X Factor: looking for pig talent

This could be interesting, I thought, as I sat down for my Saturday evening viewing. Pigs battling it out, a kind of “Porkie’s Got Talent” and a plethora of terrible bacon-related puns from Dermot?

Alas, it was one of many subtitling errors on Saturday’s opening to the new series. I think they meant to say “big talent”?

Yes, the X Factor is back. Which means the return of tone-deaf singers, lots of shouting from Dermot, fashion wars between Dannii and Cheryl and TRULY AWFUL subtitles.

Every year, it gets worse. Numerous typos and subtitles so out of sync with what’s being said that I only get the lame jokes around 5 minutes later. I could kind of forgive it for the live shows (though BBC news manage to at least appear to be trying to match the speech with the subtitles) but even on non-live shows, the subtitles on the X Factor are among the worse I’ve seen on any programme.

Is there some assumption at ITV that they don’t need to bother with decent subtitles because deaf people don’t listen to music? If so, then this is a pretty idiotic and offensive assumption to make. Lots of deaf children and young people watch and enjoy the X Factor. It’s unacceptable they don’t have equal access to what is one of ITV’s most popular shows.

I’ve emailed them to complain – if you want to do the same, the email address is viewerservices@itv.com. I’ll keep a keen eye out for any more errors in coming weeks.

New blog from deaf young person

I have competition: a young deaf person, who did some work experience for the National Deaf Children’s Society recently, has set up her own blog, called Feel the Breeze. Already she’s been talking about subtitles, the underground and Ryanair – which incidentally happen to be the three things that most often turn me into an angry deaf man, so it’s good to see I’m not alone.

It’s a great to see an example of a deaf young blog with deaf young people speaking directly for themselves. Hopefully, I will be seeing lots more.

Any other good young deaf blogs that are worth following?

Why never to say “Oh, it doesn’t matter” to a deaf person

Image courtesy of NDCS

A posting by Tiger Mother on the National Deaf Children’s Society website reminded me of a key cardinal rule with deaf children (and adults). If they miss something and ask you to repeat, never EVER say:

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

As an adult, I often just say “… but it was important enough to say first time around?” or if it’s someone I know, probably something unrepeatable. I will probably do my glare. I even once told a MP off for doing it.

A lot of deaf children though may not feel quite as bolshy enough to insist it be repeated. And just saying “oh, it doesn’t matter” ends up making them feel left out, alienated and excluded from daily conversations. In my case, I used to actually feel quite paranoid that if someone said “oh it doesn’t matter”, they were actually talking about me in the first place. Sadly, not all of my hearing friends ever realised why. A failure for the deaf awareness training at my school.

Sure, it’s frustrating to have to repeat something that was fairly trivial in the first place. But it’s nowhere near as frustrating as living in a world where you’re missing out on what people are saying because they’re too lazy to repeat themselves.

Am looking forward to reading more from Tiger Mother…