My parents just paid us a visit. It was good to see them, catch up with family news and so on. As usual I came in for a bit of a nag for not writing anything more indepth such as magazine articles, but I suppose it’s true that I could write things with a bit more substance to them. Blog entries are all very well and good, but you can only go so far with this form of short prose.

However, Mum and Dad also told me something that made me raise an editorial eyebrow. As you may know, The Reith Lectures are this year being given by Stephen Hawking. When in London my parents stay at my grandmothers’; my uncle is also there at the moment. This morning, when he heard Hawking on the radio, he apparently called my mum ”Come quick! Matt’s on the radio!” It was, of course, an innocent enough prank, but I must say it gets my goat that people still liken me to Hawking just because I use a communication aid. Joke or not, it belies a serious problem. Other than the fact we both use VOCAs, I have very little in common with Hawking: I’m a writer, blogger and film maker, not a physicist, so why would people think it’s acceptable to liken me to him just because I supposedly sound like him? I’m not trying to get at my uncle, but the supposition which underpins his joke worries me. It is essentially grouping a set of people together because they share a common trait, and history teaches us that that can be a big mistake.