-
Hi everyone we’re live here with
Damon Rose from BBC Ouch!
-
And we’re just gonna have a little
chat with him and share with you all
-
-Hi Damon
Hello
-
-Thanks for joining us today
-Thanks for coming to our country
-
-Yes
-It’s all brighter for it.
-
[Laughter]
Thank you, it’s been quite lovely actually
-
So, we can just get right into it.
Maybe you could tell us
-
how you started BBC Ouch!
-
How did we start it? So, it all
started with a meeting some years ago.
-
I think it was back in about 2001,
we had a TV show on national station BBC2
-
Which was a disability magazine show
that was on every week
-
and it was filmed at the time the internet
was beginning to grow.
-
[inaudible]
-
And it could be a two way conversation
-
It was a bit like the website Ouch!
which was always a little bit different.
-
[inaudible]
-
Very keen not to be wordy
-
[inaudible]
-
We wanted to do disability at the time
in the way that disabled mates might talk
-
about it down at the pub.
You know, that sort of thing.
-
So we set it up.
-
[inaudible]
-
And that went on 8 or 9 years
when we went on to BBC news,
-
we took one leg of what we were doing,
which was the journalism side of things
-
and we concentrated on that and kept
the podcast as well, which we do
-
[inaudible]
-
So that's where we are these days.
-And you're happy with the way things are going?
-
Yeah but I'm standing in the BBC foyer
so if I wasn't happy
-
I wouldn't be telling you.
[Laughter}
-
But I am.
-
Good.
Good, so how did the name come to you?
-
The name literally, I know people say this
literally did come to me in the shower.
-
One morning we had, oh goodness,
the idea of coming up with a name
-
for a disability website,
is a bit of a nightmare
-
for any kind of disability project.
-
We desperately wanted,
forgive me,
-
but we didn't want anything with the word
"able" in it, for instance, because
-
it was such a, people do it a lot.
Every single disability project
-
is "able" this, "able" that, work "able",
media "able", radio "able".
-
Whatever, you know.
So I was keen not to go through that
-
and I wanted something that had a bit of
attitude as well.
-
I'm trying to think of other things
we went through at the time.
-
Some of the ideas are probably
worth dwelling on a bit.
-
Some of the names we came up with
-
as we went along, I remember at one point,
when our working title was
-
Disability Noodle, I don't know where that
-
came from.
[Laughter]
-
Someone in the marketing
department once decided
-
that a good name for it might be
"I Dance to my Own Song"
-
and you sit there and you think,
that's a bit floaty
-
It's a bit, I don't know, pretentious
or something
-
[Laughter]
Don't know how that one came about
-
but people come at disability from all
sorts of different angles, don't they.
-
Clearly.
Someone even suggested that "Minefield"
-
might be a really good name for Ouch!
because people think of it as, you know,
-
you can't say this, you can't say that.
It's a bit of a minefield.
-
But, then we of course, had to point out
that there's plenty of disabled people
-
that were unfortunately disabled in
minefields.
-
So, perhaps it wasn't the best title.
[Laughter}
-
So, what would you call a new disability
website, Leah, that's what I want to know.
-
I would, just a period.
I don't know. I think you guys did a
-
great job with what you came up with.
I think it's perfect.
-
Thank you very much.
-Yeah, absolutely.
-
-Can you think of the most memorable
reaction you've gotten from an audience
-
or listener?
Most memorable?
-
-Yeah, anything that really
stands out to you?
-
-Funny, negative, positive, something that
just pops in your head.
-
Oh, yeah, things aren't popping into my
head right now.
-
I mean, it's always nice when we hear,
we get people now, course,
-
podcast's been running 10 years,
-
but we get people who say,
"you changed our life with your podcast.
-
We've never heard disabled voiced in that
way before."
-
We had created a kind of radio show, that
had never been done before, in that way
-
and it was really out there and really
said, horrible things some times but
-
you know, quirky things and amusing things
and it had a but of an attitude so a lot
-
of people have written to us over the
years and said if it wasn't for the
-
podcast we wouldn't have the same kind of
self-esteem we have now and we wouldn't
-
really have gone down certain roads to
becoming happy, really.
-
Which is, you know, very exciting.
I don't know if everybody thinks like that
-
I'm sure they don't, but some are
particularly gratifying.
-
They've happened. I guess that's why we do
this disability media stuff, isn't it?
-
-Sure. Change attitudes, bring awareness.
Yeah.
-
-So, anything else you want to add because
I am pleased with our chat.
-
[Laughter]
What else can I add?
-
Well, if anybody wants to come see
our stuff, it's bbc.co.uk/ouch
-
We do podcast, video, articles, you know.
-Wonderful. Thanks for joining us.
-
Thank you.
-Yeah.