People’s Assembly: a review
Yesterday the People's Assembly Against Austerity, which has been holding "rallies" (I'd call them meetings, rather than rallies which I always thought were held in the street or at least in the open) around...
Category: Reviews
Women and Asperger’s syndrome: make-up is not compulsory
The Asperkid’s (Secret) Book of Social Rules: The Handbook of Not-So-Obvious Social Guidelines for Tweens and Teens with Asperger Syndrome – book information – Jessica Kingsley Publishers I recently came across the above title...
There’s no “war” on Britain’s roads
Last Wednesday there was a programme on BBC1 called “The War on Britain’s Roads”, which was based on footage shot from cyclists’ helmets, and included various encounters with dangerous drivers and cyclists and confrontations...
Review: Fy Chwaer a Fi (My Sister and I) on S4C
S4/Clic O’r Galon: Fy Chwaer a Fi S4C is a Welsh-language TV channel that only broadcasts in Wales, although you can get it on satellite (not cable) and online, and it offers subtitling of...
Review: ITV’s “Don’t Hate Us”
ITV Player: Tonight — Don’t Hate Us Last Thursday ITV broadcast a documentary on the rise in hate crimes against people with disabilities which has occurred since the coalition government came to power and...
Netroots 2012: a review
I found out about Netroots 2012 through a tweet by Sue Marsh, one of the main authors of the Spartacus Report, earlier in the week and decided to go, more or less on the...
Ukraine: BBC exposes abuse of disabled and slave labour
BBC iPlayer: Ukraine’s Forgotten Children (viewable in UK only until 28th June); more here Last night (Monday), the BBC broadcast a 90-minute exposé on the state of care for orphans and disabled people in...
Review: Acer Aspire 5733Z
Last Saturday I bought a new laptop, a purchase made necessary by the fact that my old laptop had given up the ghost after just over four years. I had been using that for...
Brief review: Derek
Derek is Ricky Gervais’s latest TV outing and one which has caused some controversy among journalists and even among disability activists online, with some claiming that Derek is a parody of someone with a...
Monckton ignores the elephant in the room
Last night BBC1 aired a programme, Letting Go (available until 20th March in the UK), presented by Rosa Monckton, one-time friend of Princess Diana and whose daughter Domenica, god-daughter of Diana, has Down’s syndrome....
Review: Keith Allen meets Nick Griffin
Keith Allen Meets Nick Griffin – 4oD – Channel 4 Keith Allen has previously done a programme in which he interviewed what he called “the God Hates Fags sect in Topeka, Kansas”, and whose...
Review: Proud and Prejudiced
Proud and Prejudiced on Channel 4 (available to watch for another month at the time of writing) Proud and Prejudiced featured Saiful-Islam, one of the public speakers of the group commonly called Al-Muhajiroun, a...
Review: Stacey Dooley on Luton’s fanatics
BBC Three – My Hometown Fanatics: Stacey Dooley Investigates Stacey Dooley is presented as someone who was plucked from working as a shop assistant at a perfume counter at Luton airport to presenting an...
Review: Voices from the Shadows, British Library, London
A German version of this review can be found here. Yesterday I finally got to see Voices from the Shadows, a documentary about severe ME produced and directed by the same people that produced...
The Bowes-Lyons at Earlswood: “a peg to hang it on”
TV review: The Queen's Hidden Cousins; Waking Up To Insomnia; Symphony | Television & radio | The Guardian Last night I saw a documentary on Channel 4 titled The Queen's Hidden Cousins (that is...
BBC bashes benefit claimants two weeks running
I’m a little late writing about this, but I watched John Humphries’ programme on BBC2, The Future State of Welfare, a few days after it was broadcast (I was working a night shift the...
A ghoulish hobby
Last night I watched a programme on BBC Three titled "Stormchaser: the Butterfly and the Tornado", about a woman with EB (a skin condition) who goes storm-chasing in America. (You can watch it on...
Sri Lanka: who makes the rules of war?
Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields – 4oD – Channel 4 Last week I saw a programme on Channel 4, broadcast late at night (no doubt because it contains footage of people being killed), which purports...
Guest Post: my review of One Last Goodbye
Same Difference: review of One Last Goodbye by Kay Gilderdale I wrote a review of Kay Gilderdale’s memoir of living with and caring for her daughter Lynn (also Jessie), who suffered from ME very...
Waterloo Road: how much protection does a 17-year-old need?
Yesterday, the last in the present series of Waterloo Road, the BBC school soap, aired, and it featured the climax of two separate stories, that of Denzil and his death-defying stunts which nearly killed...