Today I will just whish my good friend lyn a happy birthday. We have been talking online for a while, and have met once or twice. She’s also a fellow lightwriter user. I won’t divulge her age here, as, the truth is, I’ve forgotten it, but I’ll just say that I’m attracted to older women…

It has been quite a day. Crewe has become a microcosm for Britain, and I get to watch events as they happen. This morning, having failed to get to the bank early enough on Saturday, I set off for Crewe to withdraw some money, intending to meet Mayer for coffee and return by one. however, I found the place abuzz with politicians and cameramen. Naturally I was fascinated; it’s amazing to see so much attention on Crewe, so suddenly. I thought it worth hanging around.

In the square the bbc had their outside broadcast team. I watched Jon sopel doing pieces to camera, apparently to go on Newsnight. He had to say the same piece several times.

Of course I was in my flaneur mode. All the major parties were there. I talked a bit to Mr. opik, who is a very nice man. Yet I had one objective in mind…

CaMoron!

I must admit I was about to give up. I had been watching the bbc correspondents do their thing for a while, when I mustered up the courage to go chat with Mr sopel. I said how fascinating it was to see Crewe become a microcosm. He agreed, and we chatted a bit. I eventually said I really wanted to talk to CaMoron.

”Oh, he’s here” he said. ”apparently in asda – wherever that is”

I knew where asda was, and after thanking Mr s I was off like a shot…this was going to rule. Asda was just around the corner, and I saw a crowd in there, and then him. My own white whale.

I pointed at him, shaking with rage and excitement. This, of course, got his attention; he came to me. Shivering, I inputted the following into my lightwriter: ”I must beg you to reconsider your attitude to inclusive education.”

He replied politely that he believes in parental choice, and that inclusion is not suitable for everyone. I disagreed, saying that with the right support everyone could be included, at which he brought up his own son. I said that all children could benefit from inclusion.

The conversation was too short, and I know I should have put more points to him, but I couldn’t hog his attention. He gave me over to one of his minions too quickly, but I didn’t want to appear too pushy.

I told her of my grievances with special school; how I spent 13 years in one. I think she understood, as did CaMoron, but I rather doubt I changed their minds. But at least I lodged my complaint directly, however ineffective it may have been. They both reassured me that they don’t believe in total segregation, just for those who need it – I didn’t get chance to say that wasn’t good enough. Oh well.

Needless to say I’m quite pleased with myself. Okay, I could have said more – I wanted to; I wanted to press home my hatred of segregation – but you can’t have everything. I was, of course, polite at all times At least I got to make the basic pointy

I was out in Crewe yesterday. I got back late so I didn’t have time to blog. Tory campaigners were all over the place – they really think they can win the Crewe and Nantwich bi-election. I went up to them a couple of times and stated my opinion – politely, of course. I was told I was wrong, and that David CaMoron cares for disabled people – he has a disabled son, didn’t I know. Basically, they just spewed platitudinous, substance less crap – rather typically of the Tory party.

In the end, I put it to them that CaMoron threatens everything I hold dear, at which they politely whished me luck and I went back to the more pressing issue of finding dinner.

Michelle f added me as a friend on facebook last night. It was, of course, great to see her – I have barely seen her since school. I went to visit them, once, with bill, when rich was still about.

It has brought back a lot of emotion. Her profile pic is one of her and rich together, a fact which I find…well, I don’t know how I find it. I just find myself wanting to hug Michelle, to tell her how sorry I feel,, to tell her how I feel about Richard’s death – how fucked up it is. But I don’t know how.

I need my friends right now. All of them.

I hereby endorse papa’s pizzeria of Crewe road, alsager for pizzas, burgers and chips. Tasty international cuisine served by friendly staff.

(well, they still refuse to let me pay, so the least I can do is plug them here.)

I have been worrying about the future quite a bit lately. I’m coming to the end of my education, and it’s time to find something else to do. Yesterday, however, Katie suggested something which sounds about right.

I’ve often thought it would be good to make something like the Onevoice role model group more permanent. While it does great work, it only reaches a handful of people two or three times a year. But Katie suggested forming some kind of organisation or company where we would go into schools and empower kids.

I like empowering people, as long as it doesn’t stray into full-blown politicisation, as in telling kids what to think. It’s so rewarding. Back at school, I had no idea of life’s possibilities – that I could one day go to university, do a master’s, go on crazy trips to Newquay or Paris with friends, etc. Life once scared me, but now it stretches ahead like a vast landscape ready to explore.

I would love to show others this landscape – to enable them to see life’s boundless potential. This is why I’m so excited about this idea. Whether it will pan out remains to be seen, but, for now at least, the possibilities are endless.

Today I finished the first full draft of my thesis. It is extremely rough and still needs a lot of work, but its basically all there, more or less. I know I should be pleased with myself, but I cant shake a general feeling of impending doom. Alan seems to like what I’ve shown him so far, but…

Oh well. At least ii now have this draft on which to build. On a whim I had it spiral-bound; it only cost a quid and will help keep it in order. Small steps, eh?

Today, being the lovely day it has been, I decided that I was not going to stay in alsager. This usually means catching the bus to either Crewe or hanley, and, frankly, neither of them appealed. Thanks to the DSA, more and more of the public transport system is becoming accessible (except in London, where that shithead boris intends to bring back the old route master busses). I decided to test if this was true.

I decided to go to Chester. I’d seen busses with Chester marked as their destination depart from Crewe bus station, and it seemed an appropriate distance for a daytrip, so I got the 20 to Crewe and then the 84 to Chester. The busses were all wonderfully accessible, and, despite having to ride backwards, I enjoyed the journey.

80 minutes later I was in Chester, feeling quite pleased with myself. First I got a map from tourist information (I’d only decided to go to Chester after leaving home) and then decided to head for the Jonses. They’re my friends and I thought I might as well see if they were home. If they weren’t, no harm done.

Charlottes family don’t live too far from the city centre, but I nevertheless needed to ask directions two or three times. Everyone was very helpful. I found Mr. Jones in his garden, reading the paper. Only he and will were in. I’d only expected to stay about ten minutes, the purpose of the experiment being only to see if it was possible to get myself there,, but I stayed about an hour and a half. At one point, Mr. Jones asked if I’d like to stay the night. I was given a ham sandwich and a cup of tea, before Mr. Jones insisted we walked back to the bus stop together. They’re such nice welcoming people: although I didn’t want to intrude, their place was an obvious destination for my adventure.

The journey back went as smoothly as the journey out. I know this isn’t anything special, really. Most folks my age have already been on gap years and the like. But to me, this was an adventure – one more step towards Timbuktu. And besides, it certainly beat staying at home playing on my computer.

tonight was the evening of the summer ball. Surprisingly, I chose not to go this year: it would not have been the same without my old friends from the third year, and I suspect I would have found myself missing them. We always went as a group, and I think me and charlotte were more or less joined at the hip last year. (should see her in the next two weeks,, and Emma not long after. Woohoo!)

I decided to go to the cinema with lee instead. I didn’t want to be on campus this evening. We saw Iron Man, which isn’t a bad flick at all. Pretty standard action thriller, but I enjoyed it, so I have had a good evening anyway. I think I’ve got something out of my system tonight: not parties, nor my eagerness to dress up, but I sort of think I’ve grown up slightly.

Well, its getting late. Good night everyone.

My thesis having reached a semi-finished yet awkward state, I decided yesterday afternoon to go over to the front field to watch some cricket. Every Wednesday in the summer term they hold a match there, and yesterday MMU played Bolton. The sun was shining, the grass green. There is nothing finer.

It was a 90 over match, 45 each way; I hadn’t spent time watching a cricket match since Sydney, so I was eager to take it seriously and follow the game from start to finish. In the event, I did pop home to check emails once or twice, so I missed the odd ball, and at 5 I needed to meet jen for tea, but I didn’t do too badly. Cricket is the type of sport where you can do that, anyway, and I love it for it.

MMU batted first. We got about 270 for 6 off 45 overs. someone whose name escapes me topscored at 97. I always feel sorry in such cases.

Then we semi-skittled them, beating them 105 runs, or thereabouts. For a giant bear, bungle is pretty handy with the ball. For my part, I was just having fun, sitting in the shade of the hedges at the far side of the road. It was my father who instilled in me an intense love of this rather odd game, and yesterday brought back memories of Sydney Melbourne and Old Trafford. At one stage I even fancied I smelled Australia, but that could have simply been the coconut suntan lotion. Watching this sport being played puts me at ease with the world; it brings back happy memories; sitting there, yesterday afternoon, everything seemed right.

I have, in my recent writings here, been trying to work towards a greater understanding of disability and what it means to be disabled – that is to say, to fall under the category of ‘person with a disability’. It seems to me that the area is extremely problematic, fraught with paradoxes and contradictions, which ultimately do not satisfy me. How, for example, can we be a subculture with such a flimsy central focus? We are, to my mind, a loose amalgam of people. I know we can only achieve our goals by sticking together, but wouldn’t this have an automatic ostracisation effect? By establishing an us, don’t we automatically establish a ‘them’, and wouldn’t this contradict our goal of inclusion?

I have tried, in my own way, to scratch away at these problems, trying to uncover what they mean, and my place in the world. To my mind, no idea is sacred – I want to question everything. The day we stop doing so is the day fascism reigns. Thus I will continue to questioning ‘our’ nature. I feel, however, that I must do this from my own standpoint: while it is true that a particular failing of mine is my lack of evidence, I would prefer to work things out based on my own experiences of life and logic. In other areas, I understand the value of the quotation and the footnote (the bread and butter of academic writing), yet with his I need to work it out for myself. The very fact that I have c.p gives me just as much right to talk on the subject as anyone else. Mind you, it wouldn’t hurt to go pester Mary the librarian some more…

During a spate of procrastination yesterday, I came across reference to a book called Gandhi Behind the Mask of Divinity written by US Army Colonel G. B. Singh, which purports to expose Gandhi as a racist. While some have called the book ”deeply disturbing” in its eagerness to sling mud, it reminds us that no idea is above criticism, not even the mahatma, and especially not disability philosophy.

The stuff I’ve recently written here has been causing arguments. frankly I’m brassed off at being told I’m not allowed to question stuff – debate, it would seem, is dead. anyway, to lighten the mood, I’ll send you here. it is, lets say, right up my street

Sometimes, you just have to walk to the sea and make salt. In this simple action, Mohandas Gandhi showed an unjust law for what it was, and in doing so earned the world’s respect. Mind you, according to wikkipedia, the British jailed 60,000 after the mighty pilgrimage, but the fact remains the salt Satyagraha was a vital step along the road to Indian independence.

I’m not against protest. In no way do I think we should accept laws when they are unjust. I just think there are ways and means of protesting, ways and means of achieving true equality. I was just looking at some pictures of a DAN protest, and while what I think they are trying to do is necessary, I worry that all the bells and whistles and fury will ostracise the general public. We need people on our side, not to drive them away with vitriol. Rather than trying to cram our message down their throats, we need to show people what needs to be done. The mahatma could have cried out with great fury that the salt tax was unjust, but he instead walked to the sea and made his own.

Maybe I’m wrong. If dan succeed in their aims, its fine, for broadly speaking, their aims are my aims. But I look at these pictures and see a lot of sound and fury, and worry that it will achieve nothing but the proverbial pat on the head.

I whish to clarify something which may have been ambiguous in yesterday’s entry. I did not mean to imply disabledism doesn’t exist, but that it is fundamentally different to other ‘-isms’. Whereas racism and sexism are both born of blind hatred, what can be called disabledism is born of such things as concern, care, and laced with a dose of fear. They don’t plonk us in special schools because they hate us, they plonk us there for such condescending reasons as ”my son couldn’t cope in mainstream”. Further, disabledism is caused by factors in our environment: the lack of ramps, hearing loops, large-print signs. And while we’re at it would it hurt libraries and internet cafes to have key guard or two lying about?

I guess I was indulging in a little academic pedantry yesterday. Of course disabledism exists but only as a shorthand. For example, I was patted again yesterday, in the canteen on the shoulder: you might term this condescending act disabledism as it is born of prejudice; but you could also call it a misplaced display of friendship and care. My concern with labelling it disabledism is that implies hatred, loathing, something which it manifestly isn’t. I feel the term as a whole carries with it overtones of manifest repression: disabled people are not hated, as black or Jewish people sometimes are. People care for us and worry about us too much; they do not hate us. This is what I meant yesterday when I wrote that disabledism exists only as a shorthand for a set of other factors: its far more complex than simple hatred, and to see it as such is as unhelpful as it is paranoid.

The good news is that this would suggest that disabledism can be overcome. Hatred is blind, but people can learn what sort of behaviours are bad and patronising, and will, in my experience, happily avoid them in the future. The environment can change, and is changing to accommodate us cripples. Architecs do not put stairs and steps in buildings just to repress us – some people seem to think our environment is deliberately repressive, which I find absurd. Things,, I feel, are getting better as people become more aware. I guess in a way disabledism can be seen as a lack of awareness: if so, as I said yesterday, we simply have to teach people.

I know I missed blogging about disabledism day, as set up by the goldfish. I blame my memory. Mind you, I’m unsure disabledism exists as an entity in itself. While disabled people do indeed face certain factors which hold them back compared with others, these are environmental issues which can and will be overcome. More and more these days we see ramps and lifts being put into place; people are becoming more aware of disabled people, our needs, our differences.

Thus disabledism is, at best, a shorthand for a set of other issues. It is not, I’d maintain, of the order of sexism and racism: surely no one thinks they are superior to disabled people, as white people once thought they were innately superior to black people. even if some do, by and large this stops as soon as people get to know folk like me.

There is no denying there’s much work to do. Education is the way forward – we must help people learn to accept us for who we are, and the only way we can do this is, as my grandma would say, to ‘mix’. We must fight segregation in all it’s forms, encourage people to accept us for who we are, and help change the world around us to accommodate us all equally.

Ah I remember now

I was thinking last night about this culture problem. The notion of disability-as-identity still troubles me. I was speaking to a guy recently who seemed to suggest that his cerebral palsy went to the core of his being; that is, he had positioned himself as ‘other’. He spoke of ‘inner self’ etc. I would hope that those of you who have read my recent witterings know how problematic a notion this is to me: I know enough about Abnormal Psychology to realise that ‘normal’ is subjective’. I mean, how do you define normal? Even when we reduce the subject to mathematical averages, any cut off point between normal and abnormal is arbitrary. It follows, then, that everyone is normal.

This has implications for inclusion. If everyone is normal, then we all have an equal right to go to the same schools. By widening the definition of normal, we must also expand the ability of schools to accommodate normal kids.

As I keep saying, segregated education fosters difference. Yet we can also reverse that: you foster difference by segregation. The notion that disabled people should render themselves as ‘other’ in order to ‘develop their culture’ or whatever, should, by rights, logically lead to a pro-segregation stance. It is as if we say ‘we are different, therefore we should be treated differently’. The notion that we are different gives rise to the notion that we should be treated differently. This is exactly what happens in the case of religious schools: they foster culture but also difference, and needless to say I am against those too. Thus I find this disability-as-identity bollox ultimately uninclusive. Hell, look at Palestine, look at northern Ireland.

That’s why I define myself as normal. Okay, I use a lightwriter and wheelchair, but they are just tools, and after all tool use is part of what defines us all as human. The fact that I have cp is no more a part off my identity than the fact that I have brown hair.

I went to a beach volleyball slash barbeque today. Basically uni dumped a shitload of sand on the field and set up a net. It was good fun, and I decided to contribute a cat empire cd for the stereo, as it seemed appropriate. Well, its better than the gangster rap or chart shit they had playing.

It was pretty informal; just some hijinks in the middle of exam season. Interestingly, however, one team – the special Olympics – had a guy in a wheelchair. He’s a sports student, in a manual chair: one of those new lightweight things with thin wheels. This rendered him totally immobile on sand, however. They had to carry him, chair and all, on to and off of the sand pit, and during matches he just stayed still, looking like a lemon.

I really do whish people would think things through sometimes. A nice idea, but fundamentally uninclusive.

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.