I feel hopeless, rejected, and a burden on society - one week of empathy training


A mouth covered with tape. Taken by Jenniffer Moo.

I've spent a week cosplaying as a disabled user. And I hate it. A couple of months ago, I attended a private talk given by a disabled colleague of mine. "Everyone should believe disabled people's stories about accessibility problems," she said. "But, given that people don't, here's what I want you to do. Spend one week pretending to be disabled. Pick a disability and try to interact with services as though you have that impairment. Build up some empathy." So I did. For a week, I pretended…

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Councillor Carl Thomson's Deleted Tweets


Regular readers will know that I think Woking Council's subsidy of curchgoers is ridiculous, illegal, and unfair. It's an issue I've raised with local councillor Carl Thomson in writing and on Twitter. A few days ago I entered into a discussion with him online about the issue. He has since deleted the tweets. But, as we know, the Internet has a long memory - so here they are. I've reordered a few to make our conversation clearer. None of my tweets have been deleted. It started when I saw…

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And THE LORD sayeth "Thou Shalt Give Free Parking To The Faithful"


Photo of a church in Woking.

My local council, Woking, have found themselves in a spot of bother recently. It has emerged that they are subsidising parking charges for specific Christians churches. If you belong to a different church, worship a different god, or just want to go shopping, you have to pay for parking. The total subsidy was at least £55,864 between 2009 and 2011, and is still rising. The National Secular Society took issue with this and, unsurprisingly, complained that this was blatant discrimination. …

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