November 2022 has been a juggling act between completing work, reading magical stories, watching reality TV and following a sports tournament.
Disability Horizons
Like last month, as well as all my usual work at Disability Horizons – writing news stories, featured articles, interviews, shop blogs and editing content – I’ve continued to commission other writers’ work.
Here are the articles I published and edited this month:
- Have your say on London taxi fares potentially increasing
- Have your say on a possible new cross-river bus network in East London
- Natalie Balmain: Candidate with health conditions become alternative Prime Minister
- True Colors Festival 2022: a global concert celebrating inclusion, diversity and difference in the performing arts
- 8 disabled influencers from different ethnic minority groups
- 15 inclusive books by disabled women writers
- ZipOns: adapted trousers to help you dress easier and be freer
- Becoming a paraprofessional and challenging perceptions of learning disabilities
- 5 mobility aids that will make modern and practical gifts this Christmas
- 5 accessible and trendy gifts for wheelchair users this Christmas
- Caron Mcluckie: designer of the Bealies wheelchair joggers
- Disability Horizons Hoodies
All my Disability Horizons content is now available to view in one place on the Emma Purcell Author’s page. This link can also be accessed on the “Disability Horizons” button on the menu page on the left of this site.
My featured content, product articles and sponsored posts for Disability Horizons can be viewed in my Journo Portfolio.
To read my latest news stories, interviews and featured articles regularly, as well as browse other content from the rest of the amazing DH team, subscribe to the Disability Horizons newsletter.
Donations
With just over a month left of 2022, I’m keen to get more donations to support the funding of Rock For Disability and give 20% to a worthy organisation.
So far this year, we’ve raised £85, which is great but we’d love to reach £150 by 31st December 2022. If you enjoy reading my content and happy to support disability communities, I’d appreciate you giving anything you can.
Head to the Donations page to donate. You can make a one-off payment or a monthly donation, which will go straight to the Rock For Disability PayPal account. 20% of each donation will be given to a disability charity at the end of each year. You can pay via PayPal or by card.
Books
As I mentioned last month, I’ve been reading books by Alice Oseman, the writer who created the Netflix show Heartstopper. Her second book Radio Silence is about a girl named Frances who is obsessed with a podcast called Radio Silence. She later discovers who the hidden person is behind the audio series and the real-life challenges that they face, which inspired the podcast.
I loved the idea of creating an anonymous fictional character but basing the storylines on real-life events without the listeners knowing they are real.
I then read Alice Oseman’s third book I Was Born For This, which is about a teenage girl obsessed with a boyband, only to meet them and find out they’re battling with depression and trying to understand their identities and sexual orientations.
After that, I fancied a trip back to the wizarding world and re-read The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of magical fairytales read to wizarding children. I also read again A History of Magic, a book about how JK Rowling created the wizarding world and som of the real-life magical history that inspired it.
I’ve now started a new magical book series called The School of Good and Evil by Sonam Chainani. I watched a film version on Netflix a couple of weeks ago and at the end, I read the credits to find it was based on a book.
In the story, every four years, two girls are kidnapped from the village of Gavaldon. Legend has it these lost children are sent to the School for Good and Evil, the fabled institution where they become fairytale heroes or villains.
Sophie, the most beautiful girl in town, has always dreamed of her place at the School for Good while her friend Agatha, with her dark disposition, seems destined for the School for Evil. But when the two are kidnapped, they find their fortunes reversed.
The book series has in fact eight books, so if the first book is as good as the film, I’ll have plenty to read in the next few months.
TV and film
November has been dominated by my favourite show of the year and the only reality show I religiously watch this time of year – I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!.
I can honestly say this series has had the best lineup of campmates ever. As a huge fan of Chris Moyles and his continuous rejection of appearing on the show, I never thought in a billion years he’d actually agree to go in the jungle.
When the rumours started and Chris was spotted arriving in Australia, my first – and most realistic thought – was he was going on a holiday to accompany his girlfriend Tiffany who works with Boy George. Then he would return to Radio X in a couple of weeks.
However, in the early hours of the 1st November, I saw The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X’s Facebook page change the profile picture to an image of Chris posing in I’m a Celeb gear. I then clicked on the page, scrolled down and saw the post announcement. This was my immediate reaction…
The show overall has been thoroughly entertaining with so many other well-known celebrities including Lioness Jill Scott, journalist Charlene White, former rugby player and royal family member Mike Tindall and comedian Seann Walsh.
Like 99.9% of the UK population, I despised Matt Hancock being in the jungle. Although the coronavirus pandemic did not affect me much personally, I do sympathise with those who lost loved ones or were separated from family and friends for months and years.
Also, as a serving MP, he should be supporting his constituency, not crawling through mole holes, having bugs and gunk cover him and eating kangaroo penis. He won’t get any forgiveness from me and I hope none of the other campmates stays in contact with him.
I’m also baffled he wasn’t kicked out in the first vote-off. As I write this, he is part of the final four celebrities. Who the actual fuck is voting for him?
I was gutted Chris Moyles didn’t make it to the final but it was great hearing the gossip on Radio X the day after he left. I’m now rooting for Jill Scott to be crowned Queen of the Jungle.
Another long-awaited momentous yet controversial televised event that has started is the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. Despite the time and place of this football tournament being debatable, I still love the feeling and entertainment of watching and listening to football games, every day, several times a day for four weeks.
So far, I’ve listened to most games on BBC Radio 5 Live while working. My highlights so far have been Saudi Arabia’s win against Argentina, Germany’s defeat against Japan and England’s 6-2 thumping against Iran.
I also love that every World Cup match broadcast on BBC TV has a feature that syncs with the radio commentary. This is not specifically designed as an accessibility feature but I find it extremely useful as a visually impaired person.
I mentioned it before in my analysis of the Women’s Euro 2022 tournament and I’m campaigning for radio-style commentary on all TV sports channels.
If you’d like to access this feature during the World Cup on BBC, you can simply press the red button on your TV, go to channel 601 on Freeview or go to BBC iPlayer and select “World Cup: Extra”.
Also, I just found a trick to syncing BBC radio communtary with ITV pictures. Play BBC Radio 5 Live on a radio, smart speaker or phone, then play ITV1 on a TV or tablet on the ITV Hub. Pause the telly for a few seconds then press play again and the video action should follow the audio on the radio. (Be warned – this feature can be temperamental and may not work each time on every device.)
I also watched a couple of Netflix films. The first was called Run, which is about a teenage girl called Chloe who believes she was born with complex health conditions and paralysis, only to discover her mum had kidnapped her at birth, homeschooled her and given her drugs to cause the health issues – a tense, psychotic horrifying story that I wasn’t expecting but still good.
As I mentioned above, I also watched the Netflix film The School of Good and Evil. It was a great fantasy-fiction adventure story. I felt like there were so many similar elements of some of my other favourite stories such as Harry Potter, His Dark Materials and Twilight. It also had a curious cliffhanger, which led me to think there would be more stories.
Also, at the beginning of the month, I watched a Netflix series called Uncoupled, which is a comedy-drama about a gay middle-aged man who gets dumped by his long-term boyfriend and has to learn single life again. It wasn’t the greatest show but it was an easy watch.
Audio Description petition
My campaign for audio description has continued throughout November 2022 and the petition has now reached a total of 3561 signatures, which is incredible!
But I’m eager to reach thousands. The more signatures we get, the more likely changes could be made within the TV & films industries. Please, please, PLEASE continue to sign & share my petition!
Guest Bloggers Wanted
I’m still eager to collaborate with even more bloggers in 2022/23. So, if you’re a lifestyle, disability and/or music blogger, send me your blog stories. Plus let me know if you’d like me to feature on your blog as a guest blogger.
I’m flexible with any type of blog post; life story, disability awareness, music event, musician promotion – basically anything to do with life, disability or music!
In addition, I have a guest blog series called “RFD Question Time with…” where I interview disabled people and/or bloggers. If you’d like to be interviewed in this series, please also contact me.
Blog post roundup
In case you missed any of my blog posts this month, here is a roundup of them:
- Review: The Proclaimers live at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
- 5 accessible Alexa skills you may have not considered
- Review: Kaiser Chiefs live at the BIC, Bournemouth
5 favourite blog posts
Here are my 5 favourite blog posts I’ve read this month:
- How To Cultivate Meaningful Friendships at New Lune
- 5 Essential Considerations to Simplify Daily Life as a Disabled Individual at Sat On My Butt
- Moving From Moderate To Milder ME/CFS – My Experience at Life of Pippa
- Friends the Parody – Review at The Life of Sophie Abel
- What I’ve learned from being a mentor for young vision impaired people at My Blurred World
