My chumma Kerry n I saw an absolutely brilliant play on Wednesday at the Donmar Warehouse. If you get the chance to see The Fear of 13, then go.
It’s about a fella that was wrongly convicted of a murder and spent 22 years on Death Row.
He was eventually released… as he wasn’t guilty ( in the slightest ). I won’t give away the storyline in case you go. It’s a true story too.
Incredible. Sad, Happy.

It was great to see my buddy Rob, after his 72 miles run. That’s a long way on his little legs.
He got to mine early and I wasn’t there, as I was at the Goldie Lookin Chain with Leigh, in Camden.
Gig was hilarious, and scandalously.. Leigh did a runner from the place we had chips and a beer. Not sure what you call a runner in a wheelchair? A wheeler, I suppose.
I assumed we had paid, so was oblivious to the crime i became an unwitting accomplice in.
That Leighton ( his full name ) won’t go to heaven.
Anyway, I had realised that there was absolutely no food at all in my flat ( because I never eat anything ) and so on the Triride race back to Brentford, I figured it was the least I could do to try and get 72 mile and starving Rob some food.
Thanks to the little fella who ( struggled like f*** ) to hoik me up the high step into the kebab shop in Chiswick.
I thought I’d bought just the thing when I got a takeaway lamb kebab with chilli sauce, for Rob. I sped back and apologised for the food free fridge , and then played my trump redemption card with the bringing out ( from my jacket ) the kebab.
Well who’d have thought a starving man would turn up his nose at something containing lettuce.. and chilli ?
Never mind. He did drink red wine instead, albeit whilst practically comatosed.
The kebab then fed me for 2 whole days, and I didn’t even eat the bread bit. Like I said, I don’t eat ( a lot ).

Me n GG drove what seemed like hundreds of miles to see my ex girlfriend, Wendy on Tuesday. Gawd, isn’t driving dull? A Triride is far more of a laugh, but i know that you have to have a wheelchair to get one. Not for everyone, that.

Lovely to see the girl and belatedly celebrate her birthday. Thanks to the same ( crime lord ) Leighton for coming too, along with his law abiding wife, Bev.
It was a laugh… probably the highlight was GG’s telling of the time she ( innocently ?) put a dead fox is someone’s bin. 😳

Saw a very funny comedian on Sunday. His lady support act was very good too. Thanks to my Scottish ‘Jilly’ Krankee friend for coming along.

Me n SuzySue saw Scouting for Girls on Thursday in Shepherd’s Bush ( just above Shepherds Balls, if you don’t know it ) and they were as good as ever. The venue was ( rightly ) packed.

Tonight I see a play in Richmond, called Filumena. Sounds a bit Irish to me? It stars the lovely Felicity Kendal. She was my fantasy woman when I was about 15, but I’ll spare you any more details about that.

Oh, and about 6 weeks ago I was ‘ interviewed’ whilst at the South Bank. A ‘ film crew ‘ asked me ‘ What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you ?’ I said ‘ well… I’ll try to keep it brief.. but there’s a fair bit that happened pretty much all at the same time ‘
I had no idea what the filming was about, and I didn’t ask either.
But an edited version of the conversation seems to have gone a bit viral, on line. 😳

Saw a great production of Orwell’s book, 1984, last night in Richmond Theatre.
It’s funny how Big Brother and Room 101 have both become well known phrases… but I’m sure a lot of people ( yep, da yoof ) don’t actually know where the phrases come from.
It was really good, and thanks to Pauline for coming… despite actually being quite ill ( as she has found of this morning.. ) Good to know there are still some stoic people out there!

What else have I been up to? Well there was something ( bad ) yesterday, but I won’t write about that in this diary.
But I had a Halloween party last week. Pre injury I ( we ) held a lot of parties… but post injury not so. Thanks to GG for her pretty cool decorations putting up, and thanks to all me chums who came, some of whom I had no idea who they were until they took off their masks!
You’d think you’d recognise your mates anyway, but clearly not.

I wonder if I could go out in my triride in an old lady mask and get away with it? Maybe not.

On Saturday I’m seeing the Goldie Lookin Chain in Camden, with my mate Leighton, and when I get back my little hobbit friend Rob will be here, after running 100 miles or something like that.
Not sure how much fun he’ll be on the night, but if he can’t walk, I’m not gonna be much help as a crutch.

Well I never thought I’d get excited about football… but today was a thriller in Brentford.

Having gone 0-2 dawn against Ipswich… I thought it was probably all over.
Then our lads scored twice in 3 minutes..
And then again with a penalty.
That was then 3-2 to Brentford.

Then Ipswich scored again with not long to go..
3-3.

With 2 minutes to play we scored again, this time a brilliant score … it looked all over.

Ipswich then attacked, almost scored.. but thankfully hit the post in the final 30 seconds.

Thanks to my buddy, Churchy, for fetching the drinks etc.

I’ve also started watching Match of the Day… having never had the slightest interest for 50 years.

Weird. Still getting my head around it.

I went for a Covid ‘ walk in ‘ jab yesterday.
Officially I don’t necessarily qualify to get a free one.. but they didn’t ask me anything at all… other than my name and NHS number…just did it.
I went for the flu jab in the same arm.

I didn’t feel at all ill and my left arm isn’t painful ( well only a bit ).
Definitely have the 2 in the same arm ! Why would anyone want both arms to hurt?

Remember where you read that first, peeps!

I just phoned a venue ( a bar ) that’s on the 4th floor of a building in London.
I asked the man that answered ( with the perfect voice ) whether the place was wheelchair accessible.
It turns out I’m talking to AI.
I get a recorded message that says ‘ the place is wheelchair accessible. The accessible toilets however are downstairs and there is no lift ‘

Wtf?

Clearly I’m absolutely none the wiser.
Presumably you walk up the stairs to the 4th floor and then get into your wheelchair once you are up there? Presumably you have to carry your wheelchair up the stairs. But if you need a wee you’ll have to walk down again to have one. Probably not worth carrying your wheelchair down the stairs with you, just to wheel through the accessible door, but you can if you want.

Good to know.

🤦‍♂️

And it was great to see my chum , Mikey S for a beer the other night.

I had no idea about his close friendships with Gareth Thomas, Huw Edwards and Philip Schofield… and their weekends away together.

They certainly had a lot of fun.
Who knew he has led such a leather/ star studded life!

And Pauline and I went to see ‘ Heathers, the Musical’.
I’d never heard of Heathers, beyond the bush, but apparently it’s a film.
It was ok … ish.

But Pauline is a fun lady. And for me, it’s often more about the company than it is the show
.. so it was a great night x

So I went with GG to see Oedipus.
Very good play.. great performances, modern take on the Greek tragedy.

The take home message was that if you happen to have been adopted as a baby, then met an older lady once a grown up, and fallen for her… just make sure ( nowadays via a DNA test ) that she’s not actually your mum.. before you sleep with her, marry her, and have several children.
If you don’t carry out this fairly basic check.. then once you all find out much later on that you’ve all been incestuous.. she may well shoot herself, prompting you to then self harm ( possibly by poking out your own eyes ).

I’m sure it’s a common tale.

Thanks to the G man for coming with me to see the legendary band, Jet, tonight in Kentish Town. You’ll probably know their big hit – When you gonna be my Girl ? – but they have loads of other great songs too.
And it’s not raining, thank God.

Aside from that, massive congratulations to GG’s daughter ( Emma ******* ) who has just given birth to a son. The dad is Scottish.

I did text Emma to suggest boys names, but to my surprise she didn’t go for Rod Stewart ****** , instead opting for something far less memorable. It’s not Kenny Dalglish ******* , but it’s something like that.

I need sleep.

Great to see my baldy buddy, Mike, yesterday.
Somehow I managed to not see the Northern Lights that pretty much everyone else did.
Doh.

Anyway, tonight I go to the West End to see a play – Oedipus.

Access is a right palava in this particular theatre, involving a weird stairlift type contraption. I can only go in my ibot chair.. which adds more complexity to the travel.

The whole thing is enough to give me a complex.

There’s a joke in there somewhere 😂

Having had a quiet spell.. for a while.. it then went a bit crazy last week.

The drenching on the Brixton night was followed by the onset of a bloody UTI, with Harvey, and another drenching, with seeing a 3 hour production of Birdsong ( very powerful novel by S ebastian Faulks ) in the theatre with my friend Kezza, followed by an awake all night shocker of a sleep, followed by going to the Brentford vs Wolves game with my refugee buddy, followed by a comedy club with my old neighbour, Jonny, followed by a fairly ok sleep.. and then a pretty long wheelchair van drive to Didcot to see my one time love, Wendy. Not sure why my satnav took me through several thousand miles of countryside to get there, but it did. Coming back was very straightforward and I barely saw a field.

Birdsong had a very memorable sex scene in it. You don’t normally see a lot of /any sex at the theatre. A very attractive lady ( very slim and athletic ) was ever so striking naked. The wheelchair bit is in the back row. Shame.
It’s the first time I’ve ever wanted a pair of those opera glasses 🤷😂

The comedy club was great. Very funny.
Why though do SO MANY people find it impossible to walk past me without bumping hard into my chair? When I was walking, I’m very certain that I didn’t bash into objects as I walked past them, let alone a person, whether it be someone standing somewhere, sitting somewhere, riding on something, or being small and being say in a baby buggy.
Perhaps there’s something about people that go to comedy clubs that make them oblivious to hard objects that they walk past?

And I’m just wondering if …
It was a newborn baby in a cot
Or a 20 foot tall pile of bone china plates
Or a one legged heavily pregnant lady standing there on her one leg, in a stiletto, on the edge of a pool full of sharks..
Or a person with fragile skull syndrome and a label on his head saying so
Or a hand grenade with the pin ALMOST pulled out ..

Would they STILL bump into them really fucking hard .. as they walked by?

Or is it just a wheelchair thing?