For the duration of BBLive, Ouch! ran a stand, giving out sweets, memory sticks and slightly darkly humoured postcards to an unsuspecting public. This was really fantastic, because instead of being stuck at our desks in west London, we got to sit in a big tent, known to the organisers as the second hall, chatting to random disableds. We waxed lyrical about the website we love all day and they told us what they were interested in and what they would like to see on Ouch. Hopefully we all came away with something good.

As well as the formal stand area, Rob Crossan and Liz Carr presented a live version of the Ouch! Talk Show at lunchtime each day. An interactive quiz show complete with bad puns, silly games and lots of audience participation, this went down a treat. On day one, the amazing blind pianist Derek Paravacini took the stage to help Rob and Liz out, playing endless game show theme tunes and even a couple of Michael Jackson numbers. On day two, Heavy Load, the punk band with and without learning difficulties, did the honours. They shook the tent we were housed in to its very core and put everyone in top form for the rest of the afternoon.

Here are some of the best bits from the weekend in the form of a slideshow. Unfortunately Heavy Load don't feature, but we hope to have some video to put up shortly. It is definitely worth waiting for.

Your next opportunity to meet the Ouch! team and to experience the wonder that is the live talk show will be at Liberty Festival, a one day disability arts event taking place on the fifth of September in Trafalgar Square. We look forward to seeing you there.

Blind people love their tech. Maybe it's cos the Ouch team sports two blind members of staff, we don't know, but we reckon blindies get all the best gizmos. I mean, grab sticks? Hoists? We know they're important but you wouldn't get them out and show them off in the office, would you. Not like, say, a talking colour detector that tells you if your clothes are blue, red or dark olive? Woah I'm salivating just thinking about it. Don't go feeling bad if you're not blind, though.

Anyway, cutting to the chase now. We dispatched gizmo crazy Emma Tracey to the event today so visit Ouch's home page in the next couple of days to see what grabbed her attention most of all.

Personally speaking, I'm quite happy with my talking basket weaver kit.

If you went to the event, tell us about what you saw in the comments space below. Or maybe you have a fave gizmo you're dying to tell us about.

Louisa Summerfield from WheelieChix-Chic - an online clothes retailer for 'wheelechair women' joins Mat and Liz on this month's Ouch Talk Show to discuss your clothing highs and woes. They're joined also by Human Hi colimnist Claire Jennings, a blind journalist with lots to say about image.

Click here to listen to the Ouch Talk Show #41

Our 'Clothes Clinic', as we're calling it, starts about 10 minutes into the show and features several disabled people who came forward with a wide range of really interesting questions for our panel. There's more to this disability clothes thing than meets the eye.

Were the panel able to send our callers home happy? Tune in and find out.

And if you know nothing about clothes, clevages seemd to get an awful lot of mentions. Accentuate the positives, ladies. Apparently. But be careful you're fastened up properly, won't ya.

Plenty of other stuff on the show besides, including: disabled pigeons, our Vegetable Vegetable or Vegetable quiz and the usual unsigned disabled artist.

You can podcast the show or listen to it on the web by clicking our play button.

and if you want to hear or read more about clothes on Ouch, drop us a line: ouch@bbc.co.uk.

If you weren't there, you missed out on a live quiz version of our Talk Show presented by Liz Carr and Rob Crossan.

On stage with us was musical genius Derek Parivacini - playing keyboards for us on Saturday. And the legendary not-so-musical punk geniuses of Heavy Load on Sunday. If you weren't there, you missed something pretty special!

Mr. Johnny is, as Jamie says himself, "an ambiguous character". The play is set in 1939, so no disability language is used as such, but he does have an untypical way of speaking and is described by one of the other characters early on as being, "simpler than most".

However, as the play progresses, we begin to realise that this isn't necessarily true and that he is more likely to have been misunderstood by most. Mr. Johnny gains respect as he stands up for himself when ridiculed for his disability. He comforts Carrie the main character when she is distressed and he is the one who solves an important mystery as the play nears its conclusion.

Jamie Beddard is one of Britain's most acclaimed disabled actors and has played key roles in some of the BBC's top disability related dramas including Scallagrigg and The Egg. He was offered the role of Mr. Johnny and afforded the opportunity to make it his own. His other skills include writing and directing, and these certainly came to the fore in his interpretation of a strong and well integrated disabled character.

Opening in UK cinemas on Friday 7th August, Adam is a quirky romantic comedy starring Hugh Dancy (previously seen in The Jane Austen Book Club and Confessions of a Shopaholic and Rose Byrne (who has starred in Damages and 28 Weeks Later). Adam is a handsome but intriguing young man with Asperger's who has led a sheltered life - but all that changes when he meets his new neighbour, Beth, a beautiful and brainy writer damaged from a past relationship. She finds his awkwardness perplexing (difficulty in social situations being one of the traits of AS), but is undeniably attracted to him ... ah, it's already beginning to sound like heartwarming Sunday afternoon film fare, isn't it? Break out the chocolates.

The movie has already won an award at the influential Sundance Film Festival, and has also been selected as the closing night premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival at the end of June. In the meantime, the rest of us can watch the official movie trailer on YouTube. Keep an eye on Ouch! too, as closer to the film's release date we're hoping to bring you a review.

The Convention is a landmark agreement that aims to give the world's 650 million disabled people full equality, and ratification means that a country accepts its legal obligations under the treaty and ensures that any necessary laws are passed.

But what rights are guaranteed for disabled people by this Convention? Well, in summary, it's about protecting your rights when it comes to making your own decisions; saying no to being placed in an institution; saying no to medical or psychological treatment; and living in the community. It also seeks to remove barriers to participation in daily life and enable equal opportunities for all.

Getting to this point has been a slow process, though. The United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the treaty way back in December 2006; it was opened for signatures by UN member countries in March 2007; and it came into force in May last year when Ecuador, the twentieth of the 139 signatories to the Convention, ratified it.

The UK government, meanwhile, has been criticised in recent months for delaying our ratification - although it was one of the first countries to sign the original treaty - and for seeking a series of 'reservations' or opt-outs to particular parts of the Convention relating to immigration, education and the armed forces. (If you want to read more about these, there are details on the government's Office for Disability Issues website.)

But after all the official discussions and debates, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is finally here. We're interested to know what you think of it, and whether you foresee it bringing about any big changes in the lives of disabled people. Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

• In March 2008, Ouch's own Tom Shakespeare wrote about the UN Convention, saying: "Passing disability civil rights statutes is relatively simple and looks nice. Doing something to improve the situation for disabled people is complicated, costly and difficult. So expect lots of the former and less of the latter in future". Read the full article here.

Announced yesterday at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, the iPhone 3GS will be available in the UK and US on the 19th of June. It promises a whole raft of new accessibility features, including Apple's VoiceOver screen-reading software, a magnification solution called Zoom and a white on black colour contrast option.

Although it has a couple of buttons, the new iPhone 3GS still works primarily using a touch-screen. Apple sees this as a positive thing for the screen-reader user, and has created special gestures to be used in VoiceOver mode. Here's what the Apple website says:

Because VoiceOver works with iPhone's touchscreen, you interact directly with objects on the screen and can naturally understand their location and context. So, when you touch the upper left corner of the screen, you'll hear what's in the upper left corner of a web page, and as you drag your finger around the screen, you'll learn what's nearby, providing an amazing new sense of context and relationship between the items you hear."

So there you have it. Maybe the days of wondering about the iPhone from afar are over. Only time will tell whether the touch screen will become completely accessible, or whether my personal 'Bring Back Buttons' campaign will win out and convince Apple to completely change the iPhone's design.

This isn't one of those stories that we're perhaps more familiar with here in the UK, in which a cabbie refuses to carry a passenger with an impairment and comes up with an often spurious reason to justify it. No, in this case the dispute was caused by an illegal, unlicensed trade that's been operating for some time amongst physically disabled people in Chenzhou. An estimated 180 of them have been using their cars to carry fare-paying passengers, without forwarding the necessary fees to taxi companies or seeking approval from the relevant authorities.

Although it was tucked away as a fairly small item on various online news services, this story interested us on Ouch! for a number of reasons.

We love this story - especially in London where the tube drivers are going on strike tonight at 7.00pm. The report just talks about this cab drivers' strike as an oddity but Ouch! wanted to know more ... WHY and HOW is it that 180 disabled people have suddenly decided to become illegal cabbies? What's going on?

We imagined that these physically disabled Chinese people had possibly received some form of state benefit which enabled them to own cars, putting them at a distinct advantage over the rest of the population perhaps, and they were using this opportunity to go into business - albeit illegally. But no, a number of the reports make clear that they were using "vehicles that they bought themselves".

We wondered, too, whether there was some crucial information missing from these mostly China-based news sources about the status of disabled people in the country - had they taken up cab-driving because no other work was available to them and it was the only way to support themselves? Or maybe the story here was that a number of disabled people had set themselves up as taxi drivers, others had seen their success, and it had very quickly become a popular, though unlawful, trade.

If you have any further knowledge on this, we'd love to hear from you. We'll keep looking too.

To see it for yourself, you'll need an internet-enabled handset. Text the word BLUE to 83377 for the price of a SMS. You'll receive two messages back from Directgov, both of which are free. One will be a confirmation that your text was received, and the other will have a link to the Blue Badge map service, together with brief instructions on how to use it. The information covers major routes and over 100 towns and cities across the UK.

Oh, and even though we know that all Ouch readers are far too sensible to use their mobile phones while driving, please do make sure that you stop in a safe place and switch off your engine first before turning your attention to that little glowing screen.

Actor David Proud - who previously appeared in CBBC's wheelchair basketball drama Desperadoes and ITV2's Secret Diary of a Call Girl - is set to join the long-running soap later this year.

He will play confident yet snobby Oxford University student Adam Best, son of Manda (Josie Lawrence). He turns up in Walford during holidays away from uni, where he takes an immediate disliking to his mum's boyfriend Minty as well as the Queen Vic. The only thing Adam does like, by all accounts, is Libby Fox, another prospective Oxford student and, more importantly, Darren Miller's girlfriend.

He's not the first disabled character on the Square though, as exec Diederick Santer was keen to point out.

"In recent years, we've had a number of regular and guest characters with disabilities - some of them children, like Janet Mitchell, and more recently Syd's son Noah. We've also told the story of Jean Slater, who suffers from bipolar disorder. But this is the first time we've had a regular adult character with a visible disability played by an actor with a disability. It's about time."

Director of BBC Vision, Jana Bennett, also announced the launch of an online directory of disabled actors, comedians and performers with disabilities. Created with support and collaboration from many talent agencies such as Spotlight and Equity, it will be available to both in-house and independent production teams as an accessible research tool.

A disabled talent search was also announced this evening. Talent Alert focuses on four cities, starting with Manchester on 8th June, and followed by Glasgow, London, and Cardiff. Casting directors from the BBC will be hosting two day workshops in each city.

Bennett said: "It's critical that to connect with all of our audiences, we want to authentically reflect the lives of disabled people on screen. The Talent Alert workshops kick off our nationwide search for the best disabled actors and performers from around the UK, which will help us attract more disabled actors to a career in the arts, online and on screen ..."

Keep coming back to Ouch! for more news.

But, as ever, the disability world has been one step ahead in using this kind of technology ... one example is the SoundBeam, a device that uses a series of ultrasonic sensors to translate free movements into music. It's an instrument popular with people with learning disabilities and limited movement (watch a video of it in action), whose fans include electro outfit tra la la blip, a band we recently featured on the Ouch Talk Show podcast.

So whilst it seems we're already ahead of the game, building this kind of technology into a cheap and widely available gaming accessory should lead to many more cool and widespread applications. Just look at Wii Physio to get an idea of what's to come ...

Well, there's sad news to report, because the iBOT is no more. The company behind it has just sold the last few models, bringing an end to a relative commercial failure that saw the technologically advanced wheelchair racking up only a few hundred sales figures each year.

There's no denying that the iBOT could do a lot. Its six onboard gyroscopes allowed the machine to remain stable and balanced - and keep the user level on their seat - even while it was moving around on two wheels in order to climb stairs or easily negotiate kerbs. It could traverse rough and bumpy ground, and could also lift up, thus allowing the user to grab items from high shelves.

But the price was prohibitive: at $22,000 dollars, it cost more than a family car. There was also the problem that the hi-tech chair required the use of at least one arm and certain upper body control, meaning that it was only suitable for a small fraction of people affected by paralysis. The third nail in the iBOT's coffin came at the end of 2006, when the US government's health insurance program, Medicare, ruled that the iBOT's stair-climbing technology and other features weren't necessary for at-home care, and that it would only cover the cost of a basic electric wheelchair. If you wanted an iBOT, Medicare would reimburse only $6,000 of that steep $22,000 price tag.

Users who still depend on the futuristic mobility aid have been given a promise by the manufacturers that a repair service will remain in place until 2013, but otherwise it's a case of iBOT: 2003 - 2009. May it rust in peace. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun.)

Later this year, BBC Three will be showing a six-part series with the working title of Dancing on Wheels, in which some top celebs join forces with wheelchair users who have never danced before, all of them competing for the top prize of a place representing the UK in the Wheelchair Dance Sport European Championships, due to take place in Israel in October. They'll have only five weeks to master everything from the Cha Cha Cha to the Paso Doble.

The celebrities include some former Strictly competitors - M People singer Heather Small, medal-winning swimmer Mark Foster and rugby legend Martin Offiah. In addition, lead choreographer Brian Fortuna - a professional ballroom dancer who appeared in the last series of Strictly, and who has been teaching wheelchair dancing for the last eight years - will be putting the couples through their paces each week, as they take on a variety of exhausting dance disciplines.

The wheelchair users are: Simone, a 22 year-old Cambridge graduate; Diana, a 48 year-old magazine editor and mother; 27 year-old Carolyne, who enjoys nothing more than a night out; James, a cocky 31 year-old with some impressive acrobatic abilities; Paul, a 24 year-old festival-goer who is looking forward to Glastonbury this summer; and 23 year-old Harris, who recently got married to a girl he met whilst travelling in Thailand.

Wheelchair dancing is an extremely popular international sport, which is practised in 22 countries and with competitions and championships held across the world. In the series, the couples will be competing in the 'combi' event, where a standing able-bodied dancer partners a wheelchair user. If you want to get a taste of what it involves, check out this amateur video clip we found on YouTube.

We'll bring you more details on the series as we get them, and keep a look-out for it on BBC Three later in the year.

It's a busy time for Derek - he's off on a short tour with the Emerald Ensemble Chamber Orchestra, visiting Bristol, London and Gloucestershire. He'll be performing classical, blues and jazz standards as well as sensational improvisations based on audience requests. Full details of the dates are on his site.

Plus, Derek will also be tinkling the ivories for Ouch at an event in Hampshire coming up in early July, so keep your eyes peeled for that. It's not the first time we've enlisted his piano-playing magic, of course - take a listen to our special Christmas edition of the Podcast, recorded in the BBC Radio Theatre in December 2007, where he provided festive music in his own inimitable style.