91Èȱ¬

Lots of girls dream of being a mermaid. But for one woman, this wish has come true. Really! New Zealander Nadya Vessey, who lost both legs from above the knee at a young age, wrote to Weta Studios the Kiwi special-effects wizards behind the Lord Of The Rings films to ask if she could have the mermaid's tail made.
Two years later her dream has been realised. The stunning tail created by the studio is fully functional underwater and is even outfitted with realistic Mermaid like scales. on stuff.co.nz where you can also see a pic of Nadya in action.

It's Shrove Tuesday so that can only mean one thing: Pancake making. However, being disabled can make this a tricky task. Beginning with pouring the flour and whisking. And that's before you even get to heating the mixture and flipping the pancake, whilst trying to keep it in one piece. The potential pitfalls are many, yet that doesn't seem to be putting us off.

Disabled blogger batsgirl has written a humorous about getting her personal assistant boyfriend to do the job. Whilst a quick chat round the office reveals different approaches. Our blind editor Damon claims to be a master of the art though I am yet to see the evidence. Emma prefers the eating part to the cooking. For me it will be a team effort since my dexterity means flipping is hardly my forté.

Those of you having a go you can find recipes on the 91Èȱ¬ Food website. Let us know your tips and how you get on in the comments.

A seemingly routine internal email sent by Peter Horrocks, the head of the 91Èȱ¬ newsroom, to TV news presenters ended up at the centre of a big news story yesterday.

The subject of the memo was the increasing number of web addresses, email addresses and phone numbers that are broadcast during programmes, which are used to direct viewers back to the 91Èȱ¬ News website. In the message, Peter Horrocks asked that these details should now be read out in full, and that the phrase "as you can see on your screens" should be avoided. Why? Because this behaviour excludes blind and visually impaired people from receiving this information, and is discourteous.

In no time at all, the story had been picked up by newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph - - and , as they reported that Horrocks had had to step in and defend the move after it was labelled in some quarters as an example of "political correctness gone mad".

On the 91Èȱ¬ News Editors blog, you can read Peter Horrocks' post about this issue, in which he denies the accusation of political correctness, and points out that this change "is not about avoiding causing offence. It's about information and how to access it". He goes on to mention that audience figures for the 91Èȱ¬ News at Six on 91Èȱ¬ One show that 21% of viewers have a disability of some kind, and that the directive is part of the 91Èȱ¬'s commitment to help disabled people use their services.

So what do you think? Do you welcome this move? Was the lack of email addresses, web addresses and phone numbers being read out something that concerned you? And what about the idea that referring to details being shown on the screen is discourteous? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

Saturday's edition of The Guardian featured a very detailed and extremely enlightening interview with former government minister - and possibly the UK's most famous blind person - . He talked about his forthcoming marriage to 50-year-old GP Margaret Williams, the scandals that saw him leave the political stage in controversial circumstances not just once but twice, and how those events affected his life. The interview also touched upon the current rumours in Westminster that Mr Blunkett might be about to make his third return to a high profile government role in some way, though needless to say he gave a typically non-committal politician's answer to that one.

However, Blunkett was surprisingly candid about himself and his disability when he was asked if he ever considered going for the biggest political job of Prime Minister:

I said in 2001 or 2002, I wasn't entirely sure that someone who couldn't see and therefore couldn't speed-read could actually deal with the prime minister's job in the modern era. It would have been dead easy up until about 20 years ago: you had the space and time. Now it's not just global communication and the internet and the immediacy of everything, it's also the expectation of everything you've got to be engaged in. And that's quite a big challenge if you can't see.

Reading that admission, it's perhaps useful to remember that Mr Blunkett - unlike many blind people - is not much of a computer user. When he was in the Government, his ministerial box was bigger than other ministers so that the all the Brailled documents he needed could fit in it, and he had armies of staff reading other material onto cassette for him.

Reading Braille and listening to cassette is reportedly quite a laborious and slow process. It surely would have been much faster had he gone digital: reading and writing material using a computer equipped with all the necessary access technology. It's certainly not difficult to imagine that his rather old-fashioned way of working would prove extremely difficult in the even more pressured role of Prime Minister.

But what about for a more computer-savvy blind person? With technology becoming more powerful all the time, is it possible that a blind MP could take the top job of running the country? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Getting a train across the UK can sometimes be a testing experience for anyone. But what's it like when, like Nina Black you've got severe Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD.) This was the topic artfully explored in a Drama-Documentary broadcast last Saturday on Radio 3.

The programme weaves a fictional drama of Nina's train journey alongside documentary interviews with the real life Nina Black and members of her family, creating a 'complex portrait of living with ADHD'. Amongst other things, we hear her locking herself in the carriage toilet as the guard approaches and getting a little too attached to the dog of a fellow passenger.

It's also worth a listen for the original soundtrack of electro-acoustic sound that runs throughout beautifully under keying the action as the drama unfolds.

You can hear Nina Black' on iPlayer until next Saturday.

There's always lots being said and written about , particularly when it comes to the online presences of businesses, shops or other service providers. But what about blogs?

Since they're usually set up by individuals who just want to quickly and easily write about the details of their life, post photos of their cat or share interesting links they've found on the net - using the widely available tools such as , or , and their astonishing array of pre-built page designs so that they don't have to worry about complicated things like HTML and CSS - accessibility is often not especially high on the list of priorities. However, if you do want to try and make your blog more disability-friendly, then bookmark and keep an eye on . It's a blog (well, it would be, wouldn't it?) packed full of hints and tips, plus links to useful articles and tools.

If you've got a standard blog from one of the big services, have you made some particular changes to your template to make it more accessible to readers with a range of disabilities, and how easy was it to do? Let us know in the comments.

In fact, this may be very close to being the disability headline of the year, and it's still only the middle of February: .

It's one of those stories that you almost can't believe unless you read it for yourself, so I won't say any more about it. Have a good weekend!

The 'legally blind' Governor of New York, , has for running a skit featuring an impersonation of him. It's the second time that Mr Paterson has been a target of SNL's humour, but the Governor himself is less than amused.

During the sketch - clips of which you can see in this available on YouTube - there are references to controversial moments in the Governor's past, including an extra-marital affair. In playing on Mr Paterson's disability, the skit also shows him holding up a chart to demonstrate the grave economic crisis in New York, until he is told that the graph is actually upside down. The Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen, impersonating the Governor, keeps one eye closed most of the time, with his other eye focused on his own nose.

"I would say decidedly that they are mocking my disability," said Paterson. "Apparently anybody who is blind or deaf or has an ambulatory disability ... [who] gets to a leadership position in this country is going to be portrayed as if a bunch of third graders are ridiculing them." He went on to say that the programme, rather than providing comic relief, actually degraded people, and that the writers would "think twice" about doing the same kind of routine if it made fun of someone's race, religion or nationality.

Last year, just after he took office, Paterson was the subject of satire on another popular US comedy series, The Daily Show. On that occasion, the programme's 'black correspondent', Larry Willmore, jokily advised the blind community not to try laying claim to the African-American Governor for themselves, saying: "He's one of ours ... he's only 90 percent blind, but he's 100 percent black". (You can too, but be warned that it contains some adult references.)

Of course, here in the UK, satirist Rory Bremner impersonated blind MP David Blunkett on a number of occasions when he was a senior member of the government, employing the minister's voice and mannerisms - but also rolling his eyes around in an attempt to recreate the symptoms of the politician's visual disability.

So is such humour acceptable? If disabled people rise to senior positions in public life, as both Blunkett and Paterson have done, should they expect to become the targets of satire, and can their disability legitimately become part of the joke? Should an impersonator also seek to mimic a person's impairment, as well as their voice and appearance? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Here's a beautifully cringeworthy disability moment courtesy of this year's American Idol, the popstar-finding reality show on US television.

To set the scene, blind pianist Scott Macintyre has just sung his heart out and gets the thumbs up from judges Simon Cowell and co. He emerges victorious through the door to be greeted by host Ryan Seacrest, who decides the best way to celebrate with him is to throw a high five in his direction. The only problem is that, being blind, Scott has no idea what's coming at him ...

Despite this embarrassing moment for all concerned, Scott has since progressed to the final stages of the competition. You can catch him perform as one of the final 32 tonight at 9.00pm on ITV2.

Did you know that disabled people played an important role in the first moves towards the way we now chat with each other online, almost without giving it a second thought? Well, it's true, and we have the video evidence to prove it.

Discovered via an about all the ancient (well, the 1990s) videos lurking on Youtube which show the very beginnings of the internet as we know it, the clip above reveals how, way back in 1993, T.K. Kan ran a Bulletin Board System (BBS) called 'Community Access' from racks of green-screen monitors, beige plastic computers and huge modems all crammed into his spare bedroom. Using this technology, six people could log in at the same time, over their dial-up connections, and talk to each other. Just six people.

And who were these users? Well, Mr Kan's aim was that they would be us - disabled people. His goal was to use this technology to help people with disabilities to get online, communicate with each other, and build a supportive community. The clip goes on to show a disabled user called Paul, who operated a computer using a head-pointer, enthusiastically posting a message on the Community Access BBS.

In many ways, then, what you're seeing in this clip is the roots of the Ouch! messageboard. Though in 2009, rather more than six people can use our service, we're glad to say.

Disabled ex-pat an 'economic burden'

A British man whose Canadian work permit expired has been deported back to the UK after immigration officials decided that granting him permanent resident status would be .

36-year-old Chris Mason hasn't lived in the UK since he was a child, had many friends in Canada, and expressed no desire to return here. He lived in Greece before moving to Canada in 2001 to work as a long-haul truck driver. He became paraplegic after damaging his back on the job, and then was further injured in 2007 when hit by a taxi. This has left him unable to work, meaning that he was living on social assistance with an expired visa.

Canada has a reputation for being a tolerant country that is very open to disabled people, but their Immigration Act does contain a clause which says that anyone who might put undue economic burden on the social welfare system can be denied the right to live there. Canadian disability campaigners are now lobbying for the removal of this particular regulation, saying that it actually causes disabled people to be further stigmatized.

What do you think of the way the authorities acted in this case? Although Chris Mason's visa had expired, should immigration officials have shown more leniency and enabled him to stay in a country he had considered home for some eight years? Or is it entirely fair that a country of which Mr Mason is not a citizen, should continue to pay his welfare benefits. Tell us in the comments below.

Following Stevie Wonder's plea for more blind friendly gadgets, it seems Amazon, for one are taking notice. The Amazon Kindle is a handheld electronic bookreader that some say is set to replace old fashioned paper bound books. The new version comes with text-to-speech support built in. That means any book in Amazon's 230,000 strong catalogue can be automatically read aloud by a synthetic voice. This is big news as it should open up in speech a range of books only previously available in paper editions. A range of 6 text sizes should also help visually impaired customers.
Now the bad news for those eager to get their hands on one, it is currently available in the US only, with no word on UK availability. At a steep price of $359 (£240) it will have to compete with slim Netbook computers and MP3 players with an audiobook subscription, both of which offer possible alternatives. The question is if Amazon's vast speech ready catalogue will give it an edge.

With sites like Youtube proving incredibly popular amongst people uploading their own homemade clips, there have also been a series of growing controversies about unsuitable material turning up online, and who exactly is responsible for it. Should it be the owners of the site, or the people who shoot and upload the video?

Now a disability-related case is provoking similar questions, and it could end up with four executives from web giant Google being sent to jail, according to in the New York Times.

In 2006, an offensive clip was posted to . Filmed on a mobile phone, it showed four youths from the Italian city of Turin teasing a boy with Down's Syndrome. After an Italian advocacy group complained, the video was swiftly removed - and indeed, the bullies involved were later identified and punished. But these charges have now arisen because prosecutors are claiming that the video should never have been published in the first place. Four top Google executives are being sued, and they could end up behind bars - even though they never directly handled the video, and despite the fact that it was removed as soon as Google had been notified of its shocking content.

So what do you think? Disablist bullying is deeply troubling, and should of course be dealt with severely. But should Google be held to account for the video being placed online?

OK, I'll admit it, as I write this I'm at home, looking wistfully out the window at inch upon inch of snow stacked high enough to reach my knees. However, it's times like these when you need accurate travel information to know if it's worth venturing out the door in the first place. Enter the internet! Many people with different impairments, myself include, rely heavily on public transport to get around. Thankfully, in recent years many of the major providers have wised-up to this by offering accessible versions of their sites, especially tweaked for the requirements of disabled users.

For Londoners, Transport for London now offers an of its service. It's a stripped down page with headings and simple forms, ideal for visually impaired and screenreader users. You can also specify options like 'step free access' and 'maximum walking time' to smooth your journey.

Similarly, when you're on the go, you should bookmark the mobile site wap.tfl.gov.uk which offers up to the minute travel information in a simple format.

For those of you travelling by train, the should be your first stop. Whilst it has been for not offering a very accessible or easy to use experience, in its latest incarnation the site is much improved. Similarly, they now offer an 'Accessible Version' checkbox with their service, which offers a simpler version of the page, optimised for screenreader users. As with TFL, if you're out and about, there's a mobile site wap.nationalrail.co.uk which offers live arrivals, departures and timetables in a no-nonsense format.

So check before you go, now you don't have a good excuse not to!

With much of the country , the weather instantly becomes a disability topic. Well, we're Ouch, so absolutely everything is a disability topic to us ...

What do you find are the difficulties for you and your particular impairment in such snowy, icy weather? The authorities are advising people to stay at home and not travel unless absolutely necessary, whilst the essential gritting of smaller roads and pavements is obviously going to take some time. But what about if you absolutely need to venture outside - maybe to get in some food from the shops? What's the best way to handle yourself and your mobility aids - whether guide dog, cane, crutches or wheelchair - in these conditions? And if you're travelling further and need to rely on public transport, minicabs, taxicards or your own vehicle, how's that going? If you've got any tips or advice, stick 'em in the comments for other people to read.

Of course, one great source of info is right here on Ouch itself. Our messageboard community have touched on this topic in winters gone by: how to survive the snow, for instance; or here, from 2005, snow, ice and wheelchairs.

Elsewhere, if you fancy making the most of the snowy conditions, you could think about finding a disability-friendly way of learning to ski. That's what Emma Bowler did. If that isn't your kind of thing, there's always the option of trying out some 'mushing' - or dog-sled racing. Though the huskies might be hard to come by. Or inspire yourself by reading Ouch editor Damon Rose's tale of snow-bound bravery from 2003.

Finally, if none of that takes your fancy, and you're not a fan of the cold, the ice and the snow, then Ouch's very own Disability Bitch can sympathise - because she absolutely hates winter!