Two fat men: fictional bodies as metaphor and identity

I’ve been thinking about bodies, metaphor and identity, in the context of two very different stories; J K Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Out The Bodies (the same story over two books). Both have been given recent BBC TV adaptations where prominent fat characters have been played by fairly slim actors, which is undoubtedly why they have been on my mind.

 This is how J K Rowling introduces the patriarchal character of Howard Mollinson in her novel, The Casual Vacancy:

He was an extravagantly obese man of sixty-four. A great apron of stomach fell so far down in front of his thighs that most people thought instantly of his penis when they first clapped eyes on him; wondering when he had last seen it, how he washed it, how he managed to perform any of the acts for which a penis is designed. Partly because his physique set off these trains of thought, and partly because of his fine line in banter, Howard managed to discomfort and disarm in almost equal measure, so that customers almost always bought more than they meant to on a first visit to the shop.

I like this, but you know, I don’t like it. Then, as the book goes on and we’re not allowed to forget how very fat Howard is, I like it even less.  Howard’s fatness represents his greed; he is a glutton and a lech, he is hungry for power and influence. He has a disgusting rash under his belly, he takes up space and tax-payer's money.

In much the same way, we know that Uriah Heap is ghoulish before he speaks or moves because he looks like a ghoul. Except even that was David Copperfield's own impression.

Henry VIII by Hans Holbein
A large white bearded man
in regal Tudor costume, complete
with codpiece, in case you forget.

Another fat man with a game-changing penis is Henry VIII in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Out The Bodies. Mantel is at a great advantage with Henry on two counts. First of all, she didn’t – couldn’t – invent his body. She didn’t choose his red hair, his colossal height, his increasing girth or his gammy leg. Secondly, most of us have a fairly clear vision of what Henry VIII looked like. Thus, there is no passage where Mantel says, Here is a man called King Henry; here is what he looks like.  His appearance, however, is mentioned often:

How colourful Henry is! How like the king in a new pack of cards! 

When he sees Henry draw his bow, he thinks, I see now, he is royal.

A broad man, a high man, Henry dominates any room. He would do it even if God had not given him the gift of kingship. 

Is the king’s head becoming bigger? Is that possible in mid-life?

Henry is overwhelming. He is, both literally and figuratively, the biggest man around. His clothes and physical mannerisms serve to make him seem larger and brighter.

There are other important bodies in these books; the body of Catherine of Aragon is deemed too old to play her role of bearing children. The body of Ann Boleyn, so desired by Henry, is criticised by her enemies as undesirable; she is flat-chested, she is a “goggle-eyed whore”. Princess Mary is unsuitable as an heir, both as a woman, and because she is small; a “dwarf”. Even toddler Princess Elizabeth, sharing her hair colour with her father, is described as a “ginger brat”.

But all of this information is delivered in the words and thoughts of characters. Mantel never tells us what people look like but instead, how they are seen. Sometimes, how they see themselves.

When J K Rowling invented lustful lingerie-saleswoman, Samantha, and teenage sexpot Crystal, the two most sexual and sexualised women in the novel's universe, she also made them the only two women with notably big breasts (Samantha even has sexual fantasies in which she is conscious of what her enormous breasts look like to her lover). The romantically desperate social worker, Kay, has stocky thighs.  Lovelorn teenager Andrew, beaten by his father and exploited by his far more confident best friend, has extensive facial acne.

Rowling does sometimes place visual descriptions in the minds or words of characters, but often she uses the authorial voice. Most people see a fat man and think about his penis.

The character of Tessa, described as “overweight” (that's a BMI of between 26 and 30, in case you were vague about what that looks like), sits looking at Heat Magazine in a doctor’s waiting room:

She remembered telling a sturdy little girl in Guidance that looks did not matter, that personality was much more important. What rubbish we tell children, thought Tessa. 

Tessa has a point; in this universe, people’s looks are often physical manifestations of their vices and vulnerabilities*.

My body is part of my identity. I didn't chose my face, but if you see a photograph of it, you see me. My bodily experiences influence who I am. There are folks for whom their bodies are much more or much less part of their identity; some people go to great lengths to express themselves through their looks, while others are largely indifferent. Some people feel trapped inside their bodies, while others revel in every detail of their physical selves.

However, my body is not a metaphor for anything. And goodness knows, people see metaphor in me, in my gender combined with my age, my height, my weight, my breasts, my bum, the length of my legs. People see metaphor in a walking stick or a wheelchair (hardly surprising when it's pretty rare to read fiction where these things are not metaphorical). I know people see metaphor if I wear make-up or not, the length and style of my hair, my clothes and shoes.

I'm not especially worried about the plight of fat, middle-aged white men - they are not underrepresented in the highest echelons of power, they are not a vulnerable group who suffer widespread discrimination or abuse (although they suffer some discrimination and abuse, and the BBC cast Damien Lewis as Henry and Michael Gambon as Howard, presumably because they couldn't find high caliber fat male actors in the right age brackets, presumably because such actors don't usually get a lot of work).

Meanwhile, I am fascinated by the mechanism; I am fascinated by the way rational human beings seek out meaning in accidents of genetics and nutrition. I am fascinated the way that hated figures are seen as ugly - David Cameron is almost eerily unremarkable in his looks, the silver Ford Focus of men, who you wouldn't so much as glance up at on a bus or in a pub. Yet to many of his detractors, he becomes reptilian, his eyes are too close together, his hair is receding comically, his skin is plastic.

People need to tell stories about the way people do this.

We need to avoid telling stories as if this way of thinking is entirely fair.



* When we were talking about this, Stephen reminded me of The Singing Detective, which handles skin disease as perceived punishment for various sins - the body as metaphor, at some considerable length.  This is absolutely superb but it is all about how the protagonist understands his body and illness (other characters have different perspectives - other characters apply different metaphors).

Some Reading Matter

It's ages since I've made a post of links, but I seem to have seen several I really want to share.

Wheelchair Dancer has been writing about a revamp of Ironside, the (originally 70s, I guess) American TV series with a wheelchair-using detective. WD's posts on this have been phenomenal and she's promised a fourth. So far we have:

• Ironside I: The Non-disabled Role/ Roll again about the justifications used to cast a non-disabled actor as the leading disabled character, descriptions of the actor trying to master acting disabled etc..
• Ironside II: The Rough Rider Condom Chair about the intersection of straight masculinity and disability in the character of Ironside and his impractical wheelchair.
• Ironside III: Criminal Minds, Luther about the casting of a black man as Ironside and the intersection of race and disability.

Read them all.  Read the fourth one when its published. Okay? Good.

Also:

Biphobia is not (only) an LBGT issue, on how straight folk can't blame queer folk for biphobia.

Disability in Kidlit: A new blog providing "reviews, guest posts and discussions about the portrayal of disabilities in MG/ YA fiction".  I know YA is Young Adult. Apparently MG, in this context, is Middle-Grade.

This is really old, but I first saw it this summer: Why Film Schools Teach Screenwriters Not To Pass The Bechdel Test - infuriating and insightful.
.
I read this after I posted this blog, but it needs to be here: A geek against Gok
- Zoe Burgess on the manipulation and humiliation of a TV show and the triumph of a geek over adversity.

Some powerful personal posts:

One Classroom, Two Genders - The experiences of a trans woman when identified as a man, then as a woman, by her students.

Peeling Back The Layers of Shame: Talking About My Mother - Rachel describes the shame she has felt for not loving her mother, and how that continues to effect her years after her mother's death.

My Mother-in-law and Me - Lucy tells the story of a mother-in-law, who has always disapproved of Lucy because of her impairments.

This is What You're Missing: An American Love Story - A deeply moving story of sisterly love and grief.

On Being An Auntie (again). NTE watches her new nephew come into the world.


I'm sure there were other things, but usefully, my reader has just been closed for maintenance.

Since I'm here, I'm guest-blogging at the F-Word this month.  So far, I've written about women abusers and sex tips.

Dancing on the Edge & Colourblind Jazz Fans

I greatly admire Stephen Poliakoff.  He's not perfect, although some of his television work - particularly Shooting the Past - is as very nearly.  He has a luxurious way of film-making, instilling his characters with both curiosity and his own passion for story-telling.  His films are always beautifully shot (he has an ability to make every actor look so beautiful) with a great use of music and point of view.  He's done a few I couldn't sit through again, but I can't name many directors who haven't.

Dancing on the Edge is his new BBC series charting an all black Jazz band in 1930s London. It has a few problems. It's been criticised for slow-pacing, but that's cool with me; it's all very beautiful, as usual, and the actors are flawless. There are however four glaring problems. The first two have always been there with Poliokoff but become really obvious in this miniseries, the second two are unique to Dancing on the Edge and the forth really matters:

1. Rich people spend their money on things ordinary folk can't afford. Thus rich people are treated as eccentric and fascinating, even when those characters are in no way eccentric or fascinating.
2. When something interesting or notable is happening, characters will say so, in case its not obvious. "Isn't this an amazing party?", "Isn't it fantastic that we should all be here together at this time and place, especially what with us living in a poignant historical context and all?" And perhaps worst of all, one character actually says, "Other people's private lives. One never knows what goes on!" 
3. The inexplicable compulsion on the part of all characters to say the name Stanley in an emphatic way at least once every two minutes, and every sentence if the character of Stanley is in the room.
4. Apparently, nice white jazz fans in 1930s London are magically and completely colourblind. 

Here's the deal.  In 2013 UK, there are white people, who are good people and have black friends or even family members, who love music, films and books by black people, but who sometimes say and do the wrong thing around race; they make an assumption based on stereotypes, they use clumsy language or make an unwise joke. Same with straight folk and queer folk, non-disabled and disabled folk, even - perhaps especially - men and women. Most good decent people make awkward slips. We live in a prejudiced world, we grew up here and even if we have no prejudice in our hearts, this stuff is part of our culture, so part of us we all have to keep an eye on.

In 1930s London, there were white people, who were good people who loved jazz and had black friends and lovers, who fairly often said and did the wrong thing around race. They would have been far more conscious of race, living as they did in a very racist mono-cultural world. They would have grown up with racial stereotypes being put forward to them as scientific facts.  We see it in the literature written by groovy, progressive white folk of the time (Waugh, Lawrence et al.), and forgive the language and racist humour because it is of its time. It was a very racist time. It's not like Nazism succeeded in Germany because they were the only racists in Europe - they were just the most desperate and demoralised racists around.

Poliokoff has created a world in which only negative characters ever remark upon or behave clumsily about race. White characters who love jazz are immune from racism. When racism is discussed, all the nice young white people find it utterly incomprehensible.  I have the sense that there will come a breaking point in the narrative, where the white folk may well close ranks to scapegoat their black friend, but while the going is good?  Only sinister characters and money-minded squares give so much as a raised eyebrow when the band leader forms a romantic relationship with a middle class white girl.

This is not an unusual world for television and film, where prejudice is often seen as something individual, rather than cultural, even in narratives which hinge on prejudice being a massive issue in the lives of its victims (this is particularly remarked upon in science fiction and fantasy, where writers often create a sexist or racist world, which they people entirely with egalitarians).

It's perhaps most noticeable in something like Dancing on the Edge because it is a rare British drama with people of colour at the centre of things, it's beautifully made and because it is about a historical period - would it really make the audience uncomfortable to imagine that people in the 1930s had very different, contradictory ideas about race?  If the history of 20th century music teaches us one thing, it is that it is possible for privileged white folk to dance, cry, worship and make love to the music of black folk without eliminating racism by the sixteenth bar - or the sixteenth album.

You know how I feel - art matters dreadfully!  I believe that many people will have overcome some of their own prejudice by listening to beautiful music produced by black people or gay people especially, other marginalised groups as well.  Music demonstrates that we all feel a great deal, and often some of our highest, lowest, deepest and most personal feelings are shared by song-writing strangers.

But for many people, music is a product to be consumed, its production a little like a clever trick, not the expression of something both essentially human and essentially higher than that. Racist ideas around black music were never - are still not - exclusive to people who dislike the music black folk make.

The early years of British jazz provide such a good opportunity to explore these issues, or at least demonstrate the likely reality. So far, no exploration and an . The jazz band live in a racist world with very few racists in it - and so far, no truly powerful racists (even though they met the future King Edward VIII, a vile racist and personal friend of Hitler).

Two episodes to go.

Down with Coupledom, Up with Love!

People don't have a whole lot of conscious control over romantic love.

You can, of course, enjoy the state you're in and work to maintain that happy state. So for example, if you prefer being single, it's best not to sign up for uniformdating.com. But if you want to be absolutely sure, you've also got to avoid lingering eye contact with strangers on buses and in book shops, avoid making new friends with people of romantically-compatible genders and orientations, and ruthlessly ditch old friends at the slightest change in your feelings about one another. You can have sex, but only with deeply unattractive strangers, and even then there's some risk that you might get talking, find that they have a dazzling personality which cancels out the warts, and that third eye, though not matching the others in size or colour, has a certain sort of bloodshot charm in the first cool light of morning.

So however much you love the single life, if you are capable of romantic feeling, a mutually-electrifying bolt may strike.  It's perfectly healthy to work on the basis that it won't, but if it does, your choice will be significantly diminished.  If two people are in love and want to be together, it is unlikely that they will prefer any life without the other.

This is why when I see the phrase single by choice, I wonder.  Some people are, of course, aromantic or not particularly inclined to romance, and others have phases in their life when they're not interested, but that stuff's not a choice either.  However, it really doesn't matter. For one thing, some people can exercise romantic preference in ways others cannot and maybe I can't understand. For another, we live in a culture which privileges the heterosexual couple above all other combinations of adults and family units. Single people are certainly not the most reviled sexual minority (I mean, how?!) but our culture is constructed in a way that makes being single - a state that most people will experience for at least some years of their adult life - tougher than it ought to be.

What gives me the willies is couples who behave as if they have made a choice. It makes me worry that they did. These are the sort who believe that life is always better lived in pairs and that everyone, absolutely everyone would be better off if they were to follow suit.  Due to my medical condition, I have only been single for four days since I was eighteen, so I've never been subjected to the mean things said to single people, but I do hear things said about them. Obviously, there's the universal assumption that single people are lonely, unfulfilled and actively looking for a partner, but the other great offenders include

• "She could easily find a partner if she wasn't so fussy." You can be too fussy about food when you're eating nothing but baked beans and white bread. You can be too fussy when shopping for a pair of winter shoes when it's already November and you're still wearing sandals. You can even be too fussy when applying for a job you only need as a stop gap.  You can't be too fussy when it comes to love or sex or any significant emotional investment. This stuff is about joy!  In the absence of the joy potential, what's the point?  And how precious is romantic love if you're not extremely fussy?  "I love you, but any number of people would do just as well."

• "If only she met someone, maybe she'd be able to lose weight."  I've also heard meeting someone as the solution to mental illness, financial hardship and simply being a little bit odd.  I don't know how common the weight loss one is, but I have a family member who says this about any woman who is both fat and single, whatever her life circumstances.  As well as the assumption that all fat people want to lose weight and the assumption that love will do that (what with all those full English breakfasts in bed, boxes of chocolate, romantic restaurant dinners, champagne celebrations, tiramisu-flavoured body paint etc.), it reminds me of a time that pregnancy was recommended to me as a way of boosting my immune system. Not a responsible attitude towards major life events!

• "He'll settle down once he meets a nice girl."  This is usually heard about young men who are in some kind of trouble or aimlessly drifting, but can be heard about men of any age who haven't met other people's standards of growing up and settling down.  It's this idea of men as naturally a bit savage and useless and women as a civilising force. To me, it begs questions such as, would such a man want such a woman? Would such a woman want such a man? Might the two of them not make one another dreadfully unhappy, given that one is apparently a Neanderthal and the other is a Homo Superior?

Much of any critique of the single life or coupledom is about gender stereotypes. When attached people lament the plight of their single friends and family, it is often gendered; women need someone to look after and men need someone to look after them - and sometimes vice versa, but always in very gendered ways; a man providing money, a woman providing someone to be ambitious for etc.. When the BBC asked for readers stories about single life, some men wrote about their freedom from controlling women and some women wrote about their freedom from infantile men. Several readers felt compelled to mention that they weren't gay or anything. Single, but not gay - who could have imagined such a thing?

(Weirdly, I observe that missionary marrieds are particularly moved by the plight of their single gay friends, and try to set them up with even greater desperation. If straight Susan is single, they'll try hooking her up with the postman who is roughly the same age, shares her love of Thai food and has a cousin who was an extra in Susan's favourite movie (although he's never seen the film himself).  If lesbian Laura is single, they'll try hooking her up with a woman they met on holiday in Brazil, who still lives in Brazil, is thirty years older than Laura and already has a wife.)

Coupledom is, of course, completely overrated and our culture acknowledges this fact at the same time as thrusting it upon us as a model of normality.  You only need to watch your average ad break to see what our culture depicts as normal couples, not getting on very well, resenting each other and buying stuff to make them feel better. The Dulux paint one is my favourite - look at the exchange of looks between these two at the end!  It started out so nicely with the sexy red walls, but now their life has become - like their walls - grey.  It's a fate worse than magnolia! 

There are various practical and financial advantages to pooling your resources with another person. And the idea is that it is nice to have someone else around to listen to your troubles and to be able to have sex without so much as putting your best shoes on.  That's the idea, but it is awash with complexity and trouble unless you genuinely, sincerely and consistently delight in one another's company. After all, you have to listen to their troubles, and maybe they have a headache - or a shoe fetish! Meanwhile, apart from the sex part, all of this could be achieved with close friends or family members (or what s. e. smith describes as a queerplatonic partner), without all the cultural expectation of exclusivity, permanence and the dedication of most of your free time.

Because being in a romantic relationship with someone who isn't even your friend has got to be far lonelier and more humiliating than being single, especially when you've been led to believe (by your culture and perhaps your partner too) that this is a great deal better than the alternative. Lonely people often live in terror of increased levels of loneliness. But here's something I learnt.

After I left my first marriage, I considered whether I had wasted ten years of my life being miserable and lonely. And at times, I had been desperately lonely, have many unhappy, humiliating or frightening memories from being with my ex. However, I also have many happy memories from this period of my life. I didn't see nearly enough of them, but I did have very good times with friends and family. I lived in interesting places and enjoyed the world around me. I read a great number of books.  I learnt to play the guitar. I made stuff, I sewed, I painted, I started this blog. I studied. I listened to a lot of music and watched lots of films. And against incredible odds, I wrote my first novel (which is now prize-winning, if as yet unpublished).

And had I been single, I might have done a lot more of all that and would have been a very great deal happier. Of course, I don't have a clue - genuinely - how I would enjoy being single. I wouldn't live alone because I couldn't, and so long as I found somewhere comfortable to live, I imagine I would be cool with it.  Being mutually head over heels in love (despite the collision and entanglement of legs) makes me extremely happy, but putting all this time, energy and emotion into somebody who is anything less than fantastic? Never again. I have fantastic friends. I have fantastic family members. I am, myself, fairly fantastic. Stephen gets my time, energy and love because he is super-fantastic, and gives me much more in return.

Love is underrated.  Romantic love is underrated, and treated with cynicism in our culture. I think it's tragic the way that the idea of coupledom, a state of gender-based mutual irritation and tolerance, has become the dominant model of what romantic relationships are like.

But all the other kinds of love, and especially friendship, are even more underrated and undervalued. Love is a big part of what makes any of us happy, but it comes in many different shapes and flavours, and rarely involves a conscious choice. 

Disability in Fiction - A Load of Lovely Links

Thanks in part to your support, the brilliant Lisa Egan made the Independent on Sunday's Pink List, coming in as the country's 78th most influential LGBT person.  Leave this place at once and read her excellent acceptance blog post on the double discrimination of being disabled and gay.  Hooray! (That's hooray she made the list, not that... well, you know what I mean.)

I've been meaning to compile a list of useful links around the fictional representation of disabled people. This is going to be a work in progress and I would very much appreciate your help.  I've compiled this list by memory and from the links given in the comments, so if you have a link to any resource, blog post or article on this, please add it to the comments and I'll add it to my list.

And by all means, if in the future you write or create something about disability in fiction, feel free to come back and (as long as it is suitable) I'll add it to the body of the post. 

Resources:

Visibility in Fiction: Inclusive Young Adult Fiction

This is Stuffed Olive's project which promotes fully inclusive young adult fiction; "specifically fiction with protagonists from groups with limited visibility in popular culture" including disabled people.

Information For Writers With Disabled Characters

The idea is to compile a database of information writing by disabled people about their impairments, how they are misrepresented in fiction, examples of where they are represented well and resources to help writers represent them better.


Media Representation of Disabled People

Provides a basic and accessible breakdown of the problems with disability as currently represented in the media in general.

Disability and Representation

Rachel's blog covers many disability-related subjects, but features frequent reviews of books and other cultural materials featuring disabled people.

Lisy Babe's Thoughts on TV and Film

As mentioned previously, Lisy talks about disability in TV and film and she also frequently uses this Tumblr to link to useful or pertinent articles or news.

s. e. smith

is one of the most prolific writers on social justice and popular culture on-line, writing about disability and other identities in film, television and books. However ou writes about all sorts, all over the place, so all I can suggest is that you follow ou particularly at Bitch Magazine, but also Tigerbeatdown, Global Comment and ou own blog, this ain't livin'

The FWD/ Feminists With Disabilities Archive

The FWD team did loads of book, television and film reviews.  I especially recommend trawling through them if you are a non-disabled writer or lack confidence in writing characters with particular impairments. The FWD team were not any kind of representative cross-section of disabled people and we all have different sensitivities when it comes to this stuff (especially language), but a little reading here would give you a good idea about common mistakes and cliches, together with some of the nuances of good representation.

Bogi Takács: reviews of literature featuring disabled characters.

Loads of fairly short, very readable reviews featuring common tropes of disability in fiction. Prezzey also has a tag for reviews of work by disabled authors.


Blindness Resources Guide for Fanfiction (thanks chordatesrock)

Advice that focuses on portraying a particular blind character (Auggie Anderson from Covert Affairs), however contains tips and resources that would be useful to anyone writing a blind character.

Articles, Essays and Blog Posts: 

this ain't livin': Writing The Other

s. e. smith addresses the anxiety that writers may feel in writing about people with different identities and outlines the importance of putting character before identity. 

Not Writing But Blogging: Writing the invisible visible - AND doing it well.

Writing on Stella Duffy's blog, actor Lisa Hammond describes the various fears that can stop non-cliched disabled characters appearing on television, and disabled actors being cast in roles which aren't all about their impairments.

SpeEdChange: "God Bless Us Everyone"

Ira explores the position of Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol, his history as a character in the book and the subsequent movie adaptations and his changing symbolism over the years.


Bea Magazine: Bitches Be Cray: The Good, The Bad, and the Pretty Little Liars of Mental Health on TV

This is all about recent (possibly current) US TV shows, but Diane Shipley writes well about the use and abuse of female characters and mental illness in fiction.

It's not actually about fiction, but since this trope has not been covered by any of the other links and it is very well written, Unreliable Witness: Experience mental illness? Oh, you must be creative


Lisybabe's Blog: Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult
and So scared of breaking it that you won't let it bend (a review of Unbreakable)

These posts are very specific, about one particular book and film and about the representation of one condition.  But they provide very good examples of the ways that writers and film-makers can latch onto the idea of a medical condition and twist the facts to fit a dramatic story, without considering a readership or audience who have that condition.

The Independent: Why do Bond villains need facial scars?

Victoria Wright talks about the unrelenting trope of the villain maid evil by a facial disfigurement.

Feminist Philosophers: Moving Beyond The Stereotypes

Posts on disability at Feminist Philosophers are a touch disappointing, but the comments thread under this post contains many recommendation for good fictional writing with disabled characters.

I stand by own posts about 10 Things Fiction Writers Need to Remember About Disability (1-5)

and 10 Things Fiction Writers Need to Remember about Disability (6-10) 

These are mostly about addressing common mistakes or assumptions about the lives and behaviour of disabled people including sexuality, attitude towards impairment, the practicalities of life and megalomania. Again, the comments contain some good stuff too. I've also got a Fiction tag which has some other posts on disability and fiction.

The following links are all courtesy of chordatesrock - Thanks! 


Rabbit Lord Of The Undead on how hallucinations & delusions are nothing like on TV

An excellent and personal explanation of one person's experience of hallucinations and delusions, which are, of course nothing like you see on TV or film.


kestrell: What Good Writers Still Get Wrong About Blind People Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

Three detailed essays on blind characters in fiction, as well as general stereotypes and misconceptions about blind people and their abilities.


katta: Some Clues on How Not To Write Deaf Characters.

A critique of the common mistakes that writers make when writing deaf characters, with a particular focus on American Sign Language (although I'm sure the same applies to BSL etc - it's about meaning, not words).


The 32nd Flavor: A House Rant, As Promised

Milkshake writes in detail about the character of House and some of the impossible things fanfic-writers want that character to do, including activities that would need a great number of pillows.

Right, what have I forgotten or not seen yet?  Yes, my criteria is fairly loose.

Move over, Dalek

We missed Doctor Who this weekend. We were too busy living it!

I'm rather alarmed to realise that it has been four whole years since my mother last received a Dalek birthday cake, but this year has surpassed all previous attempts. The idea is that, should the Daleks be considering yet another invasion of Earth, they will see us consuming their life-like effigies without mercy and get on the first bus back to Skaro. Also, my Mum really loves Daleks.

Behold the original Dalek Cake made by my sister back in 2007.

Dalek Cake, 2007 (A terrifying brown Dalek)

Behold the Extermicake I made back in 2008.  

Extermicake 2008 (Another terrifying
brown Dalek)

I couldn't remember it was so long ago. I thought nephew Alex would have remember the two Dalek cakes, and whilst they are undoubtedly etched into his nightmares, he was only two on the last encounter.

Mum's birthday isn't for another few weeks, but since my sister, Alex and baby Sophie were coming for the weekend, Stephen and I set about making a Dalek cake so we could celebrate the birthday while we were almost all together.

Behold, Extermicake 2012:

Extermicake 2012 (A truly horrifying, slightly lopsided, brown Dalek, with terrified on-lookers)

The Dalek leans in a plaintive fashion.

Stephen and I made a cake from a made-up recipe, a bit like this one, only without the baking powder, with added instant coffee and about half the sugar was Muscovado. For the icing, I recalled how a previous fudge-making expedition had gone disastrously wrong and never truly set, so I merely repeated the mistakes I made that time to produce a kind of fudgey plaster. The plunger (technical term in Dalekology) was produced by firing a cook's blow torch at the top of a marshmallow before stabbing a chocolate finger into it.

I can't tell you how to make it stand up straight or be Dalek-shaped because we achieved neither of these objectives.

Right, I hope you paid attention to all that or how are you going to make one yourself?

See the Flickr Dalek Cake Group for more Dalek cakes - some are even better than ours! Some, however, are worse.

Baby Sophie was awake much more than when I first met her. She's a very happy baby and has begun to smile a little. I will put some photos of her up on my Flickr stream once I have organised myself.

What I might have learnt from Reality TV

For many years, I didn't watch television and it was during this period that Reality TV became ubiquitous.  Friends sometimes sent me videos of comedies and Dr Who and when BBC iPlayer came along, I got to see a lot more telly, but it never occurred to me to watch any of this reality trash.  Then I began living around people who'll watch whatever's on - you know, what is actually being broadcast at this very moment - and with Stephen, who is an extremely intelligent, cultured and widely-read classicist who enjoys Come Dine With Me and other programmes of that ilk. Usually, but not always, programmes that involve some cooking and some bickering.

Reluctant at first, I gradually realised how very useful Reality TV would have been, had I only been exposed to more of it in my youth. I have generally been very lucky with people; I've always had a few good friends and a considerable number of very lovely people to speak to.  But like everyone, I have been stung and I think Reality TV could have helped me avoid some of these stingings.

The first and greatest lesson illustrated so extensively by Reality TV is that decent people, with all the basic virtues in place, rarely need to protest their decency. This realisation could have saved me a great deal of heartache and confusion, had it only come earlier. I'm now able to recognise a particular vice whenever TV contestants or new acquaintances say a little about themselves and include statements like

"I pride myself on being honest." (I am not at all honest.)

"I'm not interested in playing games." (I have a cunning plan.)

"What you see is what you get." (I am manipulative and I judge by appearances.)

More than once, I've met someone who has mentioned, repeatedly, how very important honesty was for them; how above all else, at whatever cost, they aimed to be honest. Then later on, I realised they weren't. I'm not talking massive swindles here, but petty dishonesty, exaggeration, making impossible promises and giving different accounts of the facts to different people. I have had friends like this, and how much damage it has done depended on whether I ever actually had to rely on them for anything.

It doesn't occur to ordinarily honest people to say that they're honest, because honesty is fairly normal.  Describing oneself as particularly honest is a little like boasting, “I don't steal from anyone.”

Then there's the use of honesty as a pre-emptive justification for bullying behaviour;

“I say it how it is.” (I go out of my way to be offensive) 

“If people don't like to hear the truth, it's not my problem.” (I like to tell people things they don't want to hear). 

“I can't stand people who can't take a joke.” (I will hide behind humour should anyone call me out on my behaviour.)

Honesty isn't about saying whatever passes through your head. Lots of things pass through my head. Apple crumble! See? A lot of those things - like that next thing I thought of just now - would cause me a great deal of embarrassment and shame if I said them out loud, as they occurred. But most of the time, that's not a problem for me or the people around me. I sometimes do express some of my strange or foolish thoughts, but on the rare occasions that other people are upset by them, I don't respond with, “What's the problem? I'm just saying it how it is. That is an ugly dress and you do look a little like Yoda in high heels.”

Adult bullies frequently use honesty as an excuse to verbally abuse those around them, as if the possession of an honest opinion is like a having a gestating alien in our chest, something that's going to burst out during dinner whether we like it or not.  It's really not.

Incidentally, there's a world of difference between not saying cruel or offensive things and avoiding important subjects for fear of offending people. Vigorous honesty and openness is probably as often used as a mask for bullying and manipulation as social etiquette and familial obligation ever were.

Meanwhile, there's

“People either love me or hate me.” (My mother loves me, grudgingly, on a good day, when she remembers me as a baby and forgets the monster I grew up to be.)

The only people who truly divide opinion between extreme camps of adoration or disgust are very famous people, who we know by their persona or politics rather than personality. Socially, nobody is the human Marmite. Mind you, even Marmite isn't the Marmite Marmite, given that I quite like it once in a blue moon and my sister isn't especially keen but doesn't mind it. So it seems very unlikely that, even if a Reality TV contestant were to smear himself with Marmite - and that's probably happened on Big Brother before now - that people would either love him or hate him. Probably nobody would want to invite him into the hot tub.

However, if someone behaves badly and is mean to other people, he may be universally disliked. I have known ordinarily awful people who divide others between those who can tolerate them and those who can't tolerate them, but that's hardly love or hate.

Regardless, if you suspected that you were regularly eliciting an extreme negative reaction from people, even if other people thought you were great, you'd probably think to work on the negative bit, work out what was going on and, if you could, sort it out. None of us can please all the people all the time, but most of us can manage to avoid acquiring enemies within five minutes acquaintance.

Finally, there's

 "I am a real eccentric." (My hobbies are gardening and sudoku, which I do fully-clothed.)

 "I've always been a bit of an outsider." (I've had a very privileged life, of which I am ashamed.)

"I'm always making people laugh." (I have this one joke about a man with paper trousers.*)

There are all number of traits which it is so unwise to attribute to yourself.  True eccentrics are all but oblivious to their eccentricity - that's part of what makes them eccentric. Almost everyone feels like a bit of an outsider, until they don't, but only people on the inside have the privilege to talk about being on the outside like it's a good thing. And comedians, even truly hilarious intelligent comedians, make their job ten times harder by telling people that they're going to be funny. All this stuff is like saying that you're drop dead gorgeous on a dating site. It's stuff you have to leave for others to judge.

Of course, as well as being better able to identify vices and flaws in others, Reality TV has taught me how to describe myself:

This is me. I am what I am. I am all about keeping it real. Some people may like me, some may not, but most are likely to react with something just the positive side of indifference. Some of those opinions may change after they've come to know me better.

* What do you call a man with paper trousers?  Russell!

Disability in Breaking Bad

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It's a very rare thing where a television show or film handles disability in a way I cannot fault. It's also much easier to blog about what's wrong with something, than what's right, but here, I have to do it.

There are very many things to recommend Breaking Bad (at least in its first two seasons), an American television series charting the moral downfall of a indebted high school chemistry teacher, Walt, who is diagnosed with lung cancer. Wishing to leave his family something after his death, he decides to team up with a former student in the manufacture of Crystal Meth.

Walt's teenage son, Walter Junior, has Cerebral Palsy. The character is played by a gorgeous young man called R J Mitte who is not just cute, but proper teenage heart-throb material who has apparently been romantically linked with Miley Cyrus. And guess what? The guy actually has CP. He crips it up a wee bit, but his performance completely outshines attempts by the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis or those young men from Inside I'm Dancing to portray the condition. It's so realistic! It's almost as good as S. Robert Morgan's impression of being both blind and black as Butchie in The Wire. .


Walter Junior's CP is not entirely incidental to plot. When the senior Walt describes the dire situation his family is in, he does mention his son with Cerebral Palsy. When Walter Junior is mocked by young men in a clothes shop, Walt's response demonstrates his hidden capacity for aggression in protection of his family. But otherwise, his family attempt to ignore or even downplay his condition. At one point, his uncle explains the boy's crutches as being for a football injury. During a driving lesson, Walt senior pressures him into using one foot for the clutch and brake pedals, leading an exasperated Walter Junior to explain, "My legs just don't work that way."

However, the CP is incidental to character. Walter Junior is a loving but gently rebellious teenager. In fact, regardless of disability, this is an unusually realistic portrayal of the kind of teenage boys I grew up around - neither the non-communicative, sexually-frustrated creature, teetering on the edge of criminal aggression, nor the sweet, responsible and ever reliable young man of parents' dreams. Walter Junior tries to buy alcohol under age and rejects his father's name in preference for the handle Flynn, but he loves his parents, eventually setting up a website to raise money for his father's cancer treatment.

As I mentioned before, Walt (played by Bryan Cranston - the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) has lung cancer. I have no idea how realistically the cancer itself is portrayed - knowing the wide variety of ways and severity cancer manifests itself, I'm guessing it would fit someone's experience, although so far, he just coughs a lot when he gets upset. What I do know is the reactions of family and friends to his cancer are powerfully realistic - the way that a person who had received a diagnosis can be several steps of reasoning ahead of those who love him, with a completely different gauge of what might be worth gambling or sacrificing in the hope of more time or an improvement in health. The way that, depending on what decisions someone makes about treatment, they may be hailed as a hero or condemned as a coward - and often in the space of the same conversation.

Walt is not a sympathetic character. His family will be poorer once he dies, but you're not sure that they're going to be worse off in any other respects. Walt's motives for cooking meth are changeable and inconsistent and he allows his wife to worry about his absences and suspicious behaviour. Most of all, I think, Walt's response to his illness is one of cold constructive anger and that's something you rarely see in drama. You see sick people having a tantrum about it, but that's not really them, and it's entirely forgivable. You see sick people becoming bitter about their illness and pushing everyone away. But you don't often see sick people sustaining anger about their illness and using that anger constructively.

I'm not especially pleased with this post. I've hardly told you a thing about Breaking Bad, which is a fantastic show and one which I partly regret having begun to watch before I could access every season right up to the end. However, it's so rare that a show handles disability so well, on top of everything else, that it is worth singing its praises.

The Undebateable Undateables

Last week, a poster appeared in London advertising a TV show called The Undateables, which reads "Love is blind, disfisgured, autistic..."  I'm not going to talk about the poster and the programme here; Matthew has already, Sarah has, Lisa has twice, the second time at Liberal Conspiracy. There's also been a timely article at the Guardian on disability and on-line dating. But I wanted to talk about how the discussion of things like "How The Undateables is the most offensive piece of Channel 4 advertising since Bigger, fatter, gypsier." gets stuck when we begin to address the problems of disabled people in finding love.

Being romantically irresistible is part of my impairment. It is embarrassing and it sometimes makes it difficult for me to be with other people. They often swoon, break into song, or tear roses from nearby bushes to make into thorny and often bloody bouquets to give me. As a result, I have been single for precisely four days since I was eighteen and even that can be put down to a particularly painful period.

However, I have had reason to contemplate my place in the mire of dating and romance over the years. Before my impairment was properly diagnosed, back when I thought people were staring because of the wheelchair and that light of my life was just another term of casual affection between strangers like pet or sweetheart, I thought I was likely to spend a big chunk of my life single. My ex-husband often told me that he was going to leave me (my condition is very difficult for any partner) and detailed many unattractive attributes in an attempt to reassure me that I wasn't quite as lovely as medical science seemed to suggest. When I looked towards the future, I imagined that I would probably end up being alone.

In a way, this was a helpful exercise. I knew I couldn't live alone and the obvious solution would be to live with friends. Because I'd talked about this with my friends (in the context of if, not when), I had more than one offer of a place to live when I finally decided to leave. Well, two serious offers, one "There's woodland at the back of my house where we could build a den!"

The other way in which it was helpful was that I thought a lot about the prejudices that get between disabled people, romantic happiness and sexual fulfillment.

Attraction is largely involuntary - no individual can be castigated for who they fancy or fall in love with - but there are very few universals. There are one or two around body-shape, but we only see this in data using responses to images, rather than sexual or romantic behaviour. In general, we learn what attractive men and women are like through culture; how fat or thin, how tall or short, what kind of hair they should have on their heads and bodies and how they should behave. This stuff varies a lot around the globe.

So prejudice like disablism and racism certainly interferes with this stuff. It's just impossible to say how much and in what way. Famously, the Observer Sex Survey in 2008 found that 70% of people questioned said they would not have sex with a person with a physical disability. I've used this figure myself, but personally, I think this expresses more about disabled stereotypes than behaviour. After all, most disabled people I know are partnered. I could be wrong, but I reckon if you showed people flattering images of disabled people with a mixture of physical impairments, smiling and having fun, and then asked the question, the response would have been far more positive. If you got people to have a five minute conversation with a selection of specially-selected extra-charming disabled people and then asked the question, you'd almost certainly get a minority expressing a preference.

As it was, many people may have simply thought, “Would I have a sexual relationship with Stephen Hawking?” and the answer came back the same as my response: Astrophysics has no place in the bedroom.

One of the problems dissecting the issue is the way discussions of disability and romance tend to pan out. When someone complains that they feel they're not getting sexual or romantic interest for almost any other reason, whether it's race, weight or age, something religious or cultural, the job they do or being a prince, then there are almost always people there to argue that they are hot and it's not such a big deal. There are always people who come forward to say, "I'm in the same boat, but I've found love and am living happily ever after." or "Well, you seem lovely so I'm sure you'll find someone soon." or even, "Could this all be down to a lack of confidence/ luck/ opportunity?"

But when say, a wheelchair-user talks publicly about problems finding love, the responses tend to come like this:

"I am also disabled and have given up on love. Everything you say is true. Nobody wants us. Everybody hates us!"

"I am disabled but I am lucky enough to have found a partner who is prepared to put up with me, without once suggesting a romantic weekend in Switzerland. I am so very very very very grateful to them, for without their compassion and no small degree of masochism, I would be entirely unloved and alone like you!"

"I find wheelchair users highly attractive, but you people are always so frosty when I send you e-mails detailing my wheelchair-related sexual fantasies. Then you complain nobody is interested!"

"I'm really sorry to read your experiences, and hope that one day you might meet someone who is prepared to see past your impairment, to see past any equipment you use, to see past any body parts that are at all iffy. In fact, to see past your face, body, brain, any idiosyncrisies of your mind and personality, through to the real, beautiful, non-disabled person who is somewhere trapped behind all that. Good luck!"

"It's much harder for disabled men, as men are supposed to be tough, strong and physically active, and we're supposed to go out and earn a living. Women can be physically weak and not work and still be considered attractive."

"It's much harder for disabled women, as women are supposed to fit a very narrow standard of physical beauty, and we're supposed to be able to have energy for looking after other people. Men can be physically imperfect and need some looking after and still be considered attractive."

"Why don't you think about dating other disabled people? They're bound to be more understanding. Simples!"

"@lastcommenter Why should disabled people date disabled people?  Other disabled people are completely hideous! Just because I'm disabled, why should I be content with someone who looks a bit funny and can't get up stairs?"

"Have you thought about using a sex-worker? When money is involved, it's much more difficult for someone to say no and they're all good at pretending to like you so they can get the whole thing over with quickly. It's your right to have sex!"

"You think you've got it bad? I have only one eye, so not only am I rejected all the time, I have trouble gauging just how far a person has walked away from me. There are loads of examples of sexy wheelchair-users, but when do people with one eye get a look in?"

"Evolution dictates that disabled people just can't get laid. That's why disabled people never ever marry or have children."

And so on.  Of course, most comments will be empathetic, but few people will actually argue with the idea that the disabled person can't find love because they are disabled (unless they launch into complete denial that it makes a difference to anyone apart from a rare and obvious bigot). Sometimes, especially when it is someone I know and like, I get very tempted. But it is very difficult to say the right thing.

The dangers are:

1. Coming across as patronising. Disabled people are used to being patronised and most disabled people have a very finely-tuned patronimeter. At the best of times, it can be hard to reassure someone that they are sexually attractive without seeming to patronise, even when you mean it (unless you're prepared to make love to them on the spot. Even then, it's not fool-proof.)
2. Coming across as creepy. Disabled people often encounter creeps of various kinds, some deeply sinister, others simply disconcerting. When someone is lonely and at a low ebb, there's no kind of creepiness, even accidental, that's going to make them feel less than awful.
3. Coming across as questioning someone's experience. Disabled people are used to having their experiences called into question. A lot of tact is required to help untangle someone's genuine experience of rejection, or statements people have made about their supposed unattractiveness, from whether or not they are fundamentally undesirable. 
4. Coming across as dismissing social injustice. Which we're also quite used to. There are some political circumstances which really do complicate relationships and potential relationships for disabled people, as Lisa outlines. 
5. Coming across as playing Privilege Top Trumps. If I wasn't romantically irresistible, it would be immensely difficult for me to form romantic relationships. I'm rarely able to leave the house, I can't drive or self-propel a wheelchair and I can't use my powerchair for long periods. I couldn't date anybody and very few people would be interested in working round that stuff in order to get to know me. But even if it wasn't for my clinical loveliness, I could never say to anyone, "Well, I found love and I'm a lot worse off than you are." because impairment and prejudice is so complex. I know I do have some advantages over Lisa, for example, (e.g. my impairment had little effect on my physical development and my bisexuality gives me a much larger pool to work with) or the pseudonymous Stefano (e.g. I'm better at avoiding inadvertent innuendo - "apart from one thing, very low maintenance" - he he he).

And yet, this subject is important. Not everyone is interested in sex or romance and many people are happy being single (although usually, happy people feel it's a choice). However, for anyone capable of sexual or romantic feeling - single or attached - to feel undesirable is a terrific blow to one's sense of self-worth. That's not vanity or anything shallow, it is part of our identity which feels damaged, inferior. It makes us more vulnerable to creeps and abusers (experience makes me shudder when I read those comments about the immense gratitude some disabled people feel towards a partner just for not abandoning them). It makes us feel less valuable altogether and makes all the battles we have to fight for survival and social progress so much tougher.

I think I may have to write a second post on how we might combat this, apart from the usual, "Magic some confidence from somewhere, damn it!" 

Five Reasons Why Science Fiction Fans are Better Dressed

Ever wondered why science fiction fans are so extraordinarily well turned out? While crime buffs lurk about in outdated rain macs, romance lovers entangle themselves - and one another - in bows and flounces and action movie addicts ruin perfectly good outfits with mud and blood, it is science fiction types who balance practicality and style.

Not that I prefer science fiction above other genres of fiction and film, but the future and outer space are where I learnt how to dress. One rough night, I came up with the following list:

1. Today could be the day that the Doctor shows up.

When I was a child, I talked as a child, I thought that I could be the Doctor but when I became an adult, I put away childish things and accepted that I wasn't a Timelord. Doctor's companion, however, remains a possibility (although a possibility perhaps fast diminishing with age).

Martha Jones (beautiful young black woman)
in a russet fitted leather jacket.

Some Doctor's companions have been pure eye-candy, others have been complex and powerful characters and one or two have outshone the Doctor himself. But like the different incarnations of the Doctor, part of what makes the different companions memorable is their unique style. Which includes bad style, the epitome of which is the recent Rory, who did up his top button and tried to look like Man from C&A a full decade after that store shut its beige and button-down-doors. 

I have a coat like Martha's. Except mine is longer, has lots of buckles on it and is green.

When I've had days when I can't get dressed, I've sometimes worried that I might hear the familiar whir of an approaching Tardis when I'm still in my nightclothes. However, watching as much science fiction film and television as I have, I know that outer space is simply awash with aliens who wear dressing-gowns all day long.  And Arthur Dent got on all right.

2. Time Travel demands style, not fashion.

If you are going to travel in time, by whatever means and in whichever direction, being well presented is far more important than being on trend. Of course, fashion comes in cycles, and I dare say trouser-bottoms will still be coming in and out millenia from now, collar-widths and skirt-lengths will continue expanding and contracting, much like the universe itself.  But even if you're going back in time and you know where you are going, you have to be careful - I've seen photographs of ordinary people in the 1960s and not everyone looked like Austin Powers. Only the men.

Whether you're heading for the past or the future, you won't want to be seen in a t-shirt with a slogan on it. Written language changes over time sometimes even more dynamically than the spoken word - Chaucer makes no sense written down, which is why they make students read him to stop English Literature being too much fun. Also, I know you might not believe this but few people find those slogans funny even now. In a hundred years time, it'll be a bit like when people alive today watch Last of the Summer Wine.

Modesty is also important (although most Time Travel stories completely ignore this issue). Many people in the past and almost certainly some people in the future will be shocked, offended and/ or inclined towards a lynching, if you turn up in micro-shorts and a bikini top. Especially if you have a lot of chest hair. 

3. Once Bitten, Forever Shamed

There are superb zombie movies (Dawn of the Dead), there are terrible zombie movies (the remake of Dawn of the Dead) and there are zombie movies which manage both awesome and awful in the same undying breath (Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town). But what all zombie movies have in common is the deep pathos they inspire when we see people condemned to shuffle around for eternity in outfits they would never have chosen if they knew they'd never get changed again. 

Whenever I sulked as a child, my Mum would inform me that, "If the wind changes, you'll be stuck like that!"  Now that's just not true. However, when I think about putting on a dress like this, zombie movies taught me that I might live to regret it.  Or at least, might die to regret it.  Or at least, my friends who have to decapitate my reanimated corpse might be doubly embarrassed for me.

On the plus side, in every zombie movie, there's always one lucky zombie bride, literally immortalised in all her glory. Well, some of her glory. Somewhat gory glory.

4. Superheroes teach us the power of accessories.

Superheroes and their enemies (who are often disabled role models) demonstrate the transformative power of costume, make-up and accessories. Ordinary if slightly better than average-looking men and women by day can metamorphise into Christmas Tree decorations with the clever use of primary colours, lycra and a few well chosen hats, shoes, gloves, masks and other accessories.

Consider Clark Kent's glasses. Everyone knew what Superman looked like - Lois Lane more than most. But put those spectacular spectacles on and nobody had a clue.  They were amazing. My Stephen has tried doing the same - taking off his glasses when carrying out superhero activity, but he only flies into things. I reckon Clark Kent wasn't even short-sighted! 

Superheroes can also teach us cautionary tales about the compromises involved in being stream-lined. When I was about ten, I thought this sketch was the funniest thing ever.

These days, of course, it doesn't seem funny at all. Much.

5. In the future, we're all in uniform anyway.

Science fiction has shown one possible future where everyone is dressed by Jean Paul Gautier (Fifth Element), another where everyone wears a lot of yummy green corduroy (Brave New World) and another possible future where alien races have all the great clothing design (Babylon 5). But for the most part, the future seems full of uniforms with very little room for self-expression indeed. So we might as well enjoy choosing our own clothes while we have the chance.

Admittedly, some uniforms are better than others. Obviously, most dystopian futures involve us all wearing boiler suits or shaving our heads, but we're determined to avoid those - the lose of individual style choices being just one among many good reasons to fight tyranny.  Early Star Trek uniforms are at least colourful and let you know your chances of survival, but the skirts are very short. Later Star Trek uniforms are too snug for comfort or flattery. The uniforms of Battlestar Gallactica, Starship Troopers and most of the clothes worn in the Alien films are just jazzed up modern military. It's like some people are determined that the future should be altogether more muted  and utilitarian than the past, rather than more sparkly, which is what it'll be if I have any say.

I was going to say that I could simply stick with my dressing gown and become a Jedi knight but then I realised it was "A long time ago in a galaxy far away." so that's not the future at all. All this time-travel is making me dizzy.  I think I best go back to bed now and watch a DVD. Perhaps a Western or something...

Top Gear & Disabled Parking Spaces

I can't believe I'm blogging about Top Gear. Stephen has done a much better job than me so go there and read that instead.

Stephen loves cars. From childhood, he has been obsessed with cars, their design, their innovations, their specifications. When he is in great pain, as he often is, talking about cars, looking at pictures of cars and watching programmes about car helps to keep him calm and thus as comfortable as possible. This may sound sad, but I'm the same with craft projects and materials, leafing through a Panduro catalogue or talking through how I'm going to make my nephew's birthday present is highly therapeutic. And naturally, these interests are contagious. Stephen has learnt the difference between découpage and appliqué, I have learnt that the Smart ForTwo and the Caterham are the only production cars to have a De Dion suspension system.

Then there's Top Gear. Top Gear is many strange things, but among them, it is the only regular programme dedicated to cars on a television channel you don't pay for. I could say some pretty scathing things about it's production and presentation, but that's a matter of taste. It is a taste that neither Stephen nor I share, and as such we both find it fairly annoying and sometimes offensive. However, it features lots and lots of pretty footage of cars and occasionally some interesting data. Not as much as it could – and in fact, to maintain my blood pressure on Sunday night, and because I am a square and I don't care, I was using a stopwatch to calculate out how many minutes of the hour actually featured a car, its interior or its engine in frame. I was guessing it would be less than half, but I never got far enough to see.

Our expectations were especially low because they were talking about electric cars. Quite apart from it's cultural position, Top Gear does not feature its presenters reviewing cars from their own impartial or even personal perspective. Top Gear is funded in part by the petroleum industry and depends on good relationships with the big car companies, the majority of whom still make most of their profits from the sales of gas-guzzlers. Top Gear is currently being sued by Tesla, having featured their high-performance electric car and pretending that it had run out of electricity and broken down on set. Similar tricks were played with the electric cars on Sunday, things went wrong that wouldn't normally go wrong, they went to one of the few counties in the UK where there are no public charge points and so on. And this was irritating, but I was happily distracted with my stopwatch experiment. But then....

The cars were parked in clearly marked disabled parking bays.

Parking in a disabled bay is illegal if it is on public property. On a private carpark, landowners have the right to clamp vehicles and issue big fines to offenders. It is possible – probable even – that the Top Gear crew got special permission from a private landowner to park in the disabled bays, but the viewer isn't to know this. If this had been the case, it would have been small effort to cover up the markings on the tarmac – even edit them out of what was effectively a still shot - but they didn't.

I'm not someone who goes crazy every time I see someone illegally parked in a disabled parking bay. I've been blogging for all these years and I can't remember ranting about it before*. But of course it disappoints me, it's a small chip in my faith in humanity. Disabled parking is not about convenience, nor is it a compassionate move to make life a little bit easier for disabled people. Usually, whether that parking space is available makes the difference between whether we get to do something – attend an appointment, meet up with a friend, shop, post a letter etc. - or not. But people don't know this and I make excuses for them (I'm concerned how much of this post seems to be about strategies I use to prevent my blood from boiling). I imagine that they have a blue badge that has fallen out of sight. Or they are waiting for an up-to-date badge to come through the post (they can be slow sometimes). I imagine that whilst the kid in the convertible managed to exit his car without opening the door, within a few yards down the road, the pain he lives with will have rendered his gait to a stagger.

But when it happens on prime time television, watched by more people than read The Daily Mail?

Honestly? It shook us up. We'd been talking about the reception we get from people when out and about together lately and the fact that our immunity to negative comment didn't last. It felt personal. This article Wheelie Catholic linked to described the abuse of a disabled parking space as a micro-aggression, a small act of contempt, though not quite malice, that people with mobility impairments face in our everyday lives. But it loses the micro when it is broadcast and normalised without comment. Added to this, a nice visual metaphor when the camera sweeps between the electric cars driving along the road and a woman with a mobility scooter riding the pavement beside them, along with comments about things with batteries being rubbish.

We turned the television off and e-mailed a complaint to the BBC. Stephen grimly speculated that they might have done this just so that they could laugh at people who complained next episode (which does seem a publicity strategy) before we realised that it had been the last in the series. Good, we can't be laughed at again.

This morning, we used our currently limited internet connection to see if anyone had noticed. Rob had, inviting the comment that Top Gear is a "man's programme" so that's okay (?!). Apart from that, much of the talk seemed to be about a very special piece that they did at the end of the show – which we missed – when they featured heroic amputee veterans involved in the Dakar Rally. I can't comment on how they handled this, except that the tired old triumph over adversity narrative seems to be what others have picked up on.

Unfortunately, I am not a hero. I just want to go about my business like everyone else. And for that, I need the single ounce of respect it requires a person not to park where they're not supposed to.


* I had a quick look through and actually found a post in which I argued that the Blue Badge (disabled parking permit) should be made less profittable. To be honest, I can no longer stand by that one entirely, but hey.

Ann Widdecombe: Feminist Icon

Ann Widdecombe is wrong about a lot of things. She campaigns against a woman's right to choose and as a politician opposed various anti-disrimination legislation. She does not consider herself a feminist. And yet, I'd argue that Ann Widdecombe is a feminist icon.

Ann Widdecombe proves that, whether or not women can have it all, we certainly don't have to. We might not want it all. We may be completely disinterested in over half of it. A woman can very well not have it all, and still be a tremendous success as a politician, as a public figure and most recently, as a competitive dancer. And she is a success. There is no reason to suspect that Ann Widdecombe is not completely and utterly fulfilled by the career she has had and the bits and pieces she does now, together with a family and social life which doesn't involve romance or children of her own. She is a rare public example of the not uncommon phenomena of the happy spinster.

Although her politics may be totally and utterly wrong (and they are), in many ways she was an exceptional politician. So far as I can see, she always said what she meant and did what she said, in a political climate increasing concerned with spin. She was not - is not - afraid to say something that most sensible people would totally disagree with. Last week, she supported Lord Young's comments that most of us had never had it so good (although in context, she has at least a bit of a point).

Widdecombe is the closest thing we have in mainland Britain to the Religious Right and yet she is not a hater. She is no egalitarian and converted from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism at the point that the CofE ordained women. She is anti-choice and believes in a very restrictive version of heterosexual marriage to be the only context in which people should take their clothes off - but she disapproves of most of us in equal measure. She has never said anything hateful towards gay people - she insists there is no difference between sexually-active gay folk and straight folk who also fornicate (it's a great word and without people like Ann Widdecombe, it might fall out of use entirely). I think the most enraging thing I ever heard her say were comments about rape, which focussed entirely on women's responsibility to avoid situations in which they might be vulnerable to assault.

But what makes Ann Widdecombe a feminist icon is that she doesn't want to be one. She doesn't feel that because she is a woman, she has to support women's issues, or exercise any gender bias at all. She doesn't feel the need to be any softer or fluffier than any male politician of her creed and generation, even though she was and still is subject to far more ad hominem attacks than most politicians of similar rank. Politicians who happen to be women (Widdy hated to be known as a Woman MP) are particularly vulnerable to criticism for their supposed attractiveness, their romantic and family lives and when they are right-wing and generally, well, harsh, they are attacked with gendered language. So Widdecombe is described by her detractors as lonely, loveless, frustrated and frigid, where there is no evidence that she is any of those things.

What is particularly admirable about Ann Widdecombe is that she apparently hasn't tried to neutralise this effect. Widdecombe is not ugly and has a very sweet face when she smiles, but she deviates from cultural ideals of beauty in almost every way; she's the wrong shape, the wrong weight, the wrong age and has had one of two very unfortunate haircuts. During a period where Blair's Babes were being made over to make relatively attractive politicians more attractive, she was still applying the pudding-basin and sheers method (we've all done it at some point). She has never tried to be other than she is. Unless I'm missing something, this lady is truly authentic.

In Strictly Come Dancing (yes, yes, you've got the point - I'm hooked), the Widdster resists all the reality show narratives that other folks fall into. Not for her talk of the journey, not for her tearful frustrations or life-changing experiences. Her brother died during training, and there was no mournful montage about her soldiering on despite it all. And she comes across as quite a lovely person. Physically awkward and a little shrill, but these are not bad things to be.

Women in late middle age are extremely rare on our television screens and newspaper pages and other than royalty, the only other examples I can think of are glamourous actors with long careers behind them. These women are famous, in part, for their beauty and continually congratulated on its preservation. Widdy proves that women can be valued and respected for more than being nice and being pretty. Even though she is, at least, just a little bit of both.