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When PC David Rathband was shot by a mad and violent thug a couple of years ago, he was robbed of more than just his sight.  He lost a significant part of his sense of self; which loss, ultimately, he couldn't cope with.  What happened to him was an appalling tragedy.  His decision to end his life, though, has the unfortunate effect of propogating the generally-held suspicion that a life with a disability (in his case, blindness) is, somehow, an inherently low quality one.  I don't criticise his actions.  Maybe his life was unbearable.  I don't know; besides, it is, ultimately, everyone's decision what to do with his or her life.  However, I have a long-standing fear that, one day, when I'm, perhaps, old and sick, some well-meaning but misguided doctor is going to think it is a kindness to let me die rather than treat me as he otherwise would have done, reasoning that my quality of life must, self-evidently, be low.  Doctors make such decisions all the time based on their perception of a patient's 'quality of life'.  I fear that actions like that of the tragic PC Rathband and others who commit suicide as a way out of their problems, as well as a the general idea that pervades society of people with disabilities as somehow sad victims, will, one day, have equally tragic consequences for me.

I was saddened to hear of the death of Davy Jones, former singer of The Monkees.  I loved The Monkees.  Predictably enough for anyone that knows me, I own all their albums and consider their musical legacy to have been grossly undervalued.  For a few years in the late 1960s, they produced a fine stream of classic pop records; not just their well-known hits but also a handful of genuinely classic albums that stand up well when placed against others of the era.  When I think of The Monkees, I imagine infectious, joyful, catchy pop music and those deliriously insane, very much self-parodying TV shows where young guys run about getting into mad adventures and miming very badly (and, crucially, knowing it) to Last Train To Clarksville.  What I find very hard to reconcile those images with is the idea of a late middle-aged guy dying of a heart attack.  A few weeks ago, I saw a clip of The Jimi Hendrix Experience and a voiceover said, "sadly, they've all gone now".  That made me feel sad and miserable, just like I feel now.  So, let's remember, "Here we come, walking down the street.  We get the funniest looks from everyone we meet..."  How can that not make you smile?  Thanks, Davy.

Look, people, I know I'm a language fascist but I do feel I'm completely justified in my strenuous objection to the term 'quantum leap' taken to mean a giant step; as in "the invention of the silicon chip was a quantum leap in information technology".  No, it wasn't!  A quantum leap is the phenomenon where an electron in an atom jumps to a different energy level.  It is, therefore, by everyday standards, an immeasurably tiny leap; the exact opposite of its common usage.  I'm sure the perpetrators of that usage are not deploying irony, they're just abusing the language.  So, please, let's have better linguistic accuracy.  There are many terms you could use to denote a significant advancement but 'quantum leap' absolutely is not one of them.

Well, five months on and the world has failed to end once again.  Let's agree that if the deluded old codger who comes up with these predictions announces yet another date for the end of the world, we'll just ignore him.  Bored now.

"It must have got lost."
"What must?"
"In Alaska."
"What got lost in Alaska?"
"You know.  It sank."
"What are you talking about?"
"It was made in Belfast."
"What was?"
"You know.  The Titanic."
"Oh!  The Titanic!"
"Yes it sank in Alaska."
"No it didn't."
"Where it's snowy."
"The Titanic didn't sink in Alaska.  Wrong side of America."
"Oh it was Canada, then."
"Close.  It was off Newfoundland which is in Canada."
"Oh.  It must have got lost, then."
"No, it was on its way to New York."
"It hit an iceberg."
"Yes, I know."
"They shouldn't drive without the lights on."
"Who?  The crew of the Titanic?"
"Yes.  You can't see in the dark."
"Ships don't really have headlights."
"Oh.  Well, no wonder they run into things then."
"There's a logic to that, I suppose."
"When was it?"
"1912."
"I expect it was the Germans."
"What?"
"The Germans.  In the war."
"It was before the First World War."
"That's why it got lost in Alaska.  Because of the Germans."
"You're insane.  I'm going to kill you now."

It may be that I'm imagining it but I think people are staring at me.  Not overtly, you understand, but surreptitiously, slyly.  They hurriedly look away when I notice them.  Not only that, but people are acting very oddly about me.  Perhaps it's just me but they seem awkward, embarrassed even when I talk to them.  What's going on?  Is there something wrong with me?  I've started to notice other things too.  Everyone seems much taller than me.  I only come up to the bellies of most people.  Am I a midget?  No, I don't think so.  Also, it's very weird, but I believe that they don't actually have wheels.  I know; that's absurd, right?  How to they get about?  Well, don't laugh, but I swear they seem to lope about balanced precariously on their legs.  No really; I'm not making this up.  I've seen it with my own eyes.  These people seem to be everywhere.  It's getting so I don't feel normal any more.  Who are these strange tall, ambulatory people with uncomfortable social interaction skills?  Where did they all come from?  I'm really worried about this.  I think I'm going mad.  I can hardly bring myself to say it out loud but I can't avoid the possibility any longer.  I think I may be...  Yes, I really do.  I think I may be disabled.

On 26th. May last year, I wrote an entry about devoteeism, the phenomenon of able-bodied people being sexually attracted to people with disabilities, particularly focussing on women attracted to male amputees.  Whilst I stand by everything I wrote then, my feelings on the subject have changed somewhat in the intervening period so I feel I should update that posting.  Apart from anything else, the overall tone was overbearingly smug and holier-than-thou, not to mention strident and hectoring.  I believe I made some valid points but forgot that old truism, there are two sides to every story.

Having spoken to more devotees (or admirers as some would have it), I realise that there are many issues and perils from their side too.  When you grow up with an attraction to disability, you are likely to feel a freak.  You're supposed to go for physical perfection, right; not stumps and wheelchairs?  Eveything in your culture tells you what you feel is wrong.  It's disgusting, perverted.  What's more, not only do you not know any others like you, you have never even heard of such people existing?  You feel you're the only one like this.  It's very scary and very lonely.  And yet, you are who you are.  You can't go against your nature.  You can't be who you are not; not for long, anyway.  It's no wonder that devotees are often secretive about their predilections and paranoid about discovery.  And yet, they are still there, your desires.  You are a human being, a sexual entity with physical needs that must be satisfied to remain healthy.  Your secret must have expression or you will go mad.  You have to seek relationships with people with disabilities because that is your nature.

I think my previous objection was possibly based upon the notion that the admirer / admired dynamic is not a partnership based on equality.  Whilst the possibility for exploitation certainly exists, I believe now that such predation can go in either direction.  The devotee can be exploited too.  I think it's less likely that way round but I have to acknowledge the possibility.  But then, isn't there explotation and inequality in practically every relationship on some level and at some time?  I see I should have been far more relaxed and accepting of the whole scene.  I don't understand an attraction to disability in any way, nor less do I empathise with it, but I do, now, see it as just another manifestation of human sexuality that should not be hidden away or demonised.  Everyone would be much happier if we could just accept and be comfortable with who we are.  Of course there are predators and victims but then there are in every section of society.

But I'm still not an acronym.

I have just read that Harrods and Selfridges are opening their Christmas departments this week.  I must say it has crept up on me this year and caught me a bit unprepared but, as I'm not one to miss out on seasonal cheer, can I just wish all my readers a Merry Christmas.

I have read, over the past few days, a story about a guy who fell to his death from a rollercoaster in a tragic accident in the US.  The guy in question was an amputee who had lost both legs all the way up to his hips.  Apparently, he toppled over the restraining safety bar.  Now, this resonates with me because, when I was a child, I was forced to wear a safety strap when in a wheelchair.  This strap went around my waist (as all wheelchair safety straps do).  For someone with legs, such a device is a fine thing.  In the event of an abrupt stop or a tipping forward, the strap holds the person and stops him falling out of the chair onto the ground.  However, the thing that my olders and betters, i.e. the moron experts, failed to grasp was that, if you have no legs, like me, the waist strap offers no restraint at all.  In fact, it is positively lethal, because, if you find you have occasion to need it, you have no legs to anchor you.  Your momentum pushes you forward and, as most of your mass is above the waist, in the absence of legs, all the strap does is to flip you over as you fly out of your seat.  You are most likely to land head-first on the ground, making what mght have been a few bruises into a potentially serious head injury.  As a child, this danger was obvious and I was scared of being strapped in around the waist.  As with so many other things in my childhood, no one would listen to the kid.  Is it any wonder that I grew up having little but contempt for disability experts?  (Actually, the same problem exists in a different guise as an adult.  Aeroplanes have lap restraints which you're forced to wear.  I know that, even in a comparatively survivable incident, I will be pitched head first into the seat ahead of me.  I know I would be safer without the strap; the only passenger for whom this is true.  Sadly, I also know that no one would get it so I've never even bothered to speak out.)

Anyway, none of that that was actually my main point.  Included in the reports of the rollercoaster accident were a range of comments. It was suggested that the guy should have known how dangerous the ride was for him.  Others criticise the people he was with, saying they should have protected their friend from harm by stopping him from boarding the ride.  Still others say the the ride's operators should have stopped him from getting on it.  All of these suggestions have, to varying degrees, some merit, I will concede.  I went on the Back To The Future ride at Universal Studios in California a few years back and was thrown about like a rag doll.  It was great fun, by the way, but I would not do it again because it wasn't safe for me.  Knowing their friend's limitations, his companions should, perhaps, with hindsight, have tried more vigorously to point out the potential hazards.  Howver, I would be very unhappy to leave it the to the rollercoaster ride's operators to decide which disabled person could go on the ride and which could not.  That smacks of the idiot experts all over again but, this time, from a position not only of ignorance of me, even of disability in general but also with their profit margins as their primary motivation.  This is very much a question of human rights; of equality and freedom.  All of which, finally gets me to my point; disability rights means equal opportunities in employment, housing, access, sexuality and many other happy, shiny things we can all agree on.  However, disability rights also means the right to make mistakes, to be a dick, to be stupid, self-destructive, prejudiced; just like everyone else.  If guy wants to take risks, he must be allowed to do so; being an amputee and an idiot does not negate that.  Disability rights are not just rights to do good things.  It's, fudamentally, about freedom; freedom to be good and bad and all stops in between.  Freedon, in short, to be human.

If someone asked me if I'd like a cup of tea, I would consider it most impolite and not a little confusing of me to decline it by saying cancel.  But this is what we get on computer dialogue boxes all the time.  "Do you want to save the file?"  It should say yes or no but the choice you mostly get offered is OK or cancel.  The clue is in the name; it's a dialogue box.  Perhaps I'm being hopelessly out of date in thinking that a dialogue is a polite conversation between civilised people.  Imagine the reaction you would get if your answer to your girlfriend's question about whether her posterior looks big in her new dress was cancel.  Or, even worse, what if you answered "do you love me" with OK?  It wouldn't be hard to provide more appropriate and polite responses in these boxes so let's start a new campaign for good manners in IT.