have enough republican support to win a vote in congress. some republicans opposed his alternative to obamaca re, which will now remain in force across the us. british police have appealed for the public to help uncover the motivation of the man who killed four people in wednesday's attack in westminster. detectives are still trying to establish whether he acted alone when he drove into pedestrians, before stabbing a police officer to death. the french presidential hopeful marine le pen says she would consider lifting sanctions on russia, if she was elected. the national front leader met vladimir putin in moscow. he said he was ‘not trying to influence events‘ and now on bbc news, we are taking to the stage for a special programme all about love, and relationships. from the perspective of performers with disabilities or mental health issues. the show is produced by the bbc‘s disability strand, 0uch!, and it contains strong language. ladies and gentlemen,

please welcome your host for tonight, sofie hagen. thank you. thank you very much. hello and welcome to bbc ouch: storytelling live. the stories we're going to be hearing tonight are about love and relationships, and i do have a very long—lasting relationship with my psychologist. am i right, bbc ouch people? high five, high five! i've been seeing my psychologist for ten years, now. she's always trying to get me out all of me, you know, mental health issues.

and there's quite a few. ah, we have depression, we have, uh, anxiety, and binge eating disorder — which is the cool one. don't know if you know about that. it's where you eat so you can't feel anything. right? because it — there is a lot of pain inside, because, you know, you can feel the bones, and you want to swallow them, and — so there's a lot of pain right in my throat after a good bit of chicken. my psychologist is amazing. she's a very, very good psychologist. for those of you who can't see me, i'm fat. and that's not a bad thing. it's not a bad thing. i like being fat. i love my body. i think everybody should love my body, because... cheering. yeah! why wouldn't you 7 and, uh, so — but that means that sometimes people give me advice on how to los weight. people will be like, "oh, you should stop eating sugar,"

and i'm like, "i can't stop eating sugar, because then i'll feel... i'llfeel!" and that's the reason that they eat, is to not feel all the feelings. i've got depression and anxiety, i don't want to feel my feelings. my psychologist once tried to fix it. she went — we were trying to deal with some of the feelings that i don't know how to show, for example, anger. i'm very bad with anger. i don't know how to express anger. so when i do express anger, it kind of explodes, right? she tried to fix that. so she — she said to me "you know, next time you feel angry, "just try and express it." i said "oh, no. "no, i don't think that's — there's not enough "food in the world for me to feel angry. i'm sorry, that's not going to happen." she said, "listen, this is what you do: next time you feel anger, say the words ‘i am angry‘." i said "ok, this is on you". i went from that session — i was very, you know, pleased with what i was about to do. i was like, i am going to go out and try and feel my anger, and i'm gonna try and express it. i was practising the

sentence "i am angry". "i am angry." so the next time it happened, i can say it out loud. and i met with friend, my best friend, her name is ina, ina's beautiful, ina's a very optimistic and happy person. like she's always smiling. like, she believes in things like love... what an idiot, right? and she met me the station, and i hugged her. and she said "oh my god, i'm so happy to see you." i said "i'm so happy to see you!" she said, "do you want to go for dinner?" i said, "i'd love to go to dinner!" she said "let's go for dinner — what you feel like eating?" i said "oh, i don't know... "i feel like having pasta." she said "oh, ifeel like having greek food." and then i punched her in the face. i punched her in the face. i saw this happen in slow—motion. i wasjust like "oh, no!" and i could just see, and my fist was like, "we're expressing feelings," and my heart was like, "don't do it!" like, "this is what we were afraid of!" and i saw my fist, like, just hit her, like, stupid smiling face, and she never once stopped smiling. she was just like, "0k, we'll have pasta... "i think you're too

passionate about this!" ifelt so bad. and i didn't know what to do. i hit my friend. i don't want to be the kind of person who hits a friend. and i felt bad and she was looking at me with her big blue eyes. i didn't know what to say. so ijust went "i am angry". then i stopped feeling feelings for the rest of my life. that's, uh, somewhat of a fairytale. i would love to introduce you to the first person in the stage. are you up for being very, very nice? crowd: yeah! of course you are. give it up for your first guest of the night! everybody‘s taken all the good disabilities, so i got left with dyspraxia. it's a developmental co—ordination disorder. it is a sort of less sexy cousin of dyslexia, which you'll have heard about. it largely affects motor control and speech and memory and information processing. so what generally happens is i fall over a lot and cock everything up. so this is a warning.

watch this space. i love living alone, because people. so my favourite activity is sitting on the sofa in my pants, watching the telly. all about that. so i can't actually keep pets or houseplants alive, so i certainly can't keep love and affection alive. it's far too much commitment generally. i did a bit of online dating. and it then — it plays on your insecurities. it is terrifying thing to do. because you're waiting there to meet this date, and you have written your profile, and you're thinking, well, maybe taking ten years off my age was too much. and the — i did use flattering photos, and i did pretend that i was not actually mental. so i was a bit worried about what they're going to think. so you're waiting to see him, and you are thinking he'll be all right. because people are better than that. and the mainstream media would have us believe that — that everybody‘s shallow, and obsessed with how you look, but i find in my experience that real people, real people will be able to see behind the mess that you really

are, and realise you're a beautiful person, you're a real person, and i like that. so i was feeling buoyed up about it. so i see him come out of the station. i clock him and i thought, "oh, you minger." so i thought — and with dyspraxia, i was very loud and sweary and scary. if i don't know people especially, i get a bit overpowering and overwhelming. and people get nervous around me. this is what they've said. obviously, it is nonsense, and i will fight anyone that says otherwise. but so — and this is just a classic dyspraxia symptom. i didn't realise. i used to think i was this fascinating personality with all these quirks, and i'm so interesting, and i discover that i'm nothing but a list of symptoms. and i was very upset that i'm nothing below it. i'm entirely 2—dimensional. i'm just a condition. so this date looks nervous already. and that is before it all comes out. just the presentation alone is scaring the guy. so i thought, well, we'll go to the nearest pub. traipsing along. as some girls usually do, stumbling over, talking loudly with my arms out, hitting lampposts. and then we try to get

into the pub, and the bouncer bars me. he said, "no, you're not coming in." and i said "what?" and the guy says "no, no, you're obviously too drunk, you can't come in". no, i do get this a lot. not always when i'm drunk, obviously. but so — so i turn to the guy and i though, you know, i'll argue with him. because, as we all know, arguing with the bouncer, obviously — you obviously always win. you never... you're never going to lose that argument, talking to bouncers. so i say to him, "mate, come on, this is because i'm scottish, isn't it? you assume i've been drinking all morning." so i got — i'm not being gracious in defeat. i'm just wearing and stomping off, having a go at him under my breath, and generally vindicating him. you, just, i shouldn't be allowed in. but i was thinking i'm looking quite good because i'm in my heels. i'd put my high heels on especially. so — i can't walk in high heels. cannot. can't barely stand in high heels. but this doesn't stop me. i'm in complete denial. i imagine that makes it look like some girly delicate little flower, all sanguine and sexy. when — not like the angry

tractor that i usually look like. inevitably, right, we're going along and i fall. and i don't fall in the way i would think i would fall in my head. like, oh, oh, ifell, oh... that's how i — that's how i'd like to fall. no, no, no, no, no... i come along, i stack it on the pavement. it is just this terrible mess of everything. everybody is aware of it. and my top tip for this — because i've — i've got an m0, because i've fallen over so many times — is don't style it out. just stay on the ground. because otherwise, everybody just mocks — everybody‘s like "i'm filming it for youtube, because it's hilarious." you stay down, they start to worry. they think, "oh, hang on. "might — might actually be seriously hurt, and then how bad will i look for laughing?" stay on the floor, listen to what's going on around you. you've got your pride, stay on the ground. so i get — my date picks me up off the ground. i am quite galled he didn't prevent it from happening in the first place. so i am already resentful. fortunately, this has taken place outside a pub, so obvious course of action. so, inside the pub — so i go in, and the landlady sees me

coming in, bleeding everywhere, and she comes over with rolls of toilet paper to try and stem the bleeding and save the furniture. i am sitting there with blood and tissues, because that adds to the ambience of a sexy date. the smell of tcp. so at this point, i am covered in blood, drinking and crying. and i am just asking "why it is happening to me?" this part of the day, you're meant to chat, smalltalk conversation, i can't do. i don't understand. i had written cues up my arm, and tried to pass it off as a tribal tattoo. so i am chatting away — "what do you do? where do you live?" pause for response... i think, no. every bit as scintillating as you might imagine. so we decided to leave, i think we left of our own volition, which is always a win, not being asked to leave. top time, can't get better than that. so just get back home and try and forget all about it, watch cartoons, sit on the sofa

in my pants, watching television. equilibrium is restored. then a few days later, the date texts me and wants to see me again. why? why would you put yourself through that? what sort of person would want to experience is that all again? what sort of self—esteem problems do have, lad? that's absolutely ridiculous. i thought "i don't know anyone who wants to go out with me again, what a loser!" and that will be one of the many, many reasons i have been single for ten years. and thank you for laughing at my misfortune. i am very glad you did. applause. oh my god, that was herfirst time ever on stage. i have slept with worse comedians than that. that was amazing. we are about to have another storyteller on the stage. are you ready for that?

crowd: yes! yay, please give a warm round of applause for the amazing mick scarlett! now, when i first discussed with the bbc ouch team what i'd be talking about today, i said, "can i talk about how i met my wonderful wife," who's sitting just there... hello, wonderful wife. about the romantic story of seeing her across a crowded dancefloor, and how i immediately knew that she was the one for me. "no,", they said, "no, that's really boring." "what we want is something edgy — something that's going to push boundaries. " and i thought, "i know, i'm going to talk about my willy, and sex. "because that is edgy, isn't it?" i woke up one day before my german o—level. and i found that my legs hurt, and my back really hurt. and every time i try to stand up, ifell over. and so, of course, an ambulance was called. i was rushed to hospital. and it transpired that my spine had collapsed. yes, it is true, folks. you can break your back in your sleep.

ijust thought i would tell all you bipeds that, just to make your day. so, eventually came out of hospital, and, as you can tell, i had lost the ability to walk. there was no more standing for me. and there was also no more standing to attention down there. i had lost what my doctors call erectile function. i knew that would happen: complete silence. i thought, that's it. game over, man, game over. i thought that was it. i got really down and depressed. i thought, i would become the best male friend. and all my girlfriends would come around and i'd do their hair and do their make—up, and i'd dress them all up, and then i would send them out on dates. normally, with blokes wearing leatherjackets, which is why i now wear one, all the while, owned mopeds, and if they were worse, they owned a ford capri. when i was young, that was a giveaway sign

that it was going to be bad. and then what would happen is, that night, she'd come back round the house and cry on my shoulder. she would say he had sex with me, and then he dumped me. why can't they be like you? i, of course, did not see this as what i would i, of course, did not see this as what i would now obviously recognise as a blatant come on. what i thought was that they would never want to be with me, because i can't do it. so i would be like, oh, yes, don't worry, you'll be fine. one of my best female friends came to me and said, look, i've met this girl, and i think she is great. will you come to a party and meet her and all of the her friends? and i said of course. and i arrived, and of course, i was the one wearing the most make—up in the room. we are all getting along all famously, and then, as was the fashion, back then, we played a game. truth or dare. we played it at every party. i don't know why, because it always ended with a row. normally because we were always truthful or too daring, normally too truthful,

but i thought this could be it. this could be my chance. i could tell my secret. up til then, i had kept it quiet. my brother did not know, my parents did not know, even my doctor didn't. i was going to admit to mr floppy. it was going to be great. were they sympathetic? were they caring? not at first. you know, when people laugh a bit too much, and then it is hang on a minute, it is not funny any i'm actually really hurt. it was that. but eventually, my friend wiped away her tears, got her breath back, wiped her tears away, and likely across the head. she said "we're girls, we don't have willies. we make love to girls and do it well." "yay," they all cried — of course they did. i obviously had not worked that out. which kind of shows how innocent i was as a teenager. so, at the time, lesbianism and feminism were very, very closely associated, and very radical, these girls were. and they truly believe what was wrong with the planet was men and their erectile function and penetration. all penetration was bad. so suddenly, i was this new type of man, a man who... the next revolutionary leap, according to these girls!

they thought it was great! i really liked these girls. cool and they took me under their wing. and they even made me an honorary lesbian. and i used to go on lesbian marches. there was me and a load of girls and just this bloke wearing lots of make—up and looking like boy george on wheels. "down with men, men are bad!" right? and they also taught me how to make love to a woman like a woman. now, i wonder how many people out here are imagining a weird pornographic thing. no, i'm still a guy. they still wouldn't go near me, but they just taught me, told me, with words, not actions. sadly, but there you go. and when i was telling the bbc about this, they said "are you going to tell anyone? "are you going to tell us what they said? "please tell us!" well i won't. no. i'm afraid i will not let you know, because that would be betraying the sisterhood.

so girls, if you want to know it is like, you will have to make love to a woman. thank you very much, and goodnight. give it up for mick scarlett! that was amazing. i think everybody could learn from that story. everybody. everybody! if anybody wants to buy me a pint i will be at the bar. ready for another storyteller? put your hands together and give it up for the amazing sean lucafetta. hello. so, i grew up with hearing loss. it means that essentially i cannot function in society without my hearing aids. the funny thing is that i didn't wear them until i was about 20 years old. let's so for the first 20 years of my life i didn't hear much. so how did i get by? i essentially hung out

with a lot of loud people. i grew up in italy, so, i mean... you have heard some of those people over there. i come from a family, we are 11! people. everybody is really loud. you can't understand how loud they are. every time i go back for christmas i have to take my hearing aids off. it is just crazy. so, i had a girlfriend. her name is a lease. —— elyse. she is british, from newcastle, but she does not have a geordie accent otherwise i would not understand what she is saying. she speaks very badly and moves her hands a lot. as an italian i find this very attractive. the only thing is, she can speak quite fast. when we moved in together, communication was a little bit

complicated. because she is not used to speaking to somebody who has hearing loss. so she speaks to me like have perfect hearing. even if i have my hearing aids, i cannot hear ioo%. if i am in the kitchen, cooking, and you walk into the room and start talking to me right away when i am not seeing you. i cannot hear, very likely, that the year of what you just said. even worse, if you speak to me from a different room. so i had to tell elyce, when you speak to me, don't cover your mouth, don't mumble, and don't speak to me from another room. but elyce will forget. so i had to come up with a new strategy. so my strategy was, a sickly, i was going to train elyce as if she was a dog. —— basically. so every time i could not hear her i would interrupt her

and tell her what she did wrong. elyce, you didn't speak while facing me. elyce, you are mumbling. and i'm annoying myself now, so imagine how annoying i was to her. so obviously i thought this was a great idea and i kept going. i took it one step further and introduced the marks on the wall. we had a chalkboard at home and i said, elyce, every time you make a mistake, we are going to make a mark on the wall. which didn't work out, because believe it or not, i realised one day that she wasn't a dog. what really work, we decided on a couple of ground rules. the first rule was that we would always speak in the same room, no exceptions. the second rule was the attention rule. elyce would always try to get my attention first and i would always give my attention to her, so i would stop doing something and tune in. this worked because we were both relaxed and we were open

to accepting criticism. it wasn't like i was trying to interrupt her all the time. elyce came up with ways of getting my attention instead of calling my name all the time. what she did was start using filler words. so before starting to speak to me she would start seeing, by the way, all, you know what? this was great, because it gave me the time to tune in. i miss much less now, but i still miss things, but a beautiful thing is that i don't get frustrated any more because i know that she cares. thank you. amazing. that's so good. we have one more storyteller this evening. are you up for that? you have been great, everybody has been great so far. this storyteller is somebody i am very proud to know. you will love him. please start cheering and applauding

for the amazing harriet dyer. you're welcome. that's my thing. i've got bipolar and it has caused some mayhem in my relationships. i've got a boyfriend at the moment and he is proper, it is absolutely lovely. before this understanding boyfriend, that guy i was seeing before had a problem with me doing stand—up comedy, beakers, i think, he thought it attacked his masculinity. he kept telling me that his job was more important and all of that. one day we were in bed and he was telling me how good he would be at comedy. so he was pretending there was a front row of women, they were women in the front row, and he was seen, if you do not laugh at myjokes, you are obviously lesbians.

that is who i was dating. and then he has seen my medication, by my bed, and he asked what it was. i am an open book so i said what it was and he goes, does that mean you are going to kill me in the night? it didn't mean that, but if you carry on talking... the first time i thought i was in love i was at university and this guy, ijust couldn't leave that somebody like him would be interested in me. —— believe. he was so good—looking. there were signs that maybe it was not to be. this was a sign. once in the bad i woke up in the middle of the night with a very wet back. and i thought, why is my back wet. he said, sorry, babe. i dreamt you were arrayed urinal. he dreamt that i was a urinal,

and he three weed on my back in the middle of the night. that is not a keeper. at university there was this girl, i worshipped the ground she walked on. i thought she was wonderful, really strong and independent and funny, i really liked. so she became my best friend. after a while, going out with this guy, i said to my friend, something doesn't sit right with me. i don't trust him. she is my best friend, so i opened up about stuff and all of that. she said, no, this isjust your mental health telling you this, it is all in your head. so i thought, all right. when i spoke to him about it he said the same thing. so i said, ok, that is what has happened. they were together, right? they were getting together. and when i properly caught them, they were doing the whole, yes, this is because of your childhood, harriet, dissentabout. it was not even what they had done, it was the fact they using that against me. i was livid.

they started lying to me, and i punched them vote in the face, but, because i am not a fighter, i have punched them both in the forehead, and i have broken both my hands. honestly. and then, because they were such horrible people, that was not enough, i have gone home and then she has rang the police. so the next morning i am in my residence, and i get woken up why the police and they arrest me. so i have then been carted to a prison cell, theyjust put me on the cell with this guy, and he had one tooth, and he was just chatting nonsense to me. he told me he invented toothpaste, right? i said, what are you on about? it made me laugh, after all this nonsense. i have gone, mate, i don't think you did invent toothpaste. and he's gone, no,

if you think about it. if somebody with lots of teeth invented toothpaste, it would be called teethpaste. and i thought, you can't really argue with that, really. and that is, honest to god, that is on my record forever. i used to do teaching, and that is just so sad that is on my record. thank you ever so much. cheers. harriet dyer! give it up for all the stories you have heard tonight. you have all been lovely. have a good night! hello.

there will be some chilly nights this weekend. there will be frost for some of us as the weekend begins, but by day, this weekend, it is sun, sun, sun. what a glorious weekend if you're a fan of blue skies. high pressure right across the uk. the weather ingredients this weekend, because of high pressure, as you might imagine, it's going to be settled. there will be some warm spring sunshine around, people have sunshine from dawn until dusk. quite a breeze in east anglia in southern england. you will need to be out of that reason take advantage of the warmth and the sunshine, 15— i6 celsius. not as chile on saturday night. not as many fog patches. still quite breezy in the south, maybe a bit of cloud in eastern parts of the uk in the day. the vast majority will end the weekend as it begins, with plenty of sunshine. a more detailed forecasts, all you have to do is go online.

welcome to bbc news — broadcasting at home and around the globe. i'm lebo diseko. our top stories: a humiliating defeat for president trump as he withdraws his healthcare bill. i have been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do, politically speaking, is let obamacare explode. it is exploding right now. a lone wolf or did he have help? british police investigate what motivated the westminster attacker. marine goes to moscow — france's far—right presidential hopeful marine le pen meets vladimir putin in the kremlin. and find out who was the sharemarket landed on the taxiway.