I was just coming home via Canary Wharf having just attended quite an important meeting in central London. The meeting had gone really well, but I nonetheless wanted to let off a little steam with a trundle. For the first time I could remember, I was wearing a shirt my friend James from the cricket team had given me to thank me for my support. I was making my way quietly, deep in thought, when I suddenly heard someone say “Hi Matt!” Totally at random, I had bumped into one of the players from the very team who’s shirt I was wearing. What are the chances? Sometimes it feels like I’m living in a village rather than a metropolis.

We didn’t talk long and it was only a fleeting interaction. Yet it reminded me how small this city seems to now be becoming, and instantly struck me as amazing enough to be recorded here.

When I’m out on my daily trundles, I’m often struck by sudden ideas about places or things to investigate. Some of these ideas turn out to be awesome , and I have blogged about many; most of the time, however, they turn out to be grave mistakes. I think today’s adventure was somewhere in the middle.

Today began sunny and very hot. I decided to wheel my way down to Woolwich, just to see what, if anything, was going on there. Of course, Woolwich was still the busy market and town centre which I last visited a few days ago, so from there I decided to go and take a look at the river, trundling through the old Arsenal: What was once a great eighteenth century munitions depot is now a chic upper class housing estate, complete with Marks and Spencers, drama studios and an Elisabeth Line Station.

The problem was, by then the sky was quickly darkening – it was obviously about to bucket it down. It was then I was struck by an idea: perhaps it would be cool to try out the Woolwich ferry. I had never crossed the Thames that way before, and I reasoned it would give me the shelter I suddenly urgently needed. From the look of the cloud, the rain would be heavy but wouldn’t last long, and this way I could cross the river  and explore a part of the city I hadn’t been to before.

That is basically what happened: the ferry crossing was short, uneventful and free. Looking out towards the west, I saw the metropolis before me, a forrest of skyscrapers, cranes and building sites, cut in two by the river. By the time I was on the north shore of the Thames, the rain had stopped. From there I started to explore a bit more of East London, again nothing how much of the old nineteenth century housing is being replaced by more and more ultra modern infrastructure. What might once have been termed a juxtaposition I now think is more rightly called an outright conflict, as the very new rapidly wipes out what was here recently in that weird abutting of architecture which I have only ever encountered here in London. Here, exhibition centres sit beside nineteenth century docks, as cable cars are carried above a river once plied by sailing ships.

The Woolwich Ferry, then, struck me as a nice, pleasant way to cross the Thames. Of course, taking the Lizzie Line or DLR is faster, but given that there has been a ferry crossing at Woolwich for centuries, it seems to me that it is a cool link to London’s past. Ferries now carry cars and lorries where they once carried horses and carts. And beneath them all flows the mighty Thames: timeless, immortal, unchanging.

After this week, I believe what I wrote here more passionately than ever: the Conservative party ought to be disbanded. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the bunch of arrogant charlatans think they are above the law, and have a right to award honours to whoever they wish. This week we saw Johnson dishing out knighthoods and peerages to his mates, and this morning we saw the worm Grant Shapps on TV defending him to the hilt, trying to persuade us that Johnson had done nothing wrong, and that he somehow deserves our respect. I really am sick to death of this group of spoiled thugs calling itself a political party, driving the country into the dirt for their own selfish ends. I honestly think it ought to be disbanded – surely we are better than this.

Sadly I didn’t create this, but I couldn’t agree more with it’s sentiment.

“Eastenders” must surely now be the most ironic name for a television show ever, and that irony keeps getting clearer and clearer. Of course, when the soap was created in the early eighties, the east end of London was a very working class, downtrodden area synonymous with grift and grime. Eastenders worked harder for very little pay, living in postwar council houses quite removed from their central London neighbours. 

These days, however, east London is a completely different place: probably starting with the transformation of the Isle Of Dogs in the late eighties and continuing with the creation of national cultural destinations like the Dome and the Excel Centre, the area has been gentrified beyond recognition. Rows of terrace houses have been replaced one by one with smart blocks of flats, complete with coffee shops and bourgeois  bistros. You only need to go to Stratford to see how radical the transformation has been; but the same thing is happening all over the east end of London, from North Greenwich to Woolwich to Kidbrooke. Of course, the extension of the jubilee line and then the creation of the DLR and Elizabeth Line have made a real difference in uniting the capital with its historic east end. The area is also vastly more gentrified and multicultural than it once was. Thus I no longer think the name Eastenders and the connotations it once carried really holds true, unless the soap is now set in an area of well maintained parks, enormous skyscrapers, huge shopping centres and multi billion pound transport projects.

Today I’d like to remind everyone of this 2018 blog entry, in which I declared myself a West Ham supporter. When I say ‘supporter’, of course, I don’t mean much more than keeping an eye on how they are doing, and hoping they win matches. Nonetheless, the news that they won the Europa Conference League last night, especially in such dramatic style, is great. I haven’t been out yet, but I’m sure all of east London will be buzzing; there is even talk of some kind of victory parade. The next few days could well make me relish living here once again, and if anything particularly awesome happens, you can expect a full account here.

I have quite strong memories associated with The Full Monty. In 1997 or so, when the film came out, our PE teacher Mrs Jones suggested using the main song from the film, ‘You Sexy Thing‘ by Hot Chocolate, as the basis for the dance module we had to do. At the time I was in a class of nine or so profoundly disabled young men (plus one girl) all bar two using wheelchairs or powerchairs. If memory serves, we were in two minds about it at the time, but in the end we were able to put together a fairly solid, well choreographed dance routine set to the famous song, and tick the box for the class.

We thought little of it at the time, but as it turned out it was just a prelude: A couple of years later, our new PE teacher Mrs Stallberg had the idea of entering us into a national wheelchair display competition. I don’t know how much she knew about what we had done before, but she nonetheless had the confidence to enter us into the regional competition in Manchester, then the national one up in Glasgow. We performed that routine to different music though, so that’s another story.

I came to think about this this morning when I heard on breakfast TV that Disney now plan to release a sequel to The Full Monty. Needless to say this strikes me as utterly bizarre: The Full Monty was a classic of 1990s British Independent film – what is a massive American studio going anywhere near it? More to the point, why does anyone need to do anything with this nice little film, set in North England, confronting many social and political concerns of the time? Surely the wisest thing to do would be to let it stand and allow it to retain it’s status as a classic. But No! Like The Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars and so many other franchises these days, the massive American corporations now want to go back to it, presumably because it was so successful at the time, to see if they can make yet more money out of it. And of course, the risk now is that they’ll just create a mess, turning The Full Monty into commercialised pap with little resemblance to the original film. It would seem that, to Hollywood these days, very little is sacred.

Yet I still have my memory: I still remember performing with my friends to Hot Chocolate. Strangely, I still think I remember some of the moves we had to do, and how Rich had to whip Andy’s shirt off as they wheeled past one another. Yet Andy, Rich and so many of those guys aren’t here any more, so these memories have a really bittersweet feeling for me. That probably includes the memories I associate with the Full Monty, another reason why I’m not convinced by this reboot.

I spent most of this morning going in circles, and I don’t mean wasting time in my powerchair. I wasted about two hours looking for one of my early university essays, so I couldn’t find it anywhere: not in my documents, my external hard drive, or my old emails. I wanted to find a review of The Lord Of The Rings films I wrote in my first year at university. It was the first thing I wrote for my Film Studies course and I remember feeling quite proud of it, but I have no clue where it went.

This came about when, earlier today, I came across a Facebook post about Ralph Bakshi’s earlier animated adaptation of Lord Of The Rings. I remember watching that adaptation once or twice as a child, but I don’t know much about it. However, it struck me that it might be interesting to compare the Bakshi version with the later, live action Peter Jackson adaptation. That was the version my uni review was about of course, so I reasoned that a good starting point might be to refresh my memory with what I had already written all those years ago, before proceeding any further and rewatching both films. Naturally I still have my 2012 blog entry on the trilogy to go back to, but my review was far longer and more detailed.

My inability to find the document I want aside, it still strikes me as a very interesting idea: how might the two adaptations of Tolkien’s epic novel compare? They are obviously very different works: Jackson’s ten hour, three film version was a smash hit, famously winning about twenty Oscars; whereas Bakshi’s was – or is now – relatively unknown. Obviously, one is animation and one is live action, and they seem to have had vastly different budgets. Even so, being based on the same book(s), there might be a few correlations which it may be interesting to analyse. I wonder how much has already been written about this, and whether anyone has already tried to contrast the two adaptations. Time, then, to stop going in circles trying to find long lost documents and get down to some actual research.

Something else which pricked my attention on the breakfast news this morning was a short piece about fly tipping in Stoke on Trent. I grew up in a town not far from Stoke, so it got my interest: fly tipping and littering is apparently becoming a real problem there, with rubbish blocking many streets. However, I didn’t think much more about it, until a few hours later. My trundle today took me over to Canary Wharf. I’m currently quite interested in that area, and in how such a heavily industrialised area of docks and mills has been transformed into a region of sparkling skyscrapers and high-end shopping malls.

Today, though, what caught my attention the most was how clean it all was: the roads and paths around the Isle Of Dogs were almost totally litter free, and I think the same can be said of London in general. A huge amount of money has obviously been spent on gentrifying east London especially, and it’s striking how well maintained everywhere is. Of course, you still see the odd beer bottle or crisp packet here and there, but it’s nothing like as bad as what was being reported about Stoke.

I haven’t visited Stoke on Trent in about fifteen years. I know the city has quite a negative reputation, but I can’t say whether that reputation is still deserved. However, what I saw this morning, contrasted against what I encounter these days in London, gives me cause for concern: has the chasm between the capital and the rest of the country now grown so hideously, unjustifiably wide?

You know you have reached a shameful, abhorrent point as a society when your government announces plans to spend £6bn it can barely spare trying to deport people coming here looking for refuge. When I turned on the news this morning, that was the first thing I was greeted with. “The cost of detaining and deporting people arriving in the UK in small boats under planned new legislation could hit £6bn over the next two years, internal government projections say….The BBC understands the Home Office estimates it will have to spend between £3bn and £6bn on detention facilities, and ongoing accommodation and removals.” Are the Tories really so vapid, so eager to please the Mail and Express reading xenophobes, that they would waste so much money trying to detain and deport these poor people? Of course, I know it wouldn’t be cheap to welcome and house them here instead, but surely that would be a far more humane and civilised thing to do. And given that it would mean putting money into supporting people to live here in the UK, it would essentially be investing in our society, rather than wasting it on barbaric, inhumane schemes intended to appease bigots. I really am appalled by what the Tories are turning this country into.

I honestly don’t think I’ve watched a television program with Philip Schofield since I was a child and he was presenting after school kid’s TV. I don’t give two hoots who he had an affair with, especially given there are so many far more worrying things going on in the world right now. Why, then, when I turned on the TV this morning in the hope of catching up with what’s going on in the world, Schofield was all they were talking about. If he had an affair with a younger man, surely it’s his business. At the very most, it’s worthy of a thirty second mention at the end of a news bulletin, but this morning it seemed to take up the entire hour. Have we all become so shallow that such irrelevant celebrity trivia is all we care about? And more to the point, why am I even blogging about this?

I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to note this when it was announced a few days ago, but I have to raise an eyebrow at the fact that John Cleese is now working on a stage adaptation of The Life Of Brian. On the face of it, it’s a wonderful idea: Life Of Brian is one of my favourite films, and one of the funniest films of all time. The problem is Cleese himself. As I wrote about his rebooting of Fawlty Towers, Cleese has lately become a bit of a spokesperson for the reactionary right, appearing on channels like GB News and railing against so-called woke culture. What concerns me is that Cleese will now try to hijack Brian and use it as a mouthpiece for his inane, increasingly vile politics.

People seem to be forgetting that Monty Python was the creation of five highly educated, extremely talented men rather than just John Cleese. They want to give all the credit for the classic comedy program to Cleese alone, and he seems more then happy to accept it in the pretence that the show was a pure reflection of his increasingly judgmental, intolerant views. But that is to forget that Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a manifestly left Wing, liberal creation involving transvestic lumberjacks and exposing the stupidity of religion. As I wrote here, it was about exposing the hypocrisies of postwar, conservative Britain. In a way Python was itself manifestly woke.

Thus for Cleese and others on the right to try to argue that much of Python would have been cancelled as too offensive if it was being made today is to distort matters entirely. Monty Python wasn’t about articulating or reinforcing prejudices or stereotypes, but exposing their inherent ridiculousness. To think it was about making fun of people like cross dressers or trans people is to miss the point of Python completely. I just hope that that remains clear in the upcoming Life Of Brian adaptation, and that John Cleese does not turn it into something hideously reactionary which runs counter to the very ethos which made it so awesome in the first place.

I’m really starting to regret not studying psychology seriously now. Turning on the TV earlier, all the talk was about mental health. It is, of course, mental health awareness week, but even so it staggers me to hear that one in five people in the country now has a mental health issue. It’s becoming a real issue, and I find myself wishing I understood more about it.

I have written here before about the difficulty I had studying psychology at A-level. Part of that was down to the problems I had getting my head around all the various, competing academic approaches which make up the subject; but I also think part of the problems I had arose from the fact that, as someone with a physical disability, I could never really understand how people could have such severe issues which could not be seen. That is, it perplexed me why anyone would act so abnormally or feel so depressed without having a real physical reason to do so. To a certain extent it still puzzles me. Over the years I have come across many people with physical conditions who have very positive mental outlooks and who just get on with their (often significantly shortened) lives; so why would anyone with no such problems apparently pity their selves so desperately? Another example may be the increasing number of people now hearing ‘voices’ in their head: what is the difference between such a voice and your normal, everyday internal monologue? How can a person tell they are separate, and if they are where does this second or third voice come from? Is it possible that people are paying attention to such voices in order to placate their desire to feel different? After all, we all have internal debates with ourselves.

Naturally, this only betrays my ignorance and lack of understanding. I wish I knew more about these issues. So many people now have mental health issues it’s apparently an epidemic; the same goes for neurological conditions like Autism. However, part of me says people are craving the type of social outsidership I’ve endured all my life: that is, it’s no longer politically or socially fashionable to be straight, white and able-bodied, so people are grouping themselves into whatever minority they can. This goes back to what I wrote here about a type of ‘cultural intrusion’. Could people now be claiming to be mentally ill or have mental health problems without fully understanding what that entails, but simply doing so to claim a form of sociopolitical outsidership? Another example: Is so-called high functioning autism really a neurological disorder, or simply a set of behaviours which were once considered perfectly normal, but which people have now pathologised for sociopolitical reasons? A person then internalises and conforms to such behaviours, consciously or not, so the prophecy fulfils itself. As far as I can tell, high-functioning autism is not debilitating; it does not disable or impair anyone. Yet more and more people seem to be labelling themselves (‘self-diagnosing’) as autistic, and then emphasising their habits which may loosely be considered autistic traits, in order to distance themselves from being perceived as normal.

Yet I know that that cannot be the whole story. People obviously aren’t just claiming to be depressed, hear voices or be otherwise mentally ill just because it’s not politically fashionable to be perceived as ‘normal’ any more. How else do you explain it though? Physical disabilities usually have clear physical causes: in my case it was a lack of oxygen getting to my brain at my birth; in the case of my friends with muscular dystrophy, it was a fault in their DNA. What, then is causing the current staggering influx of mental health issues? Without a tangible physical origin, how else can you explain it without it being, partially at least, the conscious or unconscious desire to be seen as abnormal?

I’m not writing this to offend anyone or to accuse anyone of lying; it just perplexes me how conditions with such ambiguous, intangible origins can be so profound and prevalent. There can be no doubt that mental health issues are very real and that they can be profoundly debilitating; I’m just arguing that part of the reason for their rise may be more social than medical. If you had been around people with severe physical disabilities, wouldn’t you come to the same conclusion too?

If anyone would like to read about life from the perspective of (seemingly rather hungry) disabled stand-up comic Ted Shiress in Cardiff, I would advise you to check this blog out. I came across Ted Gets Fed earlier this morning: it’s fairly newly-established and I’ve only read a couple of entries, but it seems like a witty, intelligent blog which articulates some of the issues disabled people encounter when it comes to eating out. Ted’s comments about straws seem especially resonant, and it will be interesting to see if he starts to articulate some of the issues I come across fairly often in restaurants as someone who uses a powerchair, drinks alcohol through a straw and needs to be manually fed by a personal assistant.

I just came across this and found I couldn’t agree more. When you think about it, writing is one of the greatest human inventions of all, letting us communicate not just with the people immediately around us, but across vast geographical and temporal distances. It frees us to express ourselves with the rest of humanity.

This Sagan quote may refer specifically to books, but I would add that, today, the internet has given writing an even greater power. On the web writing can reach unimaginable numbers of people in an instant, so we can convey to others what we think and feel like never before.

One of the things I love most about London is it’s rivers, canals and waterways. I don’t just mean the mighty Thames, although as I said here ten years or so ago, the Thames gives the metropolis a geographical core in a way I never realised before moving here. Rather, I’m talking about the dozens of canals and small rivers which intertwine the city, especially it’s northern half. Quaint little tributaries to the Thames which many people who don’t live here barely realise exist: rivers like the Lea, winding through the Olympic park down into the Thames; or the regents canal, dug long before the metropolis existed, yet serenely cruising its north from east to west, behind houses and buildings,, barely visible from the main roads.

I love how they both have wide, flat, well maintained towpaths so I can drive my powerchair beside them for mile upon mile as they take me on a tour of the city, the troubles of the past few days being instantly banished from my mind. Fascinating cultures and communities have sprung up beside them in places like Camden, where stall holders sell goods in the same way that they have for centuries. People drink in happy little riverside or canalside pubs, built in medieval brickwork and no doubt once backing onto fields yet now increasingly surrounded by shining silver skyscrapers.

Someone who didn’t live here probably wouldn’t realise this watery London existed: canals aren’t something that the city is noted for. Yet once you start to explore London, once you get to know it’s secret little corners, you find it to be a place of quiet, charming little waterways meandering through the metropolis, all the wonderful variety of human life in a modern, twenty-first century metropolis on either bank. As I wrote here, it’s an incredible way to explore London, drawing you in metre after metre as you trundle along towpaths created centuries ago.

I really thought the issue I had with the pub in Lewisham had been resolved. Last Sunday, when I spoke to the manager, she seemed quite apologetic and understanding, and seemed to imply that now we had talked matters through I would be welcome back. However, when I decided to put this to the test yesterday afternoon, things weren’t so positive by any means: I was again refused service, and again the staff insisted that I had to have a ‘carer’ with me to have a drink there. This seemed absurd to me. I felt discriminated against, and lost my temper. There was a different manager on duty there yesterday, who didn’t seem anywhere near as considerate. I’m embarrassed to say that I lost control and did some things I should not have, but settled things in the end.

The bottom line is I won’t be going back to that pub. I still feel very hurt by the way they treated me. I’ve written here before about how much I relish my independence, and how much I cherish my ability to go into places like pubs on my own. It helps me feel just like any other, normal guy. To have that ability refused me; to be told that I need someone looking after me, or that the staff can’t ‘do table service’, or that they don’t want to have to do small but helpful things like rinse my straws, really is insulting. I never have such issues anywhere else. To be honest, combined with the contempt I encountered yesterday in Tesco, I can’t help feeling more than a little rejected. Frankly, days like the one I had yesterday make me feel like a worthless cripple who nobody wants to have to help.

As I say, I won’t be going back to that pub. They sold my favourite beer, Leffe, on tap, which is why I kept returning, but now I’ll find somewhere else. Yet it just feels so hurtful: I thought issues had been settled there, so to be treated like I was yesterday evening, to be told that staff were too busy to give me the little bits of help I need, feels like a real punch in the stomach. I can’t help thinking if I was anyone else, if I was a member of any other minority being denied service due to factors innately liked to being a member of that minority, this would be seen as a blatant act of discrimination and everyone would rightly be up in arms.

You know that you aren’t really welcome at your local Tesco if, upon rolling into the shop and into the spot you usually do to wait for assistance, you see one of the members of staff notice you’ve arrived and exclaim, with a hurtful mixture of resignation and contempt, “Oh, the wheelchair guy!” You then spend around ten minutes sat in that spot while you overhear the staff argue between themselves over who should help you get your shopping. I know I shouldn’t really complain as I got helped in the end, and the staff need to interrupt their other tasks to help me; but it really is draining to know I’m perceived as that much of a burden by some.

It would probably be a bit hypocritical of me to suddenly start to claim to be a Tina Turner fan, never having mentioned her on here before, but the truth is I really liked her music and, like everyone else was saddened to hear about her death yesterday. At the same time, everyone knows what a great big Bond fan I am, and music is of course a huge part of the James Bond film series. One of my favourite Bond themes is Tina Turner’s Goldeneye: I feel it really goes to the core of the franchise, at thee same time recalling the classic Bond themes by people like Shirley Bassey while still possessing a modern edge. Goldeneye was the film which revived the Bond franchise after a long absence in 1995, so producers had to strike the right balance between wanting to seem up-to-date while waning to evoke past Bond films. I think Turners’s theme hits that balance perfectly, and in many respects it is a classic Bond theme, delivered to perfection in her incredible voice. More personally, I like it because when I was little I worked out how to play the opening notes to the song on the family piano, and still have fond memories of playing them over and over again. Thus like most people I had a real liking for Tina Turner’s music, and know that she will be missed.

I was up a bit early again today, and one of the first things I came across when I logged into Facebook was this review of the third season of Star Trek Picard by Steve Shives. I’ve been watching Shives’ videos for a while now, and really enjoy the detail he goes into, particularly how he explains why he liked or disliked the various pieces of media he responds to. In this video he excels himself: it’s essentially a degree-level essay in video form, albeit with the occasional swear word thrown in. Detailed, thorough, yet amusing, this is a very impressive analysis. As much as part of me loved seeing the old Next Generation crew reunited, I must agree with his central point that what we watched in Picard Season Three boils down to essentially meaningless fan service. That is, we constantly got nods and references to past incarnations of Star Trek thrown at us, without anything new really being developed. It was as if the writers didn’t want to make the effort, so simply rehashed things we had seen previously in Trek, as well as overplaying the nostalgia card and bringing back things and characters which had previously been written out (how many times has Data ‘died’ now?).

At 52 minutes, it’s quite a long watch, but I think it’s worth it. Shives makes some very good, fairly sophisticated points, most of which I had to agree with. He says he doesn’t want to seem too negative, but I don’t think he is; rather, Shives makes some good, well informed points about where the final season of Picard falls down creatively. To be honest I think Shives’ review is broadly on the same intellectual level as the film analysis I was reading back at uni: videos like this really demonstrate just how advanced the online fan discourse around programs like Star Trek is becoming.

Today I just have a bit of a strange confession. I like to think of myself as quite a technologically-aware, up-to-date kind of guy. I’ve always used computers, and like to keep in touch with the current trends. However I just realised something which struck me as very weird: watching breakfast TV just now, the presenters said that viewers could get in touch with Whatsapp, and it struck me that I don’t have a clue what Whatsapp is. Of course, I have heard it referred to quite a bit, and I think my brother mentioned using it, but I’ve never been anywhere near it.

I know it’s a way to communicate over the web, but for that I stick to Facebook messenger or good old email. It strikes me as weird that I’ve never used it and don’t know anything about it, but it’s now so popular. Perhaps the fact that you apparently need a mobile phone to use it, which I don’t own, means that this trend has left me behind. There also seems to be a lot of QR code scanning involved, which I can’t do. I wouldn’t mind, but given the Beeb are now referring to it as one of the main ways of getting in touch with them suggests this is a huge trend which I have somehow been totally oblivious of.

I think long term readers will know what a big Star Trek fan I am. I especially like the Klingons. It interests me how intricate and detailed the fictional alien species is: over the years we trekkies have watched it develop an interesting culture based on the notion of ‘honour’, complete with it’s own religion (‘Glory to Kah’less!”) and language. Thus, while I don’t actually speak Klingon or Klingonese as some Trek fans apparently do, I like to regularly use a couple of words I’ve picked up, just to show what a geek I am.

A while ago I began to wonder about something. These days, when I head out of my flat in my powerchair of a morning, I often leave my PA Serkan here, giving him space to, say, tidy up or mop the floor. As I head out, it has become like our tradition to exclaim the word “Qa’pla!” (success!) at one another, simply as a farewell or good luck expression. I have also taken to using the (never defined) insult “P’Tahk” when I’m confronted with people I object to, usually Tories or Brexiteers, and I’ve noticed Serkan now occasionally using the term too. This has made me wonder: Can Serkan be the only person who regularly uses Klingon words, but who, to my knowledge, has never watched an episode of of Star Trek and has never heard of Klingons?

Joking aside, it goes to show how such geeky, niche things can sometimes take on a dimension of their own. To be honest I find it very endearing that Serkan would choose to use words which he doesn’t know the meaning or origin of, which come from a TV program he has never watched, just to strike a chord with me. Qa’pla!

Who else is in the mood for some gratuitous Monday morning violence? I just came across a reference to a film called Sisu of Facebook and, never having heard of it, looked it up. I found this trailer, and instantly burst out laughing. It looks awesome in a slapstick, nazi-beating way. I obviously don’t know much about it yet, but it seems to be set during the German invasion of Finland. According to the trailer, it looks like they single-handedly – and quite violently – get beaten back by a lone, rather angry miner. The film comes out in a couple of days, and I definitely want to check it out.

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.