Owner: I look so I can hear URL:http://funnyoldlife.wordpress.com Join Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:48:34 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Living with a hearing loss in London's rat race Site statistics:Click here
Pionta Guinness, le do thoil (A pint of Guinness, please) 2007-03-17 01:08:04
Beannachtaí Lá Fhéile Pádraig Daoibh - tabhair dom an rud céanna atá ag an fhear ar an urlár!
(Blessings of St Patrick’s Day to you - give me the same as the man on the floor!)
If you’re short of decent drinks today (i.e. there’s no firewater in the house), here’s how to make Irish coffee and an Irish Car Bomb. In between stumbling through Beyond the Black Stump, of course. Some of those characters can really drink - hehehe
Amazingly, many people celebrating St Patrick’s Day don’t know the real meaning of the celebrations. 60% of people attending the Manchester Irish Festival did not know who St Patrick is. In Ireland, everyone attends a Gaelic church service on 17th March, then they go out drinking. It’s strange how things get translated across cultures and lose so much of their original meaning.
Read more:Guinness
Tower of Babel 2007-03-17 00:06:15
It’s not easy being deaf and trying to learn a foreign language. I have learned Irish (it’s compulsory at school in Ireland), German (at school), Spanish (I lived there for some time) and Japanese (at university). But hey, it’s not impossible. My theory is that once you have learned your first spoken language, you lay down the building blocks for learning another language. Once you’ve mastered one, it gets easier to master another. Of course, it helps if the language gene runs in the family, which it does in mine. Being deaf, you have to learn spoken language as you would learn a foreign language, because you can’t just hear it and pick it up quicker that way, you have to put much more effort into it and plough patiently through the language books.
I have to say, I think Irish is one of the harder languages to learn, as the written language isn’t the same as the spoken language. Gaelic wikipedia, anyone?! German is straightforward, as is Spanish. Read more:Tower
, Babel
Subtitled cinema : Blood Diamond 2007-03-08 00:58:58
I went to see subtitled Blood
Diamond, starring (a likeable) Leonardo DiCaprio, Dijmon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly. Set during Sierra Leone’s civil war of the 1990s, Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a South African ex-mercenary who makes an unlikely union with a Mende fisherman in a quest to find a rare diamond.
The film was great, and the African scenery was just stunning. It was a very sad film though, bringing home the reality of conflict diamonds and the resulting suffering in Africa. Rough diamonds are used by rebel movements or their allies to finance armed conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments. Profits from the trade in conflict diamonds were used to buy arms, children were trained to be soldiers and people often had their hands cut off….
You can read about it here - Blood Diamond
s:Tracing the deadly path of the world’s most precious stones
There were only 4 of us in the cinema theatre, which was great. They forgot to put the subtitles on - durrrr
Subtitles 2007-03-03 02:33:32 Not everything in the media is subtitled, which is a pity, as there are 9 million people in this country who would benefit and be able to enjoy cinema, TV, theatre and DVDs like everyone else. Just think, if all the media around you had no sound. Eastenders would just be a set of boring moving dummies. Would you be able to enjoy it? Not much!
It’s sooo annoying when you watch a DVD, video or Sky movie and there are no subtitles. Imagine going to the cinema and trying to lip read Superman. Errghhh. Subtitled showings are becoming more available around the country, although a lot more work needs to be done. There are not enough films shown and a lot of films are shown during a weekday. Do they think deaf people don’t work?! Well, at least they can get concessions which is something…
Subtitles have improved greatly though….. haven’t they?
Brilliant, isn’t it?!
Come on, would the British media industry please wake up and smell the coffee! Deaf
Hearing aids and the future…. 2007-02-28 23:51:58
Well I didn’t get my fancy bright coloured hearing aids after all&hellip
;..I’m still lumbered with the boring beige ones from the NHS. Some of my friends have bright red or blue hearing aids, coloured earmoulds, sparkly earmoulds, earmoulds with football emblems embedded within them. Great stuff. We’re well on the way on what I call our ‘journey’ of accepting hearing loss.
Lots of people aren’t though, and don’t like other people to see they’re wearing hearing aids. Hence the standard boring beige colour and transparent earmoulds. Remember how it used to be embarrassing to wear glasses? Then they became trendy. Now they’re a cool fashion item. Wouldn’t it be great if hearing aids became a fashion item too? What do we have to do to make wearing hearing aids fashionable and cool? I think it’s about changing attitudes to hearing loss and offering products in fashionable colours and designs. But hey, maybe I’m wrong.
Read more:Hearing
Run Darren Run! 2007-02-27 15:39:01 Darren is running for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, in the London Marathon. He has promised he will run all 26 miles of it!
Please sponsor him online for a really great cause.
My Hearing Dog has totally changed me as a person and he has changed my life for the better. He’s worth his weight in gold and I wouldn’t be without him. Thanks for your support Darren!
- LOVELY legs there, Darren! hehhehe
Read more:Darren
Petition to the Prime Minister for subtitling on all digital TV channels 2007-02-25 21:08:37 People who are deaf and hard of hearing do not have a wide range of choice what to watch on digital TV as only a selected few programmes are subtitled. All we are asking for is to make digital TV companies subtitle 100% of programmes to give us the choice to watch what we want, hearing people take this for granted.
The deadline is 20 February 2008. Sign the petition here.
Read more:Minister
, channels
Ipods and hearing aids 2007-02-21 15:55:15
After changing my lifestyle, I thought about re-introducing music. I’ve been in musical limbo for eight years. Music has made my daily commute much more colourful and fun! I got an iPod and direct audio input shoes with leads. It wasn’t quite so straightforward though to get the system set up correctly, so here’s how I did it.
You have two options when you purchase audio input shoes. You can get shoes which (1) work with the hearing aid microphone or (2) work without the microphone and exclude all other external sounds. If you have two hearing aids, remember to buy two shoes! The lead is available in different lengths and colours.
Ask your audiologist for a ‘T’ or loop program, the listening level can be boosted to capture more sound. The hearing aid may also need to be switched on ‘internally’ by the audiologist. You will be asked if you want the loop to work with or without the microphone.
Because you are listening to music being direct Read more:Ipods
Shhhhh….. I’m digital! 2007-02-18 20:37:37 My new digital hearing aids seem to have finally been sorted out to my satisfaction (see previous post). The hospital tested my hearing again and it transpired that the original hearing test hadn’t been accurate. Ho hum. No wonder everything had been too quiet. On this hospital visit, I hadn’t even heard the receptionist call out my name.
My hearing aids were re-set and we had a fine-tuning session. The aids were plugged directly into the computer and the audiologist tried four different programs, making speech sound softer, sharper, clearer, lower, to see which combination I preferred. He raised his voice, saying ‘If I raise my voice like this’ so I could evaluate the speech I was hearing. Smudge took great offence at someone shouting at me and got terribly upset, jumping up at me, pawing me, checking to see if I was alright.
- sshhhh Smudge, it’s ok, it’s alright, I’m fine! (me)
- I’m gonna kill that dog! (audiologist)
- Well you&rsqu Read more:hellip
Miss-communications :-) 2007-02-16 23:02:38 Having a hearing loss usually means you don’t always get things right, and it’s not always funny. I’ve had my fair share of communication problems so this joke tickled me.
Paddy and Mick are walking home after a night on the beer. They’ve got no money to get a taxi, and are staggering all over the place when they find themselves outside a bus depot.
Paddy says to Mick, “get in there and steal a bus so we can drive home, and I’ll stay out here and look out for the police.”
Mick duly breaks into the depot and is gone for twenty minutes, while Paddy is wondering what the hell he is doing.
Eventually Paddy sticks his head around the door, and sees Mick running from bus to bus looking very worried.
“What in all hell are you doing, Mick, get a move on!”
To which Mick replies,”I can’t find a number 7 anywhere Paddy,” whereupon Paddy, holding his hands to his head in disbelief, shouts, &l
Animation 2007-03-24 21:05:50 Who needs dialogue when you can get brilliant videos like this?
Animation
v Animation
Animator v Animation 2
Hearing loss demonstrations 2007-03-24 17:11:53 I went to a pub for an evening out and I was so irritated with the sound levels that I took my hearing aids out for the entire evening. It was a class move! Of course I was with people that use sign language so the loud noise and very loud music weren’t really an issue. We probably found communication a lot easier than all the hearing people in the pub. So being deaf can have some advantages, it seems. I could just pick up a faint bass rhythm so it was actually a relaxing evening for me, I usually hate noisy pubs.
I’m sure hearing people have no idea or appreciation of what it’s like to not hear properly. Well, have a look at the hearing loss demonstrations - it would be nice to know what you think. My hearing loss is profound - it’s a bottom feeder, crawling along the bottom of the chart shown, so you won’t be able to reproduce what I can hear. But this will give you some understanding of hearing loss, that sounds are not just quieter, they are also muff Read more:Hearing
Deaf bikers 2007-03-26 15:32:08
Get an eyeful of this looker. My friend James’ bike knocks out an impressive 33HP from a measly 125cc two stroke engine. I asked him what it’s like to be a deaf motorbiker in London. Does it matter that you can’t hear the traffic? Not at all, he said…. you have to keep an eye out for traffic anyway, and assume everyone else on the road is a nutter.
Central London Fun
His bike is so noisy that he mostly hears the engine’s roar which reverberates around his helmet - this is why a lot of hearing bikers wear ear-plugs! James likes to turn his hearing aids right down, so he can still hear a little, but cut out the squealing he gets from the compression inside the helmet. I remember doing this too, when biking in County Derry - eventually I just took them out as they were uncomfortable with the tight fit of the helmet, but it’s safer to wear them when on the road. James does hear sirens when on the bike but he will probably have seen them before he he
Stores commit active discrimination! 2007-04-01 01:05:11
I went shopping with a friend today, who also wears hearing aids. As we went through a store doorway, the anti-theft system started screaming. It turned out he had a loose hearing aid battery rolling around in his pocket (yes, just one, ahem) and this had set off the anti-theft system. When I had stopped laughing, he explained this happens to him frequently, and he is always getting searched. What fun.
Cochlear implants have been known to set off such scanners. Wearers should carry the Cochlear Implant Patient Identification Card with them at all times. Some cochlear implant recipients may hear a brief loud buzz or distorted sound sensation when passing through or near such scanners. To avoid this, turn off the speech processor when you pass through.
This interference is always picked up by analogue hearing aids but not so often with digital aids - perhaps the digital aids recognise interference and filter it out. Analogues can pick up a mobile phone in use at 10 yards, you can have Read more:commit
A thought for Easter 2007-04-07 01:48:15
Was Judas Iscariot deaf? Or did he really deny Jesus three times?
How people deal with hearing loss has certainly changed throughout the ages. The biggest problem deaf people have now, as they had then, is communicating with people who are not deaf. Historically, this was perceived to be the deaf person’s problem, nowadays the perception seems to be slowly changing to one of Hey! It’s everybody’s problem! There has always been an expectation on the deaf person to learn a spoken language that they cannot hear, but there has been no expectation on the hearing person to learn a visual language that they can see. Why the inequality? It’s pretty unfair, no?
- But hey, can we truly forgive? Are we capable of real compassion? Maybe we should be thankful for what progress we have today. Hopefully the new Disability Equality Duty will go some way to redressing this inequality.
Read more:thought
, Easter
Another Big Boy’s Toy 2007-04-06 19:50:38 Here’s Ian’s pride and joy. He takes his hearing aids out and puts custom ear defenders in when he’s riding. He still regrets getting rid of his XJ/19 though!
Bombs and bangs 2007-04-07 13:03:06
Is it a rock? Is it an old doorbell? No, it’s a landmine. Kyle sent this photo from the Libyan desert where they are drilling for oil, these are just left as found. Oooerr!
In Northern Ireland, where I grew up, bombs and bomb scares were commonplace.
Bomb Scare Gives Irish Army Opportunity To Play With Their Really Cool Robot
The Irish have a different way of dealing with them than the Libyans
(The robot has since filed a deafness claim….)
When the bombs fall, and then all is silent, the lives of the survivors may also be silent. Bombs
are very loud. Noise levels as high as 110 to 130 decibels have been documented in bombing practices. (Other war-related sounds can be painful, such as shotgun blasts or the sound of jet planes taking off from as little as 100 feet away). Being exposed to sound that loud, even once, can cause hearing loss. Any sound above 85 decibels is considered a potentially damaging threshold.
During World War II, many people acquired hearing losses
London Underground now has an online accessibility service for deaf 2007-04-13 17:39:39
An online
interactive information service has been launched by London Underground which lets users find out the accessibility of every Tube station, the routes to/from the platforms and the street, and to/from platform to platform. It will soon be available on Transport for London’s journey planner, at the moment it’s only available at Direct Enquiries.
Guess what? It’s not just for wheelchair users and passengers with mobility issues, so this is REAL progress. This service is also aimed at passengers with hearing impairments. As the access details include lifts, escalators, walking distances, ramps and platform to train gap width, this should help make planning a journey easier. I’ve got a Hearing Dog and I have to pick him up (a hefty 16 kg) whenever I get onto an escalator. There aren’t always lifts or stairs. Picking up a heavy dog and trying to keep my balance on a moving stairway can be daunting, especially when we’re on our way home from a g
UK emergency text services 2007-04-15 15:12:43
Emergency text/sms services are being set up across the UK however there are teething problems. One problem is that some police forces require you to register your phone number with them first - which is okay if you are at home but no use if you are travelling into a different county and you then deal with a different police force. At the moment, every police force seems to be different, there should be a nationally recognised standard. There are problems with having a text emergency service though. Emergency text messages cannot be prioritised by the mobile networks and may take several hours to get through, as when Sally Geeson was trying to text for help. Unlike calls made from a mobile telephone, text messages do not give the location of the sender.
Avon and Somerset police haven’t got it quite right - you can only call them in an emergency if you’ve got access to a landline, and the time to write a fax or call via Typetalk/minicom. Great if someone is breaking into y
Hearing aid disasters 2007-04-20 00:55:40 Spot the mistakes….
The lady said, “I’ve cut it at an angle like they said at the hospital but it still won’t go through.” It’s cut at the wrong angle - it should be a long cut, almost parallel with the sides…
It’s not working…..?
Has a rubber lining in the sound output. Rubber perishes, expands, jams and gets forced closed. Result, no sound output. Cure? trim a bit off….
Then there was the old lady who produced better part of 100 dead batteries, “I save them I don’t like to waste anything!”
Every one had the sticker carefully replaced. Unfortunately she had her new batteries in there as well…..
Read more:Hearing
Deaf Day at the City Lit, London 2007-04-21 20:42:37 It was a very very busy day! There was so much to see and old friends to catch up with, and ohhh the number of times I said ‘catch up with you later’ and didn’t…. how embarrassing, but I think most people had the same problem.
Teletec exhibited their new WebCaptel service which went live today. I thought it was brilliant, it’s based on the internet and means I can use a handheld device or computer with a phone, and text will be relayed to the screen I’m using, to enable me to place a phone call over the internet.
Hearing Dogs delivered two workshops which were very popular. Deaf recipients gave moving talks on how their dog had changed their lives or given them back their lives.
It’s certainly worth going to, to see the new things that are available for deaf people and to see what is being achieved by deaf people such as artists.
Deaf & job hunting 2007-04-28 22:07:21 Did you know, statistically, it is easier for a convicted criminal to get a job than it is for a deaf person? (Source: CACDP)
This is very aggravating when you’ve had the benefit of a good education, worked harder than your hearing peers in order to be treated equally, and then have to compete on an uneven playing field in the face of employers that tend to look at disability first rather than the ability. It seems that to compete with others for jobs, you have to be not just as good, but better than hearing people. I know so many deaf people that are well qualified in their field and just cannot get the job they are qualified to do.
A few years ago, I tried an experiment. I applied for twelve vacancies and split them into two piles. In the first pile, I said I am deaf and need to use a textphone, blah blah blah. In the second pile, I did not mention my hearing loss. I had no interest from the employers in my first pile, and the employers from my second pile couldn’t get h Read more:hunting
Use and locate a public text payphone in the UK 2007-04-24 23:30:39 It’s easy to make BT TextDirect calls using the e-mail and text payphones as the TextDirect access codes are already stored in the phone. The phones include a large screen which will tell you how to make a call using BT TextDirect. Text to text calls are charged at a lower rate than normal voice calls for local and national calls. Textphone users making incoming calls to the payphone you are using, must use BT TextDirect or they will not get through.
If you use a textphone and want to call someone who uses either a textphone or an ordinary voice phone, dial 18001 followed by the number of the person you want to call (remember to include the dialling code)
If you use an ordinary voice phone and you want to call someone using a textphone, simply dial 18002 followed by the dialling code and the number of the person you want to call
If you use a textphone and you need to call the emergency services, dial 18000
If you use a textphone and you are calling from outside the UK dial +44
To see, or not to see that well ….? 2007-04-30 12:47:05
Reading this article on a deaf person having laser eye surgery, I was reminded of the time I almost went blind. That was really really scary. I get hayfever every year and this often gives me conjunctivitis. A few years ago, I had just moved to London and couldn’t register with a doctor for love nor money. They said they were full up and couldn’t take on new patients, or that I lived too far away, or even that I lived on the wrong side of the street! I eventually managed to get in to see a doctor by barging past the receptionist, and he gave me some eyedrops. But because of the delay in getting medical treatment, he referred me to a hospital eye clinic, but I was told to go see my optician first. That was a scary consultation, as the optician brought in a colleague for a second opinion, and I was sitting in the dark wondering was what going on, while they had their conversation and kept checking my eyes. They eventually told me I had holes in my corneas. What?! I was promp Read more:hellip
Digital hearing aids 2007-05-03 01:21:42 I’ve worn my new Oticon aids for 3 months now and I’m still picking up more sounds as my brain adjusts. So what’s new?
I was amazed yesterday when I walked my dog Smudge along a fairly quiet road, it was quite hot, and I realised I could hear him panting. Wow. I must have looked so silly, walking along with a huge grin on my face.
Recently, I was cooking chicken in the pan and could hear the crackling as it cooked. I didn’t realise that frying food would make a sound. I’ve been yelled at before for overcooking things - ‘can’t you hear that? it’s burning!’ - does it get louder as it burns? does it sound different? or what? I’m curious. Now I will have to burn something and find out. (Yep, you guessed it, I’m a super cook these days!)
My experience of digital aids is getting much better. I listen to my iPod on the way to and from work almost every day. I think this has helped me to get used to things sounding a bit differ Read more:Digital
Getting more out of your phones and minicoms 2007-05-06 21:34:24 How annoying is it when you get T-link / telecoil hooked up to your amplified telephone which is set to its highest level, your hearing aids are set to their max, and the sound still isn’t loud enough for you?
Some phones have more volume than others. Try out different ones if you can. Some deaf charities have equipment on display that you can try out.
Your Telecoil can be adjusted by your audiologist. Ask for it to be set to the highest output level. Also, ensure you have the best Telecoil. Check the orientation of the Telecoil, some are suited for horizontal rather than vertical loops.
Finally, if it all gets too much, a sense of humour is always a good thing. Check out John-Paul’s first symphony. Ta-daaa!!
Assistance Dogs - know your rights 2007-05-09 11:06:59
If you have an assistance dog, you’re bound to have experienced discrimination when you’re out and about. I’ve been refused entry to a number of shops and restaurants, things that lots of other people take for granted, because they object to an assistance dog being on their premises. Now, I don’t mind explaining about Hearing Dogs, if I’m approached and asked nicely. But when the assistant is downright rude and won’t listen, it’s another thing entirely. On one occasion I was followed by the security guard who was right in my face and wouldn’t leave me alone - made me feel like a shoplifter. Smudge does have 2 ID cards, one from the Department of Health which states Hearing Dogs are allowed on all premises including restaurants, and one from Hearing Dogs with his photo, name and ID number. Some assistants think I have made these cards up myself and refuse to believe they are authentic. Quite an effective response, I find, is to say to the
Deaf Awareness Week 2007 2007-05-12 00:34:47 The school of Sign Language has released British Sign Language tutorials for Deaf Awareness
Week (7-13 May), which can be downloaded onto your iPod as Podcasts, or directly from iTunes. Alternatively, you can see them on Myspace. Basic sign language greatly helps people who have an acquired hearing loss, as they do not know sign language and want to carry on using speech, but find a few simple signs to be very helpful. Signing also takes the pain out of lipreading which is very tiring!
To download Podcasts, just copy and paste the links below into iTunes. Go to the iTunes Advanced menu and choose “Subscribe to Podcast.” Cut and paste the links below into the pop-up box and click OK.
Alphabet
Learning the alphabet helps a hard of hearing person to understand the odd words in a sentence that they have missed out - just spelling the first letter of a word can often be enough to give them the clue they needed, to fill in the ‘gap’. Compare the words below - can yo
Three Brazilian soldiers …. er, what? 2007-05-14 14:34:36 Donald Rumsfeld briefed the President this morning. He told Bush that three Brazilian
soldiers were killed in Iraq. To everyone’s amazement, all of the colour ran from Bush’s face, then he collapsed onto his desk, head in hands, visibly shaken, almost whimpering.
Finally, he composed himself and asked Rumsfeld, “Just exactly how many is a brazillion?”&hellip
;..
Read more:Three
Recommend Site To A Friend
