Requiescap In Pace

“Oh dear”, said the spouse as he made coffee at the Buteshack on Saturday, “there’s a dead bird over there beside the planter on the seafront.”

I rushed to the window to see if it was Pegleg. My favourite gull has been missing, presumed dead, for several months now, but it turned out that this wasn’t him.

“Looks like an oystercatcher”, I observed mournfully from behind the net curtain. The forlorn mound of inky black plumage on the verge next to the road had a distinctive flash of white, and I could just about make out a hint of vermilion leg against the green of the grass.

“Poor thing”, I said, “it’s a bit undignified lying there next to the bus stop… I’ll put it down at the low water mark once the tide’s gone out. It’ll be like a Viking funeral but without the flames. Or the longboat.”

“You’re on your own with that,” said the spouse, shuddering.

Later, once the tide had ebbed to reveal the familiar rocks dotted about the exposed sea bed, I approached the deceased bird with great solemnity and more than a little trepidation, since I had no idea how long it had been there. On getting close, however, all solemnity was lost when I realised that I had been planning a burial at sea for a discarded black baseball cap with a white emblem on the front.

Time to make that overdue optician’s appointment…

Into The Unknown

 

As the chattering students dragged their chairs noisily to the front for the final project briefing in our temporary decant site, nobody noticed the tiny red-caped superhero enter the room. He looked a bit tired. Just like me.

“I’ll be glad when you move to that shiny new building next month and I don’t have to walk along this never ending corridor any more,” said Hearing Aid Avenger as he surreptitiously passed me a fresh size 13 battery to replace the one which had inconveniently died a few minutes earlier. After two and a half years and one hundred and twenty battery changes in our temporary site, I too was looking forward to the Design School of the Institute of Artistic Endeavour moving to its spectacular new home.

“Can’t wait”, I said, lifting one half of a pair of cymbals out the way of the projector stand, and using a large piece of wood as a shovel to clear a laptop space in the alarming mound of studio detritus on a table.

“Although…” I hesitated, “there might be a few challenges ahead in the new place. Must say, from an acoustic point of view, I like my teaching spaces to have doors on, and four walls, but there’s no doubt the open plan studio for the entire department is absolutely stunning. It looks just like a gallery space, with its beautiful polished concrete floor and pristine white shuttered concrete walls, its double height ceilings and sleek glazing to let the light in. It’s all about bringing people together and sharing. Group discussions and 1-1s will take on a whole new energising dynamic with 150 people talking in the background instead of just 50.”

I thought I saw Hearing Aid Avenger wince.

I continued, “If it just had an architect-designed hearing aid battery storage space and a pop-up sound proof booth in the studio, it would be perfect. The office is almost as far away from the studio in the new building as it is in this one, and if I suddenly need to hear someone talking, or do a lightning battery change, things could get tricky…”

“Let me see what I can do”, winked Hearing Aid Avenger.

Guilty, M’lud

“Oh no”, said the spouse, “there’s a letter here from Glasgow Sheriff Court…don’t say you’ve been called for jury duty again? Twice in one year is bad enough, but three times? That’s unfortunate.”

“Don’t worry”, I said, excitedly, ” I sent them a letter about their hearing loop. It took me ages to write, I put my heart and soul into it…that’ll be their reply.

I made myself a nice cup of tea and settled down to open the letter, noting that it was a bit thin. Hmm. No compensatory free front row tickets for the public gallery at Court No 7, or gilt-edged invitation to see the ceremonial flicking of the ‘ON’ switch on the induction loop system for me, then.

I started reading.

‘Dear Sir/Madam,’ began the letter. I noted the personal touch. ‘Your comments and ratings are appreciated and helpful in particular where you highlight the hearing loop issues, perceived lack of training…’

Perceived lack of training? interjected my inner Rumpole of the Bailey, perceived?

I cast my mind back to the clerk of court saying that she wasn’t sure how to operate the loop system. The lack of training had seemed very real to me at the time, but I had to concede that if one now analysed the situation from a phenomenological point of view, then I had indeed perceived the lack of training, in the same way that I had perceived the courthouse, the clerk, the lack of a loop signal, and everything else since I’d got out of bed on that October morning. It certainly was real to me, but I had no way of proving that it was real to anybody else, and with the insertion of the word ‘perceived’ the Sheriffdom was making it clear that it wasn’t necessarily real to them.

I read on. I still had another three lines to go.

‘…perceived lack of training, door closers and public announcements. All of the foregoing will prove invaluable in our attempts to improve service to all court users and be taken forward in early course. I do hope that on any future visit you can see an improvement in these areas.’

“Future visit? Future visit?” I screeched, “If there is a future visit I’ll be sitting on the other side of the dock. Still, at least I’ll be able to hear the indictment next time.”

All of a sudden, I was transported to my new and improved future visit to Glasgow Sheriff Court.

“All stand”, said the clerk.

The Sheriff entered solemnly and took his seat. This time, the door closed silently behind him instead of banging shut. The packed courtroom was hushed apart from an intermittent high pitched whistling noise coming from the front row of the public gallery. A few feet away, the prisoner in the dock was fiddling with her ears.

“Moira Dancer,” began the Sheriff gravely, “I charge that on the fourteenth day of November two thousand and thirteen, at or about 8:45pm, you did blow a gasket upon reading the reply to your complaint letter from the Estates and Administration Department of the Sheriffdom of Glasgow and, after removing both hearing aids in a calculated manner, committed a breach of the peace in the kitchen of a tenement flat in the south side of Glasgow. How do you plead?”

“Guilty as sin, M’lud,” I answered, “although, in my defence, I perceived at the time of the incident that I was speaking at a normal conversational level.”

“Have you anything else to add before you are taken down?” asked the Sheriff.

“As a matter of fact, I have. For the benefit of myself, and any other hearing aid users on the benches or in the public gallery, would you please remember to speak into your microphone. It’s currently pointing at the wall.”

Action Stations

Before posting off my comprehensive list of suggestions on how to improve the experience of hearing impaired jurors at Glasgow Sheriff Court, I thought I’d better establish that the Oticons were actually working properly. There’s nothing worse than accidentally perjuring yourself in a complaint letter to the Justiciary.

A loop testing opportunity presented itself that very evening, as the 17:02 train drew out of Exhibition Centre station without me on board, despite a heroic, if slightly reckless, sprint down the wet stairs. Huffing and puffing, I noticed the ticket office was less busy than usual, so I pretended to take great interest in the unattended luggage notice on a nearby monitor, whilst I hatched a plan. I kept glancing furtively at the diminishing ticket queue, until the final condition of my hastily devised Loop Testing Protocol was met.

1. Friendly looking ticket man, check.

2. Blue ‘loop system active’ light illuminated, check.

3. Microphone visible somewhere on counter, check.

4. No other passengers in immediate vicinity, check.

The time was right, I had to move fast. The ticket man was moving towards his kettle and reaching for the notice which says ‘TICKET OFFICE CLOSED WHILE ESSENTIAL STATION MAINTENANCE IS BEING CARRIED OUT‘.

I switched immediately to T-mode and lunged at his window.

“Scuse me”, I said, leaning sideways on one elbow and smiling seductively, “is your hearing loop switched on? I just want to test that my hearing aids are working properly…”

The ticket man put down his tea mug in surprise.

“Er…aye, ah think so…they’ve just refurbished this place…”

I could hear a suitcase on wheels bumping down the stairs. Damn. I didn’t want any interruptions right now.

Without warning, I suddenly found myself acting as if I was in the hearing aid equivalent of a bank heist movie. I wished I’d worn a beige balaclava for full effect.

“OKAY”, I said assertively, “SPEAK TO ME!”

The ticket man was struck dumb by the unusual request, but soon rallied.

“Testing, testing…can you hear me? How’s that?”

I shook my head…nothing through the aids. Not even a set of printheads. My heart sank.

“TRY AGAIN!”, I commanded. “GET CLOSER TO THE MIC THIS TIME!”

The ticket man bent forward and tried again. Still nothing. A rhythmic clunking on the ceramic floor tiles signalled the approach of the suitcase on wheels, and I was beginning to get desperate.

“GET CLOSER!” I said.

I heard a rustle.

“WAIT… I THINK I GOT SOMETHING JUST THEN…GET RIGHT NEXT TO THE MIC!”

The ticket man crouched over the mic. His voice was faint, but it was the first voice to come through on the loop. Eat your heart out Marconi! I reached frantically for my volume settings, but I could feel the rumble of a train approaching. I couldn’t hang about.

“THANKS!” I shouted to my partner in crime, as I ran for the platform to jump aboard my getaway vehicle.

 

* * * * *

If you’d like to vote for a real movie in the Scottish BAFTAs starring our very own Soozie cyborginafield talking about her cochlear implant experience, vote for We Are Northern Lights here  (voting closes Mon 28th Oct 2013) 

 

Insult to injury

As one might expect in an establishment of the Justiciary, the reception desk at Glasgow Sheriff Court (above) is designed to keep restless punters at a safe distance. I found that it was also very effective at keeping the hard of hearing at a safe distance but, luckily, my ability to bend double over table tops in order to hear has grown prodigious over the years; in fact, I almost feel quite insecure if I can’t feel the edge of a table, desk or counter digging into my abdomen whilst attempting to conduct conversation in noisy surroundings.

The cheery man behind the desk should have noticed there was something unusual about the middle-aged woman on tiptoes, draped gymnastically over the brushed metal barrier surrounding his fortress, with her elbows balanced on the granite counter. Something in her intense gaze…

Silence In Court

I could barely contain my excitement as I turned up for jury duty and surveyed the array of microphones dotted about the courtroom. The Information for Jurors leaflet sent with my citation had promised hearing loops in all the courtrooms used for jury trials, and I looked forward to effortlessly hearing my name not being called out when fifteen names were selected from the clerk of court’s glass bowl.

My optimism was rather short-lived, however. While court officials were busy trying to ascertain whether the scheduled trial would go ahead, the first job for the assembled jurors-to-be was to witness the Sheriff sentencing a previously convicted Accused. Had the loop system actually been switched on, I might have known what crime he committed and what sentence he got, but perhaps ignorance is bliss when you’re sitting six feet away from a convicted criminal flanked by two burly prison officers.

Once the proceedings were done and we were despatched for a break, I finally plucked up the courage to ask the clerk of court whether the loop was switched on. Reassuringly, she told me that she didn’t know how to switch it on, but that in any case, it would only work during an actual trial whilst the proceedings were being recorded.

Mindful of the police officer to my left and the prison cells below my feet, I decided not to ask what bloody use that was when the bits before the trial were just as important to hear. Especially when my roll-call citation number didn’t have any hard consonants in it for the cookie bite ears to latch on to.

High hearing hopes dashed, I sloped off to the corridor and resigned myself to remaining conspicuously seated in the almost empty front row, for the remainder of my stint in Court X.

101 Uses for your hearing aid ‘T’ switch

The power of inductive coupling made visible, in this stunning Field installation by Richard Box. Hundreds of fluorescent tubes planted in the soil glow by inductive coupling to the electromagnetic field of the overhead power lines. This is the same process by which your hearing aids hook up to a loop (or railway power cables) but don’t ask me to explain it any further, you’ll need a physicist or Richard Box for that.

Inspired by the visual drama of Field, I have now lost interest in attempting to hear at station ticket offices, and am off to listen to some pylons instead.

Woman hears at station ticket office for the first time

Sadly, the title is slightly misleading. The new loop setting on the Oticons has given me superpowers of hearing, but not quite in the way I imagined. In telecoil mode, there is much excitement to be had in hearing the interference from invisible electromagnetic fields, and so far nothing sounds scarier than the sinister buzzing from 25 000 volts of overhead power lines in a train station, although the electricity meter in the hall cupboard at home runs a close second. I’ll be checking out some pylons when we go on the annual field trip to Loch Lomond later in the week.

I had hoped that the loop might prove useful for the more prosaic purpose of hearing through bullet-proof glass screens at ticket offices, etc, but I have not yet detected the sound of a human voice in that particular situation. I came close at Wemyss Bay train station last week, when I spotted the big ear sign at the ticket counter, and eagerly flipped my switches. Finding my first loop which was actually switched on was a breakthrough, and it was worth switching the spouse off temporarily to take advantage of it. I willed the magical words “That’ll be £6.70 each for two singles, doll” to be beamed straight into my brain via telecoil, but you can imagine my disappointment when I heard the faintly amplified sound of the ticket machine printheads going about their business instead. Fortunately, the thrill of hearing the electromagnetic field of the overhead power lines for the first time more than made up for it.

My tireless quest to hear a ticket transaction through a hearing loop will go on, but in the meantime, I shall continue to amaze people with my superpower ability to identify electric fences whilst out walking in the countryside.

Gremlins

 

I positively skipped through the sunshine in the park on the way home from Clinic O. The mute setting was now working like a dream and I toggled enthusiastically on the ear gear to put it through its paces. A three second press of the button and it was goodbye traffic noise, hello tweety birds. Another three seconds on the button to unmute, and it was hello passing baby with an intense screech like a plank of wood going through a bandsaw. I reached joyously to the ears to mute it again, but owing to the intensely high pitch of the noise given out by the purple faced infant, the illusory bandsaw was still very much there. I took some consolation, however, from the observation that the shouts of “haw big yin, get yer tits out” from the drunken jakeys on a nearby bench, had vanished into the cookie bite zone.

I burst into the house, and shouted to the spouse that it was safe to come out, all had gone well with the Oticons. He was very relieved. Then I headed to my study and settled down at the computer, lasting all of five seconds tending to my email inbox before getting distracted.

“Gosh it’s turned windy ouside all of a sudden” I said to myself, as the sound of the leaves rustling in the tree behind me caught my attention. I turned round for a look and was puzzled to see that the leaves were perfectly still. Strange. I hit mute, and the rustling leaves disappeared instantly. I hit unmute and they were back. Were they real?

After checking the house for other possible sources of rustling leaves sound, I cycled through all the programmes. Beep beep, programme 2 speech in noise, the rustling was gone. Beep beep beep, programme 3 music, no rustling. Beep beep beep beep, programme 4 loop, no rustling, just a bit of crackling. Beep, programme 1 automatic, and the rustling was back. The realisation dawned; I had hear this sound before and it wasn’t the beautiful sound of leaves rustling, it was my old enemy: circuit noise.

“Noooooooooooooooooo” I wailed, “they’re knackered! Why did I ask them to change anything…I’m going to have to phone Clinic O again!”

“Noooooooooooooooooo!” groaned the spouse, bracing himself as I headed for my favourite diagnostic tool for hearing malfunctions, the piano.

It seemed to me from some detailed musical experiments, and the fact that my voice sounded louder than usual on programme 1, that programmes 1 and 2 had somehow shuffled. I phoned Clinic O and asked if they could check my notes to confirm that the programmes were still assigned to the same slots as before. It turned out that they were, but they offered to get saintly hearing aid chap to check the setup in detail when he next emerged from the soundproof booth, to make sure there wasn’t some other simple explanation. He phoned me back very promptly and it turned out there wasn’t a simple explanation, so he offered me an appointment at the end of the day to see what was going on with the aids connected to the computer.

To cut a long story short, there was nothing going on that could be identified, so the tried and trusted troubleshooting method of reverting to the previously saved settings was employed, and the problem disappeared. I was very tempted to quit while ahead and exit Clinic O muteless and loopless once more, but saintly hearing aid chap patiently re-added the mute setting and the loop, and this time success was achieved. The gremlins were gone as quickly as they had arrived.

I breathed a nicely audible sigh of relief, offered my profuse thanks and skipped back along the slightly shadier corridor.

Loopy

After my visit to the dentist on Wednesday, I am pleased to report that dental drills are much quieter than they were when I was last on the sharp end of one 15 years ago. Funny, that. Fortunately, no further x-rays were necessary, so the Oticons remained unscathed, apart from a light showering with water infused with powdered tooth, when the drill coolant suddenly started spraying out at a peculiar angle.

First thing the following morning, me and my hearing aids presented punctually, and in full working order, for a routine service at clinic O.

“What can I do for you today?” enquired the very nice hearing aid lady.

“Just a routine service…and can you leave the retention tails on the tubes, they won’t stay in my ears otherwise…and can you activate the ‘Mute’ setting, it’s been activated twice but it doesn’t seem to work…and can I give you these Chroma S aids back, I keep forgetting to take them out of my handbag every time I come in…don’t want anyone to think I’ve stolen them…oh, and here’s the remote for them as well, it’s brand new, might be useful for an old person…”

I paused to draw a breath and glanced surreptitiously in my handbag for a second, before adding, “oh, and can I get some batteries as well? Mustn’t forget the batteries, I’m nearly out…”

Hearing aid lady cheerfully set about complying with my machine-gun fire list of requests, and I congratulated myself on having written them all down before I came in, so that I wouldn’t forget as usual. After replacing the tubes, she enlisted the help of saintly hearing aid chap to activate the Mute setting in the software and, as a heartwarming cross appeared in the onscreen dialog box, I felt a glow at the thought of turning off screaming toddlers and people with grating voices on the train with one touch of a button. Ah, yes, things were looking up. The sun was shining, my toothache was gone, my tubes still had their tails on and, unbeknownst to me, there were yet more riches to come.

“You’ve got room on there for one more programme”, said hearing aid chap enthusiastically, “do you want me to activate the loop for you? It can be really useful…”

I wondered if I had died and gone to heaven.

“That would be great,” I said, “I’d been wondering if the loop setting might be useful when we move to our shiny new building in November.” I pictured myself lounging at the back of the spanking new state of the art lecture theatre with my eyes closed, just like everyone else for a change. People could whisper distractingly in my ear, tap on their bleeping mobile devices and pointlessly rustle paper right beside me all they liked…I would be able to hear the speaker and not them. Bliss.

A few mouseclicks later, and my souped-up Oticons were ready to change my life. I bade the very helpful staff a good day, and set off along the sun-filled corridor with a newly acquired spring in my step and my fingers on the Mute button, just for the hell of it.

Little did I know, I was going to be seeing the sun-filled corridor again before the day was out…