That’s the end of our sex life.

There’s no lock on our bedroom door - so instead we have a length of spelter that is wedged between the bookcase and the door to stop the children from disturbing us. Crude and not quite up to expectations - but then so is sex.

This afternoon, Tiny Flirt had a tantrum. St Spelter was thrown off the balcony at the top of the stairs. His back was broken.

He has now been canonised as the Patron Saint of Infant-Induced Abstention.

We didn’t get anything done over the past couple of days because Darling Wifey’s ex-boyfriend came to visit - with his wife and delightful nearly-two-year-old son. The ‘ex-boyfriend‘ bit is quite funny - it happened when they were teenagers and had known each other so well for so long that it just didn’t work. They were too embarrassed to snog! Ahh - bless.

Being friends with someone never stopped me. I tried to snog every girl I knew in school. Not that I succeeded very often, but it does give me a small opportunity to poke fun. OK, so my percentage hit-rate isn’t as good as hers and I got a reputation for trying it on - but I was never too embarrassed to get a snog! And I’m still not!

Anyway, I digress. The aforementioned ex (known by my Father-in-Law as “Igor” because of his excessive height) is also Little Madam’s Most Adored Godfather. And Tiny Flirt thought it was fantastic having a friend in the house just a couple of months younger than him. 48 hours of partying. (Little Nutter shut himself in his room in disgust. He absolutely refused to socialise, and only came out when we showed him his coat and a photo of the National Railway Museum.)

Tonight was good. I walked the dog, Darling Wifey contacted some friends of hers from the USA and persuaded them to include York in their whistle-stop tour of England - she’ll drive down to Cambridge tomorrow to collect them - and then we sat and read books while the ice melted in our G&Ts.

Tomorrow, I have to cancel the floor-sander I had booked for the front room as we cannot afford a new carpet and the old one is hideous. At least with varnished floorboards the substances deposited there by puppies and Little Nutters is easily cleaned off. However, we will be playing host to an assortment of Scots and Americans (did I say that Helen was popping in as well? So cool!) so the DIY is off and instead we spent a small fortune in Betty’s, the best café in York. Cakes all round.

Then, at the weekend, it’s the New Year. More visitors. Another one of Darling Wifey’s old schoolfriends who is now a vicar, his wife and (this is another coincidence) his ex-girlfriend.

It’s going to be a good evening. I can feel it in my bones.

The debate about the cure for Autism rages on - which is remarkable, since such a fanciful thing doesn’t even exist.

The forum that Darling Wifey and I set up as an online support group (see the links) is no exception to this “hot topic.” Should people with Autism be cured? And if so, for whose benefit is the cure given?

Darling Wifey posted (on the aforementioned support group) that she would take a cure for Little Nutter without hesitation. It has long been a big cause of stress that the old cliche “disabled child = disabled family” is true in our case. For this, she received such intense and personal criticism that she has left the support group that she set up. Ironic? Hmmm… Let me see…

The big “however” in this debate, though, is the extent of the Autism and what, exactly, is meant by the word “cure.”

Are we talking about an individual with Autism who has an unsociable manner, or someone who simply cannot survive in the world without 24/7 supervision? And it does look like the only difference between those who use the word “cure” and those who shriek with outrage in response to it, is the recognition that the modification or eradication of extreme Autistic behaviours to make it possible for people with Autism to live independent lives will inevitably suppress Autistic Spectrum behaviours.

If Autism is the child, then we cannot interfere at all without losing the child. If it is right to intervene, then we must accept that this will change the child. If this is true then ABA, gluten-free, dairy-free and all those other interventions are no different to the miraculous “cure” that doesn’t exist and which is so desperately not wanted.

All interventions change the child. All attempts to mitigate or ameliorate the symptoms of Autism affect the personality. To deny this is self-delusional folly. To say that the removal of all Autistic traits is unwanted is a reasonable thing to say, but just as a blind man cannot read any book until he is taught Braille, so a man with Autism must learn to overcome the more extreme of his Autistic traits if he is to survive in our society.

It is right that we publish books in Braille so that the blind can read. To read they must learn Braille.

1. The logs spent at least six weeks leaning against a barn before I bought them. They are soaked through. This makes them spit. Red hot embers are not nice things to have landing on your bum.

2. The logs are also home to wildlife, and the last thing I want to encounter at a romantic moment is a newly dispossessed woodlouse who wants to ‘have a little chat’ about the conflagration in his home.

3. Lighting the fire isn’t exactly easy, especially when firelighters are forbidden because “the paraffin smell is a turn-off.” Not only that, but spending forty minutes working up a sweat with a chopper may sound erotic, but it isn’t.

4. Carpet burns.

Ancarett referred to the debate in the Autistic community in the USA about just how much of a “cure” for Autism people actually want.

She referrred to this New York Times article

I’m interested in the way that searching for a cure for Autism is compared with the historical attempts to cure left-handedness. (My grandfather was left-handed, and forced to learn to write with his right hand. All the family knew that he was ambidextrous - but at work he was strictly right-handed until he retired in the late 1960s.)

I suppose the debate is about where you draw the line between Autistic idiosyncrasies and eccentricities and challenging, antisocial behaviour. It isn’t appropriate for your child to scream and behave violently - but conversely, Applied Behaviour Analysis has been described by some Auters as an abusive therapy that represses what can sometimes be their only form of expression. Our Christmas tree lights are programmable. Several of the flash patterns appear to hurt Little Nutter - is it reasonable to “train” him not to cry out in pain?

Recent guest have been dragged to the front door by him because he doesn’t like visitors. Poor old Bart didn’t even get that. Little Nutter took one look at him, shouted “Oh no!” and ran off to his bedroom to hide under his bed.

The “contact” we have made with Little Nutter in the past six to eight months is nothing short of miraculous. OK, he is still largely non-verbal, and what few words he can say are spoken either with the wrong vowels or without them at all. However, all this progress was made by intensive education therapy - and a hell of a lot of adjustment by the rest of the family.

On the one hand, when do we stop forcing him to fit into neurotypical behaviour patterns? On the other hand, when does the rest of the family get a break from constant adjustment, accommodation of his needs and toleration of antisocial and violent behaviour, and spend a little time looking after their needs?

I think that, in a past life, Little Nutter must have held a senior post in Cromwell’s New Model Army. His reaction to the Christmassy fusion of pagan and religious iconography every year is quite impressive.

The first casualty was the tree itself. Within twelve hours of its erection in the front room (by the way, Darling Wifey, you owe me £5 for getting the word “erection” into a blog entry without any sexual references) the tree was Bobbitted and the fairy atop it was defrocked. The baubles were scattered across the house, the tinsel fed to the puppy and the tree itself redecorated with sticky, mushy Cheerios.

Then there was the Crib. This is a fine, Catholic tradition: we take our Mariolatrous statues of the Mother of God and surround them with even more idols of shepherds, Magi and even St Joseph the Cuckold (Patron Saint of Revisionist Liberals.) Then, on Christmas day, we complete the scene with an improbably angelic little statuette of the infant Jesus - usually looking like a perky toddler…

(A quick aside for another joke:
As a reward for their piety and devotion, Ss Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola are transported to Bethlehem to witness the Nativity.
St Francis is consumed with ecstasy at the sight of the Saviour.
St John weeps in the presence of God, in all his glory, incarnate as a helpless child.
St Ignatius steps up to Joseph and asks, “Have you had any thoughts about the child’s education?”)

Anyway, back to the crib. Little Nutter didn’t like it; it was somehow incomplete. Enter Thomas the Tank Engine just behind the Choir of Angels. And, of course, a few sections of track assisted greatly with the transportation of sheep to the stable.

In fact, once we’ve started re-organising the crib, lets get rid of all those people. And add more animals. And trains.

The crib has been moved to the front porch…

Let’s be honest: the only reason I’m not a priest is that I like sex.

But first, what did I gain?
The right to choose where I live and what job I do
A limited amount of creative independence regarding my clothes. (I hate all collars.)
The unrestrained adoration of a tall, leggy blonde (Little Madam)
A woman in my bed (Darling Wifey prefers to think of this as ‘having half a bed to sleep in.‘)
Sundays off

And what did I lose?
Well, I don’t get the chance of revenge after Confession
…
There must another reason why I’m not a priest…

Oh yes - that would be Darling Wifey.

Today I met a consultant occupational health - erm, consultant.

He is quite a high-powered medical professional; he only works for the health authority two days a month. The rest of the time he spends doing consultancy work (what else?) for large multinational corporations and government departments, telling them how to maximise the health of their employees.

I sat in his plush office in his private buildings in the middle of a very expensive part of York, and he perused his notes before looking at me across the vast acreage of his leather-topped desk and saying,

“Another bloody teacher!”

So while the government tells employers that all staff should be looked after and given proper breaks during the working day, we government employees are exempt from the “minimum break from work” legislation, and are also being told that we must work for fifteen years longer than our peers in the private sector are retired.

The Department for Education and Skills tells us that proper training is essential for anyone to get the most out of their job; yet, according to this consultant, it is “the worst example of them all.” Yes, it is true, a teacher can work in a classroom. Does this mean that the teacher doesn’t need training in the administrative tasks they must do?

But training teachers in these things is not politically expedient. It doesn’t enhance the teachers’ ability to deliver the current Government’s latest initiative - it does something far, far worse.

It makes the teachers good all the time - and the last thing that any Government wants to do is make teachers more effective when the Opposition comes to power…

There is an affliction that is worse than Autism.

It causes devastation worse than smearing shit on the bedroom walls, worse than tearing the doors off the telly cabinet and buiding towers with the contents, worse than throwing lunch onto the floor because the table is needed for a train track.

This affliction is known; it strikes terror wherever it appears. And there is neither cure nor treatment. You simply have to deal with it.

That affliction: a two-year-old boy.

Tiny Flirt, that incorrigible seducer of women, has metamorphosed into a menace.

This morning he woke the household at 6am by shouting “BREAKFAST!” at the top of his voice, and then spent four hours charging around the house in his sister’s old ballet shoes, a pair of Harry Potter style brushed cotton PJs and a Bob the Builder hard hat, growling at the top of his voice at everything. He demanded food by pointing at cupboards and shouting “MORE NOW!”

And when he got what he wanted, he would smile sweetly at you, say “Thankyou” in the sweetest voice imaginable, and give you a huge, wet, snotty kiss. Then he would fill his nappy with the most foul and offensive poo ever created and say, “Look, Daddy, poo for you. Good Daddy.”

I got my letter from the London Marathon people today. My application for a run wasn’t drawn - and they are very sorry.

In compensation they can offer me a guaranteed place in the Edinburgh Marathon in June.

Except…

Last month I had Stage 4 Hypertension (that’s blood pressure of 220/185, guys. They should sell that as an illegal narcotic for what it does to your head.)

Plus the injury to my knee in the Geordie Half Marathon (aka “The Great North Run“) has turned out to be a moderately serious problem with something called a “capsule,” and to fix that I need more than six months of exercise to build up my knee muscles. Well, six months would be fine - but I wouldn’t be able to start training for the marathon until I had successfully built up the necessary muscle bulk in my knee. Which means I really can’t start training until May - which isn’t sensible if the Marathon is in June.

What can I say? Damn!

I love running. It’s one of the few things I do with no resistance; I take a step forwards and guess what? Nothing pushes me back!

But I really can’t do this Marathon, can I?