Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Thanks to those of you who have contacted me with details of your blogs, following my request to hear about other blogs from disabled people. So, ladies and gentlemen, be sure to click on , and - splendid blogs all!

I still reckon that there must be more 'crip-bloggers' out there on the web, though - so you should know the email address by now ... and in the meantime, don't forget to check out Crippled Monkey's Pick of the Blogs.

It's been a while since I've issued a request to readers of Crippled Monkey to let me know about any other weblogs by disabled people that exist out there in Wonderful World Wide Web land. I spend my days clicking around Google trying to hunt them down - but the results are disappointing, to say the least. There must be more of you out there, surely? And if you haven't got a blog yet, why not start one? It's dead easy to do, and you don't need to be a technical genius.

In the meantime, I've added a new page where I'll be keeping an updated list of 'crip-blogs' (that's a new word, see?) that I find and enjoy. Check 'em out - and then drop me a line to tell me about your weblog. Go on, you know you want to!

I love browsing strange online retail sites for the latest must-have items for disabled people ... and this time I've really come up trumps! A US store called - their slogan is "We Got Ya Covered!" - has a couple of items for sale that caught my attention. First, there's the : these are mainly intended for disabled people with mobility difficulties who like going out and shooting things. Made from a "soft, yet durable material", the description continues:

"These window rests are great for disabled hunters with a 'Shoot from the vehicle' permit. Makes for a nice soft spot to rest your gun on, and no worries."

But that's not all. You simply must check out the (scroll down the page for the details). Available in traditional camouflage or forest pattern colours, these stretch right down to the wheelbase, thereby allowing the armed and deadly wheelchair hunter to successfully fool all the animals they're about to shoot into thinking that they're not really there!

At this point, I'm tempted to say "only in America" - but then I might upset some of our transatlantic visitors, so I won't. However, Crippled Monkey would like to remind Ouch readers that you need a licence to have a gun, and that they're very dangerous too, innit?

Professor Stephen Hawking - the man whom, lest we forget, Ouch readers voted their Greatest Disabled Briton in 2003 - is selling his hot air balloon basket. How do we know this tantalising fact? Because he's advertising it on the front page of his , that's how! (Monkey's note to Ouch's editor: we really must start putting our own personal ads on the Ouch homepage).

The hot air balloon basket is obviously completely accessible to wheelchairs, having been specially designed by, er, balloon basket-making experts. You can even look at of Professor Hawking enjoying a flight. Unfortunately, there's no asking price quoted, but I'm very tempted to make an offer. I've always dreamed of being a flying monkey, soaring majestically over the countryside below.

Last Sunday, London's Criterion Theatre played host to the final of J20's Last Laugh competition, a nationwide search for new comedy talent. The big news is that it was won by a blind stand-up comic called Chris McCausland, a 26-year-old salesman who hails from Liverpool (a city famed for its comedy heritage). With a routine that included comments on the irony of a blind man doing observational comedy, Chris beat five other promising stand-up comics to win a prize of Β£1,000, a contract with Jongleurs comedy clubs and the chance to perform at New York's Comedy Strip. Sounds like he could be a big name for the future.

Look, don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm obsessed with sex. Because I'm not, really. It's just that these minor league celebrities will keep getting up to - well, you know - in disabled toilets. And invariably I find them 'at it' when I've had a few pints and am desperate to answer a call of nature.

The latest dubious celeb to have indulged in such depraved practices is TV star (well, that's what it says here) Jodie Marsh. You can read the whole story in the newspaper (although if you're young and impressionable, please don't click on the link). Apparently Jodie and her 'friend' may have used the sink at one point - remember that the next time you go to wash your hands before leaving.

If you're a celebrity who's done unmentionable things in a disabled toilet, why not drop me a line and explain your reasons for making a fit-to-burst crip wait outside? On second thoughts - don't.

Are you a talented disabled film-maker who fancies a trip to Australia? (Well, OK, if we're honest, we can't necessarily promise the trip to Australia).

Ouch has been contacted by , Australia's first disability film festival, which is taking place in Melbourne between 3-5 December this year. Apart from wanting to tell us about the event, they're also on the look-out for entries. Works should be on film or high-quality video, and the finished production should embrace the theme of "by, with or about people with disabilities". And no, you don't have to be an Aussie to take part.

So if you fancy a bit of the old "lights, camera, action!" check out the festival's for more details, and to download an entry form.

A few months back, when the comedy series Little Britain debuted on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ THREE, it provoked a lot of comment on Ouch's messageboard - some of it positive, some of it negative - because of the characters Lou and Andy, who is a wheelchair user.

According to the free newspaper Metro, the comic creations of David Walliams and Matt Lucas are now being held responsible for an increase in wheelchair thefts from hospitals across the country. A spokesman said, "People parody the Andy and Lou sketch and send in pictures of themselves dressed up."

Pah! Young people today, eh? This never happened in the days of Ironside, did it?

So Crippled Monkey's advice is to guard your wheelchair with your life. These heartless thieves must be stopped.

Monkey likes to surf all over the web and read all sorts of things. It's interesting that the world's press seem to largely treat disabled people in the same way.

Chinese news website are currently carrying a disability story entitled , which I found rather interesting because of the total lack of story in there. It's pathetic though that what I mainly like in this article is the bad Chinese-to-English translation; it made me laugh out loud. Oh, and the fact that he went to Inner Mongolia Normal University. Normal, of course, is the opposite of disabled, innit?

Once upon a time, kids, and not all that long ago, the in Hereford used to be known as the Royal Normal College. If you read up on its though, you find it's not quite so weird.

I tell ya, time in the Ouch! office simply flies by sometimes.

A few weeks ago we ran an item about the excellent New York based Crutchmaster, a disabled performance artist. We love his work and urge you to go and look at his .

However, it seems that Crutchmaster wasn't completely happy with Crippled Monkey. We know this cos he wrote to us. To redress the balance, we are now publishing a few extracts from the email he sent us:

"your Crippled Monkey / Disability is The New Rock and Roll Campaign has added my stage moniker and dance competition title to the fray, which is all in good fun to me. Your criticism that the site is not friendly to text readers is also fair and will be addressed when I find the time for some organization like the nice Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ to pay for it to get modified. In the meantime it will stay as it is, as we artists in NY fight like hell for every f****ng penny.

Nowhere on my site do I describe disabled people as 'Cream of Cripples' or 'The Drool Factor'. The way you have written it, it sounds as if I am using the terms to describe disabled people directly. The section those terms are written about in is called "What Is", and what I write about in that section are the use of such terms, how they are used, what they refer to etc. This section is about information on a given set of terminology, not me calling people the terms. so take your punk ass back to that drivel laden keyboard and get your s*** correct. There now, give daddy a hug.

I always expect fine upstanding mainstream sponsored disability awareness oriented sites such as yours (yay! go team. be edgy) to do their research before defining another person's disability in print. However' once again your curious George on tilt ass people couldn't get it right. It is written on my site in plain uncomplimicated English that I do not currently have Legg-Calve-Perthes disease but that I do have a bone deformity.

Perthes only effects children. I'm all grown up now. So you [very long string of F-words edited out, essentially he said we screwed up] and what's worse you have joined my massive collection of d***cheese-whizzes that got it wrong. People who write about me wrong make me f***ing sick to my stomach. The only reason I am even writing you is because you might have an inkling of how it feels. So go back to that dried snot-coated underbelly of a desk and get typing.

In closing, I would like to share with you bitches that I would expect better of such an intelligently written and aesthetically astute site such as Crippled Monkey. Thanks in advance.

Yours truly - the master of your piddly little crotch of nothing.

PS: I am a happy person. Mostly."

OK, so listen up, everyone. Crutchmaster has bone deformity as a result of the aforementioned, but now no longer has the aforementioned because he's an adult. I hope we have got this fully straight now, and that Crutchmaster may start to be a little happier as a result.

(Um, we think this was a good-natured email from him ... what do you think?)