Variety is the spice of life

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One of the advantages of being blind, is that it enables me to live in a world composed of many and varied surprises. To take one example, when opening a can I am never quite sure whether it’s contents will delight my taste buds with Baxters vegetable soup (please note that other brands are available)! Or custard …! It is, I often think fortunate that my guide dog, Trigger eats a complete dried food, otherwise who knows what I might be enjoying the next time that can opener goes to work …
Today I popped into my local supermarket and purchased (amongst other items) 2 boxes of microwavable porridge and 1 box of Earl Grey tea bags (again other varieties of tea are, of course available)! On reaching home I found that I had 3 cardboard boxes and was faced with trying to ascertain what each contained. By placing the boxes together I discovered 2 where of the exact same size while the third was of different dimmentions. Given that I had bought 2 packs of porridge I therefore correctly concluded that the odd one out in my interesting collection of boxes must, of necessity be the tea. Had I purchased a greater variety of packages I would, almost certainly have required sighted assistance to determine what each contained.
Things are easier for visually impaired people than was previously the case. For example all medication now comes with braille labelling, which as a user of this medium is extremely helpful to me. Again most bleach now comes with a braille label clearly identifying it as such, although many other poisonous products, for example toilet cleaner do not.
There are solutions to enable visually impaired people to label products, for example a hand held device allows those with sight difficulties to record a short note on a plastic card identifying products which can then be affixed via an elastic band or string. However this solution relies on sighted assistance to identify the item in the first instance thereby enabling the VI individual to label it.
A hand held scanner has been developed allowing blind people to identify products and I am considering purchasing one. In the meantime I remain thankful that my guide dog eats dry rather than tinned food …!

There Was A Young Lady Called Ruth

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There was a young lady called Ruth
Who strove to discover the truth.
The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph she did take
And of their opinions did partake,
And thereby discovered something approaching the truth …!

(The Daily Telegraph is a Conservative/centre-right newspaper, while the Guardian is best characterised as liberal/left in it’s leanings).

New Laptop

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Back in early 2011, I purchased a Sony Vio laptop (the machine on which most of my writing is done). I had, of course owned both laptops and desktop computers prior to buying the Sony. I do, however have no hesitation in stating that the Sony Vio is the most stable machine ever owned by me. This may stem in part at least from the fact that it is equipped with Windows 7 while previous machines worked utilising earlier versions of the notorious Microsoft operating System Vista. (Anyone who has had the misfortune to work with Vista will, I believe have their own tales of woe, made up of crashing operating systems due, in large measure to the amount of space taken up by Vista and the instability of the operating system).
During my visit to Liverpool, over the Christmas holiday in 2014, I knocked a cup of tea over my trusty Vio which lead to me having to replace the laptop’s keyboard (given it is a good old workhorse I was happy to pay the £60 entailed in doing so). Ironically, on returning from Liverpool (having attended the Christmas festivities in 2015), I found that the hard drive of my Vio had given up the ghost and required to be replaced. Again I paid for the machine’s repair.
All things do, however come to an end and this Christmas I received a Linova laptop as a present. Later this morning my friend Jeff is coming round to assist in setting up the new laptop. Being blind, I require assistance as Windows laptops/computers do not speak “out of the box”. My friend will ensure that the latest version of Windows 10 updates, then help in installing Job Access with Speech or JAWS (the software which converts text into speech and braille enabling visually impaired computer users to utilise Windows machines).
My Sony will, over time retire. It will, however remain as a spare machine.
I will be sorry to see this happen. It is, as I said at the start of this post, the laptop on which the lion’s share of my work has been produced. I am familiar with it’s workings an have become rather fond of it (well as much as one can become fond of a non-living object)! I am keeping my fingers crossed that the new Linova works as well as my good old Sony Vio laptop …

Limericks

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There was a young lady called Rose
Who had an accident while using a hose.
She got very wet
And said with regret,
“I can not master this hose!”

—

There was a young lady called Lin
Who owned a violin.
She played it at night,
Which was much to the delight
Of the fox who raided her bin!

—

There was a young lady called Hester
Who was a bit of a jester.
In the midst of telling a joke
The poor girl did choke,
And they buried her in Chester!

—

There was a young lady called Rose
Who lost all her clothes
While out for a walk.
When her friends did talk
She said,”that’s just the way it goes …!”

One can not “force” book sales

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Checking my Gmail spam folder, I came across a solicitation, from a book promotion service, inviting me to advertise my work on their website. The following paragraph particularly caught my attention:

“The (name of site redacted by me) specialize in making
sure that your book gets seen by readers
as well as media on major platforms to force
sales and with clear visibility”.

I am a simple soul and struggle to comprehend how one can “force” sales. As anyone with a rudimentary grasp of the English language knows, the word “force” implies coercion, compulsion etc. The use of the word “force” conjures up images of readers being frog marched to virtual check-outs and being compelled to part with their money. A virtual version of “stand and deliver” if you like. Surely this is not what the company in question mean by their employment of the word “force”.
One can not “force” another to do something against their will without the employment of blackmail, and/or the threat of (or actual utilisation of) violence. I am sure the organisation in question are not in any way advocating the use of such methods. None the less their use of the word “force” is sloppy in the extreme and does not inspire me with confidence regarding the service on offer. Consequently I wont be signing up with this outfit.

The Titanic may have sunk due to a fire in the ship’s boiler room a new documentary claims

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A documentary to be aired later today (Sunday 1 January), on channel 4, claims that the real reason for the sinking of the Titanic stemmed from a fire in the ship’s boiler room, which had been raging since it set sail from Southampton.

Had it not been for the fire the documentary claims, what could have been a relatively minor encounter with an iceberg, turned into a major disaster.

While the fire was mentioned at the enquiry into the sinking of the Titanic, according to the documentary not enough attention has been paid to it.

According to the film the ship’s owners where criminally negligent as they set sail in full knowledge of the existence of the fire in order to avoid further delays to the Titanic’s maiden voyage.

There is a fascinating exhibition featuring the Titanic at Liverpool’s Maritime museum which is, incidentally the city of my birth and a place for which I retain great affection.

For information on the documentary please see HERE.

For information on Liverpool’s connection with the Titanic please visit HERE.