There's no such thing as 'hands-free'!

A particular bugbear of mine is technology which is advertised as 'hands-free' but isn't!

Christine and I have been trying for years to find a genuinely hands-free mobile phone. You may wonder what I'm going on about as virtually all mobile phones advertise a 'hands-free' facility, and yes they do all have this, particularly in relation to voice dialling. But they are not hands-free - you have to press a button to access the facility, and that is something that Christine cannot do.

Now I can see that we are about to go through the same frustrating process with e-book readers. Like them or loathe them, they do away with the need to turn pages, a complex skill which is beyond many disabled and older people. E-book's should be the ideal solution. But they won't be, not because the technology isn't available, but because the designers haven't bothered to apply it.

I've already checked with the Sony e-book, and I see that the Amazon Kindle 2 is about to be launched in the UK. Same problem - you have to be able to press buttons to use them.

There would be two solutions, neither of them beyond the reach of current technology. The first is the control (Christine uses a Sony Ericsson K 700i mobile phone at the moment which has partial voice control), or alternatively an interface that would allow phones, e-book readers etc to be operated with environmental controls such as Fox and Possum.

I would love to be wrong, so if anyone knows of a mobile phone (or e-book reader) that has a genuine hands-free facility Christine and I would be very pleased to hear from you.

Frustration, frustration..!

We think we have learned to be pretty good at overcoming the many barriers that face disabled people - that some, you can't do anything about!

We were recently have reminded us of this. I know it's sad, but we wanted to go and see Cliff Richard and the Shadows (remember them?) at Sheffield Arena. The concert had just been advertised on TV so I rang up straight away to book tickets. Any seats available? No problem. Good so far, but we need one wheelchair space? Very sorry, no wheelchair spaces available.

Sheffield Arena is a large and modern venue but we miss 80% of the shows that we might want to see because when you try to book, all the wheelchair spaces have gone. It should be possible for venues to be more flexible so that wheelchair space can be matched to the demand for any particular performance. Until it is, this is certainly an area in which we will continue to feel discriminated against.