Happy New Year everyone! (And Happy 16th Birthday to my middle child, because that's how I spent NYE 2009 and the early hours of 2010 😆)

I really wish we would just bin the term SEND. It's so horribly euphemistic and widely misinterpreted. Not to mention completely baffling to those 'SEND kids' who will never have 'SEND' applied to them in any other context, including Higher Ed or employment, where they simply become 'disabled'...

Nothing like your solar panel feed in tariff income from the last 3 months telling you it's been overcast and grey pretty much non stop since the end of September 😫

Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it's really important you know that the scene in the Seminary's Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.

Best thing about Twixmas is the time gained and therefore the opportunity for good long walks in the woods with the dog 😊

Only 23.5% of Autistic people in a new multi-country survey felt society actually accepts them as Autistic :( Sad statistics from Forbes www.forbes.com/sites/anurad...

I listen to a lot of podcasts, but only ever when I'm doing something else (walking the dog, running, cleaning the house). I love them because they are so portable! What on earth is the point of adding a visual element that tethers you to a screen?

THREAD. A selection of haunting encounters I have had with folk horror creatures and ghosts during walks in the British countryside. You will find the full descriptions of these disturbing incidents in the alt text. 1. Weeping Fence Banshee.

If I could say one sentence to cats and make them understand it, it would probably be "If you are going to puke, please do it on a hard surface."

THREAD. My parents' cat Bridget vanished. As the weeks dragged on they became ever more worried, so to distract himself my dad began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up at some of art & music's most important moments. I've collected his work here...

If Russell Brand goes to prison, who’s going to baptise Walliams?

Good to see the Hebden Bridge geese out for a stroll this afternoon

Yes it could be argued that keeping up with world events is important but alternatively can I interest you in hugging an ancient mossy boulder that looks like a face and quietly listening while it tells you stories from centuries cloaked in mist.

In what can only be described as a genuine Christmas miracle, my inbox is actually empty for the first time in forever (for the next 10 seconds, at least). So my out of office is on, and I'm off! What a term (again)! 🥴

Remember when HS2 to Leeds was cancelled by the NIC's shitty maths and fundamental lack of expertise, and Leeds was thrown the bone of "you'll get trams" and I said those would never be delivered? Yeah, as I was saying...

I live in Yorkshire, so naturally the only times I've seen anything to with the actual physical HS2 are when walking past some construction in Birmingham, and when getting stuck in a massive construction traffic jam on the way back from Oxford.

Our comprehensive blueprint offers actionable insights to help institutions develop effective transition support strategies for disabled students: taso.org.uk/research/cur...

THREAD. Some excellent pigs I have met on walks in the British countryside. You will find the caption to each photo in the alt text.

You lot need Dick Van Dyke singing Let's Go Fly a Kite on his 100th birthday more than you know.

My mum died 20 years ago today, and I'm not sure whether it's just that I am SUPER tired after a long, hard term, or whether it's because two decades seems such a long time, but it's feeling particularly rubbish this year. 20 years is a long time to trudge through life without an important person 😞

this is not behavior becoming of a FIFA Peace Prize recipient.

Here we go! “Diagnosis has become the unofficial currency of support, not because the law demands it, but because the system has outsourced its moral & legal responsibility to a clinical gatekeeper.” theautisticadvocate.com/there-is-no-...

THREAD. A collection of photos I have taken of excellent cats I have met on walks. You will find the captions to the photos in the alt text.

UCAS end-of-cycle data is out, for those who like to follow these things. News from the disabled student front: there are more disabled students than last year, obviously www.ucas.com/data-and-ana...

Yes, yes and also yes. This speaks to me, as I am also not a December person, for various reasons.

I can measure my general levels of fatigue and end of term near-burnout by the fact that I am unable to tolerate LinkedIn AT ALL right now 😆

THREAD. A collection of photographs of excellent goats I have met during walks in the British countryside. You will find the captions to each photo in the alt text.

Ok. I’m going to try this, just to see if it’s possible. A different Scrooge at the window everyday during advent: George C Scott in A Christmas Carol (1984) You there boy! What day is this? It’s 1st December

UK Government is trying to co-opt neurodiversity movement through claiming neurodivergents may simply be different & not disabled, when we advocate we are both (& disability is social-relational). We need more diagnoses - research: self-identified autistic ppl have more distress & higher unmet needs

Major power cut and my three kids are losing their minds because NOTHING WORKS and we are being forced to talk to each other 😆

An independent taskforce *just* did a huge review of ADHD in England, and the conclusion was that it's "under-recognised, under-diagnosed and under-treated." www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/re...

AI can accurately simulate the complex centrifugal physics of a cat spinning on a light fitting, but still reckons there’s a screen on the back of a telly.

Boy do I have a lot to say about competence standards and PGR assessment (i.e. vivas). Happy to see a nod to the guidance I co-wrote in this article. FWIW it is NOT difficult to make adjustments for PGRs. People just don't want to.... wonkhe.com/blogs/why-is...

Oof. A hard (but funny and sublime) read for a fellow cat lover 🐈

Considering Streeting's well stated belief autism, ADHD etc, along with mental health issues, are "overdiagnosed", I won't hold my breath for this doing anything other than being used to cut support, along with opportunities for diagnosis, for people who need it. #r4today www.bbc.com/news/article...

What a confusing article conflating diagnosis of ADHD with 'mental illness' and the debate around 'incapacity benefits', then publishing a quote from The National Autistic Society? Come on lads, do better. (Also yikes to this review as the outcome seems rigged already) www.bbc.com/news/article...

This! Also, if you truly believe that accommodations (or reasonable adjustments, as we'd call them) have gone too far, there's an excellent method to ensure you never have to do any ever again. It's called inclusive learning, teaching and assessment design (or Universal Design for Learning).

For the quiet ones #mentalhealth #anxiety #ADHD #autism #neurodiversity uk.bookshop.org/p/books/norm...

Oof. I'm hypermobile, my kids are hypermobile, we come from a long line of hypermobile people. The more I read about the many associated, but often vague, symptoms, the more I realise how many hEDS boxes I tick. Oh, and the lack of medical interest in any of it, least of all joining the dots

my section was all about uterine tissues creating happy little "benign" tumors that make your life hell but since they are not cancerous it takes forever to diagnose and find a treatment that works for YOU! #SciArt #endometriosis #fibroids #adenomyosis

Now I'm not saying this is just because of me, but old Twitter followers of mine might remember my consternation at the mix up of upper/lowercase in the month of March in the last few years' worth of WH Smiths weekly planners...

Now I'm not saying this is just because of me, but old Twitter followers of mine might remember my consternation at the mix up of upper/lowercase in the month of March in the last few years' worth of WH Smiths weekly planners...

Oh the nostalgia!

PSA to neurotypicals - asking “why” is not arguing. “Here is how a thing is.” “Why?” Is not an argument. It’s a request for more information. Why is the thing that way? Teach me.

This cat is devoid of even a single brain cell. Absolutely vacant. Nothing at all happening behind those pretty eyes

THREAD. 3 years ago, with no warning, a brilliant orange farm cat wandered over from the draughty barn where he had been living, in rural Cornwall, and decided he wanted to live with us instead. We decided to call him Jim. This is the first photo I took of him, on that night: December 1st, 2022.

Ooh, this is very, very good.

My latest blog on some of the best/ most debate-worthy new research on autism and wider neurodiversity & intersectionality. Inc. hearing in noisy places, what do we use assistance dogs for, ADHD lived experience, & does ABA enforcement link to mental health crises? ndconnection.co.uk/blog/autism-...

The school my kids go to: Monday: send your kids to school! High temp or cough or cold is no reason to keep them at home! Wednesday: everyone is ill! Keep your kids at home if they have a high temp or cough or cold! 🙄

Everything you need to know in one handy (grim) quote