I’ve written many times about the importance of increasing people’s understanding of Tourettes and about my mission to ‘Change the world one tic at a time.’ But never before has this felt so important, and never before have I wished the world could’ve been changed more quickly.…

Several months ago, when winter still felt a long way away, Leftwing Idiot and I took a trip into town to meet Billy Elliott – not the famous dancer but the incredibly talented animator.

Our mission was to see if Bill would be up for creating a video to go with the LiveTalk Christmas special I’d just recorded.…

One of the first tics I ever shared on this site was: “Your bum’s gone roller disco.”

I’ve always liked this tic but until tonight my bum hadn’t been near a roller disco for years. That all changed this evening when Bunny and I went to a nearby roller-skating club with some other friends from work.…

Poppy, Leftwing Idiot and I went to get a Christmas tree this evening. My wheelchair came in handy for getting it back to the castle.

But there was a slight glitch – I kept head-butting it all the way home, accompanied by my tics singing along:

“Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree, why are you so prickly?”…

Brian’s been around for a while now. I talk about him so often it’s starting to feel like he’s an absent housemate. Later this month I’m planning a Secret Santa for him at the castle – I’ll have some friends over, all bearing gifts for Brian.…

I read the other day that Gangnam Style’s become You Tube’s most watched video of all time with over eight hundred and fifty million views so far. So it’s no surprise that this infectious K-Pop anthem’s started to show up in my tics.…

This morning I woke up early, for the second day in a row. Yesterday I had to get up and head off to catch a train while it was still dark. This morning I stayed in bed watching the sunrise, thinking about all the funny and interesting that had happened in the meantime.…

I’m off to a conference in Birmingham to talk about Tourettes today, but that’s not the main news. More excitingly it’s the start of the countdown to Christmas. To celebrate, I’ll be sharing a brand new ‘festive outburst’ every day until the 25th.…

My tics have an amazing knack for latching on to a formula and producing a whole array of variations on a theme – much to the delight of my friends.

Let me explain.

Recently, for no reason at all, ‘Ninny Bus’ has been creeping in as a regular tic.…

On the way home in the cab tonight Fran and I were talking about holidays we’d been on. I suddenly had a strong memory of walking round a hotel I’d been staying at several years ago.

What was unusual about this was that it was the walking, not the holiday that I was remembering.…