#125: When the lights go out.

Welcome to Blind Guy's Chest, where this guy, Oren o' Neill.

Hello.

And this guy, Jan Bloom.

Hello.

And Claudia o' Donovan.

Hello.

Talk about the A to Z of life.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, Anywhere. Welcome to episode 125 of Blind Guys Chat. Now on the show again for the second time in a row. Stuart Lawlor is back with us for another week.

I can't believe I'm doing two in.

A row, Oren, but I know. I can't believe it either.

Yeah, I know. It'll pass. It'll pass.

We also have royalty. Really? Dutch royalty. It's Mr. Mohammed Lashear Prince.

Maybe I should be. Maybe I should be speaking Dutch with one of those royal accents.

Can you.

That sounds great, Mo. It sounds great. Whatever it is.

I know Jan will tell you that. It's all good.

I hope so, because we don't know what you're saying. You're very welcome to the show. Hope you're both well. Now, what I want to get out of the way, first of all, is we have a new sponsor. Well, our first sponsor. So this is fantastic news to us.

And I get a raise now.

Sorry, I can't hear you, Mo.

No, Mo, I didn't even get a contract yet, so you'd be doing well to get anything.

Oh, my God. We're, what, 30 seconds into the show?

Hector from HR. Where is he?

It's the joy of being on this show. That's what you should think to yourselves when you hit the link and you join us. You know, it's. I want to be part of the show it up.

Jury's out. Ask me at the end.

All right, well, we.

We.

We do have an ad, so I'm going to play this ad. So this is. These are our new sponsors, ladies and gentlemen.

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Thank you very Much. To Colin Oscar zoros. And it's 1-800-awkward. Is that number just in case for those people who can't spell. And thank you very much for their sponsorship donation of €5. When I convert that into dollars, we make 68 cent on that. So we actually get €5 and 68 cent. So that's brilliant. That's. That's money, you know, that's. Oh, hang on now. The guy who recorded that got €50.

Maybe you need to get a new voiceover guy.

Yeah, this is not good.

Maybe you need to get a cheaper voiceover lad.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Are you guys up for voiceovers?

Yes, the price is right. As I say, I didn't get a contract for this one yet, so let's wait and see.

I think there might be a bag of treats that are out of date from downstairs from Larry that he hasn't eaten, so I could give you those.

Hang on. I'll have a rummage in Jan Bloom's desk here and see what's around.

There's nothing there with chocolate chocolate wrappers.

I've fallen asleep already.

Let's get into the show because I want to talk to Mo because he's written his latest book. Well, I say book. I mean, it's a couple of pages.

It is, yes.

A wonderful. A wonderful document. When the light. And I've. I've already forgotten the second part of it. When the Lights Go Out, An Account of Vision Loss. Is that right?

That's right. You didn't forget it, Oren.

Oh, God, my memory is working today. When the Lights Go Out, An Account of Vision Loss. Now, this is a fantastic. Well, I read this over the last few days, and this is your account of what happened when you first began to lose your sight. And it really is a wonderful, wonderful read.

This was one of the first things, you know, during Ramadan in March. You do think a lot. And I just. A memory popped into my head from that time, and I'm like, gosh, it's seven years ago. When I started thinking about it, it just kept on flooding my mind and I just had to get it out. So I started writing. And while I was writing and rereading what I'd written, I'm like, well, this is actually kind of all right, so maybe if I polish it up a little, I can publish it and might help some people.

It's got a really nice flow as I was reading it, Mo, and I mean, I highly recommend everyone read it. And there's loads of. Really, there's loads of really poignant parts. But the one that struck me was when you were getting your ey, I think, was it mirrored, you know, you were going into the. You were lying back on the, on the dentist's chair and the consultant was getting you to move your eye up, go left, go right. And it sounded to me that he was focusing more on the students he had around him, almost looking at you like you were this experiment rather than focusing on you. And I just wonder, is that, is that how it was?

That, is how it felt to me at the time. He probably was focused. I mean, it. But. But yes, it's. When you go to an academic hospital and there are students around the doctor, the doctor will start explaining. And so what they'll do is they'll start whispering sort of what they're seeing and trying to explain what they're seeing. So you feel like a lab rat.

You kind of want to go, what are you saying? What?

Well, I do actually do that. So whenever I hear like a term that I think I know, I will interject. And I put that in the article as well, because otherwise you just feel, like I said, like a lab ratio. And if you talk, at least they know you can talk. Right.

We start this kind of journey in 2018. You had not great vision up to this point anyway, isn't that correct?

Oh, I got glaucoma when I was born, so I was born with glaucoma, which is why my vision was so bad. So it's pressure, but it's also like dry eyes, which you sometimes have. And your cornea isn't the best, in the best condition either. So like there's always this little, either an itch or an ache or something that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable. Obviously there are good days too, where that's barely present or not at all. But whenever that starts happening, it doesn't really trigger a reaction like, oh, gosh, I need to go to the doctor. It's when it gets really bad, is when you do that, because otherwise you'll be at the hospital, like non stop because it happens a lot, like pain or sensitivity to light, stuff like that. It just happens a lot and your eyes get tired. At least for me it was pretty normal fare. And so it didn't really raise an alarm when that started happening and when I started to see a little bit less and I was like, well, this might pass, so just let's leave it alone.

What I kind of find very kind of peculiar is that you were then walking along, going home one evening, I think from Work and everything around you went dark, except you were able to look directly up at the sun. That must have been absolute panic in your mind at that state when that happened to you, because you're out and about with, there's cars on the road, there's people on the paths. How did you manage to find your way home at that stage?

When I was on that street, it was really weird because by the time I was walking back, my vision had returned so I could see where I was going again. It was really for a short time and I came to a complete standstill. So I looked at the sun and I knew it was the sun because I knew where the sun was, but everything else was black. I could not see anything. I wouldn't say panic. I don't panic easily and I know because I was completely night blind. So I know what it was like to walk around really not being able to see enough to navigate, um, because I did that at night all the time. So it, it wasn't complete panic, but it was not good. I, I mean, I was, I was looking around and thinking, oh, no, I should probably now go to the hospital because, you know, I mean, this is.

A signal as somebody mo. With, you know, with low vision, of course, and you were obviously operating quite normally. You were 27, you were working. And you probably thought initially, oh, this is just another episode, it'll pass. You know, you've had these before and you probably thought, this will be all right. And as you say, it cleared up for a few days and it came back again and maybe you were. And I'm sure the last thing you want to think to do is to admit, hang on, this is something different because that's part of the process, isn't it?

Exactly. And I think I wanted to highlight that a little bit because it's very human to do that. But later down the line, whenever you, whenever the real problems or the real consequences of that materialize, you sort of hit yourself, like, why didn't I move sooner? But it's a very human thing to not want to see that stuff coming because, you know, especially when you've seen things like it before and it turned out to be nothing, it's very easy to convince yourself, oh, well, I'll be fine. This is all right. And, and then when it's not all right, when it continues and continues and continues and you slowly just have that wall demolished and the curtains peeled back, that is a rough thing to go through. So much so that, like I said in the article, you dial down your Emotions, because that is not something you. Well, it's not something I wanted to be dealing with while going through this. You only can do one thing at a time. You either cope with it emotionally or. Or you cope with it practically. It's one of the two. But both at the same time is going to be a lot.

It was something quite poignant towards the end of the article where you talk about your glasses and you talk about realizing that they were too heavy and that they were not being of any use to you, so you stopped wearing them. But you went up at one point, you'd been in the bathroom, you found yourself going up the stairs, going halfway up. Then you realized, I don't need them anymore. And your sister was saying to you, you could still wear them, but you were realizing they were no use. And I think you talked to a colleague in work and said, you look fine without them. But that was another sort of, you know, it read to me like another stage in that journey.

Exactly. Yeah. It's where you let go of things that you've been using for such a long time, and it's sort of difficult to let go of them. But once you've made that decision, it's also kind of a relief because it helps you and it helps you cope with what's going on. Right. It sort of protects you against that denial that always comes back up saying, oh, no, I'm fine. You know, it's not that bad. No. When your tools start to fail you, you have to confront what's going on. I suppose the relief there is in not having to maintain the hope that, you know, your sight will come back. It's like, okay, you know what? It's gone, all right? And we can not move on necessarily, but at least you don't have to put energy into, oh, well, baby, I can still see this tiny thing. Or, oh, yeah, I saw that plant just now. It stops mattering, right? Because you're like, okay, I'm not counting on my eyes anymore. And so that is kind of a relief. And it's mixed. Yes, it's mixed with the disappointment, with anger, with frustration, but that relief is definitely there, and it sort of helps mitigate those other feelings a little.

Mo. I also wonder, just in your case, was the transition somewhat different because having had glaucoma all your life, were you somewhat. A little more aware of the visually impaired community than maybe Oren would have been? Because maybe you were a bit more connected, or was that the case?

No, I was definitely more aware, but I was also just Living my life. I didn't have any blind or low vision friends. My brother is low vision. But that was about all. I wasn't connected to the community at all. The only thing that I did know was that there is a screen reader because I was using one on my phone and so I can use that. And the other thing that I did know was I knew how to get to help from basically the equivalent of Vision Ireland. So that would be physio here in the Netherlands. And physio will help you. And so I had that before, of course, because I was low vision. And now I could go there again to, you know, to cope with the blindness. Although honestly, in the beginning they didn't teach me much. Most of what I learned, I learned by myself. The only thing that I learned there, but that was years later, is braille. I had braille training, like a couple weeks, and then I came away being able to read at least grade 1 braille and computer braille. So that was good. But at that time, I went to them once and they were like, well, you've accepted your condition. You probably know enough to continue your job. And I was like, yeah, so let's just continue and see what happens and I'll get back to you guys if I have other issues. But it turned out until I wanted to learn Braille, I was kind of okay, mostly also because my employer let me actually experiment. And I felt at that point, also from our client, because we were a web agency, so we had to deliver for our client. But there was no pressure. Not from the team, not from the client, not from my employer. They said, you know what, you do your thing and we'll see you back whenever you're ready. And that helped because that gave me room to experiment.

It takes the pressure off, you know, it takes the pressure at your job. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And was. Was it. Was it important for you at the time to find, you know, peer. Peer support? Or was there any kind of networks that even through the blind agency that you were able to connect with just to talk to people?

No. So I avoided talking to people. I really focused on the. Like I said, it's either the emotional, at least for me, because it was so enormous. It's either the emotional side that you deal with or it's the practical side. And I just focused completely on the practical side. Like, I'll deal with those emotions later and they'll come back. Of course they did, but at least I had the practical side done and I was able to sort of fend for myself. By the time that the emotional. The emotional side of it came into view. And that helps because once your emotions start acting up, you can sort of placate them a little, saying, look where I got. I managed to keep my job. I learned a screen reader. I'm actually all right. I mean, it's still difficult, right, because your identity has changed, so you have to deal with that. But at least I didn't have that crushing uncertainty that you have at the beginning.

It's a fantastic read. Everybody should read it if they can. It's on your LinkedIn page, but we are able to put a link to it, to the LinkedIn article from your page and we'll put that on the show notes. But, you know, I would say fair play to you for writing resonated with me a lot. So thank you for doing it.

I think it'll be a great help to other people who'll be reading it. I think people who might be at a different stage or the earlier stage to where you guys are now might find that very helpful.

Yeah, I hope so. That's why I decided to publish it. I also decided to publish it towards the sighted community. There's a little bit of that going on too, because we all know what our reputation kind of is in the sighted world. It's one of the senses that people fear losing the most and it always is kind of difficult to convince them of, you're all right, you're capable and all that stuff. I think it's important for people to read what it really means to go through losing your vision rather than the things that they imagine.

Yeah.

And it's also one of the reasons why I put it up on LinkedIn, because, of course, I've got a lot of sighted connections and I think it would do a lot of them good to read it now. I'm not sure how many are going to, but, you know, it's. It's there now.

You can email blindguyschatmail.com or tweet us blindguyschat if you have any comments, comments or questions.

Stuart Lawlor, talk to us about the Project Art center gig you were at recently.

Yeah, I was an interesting thing last week in the Project Art Center. So Emily Conway is a visually impaired artist and she's teaming up with the Project Arts Centre in Dublin in Temple Bar, right in the center of Dublin, to look at the whole area of accessible art and in the widest possible way. So she's looking at the experience of people with sight loss going, say, to an exhibition in an art gallery. She's looking at somebody, the experience, going to a theater. But she's also talking to visually impaired artists, people who work in the arts and the challenges they have. But there was a kind of a kickoff session for it last Thursday, and I popped along just to get a sense of what it was about. But one of the interesting things that came up for me from that was the whole idea that there was some breakout groups and they were talking about the fact that, you know, one person's idea of accessible doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, a performance or an art installation or whatever is accessible to everyone else. And, of course, we all know that, I suppose. Yeah, one of the things we all know, the funny.

Sorry to cut across you. Yeah, I suppose we all know I. The three of us, and. And the. And the blind and visually probably listening to this podcast, but not necessarily the sighted people.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I think that was the point they were making. But the other one that was interesting that came up, they were talking about the idea of the touch tours. So if you go to a show, for example, you can go a little bit earlier and do a touch tour. Now, I appreciate the importance of touch tours, especially for people like yourself and Mo, who have had vision in the past and who have, you know, a visual memory. And those things would be very useful, I think, to. For your enjoyment of the show. I've done two touch tours in my life, and with the huge respect to everybody involved in the huge effort that was put into it, I found it quite boring. But that's because I have no visual memory. But that. That doesn't mean that they're not useful.

So I went to the Vatican in Rome with my sister.

He pressed the button for the smoke.

No, it's the wrong color.

The blind man did the smoke.

Now, now, now the color came out. So now you have to choose one.

So, Leo, Leo, you're off. Go on. We've got white smoke. Go on, you'll be grand. Don't worry.

No, so this was in 2018. I just lost my vision. So we went to Rome, my sister and I, for a city trip, and it was fun. And we went to the Vatican, to the Vatican Museum. And at the Vatican Museum, they have a tour if you book it in advance for visual impaired people and you get to touch the statues and they have like paper mache versions of things that are too precious to touch. And so I got to touch a lot of things. And it was good. Yes, because, yeah, you have that visual memory. And so you can sort of make, you can sort of get an idea from that visual memory what something looks like. And then she describes the colors of it and all that good stuff. And so you can make a fair, good, fairly good. You can make a fairly good visual representation in your mind if you have that visual memory. So, yeah, touch to her good. I think for people with visual memory.

Yeah, my view is slightly different. I would have, I would have said perhaps touchstores worked some years ago, but it's. For me, my visual memory is, is, has decreased massively. So even putting, piecing, piecing things together as previous images that I would remember from when I was young, I don't have those memories anymore in my, in my head. And it was, it was funny because. And I don't know if, if this was ever, if you've ever experienced this yet, Mo. But I, I, you all know that I'm part of, you know, every Thursday I do braille book club with the Brailleists and which is fantastic. But one of the things that's annoying me so much now is that I cannot picture in my head words anymore. So if I get into difficulty with a particular contraction or letter that might be inside along a longer word, I'm unable now to actually step back for a second and picture that word. You know, I can. Even though I might get the letters, the letters all correct and you know, somebody in the book club in the group would say, yeah, you've got all the letters and go, yeah, but I still don't know what the word is.

Can I butt in?

Oh, hello. Go ahead.

Hello, Claudia.

Hello, Claudia. I'm butting in because I find this really, really interesting. I tend to be a bit dyslexic. I haven't been diagnosed with it, but I'm. When I'm tired, I get dyslexic. And particularly with numbers, I get dyslexic, which I know is, I don't know. It's another thing. There's another word for it. But anyway, is dyslexia. If you, if you only read. Yes, that's the word. Thank you. If you. And I got an A in maths, which is hilarious. But anyway, if you, if you learn to read with, through braille. Is dyslexia a thing?

Yes.

Is it?

I'm aware of, of. Yeah. And there's a couple of. Well, there's definitely people who have, who use braille who, who have used braille from Bertha. And I just know this from some kids and stuff that I've worked in the past who are also who have dyslexia or are dyslexic. And there's this. The, you know, people would mix up. There's certain letters, like eni, for example, in braille. People frequently use those. But I just wanted to come back on the. On the word shapes for a sec because I. I also find this really interesting. I've had this conversation with people before, and as someone who obviously has never read print, is read braille all my life, I. I think I do a bit of that. I. I look at the shape of a braille word.

Yeah.

Especially when it's contracted, obviously. And I sort of say, oh, yeah, that's almost before I finish reading it. Because your brain kind of tells you what it is. So it's the same but different, I think so.

That's really interesting.

Oren. I just want to make one more point about the touch tours, lest you get loads of emails in from people saying that we're being very. That I'm, you know, being very stereotypical. There are many, I'm sure, congenitally blind people who really appreciate the touch tour and still want to know what everything looks like. I think my point was that in general, they work best for people who've had some visual memory, who can really appreciate, you know, what they. What they might have been able to see.

You can email blindguyschatmail.com or tweet us lineguyschat if you have any comments or questions.

I went to the train, like, last time. I think it was three weeks ago.

Oh, this is. And is this back to the woman you nearly knocked over? Because she was on your. You're on your.

No, no, no, no, this is different. No, this was different. It's a different woman. So I said, 29. Or I've told you this information. Anyway, so I walk towards the train and normally I can hear the doors open, but this time I didn't hear. I didn't hear it well. And so what I do then is I walk towards the train, I put my hand on it and I walk along it until I find the door. But there was this lady that thought I was going to climb into the window or something, and so she grabbed my hand and she's like, no, the door is not there. And she started pulling me along and I'm like, all right, fine. So she had my hand in her hand and I asked her name and she gave me her name and we talked a little bit and then we got to the door and I went in and that was it. But this stuff happens all the time. It's like you're being treated like a.

Toddler, though, you know? That's weird.

Yeah, well, yes, but. So you can choose, right? You can choose to become angry at this. There's also this guy that put his arm around me and said, where are you going? Like, calm down. I know the way. So. So you're not my friend. So you can. You can either get angry or you can sometimes let it happen. I never really have the energy to get angry at people because they're. They're trying to help. I did explain to her what I was going to do. I don't know if she was listening. I don't care, honestly. I mean, it's probably the only time that I saw her. But it is what it. It is what it is. You're touched all the time. I do understand, though, I think. And this might be stereotyping. I'm sorry if it is. But for women, it might be a little bit different.

Yeah.

Yeah. It might be a little bit rougher to deal with it. Especially when a man touches a woman without, you know, without consent. I think that's scarier. But, you know, I had drunk guys, like, you know, grabbing me and pulling me along like, no, I don't need to go that way. Yes, but the door is here. Yes. I don't need to go to the door.

I'm not looking for the door.

Are people trying to cross you across the road? You don't need to go.

Yeah, cross you across the road.

We've all had that.

Yeah.

And you just need to stop and be forceful and say, look, I'm not going there, so leave. Leave me alone. And especially when they're drunk.

Oh, yeah.

It takes some convincing.

Very hard to. Very hard to reason.

All right, well, let's move on to two pieces of tech because we are running out of time. But I wanted to talk about two pieces of tech. Well, not necessarily tech, but Site Village to a certain. I'll talk about Site Village in a moment, but with Stuart. Or Stuart. But Mo, I know you were at Site City. Now, I know you didn't get to see much in Frankfurt because you were too busy swanning around in the Vespero Suite with all the hobnobs and the movers and shakers in the suite. But you were talking about Jaws and being now interfaced cat or can with the Monarch. Is that correct? The Monarch Braille display.

Yeah. So at Sight City, there was a very early sneak preview of the Monarch with Jaws. The Monarch is this. Oh, what is it like? It's like a big piece of paper, but it's thick and it's a multi line braille display. So you get like an area where it can make braille and it can make Braille in. I think the monarch advertises 10 lines of braille, 32 cells each. But it can also make graphics. Because it's multiline, you can do a bunch of interesting things with it. And because it also is able to show pictures, you can do even more interesting things with it. For example, the Monarch itself, this is without JAWS is able to show you graphs, which is pretty cool. So you don't need any printed or at least brilled embossed graph graphs anymore on braille paper. You can just use the Monarch to look at the graphs and you can zoom in and zoom out and you know, it's very nice to see. And JAWS is now starting to do the work to interface with the Monarch to utilize this multi braille capability.

It's also worth saying Mo, I think this is hugely exciting time because obviously we've been talking about multiline braille for a little while. Screen readers were still working out how best to use this new. All this new Braille that's available and now we're starting to see that. And I think the next year or two is going to be really exciting to see where this brings us as screen readers on multiline braille displays become more compatible.

It's very interesting to see where this is going. At csun, there were even more multi line braille displays. There was one from. What was it called New haptics, which was not able to do anything really light, but they can, but, but they can do four lines of braille and it's pretty cool. I mean there's more. There's a dot pad of course, and Orbit already has a braille display. So there's a lot going on in that space at the moment.

And I think that the new haptic ones. That's the one. Oren. We talked about it on the show a while ago and it's. It has the air pump which makes the noise. Yeah. Very different way of using refreshable braille. And I was only talking to somebody last week actually who's involved with it. They're starting to ship the end of this month.

Amazing.

Wow. It's really interesting.

And are they having. Will people. People have to build a quiet room for the, for the compressor.

This is the thing I don't think it's that noisy though is they've been a Bit.

They. They haven't been. They sort of said that certainly when I asked, because I think the pump was being changed. So the one they used at CSUN is not the pump that's going to ship with it. So they are shipping a quieter pump. They said it's not very loud. I'm not really sure what that means. And I think it depends on the room you put it in as well.

Everything's relative.

So people can work an air conditioner. They can work with. With the new haptics, it's not that big a deal.

And they're like little air bladders. Right, the dots. So they.

Yeah, so they use the air to pop the. The. The braille, the. The cells up and down. Apparently it's. It is a pump that's similar to that. That's in a fish tank, I suppose. Fish tanks aren't that noisy, are they?

Well, some of them can be. Depends how big they are.

Yeah. Right. Okay. I haven't been near a fish tank in quite a while, so.

But it's quite a pleasant. The fish tank because you get little bubbles.

So it's because you hear the bubble. You won't hear that, though, unfortunately.

I want bubbles.

You could imagine there's fish I'm sure they could build for you.

That'll be good.

Or you could buy it with fish.

Well, that's true. You could just buy a fish tank.

I find it so weird and I find it so weird in work sometimes when the air conditioning is switched off, you know, where there's a plant failure, and I just go, oh, the air.

Conditioning is just switched off because it sounds dead.

And people go, has it? Yeah. Can you. Can you not. You can't hear it now. And then it goes up again, you know, it starts on again about 10 minutes later and you hear the whir, you know?

Yeah.

And it goes up and I go, oh, yeah, yeah, I hear that.

Sighted people don't care about sound.

Oren, Listen, before we get on to emails, because I know we have a lot of emails, just want to talk briefly about. Don't forget, folks, that I don't know if there are still places available, but in Dublin this week, the Glide. The Glide from Delightance is coming to dublin this Saturday, the 7th of June. So book your place for a demo if you are not. Haven't already myself, Cloda and Larry are going.

I was thinking, Orin, you bring Larry. That's cruel. You bring Larry to his replacement.

Well, we won't tell him. Poor little fella.

There are plenty of slots left. In the morning part anyway, I believe the 9:30 slot, which is the first one of the day and I think there's 9:30, 11:30 and I think there's one in the afternoon, so. But if people go on to the Glide website, you'll get to see it all.

You're not getting a jingle, missus, so I want a jingle lash into your emails there one so upset.

So we got an email from Claire and I've forgotten her surname. McLaughlin, I think it is McLaughlin.

Oh yeah, the gallery.

Yeah, she's doing huge work so we. We shared it the last episode and I think the one before as well, actually about the scene unseen event on 6 June, which is the day after this, will publish in the Hugh Lane Gallery, which is a gorgeous gallery and they have. I think they have touch tours as well, as does the National Museum, the National Gallery of Ireland as well, on Merrion Square. So she's. So though if you want Those details for 6 June, look at the last episode, the show notes, they're all in there. But she's also doing one on July 18th at 3 o' clock in the Illon West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen in collaboration with the Crawford Gallery, which is a gorgeous gallery in Cork City. So if you want to participate in that online or in person and there she's going to be sending out tactile packs shortly and so you can register. So I'm. I don't know where the link is but I'll find the link for you anyway and I'll put it in the show notes. And then there's another one then in the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Trinity College, Friday, August 15th at 2:30.

Oh, great.

So I'll put those details in the show notes. But she's really doing great work, I have to say. And I wouldn't mind slipping along to one of those if I can myself, because I think it could be fun.

I think I'd like to go to the Douglas Hyde one.

Would you? I exhibited in the Douglas Hyde.

Did you?

Yes, I did.

Why don't you go down to. To West Cork and make a weekend of it?

God, I'd love to. I would. Absolutely. Well, actually, I'm going to. That's the July 18th one. We have a family reunion, an Odonovan family reunion in West Cork at the end of June. So they might be sick of me. They might not let me back in.

Get sick of you. Cl.

Come on, have another email. Come on.

I do.

Lovely. Gordon Anthony, don't harass Me. This is very, very under pressure. Yes. Lovely. Gordon. Hello.

Oh, by the way, can I cut in? Can I just cut in there? Because you've just reminded me of something.

What?

And I think. I think this is almost a hate crime. But. Yes, yes. I forgot to tell you folks about a tweak that Gordon Blaine Gordon told us that I didn't say in the last podcast, which is about the Meta Glasses. And I was funny. Kind of frustrating that each time you asked Meta to make a call, it was always making a WhatsApp call. And Gordon said, but if you ask it to call the mobile number, it will do it through your cellular data. And I think what's almost a hate crime is that the way Blind Gordon calls his wife, because he said he asked Mera to call Elaine mobile. Now, I don't. I think that's a very inappropriate name for a wife.

You know, it's better than calling her Gordon, which is what I was called.

Yeah. Or Mrs. Blind Gordon. Which Orange.

This is Blind Gordon. Yeah. So to be fair to her, poor.

Elaine, she's so lovely.

Bless you, Elaine.

Yes.

To end that. She is great. To end that. Apparently the tweak is. But. But the problem is, once you ask it to, let's say, call Elaine Mobile, it will make any other call from that point on via your seller, your data. So you have to then kind of say meta call, you know, Mohammed. On WhatsApp.

On WhatsApp. So you have to specify the platform you want to use for the call, basically.

And another little. Another little quick tweak, which I've just remembered in the back of my head is I was also getting frustrated about those WhatsApp calls and the fact that Meta would keep reading out how long the duration, what the duration of the call was. You know, it's. You're being.

Oh, during the call.

During the call. So the. Some fair play to Blind Gordon. He says if you just swipe right, it'll go. That'll go away now. It does. It does still defeat the purpose of the Meta glasses, because they're supposed to be, you know, hands free, don't need to touch your phone. But in this case, to get rid of that annoying. Yeah, it's repetitive sound from Siri. It's.

Yeah, I think what happens that, that the focus is on that element. And so since that element changes and updates, it thinks, oh, an update and it reads it out. But of course, it updates every second.

Yeah.

So that's what's going on there.

And I wonder, can you change the focus using Your little swipey thing on the glasses.

No, no, you can't.

Oh, that's a bummer.

Okay, so you have to touch the phone. Anyway, I just go on with.

Well, anyway, Gordon sent us an email and he says hello all and many thanks to Oren for his nice comments about me. He sees.

Always.

Orin's always talking about you, Gordon.

Steady on.

As agreed in our private conversations. See, you weren't supposed to. Yeah, I know. A gold plated Boeing 747 is on its way to you, which is great news cuz we're really dying for a holiday. So thanks for that Gordon. You're very.

It'll be the bestest gold 747 ever.

It'll be the bigliest one.

Bigliest one.

Nice.

Yeah. Yes, thank you.

Come pick me up with it when you go on holiday, will you?

Yeah, sure, we'll swing by. We'll. We'll collect you. No bother. He should have got us a helicopter, really. Next time we get a helicopter, Gordon, if that's okay.

Thank you.

Not that I'm being demanding or anything. Regarding the issue of the lack of ad while watching TV on Sky, the only way I've found to ensure that you get the advertised ad is to watch the program on BBC London. You will find all the BBC regional channels down. Did you guys talk about this already? I think you did. Down near the very foot of the electronic program guide, EPG, as Orin calls it. The channel number may vary depending on where you are, but if you find the channels beginning in the 900s, you'll eventually locate BBC London. It always seems to have the ad track while the other regional BBC channels don't have it, even though it's advertised in the program details, which I think is very interesting as well.

I must try that on my sky stream. I think Gordon mentioned this to us a long time ago.

He did, a couple of years ago.

Yeah. So yeah, thanks for reminding us, Gordon.

Yeah, brilliant. And so then once you find BBC London, just remember what number it is.

And then you can see what number.

Yeah, so you're, you're laughing then.

Yeah. Well, I presume you could just ask it if you have a voice activated sky remote. BBC BBC London.

Oh yeah, probably.

Yeah.

Very good.

Anyway, thank you, Gordon.

He's not finished.

I've.

I've complained to both sky and BBC about this in the past. Sky blame the BBC while BBC blame Sky. Nobody's prepared to do anything about it. Draw your own conclusions about their commitment to accessibility for anyone living outside London. Anyway, that Works for me, so I hope it works for you as well. All the best, Gordon. Now, there is another email, but it's very long.

Who's it from?

It's from Claire Page. Do you know Claire?

She's in France, I think, if I'm not mistaken.

She is indeed. And she's talking about the Eurovision. Do we have time?

Go on.

Right, okay. Come on. Hello to everyone.

No, we're out of time.

Thank you. Thank you.

I knew you were gonna do that, you baldy. Hello to everyone in the Blind Guy Guys chat team. That includes you guys. I listened to the latest podcast yesterday and enjoyed the usual variety of subjects discussed. This was another great episode. Thanks, Claire. You're very kind.

Thank you.

In this email, I wish to Concentrate on the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest warning. This could be a long one.

Okay.

Yeah, so it's great. I really like this because people don't normally engage with the whole Eurovision thing and we are a bit obsessed about it. So it's great that somebody. Somebody's enjoying it. That's good. The BBC had a great idea, in principle at least, when they decided that Eurovision should have live audio description, but it didn't prove so great in practice. I live in the north of France and in this house we watch UK TV via satellite through a box which gives us all the free French channels, plus the ability to add channels from other countries. My mum and I watched Eurovision together on BBC One and we tried the live audio description at the beginning of the first semi final, but the describer drowned out the songs, so I had to ask my mum to turn off the description, something I rarely request. Wow, that's really poor, isn't it?

Yeah, that's bad.

Yeah.

I wonder, was it the same person? And I hate doing this, but I'm sorry, I am going to throw them under the bus. The same person who does strictly. Because I was talking about this again this week, just this week. You should never. As best you can, for God's. Anyway, go on.

But it's a song contest, so how do you describe it? If without going over the song you describe?

You don't describe what you don't do. In the same way that you don't do it with Strictly Come Dancing is you don't audio describe it wall to wall from start. Now, I know Stuart Lawlor loves the ad on Strictly condensing, but for goodness sake, can you just leave a breather so that the person. You know, we're. We're blind, we're not deaf, so we'd like to hear the song as well. So for goodness sake, put in. And the thing that annoys me about this and I'm. I. Goodness sake, I hope to get this right if we get to do it next year, is you have the audio describer. Has plenty of time, there are rehearsals to get this right and give plenty of gaps between. To listen to the music. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm getting on my high horse.

You're already on it. Love it.

I'm honest. I'm getting. I'm gonna get off.

Get you a ladder.

Yeah, we better have you down there. Mind a step.

Be careful. Maybe park the 747 next to him so that he can just jump on.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jump onto the roof here. Yeah.

We need to get the horse away, though, before. Before the engines start up. Anyway, Claire says, okay, it's great to know what's happening on stage, if you're interested in that. But I personally watch Eurovision for the songs, which I think most people do. And I don't know any radio station which broadcasts the semi finals. Well, that's a really good point. I don't know that they do anymore. They used to. To, didn't they?

The semi finals.

The. A radio station that broadcasts the semi finals.

I'm not entirely sure. I think last year here, locally 2fm, certainly did the final. I'm not sure if they. If they did the semi finals. I'm not 100%.

I mean, I will say the staging can be very entertaining, so it's good to know what they're doing. And the costumes are usually very fun. So I think that's important for people to know what people are wearing. But maybe Stuart, I don't know. Do you care? You probably don't care.

Well, I was gonna say Claudo. I think it goes back again to this thing of what do you. What's your experience? And again, maybe for Mo and maybe Oren, that sort of stuff might be a bit more useful to me. A lot of that is words. But as Oren said, I did love the whole Strictly Come Dancing, maybe because it was just so new to me.

I kind of.

Kind of appreciated that because it. Cause it's very visual and I didn't mind her yackering away while they were dancing.

But the other thing about, like. The other thing about the Strictly and just coming back to this, and it's really annoying me with. With some shows on Netflix at the moment, is the. Is the. Is the level of description, like with. With something like Strictly, there are particular dance moves that are being described, which I. I can't remember. Right. Let's say. So I don't know. It's probably not a dance move, but a pirouette, right?

Yeah.

I have no idea what a pirouette looks like. So why say that?

You know, because he might have been a ballerina in a former life.

Yeah, but I mean, we have. Yeah, I agree. Well, yeah, but you have to generalize. You can't assume that people know. I know. This is like the idiot, and I'm sorry, he is an idiot in succession. Who said, you know, the colors are as vivid as one of Van Gogh's paintings.

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't say much.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah. Just think of the audience, for goodness sake, and stop trying to, you know, big it up with yourself because. Because you like doing it as somebody, as the company who produced that said. But the person really likes doing it.

Yeah.

Anyway, go on.

Okay.

It's not a therapy for subscribers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'll have to get a crowbar.

Look what you've started.

No, no, she's. I mean, look, debate is good, isn't it? Anyway, Claire says, as for the content of this year's contest, there was the usual mixture of good and bad songs. Even though I liked the winner, there were several more songs I liked much more, including France, the uk, the Netherlands and Latvia, as I'm in France. But watch the British broadcast of the contest. I never vote, but I would certainly not have voted for Israel if I had. I admit I liked their song this year, but at the same time I felt that they should have been excluded from the contest because of the war in Gaza, like Russia, when, like Russia was. After they started the war in Ukraine. Sorry. Clara goes on. I agree with what was said on the latest BGC podcast that some kind of campaign must have been organized to try to rig the votes in Israel's favor. Thank goodness they didn't win. That would have caused a lot of difficulties, to put mildly. Well, I think you're right with that country causing controversy in Eurovision two years running. Will they still take part next year? I'd say they probably would want to. But will they be allowed to? I don't know.

That's the question, I think as well. And this is always a hot topic because Israel has a lot of allies in Europe, obviously, and Russia way less so I think that helps. Some people might justify it as well with Russia starting the war in Ukraine while Israel did not. But that is, I think, a bit of more of a fraud argument because there's Been a lot of fighting for a long time in that area. And who started at this point is. Is hard to say. I mean, but I don't think they're blameless in it anyway. And of course now what's going on in Gaza, I don't think anyone would feel. Well, maybe some people. Of course Israel still has its allies, but Israel has definitely gone too far.

So Claire says, you know, we'll have to wait and see. And she's right. But in the meantime she says I was relieved to hear in the podcast that that zero point nulpoint for the UK in the 2025 finals public vote didn't mean nobody voted for them. But she was still. But I was still disappointed that they came in 19th. I was also disappointed that France and the Netherlands, who did my two favorite songs in the contest, didn't do very well in the public vote either, even though France ended up coming up seventh overall, which is amazing. Well done. Look, I think the voting in the Eurovision has long since departed from any kind of logic.

Yes.

Really?

Yes, definitely. Yes, definitely.

Yeah.

Thank you Claire and sorry for my rants in the middle of that email. It doesn't take much to get me going about ad but listen, thank you very much.

Or anything really.

Or anything really.

Thanks Claire, you're very kind and thank you for your best wishes from France and someday Oren and I will go back to France and I will love it.

You've got a 747 now. So we do.

That's true.

It's in our garden style.

Well listen, we're gonna, we're gonna end up the show. You did hear a sponsor but earlier on. But unfortunately we've just heard that the company Colonoscopies or us have actually gone bust in the during the duration of this podcast.

So actually I hope they paid you.

Before you played their problem, their fiverr checkers. I think it's probably going to bounce at this stage, but we are looking for a new sponsor. In all seriousness, if you would like to sponsor the show, get in contact blind guys chat gmail.com and we would be happy to big you up on the show if.

Big up if you would like just about anything.

But in the meantime, I must thank Mohammed Lashear and Stuart Lawler for joining us on the podcast. Thank you so much.

Been a pleasure.

Don't forget to email us blind guys gmail.com and we shall see you in two weeks time. Yay.

Bye Bye.

Thanks guys. Bye.