In Praise of Voting

This time tomorrow, failing any unfortunate accidents or natural disasters, I’ll have voted. Twice in fact: a friend’s out of town for work, so I’ll be proxy voting for her too. I’ll be voting Ken first, Jenny second. at no point have I even considered voting for Boris.

I love voting. By a happy accident, I’ve lived somewhere there’s been an election every year since I was 18 and voted in the 2005 general election. I’ve always woken early on polling day, taken my card to the school, church hall or scout hut that’s been commandeered for the day, and purposefully put my cross or numbers next to my preferred candidate. The stiff ceremony of those five minutes never dulls: knowing that the mark you make with the pencil provided is your physical mark on our democracy is uniquely pleasurable. Then there’s the slight anti-climax you feel once you’ve posted your slip into the ballot box, tempered by wondering how those walking in as you leave will vote.

I love the election campaigns too. Yes, they’re exhausting and by election day, you’ve heard every party member spout the same sound bites until they’re hoarse. But it is exciting. No more so than when you see candidates visibly rattled by their gaffes and stories the press have unearthed. That’s democratic power, right there.

It was only when I was cycling home this evening, thinking about the Chartists mural in my hometown (it’s still there, though they’re destroying it, criminally) that I paused to think that however much I hate this government, however disenfranchised I feel by the fact we elect MPs by the unrepresentative First Past the Post system, I can still vote. I’m a woman, I don’t own property and I’m working class, though have now done quite a bit of vaulting in the social mobility stakes. I can vote, when women and men in some parts of the world still can’t. So do get out and vote tomorrow. Because every time we vote, it feels like we’re moving forward.

Fact vs Fiction

I recently got an iPad as well as a Kindle, and now carry roughly 60 digital books around in my handbag at all times. The upshot of this is that I’ve spent far more on books in the last two months than I have in the past two years. I’m reading an awful lot more than any time since my degree. If someone recommends a book, I can start reading it the second we finish our coffee.

Now, instead of feeling guilty about not reading, I’m feeling guilty about what I’m reading. For full disclosure, my degree was in English Literature, so three full years of my life were devoted to reading fiction, the theory of fiction and the political, social and historical background of that fiction. But now, whenever I start reading a novel, I panic. I think about all the books I’m not reading. How little I know about economics. That everyone knows more about the Middle East than I do. How I might come across as less of a pillock if I read more Chomsky. I think a lot of this is to do with growing up, and realising how little I know, and identifying gaps in my knowledge. This article sums up a lot of my fears. But it still niggles. I asked Twitter, and my followers are always super-erudite. Here are some responses, storifyed.
And a few here:

But what has fiction taught you? Is fiction escapism, or the most effective way of examining the human condition? What novels have taught you more than non-fiction?

Giving girls access to the pill over the counter is the least we can do

Originally published in The Guardian

One of the things I’ve learned as I’ve grown older is how little I know about pretty much everything. Every birthday brings to my attention new gaps in my knowledge, and the yawning embarrassment of realising just how immature some of my past actions have been. Conversely, when I was 13, I was pretty certain I knew far more then my peers and elders. I held a steely conviction that I was an adult in all but the eyes of the law. So having sex at 13 seemed completely sensible, and if anything a sign of how very mature I was.

Would I do it in hindsight? Of course not. But that’s because I’m now 25 and have grown up an awful lot. Would anything have stopped me then? Of course not. But to me, the news that pharmacists could soon dispense the pill to girls as young as 13 without a GP’s prescription was hugely welcome. My school’s sex education comprised how to insert tampons, then a biology lesson on pregnancy. Nothing about relationships, contraception or consent. Everything I knew about contraception before I was 16 was cobbled together from hearsay from friends and boyfriends. Teenagers are absolutely terrible at dispensing advice on contraception if they’ve never been taught about it, and discovering how much of your received wisdom is wrong is embarrassing if you’re lucky, life-altering if you’re not. A school friend discovered that condoms need to be on from penetration rather than just before ejaculation when she got pregnant at the age of 14.

Pharmacists, on the other hand, are trained professionals and dispense healthcare advice every day. If a teenager has decided they want to have sex before the age of consent, the likelihood is little will change their mind. But knowing they can speak to a pharmacist and get advice and counselling before they choose to do anything means they’ll be armed with more facts and protected. Much of the media coverage of the pilot has led politicians to make sweeping statements that all teenagers having underage sex must be under duress and being abused. As a teen at a school where large numbers lost their virginity before 16, this wasn’t my experience at all. Teenagers are often in a rush to grow up and replicate adult relationships: this usually involves sex. Not because they were pressured into it, or influenced by sexual imagery in the media, but because they were human, and sexual urges are a biological function, not a phenomenon that switches on overnight.

When I volunteered at a youth club in Battersea a few years ago, I found many teenagers were desperate to talk about sex and ask questions of an adult who knew what they were talking about, but who was removed from their family and school. Many were too scared to approach their doctors for contraception advice, or even to ask questions, because their GPs had known them since birth and were also their parents’ doctors. Confidentiality was key, as is a certain distance from their lives. My impression from the young people I spoke to was that they were very keen to talk about sex, but were worried about parents and teachers being told they’d even asked. Universally, sex education was deemed completely inadequate. That relationships didn’t have to involve sex or follow a particular template was completely new to them.

Pharmacists can and will offer counselling. The pill won’t be handed over like a packet of aspirin. As a teenager, it would have been a huge comfort to be able to talk to someone responsible about sex. In an ideal world, no one under the age of 16 would have sex, but we don’t live in an ideal world; 27% of girls and 22% of boys have sex before they’re 16. Giving teenagers the option to talk to a trained professional about sex and have access to contraception if they are adamant they are going to have sex before their 16th birthday won’t encourage people to have sex, but it will encourage those who decide to do so to do it safely. When sex education fails so many teenagers, it’s the least you can do for them.

Being Fine, But Not Fine.

In all likelihood, I am fitter than you. I probably run, walk and cycle more than you do. I probably also spend far more time in hospital than you do. Most recently, I went for a run, then around 5km in, at a fairly speedy pace, my brain malfunctioned, and I had a fit, leaving me with a fractured skull and several stitches. Quite standard, for someone with epilepsy and the doctors and nurses, aware that I’d be used to this type of accident, acted as if it wasn’t a big deal.
Not so with others though. Most of my friends, who are also used to it, just said “Ouch – get well soon”. There’s always a slew of people who remark “You’re always ill/injured”, not as an observation, but more as a slight accusation. I’m treading carefully here, because it’s difficult to explain what’s bound up in this response. For many people, when thinking about disability, there seems to be a belief that disabled people are not healthy people and vice versa. That to be disabled is to be uniformly vulnerable. And whenever someone says “Oh for god’s sake, you’re always injuring yourself” I feel a) there’s an assertion that some part of it is my fault and b) they’re trying to decide whether I’m “healthy” or “vulnerable”.
From the outside, I doubt you could tell I’m disabled. I’ve got a full time job, and as I mentioned, I exercise all the time. I don’t need mobility aids, or any adjustments to my home or desk at work. I do however, have epilepsy, a progressive and hereditary arthritis of the spine and really complex migraines. But for the most part, this doesn’t alter my life that much. The occasional seizure is annoying, and can lead to a trip to A&E. My back does hurt, but exercise does wonders for the pain. And I’ve had migraines for so long, I can power through them. But I don’t “look” disabled. And people can struggle with that. Much of the discussion around reassessing people in receipt of Disability Living Allowance completely dismisses invisible disabilities as false. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen articles and heard conversations that suggest ME, PTSD, back problems and mental health conditions are “faked” by people “too lazy” to work. One commenter on Comment is free told how after a car crash left him with massively limited mobility he spent two weeks sat on the floor in his garden, working slowly, bit by bit on planting a flower bed. It took a huge amount of energy, and he was only able to plant one small bed, bit by bit. But he felt immensely satisfied when he’d finished. Then he was told one of his neighbours had seen him gardening and called the benefit fraud hotline.
The problem is, there aren’t clear and neat boxes in which to put “disabled” and “healthy” people. When I’m running 15km on a Sunday afternoon, I don’t feel disabled. When I’m on an ambulance stretcher being carted off to A&E, I might. But people struggle to accept that I can need a lot of medical treatment, but not need to be treated differently outside of the consultant’s room. And when people can’t fathom that there are spectrums of disability, that it’s often not a constant, it becomes easier to demonise benefit claimants. If you assume that some people see doctors more, not because they need to, but because they’re hypochondriacs or attention-seeking, it’s not difficult for the government to slash benefits from people who need them. And when you assume that disabled people are by definition weak and vulnerable, anyone who doesn’t fit that definition reinforces tabloid scare stories about the mythical mass of benefit-scrounging fake disability claimants.

A Right Pain in the Arse

I wrote for the Guardian Bike Blog on how women can take the pain out of cycling and avoid being saddle sore. The comments in particular are wonderful, and a mine of information and tips.

Victoria Bekiempis also wrote an excellent blogpost in response here.

A Little Respect.

Tanni Grey-Thompson, the former Paralympic athlete now in the Lords, spoke to the Telegraph about a recent experience on a train, when she was forced to throw her chair to the platform and crawl off the train because there was no one to help her on the platform or train:

‘As a disabled person travelling you always have an element of fear, feeling very uncomfortable, of panic, of just wondering whether you’re going to get off. I think it is fair to say that a lot of disabled people feel like second class passengers because they don’t have the same treatment as everyone else. I don’t expect to be swept in to first class and treated better than everyone else – I expect to have the same experience, and that is often just not the case.’

Pretty fair, I’d say. What do Daily Mail commenters have to say?

I used to be very sympathetic to people like this lady, but after having numerous incidents where disabled people behaved in a most arrogant and demanding manner including queue jumping, and using their disability to get preferential holiday time I just let em get on with life. They demanded and rightly received equality in law, so I just treat them the same as everyone else now. – Parent, Co Durham AGREE 100%,. best made point of the day. These people cannot have it both ways. Very very well said.
- Jonathon, N.London, 26/3/2012 10:45

Oh.

We have been hearing for years that everyone is equal, now she wants special treatment the cry is different. I always help if I can, but more times than I care to remember, the disabled person has given me abuse for trying to help them……..you can’t have it both ways.
- James 001, West of Nowhere, 26/3/2012 10:52

Right.

The huge cost that disability has added to everyone’s burden over recent years doesn’t help public sympathy for you. Also you can afford any means of transport and help, why expect it? Your outdated romantic view of charity is your problem; and lets face it how long before it’s illegal not to help?
- Andy, Bath, 26/3/2012 10:49

Illegal not to help. Tyranny.

I find it odd that this Woman expects to be treated the same as everyone else.Yet as far as I can see she has been as no one helps able bodied people either. She’s received exactly as she asked for.What she is in fact demanding is special attention and moaning about not getting it.
- Andy, Norway, 26/3/2012 11:25

Thanks, “Andy”

If one is disabled it is important to organise ones life more prudently. Getting off a train at midnight is not the best of an idea. May I humbly suggest that too many disadvantaged people expect everything to be handed to them on a plate , and that there could be a slight degree of arrogance involved.
- Malachy, Belfast, 26/3/2012 12:17

The arrogance of crawling unassisted off a train at midnight.

she did get the same treatment as every one else. know one helps me of the train
- Sue Previsor, Doncaster CC HSE, 26/3/2012 12:17

Are you in a wheelchair, Sue? Or just allergic to logic?

It may not be PC but the railways and the underground are not a taxi service. The staff when available are always unfailingly considering of disabled people but they cannot be expected to provide a continuous butler service to everybody who travels. If we equipped all train to cope with someone with Ms G-T’s disabilities why should it end there? What about people who cannot even move at all? or speak or live without apparatus? The sad fact of life is you can only go so far to accommodate diabilities. You cannot put an escalator up Everest.
- Andy, Portsmouth, 26/3/2012 12:28

You want to live a life that doesn’t involve abject humiliation when commuting? PC gone mad.

Hang on. These people fought for equal rights. And rightly got them. They are entitled to equal pay, equal everything as far as I can see. When they have a bad experience they run to the papers. I only ever see tanni in the papers when she is rubbishing able bodied people. If i was to rubbish disabled people the way she is complaining about able-bodied people there would be holy war. Where are my equal rights??????
- Luca, France, 26/3/2012 12:35

I don’t know about you, but I get the impression Luca’s a white, straight bloke. What about his equal rights?

Dear DM. I had a bad experience at Croke Park recently. I didnt get priority booking. I didnt get priority seating. I didnt get parking at the front door. Nobody held the door open for me. Nobody carried my food and drink for me. please please will you write a story about me – you did a story about this lady so its only fair – I think they call it equality.
- Patrick, Leinster, 26/3/2012 12:38

Oh, Patrick, poor love. Buy a new dictionary.

What about able bodied men in this world. Where have our rights gone ?
- Arthur, Stoke, 26/3/2012 12:46

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh god, my soul has died.

And she is a Baroness because??? 11 gold medals does not justify a title!– Pete, Midlands, UK (not EU), 26/3/2012 12:15——————And the ironic thing is that they do not race in ‘wheelchairs’ – they are specially built very expensive machines that make it extremely easy to race. Where is the achievement in that ? I would like to see them race in actual wheelchairs.
- Sam, Manchester, 26/3/2012 13:15

Would you, Sam?

They could put a little cattle type wagon with a big ramp on the back of every train where all the wheelies can travel together so they don’t feel so different. – Bill, NY, 26/3/2012

Thanks, Bill. Nothing screams inclusivity like being hidden in a cattle wagon and called “wheelies”.

And yes, it’s easy to roll your eyes and say the bottom half of the Internet isn’t representative of public opinion. But the Daily Mail do moderate their comments, and the ones above are those that have been deemed inoffensive enough to stay up. Several comments, since taken down, suggested that wheelchair users lead a cushy life, and that they should be made to wait until no able-bodied people need serving in a supermarket or post-office because they have a “comfy chair” that able-bodied people are denied. I’ve had enough bad experiences on public transport, when I’ve had seizures and people have left me for three stops before calling for help, or the time a bus driver who refused to stop was chased by an ambulance and screamed at by a doctor on board, to know that these opinions are common. So really, it’s no wonder the government’s onslaught on disability rights is moving on apace.

Memories, and how they let us down.

I have a terrible memory. Luckily memories are a great source of hilarity. I’ve forgotten where my keys are! Hilarious. Oh no, again I’ve forgotten the number of the bus I’m due to hop on. What a ditz. It’d be “endearing” if it weren’t a massive strain on my day to day functioning. Yet it’s not because I daydream, or am haphazard. It’s because my brain just won’t work normally. See, I’m epileptic,which most people assume means I have massively dramatic fits and then move on. I do have dramatic fits, and end up in hospital on a tediously regular basis. But that’s less troubling.

When you watch a film, and it’s not being screened digitally, there’ll be a few inevitable moments in every film where you won’t see a scene. This is rarely important in a film. But for a lot of my life, the scenes where my brain stalls are numerous, and last a good few seconds. Imagine you’re watching Lost in Translation, and a few seconds aren’t screened, but you don’t even notice. Now imagine that happens 20-40 times a day, but you’ve no idea when it’s occurred. That’s my life. Yet hardly anyone notices.

Before my grandmother died, she suffered from Alzheimers. She didn’t just “have” Alzheimers, she genuinely suffered. She was aware that something was amiss, that her memory was playing tricks on her and hitting out at her relationship with her family. She’d regularly confuse my dad with her brother as she struggled to cope with grief and memory. Amongst the most harrowing moments of my life were the regular moments when she’d forget my grandfather had died, then remember as if for the first time. “Where’s Stan?” she’d ask, shortly followed by “He’s dead, isn’t he?”, realising the love of her life, who’d been ill for so long, had gone.

But she never forgot me, and that was something I clung to. Her memories were jumbled, with regular gaps and disjointed, but they were still there. With a little careful jogging, she could often remembersome of the things we had done together. Nearly every visit ended in her realising there were things she wanted to talk about, but that the scenarios were no longer in her head. She’d struggle with constructing sentences. She’d become aggressive, then defeatist. She’d cry. We’d always cry afterwards. She died shortly after my grandfather, and though we missed them both terribly, we understood the crippling effect grief has on the body, even as the mind disintegrates.

But I worry constantly about how much we remember. How much of it is accurate. My sister recently moved into an area of Cardiff in which I’d spent a lot of my teenage years. Yet I couldn’t remember a single road name, or the shops/off licences/pubs I’d frequented. I’m heading back to Cardiff in a few days and I’m hardly sure I can rely on my memory to guide me around the town. I still feel a massive attachment to the city and country, but my memories of it are dimmed. Does it matter? Not on the surface. But I worry that later I’ll appear more baffled than I currently am, in my mid-twenties. That my inability to remember phone numbers, street names and surnames will translate into an inability to accurately remember the dynamics of past relationships. I’m already hopeless at remembering faces. What happens when I forget my best friend’s surname?

As Easy As Riding a Bike

Hi @mayoroflondon. So you’re a cyclist! I’m a cyclist too. But I’ve stopped cycling. Why? Because I don’t feel safe on London roads anymore. I think I’m quite good at cycling. That’s not a brag – it’s what I’ve deduced from the facts. In my old job, I’d cycle 30 miles a day, on busy roads. I didn’t find it a trial, though some areas weren’t great. On the whole, it was a good experience. But I got a new job and moved into a new flat on the other side of South London. Now cycling’s horrible. To get to work, I have to cycle over Elephant & Castle which is frankly terrifying. My pedestrian friends find the concept obscene, and my cyclist friends would rather push their bikes through the subways. We shouldn’t have to do that. Then I travel over Blackfriars Bridge. Since you ignored cyclists’ campaigning for a 20mph speed limit, it’s become a rat run. I work shifts, you see. So the Tories’ claim that cars wouldn’t travel over 20mph only works if you travel solely at rush hour. Then I have to battle through to King’s Cross, swerving to avoid taxis constantly. And at King’s Cross, there’s the most awful junction I’ve ever seen, that turns from two to five lanes of traffic. Five lanes of traffic? In the middle of a city? It’s rare that all vehicles know what they’re doing, so I have to constantly be on my guard for cars turning sharply where they shouldn’t. Once the lights go green at the turning for York Way it’s a free for all. I haven’t got enough fingers to count the illegal turns I’ve seen. Four cyclists in five years have been killed there. One would be too many. Four is ridiculous. When I finish work, and think of long slog home in the dark, with the dangerous turns, junctions and bridges, I never feel pleased I’ve cycled.

So I’ve stopped cycling. My incredibly experienced flatmate has too. It’s just so much easier to sit on a train, than it is to risk my life day in day out. It might sound melodramatic, but it really isn’t. I ended up in an ambulance, inhaling gas and air and having my jeans cut off two months ago, after a van that was parked in one of your Cycle Superhighways hit me in Clapham. I really like cycling, but your reluctance to make it safe or enjoyable has ruined that. It’s not enough for you to be photographed looking jolly on a bike. You also need to give a toss about cyclists’ safety. You said in one of your books (you write an awful lot of books. Amazing you have time, what with being a full-time Mayor, and having a column in the Telegraph) that “Every successful bicycle journey should be counted as a triumph over [death]“. It certainly feels as though that’s the case in London.

My New Years Resolutions

1. Figure out how to use mixer taps effectively.
2. Discover the difference between pâté and paste.
3. Constantly remind everyone that Ali Cook never sweats.
4. Continue this psychological war of attrition with the cat.
5. Learn how to boil an egg, then never use this skill again.

What are yours?

Edit: Updated to say I shall also be making a concerted effort not to sleep with any North Korean leaders. Day one going well.

Save York Gardens Library

“What is more important than anything else in a library is the fact that it exists” – Archibald Macleish

Wandsworth Council, as part of the cuts falling  from the Comprehensive Spending Review, are considering closing York Gardens Library. York Gardens Library is in the most deprived ward in Wandsworth: Latchmere. I live less than a mile away, in the least deprived ward in Wandsworth: Northcote. With this in mind, I had a look at the council’s equality impact assessment.

Battersea, Battersea Park and Northcote libraries are included since they are the three nearest libraries and the council argue that if York Gardens closes, people will simply travel to their nearest library instead. Wandsworth council’s own equality impact assessment highlights that York Gardens has three times as many black users than the borough average, and 7.5 times as many as nearby Northcote library. This is the case all the more for children and young people. The equality impact assessment states:

“Usage of the Library reflects the character of the surrounding population, where people of non British white ethnicity, mixed ethnicity, Asian and Black African and Caribbean ethnicity accounted for 51% of the population in 2001. These groups make more use of the Library than white British people. The use of the Library by Black African and Caribbean people is particularly noticeable.”

I don’t even have to make an argument here. The council’s data speaks for itself. The same applies to women, and those with disabilities (especially learning disabilities):

More women use the library than the borough average, and four times as many users have a learning disability than the borough average – eight times as many as in my ward.

Aside from demographic statistics, the most convincing, and heartbreaking argument to save York Gardens comes from the survey of why people use the library. Apologies for the deluge of bulletpoints, but this is all vital:

“York Gardens library is particularly important to children compared to other libraries. Children and Young People using this library are also appreciably older than those using other libraries – 50% are in the 11 – 15 yr age group compared to the borough figure of 19%. The comparable figure for Northcote library is 11%.

• 45% of children visiting York Gardens library came with friends or on their own compared to a borough average of 18%, reflecting the neighbourhood character of the library that it is accessible from local housing without crossing any major roads and the older age profile using this library. Using the alternative libraries would involve journeys along and across busy main roads.

• 40% of children come to use a computer compared to a borough average of 19%. [Northcote Library10%] and of those 48% use them specifically for homework compared to 22% in the borough at large. [Northcote Library 7%].

• 49% of children and young people come to do homework compared to a borough average of 17% [Northcote Library 8%]

• 35% borrow books for homework (borough average 15%) and 41% because ‘I want to get better at reading’ (borough average 30%) [Northcote Library 6% and 20%]

• 49% of those who use the library to do their homework do so because it provides somewhere quiet to work [Northcote Library 10%]. Other answers to this question reinforce the importance of the library as a resource for studying.

• 59% of children and young people considered the library had helped them to do better at school [Northcote Library 15%] – the highest response of any library in the borough.”

So to summarise, York Gardens library is used heavily by teenagers, especially black teenagers, who use it for schoolwork, to feel better about themselves by reading, and to use computers. They often go with friends, highlighting the importance of the library to the community and the nearby Kambala estate. Closing York Gardens would mean the children and young people who use it would have to travel further, across busy main roads, to areas of the borough they are unfamiliar with, instead of doing homework with their friends in the evening. Were Northcote library to close, I honestly think the impact on the children nearby would be minimal. Were Northcote chosen, however, the very vocal, savvy affluent residents would secure maximum coverage for such a closure. Northcote residents needn’t worry, though. Wandsworth Council spent £13m on building them a free school only last month.  Closing York Gardens will save the council a mere £219,000. If they do so, they will have to provide an outreach service, taking the savings down to £127,000. This would cause council tax to rise by less than a pound a year. Even that is irrelevant, however: Eric Pickles slammed Wandsworth council recently for hoarding £105m in reserves. The council are victimising the poorest in the borough, to make ideological cuts, simply because they think Latchmere residents won’t put up a fight.

The best argument not to close York Gardens however, is the residents, in their own words.

If you can, join us tomorrow(Saturday 5th February), at 1pm for a Read-in to protest against the proposed closure.