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Handicapped By Height (Travails Of The Tall)

rynner2

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Tall pair fail to raise the roof

A tall couple have been denied permission to raise the roof of their Aberdeenshire home.
Brian Culbert, who is 6ft 10in, and his 6ft wife Fiona are so tall they find everyday tasks such as showering and walking through doors a major problem.

Councillors rejected their application to raise the roof of their Lumphanan home on the grounds that it would set a "dangerous precedent".

The Culberts believe they have been discriminated against.

Mrs Culbert, 31, said: "I was particularly upset when it was suggested by someone on the council that we just buy a bigger house.

"There is no low cost housing around here - we can't afford to move, we have got to make do with what we have got.

"Height is actually a disability if you are spending your life banging your head off doorways - my husband must have the patience of a saint because it happens to him all the time.

"One of the councillors at the meeting actually had the cheek to say that she is only 5ft 3in but she doesn't live in a "diddy" house, which I find quite offensive."

The Culberts had wanted to install a Mansard roof to their home as part of the extension.

But this was rejected because it does not meet with current local plan guidelines.

Mr Culbert, 36, an oil company worker, said: "I find what has happened very hurtful and of course we are disappointed that the plans we worked on with our architect have been refused.

"I am always banging my head or stooping and we had designed the extension - which was cost-effective as well as aesthetically pleasing - to accommodate our specific needs."

Peter Argyle, the 6ft 3in tall vice-chair of the council's Marr Area Committee which considered the application said: "The committee was sympathetic but felt that the design did not conform in any way with council planning policies.

"6ft 10in is tall, but had we said 'okay, we will allow it because they are above average height', then in theory that would open the door to anyone else who is tall getting applications approved on the basis of their height.

"That is just not logical."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4699017.stm
This almost belongs in Strange Folk - I refer to the 'diddy' councillor!
How crass! (Not to mention Peter (Mr. Spock) Argyle!)
 
Because they couldn't afford to live in a big house.
 
I suspect we are so attuned to prejudices against the deficient (for lack of a better term--and I'm not saying short people are deficient!) that we overlook people with an excess, as it were (by the same token, I supect most public schools are better able to deal with dyslexics, slow learners etc. than they are with the outrageously gifted).
 
I don't like people who have an attitude about their height, regardless of which end of the bell curve they're on (short men like to be nasty to me though).
 
lopaka said:
..And absolutely, when it comes to things like sitting in an airline or theater seat I'm incredibly grateful to be 6" below average rather than 6" above.
Seats are a major problem. Theatre (especially live, stage theatre) seats are usually unbearably cramped: at least cinematic theatres often have "Premier" seating now, with far more leg room and width room too (I'm fairly broad as well). It's nigh-on impossible to actually enjoy anything when you've either got cramp or complete restriction of bloodflow to your legs, and you have to sit hunched anyway :(. Airline and train seats are worse still, unless you want to pay three times as much for 1st Class. At least on most UK buses there are a few sideways-facing seats, which makes life easier. I love rollercoasters, but can't go on some cos I'm too tall for the shoulder braces to lock down properly :(.

The disadvantages of being tall do outweigh the advantages, by and large (pardon the pun). That said, manufacturers are starting to make off-the-peg clothes and shoes in larger sizes now, which is a big plus. I used to have to go to High & Mighty, etc, for clothing, which was very good quality but nonetheless cost a fortune.

Oh, and beds are too small. Your feet dangle over the end on a regular sized one.

And so are baths.
 
Well, somebody's gonna mention this, so it may as well be me!
Procrustes:
A mythical Greek giant who was a thief and a murderer. He would capture travelers and tie them to an iron bed. If they were longer than the bed, he would hack off their limbs until they fit it. If they were too short, he would stretch them to the right size. Using Procrustes' own villainous methods, Theseus killed him.

(Procrustean operation:
One that relentlessly tries to shape a person, an argument, or an idea to a predetermined pattern.)
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/what.html
 
If they were longer than the bed, he would hack off their limbs until they fit it. If they were too short, he would stretch them to the right size.
But what would he do if they were just the right length already? Let them go? Stretch them out a bit first, then hack their feet off?
 
omigosh :oops: i*ve just re-read rynners post and realised what he meant
i*m not one of those,honest :lol:
my bro-in-law doesn*t like me much,and thinks it*s funny to laugh at people about their physical appearance
mind you i don*t like him much either,so most of the time it*s a truce!
 
lopaka said:
And absolutely, when it comes to things like sitting in an airline or theater seat I'm incredibly grateful to be 6" below average rather than 6" above.

Yep, six foot five Andy can confirm this, all public transport sucks ( went to Northern Ontario a couple of years ago - a seven hour bus trip - and was in agony for the last 4 hours).
Also, getting in and out of cars takes twice as long as it should. Let's not forget most tables and chairs ( constantly banging knees).

And then there's the "small man syndrome". Little dudes hate me on sight. The up side is that oriental women love me on sight. :D
 
So *that's* who snaps up all the tall men before the rest of us get a look in. :sceptic:

(NB: the bf, who I love [and ogle] more than I ever thought I could love [and ogle] anyone is the same height as me)
 
Height can be a disadvange! You should see my sisters boyfriend at my Mum's house he can hit every single lampshade if he isn't careful and has problems with doors. At 6' 7" a lot of people look up to him! He has a lot of problem with his bones being that tall unfortunatly :( My sister is 5' dead on and I am 4' 11" I'm glad i'm short. :D
 
I once saw a man in person who was I beleive 8 foot, 2 inches in height. I bagged his groceries and the cashier asked him his height. 8 foot 2 inches is what he told us. He was in the shopping store, and I first saw him he was across to the other side of the building. It appeared that a man was standing on a cart, and being pushed down the isles because of the height. Turns out, he was a giant. I was 6 foot at the time, and i stood half-way up his chest. It was a white man, and not a basketball player. He lives in michigan somewhere. Going out the automatic doors, he needed to lean WAY down bending all the way over to get under!!!!
 
I was in the pub for Sunday lunch the other day, and an incredibly tall woman came in - must have been well over 6', and taller than anyone else in the bar.

I had my camera with me, as usual, and I wanted to ask if I could take her picture, but I didn't know how to approach her without making her feel a freak, or otherwise offending her.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can think of a few approaches I could have tried, but that's the story of my life!

She didn't seem particularly shy, and perhaps she'd even have appreciated a bit of publicity - after all, if you can't change it, maybe you can profit from it!

But certainly height extremes can cause problems for people because of social isolation, even if this is because other people are wary of giving offence.

Perhaps we are all too 'politically correct' nowadays. Maybe we should call out "Hallo, Shorty!" or "What's the weather like up there?" as a way of showing people that we accept them as ordinary folk, rather than appearing to give them the cold shoulder by ignoring them.
 
Perhaps we are all too 'politically correct' nowadays. Maybe we should call out "Hallo, Shorty!" or "What's the weather like up there?" as a way of showing people that we accept them as ordinary folk, rather than appearing to give them the cold shoulder by ignoring them.

I dunno... I would be inclined to avoid making comments about body size/shape to anyone you don't know *really* well... and to be quite honest even then I'd think twice! :)

Slightly off topic but a new manager has joined our department; he is in a wheelchair and obviously has some difficulty with his upper body as well. It's very tricky to know what to say and to what extent to offer help... watching him light a cigarette is painful because he is clearly struggling but I feel I don't know him well enough to offer to assist - he might be very offended! Aside from that though, he is very open talking about his mobility problems, issues with public transport, stairs etc and I think this does make people more comfortable than they might otherwise be!

To try and tie this stream of consciousness back to Rynner's post on vry tall and short people... I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's probably best to wait until the person concerned makes a comment - but after that it's good to show an interest and ask if there's anything you can do to help them, eg by swapping seats in the cinema.
 
watching him light a cigarette is painful because he is clearly struggling but I feel I don't know him well enough to offer to assist - he might be very offended!

Working retail, I've found a solution to that. At my last retail job, we had a guy come in who had something wrong with his arm that made it difficult for him to bag his groceries, so I just started bagging them for him without asking. He didn't seem to mind, and I felt better about being able to help someone who's obviously struggling without actually pointing it out.
 
... then in theory that would open the door to anyone else who is tall getting applications approved on the basis of their height.

"That is just not logical."

wtf?

what's not logical about that? If you keep banging your head on the ceilings, raise the ceilings! You can't get more logical than that.

And if they are worried about tall (but not that tall) people taking advantage of the precedent to get their ceilings raised, surely there's such thing as a measuring tape to confirm whether the applicants really are having the head-bumping trouble?
 
I agree! The gypsies have tax payers paying for them to illegally reside on green belts and destroy them beyond repair... Drug addicts and alcoholics are payed for by tax payers, why shouldn't lanky people (irony in motion there!) be taken into concideration?
It's similare to the equation of people with mental problems getting attention and help , *I mean subtle problems*..like depression over obecity, physical appearence etc, but young men who are going bald.... Everyone laughs and jokes about them. Oh yes. It's really nice being a young lad, and let's face it... a lot more young men are thining out nowdays...and losing your hair only to be greeted with "Kojak", Baldy" and the classic "You're going a bit bald mate" *Good reply..."Yes, It took years to get my hair like this!" Or..."Oh shit! I didn't realise! Thankyou so much..." Or..." Why do you go to the trouble of saying that? Do you fancy me or something?" etc... lol... Noone cares a damn about the 22 year old poor sod who has no bloody confidence because for no fault of his own, he is losing his hair. Blame clowns?, comedy vicars?...Who knows. It's getting more acceptable now though so all's not as bad. Women who suffer balding get the odd stare and sympathy or ignorant avoidance...men are belittled. Being short and bald? It's a nightmare!
No, I'm not a bald shorty bloke. My hair started going when I was in my early 30s after a bit of trauma, but it hasn't progressed since then, but it di affect me in a big way since I had always had very long thick trusses of hair prior tho that.
So, height sleight and the way people see you are all connected with social ignorance and acceptance to trends.
Wierd init? ;)
 
spillage1 said:
I agree! The gypsies have tax payers paying for them to illegally reside on green belts and destroy them beyond repair... Drug addicts and alcoholics are payed for by tax payers, why shouldn't lanky people (irony in motion there!) be taken into concideration?

lol...and it's not as if these people are renting and demanding that the landlord provide them with a more "height friendly" abode (note the pc language there? I think I'm gettin the hang of this...). No they are just trying to make their own home more habitable for themselves...

If the planning laws don't accomodate that, then maybe there's something wrong with the planning laws... I mean, laws that prioritise aesthetics of housing over their functionality as dwellings for the inhabitants have surely gone awry somewhere...


(I am assuming there are no other circumstances that haven't been mentioned in the article, such as the house has historical sugnificance in some way, or the tall couple actually proposed to increase ceiling height by 6ft. I assume that such points would make a good case for the planning council and so would have been likely to be used had either of these scenarios been the case.)
 
Slightly off topic but a new manager has joined our department; he is in a wheelchair and obviously has some difficulty with his upper body as well. It's very tricky to know what to say and to what extent to offer help... watching him light a cigarette is painful because he is clearly struggling but I feel I don't know him well enough to offer to assist - he might be very offended! Aside from that though, he is very open talking about his mobility problems, issues with public transport, stairs etc and I think this does make people more comfortable than they might otherwise be!

My brother has MD and I've had friends with varying degrees of disability ranging from blindness to not being able to use their hands. If you feel comfortable doing this, you may want to approach him and ask, in a respectful and friendly way, if there are certain things he would appreciate help with and things he can deal with himself. I think that people can be *too* well-meaning and either act as if the person doesn't have a disability, which is insulting, or go too far the other way and try to do everything for them, which is also insulting. :) Perhaps my brother and friends were unusual but they appreciated this sort of respectful yet direct approach. My blind friend in particular hated it when people ignored her, or directed questions to me, as if she couldn't hear or wasn't aware of what was happening around her. She worked hard at her independence and hated it when strangers touched her or guided her around without permission. It may be that the new manager struggles to light a cigarette but doesn't want anyone to help him and can manage, or it may be that he'd be grateful if someone held a lighter to his smoke for him. (and if it's the former, he may be rather insulted if someone follows him around with a lighter at the ready) If he's a halfway decent bloke he'd probably appreciate you asking, if it's handled right.

Most people are basically kindhearted and want to downplay the disability, or feel it would be indelicate to refer to it in any way. My blind friend knew she was blind (either that or she figured out a way to con people out of free dogs ;) ), my brother knows he walks funny, and my other friend knew that sometimes she couldn't pick up a fork. There's a calm and dignified middle ground between rushing to help them (the new manager is probably justly proud of his independence) and pretending not to notice there's anything there at all.

Edited to add: I've mentioned elsewhere that my other brother (not the one mentioned above, although my brother with MD is about 6'1") was 6 ft tall by the time he was 12 (and kept going) and he felt that he was a target just as much, if not more so, than someone who was on the other end of the bell curve. He'd often come home from school fuming in fact because some of the smaller boys would taunt HIM and even attempt to goad him into a physical confrontation, and since he was the big (and athletic) one he couldn't retaliate. One swipe of his mighty paw would put those other kids in the hospital. ;) (This conundrum of his struck me later as being peculiarly Canadian, frankly) We have a 7-ft (male) cousin in Germany, and another (female) cousin who is about 6-ft, which is perhaps not so unusual now but she's in her early to mid-60s so she's an unusually tall woman for her generation.

Shrimpferne (5'8" :furious: )
 
rynner said:
Perhaps we are all too 'politically correct' nowadays. Maybe we should call out "Hallo, Shorty!" or "What's the weather like up there?" as a way of showing people that we accept them as ordinary folk, rather than appearing to give them the cold shoulder by ignoring them.
Speaking personally as someone who is overweight, and used to be seen regularly with a brother with similar colouration and facial hair, just going up to people and making comments like "You two look like twins!" or "Lose some weight, you fat bastard!" (or more commonly just "You fat c***!") do not endear you to total strangers.

Surely if you want to treat people like ordinary folk, whatever they are, you shouldn't make overly familiar remarks about their appearance? Do you walk up to people with no real outstanding characteristics and tell them they're average looking?

"Excuse me, but you are the most boring looking person I've ever seen. I bet no-one ever notices you in bars or anything when you want to get served."

By all means, if you know the person well, be as crass as you like. They may appreciate it, but if you don't know them, leave them the hell alone. Because they might be me, and they might be armed.
 
Oh helping people.

If somebody looks like they need help, I generaly ask them if they need it, whoever they are.

(and some get offended by this.)
 
My aforementioned *big* brother is, frankly, a bit of an asshole. If he were a foot shorter, people would say it was because he was short; because he's 6'4", he's just an asshole. ;) Rather like my doctor believing everything that happens to me (even ear infections) is somehow due to my weight.
 
I encountered a very short woman today. I'm not tall, but her head didn't reach my shoulder.

But on top of that, she was incredibly obese. (And I'm not slim either!)

So did I come out with some affable quip to make her feel at home..?

Er, no, I was rendered speechless, as usual!
 
I am 6ft 3in, and considered by most of my friends as ''the big guy'' in our circle. This sometimes amuses me, as my late dad was a behemoth of a man at 6ft 8in, his brothers all slightly taller than him, and at most family gatherings I was considered the ''runt'.

Being slightly taller than average can present some problems, though, as there is a tendency on the part of drunken ass***** to attempt to demonstrate their toughness by taking on the biggest guy in the room (usually me). While this was never a problem for me in high school or college (if attempts to defuse the situation peacefully failed, the offending idiot would have his ass handed to him), I find that this still (occasionally) happens, and at 31, I find myself much less inclined to resort to fisticuffs.

It might not be easy being ''vertically challenged'', but for those individuals deemed as being above-average height, it isn't necessarily always a cakewalk, either.
 
Certainly I sympathise with above averagely tall people and expect that many of the same prejudices can be applied.

If anyone asks you about your height, just reply;

'Yeah, my problems genetic. Whats your excuse?'
 
My boyfriend's quite a tall chap and is always having endless difficulty with it. He has to buy his trousers from special shops because most brands are always several inches too short, and he has to order shoes (he's UK size 14!). All his t-shirts are XXL- not because he's fat, but because of the length (XL won't even cover his stomach). He can't even fit in my tiny car either-remember Tall Guy in a Small Car in the Simpsons? Yup, that's him.

Lucky for him though I find height very attractive ;)
 
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