Comedy without Cruelty

An excellent blog from outside the disabilisphere about the current fad for comedians such as Frankie Boyle or Jimmy Carr to use 'humour' as a way of excusing disablist abuse.



Bog Off-Exhibit 24, Come 'Home'

I recently went to a tweet up with another Wirral based tweeter. They picked the location, I'd asked to meet somewhere accessible with parking directly outside. On that basis 'Home' at the Woodside Ferry Terminal was chosen. 

The parking was great, the disabled bays were literally directly outside the entrance to the cafe. The only downside was the high cost of parking there, no exemptions for blue badge holders, even those who also have road tax exemption. It must be a known issue as when I was back in the car ready to leave I was accostedapproached by a couple of drunkcharming looking gentlemen asking if they could have my car park ticket. I had to disappoint them by explaining they could, but it had run out some 20 minutes before I'd made it back to my car. 

I'm not sure who owns and maintains this particular Bog Off as it is next to Home cafe but seems to be part of the main Woodside Ferry terminal rather than specific to a business or attraction based within it. It is one of the more unusual examples of a Bog Off I've seen...but then, I don't get out that much!

The Bog Off must have been converted from an existing toilet facility as the wall tiles were old, probably the originals. This actually made a really nice change to the usual 'built to the absolute minimum legal requirements and not even those if we can get away with it' disabled toilets featured in Bog Off. It gives the disabled toilet a different atmosphere...yes, I know...it's a toilet. But bear with me on this, as anyone who's visited the famous, but smelly mens toilets in the Philharmonic Pub can attest, stunning design does really make for a different toilet experience. You'll be glad to hear this Bog Off was nice and clean without a whiff to be sniffed! It's not that the design of this Bog Off was stunning, but it was unusual and the nicer for it. The contrasting tile colours work well but may be problematic for those with visual impairments. Also unusually the lighting in this Bog Off was easy on the eye, unlike the usual overly bright white light which can be dazzling. I'm not sure if this was another reflection of the age of the toilet or particularly good design but the former seems more likely. 


The toilet was much roomier than built to minimum regulations modern disabled toilets, so there was plenty of room for the baby changing facilities in there. The space had been used less well from an accessibility viewpoint, as you can see from the photos it was rather cramped around the toilet and both sanitary disposal and the normal bin were placed in the way of anyone needing to transfer from a wheelchair, also obstructing the rails.


The sink was a small one, placed just about close enough to reach from the toilet...but not for someone my height and size. There is a mirror, but far too high up for a wheelchair user or averagely small adult. It was perfect for tall parents to look at themselves in whilst nappy changing though! 


As is typical the assistance cord was tied up out of the way. Less typically the cord was tied in such a way it could be reached from the floor, but you'd have to be fairly small and bendy to be able to fall anywhere you could reach it in the first place as it's tucked in between the toilet and bin behind the loo brush. 



 

 

Falling off my soap box

As anyone who follows my prolific but nonsensical tweetings already knows....I got my mattress yesterday! It's official, I'm in love with Tempur. BendyCat seemed keen too, she being a tad arthritic of the hip, but then bed is her favourite place anyway. I think she's still there now. 

But, Tempur. Omigod. Tempur. "How shall I compare thee to a summer's day. Thou art more lovely and more temperate"* Did I mention I love Tempur yet? Except for one thing, Tempur, your website is terrible. Get that sorted and a twitter account set up immediately. It's no fun tweeting endlessly about my love for you when you're not there to benefit from it.  I'm boring myself back into bed droning about Tempur so I'll shut up. After this next declaration of love at the least. I tried other memory foams, oh how I tried, Tempur being about a zillion times more expensive than the other memory foam mattresses and toppers available. There's a reason for Tempur's high price, and it's that it doesn't feel like other memory foams. With most memory foam products they mould quite nicely to your body in a soft kind of way, but they aren't particularly supportive. Tempur somehow manages to combine soft moulding with a secret wizardry which means your body is well supported in it's moulded place. Even someone like me who could out sleep wriggle any sleeping toddler. I'd heard that Tempur products can be a bit hot and sweaty, which may be a good state to achieve in bed, but is less desirable when it's your bed doing it to you. Or maybe not, I s'pose it's all a matter of perspective. I wasn't too concerned about the hot, sweaty thing as I tend towards the ice cube end of the female spectrum. Confirmed by last night needing a hot water bottle to add to the warmth of a 15 tog duvet and a purry BendyCat. 


Ok, that's my Tempur love in done. I promise. They make you keep the box for the 2 month trial period but that can be chucked out as there's no way I'm ever letting this mattress out of my grubby paws. GangstaGuy pointed out there is a flaw in that logic as I have puny little sparrow hands** but you take the point. I love my Tempur. And I love you all very, very much for helping me buy it. 

Fortunately Tempur delivered my mattress well before I had to leave to go to Pain Clinic yesterday. The good news is I don't have to go back again. Woohoo! It's sort of implied in the name that it won't be the most cheerful of experiences but I seriously object to the pain of being fleeced of £2 for less than 30 minutes parking. I'd be far happier about it if the money went directly to the service I was going to use rather than being used to send endless stupid letters back and forth or employing more managers and somehow denoting them as front line workers.*** At least the nice clinic clerk went to get the parking thingummyjig from the machine for me as you can't pay either inside the building or at the exit forcing you to walk or wheel. Another stunning example of accessible design in our public sector. You'd think it might've occurred to someone somewhere that people going to a Pain Clinic might not be the sprightliest. But then that would involve actually putting some thought into these things beyond how much money can be made. Did I mention the good news is I don't have to go back again?! 


Dr Pain and I had a nice if slightly depressing chat about financial deficits, how far the new ConDem government will cut back on public services particularly the NHS and welfare and the implications of such cuts for services like the Pain Clinic. Dr Pain is a consultant of the old school, a nice man who is interested and interesting but the whole experience confirmed my feeling of the inadequacy of the current model being used for pain management. The role of medicine is important, a cornerstone of pain control and should be done by a doctor rather than a nurse, just as the exercise role should be undertaken only by qualified physiotherapists. But, they are not the people who should be delivering the management part of pain control. Physiotherapists and doctors are naturally going to think and act in a traditional medical model manner, which is all well and good for medicine but not so much use in helping people find ways to successfully live with their chronic pain conditions. Some Pain Clinics use expert patient schemes and most try to deliver some kind of pain management course but the lack of success of these is because they aren't being delivered by the very people who can understand and teach the necessary pain management skills themselves, people successfully living with chronic and painful conditions. With welfare reform being high on the list of the ConDem government's plans to savecut benefits, money will have to be spent on more innovative ways of helping those with chronic conditions into the workplace, and lack of appropriate pain management is a barrier to work for many. The future of successful pain management lies in Pain Clinics being able to directly employ such patients to deliver services to other patients. 'If life gives you lemons, then make lemonade' is a tough enough lesson to learn from someone in the same boat as yourself, but one guaranteed to patronise and push away if delivered by someone without direct experience of it. 

Whilst I'm on my soap box...the idea to scrap current job broker schemes is an excellent one, but could we do it properly and save some money by actually using the current single provider we already have. Y'know, those JobCentre things? I'm no economist, in fact my grammar school education has rendered me unable to add up further than the number of fingers and toes I possess, but I'm very, very certain that it will cost less and be more effective to put some money into Job Centres and tap into the skill of the advisors who were all doing the job of private job brokers far better until New Labour decided the whole thing should be taken away from the Job Centres and put into private companies. You may have that snippet of widsom for free Iain Duncan Smith, but please, please do me a favour and employ some actual currently unemployed people, particularly crippled and mental claimants to help you reform the system to one which will actually work and protect those in need of protection without driving us all off to Switzerland.


Dr Pain seemed sure that the withdrawal symptoms 'should have stopped' by now. He's a nice man so I didn't tell him that I've tried telling my body what it should and shouldn't be doing before now with very limited success. Ok, outright failure but limited success sounds so much more positive don't you think? What's that you say? Deluded. Yeah, maybe. I kept this stream of consciousness to myself during the appointment all the better to bore you with afterwards. Dr Pain suggested that I remain on a twice daily 10mg dose of Oxycontin as a 'holding dose'. I sort of mumbled non committally and went away fully intending to do no such thing. I haven't spent months going through this Oxycodone fuelled nightmare not to finish what I started. There is also the fact that on nothing more than sheer, gut instinct I feel Oxycontin is contributing to the problems I'm having at the moment. If at some point in the future, perhaps when the weather gets colder, I am unable to control my pain I'm happy to go back onto stronger forms of pain relief but I don't want to do that without being damn sure I haven't got another option. The Jobbing Doctor will perhaps be pleased to hear that I came away from the 'specialist' appointment with an increased confidence in my GP's ability to handle opiate withdrawal in a far superior manner than the Pain Clinic's. Now I need to somehow pass on that confidence to my lovely GP who is understandably inexperienced in the management of a complex Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and for it perhaps less sure of her own ability in this particular situation.

You'll have to excuse me now. I need to go and make love to my mattress. 






* Sorry Will, it's shit I know. I can hear you turning your, and my, future graves from here.
** I know. GangstaGuy is a man who comes up with the most creative of (un)complimentary descriptions.
*** I have no evidence for this, but I'm damn sure NHS trusts are busily involved in such activities already

Ofcom uphold complaint about 'the R word'

Ofcom have upheld complaints made about the use of the word "retard" on Channel 4's Big Brother show last year. The word was used by Vinny Jones to describe presenter Davina McCall* "walking like a retard" 

Thanks are due to disability rights campaigner Nicky Clark in her efforts to see this complaint brought to fruition. Nicky sums it up perfectly;

The next step in bendy world domination

I admit it, I'm an Eastenders girl through and through. Something about the melodramatic drudge of life in a fake East End Square really appeals to me. Possibly because my life always looks good in comparison. Corrie (Coronation Street for the overseas readers) has never been my thing, despite years of efforts by my wildly successful university mooting partner to convert me. I'm not sure what makes him so obsessed with Corrie that he records it to watch on his return from business trips but whatever it is, I'm about to find out.

It was exciting when Eastenders introduced David Proud to play Adam Best, their first full time wheelchair using actor, but nothing could beat the excitement of discovering that Coronation Street are introducing a full time female cast member who uses a wheelchair.....because she has the Hypermobility type Ehlers Danlos Syndrome! The writers have decided the most sensible option is for the character to share Cherylee's real life disability so there will be a full time bendy roaming the streets of Coronation Street.

Cherylee Houston is 35, but like most people with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome looks younger than she is. She will be playing the part of Izzy Armstrong, a love interest for Kirk Sutherland. Cherylee first appeared in Corrie some months back but I'm afraid I was too busy watching Eastenders to notice. Cherylee has the characteristic EDS facial appearance, which of course makes her a bit of a looker too.Cherylee has already appeared in other TV shows such as 'Doctors' and 'I'm with stupid'.

The only downside I can see is having to become addicted to another soap opera!

Copyright of the above image belongs to The Daily Mail
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