Alternatives (or even better: “supplements”) to speech therapy

Earlier this week, I asked “What do the following list of people have in common”:-

• Andrew Lloyd Webber
• B.B. King
• Bruce Willis
• Carly Simon
• Charles Darwin
• Emily Blunt
• Harvey Keitel
• James Earl Jones
• Jane Seymour
• Jimmy Stewart
• Julia Roberts
• King George VI
• Lewis Carroll
• Marilyn Monroe
• Michelle Williams (Destiny’s Child)
• Rowan Atkinson
• Sam Neill
• Tiger Woods
• Winston Churchill

The answer is that they all have a stammer;  or “had” for the ones no longer with us. There is a reason that none of the living members of the list fall into the “have” category, but we will come onto that later.

There is a common misconception that Michael Palin should also be on this list; however he does not have a stammer.  His father had a stammer when he was younger, and Michael played a character with a stammer in the comedy film A Fish Called Wanda.  A lot of people criticised Michael for his role in this film as they felt he was making fun of people who do have a stammer.

After this, Michael Palin then got involved in charity work helping children who stammer, and agreed to put his name to a joint initiative between a charity called the Association for Research into Stammering in Childhood (ARSC) and the Camden & Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust (now NHS Islington).  Then, in 1993, The Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children was officially opened.

I have spoken too quickly for most of my life, and was taken to see a speech therapist when I was ten, who told me that this was due to my brain “working too fast” for my mouth to keep up.  That was the only visit I had and (rather unsurprisingly) it made no difference.  Then, I started work at 16, two weeks after finishing my GCSEs; and around 18 months later started to develop a stammer which is still with me at 30.  This started with a couple of repetitions each week of the beginning of words or entire words when I started speaking.  Everybody does this from time to time, so at first it was barely noticeable; however within six months of this starting, the frequency and severity of these repetitions gradually increased until I (and those around me) started to realise there was a problem.

Shortly after reaching the stage where it was clear to everyone that I had developed a stammer, I was called in to see the Finance Manager at the small company I was working for at the time.  He told me that the Managing Director had asked him to speak to me and tell me that I should seek help to get rid of my stammer because I “wouldn’t be able to progress in the company with a stammer”.  Despite still being very young (18) at this point; I knew that this problem should not stop me progressing through a company, so I took the advice I was given and spoke to my doctor and asked to be referred to a speech therapist, but also started looking for another job because I knew there would be plenty of companies where I would not be held back because of having a stammer.

It took a couple of months after talking to my doctor, but I managed to get referred to see a speech therapist.  One of the first things we did in our sessions together was to try and work out when, how and why the stammer started.  The when, as mentioned above, I already knew; the how was the form it took, which I have also covered earlier in this post.  The part that was a mystery to me was the why.  It is very uncommon for a stammer to develop in an adult, so we covered the stressful events that had happened the last few years to work out if these could have done it.

My parents’ marriage had been strained for a number of years before my stammer developed, and around the time that my difficulties started, they separated and my mother moved out.  The job that I had at the time was as the only warehouse worker in a small office; business was growing very quickly for the company at the time, so we were having a lot more product come in and go out of the building than they had been used to.  This led to me working from 6.30am until around 10pm every weekday for months on end, where my job was basically to move boxes around all day, often up and down the stairs from the ground floor to the second floor (third floor if you’re American and count the ground as first!).  Understandably, these long days of manual work left me very physically and mentally tired and put a lot of strain on my body and mind.  The Managing Director for this company used to bully me severely – every day I would be shouted at and have insults thrown my way in front of the entire office; I was also kicked on a number of occasions where mistakes had been made – whether I was the one to make them or not.  There was never any reason for this, and my colleagues used to say “I don’t know why he does that, because when you’re not around, he tells us how good you are and how proud he is of you”.  Needless to say, this was of little comfort to me!

So; we came to the conclusion that it was the events in my life that had more than likely brought out my stammer as I was having an extremely difficult time at home and at work, so wasn’t able to escape my problems at one place by going to the other.

After a couple of speech therapy sessions where we had gone through a couple of techniques to help me, my speech therapist suggested I come along to a weekly support group that she was responsible for – kind of like a “Stammerers Anonymous”.  As my stammer was still developing at this stage, when I went along to this group, I met people with stammers far more severe than mine was at the time. It is worth mentioning at this point that whether in this support group or in individual sessions, my speech therapist never heard me stammer once from when we first met when I was 18 until I was 25 or 26 – I will explain why this was later.

I’ll never forget the first time I went to this group for two reasons.  Firstly was that one of the exercises we did was to sit on a hot-seat and talk for two minutes into a video camera on a tripod; when it came to watching the video back, I realised just how fast my speech had become, and I was hardly able to understand a single word I had said because of the speed and the fact that there were no pauses to allow the listener time to process what I had said.  I found this very hard to deal with as I realised that aside from the stammer, there was a serious problem with my speech that I barely knew was there.  Secondly, a couple of the members of the group had been speech therapy patients for many years.  Being young and naive, I had sort of been expecting that I would go to a couple of sessions and then my speech would be fine; so I was brought down to earth with a real thud when I realised that there would be no “quick-fix”, and I would more than likely be in speech therapy and have my stammer for at least a few years.  I didn’t drive at the time, so I remember spending the 45 minute bus ride home from the speech therapy group on my first night in tears with so many thoughts rushing through my head.  Why me?  What had I done to deserve this?  How long would I have this problem for?  My God – what if it never went?!

I struggled through the next few years, attending individual speech therapy sessions along with the support group, and changing jobs and companies a couple of times.  My stammer kept developing and changing throughout this time and started to become very severe and I had various body movements that came and went with it; including squeezing my eyes closed whilst talking, nodding my head, my entire body shaking, twitching my leg, holding my hand out in front of me, and probably other things that I’ve since forgotten.  Various emotional stages also came and went during this time.  The main emotions were embarrassment and sadness.  I felt very embarrassed to talk to people, because if I never spoke to someone, they would never know I stammered.  This idea lasted a long time, and I went through patches of only speaking to family other people who knew I stammered.  I wouldn’t make or answer phone calls in case it was someone new.  I wouldn’t go out with friends because it would mean meeting new people and possibly trying to order drinks which I found very difficult.  I basically avoided socialising of any sort, I would go to work and then go home and sit in my room watching TV or playing computer games so that I could be alone and not have to talk to anyone; only breaking this routine to go to speech therapy.  This understandably left me very unhappy because I knew I wasn’t living my life and was letting my speech difficulties take over.

I realise this post is very long, so at this point I would like to thank you for reading this far (it means a lot to me that you have done so), I will skip forward a few years now to when I was 23.  I was feeling very trapped by my stammer and although I had learned techniques at speech therapy to help control my speech, it was very difficult to use these all of the time because of the level of concentration it required needing to plan exactly what words to use, when to pause and breathe, the tone, and the speed of every single word I said 100% of the time.  To show the level of concentration needed to do this to people, I often liken it to trying to speak in an accent for an entire day – you know you can do it, but having to think about it and consciously change your speech every time you open your mouth will leave you exhausted by lunch!

I remembered one day that I had heard a few years before on the radio news that scientists were working on a pill to help cure shyness – which is the main contributor to my speech problems.  Because of how desperate I was for a cure, I went to my doctor and discussed this with him.  He had never heard of it, but he looked it up on the internet while I was there and found that it had been released and was called escitalopram.  It is essentially and anti-depressant, but is also used to treat anxiety and panic attacks.  My doctor prescribed a month’s worth of these tablets to me and told me to see him towards the end of the pack.  I didn’t feel more confident during this month, but I noticed a big reduction in the fear I would get at the idea of talking, so I have now been taking this medication ever since.  It has been a big help, and has got me putting myself back into a lot of situations that would have terrified me before.  Being back in these situations, and having success at controlling my speech in them has given me confidence to keep trying new situations, so whilst the tablets didn’t actually do much to help with fluency like I had hope they would, they have given me back a large part of my life that I thought I had lost forever.

I had also tried hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) with varying levels of success.  The first hypnotherapy session I went to completely removed my stammer for two whole months!  I never managed to get such a big benefit from it or NLP in further sessions, but they would both noticeably improve my speech for a time; however at around £60 per hour, both were too expensive to keep going to forever, so I moved on to look for another solution.

This is when one evening at a group session, my speech therapist showed us a video of a girl called Heidi King who had flown to New York to try a device called a SpeechEasy.  The SpeechEasy is a fluency aid which sits in your ear like a hearing aid, and plays your own voice back to you in a different pitch with a slight delay.  Because the voice you hear through this device is saying exactly what you are saying but doesn’t sound like your own voice, it tricks the brain into thinking that you are talking along with somebody else.  There may be one or two who do (I’ve never met or heard of any), but as a general rule, people with a stammer will speak fluently when singing, or saying something in unison with one or more other people – for example prayer in church; this is known as the Choral Effect.  The SpeechEasy works based on this effect.

In the video we saw of Heidi King, she had a severe stammer, where she would repeat the first part of words and struggle to get past this repetition.  As soon as she put the SpeechEasy device in her ear, her stammer completely went and she was able to speak fluently – you could almost feel her relief coming out of the TV!  After the video, my speech therapist told us that she had met somebody else who had also tried the SpeechEasy with the exact same results.  The next day, I made a few phone calls, and managed to get myself booked in for an appointment to try a SpeechEasy for myself.

A problem that I had, was that I had never actually stammered in speech therapy until this point.  The main reason for this is that whilst I was in a speech therapy session, or talking to anyone about my stammer, that made me very aware of my speech, so I automatically slowed down and thought about what I was saying.  This goes back to where I said earlier that I knew the techniques, but using them 24/7 is just too hard.  When I had my SpeechEasy trial, as I had expected, I did not stammer during the appointment before putting it in, but I could feel that I was controlling my speech using techniques.  After putting it in my ear, I found it very strange hearing the voice – like a high pitched Dalek! – but once I got over that, I found that while listening to the voice, I was speaking fluently without using any techniques.  I went into a room on my own and made a phone call to a friend and had a chat on the phone for five minutes.  Usually I’d expect to stammer a lot when talking to friends as it is one of the situations that I do it the most; but I was completely fluent for the entire phone call.  I went back inside and spoke more with the audiologist who my appointment was with, and said that I’d like to buy the SpeechEasy because it made such a difference.  They took measurements of my ear and the £1,000 deposit; I then had to wait a few weeks while it was made and then go back and collect it and pay the remaining £2,000.  Those few weeks felt like a lifetime, but I finally got to pick up my SpeechEasy.  I decided that it would be more effective if I didn’t wear it all of the time because I would then run the risk of getting used to the voice in my ear and be able to filter it out, making it less effective; so I decided to wear it only whilst I was in the office at work – as this was where it was more important to me to speak fluently.  Thew few people in the office that I had told I had the SpeechEasy all kept telling me over the next few weeks what a big difference they were noticing not only in my speech, but also in me – I felt much more relaxed and no longer like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders.  The people I didn’t tell didn’t notice I was wearing it because it was so small and discreet:-

It has now been three years since I got my SpeechEasy, and it has made such a big difference to me that I now only wear it two or three days a week.  At first, it made me much more fluent, which over time made me not even think about my stammer.  Not thinking about it meant that for the first time in ten years, I wasn’t so embarrassed and upset by my stammer; but it also meant that I stopped using the techniques that I had learned and the stammers started to creep back in.  I have recently started to use the fluency techniques again and try harder to listen to the voice in my ear, but now it is because I feel I need to try a little harder to be fluent, instead of before where I tried to use the fluency techniques and SpeechEasy out of the fear of stammering which is something I rarely feel at all now.

Here is the video I saw of Heidi King that prompted me to book an appointment to try SpeechEasy.

My future

At present, there is no actual “cure” for stammering, so even if I used my SpeechEasy, the escitalopram tablets, and the fluency techniques that I have learned perfectly for the rest of my life without stammering; I will still always be “a stammerer”.  That took me over ten years to come to terms with and be able to accept and say out loud, but I’m fine with it.  It is also the reason that I said all of the living people on the list at the beginning of this post “have” a stammer – we all know and love James Earl Jones for his voice, but he says that even now he has to think carefully about what he says before he says it.  His stammer was so bad as a child, that he rarely spoke, and actually didn’t utter a single word for a very long time; but now, he has one of the most distinguishable, powerful, and nice voices in Hollywood.  The reason James actually took acting lessons to begin with was to help control his stammer, and although we all know him for his clear, fluent voice, after all, he was the voice behind Darth Vader, “This is CNN”, Mufasa in The Lion King, and many other roles.

“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.”
James Earl Jones

Rowan Atkinson developed strange voices for his TV characters because he has to concentrate on doing these voices, so doesn’t stammer while doing them; but he still stammers when speaking in his normal voice, which you could hear him do on a recent interview on TV.  Many people also believe that the reason Marilyn Monroe developed her “breathy” voice that we have all heard, was to help her speak fluently by creating more airflow as she spoke.

There are still some situations that I avoid, such as using a headset while playing Playstation 3 online, but life is about picking your battles, and because I’d rather not hear a 13-year-old scream down my headset after he kills me on Call of Duty, this is a battle I’m fine with not fighting!

I hope that this post is an interesting read for fluent speakers and also offers some help and comfort to any of the 60 million other stammers in the world who may read it.  If I can give any advice to someone struggling with a stammer, it would be to learn to live with it, because it will always be there but does not need to be the definition of who you are; and also to search and experiment with different types of speech therapy, because no two stammerers are the same, so what works for one person may not work for the next, and vice versa.  You really do have the power to control the effect it has on your life, even if you aren’t having success with what you are doing to control your speech.

Other useful links:-

British Stammering Association

The Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children

Heidi King SpeechEasy video

SpeechEasy on The Oprah Winfrey Show

What can you do to help while having a conversation with a stammerer?

If you’d like to find out if there’s an NHS speech therapist in your area, phone the British Stammering Association helpline on 0845 603 2001 or email the British Stammering Association at info@stammering.org

What do the following list of people have in common:-

• King George VI
• Emily Blunt
• Carly Simon
• Rowan Atkinson
• James Earl Jones
• Bruce Willis
• Marilyn Monroe
• Julia Roberts
• Jimmy Stewart
• Sam Neill
• Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Tiger Woods
• Harvey Keitel
• Michelle Williams (Destiny’s Child)
• B.B. King
• Jane Seymour
• Charles Darwin
• Lewis Carroll
• Winston Churchill

Keep checking back here for the answer; I will be revealing it in a few days with a new blog post.

Does the internet provide too much anonymity?

I saw this video blog the other week from a link in my Twitter stream from a social media user that I follow, and it prompted me to write about something I’ve been meaning to write a blog post on for a long time.  And that is how people seem to hide behind or use the anonymity that the internet provides to either way too aggressively put across their point; or, as the video says, bully others online.  It happens in almost every form of social internet that I have been on, and it is becoming more and more common.

I posted a clip of Desmond Tutu from a U2 concert that I went to last Summer on my YouTube channel, and within a few days had to delete a couple of comments that people had added, largely making racist remarks.  There are countless videos on YouTube where the comments section has just turned into a big USA vs. UK argument, with the people on the US side saying that the English would be speaking German if they hadn’t have joined in the War, and the UK side either calling them “Yanks” or referring to the time when America was colonised by the English.  99.9% of the time, this discussion is completely irrelevant to the video the comments are against.

Whenever you go onto anything like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, review websites, or blog comments; you seem to find people full of hate and arguing.

I do think the internet and social side of it are great, but at times they can be one of the worst things in the world because people abuse them.

http://www.youtube.com/user/stuartrossofficial#p/u/2/E-chHeXnlqec

I find it rather amusing that my dog has spent the last two weeks eating cow shit whilst out for walks, yet it’s the worming tablets he had this morning that made him just throw up said cow shit all over the kitchen floor!

And it’s crap!  There’s very little at all that’s been added, and certainly nothing that needs a preview programme – I personally think that having the preview programme has created hype around the update (which was obviously Microsoft’s intention), but it’s hype that it doesn’t live up to.

Here’s a list of updates from the Microsoft site, most are very small tweaks or bug fixes, and some of the bigger things that they’ve been mentioning aren’t even available yet!

FAQ: New Features in the Xbox LIVE Update Preview

Parties - (Available Now, US Only)

Everyone loves to Party!  Check out the new and improved party reconnections and streamlined party invites.

• Party Reconnections – If a user is disconnected from a party inadvertently, they will be automatically reconnected to the party without any user interaction
• Streamlined Party Invites – Invites are now just a click away!  Never again will you have to navigate through multiple screens to get all your friends together.

Account Management- (Available Now, All Regions)

Been an Xbox LIVE member for a while?  Check out some of the new features we’ve added just for you.

• Gold Member Veterans – Been here long?  Show it off!  Anyone looking at your gamer card will now know how long you’ve been an Xbox LIVE Gold member.  And who knows, there might be other perks for you, too.  Thanks for sticking around!
• Subscription Notification – If your Xbox LIVE subscription is about to run out, you will now be notified when you sign into Xbox LIVE.  No more surprises the next time you hop in to frag your friends.
• Fixing Invalid WLID’s – If the Winodws Live ID (WLID) you provided has expired, you will now be prompted to update it the next time you sign into Xbox LIVE.  (This feature coming later in the Preview)

Account Recovery - (Available Now, All Regions)

Many changes have gone into the account recovery process to speed it up and to increase reliability.

Avatars - (Available Now, All Regions)

Avatars have seen lots of love!  Check out the new Marketplace and Avatar Props.

• Avatar Props – You can now equip your avatar with animated items they can carry around and interact with.
• Avatar Marketplace – Reflect your sense of style with the new Avatar Marketplace.  Download and purchase premium items, including branded apparel from your favorite fashion labels and Xbox 360 games.

Netflix – (Available Now, US Only)

Now you can watch movies with your friends and find new movies to add to your Instant Queue without leaving your seat.

• Party Watch – Catch a show with your friends!  You can now bring your party into Netflix and watch a movie or TV show together.
• Find Content Faster – You can now browse through New Releases and other genre lists based on the types of shows you’ve previously watched, all from the comfort of your couch.
• Improved Playback Experience – Improvements have been made to ensure a better experience when adapting to changing network conditions.
• Improved Presence -Richer information is now displayed in the Friends channel and in the Guide showing what you and your friends are watching.

Video Display Options – (Available Now, All Regions)

Various improvements have been made to make it easier for you to see your game in the highest resolution possible when using an HDMI connection.

• Display Discovery – This feature allows you to override audio and/or video formats independent of the display’s capabilities.
• How it works – By default, the console uses the information provided by the display (via its EDID) to determine the audio and video capabilities of the device. However, often the data is invalid or malformed, hence compatibility issues are encountered. When disabling display discovery, the EDID of the display is ignored, thereby, enabling the audio and video settings to be overridden with the desired format regardless of display support.
• Who should use it? - The Display Discovery feature is available for DVI and HDMI connections in the Display settings section of System Settings in the dashboard. Please note that Display Discovery should only be disabled if audio and/or video related compatibility issues are encountered – otherwise, the output quality may be compromised.
• Monitor Support - Additional monitor resolutions are now available for HDMI connections.

User Ratings – (Available Now, All Regions)

User ratings help you find content that other people think is awesome!

• How it works – Every piece of game content on Marketplace can now be rated using a 5-star system.  Just open up the details on what you want to rate and chose the Rate button.  Each time you press the Rate button, you add one star to your personal rating.
• Sort by Ratings – Now you can easily find great games that you might have missed out on.  Just visit Browse All in either the Games or Video Marketplace and twist over to the Top Rated games to see what everyone’s been talking about.

Games on Demand – (Coming later in the Xbox LIVE Update Preview, All regions)

Enjoy the convenience of finding and buying new games right from your couch.  You can now download full Xbox 360 games over Xbox LIVE.

• Purchase – You can purchase a game through the Game Marketplace and download it directly to your console.  This purchase is also stored in your purchase history so you can delete it and download it again if you run out of space.
• Manuals – Game manuals will be available for these games on Xbox.com so that you will still have access to the full manual that comes with the boxed version of the game.
• Digital Rights Management (DRM) – Games on Demand titles follow the same licensing rights as all other forms of downloadable content.  Users are granted a user license that will allow the purchasing Gamertag to play the game on any console, and a console license that will allow anyone to play on the console that the content was originally downloaded to.  No physical disc is required to play these games!

UI Improvements – (Available Now, All Regions)

Some parts of the dashboard have been slightly re-organized to make it easier to find the things you’re looking for.

• Indie Games – We listened to our community and have decided to change Xbox LIVE Community Games to Xbox LIVE Indie Games. We feel this new name better represents the independent spirit of these titles.  User ratings are also available for Indie Games, which will allow you to share your rating for a game and use ratings from others to find new content.  We hope these changes will help people discover more games they love.
• Achievement Browser – You can now launch a game directly from the Achievement browser making it even easier for you to max out your Gamerscore.
• Achievement Tracking – A new All Games view inside the Profile panel includes a summary of Achievements earned across all the games played and shows off all your completed games.
• Achievements – Check out the changes to the Achievement browser while playing a game.  It’s now much easier to read through all the achievements so you can rack up the Gamerscore faster.
• Streamlined Navigation – New entry points in the Dashboard for Active Downloads, Redeem Code, Auto Sign-In (via Profile), Create Profile, and Recover Gamer Tag, so that these features are much easier to find.
• Voice Messages – When recording a voice message, a warning is now displayed if no audio is detected so you don’t accidentally send blank messages to your friends.

Console Settings – (Available Now, All Regions)
We’ve reorganized the Console Settings menu with fewer, more intuitive categories.

• Memory – Time stamps now appear in the Memory Area.  This is particularly handy when managing saved games.
• Friends List Sorting – It’s now much easier to find your friends!  Sort your friends list by Activity, Gamertag, or Online Status (default).  Just press the Y button while you’re viewing the friends list in the Guide to change the sorting order.

I’ve been unemployed since being made redundant back in January so have been making the most of the chance to take the dog for a long walk each day.

Here are a few pictures I’ve taken on our walks:-

Okay, I’d heard this film was bad before I watched it, but it also seemed to have some good reviews, so when I found it for £2.98 I thought I might as well give it a go. Oh my God, it’s bloody shocking!!!

For a start it’s only 70 minutes long which is pretty ridiculous for a film. Also, (probably because it’s by the guy that made Lost), it just left me with loads of questions as it didn’t have an ending. Did they manage to kill the monster? If so, how? Where did it come from? What happened to the city?

Seriously, NEVER bother watching this film, it’s just an insult to your intelligence!

I’ve been playing with my Wii!
(I’ll try and make this the only post with “Wii” sounds like “wee” gags as I’m sure they’re getting old already)

So, I gave in and bought a Wii just before Christmas – it got delivered on the 21st – and thought I’d give my opinions on it so far.

It came with Wii Sports, and I bought a second Wii-mote with a copy of Wii Play, then the classic controller for the Virtual Console (VC) games, Legend of Zelda: Twighlight Princess, and Rayman: Raving Rabbids.

Wii Sports is great and because of how well it uses the Wii-mote is easily accessible to a wide audience. Over Christmas my entire family (including my 83 year old nan!) played on it and enjoyed bowling, and those who played tennis also enjoyed that. Baseball is good if you’re batting, but is tricky to get the timing right to actually hit the ball, and even harder to hit it within the edges of the diamond so it’s not a foul ball. Boxing is great fun and is also the best workout on the disc – after half an hour solid of boxing I was starting to feel a little worn out. Golf seems pretty good but I’ve not spent too much time on it yet.

Wii Play is a good introduction to the Wii-mote and using it as a pointing device. To get it with a Wii-mote only costs £5 more than the Wii-mote on its own, and is a bargain for that £5 and probably not something I’d pay more than about £15 for having played it already. It has nine games including air hockey and cow racing as the stand-outs for me. Cow racing is aimed at young children but had everyone who played it in stitches over Christmas.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and new year.

I got a few new DVDs and CDs. Pick of the bunch I think was the Superman Returns DVD. I’d not seen it before and am a massive fan of pretty much all superhero films. Brandon Routh was unexpectedly great in the role, and had all of Christopher Reeve’s mannerisms and facial expressions spot on. I also got Tony Hawk’s Project 8 on Xbox 360 which I spent a lot of time playing over Christmas.

Spent Christmas at home with my family and then for new year I went up to my best friend’s house and had a quiet night in with her, her brother and one of their friends. It was my best new year yet and was a really nice night. We went for a walk then watched The Break Up which was good; then had dinner before watching My Super Ex-Girlfriend which was also good but the ending was a bit disappointing. We went to bed around midnight and got up and went for a walk the next morning before having lunch and watching the Liverpool vs Bolton game on Sky.