Writer and Director
The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling – a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension – becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it. Ian Fleming, Casino Royale
Since going bionic, I’ve started reading books again in a big way. Continue reading “Billy 2.0 – Learning to Read Again”
The above is an audiogram. Most deaf people have seen one of these before, but if you’re like me, you won’t have bothered to find out what they mean, other than ‘You are deaf. You are very, very, very deaf.’
From left to right, the audiogram is arranged like the keys on a piano, with low frequencies on the left and higher frequencies on the right.
From top to bottom is a measure of volume, in decibels.
Most people are born with perfect hearing. At the age of 18, your hearing is as good as it’s ever going to be. In fact, you’ll probably hear higher frequencies that people in their 30s and later in life can’t. As people age, they lose more and more hearing in the high frequency range.
Now, let’s look at the hearing that I was born with. My hearing has been more or less the same since I was born. I’m usually tested with a pair of headphones in a soundproofed room, using a cable with a button on the end which I press every time I hear a tone. Continue reading “Billy 2.0 – Getting my new audiogram”
Sorry for the lack of updates recently – in the last month I’ve celebrated my birthday, Christmas and danced in an RAF Uniform on New Year’s Eve.
When fellow BBC employee Damon Rose asked me to join him in Broadcasting House for an interview for the Ouch! podcast, I couldn’t say no.
I also wrote a new piece for them about why I had the implant, and where I am with it now.
There will be a transcript of the radio interview on the page as well, I believe. That contains a rather unorthodox hearing test and some interesting chat about whether deaf children should have cochlear implants…
I hope you like it.
Further reading:
Switching on my Hearing – BBC Ouch!
Interview transcript
Kaspar Hauser was a mysterious teenage boy who appeared in the streets of Nuremberg in 1828, with limited vocabulary and understanding of the world. He claimed that he’d been imprisoned in a cellar most of his life with nothing but a wooden horse to play with. History has revealed he was probably a fantasist, but his mystery has never been solved.
I first learned of Hauser from watching Werner Herzog’s unsettling and affecting portrait of his short and troubled life starring an actor called Bruno S, who wasn’t the most ordinary person himself.
The first time I watched The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, I was completely creeped out by Bruno S’ portrayal of a full-grown adult with the mind of a child, learning the names of things for the first time, trying to use a knife and fork, and reacting in a completely childlike, unaffected way to his surroundings.
I feel like Kaspar Hauser. Continue reading “Billy 2.0 – The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser”
A week after my operation I went back to the hospital. They took the dressings off, did an X-ray and told me I was allowed to wash all the matted blood and dried gunk out of my hair at last. They’ve given me a list of dates from now until March when I’ll have to go into hospital for various switch ons, tune ups and therapy sessions.
Now I’m sitting here looking at an X-ray of my cochlear implant inside my head.