Guess what??!! The car broke down again last night. The same problem as last time, no battery and just wouldn’t start. I think quite rightly I have ranted on this recurring subject. However I promised myself this website would not let me get too down or angry but be explanatory yet positive of the trials and tribulations I go through. The quick update is that it has gone to a different garage who I hope will sort this once and for all by the end of the week. Taxis to get to work until then.
What I do want to do is an overarching blog on transport bouncing off of an interesting book I’m reading. Its by Ben Elton called Gridlocked and was recommended by my aunty Diane and her boyfriend Dave at Sibfest. Very quickly Sibfest was the name given by work colleagues to the family gathering I attended Saturday. Beyond this my weekend was minimal due to feeling under par. Diane and Dave have ME and a guest blog on the subject is coming soon.
So without ruining or spoiling the book, it is a thriller about the head of a motor company wanting to kill an inventor for their new invention that could kill the entire road industry. The twist is the inventor has cerebral palsy and the reason for the invention is to win the love of a girl who was put in a wheelchair due to a car hitting her. The invention will allow her to be more mobile.
The point is while the book is well written, with a great plot and hilariously funny, it also explains disability so well. For example the way getting a wheelchair on a bus results in people staring the way you do at a person holding you up at the supermarket checkout while they write a check (the same is when I am carried on planes too). Also how taxis are just hit and miss if they stop, but then the tube! He looks at this as a parallel to apartheid in South Africa, which sounds way OTT. However when you look that a citizen of the UK cannot access the main form of transport in the capital city it is incredulous. Realism says that there’s money and physical limitations to changing the Victorian underground. Flip side is even if it takes 100 years we should seek to practically stop this basic form of segregation.
Outlining these issue here does not show the humour and vigour of the book. Please do read it! It does show my car breaking stresses me much more. It is my lower stressed route to everywhere. Any other transport thoughts, please do share…
