´óÏó´«Ã½

Oh, readers! You know how it is when your heroes let you down and, no, I'm not talking about Prince William marrying that perfectly pretty girl from Berkshire.

I'm finding it hard to get a significant disability angle on the big wedding, so we won't be talking about that. I'm happy to report that they did have a seven year-old disabled bridesmaid, though, Prince Edward's daughter Lady Louise Windsor. Well, she has an eye condition of sorts, let's not go hurling unhelpful 'labels' around, eh?

Truth be told, I was more excited about her inclusion in the ceremony than watching the main stars of the show. According to some sources, William might well thank me for that. Predictable old me though, eh?

Down to business. I'm presently more interested in my sometime idol, star of The Office and British National treasure, sort of, Ricky Gervais.

Ricky is a kind of involuntary saviour to disabled performers, having given paid work to Julie Fernandez (The Office), Francesca Martinez (Extras) and Warwick Davis (Life's Too Short, Extras). Warwick and Ricky have got coming up, you know!

He's had a good reception to his squirmworthy humour examining the awkwardness people feel around what he, and lots of us now, ironically refer to as Disableds.

Ricky managed to get himself in a bit of disability-based trouble last week, and all because he used his blog to insult the people camping out in London overnight, there to catch a glimpse of the royal wedding.

Let's not beat about the bush. Readers, he called them Mongs.

I think it's important to be precise in these situations, so allow me to tell you that the blog post in question plugs his aforementioned forthcoming show, goes on to make a few gags about Prince Harry, then wishes William the best on his wedding day. It's only then that he poses this typical Gervais style question:

"Who are these [blooming] mongs from all over the world camping out for [blooming] days to get a 30 second glimpse of two people from 30 yards away?"

Isn't it ironic that I've had to censor other words in the sentence yet keep in the word that everyone is up in arms about so that we can have a cosy yet informed discussion about it.

You won't be surprised to hear that it has caused much . And that's why we're talking about it.

I'll be honest: intellectually speaking, Mong is my favourite example of an insult. Look at the power of the word. It manages to offend disabled people at the same time as being a little bit racist, and there's few words in the English language which are capable of excluding so many people all at once.

It refers, of course, to people with Down's Syndrome who do look a little bit like they could be from Mongolia. Until the 80s, they were routinely known as Mongols.

Panic not readers, I'm not going to bang on about disablist insults. Being offended takes up too much energy and, besides, I'm not even sure 'disablist' is a real word. If I wasted my time getting morally outraged every time someone high profile said something a little bit off colour in cyberspace, I wouldn't have time to eat.

Instead, I've set myself the difficult challenge of trying to work out what acceptable words Ricky could have used to refer to the royal fans on the street who he obviously doesn't appreciate.

At great inexpense, I have scientifically analysed the entire English language. Here's a handy sliding scale of disability-related insults ordered by the amount of offence they are likely to cause. Don't thank me, just read them:

1. Lunatic - e.g. "Who are these lunatics from all over the world…?"

* this word carries a one star insult rating

I reckon Ricky could've got away with this one quite easily. Even though the word Lunatic has the potential to cause offense to every single person with mental illness in the world, many people routinely use mental related insults and seemingly no one cares enough. By the way, my neighbour's a psycho. I can probably get away with that one too. (please check this for knowing irony, thank you)

2. Moron - e.g. "Who are these morons from all over the world?"

** this word carries a two star insult rating

Moron was once a psychological term meaning adult with a mental age of between eight and twelve. Not many people know that. Some say it also refers to undesirables who lived on the moor. See also, idiot, imbecile, cretin.

3. Spaz - e.g. "Who are these spazzes from all over the world?"

*** this word carries a three star insult rating

This could have worked for Ricky. He's not American but occasionally Americans - - have claimed they didn't realise the word spastic could be considered offensive.

4. Retard - e.g. "Who are these retards from all over the world?"

**** this word carries a four star insult rating

This is surely the all time classic disability insult, now often shortened to 'Tard in these tech savvy, tweet happy, space saving times. Periodically, people try to campaign against this word, but it's so ingrained in the national consciousness that you can guarantee a celebrity presenter will let it slip out on live TV at least once a year and still not appreciate how insulting they're being. Retard has recently been banned from all US federal government literature and documentation.

Instead of crying over words like these, I believe we should redress the balance. What we need is to create more insults about non-disabled people, and plant them in everyday language.

I've been trying to popularise Normal as an insult for years, but how about these ideas: Average-Limbed? Neurologically Vanilla? Medically Uninteresting? Or perhaps the biggest insult, unremarkable?

Readers, I call upon you: Every time someone comes out with something like Mong, let's not get all outraged. Let's just call them Regular. You know it'll catch on.

I'll be honest, all these bank holidays have left me ducking for cover and I've stayed away from social networking sites during the impromptu festive period.

I did stop by to Tweet the Daily Mail's . It got me thinking about the access challenges facing the newest member of the Royal family.

Follow me on and be my fan on , if you must.