A week or so over ten years ago I wrote a quick little blog entry entitled ‘L, C and E’. It was about three of my favourite people and best friends: Lyn, Charlotte and Esther. Looking back over it, I still value my relationship with all three women a great, great deal. Of course, an incredible amount has happened in the decade since I wrote that entry: most prominently, my relationship with Lyn blossomed, but has now wilted. Charlie is now married and working as a teacher, but is still the exuberant, dizzyingly energetic party animal I knew at university. Esther I hear the least from, but I often think of her and her family. She has been going through some dark times of late; far darker than she rightly deserves. I would really like to pay her a visit soon. Ten years on from writing that entry, these women are still three of my favourite people, and I still think all three are absolutely incredible in their own way.

I wrote that entry on the cusp of change, a few months before I moved down to live with Lyn in London. I could never have known what wonders the following decade would bring, or what life with Lyn would teach me. I have done things over the past ten years which I could never possibly forget, and which will always rank among the highlights of my life. Yet I now find myself on the threshold of another change: one chapter again turning into another. Who knows what this new chapter may bring, but I could never have reached it without the two preceding it, or without the friendship and support of people like Lyn, Charlotte and Esther. Just as I was able to thrive at university thanks largely to Esther and Charlotte, it was through Lyn that I got to know and came to love London. Because of these three women, there is no doubt in my mind that life’s possibilities are endless.

Naturally that list of three perhaps should now be added to. For one, I think John definitely now ranks beside them. I will never forget our trip to India, and the efforts he went to there deserve my highest esteem. On our adventure there, our friendship grew so much and John was so incredible that, as with Lyn Charlie and Esther, I resolved to regard him thereafter as something akin to a sibling: Perhaps the list should now be L, C, E and J. But then, such lists force one to decide between and rank people, which is rather childish. What ultimately matters is that I have many, many great friends; and that because of them I know that, whatever the future may hold, it will be truly awesome.

Lazy blogging though it may be, but I think the most appropriate thing I can do today is to direct everyone here. Besides, it’s way too hot to write much.

I think this just about sums up the current state of affairs perfectly

Two countries with two leaders: both men who think they were born to rule, yet neither realises how little they actually know or how unsuited they are for the task at hand. The only question is, which man will fall first?

I’m not even going to bother to comment on what happened in the political world today: it’s just too idiotic to dignify, even with a rant. I’m sure most people are as frustrated as I am with what’s going on. All we can really do is hope that this current farcical episode does not last very long.

The Guardian is reporting that budgets for special needs education are just about at breaking point. ”County councils across England are warning that the cost of covering special needs education is breaking their budgets, with local authorities overspending by more than £100m last year to meet the sharp rise in demand.” This is an issue obviously an issue very close to my heart, but what I’m most curious about is, what caused this  spike in demand? It can’t be simply because there are more kids around with disabilities these days.  I suspect the reason is a lot more complex, and I now want to look into it. The whole notion of being a disabled person now seems to be opening up, and the disabled community is becoming much broader. That, as a guy with what you could call an old fashioned physical disability, interests me, and I think it’s worth deeper investigation.

Now there’s a coincidence! On the  day we get our first proper glimpse of Star Trek Picard (Data’s back! Cue spastic squeals of excitement!), Marvel announce ten more comic book films. I’m sure you don’t have  to be an arch cynic to note the timing: it’s obvious that the comic book hacks are trying to steal Star Trek’s thunder.   As for the Picard  trailer itself, I’m sure most fans are now  dissecting  it, second by second, for any clue about what is in store. Apart from the revival of Data and return  of Seven of Nine, I don’t think there’s  that much we  can glean from it; but it certainly has whetted my appetite for the return of my favourite starfleet captain. My only disappointment is that we haven’t heard him say ”Make it so” again yet.

To what extent could the result of the Brexit referendum have been the result of the UK economy being too London-centric? I just  got back from the massive anti-Brexit demonstration inn Parliament Square. It was a great event, attended by people from all over the country. One of the points one of the speakers made, though, was that people outside of London may have  voted Leave because they felt left behind, neglected by an economy too focussed on the  South-East. I see their point: when you think about it, a lot of the uk economy is focussed in london; most of the country’s media output comes from here too. London  is a world city; a thriving multicultural hub which is constantly being redeveloped and into which vast amounts of money are constantly pumped. Did all this focus on london cause the rest of the country to  feel left behind and ignored? Could that feeling of neglect be one  of the reasons people voted leave? After all, this great city voted Remain by sixty percent, a margin second only to Scotland. But if that’s the case, what can  be done to address the issue, and redress the cultural and economic balance between London and the rest of the country?

Oh to be in San Diego this weekend. This weekend sees Comic Con there, and rumours are there will be some major Picard related announcements. Part of me wishes I could be there too: I haven’t been more excited about anything than this show.  This, to me, is like when they announced that James Bond would be somehow involved with the queen in the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, or Monty Python were reuniting – only even bigger.

I’m lapping up every crumb of evidence I come across. The word currently is that Patrick Stewart’s fellow TNG cast members  are down to reappear too, but surely that should be an obvious move to make: why just bring back Picard if  we’re not going to see the other members of  the Enterprise D and E crew? It would be silly if we didn’t see Riker, Troy or Laforge again. Getting Michael Dorn into his Klingon make-up again might be a little trickier, but if Bond can meet  the queen,  and if  Python can perform again, surely anything is possible. I just  wish I could  be there in San Diego to see it announced. What concerns  me slightly though is the way the production crew frequently say how different  Picard  will be in this show: they obviously need to change some things in order to avoid just going over old ground; but change him too much so that he becomes a very different character,  and he won’t be the man we admired so much in the first place. Go too far, and what would be the point of bringing Picard back at all?

I just got in from my first exploratory trip to Eltham. Although I’ve now lived in London for nine years, I’ve never really rolled that way. Now I’ll be moving there, I thought I had better go explore. Eltham isn’t that far from Charlton – I can get there  quite comfortably in my powerchair. Truth be told I didn’t know what to expect, but what John and I found  this afternoon was a lovely little corner of the capital: it’s very quiet, low-rise and suburban, but with a well stocked high street. There’s a branch of Nationwide  there, so I won’t have to go far when I need cash. There’s also a wonderful, huge park there, so quiet and peaceful that it’s easy to forget you’re anywhere near a sprawling metropolis. I  found myself taken with the area instantly, and am now quite looking forward to getting to know it.

I was just on YouTube, browsing videos leisurely. One of the videos which popped up randomly on my homepage was about Lord’s cricket ground. It must have been because I did a search for it a few days ago. I clicked on the video, but what I saw appalled me. They’re currently redeveloping the ground there, so the vid, from 2017, related to that redevelopment. Apparently part of the plan is to build a block of flats just outside the ground, obviously to help it’s financial situation, but on the film all these twits in blazers were saying how bad it would be. They made a couple of vague references to terrorism, but it was blatantly obvious this was a class issue: these arrogant fuckers didn’t want people whom they think they somehow socially outrank in the area. It was a sickening spectacle.

What gave these men the right to make such aspersions or be so arrogant? They seem to think wearing a blazer and talking with a posh accent meant they were better than the kind of people who live in flats, and that flats were somehow linked to terrorism. This, after a couple of days ago a picture was taken at that very ground of Farage and Rees-Mogg quaffing wine in the executive box! It’s obviously fine to have two embarrassments to humanity, who do nothing but stir up hatred, tarnishing the ground, but not ok to have ordinary, working class people live near the ground. If you ask me, Farage and Rees-Moog had no business being there, befouling the ground, smiling for pictures as if they were somehow connected with England’s incredible world cup win. These men add nothing to better humanity; they have deliberately mislead the British people and would impose an ultra-capitalist, class-divided hell on the country. They should be rotting in jail, not enjoying cricket matches.

Yet because they wore the same pretentious blazers as the toffee-nosed p’tahks in the video, they were quite welcome. Such hypocrisy, such class-based arrogance, is what really pisses me off. What did these men do to earn their wealth? What gave them the right to don those blazers and look so arrogantly down on others? Surely such views, such arrogance to judge who lives where based on class, has no place in modern society. I love the sport of cricket, but there is a corner of it’s fandom where such prejudice is rife; men who think sitting in a certain stand, wearing a tie and a blazer, gives them a right to look down on the rest of us. (they don’t even join in mexican waves!). No doubt in such places, Farage and Rees-Mogg were honoured guests, VIPs whose acrid views are agreed with. It’s the last vestige of a victorian class culture which should have died out long ago, and I find it sickening.

This evening finds me in a very good mood. This morning I went  to view a house in Eltham. It was a wonderfully spacious, newly-built flat. It’s so new, in fact, it doesn’t appear on Google streetview  – all you see is a building site. It looked a bit small from the outside, but when we went in we found it had lots of room. I was instantly taken by it. There was even a specially built-in place where powerchairs can be stored and charged. I was even more enthusiastic when I heard Wifi was already set up. I now can’t wait to move in.

Of course I still feel a bitter  tang of regret when I think about leaving Lyn’s house here in Charlton: I have so many cool memories associated with this little bungalow. Yet that, I suppose, is merely the nature of time – things always change. And those memories simply remind me how incredible life can get. There will always be something to look forward to, new experiences to have and memories to create. I  have a  feeling I’ll create some truly spectacular ones in my new home. Besides, Eltham isn’t far from here, so I can always pop back for a cup of coffee.

Is it time to start worrying about just how absurd things are getting with regard to religion in America? After watching Louis Theroux last night, I can’t help being prompted to say something on here. The way in which christianity is being taken to such absurd extremes is quite frightening, and it genuinely baffles me how intelligent people can be so deluded.

I’ve been mulling this over a bit recently: at the end of the day, all religion is, is a text which people use to award themselves a kind of social authority. In the case of christianity, the text is a series of stories about the creation of the world and a social leader living in the middle east around two thousand years ago. Because these myths give people hope and a sense of certainty, people – usually men – use them as a means to gain a type of authority. Preachers use the authority they borrow from the bible to tell their listeners whatever they like. Because the bible gives people a hope in a pleasant existence after they die, people listen; yet preachers use the bible to tell people whatever they like because it is so open to interpretation. These days such messages seem to be becoming more and more extreme and right wing, but people still listen because it purports to be substantiated by bible verse, which people have been brought up to believe is infallible.

Does that not strike anyone else as highly problematic? People, from doctors to teachers to politicians, usually attain positions of social authority after several years of study; they are also under constant scrutiny. In America especially, it seems any nutcase can call himself a preacher, and because they claim to be deriving their message from the bible and underpinning what they say with a few ambiguous biblical references, people listen to them as though they were a fully qualified authority figure.

That to me seems absurd. There is also an increasing darkness to it, especially given how intolerant and reactionary their messages seem to be getting. Here we have a group of people claiming to speak on behalf of a magical omnipresent deity, insisting they are listened to and given high social status even though they have done nothing to earn such authority. If they were to use any other set of myths or legends to underpin the type of intolerance they spew, such people would be ignored, or perhaps even sectioned; but because their spewings reference the bible, they are listened to. People attend their sermons every sunday, even though they might be spewing the most absurd, intolerant bullshit imaginable.

Of course, I know one has to respect other peoples’ faiths, but given the bible is looking increasingly outdated in a number of ways, isn’t it time this culture was put under the scrutiny it deserves. Absolute, unquestioning faith can be subverted too easily, used to indoctrinate listeners with any type of abominable bullshit people want. The Louis Theroux program last night was about one famous example, the Westboro’ Baptist Church, but I’m sure there will be many, many more, all spouting their own type of hatred, according to the particular biases of the person delivering the sermon. Were it under any other guise, I’m sure such preaching would be subjected to far more regulation and scrutiny. After all, these preachers are talking to some very vulnerable, often highly naïve people; feeding them, in many cases, very dark, reactionary messages. Yet because they claim to speak under the auspices of religion, they are allowed to spout whatever crap they like and awarded the authority of, say, a teacher for it. Does that not strike anyone else as highly problematic?

If what is reported here is true, and the utter ignoramus currently  claiming to be president of america scrapped an important international deal simply to spoil his predecessor’s legacy, then all other countries should be putting pressure on the USA to grow up and get a  proper  head of state. In an act being called ‘diplomatic vandalism’, ”Donald Trump abandoned the Iran nuclear deal to spite Barack Obama, according to a leaked memo written by the UK’s former ambassador in the US.” I know it’s not much of a blog entry, but bow could any true  statesman be so infantile? The situation, on both sides of the atlantic, really  is becoming embarrassing.

I know I should be writing things like this rather than just linking to them on here, but such excellent pieces of analysis go to the nub of the matter. We have, it seems, a problem with alpha males;  or rather beta males who think they’re alphas. ‘“There are two kinds of women,” Harry explains at one point in When Harry Met Sally. “High maintenance and low maintenance.” “Which one am I?” Sally asks. “You’re the worst kind,” he says. “You’re high maintenance, but you think you’re low maintenance.”’ Both the UK and America are currently being run by people (ok, by men) who think they know what they are doing but emphatically, obviously do not. As the article explains, buffoons like Johnson, Farage and Trump constantly go on about their achievements and prowess, but when you actually look at what these smeg-heads have done, they are strikingly unqualified. In fact,  when you consider that BoJo only got a second class degree, Farage  didn’t go to university  and Trump’s academic record is ambiguous at best, my first class  degree and master’s mean that, academically at least, I top all three (not that such things should be seen as the be all and end all of personal achievement). Ask any of them for any kind of theory or historic underpinning behind their spoutings, and they suddenly become extremely defensive; a prime example being Johnson’s recent carcrash interview with Andrew Niel here. Scratch the surface to any degree, and it soon becomes obvious that none of them have any real idea what they are talking about or the consequences of what they are saying – it’s all bluster and bravado intended to appeal to a limited audience but easily seen through by anyone capable of independent thought. If  these men are going to go around waving  their dicks in the air, they should at least have something worth waving, rather than claiming to  have a six footer, but actually hiding a feeble little pin in their pants.

Not that I want to flag bbc stuff up too regularly, but I definitely think this is worth taking a look at. Fifty years on from Armstrong and co., the Americans are planning  to return to the moon in the next decade. I’m of  course all for that: space exploration is Humankind’s first, best destiny. It’s a fascinating article rich in detail, although you do have to grimace at  the fact that Trump’s trying to politicise things by bringing missions forward to 2024, so they coincide with his hypothetical second term. What sort of wanker would try to steal the credit or glory for such a project?

Over the past couple of nights bbc four has been screening a fascinating series of programs about the english civil war, and I can’t resist raising an eyebrow over what it’s trying to say through them. Now as then, the  country is divided as it seldom has been. The programs look at how communities and even families were split in two. Hmm… I wonder what point its trying to make there. The programs highlight the folly and futility of the episode, which I think is a valuable lesson for our contemporary time. In airing these programmes, you could say that the beeb is commenting on current affairs without overtly admitting it; there’s a subtlety and wit to that I like. There are a lot of parallels between now and then which are certainly worth drawing our attention to,  but also some major differences. Once again the country finds itself at  a frightening crossroads, but as long as we don’t start beheading people, I think we’ll be okay.

Part of me thinks that, as a writer, I should get something longer going again. Popping a blog entry on here almost every day is all very well and good, but its about time I got a longer piece of prose going too. Perhaps you agree, in which case I better explain: I write here every day, posting about whatever comes to mind, in order that eventually I can make something longer from several individual entries. Of course I write each entry in order to make it readable in itself, but I also hope that, eventually, I’ll be able to mould together longer pieces from several entries on the same subject. I’ve already done this a couple of times now, such as for my university story, and I’m pretty pleased with the results. Of course I wouldn’t be able to reuse all my entries like this by a long chalk, and I have to edit entries to make sure they fit together, but I thought you might be interested in reading a bit about my writing strategy. I find it’s often quite a good way of getting longer, more substantial pieces of writing going.

John just being here is enough to cheer me right up. He’s personally assisting Lyn today, covering for Dominik, and as soon as he got here earlier we began to make plans. Rather like Charlotte, John has an energy about him: a passion for travel and life  which I find instantly uplifting. The lengths he went to on our trip to India two months  ago were phenomenal, but we’re already discussing where else we can go, probably next  year (think large islands to the south of florida, associated with cigars, communism and Earnest Hemingway). Friends like John, Lyn and charlie remind me how much potential there is in life; with mates like them I know, no matter how grim things may sometimes seem, that there will always be plans to make and fun to be had.

If a single image could be used to sum up the stupidity of Brexit, I think this could be it:

I write this in all seriousness and earnestness: when you have a situation where you have people who do not understand the issues at steak (and I mean genuinely don’t, such as the people discussed in this Independent article) shouldn’t something be done to intervene? I realise how problematic that notion might be, especially when it comes to people with learning difficulties and so on. But the old coots written about here clearly don’t have a clue what is at stake or what is going on, yet as members of the Tory  party, get a say in  all  our futures. For starters, they praise Boris as some kind of great Churchillian figure, completely oblivious  to the fact that  he’s nothing but an egotistical little p’tahk who would sell the country down the  river for his own benefit.

Brexit is an extremely  complex issue, but they see  it in very  simplistic, nationalistic terms. I can’t help thinking that someone should take these old dears to one side, sit them down and, in the nicest possible way, ask them to keep out of things. I don’t want to sound nasty or fascistic here, but the country is in a position where a limited number of mostly older people with obviously  quite limited understanding and world views, get to decide the country’s future, at a time when more is at stake than  has been for generations. Surely that cannot be sensible.

One of the places I could potentially now be moving to, albeit temporarily, is Thamesmead. It was mentioned yesterday in a meeting, so this  morning I thought I would go and have an explore.  I had never needed to go that way before, but getting there was easy  enough:  a single, twenty minute bus ride  from Woolwich. Now I’m back in Charlton, though, I’m not sure what to make of it. Thamesmead is an odd little place. One of the coolest things about London is how each of it’s many suburbs has it’s own distinct character, so Thamesmead felt totally different  to Charlton, Woolwich or Greenwich. It felt smaller, quieter  and greener; it’s town centre had clearly been modernised, and there were plenty of people there, but still felt somehow slightly abandoned. There were some very pleasant canals and paths which I can see myself exploring more thoroughly one day, but it  felt a little out of the way. For one, I saw no sign of a railway station, and it’s not on the DLR. On the other hand, when Crossrail eventually opens, it’s new station in Woolwich will only be a short bus ride away so getting up into London won’t be that hard. Admittedly, a two hour trip is barely enough time to get to know a place  properly, and I think it certainly has potential, but whether I could live  there remains to be seen.  I  suppose I have a lot  to  think about.

Watching Catch 22 just now, I had quite a random thought: what would happen if Yossarian met Hawkeye Pierce from MASH? They  are fairly similar characters in similar predicaments – I wonder whether they would get on. I’d even go so  far as to speculate that one  could have inspired the other. Could they, in this postmodern age,  meet? And if they did, what could they say to each other? One’s a pilot and ones an emergency surgeon in two completely different wars, but they both react to the futility of conflict in the  same darkly cynical way.

All  day I’ve been thinking about saying something on here about what happened yesterday in the European Parliament, but how much can one say about a bunch of  pitiful little scumbags turning their backs on civilisation itself? Any kind of attention or analysis awards that little stunt too much dignity. It was just pitiful, and we should all be deeply embarrassed that people from this country could be so infantile.

The problem with bringing back Blackadder (as I’m sure many others will have noted by now) is  that the fourth series was  rounded off  with such a beautiful  finality that a fifth series would  just  feel surplus. It would just be a continuation of a story we all thought had ended ages ago, with all the characters being blown to pieces on the battlefields of the first world war. I remember my GCSE English teacher, Mr. Dale, talking about that final scene twenty years ago: it’s as if, in that last moment when Blackadder, Baldrick and co. leave the trench, the program  switches from comedy to tragedy. The music slowed, the shot faded to a field of poppies, and  it became a homage to so many dead young men.  To go back and  continue that story, especially after over thirty-five years, would probably feel rather misplaced.

If an author wrote a sequel to a bestselling novel after so long, you would probably accuse them of just wanting to make an easy few quid without going to the effort of creating anything original, and to be honest this kind  of smacks of the same thing. The entertainment world seems saturated with long running franchises at the moment; why not create new stuff rather than reviving characters  we all thought had had their time? Of course, there’s every chance another Blackadder series could rule (I’ve  been wrong about things like this before). Yet this feels like going over old ground which would perhaps be best left to history, especially given the finality, beauty and  seriousness of it’s last shot.

It’s fair to say I’m pretty low at the moment in my personal life, but all the same I’ve noticed one or two cooler things going on in the arts and entertainment world. For one, I took myself to see  Toy Story 4 yesterday afternoon. It struck me as fairly good, as far as fourth sequels go: the plot was a little contrived, the new characters felt slightly tagged on, but there were some fairly good jokes. What struck me most, though, was how much this film was about the passage of  time, and how much Woody struggles with the fact that the people he loves – the children who play with him – all eventually grow older and reject him. Frankly, that had a lot of personal resonance. At the same time, I liked the idea of the toy’s automatic  pull-chord voices acting as a sort of conscious – they pulled their string whenever they didn’t know what to do, so it functioned a bit like their id or superego, but let’s not get too  Freudian this early on a Monday morning.

Also, if you can, check out David Brent, Life on the Road. This 2016 filmic revival of The Office was on TV on Saturday night, and should still be on the Iplayer. As you might expect, it is gloriously cringeworthy. Ricky Gervais’ creation has lost none of that strange mix of arrogance, naivete and pathos which made him such a hit in the nineties. At the same time, I found myself hating this big-head, and feeling sorry for him in a very strange way. It is  very wittily written, and the soundtrack is superb.

In other news, I’ve heard a rumour that Blackadder might be making a return.  Atkinson, Robinson and  crew have all apparently met up to  discuss a fifth series. As I wrote here a few days ago, it might be the come back we all need at the moment, although part of me sort of feels that perhaps classics should be left to remain classics. Either way, let’s wait to see what, if anything, comes of this rumour.

Thirdly, I’ve also heard  that  Robocop is getting a reboot. Mind you, what Hollywood franchise isn’t these days. From what I heard, they’ll be using the original suit. At least that’s yet another bit of eighties nostalgia to look forward to.

Truth be told I’m going through a rough patch in my life. I’ve avoided writing about it on here, but Lyn and I stopped being a couple about a year ago. I’m still living with her,  but six months ago she asked me to move out, giving me time to get my own place here in  South London. We agreed that it was a change we both needed: I had become too dependent on her, and it was time for me to go it  alone. I think that L wanted a bit  of the space she used to have back as well as to encourage my independence.

Getting my own place has, however, proven easier said than done, and so far nothing has come up. I’m sure something eventually will, but with time growing so short I’m getting very, very worried. Being placed in sheltered accommodation, albeit temporarily,  is now a definite possibility. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t very upset about the issue; I know I’ll never meet anyone  as incredible as Lyn again. Nonetheless, as I said, this was a natural next step both Lyn and I definitely needed to take, and she remains one of my best friends. All I can do is thank her for a great decade together. But if anyone knows anything about housing or can help me out in any way,  please contact me.

I’d rather not go into detail about why, but I now need to find a new place to live. If anyone reading this has any information or knows anywhere I could stay, perhaps until I get my own permanent place, could you please contact me. I’d prefer to stay in London, but as long as it’s accessible I’m open to all options.

It looks like we have a heatwave coming this weekend, only…

Enjoy whatever comes our way, I say.

All I want to do today on here is express my profound gratitude to my PA and friend Dominik. For the last few hours, he has sat laboriously cleaning out my trackerball. It stopped working yesterday morning: the ball would just stop rolling so I couldn’t use my mouse. We guessed that it had clogged up inside – quite a reasonable assumption given I’m still using the same trackerball I used through uni, fifteen years ago – so dom opened it up and gave it a thorough clean. I’m so grateful to him as, in the interim, I was forced to use my Ipad as a bluetooth trackpad, which, although usable, wasn’t easy. After the effort he made today, I owe Dominik bigtime! It’s working again now, but what concerns me is the company which made it doesn’t appear  to be online, so ordering a replacement might not be straightforward.

I have just come  across something which cheered me right up. The beeb is celebrating Monty Python’s fiftieth birthday in october with a series of programs and events. According to the  report, the celebrations will include an attempt to break the record for the biggest gathering of gumbies. I have one more thing to look forward to, it would seem. While there is no mention of the chaps performing together again, I still hold  out hope. 2014  may have been the last big show they do all together, but the golden jubilee in  October could entice the guys to perform a few of their biggest hits again. What’s the harm in hoping for one last Parrot Sketch or rendition of the Lumberjack Song?

[This is the first bit of something I started today, just for fun. I want to  add to it as  and when, perhaps turning it into some kind of artwork, but I thought I’d  pop the first bit on here, as a cheerful little entry.]

Rudi and Mimi were rather perplexed to see three customers enter their sociable little cafe in Charlton Park one morning. The first they recognised easily enough. Matt was one of their regular customers: due to his Cerebral Palsy, he used a powerchair and communicated using an Ipad. The second two gentlemen were completely new to the cafe owners: the first was totally bald and wore a strange red and black top with little silver pips on the collar. The second man wore an expensive-looking suit of the kind only available from tailors up in London.

The three walked in and seated their selves at a table. Mimi went to take their order. “The usual, Matt?” She asked. Over the years it had become easier just to assume the disabled man would have the same combination of a double espresso and cappuccino, rather than wait for him to type out a new order every day. Matt nodded his consent.

“And for you two gentlemen?” The Japanese cafe owner asked, turning to the two new men. Their answers took her aback. The bald, older man spoke first:

“Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” he said, rather sharply as though he had said the same phrase many times before. Mimi hesitated slightly, but turned her head to the other man anyway.

“And for you, sir?” She asked. The reply was, however, even stranger, especially given the cafe was not licensed to sell alcohol.

“The same please.” He said, but then added, “No, wait. One medium dry vodka Martini. Shaken, not stirred.”

Things are becoming very charged indeed at the moment with respect to politics; it is becoming really frightening. People seem to have lost their minds, on both sides of  the Atlantic. In America, people have started to talk of immigrants being put into concentration camps.  When I first heard that, I thought it was just silly talk: the death camps of nazi germany were horrendous, terrifying places – no matter how bad these camps in the States are, to compare the two must surely be going too far. If people use such language too much, they lose credibility.

Yet I  just came across this New York Times article, and it chilled me to the core. They might not  actively be murdering people there, but what is happening in such places must surely be  stopped immediately: kids are left to sleep on floors, infants are dying. People have objected to these places being called concentration camps, citing Godwin’s famous law, but Mike Godwin himself responded: “Chris, I think they’re concentration camps. Keep in mind that one of their functions by design is to punish those individuals and families who are detained. So even the “charged” term is appropriate.”

What goes on in these places sound utterly sickening. People are being treated totally inhumanely, just for trying to enter  America. All because the embarrassment to humanity currently  in the White House wants to look like a strong man. How the fuck can this be allowed to continue?

Yesterday while I was in the shower, I had another of my silly, random ideas I sometimes get. I was thinking about how both my friends Lyn and Charlie are into music, and how L creates music on her computer and Ipad while C conducts choirs. Then it struck me, what if we combine the two? I have seen communication aids being programmed to sing two or three times now, notably by the american Sarah Pyszka. I don’t know that much about how it’s done: I know she uses a Dynovox to create her music, but that’s about it. Yet of it is possible to get one communication aid to sound like  it’s singing, what would a choir  of them sound like. Granted, it might just produce a cacophonous mess, but I think there is a chance you could get something beautiful out of it. The harmonies between all the different synthesised voices could be incredible. Who knows, you could get something awesome going – a group touring the country, using their  communication aids to sing to people. Of course, I have no idea how you would start such a choir up, but I thought the idea was worth noting,

I just finished reading I’m Only In It For The Parking by Lee Ridley. I admit it has taken me far longer to get through than it should have, but I’ve fallen out of the habit of sitting down and reading properly. I didn’t give it the attention it quite deserved. Now that I have read it, though, I can see how stupid it was to instantly shun it when I first heard Ridley had published a book. While it isn’t perfect, I’m Only In It For The Parking supplies the general reader with a rare insight into the world of disabled people, and communication aid users in particular.

There is a lot I could say about Ridley’s book. The stage name he has given himself now strikes me as rather ironic: Ridley’s voice is far from ‘lost’. In this book it comes through quite clearly: he uses a simple, approachable tone to explain what life is like for him as a man with cerebral palsy. The experiences he details apply specifically to him, of course, so some of the things he talk about, like having a job or using pens, wouldn’t apply to all of us spastics. I also think his tone can be a bit too lighthearted and jocular at times: Ridley writes as if he is talking to people or doing a comedy gig, which I felt does not really suit the quite weighty subjects he tries to deal with at times. On the other hand, Ridley could just be employing this tone to make issues which might be very foreign to some readers seem more understandable.

Nonetheless, I would go as far as calling Ridley’s book quite a seminal piece of writing on the subject of disability: here we have a first hand account of what life is like for a communication aid user with cerebral palsy, detailing experiences ranging from dating to having epileptic seizures in a way nobody else could. He may have been given an opportunity to write and publish this book on the back of winning an itv talent show, but Ridley has used it to give readers a rare, valuable insight into a subject they may have been totally oblivious to. Far from being lost, Ridley knows precisely where his voice is and uses it to great effect. More power to him, I say.

I just stumbled across an old clip of the Monty Python guys on the Graham Norton show. It was obviously from their 2014 reunion. It had been posted on a Facebook page, so I put a question asking whether they could ever do another reunion show like that. Moments later, someone posted the obvious reply that they couldn’t do such a show without Terry Jones. Of course I had to agree: as cool as I think it would be to see the guys perform the classic sketches once more, they couldn’t do it without Terry J.

That got me thinking, though: If the Pythons can’t perform, who could? Their 2014 Reunion was enormous news, all over the media.  It was five years ago, though. Who else could make such a come back? Are there any other comedy groups or bands whose reappearance would make such a splash? Status Quo? The guys from Blackadder? To be honest I can’t think of any, but we all know we could do with a bit of a comedic distraction right now.

A second tv debate is airing as I type: a second debate for an election very few of us will get a vote in. Should I watch it? What would be the point? I would rather sit here and write blog entries about how pointless such debates are. It’s a complete waste of airtime if you ask me, only a fraction less farcical than the soap opera it replaced.

I must admit I did not watch last night’s debate so I can’t really comment on it. I have no interest in watching five self-righteous, spoiled men talk between themselves, congratulating themselves while being utterly oblivious to the suffering they and their party have caused. I  loathe every one of those men, and the p’tahk who thought himself too  important to be there. They think their class endows them with a right to run the country, yet none of them have any idea how the world really works. What’s the point of watching something when you know it would just make you furious? Why watch a  debate between a  group of highly privileged straight white men making bids for an election most of us can’t vote in? More to the point, how the hell can the uk still call itself a democracy?

Paper drinking straws might be nice and recyclable, but try drinking hot cappuccino through them, particularly if you have a tendency to bite down. Soggy paper straws really are unpleasant to drink through. Unfortunately more and more cafes and restaurants are stocking them rather than old fashioned plastic bendy straws, which are far nicer to use. These days I usually carry one or two reusable thick plastic straws around with me, a habit  I picked up from Lyn, but today I was caught short. I went up to the South Bank just for a walk, and decided to get the Thames Clipper back. On the boat I fancied a coffee.  The coffee was a good one, but, trust me, that’s the last time I leave home without a straw in my bumbag.

Over the last two or three days, I have kept coming across an odd notion which is so utterly implausible it just might be true. Two or three times the idea has cropped up that the Tories could elect Boris simply in order that he can run Brexit into the ground,  and when he does they’ll just  blame the ensuing disaster on him, cancel the whole farce and things can return to normal. Could that be true? I think it just might be: the tories surely  know as well as anyone that Brexit is an utterly stupid idea and always was; if it goes ahead, they and the country will be fucked. They can’t just stop it without looking completely ridiculous, so they  need some kind of scapegoat to blame the whole farce on. Could Boris be that scapegoat? this bumbling, bungling fool, already a laughing stock in the public eye? It’s quite a ridiculous notion, but at the same time, it’s intriguing.