The following true tale is the introduction into what will be a series of posts regarding a seeming miscarriage of justice and potential disability discrimination; names have been changed to protect the identities of these involved. The purpose of this post is to help the family concerned achieve real justice; please share as widely as possible.
Alison is a single parent of14 year old Adam, both live with various diagnosed and pending diagnosis health disorders including Fibromyalgia and Elhers Danos; Alison is also Autistic and symptoms suggest Adam is as well.
Due to Adams health, he found it difficult to cope with school from the beginning and despite special educational needs intervention, including one to one lessons he struggled experiencing bullying which resulted in him developing depression. These experiences became worse during Adams transition from junior to senior school, so much so that in 2015, Alison began to home educate…
Some social housing related links, pointers to some stuff on http://www.londontu.be and a couple of extra pictures.
INTRODUCTION
This post has two main strands, pointing you in the direction of items on my website, www.londontu.beand also sharing links to some excellent articles on social housing in the wake of Cameron’s announcement regarding “sink estates” this weekend.
SOCIAL HOUSING ARTICLES
The social housing situation in West Norfolk, where I have lived since December 2005, is such that I was unable to find social housing for myself, and was only ultimately able to move into a place of my own by renting privately. Thus, my first concern with the Cameron plan as announced is that we have not been told what effect it will have on the overall availability of social housing (though we can all guess, given the Tory record on this issue, and Mr Cameron’s steadfast refusal to give a straight answer when questioned). The second and more serious concern is the laughable inadequacy of the £140 million figure quoted by Cameron if the intention was actually to improve the situation, rather than opening up another front in the Tories ongoing war on social housing. A housing estate a stone’s throw from my own flat in King’s Lynn has recently seen a redevelopment project stutter to a halt because £10 million proved insufficient for the purpose. More detail on the Hillington Square project is available on their official website.
That is enough of me on social housing, now for some links:
Finally, London Mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan (he would be my second choice behind Sian Berry if I had a vote in that election) has this article in The Mirror.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS FROM WWW.LONDONTU.BE
The Natural History Museum at South Kensington has a new exhibition coming up which is featured in this youtube clip, which I pressed on to my own website earlier today.
Also, nicely combining public transport and responsible shopping practices, here is a post about my latest London Underground themed purchase.
Finally, I have made use of the fact that the Dafabet Masters, one of Snooker’s triple crown (along with the UK and World championships), is now under way at Alexandra Palace by putting up an appropriate post.
This picture came via google: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-rVSI8L_R9pw/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/iOf_mQ2ABr8/s0-c-k-no-ns/photo.jpg
A COUPLE OF PHOTOS TO FINISH
A Patum Peperium lid with a classic picture.A Caspian Gull (?) in central King’s Lynn.
A brief account of today at work, with some good images. Also some high quality links, especially concerning “Celebrate Suffragettes not Serial Killers”
INTRODUCTION
As well as sharing some of the better images from today at work (all items will going under the hammer on September 30th, and the lot numbers range between 312 and 549) I have some important links to share.
THE IMAGES
Apart from one big coin lot at the start of the day, I was imaging big stamp lots as and when they were ready and medal lots in the gaps in between. Here are some of the better images…
LINKS
My first two links are to splendid posts on a new find, “why evolution is true“, a blog named for the book of that title by Jerry A Coyne (the book is superb as well by the way):
This one about cane toads, which has already attracted favourable notice from one of my twitter followers.
Although I have been out and about today, and have some good pictures which will feature somewhere, this post is going to be almost entirely given over sharing stuff from other people, as I have some fantastic links and a couple of decent infographics.
VOX POLITICAL AND A VERY IMPORTANT FOI REQUEST
There are a number of links in this subsection, which relates to a long running campaign by Mike Sivier of Vox Political. As well as some stuff from Mike himself, I have a link to a piece about the MP for Newcastle, who has weighed in on our side, and a very important blog post from Jayne Linney which I have already shared with my twitter followers. I hope you will visit all the links below:
First up in this section is a graphic representation of TTIP…
My other infographic, saved on my computer as “Sprawl-mart” concerns a certain US Supermarket and tax havens where it has shell companies but no stores…
ANOTHER EVENT AT KING’S LYNN LIBRARY
Details of an upcoming event at my local library in pictorial form…
The front of the library.The event poster.A combined picture.
SOME PHOTOS FROM TODAY AND A CLOSING STATEMENT
I hope that you have enjoyed this post, and that you will be encouraged to share it. I finish with a selection of today’s pictures…
As well as my title piece I have some photos which connect to that and some cracking links to share with you. Read, enjoy and please share…
OPERATION CATCH UP
The combination of two auctions happening in the space of four days and a degree of failure on the organsiation front has made things somewhat hectic of late. However, after a full day imaging for our June auction today, I believe that we will be able to give our online viewers a week to look at the items that will be going under the hammer, which did not look likely at one point. Today’s imaging has been very varied, including some lovely Hornby toys (Hornby for the uninitiated are THE name when it comes to railway themed toys and models). There were also some decent stamp lots and some interesting militaria. To end this section here are some pictorial highlights…
LINKS
Here as promised are those links, starting with a fistful on the subject of…
RELIGION
My first three links are all related to the same organisation:
A single link, being given a subsection to itself. This is a petition being run by Avaaz to ensure that the South African government does the right thing and takes the opportunity to arrest and incarcerate former Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
An unusual juxtaposition, but both my science related pieces are concerned with planets, and there is a very well known piece of music called The Planets, so I considered it acceptable on this occasion. The music related link is to a piece by Charlotte Hoather about Madama Butterfly, in a production of which she will soon be appearing. My two planets themed pieces both come from Cosmos Up:
I have a good haul of photographs from today, and some interesting links to share with you, as well as the main story…
ELECTRODES AND FLICKERING IMAGES
Being signed up to the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge’s email alerts I get a lot of details of studies into Autistic Spectrum Conditions for which they need volunteers and being passionate about reducing the ignorance about Autistic Spectrum Conditions that continues to bedevil our world I nearly always agree to take part.
This particular project was to do with responses to visual stimulation and required me to visit Cambridge. My appointment had been arranged for 11AM today, carefully avoiding any clash with work commitments…
GETTING THERE
The train journey from King’s Lynn to Cambridge takes almost exactly an hour, which given that they leave King’s Lynn just before the hour strikes meant that I had to be on the 8:57AM. Arriving at the station in King’s Lynn in very good time, and purchasing my ticket without undue difficulty I was able to take some photos at the recently restored station…
This blackbird clearly isn’t conversant with passenger safety advice!
The train approaching.This map is inside the train doors – I took the pic en route to finding a seat.
The train journey was uneventful and (mirabile dictu) ran exactly according to schedule. Although it is far from straightforward to get good photos through a train window one or two of my attempts are worth sharing…
Ely CathedralBoats at ElyAt Cambridge, witnessing a service run by Abellio arriving (almost certainly late given their reputation)The operating company that runs service between London and King’s Lynn – no connection to the Great Northern Railway of old which ran services out of London Euston.
From the station, it was a walk through past the bus stops and on to Brooklands Avenue, which goes straight through to Trumpington Road, picking up some more photos en route…
Cambridge and its environs are served by an excellent local bus system.
AT THE AUTISM RESEARCH CENTRE
Having dallied sufficiently that I would not be crazily early I rang on the doorbell of Douglas House 15 minutes in advance of my appointment time, signed in as requested and waited. It turned out the researcher who should have been conducting the experiments was not around that day, so someone else took charge of me. The preliminaries (paperwork) attended to, it was time to set me up for the tests. This involved me donning an electrode cap (effectively a swimming hat with points for attaching electrodes), each electrode point being filled with a conducting gel before the electrodes could be attached, and then the electrodes being attached. A second set of electrodes were attached around the eyes . The purpose of this get up was to monitor electrical activity in my brain while I responded to various visual stimuli.
Everything, be it lines or proper pictures, was flickering so that I only got fleeting glimpses. There was one set of exercises that involved proper pictures, one that involved viewing arrows and then clicking a button as soon as white box appeared on the screen, and several involving flickering lines.
At the end I was quite relieved when the wires were all detached and I was able to wash the gel (which is water soluble) out of my hair and take my leave.
Although the gel feels cold when it first makes contact with you, and when all the electrodes are fitted to it the cap weighs quite a bit I feel that this set of experiments are no great imposition. If you are 18 or over, have an Autistic Spectrum Condition, feel that you could undergo this and are able to get to Cambridge you could send an email to: Sarah Kaarina Crockford” <skc48@medschl.cam.ac.uk>
GETTING BACK
A combination of the fact that I finished at the Autism Research Centre at 12:15 and that I wasted no time getting back to the station meant that I was able to catch the 12:35 train back to King’s Lynn, and was sat down to a late lunch at 2PM. A last couple of photos…
My first piece in this section comes courtesy of Patheos, and just before highlighting the link I wish (as someone who is a very strong supporter of theirs) to criticise them for publishing under their banner a piece by Russell Shaw in which he has the nerve to claim the American Christians are being persecuted. The piece to which I include a link concerns the use in science classrooms in Louisiana of a book that has no place there.
My next three pieces are linked, both being concerned with countering environmental damage:
A devastating comparison of the difference between actual inflation and rail fare inflation since 1994.This is our feature image.
DISABILITY, MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES AND AUTISM
This is my final set of links, starting with this piece from Jayne Linney. Huffington Post, a regular source of good stuff, provide this piece from Laura Roche. Although I am not an ebay user, and therefore not able to take direct action, I was of course thoroughly disgusted to come across this from Vox Political about disability hate products being sold via that site, and I urge those of you who do use ebay to complain loud and clear as VP suggest. This blogpost from Natalie Leal provides some shocking detail about deaths related to DWP sanctions. Finally, to end this section, a post from Autism Mom, which features Alan Turing.
CLOSING STATEMENT
I hope that you have all enjoyed this post, and that you have followed up some or all of the links I have shared. I encourage people to share any or all of this post.
aspiblog 