Totally right, but Toby "each to his own" comprises some belief in institutions (laws, rights, relationships) and a belief in how a life is lived . Across all of the "each to his own " are commonly held practices and beliefs which you or I may "feel" are our own and express our individuality  but are in reality  held in common by all others.  As humans we have more in common than difference between us in other words.  A life based on feeling or temperament , religious or atheistic or whatever doesn't see or understand that common denominator between people  .  Everybody  has different channels , Fiona ,you me  but  we are all in channels , we are all human  and because a different channel expresses difference, the naming of someone elses difference as   irrational or mistaken is plain wrong . People have a right to be respected in the way they  see the world as they like, religious , atheist or anything else. All different channels have to be respected in thought , word or deed and public expression  or else we can't move on from the violence and nastiness of the past. For Bahai's loads of humanists, secularists  and for me its about Unity in Diversity , mankind is one channel first (unity: we are all humans) and many channels second (diversity: we are all individuals) . They go together but the oneness of mankind comes first and if it doesn't , "each to his own", we have a very fractious world where the rich don't feel part of us  and so on . As you know most of the rich and many others really do express "each to their own" to an obnoxious extreme and  what I and many others would  like them to do is see more of the true unity between them and us and contribute accordingly !

The arguing for womens rights , racial justice from individual temperamental position , feeling or through thinking as I do into is never doomed to failure its actually achieved mankinds greatest achievements!

Under a dull, dark, and damp atmospheric sky we walked our way through the Durham Woods today. The ground was slightly treacherous because although the snow and ice had cleared there was still a lot of frozen ground which could be slipped over quite easily with the ice just underneath the surface.

Fiona was very fit today, Clifford always is and she loped over the hills easily as we went a rather circuitous route around the outskirts of Durham City before heading into Durham Cathedral and cloisters for biscuit break.

When we went through the Cathedral there was a Carol Service and we noticed that a lot of the angels all in silvery suits walking down the nave were learning disabled people  thoroughly enjoying themselves . It brought tears to my eyes because it was a lovely sight as well as the great singing. God bless the Christian religion for bringing such wonderful experiences to us.

We had very high spirits today not least because Fiona was so fit and her legs are coming back into fettle so some bigger and longer walks are definitely on the menu. Miles was busy with his mathematics this afternoon so stayed at home, but I am now doing my usual conducting of the Orchestra of meatballs, tomato sauce, fresh pasta and garlic bread so as to feed my very hungry family tonight. A very beautiful afternoon out particularly watching the learning disabled folk being angels, and they really are angels, as well as the great singing and atmosphere in Durham Cathedral.

Yet another manifestation of the world unifying in this case amongst Islamic business people and the users of their products. The main problem seems to be consistency and justice across different Islamic countries because of differing interpretations of Islamic law. They have gone into negotiations to "set up a global certification board"

It has occurred to me that no matter what the problem on the planet from the old lady down the road not getting her social care package deployed correctly to saving the decline of some British birds there has to be some consultation enshrined in an authority above the local ,regional or national. More and more folk seem to be coming around to that point of view as a necessity for life. I once joked with a Jewish friend of mine that money is the new religion but I never realised that religions themselves are having to be reshaped around the needs of money and business. Interesting!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20405292

A response to a BBC news article about the bus service Arriva in Darlington behaving very wrong towards disabled people.  It has been my experience that very few people will inconvenience themselves for a physically handicapped person.

"The firm (Arriva) said it adhered to Department for Transport guidelines which state that if other passengers are occupying wheelchair spaces, staff are not obliged to move them or make them move."

Doesn't it say an awful lot about attitudes that Arriva won't ask passengers to move but what is even worse passengers don't seem to move themselves when a physically handicapped person needs the space.

This reminds me of an incident that occurred with me in an Irish Session in a pub called The Maltings in York in the early 90s. Because my right wrist is fused, when I play my harmonica I don't push the slide in with my finger I have to sort of punch it with my whole arm so my elbow sticks out a bit. Some guy in the Irish session objected to the fact that I took up a little bit more space than other people and got quite nasty about it. Two things happened: I came very close to punching him but more interestingly I received absolutely no support whatsoever from the people around me most of which I knew quite well. We have a real problem in this country with people speaking out on behalf of others not through campaigns and petitions, which is safe and easy, but actually when an incident is occurring. We prefer to look the other way just as the Arriva bus drivers are doing. People think I am crazy when I draw these connections but believe you me they are connected!

The guy in the Irish session made it up with me eventually but are still feel that if there was a situation where my handicap got in the way of what he wanted to do he would give me no consideration whatsoever. Maybe that is how it really is in an animal sort of way: the weak old and crippled should be pushed aside so normals can have a more convenient life. But don't the normals become weak and crippled when they get old themselves. Short-term thinking? Be kind to people now because you may end up living in a society where they are not going to be very kind to you later. The trouble is we are already in that society!"

A response to a Facebook post:

" Christianity deviated from its principles very early according to a couple of books on the early Christian church I read, one written by a Christian. However, I believe that more good occurred than bad and after 300 years and the decline of the Roman Empire the Christian Faith started to shine mostly because of a big promotion by Constantine who may have not been a confirmed Christian but did want some form of unity and used the Christian Faith to get it. For me, that is the key to the great development of Christian civilisation warts and all, an effect we still feel to this day and a great effect. That bad versus good tension is there within the religion all the way through e.g. Christians developed African slavery around the 16th century and Christians in America and the UK got rid of it in the 19th. In other words the religion contains its own seeds of redemption as all religions do. On a personal note I am quite flawed myself and I see the same process at work of mistakes by commission or omission and redemption by getting it right. According to my wife not right enough sometimes!

I do not worry about fundamentalists today because they are legally and militarily fenced in by social democratic forces which I have complete and utter faith in even though as a family which is in a minority religion we have been got at mostly through the education system because of that minority status. It is the same for several people who I have come across in particular Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses and all of this in North Yorkshire and Darlington County Durham. Prejudice is alive and well but one of the best things that new Labour ever did in my view was the Human Rights Act 1998 because I felt personally protected by that act and still do: it stays the hand of some of the idiots and they have to look over their shoulder before they do what they do.

 I do not believe in party politics but I do support a democratically elected government no matter how flawed and governments of all stripes do some pretty good things. The home education I did with my boys only came about because of the 1944 Butler Education Act and Butler was a Tory. There is a lot of bad in our system but a whole ton of good as well. It is a legitimate from you, me and virtually everybody I know that we should aim higher and get better justice for people on low incomes, the disabled and the old and I am sure even within this flawed system we are going to get that but like all struggles it has highs and lows and at the moment I think there is a low. But not too low it could be a lot worse and has been!"

 I had a really nice weekend, starting out with doing a Bahai stall in the centre of Darlington on Saturday morning. It was really cold and the coldest I have been in a long while but as I have sometimes said, we Baha'i's accustom our children to hardship so it is best to lead from the front as a parent and I sat and stood by my stall and enjoyed the cold. A few people were interested and I had a nice little conversation with an old lady who said I was very "hardy"! I really like it when old people talk to me as if I'm just a kid because the age gap between them and me is that between a parent and a child.

Miles is really getting his tail up with this mathematics and did not want to come to Durham with us for a walk, he preferred to study, good lad, so it was just the three of us heading out into a very misty County Durham but as we approached Shincliffe the mist lifted into a very pleasant early winter haze. We walked alongside the River Wear hoping to see Goosander's and Little Grebes but they were not there. It was very quiet with few people about because of the cold but as we walked up to Durham Cathedral it looked like it was soaring out of the misty haze and we trekked into the comfortable Cloisters and had our biscuit break there under the watchful eye of a very tiny bat on the opposite wall. It is great fun noticing the bats every week. Amazing little animals!

As we came back down the A1 there was a ground mist a few metres high in several shallow valleys on either side of the motorway as well as in riverbeds and hollows. Very magical and I'm getting to like Durham County almost as much as I like North Yorkshire and Yorkshire in general. God's country.

I really like the fact that as a family we do things on a very regular basis and this allows us to notice changes of state for one time period to the next both with each other, with our friends and the many places that we visit. New is good but seeing the familiar in a new way for me is even better.

 A very nice weekend and I have been doing some pretty extensive thinking about what I am to do with my life now because I do not have a full-time role as a househusband or home educator anymore. Get more serious about the music and kiss goodbye to family life as I know it? Get a job working with learning disabled people or as a maths teaching assistant and continue on with this great life that I have and helping people as well? Hard  to say but I am going to have to make my moves soon and I have started doing this already. I am singing and playing better than I ever have but I've also noticed that because of all the science, mathematics, life sciences and history that I get into my brain feels really sharp and understanding is easier now than it ever has been. I wish I had all of this when I was a young lad and I am glad my two young lads have got all of this now.

God bless education and the educators like Klara and Bryan Whiley, Fiona Saunders-Priem, Mr Kipling, Mr Cotgrave, Mrs Johnson in Longfield School, Linda Griffiths Fiona's colleague from Dodmire and all those people who just get other people thinking because they are crazy enthusiastic nuts about whatever they want to study in a fairly rigourous way. I think I could have blessed myself there!

Just some impressions from a Facebook article objecting to disabled people using themselves and being used as inspirational figures.

"I must admit I have never heard of Scott Hamilton. It is unclear from the article whether he is just saying what he believes to be true which is fair enough in the same way that if I believe the moon is made of cheese is true. He has the right to see it and say it  as he believes it.

 Bad attitude is a problem with anybody me included! I have my moments with that one sometimes. I have had to take to task both my lads over the  20 years that I have known them with bad attitude and how it obstructs their progress towards the goals that they wish to achieve. I can honestly say as a father it is probably the main thing that has made a big difference in terms of them getting to go where they want to.

I cannot see how the author of this article can actually know what nondisabled people think about the images of disabled people doing things even when normals do indeed say pretty ridiculous things. How many times have I expressed something in words which does not express the feelings I meant to put over and doesn't express the idea either. I'm pretty grateful for the many forgiving people around me. I made quite a blunder last night on a Facebook comment with a York female friend Sybil Wood where I had simply got the wrong end of the stick. What conclusion is she to draw from that? That at that point in time I was a total idiot! She would be absolutely right.

It has occurred to me for a while Emma that some disabled people are just like normal's who are pretty so they use their prettiness to sell themselves or are muscular and use their muscles to sell themselves and so on. Some disabled people are using their disability to sell themselves. This is all part of some disabled people acting like normals have done and is to be welcomed as dumb and sickening as it can be at times in the same way that some of the television talent shows are pretty pathetic.

Absolutely anything which I have heard said about disabled people which somebody else could comment about in a negative or positive way I have actually heard the same for people with no disability and I think it is just part of our looking at each other culture and completely drawing the wrong conclusions mostly because I don't know how somebody else really thinks even when they tell me. I am more in tune with what is going on with this Capability Assessment business rather than the psychological impressions of this article. Yet again though this article is talking about "disabled people" and the author certainly does not speak for me at all. Who is she speaking for other than herself?

On a personal note my wife has chronic sinusitis and it is a type of disability and has cost her at least five years of work which she would have done had she been healthy. Am I one of the people that Stella Young is referring to when I say to Fiona as I often do "it's great you are trying to get out and about today Fiona even though I know you are quite ill." Making an effort whether a person is disabled or not in my view is always praiseworthy."