I’m starting to suspect that there is an orchestrated campaign to turn Matthew Somerville into the new Craig Shergold.
When I first mentioned the closure of the Accessible Odeon site I got this response (which also appeared in a number of other places). I emailed the person who made these comments to correct their errors, but the email bounced back as undeliverable. It seems that, like me, the owners of most of the blogs that got this comment left it there for comedy value but posted follow-ups pointing outthe factual errors.
Then last night I got another comment that repeated many of the original errors. Once I again I replied in email (it’s from a different address) and once again the email was returned as undeliverable. And this morning I see that the same comment is on at least one other site. I fully expect to see it appear on others during the day.
To attempt to put the record straight, Matthew Somerville is not a disabled little boy. He is an abled-bodied, adult web designer with a particular interest in building accessible versions on inaccessible web sites. And by “inaccessible” I don’t just mean ones that aren’t accessible by disabled people. In many cases these sites are completely unusable by anyone not using Internet Explorer as their browser.
Maybe we need to get this information on Snopes.
I write here to inform you of the really quite shocking actions beingperpetuated by the UK cinema chain Odeon against a disabled Scottishboy Matthew Somerville.9 year old Matthew suffers from the rare, medically unknown conditionof “Shatner’s Palsy” which attacks unoxygenated body tissue. Doctors areworking hard on a cure, but admit the possibility of a fatal remissionwithin 70 years. Despite this, Matthew continues to brighten the livesof everyone he meets.Incredibly, despite having weak arms, he is still able to operate acomputer using a specially constructed input device, consisting of acovered spherical ball and a pair of single-pole-single-throw latches.Resting his disabled hand on the tool, any small movements are convertedto gigabyte digital input signals.The disabled boy constructed a special film portal for the disabled.It was very popular, receiving over 100 “hits” a month. Webmasterexperts based at Durham University examined his JavaScript code andproclaimed it “fully polymorphic and 100% XML ready”Despite this, Odeon cinemas have ordered him to “cease and desist”using the recently enacted European Millennium Copyright Act (EMCA) tocopyright the notion of “film discussion” by a person and/or persons”without full limb mobility”. They have demanded his website is put inthe Windows XP recycle bin, and insisted “It shall then be emptied”.Unsurprisingly, the move has been supported by the Internet KnowledgeEnforcement Agency (IKEA).This cannot be allowed to happen. The disabled should have almost asmany rights as normal people, at least with regard to discussing films.Luckily for us, people power works, and that’s where you come in.How can you help disabled boy Matthew Somerville?a) Email Odeon customer support (info@odeonuk.com) and tell them you areboycotting their chain (Rocky 6 excepted) while they continuetheir legal actions against disabled boys.b) Email Odeon UK chairman Luke Vetere (lvetere@odeonuk.com) and insistthat the website be retrieved from the recycle bin, cleaned, anduploaded back onto the UK internet web system using FTP packet protocols.c) Email and post this message to everybody you know (several times), andon every “blog” site you can find.d) You can help Matthew in his separate quest to enter the “Guinness Bookof Records” with the record of “largest collection of cinema ticketstubs”. Matthew is aiming for over a thousand. Send them, perhaps witha letter of encouragement toMatthew SomervilleGuinness Record Attempt109 Eastern DriveEdinburghEH7 1DARemember, only by working together can we can beat an evil law, andbrighten the failing heart of a young disabled angel.