Sunday 30 November 2014

EPILEPSY: Epilepsy, Language and Political Correctness

Everyone seems to know the rules when it comes to other forms of disability but what could cause offence to an epileptic?


Well, for a start calling someone an epileptic is not the done thing anymore – that’s sufferer of epilepsy to you.  But I don’t blame you if you didn’t know, I didn’t until researching this post.  But I don’t think it is offensive in the same way that calling (for instance) someone a cripple could be.  And generally speaking I don’t think epilepsy has such a clear cut equivalent.


My epilepsy sometimes worries people when I mention I have it.  Because it is not something that people know a great deal about it tends to put people outside of their comfort zone.  Sometimes I see panic creep into someone’s face if it comes up in conversation and they realise they don’t know what to say about it.  Quite often the urban myths and misinformation that are more famous than facts rush to the surface, and common comments tend to be of the “Ah, so you have to be careful around flashing lights then do you?” variety.  But there aren’t many words that someone would say in conversation that would have me intervening to say “Excuse me, I suffer from epilepsy and find that offensive.” 

Brainstorm - Bad?


Thought-shower - Good?
The closest there is to an offensive word connected with epilepsy in common usage is ‘brainstorm’.  Brainstorm originally meant – according to Wikipedia – “a state of temporary insanity”, which is presumably why it is deemed offensive.  Offensive, that is, if it’s used to describe a seizure.  But I have never heard this usage before, and I suspect most people haven’t.  It was, apparently, quite common in the 19th century, but hasn’t been in this context for a very long time.  Brainstorm now ‘means’ throwing ideas around and I’m willing to bet most people aren’t aware of this other usage.  Sporadically, overcautious but well-meaning organisations will suggest replacing the term brainstorm with ‘thought-shower’ in their meetings.  I am all for political correctness - I really am, I think on the whole political correctness is an attempt to make sure language is inclusive.  But trying to replace ‘brainstorm’ as a term is just tilting at windmills.  It’s also overwhelmingly considered non-offensive by people with epilepsy in studies.  In fact it causes offensive in its own way because it suggests that epileptics (or, sufferers of epilepsy) have skins as thick as a sheet of paper. 

This leads into a larger issue – people are less likely to be offended by specific words than they are by the way that they are spoken to or treated.  As someone memorably tweeted me, “I don't get annoyed by jokes and such. What irks me are those that think I've the IQ of a turnip because I'm epileptic.”  Exactly.  Words and jokes without any malicious intent are absolutely fine by me – something much more likely to really annoy or upset is, for instance, someone talking about me as if I’m not there when I’m coming round from a seizure.  There isn’t really that much in terms of language which is specifically and of itself offensive to people with epilepsy, the thing that will cause offense is ignorance and and ignorant behaviour, which is not unique to epilepsy or even to any disability but which is something that anyone in any minority group has to deal with at some point in their lives.  Actions speak louder than words, and I’d rather be treated respectfully and sympathetically and hear myself described as ‘being epileptic’ or ‘having a brainstorm’ than be spoken down to or ignored.

Oddly in a way, the terms which have been deemed as being most potentially offensive regarding epilepsy are the names given to seizures within the medical community until relatively recently – Grand Mal and Petit Mal.  These terms translate roughly from French as ‘Great Evil’ and ‘Small Evil’ which is certainly outdated and unsophisticated.  Grand Mal seizure were how seizures involving convulsions were described, and Petit Mal referred to seizures where people ‘zone out’ etc.  But it strikes me that these terms were phased out more because they were completely inadequate to keep up with the advances in epilepsy research over the last 50 years or so.  Over 20 different types of seizure have been identified to date, some relatively common and some much more obscure, but clearly an upgrade in language would have been necessary regardless of any potential inappropriateness of meanings. 

Of course, my cultural perspective is as someone living in a Western, first world country.  In some countries, the idea of epilepsy being to do with the literal seizure of someone’s mind by demons persists. I suppose in such cultures the descriptions of the condition as involving Great Evils or Small Evils might seem a sophisticated way of describing it, as in some countries there is no word for it.  The UK generally speaking might be ill-informed when it comes to epilepsy, but it is also aware of it as a mental health condition and not a spiritual malady.  Which is definitely a good start.

To end, a Medieval description of epilepsy before the word epilepsy was coined was ‘The Falling Sickness’.  I rather like the idea of having ‘The Falling Sickness’ – it sounds quite quaint and makes it sound as if my main problem is tripping over my feet all the time, like a cross between having a neurological disorder and being Norman Wisdom…

With thanks to @themockedturtle for their tweet.  For more information about epilepsy, please visit the Epilepsy Society and Epilepsy Action websites.

Saturday 15 November 2014

STAGE: Tom Stoppard's Arcadia - Nottingham Playhouse

Arcadia is Tom Stoppard’s play currently on at the Nottingham Playhouse.  It is a brilliant production and very funny and thought-provoking.  The thing that comes across most strongly is the importance of the arts and literature and how these relate to the sciences.

The play uses the device of switching between the early 19th century and the present day, and features a cast of characters in both worlds which represent in some shape or form the arts.  

Byron also haunts the 19th century plot offstage, an invisible trickster who represents genuine poetic talent and remains aloof.  The poet who we do see onstage, Ezra Chater is not aloof – he is the anti-Byron in fact, a nervous cuckold desperate for the recognition of his peers.  He lacks talent and isn’t interested in poetry as a way of examining some unknown truth but as a way to do well.  He turns out to be a botanist, and not very good at that either.

Arcadia is Tom Stoppard’s play ending tonight at the Nottingham Playhouse.  It is a brilliant production and very funny and thought-provoking.  The thing that comes across most strongly is the importance of the sciences and how these relate to the arts and literature.

In the 21st century, literature is represented not by poets but by academics portrayed as detectives of the past.  Bernard Nightingale is the career academic who doesn’t care about discovering the truth unless it gets him in the papers, and this aspect of his character parallels Chater’s.  Spotting the parallels between the two settings is where much of the fun and the comedy of the play comes from. A lot also comes from Nightingale himself who is a brilliant buffoon who gets his comeuppance and is brilliantly played by David Bark-Jones.

The play uses the device of switching between the present day and the early 19th century, and features a cast of characters in both worlds which represent in some shape or form the sciences.  The tutor Septimus Hodge and his pupil Thomasina Coverly have inquiring minds and enjoy exploring ideas (well, Septimus enjoys it as a break from sleeping with the ladies of the house).  Through the eyes of Thomasina something like mathematics feels like exciting new territory to be explored.

So, by the present day, literature has become something that needs decoding like a maths puzzle – indeed something where the lives of authors overshadows their works to a certain extent.  This difference in perception is conveyed in a wonderful detail of direction – in the past, the signed manuscript of Chater’s worthless poem is pawed by the characters with unconscious disdain.  In the present it is handled by Nightengale and Hannah Jarvis (his more reasonable, less self-serving equivalent) with delicacy and reverence. 

In the 21st century the sciences are mainly represented by Valentine, a man who while not exactly cynical about mathematics is currently frustrated by the subject – he has found Thomasina’s exercise book from 200 years ago and has become mildly obsessed with understanding it.  Maths isn’t new territory to be explored in his mind but, like an obscure poem, a code from the past to be cracked.

His explanations of algorithms, of recurring patterns that emerge when examining a specific group of figures sums up what is happening in the play very nicely.  Everything between the two worlds seems apart but then parallels begin to be drawn and soon patterns within both eras emerge that are so similar they can completely merge.  The past begins to interact with the present literally and obliviously as if life is some mathematical equation which reminded me of Douglas Adams’ work.  I would say the work of fiction most similar to Arcadia is Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency with its blend of comedy and inquisitive interest in science).

By the end of the play, Valentines explanation of how nature moves in traceable algorithms is paralleled by the modern and old worlds integrated in a form of organised chaos – there is a conversation going on and by closing ones eyes to who is actually talking it becomes perfectly coherent.  The present is always, painfully, going to die at the hands of the present, Et In Arcadia Ego.  The party that ends the modern part of the play will end because death is present even in ArcadiaThomasina’s death at the age of 17 is tossed away as a piece of trivia in the present, she too was once an Arcadian.  This chaos is moving and feels like it comes from our knowledge that these lines that seemingly interact with each other over the centuries, and I can safely say it is the first time I have been moved so much by something so firmly rooted in the intellectual and also the first time I have been made to think so much about the root of emotion in the theatre.


Sunday 9 November 2014

TV: Doctor Who - Season 8 Finale 'Death In Heaven'

‘Death In Heaven’ was quite frustrating but at the end of it all enjoyable, which is the absolute best you can hope for from a Doctor Who finale.  One of the joys of New Who is the masochistic delight of the last episode of a season not living up to the expectations raised by a brilliant penultimate episode (along with lots of hints dropped throughout the series…) 


This year’s penultimate episode was especially creepy – some nice cyber-steampunk ideas used to segue into scenes of modern Cybermen partying like it’s 1969 all over again.  And then the brilliant reveal of Missy as being The Master gone – yep, I know! – Glaswegian.  Oh, and she’s a woman now too as well.  It gelled together really well in its own right and felt like a story sure of itself enough go at its own pace. 


But, as in finales of all the other series of Doctor Who the ending of the season went at a breakneck speed, didn’t all make a lot of sense and the pacing was firmly back into kitchen sink territory.  Not all necessarily for the bad, either.  The bulk of the episode felt like a more or less
"Those UNIT guys get all the best lines..."
equal balance of set pices that worked and ones that didn’t.  Throwing in UNIT as padding into a story that really didn’t need any padding immediately felt like a mistake as it completely changed the pacing.  I know that the season’s loose (make that ‘very loose’) theme has been, essentially, ‘The Doctor doesn’t like soldiers but is a bit like them in some ways, but won’t admit it, or at least doesn’t want to, at least, not just yet.’ But when you’ve got a female Master and Cybermen from the Graveyard, UNIT and its characters are going to be the most boring part of your story by default, and in introducing them you’ve just lost about a third of your screen time to them instead of the interesting bits – own goal.

Sure enough, the UNIT parts of the episode felt like the weakest throughout. Having Kate Lethbridge-Stewart murdered by Missy was very gutsy and showed that the stakes were being considerably raised by the producers in terms of storytelling.  So having her turn out not to be dead but in fact rescued by her Dad in Cyberman form was a disappointment as well as being a rather mawkish one.  The scenes where Cybermen started to emerge from the graves was an extremely effective scene.  When the Cybermen flew around like The Amazing Rocket Men From Mondas they looked a bit daft though.  It was effectively chilling seeing Danny as a burnt out emotional wreck; seeing him give a rousing speech to his fellow Cybermen seemed completely overdone, unless it was intended as a satire on those kind of speeches in war films…  I don’t think it was though. 

Missy was brilliant – basically, a psychotic Mary Poppins – and a sex-change hasn’t changed the brilliantly crap quality of The Master’s Dastardly Schemes.  But then she was shot and it was all over apart from a brilliant scene of The Doctor and Clara lying through their back teeth at each other.

Whenever there’s a finale in Doctor Who, there’s a good chance it won’t be satisfying because it never really has been – the closest a finale has come to having a really satisfying ending is probably 2006’s ‘Doomsday’, but there a lot of the plot-holes could be papered over by showing Daleks and Cybermen together!  At the same time!  And the fact that the increasingly smug Rose was going! 

The year before, there was all the ‘Bad Wolf’ stuff that had building up to a conclusion - bookies were taking bets on what it all meant, but I think “That Billie Piper having sucked in all of time and space after opening bits of the TARDIS she shouldn’t have” wouldn’t have been a favourite.  In fact, they papered over Bad Wolf not having a proportionately satisfying ending by having The Doctor regenerate.  The wrapping up of the ‘Bad Wolf’ mystery is a bit convoluted and on its own manages to feel a bit like a cop out without being one, setting the tone for a lot of future series endings. 

The year after had the Magic CGI Monkey Doctor Thingy turn into a sort of Cosmic Jesus through the power of prayer, making The Doctor’s solution seem even more insane and megalomaniacal than The Master’s Dastardly Scheme for a change.  By the time of Matt Smith’s finales I gave up trying to understand everything going on and just enjoy them like a shaggy dog story or a pantomime (why does he need to marry River Song?  He doesn’t, but go with it cos look at them there having fun with it!)  And you don’t enjoy a pantomime for the strong plotlines do you.

So ‘Death In Heaven’ was not too bad an ending at all for a series that has as a weak spot with strong series closers.  I didn’t walk away thinking that maybe I would understand it on a second watch.

One of the joys of the character of The Doctor is that he can just turn up in any story he likes and do whatever he wants in it.  He’s never going to be pinned down into one kind of story for long – or at least if you do try to keep him in your base under siege style stories too long he’ll simply get out of them by turning into Jon Pertwee, who might even turn into Tom Baker if you make him hang out with soldiers for too long.  So giving a character as mercurial as The Doctor the lead in a show (especially Capaldi’s Doctor, who is capable of walking off mid adventure when he’s done with it) and expecting a neat ending to a series that wraps everything up in neat little boxes…


Well, if it did happen, the show overall might not be as good.  The finales get the most hype and in practice they rarely live up to that hype.  This series overall has been exceptional however and Capaldi has been a different kind of madman with a box.  How will he get on against Father Christmas remains to be seen of course.