Welcome to the Christmas 2020 bumper edition of the BlindGuysChat podcast. We’re back, and all feeling merry and happy, as we take you with us for what is a longer than normal show, so be warned!

You’ll be familiar, if you listen regularly, with the warm female voiceover at the start of each of our shows, welcoming you in and introducing the Blind Guys. Well, that’s the voice of the lovely Jan Ní Fhlanagáin, and she’s come along this week to hang out with the Blind Guys, along with Clodagh, who has joined us for the entire show!

Now, just to add to the confusion that is the BlindGuysChat, our own Jan (pronounced Yan) and our guest Jan, spell their names the same, but of course they are pronounced differently; So what happens when Jan meets Yan?

As well as finding out a little about Jan and her wonderful ‘You OK?’ podcast, we play Jan and Jan’s true or false game, with Clodagh keeping an eye on the scores. Óran and Stuart battle it out and these guys, it turns out, are rather competitive!

We had a few listeners asking about Christmas traditions in the Netherlands and who better to ask to tell us more than Jan himself!

Christmas is always a time for flaking out in front of the TV, and Óran and Clodagh are recommending the West Wing, a show that while it does not have audio description, should be very easy to follow. Stuart’s going to check it out and will report back. Ireland’s national broadcaster RTÉ has a number of audio described movies showing over the festive season and Óran highlights a few for us.

We’d been hearing for a while about the Spinrockers, a group from the Texas School for the Blind. Well, it turns out they are ultra-cool and they’ve been doing some really innovative things to help people learn keyboard shortcuts, by making up very catchy songs! They’re here to hang out with us and have a chat.

The whole team have been on tenterhooks since the start of the show, waiting for a phone call from the North Pole. When it comes, well, just keep listening to find out what happens when we’re joined on the show by Santa himself.

This episode is also peppered with some lovely Christmas greetings from some of our previous guests, and we thank them very much for their very kind words.

Finally, a BlindGuysChat episode would not be complete without Clodagh’s emails, complete with a new jingle!

BlindGuysChat returns on January 13th and in the meantime, we wish you a happy, peaceful and safe Christmas, and a much brighter and happier new year. Thanks for listening!