In January I wrote to Maria Miller, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for disabled people regarding the proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance (DLA). The only response I got was a standard photocopied letter from the Department of Work and Pensions.…

Yesterday I compared my squirrel and donkey tics with each other. It got me thinking and I realised these are not the only animals which feature in tics. Here’s a selection:

“I’m a free-running ladybird.”
“Kiss a whale.”
“The elephant left the room.”…

“I’m living ketchup reality and I’m a donkey.”
“Life begins at squirrel.”

“Shall we make a cloakroom out of donkeys?”
“Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, fashion.”

“Dear donkey, I’m sorry you’re a bachelor.”
“Squirrel loving fish.”

“Donkey cum, donkey cum, going only where a donkey can.”…

There was a large group of teenage boys behind me on the bus this morning. They started laughing at me as soon as they sat down, but I could hear one voice of dissent. Instead of laughing, he was quietly reasoning with his friends, saying things like, “I don’t see what’s funny”, “Imagine if it was your mum, or sister”, “You lot are being rude”, “It could be your family.”…

My colleague told me earlier that she’d been really tired the other day and as a result she’d been saying some pretty random stuff. One of the children we work with had said she sounded like me when I do my tics.…

I was at the pub earlier with a group of friends including a mate who’s been staying with Leftwing Idiot over the weekend – she and her fiancé are both born again Christians. My tics inadvertently set her up for an awkward moment:

TH: I love fish.…

I was excited to welcome a big group of friends to the go-karting track where I work this morning. Many of them have Tourettes and we’d never had the chance to meet up and race each other before.

All of us – children, parents, carers, and friends – have first-hand experience of living with Tourettes.…

It’s half term, and this afternoon at work I was sitting with a group of children making clay sculptures to go in the garden. We were talking about my tics because one of the children was new and hadn’t met me before.…

Most of my tics sound identical each time I say them but my, “Biscuit” tic is proving an exception, with two very different pronunciations.

Biscuit Vs Bis-cuit

The first is the whole word spoken quickly, with the emphasis on the first syllable.…

I went out to dinner tonight with Fat Sister, King Russell and some friends. I often worry when eating in restaurants because my tics sometimes make me spill or drop food.

Tonight I got really messy, but for once it had nothing to do with Tourettes.…