Visiting Cambridge

I don’t really have much to report here today. Yesterday was a lovely day: I went to Cambridge with John, and then came back. He had some business to do at the university, and invited me to go with him, just so I could explore the city. It was a short, hour-long train trip from Liverpool Street, before I spent an afternoon in a beautiful little city. I enjoyed looking at all the book shops and cafes, but that’s about it. highlights included glimpsing the tree Newton apparently was sitting under when he came up with gravity, and (best of all) walking around the park where this was filmed.

No DLR Extension (This Time)

For some reason I seem to be becoming a London public transport geek. That is to say, London public transport is now one of the subjects I keep an eye on and am excited to hear news about. I want to know if there are any awesome new infrastructure projects like the Elisabeth Line in the works. I was disappointed, then, to hear yesterday that the DLR extension to Thamesmead hadn’t got the go-ahead: there was nothing about it in the Spending Review. I use the Docklands Light Railway quite regularly these days, and if you ask me it’s one of the coolest pieces of London Public Transport, as it winds it’s way over and under the east end. Best of all, all it’s stations are fully wheelchair accessible. Extending it beyond Woolwich into quite a neglected, undeveloped area of the capital could have breathed new life into it.

Then again, as many others are pointing out, that area already has a brand new Elisabeth Line station; and the fact that the DLR extension wasn’t announced this time doesn’t mean it won’t be announced in the autumn or next year. The same goes for the Bakerloo line extension to Lewisham. Such things have a funny way of getting built eventually in the capital. What I suppose I should be even more concerned about is infrastructure projects outside of the capital. The metropolis just got Crossrail, the biggest most expensive transport project in Europe; it can’t really complain. Are other areas of the UK seeing such investment? Around here I can just wheel onto a bus or into a DLR or tube station and get to wherever I want to go across the capital: I fear that that isn’t the case outside the metropolis. What about the more neglected areas of the country? I’ve heard that Manchester is getting an extension to it’s tram network, but what about Stoke-On-Trent, for instance? What about it’s infrastructure? I haven’t been there in quite some time, but from what I hear it has barely had any attention or investment in the last forty years. Such areas weren’t even mentioned yesterday. Surely places like Stoke should get the investment they need before we even start talking about yet another multi-billion pound project for the capital.

But You Don’t

Do you know what Muscular Dystrophy is, you stupid bitch? Do you know what MD does to young boys, slowly sapping their strength away? Do you know what it feels like to go in to school, day after day, and have to watch your classmates, boys you grew up with, fading away? Do you know what it’s like to wonder which of your friends will die next, until there are only two of you left by the time you’ve reached forty? Boys who all deserved long, happy lives, but the sight of whose grieving, distraught parents is now seared into your memory like molten iron pressed into flesh. I don’t think you do, because if you did, you wouldn’t have stood up on that bus back from Bexleyheath earlier and started to hand out leaflets about a god which can’t possibly exist. You wouldn’t have started to talk shit about how everyone should love Jesus, trying to indoctrinate your fellow passengers into believing in a god who, if he actually existed, did nothing to prevent the suffering of so many of your friends. A god you demand everyone should love, while being nothing but an entity of contempt, rage and malice.

You would understand why I reacted with such anger, disgust and horror, demanding that you either shut the fuck up or got off the bus, while you arrogantly went on spouting bullshit. You would understand why I for a moment wanted with every fibre of my being to put my hand out and break your neck for thinking you had a right to force everyone on the bus to believe the baseless nonsense you do, as if you were the purveyor of all knowledge. You would realise why I find you an arrogant, vile, brainwashed bitch, deserving nothing but my white hot fury. But you don’t, so in the end you went on your way thinking you have a right to come onto busses and try to spread your bullshit.

Finding Fields

I had a lovely long trundle yesterday. When I go out in my powerchair, I usually head up towards central London to check out the vibrant cultural hubs of Greenwich, Canary Wharf or Stratford. Getting into the metropolis proper is now easier than ever thanks to the Elisabeth Line. Yesterday, though, I headed in the opposite direction, south across Eltham towards Sidcup and Bexley. I seldom head that way, but yesterday I fancied a change. It wasn’t long until I noticed the traffic beginning to get quieter and the birdsong more noticeable; the landscape was also getting greener. An hour or so after setting out, I was fairly astonished to see I had found myself among fields! When I was young, I used to adore fields and the countryside of Cheshire: it seemed so pretty and wholesome. Now that I live in London, I have grown used to the vast urban labyrinth of tarmac and concrete. London’s parks are awesome, of course, but they are no replacement for the quiet, melancholic lanes of my childhood.

Yesterday, however, I had a taste of them once again. In fact I even passed a sign saying I had reached Kent! Of course I was still well within the M25, but at that point I decided that I would head that way a bit more. London feels smaller and smaller these days: no longer the vast urban expanse I once took it to be, but an easily navigated, walkable city. If the countryside is not in fact that far away, perhaps I’ll head that way again. Perhaps it’s time for me to get out of the city a bit more, daring to cross it’s orbital motorway which often feels so much like an impenetrable boundary.

Another Reason to Avoid Wetherspoons

Not that I go in to pubs much now that I have stopped drinking altogether, but I certainly think this Youtube documentary about the cultural impact of Wetherspoons is worth a watch. At an hour and a half it is a tad long, but I think it’s a shining example of just how advanced and sophisticated online video journalism is becoming. The guy who made it, Tom Nicolas, presents it as a travelogue from Cornwall to Scotland, visiting various Wetherspoons pubs on his way. But he intercuts this with information about the history of the franchise, it’s position in British culture, and his interview with it’s owner, Tim Martin. This gives rise to an extremely insightful film about an aspect of social life which on one level we might be fairly dismissive of (a pub is a pub, after all), but which is actually pretty revealing about UK culture and politics.

We hear how many people view Wetherspoons pubs as the pub equivalent of Macdonalds or Walmart, and to be honest I agree. Martin is revealed in this film to be a shallow, vapid, Outist piece of shit, who thought nothing of using the magazine associated with his pub chain to fool the larger-swilling morons who drink there into voting to Leave the EU. My need to avoid alcohol aside, having just watched this film my determination to avoid Wetherspoons pubs is now even stronger. Pubs should be welcoming, social, friendly places; hubs of social life. By taking them over one by one, however, Martin has reduced them to cesspits of right-wing politics no person of any class, style or education would be seen dead in.

Rain Stopped Play

I’m sorry to say that I don’t have the entry I thought I would write here this morning. I was really, really looking forward to last night. A couple of weeks ago, John suggested going to the Globe Theatre to watch The Crucible, and of course I was up for it. It is a play I studied for A-Level English, and seeing it at the awesome Shakespeare’s Globe would be a treat. I was extremely keen to see how it would be performed, and how it might be used to make a comment on contemporary American politics. I knew, of course, that it was a play about the Salem Witch Hunts, but that Arthur Miller used that history to make a statement about the Mccarthy Witch Hunts of the 1950s. Could performing the play now mean it was being used to say something about what is happening in America at the moment?

We got to the Globe about 45 minutes early, and killed the time on our Ipads (who knew seventeenth century playhouses have Wifi?). To be honest, the sky had been grey all day, so I was a bit concerned about the weather. In due course we were lead out, and I was allowed onto a wheelchair viewing platform among the groundlings right in front of the stage. It wasn’t raining, the play soon began, and we were quickly absorbed into Miller’s intriguing historic narrative. However, about half an hour into the play, the skies began to open, gently at first, then gradually heavier and heavier. I was obviously in my powerchair – allowing it’s control to get too wet would be a disaster.

Unfortunately, as the weather grew worse and John and I became increasingly soaked, we had no choice but to call it a day and head home. It was a great, great shame. I had been really looking forward to the performance, but we only got about a quarter of the way through it. I was extremely disappointed to say the least: it was a great play in an incredible venue. Oh well, I suppose seventeenth century groundlings obviously didn’t have powerchairs they had to keep dry!

Even The Most Vibrant Metropolises

You know, it’s weird: the more I explore London, the more captivating I find it, the more fascinated I am by it and the more deeply I fall in love with it as a city. That has been the case for the last fifteen years. These days, though, this fascination seems to give automatic rise to an even more intense curiosity about what lies beyond London. If London is this cool, what might other cities be like? Surely there must be even more awesome cities out there, just waiting for me to explore them. I suppose such an evolution of feeling was inevitable: the paths I regularly take in my powerchair, once so intriguing, are beginning to get tiresome. It just goes to show that even the most vibrant, captivating metropolises can start to feel dull after a while. Yet, it isn’t that I have started to dislike London; more like my fascination with it has spawned a growing desire to know what might lie beyond it, in the world’s other great cities.

Time For American Exceptionalism To End

When you think about the United States of America, by and large three of the most prominent things which probably pop into your mind are film, spaceflight and the internet. These are the three things the USA is most famous for; the three things Americans like to brag about inventing or leading the world on. The thing is, when you look at it, America doesn’t deserve the credit for any of them. Film, and especially filmic grammar, is essentially a french invention of the first half of the twentieth century. NASA would never have got into space without the progress made by German scientists among others. And we have a Brit, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, to thank for the World Wide Web. Thus, for all their bravado and bragging, I think it’s time we recognised that America and Americans aren’t as special as they claim, especially as their country edges closer and closer towards fascism. If we are ever going to break the USA off it’s current, dangerous path, surely we must let our American friends know that what they are doing is unacceptable, and that their country is nowhere near as exceptional or special as they think. They can’t take the credit for everything they like to claim the credit for, and the wider world would get on perfectly well without them.

Of course I take no pleasure in expressing this much animosity toward an entire nation, but the way the US is now behaving through it’s current president means it does not deserve the respect it had until recently. We must collectively show Americans our displeasure at the path that they have chosen. That means recognising that their healthcare system is abhorrent and their education system woeful, among many other things. America is not great and frankly never was, and it’s time the rest of us made that clear to them.

Trouble With Teenagers

I’m afraid to say that I’m really, really starting to dislike kids. By kids I mean teenagers, aged between about thirteen and seventeen. It might just be my perspective, but they all seem to have developed an arrogant, cocksure, undeserved worldliness that is completely misplaced: they are still essentially children, but they seem to think they’re adults. For instance, I was in Starbucks in Kidbrooke earlier enjoying a  cuppaccino, when three youngsters from the nearby school came and sat at the table next to me. At first I thought little of it, but when they began to talk about American history I began to become interested. They were discussing the origins of Thanksgiving, so I thought I would intercede by pointing out that it was just part of the American self-justifying, self-aggandising mythos.

As usual I tapped what I wanted to say into my Ipad and then tried to play it to them. However, to my horror and frustration, they ignored me completely, acting as if I didn’t exist. I tried again and got the same response. Now, I know I was a stranger and that perhaps I should have just let them be, but I find that introducing myself in this way is a good way of helping young people get to know people like myself, and showing them that, at the end of the day, we’re just like anyone else. The way they ignored me, however, struck me as downright rude: they seemed to have a sneering, contemptuous attitude, as if they thought themselves better than me and everyone else in the room. The least they could have done was note my presence and show me some respect.

Perhaps I’m just getting old; perhaps I’m just turning into a cranky old man who thinks young people should know how to behave. Yet the attitude those kids seemed to have this morning stunned me, and it seems to be becoming more and more widespread. I was just trying to introduce myself, but all I got in return was arrogance.

Religious Ipad Word Prediction

I have noted here before quite a few times that I use an Ipad as my communication aid. On the whole I must say I think it’s pretty cool: it’s just as good as any standard, bespoke VOCA, and when I’m not using it to talk to people I can also use it for things like blogging or checking my email. However, the Ipad has one major, nagging issue which I’m not at all happy about. For some reason, the word prediction on it has some kind of religious, christian bias. That is to say, the words it suggests, no matter which app I’m using, seem to nearly always be religious. For example, if I use a capital C it will suggest ‘Christ’, or if I type ‘I’m going to’ it will suggest ‘Church’. As an atheist this is very annoying, even infuriating. Apple is a respectable, international company of course, so I wouldn’t expect this from them. I wonder whether anyone else has come across this stupid bias, and what is behind it.

Brief Breakfasts Are Sometimes Best

Breakfast was quite brief this morning: my PA Abdul arrived at about half seven, made my coffee and toast, helped me with my shoes and socks, did another couple of things and got on his way. Obviously, things usually take a bit longer, but today Abdul had somewhere else to get to so it was quick and efficient. Frankly, that’s fine by me: I’m now fed, caffeinated and ready for the day; after writing this I’ll get in my powerchair and set off to continue exploring the world’s greatest city. Then, this evening, I’ll get back home and wait for Abdul to arrive again to cook dinner. That’s just the way I like it.

The thing is, there was a time when this would have been unimaginable. Growing up, I tended to assume that I would always need constant help; either that or I would always live at home with my parents like a perpetual adolescent. The notion that I would one day have my own flat in South London, the ability to go in and out and roam around as I pleased, choosing what I wanted to eat and where I want to go, would have seemed absurd – even scary. The assumption was that I’d be unable to do anything without the help of my parents or an able-bodied person. Fortunately, my experience living on campus at university, then moving down to live with Lyn in 2010, put an end to that.

However, many disabled people still seem to think that way. There seems to be a residual assumption, especially among people with CP, that they need a personal assistant constantly with them, and that they wouldn’t be able to function without twelve or even twenty-four hour help. Although there is an element of ‘to each their own’ to this, frankly I fail to see how anyone can live like that. These days, I enjoy being by myself and doing my own thing: in my chair I can go where I want; if I fancy a coffee I’ll pop into Costa or Starbuck’s; when I feel like lunch I’ll grab a wrap; if I need to communicate with anyone I’ll just tap it into my Ipad. Inaccessible shops and tube stations aside, I have more or less the same abilities as any other citizen. Then, in the evenings I return home and wait for my PA to arrive to cook dinner.

I think this is a healthy way to go about things. Obviously, there will be periods when I need far more assistance: when I go abroad I naturally go with someone like John. Whereas at home I can quite easily feed myself using my Neater Eater, it would be hard to carry such equipment across places like India or Morocco. The same goes for my powerchair, which is why when I go abroad I take my manual chair, and therefore require far more support. Besides, it’s always far nicer to travel with a friend.

Here at home though, living in my own flat which I can go in and out of at will, I don’t see why I would need anyone here with me more than they currently are. If I had someone with me for eight or twelve hours a day, following me around on my trundles across the metropolis, I daresay things would soon become untenable. Thus this is the way I like things; and I know that, when I need more help, it is only a message over Facebook away. I firmly believe that is the healthiest attitude to have, and that thinking you need constant support and a personal assistant 24/7 ultimately traps people with conditions like Cerebral Palsy in a form of perpetual childhood.

I find myself wishing that I could somehow go back and tell my younger self how things would turn out: how, while mum’s dinners might be both delicious and dependable, it would one day be far cooler to do my own shopping before asking my PA to cook what I fancy. That, rather than being the hostile, frightening place I once assumed it to be, the world was crammed with more wonder and excitement than I could ever have imagined. That is one of the reasons why I blog: if there are any young disabled people out there as timid as I once was, I want to tell them that, once all the basics are in order, they are ultimately just as able as anyone else.

The World Must Save America

I just came across this video about Donald Trump on the Occupy Democrats Youtube channel. I think it’s a reputable source, so we can probably trust it. It picks up on a theme which I’ve come across quite a bit recently: Trump’s mental health. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the guy has significant psychological problems. I don’t just mean his intelligence, which is obviously lacking, but his very grip on reality. Apparently, rather than through normal daily briefings, the only way White House staff can supply Trump with the information that he needs is through Fox-style news bulletins. He seems to have the attention span if not the entire demeanour of a four year old.

As much as I like to champion human diversity, and as much as I know that it is wrong for countries to interfere in the democratic affairs of others, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the wider world cannot sit back and watch as it’s foremost superpower descends into a form of fascistic chaos. Putting aside the fact that I think the era of US primacy should now be ending, it is still the worlds biggest economy and most powerful military: if we sit back and watch this mentally ill man drive it over a cliff, the chances are it will drag the rest of the world down with it. There is no telling what chaos will then unfold, but I daresay we’re just seeing the start of it. Surely we must take some kind of action as soon as we can to avert the US and the wider world from it’s present horrifying course.

Trump is obviously unfit for office: if US civil structures prohibit them from relieving him of power on medical grounds, at the end of the day the wider world has no choice but to act. The consequences of not doing so – of sitting back and watching as our foremost superpower drops into a deranged kind of fascism – are simply too hideous to contemplate.

STFU You Shambling Spoiled Oaf

Begrudging contributing to society through tax so it can be used to sustain a society is the mark of a spoiled, arrogant brat whose arsehole parents never taught him to share. That Johnson has the audacity to try to liken the government to addicts, when they are trying to sort out the catastrophic mess he and his friends left the country in, is utterly sickening.

Analysing Loretta

New project idea. Extended essay. Close textual analysis of the Loretta scene in Life Of Brian. Does it mock or support transgender people and politics? Given that the scene was created in 1978, I would be interested to see how it holds up in the context of contemporary attitudes. Trans politics was still in it’s relative infancy in the late seventies of course, so how have the attitudes depicted in the scene aged? I was on one of the Monty Python Facebook fan groups yesterday, and many of the commenters seemed to think it was transphobic. However, they meant it in a good way, which of course didn’t really sit well with me. I therefore think it’s now worth me going back to the scene and doing a bit of proper analysis, just to try to work out what the Pythons actually meant with it. I’d be interested to hear what everyone else thinks of it too.

Scumbags Don’t Deserve Salutes

I still wouldn’t call myself a royalist, nor am I a big supporter of the military, but I think I ought to flag this video up as essential viewing. The incident it details is almost beyond belief: Donald Trump’s son Eric apparently recently tried to make one of the Coldstream Guards at Buckingham Palace break with protocol and salute him, simply for being the son of the current US president. What followed was a truly repugnant diplomatic incident in which Trump Jr showed himself to be the entitled, arrogant piece of shit he is. It is detailed really well in the video, so I’ll let it speak for itself; yet it tells us all we know about what a pathetic scumbag Trump is. What kind of vermin demands to be saluted by Palace guards, simply because they are the offspring of the criminal who the Americans currently call their president? All I have to say is, huge respect for the guard in question for holding his cool; although it strikes me as a bit odd that so little is being said about this despicable event elsewhere.

ADDENDUM Many people are now pointing out to me that the video I linked to is a fake and the incident never happened. To be honest I feel quite embarrassed to have fallen for it. I should have spotted it, although you must admit it’s the type of thing you would expect from Eric Trump.

Are Powerchairs Suddenly In Fashion?

Is it just my imagination, or are many more people using powerchairs all of a sudden? I don’t mean mobility scooters – I’m used to seeing elderly people going around on scooters with handlebars at the front. But suddenly many more people seem to have started using the kind of powerchair I use, and which I think of as mobility aids of people with serious physical disabilities. Not that I want to make any assumptions or generalisations, but the people I saw using powerchairs today weren’t that old, and didn’t seem to have any physical disabilities I recognised. I saw at least four or five on my trundle today, whereas it would previously be rare for me to spot any. I can’t help finding this very odd indeed: if my perception is correct and more people have started using powerchairs, I have to wonder why. It isn’t as if those things are cheap! Might powerchairs somehow be becoming fashionable?

DVDs Still Rule

By rights I should love streaming: it makes films and television programs so easy to watch. All you need to do is sit down at your computer, and you can now watch virtually anything you can think of, no matter how obscure. There is no need to muck around hunting down rare videos or DVDs, and no need to store them on shelves and put them into drives whenever you want to watch them. From my perspective, streaming should be awesome.

The thing is, I still don’t think it actually is. Of course, as I wrote here, streaming has many advantages, especially if like me you can’t physically use things like DVDs. Yet it seems to me that the rise of streaming has brought about an entirely new paradigm in how we consume film. Before now, if you wanted to watch a specific film, you just either went to the cinema or bought a video or DVD from a shop. It would then be yours to keep. It wouldn’t matter which shop you bought it from or the chain of cinemas you went to; the same films were available anywhere.

What bothers me these days, however, is the way in which certain streaming services are effectively the gatekeepers of certain films or programs. Instead of owning a film on disk which I could then watch whenever I wanted, Ad Infinitum, these days to watch certain films you have to subscribe to certain streaming services. The only way you can maintain access to that film is to keep up your subscription to the streaming service it is hosted by, of which there are now several.

I can’t help thinking that this is a fundamental change in how we consume and access film. Whereas we might previously have had a shelf of videos or DVDs alongside our shelves of books, to watch certain films we now need to be subscribed to certain streaming services. They are now no longer texts which we can get off the shelf whenever we want, but the products of streaming platforms without which we cannot access certain films. In a way this renders them products, like forcing people to keep buying bottles of water when previously it had been always available through taps.

A couple of days ago I bought all three seasons of Picard on DVD. I have seen all the episodes before of course, and it was little more than an impulse buy. Yet I think the purchase is something I will now cherish. Obviously, to watch the episodes I will need to ask someone to put them in my DVD drive. Yet simply to own them as a physical artefact, just as I own box sets of James Bond and The Lord of the Rings, is something I find very satisfying: simply to know the episodes are there, ready for me to access and indulge in whenever I want, without having to update a membership or keep paying a subscription, gives me a sense of contentment.

I love film, of course: I love how it really ignites the imagination, taking us to a plethora of different places. I love how different directors use it to express their selves and say different things. Yet instead of being the expression of directors, film now seems to be the product of online platforms, without which we cannot watch certain films. This renders them commercial products rather than works of art; pieces of entertainment to pay for rather than meaningful expression of thought. 

Just Exchanging A Book

It amazes me what a numpty I can be sometimes. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a James Bond-related video on Youtube, which concerned a biography of Ian Fleming which I thought sounded interesting. I have read a couple of good bios of Fleming in the past but not this one, so I determined to try to look it up. A day or so later, I set off for Waterstones in Lewisham, and put in an order for the book I was interested in. A few days after that, of course I went back to Lewisham, payed for the text and brought it home.

Truth be told I don’t read that much these days as I get too distracted by the internet, but I told myself to make the effort to read the book I had gone to that much effort to buy. It wasn’t until that point, however, that I glanced at my book shelf to see that a copy of the very same book had been there all along! At that moment I felt so infantile and stupid – I would have died of embarrassment, if anyone else had known what I had done.

Fortunately for me they didn’t, so today I was able to pop back to Lewisham and exchange the book for one I don’t have, on Hitchcock and Truffault. It’s not that I think this is particularly noteworthy or blogworthy – many people probably do similar things every day. Yet, on another level, in a way it’s pretty amazing: if I had been told as a ten or even fifteen year old that I would one day be trundling around South-East London, living independently, doing my own shopping, talking to strangers and even buying books I already had, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Every once in a while, it stuns me how differently my life has turned out to the way I always assumed it would growing up, even down to the ability to go out on my own and buy my own things. That is why I think it’s so important that I help to encourage young people in similar positions to mine. When you have a disability which effects how you communicate, you often don’t realise that you can interact with society just like anyone else.

Not A Very Uplifting Experience

Something bloody stupid happened this afternoon. It’s one of those slow, cloudy Sundays, so I thought I would pop up to Stratford for a trundle around the Olympic park. Up there, to get from the station to the park you either have to go up a flight of stairs or use a lift, as I do. This leads to a large foot bridge over the railway station, which is the only way between the older and newer areas of Stratford. The two lifts are really over used, and over the years I have had quite a lot of trouble with them.

Today, however, really took the biscuit: One of the two lifts was clearly completely out of order, and I must have had to wait at least ten minutes for the second to arrive. When it did, though, it was already full of people who were obviously perfectly able to use the nearby stairs. What followed was quite a furore over who should be using the lift and who should not. Things become rather heated, and to cut a long, stupid story short it was around another five more minutes before I was eventually able to get into the lift. They seemed to think they had as much right to use the lift as I did, if not even more. I’m not sure what happened then: as I was entering the lift I might have knocked the door with my powerchair or something, because it then completely refused to go up to the floor I needed to get to. No matter how many times the button was pressed, the lift wouldn’t move.

After a few minutes two other wheelchair users got in. By then the ambulant people had got out to use the stairs, but those of us who had no choice gradually began to panic. For a while the zarking lift seemed broken. Fortunately things ended well, the lift started working again and finally went up to the bridge without the engineer having to be called out. As I trundled towards the Olympic park though, I found myself reflecting once again that such things would happen far less often if lifts in places like that were only used by people who need to use them; and that the episode would probably be good material for a blog entry.

Pulp Fans And Outsidership

I was just watching BBC Breakfast News as usual, and came across something which really, really got on my nerves. They were running an item on Pulp, Jarvis Cocker and Britpop, about how it was so influential and the legacy it left, especially on places like Sheffield. Towards the end of the piece, they quite predictably interviewed a few fans: what I found so annoying was how such fans saw themselves as outsiders. They were saying how, to be into a band like Pulp, you had to be a bit weird, strange or unusual, gleefully emphasising how different and abnormal they thought they were. The thing is, the people saying this were white, male, able-bodied and (I assume) straight. Sorry, but I couldn’t help getting rather wound up by that. They obviously belong to the most mainstream, advantaged cohort of people there is; one which faces the least discrimination of all. Liking a certain band or genre of music does not make you an outsider, yet they seemed to regard theirselves as oddities swimming against the mainstream current.

As someone who faces various kinds of discrimination every day, down to being unable to get where I want to go due to places being inaccessible for wheelchair users, to hear such a person trumpet how ‘different’ he felt he was, really felt like a piss-take. He would know nothing of the kind of persecution a member of any real minority faces. But then, these days it seems to be culturally fashionable to be a member of a minority: nobody wants to be seen as a member of the advantaged, privileged few, so rather like Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen will jump at anything that makes them seem hard done by, persecuted or different. The thing is, liking the music of a certain band, and being educated in a special school alongside seven or eight quite disabled young people, are hardly the same thing.

AI Could Soon Become Dangerous

I know I don’t post about it much on here, but I am of course very interested in technology, innovation and computers. I just came across this CNBC interview with an American entrepreneur called Paul Tudor Jones, and what he says is frankly alarming. He was apparently recently at a conference in the States where the future of Artificial Intelligence was discussed, and it seems to now pose quite an imminent threat: AI is now becoming so advanced and powerful that it poses an ‘imminent threat’ to humanity. The technology is becoming so advanced, and developing so quickly due to the competition between Russia, China and America, that it is thought that within twenty years it will put us all at risk. Of course, we should always treat such predictions with caution, but nonetheless I think what he says is quite an eye-opener. These days, we treat apps and websites etc which use AI as just a part of daily life; to think that it could soon become so problematic is alarming.

Communication Works 2025

I’m very pleased to report that today was the most interesting day I’ve had in a long while. A couple of weeks ago I emailed Kathryn,the lady I used to volunteer with at Charlton Park Academy, to ask whether I could do anything for her. I initially got no reply, so I slightly forgot about it; but a couple of days ago I got an email back from her inviting me to this year’s Communication Works event. I have been to a couple of these before: they are yearly conferences, organised by the school, about Augmentative and Assistive Communication technology. They are always very interesting, so naturally I jumped at the suggestion.

The event seems to be getting bigger and bigger every year. Today it was at The Valley, Charlton Athletic’s football ground. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as I headed that there this morning, but I was treated to a fascinating day of exhibitions and seminars related to communication technology and education. As a communication aid user, I find things like that extremely interesting. I found it incredible to see how advanced such technology is becoming, and especially how it is being used to help young people with extremely complex needs. My eyes were opened up to a plethora of new devices and apps which I was totally unaware of. The area around artificial intelligence seems to be especially flourishing. It really was a great day, and perhaps even better I have got back in touch with the guys from school, so perhaps I can start going in and helping out there again.

Time To Do Something For Lyn

Once again, today would have been Lyn’s birthday. I still miss her, and think of her fairly often: I usually start to imagine what she would have said when I get into certain situations. She had the kind of guiding personality which you could always look to for support. Dom, John and myself were discussing recently that she was never given a funeral or any kind of celebration. I checked at the cemetery again yesterday, and like last year they told me that they never heard from Lyn’s brother Paul. I now think it’s high time we put things right, and did something to honour this remarkable person.

Billboard Update

Just a quick entry to note that I passed the political billboard I was so taken with last week on a bus yesterday, to see that all five of the faces had been daubed with white paint. I suppose not everyone must have been as appreciative of it as I was.

Could Tarantino Direct The LA28 Opening Ceremony?

I watched From Dusk till Dawn last night with Dom. I don’t think I had seen it before, but it proved to be a complete joy. It’s written by Quentin Tarantino, and was a clear demonstration that he is truly one of the all time great film makers. I don’t want to give anything away, but I loved how half way through the plot, the film you think you’re watching completely changes it’s tone and even genre, in a way totally different to any other mainstream film. What begins as one type of film essentially suddenly morphs into another in a way I found very cool indeed.

Going back to this entry from a few days ago though, it predictably made me wonder: if a well established director like Danny Boyle can direct the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, what’s to stop Tarantino directing the one of LA28? Just think about it! How awesome would it be to watch a magnificent world ceremony involving thousands of people, performing before us all, directed by the man who gave us Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs? Just imagine what he could do on such an enormous stage. It’s obviously only a vague dream right now, but the prospect that he could – that it could even be possible – strikes me as just to exciting not too note here. Mind you, more to the point, you have to wonder what he might do in relation to the current political state of affairs there.

European Breakfast Politics

A lot is being said on the breakfast news this morning about how the trade deal the Labour government has struck with the EU effectively mean UK businesses will now have to abide by European rules which we now have no say in setting. I’m sorry, but I just feel compelled to post an entry to state the blindingly, stupidly obvious: we would still be participating in making such regulations if we had remained a member of the EU. This is exactly what the Remain campaign warned would happen! Everyone knew that UK businesses would still have to abide by EU rules, but have no say in setting them. Thus for Pritti Patel to just come on the Beeb breakfast program just now, and for the right wing tabloids to accuse the government of ‘betraying brexit’, when brexit is what caused these issues in the first place, really is too stupid to ignore! If these Outist idiots really cared that we had control over such trade guidelines, they would not have advocated breaking away from the body which sets them. The government is thus undoing the ongoing mess the outists made; for them to complain about it, calling it a betrayal or relinquishment of sovereignty when it was brexit which caused these issues, really is an insult to our intelligence.

The Attenborough Equation

This equasion occurred to me while I was watching Ocean yesterday. It seems quite a good way to sum the great man up.

If you think about it, Sir David possesses features of all three of my biggest fictional heroes: the wisdom of the ancient wizard Mithrandir; the curiosity and fascination of Captain Picard; and the tenacity and resilience of 007. Is there any wonder why I think he’s so incredible?

Ocean with David Attenborough

It was turning into quite a dull day so this afternoon I decided to take myself up to the cinema to watch Ocean with David Attenborough. I was, of course, extremely eager to watch it, although a (small) part of me was hesitant as I tend to associate Attenborough with the BBC, and he didn’t work with them on this film. However, what I found myself watching a couple of hours ago was truly, truly remarkable. First of all, Ocean is a beautifully shot piece of non-fiction cinema: some of the scenes we are treated to as an audience are jaw-dropping. More to the point, it is a highly compelling film. As many others are noting, unlike Sir David’s TV work, this film has a clear agenda: in large part it is about the damage we are doing to the oceans, mostly through over-fishing. We glimpse the ruin trawlers inflict on the seas, which it would be hard not to find compelling. In this sense it was clear to see why this film could not have been made by the beeb as it couldn’t have had such an overt agenda. At the same time it does not go too far or slip into dogma: it is not anti-fishing, but emphasises how balanced, sustainable methods could benefit everyone.

However, the aspect of the film I was most drawn by was how it highlighted Attenborough’s own incredible career. We are treated to clips of him diving as a young man fifty or sixty years ago. This allows the film to highlight how much the oceans have changed over that time, and how they also have a remarkable capacity to recover if we allow them to. Thus we are treated to a view of the oceans very much through Attenborough’s own wise, compelling eyes, and the film is all the richer for it.

The vast majority of us have spent our entire lives with David Attenborough on our television screens, treating us to insights into the natural world nobody else comes close to. I think I have said here before that I regard him as the greatest broadcaster ever. To my knowledge this is his first foray into cinema, and the result is an absolute pleasure. If I had a single criticism of the film, however, it is that it does not touch upon how the damage we are currently doing to the seas has it’s underlying roots in economics, or what causes it socio-economically. The issue is essentially one of capitalism. After all, people are compelled to catch fish to make a living; if this motivation was got rid of, surely over-fishing would be far less of a problem. The only way the issue of over-fishing can be dealt with is if we address our appetite for seafood. The film does not focus on this broader aspect of the issue though, but seems to shy away from the underlying economics. That aside, we are treated to a wonderful piece of natural history cinema – one which I would passionately encourage everyone to go and watch on the big screen as soon as you can. David Attenborough has treated us to yet another delightful insight into the world around us; but then, we expect nothing less from this great, great man.

The Life Of Python

One of the first things I came across on Youtube this morning was this rather fascinating 1989 BBC2 Omnibus documentary on Monty Python. I think it’s well worth a watch, especially if like me you’re into Python. It’s rather dated by now of course, but what I find interesting about it is that it gives us a snapshot of the group just past their heyday: It opens with Graham Chapman’s funeral, and we really get a sense that these men had, until fairly recently, been the comedy equivalent of rockstars. More to the point, what I’m also interested in is how much things went on to change since then. Quite a lot happened since this documentary was first broadcast, and the various members of the group went on to pursue their individual careers. They speak as though the Python phenomenon was well and truly over; they could barely have imagined that they would get back together twenty-five years later. Watching this thus makes going to watch their reunion in 2014 feel even more special.

Not The Protest I Expected

I just got back from another trip to Westminster, and I think it’s fair to say that I’m absolutely furious. I went up there again today, this time to check out the protests about the assisted dying bill. To be honest I don’t have that strong an opinion on the issue as I can see both sides of the argument, but by and large I share the fear that it could lead to vulnerable and disabled people being pressured into ending their lives.

I got to Parliament Square to find it slightly quieter than I had been expecting: this event obviously wasn’t as big as the last one I had been to up there. It took me a while to find the protest, slightly along the road from the Houses of Parliament. When I did, though, I was almost instantly appalled. I had been expecting to find plenty of my fellow disabled people, but instead the action was peopled by able-bodied religious nutcases! There were speeches being made about how this act would go against the will of god, the commandments and everything. While disabled people and our rights were mentioned once or twice, the emphasis seemed to be on religion, particularly Christianity. To begin with I could just about tolerate it, but when the lady speaking invited everyone to pray I had had enough.

Political protests are, by their very definition, political; and religion has no place whatsoever in politics. These people were close imposing their religious views on quite a critical issue, and essentially using it to promote their anachronistic belief system. You don’t need to believe in any gods to be concerned about what might arise from this change in the law, and that, sooner or later vulnerable people may start feeling pressured into opting to end their lives when they otherwise might not. That would strike anyone with a grain of human decency as problematic. Yet the people there were trying to make it seem like an entirely religious issue, and that they were acting on behalf of their god.

I have written many entries on here about what I think about religion: it is a harmful, dangerous anachronism which humanity needs to outgrow. Thus to find these people there, usurping the issue at hand for their idiotic belief system, really pissed me off. Fortunately the event was drawing to a clear by the time I got there, but it really pissed me off to see it being hijacked like that. This is quite a sensitive political issue: it needs to be dealt with rationally and thoughtfully, not by people who derive their entire worldview from a set of bronze age fairytales.

Kier Starmer Rapes Chipmunks

I was watching the breakfast news as usual earlier, when a quite unsettling item caught my attention, particularly as a blogger. According to the beeb, “The wife of a Conservative councillor who was jailed after she posted an online rant about migrants is due to have her appeal against the sentence heard on Thursday. [ie today]” Lucy Connolly had been jailed for 28 days after apparently tweeting that she thought a hotel housing asylum seekers should be burned down. If you ask me, of course, twenty-eight days in jail is nowhere near enough punishment for such a vile, disgusting xenophobe: being married to a Tory councillor, she obviously thought she had a right to voice such reactionary, inflammatory tosh with impunity. I find such arrogance sickening of course, and my gut reaction was that she had no right whatsoever to complain.

The obvious problem is, that raises all kinds of issues about the freedom of speech. I naturally believe that anyone should have the right to say whatever they want, online or off, no matter how disgusting or abhorrent other people may find it. Here on my blog, I’m sure I have written things plenty of people may disagree with over the years – does that mean I should go to jail? What would happen if one day I wrote an entry accusing Kier Starmer of raping chipmunks – does that constitute defamation? Thus as vile as any sensible, intelligent person will find what this woman tweeted, her right to voice her opinions must take priority. The moment we start censoring people, the moment we start putting people in jail just for voicing their opinions online, we all loose something extremely valuable.

Of course I am torn by this: I cannot deny that a large part of me thinks that what this repugnant woman tweeted has no place in modern public discourse. We see it more and more: such barely literate morons think it’s cool or trailblazing to go against the politically correct grain, resulting in a slide further and further to the reactionary right. It seems to be becoming fashionable to discriminate, belittle and bully, as people try to imitate so-called online ‘influencers’ like Andrew Tale. People are also feeling more and more pressure to attract attention online, resulting in ever more wild, distasteful things being spouted in an effort to stand out and get noticed. No doubt such factors were what was behind this woman’s vile tweet: I’m not sure she deserved punishing for them or not, but the fact that she has been clearly sets an unsettling precident.

These Aren’t Normal Times

I think the best thing I can do here this evening is direct everyone to this astonishing speech by Robert de Nero given yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival. In it, de Nero openly and quite brutally criticises Donald Trump. Of course, political criticism is a normal, healthy part of democratic life, but what I find astonishing – even slightly unnerving – is the immediacy and danger in de Nero’s words. He uses words and speaks with a tone we are totally unaccustomed to at such occasions, and which we would never usually encounter in any form of public discourse. But then, day by day it becomes clearer and clearer that these aren’t normal times: something truly ominous is happening, especially in America, and the sooner we’re all aware of that the better.

This Isn’t The Labour Party

Needless to say I am appalled by the direction our current government are now taking on immigration. As I’ve said here before, the UK should be an open, tolerant, welcoming country. In going down the path Starmer is now taking, he’s obviously just trying to pander to the right-wing knuckle-draggers who think we should close our borders and declare the country a white-only zone: the type of barely literate p’tahk who think Nigel Farage walks on water, and who Labour is now desperate to appease for fear of losing support and votes. As someone who relies on three extremely hard working Polish immigrants for his daily support, and as someone who relishes the cultural diversity he experiences every time I wheel out of my South London door, it is clear to me that this is an extremely dark, dangerous path to take the country down. Spout as much bullshit as you want about housing and infrastructure capacity, this is nothing but an attempt to appease the xenophobic imbeciles becoming more and more dominant in out political discourse.

This is clearly not the Labour Party I backed and voted for.

AAC Awards 2025

I just came across something which caught my eye on my friend Beth’s Facebook page: Communication Matters is hosting some kind of awards project for communication aid users. The text said “Here’s your chance to nominate an inspirational, supportive or forward thinking AAC user, family member or carer, professional or team, project or product.” To be honest the idea initially struck me as a bit odd – what would be the point? To me, a communication aid is just a fact of daily living; I use mine for everything from telling the guys at Tesco what I need to buy to asking people to help me get my powerchair out of the hole I have driven it into. I don’t think I would deserve an award for that. It’s just how I communicate, the same way everyone else uses their (natural) voices. As a blogger, I try to do my bit to show the world how someone like myself can lead a productive, independent, happy life, but that’s about it.

When you think about it though, this is actually a nice way for Communication Matters to encourage AAC users, especially young ones. They clearly want to foster a culture around communication aid use, in which good examples are highlighted and rewarded. In that sense, then, this scheme is clearly a very good idea. You can read more and indeed nominate people to receive an award here. And if I were to actually receive such an award, well, I would be honoured….

The Turd Reich

I saw this billboard through a bus window earlier, and instantly realised that I’d found today’s blog entry.

I was on a bus as usual this morning, heading up to North Greenwich when, approximately here, I spotted this billboard. It naturally caught my eye, and I instantly decided to get off. I don’t know who put it up, but it struck me as unusually provocative and political – the kind of thing you don’t see very often, and which don’t last very long before they’re taken down. With that in mind, I dashed back home to fetch Artur, who very obligingly came with me to take photos. This just could not be ignored! I wonder: has anyone else come across the same poster? If so, where? Might this be the beginning of a new trend in overtly political street signage?

Fancying A Drink

Alcohol-free rum is like football without the actual ball, or cinema without the films. I tried it last night, having found a bottle in a nearby shop, but was distinctly unimpressed. Frankly, it just tasted like hyper-sweetened orange juice. I have been off the drink since the nightmare in Cyprus, of course, but last night I really felt like a little fun. Needless to say I do feel a lot better for having stopped drinking, and certainly plan to keep it up; yet I must admit that part of me feels slightly conflicted.

Ever since school I told myself that, when my friends such as Lee Donnelly passed away, all caution would be thrown to the wind and I’d start drinking as much as I wanted. I planned it to be my way of remembering those guys; and after all, how else was I going to cope in a world where such bright lights can be extinguished so young? I didn’t intend to become an alcoholic, but rather ignore the voices of caution in the back of my mind and live life as full as I could. Now that I have once again cut booze out completely, and am not sure whether I can ever return to it, that plan has fallen by the wayside, and I must admit that part of me feels faintly sad about it.

Nonetheless, as I say I do feel far better these days. Last night’s experiment with alcohol-free rum may have been a disappointment, but I think it was born of a desire to let off a bit of steam, the way I used to. There is so much serious stuff going on in the world right now – so many wars, so much conflict, so much stomach-churning idiocy – that when Friday night comes round, you can’t help fancying something tto drink.

Not The Real News

Why is the world so concerned about a group of geriatric old men choosing the next leader of their anachronistic death-cult? If they want to do it, fine – just don’t report it on the evening news as though it’s of any importance to anyone, particularly at a moment when the other items of the bulletin are so concerning. Moreover, for the leader they end up selecting to then speak of somehow being a force for reconciliation and peace, when religion is perhaps the most divisive and oppressive socio-political phenomena there is, really takes the biscuit. As I have said before, it really is time humanity grew out of such idiocy; for such matters to be treated with such solemnity and importance by the evening news broadcasters just reinforces an authority which was neither earned nor deserved.

Notes On A Fixed Lift

Just to follow up on this entry from a couple of weeks ago, not that I think anyone will be particularly interested, but I’m pleased to note that the lifts at Star Lane DLR station are working again. On the whole, it must be said that I’m quite impressed at how quickly TFL seems to fix such things. I have encountered broken lifts several times in the past, only to find them fully functional upon my next visit. Obviously it just goes to show how much money there is in TFL and London in general.

In contrast, this morning on the news I heard that one of the very last potteries in Stoke on Trent is about to close. The item mentioned how the pottery industry there has been decimated, bringing the economy of the entire city with it. As someone who was brought up quite close to Stoke and who visited it regularly as a child, I can’t help being struck by the contrast between London and other parts of the country. I know that manufacturing pottery was once part of the very identity of that area, so it might be difficult to see how it could live on after this decline. But surely with the right investment, Stoke can be as vibrant a place as anywhere.

I see wonderful new things being built every day in the capital; each time I go out I find yet another highly gentrified redeveloped new area as I explore the metropolis using it’s state-of-the-art, multi-billion pound transport network (the overground notwithstanding). I know I have touched on this before, but to what extent does all this come at the expense of elsewhere in the country? Frankly, it sounds more and more like places such as Stoke are being left to go to ruin while the front facade of the nation, it’s capital, is endlessly spruced up.