I’ve admitted on here before many times that I’m a huge fan of Star Trek First Contact. Ever since it came out in 1996, it has been my favourite Star Trek film. I find much of the writing and acting in it brilliant. Yet, lying in bed last night thinking about it, it struck me that you have to admit that the whole premise of First Contact is rather silly. It’s a film in which a lone maverick inventor – who just happens to be from Montana – manages to build his own rocket, launch it into space, then somehow fly faster than the speed of light before returning safely to Montana. He does this all with the help of just a single assistant, and we do not see any of the detail about how he designed or constructed his spacecraft, or how he got back safely to Earth.

Yesterday, of course, NASA had to call off / postpone the launch of the first Artemis flight due to technical issues. I had been looking forward to writing something on here about it; about how incredibly exciting it was to watch, and how it marked the dawn of a brilliant new period of space exploration. Yet technical problems are technical problems, and the guys at NASA quite rightly won’t go ahead until they are sure everything is safe. Hopefully we’ll watch the launch later this week, yet it rather puts my favourite science fiction film into context: thousands of people from all over the world have worked on Artemis; it has taken years to get to this stage. The spacecraft is one of the most complex systems they have ever constructed; and it’s only an initial trial run, before we get anywhere near putting boots back on the moon. The idea of a lone maverick inventor coming anywhere close to achieving something similar suddenly seems rather absurd.

Of course, fiction is fiction, so we shouldn’t read too much into it. First Contact is essentially just a fantasy story, at the end of the day. Lying in bed last night though, thinking about what had happened at NASA and how much work they had apparently had to put into creating their new rocket, it just suddenly struck me how silly such films are. Science fiction films such as those in the Star Trek franchise have a tendency to gloss over reality sometimes, and to make things look far easier than they actually would be.I suppose events like yesterday make that all the more clear.

My voice almost got me into deep water yesterday. I was heading out for my trundle. Unusually for a Saturday, I wasn’t wearing my Charlton shirt, but had a blue one on instead. Heading for Woolwich, I passed a group of Charlton fans in their red shirts at a bus stop, obviously waiting for a bus on their way to The Valley. Using my natural voice rather than my communication aid, I shouted something like “Go Charlton!” as I passed, simply as a show of solidarity. That, however, turned out to be a mistake which could potentially have proven catastrophic: one of the men in the group heard me and, probably based on the colour of my shirt, told his friends I was shouting “Millwalll!”

Charlton and Millwall fans are, of course, mortal enemies and there is quite a concerning history of violence between the two groups. Needless to say, at that point I didn’t think it was wise to hang around and decided to press on with my walk. I think I better make an effort to speak more clearly around football fans.

I think I just have to direct everyone here today. Thousands of incredible photographs from the 1960s Apollo moon landings have now been remastered, and they look absolutely incredible. Anyone even vaguely interested in science and human progress will simply be blown away.

I think I should just congratulate everyone getting their GCSE results today. As many other people are saying, it has been an incredibly tough couple of years, and the teenagers doing their exams this year had to work even harder than most. That, though, makes me wonder: how would I have coped? I did my GCSEs in a normal year, with none of the pandemic restraints students have had to endure. Of course, my GCSE years were far from normal: I went to a special school where, for various reasons, students weren’t pushed as hard as they might have been. It was more or less only due to my pushy parents that I managed to get the standard five C’s. Yet what if I had to endure a pandemic too? What was school like for students with disabilities these last two years? No doubt they would have had to push even harder; perhaps it proved too much for some and they decided not to bother. I certainly hope not.

Thus, if anyone reading this got their results today, you have my heartfelt congratulations. You have been through so much, and have already demonstrated that you can do anything you put your minds to.

I would certainly argue that there are certain scenes or types of scene in film which are best experienced at the cinema. Scenes which draw you into a film, so that you can’t take your eyes off the screen: think car chases in Bond films, or long, sweeping shots of star ships in science fiction films. Of course you can watch such things on smaller screens at home, but it simply doesn’t do them justice.

I would include the battle sequences in the Lord of the Rings among such scenes. What Peter Jackson did with such moments in his trilogy is truly incredible. You can’t fail to get drawn into the action. Yet to experience everything which is happening on the screen, to appreciate every little detail, surely it is best watched in a cinema, the entire screen dominating your view and the audio filling your ears: you start to feel like you’re actually there.

I saw another trailer for Amazon’s Rings Of Power series earlier today. To be honest I couldn’t make out much: the series looks like it will centre on a character they are referring to as Galadriel, but who, as far as I can make out, bears little resemblance to the Lady of Lorien. I would need to brush up on my Second Age Lore to comment much further though. However, one thing I found noteworthy was the fact that the trailer appeared extremely battle-heavy – there seemed to be quite a lot of action or battle scenes in it, as if the guys at Amazon had assumed that the best way to entice viewers to watch their new show was to include a lot of battle scenes.

If that is so then they have missed the point entirely. The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings weren’t just about battles: at their core, the books (and films) were about characters like Bilbo, Frodo and Sam, and the journeys they took. The battles were peripheral: they were secondary elements which Jackson opted to emphasise in his adaptations because they would be highly cinematic. He knew how awesome it would look to have a thousand Rohirrim charge across a cinema screen, or to see Ents throwing pieces of Orthanc around.

Yet the key term here is ‘cinematic’. Jackson made these films specifically for the cinema, which is why he payed so much attention to things like the battle scenes. They are supposed to be watched in darkened rooms on huge screens. Only there can we appreciate the awesomeness of the battle scenes. The Amazon series, on the other hand, is being created for an online streaming service. It is going to be watched on televisions, computer screens and maybe even mobile phones. On such small-screened devices, viewers just won’t have the same experience.

If the guys at Amazon think the Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings were all about epic battles, and that it was the battle scenes which made the films so successful, then they are gravely, gravely mistaken. They have misread the whole phenomenon. These two stories were about people, not violence; characters overcoming massive barriers, not just two groups of people fighting one another. I fear the tale Amazon now intends to tell will have the most ephemeral relationship with Tolkien’s writing, and just be a blurry, gruesome, violent insult to his work. No doubt it will use the characters and places he invented, but seek to be as commercial as possible, hurling battle scene after battle scene at us in order to keep viewers coming back. Where peter jackson quite successfully adapted two fully-formed works of literature, as I touched upon here, “While Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are fairly coherent narratives, much of the rest of Tolkien’s work is composed of shorter pieces which, taken together, form a very rich, detailed history of his created world. I fear these will be much more difficult to translate to the screen, small or big, meaning any director or producer will inevitably need to take liberties with the source material. The danger is too many liberties will be taken: Amazon will be dying to capitalize on and emulate the success of the New Line films, so they will stretch Tolkien’s work as far as possible, and possibly too far.”

It now looks like Amazon simply wants to use this fragmentary history simply as a loose basis for a narrative with which it can hurl battle scene after battle scene at us, dropping in the occasional, probably wholly misplaced, reference to Tolkien just so that they can claim it has a link to it. Amazon also seems to desperately want to replicate the aesthetic / mise en scene of the New Line films, yet does not seem to realise that cinema is fundamentally different to streaming. Of course I’m only basing this assessment on a trailer so I could be wrong; yet I am now very concerned that Amazon are simply producing the most commercial, derivative violent pap possible, and trying to tie it to Jackson’s films just to give it a successful springboard. If that is indeed the case, then as someone who has loved Tolkien all his life, I am very concerned indeed.

I vaguely remember once writing that, in my opinion, the only thing possibly more awesome than the queen parachuting out of a helicopter with James Bond was manned space flight. Of course I was being a little tongue in cheek, but I suppose there was a grain of truth to it: the exploration of space is humanity’s primary objective, and absolutely nothing can be more incredible.

That’s why I am so excited that we are returning to the moon. With the first unmanned Artemis mission scheduled for next week, things are about to get very cool indeed. To be honest I think the excitement I felt about Bond’s appearance at the Olympics or the reunion of Monty Python pales into insignificance when I think about what will soon unfold: the first manned extra orbital space mission in half a century; the sight of people once again walking on the moon, live before our eyes. As incredible as such events were, at least for me, humanity’s return to the moon will be on another level entirely. Surely it will be the most epic event in a generation, or even two, going far beyond any ceremony, festival or show possibly could. And the fact that the Artemis programme will be spaced out over fifteen years makes it even better; I can’t wait to watch these flights take place. It seems that I have something new to look forward to; something far more incredible than anything we’ve seen before.

If you don’t watch anything else on Youtube today, I really think this piece of political satire is worth checking out. While something seems to be up with the dubbing, it’s an extremely strong critique of the Tory party. I don’t want to say too much about it, but let you watch it and draw your own conclusions. Sarcastic and biting, to be honest it has been quite some time since I last saw a political party get attacked as harshly as this, but most of it is absolutely spot on. If this is in any way an indication of widespread popular opinion and the anger people now feel towards the Tories – and I really hope it is – then the Tories are doomed.

Yesterday, it must be said, turned out to be quite an awesome day. As I often do on Saturdays, I headed over to Charlton to see if anything was happening in the park. I had hopes of seeing some cricket, but thought it may have been a little late in the season. If there wasn’t a match on, I would have carried on down to woolwich to see if anything was happening there. As luck would have it, though, I got to the park just as a match was about to begin, and my favourite team, the Blackheath Mighty Eights, were playing. All of a sudden it felt like old times – that was my afternoon sorted.

The match went really well: you simply can’t beat the feeling of being among friends, whom you have now known for years, sat at the edge of a cricket pitch, watching them go out and play. The camaraderie among those guys is wonderful: they are all reasonably intelligent young men who play off one another. They are all friends and tease each other; sooner or later someone goes to buy some beer and the fun really starts. Yesterday, Blackheath batted first and set a target of 157 – a very respectable score. They know me rather well these days, so I sit with them and watch them, talking to them about all kinds of things as they help me sip my drinks. My good friend James wasn’t playing yesterday due to an injury, but about mid-afternoon he came to watch, accompanied by his wife and very cute nine-month-old son. It was great to see him and catch up, and for the rest of the afternoon we sat together, talking, drinking, and watching the Eights get their opposition out for about 105, and thus earn a convincing victory.

I’ve now been going to Charlton Park for over twelve years. When I was living with Lyn, of course, I went there almost every day. That park, and indeed that whole area, still holds a great deal of emotional weight for me and probably always will. I have so many memories in that park and the roads and lanes around it: of buying groceries at the Co-Op, of helping out at Charlton Park School, of going to meetings at Charlton House. Charlton was once a huge part of my life, and I’m glad that going to watch cricket matches there, surrounded by good friends, keeps my link to that little suburb alive.

Probably the best news I can note here today is that GB News could be going bankrupt, just a year after it launched. I got wind of it’s demise via Facebook, so don’t have anything substantial I can link to yet, but if you ask me any channel which gives the scumbag Farage a platform needs to be taken off air. Free speech and toleration of different opinions are great concepts of course, but as I wrote here when GB News launched, such ‘news’ channels actively work to divide communities and stir up animosities. A British equivalent of Fox News was the last thing we needed, so although I never watched it, I’m not sorry to see it go.

I was just on Youtube looking for a clip of Cartman saying ‘Respect my authority’ for the entry I posted earlier, and I quite randomly came across this rather interesting video about disability representation in South Park. It’s only twenty minutes long, but it goes into quite a bit of depth: despite it’s reputation for vulgarity, South Park was actually quite progressive in terms of it’s representation of minorities, including people with disabilities. Yes, it took the piss, but it took the piss out of everyone; and when you actually examine how people with disabilities were represented in South Park, it is actually quite cool, and indeed intelligent. It was unafraid to say things and expose truths which other programs may have shied away from.

This definitely seems apt today.

Gosh, he really does look self-important in this picture, doesn’t he? His face says it all: “I’m at Eton! I am elite! Respect my authority!” How apt that Johnson will just be remembered as one of the most epic failures in British political history.

Today I’d just like to outline a new urban problem which has recently cropped up, as well as to suggest a new term for it: two wheeled litter. I have recently kept seeing bikes lying around everywhere, on pavements and patches of grass. Not just any bikes, but a specific brand of green and white delivery bike. At first I just ignored them, but a few days ago I heard that they were part of a new business where people could rent bikes and then just leave them anywhere. Someone from the company would then come and pick the bike up.

This wouldn’t be a problem, but I keep seeing these bicycles all over the city. They are starting to make places look untidy, and I can see a point where paths start to become blocked. Of course anyone on two feet could just walk around them, but I can see this new two wheeled litter becoming a bit of a problem for guys like me.

I was chatting to my old friend Esther a bit earlier. She’s fine. During our conversation, she told me that she still works at South Cheshire College, the very further education college where I first met her almost twenty years ago. This made me slightly curious, so naturally I tapped the college name into Youtube and found this. The new college building looks amazing I must say: it even has a bar and a barbershop. It looks very, very different to the place I went to. Yet when I remember that SCC was where my journey to university began, which would then lead to me meeting Lyn and eventually moving to London, I still get a warm feeling. I wonder whether they have any students like me there at the moment.

Like any sensible, educated person, I feel that violence should be avoided at all costs. It should only be used as a last resort, wherever possible: surely there is always an alternative to war, bloodshed, pain and death. Yet I’ve just been watching the news, and today marks a year since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan. Watching events unfold there, I have to wonder, how can we just sit back and watch these religious nutcases wreck a country? The reports coming out of Afghanistan are shocking, with women being totally stripped of their rights, children as young as seven being sold into marriage with one another by their families. While I know how vital it is to respect other cultures, I also see this as an example of the damage religion can do to humanity, and why such zealotry must be eradicated, whatever form it takes. Say what you like about the 2001 invasion in the first place, given that it was the West’s withdrawal from Afghanistan which invited the Taliban to take back control, I just think surely we now have a responsibility to go back and once again relieve these religious nutters from power.

Nobody knows who wrote this originally, but it’s doing the rounds on the web and definitely strikes me as apt.

I wouldn’t call myself a fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, but it’s one of those big, international events which pulls everyone together which interests me; a big show full of pomp and ceremony which can reveal a lot about how a city or country wants to present itself to the rest of the world. While I think it’s fabulous that it’s going to be hosted in the UK next year, I must say I’m quite bemused to hear that London isn’t in the running to be the host city. As reported here by the Beeb, “The shortlist of UK cities that could host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest has been revealed, with seven locations in the running. Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield will vie to stage the event in May. Twenty cities expressed an interest, the BBC said, and those not making the shortlist include London and Belfast.” I can’t help raising an eyebrow upon hearing that. Surely London is the obvious choice: we already have the infrastructure in place. One of the obvious possible venues would be the O2, which has a capacity of thousands, good if not great public transport and is well used to hosting mega events. Are there any similar venues anywhere else in the country?

Of course, it could be argued that London has hosted so many large, international events, it’s about time somewhere else got a turn. I certainly think that’s a valid point: as the UK’s capital city and largest metropolis by far, I think London is a bit of a default venue for such events. Perhaps it’s time somewhere else got a turn on centre stage – after all, look how well Birmingham just did hosting the Commonwealth Games.

Yet I still think London would be the logical, sensible option, simply due to the infrastructure the capital already has; we have the experience and cultural gravitas here, and a Eurovision Song Contest hosted by London would surely have been incredible. Perhaps I’m slightly biassed having lived here for twelve years, but I can’t help feeling slightly bemused that the capital is already out of the running for this. The drive to ‘level up’ the country and let other towns and cities have a bit of the limelight is all well and good, but might it have caused the UK to miss a trick in the process?

Everyone knows about the Thames. When you think about London and rivers, the Thames is probably the first thing which comes to mind. It’s London’s biggest, most well known river; the waterway London is famous for. Yet people often forget that there are many more rivers and streams around Greater London than just the Thames.

For one there’s an entire canal system. While perhaps not as advanced as the canal networks of Venice or Amsterdam, London’s canals are a charming relic of a long gone past. Running behind houses and through parks, they weave throughout the metropolis, slightly hidden but there nonetheless if you care to look. On them you will discover a blossoming riverboat culture which you would never realise existed, if you didn’t come across it like I did. In the north-east of the city especially, there is an entire labyrinth of waterways to explore: canals, streams and even fully-formed rivers like the Lea, waiting to be walked along.

And I can. Largely thanks to the restoration work of recent times, most of these waterways now have very accessible, perfectly flat towpaths running beside them, meaning I can trundle in my powerchair along them for hours. As I wrote here, one of my favourites is to start over the Thames from the O2 at the mouth of the Lea, and go all the way up, through Cody Dock and past the Amazon warehouse, to Stratford and sometimes beyond. There is an intricate network of streams and canals there, many created over two centuries ago and possessed of rich histories, begging to be explored.

A lot is said about London’s transport system. There are obviously roads everywhere, and it’s underground train network is one of the most famous and well-developed in the world. Yet before any of them were the canals, down which barges, usually pulled by horses, plied their trade setting the foundations for a metropolis and a nation. Such waterways remain, fragments of a long-superseded past yet still bustling with activity. Yesterday, for instance, I saw a bit of the Regent’s Canal, which first began to be dug in 1812. These days it’s a quiet little waterway running for miles across north London in a semicircle. While it once bustled with trade, it still bustles with activity: people living in barges, small cafes set up on the bankside, even one or two book shops. It’s a wonderful, thriving community which is often strangely forgotten about; a fragment of a quickly fading past which is nonetheless still there, helping to give London the rich character and diversity I love it for. And when I reached Camden, I was awe-struck that such a quirky little area, so full of life, could exist without me even having known about it before.

My explorations, it seems, have barely began.

I just checked my blog archive, and I find myself wanting to re-type this entry today, pretty much word for word. It’s my brother Mark’s birthday again today, and just like last year I find myself struggling to come up with something to say here due to the extreme heat. It has still been too long since I saw Mark and his family – years, in fact. Of course we talk over the web quite frequently, but even then Mark’s appearances on the weekly family Skype call seem to be growing rarer and rarer, he’s so busy these days. While I met my parents up in Stratford yesterday for a lovely lunch, it now seems far too long since all my family were in one place, largely due to the pandemic. Now that has subsided, it’s probably high time that we started to organise a family get together. Lots of families like mine will be in a similar position, so family reunion organisers must be making a fortune.

Happy birthday Mark, have a great day.

When I was four or five, one of my favourite videos was the Snowman. I used to sit in our front room for hours, demanding my parents rewound it and played it over and over again, bawling my eyes out every time it came to an end. Thus to mark the sad news of the death of Snowman animator Raymond Briggs, I’d just like to direct everyone here.

I know I once said that I wouldn’t use my blog just to link to random Youtube videos that I’ve found, but I have to say this one strikes me as interesting enough for an entry. As someone interested in language and communication, I’ve always been fascinated by etymologies and where words come from. This video looks into Geordie and where the Newcastle accent comes from. It’s far richer than you might at first assume: there are fragments of Norse in there, old English, French, Gypsy…. It’s well worth a look.

I was out yesterday evening at a very nice grill at Mitchell’s place in Brockley, so I didn’t watch the commonwealth games closing ceremony. I just caught up with it, but to be honest I can’t say that I found anything about it particularly noteworthy here. It was basically one long concert, although I wouldn’t have necessarily associated most of the acts involved with Birmingham. (Ozzy Osborne perhaps, but he’s more of an American these days.)

I have to raise an eyebrow, though, at the fact there’s now talk of a Birmingham Olympic bid. I suppose it’s only natural that now Birmingham has hosted one multi sport event, it would want to try its hand at another, even bigger version. But are such ambitions realistic? I don’t want to come across as patronising or big headed here, but from what I have heard over the past couple of days, Birmingham seems to suddenly be referring to itself as a great world city, the peer of London or Paris. Of course, by all accounts they did a terrific job with these commonwealth games, but the Olympic Games are another order of magnitude entirely. Only places with the infrastructure and transport systems of cities like London have their bids accepted, which is famously why New York has never hosted the games. Thus I have to say that I think this recent success has lead Birmingham to get slightly ahead of itself. As a born northerner, I also think that, if any uk city is going to bid for the Olympic Games within the next twenty years, surely it should be Manchester.

One of the things I love the most about London is it’s architecture, and how it’s buildings vary so much from area to area. Before I moved here, I assumed London would be boring, just like an average British town only bigger. Living here, though, has made me appreciate London, and buildings like the Dome, Shard and Gherkin. One of my favourite buildings in the capital is Shakespeare’s Globe, and how the recreation of a seventeenth-century playhouse sits sweetly by the Thames.

John and I were there again yesterday. He’s visiting me again, and I think wanted a bit of culture. Just before the pandemic hit, we watched The Merry Wives of Windsor there. This time, instead of a comedy, we saw The Tempest, one of the great tragedies. That, in itself, was a thrill for me: The Tempest was one of the Shakespeare plays I studied at school at both GCSE and A-level, but I had never seen it live. Thus to watch it properly, in the round among the groundlings was a real treat. Sat there watching the action unfold before me felt like I was being reacquainted with an old friend.

I thought the performance itself was great. Those guys really know how to act, although the initial sight of the guy playing Prospero in rather skimpy swimming trunks came as a bit of a shock. I must say, too, that this time I didn’t have the best views, as there were people standing right in front of me for most of the performance. Those things aside, though, it really was a fantastic thing to do on a sunday afternoon, and I feel so fortunate to live in a fantastic metropolis where such joys are so readily at hand. The Isle is indeed full of wonders.

I couldn’t agree more

Alex Jones really is an embarrassment to human civilisation, isn’t he? Apart from an odd glimpse, I’d never really seen him ‘in action’ before – I try to avoid such nutcases. But I just saw a news report on the Sandy Hook trial which Jones was involved in, and the guy is an utter dick. He was found guilty of spewing bullshit, and ordered to pay $60m for falsely claiming that the Sandy Hook massacre was a set-up. Yet to watch Jones act, you would think he was the victim: he was trying to squirm and twist things to make it sound as if he had been right all along, he was in charge of things and everyone else was out to get him. We see precisely the same behaviour in Donald Trump: Jones, like Trump, is an ultra-privileged white male who vastly overestimates his own intellect and who has had far too much media attention for his own good. And like Trump, Jones is an embarrassment which humanity could well do without.

Apart from the odd highlight, I haven’t been watching much of the Commonwealth Games. Ironically given my interest in the Olympics, athletics isn’t really my thing. However, for me the interesting thing about these games is that the ‘ordinary’ events and the para-events are being held at the same time. Of course, at the olympics, the paralympics happens after the olympics, so they are two separate events, each with their own opening and closing ceremonies. But with these Commonwealth Games everything happens at once, so we see able-bodied athletes competing alongside disabled athletes, albeit in separate sports / categories.

That interests me as it rather changes the dynamic. I think there is a debate to be had over which is better: is it better in terms of the representation of disability for para-athletes to have their own event, or for everyone to compete at the same time? To be honest I’m not sure. One of the great things about London 2012 is that it really foregrounded the disability community, in the UK at least. It was aired on Channel Four whereas the Olympics aired on the Beeb, so it felt really distinct and separate. Channel Four really made an effort to give the Paralympics it’s own set of shows such as The Last Leg, so it really felt just as important as the Olympics, rather than a tagged on afterthought.

With the current games in Birmingham everything is happening simultaneously, so Para-athletes and sports are not getting that foregrounding. Thus on the one hand all the athletes are competing side by side, making them all feel as central to the action as each other; on the other hand, we loose the enormity of having a distinct Pararlympic games. It’s thus a bit of a case of swings and roundabouts, and I’m not sure which model I prefer.

I have no idea where this picture was taken so I can’t verify it, but as a big fan of Sam Gamgee and as someone who has loved the potato scene ever since Dad read it to me, I really hope someone put this sign up in a supermarket somewhere.

I love it. It just goes to show what a big part of popular culture those films (and books) have now become.

I really want to flag this remarkable story up today. “Brazilian twins who were joined at the head have been successfully separated with the help of virtual reality.Three-year-olds Bernardo and Arthur Lima underwent surgeries in Rio de Janeiro, with direction from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.” That such a procedure could be performed at all is amazing in itself, of course, but what strikes me most about it was how international the effort was. Doctors from all around the world worked together to prepare for and conduct a twenty-seven hour operation in which a hundred people were involved. Mostly working over the web, they combined the knowledge and expertise of dozens of professionals to save the two boys. For me, surely the biggest thing we can take from this is the importance of cooperation: nationality didn’t matter to these professionals; what mattered was helping the boys, irrespective of where they were from. Surely that is how all medicine and science should be conducted. I have long felt that humanity should start seeing beyond borders, beyond nationality and start working together. This is a prime example of that principal in action.

As a Star Trek fan, I think it would be remiss of me not to note the sad death of Nichelle Nichols. The truth is, having been born in 1983, I am one of those Trekkies who came to Star Trek through The Next Generation, and never really watched The Original Series. However, I know full well the cultural impact TOS had, and that the importance casting of Nichols as part of the command crew of the Enterprise cannot be over-stated. For Gene Roddenberry to show a society as racially divided as America was in the sixties a vision of the future where black people could hold just as much status and authority as white people was truly commendable. Thus what Nichols did by appearing on the series was nothing less than revolutionary: it was a game changer, the impact of which is still being felt today.

Alas, we have lost another of the greats. Of course, I know the character Uhura primarily through the Star Trek films which came out in the Eighties. Yet those films were a huge part of my childhood: I love them, and how the crew kind of played off one another while retaining their own characteristics, rather like a family. That crew is now slowly leaving us, one by one, but they leave behind a cultural legacy which is surely beyond comparison.

Quite a bit is being said in the news at the moment about climate change, but the crisis was really driven home for me yesterday. I was out for my trundle in Greenwich Park yesterday afternoon, and it was like I was rolling through a field of hay or straw. Ordinarily the park is fairly green, but the grass looked completely parched, with several dusty paths weaving through it. To be honest it was quite alarming, especially given how green and resplendent the park usually is. It looked like it hadn’t have a drop of rain in weeks or even months; it really was a shocking, even horrifying sight. And of course, it’s the same situation in every other park and patch of grass around here. Such stark sights really make the climate crisis clear, and I think we should all be very concerned.

I just came across this. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but if this is the way things are going under the tories, we should all be very worried for the future of the NHS.

I had planned to write a reaction entry to last night’s commonwealth games opening ceremony in Birmingham today, but all I can say is “meh”. I sat down to watch it expecting something I could get my teeth into, but it turned out to be rather dull. Don’t get me wrong: there were some good bits, like the huge puppet bull and the Union Jack made from cars, but apart from that it wasn’t very interesting. Apparently it was supposed to tell some kind of story, but without the TV commentary that wasn’t at all clear. Frankly, pretty soon into it I found my mind wandering off to other things. There was nothing which thrilled me, no moments of awesomeness. And then it just ended with three rather lacklustre songs by Duran Duran, a band nobody has been particularly interested in for about thirty years.

Sorry Birmingham, but this was no follow-up, no long-awaited second album to London 2012. To be fair I know this show may not have had the budget London did, but my overall impression was that it was not as spectacular as it could have been. This was Birmingham’s opportunity to shine, but I don’t think it really did.

To my left is a book shelf. On it I have an array of books and DVDs, including my James Bond and Lord of the Rings box sets, as well as my copies of Dune, Lacan’s Ecrites and Ian Fleming’s biography. I know that if I wanted to, I just have to go over to the shelf and take a book down to read it, or ask someone to pop a DVD into the player to watch it. My collection will remain there for as long as I want it, and to add to it I simply have to trundle out to the shops to buy a text I want, or failing that order it online. It would then be mine to read or watch indefinitely. Simple.

Or that’s how things were until recently. These days online streaming is getting more and more popular. Of course, streaming has definite advantages, especially for people like me: instead of needing to ask my PA to put a disk in the drive, to watch a film I now just need to go to a streaming website and select the film I want to watch. The thing is, there are more and more streaming services on the web – Amazon, Netflix, Disney etc… – so to watch a specific film you need an account with one of those websites. If you don’t have an account you can’t watch the film; and you can only have an account if you pay a (usually monthly) subscription. Your ability to watch a specific filmic text is therefore no longer as simple as owning a DVD, but depends on which streaming services you’re subscribed to and your ability to pay. That has, in my opinion, reduced rather than opened up our access to film.

For example, I just came across a reference to a new Beavis and Butt-Head film, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe. I used to love Beavis and Butt-Head, so was interested to see their return to the screen. I was also in the mood for some inane puerile humour, so I punched the title into Google and found it was available to watch on Amazon. That would have been fine as I can access Amazon, but when I clicked on the link I was told I could only watch the film if I was signed up to Paramount Plus, which would cost me seven quid a month after a first free week. This I was loathe to do: subscribing to more and more streaming services would just cost me more and more, and end up spiralling out of control. It would also mean paying for content, the vast majority of which I have no interest in watching. I thus couldn’t watch the film: it had not been released on DVD or in any other format, and could only be viewed via Paramount.

In theory streaming is great: having access to films over the web should make them more available than ever before. Only, the streaming system is becoming more and more monetised; putting films behind online paywalls makes them harder to watch, and once you have watched them you can’t actually keep them to watch again in a few weeks or months unless you keep up your subscription. Such sites have effectively made themselves gatekeepers for certain – usually very popular – films. It kind of makes me miss DVDs: at least they remain on your shelf, indefinitely, rather than having to pay a plethora of different companies again and again, whenever you want to watch a certain film. DVDs might not be as convenient as watching a film online, particularly for the likes of me, but, like books, they are single, specific texts rather than bundles of films and shows, most of which you might not be interested in. Once you have bought a DVD it remains yours, and you don’t have to keep paying a company which may have played no role in their creation, whenever you want to watch them.

Ten years ago this evening we all saw something which, for me at least, put it beyond all doubt that the potential for awesomeness in life is infinite. We saw something so cool, so epic, that I still get a thrill from thinking about it to this day; something which would have been seen as unthinkable before it actually happened. Ten years ago this evening, James Bond 007 was shown to escort Queen Elizabeth the Second in a helicopter to Stratford in order for her to open the London 2012 Olympic Games. It was an absolutely breathtaking cultural moment, and no doubt most of us remember where we were when we first saw it. A bit like September 11, then, that moment can be seen as a type of temporal anchor: a demarkation point in time with a discernible ‘before’ and ‘after’.

To be honest though, thinking about that evening I can’t help feeling very mixed emotions. So much has happened since then, I won’t even try to summarise it. I vividly remember watching the 2012 opening ceremony, lying on the blue sofa in the living room of Lyn’s bungalow in Charlton. When the short film involving the Queen and Bond started, I suddenly sat up straight, as if I could sense something incredible was about to happen. I then remember my mouth gaping open in amazement and awe as one of cinema’s greatest characters was shown to fly with the reigning monarch across the city, climaxing with a union jack emblazoned parachute jump nobody could ever have expected. It struck me as incredible, and I became instantly obsessed.

Yet now, of course, that old two seat sofa, which I once spent so much time lying on, is no longer there. Lyn isn’t there, and that life in that happy little bungalow has ended. That’s why my memories of that night fill me with such mixed emotions. Add to that the fact that Lyn herself participated in the Paralympic closing ceremony – something absurdly incredible in itself – and you see why my emotions are so conflicted today; my memories so bittersweet.

This evening London celebrates the tenth anniversary of an event the likes of which I doubt it will see again in my lifetime. In 2012 London performed before the entire world and showed the world how awesome it is. To have been living here in London that year was a privilege of a lifetime. In one sense it seems like just yesterday, yet in another it seems an age ago, so much has happened, so much has changed since then. The person I was watching the ceremony with that evening is no longer here, tinging my memories with a sorrow I doubt I’ll ever get over.

I’ve just come across something which is utterly, utterly chilling. This short documentary appeared today on BBC Iplayer. It’s about the treatment of disabled young people in Ukraine, who are locked away in institutions for years and just neglected. I defy anyone to watch it and not feel both heartbroken and appalled. Most are starving to death and barely let out of their cots, yet with the right support and equipment could probably live full, productive lives. Or to put it another way, here I am in my own flat, dinner in the oven and powerchair on charge; but that could so easily have been me, left to rot in a filthy dormitory with no way to communicate. I find this film extremely disturbing and extremely hard to watch. That such horrors are still happening anywhere in the world is truly chilling.

I have nothing to say about last night. I didn’t even try to watch the TV debate between Sunak and Truss because I knew it would just wind me up and get me throwing things at my screen; and having just seen a few clips of it on breakfast TV, I think I was right to do so. The show appears to have been acrimonious and bitter. The clips I just saw were a display of two spoiled, overgrown schoolchildren squabbling over things which neither has any real idea about. Why would I have any interest in watching that, especially given that I have no say in the outcome of this contest? If you ask me neither Sunak nor Truss are in any way fit to become Prime Minister. What we need is a general election. That way the whole country can decide who leads us, rather than a group of spoiled, selfish, toffee-nosed scumbags. Only, the Tories won’t hold one anytime soon because they know they would probably loose it, and they are desperate to cling to power for as long as possible.

The overground may have it’s uses after all. I was out and about again today. As I’ve said before, I go up to Stratford fairly often, but today I wanted to see how the ten year anniversary of the Olympic Games was being marked. As usual I got the jubilee line up there, and then looked around the Olympic park a bit. I found there was a small event happening, but it wasn’t very exciting so I pressed on north intending to explore a part of the park I had never seen before. A few weeks ago I had gone that way with John, and we had seen two large lakes which I wanted to find again.

The paths in that area are the kind of paths which just make me want to go on and on. They are flat and smooth, winding through parks and across charming little rivers. Following them you soon forget that you are anywhere near a metropolis. They take you further and further north, further and further from Stratford.

I rolled forward like that for quite a while, until I suddenly realised that I had no idea how to get home. Simply retracing the path wasn’t really an option, and would take too long. I told myself to stay calm and look for a bus back to Stratford. Leaving the lakes I found a road, and found myself in a place called Tottenham Hale. I had never heard of it before, and still had no idea where I was. Luckily though, I soon found a bus station, and then a train station adjoining it. With a bit of luck I would be able to get some kind of transport back to Stratford.

Which is basically what happened: I requested help at the desk, told the staff there where I needed to go, and soon found myself being escorted onto an overground train platform. To my surprise, though, I soon found the train heading through open countryside – had I really gone that far? Nonetheless, about twenty minutes later I found myself back at Stratford, feeling quite relieved and making a beeline for the Jubilee Line, eager to get home. I had at last used London’s overground train service though, and it had worked without a hitch: the train was on time, and the staff put out the ramps with no problem. Now I know I can use it perfectly well, I won’t be so apprehensive about using the overground.

First, though, I’m going to Google where Tottenham Hale is.

I’m suddenly rather excited. I just turned my computer on and came across this, the trailer for the third and (probably) final season of Picard. It looks like the whole cast of Star Trek The Next Generation are getting back together for one last fling. The minute-long trailer does not tell us much, and is just a montage of appearances from the old characters, but nonetheless it is very enticing. I wonder whether any of those actors thought they would still be performing in Star Trek when they took up those roles forty years ago.

According to this Radio Times article, the new season will hit the airwaves next year, so it’s definitely something I’ll be looking forward to. Star Trek TNG was such a big part of my childhood and adolescence, seeing the entire crew of the Enterprise D back together one last time will be such a treat.

Today I decided to resolve something which had been bugging me for a couple of weeks. First though, let me say that I know Saturday was not the best day to do something like this as the London transport system is always chaos at weekends, but I wanted something to do and it was a sunny day. When I tried going to Wimbledon a couple of weeks ago, I chose to go on the tram because the tube looked too complicated with too many changes. Looking at the underground map a couple of days later though, I saw that that was nonsense: I would just have to get the Jubilee Line to Westminster, and the District Line from there. All the stations I’d need were marked as accessible.

That, then, is what I did this afternoon simply to see whether I could, and it could hardly have been more straightforward. Apart from a short, unexplained delay on the Jubilee line, getting there was no problem at all. Once there I had a short look around, found Wimbledon Common (but sadly didn’t see any wombles) before setting off back home. The entire outing, there and back, took about four hours.

There isn’t much more I can report really, although I have to say that trips like this do wonders for my confidence. London once felt so vast to me, but it now seems smaller and smaller. I know I can get around and go where I want. Not all stations are accessible, but that just means I need to be organised and work out an accessible route. And besides, as I wrote here a couple of entries ago, progress is constantly being made on that front. You know, as I think I’ve said before, if I had been told, aged eighteen or so, that I would one day be living independently in London and roaming the city on my own, I wouldn’t have believed it; as a disabled young man I had no idea what I would be capable of. Yet here I am, the metropolis my oyster – although, ironically enough, I have never owned an Oyster Card – constantly exploring more of this wondrous, vibrant city. It just goes to show, you can never rule anything out.

I just woke from a nasty, horrible dream – the type of dream you feel relieved to wake from, and to find they are in fact just dreams. In it, me and my younger brother Luke were kicking the shit out of one another. Luke was being nasty to me, taunting me and winding me up just for fun, and I was trying to kill him for it. It got really brutal. For some reason we were in Greenwich Park with the rest of our family. The thing is, I rarely see Luke these days, except on the weekly Skype call. He has matured into a kind, extremely hard working man who loves his wife dearly; I have the greatest respect for him, and know he would never try to taunt me or beat me up (except to threaten to put me in a plastic bag and roll me down a hill, but that’s another story). I therefore have no idea why I would have such a horrific dream, so I just want to say: Luke, if you’re reading this bro, I’m thinking of you. I know you’re insanely busy with work these days, but it has been far too long since we met for a chat, a meal and perhaps a drink.

The same goes for my other brother Mark, for that matter. I suppose the last two years have driven families like mine further apart; it’s also probably an inevitable consequence of time, as both my brothers now have their own lives and families to tend to. Yet, bloody violent though it was, dreams like the one I just woke from remind you that your siblings still exist, that they are important, and that sooner or later you’ll have to do something to get them all together again.

I’m now pretty good at getting around London on the bus, and I use the tube quite often, but the one mode of transport I’ve never really got a grip of is the overground. For some reason I have never used it. Of course the main reason for that is because it’s not really accessible: to use it I would need to arrange for ramps to be put out for me, meaning I can’t use it on the spur of the moment. The tube may be far from perfect, but the great thing about more and more stations gradually becoming step free is that I have the option of getting on and off trains on the fly. That isn’t possible with the overground rail network, so I’ve never got to grips with it: I don’t know which lines lead where, as I do with the underground. That to me seems a shame. This metropolis has made a great deal of progress in making it’s public transport accessible for people like me; as far as I can tell, it is leagues ahead of the rest of the country. Yet there are still massive, gaping holes in it’s coverage which I wish TFL would get it’s act together on.