Deaf Girly and the (inaccessible) Christmas Movies

One of my favourite things about Christmas – aside from the lovely family gatherings, endless snacks and chocolate, the sparkly tree and presents – is the festive movies. I absolutely love a Christmas film. Even terrible ones... and believe me, there are some terrible ones out there.

There's just something about them – the warm and fuzzy feelings, the amazing scenery as they are usually set in the USA with an abundance of snow, and the cheesy soundtracks – I can't get enough of them.

As someone who doesn't have a TV, I rely mainly on watching movies on catch-up on our computer, and this year Channel 5 did not disappoint with its double bill, daily afternoon Christmas movie fest. There were all sorts of cheesy movies, including one that I particularly liked called A Cinderella Christmas.

It's up there with my other favourite cheesy Christmas movies: Holidaze – staring 90210's Jennie Garth, which is about a woman who hits her head and wakes up in a parallel universe, and A Christmas Snowglobe, which randomly stars Christina Milan and is about... well a Christmas snowglobe.

However, neither of these movies were on Channel 5 this year. They may have been on the Christmas 24 channel, which I only just today discovered existed, but being TV-less, I do not have this...

As I wanted to keep the Christmas cheer a bit longer, I set out trying to find all three of my favourite movies online to download, which turned out to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated.

Holidaze is available on Google Play and Amazon Video to download, but neither of these versions has subtitles or closed captions. Randomly, Holidaze is available to download on US iTunes with closed captions but only if you live in the US... which of course, I don't. It is NOT available on UK iTunes.

A Cinderella Christmas is available only on Amazon.com – the US site – as a digital download with closed captions, and is not available on the UK site, but more on that in a moment.

A Christmas Snowglobe is available on Google Play without closed captions. In fact, this was the only movie that I couldn't find anywhere with closed captions.

So in a nutshell, I cannot get any of these movies with closed captions, in this country.

*scowls

Obviously I decided to investigate this more and here's what I found out:

A Cinderella Christmas

You cannot buy anything digital on Amazon.com without having a US registered address and bank card. I thought that perhaps I could get around this by buying myself an Amazon.com gift card. I could not. So I contacted the lovely peeps on Amazon chat and to be fair they were amazing. I asked them why the content was not available to the UK Amazon users and they said it just wasn't. But they did – once I fessed up what I was trying to do – refund me on my gift card.

You can however, watch this movie on Demand 5 until 16 January – I am considering watching it every day just in case I never get to watch it again... yes, I am that sad!

Holidaze

I started by writing an email to iTunes, asking them why a movie was available on US iTunes but not UK iTunes and imploring them to consider making it available, especially when it is already available on Google Play and Amazon. I received a vanilla response thanking me for my feedback.

*scowls

I then contacted Amazon on their fantastic chat function and was told that the movie studio provides the film in that format and so it is not possible to change.

*scowls some more

And finally I contacted Google Play, who also told me that the movie studio was responsible so the error was theirs.

*scowls even more

So I contacted ABC Family/Freeform in America – the company that made the movie – and asked them why they had provided the movie without closed captions to the UK. Of course they didn't answer this exact question but instead told me that the movie had closed captions and they could see no reason why it wasn't captioned on Google Play and Amazon.

And then I got dizzy and sick and tired of going around in circles.

I contacted Google Play again today and was helped by a very nice man called Kevin who once again told me that there was nothing Google could do as this was the format of the movie they had been given by the distributor.

I am not sure that Kevin was allowed to leave the 'live chat' until I had confirmed that I was happy, so we had a 20 minute text conversation about how sad I was about my deafness and the lack of Christmas movies with closed captions while he typed platitudes and shared my frustrations. I think once I finally got off live chat, Kevin went and made himself a very strong coffee in the Google Play Kitchen.

A Christmas Snowglobe

By the time I got to trying to find out about this movie, I had basically lost the will to ask the same questions over and over again, so I guess we will never find out whether it's possible to get this movie with closed captions.

And after all this, I am once again at a brick wall and banging my head against it.

It amazes me that accessibility to digital content differs so greatly between the USA and the UK and while I know these big corporations have bigger things on their plate than worrying about whether some cheesy Christmas movie is available to a deaf girl in London, I am sad that accessible content continues to be something that is overlooked in favour of saving money, convenience or even perhaps licensing laws.

Do you know, I once emailed the company that released Dr Quinn Medicine Woman on DVD – OK, I know that's bad, but please try your hardest not to judge me on my cheesy taste in TV – to ask why none of the DVDs had closed captions and was told it was a money thing. The demand and the cost were incompatible.

Sucks to be deaf eh?

Being deaf is more expensive. While I get my hearing aids for free, my US friends must pay for theirs. But, even in the UK, so many other little things add cost to my everyday life. I understand the cost of deafness more than I'd care to. And just sometimes it would be nice to think that Amazon, Google and Apple did too and gave me and other deaf people, who'd like to watch cheesy Christmas movies with closed captions even in July, a break.

I am going to continue asking for those three Christmas movies to be made accessible to me and if that fails, I might do what the lovely guy on Amazon.com chat suggested and move to the USA...

But then what's a deaf girl like me going to do over there eh? Watch closed captioned Christmas movies I guess!

Happy New Year peeps!

Hope 2017 is a brilliant one.

DG
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Deaf Girly and subtitled LIVE iPlayer

OK, so regular readers will know how much I rant about lack of accessible content online. Things like out of time subtitle on a programme that aired two days ago and was pre-recorded – There's No Such Thing As The News – although to be fair, the @iPlayer peeps on Twitter were great at sorting that out.

Or subtitles that quite simply aren't there on some days – which is the case of my favourite Australian soap opera on Channel 5 – on writing to them, I was assured that these were problems that they hoped to iron out in the future.

I've got around the live TV problem at home with a clever dongle in the back of our computer which then attaches to the TV arial and creates a primitive digibox service of sorts (And yes, we have a TV licence). It's good – although the sizing is sometimes wrong and the subtitles start in the middle of the screen and come out the other side, which is really quite distracting and tests your speed reading abilities.

However, the app for this gadget is only available on my log in for the computer so when FJM is logged in, he will live stream the BBC from iPlayer.

The other evening as I was making my salad for the following day's lunch, he had live BBC one on and I was watching along and laughing to a repeat of Mock The Week. I laughed along for about 10 minutes, while washing tomatoes, chopping chicken and putting a pan of quinoa to boil on the hob – yes that sounds unbelievably tw*tty but it's cheap and filling and I'm broke at the moment.

About halfway through the episode FJM and I looked at each other and had a sudden realisation – I WAS LAUGHING ALONG TO A PROGRAMME HE WAS STREAMING LIVE OVER iPLAYER... and it was then we both noticed the subtitles, which I had been reading for the last 15 minutes, without realising.

iPlayer went and got live streaming subtitles and I didn't now about it!

But that's awesome news right?

I had a look on the iPlayer website and sure enough it says:

'We’re also trialling subtitles on our live TV Channel streams. Currently, they’re only available in Flash and on our HD streams (so computer browsers only). We hope to improve the appearance and roll it out further over the coming months. Only our England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales (Nations) streams are HD capable. You can change region from the location selector at the bottom of the page.'

Amazing huh?

I always get incredibly excited about things like this because it means that new technology is arriving, people are finding affordable ways of incorporating it into existing services and hopefully a whole area of inaccessibility will soon become accessible.

So thank you iPlayer – thank you for leading the way. Please now tell all the other channels how you did it and let them do it, too. It's better to share after all, isn't it?

Happy Thursday peeps

DG

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Deaf Girly & Twitter

This morning, I was frustrated because the programme on Rugby and head injuries I'd downloaded onto iPlayer iPad app to watch on the way to work didn't have subtitles. I was frustrated because this hardly ever happens anymore. Especially not on iPlayer.

This year, I've been frustrated that the subtitles didn't work when I visited Odeon. It was annoying. I ate plastic cheese – that was horrendous.

But what I have to remember is that things have changed.

They really have.

When I look back at my early blogs – I can't believe I've been writing Deafinitely Girly's ramblings for more than eight years now – so many of my posts were full-on rants about how many things were inaccessible to me in London.

If I went to see a subtitled movie it was a massive event. It normally didn't work. This year, I have successfully watched four subtitled films at the cinema. Things have changed.

Other blogs I wrote were about my difficulty in contacting customer services for companies. Anything from British Gas and O2 to car insurance and doctor's surgeries.

But things have changed. And the thing that's changed it the most for me personally is Twitter.

Now, I don't even consider calling a company if I have a question, a problem or something I want help with. No longer do I struggle with the automated options, the beeps, the strong accents and the fact that I am a deaf person trying to make a phone call.

Nope. In the last two years alone, I have sorted out my phone via the @O2 Twitter peeps, sorted out a meter problem via @BritishGasHelp and got @TheAA_UK to email me about something when I couldn't find how to contact them by email on their website.

Yesterday, I had a text from DPD to let me know they were going to deliver a parcel to my flat. The postcode was wrong. I was at work. Online, I could alter the delivery so that I could pick it up at the DPD depot, but I still had a lot of questions, such as 'Would they hand it over if I didn't have documentation with that postcode on?' and 'Had I changed the day correctly online?'

Forgetting about the power of Twitter for a moment, I lifted the phone (I know!! Why do I even bother?) and got trapped in an automated recorded message with loads of options and no way of hearing them. And then I remembered Twitter. And Tweeted @DPD_UK. They got straight back to me. They followed me and continued the conversation over direct message. And by the end of the day it was sorted. Just like that. No tears of frustration. No roping poor, unsuspecting – but never complaining – friends and colleagues to sort it out for me.

'This must be what it's like for hearing people when they call up customer services,' I thought. But do you know what, I think I'm luckier. I don't have to go through a million options on the phone before getting to a real person. Real people are on Twitter for these companies and more than happy to help me... and most likely anyone else who Tweets them.

Twitter has totally changed how I interact with companies for the better. So many of the struggles I used to blog about are disappearing little by little, year by year.

Amazing huh?

There is however just one final thing I want to fix. And that is having a GP surgery where I can make appointments online. So I don't have to get someone else to make an appointment for that embarrassing problem (NOT THAT I HAVE ONE BY THE WAY) and so that I can finally take control of most aspects of my life.

So yesterday, I trawled through all the GP surgeries in my area until I found one that I could make online appointments with. And I'm going to join it. I am ridiculously excited about this.

Sure, there's still things that could be improved, and I'm sure I'll rant about them at some point, but today, I'm quite happy to say that from Deafinitely Girly's point of view, things are changing. It's not so hard anymore.

Have a lovely day peeps

DG
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Deaf Girly's open letter to Odeon

Dear Odeon Cinemas,

Picture the scene:

I’m on my first date with FJM to the cinema – we’ve known each other almost two years, so it’s quite an amazing feat. It’s Jurassic World, something he’s really looking forward to seeing. As I haven’t been to the cinema for five years, I excitedly order popcorn and nachos and throw myself into eating the quite-frankly disgusting cold plastic cheese the latter are served with, with gusto.

You see yesterday was the first evening showing of Jurassic World that FJM and I could go to. I’d been stalking the Your Local Cinema website to find a captioned showing ever since I found out that FJM went to see the original Jurassic Park three times in one week when it came out in 1993.

Such was my excitement that we got there 40 minutes early. Such was my excitement that I checked with staff that this captioned movie was definitely happening several times. Such was my excitement that I ate most of that plastic cheese – DEAR GOD WHAT IS IN THAT STUFF? – while FJM did his best with his stale popcorn. 

So imagine my horror when the opening scene began to roll and not a single caption popped up. ‘Okay, okay,’ I reasoned, maybe they are just normal subtitles rather than ones of the hard of hearing. Maybe once people start talking some captions will pop up. People started talking.

Nothing.

I was not alone in my speedy sprint down the stairs from my £13-something Premier Seat where we found a guy with a walkie talkie looking a bit panic stricken. 

The film continued rolling. FJM ate his stale popcorn.

To be fair, I couldn’t fault the Odeon staff at this point. They were trying. I could see the exertion on their faces of running up the stairs to the projection room to see what was going on. And when I asked that they start the movie again once sorting the subtitles, they agreed.

And so they did. And we all returned to our seats. I put the plastic cheese to one side and sat nervously. Odeon wasn’t about to ruin my first ever cinema date with FJM was it?

The opening scene rolled again. The egg started to hatch, and the crow’s foot hitting the snow didn’t quite have the same impact second time around. Anne Heche said something unintelligible to me and… there were no captions.

At this point, and I really don’t blame them, most of the people who had come for the captions left.

The movie was paused. I remained hopeful. I held FJM’s hand and tried to forget the tub of plastic cheese I’d just eaten.

Third time around, I held my breath as the first little claw came out of the delicate egg shell. I held my breath as the crow landed on the snow. I held my breath as Anne Heche yelled something unintelligible and then I realised that I too would have to walk out of this cinema and take the non-subtitle-needing FJM with me.

And while your staff politely issued me my refund. For the tickets. For the plastic cheese. For the slightly stale popcorn, I found myself tearfully apologising to FJM that he had to miss a film he really wanted to watch because of me. 

I found myself asking staff why they couldn’t get the captions to work. Why when it was someone’s job, was it not being done? Why, when it was advertised and I double checked on arriving, did I not get what I had paid for? No one could give me any answers.

So then I asked staff if this happened often, they said no. Although they also looked like they were struggling to recall what a caption actually was. One of the guys who walked out at the beginning, said it happened quite a lot. His face had an expression of weary acceptance. 

But I refuse to accept your incompetence, Odeon.

You ruined our date. And worse still, I had cold plastic cheese for dinner, when had I known you were going to screw up so spectacularly I would have passed on that and marched straight over to the Byron Burger opposite instead.

Do you know, last year there were reports that the UK box office suffered its biggest fall for 20 years? The cinema we went to, Kensington Odeon – not because its local but because it was the only one showing the movie with captions – was facing redevelopment and attracted a wealth of high-profile protestors about it.

But Odeon, I don’t have high hopes for your future, because the thing is, I don’t truly believe that you value all your customers. If you did, then yesterday wouldn’t have happened. Yesterday, someone would have checked the captions on the movie were working before the excited people turned up, ate plastic cheese and left again feeling angry and humiliated and in my case downright pissed off.

I understand that there will probably never be more than one subtitled movie a week and that this will usually be an afternoon showing because evening captions are likely to put valued hearing customers off – as Sara Cox once spectacularly demonstrated on Twitter. I understand that it probably all boils down to the subject of money.

But yesterday I spent £45 that you had to refund. You also gave me two free tickets to try and tempt me back next week after staff promised there would be a subtitled showing of Jurassic World again.

I will not be going.

I’d start a campaign if I’d thought it’d make a difference. Found a charity to help fund the showing of captioned movies. Or support an existing one. So that companies like yours don’t have to take the hit for making lives like ours accessible.

But I can’t really make that difference Odeon. You can. By not mucking up the one captioned movie you’re showing that month. By not serving plastic cheese and stale popcorn. And by remembering that you ruined my first date to the cinema with FJM.

Happy Tuesday Odeon.

Happy sodding Tuesday.

DG

Deaf Girly and Spotify subtitles

I'm one of those people who takes advantage of Spotify's free service. The one where you watch an advert for 30 seconds to get 30 minutes of ad-free music. It's not really a hardship. And it has running music.

So far however, my usage of Spotify has been limited to the gym on my phone. Music to run to. Music to stretch to. Zen music for lying on the mat in the stretching area with my eyes closed while pretending I'm actually doing something.

But today, bored of my iTunes selection – I've had the Tangled soundtrack on repeat since I sat down this morning – I decided to try Spotify on my laptop. 

And, since I don't listen to the radio and have no idea what the latest music is, I clicked on the top UK songs that are in the Charts right now. I've never heard many of them before. It's a new experience.

But imagine my surprise when browsing on the Spotify app on my Mac when I saw a little option in the bottom left corner that said 'LYRICS'.

My first thought was – it's a trick. It won't work. It'll get my hopes up and I'll click on it and get a message about lyrics not being available at this time. I mean, you learn to live with these constant disappointments. Like the fact that I have yet to find a subtitled evening showing of the new Jurassic Park movie to take FJM to. *sniff* Or the fact that there is still UNSUBTITLED content on the iPlayer – I really did want to watch that documentary on The Trellick Building and I CAN'T.

Anyway, with my expectations lower than a primary school sports day high jump, I clicked the lyrics button and OH MY GOODNESS...

It WORKS.

Gosh I am shouty today.

Not only are the lyrics there but they give you the lyrics as they are happening, which means I am less likely to be singing the lyrics out of time. This happens a lot. I'm singing away and realise I'm in a completely different place to the actual singer. Bet you're glad you don't live near me eh? *closes windows*

Ooh as I write this Bruno Mars has just come on... *taps foot*

'I'm too hot (hot damn)'

Who knew these were such inspired lyrics *raises eyebrows*

'Uptown funk you up' eh?

But seriously, this is amazing. Amazing. There are lyrics. And as far as I can see, this is better than SoundHound on my iPhone, which regularly tells me it's sorry it cannot find the lyrics to something.

This week, with my mended hearing aids, FaceTime and now lyrics on Spotify I've been feeling amazing impressed with technology and how it makes my life bloody amazing. That and the fact I've downloaded a new HIT exercise class from iTunes that has subtitles and has rendered me unable to move today.

It's all marvellous.

Completely marvellous.

Happy Tuesday peeps

xx

Deaf Girly and modern technology

Today I was able to do the most fabulous thing – chat to one of my best friends Miss K who lives in South Africa over FaceTime and, with the help of my pink POP phone handset, I was able to follow everything.

Amazing huh?

What I am a bit horrified about however, is that Miss K has lived in South Africa for three years now and that was the first time I had FaceTimed her. You see, after spending most of my adult life unable to use the phone, I still forget that I can call people over FaceTime and actually 'hear' (OK, lipread) them, thanks to the perfectly matched picture and sound.

I am still amazed that I can follow what is going on, after years of simply pretending.

For example, when I was a teenager, one of my good friends used to call me on the phone on my birthday every year for a chat. He was from Kent and had a very strong accent that I found hard enough to understand in person, let alone on the telephone. He'd call up and we'd chat for an hour, with me guessing the whole time what he might be saying. By the end of the hour I was absolutely exhausted and also slightly nervous that I'd said something random, answered something wrong, or he thought I was completely mad. I have no idea why I didn't just not have that phone call with him. But that was back in the 90s when email wasn't the norm and I was still years away from getting my first mobile phone.

Looking back, I cannot imagine how I would have got by as an adult in the 90s. With crap internet and the main form of communication for everyone being the phone. I think there would have been a massive chance that I would have lost contact with a lot of people. Or just had totally misunderstood phone conversations with them a lot of the time.

I feel so lucky that I live in a time where technology makes things easier. Where restaurants and hair appointments can be booked online, where texts can be sent in the place of phone calls and emails are a perfectly acceptable. Where I can call my friend, over the internet and lipread what she is saying for free. Where there are apps for song lyrics, subtitles on most things and a world where I know longer have to fight with plugging in the caption reader.

Anyone else end up in a rage about the amazing puzzle of wires needed to get those words up on the screen?

I can still remember the look of horror on my friends' parents' faces when I showed up for sleepovers armed with my Caption Reader and proceeded to trash their carefully set up TVs just so I could watch a video. And even then you had to make sure that the video in question had the CC symbol on the side, which back in the 90s was also a rarity.

I think that also explains why I don't really watch movies. I forget that I can. They never really became an integral part of my life. I'm missing a huge chunk of movie education. And the last new release I saw at the cinema was Sex & The City 2.

So I've made a pact with myself. I'm going to remind myself that modern technology makes lots of things possible that I forget about. I'm going to FaceTime more, watch movies with subtitles more and generally see if  I can embrace all the things I learnt to live without but no longer need to.

I'm on a mission.

Starting with another FaceTime conversation with Miss K very soon.

DG
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Flying to New York

I had a very legitimate reason for not blogging last week, and here it is;

I was in New York!

*Squeal!

I've never been to the Big Apple before and having only seen it in the movies and of course Sex & the City, I didn't really know what I would make of it.

So let's start at the very beginning of the adventure shall we? In a week of NYC blogs.

So, it really started the day before we left when I tried to check us in to our flight, which we booked through BA but that was code shared with American Airlines. With BA you can log in and choose seats 24 hours before your flight. With AA, the seats are given over to the airport 24 hours in advance, and the gods of bad plane seating had allocated us seats at the back in the middle of a row of five.

Frustrated and slightly worried about how Pa and his new hip would cope being shoehorned into a tiny row, I rang the airline, armed with a list of yes/no questions so it didn't matter if I didn't hear. And they were very helpful.

Could I do anything about our allocated seating? Yes

Could they do anything about it? No

Would I have to fix it at the airport? Yes

Would this mean getting there early? Yes

And so we did. Embarrassingly early. But it worked. We were allocated bulkhead seats at the front of cattle class with room for Pa and also good for me as when the flight attendants spoke to me, they could crouch down to my level and make it easier to lipread.

What was even better is that even in economy there were plug sockets, so I was able to plug in my DVD player and watch subtitled movies the whole way. Subtitled New York-themed movies!

The service on the flight was also excellent. Our flight attendant was amazing. I explained to him I was deaf and every announcement that was made he came to check I knew what was going on. He even attempted to make me laugh right after he told me the flight crew were being seated 45 minutes early because it was going to be a very bumpy and snowy landing.

Not being a massive fan of turbulence, I ended up being brilliantly distracted by the Fab Family sat to our right.

The lovely guy told me all about the places where I should eat in New York, he explained why it was more bumpy at some times than others, and he told me how much he loved New York City.

It was amazing. I forgot about the turbulence and the fact that I had an amazing city to discover began to sink in.

We bade them farewell at JFK and hopped in a yellow taxi in the snow storm.

Three days later by the restrooms in the basement of Century 21 (which is basically TK Maxx on acid) I looked up to see the Fab Family right there in front of me.

On the big island that is Manhattan, I had bumped into the only people I knew of in the city, in the shadow of the former World Trade Centre. What a bizarre coincidence?

It was fabulous to see them again and share my experience of New York – although I never did get to go to the Brandy Library…  but there is always next time…

But what I did do was walk for miles and miles and miles and miles… but I will tell you all about that tomorrow.

Subtitled Innocent Smoothies!

Tonight, I am going to a private art and photography view organised by London Aunt.

I've been going along to support her for several years now and it's usually a great night. It's a great time to catch up with her friends as well and every time I see them, they ask me about my man situation. And every year so far, I've had some great gossip or at least something for them. Except this year... unless I can get a date in the next 8 hours that is!!!!

But actually, don’t they say galleries are the best place to meet people?!

Anyway, I'm a regular visit to the Innocent drinks website, and a fan of the smoothies, too, I like the witty banter that takes place on the site, so when I went on recently and found that the AGM Q&A was all video uploads I was quite disappointed. So I wrote and asked them politely for a transcript. And yesterday, slap bang in the middle of
Deaf Awareness Week, the link to the transcript of this PLUS another interview regarding the sale of a percentage of Innocent to Coca Cola was sent to me.

Hurrah!

And it was a great read – so a big thank you to the person who typed all that up!

I wish the same could be said for subtitled movies on iTunes though! The other day I searched specifically for these and I'm pretty certain there were just 4! One of which had a bizarre title of Angus, Thongs & Perfect Snogging... Or something along those lines!

So I'm going to write to iTunes/apple/anybody today and remind them that it is Deaf Awareness
week and ask them to fix this!

Hopefully they'll be nice, like Innocent, and do this...

…hopefully!

Reading along to Calendar Girls

Wow, what an utterly brilliant weekend I had!

So much so, that I didn't want to leave, which resulted in my not getting back to London until gone 10pm last night.

I was in the Wild West erm... Country visiting Jenny M, who's a hotshot theatre director don't you know.

Summer, with it's deluge of open-air plays, and unfortunately rain, is her busiest time, so I thought I'd squeeze in a quick visit before she became too caught up in cider, musketeers and Canterbury tales!!

We also decided last minute to go and watch Calendar Girls, which was showing at a theatre nearby. It wasn't captioned, so I was a bit worried about hearing any of it, but we had amazing seats six rows from the front so was a little bit hopeful might get something, so we took the plunge and bought the tickets.

But then I came to my senses and remembered I was deaf! Deaf! Unable to hear!

And so instead I asked Jenny M to use her excellent contacts and see if she could get me a script to read along to.

She wasn't hopeful as apparently, theatre scripts are closely-guarded things and no one likes to part with theirs – and I remember The Girl That Can't Help Knit saying something similar, too.

But by some miracle, the crew had several non-closely guarded scripts and, as a result were happy to give me one to follow.

And what a difference it made!

OK, so it meant I was looking down more than up most of the time but without it, I would have been asleep in my seat within 10 minutes as a result of the exaggerated Northern accents.

To be fair though, it was still fabulous, funny and all in all, a bit of a tearjerker, with a recognisable, in a don’t-I-know-you-from-somewhere way, cast, including Madge from Neighbours, Inspector Monroe from The Bill, somebody's wife from Only Fools and Horses, Charlie Dimmock from Ground Force and Dennis Waterman's daughter!

And when wandering around backstage afterwards, bumping into them, they all seemed rather lovely, too.

It did get me thinking though, I wonder if other deaf people would be happy to read along to a personal script in the event of subtitles not being available – I know I would always jump at the chance. And if they were, would the theatre companies consider having a couple of scripts spare that, on request could be loaned out with a deposit for the evening?

It would be amazing if this could happen. I could go to the theatre every night, instead of whenever Stagetext is there.

Don't get me wrong though, Stagetext is still royalty to me, but after finding out just how much time and energy goes into Stagetext’s attendances at performances, I'm not surprised it isn't able to do more.

So isn't this a lovely back-up plan?

What do you think?

Sex & The City 2 with captions? HA!

Today is Thankful Friday, and aside from the fact that I've chosen to wear a dress that does a Marilyn in even the tiniest gust of wind, I have lots to be thankful for!

Most importantly, and excitedly, I am in the running to be a Superdrug Summer Insider again, after being invited to fight for my title.

Eek!

Am very happy about this, but nervous, too. After being sent a wonderful collection of goodies by the peeps at Superdrug, I put my first blog up yesterday, which you can see here at Superdrugloves.com.

Apparently, there's some Facebook thing on each post where you can ‘like’ my post, and the people with the most 'likes' go through to the Summer Insider 2010 competition.

So if you like my post, be sure to click on the thumbs up picture at the top, please!

Anyway, I got the listings for subtitles for Sex & The City 2 yesterday and I definitely wasn't thankful about them. In London, there are a pitiful amount of evening showings and only 13 cinemas in the whole of the London area in total showing it with subtitles.

Of these, only six are even vaguely convenient for me and of these 1 has an evening showing – and because I HAVE A LIFE, I am not free on this day. I could go to Electric Cinema in Notting Hill at 10am on Tuesday 1 June – except, no wait! I have a mortgage to pay and holiday days that need to be used for holidays not watching a movie that everyone else can see in their free time.

I don't understand!! Are deaf people not supposed to work or something? Is there some Government initiative that gives us the right to take paid time off to attend subtitled cinema screenings?

Well, to my knowledge, the answer is no. So I'd love to know what these cinemas are playing at.

My early readers will know that when the first movie came out, Fab Friend and I had to wait quite a few weeks for subtitles, but at least there was an evening showing. Ah that was great – we met for cocktails and half sobbed, half laughed our way through the entire thing!

I'd so love to do that again with Fab Friend – but it's not looking likely with the current listings.
*sniff

But I can't think about it too much or I'll get so mad I'll combust, and that wouldn't be a very good thing to happen on Thankful Friday.

So I'm going to take action. And at lunchtime I'm going to write to all the cinemas who are showing subtitled SATC 2 and ask them to explain why they don't think we deserve equal treatment.

I'm guessing, maybe a little cynically that money will be a factor here, but I'm not stopping until I get some answers.

I'll keep you posted!

Subtitles on my iPhone

Phew! What a fabulous weekend of weather we had!

First Ever Friend and her Ma came over from Switzerland to visit, which was great fun. The Rents joined us and we went to Kew Gardens in the baking Sunday heat. It was amazing but very, very hot!

I'm not good in the sun. I require factor-50 sun cream and a big sun hat. If I'm not watered regularly I keel over, too. So Sunday was spent looking like a dessert dweller, shrouded in a lightweight scarf and sheltered by a big straw hat that I bought in the men’s' department at Debenhams.

Anyway, yesterday I booked my first ever cab online. And it didn't go well.

With a BBQ at Gym Buddy's house, we decided to travel there in style rather than throwing ourselves on the hot, rammed, smelly, unreliable tube. It couldn't have been easier to book and I got quite excited about the thought of having this online booking service at my fingertips no matter where I was in London.

So we waited, and a text came through saying the cab was 20 minutes late. We waited for 20 minutes and no cab arrived. So I tried to call them but couldn't hear clearly enough. In the end, Gym Buddy took over and when it became apparent that our car might never turn up, she cancelled it, before securing me a full refund and politely having a go at the clueless woman at the other end!!

It was so frustrating. Like a half-finished convenient service for deaf people.

One thing I am very excited about though is a new application I have discovered for my iPhone called ‘Subtitles’. This allows you to download subtitles for movies and then read along from the screen as the movie plays on the TV. The first thing I did was check if there was subtitles for Withnail And I – London Aunt’s favourite movie – and there was. She has been trying to watch it with me for years and the DVD isn’t subtitled. But now, I have the subtitles downloaded onto my phone so we can finally watch it together.

I’m hoping that the new Sex & The City movie subtitles will be added onto it relatively soon so that I can go to that as soon as possible instead of waiting for a subtitled showing. It would be amazing! Just think, subtitles at the cinema without being at the mercy of the scheduling people.

Subtitles at the cinema and erm…

…a flat iPhone battery!

Ah well – you can’t have everything!

Subtitles Tennessee Williams

Last night I went to see a Stagetext captioned performance of Spring Storm by Tennessee Williams, and I enjoyed it so much that I'm still grinning from ear to ear over 12 hours later.

Tennessee Williams is my favourite poet and playwright you see. In my final year at uni, I lived, breathed and even spent all my beer money on that man, ordering rare books from America, soaking up the poignant mix of tragic characters and humorous lines, and generally falling in love with him. He’s even on my dream dinner party list, along with Jeremy Clarkson, Clive James and Katie Fforde.

When I saw there was a performance of one of the few plays of his I hadn't dissected through lengthy study sessions, I jumped at the chance to see some of his work from a fresh perspective.

Now, I'm still quite out of practice at going to the theatre and when I read that the performance was 2 hours and 45 minutes long, I was slightly concerned that I might fall asleep or get bored. But what I was forgetting was that I would be watching it as a hearing person. I would be able to follow every single little thing.

And not only was it magical, it was also the quickest 2 hours and 45 minutes of my life. I didn't want it to end. And even though I know Tennessee rarely gifts his characters with happy endings, I couldn't help hoping that this time he would.

One hilarious moment was when Hertha, the dowdy bookish underdog declares that at 28 she's an old maid. At 29 and 30, and both single, Miss K and I burst out laughing. It was a fascinating perspective of Deep South attitudes of that period, and how one mistake could leave you sat rocking on the porch until the end of your days waiting for your man to come back.

If that's the case, I'd better start looking for a house with a porch! Teehee!

Content with my deafness

Don’t know about you, but I am loving the warmer weather we’ve been having.

OK, so it’s not really warm as such, but it’s deafinitely not a cold as it has been.

Today, I even considered shedding the fleece on my morning run – leaving me with just three layers on, not four!

What I am not loving however, is the roadworks that are still happening outside my house – two months after they started and well over their deadline. It’s so frustrating as it’s making my morning commute much more stressful – and I’m not the only one. People are still behaving incredibly irrationally – driving down cycle lanes, ignoring pedestrian crossings in a bid to get through while the lights are on green, and winding down their windows and shouting at each other.

If it wasn’t making me late for work, I would almost be entertained by the whole thing. But really, it’s not entertaining anymore so I am going to write to the utility company in CAPITALS and tell them exactly what I think of their lateness.

Crikey, if I am doing this now, at 29 years old, imagine what I am going to be like as an old lady – I’ll get RSI from all the complaint letters!

Anyway, today is my Friday as I have tomorrow off for the arrival of my new deaf fire alarm. I am MOST excited about it – mainly because, well, I’ve never had a fancy gadget in my home that helps me with hear stuff before. To know that when I close my eyes at night, there’ll be no chance of me ending up drowning in smoke like on that hideous fire-warning advert on TV at the moment, makes me very happy.

What also makes me happy is that I am gradually becoming more proactive about asking for things I need. I’ve never really been very good at that.

Having my Wear My Hearing Aids Day yesterday, has also given me a new contentment with what I can hear. Hearing aids don’t make it better, I have confirmed that for another year. What’s more, it made me realise just how much I like my world with not much hearing…

OK, so that didn’t come out very eloquently, but I guess what I am trying to say that, lack of cinema outings, subtitled Virgin Media On Demand, phone calls, and whispered sweet nothings aside, I am more than happy with what I can hear.

And, also with what I can’t – as the bawling baby, lipread only, on the bus this morning confirmed.

It’s making me feel unbelievably content – for the first time in ages. Rather than just getting on with this whole deaf thing, I am actually happy about it.

At last…

Deaf and missing out

Brrrrrr anyone else wake up FREEZING this morning?

There’s deafinitely no doubting that the colder weather is here…

*sniff

But, on a plus side, at least it’s sunny and bright. In the twenty five layers that I am wearing, I almost feel warm enough to feel summery as I look at the sun streaming through the window.

If I could just get my hands warm, it would be so much better though.

This is hopefully my last week off before returning to work. I really hope it is as I miss my job.

I’m one of those people who actually got the job they wanted, the job they daydreamed about at university and hoped they’d one day have… I got mine. And every day, I try to remember to count my lucky stars.

So being away from it is hard. I miss the words.

Anyway, very excitingly, this week London Aunt was on TV, on the BBC no less. I was so looking forward to seeing it as I’ve never had a relative on TV before, except for Nottnum Uncle who often pops up in commercials, so I settled down on the sofa, with my duvet and a cup of tea to get watching.

And guess what? The subtitles were rubbish. So rubbish in fact that I actually had no idea what the piece London Aunt was in was about. The bit where she spoke directly to the interviewer was fine as I have been lipreading London Aunt my whole life so was able to do that OK. But the fluffy bits in between when the presenter was talking off screen and where there were holding shots of the river, houses and other such things, I really had no clue what was going on.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH

*Sigh

Now, I can handle rubbish subtitles most of the time. I can handle the utter drivel that seems to scroll across my screen during BBC Breakfast News, but this was important. I actually wanted to follow this programme. I wanted to know what was going on, and still there were no decent subtitles.

I know I should look at it from both angles, as I am sure that subtitling live TV programmes where no one’s sure what the presenters are going to say next is tricky. But this was a pre-recorded piece, so what is the excuse for this?

Can someone tell me please, because it’s doing my head in.