Monthly Archives: November 2019

Again

Well the Lightning Seeds were brilliant. Once again I went in the iBot, this time with Wendy and feeling a bit protected by that. But the curse of London transport hits me every bloody time!

This time the tube destination was changed as a passenger had been ill. Everyone else on the train moaned about having to change tubes. I didn’t moan, I just thought’ oh fuck, I could be stuffed here ‘.
Everyone walking can just hop over to another platform and change trains. I can only do that at wheelchair Accessibility stations, of which there are very few.

So an hour journey once again became a 2 hour, involving 2 more buses and a totally different route. I had conflict with a bus driver who refused to move the bus until I was in exactly the position he wanted my chair. No amount of explanation on my part that no, I can’t just park this like you can park a buggy, made any difference. An off duty policeman on the bus had to get involved to a pretty large extent before the bus would move. A little understanding and humanity would definitely help me. My battery slowly trickled away but we made it back eventually. If i didn’t know the city routes fairly well, or didn’t have a mobile phone with power and data, I’d be buggered.

None of it was at all funny. Well… other than when the off duty cop interjected politely, and Wendy told him in a very firm tone ‘ EXCUSE ME! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS’ I think that’s possibly the first time she’s talked to anyone that firmly. Amusing then that it was the police officer, who said firmly back ‘ well as a police officer I’m making it my business…’

I didn’t laugh at the time, but I am laughing now!

The week.

Well it’s been a full on week. Sunday my oldest mate ( no, not in age ) Mike J came to visit, with his son Olly. Jeez his son is now 22, and plays the sax for a living now, well as well as being in Music college. Mike’s a great guy – we were best mates at 5 years old! I still see us as kids, not adults. His son is in a band – Year of The Dog. Look em up on YouTube or Spotify and have a listen. Really good sound!

Monday Wendy and I went to a gig in Hammersmith. Marina is Welsh/ Greek. She would seem to have a MASSIVE LGBT following. I think I was the only person in the venue not dressed in women’s clothes, despite half those their having been born with male features. The disabled area seemed yet again to be full of people with no obvious mobility issues. I wrote to the venue to point this out, but I doubt I’ll get anywhere. The wheelchair bit accommodates only 8 people, and isn’t for ‘ the ambulant disabled’ apparently ie those who could actually just sit in regular seats, but time and time again their own rules aren’t adhered to, and all tickets are sold to people who really are abusing the system, rather than need the facility.
Anyway, Marina was a bit mediocre tbh. I saw her about 7 years ago, Pre injury, and she was really good. She’s gone all bubblegum – and commercial, and a bit crap. She had a variety of mismatched dancers on with her some of whom were a bit amateur. She’s not school hall type stuff – she was playing in front of 2000 people. 4/10 from me.

Then on Tuesday I went in my iBot to theatre land, to see Shakespears Sister. They were dead cool til they suddenly split up after a bitch fight disagreement. Lily came with me and we had fun. It was old skool for Lily. She was born 8 years after they last performed!
I went in the iBot as in the Palladium the wheelchair spaces are just on the ends of rows of seats. Everyone stands up and that’s the end of the show as you can’t see anything at all! However the iBot makes me taller than most so I just rise up onto 2 wheels and Hey Presto! The band 7/10 from me, but definitely worth seeing.

As the iBot has a dicky battery etc it’s always a gamble going out in it. I had hardly any power left and had to travel 10 miles to home. The bloody tubes just stopped and we were a bit stuck for half an hour on a platform, my power trickling away. If the thing stops then it takes 2 blokes to push it up a slope, leaving me effectively stranded tbh. Eventually we got to Hammersmith where the lifts to the bus station had broken. I have become an expert on ramp locations tho, and so got to the bus ramp and drove up that. It was dark and double decker london buses were out in force, so not exactly safe for me to use it. Hey, I don’t have much choice though, do I ?

A bus ride for the last 3 miles and then home at 12. No such thing as an uneventful evening for me, it seems.
Tonight it’s back to town to see The Lightning Seeds. They were brilliant back in the day, and have reformed. Their album Jollification is dead good, and they are playing it all tonight. They actually did the Three Lions World Cup anthem as well. Perhaps that’s their most famous work??

Tomorrow it’s the Bombay Bicycle Club in Brixton, and then the theatre on Saturday night to see Death of a Salesman. That’s at the theatre where a part of the theatre ceiling fell down into the audience last night! Apparently a chap who had a job selling things was killed… let’s hope it’s back up by Saturday, and the wheelchair space is under the bit of ceiling that has already fallen down.


I don’t deliberately book 6 things in one week, but somehow I have. I book stuff well in advance- often a year in advance – and then suddenly I get to a week where I’m never home.

Keeps me sane, and stops me doing a Bonny.
Because trust me, I often still think about it. My head just goes chillingly cold in terms of emotion and anything is then possible.

But too much on this week!