A few days ago, I noticed an article on the BBC News which was about someone with Down’s syndrome:

Otto Baxter is 21 and has Down’s syndrome. His mother Lucy thinks he should have all the experiences that other young men of his age have — including sex. [...]

Otto tried dating agencies, including a “special” one in a bid to meet girls who also had Down’s. But Lucy said the girls Otto met there had been “fairly institutionalised” and he “didn’t have anything in common” with them. When he went on a date with one girl, her carers prevented them from moving the relationship past friendship.

BBC News: Mother wants sex for Down’s son

Lucy also went a little further in talking to This Morning:

Lucy says: “Society has a learning disability when it comes to Down’s syndrome. Why should these people be kept separate and pigeon-holed when they have the same emotions, desires and feelings as so-called normal people?”

She says she is even prepared to go so far as to pay for a prostitute for her adopted son. Lucy also hopes he may one day become a father — despite the controversy this may attract.

This Morning: Lover for my son

There’s a number of questions here for us as a society. Should we prevent people with learning disabilities from leading fulfilling — even sexually fulfilling lives? Some people might find it a little odd, but rather than considering your own personal perceptions, consider how it might feel to Otto.

He’s obviously capable of having friendships with people; of understanding relationships; and of very much being aware that this is something he is missing out on. Might it not therefore be considered cruel or even inhumane to deprive him of this?

Which brings us to the questions about who he should be going out with. Apparently his ideal is Fearne Cotton (no accounting for taste, is there?), but assuming that she’s unavailable, then who? Should he be restricted to only dating — and having physical relationships with — other people with Down’s?

The problem with this was illustrated for me by two people I did an acting techniques course with about ten years ago. There was a guy and a woman with Downs on the course. During the course, we all got to find out little bits about one another and I like to think became friends to some extent. The woman with Downs at some point, when someone else was talking about their partner, said something to the extent that she would love to have a partner, but people didn’t want to go out with her.

The gentleman with Downs expressed a similar concern but later, to me and another chap, confessed that people seemed to want him to go out with the woman, only he didn’t fancy her. As he said, he didn’t see why he should only be allowed do fancy people with Downs.

Which, you have to admit, is a fair point. But it also comes with a tricky issue. It’s easy enough to consider a relationship between two people, one of whom is physically disabled, and the other who isn’t. This happens all the time. It’s basically just the story of two people falling in love.

But for someone with a learning disability, it’s a little different. Any non-disabled partner is likely to be in a position where people might accuse them of exploiting them; there’s certainly a significant risk that the relationship won’t be an an equal footing. That’s not to say that I think it’s inherently wrong for people with learning disabilities to have relationships with people without, only that I think it brings a range of issues and problems.

Cambridgeshire Council have some guidance (PDF)…

They make it clear that the ’service users’ ought to expect the same rights as anyone else:

• to have and enjoy a fulfilling personal relationship;
• the right to express sexual need in an appropriate way if they wish to;
• to privacy;
• to be sexually active;
• to have sexual education, including counselling on personal relationships, sex and sexuality, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases;
• to contraceptive advice and support services;
• to marry or cohabit;
• to make an informed choice about whether or not to have children;
• to be free from exploitation, abuse and degrading treatment;
• to take risks and make mistakes in personal relationships

Cambridgeshire: ADULTS WITH A LEARNING DISABILITY - INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

In other words, the same rights as everyone else. And that’s fair, right? After all, we are talking about fellow human beings, aren’t we? Of course, this is assuming that the learning disability is not sufficiently severe as to prohibit them understanding what this actually entails — someone has to be capable of giving informed consent.

And that is surely the crux of the matter. Anyone who is capable of understanding what a “relationship” entails, what a physical relationship entails is able to give informed consent, and therefore they are entitled to have a sexual relationship with whomsoever they want (within certain parameters: e.g. no authority figures abusing their position etc).

This also reminded me of a conversation with a Doctor friend of mine who said that she knew someone who as part of their job, had to help teach people with learning disabilities how to masturbate. This probably sounds weirder than it was — but as she said, certain people with learning disabilities can become very sexually frustrated and not know how to relieve this ‘tension’, which may cause them further problems.

This is presumably something which — if you’ll excuse the phrase — needs to be handled very carefully so as not to be inappropriate, but simply to be used to help people with learning disabilities, where it is appropriate.

So I know it’s not something we’d normally consider — or if we did, we’d tend to focus solely on the pregnancy and ‘can they cope’ aspects — but if we accept that people with learning disabilities are humans, with human rights, then surely we have to accept that those with milder learning disabilities have the right to choose to embark upon a sexually fulfilling relationship?

And, in the case of Otto and his mum, if he can’t find someone with which to do that, then why should he have any less “right” to visit a prostitute than anyone else?

[Note: I'm not saying that prostitution is right, nor that people have a right to visit prostitutes, merely that I don't see why someone with Downs is any different to anyone else in this matter].

Sometimes I’m am critical of our media, sometimes I am not. In this case, I think the media — or at least what of it I have seen and read — have handled this appropriately and not with the disregard and unpleasantness that I would have expected. So well done to our media on this one. I can’t necessarily say the same about everyone leaving comments on the news articles, though…

For the most part this appears to be because they are in incomprehensible managese (like legalese, only more for managers) such as “predictors of beaconicity”, although in some cases it’s because while they are relatively comprehensible, there are simpler words which would work better, only wouldn’t generally get used because they don’t sound ‘cool’ enough.

For example, tranche is to be discouraged. It means ’slice’. The LGA quite reasonably make the point that if you mean slice, why not say so?

Some words which have become fairly standard ‘in-house’ are criticised — “procure”, “benchmarking”, “can do culture” and the like are suggested should be dropped, although the LGA is less than coherent about what should be used instead.

This is a great idea, and I’m all for our councils (and our MPs, MEPs*, and our justice system) actually learning to speak in what I would term as English. However, there are two major problems with this.

* whether or not I’m standing.

The first one would appear to be that councils don’t listen to the LGA. What makes me say this? Well, it sounded vaguely familiar for a start and the BBC article where I first noticed this report has some links at the side, suggesting that the LGA have attempted to ban jargon before.

For example, if we look at the Guardian from June last year, we see:

The LGA has listed 100 words or phrases that public bodies should avoid if they want to communicate effectively with people.

The list, which has been sent to councils across the country, includes such abominations as “value-added”, “improvement levers”, “predictors of beaconicity”…The Guardian: Striking A Blow For The Jargon-Haters, June 2008

Chortle. There’s that “predictors of beaconicity” again. And if we look back a little further, we’ll find the same thing in February 2008 (referring to the first list of December 2007).

The Local Government Association’s list of 100 words that should not be used in communication with the general public makes for alarming reading.

It ranges from the slightly muddled such as “revenue stream” [money] and “best practice” [right way to do things] to the downright flabbergasting “predictors of beaconicity”

BBC News: Why do councils love jargon?, February 2008

Hmm. It would appear then that one of three things is happening. The first possibility is that the LGA is toothless and irrelevant as the fact that they have felt the need to include “predictors of beaconicity” on each list to date would seem to indicate that councils are ignoring what the LGA have to say and continuing to spout the seem meaningless garbage that they have done for some time.

Or secondly, it could be that Councils aren’t actually using the term “predictors of beaconicity”, only it’s too good a jargon term for the LGA to drop from their list. Which would seem to imply that the LGA’s list isn’t based on actually helping the man on the street, it’s about trying to grab headlines.

Hmm. How could one possibly research such a thing?

It would appear from my rather cursory research that Councils haven’t been the ones using the term “Predictors of beaconicity”. Nope, this was Central Government. On Hazel Blears’ watch, the Communities and Local Government Department produced a report called — guess what? — Predictors of Beaconicity in November 2007. Not, you’d note, Local Authorities at all.

It would appear from my refined search that a grand total of no councils whatsoever have used the phrase ‘predictors of beaconicity’ except — and this is important — when referencing the LGA list of words that they shouldn’t use.

It would therefore appear that the LGA have not only banned councils from using a phrase which none of them were using in the first place, but it has then been directly responsible for the only references to the phrase which exist on council sites…

How is this actually helping local government? Or, for that matter, the proverbial ‘man in the street’? Is the LGA incapable of doing any research? Or is it just that it’s less effort to continue to regurgitate out-dated and inaccurate information?

It does surprise me somewhat — although it probably shouldn’t — that the media seem prepared to accept this LGA release verbatim, without questioning any of it. This is reflected in the way in which this story is covered in various places, which seems to work from the assumption that councils are using these terms, without any actual evidence provided to support it. I’m sure some of the terms are being used, but the one I looked at wasn’t and the LGA are surely doing Local Government in the UK a disservice by implying that they do…

If you’re in the mood for a bit of a laugh at ‘those mandarins in city hall’, you can even take part in the BBC Midweek Quiz: Council Jargon. Again, note the assumption that because the LGA say it’s a banned word, councils must currently be using it. Perhaps the LGA could put their banned word list to more effective use next year by naming and shaming those councils it believes are responsible for most of this jargon, with more cited examples. That way we wouldn’t just have to take their word for it.

Oh, and that BBC Quiz itself isn’t perfect. I got one of the answers wrong, which left me with 5 out of 6 answers correct. I wasn’t therefore too surprised to find that I had ended up in the second category “4 - 6: Make some sense”. However I did feel that the BBC were perhaps making it a little difficult to get the top score of “plain speaking”, with 7 correct answers needed from only 6 questions.

Although it maybe suggests that the BBC’s fact-checking is no better than the LGA’s.

Getting back to my original rant, what’s the third possibility? That the LGA list is made up and irrelevant to what councils actually use and that councils are ignoring it anyway. And after all, why should councils be expected to listen to the LGA when they don’t follow their own advice?

the LGA have some way to go in leading by example, judging by their own website. I searched “place shaping” and got 302 hits. Stakeholder got 347. Third sector 412. Interface 126. Synergies a more modest 51 but as the LGA themselves ask: “Why use at all?”Conservative Home | Local Government

And that brings me rather neatly to the second problem with the LGA list. At the bottom of the press release it says “200 words and their alternatives”. Now I don’t know about you, but I take alternatives to mean “what should be used instead”. Yes?

This would seem to be backed up by them saying things like…

• advocate — support
• autonomous — independent

LGA

But then their suggestions for alternatives get a little weirder…

• CAAs — why use at all?
• Cautiously welcome — devil in the detail
• holistic — taken in the round
• social exclusion — poverty

There’s a mix of problems here. Firstly ‘why use at all’ isn’t an alternative to CAAs. It is instead an acronym for the Civil Aviation Authority. Or possibly a Comprehensive Area Assessment. If you are referring to either one of these, surely you’ve got to call them something, and saying that “we’re carrying out a why use at all? of your local area to determine how best to spend public funds” doesn’t really make that much sense.

Secondly, ‘cautiously welcome’ and ‘devil in the detail’ are not direct alternatives either. What is meant is that when you say ‘cautiously welcome’, you presumably ought to expand on what you’re welcoming, and what you’re being cautious about, otherwise it doesn’t really mean anything other than you’re sitting on the fence whilst trying to appear positive. Unfortunately, as they’ve just listed these four words, this may not be clear.

And why on earth would anyone think ‘taken in the round’ is a clearer explanation for ‘holistic’? Surely an ‘overall’ view is much plainer English?

And sadly, the Local Government Association, whom I really would have thought ought to have known better, have assumed that social exclusion = poverty. Simple as. Except it isn’t that simple. People may be socially excluded for a number of factors. Sure, poverty is a common factor in social exclusion, but sexuality, religion, class, disability, education, geographic location, and age are all frequently reasons people may be socially excluded. Poverty is therefore not a suitable alternative to the phrase ’social exclusion’.

I really would have expected the Local Government Association to have known better. Then again, I would have expected their list of discouraged words to have had some greater relevance to the words which councils were actually using. I would, at the very least, have expected them to follow their own advice. It’s almost enough to make you wonder if @localgovernment isn’t a spoof…

Can you hear me say Yay! Pointless statistics about twitter!

Twitalyzer breaks down your Twitter feed into five categories: Influence, Signal, Generosity, Velocity and Clout.

Influence is the ‘overall’ metric, built up from combinations of the other ones. As such, there’s not much explanation needed for this one. It is perhaps not surprising to discover that I have less influence than @StephenFry on twitter, since I have 66 followers (although I could be up to about 80 by now if I’d not blocked the spam accounts — tip: if you call yourself “Holiday Offers”, I’m likely to assume I won’t be interested in what you have to say), whereas our Stephen has, at the time of writing, 311,598 followers.

At first glance, this would appear to indicate that he has a lot more twitter followers than @ThePickards, but I’d rather look at it from the point of view that if we assume the world population is 6.5 billion, he is only reaching 0.0048% of the population more than me. Just a drop in the ocean, isn’t it? We’re virtually the same…

And the second statistic ’signal’, shows why there’s so little difference between us. This is the measure of signal to noise. The algorithm, while presumably not perfect, is there to try and establish that people are passing on useful information which may be helpful to others, instead of just people whinging about train delays.

Sure, Stephen has been on telly a bit, but it would appear that according to these statistics, that what I have to say is more worthwhile. Just look at that. Nearly 90% signal to 10% noise for me; 60-40 for the Frymeister. Stephen Fry, all of your base are belong to us.

However, the next statistic, Generosity, shows neither myself nor Stephen in a good light. Generosity is rather simplistically measured as the amount of time you retweet someone else. I think that’s a little simplistic, to be honest — if I were to retweet something Stephen said, it would be a bit pointless, because I’d be broadcasting it to a significantly smaller audience. Where Stephen does it, he broadcasts to a significantly larger audience.

There is therefore an appreciable benefit in someone with a lot of followers retweeting, and much less point in someone with only a handful of followers retweeting. This statistic therefore needs mucking about with, I would suggest, to take account of the ‘reach’ of the person re-tweeting, and also to assume that you don’t actually want every single tweet someone produces to be a retweet…

But, according to this statistic, Stephen and I are remarkably un-generous, with relative generosities of 1.1% and 2.6% respectively. We are stingy twitterers.

So far, Stephen is scoring far more highly than me, although I’m actually beating him in the first two categories. How can this be?

Oh wait, perhaps he’s ahead of me in the next two categories…

Next up is velocity, which is simply a measure of the number of tweets you produce, against a measurable maximum of 1,500 per week. So if you are producing more than 200 tweets per day, you’ll be doing fine in this regard. Only you might be decreasing your signal-to-noise ratio.

Unless of course you post 215 retweets per day, which will give you the maximum ‘generosity’, maximum ‘velocity’ and maximum ’signal’. As I understand it, this should be sufficient to ‘game’ the twitalyzer and score you top marks in each of these categories. The minor disadvantage is of course that you would piss off anyone who was actually following you…

And of course, Señor Fry is ahead of me here, with a velocity of 25.3% to my 10.3% (equating to some 54 tweets per day, if I’m reading that correctly for Stephen, as opposed to a much more feeble 22 tweets per day for me). Of course, I would like to point out at this juncture that my tweets are more worth reading, as over 40% of Stephen’s tweets are apparently just ‘noise’.

Somehow I doubt that I’ll convince his 311,000 fans of this, though…

Clout is simply the amount of times you are referenced; how likely it is that someone else will reference you in a tweet. Not surprisingly, Stephen is ahead of me with this one, with a clout which theoretically could not be bettered. On the bright side, I’m only 98.1% behind him, and it’s unlikely that the gap can get much wider.

On the down side of course, there’s a fair bit of catching up to do.

But I’ve had fun playing with the twitalyzer, even if I had to do the side-by-side comparisons myself: if I could specify one feature request, it would be to allow side-by-side comparisons. That’s where the real fun is, not just in looking at some bland statistics but in having a ‘competition’ with someone else, regardless of whether you take that competition seriously or as a joke.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about how I was treating it…