On discrimination

Being a nice chap I took my mum to an exhibition in Birmingham she wanted to go to. Mum is registered blind, 'cos, well, she is technically blind, just too stubborn to admit to it. Said exhibition is full of gadgets to make the blind person's life easier.

Birmingham is a big city, with complicated roads. I'd much rather drive in London than Brum, it's that bad to get anywhere. But it's an exhibition for blind people... so they won't be driving cars... so we don't need to spend money putting out signs that say blind exhibition this way... they'll all just teleport in or something.

So we eventually got there, and it's rather busy. We go round the stalls and look at amazing* gadgets and aids. Only, there is something wrong... We must be wearing invisibility cloaks. Trying to find out information, prices, etc we are totally ignored.

Then I twigged it. We don't have a guide dog. Or a white cane. Therefore we aren't blind, and must be staff, and should be ignored because we're not people come to spend money. This of course is because of mum's stubborness / Dunkirk spirit etc, she won't admit she has a problem, and doesn't want to warn people in advance that she's a one woman destructive force.

The solution is thus obvious. You want help, give the table a sound kick and they will assume you're blind and just didn't see it and come to sell you something help you.

Not being a guide dog owner also means you don't know the euphemisms of guide dog ownership. It turns out "guide dog spending area" is not a good place to visit. We thought maybe something for dogs to spend their bonios on, but turns out it means "your dog can sh** here". Still, live and learn eh?

*amazing if you're an idiot designer who never even met a blind person evah! Grey letters on black keys may be stylish, but kind of fails in the easy to see department.