horsemouth is just back from a quick walk up the road. they were ringing the bells at the abbey but horsemouth headed off the other way and up dick's pitch. soon (monday) horsemouth and his mum are on unlocking/ locking up the abbey duty. today horsemouth walked up hill until it turned into mud and then turned around and came back not wanting to get mud on his decent trousers.
monday also an ernest dowson quote from a letter written 20th november 1895 (which horsemouth wrote down in his diary).
roland allen's the notebook: a history of thinking on paper got a review in the torygraph last weekend.
this weekend it is the turn of list making (in the saturday supplement). both rely upon the supposed benefits for memory and cognition of physically writing things down (rather than the typing away at a machine that horsemouth largely does these days). he just opened his diary - next to nothing (physically) written down in it (but then the pens are acting up again).
horsemouth needs to write things down (or type them in) otherwise he forgets almost immediately.
once upon a time horsemouth (with one of his deaf students) encountered a lecturer who was most taken by ideas around the mental benefits of physically writing things down and thought that the deaf student should be writing things down for themselves rather than employing a notetaker like horsemouth to do it for them. sadly this meant that in the lectures the student became more focused on writing down their own notes rather than focusing on the interpreters to pick up the contents of the lecture (thus annoying the interpreters).
for a while the lecturer aggressively attempted to reinvent the way deaf students were supported. eventually the lecturer had a conversation with the student where they felt sufficiently affirmed and valued in order to drop it (horsemouth suspects this was the real issue all along) and everyone heaved a sigh of relief.
for everybody it was an object lesson in the sacred art of dealing with conflict. it is not that the lecturer was wrong about the benefits of physically writing notes it is just that their model of the student was a hearing student rather than a sign-language using deaf student.
the government had a different problem with supporting the deaf (in work, in education, in medical or legal situations) and that problem was that while it wanted it done (as indicative of a society that valued all people) it also didn't want to pay for it particularly. eventually (post 2008 horsemouth believes) the government called for a race to the bottom on the fees charged for deaf support (the lowest bid had to be selected). the sector continues because interpreters and other support workers are still needed to integrate deaf people into the largely hearing institutions that surround them.
what the government is really looking for is a speech-to-text device/ better hearing aids etc. that would if not render the deaf hearing at least render the costs of supporting them more predictable.
in a few minutes a zoom call with howard. (don't get horsemouth started on the changes in the support for the deaf during the pandemic. many interpreters hated delivering the service via zoom and had grave doubts about its efficacy).
thereafter horsemouth does not know because he no longer works in the sector.
zoom call over horsemouth is slightly drunk - two bottles of beer.
excuse him. he's just seen some sheep go by the window. (the sheep are back this will annoy his mum).
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