I wouldn't normally tell jokes on my blog here but i wrote this one and its a favourite that's pulled out from appropriate time time to appropriate time - like only this morning someone was telling me what they had to eat last night which was very opportune as my reply quickly came: Linda McCartney Pies. I'd have thought they'd have gone off by now I am a proud vegetarian myself but i don't wallow in its promotion and i do believe in convenience so if you ever do invite me...

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I'm giving serious consideration to applying for a job.

See if you can guess where:

"Deviant sibilants hiss into my ear

calling to the core of a paradise

where I never believed fairy stories

nor in a planet cultivated full of Cains".

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Today I’m going to see Dolly Sen’s film, a part of 'Wonder; Art and Science on the Brain'. I’m hoping to see friends there. I feel good but not all that good. I travel and write a travelogue of the present that takes me to the past en route to a future better than this, better than my changing mood. Stimulants Making it not making it in a mood travelogue wet with rain Always outside of the inside or on the inside looking out Car wipers grate scratch like chalk on the...

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Had a very confusing day today. Wrote a lot about my journey to nowhere. Will edit it and maybe poetise the prose more. In the meantime here's something that may happened or something that may not have happened. Certainly parts of it did. Punch Psalm Wet Sunday Afternoon Church closed Doors Locked Bars open In the eternal Blue Light Cops Speed to hospital Scene of conflict Between Drunks And Demonstrators Who both want It open Forever In Service...

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When I used to practice writing with a passion, strong and heavy into the night I would wake up with sentences being formed in front of my eyes rather than dream in sound or in vision. It still happens sometimes. It happened again recently. The words appeared. They took poetic form. I woke up and they were gone. I let them run away, escape me. Then that Dawn Willis started a facebook page, Bedding Out Live  a promotion of a Liz Crow performance. I began to contribute and as I did...

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I have spent many a minute this afternoon listening to the wit and wisdom of Sophie Partridge, Kevin Caulfield and Gabriel and Penny Pepper – all of whom appear on you tube videos (find all four videos here) in defence of the soon to be closed Independent Living Fund. Each video touches on principles of independent living that became very important to me growing up as a disabled activist, ie. Ideas around choice, control, independence and empowerment wherein we become contributors,...

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I’m desperate to find my way into the new blog set up of DAO but can’t find my login. This will give me time to think, to consider what it is that I might have to say. For in truth there is nothing there that’s long enough to be a blog entry and one day the login key may appear and I will still be left vacant, with nothing left to say. I am aware of a theme that has been building, found in the simple, long term rush of writing. I have learned something old afresh. It is not...

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Just the other day I was doing some browsing on the net, looking for a disabled artist someone else had told me about. I didn’t have her name. I had some connections, some concepts, some sites to visit. I was on one of the latter, just scrolling as the sun came through the window of the carriage I travelled in, when suddenly there I was looking back at me. A mirror, reflecting my lovely visage. I was shocked. Horrified. It was like I’d caught an eel at the riverbank. A whole review stolen;...

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Don'cha just hate it when you go to one of these disability arts panels or disabled activists meetings and they just won't use the mike or the megaphone. You'd think they have something to say but don't want to be heard. Went to such an event yesterday. Tiny room, packed with bodies that increasingly shuffled and shifted as they couldn't hear nor barely see due to overcrowding and it took four speakers before one of them had the grace to use the mike. I know.... I should have spoken up. Given...

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Words are mine. I use them. Here in the willy nilly. Spontaneous and free. Careless. Far from frank but mostly honest. Committed to an idea of truth - what ever that might mean. As someone important said its only what you see, how you see it, not how it is. Not how someone else might view it. That will serve as an introduction. Now, two adventures to relay. Wouln't it be great if critics could be embedded into festivals. That's Colin's idea. I think there's some merit in it. I spent hours...

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It is 2013. Happy new year. Back in the old year I reported much on the Karamel Music Club – a favourite haunt. Free music, cheap food, good company, accessible premises. Well in this age of austerity, the collective’s masterful leader, Chris Sheehan, has only gone and opened another club night ‘The Northern Embassy’, dedicated to northern songwriters in the heart of Soho, which access aside retains much the same endearing qualities. And so it was, on a cold, wintry,...

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There is an idea that disability arts is being swallowed up and not being given the opportunity to prosper as disabled artists move towards inclusion in the main stream. One possible solution to this would be to develop a disability arts qualification (which of itself rings of mainstreaming). But i beleive it is an idea that is worthy of consideration especially as Dolly Sen puts disability arts and disability theory onto the agenda whilst discussing the importance of DAO. A problem with...

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This is one of my last great ideas. Note, not one of my last great poems. Perusing papers, looking for placed pledges There are none Charities have stopped pleading in the press Bastards Spoiling my anti tragedy model stance No chugger has stopped me in the street To pounce the unwanted penny The homeless man a yard away could use I've missed our chats Admin, Chief Executive Feeding Bastards Spoiling my anti-tragedy model stance Even the wee yellow Pudsey bastard can barely stir my screen....

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Yeah!!! Three DAO pages achieved by my last entry. This entry was put together on a reporters pad, one day when tramping the streets. I was between appointments. I had been in and out of galleries, done a little bit of work here and there, composed a poem for DAO on seeing Lord Nelson from the National Portrait gallery. Later i went to a favourite cafe and watched the theatre crowd unfold. In the cafe, as shops close, the theatre crowd gather to eat and chat. What a wondrous show. three...

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Early September. Sun beats down and burns my arms. I sit in a public space with pigeons by a fountain. I'm not doing much. I'm reading a paper. Something she never wanted me to do. To pass the time its being read from cover to cover, back to front and front to back. I'm occupying myself - passing time. An older woman with dyed red hair appraoches my bench. She sits away from me and eats an ice cream. Sheis the fourth co-occupant not to acknowledge me. Her anme is Maria. I know this because she...

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The language in this one is not consistent with my the language I would normally use as a disabled person committed to the social model and i apologisein advance for any offence caused. It was not meant butit was inthe story as it unfolded. A vision in purple with an aerial on his head stands outside marks and Sparks rattling a tin. Who are you? Tinky Winky Why dress like that? It gives people something to remember I think you are lal lah No he's the yellow one I still think you're lahlah i say...

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I am sitting in a car in winter time. Its good. I've got writing and can indulge in a poem or two. Love as you know it Is nothing To write home about A far too easy word to say A bitter pill to swallow I felt it once A passing fancy Relegated like a team To lesser delights Smaller achievements A football To be kicked around With spite, with venom In a never ending circle Of oppression Be warm you say Be nice wouldn't it Cough Swallow Bile In failure The nothing Nowhere Man Returns to Urban...

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Jim welcomed me in through his door. It was great to see him. He showed me the children's stories that his brother had published. Some of them were very good. They inspired me to do something with Delta Grumptoktapus. Write my version of a children's story. Delta Grumptoktapus lived in a river. Saddened byhis wetness, Wondering as to his purpose. From time to time he would rise to the surface to check the flotsam, check the jetsam, feed on debris, rubbish thrown away to findits way to the sea....

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I have discovered the joys of radio 4. Listening in one day, a report came from China, read by Damian Grammaticas. No one in the world could be so named I thought and had to check him out on the internet. He's there. He exists. So maybe Delta Grumptoktapus does too. Delta Grumptoktapus Named in response To Damian Grammaticas Are you real? Delta Grumptoktapus Of the waters Tentacled Reaching Out Feeding And Consuming Giving And Taking No mere taker Fat and fabulous Delta Grumptoktapus Simplifies...

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  The Train Seat is embroidered with a pregnant woman, a woman with a baby and a man with a stick. What if the man with the stick sat on the seat with a pregnant woman who then had a baby? Wouldn't the man with the stick feel squashed. Who should stand up first? Who should give the seat up to whom? Surely as the baby came last it should have no right to the seat. I do get sick of babies. I do get sick of the coo coo ca choo. Out of the window with it. Save my taxes. Down with babies. On...

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Lucinda Williams performed old songs, new songs, covers, her songs, herstory at the London Jazz Festival in the Royal Festival Hall on 11 November Take the image, steal the vocal, remove the backing band. All that is left are the songs and moments captured from the lives they reflect on. It is the easiest thing to tell you how much the words of Lucinda Williams mean to me, how real they seem, but that just leaves hagiography. So take the lines that spoke loudest to me - the ones that crashed...

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Today at the Indigo Bridge project, having travelled past Paralympic Park, Haseeb is mocking the cost of the tower ride. He tells me about a part time cabbie on LBC, fallen Afghan hero, failing his Work Capacity Assessment and talks up his grand pap who was never fond of bonfire night, having fought for his country decades back he still cowers at every banger - every rocket sees him looking for his helmet. Most days he's ok though - just grand dad. Later i find myself at the National Portrait...

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Frida Kahlo is a dead disabled woman. Frida Kahlo may also be a living woman of colour. I am reading some of the latters recent thoughts. Whilst the name survives the grave Frida Kahlo seems to be very much alive. These initial thoughts come from An Interview. Frida Kahlo: "... the most influential galleries and museums exhibited almost no women artists. When we showed the figures around, some said it was an issue of quality, not prejudice. Others admitted there was discrimination, but...

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Following requests from members of We All Shot Pudsey Bear attending Burn Pudsey Friday on Friday 16th November outside a BBC studio near you. Shooters and burners (Non Violent Activists) amongst us,opposed to the charity model of disability,  are invited to visit the brand new We All Shot Pudsey Bear Blog. Here you will find a framework for an action - a new style action with no leaders. Likeminded activists are simply required to take responsibility for their own involvement in any...

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I've just revisited an old blog entry Raising A Glass To The next 50 Years Of Jimmying, a poem reflecting on the SaVILE scandal. I visit old blogs to make sure I'm listening to the people who are responding to me. And blow me down, Melissa Mostyn Thomas  said she liked it so much she's nominated me for The One Lovely Blog Award. For a moment I dream't of other people reading Raising A Glass, liking it and coughing up lots of lovely spondies to me, its creator. Then the pale penny dropped....

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