Today is my Mum’s birthday, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish her a very happy one. You might have noticed, though, that I didn’t wish my dad a good birthday on here a month or so ago, as I usually do. That is because, for the last decade or so, I blogged my birthday wishes to Dad and Lyn in a single entry as their birthdays were so close, and the prospect of having to post my salutations to one and not the other this year gave me a heavy heart. But it didn’t feel right for me to write a birthday blog for mum today after having left out dad, so today is a good occasion to rectify that: I would just like to say how much I love both my parents, how much they mean to me, and how I can’t wait to see them very, very soon. Happy birthday!

I just watched the third episode of Time. I had intended to binge watch it a week or so ago, but between one thing and another I postponed watching the finale. Not everyone will have seen it, so I won’t say too much about it, other than that I found it quite brutal. It does not hold any punches about the realities of prison life, and you really feel sorry for the main character Mark, played by Sean Bean. There are times, such as when he’s getting bullied or beaten up, when I found myself wishing Bean would show a glimmer of Sharpe or Boromir and hit back. Having said that, the show is ultimately about redemption, and fighting back wouldn’t have been in Mark’s nature: this is a drama about a man atoning for something which he knows he did wrong, trying to make up for his foolishness. Mark does not deny his flaws, and he also knows he can never fully make up for what he did. Thus, for all it’s brutality, Time is ultimately rather uplifting, in that it shows a man learning to live with his mistakes and coming to peace with himself.

I wonder if I could do something similar in my powerchair on the streets of south London.

I think I’ll flag this interesting little video from Granada news up, not only because it is about a nonverbal young man with severe autism finding employment, but also because he’s from my old home town, Congleton. I found it on my old school’s facebook page, so I suspect he might be a former pupil. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the kind of supported employment it details, though: the young man is clearly happy in his job, and he’s apparently very good at it, but I’m worried schemes like this could lead to people with severe disabilities being forced off benefits and into work more and more, when they aren’t really up to it. It makes me ask myself whether I could do a proper, regular, payed job? While I want to contribute to society, as opposed to mucking around on the internet or trundling around London in my powerchair all day, I think the type of support I’d need to do a nine to five job every day just would not be worth it. I only got my degree with the support of people like Esther. I volunteer when I can at Charlton Park Academy, but my physical limitations and the support I’d require would make trying to hold a regular job simply too complex. I worry that schemes like the one detailed in this film send out the message that disabled people can get jobs if we want to, but are just lazy cripples happy to leech off the state, when the truth is not so simple.

Why is Michael Gove still anywhere near the government of this country? It has been proven in court that he broke the law; surely any respectable, responsible MP would resign. Only Gove, like most of his Tory colleagues, is neither respectable or responsible. He is a man of clearly very limited intelligence and ability who has somehow been promoted to a position of authority he has no right to be in. He and his Tory mates seem to think that political power is their birthright, and the rest of us should defer to them and humbly just let them get on with it. Yet the mess these idiots have made of the country is becoming clearer day by day, both over Brexit, the pandemic and a range of other issues: the tories keep up the pretence that everything is fine, but they know the UK is heading for a massive economic slump and the return of conflict in Northern Ireland. Now that they are actively breaking the law but carrying on as if it doesn’t apply to them, isn’t it time we stood up to these inept, arrogant morons and got a proper government?

Just to illustrate what I was saying a couple of days ago about Tolkien and the web, one of the first things I came across on facebook this morning was this rap battle, supposedly between Tolkien and George R R Martin. While it’s obviously quite amusing and very well made, it’s hard to see Tolkien – famously quite a conservative person – approving of his image being used in things like this. I suppose it’s just one of the consequences of his work having been opened up to mass media and online culture. While the people who make videos like this clearly know what they are talking about, and you might even call it a form of commentary or analysis, to see Tolkien being played around and made fun of like this sort of makes me frown.

A couple of weeks or so ago, my colleagues at the Greenwich Association of Disabled People were contacted by someone from BBC Radio Four’s File On Four about the impact of benefit cuts. The radio show apparently wanted to interview disabled people about how badly the government’s changes to social care charging had impacted them. I didn’t feel I could help much, so chose not to contribute, but you can listen to the show this evening at eight, here.

I think the best thing I can do here today is flag this Guardian article up. In it, Frances Ryan writes about the impact lockdown has had for disabled people, both good and bad: “[J]ust as it took the non-disabled public to experience a dose of what disabled people have for years before access was improved, the fear is that any gains made during the pandemic will be discarded now that the wider public no longer need them themselves.” The pandemic forced nondisabled people to adjust to things like social distancing, Ryan writes, giving everyone a taste of the type of isolation we crips have had to put up with all our lives. She fears that the adaptations made during the pandemic such as holding meetings online will be reversed once the emergency is over. I certainly agree. It will be all too easy for everyone to just go back to normal, which is why we must make sure people don’t forget about the last eighteen months and the isolation and restriction they felt. At last everyone got a taste of what some of us endure every day: we cannot let them loose that perspective.

I think I’ve mentioned on here before, a while ago, that my Dad read Tolkien to me when I was eight or nine. I grew up loving the books of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and they were possibly the biggest reasons why I wanted to become a writer. When it was announced, in 1997 or so, that the books were going to be adapted into films, I remember being over the moon with excitement: I just couldn’t wait to see my favourite characters brought to life on the cinema screen. At that point, it remained to be seen whether Peter Jackson’s adaptations would be any good, but I really looked forward to seeing stories which had been such a big part of my childhood finally becoming mainstream. At last my classmates would get to see what I had been going on about for all those years.

In the end, of course, the films proved a great success; I don’t think anyone could have done a better job of adapting them than Peter Jackson. I think he was as faithful to the books as he could possibly be. The Fellowship Of The Ring premiered in 2001, the year I left school, so the irony is I never got to ask my old friends what they thought of the story. The bigger problem I have now, however, is that it has perhaps become too mainstream: a narrative and characters which was once something private and personal – something I shared with my father – is now a massive part of popular culture. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are now everywhere, not only in film form but as computer games, Youtube videos and facebook memes, and I can’t help thinking it has gone too far. I fear this narrative has now become too divorced from Tolkien’s original books, which were, after all, about language and text. They have become the plaything of thousands of internet fans with no regard for what Tolkien was trying to originally achieve.

To a certain extent this is a natural result of the success of the film, and some of the things I have seen online, such as videos which explore Tolkien’s mythos in detail, clearly have a great deal of love and respect for his writing. Yet alongside that comes a lot of childish, lighthearted rubbish which thinks it’s being clever by trying to poke fun of a narrative most people are now familiar with. Perhaps it’s my perception, but I’m seeing more and more of it these days, and it’s becoming cruder and cruder. To see something which was such a huge part of my childhood being played around with and turned into something so lightweight and adolescent, by people who obviously have no knowledge of or respect for Tolkien’s work, really is disheartening. More to the point though, I can’t help wondering what Tolkien himself would have said if he saw his life’s work being turned into this tripe. Would he have approved of his stories being used like this? I doubt it, which in a way makes me think that perhaps these stories should have been allowed to remain as books, in their original form.

Today I just want to note a couple of television programs which have caught my eye and which I’m looking forward to. The first is Time, on BBC One tomorrow evening. I don’t ordinarily go in for prison dramas, but I’ve been a fan of Sean Bean since Sharpe, and will be interested to see his return to tv after such an absence playing roles like Boromir, Alec Trevellyn and Ned Stark. The second thing I’m looking forward to watching is a PBS documentary series about Earnest Hemingway. I have been interested in Hemingway since watching Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure in 1999. I saw an ad for the new series on BBC Four a couple of days ago (I think), and it looks like it will explore how he became the gritty, adventurous character he is famous for being. I haven’t yet found out when it will air, but no doubt I will really get into it (and probably blog about it) when it does.

Apart from the splendid weather of course, this is possibly the most interesting news of the week. NASA has announced plans to send two probes to Venus. They will be launched between 2028 and 2030, with the intention of investigating why Venus’s atmosphere differs so drastically from Earth’s. I think that’s very promising indeed. Venus can, in a way, be seen as a sister planet to the Earth, so exploring why Venus is a barren ball of molten rock while life flourished here might give us clues about how to better care for our own planet.

I heard earlier that the plans have been announced for the Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations next year. Can you guess what my first thought was? I wonder whether James Bond will be involved again. Sad git that I am, I can’t help thinking it would be cool if they did something similar to the stunt they performed for the London Olympic Opening Ceremony. That was,  after all, the Queen’s golden jubilee year. Could they keep up the tradition? Or, better still, could they use the occasion to announce the next actor to play 007? (Forget the queen, I’m more interested in James Bond.)

If anyone could be in any doubt over whether or not the NHS is one of the greatest aspects of the UK, they just need to read this. An experimental gene replacement therapy, which would have cost millions to pay for privately, has been used to save a young boy’s life. Stories like this make me very relieved indeed that we have the National Health Service. Under a private healthcare system like America’s, this treatment would have been prohibitively expensive to all but the richest of parents, so this child would have been left to die. But due to the NHS, we as a society collectively funded the millions of pounds this treatment cost, so together we gave him a chance to live. A baby’s right to life – or anyone else’s – should not depend on how rich anyone is; anyone should be given the best treatment possible, if they need it. Surely only a community which recognises that, which cares for all it’s members equally, has any right to claim to be civilised.

It’s a lovely spring day, and I just got in from a fairly long walk. I went through Greenwich Park (twice) and I have to say it was the busiest it has been for a long time: I go through the park quite often, and it hasn’t been that crowded in ages. I had to swerve my chair to avoid people every few metres. Of course, this being a bank holiday, maybe that is to be expected, but I can’t help worrying that we might now be returning to ‘normal’ too quickly. Everyone seems to have suddenly assumed that the pandemic is over, and that they can act as they did before it. Every pub, restaurant and cafe I passed today seemed packed. To  a certain extent I can’t really criticise, as I’d be in there with them under other circumstances; yet I can’t help worrying that if we take things too fast and snap too eagerly back to normal, this nasty little virus could return with a vengeance.

The country’s up shit creek due to Brexit etc. The tory’s solution? A bloody expensive boat! ”A new national flagship is to be commissioned by the government in a bid to boost British trade and industry globally, the prime minister has said. The vessel will be the successor to the Royal Yacht Britannia, which was retired in 1997.” I realise that this doesn’t make for much of a blog entry, but after the Tories made such a big thing of austerity, and after their ideologically-driven benefit cuts caused so much harm, to spend £200m on an outdated symbol of a long-faded empire really is taking the piss.

I just want to send huge congratulations to my old school friend Dan Holt on becoming a barrister. Dan was two or three year groups younger than me, so we didn’t cross paths much at Hebden. A couple of years ago, though, we bumped into one another at powerchair football in Woolwich: people kept saying his name, and it struck me as familiar. It turned out he had moved to London to study Law at Queen Mary University. He has now completed the exams to enter the legal profession; you can read a bit more about his awesome achievement here.

I realise that this might make for a bit of an odd or unusual blog entry, but for a couple of weeks I’ve been puzzling over a question I’m not sure how to find the answer to. It’s not that it’s particularly complicated, just that I’m not sure which words to tap into google to get the answer. Ever since moving to London eleven years ago, I’ve used the big red busses quite frequently. When I first moved here, I remember being impressed with how all the busses had automatic ramps which the driver extended only by pushing a button on his dashboard. Up in Cheshire, whenever I wanted to get on a bus, to go from Alsager to Crewe say, the driver had had to get out from his seat and manually unfold the ramp for me. It was quite time consuming and laborious, and I think they resented it. What I want to know now is, has the rest of the country caught up with London? I haven’t had to use a bus outside of the capital in ages, so I don’t know the type of ramps they use. Of course, it is only due to activist groups like DAN, who campaigned for accessible public transport in the eighties and nineties, that busses have ramps at all; but I think they focussed specifically on London, so the rest of the country got rather left behind. Can anyone tell me what the situation is? What sort of wheelchair ramps do bussed outside London have? Does it vary from town to town, area to area? Have busses outside the capital been modified, or is this yet another situation where all the resources get poured into London and the rest of the country gets left behind?

As a James Bond fan, I’m not quite sure yet what to make of this news that MGM was today bought by Amazon. Of course, MGM has always been American, but the danger now is that Amazon will now seek to put it’s own mark on cinema’s longest running franchise as it tries to establish itself as a media giant. It has already said it plans to “reimagine and redevelop” it’s acquisitions, although what this means is unclear. While all art inevitably changes and evolves over time, I just hope they don’t go too far in trying to remake Bond in their own, perhaps American, image.

I think it worth noting that, for the first time in months, I had lunch in a cafe today. I went out for a walk with Dominik: we were passing through Woolwich at about four, and we were both getting hungry. It was just a simple sandwich, but having had just about all my meals at home for the last year, to finally eat something in a good old south London cafe complete with other Londoners, really felt like the return of something I had been missing. It wasn’t so much the food as such, although it was quite a good sandwich, as much as a hint of the type of culture which used to see me sitting in cafes and drinking coffee for hours. We didn’t stay long, but hopefully it won’t be too long now before such lunches become a regular occurrence.

I’m very pleased to report that I just had my first Covid vaccination dose. In the end I was given the Astrazenica vaccine, not that it matters at the end of the day. I’m just happy to have done my bit for society, to get past this wretched pandemic. Mind you, I’m very glad that I took Serkan with me to the pharmacy rather than going alone: rolling up there, joining the queue and giving my details, I was initially told that I couldn’t have my jab today for some reason and would have to re-book; yet Serkan stuck to his guns, fought my corner and got them to reconsider. It was quite a relief as I was eager to get it over and done with. I currently feel fine: my arm hurts slightly, but apart from that I’m rather perky. I suppose it’s the knowledge that I’ve done my bit to get past this pandemic.

If you ever start to feel hard done by by the current situation, I think this is worth remembering. Very sobering indeed.

As everyone will no doubt be aware, it’s the Eurovision Song Contest tonight. Say what you like about it, I have a bit of a soft spot for it. Now more than ever, we need this sort of big, international cultural event to bring everyone together and forget our divisions and differences, if only for an evening. One of the main things I watch out for every time it’s on, though, is the language each entry sings in: Do they sing in their own language, or do they use English or another language? I think it is a choice which is becoming increasingly telling, with English becoming more and more dominant, not just across Europe but the globe too. Largely thanks to the growing ubiquity of American film and culture, English is now almost a default tongue. Thus it’s always interesting to see which performances in tonight’s contest opt to sing in English, knowing it’s more likely to be understood by others, or have the cajones to use their own tongue in order to try to maintain a bit of cultural authenticity.

I know I shouldn’t just post links to Youtube videos on here, but I think this New York Times vid, comparing the cost and efficacy of the American Healthcare system to others across the world, is very, very telling. When looked at properly, it’s jaw-dropping to see how much worse the American system is – it’s focus on profit makes it almost draconian. It’s good to see Americans themselves at last realising this, and perhaps admitting to their selves that their country might not be quite as great as they like to think.

As I noted a few entries ago, seeing my parents last week felt great. After so much time apart, at last being able to cuddle Mum and Dad, after such a turbulent year, was long overdue. Today is dad’s birthday. Believe it or not, I (just about) remembered this time. I got dad a book, which I gave to him when he visited last week. I really hope, though, that it won’t be too long before we can meet again, hopefully this time involving one of mum’s excellent meals. After all, we can’t let dad hog all his birthday cake to himself, can we?

If you need any reassurance that not all Americans are total nutters when it comes to the issue of guns and gun control, just check this video out. Frankly, it’s refreshing to see an American talking coherently and rationally on the subject. I sometimes get the impression that firearm ownership is so ingrained in American culture that questioning it is seen as unpatriotic. It’s thus good to see an American state the obvious truth that the only way to reduce the number of gun related deaths is to reduce the availability of guns, and that not owning a gun does not mean you are any less ‘free’.

Perhaps someone isn’t as popular as he would have us believe

You may be expecting me, as a social and political commentator, to say something about what is currently unfolding in Israel. It really is a frightening situation there which seems to be worsening by the hour. The problem is, that is a subject I have learned over the years to steer well clear of. For starters, it is far too complex a situation for me to ever do justice – how could anyone say anything meaningful about it in a couple of hundred words? The bigger problem is, though, as soon as anyone tries to criticise Israel, you risk being accused of antisemitism. No matter how fair or objective you try to be, as soon as you point out the heavy handedness of the Israeli military or the illegality of their settlers, you open yourself up to being accused of antisemitism. The result is that, over the years, people like me have learned to avoid the subject altogether, not wanting to offend anyone or invite trouble. Indeed, even in pointing this out I’m worried I’ll invite criticism, as someone might say it paints Israel in a bad light.

Yet surely the only way we are ever going to be able to resolve problems like this is if we articulate them: we must not shy away from such issues for fear of offending others. Nor can we let Israel and it’s advocates hide behind this, accusing anyone who speaks out against them of being antisemitic; otherwise they will be allowed to get away with whatever they like. It is not antisemitic to point out that Palestinian men, women and children are being killed, or treated as second class citizens in their own country; yet as soon as anyone tries to point this out, they are accused of being antisemitic, resulting in everyone turning a blind eye to what is happening. I have nothing whatsoever against Jewish people, most of whom will probably be just as appalled by what is happening in Israel as anyone else. And of course, it goes almost without saying that what is happening in Israel should not be used as some kind of perverse excuse for discrimination against Jewish people. Yet surely what the Israeli government is currently doing to the Palestinians is against international law, with some likening it to apartheid. We must not be afraid to state that, or the situation will only continue.

In the weekly family Skype chat this morning, my brother Mark mentioned that he has been introducing my niece and nephew to Star Trek, and the renowned episode The Inner Light cropped up. Appropriately enough, I just came across this IOS article about that episode and it’s making. Apparently the episode stands out, not just in relation to Star Trek but generally, as an incredible piece of television. Even thirty years after it first aired, it is remembered for it’s pathos. It was pretty much the first episode of TNG where we were shown what an incredible actor Patrick Stewart could be. As the article points out, from then on future incarnations of Star Trek attempted to come up with their own equivalent of The Inner Light, such as DS9’s Hard Time, but for my money could never quite match it for it’s haunting, timeless quality. I suspect at least part of the reason for that is because only The Inner Light has this theme.

My parents paid me a visit yesterday, just for a couple of hours at lunchtime. It was great to see them, as we hadn’t met in person like that for about a year. I was in two minds about noting it on here, but thinking about it in the context of the past year, it was highly significant: perhaps it was a sign that we have almost come out the other end of this long, dark tunnel. More to the point though, I must say that getting to cuddle mum and dad yesterday felt astonishingly good. My parents have always been highly supportive of me and I’m still very close to them, so getting to hug them at last, after so many months of them just appearing at the end of a computer screen, was simply blissful. It hopefully won’t be too long until I see them again, but for now, the memory of those cuddles yesterday will keep me going.

This is as true as it is perverse

Yesterday on Facebook, for the first time ever, I noticed someone other than myself spelling a certain Tory Prime Minister’s name CaMoron. I was shocked. Of course, I’ve been spelling his name that way on here since he came to prominence over fifteen years ago, but that was the first time ever that I noticed someone else using that spelling. I can’t help wondering whether I have started something. I suppose it could just have been a coincidence, and somebody else might have thought it up independently of me; but if that spelling now takes off as a fashion, or if I see anyone else using it, I have every intention to take all the credit.

It’s time for me to ‘fess up to something which I feel a little embarrassed about. When my parents helped me buy a new iMac a couple of months ago, I assumed it would have a DVD player. All my previous Imacs had one inbuilt, so I naturally took it for granted that my new one would be no different. When it arrived, however, I was shocked to find it had no CD or DVD slot: you obviously needed to buy one separately. That wouldn’t have been a problem, only it would have meant telling Mum and Dad, who aren’t very pro-apple already. I don’t use a credit card these days for security reasons, so anything I need to buy online I ask my parents for. Telling my parents, though, would just have confirmed their view that Apple were money-grabbing tossers.

The situation was fine for a while; I mainly stream films from sites like Netflix these days anyway. Yet my collection of DVDs was sitting by my desk, staring at me. I’d assumed that an external drive would cost hundreds, putting me in a bit of a predicament. What should I do: admit my mistake to my parents, or leave my DVD collection, including my James Bond and Lord Of The Rings box sets, to collect dust?

Yesterday, though, I was up in Stratford, and largely on a whim I decided to visit the Apple shop there to ask the price of a DVD drive. As I say, I expected it to cost a silly amount, but to my surprise it was quite reasonable. It was time to put this silly situation to bed, and, making a short trip to a nearby branch of my building society, shortly after I was taking a new DVD drive home with me. I would at last be able to watch my precious DVDs again, without my parents having to know anything about it.

Serkan put the first disk in this morning, and it works beautifully. I realise how silly all this might sound – a 38 year old having to ask his parents to buy stuff for him, and then being too embarrassed to do so. It’s not as if they wouldn’t have bought it, only I would have had to admit my new computer didn’t have a DVD drive. You have to agree, a computer without a DVD player as standard these days is pretty silly. While I realise a blog entry about going to buy a DVD drive is pretty lame when you think about it, I’m pleased to have found a solution without having to tell Mum and Dad. More to the point, I’m happy that I can watch my DVDs again.

Believe it or not, I’ve heard this was an actual argument used by someone on a talk-in radio show.

What can you do but despair?

I just want to say how relieved I am that Sadiq Kahn is still mayor of London. While Labour admittedly had an appalling election elsewhere, the thought of that Tory knob Shaun Bailey becoming Mayor of London made my skin crawl. At least we now know that the capital’s heart is still in the right place, even when the rest of the country seems to be somehow falling for Tory bullshit. I honestly despair: after a decade of ideologically-based cuts, division and crass ineptitude, how can people even contemplate voting for wankers like Johnson and Gove?

Serkan cut my hair yesterday. To be honest I needed it cut, and he had been badgering me about it for a while. He did a very good job, and everyone has been complementing me on the result.

I went to watch the cricket in Charlton Park today, my first Mighty Eights match of the year. Getting there, my friend James greeted me and commented on how short and neat my hair was. He then took his cricket cap off to show me how badly he needed his hair cutting. I thought briefly about introducing Serkan to James, but then realised that one would inevitably try to go to bed with the other, and all insanity would break loose. Probably not a good idea, but one which had me chuckling to myself all afternoon.

I couldn’t put it better myself.

Needless to say, I’m not in the best of moods about politics today.

Just to follow up on this entry I wrote a few months ago about how I’m glad I’m not a student these days, I just came across this BBC article about how the Tories are cutting funding to uni arts courses. “Singer Jarvis Cocker, actor Maxine Peake and author Bernardine Evaristo are among those to have criticised a plan to cut government funding for arts subjects at universities by almost 50%.” Such a cut is obviously savage: I don’t see how niche, joint honours degrees like the one I was on could survive. Yet the Tory bastards obviously have other priorities. They don’t value the arts. To them, something is only worthwhile if it makes them and their rich pals richer; so they cut things like arts education to shreds, and people like me end up losing out.

This might be a slight change of tone from yesterday, but for another excellent example of how fandom is becoming increasingly analytical and taking on the intellectual engagement of cinephilia while retaining it’s playfulness and sense of fun, as well as for an exploration of how King Kong and Godzilla films have the structural elements of American Wrestling matches, just check this out.

I’m currently puzzling over something you might call uncanny or out of place. Not far from here, on the other side of Kidbrooke from me, is a small park I can’t find the name of. It’s a quiet, pleasant place surrounded by blocks of flats, dating, I’d guess, from the seventies or eighties. It’s well-maintained, with a pond or small lake with a pretty little fountain. At one end of the pond, though, is a small, overgrown island which it looks like nobody has set foot on for decades, or even centuries. It can only be three or four square metres big, but the island has a stone statue on it, possibly of Zeus or one of the Greek gods. It’s so overgrown, it must have been there for decades: There is a forgotten feel to it, as if this was a place where something important once happened, but which nobody now remembers. It puzzles me: What is this place? What happened there? How did such a fine statue get onto the island, yet has now seemingly been forgotten about? Such timeless, uncanny places fascinate me, so this will be something I’ll try to look deeper into.

I think the concert detailed here just might be worth watching when it airs this Saturday. Apparently a massive fundraising event has taken place in Los Angeles to promote the worldwide vaccination effort. Called Vax Live, hundreds of stars have taken part, including Joe Biden and prince Harry. People are already comparing it to Live Aid, so it looks like it will be a good show. At the very least, it’s for a good cause, and you know how interested I am in such mega-events. I’ll be keen to see how it is handled in the Covid era, or whether they attempt anything cool, like having Biden meet Batman.