What a lovely weekend I had. Alone! Apart from a fabulous afternoon walk around Hampstead Heath with Miss K yesterday, I didn’t speak to or see anyone else.
Occasionally I need weekends like this to recharge my hearing batteries and after a busy week of listening last week, that was exactly what I required. I find listening incredibly tiring. At school when I was statemented for what support I needed, they discovered I had the ability to lipread efficiently for 40 minutes before zoning out, dozing off and generally not paying attention anymore. And now I’m deafer than that, it may be less.
It’s not that I don’t like talking, I do, and those who know me will know I wasn’t named a chatterbox at school for nothing. It’s just that these days I seem to have a noticeably diminished listening threshold.
And that doesn’t just apply to conversations. I find it when watching TV, too. There’s only so much I can watch, matching the subtitles to the audio, before I’m fast asleep on the sofa. For this reason I tend to turn the volume right down, so I’m just reading not listening, too.
Anyway, one of the things I did this weekend was catch up on some TV that I recorded over Christmas. The last thing I needed to see was the Top Gear special, where they drove to Bethlehem. Now, regular readers will know that Top Gear subtitles rarely behave themselves. They are usually slow, often nonexistent and at best a combination of both that leaves me scrabbling to follow what is without a doubt my favourite programme on the box.
So on Saturday afternoon, I was slightly nervous about hitting play. But I needn’t have been as by some miracle, the subtitles were perfect. Not just perfect but consistently perfect, 100% completely in time with Jeremy Clarkson’s jabbering perfect!
It was brilliant.
It was a revelation. It made the totally ridiculous ending pale into inSTIGnificance. It made my day of hearing regeneration fabulous.
And so, as I ready my CV to apply for the vacancy of The Stig – think pink racing suit, pink helmet and erm… pink cars? – I’d just like to say ‘Thanks Top Gear; all is forgiven!’
2 comments:
Now wouldn't that be good a replacement Stig, but this time a woman driver. And wear pink. Go for it!
As for feeling tired listening. It's like that for me too. It's nice to have quiet breaks.
Excellent news. I too have top gear saved ready to watch. I certainly agree with your comments regarding subtitles historically on that program. Often wondered how I would do if hypothetically I was the star in a reasonably priced car. You couldn't lipread the stig and to remove their helmet would give the game away. Probaly why they haven't ha anyone with a hearing loss
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