tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25965592018716268592024-03-19T03:31:40.332+00:00DissAbilitySquirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-65719458449783543652013-11-25T17:15:00.000+00:002013-11-25T17:15:44.221+00:00Things People Say. . .There's an article about what non-disabled people say to disabled people in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachelle-friedman/10-things-you-shouldnt-say_b_4334039.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular" target="_blank">the Huffington Post</a>, in that favoured format of 'Ten things not to. . .". It wouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's disabled, or especially, a wheelchair user, what they are.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The first ("Don't tell someone in a wheelchair how attractive they are as though it's a surprise") sadly, is not one commonly heard by Crippled Squirrel here. Though maybe "You must have good muscles to do that" counts? That's something I heard a bit during the summer as I whizzed up the ramp onto a bus and did my sharp three-point turn to shoot backwards in to the wheelchair space.<br />
<br />
I'm not quite sure what my response to that should be. "Fancy a quick feel?" Maybe not.<br />
<br />
Moving on, we have "I broke my leg/ankle/got an ingrowing toenail and I used a wheelchair, so I know what it's like." Actually, no you don't.<br />
<br />
"You're an inspiration". The equivalent of this to males is something about being 'brave'. There's nothing particularly inspiring about being in a wheelchair, really. Or brave. It's just something you have to do.<br />
<br />
"It's fate, karma, god's will", whatever. No it wasn't. In my case, as in some others, it was an accident.<br />
<br />
"Let me help you!" Now this is a tricky one. Nothing wrong with that, as long as people ask first. "Helping" takes several forms, some people in wheelchairs need, some they don't. It's people who don't ask first that are the problem. Someone rushes up and puts their hand between your legs to pick up your dropped cigarette lighter . . .Well, would you do that to just anyone? It's a bit disconcerting.<br />
<br />
But it's people who decide you need an extra push that are not just disconcerting but frightening. It really is a nasty shock to find yourself suddenly propelled forward a few metres unexpectedly. Especially as it's from behind, and you don't see it coming. You wouldn't suddenly grasp a stranger round the waist from behind and twirl them round on a public pavement, would you?<br />
<br />
It's very scary, that sudden feeling you've totally lost control over where you're going. Wheelchair users aren't particularly paranoid, but just a few seconds of fright as you wonder if you're going to be pushed under a bus or something . . .well, you can imagine, can't you?<br />
<br />
Happened to me quite a lot this last summer.<br />
<br />
And there's the perennial sidebar to the 'god's will' thing. The idea that with all that cheerful determination and will power, there's bound to be some miraculous cure one way or another, and one day you can throw your wheelchair away. Well, no, again. If there was, we'd have done that already. That determined look is just because, if you're disabled, you just have to be determined to get a lot of things done. Like climbing a mountain or swimming ten lengths of an Olympic pool or something.<br />
<br />
Nothing particularly new about all that. But it was some of the responses that took me aback. It rather looked as though even some people who thought they'd got the point still managed to miss it.<br />
<br />
"I<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;">f i see a woman in a wheelchair who dropped her keys, i probably would offer to help, not so much because of the wheelchair, but more because it's a "damsel in distress". and let's face it, if you're cute, it's only going to encourage guys more to want to be helpful. this may not be fair, but it is life."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;">"I </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;">gave to one of my very good friends confined in wheel chair due to multiple leg fractures(had a nasty fall in the house) one latest book of her favourite author and two cds made of all soothing popular cheerful instrumental music so that she can listen this keeps her busy& cheerful and less chance of self pity."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;">I hope you realize that you are admirable to some people - because you are a living reminder of all that able-bodied people take for granted. Make peace with the fact that your life has more meaning than you could have anticipated."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<div style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #111111; font: 14.0px Helvetica Neue; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
"As an adult who is well over 21 I am becoming impatient with being told what to say and how to behave. I refuse to become hyper-vigilant about how someone may react when my words don't meet their standards."</div>
<div style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #111111; font: 14.0px Helvetica Neue; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #111111; font: 14.0px Helvetica Neue; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #111111; font: 14.0px Helvetica Neue; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
"Something I would like to ask , does your back hurt from sitting so much, I know if I sit for too long my back hurts and so does my backside."</div>
<br />
<div style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #111111; font: 14.0px Helvetica Neue; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #111111; font: 14.0px Helvetica Neue; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Ouch.</div>
</div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-1455215838967078772013-07-31T16:32:00.001+01:002013-07-31T16:32:23.963+01:00Oh, what's the bloody use?What a difference a year makes. there on the right, today, there is a quote from our politicians that goes beyond irony.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">'This house… acknowledges the government's collective determination to build upon the London 2012 Paralympic Games, and create a legacy that shines a light on the abilities and achievements of disabled people."</span></blockquote>
Hasn't it bloody well just shone a light on our 'abilities' and our 'achievements' this last year? As far as this government is concerned (and the Opposition is no better), whatever your 'abilities' are, your opportunities for making any us of them have been increasingly <i>dis</i>abled; what 'achievements' that we might have once had in our sights are being ever further put out of our reach.<br />
<br />
And, of course, cuts, cuts, everywhere. I'm having to wait longer and longer now for the only ameliorative treatment that makes life even vaguely resembling what's normal for non disabled people for just one month in three. Thanks to NHS cuts, that's now going to be one month in six.<br />
<br />
I'm weary of it all. Why don't they just round us up and put us on the trains to the gas chambers and be done with us forever? At least it'd be a quicker death, and the pain of it would be short.Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-70995492046028581152013-07-28T13:08:00.001+01:002013-07-28T13:16:22.196+01:00Can you Climb Everest in a Wheelchair?No; and you can't get up all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris in one, either. . .As a 'crowd-funded' disabled American making a film about it has just discovered. You can't get up to the dome of St Paul's cathedral in London in one either.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font: 14.0px Georgia; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 22.0px 0.0px;">
“I was right,” said Reid Davenport to his friend on the London Tube, according to his article in the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/traveling-with-a-disability-in-europe/2013/07/25/0dc6ecea-c3f7-11" target="_blank"><i>Washington Post</i>.</a> “Europe is not accessible.”</div>
<div style="font: 14.0px Georgia; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 22.0px 0.0px;">
And how did he reach this conclusion? </div>
<div style="font: 14.0px Georgia; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 22.0px 0.0px;">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I sat in the underground train exhausted, wondering how long it would be before we got to our stop. There was no announcement coming from the overhead speakers, but a man’s voice saying “Mind the gap” rang in my ears. My friend Pat was sitting next to me, holding my collapsible wheelchair in place.</blockquote>
<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I was visiting Pat and two other American friends studying in England. As we made our way to downtown London, Pat had to carry my wheelchair up and down flights of stairs at various tube stations because most of the elevators were out of service. Because there were no ramps, I was constantly forced to get up from my chair at various points to mount a step or more. And the 18-inch gap between the train cars and the platform made me wonder how British residents in electric wheelchairs manage to get around.</blockquote>
Well, Mr Reid and Pat, the answer is <b>by bus</b>. Did no-one explain that every single bus in London has a ramp and a wheelchair space? And wheelchair users travel free? (Your 'free bus pass' is your wheelchair.) I travel on them all the time in mine.<br />
<br />
He claims, by the way that the Paris Metro, in comparison to London is all wheelchair accessible; it isn't. And, unlike London, not all buses have ramps. And if you travel by TGV (as I do) there are steps up onto the trains from the platforms, which are lower on the continent than in Britain. You need to arrange help.<br />
<br />
But Europe-bashing generally seems to have become an increasingly popular sport in the US media ever since that infamous outburst about 'Old Europe'. It's just a little surprising that we should be written off for disability access as well like this.<br />
<br />
Heaven knows, I moan about the kind of advance planning you have to do even here in London if you use a wheelchair; but that is true of anywhere. I keep wanting to try the Tube myself, and there is a map online which tells you exactly where you have to 'mind the gap' and the still infuriatingly few stations that have lifts and level access to the trains and the street. (Which neither Reid nor his |London friends knew about?) I'll get around to it one day; it's just that I live in a bereft area ass far as wheelchair access to the Tube goes, and getting on the Tube in a wheelchair involves getting on buses to get onto the tube anyway. . .<br />
<br />
Mr Davenport 'did' four countries in twenty days. Or was it four cities? Dublin, London, Paris, Brussels. And the latter two by air, apparently. That would have been easier by Eurostar and TGV. Then his wheelchair might not have been damaged in the hold of the plane, either.<br />
<br />
He made a film about it. I don't think I'll look out for it. </div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-32099918807141821612013-05-28T18:43:00.000+01:002013-05-28T19:02:26.514+01:00Independent LivingDeclaring independence isn't quite as easy as I thought. Well,<i> declaring</i> you intend to be is one thing; achieving it, relying as little on others as you can if you're using a wheelchair, turns out to be rather harder. But I'm not the only one to discover that.<br />
<br />
A few weeks ago (I was on crutches that day, not on wheels) I tried to get some people on a rather crowded bus to shift out of the wheelchair space (or do I mean 'buggy space'?) so a young woman in a powered wheelchair could get in.<br />
<br />
Blank incomprehension. The driver's efforts to get people to move didn't come to anything either. So she ended up parked sideways on, instead of safely against the backrest the way you're supposed to. I've had the same problem a few times, and you can't seem to get the idea across that if the bus stops suddenly, it's <i>their</i> feet you'll be taking off at the ankles. . .<br />
<br />
However, we got talking, and she said when she got her wheelchair she thought it would make her more independent. She'd be able to get around more, without having to rely on her husband to push all the time. I said I'd put a motor on mine for the same reason.<br />
<br />
"But," she said, "it didn't make me as independent as I thought it would. If I want to go much of a distance, I've <i>still</i> got to get my husband to come with me, so he can push when the battery runs out . . ."<br />
<br />
I've hit the same problem. Well, not with a husband, obviously. According to the specs, the motor on mine <i>should </i>do ten miles. I don't know how, though: perhaps only if most of it is downhill? So far, it looks as though it probably won't last much more than half that. I got that motor second-hand, and had to get a new battery for it; I ran out of power after less than three on the old one. And, of course, just at the point where the rest of the journey home was all uphill.<br />
<br />
I'm luckier than my fellow bus traveller, though. She has rheumatoid arthritis which has affected her arms, and she can't wheel herself. She said, actually that some times she can't grip the joystick that controls the motor either, and has to nudge it around with her fists.<br />
<br />
Thought for designers, here: every laptop has a trackpad. Why hasn't someone come up with something similar for wheelchair users that they don't have to grip?<br />
<br />
Anyway, like her, for the moment, my happy thoughts of trundling along on my own all around London and getting to places I haven't been to for years because I'd have to walk too much either to get there or once I got there, and walking gets painful after a couple of hundred metres, are on hold.<br />
<br />
At least until I work out how far that damn battery will take me. A friend suggested I simply rode around the block until the battery died to find out, but I already know what the surrounding scenery looks like, and that sounds a very boring exercise indeed. So I'm pottering about locally in different directions, with a cautious eye on the hilly bits and bus routes, so if the battery runs out on me, I'm not faced with the wheelchair equivalent of climbing Ben Nevis to get home.<br />
<br />
I really hadn't understood until last year how strong you need to be to wheel even a lightweight wheelchair (even with an equally lightweight 'Squirrel' in it) even a kilometre.<br />
<br />
It's tough. A lot tougher than I thought before I had to start doing it myself. Unless you have the sort of biceps marathon wheelchair racers have. And developing those weightlifting in a gym ain't within the range of possibilities for someone with a damaged spine like mine. It's just going to have to be practice. And aching arms. And I used to think I was reasonably strong for someone rather slightly built.<br />
<br />
I could, I suppose, somehow store a spare battery under the wheelchair somehow, but with the motor and battery fitted, I have a wheelchair that already weighs twice as much as it does without. Those lead-acid batteries are heavy, man.<br />
<br />
But Boeing gave me an idea. No, not the one about carrying a small portable fire extinguisher in my cabin baggage if I ever fly on a Dreamliner. Just about lithium batteries. They're generally smaller and lighter, I argued to myself. So, one would be ideal to stuff in the little bag on the back of my wheelchair to use as a kind of reserve fuel supply. After all in the days when I drove a car, not a wheelchair, I had a car that had a little reserve petrol tank tucked away under the boot.<br />
<br />
Independence, however, as Ben Franklin, or Thomas Paine, or maybe George III, probably said, has its price. In this case, a 12V 17AH lithium battery (nice and small and light) with charger, a mere £150. And that was a special offer . . .Not sure how far it would take me, either. Apparently they're meant for electric golf trolleys. (I thought they were powered by human beings called caddies?) And they will last for 18-26 holes. I have never played golf; nor had any interest in it. Except for taking a short cut across a golf course every now and then at night to get home quicker at one time.<br />
<br />
(I gave that up after falling into some kind of pond in the dark. I'd always thought golf courses had holes in the ground full of sand, not bloody water.)<br />
<br />
So I wonder how far 'eighteen holes' is? Haven't golfers heard about metres and kilometres? How long is <i>one </i>hole? I thought it was only a couple of centimetres. At least that's what I remember from being a kid on a putting green. I'll need to get a bit further than 52 centimetres on one battery. That wouldn't even get my wheelchair up a bus ramp.<br />
<br />
Could be good in winter, if these things get as hot in proportion as my laptop battery does, though. I'd have an inbuilt heater. But would I need to clip a fire extinguisher to my wheelchair just in case it did a Boeing on me?<br />
<br />
Anyway, a hundred and fifty quid? I don't have that sort of money to chuck around. I'm not a golfer. And any more of this government's damned cuts, I'll need that. I'll be scrabbling around down the back of the settee looking for stray five pence coins, let alone a tenner.<br />
<br />
Independence costs, doesn't it? More than I ever imagined when I had more of it.<br />
<br />Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-57471414330133878572013-05-12T08:28:00.002+01:002013-05-12T08:45:49.658+01:00My Space? Or Your Space?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh56moVWAg7y0uvZHJv6szOsvjf_3EAF-L5QHc9YvYPACJGM1U3HyKtSZpU7BTDUtFZrhyRhRrpstjecmGS2hFQAsKmufk8huTyHJqyhyphenhyphen7dKtIUdRRabkhUHaLCElMFBGCoRe-MfJ1V1vVZ/s1600/tfl-bus_wheelchair_official.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh56moVWAg7y0uvZHJv6szOsvjf_3EAF-L5QHc9YvYPACJGM1U3HyKtSZpU7BTDUtFZrhyRhRrpstjecmGS2hFQAsKmufk8huTyHJqyhyphenhyphen7dKtIUdRRabkhUHaLCElMFBGCoRe-MfJ1V1vVZ/s320/tfl-bus_wheelchair_official.png" width="202" /></a></div>
<br />
When I first saw the new 'advice' for buggy-pushers a few months ago, I thought it was rather nice us wheelchair users were being looked after. I was a bit ambivalent as to whether it was really necessary, though.<br />
<br />
Yes, I've been stuck at bus stops having to watch two or three buses leave without me, either because there are already one or more buggies in the wheelchair space I need. Frustrating for me; for a lot of non-disabled people, something, I guess, that would lead quickly to an outbreak of 'bus rage'. But it's something we have to take phlegmatically. No bus-driver is going to chuck a mother with a baby in a buggy off a bus to let me and my wheelchair on.<br />
<br />
I've shared my wheelchair space with them. Once I'm in and safely parked, that's OK by me. Just as long as they're willing to move out of it so I can maneouvre my wheelchair out and off the bus.<br />
<br />
That, by the way, like getting into it, is a little trickier than people might think. If most drivers had to do that sort of to-ing and fro-ing into a parking space, while constantly risking running over four or five people's feet, they'd soon start complaining. You wheel yourself in forwards, you see; but you then have to turn and back into the space so your wheelchair back rests against that vertical backrest they put there that people lean against so they can have comfortable long conversations on their mobiles.<br />
<br />
It is really annoying when you have to explain to people like that who won't move, that the bus driver can refuse to start until I'm safely stowed against it and got my brakes on. And it's no good looking at me resentfully for needing their cosy standing place; they'd be (and a few times this last few months have been) a damn sight more resentful if I delayed their bus journey any longer than I already have while they wait for the ramp to come down and retract again.<br />
<br />
But they are, mostly, open to persuasion, and I tend to put down their sometimes initial obstructionism simply to not understanding that my wheelchair can't bend round corners. Even so, I've skinned my knuckles on the grab rails a couple of times when people won't even shift their legs and feet, let alone actually stand up for a minute to make it easier to get in.<br />
<br />
But it's the buggy owners that really have become a nuisance. And it's sometimes not even buggy owners with babies in the things, only shopping. (And sometimes, it's real shopping trolleys in the way.) To have to ask. let alone occasionally actually beg) someone to move either of those out of the way when there's completely empty luggage space up front, is immensely irritating. It even gets to look like and sound like a confrontation, sometimes. Why, I don't know. It ought to be simply a matter of common sense.<br />
<br />
There was an example yesterday. But I'd better explain quickly why it happened to someone else in a wheelchair, and not me in mine. I had one of my regular epidural injections into my spine just over a week ago, so, for a few weeks, until it starts wearing off, if I only have to walk short distances between buses, I can use crutches.<br />
<br />
That trip started well. The bus was full (except, of course, for the woman who was sitting in one of the 'priority seats' at the front with her shopping in the other staring blankly and deliberately ahead refusing to acknowledge that anyone else might need to be as comfy as her shopping). But, as I settled myself against the wheelchair backrest and got a good hold of the grab rail, another offered me her seat. So thus it was I was sitting in one of the seats facing the wheelchair space, as three other people crowded into it.<br />
<br />
At which point, the driver let the wheelchair ramp down, to let in a young woman in her wheelchair along with her young daughter. Only, of course, for her to come to a halt with people crowded around her so she couldn't get in. I asked people to move; I explained that a wheelchair had to go against the backrest. The three there did move, eventually; but they simply moved into the aisle and wouldn't budge enough so the wheelchair could turn round.<br />
<br />
And then . . .a woman raced her buggy up the ramp and pushed it right up to the wheelchair, driving it over <i>my</i> feet and knocking my crutch awry as she went. The bus driver told her there wasn't room, wheelchairs had priority, and she'd have to take her buggy off. She shouted at him and glowered at both the young woman in the wheelchair and me. We were lucky, in a way, because the driver had obviously had enough, had realised he had some damn stupid (or damn stubborn) passengers, and set off even though that wheelchair wasn't 'docked' properly.<br />
<br />
Even with the brakes on and properly placed, if a bus stops suddenly you can still almost take someone's feet off at the ankles: it's happened to me and the only thing that stopped my chair breaking both a passenger's ankles was me being able to grab the rails with both hands and hold on hard as my chair slid towards them.<br />
<br />
Which the young woman I'm writing about would <i>not </i>have been able to do. It turned out, as we got talking, she suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis, and wouldn't have the kind of grip or strength in her arms I can employ. She was actually relieved; she told me that she's actually been told to get off a bus by the driver more than once in the same situation. There's something pretty wrong there, isn't there? <i>To be blamed for the intransigence of other people because you are disabled.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I thought, once, we weren't going to see that kind of thing, that kind of implicit blame game—"Your problem being a cripple, sod all to do with me, why should I give a fuck?"—any more. B</i><i>ut now qfter the last year or so since I had to start using a wheelchair much more often, that looks like just another illusion to be dispelled.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
She had a motorised chair, she said, because, apart from her condition not allowing her to wheel herself about any more—and you wouldn't believe how much strength that needs, unless you remember those Paralympics wheelchair racers' arm muscles—she wanted to be independent and not have to rely in her husband to do the pushing all the time. "Except," she said, "when things like this happen, it turns out I can't be as independent as I thought."<br />
<br />
I recognised the disappointment in her voice. I've motorised mine, very unofficially, really in the hope I can get further on my own than I would be able to just using muscle power. I got (like her) a bit fed up with having to arrange little trips in advance with a friend; and what do you do if you want to go somewhere on some day, and she doesn't? We share, fortunately, a lot of interests; but some we don't. And she has to work when I don't want to have to stay at home, or don't want to do something or go somewhere else, just because it's closer to home or easier.<br />
<br />
You see, I hope, what I'm getting at? OK, wheeling a small child around in a buggy might be a bit restrictive for you. But in proportion, nowhere near as it is every day, every hour, for us. Is it really that much to ask someone with a buggy to put their child on a seat or on their lap and fold it up to give me my space? Or wait just for the next bus, when I might have to wait for the third or fourth?<br />
<br />
After all, in proportion to the number of people with buggies you see travelling on buses, how many wheelchair users do you see needing 'their' space? We are, I've noticed, beginning to use buses more, but how many buses do you see with a wheelchair user in them? One in fifty? One in a hundred? We are not asking you to cause yourselves much inconvenience, are we? Or that often?<br />
<br />
And we—even those who can stand or walk a little—would find it far, far harder to fold a wheelchair up and haul it up onto the luggage rack than someone would a buggy. If anyone wants to take me up on that on a bus and try it, good luck to them.Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-44286959918604196532013-03-20T05:32:00.001+00:002013-03-20T05:32:31.675+00:00Roulette WheelSelected for the Design Museum 2013 awards, wheelchair wheels that fold flat (or oval, anyway) look like a good idea. Though I've not (yet) entrusted my own folding wheelchair to a airplane hold, after the experiences of some Paralympians last summer, I think I might just stick to trains.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZawz0nZ27lI3KPiij4ACoGZfHByD7JgKe1zBIOooIGq3ulQagqyPC78DtA9MR9E980qYVK9HbMxvus1kTwDfJOatmE43ubxszJqbuw5-9vVeDk354UOoPGV9qfbuJgbFDEyHXyEgAU2ki/s1600/Folding-Wheelchair-by-Vit-003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZawz0nZ27lI3KPiij4ACoGZfHByD7JgKe1zBIOooIGq3ulQagqyPC78DtA9MR9E980qYVK9HbMxvus1kTwDfJOatmE43ubxszJqbuw5-9vVeDk354UOoPGV9qfbuJgbFDEyHXyEgAU2ki/s320/Folding-Wheelchair-by-Vit-003.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Yet another idea from those very inventive London design students. And I salute the cleverness. But . . .you need to be a winner at the tables to be able to afford them. According to the Morph website (the company that's selling them) they come out at <i>950 US dollars</i> each!<br />
<br />
Somehow, I think, if I have to put my wheelchair on a plane, I'll see if I can borrow a drum case from a percussionist mate to keep my wheels from getting bent into an oval by accident rather than design.Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-9104917235461054772013-03-13T18:51:00.001+00:002013-03-13T18:52:58.299+00:00Now That's What I (Don't) Call Style . . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnSwPDqBOkTYW3Ii05UGC2aAWxGcWHdX02B4gw89A_5eI7eq6kdqcF2eN4ETBUOfs5nAcENSAUvtwhzCTGiqyXrdCIITQqbIAZ0fv_GTyipGODY7pHOX_F1mCwZoCgWk1CAKSZFWLUAPVf/s1600/LAdy+Gaga+wheelchair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnSwPDqBOkTYW3Ii05UGC2aAWxGcWHdX02B4gw89A_5eI7eq6kdqcF2eN4ETBUOfs5nAcENSAUvtwhzCTGiqyXrdCIITQqbIAZ0fv_GTyipGODY7pHOX_F1mCwZoCgWk1CAKSZFWLUAPVf/s1600/LAdy+Gaga+wheelchair.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Supposedly, building this. . .device . . .took its designer 'all over the USA'. I can't think why. UK wheelchair users will, no doubt recognise a bog-standard hundred and fifty quid basic chassis to it.<br />
<br />
Plus a bit extra for the hood off a buggy, of course.<br />
<br />
Good god. All that money . . . when she could have got one of these.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioix64Ldb8Y6vCRdmNaQEi7MManZhAPVoYfFGw9kaihWW_1DFR27WMa1uaUBQ0lVbnmoTjb5PANX5b45cwDNeI2tyatqKQse-MRXOWK2Y4FM7NWMvFCiPThaCz4XMGmif-Uwsha7YS83_Z/s1600/steampunk_professor_x_chair_image_title_zrp7w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioix64Ldb8Y6vCRdmNaQEi7MManZhAPVoYfFGw9kaihWW_1DFR27WMa1uaUBQ0lVbnmoTjb5PANX5b45cwDNeI2tyatqKQse-MRXOWK2Y4FM7NWMvFCiPThaCz4XMGmif-Uwsha7YS83_Z/s320/steampunk_professor_x_chair_image_title_zrp7w.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Or got a bit more up to date, and maybe got one of these:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPr_vlRVtJalRckjViQ2zZ2mo4I-Wf9yaZ0uT_nA7ybK2OcdvsX3qALQTN5Aaux2qxKaWpnYzM90gqOPVHMyqpjWxYSkRfNcZ0qwqCU79mkIQ9vRzvP1NJfdvUhG344j4vlDNV6QRp0IZP/s1600/futuristicwheelchair_01_gFbY1_17621.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPr_vlRVtJalRckjViQ2zZ2mo4I-Wf9yaZ0uT_nA7ybK2OcdvsX3qALQTN5Aaux2qxKaWpnYzM90gqOPVHMyqpjWxYSkRfNcZ0qwqCU79mkIQ9vRzvP1NJfdvUhG344j4vlDNV6QRp0IZP/s320/futuristicwheelchair_01_gFbY1_17621.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Not to mention my own fave carbon fibre one, of course:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp8U72_XpGiiMlmV4U9id6oSnMq6yssLUrrnJswzTgdD9jXqaTY3NSBCBtj3jpkGPw3lFfgsDwvz9ggvJow7_8OyMveacrxdIWBVPWVSDGDNqmTiys9L3PURv8tuZNf5T_Xq1qNOxGmpU1/s1600/carbonblack_side.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp8U72_XpGiiMlmV4U9id6oSnMq6yssLUrrnJswzTgdD9jXqaTY3NSBCBtj3jpkGPw3lFfgsDwvz9ggvJow7_8OyMveacrxdIWBVPWVSDGDNqmTiys9L3PURv8tuZNf5T_Xq1qNOxGmpU1/s1600/carbonblack_side.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The green chair I found on a 'designer' website which I damn well won't link to. That's because the article was titled: "Wheelchairs bringing a ray of hope in bleak lives of physically disabled"<br />
<br />
Bloody hell. Once upon a time as a sub-editor I probably wrote thousands of headlines. I have to admire that one. It's beyond my skills to fathom out how it could be any more offensive. Well done.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyway, the wheels there are only design concepts, I suspect, and are probably all impracticable.</div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-67316067077069385862013-01-27T12:10:00.000+00:002013-01-27T12:19:34.361+00:00Faith, Hope, and . . .What was the other one?I had been congratulating myself. I happened to mention to a friend the other day that I hadn't been pestered by any evangelical Christians for a good while.<br />
<br />
You know the kind. They accost you in the street explaining how your life will be so much better if you trot along with them and engage in a lot of joyous shouting and generally sublime cotton-woolly good feelings about each other. Or God. But mostly about God.<br />
<br />
If you're disabled, though, they always have another tack. They have a cure for you. It doesn't matter that they (of course) haven't the faintest idea why you're disabled, what the disability is, how it affects you, or how you live with it. I used to wonder why they never asked, but of course, none of that matters. They're not interested; and they are not interested because that would mean actually engaging someone and stepping, just for a few moments, outside of the tiny individual-sized narcissistic bubble they inhabit.<br />
<br />
They are utterly confident that a few words will fix all. Not just any words, mind you, not even your own, but theirs.<br />
<br />
So there I was, limping along on my crutch, feeling quite happy that it was, at last, moderately warm, dry, and sunny, and on the whole life was pleasant. Until Ladbroke Grove Tube station.<br />
<br />
"Hello, my name's Francois," he said, getting rather closer to me than I generally like: in London, or any city, I suppose, someone getting within inches of your shoulder is at the very least, about to beg money, a cigarette, or maybe try to pick your pocket. I was prepared for any, but I was actually expecting to have to refuse to give him a ciggy.<br />
<br />
(Why do people beg from me so often? It's a kind of inverse charity, I've come to suspect, since it doesn't happen to my non-disabled friends with anything like the same frequency. Because I'm obviously disabled, in a reverse of normal expectations, they seem to assume I will be more charitable to them than anyone else. And give them money for the bus fare, the tube fare, a parking meter, or cigarettes. And these days, the beggars usually look better able to afford any of the foregoing than I actually can. So I refuse. I don't like being taken advantage of like that.)<br />
<br />
"I can help you," he says, getting in my way so I miss the green light at the Pelican crossing. I pause, a little taken aback. As you'll have gathered, I'm more prepared to hear why I should help someone else, not the other way around.<br />
<br />
"I can pray for you," he goes on. "And that pain will go! Just like that!" (He waves his hand, and a startled bus driver slows at the lights.) I've heard this before. I used to hear it around here every couple of weeks when I stepped out of my flat. How he knew I was in pain, I can't tell. As it happens, I was, but generally it doesn't show, and I'd just called at a friend's flat who is well attuned to my ups and downs and usually mentions it if it does. Apart from that, I'd knocked back some morphia not long before, so it shouldn't have shown anyway.<br />
<br />
I wondered, of course, what his approach would have been if I'd been in my wheelchair? He would, I've no doubt. have been even more confident that he could have helped me fold up my wheelchair and walk. Since, in fact, that is possible for me—but, of course, he wouldn't have known that, and wouldn't have asked—I could have provided him with a rather startling example of the power of prayer. For a moment I rather wished I had come out in my wheelchair instead of relying on painkillers and crutches to walk instead.<br />
<br />
It would have been interesting to see his face. And what the consequences would have been. Would he have yelled 'Hallelujah' and rounded up the other passers by to bear witness to the miracle? Would I have been dragged along to the evangelical church as an example?<br />
<br />
I thought of explaining some medical facts of life; that I was an atheist, so I could hardly see how any prayerful intercession with a non-existent deity could be at all effectual. But I've learnt from experience that others' beliefs don't matter; only theirs, and their confidence in them. I thought also, of asking if he had, say, ever broken an arm, or leg, or had appendicitis, and found the pain disappearing through the intervention of nothing more than a short prayer. But I've learnt from experience also that someone like this would claim exactly that.<br />
<br />
Or they would offer up the mantra that suffering is God's will and fortitude bears away all pain. And it ennobles you. The latter being something I've heard from other than Christians as well; and long experience, not just as someone who has, and does, suffer extreme pain, but who's watched people do so as a nurse, has never convinced me there's any truth at al in it.<br />
<br />
While all this sprung to mind, for all the reasons I've suggested, it would have been a waste of time and breath uttering it. So I said, rather sharply (and possibly thereby proving that pain—or no doubt from Francois's point of view, atheism—can in fact make you rather short-tempered and less than noble and forgiving) that he didn't know what he was talking about, and to get realistic about it.<br />
<br />
I was going to say "Get real", but I do hate that phrase.<br />
<br />
At least, as the lights changed and I scuttled across the road, he didn't follow me as I'd expected. "That," I thought, was a display of 'faith' alright; an example of forlorn hope, too; but where I wondered, since like all troubles these come in threes, was the charity?<br />
<br />
'Charity' (in the sense of practical help) not something these people at much good at, I think. Even when they offer any, they so often expect their reward not to be in heaven, but in your acceptance of them and their ideas. That you should reward them, in fact. I can't forget one who started off offering to push me around Tate Modern in my wheelchair, who grabbed it, quite unnecessarily, and pestered me with the same spiel. I had to flee to the loo, and if there hadn't ben a queue for the 'non-disabled' one next door who gave him some odd looks, he'd have followed me in.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, that must have embarrassed him. even though these people seem to find that very little does, or I'd have had to hide there even longer than I did. There really aren't enough public loos, especially wheelchair-accessible ones, in this part of London to hide from these people in, I've just realised. And would they be charitable enough to give me the twenty pence to get in, I wonder?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-39268443782923058832013-01-12T07:15:00.002+00:002013-01-13T10:18:59.581+00:00Full of the Chablis of Human Kindness<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I'll explain that later.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
First, after being practically smothered in kindness by the staff at the London Colisseum which I went to see Sleeping Beauty on Thursday, I've ben wondering if one can have too much kindness . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
It all started when a friend got an offer for half-price seats a few days before, asked if I'd like to go, and I said yes. She's just—rather late—discovering ballet; I'm not actually all that keen on classical ballet, I always preferred contemporary dance. Not that I've seen much of that of late. I think it's because I've feared seeing all that athletic dancing about might bring back too many memories of what I could do before I got crippled.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I was (you can believe me or not) actually a very good dancer. Discos, though, not princes in palaces. Actually, sometimes, I suspect I might still be a much better dancer than a lot I see in discos these days. Either on crutches or even in my wheelchair. Actually, I did feel some regrets watching Sleeping Beauty. Though not as deeply as I feared. After all, I thought, I never could really leap a metre into he air and scissor my feet together at the top of the jump. Well, not consistently reliably, anyway.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I was a little more worried because the afternoon before the performance, I'd had an unexpected bout of pain that lasted off and on, and despite the painkillers, for a good eight hours and left me hopelessly lame and having to use two crutches to get even from my bedroom to the kitchen, and having to 'bum it' up and down the stairs to my bathroom. I don't much fancy doing that in public, so I decided I'd take my wheels to ENO.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Not done that before, so I phoned and asked if I'd be able to park my wheelchair somewhere outside the auditorium. (Mercifully, our seats were on level ground, I didn't have any steps to get to them.) Answer, 'yes', no problem. First obstacle surmounted: most public venues are happy to either find you somewhere to park it, or have someone who will do the disability equivalent of 'valet parking'. Only they don't, neither at the Albert Hall nor the Barbican (and not at ENO either), ask for tips for doing it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
On the other hand, they don't give my wheelchair a quick polish and empty the ash tray either, but you can't expect everything, can you?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Well, I got there, and everyone was kindness personified. Did I need to take the wheels right up to the seat row? If so someone would take it out and park it at the refuge point by the lift. Would I need the loo? If so, there was a disabled loo just to the right behind the lift on the floor I was going to. Which floor would I like the lift to go to? The cloakroom? No problem. Was I coming back to the bar or going straight up to my seat? Someone would radio up (or down) so they'd be ready if I needed help. The cloakroom (I'd forgotten) is actually tucked away up a short flight of steps. Would I like, an attendant, with radio in hand asked, him to take my coat to it? Thanks, but my friend would take mine along with hers. Oh, and did I know where the disabled loo was? Yes, thanks; my friend will take me in and hold it for me while . . .no, don't be unkind.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Back to the bar where we ordered interval drinks. Barman points to a table, says we'll reserve that and put your drinks there so your friend can get his wheelchair in easily. By this time, I should have been feeling thoroughly pampered, but actually I was beginning to feel slightly embarrassed. As I've said before, I really prefer people<i> not</i> to notice I'm disabled (though admittedly, that's a hard trick to pull off in a wheelchair) and all this kindness and the offers of help were getting a bit too much. I could get used to it. And imagine the outrage you'd feel if somewhere, later that night, or the next day, people weren't that kind and helpful. As sometimes, they aren't.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
As we discovered at the interval. Our table didn't have our name on it; it didn't have our two glasses of Chablis on it either. It did have two people sitting there who ostentatiously failed to observe a somewhat upset Squirrel in his wheelchair trying to espy two lost full glasses of Chablis anywhere.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
The barman came to our help—one of the advantages of being that night the only wheelchair user. (Do others have the same suspicion that all that energetic prancing about might bring back unwanted regrets, I wondered?) He said he thought someone must have stolen them, it having taken Squirrel, of course, considerably longer to get even the relatively short distance from seat to wheelchair to bar than most of the eager drinkers. We were surprised. Well, shocked, really. It's never happened to us at Covent Garden. "You'd be surprised," he said darkly, pouring us two glasses of white wine. Well, yes, we were. "I'm really sorry," he said—and gave us our money back!</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
So that is why on Thursday night, the Squirrel cup overflowethed (is that really the past tense?) with the Chablis of Human Kindness at the Colisseum in London.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
That is, until I tried to park my wheelchair in its spot by the lift. And nearly missed the start of the third act. Because there was a rather peculiar woman, dressed mostly in red, using that corner like a bag lady. She'd emptied half the contents of a large handbag and two shopping bags there, and didn't sem to grasp that it was my 'parking space'. Any more than your average SUV driver seeing a double yellow line or any plebeian vehicle within two metres of the door of the shop they want to flash their platinum credit cards in.<br />
<br />
As I hopped into the auditorium, I looked back, and it dawned she wasn't there for the show. She hadn't (as I'd thought at first) been hunting for her ticket. Though in fact, she would have known that they don't ask you for your ticket after the intervals. She'd settled, bag and baggage, into an armchair just outside the bar.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Was it her, I wondered, who'd hoovered up our Chablis unnoticed amongst the first rush and dimmed the warm glow of kindness Squirrel had been basking in? She had, I recalled, as I sat down, sounded less than sober. As well you might if you'd just gulped down two large glasses of white wine in a hurry less than fifteen minutes before.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
It was a lesson, I thought. The wine of kindness might flow strongly in the veins of the front-of-house staff of ENO; but it still runs vinegary in some people.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Though not, mostly, that night.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Excepting the woman with an enormous two tier buggy full of shopping who didn't even thank Squirrel for folding in his footrest to let her get the damn thing in. It was a few minutes before I, my friend, and the Spanish girl next to her, after peering at it that became less and less surreptitious, that there were no children in it, on either tier quietly suffocating. Just shopping. What is it with these buggy drivers? I've noticed that TfL must be getting pissed off with them too. Some buses, I've noticed, now have big notices telling people with buggies to fold them up if the wheelchair space is being used. But some of them are so big, it'd probably be quicker for me to fold up my wheelchair. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
And while I'm at it, does a two-seater buggy really need cup-holders attached to it on each tier? Hmm . . .I wonder if I could fit one to my wheelchair? A cup-holder on one side, and a wine bottle holder on the other? I've seen vans in France fitted with both . . . Maybe I could fit a waterheater thingy like you plug into a cigar-lighter in a car? I could maybe plug it into the motor's 12V battery? Have a hot tea stop every now and then in the cold weather . . .</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
This government's plans for us being what they are, maybe I could even make a small mobile drinks business out if it? A holder on one side with a stack of disposable cups like they have for water coolers; sachets of sugar and milk in the little pouch on the back? Have to think where I'd keep the water, though. A plastic tank under the seat? Get one of those clip on trays and sell sandwiches as well, even? 'Squirrelbucksmobile' here we come. Just remember, I thought of it first.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
But that aside, all the bus drivers seemed to have taken pride on Thursday in stopping very neatly right opposite my wheelchair at the bus stops to let the ramp down so I didn't even have to manoeuvre an inch. I was impressed. And a young black guy passed me on my way home from the bus stop, even pausing his phone call to smile and say "Goo'night, take care man". I got that nice warm feeling you get when human beings are kind to you without being asked and with nothing to gain from it. And I'm almost positive that wasn't just the Chablis.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-19199298303863345992012-11-03T12:36:00.002+00:002012-11-03T12:44:17.615+00:00Light ReliefI mentioned before that travelling around on wheels at night (or even in the daylight, which we're getting to be a bit short of now, of course) can be a bit scary when you either have to take to the road or cross one.<br />
<br />
Bloody boy racers.<br />
<br />
And then, of course, there are the pedestrian lights, which also seem nearly always timed for boy racers. Or fit sprinters, anyway. It can be unnerving even if you're crossing slowly on crutches; some drivers seem to think they're F1 racers, and somehow, if they're not shooting forward the second the lights change they'll miss out on the fizzy stuff.<br />
<br />
And I've discovered being in a wheelchair can be worse. I've become used to pedestrians not seeing me in a wheelchair. Especially all those busily chattering on their mobiles, focus fixed somewhere dead ahead at normal chin height. Which means they simply don't seem to be able to see someone sitting down, even when they're right in front of them. I've become quite adept lately at making crash stops to avoid breaking their ankles with my footrests.<br />
<br />
But any other kind of crash I've become nervous about. There's so much in the way of reconstructing pavements going on in London now you simply have to take to the road instead of the pavement often. And if you're invisible to half the pedestrian world when you're in a wheelchair, the same is even more true of motorists.<br />
<br />
So, since I'm intending to be out and about at night—I don't see why I should be restricted to daylight just to make myself more visible—I've been adding lights to my wheelchair, so it now looks like a Christmas tree.<br />
<br />
Red bicycle rear lights; bright LED bike front lights. The latter a new idea, since I'd become very twitchy about not being seen side-on crossing streets and I thought bicycle reflectors on the wheels might not really be bright enough. I found some that can be seen from the side, as well as the front. Cheap, too; a quid each from Poundland.<br />
<br />
And a fancy touch, just for fun. Although I got them because I did want to be visible from the side when crossing roads. A thin red (I wanted orange, but they sent red) optical fibre tube that flashes and I've fixed under the armrests and around the side panels.<br />
<br />
Overkill, maybe. A bit flashy even, you might say. But nobody will be able to say they didn't see me coming. Or going.<br />
<br />
Next step, of course, should be sponsored neon advertising on the backpack fixed to the back of my seat. Any offers, Heineken?Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-53612896162548955342012-11-03T12:12:00.001+00:002012-11-03T12:15:43.073+00:00Transports of Delight . . .Part IIIThat trip to the Barbican Centre . . .was a bit of a disaster. Again.<br />
<br />
We abandoned the Tube after the last attempt, and went for the bus instead. The bus from Paddington towards the Barbican is run, it would appear, by Stagecoach. 'Nuff said. Well, no, I've quite a bit to say about them . . .<br />
<br />
As comedy is all about timing, voyaging in a wheelchair is about planning. As comedians can never have enough jokes, if you're taking a trip on public transport, you can never have enough maps.<br />
<br />
We<i> thought </i>we'd recognise the nearest stop . . .We didn't. Somehow, we ended up going round in circles. Literally. Around Finsbury Square. Twice. Passers-by were helpful . . .sort of. A young couple, though, suggested heading for Liverpool Street station. Been there, done that. Twice as far away from the Barbican as we thought we were. and no, you can't get a wheelchair on the Tube from Liverpool Street to Barbican Station as they suggested, though admittedly they couldn't really be expected to know that.<br />
<br />
Another directed us to Moorgate station; which we found, eventually. But then, confused by roadworks and dug-up pavements, which of course, neither an A-Z nor Google Maps on a smartphone had any knowledge of, took a wrong turning and ended up at Finsbury Square. Again.<br />
<br />
Still, we did make it eventually.<br />
<br />
But the way back . . .I'm going to abandon the 205 route. The buses are old . . .obviously recycled from somewhere near a scrapheap. My spine felt every damn jolt. And we had to catch two buses; one abandoned its struggle for life somewhere around Baker Street. And the ramp had stopped functioning.<br />
<br />
At least the driver was ready to help, and came round to lift the wheelchair off; he was actually ready to lift me off in it as well, but I can at least stand and walk a bit, so I managed to save him from the kind of spinal injury that put me in a wheelchair in the first place . . .<br />
<br />
And the second's wheelchair space was obviously an afterthought. I've never seen a bus quite like it: the exit door and ramp were almost next to the front door, and the wheelchair space a metre away from it. Not an easy manoeuvre to get into. Or out of. People had to get out of their seats and stand so I could get in.<br />
<br />
Stagecoach, eh? Wild horses are not going to get me onto one of their damn buses again.<br />
<br />Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-32098285528573406412012-11-01T10:27:00.000+00:002012-11-03T12:46:35.714+00:00Perchance to Sleep<br />
<div style="font: 15.0px Georgia; line-height: 22.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;">
Ben Mattlin, in the<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/opinion/suicide-by-choice-not-so-fast.html?hp" target="_blank"> New York Times</a>, on an 'assisted suicide' proposal in Massachusetts:</div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Georgia; line-height: 22.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Georgia; line-height: 22.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;">
<i>"I learned how easy it is to be perceived as someone whose quality of life is untenable, even or perhaps especially by doctors. Indeed, I hear it from them all the time — “How have you survived so long? Wow, you must put up with a lot!” — even during routine office visits, when all I’ve asked for is an antibiotic for a sinus infection. Strangers don’t treat me this way, but doctors feel entitled to render judgments and voice their opinions. To them, I suppose, I must represent a failure of their profession, which is shortsighted. I am more than my diagnosis and my prognosis.</i></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Georgia; line-height: 22.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;">
<i>"This is but one of many invisible forces of coercion. Others include that certain look of exhaustion in a loved one’s eyes, or the way nurses and friends sigh in your presence while you’re zoned out in a hospital bed. All these can cast a dangerous cloud of depression upon even the most cheery of optimists, a situation clinicians might misread since, to them, it seems perfectly rational.</i></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Georgia; line-height: 22.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;">
<i>"And in a sense, it is rational, given the dearth of alternatives. If nobody wants you at the party, why should you stay? Advocates of Death With Dignity laws who say that patients themselves should decide whether to live or die are fantasizing. Who chooses suicide in a vacuum? We are inexorably affected by our immediate environment. The deck is stacked."</i></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Georgia; line-height: 22.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;">
<i>. . . .</i></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Georgia; line-height: 22.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;">
<i>"To be sure, there are noble intentions behind the “assisted death” proposals, but I can’t help wondering why we’re in such a hurry to ensure the right to die before we’ve done all we can to ensure that those of us with severe, untreatable, life-threatening conditions are given the same open-hearted welcome, the same open-minded respect and the same open-ended opportunities due everyone else."</i></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Georgia; line-height: 22.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;">
I'm on record as being generally supportive of one's right to choose when to jump off this mortal coil. Not that I myself am yet in the sort of situation where I might want to take it. But Mattlin puts his finger directly on the reasons for the reservations I have about it too. I would want to <i>choose </i>for my own reasons.<br />
<br />
Of course, that's selfish, in a way. But I do not want to find the society around me forcing me into that choice, as, in the UK, government policies increasingly may. To make your own choice as to whether or not you live or die should depend on the society around you—whether it's friends, relatives, or the broader society of local or national government—having done all it can for you.<br />
<br />
So that your own decision is one that is in fact entirely your own.<br />
<br />
But that is not the way I see things going. Mattlin is absolutely right in wondering why societies often seem to be keener on ridding themselves of 'useless mouths' in as brutal and coercive a fashion as the commanders of besieged towns in the 15th and 16th centuries did, instead of giving them the wherewithal to live.<br />
<br /></div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-68150329399189865152012-10-24T11:48:00.002+01:002012-10-24T11:48:55.418+01:00Paving the WayA bit further along my street here in London, there is a a paved pedestrian square outside a church. Correction. There <i>was </i>a paved square there until a couple of weeks ago.<br />
<br />
Since then it's been a building site. But I'm sure it will be quite an attractive little square again when it's finished.<br />
<br />
It's presented a problem, though. Or rather a small, but irritating series of problems. Just after they'd put all the fencing around it, I went off, on the new wheels, to friends' for dinner. Which was when I realised that whoever was thoughtful enough to put up the big notices that said 'Sorry for the Inconvenience' hadn't quite grasped how much more inconvenient they'd made it for people on wheels.<br />
<br />
Instead of zipping along over the nice flat mini-piazza, I had to take to the pavement. That shouldn't normally be a problem, but it has a narrow cycle lane alongside it, and as I got to the far end, bowling along merrily, I suddenly realised that there was a bollard in the middle of it that I hadn't noticed before.<br />
<br />
Of course, that's there, I suppose, to deter cyclists from using the pavement as a pedestrian bowling-down alley. But the encroaching metal fence surrounding the new paving work meant it was a bit of a squeeze for a wheelchair. A bit fiddly getting through the space it was. Bit like what those Virgin cable vans have on the side: "back a bit, forward a bit, back a bit", but followed by "damnation, that got my knuckles', which is the bit they <i>don't</i> have advertising video on demand . . .Who ever skinned their knuckles on a remote control, after all?<br />
<br />
And then, of course, having had to take the opposite side of the road to the one I usually do, came to a dead stop crossing a road, because there was no dropped kerb to get me up onto the pavement again. As I was contemplating taking to the road and going the long way round, fortunately someone offered to give me a shove up. Success.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, I took the long way round on the way back. But this morning, I found that that is now barred to me too. The pavement and part of the street there is closed off, and being dug up, and the workers are, of course, very sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, once again, they've made it a little more than just 'inconvenient', because as I know all too well, if I use the pavement on the opposite side of the street I have to take to the road for about 200 metres, because the dropped kerbs on that side are simply too steep for me to get a wheelchair up them on my own . . .And the road is <i>rough</i>; it takes twice the effort.<br />
<br />
Oh, well, never mind. I do have a third alternative route to my friends'. It only makes it three times as far to go. I suppose I should be grateful, really. I've been thinking that I really need to build up my biceps, and since I can't go in for weightlifting or anything like that, a few weeks of wheeling myself round the long way should probably do for me what a daily workout in the gym for a couple of months would do for anybody else.<br />
<br />
I do hope the new 'piazza' at least is going to be worth the hassle. I hope it'll be very pretty. I hope it's going to be<i> very smooth</i>, as well. In compensation for the 'inconvenience' I think I deserve at least that.Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-33104530209045752092012-10-19T19:41:00.003+01:002012-10-20T08:49:07.955+01:00A Rose by Any Other Name . . .. . . would still have a nasty smell when it rots.<br />
<br />
I'm referring, of course, to the revelation that a paraplegic blogger suffering from cerebral palsy has turned out to be a fake. Not only a fake <i>disabled person</i>, but what appears to be much, much worse, a fake <i>celebrity</i>.<br />
<br />
The consequence is that the blog the faker wrote has been deleted. As have his Twitter and Facebook accounts. Not because, one imagines, they were fiction. After all, half the blogs, half the 'life stories' on Blogspot and half the accounts on Facebook are probably pure fiction.<br />
<br />
No. They're gone; people cannot now look at them to see for themselves what might give a clue to seeing the difference between a fiction and reality. Gone, deleted, because, it would appear, it might embarrass a lot of media in the US who set him up as a classic 'sentimental celebrity'; and rounded up their pet 'real' celebrities, like Kim Kardashian, to give the thing more 'celebrity authenticity'.<br />
<br />
Yes, I'm well aware that's an oxymoron.<br />
<br />
And my prime exhibit here, of course, is HuffPo, which I suspect gushed cloyingly over a lot of what one might justifiably suspect are this guy's sentimental platitudes, and has deleted everything and now only retains the report of his exposure.<br />
<br />
But the anger is being orchestrated against the faker; not against the people who let themselves be taken in. And it could be, as one commenter has pointed out, mean open season for attacks on those of us who are <i>really</i> disabled, and <i>really</i> write about it. Even if we are not 'celebritised' as this 'David Rose' was, or do not want to be.<br />
<br />
In the interests of truth, beauty and so on, and before Google decides to make a habit of closing down pseudonymous disabled people's blogs without notice, I suppose I shall have to declare that I am not actually a disabled <i>squirrel</i>. I am a human being. I am a <i>disabled</i> human being.<br />
<br />
But can't you tell that anyway?Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-42331191533231457882012-10-19T00:14:00.002+01:002012-10-19T00:34:52.067+01:00An Incidence of the Dog not Barking in the Night Time<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"></span><br />
</span><br />
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Or "The Policeman who Mistook a Cane for a Sword". </i></span></div>
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have just been reading about the blind man tasered by police because they mistook his cane for a Sammurai sword. And I have, of course, been saddened by those who have commented who appear to imagine this could be a natural mistake.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;">Or that after all, like the 'bad people have wedding parties too' excuse for not quite being sure as to the innocence of people being blown up by a drone missile, even that, of course, who knows, a blind man with a white cane </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><i>might</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"> have been a criminal who </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><i>might</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"> have been carrying a Samurai sword in his other hand. Or even that the victim may have been dressed to look like someone who might have been wielding a Samurai sword. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;">
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"></span>
</span><br />
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;">And that it is <i>not </i>a problem of attitude. Or, as one commenter wrote, of someone who saw someone he could bully and thought he'd get away with it.</span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;">
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"></span>
</span><br />
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I'd like to tell a little story. But it happened in the years 'BT'. (Before Tasers.) Or, perhaps, the ending might have been very different.</span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">
</span>
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Once upon a time</i> (all the right kind of stories begin like this, after all) there was a young man who was lame and walked with a nice walking stick. On the way home from a club, dressed in a posh trench coat because it was raining heavily, he slipped stepping off a kerb and fell flat onto the road.</span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as he was trying to get up (which was proving rather difficult because he couldn't see his stick which he needed as a lever, cf basic Archimedes) a police car turned the corner and the driver got out.</span></div>
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He stood over the young man (whose trench coat, a Burberry, in fact, was now badly stained and marked, along with his Farah trousers) and said: "If you're not away from here in five minutes, when I drive round here again, I'm going to arrest you for being drunk and disorderly." And got into his car and drove <i style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">round </i>the young man, leaving him on his hands and knees crying with pain.</span></div>
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(This was somewhat surprising to the young man, as only a couple of weeks before, he'd lost his balance the same way in a supermarket and none of the people, including one of the store security men, who came to help him up again, thought of accusing him either of being drunk, or of being disorderly.)</span></div>
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As luck would have it, the young man, finding his stick on the pavement just an arm's reach away, managed to hop to a railing along the pavement, and, even more luckily, given the state his coat and trousers were in, successfully hailed a cab. As the cab drew away from the kerb, it was followed by a police car . . .</span></div>
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the way home. And stayed with the driver watching from the street corner while the young man, paid the cab driver, limped the couple of metres to his door with his walking stick, and opened it without even fumbling the keys once. </span></div>
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The young man, of course, was me. And that incident is why, in London, I stopped using a walking stick and began using a crutch if I was going out in the evening, even though, then, it wasn't strictly necessary. In the hope that if that happened again, the fact I was disabled might be just a little more obvious <i style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">even to the thickest fucking bully of a bloody cop.</i></span></div>
<div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And obviously, there is no happy end to this story. <i><b>Still. </b></i>After many years.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But these days, I'm as likely to be found wearing jeans, a hoody and trainers as a trench coat and designer trousers. And as often, for the time being, anyway, in a wheelchair as on my crutches. Can anyone tell me if an aluminium crutch, or an aluminium wheelchair, is a good conductor of 50,000 Volts to earth?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
Not that I'm planning on having a night out in Chorley, but it would be reassuring. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</span>Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-88604080708829308662012-10-18T20:20:00.002+01:002012-10-18T21:21:47.804+01:00Transports of Delight (Part II). . .In a series, I fear, that looks destined to need the addition "of Many". . .<br />
<br />
The trip to the Barbican was a disaster.<br />
<br />
Having been a bit puzzled as to why the TfL website told me I could get a lift at Paddington to the Tube platforms and then to 'accessible" Liverpool Street, not recalling where there <i>was</i> a lift, and the map showing an entrance to Paddington some distance from where I thought it was, I decided to phone TfL.<br />
<br />
About ten minutes in, it suddenly became clear that the woman on the other end was simply looking at exactly the same 'Step Free Access' tube map I had on my screen; and had used the same TfL Journey Planner I had, and was becoming just as confused as I was.<br />
<br />
It wasn't I thought, terribly helpful either, that though I'd prefaced my request by saying I needed to know because I would be using a wheelchair, that she offered me an alternative with an <i>escalator</i>.<br />
<br />
I've never tried to get a wheelchair up or down any escalator. (At least not with me in it.) They are not really designed for it. We are not talking Mini Coopers bouncing up and down flights of stone steps in Italy here. Though I admit it could be potentially quite exciting for the other travellers to watch.<br />
<br />
Eventually, she said she would phone the station supervisor. She relayed what he told her to me; that was that yes, there <i>was</i> a lift from the 'Suburban Entrance' (though neither I nor she, who should really have asked) was terribly clear as to which one that was. But to platforms that meant I would have to change at Edgware Road, which usually means climbing flights of stairs between platforms. Mini-Cooper in Italy time again.<br />
<br />
By this time I was beginning to think it would be a lot easier and quicker to plan a bank robbery, the get-away route and nick half-a-dozen Mini-Coopers into the bargain.<br />
<br />
Time getting on, and getting far too short now to risk the bus, I and my helper decided to risk the quickest way we knew and the hell with it, confident, we thought, that at least once we got to "accessible" Liverpool Street it would at least be plain wheeling from there on.<br />
<br />
Wrong again. We started with a bus to Queensway. Well, that's not quite right. Since it appeared that the bus that would get us closest to Queensway was running, not every five minutes or so but more like every fifty, we got one that meant a longer trek to it. That, by the way, convinced me of my urgent need for either one of those huge rubber horns you see on vintage cars, or, as a friend suggested over the weekend, one of those battery-operated foghorns they make for yachtsmen. But that's another story.<br />
<br />
Queensway, we recalled, had a lift. What neither of us recalled was if there were steps, or how many, there might be to the platform after it. Of course, there were two steps up from the pavement to get to booking hall. "Why no ramp?" asked my pusher. Why indeed? Converting two shallow steps (which meant I had to get out of my wheelchair and lever myself up them with my crutches and a nice polished brass handrail, is hardly a major engineering or architectural feat.<br />
<br />
However, as I approached, the guy at the wide ticket barrier <i>did</i> warn me there were "a few steps" down to the platform. Here, of course, we hit the problem of defining a "disabled quantity" as opposed to a "non-disabled quantity". To me, as I and my helper faced them, it was not "a few", but "a lot'; in fact, very close to "too many".<br />
<br />
Well, I managed to crawl my way down them, while a helpful passenger aided my companion to lug the wheelchair down them. The same when the train arrived, when we realised to our dismay that the height of the train above the platform meant we would have to do the same. Score three now for helpful fellow travellers. One of whom helped me while another helped get the wheels on board.<br />
<br />
Of course, this was now getting perilously close to the beginning of rush hour. So we will pass over those people who glowered a bit as they hit their ankles against the footrests of my wheelchair, parked at the end of the carriage as out of their way as I could manage. It is always a mystery to me, how so many people so consistently manage <i>not</i> to see not just the person in it, but the wheelchair itself as well. It doesn't seem to happen to small children and buggies. Or even travelling cats in cat baskets. As the crowds increased, I folded the footrests in and bore with fortitude all the people who trod on my feet instead. Fortunately, I don't feel a lot in my feet, so that's not really a problem in a way.<br />
<br />
Well, it has been today, as I discover they are both rather swollen and one is bruised. . .Quite apart from what it did to my nicely polished shoes.<br />
<br />
I spent most of the journey watching each platform with increasing dismay, as I mentally measured the height and realised it was not possible to get a wheelchair off the train without a ramp at any of them. "But," I reassured myself, "Liverpool Street must be different, it's <i>accessible</i>." It wasn't. Score five, now, for helpful passengers.<br />
<br />
And score another (in its way) for a helpful Tube employee on the platform, who told us the only way to get to a lift from there was up an escalator. Repeat performance of earlier. At least the platform supervisor did give us directions to the lift that would take us up to the main station and street level. Or, stuck in a corner, behind a staircase, and small, we'd never have found it.<br />
<br />
And so to the bus that would, finally, get us within some sort of striking distance of the Barbican that wouldn't sprain my wrists getting to it. The easy bit, we thought, at last.<br />
<br />
There was a fifteen minute wait for the bus. A friendly woman (plus one) said, though, that we were only 'ten minutes' ' walk away. Glancing at the wheelchair, but still talking to my helper (so that evens out the score, minus one for that) she amended that to 'fifteen minutes'. "Ah," my aide and I thought simultaneously, "We're in amongst the quantum theories of 'disabled v. non-disabled mathematics' again. Could be twenty or thirty."<br />
<br />
So we decided to wait for the bus. Just as well, because we soon found out there were roadworks all along the route, pavements narrowed and crowded, and crossings blocked with barriers, probably ramps on and off them inaccessible meaning detours everywhere. "Probably a good thirty minutes of infuriating hassle at least," was what the looks we gave each other said.<br />
<br />
But, no, getting the bus still wasn't the 'easy bit'. The bus we wanted draws up alongside a narrow pavement. Which is low, too. The bus ramp failed to hit the curb three times before the driver cottoned on to the fact the bus was too far away, and I couldn't get a wheelchair off the kerb <i>and</i> onto the ramp. When she did, it was, since the kerb was very low, almost too steep for my 'pusher' and utterly impossible if I'd been on my own. Score, now, seven for helpful passengers.<br />
<br />
We'll add plus two for the Barbican front-of-house boys who looked after my wheelchair for the concert and brought it right up to the door for me afterwards. And another for the one who told me how to lock the (splendid!) electric sliding door of the disabled people's loo.<br />
<br />
We got two buses back (after we'd discovered that apparently the bus that took us from Liverpool Street to the Barbican takes a different route back) seeing, by luck, one passing that went to Paddington, albeit it looked as though it was heading in the wrong direction. And another bus home from Paddington station.<br />
<br />
Oh, yes. Score one for the helpful passenger who shifted a shopping trolley so I could get my wheelchair against the backrest for the journey. Minus one for the one who owned it and <i>then </i>came to complain to my helper (not me, so minus one more!) that we'd moved it. Though if I'd been in a bad temper instead of taking all this stoically, she could easily have made that a <i>minus twelve</i> for the night.<br />
<br />
It doesn't take much. Just<i> one </i>can ruin your day. I haven't really included the first bus driver, you may have noticed; I suddenly got superstitious abut where that would take the count.<br />
<br />
Next time, it's the bus. And thank goodness that the 'Paralympics Effect'<i> is</i> still working. No-one who helped had to be asked; everyone offered before there was even time to <i>think</i> of asking; and everyone who did smiled and waved away our thanks. Which goes a very long way as to explaining why the final 'score' of the night <i>wasn't </i>a minus. Even using 'disabled quantum maths' calculations.<br />
<br />Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-84494616499536215172012-10-16T00:32:00.000+01:002012-10-16T00:44:40.251+01:00How Long, O Lord, How Long?I wrote, a while back, to respond to someone who commented that he couldn't see why disabled people often talked about the way we are restricted when he (someone who was non-disabled) thought we had as much 'freedom' and 'choice' as anyone else.<br />
<br />
I said that he clearly didn't understand how difficult actually achieving the same 'freedom' and the same 'choices' was. It's something I (having been non-disabled) have had to come to terms with, and it's a radical difference.<br />
<br />
As you know, I'm going to a concert at the Barbican on Wednesday. I've spent the last few days in preparation. I've been doing as little physically as I can get away with. I can't afford to stress my spine so that I will be either in too much pain to enjoy it, or to sit in my wheelchair to get to it. I ran out of sugar last night; and though there is a corner shop next door, I'm doing without. Why?<br />
<br />
It's not that I have a sudden urge to lose weight. Rather the opposite, in fact, my GP has told me I have to gain some. It's because I dare not take the risk of losing my balance and falling down the steps to the front door, or tripping over the step into the shop. If I were to do either, then the probability is that I'll be bedridden until days after the concert.<br />
<br />
Now, you (assuming you are non-disabled) have several choices. You may choose to the shop to buy more sugar; you may choose not to be bothered and do without sugar in your tea until tomorrow. I don't, if I want to be sure of getting to my concert on Wednesday, have any choice at all.<br />
<br />
Now, a friend was going to see <i>Timon of Athens</i> tonight. She asked me this afternoon, if I'd like to go on the probability of there still being some tickets available. But I spent most of the last night in pain, and most of it and this morning napping rather than sleeping. I'm not walking very well, either. And it was some hours since I'd taken any morphia, so I was in pain again. Neither inclined me to want to have a shower, wash my hair, get properly dressed, get in my wheelchair and struggle on and off the bus with it. I was also a bit concerned, not having been from home to the NT in a wheelchair before, about how tricky it might be getting there. And, of course, I've been looking forward to the Barbican concert for months, and I don't want to jeopardise it.<br />
<br />
She went to the NT early, intending to look around and get something to eat. An hour or so later, she phoned, said there were tickets, and she'd found a relatively easy route for the wheelchair that wouldn't be as tough going as I'd feared. And I was feeling a bit perkier since the morphia had kicked in.<br />
<br />
So I had a 'choice' of whether to go or not. Except I didn't, really. It takes me longer to do things like bathe, shave, wash my hair and dress than it does non-disabled people. Say an hour at least. The bus that'll get me most easily and nearest (though I would still have to cross the Thames) can take an hour because of the diversions while they're building Crossrail. Getting ready takes us into the rush hour. So I have to allow for the first bus that comes along, and quite likely the second, not having room for me. Add another 30 minutes. Add the hassle of getting through more rush-hour crowds in Charing Cross station, which I would have to wheel through.<br />
<br />
Result? It suddenly becomes very questionable as to whether I could get there, and up to the theatre, before the play started. So the 'choice' is decided for me. I don't have one. I can't go.<br />
<br />
"Ah, but" . . .that confident non-disabled person might say: "You could choose to speed things up and get a black cab." Well, I <i>could</i> . . .But like most disabled people I don't have much money, and since I wouldn't have time to eat, twenty quid on a cab <i>as well</i> would mean I'd sit through the play and home again starving. Quite apart from the fact that the cab fare would buy me half my food for a week. The 'choice' may be there, but it's illusory. A choice you haven't the freedom to make is neither choice nor freedom.<br />
<br />
So, back to the bath and washing my hair. By deciding not to go to the theatre (which was actually rather upsetting, because I suddenly realised I would have liked it) I can at least choose not to have a bath or wash my hair today. You, you non-disabled person, you, might say "Well, so what? That's a choice anybody can make."<br />
<br />
But it isn't, in fact. I have to be sure I've taken enough painkillers in advance, or be relaxed enough, to be reasonably sure that before I do, I am<i> not </i>going to find myself unable to get in or especially, out; and reasonably certain I'm going to be steady enough doing either, or drying myself or my hair, not to fall. I knocked myself out and sprained my wrist very badly a couple of years ago as my legs gave way and I went crashing into the wash basin. I've fallen a few times since, but I've managed to grab something so there hasn't since (so far ) been quite the same catastrophe.<br />
<br />
On balance, I decided not to risk it. Tomorrow, or Wednesday, I may feel safer.<br />
<br />
Choices? Freedom? Really?<br />
<br />
Unlike you (you non-disabled person, you) I don't even sometimes have the choice of what I would like to eat. I may not be able to stand (or sit) to prepare and cook a meal I would like. I may have to 'choose' something because it needs little preparation or is quick. Or I may have to take whatever is in the freezer that can go in the microwave for five minutes whether it's really something I want to eat or not. I cannot 'choose' to have a beer, or a glass of wine, just because I feel like it. I may have only half a glass of wine, or only water, with friends over dinner, when the week before I shared a bottle of wine <i>and</i> had a large whisky beforehand.<br />
<br />
That depends on the amount of medication I've taken that day, and when I took it. If I don't make that calculation (and it's something that's now instinctive, something I do almost automatically) I could end up in a coma. If I was particularly careless and got it very badly wrong, I could die. I nearly did two years ago, when I was taking a slow-release drug I hadn't before, and I got the time when I thought it would have had its maximum cumulative effect completely wrong.<br />
<br />
This advance planning, the preparation most disabled people have to go through to do some of the simplest things non-disabled people take for granted, not daily, but even hourly, is something which the vast majority of non-disabled people never see. If you see me in the supermarket, or the theatre or concert hall, or an art exhibition or even a nightclub, that, for me, was never a spur-of-the-moment choice or a happy-go-lucky chance. I may <i>look</i> as though it was; but my smile of pleasure is only there because (at least up till then) the planning and forethought, the 'risk assessment', too, if you like, has all worked out.<br />
<br />Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-34871063161980499722012-10-14T17:19:00.001+01:002012-10-14T17:19:15.484+01:00Transports of DelightPotentially one of what, I suspect, may be a <i>very</i> long series . . .<br />
<br />
Off to the Barbican for a concert on Wednesday. The way things are at the moment, I'm not walking well at all, and the prospect of the long trek, let alone the number of steps I'd have to climb on the way, from Barbican station is not a happy one.<br />
<br />
So, unless things improve in the next two days, which looks pretty unlikely, it's Squirrel-on-wheels time.<br />
<br />
The Transport for London journey planner tells me I have two options. One is to get two buses, one from near home to Aldwych, and another from Aldwych to the Barbican.<br />
<br />
But . . .I know all too well that partly due to the disruption and deviations the building work for Crossrail involves, the 23 bus to Aldwych can take forever. And, around the time I'd want to be at Aldwych, it's going to be the rush hour, and the chances of finding space for my wheelchair on the first (or maybe the second and third) are probably limited.<br />
<br />
The second is to get a bus to Paddington, and the tube from Paddington to Faringdon. Both, apparently have lifts to and from street level. That's interesting, because for the life of me, I simply cannot recall where the lift from the street to the Circle Line at Paddington might be. Unless it's the thing I've always casually assumed is some sort of goods lift to the main-line station?<br />
<br />
So far, so good, for the <i>theory</i>. Now, in most circumstances, I would have to try to research the height of the trains from the platform and the gaps between them, at both stations, to be sure I'd be able to get on and off without having to hope some helpful stranger might give me a hand.<br />
<br />
This time, though, I'm going with a friend, so all I have to do is remember to get to the Barbican a good forty minutes before the concert starts, since the lifts there confuse me even when I'm on my feet and I really do not want to spend 20 minutes fruitlessly crossing the underground road back and forth to the underground car park only to find me and my wheels going up and down like a jack-in-the-box always ending on any floor but the one I want . . .<br />
<br />
I'm actually an "Access Member" (which is what they call us disabled folks) at the Barbican; and it's only now occurred to me I've never seen a Barbican route map for finding one's way about in that Minotaurean labyrinth. Must remember to take a big ball of string.<br />
<br />
Oh, and enough money for a black cab just in case of getting stuck somewhere en route.<br />
<br />
Tell you how it went (or didn't!) after Wednesday . . .Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-44723274388447854992012-10-11T02:51:00.000+01:002012-10-11T02:52:50.046+01:00Be Vigilant!There are fake disabled people out there, that may choke your babies, give off poisonous fumes when on fire, and get in your way because you're a fat lazy bastard who can't be bothered to walk more than ten metres from my disabled parking space . . .<br />
<br />
I was annoyed (as always) by yet another of those "I've nothing against disabled people as long as they're genuinely disabled" comments in the Guardian. As though we have to prove to your average Joe what is humiliating enough to have to prove not just to the ATOS Gestapo but even a Social Services physiotherapist.<br />
<br />
So, I made a cynical joke of it. One day, I will learn that my jokes aren't funny; they have a nast habit of turning out not to be jokes at all.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Do I have to wear my disability registration number on my back when I go out in public? In a tasteful orange triangle perhaps? </blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<br />
I wrote in response.<br />
<br />
Another reader replied:<br />
<blockquote>
<br />
If some people had their way you would.<br />
<br />
<br />
In one post I read on the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago it was proposed that all vehicles supplied by the Motability scheme should be marked up as such so they were clearly identifiable and so "concerned citizens" could understand who was getting "handouts" from the state and that "fair minded citizens" could, by enquiring, check for themselves that the occupant was genuinely "deserving".<br />
So, vigilante-ism now comes to disability assessment.</blockquote>
<br />
Well, luckily there's a tattoo parlour not that far from my flat. I must get my disability registration number tastefully inked in somewhere. Along with the phone number for Social Services so 'fair-minded citizens' can check whether I'm really 'genuine'.<br />
<br />
The question is, where? One number on each buttock, perhaps?Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-25560029298084119492012-10-09T14:20:00.004+01:002012-10-09T14:22:07.485+01:00A Long Way to Go (Again)<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/09/paralympic-flame-legacy?commentpage=all#start-of-comments" target="_blank">In the Guardian today (Link)</a>. <br />
<br />
Comment here later; it's going to be a long one; and it'll be later 'cos Squirrel is having a 'pain-and heavy painkiller-day' and the Squirrel brain is a bit too dulled to unleash the requisite fury on some of the comments there . . .Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-22646097212550037202012-10-08T14:31:00.002+01:002012-10-08T14:31:54.874+01:00Mirror, Mirror on the Wall . . .. . . who's the ugliest of them all?<br />
<br />
Just seen on eBay:<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">SELF-REPELLING WHEELCHAIR"</span></b>Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-65782355462246207892012-10-07T17:32:00.000+01:002012-10-08T14:52:01.455+01:00Flash Squirrel<br />
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Since disability issues were becoming a bit of an obsession on my other blog I thought I'd start this one.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
It seems to be infectious; best friend, who a couple of weeks ago was acting as my 'pusher', because I had a wheelchair I couldn't manipulate onto buses on my own, has been interrupting her usual walks around London eyeing cracked sunken pavements, ramps or dropped kerbs that are too steep, and all sorts of general awkwardnesses and annoying interruptions to free wheeling.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
A post or two ago, I was joking about 'Q-ifying' my new wheelchair. Now, it's long been the case that when Squirrel here makes a joke, events rapidly supersede and the joke becomes true and not much to joke about at all.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
I picked up my new wheelchair on Thursday, and brought it home by train and tube. Fortunately, although I was a bit uncertain whether I'd be able to right up until the night before, I <i>could</i> push the thing around on on my own hind paws. Though I had intended to actually use it on the way back.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
It was just as well. I'd carefully planned the route via what were labelled as 'wheelchair accessible' stations. Well . . .it turned out that there's 'accessible' and 'accessible'. The interchange between tube and train was supposed to be wheelchair accessible. It was.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
If you either had a helper, or had just been competing at the Paralympics. Yes, each platform was linked by a ramp to the others. But it was very close to the maximum 'safe' slope for a wheelchair. Which would have been OK, except for the fact they were <i>long</i>. And there were no information signs anywhere near them to tell you what train was leaving which platform. They were all far away <i>at the other end</i>.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
I got it wrong <i>three</i> times because I was given the wrong information. I missed one train simply because the person who told me where it was leaving from had no idea that it would take me about twice as long as them to get there. Even pushing the bloody thing (which is an ultra-lightweight one) I got pretty weary. It had lifts, they said, on the web. It had <i>one</i> lift. <i>From Platform 1 </i>(I arrived on Platform 4 and had to leave from Platform 8)<i> to and from the booking hall. </i>Which I didn't need to go to and wasn't much of an attraction anyway.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
And the train? Well, it was c2c (National Express) and lovely. New, shiny, fast, one carriage with two good spacious wheelchair spaces and a huge wheelchair accessible toilet. Lovely. Those are the trains</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
I shall look for in future. But . . .I arrived at the station, and had I wanted to get on, or off, in a wheelchair I couldn't have. Despite the promise that I could arrange it. Unless another passenger had helped. The station was unmanned: the booking office closed "because of <i>safety</i> issues".</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Ironic, eh? If I hadn't been able to walk a bit, if I had been <i>entirely</i> reliant on the wheels, what about <i>my</i> safety?</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Now, as to squirrel jokes having a nasty habit of turning out to be true. That thing of mine about doing up my new wheelchair with flashing coloured wheels . . .Not such a joke after all. I got the wheels on a bus for the last stretch home, and decided (being pretty tired by then, and the hind paws being weak) to wheel myself to the flat. All went reasonably well, though next time, I'll remember to use my own borough's side of the street instead of the neighbouring one's. On one side it's relatively smooth going; on the other for about two hundred metres, the pavement's sunk so badly it was a roller-coaster ride.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
But why the need for natty flashing lights? Ah. The original reason (apart from the fun, and giving people something to grin at) was I have been, and often will be, wheeling myself home from friends' at night. (Not to mention coming home after going out clubbing every now and then. I don't see why I should give that up.) But . . .in daylight?</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
It simply hadn't occurred to me. But I had to get across a road junction just a few metres from my flat. All four streets were lined with parked cars. So, with great caution, I poked the nose into the road , , , only to have to wheel myself back in a hell of a hurry. <i>Five drivers simply didn't see me. </i>The two SUV's and the van were the worst. The drivers staring ahead well above my head . . .</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
It was a bit like a dinghy being cut up by a supertanker.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
So. Flashing lights. I've ordered some flashing orange-yellow fibre optic cable to wrap around the spokes on the wheels. Should be, as the pound coins used to say "decor et tutamen". I'd really like something like those LED flashing 'gangsta' hub caps—you know, the sort that spin round the opposite way to the wheels? But that'd be really, really expensive. . .</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
And I've already fitted cheap flashing red bike rear lights to the back. Just, well, I want something more . . . <i>flash</i> . . . why should wheelchairs be boring? Why shouldn't you pimp your ride? Next, a leopardskin seat. And a holster for the Uzi. Fridge for the booze underneath . . .Secret compartment for the coke stash. . .And . . .no, no, this is <i>London</i>.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-13723736913125545712012-10-07T17:23:00.002+01:002012-10-07T17:23:53.223+01:00Rocket Squirrel<br />
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
I get my 'new' (well, second-hand, actually) ultra-lightweight wheelchair this week. It's not <i>quite</i> the end to the Paralympics I wanted. I wasn't really expecting to be faced with the prospect of having to use one so much more often this year, let alone probably permanently later, Not until the Prof of neurosurgery had a word with me just a few weeks ago. Between you and me and the gatepost, I've cried a bit over it this last month.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Funny how you think you're sort of prepared, then the implications really hit home when suddenly the shades of grey start turning into plain black and white.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Still, I'm actually quite looking forward to it. Bit like being a kid getting a new bike, really. I'm getting one that doesn't look all that 'wheelchairish' and I had thoughts of jazzing it up a bit. With things like these:</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnbdWN9xfr3Vx1NbzYpEXhVhYQvjJq8UhtFhGuy4oThb-Zls6oRKs4nriSk3zyNpZthlazd40pFYBDZUt66__4c4cTwUz6JgkVUb616vdwmgSXNzFrjGCmBCBd-5vEN6RbChnBvtJcJ68X/s1600/flashing+wheels.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnbdWN9xfr3Vx1NbzYpEXhVhYQvjJq8UhtFhGuy4oThb-Zls6oRKs4nriSk3zyNpZthlazd40pFYBDZUt66__4c4cTwUz6JgkVUb616vdwmgSXNzFrjGCmBCBd-5vEN6RbChnBvtJcJ68X/s320/flashing+wheels.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
(Especially as there's a ramp near home some bastard insists on blocking with their car at night, and I've had to take to the road for a hundred metres this last week or two.)</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
But after that closing ceremony, and all those amazing steam-punk vehicles, I reckon that's maybe a bit tame. I'm getting ideas . . .</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4q9sf-PSJZEIIV2qQa6lRKEeLhno2FMfGNhOr36o_1JjLJWuCszy5HgFmNbWVMKErcuuRaR5n6ghDgW38CCpQAQtC4uYg2FIQknHatgNo-msQF66ZjVnQnYhZRo1u4V4ktWvpjsfu_BZi/s1600/Rocket+car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4q9sf-PSJZEIIV2qQa6lRKEeLhno2FMfGNhOr36o_1JjLJWuCszy5HgFmNbWVMKErcuuRaR5n6ghDgW38CCpQAQtC4uYg2FIQknHatgNo-msQF66ZjVnQnYhZRo1u4V4ktWvpjsfu_BZi/s320/Rocket+car.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16px;">Like maybe combined with this, so I can really snarl back at people who sneer at cripples like me or who charge ahead of me into the bus or the lift. Or park their flash four-wheel drive Audis and Mercs on corners so I can't use the dropped kerbs so I can't get onto the pavement: </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_LV5XBHl5mCFG1UbkKLqdobcxN8s7TDVV8FzOIITZ4ZryiocphIfCFLRy7-SVDtsN4ly0sBsjRsk-IrfqYrh5qVlJzgIS40BFTyvIaBdbMw7HKXgHlHMo8bvUhp8Fwd4D_REJqDSX40Ue/s1600/the+clamposaurus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_LV5XBHl5mCFG1UbkKLqdobcxN8s7TDVV8FzOIITZ4ZryiocphIfCFLRy7-SVDtsN4ly0sBsjRsk-IrfqYrh5qVlJzgIS40BFTyvIaBdbMw7HKXgHlHMo8bvUhp8Fwd4D_REJqDSX40Ue/s320/the+clamposaurus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
And then, there's my band of course . . .</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsm5i9puTuxadYwWbiMzLrAs0ETqNXM4oWv0fmbON-ByPihFsB9sX35pZY5KBaB_aIRqSxHMISByvF24-EXRrUG7stBC691clfPkD7G73MLpXk8VqTxTFcqWRLBZ9NOrbISg7QriB8D6l/s1600/Band.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsm5i9puTuxadYwWbiMzLrAs0ETqNXM4oWv0fmbON-ByPihFsB9sX35pZY5KBaB_aIRqSxHMISByvF24-EXRrUG7stBC691clfPkD7G73MLpXk8VqTxTFcqWRLBZ9NOrbISg7QriB8D6l/s320/Band.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Yay! Watch out! Rocket Squirrel is coming!</div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-57303367539379529572012-10-04T17:24:00.000+01:002012-10-08T14:37:15.899+01:00The Long John Silver Sound<br />
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
I've also just got my new crutches. I already have three. But this is not extravagance, or the early stages of some weird collection fetish.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
One I like, aesthetically: it's black, grey aluminium and blue. But it doesn't have a hinged elbow cuff, so if I want to, say, grab a pint with my right arm, it falls to the floor. And I can't use it to lean on. So, though I like it because it doesn't look so 'medical' (they sell a lot of these colourful ones to skiers who've broken their legs in France, so they don't clash with their Raybans or look out of place with the Nike trainers on the other foot on the way home) I've had to give up on it.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
The other two? Well, one is quite old and looks <i>very medical. </i>But it has the more comfortable hand grip. It's getting worn out now; the holes into which the pins fit for adjusting the length are now worn oval, so it clanks as I walk along. It sometimes makes people look up in surprise, subconsciously expecting to see a pirate with an eyepatch and a parrot on his shoulder approaching.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
So it has to go.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
The other one has developed much the same problem; and, though aesthetically it's a better design, I've never liked the hand grip anyway. It doesn't seem to fit my hand very well, and my palm gets sore after a while.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
So, goodbye.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
The other reason for replacing them is that more often, now, I need two even in the flat. And I really came to dislike being out during the last few weeks with a pair that look different and don't match. It's like wearing different shoes on each foot. I was going to say different socks on each foot, but wearing odd socks can be a kind of specially ironic disabled fashion statement. There was a really neat picture of a Paralympian wheelchair racer's feet taken during the games—one foot clad in pink, the other in yellow. . .</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgknk7EhX44LU9PJ3KxAwS6XD9JoO4-_v8GKK3ELs_r4PqLOIoT-pRQSzhAYECmuhy8ZfL2sO2gy6s4gK2swm2pLlUnaVKSOK8eblI7hZ0Eqplc9vN1XwwY31ayLTAFxQQxuecRjL-iebR7/s1600/Paralympian+socks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgknk7EhX44LU9PJ3KxAwS6XD9JoO4-_v8GKK3ELs_r4PqLOIoT-pRQSzhAYECmuhy8ZfL2sO2gy6s4gK2swm2pLlUnaVKSOK8eblI7hZ0Eqplc9vN1XwwY31ayLTAFxQQxuecRjL-iebR7/s320/Paralympian+socks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 13.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
[Photo courtesy of PA and <i>the Guardian</i>; sorry, can't find the name of the photographer for the moment.]</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
And just look at those wheels! Wow! Oh, sorry 'bout that. Where was I?</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Now I have a new pair. Made by the same company in the Midlands as the one with the grip I don't like, but they've improved that since, and it's much more comfortable.<i> But they squeak.</i></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="font: 16.0px Lucida Grande;"><br />
</span>So now, as I approach, I see people look round with a slightly mystified expression as their subconscious tells them to be prepared to be assaulted by a pirate with a <i>mouse</i> on his shoulder . . .</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Who said being crippled was easy? You non-disabled folk really don't know the half of it.</div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2596559201871626859.post-57856705863005790412012-10-03T17:13:00.000+01:002012-10-07T17:14:24.639+01:00What (Some) People Think<br />
<div style="font: 13.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On one of my trawls through the US media (all of which, apart from CNN International appears to have been entirely ignoring them) I came across these comments to an article wondering why they were being ignored:</span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Bless their hearts, but there's something about watching people with stumps competing in "athletic" events that is simply not aesthetically appealing...</blockquote>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
my family could not get over feeling a little ridiculous watching women compete in a sport like weightlifting but there was no softball.</blockquote>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The paralympics is about some of the world's most disabled and disfigured people doing things almost all of us, the spectators, can do better. And we just don't care about that.. . .most disabled and disfigured people are rather unsightly, and we don't want to look at them.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
many people want to see what the human body is capable of, at its fittest.</blockquote>
<div style="font: 13.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And this from a Brit, alas:</span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
i spend everyday in hospitals and when i come home i dont want to watch disabled people</blockquote>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 13.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(I hope that bugger doesn't work at the hospital I attend every few months. Or . . .Rocket Squirrel will be in with the the flamethrower and set fire to his bloody Daily Mail..)</span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 13.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear . . .</span></div>
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 19.0px;">
<br /></div>
Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15214396297361289441noreply@blogger.com0