this video appalls me. you can call me callous for taking that stance, but as a person who saw 13 years at a special school, who can see in this video the almost subhuman way they treat the pupils and the dogmatism of the parens, I find this video pretty revolting.

I think my recent blogs have done me good. In forcing me to question the precise nature of disability and the paradoxes inherent to it, I’m thinking more critically towards film, and have been producing some good stuff. Mind you, Alan hasn’t passed comment on my most recent submission, so, like my blog, I could just be going round in circles. Oh well, articulation is articulation. How Lacanian.

I was down in London this weekend, doing a lot of thinking. I’m not satisfied, fully, with my theories of disability. Everyone is equally different, and therefore everyone has equal claim tot be termed normal, yes, but this has ramifications for multiculturalism. Sometimes, we need ‘difference’. Its cool – yesterday in the park people with families from all over the world were walking; I love the mix of cultures, but this could be seen to contradict some of my attitudes to disability. Should I ask everyone to assimilate; do my fears concerning the disability sphere ghettoising it’s us and them mentality and therefore ghettoising themselves not also apply to any other subculture? If so, should I not attack multiculturalism rather than praising it?

Of course not. Let me put it this way: I love mixture. I love the mix of cultures we have in Britain. I love having Greek Turkish or Indian shops around the corner. To me, the danger lies in a failure to mix. If we look inwardly too much, fettishiising our disability, focussing only on disability politics and how ‘we are hated’ that the danger lies. If members of any other subculture – say, the Greeks – chose only to interact with their selves, rarely spoke to non-Greeks and found it vitally important to ram the fact that they were Greek down everyone’s throat, then they would effectively ghettoise themselves. By no means should he stop worshipping in Greek churches or drinking ouzo, just as we need to continue to use the gadgets of disability. On the other hand, a lightwriter is a communication aid, not a mark of culture; it is my voice, and I cannot leave it behind. If I, say, went from England to US, I’d theoretically swap cricket for baseball, as culture is somewhat fluid; disability is more fixed. The alllusion to culture onlyy holds so far, but it nevertheless holds. I guess a balance needs too be struck. It is only when it goes too far, and you refuse to change or mix that it becomes dangerous. Until then, vive l’difference.

Lee dropped by today. Like my father he has a habit of appearing, without warning, at my window; yet , like my father, its always good to see him. We went out to the cinema – I was very eager to do so, as I wanted to test a few theories I have, and its always good to get off campus. So down to festival park we drove, in lee’s nice new fiat. The film we chose was ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’.

Interestingly, I doubt we could have chosen a better example of how memetics can be applied to film. It is as if the producers took 5 or 6 other scripts, cut them into chunks and mixed them together, and then piled a shitload of christen imagery on. It is about a book, which describes these magical creatures in our world. Some are good, some are evil. The evil ones need this book because it would allow them to rule (can we say ‘ring’). To win the day, these three kids must get the author of this book to return from this magical glade where he was prisoner. There was a griffin stolen directly from both potter and narnia. Almost every shot was borrowed from somewhere else. Even the name of the central baddie, Mulgarath, is strikingly similar to morgoth. So only by protecting the book can the kids defend themselves in an obvious reference to the bible. When he returns from the glade, spiderwick hasn’t aged, saves the day and is last seen ascending to the sky. I mean, this is a blatant piece of Christian imagery: comes again as if from the death, uses his all-powerful book to defeat the baddie, and then goes up to the sky. It would be fascinating to deconstruct if it wasn’t so awful.

I was thinking today about why I call myself a cripple while maintaining that I am just as normal as anyone, and came up with a theory which might resolve the contradiction. Historically, cripple was both a medical term and term of abuse. It denoted other-ness. But in using such words o refer to their selves, the connotations of otherness are removed from the word. It becomes just a word by which I describe myself, like ale-drinker, transvestite or trekkie. This makes being ‘a cripple’ as normal as being an ale-drinker – cp is just an attribute of myself, like brown hair. Inasmuch as if I have the correct equipment I can do anything I want, I am just the same as anyone. This is why I object so strongly to people calling non-disabled people ‘normals’; its as silly as people with red hair calling brown-haired people ‘normals’. Yes, we cripples sometimes have to club together to get stuff done, but I refuse to see myself as different to the rest of society. I am normal – ale-drinker, transvestite, cripple, and the rest.

Nothing much is happening this end. Something mind-numbingly stupid is happening online, but I better not talk about that, even though I’m very angry about it. I was over at my supervisor’s apartment in Crewe yesterday; Alan’s place is so cool, chock full of books, decorated in strong, vibrant, north African colours. He had invited me over after our weekly meeting, and we were talking films and sipping espresso. Alan says my thesis is going well, but I just need to be more academic and back up my ideas. He seems excited, as I am.

He told me a story I think is worthy of recording. Some years ago, Alan was burgled, and books were taken while he was living in Birmingham. Many years later 30, I think he said – Alan was in a book store on the walls in Chester. He found a copy of one of his stolen books, and looking inside found his name. what are the chances?

This subject really has got to me, and I’m furious. Some of my disabled colleagues have misread what I wrote on Saturday, and taken it wholly out of context: I want 1voice to stay true to it’s original intention, but they do not. There is nothing in it’s manifesto concerning campaigning outside of fund raising etc, or indoctrination, just empowerment. It’s about showing kids what they can achieve, that they can hold their heads up, and be proud – nothing more. For thee record, I do not hate my fellow role models. My words have, I fear, been misunderstood, deliberately taken out of the context in which they were intended, and now because of the blatant stupidity of certain people (who have little to do with Onevoice anyway*) something I care deeply for is being taken away from me.

I’m pissed off.

*not a fellow rolemodel

The more astute of you have probably spotted a small hypocrisy on my part. While I have attacked what I see as the increasingly insular behaviour of the disabled community on account that it might be shooting itself in the foot, I still partake in my own freakism by referring myself as a cripple. By using this word, I automatically allude to an idea of normal which I exist outside of. Yet in recent blogs I have shown how I believe that there is no ‘normal’, and therefore I am ‘normal’. Why, then, do I still to myself as a cripple? This occurred to me as I signed myself ‘the cripple’ in a message to a friend last night.

I like doing so. I guess I like the feeling that I am slightly different to the rest of society – a freak, as it were. I want to celebrate the power of using a word reclaimed from a term of abuse. Yet society has no normal, thus I am not a freak. How do I square the two. It goes back to what I wrote here: ” I am supposed to expect people to accept my needs and differences, but shouldn’t have to explain what those differences are to people; I shouldn’t be expected to have to conform to an essentially arbitrary status quo, yet I hate people staring at me for being ‘different’. Nor should I have to explain my views on the politics of the status quo to people. I belong to a community, a subculture, yet I am no different than anyone else.” I am simultaneously a freak and normal, and I like being both equally. Inasmuch as I am as free as anyone else, liberated under the social model, I am ‘not disabled’, yet without cerebral palsy I would not be me. The truth is, I cant get my head round it.

I have just been thinking. There is a difference between politicisation and empowerment. I am against the former, but for the latter. The disabled community has become too politicised, I think; that is to say that it has become too dogmatic – increasingly we are adopting a politics of ‘us and them’ and talking about the need to fight. There are those who use the term ‘normals’ to refer to people who aren’t classed as having a disability. To me,, this is childish. For heaven’s sake, there’s no such thing as a standard human, so I have just as much right to call myself normal as anyone. This ‘radicalism’ which seems to have infested itself in certain people will do us no good in the long term. We need to include people, to show them how our bodies move, but other than that we are just as normal as they are. We need to celebrate our normality, not push people away by shouting political slogans. It’s a case of tortoise and the hare.

Of course, we must first be able to compete. Disabled kids should not be told how different they are by being pushed into special schools. They need to feel just as able as anyone else. That’s what Onevoice does; it enables kids to become empowered by interacting with adults with the same disability, thereby showing that they too are ‘normal’. I fear that some people in the disabled ‘sphere’ would have Onevoice act as an overt tool for the politicisation of the young people involved; it isn’t.

those young people don’t need telling what to think, that they are hated by certain members of society; or that they need to fight. I doubt that this was Tamsin or Katie’s intention. They need to be inspired and empowered, not politicised. I would strongly oppose anyone who tried to turn Onevoice into such an organ.

Doubtless disabled people face certain challenges. To overcome them, we need to hold our heads up high, be proud of ourselves, sure of our abilities. We do not need to ostracise people with combative politics which underlines our differences, not our similarities.

The quickie groove I was test driving went back today. It was ok, I suppose. Apparently, the battery problem was just that particular model, but that didn’t solve the problem of the charging port being hard to get at. I need a think. On the other hand, I might just make myself one of these.

I now see why those lads drove F55s. for the last 29 hours or so, I’ve been driving about in a quickie groove, a possible replacement for defiant if and when she finally says ‘oh fuck it’. Very kindly, the guys in the shop brought it over for me to test drive. Thing is, I’m not sure I like it.

It looks good, yes, and it has a seat raising system, and it must be said it is more manoeuvrable than the f55 as its driven by the central rather than the back wheels, but it’s range is much smaller. I had barely driven it today, and was making my way towards the Plough after dinner this afternoon when the power-meter struck red! I mean, that’s rather pitiful. I had to turn back and swap chairs. Mind you, it’s also harder to tell whether you’ve plugged it in to charge properly, which could be the problem. On top of this, it feels slower, although I might test this tomorrow with a drag race. In short, I’m not sure I like it.

I could just be used to defiant. It’s heavier, feels more stable, and although I can’t raise the seat, feels more adult. I guess the biggest drawback to the groove is the range, I could live with the slower pace, but I relish my jaunts off campus and the freedom the range of the f55 gives me. Problem is, apparently they no longer make F55s.

This year my neighbour is a mature student, called Robert. I’m not sure how old he is – about sixty, I guess, but the thing is, he loves to party. He says he loves university, which has probably invigorated him as much at it has me. We have become firm friends, and last night, for the first time, he took me out.

We went into Manchester. Its ironic that after four years of being a Manchester student, I’d never been out in Manchester. We went to a karaoke night in a student bar: rob seems to love singing and describes the buzz he gets from it with great passion. Rob drove us up, and we sat near the stage, watching the acts. I had watched rob sing a couple of times when I decided, for better or worse, that I wanted a go. I asked Robert to put me down to sing Greenday’s basket case.

While I had to wait a while to sing, and at one stage I thought I’d missed my turn while in the loo, I did it. Rob was right; you do get a buzz. How much the audience understood I don’t know, but I found the whole thing highly amusing. Rob was there, behind me, singing along even though he didn’t know the song, and together we thrashed out one off my all time favourites. To a certain extent I was playing to the audience – everyone knows basket case, so the fact that I couldn’t sing didn’t matter. The audience enjoyed it, I think, for what it was: a celebration of diversity, freedom, and punk rock.

Rob rules. I’m going to buy him dookie.

I was in the wes this morning watching the news over breakfast. You know, I have relied on that TV for my daily dose of info for four years – I’ll miss it. It’s a small TV, mounted high in the corner with my neater eater in front of it. This morning, on the local news section, there was a report on this kid with m.d. in his twenties; final phase. You can always tell. He was campaigning for a particular type of therapy to be allowed. Not for him, but for others. And I thought ‘shit’.

Its not fair.

I was recently looking back over previous entries, and I realised that I’ve only missed posting on three or four days since Christmas. While I’m proud of this, it also occurs to me that most of the time I blog for thee sake of blogging, without having anything truly interesting to say. I’m aiming for quantity rather than quantity. I think it’s time for a shift in focus: no more waffling for the sake of it. I’ll still post every two or three days, but I’ll try to say something relevant more. Do you guys concur?

Have you ever noticed that Americans can’t make electric wheelchairs? All the cool chairs are from the u.k or Europe. They can put a guy on the moon (or so they claim) but they cant make a stylish mobility aid. Mind you, I just came across this video for Hoveround electric wheelchairs, which may explain a lot – satanic cripples aren’t too worried about style.

I was discussing wheelchair design with my old friend lee Mayer today; we decided that they just aren’t rugged enough. The people who design electric wheelchairs don’t realise that we crips can be as reckless as any other person our age; according to Mayer, an f55 can carry 6 people, not that I’ve tested this. yet the question is, don’t we have a right to be foolish? If so, why don’t they make chairs stronger? Part of freedom must be the freedom to be a damned fool.

It would seem that I have something pertinent to blog about, at last. Mind you, I hope I get the details right – I have a nasty knack of misunderstanding things related to practical issues like Banks.

It started early on Sunday afternoon. My mother helps me deal with the administering of my accounts, and we suddenly couldn’t access my account because we hadn’t got a pin number to use with a new card reader security machine to use with online banking. I don’t have a PIN number because it would be a security issue for me. I use a chip and sign card, as there is no way in hell of me entering a number accurately into a card reader. We therefore couldn’t access my accounts to pay my PAs.

We rang the building society. It must be said that they have been very cooperative, within their own constraints. First we spoke to a dude who sounded like he was 16, then his line manager. She, however, needed to speak directly to me, but couldn’t understand me on the phone. Using Colin would have defeated the object; anyone can use a lightwriter. Therefore there was no way of verifying I was me. She suggested the organisation’s Disability Communications Manager, with whom I have been communicating frantically for the past three days.

There has been much confusion. It seems I should never have been sent a card reader in the first place; at one stage me and dad were going to have to go to town to talk directly to the bank; at one stage I was offered an accessible card reader. At one stage the idea of giving my parents power of attorney was broached: while I appreciate my mum helping me keep my accounts and making sure my staff are paid, I refuse to relinquish full power over my affairs. Frankly, I preferred the original set up – it was safe enough, with no need for fiddly little devices I had no chance of using,

I explained fully my situation, and, with dad’s help the situation appears to have been sorted. I’m being sent a new chip and signature card, and there’s no need for that trip into town. I just wish people would talk to one another; had one department of the bank spoken to the other, they would probably have realised that there was a reason I didn’t use pin numbers, or at least didn’t have one. This is the type of problem disability legislation should be sorting out.

You know, the person I feel sorry for the most is dad. He must have spent hours trying to sort this out – time he needed to spend elsewhere. Moreover, my PAs will now get paid late; to them I apologise. These people in banks should think more!

Thirty years ago today my parents got married. These days, that fact alone is something remarkable; but to me what they have achieved in those thirty years is even more impressive. All three of their sons have or are working towards advanced degrees; they are both in managerial positions; they have a large, homely house; the list goes on. But what makes them more remarkable is their kindness and patience. They gave me a very good start in life, pushing me when needed, fostering my abilities. I admit I haven’t always been very co-operative, but the fact is I wouldn’t have got to where I am today without them: without t and c in bed on a Saturday morning, without bedtime stories, without science experiments.

My parents are, and always will be, my heroes. Happy anniversary guys.

I’m back at university. If I had started this blog entry a couple of hours ago it would have been rather miserable. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been on something of a downer all day. I love my parents dearly, and we’ve been rowing; it always disturbs me. I hate it. Yet the sun is now shining, and I know that the only thing more constant than the earth’s rotation round it’s nearest star is my parents love for me. How else could they put up with all the crap I put them through. They worry – not without basis – about my future, and they are concerned that I am lazy. But they forget that us crips can be a stubborn lot, and I can be quite the ass when I want to. I will succeed, and I feel guilty about making them worry. As the sun lights my rooom, though, and as the evenings draw out, I think about all the other summer evenings that I’ve sat here, and the sucesses of those days, and I think to mbyself that everything is possible.

Looking back over it, yesterday’s entry was a bit harsh, but the lad irritated me and I’m a bit bored of writing soliloquies on the philosophy of disability as I see it. Even so, yesterday’s entry was lazy blogging. The fact is, not much is happening away from the computer these days. I’m just chilling at home, working on my thesis, becoming increasingly addicted to msn messager and facebook. Its rather dull, but at least I have the antics of heather mills to amuse me. Who does she think she is? I admit I know nothing about her or the case, save that she keeps saying inanities, like she’s responsible for rekindling Paul McCartney’s career. I don’t remember it dying down; the guys a god! she’s a blatant egomaniac who would annoy me if she wasn’t so good to point and laugh at.

Anyway, back to uni Monday, and I need to pack. [looks around room] umm…yes. Wonder if mum’s busy. If she doesn’t help, I’ll just claim I rekindled her career and make some stupid statements about her holding my career back. It worked for stumpy.

Some people just shouldn’t vlog. In blogging, people can read at their own pace, so assuming the contents interesting (and I hope my recent blogs have been of interest – please tell me if they haven’t) people won’t get bored. Hence everyone can blog. But some people just have voices that drone on and on without saying much, like this dude, for instance. It’s just so boring, and I don’t think he can blame his cp. Nor can he blame his c.p on not having a girlfriend – what gets on my nerves about this video most is the guy’s pessimism. Anyway, who placed him in charge of who us crips can date? Oh the whole things just annoying.

The realisation that life as a disabled man is founded essentially on a set of contradictions is very satisfactory indeed. To be sure, it was only in part a realisation; it was also, in part, an admission. I have always hated contradictions and paradoxes: they don’t sit easily in my head, seemingly defying the natural order of things. That is why I like the theory of evolution so much: if someone asks ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ I can reply ‘an egg laid by a bird similar but not identical to a chicken’. Simple. Yet in the world of disability I must embrace the paradoxes and the contradictions.

For example, I am special and normal. To brand myself as either is harmful. If I try to be normal, I’d endeavour to walk straight and talk more clearly, forcing myself to conform to an arbitrary idea of normal. It would also mean severing myself from disability culture, which I’m proud to be a part of. On the other hand, if I’m special why do I fight to be part of mainstream society, or take offence when people stare? Should I not accept my status as a freak and stop complaining? I intend to do neither, but relish in the paradox.

Another example is that of the disabled community. Similarly it sets itself apart from others by manifesting itself as an ethereal ghetto, while at the same time we demand to be included within society. We need it for unity, but wouldn’t it also segregate ourselves. On Monday I tried to frame this subculture of ours as a belief, thereby satisfying both needs. I still think the disabled community has what boils down to a belief system at its basis. In part this belief is, for want of a better word, a sense of pride in who we are and what ‘we’ achieved’; yet it is also a sense of common injustice and grievance. It is this that I have a problem with: there is no denying that the history of disability is a catalogue of atrocities, yet I had a happy upbringing in northern England, for the most part. I have all I need in order to live a happy, full life. I don’t believe I should feel the sense of injustice that is partly the basis of the disabled community.

Okay, that’s not exactly true. There is Hebden. Some would say I should forgive and forget; that I should let it pass, now I’m at university etc. but no, I cannot. I cannot forget those boys. It is only at special school that the things I saw went on. Segregation must stop – it can be stopped. ”That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.”

We thus have yet another contradiction: part of me says I ought to forgive, and in so doing sever myself. Yet none of us in the disabled community can forgive or forget, lest the atrocities of the past happen again. Whether it is founded on hope or hate, the disabled community exists and should continue to do so, for only together can we change things for future generations. At it’s centre are contradictions, but I no longer see that as a problem, they are simply unavoidable.

You know, it all boils down to a set of contradictions: as a disabled man, I am expected to value my difference to ‘the norm’ but also reject the very idea of normal; I am supposed to expect people to accept my needs and differences, but shouldn’t have to explain what those differences are to people; I shouldn’t be expected to have to conform to an essentially arbitrary status quo, yet I hate people staring at me for being ‘different’. Nor should I have to explain my views on the politics of the status quo to people. I belong to a community, a subculture, yet I am no different than anyone else. To a certain extent that community is there and not there, its existence as I’ve written before is academically problematic. if it exists does it, if effect, ostracise others with a politics of us and them? we need it for the purposes of solidarity, but in a way do we not segregate ourselves further? wwe work towards inclusion, yet from certain vantagge points it is necessary to ghettoise ourselves.

I hope you all have realised what I’ve been trying to articulate these last few days. To me, these contradictions go to the heart of being a disabled man at the dawn of the twenty-first century. As all positions are equally valid – I am different, yet normal, and value my status as both – I see no way of resolving these paradox.

The whole thing is giving me a head ache.

The more I consider my entry yesterday, the more I like the conclusion I came to. Many of my readers will know how critical I have been in the past of religion, and I still find it illogical. In the past I’ve considered it dangerous – one of the factors which divides humanity. Yet it also has the power to bring people together, to give them hope and strength. This is why I am more comfortable in framing the disabled community with belief rather than politics. Politics can be and usually is founded on antagonism – if you are a conservative you are not a liberal, etc. in framing the disabled community in politics, we make it innately confrontational. Moreover, this cannot account for the social aspects of the disabled community. Belief can. It is belief which unites us: belief in ourselves, and each other. From this we can derive strength to fight the battles which need to be fought, not necessarily through confrontation but explanation. Moreover, this bypasses my reservations over ostracisation; while I still see dan as going to the extreme, I see no problem in wanting to show who you are. As long as we don’t ram disability rights down peoples throats like the proverbial Jehovah witness, our unity will help set us free.

To my mind, this goes some way to resolving my reservations over a cultural model of disability. It is not pride that unites us, but belief in our capabilities and in comradeship. It was not enough for us to, in a way, set ourselves apart from the rest of humanity without an underlying cause. Pride has negative connotations, seemed to divisive and did not stand up to analysis. Everyone is proud of who they are. On the other hand I find the concept of belief very satisfactory: one can believe in yourself and the strength of your community without placing yourself outside of or opposing any other community. It allows one to retain that slight feeling of difference from which everyone in the disabled community draws strength, without implying fundamental opposition or antagonism.