Just when I thought the world couldn’t get any more stupid, I come across this Young Turks video. A church in Pennsylvania has began to worship guns. They bring their guns to church, claiming they symbolise the ‘rod of iron’ the bible talks about. I’ve rarely heard of anything more ridiculous or more scary.

These psychopaths have naturally stirred up quite a bit of controversy in the states, with people protesting frequently outside. As the guys in the video point out, imagine if this wasn’t a church but a mosque, with people openly showing off their high-calibre assault rifles – there would be an absolute outcry.

Yet I think there’s something more insidious going on here: certain Americans seem to want to link their supposed ‘right to bear arms’ to religion. They think the second amendment is under threat; one way to make sure their right to own guns is protected might be to deliberately conflate that right with the right to religious freedom. No government could impinge on religious freedom, so their guns are safe. Seen that way, it’s a fairly cynical act. To take that a step further, who’s to say that gun manufacturers or groups like the NRA aren’t behind this scary church, deliberately using it for their own abhorrent ends? Make guns a part of religion, and they take on an entirely new cultural position.

Either way, it’s very, very scary. Our American cousins seem to be lurching from one mind-numbing stupidity to another. I know not all Americans are this psychotic, and that many are as appalled at what is now going on there as I am; yet the country seems to be going further and further to the right, and I dread to think where all this gun-worshiping stupidity will end up.

Earlier I came across this review of the Star Trek The Next Generation episode The Drumhead. It was such a good review that I decided to look the episode up on Nexflix. It’s a classic episode, and the reviewer makes the very good point that the conclusions a viewer draws from it have never been more salient than today. In the episode, an explosion aboard the Enterprise leads to a high-level investigation headed by Admiral Norah Satie (played by the great Jean Simmons), a retired officer renowned for her skill at exposing conspiracies. Satie quickly determines that a visiting Klingon officer was attempting to smuggle diagrams off the ship, but the Klingon denies any involvement in the explosion. Satie refuses to give up on her investigation, even after the explosion is proven to be an accident, and she accuses Captain Picard of treason when he challenges her charges against an innocent crewman. Thus it is an excellent illustration of how easily things can go too far, and how the forces of fascism and bigotry don’t always come twirling their moustaches.

Such episodes are TNG at it’s best. Patrick Stewart was fantastic, especially when he gave this speech about the need for constant vigilance. While I was watching it, though, an idea occurred to me. Star Trek often teaches us valuable lessons through allegory: what if someone made a star trek episode – possibly official, possibly fanfic – in which one of the members of the Federation decides to break off from it? Perhaps the Vulcans or Andorians could have been persuaded by some extremist sect that the Federation had too much power over them, and they needed to take back control. The episode could then go into the consequences of their leaving, showing them turning inward, becoming more impoverished and isolated.

To my knowledge there hasn’t been a Star Trek episode of any series which explores this subject, and I have no idea how to go about getting it made. Part of me says I should just start typing, but I wanted to get the idea down on here first. Of course, if it ever came about at all, it would probably just be in the form of fanfic; but how awesome would it be if we could somehow get Patrick Stewart to reprise his role as Picard for it. Stewart is a determined Remainer, so I daresay he would be very game to participate in a project like this. Imagine it: Jean-Luc Picard once again on the bridge of the Enterprise, debating over the viewscreen with some isolationist fool the rights and wrongs of unity and cooperation. (Plus, if I actually wrote the episode, it would mean I could meet him again). It would be truly, truly awesome – if only I had a chance in hell of making it happen. Yet Star Trek instilled in me a value for tolerance, cooperation and the need to unite as one – values which the referendum two years ago directly insulted.

I think I ought to flag this excellent speech by Catherine Bearder MEP up today. She made it a couple of days ago in high Wycombe. It’s a clear articulation of what a total and utter fuck-up Brexit is turning out to be: no planning, no trade deals, a catastrophic effect on the Northern Ireland peace deal. All this talk of respecting democracy is fine, but we have reached the point where you have to say enough is enough – this stupidity must stop. She also points out, quite heartbreakingly, the contrast in the spirit of the uk in 2012, when we welcomed the world, to the far darker spirit it has taken on since 2016. It feels like a completely different place: far more vile and unwelcoming. Fortunately a growing number of people such as Mrs Bearder are rising up to call an end to this utter shambles, and to restore the country to the welcoming, tolerant place it should be.

I really think I should flag this quite excellent piece by my old friend Chris Whittaker up. In it, Chris looks at the two contrasting ways to represent disabled people in the media – that of the scrounger and that of the valiant hero – and draws some fairly interesting conclusions. As he points out the increasing portrayal of people with disabilities as burdens on society has lead to a worrying resurgence in medical model thinking: it is not society which imposes barriers upon us, but, trapped in our abnormal bodies, all we can do is beg for scraps off society’s table. Thus, as Chris says, ” The case for the ‘contribution’ based narrative [which frames people with disabilities as having a positive effect on society] should also continue to be made in an assertive way.” That is precisely what I seek to do in my writing and film making.

I still think Ted Shires is one of the most eloquent – and indeed funny – disability advocates out there. His latest video can be seen here. In it, Shires responds to questions he frequently gets asked about having Cerebral Palsy. His answers are both very amusing and highly intelligent, and I think it is this self-knowing wit which makes shires stand out. He makes people laugh, but makes very good, valid points at the same time. As he says, there are a lot of misconceptions about CP out there, but it is only through people like Shires addressing them head on that we can hope to deal with them.

Today is my brother Luke’s thirty-second birthday. I saw Luke last week at Grandma’s funeral. Both he and wife Yen are fine. To be honest, it was great to see them, despite the solemnity of the occasion. He is well, still clearly loving life as a researcher; it’s just a pity we don’t see eachother that often. I’d just like to wish him a very happy birthday – have a good one, bro.

I just came across some awesome news: Holly Isabel Flackett born this morning at 8:08 am weighing in at 5 pound 10 ounces. Mother and baby are perfect. My hearty congratulations to my good friend Chris and his beautiful wife Melissa. It’s been too long, guys…

I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help chuckling at this Guardian article about how Tories are coming under attack online. ”Conservatives are losing out on social media because supporters feel unable to share their views without attracting abuse, the Conservatives’ new party chairman has said.” It goes on, Tory chairman Brendan Lewis said that ”If you look at what happens on social media, if somebody on the right or the centre puts out a message, the attack from the hard left is sometimes unbelievably abusive and vitriolic.” If you ask me, they deserve every word of that vitriol for the suffering they have caused and the harm they have done to the country.

Of course, this is partly due to the anonymising effect of the internet: you can say things online which you would never say to a person’s face, so people feel more free to give vent to their frustrations. Yet I also feel that we are becoming angrier and angrier, whipped up into a fury by utter travesties like Trump and Brexit. Such things fly in the face of every liberal, tolerant value we have, but we also feel powerless to stop them. The web gives us easy, anonymous access to those who support such insults to humanity, so I suppose more and more of us are losing our restraint. I’m as guilty of it as anyone, but I can’t help worrying where all this rage and hate is taking us.

The truth, it seems, will out. According to this Descrier article, leading outist Daniel Hannan now admit that all the predictions made by so-called ‘Project Fear’ are correct. Everything the Remain team said would happen if the UK was foolish enough to leave the EU is going to happen. He also contends, however, that voters made an informed decision and actively voted to become poorer, but that’s bullshit. It’s becoming painfully clear that we were manipulated into voting for something manifestly outside our best interests two years ago. As I’ve said repeatedly, Brexit is all about turning the UK into a deregulated tax haven where the haves are free to persecute the have-nots, and cannot be allowed to stand.

I could never go up into the woods above congleton park. The paths through it are steep and cut through with steps. My chair could never get up there; yet I was always told that those woods were filled with bluebells, and my grandma always called them the bluebell woods. She often said how beautiful they were, before giving a whistle.

The paths through maryon Wilson park are wide and smooth. I often take them these days on my way home from school or charlton park. Going through the wooded London park last night, many miles from my old family home and thinking about my grandma, I suddenly came across a beautiful clearing carpeted with bluebells. And, in my mind, I heard grandma whistle.

It was grandma’s funeral today, held at the small Sussex village where she grew up and spent most of her life. All my family was there, and it was truly great to see them. If the occasion hadn’t been so sad it would have been a lovely day. Sat there in the same church where my great grandma was buried, I thought about the bluebells in both parks. I have many happy memories of my grandma and will certainly miss her- we all will.

I just got a short article published on the Cenmac website. Tracey at school asked me to write something about my experiences with AAC a few days ago, and I’m quite pleased with it. Check it out here.

Just another Brexit-related link today: I just came across a reference to this quite impressive website. Is it worth it appears to be a balanced, level-headed approach to an issue which many people are very, very passionate and upset about. It asks as objectively as possible whether leaving the EU is actually worth it. To be fair, I think such an approach is something many people, including myself, could do with getting back to right now.

I like Labour and usually vote for them, but as I noted a couple of entries ago I really don’t like Corbyn’s pro-brexit position. I’ve recently come across a new, antiBrexit party, Renew Britain, being mentioned online, and I now want to look into them. They seem to advocate the open, inclusive, internationalist society I believe in. They write:

“We believe that renewing Britain as the innovation superpower, revolutionising opportunity and making our generation great is a compelling mission for our country. However, in 2017 our country is divided by the EU referendum because many people feel they were lied to. Young people overwhelmingly voted to remain and no one was given a clear idea of what post-Brexit Britain would look like. Moreover, Theresa May’s mandate for her vision of Brexit was shattered by her weak election result.”

Whether they have any chance of winning votes and stopping Brexit remains to be seen, but I’m willing to back any party which seeks to pull Britain out of it’s current mess. Definitely worth looking into at the very least.

It was interesting to see John Cleese return to terrestrial TV comedy last night in Hold The Sunset. I just gave the first episode a second viewing, and to be honest I think it shows a fair amount of promise. The premise is quite modern, casting Cleese as a man in a relationship with a divorced woman, whose grown up son suddenly decides to move back in. While I don’t think we can expect any Fawlty-esque outbursts from Cleese, I think this situation gives him the potential for a few of the displays of manic exasperation he is famous for. In what we saw of Hold The Sunset last night, I think there is scope for it to make some great commentary on modern life. I could see glimpses of the greatness Cleese is known for, as well as a fair amount of potential. One to keep my eye on, then.

While I would stress that it’s just a first draft and it still needs work, allow me to direct you here, to the first version of my Powerchair Football film. While I wrote the script, Matt B did the camera work, and without his help my idea would not have gone very far. We finished it and uploaded it yesterday, but now plan too continue with the idea to make a longer, better film. Let me know what you think.

By and large I like Jeremy Corbyn; he seems like a good, well-principled, left-leaning fellow. Yet there is something I vehemently disagree with him on – an issue because of which I cannot back him. That issue is of course Brexit. As long as the Labour leader supports continuing with that mindless move, I cannot support the party, no matter how much I like it’s other policies. I just read that Corbyn is coming under increasing pressure from within his party to do a U-turn on Europe: ”Jeremy Corbyn has come under intense pressure to shift Labour’s position on Brexit after 20,000 members demanded a say over the issue and former leader Neil Kinnock backed halting Britain’s EU exit altogether.”

As the reality of what people voted for in 2016 becomes clearer and clearer, I think they will want a chance to change their mind more and more. An opposition leader who refuses to respect that need would be practically useless. Thus Corbyn must change his mind and side with those who see the coming disaster for what it is.

I think I now understand why my parents were always so reluctant to discuss my absences with me. It wasn’t until the events of four or five years ago that it was clarified in my mind that they are a mild form of epilepsy: until then, as I once noted here, the way mum and dad had always tried to dismiss or ignore them made me assume that I was just imagining them. Yet I think I can now see why they did that: over and over again recently, I have caught myself fretting about my memory, worrying about whether I’ll one day start to forget things. Almost unconsciously I tend to rehearse stuff in my internal monologue, going over events I want to remember. As I wrote here, I know that’s blatantly irrational, and that there is nothing to say epilepsy effects long-term memory; but it’s as if the very fact of knowing that my brain is periodically disrupted by these things is enough to make me question it and fret that I’ll start to lose the mental records of all the incredible things I have done. I’m starting to think it was better when I didn’t know what my absences were; when I just tried to ignore them. Yes, I was ignorant, and that knowing the truth is usually best, but at least I fretted less about somehow spontaneously forgetting things. It also allowed me to hope that my absences would one day stop. Looking back, my parents were wise not to tell me what my absences were.

Rather than try to write anything about yesterday’s shooting in America, as sickened and appalled as I am about it, I think I’ll just post this:

[img description=”undefined image” align=”centre”]/images/guns.jpg[/img]

How much more violence must it take before the USA grows up and starts to control the use of guns? How many more children have to die?

I have described on here quite a few times how angry and upset I often get with politics. Something in me boils up and I fly into an almighty rage. Yesterday it was particularly bad: when I watched Boris Johnson’s speech, I wanted to leap through my computer screen and rip the p’tahk’s head off. How dare he attempt to sound so patronising and conciliatory when his lies have done so much damage? He should spare us his waffle, sink to his knees and start begging our forgiveness.

Whenever it comes to the matter of the referendum these days, something in me just boils up and I see red. However, what worries me is that I’m far from alone in getting so angry. My rages are connected to my Cerebral Palsy: Athetoid Cerebral Palsy makes emotion harder to control, so I squeal gleefully when I’m happy and fly into an almighty tantrum when I’m pissed off. It has been particularly bad recently when it comes to politics. But what worries me is that everyone else seems to be getting just as angry, with or without CP. That is the very problem Johnson was trying to address yesterday.

He failed miserably. If anything he probably made matters even worse with his patronising tone. Remainers will not accept the result of the referendum just because some outist arsehole tells them to: Brexit flies in the face of almost everything we as educated, liberal, multicultural humanists hold dear. It is manifestly a step in the wrong direction and must be fought. That’s why people are so angry about it. I used to think I should try to control how upset I get over politics, but now I see that it isn’t just me. What worries me, though, is where all this rage and anger could lead.

You may have noticed that I didn’t post an entry yesterday. It was the first time I failed to blog in over three years (November 13 2016 doesn’t count as I blogged but the entry was wiped). I had been pushing myself to see how long I could keep posting a daily entry going, and I’m proud to have kept it up this long, but yesterday I decided it was time to call it quits. I think such challenges are good discipline for a writer, but it had to end some time, and three years isn’t bad. I could have blogged yesterday and kept my run going, of course, but the time had come to loosen up on myself. Continuing to force myself to blog every day would just mean increasingly poor entries, and just posting for the sake of it. Challenge complete, I made the decision to break my chain.

Truth be told, there wasn’t much I wanted to write about yesterday. My parent’s came to visit, ahead of grandma’s funeral next week. It was great to see them, and they are doing well, under the circumstances. It was a nice, peaceful day; I din’t really get the urge to blog. Now I’ve broken my chain, I think I’ll start going a little easier on myself: I still intend to post entries quite regularly, of course, but I think it’ll be a while before I try to break my record of blogging every day for three years.

Truth be told, this Brexit business is getting confusing. I read one report and it seems a certainty, another and it seems so ridiculous that I can hardly believe it is being allowed to continue. One paper says the economy is already starting to collapse, another that it is flourishing. I start optimistically thinking it will, sooner or later, inevitably implode; but it then occurs to me that I might just be reading what I want to read. I suppose it’s a position we all find ourselves in these days: it seems the truth is harder than ever to discern, especially when it comes to something as charged and emotive as Brexit. Will this nonsense sooner or later be over, or am I just reading what I want to read? I look at all these anti-Brexit pages on facebook, which makes me think the tide is turning. But wasn’t lurking in echo chambers the very thing which got us all into this mess in the first place?

I haven’t watched The Simpsons in ages. In fact I don’t think I’ve sat down to watch it regularly since starting university fourteen years ago. I used to watch it every day after school, as a matter of routine, like most people I suppose. It used to seem so cutting edge – the program everyone talked about. Yet these days every time I turn it on, it seems to be a repeat; it seems old and flat – yesterday’s show, to be ignored.

It would seem that I wasn’t wrong in that assumption. This is quite an excellent video essay about how The Simpsons fell from it’s position as pretty much the most cutting edge, salient and culturally subversive show on television to being an average, rather dull sitcom. I thought it worth flagging up as it gets to the heart of a big problem in contemporary western culture: in a way The Simpsons was a victim of it’s own success; capitalism took something which subverted and critiqued mainstream culture and turned it into something which simply towed the line. As it grew in popularity, the show just became something every faux celebrity wanted to be on, just so they could claim to be ”cool”. In effect the success of The Simpsons rendered it just another part of the very culture it once attempted to subvert.

That is very sad, when you think about it. Capitalism, it seems, assimilated one of it’s leading critics, incorporating it into itself. Instead of lampooning celebrity consumerism, The Simpsons became one of it’s foremost advocates. This video, as well as this website, document it’s sad fall. The media moguls tagged on to the show’s popularity and bent it to their own ends. Surely this is a great example of how, in capitalism, the more popular something gets, the more likely it is to be taken into the fold and forced to tow the capitalist, consumer line. How sad that something so subversive and cutting edge could be transformed into the centrepiece of the very culture it once set out to challenge.

Among my earliest memories is one of myself, my grandma and brother Mark in Congleton park. I wasn’t very old, still in my pram. Mark and grandma were kicking a ball around, and I was watching. Our brother Luke, still a baby, must have stayed at home with Mum. I remember being highly amused at the fact that Grandma said the running-with-the-ball motion she was doing was called ‘dribbling’. I was the boy who usually got accused of that.

I just got home from powerchair football training. Today, Matt B and I were capturing some footage for a short we’re making (having first got the right permissions, of course). It was going quite well, and turned out to be a great deal of fun – I’m definitely slowly getting better at that sport. At one point, I was practicing moving with the ball – a skill which, truth be told, is far harder than it looks. Controlling one’s powerchair in order to keep charge of a ball requires concentration, and is a tough skill to master. At one point, though, it suddenly occurred to me that what I was doing was, in effect, dribbling: I was moving with the ball, keeping it under control. My mind went instantly back to Congleton park, to watching my Grandma and brother kick the ball, and how funny we found the coincidence of the two words.

Grandma’s funeral is still in a couple of weeks. I may, truth be told, have found her irritating sometimes, and didn’t interact with her that much in her latter years; but the fact is she was one of the people who made me who I am. It is early memories, like of watching Mark and Grandma dribble the ball and finding it funny, which forge our personalities. That’s why I thought about Grandma this afternoon, over in Woolwich: it would seem that I’ve finally learned how to dribble the way grandma and mark did it. I will miss her, and henceforth think of her whenever I dribble.

I try to avoid conspiracy theories as a rule, but I can’t help starting to think that, regarding Brexit, the tories are just going through the motions. That is, gove and Johnson et al know full well how stupid the entire farce is but are just carrying on with it to save face. As well informed men how could they not realise how damaging Brexit will be? But to go back on it would mean ignoring the 2016 referendum, causing their party to lose all credibility. A Tory PM announced that vote so to ignore it’s result would obliterate any integrity the party ever had. Thus, rather than becoming a laughingstock, the tories have no choice but to persevere with something they know full well is going to ruin the country. In that sense, though, they are putting party before country; but how else can you explain this foolishness? Surely they realise how pitiful this entire episode is making the UK look; surely they have seen the mounting forecasts. The only reason why any sensible political party would carry on with this farce was if they felt they had no choice. The outists know how stupid Brexit is, but are carrying on with it simply to save face, putting on an elaborate show so they don’t have to admit that what happened in 2016 was essentially meaningless. I suspect that, meanwhile behind the scenes, they are desperately looking for a way out of this madness. Have you ever seen anything more sickeningly self-serving, not to say downright dishonest?

I had a shave earlier – I needed one. What made this shave interesting, though, was that Dominik was using a Gilette Treo on me. Kirsty brought some for me to try yesterday. They are a new type of razor, specially designed for carers/personal assistants to use on other people. They have a special pencil grip enabling them to be held at the right angle. As someone unable to shave himself, I must say the idea of such a razor interests me greatly. Only having had one shave with it so far, I won’t give a verdict on it just yet, but the fact that Gilette has bothered to design and make a razor specifically to be used on someone else is pretty cool. What I’ve seen from it so far is pretty encouraging, so hopefully this is the start of a revolution in shaving for people like me – something which, to bee honest, haas always been a bit of a chore.

Although it does not have that good a version of the video which caught my eye, I really must direct everyone here. Elon Musk has launched his new rocket, the Falcon Heavy, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It’s quite an enormous machine, but what I find awesome was the way they land the boosters once they detach from the main vehicle. They touch down vertically, seemingly ready to go straight back up again. How they do it I haven’t a clue, but the programming needed must have been enormous, and the way the two rockets landed balletically as one was truly beautiful.

My brother Luke flagged this Guardian article up to me this morning, and I must say it’s the most impressive piece of press I’ve come across about AAC in a long time. The world of communication aid use doesn’t seem to get that much coverage in the mainstream, but this piece is pretty comprehensive. It’s about VocaliD, an organisation which tailors voices to specific AAC users. To explain why such work is so important, the writer, Jordan Kisner, outlines and explores many of the issues we communication aid users face, from all sounding the same to having an American accent when one is British. It’s a sound, ssubstantial piece of writing – if quite a long one – and well worth a read. More to the point, it’s good to see the issues guys like me face articulated so well.

I feel slightly guilty about not mentioning this on here before, but I really need to direct you here to Lyn’s new online radio station. I have rarely seen her so enthusiastic about anything before. She started it up a few weeks ago, and has been almost consumed by organising it ever since, even in Lanzarote. It’s great to see her so enthralled by something she clearly loves, and she somehow keeps it going 24/7. More to the point, though, the music she has it thumping out is great. Go listen.

Lyn and I were just enjoying a spot of lunch, discussing how, when abroad, I need quite a bit more support. For instance, I use my Neater Eater at home, but it would be rather awkward to carry everywhere so I need to take someone to feed me. But Mitchel, feeding L, pointed out that the Neater Eater shouldn’t be that hard to pack in a bag and take with us. That made me wonder: if Brompton can make a bicycle which folds, how hard would it be to create a folding Neater Eater? When I first saw Dominik’s folding bike it struck me as wonderful how he was able to collapse it down so it was comfortably carryable. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to create a feeding contraption which collapses down to fit snugly in a bag, but which I could take out, unfold and screw smartly onto a restaurant table. I think this is quite a cool idea, but who should I pitch it to first: Neater eater Solutions, or Brompton?

I can’t decide which is more stupid: the political situation here, or the one in America. On both sides of the Pond, it seems absurdity rains. Here, politicians are trying to claim the civil service is biassed because it isn’t telling the public what they want them to hear; in the US, their joke of a president is going apeshit as his links with Russia get closer to being exposed. Both situations are, near enough, equally absurd, and they both have an increasingly nasty, dark feeling to them. Both Brexit and Trump have an odd, rather right-wing taint to them; in both cases they are underpinned by rich white men seeking power, trying to get the public to ignore impartial, authoritative sources of information as biassed because it does not fit their agenda. And they are both utterly, utterly moronic. As the outists try to hide the truth of Brexit from us, and as trump tries ever more desperately to hide his links to Russia, I think it will become clearer and clearer that there is something greatly amiss in both situations. All we can do, though, is watch as both absurdities unfold.

Let me get this straight: Brexit is going so badly that MPs are now accusing civil servants of skewing data. Rather than admitting what a total fuck-up Brexit is turning out to be, the outists are now saying that the civil service wants to remain so they are somehow skewing data to make it look worse than it actually is. They say civil servants deliberately developed an economic model which makes all possible options rather than remaining look dire. Have you ever heard anything so lame and cretinous? This really is getting stupid. Surely the very fact that we have reached this point is a clear demonstration of what a catastrophic mistake Brexit is.

Ten years ago this evening, at around this time, I received a message from YouTube. It was quite out of the blue. Someone called Lyn wanted to contact me, having come across my videos via my Australian friend Darryl. Sat in my old room at university, I felt a twinge of caution, and very nearly just deleted it as spam. However, I opened the email, read it, and replied. That’s how I first came into contact with Lyn, ten years ago tonight; and the rest, as they say, is history.

I just think I’ll flag this video up today. It’s Kyle Kallgren discussing The Great Dictator. As usual, Kallgren is an excellent analyst, clearly very familiar with film history as well as history in general. Yet I can’t help detecting a certain wistful profundity in what he says about Charlie Chaplin’s classic film: of course it is both comic and tragic; an hilarious satire about what turned out to be one of the most depraved episodes in history. Yet today, as such nationalist politics rears it’s abhorrent head again, rewatching Chaplin’s film takes on a new dimension. Chaplin was great at lampooning Hitler, but what would he have made of characters like Trump or Farage?

Last night a man gave a speech he had no right to give, claiming to be president of a country which the world now views as a joke. Being forced to watch that embarrassment to humanity Trump give the state of the union address, claiming to lead a country he has no idea how to run, makes me want to vomit. How did we get to this? How did we get to the sight of this egotistical jackass from reality tv giving the State of the Union address? The fact that Trump was so reconciliatory towards the Democrats and America as a whole shows that the p’tahk knows what a mess he is in: Trump’s in a whole world of trouble, from dismal approval ratings to being investigated by the FBI; but instead of admitting his failure or that he has torn his country apart, he acts all nicey-nicey, trying to look like the good guy. At the same time, the fact that the speech itself was a load of cliche-ridden nonsense devoid of any substance, delivered in short, clipped easily-recited sentences demonstrates the fact that Trump is not a politician but a showman, more concerned with looking powerful and authoritative than with the welfare of his country.

How could any serious nation, let alone the world’s foremost superpower, put up with having tis fool as it’s leader? It really is laughable.

I’ll say it again: the USA is a joke, and the longer it calls this arsehole it’s president, the more of a joke it looks.

I dreamed about my grandma last night: a strange, sad dream where I was walking around her empty house. I have, of course, been thinking about her a lot recently. Yesterday, for instance, I was eating an orange and suddenly remembered how grandma used to give me an orange when I got home from school each night.

We are currently sitting in the airport waiting for the flight home. After an awesome holiday it’s time to get back to London and reality. It has been a wonderful week, and we’ve done some incredible things, but the news of my grandmother’s death has put a dampener on things. Waking up from my dream I remembered where I was, got up, and started to prepare to go home. Grandma was quite awesome in her own way and I think all the family will miss her. I think I’ll Skype my parents pretty soon after we get back, and then start to organise going up to visit them. Holiday over its time to get back to reality.

I’m rather pleased with myself this morning. At time of writing (although not posting as I don’t have a wifi connection) everyone else is still in bed. Manolo rejoined us last night, as the plan to visit him in Fueta Ventura proved to be too expensive, and it was cheaper for him to come back. We had just got in from a lovely long walk along the coast and were starting to think about dinner, when he came in, guitar in hand. It felt like seeing a long lost friend, although I only met the guy the other day.

We started to chat in the hotel reception area, and pretty soon John went to get some drinks. I’m still off the booze so I just had coke, but everyone else- including Lyn- was on the hard stuff. They hit it fairly hard, and I soon lost count of how many rounds they got. Manolo got out his guitar and began to play. He’s a pretty awesome guitarist and singer, and pretty soon other people started to gather around to listen. At one point he played the House Of the Rising Sun, Lyn joining in on her iPad, and it was truly, astonishingly beautiful.

However, one thing lead to another, and the guys began to get fairly tipsy. We hadn’t eaten yet so we ordered pizza, eating it there in the hotel reception. Although John and Dominik cleaned most of it up, we made quite a mess – I hope the hotel staff don’t mind. I headed to bed at about twelve completely sober, but by then everyone else was definitely the worse for ware, Manolo slouched in his chair, fast asleep. Nevertheless it had turned out to be a great evening, and we all had an awesome time.

Im currently waiting for the guys to wake up. I just hope everyone isn’t too hung over; I, on the other hand, feel as fresh as a daisy. God I love not drinking sometimes.

A couple of evenings ago, at the end of a lovely dinner at a nearby restaurant, dominik asked whether to ask for the bill. In an attempt at comedy I quipped that we could ask for Ben too. Dom and John looked nonplussed: of course our Polish personal assistants didn’t get the reference.

I explained that Bill and Ben was an old children’s tv show in the U.K. Dom’s reply, though, had lyn and I in instant fits of laughter. ”Ahh,” he said ”like Lollock and

Bollock in Poland”

He continued to talk for a few seconds after, but I just had to stop him. Had I heard correctly? Was he joking? Surely my friend was pulling my leg: no kids tv program could have such a hilarious name. But he wasn’t: in Poland they really do have a program called Lollock and Bollock. I know I shouldn’t find it so funny, and that it’s just a case of language differences, but I simply can’t help bursting into laughter when I hear that name; and to think that it’s from a children’s tv show akin to bill and Ben somehow makes it even funnier.

Mind you, it then took a while for us to explain why lyn and I were suddenly so amused, and then what the word Bollock means.

I don’t want to go into it much, but I just got some very sad, although not entirely unexpected, news from back home. My grandma, dads mum, passed away last night. It would seem that even here in paradise, you can’t escape reality. Let it suffice to say I hope everyone who reads this is ok. I love you grandma.

This island really is quite fascinating. I mentioned the geology yesterday, but it’s intriguing in terms of culture too. I have never encountered such a mixture of languages, cultures and traditions. Almost everywhere you look, signs are in at least two languages; every restaurant menu I’ve seen here is written in at least three. More than that, though,European, American and North African culture seems to collide here: of course the modern, western commercial influence is obvious; yet below that one senses a much older, deeper cultural tradition stretching back centuries. It’s hard to detect, obscured by decades of being a package holiday destination, but if one looks you can still see the remnants of a much longer history of North African, Islamic and Spanish people making this island their home. It is trying to discern that older culture from the modern, commercial stuff which I find both challenging and fascinating. Across the road from our hotel, with its trendy bar, swimming pool and wifi network are houses of a distinctly Spanish or even Moroccan style: the legacy of this island as a mid Atlantic crossroads, long predating it’s existence as a holiday destination, lives on it seems.

John’s friend Manolo went home this morning. John invited him to stay with us for three days as a kind of local guide. To be. honest I wasn’t sure about the idea at first, but as soon as I saw the dudes Pink Floyd T shirt, I knew we were going to get along. In fact he reminded me of Charlie or James so much that I asked him if he had heard of the Cat Empire. He had a very relaxed, laid back air about him, but one of a man who knows what he is doing. He was with us for the last three days , taking us to the most beautiful spots. He had to return to his home in Fueta Ventura today, but we hope to go visit him there in a day or two; if not hopefully we can meet up in London. He was such a great, kind guy I really hope I haven’t seen the last of him. Friendships with people like him are worth working on.