Ouch Talk Show #49 – March 2010
bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast

Presented by Mat Fraser and Julie Fernandez

The Ouch Podcast is a download from the BBC. For more information, and our terms of use, go to bbc.co.uk/ouch.

[Jingle 
O U C H spells Ouch]

MAT	Hello everyone, I’m Mat Fraser.	
julie 	Hi, and I’m Liz Carr. Er, no, I’m not, I’m Julie Fernandez.	
mat	Yeah, a bit of a surprise today listeners. So I came into work this morning, got up from the Underground, I got this message from Liz Carr, well I think it was from Liz Carr, it sounded like a kind of alien robot.	
julie	She’s lost her voice.	
mat	[Imitates Liz’s voice]. So heroically Julie flew down from her home town.	
julie	I did a ton on the motorway in my wheelchair, I had the smoke coming off my hands.	
MAT	I know. And I could tell it was in a rush because you’re still in your pyjamas, aren’t you? 	
julie	[Laughing] yeah. I spoke to Damon today and said “I’m still in my tracksuit. If I put a bit of slap on my face is that alright?” And he said “Yes.”	
MAT	Damon our producer of course, not the other Damon, the evil one.	
julie	Ah, dahn, dahn, dahn.	
MAT	Shall we get on with the show then?	
julie	Let’s.	
MAT	Alright. On today’s show.
[Playing clip]
Disability does not mean inability. You can do anything, no matter how you are.	
mat	Yeah, I still can’t pick up a pint of beer with one hand. Anyway, a touch of Hollywood glamour there via Zimbabwe as we speak to the people behind Oscar nominated film Music By Prudence, featuring the story of disabled band Liyana – I hope I’ve pronounced that right.	
julie	We’ve also got Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable, the game where we try to guess what’s wrong with the caller on the line.	
mat	And freelance albino, Rob Crossan, is back on his newsbeat to bring us some of the weirder disability stories of the moment.	
julie	Looking forward to that one. And we’ve got, er, right at the end of the show we’ve got a real treat as we’re going to be playing you this.
[Playing music]
Autoimmunity is your enemy…	
julie	That’s the Danish band, Dansk Flǿde – is that how you say it?	
MAT	Fleurd, Florder, Flid, I don’t know.	
julie	Flǿde. 	
MAT	What does it mean, now that’s what’s interesting.	
julie	Danish Cream, mm, lovely.	
MAT	Mm, nice.	
julie	Singing probably the only song you’re ever going to hear about autoimmune disease. And we’ll be talking to the lead singer on the line from Copenhagen and playing the track in full.	
MAT	Yeah, it’s a bit of an international programme today. We’ve got New York, Prague, Zimbabwe, Copenhagen, and we’re also on the web at bbc.co.uk/ouch, part of the BBC’s Disability website, where you can also talk on our message board and read loads of articles. Watch out for a new short film about a nightclub, the Bubble Club, coming soon to Ouch, great club in the East End which I’ve played a few times, Julie. So, what are we going to talk about today?	
julie	So… ooh, we’ve got some exciting things.	
MAT	Mm, what’s interesting… I’ve not had that interesting a month in terms of disability stuff. I’ve been doing flat-hunting, not particularly disability, and I’ve been clothes shopping, which, um, is enough to… to weaken the strongest disability resolve.	
julie	I kind of like flat-hunting and I kind of like shopping, so tell me more.	
MAT	Well, I will do but I also want to flag up something that you’ve been going through recently, which I think the listeners are going to be really interested in.	
julie	Do you reckon?	
MAT	Which is that you have been fostering, haven’t you?	
julie	I have. And it’s so exciting.	
MAT	I know, I want to hear all about it. And we’re going to talk about that a little bit later in the programme.	
julie	Brilliant.	
MAT	Clothes shopping. I just went in and bought a waistcoat, right?	
julie	Yeah.	
MAT	From a well-known fashion shop on the High Street in Oxford Street.	
julie	Okay.	
MAT	And, um, I’m a confident guy as you know, a bit bolshie, been on telly a couple of times, so some people recognise me. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t feel fashionable and confident going into a shop like this. And yet…	
julie	This is very true.	
MAT	… just because I’m disabled and the way I get looked at by the young, perfect people, probably in my own paranoidally deluded mind, I suddenly lose all my confidence and end up a little squeaky mouse of non-confidence going, “Um… er… you probably don’t…”	
julie	You kind of really surprise me because you don’t strike me as that type of person. You’re extremely handsome, you’re a good looking chap…	
MAT	Ah, thank you very much.	
julie	Mm… So I don’t… you know, I never thought that of you, I’m so disappointed.	
MAT	Yeah, but I think it happens to a lot of disabled people when they go shopping, which is we know our rights, we know we deserve it, we know we own it. And then we go into the shop and suddenly we don’t feel it any more. Why is that?	
julie	I just think it’s really hard, isn’t it? I mean I find… I love clothes shopping but I loathe it at the same time because still so many places don’t have wheelchair accessible changing rooms…	
MAT	Oh, there’s a thing.	
julie	… which is really frustrating. And then quite often the clothes don’t fit you because you’ve got a slightly different body shape and, you know, you get old, you put on weight. You haven’t, I’ve noticed. I have, I have noticed. Um, so, yes, I’ve kind of gone up a size or two…	
MAT	I don’t know. All I can see is from the waist up – it looks alright from here!	
julie	Oh, goody [laughing]. But tell me a little bit more about this flat-hunting business.	
MAT	Oh well I’ve just… well, you know, the listeners will know, I’ve been going through the, um, amicable divorce and now we’re selling the old marital home. She’s going to move down to Brighton…	
julie	Lovely.	
MAT	… and I’m moving back into London and I’ve been looking at flats. That’s it really, it’s not particularly disability orientated.	
julie	Have you seen anything you like though?	
MAT	Yeah, I’ve seen a few properties I like. I think because recently there was news in Britain, wasn’t there, the thalidomides got an apology from the government and a little bit more extra bunce.	
julie	Yeah.	
MAT	So I can…	
julie	How much did you get, £1.50?	
MAT	Yeah, well, or thereabouts.	
julie	Bargain.	
MAT	But the point is that as the estate agent sees me coming and you can see them going, “Oh yeah, they’ve got all that money, great, we’ll have a sale here.” [Laughs].	
julie	And? You sold? You bought?	
MAT	No, not yet, no, no. It’s an ongoing thing.	
julie	Boring. You’ve got to negotiate. Are you good at negotiating? Because, you know…	
MAT	I’m not.	
julie	… estate agents are like car salesmen, you’ve just got to play the game, haven’t you? I’m not very good at playing that kind of game though.	
MAT	I’m not particularly good at it and I sort of… I’m an honest man with honest needs, and a ((combination?)) northern accent, so…	
julie	That’s not what I heard earlier, actually, but I’m not going to go any…	
MAT	Point being… point being, Miss Fernandez, oh no…	
julie	Yes, yes, mm?	
MAT	You’re married now, aren’t you?	
julie	I am.	
MAT	What’s your new moniker, your surname?	
julie	Elliott. Julie Elliott, double ‘l’…	
MAT	Are you Fernandez Elliott?	
julie	No, well I kept…	
MAT	Like when famous people marry an unfamous person they keep the famous name.	
julie	Correct. Well I’ve kept Fernandez for work and Elliott for private things.	
MAT	Well, well, well.	
julie	Like marriage certificates. But it’s double ‘l’ double ‘t’.	
MAT	No, but it’s such a boring process and so lengthy and prolonged that I think I won’t bother listeners until I’ve actually got a new place and then I can announce where I live and the party’s round mine!	
julie	Brilliant. I’m there.	
MAT	Um, should we do emails?	
julie	Yes, let’s.	
MAT	Alright. We really couldn’t make these up if we tried, listeners, because reality is so much stranger than fiction. We’ve got one here from… I can’t pronounce your name – L-Y-I – how do you pronounce that Lyi.	
julie	Lee?	
MAT	Lee? Anyway, Lyi, in London, disabled people and sex, exclamation mark; steady on, it’s the BBC.	
julie	Do we have sex? Are we allowed?	
MAT	Er, careful, careful, it’s a family programme. I know you’ve mentioned this in the past, he says, and I wonder if you can talk about the BDSM aspect of it. There’s a growing trend that some men what to be…	
julie	Dot…dot…dot.	
MAT	Yeah, I think we have to dot, dot, dot it there because he does go on, in no uncertain terms, ladies and gentlemen, and talk about that particular sub-group at length, but it’s not really anything we can talk about on this programme.	
julie	So shall we swiftly move on to our email from Paul in Nigeria, who…	
MAT	Nice place.	
julie	… yeah, lovely, not been there on holiday but, you know. Um, anyway he was… he... I think he might be of a certain religious community because I think he’d like us to think and talk more about how, um, kind we should be in our language towards disability and disabled people because it would help more.	
MAT	Oh bless.	
julie	And I kind of get that, but I kind of don’t get that at the same time. What do you think? I mean, let’s have a look what you think.	
MAT	Well I don’t know. It’s… you know, I don’t want to denigrate anybody’s faith.	
julie	No.	
MAT	And I think… I agree with, you know, staunch conservative Catholics where they say ‘We’re all God’s children and we have got a right to be here.’ But…	
julie	But I mean he’s got, “I don’t know much of your talk show but for the disabled I think it would be a good thing for you to bring something more nice…	
MAT	Ah. 	
julie	…things that bring hope and that fills you with love and kindness and warmth.” and, oh, you know, ah…	
MAT	And, hold on, hope to the hopeless.	
julie	Hope… yes, hope to the hopeless. A bit worrying that, isn’t it?	
MAT	Yeah. Moving on.	
julie	Moving on, yeah.	
MAT	Sorry, we don’t do hopeless and disability, sorry. Um, thanks to Sinead in Ireland and thanks to Alex from China for your emails. And well done, Alex, for actually getting an email out of China. Nice one.	
julie	Absolutely.	
MAT	Paul Donnelly, 55, Georgie Paul in Leeds. ‘Please can you give me some advice about elbow crutches?’ Er… what? ‘I’m disabled, having crushed my spine donkeys’ years ago playing rugby. Dah, dah, dah… 13 years… he’s in a wheelchair… elbow crutch… he’s 50% of the time… oh, hold on, designer crutches. This is a fashion thing.	
julie	Well I think what he’s saying is he’s got those crutches that when he stands up or he sits down they fall away from his arms, because they haven’t got the straps to them.	
MAT	Oh, okay.	
julie	So… and he has to keep asking people, can you go and pick my crutches up. So he wants to know how to keep them permanently attached to his arm.	
MAT	Er, one word, friend of the disabled, begins with a ´V´, Velcro, my friend. Velcro, Velcro, Velcro.	
julie	Brilliant. Did you know you can get iron-on Velcro now.	
MAT	Yeah.	
julie	It’s wonderful.	
MAT	Um, you always know you’re with a thalidomide in the toilet because instead of the zip noise you hear [Velcro noise]; that’s the sound of Velcro being undone. I’ve sort of gone up a Velcro cul-de-sac now. Can you help me out? 	
julie	I can, because actually you can get these specific popper straps that you can attach to the arm section of a crutch and then you can just keep it permanently on your arms. It can move about and you can be free to move your arms and stuff like that.	
MAT	Well like, er, press studs, or snaps as they’re called in America?	
julie	Yeah. Yeah, so… yeah, you can actually get something that keeps them on your arms and makes it easier for you.	
MAT	I couldn’t help but noticing there’s somebody else in the studio with us.	
julie	Yes.	
MAT	He’s a rather good-looking chap. Perhaps you’d like to audio describe him.	
julie	Well apparently he’s a non-albino albino, so I’ve heard.	
MAT	Hold on, that’s bit… albino gossip.	
julie	Albino gossip, flash it up. Do you want to… do you want to reveal?	
MAT	Well I’d love to reveal Rob, something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but, er, I think he can reveal himself.	
rob	I’ve never tried to stop you.	
mat	Hi Rob, nice to see you again.	
rob	I can’t believe it’s not albino.	
MAT	Er, what’s going on? There are two lovely ladies with the film crew.	
rob	They… expanding the international element even further, one of them is a..	
mat	A Swede?	
rob	… half Hungarian… no, Chinese, Swedish, then we’ve got Russian, Australian, is that about right? Yeah? That’s right, yeah.	
mat	Wow. We are so international.	
julie	We are so international today, it’s shocking.	
mat	What are they doing here?	
rob	Er, they’ve been following me around.	
mat	Why?	
rob	Because they’re student film makers from Bradford and they’re making a film about, um, various people with albinism, one of them being me. So they were at my house last night where, um, me and a few friends got extremely drunk, tortured the cat, and I woke up at six a.m. to do a radio show this morning with a horrific hangover and they’ve, er, been around again stalking me this afternoon, and now they’ve come all the way up on the Tube.	
julie	Say hello girls. Shut him up for goodness sake.	
mat	Hello girls.	
julie	Shut him up for goodness sake, say hello.	
mat	To Broadcasting House.	
rob	Say hello.	
girls	Hello. Hi.	
mat	Hey do. And what’s Russian for hello?	
girl	Pryvet.	
rob	Pryvet.	
julie	Pryvet.	
mat	Pryvet. Alright. Well, okay.	
julie	Truly international, Mat, truly. Rob, I’ve got a question. Talking about going over… over the water. Sarah Palin’s disability knowledge questions. Tell me more.	
rob	Yes, indeed, this is from the rather wonderful US newsblog called the Huffington Post.	
julie	Right.	
rob	Which is… and this is a column focusing on the Valentine’s Day special of Family Guy aired a couple of weeks’ ago where Chris, if you… if you’re not aware of the show he’s the rotund, slightly callow teenager. He goes out on a date with a girl who has Down’s Syndrome.	
mat	Wow!	
rob	Now when he asks her what she… what her parents do her response was, “My dad’s an accountant and my mum was the former governor of Alaska.” She was clearly joking; if you watch the show it’s very clear, Chris doesn’t get the joke but unfortunately neither does Sarah Palin who, when she found out about this described it as ‘a kick in the guts’ because of course her daughter, Trig, does have Down’s Syndrome, and the point of this column, which I did think was rather abrasive but he makes a fair point. He accuses Palin of using Trig as a shield to hide behind her rather disastrous recent PR. And also states that if Palin really did want to show she cared for disabled people she’d have done things like supported healthcare reform…
	
mat	[sharp intake of breath]	
rob	… and stronger reinforcement of the legislation of Americans with Disabilities, etc etc. So interesting but at the end of the day was it funny? 	
mat	Hmm.	
rob	I say aye.	
mat	Personally I love Family Guy, it’s one of my favourites.	
rob	Yes, it can do no wrong in my eyes.	
mat	Okay. What on earth is Too Fat to Work, Rob?	
rob	Right, this is…	
MAT	Be careful!	
rob	… I’ve been warned about this in advance. Well basically this is a story from the Daily Telegraph, Theresa May…	
MAT	Ahah, there’s a surprise.	
rob	What a surprise, yeah. What did you think it was going to be? Theresa May, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary released some documents last week which proved that we’re now spending £10 million a year on the 2,040 people who claim benefits for obesity. Apparently we have the highest obesity rate in the EU and Theresa May went on to warn of an ‘obesity time bomb.’ Now, okay, let’s be quite…	
julie	Does that mean they’re just going to burst?	
rob	They’re all going to explode, yeah, like Mr Creosote, I don’t know. So let’s be quite clear about the tone of this piece first of all.	
mat	Please, let’s.	
rob	I mean it’s clearly written to provoke tots of criticism from Telegraph readers about skiving fatties. 	
mat & julie 	[Laughing] 	
rob	And the problem we’ve got here is that fattism is… well fattism is, listen to me, fattism is one of the last prejudices you can really openly express in pubs without fear of dire retribution, I think, isn’t it? It’s still considered to be acceptable.	
mat	Yeah, along with Chinese racism, I think.	
rob	Along with Ch… I wasn’t aware of that.	
mat	Well I don’t subscribe to it.	
rob	I don’t think my friends would be okay if I started doing racist Chinese gags, but fat gags are still mostly okay, aren’t they?	
mat	Yeah, you’re right, you’re right. I take it all back, you’re right. It’s shameful.	
rob	I have to admit that me and a lot of friends of mine were in that bracket of thinking that making fat gags was okay.	
MAT	You surprise me.	
rob	Yeah. What with having worked for lads’ mags and whatever. But I need to confess today to both of you that it’s only quite recently that I’ve had a bit of an epiphany. Can I explain my epiphany?	
julie	Yes, please.	
rob	Basically, okay, shamefully what I haven’t… didn’t realise until the age of 31 was that I just wasn’t intelligent enough to actually understand what’s really going on here, so…	
mat & julie 	[Sound of humming and snoring] 	
rob	Oh, you’re not interested are you? Can I explain my…	
mat	I’m doing the back…	
julie	Get to the point.	
mat	Yeah, come on.	
rob	Alright, alright, okay. Well it’s interesting how most people would, I think, tend to have more sympathy for an amputee soldier than a morbidly obese person, right?	
mat	Correct, yes.	
rob	Both disabled, yeah, but what if you were to…	
julie	Well hang on, because one of them has put their life on the line to protect us and go out there and do that. So, you know…	
mat	Oh, hello.	
rob	Well, you may be… maybe you’re one of the ones that needs to be converted, but my point is…	
julie	No, I’m not saying that I disagree… you know, I’m not being a fat… fattist did you say?	
rob	Fattist.	
julie	But, you know, at the end of the day of course I’m going to have sympathy for someone who’s going to protect me.	
rob	You’re going to have more sympathy for them than a morbidly obese person. But what if you find out that the soldier became an amputee not because of a roadside IED in Afghanistan but from drinking and then walking in front of a car whilst he was on leave back in the UK.	
julie	Fool!	
rob	I still think your sympathy levels wouldn’t really change. You’d still have a lot of sympathy, wouldn’t you?	
mat	Yeah, I think you’re right, sadly, yes.	
rob	So why do obese people seem to have to prove that their disability is caused by glandular or medicational reasons before we given them any credit? I mean binge drinking, obesity… binge eating rather. It’s often a symptom of mental illness, depression, and it took me a long time to realise that rather than come to the you should stop eating so many pies conclusion there’s actually a bit more going on there.	
julie	How many people who are deemed morbidly obese have a medical issue as opposed to those…?	
rob	No, that’s the thing; that statistic wasn’t revealed, was it. We don’t know whether it’s through mental illness, depression, or whether it’s because of medication they’re taking that’s causing them to be morbidly obese.	
MAT	I think you’re absolutely right, Rob. I think it is the last bastion of allowed prejudice, and I think that there is that assumption that you just ate too many pies and it’s your own fault.	
rob	It is. That is the assumption, isn’t it, always.	
julie	So tell me, do you think then someone who’s morbidly obese should have to pay for two seats on an aeroplane, which often happens.	
mat	Oh, here we go. Here we go.	
all	Mm.	
rob	I don’t know. I genuinely do not know. I would…	
julie	Political hot potato.	
rob	It is, isn’t it	
julie	Food reference.	
rob	Do you think they should?	
julie	I’m not quite sure actually.	
mat	Depends if they sit next to you or not, doesn’t it.	
julie	I think part of me says yes and some of me says no.	
rob	One of the three of us has got to stop sitting on the fence here.	
mat	Yeah.	
rob	Mat, I’m looking at you.	
MAT	Well, okay, I will admit it, last time I was flying there was one of the aforementioned large ‘uns in the waiting lounge.	
julie	[Laughing] large ‘uns.	
MAT	And I did find myself hoping that I wouldn’t be placed next to them. To my own shame, I’m afraid I did. I’d paid almost £400 for a seat for an eight hour flight and I didn’t want to be all squashy on one side. And I felt bad about that, but I still felt it. Ooh, what do I do now? I don’t know.	
rob	Yeah, it’s awkward isn’t it?	
julie	It is.	
rob	Because again your sympathy levels are much lower than for other disabilities because your natural assumption, sadly, is, oh, they just ate too many pies. Not, oh they might be suffering from depression or they might have some kind of incredibly dreadful illness of which this is a side effect.	
mat	No, I just asked for an upgrade; I was alright.	
julie	Would you sit next to a guide dog on a plane, if they had to have a seat?	
mat	I would, but it would be a bit weird, having a labrador sitting on the seat next to you.	
rob	Oh, a guide dog with his own seat.	
julie	How brilliant would that be [laughter]?	
rob	Are you going to eat that chocolate mousse? Woof?	
MAT	Yeah. More wine, you know [laughter] .	
julie	Lap it up. So are we moving on, swiftly from fattism?	
mat	Yeah, let’s move on.	
rob	I think we handled that quite well really, didn’t we?	
julie	I thought we were very elegant, elegantly put.	
rob	Basically if you’re fat it’s not your fault and it’s okay.	
mat	Yeah. If you’re a skiving fattie don’t let ‘em call you skiving fatties.	
julie	[Laughing] I’m going to swiftly move on to Knitted Disabled Duck Backlash. Do you know how hard that is to say and not sound awfully rude.	
rob	I love the way you said it as well, it was..	
julie	I shall do that again, Knitted Disabled Duck Backlash.	
rob	You said that with just the right amount of perplexed bewilderment as well, which I… Well this is from the Croydon Guardian, and it’s an ‘and finally’ and never has that phrase ‘and finally’ been more deserving. This is the story of the disabled Croydon duck, Harry Hill, and a knitted toy competition. Now I don’t know if any of you have been watching Harry Hill’s TV burp?	
mat	Yes.	
rob	But he’s been doing a little skit called the K Factor, which is a talent show for knitted animals. Now sadly a couple of weeks ago Peter the Wingless Duck got voted off. He was kicked out by a knitted Cheryl Cole who accused him of being able to never get anywhere in show biz because he didn’t have any wings. And dozens of complaints. Dozens.	
julie	And he couldn’t fly.	
rob	Now the owner of Peter the Wingless Duck claims he was discriminated against for having no wings and he went on to tell the full heartbreaking story to the Croydon Guardian about his tragic accident where Peter fell into the family toaster and got so badly burnt that his wings had to be removed.	
julie	How big was his toaster?	
rob	Oh, it must have been a gargantuan mother, I thinking, because, yeah, normally you’d think a knitted toy would just bounce off a toaster, but he fell right into the…	
julie	So does it do… a whole loaf of bread as a slice or… you know, because it sounds like a mighty big toaster.	
mat	Toasters that can take the extra thick slices.	
rob	 Take the muffins, yeah.	
julie	Brilliant.	
rob	Yeah. And anyway so there was a 700 strong Facebook campaign, people do need to get out more, don’t they?	
mat	[Laughs] 	
julie	They do.	
rob	And this prompted the knitted Simon Cowell to phone Peter live on the show last week and ask him to re-audition. Sadly, due to his lack of wings, Peter couldn’t answer the phone. But, you know, justice was sort of done, wasn’t it?	
mat	Aw. If only his feet hadn’t been webbed he probably could have picked it up.	
rob	[Laughs] 	
julie	Dear oh dear.	
rob	Well, well, well.	
julie	Can we swiftly move on, like.	
mat	Yeah. Rob, I like this part, this new aspect to your news thing. The headlines you would have liked to have seen.	
rob	Headlines I would have liked to have seen but didn’t see. Thalidomide ((0:19:39.3?)) declared Olympic sport after all.	
julie	Hooray.	
rob	You’re very happy about that.	
julie	Yahoo! What is that?	
mat	So it should be banned basically.	
rob	It is. Swiss Euthanasia Clinic Refuses to Admit Dane Bowers Despite 24 hour Pressure Group Campaign. And First in Series of Limited Edition Coins Honouring Disabilities Causes Uproar: The Polio Mint Deemed Inappropriate.	
mat	Very good.	
julie	Brilliant. Thank you for a wonderful joining with us today.	
mat	Thank you. Thank you to your film crew, you celeb you. The albino celeb.	
rob	What next? Croydon Guardian, tomorrow the world.
[Playing music] 
You’re listening to the Ouch Talk Show.	
mat	Yes, it is Oscars time again, listeners. March 7th is when the stars of the silver screen descend on the Kodak Theatre in celebration of quality movies all over the world. And this year, joining the big household names are stars of an Oscar nominated short documentary called Music By Prudence, about Zimbabwean band Liyana. Now, we have two of the cast and also the director on the line now. But before we go any further we need to explain that our two cast members, who is the Prudence of the title and Marvelous are in Zimbabwe, and Roger is in New York. There are lots of different phone systems, there’s a big delay, there’s a little bit of faded talk. It’s basically like when you had to phone your granny in Australia in the seventies, alright? There’s a big delay. So…hello guys.	
julie	Hi.	
mat	Hello.	
Prudence 	Hello.	
MAT	Hello Roger.	
roger	Hello, how are you?	
mat	Good thank you.	
julie	Great. I can’t believe we’re talking to chaps in Zimbabwe, it’s so exciting.	
roger	It’s amazing. It’s amazing.	
mat	I think we’ll… should we start with a clip?	
julie	Yes, I think we should.	
mat	And then we’ll talk about it. Okay, let’s have a listen to a clip from the film.
[Music plays] 
Prudence Mabhena and the fellow members of the music group Liyana are delighting audiences on their North American tour. Many members are in wheelchairs and all have special needs.
In Africa people with disabilities live a very tough life because most of the people think that disability is witchcraft.
As a child some family members even wanted to starve her to death.
She would even ask my mother not to breastfeed me or to feed me in order for me to die and stuff like that. So it was, you know…	
mat	Wow!	
julie	It sounds quite a heartbreaking but inspiring story at the same time.	
mat	I personally can’t wait to see it.	
julie	Me too.	
MAT	Prudence, I’ve been reading… we both have been reading a bit about your life story. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about it. Maybe you could start by telling us a bit about how disabled people are seen in your part of the world.	
prudence	Okay. My name is Prudence once again. I was born with a disability called arthrogryphosis, and I was born in a family of four, I’m the first one and the only child who was born with a disability. Well, in our country most of the time when a disabled child is born people think that may be a curse and, well, with the families it’s hard to accept the disability.	
julie	It’s just quite shocking when you think how lucky we are sat here in a studio and some people are fighting for their lives, but…	
mat	Yeah. Roger, could you tell us a little bit about the film?	
roger	Well, you know, the amazing thing about the film is that despite all of Prudence and Marvelous’s challenges and the challenges of other members of the band, they are the most positive, uplifting group of kids you’ve ever wanted to meet. Their music is uplifting, their spirit is uplifting, and the story tells the story of Prudence’s horrible abandonment and abuse, but Prudence never lost sight of that life would get better for her and she always had this positive attitude. And it’s so great that now that’s all paying off.	
julie	And from what I can understand, I mean at one point, Prudence, you were living in a garden, you had to crawl on your hands to a mango tree to eat.	
mat	Sleeping in your own urine.	
julie	Sleeping… yeah.	
mat	How did you cope?	
prudence	I would say that it only is difficult for one to live with a family that does not care for you. And especially when you’re disabled.	
mat	Yeah.	
prudence	But, well, I tried to cope. And most of the time what really made me feel better was I used to sing, every time. Whenever I got hurt I would just sing a song, you know.	
mat & julie	Well.	
prudence	That’s what helped me most of the time.	
mat	Sure, sure.	
julie	You know, I know life is relative, Mat, but, you know, at the end of the day we complain because we can’t get into a building because of a set of stairs when people are ignoring the law, but this puts a different spin on the world.	
MAT	It puts it into perspective doesn’t it?	
julie	Yeah, it does, it really does.	
mat	Yeah.	
julie	I’m interested, Roger, in finding out how you came across the story of Prudence, Marvelous and the group Liyana.	
ROGER	I came across it because a neighbour of mine – I have a house in upstate New York in the country – and a neighbour of mine was a Fulbright scholar in Zimbabwe and I had been writing to her and asking her if she came across any interesting stories I really wanted to do something in Africa. And she had heard Prudence perform and she said, “I just heard this wonderful group called Liyana perform and I think they’d made an amazing documentary.” And I just grabbed a camera and within a couple of months I was on a plane and found myself in Zimbabwe, in Africa for the first time, filming Prudence. Yeah, and it all just sort of took off from there.	
julie	And what did you think the first time you saw the guys singing?	
roger	Well, the first time I saw them sing, Inez Hussey, who runs… they all go to a school called King George VI School for Children with Disabilities and it’s an amazing place; it’s a haven for these kids. And they sent me some tapes of the school and of the band performing. And the first time I looked at the tapes I burst into tears. Because it was so powerful and their music is so uplifting, and when you first see them you’re like, “oh, it’s a bunch of disabled kids singing,” but then you forget they’re disabled within two seconds because their music is so good.	
mat	Mm. And I bet you never thought as you, like, touched down in Zimbabwe for the first time, that you were beginning a movie that would then become Oscar nominated.	
roger	I had no I… I had, no. I..	
mat	And it’s mega, isn’t it? I mean it’s big stuff, man. 	
roger	It’s big stuff. It’s big stuff. I actually saw the film in front of an audience last night for the first time, and I… the minute the first scene came on I… I started crying.	
MAT	I was going to say, don’t tell us, you started crying.	
julie	You started crying. Hey, hey, I’m going to be really, really cheeky here. Prudence, Marvelous, can you still hear us?	
Prudence 	Yes.	
julie	Oh, can I be really cheeky? Can you sing us a little bit of a song? Both of you. He-he, this is so exciting.	
mat	[Pause] They’ve got to rehearse now haven’t they
[Inaudible talking from Prudence and Marvellous, then singing] 
[Applause from the studio] 	
julie	Wow, that’s fantastic guys, that is brilliant.	
mat	Oh, arr, that was a BBC coup, ladies and gentlemen. That was…	
julie	The hair on the back of my neck stood up.	
MAT	I know. I have to say, Roger, I went to Namibia and there was a school choir that sang when I arrived, and I just burst into tears immediately as well. There’s something so… whatever it is, we’ve lost it and they still have it in Africa.	
roger	Yeah.	
mat	Yeah. So let’s get back to the film. Now obviously the school you were talking about, the King George V School.	
roger	Sixth.	
MAT	Sixth, sorry, I’m not very good at Roman numerals.	
julie	[Laughing] No, I had a problem with that one.	
MAT	That’s where Prudence and Marvelous are actually talking from?	
roger	Yes, they’re at King George VI and that’s where Prudence went and that’s who discovered that she had her amazing voice and her amazing singing ability and they put her in front of the choir and in weeks she was leading the choir and forming a band, and the rest is history.	
mat	And now she’s a teacher at the school, is that right	
roger	Yeah, she teaches at the school, she teaches music.	
mat	Have you played the film – this isn’t on the list of questions but I want to know – have you played the film at the school yet?	
roger	No, no, no, I haven’t. You know, no-one except for the voting members of the Academy have seen the film, so until that happens no-one can… it’s sort of like under lock and key at the Academy.	
mat	Do they get to go to the Oscars?	
roger	Prudence is coming to the Oscars.	
julie	Oh, Prudence, that’s so exciting.	
mat	Oh my word.	
roger	I wish Marvelous were going to be there, but they’re all coming for… we’re doing a premier in New York at the end of April, so that’s going to be a big event, with all the band and the performance.	
MAT	I can see Julie’s going to ask a question but I want to know, Prudence what are you going to wear for the Oscars?	
Prudence	I was told that there is someone who is (sorting?) some costumes for me.	
mat	Oh, I see. Designer.	
Prudence	Yeah.	
julie	Prudence, people pay so much money to get to the Oscars, you’re so lucky! I’m so excited for you. Marvelous, and how are you doing? I bet you’re jealous she’s going over to the Oscars, uh?	
marvelLous	Yeah, I’m also excited as well.	
mat	Yeah, of course you are. Guys, we can’t thank you enough. I’m still… I’m still high off the singing, aren’t you?	
julie	I am, it was wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us.	
mat	Thank you Prudence and Marvellous in Zimbabwe and thank you so much Roger Ross Williams in New York.	
roger	Thank you.	
julie	Take care, and good luck. 	
roger	Thank you.	
julie	We’ll keep everything crossed for you.	
mat	Fingers crossed for the Oscar.	
roger	Thanks.	
julie	Take care, guys, be safe.	
roger	Bye.	
mat	And let us not forget, listeners, that we should all be aware on March 7th it’s the Oscars, and fingers crossed – well my fingers are always crossed – but fingers crossed for them.	
julie	I’ll cross my legs.
[Jingle: bbc.co.uk/ouch]
[Jingle: Now it’s time for Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable]	
julie	It’s back full of metaphor, wit and beauty. The life enhancing radio game that wobbly and infirm, vulnerable types are just queuing up to be part of.	
mat	We get a disabled caller on the line every month and have to work out what’s wrong with them. It’s about as basic a guessing game as you can possibly get. And on the line to play this month is Amy in the United States. Hello Amy.	
amy	Hi.	
julie	Hi.	
MAT	Hey. How are you?	
amy	I’m well, thank you. How are you guys?	
julie	We’re alright.	
MAT	We’re very well under the circumstances, aren’t we?	
julie	Yes, on this very cold UK day. Where are you calling us… or where are we calling you from… to?	
amy	I’m… you guys are calling me from Monty, Indiana. It’s in the mid-west of the United States.	
mat	Is that where all the Indians come from?	
amy	Yeah, there’s a lot of Native Americans.	
julie	Oh, really? I’ve got a major fascination with Native American Indians; I really want to go to a reservation.	
MAT	I was joking, by the way. Just because it was Indiana. You know, Swedes come from Sweden, etc, right?	
julie	[Laughs] 	
amy	[Laughs] 	
mat	Germs from Germany, you know that… Anyway, sorry. Alright, so tell us a few things about yourself, but of course you know how it goes, Amy, don’t give anything away about your impairment. Although I understand that you’ve got more than one impairment. Is that true?	
amy	I do, that’s true.	
mat	So what are we going to do about the game? Are you going to decide on one or what? What are we going to do about that?	
amy	I’m going to decide on one.	
mat	Okay, so hold on, when we say, as an example, if we say an impairment that you actually have got but it’s not your chosen impairment, will you say no?	
amy	Yes.	
julie	Oh, that’s just not fair.	
mat	Yes, you’ll say no. Okay. Oh, this is like an Abbot and Costello sketch. Right, shall we get going?	
julie	Shall we? Do I have to do that bit really fast?	
mat	Yes you do, wah, wah, wah…	
julie	[Takes deep breath] 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 Talk Show have 90 seconds to guess what is wrong with the disabled caller on the line by asking a series of fiendishly intelligent questions. [Takes breath] The caller must only answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’; it is both classical and therapeutic… breathe!	
mat	To take part in this intrusive and unpleasant game the rules clearly state you have to be disabled. Amy, are you disabled?	
amy	Yes.	
mat	Right, 90 seconds on the clock and your time starts… Now.	
julie	Okay. Can you walk?	
amy	Yes.	
mat	Can you walk unaided?	
amy	Yes.	
julie	Can you see?	
amy	Yes.	
mat	Can you use your thumbs?	
amy	Yes.	
julie	Is it an internal organ thing?	
amy	Er… yeah.	
MAT	Oooh.	
julie	Oooh, we’re getting closer.	
mat	Alright, alright. Do you have…	
julie	Breathing difficulties?	
amy	No.	
mat	Is it anything to do with your kidneys?	
amy	No.	
julie	Your heart?	
amy	No.	
mat	Liver?	
amy	No.	
mat	Spleen?	
julie	Lungs? I should have got a medical degree.	
mat	Yeah, this could be a roust couldn’t it?	
julie	Do you have issues with food, intolerances I mean?	
amy	No.	
julie	No, okay. Now I’m really, really stuck.	
mat	Oh my God. Okay, okay, okay.	
julie	Is it skin related?	
amy	No.	
julie	Collagen related?	
amy	No.	
mat	Is it about your perception of good.	
amy	[Laughing] no.	
julie	Okay, so she’s not bulimic.	
mat	Blimey. Is it dietary?	
amy	No.	
MAT	Is it something to do with blood?	
amy	No.	
julie	Ooh, that’s a good one, but that’s a no.	
mat	I thought so.	
julie	Veins. Is it to do with your veins.	
amy	No.	
julie	How many disabilities are there?	
mat	 Is it something to do with your flesh? Are you a zombie?	
amy	[Laughing] no, not last time I checked.	
mat	Oh.	
julie	Do you have very white skin?	
amy	No.	
julie	Okay, it sounds like we’re coming up…	
mat	Do you have red hair?
[Buzzer sounds] 	
julie	Absolutely no clue.	
mat	Well that was a difficult one. Amy, you stumped us. It’s time… well sorry, it’s time to be put out of our misery. Please Amy, what on earth’s wrong with you	
amy	I have a learning disability. Like you guys call it dyslexia and dyspraxia.	
julie	Oh, dyspraxia..	
MAT	Dyspraxia and dyslexia.	
julie	Okay.	
mat	Oh right, nice…	
amy	But I have… I have dyslexia, like I have problems reading, I have problems writing and I have problems with math.	
mat	Okay, so obviously…	
julie	Learning disability is a bit different over here. You see now we just assumed physical disability, we didn’t even go into the learning…	
mat	Learning disability over here is what they call developmental challenge in America. And what they call learning disability in America is what we call something else in England.	
julie	Which is what? Mental health?	
MAT	Well, no, it’s dyslexia and dyspraxia, which are cognitive somethings.	
julie	I’m so confused.	
mat	Anyway, Amy, it seems you have rather an array of disabilities and we always like it when people can list lots of impairments. So apart from your learning disabled dyspraxia and dyslexic what else have you got on the lovely list of the lady’s impairments?	
amy	I’m also hearing impaired and I wear two very lovely neon pink hearing aids.	
mat	Neon pink? Are you out and proud?	
amy	Yes. I’m out and proud. I am disabled and proud.	
mat	Good, we like that. And in Indiana as well, a brave woman.	
amy	No, not really, I mean, you know, except for small children, small children will like look at me kind of…	
julie	That’s because you’re just so beautiful, obviously.	
MAT	And honey, it is not an Indiana thing, believe me. Disabled people and small children, I think we know what you’re talking about.	
julie	Oh, we sure do.	
MAT	So when people find out that you’ve got aforementioned dyspraxia and dyslexia what kind of questions do they ask you?	
amy	They usually, like… I usually don’t tell people first off. Then when I tell professors usually they want to know like what that means as far as like my classroom involvement.	
julie	Okay. And what do you tell them?	
amy	I tell them that I have really horrible spelling, like I cannot spell to save my life.	
julie	Me neither, to be honest with you. I fail miserably.	
MAT	Do you tell them also that you need 18 hours extra in the exams?	
amy	I don’t because I usually don’t take that exemption. But I…	
mat	Stop now! Amy, Amy, Amy. Listen to an old man. I have small, weak, ill-equipped flippers for writing. And yet I refused, my pride, my so-called disability pride, refused to let me take the extra time at exams. What happened? I failed them, Amy. I failed them. Because I’m disabled.	
julie	The state failed you.	
mat	Please don’t make my mistake. Take the extra time. What are you studying?	
amy	I’m a Master’s student studying counselling psychology and guiding services. And my..	
julie	Okay, that sounds like you’d have to do a lot of writing?	
MAT	I think you need extra time.	
julie	I do. Do you get someone to write for you? Because you can get that as well.	
amy	No. That would be awesome.	
julie	Ooh, you should ask. You can get that over here you know.	
mat	[Laughs] Anyway, tell us… I mean, before we say goodbye to you Amy, and you’ve really been a quality contestant, if I may say so, is there anything, an interesting and surprising fact you can tell us about your disability that we didn’t know about? 	
amy	I was going to say like learning disabilities are about processing information rather than about IQ or intelligence, so it’s how we like manage and sort that information.	
julie	Oh, okay, I get that.	
mat	Okay. Well manage and sort this Amy. You beat us fair and square. You thrashed us within an inch of our pathetic British lives. I hope you’re happy with yourself!	
amy	Okay, yes, I guess.	
mat	Oh, payback from the Americans. George III…	
amy	You guys are brilliant, you get to be cool.	
julie	Oh, thank you. And thank you.	
mat	Oh. Hey, I think you’re cool Amy and we love you. And thank you very much for being on the show.	
julie	Ta ta for now.	
amy	Bye.	
julie	Bye.	
mat	Bye.	
julie	So if you want to be the next contestant on Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable email us now on ouch@bbc.co.uk. We’re getting a whole load of new merchandise in soon.	
mat	Someone said something about commuter mugs the other day. Lightweight, stylish, active. It’s what the modern crips needs on his or her way into the city in the mornings. Yeah, no I don’t, I need one of those spazzer mugs, with the two handles on either side and the lid with the special sucky bit.
[Jingle, You’re listening to the Ouch Talk Show] 	
MAT	I want to talk about the fostering thing that you were mentioning at Christmas.	
julie	Yeah.	
mat	That’s something I think a lot of our listeners would be interested in. So how’s it going? Give us an update.	
julie	It’s going so well. I had my first foster child last week.	
MAT	Oh my God.	
julie	It’s so exciting.	
MAT	Isn’t it nerve-wracking?	
julie	It was terribly nerve-wracking. I was quite…	
MAT	Take us through the process.	
julie	Well Andrew and I – my husband and I – discussed the whole child thing and, you know, we’ll get to that a bit in a minute because it’s the whole political bit.	
MAT	Right. Oh yeah.	
julie	But we finally came to the conclusion that fostering would be a really good choice for us. So we got involved with the local social services foster care team and we went through about six to eight months of regular meetings with the social worker.	
MAT	What, is that like where they’re vetting you?	
julie	Yeah, completely.	
MAT	Oh right.	
julie	So it’s quite an intense process. They come every week for weeks and weeks and weeks for like two, three, four hours.	
MAT	Wow.	
julie	And they ask you about everything to do with your life. And me, because I just love to talk, I had no problems with it whatsoever. I think chaps find it a little bit more difficult, because they really… they delve into everything to do with your life. You know, how you grew up, what you think about…	
MAT	What, are they like checking to make sure you’re not like going to abuse them or…	
julie	Exactly that.	
MAT	… be an alcoholic or something?	
julie	Exactly. You know, they are putting the care of a child into your hands; they have to know that as much as possible with all the questions that they ask that that child’s going to be safe. So we went through that whole process.	
MAT	What were their questions around the disability? Because I didn’t even know disabled people could foster.	
julie	Well they couldn’t up until quite recently. So the rules have been changed so now gay people can foster and disabled people can foster, elderly people can foster.	
MAT	Wow.	
julie	Yeah, they really are changing the rules. And it’s actually a really exciting process, and what happens is after you’ve gone through all of these interviews they write a really massive document about everything that you have told them and then you go up to Foster Care Panel and you sit… my husband and I sat in front of about 12, 13 people, and were asked lots of questions about how would we handle this situation or that situation, what do we think about this, that and the other. But the document in itself was quite interesting because it got me to thinking about my childhood, why I have the political views that I have, and… you know, it just really gets you thinking about yourself, about your relationship with your other half and what that means, and so, yeah, it was quite an amazing experience really.	
MAT	Do they do any kind of cultural/racial/ethnic stuff?	
julie	They do everything. They do sexuality, they do cultural ethnic, they do food, they do religion, you name it… they do sexuality. They just do absolutely everything.	
MAT	Did they jump for joy when they saw you wheeling through the door as an out and proud disability girl?	
julie	They did. I think they were just really chuffed because as far as they were concerned, because of my working within the field of disability and my knowledge of disability…	
MAT	And you’re a well known disability bod aren’t you, you know?	
julie	So… and that really helped. So I can help when it comes to looking after disabled children because when they look at other disabled people like you and I, for example, who have been there, done it and got the T-shirt and have the experience, and also know what we’re talking about, that’s what they need. They need experienced disabled people to be foster carers.	
MAT	Wow! So in the way that they encourage gay teenagers to be fostered with gay couples now…	
julie	Yeah.	
MAT	… which I think is really good, are you saying that you were applying for a disabled kid then?	
julie	We initially started by being involved in the Link Care Scheme. And the Link Care Scheme is about being teamed up with a disabled child and that child is not fostered, but what you do is you offer respite care to a disabled child so that the parents can have a weekend where they spend time with the other siblings or go and get their hair cut or just sleep in late, and it offers that disabled child the experience of being outside of the family environment.	
MAT	And hanging out with other crips.	
julie	Yeah, exactly. And just generally other people and other life experiences. So we initially started by wanting to offer respite care to disabled kids.	
MAT	Yeah.	
julie	But that’s being quite a slow process at the moment.	
MAT	Sure, sure.	
julie	And there isn’t the right type of disabled kid to team up with me. Until… you see we live in a house, so until we move to a bungalow…	
MAT	Gottcha.	
julie	… we can’t have certain disabilities for care reasons.	
MAT	No, I appreciate that. Have you had any children yet? And what was it like? Tell us about it.	
julie	I had my first child last week and it’s so exciting. It was… it was half term so, you know, it was quite cool because we were having a girly day anyway. I have a full time PA who has an 11 year old little girl, they’re my neighbours, they live opposite me. And we were planning to have a girly day that day anyway. And then I got a phone call from Foster Care to say can you do a day placement for an 11 year old girl. So we were in our element. 	
MAT	Oh my goodness.	
julie	We were watching movies and eating popcorn and sewing… we made hand-made little bunnies with stuffing and different materials and we went for walks and we did the dancing game on the Wii. And, yeah, it was absolutely brilliant.	
MAT	That’s a pretty fun-packed day.	
julie	It was.	
MAT	And so does that girl… will she now go and do other weekends with other people, or will that become a regular thing?	
julie	That was just a day really for her foster family, because there was a situation that her foster family had to go to Surrey, Hampshire, and they couldn’t take her with because it was a family matter, so I was just offering her day release.	
MAT	Okay. And you’re being vetted and groomed by the foster group, is that correct?	
julie	Social Services constantly vet.	
MAT	Yeah. So when are you going to be ready for a full-time foster, kind of thing? I mean how long is a foster…?	
julie	I’m not sure I am going to be ready for a full-time foster, to be honest with you, because to look after a child on a full-time basis I would have to give up all types of work.	
MAT	Sure.	
julie	Because I would have to be there all the time for the child.	
MAT	Your husband, does he do full-time work?	
julie	Yeah, he also does full-time work.	
MAT	Okay, yeah.	
julie	So at the end of the day it’s more weekend relief, day relief here and there. So, you know, I’m not sure I’ll get into it completely full-time, it might just be a part-time thing, to be honest. But it’s a very exciting part-time thing.	
MAT	It is. And it… because I always thought you had to be… I mean, you know, back in the day you had to be your sort of middle class, quite young, church-going proper couple, didn’t you?	
julie	You did, back in the day.	
MAT	If you were gay or weird or arty or disabled, forget about it, you know,.	
julie	Yeah. I remember when I was at boarding school, see now I went to Treloars, which is a boarding school for disabled kids, right?	
MAT	Our listeners are well groomed in Treloars, yeah.	
julie	So… I love my Treloars. And one of my teachers there, she was the sports teacher, for many years, had amazing experience with children and disabled children, and she wanted to… I think they wanted to adopt, but they were told that their house was too tidy.	
MAT	What?	
julie	Yeah, I know. Just doesn’t… So I think back in the day getting involved in foster and adoption was uber-difficult.	
MAT	Yeah.	
julie	They’re changing the rules, they’re relaxing it. Not relaxing the safety of the children but they’re just…	
MAT	Clearly not, with all those interviews, yeah.	
julie	Yeah, clearly not. But at least they’re opening their remit to who can. And they really do want disabled people to become foster and adoptive parents. So if there’s anyone out there…	
MAT	Do you hear that, listeners?	
julie	Because we have the experience.	
MAT	We do.	
julie	We do understand life in a very different way, and that is what they need at the end of the day; they need people like you and me, and even if you only do a day or a weekend a month, they need you.	
MAT	Mm. Okay. And that’s actually quite inspiring to me too, because, you know, I’m in a new relationship.	
julie	Mm, I heard all about this. It’s very exciting.	
MAT	Yeah, well all I can say is watch this space, listeners. But it’ll be a while yet, so don’t pressure me. Now, let’s get down to the political stuff, because you told me something.	
julie	Before we do…	
mat	Yeah. What?	
julie	How about you… Do you think you might want to be a daddy one day?	
mat	Okay, here’s two things.	
julie	Okay.	
mat	I don’t want to be Michael Douglas.	
julie	[Laughing] okay. 	
mat	Not… i.e. a multi millionaire married to Catherine Zeta Jones, I didn’t mean that aspect of his life. I meant a really old dad.	
julie	Oh.	
MAT	But I’m not too old to have one. And my girlfriend really does want one. And so it’s kind of watch this space. My previous partner and I had always decided not to, but now my new partner really wants one. So, you know, I’m allowing myself to realise that part of me does… would like to, you know, be a father and stuff. And fulfil that part of my life that isn’t fulfilled at the moment.	
julie	Foster care might be the thing then.	
MAT	I think… well that’s what I’m saying, why it’s inspiring to listen to this, because it’s a kind of entry level way of discovering about all that, isn’t it?	
julie	It is. You do have to have a certain constitution because you have to be able to allow that child then to leave you. So they might stay with you a day, a week, a year, a month.	
MAT	Well this is what I wanted to ask you. Isn’t it terribly upsetting?	
julie	It can be, especially when you’re told…	
MAT	How do you cope with that?	
julie	Well, you know, I was told some of the details about the little girl that I looked after and you just think, why and how could you do that to another human being let alone a child.	
mat	Oh my gosh.	
julie	But you just have to put that to the back of your brain and just give everything to that child whilst that child’s there. So even if for just that one day that child’s with you they have an absolutely brilliant day that they will remember.	
MAT	Yeah. It’s… right, so look, you told me off-air…	
julie	Yeah.	
mat	… and I know you don’t mind me talking about it on-air.	
julie	No.	
mat	You chose not to have a child with your condition.	
julie	Correct.	
mat	The brittle bone thing.	
julie	Yes.	
mat	Alright, why and what and how and when and who?	
julie	Well, for various different reasons really, and this is just a personal choice. I have lots of friends with brittle bones who have children with brittle bones, and that’s really cool.	
MAT	No, I’m not judging you, I’m just interested.	
julie	Oh no, I get it. It’s just that I have friends out there and I wouldn’t… who do have disabled kids and I wouldn’t want to offend them, because, you know, they, for their lives, have made the right choice.	
mat	Yeah.	
julie	But the thing is, I’ve had approximately a hundred fractures and I’ve had approximately 70-odd operations. And it’s just no walk in the park. It’s difficult, you know, you’re in pain pretty much every day at some point, and life can be tough, and I wouldn’t… I just… I couldn’t justify giving my disability to another child; I just don’t know how to…	
mat	Wow.	
julie	… why, how, you know…	
mat	I’m not arguing with you but I know that the listeners are going to be totally divided over that one.	
julie	I know, and I really get it, because I’m proud of being disabled and I would be the first one up there to fight for disabled peoples’ rights, but...	
mat	This is moving on from the social model isn’t it?	
julie	It is, massively.	
mat	Where you weren’t allowed to say what you’re saying.	
julie	No. But the thing is, I’ve had a hundred broken bones. Think about that; a hundred broken bones. That’s a lot of pain.	
mat	I’ve had one bruised rib in my life and that was enough.	
julie	[Laughing] why would I want to give that to another living being when, you know, there’s already lots of children out there that need a good home. That’s one side of it. Now the other side of it is I have a disability that means being pregnant is really not a good idea.	
mat	But would it definitely get passed on?	
julie	50:50 every time. And you could only know by falling pregnant, and then at a certain point you’d have to have a test and then have an abortion.	
mat	Yeah. And how dangerous would that pregnancy be for you?	
julie	Yeah, not brilliant. It just… I would have to spend about 90% of the pregnancy laid up in bed because it would put so much on my bone structure and my skeletal structure, my spine, which means that I would end up becoming porotic, not paralytic but… Basically I would then fracture really easily because I will have lack of movement and my muscles and my bones will go to waste.	
mat	Wow, it’s a complicated old situation isn’t it?	
julie	So, you know, what would be the point of that, putting my body through it to have my own child and then be so brittle that I’d have to give my child to someone else to look after for a while. So, you know, it throws up a lot of questions.	
mat	And I think some of them may appear on the message board, which is…	
julie	Yeah, I hope they do, because I think it’s a really important discussion actually.	
mat	I think it’s one we need to have, isn’t it?	
julie	And I really want to. I think, you know, I’m interested.	
mat	And then there’s the other thing here, you know, I’m… I know I’m the sort of resident conspiracy theorist, but I think there are too many humans on the planet.	
julie	I’d have to totally agree with you.	
mat	And I think now that we’re talking about sustainability and people are just now talking about population control, dudes, yeah, there are loads of kids out there that need looking after. You don’t have to make a new one, just look after one of the ones that’s existing.	
julie	I don’t have this overriding urge to pass on my genes. I have this overriding urge to look after another human being. It doesn’t have to be my own.
You can email the show, ouch@bbc.co.uk.
	
mat	As you know listeners, at the end of the programme we have a music slot and sometimes we interview the musician in question, and this is no exception. This is a bit of a weird one. It’s been such an international programme that we felt we had to continue the international aspects, didn’t we? Our guests for this section are Professor Jesper Eugen-Olsen on the line from Copenhagen. And on the phone is Benta from Crohn’s Disease Association in Denmark, another one of the voices. But she’s rather complicatedly in a quiet part of Prague Airport. Hi guys.	
julie	So hi.	
JESPER	Hi.	
benta	Hi.	
julie	How are you doing? How was your flight?	
benta	I must say it was very fine.	
julie	Excellent.	
benta	Very fast.	
mat	Okay, so this… basically you guys are part of a song, it’s probably the only in the world song about auto-immune disease, which not a lot of people know about. And it’s called LEARN, the organisation. Perhaps one of you could start off by just quickly telling us what is auto-immune disease and what is LEARN?	
benta	I think Jesper had better explain what auto-immune diseases are.	
JESPER	Alright, I’ll give it a try. Well basically the reason why we made a song about auto-immune disease and want to speak a little bit about it is that it’s actually… it’s not something that everybody knows what it is. I mean people know what cancer is or diabetes or cardio-vascular disease, but this disease, when you say you’re suffering from an auto-immune disease, people don’t know what it is. Sometimes they stigmatise these people who have it, if they have psoriasis or something they don’t want to say hello to them, don’t want to touch them, afraid it’s contagious and so on. And it’s not. So when you have a problem with the stigmatisation what you really want to do is create knowledge, so we wanted to do this to create knowledge about auto-immune disease. And that’s actually when we have a very good functioning immune system that protects us from viruses, from bacteria and parasites and so on. And sometimes it turns on yourself and that’s… and the immune system starts attacking the individual itself, and that’s an auto-immune disease.	
julie	So who’s behind the project?	
JESPER	Well it’s quite a unique collaboration between the patient associations for a number of different auto-immune diseases in Denmark. And the health company, Abbot, and then the University… Copenhagen University Hospital, called Hvidovre Hospital.	
mat	What hospital?	
JESPER	Hvidovre, quite difficult to say in English actually.	
mat	I was going to say… are you alright mate?	
julie	Sounds like you’re being sick [laughing].	
JESPER	I think I’ve got something in my throat, it’s called my hospital that I work in! So…	
mat	So… what’s interesting is that it’s come from the doctors’ and the patients’ groups and it…	
JESPER	Exactly.	
mat	So Benta, how did the patients’ group get involved?	
benta	We got involved because we had a cooperation with Abbot and we was always talking about that our greatest problem is getting the knowledge about these diseases out to the public in general. And then all the talk… it came to it that we wanted to make it very easy, or easier, to understand what was going on in a body that was… that had developed what you call an immune disease.	
mat	Yeah, it’s a great idea I think.	
benta	Because these are diseases that are very, very difficult to explain what is going on. We still don’t know why immune diseases develop, but now at least it has been possible to explain it in an understandable way to the patients and to the public in general what is going.	
julie	It’s a very funky song, so tell me more about who wrote the music and the lyrics.	
JESPER	Well…	
mat	And who was in the video.	
JESPER	Yeah, the music was written by a Danish sound designer and musician called Bjorn Vido, or we call him sometimes Piano.	
mat	Good, I would too if I had a name like that, but anyway go on.	
JESPER	I know. It’s another (inaudible) but Bjorn Vido, that’s what his name is. Then Bjorn and I, we wrote the lyrics together. But it’s mostly actually based on the stories that the patients told us, so it’s kind of understanding the patients and translating that into music.	
julie	So tell me, how does it feel to be a rock star?	
JESPER	Oh, it feels fantastic! I mean, who don’t want to be a rock star all the time? I mean that’s the best, isn’t it?	
julie	Abs… have you got to the number one slot yet?	
JESPER	No, but we’ve got a number one in (inaudible) actually.	
benta	We’re hoping.	
julie	[Laughing] brilliant, that’s fantastic.	
JESPER	Well our band has actually a funny name also; it’s called Dansk Flǿde.	
julie	Right.	
benta	Danish Cream.	
mat	Danish Cream.	
julie	Lovely. So…	
mat	Ding dong!	
julie	Is it really helping to gain publicity to the wider general public for you guys?	
JESPER	Well I think…	
benta	Yes it is. Jesper.	
JESPER	 Well maybe sometimes there’s a lot of young people also genetically disposed to having auto-immune diseases and I think it’s another way to contact a lot of different people, also young people, as to the use of music and why not start to try something new in a way.	
mat	Mm. Thank you so much guys. We’re going to have to like wind up obviously now with the song.	
julie	We are.	
mat	Thanks very much. Congratulations on, you know… Oh sorry, quick chance to plug.	
julie	Oh yes, tell us about your url.	
mat	Have you got a website? Tell us about that.	
JESPER	Yeah, we do have a website. It’s called learnexpo.info, where you can see the music and you can also learn about our translation of what auto-immune diseases are and… so hope you play (inaudible) to learnexpo.info.	
mat	And we’ve got a link to that on the Ouch! website of course listeners, as ever.	
julie	Good luck guys, we hope you do really well and get to the number one spot.	
JESPER	Thank you very much.	
benta	Yes, thank you very much.	
mat	Yeah.	
JESPER	[Speaks in Danish] 	
benta	[Speaks in Danish] 	
mat	Alright, wow, it’s getting so international people aren’t even speaking English any more.	
benta	[Laughs] 	
mat	Hang on the line, guys, hang on the line, Julie’s going to talk us out now.	
julie	Right, I am. I am going to say thank you to all our guests and thanks to the production team, Damon Rose, Emma Tracey, Zoe Breen; the studio manager today was Tony Baker.	
mat	So, it’s time to play the track. We’ll say goodbye until next month and Jesper, maybe you’d be kind enough to introduce, in Jesper’s beautiful radio voice.	
JESPER	Well everybody, here we go, what’s it all about and learn a little bit about the disease, and with Dansk Flǿde I’m proud to present What is Going on?
[Playing music]	
	Hi, Jesper, how’re doing?	
	I’m doing fine thank you. Oh, my God.	
	What a wonderful voice you have.	
	Doctor, you have a radio voice if ever I heard one.	
	Speak to me baby.	
	Oh yeah.	
	Oh, oh, oh, this guy…