Results tagged “The Times” from Looking Up

To those who may have access to the UK's print media, a notification:

The Times tomorrow will contain a piece I have written about my day spent with the fantastic HEMS air ambulance team, including a reunion with the good people who scraped me off a garage roof in Muswell Hill five years ago.

To those who are outside the range of The Times in print:

Unfortunately, I will be unable to direct you to a URL of the piece unless you have opted to sign up for the paid online content that is now the only way of accessing The Times online. In case you have not, then just take my word for it...the piece is a fantastic example of really great writing. It has tremendous emotional depth, atmospheric characterisation and side splitting humorous asides. All delivered in my usual modest, self-deprecatory style.

Honest.

A small piece in today's Times in response to the government's plan to produce a guide to fatherhood for dads-to-be.

Do I think it's a good idea in principal? Yes. Will they be accused of 'nanny-state- meddling? Yes.

But here's the thing. It's usually the same people that level accusations of social meddling at government who then shout loudest that something should have been done when there are cases of abuse that have not been prevented by social services, or when pensioners die alone in the cold. Or complain about absent fathers and single mums destroying family values.

I think we have to accept that, in the absence of more traditional mechanisms of social care and education, the government can and should have a role to play. This is not to say that every proposed scheme is well thought out or even necessary.

Society is changing. There are more men in the role of primary carer for children. There always have been some men in that position and it would be good to see them recognised a bit more. The likelihood is that a government information scheme isn't the most enduring way of giving men information about fatherhood.

But it has also been demonstrated that when fathers are informed about breast-feeding (and they have finally stopped their juvenile giggling), their partners are twice as likely to still be breast-feeding their baby at six months.

Dad Info is a scheme that already exists with enthusiastic backing from the Royal College of Midwives. They produce a small information card for dads which are handed out by Midwives. As much as the card has good information on it, it is often just the fact that the midwife is giving the father to be something that makes it significant.

Right, that's enough for now. I'll get back to wheelchair adventures and cute animal pictures soon... 

My latest piece for The Times today.


The article, like the In The picture campaign is not seeking to 'regulate' children's books, but rather to offer the resources to provide some balance. I also acknowledge that the children who carry out such mindless harassment as was seen in the Fiona Pilkington case are not necessarily avid readers of books.

But the point I would make is that while it may not be possible to influence such people directly, children's books can help to shape wider social attitudes by introducing children to disability and the diverse nature of the society around them. If children grow up learning more tolerance, then that can help to define what they as adults will deem acceptable or unacceptable behaviour.

To offer an example: If, instead of the Pilkington family, there had been a soldier back from Afghanistan with a disability caused by a conflict injury, what would the attitude have been from the family that were mainly responsible for the harassment?

Tolerance shouldn't be something that has to be earned, nor should it be something that has to be dictated. Rather, tolerance is a symptom of community cohesion and our sense of responsibility for each other.

As predicted, there was a certain amount of precipitation during our camping adventure. Not enough to cause us to flee to the nearest hotel, but just enough to remind us that we were camping.

The other reminder that we were camping came every night when I attempted to lie on an air mattress. This was a cheap and cheerful model which we were using to make up the full complement for our tent, but could just as easily been employed as a fairground ride.

Getting on the mattress was rather like trying to climb on an irate dolphin in a paddling pool full of lard. But the real fun came when I tried to turn over in the night. Plunging my fists into the mattress in order to shift my weight would result in my backside being thrown up in the air. As soon as this happened, I would lose my balance, causing me to land awkwardly and bounce off sideways. Once I had regained my dignity, the whole process would start  again.

This worked well as a distraction from the pain in my legs which wakes me up most nights, but which was made worse by the cobbled streets of Chartres and the bumpy ground of the campsite.

Otherwise it was the usual litany of excess that France seems to subject me to. Lots of wine, cheese, and meat products topped and tailed with pastries and what must surely be the best bread in the world.

In fact, I didn't even manage to do much in the way of holiday reading, the calorific overload and the prospect of the effort involved in winding up the wind up lamp reducing me to idle thoughts, such as:

Why do so many people now lift the hose up and shake it after filling their car with fuel, when they have just used the trigger on the nozzle to turn the flow on and off?

and:

In dry cleaners, are those machines just behind the counter just pretend to give the whole place a cleaning vibe? There's never anything going around in them, and they look like a pimped up version of the machines in the launderette.

and, of course:

What's that crawling around outside? Should I try and get up to investigate, or will the airbed fire me out of the tent at high velocity, causing me to crush some kind of local endangered species?

So now we're back, and it's time to put the brain back into gear. For those that didn't see it, my weekly column for The Times finished this week with a look back and forwards.

It was great to have the opportunity to reflect on the fantastic stories, comments and support that I have received over the last six months, and I would like to offer my thanks to all of those who got in touch.

So now I'm getting ready to speak at a Symposium on Integration in Sport up in Nottingham tomorrow, of which more in due course...

Today's Times column...

Which of course resulted in the weather becoming decidedly average as soon as I wrote it. I wonder if people in other countries are as superstitious about the weather as we are in Britain.

Actually, thinking about it, maybe we're not superstitious enough. Perhaps we should have devoted more time to developing a special traditional dance to induce sunshine, instead of all our efforts being in praise of pigs' bladders and real ale...

This week's Times column...

Today's Times piece is a timely reference to tennis. For while the echoes of the centre court excitement have barely faded, I am preparing for my appearance on court 1 this evening.

Ok, it's court one of the National Tennis Centre at Roehampton. But I had you wondering, didn't I? And I do have a mean backhand slice, by the way.

There will be wheelchair tennis on the last three days at Wimbledon, but it will be doubles, as grass rather slows the wheelchair down, so the doubles game will offer a better viewing experience. It will feature the top seeds in both the men's and women's game and there is going to be coverage on BBC interactive, so if you can, I would recommend having a look.

I know I probably keep banging on about it, but I do think that wheelchair tennis  has tremendous potential to be more integrated into mainstream sport. There is no reason why the wheelchair draw could not be integrated into the top tournaments. Thanks to the hard work put in by Mark Bullock at the ITF, there is now a wheelchair competition at all the Grand Slam tournamnets, but it would be even better if the matches were played on the same courts during the main competition, the same as doubles, juniors, etc.

Obviously, Wimbledon presents a unique problem, as the grass prevents decent singles competition, and no doubt players would complain if there were tyre prints all over the baseilne, but certainly the hard-court tournaments could be more integrated.

I know, blah, blah, blah, so I'll stop now.

By way of a contrast in the integration game, here's a conversation I had on the forecourt of a supermarket petrol station with the operative who had just filled the tank for me.

He: Did you have an accident, then?
Me: Erm, yeah.
He: Were you rock climbing? Diving? Mountain bike?
Me: No, I fell from a tree.
He: Are you like that for good?
Me: (thinks: no, for evil) Yep, for good.
He: That's really bad, isn't it?
Me: (Thinks: well, d'uh) Yes, but I still wake up every morning.

I'm not sure what that means, or even whether I should be having these coversations on the forecourt of a petrol station with a complete stranger, but I've developed this habit of breaking the awkwardness by saying something nonsensical but with a serious expression and a profound tone of voice.  Things like:

I'm still at the races.
You've got to be in it to win it.
It's not the volts that kill you, it's the amps.
If you keep looking backwards you just bump into stuff all the time.
The game of life has a very large dice.
Life's all about how you land.
If God wanted us to speculate, he'd have to be real.
Or:
Just shut up and fill the tank.

Firstly, a link for those who would like to see this week's Times column.

On Monday I went the fantastic cinema at The Barbican, a venue which has probably the best access and staff a wheelchair user could wish for.

The film in question was Ken Loach's 'Looking for Eric'. A thoroughly entertaining film, or rather, two films. There is a strange drop off in pace in the middle, as if there is confusion as to where to take the story, and then a cracking second half which is virtually a separate film.

Of course, the main attraction is Monsieur Cantona, and here I feel a confession coming on...

As a die-hard Arsenal fan (cut me and I bleed red), I can honestly say that in our rivalry with Manchester United there is only one thing I am jealous of.
No, it's not the silverware, the success in Europe, the obsessive mythologising so popular with football commentators, Wayne Rooney's good looks, and certainly not Alex Ferguson (who comes across as sinister, grumpy and a bit of a bully).

No, they can have all of that. The thing I envy, in case you haven't guessed, is Eric Cantona. And, yes, I said thing, because it isn't the man, it's the icon. Not just the notorious 'audience participation' (come on, we all knew it was wrong, but we all secretly loved it). But also a great player, an ability to score sublime, yet crucial goals, a talent for outwitting the tabloid press, a sense of humour, and now the demonstration that he doesn't take himself too seriously.

For all that, he's pretty useless on the trumpet...

...and Bergkamp was a better player.

Latest Times column.

We all emote at some time in our lives, and I must confess that I shed numerous tears after my accident. Looking back, one thing is clear: The 'near death experience' is not necessarily the life changing epiphany that is often portrayed in the movies.

Rather than inspiring me to shun the mundane, everyday life in pursuit of a more spiritual existence, it made me crave those simple, workaday experiences.

I'm not sure how this relates to the whole crying game, except that maybe there exists in me a pool of sadness left over from my accident and fed by my yearning to walk barefoot in wet grass, etc.

It's just a little embarrassing that this should reveal itself in my reaction to something like Lost And Found (which is a damn fine adaptation of one of our favourite books at bedtime).

Tuesday's Times column was all about choosing a school.
 
We want the best for our daughter,  but sometimes I think that people have to high an expectation of what a school should provide. I take the view that as parents it is our job to supplement the education that she gets at school. If there are things that are important to us, then we need to make sure that those things are a big part of her life.

Things like art, dance, music, etc. come into this category, and in the past. people have taken their children to classes at the weekend to cover such things, but now there seems to be an expectation that such areas are covered by school. Personally, I think religion should come in this category too. It should be 'extra-curricular.'

The other side of R's education comes in the form of weekends like the last one, when we went to the Isle of Man to celebrate my brother's wedding. It was a fantastic event in an enormous tent in a field, and for three days R went feral. Although her city feet didn't cope with thistles very well, she adored running with the pack of kids, including two of her cousins. It all went a bit 'Lord of the Flies' at one stage, with several of the older kids sporting tribal stripes of mud on their faces. At least, I hope it was mud.

The real downside was that every trip across the rutted hard ground of the field resulted in a pain-based payback for me  afterward. Were it not for the extra weight, I am beginning to think that suspension on the wheelchair might be worth considering. All I need is a sponsorship deal to fund it...

Yes, what a busy bee I have been this week, as not only did I have the travel piece on Saturday, but I also have my column today.

And that's NOT all, folks. Yes, I have a bonus feature today, with the publication of my recent interview with Frank Gardner, the BBC Security correspondent.

I would like to offer some clarification to any poor souls who may have stumbled upon my blog as a consequence of reading one or more of these articles. For such a person, this might seem like the most vulgar and confusing circular exercise in self-promotion, and they may be right. But I would like to offer in my defence the fact that a significant proportion of my extended family live overseas, scattered to the four winds, and so I like to use this blog as an opportunity to keep them up to speed with what I've been up to.

In this respect, it could be seen as no more than the equivalent of a web-cam in a radio studio (it's radio. who needs pictures?) or worse perhaps,trained on someone who irons in the nuddy for money. I have heard tell of such things. I am not totally naive. I am anxious, though, as such an undertaking sounds extremely risky. It could lead to a very embarrassing hospital visit.

Firstly, a pointer to my Travel article from Saturday's Times.

Then on to matters of the racket. Or racquet. Or whatever. You know, the bat with strings in.

Anyways. I am doing the equivalent of mumbling on the keyboard for I am plum tuckered out, and all I have to show for my endeavors is one measly 'runners up' trophy from the doubles. I lost in the semi-final of the singles, and the final of the doubles. Both B division, a step up from last year's novice category.

I did manage a fairly spectacular cough and splutter  midway through the first set, but we (Sarah and myself, who won the novice doubles last year, but haven't seen each other since, on account of her being in Scotland and me in London) rallied spectacularly, coming from 5-1 down to lose the second set 7-6 on a tie break.

All of which goes to show, dear reader, that I am now a tennis bore. Hooked on the horror of competition. I have never enjoyed horror movies much, nor roller-coasters, but I imagine there is a similar mental process involved, as I find the time on court in competition, terrifying and generally emotionally unpleasant, but once I come off, I can't wait to get out there again.


Enough of this drivel. I'm away to my bed.

Today's Times column. And I would like to clarify something. While wheelchair trolleys don't have baby seats in them, that is not the only reason why I have never used one.

I don't like wheelchair trolleys, as they are often ill-fitting, and they make the trip through the supermarket feel a bit like driving a milk-float through a...well, a supermarket.

Other news:

I have a cold. Yep, middle of May, and I have a cold. Thanks to our beloved daughter for bringing it home to share with the family. Unfortunately, timing IS everything, and so I am trying to shake it off in time for my attendance at the National Wheelchair Tennis Championships at the weekend.

Yes, it's that time of year again. After some emotional turmoil, I have decided that I can not, in all conscience, defend my Novice Title. It would certainly be a linguistic contradiction if nothing else, and so once again, I step up to the B division, as I did when I so famously CHOKED in Cardiff.

Well not this time. I shall cough and splutter because of my cold, but that only adds to the chair adjustments and new rackets that I have gathered together to ensure that I have a basket full of excuses to draw on when the going gets tough.

The latest Times column.

Ah, coffee. I start the day with coffee (without it, I crash into things, stare blankly into space, put my shoes on the wrong feet, etc.).

But then during the day, I also like to go out for coffee.I mean good coffee. Proper, strong, frothy milk coffee. Not weak, watery drowned in frothy milk coffee as we have been swamped with in this country. How is it that we, who live 800 miles from Italy (surely the undisputed home of good coffee), and yet we have embraced the tall/grande/gigante/biggabucketa  coffee culture born in Seattle, some 4800 miles away. Do we like paying four pounds for a pint of foaming semi-skimmed with a hint of beige?

I am lucky, we in the Stoke Newington area have a few good places for coffee. I am also lucky that coffee can help to focus my mind of the task in hand, and I feely admit to using coffee as a performance enhncing drug when it comes to wriring.

However. There is a downside to my coffee habit. I am now certain that after the coffee wears off, my levels of neruopathic pain increase. Particularly the one that feels like someone is trying to cut my legs off with a blunt saw and a knitting needle, before giving up and just setting fore to them..

Last night, I had to take the big Z option in order to get to sleep. This works, but when I take the larger dose, I fell a bit 'underwater' the following day. It's not a totally unpleasant feeling, but it's not that conducive to writing. And co, there's the temptation to have a cup of coffee. I mean good coffee. Proper, strong, frothy milk coffee, etc.

The latest installment of my Times column.

On from the challenges associated with keeping up with a child on wheels, I find myself wondering if I should try my tennis chair for this purpose. I can certainly push much faster in it than I can in my everyday wheelchair. This is partly due to the 26 inch wheels instead of the everyday 24".

The only problem is that any kind of change in pavement level would leave me stranded, as the tennis wheelchair is designed for use on tennis courts, which aren't supposed to contain steps or drop-kerbs.

The other option I briefly toyed with was to put her on wheels but with some kind of harness and lead so that she would stay a fixed distance away but no further.  Two obvious problems spring immediately to mind.
Firstly, that she might end up dragging me around and develop a power lifter's build at the age of four.
Secondly, people might misunderstand the set-up and assume that I am exploiting my child as a mobility device akin to a team of huskies.

 There would also be inevitable compromises in her ability to balance, so Instead I have decided to try and refine and improve my 'this time I really mean it' voice in the hope that she might actually pay attention to me, instead of assuming that everything is a game.

Today's Times column.
I suppose I could have called myself a 'stay-at-home-dad', but the reality is that I am a 'stay-at-home-paraplegic', rather than being in-house for purely parenting reasons.

That said, I often consider myself fortunate (yeah, I know. So fortunate, I fell from a tree and broke my back, but let me finish) that I have been able to spend so much time with R over the last three and a half years.

It would be good to see a few more men taking the kids out during the week, but I don't say this because I feel like I need allies at places like the fabulous Museum of Childhood. I am perfectly happy to be one of the only dads in a crowd of parents. After all I am usually the only wheelchair user. No, the reason I would like to see more dad's is because I think it would be good for all concerned. Spending a few hours showing your child something new is always rewarding. Especially when it's combined with the opportunity to reminisce over toys of your own youth.

Ah, remember CROSSFIRE? Back in the days when men with generous sideburns played boardgames...

So, today's Times column. A little clarification, perhaps. In my defence, I would like to point the jury to a previous blog entry. You see? I can get dance. It's just about how I feel when it comes to moving and shaking, and one day I'm sure that I'll feel more relaxed about it.

But, by way of contrast, last Saturday night I had some completely munted loon cavorting around me and trying to get me to join in. While simultaneously peppering me with personal and at times just plain weird questions.

 There is a sort of tyranny in the 'won't take no for an answer' dancer. I'm not sure why they feel that other people are incapable of enjoying music without squirming and punching the air. Or is it a way of transferring their self consciousness onto someone else? 'If he doesn't want to dance then he's going to be even more uncomfortable than me' sort of thing. Suffice to say I didn't join in.

Where I do take comfort is in the knowledge that every child reaches a time in their life when they find their parents' dancing profoundly embarrassing.
...as I hope Saturday's star may have felt the same of her own performance.

An interesting weekend, which began with my first 'live dance' experience. I've never fully got to grips with dance as an artistic medium. I suppose my perceptions were all based on a traditional ballet style of dance, the most obvious recent example being Rosalie's love of The tales of Beatrix Potter as performed by The Royal Ballet. I can see why she loves it, of course, but it leaves me rather cold. Except perhaps to marvel at the dancer's ability to pirouette while dressed as Mrs Tiggiwinkle, etc.

So, on Friday we went to see a performance called Two:Four:Ten at the London Coliseum, a retorspective of ten years of work by a choreographer called Russell Maliphant.

We got to Know Russell and his family through mutual friends. When I heard that they were doing this show, I thought I should give it a go (no, not the dancing, obviously).

We went, and I was spellbound. It's probably described as 'contemporary', but there were no hedgehogs, field-mice or dying swans, the lighting was fantastic, the music interesting, challenging at times, and the dancing? Well, it was impressive, fluid, complex, even moving. It just worked (The show included this piece, but with two dancers moving in and out of synch with each other). I think I got it. I certainly enjoyed it, and I might even go and see some more, one day.

I must be becoming a Culture Vulture. I do rather like those rhyming sobriquets. I heard a good one the other day to describe wine enthusiasts. Cork dorks. I'm just glad that I'm not overly fond of oil tankers...

The rest of the weekend was, of course, devoted to chocolate. It is Easter, after all. Traditions must be observed. After all, when Christ was on the cross and a spear pierced his side, he did poor forth chocolate buttons. He also had previously spent forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, trying to find the last Easter egg that was unaccounted for at the previous year's hunt.

As you may have gathered, the whole religious thing doesn't really float my boat, and while I understand the whole Oestre spring fertility pagan history of the other version of Easter, I do find the excessive promotion, packaging and consumption of all that chocolate rather obscene, in a way.

Obviously, I never touch the stuff, except in my parental role as poison taster, and in order to stop her from eating too much. It's a sacrifice, but you have to do these things. Think of the children. Eating their chocolate is a way of keeping them safe.

My latest Times Column is out today, strangely in the travel section online this week. It's sort of about Rosalie travellling to the top of the climbing frame, I suppose. Anyway, it's good to have it online so that those of you who are overseas can at least see what I've been getting up to.
 

A link to my latest Times column. I could have continued my exasperation at the reaction to Cerrie Burnell's arrival on CBeebies, but it's so ridiculous that I'm not sure it should even be up for discussion. For those of you  who may be out of the loop, I'm sure the linked story will fill in the background.

Reading the comments people made about how her only having one arm would 'scare the children' disturbs me greatly. It shouldn't make a difference to anyone's reaction, but when one has become disabled, this kind of story can just add to the feeling of being 'seperated' from a 'normal' life. I'm sure I would have been appalled that people could be so, well, stupid, even if I hadn't broken my back.

 But I did break my back, and that probably makes me a little more conscious of what it's like to face people's preconceptions. And in a way, it's easier for me. I am merely sitting down, but otherwise 'normal'. The chair is pretty conspicuous, so there is less chance of a double take, and I don't have to decide whether to attempt to disguise my disability. That said, I have been toying with the idea of constructing some kind of car-shaped costume to wear when I'm out.

Karma.
We were driving through Islington the day before yesterday, when Penny spotted a purse on the pavement. We stopped the car and picked it up. Inside, among the credit cars and house keys, was the business card of the owner. We rang her, and found that she had only just realised that she had dropped her purse, so we waited for her to walk back down the road and we gave it back to her.

Then yesterday I was in Sainsbury's when I realised the usually reliable mobile phone case on my wheelchair was open, and my phone was missing. I went home hoping that I had left it there, but it was nowhere to be seen. There was a message on the landline, however, from a man who had found my phone in the supermarket carpark. I immediateky called him back and went to meet him, wherupon he apologised for not having got around to taking the phone to the Police station.

I like to think that most people are still basically honest and decent. It's just that they aren't usually the ones that find things when you lose them. But it's very reassuring when they do.

On another note, my latest Times column went live today. Sorry to those who were looking online for my piece last week. Technical problems meant that it didn't see the virtual light of day. If it goes get posted anytime soon, I'll let you know.

My latest column for The Times...

Staring blankly out of the window, the gray sky made even more grey by the thick fug of jetlag. Oh to be back under the clear light of our favourite star.

Jetlag is a slippery customer, fooling me into thinking that I can operate coherently and plough through the post and the in-box, when in reality I am stuck in a two minute memory holding-pattern, craving the next hit of caffeine, and trying to remember my name.

This I have to do for the bank/tax office/sake of my sanity. In truth, I would rather be remembering the warmth and beauty of the sunset in the Margaret river, Western Australia.

Air travel was more of a challenge on the return leg, with wheelchair misroutes and wheels coming off only to go missing temporarily at Heathrow. All was recovered pretty quickly, but it was a nerve-shredding experience after 13 hours aloft.

My latest column in The Times came out today, here-linked for those who would like  a read.

Now, where was I? Nurse! Nurse! More coffee!

..and here is my latest column for The Times.

message ends.

'tis nearing midnight on Tuesday evening her in Australia, but I thought it best to offer a link to my latest Times piece.

Here everything is dominated by the horrendous bush fires that have struck Victoria, with the death toll now at 180 and set to rise. Truly horrific, and made even more disturbing by the knowledge that many of the fires may have been started deliberately. Obviously the weather has played it's part in creating the conditions, but the arson aspect is bewildering.

I suppose that arson exists in the damper parts of the world too. It's just that setting fire to a bus shelter or a litter bin in the middle of an English winter is less likely to cause a blaze that runs out of control, leaving hundreds dead and destroying whole communities.

As for us, jetlag is gradually receding, the rain has arrived (quelle surprise), and we are enjoying exploring the Olympic Park where we are staying. Interesting to see with 2012 and the potential legacy in mind...

The latest installment of my column for The Times came out today.

Writing about parenting is an interesting process, as it makes me think about everyday things from a different perspective (can you think from a different perspective?). Writing for a broad audience who might not have any direct experience of disability means no longer assuming a level of familiarity with much of the day to day stuff.

That said, even the most seasoned disability veteran will be ecstatic when they see what I have found. I know we've all done it. All those times when we struggle to get pasta into the socks of a loved one. Those moments when you think, "There must be an easier way to do this."

Well now there is. Courtesy of a 'daily living aids' website in Australia. I present the Pasta-Stocking-Stuffer.

Well, more column than pillar, but I couldn't think of any bad column puns. Anyhoo. Here it is... My first outing as a columnist for The Times.

+breaking news+breaking news+breaking news+breaking news+breaking news+breaking news+

Following on from Tuesday's piece in The Times, I am delighted to announce that I am breaking into the newspaper business (see what I did there?) by embarking as a weekly columnist in the family section of Times 2 in The Times on Tuesdays.

The column will deal with the highs and lows of wheelchair parenting, and I hope to continue with my mixture of humour and insight (god, this sounds pretentious!), giving the reader a feel for the challenges faced by disabled parents.

Since I began writing back in 2006, I have always wanted to write for a national newspaper and I am thrilled that The Times have given me this opportunity.

There. Enough. In order to offer some balance, I will now show you the kind of thing that I do when I should be writing...

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.

My article on parenting is in today's Times, and also on their website, if you want to read it online.

A really nice pic, too.

Well, hopefully. I've got a piece running in the Times2 family section of Tuesday's Times. It's going to be a busy day, with meetings at the hospital (Stoke Mandeville), where I sit on the Service User's committee. See? I can do proper grown-up stuff sometimes.

Actually, it's something that I am very happy to be involved with, as the National Spinal Injuries Centre are serious about patient involvement, and as ex-patients remain outpatients of the spinal unit for life, the input they give is invaluable. This is one of the things that I found very supportive when I was first admitted. The idea that the centre is concerned with providing treatment and support for the rest of my life, not just to get me through the rehabilitation process.

While we're praising, I would like to make another (yet another) mention of the International Tennis Federation, The LTA and the integration within the sport. I play fairly regularly at Roehampton, and some of the other wheelchair players train there frequently, often on court next to the likes of Andrew Murray. Actually it has been fairly unbearable playing there of late, as players have been acclimatising for Florida and the Australian Open, which has meant that the heating has been set on Australian high summer.

Which leads me, and quite neatly I thought, to more adventures. In February, we are heading Darn Sarf as we cheeky London chappies are wont to utter. But in this case, dear reader, it is not the wilds of Peckham that we are headed for. Instead we are settling for Australia.

The plan is for three weeks of family catchup fun in Sydney, followed by a week in Perth. We haven't been to Perth before, although people assure me that Perth in February is not dissimilar to the inside of a preheated oven. Obviously they don't actually say that. And certainly not from inside our oven. That'd be weird. Although thinking about the whole acclimatisation thing, it could work...

We are due to arrive in Sydney halfway through the biggest wheelchair tournament in Australia, which I intend to report on. The trouble is, jetlag does all kinds of strangeness to my short term memory, so I could end up writing about anything from the car-park to the inside of my eyelids.

It will most likely end up being some babbling incoherence about the staggering coincidence of so many wheelchair users from around the world all being in the same place at the same time. And all with tennis raquets. What was I saying? Oh look , there's a guy in a wheelchair. And he's got a tennis raquet..etc.