Category: Autism

Nominated For a Blogger Recognition Award

My official response to being nominated for a blogger recognition award.

INTRODUCTION

My thanks to thetshirtblogger for nominating for a blogger recognition award. This post is my official response to that nomination. This is the tshirtblogger’s own description of what they do:

The Tee Shirt Blogger focuses on diversity in the main, and rather the celebration of diversity, in many ways it is no different to my other blogs, l love the intrinsic rawness and freshness that eclecticism offers us in life for all the good, bad and of course downright ugly.

ABOUT ASPI.BLOG

I blog about a wide range of stuff, with my principal interests being cricket, public transport, nature, science, politics, autism and photography. Nearly all the posts that I produce feature some of my photographs, and this one will be no exception. As branch secretary of the National Autistic Society West Norfolk and an autistic person I have strong opinions on autism and they way in which autistic people are treated, and this frequently comes into the blog. When I share something from another source I will always acknowledge that fact, and link to my original source. If I make an error in a blog post I will correct it, and give the correction at least as much prominence as the initial error had (for an example of me calling myself out go here). For more detail please visit my page “About Aspiblog“.

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE – BIRDS

These were taken on Monday:

Cormorant posingMixed birdsCormorantMixed birds 2lapwing and gullFlying cormorantSwimming cormorantdiving cormorantswimming cormorant IIblackbird in treeGulllapwingFlying birdsBlackbird II

ADVICE FOR NEW BLOGGERS

  1. Your blog is yours – blog the way you want to.
  2. Visit lots of other blogs and leave likes and comments – this helps you get noticed and increases the number of people who read your blog.

MY NOMINEES

I could just list my 10 nominees, but I actually going to say something about each of them as well. 

  1. Fargaregardsanna. Anna’s pet subjects include nature, her home town of Trosa and her artwork. As a sample of her work I give this recent post titled “Save Trosa nature – Behåll och stärk Trosas natur“, which features a picture she created based on a comment of mine:
  2. Cindy Knoke. Cindy is a photographer with a great interest in nature. Her most recent post is titled “Punto Tombo~“.
  3. Ioinvaggio. An Italian blog which regularly features lovely pictures. I give you a link to a post titled “Io sono Volpina Blu”
  4. The remaining nominees all have some connection to autism, starting with stimtheline, and by way of an introduction I give you “8 Favorite Quotes About Autism“
  5. Autism is my Superpower. I was introduced to this blog by someone I will be mentioning later. I point you to the same post that was my introduction to the blog “Environmental (Over)Consciousness“
  6. Yarn and Pencil. This blog covers autism, sensory issues, knitting and various other stuff. As an introduction I offer you “Dunster Castle“.
  7. Autism Mom. An excellent blog about one family’s experience with autism. I have an additional reason for including this one – to show that autistic people do not object in principle to neurotypical parents of autistic children writing about their children – we object to neurotypical parents of autistic children writing in a way that contributes to the ‘othering’ of autistic people. Thus the post to which I link to introduce you to this blog is the self-explanatory titled “I Want to be Called Autistic“.
  8. International Badass Activists. This was American Badass Advocates, run by Eve Hinson, when I started following. It has since become first American Badass Activists and then International Badass Activists, while Eve Hinson has become Eve Reiland. I have been introduced to many interesting and important stories by this blog. As an introduction here is her Autistic Union Pledge.
  9. The Unabashed Autist. Although I am nominating this blog, I must also mention that its creator, Alison, also has a creativity blog called Alison Wonderland that is not to be missed. For my introductory post, here is one she put up yesterday titled ““Elaine, do you think I would go willy-nilly into a situation so obviously fraught with potential complications?”“
  10. Finally, we come to thesilentwaveblog. This splendid blog is run by Laina, who also has blog specifically for sharing aspergian/autistic writing called Laina’s Collection. As an introduction to thesilentwaveblog I give you my all-time favourite from that site, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Neurotypicality“.

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE TWO:
MUSCOVY DUCKS

Group shotgrey and blackFourtwoBrownbrown profileblackBrown fron onBrown and blackWhiteThreeWhite II

PARTCIPATION IN THE BLOGGER RECOGNITION AWARD

These are the requirements for those who wish to participate in the Blogger Recognition Award:

1. Show your gratitude to the person who nominated you and provide a link back to the person’s blog.
2. Give a brief story on your blog.
3. Share two or more pieces of advice for beginner bloggers.
4. Choose 10 other bloggers to nominate. 
5. Comment on each blog, letting them know they’ve been nominated and provide a link to your award post.

I will shortly be attending to number 5!

Blogger recognition award

 

 

 

Autism and Music

An account of the first Musical Keys session of the new year and some autism related links.

INTRODUCTION

This post comprises two elements – one an account of the first Musical Keys session of 2018 and the other sharing some excellent recent stuff about autism. Because it is an autism themed post I am using #RedInstead text (scarlet for headings and links, maroon for body text). 

MUSICAL KEYS

Musical Keys is an activity run for autistic people who enjoy music. Generally speaking it is run fortnightly, with a session for youngsters between 3PM and 3:45PM and a session for older participants from 4PM to 5PM. I had initially been expecting to renew my acquaintance with Reaper (a computer program for composing music – see here for more details) but circumstances dictated otherwise, and I actually ended up on a…

KEYBOARD

This machine can function as a wide range of instruments/voices and in a wide range of styles, and I explored a lot of the instruments in the course of the time I spent on it.

Keyboard

John, one of the two people who run these sessions, showed me how to play chords as opposed to single notes, and I experimented with playing varying numbers of notes simultaneously, and using the whole range of the keyboard. 

I created a few chords where the notes played could also form words, such as face/cafe, cabbage etc. I enjoyed making the acquaintance of this keyboard and learning something of its capacities.

Chord
These notes could form the word ‘cabbage’ (there being 2 as, 2 bs, 1c, 1e and 1g. Kirsten Murray, who helps John to run the sessions, took this picture with my camera.
Face
Here you can see the notes – I played this with my left hand, while photographing with my right.
Screen
A close up the central screen.
Voice
The screen with more of its surrounds, including detail about the ‘voice’ settings.

AUTISM RELATED LINKS

This section starts with a post from Rhi that I regard as being the last word on “mild autism”, published under the title “Autscriptic: Mild Autism“. 

My next piece comes from the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, written by Shannon Des Roches Rosa of squidalicious.com under the self-explanatory title “Eleven Ways You Can Make Your Autistic Child’s Life Easier“

The next two pieces in this section are both from the blog “Autism is my Superpower“

TO SIRI REVISITED

I have linked to a number of reviews of Judith Newman’s book “To Siri With Love”, although since I have not read the book I can offer no direct comment about it, and here are a few more pieces about that book:

AN ANTI-AUTISTIC HATE GROUP
MASQUERADING AS AN AUTISM CHARITY

The organisation who are the subject of this little section go by the name of Autism Speaks, who you will also see referred to as Autism $peaks, Auti$m $peak$ and A$ in various places. 

  1. From care.com comes this story, whose title “Autism Mother Sues Autism Speaks For Disability Discrimination” gives you more than a hint of the truth about this vile organisation.
  2. The website ownshrink.com has a piece titled “Autism Speaks: Torturing autistics for profit” which is as damning an indictment of an organisation that claims to be an autism charity as you could find anywhere.

 

8 Favorite Quotes About Autism

These are some splendid quotes about Autism – though I would prefer the fourth one down to be in shades of #RedInstead rather than blue!

stimtheline's avatarStim the Line

If you interact at all with social media, you’ll know that quotes are everywhere. They’re usually posted on top of images on mountains or sunsets, and are more often than not credited to ‘anonymous’. Not to say there aren’t some good quotes out there, especially ones that describe experiences, instead of forcing vague positivity on the reader. It can be hard to sort through Autism quotes, because a large percentage of them are made about Autistic children by Neurotypical adults. These often border on inspiration porn- and they infuriate me.

So, in order to combat these, I’d like to share some quotes about Autism that I enjoy.

Image result for quotes about autismSee the source image

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So here they are! If I had to pick one, I think that the square peg one is my favorite, but there’s some may quotes out there, that I’ve probably missed some great ones! So, dear reader, if you’ve got a quote you…

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Welcome to 2018

A little something to kick off 2018 on aspi.blog

INTRODUCTION

Happy new year everyone. This post will give you a few hints as to what you can look forward to in 2018 on aspi.blog.

ASPI.BLOG STYLE GUIDE

Headings will generally be in a cycle that runs red/green’purple, although this is subject to variation in certain circumstances.

Body text will always be in black unless I am writing about autism, in which case I will use #RedInstead. 

When sharing content from another site I will always link to the host site and the specific post and where possible will mention the author by name – such links will be a different colour from regular body text and will be both bold and underlined. 

It will be a very rare post that does not congtain photographs.

LIKELY SUBJECTS FOR 2018

  • Autism
  • Public Transport 
  • Nature
  • Science
  • Religion
  • Cricket
  • Books
  • Photography

I will also probably find other things to blog about in 2018.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Cormorant and otherslapwingsCormorantfive lapwingsChurch and cormorantlapwings and gulls IIMoorhenssmall birdlapwings, cormorant and otherslapwings and gull11 lapwingsCormorant, gulls, lapwings

A COUPLE OF CLOSING QUESTIONS

Please feel free to use the comments to answer the questions below?

  1. What are your blogging ideas for 2018?
  2. What do you think about mine?

 

A Survey and Some New Pictures

A survey for autistic people and some photographs, some of which feature flooding in The Walks.

INTRODUCTION

The pictures that feature in this post were taken earlier today, and I saw the survey while editing them. 

THE SURVEY

The survey is a facebook survey intended for autistic people being conducted by Emma Dalmayne and asks one question: do you prefer person first or identity first? At the momnet the poll is running at 86% for Autistic Person and 14% for Person with Autism, and the fact that the latter percentage is even that high has led some people to suspect that some of those who have answered so far are not autistic (for example none of the authors of the many excellent blogs by autistic people that I follow have ever expressed a preference for ‘Person with Autism’. I urge those of my readers who are autistic and on facebook to take part in this survey by following the link – and if you are not autistic kindly do not take the survey.

THE PICTURES

Although nothing like as dramatic as the stuff that John Jonasson has recently been displaying on fotobloggarna.se about floods in his area, there has been some small scale flooding in The Walks, and some of the pictures show that.

KLKJ
A shop front turned display board and a planning application (two pics)

Planning application

duck feeding point
My first clue about the flooding in The Walks.

Near cafe

Willows in the water
The willows here are normally close to the edge of the river – not in it.

FootpathFlooded field

Swimming gull
This gull is swimming over what is normally part of a field.

Tree in poolFloodingRiver overlaps with standing waterTrees in waterFloodunofficial duckpondInto the Vancouver Garden

Mini waterfall
Here overspill water was running over the path so fast that it formed a mini waterfall cascading down over the side of the path.

PathUnofficial duckpond 2Vancouver Garden 2Flooding 2Vancouver Garden 3

bench
I don;t think this bench will be getting much use today!
Flooding near 'troll bridge'
Heading towards Seven Sisters.
Nar
The Nar (the last pic I was able to take as I ran out of battery power)
CmP
Our friend of the species Cairina moschata was not unduly troubled by the flooding (17 pics of it today)

CmPiCmSCmTCmTeCmYCmLCmHCmCCmDCmYDCmTDCmTeDCmPeDCmBCmYBCmTB

 

NAS West Norfolk at the Panto And A Petition

An account of the autism friendly panto night at the Corn Exchange and a petition on behalf of small cetaceans.

INTRODUCTION

Originally I was only going to post about the Panto, but I felt that the petition that forms the second half of this post deserved extra publicity, so this is very much a two part post.

NAS WEST NORFOLK 

Those of you who have been following this blog a for a while will recall that last year NAS West Norfolk had block booked seats for the autism friendly showing of Cinderella. We repeated the trick this year for Jack and the Beanstalk. We booked 120 seats for our group, and only a handful went unused. As with last year’s Panto the venue was the magnificent King’s Lynn Corn Exchange:

 

CEII
This was taken after the performance on Wednesday night, as I headed home.

The performance was excellent – hugely entertaining. One of the youngsters attending as part of our block booking got so into the performance that he did some impromptu dancing of his own!

The villain of Jack and the Beanstalk is of course the giant, but as any fule kno it is the little weed who tags along with the bully urging them to throw another punch who is most hated of all, so the pantomime villain of Jack and the Beanstalk is the giant’s henchman. The actor playing that role was a most satisfactory villain, his every appearance attracting a veritable storm of boos.

I am delighted to report that all of the feedback about that evening has been positive. Here are some pictures from inside the auditorium (not from the performance of course – there are limits!).

PantoJ&B

Plant stand
This stand played a major role in the performance – Simple Simon placed a pot of flowers on top of it at the start, and every time anyone else went near it a warning shout of “Simon” went up from the audience.
The roof
A look up at the roof

Road signVillage sign

Packed house
A view over the crowd.
Decor
Decoration around the balcony area -these two shots were taken during the interval.

Decor 2

THE PETITION

This has been put together by the Dolphin Project and calls for Broome to end its sister relatuionship with Taiji over the hunting of dolphins.  I urge you to follow the links I have provided, and sign and share the petition. Below is the picture and opening few paragraphs of accompanying text:

Pilot Whales, Taiji, Japan, Nov 2015

In 2009, Ric O’Barry visited Broome in Australia to lobby the council to suspend its sister relationship with Taiji, Japan over the dolphin drives hunts. Following a special screening of the film, ‘The Cove’, the Broome Shire Council agreed. Just two months later, the council reversed its decision. Choosing to capitulate to its large, local, Japanese community, Broome retracted its pledge and issued a full apology to Taiji town.

Once again, the Dolphin Project is urging Broome to stop condoning the slaughter and to take a stance against this cruel and unnecessary assault on wildlife.

In 13 years (2000-2013), a total of 19,092 small cetaceans were victims of the dolphin drives in Taiji, Japan. This included 17,686 slaughtered dolphins and 1,406 live-captures. Last season alone, 902 dolphins were driven into the cove. More than two-thirds were slaughtered and 117 were earmarked for the captive display industry — [Source: Ceta-Base.org].

This brought back memories for me of my first visit to Australia, a long time ago, and before I developed an interest in photography. Broome was one of the places we visited and stayed a few days. I did not actually see any dolphins there, but had done a few days earlier at Monkey Mia (this is near Hamelin Pool, where on can – and I did – see living stromatolites).

I end this post with: C’mon Broome – you can do better than this!

The SCOPE Christmas Meal And Some Autism Related Links

A brief account of the SCOPE Christmas meal to which I was invited as NAS West Norfolk branch secretary and some autism related links.

INTRODUCTION

I am including autism related links because it was in my capacity as NAS West Norfolk branch secretary that I was invited to attend the SCOPE christmas meal (our organisations are looking to work more closely on various things). 

THE MEAL

The meal was arranged for The Gatehouse, a Hungry Horse pub located near the South Gate, at the edge of King’s Lynn (hence the name) with food booked for 3PM. The plan was for a few things to be discussed as well. I arrived at the pub not long after 2PM, purchased a pint to drink slowly while I waited for others to arrive (SCOPE were paying for the food, so I reckoned I could allow myself a couple of drinks) and settled down to wait. 

Others began arriving at around 2:45, and Chloe Yianni from SCOPE, who was running the event, arrived just before 3PM. 

Most of the ‘meeting’ element of the day took place between the main course and dessert, accompanied by a very impressive sunset (yes folks it gets dark early in these parts in December). 

I enjoyed the occasion and look forward to working closely with the people from SCOPE in 2018 and beyond.

Moorhen
The first 14 pictures you will see were taken while walking to the pub

StarlingBirds in a treeBirds on the wingCormorantWagtailCormorant 2Rooks and warning signwind turbinesbirds in the grassStarling on grassStarling 3Nar Valley ParkBridge

Calendars
My last three calendars set out in the pub.
book like wall
The first of five decor shots

decorationHungry Horse motifWall artdecoration 2

Sunset
The sunset
Chloe
Chloe Yianni
Party
The party.

SOME AUTISM RELATED LINKS

A majority of the links in this section are to posts on USian (acknowledgement to New Zealander Heather Hastie for this term) blogs/ sites, and most of the rest are British, although a few other countries also feature. As an internationalist I am proud that people from many countries visit this blog (108 in the last year, 123 all time). 

ON TERMINOLOGY

This section relates to a wonderful post put up by Autism Mom a couple of days ago under the title “I WANT TO BE CALLED AUTISTIC” I offer you my own comment in immediate response to that post, which I stand by:

Well done to both you and your son. Although my own strong preference is to describe myself as an autistic person I am quite happy for those who choose to do so to describe themselves as people with autism – what I will not accept is a well meaning neurotypical person seeking to make the decision on our behalf – it is our decision and we should make it ourselves.

Also, here is a quote from the end of the post:

Person first versus identify first: He cocked his head and asked me to explain more.

“I want to be called autistic,” he announced after I had finished. “Saying “person with autism” sounds like I have a disease. I don’t have a disease, this is just how I am.”

And then he added: “Actually, I want to be called by my name, but if you need to describe my autism I want to be called autistic.”

Make it so.

If you are reading this and have an autistic spectrum condition please feel free to add a comment about how you would prefer to be described.

I finish this section with a link to post mentioned in the Autism Mom piece linked to above which appears on Autistic Not Weird under the title “A plea to the autism community from one of your own“

THE “TO SIRI” ISSUE

Many splendid pieces have been produced about this subject since I last provided links relating to it, and I append a bulleted list of the best links:

A FINAL LINK

I conclude this post by linking to a story from the excellent John Pring of Disability News Service. As a strong supporter of “Nothing About Us Without Us” I hardly need to tell you why I was delighted to read “Autistic-led taskforce will address ‘hypocrisy and injustice’“

 

Computer Aided Composing

An account of my recent doings at Musical Keys with a photographic interlude.

INTRODUCTION

A few sessions back at Musical Keys, an event run for autistic people that I am a regular attender of, I switched from using Scratch to using a different package called Reaper. This Saturday just gone I reached a point at which I feel that my work on Reaper is now worth talking about. Also I have some good pictures that I can slip in as part of the back story.

SCRATCH AND REAPER

Scratch enables one to play notes on various musical instruments and also has some saved sound loops for variation. Effectively therefore Scratch enables one to play music and sounds but not really to create anything beyond the framework within which to do so. Reaper is both less and more – less in that it has no versions of musical instruments, more in that is really all about combining different recorded sounds into a larger whole, and therefore has much more of a creative element to it. 

BEFORE SATURDAY’S SESSION

I had spent one session assessing the available sound segments, working out which ones I liked and which of those combined well together, and a second session combining shorter segments into longer ones by putting together segments that would or could naturally flow together, but at the start of Saturday what I actually had was a set of useful components that I could start to think about assembling into proper length pieces…

INTERLUDE –  WALK TO THE SCOUT HUT

I had decided to lengthen my walk to the venue by taking in a stretch of the Great Ouse before rejoining the regular walking route to Gaywood by way of Seven Sisters and the Vancouver Garden, and a quick sampling of the air outside my flat convinced me of the need to don an extra jumper – it was cold, as some of the photos will make very plain. I had also allowed myself time for a visit to Gaywood library, since I would naturally pass very close to it. It may have been cold, but the birds were out in force, especially near the Great Ouse.

lapwings and a gulllapwings and gullsFlying lapwingswimming birdBlackbirdsBlackbird

Leaving the river by way of Hardings Pits I headed for the South Gate and thence Seven Sisters and the parkland areas…

framed magpieKL signSouthgatestarlingsthree birds

Among other things the walk through the parkland provided me with absolute proof of how cold it was – gulls walking on water. 

Gull walking on waterGull walking on water 2Gull walking on water 3rooksBlackbird II

DECEMBER 9TH AT MUSICAL KEYS

John, who usually supervises the sessions was not feeling well, so having driven the equipment over he spent the afternoon sat in his car, while his assistant Kirsten took charge of the sessions. 

Once I had opened up Reaper, checked and adjusted the speaker volume (at least 99% of the time it is set too loud for me and I have to reduce it, often considerably – on this occasion it had been set to 70% of full volume and I reduced that to 35%) it was time to put my plan of exploring options for combining various elements to make a larger whole into practice. Before moving on here is a photo I took at the end of the session.

Reaper

The piece that I called Organ and Strings was one of three background sounds that I used in the bigger pieces, the others being the drum and brass backgrounds. “Ensemble” and “Composite” as those names suggest were medium sized components, while “Horizontal” and “All in” were the two large scale components that I combined to make the final full size pieces. The two big pieces (12 and 16 minutes long respectively) were comprised of “Horizontal”-“All-in”‘-“Horizontal” and “Horizontal”-“All-in”-“Horizontal”-“All-in” respectively. By the time I had listened to the 16 minute piece at the end it was pretty much the end of the session. The next session is on January 6th and I shall work out some way to build on what I have already created. 

 

Links, Pics and a Thunderclap

Some links to excellent pieces by autistic writers, especially on the subject of Judith Newman’s book To Siri With Love. Details of a thunderclap on the subject of driven grouse shooting and some of my own photos.

INTRODUCTION

I have had a busy few days imaging for James and Sons’ final auction of the year (takes place on Wednesday – click here to view on online catalogue), so it is only today that I have time for another post. Before getting into the main meat of today’s post there is a small matter of an…

APOLOGY

Some of you may have noticed snowflakes falling across pictures on this blog (as I did today, when I accessed it at the library to get a picture I needed for something I was doing). I am aware that some of my followers have sensory issues that make this sort of thing unwelcome, and I have changed my settings so that those snowflakes will not appear again. I apologise to any who were inconvenienced by this ‘seasonal’ addition of WordPress’s.

SOME AUTISM RELATED PIECES

I will start this section by stating that most of the pieces I link to here were drawn to my attention by Eve Reiland at americanbadassactivists. Another excellent source of good material by autistic people is Laina, both in her own right at thesilentwaveblog and via her specialist sharing blog Lainascollection.

My first links concern the representation of autistic people in the media:

The remaining links in this section all related to…

#BOYCOTTTOSIRI

The title of this section refers to the backlash by the autistic community against Judith Newman’s book To Siri With Love. Although they make unpleasant reading, because of what they reveal about the book, I urge you to follow up the links I give, all of which, save one, are to pieces about this book written by autistic people. The exception, which ends this section, is to an alternative reading list, and was also created by an autistic person. 

I start with what is actually last piece I read about this issue, “An Autistic’s Thoughts On To Siri, With Love by Judith Newman” which was posted on writeabledreams.

My next offering, by Susie Rodarme is titled “AN OPEN LETTER TO HARPERCOLLINS ABOUT TO SIRI WITH LOVE“, and was published on bookriot.com. 

Next, courtesy of goodreads.com comes Kaelan Rhywiol’s review of the book – it is a superbly written take down of the book.

Next we turn to autistichoya and “Why we must #BoycottToSiri / An open letter to Judith Newman“. 

The last specific #BoycottToSiri piece to which I link is Eve’s as yet unanswered closing challenge to the author “Judith Newman | Stop The BS and Evolve into an Actual Autistic Ally #boycotttosiri” 

I end this section with a link to a post on huxtales simply titled “The Essential Autistic Reading List“.

A THUNDERCLAP

To take part in a thunderclap you have to be on at least one of facebook, twitter and/ or tumblr. I am on the first two named, and as such have contributed approximately 5,500 connections to this thunderclap calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting. If like me (see here for a previous piece on this subject) you hold those who take pleasure in shooting at birds in utter contempt, and you are on one of the three networks mentioned please add your voice to thunderclap – more details below:

GrouseThunderclap.jpg

PICTURES

Lights, Tower StreetLight chainsLights, Broad StreetStarVancouver ArchLit up treeBlack headed gullGullsB7ackbirdBlackb1rd

Bus window 1
This network of cracks were in the upstairs front window of an X29 bus – when it is a double decker I invariably sit upstairs, and the best seat is the front window seat on the side opposite the driver.

LeafRMCSquirrel

Olympics 50p.jpg
I needed this 50p for my bus fare, so I could not keep it until a better opportunity to photograph it arose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Autism Pledge And Minimalist Personal Cards

My #TheAutisticUnion pledge and my new cards.

INTRODUCTION

Just a quick post to keep things rolling…

AN AUTISM PLEDGE

This, courtesy of Eve Reiland at AmericanBadassActivists,  is #TheAutisticUnion Pledge:

pledgeautisticunion

Every individual pledge has been published on this site, including as of yesterday mine. Mine has also been reblogged on FireBrightStarSoul for which many thanks. I reproduce it below as well:

#TheAutisticUnion Pledge |Thomas Sutcliffe

ThomasSutcliffeI pledge . . .

I pledge to always uphold the principles of #TheAutisticUnion pledge. I believe firmly in every one of the ten points of this pledge.

As someone who is both autistic and branch secretary of the National Autistic Society West Norfolk branch, I am doing my bit to ensure that autistic people are involved in the running of their own welfare/ support organisations.

You can find out more about me on my blog, http://aspi.blog and also on my London transport themed website www.londontu.be.

— Thomas Sutcliffe, Autistic Activist, UK

MINIMALIST PERSONAL CARDS

Vistaprint gave me a £10 voucher off my next purchase, with a use-by date as a reward for using them to make my 2018 wall calendars, so I used it to create a card which contains some information about me on one side and a sample photograph on the other. I collected them from the delivery office on Austin Street this morning (delivery was attempted yesterday while I was out), and they have come out superbly.

FrontBack