Ouch Podcast #24 – February 2008
bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast

Presented by Mat Fraser and Julie Fernandez

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The Ouch Podcast!

MAT	Hello! I’m  Mat Fraser.
	
JULIE	Hello! Do you know who I am?

MAT	It’s – um – I’ve seen you on telly.

JULIE	I’m not Liz.

MAT	You’re Julie Fernandez!

JULIE	I am!

MAT	I’m so honoured to be with a televisual star. Listeners, foreign ones especially might not know who you are really, so I think later we might delve into you.

JULIE	Right. Into my psyche?

MAT	If we may.

JULIE	That’s a bit scary.

MAT	That’s OK. The listeners are used to that kind of fear factor.

JULIE	Great.

MAT	Listeners, I can hear you asking, what’s coming up on this month’s show? Well, we’ve got the usual disability chat where Julie will have to humour me and stop me going off at too much of a tangent, and we’ll be reading your emails as well. 

JULIE	“Special People” is going to be premiered at the London Disability Film Festival in mid-February. Here’s a clip.

“Have you any idea of the work involved in taking three wheelchair-bound teenagers off to the wilds for the day?”

“Look – I’ve cleared it all with the people here. I do know what I’m doing, you know.”

We’ll be speaking to two of its stars in about fifteen minutes from now.

MAT	Our usual game, Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable will be along later – I do hope it continues forever. 

JULIE	We’ll be playing out with this:

[music]

That’s 23-year-old Jayne Stevens with a song called “Trapped” that she wrote after being diagnosed with epilepsy.

MAT	Check out the Ouch website as well of course at bbc.co.uk/ouch where you’ll be able to find pictures and video clips of this podcast. And you can contact us from there as well.

JULIE	Hello Rob!

MAT	Rob Crossan – regular listeners will know who he is – is across the desk; there’s an immediate rapport going on with the new girl and him. I’d like to remind you Rob that you are freshly engaged. 

ROB	Yes, as is Julie.

MAT	Congratulations to both of you. 

JULIE	Thank you very muchly!

MAT	How did you do it, Rob? Is she one of yours?

JULIE	What a question!

ROB	I’ve been a bit of a traitor to the cause, really – no, she isn’t. She doesn’t have any disabilities that I know of yet – apart from coming from the state of Alabama. 

MAT	Yeee haw!

ROB	That’s a disability in itself.

MAT	Steady on.

ROB	There’s a lot of prejudice.

MAT	We’ll be coming back to you later Rob. Now, I think we should do an immediate ‘get to know Julie’ quiz. 

JULIE	Oh dear. I’m dreading this, listeners.

MAT	Ha ha! 

JULIE	 Mat has a list of questions that he’s got to ask me that I haven’t seen yet.

MAT	Well, after all, the listeners have got used to me and Liz, and they need to know who you are. 

JULIE	This is true.

MAT	So. You have 30 seconds, Julie Fernandez, to answer all eleven questions.

JULIE	Starting from…. [rings bell]

MAT	Cheddar or Stilton?

JULIE	Ooooh, Cheddar, but I live in Stilton. 

MAT	Wheelchair or sofa?

JULIE	Ooooh, wheelchair, sofa, and then wheelchair.

MAT	Comedy or weepy?

JULIE	Comedy.

MAT	Five a day or one a day?

JULIE	Five a day.

MAT	Disabled people or people with disabilities?

JULIE	People with disabilities.

MAT	Kaiser Chiefs or Kylie?

JULIE	Oh, neither.

MAT	The Office or Extras?

JULIE	The Office.

MAT	Mmm, funny you should say that. Sparkling or still?

JULIE	Still.

MAT	Straight edges or rounded edges?

JULIE	Rounded edges.

MAT	Grass or concrete? [bell rings] – Ah, 30 seconds are up – I can’t ask you. I’m afraid I’m going to not have to ask you the grass or concrete – although I know what I prefer. [laughter]. Oh, I wanted to ask the last one, it’s all romantic and you just got engaged…
	
JULIE	Romantic?

MAT	Valentine’s Day or Pancake Day?

JULIE	Valentine’s Day!

MAT	Awwww.

JULIE	Do you think people will actually know me any better from those questions? I don’t think I know myself any better from those questions.

MAT	No. I’d like to go back to a couple of them though if I may.

JULIE	Go on then.

MAT	You said wheelchair, sofa, then wheelchair again. 

JULIE	Yeah, I start in the wheelchair, move to the sofa then go back to the wheelchair.

MAT	On your way to…?

JULIE	Wherever I’m going.

MAT	Let’s assume just for the sake of argument, you’re going to bed.

JULIE	OK.

MAT	Wheelchair, sofa, wheelchair, bed.

JULIE	Yeah, stairs.

MAT	Could you not just crawl from the sofa to the bed?

JULIE	Has been known.

MAT	Is there a flight of stairs in between?

JULIE	Unfortunately, yes.

MAT	Oh. 

JULIE	And my kittens tend to try and race me before I get to the top which is usually quite a dangerous thing, because I try to stop myself from falling down the stairs.

MAT	It sounds very treacherous.

JULIE	It is.
	
MAT	Is your boyfriend in the SAS or something?

JULIE	No, but he should be.

MAT	Now, Kaiser Chiefs or Kylie – little bit cruel – neither? Why not?

JULIE	OK, that’s not true. I actually really like Kylie; Kylie is cool.

MAT	Do you like her more since the breast thing? One of us, etc?

JULIE	I think she’s a cool lady. I think she probably did breast cancer the world of good by highlighting it.	

MAT	I think we know what you mean by that.
	
JULIE	What have you been up to lately then?

MAT	I’ve been getting older, Julie. I’ve been getting a lot older.

JULIE	Older and wiser.

MAT	Hmm. Just older in my case.

JULIE	How much older?

MAT	One year older. Well, I’m not going to say my age, but I’m now nearer one decade than the previous.

JULIE	You’re looking blooming marvellous.

MAT	Thank you, I can still go all night long. Just takes me about a week to get over it.

	
JULIE 	I know that feeling.

MAT	How about you?

JULIE	 I’ve been busy trying to organise a wedding. Would you believe it?

MAT	Your own?

JULIE	My very own wedding. This December actually. We’re kind of ignoring Rob here. Rob, what’ve you been up to this week, this month? This year?

ROB	I also got engaged, on New Year’s Eve. 

JULIE	Congratulations!

MAT	That’s so romantic! Were you drunk?

ROB	That’s the best thing about it – I got engaged and I woke up and it wasn’t a drunken mistake. I was delighted.
	
JULIE	Did you go on bended knee?

ROB	I tried, yes.

JULIE	Did you fall over getting up?

ROB	It wasn’t so much that – after she said yes I got so excited I sort of exhaled and blew out a candle, and the candle wax blew back into my face. So for two or three minutes when I should have been enjoying the fact that I’d just met my wife to be, I was actually lying on a bed howling in pain, while my new fiancée was picking candle wax out of my cornea. 

JULIE	How romantic!

ROB	Couldn’t have gone better, yes. It was a superb start to her fianceed life.

MAT	What does she do?

ROB	She’s a music writer, and she’s got herself a job in London with a band called the Magic Numbers.

MAT	Oooh!

JULIE	Weyhey!

MAT	Wow. Can you top that?

JULIE	Not really. My other half is an IT expert who works in London. That’s how much I can top that one.

MAT	I think we’d better go to emails then, in that case.

JULIE	I think you’re right. Go on, you go first.

MAT	Shall I do the first one?

JULIE	Go on then.

MAT	All right. Oh, it’s a long one, innit?

JULIE	It is.

MAT	I think I just won’t bother doing that one. Ah, here’s a nice one. “Just found your website tonight. My daughter is new to the wheelie’s community – T6 injury on December 6. Still in rehab with no internet access yet, she will be v. happy with this site. Thanks for being there/here.” Is she six years old?

JULIE	Hope not. She shouldn’t be listening to this if she is.

MAT	Um, thank you Caroline Blankenburg, of Berkeley, California. Hold on a minute – talk about the Lord taketh away and the Lord giveth – so you got a T6, aww, sorry, but you’re in Berkeley, the most accessible city in the entire world. There isn’t a better place to become a wheelchair user in the world. 

JULIE	It’s cool that we got it from Mum though, isn’t it?

MAT	Yeah. Thank you.

JULIE	I love Berkeley. Have you been to Berkeley?

MAT	Oh, it’s lovely.

JULIE	Isn’t it? It’s so accessible - it’s fantastic.

MAT	I’ve actually gone on at my arms’ length about this; everybody’s probably had enough about how brilliant I think Berkeley is. 

JULIE	I won’t go there.

MAT	What else have we got?

JULIE	I’ve got one here from Sue Kent and I have to read this one, because I have to ask you about this. This is all new to me. Sue Kent wrote “Dear Mat and Liz” – but Liz isn’t here – “If you’ve not already gone yet, I’ll be bereft without Liz. How long are you going for, and good luck.” So, this is what I need to ask you about Mat. “At least Mat can say Thalidomide as much as he likes now. As a Thalidomide Mat keeps harping on about being referenced as a number and Liz is vicious in her teasing.” What does that mean?

MAT	Well basically there was only a finite number of us Thalidomiders, about 400 and something, and I’m number 130. And it’s all a little bit cataloguing. 

JULIE	It’s a bit freaky. Talking about cataloguing, she goes on further to explain in her email: “In the 1970s, all Thalidomide children claiming compensation were asked to be photographed naked as part of their compensation claim.”

MAT	Naked disabled children.

JULIE	Would it be allowed now? It would be in a freak show. “I think in the end we got to keep our underwear on, ooh how lucky. Mine was Marks & Spencer’s pink matching vest and bloomers”

MAT	Mine were nylon Y-fronts.

JULIE	What colour? Brown?

MAT	No, kind of like orange. The colour of pink blancmange. Which is kind of orangey, pinky, peachy.

JULIE	That’s lovely. And I bet your mother chose those.

MAT	They were a little bit iffy. She continues…

JULIE	So. “Sensitive personal information was prepared on each family for the legal process. The press were very interested in us at the time and wanted all sorts of financial, personal and photographic information”- it’s a bit weird isn’t it at the end of the day – “to protect the young from any possible exploitation then or in the future. The true identities were shielded from prying eyes by a number of systems.” You got another one?

MAT	Um, thanks Sue Kent, and I’ve been told, and I won’t ever say that it was a Nazi thing. OK, here we’ve got one from Jane Gasson. “Hi Guys. While looking for podcasts to put on my shiny new iPod I stumbled across your fantastic, super-funny and very naughty podcast. Keep up the good work guys – Jane.” Thanks Jane.

JULIE	Are we naughty?

MAT	Apparently so, Julie.

JULIE	Oh, lovely. I like being naughty. There’s one more email from Jocelyn, who wrote to us after only recently hearing the October podcast where we talked about disabled people being the third gender, and it’s all about public toilets – men, women and disabled. Basically at her university, people who are transgendered felt unsafe going into the university toilets so what they decided to do was to put three signs above the door of the individual cubicles, man, woman and wheelchair user. So it’s a free for all in toilets now. 

MAT	All right.

JULIE	What do we think of that one?

MAT	Well on the one hand it’s good to have everyone is welcome at every door kind of thing, I suppose; I know that a lot of wheelchair users get annoyed when ambulant, i.e., walky people use their toilet.

JULIE	Very much so. Very frustrating.

MAT	So surely that’s just going to make it worse then, isn’t it?

JULIE	Very probably, yes.

MAT	So given the option, Rob, if I can throw this across – there’s a toilet, you’ve got to use it, there’s the crappy old mens, there’s the ladies and the disabled one, if no-one’s looking, which are you going to use?

ROB	Well I’m quite partial to using the disabled toilet. I think on a technicality I could probably justify my presence in there.

MAT	You could, but even if you weren’t?

ROB	I’d still use it, because they’re cleaner.

MAT	Cleaner, bigger…

ROB	Unless this is the one where you have to go and ask for the key. That’s when you don’t really want to do it.

	
MAT	You have to pretend to have cerebral palsy when you ask for the key.

ROB	Yep, and these giant keys….

JULIE	Anyway chaps, shall we move on? 

[jingle: “The Ouch Podcast”]
	
JULIE	The London Disability Film Festival runs from the 14th to the 17th February. Headlining this event is a movie called “Special People.” It follows Jasper, a desperate film maker, as he tries to drag a bunch of stroppy wheelchair-using teenagers through a film project.

MAT	Dominic Coleman, who plays Jasper, is with us in the studio. Hello Dominic.

DOMINIC	Hello. 

MAT	And on the line from Worcester is Robin Frampton, who plays the completely unenthused Jess. Hello Robin.

ROBIN	Hi.

JULIE	Dominic, tell us a bit about he basic premise of the film and a little bit more about your character.

DOMINIC	This character, Jasper, has been assigned a job to do a film course, so he’s a film maker but he’s slightly down on his luck so he’s been doing some teaching. His new or latest assignment is to work with a group of disabled teenagers. During the course in the first couple of days he then hits a brainwave, he’s going to make a short film and it’s going to be his masterpiece and the saving grace of his career, and he’s going to make a film about the plight of the disabled, whether they like it or not.

MAT	Sounds familiar.

DOMINIC	Yes. And it’s obviously beset with one or two problems - not least because of the way he approaches the whole project. Now as I hinted at briefly the character Jasper is slightly self-deluded about his own ability.

MAT	Robin, you play a typical grumpy teen. You’re eighteen now of course, but do you think your character bears any relation to how you were at that age?

ROBIN	I was like that, because I based it around when I was 13.

MAT	So was there a degree of improvising to get the characters, or was it written as such.

ROBIN	Most of it was written, but…

DOMINIC	If I could just butt in, Robin, it’s quite a funny sort of process because the film originally was a short film that was made very much as an improvised process, that Robin took part in, and was then scripted and features an extension of that as a scripted version, but very much input.

MAT	I want to go back to the stroppiness of your 13-year-old persona. How bad did it get, Robin? Did you tell your mum to F-off?

ROBIN	Not quite but I did shout at my mum quite a lot. It’s because my mum is the same as me, she shouts louder than me so, kind of calmed down a bit.

DOMINIC	Sorry, when did you calm down? When was this?

MAT	Shall we have a clip?

JULIE	Yes, let’s have a clip. 

MAT	Let’s have a clip; it’s a clip of Jasper and Jess doing some improvisation.

	Jasper: You want to get into this club, you’re being discriminated against by this guy, so you want to give him a piece of your mind, let him know how you feel. Say what you like, you’re the writer, OK?

Jess: Can I come in?

Jasper: No you can’t, you wheelchair user.  Sorry – that’s the character speaking. It’s not me.
 
Jess: But I really want to come in.

Jasper: Well I’ve told you once, you can’t.

Jess: OK. 

	
JULIE	Dominic I’ve got to ask you this question – I know it’s a bit crazy but I’ve got the little biog here, and I really want to know about where the idea for the film came from, and I’ve got a little paragraph here that says the project started from something that says a disabled participant had a lamp explode in her lap, and another was given an epileptic fit by the feedback on a video monitor. What’s that all about?

DOMINIC	Oh gosh, I don’t know – I’m really sorry to disappoint, but I don’t know what that’s about. I think that might be from the original premise of the whole project, which was like a community based thing, so the director Justin Edgar initiated with a group of students and I believe those rather interesting thing happened there.

MAT	I very much like the style of it, it’s very much for me in the style of The Office or Extras, that kind of very realistic documentary style that brings out brilliant non-performances from people.

DOMINIC	Absolutely.

MAT	It’s very much like real life, and I for one am really pleased that a disability project has got that treatment, because I think it helps coolify disability, frankly.

JULIE	And not only that but all of the disabled characters were actually played by disabled actors which makes a blooming change.

DOMINIC	I was talking about this the other day; it’s a fairly sad state of affairs that that’s actually an issue. It’s like, ‘let’s all black up’, know what I mean? There’s no difference and I just don’t get…

MAT	Are you listening to this? This is a ‘normal’ saying this. So we must be right.

JULIE	A normie. Do you know how many casting agents are shocked when I turn round and say to them something like that? Like, “Would you get a white actor and polish him up in black?” and they look at me horrified, and they say, “You can’t do that, you couldn’t possibly”.

DOMINIC	But it’s all right to plonk someone in a wheelchair. It’s crazy.

MAT	No one say the word Eastenders at this point.

JULIE	Robin, I want to ask you something. It’s the love story. And it’s all about disableds dating disableds, and disableds dating non-disableds, and I’m getting very confused, but what happens with the whole love story thing in this film?

ROBIN	Well that’s not really my part - it’s more Sasha and Jason. Sasha falls for Jason’s character, and he refuses to like her because she’s in a wheelchair and then it all changes.

MAT	Do you think that happens in real life? Has it ever happened to you?

ROBIN	Erm, I’m not sure, I think it might have happened when I was younger.

JULIE	But now you’re older and wiser and more experienced in the love thing…

MAT	You can spot ‘em a mile off, can’t you?

JULIE	You can.

ROBIN	Yeah.

MAT	The ones that frown when they look down. Let’s get back to this brilliant film. I watched the first 20 minutes of it and I can’t wait to watch the rest on DVD, it looks really good. Here’s a clip now, of Jasper trying to get out some pop psychology on the angry teen, Dave.

Jasper: It’s wrong to hit people who are learning disabled, Dave

Dave: Why?

Jasper: Well, it’s against the Disability Discrimination Act for a start. 

Dave: Well he started it. You know what they’re like, proper aggressive. He was a soppy bugger and all.,

Jasper: Why are you so angry, Dave?

Dave: I’m not angry.

Jasper: I think you are. Want to tell me about how you ended up in that chair?

Dave: Ain’t you read my report? I nicked a car, crashed it into a phone box.

MAT	Wow. That sounds very funny. How do you think it’s going to do?

DOMINIC	I think sadly I don’t think many people will see it, because it’s a very modest film and it looks modest, which is kind of unavoidable when you shoot something for under £100,000. It looks like that.

JULIE	You’re taking it round the film festivals though, aren’t you?

DOMINIC	Yeah, it premiered at Edinburgh festival in the summer, it did well and got good reviews, and it’s getting a small release in June I believe, which is good, but it’s a shame; it’s one of those things where you either sit around waiting to get funding or you just get on and do it. You know, if you do that, then obviously you take the rough with the smooth. Unfortunately a side effect of that is it’s not going to get a huge audience.

MAT	Robin, I know it was your first acting job – have you got the bug?
	
ROBIN	I have. I’m actually doing a performing arts course at my college and I want to go on to do more.

MAT	Give us a ten-second fabbo plug, would you Dominic?

DOMINIC	Oh, gosh. Come and see ‘Special People’, it’s a film about a guy making a film with some disabled kids, it’s quite amusing, it’s quite sort of sweet and you really should see it, you know. Have a heart.

JULIE	Find out more including a link to the programme on bbc.co.uk/ouch. And you can watch a ten-minute version of Special People on the BBC Film Network. 

MAT	Thanks very much for coming into the studio Dominic.

DOMINIC	Thank you.

MAT	And thanks very much for being on the other end of the line Robin.

ROBIN 	That’s OK.

[jingle: The Ouch Podcast]

MAT	So we’ve got Rob back with us in the studio, Mr Rob Crossan, who we usually send on unspeakable tasks, but we’ve got you in the studio today.

JULIE	Hello, Rob!

ROB	Thank you again and again for keeping me in the warm with my dignity in tact, at least for the moment.

JULIE	Don’t get too used to it, mind.

MAT	You’ve got some stories for us, Rob. I have to say, as a disabled driver myself the one that alarmingly goes waaaaaaaaa at me – the blue badge is going to be redesigned? What’s that about?

ROB	Yes, disabled blue badges are being redesigned in a bid to beat the parking cheats. Transport Minister Rosie Winterton said “The government is also determined to take action against those who fraudulently use a badge. This is why I want to hear people’s views about ways of making the badge more secure, and better ways of taking immediate action against blue badge cheats who steal, use or forge a badge they are not entitled to.” So, if we’re going to design a new blue badge, how do you think it should look? What should we have on it?

MAT	God, I don’t know. I remember once my car was broken into and I had loads of CDs and stuff in the back seat, and the only thing they nicked was the blue badge.

ROB	Says a lot about your CD collection. The CD Tower of Shame in the back.

MAT	
Yeah, it’s not for everybody.

JULIE	They say they’re about £1000 on the black market now, don’t they?

MAT	Yeah, street market value is £1000.
	
ROB 	So what on earth can we do? I think we should be designing our own one and sending it off to Rosie. 

MAT	Well any listeners, obviously, with a graphic design potential, please send any suggestions, but what do you think?

JULIE	I have absolutely no idea to be honest with you. Pink?

ROB	
Something with lots of swear words on. 

JULIE	One in pink.

MAT	That might give everyone a different parking identity, though.

JULIE	Yes, but a lot of blokes wouldn’t nick it if it was pink, would they?

ROB	That’s a very good point, but on the other hand, if we realise how much it’s worth, is it worth putting up with the insinuation of having a pink sticker on your car? I think I’d probably put up with it. Not that I’m encouraging fraud on any level.
	
MAT	I’m trying to think, redesigned in order to prevent fraud? I’ve got no idea. 

ROB 	I just think there should be something that’s so humiliating to non-disableds that they’d never ever want to steal it. I’m not entirely sure what this is. Maybe a picture of a full colostomy bag or something like that.

JULIE	Or kind of get them in pictures up the side of the building doing really embarrassing acts or something like that. Embarrass the hell out of them.
	
ROB	Name and shame. 

JULIE	Absolutely.

MAT	Julie, you’re one of those angry militants.

ROB	The Oswald Moseley School of Justice. 

JULIE 	Abso-blooming-lutely. There’s a story here that I really like the sound of because it’s just so off the wall. A teen with Aspergers has been refused access to a bus by the driver until he can produce – are you ready for this – a photograph of himself on a fairground ride. Tell me more, please.

	
ROB	You really have to go through this slowly just to actually comprehend the sheer weirdness of this. Yes, former Exon Grange School pupil Alistair Verney of Coventry said “I got on the bus and the driver boasted to me about the fairground rides he had been on and I said I didn’t like them. He called me a ‘wuss’ and said he would not pick me up again unless I showed him a picture of me on a ride. He said the second incident occurred when he attempted to board the same service two weeks later. He said, “I tried to get on the bus again, and the driver asked me if I had a picture. When I said I hadn’t, he wouldn’t let me on. The bus then drove off.” There’s a few things I’m curious about here, especially living in London, we never talk to bus drivers ever. So the idea of getting past this junction of saying hello and then developing the conversation to the point where you can actually start boasting about fairground rides, how long does that take? 

JULIE	I’m a bit confused as to where the Aspergers comes in, it seems to me that he just thinks he’s just a wuss for not getting on fairground rides
	
ROB	I just love the idea that somehow everybody in Coventry has photos of themselves to hand on various fairground rides that they can present in order to get access to their local buses, and Alistair Verney was the one poor individual who didn’t have a photo of him on a log flume to hand, and therefore wasn’t allowed. Is this a Coventry based rule?

JULIE	Well that’ll teach him, won’t it?

MAT	I’m just imagining him going to a fairground ride, and them saying “You can’t come on unless you’ve got a picture of you on a bus.”

ROB	Again, I just don’t understand how the conversation developed in the first place:
“Single to the bus station please, mate.”
“Log flume, corkscrew, I’ve done em all.”
“I just want to go to the bus station…”

MAT	I’ve seen here, something; it’s about kissing and disabled people, so immediately alerted my attention.

ROB	Yes, this one’s from Chicago, a nursing home assistant has been charged with misdemeanour and battery after he was accused of kissing a disabled woman in his care. Benvito Hermandez, 40, was arrested around 10am Saturday at the Evergreen Heathcare Centre in Chicago after another nurse told police she walked into the 53-year-old patient’s room and saw Hermandez kissing her on the cheek. When confronted by the nurse and the supervisor, Hermandez told them he thought he’d heard the woman choking, and leaned over to whisper in her ear as he used a suction device to clear food from her mouth. So again, is a kiss on the cheek an adequate way to clear food from the mouth, and is kissing disabled people in these situations in the first place OK? 

JULIE	I’m a bit confused.

MAT	On the one hand, there’s nothing wrong, I don’t think, with kissing someone on the cheek. Making the excuse that you’re sucking fluid from their mouth as medical necessity kind of incriminates something, doesn’t it? 
	
ROB	It’s the sort of tactic I’d imagine working in a nightclub.

JULIE	Quite vile. So what about disabled people being left out of the social networking boom, due to the inaccessibility of websites? Tell me more.

ROB	Yes, according to the charity Abilitynet, technology used to protect websites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc can act as a barrier to disabled users. Visual codes that prevent hacking can be impossible for users with visual problems, dyslexia or learning disabilities to navigate. A team of 100 disabled internet users found they also had problems after the initial registration. These included a lack of links to help non-mouse users skip pages. This meant some content can take up to – get this – 100 tab presses to reach. And Abilitynet spokesman Kath Newman said “With a disabled population of some 10 million potential users, these sites are inadvertently imposing a technological lockout to those who have most to gain from social networking, arguably the most excluded members of the community.” So, I talked to the other day and they said “Well that’s OK, they can just go on a disabled only networking site” and I thought well, funnily enough, don’t you think that disabled users might want to have some non disabled friends as well?

JULIE	And websites are covered under the Disability Discrimination Act, aren’t they? They are seen as part of the service provider’s business, so websites now have to be made accessible.

MAT	I feel a lawsuit coming on.

JULIE	Let’s find ourselves a good DDA lawyer.

MAT	Absolutely. You get RSI off those tab presses anyway and become disabled.

ROB	Well yes, arthritis.

MAT	Gosh, 100 clicks. I’ve taken about 50 clicks to get to some destinations, it’s true, but not because of my impairment.

ROB	But are you a member of any disability only social networking sites?

MAT	Good god, no.

JULIE	What are these disability only social networking sites?

ROB	Is there a Thalidomide one?

MAT	No, it’s just called Fliddy Mail. 

JULIE	Fliddy Mail? That’s superb!

ROB	There’s only about 400 of you, you might as well just meet up in a club somewhere.

MAT	We do! In a club in Liverpool once a year.	

JULIE	You saddos.

MAT	You were going to say something else then, weren’t you? I’ve never even heard of a disability only Bebo-style, Facebooky website. 

	
JULIE	What does that mean in plain English?

ROB	What does what mean in plain English? Well, a Facebook for just disableds.

JULIE	But what about the integration, darling?

ROB	There’s one called Wheel Life, according to producer Emma Tracey.

MAT	There’s also one called Wheels of Terror.

ROB	We’re coming back to the fairground rides. 

MAT	I like the byword for that – putting the dis back into dismemberment. It’s horror fan-based websites. Let’s have another story - this is all getting really weird.

ROB	It is, isn’t it?

MAT	Disability fraud.

ROB	Right. Disability fraud, yes. A Banbury-based charity has been used to trick businesses in Kent into collecting money for a fake fundraising campaign. Firms were asked to display boxes displaying sweets, with a claim that a one pound – that’s one pound – donation would go to Dogs for the Disabled. But the charity does not use the method to raise funds, and alerted Kent Police. Detective Sergeant Fred McCormack says, “We want to hear from any other firms who have the boxes. We are investigating a fraud, and believe the businesses took the boxes in good faith after being told they would be supporting a charity.” Now, maybe this has got something to do with the credit crunch kicking in, because I’m thinking could these fraudsters possibly be going for some kind of lack of ambition award, with the idea of only requesting a one pound donation? What on earth are you going to do with all those one pounds? That plane ticket to Bermuda is probably some way off. It seems to me that if you’re going to do disability fraud, do it properly. Come on, a one pound donation.

MAT	Have you ever done a disability fraud?

JULIE	I’ve never going to admit that one. Rob, you are a star, thank you for coming in. How does it feel to be nice and dry in the studios and not going out doing mad things?
	
ROB	I love it, please. Well, I don’t mind doing humiliating stuff as long as it’s warm. A lot of times I’ve been going outside and I’ve been freezing my arse off. 

MAT	We really put you through it last year, didn’t we? We’re so cruel to you.

JULIE	See, we’re lulling you into a false sense of security, aren’t we? Beginning of the year, nicely nicely, then we’re going to whoomp you with some amazing stuff.

	
ROB	Yes, just when I’m least expecting it, I’ll be going to a disabled naturist camp next month, I imagine.

MAT	Oh, a naturist camp – for the blind. 

ROB	Oh, that would be pointless, wouldn’t it?

JULIE	It’s all done in Braille.

MAT	Dot dot dot. Have you ever done – just before we say goodbye to you Rob – have you ever done a flotation tank, a sensory deprivation tank? 

ROB	I have been in a flotation tank, in Andorra, and it was one of the most boring experiences I’ve ever had in my life. The thing was, due to my visual impairment, I couldn’t actually find out how to get out. So, I ended up having to bang on the door and with it being Andorra there weren’t many English speakers about. I was in there for a good 90 minutes, I would say.

MAT	I was thinking we could stick you in one, like a really freezing cold one or something. But if you’ve already done it, then we can’t do that can we? I’m thinking – alligators.

ROB	Disabled alligators.

JULIE	You could wrestle an alligator! Yeah!!

	
MAT	OK, I think we’d better wrap this up, this is getting silly, wrestling disabled alligators. Right then – Rob Crossan, thanks a lot.

	
ROB	Thank you.

[Jingle: Laurence – And now, it’s time for Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable.]

MAT	Yes, some say it’s the highlight of the show. Others say it’s the lowlight. Only you can decide. It is in fact the quiz where we get to know a little bit more about people and, ladies and gentlemen, their condition.

JULIE	Basically, we get a disabled caller on the line every month and by asking them questions they can only answer yes or no to, we work out what’s wrong with them.
	
MAT	Our contestant for this month is Tucker. Hello, Tucker!

TUCKER	Hello sir. How are you?

MAT	I’m very well, how are you?

TUCKER	Very well.

JULIE	Where are you, Tucker?

TUCKER	In the living room.

JULIE	And where is your living room?

TUCKER	In a village called Rhyd-y-foel.

JULIE	How do you spell that then?

TUCKER	Rhyd-y-foel.

MAT	I’m guessing you’re in Wales.

TUKCER	Yep, North Wales, not far from Liverpool.

MAT	OK. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself without giving anything to do with your impairment away?

TUCKER	Well, I’m a stand-up comedian, I’m a TV chef, I’ve actually appeared on BBC’s From The Edge

JULIE	Oh, have you?

MAT	We can’t always get it right.

JULIE	Hey, do you mind?

MAT	Oh, I’m only joking. I don’t know whether you remember – Julie used to present that sometimes, didn’t you?

JULIE	Yeah, and it was blooming long time ago.

MAT	I think we ought to do the rules now. Now Julie, you are the new girl.

JULIE	I am.

MAT	You have to read this as fast as is humanly possible. 

JULIE	I’m going to try my hardest.

MAT	Here we go.

JULIE	Are you ready?

MAT	Fingers crossed. Well, finger.

JULIE	Do the bell, do the bell!

MAT	[dings bell]

JULIE	Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable is a clever disability interpretation of the parlour game Animal, Vegetable or Mineral. In the game, the two hosts of the Ouch Podcast have 90 seconds to guess what is wrong with the disabled caller on the line [takes deep breath] by asking a series of fiendishly intelligent questions. The caller must only answer yes or no. It is both classic and therapeutic.

MAT	She got to the end – it’s all right. To take part in this intrusive and unpleasant game, the rules clearly state you must be disabled. Tucker, are you disabled?
	
TUCKER	I certainly am.

JULIE	Right, 90 seconds on the clock, your time starts…. Now.

MAT	Can you walk?
	
TUCKER	Yes.

JULIE	Do you have a visual impairment?

TUCKER	No.

MAT	Do you have the use of both arms?

TUCKER	Yes.

JULIE	Do you have the use of both legs?

TUCKER	Yes.

MAT	Are you safe to take out in public?

TUCKER	Could you repeat that?

MAT	Are you safe to take out in public?

TUCKER	[laughs] Yes.

JULIE	Do you dribble?

MAT	Do you dribble, Tucker?

TUCKER	From which end?

JULIE 	Mmm, lovely!

MAT	Tasty. OK, sorry, this is getting very bad!

JULIE	
Do you have muscle tone?

TUCKER	Pardon?

JULIE	Do you have muscle tone?

TUCKER 	Not in one department.

MAT	Did you go to special school?

TUCKER	Yes.

JULIE	I can’t remember – are you a wheelchair user?

TUCKER	Sometimes.

JULIE	Sometimes.
	
MAT	Sometimes. Have you got MS?

TUCKER	No.

MAT	MD?

	
TUCKER	No.

MAT	BA?

JULIE	ABC?

TUCKER	BO.

JULIE	So does Mat, but we won’t go there. OK, let me think – Cerebral Palsy?

	
TUCKER	No.

MAT	Are you a dwarf?

JULIE	Can you reach your toes?

TUCKER	Yes.

MAT	Have you got ten toes?

TUCKER	Yes.

MAT	Eight fingers and two thumbs?

TUCKER	No. Yes. 

JULIE	Amputee?

TUCKER	No.

JULIE	Brittle bones?

TUCKER	No.

MAT	Cocktail disease?

TUCKER	The 90 seconds is up, what are you still doing here?

JULIE	Trying really hard!

TUCKER	You’ve lost, haven’t you?

JULIE	We have!

MAT	We get one guess each at the end. What’s yours?

JULIE	Um, okay…
	
TUCKER	Shall I give you a clue?

MAT	Go on, give us a clue Tucker, why not.

TUCKER	I’ve got a green belt at Judo. I swam for Liverpool.

MAT	Well you’re not a Conservative.

TUCKER	No, don’t be silly.

JULIE	Are you a member of the Green Party?

TUCKER	No, the green’s got nothing to do with it. It’s letting you know how fit I was. 

JULIE	Oh – Polio!! 

TUCKER	Yes, you cow!

	
MAT	I don’t believe it!

JULIE	 I got it right! I got it right!

TUCKER 	How did she get polio from green belt?

MAT	I’ve no idea, Tucker. Your guess is as good as mine.

		
JULIE	 It’s because I’m psychic.

MAT	This is getting really weird. OK, Tucker, so when people – if they ever get the opportunity – when they find out what your impairment is, what is the question that they most ask, or rather, what’s the question that humps you off the most?

TUCKER	Well because Polio’s not as visible as a lot of disabilities, and I’m using crutches, they think automatically I just fell over or hurt myself.

JULIE	Or drunk.

TUCKER	Yeah. But the best thing was when I was walking without the crutches and people say “what’s wrong with you” I’d look down and say nothing. I was as surprised as they are. But they’d say “But you’re limping” and I’d go “but I wasn’t this morning” and I’d leave them to it, basically. 

MAT	And with your comedy – you said you’re a stand-up comedian apart from being a celebrity TV chef – do you work in the disability stuff into your comedy?

TUCKER	I do a little bit. Sometimes, to break the ice.

JULIE	And where do you do your stand- up stuff?

TUCKER	Wherever anyone allows me – there’s not that much work these days. 
	
MAT	Not on the top of a mountain in Wales, no.

TUCKER	If I do stuff about disability it’s about myself, not other people, you know. 

MAT	
I always think that’s the best way though, if you’re going to take the rise out of anybody, you start with yourself, right.

TUCKER	That’s right.

JULIE	Have you been on the show before then Tucker?

TUCKER	No. I don’t think I’ll be coming on again.

MAT	Well I’d be happy to have you any time, Tucker.

JULIE	He means interview you darling, of course.

MAT	You’ve been on the website though, haven’t you? The Ouch website?

TUCKER	Yes, some recipes.

JULIE	Oh, I’m going to have a little look.

MAT	I’m a vegetarian, you got anything for me mate?

TUCKER	No.

MAT	Fair enough. Straight talking man.

JULIE	And what’s this about a mug?

TUCKER	Two mugs.

JULIE	Two mugs.

TUCKER	It sounds like a movie – Two Mugs for Tucker.

JULIE	What’s that? Tell me about it?

TUCKER	Two Mugs for Tucker - it sounds like the title of a movie. The one with Sister Sarah – Two Eyes for Brian – do you remember?

	
MAT	Not really, no.

TUCKER	How old are you two?!

JULIE	I’m a spring chicken at 33. 

MAT	I’m a little bit older. Now, you have to actually ask…

TUCKER	Can I have a mug?

MAT	I think we can certainly make sure of that.

JULIE	Tucker, we’re going to give you a mug. Thank you Tucker, take it easy.

MAT	Good luck.

JULIE	Have a good week.

TUCKER	And you, darling. All the best – ta-ta.

MAT	Bye bye.

TUCKER	Two lunatics if I ever heard two in my life.

	[jingle – bbc.co.uk/ouch]

JULIE	Mat - let’s have a little chatty-poos about disability sport. Do you have a specific moment that’s been your most favourite?

MAT	Yeah, obviously me getting my second degree black belt was my personal favourite sporting moment, but in terms of exciting things I’ve seen on telly of sporting natures, Ade Adepitan scoring the vital goal to get us into the finals two Paralympics ago was for me far more exciting than when, for instance, Beckham scored a crucial goal for England – Patou, my wife, will testify to this – I jumped up and went “Yes!!!!” in that classic blokey way. That was it for me. What about you?

JULIE	Actually I’m not a big massive fan of sports full stop, but I’ll watch disability sports more.

MAT	What, more than non-disabled sports?

JULIE	Yeah.

	
MAT	Oh right, that’s interesting.

JULIE	 I enjoy watching it. I don’t know if that’s just as a disabled person, you know, I’m kind of backing the disabled community more, I’m not sure.
	
MAT	Or is it projection – do you think deep down subconsciously – ‘that could be me’?
	
JULIE	I used to compete, that’s the really weird thing. I’m an ex-student of Trelores, down in Hampshire and we used to have to compete a lot, so I competed in athletics and table tennis and all sorts of sports.

MAT	What was your favourite sport?

JULIE	Athletics. The 4 and 800, I loved it, really liked it. But I’m such a lazy moo I couldn’t possibly do it again, I wheel up the street and I’m wheezing, so I don’t know how they manage it, personally.

MAT	What about this chap that’s been in the news then?

JULIE	Who, Mr Pastorius?

MAT 	Boing boing legs.

JULIE	Boing boing legs – I think it’s just an absolutely brilliant story.

MAT	Let’s make sure listeners know what we’re talking about. First of all, boing boing legs – they’re like these panther type sprung legs that people with feet amputations, and that model Amy Mullins – she had them as well, didn’t she. They make you be able to perambulate at a faster pace, don’t they?

JULIE	Well, they can just make you walk full stop, really, at the end of the day. So Oscar is a Paralympian who’s a double leg amputee, and he has these boing boing legs, and he basically is trying to get the Olympics, not the Paralympics, but the Olympics, to allow him to run alongside able-bodied athletes.

MAT	OK, that’s what I read, yeah. And they’re not letting him. Why not?

JULIE	They’re basically saying that he is mechanically superior to able-bodied people, and therefore, couldn’t possibly compete because it would be unfair to the able-bodieds. Get away!

MAT	Hold on – the man’s got no feet. No feet, and no lower half of his lower legs. So, surely the boing boing legs, I don’t know what the real word is for those legs, apologies – I don’t mean to be offensive – surely that just brings him as it were, up to speed, and puts him on an equal footing, sorry for all these phrasings…

JULIE	You didn’t even try then, did you?

MAT	So hold on, what’s going on? For me, surely it’s about a certain speed. Most of the Paralympians are slower at  certain speedy things, and there’s a line you draw, and on one side of the line you’re a Paralympian and on the other you’re not. Surely if he’s got the speed, he should be allowed.

JULIE	But I think what they’re saying is he’s got too much speed, so he will naturally be able to beat them because he has a mechanical advantage. That happens so very rarely. But apparently they’ve said no, he can’t compete against his able-bodied counterparts, but then there’s that whole process of in which section does he compete within the Paralympics? 

MAT	Oh, all those bloody sections – oh sorry. T4, T6, T5…

JULIE	Absolutely. So now it’s getting really confusing and they’ve said no, but he’s going to try and take it higher. So this could run and run and run, excuse the pun, and pun, and pun.

MAT	A lot of the ouch website readers and messageboard messages are saying that he’s their first disabled sex pin-up.

JULIE	Is he now?

MAT	He is indeed!

JULIE	See, I’d have to put Ade up there as a sex pin-up, personally.

	
MAT	Oh, you think Ade Adepitan is sexier than Oscar Pastorius, do you?

JULIE	I wouldn’t necessarily say sexier than, but just as sexy.

MAT	OK.

JULIE	Do you think, looking at female athletes, who are disabled, who do you like? Tanni Grey-Thompson?

MAT	Tanni’s lovely, and everything, more of a kind of sister love I have for her, even with her new presenter’s t-shirt on, which pushes a couple of things to the foreground. Um, no, for me it’s that Scottish girl.

JULIE	Which Scottish girl?

MAT	She was a runner with mild cerebral palsy whose discipline I think was 200 metres, I’m not sure, but when she did her lap of victory she wrapped herself in a Scottish flag.

JULIE	OK, and you found that sexy because?

MAT	I just liked her oomph – just because I thought she was sexy. It’s hard to put your finger on it – at least when you’ve got Thalidomide arms, anyway. Oh, that was below me and I retract that joke. Right now.

	
JULIE	Email in and let us know who your favourite sexy disabled person is.

MAT	I want to go back to sport for a second, because this bloke Peter Norfolk – he’s won the wheelchair tennis recently.

JULIE	He has, out in Australia.

MAT	Now he’s in his late 40s, and it’s been pointed out that in no other sporting discipline do people in their late 40s tend to win, so isn’t that, I think, the inference of that being that they’re devaluing the winning, i.e., it can’t be much of a competition if someone in their late 40s wins, that’s what they’re saying.  Surely that’s about the fact that they’ve only just invented wheelchair tennis?

JULIE	Yeah, it hasn’t been around as long as all that, I mean it’s been around at least 10, 15 years.

MAT	When I was a little boy, snooker, it was Ray Reardon – there were no 20 year olds – when I was a young boy all the darts players were Jocky Wilson and all old blokes, and now they’re all young blokes. Surely that’s just what it’s all about, and in 20 years time Peter Norfolk and his like…

		
JULIE	Will be pushing up the daisies, and it’ll be the next bugger coming along. 

MAT	It’ll be Oscar Pastorius and your son. 

JULIE	You know what I really liked – it wasn’t the Paralympics, it was the European Games or whatever it was, but it was up in Manchester.

MAT	We interviewed one of the athletes in that.

JULIE	And you know what I really loved? It was fully integrated. So it wasn’t the able-bodied competition, and then some days later the disabled competition.

MAT	Yeah, when everyone’s gone home.

JULIE	Exactly, when the press are bored, they’ve had enough, and everyone’s gone home and it’s all your mums and dads and brothers and sisters waving you on and waving the flag.  But it was fully integrated and that worked really well, and I don’t understand why they can’t do that every time.
	
MAT	I for one do think that if London 2012 Paralympics can’t be integrated properly with the Olympics it’ll be a bloomin’ shame. Because I think it’s far better for everyone concerned, isn’t it?

JULIE	I absolutely agree with you. 

[jingle: Confined to a website, the Ouch Podcast]

MAT	That’s it for this month’s Podcast, people. We’ll be back in March. 

JULIE	A big thank-you to the production team, which is Emma Tracey, Damon Rose, Vaughan Simons and Jo Hutton, and big big thank-you to Rob Crossan too.

MAT	You fancy him. We’re playing out today with a track from Jayne Stevens. She emailed us with a song she’s written and you could do the same too: ouch@bbc.co.uk. 

JULIE	Jayne is a 23-year-old singer songwriter and nursery nurse who has epilepsy.

MAT	Awww.

JULIE	Temporal lobe epilepsy, to be precise. That’s what it says here anyway. Jayne wrote “Trapped” just after she came out of hospital to explain how she feels about her condition. She reckons that anyone who has epilepsy will love it. 

MAT	Well no doubt the epilepsy people who listen to this will tell us. And you can find out more about her music on MySpace page www.myspace.com/jaynestevensmusic. Bye!

JULIE	Bye-bye – thank you for having me!

MAT	It was very nice to have you Julie.

JULIE	It sure was.

	Music: TRAPPED by Jayne Sevens

You'll never see what's going on inside my mind
Try as some may but their words are unkind
As I woke from visiting a whole new place
Nobody can share it, ,only my mind creates

It makes me wonder how I returned here 
Then to suddenly be filled with so much fear
There's nothing visual for you to see
It's only in my mind, please set me free

As I come back from feeling low
I know my secret has been shown
My hands may be shaking, doesn't mean I'm breaking
To help others I now must show
and so my secret must be known
I'm now a little girl trapped between two trapped between two worlds
Trapped between two trapped between two worlds

Has this conversation already taken place?
My mind recollects and it makes me so afraid
It's all so much for a young girl to take
When she has life long dreams and decisions to make

To look at us you'd never guess what's wrong inside
No longer a secret, there's there to hide
People may judge and make their own conclusion
They carry the problem, it's just confusion

But I know I can fight this
Won't live my life in darkness
Never knew how many were out there
And people to help me, the one's who truly care, they're there for me.