This Post Brought To You Courtesy of Pinot Grigio

...which will explain any spelling mistakes, 'k?

I have NO RESULTS. I have spent six effing months on research for a dissertation, and because of the physiotherapy teaching establishment's idiocy, obstinacy, protected privilege, and unwillingness to engage with disabled people and disability researchers, I have no results.

My very sweet tutor says it's all going to be OK, and that I have other things to talk about, including sociologically significant reasons for having no results. But I can't avoid the sinking feeling that says I'm going to get a 65 on this dissertation and miss out on my distinction (for which I need at least a 68), and not be able to get funding for a PhD, and generally end up with no sodding idea what I'm going to do with my life next.

Over on my lovely fandom posting board, we are talking etymology, words that offend everyone from feminists to disabled people, reclaiming terminology when you're in a minority group, and all that good stuff. Awesome. I love how disability-aware a lot of them are, on that random posting board that has nothing to do with disability at all. It gives me hope.

Hope: something this blog is sometimes lacking. Let us celebrate. More Pinot Grigio!

Customer Service

See that pot? That's not a pot of tea. That, m'dears, is what you get in Richoux - the world's snobbiest cafe - when you order a pot of coffee. The Girl paid several £s for that pot. She was expecting a cafetiere. She was, to say the least, not impressed. As you might be able to tell from the picture.

Talking of cafes, I've been trying to find out why the brand new Costa on Chalk Farm Road has a sodding enormous step at the entrance. This is a blatant breach of the DDA. (The Costa customer service department responded to my e-mail asking which branch I'm talking about, when I had given the exact address - which rather demonstrates how stupid they are.) It's one thing when a small, independent shop can't afford to ramp its entrance. It's quite another when a massive multi-national, with six branches in every town, refits a brand new cafe and builds a new step entirely from scratch. Wankers. If they have no answer to my complaint, I might ask Camden Council exactly why they keep giving planning permission to shops and cafes that stomp all over actual and/or potential disabled customers in their blatant disregard for the law.

This has been the Rant of the Day. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Day Ten - in which I cross-post from elsewhere, due to tiredness

Today mostly involved doctor crap. Which I don't feel like analysing today. Maybe tomorrow.

We're going with 'Susan' for the walker's name. We realised it covers three fandoms - with Ivanova, Sto-Helit and Pevensie. I look forward to giving a different answer every time someone asks why.

Today in my evening class, we were taught about feminism - very badly. I tried not to laugh or correct the teacher. I should have realised that taking a sociology class, even if not in my area of expertise, was inevitably going to involve occasional sniggering behind my laptop. I'd get angry, only I just don't care enough about the class, occasional fun though it is. (I do wish its essay deadline wasn't the day after my dissertation deadline, though. Guess which one will get prioritised? Clue: one of them will get me an MA and one won't...)

Day Nine - Short Memory

Between exhaustion from having spent hours on my dissertation today, and The Girl arriving at Heathrow earlier than anticipated, I forgot to post.

It's a good thing NaBloPoMo doesn't specify either post length or, well, quality.

Better stuff tomorrow, I promise...

Day Eight - Scraping The Barrel

Today I went to church. Before leaving the house, I noted (via twitter) that I was hoping to avoid too many comments about the new mobility aid, and offering advice to discerning readers that the way forward is not to say too much about such things.

Suffice it to say that with the number, weight and intensity of comments, you'd have been forgiven for thinking I'd walked in with a new baby.

(Although that would have been a lot less supportive for my knees.)

Have been discussing names for aforementioned walker on fandom forums. Continuing the sci-fi/fantasy theme (following Marvin the powerchair and Luna the manual), and given that the walker is geeky and a bit strange*, I'm thinking along the lines of Random or Susan. Messageboard posters are currently favouring Velma, but I am not a Scooby Doo fan so that's not happening.

I would say again that this wasn't the best month to choose to post every day, but I think you're getting the idea.


*You find these things out about mobility aids quite quickly.

Day Seven - Photoblog

The scene not far from my road which I encountered on returning from Camden this morning. I'd been working in a cafe for a couple of hours. Heading back home, I found the road blocked off in all directions, including the dropped kerbs, with no temporary ramps and no warning signs.

The workmen acted like I was entirely bonkers for suggesting that they might have wanted to make their roadworks accessible to disabled pedestrians. "But we're only going to be here for an hour or so."

Then one of the workmen instead on 'helping' me up and down the inaccessible kerbs, mainly by repeating "Keep going... keep going... keep going..." about six times. Because I can't push my wheelchair without such verbal encouragement, obviously.

FAIL, Camden Council.

Not that we expect any better than that from you, really.

Day Six

This post-a-day thing is quite hard work when you're spending up to 12 hours a day doing discourse analysis and editing research designs. Which reeeeeally don't make for interesting blog discussion material.

On the slightly more exciting side of things, I have a walker. This is not because I have given in to society's obsession with staying upright - Mike Oliver sums up how I feel about that, in his fantastic piece What's So Wonderful About Walking? But I'm just not that great at life in a wheelchair. I tip over. I fall out. I have to get out of the chair to do kerbs. I need powered wheels to get up hills. I'm in massive pain in my shoulders after a day of self-propelling (even with the aforementioned powered wheels). I can access nothing, because it hurts to lift the chair up steps (mainly because I need the aforementioned powered wheels, but not entirely). I tip over again. I fall out again. Yes, it's partly because I've only been using it about three years, but it's also because I'm dyspraxic, have crappy useless muscles thanks to FMS, and am generally a bit rubbish. I don't intend to stop using my wheelchair, by any means, but I like having a choice of mobility aids. One day, when I am very rich, I will have a garage full of them. I'm well on the way - I'm already getting on for a hallway full.

And that's the last time I *ever* give that explanation, because I don't have to explain my mobility-aid choices, and I'm tired of feeling like I do. Hurrah for self-determination and confidence in myself! (I give it a week.)

Anyway, I went for a (very) little walk in the rain. Which was probably rather dangerous, now that I think about it. But it was much fun, and I made it to the little cafe that's nearby, and had a cuppa before going home again.

Must go - Hamish the Little Girl Dwarf Hamster is running around very loudly in her mouse-sized wheel, and I'm taking every opportunity I can to persuade her that I am a non-scary person whose hand she can sit in. She hasn't yet decided whether I am Friend. She's been living with me for about three weeks. She'd better figure it out soon.