Deaf Girly and the Freedom Pass

Last night I stayed at Fab Friend's house after dinner and a catch up. She lives in Zone 3 and her local station is on a train line into London.

So this morning I joined the swathes of commuters coming into London at her station and tapped my Freedom Pass on the Oyster Reader.

'Seek assistance' it told me as 20,000 commuters slammed into the back of me as a result of the ticket gate not opening.

'Erm?' I thought, backed up and tried again.

The same thing happened.

I tried once more and then my Freedom Pass slipped out of my hand and fell down the tiny gap between the two barriers.

In order to get it I had to kneel down and contort my shoulder to reach through the narrow opening. Then I had to pat around in the general detritus (*beams at being able to use this word) until my fingers felt the smooth plastic of the card, and a lot of other things I don't want to think about, on the way.

Flustered, I got up and turned around to see a sea of faces all looking cross at being held up by a blonde girl grovelling around on her hands and knees, and walked off to speak to someone in the ticket office. Cheeks burning with embarrassment.

'Not valid at this time of the morning' the ticket man told me. Or at least that's what I think he said from behind the glass of the ticket booth.

'Erm?' I thought and stomped off to the ticket machine where I tried to purchase a ticket using my Disabled Rail Card. But it wouldn't let me do that either.

Neither were valid in the morning. Before 9.30am, which is one hour after I start work.

But what I want to know is WHY NOT?

Why can't I use my Freedom Pass to travel on any form of transport within Zones 1 and 6 in London at any time?

I'm not saying that I should necessarily have that right. But I just want to know why I can't.

A quick Google found this blog post here about it and these views were shared by many of the responses to my tweets this morning.

But I still want more answers. So I have emailed various train and transport people in the hope of finding out. And I will keep you posted on what I find out.

In the meantime, I would like to apologise to all the people who most probably missed their train this morning when I held them all up at the ticket barrier. Particularly the cross-looking man who looked like he wanted to manhandle me out of the station and make me stay there to think about the consequences of my actions. Actually not him. He was just mean and rude. But to the rest of them...

I am sorry. It will never happen again. From now on, I'm sticking to tubes (when I have to) and buses… and I'm driving to Zone 3.

Deaf Girly and subtitled iPlayer programmes

I haven't blogged in ages.

I've been quite busy doing other writing and of course I now have a full-time day job again, but this is most definitely blog worthy.

Last night, while lying in bed unable to sleep, I picked up my iPad and had a quick browse through the App store to see what new and exciting apps were available.

There were none I fancied downloading but I did have a look through the app updates available and one of them was for the iPlayer.

I tapped the arrow to see what the app update included and found myself beaming.

You can now download and watch content offline, with subtitles…

FINALLY!

Now, I'm rubbish at updating my apps so this could have been available for quite some time. But it's news to me.

Very welcome news.

When catch-up, on demand and streaming first became available there were no subtitles. I remember when the original iPlayer on the computer didn't have subtitles. And being completely furious and blogging about it regularly.

Then that got subtitles and the app came out. Which didn't. So I complained. Then that got subtitles and the offline downloadable programmes didn't. So I complained.

And now… WELL I HAVE NOTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYMORE…

*beams

All this subtitling development has opened up a whole new world of viewing to me. I am halfway through a Netflix free month trial and everything I have wanted to watch so far is subtitled.

Amazing huh?

Sure, there's still things that aren't subtitled. Such as MOST FILMS AT THE CINEMA, MOST OF THE TIME. Virgin Media on demand and movies aren't either. Or they weren't when I checked a few weeks ago.

And I don't think many of the other apps for catch up TV – except for Channel 5 – offer subtitles when viewed on phones or tablets…

But things are getting better.

When I think back to my childhood. To my caption reader, with all its complicated cables. The essential sleepover item if I was going to friends' houses – not exactly conducive to light packing.

Things are so much better.

Which makes me very excited about what is still to come.

Subtitled radio? Personal captions for all films and theatre?

Captioned phone calls without any extra technology?

If any of these things are already available let me know.

In the meantime, I must get back to watching Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, which was on BBC Four last night but I didn't see it.

Instead I have it

DOWNLOADED.

OFFLINE.

WITH SUBTITLES.

On my iPad.

*beams