The wheels on the bus

Ray Bellisario’s recent account of sustained discrimination on public transport hints at a sinister legacy forged by a deeply uncaring government.

I don’t want to alarm you, but your body is closing you down. Every day. Every minute. Right now, you are being betrayed by your own vessel in an act of deception so huge that even when you stare right at it, you see nothing. And it gets worse: You are helpess against it. It is totally and absolutely inevitable and will happen to you no matter what means you seek to protest it. Those pilates you do on your lunch hour? Useless. That run you try to best every day? No good. The pine cone infused salad you go for over the burger? It won’t save you.

Whatever you do, however you spin it, the body you are so fiercely protecting today will have no problem selling you down the river tomorrow - you will get older, and then after that you’ll get old. Now that we’ve have established that the playing field we’re all on is well and truly level, let’s get to some specifics. I am older, rather than old. But, even at 28 (you’re right, I don’t look it, thanks) I do share at least one characteristic with 76 year old Ray Bellisario, who came to unlikely prominence in the society pages of the Guardian last week.

Like Mr. Bellisario, I use a wheelchair to get around. Unlike Mr Bellisario, I don’t use public transport much and after hearing his story I feel (sadly) justified in that decision. He has announced plans to bring legal action against bus companies in London after being told that he couldn’t travel, even though according to mayor Boris Johnson ‘Every London bus is equipped to carry wheelchairs and all drivers are trained extensively in how to help passengers in wheelchairs.‘ Being told once that I couldn’t travel on an accessible bus would anger me. Being told a few times would lead me into transit based therapy sessions. But being told 28 times - that’s one for every year of my life - is unfathomable to me, even after plenty of first hand experience of disability discrimination. And yet this is what happened to Ray, over a period of 18 months. That is staggering.

There has, of course, been the familiar trickle of stock response - Boris Johnson has earmarked what happened to Mr. Bellisario as ‘totally unacceptable’ and has ordered Transport for London to investigate the incidents as a ’matter of urgency’. Meanwhile, fresh from declaring Remploy nonviable - thus causing strike action and the looming prospect of unemployment for over 1,400 disabled people in 27 of it’s factories - minister against for disabled people Maria Miller has rather hilariously suggested that a shift in attitude toward the disabled population may be the problem. Over and above the tepid and transparent Westminster responses there is a far more startling reveal woven into Mr. Bellisario’s account - the humane cost of deeply ingrained predjudice. Dangerous preconceptions are being fuelled by inaccurate data, skewed rhetoric and stories that favour ideological agenda over precise journalism.

The issue of the type of mobility vehicle suitable for travel on an accessible bus is a valid one - if it’s too big to fit, then it’s too big to fit. The glaring omission with that argument though is it’s inverted nature - surely we should be making sure the buses can accomodate the chairs, rather than excluding passengers because the chair (or scooter) is unsuitable for the bus. The current standard set up features one designated space per bus, and it can be incredibly difficult getting somebody with a pushchair or sixty bags of shopping to vacate it, no matter how disarmingly simple the little sticker on the window makes it seem. Assuming the spot is free, you then have to manouvere into it, a process helpfully aided by those who engineered it; presumably deciding it just wasn’t awkward enough they elected to place an immovable pole in the middle of the space, effectively cutting the amount of available room in half.

It follows too that bus drivers should be better trained - offering weak justifications such as ‘I daren’t take the risk’ for not allowing a disabled person on a bus, or even worse, taking steps to physically prevent them from boarding, is beyond reproach. These experiences are becoming alarmingly commonplace and last month, over 100 disability activists protested outside Parliament, calling for appropriate penalties for bus and train companies when disabled passengers are subjected to failure and neglect. With the Paralymics looming large, is ‘I don’t care about your f**king rights’ - as Mr Bellisario was told by one fellow passenger - really the message we want to be sending out as the world’s spotlight shines on us?


This article also appears at Dancing Giraffe here

Horse breaks silence on years of depression

A horse who has frequented pubs and clubs for almost twenty years refusing to make small talk has finally opened up about his debilitating low mood.

The horse - known only as Clip Clop - has been sensationally outed as a corporate stooge for the rich and famous, after the Metropolitan Police left top secret documents in the hands of James Murdoch on the same day The Sun on Sunday needed a front page story.

The controversial papers detailed the practice of loaning adorable animals to figures in the public eye who are experiencing a media backlash. The process - often referred to as 'chumming up' - is a damage limitation exercise used to boost publicity, and can see those involved paying thousands of pounds a time for the privilege.

Now Clip Clop has revealed the darker side of this relatively unknown world, and the often devastating consequences:

You go where you're needed, and it's fun at first. They stroke you a bit, tell you all their troubles, that sort of thing. You feel good. But then it just starts to get on your nerves when it's all day and all night. And they take out super-injunctions so you can't repeat any of it. I'd go into a bar, and every night it would be 'Why the long face?'I wanted to say, 'You'd have a fucking long face too if you'd worked with Jeremy Clarkson for seven years and gone through three divorces with Phil Collins!' But I couldn't tell anyone so I'd just keep drinking. It was a downward spiral.

This is not the first time News International has used chumming up to stem the flow of negative publicity - in 2003, Robbie Williams was pictured riding a hippo in his local Tesco, while in 1995 Stephen Fry had a mental breakdown and stayed with kittens wearing mittens for six weeks in the south of France.

When asked to comment on today's fresh revelations and his time with former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, Clip Clop replied: Fucking hell. She said she was Mick Hucknall.

Heather Mills revealed as new England manager

Heather Mills has been appointed as the new England manager just hours before her relentless media exposure was due to come to an end.

According to reports, the former supermodel and motorcycle enthusiast is 'very excited' to demonstrate why footballers no longer care about their jobs and will begin preparations for England's upcoming defeat in the European Championship as early as next week.

FA chairman David Bernstein announced the decision, citing Mills' complete lack of footballing knowledge as a key factor:

Heather is absolutely the best man for the job. She loves money, she's addicted to publicity and best of all she has no loyalty to the sport or the fans whatsoever. Obviously we're disappointed she isn't foreign, but you can't have everything.

Friends say the new role couldn't have come at a better time for Mills, who has been surviving on just £10,000 per day after mugging Paul McCartney in broad daylight several years ago. She commented:

England have been completely shit at football since 1966, which is round about the same time I got the idea to fleece a fucking Beatle. It's obviously meant to be!

Mills' appointment is also the first to comply with new pitch regulations, bringing the total number of legs in the technical area at any one time down to 19.

Meanwhile Fabio Capello has shed light on his decision to quit the post, stating he got the idea last month after turning on the news to see an Italian man abandoning a sinking ship.

The twenty (actual) saddest songs of all time

Earlier this week, The Telegraph published the results of it's poll about the twenty saddest songs of all time. I was appalled by the list for several reasons.

Firstly because the top song, Everybody Hurts, is not sad in the least - it is an uplifting tune about the strength of the human spirit, about, as the songs says, taking comfort in your friends and not being alone, even when you feel like you are. What is remotely sad about that?

Secondly, you CANNOT have a list of the saddest songs ever and feature the fucking Beatles and Celine Dion. The guys who wrote I Feel Fine and I Want To Hold Your Hand clearly no nothing about the extent of true misery - Yesterday, which appears on the list, was originally a song about scrambled eggs. Likewise with Mrs. Dion..the only thing sad about My Heart Will Go On is that it didn't go down with the rest of the ship. And, like the R.E.M. song before it, the message it carries is actually one of enduring hope.

Put simply, for the most part these are not sad songs and with that in mind, I present my alternative selection of the twenty saddest songs of all time:


20. With Or Without You - U2



19. Save Me - Queen



18. Fire And Rain - James Taylor



17. A Woman Left Lonely - Janis Joplin



16. What Will You Say - Jeff Buckley



15. Sinead O'Connor - Last Day Of Our Acquaintance



14. You Never Wanted Me - Jackson Frank



13. Someone Saved My Life Tonight - Elton John



12. The Brilliant Dance - Dashboard Confessional



11. Don't Think Twice, It's Alright - Bob Dylan



10. Disintegration - The Cure



9. Unsatisfied - The Replacements



8. These Days - Jackson Browne



7. Empty - Ray Lamontagne



6. One Step Up - Bruce Springsteen



5. I See A Darkness - Johnny Cash (original by Will Oldham)



4. Friends - Ryan Adams



3. Crossing Muddy Waters - John Hiatt



2. River - Joni Mitchell



1. Asleep - The Smiths




If all this gloom has you weeping into your Nutrigrain wrapper please check out the blog of my friend Kate, who has reversed the polarity of my particular disposition to come up with the twenty happiest songs of all time

Tasteful tabloid delights thousands with diversity scheme

Britain's most impartial and balanced newspaper has today spearheaded a national campaign to promote tolerance and equality by letting a severely disabled man pen one of it's lead articles.

Rod Liddle - whose brains are tragically missing - was allowed to write whatever he wanted, as long as it did not contain anything which could be mistaken for factual accuracy and any figures mentioned were plucked out of thin air. The paper's editor explained how the piece came about:

Rod has been a friend of ours for years. After David Cameron came and personally closed down the local community centre he goes to, he had nothing to do and lacked stimulation. Then one day I was chatting to him and he mentioned he's always loved inciting hatred and looking at pictures of tits, which is when I got the idea to let him write something for us. With our help, he constructed the article by cutting his favourite words out of various magazines. He then gave the words to a chimp, who later that afternoon picked them at random from a top hat. We did the rest.

Mr Liddle suffers from T.W.A.T., a progressive disorder which causes the front, back, and sidal lobes of the brain to collapse under the weight of their own ignorance. The skull is then hollowed out using a ladle, and packed with bubble wrap.

You can read the finished article here

Brave Face For Cameron As Morals Clash With Job

David Cameron is set to undergo a gruelling schedule of shaking hands and saying things in a fresh attempt to make it look like he cares about something other than rich people.

The Prime Minister has promised to use the media to rail against his former school chums salaries until the next big budget natural disaster or celebrity sex feast makes everyone forget about it.

The bonuses - usually doled out in crisp, used fifties and given for things including correctly writing 'boobs' on a calculator and sitting quietly in the office until home time - were introduced as standard practice long before the Tories failed to win the last election and are generally seen as 'perfectly reasonable' by politicians who benefit from them financially.

Speaking outside Downing Street, where he was re-heating a pot noodle for Vince Cable, Mr Cameron explained:

The days ahead are going to be difficult for Britain as I really, really like bonuses and giving rich people money they don't need - especially close personal friends. But, if I go on Andrew Marr and phone up The Telegraph and say things like 'It needs sorting out' over and over, I'm pretty sure I can have you lot convinced by the time X Factor starts accepting applicants again.

Cameron, a reformed Moomin, is the first television actor to occupy the highest seat in Government since Meryl Streep fled the 1980's over 20 years ago. She has since been spotted in various films, including an Abba promo for assisted suicide and that Nazi one with all the crying.

Clegg 'moving to Bebo' in 2012

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has revealed he is tearfully close to shutting down his Facebook account in the new year and setting up a page on Bebo instead.

In his emotional Christmas message, the ashen faced millionaire defended the move as a reaction to the new Facebook Timeline and a dramatic drop in friend requests since 2010. Speaking from inside a disused steel mill in his recently abandoned constituency of Sheffield Hallam, he explained:

When I recorded this message last year I had so many Facebook friends I was reaching the limit, and getting new requests every day - even some from students I was openly planning to betray. Now when I scroll down the list there's just Thatcher and Paddy Ashdowns cat. It's time to move forward.

Mr Cleggs wife, who is Spanish and hotter than yours, then stepped in to describe how Bebo has a younger demographic than other social networking sites and therefore using it would make it 'much easier' for her husband to figure out how to really shaft the next generation.

After changing ties several times on camera and referring to the cataclysmic national hatred he now experiences - which has its own Myspace - the MP concluded:

I don't know why so many of you unfriended me. It's probably because I formed a massively unstable coalition with a completely unsuitable political party, created a moral vacuum, totally fucked up the country and greatly increased the chances of an actual apocalypse next year.

He then added: Is it that? Christ, you people are sensitive. I'm only trying to make more money.