2013: What a piece of shit year that was. If I was of a superstitious inclination I'd postulate that with a "13" in the name, it was bound to be doomed. But I'm not; it was just a shit year. I mean more shit than usual that is: Life has been shit for me for a very long time.
The year started with what I thought was a brilliant idea. I was in the bath one night and I had an idea for a short horror film. The idea was accompanied by something one of my lecturers said during my MA that "the pulp is political" and it made a horror film about the cuts seem even more sensible.
To be honest, I expected daylight to come the following morning and to realise what a daft idea I'd had the night before. Instead, more ideas came. Before I knew it I had all the scenes plotted out in my head and much of the dialogue too. So I decided to type it up and ask a few producer friends if they thought it was viable.
At one point it looked like I had a producer on board and all systems were go. I got in touch with a few actors who I thought might be into it. Liz was especially amazing; she put me in touch with so many people who could be involved either in front of or behind the camera.
It really looked like it might happen. Like my daft idea might come off. I was struggling a bit under the stress, but nothing too bad.
Then the project lost a producer. I don't blame them at all; I totally understand a need to pay the rent over and above a not-for-profit, anti-cuts film. I started looking for a new producer...
... And that was when I really went mental. I can quite honestly say that I have never been so close to having a full-blown breakdown. I questioned the point of my existence when I was too useless to even be able to find a film producer on at least an hourly basis.
I also hated myself for not being able to produce it myself. I don't have the skills required or the sanity to be able to do it; and that was another thing I regularly berated myself for being so useless about.
So many people had offered their skills or given their time, and I couldn't pull it off. And I was getting crazier by the day.
On Good Friday I met with Wendy who'd kindly edited the script. And that was the last work I did on the film. Her handwritten notes on a print-out of the script are in a pink bag about 3 feet from where I'm sitting right now, and they're just sitting there, not typed up.
A few months later I was having a conversation with a friend about my failed foray into screenwriting. "It sounds like you need a producer to help you find a producer," was how she succinctly put the problems that had driven me round the twist.
It still seems so wasteful that there's a script ready, actors keen on the project, a fundraising strategy, etc, and it's all going to waste because of the dearth of producers out there. But I can't keep producer-hunting when there are none to be found; and making myself mental in the process. So I guess that's that.
It took a while after giving up for my sanity to be restored; I continued to question what the point of my being alive was when I couldn't pull off something so seemingly simple. In fact, it took until about the summer: And then it was my body's - rather than my brain's - turn to fail on me.
I royally fucked up my left knee....
Hang on! I'm getting ahead of myself! Before there was the knee; there was the digestive discovery.
My stomach has been fucked for years now. Worse than the acid reflux, worse than the stomach feeling like it's on fire, worse than my ability to eat being totally dependent on my stomach's whims has been the belching. I have spent the last few years feeling like I've swallowed the contents of several helium balloons. Gastroenterologists have giving me drugs to speed up my digestive transit which just forces the belches to come out as farts instead. So I quit those because, frankly, the constant belching was better.
But having a stomach perpetually full of air was horrific. It was painful because my stomach was always so distended with gas. Sometimes I even had trouble breathing because my stomach was so full of air that it impaired my lungs ability to inflate properly. Sleeping was impossible because air rises so you can't belch when you're lying down flat. I had to wake up several times a night, sit up, and beat myself on the chest until I'd expelled most of the air so I could try sleeping again for a few more hours.
In May I decided to experiment with going lactose-free. Holy fucking shit, what a relief. Yes, I miss cheese. And milk chocolate. But it's a small price to pay for the relief of not having my breathing compromised by such an inflated stomach.
But back to the knee. It was about July I think that it went wrong. I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I'll walk around on broken feet without taking painkillers. In fact I fractured a metatarsal while my knee was knackered and it totally didn't bother me. But my knee; that was a different story. It wasn't a bony injury; I could tell that. My GP sent me for an x-ray to rule out bone damage, and I was vindicated. It was something tendony, I don't know exactly what: I never got a proper diagnosis. For about 2 and a half months I needed morphine just to be able to walk to the toilet in my teeny tiny flat.
Not only did I have the drugs making me drowsy; my knee itself was also exhausting. Different types of pain and injury have different effects. Some pains will keep you awake all night with their agony; other pains will drain all your energy and make you sleep 12 hours a night. My knee fell into that latter category.
Also over the summer I had to say farewell to my beloved 5 year old netbook. Almost everything I've written that's worth reading over the last 5 years was written on that machine. It was a cheap thing I picked up in the supermarket to take into hospital with me when I had surgery in Nov 08, but it provided 5 years of loyal service. I had to replace it with this temperamental piece of shit running Windoze 8. It's slow, moody and a pain in the arse. I suppose we at least make a matching pair. Though I'm sure that one day I'll lose my patience with this and throw it out of a window.
The autumn saw a return to depressive form; although not quite as severely as earlier in the year. I had a realisation that it was October and I had absolutely nothing to show for the year that was nearly finished. I may not have the health to hold down a job, I may spend a lot of my time sitting in hospital waiting rooms. But at least in 2012 I'd done quite a lot of blogging on my "good" days. 2013 was almost over and I'd done almost nothing. I'd written a film which I couldn't find a producer for; and that was literally all I'd done. No powerful blog posts, no going to protests. There were several protests during the summer that I couldn't go to because I didn't have enough painkillers to be able to stray that far from my bed. Once again I found myself considering what the point of me being alive was when I offered no value to anything.
I really didn't help my sanity thanks to a spur of the moment decision in September: I decided to join an online dating site and paid for a month's membership.
I've tried online dating before: Everyone is disablist. As you click through profiles you realise they all say:
No crazies.
No crazies.
No crazies.
No crazies.
No strange limps.
No crazies.
Obviously the spur of the moment decision to sign up didn't result in me meeting anyone. I didn't hear from even one person. But I'd paid for a month's membership so I stuck with it for the whole month; every day hating myself more and more. Partly for being so repulsive, and partly for being stupid enough to spend money on online dating knowing that all that would happen would be that I'd be reminded that everyone thinks I'm repulsive.
But back to the lack of productivity: The fact that I'd done nothing all year apart from a couple of TV and radio interviews was what made my presence on the 2013 Pink List such a shock. The year before it was an honour and a pleasure; but not a surprise. (I'd gotten advance notification from someone at the paper because they needed me to provide a headshot.) On my good days I'd done things that I felt proud of and I was honoured to have them recognised. Reading the Pink List again just now while getting the link to post here I sort-of expected to find 86 had gone blank because it had all been a mistake and I wasn't really supposed to be on there.
The year ended on a bacterial note. Given the frequency with which I usually get sinusitis I actually did pretty well in 2013. And I only had the infection for about 5 weeks before I got to see a GP for antibiotics. (I've had to put up with sinusitis for a couple of months before now.) Something else which sapped all my energy and left my splayed helplessly on the couch because the bacteria in my face were sucking all my spoons. I literally finished the antibiotics a couple of days before Christmas. So that was that, 2013 effectively over. And all I had to show for it was a lactose-free diet and the script for a film which will probably never get made.
There are several people I owe blog posts to; promises I made months ago but haven't had the energy to write. Yet. So far 2014 has been a bit of a crazy whirlwind of hospital appointments (they started on Jan 2nd and this is the first week all year without one). But hopefully - hopefully - I can get all caught up in the near future.
And on the subject of hopes: Please just let 2014 be a bit better than 2013. I know my life is always going to suck. But it'd be nice if I could have a year that sucked slightly less.
Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts
23 January 2014
21 November 2011
♫...So come on let me entertain you...♫
Nine years ago an old friend sat on his living room floor and uttered one sentence which would change my life. Yesterday I saw him for the first time since that night.
In July 2002 I was doing a week's work in a school back home in Cambridge. It was after my parents had moved from Cambridge to the arse-end of nowhere so I crashed at some friends' house in Ely for the week. One night I was in the pub which had kinda been my local for the last year I lived in Cambridge; when in walked someone I'd gone to Long Road with about 6 years earlier and had not seen since.
He was living in Brighton at the time and was also on a fairly fleeting visit back to Cambridge. After lots of talking we agreed that I could stay at his in Brighton after Pride the following month.
So the night of Pride in 2002 we sat in his living room talking half the night and getting even more wasted than we already were. I mean so wasted that on the train the next day I was grateful for those shitty old trains where wheelchair users had to sit in the guard's van out of sight of all the non-disabled passengers. No-one could see how green I looked and I could occasionally whimper because there was no-one around to hear it.
At one point I said something that made him laugh: Made him laugh so hard that he fell off his chair. Once he'd regained enough composure to be able to speak he said "you should do stand-up."
I don't remember what I said, but I'm sure that under the harsh light of sobriety it wouldn't be remotely entertaining. However, his remark sparked a thought process in my head that I couldn't shake off.
I'd been a fan of stand-up for a long time. Like most people my age, my introduction to comedy was The Mary Whitehouse Experience. The first time I saw it, aged 12 at a sleepover at a friend's house, I remember laughing so hard I couldn't breathe: It was the single greatest thing I had ever seen. In 1992 Both Newman & Baddiel and Punt & Dennis toured the UK and played at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I remember Newman & Baddiel came to town in April 1992; my 13th birthday was in May and I begged so hard for tickets as an early birthday present. That gig was the first time I saw live stand up, and was followed about 2 months later by seeing Punt & Dennis. Having had my appetite for stand-up whetted I saw several other comics off the telly when they came to town like Jo Brand and Jack Dee. And, of course, Newman & Baddiel and Punt & Dennis a few more times.
I'd always loved performing but the thought of being a stand-up had never crossed my mind. I actually kinda thought that being that funny was like a superpower and it wasn't something that regular people could do. His comment triggered this niggle in my brain that "well maybe I could do it?"
I spent the next two years procrastinating on the idea, while seeing loads of comedy. I regularly went to comedy clubs, to see solo shows at theatres and I went to loads of TV and radio comedy recordings on account of them being free and me being a poor student. It wasn't unheard of for me to go see comedy 4 or 5 times in a week.
When I started doing stand up in November 2004 I very quickly realised that I'd found what I wanted to do with my life. I loved it. Of course, I'm the unluckiest person in the world so stand up dreams were shattered by illness.
I gave it up in 2007 when I became too ill too often to carry on. I was hoping that my health problems would only be temporary and that a few pills here, quick operation there and I'd be good to get back to it. So I decided to bow out before I alienated every promoter in the country. If you're booked to do a gig and you have to cancel on the day because it's a "spend the day in bed with a bottle of morphine" day then you're going to put that promoter in a bind. It doesn't matter that you're genuinely ill, you've left that promoter in a tight spot with a gap in their bill and only a couple of hours to fix things. So they're never going to book you again and are probably going to badmouth you to other promoters that they meet. Luckily the only promoters I pissed off with my health-related unreliableness were small fish rather than any of the really key national bookers. But it was only a matter of time.
It's looking increasingly like I'll probably never be well enough to work again. Kinda ironic really that the current political situation for disabled people in the UK has given me so much I want to say through the medium of comedy; more than I've ever wanted to say before. And the stories I want to tell are so shaped by being ill that I probably wouldn't have the same stories to tell if I was well enough to go out and tell them.
It was politics that led me to bump into him yesterday. I quickly popped in to the Bank of Ideas to check out the access so I could write it up on WtB. I'd been in the building only a few seconds when someone brushed past me and mumbled "Hi Lisa" as he did so. It was him; the guy who'd told me to do stand-up. We didn't chat long because I couldn't stay; this current infection had me feeling like I was dying. Honestly on the bus home I felt almost as nauseated as I did on that aforementioned train journey 9 years ago. We were catching up and he said "I know you're a comedian now..."
"And I have you to thank for that. Do you remember that night 9 years ago when I crashed at yours after Pride? I said something that made you fall off your chair laughing and you told me I should do stand-up."
He didn't remember.
In July 2002 I was doing a week's work in a school back home in Cambridge. It was after my parents had moved from Cambridge to the arse-end of nowhere so I crashed at some friends' house in Ely for the week. One night I was in the pub which had kinda been my local for the last year I lived in Cambridge; when in walked someone I'd gone to Long Road with about 6 years earlier and had not seen since.
He was living in Brighton at the time and was also on a fairly fleeting visit back to Cambridge. After lots of talking we agreed that I could stay at his in Brighton after Pride the following month.
So the night of Pride in 2002 we sat in his living room talking half the night and getting even more wasted than we already were. I mean so wasted that on the train the next day I was grateful for those shitty old trains where wheelchair users had to sit in the guard's van out of sight of all the non-disabled passengers. No-one could see how green I looked and I could occasionally whimper because there was no-one around to hear it.
At one point I said something that made him laugh: Made him laugh so hard that he fell off his chair. Once he'd regained enough composure to be able to speak he said "you should do stand-up."
I don't remember what I said, but I'm sure that under the harsh light of sobriety it wouldn't be remotely entertaining. However, his remark sparked a thought process in my head that I couldn't shake off.
I'd been a fan of stand-up for a long time. Like most people my age, my introduction to comedy was The Mary Whitehouse Experience. The first time I saw it, aged 12 at a sleepover at a friend's house, I remember laughing so hard I couldn't breathe: It was the single greatest thing I had ever seen. In 1992 Both Newman & Baddiel and Punt & Dennis toured the UK and played at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I remember Newman & Baddiel came to town in April 1992; my 13th birthday was in May and I begged so hard for tickets as an early birthday present. That gig was the first time I saw live stand up, and was followed about 2 months later by seeing Punt & Dennis. Having had my appetite for stand-up whetted I saw several other comics off the telly when they came to town like Jo Brand and Jack Dee. And, of course, Newman & Baddiel and Punt & Dennis a few more times.
I'd always loved performing but the thought of being a stand-up had never crossed my mind. I actually kinda thought that being that funny was like a superpower and it wasn't something that regular people could do. His comment triggered this niggle in my brain that "well maybe I could do it?"
I spent the next two years procrastinating on the idea, while seeing loads of comedy. I regularly went to comedy clubs, to see solo shows at theatres and I went to loads of TV and radio comedy recordings on account of them being free and me being a poor student. It wasn't unheard of for me to go see comedy 4 or 5 times in a week.
When I started doing stand up in November 2004 I very quickly realised that I'd found what I wanted to do with my life. I loved it. Of course, I'm the unluckiest person in the world so stand up dreams were shattered by illness.
I gave it up in 2007 when I became too ill too often to carry on. I was hoping that my health problems would only be temporary and that a few pills here, quick operation there and I'd be good to get back to it. So I decided to bow out before I alienated every promoter in the country. If you're booked to do a gig and you have to cancel on the day because it's a "spend the day in bed with a bottle of morphine" day then you're going to put that promoter in a bind. It doesn't matter that you're genuinely ill, you've left that promoter in a tight spot with a gap in their bill and only a couple of hours to fix things. So they're never going to book you again and are probably going to badmouth you to other promoters that they meet. Luckily the only promoters I pissed off with my health-related unreliableness were small fish rather than any of the really key national bookers. But it was only a matter of time.
It's looking increasingly like I'll probably never be well enough to work again. Kinda ironic really that the current political situation for disabled people in the UK has given me so much I want to say through the medium of comedy; more than I've ever wanted to say before. And the stories I want to tell are so shaped by being ill that I probably wouldn't have the same stories to tell if I was well enough to go out and tell them.
It was politics that led me to bump into him yesterday. I quickly popped in to the Bank of Ideas to check out the access so I could write it up on WtB. I'd been in the building only a few seconds when someone brushed past me and mumbled "Hi Lisa" as he did so. It was him; the guy who'd told me to do stand-up. We didn't chat long because I couldn't stay; this current infection had me feeling like I was dying. Honestly on the bus home I felt almost as nauseated as I did on that aforementioned train journey 9 years ago. We were catching up and he said "I know you're a comedian now..."
"And I have you to thank for that. Do you remember that night 9 years ago when I crashed at yours after Pride? I said something that made you fall off your chair laughing and you told me I should do stand-up."
He didn't remember.
08 November 2011
♫...Take the National Express when your life’s in a mess, it’ll make you smile...♫
On October 9th (yes, I know it's taken me nearly a month to write this up, my health sucks) I took part in UK Uncut's Block the Bridge, Block the Bill protest.
Just like the last UK Uncut thingum I went to; I did a few funnies. Only this time the fab @miggiuk filmed it:
I apologise for saying "erm" and "you know" quite so much. You have to remember it's more than 4 years since I was forced to give up comedy due to illness so I'm rather unrehearsed these days. Miggiuk filmed all the comedy and put it on YouTube so after my ums and ahs go watch some other people who are properly funny as a palate cleanser for the soul.
There's a transcript below the jump. I'm afraid I don't have the techno know-how to turn that into synchronised subtitles on the video itself so if anyone does then please let me know.
♫ = National Express by The Divine Comedy
Just like the last UK Uncut thingum I went to; I did a few funnies. Only this time the fab @miggiuk filmed it:
I apologise for saying "erm" and "you know" quite so much. You have to remember it's more than 4 years since I was forced to give up comedy due to illness so I'm rather unrehearsed these days. Miggiuk filmed all the comedy and put it on YouTube so after my ums and ahs go watch some other people who are properly funny as a palate cleanser for the soul.
There's a transcript below the jump. I'm afraid I don't have the techno know-how to turn that into synchronised subtitles on the video itself so if anyone does then please let me know.
♫ = National Express by The Divine Comedy
29 March 2011
How I spent March 26th
Based on the TUC's access info I'd planned to meet a bunch of other WtBers in Savoy Street for 11am. This was supposed to be the gathering point for disabled people to have a "safe space" at the front of the march. I have brittle bones and I was with 2 people whose joints dislocate easily so the notion of a "safe" space where we wouldn't get smacked around was pretty important for us to protest, you know, safely.
Apparently no-one hit the TUC with a clue stick. The gathering point in Savoy Street wasn't actually at the front of the march. That would've been much too sensible. They had us gather in Savoy Street and then walk through the crowd to get to the front of the march:
The pink cross on the map shows where we gathered and the turquoise line shows how far we had to walk through a sea of people to get to that "safety". Moving through large crowds as a wheelchair user is not easy at the best of times. You're at arse height to everyone else and people don't tend to look down when they move around so they walk into you, trip over you and generally leave you feeling pretty bruised. Add banners, flags and other things that feel like weapons when people hit you with them and it's even worse.
So that the TUC had us gather some distance away and then walk through the crowd where we got a bit battered was a serious common sense fail. Between the lack of logic and getting smacked around I started off the march really quite pissed off.
This was us gathering in Savoy Street looking cheerful prior to our adventure through the crowd:
This was my view of people's backs as we were making our way through the crowd:
And it's worth noting that I took this photo at a point while walking through the crowd when I had enough room around me to actually do so! I spent a lot of the time using my arms to protect my face from people's backpacks and such.
Eventually we did make it to the "special" spot:
Thankfully once we'd made it through the crowd and the march set off there were no more such access fail dramas. As a result I began to really enjoy myself. The following 3 photos were taken by Emsy during the march:
We made it into Hyde Park at about 1pm (after what seemed like quite a long human traffic jam at Hyde Park Corner). Most of us quickly nipped to the loo and then headed off to Soho Square for the UK Uncut comedy at 2. I didn't want to stick around in Hyde Park for the rally mainly because Mr "I'm in favour of cutting disability benefits" Miliband was speaking. I feared my anger at him would cause me to regress a few evolutionary steps and start flinging faeces.
I've always been disabled, but until about 5 years ago I was perfectly "healthy"; I was free from illness. For many people there's a massive overlap between "illness" and "impairment", but there's also some differences too. So I've always had a rubbish skeleton but before I acquired a plethora of illnesses unrelated to my mobility impairment I used to do that working-for-a-living thing.
I used to be a stand-up comic. Yes, I'm aware of the irony of a wheelchair-using stand-up.
On Friday evening while I was in the supermarket shopping for more T-shirts to iron the WtB logo onto a thought occurred to me: "It's comedy against the cuts. I'm doing all this stuff about the cuts to disability benefits and I have a background in comedy; I should be speaking." So I emailed the organisers and asked if I could do a short set. The reply I got back was "the line up's pretty full, but we'll try and fit you in." But in the end (and with a little help from the lovely Johann) I ended up on the bill.
This photo by Chris Coltrane who compered the gig shows what the crowd looked like from where the acts were (and makes me happy that I ironed the WtB logo onto the back of my T-shirt):
That's Josie Long performing. She opened the show. The crowd had gotten much, much, bigger by the time I went on. This CiF piece estimates there were nearly 1000 people watching the show. I wouldn't have thought there were quite that many, but there were certainly a couple of hundred.
Against all the odds I had a brilliant gig. Look, people were smiling and laughing!
Photo by Noa Bodner
If you look you can even see Mark Thomas laughing along in that pic. I'm actually quite proud of that as he is, basically, the industry standard to which all political comedy gets compared.
I say "against all the odds" because by rights I really should have died on my arse. It's 3 and a half years since I last gigged due to becoming too ill to carry on with the comedy thang. Usually if you take a break from comedy for 3 and a half weeks you come back to find your timing's a little off and your rhythm's a bit out. And I wasn't doing tried and tested material, I was doing stuff that I'd written 12 hours earlier because I only had the idea to ask to go on about 18 hours before I ended up on "stage". I shouldn't have been "in shape" enough to deal with a heckler and turn around a joke that was a bit of a dud. OK, the heckler was very nice and friendly but it's still an interruption to your rhythm and you need to regain control and come out on top with a laugh.
Somehow it was all OK. Sure, it wasn't my best gig ever but given everything going against me it went so much better than I could ever possibly have dreamed of.
In the past I used to mix up jokes about disability issues and other stuff because if I'd only talked about disability I'd never have been able to hold the attention of a non-disabled audience. But given that Saturday was such a political gig and the reason I'd asked to speak was to talk about benefits I did a set solely about cuts to disability benefits. The only reaction I was really expecting was some polite applause when I finished from people thinking "aw, wasn't that nice the disabled woman telling us about benefits." I wasn't expecting such a warm response and to come off stage to have all my friends hug me at once. It was like being mauled by an octopus, but in a nice way.
I've always thought that comedy had a wonderful capacity for education, another reason I really wanted to speak. So I was chuffed to bits when I got home to read this in The Guardian's Live Blog about the day:
Noa, who snapped that pic of me in action, said:
I'm absolutely thrilled that I opened some people's eyes to what's going on for disabled people in the UK. There's a couple of extracts from my set in the Laugh Out London podcast.
I left Soho Square on such an adrenaline high. I'd taken a huge gamble in asking to do a set but it absolutely paid off. I would have skipped home if I could, you know, skip.
Then came the sadness. I love doing stand up so much. It's such an amazing feeling when you've got hundreds of people laughing at jokes you wrote, and Saturday was a reminder of just how thrilling it is. It's so painful that I'm not well enough to perform any more. I have good days and bad, Saturday was obviously a good day. But the sheer frequency of the bad days means that I can't book gigs more than 14 hours in advance because I can never guarantee that I'll be well enough to show up. It doesn't matter if you have a legitimate reason for not showing up to a gig, if you let a promoter down they're not going to book you again and will very possibly bad-mouth you to other promoters. I have this thing that I love doing, and Saturday reminded me that I'm actually reasonably good at it, but my health prevents me from pursuing it. And the government and tabloids really think I'd rather be stuck at home claiming benefits than out following my dreams?
The other element of sadness on Saturday night came from watching BBC News attributing the Black Bloc protesters smashing things up to UK Uncut. UK Uncut are a group of peaceful protesters who'd given me this wonderfully enjoyable afternoon of comedy in a park. And here these lovely people were being falsely accused of violence and vandalism. It was deeply disappointing.
Despite the day starting with access fail and ending in sadness I don't think I'll ever forget that chunk of a few hours in the middle where I had the best time I've had in years.
Cross-posted at Where's the Benefit?
Apparently no-one hit the TUC with a clue stick. The gathering point in Savoy Street wasn't actually at the front of the march. That would've been much too sensible. They had us gather in Savoy Street and then walk through the crowd to get to the front of the march:
The pink cross on the map shows where we gathered and the turquoise line shows how far we had to walk through a sea of people to get to that "safety". Moving through large crowds as a wheelchair user is not easy at the best of times. You're at arse height to everyone else and people don't tend to look down when they move around so they walk into you, trip over you and generally leave you feeling pretty bruised. Add banners, flags and other things that feel like weapons when people hit you with them and it's even worse.
So that the TUC had us gather some distance away and then walk through the crowd where we got a bit battered was a serious common sense fail. Between the lack of logic and getting smacked around I started off the march really quite pissed off.
This was us gathering in Savoy Street looking cheerful prior to our adventure through the crowd:
This was my view of people's backs as we were making our way through the crowd:
And it's worth noting that I took this photo at a point while walking through the crowd when I had enough room around me to actually do so! I spent a lot of the time using my arms to protect my face from people's backpacks and such.
Eventually we did make it to the "special" spot:
Thankfully once we'd made it through the crowd and the march set off there were no more such access fail dramas. As a result I began to really enjoy myself. The following 3 photos were taken by Emsy during the march:
>
We made it into Hyde Park at about 1pm (after what seemed like quite a long human traffic jam at Hyde Park Corner). Most of us quickly nipped to the loo and then headed off to Soho Square for the UK Uncut comedy at 2. I didn't want to stick around in Hyde Park for the rally mainly because Mr "I'm in favour of cutting disability benefits" Miliband was speaking. I feared my anger at him would cause me to regress a few evolutionary steps and start flinging faeces.
I've always been disabled, but until about 5 years ago I was perfectly "healthy"; I was free from illness. For many people there's a massive overlap between "illness" and "impairment", but there's also some differences too. So I've always had a rubbish skeleton but before I acquired a plethora of illnesses unrelated to my mobility impairment I used to do that working-for-a-living thing.
I used to be a stand-up comic. Yes, I'm aware of the irony of a wheelchair-using stand-up.
On Friday evening while I was in the supermarket shopping for more T-shirts to iron the WtB logo onto a thought occurred to me: "It's comedy against the cuts. I'm doing all this stuff about the cuts to disability benefits and I have a background in comedy; I should be speaking." So I emailed the organisers and asked if I could do a short set. The reply I got back was "the line up's pretty full, but we'll try and fit you in." But in the end (and with a little help from the lovely Johann) I ended up on the bill.
This photo by Chris Coltrane who compered the gig shows what the crowd looked like from where the acts were (and makes me happy that I ironed the WtB logo onto the back of my T-shirt):
That's Josie Long performing. She opened the show. The crowd had gotten much, much, bigger by the time I went on. This CiF piece estimates there were nearly 1000 people watching the show. I wouldn't have thought there were quite that many, but there were certainly a couple of hundred.
Against all the odds I had a brilliant gig. Look, people were smiling and laughing!
Photo by Noa Bodner
If you look you can even see Mark Thomas laughing along in that pic. I'm actually quite proud of that as he is, basically, the industry standard to which all political comedy gets compared.
I say "against all the odds" because by rights I really should have died on my arse. It's 3 and a half years since I last gigged due to becoming too ill to carry on with the comedy thang. Usually if you take a break from comedy for 3 and a half weeks you come back to find your timing's a little off and your rhythm's a bit out. And I wasn't doing tried and tested material, I was doing stuff that I'd written 12 hours earlier because I only had the idea to ask to go on about 18 hours before I ended up on "stage". I shouldn't have been "in shape" enough to deal with a heckler and turn around a joke that was a bit of a dud. OK, the heckler was very nice and friendly but it's still an interruption to your rhythm and you need to regain control and come out on top with a laugh.
Somehow it was all OK. Sure, it wasn't my best gig ever but given everything going against me it went so much better than I could ever possibly have dreamed of.
In the past I used to mix up jokes about disability issues and other stuff because if I'd only talked about disability I'd never have been able to hold the attention of a non-disabled audience. But given that Saturday was such a political gig and the reason I'd asked to speak was to talk about benefits I did a set solely about cuts to disability benefits. The only reaction I was really expecting was some polite applause when I finished from people thinking "aw, wasn't that nice the disabled woman telling us about benefits." I wasn't expecting such a warm response and to come off stage to have all my friends hug me at once. It was like being mauled by an octopus, but in a nice way.
I've always thought that comedy had a wonderful capacity for education, another reason I really wanted to speak. So I was chuffed to bits when I got home to read this in The Guardian's Live Blog about the day:
I just spoke to two teenagers aged 17 and 19 who have come from the comedy show in Soho Square, and they said that what they heard there made them think more than anything they have ever learnt at school. It's their first demonstration and when I asked why they came they said they realised that the demonstration is about more than just the UK.
They can understand the connection between the shops and the banks that people are targetting and the global situation that is effecting everyone. They've heard Mark Thomas and a disabled comedian and Johann Hari speak. For these teenagers the protest is absolutely opening their minds to a much wider picture.
Noa, who snapped that pic of me in action, said:
you rocked it woman, it was FUNNY and also very disturbing to learn a few of the stories you shared. many thanks and please keep healthy and get back on stage where you belong!
I'm absolutely thrilled that I opened some people's eyes to what's going on for disabled people in the UK. There's a couple of extracts from my set in the Laugh Out London podcast.
I left Soho Square on such an adrenaline high. I'd taken a huge gamble in asking to do a set but it absolutely paid off. I would have skipped home if I could, you know, skip.
Then came the sadness. I love doing stand up so much. It's such an amazing feeling when you've got hundreds of people laughing at jokes you wrote, and Saturday was a reminder of just how thrilling it is. It's so painful that I'm not well enough to perform any more. I have good days and bad, Saturday was obviously a good day. But the sheer frequency of the bad days means that I can't book gigs more than 14 hours in advance because I can never guarantee that I'll be well enough to show up. It doesn't matter if you have a legitimate reason for not showing up to a gig, if you let a promoter down they're not going to book you again and will very possibly bad-mouth you to other promoters. I have this thing that I love doing, and Saturday reminded me that I'm actually reasonably good at it, but my health prevents me from pursuing it. And the government and tabloids really think I'd rather be stuck at home claiming benefits than out following my dreams?
The other element of sadness on Saturday night came from watching BBC News attributing the Black Bloc protesters smashing things up to UK Uncut. UK Uncut are a group of peaceful protesters who'd given me this wonderfully enjoyable afternoon of comedy in a park. And here these lovely people were being falsely accused of violence and vandalism. It was deeply disappointing.
Despite the day starting with access fail and ending in sadness I don't think I'll ever forget that chunk of a few hours in the middle where I had the best time I've had in years.
Cross-posted at Where's the Benefit?
25 November 2010
Thoughts on the student protests, policing and the media
I'm so proud of British students right now. I'm especially proud of Britain's schoolchildren and sixth formers who protested yesterday. I was especially pleased when BBC News reported on sixth formers from Cambridge protesting, though I felt a slight pang of jealousy: When I was an oppressed1 and politically aware sixth former in Cambridge I'd have loved nothing more than to march through the streets to protect my future.
Of course, the media portrayal has mostly been of the tiny number of students who committed acts of damage to property, especially that police van. What most of the mainstream media isn't reporting (in fact I think only The Guardian has) is the number of protesters who tried to protect the van. In this video you can see some of them, and there's this iconic image from The Guardian:
At one point the BBC reporter in the Commons explained why politicians and the media are so keen to report on the poorly behaved few rather than the well behaved majority. He was reporting to the camera what a politician had told him (but I'm afraid I didn't catch who, the trouble with live TV). I'm paraphrasing him, but not much (and only because I didn't get to write/type down his exact words):
On one hand on our TV screens we're seeing looped footage of a few protesters smashing up an unoccupied police van (which some speculate was put there as bait) in the hope that it'll make the majority think "hmm, fees are good! Let's teach these brutal young things a lesson!" On the other hand what we're not seeing is the brutality from the other side.
Thanks to camera phones and the internet incidents of police brutality are harder to hide. And yesterday saw some unforgivable behaviour. Throughout the day there were many tweets being rapidly retweeted with content along the lines of "Officer abc123 kicked a 15 year old girl."
Some actual examples:
1 The Disability Discrimination Act was written while I was in my first year of sixth form. However it didn't come into effect until years later.
Of course, the media portrayal has mostly been of the tiny number of students who committed acts of damage to property, especially that police van. What most of the mainstream media isn't reporting (in fact I think only The Guardian has) is the number of protesters who tried to protect the van. In this video you can see some of them, and there's this iconic image from The Guardian:
At one point the BBC reporter in the Commons explained why politicians and the media are so keen to report on the poorly behaved few rather than the well behaved majority. He was reporting to the camera what a politician had told him (but I'm afraid I didn't catch who, the trouble with live TV). I'm paraphrasing him, but not much (and only because I didn't get to write/type down his exact words):
If the protests get violent the public will lose sympathy with the protesters and support our plans for higher fees.
On one hand on our TV screens we're seeing looped footage of a few protesters smashing up an unoccupied police van (which some speculate was put there as bait) in the hope that it'll make the majority think "hmm, fees are good! Let's teach these brutal young things a lesson!" On the other hand what we're not seeing is the brutality from the other side.
Thanks to camera phones and the internet incidents of police brutality are harder to hide. And yesterday saw some unforgivable behaviour. Throughout the day there were many tweets being rapidly retweeted with content along the lines of "Officer abc123 kicked a 15 year old girl."
Some actual examples:
- Cambridge student demo: policeman punched student in the face
- Police violence at Student Protest London 24 November
- Laurie Penny on the children trapped inside the Whitehall kettle until late at night when the temperature had dropped to freezing
1 The Disability Discrimination Act was written while I was in my first year of sixth form. However it didn't come into effect until years later.
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