Bodge it like Blair

In some ways it was rather heartening to see Tony Blair make a right pig's ear of kicking a football towards a goal yesterday, and to see the ball head off at 90 degrees to the intended trajectory, missing the goal mouth by a mile. I suspect any dyspraxic has endured many similar situations during a grueling schooling of enforced PE lessons. Although whether any of us would have got anywhere near a goal is another matter.

It made me think how many politicians could be dyspraxics. In some ways politics and the civil service seem like a fairly safe career path for dyspraxic, as aside from some public speaking and an element of confrontation at the upper levels of parliament, there's not a great deal in the job description that would too sorely test the areas of dyspraxic vulnerability.

Boris Johnson seems like the obvious candidate for a dyspraxic of course, seeming uncertain in both movement and thought, if his appearances on Have I got news for you are anything to go by. It's difficult to know to what extent this is an element of show, but he does come over as the stereotypical dyspraxic's politician, if ever there was one. That said, Caged in Chaos reveals that rather more notable figures from the history books are thought to have been dyspraxic, Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein amongst their number. There's no reason then to limit our sights to the obviously characters, when such distinguished alumni prove that anything can be achieved ...but give becoming a professional footballer a miss.