Hoist the Jolly Roger!

I was supposed to announce the winner of my Name That Pirate Competition yesterday. I know, sorry! Our friend H came round yesterday evening and all my systems started to shut down in the afternoon, which threatened a complete disaster as his entire purpose for coming was to consult for me on how to set up his mic and use sound editing software. Managed okay though in the end. No awkward questions about what has been going on in my life during the last seven months.

So anyway, I am pleased to announce that the name of the Pirate is… Kettle! as suggested by Charles Dawson.

Kettle received three out of four votes; Rosie objected because she reckoned keh sounds are very difficult for a child to make as famously I could not pronounce words beginning with C or K for some time, until I was miraculously cured during a particular episode of Mr Ben. She also thought that it could be confusing to give a toy the name of another commonplace object, but honestly, the child is already about six inches long now, it is about time it learnt to cope with such a minor paradox.

Rosie preferred Gimpy Mumpy’s Pat or Vic’s Sam, but had a lot of fun with Blogging Mone’s suggestion of Arrrrgh, which she decided would probably frighten a child (it would do the way R said it).

And we all had a great laugh having been reminded of the legendary Captain Pugwash. Plundering Porpoises! Thanks to everyone who left comments.

Not much to say really

I am having a few crap days and rediscovering what crap days are like. Which is basically good because it has been a while since I had a properly crap day, so I must be improving. I have been lying in bed watching the DVDs of Stephen Poliakoff’s Perfect Strangers on my laptop - do you remember that? I watched it through twice and managed only to sniff a bit through the second time. The first time I had to change my pillowcase. It is rather brilliant.

I have to say I rather approve of the statue of Winston Churchill in a straitjacket made to publicise the mental health charity Rethink. I wasn’t sure about the use of the straitjacket, but when I saw some of the disapproving opinions along the lines “Hitler was the deranged one, why not use him instead?” I thought the project must be worthwhile.

Don't forget to enter the Name That Pirate competition if you haven't already.

Life is Beautiful

I opened the kitchen window yesterday evening and there was this wonderful sound. It was raining, but mostly the sound was it splishing and splashing off everywhere and underneath this sound there were at least a couple of birds signing. I am pretty poor with birdsong; living where we do I can only identify birds that are not seagulls. But these little fellows were singing their hearts out. A lovely sounds like running your finger up the top end of a piano. Perhaps.

Anyway, with the combination of the birds and the water, it could have been the sounds of a waterfall in a forest glade. There are a good few waterfalls on the moors, hidden away. There is one, Falling Foss which is just gorgeous, but so out of the way. I can’t really tell you exactly how I got to see it, as it was a little naughty. But if you think about your perfect idea of a waterfall at the bottom of a fairly densely woods valley, so long as it doesn’t involve anything too tropical, Falling Foss is about there. Here is a picture, but it doesn’t do justice.

Later I got an e-mail from a friend who signed off

All my frustrated bewildered and frantic love,

which I thought was rather sweet.

Then today we had an adventure. Yup, I’ve been out of the flat twice this year and it’s only March! Today we went the supermarket at Scarborough. It was very exciting – we bought some fabric conditioner! Really it was great fun, I felt very sick on the way there and dozed most of the way back. But the novelty was pretty good.

There is still a lot of snow on the moors (it hasn't snowed since Saturday when a rescue helicopter had to replace the ambulance to Scarborough). It is mostly collected along the walls and hedgerows so you get the usual patchwork of farmland and moorland except with these silver-white borders between the different pieces of fabric. The sky was blue but so hazy that you couldn't actually make out the horizon; the big container ships travelling up the coastlooked like they were floating along in mid-air.

In other news, Disability Bitch is back on Ouch for the first time since... at least Christmas, I think. For the uninitiated, be warned: she is a bitch. Half the joy however is reading the occasional comment from people with irony deficiency complaining that she is, well, a bitch.

Ism Through a Prism

For Vegankid's Blog Against Sexism Day.

Both sexism and disablism are based on the same faulty mechanism; the confusion between biological fact and social construct. Sex is a fact. Impairment is a fact. But gender and disability are both garments that society has sewn for us. Both constitute a vast set of assumptions and expectations based on a relatively superficial matter, whether it is your particular combination of X and Y chromosomes, or your capacity to walk, see, hear etc as judged against a fictional norm.

The victims of sexism and disablism have also suffered far less from any kind of violent oppression as from the assumption that other people know what is best for us. Other people know what is best for our bodies, even what is best for our souls, about to how and to what extent we should be educated. Other people know how best we might best spend our time on Earth. We are rarely hated or feared until we step out of line, but such lines, subtle and unspoken as they are (now more than ever), are our subjugation.

Impairment often poses a direct challenge to gender identity and thus sexism increases the burden of disablism for both men and women. I recall a discussion among a group of people with my particular condition where the question arose as to whether men or women suffered most severely, in social terms, from having this illness. The men argued that the stigma of financial dependence and unemployment was far greater for them. That fatigue and enforced inactivity was emasculating; they were expected to be strong and active, not weak and passive.

Chronic pain and loss were also very difficult to deal with as a man. Men were allowed to show their feelings, but the sanctioned releases were exhausting; you go to a football match, stand and shout for ninety minutes, you participate in sport to get it out of your system or you flood your system with alcohol or recreational drugs. None of which does a great deal of harm if you are in otherwise good health and you just need a single discharge of emotion.

When your life has undergone significant change and you are suffering on a daily basis, you need to talk about it. The men felt that not only did they have difficulty with this, but their male friends tended to drop off very quickly when confronted with the new situation. It wasn't that the disabled men felt that didn't have the words or that their friends didn't have the capacity to listen, but the culture had made both parties feel entirely compromised by the prospect of any discussion. That is was going soft; giving up a bit of their masculinity.

The women argued that whilst they suffered from lack of sympathy from others over their unemployment – as if it just didn’t matter – there was so much other work that they were expected to do no matter what. This was especially the case when they had children; friends, relatives and others would be vocal in their disapproval if it wasn’t Mummy picking the child up from school, if it wasn’t Mummy cooking the dinner or if poor useless Daddy had to flail about ironing his own shirts. As if motherly and marital love consisted of a set of practical tasks and to decline from these tasks meant a failure as a woman.

Women also felt that their emotional response to illness was far more likely to receive a medical label and indeed, that the very physical nature of their condition was likely to be questioned if they ever came across as even slightly hysterical. This certainly seemed to be the case; out of the men who had gone through lengthy diagnostic processes, there were far more physical tests and scans than with their female counterparts, who seemed to need to demonstrate perfect mental health before any physical investigation would take place.

I could go on and this was just one group of people who had a particular condition. However, there is a theme running through these experiences which I think must apply to most conditions and impairments; being disabled means that you are regarded as a little less of a man or a little less of a woman.

Egalitarianism would seek to reduce the impact of rigid gender constructs on people’s lives, so this might not seem such a bad thing. Unfortunately, the effects of being a little less of a man or a woman in a sexist society is not to free you from the constraints of gender, but to reduce your value as an individual. Gender remains so important in our lives that if you do not fulfil your assigned gender role, you are a little less of a person.

Of course, disabled people are thought of as being a little less in many and various ways, but our compromised gender identity is a major contributing factor.

It is therefore imperative that disabled people are active in the fight against sexism, not just because we are right-on liberals who believe in fair play, but because sexism is part of our problem.

As long as we have assumptions and expectations about our roles, desires, strengths and weaknesses placed on us because of a physical and biological status that we all have (i.e maleness or femaleness), an altered physical or biological status (i.e impairment) is going to impact on those assumptions and expectations. And thus people with impairments will continue to be treated differently because of them.

Does that make any sense to anyone?

A is for Antidisestablishmentarianism

I spoke to Rosie last night, who impressed with the as yet unnamed pirate, has employed my services (or at least submitted to my pleas) to make the alphabet cards for Baby Tinker’s nursery. Rosie and Adrian are currently insisting that the child is going to be called “Kiwi Bob Snottit” for reasons known only to themselves.

Rosie has made her first purchase for Tinker. She has been very good, despite being generally a bit of a girl and taking great pleasure in shopping. And I am very pleased to report that this purchase consisted of ten Ladybird books, including Treasure Island, Oliver Twist, Alice in Wonderland and The Three Musketeers. Great stuff.

“Of course, the baby will have books for cousins,” I say.

“What?” says Rosie.

“Baby Kiwi,” I say (you have to indulge her), “He or she will have books for cousins.”

“What do you mean?” says Rosie.

“Books. It’s a metaphor. One is coming into the world as we speak.”

“You’re giving birth to a metaphor?”

“No, a book.”

“Eek! Is it a hardback or a paperback?”

Rosie does seem very confused at this stage of pregnancy; she stated that [...] was an only child who grew up in Barnsley. She has known him for almost seven years. Mind you, when I said that he had lived in Burnley at one point, she declared that this was the same thing; the two places begin with B and they are both Up North.

We had much fun discussing inappropriate words for every letter in this alphabet I am going to do – we managed to come up with one almost entirely made up of words for bottoms and digestive processes, only most of the pictures would be similar.

In all seriousness, it is a challenge. You have to think of appropriate words for each letter of the alphabet where

(a) a child will be able to recognise the object early on (why give the child the concept of yacht which it must differentiate from boat?)

(b) a child will be able to pronounce the word fairly early on

(c) a child will be able to read the word as soon as it begins to read (whilst elephant makes for a nice picture, why burden a child with ph before it has mastered its single letter sounds?)

But also, one has to consider;

(d) the relationship between the letter, the shape, the colour and the sound of the word and any sound association between the letter and the object.

For example, snake is a great word because you can make the snake curl into the shape of the letter S. You can also make a snake as colourful as you like. And the snake hisses – it makes an S sound. Fantastic. Similarly whale can have lots of waves in the shape of the (more rounded) letter W. And whales make a “Wibble!” sound, or at least it would be good if they did, so why not pretend?

However, some letters are absolute bastards. Sometimes I wonder why we have the letter X in our alphabet at all. You can only do X-Ray where an X sounds like an X. This will make for an amusing picture, but it is rather advanced concept.

You can tell that I am taking the duties of auntihood seriously. I have even been revising Piagetian Theory. Anyway, they're going to have a scan in a few weeks, so hopefully you'll be able see a picture of The Science Project - I mean Tinker- very shortly.

Competition - Name That Pirate!

Naturally, the news of my forthcoming increased auntihood has resulted in a flurry of industry. The first thing was to paint this piggy-bank. I am also very chuffed the dolly I have made, as I have no experience of toy-making, only ever sew in order to mend things and I didn't have a pattern or anything. Despite all this, it turned out quite well. Now all my dolly needs is a name.

I meant for dolly's gender to remain indeterminate, as is Baby Tinker's gender at this time (hopefully there will be a scan soon and I will show you, like it or not). However, my instinct is that this is a gentleman-dolly so I shall refer to it in the masculine.

The dolly is a pirate on account of the fact that his hair went hideously wrong. I had no idea how to give a dolly hair so I sewed nine metres of black ribbon onto the top of his head. I then realised he was best wearing a bandanna at most times.

So the dolly is a pirate and spends his working day plundering the high seas. For this he wears denim dungarees which are so incredibly funky that I would probably make myself a pair if I had more fabric.

The dolly is disabled and can't stand up straight. I may make a wheelchair for him later on, but I am anticipating baby Tinker to be very clumsy and inclined to eat everything during his or her first years of life and would therefore damage such a thing.

After a hard day's work, the dolly clocks off, changes into casual dress and spends some quality time with his pet, the Big Scary Kitten. Despite the violence and villainy essential to his day job, the dolly has a warm heart and a great love of animals. He also likes listening to music. He is very keen on Depeche Mode, having himself been described as the Black Martin Gore.

Strangely enough, "Is it black?" was the first question my mother asked when I told her about the dolly. I explained that the fabric I was using was kind of tea-coloured if that was anything to go by.

"Trust you to make a politically correct doll!" my mother declared. "Is it gay?"

"It is a dolly for the baby," I explained. "It is ambiguous."

The word ambiguous sent my mother into a fit of inexplicable giggles, so that was the end of the conversation. But just to reassure my mother, who may worry about such things, here is the dolly spending an evening with the lads down at the local nightclub The Dolly House.

Here the dolly meets his best mates, Tinky Winky and Tortoise. After some nice tasty seafood, these chaps like nothing better than to dance the night away, which is a precarious business when you have no skeleton.

At the end of a long day, plundering the high seas, playing with his cat, and getting very drunk in the nightclub, the dolly collapses in a drunken stupor on the floor (he's a real-ale pirate).

So now it is over to you; what is the dolly's name? There are no prizes except for the knowledge that a small, as yet unborn, person will have the dolly that you named as his or her most favourite treasured toy (perhaps). Hmm, I might think of a prize of some sort.

I think the best way is if you enter the competition by leaving a comment with your suggestion below. I know that means everyone gets to see your idea, but I think it may be more fun that way. I'll tell you who won next Sunday (12th March 2006).

And before you ask, yes, a new digital camera is high on the list of gadgets to be purchased when finances allow.

Don't people just make you sick?

Inspired by Charles Dawson and his allegedly Distasteful Subject.

Recent generations have had a kind of cultural mysophobia instilled in us from an early age. AIDS emerged within six months of my birth and was always in my consciousness; eight year old Sally and I decided not to make an oath of our friendship in blood in case one of us was infected. I do not know quite how many diseases I was vaccinated against and indeed, my health was excellent as a child.

On diagnosis of the condition I developed at fifteen, I was informed that I had simply not had enough bugs and diseases and my immune system had now collapsed, perhaps permanently, in the face of its first significant challenge.

Now personally, I would prefer that people like me became disabled than mothers and fathers had to face the deaths of their infant children to preventable diseases – if indeed there is a connection between my pathetic immune system (and the increasing rate of asthma and other allergies) and vaccination. My point is that I am not naïve about the potential effects of infection.

One of the chief candidates was Epstein-Barr which causes Glandular Fever or Mono.

Meet Epstein-Barr, also know as the kissing disease, because that’s one way of contracting it and most people who get Glandular Fever are adolescents who do a lot of that sort of thing. With tongues. Scary stuff, eh? You could be ill for months and if you are unlucky, you could end up like me. Don’t kiss any icky boys or slimy girls and you’ll be safe, right?

Well no. In the developing world, there is an almost 100% infection rate among babies and in the UK about eighty percent of us carry the antibodies; evidence that at some point we were infected and are now immune. Most of us didn’t get sick at all, however many tonsils we tickled.

Similarly; herpes. Eek! Herpes! Seventy percent of us have facial herpes that causes coldsores. About one in five of us have the genital version of the virus. That means that a state of herpes infection is actually normal; fortunately most of us are oblivious to the fact because our immune systems tuck these things out of sight and most of us don’t experience (or at least don’t notice) symptoms.

Just recently in the news there was the suggestion that students should be wary of the number of partners they kissed because of the heightened risk of Meningitis. Meningitis is serious, it can kill and otherwise cause severe lifelong impairment. Yet one in ten of us carry the bacteria involved. Without behaving abnormally, there is very little you can do to guarantee your health and therefore, your life.

People do make you sick. Human contact is a bloody dangerous business. And as I say, we are riddled with potentially problematic, even potentially deadly organisms who largely manage to coexist with us. Some of them even benefit us. It is just the way the world is.

So, The Goldfish Guide To Avoiding Sickness From Infectious Diseases

• Hand-washing and food hygiene is all essential. It is very easy to make oneself very ill with the toxins your body has already disposed off, so to speak, as well as bacteria in meat and eggs which is destroyed with cooking. That stuff has to be taken seriously.

• There is no excuse not to use a condom. They are an effective form of contraceptive and protection from at least the ew nasty diseases. When you don’t want to use a condom, and either party has slept with anyone else ever, get screened. If you are grown-up enough to have sex, you are grown-up enough to feel no shame in this. The vast majority of STIs cause very little harm unless they go untreated.

• If you have an infectious disease such as the flu or a sickness bug, stay away from other people until it has run its course. Remember that your sniffle could do a lot more harm to someone with a vulnerable immune system, who may be a colleague, or someone next to you on the bus – apart from the fact that making your colleagues sick will double your workload when they’re off work in a few days time.

• Have a good idea about the symptoms of serious infectious diseases like Meningitis so that on the rare occasions that it does crop up (and you don’t need a SU card to get sick), the damage can be kept to an absolute minimum.

• Look after your immune system by exercising, eating healthily, giving up smoking but most essentially, getting plenty of human contact. Then at least if you do catch the dreaded lurgy, your immune system will be boosted by all the love, laughter, support and stress-relief provided by whichever bastard infected you.
  

At this point I must remind you of the wonderful Giant Microbes website first pointed out by Gimpy Mumpy, where you can contract various diseases, including Syphilis (right), for a mere £6.25.

A competitive price around our way.