"I did not enjoy empathising with blind people"
- 8 May 06, 11:16 AM
Remember Rod Liddle, the Sunday Times writer who caused uproar amongst disabled people last September (not least on Ouch's messageboard) when he offered his on the then newly-unveiled statue of Alison Lapper Pregnant in Trafalgar Square by criticising the very idea that we should want to look upon such a work of art? At the time, he concluded his diatribe with the following words:
"I do not like the statue of Lapper in Trafalgar Square. Not because, as some critics have argued, it is a poor work of art by Marc Quinn; 'slimy' and 'machine made'. I do not like it because I do not wish to revel in disability. I do not think disability is something that deserves a 'tribute'."
Yes, you remember him now, don't you? He's difficult to forget. Well, the good (?) news is that, this weekend, he was back on his favourite subject - us. This time, it was under the guise of the new Dans Le Noir restaurant in London, the place where diners eat in the dark and are served by blind staff.
Now, considering that the article appears in the newspaper's Table Talk section, you'd think Mr Liddle's review would offer some opinion about the restaurant - the food, the service, the ambience. And it does. Basically, he doesn't like any of it. Fine. That's his opinion. But in between these comments, Rod Liddle can't resist sharing his views on blind people, just as he did about physically disabled people in his earlier article. He concludes with these words:
"In all, I did not enjoy empathising with blind people. Nor did I expect to. Perhaps, though, you are not meant to enjoy the experience. Perhaps you are merely intended to leave the restaurant a little wiser and a little humbler ... Meanwhile, I will soon be setting up a restaurant where the diners are encased in straitjackets and the waiters are all amputees."
Crippled Monkey won't be inviting Rod round for dinner any time soon, that's for certain.
Comments
How about force-feeding him Humble Pie?
Well in a way he's right - the point of the exercise ISN'T really to have a good time, but to learn something and empathise. Since Liddle clearly doesn't have an empathetic bone in his body, it's not surprising he didn't enjoy it. The fact that he hated the experience so much tells us all we need to know.
I bet he was on the same table as glen hoddle.
Much as I despise all that Rod Liddle stands for I feel I must take issue with the Sunday Times for sending him along in the first place.
They must know his views on the subject of disability and that he likes to cause offence with his outdated views. Is this a deliberate attempt to upset the disabled lobby again by this paper?
As usual, the newspapers are seemingly intent on discrediting anything that disabled people do. Or if they aren't discrediting it they sensationalise it, or even worse patronise us. Liddle is no friend of disabled people, that's true, but my fear is that the ignorance runs far deeper than that that runs through Rod Liddle's veins.
Whoever sent him was counting on the dustup. The noise that sending him there with his proven antipathy for difference would create.