#094: Beware of flying turkeys!

Music.

The A to Z of life.

Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen, and you are very welcome to episode 94 of Blind Guys Chat.

Thank you very much for listening to us. We hope you're well.

We hope you had a wonderful Easter.

Now, our guest host, as you will have heard in the intro, is all the way from Boston, Nora Nagel.

Nora is joining us this evening. Nora was born in 2011. in 2011.

Nora was a former admiral in the Kazakhstan navy but unfortunately they had to,

give up the navy in Kazakhstan because as we all know it's one of the most land

locked countries in the world so unfortunately she lost her admiral ship.

She's a qualified street lamp lighter but unfortunately

she can't get any work be since the invention of electricity

in 1879 so that that hasn't really worked out very well she's also a an Olympian

she holds the gold medal for the indoor rowing championships in 2003 to stay

dry to stay dry yeah yeah she hates the water yeah yeah that's true.

You're the only blind person on the FBI wanted list oh my god hey we have a

a special guest, Oren. Oh, that's really good.

Hey, welcome, Nora. Welcome to the show. I had that trouble cleared up.

It's not on anymore. Okay, okay.

Nah, nobody listens also to the show. Larry gave you away. Yeah.

Yes, and if you hear us talking about Larry and Larry, that's because,

of course, Nora has, well, a retired guide dog now, Larry.

And, of course, I have my guide dog, Larry. How is Larry, Nora?

He's doing pretty well. He's adjusting to retirement. He's getting lazier by the day.

Oh, he just picked up his hat. Oh, I see. Now he heard me talking about him.

Here he comes. Oh, dear. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But is he then recognizing also that he stays a little bit more quiet?

Or does he always want to go out with you? Or what is it?

I'll leave him home with my husband or my son if I'm going out for extended

periods. because I think he'd just go bonkers by himself.

But he's getting used to it.

Yeah did you have a good easter did you eat any chocolate easter eggs even though

they're no thank you thank goodness my old dog my old dog ate chocolate and

really and um the way i was told to.

Get him to get rid of the chocolate was

this was so gross a

turkey baster with hydrogen peroxide oh which

is apparently an emetic and it will so

i gave him the the uh the hydrogen peroxide

and he immediately vomited all over the place so if

you ever do that do it outside oh yeah i'm not giving veterinary advice but

how is the weather in boston these days because we are um yeah a little bit

coming well spring is in the air uh some days but sometime but uh how is boston

it's cold right now It's not too terribly bad. It's about 10 degrees.

I was in Miami a week ago when they had a big rainstorm and the streets completely flooded.

They were flooded for, oh, I want to say a few hours where the water was roaring

through the streets and it was up past the bottom of car doors.

It was halfway up car tires. tires.

And I kept saying to my husband, why are people honking their horns?

What do they think that's going to do? And he said, it's not that they're honking their horns.

It's that the, the water has shorted out the horns and the cars.

And so all these car horns were going off and sirens. Oh, really? Oh, it was bonkers.

Was this a complete, a complete freak? Was it, It was just flash flooding.

I guess, yeah. I mean, I think they're used to hurricanes there, but it's not...

This was not something that they expected. It was a surprise.

Okay. Wow. And what's Miami for, like, getting around with a cane?

So Miami is its own city, and then Miami Beach is...

Sort of a, almost like a peninsula off of Miami.

Oh. And that's where all of the wild parties are.

And that's where all the kids on spring break from universities go.

Okay. And so they, and it is fairly well laid out, but public transportation

in Florida is just not great in general. Oh.

But yeah, no, there were just a lot of people. And, you know,

I'm hearing from my husband,

oh, that woman's wearing a hot pink thong and that woman is wearing a metallic

silver thong and lots of thongs, lots of thongs, very scantily clad people.

Interesting to the A, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What color thong is your husband wearing? Oh, yeah. I don't know.

Leopard print. Leopard print, yeah. Or ponter print, you know.

Well we we've lots of talk about talk about we're going to talk to marcel johnson

later on who's the director of education for blind and visually impaired kids

in the netherlands but i want to talk a little bit first of all um and include

nora in this of course in season.

Yeah because that's just occurred and just it's it's

over now i'm i'm kind of a little bit i'm interested in

this too a couple of interesting things for me anyway one

is and i was reading or listening to

an episode I think of Braillecast the other day and they were talking about

Joe's kiosk and the other thing that I found interesting which is I keep banging

on about these days is Braille and I see or we see orbit and,

are about to launch a Orbit Q20 refreshable Braille display and an Orbit Q40.

And the interesting thing about the Q, of course, is that it's QWERTY.

Yeah. So they're QWERTY keyboards. So there seem to be more and more manufacturers

heading down the QWERTY route with a Braille display.

Now, I know HIMS are also launching the, is it eMotion, I think?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Braille eMotion.

I don't think that's a QWERTY keyboard.

No, no Braille. I think it has a control and alt key, certainly,

somewhere on the keyboard.

But I find this interesting.

Joe's Kiosk, I kind of do find kind of interesting.

I believe they're going to roll it out in all the McDonald's stores around the

world. But how long that will take.

It's already launched in the US, Oren. Yeah. Already a couple.

I don't know. Already in Boston, Nora?

Yeah. I don't know if you visit the McDonald's sometimes.

I haven't been to one in probably 20 years.

No, that's true. Well, are you familiar with Joe's Kiosk? I'm not,

but I'm really intrigued.

The reason I mentioned McDonald's is because I think they also call these new

kiosks, or they have these kind of iPads.

I don't know if they're actual iPads, but they have these stations where you

can put your order in before you go down to the counter to collect your food.

My understanding is the idea is that if you plug in your mini jack headset,

it will automatically load JAWS onto that particular device.

And you will then be able to do your ordering in McDonald's or it'll go into

other kiosks, I'm sure, but certainly within McDonald's, you'll be able to do

your own ordering using JAWS.

Yeah, you don't recognize that it's JAWS. It is just a simple talking counter in a way.

And some systems have only speech and some systems have also Braille,

or that could be the case.

But it is self-supporting also in a hotel.

When you check in sometimes, I don't know, when we were in London,

you can also check in through the cell service.

And then you plug in your headset then speeches

you're starting up and then you have some yeah you either have a touch screen

or you have buttons and then it will explain which buttons to touch to scroll

through the menu or to bring up the menu etc and then you yeah follow the steps and then,

even with well yeah the same thing with paying your bill you know that is also

done then with With your credit card or with your bank card or something.

Yeah, so I'm wondering, is this going to follow on to what we would have here, those sum-up machines?

So you're at a restaurant, and I don't know if you get this,

Nora, but what's really annoying me now here in Ireland is that these sum-up

machines, you know, if you go to a restaurant and you're paying for dinner,

which, you know, it'd be very rare that I pay for dinner.

Yeah, that's true. But you get a touch screen, you know, and somebody says,

you know, just key in your pin. And you say, well, I can't key in my pin.

Yeah, but that's a different system, Oren.

Because those sum-up systems are the little small square head,

10 by 10 centimeter or something.

And these are the real big screens or the real big 20-inch or 24-inch in that way.

So these are not going to be available on those smaller machines? No, who knows,

but that is not really what I've seen so far, because that is only that you

need to fill in your pin code,

and these systems, what JAWS kiosk is meant for, is more intelligence needed,

you know, that you have really menus,

that you can pick your menu,

what kind of hamburger you want,

what sauce, or do you want to have it with Coke or with whatever,

you know. Nora, have you got any feelings on this?

I'll fall on the sword for you guys and go to McDonald's and let you know.

Oh, yeah, well, it would be good for me then.

Well, to be honest, we went to the McDonald's yesterday.

We were visiting my dad and with the kids.

And then there is a McDonald's close to my dad's house.

And so, yeah, we want to go to McDonald's. Otherwise, it's not so big fun to go to your grandfather.

Father yeah the lazy thing to do yeah yeah

exactly what do we get if we go to and to be honest my dad loves

it as well you know in a way he likes

to go out to then also sees the the children enjoying

etc you know and then also do you guys have um

a lot of self-checkout in stores yeah yeah yeah we have we have it because the

that is one of the biggest challenges i find for access because none none of

them are configured the same way and none of them are accessible.

Even the point of sale devices where you tap your card,

many of them have initial screens where you're either asked to click a yes or no,

or enter your phone number for the loyalty card discount or,

you know, and that none of them are the same.

So you can't just treat them all the same, tap your card and go.

No, that is really true and I really, well that is really also here in some

supermarkets you can do it yourself

as well but I always go to the counter where you are being served.

But I think these JAWS kiosks that will be rolled out to those self-pay.

I hope so. Yeah, units as well. Because then you can really also,

because then you hear the system place your item under the scanner or for the

scanner or press the button so and so or to continue or whatever.

Then we just have to find the barcodes.

Oh my God. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.

There's a woman thinking, you know. Yeah, there's really two. But also.

Use my head for more than a hat rack. as my husband's grandmother would say.

No, that's true. At Season, there was also an interesting thing.

You know, AI was really also very popular with Be My AI's, Envision,

et cetera, and even also JAWS with PictureSmart, et cetera.

But there was also the Glidance.

Yeah, I'm wondering if Nora might like this because I understand this.

You were saying that before we started recording that this is kind of like a Hoover.

Yeah, it's like a Hoover. But you're hoovering the pavement,

so I thought Nora might be into this.

Yeah, it is really all still prototype, etc.

And it's wishful thinking in a way. But it attracted a lot of attention.

And it was a little bit that you were standing behind it. And it has a frame.

It's something also that you are pushing.

That you are pushing the hoover. or

that hoover has also driving wheels itself and also

steering wheels and then it will pull pull you

through the uh yeah yeah through a building or

or over pavement and and then it will direct

you uh yeah with the built-in gps navigation all the sensors and whatever safely

towards a destination they were thinking to do this also for indoor navigation

you know Can you imagine that you have those glidances to wait for you when you enter an office,

for example, and you want to go to meeting room 2A?

Then you pick one, and then you will be guided to that location, for example.

Okay, but I would imagine that implies that there's going to have to be beacons

around the building in order for the guidance system to know where it is.

Or an indoor navigation system or whatever.

Even with beacons, I mean, the thing about beacons is that they're directional agnostic.

So, you know, there's a beacon and it can't tell if, you know,

if you're going left to right, right to left.

You know, you're contacting the beacon, but they can't.

I don't think anybody's solved the directionality part of it.

One thing that different people are trying to do to solve indoor navigation

is to combine beacons with computer vision.

So teaching the phone, showing it millions of pictures of doors so that it can then spot a door.

Showing it a million pictures of chairs so that it can then spot a chair.

But that's also what N-Vision does, you know. It can recognize objects in a way.

Will it ever replace a cane or

a or a dog well i don't think so it is nice in in addition but yeah you you

have i think we discussed it more social skills are still you know the the main

uh navigation skills what you uh what you need you know when you're out and about and And,

hey, we got confirmation.

He's not into it. Exactly. Technology fails and technology makes mistakes.

I mean, my husband's the same way with the driving with the navigation programs.

One of the things that we run across all the time, because we're in a city that

has elevated highways, surface roads, and tunnels, is navigation apps often don't assess height.

So you can be on a bridge, or on a raised overpass, and it will think you're on surface streets.

Yeah. And you would think that just continuity, like two minutes ago you saw

us on this street and now you're...

How did we drop 30 feet or raise up 30 feet in the air?

But they're definitely not perfect, so they make mistakes. Social skills,

asking people, and basic...

These are never going to be a replacement for basic mobility skills.

And if people are using these things without basic mobility skills,

you can really get yourself in a lot of trouble, I think.

No, it is true. Nora, you wanted to take up the topic of guide dogs and dating.

Oh, cause you wanted to help out our friend. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I, well, I, I know he said that he wasn't interested in getting a guide

dog, but I do know someone personally who made the decision to get a guide dog,

specifically because he thought it would help him in the, in the dating scene.

He said that when he had a white cane, women wouldn't give him the time of day.

And you know, yeah. Yeah.

Sometimes I really do think canes scare people off, but dogs suck people in

every week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good statement. That's a good one, yeah.

And, you know, I hate to put people off of canes or, you know,

I don't want to make it sound like I'm knocking canes, you know,

but sometimes people just think, oh, I just can't deal with this,

you know. Well, Mo broke his.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He doesn't have a cane anymore,

so he probably needs it now. Yeah, that's true. Oh, I've broken canes too.

That's why I can't get graphite canes anymore I just snap them so he did get

a guide dog and he is since married.

The ploy worked is all I'm saying I don't know if this is,

politically incorrect question feel free to cut it out but

i would be very curious but i would

be curious because mo had mentioned when he was talking about

using dating apps that one of the ones that he was using was specifically for

um people who are muslim yeah and i wondered if people who are muslim don't

get guide dogs because dogs in islam and in judaism and and And then other cultures, too,

are just not seen as being appropriate for indoors or, you know,

they're seen as not clean.

They're seen as not belonging in spaces where people belong.

And I just wonder if blind people in Muslim countries ever get guide dogs.

That's a very good question. Let's put it out there. We did not ask that at

all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We'll throw him under the bus. Yeah, again.

I think he's climbing. He is now getting used to climb underneath it. Yeah, yeah.

I think he's sleeping under that bus now. He knows he's going to get thrown under it.

Let's ask him, yeah. The other thing I wanted to talk to you,

because I'm really interested in this, is what do you call it? Is it bird ear?

No, bird ear. Birding by ear. Birding by ear. Yeah, that was an interesting topic.

So I know a person in Boston whose name is Jerry Barrier, Barrier, B-E-R-R-I-E-R.

He is a really well-known expert in,

identifying birds by the sounds that they make.

Last weekend, I got to go on a walk where in the Arnold Arboretum in Boston,

where he and one of the mass Audubon guides were sort of taking us around and

identifying birds by their sound.

And one of the things the Audubon guide was saying is is that particularly as

the spring progresses and trees fill out.

They have a hard time seeing the birds that are making the sound.

So even people who have good vision have to rely on sound to identify birds.

There are a whole bunch of birds, and they said the term that people,

you know, people who are into birding as a hobby,

refer to these birds as LBJs because there are so many of them, little brown jobs.

That's a good one. There are so many sparrows and finches and things that are

just little and brown and very hard to distinguish visually from one another.

But one of the things that exists now is Cornell University in the US has some

ornithology lab and they have an app called Merlin.

And it is accessible with voiceover. And you can use it to do bird identification by sound.

I went out this morning when Larry was taking his morning constitutional, if you get my meaning.

And it picked up seven different birds.

Really? Yeah. Woodpecker, robin, a finch, a sparrow.

Well, that was what I was thinking of. What I hear most of the time here in

the trees around here in this area is a woodpecker, you know.

And that's quite nice, you know.

And they are also, when they are together, or then you...

They are really communicating with each other, you know. That's very nice.

I was visiting my dad and he lives close to an... And I don't know really the

correct English name, but please help me.

A white stork. Do you know those big birds? Egrets?

Yeah, egrets with long legs and also a lot. And they make the also a big.

They are really tapping on the. You know, you hear them really making a lot

of noise and they were close.

Well, I think five meters from us and I was. Oh, my God.

You know, I was really. it was really shocking this noise but it was yeah do

you have turkeys yeah yeah well we don't have turkeys but no no no you mean

for Christmas dinner no we have wild turkeys just wandering around and they are,

also quite aggressive and they do some weird weird behaviors but they also don't

fly very well oh and so um sometimes if they get scared and they'll try to fly

up into a tree they might miss i have a neighbor,

they have also already a funny sound

that this says this turtle i have a neighbor and they missed the tree.

They removed the tree can you imagine

my god stupid they do not they don't fly well

but one one was on a deck railing

and it got scared and it went to fly onto

her neighbor's railing and it missed and it hit the side of the house it just

felt like a stone and her neighbors said the pictures on the wall were shaking

oh my god oh my god you make me laugh,

oh a turtle a turkey sorry oh my god,

big fun so what was the what was the

name of this app again nora that was it's called merlin

oh it's called merlin okay okay and

the the app creator is cornell labs

abs okay and it does work

with voiceover we want to know from listeners as well well what is the most

exotic uh uh yeah bird they have uh i think the lbg you know that's really a

nice one that would be lbj yeah yeah because i always remember it was lbj lyndon b johnson yeah,

anyway shall we hear from our guests yeah,

You can email blindguyschat at gmail.com or tweet us at blindguyschat if you.

Music.

Have any comments or questions.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have now a wonderful guest of mine.

I'm very happy to introduce you to my friend, dear friend, Marcel Janssen.

He is from the Netherlands.

Yeah, that's okay, Dutchie. But he speaks wonderful African English.

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this the guy that was trying to find you with the posse in Nigeria?

A posse? Yeah. I remember Christopher Patno from Google said that you were wanted in Nigeria.

Wanted? Yeah. You were a wanted man. I think we need to stop this recording.

It's getting a little bit too complicated.

But Marcel, thank you very much.

Welcome to the show, to the Blind Guy Shed with me and Oren. Thank you.

You're very welcome. I want to practice also. Do you still remember some house

awards, Marcel? Ja, ja, Eikie?

Yeah, I know, but I forgot most of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. Because it was a wonderful time. Yeah, well.

It was a wonderful trip. Two wonderful trips we had together.

We can discuss this later, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Yeah, Marcel, because, you know, besides you are a wonderful friend and also,

well, you supplied in our house our first rabbit.

You know, that was also very nice. Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah, Marcel has a lot of hobbies. How did it taste, Jan?

I am not allowed to do this in public, of course, but between you and me,

Marcel, it was just like chocolate, you know.

It was very nice. Marcel, where are you calling from?

I'm in the Netherlands, in Brabant, in a little village called Heffen at the moment.

And the weather is a bit cloudy at the moment.

But okay, it's dry at the moment. Can you position it a little bit in the Netherlands?

Because that's also quite nice, I think.

I live in the south, in Limburg. That's the most soutly part of the Netherlands.

But at this moment, I'm in Brabant.

That's the place where one of my schools is too. And it's in the neighborhood

of Zegtoogenbosch or Den Bosch.

So it's quite in the south of the Netherlands.

So you're always getting good weather down there in the south of the Netherlands.

Always good weather. Always good weather and always good people,

so they enjoy life, you know.

Are you still at school, Marcel? No, at this moment I work as the director of

education for Royal Dutch Physio.

That's an organization who gives guidance and support to everybody in the Netherlands

who has a visual impairment, blind or partially sighted.

And I'm the director of education.

So at this moment, we still have five schools for special education and also

give guidance and support to 85% of all children who are blind and partially

sighted in the Netherlands and who go to mainstream schools from primary school till university.

Okay. So how many students would you have in education at the moment with visual impairment?

We have at this moment at Royal Dutch VCO, we have about 2,000 students which

we give guidance and support in the mainstream and about 500 in our special schools.

It's a nice job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But how do you do that? You have 500 at the schools,

but why are they not able to join the mainstream schools?

What is the reason for that? We see our schools as a place from where we give guidance and support.

And you can say when you're only blind or partially sighted,

then you're a mainstream.

When you have other things like having a brain tumor or illness or physical problems or multiple.

Okay. That kind of thing. Those are the children who go to our special school.

So our schools are very special because of the combination of visual impairment and something else.

And the good thing is that we have a big connection between the teachers and

the peripatetic teachers from us in mainstream and the special teachers in our schools.

For example, we have also help desks and we have a help desk for math and then

a teacher wherever in the country who is giving math and who has a blind.

Person in his classroom, he

can connect with one of my special math teachers in the special schools.

And that's also for gymnastic and for geography and all kinds of questions you have.

That's a good system. We see it as one system.

But we think that children should be in their their home situation as much as possible.

Okay. That's our biggest goal. And if it's not possible, then you can choose for special education.

What is your philosophy about Braille? You know, is it a dead end or whatever?

No, no, Braille. Yeah, you hate Braille, isn't it?

No, Braille is alive and kicking, I think. Whoa.

Because Braille is so important. It's so important. But I hear a lot,

oh, there's audio and so.

And then we say that the blind child should listen to a voice to read. And that's crazy.

You have to have the possibility to feel it yourself, to read your books yourself.

So we learn every child who needs it. We learn them Braille.

We support Braille. We make innovations with Braille.

And next year for example we organise in the Netherlands Tactile Reading 2025,

with some organisations in the Netherlands it will be in Amsterdam from the

2nd of June in the beautiful place Amsterdam in the Muziektheater aan het IJ,

this is a kind of an invitation I think can be Irish when I come to that Yeah, the Irish.

Is it also the Irish people welcome, Marcel?

Everybody who pays is welcome. Oh, you see.

I'm a Dutchman. Steady as you go.

No, but it's great. And I'm also a member of the Braille Authority.

Together with my Belgian colleagues,

we make the standards for Braille and support Braille in every way.

For example, the Braille music language, for example, is very important that

people also in the future have the possibility to learn the musical standards

of Braille, for example.

And there's very small people who still know that.

So it's very important that we give support to that because we definitely believe

that Braille is life and kicking. We wanted to join the Braille Challenge,

the American Braille Challenge. Yeah.

But what we also want to do, for example, all our children work on the computer

and doing the Braille Challenge.

But in America, they all do it on paper, for example.

So we have to make our own documents and also own rules. because you can't compare

reading on a Braille reader, for example, with reading on paper.

Oh, yeah. And Marcel, can you tell us something about the American Braille Challenge?

The Braille Challenge is a kind of a championship for good Braille readers and

also a promotion for reading Braille.

So you can do all kinds of games and challenges.

And the one who is the best and the fastest, he gets eternal fame.

Eternal fame yeah that's what i want yeah that's

what you want well well join us yeah yeah yeah

we have one for for adults and one

for children all right and the one for adults that will we will have this still

in this year and for the children we do it next year again i think okay and

how many people do take place in this uh contest uh marcel here in the netherlands um Well,

in the Netherlands, I think about 100.

I don't know. Yes. But yeah, it's a funny thing.

Yeah. So it's available globally. Anybody can do the Braille Challenge, can't they?

Yeah, the Braille Challenge is an organization. The real Braille Challenge is

an American initiative.

But we also do the same now in the Netherlands.

And it's fun. And it's also promoting the Braille. Yeah.

And do you see advantages with multi-line Braille displays in education?

Yeah, I hope it will. And especially for the graphics, I think.

Because multi-line will mean, for example, that...

Possible to make signs in relief for example you're

right because we have now seen we last week

it was a season exhibition conference in the

united states in la and there was also a big

hit was also the new multi-line braille displays who

were there shown i bought one yeah well well tell me about your your new baby

then uh marcel i bought a monarch yeah and and we're now uh it's now on the

boat to the Netherlands I hope. On the boat? Hey!

It might need to pull off It will arrive in five months It's going to go through

the Suez Canal Yeah, the Suez Canal What do you think of it?

I don't know what we want to do, we have a special physio lab,

an innovation lab and we want to try out to get get to improve our education

with every new tool that there is.

And that doesn't mean that every new tools betters our education,

but we want to try it out and save the best.

And I think that it's important because what we also do is one of my schools

is the first Dutch showcase school from Microsoft.

So that means that my blind and partially sighted students, they use the office

tools better than a sighted one in the school.

And it's the second in Europe and the 10th in the world. Because I think it's

very important that it's not to blame our children that they don't have the skills.

So we train them and we give them. And because Microsoft is one of those really

accessible, and I have big problems with getting all the lesson and the materials

accessible for our groups.

So that's a big problem. And that's why we want to give them the tools to improve.

Do you need to fight a lot, Marcel, also to get the right tools,

get funding for your children? No, the funding is not the problem,

the government, that's the problem.

The European government, they make the, how do you call that.

The treaty, and it's not working for education.

They forgot the word education. So when I need a math book or an English book,

it's not accessible for our students.

What is your creativity in this one?

I go to the Hague and I... Yeah, so you knock on the Docks and Doors.

I take a big broom and then...

No, I have discussions with politicians and all kinds of people who have the

influence to make it a better way.

Way so we have quite some good contacts

with um with with the makers of

policy so i hope there will be some

uh light at the end okay okay

well done i i've mentioned or in that we have around december

at the 5th of december we have not only santa

claus you know but we have also our sinter class

you know yeah yeah and and he is coming always in

the early of december and he's celebrating his birthday

around december 5th or 6th well some

people do fifth but around that time and

two you know he's he's a fan of um of uh of chocolate and all kind of nice sweet

things you know and and then he is bringing a very he is quite literate at this

interclass you know because he is having chocolate letters but then in the shape

of normal letters you know Like the alphabet.

And now, Marcel, please step in. Because this is a really creative thing.

Yes, and last December, one of my teachers, she said, oh, it's so sad that my

blind children can't have their own letters in chocolate braille.

So I have a good three-dimensional printing team, and they made that letter,

and then we got a form of it.

And so we made for all the blind children in the Netherlands a special Braille letter in chocolate.

And it was a great success on national television and wherever and all the newspapers, they got it.

We were sick of him, you know. He was on each station.

My God. Four million viewers. Yeah.

Really good. Eight million listeners lower than us. Yeah.

And then how did you who did you tie in with and what chocolate,

company or did you were you making it all yourself no we melted we melted in

our schools we melted the the,

sighted lettuce in braille lettuce we melted them we made it warm and then it

get fluid and then put it in our own form so that went well but we also had

a chocolate maker It was funny because I made, let's say,

about a thousand of those letters for all the blind children in the Netherlands.

But the people who made that letter, they had an own website of their chocolaterie.

And from all over the country, they sold letters to all over the country.

So that was wonderful to see.

That's fantastic. and I'm now talking with a national organization to organize

it for the next year in a big way so you can find them in every shop I hope,

But Aaron, I have to disappoint you because the A has not a lot of support.

Yeah, there's only one dot.

Only one dot. Only one dot, I'm sorry.

No, but it is Oren. Oren, okay.

But still, there is one A in his letter A as well. I need an O or an A in a man.

I changed my front letter to Q. yeah

yeah when i

was in nigeria i well people were really

screaming for um courses you know how to

do how to improve the knowledge of the

oh yeah yeah of the of the local teachers yeah jan he he we had mail contact

during that time that he went to nigeria yeah and we kept in contact and then

then he wrote me once and he said marcel please help me the teachers are sleeping

sleeping in the classroom, and the children too.

It's so boring. That is true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the biggest point was it was my very first time in Africa and especially

in Nigeria, which is a very special country, let's say that way.

And Jan was already there for one or two years, I think.

And I was the one who was really blind there because he was so used to the local

situation and the local way of living there.

And he went there by his cane and there were no normal streets or whatever.

But he went there and it was wonderful.

And I went there and my organization, they said, hey, Marcel,

it's OK, but you have to go safe. So you sleep in the Hilton in Abuja.

That's the city there where we went.

But Jan said, oh, no, no, that's not what we were going. We are sleeping here

with the locals. And it was wonderful.

It was so great to be between the locals and between the local people.

And they were so nice. And it was really a great experience.

And I think we did some good things in the schools.

Yeah that was because you really adapted

also really nice you you brought in really some

nice tools and and focused on also the gymnastics you know on on on local sports

you have you you you brought some simple things with you some wrinkle balls

etc for us very simple but for them it was so yeah wonderful and it was uh no

we had big fun and uh no they are still talking about it Marcel,

it's more than 20 years ago, but it was a complete awareness program.

But we did one wonderful thing, too, because we went to the houses where the

children slept and they were sleeping on the floor and there were no beds or whatever.

And so I called my wife at that evening and said, I need money.

I need lots of money because I want to give every child a matras.

And I started with 40 and then there came more and more money.

But the matras became more expensive every day.

And then do you remember hey when when we collected

them from the market you know yeah that was really with it with a truck oran

can you imagine that you have those bed and and they were all stabled on top

of each other and then we came can you imagine and then we enter a school a

boarding school you know with with hundreds of children well they were streaming.

Shouting and laughing and shouting. It was big, big, big fun.

Yeah, they all ran away with a matras. Yeah.

It was wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have something nice to tell you.

Okay. Because this August, I'm working with blind children for 40 years.

Sure. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.

I'm celebrating your 40th anniversary. My 40th anniversary in working for blind children.

We're going to celebrate that. Okay. We will do some recordings on that show, on that celebration.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember the 20th of August in 1984,

that was the first time I drove to my school and I saw a cow walking.

And I thought, wow, a cow with milk.

And still going to the chocolate. But I saw the cow walking and I thought,

wow, how am I going to explain to those blind children what a cow is? You've never seen a cow.

Is it a 30 centimeter or one meter or whatever?

And that's the question I still ask myself after 40 years, how to explain a cow to a child.

And that's still one of my goals.

I want to give the best education to those children because their parents,

they don't have a choice in the Netherlands because every child in the Netherlands

can choose every school they want except from when you're blind or partially sighted.

You have to go to Visio or Bartimaeus.

And that's why we want to give those children and those parents excellent education.

And I think that's going quite well at the moment. It was a big happening to

have you on the show. It was really, we are still looking forward to the next

chocolate letters, you know.

We will share the link that they can purchase it via us.

But it was nice to speak to you again. Wonderful. And then we will enjoy it very much.

I think that our listeners will, I'm sure they have enjoyed it as well. Many thanks for your...

Yeah, your enthusiasm and your all the work and effort.

I think you can write your memoirs. Yeah, so to raise your book now, yeah.

Yeah, you can start to write your book in Braille, of course.

It will be a big book. Yeah, that's possible. Well, it was an honor for me too.

And I hope to meet you soon in real life.

Yeah. Okay, Marcel, many thanks. Thank you for inviting me. Okay,

you're welcome. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Thanks again, Marcel. That was brilliant. And we've just been talking to,

while we were listening to that, Nora was telling us about the Braille chocolate in Canada.

Yeah. Yeah. What is the name, Nora, you said of the company?

It's a company called Purdy's.

Purdy's. P-U-R-D-Y apostrophe S.

No, no apostrophe, sorry. P-U-R-D-Y-S dot com.

And they have, I don't think the chocolates themselves are Braille, but the box has Braille.

There's a little map that tells you what

chocolate is which um that's all

in braille and um i know that they've been very popular amongst blind people

in the u.s for things like christmas and valentine's day and things like that

for the last several years they always always sell out oh wow okay good all

right parties okay shall we bring in claudia yeah would be good hey.

She was waiting at the door you know do you

know what it is I'm really sad that I don't have a jingle anymore yeah that's

true because I used to love it because you'd say let's talk to Clodagh and

you'd play my jingle and we'd all sing along and it was great fun and we

don't have it anymore no no no no I think we need to think that is very sad

it is sad isn't it Nora I think it's just desperately sad actually I would love

if somebody would make me a jingle yeah yeah yeah but by the way you were mentioning

when we were listening Talking about this Merlin,

you said.

And I forgot the name of this app again.

What was it now for music?

Oh, Shazam. Ah, Shazam. So Merlin is Shazam for birdsong. Exactly.

That is funny. Yeah, that's true.

Shazam is great. I love Shazam. Yeah, me too. Shazam's still going, yeah.

Oh, yeah. It is. It was one of

the first apps I remember I downloaded on a very old iPhone. What was it?

3? I thought so. Yeah, it could be, Oren. Yeah.

Those were the days again. Yeah. Those.

Yeah. I loved how the YouTube boys giggled like school kids about the geese.

Yeah. About the goose. The poor goose. Hitting the side of the house.

No, turkey. Oh, that was a turkey. Turkey. The poor little fella.

Oh, fella. You see it in front of you now. Anyone else would be sorry for him,

but you're laughing, like cackling like a pair of children. I'll tell you something.

He probably had a brain the size of a pea. He felt no pain.

I used to have a mechanic who had a bird...

He worked his yard where he worked. It was actually part of a farmyard.

And there was a goose that used to sit in the barn at the side.

And when you got out of your car, he'd run at you with his wings extended and

make this really weird kind of hissing noise. It was really scary.

So, Toto, have we got any emails? Yes, we do.

But before we do emails, I just wanted to say happy third birthday to Puppy

Clodagh and her littermates, who were born in Ennis to Deirdre Fahey who was Larry's,

puppy raiser that we've had on the show she was guest on the show some time

ago and her her dog Pixie is Clodagh's mammy,

very good well happy birthday to Clodagh happy birthday to you so here's an

email Oren for you and your cranky voice hi blind and visually impaired guys

that's us I enjoyed your I enjoy your podcast But in the third or fourth last episode,

I was quite vexed with Oren for being not funny, in inverted commas,

as Clodagh said at the time. Don't you be nasty to that girl.

She seems very kind and patient. And you're lucky to have her on the show,

never mind as a wife. So stop being horrible to her, all right?

I was happy to hear her scolding, though. I hope you won't take her for granted.

Don't laugh. This is serious stuff.

Oh, sorry. I hope you won't take her for granted and give her a hard time anymore.

Behave yourself, young man. and that's from Olivia Pakenham and Olivia I'm your

biggest fan I love you thank you for sticking up for me yeah behave yourself

young man I won't listen to it but anyway young man even eh that's a compliment.

That's knocked the two years off me brilliant good knock your corners off continue

go on I'm going to keep a paper clip on Olivia Pakenham's email so that when

you're bold again I'll read it out put you back in your place I can't actually remember,

what you were saying to me three or four shows ago. Exactly.

I was probably telling you to hurry up there with the emails.

Hurry up there with the emails, will you? Yeah.

Alright, so we have another one here and it's another one that actually came

in a couple of weeks ago, but it's actually from a previous,

I can't remember when we talked about it, but do you remember we were talking

about the robot vacuums? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was talking about Dermot Nora have you got a robot vacuum,

I don't have one, but the company iRobot that started them is not too far away from Boston.

And my sister did some work for them. I know some other people who worked for

them. Okay. So I've seen them.

A good friend has one, and their dog didn't like it.

So the name on the app for the robot is Nemesis.

That's brilliant. brilliant oh well chef had the choice hey he could do the

vacuum cleaning or out you know that is,

larry doesn't like arwen either actually no um no

and it's a d-bot uh arwen and i called him

deerwood when i was unpacking him before i plugged him in

and when i plugged him in he has a female voice and so i

made a joke at the time of that episode i can't remember which episode about how

how deerwood might be trans yeah yeah because because

he's got a boy name but he's got a girl a voice but anyway

so this email is about that and it says good uh good for

claudia being an ally to the lgbtqia plus community sorry robot vacuum community

trans man robot dear with the d-bot could maybe do with some speech and language

therapy to help him deepen deepen his voice oh yeah i can make some recommendations

if he wants question mark just call me rue patrick.

Drag queen not trans person well there you go rue patrick and thank you for

your email and And thank you for your encouragement for Dermot the D-Bot, who is a trans man robot.

I'm still happy with our Paco. He's still doing a good job.

Paco, good, yeah. Do you have to empty him every time or not?

No, that is one bridge too far in a way. Is it a bridge too far? Yeah, that is, come on.

To be independent, that is too much, you know.

I'd love it, though, because there's so much hair. Larry sheds so much hair.

There's one room and the little thing is full, so you have to empty it. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. It's amazing what he can harvest. That's really true.

What he can harvest, yeah. What are you saying, Nora? Oh no,

I was just saying we've got the same problem with Larry and his shedding.

We've already had to have the pump motor on our washing machine replaced due to excessive dog hair.

There you go. So that's the end of the emails. Thank you for your emails, everybody.

BlankEyesShout at gmail.com Don't forget.

So we've got to go. That's the end of the show. Thank you very much,

Nora, for guest hosting on the show.

I hope you enjoyed it and hopefully you might see a rumba fall off the back of a truck soon.

Yeah, they are close by. They are close to us.

Okay folks, thanks very much, we'll see you in two weeks time.

Music.