However, my beautiful assistant (I find "carer" obscenely patronising) of the past year and a half has had to leave, and it's proving to be a nightmare finding anyone to replace her.

I advertised the position before I left for Thailand and was amazed how many men with thick foreign accents felt equipped to work as a full-time PA to a "young female wheelchair user"! Like I'd be letting any of them pull my knickers down! So, I refined the ad and now only females reply.

I've interviewed about 20 applicants, but none of them have had anything remotely approaching the "X" factor. I sympathise with the judges of "Pop Idols" now: it's really hard to find someone special, and they've seen 10,000 people.My money's on Will or Gareth.

Some of the hopefuls for the job have been what I consider to be quite severely mentally unstable (two girls actually cried during their interview.)

I'm looking for someone who doesn't bring their problems into work; someone with a sense of humour. Unfortunately, because I'm the type of person that people feel they can talk to, during the interview, out comes the break-up with the boyfriend, any family deaths, childhood traumas, the lot.

Today's crop yielded one no-show, two girls who didn't have work visas and a Russian woman who had recently married. She wasn't what you'd call a 'warm' person, so in an attempt to thaw her and get her to smile, I said; "aaaah! You're a newly-wed then?" To which she snapped angrily; "SO?!" (I was just trying to be polite, I thought she might like to talk about her new husband and their nuptial bliss, wistful romantic that I am. I got that wrong.)

It's not all doom and gloom though; I've made my first front cover! Yes, I am officially a cover girl; that's me on the front of the winter issue of "Ford" Mobility Magazine! No longer am I a mere '"It" girl on wheels'; now I'm being catapulted into the realms of super-stardom. There's no stopping me!

Whilst I was away, there was loads of press about the calendar, which is great and but I'm always amazed at just how, hmmm, let's say inventive, journalists are when it comes to writing facts and quoting accurately.

It's been printed more than once in prominent publications that I set up "Youreable.com", but this is completely untrue (and embarrassing). The company is Joe Rajko's baby. He came up with the idea and it won the "e-millionaire" competition on Channel 4. I'm just on board to spread the word.

I'm not going to start picking apart all the quotes but suffice to say that "context" is a word that seems to be sorely missing from journalists' vocabularies, as well as the phrase "disability awareness".

Talking of lacking in disability awareness, I was so disappointed by Richard and Judy on their Channel 4 show. (I have to watch daytime TV for research purposes you understand, I am a presenter, OK?)

They were chatting to the actor whose character in Hollyoaks "may never walk again" after a car crash. Richard asked him something like, "don't you think that will be limiting for you in terms of what you can do with the part?" (Why not say what you really think about the lives of disabled people Richard?!) The actor replied that no, it would be a challenge because he'd already done loads of "walking and talking" acting. Then Judy turned to Richard jubilantly and added: "think of Chris Tate in Emmerdale! And Sandy in Crossroads!" As if it was the most marvellous thing that able-bodied actors play disabled roles.

It made me absolutely furious. Here was a top TV presenter saying disabled people had less of a life than able-bodied people, another applauding the fact that able-bodied actors take the pathetically few roles that could be played by disabled actors and a soap star who wants to use disability to further his career! You couldn't get any more politically incorrect if it was Frank Carson and Benny Hill interviewing Prince Phillip!

I was particularly mortified because I love Richard and Judy; they were great when they interviewed me. Richard even suggested I should present TV shows which were completely unrelated to all things disability. How enlightened I thought! Oh, the fickle world of TV.

(I still love Richard and Judy though, even if they don't know their disability arse from their disability elbow.)

• Want to contact Lara? Email lara.masters@youreable.com.
  
• There are still some Youreable calendars available. To order yours, go here NOW!

Posted: 16 Jan, 2002