Football fever is back for July 2023 with the FIFA Women’s World Cup. We are all hoping the Lionesses can do the double and bring it home again. Away from the pitch, I’ve continued to write more content for Crip Life™, appeared as a guest on a podcast, had a brief trip to Bristol and watched a lot of disability-related TV shows.
Crip Life™
We’ve had another busy month at Crip Life™, producing content, attempting to secure more advertising and trying to spread the word to grow more traffic. Our main articles have included a review of Rosie Jones’ ableism documentary, a piece about the inclusive fashion TV show The Unique Boutique and a news story about the closure of train ticket offices across England.
You can browse all the articles we published this month on our July 2023 archive page.
We’d appreciate you getting involved and supporting Crip Life™ in any way you can. This can be done by subscribing to our monthly newsletter, following us on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & LinkedIn), advertising with us, publishing your research and/or donating to us.
Visit Crip Life™ and help us with dismantling disabling barriers one article at a time.
Guest on the lABLEd podcast
On Saturday 29th July, after multiple emails and several months of waiting, I was finally a guest on the lABLEd podcast, hosted by Lucy Wood and Alice Evans. We had a lively discussion about my work at Crip Life™ and Rock For Disability and a debate over Rosie Jones’ controversial documentary and the use of the R-word.
The episode will be available to listen to at the end of August/early September. In the meantime, do check out the rest of the lABLEd podcast collection wherever you get your podcasts.
Visit to Bristol
I managed to have a day out in Bristol and visit my friends Steph and Paul for the first time in months. Sadly the weather was shit and we kept getting caught in the rain. Nevertheless, it was nice to catch up and speak to someone other than parents and carers.
Football
As I mentioned above, the greatest football tournament has returned – the FIFA Women’s World Cup. For the past 10 days and the next three weeks, I’ll be watching two to four football matches a day – now that’s a true and dedicated football fan. The fact the competition is taking place in Australia and New Zealand means there are lot of early starts to try watch them live. However, I’m fortunate that if I miss a game, I can easily catch up on BBC iPlayer and ITVX.
Like I said last year after England’s historic Euros win, enjoying football is a lonely activity when you don’t have family and friends who love the beautiful game as I do. I understand not everyone has the time to watch every game, but that’s why we have catch up and highlight shows. I, of course, support England and want them to win but I love watching other teams and players too.
It irritates and upsets me that my parents (the people who introduced me to the sport) only have an interest in England at international tournaments and do not even want to watch them with me. Watching/attending sporting events should be sociable but apparently not in my house. Yes I need to sit closer to the TV and listen to the commentary more due to my poor vision but we can surely adapt the seating arrangement and chat between actions.
My biggest wish is for my parents to love football as I do and follow it as I do – Premiere League, EFL, WSL, NWSL The FA Cup, the League Cup, the EFL Trophy, UEFA Champions League and Internationals (friendlies, qualifiers & tournaments) and want to watch/attend matches with me. Not for me as my carer but as a true fan of the game.
If this is not possible, I’d rather they were honest and say they have no real interest and stop trying to take an interest for my benefit.
This may sound unreasonable and harsh but this plays on my mind a lot and upsets me, particularly during tournaments. We used to have football on all the time as kids and attended some matches but nowadays, I have to put up with the sounds of rugby, cricket, The One Show and Countryfile, and when football is on, I watch it by myself.
Fortunately, I have the virtual company of commentators, pundits, journalists, podcasts and TV shows that illustrate the true love of the game.
The action on the pitch so far has been a mixture of joy, disappointment, madness, chaos and confusion.
England has been a bit nervy in both games but glad to get 6 points on the table. The quality of the debutants and underdogs such as Haiti, the Philippines and Nigeria has been amazing and the new referee announcements is clever and gives added accessibility to blind fans.
I don’t have a prediction for a winner yet but my top four I think will be England, Germany, Brazil and Japan.
Also, I’m loving the official England Women song by HopeFC Call Me a Lioness. It’s so jolly and catchy and really emphasises how incredible this squad is. I hope every England fan will be singing it at the final when we get there!
Books
I finished the Harry Potter series for the trillionth time. I’ve now been reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. This is a prequel to The Hunger Games series. To be honest, I’ve not been enjoying it and finding it hard to follow. It is essentially about President Snow as a teenager being a mentor for a District 12 tribute in the tenth Hunger Games and the events that happen after these games. I think a film is due to be released so I may get a better understanding of the story if I watch it.
TV
Continuing the football chat, I’ve enjoyed watching Lionesses Down Under, hosted by Jill Scott and Kyle Walker live on Youtube, where they interview a different England player each day. I’ve also watched the first episode of Karen Carney’s Leaders of the Pack on ITV, where she has interviews with a different Lioness before they headed off to Australia.
Not deliberately, but I’ve watched quite a few disability-related TV shows and documentaries, all of which you can read about in my latest life & disability blog. These have included:
- Rosie Jones: Am I a R*tard?
- Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family
- Rose Ayling-Ellis: Signs for Change
- There She Goes
- Best Interests
Audio Description petition
My campaign for audio description has continued throughout July 2023 and the petition has now gained a total of 3680 signatures, which is incredible!
But I’m eager to reach thousands more. The more signatures we get, the more likely changes will be made within the TV and film industries. Please, please, PLEASE continue to sign & share my petition!
Guest Bloggers Wanted
For the first time in ages, I was fortunate enough to have two guest bloggers write for Rock For Disability and a potential third in the pipeline.
I’m still eager to collaborate with even more bloggers in 2023. So, if you’re a lifestyle, disability and/or music blogger, send me your blog stories. Plus let me know if you’d like me to feature on your blog as a guest blogger.
I’m flexible with any type of blog post – life story, disability awareness, music event, musician promotion – basically anything to do with life, disability or music!
In addition, I have a guest blog series called “RFD Question Time with…” where I interview disabled people and/or bloggers. If you’d like to be interviewed in this series, please also contact me.
Blog post roundup
In case you missed any of my blog posts this month, here is a roundup of them:
- Music Interview: Luna Kiss
- 8 TV shows to watch this Disability Pride Month
- Guest Blog: 6 disabled-friendly fitness options to keep fit and healthy
- Guest Blog: 6 tips to simplify the moving house process when you have an autistic child
- Vivienne Cure – ‘Without Me’ (Eminem Cover) | New song release
5 favourite blog posts
Here are my 5 favourite blog posts I’ve read this month:
- Adulthood – Next Step at The Life of Sophie
- Dealing With Sadness at New Lune
- Disability Pride Month NOT Inspirational Porn Month at Not So Terrible Palsy
- The emotional adjustment of getting a guide dog at Chloe Tear
- Testing the OrCam Read | AD at My Blurred World
