having time to type it in to my iPad, I started to try to indicate that I wanted the lady to put the sandwich into my bag, waving my hand towards the back of my powerchair. The problem is, the lady thought I was suggesting that she put it back on the shelf. Of course, I know that that’s what I should have done: I couldn’t pay, so I should have left the sandwich and gone elsewhere. Yet in that moment,  as hungry as I was, I really didn’t want to leave without anything to eat.

In the end I persisted, corrected the lady and made sure that she put my lunch in my bag; and  very nice it was too, far better than the usual wraps I have for lunch, to be honest.  Yet I  nonetheless  felt guilty for taking it. I think this is one of those little ethical dilemmas that a life like mine sometimes throws up. What should I have done? Left the sandwich, or taken it? And now that I have taken a free sandwich once , what’s to stop me going to the same shop again in the hope of receiving the same treatment? Then again, it wasn’t my fault that the shop didn’t accept cash, or that I cannot use chip and pin credit cards. Oh the quandaries of being a hungry cripple.

I just sat down to watch the evening news and almost instantly flew into a boiling hot rage: the home secretary Braverman today gave a speech to a Right-wing Conservative group about bringing down migration rates while still ensuring the country has a healthy workforce. “There is ‘no good reason’ the UK cannot train its own lorry drivers and fruit pickers to bring immigration down, Suella Braverman has said.” She then went on to arrogantly insist that it isn’t racist or xenophobic to ‘want to control our borders’.

I’m sorry, but that really, really boils my blood. As the saying goes, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it’s a zarking duck! Braverman was obviously trying to placate the consciouses of those narrow-minded tory voters who resent people from Africa or Asia living nearby, and who think immigrants have somehow flooded the UK workforce; yet still see themselves – and want to be seen – as good, upstanding, outlooking people. Yet what such xenophobes, Braverman included, deliberately forget is that this country would have crumbled long ago without immigrants to this country. They are our backbone; they are part of what makes this country so rich. To want to reject such people, to refuse to welcome them, betrays a deep fear and loathing of those they perceive as ‘other’. They can insult are intelligences by denying it all they like, but Suella Braverman are xenophobes, and nothing more. I find the fact that she has the affront to deny something so manifestly obvious, in order to make her policies seem more worthy than they are, infuriatingly arrogant.

Oh how awesome must it have been to be in the pub mentioned here. A London band were performing Greenday covers in a pub up in Islington, when all of a sudden up on to the stage leaps the one and only Billie Joel Armstrong and begins singing along! To have been there at that moment must have been incredible. Of course, it only adds to my suspicion that, in cities like London, absolutely anything is possible.

I put off posting an entry yesterday in the hope that I would have plenty to write about today, but unfortunately I wasn’t as enthused by last night’s Eurovision grand final as I thought I would be. Of course, there is plenty to say about the contest being a resounding display of European unity, one which is very much needed at a time like this; but I don’t think I can comment much about the songs themselves. It could just be my impression, but I thought they all sounded pretty similar: they were all in the same strong base, techno genre. To a certain extent, to be honest I struggled to tell them apart.

That being said, it would have been wonderful to be up in Liverpool last night. Watching the show in my living room, I just didn’t get the same atmosphere. By all reports the city came to life this week: it really got into Eurovision, and the fact that it was hosting on behalf of Ukraine made that even more poignant. Whatever I thought of the songs, the fact remains that Ukraine is being illegally and maliciously invaded by Russia. A display of European unity, allowing us all to express solidarity with the Ukrainians as well as revulsion at what Russia is doing, was essential. I think that’s what we got last night. In opening up to Europe and welcoming Ukraine in particular so passionately, Liverpool has done us proud. Last night it delivered a strong, resounding message to our Ukrainian siblings: they will never walk alone.

I would strongly advise everyone to watch this Owen Jones video today. Although it is fairly short, it is a pretty thorough exposure of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s chilling hypocrisy in defending Donald Trump. That this absolute disgrace to human civilisation and his fellow right-wing scumbags have the nerve to go on to GB News and try to defend a man who has now been found guilty of sexual assault is chilling. I don’t want to say too much about it as Jones goes into far more detail than I can; yet the fact that scumbags like Rees-Mogg go to such extremes to try to make trump look like the innocent victim, simply because they share the same fucked up, greed-driven political ideology, tells you all you need to know.

Of course I watched the first round of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest last night. It seems to me that this year it is more crucial than ever to get behind it: what is happening this week gives Ukraine, Liverpool and all Europe a chance to show two fingers to Putin. It is vital that we show unity with our European neighbours, and especially the Ukrainians. What Russia is doing is disgusting, and I still find it difficult to stomach the fact that there is a full scale war going on in Eastern Europe as I type. Thus, while some of the entries may be a bit dodgy, surely it is an honour to host the contest on behalf of Ukraine, so we should all get behind what is happening this week in Liverpool.

I felt physically sick when I saw this being reported on the news just now, and I would defy any sane, compassionate human being not to be appalled too. “A barge due to house 500 male migrants will be towed into a Cornish port later….The government plans to move the three-storey barge to Portland to house the migrants, off the Dorset coast.” Is this really what we have become as a country? Have we become so xenophobic, so fucked up that we have taken to locking people seeking refuge here in what are essentially prison hulks? Instead of caring for these people and treating them as human beings, we are now going to lock them away on a rusty old boat. How can anyone be so savage, so barbarous? Sometimes all you can do is despair at the way things are going in this country.

Surely there is something both ironic and kind of telling about a mobility shop which has a step to get into it. I don’t want to name the shop in question, or say where it is, other than to say that I go there quite frequently. Whenever I need to, I just roll up to the door and knock, and the very helpful staff come out and ask what I need. I better stress that I’m not saying this to criticise the shop’s owners, who have been very good to me. Yet I find it pertinent that I have rarely actually been in to the shop itself – it’s too small and cluttered with mobility scooters and walking frames for me to get around anyway.

Disability is changing: as I’ve said on here before, the notion of disability – socially at least – seems to be expanding. Cripples like myself, who have had conditions from birth which have effected our lives profoundly, seem to be being drowned out and pushed to one side when it comes to what constitutes a disabled person. More and more people are now identifying as disabled and opting to use the range of equipment sold in mobility shops, when they once might not have. The result, it would seem, is a mobility shop which has a step that anyone using a wheelchair or powerchair can’t actually get up. The fact that most of their customers wouldn’t have a problem getting through the door is surely rather telling.

I’m sure you know how excited I can get about these big cultural events; long term readers (assuming I have any) will recall how fascinated I was by the olympic ceremonies. It seems to me that such state occasions give cities, countries or regions the chance to show off and perform before the world, and so can be very revealing about prevailing cultural attitudes. I was thus rather looking forward to last night’s Coronation Concert: it had the potential to be utterly magnificent, once more giving the UK a chance to perform before the world and show everyone how cool we can be. Think Brian May thrashing out the National Anthem stood atop Buckingham Palace, or Eric Idle’s unforgettable performance of Always Look On The Bright Side of Life at the 2012 Closing Ceremony.

What we got, however, was utterly, utterly dire. I honestly think that what we saw last night was the crappest state event ever. I kept watching out of curiosity, of course, but it just seemed to get worse as the evening wore on: there were no A-listers, no epic, rock-out moments which made your jaw drop. It was just some C-list mediocrities and a couple of puppets last popular forty years ago. Lionel Richie was as unimpressive as he was out of tune, and whoever told the three talentless schmucks known as Take That they had a shred of musical ability between them, let alone were in any way capable of performing at such an event, smeg only knows!

I was just watching a bit of breakfast TV, and they were going on about how magnificent last night was. I have to wonder whether we’re on the same planet. What we were treated to last night was awful. I know they didn’t have much time to prepare for it, but compared with other such occasions which we’ve seen over the last twenty years, it could have been so much better. A truly disappointing missed opportunity.

I recently had a royalty-related idea which is probably worth blogging about. I have no idea how to get it off the ground or how popular it would be, but wouldn’t it be cool if there was some kind of tribute or monument to the late queen up at the Olympic Park in Stratford? It is, after all, the Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park. More specifically, I reckon there should be some kind of commemoration of her famous entrance to the olympic opening ceremony eleven years ago: it was the highlight of the ceremony, and the part everyone remembers. In fact I would go so far as to argue that that was the moment that the queen earned most of our respect, by letting us know that she didn’t see herself as above things like James Bond and popular culture. What better way to pay tribute to our late queen and her sense of humour than to have a permanent monument marking that moment?

Mind you, I have no idea what this monument would look like: you can’t make a statue depicting two people parachuting out of a helicopter, can you? I just think it would be awesome if that moment was somehow physically marked at the olympic park as a way to remember both the Queen and what happened there in 2012.

While we were all being distracted by the coronation pomp and circumstance of the last few days, the local elections seem to have been swept under the carpet. The results were quite monumental when you look at them, with the Tories taking a real kicking, Labour seemingly on course to form the next government (don’t hold your breath though) and UKIP being completely wiped out.

Hopefully this is a sign that the country has woken up to the reality of Brexit, has realised what fools we were to be tricked into leaving, and that the campaign to rejoin the EU will soon start to gain momentum.

Back in GCSE English Literature I remember learning about ‘The Devine Right of Kings’. As part of our study of Macbeth, we learned how this Tudors and Elizabethans believed that a king’s authority was bestowed directly by god, and how they thought god selected the monarch. I need hardly point out that, tomorrow, we will all get to see an anachronistic manifestation of that belief: tomorrow, we will watch the man we are now supposed to refer to as the King get crowded by people Archbishop Of Canterbury. Symbolically, the kings authority is granted to him not by the people, as it would be in a democracy, but by the church.

Of course I know it’s only symbolic: its just part of the pageantry which makes up the British cultural identity. Yet the semiotics of it all don’t sit comfortably with me. Long term readers will know what issues I have with organised religion: what we are going to see tomorrow simply plays into and reinforces the authority of the church, with the archbishop literally placing the crown onto the king’s head. Charles is effectively being granted his socio-cultural position by a man deriving his authority from a mythical creator being which he insists we all believe in. As with all religion, it’s a remnant  from an ancient belief system which we haven’t been allowed to outgrow because of its usefulness in controlling people, and keeping power in the hands of a privileged few. The charade which we all got to watch tomorrow might be being sold to us as a fantastic state occasion, but at the end of the day it is simply about reinforcing the authority of religion, real, figurative or somewhere in between. I don’t know whether anyone else has an issue with this, but I certainly do.

I keep hearing people say that the coronation this weekend will be a once in a lifetime event, implying that we should all relish it. They seem to think that it is somehow on the same social level as the Olympics eleven years ago. The thing is, I don’t think it will be: of course, the last such coronation was seventy years ago, before most of us were born. The person being crowned was twenty-six, and had her entire life ahead of her. The difference now is our new king is well into his seventies: without wanting to sound too pessimistic, it won’t be that long before he snuffs it too. It will only be twenty years at most until we have to do all this again. That’s one of the reasons why I’m not very excited about it. More to the point, whereas the Olympics were a worldwide social and cultural phenomenon which London had spent seven years preparing for, and which gave the city and country a unique chance to show off to the entire world, the coronation is an overtly religious ceremony in which the church symbolically bestows power onto a totally unelected head of state. As much as I found the one intriguing, I find the other frankly repugnant.

Thus, while the London Olympics in 2012 were almost certainly a one-off given I don’t think we can expect London or any British city to be selected to host the games again any time soon, to say the coronation will be similarly unique and try to generate the same level of excitement around it is to forget that it won’t be long before we have to get all this Union Jack bunting back out. To call this weekend’s event once in a lifetime forgets that certain lifetimes don’t have that long to run. Frankly, it just feels like a lot of anticipation is being stirred up over very little. Coronations, it seems, are probably like London busses.

I had another of those wierd little thoughts earlier which I better record here, just to stop it playing on my mind. When I was seven or eight or so, one of my big obsessions was Disney: I loved it, from watching their cartoons to finding out about the Disney theme parks. For some time I thought the Walt Disney company was the be all and end all of entertainment. Thinking about it now, it must have really got on my parents nerves, esther after they took me and my brothers to visit Disneyland in California.

The odd thing is, it occurred to me recently that, despite once being so obsessed, I have never typed “Disney” into Google. I have now been using the web regularly for over twenty-five years, Googling all kinds of things on a daily basis, yet to my knowledge I have never once felt compelled to find out about one of my favourite childhood obsessions.

More specifically, I remember being captivated by the idea that the Disney company could own and run its own theme parks: I thought that owning amusement parks was a sign of true, epic greatness. That excited awe only doubled when I learned that Disney didn’t just own one but two parks; only to increase further still when Eurodisney, as it was then known, began to be constructed in about 1992.

The odd thing is, I’m still not sure whether Disney owns a park in Tokyo. I have heard a few vague references to a park there over the years, but it strikes me as odd that I have never in fact looked it up. It would obviously take me about two seconds to type the necessary terms into google; yet I have somehow never felt like doing so. Of course I have long grown out of my Disney fixation, and usually have other, far more interesting things to Google. It just strikes me as odd that I’m still not absolutely sure how many theme parks Disney owns, having once been so obsessed with the question as a youngster.

I would be interested to hear whether anyone else has had a similar experience. Has anyone else had a really strong obsession with something as a child, only to totally forget about it when they have access to the internet?

If I could choose to watch any band or group perform live, I would probably watch Aerosmith. Their classic ‘I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing’ was one of the major anthems of my childhood and adolescence. I have very fond memories of dancing about to them in my bedroom at home. To watch them perform live, particularly after so long, would be awesome: it would surely be up there with watching Greenday in Hyde Park a few years ago, or The Cat Empire in The Albert Hall a couple of years before that.

Late last night I read that Aerosmith have now announced their farewell tour. “US rock ‘n’ roll band Aerosmith have announced a farewell tour to mark more than five decades together. The band, who are now all in their 70s, are well known for hits such as Dream On, Walk This Way and I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing.” Old though they may be, I would bet those guys can still put on a show, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to watch them thrash out those old anthems live. How awesome would it be to be among an audience of tens, if not hundreds of thousands, listening to Steve Tyler yell ‘Walk this way!’ into a microphone? (Last year I tried to get tickets to see Guns and Roses, which would have been equally phenomenal, but they were sold out.)

Unfortunately for me, the tour will be in America and doesn’t look like it will be coming to the UK, so it’s probably a non-starter. Mind you, if anyone fancies taking me to Las Vagas, feel free to drop me an email.

One of my favourite spots to head to on my daily trundles is the statue of General Woolfe in Greenwich Park. It is situated by the famous observatory, at the top of quite a large hill overlooking Greenwich, the Thames and north London beyond. Sitting by the statue, you get truly incredible views across the metropolis, with the Isle of Dogs right in front of you, the Dome/O2 to your right, and Central London to your left. I was up there earlier today; as usual for a pleasant Spring afternoon, the Park was thronging with tourists.

Looking at the statue, I began to reflect: what changes must it have seen? According to it’s engraving, the statue was a gift from the people of Canada, given to London in 1930. It has thus stood in that spot for well over ninety years. Of course, I’m not implying that I think statues can actually see, but if it could, Woolfe would have witnessed London changing and evolving dramatically. For example, in 1930 Canary Wharf, which the statue seems to look directly at, was still a major shipping harbour. There was no forrest of skyscrapers, but the place would have been bustling with ships. Of course, the O2 wouldn’t have existed and North Greenwich would have been lined with terraced houses. London would just have been spread flat before it, full of factories, mills and steam engines, utterly different to the sprawling metropolis, full of all kinds of weirdly-shaped buildings you see from that hill today.

It makes you reflect on just how quickly cities like London change. Indeed, it has changed dramatically even in the thirteen years I have lived here. You have to wonder: if the statue is still standing in a hundred years’ time, what might it be looking at?

When I turned the news on this morning, they were of course talking about the upcoming coronation. Let’s face it: that’s pretty much all we’re going to hear about over the next few days. To be honest, though, I can’t really say I’m all that fussed. Like many people it would seem, I’m starting to think it’s time to get rid of all this monarchic bollocks. The queen was a nice, inoffensive maternal figure. We accepted and respected her; for most of us she had simply always been there. Charles, however, seems to think he’ll somehow automatically inherit that respect, despite all the bollocks he and his family has put us through in the last forty years or so. To be honest, that seems rather arrogant to me. It thus does not surprise me at all that so many people seem to be having second thoughts about the monarchy.

Of course I’ll keep an eye on what happens next week, but that’s about it. It’s supposedly going to be one of these huge national mega-events, along the lines of the queen’s jubilees or the Olympic ceremonies, but I really can’t see that happening. As I noted here, for the last two or three decades the man we’re now supposed to refer to as our king has been a central character in a national royal soap opera which intensely irritated most of us. While the queen seemed to stay above all the nauseating drivel the press treated us to about who was in a relationship with who, Charles was at the centre of it. He therefore already has a hell of a lot of baggage associated with him. If he thinks he can now suddenly shed all that, and that we’ll all now dutifully accept him like we accepted his mum, he is gravely mistaken.

I couldn’t sleep so I got up slightly earlier than usual today, but I’m now very glad I did. I just saw this fantastic story on the BBC breakfast program: the European Space Agency is now investigating training it’s first astronaut with a physical disability. “John McFall is the European Space Agency’s first ever para-astronaut, selected to study how feasible it is for someone with a physical disability to live and work in space.” I naturally find that very exciting indeed. It was first announced last September, but it was great to see this being discussed. It’s an encouraging sign that organisations like the ESA are taking the inclusion of disabled people seriously, as well as sending out a strong message that ‘we’ have just as much to contribute to human progress as anyone else.

The program stated that we might not see McFall going into space until the end of the decade, so we’ll obviously have to wait to see if this comes to fruition. Nonetheless, it’s a very encouraging step forward. The image of a person with an obvious physical disability, floating in Zero-G alongside his able-bodied colleagues, will obviously be very powerful indeed. And who knows where this may lead? With any luck, McFall will be the first of many, and lots of other disabled people with all kinds of disabilities will follow him into the final frontier. I might even go up there one day….Mind you things might get a little complicated and sticky – imagine loads of drops of dribble floating around, weightless, inside a small enclosed cabin several kilometres above the Earth!

I know I shouldn’t just flag Youtube videos up like this, but if you’re a Star Trek fan you really need to check this out. I don’t know who made it or how, but Regeneration is a very touching add-on to Star Trek Generations (1994). Without wanting to give anything away, it adds something to the narrative of the film, tying up a bit of a loose end in quite a touching way. More than that though, it is a stunning example of just how stunning and impressive short fan films like this are becoming: the graphics and visual effects are jaw-dropping, particularly for a fan film. It was one of the first things I came across online this morning, and I instantly knew I needed to link to it here.

A few days ago I wrote an entry noting how short most of my blog entries are, and how I would try to write some more lengthy ones. I got a very nice comment from Liz back saying that she liked my short, single paragraph entries because they are easy to read. I have therefore decided to keep most of my entries short and to the point, like this. Short seems to be sweet when it comes to blogging.

Let’s face it: the Outists had no plan because they knew full well that leaving the EU was a stupid idea. They assumed the country wouldn’t be stupid enough to vote Leave, but campaigned for it anyway, just to get publicity by going against the political grain. They were campaigning for something they didn’t actually believe in, like the charlatan scum they are.

And now look where such brazen cynicism has got us.

I think I’ve mentioned how my CP can effect my emotions on here before. Basically my cerebral palsy makes emotions more easily expressed and harder to suppress, be they positive or negative. Most of the time it’s not a problem, such as when I give out weird squeals when I’m excited. From time to time though, it can cause a bit more trouble.

I have written too about my strong objections to street preachers on here, as well as my huge problems with religion in general. Something in the way they force their religion onto the public, speaking so loudly that they are impossible to ignore, infuriates me. It seems so arrogant, the way they think they know best and that everyone should believe what they do. I simply can’t stand it, so where any sensible person would just walk on and leave them to it, something within me compels me to stop and tell them to shut the fuck up.

I don’t want to go into details, but something happened this afternoon in the square at Woolwich which really shouldn’t have. Two guys were shouting their heads off about how everyone should believe in God or go to hell, filming one another like what they were saying was important. They were standing where such preachers always stand, at the top of Powis Street, using a speaker so they couldn’t be ignored. I of course took umbrage, and to cut a long, stupid story short, a huge row eventually ensued involving the men accusing me of being possessed by daemons and just about half the shoppers in Woolwich.

Why I can’t ignore such idiots I don’t know, but something just comes bursting out, as if they are speaking in reverence of a god who, if he somehow really existed, could presumably make the world so much happier but did nothing. It’s also the delusion I cannot abide, as if they demand we suspend our faculty to reason and just think what they tell us to, based only on the authority of a single book of baseless myths. I feel I just need to tell them to stop it.

I really shouldn’t get like this; I shouldn’t get so furious. Why can I not just carry on, on my way home? When I calm down, I feel deeply embarrassed and ashamed. I really don’t know what to do – should I just avoid going to Woolwich altogether? Yet part of me holds that if they have a right to preach, I have a right to tell them to shut up, and stop demanding we worship a god which, if he existed, did nothing to avert so much suffering, as well as the deaths of so many my friends, one by one by one.

Coincidentally I had just finished rewatching No Time To Die and was just browsing Facebook, when I came across something called 007’s Road To A Million. I hadn’t heard that title before, so naturally I googled it and came across this. Forgive my language, but my automatic reaction was “Oh for fuck’s sake!” Amazon are apparently creating some sort of Apprentice-style gameshow: “007’s Road to a Million will see contestants competing in teams of two on a global adventure to win the ultimate prize of up to £1 million. Filmed in iconic Bond locations – from the Scottish Highlands to Venice and Jamaica – this cinematic format will be a test of intelligence, endurance and heroism.” It goes on “In addition to conquering obstacles, the contestants, who will compete in two-person teams, must correctly answer questions hidden in the different locations around the world to advance to the next challenge.”

I know that, as a character, James Bond has his flaws; he is quite an anachronism. Yet there’s no denying that the Bond films are pretty much the most successful cinematic franchises ever. Over the past sixty years and twenty-five films, we have been drawn to stories about this secret agent, with his expensive suits, luxury cars and unique way of ordering a martini. But the key component is the cinema – Bond is fundamentally a filmic phenomenon. To see that people are now trying to usurp those key components to render one of my favourite filmic franchises into some sort of shitty gameshow, just to go alongside the countless others we already have, is very, very disheartening.

I was going to post this last week, but I suppose I lost track of it: I’m very proud to mention that, as of mid-April 2023, my blog is twenty years old. The first entry I ever posted, quite randomly about ‘The Return of Empire’, was on 13 April 2003. To be honest I find that astonishing, and I’m very proud indeed to have kept it up. I know my entries aren’t often that long, and know I should post more fulsome, analytical things more often, but I bet you can’t point me towards many other personal weblogs which have been updated so regularly over the past two decades. In fact, I would bet you that if I asked someone to suggest any date over the last twenty years, I would be able to give them a link to a blog entry written either on that day, or within a day of it.

Today I’m very proud to announce that I came first in the London Marathon this morning! I won it in my new, super-fast powerchair. I was able to whizz round the streets in record time. You may not have seen me on the course though, because my chair has a cloaking device I got from my Klingon friends, allowing me to trundle around the city totally unseen.

(Yes, I admit this is total bollox, but printing total nonsense seems to be a growing tradition in the Sunday press…)

Yesterday turned out to be quite an interesting day. After writing a bit about Star Trek, getting dressed and having breakfast, I settled down to watch some news. Nothing too unusual there, except that we were all soon greeted by the monumental news of Dominic Raab’s resignation. Things had suddenly become interesting, so I watched on: the BBC, obviously having decided not to just broadcast footage from the Five Live studio today, were broadcasting live from outside the palace of Westminster, an anchor addressing the camera directly. It’s a style they often use for breaking political news, only in the background, the shot was interrupted by a man with a placard about how we should ‘Believe in Jesus’ or some such bullshit. That automatically annoyed me: I’ve written here before about how much I oppose street preachers, and how arrogant I find people trying to force their religion onto others.

This went on for a bit. It was then, however, that I had an idea: Westminster is just a short, easy tube ride away – perhaps I should go up there and do something about the nonce with the sign. I might even get on live TV myself. After all, I didn’t have anything more constructive to do here.

That, then, is what I did, and within about forty-five minutes I was up by Collage Green. Only I soon realised I was far from alone: I had walked into a huge protest about climate change! Now, I realise I don’t write much about climate change on here, preferring subjects like Star Trek, politics and my trundles, but I know it is an increasingly important issue. As a worldwide society we must do something about our reliance on fossil fuels, as well as being more active in the search for cleaner, more renewable sources of energy. I was therefore very happy to take part and show my support in the protest.

I decided to hang around up there for a bit. There was a lot going on, including music and people giving speeches. I came across the fool with the sign about Jesus and told him to shut the zark up, but of course he took no notice. To one side of the area was a green where film cameras were set up, directed towards the Houses of Parliament. It was obviously where the Beeb had been broadcasting from, but by then they were winding down, probably due to the noise of the nearby protest.

I sat there and watched what was going on for a while, before deciding to head off. Rather than going back the way I had come though, I decided to head up to Green Park, just to take in some of the royal parks in the spring. Unfortunately things were made a bit more complex by preparations for tomorrow’s marathon, but nonetheless I got to the tube station, where randomly I bumped into my friend Eddie from Charlton. We then rode back on the Jubilee line together, catching up and chatting about old times.

This city can be quite incredible sometimes.

I suppose today I can only repeat what I wrote at about this time last week. I just watched the latest episode of Picard: it was practically the very first thing I did after turning on my computer this morning, I was so eager to watch it. I know I mustn’t spoil it for anyone else, but what I just saw really was incredible. It was an episode full of excitement and tension, with moments of great humour, rounded off with a truly touching ending. In short it was everything we could once expect from a Star Trek episode. More to the point though, it was a truly incredible farewell to a group of characters many of us grew up with, and whom we have watched grow through countless adventures over the last forty years. Characters we have come to know, admire and respect; treasuring their past appearances and looking forward to their next ones. To watch them at last bow out like this, in such a poignant homage to what went before, is truly incredible.

Knowing that this was their final appearance, and that we’ll probably never see these actors in these roles again, makes me sad of course; but something tells me we haven’t seen thee last of the Picards.

One of the main stories on BBC news this evening was about whether Dominick Raab is a bully. If you ask me, you might as well ask whether a chimpanzee is an ape, or a chicken is a bird. Raab is a Tory, and that goes hand in hand with being a bully. That’s what Tories are: their entire worldview boils down to a form of selfishness and arrogance; they think their beliefs, views and needs should always have priority, and that they have the right to intimidate others if that authority is not respected. As free marketeers, they hold that the wealthy, privileged ‘elite’ should be free to manipulate, dominate and control those they see as ‘lesser’ or less important than they are, so that the stratification of society – which just happens to benefit them – is conserved. In other words, bullying is at the heart of the Tory mentally, just as flour is a key component of bread. Thus if you want to ask whether Dominick Raab is a bully you might as well ask whether the pope is catholic or Donald Trump is an egotistical charlatan: they go hand in hand.

I created this when I heard the news from America last night.

Mind you, when I put it on facebook it didn’t receive much of a response. I hope people get the joke.

Does anyone know why the Beeb has started to air footage of radio Five Live on their news channel in the morning, instead of their normal news bulletin? Strong supporter of the BBC that I am, I usually watch News 24 in the morning while I get dressed and eat breakfast. Until recently I’d watch their normal hourly news bulletin. For the last few days though, we’ve been treated to footage of Nicky Campbell’s daily phone in from Radio Five Live instead. While I have nothing against Five Live, I must say this strikes me as odd: what happened to the news? If I wanted to listen to the radio, I would do so. More to the point, is this part of a cost cutting exercise by the BBC, where they have started to merge their services? Are they cutting costs by reducing the hours the News channel has to broadcast, and just showing viewers the inside of a radio studio instead? That’s what it looks like to me, and it strikes me as very cheap indeed.

I just have a bit of rather cool local news to mention here today. I now live in a small estate of three rows of flats which were constructed about three years ago. As I mentioned a couple of months ago, at the end of one of the three rows of flats, on the opposite corner to my place, is a small space for a shop. The space has, however, been empty or not in use since I moved here: things were obviously taking their time to get into order, before the space started functioning as a shop. Yesterday, though, that changed, and the shop finally opened. I thus now have a very convenient little grocery just thirty seconds from where I live. I popped in yesterday afternoon, just to check it out: they were selling all kinds of things there, from fruit and fresh veg, to (rather handily if I ever run out late at night) a good range of real ale. It now looks like my beer supply has been sorted. Mind you, the space does seem to have one or two accessibility issues, although I now think they can be worked out when necessary.

You have to love this crazy little island, particularly in the spring. One moment it’s baking and you’re wondering why you put such a thick coat on before coming out. The next thing you know, it’s freezing and you’re very relieved that you have it on. I suppose for most people this wouldn’t be such an issue: most people are able to whip a jacket on or off with it barely interrupting their internal monologue. 

In my case, however, it becomes quite a major operation. For starters I would have to find a safe place to stop my chair. Then I would have to unclip my iPad and place it in a safe spot, before staggering to my feet and starting to take my coat off, trying not to knock my glasses off or fall over in the process. I would then have to somehow stuff the coat into my bag, before getting back into my powerchair and reattaching my iPad. For some reason, whenever I have to do something like this, trying to coordinate things while maintaining my balance always seems far more difficult than usual.

I’m not writing this to complain or bemoan my fate; it just seems odd that something so apparently minor for most people is so taxing for me. Of course, by the time my coat is off and in my bag, it will have invariably turned cold again and I would be longing to put it back on. That means I almost never take it off in the first place, but push on in the heat. I suppose it’s just part of life in the spring, as well as one of those little aspects of a life like mine which most people are probably unaware of, unless I articulate them here.