Saturday 13 December 2014

This whole anti-disability discrimination thing may be getting out of hand

I dislike using the ticket machine at our local tube station, because I practically have to bend over double to read the instructions on the chip-and-pin machine when topping up my Oyster card. This gives me back-ache. I presume it’s set so low to accomoodate kids, because it certainly isn't designed for tall adults. Same with the cash-point machines at my local bank and petrol station, which obviously aren't designed to be used by kids - but aren't designed to be used by POUGs (Persons of Unrestricted Growth) either.

In fact most of the world isn’t designed for someone of my height – somewhere between 6’4” and 6’5” without shoes. Cinema and car seats and hotel beds have all got better in the past 40 years or so as the average height has increased, but airplane, theatre and train seats are all uncomfortable for anyone over 6’2”, and anywhere where the tables and chairs are fixed to the floor are unusable. But do you hear me complain? Well – occasionally.

But then I remind myself that I am abnormally tall, even by Northern European standards, and that it would be unreasonable to expect designers working to a budget and catering for a mass market to keep people like me front-of-mind at all times, rather than 5’9” men and 5’5” women (the average heights in the UK, give or take half an inch). Bit tough on me, of course, but I repeat – I AM NOT NORMAL. Similarly, as I’ve pointed out before, it’s annoying that my choice of off-the-peg clothes and footwear is severely restricted compared to, say, a six-footer, and I think clothing stores could do a slightly better job – but it would be ridiculous of me to expect everything to be available in my size.

When I caught an item on the news earlier today about a London-based female dwarf – an actress with an Australian accent - who had brought a disability discrimination case against the Post Office because she couldn’t reach a chip-and-pin machine at one of their branches, I couldn’t help wondering if it was reasonable of her to expect the company to provide facilities in all of its outlets for customers who are several feet shorter than the average adult. Of course, I’m not incapable of sympathising with dwarves or wheelchair-users or the blind or the deaf or the lame: I’m genuinely appalled whenever I read accounts of disabled people being bullied or insulted by members of the public or transport employees or whoever. But if I suffered from any of these disabilities I doubt if I would expect the whole world to be configured in order to allow me to achieve everything I wanted to achieve as easily as the averagely-abled person. That’s simply not feasible.

The Post Office apparently settled the actress’s claim out of court, which presumably means they’ve given her some money. Her windfall will eventually be paid for by everyone else who uses the Post Office in the form of higher prices – or by job cuts or by decreased share dividends. And then we’ll all have to pay for new chip-and-pin machines that can be used by anyone, no matter what their physical status. Would it be unreasonable for people of restricted height to take their disability into account and make other arrangements rather than for the rest of us to pay extra in order to accommodate them?

Or am I being an uncompassionate bastard?

At the risk of upsetting some readers, I can’t resist mentioning a recent news item about a PORG in Hull who, upset at what he considered “dwarf discrimination” (he apparently couldn’t reach some items in the kitchen of his council flat), entered a council building, called employees “useless fuckers”, told an Asian man to “go back to your own country”, then dropped his pants and defecated on the floor in the main reception area (full story here). Dirty little devil!

19 comments:

  1. I'd guess the dwarf from Hull wasn't Happy but which one was he then?

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    1. Definitely Grumpy.

      I just hope John Bercow doesn't react the same way when he's thrown out of office.

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  2. Yes, the post office PORG was one 'WTF is the world coming to' story today. The other was the poor bastard in Scotland who got a night in the slammer (and a criminal record) for daring to refer to one of his neighbours as a 'tink'.

    Apparently, this is a 'hate crime'. I imagine it might also be a 'hate crime' to call for the defenstration of all those who were cabinet ministers during Blair's during his reign of terror.

    In neither case can I understand why.

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  3. Mind you, the current lot have hardly rolled back to tide of political correctness. I wonder if there are examples of a democratic country where an incoming government has actually deliberalised the laws - it's why one's heart sinks whenever some daft new piece of pantywaist PC legislation gets through: even if someone to the right of Ghengis Kahn got in, you know it wouldn't be rescinded.

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    1. I believe the inhibition is largely due to the power of the Leftist media (ie almost all of it). The howls of anguish would be deafening and as those few conservatives (small 'c') we've had take power in the past few decades have all been Marxists in drag in any case, there hasn't even been the desire to put a stop to it.

      The question is, can UKIP make a difference? I get very worried when I see the likes of Hamilton muscling in and I'm quite aware that UKIP has its share of nutters - but then, which party hasn't?

      My concern is that if UKIP doesn't do it, eventually your use of the word 'democratic' could become prescient. Violence, even in Britain, is always possible if people are pressed hard enough.

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  4. That is true. The ratchet effect of the politics of grievance is very powerful indeed.

    Reluctantly, I have reached the dismal conclusion that modern Conservatism only conserves money and even that aspect is not particularly successful given current death taxes.

    The first question most conservatives ask seems to be "Is my money safe.?"

    Our universities as vectors of culture - transmission have long since been thrown to the neo - Marxist wolves.

    Yesterday, my wife asked me the following question :

    "Why do Leftist immigration enthusiasts believe that there are too many English people in England"?

    Of course, she almost never asks me a question on politics to which she does not already know my answer.

    '

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    1. Your wife's question reminds of something an Iranian friend (a journalist who'd fled his country after being imprisoned and tortured by the regime) once said to me after an idiotic local council had decided that Christmas should be called Winterval in case they offended non-Christians: "Why does anyone here think Muslim immigrants would feel insulted by the British celebrating Christmas?"

      I suppose the answer to your wife's question is: "Because Leftist immigration enthusiasts believe that the English are inherently racist and conservative and therefore wish to punish them." And, of course, immigrants overwhelmingly vote Labour, so it's a form of global gerrymandering.

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  5. I was sorry to read of your troubles in bending down to read the instructions on the machine while topping up your Oyster card. I then started to wonder why you were still using an Oyster card and concluded that you had not, unlike others of your vintage, taken advantage of the largesse of Transport for London by applying successfully for a Freedom pass. It is open to sexagenarians living within London who can claim a London property as their sole address. For a £10 admin fee, unlimited free travel on London buses and tube can be obtained via online application, with the card arriving within a few days.

    The minor problem of seeing the words "Freedm" appear on the screen when you clock in on the bus, thus revealing to any following females that you are a decade or so older than you have claimed to be, can be avoided either by allowing them to go first, or by using the tube where the machines are programmed to avoid disobliging references to age.

    There will be no charge for this service.

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    1. As I have only just turned 49, I consider your comments grossly insulting. I have asked my lawyers to prepare a case against you for hate crime. Unless you know some pretty damned senior people within the criminal justice system, I reckon you're toast.

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    2. Please accept my apologies. Of course those in your class at school had you marked down as an infant prodigy from the moment you joined KCS Juniors at minus 4 years old. How we resented you as the star pupil aged 5 in Upper 6B, effortlessly translating Emma into a variety of languages while we pubescents were struggling over our essays on the Metaphysical poets, puzzling all the while at the strange stirrings we felt whenever we walked past the Ursuline Convent.

      Looking forward to the invitation to your 50th next year.

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    3. I was an example of hybrid vigour at work, ex-KCS - the mixture of Scottish and Norwegian genes resulted in the extraordinarily rapid intellectual and physical development to which you were a witness.

      Your invitation hangs in the balance - it rather depends on how you conduct yourself on this blog over the next 11 months.

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  6. "....several feet shorter than the average adult." This phrase started me thinking about Martin Amis. I wonder how he copes with the facilities at his local Post Office?

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    1. I imagine he employs a servant to take care of that sort of thing for him, as most of us do.

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  7. Scott, your answer is, as expected, not only most apposite but also more elegantly phrased than my reply which, I'm afraid, included some unwelcome expletives.

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    1. I think the odd expletive when discussing discrimination hucksters is de rigeur.

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  8. SDG raises an interesting question about Martin Amis. As Amis now resides in New York borough of Brooklyn, he will doubtless be a subsidiary beneficiary of Gotham's demographic changes.

    This may mean that, when he stands in line at Poste restante to collect his vast fan mail, he will not necessarily be elbowed out of the line by a towering, scowling Negro but merely brushed by an Amis - sized specimen of America's Latino genetic future, the ubiquitous unsocialised Mestizo.

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    1. I haven't been to New York for about six years, but, strolling around Brooklyn and Manhattan, it felt a damn sight safer than London, mainly because of the welcome presence of cops with guns on practically every street corner.

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  9. The missing word is, of course, 'aside'. Sorry.

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  10. Hybrid vigour at work, indeed, Scott.

    However, the intra - European genetic distance between your respective parents may not have been all that great :

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Scotland

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