There may be a tendency to zone out after a while when we hear news of the war in Ukraine, but I think things like this really put what Russia is doing there into perspective.

This cannot continue. Russia’s illegal war must be stopped.

I know I shouldn’t simply direct people to random Youtube videos on here, but I’ve recently been wondering why the sport we call football here in the UK and the one they call football in America share the same name, and whether they share their origins. I just tapped ‘American football history’ into Youtube and found this succinct little explanation. Together with Rugby, it seems that they do indeed come from the same, fairly ancient place, the sport most of the world knows as football, but split about 160 years ago. When Rugby split from Football/soccer in 1863, it became popular in America, where they then went on to adapt it to form their own sport. Technically, it should have been known as American Rugby, or by it’s alternative name, Gridiron, but Americans insist on calling it football, causing endless confusion across the globe. That’s why we have three very different sports, all sharing the same name. Just a tidbit of random trivia for a Friday afternoon.

I really need to flag this exciting, space-related news up today. Paralympic sprinter John McFall has been chosen as the first disabled astronaut by the European Space Agency. He lost his lower leg in a motorbike accident when he was nineteen. I think this is great news, and quite a huge step forward for disability representation. At last, people with disabilities are seen as just as capable of participating in the exploration of space as anyone else. Who knows where this will lead: maybe one day people like me will be able to go into orbit too! (mind you, given how I drive my powerchair sometimes, letting me control a multi-billion-dollar rocket may not be a good idea).

I just rewatched a piece of television which I find extremely problematic. It’s the kind of problematic TV which I feel compelled to write something on here about, but don’t want to say much for fear of upsetting anyone or stepping into a political minefield. Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel was broadcast by Channel Four a couple of days ago, and to be honest it rather wound me up. It’s not that I disagree with everything Baddiel says in it; there is no doubt that Jewish people are an oppressed minority who have been treated despicably over the centuries. It’s just the way in which Baddiel seems very enthusiastic indeed to emphasise his Jewishness, as well as to differentiate between Jewish and ‘white’ people puts a nasty taste in my mouth: he seems very keen to label himself, to distance himself from being straight, white, male and able-bodied. Baddiel seems to want to be seen as ‘other’ when the fact remains that he will not have experienced a fraction of the discrimination someone with a physical disability or someone with black skin have had to put up with all our lives.

As I understand it, while it has cultural aspects, Jewishness is a religion: like Christianity or Islam, it is a set of myths one can believe in or not. Thus, unlike having Cerebral Palsy, you can consciously choose to define yourself as Jewish or not. I cannot one day decide not to have CP. The same goes for christianity or islam: they are all sets of iconography which you can choose to observe or not regardless of ones skin colour, sexuality or physical ability. Yet Baddiel somehow claims to be both Jewish and an atheist; he wants Judaism to be seen not as a religion but as a race, and something inherently different from being ‘white’. Putting aside the fact that the concept of race is biologically baseless, I really dislike how keen he seemed to classify himself as other, as if being a straight, white, able-bodied man wasn’t cool any more; it’s far more politically and culturally fashionable these days to be a member of an oppressed, sidelined minority. A guy like Baddiel, however, won’t have faced a fraction of the discrimination disabled guys like myself, gay guys like my pal Serkan or immigrants like my friend Dom have to put up with on a daily basis, so this political stunt, in emphasising an aspect of himself which he could easily keep hidden and which nobody gives a fuck about anyway, seems highly misplaced.

I know I’m a day late, but I think I need to point out that yesterday saw the twenty-sixth anniversary of the release of Star Trek First Contact, the film I wrote the most about in my MA and still one of my favourite films. I still remember going to see it with my family in Stoke: I seem to recall that we weren’t that impressed, although I was really taken with one specific scene…

I wouldn’t really call myself a sports fan. Of course, I enjoy the occasional cricket or football match, but I’ve never been into sports to the extent that I’m into cultural things such as James Bond, Star Trek and the work of Tolkien. I do, however, have a great fascination with sport on a cultural level, as a cultural phenomenon: Sports events have a great, and probably unique, capacity to bring people together. People from all over the world converge onto one spot to support the team or athletes representing their country. The world’s media joins them at such events, so that for a time it seems that the entire world’s attention is focussed onto one geographic spot. This gives places the chance to show them selves to humanity, giving them the opportunity to step onto the world’s stage and big itself up. What interests me is how places use that opportunity to present itself to the world. London had it’s turn with the 2012 Olympics, and we’re currently seeing it happen in Qatar.

In hosting the World Cup, Qatar has the opportunity to hold the World’s attention. By selecting Qatar to host it, FIFA effectively awarded the tiny Middle-Eastern state a form of recognition it probably craved. It’s like when a city is chosen to host the Olympics: in a way it becomes a ‘world city’, a global big-shot. That’s what interests me so much about such decisions: they carry a lot of power, and can say a lot about which places are doing well, or are in the global good books. By giving the world cup to Qatar, however, FIFA has given it a type of global green light; it has given a tiny country with some completely anachronistic human rights laws the okay to behave in front of the world as if it was any other modern, progressive, liberal state. It can perform it’s opening and closing ceremonies for us while brushing the fact that it still has the death penalty and totally regressive LGBTQ laws to one side. It has been asked to join the club of advanced, tolerant democracies which are capable of hosting such events as if the fact that it is a tiny dictatorship doesn’t matter.

To be honest that appalls me, and I can’t help but smell the acrid whiff of corruption behind this selection. FIFA obviously want us to forget about politics and just concentrate on the ball-kicking; yet I don’t think you can disentangle one from the other. By making Qatar the temporary centre of the world’s attention, Football’s governing body implicitly also gave it the world’s approval. While it could be argued that we should respect the views of people in other places and not force our values onto others, I cannot approve of a theocratic dictatorship with utterly abhorrent human rights laws; surely some values must be universal when it comes to global events. Frankly, part of me seriously thinks that the English team should not be there, as we are just implying that we believe such countries have just as much right to global centre stage as anywhere else. While admittedly I’ll probably watch England’s matches just as I watched their match earlier, it will be with a very nasty taste in my mouth. Sport may have a great ability to bring the world together, but as when Berlin hosted the 1936 Olympics, that ability can be usurped and bent towards something far more insidious.

Massive Bond fan that I am, I’m keeping a very close eye on the speculation over who will next play 007. If you ask me, Daniel Craig left two very big shoes to fill: at least four of his five Bond films were smash hits, and his cold, brutal interpretation of the character has surely left a lasting impression on the series. His was the 007 to outplay Le Chiffre, and the one who went rogue and take M to Skyfall. Arguably most stunning of all, Craig’s was the Bond who escorted the late queen to the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, surely securing the phenomenal position of the Bond franchise in our culture. After Craig, it would be harder than ever to argue that the Bond films are just another bit of popular culture; they are very much part of British national identity. How, then, could any actor pick up the baton from him?

Whoever the producers select, they will come under massive media scrutiny. They will have been asked to portray a character who has been part of our culture for over sixty years and to carry on the legacy of twenty-five films and the six actors before them. Frankly given the cultural footprint that the Bond franchise now has, it would be an impossible task; the pressure would be unbearable.

How could anyone possibly follow Craig without being compared to him? It was bad enough when Craig took over from Brosnan. Whoever is chosen, they will be expected to stun us in the way Craig did in Casino Royale. Everyone will be looking forward to being reacquainted with an icon who, by then, we would not have seen for a while, and expecting them to do great, great things. I fear the expectation will be so immense, largely thanks to Craig, that whoever they choose is almost automatically doomed to fail.

There is, however, a solution which quite a few people are now pointing out: Bonds tone needs to change. To avoid any comparison, positive or negative, with Daniel Craig’s Bond films, there needs to be a complete break from them. The franchise needs to be reset, which means any new films have to be totally different from what went before. Whoever next plays Bond needs to give a completely different performance to Craig: where Craig’s 007 was a cold, brutal government assassin, perhaps we now need to see a more jovial, lighter, more humorous character. After all, as I found when I watched the series in order, portrayals of Bond have always changed – it’s one of the things which makes the series so interesting.

Thus if Craig’s Bond can be best paired with Connery’s or Dalton’s, what we need to see now is a return to Roger Moore’s. His was the camp Bond; the Bond of the raised eyebrow and witty one liner. The Bond who inspired Austin Powers rather than the one who gave rise to Jason Bourne. As explained very well in this Den Of Geek article, ”James Bond needs to have fun again” with lots of weird gadgets and contrived, totally unrealistic plots.

I must admit that at first I did not like this idea. I come to Bond from a pretty straight place: to me, he’s a cold, brutal government assassin capable of awesome things and who always gets his way. Nobody – absolutely nobody – does it better. Thus when I came to Moore’s films, I didn’t like them one bit: the character he was playing didn’t seem to have anything to do with the one created by Fleming. The 007 I knew did not make jokes or do circus tricks. To be honest I thought Moore was just using the figure of James Bond to project his own persona onto. Yet as time went on I realised that James Bond is just as open to interpretation and reinterpretation as anything else – that’s why he’s so interesting, and why he has endured. After Craig perhaps we need another reinterpretation, another reset. Casting a similar actor would probably feel like ”more of the same”, or like the producers had just opted to keep using their tried and tested formula. We now need something lighter, which doesn’t take itself too seriously. With the world as it currently is, we all know we could do with a bit of fun right now.

I just checked the BBC news website, saw this and instantly decided it needed flagging up here. People could be actually living on the moon within the next ten years. “Humans could stay on the Moon for lengthy periods during this decade, a Nasa official has told the BBC. Howard Hu, who leads the Orion lunar spacecraft programme for the agency, said habitats would be needed to support scientific missions.” I honestly find that jaw-dropping: to think that within ten years people could be living on the moon is incredible. Stuff usually only found in science fiction has become reality. This sort of stuff fills me with excitement, and I can’t wait to see if it actually happens.

I didn’t watch much TV last night, but if I had been I wouldn’t have been watching Children In Need

Children need to be supported properly, and the best, most efficient way to do so is through the state, not via nauseating television campaigns asking people for money they might not really have.

Today I have something very interesting indeed to flag up. I came across this short film yesterday, but wasn’t quite sure what to think about it. Having just rewatched it though, I think it’s safe to say that it is actually quite bold and brave. It stars my old friend/associate Katie Caryer playing two different people, who both have Cerebral Palsy. Both aged forty, one is a pampered, closeted woman who is highly infantilised and treated like a child by her parents; while the other woman is depicted as rebellious, independent, and fond of drinking and partying with friends. Thus we are quite nicely shown two completely opposite perceptions of disability: all too often I experience being spoken down to like a child, as though people assume I have the mental aptitude of a child; yet in reality I am a guy with a MA who enjoys a beer in a pub and James Bond films. So I really think Caryer’s film says something which needed to be said quite well. At just five minutes it’s only short, but is very well made thanks to Channel Four. Through it’s use of a rather unsubtle juxtaposition, it articulates a reality which guys like me face all the time: the mismatch between how people see us – as mentally incapable overgrown children who need to be spoken down to – and the complex, mature, fully formed people we actually are.

I just have another question to post here today: The Beeb for some reason chose to base it’s coverage of the autumn statement in Gloucester this morning, so there were quite a few people on breakfast TV speaking with West Country accents. It automatically reminded me of the character Samwise in The Lord of the Rings. When he was reading the book to me and my brothers as children, my dad always gave Sam a West Country accent. I think it really suited the character. Interestingly, when Peter Jackson’s film adaptations were made about ten years later, the actor playing Sam, Sean Austin, also gave him a west Country accent, despite being from New York. Thus I can’t help wondering: did Tolkien ever state what sort of accent Sam had? We know he based the character on the down to earth men he met in the trenches of World War One, but did he ever note anything about his accent? As I say, the rural, down-to-earth inflexion seems to suit him; and the coincidence between my Dad’s childhood reading and the accent used by Austin, perhaps most memorably in this scene, is enough to arouse my curiosity.

I haven’t been sleeping that well recently and got up ridiculously early this morning, for me at least. I’m now very pleased that I was though, because I turned the news on just in time to watch the Artemis launch. It cheered me up instantly: today marks the beginning of humanity’s return to the moon! Being into space exploration, it thrills me to see that sort of thing. It is an initial, unmanned mission, but All being well, it won’t be long before we’re watching people walk on the moon for the first time in over sixty years (although we can already expect fools to start saying it didn’t actually happen pretty soon afterwards). I find the prospect of that thrilling, as well of the prospect of humanity one day going even further, perhaps to Mars. Today thus marks the start of something awesome, and I’m glad I was up in time to see it.

Today being the last reasonably nice day for a while apparently, I decided to take one of my favourite walks along the river Lee from Canning Town to the Olympic park. As I’ve said before, it’s a lovely trundle along a well maintained path. I wasn’t going very fast and took several detours to explore various places, so it took a couple of hours for me to get up there. My plan was to then take the tube back from Stratford. However, crossing the bridge to get to the station, I passed the man I wrote about a few days ago in this entry. At first I thought I would ignore him and press on, but as luck would have it, a couple of policemen were walking past at the same time.

On the spur of the moment I decided to stop them. I explained that I didn’t have a problem, but rather would be grateful if they could ask the man nearby if he knew about the support he was probably entitled to. The cops seemed to think it was a good idea, and obliged.

The conversation they had with the man didn’t get very far: he didn’t seem very communicative. Five minutes later I was on my way again. Yet I’m glad I tried; I’m glad I took the opportunity to resolve something which had been bugging me. Who knows whether what I did earlier is going to make a difference to the man, or even if he had any interest in being helped to begin with. I suppose the best case scenario is that those policemen will now put him into contact with social services, who could find him a home etc. Perhaps I should have said nothing, kept to myself and carried on my way, but I needed to make sure that the man knew he is entitled to the help I am. I will probably  never know whether I made any difference at all, but at least I tried.

Huge England cricket fan that I am, I just spent a nail-biting couple of hours glued to the world cup final, but now that it’s over I have to say it’s great to see English cricket back on form. To tell the truth I didn’t watch much of this year’s world cup due to it being in Australia and the time overlaps that causes, but I just had to make an effort for the final. It definitely helped my breakfast digest. Mind you, the match really came down to the last few balls, and I’m sure Serkan had no idea what I was getting so excited about as I started to shout frantically at my screen. Now that it’s over, though, cricket fans all over the country are probably breathing a huge collective sigh of relief. Alongside their triumph in the fifty-over game, it now looks like English cricket really is going through a peak. It feels like an age since an English national team in any sport won anything so big; of course, England being England, whether we can keep it up remains to be seen.

Well Done England!

It’s a bit long, but if anyone feels like watching a fairly interesting summary of where the world currently is vis-a-vis physics and cosmology, I think this Youtube video is worth checking out. I’m no expert of course, but I think it gives a pretty good explanations of concepts like space and time. As someone interested in the subject in general, I find it witty, eloquent, relaxing and intriguing.

I have now been reliably informed, following my entry two days ago, that Iphone and Ipad charging sockets can be found on busses in at least two places outside of London: Northwich and Darlington (wherever that is). I suppose that puts my question to rest, then: I really must try to remember that London is not the focal point for all progress in the UK. However, another bus-related question is still bugging me. I never got to the bottom of whether wheelchair ramps on busses outside London have been made automatic or are still manual. I’m now used to the ramp coming out of a bus when the driver presses a button in his cab, but outside of London do drivers still have to get out and flip the ramp by hand? I would hope automatic ramps would be ubiquitous by now, but I suspect it’s a case of some areas having them while others still have slow, manual ramps which make you feel like a pain. As cool as Ipad chargers are, as a wheelchair user I think this is a far more important question, as it is surely a sign of how much a council is willing to invest in ensuring people with disabilities have access to public transport.

Just to follow up on this entry from a few weeks ago, I was heading to the station at Stratford today. There’s a large, wide footbridge between the tube station and the shopping centre there where people often beg. Crossing it today I passed a man sat in a wheelchair begging. He had no legs below his knees so he obviously needed the chair. What troubles me is, why would he be forced to beg, or feel he had to? Nobody should be forced to beg in this country, particularly if they can’t support themselves due to their disability. I can’t help imagining what life would be like if my benefits and support were suddenly cut and I was forced to sleep on the street.

He was talking to a friend and I don’t think they were using english: might he not have known about the support systems available in this country? If so should I have tried to do something to help? But what could I have done? Trying to stop and talk to him on my iPad would probably have got nowhere: even if he had understood what I was saying, what advice could I have given him? I thus just continued past on my way home, but I still find the issue very, very troubling. At the end of the day, though, instances like this go to show that we must make sure that all immigrants, with or without disabilities, know about the support they could be entitled to.

The question on my mind today is, is London the only place in the country which has mobile phone and tablet charging sockets on busses, or have they cropped up elsewhere too? I began to notice them a few months ago: every seat on a London bus now has a socket which you can plug a mobile phone charger into. This includes one for the wheelchair space, not that I’ve ever used it*. Pondering it today, I realised that its probably a sign of how affluent London is becoming: it’s a city of middle class executives who all have devices that they need to charge on their way to and from wherever they are going. The question is, therefore, do we see such signs of contemporary technological affluence happening elsewhere, or do we only encounter such obviously not cheap yet ultimately unnecessary additions to public services here in the capital?

*Mind you, putting a powerchair charger there would sometimes be useful…

Would somebody please tell Boris Johnson that he isn’t UK Prime Minister any more, isn’t the world-revered statesman he obviously now thinks he is, and has absolutely no business being at the climate change conference at Sharm El Sheikh. Honestly, when I saw reports of his appearance there earlier, I found it physically nauseating. The arrogance of the scumbag is sickening: he stood in front of an audience there, reportedly lecturing actual world leaders on why it is vital that they take action on climate change, bigging himself up as a maverick who, as PM, lead the world on the issue, when not that long ago he was denying the problem even existed. The self-importance of this discredited little worm really gets on my nerves; he should be brought back to the UK before he embarrasses himself, the country and Humanity even further.

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.