Autastic Review of The Year.

 

It's been another packed year here at Autastic Towers and as 2025 grinds to a crashing halt it's time for a review of the highs and lows of the year with a special mention to those who deserve extra credit.

Oh and massive amounts of piss-taking and slagging for those who deserve it. 

Warning tho' there'll probably be some time jumps (a bit like Doctor Who when it was good) as some of the stuff is still either ongoing or linked, also expect heady amounts of swearing.

And slight sarcasm. 

As a plus point it'll be much shorter than usual this year (probably) as we've gone from places like Social Work and housing getting in touch with excuses as to why they haven't helped yet to just totally blanking us and leaving us to just struggle on our own, tho' that does give me an excuse to concentrate on the big picture and see how society treated us as a whole.

Anyway, enjoy.

As seems to be the norm now, I spent most of January (still) coping with my (stress based) psoriasis and yes, it was still in my ears so - again - I spent most of the month al;most totally deaf alongside the sensory nightmare of throbbing headaches too...imagine being drunk without the fun bits.

Surprisingly as I'm sitting typing this in exactly the pesky psoriasis is still here (around 45% of my body so not as much as normal) but I can actually hear so swings and roundabouts really.

It wasn't all itchiness and shouting tho' as the beginning of January saw Scottish Social Security finally sort out Cassidy's payment only 8 months after cancelling it due to the new Scottish system not recognising that you can have more than one disabled person living at the same address(!).

But why did it take so long? I hear you cry.

Well it seemed that there was nothing in place to just reinstate it when it was a mistake at their end - because reasons - and because we'd had to wait over the summer till school was back to get support letters because our Social Worker felt 'uncomfortable' supplying one, finding it easier to sign us off with a nasty letter rather than do her fucking job.

And yes I know that bit happened in 2024 but I'm still bloody angry about it so sue me. 

I must say tho' that if there was one shining light throughout the whole administrative shitstorm it would be the fact that every single staff member wee dealt with at Social Security Scotland was an absolute star.

So with that out of the way it just left housing repairs, the upcoming Motability car swap, why Social Work actually exist and what it is they actually do except send passive aggressive letters, easier access to guardianship, battling the total lack of support for education and nearly every organisation (including the Scottish Government) contravening the human rights act to sort out....

Joy.

February was actually fairly calm after the initial of gravel-throated mentalist RFK Jr. deciding to investigate the cause of Autism, not realising that it's mainly from Autistic folk having sex, followed by an outpouring of internet Autism 'experts' taking a break from mad conspiracy theories to agree with him that it was actually caused by vaccines/aliens/toothpaste etc which was nice.

To be honest tho' I was more excited by the fact that our (award winning) little movie AUTISM PLAYS ITSELF was finally available online so excitedly shared the shit out of that for the rest of the month.

If you haven't seen it yet, stop what your doing and watch it now, I'll still be here when you get back. 

Not wanting to be left behind in the ablest bastard stakes, March saw the UK government not only try to push thru' an assisted dying bill that would in no way affect disabled folk but also decide (in England at least) to cut disability benefits whilst Joker-grinned education secretary Bridget Phillipson decided that the farcical excuse for SEN education support needed cutting too.

To be fair tho' most of us were actually surprised that there was any in place to begin with.

 

 

Anyway alongside this 

Luckily those lovely normal folk of Great Britain quickly took to X (formally Twitter) to show support for the disabled community.

And by support I mean start ranting about motability payments of all things.
 

And all whilst referring to folk like myself (and my kids) as "having a touch of the Autism".

On a brighter note, The Stimming Pool -an Autistic led film for which I produced some rather fine background art - got a cinema release across the UK and I got to spend a rare evening out in the fab company of the legendary film critic, horror expert, Frightfest host, top Disconnoisseur and one of my movie heroes Alan Jones as he waxed lyrically about his new book Disco Mania and treated us to a rare showing of Music Machine...a top slice of disco heaven.

Because movies (and music) are a life saver.

 

Autism Awareness/Acceptance Day/Week/Month kicked off in April with absolutely none of the major political parties posting a thing about it, neither did the Prime Minister or the First Minister up here or any MPs/MSPs.

Luckily an animated sheep did which is why we bloody love Aardman Animation.

 

The rest of April was mostly taken up by my incredibly amusing and informative Autism Acceptance posts, mad people on 'X' saying how Autistic people where actually telepathic mutants (no, really) and good old RFK Jr. referring to Autism as a virulent disease before hiring David Geier (who was fined by Maryland regulators for practicing medicine without a license) to conduct an analysis on the links between autism and vaccines.

Geier, if you recall, was the guy who spent years illegally treating children with hormone blockers, claiming it would “detox” their autism.

 

 

As a plus point his press conference was so awful that it managed to persuade  ASAN and Autism Speaks to release a joint statement which is the Autistic equivalent of Doctor Who and Davros getting drunk at karaoke before having a furtive snog in the taxi home.

Not wanting to appear irrelevant, our very own buck-toothed man-frog Nigel Farage decided to wade into the conversation regarding Autism, stating that it wasn't real whilst GB News' Deputy Political Editor, Presenter and (I quote) "I do real news" man Tom Harwood is back to targeting Autistic folk again, this time blaming us for the fact that the bins weren't getting collected or something.

It won't be surprising to learn that what was meant to be a month of celebration and acceptance ended with me totally worn-out and feeling a wee bit depressed as I started to - finally -  come to terms with the fact that nothing had change in regards to the ongoing issues we were dealing with (from housing repairs to Social Work woes and a complete lack of any support) alongside a few new ones thrown in (up?) for good measure.

We were still having to escort the kids to and from college (and in Cassidy's case stay with him all day) but now with the added stress of the girls college completely fucking up Embeth's application for next year and none of the staff involved appearing to actually either turn up at work or be able to answer emails.

And they say we have a communication problem.

It's just another thing in the whole 'death by a thousand cuts' situation we're still in even now.

Plus there was the grim realisation that the majority of organisations who are there to allegedly help families like ours are more concerned with chasing funding and saying the right things creating an echo chamber of chin-stroking, lanyard wearing sycophants more concerned with tick box righteousness than actually doing anything of use.

And all whilst Social Work still seem to think that constantly harping on about stress and being understaffed is an acceptable excuse for sheer incompetence.

Even the Parliamentary Cross-Party Autism Panel seems to be more concerned with having a (special) seat at the table rather than actually doing something constructive with it.

And folk wonder why I drink.

There was one bright point in April tho' and that was provided by The Imperial Scottish Garrison who, whilst appearing at The Riverside Museum made Cassidy's millennium when he not only got to meet Darth Vader but spend time wandering around the museum with a Jawa. The full story is here and a perfect example of inclusion at its best.

Seriously, I still get tearful thinking about it. 

 

May brought along some major changes, as since Cass started at college (way back in August '24) - he was by now walking hands free (mostly), chatting more, getting himself dressed, wanting to actually leave the house for new things and making decisions for himself.

Which was pretty bloody brilliant.

But the decision making/planning he'd gotten so into meant that he'd gone from attending college 3 days a week to mostly just 1 as he'd decided he'd rather go shopping, cooking at home, visiting museums and spend his time on canal walks and the like instead.

It seemed that since August he'd realised that the whole world is open to him and he wants to explore it so we took the decision to not do a second term of college and let him explore the world.  

And I for one was very proud of him.

I have nothing but praise for the staff delivering the SKILLS FOR LEARNING LIFE & WORK course at Glasgow Kelvin College (Duke Street campus) and can safely say that in my (many) years of working with/advocating for groups I have never met a more dedicated, professional and empathic group of people. 

You can read the full post about it here, seriously, other colleges could really learn a thing or two (or three) from them.

 

As a final yummy cherry on the top of May I ended the month being invited on to the college's Campus Conversations podcast to talk about working as an illustrator especially the work I'd done related to film-making, which was nice.

June was exciting as I'd finally received a hospital appointment for that pesky Psoriasis that's been the bane of my life of late.

As regular readers may know I've had a few (major) bouts of it the last few years which my doctor reckons is stress related (which kinda makes sense), the last of which flared up round about the time I was sorting out Cassidy's college and Social Work situation meaning I'd spent the last 8 or so months with about 70% of my body covered in what looks like dragon scales that bleed when I move.

Which is absolutely brilliant when coupled with that pesky Autistic body dysmorphia that a fair few of us have.

Luckily it'd been getting a wee bit better of late, partly due to some terrific steroid spray from my doctor but mainly due to the aforementioned changes that have occurred relating to Cass and college.

Plus it was now the summer holidays so we got a wee bit of a break from traveling around all day and the like and believe it or not there are parents who actually do enjoy spending time with their kids.  

Shocking I know. 

Anyway, I finally got my dermatology appointment thru and nervously went up to the hospital assuming that I'd get put on a course of light therapy (as in they use lights not that it's easy going or something) as I'd been offered that before but my psoriasis ended up clearing itself in the waiting time.

The staff basically said not to have it but keep it in mind for if it ever came back, which I did when it did.

Makes sense really. 

So imagine my surprise when I got there to find that light therapy wasn't even to be considered but instead - after copious blood tests and an x-ray - I'd only have the choice of the high Scrabble scoring Methotrexate or Adalimumab, both of which seem really long term treatments with a hellish list of side effects.

As a plus point they did give me a few weeks to think it over.

Which would be OK if I hadn't received a phone call less than 24 hours later saying I was booked in for a shed-load of vaccines that would be needed to take Methotrexate, which is the exact opposite to taking Adalimumab where you can't have any vaccines or something.

I tried to explain that I'd not decided on a treatment yet but they were convinced it'd be easier just just get all the jabs as they'd booked them already.

Gah.

Luckily information overload kicked in (alongside fearful tears) and I managed to persuade them to get in touch after my consultation instead and they agreed.

Phew.

Feeling oh so slightly stressed at this point (the girls - and Rho were away at a dance performance for the weekend so it was just myself and Cass at home) I decided to have a nice cuppa to relax.

This was interrupted almost immediately by another phone call, this time from the hospital. It seemed that there'd been an issue with my x-ray. It appeared that my mighty man-nips had shown up on the x-ray so I needed to go and get another.

Which is actually very funny, or would be if the initial chat hadn't been "We've discovered dark spots near your lungs". 

It'll come as no surprise to find I spent the whole of the weekend stressed to fuck and that my psoriasis has flared up again.

Joy.

It seems that when it comes to dealing with Autistic folk the NHS consultants are up there with Social Work in the 'absolutely no fucking clue'  club, which is a wee bit mad seeing as you'd expect that being medically trained they'd actually know a wee bit about Autism without you having to explain everything about it whenever you have an appointment. 

For example, earlier in the year I spent an evening in our local 'flagship' hospital because my doctor was worried that a muscle strain I'd developed (due to stimming) was a blood clot so sent me to get it checked out ASAP.

Arriving at the hospital - which looks and feels like it was designed by a madman with a box of primary coloured paints -  my Sunflower lanyard for all to see I explained to the desk why I was there and how overwhelming ~I found the whole place so could I get help to find my destination to be grumpily told that the hospital was signposted and I could find my own way thru' the labyrinth-like maze myself.

After 20 minutes of wandering identical, disinfectant smelling corridors I was finally taken to the right place by a member of staff but that was only after threatening to go thru an alarmed door in order to get help if they didn't.

Yes, I can be very persuasive. 

But it didn't end there tho' as no sooner had I sat down than I was ushered into a room to get bloods taken etc.

I asked if they could explain to me what was happening (always calmer knowing exactly what is going on) and if I could take a minute or 2 to get my bearings only to be told in no uncertain terms that they were too busy for that and that I'd impact on other patients but I could go home if I felt like it.

Which was nice.

2 hours later I got to see the consultant as he waited for my results and - again - explained that the injury was more than likely due to stimming only to have him ask "What's stimming?"

After explaining the whole thing to him (using 'proper' phrases like 'self stimulation' and everything - very grown up) he just turned around and replied "So can you just not do it then?"

And let's be honest if the NHS are this clueless about Autism how can we trust anyone else?

To be fair tho' they only been using it as an actual diagnosis since 1957 so we can't expect it to have caught on by now can we?

"Dr Juno I'm Autistic!" "Have you just tried not being it?"

 

On a brighter not June also marked 7 years since Glasgow decided to go all Autism-friendly - even going as far as making a map of all the Spectrum-safe places in the city and awarding an Autism Aware badge to venues that are deemed worthy.

Around the same time Glasgow City Council proudly (and somewhat foolishly you might say) decreed that by 2025 - or thereabouts - Glasgow would be 'the most Autistic friendly city in Europe'.

At the time I decided to go visit every single one of them (unannounced obviously) and review them all so with that in mind I reckoned it'd be a good idea to go back and revisit - and re-review - every one of those venues - well the ones that were still open obviously - and even added some new ones and see how they're fairing on the Autism front now.

And you can find this - still work in progress - here.

 

Yes, this is the kind of mind boggling shite we've had to deal with this year. I wouldn't mind but all we asked for was a wee bit of support.

July was much of a muchness which meant more hate-fueled rantings on social media (mainly aimed at Motability users and SEN families) including a brilliant piece in The Telegraph from dead-eyed debutante and 'journalist' and ex- researcher for Lord Peter Lilley, Annabel Denham, who in an article about how parents of special needs kids complain too much made quite possibly THE greatest comment ever regarding the plight of these families fighting for support:

"It’s almost enough to make you long for the country to get the shocking dose of reality that Ukrainians or Israelis are experiencing. Our state has become a soft touch paying out for every sad story."

Beautiful.

Sorry I actually meant fuck off.

 

"Y’know, the thing about Annabel Denham, she’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When she comes after ya, she doesn’t seem to be livin’ until she bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white, and then – aww, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin’...."

 

It wasn't all hate spewed bile tho' as my lovely GP managed to get the whole Psoriasis treatment malarkey sorted.

I ended up going to see her in a wee bit of a panic clutching all the handouts I'd been given only to find they too were as surprised as I was seeing as they'd actually asked for light therapy to begin with so they told me not to worry and just tell them that's what I wanted/was expecting.

So when the long awaited (and dreaded) phone consultation came along I pointed this out only to be told that they assumed I'd already had it so offered something else.

Obviously my accent meant that when I said (on numerous occasions)  "Can I have light therapy please?" it actually translated as "Fuck the light therapy pump me full of drugs for ever!" instead.

To be honest it was a relief to get that sorted.

Bizarrely tho' I ended up having a light therapy follow up appointment in place to see how it's going even before I even received my first appointment.

Yes, I know.

And as a bonus tho' I finally got an appointment to get my ears syringed (yup that pesky ear Psoriasis was back) so was looking forward to no longer be almost totally deaf after 3 months and to be able to hear something other than my heartbeat.

I must admit I also a bit worried as I'd forgotten how loud Cassidy can be.

Unfortunately on the day I discovered that I'd got an infection in my right ear so they could only do the left one and with that they made me a doctor's appointment and sent me on my way.

Oh and yes I could hear better by the way, back to about 80% which was rather nice although I'd not realised how loud my MP3 player was up till this point.

As regulars here will know nothing is ever straight forward in this house so when during the doctor's appointment I discovered that my ears actually had not 1, not 2 but 5 different infections so was promptly put on a course of 2 separate sets of antibiotics and a couple of sprays in the hope of sorting it out.

Oh yes, and absolutely no booze whilst I was on them.

Well at least I wasn't banned from watching dodgy 70s Eurohorror too.

So suffice to say I spent July being slightly annoyed.

This annoyance got more intense tho' when former Masterchef host (and most popular art piece on my Redbubble shop, no really) Gregg Wallace chucked Autistics under the bus for the sake of his career in the middle of the month.

 Seriously I never had that on my 2025 'Tism bingo card but there you go.

But how did we get to this point? you may ask. 

Well, way back in late 2024 a series of allegations of inappropriate behaviour (dating back to at least 2012) were made against the former jolly greengrocer by a number of female contestants.

His original defence was, um interesting to say the least: 

Which as you can imagine went down well with 51% of the population, luckily tho' when that didn't work he at least he listened to this bit of advice from his 'friends':

 

 

Realising that the accusations weren't going to go away Gregg doubled down in November '24 and got those same 'friends' to announce that his inability to keep his penis in his trousers was due to him being Autistic.

And even better, according to them, he was never tested because he feels guilty that he may have passed down the neurological and developmental disorder to his four-year son Sid, who is severely autistic and non-verbal.

Feeble excuses for abusing women AND guilt tripping (because Autism is a tragedy that should be pitied obviously.) in one sentence....amazing. 

And that's where we thought the story would end.

But no!

You see, Gregg then issued this statement:

 

Ignoring the obvious (it's not 'your neurodiversity, it's 'your neurodivergence' but seriously just say Autism) this just struck me as a (fairly sad) man not only clutching at (any) straws available to save his career when he realised that unlike in the 70s women actually get very vocal if you call them 'dolly birds' or pinch their bums but also using his son's diagnosis (and his son's Autistic traits) as an excuse. 

And what do I mean by this?

A headline from yesterday:

 

Well as we know, lots of Autistic kids (and adults but we'll get to that later) hate itchy clothes and labels and quite honestly prefer to bomb about the house naked, as a 4 year old my parents told me I couldn't go out to play in the sun without my wellies and a hat so would often run out the house wearing only those items.

You see, as I got older I realised that this was inappropriate. 

And before anyone jumps in and says but Gregg didn't get his diagnosis till adulthood how would he know what's what?

Well I wasn't diagnosed till my 40s and can safely say that I never stripped naked, put a sock on my cock and waved it around in front of my female co-workers before - or after - finding out I'm Autistic.

Maybe that means I'm obviously the wrong type of Autistic.

Or maybe, just maybe, Gregg is basing his view of being Autistic on the behaviour and traits of his child and using that as an excuse, rather than tell the truth which is if he is actually Autistic then fair enough but realise that being an utter misogynistic arse around women has f#ck all to do with your diagnosis.

It means you're actually just a sexist shitebag.

So f*cking own it.

Either that or start an Autism consultancy service and charge folk thru' the nose for it cos you're famous.

Your choice.

I'd calmed down a wee bit by August as we prepared for the laydees return to college but this time on 2 separate courses on totally different days.

This was the first time in 3 years that this had happened so we ended up  juggling taking the girls to and from college, one on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and t'other on Monday, Thursday and Friday whilst doing stuff with Cass and trying to shop, clean and (hopefully) work at the same time.

Obviously help and support from somewhere like Social Work wouldn't have gone amiss but due to us not doing enough already (their words) we didn't deserve any.

To be fair tho' it wasn't just them letting us down as we'd been waiting 3 years for the disability officer at the girls college to email us back too, she must be snowed under with work, poor thing. 

But until then we still had a week of meetings to go - and this time it was grown up things like housing and political-type stuff.

Yay! 

And one of the meetings we had to take all 3 kids to.... 

Really.

You see if the rest of the year hadn't been stressful/mad enough we hit peak rule-based mentalism by the middle of the month which, 4 months later, is still kinda ongoing.

As a wee bit of background to the whole thing, the last few years Ro and myself have been living on our savings, supplementing it with whatever work/commissions we can get in the time we have not taken up with escorting/working with the kids, shopping, hospital appointments, laundry (yup the house repairs are still not completed) etc. and had gotten to a point where our funds we so low that we'd have to claim Universal Credit to survive so we made an appointment to see our housing officer and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It appeared that the housing officer had left and not passed our details on (seems to happen a lot) so after more phone calls  and finally getting thru' to the welfare rights workers (who I must say was lovely) we were down to less than £100 so kinda worried about little stuff like paying bills and buying food.

Because it's the 21st century and we live in a country with an alleged progressive and kind government where stuff like this doesn't happen.

Emergency meetings were organised as we got our heads around stuff that up until that point we'd not had to deal with, one of which was a joint meeting at the 'local' job centre which we both had to attend together.

Luckily our lovely welfare rights guy emailed them to explain our situation and how it would be if not impossible, really difficult to do this and requested 2 separate appointments, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, giving us time to swap over so the kids weren't left home alone.

The job centre (surprisingly) said yes so we breathed a sigh of relief and waited for the appointment to come thru'.

And they did indeed give us separate appointments - one at 10:00AM and one at 10:15AM which meant having to get our brood up and out to a new place and just hope there'd be enough chairs to accommodate us all.

Luckily the meeting went well (and Cassidy coped brilliantly) unfortunately we still had to wait a month for everything to kick in so had to spend more time applying for emergency funding only to find that - much like the issues with Scottish Social Security and disability payments - when they were processing our claim that they inadvertently 'lost' Cassidy meaning we were listed as having an extra unused room and that this would affect our payments.

Oh and the council tax office 'forgot' to process our claim too.

Don't worry tho' as it was finally sorted last week, yup only took nearly 5 months to rectify their mistake.

Top work all round. 

 

September was actually quite fun if I'm honest, the laydees had a trip to the Scottish Parliament (for a party no less) whilst in an exciting move that was in no way detrimental to the Autistic community in the USA (or here probably) Donald Trump announced that his administration would make an important announcement regarding Autism.

Excitedly rubbing his hands together with a gleeful excitement usually reserved for small children being handed a big bag of Haribo Starmix, Trump jabbed the air with his pudgy little sausage fingers and spewed forth a word salad of Pip and Jane Baker proportions:

“We have to make the announcement; it’s so BIG. We can’t let people keep doing this. I don’t want to wait any longer. We don’t need anything more, and if it's wrong, it's not going to be wrong, but if it is wrong, it's fine that we have to do it because we are going to have an announcement on Autism on Monday. It’s going to be Monday; I don’t want to do Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and I think it’s going to be a very important announcement, and I think it’s going to be one of the most important things that we are going to do,” 

No, me neither.

Unfortunately the announcement wasn't that we're all cool as f*ck and that we should be in control of the nuclear codes but that we've all taken too much Paracetamol and that's why we're broken.

What?!!? 

 

 

I mean all our kids have Ro's height, build, hair colour, stunning good looks and charm....All they got from me was the 'Tism and suddenly Trump wanted to take my proudest achievement away and credit paracetamol instead.

Bastard.

 

I mean as a kid I was promised that the 21st century would bring us moonbases, robot companions and flying cars...they lied to us.

At least the girls enjoyed the party.

 

The rest of the month went the way you'd expect - the girls college decided to get rid of the seating used by disabled students and their support workers and replacing them with a self-congratulatory poster (they've gotten rid of the majority of support staff so I reckon they thought there'd be less folk using it) whilst leaving the disabled toilet broken for a month and not investing in wheelchair friendly tables in the cafe.

To be fair tho' if they actually spent the money - or any effort - on making the college a wee bit more disability friendly then Principle Paul Little wouldn't be able to claim  over £200,000 in annual remuneration for stuff like flying to New York for Tartan Week, buying Pret a Manger sandwiches at John F Kennedy airport and taxi fares - and accommodation -  when visiting The Reform Club, a private members' club in St James of which he's a member.

But it now had loads of photos of him in the main lobby so swings and roundabouts really. 

 As luck would have it I actually bumped into him in college whilst waiting for the girls one day and actually got a chance to discuss the removal of the seating with him.

Well if being shouted at like an errant child for a mere nobody like me daring to question his decision whilst he shook his fist and turned an ever brighter shade of red is a discussion i mean. 

So what I came away with (apart from a deep feeling of concern that someone in a position of authority and care in a place that has a high volume of disabled young adults could be so aggressive to a complete stranger) was that:

1. The change was his decision and not to be questioned.

2. The two tiny chairs in the corner are adequate.

3. Disabled students can sit on the floor by the wall instead.

 Which was nice.

Yes the last one is a wee bit odd but that's what I took from the reply to mentioning that there was no space for wheelchair users to sit with their friends, he angrily pointed at the wall and shouted "They can go there!" before waddling away in a fit of pique usually reserved for Graham Williams era Doctor Who villains.

What a lovely guy. 

 October gave us some more quality quotes the gravel-throated comedy genius that is RFK jr. including:

‘Her baby in her placenta’.

'Circumcision causes Autism'.

'Paracetamol!'

'Something, something wrestling bears'. 

 Which was nice.

We also had a break from the old routine in the form of half term so we enjoyed a week of no 6AM starts and plenty of time to spend doing cool stuff with the kids whilst fighting against the clock to update our motability claim as for some obscure reason they'd changed my name on it so we couldn't log in(!).

But more importantly - and excitedly - October was the month that Cass has finally figured out the locks on the living room door which meant being rudely awakened by him bombing around the house with all the lights on and everyone's (charging) phones and laptops switched on and used for nefarious (Wayback Machine and CBeebies) based shenanigans.

Yes we changed the locks.

The high point of October for me tho' was joining my oldest pal Jay (AKA Blue Azure) on his monthly Smiling At Strangers show broadcast on Totally Wired Radio where I unleashed the weirdest and most wonderful mix of Euro-centric cinema soundtracks on his unsuspecting listeners. 

 

To be honest it was an absolute blast to do and bizarrely the first time we've ever collaborated on something (outside stop-motion movies as kids) in 48 (!) years of friendship.

And yes he was correct when he said I probably know the exact date we met.

Have a listen here. 

November started with a bang - literally - when the girls bunkbed started to collapse.

Embeth was inconsolable as she was worried she may have killed her sister had she been in it at the time (Amelia helpfully pointed this out to her) plus was upset as we now needed to buy a new bed (which isn't the old one that she loves obviously) plus she was having flashbacks to Ice Age 4. 

No, me neither. 

Amelia on the other-hand was raging because it meant they need to tidy up their room - and she loves drama.

I tried not to think about it too much as I was kinda working on fumes at that moment.

Rho was smiling and drinking tea. 

Being unable to read social cues I've still no idea what that meant.

 

Not our beds but just a photo for illustrative purposes to break up the text.

 

As mentioned earlier, even tho' I'd not had any treatment for my Psoriasis yet I still had to attend the follow on appointment for fear of being taken off the system and this came around in November.

Luckily it went well, the consultant I saw this time wasn't mad and actually listened and ended up putting me on the waiting list again so I've double the chance of an appointment for light therapy so fingers crossed I get it thru' before my next (6 month) check up.

Oddly enough at this point I thought my psoriasis was getting better (I wasn't creaking or dripping blood everywhere and I couldn hear which made a nice change) but I actually got told that it was pretty severe so f*ck knows how bad it was before, I must have looked like the creature from Hammer's Evil of Frankenstein walking down the street.

This is literally how I look (just with higher hair).

 

Another thing we were trying to deal with in November was swapping over our Motability car and yes, I know that according to various members of the press and a fair few (uneducated) knuckle draggers on social media having a Motability car is the worse crime against humanity possible and we should be burned at the stake for even looking at one but frankly I don't care what you think so if this fact has triggered you in any way feel free to fuck off now.

Thank you.

It's the first time we'd ever had to swap over our car (you initially get it for 3 years) so we reckoned it'd be fairly easy and to be honest the staff at Motability have been great and really helpful, it's a pity then that the rest of the process was an utter Kafka-esque nightmare.

And not just because Benefits Scotland managed to change my name on the claim form meaning I couldn't log in to my account.

Anyway, with that out of the way, on with the story...

Car lease was up, wanting a car of similar size and make - nothing special, no hyper alloy racing wheels or 'go faster' stripes (which surprisingly they try to get you to have) so we phoned our local Motability dealer to arrange an appointment.

He's on holiday so we have to phone back to arrange to see someone else.

Phone back, he's not in that day.

Need to phone again.

Now you'd think that if the whole Motability car thing was as rife as the press made out there'd be dozens of staff around throwing cars at any old disability but no - only 1 (maybe 2 at a push) - per dealership. 

Ro (for it is she who drives, does car stuff) made an appointment and went in to see him.

Now we reckoned it'd be a quick and easy swap to a similar model but no...turns out that certain garages only have access to certain cars and to swap over to the same model will now cost £3000 as it's become quite popular.

And before you ask, no you can't just keep the old one.

There are cars that have cheaper - or no deposit - but guess what? It turns out that car dealerships aren't allowed deliveries of cars from other - affiliated - dealerships.

You have to go home and find out for yourself which ones have the car you want/need and where they are yourself.

Now I've never bought a car so I've always assumed that when you go to a garage to buy one the staff/sales folk are chomping at the bit to sell you one so was quite surprised to find out that this isn't the case as it looks like not only do you have to get the right day to visit to actually find a salesman but then they only have 2 or 3 types of car as they're not allowed to sell other types. If you want a different model they just see you on your way without any help at all.

Not even an address of another dealer.

Yup, turns out that all this talk of sales being a high pressure job is all bollocks and it's almost as if they really don't want to sell you a car and if they do it's less easy than a very complicated Dungeons and Dragons quest.

In a second language.

And without a Dungeon Master to run it.

Or dice.

Anyway, we finally tracked down a garage we could actually get a car from so Ro popped in to see them.

All was going swimmingly till she was told that even tho' she's the driver and has all the information I'm not allowed to ring to confirm who I am and have to be there in person.

But they can ring to tell me this which is odd because that means I'm actually who I say I am when it's convenient for them.

NT rules are really confusing.

So the following Monday Ro had to drop the girls at college whilst I persuaded Cassidy to get the train into town where we met up and headed to the dealership (again) in the hopes of getting the whole thing sorted.

Luckily the person we dealt with (Hi Simon!) was really nice and actually helpful with no pressure to update to super-alloy racing wheels, no go-faster stripes chat and no pushiness - he listened to what we wanted, didn't judge me for my lack of car knowledge/interest and basically made the whole process really easy and painless.

And he didn't get annoyed once when Cassidy insisted he keep his glasses on. 

The only hiccup was when we went to get the new car (in the middle of December, yes I'm jumping ahead), the girls had the day off college so Ro could take the old car in only to find that I had to be there to enter the magic PIN number - and no, I couldn't just give it to her.

Obviously this meant she had to get the train back as the car was now registered as back with the dealership. 

So we had to wait another week till term ended so I could pop into the dealership and enter the PIN, come home and then Ro could head up to get the car. 

 

The best thing to happen in November tho' was Cassidy's discovery of Grok's animation feature. 

As some of you may - or may not - he's always been slightly obsessed with Mark Mothersbaugh's Magic Pictures segment from that work of teevee genius that is Yo Gabba Gabba.

To be honest I always assumed his love of Mark would be from an obsession with DEVO like me but hey ho, he'll get there eventually.

Cass will spend hours drawing whilst explaining the pictures - just like Mark - and has also been known on occasion to paint on a wee beard and don an interesting hat to add to the effect, videoing his work and editing it together on his (overworked) laptop.

But then he stumbled across Grok AI which much to his delight enabled him to animated his work much like Mark does each episode.

Suffice to say no computer in the house is safe now from his animated shenanigans.

And you can enjoy a few samples of Cassidy current animated creations alongside his art that inspired them here.

And yes, I reckon he'll be stealing my work commissions soon.

And with that we hit December and the exciting Count down to Christmas (and my birthday which was spent in the cinema rewatching THE greatest comic adaptation/romantic weepie/Christmas movie/Breakfast at Tiffany's mash-up ever and one of my all favourite films of all time, Batman Returns, on the big screen again) with a mix of the usual frantic to and fro' college trips, a few meetings, picking up the new car and a school session featuring me indulging in my old job of balloon modelling which was cool, surprisingly we managed to make it that far without collapsing in a tired heap as this term had really taken it out of us both physically - we're not getting any younger - and mentally with the amount of form filling/organisations losing claims/lack of support etc.

We did get an end of the year bonus tho' when on Christmas Eve we got an email saying that they'd finally sorted out our UC after nearly 5 months so that was good.

If a wee bit overdue.

So, what does 2026 have in store?

Who knows?

To be honest I'm not going to think about it right now and just enjoy the holiday.

And the copious amount of booze and snacks obviously.