Results tagged “BBC” from Looking Up

Thank you for all the positive feedback after the Times article. I'm really pleased with the way it came out. Thankfully no-one seemed to notice the huge piles of chaos over our shoulders in the picture. This is because:
a) We have a small child.
b) We hoard stuff.
c) We work from home (sort of).
d) Instead of throwing stuff away, we keep going to Ikea and buying even more boxes and other 'storage solutions' in the naive hope that this is all we need to to transform our flat into some kind of minimalist living space worthy of any Sunday supplement.

My latest piece for the BBC is now up on the OUCH website.
Those of you who have shared my football exploits as a spectator will no doubt be familiar with some of the challenges I have faced.

Those of you who once shared my football exploits as a player will no doubt be familiar with some of the challenges my opponents have faced.

To all of you I offer my sincerest apologies for any boredom or pain caused.

It might be timely to toss this image into the mix.



The team is Perfidious Albion, named after Napoleon's scathing "Perfide Albion," his description of the untrustworthy British.

 It's the only picture that I'm aware of showing me in my footballing prime, all stubbly chin and bouffant (Back row, second from left). Hard but fair was my motto. In other words, a glancing contact on the ball before you kick the opponent up in the air. Not with any malice aforethought, but through a subtle combination of a lack of pace and poor timing. 'Tis all the more ironic that I spend so much time bleating about attractive football and Corinthian spirit.

I'm sure you'll forgive me, but my special powers don't extend to telepathy. With this in mind, I thought I should direct you to my latest column on OUCH!

If, on the other hand, you have arrived here from the link on OUCH, then please don't think this is some kind of hilarious circular link jest. Please feel free to browse the rest of the witty, insightful inane drivel that makes up my blog.

It's now up on Ouch, the BBC disability website. It still feels strange for me to be writing for a disability website, because I still find it strange to call myself disabled. As if I'm some kind of outsider, the new kid in school.

I know, silly really. I mean, surely the wheelchair stands as pretty incontrovertible evidence. But here's the thing: I am a complete novice at interacting with the world in such a different way. I still look at shelves and light switches, stairs and ladders, and I instinctively reach for, climb up, generally react in the way I used to before my accident.

That's not to say that I spend my time flopping hopelessly on the floor as I try to put one foot in front of the other, but more that I do these things in my head. I see things as easy to get to when they are nigh on impossible without assistance. And that's just in our home. It's even worse in the big bad world.

But on some level, I like it that way. My miscalculations and misguided optimism at overcoming obstacles links me to my old life, the way I was. The way I still am in my head.  Denial? Perhaps... but I'd never admit it. (Geddit?)

That's why I like pictures like the one below. Sure, there's a wheelchair in it, but me? I'm just sitting on the grass...

C'est Finis! And there ends my French. Yes, we are back from our camping adventure, having covered over 1600 miles, camped in four different campsites, eaten 35 baguettes, fourteen kilos of cheese, drunk eight gallons of wine, and never once complained about the heat.

We have left the beautiful, rugged and sun soaked scenery of Provence behind us and returned to the 'atmospheric', grubby and rain-soaked scenery of Hackney. Of course we managed to return relatively empty handed because of the charming French refusal to adopt anything other than pedantic opening hours. Even the hypermarches of Calais were closed when as we headed for the Europipe on Sunday night.

But what a holiday we had... As my resignation to being unable to speak the language grows, so I become ever more comfortable with the Gallic shrug, and somehow we muddle cheerfully through.

The thing that I find most impressive is the French sense of terroir and regional identity. As you drive across France, you pass through region after region, each with it's own speciality food. Even motorway service stations have 'Degustation' stalls erected out front selling local peaches or melons or asparagus or whatever. I struggle to imagine a stall outside 'Welcome Break' at Watford Gap selling watercress.

Camping was, well, camping. The usual challenges were augmented by some new ones provided by wheelchair use and toddler wrangling. The tent is big enough to wheel straight into, so the main issue was making sure that we were close enough to the toilet block but not so close that we felt like we were sleeping IN the toilet block.

The nipper offered an altogether more complex issue to solve. In order to make camping in campsites work as adults, we all buy in to the same lie. We pretend that a wafer thin wall of nylon fabric is actually the same as bricks and mortar. We are not actually sleeping twenty feet away from a bunch of complete strangers who insist on continuing inane conversations or strumming Kum By Ah on an out of tune guitar into the wee hours.

Unfortunately, toddlers do not subscribe to this mass delusion, and so having been put to bed in the tent, R could hear her parents whispering behind a piece of fabric not a meter a way, and crept out of the tent to join in the fun. The end result was that we all ended up going to bed at the same time.

I will spare you my observations and generalisations about driving in France, except to say that there must be more Dutch folk travelling Europe in caravans than there are Dutch folk living in Hollland. And the Belgians? Adam, I now understand your comments about driving in Brussels...

So, as the memories and the tan fades, I am already back in the yoke with my latest column on OUCH. Hopefully it will provoke a bit of thought. On professional matters, a good friend of ours spotted my book in a bookshop in Heathrow airport. Next to a biography of Tupac, naturally.

No, not really, just a cold, but as a man I am suffering way more than anyone else who's ever had a cold ever in the world. Ever.

So, I'm back down to earth with a bump. After the dizzying heights of tennis success, it's back to domestic routines. Suffice to say, my tennis has also taken a severe downturn. On a positive note, my friend Adam pointed out that I must have got my training spot on to peak at the right time.

I went to be background scenery at the presentation of official paralympic training venue status to Brunel university last week, and it's just as well I did. Were it not for myself and three other wheelchair tennis players, there would have been no sporting activity of any kind for the cameras. As it was, we were reduced to hitting foam balls over a lowered badminton net, in order to provide something sporty for them to film.Hurrah for 2012!

My latest Ouch column just went up today (ouch!). Inevitably, it is on the subject (ouch!) of pain (ouch!). It had to come up sooner or later, so I thought I'd just get it over with. Still no developments in terms of finding any improvement, although I'm sure that being active helps to keep it at a more manageable level.

 It seems like one distraction after another so far this month, as P had jury service for two weeks to start. Many people have asked if she couldn't have got out of it, but from my own point of view, were I ever in front of a jury, I would hope that it was comprised of people who would be as considered and fair-minded as she. It's a funny thing jury service. We, most of us, see trial by jury as a vital part of our legal system and a benchmark of justice. But when it comes to being selected to take our place, we consider it an unpleasant chore and try to duck it. Which leaves who exactly?  people who are not canny enough to dodge it, or have nothing better to do?

This said, P did point out that they could make the whole experience less painful. Simply improving the area where jurors are required to spend many long hours waiting to be called would be a start. Maybe a juice bar?  Or some books and magazines? And perhaps old reruns of Crown Court showing on big screens to get people in the mood.  Apparently the jury box wasn't wheelchair accessible either...

Now my focus is on planning our possibly foolhardy camping trip in France later in the summer.  But then, if we're going to holiday with a wheelchair user and a toddler, it seems only natural to want to include a language barrier in the equation. Still, it will be a huge box to tick, and testament to the little ways in which my experiences on the BackUp multi-activity course have helped me to view things like camping with less anxiety.

Finally, I thought I'd best slip in a mention of the football, especially after tonight's demolition of the Italians by Holland. Did I mention my grandmother was Dutch? Now would be a very good time to read David Winner's most excellent book on Dutch football, called Brilliant Orange...

Ah well. Back to the tissues and throat pastilles. Nurse! Nurse! I'm fading fast! etc.

Well, folks. It's up. My first contribution as a columnist on Ouch! the BBC disability website. I hope that I'm not attacked by a gang of irate medal contenders who feel that my attitude is, well, that of someone who knows that they are destined to always be mediocre in any sport undertaken. With this in mind, I feel obliged to offer a clarification, especially as I will no doubt fall under a hail of disabled rock climbers abseiling down on my ass.

Not only do I have no problem with people who achieve such a high level of expertise in their chosen field, but I too find them inspiring. My point is merely, some might say trivially, that we can't all be the best. It's just not possible. A pyramid, by definition has a pointy top, and that's where the best Paralympic athletes reside. They have to be the best, as anyone who's attempted to push a wheelchair up a pyramid will tell you.

Just as you don't have a 100 meters for people who are a bit crap at running, there has to be canon fodder in every sport.  But there are occasions where, unbeknown to the elite, the canon fodder get together and enjoy pretending that they're actually pretty good. And if they hadn't had that knee injury or tennis elbow or gone to college or work or prison, they could have made it into serious competition.

It is this level of sporting competition that I miss. But hopefully tennis will provide me with that thrill. The local park, way too much kit and the complete deterioration in the standard of play as soon as anyone's watching. Ah, you should have seen my last shot...