I hope I have made it clear on here over the years how much I support the BBC. To me, the beeb is the finest broadcasting organisation in the world: it’s news is less biased than most, it’s documentaries are of a very high standard, it’s drama…well, that can be hit and miss. Over the years it has supplied us with some of the cornerstones of British culture, such as David Attenborough (who, by the way, had another fascinating how on TV last night) and Monty Python. It has also just covered a magnificent home Olympics.

I could cite more examples of the beeb’s greatness, but there is one thing it does which I do not like: Children In Need. We watched ten minutes of it last night, then had to turn the godawful patronising pap off. As Lyn sagely put it: ‘It’s that time of year again where the BBC stereo type disabled people as charity cases.’ She was right: such ‘charity’ does steriotype us; it represses us; makes us dependent on ‘good will’ and thus second class citizens. Little more than beggars on the street.

We crips need help – that is unavoidable. But that help should and must come from the state. We are members of a society of which the state is an extension, and therefore in any truly civilised society our care must be paid for through tax. To me, anyone who denies this and demands the care of disabled people is funded through charity, as I have heard some Americans argue, has no right to call themselves civilised. Charity is just a conscious-salving mechanism for those who hate paying tax, loathe the welfare state and ultimately don’t give a flying fuck about people like me and Lyn, or anyone other than themselves for that matter. A diverse society benefits us all, so it is in everyone’s interest to help those who need it. Feeding us though goodwill renders us untermensch. We would be expected to feel grateful to charities in whose interests it would be to keep us dependant, and to the oh-so good men and women who chose to put a few pennies in a pot, telling themselves they are doing something good on their way home to their large, warm houses.

I would rather die than live like that. That’s why I find it odd that the bbc, a company funded through the license fee for the good of all, and which is usually so enlightened, would stoop to such detritis, using that big yellow bear-whore Pudsey to try to make us forget we are contributing to little more than a form of oppression disguised as kindness.