I have a tell, when I’m training. I’ve only just noticed it, or put it into context.

When I get too exhausted, my watch starts to click against my pushrim. It’s because my posture slumps a bit.

This is useful for two reasons: first, I famously don’t know my limits. When I last seriously trained, 30 years or so ago, I was a fairly good martial artist. I’d train until comatose. I was unbelievably fit, but quite often injured and I had no life at all. And I’d often wake up on the floor, having fallen asleep wherever I’d been training.

If I’d had my eye on the Olympics or even a serious national tournament, this might have made sense. But I had no real ambition, the training was what I was interested in. I did some tournaments, but that was only because my instructors told me to, I wasn’t interested.

If I’d known my limits, perhaps I’d have been a more successful martial artist and I’d definitely be less socially awkward now. If I’d had something to tell me when to stop, I might have learned those limits.

Second, it’s taught me a lot about my posture and how it reacts to exhaustion. I’m working all of this out for myself as I go along, so I’m probably a little slow on the uptake. Little things like the clicking impact of my watch strap force me to learn how to be better.

Of course, now I need to learn how to not let my posture stoop when I’m tired, so the tell will go away. But it’s a reminder that I need to look for tells and to stay within shouting distance of sensible limits.

Victoria Smith writes:

Self-styled good men are very good at feeling sad about women that bad men have killed. They are not so good at thinking these bad men might have anything to do with them, let alone that the “epidemic” of male violence against women and girls might be the responsibility of male people as a sex class.

It’s unbearable see, day after day; we men refusing to accept responsibility for the violence of our own sex. But why should we? Why is sex relevant, when it’s only those other – bad – men who do the violence?

Victoria explains:

Women aren’t just afraid because of the truly bad men. It’s because there are so few truly good ones. Our lives are littered with the stories we couldn’t tell, the accusations we couldn’t make, because we know the good men will close ranks and we don’t want to see it.

We’re complicit.

Wayne Couzens, who raped and murdered Sarah Everard, was nicknamed “The Rapist” by fellow officers because of his creepy, threatening behaviour. They didn’t take that behaviour seriously; they treated it as a joke. Several gave character references supportive of Couzens. Five officers shared “grossly offensive material” with him.

Several female officers told the press that they were concerned about the behaviour of their male colleagues but didn’t think they could report it. They knew they wouldn’t be taken seriously and that there’d likely be repercussions.

The most relevant thing those colleagues have in common is not that they are police officers, it is that they are men. Whenever we ignore concerning behaviour in men; when we close ranks to protect men; and when we don’t listen to women, we are absolutely complicit in the type of violence that Couzens did to Sarah Everard.

Wheelchair bags are awful. There aren’t any good ones, I’m convinced of it. I have a friend who designs and makes bags and we have a vague plan to get together – when time and pandemics allow – to come up with some non-terrible designs. If I convince her we can sell some to other disappointed shleppers, she might make some prototypes.

So here’s a discussion of what’s wrong with wheelchair bags, some things I think are OK and what I’m looking for in a product.

I’m aware, to begin with, that my requirements for anything are always slightly different to everyone else’s. I don’t think I’m particularly unusual or especially fussy, but either I evidently am or I’m less inclined to compromise when it seems like an optimal solution should be straightforward. After all, I’m a software developer and we shouldn’t forget the Programmer’s Credo:

The Programmer’s Credo: we do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy.

Anyway, I think my requirements for wheelchair bags are pretty straightforward:

• A small, easily-accessible pouch of some sort for my phone, credit cards, cash… Preferably easily detachable and take-awayable. Needs to be in easy reach of either hand (I’m ambidextrous) and, crucially, easy to open and operate with one hand. When I’m trying to pay for something in a shop, particularly when the counter is very high, fumbling with bag, cards and purchases is annoying and occasionally mortifying. Like that time I dropped all of the above in a busy shop and then couldn’t pick up my credit card. Nobody helped me, presumably because they didn’t want me to feel patronised. Then it lasted too long for anyone to break down and offer to help and it was all, as I said, mortifying.
• A bag big enough for my laptop, kindle, sunglasses, earbuds, various sundry bits and pieces and a small amount of shopping. This must be easy to attach and detach while I’m sitting in the chair (it’s a lot easier to use a bag on my knee in supermarkets than to balance a basket on there). It must be easy to get stuff in and out and to open and close, while I’m sitting in the chair. There should be a couple of separate compartments inside and there should be pouches on the outside I can easily reach (gloves, mask, hand sanitiser, earbuds, sunglasses depending on what I’m doing).

And that’s it, really. I’m willing to compromise on the distribution of items in the bags: I don’t mind too much if my earbuds and sunglasses go in the pouch rather than the bag, for instance. I just need two separate spaces I can organise how I need them at the time, which are both easily accessible and usable when I’m sitting in the chair.

It turns out that latter point is a problem. There are various kinds of bags, but let’s look at the most common first: the backpack type.

These basically come in one design, with slight variations. This one:

It has loops to go over the chair’s push handles and most have straps that reach around under the backrest cushion to secure it in place. These usually have easy release clips.

The only good things about these bags is that they have a decent capacity, some have pouches on the sides to put stuff you need to be at hand and they are are easy to put on and take off the chair providing you are not sitting in it. The bad things about these bags are:

• They rely on the chair having push handles. Many don’t. Mine does, but they are of a type that fold down flat. They are sloped downward even when in the upright position so not very suitable for this type of bag. I’m always worried that it will fall off.
• Having a bag on the back of the chair is not ideal, especially when full of heavy things. It changes the centre of gravity. It can pull the chair over backwards. When I’ve used the toilets in trains with a heavy bag on the chair, the chair has fallen over the moment I got out of it, which was seriously annoying and inconvenient. But perhaps that can’t be helped.
• It’s really difficult to get things in and out of the bag when I’m sitting in the chair. My upper body mobility is pretty good and I can twist around in the chair, but the design of the bag means it’s still very difficult to use, plus
• It’s really difficult even to open and close the bag when I’m sitting in the chair. The zip runs around the top and upper sides of the bag, and it’s virtually impossible to get the leverage to pull the zip around the corner. I think this could be fixed by making the zip a slope, but more of this later.
• The bag doesn’t sit well either over or under the pushbar.
• The straps that fasten the bag to the chair are too long, trail everywhere if you’re not careful and slip easily so the bag is in constant danger of lurching into the wheels.

Currently, I have a slightly different backpack, but along much the same design. It doesn’t have handle straps, but instead velcro straps that reach under the backrest cushion and attach to the velcro there. This seems to work better than I’d expected. There are still problems, though: the straps are attached by quick release catches, but these are so ridiculously over-engineered that they’re really difficult to fasten and unfasten if the bag is heavy. Also, to fit right, the bag has to slot under the push handle. This is fine, it keeps the bag securely fastened to the chair, but it also makes clipping it on even harder if I’m sitting in the chair. It also makes it impossible to get stuff in and out of the bag when it’s clipped to the chair, largely defeating the object of having it in the first place. It doesn’t have pouches on the sides for my gloves etc. I hate it.

I have two other, interchangeable, bags. which fit under the chair. One of these, I bought for my old chair and it fitted onto the strut for the footrest. I liked it. I could fit in my phone, cards and cash as above. It slotted onto a mount so I could take it away with me if I wasn’t near my chair for some reason. It was close to hand and easy to operate with one hand. Exactly per requirements above.

Unfortunately, it does not fit on the strut of my new chair. I’ll work out a scheme to do it eventually, but I haven’t had time to mess around.

The second, which slots onto the same type of mount, is just about large enough for my gloves, sunglasses and earbuds. The only place I can fit it, though, is underneath the chair, on the axle mount. It’s really, really hard and inconvenient to get stuff in and out of it. It really is a nice bag and I can swap it out for the smaller one if I need to, but it’s in the wrong place for me and I need to engineer a new mounting solution when I have chance. I’ll let you know how that goes. It’s also far too small for my laptop. I’d really like to be able to just slot my laptop under the seat.

So currently, I have two main bags and neither of them are really any good. The situation would be intolerable if the chair didn’t have a little velcro-fastening pouch underneath where I can keep my phone and a pouch on the back where I can keep my gloves. Needless to say, the pouch on the back is very hard to access when the backpack is on there.

I’m aware that there are other bags that fit under the chair, but most of these seem small and look as though they’d swing around annoyingly (or look difficult to access).

So I need a better solution. I can’t believe more people aren’t in exactly this position, with similar requirements.

So, hopefully with my friend as mentioned above, I’m going to design some new bags, beginning with a backpack. There’s nothing startlingly innovative about the design I have in mind except that it has two compartments at different levels. The first (at the back as it is mounted on the chair) will be thin and solely a laptop compartment. It will fit snugly under the push handle (that is, pushed up underneath it from below and sticking out the top) and have a sloping opening so I can easily work the zip while sitting in the chair. The second compartment will fit underneath the pushbar, have more volume and open to the top and front. This will be for shopping and will fold as flat as possible when I’m not using it. There will be pouches on the sides for essential stuff. The quick release straps will be actually quick release and properly adjustable so they can be where they need to. There will be a long loop handle on the very top of the laptop compartment so I can easily hold the bag in place while I’m attaching the straps.

I’ll post drawings as I make ones I’m not embarrassed by so you can see what I’m talking about. And I’ll post about ideas for other bags (eg for storing my laptop under my seat) in a later post. I might also tell you about my bandoleer, which I love, but am a bit embarrassed to wear out in the wild.

Let me know what you think about those designs or about any problems you have with wheelchair bags and ideas you’ve come up with to solve them.

I’ve been busy, although I don’t seem to have much to show for it, so I’ve been slow to post my initial review of my new wheelchair, the Quickie Helium.

The delay is partly because I have no reliable frame of reference. My old chair was the coolest and most badass-looking moderately priced off-the-peg one on the first page of Amazon search results while the new one is considerably more expensive and built to the specifications required by both my body and my imperious demands.

Is a comparison of those two particular chairs useful? I’m buggered if I know, which is why I’ve held off writing about it. But then I remembered that nobody reads this blog anyway and futility squared is still just futility, so here goes.

First, here’s a picture of my old chair:

There is much to recommend it given the price, which was in the region of £300. It’s a folding chair, which means it’s not really up to much of the punishment I’ve put it through. It’s also rather heavy (about 14KG without wheels) and has those awful footrests, which were at least as much of a punishment as not being able to walk in the first place.

But it’s sturdy, folds up quite nicely and has lots of places to clip things like bags. The arm rests look dorky in that picture but they fold down with quite a nice, clicky action, which goes a long way, with me. Slotting them pointedly into the downward position is as good a way of indicating that you mean business as I’ve seen. I kind of miss them, now they’re gone.

The Quickie is another beast entirely. It’s non-folding, which means the frame is a lot sturdier and can take a lot more punishment. It’s also a lot lighter at 6.8KG (without wheels) and has the standard, non-punishment footrest. Mine has lightweight wheels (I also got a set of offroad wheels), weird, minimalist mixed-blessing brakes and too many options to write about here.

All in all, with various extras and attachments, my new chair cost around ten times the price of the old one. It’s a scandal, there’s no reason at all why decent wheelchairs should cost so much. But the difference is honestly like night and day; if you can afford around £3000 for a wheelchair, you should definitely spend it. Assuming you need a wheelchair in the first place, of course. If you’re just buying one to piss about in on building sites like bumper cars (and you should, they’re great) then you can buy my old one, if you like.

Anyway, here is a list of the things that are better about my new chair:

• Manoeuvrability. This thing can turn – pretty much literally – on a dime. The camber of the wheels is set to 3 degrees. More degrees equals more manoeuvrability but I’m not sure you’d need it unless you’re playing basketball or eternally battling crows. The camber on the Quickie is adjustable and I’m a tinkerer at heart so I’ll definitely adjust it at some point, but purely as an experiment. The manoeuvrability is fine, especially given the weight. A larger camber makes it more likely that you’ll tip over backwards and less likely that you’ll fit through doors.
• Weight. 6.8KG. That is about what my admittedly monstrous cat weighs. It’s hardly any weight at all. This counts in a number of key areas: pushing the chair, obviously. Maintaining momentum. Acceleration. But also getting the thing into cars, up ramps and around corners. Weight counts, get a chair that weighs closer to what a cat weighs than to what an alsation weighs.
• Footrest. I know I talk about this a lot, but the footrests on my old chair were one of those low-level intrusions that end up training maladaptive behaviour. I ended up hating to get out of my chair not because of the excruciating pain but because the feetrests were even more annoying than that. The pain, I can cope with. The footrests, I don’t have to, now. The new chair just has a bar I can put my feet on. Perfect.
• Non-foldability: I had thought that I needed a folding chair so that I could get it in cars. That is not true. Non-folding chairs can easily be crammed into cars in a variety of ways. If you are able to drive a car, you are much more likely to be able to get out of the chair, into the car and then drag the chair in after you with a non-folding chair than a folding one. I know that sounds unlikely so watch some YouTube videos. You’ll see I’m right.
• Centre of gravity: On my chair…I don’t think it’s set quite right. As I said, I’m a tinkerer and I’ll be experimenting. I think the rear of my seat needs to be a little lower so I can put more power through the wheels. My upper body strength is very good and I think I can sacrifice some ease of getting moving in the first place in favour of dangerous acceleration. I’ll let you know if I break my wrists or something by channelling too much force through them. Or rather, I won’t, I suppose, because I won’t be able to type.
• Looks pretty awesome: Goes a long way. When you’re in a wheelchair you are simultaneously invisible and taking up a lot of space. You feel shockingly visible even though everyone is doing their best to pretend not to notice you. Some good can come of this, if you are as brazen as I am; you can park up in the middle of a public thoroughfare to check your phone and make everyone walk around you. It’s especially satisfying if you pull out some tools and start modifying your wheelchair in the middle of a car park (I do this more often than you’d expect.) But you won’t have that confidence if you don’t think your chair looks badass. Get one you think looks badass.

Getting my first chair was indescribably liberating. I hadn’t realised how important it is to be able to leave the house at (more or less) will. Getting the new chair was as much of a step change as that. I recommend this chair because it’s fine. I don’t have experience of any other similarly priced chairs. Perhaps they’re better or worse, but they’re probably more or less the same.

Get one, though, I urge you. If you need a wheelchair and you have the upper body strength to use a manual one, spend the £2-3000 if you can. In an upcoming post I’ll talk about how I found out – too late – that there’s government funding that can help you pay for it.

But spend the money, if you can.

Here is For Women Scotland’s description of the Women’s Rights demo last week. There’s video of the speeches (I recommend watching them, they’re really good). There’s also the text of Marion Calder’s speech (she’s the co-director of For Women Scotland).

And there are pictures, too, including some dogs I met. A bit of my chair can be seen behind one of the dogs and some Scottish witches here:

Do take time to read about the protest and about For Women Scotland, if you can.

Another post soon on the trip from a wheelchair user’s perspective and how the new chair performed.