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 luckily, he had set up 'fall detection' on his Apple watch and the device proceeded to call the...

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 give her a very detailed review of the local wildlife and their different coloured thongs. Jan...

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: [email protected].   Clodagh has ordered a cup of coffee and a cake from the local café and is awaiting its arrival via a drone. Jan and Óran are somewhat...

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 has, and he's got some very strange tales to tell when he eventually falls asleep. Not on the show...

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? Well Jan has, but apparently, he has problems hearing his instructors and has ended up in the...

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 which might be handy as he tries to decipher what Jan and Óran talk about.   Marc has recently...

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 you ever used Aira? (Yes, that’s the correct spelling – we double-checked!) Aira is a visual...

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 no, we'll hear more from Stuart on it. (Link: elevenlabs.io/)   Óran is asking the guys if it is...

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 on this podcast as she is talking with Andy Farrell from Guide Dogs UK, Richard Black from the...

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 investing in medical research to help make their challenges a thing of the past."   So, take a quick break...

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 delivering goodies around the world. We have teams from as far west as Saint Louis and as far east...

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 team and answer some easy but fun questions, then let us know by no later than end of day on...

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 you can avoid collisions. The harness uses autonomous driving technology to detect obstacles in...

Hello our little winter snowflakes and welcome to a very special show. The Blind Guys have just returned from London where 2 major events happened... well, 3 if you count the King opening parliament! Yes, all 3 Blind Guys were in the same room for the first time since the dinosaurs walked the earth. Ironically, Jan, Stuart and Óran lined up their wormholes to coincide with the opening day (only day really) of Sight Village South East. It was a momentous occasion with streamers, fireworks, a...

Hello our little hibernating hedgehogs. We hope you are well and remembered to put the clocks back last Sunday.   We start this week's show off with some exercise, as after the recording our own Jonas Vingegaard A.K.A., Jan was setting off cycling in preparation for his participation in the first ever Tour de Underwater Volcanos. Let's hope he can find Nemo, eh?!   Stuart has news about the new Windows 11 update. Apparently one of the cool new things will be the ability to set audio levels...

Hello, our favourite little squirrels, and welcome to Episode 82 of Blind Guys Chat. We begin this week with tales from Nairobi. Our own travelling wilbury, Jan, has just returned from South Africa where he was introduced to every person living on the continent - because he's so famous don't ya know! Yes, Jan has been in the region for the last week selling his wares and wearables, and is very impressed with how much knowledge blind and low vision people in Nairobi have about assistive...

Hello our little autumn leaves and welcome to the show. Have you been watching or listening to the Rugby World Cup matches? Óran is delighted that Ireland managed to win victory over South Africa, aka The Springboks (sorry Gary Hough like cough). Óran is also hoping that the Scots cry like little girls once Ireland trash them this coming Saturday (sorry Blind Gordon). …Anyway on with the show: U2 are back on the scene folks! And instead of losing their money on the slots in Las Vegas like...

Hello our little ducklings and welcome. First things first: Some of you did not believe that Stuart did in fact climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Well... we have proof! For those of you who have not seen this picture of Stuart standing at the top click on this link and you will have your proof. (Before you scold us – there is alt text, don’t worry!)   Now, on with the show. Yes, it is number 80 which in numerology terms is a symbol of abundance and prosperity. “If you have been working hard towards...

Hello our little sweltering lemmings and welcome to this episode of the podcast. We begin this week’s show with very special birthday wishes to Rosalie Bloem; Jan’s wonderful princess daughter, which is swiftly followed by a hook up with Sherpa Radi, one of the 2 very patient Sherpas who helped Stuart to summit Mount Kilimanjaro recently. Radi gives us a blow-by-blow account of his journey and explains the extreme difficulties in not only carrying Mr “big-bottomed” Lawler, but also his beer....

Hello our little butterflies and thank you for tuning into this week’s show. At long last we are a family again as Stuart managed to bribe his sherpas to come back up the mountain and rescue him from the flagpole. They then drop kicked him all the way over to the BGC studio just in time to record this episode with us.   As usual the guys are talking about the weather and in particular storm ‘Betty’ which roared through Ireland over the weekend. Have you any weather stories? Let us know by...

Hello our little hatchlings and welcome to a shiny new episode of Blind Guys Chat. We begin our show this week with some almost-but-not-really upsetting news: It appears that Stuart’s adventure to Mount Kilimanjaro has hit a little bump in the road; apparently his sherpas have had enough of lugging his beer supply up the mountain, so instead of raising the Blind Guys Chat flag at the summit, they decided to mount Stuart on the flagpole, possibly by his very attractive thermal underjocks. But...

Hello dear listeners and welcome to the most funlyest podcast in the world ever (and yes, we know that’s not a real word. We make up our own words around here. Don't you?). In a change to our regular programme schedule and because the 2 messers (Jan & Stuart) are on holiday, we have had to invoke the “wheel of stand-ins” to help us fairly select a listener who has offered to guest-host, so let’s give it a whirl and see who comes out a winner!   Support Blind Guys Chat by contributing to...

Hello dear listeners. Well, with the fall of the Dutch government being a direct result of Jan and Sjef's influence, we begin the show looking for an account of the events that have led the people of the Netherlands into another election. We bring you the full facts and the reasons that brought about this historic event.(Spoiler alert. We don't really!!)   Stuart has news about Sight Village which is happening in Birmingham shortly and he an Jan did a webinar recently for Sight and Sound on...

Hello you little rascals, are you hot enough? Have you been enjoying the good weather? Well Jan is roasting in his attic studio with 31 degrees of boiling heat and the producer won’t let him leave the fan on during recording, so he’s melting.   Speaking of boiling, do you have one of those boiling water taps or a One cup kettle? Check it out here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breville-HotCup-Dispenser-Variable-Dispense/dp/B078L3WJWM. Well, Óran thinks the kettle is great but Stuart is not too...