Space Hopper Football. Progress? Really?

Did the Paralympics really change our opinions and understanding of disability? Or did they just highlight the abilities rather than disabilities?

It is without doubt, that the Games left everyone amazed and enlightened, leaving even the most cynical person more patriotic than ever. But now they are over, how much has really changed?

Disability is often a taboo subject; people don't know how to react to it, more often than not because they don’t understand it. Hundreds of articles tell us that the Paralympics made a difference but I think this opinion is a bit naïve. Yes, we were impressed, proud, dumbfounded even, by the capabilities of those ‘less able’ to win, in competitions many of us couldn’t possibly imagine doing but now, we are back to reality.

Currently, I am working on a campaign with charity ‘Daisy UK’, whose aim is to get disabled people involved, rather than isolated. Years of evidence shows that society is often ignorant around disability. We think we know it all but we don’t.

One teacher’s idea of getting a blind boy involved, was to replace a football with a space hopper. With an accepting mind, she'd have known all she had to do was get a ball with a bell inside. Instead of allowing the boy to be involved and included, she became the initiator of his isolation.

When we're in a restaurant, bar or shopping centre, do we really now look at a disabled person exactly the same as the person next to them, as we should, simply as a result of the Paralympics, or are we still conscious that our glance could be misconstrued as a stare?

I think the Olympics and Paralympics may have improved and shaped our understanding of disability but to say they changed our understanding was overambitious.

And who says romance is dead?

So, after many months of neglect, I decided to log in to an old Facebook account, mostly out of curiosity really. After delving through the mounting pile of inbox messages… my faith in humanity was put in serious jeopardy.

Well, more specifically, my faith in men.

I will leave said men anonymous for now, for fear of affecting any hope of future ‘romance’ for the charmers. Amongst the mundane, friendly and inconspicuous messages there were a number that stood out;

Male 1 said; ‘hello’. 15 times.

Sometimes he added ‘how are you’, but it was mostly just hello.

Talk about persistence.

Male 2 said;

‘Hello Sophie, how are you doing? Am Dan, loving, loving, honest and clean in thought, I really like your profile and decided to contact you for true friendship’

CLEAN in thought? Eh? Bit sussy that if you ask me! Note the repetition of the word ‘loving’ too. Shudder.

Male 3 said;

‘If it made you an easy £100 would you put your hand over my mouth? X’

I don’t even know what this means? Is it code for something?

And then Finally,

Male 4;

‘Thought id pop the Q can I smash your bk doors in xx’

Ah, classy eh.

Now, as special as these romantic gestures may have made me feel. It saddens me to say I don’t think I am the only one *sobs*

My better judgement would suggest messages like these flow freely and willy nilly from the hands of keyboard warriors and lurchers into the inbox’s of females none the wiser. I say females, because I don’t think the senders are particularly fussy about whom the receivers are.

What worries me, furthermore, is why said messages are still getting sent? Are they just very at ease with rejection or do girls respond in a similar manner;

‘well, now I know you're real loving and clean in thought, let's be true 'friends'

‘I’ve always wanted to put my hand over someone’s mouth yes, pick me, pick me.’

‘In answer to your question, of course you can smash my back doors in babes I thought you’d never ask.’

And who says romance is dead eh? My faith in humanity is surprisingly yet to be restored.

Is It Snowing?

Thanks to the beautiful new world of social media, we no longer have to lift ourselves off the couch or even turn the TV on to learn what is going on in the world.

Our twitter news feed constantly updates us on the weather, news, what people have eaten for tea and how far their baby bump has developed. Is this modern shift in social networking taking the ‘live for the moment’ element out of life? Or is it just bringing us all closer together?

Before we actually taste our beautiful and well presented tea, we have to take a picture of it to show all of our twitter and Facebook friends and when were having such an amazing time on the best night ever, we take a moment to stop the amazing-ness to tell everyone how amazing it is, we no longer have to watch TV as our news feed provides a running commentary and we don’t need to open our curtains to see what the weathers like because a shed load of people will have already been moaning about it.

As well as the Spillers (the spillers of all information), there are also the Moaners. The moaners moan about the spillers spilling everything. This then recurs as much as the topic the spillers spilt did!

Although it’s important to seize the day and all that malarkey, it’s also important to accept that times are a changing and the world of Twitter, Facebook, blogs, retweets, baby scans and food pictures needs to be embraced with open arms.