Craic On

There is something cringingly uncomfortable about making your mistakes in public: I have a long and distinguished experience of being the subject of public amusement. It’s not a comfortable place to be. Not looking or behaving like other people’s assumptions, of how I should look or behave, has landed me in some testing situations. Getting off a bus one day, the door opened next to a concrete bollard that was invisible against the pavement. The bus driver didn’t believe I had a sight impairment so thought he would put his theory to the test with a spot of strategic parking. Pivotting on a bollard is surprisingly painful. It’s also extremely funny to the casual onlooker in a kind of slapstick way. The queue of people waiting to get on the bus couldn’t help themselves. They laughed until they cried while I dangled over the top of the bollard with a pain in my stomach like I’d just been punched. On a trip to the cinema I elected to cross at the zebra crossing just outside the cinema. When I got there a van