@BlancheLivermore why do you care so much about a tv series? I haven’t seen it and I don’t care.
Because Starmer has turned it into semi-official propaganda
And he keeps accidentally calling it fact rather than fiction
Is he doing it stupidly or deliberately?
Who cares? There are more important things going on
How dare you
Adolescence is the most important TV show ever
All the lefties, like the PM, told me that already
It must shown in schools, apparently..
Maybe it should be shown in schools. Who cares?
Sensible people who don't think that it's worthwhile educational material?
Nah. I haven’t seen it but it’s the same people who are irrationally angry about it are also the same people who think any criticism of white men is woke or racist or both. You need to get out more
How many lessons at school would have to be missed by watching Adolescence?
If it's more than half, fuck off
Im sure you put this much energy into all other aspects of the curriculum too.
If I had the chance..
Maths would be old school
Nobody gets out of primary school without knowing their times tables, up to 15
I wouldn't get out of primary school now on that metric due to failing maths.
And I have a maths degree.
Very worrying.
Ditto. I have a maths degree also and have never learnt my times tables. People confuse a memory test with actual maths. Learning your times table is not maths. Trouble is learning your times table does not equip you with anything outside of that boundary. Learning maths properly equips you to deal with problems you haven't encountered before.
That's a truly pathetic admission
Learn your times tables, then teach them to someone else
You'll be a better mathematician and person by doing so
Utter, utter utter nonsense. Someone with mathematical ability doesn't need to learn times tables. What is the point?. People who learn by rote usually can't work outside of those parameters or implement in a different scenario. Sure if you don't have that ability learn them, but otherwise it is pointless. I can never do arithmetic on combinations of numbers up to 180 that a darts player can do, but on any other problem I will be better than 99% of them. What is special about multiplication upto 12x12, but nothing else. Why learn just hat by rote. What is better is to teach people how to work stuff out. I have come across so many people who know how to solve a problem they have been taught, but can't solve a different problem which in essence is identical, because they have been taught by rote and not why they are doing what they are doing.
Darts is great for arithmetic.
Re. times tables, it's fine to learn them up to wherever you want. But it's even better to work stuff out. Here's an example. Say you want to multiply two numbers between 10 and 20. Call them 1m and 1n.
All you have to do is this.
1. Lose a 1 and imagine yourself a little map of Africa, like this:
1m _n
2. Perform an addition in yer 'ead, to get T.
3. Take 10T and add on m times n.
4. That's your answer.
Example
_17 x14
Steps 1-2: 21 Steps 3-4: 210 + 28 = 238. Ta-dah!
As for multiplying a number less than 10 with a number between 10 and 20, anyone who can't do that in their 'ead is a bit dim.
So adding together not being dim with the above rule, anyone can do any product up to 20 x 20.
Agree. I can work out any multiplication upto 15x15 as @BlancheLivermore wants and much higher even, in my head. Why the hell should I memorise them as per 'Old School' maths seems to require. Spend more time teaching actual useful maths and less time memorising stuff that is very limited in its usefulness.
I know what 15x15 is off the top of my head because I have my squares memorised up to 15, like any normal person.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
The word you are looking for is "threshold". Spectrum diagnoses are open to abuse or misdiagnosis. A diagnosis should have a threshold, the crossing of which should be meaningful.
Americans may need to have vaccination certificates in order to travel. We should not let this mindless idiocy become a threat to our own public health.
It would be ridiculous to single out Americans when we've been putting public health at risk by letting unscreened people into the country for years.
Trump keeps singling out other countries for ill treatment. Why can’t we do the same?
True, we could do it Trump style and have Keir Starmer hold up a chart showing the most diseased countries based on NHS data.
This is significant. Gives us a first glimpse of who controlled the events of the last 48 hours. Bessent was critical in talking Trump down from his tariff ledge. And Navarro was over ruled - and is now paying the political price ..
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
The word you are looking for is "threshold". Spectrum diagnoses are open to abuse or misdiagnosis. A diagnosis should have a threshold, the crossing of which should be meaningful.
I agree to an extent, but I also feel autism is too handy a label to explain away bad behaviour. "Fred West murdered all those girls because he was on the autistic spectrum". No Fred West murdered all those girls because he was a psychopathic bastard. Neurodiversity manifests itself in all manner of ways, and they are not all autism.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
Your choice but I suspect you're cutting yourself off from the future.
I spend a lot of time helping people, generally over-75, who have chosen not to join in to the PC/Internet/Smartphone world but who now find themselves digitally excluded. I often wonder whether I will decline to use something that will place me at a similar disadvantage in the future - hopefully not.
I think there is a natural tendency to think, in terms of tech 'but life is fine now!'. Beyond that point, the advantages of being able to do the new thing no longer appear to outweigh the disadvantages. For me, that point was reached in the very early days of internet enabled mobile phones. Anything you need to download a specific app to do - well, it's a password to remember, it's something to port over to your new phone, it's a programme on a device which follows you around not to trust. I don't want not to be able to turn my lights on because I can't remember my password. There is not one app - beyond an internet explorer proxy - I use that I do not use reluctantly.
I have ten just for my photography hobby alone - is there an app version of Alchoholics Anonymous?
I also still listen to music on an ipod, which I load with music using a laptop and a usb connection. Because tech truly was absolutely fine in 2008.
Tech developments since 2008 have arguably made life worse. For example without social media i dont think we would have seen the rise of Trump. The smartphone has ruined many nights out as people no longer live in the moment.
There wouldn't be a problem if it still cost £20 to make a two minute phone call on a mobile phone like it used to. It's the fact that so many of the things you do on them are free or almost free.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
According to the Times the 10% tariff could remain on the UK even if there’s a deal and the government is now trying to just get the tariff reduced on cars .
If this really is true then it’s a total humiliation for no 10.
Why? If Trump really means it when he says 10% is permanent everyone will be in the same boat.
Only a humiliation if we get worse terms than others.
After all that begging for scraps and the unedifying fawning at the WH by Starmer and the sum total is 10% tariffs . It’s a total embarrassment for no 10 and we’re still going to be subjected to two visits from Trump where there will be more gimp like behaviour .
Poor old sausage fingers is going to have to kiss the ring too. Simply vile!
I recently had a go at someone who when I asked her why on earth she had a Kindle, replied that she wanted it so she could read stuff when waiting for medical appointments. She is a classic case of someone who's been lowballed. She has a medical appointment about 3-4 times a year.
That's something else you can do on a mobile phone, especially if infrequently - if you read ebooks often, I suppose you might prefer something bigger.
I'm on my fourth Kindle, they're great devices. I find the eink screens they use are a lot easier to read than the LCD or OLED display on a phone, particularly outside or in a brightly lit room. And the battery easily lasts a week of casual reading.
The new model with a colour screen looks interesting, but other than the screen it's a downgrade from my Kindle Oasis and I mostly read SF and military history so wouldn't get enough benefit from colour to make up for that.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
I am going to be controversial here. Genuine autism is not to be "celebrated" or seen as a "superpower", it is f****** horrible to watch someone you love struggle through life because their brain is wired up differently to the rest of us. I'm really looking forward to RFK's cure, but I am not holding my breath.
I sympathise with you. A bloke I worked with had an autistic brother, in his thirties but could never live away from his parents. Friends of my Dads have an autistic son who has never spoke, and it breaks their heart. There are a couple of autistic kids in my sons class, who are obviously afflicted with something that troubles them rather than being ‘superbright’, and the parents are at their wits end. I can imagine it sticks in the craw to hear it referred to so glibly by people with little to no experience or understanding of it, or worse used as an insult.
Hope your son is living as happy a life as is possible
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
I had to get a proper expensive book out of a specialist library, but you're not allowed to remove it and have to study it in-situ. I went to the photocopier, swiped my card, and was told I had to open an account with a username, password and my credit card details to photocopy a sheet. I damn nearly cried.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
Which was why the emergency 999 number was so stupid. Should have been 111 as much quicker to dial on rotary phones.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
Which was why the emergency 999 number was so stupid. Should have been 111 as much quicker to dial on rotary phones.
Wasn't it supposed to be the easiest number to find?
Interesting new study Many people fill out self-report measures of psychopathology and self-diagnose. Autism-spectrum has become very popular and sort of trendy. But it turns out that self-reported autism-spectrum barely correlates with clinician ratings:
One of the greatest scandals of this century will surely be the over prescription of SSRIs. A friend of mine, who sadly took his own life, had been told by doctors for 20 years that he had a ‘chemical imbalance’ that required anti depressants. Now, four years after his death, more and more evidence that there’s no such thing as a chemical imbalance leading to mental illness, is being unearthed.
Review of Chemically Imbalanced: 'How can it be that one in 5 of us is ingesting a substance that 1. Purports to treat a disease for which there is no proof 2. Doesn’t do “what it says on the tin” 3. Gives rise to dependence & significant side effects..
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
I am going to be controversial here. Genuine autism is not to be "celebrated" or seen as a "superpower", it is f****** horrible to watch someone you love struggle through life because their brain is wired up differently to the rest of us. I'm really looking forward to RFK's cure, but I am not holding my breath.
I sympathise with you. A bloke I worked with had an autistic brother, in his thirties but could never live away from his parents. Friends of my Dads have an autistic son who has never spoke, and it breaks their heart. There are a couple of autistic kids in my sons class, who are obviously afflicted with something that troubles them rather than being ‘superbright’, and the parents are at their wits end. I can imagine it sticks in the craw to hear it referred to so glibly by people with little to no experience or understanding of it, or worse used as an insult.
Hope your son is living as happy a life as is possible
Thanks Isam. It's OK, but he deserves better.
That's perhaps why I go a bit doolally when on this site a particular poster, who claims to be an expert in autism, explains away celebrities or politicians being w***ers because "they must be on the spectrum". That diminishes the real condition, but then so do self-diagnosed "sufferers" claiming they have an attention deficit so they must be autistic.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
Which was why the emergency 999 number was so stupid. Should have been 111 as much quicker to dial on rotary phones.
Wasn't it supposed to be the easiest number to find?
Wasn't it an easy number to dial without accidentally dialling it with ease such as 111. Same goes for 911. Less chance of an accidental dial.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
I am going to be controversial here. Genuine autism is not to be "celebrated" or seen as a "superpower", it is f****** horrible to watch someone you love struggle through life because their brain is wired up differently to the rest of us. I'm really looking forward to RFK's cure, but I am not holding my breath.
A friend I previously respected turned up at a social event last summer with his six-year old daughter who was wearing an "autism is my superpower" T-shirt. All I could feel was sadness. Not even cringe.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
I am going to be controversial here. Genuine autism is not to be "celebrated" or seen as a "superpower", it is f****** horrible to watch someone you love struggle through life because their brain is wired up differently to the rest of us. I'm really looking forward to RFK's cure, but I am not holding my breath.
A friend I previously respected turned up at a social event last summer with his six-year old daughter who was wearing an "autism is my superpower" T-shirt. All I could feel was sadness. Not even cringe.
It's one of the emotions along the coping cycle for parents, and at the end of the cycle one realises that idea isn't as realistic as one would like it to be. It's a nice thought until one realises it is bollocks.
Is anyone not disheartened when they see a group of people sitting at a table in a restaurant and they're all on their phones instead of talking to each other?
These dogs should be totally banned , removed from their owners and put down . I’m sick of these stupid owners whining about XL bullies being misunderstood or wouldn’t hurt a fly .
I agree with you 100%. Why isn't the government acting more firmly on this? Are they afraid of upsetting the owners of this breed of dog.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
Which was why the emergency 999 number was so stupid. Should have been 111 as much quicker to dial on rotary phones.
Wasn't it supposed to be the easiest number to find?
Wasn't it an easy number to dial without accidentally dialling it with ease such as 111. Same goes for 911. Less chance of an accidental dial.
On the old pulse lines a 1 was just a single pulse so you could get 111 dialed just by wires blowing around and shorting.
This is significant. Gives us a first glimpse of who controlled the events of the last 48 hours. Bessent was critical in talking Trump down from his tariff ledge. And Navarro was over ruled - and is now paying the political price ..
Sounds like a smidgen of sanity beginning to creep in there. Not too much. But a bit.
We are, however, still living in a world where having John Bolton back as NSA would make us breathe a sight of relief. Not something I’d have believed if suggested in 2005.
Is anyone not disheartened when they see a group of people sitting at a table in a restaurant and they're all on their phones instead of talking to each other?
Rarely see them. Focus on my phone instead, and so does my wife.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
Which was why the emergency 999 number was so stupid. Should have been 111 as much quicker to dial on rotary phones.
Wasn't it supposed to be the easiest number to find?
Of a piece of metal touches a wire it creates a pulse like a “1”
Is anyone not disheartened when they see a group of people sitting at a table in a restaurant and they're all on their phones instead of talking to each other?
It depends on what they are doing. Checking something as per of an interesting conversation can be a good thing
Is anyone not disheartened when they see a group of people sitting at a table in a restaurant and they're all on their phones instead of talking to each other?
Rarely see them. Focus on my phone instead, and so does my wife.
Considerably more disturbing are the parties who talk in extremely loud voices. Accompanied by braying laughter.
Is anyone not disheartened when they see a group of people sitting at a table in a restaurant and they're all on their phones instead of talking to each other?
Rarely see them. Focus on my phone instead, and so does my wife.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
Which was why the emergency 999 number was so stupid. Should have been 111 as much quicker to dial on rotary phones.
Wasn't it supposed to be the easiest number to find?
On a rotary dial, it was the number easiest to dial by touch in darkness.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
Which was why the emergency 999 number was so stupid. Should have been 111 as much quicker to dial on rotary phones.
Wasn't it supposed to be the easiest number to find?
On a rotary dial, it was the number easiest to dial by touch in darkness.
In order to find the new emergency number in the dark or thick smoke it was suggested an end number was used so it could be found easily by touch.
111 was rejected because it could be triggered by faulty equipment or lines rubbing together. 222 would have connected to the Abbey local telephone exchange as numbers in the early telephone network represented the first three letters (ABBey = 222, 1 was not used due to the accidental triggering). 000 could not be used as the first 0 would have dialled the operator.
In the military sphere, quite famous ones: the Chinook (the one with a rotor at each end); the Apache, and the Osprey (the one with rotors at the end of wings).
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
Yeah, I had one of those back in the 70s.
70s? Most people probably still had rotary phones into the early 90s. I'd estimate it was only in the mid-90s that the majority of phones in the UK became the push-button type, which was a few years behind the US.
Which was why the emergency 999 number was so stupid. Should have been 111 as much quicker to dial on rotary phones.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
A few years ago we took the mother in law to Yorkshire for a holiday. One day we became separated. Hunted high and low but in the end decided to return to the car. No answer on her mobile. Because the bloody thing was back at the holiday cottage. I mean, why would you need a mobile phone…
What woould you have done before mobile phones. Sorry the reason I don't carry mine is precisely because if I go out I don't want people ringing me constantly. I won't out to do something not answer random phone calls I didn't actually want and if I go out to a pub with a friend and they start to spend more time answering calls and texts I say.....we will go out when you are less busy and leave because that is what a mobile phone seems to mean to most.
Lets go out but I will ignore you for my phone most of the time and if thats the case then they can fuck off
I recently had a go at someone who when I asked her why on earth she had a Kindle, replied that she wanted it so she could read stuff when waiting for medical appointments. She is a classic case of someone who's been lowballed. She has a medical appointment about 3-4 times a year.
Why "have a go" at her? She might just have come up with the first reason that came into her head.
I use a Kindle a lot nowadays for reading novels. One of the major reasons being that my eyesight has greatly worsened in my fifties, and (stupidly) I hate wearing glasses. So I can read a book with the font size increased.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
This is significant. Gives us a first glimpse of who controlled the events of the last 48 hours. Bessent was critical in talking Trump down from his tariff ledge. And Navarro was over ruled - and is now paying the political price ..
More importantly, from Reform’s POV, is that it shows their support is clumpy, and not spread out, the way the SDP’s was.
I’m pretty sure they’ll take Doncaster and Derbyshire, in May. Durham is only in doubt because there are so many independents.
I’d agree with your assessment on Durham. I’m not sure what @eek thinks but I think many of the independents, some going back to the pre county authority days, are really well entrenched within their communities.
“I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what's going on in the NHS,” said Kemi Badenoch, when she was asked on the BBC if she had watched Adolescence yet.
The presenters could not believe what they had heard. “Why would you not want to know what people are talking about?”
Badenoch replied that the issues of toxic masculinity and smartphone use are ”important issues and they are issues that I’ve been talking about for some time”. She reminded her interviewers: “It’s a fictional series.”
“You’re comparing Adolescence with Casualty: did you really mean to say that?” A surprising question from a BBC presenter, implying that a Netflix series is more important than a mere BBC soap opera.
Badenoch really did mean to say that, and she is quite right too.
- John Rentoul
The comparison of a Soap Opera to a Docudrama (Correct label - I ahven't watched it?) is interesting. I had not twigged the longevity of Casualty, but then these days I know more than enough in one episode per decade format (ish) about hospitals than to want the bloody things on TV as well.
I'd expect Kemi to have a Nigerian Elite type of innate understanding of medicine from her family background - how many ordinary Nigerians travel to a private hospital in London to have a baby? Plus what she has picked up here through living here from 16, and politics.
I'm not sure how well politicians are in touch with the NHS, outside looking at it through the lens of their particular dogmas, and lobbying. And I'm not sure if I have a reliable way of judging that.
Would Kemi introduce The Archers into a discussion about farming?
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
Get hold of Dave Plummer's book. He is high-functioning and late-diagnosed. You might find some coping strategies you can pass on as, when and if needed.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
Went to Tescos today and paid £2.25 for my broccoli instead a pound, because I forgot my club card. First thing that came to mind was that I felt like I was on the wrong end of one of Trump's tariffs
Download the Tesco app to your phone.
This is part of today's problems....download the app to your phone.....how about we just don't take a phone everywhere and interact
When I leave the house, I'm 99% certain to have my wallet - and therefore my clubcard with me. But only about 75% certain to have a working phone with me.
I also don't really want tobe downoading someone else's software onto my phone. Once, you only needed three apps - one for phoning, one for texting and one for exploring the internet. That's all I want and all I need.
My phone has no apps on it nor does it leave my desk unless I have to go away for work reasons
A few years ago we took the mother in law to Yorkshire for a holiday. One day we became separated. Hunted high and low but in the end decided to return to the car. No answer on her mobile. Because the bloody thing was back at the holiday cottage. I mean, why would you need a mobile phone…
What woould you have done before mobile phones. Sorry the reason I don't carry mine is precisely because if I go out I don't want people ringing me constantly. I won't out to do something not answer random phone calls I didn't actually want and if I go out to a pub with a friend and they start to spend more time answering calls and texts I say.....we will go out when you are less busy and leave because that is what a mobile phone seems to mean to most.
Lets go out but I will ignore you for my phone most of the time and if thats the case then they can fuck off
I recently had a go at someone who when I asked her why on earth she had a Kindle, replied that she wanted it so she could read stuff when waiting for medical appointments. She is a classic case of someone who's been lowballed. She has a medical appointment about 3-4 times a year.
Why "have a go" at her? She might just have come up with the first reason that came into her head.
I use a Kindle a lot nowadays for reading novels. One of the major reasons being that my eyesight has greatly worsened in my fifties, and (stupidly) I hate wearing glasses. So I can read a book with the font size increased.
I know that 10 years ago book lovers loved to hate the kindle but I’m at a loss as to why it’s something to attack nowadays.
A kindle is an eink screen, lighter than most books where you can adjust the text size and doesn’t have any of the distraction (phone, internet) of other devices. It’s very much found its niche
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
The Cambridge area has particularly good services for the neurodiverse, not least becauseof the University. Intelligent neurodiverse parents push for these services.
My nephew there has fairly complex neurodiversity with a mix of autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. He needed support from a young age, and I suspect will always need some. With a mix of medication and learning support he completed school and now works as a chef, living with his parents. Repetitive tasks suit him particularly well, and it gives him a social life that he can cope with, as the social interactions generally go to a fairly standard script.
It does him good to be semi-independent, and his parents and siblings are very patient with him, though it has been a major stress to them at times. Without such good parents and support from Cambridgeshire it could be an awful situation. Affluence helps too, as it does with most things.
More importantly, from Reform’s POV, is that it shows their support is clumpy, and not spread out, the way the SDP’s was.
I’m pretty sure they’ll take Doncaster and Derbyshire, in May. Durham is only in doubt because there are so many independents.
Andrew Teale's 1500 word preview of Longdendale (Tameside), which I've just tracked down, is outstanding - like a mini-edition of Down Your Way. And comes complete with research trip.
I see that there is impact from the Andrew Gwynne MP SM (Social Media) episode, and note the absence of Lib Dems.
It feels like some parts of Bolsover or Amber Valley (not Ashfield due to the outsize Ashfield Independent impact) where there are former BNP / UKIP voters potentially to be mined.
I'm not sure if I could do something as good if I gave it a whole day. It would be good a couple of days early though.
The rubbish in Birmingham piling up is huge. On the news this morning they mentioned it was after 4-5 weeks. Then it struck me. We have 2 bins. One for recycling and one for rubbish with a 2 week cycle for collection. In a 2 week cycle we fill the recycle bin about 1/3, possibly 1/2 full. The rubbish bin will be almost empty with a couple of small bags in it. We wouldn't be overflowing in that time period.
We clearly aren't typical. We buy very little packaged food, mainly fresh, have very little waste and compost at home. However I am shocked by the difference in the rubbish we generate and the typical rubbish created by households.
She was on Breakfast TV for heavens sake. Anyone not expecting inanity as a matter of course from such an encounter is lacking in basic social skills.
Sounding like an obsessive PB poster is not a good look in a politician.
At least she didn't say "But in reality the killer was black". This time.
How is she even going to begin to govern as PM, should that somehow miraculously happen in the next five years? Every day she will be distracted by some minor issue or irrelevance. And it is very very easy to be distracted when PM as it all comes at you at once.
“I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what's going on in the NHS,” said Kemi Badenoch, when she was asked on the BBC if she had watched Adolescence yet.
The presenters could not believe what they had heard. “Why would you not want to know what people are talking about?”
Badenoch replied that the issues of toxic masculinity and smartphone use are ”important issues and they are issues that I’ve been talking about for some time”. She reminded her interviewers: “It’s a fictional series.”
“You’re comparing Adolescence with Casualty: did you really mean to say that?” A surprising question from a BBC presenter, implying that a Netflix series is more important than a mere BBC soap opera.
Badenoch really did mean to say that, and she is quite right too.
- John Rentoul
The comparison of a Soap Opera to a Docudrama (Correct label - I ahven't watched it?) is interesting. I had not twigged the longevity of Casualty, but then these days I know more than enough in one episode per decade format (ish) about hospitals than to want the bloody things on TV as well.
I'd expect Kemi to have a Nigerian Elite type of innate understanding of medicine from her family background - how many ordinary Nigerians travel to a private hospital in London to have a baby? Plus what she has picked up here through living here from 16, and politics.
I'm not sure how well politicians are in touch with the NHS, outside looking at it through the lens of their particular dogmas, and lobbying. And I'm not sure if I have a reliable way of judging that.
Would Kemi introduce The Archers into a discussion about farming?
Wasn't that the whole point of The Archers* when it started? To introduce and discuss agricultural topics in an educational but entertaining way to rural audiences?
It has shifted a bit over time, and now educates on topics such as coercive control, Pride and rural poverty to middle class middle England. Indeed isnt it why we study literature, film and drama more generally? to expand our knowledge of the human condition and society in an entertaining format.
*I love Neil Kinnocks proposal to rename it "The Grundys and their Oppressors"
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
The Cambridge area has particularly good services for the neurodiverse, not least becauseof the University. Intelligent neurodiverse parents push for these services.
My nephew there has fairly complex neurodiversity with a mix of autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. He needed support from a young age, and I suspect will always need some. With a mix of medication and learning support he completed school and now works as a chef, living with his parents. Repetitive tasks suit him particularly well, and it gives him a social life that he can cope with, as the social interactions generally go to a fairly standard script.
It does him good to be semi-independent, and his parents and siblings are very patient with him, though it has been a major stress to them at times. Without such good parents and support from Cambridgeshire it could be an awful situation. Affluence helps too, as it does with most things.
I'm not going to attempt to say what that means, but I think that quite unbalanced focuses are not unusual, and I would not worry especially - unless there were obvious wider impacts. They can be a creation of an "outer, inner world" if there are factors causing it.
Is there an impact caused by the modern retreat into the protected cell of the home, where children have had decreasing spheres of activity at young ages over a period of decades, for example?
My photo quota - "my children lost the right to roam in 4 generations". This is one of the things my access activism is fighting to recover. At the age of single digits I knew the contents of the Guinness Book of Records in significant detail, and read broadsheet newspapers early and was a bit of a news junkie from around maybe 10.
Americans may need to have vaccination certificates in order to travel. We should not let this mindless idiocy become a threat to our own public health.
It would be ridiculous to single out Americans when we've been putting public health at risk by letting unscreened people into the country for years.
Trump keeps singling out other countries for ill treatment. Why can’t we do the same?
True, we could do it Trump style and have Keir Starmer hold up a chart showing the most diseased countries based on NHS data.
The rubbish in Birmingham piling up is huge. On the news this morning they mentioned it was after 4-5 weeks. Then it struck me. We have 2 bins. One for recycling and one for rubbish with a 2 week cycle for collection. In a 2 week cycle we fill the recycle bin about 1/3, possibly 1/2 full. The rubbish bin will be almost empty with a couple of small bags in it. We wouldn't be overflowing in that time period.
We clearly aren't typical. We buy very little packaged food, mainly fresh, have very little waste and compost at home. However I am shocked by the difference in the rubbish we generate and the typical rubbish created by households.
We started separating out soft plastic wrappers a couple of years ago - it’s remarkable how much (by volume) how much that took up.
My wife then got one of these https://whollyshrink.com/ and it’s gone form a bag the equivalent size of our bin to a weeks supply fitting into whatever large wrapper is to hsnd
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
The Cambridge area has particularly good services for the neurodiverse, not least becauseof the University. Intelligent neurodiverse parents push for these services.
My nephew there has fairly complex neurodiversity with a mix of autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. He needed support from a young age, and I suspect will always need some. With a mix of medication and learning support he completed school and now works as a chef, living with his parents. Repetitive tasks suit him particularly well, and it gives him a social life that he can cope with, as the social interactions generally go to a fairly standard script.
It does him good to be semi-independent, and his parents and siblings are very patient with him, though it has been a major stress to them at times. Without such good parents and support from Cambridgeshire it could be an awful situation. Affluence helps too, as it does with most things.
I'm not going to attempt to say what that means, but I think that quite unbalanced focuses are not unusual, and I would not worry especially - unless there were obvious wider impacts. They can be a creation of an "outer, inner world" if there are factors causing it.
Is there an impact caused by the modern retreat into the protected cell of the home, where children have had decreasing spheres of activity at young ages over a period of decades, for example?
My photo quota - "my children lost the right to roam in 4 generations". This is one of the things my access activism is fighting to recover. At the age of single digits I knew the contents of the Guinness Book of Records in significant detail, and read broadsheet newspapers early and was a bit of a news junkie from around maybe 10.
Reflecting, one of my causes of that pattern was perhaps a family move towards the countryside at the age of 10, where parents took on renovation of a semi-derelict manor house, and a 1 hour 15 miles bus journey to school each way from the age of 8 - which meant little contact with friends and locals for years.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
The Cambridge area has particularly good services for the neurodiverse, not least becauseof the University. Intelligent neurodiverse parents push for these services.
My nephew there has fairly complex neurodiversity with a mix of autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. He needed support from a young age, and I suspect will always need some. With a mix of medication and learning support he completed school and now works as a chef, living with his parents. Repetitive tasks suit him particularly well, and it gives him a social life that he can cope with, as the social interactions generally go to a fairly standard script.
It does him good to be semi-independent, and his parents and siblings are very patient with him, though it has been a major stress to them at times. Without such good parents and support from Cambridgeshire it could be an awful situation. Affluence helps too, as it does with most things.
I'm not going to attempt to say what that means, but I think that quite unbalanced focuses are not unusual, and I would not worry especially - unless there were obvious wider impacts. They can be a creation of an "outer, inner world" if there are factors causing it.
Is there an impact caused by the modern retreat into the protected cell of the home, where children have had decreasing spheres of activity at young ages over a period of decades, for example?
My photo quota - "my children lost the right to roam in 4 generations". This is one of the things my access activism is fighting to recover. At the age of single digits I knew the contents of the Guinness Book of Records in significant detail, and read broadsheet newspapers early and was a bit of a news junkie from around maybe 10.
This is the question we have with our son: what is 'normal'? Are his behaviour patterns normal, or abnormal? And how can we tell, given that both Mrs J and I could be classed as somewhat 'abnormal' ourselves.
In fact, Mrs J is probably autistic as well, given her character traits. As are (diagnosed and undiagnosed) many in tech. This has led me to wonder how much of that is down to tech being a good match for certain types of autism, and how much it is down to the tech sector being a 'safe harbour' for people who think slightly differently?
The Chinese aren't behind the door when it comes to using 'Western' PR techniques. In this battle of the titans my money would be on China. I did a commercial for them once for 'Lucky Strike' and they had a well known London agency with their own department hidden from the rest of the agency. You couldn't sell cigs in most countries which is why the agency kept this department quiet. Apparently the ad was going to be seen by 600 million viewers.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
The Cambridge area has particularly good services for the neurodiverse, not least becauseof the University. Intelligent neurodiverse parents push for these services.
My nephew there has fairly complex neurodiversity with a mix of autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. He needed support from a young age, and I suspect will always need some. With a mix of medication and learning support he completed school and now works as a chef, living with his parents. Repetitive tasks suit him particularly well, and it gives him a social life that he can cope with, as the social interactions generally go to a fairly standard script.
It does him good to be semi-independent, and his parents and siblings are very patient with him, though it has been a major stress to them at times. Without such good parents and support from Cambridgeshire it could be an awful situation. Affluence helps too, as it does with most things.
I'm not going to attempt to say what that means, but I think that quite unbalanced focuses are not unusual, and I would not worry especially - unless there were obvious wider impacts. They can be a creation of an "outer, inner world" if there are factors causing it.
Is there an impact caused by the modern retreat into the protected cell of the home, where children have had decreasing spheres of activity at young ages over a period of decades, for example?
My photo quota - "my children lost the right to roam in 4 generations". This is one of the things my access activism is fighting to recover. At the age of single digits I knew the contents of the Guinness Book of Records in significant detail, and read broadsheet newspapers early and was a bit of a news junkie from around maybe 10.
Looking at my nephews nuclear family, and my own wider family there is a lot of neurodiversity, though generally not interfering with life and happiness. Both his sibs are science undergraduates in Cambridge Colleges for example, so fairly classic science nerds like their father.
My nephew was odd from birth, and despite being an electronic engineer my brother has a very analogue home life, so there was little screen time when they were young. I dont think modern life caused his neurodiversity, it was innate.
According to the Times the 10% tariff could remain on the UK even if there’s a deal and the government is now trying to just get the tariff reduced on cars .
If this really is true then it’s a total humiliation for no 10.
Why? If Trump really means it when he says 10% is permanent everyone will be in the same boat.
Only a humiliation if we get worse terms than others.
No decision from someone as erratic as Mr Trump will be humiliating for anyone. He only makes himself look bad.
The rubbish in Birmingham piling up is huge. On the news this morning they mentioned it was after 4-5 weeks. Then it struck me. We have 2 bins. One for recycling and one for rubbish with a 2 week cycle for collection. In a 2 week cycle we fill the recycle bin about 1/3, possibly 1/2 full. The rubbish bin will be almost empty with a couple of small bags in it. We wouldn't be overflowing in that time period.
We clearly aren't typical. We buy very little packaged food, mainly fresh, have very little waste and compost at home. However I am shocked by the difference in the rubbish we generate and the typical rubbish created by households.
It's as simple as people not cutting and folding down cardboard boxes. I used communal bins for 10 years (living in a tenement) and it was irritating seeing them overflowing with cereal boxes etc.
We only put our main bins out every month now. Given we compost all our fresh food and have a weekly waste food collection, it doesn't cause any issues.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
The Cambridge area has particularly good services for the neurodiverse, not least becauseof the University. Intelligent neurodiverse parents push for these services.
My nephew there has fairly complex neurodiversity with a mix of autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. He needed support from a young age, and I suspect will always need some. With a mix of medication and learning support he completed school and now works as a chef, living with his parents. Repetitive tasks suit him particularly well, and it gives him a social life that he can cope with, as the social interactions generally go to a fairly standard script.
It does him good to be semi-independent, and his parents and siblings are very patient with him, though it has been a major stress to them at times. Without such good parents and support from Cambridgeshire it could be an awful situation. Affluence helps too, as it does with most things.
I'm not going to attempt to say what that means, but I think that quite unbalanced focuses are not unusual, and I would not worry especially - unless there were obvious wider impacts. They can be a creation of an "outer, inner world" if there are factors causing it.
Is there an impact caused by the modern retreat into the protected cell of the home, where children have had decreasing spheres of activity at young ages over a period of decades, for example?
My photo quota - "my children lost the right to roam in 4 generations". This is one of the things my access activism is fighting to recover. At the age of single digits I knew the contents of the Guinness Book of Records in significant detail, and read broadsheet newspapers early and was a bit of a news junkie from around maybe 10.
This is the question we have with our son: what is 'normal'? Are his behaviour patterns normal, or abnormal? And how can we tell, given that both Mrs J and I could be classed as somewhat 'abnormal' ourselves.
In fact, Mrs J is probably autistic as well, given her character traits. As are (diagnosed and undiagnosed) many in tech. This has led me to wonder how much of that is down to tech being a good match for certain types of autism, and how much it is down to the tech sector being a 'safe harbour' for people who think slightly differently?
Neurodiverse people often prefer text based interactions to verbal ones. It's just a preferred communicating style, without all that puzzling body language, and perplexing social rituals.
A lot of neurodiversity is about finding the niche that fits. It's much harder to do that for more severe forms of autism.
If that picture was real, it'd be the first time any of those three have done an honest day's work...
I wouldn't wear a shoe made by one of those.
Trump's would fall to pieces on first contact with concrete aka reality;
Musk's would be high tech, amazing to look at, needlessly complicated, way overpriced and blow up at random intervals while the laces froze onto your feet;
Vance's would be claimed to be amazing but actually have a real penchant for treading in every piece of dogshit going even if you carefully stepped round it and somehow that being your fault.
If that picture was real, it'd be the first time any of those three have done an honest day's work...
I wouldn't wear a shoe made by one of those.
Trump's would fall to pieces on first contact with concrete aka reality;
Musk's would be high tech, amazing to look at, needlessly complicated, way overpriced and blow up at random intervals while the laces froze onto your feet;
Vance's would be claimed to be amazing but actually have a real penchant for treading in every piece of dogshit going even if you carefully stepped round it and somehow that being your fault.
Vance's shoe would probably squeak about hating Europe every time you took a step.
“I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what's going on in the NHS,” said Kemi Badenoch, when she was asked on the BBC if she had watched Adolescence yet.
The presenters could not believe what they had heard. “Why would you not want to know what people are talking about?”
Badenoch replied that the issues of toxic masculinity and smartphone use are ”important issues and they are issues that I’ve been talking about for some time”. She reminded her interviewers: “It’s a fictional series.”
“You’re comparing Adolescence with Casualty: did you really mean to say that?” A surprising question from a BBC presenter, implying that a Netflix series is more important than a mere BBC soap opera.
Badenoch really did mean to say that, and she is quite right too.
- John Rentoul
The comparison of a Soap Opera to a Docudrama (Correct label - I ahven't watched it?) is interesting. I had not twigged the longevity of Casualty, but then these days I know more than enough in one episode per decade format (ish) about hospitals than to want the bloody things on TV as well.
I'd expect Kemi to have a Nigerian Elite type of innate understanding of medicine from her family background - how many ordinary Nigerians travel to a private hospital in London to have a baby? Plus what she has picked up here through living here from 16, and politics.
I'm not sure how well politicians are in touch with the NHS, outside looking at it through the lens of their particular dogmas, and lobbying. And I'm not sure if I have a reliable way of judging that.
Would Kemi introduce The Archers into a discussion about farming?
Wasn't that the whole point of The Archers* when it started? To introduce and discuss agricultural topics in an educational but entertaining way to rural audiences?
It has shifted a bit over time, and now educates on topics such as coercive control, Pride and rural poverty to middle class middle England. Indeed isnt it why we study literature, film and drama more generally? to expand our knowledge of the human condition and society in an entertaining format.
*I love Neil Kinnocks proposal to rename it "The Grundys and their Oppressors"
I read quite an entertaining conversation with the moderator of an/the Archers fan forum. She suggested that the Grundys, Horrobins, Jazzer etc provide the emotional heart of The Archers around which the ghastly bourgeois revolve. As usual in England/UK everything ends up being about class.
The rubbish in Birmingham piling up is huge. On the news this morning they mentioned it was after 4-5 weeks. Then it struck me. We have 2 bins. One for recycling and one for rubbish with a 2 week cycle for collection. In a 2 week cycle we fill the recycle bin about 1/3, possibly 1/2 full. The rubbish bin will be almost empty with a couple of small bags in it. We wouldn't be overflowing in that time period.
We clearly aren't typical. We buy very little packaged food, mainly fresh, have very little waste and compost at home. However I am shocked by the difference in the rubbish we generate and the typical rubbish created by households.
It's as simple as people not cutting and folding down cardboard boxes. I used communal bins for 10 years (living in a tenement) and it was irritating seeing them overflowing with cereal boxes etc.
We only put our main bins out every month now. Given we compost all our fresh food and have a weekly waste food collection, it doesn't cause any issues.
The photos you see from Birmingham are almost always from inner city areas with high density population often with many more people per house than average.
You are no doubt about composting and not doing recycling properly but it also sheer number of people.
I would think TV as a trigger highly unlikely. My eldest lad demonstrated peculiar traits from a very, very young age. When he started crawling he crawled backwards and at this point getting himself out of corners was nigh on impossible. He was noticeably different from similarly aged children including his brother.
The debilitating element of the condition was social interaction. He was viewed as weird from aged around two and a half by his peers. That continues today. Communication skills including speech and language were slow and not because he was glued to the Teletubbies. Throughout his life he has focused on a particular interest, and I mean focused. It is the only focus in the moment. Firstly it was Thomas the Tank Engine, apparently young autistic boys relate to the faces on the engines (toys, books and on screen). There is certainly a marked neurodiversity about him. He thinks differently to others, and it was notable before he started watching Bob the Builder. He's quite smart, he has a 2:1 programming degree, although he didn't do well at GCSEs and got where he is today via a BTec route, but he only reads stuff that is of interest to him (he passed his driving theory test on the second attempt and a practical driving test on the first) and his general knowledge is shockingly poor. He doesn't assimilate information well but can function well using routine. He is rules based so he meticulously adheres to speed limits and he is unnaturally polite. He is learning Japanese at evening classes. He is different, well different and not just "a bit peculiar"!
So why the burgeoning rates of autism diagnosis? Now I am sceptical when Leon claims, for example, Theresa May is "on the spectrum" because she is "awkward". There is more to it than that, although perhaps over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided. Sometimes naughty boys are just naughty, and pinning it on ADHD and/or autism is simply a handy hook to hang it on. Perhaps in that instance they watched too much TV.
I have to agree. It strikes me as a bit of an insult to people with autism that it is used use it as a label for anyone who is a bit geeky, clever or socially awkward. Anyone who gets impatient in a queue or reading a book calls says they have ADHD. Does it work the other way? I suppose those who are confident or arrogant are called psychopaths readily enough.
"over diagnosing awkward people as neurodiverse is an issue that should be looked at and avoided" couldn't agree more
We had an interesting conversation with our son's teacher in year 3. She said she had talked to other teachers, and they thought he was showing some of the traits of autism. But, she added, he had developed good coping strategies, and it was not affecting his schoolwork. She then said there was a long waiting list for diagnosis, and as he was not struggling, getting a diagnosis might be unnecessary.
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
My concern would be that the coping strategies may fall apart at some point which for my daughter was at her GCSEs and then in 6 form.
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I'm glad she's sorted and happy.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
The Cambridge area has particularly good services for the neurodiverse, not least becauseof the University. Intelligent neurodiverse parents push for these services.
My nephew there has fairly complex neurodiversity with a mix of autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. He needed support from a young age, and I suspect will always need some. With a mix of medication and learning support he completed school and now works as a chef, living with his parents. Repetitive tasks suit him particularly well, and it gives him a social life that he can cope with, as the social interactions generally go to a fairly standard script.
It does him good to be semi-independent, and his parents and siblings are very patient with him, though it has been a major stress to them at times. Without such good parents and support from Cambridgeshire it could be an awful situation. Affluence helps too, as it does with most things.
I'm not going to attempt to say what that means, but I think that quite unbalanced focuses are not unusual, and I would not worry especially - unless there were obvious wider impacts. They can be a creation of an "outer, inner world" if there are factors causing it.
Is there an impact caused by the modern retreat into the protected cell of the home, where children have had decreasing spheres of activity at young ages over a period of decades, for example?
My photo quota - "my children lost the right to roam in 4 generations". This is one of the things my access activism is fighting to recover. At the age of single digits I knew the contents of the Guinness Book of Records in significant detail, and read broadsheet newspapers early and was a bit of a news junkie from around maybe 10.
How many children in the past died at a young age? Were kidnapped, or abused, or murdered, let alone accidents?
Yes we're more protective over children now. No, I don't think that's a bad thing. And its not about access or because of cars.
Kids in the past in single digit years of age may have walked the streets alone. My kids, like most, are allowed to play on the street and no further - but that's because they're never left unsupervised for extended periods. Nor would I dream of leaving them home alone unsupervised, and that's not because of the fear that a car might interact with their bedroom.
What's the problem with Adolescence. I thought it was amazing. Beyond amazing. Are there some kind of culture war overtones that went over my head. What are the right and left saying (as if it makes any difference, but still...).
13 year old white kid isn't exactly representative of society's problems..in the legacy medias mind it is though..🤔
The kids I talk to generally think that society is unaware of the extent of problems of adolescence, and at most vaguely think about tackling anything by some functional change like banning phones in class. The programme succeeded as it's got lots of people talking about it, rather than implying (as you seem to think) that it's just an issue for marginalised minorities (who have additional issues!).
I mentioned xmas being cancelled in the USA the other day on PB.
And here we are...
Reuters @Reuters · 1h US retailers are almost completely reliant on China for Christmas decorations; sourcing 87% of their goods here. But Chinese producers said that orders from US clients have slowed as both sides are cautious about the risk of rising import tariffs https://reut.rs/43MVcFS
Fans of the Marx brothers may want to suggest that a Sanity Clause in inserted into USA contracts ordering Christmas goods from China.
I mentioned xmas being cancelled in the USA the other day on PB.
And here we are...
Reuters @Reuters · 1h US retailers are almost completely reliant on China for Christmas decorations; sourcing 87% of their goods here. But Chinese producers said that orders from US clients have slowed as both sides are cautious about the risk of rising import tariffs https://reut.rs/43MVcFS
Fans of the Marx brothers may want to suggest that a Sanity Clause in inserted into USA contracts ordering Christmas goods from China.
Comments
The new model with a colour screen looks interesting, but other than the screen it's a downgrade from my Kindle Oasis and I mostly read SF and military history so wouldn't get enough benefit from colour to make up for that.
Hope your son is living as happy a life as is possible
Many people fill out self-report measures of psychopathology and self-diagnose. Autism-spectrum has become very popular and sort of trendy. But it turns out that self-reported autism-spectrum barely correlates with clinician ratings:
https://x.com/hengartnermp/status/1907838330449858957?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Review of Chemically Imbalanced: 'How can it be that one in 5 of us is ingesting a substance that 1. Purports to treat a disease for which there is no proof 2. Doesn’t do “what it says on the tin” 3. Gives rise to dependence & significant side effects..
https://x.com/joannamoncrieff/status/1907045275203457282?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
That's perhaps why I go a bit doolally when on this site a particular poster, who claims to be an expert in autism, explains away celebrities or politicians being w***ers because "they must be on the spectrum". That diminishes the real condition, but then so do self-diagnosed "sufferers" claiming they have an attention deficit so they must be autistic.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8x88xjzjyyo
"Penny Mordaunt joins British American Tobacco"
@KemiBadenoch
So many odd things about this interview.
- BBC encouraging us to watch a fictional drama on a rival platform.
-The presenters thinking it was a real documentary‼️
-A lack of interest in REAL LIFE misogyny like the grooming gangs scandal which Labour just broke a commitment on."
https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1910313223171031178
Reform GAIN from Labour
Longdendale (Tameside) council by-election result:
REF: 46.6% (+46.6)
LAB: 25.0% (-28.8)
CON: 12.4% (-9.7)
GRN: 12.1% (-12.0)
IND: 3.9% (+3.9)
+/- 2023
Mordaunt would be "asked to contribute her insights on the topics of tobacco harm reduction".
She was on Breakfast TV for heavens sake. Anyone not expecting inanity as a matter of course from such an encounter is lacking in basic social skills.
Sounding like an obsessive PB poster is not a good look in a politician.
https://x.com/mattmfm/status/1910120464657371250
The grooming gangs? I bloody hope so.
111 was rejected because it could be triggered by faulty equipment or lines rubbing together. 222 would have connected to the Abbey local telephone exchange as numbers in the early telephone network represented the first three letters (ABBey = 222, 1 was not used due to the accidental triggering). 000 could not be used as the first 0 would have dialled the operator.
999 was deemed the sensible choice.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8675000/8675199.stm
I didn’t know Boeing made helicopters?
We did not bother.
He is a little odd: he's just been doing the Cambridge Latin Course on the sofa down here, at six in the morning, out of choice - I didn't tell him to do it. That feels odd for a ten-year old. But he has many friends, male and female, and *seems* to be flourishing (though as a parent, you always worry...).
I think an issue might be that people's minds vary as much, if not more, than they do physically. And these differences reveal themselves in different behaviours, many of which get grouped up into a catch-all "autism" group. Even if they fit there or not.
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20071,00.html
Now it all got sorted and she is happily in a degree apprenticeship but don’t what works as a coping strategy at 11 may not work later on
I’m pretty sure they’ll take Doncaster and Derbyshire, in May. Durham is only in doubt because there are so many independents.
I use a Kindle a lot nowadays for reading novels. One of the major reasons being that my eyesight has greatly worsened in my fifties, and (stupidly) I hate wearing glasses. So I can read a book with the font size increased.
But isn't that just the case for non-autistic kids as well, as puberty hits and the way we interact with the world changes? He is moving up to secondary school later this year, and that's a very big change as well.
There's also a risk that if we get him diagnosed, and he is autistic, that we, and others, treat him differently. I'm unsure I like that idea. We decided just to be aware of it, and keep an eye out for any potential issues. And being a kid growing up, there will be issues, autism or not.
Can anyone say that their teenage years were totally happy and utterly free of angst?
Probably another hung council and a coalition.
I'd expect Kemi to have a Nigerian Elite type of innate understanding of medicine from her family background - how many ordinary Nigerians travel to a private hospital in London to have a baby? Plus what she has picked up here through living here from 16, and politics.
I'm not sure how well politicians are in touch with the NHS, outside looking at it through the lens of their particular dogmas, and lobbying. And I'm not sure if I have a reliable way of judging that.
Would Kemi introduce The Archers into a discussion about farming?
A kindle is an eink screen, lighter than most books where you can adjust the text size and doesn’t have any of the distraction (phone, internet) of other devices. It’s very much found its niche
I much prefer a book to an e-book, but storage space, instant delivery, and lower price still means I mostly buy fiction as e-books.
My nephew there has fairly complex neurodiversity with a mix of autism, ADHD, and Tourettes. He needed support from a young age, and I suspect will always need some. With a mix of medication and learning support he completed school and now works as a chef, living with his parents. Repetitive tasks suit him particularly well, and it gives him a social life that he can cope with, as the social interactions generally go to a fairly standard script.
It does him good to be semi-independent, and his parents and siblings are very patient with him, though it has been a major stress to them at times. Without such good parents and support from Cambridgeshire it could be an awful situation. Affluence helps too, as it does with most things.
I see that there is impact from the Andrew Gwynne MP SM (Social Media) episode, and note the absence of Lib Dems.
It feels like some parts of Bolsover or Amber Valley (not Ashfield due to the outsize Ashfield Independent impact) where there are former BNP / UKIP voters potentially to be mined.
I'm not sure if I could do something as good if I gave it a whole day. It would be good a couple of days early though.
His summary:
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/previewing-the-four-council-by-elections
'This Memes War'
https://news.sky.com/story/tuesdays-national-newspaper-front-pages-12427754
We clearly aren't typical. We buy very little packaged food, mainly fresh, have very little waste and compost at home. However I am shocked by the difference in the rubbish we generate and the typical rubbish created by households.
It has shifted a bit over time, and now educates on topics such as coercive control, Pride and rural poverty to middle class middle England. Indeed isnt it why we study literature, film and drama more generally? to expand our knowledge of the human condition and society in an entertaining format.
*I love Neil Kinnocks proposal to rename it "The Grundys and their Oppressors"
Is there an impact caused by the modern retreat into the protected cell of the home, where children have had decreasing spheres of activity at young ages over a period of decades, for example?
My photo quota - "my children lost the right to roam in 4 generations". This is one of the things my access activism is fighting to recover.
At the age of single digits I knew the contents of the Guinness Book of Records in significant detail, and read broadsheet newspapers early and was a bit of a news junkie from around maybe 10.
My wife then got one of these https://whollyshrink.com/ and it’s gone form a bag the equivalent size of our bin to a weeks supply fitting into whatever large wrapper is to hsnd
In fact, Mrs J is probably autistic as well, given her character traits. As are (diagnosed and undiagnosed) many in tech. This has led me to wonder how much of that is down to tech being a good match for certain types of autism, and how much it is down to the tech sector being a 'safe harbour' for people who think slightly differently?
My nephew was odd from birth, and despite being an electronic engineer my brother has a very analogue home life, so there was little screen time when they were young. I dont think modern life caused his neurodiversity, it was innate.
Three cheers for Rachel!
We only put our main bins out every month now. Given we compost all our fresh food and have a weekly waste food collection, it doesn't cause any issues.
A lot of neurodiversity is about finding the niche that fits. It's much harder to do that for more severe forms of autism.
Trump's would fall to pieces on first contact with concrete aka reality;
Musk's would be high tech, amazing to look at, needlessly complicated, way overpriced and blow up at random intervals while the laces froze onto your feet;
Vance's would be claimed to be amazing but actually have a real penchant for treading in every piece of dogshit going even if you carefully stepped round it and somehow that being your fault.
Broad based too, with expansion in all of services, manufacturing and construction.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/gdpmonthlyestimateuk/february2025#the-services-sector
NEW THREAD
You are no doubt about composting and not doing recycling properly but it also sheer number of people.
Yes we're more protective over children now. No, I don't think that's a bad thing. And its not about access or because of cars.
Kids in the past in single digit years of age may have walked the streets alone. My kids, like most, are allowed to play on the street and no further - but that's because they're never left unsupervised for extended periods. Nor would I dream of leaving them home alone unsupervised, and that's not because of the fear that a car might interact with their bedroom.
He's drowning here......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbUDSxJFsDA