There isn’t much I want to say on here this evening, beautiful though it is, but I think  there’s a lot to be learned from this blog  entry by Chris Whittaker. I think he comes to many of the same conclusions I did here: ie,  everything is a matter of perspective, and with the right attitude we can get through even the darkest times.

It is true that we had been growing apart for a couple of years and differences in our personalities were becoming increasingly obvious. I was becoming too reliant on Lyn, using her too much as a mother figure; the difference in our ages was also becoming increasingly apparent. She had the wisdom to see that, after nine years of living with her, it was time for me to become independent. I think she realised that we both needed our own space. I’ll forever be grateful for her kindness and patience, helping me get my own home and waiting for me to move out. Truth be told, I didn’t think I could do it, but Lyn encouraged me: she knew it was time for me to take the next step. And now here I am, in my own place, which I would never have got had it not been for Lyn knowing the right strings to pull. Yet I’ll forever regret the fact that I’ll now never have a chance to repay her, or even to invite her here, give her a coffee, and show her what she did for me.

You might have noticed that I like to keep my blog updated, posting at least every couple of days – it’s just good writing practice. Yet now I’m struggling. What is there to blog about? How can I waffle on about random  shit I find on the web when a large part of me thinks that all I ought to be thinking about is Lyn, and that writing about random shit would imply I had  forgotten about her.

And yet I must: Lyn wouldn’t want it otherwise. She would not want me to wallow around, getting melodramatic – she knew what a drama queen  I could be. Of course, the best way to remember her is for me to write about all the  wonderful times we had together, and the journeys we went on; or how I learned so much from her, and how she made me who I am now. I fully intend to  do that, yet as well as that I hope nobody minds if I drop in entries about my usual politics or media or humour – I don’t think Lyn would want it otherwise.

Words  aren’t coming easily at the moment, but I  think I ought to record here that Lyn sadly passed away last night. We may have grown apart somewhat and split up, but Lyn still meant a lot to me: she was so kind, warm and loving. The most incredible person I’ll ever meet. We had around ten truly incredible years together, filled with so many awesome memories. I’ll miss her.

Now here’s an idea which might help to while away a few hours:

All I need to do now is go find a dog….and some helium.

To mark the sad passing of Tim Brooke-Taylor, I think today I’ll just direct everyone here, and then say: North Greenwich.

I have just watched a genuinely remarkable, fascinating and important film. I saw a trailer for Crip  Camp on my friend Darryl’s facebook page  a couple of hours ago. Darryl said he thought it should be  required viewing on any disability studies course, so  I thought I’d check it out. I  now wholeheartedly agree with him: the film charts the history of the Disability Rights movement in America, tracing it back to a small summer camp for disabled people. It tells of the struggles they had to go through as the camp group go on to campaign for  disabled peoples’  rights, at one point  needing to barricade theirselves  in a government office for two weeks. More than that, though, the film is the best, most accurate depiction of life for disabled people I think I’ve ever seen; the people in it remind  me so much of people I know personally. More than disability studies courses, this film should be required viewing for everyone. It can be watched on Netflix here.

It’s hard to read this and not feel very, very concerned. Disability rights activists have had  to campaign to overturn a ruling saying many disabled people should not be resuscitated if they contract Coronavirus. Fortunately, with the help of people like Baroness Grey-Thompson, campaigners managed  to secure a commitment from NHS England that everyone will get the treatment they need, irrespective of disability; but what scares me is the fact that such an assurance would be needed in the first place.  It implies ‘we’ are less of a priority, and that our lives aren’t worth saving as much as able bodied peoples. Surely one of the main principles of the NHS is that it  is there for everyone.

America has been on my mind quite a bit recently: as bad as things are here, I’m now starting to thank fuck I don’t live in the states. For starters I cannot respect it as long as Americans call trump their president.  That utter embarrassment to humanity is beyond a joke. Due to that fuckwit, it looks like the pandemic is going to be far worse than it is here or elsewhere. Culturally America may seem amazing, but when you start to look at it, you find it’s actually fucked up. I don’t just say that because of the sort of stuff I wrote about here, but because their infrastructure is falling apart. They resent paying taxes, apparently not realising that, as a result, things like roads and hospitals can’t get built or repaired. The nation which brags about being the greatest on earth is actually falling apart, with a healthcare system which, as far as I can tell, is little more than draconian.

I came across this earlier. I did some googling and Dave are airing a new Red Dwarf tv film on Friday at 8. It has been ages since I watched Red Dwarf, but it pricked my curiosity enough to create an account on the Dave website and start watching a few episodes. It is interesting to see how it changed as it transferred from the beeb onto Dave, and whether this feature length program on Friday is a return to form or a reboot. At the very least it’s something new to get obsessed about.

My hearty congratulations go today to my old friend Dr. Chris Whittaker for this fascinating interview with Dame Tammi Grey-Thompson. Published on Twitter last night, they have a thorough, very well informed discussion about what life is like for people with disabilities these days. It’s certainly well worth listening to. I’m not sure how it came about, but Chris appears to be making a name for himself on the disability journalism scene- long may that continue.

I have always felt uncomfortable and patronised when staff in shops put rubber gloves on to help me: it felt as if they were implying that I was dirty. These days, though, I’m perfectly fine with it, and in fact it comforts me. In fact, everyone uses rubber gloves so it’s perfectly normal. Just another weird consequence of this virus.

As a firm Labour voter, I probably better say something about the election of Kier Starmer as leader today. To be honest I don’t think there’s much to comment on: it was pretty obvious that the party was going to chose him. He seems well qualified, charismatic and electable. I’d certainly rather see him in Downing Street than the p’tahk currently there. What remains to be seen, though, is how he deals with the two big issues of the time: he might not be able to do much about the pandemic, but his approach to Brexit will certainly make or break him.

I firmly believe that animals deserve our respect. There can be few things more beautiful than watching wildlife in it’s natural environment: think of, say, an elephant gracefully crossing the plains of east Africa, or a shoal of fish in the sea. All part of the majesty of nature and the network of life on earth. Yet inherent to that majesty is the connection between an animal and it’s environment: all animals evolve, after all, to suit their environment. Take an animal out of it’s environment and you create something artificial, fake. That’s why I object so strongly to so-called dog lovers treating their pets like human infants: a dog should be respected as a dog, not anthropomorphised in the pretence that it is something it’s not.

I just finished binge-watching Joe Exotic, Tiger King on Netflix. It is car crash tv of the worst kind, but it’s so addictive that I watched the entire series in two days. Centred around people who own small zoos in the American south, it is shockingly fucked up: the way these people treat one another, behaving like petulant children armed with guns, is disturbing. My chin was on the floor in bewilderment half the time, and I defy anyone to watch it and not wonder how a nation with such deranged psychopaths could become the most powerful country on earth.

Most sickening of all, perhaps, was the way these egotistical nutcases treated the animals they owned. They claimed to love them, but it’s very obvious they just used them as tourist attractions with which to make fortunes. I particularly disliked the way they encouraged visitors to take their photo with infant tigers, emphasising how apparently cute the animal looks. Yet animals aren’t supposed to be cute: in this case, tigers are supposed to be vicious predators from Africa and Asia. It made me sad to see so many animals taken out of their natural habitat and used to boost the egos of these fools; yet surely it’s just an aspect of a type of culture which uses and exploits animals as emotional crutches. Be it dogs, cats, tigers or chimps, people seem to project their emotions onto animals, using them as toys or tools for their own edification, rather than respecting them as the beautiful examples of evolution that they are.

Everything may be shut, the streets may be empty, but at last it seems we will get to watch the 2012 Opening Ceremony again this summer. Believe it or not, reading that earlier cheered  me up, if ever so slightly, although you know things are getting dire when the beeb resort to airing repeats of sports events from eight years ago.

Rolling up to my  local Tesco the other day, I noticed they had taped lines on the pavement outside, for people  to stand behind queuing to go in. A security guy was at the door, allowing customers  in one at a time. Naturally I headed to  the end of the queue, preparing to wait for my turn. Not me, though: to my surprise, the security guy beckoned to me (and Serkan), allowing us straight in. This  amused  me – it seems there are advantages to being a ‘vulnerable adult’, although part of me would rather have waited for my turn like any other member of the community.

It appears that my attempt to make music a few days ago had more of an effect than I thought it would.  I am currently  over the moon, as  look what I just found on Charlie’s facebook page. Apparently inspired by my effort  (I asked C), it’s  a joy  to watch one of my favourite songs sung by some of my favourite people (ie most of the Jones family). Just how awesome is that? Now I’m wondering whether this could  become a trend.

Earlier I came across  some nonse trying to usurp the spirit of Thursday’s applause to try to get everyone to have a similar clap for Boris Johnson on Sunday night. Needless to say I was unimpressed by the idea  – why should we applaud a scumbag whose party has gradually cut NHS funding over the last ten years? – and it seems the internet was equally quick to react.

”No society can legitimately claim to be  civilised if it denies citizens care due to lack of means.” Too me,  that statement is irrefutably true, which is why at eight last night I was outside my front door bashing a biscuit tin with a pair of scissors. The National Health Service  is one of the greatest things about the United Kingdom; knowing that if I fall ill I will be cared for,  regardless of how much money I have or whether  I have insurance must surely be one  of the greatest comforts anyone can want. This is when we need the NHS the most though, which is why I’ll just direct   everyone here, to the moment when our health service got the tribute it deserves.

Perhaps it’s time for a bit of perspective. A couple of days ago I came across a meme about Anne Frank, basically saying that if she can hide in a basement for three years, we can self isolate for a few months. That struck a chord, but I’d like to add something to it: people are now moaning that they’re bored, stuck at home, not allowed to go out; yet for me it’s not that different from when, say, my powerchair breaks, or from when before I got my first powerchair and was dependent on someone else to be taken anywhere.

And I had it easy. Boy, did I have it easy. I know from the history of disability that it wasn’t long ago that people with conditions like cerebral palsy, particularly severe cp, were confined to institutions and long stay hospitals: unable to walk, feed theirselves or communicate, they were assumed to have severe learning difficulties and treated like babies in adult bodies. People like Anne McDonald, who notably likens her institution to a ‘sugarcoated concentration camp’: she endured around fourteen years of her childhood lying in a hospital bed, barely being fed. Unable to tell anyone her wishes, or that she understood what was going on around her, she was seen as little more than a breathing doll. She was spoon-fed mushed up food, rarely taken out for fresh air. Such horrific accounts litter the frighteningly recent history of disability. Indeed, Lyn went through something similar. I can only imagine the tedium and frustration of day after day of being treated like that.

I cannot help but think of such accounts when I come across people on the web complaining about having to self isolate for a few weeks. Even after all they experienced, people like Anne McDonald or Lyn do not bemoan their fate but take it in their stride; the same goes for my mates from school who had muscular Dystrophy. They knew how much worse things could be and counted theirselves lucky; they all had friends who did not make it. What we are all going through these days might seem harsh and restrictive, but I know that there are far worse fates to endure. I can get up when I want, choose what I want to eat, sip my coffee and browse the web. And in a few weeks or months, life will return to normal. People might feel isolated compared to the freedoms they enjoyed a few weeks ago, but perhaps they just need a bit of perspective.

I just came across something rather interesting and quite nostalgic. Fiddling around on Facebook as usual, I saw my old school, Hebden Green, mention that an episode of the CBeebies show Something Special had been filmed there and was due to air this morning. Obviously  this aroused my curiosity, so I went to Iplayer to check it out. Now, let me make it clear that I don’t usually watch CBeebies, but today I held my nose and put it on. Sure enough, there was my  old school: It has been almost twenty years since I last visited the place, but it was recognisably Hebden. It is a place which I still have strong memories of, and I found myself scanning the background of each shot to try to make out where it was filmed. In this way, you could link this to my work on cinephilia, insofar as it is a fascination with the peripheral details of a  filmic shot. I tried to look past the nauseatingly upbeat presenter, Mr.  Tumble (but then, it is a show aimed at young children with learning difficulties, so I’ll let him off) to see whether I could recognise anything; and sure enough I recognised the very swimming pool I learned to swim in. That struck me as rather cool, although that joy is tempered with the sorrow at knowing that so many of my fellow students I knew from that place have now passed on: it would seem Mr. Tumble’s jollity is in direct juxtaposition to the darkness which inevitably comes with growing up in such places.

After writing my entry yesterday I realised I was getting a bit glum, and what we all could do with right now is a bit of levity and humour. We’re all stuck at home getting bored,  but that doesn’t necessarily stop us having fun: dire situations are often the easiest to take the piss out of. Realising that, I had an idea and got to work. It took a bit longer than I expected, and in the end I had to leave it for this morning to  finish. It isn’t perfect, and some of the rhymes don’t work, so see it as a first draft; but please  let me know what you think of this. Apologies, of course, to Eric Idle.

I can think of several moments in the last decade or so that remind me of life’s infinite potential for awesomeness; moments which still make me squeal spastically with glee whenever I think of them: James  Bond escorting the queen to the olympic opening ceremony in 2012; Stephen Hawking singing the galaxy song in 2014. There are many more such moments – points in time so ridiculously cool that it goes beyond words, yet remind me of the sheer potential of existence.  And yet, recently, it just seems to me that the last such event was a long time ago, and that we can all do with another one right about now.  Everyone seems so  subdued and frightened, told to huddle in our homes as if awaiting some awful apocalypse. I’m sorry to say it, but these days life  just feels a lot less cool. We all have  cool memories to fall back on, but right now they just seem rather distant. It is high time something awesome happened again, not just to cheer me up, but the whole world.

This is  just to wish my mum a happy mother’s day. Truth be told, these aren’t the most pleasant times, for me or anyone else. These days, things just seem to get more depressing with every news bulletin. Yet at least  I know I have my mum (and dad) to talk to at the other end of a webchat. She  has always managed to keep me on the right path, preventing me from straying too far into stupidity. I’m bloody glad I have both my parents, and that I can count on their wisdom at least every Sunday morning.

It’s a lovely sunny day here so I just got back from a short  walk. I’m supposed to be self-isolating,  so I can’t go anywhere with too many people (I’m already missing my rolls around Stratford) so I took myself over to Kidbrooke. I’ve found a lovely circular route there and back which goes through two quite outstanding parks. One, Sutcliffe Park, is fairly new, but is astonishingly beautiful: the river Quaggy runs through it, and  there are nice little accessible paths running beside and over  it. The  sight of the pleasant little stream flowing through the park is incredibly evocative. At one point it flows through a bit of woody marshland  bridged by well-made causeways, so, walking along  them  you can almost forget you’re in a city.

Just over the road from Sutcliffe Park is  another new little park. I think in has only just been built as the buildings close to it are all very new.  The river runs through that too, although it is slightly more developed and clearly more intended for children. There is a beautiful little waterfall I could sit next to for hours. It’s an astonishing little place  which I would really like to show Lyn  and my Parents when it’s possible and safe to do so again. It’s a wonderfully relaxing corner of the metropolis. From there,  I can just follow the footpaths back to Eltham, once again remarking to myself what an incredible  city London is.

It’s slightly random I admit, but this  little video of the guys up at the NMC doing a Superman dance – possibly aimed at reminding everyone to wash their hands – made me smile. I particularly like how  they achieved the flying  effect.

Yesterday I made the calamitous mistake of going up to my local medical centre and asking them to test if  I had coronavirus. My PA Alistair was concerned that I had a very slight cough recently, so I thought it would be a good idea to go  check it out, just to put his mind at ease. Once this new virus had been ruled out, I reasoned, my life could continue as usual. However, it was then that my  plan backfired badly: upon getting to the medical centre and explaining the situation, I was told to go straight home and self isolate. They didn’t even  test me.

So now here I am, stuck at home, with only the internet for company. My usual daily wanderings  have been ruled  out for a week at least. I  have no idea how I’ll cope, but at least I have the solace that about half the world is in the same position. What a  mess we’ve all found ourselves in.

Everything has gone so crazy and become so farcical that flagging this video history of toilet paper up is strangely  apt.  Bog roll is now such a crucial, valuable, even politically sensitive commodity that Youtubers are now making videos about it.  It may be my birthday, but I have to  wonder: Can things get any more bizarre?

I’m not sure everyone will be able to see this as it’s on Facebook, but I just came across this Scientists For The EU video which completely destroys the assumption I made in my previous entry about herd immunity. I thought I  was being cool and clever in advising everyone to chill out about this bug:  if some people got it, I thought, wouldn’t we build up the usual communal resistance? The chap in the video, however, explains why that logic is flawed, and why this new virus is so dangerous. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that I was wrong  to dismiss it: I might be fine, but not everyone in society is as fit and healthy as I am. In all seriousness, it’s becoming clearer and clearer  that this virus isn’t something to joke about.

I currently have a bit of a cough and sneeze.  Unlike what appears  to be half the world, though,  I have not assumed I have Coronavirus. Having a bit of a sneeze at this time of year is nothing out of the usual, and even if I do turn out to have this new virus, I would not automatically assume it was a death sentence. I would do the logical thing, stay calm and heed the appropriate medical advice. What I can’t understand, though, is  how everyone seems to have suddenly lost their  minds over  this bug:  doctors are currently advising that people should be unafraid of contracting it as it would help build up herd immunity; but online I’ve come across people calling that outrageous, and claiming that it means the authorities want to leave people to die.

It really is laughable how worked up people are  becoming over this. According to the advice, most will only be mildly effected, yet everybody seems to suddenly think it is the worst thing since the plague. For my part, I’ll chill out and carry on with life, just as I always have. When you lead a life like mine, you realise that there are far, far worse things than a new bug named after a weak, tasteless larger.

My ability to type with my extended keyboard, communicate with my iPad and cruise around London in my powerchair is all very well and good, but at this very moment, I’d  trade them all in if someone would invent a device for cleaning spectacles. If you think about it, it shouldn’t be that hard: whenever I try to clean my glasses, they always end up dirtier than when I started, so I just need some  little machine I could put my specs in to get them clean. How hard could designing something like that be?  Sat here, looking through a veil of post-pizza gunk, I’d give good money for such a piece of kit.

If  you want a song to sing while  washing your hands, just so you know you’ve washed them thoroughly enough, just go here. Thanks to Caroline, the librarian at Charlton Park, for showing me this little gem. It really amazes me how people come up with  such craziness so quickly.

Everyone seems to be getting more and more anxious about coronovirus.  At dinner just now, I had one of my usual dribble-coughs. I get them fairly frequently:  I swallow a bit of saliva and it goes the wrong way, making me splutter a bit. Yet it’s probably  a sign of the times that my PA Alistair asked if I could be coming down with  something. Everyone seems to be getting so worked up about it. What I’m more concerned about, though, is  what could be happening while everyone is distracted by this epidemic. I just came across this Financial Times article: do you realise that we are about to get the worst pandemic in decades at the very point when the uk is leaving some of the very international bodies which could best keep it under control? And  that the Tories are jumping on this outbreak to use it to disguise some of the worst, most draconian effects of Brexit? If you think about it, this emergency is precisely what the tories needed, at precisely the right time. Of course, I’m not suggesting they somehow manufactured this crisis – I don’t go in for that conspiracy theory nonsense – but I find it sickening that these opportunistic bastards  will use this tragedy to hide the damage they are doing.

I just watched the first episode of Noughts and Crosses, the beeb’s new Sunday night drama series, on iPlayer. I definitely wasn’t up to watching it properly when it aired, so I decided to wait before giving it a go. Now that I have, I find myself intrigued: it’s clearly a piece of television which one could write a lot about. For starters, the basic premise of a modern society in which ethnic roles have been reversed opens a giant can of worms: leaving aside basic questions such as how such a state of affairs could come about (one’s suspension of disbelief should deal with that), what I find more of an issue is that the fiction essentially assumes the audience already has ingrained notions regarding ethnic roles, which it then sets about playing with. That is to say, the premise of the fiction would not work if it did not presume the audience did not already have certain ingrained ideas about race and ethnicity. The only reason this television program might strike us as bold is because it inverts those roles, thus highlighting and exposing them; but that in and of itself assumes audience members already have certain ingrained ideas regarding notions like ‘race’. After all, go into the relevant literature and you will find that the very idea of race is a social construct, and a highly problematic one at that.

This is not to dismiss the program at all. I am sure I could go a lot deeper. Television like this virtually begs for analysis, and I can’t wait to read some of what no doubt will already have been written about it. The problem is, in trying to expose racial boundaries through their reversal, it automatically presumes that such boundaries exist, in effect reinforcing them. The fiction relies on real world notions and stereotypes, even at the very point at which it tries to reread them. Thus, in the program, people from Africa and Europe still behave in ways we stereotypically expect in the real world, even though the respective cultures would presumably have evolved very differently.

I won’t write any more until I have watched the rest of the series, but I must admit I’m intrigued, if just to see where the beeb are going with it. This program has the potential to be both controversial and problematic – plenty to get one’s teeth into, then.

It seems that at last I just came across some  good news. The release of the new Peter Rabbit film has  now been delayed  due to coronavirus. That is, a sequel to a film adaptation of a book which, to my knowledge, never had a sequel, has been postponed due to a pandemic of a disease which everyone seems to think is armageddon. Well, thank zark for small  mercies, although wouldn’t it be hilarious if coronavirus turned out to be spread by rabbits.

You know  Brexit is going well when our neighbours start taking the piss out of us. Check this little ditty by Irish trio Foil Arms and Hogg out. Topical and witty with just the right amount of bite,  I better warn you, it could get stuck in your head.

I have had a truly strange seventy-two hours or so.  I’m pretty sure I don’t have Corronavirus, but I haven’t been feeling myself at all. Apart from a  slightly runny nose I’ve been physically fine; but mentally  I’ve been all over the place. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before: my sense of time and place were very strange; my thought patterns were a mess; my memory was non-existent. Things just did not feel right at   all. I got so worried and confused yesterday I took myself to the hospital to check if something was seriously wrong. Fortunately my blood tests turned out ok, and  they couldn’t find any physical problem,, so I probably just had low blood sugar  or something.

Right now, I  am pretty much back  to normal, although I still have moments of this uncanny uncertainness. They’ll eventually pass too  though, and  I’m sure I’ll be right as rain in no time. But if anyone has any ideas what could have brought on this sudden change in mental state,  please get in touch.

My parents reminded me earlier that I forgot to wish them  a happy anniversary yesterday, when I should have, so I’ll dedicate this blog entry to them instead. They  are wonderful parents, whose support I couldn’t do without. Try as I might to be independent, Mum and  dad  lend me a guiding hand which I find invaluable. Setting up my own place would have been impossible without them. I hope they had a great day yesterday. They make a wonderful couple, and I’m lucky to have them both as parents.