Another Example of Cultural Intrusion

Just to go back to what I was talking about a few days ago about this apparent new sort of disabled person, yesterday I came across this short film from Eliza Rain. I’ve been puzzling over Rain for a while now: a manual wheelchair user, she says she became disabled / started identifying as disabled in the last two or three years, but refuses to state what her disability is. However, she now seems to be quite a prolific Youtuber, uploading a video every couple of weeks. As she puts it, “I make content all about living in London with a disability including travel advice, tourist advice and just general disability good things along with a bit of fashion and fun sprinkled in there.”

In the video I’ve linked to, though, she is talking about prams taking up the wheelchair space on busses. Of course, that is a problem I encounter quite frequently. The trouble is, in this very short video, Rain goes way, way over the top, to the point where she becomes antagonistic and misleading. That is to say, her representation of mums with prams as bolshy bitches refusing to move goes way too far. They may often be reluctant and sigh loudly, and it may sometimes take the intervention of the driver, but in my experience they have always followed the rules and moved their pram to allow me onto the bus. I have never encountered the overt argumentative refusal Rain tries to depict.

It therefore seems to me that she is attempting to over-dramatise things to get attention. If she actually used busses as a wheelchair user, she would know that the vast, vast majority of times it isn’t a problem, leading me to strongly suspect that this is an experience she does not in fact have. Once again, someone is attempting to take ownership of the experiences of others for their own gain. No mums blatantly refuse to move their prams as depicted here; nor have they ever been so argumentative and insulting. Yet the way she presents it, it seems like Rain is the victim of overt intolerance and persecution.

Thus what troubles me about online content like this is, as someone with a congenital physical disability who had to go through things like special school, people who know nothing about experiences like mine are increasingly taking it upon themselves to speak for all disabled people. Miss Rain says she only became disabled a year or so ago, yet she brands herself as ‘Disabled Eliza’ and seeks to inform the entire online world about what it is like to have a disability. Forgive me, but I can’t help feeling offended, as if my sociopolitical voice and experiences are being increasingly hijacked or stolen by people who become disabled, or claim they do, then exploit their disabilities to become self-styled online influencers, despite knowing almost nothing of what me and my friends went and continue to go through.

Having spent over twenty years attempting to chronicle my experiences and thoughts for the online world, I bet anyone would be just as upset by this as I am. I am not trying to suggest Rain or anyone else is ‘faking’ their disability, but rather seising upon their impairment for cultural and political gain, and in so doing effectively usurping voices like my own. Yet I don’t want anybody to speak on my behalf: Surely it is up to guys like me to relate to the world what having a disability is like, including using the wheelchair space on busses; not someone for whom having a disability is seemingly just a means to attract hits on Youtube.

A EUO Day

I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone how useful Ipads can be: Not only do I use mine as my communication aid, but also to browse the web, check my email and keep in touch with my PAs when I’m out and about. I also often use it to draft blog entries, ready to put online when I get home. The problem is, that all uses quite a bit of battery power, so it is fairly essential that my Ipad is put on charge every night. When it isn’t, it can be rather problematic.

Today, for instance, I was out on my usual trundle when I noticed my Ipad hadn’t been charged. I’d got as far as Lewisham when I noticed it was down to 52%. Now, that wasn’t catastrophic, and no reason to abandon my outing and return home, but I knew it would limit me. Today would have to be an Essential Utterances Only (EUO) day: in order to preserve my Ipad battery, I would need to talk to people only when I really had to. There would be no chatting to strangers or telling street preachers to shut up. Otherwise, if I got into an emergency and needed to ask for help or give people instructions but my battery had died, I would be totally stuck.

It’s rather strange when you think about it: this situation effectively rendered me dumb or voiceless. I had to go all day trying to avoid talking to people, just because my Ipad hadn’t been charged. In a way it put a barrier up between me and the rest of society. If I met someone new I would be unable to introduce myself and tell them who I am or what I do. If I bumped into someone I knew I wouldn’t be able to update them with my news. In the end it wasn’t that much of a problem; yet I find it odd to reflect upon how such seemingly insignificant things can have such large social and psychological consequences.

Another Way To Camden

I have just made a discovery which I am rather happy about. I’ve described here before how fond I am of trundling along the Regents Canal. One of the areas the canal passes through, Camden, looked essentially interesting. The thing was, I never had a chance to explore it properly as, by the time I got there, I would already have been wheeling, along the canal for a couple of hours and would need to press on to get home a sensible time.

A couple of days ago though, I noticed that Camden Town had a stop on the Northern Line, and was struck by the idea that if I just got the tube there, exploring the area would become much more straightforward. This morning, then, I headed to North Greenwich tube station, intending to get the jubilee line to London Bridge and then the northern line up to Camden. The problem was, the staff at Greenwich told me that Camden Town station was not wheelchair accessible.

However, the lady helping me then started to look for an alternative route I could use, and soon found that a could take the Mildmay overground line from Stratford to Camden Road. While ramps would need to be arraigned, it would be just as straightforward as my original route. This seemed quite an innovative idea to me though, as the overground is still something I have to get the knack of.

As it turned out, it was a complete non-issue, and I was in Camden within an hour ready to explore. It’s one of those thriving, fascinating areas of the metropolis, the air full of music and delicious smells. Some of the architecture by the canal is intriguing. As soon as I got there I was enthralled; and now I know how easy it is to go back there I certainly intend to.

London, it seems to me, is constantly opening up and becoming more accessible. I’ve been living here for fifteen years, but even during that time things have improved considerably. Using the overground was once totally off limits to wheelchair users; but although I’d still personally prefer it – and indeed the entire tube network – to be completely step free, experiences like today’s demonstrate how far it has gone in the right direction. Thanks to the overground, as well as the Elisabeth Line, which I used to get home, Central London is more accessible than it ever has been. It almost feels like the city is shrinking: what once felt like a vast, unwelcoming urban sprawl now feels more and more like home.

Not Just Americans Use The Web, Yanks!

Does anyone else get the impression that Americans think they created the internet, that it is American and that only they use it? I keep coming across content on the web made by Americans which uses phrases like ‘the country’, ‘the government’ and ‘us’ which seems to assume that it will be consumed by other Americans. Before now, of course, I’ve just let it slide; but for the last few months it has really began to get on my nerves. It seems extraordinarily arrogant for them to just assume that the internet is American, or an American invention. After all, the web was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a Brit. It had very little to do with America, and far, far more people across the world use the web than just Americans, so why do they speak as though they are only talking to other Americans? I suppose it goes back to what I was saying here a few weeks ago about Star Trek and American exceptionalism: now that the USA is no longer the mighty democratic utopia it always took itself to be, for Americans to stick so stubbornly to the attitude that their country is greater and more important than all others, looks increasingly arrogant and out of place.

Let’s Hope

As things stand, the USA is descending into fascism. That isn’t hyperbole – Donald Trump seems intent on clinging to power at all costs. Given the damage he is causing, that would be catastrophic, not just for America but the wider world too. If you still need evidence of that damage, just check out one of the growing number of videos like this one; Trump’s idiotic tariffs are ransacking the American economy. We can only hope Americans wake up and do the right thing before it’s too late.

Fantasising About Filmmaking

You know, the problem with filmmaking is the filming. Writing is a comparatively straightforward task: in my case at least, I can just bash out a few words, post it online, and anyone can read what I have to say. Its probably why I have kept my blog going for so long. Making a film, on the other hand, is far more complex: cameras need to be set up and actors organised; even the act of using a film camera requires a dexterity which I physically do not have. This is probably why, despite calling myself a filmmaker, I have made so few films.

The thing is, this is now becoming increasingly frustrating. Film, especially short online film, is becoming ever more popular. As a means of communication, films on the web have become almost a default. As I began to explore a few months ago in this entry, where fifteen years ago blogs and blogging were at the cutting edge, these days so-called influencers just talk into their camera phones and upload their ramblings to YouTube. Whatever they say is delivered far more directly than any piece of writing.

The thing is, where does that leave guys like me? I long to make films, but making films is not just a matter of sitting down and bashing a few words out. Yet I know film can be used to say things often far more effectively and convincingly than writing. This afternoon, for example, I had an idea for a piece which, presented through film, would probably be quite compelling and revelatory; but if confined to writing might well just come across as gossip, mud-slinging or worse. What, then, should I do with this idea? I could obviously write it out as a script in the hope that It could one day be made into a film; but as always happens, that would ultimately mean it gets saved on my computer and read by no one.

I thus find myself longing for some way to make film: some means of manipulating pictures, shots and sound into a coherent argument or narrative using only my computer. I fear animation would be too cumbersome and appear too frivolous for what I want to make. Yet these days there must surely be some solution to this problem; otherwise, as online communication moves more and more in the direction of the moving image, those of us who still need to use the written word risk being left behind.

Patrick Willems on Why Craig’s Bond Was So Weird

If anyone is up for a bit of a long watch, but is also in the mood for some 007-related film analysis, you really should check this out. It’s the best bit of online analysis I’ve come across in quite some time, exploring Daniel Craig’s five Bond films, where they succeed, where they fail, and how they relate to the wider series. Broadly, the argument is, after the great success of Casino Royale in 2006, the problem was moving on from there and developing this exciting, newly-rebooted, deeper character. As usual I’m not going to try to give any kind of summary but let the guy talk for himself, as he clearly knows what he’s talking about; although there are a couple of weird bits involving a puppet which you might want to skip.

Cultural Intruder Alert

When I got up and turned the news on earlier, I came across something which I found fairly problematic. At about quarter to eight, BBC Breakfast ran an interview with a man called Dave Steele, the self-named ‘Blind Poet’. Steele had apparently become blind (or, more accurately, partially sighted) ten or eleven years ago, and was now writing poetry and publishing books about his experiences. What irked me about this wasn’t so much the fact that he was articulating his experiences, which of course he had a right to do, but that he now seemed to be presuming to speak for all disabled people. That is to say, since he began to loose his sight, he had taken it upon himself to become some sort of disabled people’s champion, as if it was now up to him to inform the rest of the world what it is like to have a disability.

I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about this, but I am coming across it more and more these days: otherwise fairly socially privileged people who happen to get a relatively minor disability, but then framing being disabled as a core aspect of their identity and presuming they are a leader of the disabled community. From his description, it sounded like Steele’s eyesight was only marginally worse than mine; but whereas I just put my glasses on and get on with life, he opted to churn out books of poetry about it and appear on breakfast TV as some kind of disabled people’s champion. More to the point, as a (presumably) straight, white, otherwise able bodied man who only started to become disabled a decade or so ago, Steele will frankly know very little of what life is like for someone with a significant congenital disability, from being bussed away to special school, to being constantly spoken to like you’re a five year old, to being mocked and laughed at on an almost daily basis by schoolchildren.

Thus for people like him to adopt such sociocultural positions, even taking their disability as their pen name along with the prefix ‘the’, as though they are the only one, feels like an imposition or encroachment of the worst kind. I don’t want to sound melodramatic or over the top, but it is like a white person finding out they have black great-great-grandparents, and assuming that they can speak on behalf of all Afro-Caribbean people and claiming to have endured racial discrimination all their life. As I say, this cultural intrusion is something I’m coming across more and more these days, not just with respect to disability: the voices of the most marginalised people in society are increasingly being usurped and stolen by people who know nothing of their experience. Being straight, white and able-bodied is now no longer politically cool, so people will do anything to emphasise things that render them members of marginalised groups. The problem is, in doing so they usurp the voices and steel the often brutal experiences of the actual members of such groups.

Time To Get Into Peaky Blinders

Following the news that Stephen Knight has now been selected to write the next Bond film, my project for the next few days is to catch up with Peaky Blinders. I know it’s now quite a well established BBC franchise, but until now I’ve never got into it. I know absolutely nothing about it, other than that it involves guys wearing flat caps. However, having just watched this clip of some nuns being told what for, I suddenly suspect it is something I could really get into. Who knows – it might even be that new obsession I’ve spent so long looking for.

As for James Bond itself, as I’ve said before, after Daniel Craig, the expectation and eagerness for the next film will be greater than ever. Craig’s Bond films were such a critical success that they left a vacuum which will only get deeper the longer we have to wait. Whoever is selected to write it, direct it or act in it, I really don’t envy them their task.

Watching The Meaning Of Live – Cheers Uncle!

Just to follow up on this entry from a few weeks ago, last night I watched The Meaning of Live for a second time. I’m pleased to say that my wonderful uncle Aki managed to find me a copy, and gave it to me at a family meet-up a couple of weeks ago. Of course I watched it as soon as I got back here, but the truth is I wasn’t feeling that great, so it didn’t really get my full attention or enthusiasm. Yesterday evening’s rewatch, however, did the trick: I was able to grasp the full background of the 2014 Monty Python reunion, why it was culturally so important, and how it came about. Monty Python Live was essentially a review show, so it was devoted to re-performing the old classic sketches, intercut with dance sequences etc. While it is true that it came about in order to get those guys out of financial bother, it was also about nostalgia and celebrating arguably the greatest television comedy show ever. This documentary very much established that cultural context. More to the point, it reminded me how ridiculously lucky I am to have been there watching it! It was like The Beatles, Rolling Stones or Queen getting back together to perform, virtually on my doorstep, and documentaries like this really reinforce that absolutely incredible context. I know I’ve said this here before – repeatedly – but to get to see the greatest, most influential comedy group ever reunite and perform after over thirty years, really is mind-blowing.

Foray Into Flowcharts

By and large I think it’s fair to say that I like prose and that I’m a fairly prose kind of guy. That is to say, whenever I have an idea, I write about it in nice, formal, clear-cut sentences, more often than not posting it on here. Once or twice recently however, I’ve found myself craving for the ability to create flowcharts, ie putting single words or phrases onto a page and drawing lines between them, connecting the ideas. When I was studying psychology over twenty years ago, I remember our tutor Pat using them on the whiteboard: it seemed to allow him to link concepts far more freely, quickly and easily.

I can’t write with a pen, so I never took to them. Obviously, to make a flowchart you need to be physically able to jot down words onto a sheet of paper and draw lines between them. That isn’t easy for me, which is probably why I usually prefer to write things out in prose. Recently however, usually when I’ve been out in my powerchair, I’ve had interesting ideas which I wanted to note down as flowcharts or notes rather than pieces of writing. They were connections between concepts rather than fully formed, articulable pieces of information. Of course, they could then be developed into something I could write about, but first I wanted to jot down the interesting connections between the ideas. This afternoon, for instance, I started to play with the connections between cinemas as physical spaces and ideas concerning ‘the urban’, and the metropolis. That way I could unify my interest in cinephilia, my fascination with metropolitan life, as well as my work with the local Free Film Festival. It’s only a rough idea at the moment, but I certainly think it’s worth exploring more.

I’m very pleased to report quite a bit of success. When I got back here, I had a quick Google for a piece of software I could use to make flowcharts, and found Flowchart Designer. It’s fairly simple, but it was free and easy to start using – certainly far easier and less fiddly than trying to make them long-hand using a bog-standard word processor or drawing program. I have already made the flowchart I had been thinking about, and I suspect it could be the start of an interesting new project. Now that I have found a way to make flowcharts, I also suspect my ideas will flow far more fluidly.

The Taunting Kids Must Stop

Something surely needs to be done about this. I’m getting trouble from kids more and more these days, and I’ve had enough. It’s now happening at least every two or three days: I’m trundling peacefully along in my chair when, completely out of the blue, a teenager makes an abusive or insulting remark. I know I’ve moaned about this on here before, but I honestly think it’s getting worse. The vile little shits are getting more arrogant and cocky, acting as though they are twice their actual age and have some inherent right to belittle people like me. Well, I’ve had enough! Nobody else would be expected to put up with this, so why should I just accept being the butt of a child’s insults? While I’m not yet sure what I can actually do, as trying to shout back just encourages them, it seems to me that, if I have any real respect for myself, not to mention my disabled friends, I cannot let this continue.

Is This Just Happening In London?

I was once again out on my daily trundle earlier, today just along the Thames east of Woolwich. As often happens these days, I was amazed to see the amount of redevelopment going on in that area: I head that way fairly often, but even so I was astonished to see the number of swanky new blocks of flats which seem to have shot up between Woolwich and Abbey Wood. Obviously it’s happening in that area because of the new Elisabeth Line stations, but such overt, hyper-gentrification is happening all over London. However, the obvious resulting question which struck me is: are we seeing the same thing happening outside of London? Is the whole UK being similarly gentrified, or just the capital? I don’t get out of the metropolis that much, so I’m genuinely curious. Please fill me in if you can.

Coming Home To A Much Darker World

Something is very, very wrong at the moment.

I just got back from central London. I thought I would go up to watch the Lioness’ victory parade: well, you know how captivated I am by such big cultural occasions, and it wasn’t as though I had anything better to do. To be honest, though, I didn’t find it that inspiring, and I was struggling to decide what, if anything, to say about it on here. I lined the Mall with thousands of other people, just to get a brief glimpse of an open top bus going past. That’s about it, really. I couldn’t actually see much because there were so many other people standing in front of me.

Mind you, after the parade itself I treated myself to a lovely trundle through St. James’ Park and eventually to Bond Street Station, during which I once again reflected to myself how lucky I was to live in such an awesome city, where such marvellous events take place, and which has such a wonderful, ever-improving public transport system. Where else could someone like me live a life like mine? By then though I was getting rather hungry, so I headed home on the Elisabeth Line for some lunch.

Once in, I put the news on while I ate, as I often do. I was greeted with images which instantly chilled my blood: pictures of children in Gaza, starving to death; vast scenes of deprivation and destruction. The contrast with what I had just experienced could not have been more horrific. Here I am, in this cosmopolitan world city, arsing around going to all these parades and cultural events; at a time when elsewhere in the world we are watching a conflict unfold, the horror of which we haven’t seen in decades. I know I touched on this a couple of entries ago, but I honestly find this disturbing. We seem to be acting like nothing’s going on, or collectively ignoring the unignorable. I was happily eating my lunch while, on the screen in front of me, emaciated babies were crying out for food. I had just ridden a brand new subterranean railway which cost billions of pounds while elsewhere in the world entire cities are being laid to waste. Children are starving, people are suffering, war crimes of the worst kind are being committed; yet still we parade our footballers around in busses and cheer their victories as if sport is more important, or as if the wider, darker world can be put to one side while we sing songs and drink champagne. Something here is very wrong indeed.

Well Done England!

Given what I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I realise it would be awfully hypocritical for me to suddenly start claiming to be a huge women’s football fan, but probably like most of the nation I was glued to my TV last night, biting my nails as the match dragged on and went to penalties. Of course, huge congratulations must go to the women’s England football team: they have achieved what our men’s team has failed to (twice). I certainly think this will mean women’s football will continue to rise in status. The thing is, I just hope that it doesn’t start to mimic the male version of the game and become self-important and awash with obscene amounts of money.

Of Football and Famine

I’m pretty certain that I won’t be the only person to notice this haunting contrast or juxtaposition, but I think I need to flag up something I realised while I was watching this morning’s news. The difference between the two top stories could barely be more stark or unnerving. On the one hand, we have the news of this afternoon’s football match between England and Spain: it’s set to be a great game, and a roaring celebration of women’s football and it’s rise in stature. On the other hand, we have the appalling news of what is currently happening in Gaza, where thousands of people are deliberately being allowed to starve. We surely haven’t seen anything so horrific in decades. Indeed, as a whole, I doubt the world has been this divided or adversarial since the 1940s; peace hangs on a thread. Thus, at a time when tragedy and conflict grow ever more imminent, we continue to play international sport as though everything is still safe and normal. Frankly, that contrast is beginning to feel rather galling.

Batter Goes On Fish

I don’t usually have anything against political correctness. In fact, most of the time I think I’m quite a strong advocate for it: I think, for example, that we should all use language which is inoffensive and accommodating to all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity or whatever. As a cricket fan, however, I have to say that the recent switch from referring to the person currently batting as ‘the batsman’ to ‘the batter’ kind of irritates me. Obviously the change was made in order to reflect the fact that cricket can be played by women as well as men; and I would have nothing against it, were it not for the fact that, as a word, ‘batter’ is something I think goes on fish. Whenever I hear it used on the sports bulletins, I automatically think of fish and chips – it sounds so odd and unnatural. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this. I suppose it’s just something I’ll have to get used to, but I suspect the fish association will stick for quite some time.

Can The US Stoop Any Lower?

When I caught sight of this tweet earlier, I honestly assumed it was some kind of spoof. Even Trump couldn’t be this shallow. Not even he would attempt to hit back at a satirical cartoon mocking him by bragging about the size of his cock.

However, I just got in from my daily trundle, and among other things came across this summary by the Beeb. It’s all true: Trump was apparently so upset by a recent South Park episode poking fun at him that it’s creators have now issued a mock apology. I haven’t watched the episode in question yet so I can’t comment on it, but I find it utterly bewildering how shallow and juvenile American political discourse is becoming. While part of me is laughing, when you remember that we’re now watching the president of the world’s most powerful nation attempting to lash out at his critics by bragging about the size and shape of his cock, another part of me is genuinely worried.

Let’s (Not) Ride A Trike

I rode a tricycle today: a big three wheeled bike like the ones the physios used to make me ride at school. Well…perhaps not. I was up at the Olympic park as I frequently am, when, outside the famous velodrome, I saw a man showing a variety of three wheeled bikes to the general public. Naturally I thought back to school, and how, when I was about seven or eight, I used to get strapped onto very similar contraptions and told to ride around until,  almost inevitably, I tipped the zarking thing over.

Slightly to my surprise, the man came up to me and asked whether I wanted a go; in fact he seemed rather insistent. It wasn’t that it didn’t look like fun, but I immediately judged that it would mean getting out of my powerchair, putting my things in a safe place, before having to put in quite a lot of effort not to fall off the thing and crack my head open, only for a ride lasting twenty minutes or so at most. Thus, then and there, as enthusiastic and eager as the guy seemed that I should give his trikes a try, I decided it would definitely be a case of “Let’s not and say I did.”

Going Off Star Trek

I am, of course, a huge Star Trek fan. I’ve loved Star Trek since my family and I used to watch it every Wednesday evening when I was growing up. I especially liked it’s reassuring, optimistic vision of the future, in which humanity has overcome our petty differences and come together to explore space as one united civilisation. Recently, though – ie in the last few months – something about that vision hasn’t been sitting so well with me: perhaps I’m just getting old and cynical, but what once looked like a united, cooperative humanity, to be honest now just feels like America and American culture writ large. By that I mean, where Star Trek claims to present us with a united Earth culture, if you actually look at it, it’s pretty obvious that the characters and cultural structures we’re presented with are fundamentally American. It is an American film and television franchise after all. The future Star Trek presents us with is one where American culture and the American mindset has somehow risen to dominate the entire globe.

Until now, that has sat comfortably with me, or at least I’ve let it slide. Recently, however, the vision of such an Americanised future has felt more and more insulting. Since their second election of Trump especially, the inherent arrogance of it has become more and more apparent: what gives Americans the right to assume they will dominate humanity’s future? Why will First Contact take place in North America, and why is Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco? Why are these starships crewed mostly by Americans? Indeed, how conceited do Americans have to be to presume that the supposed warp barrier will be broken by a lone maverick from Montana, particularly given that many Americans currently seem convinced that the world is flat and/or was summoned into existence by an imaginary creator being?

Obviously, Gene Roddenberry intended his future to be global and united, famously putting a Russian at the helm of the first Starship Enterprise at the height of the Cold War. Yet these days such things feel more and more like shallow, hollow gestures, varnishing over an America-centric future where their culture is the only one that matters. And at a time where distain for America is growing and it no longer has any claim to the respect it once had, frankly what once felt so optimistic now feels like gut-wrenching arrogance.

A Revealing Tweet

I don’t think I’ll pollute my blog by reposting it here, but earlier I came across a Tweet, apparently by a MAGA supporter, asking us Brits not to protest when Donald Trump visits, and would be “very rude and disrespectful” and “not very English like”. Needless to say, I was staggered that anyone could have the audacity to make such a demand, but now that I come to reflect on it, in a way I think it goes to the heart of the problem. Americans know how unpopular their current president is; deep down, they know trump has turned their country into little more than a global laughingstock. The problem is, those in the cult of trump hate when it is demonstrated explicitly: they know full well that there will be huge protests when Trump visits the UK, but will do anything to avoid them for fear that the spectacle would dash away their fantasy that their hero is a university respected statesman. Hence we see tweets like the one in question appearing, demanding that we all behave ourselves, simultaneously clinging to the delusion that their country still holds the authority to make such demands while betraying an underlying knowledge that the display of revulsion will be unambiguous and un-ignorable when Trump tries to parade himself before the wider world.

Nicholas McCarthy at the Proms

This morning I would just like to record a nice little coincidence which I know won’t resonate much with anyone, but which I think is worth noting anyway. I saw my family over the weekend at our old family house up near Kilburn, visiting London from various parts of the world. On Saturday my cousin Alex told me that the next day – yesterday – they were going to the Royal Albert Hall to watch one-handed pianist Nicholas McCarthy play at the proms. Of course, that automatically struck me as very cool because I know Nick having met him in 2012 when Lyn was performing with the British Paraorchestra. I didn’t know he was performing, so hearing my cousin mention him was a lovely surprise, and I had an awesome little “Oh I know him!” moment.

They would have gone to the prom last night, and I certainly hope they had a good time. Naturally I watched the concert at home on TV. It is great to see McCarthy so clearly flourishing, and I really hope it is a sign of a boom for musicians with disabilities in general. I’m not sure to what extent you can say things like this are connected to the legacy of 2012, but it’s certainly a sign things are going in the right direction.

The 2012 Legacy Lives On

Extreme oddity that I am, I just had my first squeal of spasticated excitement, joy and contentment of the day. I was just watching the morning news, and we were told that yesterday saw a massive athletics event at London Stadium. Not that I’m particularly into athletics, but I frankly find it very satisfying to see London’s former Olympic stadium used for such huge events. All too often, we hear about cities building such stadia to show off to the world for two weeks, before allowing them to fall into disrepair and collect dust. It’s good to see the legacy of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics still flourishing. I still head up to that area of the metropolis fairly often, and virtually every time I go it seems like some wonderful new building is being built on or around the Olympic Park – not just focussing on sport but artistic venues too. Naturally, London Stadium isn’t without it’s critics, and football fans say some of their views aren’t that great; yet I find the fact that the 2012 legacy is clearly living on, and a formerly neglected, disused corner of the city has now become such a hotbed for sport, art and culture, remarkable.

An Unexpected Trip To Canary Wharf

It can be pretty weird being me sometimes. Today was another rather hot day, so I just thought I would head to Woolwich and then take one of my regular trundles along the Thames, perhaps as far as Greenwich. However, I’m still very conscious of the need to drink water regularly, so at Woolwich I was struck by the idea of just popping into the Elizabeth Line station and asking one of the staff there to help me have a sip. They know me there now, so I doubted it would be a problem. As soon as I got into my station and rolled up to the staff though, I was met by the customary question about where I wanted to get off, the people obviously having presumed quite naturally that I had come to ride London’s newest railway.

What could or should I have done? Should I have come clean and confessed that I was only there for a sip of water, or changed my afternoon’s plan on the spur of the moment? When you need to ask for such kinds of aid regularly, I suppose you develop an aversion to looking like you’re taking advantage of people. That’s why I have just come home from a completely unexpected afternoon rolling around Canary Wharf – the first Elisabeth Line station to come to mind. Although it must be said that the Isle of Dogs is one of those exciting, dynamic, fast-changing areas of the city I enjoy going to and looking around quite regularly, it is surely rather strange how my plans have such a tendency to change at such short notice and for such weird reasons.

At least I got my drink of water.

Help With My Water Flask

I’m quite sure everyone will be having issues in the current warm, stuffy weather. Long story short, it was probably the reason for my hospital visit a couple of days ago. I obviously got extremely dehydrated. The thing is, when I’m going out and about in my powerchair, I don’t get much of an opportunity to drink much water, and frankly it usually slips my mind. When I’m trundling around the metropolis, the fact that I need to take on water gets rather forgotten about.

To help with this, a couple of days ago my friend and PA dom bought me a great flask which we can fill with water (or ‘fake’ mojito made with alcohol free rum!) which we can put in my bag and I can take around with me. It was the obvious remedy, you must admit. The thing is, the flask now goes in my the bag which hangs on the back of my powerchair: to get to it, I now need to stop my chair, take my Ipad off my lap, get out of my chair, walk around to it’s bag, open it, and so on. For someone like me, that isn’t a straightforward task. Rather than going thirsty, then, what I’ve been doing is going up to people and asking them to help me with the bottle.

Obviously I try to stick to guys I know I can trust, such as policemen or security staff; yet what I’ve been finding is that most people seem happy to help when I explain the issue to them. They are okay with going to my bag, getting out my bottle, opening it’s suckable spout up and holding it to my lips. A lot of times their fingers get rather wet or sticky, but they usually just ignore it. I must say that I find this enormously reassuring to the extent that I thought it needed noting here. We keep hearing how we live in such fractured, ostracised times, but the spirit of human kindliness and friendliness is clearly still there if you look.

Could Airlines Finally Become More Accessible?

As a wheelchair user who loves to travel, especially by air, it will probably come as no surprise that I want to flag this news up this morning. Tanni Grey-Thompson is heading a new campaign to make airlines more accessible for wheelchair users. “Airline and airport staff should have mandatory training in disability and accessibility awareness, a government taskforce has urged, to ease the stress, confusion and harm experienced by the growing numbers of passengers requiring assistance to travel.” The report was by a cross bench parliamentary group lead by Grey-Thompson. It’s high-time, if you ask me. I’m semi-ambulant, so I usually walk from my chair to my plane seat whenever I’m going anywhere; yet when I used to go abroad with Lyn, what she was often put through in terms of being hauled around airports and onto aircraft was deplorable. That’s not to mention the foul looks we both often got from our fellow passengers when putting our chairs into luggage delayed flights. It’s good to see someone in a position of authority finally getting their finger out and doing something about this issue

Why Don’t Doctors Just Use Email?

I don’t want to go into too much detail right now, but it has been a tough couple of days for me on the medical front, the upshot of which is that I now have a hospital appointment to go to in a couple of weeks. Hospital visits are usually something I try to avoid, but long story short, this one has the potential to deal with a few problems. What I find myself reflecting on, though, is how everything could be so much more easily dealt with if it was all done over email. As both a communication aid user and a technophile, it seems to me that dealing with issues like my current one would be far easier if I could simply email the doctor and explain my situation. Whenever I have to meet doctors in person, I always find myself at a significant disadvantage, having to type my answers to their questions out long hand into my communication aid, whereas email would let me sum everything up in prose. It would also be far quicker, and a more efficient use of the doctor’s time. If I could simply email the doctor I need to, just as I email my parents, support workers or anyone else, matters would be resolved far more efficiently and I probably wouldn’t find myself fretting for the next couple of weeks. Naturally I know there are probably a few reasons why email would not be practical for matters like this, and that face-to-face appointments are still useful. It’s just that, since virtually everything else has moved online, the thought of actually having to go out to meet someone feels a bit daunting.

An Open Mega-Event

You may have noticed all the stuff on the Beeb at the moment about the fortieth anniversary of Live Aid. I was only two in 1985, so I don’t really remember it. The commemorations make me wonder, though: could a similarly enormous event happen these days, and what could it look like? Obviously we still get the periodic global mass media event, and of course I’m thinking about olympic opening and closing ceremonies etc; yet in these online, social media days, could anyone still organise a huge, international fundraising pop-concert, watched by virtually everyone in possession of a television?

As I know from my incredible experience a couple of weeks ago watching Guns And Roses, Wembley Stadium is still a mind-blowing, awesome place for a rock concert. I wonder though, could someone like Bob Geldoff still be able to get everyone together, like he did in 1985? And what might that event look like in these days of Iphones and social mass media? Thus, my open question for everyone today is, if you were somehow asked to organise a gigantic concert like Live Aid, who would you ask to perform? As for me, I think I would definitely start with Greenday and The Cat Empire!

Come On England!

I can really be a bit of a prat sometimes. You may have noticed the criticism I’ve got from my old University friend steve about this entry from a couple of days ago. Rereading the entry, there’s no denying that I made myself look like a right idiot, to be so hostile towards women’s football. I honestly did not mean that I thought women shouldn’t play professional football, or that nobody should be watching it: I suppose that I was trying to articulate that I thought it was an example of the increasing trend in trying to hold two political, social or cultural positions at once – and I failed miserably. As you can see from this video my friend sent me to watch, women’s football has a rich, dark, rather shameful history, and I was utterly wrong to be so dismissive of it.

Having said that, regarding this evenings England Vs Wales match, I hope it’s all right for me to exclaim, ‘Come on England!’

Is The Rise In Powerchair Use A Good Sign?

Just to follow up on this entry from a few weeks ago about the apparent increase in the number of people using powerchairs, I was down in Greenwich this afternoon and I’m pretty certain that I saw more people using powerchairs than I used to. Most were elderly people, but there were quite a few younger ones too. It struck me, though, that rather than try to feel cynical about it and work out some underlying pseudo political motive, perhaps it should be taken as a positive, even encouraging sign. If increasing numbers of people are becoming happy to be powerchair users, surely that is a sign that society is becoming more accessible and accommodating of people with disabilities. Perhaps people are becoming more open about disabilities, especially physical disabilities, which they might previously have sought to hide. Perhaps even more encouragingly, it could also mean more people who need to use powerchairs are now confident enough to get out and about, when previously they may have felt they needed to stay at home, or away from public sight. Thus I think it’s fair to say that what I’m increasingly seeing, in the rise in powerchair use, could well be a pretty encouraging sign.

Women, Football and Cake

I must admit that I haven’t been watching the Woman’s Euros currently being played, and in fact have actively avoided it. To be honest I find it rather unseemly. I know it shouldn’t, and that we should all now embrace that kind of thing; yet somehow the sight of twenty-two women running around a football pitch as though they were men is somehow unedifying.

However, it seems to me that that brings about a paradox which needs to be unpacked: These women want to play football; they do so because they like playing the sport. Women play in their own leagues separately from men because women are biologically different from men, with different speeds and abilities. If women played against men, there would be very little competition. Yet if that is so, why is there an increasing eagerness for the woman’s sport to be perceived on a par with the men’s, with the same high wages etc; and if the two manifestations of the sport are so different that they need to be kept separate, why do women seem to be playing increasingly masculinely, almost imitating men? Frankly, it seems to me that the women’s sport wants to hold two positions at once: the same but different. The women want to attract spectators so they play more and more like men, but in doing so they erode what makes their sport different from the men’s, and frankly the more unseemly I personally find it.

Mind you, this is a paradox or contradiction we’re seeing more and more of these days. People try to hold two conflicting rhetorical positions, seemingly without understanding either. We find it in concepts like ‘high functioning autism’, where apparently fully self-aware people claim to be autistic, apparently without grasping the fact that autism is a profoundly debilitating neurological condition. It is an example of what could be called ‘cakeism’ – of wanting to have a cake, and to eat it. In turn it’s also rather like Joseph Heller’s famous Catch 22, where to be grounded for insanity, a fighter pilot must apply to be grounded for insanity, the act of which is taken as a sign of his sanity. In other words, increasing numbers of people seem to want to hold two or more mutually exclusive cultural or social identities, but in so doing strip those identities of any real meaning. To attract the acclaim of men’s football, women must play more and more like men; but in doing so their sport looses it’s identity…and point.

“You were stronger with the European Union.”

I usually try to avoid linking to sites like the Huffington Post, but today I certainly think this is flagging up. French president Emanuel Macron has openly criticised Brexit, and told the UK we were stronger as members of the EU. Of course, that won’t go down well with a lot of Outists, still clinging to the myth of British exceptionalism and wondering why we’re not being treated like some great superpower; but it’s a clear sign that reality is beginning to bite concerning the idiocy of 2016. All our allies know Brexit was a catastrophically stupid thing to do. It left us isolated, alone and vulnerable. It’s just good to see our friends are beginning to speak out about it.

Bigots like Olubanjo Must Not Get Their Way

I saw something which appalled me on the BBC local news last night, so much so that I’m still extremely pissed off about it. In fact it has been making my blood boil each time I have thought about it all day. I’m sure everyone living in London has come across pedestrian crossings which have been painted in various colours in support of various minorities, such as in the colours of the gay pride or trans pride flags. It’s surely a wonderful way of recognising the city’s diversity and inclusivity. However, as you can read here, a vile bitch in Camden is objecting to one such crossing because she claims it somehow infringes on her rights as a Christian. Suffice to say, I find that so contemptible and arrogant that it makes me want to vomit. How can anyone have the gut-churning audacity to claim that their religious delusions are somehow more important than someone else’s right to express their sexuality or gender identity? It’s like someone starting a campaign to stop Pride taking place every year because they claimed their faith did not tolerate gay people. Frankly I wouldn’t put it past them, and what clearer sign could there be that it was time for society to outgrow such anachronistic, repressive nonsense. If we truly aspire to be an open, tolerant, inclusive society, we cannot allow religious bigots like this to get in the way.

The Thames Kept Flowing

I was just going through my blog archive, as I often do, and realised that it is now more or less twenty years to the day since I wrote this entry in reaction to the terrible bombings of 7/7. I opened it by saying how, at the time, I lived in the North of England, so all I knew was the peace and quiet of rural Cheshire, far removed from the hubbub and chaos of the metropolis. The thing is, London is now my home and has been for the last fifteen years. In fact I feel more comfortable and settled here than anywhere else.

I just got in from a lovely long trundle along the Thames near Woolwich, the river looking majestic in the afternoon sun. Thus, when I think about what happened to this city two decades ago, I remember too everything else this place has been through over two millennia: the bombings, blitzes, plagues and riots. The Thames kept flowing through them, just as it always has, and just as it flowed on after the horror of twenty years ago. And sure enough, London bounced back into what turned out to be some of her greatest, most triumphant years. I may have grown up in Cheshire, and I might have been shielded from what happened here; but over the last fifteen years I have got to know London, and I know now that this city is far, far greater than anything any lunatic can throw at it.

GB News Should Apologise Immediately

If you are still under any naive illusion that anti-disabled vitriol is not rising, just read this. GB News now claims it has nothing to apologise for after a so-called commentator and comedian came onto one of it’s shows and started spouting off that disabled people should be starved or even shot as a way to cut the benefits bill. The unfunny, untalented wanker, who I won’t even dignify by naming, was obviously trying to attract attention by being controversial; but I don’t think there’s anything even vaguely amusing about denying any minority their right to live. What troubles me is that this is a symptom of a fast-growing undercurrent of anti-disability vitriol: what is currently construed as just joking or having a laugh can quickly become outright prejudice and discrimination if we’re not careful.

Spot Of Physics, Anyone?

Just in case you’re getting a bit bored of me prattling on about this and that, today I’d just like to flag this blog entry by my brother Mark up. It’s his review of a book called The Ant Mill, which is apparently about ‘How theoretical high-energy physics descended into groupthink, tribalism and mass production of research’. Mark seems to blog a lot less frequently than I do, but when he does it’s usually about intriguing stuff to do with physics. I won’t pretend I understand everything he’s talking about, but I’m sure it’ll sound far more intelligent than the nonsense I usually spew on here.

Pride 2025

It has been an afternoon which has simply reinforced my now deep conviction that London is the greatest, most awesome city on earth. A couple of days ago, I of course heard that the annual pride march was this weekend, so I thought I would head up there to check it out. You know how fascinated I am by such big cultural events. To be honest, as I headed into central London this morning, I had my political head on, wondering how much evidence I might find of the kind of cultural intrusion or usurpation I often get so wound up about. However, as soon as I got to the pavement of Piccadilly, it became clear that such concerns were totally and utterly irrelevant. If what I saw today was about anything, it was about inclusion and the celebration of diversity; politics had nothing to do with it.

Having said that, the march started slightly late apparently due to some sort of protest, but when it got going I was almost instantly overwhelmed by the energy and vibrancy of what I was watching. Thousands of people, all cheering and whooping, but above all expressing love for one another. The procession was formed of groups of people representing organisations around London. There was a vast array, but they all had an LGBT aspect, giving the afternoon a feeling of variety and diversity, but also solidarity and unity. What better metaphor could there be for London as a whole?

Apart from the last time I went to Pride, I have never seen anything like it: the feelings of warmth, compassion and friendliness were palpable. As usual I got chatting with a few people and made a few friends. One man even gave me a fabulous rainbow cowboy hat, completely at random! At about four I headed home, but as I rode the Elizabeth line back, covered in rainbows and stickers, I decided that today certainly wouldn’t be my last Pride.

Are They Filmmakers?

Film is such a strange, beguiling artform when you think about it: to a unique extent, it is at the same time supremely democratic and eye-wateringly exclusive. Unlike any other art form or mode of expression, it is something just about anyone can ‘do’, simply by holding up a camera and pressing ‘record’; yet on the other hand the film industry is notoriously difficult to get into, and making a proper, professional film for cinematic release takes years of work, dizzying amounts of networking (and luck), and obscene amounts of money. Thus in these days of camera-phones and Youtube, we find ourselves at a point where anyone can make a film by pointing a camera at something and recording it, before uploading it to make it available to the entire online world.

The question is, does that mean that they are filmmakers? At university I learned what an extremely sophisticated artform film is: Contemporary cinema is an amalgamation of techniques and styles, all of them having evolved over the last century or so, to form a rich, intriguing filmic language. You only have to read guys like Andre Bazin or Christian Metz to get an idea of just how beautiful and complex it is. Now, however, all that is being bypassed: online, film in the broader sense is becoming simply the recording of moving images, devoid of any art, style, technique or appreciation of film in any philosophical sense. It is as if what came before has been bypassed and ignored, akin to someone throwing paint haphazardly onto a canvas in roughly the shape of a woman, and proclaiming themself the next da Vinci. The result might express someone’s thoughts and feelings clearly enough, but can you call it art?

I suppose I shouldn’t complain. Film, like any other artform, is constantly evolving. The way it is accessible to anyone makes it hugely democratic. Yet, as a cinephile, part of me worries that the door has been opened to luddites with no idea what they are doing or any real appreciation of the artistry of film, resulting in the slow yet gradual wilting of the quality of films as a whole. To put it another way, it is not that difficult to write a few sentences to convey a message; but to write something with any deeper meaning or nuance, to say something meaningful about life, the universe and everything, it helps to have a knowledge of literature more broadly. That is the point at which writing, film or any other art gains true intellectual weight; without such context, it is just a few pictures or words, void of any real meaning.