People sometimes say that my diary probably doesn’t tell the full story and that there must be something more. Er, is that then that I haven’t interviewed the bus driver to ask him why he didn’t let me on ( for example ).
No, that’s correct. It tells it from MY perspective.
Isn’t that the same for everyone?

I mean, when on say Instagram, is there a picture posted by a 45 year old woman in an expensive dress and expensive shoes, with expensive hair, looking fine.., but underneath with a disclaimer written by the long suffering husband saying ‘ this is NOT what she looks like in the morning, and naked she has a fat ass and saggy breasts.
And her breath stinks sometimes’.

So no, it can’t capture another version other than my own. But shit, I do tell it like it is for me, with all the harassment and discrimination that goes on. I used to test one lady s eyes that was in a chair. She had MS. I thought she was a really unpleasant woman. Perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps I saw her on bad days? Perhaps she had a fear of opticians? Perhaps she just didn’t like ME? Who knows the full story?

And when you find fault with someone, guess what? Well invariably their reaction is to find fault with you, straight back.
That’s life.

Sometimes people say to me that perhaps I need professional help, You know counselling, talking to someone, and then I’ll be cured.

I’ve seen 5 different psyche people over the years, more recently a professor in Harley Street for 4 months. And guess what he said? That I was crazy? That I needed loads of help? Nope. Every consultation he’d listen in amazement at what I’d done since I last saw him. Even getting to his appointments meant solo 10 mile trips across london through the traffic in a wheelchair. Psychiatrists are used to people who have difficulty doing things, who don’t want to leave the house because they imagine they can’t because a plane might fall on their heads, or they may see a magpie. He’d listen to me and about my forays and be amazed. He said I should be proud of myself, and then we’d talk about teenage girls and he’d tell me that everything was going to be ok in time.
But the thing is that ‘ being proud of yourself’ isn’t enough to make everything ok. Oh you’re such an inspiration! Etc etc. All wheelchair’ists get that one. It makes the people saying it feel better. Those people don’t actually feel inspired for more than about 10 seconds in actual fact, but they still say it. But for the poor bugger in the wheelchair nothing has changed. He doesn’t feel any better for the bullshit flattery. He’s still got MS or paralysis.
That guy who paints with his mouth and can’t move anything else. You think being told he’s brilliant and an inspiration makes everything ok for him? Do you think he wouldn’t swap his oral talent for the ability to walk a few steps? There are probably plenty who think he must be really happy. Is he fuck. He’s broken inside but is making the best of a shit situation. And that is all.

It’s midnight and I’m alone on a tube train heading west.

I got to Brixton, and I got to the gig. It was packed with really really pissed people. The access platform wasn’t policed and it was overrun by the crowd. Pissed blokes were hanging off it all over the place. I felt completely endangered throughout. It hadn’t occurred to me to have a drink before I went in, or take some with me, as tonight I had to manage by myself, and have yet to get back and get myself into bed, with all that entails.
What I realised tho is that without a drink to take the edge off my senses, it’s just all too much for me. I felt very afraid, and very alone.

God it has never occurred to me that I’d be dependent on alcohol, not in an alcoholic way, but as a sedative to take the fear away. Let’s face it the stuff can take you from normal to happy, but also from terrified to ok, I now realise.

It’s an uncomfortable realisation for me. I feel no ‘ urge to drink’ but can see the sense in doing it, having just had the night I had. So yes, I can just not go to things, but then I’d feel I’ve failed too. I seem to be in a no win situation.

It’s pouring with rain and I’ve got to go 2 miles by road. I’ll be soaked and I can’t dry myself at all easily.
More reason to just give up.

It’s not going to be a happy ending with Wendy. Apparently, in her words I’m ‘ perfect 95% of the time. but the other 5% I can be irrational/ unpleasant’.

Well to be honest given what I’ve been through these last 6 and a half years, if I was perfect 5% of the time and irrational 95% it would be fairly justified. Having been privy to glimpses of partners of paralysed people’s conversations, it’s fair to say that it’s unpleasant most of the time for them. Guess what? Paralysis isn’t a happy place to be at. Being happy all the time and being perfectly nice all the time isn’t that likely. For the non paralysed I’d doubt many fellas get 95%. That’s a super A ⭐️ grade. Pre injury I doubt I’d have hit 30% Amazing, so I’m actually pretty chuffed at my score.

What I’ve noticed is that I have regained the notion of sticking up for myself. I was ever so meek post injury for a long time, definitely enabling people to take advantage. I don’t regard sticking up for myself as a fault, tho on Monday I did get very cross. I’d say it was the first time I have been really cross since my injury tho. What others may see is just the angry fella in the wheelchair. What they haven’t seen is the drip drip drip drip of discrimination and fifth class treatment I get from so many quarters. That builds up and up and it’s a bit pressure cooker. Pre injury on the bus I’d have dragged the guy off and pummelled him, no question, for the way he talked down to me. It seems now tho that I’m expected to accept it and be grateful.

My Carer forgot to come today. By sheer fluke someone was available to help me, but I did think that I’d just be stranded in bed. When I told him he’d really let me down, he resigned. Wow, there’s professionalism for you.

So, what’s next I wonder? It normally comes in 3’s doesn’t it? I’m not going to shrink and die, I’m going to try for a bit longer at least.

Cessation of posts does of course mean one thing and I can’t count that out, but first im going to see The Libertines in Brixton. I’ve got someone to help me. 👍

Oh and good luck to Wendy. Great girl. Not 100% perfect all of the time by any means. But I looked more at the positives, cos that’s what I have to do.

The price I pay for getting out there as much as possible, is seeing the odds stacked against abnormality. To go from being admired perhaps to being shunned is ever so hard an adjustment to make.
The more you try, the more often the adversity you see. Disabled Hate Crime they call it now. It’s more a fear in people of something they don’t understand, and then their odd reaction to it – always an adverse reaction, or possibly a positive reaction borne from initial revulsion followed by overcompensation. … who knows? I’m now at the receiving end of it every day, every time I leave my flat. I try to ignore it, but it seeps into my skin.

And perhaps I just can’t take any more? Or can’t be arsed to take any more?

Thank you to the Good People though. There are a small percentage of humans who are, usually that way because they’ve been touched by tragedy themselves perhaps, through their relatives or friends’ misfortune.

I always used to like Christmas, but now I just don’t fancy this one much.

❤️

We saw Sinead O’Connor tonight. It was a surprise to see that she’d converted to Islam and the little elfin chick was now clad in a full burka… she still sang songs that weren’t ‘ very Islamic ‘, starting with one that had her singing that she had pissed in someone’s wine glass.
She was pretty good tho, tho not quite what I had expected. 5/10 from me. No, I wouldn’t see her again.

The night was drastically overshadowed by yet another bus journey calamity. This time a driver refused to let me on, by which time I was actually already on. He objected big time, despite the parents of the buggy babes actually being ok.
After about 4 miles of peace, a passenger took it upon himself to stage a verbal attack on me, saying I was ‘ anti family ‘. See… wheelchair user vs baby in buggy gets only one winner, and it’s not the wheelchair! People can relate to parents and babies but not to disability. As I just can’t help standing my ground, it got VERY heated. Essentially I wanted to kill the fella that was giving me a hard time. Well I’ve just had enough and no one stands up for me, so I have to do it myself.

The subsequent events resulted in Wendy and I splitting up. She says I got too cross. Well … she’s not the one dealing with the unrelenting discrimination I am on the end of, is she?

I just can’t be meek I’m afraid. Oh to have a hitman go round with me 24/7.

Couple of classics from Boris.

This country will now be Corbyn Neutral …

And

Let’s now Get Brexit Done ( but first let’s get Breakfast Done )

Well he is witty!

On a less amusing note, I noticed the other day that ar some point in the last 6 years I broke my left lower leg. I have a very obviously rehealed bone break about 10cm above my left ankle.

Luckily (?) I couldn’t feel it.

Good God. The average Londoner spends £709 per year on takeaway/delivered food.
That’s for a person, not a household?!

Over the last 3 years I’ve bucked that trend by no less than £2100.

What am I going to do with all my savings???

What a joke.

Tonight just about capped it in my London transport journey diary.
I bought tickets back in July to see a girl called Nina Nesbitt in Camden. Camden is about 10 miles from where I live. That’s a fair distance across London on a wet and cold night in December. I always have the option of just going by road in my chair plus Triride, but hey how nice is it to go by vehicle and stay dry at least.
So…as it was raining, I thought we’d try getting a tube from Hounslow East, using the Piccadilly line all the way to Kings Cross. To get to Hounslow East we’d get a bus for 2 miles from Brentford. Then, at Kings Cross, Wendy could stay on one stop and I could get out and Tri the last mile by road, meeting in Camden.
This trip was ‘ getting further away at first, geographically ‘ , but then it’d be dead easy in terms of route planning.
Best laid plans…

There’s a bus driver that has a personal vendetta against me. Several times I’ve encountered him and each time he has done everything he can to stop my journey. Oh to be able to stand up and confront him properly.
As the 235 bus came in, Wendy pressed the wheelchair button to get the ramp down. Well lo and behold, if the Bane of my Life didn’t actually go out of his way to cycle up to the bus driver on the 235 ( yes, he was just cycling past and couldn’t resist f’ing me up ) and tell the driver ( who was about to let me on ) not to allow me on ( ‘as my wheelchair was not a wheelchair at all, but a scooter’ ). At this point I produced what I was told was the ultimate passport to disabled travel, the Mobility Aid passport, containing my name, my picture, and most of all a picture of me in my wheelchair with Triride attached. Once I flashed this, I was told, drivers would wilt and become as obliging as fat girl offered a KitKat.

But hey, this is the first and only time I have resorted to this card… and guess what? Yep, the driver COMPLETELY IGNORED IT. He wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in the fact that it was issued by TfL, ultimately his bosses, and for no good reason other than his choice of passengers being something he could control. Despite polite and eventually not so polite protestations by Wendy and I he refused for a good 5 minutes to let us on, preferring to stop his bus and the 20 odd passengers already on it, to just letting us get on. The mystery to me is why no passengers get involved at all. It’s quite obvious what the rules are, yet no one can be arsed to stand up and assist.
Pissed bloke with can of Special Brew to the rescue then. He steps up and tells the driver not to be such a tosser, and to just let me on. The psychology here is amazing. Disabled and articulate bloke gets ignored completely – in the hierarchy he is bottom; disabled bloke’s girlfriend is dismissed as irrelevant as she is an appendage of the disability, yet SpecialBrewGuy is taken notice of ?

He lets us on and we get to Hounslow East. Shocker over then? Phew … ! Wendy got the whole fiasco on film so that’s already gone to TfL. I wonder what they’ll do? I’m not expecting a lot. …

But no, it’s just started. Next destination Kings Cross. Should be 40 minutes at worst, arriving in Camden with 90 minutes to spare at least …
I ask the guard to help me onto the Tube, telling her my destination station. She is supposed to radio ahead and tell them I’m coming, and on which train. So after about 10 stops the train slows, and slows. And slows.

Then the announcement comes. The train will terminate due to signalling failure at Russell Square.
Jesus Christ. That’s 3 stops time and none of the stations coming up is wheelchair accessible. How the fuck am I supposed to get out? There is no option for me to change Tube lines at any of the stations. The system does not account for the poor bugger on the train in the wheelchair that can’t walk and climb stairs. This is a major omission. The guard notified the system of my presence on the train, yet no account is taken of my plight when there is a signal failure. Well what the f*** am I supposed to do?
Obviously I do know what to do. I employ the common sense of my immense girlfriend and the goodwill of loads of blokes and together about 10 of them ( no joke ) carry me aloft up 20 steps to the lift level. Guess what ? EVERY SINGLE VOLUNTEER IS NOT BRITISH, ALL ARE EAST EUROPEAN.
Whilst held high I utter that I feel like Cleopatra. No one laughs? Well either they aren’t too smart, or they don’t speak English. No matter, they do the job and I thank them all sincerely.
After that it’s yet another bus, as it’s raining hard now.

We get to Camden. It’s 3 hours and 15 minutes since we set out. It’s 10 miles. In that time in my Tri, if I had the battery, I could have gone 120 miles…

We got to the gig, late, but she was brilliant. Nina Nesbitt ought be a big star. She’s 24 but has a maturity about her. She writes great lyrics too, catchy but intelligent ( not that usual, that ).

To get back I’d had enough of public bloody transport. I Tri- rode the 10 miles. Guess how long it took? London streets and loads of traffic lights and junctions… 41 bloody minutes. One quarter of the time it took to get there.
The Mad Max is just as it’s labelled Well the Mad bit is anyway.

I’ve realised that I’m not thinking straight. What I do is let my caring side get in the way. I worry about Wendy, and what’s best for her. I want to make sure she’s ok on the bus or train etc so I go with her, when it’s far slower for me. The thing is that by having me with her, it’s then often slower for her too, so it’s all counterproductive. Had I not opted to go with her this evening to keep her company, we’d have both avoided the calamity that it was. We’d both have gone a different way to the one that we did go, and avoided a shit load of hassle.

Caring then is sharing the shit, when it comes to disabled travelling in London. The Triride is King. As long as I’m waterproofed I’m ok.

It was all compounded yesterday by the fact that yet another Loopwheel ( the ones I have that have built in suspension- loops not spokes ) broke on me. The rim cracked right through so that the wheel is only held together by the tyre. It would seem that these special wheelchair wheels just aren’t fit for purpose when it comes to a fair bit of mileage. At £400 per wheel, that’s a bit rubbish. Yes I’ve fed it back to the manufacturers, and even suggested they actually use me as their official tester. We’ll see what happens. Will they replace this wheel under warranty? They bloody should. I’ve only had it for a year, possibly less. So yesterday morning was all about wheel swapping and then brake adjustments ( as the wheel i had to put on was slightly bigger by about a cm than the one I took off ). And it’s hard to do this stuff by myself. I have to ‘ direct’ my help to do what needs doing. I’ve never had a Carer ( not even a male one ) that confidently knows one end of a screwdriver from the other, or the fact that clockwise rotation tightens nuts up. Occasionally they know Righty Tighty but when the nut is upside down and in an awkward place, it’s a step too far for a lot of spanner illiterates ( bless em ). So these jobs take forever.

So if you think YOU had a bad day… well you may have, but perhaps yours wasn’t actually so bad after all ?

PS lovely to see my Aunty Mary the other day. She is a superstar lady. Also great to have seen Sigrid again (9/10 ) in concert on Wednesday, and then White Lies ( 6/10 because I’m just not really a fan of their stuff. The crowd tho were almost fanatical about them ) in Brixton on Friday.
And thanks to Mikey and T for inviting us to theirs on Saturday to have dinner plus watch the Joshua / Ruiz ‘ fight ‘. Rubbish fight, but lovely night otherwise.

Ref gigs, the venue can make all the difference. Last night was a really small place in Camden with a brilliant atmosphere. The worst mid sized venue is Hammersmith Apollo. It’s just soulless for me, so whatever the band, they start in deficit. Maybe it’s just me, but even as a walky about person I found Hammersmith shite. I should stop going there really, but it’s ironic as it’s the most convenient location. Decisions decisions then…

I bought a Christmas tree the other day, actually about 2 weeks ago. I’ve always had real trees, but as a sat down fella that is a bit limited the needle and cleaning up drop factor is a challenge. In other words someone else has to do all that for me. Blimey it’s quite a lot of ongoing tidying isn’t it really? And there’s the buying process, the delivery process, the daily cleaning up for about a month, the fact that it only looks good for about a week or so in reality ( before its droopy ) and then there’s the bloody disposal of it. That’s become so contentious! Pre injury it was a case of me throwing it out of the window, rather than drag it through the house to make a lot of mess everywhere, and then leaving it to be taken away, or me occasionally throwing the ( obviously degradable tree ) into the Thames ( which is a big old river full of lots of wood that it picks up as it courses from Wiltshire ). Where I live now there’s a right drama with Christmas tree collection. Whose responsibility is it, what precise day is that collection, what do you do if you miss that day, how much trouble you’ll get into if you leave it with general waste etc etc.

Last year I asked my Carer, Gorana, to get rid for me, and blimey there were needles appearing still about 6 months later… so this year I went Fake tree.
They were a bit expensive for sure, up to £200 for some with built in lights etc, and you can bet that 4/5 years later the lights don’t work and there is no guarantee lasting that long, so I had a look in B&Q and found one without lights that looked pretty authentic. It was a bargain I thought… but hey there really is no such thing as a free lunch.
Someone had promised to help me, but never did, so I thought yesterday that I’d put my tree up, and managed to get the box onto my lap in the spare room. However I couldn’t then through the door to leave, as the box was 4 feet long. That means you either have to put the long box vertically on your lap ( which means it probably going to topple off ) and don’t forget I can’t hold it with my knees or even feel it, or you have to throw it back onto the floor and then nudge it through the door using your wheelchair as a JCB, making sure it doesn’t get stuck sideways in the door. I did that, then had to push it through another door at right angles to the first one, again without getting it stuck across the doorway. About ten minutes later ( that’s about 2 feet per minute of travel ) I get to where I want to be. Then I had to use my ultra grip grabber to reorient the box so I could get it back on my lap to open the box.

I had wondered how they had managed to get what I thought was a collapsible 7 foot tree into a 4 foot box…

Ok then… it was because they had broken it down into … SIXTY EIGHT PIECES.

It took me no less than 2 hours to put it all together. It wasn’t hard or anything, it was just the necessary amount of time to make it look right. And actually it does look almost real. I’m converted! I’ve trans’d in the tree department.

The silicone tits of trees, you could call it. Just like silicone tits, it’s great from a few feet away, but just looks a bit too good to be true. And it just doesn’t FEEL right either. However once the fake is dressed ( decorated ) to distract the eye, well you have to do a double take before you can be sure. It’s probably just best to ask the owner if it’s naturally grown, or not, I think. I don’t see a problem with asking that question. It’s not offensive to me if someone does, and it’s surely a compliment that it looks so good that people aren’t sure. Of course sometimes the fake ones are quite obviously fake. We’ve all seen them – just the wrong shape, and unnatural looking.
I never thought I’d be able to write so much about artificial ones! Im hoping to get admiring glances from everyone that sees.

Obviously Roger the monosyllabic Lodger didn’t say a word ( as in nothing at all – not even as he saw me struggling to get it up ). He is certainly an unusual one. He’s doing night shifts at an Amazon warehouse for a job at the moment. I don’t know how his mind works ( and he’s definitely not thick, he’s educated ) but his 8 hour shift at £12 an hour necessitates 4 hours of travelling ( 2 there and 2 back ). So that’s 12 hours of his time for £96, also probably deducting £15 for travel. Well that’s then 12 hours of his time for £81. Well that’s under £7 per hour overall ) which is less than minimum wage. Why doesn’t he get a job around the corner for £7 per hour then that saves him 4 hours a day, AND wouldn’t involve night shifts? There’s definitely plenty of employment in London leading up to Christmas especially.

In july I bought tickets to see Jim Jeffries, an Australia stand up comic, after a recommendation from my buddy Lee McMacMackeyMac. He said I’d love it, and blimey I did! He is absolutely HILARIOUS. There were 20,000 people in the audience He just says whatever he thinks on topics from sex, to relationships, to sexuality, through gender ‘ issues’, through fatness etc etc. He just brought the house down, he really did.

It struck me that what he says obviously strikes a cord with many, many people. You couldn’t say ANYTHING that came out of his mouth in a modern workplace, without finding yourself penalised, but I do think it goes to show that ACTUALLY people don’t subscribe to the Snowflake ways that society is now supposed to behave, and the route to popularity ( well the 20,000 there last night LOVED him ) is to be far more honest about what you actually think.

So from now on I’m not going to be more honest. My problem is that I’m just too PC. People actually like to hear/ read an honest take on stuff. If people say ‘ you can’t say that!’ I shall reply ‘ yes I can actually, go fuck yourself ‘ ( or words to that effect )

I laughed so much at his observations. One was about bedtime. He said that as a fella, he had 2 things to do before bed – to piss and to clean his teeth, and that he’s got doing both at the same time down to a fine art. Women, however, normally have a Pre bed 20 minute ritual, which involves locking the bathroom door and lots of bottles of stuff. Then, he said, what they do next is to get into bed beside you… and tell you exactly what you’ve done wrong that day …

Sound familiar, does it?

He said his 75 year old Dad surprised him by being fine with gays getting married, and voted yes for it in their referendum on it. When he asked him why he had voted yes, his Dad said ‘ well I don’t see why gays shouldn’t also have the right to be a miserable as fuck after 30 years of marriage, just like the rest of us ‘

Would I see him again? Gawd yes, I‘d want to see him again tonight. Stick it on your bucket list if I were you.

Getting back from the O2 was fine actually. Again I got on the wrong Piccadilly line train ie I should have taken the one to Heathrow not Stanmore, but I didn’t think to check. Again though the tactic worked. If you need help ask the guys who have been drinking alcohol. THEY are by far the most enthusiastic at lifting you up a step. What a wonderful thing beer is then, for the disabled!