There are 551,000 more people unemployed than there are available jobs. Clinicians are EXCEPTIONALLY resistant to the idea of providing routine medical appointments outside of working hours. Bus companies just shrug their shoulders as able-bodied mothers take over the lone wheelchair bay on each bus with their buggies, tourists yeet their wheeled suitcases into it, and bored teenagers sprawl there, because schools refuse to provide their own bus services, and bus companies are allowed to take more passengers than there are available seats. In the UK, there is an average of 37 reported hate crimes against disabled people every single day. That's an average of a crime against a disabled person every single hour of every single day. It's not an "epidemic of worklessness" - it's an epidemic of intolerance for anyone who isn't 100% "normal" and "on the ball" 100% of the time. It's an epidemic of intolerance for any period of absence, and a
One of the services we offer at The Productive Pessimist is public speaking, remotely or in person, both as sole speaker and as panel members. One of the topics we offer public speaking on is that of living car free. This topic is covered in depth by myself - Ash - and centred in the 20yrs I have been obliged to spend living car free, with half that time spent living in small villages in rural Norfolk , travelling up to 40miles each way for work, in full time employment. How It Started When I was 19, I took my third - and, as it turned out, final - driving test. I failed, and in such a way that I was referred for a fitness to drive sight test. I failed this, as well, with the commentary that my peripheral vision was very limited, and I therefore wasn't considered safe to drive. When I'd failed the driving test, I had a severe panic attack, and expressed to my instructor that "My parents are going to kill me" - I paid for my driving lessons , but my Dad paid for