Blogging break

Sometimes a blogger just needs to take a break from blogging.

This is the announcement of one such break.

I'm definitely not giving up blogging, but I just need a break from this blog for a week or two. Let's call it a linguanautic sabbatical.

I'll be back.

POLITICS - Porn: the government "hand" out

Above: Richard Timney receives news that his photographic submission to Readers' Wives has been rejected on the grounds of his missus being a total minger.

Richard Timney, the husband of Home Office Minister Jacqui Smith (who's already dodgy for fiddling expenses over where she lives), has been watching porn at the taxpayers' expense.

Is wanking to be funded by the state now? If so, then certain people are going to get rich by claiming for that.

Alternatively, I have some simple words of advice for Mr Richard Timney, which might save him, and the taxpayer, a bit of money:

Go to Redtube.com

(Everyone else: DO NOT click that link, unless you above the age of majority in your territory and are not offended by adult videos and other general naughtiness; it's rude on that site! Needless to say, it's not suitable for work, unless you work in the offices of a Labour MP. The website does NOT come recommended, unless you are married to a Labour Minister).

POLITICS - Security alert posters everywhere

All across the UK, new Government sanctioned posters from the police are encouraging you to snoop through your neighbours' bins in case your neighbour is a terrorist. Apparently you can spot if your neighbour is a terrorist by the number of shampoo bottles they use, or something. Obviously that makes the local hairdresser's a den of doom.

Here's one poster design that they rejected.... (if you can't see it, click to enlarge, or make your own here)

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - James Horner: "Apollo 13 Theme"

This is wonderful piece of music. It's the theme to the movie Apollo 13. Sit back and marvel, or play it as you stargaze.

The Seven Essential Items Meme

Over at Cherie's Place, there's the challenge to name 7 essential items that make life bearable. Not things like houses, cars and jobs but things that you need (for whatever reason) and would have to replace immediately if they were lost.

I love a good meme, so here goes.

Under the rules above, stuff like good health or eyesight don't count, so I can't include them, even though I class them as most important right now. So let's move on and choose seven items that I quite simply would be lost without.

1. My magnifying glass. Essential at the moment to see the written word. My (unfortunately very much out-of-date now) spectacles too, as they're what're keeping my left eye seeing too.

2. A working connection to the internet. I get to see more written words and images then. This links in well with the next item which is...

3. A computer to write/work on. Portability of computers is a problem though, even laptops, as you can't work on a laptop on the bus to work, for example, which brings us to...

4. Pen and paper. Always be prepared to take notes, write something down, etc. People are always scrabbling round for pens and paper to jot down numbers, and until not long ago, I could always oblige. But there are two reasons why I no longer always have pen and paper with me; firstly my recent sight problems, and secondly, something which can take the place of pen and paper, namely...

5. PDA which Angie purchased for Christmas. I can only just see it at the moment, but it's an essential bit of equipment for me, in order to write, keep my diary in order, etc. It also contains a number of books I've downloaded into it, but I do prefer...

6. A book. I am a bibliophile, which makes me hunger for the written word. I actually feel uncomfortable if I don't have a book near at hand to read, even if I don't read it. Sort of a literary comfort blanket? I don't know, but I always have a small book in my coat pocket for when those moments get bad of withdrawal from the written word. Usual caveat of I can't see the text in the bloody thing at the moment, etc., so I now have a large print prayer book in my coat pocket too. As mentioned, I have books in my PDA, but I do prefer the solid paper versions, which if you are on a budget, you can't always buy, so I use my...

7. Library card. I'm a regular visitor to the library normally, even though the organisation of the shelves of the local library resemble a jumble sale (although that's not fair to jumble sales).

LANGUAGE - What language do they speak in Denmark?

The answer is Danish.

Norwegian is spoken in Norway.

Swedish is spoken in Sweden, not in Switzerland (apart from in the Swedish Embassy).

In the Netherlands they speak Dutch and in the Friesland part of the Netherlands, some speak Frisian, a minority language; most of you won't have heard of Frisian, so don't worry about it for now. The Dutch MP Geert Wilders believes they predominantly speak Arabic in the Netherlands, but we'll let that pass.

Why am I writing this? Some time ago, a friend faced the Herculean task of convincing her boss that in Denmark they speak Danish. The boss erroneously believed it was Dutch. I was reminded of this, and was also reminded of the uphill struggle I have faced with people whose knowledge of the globe is less than basic.

I quote from a conversation in my past:

PERSON: When you lived in Japan, did you see the Great Wall?

ME: The Great Wall of China?

PERSON: Yeah.

ME: That’s in China, not Japan. Yes I’ve seen it. I lived in China, not Japan.

PERSON: But the Great Wall of China is in Japan, isn’t it?

I began to bang my head against the wall.

I also encounter people sometimes who on learning I speak languages, will then assume that I can then instantaneously translate their name into said target language.

PERSON: How do you say Michael in German?

ME: You don't; you normally leave your own name as it is. Most names in most languages are not translatable in my experience. (I ignore the issues of transliteration into different writing systems and for example getting a Chinese name; my Chinese name is a phonetic approximation of my own name)

PERSON: So Michael Schumacher, he's German, right?

ME: Yes.

PERSON: What's his name in German then?

ME: Michael Schumacher.

PERSON: But that is his name in English. What's his name in German?

ME: Michael Schumacher. It's the same in all languages.

PERSON: Oh. I thought he had a German name or something. Did he change it?

I began to bang my head against the wall.

The lanuage of Austria is German. A colleague in a former workplace who had studied A-Level German (thus someone who should definitely know better, having been educated about the language and culture of the German speaking countries) insisted that in Austria they speak a completely different language. The colleague refused to deal with a Austrian client on the basis that my colleague didn't speak Austrian, and only spoke German as a foreign language. We argued for ages, with me insisting German is spoken in Austria. I then dealt with the client 'Austrian' speaker using German without any problems at my workplace in the place of my German-speaking colleague. The colleague then came to the conclusion and so informed everyone that they'd changed the language in Austria recently (they haven't).

I began to bang my head against the wall.

Quote of the Day: sex industry suffers under credit crunch

Quote of the Day:

Times are hard down at Berlin’s Pussy Club where a new all-in service is on offer: €70 for girls, drinks and food....

[I]n January, sex-shop owners and porn producers [in Germany] pushed for state aid, taking their lead from the crisis-hit auto and banking industries."

Source: The Local: Germany's News in English

Japes! People are paying to be screwed by the banks, but not paying to - I think I'll leave that thought there....

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - Queen: "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Possibly the best song ever.

NatWest relents; they admit they CAN do large print, braille, and audio statements and correspondence for visually impaired customers

Wednesday, I headed back to NatWest after the problems I'd had requesting everything in future to be in large print so I could actually read it. I needed it sorted. I didn't go in on Tuesday. Tuesday was another day of exhaustion. I spent most of the day in bed.

The person I had spoken previously to was on the customer services desk, as I recognised her voice. I got to the head of the queue and was fortunately seen by someone else. I insisted on a manager to speak to; after five minutes the deputy manager came out. (Aside: why is it no longer possible to speak to a manager these days? Are they afraid of customers?) I didn't spot her at first; she was on my blind side.

I started by asking about my account. Were there any notes to say it was different? all the contact details are as normal, nothing special marked down? I gently led her to confirming that yes, the statements and correspondence would be sent out as ordinary letters, ordinary size.

I moved on to whether the staff had any disability awareness training, or any training to assist people with impairments. She began quoting the Disability Discrimination Act requires all their staff to be acutely aware, etc. I let her ramble on.

"Okay," I said. "If that's the case, why was I told it would need to be checked to even see if it was allowed?" I outlined the case as I blogged about earlier on in the week. The deputy manager confirmed that no changes had been made to my account; no request for large print had been made.

The advice I had been given was wrong, she conceded. "It is an area where we might need to improve, and I will be bringing this up at the daily training session tomorrow. Do you know who it was?"

I handed over the business card which I had been given by the assistant who had 'served' (or perhaps stalled) me on Monday. I couldn't read the card; I said so, but I presumed the name was on there. She kept the card, and gave me one of her own. She gave me details such as her name and branch telephone number so that I could write on it in large enough letters for my own future reference.

To her credit, she then proceeded to get it sorted for future statements to be in large print. If I so wished, I could also avail their services in Braille or on audio-tape. Large print would be fine, thank you. She looked at her screen. It was black, with feint bits of blue on it which I took to be my details. She pressed a few buttons and it was apparently sorted. It was a matter of pressing a few buttons on a very easy-to-find page on their system, apparently, which the previous assistant should have been able to do within moments of my request.

It might be a bit late to catch the next statement to have that in large print (despite there being quite a few days before the next one is issued), she advised, which I accepted. Banks are never the quickest. That might already be going out normal size. But she then said she'd give a call back to me after the April statement is dispatched just in case the large print request hadn't gone through, still sowing a seed of doubt in my mind about the bank. I guess I'll find out when the April statement comes through if it actually worked or not.

Problem resolved? We'll find out with next month's statement. (Addendum, later: give them their due, it actually did come through all right, in large print)

This problem should not have come up in the first place though.

However, it's not the first time NatWest have had issues with visually impaired people. In 1997, Patricia Parsons alleged discrimination when they told her not to come in their busy period. "She says the Spring Street branch had told her she was too slow." I'm unable to discover what became of this case, but Miss Parsons transferred to being a customer of Barclays Bank.

A similar failing of NatWest bank to provide services to customers comes in how they ended up having to pay £5,000 compensation to a wheelchair user as they forced the customer to do his banking transactions in the streeet. The Disability Rights Commission reported that: "On one occasion, Mr Caulfield was asked to wait in his wheelchair on the pavement outside the bank while staff dealt with customers inside the building who’d arrived before him."

NatWest's parent company, the Royal Bank of Scotland, also has problems in treating its less able customers fairly. In January of this year, the bank lost a court case when they discriminated against a 17-year-old schoolboy. Here's a snippet from the story:

The Royal Bank of Scotland's name is mud following David Allen's landmark legal victory over a lack of disabled access at its Church Street head office in Sheffield.

The 17-year-old schoolboy, who uses a wheelchair, took on the multi-billion pound financial behemoth which used every tactic in the book to try to brush his claim aside – and failed spectacularly.

...

When David complained initially he saw there were signs in the bank and on its website which claimed the premises were accessible to wheelchairs. But the judge found this was wrong.

David was told he could use the staff entrance, but it too was inaccessible, and a claim he could use his cards at NatWest was also wrong.

The bank offered David £250, then £1,000, and then £1,500 to drop the case. On the day it went to court last year he was offered £5,000 to go away, provided he signed a confidentiality clause. But the family refused, his father Paul dubbed the move "a cynical attempt to buy us off".

David launched his claim through the small claims track at Sheffield County Court, but RBS successfully applied to move it to the 'multi-track' system which, if he lost, would have left him liable for legal costs of up to £50,000.

Unwilling to risk losing their home in Bents Green, Sheffield, the family thought they were beaten – until a white knight arrived at the eleventh hour.

In an rare move, the Government-funded Equality and Human Rights Commission announced it would underwrite costs because he had such a strong case.

Needless to say, the bank lost, but typically sore losers, they plan to appeal.

On what grounds would they appeal, I wonder? Seems like a watertight case of discrimination by an inept banking institution if you ask me.

Gordon Brown did something nice

Today, rather than ranting about how Gordon Brown is ruining running the economy into the ground, I'm going to post something nice about him. I may not politically like the man, but he does have a good side.

It is particularly poignant as Gordon Brown suffered from a retinal detachment from a rugby incident in his teens. It did not recover, and Gordon Brown ended up having a replacement artificial eye.

I suffered a retinal detachment at the beginning of February in my right eye, but it seems like it hasn't healed. I have extremely poor vision in my right eye, and will be back to the hospital at the end of the month. It seems like the way forward is to come to terms and live with it (unless they suggest further surgery), which isn't easy in the early days and months of adapting to it. I've mentioned some of the difficulties before on this blog. For the record, I don't have an artificial eye.

According to this Newsround report, Gordon Brown wrote a letter of support to a child who had also had an eye removed.

The child had been bullied badly, which shows how unthinking and cruel some sectors of society can be. When I was a child myself, I came in for some bad bullying from some of the fellow pupils at my school, simply for having a close relative who was disabled and a wheelchair user. If I had been a disabled student at the time, I predict that I would have been in for an even rougher time at school.

The BBC Newsround report quotes the then-11-year-old child (James, of Halifax) saying:

"I was so shocked when I got a handwritten letter from the Chancellor.

He told me that having an artificial eye never stopped him from doing anything and has made absolutely no difference to him.

It made me feel very happy, I've never had a letter from someone that important before.

And it's made me think that I can achieve anything I want to in life.

My friends didn't believe I had received the letter - I actually had to show it to them before they believed me.

The Chancellor also invited me and family to Downing Street and the House of Commons.

I'm really excited about seeing the House of Commons, I've only ever seen it on TV before.

I'm really pleased my mum wrote to Gordon Brown and I'm glad he took the time to write to me.

Having an artificial eye doesn't mean I can't go on and achieve anything I want achieve."

The story's a few years old (2005), but for Gordon Brown to have taken time out to write to the child highlights that the Prime Minister does have a human side.

Along with this example and the life-changing (honestly, it's how I feel) conversation I had with One Vision, it shows that I can myself get my life back on track. It's just going to take time and plenty of rest.

Large print please, NatWest?

And so today to my local branch of Natwest Bank, where I ask the assistant what should be a simple request. In future, anything written from them is to be sent to me in LARGE PRINT please. I didn't want to confuse them by explaining my medical situation, using big words like "visually impaired" (bankers haven't always been the brightest in my experience, so using simple words is the way forward with speaking to them) and explaining the nitty-gritty and actualité of my poor vision and so forth, so I simply told her that I was almost blind in one eye. I need it in large print so I can actually read what they are sending me.

I'd clearly flummoxed her with what should be a simple request under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. I had expected her to click something on her screen to say change the format in future, but no. It's not that simple. It never is with NatWest.

The assistant wittered on for a few moments: "I'm not sure if we can do that; I'll need to make a phone call to see if that's even possible. I can't do that today, I'm not sure how we go about doing that. Can we do that? When is your next statement due? I can't tell that because our computer won't tell me. I'm going to be speaking to customers all day so I won't be able to do anything for you to sort this out today anyway, so I'll take your details and we'll call you about it later on in the week to see if it might be allowed."

I gave them a specific number for me to be called on. She gave me her business card. I pocketed it; I couldn't read it anyway if I tried. It's not the first time a call back has been promised by NitWits Bank, and they failed me in the past by not making the calls. I'm naturally not holding my breath, but why do I think I'm at the beginning of another saga to get anywhere with the customer services of this failed bank? I'll give them until Friday, then I'll go back in. If I hear anything in the meantime, I'll keep you informed. I'm keeping my fingers crossed....

Addendum: This NatWest page says they provide statements and general correspondence (although the lack of definition for the word "general" makes me suspect that they may use it as a get-out clause at some stage) in braille, large print, and on audiotape at no extra charge (oh thank God for that; they're not going to charge me extra for being a cyclops and wanting large print), so what the hell was the bank assistant wittering on about, needing to check if it was possible? It should have been sorted, without all the dithering to see if it's possible. Have the employees of NatWest had no disability awareness training? Never mind giving them until Friday; depending on how I feel (I get so tired so easily; I'm exhaused a lot and I'm spending a lot of time in bed), I'll be back there in much sooner, armed with a print out of that page from their own website.

Pope Benedict XVI is following me!

You know you've made it, when even "the fucking Pope" is following you on Twitter!

Here's a recent e-mail from my inbox:

Hi, Damon Lord (damonlord).

Pope Benedict XVI (thefuckingpope) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Pope Benedict XVI's profile here:
http://twitter.com/thefuckingpope


Best,
Twitter

Oh, I'm going to Hell for sure.

Addendum: Yes, to the person who e-mailed me, I know it's not really His Holiness, but rather a really cheeky imposter, who has a dark sense of humour. I'm surprised the Vatican hasn't reported this imposter and got the account suspended.

Happy π (Pi) Day!

π

Today is Pi Day! (hat-tip to Riemann's Cut for reminding me)

View the number itself (to four million decimal places) at http://zenwerx.com/pi.php

One Vision - useful advice on monocular vision problems at last!

Today I spoke with the lovely people at One Vision.

Who are they?

OneVision is the only UK registered charity dedicated to helping people through the various experiences of sight loss in (or removal of) one eye… and move on! (from their website)

I've lost vision in one eye as you'll know if you're a regular reader of this blog, and found that they are most helpful! It was great to finally talk to someone who understood, and identified that it's not just the physical aspects of my vision that are up the creek, but also the emotional and psychological aspects of my life that have naturally taken a major knock too. This aspect had been ignored, and by talking to the person at One Vision, it felt like a major boost and aid to resolving those non-physical issues too.

The difference between the advice from the RNIB (as reported previously on this blog) and One Vision in a nutshell was that although One Vision also said that I would have to get used to it, they were certainly not blunt and dismissive of me because I had one good eye; in fact very helpful, because they then quantified it with advice on how to move forward with my life.

I've now got some advice on how things may move forward with returning to work (I'll need to discuss this with work closer to the time, after I've spoke to medical professionals again). These were simple things that I hadn't automatically thought of, like maybe taking a different desk, so that my right side (my blind side) is maybe by or near a wall, and not near a corridor or main thoroughfare through the office, etc. Also I could try and sit in a particular place or certain way so that people, when approaching me, have to enter my field of vision on the left side so I can see them. And so on. Already it's helping at home, by me simply changing which chair I sit at, in the living room. By changing position so that my right eye is wall-side, I can actually see better what's going on in the living room generally now.

I was advised that if my vision is going to stay unimproved (as it certainly may seem), I will adapt, and things do usually settle down, but it can take a long time, or it can take a short time, for my body to accept that I should be running on one eye instead. It's difficult to say how long though at the moment.

There are somethings I can't do now, such as driving a bus or a lorry. I can't do those things anyway, as I can't drive, so I am not bothered, but I am still able (if I so wish) to learn to drive as I have one good eye, so that's something I may consider for the future. I hadn't even considered that, to be honest, as I had accepted that any potential future driving had automatically been negated. One of my eventual life-goals (learn to drive) has now been returned to me, just through a passing comment by One Vision!

It felt just good to talk to someone who wasn't dismissive of me with the comment "You've got one good eye". They didn't use words like that at all. And they actually understood what I was going through. Above all, I felt that the adviser summed it up with three words as to how to do things so that I can move on with my life.

• BIGGER
• BRIGHTER
• BOLDER

Make things bigger and bolder so I can see them, don't be afraid to ask for stuff in large print (or I can't see it) and seek plenty of bright light on things. Light helps by seeing things better, so I have a marginal chance of telling a bit better how far away they are. They are going to send me some information through the post too.

Finally I feel I have a chance to move forward. If you've come to this page looking for help coping with monocular vision, I recommend speaking with One Vision.

Thank you, One Vision.

The RNIB are no help

I honestly feel like giving up now. What am I to do? According to what I’ve been told, if the operation was successful I should have a pretty much full recovery from my retinal detachment in my right eye by the third to fourth week after the operation. It’s longer than that now, and I have still had no improvement in vision in my right eye in the month and a half since the operation, beyond that minimal amount previously noted. I want to get back to work as soon as possible, to get on with living my life with my impairment, but I have had no useful advice along the way. The RNIB were the one body I thought I could turn to, but as you’ll discover by reading on they were as much use to me as a chocolate fireguard.

Angie found an online leaflet about the problems I'm going through, entitled
Sight in one eye only (monocular vision) and people with learning disabilities, and although it's partly about learning disabilities (which I don't have), there's a lot in that leaflet which ticks all the boxes for what I'm going through. For example it says:

What visual problems does monocular vision cause?

* People usually find that monocular vision will affect:
* Three-dimensional vision - this will affect how objects are perceived
* All-round vision (peripheral visual field) - it is estimated that something like a fifth of the field of vision is lost
* A partial shadow over the vision caused by the nose (nasal quadrant loss)
* Visual acuity - there is a further effect in that people generally see better with both eyes together than with either eye separately (binocular summation).

What are the effects of these visual problems?

The problems that may be experienced by individuals include:

* balance trouble
* problems with finding the way (orientation)
* difficulties working out where things are in relation to one another (learned spatial awareness)
* bumping into objects
* bumping into people
* problems going up and down stairs
* difficulty with steps, kerbs, rocks, uneven ground and changes in floor level and escalators
* problems manoeuvring a wheelchair
* difficulties in using the eye to direct the hands (eye-hand co-ordination)
* difficulty with picking things up
* clumsiness
* difficulties with carrying out daily life tasks (like pouring water from a jug into a cup)
* overall problems with tasks that demand good near vision (visual acuity) - like reading, finding small objects
* problems with most sports
* overall problems with judging depth (depth perception)
* inability to see three dimensional images - things may seem ‘flat’
* problems judging distance at less than about three feet (just under a metre)
* problems judging speed, such as the oncoming traffic

I pretty much tick all the boxes for that above (but I don't use a wheelchair); it's not an easy ride for me at the moment.

I asked my GP for advice on moving on with my life, making preparations and adaptations to my life and work to return to work, but he said he couldn’t refer me to Social Services or anyone like that until after my next hospital appointment because the hospital I’m currently under would know better. From experience, they don’t, but he happily wrote a sick note to keep me off work until the end of March. Write another sicknote. That’s not going to be the answer for ever, medical practioners, particularly not for my bosses; I want to return to work, but you don’t seem to want to refer me to anyone who can advise returning to work.

Then on Thursday 12 March 2009, I finally plucked up the courage to reach out for help. It was difficult. By making that call, and going to the people who seem to have the reputation for being the numero uno of the visual problems world, it took a lot of courage. Every day I'm scared because of being without information, and being without full sight. I was scared holding the phone, I was like a little lost lamb asking for guidance from a shepherd. (Puke inducing image, isn’t it? All cute, etc. but true and accurate.) I thought I’d contact the people who would know about sight issues, the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB). Surely they’d have some advice for me? I phoned the RNIB helpline. I had been advised that I might look into getting registered as visually impaired, as it might open up possibilities to then maybe getting aids to correct the numerous problems I was encountering and see about getting some assessment to sort out going back to work. I think the person’s name at the advice desk was Sue, but it doesn’t matter now.

My confidence is currently low, and I’m quite emotional at the moment, but in summary I’m far worse after my conversation with the RNIB. I honest feel like I was wasting my time, as she made me feel like a fraud for asking for advice, because as she kept reiterating, I have one good eye. I do, but I also have one bad eye, and that’s pulling my binocular vision down. I’m getting conflicting advice too: Use both eyes, use one? Sue from the RNIB (without having read any of medical case notes or even getting to know my name; that’s just struck me as odd, that she didn’t even take any details from me, not even my name) recommends I go forward with my life with monocular vision. Use your good eye and close your bad eye. I'd presumably go on with life then by wearing an eye patch like some sort of pirate, or squinting out of one eye like a Peeping Tom at a keyhole. And where (if being monocular is the way forward) am I going to get an eye patch? I have been given no information so far.

It was not stated, but in her repeated questioning of me: “What do you expect to get out of talking to us?” she seemed from the way she led the conversation that I had no right asking the RNIB about registration as having a visual impairment. All the way through I have had sod all in the way of helpful advice from anyone. The only helpful advice I feel I got from Sue was that I should close my bad eye and (reading between the lines) walk around like Popeye the cartoon character. She did however give me a number for a similar organisation which I will attempt to contact today, but she advised that I was not likely to get help from Action to Work (who apparently could fund any necessary adaptations to my work-place) as my problem wouldn’t be likely to last twelve months (how she drew this conclusion, I don’t know), and I’d learn to live with it. That’s the advice from the RNIB then; it felt like she was saying: here’s another number, don’t bother us, close your bad eye and learn to live with it. At the end of the call, she clearly didn’t even know the half of my problem, she didn’t know the problems I didn’t really have chance to explain that there had been sod all in the recovery from retinal detachment.

I honestly feel like giving up now. I am filled with self-doubt, and self-loathing. What am I supposed to do? Nobody professional seems to want to advise on how I try and live my life, get back to work, what I need to adapt to going to work, living with unimproved sight, etc., apart from a few minutes at the local Blind association, as I mentioned previously. They're understandably limited in how they can advise me, and I'm truly grateful for their advice thus far. But I don't know what to do any more. I'm trying to move forward, but the RNIB has essentially told me I’m not entitled to any help, so my self-esteem is even lower, and I honestly would not recommend the RNIB’s advice number to anyone. Their website states it’s for all people with sight problems, but my dodgy eye apparently doesn’t count.

Perhaps it didn’t help in that I did not give a structured formal case report on my vision, but in my fragile state, along with anyone essentially in mourning at the loss of vision, I’m not exactly structured at the moment. Having had no useful information from anyone so far, I’m not exactly sure what advice I should be asking for or am entitled to at the moment. But if the experience with Sue is anything to go by, they’re not trained at the RNIB to extract information from people.

Maybe they indeed don’t help people with one working eye, maybe Sue was desperate to go home early (it was nearly 5pm I called, and the lines are supposed to be open until 6pm), but it doesn’t say anything like that on their website. I found nowhere on their site a notice saying "If you're a Cyclops, fuck off".

Hang on, a thought just struck me: if they aren't interested in people with one working eye and one dodgy eye like me, why did they react as if they did recently after Jeremy Clarkson’s comments about Prime Minister Gordon Brown being a one-eyed Scottish idiot (Gordon Brown by the way has the same eye problem as I have, namely a detached retina in one eye)? The RNIB rushed to defend Brown then. That's a bit hypocritical, isn't it? So what has Brown got that I haven’t? We’re both in essence one-eyed (I have a bit of distorted and blurred vision in the right eye as stated previously, but nothing useful). We both live in England. We're both from Celtic countries. And we’ll not comment on whether I’m an idiot or not, but Brown most certainly is. ;) See? I've still got a sense of humour. But even that resource is draining fast.

By the way, I won’t make a complaint to the RNIB about Sue. It would only punish other visually impaired people, as they pull phone-jockeys off the phones to investigate Sue’s unhelpfulness (presuming they have a pro-active complaints process), as she might not have an off-day the next time she’s in work and may actually have a sympathetic ear or might help somebody else.

Again, many many many thanks to my beloved fiancée Angie for helping me to type this.

Addendum (14 March 2009): On reflection, I may perhaps have been a little harsh on the RNIB, as the above text was written while I was still emotional. Unfortunately my impression of the RNIB is based on the actions of one employee/volunteer of theirs named Sue. She gave me a very negative impression of the organisation at a time in my life when a kind word or a sympathetic ear or even rephrasing the information she gave me in a more sympathetic way might have helped better, instead of making me feel like a phony. I'm sure all the work the RNIB does is good, but it is unfortunate that the only encounter I have had with them left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I now have the impression that it's not an organisation for just anyone with sight problems, but rather an exclusive organisation: despite their rallying round for the one-eyed Gordon Brown, a cyclops like me isn't allowed in the gates or allowed any advice. Should anyone else have dealings with the RNIB, I heartily wish you the best of luck.

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - The Saturdays: "Just Can't Get Enough"

It's Comic Relief on the telly tonight on the BBC, so it's time for a bit of music related to that. Here are The Saturdays, performing "Just Can't Get Enough".

And give to Comic Relief tonight.

POLITICS - Make your own Tory logo!

Here's a link to a page where you can make your own Tory logo, for the Conservatives, or for Conservative Future.

The immature side of me says a lot of fun can be had with this.... heheheh.

Let us consider, for example, the hard-working, blue-rosette wearing, Tory people of a small village in Yorkshire near Bradford....


Idle Conservatives.

What? I could have said a lot worse....

POLITICS - Bankers fast-tracked into teaching in 6 months

The plan is to fast-track those failed bankers who are now out of jobs into positions as maths teachers in just six months.

If they'd learned how to do their sums properly in the first place, we wouldn't be in this fucking financial shit.

Then again, I had a long chat with my bank manager last week. She said that with the economic climate as it is, henceforth she was going to focus on the big issues.

She sold me a copy outside the empty Woolworth's in town today.

I wish I could read braille

Let's get a bit more upbeat today after yesterday's blues, and have a laugh. I found this over at The Thunderdragon, so hat-tips, etc. to him.

Please ignore my earlier blogpost.

I was on a bit of a downer today. I'll try to be more upbeat next time. Promise.

Lack of depth of vision and my tired, crap life

I have two issues with my eyes at the moment, lack of clarity in my field of vision due to a major part of my right eye not giving any picture, as previously mentioned, and lack of depth. Today, I'll start by talking about lack of depth, and probably ramble on about other stuff later.

Some people just can't see (no pun intended) what I mean by lack of depth. I tell them, it registers, but then it doesn't register with them.

So today I'll try and help you understand how it is to live without depth in your sight.

Sit in front of a fish tank. Go to an aquarium to see sharks, or better, if you have a goldfish tank in your living room use that for the experiment we'll be doing today. You see that goldfish swimming about in there? You can't tell how far away he is from the glass, can you? Look at the side of the tank now. You can tell how far back he is from the front of the tank, but now you can't tell how far along, eh?

Looking at fish in a fish tank is a disconcerting thing, as you can't quite tell where they are, judge the distance from the glass, etc. You take the lid off, and look at the tank from above, and now you don't know how deep the fish is swimming about in the tank.

It's very much a one dimensional thing. And I suppose it's as close as an everyday person is going to get to seeing my problems with depth vision at the moment. Take the disorientation of not knowing precisely how far away the fishy is away from the glass, and apply it to your daily life. You're trying to cross the road, but is it safe to do so, as there's a car coming? That car, how far away is it? It's even worse at dusk and at night too.

When I went out wearing sunglasses, mine was a visible problem. People would have surmised that I was wearing sunglasses on a dark, cloudy day for a reason, and they were right. The only problems I really had were teenagers jumping in front of me swearing and shouting: "Mr fuckin'-blind Ninja!" and waving at my face and then running off when I walked by myself to the library to get audio-books. Now I don't wear sunglasses as the pupil on the right eye is no longer dilated, although it still is sometimes a bit bright. It's now an invisible problem that I have; to look at me, you wouldn't automatically know I currently have issues. but the problem is still there. If you're on the right hand side of me, I'll probably not be able to see you. Unless you're on the extreme left, I won't see you too clearly.

I've been told to wear my ordinary spectacles in the meantime, even though they're useless for my right eye. That probably might account for at least some of the pain and headaches I'm still getting, glasses with obviously the wrong prescription for the right eye. But I've been told to wait until the next hospital appointment before even considering changing my spectacles' prescription. Naturally I'll need an eye test. Vision Express do eye tests that take a photo of your retina. It's pricy, but I might opt for that to actually get a look into what's been going on in there.

Every day is difficult. I visited the local county association for the blind on Monday, and I learned more in ten minutes from them on how to live life than any medical professional has told me so far. (Yes, it's healing nicely, the medical professionals say; but if that's so, why have I had sod all in the way of vision return to me? And why have the medical professionals given me sod all in the way of advice on just coping with day to day things in the meantime?) Down at the local blind association, I bought a liquid level indicator thingy for putting on the edge of your tea cup. It buzzes when the water reaches a certain level, so you know to stop pouring. No more water all over the side in the kitchen. I still sometimes miss the cup, but not so often now.

They also told me something else, something simple that I wasn't necessarily aware of, but makes things a little easier. "What pen do you write with?" they said. I pulled a ball-point from my pocket. "Try this." they said. I bought a few Berol fine writing pens from them, the type I used in Junior school. The ink flows a bit thicker and clearer on the page, allowing me to actually start to try to see what I've written a bit better without laboriously resorting to the magnifying glass after each letter or word with a ball-point pen.

I'm fed up at home. I'd love to go back to work. I'd love to lead some sort of semblance of a normal life, but I am always exhausted. I don't know if I'm physically up to it due to being exhausted all the time, never mind my eye issues at the moment. I am knackered. I am tired all the time. My eyes get tired very easily. I physically am tired easily. I manage a couple of hours of TV a day, I lie down a bit, I check the e-mail once or twice a day with the screen enlarged, and Angie helps me out writing any blogposts or letters or e-mails that need doing. I get tired. I lie down, I get up, I make a sandwich (although cutting the cheese for a sandwich is a bit precarious, but I'm getting better at it, slowly). I get tired. I lie down. I watch the news, and rest for a bit after a visual overload on the TV (and it's not just Suzanne Virdee on BBC Midlands Today that causes the overload! Hehe. Angie says she'll kill me for writing this.) Sometimes I try to read a large print book, but can't manage more than a few pages over half an hour. And I used to be such a voracious reader.... I can't even do much in the way of my passion for creative writing. I get tired so easily.

I'm going for another lie down now....

Sonic and visual search engines

While I was lying in hospital during the long, dark night after my operation to try to restore my sight, I came up with a couple of ideas that intruiged me, revolving around the theme of impairments, particularly sensory, and how entrenched we are with certain ways of doing things. If I were technically minded, I would apply these ideas and make millions but instead I present them here.

I got to thinking, search engines are based on text only at the moment. You can search for pictures on the net through Google, but Google uses the words surrounding the image to find it; what comes up is not always what is needed.

So that means there are two means of input that are lacking: visual (image, not text) input and the other is sonic input.

With sonic input, for example, say I've got a song bugging me and I can't recognise it (that Leona Lewis song "Run" bugged me for ages, but in a nice way, because I couldn't identify it). If I could whistle a tune into a microphone on my computer and the search engine would identify what the tune is or suggest what it may be.

But watching an advertisement on telly, I've already been beaten to one of the ideas. The Shazam app on the iphone. Apparently you can hold your phone to the speakers (or whatever) and it will find the tune for you on iTunes or whatever Apple uses. Pretty good idea. It won't be long before something is rolled out across the web in a different way, making my idea a reality.

But images: my other idea is this: say I have an image of a beautiful scene or of a person, what if there was a way I could upload it to an image search engine an find out more about the image depicted?

Let's take a beautiful image:


I don't know where it is. I found this picture on the net, and thought that it would make a great desktop background. At the moment it's not suitable for that because of my eyesight issues, but it's a beautiful picture, isn't it? I would love to know where it is.

Using my theoretical visual search engine, I would upload this image and the results would come back: most likely to be like this existing image of A (96% match), 90% change of it being a picture of B, etc. but such a thing doesn't exist.

Similarly, let's say I find a picture of a person or celebrity, blowing kisses at the camera, and I wonder who it would be:


I put the photo or URL into our hypothetical visual search engine, and by bringing in the result, it tells me that it's most likely to be similar to pre-existing photos on the internet of Suzanne Virdee, the crackin' presenter of BBC Midlands Today.

There are already applications that do this for faces, but the results are extremely limited. Currently you upload a photo, the program compares it, and a person may look 80% like Ayn Rand and 70% like Boris Johnson, etc. But these databases contain limited results, containing only the celebrities who have been added to the database.

What I'm suggesting is that the search engine would trawl the entire web's worth of pictures and sounds, and find a closest match. It already occurs every time you click "Search" on Google, but that's with text as the search field. Why not images or sounds?

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - Rolf Harris: "Stairway to Heaven"

I had never heard the Led Zeppelin version. It appears Rolf Harris was also unaware of the Led Zeppelin original when he recorded it. It was only later I heard the Led Zeppelin version. I still prefer Rolf's cover.

POLITICS - Devolution means inequality in prescription charges in Wales and England

Naturally, with my ongoing eye problems, I am a user of medication. I pay £7.10 each time I visit the chemist. Next month, that's going up to £7.20. I'm a Welshman living in England, but I miss living in Wales, because prescribed medicines are free in Cymru.

I've been on sick pay because of my eye, which isn't a lot (no, I'm not discussing my finances in public beyond that). To be honest, it's not easy to make ends meet at the moment, which is why I welcome today's call by the British Medical Association (BMA) to abolish prescrition charges in England.

For a moment, for my finance's sake, I considered moving back to Wales and staying with a relative and registering with a doctor there in order to save a fair bit of money on the prescriptions, a sum which mounts up when you're not on much money at all. However, to do that would effectively be fraudulent, and I'm not a Labour Minister called Jacqui Smith, so won't be swindling the tax-payer with lies about where I live. I will be staying here in the West Midlands of England and paying for my medicinal needs.

The BBC writes: Public health minister Dawn Primarolo said: "For people who say, 'Make prescriptions free' - which I think is a point that we do need to discuss - they also have to say, 'OK, what don't we spend the £400m on in the health service?'"

My answer to her is this: ask your Welsh colleagues how they balance (or not) the books. Get some tips from them (although see the addendum at the end of this blogpost). Medicine is free west of Offa's Dyke. And Chanticleer covers the story from the Celtic side of the border.

When free prescriptions were introduced into Wales, I welcomed them cautiously, because of the potential problems of cost (which don't seem to have arisen, or have escaped my attention, apart from a mention of prescriptions for stuff that should be bought over the counter), and also cross-border inequality, with the English having to pay for medicine and the Welsh getting their pills, etc., free.

But the question remains: People in Wales already get their medicines for nowt, and Scotland and Northern Ireland are soon to get their medicines free, so why not the English? This is inequality through devolution. Am I discriminated against financially by my Government on health issues like prescription charges because I chose to move from Wales to England?

Addendum: It seems that it might not be such a good idea to ask the Welsh NHS how they balance the books. The issue is not medicine, but other medical provisions, namely wheelchairs. Funding appears to be the issue in a terrible state of affairs, where a disabled child (and many others) have been waiting twenty months for a wheelchair to be provided. One patient had waited for 51 months for a wheelchair.

LANGUAGE - Happy St. Piran's Day!

Today we wish a Happy St. Piran's Day to our Cornish cousins, who will be celebrating today Cornwall's patron saint's day.

I can't say Happy St. Piran's Day in Cornish, as I stopped learning Cornish a while ago. I may go back to it at some point in the future.

The five Liberal MPs for Cornwall have united in calling for St. Piran's Day to be made a Cornish public holiday. As one who believes that the UK doesn't have enough public holidays (and I want St. David's Day off in Wales, and St. George's Day in England!), I support this. Apparently, Penzance (Pensans in Kernewek Kemmyn spelling; God knows what the spelling is in other orthographies!) Town Council has given the day off to its workers this year.

I have not referred to this day as the national day of Cornwall, and will continue to take such an approach at the moment. There is no doubt that Cornwall has a unique identity amongst the English counties, but the issue of Cornish nationalism is one I've avoided addressing and will continue to do so until I research more on this issue and then draw some conclusions. It links in to perceptions of identity, and will make for an interesting study if I get round to it.

Do you see what I see?

As regular readers of the blog will be aware, I suffered a retinal detachment in my right eye at the beginning of February 2009, and subsequently had emergency surgery to try to restore it.

Last week I stopped some medication in my eye which kept the right eye's pupil dilated. Since then I've had things come back a bit clearer, but with greater clarity comes better understanding of what I can and can't see. And it's worrying me. I'll write more on that soon, but for now, I'm sharing some images so we'll be looking at exactly what I see.

You'll need to click on the images to get a better look. I've found an old photo I took of Newport Castle in 2007, and with Angie's help have edited it using the Paint program so you can get a butcher's at what I'm looking at. It's a pretty, ugly building, and I'm rather fond of the old ruin, but I'll write more about Newport castle another time.

Here's the normal image on the left, as seen with my left eye. And here's the right eye.

Vision has improved in the right eye over the last month, but not much. The grey band across the middle is where I have had vision restored, but it is distorted. You'll notice that there's a circle in the middle. That's where the macular (spelling?) was also detached. There is severe distortion in that area, but limited vision has returned. But because the centre is messed up, the main part of the 'clear' area is still like peering through fog. I can only see something absolutely clearly if I strain, and look down and to the right out of the corner of my eye, but I can't manage that for more than a second or two. The black is where I get nothing.

Over all I have slightly clearer vision, I have regained vision albeit not much in the area marked in grey, but generally it's still not good, and causing problems and worries. More on that next time I discuss health.

POLITICS - Brown to refer to Obama as "Messiah" in speech to US Congress today

Gordon Brown will today use a keynote speech to the US Congress to make a critical announcement on the nature of the relationship between the UK and the US President, after his meeting with President Barack Obama yesterday.

In a leaked e-mail from Prime Minister Brown to Matt Frei, the BBC's Washington correspondent, Brown advises that in light of "the close friendship between our two nations, I will make it law effective immediately that President Barack Obama will be referred to by his proper title in the United Kingdom. That title is Messiah. This title has been chosen as Obama really can save the world."

Matt Frei, who was to be the first journalist to break the story, has hailed this as a momentous day. "Ever since that cunt Bush left office, Americans have been waiting for confirmation that Obama is the Second Coming. Now that this has been confirmed, we can allay all fears of Obamageddon."

Gordon Brown is also to announce that anyone not found using Obama's new title will be detained under anti-terrorism laws: "The President of the United States, Barack Obama, or Messiah as we should now call him, is our friend, and a friend of the United Kingdom. There should be no public objection to this; if there is, we will use every legal means to enforce the new title, including anti-terrorism laws."

Political pundits are already betting that this is likely to prompt both David Davis MP and David Davies MP (both of the Conservatives, and of Ay-Up-North and Monmouthshire constituencies respectively) to probably make a speech in the UK Parliament, where they be described as "outspoken".

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has already responded to the comments, saying: "What the Prime Minister decides for us is not for us to know until he is ready to tell us. We'll be violating the offices of a Tory MP and arresting him later for buying rugby tickets on eBay; that's a far more news-worthy story. Why don't you just fuck off and cover a real news story like Tory sleaze such as that, and let the Prime Minister do his job?"

Apologies

My apologies to friends and bloggers for not entering into discourse with you all, as I understandably haven't been as active on the blogosphere as I would have liked. Even here I made the resolution in January to try to respond to commenters as much as possible on the blog, but understandably this hasn't happened. I will try to rectify this in due course.

New Blog deserving a link

The Right Student's co-author, Benny Austwick, has set up a new project: The Right Revue. It's only been going for a few hours, but already has the feel of the bastard child of the Sun and the Mirror newspapers' celebrity and gossip pages Bizarre and 3am respectively, spliced with Holy Moly and transplanted via an overdose of lavender chromatically into the Telegraph. Which (I hope) is going to be a good thing.

Ah, lovely Ben. I've never met him, but I should hope we've struck up a good relationship over the net. He'd got a future in media ahead of him, so the very best of luck.

I'm not sure why he links to this blog, as it's hardly in the same genre. I don't really do celebrity stories, film, etc. Over at my other blog is found writing, and on this blog I do politics, languages, and occasionally when I've had an overload of Theo Spark I'll be chauvinistic and put 'totty' (or rather, pictures of Myleene Klass) on the website too. Anyway, the link is welcome, Benny, and now reciprocated!

So a question to the regular readers of this blog... should I also start doing celebrity (etc.) stories on this blog too?

Happy St. David's Day!

To celebrate, here's a well known piece of Welsh music. I'm not going with the Welsh National anthem this year, I'm going with another sweet piece to celebrate Wales and Welsh culture: Myfanwy, as sung by the Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir.