“There are an enormous number of general empirical propositions that count as certain for us. One such is that if someone’s arm is cut off it will not grow again”. (Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty) Ludwig Wittgenstein has always been one of my favourite philosophers, so naturally I was intrigued, on reading the wonderful biography by… Read More from Paul Wittgenstein
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Ian Dury
There’s been no shortage of disabled popular musicians (Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Gene Vincent), and even a good sprinkling of polio-survivor musicians (Judy Collins, Donovan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young), but no other mainstream-successful singer-songwriter has ever explored disability and attitudes to disabled people as powerfully and memorably as Ian Dury. Ian Dury was born in… Read More from Ian Dury
Django Reinhardt
Disability is hardly incompatible with musical success, as deaf Beethoven or Evelyn Glennie, and a myriad of blind classical, jazz and blues musicians can attest. Several great musicians have had physical impairments, including reputedly Paganini with Marfan syndrome. But Django Reinhardt was perhaps the best example of a musician who overcame a career-ending injury to… Read More from Django Reinhardt
Jacqueline du Pré
It is exactly 25 years since the death of the greatest ever English cellist, a player who will be forever associated with the Elgar Cello Concerto, and whose passion and directness struck all who heard or saw her. Jacqueline du Pré grew up in Oxford. Her father was an accountant, from a Channel Islands family,… Read More from Jacqueline du Pré
Ian Curtis
I did not discover the music of Joy Division until a few years after the death of their lead singer, Ian Curtis, but it was love at first sight. Songs of doomed romance like ‘Love will tear us apart’ expressed what most troubled teenagers were feeling. Never was the gloom and despair and solipsism of… Read More from Ian Curtis