First, Tesco have upgraded their trolleys for disabled children. Little Nutter now has a padded seat and a more comfortable seat belt. Which he actually snapped at the fish counter when I said he couldn’t have a mackerel to play with.

It also has a smaller trolley capacity and a nice steel bar in just the right place to bruise your shins when you push it.

Cheers, Tesco.

Then I learned a valuable lesson this morning: that even when you think you understand Autism, it will remind you that you know nothing. In a PE lesson I called a boy by name and threw a basketball to him.

I didn’t tell him to catch it.

Thankfully his nose stopped bleeding after five minutes or so.

And finally, a note about targets.

You only fail to achieve your targets in one of three circumstances:
1. the person who set them was incompetent
2. you are incompetent
3. you are being set up to fail

By and large, everyone achieves their targets. But that is not good. Because the first casualty of efficient progress towards targets is professional integrity – because the only way to exceed expected progress to targets is by setting aside all of the other stuff you should be doing.

One day, the establishment will catch up with what everyone else knows: that setting targets and measuring performance against them is a profoundly misguided way of ensuring that everyone does their job properly. Targets distract the conscientious from their duties, provide a charter for the workshy, and demotivate everyone else.

And, worse of all, they present a false impression of success when an organisation is strangled by bureaucracy.

Today, we took Tiny Flirt to see the Grand Turk which is currently in Whitby. We had promised him a pirate ship, and a replica of a contemporary 18th Century warship ticked all of the four-year-old’s boxes – and then some.

He spent the entire day charging around shouting “aaaaaarrrrgh!” and admiring the cannons.

The fun part is the discovery of what service on a pirate ship does to a four year old. Well, I say fun…
…but exuberant and overexcited is bad enough on its own. Add the stimulus of a ship full of guns, sails, swords and ropes…

I think that Tiny Flirt, at the tender age of four, is feeling the need to sow his oats. And he hit upon a scheme yesterday to pull some nurses.

After breakfast he pulled his pyjamas off and, once naked, took the opportunity to charge around the house and try to rugby tackle the cat. He missed, flung himself headlong into the sofa, and hurt his neck and shoulder quite badly.

It doesn’t matter if you think it is only a minor strain, sometimes you have no choice but to be a cautious parent. I dressed him and took him to casualty.

When we arrived he told the receptionist that he was very sad, and had brought along a teddy bear to keep him safe. She didn’t stand a chance against Tiny Flirt’s onslaught – she was putty in his hands.

In triage, he climbed onto the nurse’s knee and showed her where it hurt. Then he said that he would feel better if he had a cuddle. As we left the cubicle, I swear I heard her phoning divorce lawyers and shouting to Tiny Flirt, “Call me!”

I don’t think that the doctor ever imagined that he swung in this particular direction, but he was besotted from the moment Tiny Flirt greeted him with the words, “Are you going to make me better?”

In X-ray he asked the radiographer to keep his bear safe and promised to be brave. I’m not sure what spell he cast over her, but it definitely involved the single tear that rolled down his cheek as he stood very still, and she actually cried out in pain as he left the X-ray department, and her life, forever.

And finally, when he was discharged, he smiled at the nurse and shouted, “Am I better? Oh, thank you! I love you!” and threw his arms around her.

I don’t know what it is that he has, but by God I want it. And if I could bottle it, I would be so rich that Bill Gates would look like a scrounger.