Ouch Podcast #53 – July 2010
bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast

Presented by Simon Minty and Liz Carr

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]

LIZ	Hello, welcome to Talk Show 53 for July 2010.  It’s me, I’m Liz Carr, and presenting with me this month it’s Simon Minty.

SI	Hi there, Liz – thank you very much for having me.

LIZ	It’s lovely to have a presenter with fully functioning arms, so that’s nice.  Have you got your thumbs? – do they work? 
 
SI	Yes, no flippers, as Mat would say - just a little bit of shortness.

LIZ	A little bit of shortness.

SI	Generally all round, yeah. 

LIZ	Fine, and do you know where the Fraser is this month?

SI	The what, sorry?

LIZ	The Fraser – that’s what we like to call him when he’s not here. 

SI	I don’t know, I’m presuming he’s somewhere in America, but then I don’t know.  I know he moved recently, he’s had all sorts going on. 

LIZ	I don’t know, I think he’s doing something sordid that we’re best not knowing about, to be honest.  He’s not back next month either, so ... 

SI	That’s two months?

LIZ	Two months – we’ve got a summer without him, so hopefully we will survive, we will survive.  Well, let’s tell you what’s on the show today.  Our news this month is from the granddaddy of the disability media world – yes, it’s Kevin Mulhern.  He’ll be with us in ten minutes or so.

SI	And in about 20 minutes we’re going to be joined by BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardner.  Shot by Al-Qaeda operatives, Frank gained a spinal injury which changed his life, not merely because he’s now a wheelchair user.  His latest book, just out in paperback, is about his love of travelling.

LIZ	Our radio parlour game, Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable, is back. That’s where we guess what’s wrong with the contestant who phones in.  Will they have a plain or an exotic disability this month? – I wonder.
 
SI	And we finish up with this ...

(Rock music:

	“Then a train .... then a train ... then a train” 

SI	That’s a track called “A Train, Then a Train, Then a Train”, by Bug Prentice.  You may have seen them on the Club Attitude disability stage at the Glastonbury Festival, if you were there this year. You can hear the track in full at the end of the show.

LIZ	We’re on the web as usual at bbc.co.uk/ouch, where you can read all sorts of regularly updated articles, chat on our message board, and download all our Talk Show podcasts from one to 53.  So, it’s very exciting that you’re here.

SI	It is very exciting. 

LIZ	We have worked together actually, playing this now, we have worked together with the comedy group, Abnormally Funny People, which is where I met you. 

SI	Absolutely. 

LIZ	And are you still doing comedy, Simon? – are you still being funny? 

SI	Thank you, in the way you slightly phrased that.  Abnormally Funny People is going very strong, it’s lovely, since we met, five years now, and where you’ve got 12 or so comedians.  I’ve sort of taken a little bit of a step back, more producing and writing, aha!

LIZ	Oh get you!  Get you! 

SI	Yeah, yeah, yeah - look at me, I’m a big cheese! – rather than the pure stand up, which was terribly frightening.

LIZ	I should say that, as this is the BBC, there are other line ups of disabled comedians available, out there.

SI	But there’s not. 
	
LIZ	Sshh!
 
SI	We are the ones. 

LIZ	Ssh, I’ve got to say that, ssh!  

SI	Yes. 

LIZ	Yeah?

SI	I am still doing AFP, as well call it for short, and it’s kind of fun, it’s lovely, as you well know. 

LIZ	Yes, and you’ve had a lovely summer so far.  I’ve had quite a good summer so far.  I went, apart from the fact that last week I went to see Leona Lewis at the O2.

SI	Mmm.

LIZ	Don’t! – don’t look at me like that!  No! 

SI	Why? – why did you go and see ... not that you shouldn’t, but just why? 

LIZ	No, I’m a big fan of the X Factor, I thought it would be good, and what I worked out is, she’s much better on the radio when you can just hear her one song by one song, you know? – because I only really know one song, for a start!  The rest of it’s like, aah, and then she did that thing, right, so I’m in the disabled viewing area, OK.  Brilliant seats, we can see her clearly, it’s great, and she’s like, “Everybody – get on your feet!”

SI	Oh yeah.

LIZ	And you know when you look around, and you just all embarrassingly look down, it’s like nobody moves on our platform, and then two minutes later she says, “Everyone: put your arms- put your hands in the air!” 

SI	Oh no, no, no! 

LIZ	And again, there’s just nothing from the platform!

SI	She obviously wasn’t quite aware of you, but, er ... 

LIZ	Oh, I don’t think they have disability awareness training before they do a gig.

SI	What’s her big song? – it’s something about bleeding, keep bleeding or something, isn’t it? – which is a bit dodgy.

LIZ	Yes, and she’s crippled, she’s crippled in that song.

SI	What do you mean?

LIZ	She does use the word. 

SI	Really? – what, crippled?

LIZ	Yes, yes she does!

SI	Crippled with what?

LIZ	She’s crippled with something, I think pain, I think pain and blood.

SI	I still haven’t quite understood why you went to see her, but ...

LIZ	That’s fine, that’s fine, but that’s where I went, and yes, I’m going to see Paul McCartney, because it’ll be amazing to see a Beatle.  I don’t really like his music, but you’ve got to see him before he dies, haven’t you, so ...
 
SI	I was mulling – was it mulling? – Mull of Kintyre, humming Mull of Kintyre, all day yesterday, and I don’t know why. 

LIZ	Wow!

SI	In the street, quite happily loudly as well.   

LIZ	Really? – did somebody come by with bagpipes and carry on playing?

SI	Strangely enough, no – most people avoided me. 

LIZ	Were you walking, or were you on your scooter at the time, Simon?

SI	I was on my scooter.

LIZ	Were you on your mobility scooter, or your new transport scooter? 

SI	Oh, you’re talking about my dream – the trippy, the three wheel moped?  

LIZ	Yeah. 

SI	I tried this, this is about two weeks ago, and for years always I’ve wanted a sort of moped or motorbike of some sort, and this, but I haven’t got no balance, and I can’t reach the ground, because I’ve got short legs. 

LIZ	OK. 

SI	Found this thing, a guy came round, went whizzing round my car park for hours (when I say car park, I live in a big block of flats – it wasn’t just a personal car park).  Erm, it was joyous, and he kept telling me about all the little features, and I said, shall I just have another go, though? 

LIZ	Can I ask? 

SI	Yes?

LIZ	Do you wheel your scooter on? – you know, is it one of those, because you can get wheelchair-accessible scooter things and motorbikes ...

SI	Yes. 

LIZ	... where they actually have like a platform, and you wheel on your wheelchair or your mobility scooter. 

SI	They have huge kind of body kits, sort of protecting you.

LIZ	Like a chariot? 

SI	Yes, yes exactly that.  It’s a big whip, it was like Ben Hur, but in a wheelchair.  They did have one of those, but mine wasn’t, mine was, I would just sit on it, because I can climb on and off it. 

LIZ	Aa-ha. 

SI	But I realised, once I’d got somewhere, I can’t walk anywhere, so I’m a bit stuffed, because I can get around on the scooter, or moped, but then once I get there, I’ve got to be really close to where I’m going, because I haven’t got my mobility scooter.  But I nearly, I really want to buy them.  My parents were brilliantly, they were so supportive, and they said, this is a great idea, you’ll love it, shall we buy you the helmet?  And then they started asking me a series of questions, until the end of it, I went, “I’m not getting it”, and it’s just clever, they kind of talked me out of it.  I don’t know what I’m going to do. 

LIZ	Aaah, oh now I’m gutted, because, well I thought you were going to achieve your dream.  But you’ve had, you’ve ridden it?

SI	It’s still there, it’s not gone. 

LIZ	But the idea of the fact that, I guess that all you can do is drive around town, and then end up back home again? 

SI	Yes, you’re right, it’s not been the best ... 

LIZ	It’s a bit of a waste of time, really. 

SI	Well, and actually someone else pointed out, because it’s three wheels, it is quite wide, so you can’t nip through the traffic.  So now I’m going to be sitting in the rain behind cars. It may backfire, but I still love it – it was the freedom, there was something special. 

LIZ	Oh, I am glad. Well look, before we read your emails, listeners, just a quick word about a new feature coming to the Ouch! website.  Dis Connected is a video interview series that’s going to be going up, one per week, across the summer.  So the way it works is that the interviewee in the first film becomes the interviewer in the next – kind of like a game of tag.  So guests include some names that might surprise you, as considering themselves disabled, like presenter Gail Porter, indie music star Blaine Harrison, former Para-Olympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, and this is a clip from the first interview that features talk show queen, Trisha Goddard.  She’s got cancer and depression, apparently.

Trisha	When I was approached to do this, I got the email, and I said to my husband, I said, “Bloody hell! – how dare they!  Disabled – I’m not disabled!” 

Cerrie	And what did he say?

Trisha	He runs a very large mental health service, and is an employer, and he said to me, “Actually, my darling, you are.”

LIZ	Trisha Goddard talking there to Cerrie Burnell.  So Dis Connected can be found at bbc.co.uk/ouch.  I’ll be listening.

SI	It sounds very good.

LIZ	Doesn’t it? 

SI	Very interesting, yeah, yeah, yeah.

LIZ	So emails, Simon?

SI	OK, we have had a ton of emails, and we’ve had some very – I don’t know what the word is, “detailed”? 

LIZ	Very long – thank you, but my goodness, they’re long, aren’t they?  So we’re going to whip through them very quickly. 

SI	Yeah, a bit of sort of selected highlights, but there’s been lots of them and lots of interesting stuff.  The first one, we’ve got Zoe, and I’m trying to work out where Zoe’s from, but she’ll probably recognise her email as I start speaking, but she said that we’ve probably heard this question before in a dozen different forms. Her question is: “What do I do when someone makes a completely inappropriate comment?”  Now, to put it in context, she was saying she was at work, during her break she was talking to a volunteer co-ordinator, when a person of restricted growth walked by.  

LIZ	Oh? 

SI	She’s obviously up with the language.

LIZ	Isn’t she just?

SI	All the rest of the people started to discuss dwarfism, saying that he was “very proportional” for a dwarf.  They’ve obviously spent a lot of time worrying about these things.  Anyway, one of them said, “I’m one of those people who finds midgets hilarious.”  I’m guessing that’s the inappropriate line, on lots of levels. 

LIZ	I’m thinking it is, yeah.

SI	So, what do you do when someone makes an inappropriate comment, Liz?

LIZ	And you’re there, and it’s not even necessarily about you, but it might be about disability?  Sometimes I’m a complete chicken, and I don’t do anything about it; sometimes I do say stuff about it.  Sometimes I’m that confident, it kind of depends really.  But I’m ashamed to say that sometimes I do, not go along with it, but I wouldn’t do anything about it.

SI	I think you pick your battles, yeah, absolutely.  Taxi drivers, sometimes straight in, and other times, I just cannot be bothered, I’ve got better things to do with my life.  

LIZ	Well yes, taxi drivers – don’t even get me started, don’t get me started!  So Colin, Colin Conroy – eight pages you wrote, thank you so much!  Not quite, but thank you.  Colin talks about the things that he likes about Ouch!  He likes the guest presenters, he says, and he also likes Emma, our Assistant Producer, when she comes in.  He says, Emma’s very funny.  He likes the guest presenters and Emma, so one out of two ain’t bad this month.

	Finally, Hi Mat and Liz – this is from Shaun O’Brien from the Wirral (where I’m from, yay!), during the whole election campaign, he says, how they like to show, the parties like to show how minority-friendly they were in their manifestos.  All of them, well except for the BNP, had something about making life more equal for disabled people, ethnic minorities, LGBT (that’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people) ...

SI	Quicker, quicker.

LIZ	... women and older people, which got me thinking – can you find a person that manages to fit in all these categories?  Does such a person exist?  Liz almost manages to fit in, but sadly she’s white and only middle aged – silly Liz!  Well, I have to say on that point, we have our guest reading the news, and going through the news stories this month, is Kevin Mulhern.  Kevin, how many equal ops boxes do you tick?

KEVIN	I’m really sorry – I’ll tell you where I still am at the moment, who’s Leona Lewis?

(((they laugh)))

KEVIN	I’ve been sat here – she’s not the new Minister for Disabled People?

SI	No. 

KEVIN	I think that’s Maria Miller.

SI	That’s Maria Miller.  The clue is the X, she’s a pop star. 

KEVIN	Oh. 

LIZ	Oh!

SI	She won a talent competition here in the UK some three years ago. 

KEVIN	Before or after Abba?

LIZ	(((laughs))) 

SI	Slightly after Abba.

KEVIN	Forget it, forget it – move on. 

SI	I quite like the fact that you don’t know who Leona Lewis is, that’s quite admirable. 

KEVIN	I really don’t, actually I really was sitting there thinking, is that the new Minster for the Disabled, for example?  No, that is Maria Miller. You see how you can easily get confused.

SI	Well whoever we were talking about had a concert, and doing Mexican waves – you’d expect the new minister to be, telling you – that’d be great, wouldn’t it?

KEVIN	Well her record is quite interesting really, because she’s pro-smoking, anti-gay rights, and I got lost about the rest, it’s quite extraordinary.

SI	Yes, yes, yes. 

KEVIN	Pro badges for two-year-old disabled people.
 
LIZ	Fantastic, well we’ve had some fantastic emails this month, thank you.  A bit long, but we like that, we like to go through them, so thanks.  Don’t forget, you can email us at ouch@bbc.co.uk for the next show, thank you.  So Kevin, you’re here with the news? 

KEVIN	Yeah, but I have to keep up – two is the answer, two boxes I ticked.  Now you’re going to have to work – at my age, I’m going to be a bit behind, so I’ll be answering questions about five minutes after you ask. 

SI	For the benefit of the listeners, you’re an independent producer, writer and journalist, and my notes say that you used to specialise in disability, but now you’re sort of returning to it, and you’re stunned to see how awful the coverage still is? 

KEVIN	Oh, it is, it’s quite extraordinary.  I mean, I picked up a newspaper, because somebody said, go and pick up all the newspapers, so I went in, went through the newspapers, got my reader to take me through them, and it was the language that was still being used.  I mean, I found a piece in an – if you’re listening abroad, we have a newspaper called The Sun, and if you don’t know what it is, aren’t you lucky?  And it literally was talking about this person with a disability who was incredibly inspirational, who despite the fact that they were blind, had no eyes, had battled against their disability, had overcome it, and they’d learned to play catch.  Oh, I forgot to mention – this is a dog.  

SI	Oh. 

LIZ	This actually is a dog, who lives in Australia, called Myron, and you read this story, and it’s what used to be written about disabled people who took part in sport years ago – absolutely extraordinary, and it goes on like this the whole way through, to the point where you get, “When I take him to the park”, says his owner, “nobody really believes he’s disabled.  They think he’s a benefits fraudster.” (She never said that bit, but I did).  But the loveliest bit, it gets to the end, when you hear this long, terrible story about this dog, and it says, his owner said: “This is not his only disability – he’s also epileptic, hypersensitive and severely allergic.” And then she says, “I don’t see him as disabled, I see him as differently abled”.  I mean, where are social services in Australia?  Take that dog away from her, I mean what do you have to do to get a parking badge in Australia, I ask myself?  What was fascinating about that, though, actually, which is so different now compared when I first did disability stories, which really 30 years ago, is that you can now go to a blog, and I went to the blog on that one to see what people had written, and there were thousands of blogs, and I’m not joking.  I learned there was a group for severely disabled dogs, dogs who had diabetes – I couldn’t believe what I discovered. 

	But this next story, and it is considerably more serious ... 

SI	Can I just ask you a quick question – so these dogs are part of the blogs, they’re typing in their messages, and stuff like that? 

KEVIN	Oh, Myron, yes – Myron’s got his own Facebook page and he’s got 26 friends!

SI	But there was a quite, I thought there was a sort of subtle point you were mentioning, that used to be perhaps written about disabled people.  Do you think that The Sun would still do that about a human being, or is the dog – we’re allowed to add a bit of sympathy now, because it’s a dog, and do all that schmaltzy stuff?

KEVIN	I think it has changed, a bit.  Actually I did notice that, as I go on with this, I think you might see what I mean.  

SI	OK.

KEVIN	Sometimes, what they do is, they don’t even mention disabled people in stories; they manage to avoid disabled people.  But the next story I got on to, of which the best coverage of this particular story is by Geoff Adams-Spink on the BBC website, it’s Mencap did an incredible survey about how learning disabled people are treated in the British NHS service.  The first thing I have to say, I really congratulate both Mencap for doing the survey, but also the people working in the health service who honestly said, we don’t know how to treat people who we can’t communicate with.  It’s shocking, and the story, one of the stories they’ve come up with is about a poor man called Mr Eaton, and I just, this genuinely brought tears to my eyes – 75, goes into hospital with a urinary infection, and he doesn’t live, because they don’t know how to communicate with him, and they put up the rails on the side of his bed, which gives him claustrophobia.  He fell out of the bed, banged his head, and ended up dying of a brain haemorrhage, and it is, as I say, a horrifying story.  Go to the BBC website, and look at Geoff Adams-Spink’s story on it, which is incredible, but the amazing thing about this story is, I went to the blog, the blog site, and looked at it – not a blog, nobody was going in to say this was disgusting.  Any other group that that happened to in Britain, women, racial minorities, anybody, there would be uproar.

LIZ	Or dogs? 

KEVIN	Or dogs.

LIZ	I mean, really, you know.

KEVIN	I did feel like that, no, I actually feel you’re right.  I was almost trying not to say it, because I didn’t want people to think I was being totally trivial, and I found that quite horrifying, and it still does shock me, but as I say, it was good at least that the doctors and nurses put their hands up, and said, it’s true – we don’t know what we’re doing, which I thought was incredible.

SI	So presumably the Mencap report, did that come up with some suggestions of what those who were troubling, or struggling to communicate – what they should be doing?  Is there practical stuff? 

KEVIN	Well, I think what Mencap are actually saying, it’s the other way round.  It’s not down to the individuals now to do it, it’s up to the NHS to come forward ...

SI	I agree, yes. 

KEVIN	... and say, we need to be trained, and I did think again from this, the good side to this story was that the health workers weren’t covering up.  They weren’t saying, oh it’s not a problem – don’t make a fuss, we’re very busy; they said, it’s true – nobody’s told us how to do it.  

LIZ	So Kevin – I’ve got here as a headline, “Shock horror – polling stations are still inaccessible”?

KEVIN	(((laughs)))

LIZ	A month or so into the new government? 

KEVIN	Let me tell you, when I started, believe it or not, the first place I ever worked at the BBC was for Radio 3, doing the Proms interval, so it was nothing to do with disability. The first disability story I ever did was after the 1979 election, and it was about two disabled activists who turned up at a polling station, and guess what? – they couldn’t get in.  Now here we are, 30 years later, there’s been uproar about students not being getting to vote, people being turned away from polling stations at the last election.  They go away, they do a survey, and what do they discover? – we can’t get in, and what’s even nicer about it, there’s a suggestion, well, think about internet voting, think about text voting – yes, at all cost, don’t let them in there – keep them inaccessible, but let’s do everything to keep them out.

	But what was utterly shocking about this one, one of the countries that came of really badly was Scotland, and Scotland have more elections than anywhere else in the world.  They have their council elections, they have their government elections, their own parliament elections, and yet Scotland – tell me, am I right – you two would know, wasn’t Scotland the first place to return a wheelchair MP?  I believe they were?

LIZ	I think so, Ann Begg.

SI	Ann Begg. 

KEVIN	Ann Begg, yeah. 

SI	I think you might be right. 

KEVIN	So she couldn’t have voted in 52 constituencies in Scotland. But the other thing about it is, I mean, I hate, not to be too light about this, but ... 

LIZ	Go for it.

KEVIN	... Scotland is trying to put through a bill at the moment, in the Scottish parliament, under Margo MacDonald, herself disabled, to give disabled people in Scotland the one thing that they really need, and that’s the right to die. Well all I can say, Miss MacDonald – what about the right to vote?  Oh wait a minute – you might not be there.

SI	OK, your final story, returning to a dog theme here – this is about guide dogs being attacked? – sounds a bit shocking, Kevin. 

KEVIN	Well, do you know, this is horrible, because I go around cities a lot, and the one thing I’ve always wanted is a white stick with a stun gun on it, to actually get cyclists, because I thought that ... 

SI	You do have a visual impairment – this isn’t just you wanting a white stick with a stun gun?

KEVIN	Yeah, but if I didn’t have a visual impairment ...

SI	But you still want one? 

KEVIN	... I’d still like to get cyclists, I don’t like cyclists, never liked cyclists, they’re horrible.  But the thing that really did quite stun me about this again, and it’s a thing about something not changing, the thing that did change, I’d never heard this story about people using guide dogs, having their dogs attacked, and in these cases, they’re by pit bulls and these attack dogs, and 40% of all attacks on guide dogs, of which there are 40 or 50 a year in Britain, are by these dogs.  But the second thing that shocked me about this was that, when you read through the story, and I took the story from the Daily Mail, because I just picked one out.  What was fascinating about it, they talked about the guide dog being attacked, they talked about the terrible cost this put on the Guide Dogs’ Association, they talked about the owners of the dogs which did the attacking, not apologising, but they never mentioned the effect on the blind person with the dog on the end of the lead.

SI	Yeah. 

KEVIN	Extraordinary, so all I can say is, granddad says, it’s all exactly the same as it was in my day, and now I know who Leona, Leona – what’s her name? 

LIZ	Leona Lewis. 

KEVIN	Thank you. 

LIZ	Well, we’ll get you back in another 30 years then, Kevin, and see what’s changed – probably absolutely nothing. 

KEVIN	I was that good, was I? 

SI	That was a real inspirational pick-me-up, I’m glad we did something there that should last 30 years, thanks Kevin. 

LIZ	Thank you so much, Kevin.

(((guitar chords))) 

LIZ	On ISDN from his home, we have Frank Gardner. Hello, Frank.

FRANK	Hi, Liz.

LIZ	It’s very good to have you at last on the Ouch! Talk Show.  Frank Gardner is the BBC security correspondent, and you may know him because he was disabled on duty in Saudi Arabia when shot by an Al-Qaeda operative in 2004. So many of us will have heard of you, but it’s brilliant to have you on the Talk Show.  Thank you for joining us, Frank.

FRANK	Pleasure, it was more than one who shot me, but we’ll move on from that, but anyway.

LIZ	Really, really? – a number of them? 

FRANK	Yep.

LIZ	We’ve got you on here today really because you’ve brought out a book, “Far Horizons: Unusual Journeys and Strange Encounters from a Travelling Life”, and that’s what we really want to talk to you about.  We’re both huge fans of travel.

SI	Absolutely.

FRANK	I was hoping you were going to say, huge fans of me! 

(((they laugh)))

LIZ	And of you.

SI	Well, of you, of very much so, of you. 

FRANK	No no, too late now – you missed the slot. 

LIZ	Frank, on that note, where are you going on your summer holidays this year? 

FRANK	Croatia. 

LIZ	Croatia?

FRANK	Yep.	

SI	It’s an up-and-coming place – is there a particular reason?
 
FRANK	No, not really, I mean I went there, gosh, in the Eighties, before Dubrovnik got shelled, and it was brilliant.  I have to say, there were rather too many kind of naturist beaches, which I probably won’t be visiting, actually, with all my accoutrements, but no, we’re going to go back as a family, and I think it should be nice, I think.

LIZ	So it’s kind of a regular family holiday, not one of the Frank Gardner expeditions that we’ve been reading about in your book? 

FRANK	No, I mean I’m sort of trying to push the envelope a bit with the family and kind of get them to go to unusual places.  I mean, my wife loves beach, one of the kids is very much into comfort, the other one’s into adventure.  So I’m trying to juggle all of this, but we did manage Borneo this year, which was really good, and I’d totally recommend it.

SI	You mentioned actually about Croatia, do the places they go to, they have to have this extra interest?  I mean, is it something about conflict, is it something, or is it just happens that they take your fancy? 

FRANK	Croatia just took my fancy.  I have to say, it’s probably not an ideal choice for somebody who’s a wheelchair user.  Maybe I should be saying this after I get back, but I’ve been warned that all the kind of budget places tend to be on the slopes of fairly steep hills that are going down to the sea, and I’m sure this is familiar for you guys, but it’s very frustrating.  The choice is very limited if you can’t get up and down steps.  So we’ve managed to find it, but it’s taken a bit of thrashing around.

SI	Just a quick personal question, because you’ve gone to a couple of places that, and this is someone who, I’ve been disabled all my life, and used my scooter for the last however many years, and yours is six years, so you’re a relative newcomer, if you forgive me, for phrasing it like that.

FRANK	Yeah, I’m a novice, yeah. 

SI	Yeah, well I don’t know about a novice, I think you’re doing very well.  So you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ve been to Thailand – have you done that since you’ve been disabled? 

FRANK	Yes. 

SI	Because I’ve hesitated, I’ve always thought, are people going to stare, is it just going to be really hard work, are the pavements – there’s kerbs and so on.  How did you get on, were they ...? 

FRANK	It was fine, Cambodia especially was really very good, because, I suppose because of Cambodia’s own tragic history.  They had the Khmer Rouge, and then the place was littered with landmines.  That’s not to say that the tourist areas are littered with landmines, but the country, particularly the east and the kind of jungly bits, did have a big problem with landmines, so there are so many amputees there, so they’re completely used to seeing people in wheelchairs.  Whereas in Thailand, I found that people were kind of rushing to help, which is very nice, but actually I really needed to learn the Thai for, back off thanks, I’ll do it myself.

	But in Cambodia, it doesn’t raise an eyebrow, and they’ve got a wonderful can-do attitude.  I mean, I suppose I travelled by jeep some of the time, and then on boats around Tonlé Sap, which is a big lake in (inaudible), it’s the largest inland lake in south-east Asia, and we were going round these kind of stilt-, just myself and a mate, round these stilted fishing villages, and the Cambodians were just so helpful.  They just took one look at the wheelchair, and instead of saying, ooh well, I dunno mate, you know, aah, my back’s not what it used to be – there was none of that.  It was just like, within seconds, four of them grabbed it, or two of them grabbed it, and up we went, and there I was, up in the heart, cross legged, or trying to be, and eating fish, or swinging around on a hammock, which was great, which to me is what travelling’s about, without having any kind of fixed big agenda. 
 
LIZ	So you became a wheelchair user six years ago, but before then you were, you had an adventurous side, you travelled all over the world before, and it seems like becoming a wheelchair user hasn’t stopped that – is that right? 

FRANK	It was a temporary blip, Liz, definitely.  I mean, when I came out of hospital, I’d had 14 operations, I was in five hospitals seven months, and I was absolutely knackered.  I had no energy, no drive, physically, for the first year.  With the compensation money, using that, we went off to Thailand to recover, to recuperate, and I was kind of ashamed of myself, because all I did was, I just flopped on a sun lounger under a palm tree, and I didn’t do anything.  With a lot of encouragement, I got into the pool, and sort of wallowed around like a walrus, and then kind of flolloped out again.  I just had no interest, I was exhausted, and it was really like that for the first twelve months.  

	Then after that, I started to kind of get my mojo back really, and say, look, actually there’s so much more of the world that I want to see, and yes, I’ve done some great things, some great trips, train trips down the Sudan and going off picnicking with the Foreign Legion in Djibouti and climbing a volcano in Sumatra, and fun things like that, but there’s so much more, and yes, a lot of those things I won’t be able to do in a wheelchair, but there are far more things that I can do than that I can’t do.  So you’ve got to look on the positive side, and I’ve had a great time.  I’ve been twice to Afghanistan, Colombia, Cambodia, Borneo, all since my injuries.

SI	You’re a master of understatement, I mean, calling the experience a blip or being exhausted for those twelve months, and so on.  I think both Liz and I, we were talking about you earlier, we had this sort of admiration that you had one foot in the disability, understanding that, and have adapted amazingly well, but you also have one foot also in your mainstream, what your job is, and all of the other parts.  Now, you make out that that actually was a relatively easy switch, except for those twelve months.  Has it been, or were there still little times where it catches you short, makes you think? 

FRANK	Yeah, there are.  I mean, I think the times when I don’t notice it are where I’m happily rolling around in a jeep, bouncing round somewhere, and you’re holding on to the dashboard or something to kind of balance yourself, but you think, hey, this is fun, where you’ve got mobility.  I did a great trip up to the Arctic about three weeks ago, no, a month ago, I think, in Swalbart (inaudible), you might have seen it.  We were following these amputees who were going to make an attempt to cross the polar ice cap next year to the North Pole.  So I spent three days on a skidoo, and sleeping in teepees, in these tents, and I didn’t use the wheelchair at all.  The only time I used it was to get to transfer from the skidoo, or the snowmobile rather, to the tent, and that was it – the rest of the time I was completely mobile and independent on the snowmobile, which was fantastic.  The times I think I probably do notice it are those sort of social occasions, where there’s a very fluid movement of people in a kind of quite upbeat place, a bar or something like that, and if I’m wearing callipers, and I’ll be standing up, that’s fine, but if everyone’s kind of surging towards the door, or something ... I mean, I did a trip to Columbia, and I ended up covering a hostage situation in the street,  and the crowd suddenly moved, and I thought, if there’s a stampede, I’m stuffed here.

SI	Yeah.  I can understand, so there’s certain situations that you may be a little bit more aware.  Now, I have a confession – I saw you, I was at the BBC, there was a disability and talent event happening, and there was 30 wheelchair users in the foyer, and you happened to be finishing your day’s work, and you came down in the lift, and you came out, and it was a joyous moment, because obviously you were a little bit surprised, as anyone would be, to see 30 wheelchair users suddenly there.  But then there was just this very big, natural smile, and I thought, this man is very cool, he’s very kind of, I don’t know what the word is.

FRANK	It’s all a facade. 

SI	Well yes, I did wonder that too, but it worked.  Now, I have a naughty question, which is, when I see you on BBC News at Ten, I love it when I get to see just a little bit of your wheelchair.  However, I’ve seen you with callipers, did you say? – or a frame, or sort of leaning against a wall?  Now, this is a really rubbish disability question, but is that your call?  Is it the ...

FRANK	It’s my call, yeah. 

SI	Right, and what influences that decision?

FRANK	A lot of it depends on kind of what the format of the programme is, so if it’s me commenting on something that’s happened, or kind of having a bit of what we call a one plus one, sitting down with the presenter, whether it’s Huw Edwards or Fiona Bruce, then it makes sense for me to still be in my wheelchair, to sit down next to them, and have a bit of a chat about it.  If it’s talking through something like graphics, then I actually prefer to stand up, gripping my Zimmerframe, my walking frame, with one hand, and use the other hand to kind of gesticulate, because I feel I can project better when I’m standing.  I never say to anybody, don’t show the wheelchair, or for that matter, I never say to them, do show it.  I leave it up to the, entirely up to the kind of gallery director, the studio director, how much of the wheelchair they show.
 
SI	What I should be doing is obviously listening to what you’re saying, and explaining, rather than worrying about whether I can see you – do people say that? 

FRANK	No, no – no-one ever listens to our pieces to cameras.

LIZ	No, we just get very excited when we see a wheelchair user on TV, particularly as a reporter. 

FRANK	Well, do you know what? – I had a really nice email when I was out in Afghanistan earlier this year from, I think, is it Chris Heaney, a guy who writes ... it’s under Healy, I think, no, Andy Healy, that’s it.  He writes for Forward, the SIA, Spinal Injuries Association magazine.

LIZ	OK, yep. 

FRANK	And he said, we were so chuffed to see you in your wheelchair in Afghanistan.  I kind of broke the mould there a bit on that, because to be honest, I don’t think the Ministry of Defence would massively welcome 30 wheelchair users all arriving at one time in the theatre, as it’s called.  But we had our own safety guy with us, we were taken care of, we took care of ourselves, and I wasn’t really a problem for anybody.  There were a few, there’s a lot of pebbles there, and you do occasionally have to move quite quickly, but it was fine getting out there.

LIZ	Now Frank, me and Simon, lifelong disabled people; you’re a newbie, you’re doing well, but you’re new.  We want to make sure that you are getting everything that you’re entitled to, so we’ve just got a checklist here.  Do you get Disability Living Allowance?

FRANK	Yes. 

LIZ	Do you have a blue badge? 

FRANK	Check. 

LIZ	Do you have a radar key?

FRANK	Check.
 
LIZ	Motability car? 

FRANK	About to. 

LIZ	Oh, excellent. 

SI	Wow.

LIZ	A Freedom Pass?

FRANK	No.

LIZ	We’ll talk about that later.  National bus pass?

FRANK	No.

LIZ	We’ll talk about that later.  Access to work? 

FRANK	Yes.

LIZ	Excellent!  I don’t want to say the last thing, the producer makes me say it – he’s thinking (I’m blaming him) of introducing a cartoon to the website called “The Blue Badger”.

FRANK	(((laughs))) 

LIZ	Well, the question was, do you think that’s funny?

FRANK	Yeah, I do.  I’m afraid so, sorry about that, but I think it is, that’s good. 

LIZ	I was slightly ashamed, he thinks it’s funny, I think it’s quite funny. 

FRANK	Yeah. 

SI	Thank you so much, Frank. 

FRANK	You’re welcome. 

SI	Frank Gardner’s new book, it’s entitled “Far Horizons: Unusual Journeys and Strange Encounters from a Travelling Life.” 

LIZ	Frank, you’ve been a delight to talk to, thank you so much.

FRANK	All the best, cheers.

LIZ	Take care, bye bye.

VOICEOVER:

You’re listening to the Ouch! Talk Show!

LIZ	Still to come on the Talk Show ...

(((rock music)))

	“Catch a train ....”

LIZ	.... we’re talking to Ally Craig, lead singer of Bud Prentice, and you’ll hear that track I’m talking all over in full.

LIZ	So it’s July, I’m feeling all summery, Simon, and enjoying it.  Not really going away – have you got travel plans this year?

SI	Yes I have, I’m off to the Little People of America.  They have a conference going on in Nashville this year. 

LIZ	Now, you’re saying that with quite a big smirk – why? 

SI	Well, partly because of the name – “Little People” is a little bit cute, although you know, there’s lots of worse names.  But it’s just a kind of, I don’t know, awesome, overwhelming thing which gives 2,000 people like me, short people around sort of four foot, four and a half foot, one hotel, maybe an overspill hotel.  We just take over for this week, and they are remarkable, and there can be 30 different sort of nationalities there as well. 

LIZ	And is it like a conference, or is it just one big party? 

SI	It is both, it is both, and as you get older, you realise this is a very useful conference, where you can learn a lot of things.  They’ll have specific conditions, there’s 200 types of dwarfism.  So they’ll have different groups within sub-groups and so on, so you can go and meet, or you can talk about adoption, you can talk about marriage, you can talk about all sorts of things.  Then every night there’s a big party, disco thing, that yeah, that’s a little bit more crazy.

LIZ	I’m four foot six – could I gatecrash? 

SI	You probably could, kind of four foot nine, four foot ten is usually the cut off, so you’re OK.  You might be a little bit on the tall side, a bit weird on the dance floor, we can see you.  However, but you’re meant to have a recognised condition, and I don’t know if you qualify on that. 

LIZ	Because there are the 200, so you have to be in that. 

SI	Although some of those are not even named, they’re just unique to an individual, so you could have your own Liz Carr syndrome. 

LIZ	Really?

SI	Yeah, we’ll get you in on that.

LIZ	On a wild card, kind of thing! 

SI	But they are, I think the first one I ever went to was 1995, and after two days I said I was leaving, and I thought I was pretty relaxed in my skin, I thought, I’d had a lifetime of being short, and this was OK, and I was just so overwhelmed by the number, maybe the variety, and there was that thing called the mirror image – I don’t know if that works for other conditions, where you see someone who has a similar condition, and you suddenly see yourself, and you didn’t realise that you looked like that to other people, and it overwhelmed me, and I said, I’m out of here, and people, some good friends had to kind of talk me round, saying, look, you’re still the same person, nothing’s changed, and I’m so glad I did, but it was a bit weird. 

LIZ	So it was like a bit of a shock, to be surrounded with so many people like yourself, kind of thing? 

SI	Yeah, but I don’t know if you get this, it’s the kind of ... if you’re on your own, and you have a visible disability, you have all your strategies, and you’re used to it, and yadayada.  I’m talking about people that (inaudible), but then if you’re with somebody else who has a visible disability as well, suddenly it’s a bit more, and you kind of question them, or do you question you, or ... I don’t know.

LIZ    	But then, I quite like that whole thing of, when I am with other disabled people, whether it’s the same impairment or not, kind of thing, of that absolute fear of, feeling of powerfulness – don’t you get that?  Do you know what I mean?  If we were going out, you know, to a restaurant, or whatever, and there was the two of us, but let’s say there was even more, it was all the Ouch! team, and that kind of thing, there is something delicious sometimes about being this total mish-mash! – oh, oh, and the producer’s just going, don’t lump us in with you lot!  Hey, hey? – you with your sensory impairments, hey? 

SI	Yeah, is it a power, or is it a security?  Is that a better word?  I mean, I know exactly what you mean, but I think maybe it was just a kind of baptism of fire for me, suddenly being overwhelmed by it, and not going to a special school or anything like that, spending most of my life with not disabled people, suddenly really being in there.  I don’t know. 

LIZ	No, it does make total sense, and I know other people that I’ve spoken to have had a similar experience, when they’ve gone to impairment-specific things, things just for them, and I know that I went, my first kind of, the thing that I have, that I never talk about, but it’s very similar to rheumatoid arthritis.

SI	What?

LIZ	Yeah, it’s similar to that, so I went to something run by a group called Young Arthritis Care, and that was amazing, because there were other people who looked so like me.  But I remember, one of the first things that we did, it was like a conference over two days, is we had to go round and say our name, and say whether we were disabled or not, right?  Or if we were people with a disability, that was it. 

SI	Noo! 

LIZ	And I was like, I said, oh I’m neither – but look at me! – you know, I mean it was so obvious.
 
SI	Go back a sec, was it a semantic, as in are you a disabled person or a person with a disability?

LIZ	Yes, yes. 

SI	And trying to work out whether you’re political?

LIZ	Whether you had ... what your view on that was, whether you had some politics around that issue or not, some people think that that matters, and some people don’t.  So that was the first thing, but I also remember, there was a woman who looked very similar to me, in many ways, and I remember giving her the evil eye. 

SI	(((laughs))) 

LIZ	It’s funny, and in last month’s podcast, me and Mat were talking about people looking at us, and giving us the eye, right? 

SI	Yeah, yeah. 

LIZ	Well this time, when they sort of stare and you, and think you’re a bit freakish, I was doing the same to her, because it was a bit like, ooh look at her, look at her with her swollen knees and joints, look at ... oh, she looks all cocksure and confident, and that was only because I was threatened! 

SI	Well I was going to say, I’ve got that kind of competitiveness, in like, I want to be the number one in the room, and now I’m not, there’s someone else who’s a bit similar?

LIZ	No no, I think it was that, but it was insecurity, is what it was, because it was kind of like, look at her – she had somebody with her, I was on my own, my PAs had dropped me off – in those days, it was a volunteer, so I was there on my own.  I didn’t know people, so you know that first evening, where you’re scrambling around to make friends, and .... 

SI	Yes, well obviously for you, very difficult, yeah, yeah.

LIZ	(((laughs))) ... and she just looked like somebody I think I wanted to be.  What’s inter ... 

SI	Oh right – it’s admiration? 

LIZ	Yeah, yes but the way that that spilled out, it’s like, oh look at her, I hate her!  Am I the only one that does that? – why do I say these things! 

SI	No, that was lovely, I love the idea that you say, I’ll tell you who I really admire – Leona Lewis, I hate her.  Let me tell her.  No, I know what you mean, because I will meet maybe, if there’s other short men and so on at the convention, there’ll be loads, and there’s good-looking guys, and suddenly there is a kind of a, not a hierarchy, if that’s the right word, but there are differences within differences and so on, and you want to just be cool, and you want to kind of, yeah, hang on, we’re all the same, yadayada, but there’s that, maybe this is what non-disabled people are doing all the time, which I don’t bother to compare myself to someone like that, because I’m superior.  But yeah, so maybe there is something.  I’m going to get myself into trouble now, you listen to me.

LIZ	No, I don’t know if maybe we do, maybe we feel the same that non-disabled people feel about us, when they see us? 

SI	Yes. 

LIZ	But I think it was, I think she had and was what I wasn’t, and I think sometimes in a group situation, or when you’re shy, when you’re nervous, it’s like, it’s easier to kind of be quite negative about people, and go, look at them, all confident and der der, and actually all it is, it’s because you’re not feeling that way.  In actual fact, what happened with this woman is we sat together at dinner, and we became soulmates. 

SI	Yeah.

LIZ	You know, because we actually were so so similar, and of course I didn’t hate her.  I don’t know if I ever told her ... I did, I did tell her that I hated you on first sight!  But as soon as we started to talk, what was brilliant, and I’m guessing this is what happens at the LPA convention, is it was like, so you’ve done that?   She was older than me, so it was like, what – you’re married?  Oh my God, what – you’ve had sex that way?  Or you work, or you ... she had done and experienced things in life that I didn’t know were possible, or even practical, she was saying things about, you can get a PA, a personal assistant, you can do this.  But also she felt the same things at times, it was like, do you get fed up when people look at you?  And you know when you first find someone that you can admit that to, and say – don’t you just hate it, sometimes? I don’t hate being me, but I do hate when people stare or when they point. 

SI	And it’s exhausting.  That was very revelatory, but I agree with it, and I think it’s the same.  I mean, I sometimes think about the convention – 2,000 short people, is this weird?  Why am I going there?  I think there’s two things: one is very straightforward, which is that bit of, you don’t have to discuss certain things, because it’s a given, and you know 25 things about them already, and you’re right, if we go out in a group, we are hugely powerful, hugely self-confident.  It kind of oozes out, because we’re playing a game with ourselves, with other people in it, and it’s lovely, you just kind of let it go.  A simple thing, putting your arm round somebody, dancing with somebody, giving them a squeeze – something that I would never be able to do normally, you are doing routinely.  I’m a bit too affectionate perhaps, just going round – hey, give him a squeeze, and (inaudible), just didn’t care!

LIZ	Do you lift other people up? – I’m just asking. 

SI	Yeah, yeah, no, you do have those little gags, you kind of go, because I’ve got very long arms – oh, let me reach that for you, I doubt you can reach it.  They’re like, what are you doing? – you’re short too!

LIZ	What? – you’re on the sixth floor? Oh, I can reach it!

SI	Oh yeah! 

LIZ	I can get you there! 

SI	I think there is something, but also I’ve found it a little shot in the arm sometimes.  It’s a bit like a drug, it kind of gives you a little bit of a pick-me-up.  That said, you can be overwhelmed by it, and it can knock you the other way, but if you balance it right, very good.  

LIZ	I used to get like that when I used to be involved in something called DAN, the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network.  Other people, I’m sure, listening have read about them or been involved in protests.

SI	Yes. 

LIZ	Or campaign groups, or whatever disability group you’re involved in.  Part of being involved with that was not about just getting changed, and ending discrimination and campaigning against it, but it was that feeling of, you chain yourself to a bus or you blockade a road or whatever, oh man, I mean you’re queen of the land, you are!

SI	We had our friend, Liz Crow, went on Trafalgar Square, was it last summer when they had different people on the fourth plinth?  I went along to that to go and watch her, to support her, because I thought it was very cool, she was a disabled woman on this, in Trafalgar Square.

LIZ	So she was a wheelchair user on a plinth in Trafalgar Square, and the other statues in Trafalgar Square are of old generals, and they have the plinth where at that point where regular people could go and have an hour up there, and Liz, Liz Crow, went up there as a wheelchair user, and was dressed at the beginning in a Nazi uniform, wasn’t she? 

SI	Mmm. 

LIZ	To protest, or to make a point about disabled people and what happened to them in the Holocaust, a very powerful piece of art, wasn’t it?

SI	Absolutely, I mean, but the bit that was kind of peculiar for me, I went to support her as an individual, because I thought it was cool, and I knew she was nervous, as anyone would be, but I didn’t realise that Dan was there, and there was a protest, and before I knew it, I was giving out leaflets, and there were people singing songs!  I’m like, hang on! – I’ve only come down to say hello, and now, it was lovely to be sucked into it.  People were coming up and saying, what’s going on?  What’s she about? And I went, here you are – here’s a leaflet. Suddenly I was a protester, without even meaning to be! 

LIZ	You were getting people to sign up, but you didn’t know what for! 

SI	Absolutely!  Just say no! – what to? – just say no! 

LIZ	(((laughs))) Aren’t most protests like that though, aren’t they? 

SI	Yeah, absolutely. 

LIZ	What do we want? – I’m not sure, but it’s important. Anyway, we’re discriminated enough – do we have to be specific any more? 

SI	No, exactly – just stop being so picky, just go with it. 

LIZ	I think it sounds like a great way to spend the summer, I do, but I can imagine, even though you’re cool with it, just the sight – I mean, I’d love to come as a spectator, I mean, not, but 2,000 people, all like you, all similar, and even just 2,000 disabled people would just, is mind-boggling. 

SI	I should say, I’m not cool with it.  I am going again, this is my probably seventh time in 15 years, or no, probably sixth time, and I’m going to know for the first few hours, I will be overwhelmed again. I will be paranoid about the size of my tummy, I’ll be paranoid about this.  I’ll be a mess, and then gradually you ease in, and then suddenly, at the end of the week when you go out into the real world again, you’re like, oh hang on – this is strange now.  So yeah, don’t get me wrong, I’m not balanced, it’s just ...  well, I hope I’m reasonably balanced, but it’s still a bit jumpy.  I  just think it is just overwhelming, and maybe you see loads of people having a great time, and you don’t know whether you quite fit in, and then after a day or two you think, yeah I do, but it just takes that little bit of time to ease in.

(((radio crackling)))

VOICEVER

You’re listening to the Ouch! Talk Show!

(((jingle)))

SI	(((talks very slowly))) Now, it’s time for Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable.  I am very excited to be able to play this game.  

LIZ	You should be – it’s a classic.

SI	Yeah, although when I heard you and Mat play the game, do you deliberately sometimes get it wrong when you’re trying to guess? 

LIZ	Yeah, no that’s right, we do.  We often really correctly guess it, but we just, we like to give the listeners the feeling that they’re actually winning.

SI	Now you’re bluffing me, aren’t you?  You have no idea. 

LIZ	We’re just rubbish, we’re just rubbish! 

SI	I know I’m shooting myself in the foot here, but I’m sort of shouting at the computer, or iPod or whatever, and I’m saying, hang on, keep going, keep going! – and then you back off to another angle. 

LIZ	I know, no, no, we think we’ve gone down a road, we think that’s it, we’ve gone down there, and then we miss it – how many times do we, well how many times do we get it right? – very rarely. 

SI	‘Tis true. 

LIZ	Very rarely.   

SI	Once, I think, I think I’ve heard once. 

LIZ	Well, shall we introduce this month’s contestant?  It’s Lauren in Philadephia.  Hello, Lauren. 

LAUREN	Hello. 

LIZ	Philadelphia – is that the place where the cheese is from?

LAUREN	Well, we have cheese steaks, and they’re awesome. 

LIZ	Oh, I’ve heard of that – a Philadelphia cheese steak. 

SI	Oh.

LAUREN	Erm, it’s ...

SI	Go on.

LAUREN	...just amazingly good, shredded beef with Cheese Whizz.

SI	But you ... it’s not Philadelphia cheese as we know it – do you have a brand called Philadelphia cheese there, a soft cream cheese?

LAUREN	Yep, we do have Philadelphia cream cheese.

SI	I don’t know why I asked that – it’s a bit of rubbish cheese sort of topic.

LIZ	It is, sorry, yes, it’s a cheesy beginning. Well Lauren, it’s good to have you on here.  So what do you do?

LAUREN	I actually (inaudible) for doctors.

SI	I’m sorry – you do what for doctors?

LAUREN 	Which means I do ... no, I don’t work for them, I basically do the background checks.

SI	And I should explain that, this partly me, but the line’s slightly echoey, so those listeners, every now and then we might just get you to repeat it –  it’s just the line,  I think. 

LIZ	Lauren’s on her mobile – she’s snuck out of work, listeners – that’s what she’s done!  She shouldn’t be doing it.  Anyway, they’re only doctors, it doesn’t really matter, does it? – it doesn’t matter.  And life in Philadelphia – is that where you’re from?  You’ve got a good life there, what do you do in your spare time?

LAUREN	I’m actually really an artist and a historian, that’s what I went to university for, but you can’t make money as an artist.

LIZ	Oh no!  So you’re doing something else in the meantime?

LAUREN	Yes, pretty much. 

SI	Have you ever seen Leona Lewis live in concert? 

LAUREN	No. 

SI	OK, do you know who Leona Lewis is? 

LAUREN	Not off hand.

LIZ	He’s teasing me, Lauren – that’s what he’s doing. 

SI	She’s a dodgy pop star.

LIZ	So Simon – are you going to read the rules?  You’ve heard them Lauren, you know how to play, I’m sure. 

LAUREN	Uhum.

SI	So, the game Vegetable, Vegetable, Vegetable is a clever disability interpretation of the parlour game, Animal, Vegetable or Mineral.

LIZ	Faster! 

SI	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.  The caller must only answer yes or no, it is both classic and therapeutic.

LIZ	To take part in this intrusive and unpleasant game, the rules clearly state that you have to be disabled.  Lauren – are you disabled? 

LAUREN	Yes. 

LIZ	Yes. 

SI	We have 90 seconds on the clock, the time starts ... now. 

LIZ	Do you use a wheelchair? 

LAUREN	No. 

SI	Is it a physical disability? 

LAUREN	Sometimes.

LIZ	Do you have ME?

LAUREN	What’s that?

LIZ	Ooh, hmm. 

SI	It is chronic fatigue syndrome. 

LIZ	Chronic fatigue. 

LAUREN	No.

SI	If we met you, would we be able to tell that you had a disability? 

LAUREN	Hmm ....

LIZ	Hurry!  Hurry!  You’re stalling! 

LAUREN	Not really.

SI	Not really?

LIZ	Are you really disabled?

LAUREN	Yes. 

SI	So it’s sort of hidden, somewhere hidden. So about your head, are you a bit mentalist?

LAUREN	Yeah, it’s in the head.

SI	Oh ... 

LIZ	It’s in the head.

SI	Come on, we’re going to be going along the right line.

LIZ	Oh no, I don’t know.  Do you take tablets for it?

LAUREN	No.

LIZ	Do you see a therapist for it?

LAUREN	No.

SI	Do you think you should?

LAUREN	(((laughs)))

SI	Is it daytime, night time, all the time, sometimes? 

LAUREN	All the time.

SI	All the time.  

LIZ	Is it worse at different times of the year? 

LAUREN	Yeah.

SI	Oh, so like, that could be weather, is it Seasonal Affective, is it something like that? – SAD?

LAUREN	Yeah, that’s definitely is a part.

LIZ	Ah, that’s certainly ....

SI	What did you say, that is part of the part? 

LIZ	That’s part of it, is it MS?

LAUREN	Yes.

SI	What was? 

LAUREN	Yes. 

SI	Did you say yes?  No, no!!

LIZ	No, no!  I’ve never been so excited to hear that somebody’s got MS in my life! Wooh!

LAUREN	(inaudible), you said MS? 

LIZ:	Yeah.

LAUREN	Or MF (inaudible)

SI	Or both of them, whichever one you’ve got. 

LIZ	Yeah, whichever one. What have you got – we’ve said that one? 

SI	Multiple sclerosis. 

LIZ	Yes, well that’s – I’ve forgotten what it means.

SI	I can’t believe we got it! 

LIZ	You see – you’re my lucky charm!  I don’t mean that in a patronising way. 

SI	Thanks very much, I’ll be your little mascot, shall I? I know where you get this.

LIZ	You’re not a leprechaun, oh my God, it’s getting worse!

SI	Lauren, I feel very bad, because we got it, but I feel very excited inside. 

LAUREN	Oh, it’s good that you got it.

SI	I did think, with the telephone line, you might have been someone in a bubble, I was hoping you’d be a girl in a bubble.

LAUREN	That’d be interesting on the subway. 

LIZ	And Lauren, we’d had this note from the producer, right – he’d said, what you should do, when you’re playing Veg, Veg or Veg, is do listen to their voices, because sometimes people have different voices, depending on what’s wrong with them, right?  Some people have a squeakier voice, or a flatter voice, but you can sometimes tell somebody’s impairment by their voice, so we were very listening to you.  I thought that was a clue, but it wasn’t.  It was your phone all along.

SI	When people find out you have MS, how do they react?  What sort of questions do they ask?  

LAUREN	A lot of people are shocked, and then they ask what’s really wrong with me.  They can’t see the numbness, and it’s like, I can’t feel the right side of my body. 

SI	OK. 

LIZ	Because people can’t see that? 

LAUREN	(inaudible) 

LIZ	Thank you very much.  Now, Lauren, I feel a bit bad, because we whooped and cheered about the fact that you have MS, which ... 

SI	Well, which ... 

LIZ	... but you did ring up, so I mean that’s why we do it. Since they’re not prizes, no, of course they’re not, the BBC wouldn’t do that, we can’t do that, I think that you should be sent an Ouch! commuter mug anyway.

LAUREN	Thank you. 

LIZ	Would that be OK? – I mean, I hope you can lift it.

LAUREN	If not, I’ll tie it on.

LIZ	Brilliant, and there’s always straws. 

LAUREN	Yes! 

LIZ	Thank you for applying to be on Veg, Veg, Veg, thank you for being a winning contestant, and thank you for sending us an email that said, “Yes, I do have no dignity whatsoever, and would like to be on Vegetable, Vegetable, Vegetable” – it’s what gets people on.  So thanks Lauren, you take care.

LAUREN	Thank you, you too. 

SI	Thank you, Lauren. 

LIZ	And I hope you don’t get sacked.

SI	If you, as Liz said, have no dignity and want to be the next contestant on Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable, email us now ouch@bbc.co.uk, that is ouch@bbc.co.uk.

LIZ 	If you’ve never seen a severely handicapped person trying to speak before, it can be a bit alarming. 

SI	On the line, we have Ally Craig from Bug Prentice. Hi there, Ally.

ALLY	Hi.

SI	Can I ask, where are you at the moment?

ALLY	I’m in Grove, at home. 

SI	And what are you doing, or what are you planning this weekend?

ALLY	Well, we’ve just been practising ready for Glastonbury, where we’ll be playing twice on Saturday. 

SI	Fantastic.  Actually, we should just mention that we’re recording this just before Glastonbury, but the Talk Show listeners, when you pick this up, it will just be a few days after Glastonbury.  That sounds awesome – have you played Glastonbury before? 

ALLY	No, this is the first time I’ve even been, so ... 

SI	Have you got your wellingtons? 

ALLY	Well, I don’t really need them, because I’m in a wheelchair, so I will get special wheels, or something. 

SI	I hope the weather stays good.  Now we should explain, Bug Prentice is a three-piece band from London and Oxford. The other members are not disabled, but we’re going to namecheck them anyway: Ruth Goller is on base, Stephen Gilchrist is on drums, and Ally, you’re lead guitar on vocals? 

ALLY	That is correct, although for Glastonbury, neither Steve nor Ruth were available, so I’ve had to train some last-minute stand ins, so for Glastonbury we actually have Colin Somervell on bass, and Edgar Post on drums. 

LIZ	Well we’re going to, Ally, we’re going to play out with a track from the band at the end of the show, but in the meantime we’ve got some quick-fire questions for you.  Are you ready?

ALLY	As ready as I’ll ever be. 

LIZ	OK, why is the band called Bug Prentice? 

ALLY	Because it is!

SI	Very good!

LIZ	Classy! 

SI	It must have come from somewhere, that’s quite a strange ... I dunno, strange two words.

LIZ	It’s not from a film – how did you come up with it?  You can’t have just been sitting there, and gone – I know, this would be a good idea? 

ALLY	Well you know, sometimes words just come to your head.  I actually had a couple of different suggestions for the band name, and I presented them to Steve and Ruth, and that was the one they both picked, so that’s what we went for. 

SI	Well, it sounds democratic, if nothing else.  The audience are going to listen to the music in a moment, but how would you describe Bug Prentice’s music style? 

ALLY	I’d say it’s kind of jazz-tinged punk.  We’ve gone in for the rhythms and energy of punk, but the harmonic influence of people like Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, although I should qualify that I’m not nearly as talented as they are. 

LIZ	And when people ask you what’s wrong with you, what do you tell them, Ally?
 
ALLY	I’m very sad. 

SI	OK, can you complete the phrase: disabled rock stars are ... 

ALLY	Playing at Glastonbury. 

LIZ	What do the band wear on stage? 

ALLY	As little as possible. 

LIZ	(((gasps))) 

SI	Ah, it’s that sort of band.  If you could duet with anyone alive or dead (this is a very musical question), who would it be with? 

ALLY	John Coltrane. 

LIZ	Could you complete the phrase: my biggest nightmare is? 

ALLY	Being rendered obsolete by a tribute act to me.

LIZ/SI	(((they laugh))) 

SI	You’ve thought that one through.  OK, so when you’re not actually performing, Ally, what do you get up to?

ALLY	Well, I write songs and think about songs, and watch a lot of films.

LIZ	And take your clothes off, by the sounds of it.  What’s the future for Bug Prentice?

ALLY	Well, we’d love to record an album.  We’ve probably got enough songs written now that we could think about doing that, so it’s just a case of finding the time and the money.

LIZ	Well, thanks for that, Ally – we’ve just got a bit of housekeeping to do to wrap up the show, and then we’ll be back with you, so thanks so far. 

ALLY	Cheers.

LIZ	Well, that’s the end of Show 53 for July 2010.  Thank you for listening, and thank you for being my co-host, Simon. 

SI	Thank you so much for having me, Liz. 

LIZ	Pleasure.  Next month, standing in for Mat Fraser is Gary O’Donohue.  Thanks to the production team: Damon Rose, Emma Tracey and Amy Gardner.  The studio manager was Chris Muir, and our executive producer is Lisa Percy.

SI	You can read more about Bug Prentice at their website, bugprentice.com, and we’ll put a link to it on the Ouch! website too.  It’s time for Liz and I to say goodbye, and the last voice you will hear this month is Ally Craig.  He’s just about to introduce his track.  Cheerio, and cue Ally.

ALLY	This is called, “A train, then a train, then a train”.  It’s about trains.

(((guitar intro)))

Uhu-oo, uhu-ooo, I can feel the flames
That’s the reason it took me so long to ride it again
Catch a train, then a train, then a train.

I know, yes I know, you’ll keep me entertained
And I’ll never want to go back home again
I will miss my TV.

Woo-hoo-hoo!
Woo-hoo-hoo!

Let’s see if we get so far, we get so far
That’s all we know, all we know is our guitars
Catch a train, then a train, then a train, then a bus