Disability goes the wrong way!

Before you get confused by the title, I emphasise here, that it is semi-sarcastic and I ask you to consider the ways that it can be read!

Now, what am I going on about today? This Guardian article.  Basically, a blind lady was challenged for bringing a guide dog into a Tesco store.

So, let us look at the elements:

A visually challenged lady,
A dog in a harness and
A mature student.

Oh, hang on, should that read:

A visually challenged lady,
A dog in a harness and
A mature student who is registered as blind!

We, in this country, are not necessarily taught the fact that a dog wearing a harness with a metal handle is helping the person attached to it.  Although, somehow, we all learn it.



The image is enough, we don't need the new(ish) style lead with the words "GUIDE DOG" on a bright yellow flag!  This is a Guide Dog, this dog will be attached to a person with extremely poor or no sight.  This is NOT a pet, this is NOT a family dog, this is a WORKING dog, this is a dog that will not do something to endanger the health of other shoppers.

Tesco's insulting voucher is not enough.  Tesco's management should grab the cashier by the scruff of the neck, frog-marched to Ms Makri's front door and made to get down on her knees and give an apology that includes her resignation.  

I wonder where this (hopefully former) cashier is from.  Obviously a country where the blind are hidden from view, where disabled are kept in institutions, a country where the disabled are not acknowledged.

Or, is this cashier actually visually impaired, and as such is she able to perform her duties?  Is the disability held by the one behind the counter, not in front? Is discrimination of the disabled not a disability in itself?  After all, the discriminator is not able to see that the person is human?  They have the disability!

30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know

 

Some prominent bloggers were asked to participate in this simple blog post meme to help spread awareness during Invisible Awareness Week (September 11-18th)

I'm not one of these prominent people, however, I think it is important to share these as there is still so much even my closest friends and family do not know.

1. The illness I live with is: Osteoarthritis.  OK lots of people have OA, and it affects one or two joints, mine is spreading.  For those that don't know, OA is a condition that affects your joints. The surfaces within your joints become damaged so the joint doesn't move as smoothly as it should.  This causes pain, in some cases, like mine, the pain is constant.

2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: I was diagnosed in 1994, I think, after a motorcycle accident had started my right knee aching.

3. But I had symptoms since: I can't really remember when symptoms started. I was often tired, or had aches and pains etc which at the time I did not know were symptoms.

4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: learning to adjust to my limits and having to help others less as I have to take care of myself.

5. Most people assume: that I am a happy, upbeat person because that's how I always was.  When my knee first dislocated in 1980, I emptied a half hour bottle of Entonox (NO2) in 12 minutes!  In the half hour to get to the hospital, I emptied two more.  But I was joking all the time.  

I try to look at the funny side to avoid looking at the down side, but, remember the song "Tears of a Clown"?

6. The hardest part about mornings are: simply getting moving at first.  I am achy and very tired, as I normally don't get to sleep until 2/3 a.m.  It would be easy to just go back to bed, but normally the wife wants me to pick her up or take her somewhere. 

7. My favorite medical TV show is: House of course!  I just wish there were doctors like him and his team in the UK to sort people out!

8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is: It's a toss-up between my battery operated can opener or the laptop.  The can opener means I can get at food, the laptop, allows me to order groceries for delivery, but also keep in touch with family and friends.

9. The hardest part about nights are: The excruciating agony in my knees keeping me awake, to such an extent that pain killers don't touch it.  The fact that the late nights in pain, in tears, means that my body then needs longer in the morning to wake up and the fact that people think, oh, if you're going to sleep so much later, go to sleep earlier! 

10. Each day I take 15 pills & but no vitamins as yet.  (No comments, please)

11. Regarding alternative treatments I: I know homeopathy works, I've seen it with my children and teething stuff my ex-father-in-law (a homeopathist) gave us for them.  I would love to find something that helps with the muscle spasms, the pain, the weakness.

12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: I would really like to be able to choose a third option - neither!  The invisible illnesses and disabilities in the world need more understanding from those around us.  Compassion is easy for people when they see someone with an amputated or deformed limb, but when the problems are hidden, understanding of the problem is difficult.

13. Regarding working and career: I wish!  I had the awful "turn down" at a few job interviews in the past of "You are a fire risk! We can't have you work for you because if there was a fire, we couldn't risk you falling down the stairs and blocking them!"  

14. People would be surprised to know: That I often wish I could curl up in a corner and let the rest of the world go to heck.  I often feel like I want to give up, but I have three gorgeous grand-daughters that I can't let down.

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: The lack of energy.  The constant pain tires you out, so you need to pace yourself through the day.  You have to use trains to travel to places that used to be a car drive away.

16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: That's the problem, Osteoarthritis is not a young person's illness, so older people have it, not me!  I don't know anything that I'm not supposed to be able to do.

17. The commercials about my illness: There are no commercials for Osteoarthritis, it is still a very misunderstood illness (by most people). The journey of awareness has begun but there is a long way to go for a cure.

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: Hiking across our local Country Park, bird watching and enjoying nature.

19. It was really hard to have to give up: My independent nature, if I fall, if I can't stand up, the need for help to get up.

20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: There isn't anything really, I would like to try several ideas, but they all need fine motor skills with the fingers and I'm losing that.

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: Take my grand-daughters out across the "Firehills" between Hastings and Rye, showing them all the hidden things, both flora and fauna.

22. My illness has taught me: People prefer things they can see, even if they still don't understand them.  Jonny Peacock is accepted as he has no feet, Tony Turtle is OK because he has all his bits!

23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: "You don't know what real pain is!"  Sorry? 24/7/365!  I know what pain is!

24. But I love it when people: When people put their arm about me, even though it hurts and says, "I wish I could take the pain away" (even better when the name "Gumpy", my grand-daughter's name for me, is included)

25. My favourite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  

26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: It is tough, it may get worse, but the people that love you will be shown up by staying with you.

27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: The fact that people don't seem to care if they can't see something wrong.

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: Having my daughter who has ME (CFS) get dressed, put the kids in the car and brought them to visit.

29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: The world needs to realise that it's not just the people with Invisible Illnesses that realise there is such a thing as Invisible Illness.

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: Hopeful that more people will understand about Invisible Illness.

For more in my blog about all sorts of stuff: http://aturtle05.blogspot.com/2014/09/30-things-about-my-invisible-illness.html

Why I do NOT support the Ice Bucket Challenge!

Earlier today, the Ice Bucket Challenge got close to home, my wife got challenged.  She can't understand my point of view, that I cannot see why people are not donating to charity.

For those that don't know, where have you been, but the challenge is, you have 24 hours to donate to charity or pay a forfeit of getting a bucketful of cold water poured over your head.  I have since been told that some feel you get to pay one amount if you do the challenge but a greater amount if you refuse.  So I felt compelled to post on facebook:

#IceBucketChallenge for any wishing to challenge me, I thought I had better list some of the charities my wife and I have already donated to this year from the small amount of money we have:

http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Donate/
https://www.facebook.com/impact.charity.1
http://www.rspb.org.uk/search/index.aspx?q=
http://www.arthritisresearchuk.org/donate
http://www.meresearch.org.uk/support-us/online-donation/
https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/giving/donations/makeadonation/#.U_tIMPldWSo
http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/how-to-give

This list is not exhaustive, but if it is still insufficient for any of you then I will not empty a bucket of water over my head. I donate, I do not need to be TOLD to donate, I care about both people and animals. I would have preferred to keep my charity to myself, but it seems this is necessary.

If you don't like it - go stick your head in a bucket of water!

Better still, stick your hand in your pocket and donate to those who need your help.

So, I got told off for being boring, so I started looking for the "rules" of this challenge and the only place that came up with them was Wikipedia!  I then posted this in reply on facebook:

I just don't like the way it seems to be giving people a way out and they are all taking it! It seems to me it's pay up or get drenched, and everyone seems to be getting wet.

You cannot demand that people donate to charity, it has to be a conscious choice. Yes, it may have raised a bit of awareness, but there are other ways.

If I want to advertise my charitable donation, look at the front of my car (there's a plastic poppy), on the lapel of the jacket I will be wearing on 3 September (there's an enamel poppy badge), or my coat/jumper in October/November (I'll be wearing a paper poppy), and I won't be removing the large one until Tuesday the 11th of November.

Looking at the Wikipedia page about this challenge, as I couldn't find any authorised rules of the challenge, "A common stipulation is that nominated people have 24 hours to comply or forfeit by way of a charitable financial donation"

So, to my mind, there is no donating, just dunking!

If the ALS society in the USA had listed the rules and stated "Donate to nominate then donate when you're dunked, or donate and don't get dunked" I would have no problem. The challenge seems to be pay up or get dunked! So, how is this raising money?

I am not anti-charity, as my first facebook post shows, I am not anti-ALS (apart from I would like to see it gone), I am just anti this challenge thing.

People have not stopped caring, but people have become complacent about charity in a time when charity is more important than ever.  I would encourage people to give as much as possible, I know money is tight, your choice is as important as to who you give the money to, or which foodbank you want to donate some of your shopping to.  Give, give,give!!!!

As I said in the title of this piece, I do NOT support the Ice Bucket Challenge, not because it's so successful, but because the charities have not suggested a set of guidelines as to how the challenges should be made.  I would like to call on the ALSA to add a set of guidelines to their page. I would like people to point out in a better way (a sign in the video of them getting doused saying I paid £xx, €xx or $xx to challenge A__ B___) as not everyone has the volume on when watching videos on facebook.

I would like to call on a website designer to work out a way that for a charitable donation an email is sent to the challengee who then has 24 hours to challenge someone else.  Hang on, that sounds like a chain letter in a way.  Still, if that is what it takes...

So far I have seen 3 videos of people hurt doing these challenges (hopefully not seriously), I have heard that one person died after completing the challenge.  How much is the death or paralysation of even one person worth?  

I have the right to privacy, if I want to donate to charity, that is my right, as is the right to not force that choice on others.  Don't call me a "miserable sod" because of my beliefs, don't think I do not wish to give more to charity, because I do and it upsets me that I haven't got enough income to do so.

So, please, if you have any spare money, search your heart, think of things that affect you and your family, find the relevant society and give your spare cash to them!

Diary of a Benefit Scrounger: Confirmed - The FULL Impact of Cuts Disabled Peopl...

I have never re-posted a fellow blogger's posting, but this has to reach the BIGGEST audience possible.

Lord Freud (carefully typed to avoid a Freudian slip) and Iain Duncan Smith have been caught (may I add, again) in a lie.  This time, the biggest lie of the Con-Dem Coalition, the one they have been fighting all along.



Read it, share it, let them fight the truth!



Diary of a Benefit Scrounger: Confirmed - The FULL Impact of Cuts Disabled Peopl...: Since the coalition came to power, sick and disabled people have claimed we are being fundamentally harmed by the coalition welfare refor...

Taking over quietly.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but if I have, I apologise, still, here goes.

From my point of view, this reared it's ugly head about ten years ago when coming back into the country via Gatwick airport.  

Picture the scene: it's about four o'clock in the morning and my wife and I have been up all day and night, it was a late night flight to save money and thanks to a delay.  So, we have about two hours before a train arrives to take us home, so I think "Coffee time"!

I toddled over to the coffee bar (who I won't mention as this is the only problem I have had with them), and through my sleep filled brain, I asked the "barista" for two white coffees.  Remember, this is in the days when you asked for a white coffee and got served with the establishments version of coffee with milk.

"Er, we don't do white coffee, only Americano, Latte or Cappucino", says the girl behind the bar.

"It's four a.m., I just want two cups of white coffee!"

"We don't do white coffee, only Americano, Latte or Cappucino", says the brain of Britain.

"Listen, in France, I'd ask for Café au Lait, in Spain, Café con Leche, in England I ask for a White Coffee or Coffee with milk!  Two, please!"

"We don't do white coffee, only Americano, Latte or Cappucino", says her again.

I gave up, scanned the menu board and requested, "Oh, heck, two hot chocolates please!" 

So the young mademoiselle turns to her colleague "Two hot chocolates"

While waiting, my eyes alighted on the cake display - "May I have two almond slices as well please?"

"Those have got nuts in them, you know" 

"Yeah, I think the idea's in the title, dear", she pulled two almond slices out of the display and then her colleague passes the hot chocolates over.

"Do you want chocolate on those?" says the young lady, holding a shaker of chocolate.

"I'm sorry?"

"Do you want chocolate on those?"

"Listen, sweetheart," says I, sympathetically, "there's chocolate in the cup, if there isn't enough chocolate in the cup why would I want more?"

So she capped the cups, took my money and I went back to my wife.  

So, the point -  it's not that some people are less intelligent than required, it's the principle of going to a coffee shop in England and having to ask for my coffee in a foreign language!  As I said to the young lady so long ago, if I'm abroad, I'll ask for coffee in the local language.

We're losing our identity.

But it's the thin edge of the wedge.

Look at the Ciabbata or Panini that you are going to eat with the coffee, even though I am the first to agree that it's the bread style that goes with those that names them.  But the coffee,  a white coffee, not Latte or Espresso or Americano or Cappucino is what I want.

Please Burn The England Flags!

I will freely admit I am a patriot, I love my country, I respect the monarchy and I respect the flags.

The title of this blog is not asking everyone to grab their nearest cross of St George and set fire to it, but to set light to the tautological flags.  Those that have the word England across the middle of it.  We all know that the N in PIN stands for the word number, and should not call it a PIN number as that would be a Personal Identification Number number.

The red cross on the white background already says "England", so why write the word across the middle of the flag?  We are the only country that does it, I have never seen "USA" written across the Stars and Stripes or "France" across the French Tricolore.

Why?

Is it that our country is so apathetic about teaching our population about the flags that represent us?  Thanks to Doctor Who we were all reminded that the flag that represents the United Kingdom is the Union Flag, when not on a ship.  Why do we not teach our children the flags of foreign nations and our own.neighbouring nations?  As a child I was taught the evolution of the Union Flag, the four flags of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (For the Welsh dragon, look in the middle of the Union Flag).  I was taught a few of the neighbouring countries, the red, white and blue vertical stripes of France; the horizontal arrangement of the same colours said "Netherlands"; red, yellow and red of Spain and so on.  Does this happen in schools today?

The flag is the descendant of the coat of arms of the lord of an area and then the arms of the king.  For when the king was not on the field something was needed to give the troops to follow.  So all the troops knew that they were fighting for the right side, they had to know their flag.

So again, I say burn all the England England flags.  If you want to look stupid, fly them on your car or in your window but my recommendation is that you burn them!

OK folks, just to prove I'm not dead, here's another posting.

If you were thinking of retiring to Spain, think twice.  First, what will happen when you get too infirm to look after yourself?  Second, who will take care of you when you need it?

In Spain, they still work on what is known as "Roman Law".  This means that if you are the second, third or younger child of a family, you have very few rights to look after your parents.  I am lucky, I am an only child, had I not been, I would have needed proof in writing from any older siblings that I had permission to generate a Power of Attorney to look after my father's affairs.

Any how, you search around to find a solicitor or factor to prepare the "Power" they then make an appointment with a Public Notary to witness the parent's signature and hear a statement that they know what is going on, thank goodness he remembered!  Now comes a week long wait for the Notary to finish what they have to do (possibly sending a copy to Madrid, like they do with wills) then it comes back and you get a copy of it to go to all the people you have to.

It seems, from past experience, that most legal papers have to go off to Madrid for storage.  When my mother passed on, her will had to be retrieved from storage in Madrid, but in this day and age of technology there is still a built in wait of a week to ten days while the copy from Madrid is brought down by horse!  Alright, it's not a real horse, but there is a built in delay that represents the time it would take by horse.  (This is the explanation given to me by the solicitors while we were waiting for Mum's will, I don't know if it is really that reason.)

Spain has a reputation of "Mañana" or "tomorrow", that is if you want anything done, you have to wait.  There is no question of rushing official stuff it all takes ages.  If you need to do anything, you need paperwork, or a passport, or both. 

There is an annoying thing that all Ex-pats are supposed to have and that is an N.I.E. (Number Identificacion de Extranjero) that and the Passport number (which changes every ten years for us Brits) sit comfortably alongside the Spanish Social Security Number, which you will need if you have a reason for visiting a doctor or clinic.  Obviously enough, the numbers most Brits have, like the National Insurance Number, and the National Health Number are not used, as this is a totally separate system, but if you are relying on a British pension, you need to keep the NINO for dealing with the Pensions Service.

The NIE is obtained from certain Police Stations but it's a palaver!  You go to the office with a form already filled in, they stamp it, tell you to go off to a bank to make the required payment for the fee, then back to the office to hand your form in, when the Chief Commissar of Police deigns to sign the application, you go back and get your number on a printed and rubber stamped form.  Spain would collapse if there were no Rubber Stamps.  Everything has to be stamped and signed over the stamp, even a form from a doctor to the local council for a "Lifeline" type button.

If your parents retire to Spain, prepare for a lot of hard work!  The thing to remember is that they are happy, sort of warm, and possibly drier!  The Winter Heat Payments to pensioners is another argument, for another time!

Keep smiling!

Here goes for the Indignity!

Coming to a computer screen near you, the final degrading step that a person who is already ground down by the benefits system in the UK has to undergo.  

I have been poked, prodded, lied about, forced to travel near enough 200 miles to fight my case and now I'm called for a Work Focussed Interview.  This is an interview that will most probably be carried out between me and a twenty-something slip of a girl (or man) who has had one job in their life, other than a paper-round while still at school.  

The idea of this interview is to tell me that I should be doing this, that and the other to find a job where the employer will not employ me, or if they do, they will most probably ask me to leave after a week because of my disability.  I mean, what employer wants an employee that has trouble concentrating in the morning and has trouble staying awake in the afternoon, needs to get out of a normal chair after about 15-20 minutes to loosen his knee joints, can hardly climb stairs (and so is a fire hazard), cannot lift his hands above his head and cannot stand for more than a few minutes.  

Yet this is the indignity I have to face on Tuesday.  I have to pray that I can park near the DWP office on the other side of town and that they do not want me to go upstairs to an interview room.  On top of all this, I have to hope that I do not do, or say, the wrong thing and have the DWP "sanction" me.  For those outside the UK, this is where the Department for Works and Pensions arbitrarily decide that I have breached their rules and stop all of my benefits.  Not some of my benefits, we are talking, for a first offence (supposedly), all of my benefits.  This will mean that my wife and I will have no money for food, heating or light, but we will owe our landlord £200 for the two weeks of rent that will not be paid, if not more if the council do not restart the payments after the fortnight.

The standard working period for the DWP is a fortnight, as, in the past, unemployed people had to sign on for their benefit and then get paid this often.  This is not a problem for the clerks in their centrally heated offices who can mark off two weeks on a calendar easily enough.  For businesses and banks this is unworkable.  It seems that direct debits and the like can only be paid monthly, that is, on the same date every month, days do not come into it unless the 14th falls on a weekend, in which case it used to be paid on the Monday following.

Now, I think to normal people, the problem will be becoming obvious, some months have five weeks in them, in fact, the only month that is an exact four week period is a non-leap year February.  So, although the 14th of January is on a Tuesday this year, it is not an even number of weeks from the 14th of February, and so on and so on.  This means that budgeting on benefits is an amazing feat of accounting, and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer needed to do it, he would fail unless, as he does, he had a large bank balance in the black.

So, the Minister for Works and Pensions has decided to bring in a system whereby benefits claimants will be paid monthly.  It has already cost £50M of lost money already to prepare the system to do it, but it doesn't work.  So will future sanctions be for a minimum of a month?

The government, which, yet again, has been caught in a PR lie, is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public by making every claimant guilty of "shirking" and cheating the system by use of the media.  This government by Upper Class Twits who only have the needs of themselves and their own classmates from Public School or University in mind.  These cheats who started by preventing themselves being voted out in the first days of their filling the seats of power with a bunch of sycophantic cronies who are all filling jobs for which they have little or any qualification for.  

The people are getting fed up with the austerity package they are being forced to undergo - pay rises capped to 1% while MPs vote themselves a massive pay rise; high paid people get tax cuts in their favour; power companies raise prices by 3% and train companies raise fares by 6%.  There will come a time when the people can take no more hypocrisy.