Author Archives: DeafFirefly

About DeafFirefly

I am a Deaf poet working with British Sign Language and English. Working with such different languages has inspired a deep interest in translation and how my work can be made accessible to signing and non-signing audiences. I have performed around the UK including at the Barbican, Southbank Centre and the Albert Hall, as well as in America and Brazil. Several of my poems have been published, most recently in Stairs and Whispers, an anthology by deaf and disabled poets and issue 69 of Magma magazine. My poems cover many themes, from bilingualism to identity, to my beloved cats.

Doctor Who, subtitles, and Elisabeth Sladen

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I love Doctor Who, and like many who have any passing association with this creative, ingenious, deservedly long-running programme, I was shocked and saddened by the news of the passing of Elisabeth Sladen, an amazingly talented actress who brought one of my favourite Doctor Who characters ever to life.

The truth is; I would never have got into Doctor Who without subtitles. Deaf as I am, sentences such as “I’m doing a fold-back on the temporal isometry” and “We’re jumping time tracks in the slipstream!” would have entirely passed me by. And just how do you lip-read a Dalek? Or a Cyberman, for that matter?

Without the subtitles to hook me in, I would never have been bemused by a box that seemed to be bigger on the inside, seen Jon Pertwee vault a table, cloak flying, or seen Tom Baker with his floppy hat, incredibly long scarf and mad grin being chased by (dare I say it, slightly unconvincing) floating sentinels, or seen Sarah Jane Smith rescue the Doctor before promptly declaring that “This isn’t a rescue, it’s a capture!” and having him dragged off by a bunch of locals.

I must have been about eight or nine when I saw those BBC repeats in the early nineties, and whilst those early memories of Doctor Who are hazy, I was hooked. When the new series began, I was all aquiver, and became a hopeless Doctor Who fan once again, having been briefly distracted by Stargate, Farscape and Buffy, and soon discovered the DVDs on Amazon – and everything came with subtitles as standard! I won’t disclose how many Doctor Who DVDs I have now, let’s just say it’s a few.

When Sarah Jane Smith’s return to Doctor Who was announced, I was thrilled that a character who represented some happy childhood memories would be in my favourite show, and I was not disappointed. She argued, fought and ran like she’d never left, but managed a few tender moments in between telling off the Doctor for being such a thoughtless bastard (not a direct quote) and a great catfight with Rose. Elisabeth Sladen played it all perfectly.

She thoroughly deserved her own show, and yes I watched it, and yes I enjoyed reliving some of my childhood with it. I loved seeing “Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, at your service” in it, and Nicholas Courtney (“Chap with the wings there – five rounds, rapid!”) is another sad loss. I have no idea what’s going to happen now, but one thing is for sure – Sarah Jane Smith will not be forgotten.

I’m glad that subtitles gave me the opportunity to appreciate the show and characters as much as anyone else. Elisabeth Sladen, I salute you, and my thoughts go out to all those who knew you.

Adventures in Audiology

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A friend of mine was due to attend an audiology appointment. On arriving, she discovered that she had been branded a ‘troublemaker’ for making some comments on her last visit, and for asking the audiologist questions about how much they knew about the deaf community. As predicted, she had a great time arguing with the nurses over the audiology department’s access for deaf people. As amusing as reading her facebook updates were, it put me in mind of some of my own previous adventures…

I arrive at audiology reception. the receptionist barely looks at me, and addresses the computer. Eventually, I remind her that I’m deaf and I have to lipread. She looks at me blankly as if seeing me for the first time and asks me to take a seat.

A young, fresh-out-of-the-stables audiologist has to take a mould of my ear for a new earmould. The process basically involves putting a small sponge on a thread in my ear, right next to the eardrum, and filling my ear with putty. The polite thing to do with the sponge is push it gently down the ear canal with the little ear torch thing, in one smooth flowing movement, stopping when it meets slight resistance – the eardrum. The thread is then arranged just so and the putty stuffed in. What does this one do? She jabs the sponge in, millimetre by millimetre like a little woodpecker – jabjabjabjab and just as I’m about to mention that I think she’s getting near the end and could she take it easy, she suddenly, apparently thinking she’s clearly not doing this fast enough, does a slightly bigger jab – and hits the eardrum. Owwwwwww! For the love of…

And last, but certainly not least, I’m at the audiology drop-in to have a problem with my hearing-aid sorted out. I’m sitting telling the nurse how the hearing-aid is misbehaving, and I’m not sure if it’s me or the hearing-aid. She says ‘All right then, let’s have a look’ and just like that, reaches out and tries to grab my hearing-aid off my ear.

I jerk back in surprise, but too late, she’s already got a grip on it, and ends up pulling the hearing-aid and tubing off, leaving her holding a whistling, protesting hearing-aid and me with the earmould still in my ear. I looked at her in shock for a moment, and she actually seemed surprised at my reaction. I calmly explained that usually, people let me take own hearing-aids off and “seriously, it’s like taking someone’s glasses off”. I’m not sure she really understood the severity of what she’d just done, but accepted that I hadn’t liked it, for whatever reason. The reason is this – those hearing-aids are mine. They’re as much a part of my personal space as my glasses. If you want to look at the damn things, ask me first, and I’ll take them off. Simple as. DON’T GRAB THEM!

This is just a small sample of my experiences with audiology departments, and frankly I think I’m going to have to stop here ’cause I’m getting flashbacks.

Do they not train these people?

A world without phones…

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An impossible dream perhaps, but who said dreams had to be achievable? I’ll tell you my impossible dream – a world in which phones are NOT the only method of communication.

In this world, box offices have email addresses that actually reply within say, five days. Ditto support services, government departments, businesses and individuals – everyone, in fact, should offer a viable alternative to the ever-present telephone number. Be it email, text, fax, skywriting co-ordinates, I don’t care.

I had thought that with the advent of emails, broadband, and messenger, the hearing might begin to relinquish their dependence on the landline. Apparently not. Odd really, when you consider that 9 million people in the UK have some form of deafness or hearing loss, that this situation has been put up with for so long.

All these businesses / companies / theatres / depts are missing a trick – sort it out, people! In the meantime, I shall continue to dream. And in case dreaming doesn’t work, I shall continue to send peevish, cajoling and in some cases just plain complaining emails to those I see as the worst offenders. Sometimes the world needs a little encouragement to change.

Now if only they’d reply to their emails…

Ahead of the game – for once!

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Last weekend, I popped up to Preston to attend the leaving do of a former lecturer, and it was great to catch up with faces I haven’t seen in years. Preston seems like it’s hardly changed at all, and I daresay I could still find most of my student haunts (read: pubs and nightclubs) without too much difficulty. Eventually though, it had to end, and I found myself on a train back to Bristol.

Let me give a little background detail here; whilst I regularly use trains to get about, they’re far from perfect. Announcements over the tannoy are incomprehensible, and leave me reliant on random members of the public. Ticket inspectors may or may not be deaf aware, and methods used to attract my attention have included tapping my newspaper, clicking fingers and waving a hand in front of my face. As my legs get less reliable, so I’m finding train stations less and less accessible, with lifts often to be found half a mile down the platform. And so it is, that I reserve a special place in my heart for Birmingham New Street.

Ahem. So I’m going home to Bristol, a journey that requires me to change trains at Birmingham New Street, a prospect I didn’t relish. But then – a problem. We sat, unmoving, outside B’ham for 30 minutes before an announcement was made that (according to the man two seats away) there was a fire on the tracks and we would be delayed. Would we really? 10 minutes later, a further announcement that (according to the nice young man opposite me) we would be going back to Wolverhampton for alternative transport. Not great news, but at least I was keeping up, and the other passengers were equally as lost. At Wolverhampton, we were all herded onto a different train and sent back to B’ham. So far , so good.

At B’ham, I got off the train and immediately homed in on the nearest departure screen – thank you B’ham upgraders who put departure boards on EVERY PLATFORM, bless you – which indicated that the next train to Bristol was leaving from the platform I’d just disembarked onto in ten minutes. However, the train I had come in on, which was itself horribly delayed, showed no signs of leaving. So I patiently waited for the screen to change, which it did, sending me to platform 4. However, it appears that an audio announcement wasn’t made at the same time, meaning that as I turned on my heel to march to the correct platform immediately, the hearing were still a little behind me. In fact, I was able to get on the train, pick a seat and settle myself before a small horde of hearing people swamped the train.

Speaking as the one who is usually left behind as an entire platform walks away, the one who has to try and find someone easy to lipread to find out what is going on, or throw myself on the mercy of station staff, as the one who is usually last to receive any useful information, it was wonderful – just this once – to be ahead of the game.

NHS Appointnent lines – Patient choice?

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I have been referred to a consultant based at a hospital in Bristol. Cue the merry-go-round. I received a letter informing me that I should call a number to arrange a ‘mutually convenient time’ for the appointment, but that if I failed to call, I would be taken off the list. So I called. And called. And called. Every time I got a message saying that I should leave my name, number and patient ID and they would call me back. I’m deaf. I’m using text term on my computer just to place this call. I’ve no idea how to receive calls on this thing, or even if it can. Just pick up the phone, damn you. In the end, it took five days and several calls at various times of the day before I finally reached a real person. We arranged a time. Friday 10th September. Fine.

A few days later, I receive a letter saying that they have had to change the appointment time, and it is now on Thursday 9th Sept. What was the point of all that, then?

I HATE THE NHS APPOINTMENTS SYSTEM. Just send me a letter and I’ll let you know if it’s not convenient. What was wrong with that system? Why make it so complicated and un-deaf-friendly? If this was done in the name of patient convenience then I’m sorry to say…

You’ve failed.

Liz Carr, London Pride and Signing Ticket Inspectors

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Oof – an interesting couple of days has seen me attend a BSL interpreted performance of Liz Carr’s “It Hasn’t Happened Yet” at the Tobacco Factory, watch a play by Deafinitely Theatre, check out the main stage at London Pride in Trafalgar Square and be pleasantly surprised by a deaf-aware ticket inspector.

On Friday night, I got myself down to the Tobacco Factory, expecting that there would be a decent audience for a comedienne of reasonable fame; indeed Wikipedia describes her as “a British actor, stand-up comedian, television presenter and international disability rights activist”. I was surprised at the low turnout, but those of us who were in the audience enjoyed the show, and it was lovely to have another BSL-accessible performance so soon after Caroline Parker’s / Graeae’s “Signs of a Diva”, held in the same venue a few months ago. I see a bright future for the Tobacco Factory. Whilst it’s true that some of the humour was ‘lost in translation’ – plays on words for example – the show was signed with verve and good timing by the interpreter, who was at one point incorporated into the routine himself. I could identify with having an inner ‘evil’ voice making sarcastic comments and inappropriate outbursts whilst dealing with life, and some comments regarding the mechanics of disabled sex added some spice to the evening. It was just a pity the lighting technician kept dimming the light on the interpreter, making it at times hard to follow, but this is something can easily be improved, and my hope is that as the Tobacco Factory puts on more BSL accessible shows, they’ll get better at it.

Saturday saw me travel to London for a day out at the theatre and London Pride. Deafinitely Theatre’s new children’s play, “The Boy and the Statue” was visual, funny and enjoyable, and I enjoyed chatting to the actors after the show – I’ve known one of them since Uni and haven’t seen him in ages, it was very cool to see him performing in his first full-length play.

London Pride was amazing! Beautiful weather, loads of people, roads clear of traffic – but not of rubbish, despite the best efforts of roaming roadsweepers – lots of colour and a great atmosphere made for a great Pride event, and even better – they had BSL interpreters on the main stage with the performers! They even had their own little corner on the big screen, they’d even set up a little blue screen on stage that the interpreters could stand in front of, so they showed up better. Brilliant. I don’t know who was in charge of organising the interpreters, but kudos to them – and to the interpreters of course, who were signing everything from dance to rap to bitchy drag acts. Wonderful. More, please. Pride events, take note.

All in all, a pretty good day, but it was topped off by an unexpected delight – a ticket inspector on the train who waved a hand to get my attention, signed ‘hello’ and then signed ‘thank you’ after I produced my ticket. Wow! I can honestly say I think this is the first time this has ever happened in all my years of travelling via train, and I can only hope this is the start of a trend. Train companies take heed – start teaching your staff to sign and they might just make a deaf person’s day.

World Cup Subtitles are here!

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I enjoy the world cup, and not just for the football – the weird and wacky live subtitles as they try to keep up with the commentary and cope with all the wonderful and interesting names provide almost as much, if not more, entertainment. I remember fondly the frequent mistakes of four years ago, as my mother and I laughed at the subtitler’s efforts – whilst being grateful that at least they were trying. Milosevic, for example, became Miles of itch, while the Czech, Japanese and South Korean teams provided much amusement.

We’re only a couple of days in, and I must say I’m impressed at the accuracy of the names thus far, the occasional blip notwithstanding, clearly someone’s invested in a better program or something to deal with them, but sentences are still refreshingly and entertainingly random. Sensible commentary has been interspersed with phrases such as:

They’re not playing with any urgency whats the weather

The covering defender of was birth

Intercepted by Castlerock Otto (Assou Ekotto, Cameroon)

Okuba is filed.

Foul by Matip on a Hannah

To name a just a few, but overall I must say the subtitles have been pretty good. It’s good that they’ve improved, but a little disappointing that we probably won’t return to the hilarity of the 1990 or 1994 efforts. Still, kudos to better subtitles!

Signs of a Diva

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What a brilliant show.

Signs of a Diva came to the Tobacco Factory, and Caro Parker played the lead – and only – role wonderfully, belting out classic power ballads one minute and taking us on her character’s journey to stardom and heartbreak the next. The captions were perfectly positioned above and centre of the stage, but they didn’t get in the way of the songs or the performance. They were clear, the timing was inch-perfect as the captions kept up with the monologue / lyrics, and the play itself was performed in both speech and sign language.

I’ve honestly never seen a more accessible piece of theatre – and as a bonus it was hugely enjoyable as well. Several songs have now been added to my iTunes list thanks to this show, though that can never compare with seeing them performed live by a talented and passionate performer. Long live Signs of a Diva!

Captioned Theatre at the Bristol Old Vic

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Last weekend, I had the fortune to go to the Bristol Old Vic’s first captioned performance, ‘Juliet and her Romeo’, which was basically a reworking of Romeo and Juliet with old people in the title roles and the younger members of the families raising objections, all set in a nursing home.

It was an interesting take on a Shakespearean classic, and I’ll admit it here – I sniffled at the final scenes of ‘Romeo + Juliet’ with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. After the play though, my eyes were watering for a different reason – watching the captions as the actors spouted line after line of Shakespearean dialogue, of which – this being Shakespeare – there was a lot.

Whilst it was great to able to enjoy a play here in Bristol, where captioning in theatres hasn’t really taken off yet, I got a crick in my neck from turning to look at the captions and a headache from all the speed-reading. Not to mention flicking my eyes between the captions (off-stage right) and the action, which felt slightly like watching two different things at once, so split was my attention.

Having said all that, it was a good play, with good actors, and some funny one-liners – the script was tweaked here and there to adjust to the change of scene from 16th century verona to modern-day geriatric antics. All of the actors were good, but I liked Juliet and the nurse. Romeo killing Tybalt was a bit drawn-out, what with the change of weapon from a dagger to a pillow, and the part where Romeo learns of Juliet’s ‘death’, rants at the unfairness of it all and rushes to her side was glossed over with some on-the-spot jogging from the elderly lead that impressed me with his levels of fitness. The acting was good, the actor’s memories incredible, and it was interesting to approach the classic doomed love affair from a completely different angle.

I merely have some suggestions for improvement – moving the caption screen to just below the stage a la TV subtitles style and making the screen longer so your eyes aren’t constantly snapping back and forth reading the lines. Apart from that, jolly good show from the Old Vic, and here’s hoping that having done it for the first time and discovered that it didn’t cause anything to blow up, and indeed that they sold out the audience, a significant percentage of whom were wearing hearing-aids, they’ll do it again. And again. In fact here’s to many more captioned plays at the Bristol Old Vic!

A reflection on ‘SO unfair’

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I have now had some time to reflect on why I was so deeply irritated by the lack of subtitles on the DVD release of Sanctuary Season 1.

One of things that gave me pause for thought was someone who, when I posted a status update on facebook expressing my annoyance, asked me why I hadn’t simply checked to see if there were subtitles before buying it. Such an obvious question.

Why didn’t I? The answer is; I assumed.

I assumed that in 2010, a DVD box set of a popular-ish sci-fi show, produced in a rich country, would come with subtitles. A few years ago I would never have made this assumption and would have suspiciously scrutinised every potential DVD purchase to confirm the presence of subtitles before handing over my cash. But years of nearly always finding subtitles on DVDs has made me lazy.

I assumed wrong. This is, if anything, a timely reminder that access for the deaf is not yet universal. Take online tv streaming for example. iPlayer is wonderful, with subtitles on most programmes, yet it has its failings, for example on The Bubble and Mock the Week, they seem to be insisting on using ‘live’ subtitles for recorded shows, which are 30 seconds late, mis-spelt and so annoying that I don’t have the patience to persevere. But they’re still easily outperforming the other channels – I’ve yet to get the 4oD subtitles to work and ITV and 5 don’t seem to bother at all.

One needs to remain on one’s toes and keep complaining if one is to get anywhere. With this in mind, I have emailed both the UK and Canadian distributors (thanks to Kaylee for the info) of the Sanctuary DVDs expressing my disappointment and asking if there are any subtitled region 2 DVDs out there (sadly the one in Australia turned not to have subtitles after all – thanks to the seller for such a prompt response) and I look forward to their replies.

Post Script – distributors never did get back to me.

Don’t forget to check your DVDs for subtitles!