Time out for memes

Well tagged by AFBH I am not feeling in the least bit frivolous at the moment, so I will address this with all the seriousness and deep analysis that this behoves.

5 things found in your bag:

I shall extend the meaning of bag to include those items that are often carried in my pockets, as this is the way gentlemen continue to carry their impedimenta :)

First and foremost, my laptop; a laptop or similar has been part of my life since the mid 1980's. Currently this is averitable modern day "swiss army knife" for this indispensible serves me as research tool, memory adjunct (for all those senior moments), communication aid and last but not least security blanket.

Second, is my stainless steel mug, I may not always use it, but I prefer it to be there.

Thirdly, a dictaphone, useful for making quick notes when booting up the laptop is not a practical proposition.

Fourthly, a mobile phone, although for years I lived without one, I would feel very insecure without it these days.

Fifthly, having retired my veritable and non metaphorical swiss army knife, a leatherman juice, that essential fashion accessory for today's well dressed "geek"

5 favorite things in your room:

No doubt this is another invitation to burglary, but most of the stuff in my room is junk.

I have my cameras, my non functioning wall clocks, my photographs, my flutes and my books.

5 things you have always wanted to do:

I would like to design a landmark building
I should like to travel to the USA on the QM2.
I would like to have the income to afford a Land Rover
I would like to make a movie
I would like to write a book.

Two of those things are potentially within my purview, and the other two are dependent upon landing a good job when I have completed my research
The first just ain't gonna happen in this world.


5 things you are currently into:

It is no news to say that I am into Photography, Autism Research, Land Rovers, Blogging and Emailing

5 people you’d like to tag:

I will pass on this, I can't think of anyone who I would like to torment at the moment.

Do I need this?

I have just been reminded after reading Aspie Bird's blog, that I saw the late Genevieve Edmond's guide for sale recently alongside Marc Segar's guide.

I could not bring myself to buy either of such guides considering the unfortunate history of both authors.

On the other hand it set me to think, not only do I want to buy this guide, but would I ever need such a guide?

Perhaps it contains advice I might have found useful at one time, but then when I needed such advice there were no such guides, because there wasn't any 'asperger's ' back then to write guides about just socially different and 'dysfunctional' people.

Nowadays in a way perhaps I find the label of 'asperger's' sufficient as an explanation.

One of the first autobiographies I read was Lianne Willey's "Pretending to be normal" I was not really impressed, I didn't go around pretending to be normal, because I did not know what normal was. I may have worn more or less socially acceptable 'mask's' at times. The conventions of a suit for an interview, black tie at a funeral and a formal dinner, that sort of thing but I doubt I was ever less than me in such clothes.

I think the problem with such guides is that they accept the notion that we are foreigners in our own native lands. It may be a good analogy for attempting to understand the customs of 'neurotypical's' but it also says something far more damning and negative about that society which we are by accepting the definition that it is 'foreign', not a part of. That it is a society which is not welcoming to what we truly are.

If I were to go into a Roman Catholic Church I would take my hat off, and if I were to go into a Mosque I would take my shoes off. However since I subscribe to neither of those particular belief systems I would still feel uncomfortable and unwelcome even though I had obeyed the customs.

I would like to think if I were inviting a foreigner into my house, that I would extend the tolerance in the other direction, to allow them their customs,* for we cannot always assume that there is a guide book on hand.

Anyway it is not really about showing respect to the customs of others so much as an issue of disability accommodation. More is perhaps expected of those whose difference is invisible on the surface. There is at least an inbuilt notion in most societies (even if it is not universally practised) to be accommodating to someone who cannot see, or who cannot hear, or for whatever physical reason cannot come up to the norms of behaviour (eating with a knife and fork when your hands don't allow you, you get the picture ...)

To me the notion of accommodation is that the most flexible ought to yield. I tend to lead a life with my friends where they know what I am like, and I know what they are like. That is why they are friends, I wouldn't really want someone who only knew the picture I had painted.

To know the rules maybe is an advantage, but to know that you need not have to live your life by them if you do not chose to is equality.

* footnote (I might draw the line with Borat )

My Weekend

Here I sit in a University owned hotel lobby having just checked out, reviewing my life I suppose, whilst waiting for the coach to take me back to the remainder of the residential weekend.

You only have to turn the news on to see signs of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and uncertainly over everything in the future.

The future is always uncertain for me, because never mind world events, where do I go from here, and how do I fit in?

There seem to be altogether too many people on the planet for there to be a stable life, global warming, energy crises, food and water in short supply, it seems like the chickens of Malthus, whose prophesies were long set aside, are finally coming home to roost, and so is there room for one more person on the planet, me?

My parents have respectfully “shuffled off” there “mortal coils” and what is their legacy? Apart from myself and my brother, do they still live in anyone else’s memory?

Not everyone can leave a concrete mark even on their own generation other than the headstone that marks there grave.

I know my mum left concrete marks in the most literal sence, in the form of ramps to buildings. I know these would have come eventually since the law now demands them, but without the pioneering efforts and the campaigning would that be law now? I do not think so.

So whilst my mum was alive I was as active in those campaigns as she was, as active as I am now in the autistic world.

My dad? I don’t know, I suppose had he and my mum not separated, my mum would not have made those changes in her life that led to that campaigning, and by implication would not have drawn me in.

I suppose too he played some part in the community during his lifetime. He worked, contributing to the economy, making the tools that supported the industrial life of Coventry’s motor city in the 60’s and 70’s. I suppose too he was a part of the war effort, as a boy messenger for the fire service during the Coventry blitz, and later on as a soldier, posted out to Egypt and Palestine. In a minor way, however you see occupying forces, and from whatever side you look at it, he was a part of that still unsettled history that is the middle east today.

He served in Palestine facing not dissimilar hazards to the armies in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had no choice, that is where he was sent, and in the process he learned a respect for the Bedouin and their language.

Back in civilian life he was part of the popular cultural movements of his generation, as a jazz musician, and later part of the folk revival, which as you can see from an earlier blog I became part of too.

Like all of us, he did bad and regrettable things in his life, I can’t say I have not done any myself, but in subtle ways a world in which he had never been, would not have been quite the same.

I know I face upheavals to come in my life. I have the prospect of kitchen and bathroom works in my flat, the disruption of which I am not looking forward to, they are the necessary improvements which should make things better for a while, before the next upheaval when I have to leave my current flat altogether as it is still scheduled for demolition around the time I will expect to be graduating as a PhD

It is like that envisaged course completion, some way off, and in a way so far off I find it hard to believe whether or not it will ever happen to me, or if something else might happen in between to cause me to leave my flat or my course of study earlier.

So why am I writing all this now.

I suppose it is reflecting on the fact that I am here at Birmingham, a year on from when I was at Birmingham last year, on a similar study weekend, planning my final assignment, and unsure where that was leading. I did not feel well a year ago, the stresses had really got to me, but I survived and moved on. For those of you who have followed my blog, it is all there to see as it happened.

So this time I am not a part of the course, I was studying. I am enjoying the temporary status of a paid lecturer instead, and nervous as to how my delivery yesterday was received. Being as I was paid for it, could I have planned it a bit better? Given it more attention? If I have another opportunity at a further study weekend I can certainly use the experience to improve on it.

In any case I thought I need to improve my ability to be more impromptu in my delivery, to be confident enough that I do not need to read from my prepared script.

If you see me in my “Whichever way” video, you will see me delivering a script, literally. I am reading off it. So I was when I first made the presentation that I later had filmed to make the video. Well I am trying to lead my life a little bit off the script now.

Perhaps there is a hidden script behind my life, and the future is already written, but I guess, nervous as I am even for the events of this afternoon, when I hope to find my flat as I left it, and not burgled, waiting as I am for the results of a brain scan I had last week, I hope that there is no melodrama waiting me. For now this actor is better off not knowing, else I could never cope with the present.

What will the world wreak tomorrow?
Tonight I have no care, and only am.
One now, one never moving instant instinct.
Continue time to turn, throw over what I feel
Return the terror, trample my delight.
For burns in my mind, memory of the light.
Outside, the blackness, shadows of the night.
Inside my soul, shines celebration of the light.

Watch this space, same time same channel ……………….

I am Kathleen but wer macht den schun?

I have been debating how to respond to this nonsense, or whether to respond to it at all. At first I thought it beneath contempt and beneath my dignity to respond, however having seen the strength of feeling on this it would be cowardly of me not to.

For a start off, being named in this subpoena (which has no validity whatever in the UK, where I reside and blog and have my being) actually puts Mr Shoemaker in jeopardy as the law stands in the UK, in that he has published a libellous statement suggesting my web site and blog's complicity in a ridiculous conspiracy for which he owes me an apology. I don't think the fact that he is an attorney in the US gives him any immunity outside of his jurisdiction for that. I want that apology Mr Shoemaker, I want it in public. Do you have a sense of decency Mr Shoemaker? Then use it!

I would suggest to Mr Shoemaker if he is reading this (which I doubt given the factual errors in the subpoena) to look through my blogs and my website so that he will have no need to subpoena the "evidence" It is there in cyberspace in the full public gaze, and he will see what little I have to contribute to what I consider and have always considered to be a side show to the basic issues of Autistic and Disability rights which I am concerned with. Beware too it is covered by copyright and even the reproduction of such in a court document invites penalties. (There is case law on that somewhere in the asinine chronicles of the law as I recall)

Indeed it is a matter of record that I fell out with the Autism hub over the predominance of what I saw as a pre-occupation with the mercury Issue that to me is totally irrelevant to what I am about so far as promoting the much misunderstood and maligned concept of neurodiversity.

As for any financial support I am giving to neurodiversity.com, that is a leg to pull is it not? Never mind pulling your own, you won't have any left to stand upon.

It is a matter of fact that some years ago I attempted to snaffle unto myself the domain name Neurodiversity.Com and was somewhat miffed to discover it being sat upon, by I knew not whom, long before I discovered the identity of the Seidel's

Mr Shoemaker, if you would like me to appear in person in your proceedings, you would need to pay for that, and even then I cannot guarantee that the laws of your country would allow me a visa to travel so your attempts are really nugatory aren't they?

This whole thing reminds me of the classic tale of Canute commanding the waves.

If you look sensibly at this subpoena, you will realise that it is a pathetic attempt to command the impossible.

Nobody, and I mean nobody keeps records of the type that have been requested, and the demons that are being invoked here are invisible. Arthur Miller anybody???

In my jurisdiction I have little doubt that Mr Shoemaker would be regarded as a vexatious litigant, and more than that would fall foul of the standards of the law society and have to answer, just as Dr Wakefield is having to answer to his professional body, where the best advice in law will not protect him from the truth.

We may have stricter libel laws in the UK, and they do cut both ways for sure but hear this ... criminal Robert Maxwell used them for years to suppress adverse comment, but when he died the truth came out, that he was a swindler, and a cheat who abused the law.

Elton John may have used them to extract damages for the accusation that he was gay, but the truth is he is gay and has admitted it.

Worse than that Geoffrey Archer has gone to gaol for perjury over his libel suit.

There are consequences Mr Shoemaker, and if you do not face them in this world, you surely will in the next. Is it worth your immortal soul Mr Shoemaker? Is it?

A retraction is so simple Mr Shoemaker, can we have it? I hope I do not have to extract it through the courts in this land or yours.

Your argument is not my argument and never has been. You have gained precisely nothing in your endeavours and I am sure if Kathleen were to appear, the information that she would give would be to the detriment of your case not in it's favour.

A Christian blog for the season.

Well why not, it is Easter after all.

However if I were to start a Christian blog there are many who would find it as offensive as the curebies find my stance on Autism.

One always has to chose a line to stand on, as Luther did.

By denomination I am a Baptist, and that no doubt already sends shivers down the spine of liberal Episcopalians and new age Universalists, but it also puts me beyond the pale of the equally 'heretic' established Churches, who are getting ready to submit me to the blogosphere's equivalent of 'auto da fe' no doubt. (see below)

That is the problem when you believe there is only one way, you tend to be exclusive.

Jesus of course was not exclusive, except in the sense that he asked people to follow him and not some pharasaical sect. (and who can say for sure which our denominations are the new pharisees)

In following Jesus that puts me at odds with many folk including some of the original Apostles, who let's face it were not beyond criticism, and Paul was the biggest self confessed sinner of them all.

Why do I believe in my particular brand of Christianity?

• That is because I was convinced by Bible study that the way to demonstrate ones faith is through the testimony of adult baptism, as Jesus himself underwent.

Why I do I believe Jesus is the Christ and my saviour?

That is for two reasons:

• Firstly the word, the message, logos, call it what you will. The message of love, and peace and forgiveness, a forgiveness that is a free gift we have not earned, for which Jesus paid the price.
  

• Secondly because of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and I am not going to get into arguments of Filioque, let the Greek and Roman Churches sort that one out for themselves.
  

What did Jesus mean when he said, whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14 )?

• If you look at me or my brother and listen to the way we speak, you have in a way seen oury genetic father, for we both bear his mannerisms either inherited or learnt. If you follow Jesus you have seen the heavenly father for I do believe that the message he delivered in his stay on earth was so powerful, so universal, so appropriate for all time that it can only have come from our Heavenly Father the maker of everything we are and exist amongst.

So was there room for Dinosaurs on the Ark?

• Don't ask me that one, I wasn't around at the time, you might just as well worry about trees falling silently in the forests of Berkeley (I like the notion of there being forests in Berkeley even if it may not be literally true, Californians please advise)

How do I square the idea of an immortal soul with my scientific belief in embodied cognition?

• H'mm I suppose I shall have to incline toward bodily resurrection and conjuring tricks with bones then :)

Is it equally contradictory to hold post modernist ideas and then hold to Biblical truth?

• Well actually it is post modernism that allows me to privilege the religious gaze over the scientific one if that works for me.

What I am anyway, is not yet decided, until I have been everything that I can be. My soul has to be the sum of everything which applies - not an equation in which only three dimensions apply.

I am not sure whether I shall allow comments on this blog, being as religion and faith are such personal things for this much is certainty. In the opinions of some I will be a hell bound infidel, and to others a delusional crazy, whose migraine auras have got the better of him.

It's something I can't force on anybody, you make your choice as I make mine, the same choice Adam had with the apple, take it or leave it.

Here endeth the sermon, you can see why they don't have me preaching in the pulpit at my home Church now can't you :)

and now for something completely different ...

The NAS is recruiting

I make no apologies for cutting and pasting this ad from the NAS site wholesale. I have only edited the style of one paragraph in order that it will stand out more clearly. If you read the para I have highlighted, you will see what makes the NAS so different from ASA, Autism speaks or the Autism society of Canada.

This is a job with great opportunities for one of us to do something about autism, where it matters, so here goes .....

Policy and Parliamentary Officer (Equality and financial security)

• Salary: £26,289 - £30,730
• Based in London

The National Autistic Society is the UKs leading charity for people affected by autism. Our ambition is to end the isolation of over two million people in the UK whose lives are touched by autism.

Working as part of a growing and dynamic team, you will lead on influencing government policy and legislation in the fields of employment, benefits, human rights and justice to promote the interests of people living with autism.

For an information pack please contact the Recruitment Team on 020 7903 3572 or email recruitment@nas.org.uk stating in which format you would like to receive your pack electronically or via post. Alternatively, download a job description and application form below.

Applications are sought from all suitably qualified sections of the community but particularly welcome from those with a diagnosis of autism or Asperger syndrome.

Closing date for applications: Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Interview date: Thursday, 3 April 2008

Committed to Equal Opportunities & Investors in People.
Registered Charity No. 269425.

The legacy of War

This afternoon on returning from Birmingham to Coventry I found our entire City Centre cordoned off by the police, traffic diverted and rumours of bombs.

Now this is not a unique experience, it has happened before but on getting home I discovered the bomb had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden at all but Adolf Hitler.

It is such a strange coincidence that I must report it, because tonight the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry (yes it is named after that Belgrade) was premiering a play about the Coventry Blitz

The premiere was cancelled because not 100 yards away in a building site associated with the Theatre redevelopment, a 1000 pound World War Two bomb turned up, and that is enough explosive to warrant cordoning off a considerable area.

It's hard to think of my parents surviving these things being dropped regularly on the City, my dad was rendered homeless by one of them.

The relics of war last a long time, and I doubt if this is the last bomb that will turn up. We need to consider the amount of ordinance that is still being expended around the world and realise just how long into the future that legacy is going to last.

End of an Era

I took my landie to have the chassis inspected today, and as I suspected, the cost of comprehensively repairing it in order to meet the annual vehicle test would be uneconomic for me and it would be cheaper for me to replace the landie altogether.

Well whether I can even afford to replace it at the moment, is a moot point too, I think the money would be better invested in my studies right now. So it seems I shall have to part with the landie, and hope I can find someone who will be able to make use of the parts.

Once I started back at Uni, I suppose this was inevitable, that the conflict of expenses would come and I need to be realistic.

I had to get rid of my previous car for similar reasons in order to pay the fees for the first autism course I took at Birmingham Uni.

So here is some footage, it's all nostalgia now - gone avec les neiges d'antan :(

Words and enthusiasms

Sometimes it can be a real effort to write a paper, like the one I am still preparing that was originally intended for IMFAR (though it has since been rejected)

That is a real doozy of a paper which has to be meticulously referenced and well argued in scientific and sociological terms.

It is unfortunate I will not get to present it after all, but I guess it does not present in itself any new research on autism (which is what IMFAR wants) and so does not make the grade.

I do think though that it is saying important things that every autism scientist and social researcher should be listening to, but even if do I ever get round to submitting it to a journal instead, it has no greater likelihood of reaching it's intended audience.

I still live in hope of being able to presentit at the Disability Studies Association's conference instead, but it's not been accepted there either yet.

It's not a paper I am writing for the love of it, but out of necessity to get an important point across somehow, and it is tough work.

On the other hand, kudos to me, I am also working on another paper, for which I am being paid at the official lecturer rates for Birmingham University.

So far, because I am talking on a subject close to my heart, autistic politics and culture, it is almost writing itself, and the difficulty will be there to keep it within the timespan and subject limits of what I have been asked for.

Trouble is that being paid for it, raises all manner of questions, and I have had to go to the benefits people to ask permission to do this as therapeutic work.

It is therapeutic all right in that nothing lifts my self esteem so much as being paid for doing something like this. Everything else I have ever presented, I have ended up paying for one way or another, with accommodation, conference fees and all.

Being paid for once is a good start and a foot in the door at least.

But do I exist?

The Autist looked into the myriad fragments
Of the shattered mirror to find himself
He did not see any autism
For he was not there.

Discusss .....

A diversion into my past

Believe it or not I used to be part of Earlsdon Morris (Shown here in Utrecht) playing in the band until I committed some social faux pas I cannot recall. That is of course the everyday hazard of being aspie and undiagnosed (this was back in the 1980's) never mind that I was probably drunk at the time considering that Morris men are not renowned for staying sober when the opportunity presents.

For whom does Autism Speak?

I have kept rather quiet about this until I was sure the domain name was active, but I now own the domain name autismspeaks.eu and I intend to hang on to it.

I assert my moral rights to the domain name on the basis that it is more legitimate for me as an autistic person, having some involvement in the world of advocacy to claim that autistics speak for autism in Europe and not organisations whose motivation is to falsely claim that they speak for autism, be that Autism Europe or anyone else.

Given the controversial nature of the claim I have just staked, I intend to keep it in the words of the advertising standards authority in the Uk:

legal, decent, honest and truthful.

Therefore I will not entertain any "NT" bashing or other slurs, I will maintain instead the position of equality of all persons no matter what their neurological make-up.

Because there is at present no one organisation run by autistic people that has a monopoly claim to representation any more than any other, I intend to use the site mainly as signpost to the multifarious world of autistic advocacy, with the usual "health warnings" that such sites as can be found via hyperlinking do not necessarily reflect the views of the this particular author. Though you can be sure that I will, because this is an EU domain, lean towards the much neglected European perspective.

Don't expect wonders from this site overnight, I am well busy at the moment, with my research and my various comings and goings in the autistic world.

Social Service

Laurentius has friends believe it or not and they tend to get on at him for being a recluse and try to get him to come out sometimes.

Well I did so the other day but had to explain that because of my studies and my other involvements that I had at least five better things to do, two that had deadlines in the next week and one that was already overdue.

That's my life, you have seen one of my mindmaps, the one for tasks outstanding is even more frightening in the number of branches.

I don't know who I am sometimes.

For instance I am going to London again on 5th February for an NAS launch, but I have booked my day out.

I am spending the morning with the NAS publicity guy as I have a lot of outstanding issues to be discussed with him (you may recall my challenge from an earlier blog) So I will have my advocacy hat on. I then need to take advantage of being unlike Elvis and still in the building to use the library, and I need to interview one of the staff members, so I will have my researcher hat on.

When I go to the big bash at Houses of Parliament (hoping I do not hold up the queue to get through security as long as I did last time because of all the OCD gear in my bag) I shall ostensibly have my NAS trustee hat on, wherein I am supposed to be nice to everybody, but I will have another hat on too, because I need to use this schmoozing opportunity to tap any potential "celebs" to get there support for Autscape.

Not forgetting the two papers I am writing and my next neurologist's appointment, or the endless hassle of phoning people up who are tardy in replying to my requests to use there facilities for my research.

Well this time last year I was heading for a breakdown, no me, not my lLandie (as that allways breaks down)

The first part of my research is now live

I have now got permission from the ethics committee to launch a questionnaire on line.

I hope some of you may trouble yourselves to complete it, never mind it's faults, I am sure you will find many :(

I expect I will later on as well :( :(

I hope all the regulars here are convinced of the bona fides and you can keep up to date with the research on my research blog. http://autvideo.blogspot.com/

The survey itself is here, http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/bham/autvideo

and only I can gain access to the results or information so it is confidential.

If you are answering from outside the UK, the ethnicity data is UK centric, however you can fill in a section to say that you are not UK resident, and that would help me know where the replies are coming from.

Naturally it would be extremely difficult for non UK residents and people who are distant from Birmingham to participate in the next stage so my apologies there.

Academia takes it's toll

I suppose, looking back that my blog has been much concerned with the trials and tribulations of being and Aspie in Academia.

I left the relative security of taught courses in further education for the insecurity firstly of a distance education course, and now research, travelling deeper into Terra Incognita with each move.

I know it is difficult enough for most of us at any level of education, either as children or adults. Support did not exist when I was a child and the whole ethos of education was radically different from what it is today (not that either is better than the other they are both as bad)

I was pushed toward University when I was younger, but I was clearly not ready for it, either academically or socially.

Today I am maybe more successful than many of my peers simply because I have all those years of living in the world behind me. In a strange way I never felt fully adult until both my parents were dead.

Nonetheless my particular path is not one I would recommend to any other aspiring Aspie academic, it has been taken of necessity rather than choice, both because of the limited funding available to me, and the choices dictated by my initial lack of the right qualifications. It is also a function of the callous disregard that this government has towards reskilling people of an older generation http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7178836.stm

For those of us who were not successful the first time round this is devastating news, socially, economically and educationally we are being written off.

For me nothing is certain, I was just about able to pay for my studies last year, and at the moment I have embarked on a long process of research with no certain future so far as funding is concerned.

Research that is not just for it’s own sake but I hope will make a difference to the understanding and conceptualisation of autism as well as having pragmatic applications for the design and delivery of education to my peer group.

It is something, whilst I await ethical approval and all the other bureaucracy, which is taking me deeper into the realms of cognitive neuroscience.

That is the problem with my research, it was bad enough last year having to deal with the lack of structure brought about by a non resident course, now I do not even have the structure of modules and guided learning to comply with. It is not so bad for all researchers, many will find that they simply slot into an already determined research programme, not for me alas.

I do find however that mind mapping software is invaluable, because I can keep my notes all linked within this structure albeit it is getting somewhat re-entrant in the complexity of its loops and links as you can see from the illustration that heads this blog, though in a way that appeals to my mind which seems to revel in multidimensionality. I have already conceived of a vast array of statistical tests I can carry out on my first questionnaire in order to see how many different sub sets I can create from one set of data :) All of that somewhat off topic perhaps.

According to my supervisor I am well ahead of the game, many students not having reached this stage until the second year, but without anything to guide me I actually feel awfully behind.

I have a desperate schedule to keep up as I have already been accepted to present on my Research in September, and before I can even get ahead with writing that paper I have committed myself to writing another of which more anon.

In some peoples eyes this would make me a despised “super aspie” but it has taken me more than forty five years since infants school to get this far, I am way behind Temple Grandin, Stephen Shore and Wendy Lawson as if anyone is counting.

End of year Nightmare

I always lament that New Year of latter years seems to have become an extended holiday in itself like Christmas, that comes so soon after that one runs into the other making an effective period of stalemate for everything involving public offices being open, and public transport being reliably normal.

Once again it has frustrated me in that I entered the Christmas Holiday with matters unresolved that will await at least till Wednesday and probably sometime after that before they begin to get sorted.

First and foremost is the progress of my research. I have been awaiting ethical approval before I am allowed to recruit "vulnerable" volunteers, but if I don't get that soon, it means I miss various publication deadlines I was relying on to get the information out, which if missed could hold me up for months rather than weeks.

Not only that I have got to find some means to fund my next years research anyway, if I leave it much longer I will not have time to get decisions back in time to continue next year.

And then there is my Landie to sort out, It may have got me to Wales and back but seems to have blown a head gasket in the process, earliest I can even get it looked at is Wednesday, and I need that transport for getting to Birmingham and back at times when public transport cannot be relied upon.

Above all there is a huge uncertain in my life, and that is the possibility of building work, which several months ago was promised to start in January, but of which I have heard nothing since. This means like everything else with the housing association including my eventual demolition and move, it is behind schedule, or it could be imminent.

When it arrives it will be mightily inconvenient to everything else, and more so if it happens without sufficient notice to make some room in the rooms destined for work to be done.

In between that I have other things to fit in.

Autreach, Autscape, the NAS, and other autistic related stuff.

The worst of all is that since Christmas I have become indolent, overcome with general post Christmas malaise as my usual structure has disintegrated. Life is unpleasant for me at the moment and I don't feel at all well.

Prioritising the long list of things I now need to attend to is going to take some adjustment and there is so much that has got behind, that I have not been able to do simply because everyone else has been taking time off to be concerned with Christmas and New Year

I'm getting too old for this.

I'm getting too old for this.

Me and the landie both.

I got back from Wales (just) as it seems at the moment as if the landie has blown the head gasket. I came spluttering to a halt about ten miles from Coventry with serious misfiring problems. Well I did get back under my own power, but looking at things, it has all the symptoms of a blown gasket.

I am stiff all over too, perhaps it is time to call a halt to my Christmas jaunts this year and do something more normal in future. Never mind anything else my bank balance won't stand it.

So how did it go?

Well the weather up till Christmas Eve was freezing fog, which did not look very promising, but on Christmas Eve it changed to rain. Well at least it was raining in Wales a constant downpour which made my stay in the back of the landie somewhat damp. I was not able to enjoy the stars (it was a full moon anyway) on the lake shore as the lake was full to capacity and where I had sat out before was under water. I went for a walk though.

The following morning after a night which felt colder than the year before. All that rain falling on the landie effectively turns it into a refrigerator, I got up before dawn, and drove out in what was a rather unpromising morning of fog, however as the sun got up the mist was only in the high places and the combination of morning sun and mist made for some spectacular pictures.

So that's it really, my journeys are never without incident as the near breakdown on the way back proved once again.

Yes Virginia it does snow in Coventry

This photo was taken only about one quarter of an hour from where I live for despite the desolation of living on an ex Council Estate there is beauty to be found, and living on the edge of the City it is not far away.

To be fair this is not a recent photo but we did have brief snows only a fortnight ago.

So will I carry on my ritual visit to Lake Vyrnwy this year? Only God knows, but I am back on track.

Of course if the weather is particularly foul (we have been having freezing fog today) there is always the matter of common sense, and whether my Landie will start when I turn the key, is always, like a child unwrapping a Christmas present, all in the expectation but apt for disappointment.

I actually figure now I don't go to Wales for myself any longer, and last year I was not feeling well at all, but because it has to be done and it is all for you :)

To see the pictures when they are uploaded. Here you go.

Life's ups and downs.

Today has been a day of both disappointments and satisfaction.

To get the bad out of the way first. The door on my Landie has been damaged by a thief trying to get in.

It shows the thief's ignorance of the vehicle because there is no latch on the inside which will release the door, once locked from outside, and once in the thief would have had to remove the clutch claw and given the problems I have had starting would not be that amenable to hot wiring.

Everything inside is also locked down still, it was a major inconvenience and cost which has meant my landie being stored somewhere safe until I can get a replacement for the damaged door, not the best time of year for this to happen and I hope I can get it sorted in time for my annual excursion over Christmas, which has to be a little in doubt now.

The good news is that I have had my paper accepted for the NAS International Conference in September though I am only a sideshow and will have to compete for attention with keynote speakers like Stephen Shore and our very own Rita Jordan from the Uni of Brum.

Still it will be a change from the obligatory Self Narrating Zoo spot as I shall be presenting as a bona fide researcher, my autisticity (now there's a new word for you) being effectively irrelevant and my elasticity paramount.

Well that's not bad considering my research is only one term in and there is nothing to report yet.

But there will be as this is part of my mission to put us at the centre of it all.

Something to blog about

At last there is something worthy for me to blog about.

I read this on a BBC site about the new educational diploma, something I am set against because of the way it will further disadvantage autistic people.

It is not hard to see why when you read statements like this.

"The head of the Enterprise Business Unit at Vodafone, Kyle Whitehill, probably spoke for many employers when he told a conference that "the two most important skills in the workplace are interpersonal skills and presentational skills".
He did not, please note, prioritise acquisition of academic knowledge or evidence of the ability to memorise large slabs of information. "

Now what I find particularly ironic, is the fact that Vodafone was until recently a major funding partner with the National Autistic Society. And that funding was essential in developing the campaigning services and preserving the prospects service.

In the light of the statement I have just repeated it almost seems like "blood money" or a salving of conscience.

Well to be fair I have to be critical of the NAS too in so far as a service like Prospects goes. Prospects has like Autism West Midlands Aspire and many other local job preparation services, suffered from a major flaw.

That is that these services (and I think it goes for other disabilities than autism too so I am not being picky) attempt to adapt the square peg to the round hole. They are not predicated on the social model of disability in which it is the attitudes of companies like Vodafone, that create the disabilities.

Returning to Mr Whitehill's statement. I do not disagree that there are some areas of employment where presentation and social skills are important, but not in all of them. Vodafone may be a company who promote an image that they are about communication, but behind that communication is a lot of technology. Where would the company be without surly engineers? Indeed where would the 21st century be if clean teeth and a broad smile were more important than technical competence. Golgafrincham perhaps?

I have witnessed over the years the way the society I live in is exacerbating the disability of Autism and all the other neuro diversities such as Tourettes and Dyslexia.

We are in for hard times, because whatever you do, you cannot expect a race horse to pull a brewers dray, you have to lighten the load, to adapt.

In a time when there will be a skills shortage Vodafone, by adopting attitudes like that are shooting themselves in the foot.

Peter Hain an erstwhile champion of seemingly impossible causes in my youth has now become an ossified mainstream politician complaining about workshy disabled people who have the capacity to work, but don't.

Well we autistics are well down in the league table of employment, and isn't it obvious why? It is not us but industry that needs to adapt, or return to good old fashioned common sense.

So as my contribution to most recent NAS campaign "Think differently about Autism" I am offering a challenge to Mr Whitehill if he is reading this. Are you prepared to meet with me and discuss this further? It is a challenge I mean to keep. And the word of this "Aspie" is his bond because I will be following this up.

Ps. for the record I am with Orange these days (not that I expect they are much different when it comes to their human relations department)