CONTINUITY:
It's Disability Awareness Week here on Radio 4, part of our ongoing commitment to improving accessibility to our services. Later this evening it's ‘Any Questions'. For the hearing impaired, subtitles to the show can be found on page 103 of this week's Radio Times. But now, for our blind listeners, it's the news in Braille. (PAUSE) Dot, dot, space, dot, space, dot, dot, dot, space, space dot, dot, space (FADE OUT)
Hello. For me, not up there with your usually high standard of material. Both jokes, whilst good, felt a little familiar. In that although furtive ground for comedy, the ground has been ploughed many a time before. Think you'd need a really original angle for it to work. Did you envisage the 'dot, dot' etc to be read out as words or as sounds? Maybe if the victim was Radio 4 rather than the deaf/blind it could work as a topical joke. They'd need to make a disability blunder though.
Yeah, not for me either. Seemed a little too basic to be funny. Sorry to be negative
Fair enough, it was just a quick stupid idea that popped into my head.
Would work if you did it as the news in morse.
Possibly. I just liked the stupidity of reading braille out when blind listeners could hear the normal news just as easily.
Thing is that ain't braille.
Quote: sootyj @ December 4 2008, 12:41 PM GMTThing is that ain't braille.
correct...it my be funny to the small group of people who have heard about brail but yet to realise what it actually is, but that's it. (that group is probably 8 year olds as my 4 year old wouldn't get it and my 12 year old would say its Morse code.
get a puppy and whizz down the playground, you'll clean up.
Hmm how about.
Fish, eye, man walking to the left, sphynx, dog headed woman.
That was the news in hyroglyphics.
Disability Awareness Week doesn't really bother me. I've got asperger's syndrome - I'm already aware of disabilities.
Quote: sootyj @ December 4 2008, 12:41 PM GMTThing is that ain't braille.
Well no, clearly it isn't as braille is not intended to be read out as is. But, when it comes down to it, braille is just a pattern of dots and spaces on paper.
Quote: Pete @ December 4 2008, 12:56 PM GMTcorrect...it my be funny to the small group of people who have heard about brail but yet to realise what it actually is, but that's it. (that group is probably 8 year olds as my 4 year old wouldn't get it and my 12 year old would say its Morse code.
get a puppy and whizz down the playground, you'll clean up.
I wasn't aware that braille was all that obscure...
Quote: Afinkawan @ December 4 2008, 4:01 PM GMTI wasn't aware that braille was all that obscure...
With you there. It's not obscure at all. Certainly not to a radio 4 audience (which i presume is the intended target). The hearing joke works well. The braille joke, for me, is somewhat lost in translation. I still think you're one of the best writers on here. Your insurgents joke was hilarious. And you also wrote that 'first life' radio sketch, right?
Quote: Afinkawan @ December 4 2008, 4:01 PM GMTWell no, clearly it isn't as braille is not intended to be read out as is. But, when it comes down to it, braille is just a pattern of dots and spaces on paper.
Whereas Morse is dots and dashes, so I am not sure where that confusion comes from. Having said that, I was not altogether sold on this, partly because of the issue of rendering Braille phonetically.
Quote: Afinkawan @ December 4 2008, 4:01 PM GMTWell no, clearly it isn't as braille is not intended to be read out as is. But, when it comes down to it, braille is just a pattern of dots and spaces on paper.
I wasn't aware that braille was all that obscure...
Which is my point...everyone knows it isnt dot space dot space. You might as well say red, blue, green, red, yellow and call it an art show for the blind.
Quote: Nick Rivers @ December 4 2008, 4:31 PM GMTWith you there. It's not obscure at all. Certainly not to a radio 4 audience (which i presume is the intended target). The hearing joke works well. The braille joke, for me, is somewhat lost in translation. I still think you're one of the best writers on here. Your insurgents joke was hilarious. And you also wrote that 'first life' radio sketch, right?
Yes. It was intended for RFTP. I originally submitted just the second half, purely the braille gag which they said they liked but felt it needed some context. So the disability awareness week was an attenmpt to give it some context. It doesn't seemed to have worked, but there you go, it was just a gag that popped into my head so nothing lost.
Yes, I wrote the First Life sketch. I've got a few that are definitely on the running order for the first recording of RFTP, if they don't get cut at the read through and go alright on the night, they should make it onto the air, so keep an ear out for a sketch or two about a bunch of incompetent terrorists calling themselves the Death To The West Club.