Little Nutter pissed all over his room last night. Again. And as the family member with the strongest stomach, it falls on me to clean it up.

So far today, then, I have:
read every english language sport report of this morning’s Grand Prix I can find on the internet
been shopping
ironed some clothes
taken the children to a birthday party
cooked lunch
loaded the dishwasher
mown the lawn
trimmed the hedges
had a rant at some moron on a forum about Political Correctness (which I think is the most effective smokescreen for bigotry ever invented)
found the only Post Office in a thirty mile radius with a Sunday collection, and posted a letter
flown and crashed my r/c model helicopter
ordered the parts I need to mend the above
bought a new, bigger, faster, better r/c model helicopter
opened a bottle of wine
sorted some laundry
deleted some spammers from ASDFriendly
proof read a chapter of Darling Wifey’s novel and discussed the improvements she has written into it
de-scaled the coffee machine
laughed at the schoolboy bloopers in Darling Wifey’s marking
cleaned up after the tiler who did the en-suite yesterday
mopped the kitchen floor
thought about vacuuming the house (steady on!)
played a word in an online game of Scrabble
cleaned the dog’s ears
read the Sunday Times
and written this blog.

I’m running out of excuses.

Just three weeks ago I quoted this comment from the Autism Hub:

But there can be no debate if one side not only refuses to listen to its opponents but is also deaf to relevant facts from independent sources that do not support its point of view.

It seems that while the Autism Hub are interested in debate on their terms and on their topics of choice (cures, causes and similar concerns) they are not interested in debate that is not on their terms - the cost to carers, and the massive difference between the HF autism they represent and the LF autism represented by carers who speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

They are profoundly deaf to those sources, because they cannot support Autism Hub’s point of view.

I’ve never been a ‘hobby’ sort of person. All of my previous activities have been “Personal Enrichment Activities” in accordance with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s “Curriculum 2000″ guidelines, so my activities have widened my experience, contributed to the community, made demands on my skills and provided me with opportunities.

Bollocks to that. Now I have a proper hobby, and Darling Wifey is just relishing the excuse to shake her head at me and call me a sad, geeky little man. Well, it’s fun. So mock to your heart’s content, my love. I’ll keep on listening until my batteries have recharged, and then I’m off out again.

I am completely and utterly addicted to model helicopter flying. And the best bit is that flying does bugger-all for anybody else. It is a hobby that is totally self-indulgent, does nothing for the community, and only provides me with opportunities to spend even more money on bigger and better models and fly them, too.

Last week I pushed my little heli too hard and broke it in a complicated way. This meant that this morning I had to go into a model shop and look at things called “swashplates” and “pushrods” under magnifying glasses. Then I had to spend ages rebuilding my helicopter, flying it for a bit, taking it apart, adjusting something, rebuilding it, flying it again, drinking coffee and scratching my chin, taking it apart again…

And just to make the model more realistic, I’ve bought it a few bits and bobs to make it into a replica Medevac helicopter from MASH.

How hard will Darling Wifey hit me if I call her “Hotlips?”

Little Madam used to attend a tiny village school in the middle of nowhere. Ever since primary school performance records have been kept, this tiny village school has achieved the highest mark - 100%

Little Madam was assessed as being top of her year group in that school. Then we moved to a city. The primary school in the city ignored the reports she arrived with, and conducted their own baseline assessments.

I cannot even begin to speculate about reasons, all I can do is observe that the city school decided to declare that Little Madam was below average - ‘nice but dim,’ if you like. In countless meetings with school staff, we were told that we had unrealistic expectations. We suspected that they had prepared a low baseline assessment in order to inflate their “value-added” scores, but no school can tolerate an accusation like that. We were told that if we didn’t approve of the way they did things, there were other schools in York.

Good recommendation.

Little Madam now attends a public school with a global reputation for academic excellence, one which has a reason for accurate assessment that English state schools do not: their salaries depend upon accuracy and achievement, not spin doctored figures. And after just 12 months, she is back where she was before - at the top of the class, being encouraged to work harder rather than told not to worry her pretty little head.

The state education system in this country is the worst example of wilful self-delusion imaginable. It is a network of hundreds of education authorities, thousands of schools and countless professionals all admiring the Emperor’s New Clothes. And they are doing real and lasting damage.

This morning began, as usual, with a large mug of coffee in my hand, my laptop on my lap and a cat on my shoulder. I like half an hour or so of peace & quiet before the rest of the family wakes up.

My gentle start to the day was interrupted, though, by reading the latest updates on the Autism Hub, in particular this comment about the MMR & Autism controversy:

But there can be no debate if one side not only refuses to listen to its opponents but is also deaf to relevant facts from independent sources that do not support its point of view.

Once again, all I can say is that both sides of the MMR debate have lost their minds. Both sides are so hell-bent on slinging mud at each other, destroying each others’ credibility and reputations, smearing each other until they are pointed at in the street and laughed at, that they make me sick.

The less said about the anti-MMR lobby, the better. I’m not interested in contributing to that bit of the debate.

But as for the “scientific” pro-MMR lobby, which has used the smokescreen of its own sanctimony to remove from the agenda the one or two valid questions about the MMR that they should be addressing - how bloody dare they imply that they are independent, disinterested and objective? They have exploited the MMR-Autism hysteria in order to silence any and all criticism of the triple MMR vaccine, and some of that criticism is valid.

The fact that a criticism is expressed by a discredited source, or a problem incidentally discovered during the course of a professional’s misconduct, does not make the problem go away. And if a scientist was really independent, disinterested and objective, then the pursuit of the truth would not be sacrificed in order to crush the dissenter.

So that little irritation got me in the ’school mood’ this morning. Darling Wifey has been running around the house this morning, preparing for the imminent arrival of her mother - who is babysitting the kids during the training days. This involves doing things like hiding the school shirts we bought from the official uniform supplier last week, because grandma insists that the ones from Gateshead market are just as good and doesn’t want to know that school sends us letters of disapproval when our kids’ shirts aren’t exactly the same shade as their classmates’ shirts. So Darling Wifey is ‘in the zone,’ too.

Hi-ho, hi-ho…