I have been a busy boy recently.
As August drew to a close, I found myself reflecting on what it means to be getting old. I had just celebrated my 49th birthday, and as my parents were told I wouldn’t make it past the age of 5 the fact that I am nearly 50 really hit home. So I wrote it all down in a piece called Aren’t You Lucky? or Another Birthday, Another Miracle.
Something that I really enjoyed was reviewing some of the shows put on as part of the Unlimited Festival at London’s Southbank at the start of September. In case you missed them here they are;
The Dinner Party Revisited – Katherine Araniello’s fun filled anarchic video performance show.
Guide Gods – Claire Cunningham’s exploration of religion and disability using dance, music and spoken word.
Let Me Stay – Julie McNamara’s one woman show about her Mother and the impact that Dementia has had on her the wider family.
I’ve also written a round up review for PosAbility magazine, that will be in the next issue.
My monthly column in Disability Now covered a recent trip to sunny Margate, and I had another arts review published on the Huffington about the wonderful Penny Pepper’s show Lost In Spaces.
Just as I thought it was time to focus on a series I am currently writing on the topic of bionics (perfect for someone who dreamed of being the Six Million Dollar Man as a child) I found that I had to put finger to key board in reply to an article in The Guardian called “Don’ts aren’t working: Here’s five things you can say to someone with a disability” as I so disagreed with it. As I run training sessions which revolve around techniques for both discussing disability and how to talk to disabled people I thought the piece was troublesome to say the least and so I gave my views on the issue in Cute… But Wrong!
On top of that I carried out some training for Network Rail up in York, and shall be back in October.
Phew, it’s been a busy few weeks. But there can be no rest for the freelancer, and so I shall leave you and get back to work!