Holy Crap

Religion............  Shit it!

I've stolen those words, I confess.  They were Stephen Fry's response when asked about religion in a television interview.  They also happen to express my own views on religion almost precisely.  I was reminded of how much I detest religion only yesterday (Sunday, naturally) when I attended the first Holy Communion Service of my youngest nephew Patrick.

I'm wincing when I imagine what Patrick and his family have been through.  It is not just a simple case of turn up on the day and walk off with the spoils.  Oh no.  If you want to be accepted into Catholicism (actually they don't but they have to, more on which later), you have to prove your worth.  For about as long as I can remember now my brother-in-law has terrified me with tales of rehearsals, weekend church engagements and, worst of all, having to be nice to a priest!

And not just any old priest.  I fear a lawsuit should I mention his name.  You never know, there could be more than two of you reading this.  However, what I can tell you is that whoever I have spoken to, regardless of their religious views or denominations, they have universally condemned this man.  His faults seem to range from a staggeringly misplaced arrogance, to a religious fascism and an unnverving presence around small children.  And he sings badly too.  Jeez, does he sing badly.  And he's one of those priests who, the worse he sounds, the louder he sings in blissful ignorance.  Tell me Catholics, are your priests all like that?

So back to the plot.  Why do I object to religion so much?  Where to start? I'm mindful that some (one or maybe even both) of my readers may have religious sensibilities so I may have to tone this down a little.  In a nutshell my problem with your God is that he never shows up, except perhaps to start a war.  I can't weave my tender brain around the notion that he lets bad things happen as some kind of test.  That strikes me as being a bit like me coming round to your house with a few gallons of petrol and setting you alight to test the strength of our friendship.  I'm unlikely to be invited back.  At the very least you wouldn't be buying that brand of tea that you know I like again.

My natural cynicism can't help but remind me of the bad things that your God has done.  Where was your God when my best friend died at the age of 26?  Did he do that?  Did he have a hand in the death shortly after of another of my friends aged just 30?  No, make that two aged 30.  I prefer to think not.  Science did these things, because only science and nature could be so cruel.  Naturally then it follows that if God is not responsible for the horrific things I have seen happen, nor can he take the credit for the happiness and joy I have experienced.  He did not send me Emma.  He did not get me a job in the funniest barn yard in Britain.  He did not keep my family fit and well for so long.  Fate did all of these things.

What makes me especially queasy about religion is it's desperate attempts to hold on to power and influence in society.  It's awful beyond my comprehension that Patrick and the other children in his class have to go through this brainwashing facade so that their parents can get them into the school of their choice.  The government play a role in this of course, but in forcing children to belt out 'Our God Reigns' in a tuneless manner until they are old enough to know better, the church is desperately clinging on to it's relevance.  It's like a mad gunman taking hostages until it gets what it wants.  Except nobody dies.  Well, at least not until God decides to test their faith in him.  Tea anyone?

Eye-bulgingly, God even goes begging.  Blow me if a woman didn't come around with a velvet bag intended for the reception of our coins.  At one point I thought it was the FA Cup Third Round draw.  Number 52........Southend United..........will play number 13..............Tranmere Rovers.  Emma actually put money in.  Ok, so it was only 45p, but honestly I would rather donate my hard earned (ok earned) money to the IRA.  Amusingly, my Dad seperated all his copper coins from his golden nuggets and big silvers, only to drop the wrong pile into the bag.  The priest's flight to Las Vegas leaves just after last mass next Sunday.

In trying to find the root of all of this anti-religious hatred (for I hate God every bit as much as he loves me but don't worry, he's already forgiven me) I think it might hark back to a trip to Lourdes I took as a child.  Just because all of my mates had been I wanted in.  My abiding memory of the trip is of noticing not a single person emerge from the font of alleged miracles in possession of a miracle.  Not only that, but the statue of Mary steadfsastly refused to weep.  Recently, my Mum has been telling the story of how I told her that Sue, the person responsible for my care during the trip, kept coming back to the room drunk at 3 in the morning.  I have no idea whether this is true or whether it is just something that a nine-year-old might say just for the attention.  If it is not true, may I take this opportunity to apologise to Sue but if you are going to take me to France bothering non-existent Gods then there are going to be consequences!

Religion................Shit it!

My Name Is Not Steve

I've always considered myself the sort of person who would never worry about his name. I'm the son of a man called Donald after all, so who cares what people call me, right?

Well yes, but I can't help but get irritated by the use of the name 'Steve'. Maybe it is because I'm getting older and therefore grumpier about such a trivial matter, but I truly do detest it. I rarely pull anybody up for referring to me by this repugnant version of my name, but that is mostly because I can't be arsed and not, as you might think, because I think being called Steve is cool.

Coolness is not high on my list of life's priorities, but then there is no need to make such an uncool person even less cool by calling him Steve. I can't think of a single cool person called Steve. Go on, name me a cool person called Steve. Coogan? One great character and an array of embarrassing attempts to match it. The Richard Ashcroft of comedy, if you will.

Or how about Steve McClaren? The former England manager is hardly the epitome of cool. It doesn't matter how many titles he wins in Holland, Germany or any other league in which they spit in each other's mullets, for the English McClaren will be forever remembered as the man who failed to take us to Euro 2008. The enduring image of McClaren is of the Wally with the Brolly, standing there non-plussed in the rain while his England team were denied a ticket to Austria and Switzerland by a combination of the kind of ineptitude we have just seen from the class of 2010 in South Africa and the goalkeeping skills of Scott Carson.

I might be alone in this but Steve Carrell doesn't shout 'cool' at me either. In stark contrast to Coogan, Carrell has had a number of similarly successful comedy roles, but none reside in the same stratosphere as the genius of Partridge. Carrell's comic creations are mildly rib-tickling, causing the kind of laughter you might force out if someone you really fancied made a reasonably glib remark. You can apply all of that to Steve Martin too. Martin's comic career is such that the last time I saw him on television he was playing banjo with his hill-billy friends on Later With Jools Holland. Jools is a much cooler name all around.

Steve Davis, Steve Guttenburg, Steve O, The Adonis Steve Beaton, Steve Naive, Steve Strange, Steve (insert your own adjective that clearly is not a surname here). None of these people are to be admired or copied. For every world title won by Davis there is an insurance advert, just as for every scene in Police Academy 29 that made you laugh there is one which caused you to hide behind the sofa in fear of the bloody slaughter of comedy. Steve is not cool, ok, so bloody well stop calling it me this instant!

There aren't many Stes outside St.Helens, so consider instead the relative coolness of people called Stephen. Stephen Fry is perhaps the greatest living Englishman, able to act, write, present, run away from a job and dance the fandango with the best of them. Stephen Hawking is widely renowned for his brilliant scientific mind, proof indeed that you do not have to be able to feed yourself to be able to make a lasting contribution to mankind. Stephen King is among the best selling novelists in the world, while Stephen Hendry's prowess on the snooker table makes even that of Davis look modest. Steven Gerrard (ok, so we're haggling over spelling now) is a prat, but an immensely talented prat. A prat talented enough to be able to drag a bunch of relative pub players up to the level of European champions in 2005, and then to score two superhuman goals in the FA Cup final a year later, one of which came deep into injury time when he was walking at about the same pace as I do.

God forbid also that we forget Steven Spielberg, without who we wouldn't have Jaws, Indiana Jones, Back To The Future or middle aged men who think beards look good.

As I reach the end of my breathless ranting I have finally thought of one man called Steve who deserves all our respect and admiration. Steve Prescott MBE is without question one of the most inspirational figures around today, especially for folk like myself living in rugby league areas where his influence and astounding courage are most prominent. Yet without name dropping I have met him on several occasions, and can't help but get the feeling that it was the sports media who christened him Steve. His name is Ste. Or Precky, but unlike me he is far too classy an individual to rant and rave about being called Steve.

Too cool, for sure.

The Baseball

Along with peanut butter and jelly, buttermilk pancakes and driving on the wrong side of the road, baseball is just something that you have to try while you are in America.

It's unlikley to ever be popular in the UK, but what I can say about it is that it is a good deal more accessible than Premier League football. And I'm not talking about wheelchairs here. A ticket for a game at Tropicana Field, St.Petersburg, home of the Tampa Bay Rays costs around $18 dollars. This is roughly £12, a quarter of the price you would have to stump up to see messrs Gerrard, Rooney and Drogba in league action.

And you can't say you are not getting your money's worth. A game of baseball takes around three hours to complete and, unlike other sports this has nothing to do with time-outs. While NBA basketball is hopelessly peppered with stoppages for tactical discussions, baseball has a rhythm more similar to T20 cricket. Nine innings, three outs per inning, and at the end of the ninth (or the bottom of the ninth as the locals would have it) the team with the most runs wins. It's rounders with razzamatazz, but what's so wrong with that?

Happily we visited Tropicana Field at a time when the Rays were going well. They have been pegged back a little since, but at the time of our visit to see them take on the Chicago White Sox they led their division and had the best win/loss record in MLB. They didn't let us down here either, winning 8-5 against an average looking White Sox outfit. Ok, so maybe the result should come at the end of the piece, but this is baseball. The result is not really the point.

Food on the other hand, is. One in three Rays fans seemed to turn up late, and carried with them a turkey leg the size of a baseball bat. Anyone with decent hand-eye co-ordination could easily have carried their turkey leg down to the plate and swished the White Sox pitcher out of the park. Well, they could on the kind of form he was in. I declined the turkey, but instead bought an infeasibly large tray of nachos, smothered with cheese aswell as the traditional baseball diet, a hot dog. The cheese was the thickest I have ever seen or tasted, and was more like sauce. You needed a spade to get to the nachos, but the hot dog went down every bit as well as I had expected.

Hot dogs have other uses at Tropicana Field. Between innings a man would walk around the stadium shooting free t-shirts out of a huge hot-dog shaped gun. What is it with Americans and guns? And hot dogs? And T-shirts. The crowd lapped it up anyway, but alas I have to report that the wheelchair area is too high above the field for any free merchandise to have headed my way. On the plus side, this meant that I was safe from the stray baseballs which regularly find their way into the crowd. Nobody in the history of baseball has ever hit a ball far enough to have been able to hit me on the head that night.

Not even Evan Longoria. The Rays third-base man is no relation to the similarly named actress apparently, but has a sufficiently amusing moniker to entertain the hecklers when he strikes out. On this night he was in terrific form, hitting the ball at least.........ooohhhh, four times, though he did misfield on 'defence' once or twice. Other Rays players who endure persistent name calling are BJ Upton and Reid Brignac. I'll leave the kind of abuse afforded to Upton to your own imagination.

Following the game was the alleged bonus of some live music. Unfortunately, it was provided by Hall and Oates, they of 'Maneater' and 'I Can't Go For That' infamy. Emma's dad, who is a man at the right sort of age to be enthused at this prospect, was the first among us to wilt under the strain of Darryl and John's incessant whailing. He needed to get out, which pretty much meant the rest of us did also. All of which meant leaving behind half a can of industrial strength Budweiser (why is it so much stronger over there?) and heading back towards Orlando. I fell asleep, possibly due to the Budweiser, and can only remember waking up outside the gates of the villa and wondering why it had only taken five minutes to drive 120 miles.

Universal

You'd expect we'd be parked out by the time we rocked up at Universal Studios, some five days into our holiday. You'd be wrong.

On balance Universal is perhaps the best of the parks in the Disney area, though it is itself not a part of the Disney group. All of which means you get less Mickey Mouse and more of The Simpsons.

The latter is the closest I got to a roller-coaster for the entire fortnight. Even then it took me two attempts. The first time around I couldn't help but notice that the winding queue was travelling ever upwards, and by around the half-way point I was convinced that this could not be anything other than a roller-coaster. My mind even began to play tricks on me as I looked up and felt certain that I saw the vehicle, parked up on what looked like a very narrow, but very high track.

Unashamedly, I rolled back down to the bottom to ask the docile attendant about the exact nature of the ride. I have biff issues to think about at this point, and was not about to risk being thrust upside down at 743 miles per hour. The explanation I received was hardly informative, but fortunately I had Emma as a guinea pig. She remained in the queue and took the ride, returning some 40 minutes later (Orlando has a lot of theme parks, but even more queues) to inform me that it was just a simulator.

We trailed back up, killing another 40 minutes stone dead in the process. I have to say it was worth it though. It feels for all the world like you are travelling on the world's most dangerous, most inept roller-coaster, complete with it's broken track and the presence of Sideshow Bob trying to damage your health at every turn. You find yourself hanging on all the same, while there is a generous smattering of Simpson's humour featuring Homer, Bart and all of the regular favourites.

Men In Black was not so impressive. Indeed, the most impressive thing about this ride is the lengths they go to to make it accessible for wheelchair users. The portable platform they use is a ride in itself, as it is slowly transported towards the vehicle. Unfortunately the rest of the experience is something of a let down, as an attempt to emulate the shooting formula of Toy Story's Midway Mania fails to deliver. Maybe my gun was broken. It happens.

If it's a show you're after then move on to Beetlejuice's Graveyard Revue or The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad. This has nothing to do with that rotund fellow from Brookside who can shortly be seen prancing around The Empire Theatre in a dress, but more in connection with the sailor and all around adventurer of the same name. Princesses and evil sorceresses abound, accompanied naturally by the usual blend of fireworks, unneccesary splashing of water and a posse of shell-shocked and shocking extras.

Beetlejuice's Graveyard Revue is not quite what you might expect, and not half as annoying as Michael Keaton's film. In essence it is a short musical, with tracks ranging from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack to the Black Eyed Peas. If you can deal with the notion of a man dressed as a werewolf belting out ballads then this might be for you. If not, you can always just watch the scarily but nevertheless scantily clad women dance. What?


For reasons too laborious to go into here it was not until our second visit to Universal Studios that we ventured over to the nearby Islands Of Adventure. What else does Orlando need more than another theme park? This one contains the much vaunted Spiderman ride, which is one of the more impressive of it's kind in Orlando. It's a simulator not dissimilar to The Simpsons, but it also has the added advantage of a 3-D element. All of which drags you face to face with Doc Oc and his fiendishly evil friends, aswell as having our hero Spidey jump on to your vehicle at regular intervals to instruct you on what is required of you in the next part of the adventure. It's all a good deal better than this column makes it sound.


Surely the only place to dine at Universal or Islands Of Adventure is the NBA restaurant. It's walls are adorned with the expected decor. NBA greats such as Magic, Larry, Rodman, Dr J and Kareem peer down at you from above as you tuck into your chicken (for Orlando serves little else it seems). Interestingly there is no sign of Michael Jordan, not even on the numerous screens that surround the dining area playing a mixture of classic highlights and recent clashes. It's probably contractual.


After your meal there is the by now mandatory gift shop to visit, though a replica NBA vest would, if you were so inclined as to wear such an item during an English summer, set you back some $140. I didn't have that kind of cash to splash on looking that bad, so I settled instead for the tried and trusted Chicago Bulls mug. On leaving the restaurant we were met by some of Orlando's wildlife, as three tiny lizards wanderered around on the paths outside. For some reason Emma was not totally enamoured by them when I pointed them out, although it has to be said that one of them was indulging in some slightly unnerving throat movement and colour changing shennanigans.

We survived long enough to make it back to the car, though bags were checked for miniature reptiles more than once...........

Orlando - Episode V

Hollywood Studios

One thing you can't avoid in Orlando is theme parks, and so we were unsurprised to find ourselves at Hollywood Studios just a day after visiting the Magic Kingdom.

No boats or monorails to the entrance this time, just straight down to business. First up was the Star Wars experience, Jedi Knight training for the under-12's. Inexplicably since I don't like Science Fiction, I have been a huge Star Wars fan since Harrison Ford had his own hips. So much so that I was prepared, keen even, to sit and watch a dozen or so youngsters pit their wits against a highly repetetive Darth Vader;

"Join me!" he said, more than once, and;

"This will be a day long remembered.". Unfortunately, he left out;

"Apology accepted, Admiral." and of course the classic;

"I am your father........"

Probably for the best. A lot of 21st century kids are very unsure about who their father is and so we wouldn't want to confuse anyone.

The stormtroopers were a nice touch with their slapstick comedy routine, but the impossibly named Jedi Master (Pak Doo Ik, or something) seemed to me to be a little old for this. However, to give him his due he managed to teach this unruly mob enough about how to wield a fake lightsaber (what did you expect? he asked upon revealing the training weaponry) to avoid any serious injury.

Staying on the Star Wars theme, next door is the flight simulator. Off we went on our flight to Endor, with only a small buckle between us and potential.........well...........not much really. This is a simulator don't forget. Nevertheless it is a convincing one and well worth a ride should you happen to find yourself in the vicinity. Just don't expect to see the Dark Lord of Sith. He's busy shaking his fist at children in various stages between bewilderment and mild fear.

It would be cynical and desperate to use George Lucas as some kind of tenuous link here, but from Endor and Imperial Fighters we moved on to George's other classic, Indiana Jones. Harrison's hips are, it turns out, protected by a stunt double. Who'd have thought it? His name escapes me temporarily, but stunt Indy was adept at running away from large rolling stones, ducking under slowly lowering doors, and making off with the treasure. Here is where you see how it is all done, with the help of some rather embarrassed and frankly embarrassing extras. And yes, there is a scene in which one extra engages in some lengthy sword-twirling before Indy calmly shoots him dead. Don't worry kids, he's not really dead.

By now far too much time has passed since we saw a decent 3-D show, so thank Heavens for the Muppets. or Muppetvision, as their film spectacular prefers to be known. My own personal favourites among Muppet characters have to be Statler and Waldorf, who greet the audience at the outset with their inimitable and glorious grumpiness. By the end one of them (who knows which is which?) is describing the show as 'moving', to which the other replies;

"Yeah, I wish they would move it to Pittsburgh."

The most memorable thing about The Great Movie Ride is the sudden appearance of Bugsy Malone. I'm just at the right age to remember the old kiddies musical in which custard pies abound, and so it was interesting to see the cast try to pull off an even hammier take on the old gangster tale. Bugsy takes command of the vehicle, fighting off the hapless and intentionally geeky tour guide who starts the ride. His purpose for doing so is somewhat lost in the blast of more bogus ammunition, but what I can remember vividly is the alien from the Sigourney Weaver film of the same name thrusting it's less than attractive cranium in the direction of our vehicle at very short notice.

Toy Story Mania is what Hollywood Studios should be all about. Yes you have to queue interminably, and yes it is essentially something which you might have enjoyed more in your youth, but you can't help but get swept along with it all the same. At first glance it has the appearance of a run of the mill waltzer, but when you throw in the 3-D shooting element you have all you need to engage your brain for the three or so minutes it takes to complete your ride. Emma managed to shoot more targets than me among the Buzz Lightyears and the Woodys, but I can take that kind of defeat with good grace. I'm only sorry that the queuing meant that there wasn't time for a rematch.

To save time I wish we had avoided Prince Caspian's Journey Into Narnia. If you absent mindedly wandered from your wardrobe into this kind of Narnia you would be peeved in the extreme. This Narnia extends only to a large dark room full of screens, on which they play clips from what was a modestly successful, largely pointless film. At the end of this you are led into a room where some of the film's props and costumes are exhibited, but I was thrown out by a Japanese usher before I'd had chance to fully take in what was on display.

Journey into Narnia vies only with Twister at the Magic Kingdom for the title of Disney's lamest attraction. We returned to the Magic Kingdom for reasons too tortuous to explain here, so you'll find out later exactly why you should avoid the alleged 'ride' based on the Tornado chasing exploits of Helen Hunt and someone called Bill.

Paxton, I think.

Orlando Magic (Kingdom)

From one Kingdom to another, and Disney's optimistically named Magic Kingdom.

Every effort is made at the Magic Kingdom to make visitors feel like they have left Florida, and with it Planet Earth. As soon as you leave your vehicle at the 'handicapped parking lot' you can forget about highways, Denny's and 7-Elevens. Please leave all sense of reality at the door.

First to negotiate is the choice of how to get to the park itself. You didn't think you were there quite yet just because you had parked your car, did you? This is the Magic Kingdom after all. Your first option is the Monorail, or if you have been traumatised by a certain episode of The Simpsons, there's the boat. We chose the Monorail, probably only because you have to go past it anyway to get to the dock.

Unfortunately, almost every visitor to the park that day had the same thought. All of which led to a long queue on an excessively steep ramp leading up to the platform. It was harder work to keep from going backwards and thus downhill than it would likely have been to push the extra distance to the dock. No matter, we were in the queue now.

The monorail itself was one of the first demonstrations of how much better the Americans are at access. They might all be capitalist greed merchants who eat too many burgers and call football 'sakker', but they know how to accommodate those of us with the termerity to turn up without the ability to walk. And get this, people of Northern Rail, all you need is a wider gate and a vehicle that is roughly the same height as the platform. As an extra little diversion, part of the route takes you through the Disney resort itself, where you get an elevated view of their customers eating their eggs over easy. Or something. Cynics might suggest that the route planners are trying to distract you from the fact that you still haven't reached the park yet.

It might share part of the name, but the Magic Kingdom bears little resemblance to the Animal Kingdom. Gone are the paths and slopes flanked by endless greenery, replaced by mocked up streets with shops that may or may not be real depending on which street you happen to be on. As you enter you are on Main Street, which is supposed to resemble a typical American town centre street. There are roads but no cars, except for the large, showy vehicles used to give everyone a decent view of the parades.

We ran straight into one as we got through the entrance. The streets are roped off, and you are asked to move aside to the pavements as the music is cranked up. Before you know it, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Snow White are moving past you, dancingly frenetically on top of their mobile perches. Accompanying them on the ground is an array of dancing, baton twirling types who my Dad might refer to as glorified Red Coats. He never saw Nick and whassisname at Prestatyn, obviously. To my mind they were a little better than that, although there is an uneasy feeling in watching some of the endless smiling and gesturing that these people are about to do whatever it takes to be the next Britney Spears. If there are casualties along the way, so be it.

So, parade over, what's to see at the Magic Kingdom? For starters there's a bizarre animatronics bird show which made at least four children scream in terror. For my part I was just bewildered, but I can see how it might have been scary to a child. The famed Pirates of the Caribbean ride which is said to have inspired the excellent first Johnny Depp film aswell as it's farcical sequels was one of the few things we found inaccessible. Looking from the outside, I found it somewhat underwhelming. It's hard to believe that it inspired the films, rather than the other way around.

For something a little more relaxed there's the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. Why not spend 20 minutes waiting to see if you are going to be picked on, and thus publicly ridiculed by a small green monster with one eye who sounds a lot like Billy Crystal? You can enjoy watching others squirm while you wait, and who knows like us you might just get lucky and escape the degradation. Across the street from there you can help Stitch as in 'Lilo And' to capture aliens. It's another 3-D experience, which Emma says included the illusion that Stitch was sitting on her shoulders flapping his wings. Or whatever they are. There was not an option to transfer from my wheelchair, so I felt nothing of the sort, though I did endure the rancid aroma of Stitch's verbal wind.

Transferring is a must for wheelchair users at something called Mickey's PhilharMagic 3-D show. Prepare again to get wet and feel potentially unpleasant winds in your face as Walt's famous mouse takes you through a whole host of Disney classic moments, variously pelting and leaping out at you along the way. Donald Duck finds all of this particularly pleasing, though he remains as difficult to understand as Sir Alex Ferguson talking to Muhammad Ali. Later he invites you on his boat, and there's the grander Liberty Square Riverboat Cruise also.

Yet before this piece starts to read too much like an advert for it's subject, I should just share with you an exchange between me and a fellow customer at the end of the PhilharMagic show. At the end of the row reserved for wheelchair users I passed a young man sitting in an electric wheelchair. I have no idea why he was not leaving, given that the show had finished and we were being ushered outside in the usual hurried fashion. However, he tapped my shoulder as I went past and said;

'Haven't you got an electric chair?'

'Er.....no.' I replied.......

'..........I need the exercise.' I continued.

Undeterred, he glared at me rather too intensely and asked.....

'.........would you like one?'

There is nowhere in America where you are safe from the perils of someone trying to sell you something. Nor is there any limit to the poor taste to which they will stoop to sell it. He probably didn't need the electric chair he was sitting in. Clearly, this was a man on commission and in a hurry to shift chairs.

I couldn't afford to buy one even if I was lazy enough to consider it.

We left for our evening meal, where Emma's mum had arranged a suitably embarrassing surprise. She had booked a table at the Crystal Palace Restaurant (much to the discomfort of the rest of Emma's Sheffield Wednesday supporting family) where during our meal we were offered several photo opportunities with Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet. I don't know where Roo Boy was but it seemed to matter little. The waitress was unfathomably helpful, although the pizza and chips from the buffet was among the worst I have ever tasted. It was straight out of Pizza Hut's scandalous £4 pizza meal promotion.

By sundown the rain had started to lash down. Emma and her family were not prevented from watching the impressive firework and lights show above the park's centrepiece Cinderella's Castle, but I looked on grumpily from the shelter of a shop doorway. Everywhere I looked there was a Disney Poncho protecting someone from the rain.

It was time to go. We would be back, after all...............

Twice!

Disney's Animal Kingdom

What else are you going to do the day after you have been to see a collection of sea creatures but go and see more animals?

Disney's Animal Kingdom was next on the agenda. It's becoming sketchy if I'm honest. I knew I should have taken a notepad with me, but then I draw enough attention to myself already without being that geeky. What I do remember is that the first thing we did at Animal Kingdom was get on the safari vehicle.

In the process of doing so I learned something that would be valuable to me for the rest of the trip. How to queue without throwing things. Queues had been few and far between at Sea World. Maybe they'd all gone to Ellesmere Port, I don't know. They were out in force at Animal Kingdom though, with a sign outside advising us that it would be 20 minutes before we would actually get on to the safari. Well, we had all day.

It's not just the queues, but the way one queues that is significant here. Rather than have one long line stretching all the way back to Japan (which I'm sure was just over by the Rhinos, but I might be getting confused), they cunningly get you to line up around snake-like railings. This creates the illusion that you are making progress when in fact you are merely moving through a series of rooms or corridors. Credit to them, they try to distract you from your impatience with interesting decor and perhaps the odd DVD, but they're making you wait nonetheless.

Finally on board the jeep I quickly noticed that all staff in the safari area where called Dan, Danny, Daniel or any other denominations of that name you can think of;

"Danny!" shouted Dan,

"Tell Daniel to take my name off the board!"

I don't know what this means exactly, but I'll be surprised if it made a difference for the board to lose any of it's Dans, Dannys or Daniels. Danny nodded anyway.

Anyway, Dan was our driver. He showed us all the things we had come to see, and quite a few we had not expected. In among the elephants, giraffe, lions, rhinos and bongos (there's always bongos at zoos and safari parks, don't you find?) were some rather less authentic creatures. Dan had been advised through his radio system that there were poachers in the area, and they were after the elephants. Apparently, ivory is worth a few bob. To prove this they had mocked up an entire poachers camp, and a mechanically controlled baby elephant hiding in a small jeep. Not to mention the voice of our informant, who also had us wait five minutes to allow time for an ostrich to move out of the road. I caught sight of it a while later, hurtling towards our jeep lest we make a play for it's eggs. Emma didn't think the eggs were real though.

Anybody who hasn't seen A Bugs Life might not be able to relate to what we did next. We visited a 3-D show based on the animated film, and I learned something else. If you use a wheelchair, get out of it at 3-D shows if you possibly can. I made the mistake of seeing this show from my own chair, and missed out on the simulation of being swatted at by a bug hell-bent on revenge for the loss of it's kin to the human race in this way. A huge waft of air came through the back of Emma's chair as the swatter swished narrowly by, and it was only when we left the theatre that I noticed that the seats all had small, strategically placed holes in their backs.

However, I am happy to report that I did witness Hopper (a giant grasshopper voiced by Kevin Spacey when he's not talking about the Old Vic) zoom into my face, pointing furiously at me for decimating the bug population with a rolled up Sunday Times. Or something. This may have been an attempt to educate serial bug squashers, but I don't have enough faith in humanity to believe that the insect death toll will fall as a result. I was also fortunate enough to be able to feel the blast of wind in my face when the enormous, fat purple bug let one go, so to speak, and to get just as wet as everyone else when a spider exploded or soiled itself. Lovely.

After that it was on to another theatre for a stage version of Finding Nemo. It was all very entertaining, yet I can't help but feel that the highlight was at the end when the seagulls famous for crying 'mine, mine, mine' in the film, changed the call to 'bye, bye, bye' when they wanted to boot you out of your seat at the end. Actually there is some very clever puppetry in the performance, along with some lung-busting singing. Just don't expect the same level of humour. They've only got half an hour to tell the story. A similar principle allows me to describe a day out which lasted around 10 hours to you in just one blog.

And the rest...........? Well, it's a zoo. You've all been to Chester. Just imagine that with searingly hot weather. And rollercoasters. Difficult, I know.

Bon Jovi

Sorry to interrupt the Orlando story but I feel the need to write this while it is fresh in the memory. For those of you strange enough to be wondering, the Orlando story will continue next time I find myself at a keyboard with an hour to kill. The World Cup is not helping, nor will my impending return to work.

Before we proceed I have to take you on a short detour. My blue badge has expired. In case you didn't know, a blue badge is a permit which allows you to park in designated disabled parking areas. The thought occurs to me that my disability is unlikely to expire, so it seems a little odd that my permit for disabled parking access should expire. Do the powers that be think I'm taking the piss? Just having a rest am I? 'Sit down with a pack of ginger nuts and a nice cup of tea and your legs will be strong enough to carry you before you know it young man.'

Fuckwits.

Anyway, in order to renew one's disability, a trip to the Council offices is required. So too are recent passport photographs (if you don't believe I'm disabled, have a look at them!), and a fee of two English pounds. A cynic would suggest that this is why blue badges are subject to renewal. They know full well I haven't been rehabilitated since the last issue, but they are damned if I'm getting away with the £2. I don't know if rehabilitated is the right word. Makes me sound like a serial killer.

So the woman dealing with my application (yes, there is a form) asks to see a letter confirming my receipt of Disability Living Allowance. I don't have a recent one so I have taken along one from two or three years ago. I was as disabled then as I am now (perhaps more so if you ask the right people), so I thought it would suffice. The woman is not so sure;

'I'll send it up to them for you but I don't know if they'll do it without another letter' she tells me.

You can just imagine 'them' can't you? Bureaucrats bound by the limits of their 'procedures', forced to leave their common sense at the door each morning. I am far from sure that I will get my blue badge renewed without another letter or visit to the Benefits Agency, the trauma of which is a whole new blog considering that I work for a living. Perhaps it is just me but I'm convinced whenever I go in there that everyone assumes I'm a dole bum just like they are. See, I'm even doing it myself now.

And so to Bon Jovi. We always stay overnight on these occasions, so we booked into the Custom House hotel. It's a quaint little place, with rooms cold enough to remind you that you are back in England if you have been away. For that extra authenticity it has an inaccesible cafe, which is all out of jacket potatoes sorry, but here's a cheese and ham toastie for a fiver. Will that do? It had to.

We needed to get the train to the O2. I was apprehensive about this because Emma never stops complaining about the inaccessibility of the London rail network. Being from the South East she has some experience in that part of the country (England's toilet, if you will), and to say she doesn't rate it would be something akin to suggesting that Wayne Bridge doesn't like John Terry. However I am happy to report that we managed to take the not one but two trains necessary to get to the venue, and to do so without any assistance from dullard rail workers. If anything, my experience of London's railways tells me that they could teach a thing or two to my friends at Thatto Heath and Lime Street.

Safely in our seats with our £4.30 drinks, we were entertained for a while by The Velvet Hearts. If like me you had not heard of them I can describe them as a soft rock act, but rather more understated than Bon Jovi. They have a pretty boy, muscle bound backing singer who wears a sharp black jacket and tee-shirt combo, with jeans. His tan is probably fake but is dazzling nonetheless. Despite his appearance, I couldn't help but liken him to Bez in the Happy Mondays, such was his lack of contribution and synchronisity to the others in the band. I'm afraid I can't recommend The Velvet Hearts any more than I can recommend Gary Go in support of Take That. What? I've told you, I'm travelling with a woman.

Eventually Jon, Richie and co arrived on stage in the expected Blaze Of Glory. That pun is intentionally crap, as it leads me on tenuously to my one beef about the evening's entertainment. Actually, it's quite a large beef. There were far too many of the band's well known songs, including the aforementioned movie soundtrack ditty, which were left on the shelf. I can understand the need to promote their new material (which is like the old material, but the chords are in a different order and the words are different, but hey if it ain't broke.......), but I think you'd like to have something to sing along to at a gig like this. They didn't even do Always, which I remarked to Emma was a bit like Robbie Williams not doing Angels. She replied that she wouldn't give a shite if Robbie had never sung Angels.

Maybe because it is a new era, or maybe because this was not a stadium gig, the patrons were not quite as I'd expected. There was a distinct lack of the long-haired, ageing denim wearers of my imagination, and instead they were replaced by an audience of all ages, very few of whom broke out of slight body movement and rhythmic clapping. Headbanging and stage-diving were not in effect. Bon Jovi are no longer a rock band. But then we knew that. Pop will always make you more dough than rock, and Jon knows this.

We drunkenly navigated our way back to the hotel thanks to an overly loud conversation I had with a woman called Natalie, and two equally lost and nameless northern folk. Somehow Emma arrived in our room some time before me and as I knocked on the door there was an awful moment when I thought she had fallen asleep and that I would be sleeping in the corridor. Whilst waiting I noticed that there was an awful lot of noise coming from the room next door. I do not wish to expand on that at this point.

The journey home was tortuous. It took two hours to travel just over 50 miles because of the jams, and I missed the opening match of the World Cup entirely, despite our leaving the hotel at 11.00am. In all it took six hours to travel the 220 miles or so back home, and the journey presented more than it's fair share of moments in which the will to live seemed to be evaporating. As consolation we stocked up on junk food, whereupon Emma promptly fell asleep leaving me to get on with the football-watching.

Oh, and if you are wondering about the encore...... Living On A Prayer, obviously.

Orlando - Episode II

Sea World

If I thought clambering into the car was acrobatic, I hadn't seen anything yet. The first morning of our stay we decided, for no other reason than Emma's mum suggested it off the top of her head, to visit Sea World.

Now I am sure that not so long ago this would have been a unique experience. Clearly Orlando leads the way in this kind of thing, but by now it is by no means the only place where you can see the full range of sea creatures without getting even a little damp. Only two years ago we were in Lorro Park in Tenerife watching two enormous killer whales perform leaps and gyrations from a distance Robert Shaw would have balked at (ok so that was a man-eating, rubber shark but you take my point). As close by as Ellesmere Port you can look upwards from an enclosed walkway and see some fairly sizeable sharks devouring an unfortunate squid.

None of which is to say that I did not enjoy the experience. I'd never seen Beluga Whales up close before, nor a polar bear. Albeit a sleeping polar bear. Certain people in our party had suggested that the polar bear would not be real and so decided not to visit the section to find out. I couldn't comprehend the pointlessness of exhibiting a fake polar bear and so took a leap of faith. I can confirm that it was real, even if it was about as likely to move in public as the Queen's bowels. In all honesty it probably does not enjoy the confinement relative to the freedom of the wild, but it was an awesome sight nonetheless.

Traditionally, and as with any of the other Sea Life Centres I know of, Sea World's centrepiece attraction is it's Killer Whale shows. 'Shamu Rocks America' the T-shirts proclaim, and again without trying to poo-poo your poo-poo it seems that this is something of an exaggeration. Shamu does not so much rock America as cause it to endure a steady ripple.

The show was understated in comparison to even that at Tenerife, with leaps and gyrations in shorter supply. This may well be linked to the recent deaths of handlers unfortunate enough to have got into the water with a Killer Whale having a bad day. Seems reasonable. To compensate the handlers are the new acrobats, dressing up in bright, sparkly costumes to perform death defying leaps and twirls, but at a safe distance from grumpy old Shamu and company. It's still magnificently entertaining, and a good deal more impressive than a biff getting into a hired car with the aid of a stategically placed handle.

Staying with the watery theme it was here that I experienced my first taste of the erratic Orlando weather. Emma and I were on our way back to meet the others (who had long since given up) when the bright blue sky turned grey and the heavens opened. I have never seen rain come down that fast. Stalls were hurriedly disassembled, shelter desperately sought. We ended up near a cafe with a covered forecourt, along with what seemed like 90% of the people who had visited the park that day. Any young lady caught in the downpour for more than a few seconds quickly replaced Shamu as the main attraction. The deluge lasted for around half an hour, but such is the heat of the sun when it reappears that it could not have been out for more than ten minutes before everything dried up again.

The obligatory mug safely purchased and packaged, we moved on to the next adventure.

Orlando Bloom

Right, now that title has conned at least 30 beautiful women (and you) into reading my work I can begin the real business of describing my recent trip to Florida.

I don't think I can take on this task with just one blog. Rather like America itself, the story is just too big for it's own good and so I've decided to break it down. It seems logical to take events in chronological order, so we are going to start with............

The Journey

There are always hiccoughs, cock-ups and balls-ups before any aviation ups when I visit an airport. This occasion was no different. To begin with the mini-bus driver charged us £5 more than was agreed for the ride to the airport, destroying any hope he had of a tip in the process. I noted darkly that he was from Wigan. I'll leave it there. Then there was the failure of the online check-in system to check people in online. The machine steadfastly, almost heroically refused to print out a boarding card, instead advising us to join the queue to obtain one in the traditional manner. It might just aswell have promised to dispense $50 notes or ice cold beer. Clearly it was a Liberal Democrat.

All of which is only slightly less of a stigma than being a shoe bomber, which is possibly what they thought Emma might be when they singled her out for a random search before boarding. I remain puzzled by the purpose of randomly asking passengers to remove their shoes for a more thorough search. Just because Emma hasn't got explosives in her trainers doesn't mean that Al-Ahly-Mahmoud-Hassan at the back of the queue hasn't. I was almost sure Emma hadn't anyway, but I suppose you never really know people.

The flight itself was agreeable, almost pleasant. If you have music and a book and are within reasonable distance of a toilet (fellow wheelchair users will know what I mean) then eight hours and 20 minutes isn't all that long. Having chosen to fly with Virgin Atlantic, we did have to put up with Branson delivering a smugly recorded screen message thanking us for lining his pockets and wishing us an enjoyable flight. Mercifully he quickly buggered off to run another marathon or buy another island.

Along with the music and the literature I watched a film called Invictus. Regular readers will know that I detest rugby union with every sinew of my being, yet this in itself did not prevent me from being mildly engaged by the film. It's more about Nelson Mandella and the political climate in South Africa post-apartheid than it is about another bloody successful penalty goal, although the climactic rugby action scenes are laughable in a way that would make Escape To Victory's director blush.

Before you land in the USA you have to complete one of their VISA cards. Not a credit card for buying things you can't afford and thus destroying the global economy, but a small green card recording a few personal details to pacify the immigration people. The airline staff can't stress often enough how important it is to fill this in correctly if you want to be granted entry into the USA, and so it was with some predictability that one of us filled it in incorrectly. It happened to be Emma, but it could just as easily have been me who realised too late that there was not enough space for the words 'United Kingdom' in the box enquiring as to your country of residence. New card issued, the stewardess wearily advised us to 'just put England'.

The same stewardess then made the unfortunate mistake of talking to me about wheelchair access on aircrafts when we were waiting for my wheelchair to be brought up from the hold. Yawning slightly, my ears only pricked up when she told me that her husband was himself a wheelchair user. While not exactly Helen of Troy, she had the classic air stewardess look, leaving me wondering how many millions her husband had been paid after his accident. I think about this sort of thing a lot when my eyes are half shut in the bathroom at 7.00 on a Monday morning, and will think about it even more should I ever find myself requiring new employment. If you want to make money (and therefore hump stewardesses) out of disability, don't be born with it. Ok?

On arrival in Orlando (see, I knew we'd get there in less than 2,000 words) we then had to negotiate the complex baggage reclaim system. Immigration were satisfied with our form-filling efforts, but still took the time to fingerprint and photograph each of us before they would allow us anywhere near our suitcases. When we did reach the carousel we obviously couldn't find our luggage, which it turned out had not quite managed to find it's way off the plane at that point. When it came around, only two of our three cases (what? I'm travelling with a woman) were on the designated carousel. The location of the third may have remained a mystery for all eternity had Emma not noticed during a trip to the ladies that a nearby carousel had stopped moving with only around three cases remaning on it. One of them was ours. Don't ask because I don't know.

Baggage claimed, we thought we were clear for departure to the holiday villa. Not so. We came to a staircase, which is never a good situation for me, and were told that if we could not carry our luggage up the stairs (hello!, I can't even get myself up there!) then we would have to leave it with yet more baggage handling staff and reclaim it at yet another carousel. It could not be taken in the lift (elevator, whatever), nor on the subsequent monorail we had to take to what we soon discovered was the real airport exit. Monorails were to become a feature of this trip, but for now we located our luggage (all on one carousel this time) and advanced.

We had arranged to meet Emma's family at the car hire desk. The plan was for Emma's dad to hire a car and drive us around. The villa was around 20 minutes from most of the parks and attractions, so it made sense. Unfortunately their flight from Chicago (they had been staying in Wisconsin with a friend. I know, Chicago is in Illinois) had been delayed. An amusing 20 minutes was passed listening to and watching a woman trying to leave a message on her answering machine covering the duration of her holiday. She must have done it 17 times, shaking her head more with each failed attempt. She should try checking into an airport online.

An hour or so later Emma's family had arrived and were ready to go, and I faced one more challenge. The car we hired needed to be big to allow for all the luggage. The problem with big cars tends to be that they are tall aswell as spacious. All of which meant that I spent a farcical five minutes trying to get into the back seat, before deciding that I could not, and instead climbing into the front. The manufacturer had kindly and cleverly placed a handle just above the door which allowed me to pull myself in. Had it not been for that I would have continued to look like Mini-Me trying to climb up Beyonce's leg, or worse still been left to spend the fortnight at the airport with it's multitude of carousels and lifts/elevators.

And the woman with the voicemail problems.

Pharmacy Farce

Pharmacy Farce

There is a line in the Coen Brothers' excellent 'Burn After Reading' which came to mind today after a quite tortuous visit to Boots the chemist.

'These are exactly the kind of fucking morons I have been fighting against all my life" says John Malkovic's character at the end of an epic and soul destroying pursuit of two leisure centre workers who had somehow come into possession of Malkovic's highly sensitive government information.

All of which seems a fair way away from any visit to Boots. Yes, it is a stretch in literal terms, but read on and you will soon discover how easy it is to have one's spirit crushed by morons.

I didn't even get out of the car, yet by the end I was left feeling like I had not only been dragged through a hedge backwards, but by the larger of my testicles.

As both my regular readers will know I am ill. With this in mind Emma kindly offered to go into the chemist for me to pick up my monthly order of prescriptions. If I lived in Scotland where prescriptions are free, my monthly requirements might just make them think again about that particular policy. They'd be losing a fortune. The amount of shite I now need from the chemist every four weeks is staggering, and far too exhaustive to bore you with here.

But here's the thing. Every month we go and every month they tell us they cannot dispense the items without first changing the way my prescriptions are ordered by my local doctor. If we go with a prescription for all of the items we are told that they cannot be dispensed. If we arrive with a separate prescription for each item we are informed that they cannot be dispensed. And then they dispense them anyway, but not until you have spent half your evening pointing out to them that you have been told that you can't have them either way. I think it is a test of character. If it is, I'm failing it.

'Are you sure you pay for your prescriptions?' they ask when we have finally signed a legally binding treaty.

'Yes. I work'.

A blank look. The moron cogs are turning, trying to figure out exactly how and why someone who hasn't even got the decency to be able to walk would want to venture out to work for a living. It baffles them in the same way that their policy on prescription dispensing baffles me. I'm exactly the kind of fucking moron they have been fighting against all their lives.

So back to today. It takes fully 45 minutes, and a return trip to the car for yet more evidence of my usual order (they've lost the original prescription, so how the feck do they know what I want or how I should go about getting it?) before we can leave. By this point I am experiencing the kind of kidney pain that would stop Judy Finnegan drinking for a fortnight, but worse than that my spirit is crushed. The inability of the UK's largest and most famous pharmacy to differentiate between items that are needed every month and those that are not is quite something.

Without ruining the end of 'Burn After Reading' for those who haven't seen it, there is bloodshed before the end. I haven't been tempted yet, but if I return to Boots in a month's time and am asked once more to speak to my doctor about my prescriptions then I refuse to be held responsible for my actions. I am a moron after all.

Sick

I'm ill.

Now I realise that is not the most upbeat start to a column (see, I'm not even entertaining that other word now) but my ramblings are nothing if not honest and to the point.

The gory details first. I have a urinary tract infection. This is quite common among the biff community, but is no less agonising for all that. We are prone to this type of thing, although I had been quite lucky up until last year. Eventually your luck runs out, and so now I am on enough anti-biotics and pain-killers to bring down a herd of mammoths.

At times the pain is indescribable to someone who has never suffered from an infection of this kind. The best I can do is to get you to imagine being stabbed repeatedly in one side (without the obvious instant damage to the internal organs which would ensue. No, far better to drag it out). This is then followed by or interspersed with a feeling of being punched repeatedly in the back (around the kidney area) by Floyd Mayweather's stronger but less subtle brother. At times the pain-killers don't touch the problem, while at others it takes barely half an hour for the relief to come flooding through. You figure it out, because I can't.

It doesn't help when the original medication you were prescribed makes you sick. Much of Tuesday morning between the hours of about 4.30-8.30 were spent rolfing royally into the toilet (miraculously failing to wake Emma), and yet managing not to feel any less sick. It was a bit like the verbal diaorrhea from which David Cameron suffers. It doesn't matter how much he spews out, there is always more.

Medication successfully changed (Emma had to take a day off work as any effort pick up my own prescription would have ended in certain death), I was now mercifully rolf-free. Cleverly, vindictevely, the pain even took a break through most of Wednesday. This devious criminal mastermind persuaded me that it would be safe to return to work on Thursday, and then pounced once more on it's victim. This morning was spent bent double in front of my desk like a recently befallen Italian footballer, while two Ibuprofens later I was visited by a deep-rooted conviction that I was again going to splurge a pretty pattern, only this time over my desk. It could have been the cheese and onion sandwich I ate for lunch, or it could have been the chocolate or the crisps. You decide.

At the moment there is calm once more. But then I haven't eaten since lunchtime (even turning down free cake at work) and it is now 8.52pm. The question of whether to go to work in the morning offers something of a dilemma. If I am ok between now and 7.00 tomorrow morning I will find it hard to justify taking another day off sick. But then when I get there I am vulnerable to the kind of attacks experienced today.

All of this no doubt stems from kidney problems caused by my outright refusal to look after said organs as a youth. Twelve pints of lager on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday is inadvisable for someone so prone to kidney defects (the biff factor again). Even now, as soon as my current course of anti-biotics is over I will be piling Budweiser down my neck as if it is the antidote to my recently earned snake bite. I never learn, but then learning would make life an awful lot more dull.

Who wants to live forever? Not me. Not with a bloody urinary tract infection anyway.

A Huge Election

Yes that title is a double entendre. Well spotted.

So anyway today is a bit of a special day as it the day when the great, good and Russel Brand go to the polls to elect their new government. We only get this chance once every four or five years (even I don't care about By-Elections) so here's why it is so important that you cast your vote today.

Or should I say it is important that you 'did' cast your vote. It is 9.56pm as I write, and the aforementioned polls close in four minutes. At which point the counting will begin, the BBC will whip out it's trusty swingometer, and the race for Number 10 will really be on.

From chatting (possibly a little too heatedly at times) to friends it becomes clear that many people are unsure who to vote for. This could be because, as the author Will Self recently said, you can slide an anorexic cigarette paper between the two main parties in terms of their ideology. What you are left with therefore is a battle between personalities, which is terrifying given that we are now a nation of people who think nothing of sitting in front of our television every summer morning watching some publicity-hungry moron sleep.

But we're not talking tv, so let's drag this back to the plot. I'm trying not to think about the fact that the same people who made SuBo famous are charged with the responsibility of electing a new government. Unfathomably, I retain enough faith in humanity to think that people might actually take this seriously and will have considered their political position before voting.

Not that I am trying to sway anyone to vote one way or another. At the last count I had a readership of eight. This is hardly enough to write a political piece likely to change the result in any constituency. Even if I wanted to write a persuasive piece on this it would be a fruitless pursuit. It is now 10.10pm. The polls are closed and Jeremy Vine is telling me all about the Conservatives Battleground.

What I can tell you is that in my constituency the Labour Party is unbeaten in General Elections for 45 years. The current MP is one Shaun Woodward, a former Conservative MP who switched allegiances shortly after Blairism became cool, and is now Northern Ireland Secretary. He rarely visits St.Helens and has a personal assistant called William whose job it seems is to be as unhelpful as possible. Woodward was placed in St.Helens South simply because we were considered one of the few seats Labour had in which a former Tory would be tolerated. People here just vote Labour by and large, because they still beleive in social justice.

Not everyone, mind. I was staggered to learn earlier that no less than 12% of voters in St.Helens South voted Conservative at the 2005 General Election. This may not seem like a lot, but when you consider that 'Tory' is one of the more offensive terms in the local dialect it seems to grow in significance. I should very much like to know who these people are. It would be fascinating to get inside their heads and find out exactly why they would support Cameron and his ideals of savage cuts in public spending, more money if you get married and fuck the consequences and..............well that is just about the extent of his policies even at this late stage. What we do know is that he represents a party which wrecked industry in this and almost every other town in the 1980's, sent unemployment spiralling into the stratosphere, and spawned the kind of capitalism that has become the norm now even under a Labour government.

And so to the Lib Dems. Their leader Nick Clegg has been rightly praised for his performances in the recent television debates but to take that into account too much takes us back into SuBo territory. The truth is that Clegg can promise free chocolate, beer and sex on every street corner 24 hours a day because he knows that for now at least he is highly unlikely to have to implement his policies. Clegg is a nice chap, but he is an opportunist, feeding off the mistakes of his rivals and dragging disillusioned Labour/Tory voters with him. I doubt very much that he would be able to make good on his manifesto were he to defy the odds and be elected. Who is going to pay for his idea of not taxing people paid under a certain amount on the first £10,000 of their salary, for example?

For his part the Prime Minister has made mistakes, but there seems little doubt that his lack of popularity is down to his dour nature and peculiar facial tic rather than anything to do with policy. The economic downturn happened on his watch, but in truth it is a global problem and we should open our eyes to the fact that it was not Brown or Alistair Darling alone who created the problem. Labour's biggest mistake took place some years earlier when Tony Blair was premier, and took the unpopular, arrogant and very probably illegal step of going to war in Iraq without the necessary backing of the United Nations. Countless soldiers have died as a result of this decision, and we seem no nearer to achieving whatever ludicrous Endgame the former PM had in mind. That was over eight years ago. We're still there.

The BBC have just interviewed Bruce Forsyth, veteran presenter of Celebrity Reality TV Monster Strictly Come Dancing, for his predictions on what might happen. That they feel they need or should do so tells you much about how Joe Public's approach to politics has changed down the years.

Stand by for a hung parliament.

Inside Out

Just a quickie today if I may Madam...........

You know how last week I was talking about how staggering acts of stupidity are magnified by disability? It's all to do with the perception of the Idiot Nation. I'm only an idiot occasionally. When my lips move, usually. But whenever I am, I can't help but feel that it leaves an indelible mark for some. A mark that just reads.......'spasmo'.

Anyway, I came up with another cracking example today. In mitigation I was very tired when I awoke this morning. The Bank Holiday weekend had trained my body to think that getting up before 7.00 was inhumane. I very nearly had to be scraped off the bed this morning.

So bearing this in mind, consider this. I put my jumper on inside out. Not only that, but I did not realise that I had done so until nearly two hours later. I happened to be sitting moodily at my desk (as is my default position) when I noticed. At that point I remembered that one or two of my colleagues had smirked at me through the first hour of the day. I have to say I wondered what they had to be smug about. It was Tuesday morning.

I left my desk as casually as is possible in these mortifying circumstances, landed sharply in the disabled toilets and amended the offending garment. I rolled back in just as casually, convinced that I noticed one or two more smirks as I did. Yet nobody said a word about it. Perhaps they felt sorry for the Office Retard. Perhaps they just couldn't believe I had done it. You know how fashion is these days? Clearly I don't.

Has Beens And Cheese Balls

Past My Best

As is natural for any writer I sometimes wonder about the impact of this blog. No, column. I'm going to call it a column and you can go ahead and call me pretentious.

Anyway I don't mean it's impact internationally. I don't expect it to become a regular feature in a national broadsheet leading to two best-selling novels (a la Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones), but I remain hopeful that those who know me might enjoy it from time to time.

It is with this in mind then that I found something a friend said to me at the weekend quite disturbing. Admittedly he is my friend and therefore biased, and he had been drinking Guinness for four hours previous to our conversation, but the thrust of his message was that he enjoys my work immensely. All of which was a very welcome boost until it transpired that he hasn't even seen this blo.........er column, and was in fact referring to a series of diaries I wrote when I was a teenager.

So, if you don't think much of what you are reading now, you can rest assured that I was a good writer 20 years ago. In the opinion of one of my closest, lifelong friends. The question of why any teenager would allow even (especially?) his closest friends to read his diary is something else entirely, and something which even the world's greatest psycho-analysts may never figure out.

Cheese Balls

It was a depressing Monday morning. The reasons for this are a blog (damn it!) of their own, and one which will not be published until the situation reaches it's denouement. Despite the gloom I happened to strike up a cheery, polite conversation with a young girl who works at the other end of our office. I couldn't even tell you what she does, or even what department she works in. All I know is that she is friendly and polite.

Now this conversation is relevant only because my colleagues take every opportunity to find humour in my antics. Not in a nasty way, you understand, but you have to have something to get you through the day. Especially in the current climate. All of which led one colleague to refer to me during the ensuing discussion about my perceived intentions as a 'Cheese Ball'.

'What does that mean?' I asked.

'It means you are cheesy' she answered unsatisfactorily.

I laughed, despite having never really grasped the concept of what 'cheesy' actually means in this context. Perhaps that fact proves my colleague's point, and that cheesiness is something which can only be truly achieved by those who don't know they are doing it. Or perhaps I really was chatting her up and am therefore morally reprehensible, and due to be shot at dawn.

Whatever gets you through the day, but I maintain my innocence.

Sudafed - Don't Do It Kids

I'm not here to laugh at suicide, but when having a spot of lunch (get me, they don't have lunch in Thatto Heath) with a couple of friends the other day we did stumble upon an amusing anecdote that is loosely related to the theme.

Many years ago I came home from a night out in town feeling utterly terrible. Events had conspired against me (which they seemed to every week but usually I was more philosophical about it) and so I decided I didn't want to feel anything any more. At this point an important distinction is necessary. I didn't want to die, or even be hospitalised or anything of such gravity. I just didn't want to feel anything. I ended up feeling a twat.

Now my mother doesn't normally stock the kind of drugs that provide what I needed and so as I was living with her at the time I had to make do and mend. I went to the medication drawer (everyone has one, don't they?) and could only find a packet of Sudafed. To this day I am not entirely sure what Sudafed is meant to do. I think it is something to do with nasal congestion but it might just as easily be a remedy for the Bubonic Plague.

What I do know about it is that it does not kill you. At least it did not kill me. I took somewhere between six and eight tablets (I can't accurately recall, it was a long time ago, which is a defence I swear by) and was soon fast asleep. And so it had the desired effect you might think. Well yes, until you consider that for three days afterwards my head was spinning like Lord Mandelson on Speed (or Sudafed) and that everything seemed to be happening at three times it's normal pace. This was most disconcerting and was enough to ensure I have not repeated the exercise since.

These are the kind of things I laugh at when I go for lunch with my mates. Seriously, there is something very wrong with me.

Take That And (The Conservative) Party

'A working class hero is something to be'. So sang John Lennon in December 1970.

Apparently the legendary ex-Beatle was trying to tell us something about working class people being 'processed' into the middle classes of an increasingly capitalist society. Or becoming wealthy, as it might be more commonly known.

Were Lennon to convey the same message now he could easily be talking directly to Gary Barlow. Unwisely, the Take That front man has publicly pledged his support to the Conservative Party for the forthcoming General Election. In doing so, he has taken the even more dubious step of being seen on the road with David Cameron on the campaign trail. The pair were seen launching a new X-Factor style talent contest for young people, though it remains unlikely that Cameron will replace Robbie Williams as the fifth member of the group. Come on, they're not a band. Bands play instruments.

Which is not to say that Barlow is not possessed of great talent. In fact, whether you like pop music or not as a genre, you have to concede that Barlow is one of the best songwriters of his generation. Very few of his peers have churned out such a volume of pop classics in a career now spanning almost 20 years. Barlow is consistently brilliant in his field.

Yet I can't help but feeling some measure of disdain for his political choice. For one thing it is unwise for someone so heavily reliant on populist culture to reveal anything about his politics. The only possible result is that you will alienate a large number of your audience to some degree. I for one will never listen to 'Never Forget' again without the nagging feeling that he has done just that. For another he is just plain wrong. There is something sad about his Phil Collins-esque alliance with the politics of greed. There may be finer margins between the two main parties' ideologies these days, but to side with the Tories is still to fart in the face of social justice.

It would have been easy to pepper this piece with Take That references to pick up my usual quota of cheap laughs. But surely I'm above that? Er....no.

Are the Tories Back For Good? In politics Everything Changes if you have a little Patience. Personally I'm going to Pray that May 6 does not become the Greatest Day of Cameron's life and that the smarmy tosser never gets to Rule The World. Or even the UK.

Monday's Wheel Issues

I don't normally write about anything that happens at work. It's a bit of a taboo. There's far too much scope for offending the wrong people unintentionally, which would be disastrous if they happen to be more important than me. Which most of them are.

But.........

Late this afternoon I was asked by a student to check whether we had received her attendance sheet for a placement she had been on. I went through the relevant file and found nothing, roping two of my eager-to-leave colleagues (It was almost 4.30pm) into the search. They couldn't find it, not that is until one of them went back to the original file and located the offending document AT THE FRONT OF THE FILE!

Now, everyone makes mistakes, but this is not what you need as a wheelchair user. People think you are a spasmo to begin with, so there is no future in making such elementary errors. The combination of a wheelchair and staggering stupidity (albeit temporary at the end of a long and quite stressful day) only serves to intensify the humiliation. I have set the Disability Rights movement back decades and can only apologise to any of you out there who might be among our number.

Unless you are thick in which case you deserve all you get.

Able-bodied people can be just as thick. Yesterday a friend of mine (wheelchair user, but they are not all, I promise you), phoned to ask if I was alright. He had heard that someone using a wheelchair had been involved in an accident near to my local pub. There were police and an ambulance in attendance, and the victim had clearly suffered significant injury.

'Nah, wasn't me mate, I stayed in on Friday', I told my friend, to which he replied;

'Oh good. Tell you what though, I got told it was me!'

I nearly dropped the phone laughing. For some we wheelchair users all roll into one. I have lost count of the number of times I have been mistaken for another wheelchair user (this friend Phil, and another friend Paul being just two examples). I look nothing like either from the seat cushion upwards. Yet neither of these beat being mistaken for Malcolm, who uses an electric wheelchair! I look nothing like Malcolm from the fucking wheels up!

Come on Britain. You're not trying..............

PROLOGUE

While we're on a theme, I have an older story for you. No less embarrassing, and sadly no less true.

I was on a night out with a group of friends in Liverpool some years ago. It was one of the wettest, shittiest nights weather-wise in all human history. I was crossing the street close to Lime Street Station (I love it there) when a man approached me with a big friendly smile;

"Alright mate.........." he began as he approached me, adding;

"I've got a brother just like you.............."

I gave him a look of puzzlement, carefully considered my options and said;

"What, you mean he is piss wet through?"

He did not continue the conversation..........

Clash Of The Titans

I was going to write a review of this, the 2010 version of a classic tale of Greek mythology, with it's preposterously large serpentine monsters and grumpy Gods. I still might, but before I do there is something I should probably share with you about Clash Of The Titans.

My Dad took me to the old Savoy cinema in town to see the 1981 version. Now the most under-used club since Tiger Woods' 4-iron, the Savoy was once the only option if you wanted that cinematic experience. Sadly, it only had three screens. None of them were wheelchair accessible, but that's another story. We've had all that with the trains. Anyway, it's 1981. What do you want? Equality? Fuck off. We need at least 2010 years for society to get anywhere near that. And even then...........Ok, I'll stop now...........

The point is, anyway, that I was terrified as a five-year old. One look at a ludicrously large winged horse and that was me, screaming the place down. Best we not even get started on Medusa, save to say that I have had a phobia of snakes for as long as I can remember and it might just be down to her hairdresser.

I was hoping to be rather less hysterical upon visiting the infintely more accessible Cineworld in 2010. I managed it, though that is not to say that there isn't enough in Clash Of The Titans to inspire a slight tantrum should one be so inclined.

For the most part it is all good fun. If you can get past Sam Worthington's Perseus being played out as a faithful tribute to Russell Crowe's Maximus in Gladiator. If you don't mind the appearance of a random Bond girl (Gemma Arterton) pushing Andromeda out of the role of love interest and into the relative walk-on part of Kraken-fodder. If you can avoid spending the entirety of the film wondering if Draco (do you think that is where J.K.Rowley got the idea from?) is played by The Rock. He's not, he's played by Mads Mikkelsen, last seen in the same God Awful Bond Movie as Arterton.

If you can get past this, and Worthington's muddled accent (Australian? Scottish? South African? Gungan? Turns out Worthington was born in Surrey but is a graduate of the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art), then there is much to enjoy also. What's not to like about a plot which sends Perseus on a quest to discover how to fell the aforementioned Kraken, thus sparing the life of Andromeda? To do so he must behead Medusa, who is now apparently so repugnant to men that one look into her eyes turns them to stone. So why do I still fancy her then? Could it be because she is actually played by Natalia Vodianova, a Russian actress and model who may sound like a tennis star, but is actually most notable for being the face of Calvin Klein and for once hosting a semi-final of Eurovision? Probably.

Andromeda is placed in mortal danger by Ralph Fiennes' creepy Hades, a performance that has unfairly sparked comparisons to Rowley's Lord Voldemoort. After all, Hades is much older than any two-bit Wizard-waster, and thus has first dibs if there is any croakily-voiced slithering (Slytherin?) to be done. Hades thinks that mortals are most ungrateful, and has decreed that he will release the terrifying Kraken unless the people of Argos agree to sacrifice Andromeda within 10 days. Does anything get delivered from Argos within 10 days? Do they even deliver? If not, that joke doesn't work and I can only apologise. I'm an idiot.

Less convincing is Liam Neeson as Zeus, who it is revealed is not only the biological father of our hero (Star Wars, anyone?), but also a rapist. Turns out he sneaked into Perseus' mum's room late one night and enjoyed the most wicked of ways. You're a fecking God! Just ask. Yet to say that this indiscretion is out of character for Zeus would be unfair, as character is something that this particular incarnation lacks almost completely. Neeson spends much of his time wearily arguing with brother Hades, and wanting to be anywhere else but here.

Yet through all of this, through all of the overly long battles with giant scorpion creatures, you can't help but will Perseus on as he flies in on the back of the mighty winged (and oddly black) Pegesus for his final confrontation with the Kraken. And I don't think I'm spoiling it (this story is roughly 2500 years old after all) when I tell you that our favourite Demi-God does not disappoint. Though personally I felt that the Kraken was a somewhat one-dimensional fighter, relying far too heavily on his sheer enormity and ugliness than any great combat skills.

Clash Of The Titans will not change your life, but it may very well make your five-year old cry so do the decent thing and book yourself a babysitter.

No Pain, No Train - Part 2

TWELVE DAYS LATER........................

Tuesday, March 23 2010. Those of you familiar with the tale of woe that was part 1 will be alarmed to know that it takes less than two weeks for more train tomfoolery to take place.

Again it is those serial offenders at Lime Street Station who must be held responsible for this latest farce. Again it is assistance on the 5.01pm to Thatto Heath which proves beyond their capabilities. Only this is a different type of farce. A whole new angle on balls-ups. On reflection, I can only admire their versatility in this field. It must take a great deal of effort.

4.45pm. Just as out of breath as I was previously, I arrive at the station in good time. I pass through the platform gate and notice the same burly woman at the gate from the original, sorry tale. Again I ask for assistance. Again she nods and begins whispering into her walkie-talkie. 'Charlie Tango, Tea-kettle Barbecue.' Or something. I take it that means I should go through and wait by the platform.

There is a digital clock on the platform. A few minutes pass. 4.55pm. No panic. After all, notwithstanding the obsessive security surrounding ramps at Lime Street, it shouldn't take that long to board the train. I go back to my mp3 player and my muddled, post-work thoughts. A passing rail-worker suddenly attracts my attention. I'm about to ask for help, but he's on to me in a flash;

"It's not us mate." he offers, pointing to the company logo on his uniform.

"It's Network Rail." I think he says, though I'm so stupefied by the idea that privatisation has come to this that I can't be sure. If I'm right, what he is telling me is that he cannot assist me onto the train because he does not work for the company providing the train. And he's not alone. No fewer than three men tell me the same thing. It's like being left to die on the side of the pavement by the Good Samaritan because he has just got a job with BUPA.

I look up at the clock once more. 4.59 and 35......36..........37........38 seconds. At the other end of the platform, near the front of the train, I can make out the rotund figure of the guard. I wave at him. Casually at first, upping the ante with each movement until by 5.00 and around 28 seconds I am wildly jesticulating like a soon-to-be ex-extra in a Jaws movie. He's no Roy Scheider, and consequently decides that he hasn't seen me. I wasn't expecting him to start ringing bells and telling everyone to get off the beach, but I can't help but feel a little let down as he noncholantly steps back aboard the train.

I glance once more to the gate area and see nobody, turning my gaze again to see the 5.01 to Thatto Heath pulling away from the platform. There is a quite ludicrous moment when I think about pushing after it. Chasing the very last train when it's too late, as James Morrison might say. I am reminded of Gene Wilder doing something similar in a film called the Silver Streak and realise it's futility. If an able-bodied actor in an action comedy can't keep up, what chance an overweight raspberry who really needs a tyre change in any case? I don't move, but can still hear the voice of my late Grandmother shouting at Gene to 'hurry up, you fool.' as he begins his pointless pursuit. She was an optimist.

At this point I do something I am not normally given to doing. I complain. It's probably not her fault, but I tell the burly woman at the gate with the walkie-talkie that she and her colleagues are 'a disgrace'. She seems unmoved by this, or by the fact that they have actually managed to let me miss my train home. Still, she mumbles into the walkie-talkie once more, waving a hand at me as if to suggest I should be a little more patient and all will be fine.

Moments later a man I presume to be her senior comes through the gate and questions me over the incident. He's extroardinarily bald. He puts me in mind of the little man in the Benny Hill Show who spent entire episodes being slapped on his bald pate and running away from scantily clad women. I can hear the famous, accompanying music in my head as he apologises profusely, and can't help but think that the image suits this ridiculous situation.

There are no scantily-clad women by way of any consolation, but the man does at least help me onto the next train, due to depart around 20 minutes later. He makes it clear to all staff on board what will happen to their nether regions should they fail to help me disembark at Thatto Heath. I can't resist pointing out to him that his staff had already demonstrated this part of their repertoire less than two weeks earlier. I'm in full complaint mode now, but a sense of relief stops me giving it the full Victor Meldrew.

I go back to the music and my own thoughts, and try not to think too much about where I will end up this time.................