Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos

Phil Friend (OBE Ph.DFRSA) himself a wheelchair user, is acknowledged as the UK's foremost consultant on disability matters.

Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos

March 30, 2019

Hello everyone just a quick note to let you know that I’m planning to develop a new podcast in which I interview disabled people about the things they use to overcome the barriers they face because of their disability. I’ll keep you posted as to when this will become available.

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Nothing about us without us or have you forgotten?

March 07, 2017

Is it just me or is something untoward going on concerning disability and social inclusion? Let me explain. The Minister for Disabled People Penny Mordaunt recently appointed 11 sector champions who are supposed to promote the importance of disability inclusion across the retail, music, leisure, tourism, hotels, media, advertising, airports, buses, banking and gaming sectors. The aim of this initiative is to drive improvements in the accessibility and quality of services and facilities in each area, helping to highlight best practice and demonstrate to other businesses the merit of making disabled customers a priority. So what’s wrong with that I hear you say? A couple of things. The Minister asked the DWP and the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) to find suitably qualified or experienced people. The ‘advertisement’ said that they were looking for “champions who are ambitious, passionate and dynamic, with strong networks and the ability to reach out to a wide range of organisa...

Do you do things differently?

April 11, 2021

As some of you know, I record a couple of podcasts, one of which is called Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos. I developed the podcast in conjunction with the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RIDC). The RIDC aims to test and examine products and services from a disability point of view. Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos talks to disabled people who use technology or other gadgets innovatively or differently . Sarah Kent, who gardens using her feet, Hazel Dudley, a blind photographer, Vivek Gohill, who lives with the muscle-wasting condition Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and has adapted gaming tech so he can use it. If you want to know. more about them, here's a link to the podcast website Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos If you are a disabled person who uses "stuff" in a different and somewhat unusual way, drop me a line, and we can have a chat. Don't be shy! The podcast takes about 20 minutes to record, and it's all pretty straight forward. It's all done online, s...

MP for ban on Atos, Supreme Court assisted suicide ruling, ILF reports success, DWP stays silent, Cable given food for thought, Activists want single stream of support, Blunkett to stand down.

June 30, 2014

Hello to you all. So now we are living in holiday let number two having spent a week on a campsite in our motorhome. You've guessed it the saga of the February flood continues! For those of you who've followed every twist and turn of this epic, our house now has bare walls and will shortly have the floors lifted! We don't anticipate being back home until mid August. Noah had the right idea, if you think you might be flooded start building an accessible ark right now. We are currently living in a fully accessible holiday cottage just outside Hertford. The lady who owns the place runs a riding stables and has converted some old out buildings into four accessible units, one of which is equipped with a ceiling hoist. It turns out that her late father had Parkinsons and she couldn't find any accessible accommodation for him so decided to build her own! She now has a thriving holiday let business, while we've been here we've seen a family with a severely disabled youn...