How about this for an epic, hilarious fail by the morons at the Daily Fail? They quoted the famous spoof twitter account Sir Michael Take as support for their spurious claim that the Tories are somehow acting sensibly in dumping sewage onto Cornish beaches. “The Daily Mail’s dependability for reputable, well-sourced journalism took another hit this weekend after the newspaper quoted a parody account in an article about sewage dumping at UK beaches…..Reporting on the latest discharge in Cornwall, the Daily Mail chose to quote Sir Michael Take (Mickey Take) in their coverage after he posted these comments on social media.” Take had Tweeted “You’ll see the beach is empty so NO ONE is being harmed. This would of course have been stopped by the nit picking EU. Brexit means we can now employ such SAFE procedures. Good news!” You really couldn’t make it up. Only the Fail could stoop so low. Mind you, you have to worry about the state of British journalism when one of our most popular daily newspapers resorts to citing such an obvious spoof twitter account to back up it’s arguments: they’re so eager to maintain their pro-Tory, pro-Brexit, anti-EU agenda that they clearly didn’t even bother to check their sources.

I just decided to tap out a blog entry about Twitter. It is obviously in the news quite a bit now Musk has bought it, so I thought I’d write a quick entry explaining that, while I occasionally put a screenshot of a Tweet I agree with on here, as a rule I tend to stay away from Twitter. Before starting to type though, I thought I’d do a quick search to check what I have said about it before, and found this entry from April. It is, pretty much word for word, exactly what I was about to type. Apart from an occasional screenshot, I still find Twitter pretty much useless: nobody can really say anything significant on it, but it’s just a free-for-all of short, abrupt statements. Twitter is to writing what a McDonald’s burger is to food, or what Bud Light is to beer. It may be one of the most used websites on the ‘net, but I’d far prefer to keep rambling on my blog and leave the Twits to it.

London shrank a bit more for me last night. A few days ago, my parents invited me to a meal out with them, my brother Luke and his wife Yan in Hammersmith. It’s part of the city I had never visited before and looked rather complicated to get to, so although I said yes I was a bit hesitant about the idea: the western part of London is still pretty much unknown territory for me. However, when I came to look at it yesterday morning, I found, to my relief, that Hammersmith is only two tube lines away with a change at Westminster, all of which were marked as accessible.

I needn’t have worried: getting there was remarkably easy. I use London public transport with more and more ease and confidence these days as it’s gradually becoming more and more accessible. I got there a few hours early to fond that Hammersmith is one of those jaw-dropping parts of London which has obviously had millions spent on it, with a pedestrianised central square surrounded by expensive-looking shops and bars. The tube station itself is obviously quite new: it’s more like it’s own fully-formed shopping arcade, where, conveniently enough (and thanks to WiFi) I found Mum and Dad waiting for me in the Costa.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with them. They were, of course, in full on parent mode, buying things like aprons and socks for me. Then, at around five, it was time to go to the restaurant to meet up with Luke and Yan. What followed was a lovely family evening, being fed some absolutely delicious meatballs while being updated on all the family news. It was great to see them and certainly felt long overdue, although I think you’ll understand if I don’t go into too much detail.

I must say, though, how awed I was by Hammersmith. It was modern, pedestrian, hip, and colossal amounts of money had obviously been spent on updating the area. I now want to go back there soon to explore it under my own steam. But then, it’s a similar story all over London: new buildings are being built and areas are being renovated and gentrified all over the place. For example, I went to check out the new-look Battersea Power Station a few days ago: on the one hand, it was all very sleek and modern; I found I could get around the power-station made shopping mall in my powerchair very easily. Again I was in awe of what London seems to now be capable of: you could once tell it was once a very different, brutal, industrial place, but had been completely transformed into somewhere commercial, accessible and bright. To be honest the emergence of such unique, quirky places almost makes it feel like I’m living in one vast amusement park. On the other hand, it was obscenely bourgeois: all the shops were high end, ultra-expensive, jewellery and perfume stores, of absolutely no interest to me but catering for the kind of rich urban snob with too much money and no grasp of reality who seems to now make up a large proportion of London’s population these days. If I’m honest if felt slightly sickening when you remember that so much money needs to be invested in other parts of the country.

Yet it’s the same story all over London. It’s as if the city has more money than it knows what to do with. Vast amounts are clearly being ploughed into updating and gentrifying areas of the city, from Hammersmith to Battersea to Kidbrooke, and I can’t help but worry other parts of the country are being left behind. Yesterday I had dinner with my family in one of many such suburbs in this modern, sleek bourgeois metropolis, travelling on an ultra-expensive tube network unique in the country. As fast as London is hurtling into the future, I can’t help worrying it’s leaving the rest of the country in the dust.

Given that I blogged about the Brazilian election yesterday, some may expect me to say something about the election in Israel today. After all, what happens in Israel is just as important to world politics as what happens in Brazil, or anywhere else. The thing is, I know how thorny Israeli politics is; I know what a minefield going anywhere near the subject can be. Over two decades on the web has taught me that saying anything about it, positive or negative, automatically opens you up to all sorts of accusations. It is an issue which people get so emotional and worked up about that whatever you say will probably offend someone, and you’ll be accused of siding with one group or another. Thus, as critical as it is, Israeli politics is a subject which I learned long ago not to go anywhere near.

I know next to nothing about Brazilian politics so I don’t think I can comment much about this, but I must say it’s quite a relief that Lula De Silva appears to have beaten Jiar Bolsonaro in the election there. From what I hear of Bolsonaro, he’s a complete right-wing nutcase who makes Donald Trump look sane: his continued presidency would have been a total disaster for Brazil and indeed the entire world, given how much we all depend on the Brazilian rainforest, both biologically and economically. Perhaps with a more sensible head leading it, Brazil can get back onto a more worldly, wiser path. I must say too how happy I am for my cousins who live in Brazil, as well as my good friend Paulo who comes from there too. Globally I think this is a step in the right direction, one which we all needed badly. Mind you, the fact that Bolsonaro is yet to concede defeat might be a cause for concern – he might do a Trump, refuse to admit he has lost, and cling to power until the very last.

Needless to say I completely agree with this Tweet. It sums up my feelings quite well, only it’s not just Braverman who needs to go: the entire Tory party is all over the place. It’s totally chaotic, yet is clinging to power with the typical Tory ‘We know best and are above the law’ mentality. The only way out of this hole is a change of government.

Yesterday I found a new way to shut street preachers up: I just have to start talking to them. If I engage them in conversation, it stops them spouting their religious bullshit to the general public. Yesterday morning, for example, I was in Woolwich and I came across a guy talking nonsense about how the world was about to end. I wasn’t in any hurry so I decided to try to talk some sense into him. The thing is, using my iPad I don’t talk very quickly, so conversations are often long and slow. I got the guy’s attention and asked him to stop trying to brainwash people. What followed was a fairly lengthy conversation: to be honest I was rather agitated to begin with, but I gradually calmed down. The discussion didn’t get very far – the man kept spouting biblical gibberish along with the odd cherry picked scientific anomaly that he obviously didn’t understand and calling it evidence – but it lasted about half an hour, during which time at least I stopped him trying to brainwash people. Perhaps I was wasting my time and being too optimistic in trying to get him to think rationally, but the way in which these people try to impose their beliefs onto the public as if they outweigh all other views and opinions, simply because they come from an ancient, thoroughly debunked book, really annoys me.

To be honest I think we should be getting really worried about the weather. When I was out and about today, I didn’t just feel warm but hot. Of course I know next to nothing about climate science so I better not try to say much about this, but it is now the end of October and it feels like June: people are walking around quite comfortably in shorts and T shirts. I felt hot in a jumper and light jacket. Alongside the sudden downpours I was complaining about a couple of entries ago, something is clearly seriously amiss with the climate.

Who fancies a bit of political costume semiotics?

Not that it’s hard to decode anyway. It’s blindingly obvious that Sunak, like Johnson before him, is absolutely desperate to appear to be a man of the people, or rather anything other than what he is: a spoiled, privileged arsehole who only got to where he is because he was born into a wealthy family, and has made it his life’s work to make sure that that privilege stays in the hands of the elite few. No amount of sleeve-rolling can disguise that.

Rain is starting to feel much more ominous, to the extent that I might be developing a real phobia of it. Over the last two or three weeks, rain has got into my powerchair controller twice, and it has had to go to be repaired.  I headed out when it was dry and bright, but all of a sudden it has started to piss it down, and I haven’t been able to find cover in time to save my chair. I hadn’t realised rain could cause so much damage, but now even the smallest hint of grey cloud is enough to make me contemplate staying at home. I feel a genuine, stomach churning concern that the skies might suddenly open, my chair will cut out and I will be stranded in some quiet, forgotten corner of the metropolis with no idea how to get home. Having now used them to get around for so long I really like my powerchairs, but I just wish they were slightly more durable and waterproof.

Yesterday evening saw the beginning of something which could turn out to be very interesting indeed. A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from someone at Tramshed Theatre, a theatre company in Woolwich, inviting me to a steering group meeting. A couple of my friends in GAD, the Greenwich Association of Disabled people, had apparently suggested that I became a member for a new theatre project involving disabled people. I thought it was an intriguing idea: it may well be the very thing I need right now to get me out of my flat and get my creative juices flowing.

Until it’s new venue opens in a couple of weeks, Tramshed is based in Woolwich Works, in the historic old buildings of the Woolwich Arsenal. Until a few years ago, that area was extremely run-down and dilapidated: after it ceased to be used as a munitions factory, it was totally abandoned. Yet you should see it now. The old, eighteenth-century factory buildings are still there, but have been renovated and spruced up almost beyond belief: plush, modern glass and metal beams abut two-hundred year old brickwork in a fascinating way. The room we met in last night felt like the performance spaces I remember from university, yet you could tell something far darker and more brutal had been there before. To be honest I found it fascinating.

The meeting itself went well. There were about ten people there, including my friends from GAD. There were, of course, the usual introductions, followed by a couple of ice-breaking games. It was only an initial meeting, so we didn’t really get into much detail about what shape the project could take. Yet I was struck by a sense of potential: by the end of the meeting, there were all sorts of ideas floating around. I could tell there was a vast amount of creativity in the room. It reminded me of ten years or so ago, when Lyn first started going to paraorchestra meetings, and how that eventually became their performance at the paralympic closing ceremony.

The greatest things are often born of the meekest beginnings. I think this project gives me the opportunity to participate in something potentially remarkable. I now want to get to know the guys at Tramshed behind it; I want to show them my writing, films, and what I’m capable of. Perhaps I could then write something for them, or at least help to put something together. Who knows what this project will turn into, or when it will be finished, but I can’t wait to watch it take shape. I have a feeling this could become something incredible.

To a certain extent, today is quite a momentous day. In a way, it’s a day of progress which we should all be pleased to see. Today sees the UK’s first non-white, British-Asian Prime Minister ever enter Downing Street. There’s no denying that that is a huge step forward. Yet there’s also no denying that Rishi Sunak is a Tory and a Brexiteer; an avowed, committed member of the very party which got the country into so much trouble. The Tories, including Sunak, can try to deny it all they want – they can try to pin it on Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – but the UK is up shit creek due to Brexit. The Tories will never admit that because it would utterly destroy their party, so we won’t be able to even contemplate getting the country back on the road until we have a proper government willing to address the catastrophe of Brexit. (As an intelligent man, Starmer clearly knows this, but won’t admit it for fear of loosing Outist votes). Above all, what we need is a general election; we need a decent, properly elected government with a sensible leader willing to admit reality, as opposed to someone handed power by a bunch of spoiled brats determined to cling to office for as long as possible. As pleasing as today might be, it isn’t really a step forward. That will only come when the Tories are kicked out of office.

Now that the Elizabeth line is open, getting to London is easier for me than it ever has been. By London, I mean central London: the area of the metropolis which usually comes to mind when you hear the name. When I first moved here, it struck me as odd when I heard Londoners talk of London when referring to the city centre, as if it was a separate, different place from where we were. Yet now, I know what they mean and have started to think in the same way. The metropolis is so vast that London feels like a different place, or rather it used to. The Elizabeth Line has made it far easier and quicker for me to get up into the centre of the city; I have found I can just go up there on a whim, whenever I fancy a trundle around the royal parks.

This morning, for instance, I got wind that the extended Bond Street station is now open, so I thought I would go take a look. Of course, Bond Street is on the Jubilee Line too, but the station did not have step-free access so I could never get off there until 2017, and when it did I never particularly needed to. The Jubilee Line is also quite a bit slower and less direct than the Elisabeth line, so places like Bond Street always felt quite far away, even if they were still in London.

Thanks to it’s £300m upgrade Bond Street Station is now fully accessible though, so today I was curious to go and see what the fuss was about. Thus I simply got a bus to Woolwich and hopped onto the Lizzy Line. Twenty minutes or so later, I was in London, looking forward to a pleasant stroll through the historic parks, and remarking to myself how a place which once seemed so vast and alien now seems so compact and homely. Thanks to the opening of the Elizabeth Line London – central London – now seems within touching distance. It feels like I can really start to get to know it, like I once knew Congleton, the town where I grew up. I find myself in one of the world’s greatest cities, a global cultural, political and economic hub. Vast areas, until recently quite hard for me to get to, have suddenly been brought within my reach, and the prospect of really getting to know this city in all its fascinating diversity fills me with excitement. People around here might refer to London likes it’s a different, separate place, but that place has suddenly come much closer.

Projects like the Elisabeth Line, eye-wateringly expensive though they may be, are slowly opening up the metropolis for people like me. While it still has a very long way to go, wheelchair users like myself can get around this city like never before. That’s what makes it so welcoming, so exciting; I can’t wait to see what it does next.

Yesterday was quite an awesome day for the campaign to rejoin the EU. Not that you’ll hear anything about it in the news, but yesterday saw a huge march and rally up in Westminster. Truth be told, I didn’t know – or, rather, hadn’t remembered – it was happening until I saw a poster on Facebook at breakfast time, but I can get to central London fairly easily so I set off quite promptly after I got wind of it. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Brexit is an utter catastrophe: it’s wrecking the economy, destroying the Tories, turning the UK into a laughing stock. It must be reversed, and if I can take part in the campaign to make that happen, then I must.

According to what I saw on the website, the march would begin outside the Dorchester Hotel at one. I simply had to take the Jubilee Line to Green Park, then probably ask for directions. Fortunately as soon as I got out of the tube station, I saw people carrying EU flags, so I just followed them: at that moment I could tell this was going to be big.

And it was. When I got to the Dorchester, there was already a huge gathering of people outside, all carrying either EU flags or placards with things like ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ written on them. It was very reassuring to see so many people who, like me, believe that rejoining the European Union is essential for the country’s future. Brexit robbed us of our rights as Europeans; the people I marched with yesterday want them back. There must have been forty to fifty thousand people there yesterday, all as furious as I am about the debacle of 2016. Most, it must be said, appeared to be middle aged and white; but there were people from all over the country there, carrying Welsh, Scottish and Cornish flags – they had obviously put far more effort into this than I had.

The march was peaceful, friendly and rather short, going from Park Lane, through Mayfair, down Whitehall and into Parliament Square. It just took a couple of hours or so. Then, in the Square, the rally began, with speeches by Guy Verhofstadt, Phill Moorhouse and Steve Bray among others. From where I was sat I couldn’t see much of the stage, but fortunately a large screen had been put up to make the speeches visible to everyone. They spoke about the damage Brexit is doing, politically and socially, as well as the possible routes we might take to rejoin the union.

I didn’t stay until the very end, but it was very reassuring to see the beginnings of a Rejoin Movement, which will, hopefully before long, see us take back our rightful place among our neighbours in the EU. I can’t help wondering what I might bring to it: I know I’m not much of a disability rights activist, but perhaps there are things from the disability rights movement which could be transferred to the rejoin movement. Both require direct action; both need us to demonstrate to others how we no longer have rights others do, and how things could be so much better if we convinced certain people to do certain things. Above all, both are about reclaiming rights we no longer have, which is why events like the one I went to yesterday are so important.

Given what is currently happening in British politics, I think my entry here needs to be updated. Now that there is serious talk of Boris Johnson becoming PM again, I can’t see how things could get more absurd.

Having just caught up with the evening news, I think I need to reiterate what I wrote here. I seriously believe that the Tory party needs to be broken up and disbanded, more than ever after today. The last few weeks has been an utter farce politically; the world is laughing at us, and now Truss has gone and the Tories need to elect a new leader, things can only get even more stretched out and silly. We’re being lead by a group of idiots with no idea how to govern a country, yet think they were born to do so. At the very least we need a general election, as that would be the only way that the country could have any confidence in any government. Otherwise, it would be a case of a deeply unpopular, thoroughly discredited laughing stock of a party clinging to power with no real right to.

This total car crash would be hilarious if it wasn’t so infuriating.

I just have a web-related query today. I’m a big fan of google maps. I think I’ve written on here before about how I like to use the website to explore places I’ve never been, and get to know more of the geography of the world. Streetview is sometimes a nice surrogate for my daily trundles, particularly when I can’t actually get out and about due to the weather. A couple of days ago though, I found I could no longer use my keyboard’s arrow keys to get around the map. I found it easier to move the map up, down, left and right with my keyboard than with my rollerball, but the keys no longer did anything. Plus and minus to zoom in and out didn’t work either. It was quite perplexing. I was using Google Chrome but, oddly, I found the keys still did what they were told in the standard Mac browser. Does anyone know anything about this, or how I can put it right? How I hate it when these irritating little bugs crop up.

Putting my media critic hat on, I think I need to flag this intriguing bit of analysis by Steve Shives up. In this Youtube video, Shives begins to outline some of the issues when it comes to narrative structure in modern streaming. He points out that the advent of streaming platforms/websites like Netflix around ten years ago has brought about a change in how fictional series are now structured: they’re still episodic, as they were/are on traditional TV, but on streaming services, narratives seem to be far more drawn out and stretched, so that a story which may have traditionally been told over five episodes is now drawn out over ten. Shives goes into some detail about how this works, drawing a comparison between the structure of such series and the structure of music albums, outlining how both work to gradually coax the reactions of the audience.

What interests me about this is it is the first bit of such analysis I’ve come across: of course, I did lots about narrative structure back at uni, but that dealt mostly with the structure of traditional, established texts like books and films. For the most part, they both use self-contained narratives. Now that streaming has come about, the structures filmmakers are using for the series they are making for websites like Netflix are changing; they’re becoming much more drawn out, often slower in the middle. In a way, it has caused quite a radical shift in film and TV texts as they adapt to new ways of consuming film such as online viewing and binge-watching. To my knowledge, not much has been written, academically, about this change (although I haven’t been anywhere near a university library in years) so it’s very interesting indeed to see a Youtube user start to articulate and explore the way in which online streaming is starting to change things like narrative structure.

Something rather weird cropped up earlier this morning. My friend John is currently back in Poland. He drew my attention to the photo below over Facebook. It has apparently appeared in a book by Japanese artist Aki Onda, and was taken in Sokolowsko a couple of years ago. That must have been when Lyn and I were there, although I can’t say I remember anything about it.

I was thinking about religion again yesterday. As atheists we usually just accept a given religion as simply a different way to view the world: everyone has a right to think or believe what they like, no matter how flawed we may find it. Yet when we frame religion as being a form of social control which uses a set of myths as a source of authority, and which is used to dictate to people what they should think and how they should behave, then religion becomes something which should be overtly opposed and combatted. In America especially, Christianity has become a political force used to dominate people: the threat of God or Hell is used by self-proclaimed preachers to force others to submit to their views. Such views are often very intolerant and right wing. That’s why I feel we should now be more active in opposing religion: it can no longer simply be accepted as just another aspect of social diversity, but needs to be openly challenged and spoken against.

At the end of the day, no matter how friendly or fatherly a priest may try to appear, say, he is using a set of myths and dogmas to assume almost the same authority as an elected politician. He cannot allow such dogmas to be questioned or challenged, but through them he grants himself the right to give others weekly lectures on how to live their lives and what attitudes to adopt. This has been going on for centuries. If these preachers were using any other set of myths to be so dominant and controlling, no doubt they would just be ignored or regarded as mentally ill; but because christianity has been part of our culture for so long, their assumed authority goes unchallenged. Priests, cardinals or bishops are even often asked onto political programs on TV to talk alongside politicians and scientists and given the same type of esteem, even though they did nothing to earn it.

Isn’t it time that we, as a society, put an end to this? In any modern community, authority is either earned democratically in the case of politicians, or through years of study and training in the case of doctors and teachers. Yet religious preachers assume a similar degree of social authority simply by invoking a set of myths, most of which have been shown, academically, to be nonsense. That’s why I have begun to view religion as oppressive and as something to be spoken out against. Those who defend it and say religion shouldn’t be criticised simply do so to preserve it’s – and thus their – authority. As I wrote here, street preachers should be asked to move on and keep their doctrines to their selves, as I particularly object to the way they force their dogma onto others. In other words, we should be active in our opposition. Religion holds too much cultural authority when it should be seen as the manifestly oppressive form of social control it so obviously is.

This sign has appeared somewhere in America. The thought that it is the most powerful country on Earth is enough to make me despair.

To be honest it has been quite a crazy, yet ultimately very pleasant, twenty four hours or so. My parents are currently in London, staying, as they often do, at the old family place up in Harlesden. Three or four days ago, they arranged to visit me here in Eltham today. The thing is, whenever my parents visit I get nervous, as they, being my parents, get rather critical about the state of my flat. Lying in bed on Wednesday night, however, I had a pretty wild idea: if I went to see them the day before, I could beat them to it. We could all see each other and they wouldn’t need to come here. After all, it’s only a tube and bus ride away – not hard to get there at all.

That, then, is what I did, setting off after brunch yesterday. My plan was to go and surprise my parents, spend the afternoon with them, and be back here in time for dinner. The looks on my mum or dad’s faces when they opened their front door would be priceless. Fool that I am, of course, I forgot that, as people too, my parents may have their own plans, and weren’t necessarily going to be in when I got there; yet I put that to the back of my mind as I rode the Jubilee line to Kilburn. As a ‘Step free from platform to street’ stop, rather than a completely step free stop, part of my reason for going on the entire trip was that I wanted to see how easily it was to arrange for access there.

Fortunately, I’m happy to say it worked without a hitch: a man was waiting for me at Kilburn station with a ramp, and pretty soon I was trying to look for the right bus stop to get on the bus I needed. Then, after a while, I was on a bus being taken to the North London house once owned by my grandparents and which I first knew as an infant.

It was then that things got slightly silly. Rolling up to the door, I rang the bell, and waited….and waited….and waited. It slowly began to dawn on me that no one was in, and that I had made the entire silly trip for nothing. Part of me – the sensible part – wanted to just give up and head home: if I set off then, I would probably be back in time for the evening news, not to mention Serkan and dinner. Yet I have a foolish streak which can also be very stubborn, so I decided to wait, telling myself that my parents could be back from wherever they had been at any moment. Crossing the quiet little cul-de-sac to find some shade, I tapped yesterday’s blog entry into my Ipad. An hour or so passed.

This was getting silly, I decided. Perhaps if I could get a web connection I could contact Mum to ask where they were, so I asked a friendly lady passing by whether anywhere in that area had a wifi network. She kindly suggested a pub a few hundred metres down the road, so I set off towards it, hoping for a happy conclusion to an afternoon which was becoming a bit embarrassing.

Finding the pub, but avoiding the temptation to have a beer, they kindly connected me to the web. I tried to contact my mum, but frustratingly got no answer. I waited there about half an hour, fast realising that perhaps today wasn’t such a good idea, before going back to try the doorbell one last time…

You should have seen the look on my father’s face when he opened that door! His disabled middle son had appeared totally out of the blue, inexplicably rolling his powerchair across London to see them, having given them absolutely no warning that he was coming. My parents had only just got in from an afternoon in central London, and were just settling down to a quiet cup of tea. Nonetheless, Dad invited me in, helping me out of my powerchair.

My plan had been to just spend an hour or two with my parents, before heading home. They, of course, had other ideas: heading back across London at that time – rush hour near enough – would be absurd. That’s how I came to be eating dinner with them and then spending the night. Mum being mum, she instantly started to cook extra food and making a bed for me to sleep in. I know they’re my parents, but their warmth and generosity struck my heart.

It turned out to be a lovely, quiet, family evening like the ones I knew growing up: we ate dinner together, watched TV and went to bed. Of course, now connected to the house wifi network, I messaged Serkan to tell him he didn’t have to come. Sat there in that old family house, I suddenly felt a great warmth, as though I was being told that, no matter how chaotic or uncertain things get, my family will always open the door to me. That feeling was well worth the journey yesterday.

In the end, I suppose my plot failed. This morning after a night in Harlesden, my parents came back to Eltham with me, visiting just as they had planned. Yet it was nice to travel back with them, and lovely to have them here; I shouldn’t have got so uptight about them nit-picking. As it was, Serkan had given the place a thorough clean, so it was pretty spotless. We spent a lovely couple of hours together here, having a great lunch at a local pub, before they set off back. It had been great to see me, my parents said, and I’m free to visit them, only next time, it would probably be better to tell them I’m coming.

I suppose I have begun to refer to people as insults or embarrassments to humanity quite haphazardly recently.  It’s my favourite insult when it comes to scoundrels who I feel nothing but contempt for. I know that if I use it too much though, it would loose its meaning and impact. Yet when it comes to someone like Alex Jones, I think most people would agree that it certainly applies. Here we have a man who assumed he had a right to shout his head off on American radio, about how he thought one of the worst, most sickening school shootings in history was a hoax, staged to strengthen the argument for greater gun control. In doing so, he branded dozens of grieving parents, who were already going through unimaginable suffering, liars without a shred of evidence or justification . If he had a shred of honour, Jones would be on his knees begging those people to forgive him; yet he is now claiming that his freedom of speech has been violated, as though he is some kind of victim, and promising to not pay the money he now owes. Sometimes you have to wonder how we, as a civilisation 200,000 years old, can allow such despicable, contemptible people to rise to such prominence.

Having just watched a shortened version of PMQs, at which Truss blatantly refused to answer any question put to her but just hit back at Starmer with baseless, idiotic accusations, this seems more apt than ever.

Seriously, Truss needs to go: she has no idea what she’s doing or how to govern a country, but is just interested in scoring points over the opposition. We need a Prime Minister actually capable of leading.

Why do people still think they need to beg in a city like London? I hope that I don’t sound uncompassionate or heartless here,  but this is something I’m genuinely curious, indeed concerned, about. Whenever I go to somewhere like Woolwich or Stratford, in the pedestrian areas there are frequently one or two people begging for money. They either kneel on the street, hands outstretched in a pitiful pose; or, more troubling for me, limp up to people, cap in hand, as though they have some kind of disability. If they were disabled, I would very much hope they would be entitled to the same benefits I am. As a modern, twenty first century state, the UK has support structures in place to ensure that those who need help get it. I live as comfortably as I do thanks largely to such support. 

I thus genuinely don’t get why there are still disabled people who feel they need to beg for money in the street. Do they not know about the support they are probably entitled to? Or is it all an act, and they just pretend to be disabled to get pity? To be honest as abhorrent and cynical as that idea is, and as loathe as I am to accuse anyone of faking their disability, I think it’s a distinct possibility. They don’t seem to have any conventional disabilities that I recognise, but walk around with heavily emphasised limps which could probably be easily put on. Yet that would imply that disabled people are still objects of pity, and that being disabled is still seen as something to be looked down upon and helped. I find that deeply, deeply troubling, both in that it implies that I might still be pitied, and by the fact that people might be exploiting the idea of being disabled to scrounge money which they have not earned. As a disabled man, I am proud of who I am and what I have achieved. The notion that someone might imitate me in order to attract pity or charity is, frankly, highly insulting.

I suppose you win some, you loose some. I’ve been to some great nights and events over the years, but I couldn’t go to them all. Last week saw a special concert at the Royal Albert Hall celebrating sixty years of James Bond. Smeg knows how it passed under my radar, but I didn’t know anything about it until it actually happened. I would obviously have loved to be there – it would have been amazing. Fortunately there is a recording of it on Amazon Prime, which I just caught up with.

To be fair, now that I’ve watched the recording, I can’t say I’m as heartbroken as I might have been. As far as I can tell, the night was good but not awesome; it probably wasn’t up there with Monty Python Live, let’s say. While Dame Shirley Bassey did a couple of her songs, the night mostly consisted of covers performed by people I’ve never heard of. According to Calvin Dyson here, the Amazon recording misses quite a bit out from the live performance, so this could be just a result of my not having been there, but I think they could have done a lot more. It did not strike me as epic. For one, none of the actors who played Bond made an appearance; there was none of the sort of play which gets me excited. It was just one Bond theme performed after another, in not that brilliant a way.

No doubt had I been there I would have been buzzing. Yet, unlike Python in 2014, I didn’t see any of those incredible, jaw-dropping moments which stick in your memory for years; and unlike Python, nights like this aren’t unique: no doubt in a few years there will be another concert like it, probably incorporating any newer Bond themes there may be. When that happens I intend to go, but until then I have the recording of this concert to keep me going – not to mention the music videos of the original songs.

Rather than getting wound up about politics, I think the best thing I can do today is direct everyone here. The trailer for the third and final season of Star Trek Picard has just been released, and I must say it looks pretty epic. Although, when you think about it, it’s pretty weird that this is a spin off from a television program whose heyday was thirty years ago, involving characters I first obsessed over when I was at school, it will be pretty awesome to see the entire The Next Generation crew get together one final time. We can probably expect plenty of nostalgic nods and references to the TNG series, so no doubt every Trekkie on the web – including myself – will be analysing every second of trailer released between now and February. I doubt any of us can wait.

How do people carry glasses full of liquid without spilling them? It’s one of those perpetual mysteries, like how bikes stay upright, which I, personally, will always be baffled by. I’m currently sat in a pub, and there are people walking around carrying one, two, and three glasses of beer, keeping them perfectly level and not spilling a drop. I can’t help but reflect that that would be impossible for me: I have never picked up a full glass without spilling it, yet here people hold them level without even looking. I find it baffling, but I suppose it’s just one of those things I will never understand.

When I moved into my new place here in Eltham almost three years ago, there were two modestly sized parks either side of quite a main road a stones throw from my flat. They were not very big, but they both had quite well-equipped playgrounds which looked rather enjoyable. Over the last couple of years though, I have watched as they have been boarded up and built upon, area by area. First it was the little park closest to my place. Then, a few months ago, half the park on the other side of the road was boarded off.  I was hoping that they would stop there and leave the little area of playground that there was left. Yet a couple of days ago I noticed that area had been fenced off too; and today, rolling out for my usual trundle, I noticed large piles of soil where a few days ago the playground had been. That struck me as rather sad, because it was quite a cool little place complete with its own zip line. It looks like nowhere stands in the way of London’s endless need to build more housing, and it seems like pretty soon, every area of green in this city, however small or pretty or enjoyable, will sooner or later be sacrificed for concrete and brick.

People like Liz Truss like to say that, if taxes are kept low, everybody benefits because there is more money circulating in the economy. They say that the more that people have to invest, the more they earn, so the amount a state receives in tax increases overall. But this is one of the insufferable little lies that those on the political right tell themselves to salve their consciences. Desperate to maintain the pretence that they aren’t just greedy, shortsighted spoiled brats but do in fact care about people other than their selves, they claim that, the larger the overall pie, the bigger the piece everyone gets. Yet that is to forget the obvious truth that, without state oversight, the most greedy people in a community will just take what they want of any pie and leave the poorest and less well positioned scrambling for crumbs. The gap between those who have access to the pie and those who don’t will just keep widening as those capable of taking what they want will refuse to share it with anyone else. In such systems, the idea that everyone somehow benefits if the rich are set free to hoard their wealth is a flat-out lie; one told by Truss and her Tory underlings applauding like brainless, demented seals yesterday, in their never-ending effort to keep privilege and wealth to their selves. Wealth does not magically ‘trickle down”: the less taxes the wealthiest have to pay, the better they get at hiding it, so the overall amount of tax revenue does not go up. The sickening thing is, people like Truss can never admit that they are motivated by greed but want to be as seen as respectable, altruistic politicians, so they claim to be working to help everyone while knowingly maintaining an inherently unfair status quo.

I loathe spoiled brats: over-pampered kids brought up to think that their wants and needs will always come first, to the detriment of every other child. Children told by their parents that they are superior and special, and given everything they want without having to care about or share with others. Brats never taught that they are part of a wider social group, but that what they want should always come first, and that every other child in the playground should defer to them, simply because of who they are. Kids never told that it is kinder to share whatever sweets or toys they were given, but that they should hog whatever they have, and that if any other child didn’t have anything, they it was their loss. I loathe such spoiled, arrogant children, raised without the humility and humanity those of us with wiser, more worldly parents were brought up to have. It wouldn’t be a problem, yet when such youngsters grow up, they assume they are leaders of society: they think it’s their birthright to tell everyone what to do and how to act; and that the selfishness and arrogance they were brought up to have is just normal and natural. And if you need a classic example of such a brat, now in a position they are completely unfit to be in, yet still thinks they have a right to it simply due to who they are and the family they were born into, look no further than our current Prime Minister, and indeed the entire Tory party.

I heard in the news earlier that Dunfermline in Scotland has now become a city. Strangely, this is one of those quirky little issues that interests me: it throws up suite a few interesting questions, first and foremost what is the difference between a town and a city? If it’s a question of population, then where do you put the cut off point: one million? Two? Of course, it used to come down to whether or not a place had a cathedral, but that seems too outdated and religious to me. Instead I would like to suggest a new couple of possible definitions: firstly, it seems to me that any decent city would have an international airport, so perhaps that should be part of the definition of any modern city. Secondly, any decent liveable city these days has to have its own rail system, otherwise how can anyone get around? Then again, how large a network would a place need to justify calling itself a city? A hundred station? Two? And thirdly, how can anywhere claim to be a modern world city if it has not hosted the Olympic Games at least once? Then again, under that criterion,  somewhere like New York would have to be called a town, something which I think New Yorkers would have a problem with. However you frame it, then, the difference between a town and a city is a pretty arbitrary one, essentially boiling down to an issue of pride. The desire to be classified as a city is just a matter of a community’s collective ego. At the end of the day what matters most is that a place is comfortable and safe to live in, inhabited by people who get on with one another.

Sundays are usually good days for exploring areas of London like Canary Wharf. Areas like that get very busy during the week, so I like to go and explore them when it’s slightly quieter. As I mentioned a few entries ago, Canary Wharf is an area of London which has begun to intrigue me. Going over there today, however, wasn’t such a great idea: having trundled to Lewisham and taken the DLR, I suddenly found myself surrounded by absolute chaos. I had completely forgotten about the marathon, or rather, I’d forgotten that the marathon ran through that area. There were thousands of people all over the place; getting anywhere through those crowds was going to be a nightmare. Getting across certain roads meant waiting for a break in the stream of runners. Fortunately once I got clear of the throng I was able to have a fairly pleasant roll, but I really must remember to stay home when the marathon is being ran.

Perhaps it’s quite telling that I’ve only just sat down to watch the latest episode of Rings Of Power. Had the series been as good as Amazon promised, no doubt I would have wanted to watch it as soon as it came online. Yet, as I feared, it’s quickly becoming a garbled mess: six episodes in, and there’s not much in the way of a discernible plot, little to nothing has been mentioned about the rings, and episodes just seem to be one gratuitous battle scene after another. I’m afraid I now side with the growing number of Tolkien fans who think this series should never have been created. Of course, I’ll continue to watch it, just because it’s related to my favourite books, and in the hope that it gets better; yet I must say, from what we’ve seen so far, I’m not holding my breath.

No doubt we’re all watching the news coming from Ukraine with absolute horror. Open warfare has returned to Europe for the first time in seventy years, with one country illegally occupying another. The way in which Putin is behaving is stomach-churning, and you would have hoped humanity would have outgrown this sort of despotic crap years ago. Indeed, organisations like the European Union were created precisely to prevent things like this from happening.

Yet that is why Putin made sure Brexit happened, or at least was a major player in underpinning the Leave campaign. He knew he would need to weaken the EU before he could proceed with his imperialistic plans, and tricking the UK into leaving was a major part of that. Others have explained the links between Farage and Putin better than I can; but now that I come to think about it, the conspiracist bullshit Lyn used to listen to around the time of the Brexit Referendum was clearly payed for by Russia. They used to spout all sorts of nonsense about how nasty and oppressive the EU was, but also about how the so-called mainstream media had brainwashed us all into hating Russia, as if it was some kind of benevolent victim rather than an imperialist dictatorship. The emphasis these ‘theorists’ put on Russia’s supposed victimisation combined with how uncritical they were of Russia made the link undeniable.

I don’t know how widespread these nutcases were listened to, but they were obviously being funded by Russia. If they could catch the attention of someone like Lyn, who knows who else was listening to them; and who knows what impact they had on the result of the 2016 referendum? Might other ‘influencers’, such as journalists, also have been in Russia’s pay too? If I’m right, a lot of quite naive people were tricked into voting for something manifestly against their best interests, by people in the pay of an imperial dictatorship. After all, Putin seems very fond of using dubious referendae to get his way: maybe what just happened in Eastern Ukraine should ring a few alarm bells here in the UK. Brexit weakened the EU, opening the door, one way or another, to the madness we’re now witnessing.

‘Callous’ is far too mild a word for these heartless, vindictive, arrogant embarrassments to human civilisation.

Today I came across something which irritates me even more than prams taking up the wheelchair space on a bus, or people perfectly able to climb stairs using lifts: dogs in prams occupying the bus wheelchair space! Would you believe prams – or, rather, things that look like prams but are just boxes with wheels and a handle bar – are now being made specifically for small dogs, presumably so that their owners can pretend their pets are akin to human children. One or two times now, I’ve seen their owners push them onto busses and into the wheelchair space. While I can just about accept buggies for babies might sometimes need a bus wheelchair space, I have to say being prevented from travelling for the sake of a dog, as almost happened earlier today, would really really take the piss.

I don’t have much experience with mental illness, especially severe mental illness, but I just got in from a bus ride to Woolwich where there was a person with clear mental health issues on the bus. From where I was sat their gender was not clear, but they were obviously very upset about something, talking noisily and erratically to themselves.  I can’t help wondering whether anyone should have done something. My fellow passengers left the person alone, but should they have interfered? Had the person had any other kind of disability and been so obviously in trouble, I would hope that they would have been helped. If it was me, say, and my powerchair had broken, I would obviously be grateful for assistance. While the person wasn’t causing any trouble or threatening anyone, perhaps one of my fellow passengers, or even the driver, should just have gone up to them and asked if they were okay. What is the right thing to do in such situations?

I’m very proud of my blog: I’m proud that I’ve now kept it up so long, and that I have managed to update it so regularly. As a writer, I see it as my primary output. Yet, recently, the fact that I have never had anything published has been getting to me a bit: to legitimately call myself a writer, surely I have to have had something printed, published and on book shelves. The fact that I don’t kind of upsets me: does it mean that I am a failure as a writer?

Yet we all know how competitive the publishing industry is. These days, everyone sees their self as a writer vying to get published; everyone sees them self as the next JK Rowling. To be honest, knowing how fickle the publishing industry is has put me off. While I have written a few things of just about printable length, the fact is I’ve not even tried sending them to publishers for fear of rejection. Perhaps it’s an issue of confidence, but I don’t feel good enough.

Besides, the fact is that the only reason anyone might need to have something published is for people to buy it and thus to make money, and, without wanting to go into detail, I am financially secure. Revenue is not the reason I write: I write primarily in order to convey my thoughts and feelings to the wider world. I think it’s important that I tell everyone what life is like for a man with Cerebral Palsy living more or less alone in South London. To serve that purpose, I think a blog is ideal: here I can express myself daily, articulating my thoughts and experiences in short, quick bursts which might otherwise be forgotten. I know my entries aren’t often very long, but anything longer would be less direct and risk getting bogged down.

Can I call myself a writer without having anything published? I think I can – I certainly call myself a blogger. The fact that I haven’t had anything pass a publisher’s scrutiny is still a bit of a point of shame for me though. A few years ago, my friend from university, Alex McMillan, sent me a copy of his first published text, a 250 page book called A Working Class Hero, and part of me feels embarrassed that I haven’t followed him into print. Yet I keep telling myself that that doesn’t mean I’m a failure as a writer. Here, on my weblog, is where I write; it’s where my writing can be read, daily, by just about the entire online world. It might not be writing in the traditional sense: it might not be very long, have had much editing, or gained a publisher’s approval. Yet, through it, I can tell the world who I am: I am a writer.

Sir Michael is at it again…

You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear a Tory actually spout something as deranged as this.