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• Posted by Lady Bracknell
• 5 Oct 06, 3:04 PM

When Lady Bracknell received a text message from one of her top moles telling her that GMTV were trailing a touching story about "how a family of four live life to the full despite the fact that they are all blind", she immediately dropped what she was doing and ran (oh, ok, hobbled) to the nearest internet connection to check it out for herself. After all, she knows there's nothing Crippled Monkey likes better than heartwarming pieces of journalistic fluff about tragic blindies.

So , in all its patronising glory. For the full impact, scroll down past the factual stuff about retinopathy to the paragraph entitled, "Talented". (And when did you last read an article about a disabled person in which they weren't portrayed as being either tragic or talented? Let's face it, we're always either an inspiration or an object of pity. Or both. Simultaneously. Which, frankly, is a good trick.)

Anyway, back to the amazing Turnham family. Mum Sue is evidently so talented that she manages to run her household "exactly like any other but with the aid of four guide dogs". Now, despite the entertaining mental imagery this creates of a small army of guide dogs wearing pinnies and running their paws across the tops of picture frames to check for dust, it's a ridiculous and misleading statement. (And downright lazy journalism, to boot.) There are four guide dog users in the family. If Sue's the only family member in the house at any given time, she's not going to have four guide dogs there with her queueing up for a chance to do the ironing. The other three are going to be out with their owners. This is not rocket science, folks.

Younger son Roy plays in a rock band "with other sighted members". So clearly Roy is either incredibly talented or his sighted band mates are a model of compassion and philanthropy. I mean, heaven forfend they might simply be mates and his blindness just isn't an issue.

Bizarrely, Lady Bracknell once travelled to a meeting in London with the father of this prodigious family. Her tolerance for anecdotes about his offspring's sporting achievements wore perilously thin after the first hour or so. Although, given that the only alternative seemed to be a detailed description of the toileting arrangements for the four guide dogs, she gritted her teeth and attempted to sound interested in cross-country running. But she still has flashbacks.

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