"This manoeuvre is dangerous"

"Doing a wheelie can be dangerous. Do not attempt this manoeuvre."
The manual of my new wheelchair.

*Headdesk*, *Headdesk*, *Headdesk*.

It then gives three methods for getting up a kerb, all dependent on having an attendant who does every thing for you.

*Headdesk*

I mean i knew I'd been given the cheapest-of-the-cheap in lieu of actually giving me a proper assessment, but I really didn't expect the manual to be actively trying to mislead me. Of course teaching people to properly wheelie would mean actually teaching them how to use their chair in general, rather than just checking the footplates are about the right length and running....

Test Drive - Rochester

 So I took the chair into Rochester for a test-drive this afternoon as I needed to run a couple of errands (getting a new battery for my watch in particular).

Oh dear, cobbles to the left of him, cobbles to the right of him, and where it wasn't cobbles it was 'heritage' flagged pavement, so picture irregular flags with significant variation in surface height and smoothness, and mortared gaps between them big enough to grab your front castor and bring you to a stop. In fact if I park where I normally park, the pavement on one side of Minor Canon Row is too narrow for a chair due to a cunningly placed electrical junction box, and on the other has a foot high kerb (sadly that's not an exaggeration), so I had to wheel along the road. And when I got to the jewellers they had one of those old fashioned set-back doorways with a step up to it, so nothing to do but get out of the chair and haul it inside.

Given the state my shoulders were in by that point I abandoned the rest of the errands and headed back to the car, which turns out to be more uphill than I'd realised. I managed about half of it (so I'll have wheeled about 600m all told), but eventually my shoulders gave out and I had to do the rest of it using the chair as a walker. I knew Rochester was going to be a problem, but it's even more of a problem than I'd realised now that I'm looking at it from wheelchair height. I'm going to have to do the trip more often to build up upper body strength, but that isn't going to fix cobbled pavements and stepped entrances.

Fascinating Piece on Reviews and Diversity

Malinda Lo, one of the major voices behind We Need Diverse Books, has produced an essay looking at how US trade reviews (i.e. meant for booksellers, librarians etc rather than the general book-buying public) react to diversity. The examples are YA, as that's her field, but I suspect things are probably even worse in other genres. Some of the examples will definitely make you wince, and the suggestion of a 'diversity ceiling' - that major parts of the industry don't believe a book dealing with more than one minority is viable - is particularly disturbing. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in diversity, intersectionality and/or publishing.

Perceptions of Diversity in Book Reviews