This post comes from The Art of Autism, altough on this occasion I am keeping comments open here. It is a superb explanation of life on the spectrum.
This wonderful post from The Art of Autsim can be viewed in its original niche by clicking here. I have also reproduced it below:
Although I do not usually do so when sharing other people’s work I am on this occasion keeping comments open here.
An initial to response too a couple of excellent ideas brought to my attention by a tweet from John McDonnell MP. Please share widely.
This post comes from a tweet by shadow chancellor John McDonnell:
I am supporting call for Labour to develop an Autism Manifesto and appoint a Shadow Minister for Neurodiversity & will consult on details.
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) May 13, 2016
It will not surprise anyone that I am in full agreement with Mr McDonnell about the excellence of the ideas mentioned above. While I have a few ideas as what an Autism Manifesto should prioritise, most notably doing something about the shameful statistics relating to Autistic people and employment in this country. 75% of all adults on the autistic spectrum in this country are unemployed, while good portion of those in employment are in low paid and/ or part time work – 85% of us are classed as ‘underemployed’.
More important however than the precise details of the Autism Manifesto (at least to me) is the question of who will be involved in creating it. While I am not arguing for the exclusion of neurotypicals from this process (never in a million years) I do repeat the autistic person’s mantra:
We must be involved in this process, and I conclude this section by saying to Mr McDonnell: if you are prepared to involve people from outside your party you are welcome to contact me.
Again, an excellent idea. For similar reasons to those mentioned above in connection with the idea of an Autism Manifesto I would prefer if possible the the holder of this post be someone who is themselves neurodiverse. Other than that I have no further comments to make as yet, although you can expect me to revisit the themes of this brief post in future.
An account with links to the three source pieces of the vile abuse of Chris Packham by the pro-hunting lobby and his dignified response to it.
I live with Asperger’s Syndrome, have previously had mental health issues including depression and am a nature lover. Chris Packham presents nature programs on TV, has Asperger’s Syndrome and has had mental health problems. Mr Packham has recently gone public about his Asperger’s and depression, and this is where the story starts…
Yesterday morning Hunting Solutions put out the following tweet, quoted in his own piece immediately after it had happened by Miles King on anewnatureblog:
This tweet was retweeted by Nicholas Soames, a politician whose own party leader has spoken of the need to end the stigma attached to mental health. As Miles King points out, given the hysterical reaction to Naz Shah having liked an offensive facebook post before she became an MP, you might think that this could cause more trouble for the party concerned. When Miles King challenged Soames about the retweet, rather than attempting to defend himself Soames blocked King. Please follow the link I provided near the top of this section and read that post in full before proceeding.
Chris Packham provided what was in the circumstances a remarkably restrained response in the form of an interview that was published on Huffington Post, which I urge you to read in full.
Miles King on anewnatureblog returned to the fray this morning because Hunting Solutions had provided a response of sorts. As this image, taken from the Miles King piece, which I urge to read in full shows it was exactly what we might expect from these people:
This is classic victim blaming of the sort that Tories specialize in. I will conclude this section with my own comments on Miles King’s posts which I once more urge you to read in full:
As someone with Asperger’s Syndrome and who has experience of depression I am in no doubt that the both the original tweet and Soames’ retweet were bang out of order, and in the continuing absence of an apology there is no doubt to give these people the benefit of. The use of the word “nutjob” in the context Mr Packham having recently gone public about his Asperger’s and depression is reminiscent of the the prolonged series of smears that functioned (thankfully and deservedly very badly) as Zac Goldsmith’s London Mayoral campaign.
And Miles’ response to that comment:
thanks Thomas – a good analogy. The hunting community, feeling threatened, are resorting to a smear campaign against high profile people like Chris Packham.
My comment on the second post:
Excellent follow up piece. I would take your reasoning re the comments about foxhunting being psychopathic a small step further and say that for true equivalence between the remarks Packham would have to labelled not just foxhunters as a group (which as you point out he did not) but an individual named foxhunter as a psychopath. As for the ‘if he hadn’t criticised us we would not have said it’ “defense”, that is simply another example of a favourite tactic of these kind of people – victim blaming.
I conclude this post with some photos…
A wonderful video from The Mighty.
A excellent video from the folks at The Mighty on stimming…
As this first appeared on facebook and not all my followers use facebook I am keeping comments open even though this is not my own work.
A celebration of the fifth anniversary of aspiblog – read, enjoy and please share!
What does the title of this post refer to? Here, courtesy of Robert Harris, backed by Edgar Allan Poe is a clue:
The special significance of lustrum in the sense of a five-year period to aspiblog is that today is the fifth anniversary of aspiblog. To view the post that started it all on May 10th 2011 click here.
There are many approaches to blogging. Some blogs deal almost entirely in original content, some blogs are devoted principally to sharing stuff created by others, and some like this one are a mixture of the two. I create new posts such as this when I feel I have stuff to write about and/or enough good pictures to warrant creating a post to share them.
Sharing can be done in various ways. There is the “Links” section was has been a frequent feature of this blog, which enables one to share lots of stuff in a single post. Other wordpress posts can be reblogged, and some other posts not on wordpress allow one the option of ‘pressing’ a link on to a wordpress blog (I have a ‘press this’ tool for my wordpress hosted London transport themed website www.londontu.be to enable me to post links to interesting and appropriate articles). This morning I used the press this button on Richard Murphy’s Tax Research UK blog to post a link to a piece of his speculating on the prospect of Mr Osborne being reshuffled into obscurity on June 24th and took some screen shots along the way to illustrate the process:
This blog features many things, but there are several recurring themes:
I spent yesterday listening to commentary of the fascinating match between Somerset and Warwickshire. While elsewhere in the country vast numbers of runs were being racked up this match was low scoring, and the better for it. The big scoring that has been such a feature of this early season is partly due to a daft playing condition introduced into the county championship whereby the visiting side can dispense with the toss if they wish to bowl first. This has resulted in a succession of pitches on which batsmen can fill their boots. There is no logic to such a playing condition – if you want to absolutely ensure that home teams cannot prepare pitches to suit themselves simply get rid of the toss altogether and award choice of innings to the visitors, although I would personally stick to having a toss for innings. If, as currently seems likely, Somerset win, they will owe it in large part to Peter Trego who in a low scoring game has amassed 94 and 51.
I heard while listening to that commentary yesterday that there are going be matches played between the North and South to give the best county players a chance to play in matches of higher standard than normal county games, taking place in the UAE in March, before the MCC v Champion County match, which I think is an excellent idea.
I have three links to share:
First, a petition on change.org calling for a statue of a suffragette to be erected in Parliament Square, which I urge all of you to sign and share.
My next two links are both related and concern a subject close to my heart: libraries. Libraries in many parts of the country are facing cuts, and one of the areas affected is Lancashire. A campaign is running to save their libraries, and they have recently created a bit of a stir by telling their MP to stay out of it, such is their (entirely justified) lack of trust in the individual concerned. Two links for you:
No aspiblog post would be complete without a few pictures, and I choose to finish with this section…
Finally to end this post a message to all my readers, and fellow bloggers who have helped to inspire me to keep this blog going…
An account of a visit to London for an NAS training session, including Sutcliffe’s Laws of Travelling by Public Transport and lots of photographs.
This post deals with events on Saturday, when I attended a training session for branch officers at NAS HQ in London. Before moving on to the main part of my post I have a small section on…
April is Autism Awareness month, and here in West Norfolk we certainly did our part, with our hugely successful Positive Autism Awareness Conference. However it is also important to make it quite clear that autism does not stop at the end of April. Improving awareness, understanding and ultimately acceptance of autism is a year-round task.
I have never previously set these out in full, so here goes:
Zeroth law: Any journey involving public transport requires careful planning no matter how apparently straightforward it is.
First law: If you allow scope for things to go wrong you will have a quick, clear run.
Second law: If you decline to allow scope for things to go wrong you will have a horror run.
Third law: Because bitter experience has taught them to make allowances public transport users are less likely to arrive late than car users.
Do you recognize the more famous set of laws on which the formatting of this set is based?
The session was due to start at 10AM, which gave two options for which train to catch – the 7:54 and be tight for time or the 6:54 and have time to spare for things to go wrong. In keeping with the first law of travelling by public transport the second option was chosen. The other person travelling from West Norfolk wanted to travel there with me, so we agreed to take the 6:54. On the day preceding the journey I called in at the station to make sure that the service was running as it should be (The branch chair had kindly arranged tickets for us, requiring in return that we make sure to come back with expenses claim forms so that she could reclaim the money). Here are some pictures from this preliminary stage…
We took our places on the train and having allowed for things to go wrong had a clear run to London. Callum’s girlfriend had decided to travel with us so she could have a look round London, and at King’s Cross she and Callum arranged a meeting point before Callum and I head off towards NAS HQ.
Walking up Pentonville Road (between Pentonville Road, Angel and our London starting point of King’s Cross this was quite a monopoly board journey!) we arrived at NAS HQ almost dot on 9 o’clock, and were the only people there that early. I took some pictures while we waited for others to arrive, including the feature image…
Alessia, one of the two people running the session arrived a few minutes after we had, and let us in to the building. We took our places in the training room, and examined our training packs…
The training session consisted of presentations and some group activities. I found it to be a very valuable day, definitely worth the early start. The bit I enjoyed most came near the end, when we had to decide whether certain scenarios were things we could do as NAS volunteers, things we could not do or things that we might be able to do. At the end of the session Callum and I went our separate ways, he to meet his girlfriend and I to head back (albeit by a somewhat circuitous route). The pictures I took between here and the concourse at King’s Cross station will be featuring on my
London transport themed website, so I shall not share them here.
Apart from providing a few good photos, the return journey was pretty uneventful (yes, on the Saturday of a bank holiday weekend I had two public transport journeys pass without incident), and I arrived back home just over 11 hours after setting off in the morning.
Accounts of a public meeting about disability and a protest against the possible closure of the Fermoy Unit, enlivened with photographs. Read, enjoy and please share!
I am treating these two events together because my attendance at each was connected, and I talked about one at the other. While I had strong personal reasons for attending both events, I was also motivated by not wanting to be in a position of “when they came for me there was no one left to speak out”. I will deal with the two events in chronological order and at the very end will also share some unrelated photos.
This toom place at the Vauxhall Centre in Norwich on Thursday evening. After speeches from various prominent local campaigners came the keynote speech of the evening. This was Roddy Slorach, author of “The Politics of Disability”, talking about the ideas expounded in his book. After this there was time for contributions from the floor. It was during this period that today’s demonstration was mentioned, and more details provided by me as the second part of my own contribution following mentioning the Positive Autism Awareness Conference of the previous Friday. Here are some photos from that evening for you…
I took custody of the National Autistic Society West Norfolk Branch banners and some NAS flags yesterday evening, and worked out a way to set up the banners that was suitable for them being on a march:
We assembled at the bandstand in The Walks at 12 noon, and Jo Rust who did most of the organizing introduced a few speakers, before we set off on our march around the town. Many people expressed support for us while we marched through town, and at least one person took the trouble to express their gratitude that NAS were represented on the march. The event then finished with a few speeches outside the Majestic Cinema. Although organized by the local Labour Party and the King’s Lynn and District Trades Union Council this march was not a party political event, and Sir Henry Bellingham MP had been invited to attend and to make a speech, an invitation that he spurned. The turnout was excellent, helped by bright sunny weather (yes there was a serious nip to the wind, but this is King’s Lynn after all).
I finish this brief account with a few photos…
I start this section with a photographic message for those who have reached this part of the post…
My remaining photos are presented as a’tiled mosaic’ – to view an individual image at full size click on it…
A plug for Saturday’s protest on behalf of the Fermoy unit, and a brief explanation of NAS West Norfolk’s involvement.
I have made mention of the protest on Saturday against the possible closure of the Fermoy unit previously, but was not able in that post to say anything about NAS West Norfolk involvement as that was still under discussion and I did not wish to be seen as pre-empting that discussion in any way.
The discussion is now resolved and the decision has gone the way I was hoping for. Campaigning on behalf of services needed by autistic people is part of our remit and as such not only will various people from NAS West Norfolk be in attendance on Saturday, we will have the NAS West Norfolk banner with us. Although this protest has been organised by the local Labour Party in conjunction with King’s Lynn District Trades Union Council our presence is not in any way a statement of party political views – we are going to be there because the issue is important to us and not because of who is organizing it.
Before finishing by showing the poster for the event I issue a call: anybody reading this who can get to King’s Lynn on Saturday please do so – let’s make this big!
An account of the Positive Autism Awareness Conference staged by NAS West Norfolk yesterday at the Duke’s Head Hotel, King’s Lynn. Read, enjoy and please share.
Yesterday NAS West Norfolk held a Positive Autism Awareness Conference at the Duke’s Head Hotel in King’s Lynn, and this post,which will be a major one is all about that event.
Some us went to the venue on Thursday evening to do a some preliminary setup work to reduce the amount that needed to be done on the day itself. Here are a few photos from that…
Those of use involved in organizing the event were required to be there by 8AM so that we were ready when the guests started arriving. I arrived bright and early (given that the venue is a five minute walk from my flat so I jolly well should have done!), and got my stall up and running. Here are some photos from before the event started…
Indefatigable branch chair Karan McKerrow opened the event and explained that the day was about being positive about autism and autistic people, mentioning both myself and Callum and what we were going to be doing during the day. Then it was time for Lynda Niles’ talk. At that stage we were operating without amplification, and I was stood at the back, but I still heard every word that Lynda said. Lynda’s talk was accompanied by slides, which show you what she covered…
One of the things we had at this event was a ‘dark den’ with a beanbag inside as the floor was quite hard. The den itself survived unscathed, but the beanbag was a different story…
Callum Brazzo, the other of two autistic adults to be on the committee of NAS West Norfolk, recited a poem he had created about autism as the next feature of the conference. I am unable to remember the exact words, but it was a splendid performance, and I sure that if you email Callum he can supply the words (perhaps you could post them in the comments section as well, Callum). Meanwhile, here he is in action…
Clinical psychologist Dr Mel Bruce and a commissioner named Sharon shared the next session, but before I move on to that, Mel has learned some excellent rules for making sessions autism friendly, and here they are…
We had a working microphone by this point, which Mel and Sharon shared, taking it in turns to speak. They introduced the ‘bucket model’ for anxiety of which much more later, talked about their respective jobs and about quite a few other things.
Karan had organised food for us, which turned out to be excellent, and thus fortified we were ready for the afternoon session, which opened with the undoubted star speaker of the event…
Anna had arrived during lunch and expressed her admiration for my photos. Anna talked about her experiences bringing up two autistic children, going on People’s Strictly (partnered with Robin Windsor) and launching Autism’s Got Talent (and successfully facing down Mr Cowell over that suffix!). Her talk was thoroughly inspiring.
Anna’s talk was followed by a short break, during which I took this picture…
The last session of the day was another joint effort, by Holly and Michelle,two of Mel’s colleagues at Starfish Plus. Their presentation went into more detail about the ‘bucket model’, and was an excellent way to bring down the curtain on the event…
My photographic stall was very successful. The event itself was a massive success. Not counting us committee members 145 people packed out the venue, every session was interesting and informative and the stalls were all fantastic.
A follow up to my Autism Awareness post, combined with some new photographs.
The first part of my title refers to the fact that as well as birds I have a bee and some butterflies among my camera captures for the day, while the second refers to the fact that today is Autism Awareness Day and gives a nod in this direction.
I have some infographics spotted on the internet to share with you and a few links including an important petition. I will start with the petition, launched on change.org by my friend and fellow NAS West Norfolk committee member Callum Brazzo calling for greater representation of non-verbal autistics on TV and in Employment. Please follow this link to sign and share the petition, and let’s build it big!
My next link is to a splendid article posted on indepedent.co.uk which tallies very closely with my own views on autism.
Now to a link and an infographic. The link is to the website of the wonderful Anna Kennedy OBE (who will be at our Positive Autism Awareness Conference on April 15th) and the infographic is her Autism Awareness infographic:
Another link and infographic pairing, this time to the National Autistic Society’s TMI campaign, raising awareness of sensory issues:
The bright light at the south-eastern corner of The Wash is me putting myself on this map.
My remaining infographics come without links, and I present them in pairs, first these two general ones:
I finish this section with two warning infographics for our American friends about an organisation who are widely condemned in the autistic community:
In reverse alphabetical order, I start with some butterfly pictures…
Now we have the bee (yay!)…
Now for the rest of my pictures, which mainly feature the other B I mentioned, birds…
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