Twitter with knickers twisted.

Recent umbrage taken by deafies at twitter, aghast,shocked and generally annoyed an radio presenter thought subtitles an nuisance, has failed to impress me frankly. She apologized, had an bad hair day, a few drinks maybe, let deafies know she was peed off, it happens, even deaf do it, just stand within earshot of John Egbert to get the real thing...now we need to get a sense of proportion and tackle the REAL issues, and not follow the well-worn path of 'let's bring an celebrity down, I'm bored.' In as much as radio presenters are any sort of celebrity, if she wasn't, she is now by current definitions of silliness and sensationalism. Say something stupid make a mint... get twittered at by twits.

You need someone who is well know to make a gaff like that to get any milage, what validation has an RADIO presenter to the deaf ? The BBC ? they already dumped the disabled from their site without an ripple of any protest and removed their message/feedback board for the only deaf TV program they had, and had moved the signed access to the dead zone of midnight TV to not annoy hearing people, not an flutter of indignation. The UKs largest charity recently re branded to get rid of the D.... I'd be more concerned that 25 years of deaf awareness has been an complete and utter waste of everyone's time and effort, deaf are being increasingly sidelined, and someone is taking money for deaf awareness under false pretenses. If we read the report on the issue, or even the tweets properly, instead of knee-jerks from some bored deafies looking for an cause celeb, we would have seen where the real problem lies.

It wasn't just her fed up with daft subtitling was it ? the cinema manager told her "Titling is for those who have difficulty with English. " WOT ?? I could suggest putting English subtitles on for people who have DIFFICULTY with English was a bit daft but.....deaf awareness ? pardon me if I feel it has been an complete waste of time, effort, and money by deaf and freeloaders alike. Initially we should all be demanding results from people claiming to run areas of 'deaf awareness', and 'deaf training' for business etc, clearly they are not up to it.

Perhaps if they stopped trying to sell culture and language as some commodity, and concentrated on raising DEAF awareness, we would get more equality,and more people knowing about the deaf experience, and less silly people on twitter trying to make a name for themselves..

Look HERE for an start to get an rough idea of how deaf awareness is NOT working at all. What deaf people need to do is set up an regulatory body to oversee business's and deaf-run awareness areas and weed out those not up to it. It's become an bit of an gravy train for some deaf who advertise as advisor's to all and sundry for a price, you have to ask why aren't grass roots raising their OWN awareness in person not allowing people to get paid to do it on an ad hoc basis, who have failed.

Typical and nonsensical questions abound online like:

How do deaf people learn ?

Will the deaf community accept a non-deaf man being in a relationship with a deaf girl?

How exactly do deaf and blind people who were always deaf and blind learn?

Do deaf people dream ?

Or as an recent blog by Jamie said, a person asked if an person with an CI has an hole in the head... 5 years ago when CI's were the devil's tool, we had this, and how do you keep the brain from leaking out ? or stopping the water getting in ? it's ignorance on an industrial scale, and the ignorance is actually spreading. Deaf awareness seems to have stopped altogether...... or the approach stopped working and no-one has noticed. SKY TV dropped signing on their news, I can't recall the deaf saying anything much on twitter or anywhere else. There are numerous examples where deaf are discriminated against, people know nothing about deafness, and all this despite £100m a year spent on raising awareness, I want a refund...

Last word from Sara: A man is coming to fix those filthy wasps in the morning. I imagine my back garden will be like the final scenes of E.T !

Totally shamed wasn't she......