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Grumpy Old Deafies
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Parliament: Deaf Telephone Access to the Home Office
Posted: March 27th, 2008, 10:48am UTC
Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what provision is made for deaf people to access services provided by her Department through call centres. Liam Byrne (Minister of State, Home Office) The Home Office provides textphone facilities in all of its contact centres. The numbers are: Central Home Office: Textphone 020 7035 4742. Border Immigration Agency: Textphone 0800 389 8289. Identity and Passport Service: Textphone 0870 240 8090. Typetalk is also available through the 24-hour Passport Adviceline 0870 521 0410 Criminal Records Bureau: Textphone 0870 909 0811. Comment: Hello deaf organisations! This is called pissing about and time wasting. There's way too much serious work ... -
Parliament: Deaf Telephone Access to the Department of Works & Pensions
Posted: March 27th, 2008, 10:26am UTC
Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what provision is made for deaf people to access services provided by his Department through call centres. Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions) Deaf people can use the typetalk service or our separate textphone numbers to access all our call centres. Comment: Again, what is the deal with all these parliamentary questions on how to contact various departments by telephone. Does it actually necessitate a parliamentary question for this subject? Any random person can go use Typetalk now to phone up, and really doesn't need this amount of political work! There's plenty of other things deaf organisations could be doing ... -
Channel 4 Balls of Steel: Deaf TV with Miss Lee & Mark Nelson
Posted: March 26th, 2008, 5:34pm UTC
Last Friday Mark Nelson appeared on Channel 4's Balls of Steel: Don't watch it if you're easily offended! A transcript appears in the extended entry of this post, with thanks to Claire from Team HaDo.... -
Parliament: Attitudes within the House of Lords
Posted: March 25th, 2008, 7:33pm UTC
Parliament is a good place to weed out attitudes of our legislators, via the language used. Within a debate on Families, Community Cohesion and Social Action a speech from Baroness Platt of Writtle (Conservative), in the House of Lords stated: Macmillan nurses and Samaritans are wonderful too, as are the organisations specialising in care for the blind, the deaf and the arthritic. As many noble Lords have said, how lucky we are in our country to have the loving work of all those people. Okay! So those who are specialising in the care of the deaf, are wonderful and provide very loving work! For all of you working for deaf organisations, Baroness Platt says thank ... -
Parliament: Deaf Telephone Access to the HM Treasury
Posted: March 23rd, 2008, 1:05am UTC
Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour) To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what provision is made for deaf people to access services provided by his Department through call centres. Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury) HM Treasury does not provide services through call centres. Comment: So HM Treasury doesn't speak to hearing people on the phone! Tax man doesn't use the telephone is a difficult one to believe. What about deaf employees, or aren't there any? Besides, what's with all these call centre questions in parliament? Is the rnid doing some indirect marketing or what?! Source: Hansard They Work For You See also: Parliament: Contacting the Department of Transport Parliament: ... -
Parliament: Deaf Telephone Access to the Department of Health
Posted: March 23rd, 2008, 12:59am UTC
Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Health what provision is made for deaf people to access services provided by his Department through call centres. Ben Bradshaw (Minister of State, Department of Health) The Department has a single public facing call centre. This has a textphone and accepts calls made using Typetalk. Source: Hansard They Work For You See also: Parliament: Contacting the Department of Transport... -
Parliament: Contacting the Department of Transport
Posted: March 22nd, 2008, 6:27pm UTC
Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what provision is made for deaf people to access services provided by her Department through call centres. Jim Fitzpatrick (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport) The Department for Transport and its agencies are very conscious of the need to provide a high level of service to all customers, including those with hearing disabilities. As a result, all call centres are able to communicate by phone with hearing impaired customers using text-based systems. Comment: this is a bog standard response from the government, and doesn't address the concern behind this question. The government would inevitably have sought advice from the rnid, which (a) is a predominately hearing run ... -
Parliament: Bus Services, Disabled
Posted: March 21st, 2008, 6:15pm UTC
Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South, Liberal Democrat) To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to the answer of 6 March 2008, Official Report, column 2753W, on concessions: mentally ill, what the evidential basis is for determining which groups of disabled people should be entitled to concessionary bus fares. Rosie Winterton (Minister of State, Department for Transport) The Transport Act 2000 (or for those resident in London, the Greater London Authority Act 1999) set out the eligibility criteria for statutory concessionary bus travel, covering any person who: is blind or partially sighted; is profoundly or severely deaf; is without speech; has a disability, or has suffered an injury, which has a substantial and ... -
Parliament: Environment Food and Rural Affairs, Deparmental Equality
Posted: March 20th, 2008, 10:53am UTC
Roger Berry (Kingswood, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what conclusions his Department has reached in fulfilment of the duty under section 3.111 of the statutory code of practice of the disability equality duty. Jonathan R Shaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Marine, Landscape and Rural Affairs) and Minister for the South East), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) DEFRA was one of the Government Departments that was criticised by the Disability Rights Commission in 2007 for failing to produce an effective Disability Equality Scheme. Rather than trying to improve and strengthen the disability aspects of our Joint Equality Scheme, DEFRA took the opportunity to produce a more focused and effective single ... -
Parliament: Bus Services Concessions (2)
Posted: March 19th, 2008, 6:52pm UTC
Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South, Liberal Democrat) To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to the answer of 6 March 2008, Official Report, column 2753W, on concessions: mentally ill, if she will make it her policy to hold a consultation on broadening the scope of the eligibility criteria for statutory concessionary bus fares. Rosie Winterton (Minister of State, Department for Transport) The Transport Act 2000 (or for those resident in London, the Greater London Authority Act 1999) make provision for concessionary travel to a wide range of disabled people. Categories of disability were drawn up following representation from local government and support from the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. The people eligible are as ... -
The 5th anniversary of apathy BSL recognition
Posted: March 18th, 2008, 9:23am UTC
Yep, five years ago today, the Government announced that it recognised BSL as an official British language. Whoopee-do! A few months later, we had another (pre-planned) march through London to push for a BSL Act. This banner was there: And on the back, it wisely said... Did we? Umm, no. I've said it before and I'll say it again - we British Deaf NEED to get off our arses and do something useful without squabbling or saying "oh, he's doing it, you don't need me." We do need you. More than ever before! And on a final note - one final question - do you think anyone would ever ... -
b3ta: Car logos for the deaf
Posted: March 17th, 2008, 10:01pm UTC
b3ta.com, a time wasting Friday afternoon site, recently published on its boards "Car logos for the deaf" Petrolheads, how many do you recognise? via JK - thanks!... -
Parliament: Bus Services Concessions
Posted: March 17th, 2008, 3:57pm UTC
Deaf people in the UK are generally entitled to a free bus pass. In April, those living in England will be entitled to travel throughout England for free. Recently a question came up in parliament, in relation to mental health but the answer touched on the legal criteria for bus passes (which includes deaf people): Bob Laxton (Derby North, Labour): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations she has received on the withdrawal of concessionary bus fares for people with mental health problems as a result of the introduction of the national concessionary bus travel scheme in (a) Derbyshire and (b) other areas; and if she will make a statement. Rosie Winterton ... -
Parliament: Departmental Translation Services
Posted: March 16th, 2008, 4:48pm UTC
Recently there was a parliamentary question on the proportion of translation services contracted out to commercial providers: Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative) To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of his Department's translation and interpreting work is outsourced through framework agreements with commercial providers; and if he will make a statement. Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions) Under the Race Relations Amendment Act (2000) and the Disability Discrimination Act (1995), the Department has a responsibility to make appropriate provision to communicate with customers who do not speak English or Welsh, or who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, or who provide the Department, at our request, legal or official documents ... -
Wanted: your videos please!
Posted: March 14th, 2008, 8:24am UTC
Does anyone have any digital videos of any of the BSL marches or roadblocks that they wouldn't mind me using for an art project? If you have any footage - I just need a short clip - that you can send to me on CD, or preferably via email or filesend, I would be very grateful. Comment below or email me at tips@grumpyoldeafies.com. Cheers! Jen... -
KFC SAVES "the hearing impaired"!
Posted: March 13th, 2008, 10:58am UTC
Wow. According to this article, KFC have bowed to their "social responsibility" and started to give "hearing impaired" people jobs. So if you too want to be specially trained how to lipread difficult things like "Toasted Twister" and "Zinger Burger", now's your chance! Get yourself down to KFC and they will help you. But, DON'T WORRY. They also employ "normal people" too, just to make sure vegetarians aren't served meat and stuff like that. Phew. - Jen... -
Muslims in a Deaf World
Posted: March 13th, 2008, 12:17am UTC
There's a film on YouTube which focuses on Raza, a Deaf Muslim who asks questions about living as a Deaf Muslim in the UK. My first language is British Sign Language but really I have three languages. First BSL, second English, and third Urdu, my family language. [snip] I feel strongly that being a Muslim has an effect on deaf people, being based on a background which is influenced by different cultures and based on languages which are difficult to access. Another reason being that at the mosque there is no access, beacuse there are no interpreters. This means that it is difficult for deaf people to get knowledge about their faith and identity with their religion. The film also ... -
Horseradish Fire Alarm for Deafies
Posted: March 12th, 2008, 12:11am UTC
Throw away your vibrating fire alarm, a new Horseradish Fire Alarm has been developed for deafies! Yes it sprays a strong smell of horseradish to wake you up in as little as 10 seconds. Medical equipment manufacturers have developed a technology to extract components of the strong odor of horseradish, seal them inside a can and spray them out. Shiga University of Medical Science Hospital cooperated with the makers and carried out experiments to see if the horseradish smell can wake up people from a deep sleep. Fourteen people, including those with hearing disabilities, took part in the experiments. In the experiment, 13 out of the 14 subjects woke up in less than two minutes after the ... -
Genetics: BBC Radio Transcript Links & BBC lack of impartiality
Posted: March 11th, 2008, 7:23pm UTC
Transcripts of yesterday's genetics programmes on Radio 2 and Radio 4 is on the Stop Eugenics: BBC Radio 4: Today BBC Radio 2: Jeremy Vine Show These transcripts were provided as goodwill through personal connections, however the BBC has failed badly in this respect. As a public service provider, the BBC should have an obligation to make accessible content, i.e. transcripts, especially if its talking about DEAF PEOPLE. More than a day later, these transcripts have not being available. This is not just a disability discrimination issue, but compromises the BBC's impartiality and introduces bias. If only one part of the population can access the content and the other not (the group that is being attacked), ... -
My fave Signtube video so far...
Posted: March 8th, 2008, 9:31am UTC
Deaf power! Haven't set up an account yet, but will do when I get a chance... would be good to see more people using it! (In the meantime, it was really easy to embed the above public video - I hope I was allowed to do that, just like with Youtube(!)) More info here.... -
The Deaf version of Youtube...
Posted: March 7th, 2008, 1:03pm UTC
... it had to happen! Click here to see it for yourself! I think it's Deaf-created, though I could be wrong. Do you know? And what do you think? That's what the comment box is for! ::grin:: And yes, I know GOD has been quiet of late. This is because we've been busy doing GODly things. Oh yes, we have. - jen...