Four Zero

I’m forty. How did that happen? Here have been a few close shaves in life, but I made I through. What a week! 

First, my mate Tom got me this incredible Cameo video from former UFC heavyweight champ Randy Couture!

 

Friday night: a meal in Littleborough pub The White House. A family tradition. 

 

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Saturday morning, the extended family darted over to Harewood Court in Leeds for a 5K Inflatable Run. I prepped for this with a local route of a similar distance, without any obstacles, plus a lot of gym sessions / classes. We had the younger – and older - generations with us so was a leisurely paced jog around a country manor, interspersed with giant inflatable obstacles to climb over, under and through.

Mum had prepped some amazing Power is a State of Mind t-shirts that the family wore on the course! Find more Inflatable 5K info. 

Next, my parents and I dropped into The Northern Quarter for food – I had a few ideas, but we stumbled on Purezza, a vegan joint serving convincing and tasty pizzas. 

 

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I gathered a few mates together for a few drinks in Eastern Bloc, a house and tech bar at night and coffee shop during the day. 

 

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I then managed to stumble into a house party, then onto Genting Casino, by which time it was pissing it down. I somehow used a Jedi mind trick on the manager to get him to put UFC on, but then the casino shut just before the Nunes v Pena fight. Not the greatest ending to an evening, but a brilliant weekend nontheless.

Disability Pride Month

I belatedly learned that July is Disability Pride Month, a Stateside celebration of ‘people with disabilities, to honor their inherent dignity and inalienable rights, promote their visibility, and applaud their achievements.’ 

One or two disability influencers in the UK are starting to mention the campaign to raise awareness of the challenges faced by disabled people like us. The flag, featuring a multicoloured diagonal stripe, has numerous meanings. Follow the above link for more. See also Lucy Dawson's video.

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I have short-term memory difficulties from an Acquired Brain Injury at birth. There was a complication at that time, I have a scar as a result, and I forget a lot of stuff. That’s the main thrust of it. Connectedly, I’ve also battled depression and anxiety since I was a teenager. From 25 onwards, I’ve spent a lot of time in disability-related departments: supported employment, numerous psychology / neuropsychology teams, social care, counselling, psychotherapy, CBT, etc. etc. 

A lot of it has been 2 steps forward, 1 step back, but the majority of it has allowed me to move forward and become more capable and independent. I’m 40 this month. I’m honestly past giving a stuff about other’s opinions, and the days of me worrying about sharing my experiences are long gone. If people want to read about it or ask me about it, they’re more than welcome. Beyond dismissing other people’s negativity, which I rarely encounter anyway these days, what can I say about pride? 

I’m not so much proud of my condition, but I am proud of the work I’ve done to swerve / ameliorate the problems I might potentially encounter. I’m organised. I take good notes. I can write well. I can explain my condition to employers and colleagues. I’ve had my NHS treatment. And yeah, I’m proud.

The BBC gave me my Tim Westwood video back

Warning: Crude language.

 

After Radio 1 / Capital Radio DJ Tim Westwood copyright claimed my video of him and cost me a strike on my Youtube account, I counter-claimed, but YouTube gave me a big fat no. The video, it seemed, had gone. Not long after this, BBC’s Ruth Evans got back in touch explaining that they were in the process of making a follow-up documentary, that more women had come forward with stories of the hip hop presenter. It occurred to me that I’d not actually told her that the video I’d given her had disappeared, so I did. She arranged for their copy to be sent back to me. She recommended I upload it straight to Blogger rather than YouTube or any other platform. You don’t get away that easily, Timmy boy.

Changes to Blue Badge Scheme that the Media Won't Report On

Back at the end of 2019, the DVLA made a change to accessibility to their Blue Badge scheme. A Blue Badge allows you to park in disabled bays, on double yellows and a few other situations. This was traditionally a scheme for people with physical disabilities only, but at that time was opened out to people with ‘hidden disabilities’ too. This included me. 

My Blue Badge is due to expire at the end of September, and I got an email asking me to reapply. There appears to be a difference in the application procedure, and, as per, nobody in the press is reporting it. 

In ‘19, DVLA asked for a copy of my psych assessment. I gave them this, and, to the best of my recollection, and the notes I made, there were no questions asked. They contacted me asking for an admin fee, and after this was paid, they sent me the Badge. 

This time, the application form asks for the details of your PIP award. They want to see what you were scored for the ‘moving around’ section of the assessment. I dug this info out, inputted it, and it appears I meet the threshold, although the system doesn’t tell you what that threshold is. I can only assume there would be some people who were legitimately using a Blue Badge, but now don’t score enough and will not have their badge renewed. This, after half of DLA claimants seeing their money reduced or withdrawn altogether after applying for PIP. 

Of course, these changes to Blue Badge are not being reported on at all, just like the changes to concessionary bus passes for disabled people, another form of support that has been taken away from many disabled people like myself. There’s nothing in any online news discussing this. I’m wondering if it’s time to approach news agencies myself. As for my new Badge, I’ll have to wait and see if it turns up before my current one expires.

Zero K

Don DeLillo’s 2016 novel Zero K follows Geoffrey Lockhart, a billionaire summoned to The Convergence, a desert retreat manned by pseudo-monk scientists who offer the opportunity to preserve bodies in the hope of resurrection when future nanobot technology allows it. 

Geoffrey’s stepmother Artis is about to resign her body to the program, and his healthy father Ross might join her. 

A short book about life and death, this short novel amalgamates a number of DeLillo tropes: religion, death, art installations, uber-rich people and over-thinkers. Intriguing, hypnotically written and with some devastating twists, Zero K is characteristically eloquent but a lot of detail doesn’t seem to tie into the central structure. Why are these people monks? Why is everything underground? Who pays for all this? 

For fans, a worthy inclusion to the canon. Not something I’d recommend to introduce someone to DeLillo.

Smoothie Diet: Take 3 Results

I did it. I hit 79.9kg, 12’8’4, on Thursday 7th. It took 5 days, not the week-plus I’d predicted. The process? Banana, oat, peanut butter, yoghurt and milk smoothies for breakfast, and for lunch and tea, spinach, kale, ginger and fruit juice. 500 mls a piece. The weight fell off me. I was making progress with body weight exercises at the gym; no PBs though. 

Oats stemmed the hunger cravings, which would have been a thousand times worse if I’d still been on antidepressants. Everything is getting that little bit better. That said, I’m now 12’10’6, somewhere around 80-81, after allowing myself a few treats. I still cannot fit anywhere near into my 30” suit trousers. 

Hence, it’s probably a good idea to get back on clean eating, cut out the junk, and get ready for the Inflatable Run at the end of the month.

I wonder if Scott Mills remembers this weird story

BBC DJ Scott Mills is stepping down from his Radio 1 presenter role, having joined the station in 1998. I certainly enjoyed his programmes, particularly the vulgar, borderline offensive Innuendo Bingo. Here’s Daniel Radcliffe playing the notably pre-covid game.   

 

 

Back in 2003, over the summer when I was at university, I was doing warehouse work somewhere in Oldham. Radio 1 was blaring on an old paint-splattered hi-fi in the lunch room. Scott Mills was asking his audience, do you have any crazy mates? 

Now, prior to that summer, I’d spent my second year in student halls in Manchester with a few guys off my course. One of them was a very strange bloke. 

I messaged in, accurately: ‘My flatmate Toby thinks he’s a hobbit. He has hairy feet and calls our flat The Shire.’ 

I included Toby’s mobile number (something I’d probably get hauled over the coals for these days with GDPR, as would Radio 1 for requesting it) and my own name. 

I thought nothing more of this until 20 minutes or so later when Toby phoned me. It turned out that Mills’ co-host, who I seem to recall being called BB Aled, had called Toby to ask him about this. (I’m pretty sure it was Aled Jones, nicknamed BB for his reporting on reality TV show Big Brother. Thanks, Twitter peeps.) Jones and Mills were trying to get Toby to go on air, but he declined. He wasn’t the talking type. 

Toby had a habit of getting drunk and repeating the word ‘shire,’ not to mention calling me Frodo at every possible opportunity. He said he wanted to live a simple life in Hobbiton, and not have to worry about anything. Well, that’s the first 20 minutes of Lord of the Rings, at least. Not sure he’d enjoy being eviscerated by an Orc or Cave Troll.

Smoothie Diet: Take 3

Recently, I lost around 5kg on a smoothie diet: mostly spinach and kale, with fruit juice, and a few oat and banana breakfast smoothies thrown in too. The difficulty with this was not particularly the hunger, but the requirement to eat whatever perishable food I was already in my fridge, meaning I wasn’t on purely smoothies until half way through the week. I came down to 80.28kg. 

Since then, I’m back up to around 82-83. (OCL’s scales sadly use imperial and earlier this week showed as 13’0’2. Today I got 12’13’4, or 82.1-82.5kg.) 

This time, I’m going to try again until I hit that 79.9kg mark. I’m expecting it to take more than a week.