June 2010 Archives

We have just spent a very pleasant weekend down in Cornwall, visiting friends and family from Australia who are on holiday at the moment.

It was an interesting weekend for me, as I lived in Cornwall for six months about a million years ago. I was surprised to find that parts of my brain are still clogged up with geographical knowledge of an area I have not visited in many years.

This knowledge isn't particularly useful for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it manifests itself in the form of strong hunches, rather than a SatNav overview. An example: Turning the corner with an overwhelming confidence that there will be a watermill followed by a viaduct. It's rather like having a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle scattered randomly across the carpet of my brain.

Secondly, there have been quite a lot of changes over the last fifteen years, so there is no guarantee that the watermill will still be around the corner. Imagine someone has drawn a different picture in magic marker on half of the jigsaw pieces (why do my analogies always end up so unwieldy?).

We did get to spend a day in Padstow, including a very nice meal in a Bistro owned by the ubiquitous Mr. Rick Stein. The food was really excellent, some of the best fish I have ever had. I had fantastic sardines with a tomato, mint and caper salad, followed by haddock with a sauce verte with butter beans and the tiniest hint of fresh chili, a fantastic combination which leaves me salivating just thinking about it.

That said, I did find something a little unsettling about the way that Padstow is so dominated by the Stein. There's a restaurant, a bistro, a cafe and a fish and chip shop, as well as a deli.

Unfortunately, there is not much in the way of accessible shopping in the harbourfront area, with all the shops having a least two steps, no drop kerbs on the paved areas, and cars trying to negotiate the one way system. Add to the mix large sections of unfenced drops into the harbour and a busy day becomes a wheelchair skills challenge with very high stakes.

Obviously, I relish such adversity, but it's certainly wouldn't be much fun for many people. It's a shame that such an obviously successful town can't put at least some of the revenue into simple access solutions that could be subtle and cerainly not very expensive.

And I know just which bit of the revenue they could use, for on this trip, I came across my favourite wheelchair sign to date...

The sign was accompanied with the explanation that the Harbour Commissioners were 'unable to offer' parking charge exemptions to Blue Badge holders. Unable to offer suggests,

"We'd really love to. Honestly. I was saying to Presuming Ed just last week how much joy it would bring to able to offer such and exemption. But then THE MAN came and hassled us, dude, and it all got really heavy. Fight the power."

I suspect there is a little more of a we're unable to because of all the money we can make by charging blue badge holders.

I would like to make one thing clear... I don't mind paying. Especially if there are alternatives that I have chosen not to use, but when we enquired about the ferry from the other side of the estuary, the harbourmaster in Rock was very unhelpful, and the tidal nature of the river means that at tdifferent times the ferry may or may not involve steps and a soft sandy beach.

But here's the best bit... The afforementioned sign was in the Rock Quarry carpark (also run by the Padstow harbourmaster), which also has no dispensation for blue badge holders. And surely there are more diplomatic ways of getting the point across:

The scene:
I am sitting at the computer, attempting to concentrate on work and trying to filter out the contented mumblings of beloved daughter who is sat on the floor with pens and paper, being creative and that...

R: Daddy, can I borrow the scissors?
Me: Of course. What do you want them for?
R: I want to cut out your heart.

I can feel my mind snap back from the screen and into my immediate surroundings, as a chill runs down the bit of my spine that still works.

 Had I heard correctly? Has our daughter become a Goth at 4 years old? Perhaps she is taking the first steps on a career path as a coroner?

I look down. She looks up. Then she raises a piece of paper.

R: Look, Daddy. I've drawn a big heart for you.

Spent the weekend catching up with various friends who, now that we all have children, we don't get to see as much as we'd like these days.

By coincidence, this meant visits to two homes that are both liberally sprinkled with generous helpings of stair. This can be particularly baffling at times. Example: Steps up from the street followed by stairs down inside. Or how about internal stairs down followed almost immediately by the same amount of stairs back up again? As architectural embellishments go, the stair is pretty low. A trip hazard can rarely be seen as improving the ambiance of the world's most iconic buildings. A decent cornice? Now that's one thing... crenelations work too. Ok, they're just steps on the roof, but at least Viscount La-di-Da is less likely to be seen tripping over ramparts and falling face first on a tray full of poached eggs and toasted muffins on a Sunday morning.

I admit that there is some aesthetic benefit of stairs in certain situations and I for one would not delight in watching Fred Astaire skipping down a one in twelve ramp with substantial hand-rails and hazard tape denoting the edges. Or twirling his cane and doffing his top hat in a stair-lift, come to think of it. But Hollywood dance extravanganzas are rarely staged in the average London Victorian terraced house.

I am being deliberately disingenuous here, as all the stairs I visited over the weekend have perfectly good reasons for their existence and location, but I have realised that I am out of step (ho ho) with a life punctuated with fancy flights (oh, stop). I grew up in a house full of staircases, unlike P who grew up in a typical Australian house which was all on one level, except for access to the garden. This means that running up and down stairs was an integral my life for many years.

But sitting in the basement of a beautiful Clapham abode (down below down south), the whole idea of having to go upstairs to get 'things' or use the toilet/ go to bed etc. just seemed suddenly unfamiliar to me. It is interesting to observe that, just as some odd things can feel normal if you do them often enough, so normal things can feel odd if you stop doing them.

I am not completely undone by stairs. It just means that I swap one means of transport (my wheelchair) for another, namely a cushion strapped to my backside. Although this particular piece of kit wasn't cheap, it works very well. I would be lying if I were to say that I love heaving my sorry carcass up and down numerous steps. But I'm determined not to be excluded by something once so mundane as a flight of stairs.

I'm sure that I can't be the only person who is a little concerned about the choice of characters for the latest Nationwide's England ad campaign.

The well worn gag is that 'Andy', the wheelchair user, demonstrates tremendous physical agility behind the back of his carer 'Lou', who remains convinced that he needs the wheelchair.

The danger with such a prominent campaign is that while the joke is clearly not designed to denigrate or undermine wheelchair users, it can easily become a sort of short-hand for playground humour.

The Little Britain sense of humour is often described as a great example of the British ability to laugh at ourselves. While there may be some truth in this, it should be pointed out that the laughter is mainly directed at a small group of marginalised people.

The same can be said of much of the best comedy that has been produced down the years, and I'm not in favour of censoring the choice of subject matter for humour, except where it is used to justify material designed to incite hatred.

But for the flagship ad campaign of England Football's main sponsor? Surely something a little more sophisticated than laughing at who? The idiot savant in the wheelchair? The skiver who deceives people into thinking he's disabled? Or perhaps the well-meaning but easily duped carer?

This last one could be problematic. Isn't he a part of the voluntary sector that will be taking over the running of schools, hospitals and social services in the Cameron/Clegg vision of 21st century Little (Government) Britain?