91Èȱ¬

A couple of weeks ago, a Tweet by Stephen Fry caught my attention. He said, " The blog of Sophie Adler, a truly remarkable bed-bound girl in chronic pain. Inspirational."

Entrigued, and possibly mildly obsessed by all things disability, I immediately clicked on the link.

is a witty, intelligent and very frank account of the life of a 20 year old Jewish Tottenham fan, health problems and all. She posts regularly and every single one is worth a read. She's currently documenting her recovery from major surgery. Check it out.

The discovery of Sophie's blog got me thinking about musings by another young disabled woman I've come in contact with recently.

is by Edinburgh-based Morag Edward, who describes herself as "an escape-artist, writer, imagineer and equal-access reviewer".

Last year, Morag wrote regularly on the accessibility of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but her posts are eclectic. They feature news of her personal life, arts endeavours, and recently, it's been a place to vent her frustrations at her lack of mobility during Scotland's heavy snowfall.

If there's a disability blog you think we should feature, please get in touch using the comments below or by emailing ouch@bbc.co.uk.

Here are the notes for our latest talk show - number 63. You can listen on the site, download it or subscribe to it as a podcast.

In the show, Mat explains in graphic detail what makes him a brown footer. Yes it's pretty dodgy as you might have guessed, so don't listen if your stomach is easily turned.

Newshound Rob Crossan speaks of his Namibian jackal shooting experience. Why? It was off the back of an interesting story about blind people being able to use a gun with laser sights in Louisiana thanks to a new law.

And Swindon's very own singer, songwriter and CP'er Mike Oliver treats us all to some top notch live music. The 18 year-old college student tells us about his first band, the PI's, or the physically impaireds; its members all came from the disability unit at his school. Well worth listening to, producer Damon is still laughing about it now.

Off air, Mat described Mike's voice as Morrissey meets Alison Moyet. We were all impressed with him.

Click to learn more about Mike Oliver on his

A transcript of this show will be available from here shortly.

Future stuff: You might be interested to know that we have a teenage special of the Ouch! Talk Show coming up in early March. And in February, we'll be discussing starting your own business and carers who you fall in love with (gulp).

leave your feedback or suggestions for future items in the comments below. Or email us on the address that Mat and Liz regularly give out ouch@bbc.co.uk

On Saturday 22 January I went to in London to see Sense Of Freedom which is a new dance piece by Deaf Men Dancing.

The score is a mix of recorded music, poetry (powerfully spoken by Danielle Morris), and live performance by singers Drew-Levi Huntsman and Gavin McCluskey.

Mark Smith, who also choreographed Shoes at Sadler's Wells and Iolanthe at the Union Theatre, has used various different dance styles incorporated with sign language to create an expressionist work for his all male dance company.

The dancers - Joseph Fletcher, Kevin Jewell, Anthony Snowdon and Mark Smith - bring a wonderful individuality to their performances while also working well as a team.

Each movement they make, whether as a group or individually is imbued with meaning, which is clearly influenced by the sign language they use to communicate.

It is a lyrical and musical performance from all of them with a huge emphasis on using the body to express inner emotion.

Deaf Men Dancing are developing something innovative and exciting in their work and each piece is specifically created for an event so watch out for a performance near you.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) have officially opened in New Zealand.

The event is the last major international gathering of athletes before the Paralympic Games in London in 2012.

The team from Great Britain and Northern Ireland currently have ten athletes ranked number one in the world across 12 events.

Team Captain Dan Greaves is aiming for his third successive World Championships title in the discus.

Wheelchair athletes Mickey Bushell and Hannah Cockroft are competing for places across the 100m heats and 200m finals respectively. Shelly Woods is taking part in the 5000m final and David Weir in the 800m heats.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist sprinter Katrina Hart is participating in the 200m heats.

In the last World Championships in the Netherlands in 2006 the GB & NI team won 27 medals including nine gold, nine silver and 9 bronze.

There are more than 1,000 competitors from 70 countries due to take part in the Championships at the QE11 stadium in Christ Church.

You can follow the action via the IPC's which will feature live coverage of the evening sessions starting on Saturday 22 January.

There will also be daily video highlights on the .

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson is there reporting for the 91Èȱ¬. You can also follow her personal take on the Championships via her feed.

If you're visually impaired, you may be taking advantage of Audio Description (AD) services on your television set.

We at Ouch! often hear that broadcasters have had very little feedback about their AD output and are keen to find out how well they're serving the intended audience.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) aims to put this right and has created a simple which has the relevant contact details for the major channels to help you feedback easily and effectively

Joan Greening from RNIB's Media and Culture Department says: "We've had some brilliant feedback in the past. One person told us that the description on Planet Earth painted amazing pictures for him, for instance."

But she stresses that if you have any problems or notice factual inaccuracies, you should speak up: "We've heard that there's been a Woolpack on Coronation Street and a Rovers on Emmerdale in the past ... but feedback best comes from those who are watching it.

The page quotes one of the AD providers waiting to hear from you: "Channel 4 is really keen to get feedback from viewers who use our audio description service to help us in quality control as well as selection of programmes for description."

Major broadcasters have an obligation to describe 6% of their output but Sky, 91Èȱ¬, ITV, and Channel 4 publicly announced last year that they would voluntarily hit a target of 20%.

Around 70 channels are obliged to carry AD, and Ofcom figures from 2010 show that most of these channels already regularly exceed 10 or even 20 per cent, though this can often be due to repeated showings.

• AD is an extra spoken soundtrack that explains visuals, so that those who can't see the screen can fully follow what's happening. It's available as standard on Sky, VirginMedia and Freesat but only on selected Freeview sets or boxes.

(includes a link to a downloadable Word document with a list of commercially available AD-ready Freeview boxes and TVs).

Right now, two blind people in their 20s, living on opposite sides of the world, are blogging about the process of training with a new guide dog.

lives in Ireland and has just begun a partnership with Ike. He will write daily progress reports on his site for the next three weeks and will continue to fill us in on a regular basis after they have returned to daily life.

is in Texas, working with Kerry, a lab retriever cross. Julia has been in training for just under a week and has been blogging every evening since she arrived at the residential centre.

Both bloggers are on their second dog. In earlier posts, they wrote accounts of how they were parted from their first guide. Darragh's dog Freddy retired last year and Julia's, Reggie, died suddenly 10 months ago.

Enjoying these blogs in tandem is fascinating. Each new entry really brings home the fact that methods of training vary hugely, depending on where you are in the world. While Julia had to wait days to meet her dog, Darragh was introduced within the first couple of hours. Darragh and Julia are based in purpose built residential training facilities, while in the UK where I was partnered with my guide dog Verona, most people either stay in their own homes or travel to a local hotel for the training.

Reading the first posts, with their accounts of arrivals and introductions, I could feel Darragh and Julia's nervousness, excitement and anticipation of the weeks ahead. It brought me right back to the beginning of March 2009 when I took the plunge.

Their next posts conveyed experiences of first meetings with their dogs and other trainees, describe the various grooming tools, harnesses and other paraphernalia used on class and explain the trials and tribulations of building a relationship with their new guides. This essential bonding is made all the more challenging by the fact that the dog, a fiercely loyal animal, has just spent the previous three months in intensive training with their instructor, building a strong attachment to them.

I remember it all well. I didn't even like dogs at the time and really had no idea what to expect from my training. Blogs like these would certainly have been a useful reference.

Having come out the other side and spent almost two years successfully working with Verona, I'm really looking forward to catching up with Darragh and Julia each day, as they get to grips with Ike and Kerry.

Resolution! is a season of dance at in London.

On Saturday 22 January 2011 Mark Smith (co-choreographer of song and dance spectacular Shoes at Sadler's Wells) presents Sense Of Freedom.

The reason I'm mentioning it is because the piece has been created for his all-male dance company Deaf Men Dancing.

The performance contains text, live singing and contemporary, classical and commercial dance.

You can see Deaf Men Dancing in rehearsal and I'll report back on the performance when I've seen them in action.

is the only award winning international festival of short films made by people with a learning disability.

The last festival took place over three days in 2009 and showed 72 films from around the world. 

Oska Bright are now looking for entries for this year's festival. 

In 2011 they are particularly interested in films about the Olympics and what the Olympics means to you.

But they also want other films too!

All films must be under 10 minutes long and have people with learning disabilities in control of them.

The deadline for submissions is 30 April 2011.

Lights, camera, action!