A Load of Old Squit ...

Nightmare On Divorce Street

2011-09-01T11:09:00.004+01:00

Well, it's a long time since I updated my blog with anything other than the 30 Day Song Challenge (which in my typical style, I started late and didn't finish.) But a lot has happened since then.

At the beginning of 2011 I decided to finally give in in my increasingly unpleasant divorce and sell my home. My soon to be ex husband left me nine years ago when we lived in Kent, far from my family home. I had followed him around the country for ten years as he moved from job to job, and had ended up in Tunbridge Wells. He left me two weeks after my thirtieth birthday. I had been registered blind two years before in 2000 after losing seventy percent of my eyesight in a couple of seconds in 1996 - it was downhill from then on and the vision that was left deteriorated. I've got some left in my right eye but not a lot.

When he left I was miles from home with very little support. A friend of mine called Louise thankfully stepped in and picked me up, helped me claim income support to pay the mortgage, eat, pay the bills, and keep the roof over my head, and for a few years I waded on. If it hadn't been for her I would have honestly sunk, both financially and mentally. She literally saved my life.

Unfortunately I was not able to do the same for her and due to her crushing bipolar depression my dearest friend committed suicide in 2005. I decided that I had nothing to stay in Kent for and every reason to leave, so I approached the absent ex and explained that I would like to sell the home we had formerly lived in together and move back to Norwich, my home town. I explained he could have a large part of the equity in the home if he were prepared to guarantor a mortgage for me on a new house in Norwich, with the express assurance that he would never have to pay for it or any support to me whatsoever (which he hadn't been doing so far anyway). I would put my share of the equity into the new house. He agreed. It was pointed out to me by a solicitor that he in theory should have been paying me maintenance and was likely not entitled to this money in view of a divorce court, because he was gainfully employed, happily housed elsewhere and I was blind and unwaged with little chance of supporting myself except via disability benefits, but I knew he was in thirty grand's worth of debt and could use the money, so I gave it up.

So he got thirty grand and I got to move back home where I could have some sort of support.

Fast forward to 2008, when I decided to pursue a divorce (I had tried previously, twice, but had been persuaded, shall we say, out of it.) As soon as it was apparent that he couldn't bully or threaten me out of it this time, he refused to cooperate with the divorce, dragging his feet with requests for paperwork at every opportunity, refusing to answer letters and going awol from contact from even his own solicitor. Three years on and he has tried to make me sell my home and give him money from it - which he has never lived in nor paid anything towards. He is happily housed elsewhere (where I don't currently know) and gainfully employed, rather amusingly considering his total lack of moral fibre both past and present, as a police officer. I tried to get him to talk it over when it got really nasty, despite being previously advised by my GP to break contact with him for the sake of my blood pressure and sanity. Any attempts to contact him to discuss a solution, whether it be via official mediation or me trying to contact him personal have been rejected via solicitor's letters.

So, two and a half years of someone who previously purported to care about you trying to take your home away tends to wear you down. Although I should have expected this - he left me after all and was not exactly a nice character when he was with me - but I was at first dismayed and upset that he would seek to cause me pain and chaos in this way, knowing that I was severely unwell, virtually blind, and flat broke, all because I wanted to legally cement what he had done emotionally and physically years before, namely end our marriage.

At the beginning of 2011 I decided to give in and sell up. My fibro really turned up the heat in September 2010 and has not let up since, and I can't manage on my own anymore, it's plain. The constant stress was killing me, the house is in a less than happy state of maintenance as I've had neither the money nor the energy to do it, and my neighbour has caused me no small amount of distress with his aggressive behaviour. And I love my fiancé, who is prepared to take me in and care for me when I can't look after myself, and give me some semblance of a normal life where your partner isn't cheating on you, emotionally abusive, occasionally violent or getting into massive amounts of debt behind your back. Thank God for him. With all this I figured why fight it ? Just sell it and pay the ex off even if he isn't entitled to the money and hopefully he'll leave you alone.

So, now we are in September 2011 and I have managed to get soon to be ex to agree to getting £22,000 from the sale of MY home (I will get much much less than that due to the property crash), and have agreed to waive all rights to his extremely adequate pension and any other capital claims. Basically in order to obtain a divorce from a man who abandoned me without a penny to my name nine years ago I have had to give up everything I have and pay him a very large sum of money. All in all he'll have had £52,000 out of the sale of both houses, past and present, and keep his pension. I pay the mortgage off, estate agents and conveyancers and I'll get £12,000. By the time the credit cards debts have been paid (running a house is expensive when you own it and survive on benefits - it owns you !) there will be around four grand. Then there's my matrimonial solicitor's bill, whatever that is likely to be. Ah well, it's only money.

There are a few lessons to be learned from this in my experience.

One - the legal system in this country is not, as people would suggest, weighted towards an unwaged (and disabled) wife on legal aid. The legal help coffers are so squeezed these days that solicitors who undertake publicly funded legal work are often not prepared to take your case to court even if you will win (and arguably my solicitor should have taken my case to the court as soon as the ex tried to get me to sell up) because it costs money. And by the way, legal help still isn't free - anything over about £900 in charges and you will pay the rest if you recover property or money from the settlement. This is called the "statutory charge". I have that to look forward to after it's all over. My ex of course is paying his solicitor from the word go - which makes her much more invested in getting what he wants.

Two - if you hang on in a fight with a pig, the pig will enjoy it and you will just get dirty.

Sometimes it's worth it to fight. But sometimes for the sake of your health and sanity it's better to give the bastards what they want and walk away. Once they're gone they can't hurt you again.

So here we are - the contracts are about to be signed on the house (first ex has to do this, which he will doubtless fuck about on so I'm not holding my breath) but in theory if ex is prompt in his return of the paperwork we could complete the sale by the 16th of September. I will then move in with my fantastic fiancé who despite seeing me in absolute pieces several times over the last four years (and a couple of times in the last few months !) that we've been together still, for some unfathomable reason, wants to take care of me, love me, and eventually marry me.

The nightmare is nearly over.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Eighteen ... An instrumental song you like

2011-04-16T21:57:00.002+01:00

Does this mean a song without words, i.e. any piece of music which does not involve a vocal performance ? Or an arrangement of a song which is instrumental but is better known as having a vocal ? As I like instrumentals of all sorts I could have my pick here. I like classical music, I like ambient, I like acid jazz. I like Einaudi. I like The Hilliard Ensemble. I like Jon Hassell. As a teenager I was well into Sky and Mike Oldfield ("Incantations" is my favourite of his works and I still listen to it regularly. "Tubular Bells" I can take or leave.) I would probably say that at least a third of my iTunes library is instrumental. But I especially like film scores.

My favourite film of all time is "Bladerunner", but to pick something from that would be boring and predictable. And although nobody is taking notes or keeping score, I like to amuse myself by finding stuff like this challenge to blither on about. And if I'm going to blither on then I might as well spend some time thinking about it.

Earlier this year one of the greatest (in my opinion, and I'm not the only one) film score composers of all time went to the big auditorium in the sky - Mr John Barry. Famous for several Bond scores, music from "Out of Africa", "Born Free", "Indecent Proposal", "Dances With Wolves" and many more. All great stuff and amazing films. However I think my favourite piece of his is from a film I've never even seen, starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, called "Somewhere in Time." When I first heard the main theme from the film I had been very recently bereaved, and to say it resonated with me is an understatement. To be fair to the piece, as I recall it fairly grabbed me by the heart and struck me dumb on the spot. I had not seen the film but the idea that somewhere in time we are reunited with those we love can't help but be attractive and comforting to us when we have lost someone. Apparently when John Barry was asked to score the film he had recently lost his father, and he drew very heavily on his emotions when writing the music. I only recently found that out however, but I should have known really. Being the master of his craft that he was, I think that the main theme does not need vocal interpretation to make the emotion felt by the composer obvious, although I understand there is a version with lyrics (I'm not interested - it couldn't possibly add anything to the instrumental version in my opinion.) I believe the music already truly speaks to the heart through the ears.
Whilst looking for YouTube versions to link to I found this performance by Chee-Yun Kim, which in my opinion goes a long way to being just as good as the original score version.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Seventeen - The last song in your mp3 folder

2011-04-14T14:27:00.002+01:00

....is ZZ Top's "Rough Boy." For me, a song associated with teenage love affairs. It's one of the few songs I have ever requested and had played on a radio station (Radio Broadland, on a Sunday morning, way back when I was a hormonal schoolgirl.) The object of my dedication didn't even know about it as I recall. Aaaw. ;)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Sixteen - The first song in your mp3 folder

2011-04-07T10:27:00.002+01:00

I am so far behind in this now (having started it on March the 2nd) as to nearly qualify as being ahead for March 2011. Heh heh. ;)

Well, my mp3 folder is organised by iTunes, as I use macs and iTunes and I have several iTunes libraries that are all shared. But if I actually look in the Finder on the primary machine and go to the first folder (which is just named "_" for some reason) in iTunes Music we have a recording from radio of a reading of the book "I Am Legend". But I'm not sure for the purpose of this musical challenge that counts. So the next folder if viewed alphabetically has a number in the filename and contains "In Your Room" by Depeche Mode. This could have easily been a Day 12 song.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Fifteen ... A song you liked in high school

2011-03-30T10:20:00.003+01:00

I'd say all of the songs I liked in high school I still like. I might have gone off the boil for some of them but I still like them.

When I were but a teenage bimbet I was listening to Mike Oldfield, Sky, Queen and Long John Baldry. Probably not the usual teenage taste of the time. However, I wasn't above a bit of rampant musical commercialism either (anyone who thinks or says they are is a liar who is trying too hard to be cool or interesting, in my experience) and I remember really liking Billy Idol's version of "Mony Mony". And I still do. He may be a bit of a prick now and then but he done some good'uns and you can't argue with his sales figures. Particularly, IMHO, the live version of this, a big hit in 1987 when I was fifteen. This is the official video which doesn't feature the audience participation that has become a tradition at Billy's concerts. ;)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Fourteen ... A song from the year you were born

2011-03-28T10:39:00.002+01:00

When I looked this year up I found that some of my favourite tracks come from this year and I didn't even know it. When I was born (13th October 1972) a song called "Mouldy Old Dough" was at number one in the UK charts apparently. I've never heard it and something tells me that might be a good thing. The charts that year had Alice Cooper, Chicory Tip, America and Gilbert O' Sullivan. And Led Zep's "Rock and Roll" was released as a single. It also had weird floaty prog rock oddness in the form of "Lady Eleanor" by Lindisfarne, which I have always really liked. I like my weird floaty oddness. So there it is - my chosen track from 1972.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Thirteen ... A song that you sing in the shower

2011-03-26T10:40:00.003Z

This could be anything. Anything I have either heard, or am learning or experimenting with, or like, or sometimes don't like and can't get rid of the earworm. So I guess for a singer this question isn't quite as revealing - I'm guessing most people don't sing on a daily basis so if they sing in the shower or car it's because they don't wish to be observed whilst singing. I don't have that, so I can't show a revealing part of me with the answer to day thirteen's question. So should I pick a song that I sing in the shower that I have never sung in public or would be unlikely to sing in public ? Or would be embarrassed to sing in public ? I'm not sure there is a song I would be embarrassed to sing in public as I have no shame (or at least no shame that would actually stop me from singing, anyway ;) )

I think the nearest I can get to the point of the original question is a song I have never sung in public (though I would like to) because I sing this one when nobody is watching. I grew up with songs like this thanks to my grandfather who was a major fan of the goddess that is Dame Shirley Bassey (all hail the sequined diva !) I've never had the opportunity to sing anything like this in public (not sure this is the Secondhand Band's sort of thing, lol) but would love to get all dolled up in something very glam with feathers and sequins and make like the Shirlster. If I look that good at that age I will count myself as extremely fortunate ! But so far the shower is the only place I've ever sung this. Hey, Big Spender ! :)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Twelve ... A song that make you want to have sex ...

2011-03-23T20:52:00.003Z

Fuck, I'm so far behind ! Ah well.

See, here's the thing. Let's not be bashful about it - for a lot of us, music and sex are wrapped up all together. You can bet your house that the first songs ever grunted by cave men were about two things - their prowess as a hunter and that sweet little bit of cave girl tush they wanted to drag off by the hair. All my big crushes as a teenager were on musicians (and none you'd likely expect either.) My first two boyfriends I met at school because we were into music and involved in musical projects at school. First long relationship was with a dj. My fiance is a guitar player. All of my important relationships have been with people who were musical in some way (or who wanted to be). So you see where I'm coming from - attraction is fairly entwined with a shared love of music for me. I don't think I could get it on with someone who didn't love music. So it follows that music, being linked to attraction for me, is also going to be linked with sex.

I can totally see the attraction groupies (of either sex) have for musicians - I know some of them are in it to get bragging rights and further their own careers, but in the sense of the word "groupie" meaning "person who loves the music of an artist and wishes to encounter them sexually", I totally see why. Just as well I a) wasn't born in the sixties, when groupies really got serious and were more often than not actively encouraged by bands because I'd have probably been a total slut and b) happen to be musical myself, so I don't need to hang around with bands as a groupie to get close to musicians. And of course most importantly c) already have a musician of my own to encounter sexually, ta very much. ;)

So, back to the plot. I could pick most anything from my mp3 collection and say it would likely make me want to have sex should the opportunity be presented and my man be around (and sometimes even if those two criteria are not met ---- I can always wait until they are. ;) ). I think as far as genres go, ballady country music, oompah bands and happy hardcore are big turn off for me, but I don't own any tracks featuring the last two genres (but I do have a bit o' country hanging about). So - what to pick ? I could pick a hundred blues standards. They certainly seem to do it for me. But that would be boring because anyone reading any of these entries will know I like the blues. Or pretty much anything by Jeff Healey or Gary Moore (thought a fair bit of that would be blues standards). So I am going to pick something in a different style from a band who I'm not a big fan of otherwise and I wouldn't even know in the street if they slapped me - but it is mostly the guitar that does it for me on this track (the feedback squeal at the end of the first verse in particular - dirty !) so maybe I've not made such a different choice at all.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Eleven ... A song that reminds you of your mother

2011-03-17T12:59:00.005Z

My mum isn't much into music. She like Barry Manilow but I don't think it's for his records, as she refers to him as "my Barry" - usually prefaced with a wistful "I love ..." So I could pick a Bazza song, I guess. As she played his platters when I was growing up I pretty much know all the words to his 70's and 80's stuff. I wouldn't run screaming for the room if something of his came on the radio (I like "Weekend in New England" a lot, actually) but I don't exactly seek it out on a daily basis. And although his songs remind me of her, there is no defining song with a defining memory attached.

The song that reminds me of her the most probably isn't one that the woman herself even likes. It's one of my dad's favourite songs.

I should probably explain that my mum and dad are no longer together. My dad offskied after thirty two years of marriage to my mum to be with someone else, so he isn't exactly, you know, flavour of the month with my mother. So she'd probably be pissed to find that one of his favourite songs reminds me always of her. But let me explain.

My mum would be the first to admit that when I was younger she could be reserved and didn't really take to motherhood with much enthusiasm - once I'd stopped being cute and fluffy and started being older and annoying anyway.

So when I was growing up we had my dad on one side, pushing and encouraging and cajoling and sometimes bullying me to be the best musician I could be, and my mum on the other never encouraging me (and at times actively discouraging me with criticism). Often praise was hard to come by from my mother during my childhood. These days she's much much more demonstrative of her affection for me, and fiercely protective. She stands about four foot eleven, dresses immaculately, flirts shamelessly with my male friends and if anyone gives me shit or makes nasty comments about me for being blind when we're out shopping she tells them to fuck right off. Though on the other hand she can say the most mindboggling insensitive things to me herself, but woe betide anyone else who gives me so much as an odd look !

One of the only times I remember her ever telling me she was proud of me as a child was because of this song. My dad had badgered me relentlessly to learn how to play the very famous organ part - at that age, I was more interested in teddy bears and ham sandwiches than "doing my lessons" but he kept on, and eventually I picked it up. I can't read music so it was by ear. And I can still play the piece today.

One day we were in a shop that sold musical instruments - probably Cookes in Norwich. I was wandering around and stopped at a huge three manual organ completely with pedal board for the bass notes. I was probably eight or nine I suppose. My mum and dad were off talking at the other end of the room. I selected a hammond sound and started to play. My mum tells me that everyone in the shop stopped, and turned to look. I suppose an eight year old playing the hook from Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is not exactly commonplace. My feet barely reached the pedals. She came to me with tears in her eyes when I'd finished and said, "I'm so proud of you. You're really good." Which made me fairly beam with pleasure. I think that memory is one of the strongest I have from my childhood and certainly one of the things I remember most when I think of my mum.

(Incidentally, the first time my mum came to a gig where I was singing, she hugged me and said exactly the same thing. This was about a year ago, and her approval still means as much to me as it did when I was eight, even thirty years later !)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Ten ... a song that reminds you of your father

2011-03-16T15:09:00.002Z

I know I am terribly behind with this but I'm ploughing on.

My dad was one of the reason I became a musician - he and my mum sent me to keyboard lessons aged five. I hated it. I had more lessons during different stages of my childhood and hated them all, except for the out of school lessons I got from the school music teacher because I liked her. Still, I was always ready to learn but not often ready to be taught. Something my dad suffers from himself but didn't allow for in me. ;) Thus we were at loggerheads some of the time, because he pushed me very hard.

These days I'm a better singer than a musician, but that was one area in which he didn't encourage or push me. Unlike my mother, he didn't actively discourage me from singing either, but I think it has taken til now for him to get the idea that I am probably quite good at it. If he ever comes to a gig (as he says he will) we will find out. But I hope he would be pleased that the stuff I like singing is the stuff he first introduced me to.

I could pick a ton of songs that remind me of him - "Hotel California" by The Eagles, "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy, "Cavatina" (Theme from The Deer Hunter), but the song that most sticks in my mind is "She's Leaving Home" by the Beatles.

This is because when I left home (aged twentyish) to live with my no account ex husband (back in the days when he was merely my boyfriend and I hadn't realised he was a no account), my Dad played me this song in the car on the way to the train station. He wasn't happy about me leaving home at all and had made that quite clear via a range of emotional speeches ever since the idea was discussed, I was unhappy that he had made that quite clear and was crying because he was still making it quite clear even at that late juncture, and my mum was telling him off for continuing to upset everyone by playing the song. It was all a bit traumatic. Family life - it's a cracker and no mistaking. ;) It still makes me cry even though this was all seventeen years ago and the family I left behind then doesn't exist anymore.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Nine ... a song that reminds you of an ex

2011-03-13T18:22:00.005Z

Ah well, what a cornucopia of tracks I would have to choose from here. Fortunately, bad exes (I've had a few) don't necessarily means bad songs associated with them. And I can hardly refer to "good" exes, for two reasons - one, I don't actually have more than one or two (those that I would count as good exes - i.e. people I wouldn't want to hit with a brick - hark from many years ago when I was in my early teens) and two, the smart woman does not speak too highly of her past beaus in front of her new man if she knows what's good for her .... and I certainly know that my man these days is about the best thing ever for me.

Most of my exes don't feature in my thoughts on a daily basis - except for the most annoying and tiresome one, my soon-to-be-ex husband, who I unfortunately have to consider now and again due to still being embroiled legally with the ratbag. I have been trying to divorce him for two and a half years (third time of trying), after he walked out on me over eight years ago. Somehow I must be more important to him still than he is to me however as he insists on making the divorce about as hard as it can be and generally has the morals of a bout of amoebic dysentery. However amoebic dysentery it easier to get shot of and would likely have disappeared by now !

So here it is, a song that could have been written about my feelings for him, such as they are. I'm sure there is a song out there somewhere called "Sign The Papers And Just Fuck Off" or "Ode to a Scumbag", but I don't know such tunes so this will have to do. Ugly Kid Joe's "Everything About You."

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Eight ... A band the popularity of which you will never understand.

2011-03-11T20:53:00.001Z

This has got to be the easiest one for me so far, and I imagine my choice will get me chased up a tree and shot down in some circles, but there it is. I have never understood the appeal of the Rolling Stones. Granted, they have some good tunes but that's not hard. Granted, they have been going for years, but that's not hard when people will keep paying to see the same old same old. But personally I find that they often were absolute shite live in the early days (IMHO) and Mick Jagger is someone who minces about in such a way that I want to punch him not shag him. I just don't get the appeal.
Rolling Stones songs are, in my opinion, best done by bands and artists other than the Rolling Stones.
I'm not going to bother with any YouTube links (I'm tired) but if you really want to you could go and find some of your own, anything by them will do. I could pretty much say that I don't like it very much.
I'll get me coat ....

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Seven ... One band or singer you are ashamed to admit you like.

2011-03-10T09:52:00.004Z

Well, I'm not ashamed of any of my musical likes. I was a dj for many years and this gives me a free pass with regards to being allowed to have crap in my collection. When you've done children's parties, weddings and village hall Christmas discos as well as club work it is acceptable to have stuff by Black Lace and Jive Bunny. :) Whether it is publicly acceptable to like (or at least be able to tolerate) that shite is another thing, but I don't care anyway.

So you can imagine - there's lots of stuff in my mp3 folder that many people would look at me oddly for. I'm not ashamed of any of them so I'll have to settle for the thing I think people would most give me ribbing for. I did hover on a little known album release from Bruce Willis (yes, the actor) called "The Return of Bruno" which has gotten me some raised eyebrows in the past, but although I really like it most people don't even know it exists. So public shame isn't really a possibility there.

In the end I've gone for a track that anyone dj'ing the chicken in a basket circuit at the time seems to universally hate, but I still like. It was at number one in the singles charts for sixteen weeks. I must have had it requested a similar amount of times every gig I did. It was guaranteed to get the Erection Section off to a drunken stumbling start and is unquestionably the artist's biggest hit (and he's had some bigguns). From the film "Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves", I give you "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" by Bryan Adams. You'll have to take your own sick bucket over to youtube because the artist has declined to allow embedding of this video. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGoWtY_h4xo

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Six ... Your favourite band

2011-03-08T10:57:00.004Z

I am well behind now on this. But hey, no problem. I'll just do what I always do and plough on regardless. ;)

I'm not sure if my choice counts as a favourite band. "Band" implies "all parts equal" or at least "all parts necessary" to me. But quite honestly, the other musicians in the band with the man from which this band takes its name could have been replaced by any other competent musicians (sorry, guys) and it would not have matter one iota to me. I would have to settle for favourite artist instead.

I first heard of this artist when I was in my late teens. I saw him in a film that had been out a few years by then, had a bit of a "Hello NURSE !" moment, and at the time had no idea that he pretty much played himself in the movie - this was a time when the internet was not available to the likes of me so the only way of gaining information on artists or celebs was through tv or the newspapers, or writing away to a person's fan club. However a troll of the local HMV's cd section turned up his first album, and off we went down the road of fandom.

Apart from the fact that I have to admit to a large measure of lust at first sight (I like 'em blond and I like 'em blind, it seems, which wouldn't surprise anyone who knows my fiance ;) ) I was pretty blown away by the talent of the man. I have been accused of only liking this artist because he is blind and being visually impaired myself, it seems some sighted peeps assume we will all cling together (us blindos) in some sort of incestuous mass where we only appreciate other visually impaired people. Which is plainly bullshit. And I wasn't visually impaired when I first became a fan - that was a housebrick that the bicycle of my life would hit somewhat further down the road.

Anyway - big fandom here. I never did get to see him live (Darryl did, the lucky git). I'm mostly a fan of his blues rock stuff (though I have heard his jazz material, and like it), and when he died in March 2008 I was genuinely bereft. To be honest I am still. I recognise that unless you meet a person, you can never really know them (and even if you have met them and feel you know them, some people you can never really know at all.) But the musician - the good musician - bears their soul every time they play. Why do we make music in the first place ? To show the world what we are thinking and how we feel. Perhaps this is why I like the blues the most. If one genre can be said to be primarily about the state of your soul, it's the blues. These days blues is a broader genre than it was in years gone by, and often this artist sat on the edge of the genre with his feet sticking more into rock than blues (IMHO). He often said that he did not look kindly upon his earlier work (despite that being the more commercially successful) and that he preferred to be an interpreter of other people's songs than writing his own. I get that entirely. But whatever he did, it still speaks to me. And I am extremely sad that the man is no longer among us and that we will never hear anything new from him. All that talent, all that life, all that joy - all gone. From the tear inducing song ("Rachel's Song") about his daughter (even more heart wrenching now that he is no longer around) and the brave choice of Diane Warren's "I Tried" (string-y ballad which one might expect to find covered on The X Factor), to the utterly brilliant "See The Light" and the total ye-haw joy of his version of "Jambalaya", whatever the man did was fine by me. There is nothing I have heard from him that I didn't like. Not one thing. I never got to see him live but the footage of his concerts and interviews show not only his guitar genius, but his easy stage presence and his wry sense of humour too.

I could go on all day (really) but I should get around to picking my favourite tracks. I'll be here all week if I start to really think about it so I am going to pluck two off the top of my head and be done with it. The first is a live for tv version of the title track from the "See The Light" album. This shows the man at his best I think - utterly unencumbered as a stage performer by his blindness as people often blind from birth often are. Watching him play the guitar .... swoon. Had I ever got the chance in years gone by, I would have climbed all over him like a vine. Ahem...

The second is "Rachel's Song", from the album "Get Me Some". Ignore the addition of someone else's visuals - it's the only online version I could find of the song. Just turn your screen off and listen.

For the uninitiated, may I present to you the late and extremed lamented Jeff Healey.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Five ... Your favourite female singer

2011-03-07T09:55:00.002Z

I forgot I was doing the challenge yesterday. Oops. So I will do two today as penance.

As I don't tend to listen to female singers as much as I do male singers, there isn't really going to be much in the way of deliberation for me. And the female singers I do listen to are from an era much more glamorous than this one, where a cool female role model was elegant and bodacious, not dressed up in clothes made of meat and wearing a satellite dish in her hair. So there really is only one choice for me - Ella Fitzgerald.

Greater writers than I have waxed lyrical about her career, her amazing vocal range, her purity of tone, and her life. She had a hard time in her early years, seemed to be attracted to dubious men, and suffered from diabetes, which rendered her visually impaired in her later life. Although she was cool (not in a frosty sense) she never seems to me to be affected or false, and she was known for being extremely shy off stage. And any singer who can forgot the lyrics (my personal bete noire) yet improvise with such style and then win a grammy for the recording (her version of "Mack the knife" from "Ella in Berlin") has my automatic respect.

Oddly, I wouldn't say I am a great fan of jazz as a genre (although I do have quite a bit of similar stuff from similar artists), but Ella seemed to transcend genres even as she had her feet (or at least one of them) rooted in jazz. Of all her work, currently this track is my favourite. I say currently, as I really couldn't narrow it down to a favourite, I'll have to settle for the track I like best right now.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Four... Your favourite male singer

2011-03-05T14:42:00.003Z

How do you define a "favourite singer" ? Ability, range, studio work, live work, charisma ? Or is it merely a numbers game that defines "favourite", meaning the person you listen to the most who sings and is male ? (In that case, it would tie between Jeff Healey and Gary Moore for me, but they are better known as guitarists obviously.)

I don't tend to listen to female singers much, looking at my most played items in iTunes, and I think there are two main reasons for this.

One is, I like the sound of a gee-tar, and I like the blues, and there are not many women around playing guitar and singing the blues (Joanne Shaw Taylor being one exception I can think of however).

The other reason is, I tend to listen a lot to the tracks I am singing in bands (either because I'm learning them or I like them and have suggested we do them), and usually they are rock / blues tracks, which don't have female singers, or at least, the well known hit versions don't have female singers. In fact, looking at the set list for our recent gig , only one of those songs is known for having a version with a female singer (Tina Turner's version of Proud Mary) that was a hit.

So I've got a lot of male singers to choose a favourite from. Being a singer myself I'm going to have to plump for vocal ability and performance being the main criteria for my choice, although as some of my female friends have pointed out "I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating biscuits" is also valid reasoning, though not applicable (IMO) with regards to any of the people I whittled my choice down to, incidentally.

Choices were-

Nat King Cole. I like that genre, those songs which have now became standards, much to the surprise of my dad, who thinks I only like "that nasty rave music" ;). When he heard I had bought an Ink Spots cd, he almost fell off his chair in surprise.

If I want to stop right in my tracks and be immediately transported to a more civilised and glamorous time, Nat King Cole's recording of "Stardust" is guaranteed to do it every time.

Paul Rodgers. One of the few people who could even look at Freddie Mercury's shoes, let alone attempt to wear them (notice I didn't say "fill".)

Will Young. The boy's got pipes, imho, alright ?

And finally, the person I chose as my favourite male singer - Freddie Mercury. He had it all - style, ability, charisma, and was someone who never let go of life even at the end of it. When I heard "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the first time as a very young child, probably aged about four or five (in the car, very likely on tape, probably travelling to the supermarket on a friday night I imagine), it made me cry. Even at that young age. So I asked my dad to play it again. And again. And again. And once more, with feeling ... And so began my fandom.

Watching Queen at Live Aid on tv - blown away. Utterly blown away. By the time I was old enough to be going to big gigs in far flung places (anything outside of Norwich was far flung according to my parents), Freddie was dead and I had missed out on going to a live gig by one of the greatest performers of my lifetime. I wish I had gotten the chance.

So - what track to pick to link this day's post to ? As we're talking about a favourite singer, rather than one single track, I'm having two choices (so, sue me !) that I personally believe to give an inkling of the sheer scope of the great man's talent.

The first is "Take My Breath Away". From their album "A Day at the Races" and recorded in the days when Antares Autotune and Melodyne didn't exist, and what a better world that was too. This performance always gives me goosebumps.

The second is "Somebody To Love", also from that album. If you're talking about sheer vocal range, this really shows Freddie's talent. I love this song and would like one day to record it, but I fear it is a pair of shoes far, far FAR too big for me to ever put on ! I respect the singer and song far too much to do a cover and make a total arse of it, that would be shameful. This version is from their 1982 concert at the Milton Keynes Bowl. In my opinion, this illustrates a perfect example of how to take something that was extremely complicated in the studio with masses of production, and do it live.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Three ... A song that makes you dance

2011-03-04T14:49:00.003Z

Years ago when I were a non-fibro'ed dj, I would pretty much dance to anything - banging a stick on a tin tray, the rhythm of a washing machine on spin cycle, dogs howling - anything at all. But now my energy is severely depleted I'm a touch more choosey with how I expend it.

I thought about a few tracks from my dj days which moved me. "Cubik" by 808 State is one that used to do it for me, and I like a bit of Basement Jaxx. But in the end the choice could only be one thing, as it still makes me shake my booty, even if I may fall over when doing it. "Jump In The Line" by Harry Belafonte. I can't help but break my face into a massive grin every time I hear this song. These days my only dance partner is Otto the guide dog (who will jump up and let me hold his paws to dance), as Darryl would rather stick his dick in a blender than jig about to anything. But even though the song invites you to jump in de line and shake it all the time (what you should shake is up to you, but as Penny from "Dirty Dancing" said, "Come on ladies ! God wouldn't have given you maracas if he didn't want you to shake 'em !!"), you can enjoy it just as well by yourself :)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Two -- a song that makes you cry.

2011-03-03T10:41:00.005Z

Well, there would be about a hundred of those. I've never been stingy with the tears.

I have been going through music this morning trying to figure out which track to blog about. Music holds a powerful emotional connection for me, as it does with many people. I remember what I was doing when I heard a song for the first time, and often even songs I've known for years can take on new significance if they happen to be heard at the time of an important or deep felt event, or indeed if they just happen to make up part of a strong memory. After all, that's the premise this whole challenge works on.

I have many very sad memories - I've been married, had that break apart on me, been treated horribly by people who I loved and trusted, lost a great deal of my eyesight, fallen in love with people I shouldn't have, had that break apart on me, had my parents marriage split and lost the close relationship with my father as a result, lost my best friend to suicide, and lost my first true love when he died in my arms (more on that later, it's not as you would think.) So there's generally been a lot of loss going on, and nothing brings on the waterworks like loss. So, again, I am faced with a wealth of choice when it comes to sad songs (o, lucky me !)

But in the end I plumped for a song that I heard around the time of great gain for me, when there were actually many happy tears in my life for once. As is often the case, it evokes bittersweet tears as it reminds me of that gain, but also of profound loss.

1998 was a year when my life changed beyond all recognition, because it was the year I met and fell in love with Brin, my first German Shepherd Dog. Now, if you're thinking, "Fuck me - she's chosen a song about a fucking DOG ???" then you can fuck off right now. I have zero time for people who don't like animals, and zero time for those people who don't understand that a companion animal can be loved to the same depth as a human companion (hopefully not in the purely physical sense, - I mean, not in a perverted way ! - but certainly emotionally.) Often it is the case that the companion animal is loved more than any human influence. Yes, get used to it. A dog, in particular, loves you unconditionally. Treat him kindly and he will do anything for you, show you love, and generally give you everything of himself that he can. It's your job to uphold the other end of the partnership and do the same.

So - if you don't get this concept, then stop reading now and go and do something else. Ok ?

Ok, they've gone. You're still here, so, here we go.

Brin, or Bindi as he was more commonly known, was my first true love, no question. Yes, I was married, but as I will explain - that relationship paled in comparison. I adored him, and he adored me. I watched him grow up, and he became the centre of my life. Maybe this was because the person I was married to at the time was a cheating, lying scumbag, maybe it was because the dog was just better at loving me than the husband was. Whatever it was, Bindi was it for me.

This song was doing the rounds when he first came into my life. He was a bundle of fur, feet, ears and little teeth. He drove my husband and my best male friend nuts by hanging onto their trouser legs when they walked around the house, and nothing the said or did prevented him from doing it. I would have to come and physically remove him as he swished along the floor at their feet. He never did it to me. He was wilful, destructive, and barked at people who were afraid of him. I laid a linoleum floor in my hallway one day, inch by painstaking inch, only to have him rip it up literally five minutes after I had finished. He wasn't the brightest button in the box, so "sit", "stay" and walk to heel took him a month of sundays to learn (unlike my younger GSD, Jalen, who learned that within a day.)

But on the other hand, he was loving, protective, funny, happy and all he wanted in life was to be with me. Which was fine by me as all I wanted was to be with him, every second of every day. "The more I know of men, the more I love my dog." Damn right. He grew up to be my constant companion in a dark marriage, he gave me constant emotional comfort, and at times physical protection from my husband, and all he wanted in return was to be by my side. When my marriage ended (to be fair, it had ended long ago, but when the man finally walked out on me), he was the only thing that kept me sane. I lived for him. When I got my younger GSD, Jalen, I lived for them both. I've never wanted children, so Bindi and Jalen weren't child substitutes as some psychobabble would have people believe - they were it; they were (and are) my family.

When I met Darryl, my fiance, and his guide dog, Otto, we were the perfect family. Darryl feels the same about Otto as I do about my boys - and we have accepted and bonded with each other's dogs as we did our own. All my friends told me I'd never meet anyone who loved dogs as much as I do, and one (no longer a friend) even told me that my devotion to my boys was something I should get rid of, for fear of scaring men off. Fine - I didn't want a man who didn't get that anyway.

We had one amazing perfect Christmas together in 2007/8, all five of us, which I will remember forever as the best days of my life. Then Bindi got ill in the summer of the following year - cancer, with a very sudden onset of symptoms that alerted us to anything being wrong at all, and four weeks after the diagnoses (which was, basically, nothing to be done as the cancer was everywhere by that point - spleen, heart, liver, brain), he died in my arms late one night. He would have been eleven on his next birthday.

When he was first in my life, I didn't want to miss a second of watching him grow up. As the song says "I don't want to miss a thing." I was enchanted by everything he did (if bemused by some of his antics, and often annoyed by the destructive streak, which luckily he grew out of). When we found out he was ill, I stayed with him until he died - I didn't leave the house for the whole four weeks, I slept downstairs next to him because he couldn't make the stairs (as did Darryl, Jalen and Otto), I barely left his side for a second - and if I did, it was to use the bathroom, and more often than not he would follow me in there too. I held on to every second at the end of his life as I did at the beginning. I cherish every second we had in between.

Today all that I have left are the memories, hundreds of photographs and hours video footage, his ashes and some fur in a mourning locket around my neck. I miss him every single minute of every day. Every time I hear this song, I remember him lying asleep on my chest when he was a puppy, feeling his little puppy breath on my face, I remember his face looking up at me with anticipation of what we were going to do next, I remember how proud I was when we went on our first walk and I let him off the lead and that he came back to me the second I asked him to, I remember the joy he felt when we rolled an old bike wheel down a hill for him to chase, I remember him standing in front of me when I was cowering in a corner, baring his teeth to protect me from a man who wanted to hurt me, I remember him lying on my feet when I was standing at the stove, I remember the feel of his fur on my face when I put my arms round him, I remember him still bringing me his toys to play with the day before he died, I remember all those things. I'll never do those things again, only in dreams and in memories. I'm not a religious person, but I find myself wanting to believe there is a heaven and that I will see him one day, again. I can't cope with the idea that I won't, it's just unimaginable. Love ... love is the thing that makes me cry when I hear this song.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day One ... Your Favourite Song.

2011-03-02T11:14:00.003Z

So I have to pick just one. Only one ? Can't I have two ? Or possibly, five. Or ten ? Wait, no .... twenty ?

I couldn't figure this out, so I thought if it looked in iTunes to see what was played the most, it might give me an idea.

Well, I have several instances of iTunes. But the main two show oddly different things - and neither of them indicate songs played the most often that I would consider my favourite song. The first (my upstairs machine, where I am sitting now), reckons the track with the highest play count is "My Baby Talks Dirty" by The Knack. Now, I do like that song, and very much too, but it ain't my favourite. Downstairs machine, which I use more when I am cooking or doing housework or whatever, says the song most played is America's "A Horse with No Name." Ditto - like it, but I don't think it's y' know, da bomb or anything. I did wonder if the highest play counts would be of songs I have recently sung in bands (and had to learn, by rote, by drumming into my addled brain over and over), but although there has been talk of the Knack song, it hasn't been done. And the little ditty about the un-monikered equine hasn't even been suggested.

So what's it to be ? Well, if pressed, I would have to say that my favourite song is Jeff Healey's version of "Hoochie Coochie Man." Anyone who knew me would not be surprised by this. It's an oldie but a goody, and Jeff puts a dirty spin on it that as a singer I could only ever hope to aspire to. I don't have the added talent of being a brilliant guitarist --- or indeed being tall, blond and gorgeous either. We do it in the band, and out of all our current set list, it's the song I probably enjoy singing the most. I think this may be a dead cert for Day Twelve too. ;)

30 Day Song Challenge !

2011-03-02T11:04:00.005Z

Ok, everyone's doing it. Or at least, everyone I know and are interested in. So, here's the gen.

There's a list. It has songs on it. In fact, there are a few lists, and you get to pick which one you want to follow. So it seems. Every day for thirty days, you blog in accordance with the criteria of the list. The list I'm following is as follows;

Day 1: Your favorite song.
Day 2: A song that makes you cry.
Day 3: A song that makes you dance.
Day 4: Your favorite male singer.
Day 5: Your favorite female singer.
Day 6: Your favorite band.
Day 7: One band/singer you’re ashamed to admit you like.
Day 8: One band/singer whose popularity you will never understand.
Day 9: A song that reminds you of an ex.
Day 10: A song that reminds you of your father.
Day 11: A song that reminds you of your mother.
Day 12: A song that makes you want to have sex.
Day 13: A song you sing in the shower.
Day 14: A song from the year you were born.
Day 15: A song you liked in high school.
Day 16: The first song in your mp3 folder.
Day 17: The last song in your mp3 folder.
Day 18: An instrumental song you like.
Day 19: Your favorite love song.
Day 20: Your favorite breakup song.
Day 21: A song that makes you want to break stuff.
Day 22: Your favorite song from a movie.
Day 23: Your favorite duet.
Day 24: Your favorite cover song.
Day 25: Your favorite song from 2010 or 2011 (so far)
Day 26: Your favorite music video.
Day 27: One song in your mp3 folder you’re pretty sure no one else has.
Day 28: One song that needs to never be played again.
Day 29: One song that gives you the creeps.
Day 30: A song you’d like played at your funeral.

Being a total music junkie and all, I think the only difficulty will be choosing just one song each day that meets the criteria. But then again, the other problem may be finding youtube links (as seems customary) to my chosen tracks, as, to not put too finer a point on it, I've got some weird fucking shit in my music collection. I'd be interested to do this list again in a year's time and see what's changed. Perhaps everyone who is "doing it" should do that too.

Rock, Paper, Scissors ---- or, three more things that are useless to me.

2011-02-25T19:25:00.001Z

I've been trying to think about what to blog lately, after the epiphany (heh) of late that this thing needs to take a different direction. It should have been obvious really, as almost two years have passed since my failed matching visit with Quasia from guide dogs. Looking at the past posts, there have been more about accessible tech than there have been about guide dog stuff. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men, so the saying goes.
So, broadly speaking, what's it all about (Alfie) ? Well, since September of 2010, the fibromyalgia has really turned up the heat for me. It is well known that those of us with chronic pain conditions suffer badly through the colder months. To add to that, I took it upon myself to go on a diet and lose weight in December 2009. I lost three and a half stone all told, over just under twelve months. According to my gp (and from my own online research), estrogen is stored in fat, and when one loses fat cells, estrogen is dumped into your blood stream. This happy little hormone is well known for increasing sensitivity to pain. Apparently my gp thinks this is why I have been having the winter from hell fibro-wise. However, I stopped losing weight and thus fat last October, so if the estrogen is still flying around my system by now it must be strong stuff. When I embarked on my diet, I was comforted by the conventional wisdom that told me losing weight would put less strain on my joints and muscles and would make me less prone to pain overall. What a crock of shit that turned out to be.
I recently insisted my gp refer me to the rheumatology department at my local hospital, who tested me for thyroid problems (I have anti thyroid hormone levels that are way outside the norm, but apparently I do not have an over or under active thyroid), lupus (which I do not have), and vitamin d deficiency, which I do have. I also have Raynaud's. I have yet to get to the doctor to get the script for the vitamin d. Blame the agoraphobia. Last time I saw my gp she took me off my high blood pressure which I had been on for three years. It seems my weight loss took my bp right down and so I came off the meds. However the last few times the hospital have taken it and I have taken it here at home, it's been up in the stratosphere again. I fear a script for vitamin d isn't the only thing I'll be leaving the doctors with after the next visit.
The rheumi bods gave me gabapentin, which is about a useful as a chocolate teapot pain wise, but if I take 300mg of it before bed, it helps me sleep. I am supposed to take 100mg three times a day, which just makes my throat sore and dry (one of the side effects I painstakingly explained to the rheumi doc that I did not want to risk, being a singer) and makes me slightly dozy. I am fairly dozy anyway these days however, but it doesn't help the pain at all.

Visiting doctors and consultants seems to be a game of rock, paper, scissors - we meet, we both throw out our ideas as to what's wrong with me and see if they match, or if one of us can get one up on the other. So far, in the last four years, the rock, paper, scissors game has thrown up constant corneal erosion syndrome to explain my constant dry and painful eye (that was from "their" side), thyroid eye disease (ditto), blepharitis (ditto), Sjogren's (ditto) and now we're finally back to it begin down to the fibro after all, which is what I suggested in the first place. My pain and fatigue issues have been suggested to be thyroid disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and that old favourite, depression. I don't doubt I am depressed. Most people who are in constant pain are depressed, oddly enough ! However, fibromyalgia is a diagnoses of exclusion, and maybe finally everything else has been excluded and I now have a definite, for sure, yes-this-is-your-problem diagnoses. It only took eight years.

So here I am, looking at March looming large upon us and hoping desperately that the warmer weather will alleviate the Raynauds, the fibro pain and the muscle weakness. I fear if the effects carry on at this level I wouldn't be able to handle a guide dog when the time finally came for me to have one. I can barely hold a knife and fork to eat some days, let alone a harness. Which would be pretty ironic ! And not to mention pretty shit.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Been a long time...

2011-02-21T12:22:00.004Z

... not since I rock 'n' rolled. But since I posted.

I originally started this blog when I went on the list for a guide dog. That whole adventure is documented in past entries, and because of how that turned out, the focus of anything for me isn't going to be waiting for a guide dog for a long time now. So I got to thinking today about what my life really was all about right now - and basically, it's all about two things.

One - the band I am in - or, the band "proper" as I have to call us. As I'm in a few, talking about them to people calls for a way to differentiate between them. My main focus musically is the rock / blues band I am the lead singer of, The Secondhand Band. We have our first full gig at the Brickmaker's in Norwich a week tomorrow (1.03.11)

Two - coping with the increasing effects of my fibromyalgia and associated conditions.

A close runner up third thing would be how my visual impairment interacts with the above, but it interacts with everything, so there's no point in giving it a separate focus. To be honest, the fibro is becoming like that too. It's like swimming in glue. I've been in a flare since September last year. Sometimes the pain has felt like it is going to drive me genuinely insane. I now know exactly what people mean when they describe pain as a living thing, eating you from the inside out.

Those two things in my life are constantly at odds with each other. Along with fibro (for me) comes chronic agoraphobia, panic attacks, and social phobia. Trying to explain that someone who is the lead singer of a band suffers from those things is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. Nobody understands it - they see me, singing, fronting the band, and they just assume I am either exaggerating the agoraphobia or just plain making it up. So far we have only gigged in one pub, and so far, only half an hour slots. I coped with those - although I have to admit i was so nervous and scared that I actually remember nothing about either occasion at all. Not one thing.

The fact of the matter is, I have a hundred and ten foot garden which I hardly can bring myself to go into. I can't empty the bin, because it involves going into the garden further from the house than I can manage, unless Darryl is with me. In the summer, I sit as close to the back door as I can manage. I moved my veggie patch down as near to the house as I can get it when really it should take advantage of the space further away from the house. I would rather put recycling in bags outside the back door than go into the front garden, walk ten feet from the front door and put them in the recycling bin. Then when the collection is due I have to muster up the courage to collect the bags and bring them through the house and take them to the bin at the front. Or keep the bins round the back and drag them through the passage before collection day- painful and means more going outside.

My fiance lives five hundred yards away and has done for over three years. Yet I can count the times I've been to his house on the fingers of my hands.

I cancel doctors and hospital appointments for very important things if I can't get transport to the surgery, and sometimes, if I can't face it, even if I can get transport. I can no longer travel on the bus. This has been a recent development, I used to be okay if I was with Darryl, now I can't get on a bus at all.

I can go exactly five places without a panic attack - the rehearsal studio, the social club for the blind, the association for the blind building, the Blueberry pub, and the Brickmaker's pub. Although with the last two I have to be with the guys in the band, or at least Darryl and one other band member (the other guitarist, Rob). I can't go if it's just Darryl and I, and I couldn't go if it were just any other band member, it has to be Rob. As long as both he and Darryl are there, I'm okay.

And none of these places I can go to unless I go in a car, I can't take the bus. Walking anywhere on the street is absolutely impossible. I used to be okay if I went with Darryl - but these days I'm not.

The last time I went to the doctors on foot (a twenty minute walk), someone the other side of the road sneezed, and I had a fully fledged panic attack and burst into tears. I was a total wreck. I can't go to any of these "safe" places in a car without Darryl.

So why is this ? Well, I've always tended towards agoraphobia even when I had all my eyesight, but I fought through it and did stuff anyway. Many visually impaired people are afraid to go out - understandably, as for someone who can't see shit, the world is a potentially dangerous and unfriendly place. I am not able to have a guide dog for now, which I was pinning a lot of my hopes on. That really took me back some steps, agoraphobically speaking. I hate walking down the street with that fucking white stick - it's all people see. Holding it hurts my hands and arms. I am bad at using it because I have weak grip in my hands. And with the stick, you make contact with obstacles. This can sometimes be a painful shock if you're not expecting them.

Anyone reading this blog from way back will also know that my neighbours are also arseholes, one in particular is aggressive and horrible. So that might explain my reluctance to go into the garden. Darryl also had some issues with local kids last year who were giving him and Otto shit, and with people trying to give him grief in the street as he went about his business. They are ignorant twats, we all know this, but it has made me afraid for his safety as sometimes they've been aggressive. As a result I get the shakes every time he travels between my house and his. I feel sick and get scared. He has to call me the second he gets to his house. I am becoming agoraphobic by proxy !

I am in constant pain and constantly fatigued with the fibro, which makes one not want to go out. Or I am so drugged up with pain meds a lot of the time that I am too confused to go out. My one saving grace is that I can go to places I feel safe in, and with people I feel safe with, if I go there in a car. Performing on stage at the Brickmaker's happens to be a bearable thing. I am surrounded by four guys I trust, and of course Darryl is one of those. How I could quantify that I can do that but get the shakes when I have to take the bins out to anyone else, I just don't know, so I don't bother trying to explain anymore.

So I think in retropsect this blog will more likely be about those things. One day I hope to get a guide dog. When my Jalen is no longer with us, which I hope will be in many years from now. I do wonder these days if I will be able to cope with the pain well enough to handle a guide dog, and I have promised myself that I will fight the agoraphobia when the time comes and just do it, like I used to when I could see properly. With a guide dog by my side there will be no excuse. I won't allow myself to have one.

But until then I'm just going to have to come to terms with my weird existence - I can't go to the corner shop and I burst into tears at loud noises in the street, but I can do a gig at the Brickmaker's. And if I can somehow stop beating myself up about that, everyone else will just have to accept it too, and anyone who doesn't understand that will just have to go fuck themselves.

Funny / Unfunny ?

2010-04-10T14:03:00.002+01:00

Hello bloglanders.

Usually my posts are about tech - usually Apple tech - but I am still waiting for a UK release date for the iPad and thus am bored off my tits. So here's another subject.

http://k3tten.blogspot.com/2010/04/punching-me-in-face-would-have-been.html

The above link is to a woman who has discussed on her blog her experiences at a recent Frankie Boyle show. For those of you who don't know, Frankie Boyle is an extremely controversial comedian who specialises in near the knuckle humour, regularly touching on such subjects as disability, pedophilia, rape, death, and everything else besides. To my mind, sometimes he is excruciatingly funny (when he's not taking the piss out of other people in a cruel and offensive manner), and sometime he's so unfunny and abusive that I'd like to punch him in the face. How apt then that his latest tour is called "I'd Happily Punch You Every One of You in the Face".

It is clear from the responses in the comments section of that blog that the majority of people find comedians who poke fun at disability unfunny and a bit shit, to say nothing of "evil", "vile" and "horrible" (some of the words used to describe Frankie Boyle). It seems now that taking the piss out of the disabled is going to go the way of mother-in-law jokes and Jim Davison's Chalkie. It just ain't funny anymore.

But there is a core of commenters who point out that the lady in question surely knew what she was getting when she bought the tickets, and also point out that she even goes so far as to say in the very same blog post that she was (before that night) a fan because she liked his nasty style of humour. But when he began a skit about Down's Syndrome (from which this lady's daughter suffers), she found the increasing barrage of jokes a step too far.

She mentions responding to him when he asked her why she and her husband were talking during his show (she was feeling pretty upset by this point and her hubby had asked her if she was ok.) She remained calm and polite, despite the situation (she says), but his final response to their exchange was that this tour was his last and therefore he didn't give a fuck. Which is pretty out of order under the circumstances. Offensive to an unnamed stereotype that isn't present is one thing - most comedians do this is truth be told - but personally offensive to an upset woman in front of the rest of your audience ? Grow up, Frankie - this isn't the school playground and just because you're stood on the stage with the microphone doesn't make you all powerful. If you get it wrong, it can make you look like a bullying twat.

Much as I admire her for responding to him instead of shrivelling up when put in the spotlight, I do wonder if she was laughing all the rest of the time when he was (possibly) taking the piss out of people in wheelchairs, or blind people, for example. She does say she previously liked his nasty sense of humour. One could say that well, when it's up close and personal because it affects someone you love, then suddenly taking the piss out of disability / rape / pedophilia ain't so funny any more. She mentioned that a throwaway line she could have understood, but it was a five to ten minute tirade. I wonder if it was indeed that long, or it just felt that long to her ? I can see how it might. When the spotlight is turned on you, it gets hot fast.

The occasional joke about blindness from a sighted comedian I can live with - but the way it is delivered is the key. Russell Howard (one of my current favourites) once said on Mock the Week that he had once chucked a piece of chocolate towards a man walking along with a dog, and then promptly felt dreadful when he realised it was a guide dog and the dog lurched for the sweetie, dragging his unsuspecting owner several yards. He said he felt dreadful, but he was laughing as he said it - and in truth so was everybody else. And so was I. And so was my fiance.

Those people who are around guide dogs a lot have very likely had this happen to them more than once, or know someone who has. It is scary at the time, but is it funny at the time too ? Not a bit. But when you, the person experiencing it, look back on it - is it funny then ? Or is it only funny when it's a story, when it isn't actually you that it has happened to ?

Personally, I am the sort of person that will recount my mishaps and mistakes to others for comedic effect, but only to people who will laugh WITH me, not at me. Those people are thinking, "Silly cow, but I know what she means - I've done that myself". It's funny when my dearest one is in the kitchen washing up without any lights on, and I come in and say, "What're you doing in here in the dark ? You won't be able to see what you're doing." Or he asks me where something is and I can't find it and I say, "Anyone'd think I was blind or summink ..." Or when my fiance leaves a cardboard box in the middle of the floor and I tell him to move it because he'll be sure to walk into it, but he doesn't - and then later on, he walks into it. It's funny within our little tribe.

But it's NOT funny when some twat makes faces at us in the street because he knows we can't see him do it, or if someone we don't know puts things in our way deliberately and we walk into them. I guess the difference is - when you are among friends, some teasing is ok. When you are amongst strangers, it isn't.

The key to being funny with controversial material without being too offensive, I feel, is to have the ability to take us into your confidence and make us feel like we're in on the joke, and that it is done with affection, and that the real twat in the situation is the one finding it funny, not the object of the joke. It's not enough to use nastiness as armour. This is what bullies do.

Russell Howard does have the ability to bring us in, I find. I have noticed lately that his material on his Good News show is much nearer the knuckle than he has even been on Mock the Week. But I haven't yet been offended by him. He makes me feel like his mate, like we're down the pub. It's just mates teasing, an that when he's taking the piss out of people who don't deserve it, he knows it make him look like an idiot, and we laugh almost as much at him as we do at the joke.

Frankie Boyle makes me feel like he's the tit who stands up larging it in the pub, taking the piss at everyone who passes because he knows that on the whole those people won't say anything back. He might occasionally say something funny, but I keep out of his way and I don't want to have a drink with him. We all know someone like this.

And one day he is sure to get punched on the nose. As a few journos have picked up on this lady's blog post and run with it, in FB's case I think this may have already happened.

iPad, iBooks, VoiceOver.

2010-04-04T14:48:00.005+01:00

A snippet about the iPad and VoiceOver that might interest some visually impaired iPad fence-sitters -

This thread here http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=9568185&posted=1#post9568185 discusses how large the fonts in iBooks go (without any additional accessibility features added in), and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy80KmAGuTM links to a short demo of iBooks with VoiceOver. Interestingly, the page turns with VoiceOver on seem to work just like the non VoiceOver gesture for page turns, but its difficult for me to tell. And in the case of Winnie The Pooh (included with iBooks), VoiceOver describes in line images too. Neat !

Also, the iPad user manual is up, and has a section on accessibility features, including VoiceOver. Though sadly it's currently in pdf. http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPad_User_Guide.pdf

Apple of Temptation !

2010-04-02T13:52:00.005+01:00

Those lucky Americans get their hands on the iPad officially tomorrow. Unless we've done a Bundlebox or similar, however, us poor UK saps still have no pricing, no launch date, and currently no light at the end of the tunnel - other than a vague rumour that April 24th is what Apple store employees have been told is a "blackout day" (at least in Canada) i.e. no time off on that day. We are tantalised with the idea that this may mean "something big" is afoot on that day, possibility internationally, for Apple stores. And what would be the biggest thing right now for Apple stores ? Guesses two and three are not needed. ;)

Two or so months on from the announcement of the iPad, and I have come to the conclusion (through various sources) that:

a) I am not going to be able to tether my iPhone 3GS to it, unless I jailbreak my iPhone. Not keen. So no 3G for me unless something radical happens in the pricing and data plan pricing department fairly soon.

b) The possibilities for making music with the iPad loom very large. Currently I have changed my performance workflow to substitute my iPhone 3GS plus a SendStation PocketDock for my ageing and often truculent Macbook Pro, along with an excellent app on the iPhone called MultiTrack. I can only slaver in anticipation as to what this app and others of its ilk will be like on the iPad, whether that be with iPad specific versions or not. Bigger screen equals better visibility for me, and more finger space thus more (for me) accuracy in hitting the controls you actually want.

c) Some of the iPad specific apps I have heard of weigh in a 1GB or more. Not all of them will be like this, but you can bet the music making apps with sound libraries may.

So - I am wondering now whether a 32GB version might be a better fit for me. However, I really can't tell because I don't know how much any of them will cost, and ultimately, cost is going to be the deciding factor for this fan girl. Come on Apple ! Throw us a bone, here ? I don't want to be have to resort to the grey import market, do I ? But I am sorely tempted due to the lack of UK love from Apple right now, I can tell you.

iChildren ...

2010-02-19T13:14:00.003Z

With regards to the feminine hygiene connotations of the name "iPad" ... so far, all the women that I have spoken to about the device have remarked once, with a giggle, about the name, and then dismissed it. But blokes seem to be obsessed with making it a running joke, and actually state the name as being an issue hindering the device's appeal to them, for example ; "I would rather have a new amp / guitar / pair of pants / whatever right now. And of course, there's the name ..."

Grow up lads. You won't suddenly become all limp in the trouser vegetables department if you buy one. ;)

iPad, iPad, on the iShore

2010-02-03T18:12:00.005Z

Well, it is finally here - at the end of January, Apple revealed their long long long awaited tablet to the world. Let's forget all the jokes about the name. I reckon Apple knew what they were doing on that one anyway - there's no such things as bad publicity, right ?

I followed the event on the web, and was pleased to see that according to the official Apple website page, VoiceOver is included. As is white on black, mono audio, and full screen zoom. "Ooooh," sez me.

At the moment my everyday computing machine for email, blogging, arsebook sorry facebook, and the like is a much abused MSI Wind U100 with Snow Leopard shoehorned onto it. This poor little beast has really got the crap kicked out of it by me over the last (nearly) year. It was last year's Valentines Day present from my fiance, and it's had Otto the guide dog chuck a huge solid rubber dog toy onto it - which caused a kernel panic of epic proportions and knocked the RAM out of it's slot, it's been knocked off the arm of the sofa twice - the result was weird screen issue which causes blue lines on the screen up near where the volume control on the menu bar is, and sometimes the w and space keys don't work due to the toast and Marmite debris caught under them. I wanted a netbook, but I didn't want Windows. Or any variant of Linux like Ubuntu, or Jolicloud (my opinion is that screen readers for Linux are arse gravy of the stinkiest sort, namely because I've had no success with them and distrust them as a result). I wanted a netbook with a Mac OS on it. My other computers are macs - the Mac Mini media server, the iMac Garageband machine in the studio, and the Macbook Pro that does dual duty as a bedroom media player linked to an lcd, and my performance machine for one of the bands I'm in. Also, I want my MobileMe files to be shared between my machines. I've got an iPhone 3GS too.

I've tried using my netbook as a performance machine but it just can't cope, despite the fact that all it does is play out pre made backing tracks through itunes or very occasionally Garageband. And much as it is cute to run Snow Leopard on it, the machine is not exactly happy about it, and often using VoiceOver on it is painfully slow in the extreme. The advantages of this machine over the Macbook Pro however are a very bright screen, and a small form factor. I've already got enough shite in my bag on a rehearsal night without adding a 15" Macbook to it. And said macbook is starting to show worrying signs of getting old - it's a 2006 model and it's already had to have a new battery, and a new charger as the last one melted. Sometimes now it refuses to charge, reports vague untrue battery levels and will die without warning (despite many PRAM resets). I'm not thrilled but it's been run hard and often put away wet, to coin a phrase.

So I'm looking for a Mac solution to replace the netbook and back me up in a pinch if the macbook pro throws a wobbler. So is the iPad it ?

Well, potentially. It's small, accessible to me, simple to use and the lack of multitasking could actually be a bonus if all you're doing is playing out backings. No background processes to hog memory. I am finding that the "touch it to select it" idea of the iPhone OS appeals to me more and more as a visually impaired person. I imagine this could have alot to do with the fact that my useful remaining vision works best at a short distance from the object I am looking at, too short a distance to comfortably use a conventional keyboard at the same time. I prefer to get closer than to zoom, as on the iPhone at least, if one were to zoom in enough for me to see the content at a distance, you'd only get one letter on the screen at a time. But the iPad with its bigger screen, well, that's a different matter.

The only sticking point for me is currently no Garageband on the iPad. But there are 140,000 apps for the iphone, and if Apple don't make an iPad version of GB, a third party will come up with a solution that does just as well. There are a few iphone accessories for musicians that may transfer well to the pad, and make me part with even more money.

The only real dilemma is 3g or not 3g ? I know I don't need more than 16GB because all my media (other than performance stuff, which 16GB would be fine for) lives on a mac mini running the Orb server. The iphone version of Orb Live will work on the ipad, and I anticipate an ipad centric version anyway. I have very little media on the iphone 3gs itself - it's all streamed if I want it. So there is no question of whether I need the 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB ipad (or "light, regular or heavy" as the jokers titter).

I have an unlimited data plan with O2 for my iphone, which I use now and again. Mostly it's used during car journeys when I either don't want to talk to my travel companions or am sat in the back of a car and can't hear what they're talking about in the front, or can't get a word in edgeways (which is every time I get in the car with Darryl and his mum). One the one hand I could tether my iphone to my ipad (so far there's nothing to indicate this couldn't be done) for £10 a month - but that does rather feel like a bit of a black eye considering I'm paying for unlimited data already on the iphone itself. I don't imagine O2 will let iphone 3gs owners suddenly tether their ipads to their iphones for free - nice idea, never gonna happen. And if I did tether I doubt I'll find a data plan for the ipad - or indeed a mifi like device - from anyone else which is less than £10 for 3GB and on only a 30 day contract. But you never know.

I've also considered becoming a Fon member (http://www.fon.com/en/info/whatsFon), which is something I may do anyway, but Fon won't help me whilst I'm speeding along in a car, needing some web action.

But for those times, the iphone would suffice just as it does now. The other option is to jailbreak my iphone and do some tethering trickery there, because the word seems to be that unless you're taking the piss with how much data you're sucking down with an illicitly tethered iphone, O2 are unlikely to even notice you. But I'm not keen on jailbreaking on many levels. I like actually Apple's closed app store system for the iphone and ipad. It means the potentially malicious or troublesome crap is filtered out before one gets a chance to install it.

What I'd really like is an iphone compatible tethering option (or a mifi third device option) which is genuinely pay as you go, i.e. you get one, and you put credit on it which lasts until you use it up, and then if you want some more you buy some. I would take an age to use up, say, 3GB - certainly longer than a month. From what I can tell, 3's mifi device is near it. If you buy the version with 3GB added in from the start, it states the data is only valid for three months. I can't seem to find anything yet that says how any of the other top ups are valid for.

However I've got a while to decide whether I'm going for a 3g ipad or not, and to be honest the decision may be more down the price of the ipad itself than anything else.

Before I knew the ipad was about to be born, I was saving up to put a bath in the en suite bathroom upstairs. Oh well. I'd rather have glass and aluminium than white acrylic. :)

VoiceOver in OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard

2009-08-29T18:22:00.002+01:00

Just installed 10.6 today, after nearly mugging the postman for my copy which arrived this morning. I recovered about nine gigs of disk space, and my macbook pro (2006 model) is much more spritely.

One of the new features I have been playing with is the ability to label items that are not labelled in applications, or indeed relabel items that already are. Not being able to find any evidence of how to do this - most of the reviews I've seen so far from so-called accessibility experts have basically just rehashed what Apple say on their website, with very little evidence that they've used 10.6 at all - plus the fact that there is no VO 3.0 manual available (that I can find) yet, I had to delve into the VO help (VO+H) to find out how to do this.

Basically, find an item that you want to label or relabel. Press VO and / (foward slash). A dialogue box will appear asking you to enter a label for the current item. Enter one and navigate down to "ok". This works on dock icons too, but it seems system icons in the menu bar for example can't be relabelled. You'll hear the "not available" ding in this case.

This also works for some items on webpages (but not all, seems trial and error right now but there's probably a rule to it) - for example now my online banking customer number input field invites me to "input number here to see how much money you've squandered this month..."

I'm sure I'll get tired of relabelling buttons with witty (to me anyway) ditties, but for now is it not only useful but can add a touch of personality to your mac - for those of us who are still children at heart anyway.

The Windows of the Soul, aka Why I love my iPhone.

2009-07-09T20:21:00.007+01:00

Here I am, lazing about in bed, with Jalen the German Shepherd Dog lying beside me - well, in reality the leggy bugger is taking up three quarters of the bed and I'm left with a strip about a foot wide right on the edge. And he's shedding like a thistle down too. But he is an affectionate, if a tad slobbery with his dog snogs, companion for a weekday lazy morning. And he doesn't complain if I tip tap away on my iPhone 3GS like a blue tit with a milk bottle.

I've got the most advanced acessible little computer literally in the palm of hand. It's playing me "Lost In Your Eyes" by the late, great and extremely lamented (in this house anyway) Jeff Healey, and allowing me to have the wierd and wonderful of the web available at any time for my immediate perusal. It is a shiney, smooth, beautiful little thing. It feels like an expensive polished stone. Yet it is warm to the touch and oddly enough, smells - close up as i am - a bit like a car my dad used to have when it had been used for the supper run down to the local chippy and then stood in the evening sun for a while. Why this should be I have no idea. It's strange but true. That or the fibro is giving me phantom smells again. And it speaks to me. Not just aesthetically but literally.

I gesture to it and like a good little computer it does as it is bid, telling me all I need to know of its actions and processes in a polite and business-like voice.

Sometimes it may sit there and wonder what it is I want from it, but that is because, like a small but eager to please animal, it needs gentle and consistent handling. And although I am gentle, I am too brain addled thanks to fibromyalgia to always remember how many fingers to use to do what. But it's a game beast and usually forgiving.

My Nokia E90, on the other hand, was not such a willing beast. I had it in the six months before I got my 3GS. It needed the Frankenstein modifications that are Talks or Mobile Speak to be of use to me, add on screen readers which hit me in the pocket to the tune of what I paid for the actual hardware of the iPhone 3GS. I also had an O2 Mini SDA or whatever it was, which ran on WIndows Mobile. Oh, the horror. It was a coupla years ago but I still remember the utter refusal for the damn thing to be consistently accessible to me however hard I tried and whatever Code Factory spells I cast on it.

The E90 itself, whilst having a full qwerty keyboard hidden inside, can only be described as a brick. It is neither shiny nor beautiful. The expression "candy bar" when applied to such mobile phones surely must be the kindest way to describe them - "brick" is what they really are. Mobile Speak made my E90 pretty accessible, but I never did get the hang of web browsing with it. Everything just took sooooo looooong. Except actual typing on it of course. The minature keyboard fairly flew to the tune of my frenzied clatterings.

I think that is my only real hurdle with the iPhone - typing. With VoiceOver on the phone one has to double tap each letter as you select it - or split tap, selecting the letter with one finger, then tapping with another whilst holding down the first. This was my first method of typing, as when gotten right it seemed quicker. But as I have long(ish) fingernails, I was tending towards rolling the pad of my selection finger as I tapped with the other finger, which was causing me to actually type the letter either side of the one I wanted. I have now figured that if I'm going to have nails, I have to type differently. I now choose the letter with one finger, wait for it to be announced, then lift that finger and double tap somewhere entirely different with the other finger to enter the character. This seems better for me, although possibly slower - but I'm making less mistakes, which surely must make the whole text inputting thing quicker overall. This will become a moot point when I go ten pin bowling next however, as all the fingernails on my right hand are bound to be ripped off during the first frame, and thus the left ones will have to come off for the sake of symmetry also.

Other than that small pebble in the road to a happy relationship between me and my iPhone, there has been nothing else to marr the honeymoon period. The bloom is very much still on the rose for me and it - well, I'm not sure what it thinks of me, but I know I am very pleased with it. I am about to take delivery of a dock cum speaker arrangement for it, to put on my bedside cabinet, which surely must be the most definite sign of acceptance - only the very loved things go there:

My Harmony 525 remote - still going strong despite being cracked and injured after being turfed unceremoniously off the sofa by my fiance when he wasn't paying attention to its whereabouts.

A picture of my beloved GSD, Bindi, who I lost last year to cancer.

A little card from my mum telling me how glad she was that I was back in town. I can't read it but that's not the point.

And that's the end of the list.

You get the idea - this is where Important Things live when I am asleep.

Although I obviously use the 3GS at all times of the day, I especially like using it when I wake in the mornings and the day is hardly begun - when I should really be trying to go back to sleep. It is small enough to let me dip into Twitter or the news headlines or whatever I want, without meaning I have to either sit up as I would with my netbook or even get out of bed - shudder ! hell no - as I would if I wanted to use my iMac. I can see what's going on with the world (which helps focus my mind on less personal thoughts that might otherwise prevent me from continuing my slumber), then drift off back to sleep again. Or I can listen to some music until I start snoring again. And that's another great personal joy of mine too - the ipod aspect of the iPhone.

At home, all my media and music lives on a mac mini connected to the plasma tv and surround sound system downstairs. If I - or my fiance - play anything on it, everyone, well me and he, has to want to listen to it. Same with my imac or the macbook in the bedroom which serves as a media player. They involve everyone else in the house in your music. I could use headphones with any of these of course, but they hurt my ears. And despite the ratbag nature of my neighbors who plainly couldn't give a rat's bum about they affect my life (see earlier posts) listening to music at half four in the morning could be seen as being a tad unsociable, and I am basically a nice considerate person. So here's where the iPhone comes in - it's my personal little song box, for me and me only. I guess with the dock and speaker arrangement, it will be everyone in earshot's little song box too - but it doesn't have to be. I can snatch it off the dock and it's all mine again.

I wonder if this is an aspect that the (primarily) kids who blast their mp3s out on buses and trains and in Maccy Doo's and so on are missing. Having been a club and radio dj for a living some years ago, I don't feel a need to broadcast my tunes to everyone. And if I did, I've got a band who can make as much noise as one likes. So I value the privacy of the iPhone - it's for me only. I have no great desire to hide anything from anyone, but I don't want to literally broadcast it either. And I can enjoy my tunes without doing that. And I don't have to worry that anyone else around might not like them because they very likely are not going to hear. In my iPhone, they're all mine mine mine.

Of course, the privacy aspect is true of any mp3 / music player if we so desire - but my iPhone has everything I need to define me inside it too, and I don't need to stick that in the faces - or ears - of anyone else. Tunes, podcasts, Torchwood radio plays and dramatisations of Watership down, the names and numbers of people I care for, those who I need to speak to, my calendar which keeps me where I need to be and not wandering off doing something else (essential when one has such a crappy memory as I do). Pictures of my dogs, my fiance, my mum and her cat, of flowers and random animals. Apps that I find useful, like Navigon or fun, like Simon Sings and iPity.

All that stuff defines me, and I have somehow found great pleasure in having it all in one place, on hand at all times. If I meet someone on the bus and get talking, I can show them a picture of my dog. If I need to explain what I have in mind for a particular arrangement of a song to the rest of the reprobates in the band, I can whip out the iPhone and play them the ideas I put together in Garageband. And if I were to be knocked flat by a bus, whoever were to find my iPhone would at least be able to vaguely know me - before they called my next of kin, or stole my lovely 3GS for themselves of course.

There is a saying that tells us that "The eyes are the windows of the soul." They may well be, but the iPhone is the windows of this woman's soul. And even better, there's no evidence of the computer variety of Windows anywhere. How do you like them Apples, Bill ? ;)

Twitter on the iPhone...

2009-07-06T18:58:00.002+01:00

Many native apps exist for Twitter on the iphone, and it seems that Tweetero takes the prize for accessibility for VoiceOver users. But in the rush to get to the App Store and get our dose of appy goodness for our new blind friendly toy, we sometimes forget that there are web apps - i.e. apps for the iphone and other mobile phones - that live on the internet and are accessible through the Safari browser on the phone. These may well afford an even better accessible experience for those of us using VoiceOver, because they are basically webpages.

One I have stumbled upon that ticks boxes for me is called Logpost. It is essentially a front end for Twitter designed for the mobile phone web browser. Just visit the url, sign in with your Twitter details, and off you go. It's designed to be viewed on a mobile screen, so is not cluttered or confusing, which makes it all the better for a screen reader. And so far, from what I have tested, all of it is accessible with VO. You can do most anything from it that you would do on the usual Twitter site on your desktop or laptop, including searching for trends, which is a feature that seems lacking from the accessible apps I tried on the iphone. It can be used in the landscape format too - better for typing in my opinion.

Of course, it is not as quick to respond as a dedicated native app as web pages have to physically load from links for Twittering tasks, but it is very functional none the less. Result.

Voice guided turn by turn for the iphone from Navigon.

2009-06-26T21:02:00.005+01:00

Well, I said I didn't have the cash to try out any of the voice guided turn by turn software for the iphone 3gs just yet. However then I saw the British Isles version of the new Navigon app for £37.99. The app can be used in portrait or landscape mode, and without an active data connection, which is pretty handy as you don't incur any more sneaky charges once you've bought the thing. Navigon say they will be updating the app with more features in the future, and there is an American version on the way.

A session of googling the likely forums revealed this app has a pedestrian mode (as well as car, bicycle, motorbike, lorry - but no public transit yet). The price goes up on the 30th of June to sixty quid (all bar a penny) so I bought it on a whim, because I don't own any gps software or hardware already. And guess what ? The app is ninety nine percent (in my experience) accessible with VoiceOver.

If I were to go through every nuance of the app I'd be here all night, and dear reader, you would die of boredom. The highlights include being able to set your home address and having the app take you home with a handy Take Me Home button right on the main menu. The ability to look up contacts from your address book and navigate to them by car, bike, lorry (heh !) or pedestrian modes. Let's be honest - the Shank's Pony mode is the one we're interested in as visually impaired people afterall. And being able to browse for Points of Interest such as atms and restaurants nearby.

The only unlabeled buttons I've found so far are in the search for point of interest section. However I expect I haven't explored all the in and outs quite yet so don't quote me on that being the absolutely only unlabeled buttons. There are three direct access buttons at the bottom of the search for p.o.i. screen which VO reports as "button", which one can customise in the options to search for your choice of p.o.i., such as atm, train station, shopping, whatever, for quick access. It becomes obvious that they are for this purpose when you fiddle with the options on this screen because you can set them up yourself. You'd just have to remember what you set them at.

As I expected, VO will not read street names when you pass your finger over the map. You can show a map rather than have to put in a route if you want to see what is round you, but VO isn't going to tell you any of the visual info sadly. This is going to be down to the map rather than VO - basically the map in this case is just a big picture afterall I guess. And we all know how screen readers treat pictures.

But putting in routes via an address is ok once you get the hang of it - it requires a town or city first, then a road, then the number. Below the text field for inputting the info are choices it thinks you might want, for example if you put an N in the field when putting a city or town in, a selectable list of towns and cities beginning with N will appear below the text field. There's a Next button down on the bottom right of the keyboard to advance through this process, or picking one of the list choices advances you automatically.

Picking contacts to navigate to is a matter of choosing the contacts button from the main menu, and picking one out of your address book.

Once the app accepts the address to navigate to there will be a More button at the bottom of the screen where you can pick what the app calls a Route Profile. A screen asking for a Speed Profile will appear - this is where you choose pedestrian, car, whatever (you have to do this to get the right mode, so to speak, if you're walking it). There's also a save as a favourite button for the address you've put in - a sort of customisable point of interest if you like. Once you've picked your route profile (you will only have to do it once unless you want to change it in the future, the choice sticks if it's not changed), go back to the previous screen and press Start Navigation (top right of screen). Then get going !

The polite female voice gives you accurate directions - in my test from my house to my fiance's anyway. She piped up to tell me to turn right and left as I was on the corner of roads (very useful), told me how many meters to walk and then turn, what roads I was turning onto, when I was on the road featuring my destination, and when I was approaching my destination, and when I'd gotten there. "You have reached your destination" rang out within about ten feet of my fiance's garden gate I'd say.

And when I had reached home again on the return, she informed me pretty much within two feet of the turn to my gate, as my fiance's guide dog indicated the turn.

Unlike Trekker you can't browse the route beforehand (so far), and it won't tell you the roads coming up on the left or right unless they are on your route (so far). However in the map screen (Show Map from the main menu), the name of the road is displayed at the bottom of the screen - and this is read by VO. It's alot bigger an area to tap in too, than the current location button in Google Maps. So if you were to make a turn and wonder what road you were on, tapping there would cause VO to tell you.

Whether it's for you or not will depend on your own individual perceptions, but what I can say is that the app is accessible in all the right areas. There are no nasty blank areas that are vital to putting in routes or making choices. Once you figure your way around the app, I reckon it's a winner for the money personally when faced with other accessible choices.

Your mileage, as ever, may vary - if you'll pardon the pun !

OcrNow ! Lite for iphone 3GS

2009-06-25T07:12:00.002+01:00

Whilst trip trapping through the app store yesterday, I happened upon a free trial of an OCR program for the iphone 3gs called OcrNow ! Lite. There are others, but this one had a free version which gives you ten goes to see if it works for you. "I'll have some of that", I thought.

OCR, for those who may not know, stands for "optical character recognition", or reading words, to put it simply. Us visually impaired types might have more experience with this than most because it's software which allows us to read printed letters and the like which we maybe wouldn't normally be able to read. You pop your letter on a scanner, scan it, and the software takes a picture of the letter and converts the words in the image into plain text, which you can then read with a screen reader, edit, or whatever else you like - put straight into the trash bin (as is the case for me with junk mail) or run around the place screaming in horror (as is the case for me with household bills).

The iphone 3gs has an improved camera over the previous models (although the app does work on the previous iphones too) and finding this app gave me a thought about what use I could put it to, being a nearly blind bint and all.

Basically, the software takes a picture of your real world item containing the text you want to convert, uploads it to an online server, and then emails it back to you as an attached file in whatever format you choose - options being, pdf, plain text or rich text. You can also have the image itself included if you want. There are similar things floating about for Symbian phones, so I gather, though I've not played with them. Obviously to use this you need an active data connection.

The ocrNow ! app is very accessible via VoiceOver on the iphone 3gs. Hooray !

On opening the app, flicking from the top gets you the app title, an "add" button (this is where you go when you want to get started), and then a set of instructions which tell you what happens and how to do it.

At the bottom we have an "ocrnow" button (the "go" button for when you're taken your picture, basically), a delete button, and an options button.

The options button takes you to a screen with a "using ocr now tab", a "connection details" button, and a "jobs" button.

The using ocr now section gives you some tips about how to get the best results out of the program, more on that later. The connection settings department is where you will find the nominated email address for converted text to be sent, and the ocr server address (I advise not to fiddle with this bit, lol). The jobs button shows you a list of your jobs, how they were interpreted - for example how many characters and words the program recognised, and how many words of those were in the dictionary, plus any "suspicious characters", lol, the program detected. This doesn't mean how many dodgy reprobate types the program might have scanned your surroundings for (though wouldn't that be a triumph of an app ? heh heh) but how many characters the program couldn't quite suss. More about this section in a bit.

Now, here's where I have to point something out. When I started to fiddle with this app, I didn't have the idea of actually reviewing such things. It only occurred to me that my messing about with such things could possibly benefit others when I'd fiddled with a couple of programs and found my way around them already. So when you start this app for the very first time, you may well get a setup screen that tells you what to do and asks you for an email address to send the output to. I can't remember - it was yesterday when I first met the app and I have serious memory problems much of the time. I will try to remember to document the next program I "review" right from the off though.

So, to the meat of the matter.

On the first screen of the app, you have your add button as I said. Press this to get started scanning your text. The camera opens and tells you "viewfinder, image". Here is where the tips the program gives you in the using ocr now section really help. It recommends keeping the item flat, for example on a desk or on a wall. It recommends good light (well, we'll have to chance it on that one I guess). It recommends holding the phone about 13 inches away from the paper if you're doing an a4 letter, for a3 about 20 inches. Try to keep the border of the picture in line with the border of the paper, it says. Well, those of us who can see abit might have better success with this one - but it is worth remembering something that caught me out a few times - the camera on the iphone is on very top right corner of the rear of the phone if you hold it facing you with the home button at the bottom. I guess most of us would imagine it was in the middle of the phone, but it isn't. This makes lining stuff up abit less instinctive but there you go.

Once you think you've lined up your paper, gently double tap the screen somewhere in the middle. This focuses the camera on the item below it. You'll hear a sound when it focuses. I say do it gently because whatever movement you put on the phone will likely mess with the position of it and thus the focus. Double tap the take picture button to take a picture (or use the split tap method if you prefer - I reckon this is better for taking pictures, as it moves the phone less). It's probably worth messing about with the camera if you're so inclined beforehand to find your way around it.

When you've done this, you will get a preview of the image and a "retake" button at the bottom of the screen, and a "use" button. Double tap the use button to use the image (or retake if you've loused it up).

Then you're taken back to the previous screen, which will be showing a preview of your image, and giving you the magic "ocrNow!" button at the bottom left of the screen. Activate it !

You're now taken to a screen which allows you to set the options for your output. From top to bottom, you got the subject text field where you will likely want to put the subject of your email.

Then flicking past that gets you a choice of pdf, text or rtf buttons - then you're told this is the output format you're choosing. Ass backwards I know but you can't have it all. Your previous choice of format is remembered and indicates as selected.

Flicking by gets you a yes button and a no button, then a "return image" description - again backwards. Check yes if you want to have the image emailed to you to.

Then you have your ocr now button, which is where the magic happens (or a cancel button next to it if you have given up all hope by this point).

Activating the ocrnow button sends the image to the server. The screen changes to a progress bar but doesn't say anything when it's done so, give it a wee while. If you've got push notification for your email (assuming you're sending it to yourself and want to get the result on your iphone) you'll know when it's done as an email will come in. If not, about thirty seconds should do it. There's a button at the bottom of the screen which changes from "cancel" to "continue" when it's finished, so if you're light of touch this is a good way to find out when the magic's happened. Double tapping continue takes you back to the screen with the add button for further excitement (or boredom, depending on your point of view.)

Fire up your email on the iphone if you want instant gratification and you're not near your pooter, and look for an attachment right at the bottom of the blurb that the company who make the app write you when they send you your output. Flicking through this take a while. Double tap the attached file to get your outputted text, where you can read it at your leisure.

I have to admit I totally missed the attachment hiding at the end of the blurb to begin with and even emailed the company asking if the text could be sent inline with the email as opposed to attached, as I couldn't read attachments using my iphone (though in the back of my mind I recalled that you could - I just couldn't find them). What a silly cow I am ! They were very kind and said they would definitely consider this option in future version of the app, by the way. They must have thought I was a right eejit though.

If you don't want to wait for email, in the jobs section of the ocr now app you get a list of the jobs you've done (in the program, not in real life, heh) and options to delete them or download them. Choosing download gets you an option to view the output - which will then go to a screen which will read it all to you, but is not interactive so it will read it in one big lump (keep up at the back there, lol) or to email the output, and you can choose where to email it this time as opposed to having a default address set up.

So - does it work and how well ?

Well, yes, it does work. I snapped a letter I had been sent on a4 paper, and after a few tries of lining it up I managed to get an output that sent the entire letter back to me in a format I could actually read, with very few mistakes or missed characters. Anyone familiar with ocr will know that sometimes you do get a few letters wrong here and there, but you know what the word is supposed to be by context and common sense. I tried a book cover - pretty successful but not quite as easy to line up as the letter. I got real words out of it though, and they even made sense ! And a miniscule chocolate wrapper than even sighted folks might struggle to read I'd wager. I got enough to know that it was 54 percent cocoa solids and made by Kraft Foods. I have no idea where I had lined it up in the viewfinder though.

I suspect this concept might be more successful for those with some remaining vision than those without. I have some left so I was able to line the letter up ok with a good light and contrasting background, but not the smaller things I tried. All of this will depend on one's level of sight and perseverance. I imagine some enterprising and inventive types could make a frame for the iphone and the items to be scanned which makes the process of lining up and focusing a snap, but that would rather destroy the on the go nature of the app. Still, if you don't have a solution already, that would be an idea worth considering I reckon - because compared to scanning software and a camera for your computer, or a flatbed scanner and software, or a standalone solution (that's my credit card I hear screaming in the background at the mention of such things !), the app is dirt cheap.

The beauty of it is that there is a trial version which will do you ten goes, and the program is fully accessible with VoiceOver on the iphone, so you can try it yourself and see if it works for you. To buy the full version is £7.99.

I'm going to give it a go tonight at the pub and see how it copes with menus and the like.

If you've got some residual vision and don't want to spring for a mobile magnifier, or don't want to carry one around in addition to your iphone, ocrNow ! may well be what you are looking for ... pun intended.

Accessible turn by turn voice guided navigation on the iphone...?

2009-06-24T20:38:00.004+01:00

As the turn by turn navigation apps start to roll in now that Apple has opened the doors to development of such things, voice guided navigation is now available for the iphone. AT&T have got one going for a monthly subscription in the US, so will O2 follow suit in the UK ? And even more importantly, will such things work with the iphone 3gs accessibility feature, VoiceOver ?

Often it's the maps that make such apps for mobile devices cost and arm and a leg, but I can't help thinking that those of us who are visually impaired and who need an accessible solution for navigation tend to get even more shafted by and large.

A prime example being Wayfinder Access.

In order to use Wayfinder Access, one has to have Nuance Talks or MobileSpeak on your mobile. Talks is £150 for an IMEI based license, or £280 for a sim based license. MobileSpeak was £149 from Enableeyes last time I looked. Wayfinder Access itself is anything from £150 upwards depending on what maps you want. You need a data connection to use it. And of course you'll need your mobile phone to install all this on.

Wayfinder Navigator (which isn't accessible, so this is the version the "normal" people get to use) however, available on a 12 month basis (or a 36 month basis) is £49.99 for 12 months. You need a data connection for this too.

Having messed about with both of these, I wonder what Wayfinder Access provides, with regards to actual information to guide you, that Navigator doesn't. In my experience, nothing. It just works with a third party speech solution. So why is Wayfinder Access three times the price ? Oh, sorry I forgot - because it's a limited market (the stock answer). Perhaps if it wasn't so bloody expensive more visually impaired people would buy it.

Trekker Breeze from HumanWare is £485. Brilliant though it is - an all in one device about the size of a tv remote - a friend of mine who has one says the gps signal often drops out on buses. Dearie me. For that money I'd want it to be bulletproof. And don't even go there with the original Trekker, a bastardized Dell pda cum braille / tactile add on with extra bluetooth receiver and speaker. For the £1300 my fiance paid for it three years ago, it is fugly, and the development and support of it now very likely orphaned by HumanWare. And you look like a tit with all that gear hanging off you. Don't mention the 100 quid they would like to charge you for a new speaker - merely a rechargeable clip on effort with a run of the mill 3.5 jack to connect it to the pda headphone port - should yours crap out at the first sign of ambient moisture either.

Loadstone is a wonderful concept, free, and accessible (and coded by two blind blokes) - however as the "map" data is actually provided by users previously sharing route and area data with the program (PointShare), it's use is limited to those of us who live in an area already explored by other Loadstone users. Or those of us who are adventurous, or who have access to sighted guides to help us go over our routes prior to needing to traverse them alone. I wonder if an iphone version will surface ? I hope so. The iphone platform could offer so much more data provided by users for such an app, as there are so many of the sleek little Apple beasts out there.

For our sighted friends, we have an assortment of wonderful gps systems with voice guided navigation. Without voice guided navigation in car sat nav would be pretty unwise afterall, so voice guides are neccessary (and these days, usually standard). A quick look in Dixons reveals gps systems from 50 quid upwards, maps pre loaded. And you get the physical device included and ready to go !

Stick one in your silent but deadly hybrid car, listen to the dulcet tones of Celia (as my dad calls the mournful lady imprisoned in his TomTom), pootle blithely along and confuse a blind bod trying to cross the road today, why don't you. lol.

I understand that just because most of my friends are visually impaired, it doesn't mean the rest of the world is too. I know I am in a minority. I know assistive devices are a limited market - but what sticks in my craw is that the tech for the things we need is already out there and being used in devices for the fully sighted every day. Yet the same thing is in an accessible form, it costs a shed load more. And often the very people who could use this assistive tech are the people who just don't have the money for this sort of thing.

I have been delighted to find that the majority of third party apps I've tried on the iphone 3gs have been at least partly accessible with VoiceOver. Some of them are completely accessible, and most of them entirely usable even if they don't speak everything on the screen. This is great because - ah, heaven ! - the visually impaired amongst us aren't charged any more than our sighted counterparts when we buy them. Perhaps, thanks to Apple's taking the accessibility bull by the horns with the iphone 3gs, the days of blind bods getting held over the proverbial barrel that is access to mobile phone software and given a good rogering are over. I really really hope so.

But I can't help fearing that when it comes to an accessible voice guided turn by turn gps solution, we may find ourselves yet again bent over and looking at the rough ground of harsh reality whilst a company like Wayfinder Systems takes advantage of us. Here's hoping I'm wrong. Currently I don't have the money to give the current iphone turn by turn offerings that feature voice guidance a try on the accessibility front. If anyone else does, please let me know !

More on Fring for iphone with VoiceOver

2009-06-22T19:15:00.002+01:00

Ok, it seems I am yet again taking back wot I said before - Fring (www.fring.com) does accept voice calls on the iphone 3gs, with VoiceOver active. The Fring app itself seems mainly accessible, except it does not speak the status of your buddies, so you have to guess if they're on line or not. I gather the online status is shown by a green icon as opposed to a grey one for offline. The accessibility is good because Fring has a Skype add-on, and you can make calls to Skypers straight from the Fring app without having to have your Skype buddy call you first (as documented below in my murmurings about Skype).

At the bottom of the Fring screen you get a buddy list pane icon, a history pane button, the dialler pane button, the goto pane button, and a more pane button.

Fring starts up with the pane you had in the session before - so on first use it will be the buddy pane (as I recall).

The more pane is where you actually add buddies, and add ons for Fring such as Skype, to enable you to make Skype calls - result -, or if you like, to add AIM or ICQ plugins, and a few others. If you've not set Fring up before this is where you'll want to go first, to add plugins for the services you need. Once you add in, say, the Skype plugin and set it up with your username and password for Skype, Fring automatically imports your Skype contacts. Ditto with any other plugins you add in.

The buddy pane (first on the left at the bottom) is where you find your buddies, and activating a buddy by clicking their name reveals (from top left travelling right) a back button, their name and user id, then two buttons. The first on the left is the "chat" button (VO just says "button"). The second on the right (both about in the dead middle of the screen) is the "call" button (again VO just says "button"). Sometimes I have found that you have to flick back and forth between these to get VO to say "button" for some reason, sometimes it merely clicks.

Activating the call button - well, calls the contact - if the contact is on a service that support voice calls through Fring. Skype does. I haven't tried the others because I only have Skype contacts.

Flicking around the screen that appears when in a call gets you the contact name, call in progress, the time of the call in minutes and seconds, and the final button at the end of the right flick is the end call button, which sometimes reveals itself in VO as "end call" button, or sometimes just "button". It's directly above the tactile home screen button anyhow.

Activating the chat button chats the contact - no surprises there. You get a back button to return to the previous pane, the contact's name and the date and time of the chat, and then the messages in the chat (if there's any, if it's a new chat you get "empty list".) Flick along to the right to get a text field (approx half way down the screen), and after double clicking to activate, type your chat message on the keyboard which pops up (bottom half of screen, where the keyboard usually is on the 3gs).

There's a clear text button to the right of the text field (if you mess up typing your message or decide not to send it afterall I assume), and then the send button. Guess what that one does ? Heh.

You'll get a tone on the receipt of any chat messages from your contact, but the text they send is not read out automatically. You have to either flick left of the text field to read the latest chat message, or head for the top third to top half of the screen to find it by finger, where it will be displayed ina timeline of the chat along with the previous messages in conversation form.

The history pane shows your history of chats and calls. It reads ok.

The dialler pane in Fring isn't accessible at all, so if you were hoping to dial cell contacts from it you're out of luck. This is what the dialler pane is for apparently.

The goto pane reveals your current chats or calls, if you want to switch between I imagine.

That's about it I think.

Sometimes, as in a few iphone 3gs apps I've tried, VO will read content on Fring panes that you might have used previously. From what I can gather, it acts as if it's reading a pane which is underneath the pane you're using as opposed to the one you're actually using. Odd, but I suspect there are a few bugs that Apple need to iron out in the next os update. Coming out of the current app and then back in seems to sort it out.

Update on Skype for iPhone accessibility

2009-06-22T12:03:00.002+01:00

I tell porky pies - I got ti wrong yesterday. Skype for iphone is semi accessible with VoiceOver and will accept and make calls.

The only parts which aren't accessible are the contact list and the chats pane, which is a bummer because if you can't access your contacts you can't make calls. However this can be gotten around by having that contact make a call to you first, then they appear in your history list, which is accessible. You can then call or chat them from there, but you can't read their chat replies. Boo hoo.

So - there's hope for it if you can get your contacts to make contact with you first. This is what works for me, anyhow.

iPhone 3GS Accessibility thoughts.

2009-06-21T17:15:00.002+01:00

I got my shiney new iphone 3gs yesterday. After some messing about with o2, being on hold for hours, issues with my credit card (that were not of my making fortunately), I finally managed to order a 16gb black version. It turned up yesterday morning at quarter to nine in the morning. I imagine the dogs' few barks at the courier will have pissed my neighbors off no end, but there you go.

Playing with it, I have a few observations about the in and outs of VoiceOver on the 3GS, which I will rabbit on about - starting with the issues I have with it first.

The rotor control does not work exactly as described by Apple, well, for me at least. The way I read the instructions seems to imply that one puts two fingers on the screen and rotates them together as if turning a dial to switch between the various options that the rotor controls.

I couldn't get this to work no matter what - but what does work for me is to put one finger on the screen and keep it touching the screen, and then put another finger next to it and rotate that finger, keeping the first finger still on the screen. You will then hear a twisting dial sound, and the characters, words or whatever options (which change depending on what app you're in) will be read out. Just stop turning when you get to the one you want.

As for selecting items, I favour the split tap method - passing one finger over the screen, touching it lightly, and when the item you want to use or select is read out, I then tap anywhere on the screen with another finger to open or activate it. It is important to keep the first navigation finger, as I call it, touching the screen and on the item you want whilst tapping with the other, or activation finger, as I have christened it. If you move your selection finger before tapping with the activation finger even slightly you may find the item you wanted isn't selected anymore, as items can be very close together.

There is a bug in the Notes program that intermittently does not activate the on-screen keyboard when editing the text, so the audio prompt will say "Double tap to edit", and you will double tap, then the keyboard will not appear and you'll be left wondering what is going on. Exiting the Notes app and then reentering it seems to sort it out ninety nine percent of the time.

I had the original iPhone 2G when it came out, but had to stop using it as my remaining vision become too poor to use it (I went onto a Nokia E90 with Mobile Squeak, what a nightmare). Before I gave it up I imagine people got some very odd and garbled text messages from me however. But I have retained a vague idea of the layout of the iPhone keyboard, apps, and so on, which is helping me now. Having a vague idea where things are helps I think.

My bf, who whilst being lovely has the patience of a gnat (and no sight at all), finds the iPhone likeable but frustrating as he finds it hard to visualise the layout of things. Whatever I do to try and explain it isn't helping. It seems hard for him to not accidentally touch the screen and put his navigation out, if that makes sense, which means he often activates items he didn't mean to and sometimes moves the insertion point of text without meaning to. And he has bigger fingers than my little fairy-like fingers. Heh heh.

This is why I'm using the navigation finger plus activation finger method - it works better for me as the selection finger is always safely on the screen. Perhaps, being a pianist is also helping here - I'm used to the left and right hands doing different things in tandem.

Inputting text is easier in landscape mode I find, and here I can rest the phone in my curled fingers as if I were holding a game controller. I use the left hand thumb to navigate and select the left keyboard keys, and the right thumb for activation - and the right thumb to navigate and select the keys on the right side of the keyboard, with the left thumb to activate. It takes abit of getting used to but I am fairly flying along now.

I have yet to figure out how to copy and paste (although I have done it accidentally, lol) - VoiceOver changes all the standard gestures, and how to do this whilst using VO doesn't seem to be documented yet.

Disappointingly, Maps doesn't read the names of roads as you pass your finger over the screen. I thought it wouldn't, but I had hoped. But it will read your current locale, and directions can be gotten in a list which makes them easy to flick through. I have yet to go outside and see how the program actually works on the street, and how much voice feedback one will get.

Everything else built in I've tried so far works without a hitch.

Some of the third party apps I had on my old iPhone don't work with VO on the 3GS - Ocarina for one. I imagine this is because the iPhone doesn't do multitasking and VO uses the audio driver, meaning it isn't available for such things as Ocarina, Zephyr, and Stylophone. Skype is accessible, and one can receive chats and reply to them, but not initiate them. Fring and Skype seem not to be happy about voip calls - possibly because of the audio driver issue. So far they've all crashed on me when attempting to receive a call.

Twitterrific works great - it all seems to be accessible, though I have only just downloaded it so I am still finding my way around it.

As often is the case with Apple, the VO documentation for the iPhone is abit sparse and not totally complete right now - better than for the original VoiceOver on Tiger though. That really was flying blind back then. I'm sure as time goes on, more and more people using the 3GS with VO will appear and we will share tips and tricks. Meantime I'm playing and learning, and waiting for a review to cover the bits I am having trouble with from Lioncourt.com - I gather Josh is going to write one soon.

I'm very pleased with the iPhone 3GS so far. It is very responsive and sleek. And the voice - a version of OSX's Vicky I imagine - is quite passable, rather than the robotesque Nokia voices I am used to, though not quite up to Alex on Leopard. It is very encouraging to see a mobile phone that is accessible out of the box - more importantly, one that doesn't look like a brick or is designed for a special need that is accessible out of the box. This is a mainstream phone, accessible to us blind buggers, without having to pay out a hundred and fifty notes on separate software on top of the price of the phone and contract. Perhaps other phone manufacturers will follow suit, though I am not going to hold my breath on it.

All in all, the iPhone 3GS is - in my humble opinion - well worth the money and the eighteen month contract I have just signed up for. It has surpassed my expectations already. Result.

Shit Happens.

2009-05-21T16:47:00.003+01:00

It is with a heavy heart that I am writing today. I had my guide dog matching visit on tuesday 19th of May as promised, with the lovely Quasia. My meeting the dog and the practise walk you do went extremely well. The instructor reckoned I'm a natural guide dog handler - he even started the basic training right then and there. It felt wonderful and right and me and Quasia hit it off right away. A perfect matching visit in other words.

However ...

The meeting of my gsd Jalen and Quasia did not go so well.

In the past Jalen has had issues with other dogs - he can be fearful and combative to some dogs, yet ignore others. He has been like that all his life, right since he was old enough to go on his first walk. However, when he met my fiance's guide dog two years ago, he fell in love immediately.

We introduced them - Jalen and my fiance's dog Otto - in my back garden, both on leashes, with Jalen muzzled, at either end of the garden. Jalen and I slowly approached my s.o. and his dog, over the space of fifteen minutes or so. Jalen needed to know that Otto wasn't a threat to him and to get used to his presense. Eventually we met in the middle and they sniffed each other, and all was well. When they were released from the leashes there was abit of posturing from Jalen, but Otto stood his ground and then they clicked. The muzzle came off Jalen and they picked up a tug toy and played tug o war - with my elder gsd Bindi (who had already met Otto, ignoring him completely as he always did with other dogs !) who I sadly lost last year. They've been best mates ever since.

The guide dog instructor recommended we let Quasia and Jalen - and Otto of course - meet off leash, which I was pretty doubtful about as Jalen can be unpredictable with other dogs off leash. I told the instructor this, but he insisted it was off leash or nothing as he didn't have the authority to do it on leash.

Jalen's got issues with human strangers too, the little (sorry, hooning great) love, but he's good at heart. He warms up eventually, but it takes patience. I had assumed that the instructor would have to come and meet Jalen and get to know him first, and be accepted by him - but he said it wasn't neccessary for him to know Jalen and that we could do this with him watching through the kitchen window. I was pretty surprised at this as I thought he'd want to be there, but hey - I wasn't in charge here.

Jalen is the sort of dog who needs to be told how to act in fearful situations, he sees me as security and wants to be close. He needs to be able to check in with me to see what to do, as these days he's without his moral compass, if you like, in dog form - Bindi. Some dogs don't like to be restrained on a leash when they meet other dogs, but Jalen reacts better if he is. But I went along with the instructor despite my misgivings - what choice did i have ? -, which proved to be a mistake.

Jalen ran over to Quasia. After a second or so he postured and barged her. He was muzzled so he couldn't nip her. I called him back and told him to leave her alone, which he did immediately when I gave him the command, so I made him sit a few feet from me and let her wander around. If he moved towards her threateningly I told him to "leave it", which he did - but the instructor said to let him go and see what happened. Jalen totally didn't know how to react without my guidance so he barged her again, and she squealed. From then on he either ignored her or rushed at her randomly, he just didn't know what to do. The instructor then said for me to give them some titbits, which Otto and Quasia could eat, but I had to feed Jalen his through the muzzle and he was frustrated, which made him even more aggressive to Quasia, and to Otto too, who got a telling off for picking up treats from the floor. It was a total disaster - Jalen was very confused and looking for me for guidance but the instructor kept telling me not to intervene. This was not what my fiance and I experienced with Otto and Jalen meeting - but that was done on terms we knew would be successful. I knew this approach would not work, and I had said so !

Eventually we called a halt to it, and the instructor told me that this was not good (I know this - I'm not dim). I was very upset because it was such a difference between Jalen meeting Otto and then meeting Quasia. I felt the instructor had got it wrong and should have done it on leashes as we did with Otto as we described to him, and the instructor admitted he'd got it wrong too. No shit ! Too late now though.

The instructor said we needed to see improvement in Jalen's behaviour towards Quasia in order for them to place her with me. I said I understood, so we agreed to meet again after he (the instructor) had asked advice from his manager. He could have just done what we said we knew would work from past experience of course, but the damage was already done.

He took Quasia off and left us, and I cried all afternoon, I was so upset and disappointed. My fiance blames the instructor for it failing - I just didn't know what to think.

The instructor called me back later that day, saying his manager had expressed doubts that it would work, but that they were willing to try again as long as my fiance and I followed some very strict instructions. I felt like saying, "Well, you method didn't work when ours might have !" but I didn't, of course. It's a learning process for everyone and I don't think the instructor had come across such a situation before. They can't always get it right.

So he brought Quasia back next day and we had our instructions given to us. We were to put Otto in the workshop out back so's not to complicate things. This didn't go down too well with Otto as he doesn't like it in there and he doesn't like being separated from my fiance, so he barked up a storm.

We were to have Jalen on a leash with my fiance in my front garden. I was to approach the gate with Quasia on a leash, and wait to see what Jalen would do. We weren't to give either dogs any commands at all, just let them bark or sit or stand, or whatever. Then I was to walk past Jalen with Quasia into the house, and sit in the front room. Jalen and my fiance were to follow, and sit in the dining room where the dogs could see each other but still on leashes. My fiance and I were not to tell Jalen to quieten down or to sit or to do anything - we were to let him do what he wanted, but restrain him from lunging towards Quasia if he tried.

So we did this - Jalen whined and barked in a high pitched voice as Quasia and I approached, but stopped when we stood still. He let us walk past without a word. I went into the house and sat down, my fiance and Jalen followed and sat in the dining room. Jalen barked and whined but eventually calmed down and lay down on the floor. My fiance said there was no tension on the leash - Jalen was not lunging or pulling towards us. He obviously felt better having the security of the leash - which we knew would be the case all along. Quasia just looked at him. Then she got up and sniffed the tv next to us, so Jalen got up and barked. She sat down again. He sat down again. I tickled her belly and Jalen whined in protest, or interest, one out of the two.

This went on for half an hour or so, with Jalen barking or whining on and off, but not showing any aggression towards Quasia at all, and in the end we said that it was time to stop for today. My fiance and Jalen went outside into the back garden and I took Quasia out to the instructor at his car. We were encouraged as the situation showed promise.

Now here's where it gets even worse !

My neighbors, as reported in other posts, can be total arseholes. As Quasia was getting into the back of the car, my neighbor drove up in his car, shouting my name at me. I ignored him, as he has been agressive to me in the street before for reasons only seeming to be know to himself and whatever I say to him doesn't help. He persisted - he kept on shouting at me. So I said, "Hello."

He then yelled, "You've got one dog in the house barking and one in the workshop !"

So I said I knew that and that we were doing some guide dog training today. He yelled, "Well I don't have to listen to it !" So I said, "Ok, thankyou - but can we not do this now ?" He then said, in a very threatening tone, "You don't want to go down that road with me."

I said, abit taken aback "Ok, but let's not do this now please." And turned to walk away. I know what he's like - I've experienced his intimidating behaviour before and quite frankly, there's nothing that says that in the course of being neighborly and listening to someone's complaints that says you have to stand there and take it whilst some aggressive man shouts at you from the safety of his car. The instructor followed me and we walked into my garden. The neighbor followed into his garden and kept pace with us, saying, "You don't want to go down that road with me !"

In the end I said, "Ok, whatever." I'd got to my front door by that time.

I was pretty unhappy when I got in. The instructor was very confused about what prompted the neighbor to be so aggressive and threatening. I explained that it wasn't the first time.

The insructor called me back the next day and said that guide dogs felt they couldn't add to a situation with my neighbor by placing a dog into a situation where there might be barking which could make the neighbor aggressive, for my sake and the sake of the guide dog, and my dogs. Basically, what I understood from him was that they wanted to call it off. I asked him what he would do if he were me, and he said he didn't think this situation was going to work with all the outside pressures on it, and that if it were him he'd give it up.

This neighbor has threatened me before - he once said if I didn't stop my dogs barking, there were "thing I could do to sort it, but I won't do them -- yet." His exact words.

I had been trying at that point, which was two years ago nearly, to come to some solution to make him happy as I want to be a good neighbor, but he has complained about every little thing I've done or any little barking the dogs do either in the house or even playing in the garden. Any barking seems to annoy him however little it is. But his own dogs are allowed to bark left at home all day, but he doesn't see that as a problem and dismisses it if I try to get him to see that it cuts both ways. I've only ever mentioned his dogs to him when he's complained about mine - my point being, we all have to get along and there is going to be noise from each other's houses when we live in a terrace, but we just have to live with it now and then. Jalen isn't a barker and Otto only barks now and then, so now and again surely isn't grounds to get a cob on. But he becomes aggressive if I don't immediately cave to his demands and nothing I do (and I have certain;y bent over backwards to accomodate him, however unreasonable he has been) placates him. I've done all I can to minimise my dog's barking and I'm at home most of the time anyway, unlike him and his wife (and noisey baby), who leave their two dogs barking all day long from about eight in the morning til late afternoon. Jalen doesn't bark at all when I go out - I know this because I have audio recorded him every time I've been out for the last six months (call me OCD but I want evidence on my side !) so this nasty individual had a problem with a couple of minutes on and off barking for only forty five minutes in one single day ! My perfectly reasonable and polite explanation wasn't enough for him, as he plainly sees life as one rule for him and another for everyone else. The irony of it is - if he hadn't been on holiday from work that week, he wouldn't have even been home to hear it !

He's also complained about the conifers in my garden being too tall (doesn't affect him as they don't overlook his house and don't block the light), about a walnut tree in my garden being apt to grow really large - which again doesn't block his light as it's far enough away from the houses not to do this and is actually on the other side of my garden to the boundary with his garden - which is incidentally full of trees too, not that I care. And he's also complained that I make too much noise "running up and down" my stairs because he knows (he says) I have no carpet on them (true). However due to the fibro I can't say I've run anywhere for the last few years - I may lump about abit as I struggle with stairs, but I'm in bed by ten thirty every night, for pity's sake. And it's not like I live above him - I live next to him ! And how many times can one go up and down stairs in one day, exactly ? I've got a bathroom downstairs so I basically come down in the morning, at about half eight (by which time he's gone to work), and go back up at about half ten in the evening. I might go up and down a couple of times during the day but - I mean, whatsamatter wiv yoo, you silly man ? He's not even there during the day - neither is his missus most of the time.

However - I can hear you thinking, "Surely there must be more to it than that." And I agree - and the more to it is that he treats his wife like total dirt, and his child the same. I have heard him shout at them in a manner that many people would feel is inappropriate. His idea of disciplining his own dogs is to pull their ears (I have witnessed this first hand, and even had his wife cry out in shock at him doing it to confirm I really did see what I thought I saw). He thinks all people a shade darker than white are dole scroungers and gamblers - he once told me, when I first moved in here and didn't know what an arse he is that he often drove to the coast and saw "these muslim benefit scroungers putting our money into fruit machines all day long. It shouldn't be allowed". He also told me that his step daughter (who doesn't live with him) who has severe learning difficulties and a mental age of eight (she's in her late teens) needed to "grow up - I don't cut her any slack."

What can you say about someone with views like that ?

I imagine he sees me and knows I'm on disability benefits and thinks I should be put out on the street or something. Never mind that this house was bought with money that my ex and husband I actually earned !

I don't mind admitting if I've done something wrong and making amends - and I don't mind not knowing if I've done something wrong and making amends when I am told about it - but what I do mind is aggressive tactics. I'm not there to be treated like dirt. If you want me to hear you, I'm all ears if you're polite. If not, I'm afraid I am not going to stand for it. I will walk away.

Coupled with the previous intimation that he'd sort the dog barking issue if I didn't in his own way and the fact that he's also trespassed onto my property to alter lighting to suit him without my permission, his method of delivering said threats - which is to scream up to me and whoever I am with in his car when I am out in the street (very scary for someone who can't see - for all I know the car could mount the pavement) I was concerned enough to call the police. As for the trespass - he had complained that my sensory support installed assistance lighting in my garden was too bright and that it reflected off my workshop and woke him up, so I said no problem, I'd get them back to reposition it. A couple of days later he came round, handed me the bulb and said he'd come into my garden and changed it for a lower wattage bulb when I was out. I said that he'd not given me a chance to get sensory support so sort it out and that I needed the brightness of the light due to being nearly blind (he knows this, though). He just handed me the bulb, said, "Well, it's done now." And walked off.

The police have been and logged his actions, telling me basically to ignore him and that I have a perfect right to have dogs barking at my house now and then - he would only have grounds for compliant if a "statutory nuisance" were proved, which forty five minutes on and off or so of barking for a very good reason plainly isn't. Ditto dogs barking when they play in the garden, or dogs barking at the door when someone comes to it. This is all that ever happens from my house - however his own dogs bark constantly when they are out, which is pretty much every week day.

The copper recommended I don't bend over backwards to accommodate this man as I had been doing - he said I should live my life, I'm doing nothing wrong. If my dog barks hello to me when I get home at half ten in the evening should I go out now and then - tough luck. If they bark when someone comes to the door - tough. It's allowed. If they bark in the garden now and then when we play, so what. Again, it's allowed. It is the nature of dogs.

A chat to the environmental department after the instructor from guide dogs left confirmed the same - they were very sympathetic and said I had nothing to worry about. I was within my rights and within the law. End of.

The police said that they would go around and have a chat with him and let him know that antisocial behaviour such as trespass and intimidation in the street was not acceptable however, but I didn't want them to. If anything similar happens again I will call them back and ask them to though.

A couple of days after this encounter, a letter from the local council turned up, informing me he has made an official complaint against me. Sighted help lady didn't have time to read it all (it arrived as she was leaving) so I phoned the environmental department up for another chat. They told me not to worry, the letter was only a formality that they had to send out when someone made an official complaint, and that I was totally within my rights and was doing nothing wrong, as they had said before. They told me the neighbor would have to keep a diary of when my dog/s barked and send it to them within five weeks. They advised me to keep my own diary in case he tried to make stuff up, and to keep a diary of his dogs barking too in case I wanted to make a counter complaint, as they felt his dogs may actually be causing a statutory nuisance - due to the regularity and constant nature of the barking from them when the neighbors go out - where mine (by which I mean Jalen and Otto when he is at my house - Otto isn't mine, but he's my responsibility when he's here) aren't ! I said I'd keep the diaries but didn't want to counter complain - it would be petty.

I asked if a letter from guide dogs to support that the barking was only for forty five minutes or so, under their instruction and part of the process involved in my getting a guide dog would be appropriate, and they said a letter would be great but it wasn't essential, they were happy with my information as it stood. They said that when he wouldn't be able to turn in a diary that showed a statutory nuisance - by which is meant a constant barking for long or regular periods, not just one offs - , the file would be promptly closed and any further complaints he might make to me or them could be used as evidence of harrassment of me by him, in view of his previous actions. They were very sympathetic and said this sort of thing happens all the time - a neighbor gets snotty and complains in during a hissy fit, only to have their bubble deflated pretty quickly when the law shows them that they have no cause for reasonable complaint. They recommended I tell him, should he say anything to me in the future, that I could just as well complain about him too if I liked with likely more success - so to "grow up and live and let live" was the chap on the phone's words. ;) But they also recommended I take care if he roared up to me in the street in a temper again, and log anything like that with the police.

So the upshot of it all is this -

Guide Dogs wrote to the environmental department supporting me and saying the barking was their fault and only for forty five minutes or so on one day.

My fiance's guide dog instructor has since said she felt that introductions off leash between new dogs do not work, and she would not have done it that way. She can't say alot I guess but I get the impression she thinks she would have been successful where this instructor wasn't. She said, rather cryptically, that "things had been learned" by us all as a result of the hoo-haa.

I have suspended my application for a guide dog at this point - this whole trauma of it has been too much for me. I am going to let the dust settle before I think what to do next.

So - there you go. A years and three months worth of waiting for a guide dog was brought to naught in the space of 48 hours. Sens-fucking-sational. :(

I have thought long and hard about posting this - I am aware that some might say I am slagging guide dogs off and blaming them. Not true - I am just saying what happened. It was a shitty thing for all of us, instructor included. I imagine he went home at night doubting himself just as much as I doubted myself (and Jalen too). Sometimes things just don't work out. No lasting harm was done - nobody got bitten, Quasia didn't seem bothered by Jalen after it all happened and the instructor said she seemed fine with other dogs afterwards, if a little more aware of them. She'll be placed with someone else and go on to make a great guide, I'm sure. And Jalen forgot about it all come the next morning. So the only one to lose out of it all was me, and I can wait. I've been fucked up in the eye department for the last thirteen years without a guide dog - if I waited a few more years until Jalen was no longer with us rather than try again, for example, it wouldn't matter too much to me. I'm disappointed, yeah, but I can live with it.

I am also ware some might say I am being indiscreet about my neighbor. However I haven't said anything here that isn't common knowledge if one knows the man in question (his step daughter, his opinions, etc are all known about the neighborhood so anyone reading this who knew me would already know about all this. Slander and libel only apply to untruths, I believe).

And I am entitled to my opinion that the man is an arse - just as he is entitled to think I am an arse (as I'm sure he does). And he can complain to the council about me all he likes - I know my rights and so do they. No harm no foul. If they told me he had cause for complaint I'd do something about it. But they haven't said that.

What he isn't entitled to do however is try to intimidate me, so I will be keeping tabs on this situation and keeping in touch with the police.

Apologies for the length of this post - if you've read this far, I salute you !

A Small Victory in the Parking on the Pavement War

2009-05-18T09:20:00.002+01:00

The hooning great truck I mentioned earlier in my BADD post that is always parked on the path outside my house finally got a parking ticket on thursday. It's only taken the relevant authorities two or so years to do this !

My neighbor let me know it was there, plus a trailer on the back. A trailer on the back of a flat bed truck - I mean, ffs ! And there's never anything in either of them ! So I went out to investigate. Interestingly this time a poke about with the stick and a grope revealed it was only slightly on the path, which I am usually prepared to ignore - but it was parked slap bang across my driveway meaning nobody could get into it. There were other neighbor's cars parked at right angles to it on the grass between the pavement and my house, which means access to my house was completely blocked off. Which meant that Darryl, my other half, would have been screwed when he got back from his thursday night noise making sessions with the bands he's in - him and his mum would have been lumping amps and guitars around for many yards more than they should have to in order to get them into my house. All because some arsehole can't be bothered to park in his own driveway.

So I phoned the police - as I have been advised to by the very rozzers themselves on every occasion I have ever tried to bring dangerous or selfish parking to an authorities attention - and told them.

They were more interested that it was blocking my driveway than that it was on the pavement and thus a potential hazard to visually impaired people or those in wheelchairs or with prams. I explained that it had been going on for some years now and despite the traffic warden coming out (who did diddly squat and might as well have not bothered), it had gotten worse and worse. As I explain every single time I have to call them up.

I was told that they had received complaints about the truck that very night from someone else because it was also directly opposite a junction and causing a hazard (I would love to know who that was, but of course they weren't about to tell me) and promised that an officer would be despatched forthwith to ticket it.

And ticket it they must have, because the following morning saw the truck gone, and it has not appeared in that position again so far. And we're into some days later now.

A small victory methinks. I wonder how long it will last ?

Matching visit news

2009-05-11T20:04:00.002+01:00

Andy from Guide Dogs called me this afternoon. He is coming out to do the matching visit with me next tuesday morning at eleven.

This afternoon I happened to be in a computer workshop with a lady called Annabell, who happens to have a flat coat retriever guide dog called Amy, who is of similar size and weight to Quasia. I told her about my matching visit and she said, "Well, you can baby sit Amy for this afternoon !"

So I was treated to the company of lovely Amy for a few hours. She was extremely affectionate and licky and fun, I loved her instantly. I have known her for a year or so but this was the first time I got up close to her for an extended period of time. She was either giving me a right dog snog or laying on my foot, which was fine by me. I don't mind dogs licking my face - some people don't like it, but I am fine with it. I haven't been sick - as in, thrown up - for many years - and that was from enjoying a night of extreme refreshment if you catch my drift (and then eating some rubbish from the local salmonella burger van outside a nightclub). So I'm not overly worried about dog germs. However she also wandered over to Otto and sniffed his bum, so I wasn't so keen on the kisses after that ! It's one thing knowing they do that, we all know they do it - but having them do it right in front of you then trying to give you a big sloppy tongue lashing a second later is something I'm not nuts about.

If Quasia is anything like Amy I'll be a happy bunny, because she's lovely.

Ooooh, guide dog news !

2009-05-08T17:26:00.002+01:00

I called the Guide Dog people today. Probably because it's nearly three weeks since I heard from them and I was so fed up today that I was desperate for some good news. I also had my hair cut today and god know what my hairdresser was doing, but she has cut my fringe (bangs to you guys across the pond) so short that I look like a total mong. I don't need to be able to see myself to know this. I feel like a total mong. My hair isn't hanging in my eyes so therefore, to me, this equals mong-ness. I hate it when they do that - but they seem to want to tidy me up or something. Pity their efforts make me look so stupid ! They might as well shove a basin on my head and cut around it at the front for all the style I have when I come out. If I could find somewhere else to go that was within walking distance I would. Perhaps it's time to scour Yell.com for a mobile hairdresser.

Anyway, the phonecall could have back fired on me big time if the chap in question had told me the doggy he had thought he had for me was a non starter, but luck was with me. Which was nice !

He said he was just going to get around to calling me anyway next week, to set up a matching visit. He feels the dog is the one for me, and the next step is to match her with me on a walk to see how we all get along. If all goes well I should start to train in the middle of June, at a hotel in Ipswich. He didn't have his diary on him at that point but he will call me back at the beginning of next week to set a date.

The dog in question is a girl dog called Quasia. All guide dogs in a litter get names beginning with the same letter, so I guess her siblings were puppies by the name of Queenie, Quentin, Quincy, and er ... yeah, other names beginning with Q. She is a black flat coat retriever slash golden retriever mix. Apparently she bonds very quickly with her handler and needs consistent handling from someone who is very dog oriented, and who wants to work very much as a team rather than just to follow along. She has the bounciness and happiness of a flat coat retriever but can be abit stubborn like a golden retriever. They feel she's the one for me because although I've never had a guide dog, I am well known to them as a "doggy person" with lots of dog experience. My pet dog, Jalen, is full of personality and needs a consistent level of discipline to keep him in line, so I'm used to being the alpha dog.

She's what they call a medium sized dog, weighing in at twenty seven kilograms. To me that's a small dog, as my Jalen weighs nearly fifty and Bindi, who I lost last year, was sixty at his prime. But in guide dog terms, she's a medium. She has feathery legs and a longish coat, and of course I am in love already without even having met her.

The matching visit can be abit of a shock for first time guide dog owners, so I am told - and I can only imagine how true that is. I am well used to pet dogs, but being guided by a dog in harness is a whole new kettle of fish. How a potential first time guide dog owner is supposed to tell if the dog is right for them after a ten minute walk around the block is beyond me - they have no frame of reference (and if they do happen to pin a pet dog experience on the event as a frame of reference, in my opinion they'd be pretty unwise.)

The matching visit is to see is you can get on with the dog, whether the dog can get on with you, and presumably whether the two of you can walk down the street without getting killed or seriously injured - albeit in the company of the guide dog instructor.

I've talked at length about the matching process to my bf, Darryl, who has had five guide dogs. He agrees that even if you do have a guide dog before and have a frame of reference, it's pretty hard to tell if the dog is right for you after ten minutes unless you have a very definite criteria for the dog - for example, it must not sniff around at all, or it must not lick your hand, or something else very obvious from a first impression.

I have none of those criteria - I want a dog to guide me and have very little idea what to expect in that regard, despite having known Darryl (and Otto) for two years, and having travelled along behind them in all sorts of environments. Otto guides Darryl and I trot along behind in their wake with the stick - it's the safest place in town ! I make much better progress with them than I do on my own - with a guide dog, you sail by the bins, cars, people, etc - as you are doing the overall navigating and the dog is taking care of the immediate surroundings, for the most part - unless the immediate surroundings are unexpectedly hazardous or challenging, like for example, if some knob parks a huge truck on the path and you have to figure out whether to try and inch past it or go out into the road (what guide dogs call an "off kerb obstacle," and what guide dog owners call "the driver being a twunt").

With the stick, you're doing both the navigating and the immediate surroundings interpretation - usually in my case by bouncing off things.

I can't really describe how I feel about the prospect of getting a guide dog. I have never been a happy stick user - I just can't get used to the idea that people are watching me bounce off stuff and are thinking, "Poor cow." With a dog, most people see the dog first, and then you - if they see you at all. They usually think, "Aww, look at the doggy..." and you're just incidental. Which can work against you if they are not savvy in the way of not distracting assistance dogs. But the dog is often a good ice breaker if you need help, or if people want to help you. And of course, you're never alone with your guide dog. Getting around with the stick can be a damn lonely process.

So to say I am made up as a made up thing is an understatement. I am also nervous as hell !

If thine eye offends...

2009-05-08T13:34:00.002+01:00

(Warning - eye talk that may make some people squeamish follows in this post !)

My eye has been offending for some years now - the last two of them being due to not only having large useless areas of scarring in the retinas, which cause blind spots, but also an allergic reaction in my right eye to my contact lens. Or to the solutions I use to clean and soak it. Or to the protein that naturally builds up such little discs of plastic when they have to live in one's eyes all day long. Or to there being an R in the month. Or to some other thing that the eye bods don't really know about. Or if they do, they don't tell me.

My left eye hasn't been able to see anything useful for the last sixteen years. One morning I woke up and Whomp, there it was (to paraphrase the song) - or rather, Whomp there it wasn't. In the night I had had a massive bleed through my retina due to myopic macular degeneration, and by the time the doctors figured out why and what it was caused by (several years later as it goes) it had scarred so badly that the only thing I have in that eye is light perception in the very bottom right peripheral.

Two years later I was drying my hair, and Whomp - you guessed it - but this time, it was my right eye and luckily only in the very centre. I've had some lattice degeneration in the peripheral and surgery to wall the areas of bleed off in an attempt to prevent them spreading since then. But in 2000 I got registered blind, and it's been downhill ever since.

This year I was told I had cataracts forming too - nice, just what I wanted - and for the last two years on and off my right eye has been reacting to my contact lens, which clears up the sight that remains in the peripheral of my right eye. Without it I only have light perception in that eye so it's important for me to be able to wear it - as wearing a lens makes not one jot of difference in the other eye of course. I can't wear glasses due to the strength of the prescription needed for me (at the last count when it was able to be "tuned" it was minus 20.00 or so) - they would be so heavy that they would hurt my fibromyalgic phiz, and even then, glasses don't deal well with peripheral vision, which of course is the only thing left for me.

So for the last two years the eye bods at the local hospital have been telling me to take the lens out for a month / week / days or so, then to keep it in, then to take it out, then to shake it all about... depending on who I see at the clinic - you get the idea - and have given me various drops, salves, goops, and antibiotics in a bid to stop my eyes from forming little blisters on the underside of my lids where the contact lens irritates. Once they figured out that was what was causing the my eye to feel like someone has stuck a gritty stick in it, that is.

Their latest idea is that I should change the sort of contact lens I wear from a gas permeable (made of rigid stuff) one, to a soft one made of silicon hydrogel. Like a little flat jelly fish, in other words.

There are a few issues for me with this.

One, my remaining sight is so little that it is almost impossible for my contact lens bod to figure out what I can and can't see. I can't see letters on the chart at all - though with the right eye in a dark room I can tell it is there if it is lit from within. So to tune the sight in a lens is pretty difficult as we have no common frame of reference.

Two - soft contacts aren't the best for the truly pathologically myopic such as myself as they don't offer the clarity of vision that gas perms do - which is why I started wearing gas perms when I was twelve. And thirdly, they are so jelly like and light that I can't tell if they're on my eye, on the end of my nose, in my hair, or somewhere else. Ad they don't seem to make much difference to my sight when they are where they're supposed to be, namely in my eye.

But I have given them a shot anyway, despite being fairly convinced that I am going to lose them in fairly short order. They keep getting deformed by the eyelid when I blink and falling out. They also make my eye sore in a different way by making me feel like I have a flattened jelly fish stuck on my eye. And the real weird thing - when I am walking outside and the wind is blowing into my face, the lens gets cold and feels very strange indeed. Even with shades on (which I wear in different tints all year round).

The other option the eye bods have up their sleeve is a clear lens extraction - or CLE - in my right eye. Like the op they do for cataract patients, but when the lens is clear rather than cloudy. Technically my lens isn't clear at all, due to the forming cataract I mentioned earlier - but that is what they are calling it. If the lens inside my right eye were taken out, it may well mean I didn't need to wear a contact lens in that eye. Or if I did, it would be a thinner one, which might cause less irritation. They could also implant a focused lens in its place that would correct any myopia that remained, so I am told.

However, fiddling about with an eye with such a volatile retina as mine has its risks - big style retinal detachment being one of them. And we know what happens when the retina detaches - that's what happened to my bf in his left eye. And now he has no sight or light perception in that eye (and incidentally none in the right one either, as it is a prosthetic one !)

So I am feeling quite sorry for myself right now - I've been lucky in the past that my retinal problems haven't hurt me, but now I am hurting in my eye all the live long day, and it is making me into an irritable bint. Somehow the eye pain is worse than all the other pains I get due to all my other bodily failings (varied in strength and frequency). It makes my nose run like a tap too, which is inconvenient as well as annoying. Nobody wants nose juice in their dinner, do they ? And the dogs keep licking my face to get it off, the dirty little beasts.

So, no funnies today folks. I am too miserable and whiny. And snotty. And I've got a jelly fish smooshed into my eye.

When helping yourself doesn't help.

2009-05-01T11:35:00.003+01:00

It's Blogging Against Disablism Day. So here I am, taking part for the first time, with my current thoughts.

I've just been mowing my lawn. It's like the Somme out there under the grass, and made none the better for my haphazard attempts with the petrol lawnmower, which under my visually impaired and fibromyalgic direction becomes more of a ploughing device than a cutting device. It looks like shite before I mow and looks like hammered shite afterwards. Yon boundary fences better watch out - I know I've reached the sides because even I can't mow a fence. ;) I can't hear a damn thing with the motor going and I'm so intent on getting it done before the stupid thing dies and I have to get my bf out to start it again (my little arms are too weak to pull the cord !) that I am taking no prisoners and I stop for no bugger. Dog toys, stones, bits of wood, grass, plants, nettles - I mow the bloody lot. By the time I am done I can barely stand up straight and am sure to suffer a penance the next day. Or for the next two days. Or even three. If I were a drug addict I'd have a fix before, during and after The Event.

Before I start the Grass Macerating Festivities, I am sure to try to ascertain whether my neighbors are at home. I listen carefully on the back step like a rabbit checking for a quiet moment to cross the road. I take my time, I wait. You never know with these quick moving types - they can come out of nowhere.

The reason for this is many fold - not least because I don't want them to see my cellulite and unshaved legs in my shorts, or that one of the neighbors is abit of an old perv who doesn't mind stooping as low as openly playing pocket pool whilst watching the blind woman next door - but for two main reasons.

One - they are a nosey, beaky bunch. They never say anything to me, but they just love to stare. If I'm mowing the lawn, picking up dog shit from the spending run, potting up plants in my little shabby plastic greenhouse, wobbling up the garden path to the workshop with something heavy or cumbersome in my arms - they're there, beaking. I know this because a) I'm not stupid, I can hear the whispers, and b) I've been told this by my best mate, who watches them watching me. They just love it - the nastier or more difficult the job, the more they are held in thrall. And not once do any of them offer to help me or even acknowledge me if I speak - my "Wotcha" is met with scuttling away or silence. I've mostly given up speaking to them.

The second reason is - as "blind" people, both me and my bf are not allowed to do anything for ourselves. If we do, it means that anything we might have an issue with that they've done - like, parking in front of my front gate so we can barely fit a Rizla through the gap, let alone a white stick, or a guide dog, or, leaving their bins in unexpected places, or, parking their damn great flat bed truck on the path as opposed to in their driveway so we hit our heads on the wing mirror as we attempt to get by - is us just "being awkward". Any requests that could they please not do said things as it prevents us from getting out of the front garden safely are met with, "How can you mow the lawn / pick up dog poo / put your bins out / etc then if you can't see my car ?"

The same attitude comes from the local Traffic Warden, who, despite being sent out on numerous occasions in the last two years by the local Safer Neighborhood Team ("Yes, your concerns are a priority to us madam, I can assure you ...") to deal with illegally parked cars that we've bounced off, has yet to do anything at all about the problem. Her answer is that although a car / truck / van may be parked on the path, opposite a junction and over a drop curb to a driveway (as it would be if it were parked directly outside my house), it isn't an obstruction as "anyone else would walk around it". This would mean walking into the road, or onto a piece of grass that is full of hillocks and drops away towards our front gardens in an alarming slope. Not the best terrain for guide cane users. Or indeed wheelchair users, or mums with prams. Etc. I dunno - the Traffic Warden of yore woulda slapped a ticket on a vehicle if it had so much as one wheel on the path, let alone ringing all the cherries of being on the pavement, over a drop curb and opposite a junction. But these days ... none of that is important enough for them to get their little penalty pads out.

If I may venture into somewhat controversial territory here (and I don't usually because I'm not in the slightest bit interested in debating the point), this is all down to the attitude that, as visually impaired people, we get all the time - we don't look like there's anything wrong with us because we're not in a wheelchair, on crutches, or obviously disabled in any way, so therefore there can't be. We look totally "normal" to the uninitiated and in our own homes and gardens, we can function in what appears to be - to the beaky - a perfectly normal way. The only thing that marks us out is the white stick, or the guide dog. And these people, being in such close proximity to us, get to see us in the garden without these things. I don't know of anyone who works their guide dog in their own back yard. So how can we need the stick or the dog - and thus "really be blind" - if we can put the bins out or hose down the dog run ?

What these idiots fail to grasp is - everything in our personal environment is controlled by us. We choose where things go, we choose how to do things, we choose where to walk. We know that if we put something in one place and walk away, we are very likely to find it exactly where we left it when we come back (unless it is our dirty pants, in which case some Labradoodle guide dog has probably run off with them. ;) ) We know where the hazards are and we avoid them as best we can, and accidents are at a minimum as a result - except for when I run over half bricks with the lawnmower which fly back and take a chunk out of my leg, which is not a good look. Where they fecking appear from I have no idea. They must teleport into the middle of the lawn or something. I imagine the neighbors must love it when that happens, it's better than You've been Maimed, I'm sorry Framed - and as I'm such a nice, accommodating blind bitch, I am sure to give them a loud display of my bestest and most inventive swears to go with the visual delights too.

Having only yourself to blame for an accident is not the same as it being some other ignorant and selfish bastard's fault. It's not exactly ok when I walk into a cupboard door because I left it open like a silly bint, or if I trip over a bag of potting compost that I moved and forgot - but at least it's my own stupid fault. I will learn not to do it again (usually).

When I bounce off the wing mirror of a car parked squeezed in front of my garden gate yet again despite totally adequate parking space in front of their own house, because some twat couldn't be bothered to point the car two feet to the right before turning in, it's not my fault. And I tend to get abit upset about it. When I can't figure out if I'm at the right point to turn off the path to meet my gate because there are four or five cars parked haphazardly in odd places (including blocking my driveway, which of course is ok by them as I don't have a car - why would I possibly want a clear driveway ?) which confuse me, I tend to get abit disgruntled. And this is not my fault either. When I meet a truck parked halfway over the path, and then have to inch along wondering where the wing mirror is in case it knocks my teeth out, I tend to get abit irate. And it's not my fault. And when the people who are supposed to prevent all this shit from happening - the police, or the traffic wardens (depending on where the buck is being passed today) don't see this as a worthwhile problem, because "anyone else" - read "anyone who wasn't disabled" - would not have a problem, I tend to get abit fucking annoyed.

Because I can mow my lawn and put my bins out, and I don't have a carer come in to hoover up or cook my meals, I therefore must be able to deal with everything else in the world too.

So sometimes I understand why one of my great pet hates about the visually impaired community exists - the act of saying you are more helpless than you actually are. I imagine this occurs elsewhere amongst other disabled groups - but I only have experience of it amongst the VI. Ordinarily it does my head in. It seems to be some sort of pissing contest - "I'm blinder than you and need more help so ... nur nur ne nur nur." And then there is the flip side, "I'm blinder than you, but I can do this, which you can't". I couldn't give shit who was blinder than me, who can see more than me, who did what when and how, when the purpose of the admission is one-up-manship. But having lived around people who have the attitude that if you can do one thing that they perceive as something a blind person should not be able to do - for example, run a hoover or put a bin bag in the wheely bin - then you must be able to do all things ... now I understand why some VI people can't get off the pity pot. They've figured it's insurance against people who can't get their head around the idea that a fairly self sufficient disabled person might sometimes need the consideration of others. If you act helpless all the time even when you're not, you are doubtless going to get help when you really need it.

Such is society - in my neck of the woods - that doing your shit and getting on with it does not help you. It just gets you dismissed when you're in genuine difficulty. It gives selfish people an excuse to continue to act selfishly.

All that said, I absolutely can't bring myself to sit on that pity potty all day long. Perhaps it was because my role model growing up was my father, who - in my little girl eyes - knew everything, could do everything, and never needed help. He's still working as a builder aged sixty four. Moaning like an old woman about it most of the time, but still doing it. Or perhaps it is because I don't get much support from anyone but my bf, and he's blind too. So, if we don't do it, by and large, it don't get done. But I think mainly it is because I get the idea that everyone is different, and everyone has their limitations, and I understand that my rights in the world as one person to do what I want to do should stop when my actions have a negative effect on someone else. The basic concept is consideration for others, something we are usually taught as children, and that we're all of different abilities.

So why is it so hard for these people to understand ?

So, although this is Blogging Against Disablism Day and I should be writing a positive post on how good it feels to be able to mow - or at least make shorter by rearranging - the lawn despite not being able to see it, I'm afraid I can't do that. Today all I can say to my fellow dis'ers is hide ! - hide your achievements. That's right - that's what I said.

Don't let the able feckers know you can do anything at all, ever. They won't respect you for it, they'll just use it as an excuse to act like nerks when you do need their consideration. Hide your light under a bushel. Or at least, don't mow your bushel down ... not when they're watching, anyhow.

p.s. I reserve the right to talk crap, too.

Sat Nav for Guide Dogs

2009-04-27T19:51:00.002+01:00

A interesting link that passed me by until today is http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ouch/2009/04/guide_dogs_get_sat_nav.html

It's a story about how a product design student has designed a sat nav, called Peepo, that a blind person can speak a destination into, then clip a device onto the guide dog harness which vibrates on the fingertips to indicate which way to steer the dog.

The Ouch article links to a Sun newspaper article, which (as I have come to expect from the Sun when it comes to blindness) gets the wrong idea and states in the first paragraph "A revolutionary sat nav that directs guide dogs for blind people has been invented by a British boffin."

It then goes on to say how the device will vibrate on the left or the right side, telling the handler which way to turn, to be fair - but as any guide dog owner will know, YOU tell the DOG where to turn left or right, not the other way around as the first paragraph would imply. Of course, Fido may well know the route already and pre-empt you, but surely that isn't what a sat nav is aimed at. If you knew the route already, you wouldn't need a sat nav, would you ?

The other amusing Sun comment in the article is that the inventor says that ordinary sat navs are dangerous for blind people as they can step into traffic. Not wishing to come across as harsh towards this attitude but, hello ??? Isn't that what guide dogs are trained to prevent by stopping at curbs ? And how does this special sat nav prevent that - does it have all the kerbs in the world programmed in as points of interest, telling you when you're approaching one ? Enquiring minds want to know.

My better half uses a Trekker sat nav to take us places we don't already know, which is admittedly more expensive at 1300 notes as opposed to the proposed 500 of the Peepo, but it works just fine. It's alot of faffing about to input routes via the tactile keypad though so the voice control of the initial destination of this appeals. However it (the Trekker) does tell you where you are by letting you know the names of the roads. Although the Peepo gives a steady pulse of vibration to indicate you are on route, what happens if you get diverted off route for some reason ?

I don't want to come across as dismissive to the concept, because I'm not - all mobility enhancements are a goer for me - but other than being voice activated and not actually speaking directions to you (useful in busy areas indeed), I wonder how much of an improvement this is on what is available already at a similar price (the Trekker Breeze, for example).

I'd love to get my hands on one and find out !

Singing ...

2009-04-25T20:30:00.003+01:00

I had my first one to one singing lesson today. I've been singing on and off for years, more for pleasure in casual groups and choirs than for any other reason, but this year my bf and I are organising a Christmas 'do' for our local blind bugger's social club, where the acoustic guitar and vocals group that we are in will be performing. Along with a-capella vocal group that I am also in.

The guitar / vocal thing has five members at the moment, and all of us are visually impaired except one.

Somehow I have ended up running the group (they seem to like it that way, but give them time, I'm sure the novelty will wear off !), which means teaching parts to the other singers, deciding which songs we sing, and all manner of other stuff. So I figured I better have some lessons - as I can hardly look crap myself with that responsibility to shoulder can I ? ;)

I was put off singing at a young age, despite liking it and having some talent in that direction, - largely thanks to my mother, who told me in no uncertain terms, when I asked for singing lessons not keyboard lessons; "I've heard you sing, you're no good." Cheers mum, - that followed me around for some years like a sad little tail ! My dad was too busy pushing me to become a young female Jean Michel Jarre or similar, so the idea that I might want to change direction was absolutely not discussed with him.

This makes my parents sound like a couple of arses - which isn't true, they just had very definite ideas about where I should put my musical energies which weren't the same as my own.

However I'm big enough and ugly enough to make my own decisions now so singing lessons for me it is.

My teacher, Jenny, is an old family friend who has threatened to remonstrate firmly with my mum for destroying my confidence when she sees her next - her opinion is that I can sing, I just can't breathe as a singer ! I knew this was my main problem, which is why I asked her to give me lessons as she comes highly recommended.

I spent the afternoon being taught to breathe from my stomach not my chest, and feeling quite light headed as a result. This is not unusual I'm told - and as a head rush it beats drugs or drink, and is acceptable to do in public. ;)

None of the whining and wailing I was doing could have been too bad, as Otto fell asleep on the floor and my bf didn't run from the room with his hands over his ears.

I'm back in a fortnight for more.

The dog and bone...

2009-04-20T20:12:00.003+01:00

I got a call from Guide Dogs this evening. I have been on the waiting list for a dog for over a year so I could hardly speak, I was so stunned.

Somehow I knew it was them when the phone rang - that might sound like a load of old squit but it's true, however it might sound.

It was an instructor I haven't met before, telling me he thinks (thinks ! argh !) he has a dog for me who would be ready to train with me in the middle of June this year.

A quick background summary - I have been visually impaired for thirteen years. I am registered blind with only vague light perception in my left eye and no central vision in the right, due to myopic macular degeneration, and cataracts. My S.O. has a guide dog, and when we met two years ago I realised that I should stop hiding away indoors, ditch the stick (which I am totally rubbish with) and get on the list for a dog who can legally crap in the street and go into restaurants !

I have a pet dog, a GSD called Jalen, who I adore, and my bf's dog, Otto, gets on famously with him. They adore each other - and we adore them.

So - back to the phone call. The instructor says he has a flat coated retriever cross lab girl who could be right for me. He picked her up with me in mind, and after asking me a few questions and telling me abit about her, he said he'd let me know if she was going to work out for me as soon as he could.

Until he calls back and says yey or nay for sure I hardly dare get my hopes up or reveal too much about her - as for all I know he could be thinking of another candidate for her if she doesn't train up for me, and I wouldn't want to be indiscreet about her if that were so. But from what he said, I am top of the list for her, so fingers crossed.