Fintan Ramblings

As a postman and if I was late for work or over slept the post office ring you up.
The only phone number they had was my parent’s phone number and that supposed to be for emergencies i.e. if I had an accident at work they ring them.
Mum was not pleased when she gets phone calls at 5 am in morning to be asked is fintan coming into work.
“He doesn’t fucking live here” came my mums reply before slamming the phone down!
Now mum does not swear but at that time of morning after been woken several times she got pretty fed up of it!

What the post office does if they see you haven’t turned up for work they ring you up thinking they are doing you a big favour, when in reality if they cant get the staff to cover your delivery round, the bosses will have to deliver the mail.. Now we wouldn’t want them to come out of their warm offices do we??.

What they failed to realise
1) I am deaf
2) No way I will be able to hear phone and besides I did not have a phone plugged in just a modem connect to internet (ah the dial up days)

I have repeatedly told them I don’t have a phone and scrub that number but they still had it on file.
Only way to get rid of my mum’s number is to replace it, as they don’t delete the phone number.
What I did was pick a random number from a phone book and told them that I have a new phone number.
The poor victim used to get calls at 5 am in morning asking if Fintan there! It lead the post office getting a letter from solitors to end the harassment!

But some bright spark thought it was a good idea come round and knock or ring the doorbell of my place instead.
Now if I have my hearing aids out I am dead to the world, the building would collapse around me and I still wouldn’t hear!

But I still had the problem them coming round to my place, despite telling them that I cannot hear the doorbell or a knock on door if I am going to be late .
My poor neighbours living above me has to answer the door and tell them that it’s no good knocking as I won’t hear it.
Once one of the butch lesbian leaning out of the window said

“if you don’t fuck off I am calling the police”
That did put a stop to them for a while, but I don’t half get a hard time off her and my mum.. “Late for work were yer!!!”

So yes I should make sure I get up for work in morning and yes make sure my vibrating alarm clock battery in working order before bed.

I don’t work for the post office anymore as I left 5 years ago so I work normal 9 to 5 job hours, but despite having a few more hours in bed, the kids soon put a stop to that, they get up at 6 am grrr

Where I used to live before I got married I was the only one that had the whole ground floor so I don’t have to share with anyone.
Funny thing about my place was that my bedroom was down the hallway so it wasn’t connected to rest of my place, I always made sure I’d lock my living room door and walk down hallway to my bedroom to sleep.
Don’t want to find that old guy sitting in my living room watching tv!

When I was a postman I had finished my delivery round and quickly got undressed in front of my washing machine do to being soaked by the rain shut the living room door and ran into my bedroom to find that I forgot to take my keys with me.
Shit I am locked out of my bedroom and living room!
There I was standing in hallway in my underpants!
My mobile phone is on the coffee table too so I couldn’t text mum also at the top no one will be home till after 5pm so if they were in I could use their phone.
I did not want to be standing in hallway for 6 hours .

So I went out front door to walk round the back to grab my bike.. It took me half an hour to hobble as the gravel was razor sharp stones.
Rather than ride out on the front, as it’s a busy main road where everyone can see me I rode out the back then I only have to get across the road into telephone box.
What I hadn’t bargained for cycling through alleyway a bus pulled up (bus stop at end of alleyway) full of passengers seeing a man cycling in underpants while pissing down with rain going toward them! How bloody embarrassing, But it did not end there.

I quickly got round the bus crossed the road to a phone box.
A woman was in the phone box sheltering from the rain, cos she was not using it I asked her can I use the phone!
God knows what she thought as she did not hang about!

Only phone number I can remember off my head was my mums and she could not stop chocking with laughing on the phone!
She managed to mutter that my sister will be finishing school on lunch break and she should be passing.

I had forgotten that my sister and her friend use my place to drop school bags save them carrying them around town when they go to McDonald’s etc, and she will have a key.
So I jumped on my bike and cycled toward where she should be walking down.
Her friends who thought us deafies are simple minded (see my other post) were the first to spot me said , “ Is that your brother on a bike with no clothes on?”
She just came off mobile cos mum has warned her there is a strange man cycling about.
I snatched the key off her and her friend said “why have you no clothes on?”

With my demented look I told them that I didn’t want to get my clothes wet!

I was talking to Rob and Shane on MSN when I was interrupted by a knock on door by some door-to-door survey man.
I hate door-to-door salesmen or any charity collector so I was in a good mood J

He showed me his badge and wanted survey about alcohol and asked if I drink so I said yes.
Asked me a couple of questions and on his electronic clipboard has an advert clip, and there are 6 clips in all so he asked me what I think.

I will call him salesman after all they are giving out vouchers so you purchase products so the conversation went like this

Me “Does it show advert in BSL?”
Salesman “BSL?”
Me “ British Sign Language “
Salesman “sorry no”
Me “subtitles?”
Salesman “erm no”
Me “ so you want me to watch this”
Salesman “ if you would please yes”

After a two-minute clip shows a man drinking beer on a sun lounge it did not show what beer it was .. As I suspect that the salesman will till me what it is.

Saleman”what do you think would you buy that product?”
Me “not at all no”
Salesman “why not?”

Me “it has anti deaf tones to it…”
Salesman laughing… “anti deaf tone why do you say that”
Me “ well seeing that guy hold his drink suggest to me is sod you”
Salesman “ he did not say that”
Me “well how would I know that if you don’t provide subtitles”?
Salesman “well I am sorry it does not provide subtitles”
Me” aren’t you going to write me the transcript!”
Salesman “there are 6 different clips I could be all day writing it down”
Me “I can wait”
Salesman “ er sorry”
Me “well I am telling you what I think it has anti deaf tone to it he raised his glass and might have said cheers, but could have said sod you for all I know, and your not going to write this down are you on that survey of yours”
Salesman “ no”
Me “well that suggest to me that you’re falsifying the surveys!”
Salesman irritated……. “well if your deaf how can you understand me”
Me “I am understanding you as it takes an lot of effort to lip read you and a lot of effort for me to speak clearly so you can understand me”
Salesman “er”
Me butting in ……“so how about meeting me half way you write down all transcript and I may buy your products other wise feck off and tell your company not to darken my door again”

Now did I say I was in a good mood?

I have a younger sister and the age different between us is 13 years., So as you can see I left home long before she reached her teens.
Sometimes when I used to visit my mum and she happened to be there, she would usually have her school friends around at the house.
I found that some of her school friends must have thought that deaf people had some disease or are very simple minded!
For example, if I spoke to one of them and didn’t get a reply, or when others only replied to my sister and not me.
Teenagers think it’s uncool to be talking to adults, so I loved winding my sister up as she did it often enough to me.

When she was about 14, I came round to my mums house and I gave her a birthday card and I timed it well so that she could open it in front of her friends. It was a Barbie card. I found it amusing, as her friends did not know what to say.
My sister said “Fintan, don’t you think I am a bit too old for a Barbie card?”
Since then every birthday she always got a Barbie card from me.
3 years ago on her 21st birthday I turned up and she mentioned that she didn’t get a Barbie card this year, just a normal happy birthday card
Knowing her friends were within earshot I said “it’s about time you grew up..You’re told old for Barbie birthday cards”

But when she finally got round to opening her birthday presents she came to mine last …What was in it, yep you have guessed it, a Barbie doll!

I will start my BSL practice by joining the BSL class in September and it should be fun!

The reason I will start BSL practice is that you know when hearing people are deafened later in life, I can imagine with empathy that I am going deafened and may not hear anything at all later on.

When I will reach an old age (long way off ) I will be totally cut off from the hearing world and maybe cut off from deaf world as well.

Never too late to learn and hopefully in a few years time Des will be buying me a pint in Newcastle.

I met Des in York railway station and he, as a fluent BSL user, totally rely on BSL and to be honest I have been waiting all day for him to understand my sign!
I knew what he meant when he signed (in BSL) to me:
“This time next year if you passed stage 1 I will buy you a pint on Newcastle”.
Although he did it slowly and repeated 3 times I got it .

I just want to be able to sign fluently and quick… so here is a picture of Des and me at the station.

P.S I am the good looking one on the left!!

The guardian newspaper again !

First of all they put us in social care category see G.O.D blog

And now one of the blog on guardian titled

Dialogue for the Deaf

I am seeing this Dialogue for the Deaf time and time again!

Google it

Reported an Arab newsman: “It is the dialogue of the deaf. Both sides talk, but neither side listens.”

Its just implies to me that Deaf people are not capable of having a dialogue.

One Deaf commenter called toodeaftodebate wrote

Dear Madeline

This is going off the topic but for the right reason.

I am startled that your article got published because I find the leading sentence grossly offensive. When writing this comment, a small paragraph above the comment box states:

“By posting on this website you are agreeing to abide by our talk policy. We will remove posts that contain racist, sexist or offensive/threatening language, personal attacks on the writer or other posters, posts that exceed the maximum length, and posts that are off topic. Any poster who repeatedly contravenes the talk policy will be banned from posting on the website.”

I am Deaf myself and I do not wish to be perceived as pointless whenever I form a dialogue. Your usage of the French example only serve to oppress. It is very disappointing that a well-written article of yours is tainted with your negative perception of the Deaf.

I couldn’t have said it better!

Last post on this subject before anyone thinks this is turning into some rubber gloves fetish site!

Years ago my mum and sister and step father lived near Waterford, Ireland and they had rented a house from some farmer, it was a strange set up of a house.
There are two stairs on each end of living room that lead you to upstairs to separate bedroom.

Quite funny when my sister needed to get hair dryer from mum’s bedroom even though it’s next door she had to climb down the stairs walk across the living room and up the stairs!
Another thing I remembered that mum insist on locking the front door (there’s is no back door at all) and the only way to lock it is to step outside lock the door and climb through the window.
In morning to unlock it is to climb through bathroom window and unlock front door.
Bathroom window is the only window we can fit through and all others were too narrow!
Told her why bother locking the doors as she lived in the middle of nowhere!
They asked if I could fix the TV seen that the reception on TV was so bad I climbed on roof to see if I could fix the Ariel .. Quite funny seeing mum run out of the house when she heard noises coming down the chimney
Anyway best to watch TV in local pub and one time some of us came back drunk and mum had few drinks out for us at the kitchen plus sandwiches.
For some reason we came to conversation about the smoke alarm and the rubber glove at my place when my sister picked mums gloves up put it on her head and said chicken.
Well its only funny when you had a few drinks and I got hold of it and decided to blow it up mum took the picture of a huge hand like glove getting bigger  and bigger till it burst. Wish I still had the picture I would have posted it on here.

When I came back to Chester I posted the picture on to a website (know that free website that only let you put up 2mb of space up Anglefire it was called )
And for fun I put things you can do with rubber gloves as a title and u could see pictures of me blowing a rubber glove and the other picture covering a smoke alarm
Sad I know but at the time I was learning how to build websites and HTML and I just put it up for fun

Well a few weeks later I had to take the website down as I was getting strange pictures of people in state of undress via email with the subject line things you *really* can do with rubber gloves!!

I leave the rest to your imagination!

The place I used to live was a very big house I have the whole ground floor so its basically a flat I am the only one that doesn’t have to share.
The next floor occupied by a retired man who lost his wife few years back and ran into financial difficulties (awful habit of wandering and once found him in my living room so I have the doors locked since then)
And at the top is occupied by two lesbians one of them is really nice to talk to and known her for years but I can’t stand her partner well more like she can’t stand me.
Very impatience woman and I can never understand people who have a tongue pierced and are talking like as they have a   lisps.

My auntie husband from Germany called Ralf used to stay there every now and again when he has to work near Chester.
I very often let him have the use of the flat when I am away on holiday.. one time he was staying I was coming back after a night club and I crept slowly past the living room to get a drink of water ( best way to prevent hangovers) taking care not to wake him I switched light  on in kitchen  and there was a hand from a ceiling .. Of course I jumped out of my skin and dropped the glass!
To which he woke up when I said “what’s the fucks that!”

So that’s the reason why rubber glove was left there to cover smoke alarm.
And to be honest I couldn’t care less if it was ringing like mad. but to the other residents they are happy to have it left up there as they got sick of hearing that I am cooking dinner again.

Reading Piers Kittel’s blog post remind me the times I worked at the post office and I promised him id post my stories..

One morning I woke up late 5:30 am to be exact and mumbled to my self
“shit I am late for work” ran round the house  getting dressed ,then I was sure I heard a knocking on my back door.
Looked out of my living room window I saw a postman he was just about to go after giving up knocking on the door.
I opened my back door and yelled  “I am awake now”
He was about to go I said “aren’t ya gonna give me a lift to work?”
I asked him to come into house and wait for a few minutes as I only had to put my shoes and coat on.

What the post office does that if you are late, and you haven’t rang in to say your sick etc they assume that you slept through the alarm and they try and ring your house on the phone to see if they get you out of bed.
The dipstick of a supervisor sent one of the staff to see if they can get me out of the bed by knocking on my door.
Normally if they had asked my work friends they would have replied he is deaf he won’t hear you so it’s pointless sending us round.
But this guy sent round to my house he hadn’t been working in our post office for long and he doesn’t know me!

I have repeatedly told them that I never give out phone numbers because I can’t hear the phone and what’s the point of sending someone round and if I can’t hear the phone I certainly won’t hear the frigging door!

So anyway he stood in my kitchen doorway while I was putting my shoes on I
noticed he was looking up at my ceiling
There’s a pink washing up glove hanging from my kitchen ceiling one quick look at  the ceiling  looks like a hand dangling from the ceiling
He must have looked at it a few time’s and when he gave me a lift into work he had not said anything I think he daren’t ask at that time of morning!
(Must have been worried I had some fetish)

And the reason why there’s a rubber washing up glove is on my ceiling?
My landlord put smoke alarm there and it’s wired up to the sounder in hallway he has to put it up there by law.
The rubber glove prevents the smoke alarm going off every time I cook and the thing is I can’t hear it every time I cook!

If you are wondering how it got there in the first place will be posted later 

There seem to be an increase on VOD (Video on Demand) in the UK
such as
ITV
4oD
Five
Blueyonder TV
Sky Anytime
BT Vision
Freeview
Top Up TV
Tiscali TV
Virgin Media

I have tried out 4oD on father in laws PC (Does not work on Linux) none of the programmes I downloaded contain subtitles.
Also he is subscribed to virgin media and we sat down to watch Dr Who just to test it out and guess what.. No subtitles!

I doubt other VOD will contain subtitles and wouldn’t it be great to find out the information before hand rather than download and test it out?
Should I bother emailing to ask when or will any of the programmes contain subtitles
Will I get some sort of brush off like Optimum Releasing standard email we are looking into it tripe!

I have emailed sky and I got a response (Optimum Releasing please take note) within impressive 40 minutes

Thank you for contacting the accessible customer service team via email on the 3rd July 2007.
At present subtitles are not available on Sky Anytime via the PC however this is something we are currently working on and will hopefully have a release date in due course.
Gayle Olszok
Customer Advisor
Sky Accessible Customer Service

But wait the BBC iplayer release date on 27th July it will contain subtitles… and should I be excited grateful? Yes I am … but hang on websites such as this and this one says

“Despite the long time in development, the ambitious BBC iPlayer initiative will be missing several features. At launch there will be some support for the visually impaired and some sign language for the hard-of-hearing. Subtitles and audio description will be rolled out in the coming months.”

Now why does that not surprise me?

So how long much longer do we have to wait?
Will it be a few selected programmes that contain subtitles like we suffered in the 1980’s on TV?