Audio Description – Page 9

My Visual Impairment Aids & Gadgets

I use various things to assist me in my day-to-day life as a visually impaired person, just to make things easier or more accessible. It means I can be independent and do many things that normal people do. So in other words, I’m still leading a normal life, it’s just that I dcao some things a bit differently to people with regular sight.

Naturally my iPhone is a huge help these days, but I’ll talk about the features and apps I use there in a separate post. In the meantime, you can see a list of my apps here, with an older video about them that I’ll update when I do a new post.

So in this post and video I’m going to tell you about various other aids and gadgets that I use, and a few used by my mother as well, as she’s blind. I’m not affiliated with or sponsored by any companies mentioned here, and these are all my own opinions.

So I hope you find this post interesting. And let me know if there are any particular aids or gadgets that you use a lot, or if there’s anything you recommend I should check out.

Libby’s Eyes

For the visually impaired and other disabled people, the processes involved in claiming and retaining benefits and support can cause a lot of stress. Some are left feeling that their conditions and needs are not understood by those making the decisions. and by wider society in general for that matter. And there is some truth in that unfortunately. Although awareness is improving, there is still a lot of work to be done.

A new play called Libby’s Eyes is hoping to increase that awareness. It’s written by visually impaired playwright Amy Bethan Evans, and stars visually impaired actress Georgie Morrell as Libby. It’s not often at all that you see a disabled character played by a person with that disability, so that delighted and intrigued me when I heard about the production, as well as the overview of the story itself. So I went to see it on Thursday night with my friend Claire, and I wanted to give you my thoughts on it.

Peter Pan

This weekend I took my mother to see another theatre show – Peter Pan at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. It’s another venue we’d never been to before, and we loved the idea of watching a show in the outdoors. And, as usual, we had chosen an accessible performance that included a touch tour and audio description from the wonderful folks at VocalEyes. I’m pleased to say we had a lovely time, and the weather also behaved itself, so I thought I’d tell you about it.

The Wallace Collection

Last weekend I took my first ever visit to The Wallace Collection, which is a museum full of paintings, sculptures and furniture collected by multiple generations of the same family. When I was younger I had no idea this was just behind Oxford Street, and a lot of shoppers in that area have probably been blissfully unaware of its existence. Of course, even if I had known back then, I wouldn’t have been interested, as I was never into art as a child, and didn’t pay it much attention for a while as I got older.

However, since moving to London, I’ve been able to start exploring and developing an appreciation for artworks and visiting galleries, particularly thanks to guided tours and other interactive and accessible methods of exploring such spaces. As very much an art novice, I am enjoying learning about it and seeing some of the delights on offer. It’s like a fascinating new world, more so than I’d initially expected perhaps. So that was one reason I was looking forward to this visit.

This was also the third and final outing I was doing as part of a PhD study into museum accessibility for the visually impaired, being worked on by Rafie Cecilia. Our previous visits were at the Victoria & Albert Museum last year, and the Museum of London in February. I also met her again during the ultrahaptics testing at the V&A earlier this month, but that was for a different study. It’s always a pleasure meeting her, and it’s wonderful that she’s putting so much time and effort into this work, to support people like myself who find it harder to explore museums compared to normally sighted people. And now she and her colleague Maryam Bandukda have set up the Disability Innovation Research Society, bringing together researchers to discuss disability innovation and accessible technology, which is great. So I was glad to be meeting Rafie again.

And talking of accessibility, that sounded really good in this museum as well, with the website stating that they had an audio guide for the visually impaired, plus Rafie had recommended a special app I could use to find out more about the artworks. So that was another big reason for me to go. I’d heard very good things about the Wallace Collection, and getting information about the various exhibits sounded like it would be pretty easy. So now I want to tell you how it all went.

Something In The Air At The V&A

Earlier this month I made another visit to the Victoria & Albert Museum. The first time I went there last year was with a lady called Rafie Cecilia, to see how accessible it was as a visually impaired person for her PhD study. And this time I met her at the museum again, but this time it was for a focus group accessibility study organised by some of her colleagues from University College London (UCL), and there were 3 other participants as well as me. The ladies from UCL (Lydia Porter, Jessica Andrich & Nicola Flüchter) were running a few of these sessions over a couple of days, and this one had sounded very intriguing to me. Quite literally ‘sounded’ in fact, given that it involved some clever use of ultrasound!

Motown The Musical

Although I was born in the early 80’s, I grew up with a lot of 60’s music, because my parents enjoyed it and so had plenty of it in the house. So I’ve always enjoyed listening to tracks from that era, including the hits of Motown. So many amazing and timeless artists and songs have come out of the Motown movement, that people still enjoy today, and that still influences many musicians today.

So it’s only right and fitting that we now have Motown The Musical to celebrate it, and I got to see it this week at the Shaftesbury Theatre, with my friends at East London Vision, for an accessible performance organised by those wonderful folks at VocalEyes. So I hope you enjoy this review of my experience!

Companions, Cuisine, Cinema & Comedy

This has been a fun week, because I got to spend time with some good friends who were visiting London for a few days, one of whom was celebrating their 30th birthday. They packed plenty in to their short break, having planned things out very well beforehand, and they really enjoyed themselves. I didn’t get to spend quite as much time with them as I was hoping to, but I did meet up with them on each of the 3 days they were here. So I thought I’d tell you about it, as we did a variety of fun things!

Wicked

Just because I said I enjoyed Winter at the Young Vic and looking at the snow recently, it doesn’t mean I want the winter season itself to continue! We’re halfway through March now, so you’d think the spring might make a bit of an effort. But no, we had a bit more snow today, with more due tomorrow! When I’d heard this on the weather during the week, I was worried that it might stop me from going out today. But thankfully it didn’t. What little snow fell in London failed to settle, much to my relief!

So that was great, because today I was able to tick off another big production from my theatre wishlist – Wicked. It’s had loads of awards and gets loads of great reviews, and I already knew a couple of songs from it, so I was really keen to see it. And when the opportunity to book tickets with a touch tour and audio description came up a little while back, I gladly went for it. So I went this afternoon, and in this post I’ll tell you what I thought!

February 2018 Favourites

Well, what a way to start a new month, with snow all over the place! Winter has seemed very reluctant to let Spring take over, but hopefully things will warm up in the coming weeks now.

And the cold weather didn’t stopped February from being an eventful month. Following on from my January 2018 Favourites, it’s now time to look through what I’ve been enjoying in February. And even though it’s the shortest month, I seem to have packed quite a bit in! So I hope you enjoy this post and video for February.

Rare Disease Day Photo Challenge

Update (March 1st) – I won the challenge, much to my surprise! Thank you so much to Rare Disease UK! It was great fun being involved, because I loved the theme of the campaign, and I really enjoyed seeing other people’s photos. So very well done to all involved. We can all be proud of our efforts to raise awareness during the month! 🙂

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Happy Rare Disease Day! 🙂

Today is a wonderful international opportunity to raise awareness of rare diseases, conditions, disabilities, etc, to educate people and highlight the need for greater funding and research. Here in the UK, it’s led by Rare Disease UK. But there are events taking place worldwide, so there will be related organisations in many countries.

1 in 17 people have a rare disease, meaning it’s a lot more common than you might think. So even if you don’t have one yourself, chances are you know somebody who does. And if you do have a rare condition, you’re certainly not alone.

There are over 6,000 rare diseases, affecting over 300 million people worldwide (including 30 million in Europe). That’s a huge number! So this is a day for all of us unusual rarities to get together, along with anyone and everyone who supports us and the cause in any way.

This year, the theme is “Show your rare, show you care”, and everyone can get involved, regardless of whether or they you have a rare disease. So that includes patients, families, carers, medical professionals, policy makers and members of the public.

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