more Brizzle

proper dog!

As Charlie said in the previous post about the Bristol accent, with its suffixed 'l',

Diana Wynne Jones in one of her books tells of a Bristol woman whose daughters were called Norma, Eva and Ida - hence, Normal, Evil and Idle...

...which reminds me of a story of a couple of students discussing post-graduation plans, while they were at the pub.

One of them announced their intention to work with VSO in Africa.

"'Ere, you don't want to go there," said the landlord. "Africal's a malarial areal."

speaking Brizzle

Listening to Arthur Smith on R4 a moment ago, talking about the "North South divide", got me thinking of regional accents. I spent my early years in Lancashire but there isn't much trace of that in my accent now. At least, I don't think there is. I worry quite a lot about my voice, because I want to be able to 'pass' on the phone; it's a nuisance sometime when I'm gendered male in telephone conversations.

I find that if I consciously put on a northern accent, my voice deepens; if, on the other hand, I adopt a Valleys accent (the South Wales valleys, you understand) the pitch of my voice goes up quite a lot. But I don't want a Valleys accent, thank you very much. So I continue with my voice exercises and slowly saunter up the gently sloping foothills of pitch....

Anyway, Bristol has a very distinctive accent. Though, like so many regional accents, it's not as distinctive as it used to be, what with people being more mobile these days, and watching television lots. I once asked a barmaid where her accent came from; she had a curious rising intonation at the end of her sentences, and sounded Austalian.

"Bristol," she said, evidently wondering how I could be so stupid.

Discussing this with a chap who worked in the Oxfam bookshop once, he told this story of a fellow Bristolian he'd met in the Far East during the war. As happens at times like this, they were swapping experiences of their shared city, and the fellow Bristolian said, "Go on then, what part of Brizzle am I from?"

My friend thought a bit and said, "Old Market?"

"Nooooooo!", he said, as though my friend was mad; "Lawrence Hill!"

As you can see from this map, the two locations are a few hundred yards apart....


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finding something worse

shut up and do as I say!

You may recall my ongoing correspondence with the British Library, about where books concerning transsexual people belong in the Dewey Decimal System, and where the condition of transsexuality itself belongs in that system - at the moment, it lives in the Sexual Orientation grouping, which is so obviously wrong that I wonder how the heck it got there in the first place. Along the way I learned a useful new word, ontology, which for our purposes here can be described as the way we organise and categorise things; or, as is often the case, 'experts' organise and categorise things, including, apparently, me. SteveL kindly provided a link to Clay Shirky's essay on the faults of ontology, which elegantly expresses the failings and limitations of this system.

Meanwhile, in the (slightly) wider world, there is trouble brewing over the medical categorisation of transsexuality. It exists (sort of) in DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the standard textbook cited in treatment. In that edition, it is described as 302.85, Gender Identity Disorder. Now, the next edition, DSM-V, is due to come out in 2012, and working groups are already working out what they think needs changing. And there are plenty of people who are unhappy about pathologising their condition by classifying it as a mental illness. On the other hand, the fact that it is classified in this way provides transsexual people with an access to medical and surgical services.

Now, it seems that there is a movement called Stop Trans Pathologisation 2012, and, using this umbrella term, someone called Dennis Hambridge has called for a demonstration outside Whitehall next week. And he's got a Facebook page for the occasion. Now, some people have expressed concerns about this call for de-recognition of a condition without proposing anything to take its place. And Mr Hambridge's response has been to delete their comments and ban them from the group. He evidently thinks that, as a cisgendered (a term he himself rejects) gay male, he knows better than us what is good for transsexual people. And, apparently, what is good for us is challenging the gender binary

Being transgendered is not a mental illness. We are simply part of the diversity of humanity. Gender Identity Disorder is therefore not a valid diagnosis. Homosexuality we removed as a mental health diagnosis diagnosis in 1987. For us to achieve true liberation and recognition we need to throw off this unjust stigma. We are not ill, just different

...Every day, almost everywhere around the world, Transexual, Transgender, Intersex people face violence, abuse, rape, torture and hate crimes. The only motive : they are not conforming to social stereotypes about the way they should appear and behave in society as men or women.
...Far from protecting Trans citizens, States and International bodies reinforce social transphobia through short sighted negligence or reactionary politics: To have their preferred gender identity recognised by society, if at all possible, they have to undergo forced sterilization or other major surgery. Yet, States do little to ensure Trans people get proper access to the health care they want or need. Adding insult to injustice, the World Health Organisation still classifies them as « mentally disordered ».

(My bold). It's hard to pin down what makes me uncomfortable about this, but that business of 'enforced sterilisation' reminds me of Julie Bindel's flawed critique, characterising us as 'survivors' of the 'sex change industry'. I get a feeling that Mr Hambridge wants us to be genderqueers in his brave new world, in the creation of which, apparently we are welcome as foot soldiers, but only if we ask no questions.

By the way, spelling is evidently not Mr Hambridge's strong point, and I notice that the umbrella Facebook group STOP Trans and Intersexual Pathologisation goal 2012 has several officers who describe themselves as 'trans rights proffesionals'. Sock puppets? Who knows?

Here is a link to RozK's description of her dealings with Mr Hambridge, and here is a link to Auntysarah's thoughts on the matter, for good measure.

Anyway, I'm certainly not going to be joining in the proposed demonstration. I may be unhappy about the DSM-IV classification, but until we come up with a good alternative solution, I'd rather stay at home than argue myself out of official existence. As Hilaire Belloc said, Always keep a-hold of Nurse, for fear of finding something worse. And yes, there can be something slightly infantilising about jumping through hoops for the medical profession, but it got me where I needed to be, and I met some good people along the way.

little van man

the library door

My doctor was right when he reckoned I'd have a week of pain from the rib. By yesterday it was more bearable and I was aching (as it were) to get back on the bike. So I went down to the library.

Coming home, I was riding along Durdham Park, which is a useful route home for me, being relatively quiet and more direct than the main road.


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As you can see, it's quite windy and usually parked-up on both sides for a lot of the way. So when cars come too fast around the corners, as they often do, and meet other cars, they end up having to reverse again, or, equally likely, sit there and face down the other driver.

A van came up behind me. It came quite close behind me, in fact, and started gunning the engine to express the driver's impatience to get past me.

So I stopped and got off. I motioned for him to wind his window down. He wouldn't. I said, "There isn't room for you to overtake safely, so will you please stop revving your engine at me".

He looked all sulky, and forced his way past me.... to be held up immediately by a taxi going head-to-head with another car. When they moved, he pulled into the kerb, because he had arrived at his destination, about a hundred feet ahead of the place that he'd been so keen to get past me.

He got out. He looked very small, unprotected by his little van.

"What's your problem?" he shouted.

"Arseholes in cars," I replied. " I got knocked off only last week".

"I wouldn't knock you off", he said in a peculiarly nasty way.

"Meaning...?"

"I wouldn't knock you off," he repeated in a dubious way, presumably because his remark had fallen on stony ground. And then he returned to the mobile phone conversation he'd been conducting throughout this encounter.

I think it was some sort of sexual innuendo, thinking back. Wasted on me. Just as, apparently, my suggestion that he should not drive dangerously was wasted on him.

Alabaster Thomas

There's never enough time, is there? -today is National Poetry Day, and apparently the theme is Heroes and Heroines. So expect to see gossiping shoppers swapping sestinas, commuters quickly composing haiku, mechanics mouthing sonnets under bonnets. Heroically.

Or something.

My poem that I've been working on is still unfinished, but here it is, because when I put it up on the blog it will take up a life of its own and almost certainly sprout a good final verse. It's based on an encounter I had over in Wales last month.

"But what one will remember about New Bethel is the crowd of monuments in the BURIAL GROUND, and in particular the presumptuous memorial to James Thomas 1901, bearing a statue which overtops the chapel roof”

John Newman, Buildings of Wales: Gwent/Monmouthshire

Alabaster Thomas

Startlingly luminous there in the evening sunshine,
Mr Alabaster Thomas towers high above the tombs,
His haughty gaze fixed north to Pen y Fan on the horizon
Across New Bethel's rooftop cast in crepuscular gloom.

St Tudor's congregation saunter up to Mynyddislwyn;
Or sheep, come down for shearing, clatter down upon their way.
His gaze remains averted; other flocks are all alike to him
Intent to watch his chapel folk until the Judgement Day.

The crowded graves below him are both even and gregarious;
Grey Pennant slabs that huddle in the lee of the high wall.
Although his lofty pedestal is draughty and precarious
He scorns to turn his collar up and fears not the fall.

He has seen the hilltop slagheaps spread and grow above the pitheads
And the coal that fuelled an empire go to Newport Docks by rail
And the grass that spread and blanketed the slagheaps and the sidings
And the fires of Blackwood's foundries flare, and flicker out, and fail.

Rust upon the iron railings, creeping ivy on the masonry;
The roots of rosebay willowherb caress the resting skull;
The worms by now have long since tried that long-asserted dignity
Where the mouse that eats the blackberry takes refuge from the owl.

With the setting of the sun departs the glow of Alabaster-
He's just a deeper shadow now against the wheeling of the Plough.
Cars on the dual carriageway bring shoppers home from Asda
For dinner with the telly on then up the pub for after,
Time please, then car doors slamming, and the sound of distant laughter;
Then silence, and we say "Goodnight - but just for now..."


by the way, thanks to the wonder that is Street View, you can stand next to the chapel. But you won't see the sunset that Alabaster and I saw

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The Coffee Thrush

The latest book that I've illustrated is fresh back from the printers. It's The Coffee Thrush, by Geraldine Taylor, and it's a sort of adventures-in-birdwatching book, which is a really bad description. More 'stories of what life is like when birds play a big part in your life'. Here's a flavour:

One of these mornings

You’re going to rise up singing

November 2008

Sunrise. Three dog walkers and I stand round this ivy covered ash, listening to the commanding phrases of a song thrush, in the way that people once gathered around bushes containing nightingales.

Early one morning in February, I was passing a bush just as the song thrush in it started to sing. The bird warmed up with a loud medley sung from the roots; then it rose up through the branches, singing with thrilling sharpness.

I talk to the birds, ask how they are doing, encourage them along. Sometimes they react with clucky exasperation or by jumping in the air, but often they continue singing while I listen and watch. They are not singing for me, of course, though my heart finds this impossible to accept. Also, as a therapist, I find myself trying to make a relationship with everything I see.

The Bird of Perfect Summers

May 2009

Meadow now, in Ashton Court Estate where the bird song is as thrilling as the morning: skylarks on scramble, rising up singing; goldfinches ringing like bells on blossomy hawthorns; willow warblers in small corners, tiptoeing into song.

The willow warbler is the bird of perfect summers, now and long ago. Their dainty song melts our hearts. Nature writers write lyrically about these little green birds, and birdwatchers speak of them with great affection. I wish I could know willow warblers as individuals like the Coffee Thrush or the Observatory Robins.

I wonder, for example, if the length of their song varies between individuals: although I have reservations about turning up in the meadow with a stopwatch to time them. What is it like to hear willow warblers in the dawn chorus? Can they hover like sparrows and blue tits?

Sparrows and other small birds can hover like hummingbirds for short periods. I’ve seen a sparrow hover for over a minute to catch flies under a garage roof: once, I saw a robin attempt this, less successfully. Sometimes blackbirds hover for a second or two and this is usually the product of indecision. Blue tits include a hover in their fussy flying pattern – land on one branch, take off and hover; land on another, take off and hover, and so on. It’s pretty to watch, especially around hazel bushes in the sunshine.





Here's a link to the other pictures in the book, and if you'd like the book, then it's £5 including postage from EYE ON BOOKS, 28 Berkeley Road, Westbury Park, Bristol BS6 7PJ. Cheques made payable to Geraldine Taylor.

the freewheelin' Dru Marland

Thank you, everyone who has commented and messaged me after my little prang the other day. I've been a bit goofy and disorganised - things seem a little unreal after something like that happens - and it's about time to Pull Myself Together and get on with things. I'm doing stuff about the incident in question, but that's behind the scenes at the moment.

Onwards and upwards!