Ouch Podcast #72 – June 2011
bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast

Presented by Rob Crossan and Kiruna Stamell 

rob	Thank you for downloading the show. It's edition number 72 if anyone's still counting. I'm Rob Crossan and sitting just over there is Kiruna Stamell.	
kiruna	Hello!	
ROB	What's on the show, Kiruna?	
kiruna	Today we're going to be all over social networking with some awesome top guests. And later we're going to be all about wheelchair tennis with long running champ Peter Norfolk. 	
rob	And we've got the usual chat too. Don't touch that pause button it's about disability but it's about not about disability. 	
kiruna	Who wrote this script? 
[Jingle: From the BBC in London it's the Ouch Talk Show.]	
rob	Kiruna, we're going to talk about stand up comedy, it's something that everybody who's ever presented the Ouch podcast seems to be a little bit obsessed with. We've had Mat Fraser who as far as I'm aware is still the world's only thalidomide Elvis impersonator. We've had Liz Carr who does what... I'm pretty certain I can claim to be the filthiest stand up routine ever done by a... 	
kiruna	She is very rude. 	
rob	... person with disabilities. And I did disability stand up comedy, well sort of a bit about my disability I did it a long, long, long time ago and now it's your turn, not wanting to be left out I believe you've done some gigs down in Brighton, is that right? 	
kiruna	Yeah I went down to the Brighton Fringe Festival to check out what was happening down there and it just so happened that a little seven minute slot opened up and I jumped up on stage and gave it a bash. 	
rob	And how did you go down? 	
kiruna	It went really well. I think people sort of really enjoyed it particularly my section on dwarf fetish porn which got some good laughs. 	
rob	When I did stand up and they tried to make a point of not talking about my disability but in the end I took the easy money and I did because I knew it would get a laugh because it's something I know a lot about and also people were thinking who's that guy with incredibly white hair on stage who can't really see properly you know it was hard for me to avoid it. And even more so I imagine for you, do you find that talking about your height is something that was just inevitable it was always going to be a part of your routine? 	
kiruna	It is inevitable in the sense like, for example, at the Brighton Fringe Festival I followed an act who had just spent five minutes doing gags about leprechauns and dwarfs. Then I actually, a real life dwarf, gets up on stage...  	
rob	That was quite a nice lead in really. 	
KIRUNA	... and well and I had to use it. So I went up, did my best Irish accent and thanked him for having introduced the audience to the concept of leprechauns because they're going to be used to me and my act as a result, so we could already start off on the right foot. 	
rob	Have you had much in the way of heckles you had to deal with so far. "Keep it short, love!" Or anything... nothing like that at all? 	
KIRUNA	No actually no I've not. People have been reluctant to heckle me, maybe it's just because I'm so cute I don't know. 	
rob	Honestly? So people are less likely to heckle a comedian who has a disability because it might be considered to be a little step too far. 	
KIRUNA	No I don't think it's necessarily that. I think maybe it's because I've got the element of surprise at this point on my side that people are a little bit kind of "Oh!" They're not necessarily sure we're on the same page until we've got a few minutes in. Had some lovely banter which I suppose counts as heckling but I haven't had anything kind of massively negative thrown at me.	
rob	How interesting though. You said on the last podcast about you got a heckle when you were out on the street on your very first date. 	
KIRUNA	Well that's true isn't it? 	
rob	And then the place where you're supposed to heckle in a stand up comedy gig, you're not getting any. 	
KIRUNA	But I think that's about power because maybe when I'm sort of on stage at the microphone I'm actually, I'm empowered. When I'm on the street you've got to remember that guy that yelled at me on that first date from the moving car like what a cowardly thing to do. I mean he yelled from a moving vehicle and drove off. I mean that is pretty pithy. Like it's a pretty kind of... 	
rob	Well, an audience member is shrouded in darkness so you don't know where they are. 	
KIRUNA	No but they... well no because they're not that much in the dark, well not the gigs I've done anyway. I've been able to see people's faces. 	
rob	So you can eyeball anyone really. 	
KIRUNA	Oh my death stare would being a man to his knees. 	
rob	Because I could never do that when I was doing stand up because my eyesight's so poor if anybody did heckle or I wanted to engage in some banter I couldn't see where the hell they were. 	
KIRUNA	A poor workman blames his tools. 	
rob	I couldn't though because you want that don't you, you want to be able to see who you're performing to I think it gives a lot. And so when I was in a situation where the auditorium would be exceptionally dark it made it just impossible because you really want to see the people who you're communicating with because you can tell so much, and yet that was never possible for me, and that really, really bugged me and I felt it affected how good I could be because I couldn't see who I was talking to. I could hear them obviously. 	
KIRUNA	Yeah but there are things and ways around that like I know in a couple of the venues recently I've been experimenting with because I am so short when I go into a venue if it's got a poor sightline, for example, like say the seating isn't raised or there's not raised stage I'm like, "What am I going to do?" Because I don't want to walk into a pub environment and I know there's another short statured comedian who she'll often stand on a chair to give herself that height. But for me it's interesting because my disability politics is a little bit like why should I have to stand on a chair so can the audience can see me. Why wasn't this pub or stage built with the idea that a disabled person might one day be on it? So I've started to, for example, in one venue where the sight lines were very bad so only the first three rows could see me the rest could hear me only, I've started to experiment with ideas of how can I get a gag out of that? 	
rob	Well go on give us some gags even though it's totally out of context and you've got an audience of one, me, is there anything that would work... 	
KIRUNA	I'm trying to think if there's something that would work ... 	
rob	... that you could give us? 	
KIRUNA	... on the podcast that is appropriate. 	
rob	Can you actually stand up now? No you're going to stay sitting down?	
KIRUNA	Okay, no, no hold on a sec. No, no I know. I will do the bit, okay. So I've been mistaken occasionally for being, you know, because when you google me you get like photographs of me but you also get and it comes up, it's the giant biggest photo available and it's claiming to be me and it's of the porn star called Bridget the Midget. Now I've got nothing against a woman of short stature getting into the porn industry but why does she have make such a gimmick of her height? At one point she gets herself delivered to a man's hotel room in a suitcase. How clichéd is that? But then I think Kiruna you are being so judgemental. 	
rob	I prefer it in a cake popping out of a cake. 	
KIRUNA	You're interrupting my punch line. 	
rob	Go on then. 	
KIRUNA	That's the first heckle I've had. But then I think Kiruna you're being so judgemental, who are you to judge? I mean you live in a gingerbread house under a toadstool the 11 months of the year you're not working for Santa. 	
rob	And the audience love that. 	
KIRUNA	Yeah. It's flipping an idea on its head which I then sort of develop further and actually take that concept of no I really am an elf and develop like a section on this kind of slightly surreal idea that the working rights of elves have been downtrodden by the exportation of the production to overseas markets. 	
rob	Hang on a minute I'm getting mixed up here. You actually are an elf?	
KIRUNA	Well I muck around with these ideas of who do you think I am, am I real, am I fake? Are you just hallucinating and on magic mushrooms or am I actually in the room with you? It's kind of that concept of mucking around with those ideas to play with the audience and constantly shift position I think.	
rob	The other thing with stand up comedy I always think it's not about the idea of being comfortable and just having a group of friends at a pub laughing at your jokes, that's just inadequate, you need to have, there's this need to have an entire room of complete strangers howling at your impressions or your jokes or whatever. And I think there's just a very needy thing about it, I'm surprised there aren't more disabled stand up comedians, to be honest, because the situation of so many disabled people do have poor self esteem, stand up comedy's a pretty good way of getting over that.	
KIRUNA	So that's you think that's the only requirement poor self esteem to be a stand up comic? 	
rob	Oh come on all stand up comics are a little bit dysfunctional, a bit needy. 	
KIRUNA	I think they definitely do want love from an audience you know and approval.	
rob	They want love from strangers, they want love from everybody like pop stars do. 
[Jingle: Have you seen our blog? No! Well you can find useful links to things we've mentioned and you can also leave comments about the show. Go to bbc.co.uk/ouch. That's bbc.co.uk/ouch.]
Facebook, Twitter, MySpace we know them all so well. They've become an integral part of all of our lives perhaps even a little bit too big a part of our lives... 	
KIRUNA	A bit of an addiction. 	
rob	... is taken up with it, that's right. So we've got three people here who are all huge total networkers; I'm joined by Martin Sibley, hello Martin. 	
martin	Hello there.	
rob	And Martin is starting up his own business where he's hoping to use the disability blogging network in order to make his first million. We're also joined by Lisa Egan, hello Lisa. 	
lisa	Alright. 	
rob	And Lisa is a committed social networker who's also got a campaigning strand called 'Where's the Benefit?' And finally we're joined by Michaela Lewis, hello Michaela.	
michaela	Hiya. 	
rob	And she is currently doing a PhD about cerebral palsy in social media. So I'm going to come back to you in a moment, Michaela, but I'm particularly keen to ask Lisa and Martin, let's start with you Lisa, how do you use social networking in your day to day life, how does it benefit you, what do you get out of it? 	
lisa	I'm ill quite a lot and social networking is a way that you can still have some interaction with other people when you're just in bed, in your pyjamas with tea and painkillers. It's not quite as satisfying as, you know, just having a face to face conversation with someone and having a laugh and a hug but it's still better than just ending up talking to your cat who can't talk back, you know, well she tries to talk back. It's just a way of interacting with others when otherwise you wouldn't have the chance to interact. 	
rob	But you are aware of the fact always that there is maybe something missing from the interaction, do you still feel that? 	
lisa	Oh of course, like I said, you know there's no hugs, there's no eye contact - those kind of really personal elements are missing. But it's better than not having any social interaction at all. 	
kiruna	Martin, I was really interested because you're looking at it from a business point of view, tell us a little bit about that? 	
martin	Sure. I mean absolutely as of today that is more the situation but the journey sort of began more with Facebook to keep in contact with friends, especially people that I've met who have gone back to other countries when I knew them at university, so it was very much a social element to begin with. Then I did some voluntary work with a small disability charity and I guess a kind of hobby and a passion was sparked in me around passing on my personal experience of disability to the younger generation, sort of teenagers that are not sure about how to access university, learning to drive - all those kind of things that when you've done them, you know, they're possible but when you're younger you have a lot of worry about the barriers. And so over the last couple of years I've just been blogging about my experiences and trying to formalise how I do things to pass that on and that's where Twitter's been totally a key part with communicating with people, learning what people are wanting to know and then me being able to deliver some of my experience to act as a solution I guess. 	
rob	Just going back to Lisa I'm quite interested in obviously we've talked about how you use social networking for your personal life, but you also have is it a blog called 'Where's the Benefit?' is that right? 	
lisa	Yeah. There's a lot of stuff going on as I'm sure everyone's aware around things like benefit reform, benefit cuts and last summer I pitched an article to a very well known mainstream website in response to a horrific story that was being run about benefits in all the right wing papers that day. And the the response I got back from the website I pitched an article was "We've already had a story about disability benefits this week so no thanks". And that sparked the idea that actually this stuff is news every day perhaps me and a few other disabled writers, journalists, bloggers should come together and create a blog where we can write about this stuff whenever it happens. 	
kiruna	How do you find these other disabled people online because it's not like people necessarily look disabled, how does that actually work? 	
lisa	Disability politics tends to be a subject matter that doesn't endear itself to non disabled people, people that you get into conversations with on social networking sites and in the days when Live Journal was 'the' social network, it would be other disabled people that you would meet in communities dedicating to talking about disability politics. Quite a lot of my closer online friends are people who've come with me from social network to social network as things have evolved. So ten years ago when Live Journal was the social network of choice people that I met there are now my friends on Facebook and Twitter. As things move on you stay together. 	
rob	So it's interesting it sounds like maybe you can help me on this, Martin, it sounds like the disabled specific social networking sites are kind of dying a death and everybody's just using Facebook and Twitter.	
martin	I think first of all that's absolutely ideal because that's inclusion online and everyone is seeking for inclusivity across the board, so I absolutely agree with that. I think to take Lisa's point from that base step of maybe hooking up with people online that you knew in real life then to expand that network directly through social media I've downloaded a bit of software called Tweetdeck which is coherent with Twitter and basically you can search for keywords. So often I have streams coming through where I've tweeted to have the word 'disability' or 'wheelchair' or other words that someone would so choose to search, and then from that you can start a dialogue with the individual that has tweeted that. 	
rob	Have you struck up any dialogues with anyone particularly famous or unusual or someone you would never expected or you couldn't have ever contacted were it not for Twitter? 	
martin	I'm trying to now rack my brain but I'd say as a very general point the two areas of social media rules is that you can connect with likeminded people, every day people, but absolutely you can then start speaking to charities, governments, members of Parliament, famous people and I'm really struggling to remember off the top of my head, but I think Lisa maybe has someone. 	
rob	Lisa's got someone. 	
lisa	Yeah I once got a direct message from Ethan Suplee, the actor. I think this was actually at the time when 'My Name is Earl' was still running, I got a direct message from him about his penis. 	
rob	I don't think we can actually go into the exact details of that message but I'm intrigued.	
KIRUNA	Is it going to related the issue with his penis? 	
rob	Did this have anything to do with disability? 	
lisa	No, no he was talking about using it to stir his coffee.	
kiruna	Ah that would disable it. Now Michaela you're actually doing something much more academic, you're doing your PhD on CPers and how they use social networking and I know that there's some access stuff around that. What sort of things have you found? 	
michaela	From my research one of the key things I found is change, the way social networks, especially Facebook are changing constantly, not just the structure but the interface itself. I mean one example I should give everyone is one person I met about two years ago called Zoe who I'm still in contact with now through Twitter, she had a massive problem with Facebook they changed the logout from the right hand side to the left hand side and she had no idea where it was, so for that two days until her carer came she didn't use Facebook at all. But from her perspective she's really severely disabled and Facebook, as she says, is like food for her. So she was practically isolated for two days. 	
kiruna	So the social networks are actually providing in many ways a really big service and people are becoming quite dependent on them. You were saying before, Lisa, it's for you particularly when you're bedbound and not feeling very well that it's a bit of a lifeline to the outside world. 	
lisa	Yeah absolutely. Oh one really "Oh my God Facebook knows my life too much" thing was the time you know on the right hand side of the screen there's the people who may know suggestions. Facebook once suggested my pharmacist as a person that I may know. 	
kiruna	Oh that's interesting it is really is integrated into our lives. 	
lisa	I won't tell you who it recommended the other day because you won't be able to broadcast that. But yeah kind of level of sentience is a bit creepy. 	
kiruna	It is a little bit. I find it when you change your status and suddenly the ads are completely relevant to what you've just written. 	
rob	That's frightening. Google do the same. The junk mail that you get through Google is often scarily prescient to what you've just been looking at in the last few days. 	
lisa	I get a lot of ads for dating sites for cat lovers. 	
kiruna	Oh that's a concern.	
lisa	Yeah. 	
kiruna	So, Michaela, have you had contact with the designers and developers of the networking sites, have you been able to get in touch with them? What's their attitude to disability? Are they aware of the service that they're providing and maybe that they should have a certain level of social responsibility or do you think they're unaware? 	
michaela	Well I think there's a kind of door in my face really. I think the lower level employees who I meet at conferences or accessibility days they're really interested in the work I'm doing. They're surprised by the very simplistic problems that I'm seeing. But higher level, up the chain, no not really. I mean when you take it from the point of view of Facebook with five hundred million users the majority of them do not have a disability so they don't see it as a major importance to include everyone. So no I see it as kind of like a barrier at the moment. 	
lisa	I read somewhere that the reason that the colour scheme on Facebook is blue is because Zuckerberg is red/green colour blind. 	
michaela	I'm not sure it could be. But the downside of it being blue is that certain people, especially with cerebral palsy who can be blind to the screen and they're only seeing a screen from a certain point of view, and only quickly, they cannot actually even see blue. And because it's hardcoded that's a massive accessible problem. 	
rob	What's hardcoded? 	
michaela	It means that the like when you go on Facebook you cannot change the colour of Facebook itself. 	
rob	You cannot personalise it?	
michaela	You can personalise it through your browser but you cannot physically do it within Facebook. It's not like, for example, MySpace where you can adapt how it looks. But the downside with MySpace is that it's become so adapted to individualistic people that that creates a barrier within itself. So we need personalisation but it needs to be managed.	
kiruna	What's the most innovative thing you've seen a disabled person do with social networking? 	
lisa	On the 26th of May there was a protest really near where we're sitting in Broadcasting House right now, I had nothing to do with it, I didn't find out about it until it was news as it was happening. But a group of disability rights activists and pensioner's rights activists handcuffed themselves to a bus and they organised that protest via Facebook. 	
rob	What were they protesting about? 	
lisa	It was an anti cuts protest in which they handcuffed themselves to a bus. 	
kiruna	I've seen some wonderful mini sort of short films made about things like the accessibility of transport and other ways that people have used social media and social networking sites to get their message out there. Are there other examples that either Martin or Michaela that you've seen? 	
michaela	Well I volunteer at Action Disability Youth Project and the transport one is probably them who you've probably seen. We went out and we recorded all the issues that we had when we were on buses. We hid all the cameras and we use Facebook to upload our videos. And the pictures we took are on Flickr. And I got them involved in Twitter so they could share it with other charities so that was actually very useful to get their problems out there. 	
kiruna	And what sort of feedback because I know with Twitter people can interact. What kind of feedback is coming back to all of you? 	
michaela	Well the example I've just given we got a message from one of the directors of Transport for London through a letter and he wants to meet with us in the next couple of weeks to try and resolve some of the issues that we came across. 	
rob	That's fantastic. 	
kiruna	So it's really interesting that this online digital age is actually having an effect in terms of the real world. 	
martin	Social media is providing tools, it's a new medium of doing things in an older style, it's about telling stories. So when you have a blog instead of just writing an article you can show pictures on Flickr you can record really simple videos with a flip cam and any one individual can do that. It's not groundbreaking it's just understanding how to use those tools to get across people's very different messages. But then of course you can ramp that up into something like 'The Broken of Britain' campaign which has done a lot of campaigning against the government with the recent cuts. And that's when then you can pull all these different innovative good people that are sort of trying to tell their own story and then create one big, big voice to government at the same time. So it's about the tools really. 	
rob	Is it common for you or has it ever happened where you've through a social networking site you've found a contact who's given you a job on any level? 	
martin	No. I've been working for the disability charity Scope for the last five years as a fundraising role and all of the social media's been a hobby and a passion like I've said, and I'm literally starting the business up as of next month. And when I say 'business' I think that sounds a bit jargonistic, essentially I want to spend all my time using these tools to make a real difference for disabled people. 	
kiruna	How do you charge for that then, where does your revenue comes from?	
martin	So that will be with charities and local authorities and I hope that a potential future innovation that we could be talking about in a year is that I'll be rolling out seminars online. So when you think of all the barriers for disabled people to access workshops whatever it might be to learn skills to run their direct payments, to access transport, I'm going to be, through this business, delivering these seminars online. So that's the plan going forward. 	
rob	A webinar? 	
martin	I didn't want to use the word but yes it's a webinar.	
rob	Good one, I like it. 	
martin	Yes exactly. 	
rob	So, Lisa and Michaela, what have you found out is it possible for disability people, people with disabilities whatever you want to call it, is it possible to get jobs through social networking sites? Can it really be done? 	
lisa	I don't know. You get kind of the odd offer, you know, of you know could you review this piece I'm writing or whatever, but jobs I'm not so sure. 	
rob	So it's usually more a kind of voluntary-esk requests you're getting?	
lisa	Yeah. 	
rob	Yeah. 	
martin	Again it's networking isn't it so I think you can find yourself networking with people who maybe could end up offering you a job. And equally you've got something like LinkedIn where it's basically Facebook for job finders. So there are definitely the tools out there for job finding as well. 	
michaela	From my perspective and from my mother who has cerebral palsy she's been able to link up with charities and talk to them and help them with reporting, especially with Action Disability Kensington and Chelsea. From my own perspective I'd probably say it's been support and being able to meet people with cerebral palsy. I mean one thing I would recommend if people are on Twitter is to go to #tagA11Y and follow that. And that tells you all about accessibility not just from the social media aspect but from disability as a whole really. 	
rob	Well thank you all of you for coming in. Keep tweeting, keep MySpacing, keep Facebooking and we hope to hear from you all again soon. Do let us know how you get on. 	
martin	Thank you. 	
lisa	Thank you. 
[Jingle: You can subscribe for free to the Ouch Talk Show by going to bbc.co.uk/podcast where you'll find us listed under entertainment. That's bbc.co.uk/podcast.]
[Playing clip of tennis
Ammerlaan and Olsson are the Wimbledon champions]	
rob	That was a taster clip of Robin Ammerlaan from the Netherlands and Stefan Olsson from Sweden winning last year's wheelchair doubles at Wimbledon. 	
kiruna	And with us to talk wheelchair tennis is the current world champion number two Peter Norfolk. 	
peter	Hi, how are you? 	
kiruna	We're alright how are you? 	
peter	Yeah excellent thanks. Just sitting here waiting for my match in Gloucester as well. 	
kiruna	How long have you got before you play? 	
peter	About an hour and a half. 	
kiruna	Okay. 	
rob	Let's make this quick. 	
kiruna	We'll try not to psyche you out. 	
rob	Sip your energy drinks. And Wimbledon's on its way so we thought we'd find out a little bit more about wheelchair tennis. You're obviously the number two quad tennis player in the world after having been number one for ages. So what's the difference between regular wheelchair user tennis and quad tennis? 	
peter	Okay, well first of all wheelchair tennis you've got men, women and quad so the rules are the same for all three divisions and the difference between able bodied tennis is, well the only difference is the second bounce of the ball. 	
kiruna	Okay. 	
peter	But quad tennis is essentially for players with three limbs affected. So to give you my scenario I had a motor cycle accident, I don't know, 30 odd years ago, so I broke my back. But then about 12 years ago I had a secondary problem where I had problem with my spine and I started losing my right side and my right hand. So now to continue to play tennis actually I strap the racket to my hand. But anyone can play quad tennis if they have a hand dysfunction or an arm dysfunction or anything like that. So if they have a weakness or something it's essentially for another division where you'll be able to compete better if you haven't got your full arms or whatever like in the men's division and the women's division. 	
kiruna	I could actually use that I can't hold on to the racket. I used to play a little bit of tennis when I was younger, but if I hit the ball the force of the ball was so much stronger than my hand grip the racket and the ball would go flying. The coordination was there it was just the ability to hold on to the racket. 	
peter	That was my problem. I started losing my hand and I didn't actually know it because it all went numb. But now I actually strap the racket to my hand with tape, quad tape, so I've got a fixed grip for fore and backhand, slice and the serve. 	
kiruna	Well listening to us at the moment having a chat about wheelchair, quad tennis we've actually got Tony Garrett, who is the BBC Disability Sports executive on the line eavesdropping on us today, hello Tony. 	
tony	Hi, good to talk to you. 	
rob	Hello. Well we thought we'd bring you both in and set you off explaining the complicated rules of wheelchair tennis. So who's going to start us off with giving us the absolute idiot's guide to it?	
tony	The big difference on wheelchair quad tennis to able bodied tennis is that the ball is allowed to bounce twice within the line. So as Peter will no doubt explain wheelchair tennis is a very simple sport, it's a very good sport. And the main difference is between wheelchair tennis and able bodied tennis is you can use two bounces. Now most of the top wheelchair players prefer just to use the one bounce but having the benefit of the second bounce does give you that time to get the wheelchair into position for the return. 	
kiruna	Can you play in a power chair? 	
peter	The answer's yes. 	
tony	I think the answer is yes. 	
kiruna	Okay. How does that work are the rules different? Does the power chair move like a manual wheelchair or...? 	
tony	An awful lot of skill is required.	
rob	Yeah I'll bet.	
tony	If you need to use the power chair to absolutely get that into position but as Peter will know with some of the opponents he plays they use the power chair to absolutely get the chair into position and quite often having the second bounce is really beneficial for that. 	
rob	So Peter take us through it literally from the first serve. Take us through it how it works when you play? 	
peter	Essentially I'm playing tennis exactly the same as an able bodied player. We serve overhead exactly the same. Scoring's the same. Court size is the same - there are no differences. When I'm playing obviously I want to take the ball on the rise on the first bounce so I'm giving my opponent the least time possible. I think in quad we do have ladies who play in quad division as well because there aren't enough quad ladies in the world to play quad division. 	
kiruna	So men are playing against women in the same comp?	
peter	Yes there isn't enough depth in the game to have a separate women's quad division and a separate men's. 	
kiruna	And how does that express itself? Do the women playing feel that they've got a disadvantage in terms of strength? Or does it actually feel... 	
peter	Not at all. 	
kiruna	... quite evenly matched? 	
peter	Not at all. I mean you've got Sarah Hunter who's Canadian, she's in the top four/top five in the world. She's an ex ice hockey player and so strength isn't a problem. It actually is down to disability and ability. 	
kiruna	Okay. 	
rob	I also read the ball's allowed to go outside of the line as well is that true?	
peter	Well on the second bounce yes. So the first bounce must bounce within the confines of the court, exactly the same as the able bodied game that Federer and all that play. But then the second bounce can bounce anywhere. 	
rob	That kind of sounds a bit like cheating. 	
peter	Well not it's not, it gives... well certainly the beginners more time but if you are playing a good player as well and you're out of position in your chair you do have the chance to get it on the second bounce. 	
kiruna	To get to the ball. 	
peter	Or a drop shot so you know your drop shot actually has to be better because if you can get it on the second bounce then it's still live. 	
kiruna	How many sets get played because I know in terms of the non-disabled comps women do fewer sets to men? 	
peter	Yeah we play the same as the women, it's three sets. 	
kiruna	Three sets okay. So that's how you... okay. 	
peter	And even at grand slams, we're at grand slams now as well but we still play best of three. 	
rob	The other thing I wanted to bring up we were talking about the lack of women in the game, and I hate to reveal this to the listeners but you are 51 years old. A lot of people would be... 	
kiruna	That doesn't make him a woman though Rob. 	
peter	Hang on a minute I'm 50.	
rob	You're 50 oh that's not what it says in the script. 	
peter	I'm not 51 thank you. 	
rob	Right okay. 	
peter	No 51 if I go to the Paralympics. 	
rob	You will be 51 then. 	
peter	That's very important. 	
rob	Yeah I'm sorry. A lot of people would be surprised though to hear that a top tennis champ is your age. Why aren't there any 20 year olds beating you on a regular basis?	
peter	Okay. Well no-one's beating me on a regular basis. 	
rob	Well I know and I'm wondering why. 	
kiruna	Well there is one person, the current world number one. 	
peter	Yeah but he hasn't beaten me... well okay he beat me in January but he lost the last two.	
kiruna	Okay. 	
peter	I won in Pensacola in Florida. 	
rob	So anyway where are the teenagers, where are the young...?	
peter	Okay. What it is we are working on a development programme to get more teenagers or more youngsters in. I think the problem with the youngsters is there's many more other things to do. Teenagers have lots of other things to think about than just going to play tennis. But what's in our favour is tennis is a full professional sport. They can actually go around the world being paid to play tennis. And it's a fabulous thing to do I wish I'd had that opportunity 25 years ago. 	
rob	Is this something that, I just want to bring Tony in for a moment as well, is this age problem something that is significant across all Paralympic sports?	
tony	It's a good question. I think that used to be the case that there was in Paralympic terms if you were a good sportsperson, if you were a good athlete, a good tennis player, a good wheelchair basketball player you could remain at the top of the game for quite a while and you could do quite a lot of sports. But that's very much changing in the last five years I think it really is because basically as sports are developing, as athletes are coming through they're a much younger crop, you know, Pete indicated there's a young crop of tennis players coming through sort of 14/15 year olds. So Paralympic sport is getting out to a much wider range of athletes and people now. And in a lot of the sports - athletics and swimming you're seeing 12 and 13 year olds coming through and some of those will be competing at 2012. So I think Peter has been at the top of his sport for a number of years, and Peter has been a top athlete and kept it going. But I think you're going to find that that's going to change very much in the next few years. 	
rob	Watch your back Peter.	
tony	Because there's a whole younger raft of athletes that are getting the funding and the training and facilities are a lot more available. So you're going to be seeing a load more youngsters coming through now. 	
kiruna	Do you think that perhaps the original sort of skewing of the age, I mean, I know that the history of the Paralympics was that it was originally set up because you had veterans of war come back who had acquired quite new and severe disabilities because of the nature of war had changed. So you actually had people that were maybe slightly older acquiring disabilities and I'm wondering if perhaps that's what actually kind of set up the premise in the Paralympics that age is actually welcome, there isn't necessarily that sense of you know... 	
peter	I'll jump in there. I think the point is sport also was recreational and the big difference now, and Tony's right, is that actually Paralympic sport is much more professional now than it has ever been. There is more money involved. So we can entice the juniors. And let's face it there's nothing wrong with getting the older athlete as well. If they have the talent so I take the point there are lots of juniors behind me coming up and tapping on my door, and at some point yes the older athlete's going to move over and let them through. But there's more money, there's more professionalism in the sport and, as I said, wheelchair tennis has a full professional circuit - there's a tournament every week of the year that a lot of our top players they're away and playing. So ours are in Korea, they've just come back from Japan, they're in Korea and it's a different ballgame from what it was 10 years ago. 	
rob	I just want to bring up one of the rules again which I was reading through earlier, one of them which, I must way childishly amuses me immensely, is that you have to have one buttock on the seat of your wheelchair at any one time. How on earth can this be properly refereed? Is there like little sensors on your wheelchair if both buttocks come down? 	
peter	A lot of players have straps on the chairs. 	
rob	Right, okay. 	
peter	You can see some players, you know if you've got, you know, we're talking about say the soldiers being rehabilitated coming back from say Iraq, Iran and all of that trying to get them into, say, tennis. If they're an amputee, single amp, and they've still got all their bodily functions, you know, their lats etc and they do have the possibility if they're going up for a, say, someone's lobbed them that they could, you know, lift their bum off the cushion and it's an added advantage that I can't do. So yeah the umpires it's a tough job they've got to have a keen eye for that. And also they've got to have a keen eye and make sure they don't put, say, their foot on the floor just to give themself a bit of extra stopping power or something like that. 	
rob	It just sounds like the game would just be full of fouls though I mean is that the case I mean there must be a lot of stopping?	
peter	It's not, no. Let's face it it's also a gentleman's sport. It is about winning as well. We only remember winners. 	
rob	Is there no quad version of McEnroe, who's the bad tempered one in the sport?	
peter	There is but I'm not sure I should say...	
rob	You don't want to name them. 	
peter	Well it's probably my nemesis the guy who's always in front of me because he plays twice as many tournaments as me. But yeah you get that and at the end of the day that's pressure and that's also part of the fun. 	
tony	In Paralympic sport along with any sport and I think it's really important that you don't retire too early. If you're competitive enough and you're good enough then it's down to the youngsters coming through to knock you off your perch and absolutely prove why they should be there and I think that's for all sports. You see often people retire too early because they feel they should. Well I'm a firm believer if you're good enough you should be there. That doesn't matter if you're young or old you're at the top of your sport, that's where you should be. 	
rob	Thank you very much guys for coming in to speak to us. Wheelchair tennis at Wimbledon is available to watch on the BBC. Tony can you give us the details? 	
tony	Yes I can. The final weekend of Wimbledon is when the wheelchair doubles event takes place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And on BBC coverage on the red button they'll be coverage of Wimbledon wheelchair doubles on those days. 	
kiruna	Peter Norfolk, Tony Garrett thank you very much. Now that's the end of the show. Thanks for listening. The team were Dan Slipper, Emma Tracey. Studio manager was Jo Langton and the producer was Damon Rose. Until early July...	
kiruna and rob	Goodbye!