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Wimbledon-Exile

Listed below are comments made by Wimbledon-Exile between Tuesday, 13th January 2009 and Friday, 16th January 2009.

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"Dyslexia is a myth" 11:34am on 16 Jan 2009 The trouble with any perceived mental disability is it is always more difficult to understand and categorise than a physical one. People can see physical disability and therefore feel less ambiguity in their categorisation of it and how they react to it.

Dyslexia like OCD and Depression are rather catch-all terms that refer to a varied set of conditions that manifest themselves in different ways and to different extremes. Many people may have mild forms of any of these and not necessarily recognise it because it is not severe enough to really impact on their daily life and often they have coping mechanisms that they have built up over many years.

As science has advanced so has our desire to understand more of these conditions and their causes and thus the ability to identify them has increased. This has led perhaps to some people's perception that suddenly we have a whole load of sufferers of something that never used to exist, it always existed but there were not previously the same means to diagnose and treat it. Just because people used to think the Earth was flat and do not any more does not mean it used to be flat until we discovered otherwise.

I have been educated to a decent standard and have a language degree, my dyslexia is quite mild but I do still have problems that non-sufferers might find difficult to understand. I know the difference between the words your, you're and yore just as I do the words their, they're and there but on occasions I write an incorrect one and because my mind presumes I will have written the correct one it doesn't pick it up on a proof-read, and of course neither does a spell checker.

Similarly common words like 'separately' no matter how many times I look up its spelling my brain cannot retain it for the next time I need to use it. This is not about illiteracy or a lack of ability it is about little foibles in the ways our brain learns and holds information and in turn learning how best to work within those parameters to make the best of what we have. If more emphasis was put on identifying what people can do and nurturing it rather than excluding them from what they cannot perhaps we would not be having this rather eugenic-like discussion where those who have been given many advantages try to justify their position by claiming that those who have less have only themselves to blame.

In the 1970s my parents were told I was educationally sub-normal. I wasn't but the effect this could have had on my education would have been profound had my mother not moved me to a different school. I sincerely hope we are not going back to the educational dark ages again.

And by the way whoever invented the word dyslexia was clearly not a sufferer themselves!
FLAMING TIPS 4:09pm on 13 Jan 2009 Now either you read my comment or my mind since here are Dusseldorf's finest currently on air!
IT'LL ALL BE OVER BY CHRISTMAS 4:04pm on 13 Jan 2009 I'd echo Mr Stew to an extent, I would hope that the big labels reign themselves back in and concentrate on their core artists giving the smaller more independent labels more of a chance of signing decent artists.

For many many years (after all Theodore Adorno talked about the standardisation of music in the 1920s) the big labels will jump on the bandwagon of a particular sound and then rape and pillage every facet of it until all commercial juice has been squeezed from it. Hence from the sometimes enigmatic but musically authentic indie scene of the 1980s/early 90s we got Britpop which may have spawned the odd decent album but was generally a method for the record companies to peddle the same old tosh for a few years and some of it was proper bilge.

The difficulty will always be that the execs will sit there like vultures waiting for the "next big sound" in order to greedily snap up anything synonymous, and then pressure those fledgling acts to keep hashing the same stuff out 'because it works' and you get Mike Skinner's problem. Perhaps the credit crunch may force them to tighten their belts which would mean a bland canvass for those into the charts but a much better time for the rest of us which in turn, one can hope, may keep the smaller labels in business.
THE TURNER PRIZE 3:49pm on 13 Jan 2009 Yes you introduced me to Frank Turner's 'The Real Damage' on your show and I liked that a lot, when I chanced upon his 'Thatcher's...' I knew I would like him immensely! Missed him on his recent dates hope to catch him next time round.

As regards the band T-shirt, I got back into live music about 3 years ago after about 10 years since college and what has annoyed me the most is that Large seems to be as big as it goes, XL is a premium usually sold out by the zealots who buy before the gig, but what about those of us with a bit more corporation than BoJo who need a decent XXL or even 3XL - I mean many people can wear a big t-shirt baggy but there are few of us cuddly comrades brave enough to shoehorn ourselves into a medium. I've missed out on so many good gigs that I could now be advertising because I don't suit the sprayed on look.
FLAMING TIPS 3:42pm on 13 Jan 2009 An interesting blog Lamo, I respect your observations and kudos for showing the workings out, that'll be a Music Prediction GCSE C Grade for you Sir!

There does appear to have been a concerted move from the more neo-post-punk type with its ska and Clash-like influences to something more electronic but then it was always going to come when there was the Nu-Joy Division movement out there and electronic indie seems to be in full swing now. Amusingly I was in a disco 18 months ago and the "in" fashion was already suggesting it, punk/goth like clothing with a splash of colour in the tie and immaculately ornate coiffured hair brushed to one side, you can only look on and laugh and exclaim "hello it's 1982 again" before being thrown out because "we don't let Dads in"

On that note must express gratitude to The Hold Steady for proving there's life after 35!

I'd bring out my old Kraftwerk vinyl but I fear it would be too much for the little ones these days to handle, knowing that they've been well beaten by a couple of decades by a quartet of nerdy-looking Germans. Still might be time for an indie cover of The Model?

Shoegaze revival - magic, time to revisit Loveless (again!) What price on a Ride reunion I'd pay decent money for that, they might be able to do a slightly slicker live show than in the old days.

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