Blind Guys Chat

Hello, our autumn leaves, and welcome to episode 107 of BGC. We begin this show with some interesting news from Be My Eyes and Meta. It appears that the Be My Eyes application will soon become available via Meta Ray Ban SmartGlasses. This means when calling a volunteer using the app, the volunteer will now see the image from your Meta specs. Is this a cool and clever collaboration? Will this be a...

Hello our lovely loyal listeners, and welcome to ep 106. We kick off this show with the latest hot topic in The Netherlands: FatBikes! Yes, it seems that Jan has imported 16,000 electric bikes to sell them and make his fortune. But they appear to be a little dodgy as they have big wide tyres and are as low slung as Sjef's harness. Jan's mother-in-law also has something to say about these bikes so...

Hello our favourite tech geniuses! We start with some good news. Yes, Mali, the Bernese Mountain dog who was missing for 2 weeks, has been rescued from a 61-metre-high cliff edge on an island off the coast of Donegal. She ran off during a storm but now she has been reunited with her humans and went home for a big dinner and a snooze - yaaaay!!   Óran has had enough of the terrible Irish summer and...

Hello our Bermuda hurricanes and welcome to a blowy episode. We begin this episode reminiscing of cars long gone. Do you remember the Renault 4 or the Citroen BX or even the older Citroen DS? Yes, they might have been rust buckets and as unreliable as summer in Ireland but, at least they were quirky and fun to drive. Speaking of quirky and unreliable things, have you watched ‘Clarkson's Farm’ on A...

Hello our fast and furious Olympians, and welcome to ep 103 of BGC. We have a full house this week as Jan is back from his 11th holiday of the year, and Mohammed Laachir is back with us again fresh from NFB in Florida, having enjoyed their all you can eat buffet.   Yes, Jan handed the car keys over to Tycho while he, Chantal and Princess Rosalie sat in the back seat of their lovely electric vehicl...

Hello our favourite funny people, and welcome to episode 102 of BGC. Since Jan is off on another holiday (we’re not at all jealous!) we devote the entire episode to our wonderful guest, Sydney May. Sydney lives in Brighton and works for the Thomas Pocklington Trust. But that's not all! Sydney is also a comedian and plays bass in her band - Torrid (A love affair). Check them out on Spotify ( link h...

Hello our favourite A.I. bots! We hope you are well, and are looking forward to another fantastic episode of Blind Guys Chat. We begin this week’s show with a health warning, or should that be a sandwich warning!?! Yes, it seems that Sjef was a bit of a bold doggy during the week, as he managed to get his mouth around a sandwich belonging to one of Jan's colleagues. However, it looks like Sjef won...

Hello our little party poppers, and welcome to episode 100 of BGC! Yes, can you believe it's been 100 years since we first started? ...Ahem, that doesn't seem correct... Anyway, let's carry on. To help us celebrate this historic show we are joined by our own Scottish kilt: Blind Gordon, the Bambi Thug of the podcasting world: Kevin Sherwin, and our own personal Accessibility Discovery Centre: Bria...

Hello little bumblebees and welcome to episode 99. This week we welcome back guest host Brian Dalton. Brian joined the Blind Guys on a school trip to the Dublin Royal Convention Centre last Saturday. Yes, we've hit the big time - BGC were invited to speak at the Retina International World Congress 2024 about assistive technology and how it helps us in our daily lives. What a thrill it must have be...

Hello our little flu germs and welcome to the show. This week Jan and Óran have been left doing the show unsupervised with no responsible adult to keep them in check so prepare for any kind of conversations. We get the chat going with football/soccer. It appears that Jan's local team have not been doing so well in the last few games, losing 2-1 and 7-1 in their last 2 games. To celebrate this, som...

Hello our favourite little musical notes, and welcome to this episode of BGC. This week we are straight into it! Yes, back by popular demand and also because he's a cheap guest, we are chatting again with Kevin Sherwin; or as we like to call him "Mr Eurovision"! So, settle in and listen to us rant, rave, applaud and appraise, and generally share our thoughts on this year’s Eurovision son...

Hello our little teardrops and welcome to episode 96. It's Eurovision Song Contest time again so do watch out for the odd Eurovision song title in the show notes and also during the show. Óran is asking listeners to email in with the total number of Eurovision song titles that are mentioned during the show and in the show notes and podcast chapters. You’d never know – there might be a prize – so g...

Hello our little Galway girls and welcome to 'De Chat' as some of our listeners are calling it. We hope you are well, dry, and safe. This week it's a welcome back to Gordon Anthony aka Blind Gordon, who guest hosts again. Gordon has been a busy boy while not on the air - it seems he managed to break his arm from signing autographs on the way to see Dundee United lose another football match. But lu...

Read transcript Hello our little spring butterflies and welcome to episode 94 of BGC. Our guest host on this show is our good friend Nora Nagle, who joins us all the way from Boston, Massachusetts. Nora's retired guide dog, Larry, is also making an appearance every now and again with woofs and pleas for treats. Nora has just returned from a world tour of Miami beach where her husband was able to g...

Hello our bouncy little spring lambs and welcome to episode 93 of BGC. Unfortunately, Óran is not feeling too well this week as he has a pain in his hoop! Yes, he has had an altercation with a grocery collection and in particular with the bags the goods are packed in. Do you sympathise with him? Listen to his story and email us: blindguyschat@gmail.com .   Clodagh has ordered a cup of coffee and a...

Hello our little snow ploughs! Welcome to this episode of BGC. This week, we are joined by our guest host, Brian Dalton. Brian has had a very interesting life, as you will find out right from the start. Jan and Óran finally discover the answer to a burning question: if blind from birth, do you see in your dreams? Brian and one other have the answer. Have you ever experienced Non-24? Well, Brian ha...

Hello our newborn Robins. We hope you are well and ready for another exciting and delightful episode of your favourite podcast. On this show our guest host is Mohammed Laachir. Mohammed lives in the Netherlands, and is one of the people in Vispero who brought us the fantastic split sound feature in JAWS, and also worked on the split Braille function for Braille displays. Have you ever tried skiing...

Hello our refreshing Braille cells, and welcome to another episode of BGC: the show everyone is talking about. Our guest host this week is Marc Wijnhoven, who lives in the Netherlands not too far from our Jan. Marc is chomping at the bit to get going and of course his favourite topic, just like Jan and Óran, is the weather. Marc has a lot of strings to his bow - he is a fluent Norwegian speaker wh...

Hello our little windswept listeners and welcome to episode 89. This is an exciting show for Jan, Óran and Clodagh as we welcome our first guest host to the podcast. Let's say hello to Gordon Anthony, aka Blind Gordon who joins us all the way from Livingston in Scotland. Gordon, a former Miss World (who knew!) is literally taking this one lying down. Wait until Mrs Blind Gordon finds out!   Have y...

Hello our little frozen hibernating hedgehogs and welcome to episode 88 of the podcast. What is the weather like in your part of the world? Well, it's feckin' freezin' here in Europe and the Blind Guys cannot wait for spring.   Have you heard of 11 Labs? It's a text to speech and AI voice generator and Stuart has been playing around with it to try to clone his voice. Does it work? Hmmmm... yes and...

Welcome to another of our BGC bites. In this podcast we are talking to some more service providers who had stands at Sight Village Southeast recently. You will hear from Greg Hargraves from Paige Braille who will talk about Paige Connect, a Bluetooth circuit board that connects to old-school Perkins Braillers allowing the text to be displayed on a PC, which is a pretty cool trick. Clodagh is busy...

Welcome to our BGC bites. In this podcast we are talking to some more service providers who had stands at Sight Village Southeast in London during November.   Óran talks with Michelle Young from The Braillists Foundation about all its services. Then Clodagh chats with Kate Arkell from Retina UK which, to quote Kate, is "a charity supporting people affected by inherited sight loss and investin...

Hello our tired little elves, and welcome to the BGC Christmas Quiz 2023 Extravaganza Special! We hope you are managing to get through the festive season unscathed, and are enjoying lots of time to relax, play, walk, run, jog, swim, or just lay about the house and chill.   This show is devoted to our Christmas Quiz which we recorded with some of our most loyal listeners just before Santa started d...

Hello our little blown away leaves and welcome to episode 86 of the show. Are you sorted for Christmas? Well, in case you’re not, we've got the perfect festive gift for you. Why not join us for the Blind Guys Chat Christmas Quiz which we are broadcasting live on December 21st at 8pm Irish time? That's 3pm in the EST, 10pm in South Africa and 11am in the North Pole! If you want to be part of a quiz...

Hello our little frozen icicles, and welcome to Part 2 of Sight Village South East. This week we have more interviews with product manufacturers and developers from the recent Sight Village event which took place in London a few weeks ago. We are talking to: Bruno Vollmer from biped.ai who tells us about his great product that straps over your shoulders and helps detect obstacles in the area so yo...