I thought mibbes it was just me, I couldn’t figure out the association either

*edit darn, too slow

I loved it, it was a well chosen route with great people 😊 Cheers tj for organising it, I’m definitely up for another one

What makes racial abuse so very much worse than all the other abuse that is considered ‘normal’ in football?

Under the Equality Act there are 9 protected characteristics including disability, gender, religion and “race”, some characteristics are more obvious than others. You can’t really change the colour of your skin if you’re black, you can hide a crucifix but people are obviously black whilst going to the shops or on the pitch. The level of discrimination black people face is shocking, by 5yrs old my kid was trying to whiten their skin to try to fit in, by 6 they wanted to die.

The abuse is all relevant and is no worse than the those discriminated on religion, it’s more consistent though. It’s the unfair treatment in by teachers, it’s the nasty comments from peers, it’s looks they get in shops, it’s the names shouted across the street, it’s the monthly stop and search, it’s not getting the job because you don’t have the blonde hair and St Tropez orange glow. It’s the verbal and physical abuse they face daily, that’s why. Nobody is saying that another group don’t have hard time, all abuse and discrimination should be treated as intolerable

@sarawak what’s the link between Amal and the Duchess of Sussex? Other than the colour of their skin

Kuco’s Dynamite, dynamite goes bang! Which slowly leads me to Speedy J, there’s logic in my nonsense 🙂

Nicolas has some absolute gems. I’ll have an alcoholic forfeit, since it’s the honerable thing to do 😀 🏴

Highlandman shhhhhhh

Why raise the ridiculous amounts footballers are paid now? Surely the issue is that we treat racism so trivially

Shit, this is happening 😳 I hope you all have your excuses ready; flat tyres, kid commitments and the kitchen spider just died are all acceptable. I’ll be there, I’m looking forward to meeting you all 😊

There maybe a large elaborate conspiracy theory, but there needn’t be such connections for agencies to react strangely against whistle blowing. I certainly wouldn’t have believed the lengths they would go to, and my issues weren’t nearly as horrific and incriminating as hers only an MSP or two, council chief executive, the Head of an education board and a few teachers

Thanks @mrmonkfinger, I’ve had a meeting and I’m awaiting the outcome. I’ve said that I don’t want to see him fired but I want him kept well away from me and any other women or vulnerable people.

My autism is often weaponised against me so I have prepared a few arguments to counter them. People often use autism as an excuse to treat people negatively, it’s amazing how many people assume that autistic people don’t experience feelings or emotions just because we don’t know how to read or express them. Whereas we often experience them more intensely, hence meltdowns and shutdowns

It’s a fantastic opportunity, even if the courses aren’t exactly what you’d like to do it will still give you extra earning potential and it will provide you with more transferable skills. However, have you really got the time at the moment?

I tried studying when my kids were younger, I absolutely loved it but I found that it was about 10pm before I could settle down to do my homework. I was only getting 3 hrs of sleep a night so that I could fit it all in, even then it was a struggle to keep up as the workload increased.

Could you ask to defer it this year whilst you and the wee one settle into the school routine?

I’m not sure which version I prefer

Dr Sarah Bargeila has conducted research into the gender gap in diagnosis and the implications for those affected. As part of her study she interviewed women with a late diagnosis to find out how it has affected them “… the reward for trying hard to be normal was to be ignored…”

There’s a link in the article to her research

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/autism-young-women

I thought it was brilliant. I guess the real horror was the reference on how insidious racism is and how white people benefit from it

Aye, totally tj. It’s not just the pity though, autism has become a massive profit generator with so many professionals employed in “support” services. Yet only 16%of autistic adults are employed

We’re really quite lucky, we get the first week, the second day and the whole month of April 😀 every year! Makes me wonder why we need so much for people just to be aware of autism.

This is often a difficult time for autistic people, as neurotypicals share their tragic stories of difficult kids and socially inept adults whom they’re sure must be on the spectrum because they’re a jerk, whilst raising money to provide respite for poor parents. If you listen to the language used, especially by Autism Speaks and associated charities it’s often quite negative or demeaning to the individual with autism. Awareness just means you know we exist, acceptance means that autistic people matter.</span>

We’ve still a long way to go when people are still speaking for us rather than with us

Cheers tj for organising this, I’m really looking forward to it and meeting you all

She’s singing in Yoruba about going to church

@joshvegas 19 is a lot of hands to have between your thighs

There’s a few things solutions I can think of that wouldn’t involve parting with the pony. It’s not just a pet, it’s a lifestyle which will be a very good one when she qualifies.

What sort of livery do you have? Grass livery is £20 – £30pw and I’d expect hay and a shelter for that in most areas, it’s also better for the horse. Have you considered working livery? A lot of riding schools don’t own their own horses, there’s strict welfare rules which prevents them from being over used and you often get free use of facilities too. You could also look for a sharer, and split the costs but you retain ownership.

How often is the trailer used? If she doesn’t use it often it’s normally fairly easy and cheap to get a lift or book a space in a lorry.

Fundamentally, I don’t think so. Certain traits are hard wired into your neurology, people may, given the right circumstances change but there’s always the possibility that a trigger may set off the usual patterns of behaviour such as a stressor response.

Having said that, I’m always trying to improve my personality but then I’m autistic which will never change no matter how hard I try.

It’s a tough one, feeling for you and I hope that you make the choice which is right for you

I don’t want to use the thread as a personal blog, this story makes me feel uncomfortable enough but I do want to give an insight as to what it’s like being autistic and this is a good example as to the difficulties we can face.

Agnosia is often a comorbid condition with autism, it’s the inability to recognise sensation in one’s self and others, such as emotion or expression. I find it difficult to distinguish whether or not I’m happy/sad, excited/nervous or angry/passionate, never mind figuring out what someone else is feeling, my kids know to use words but most adults don’t verbalise their feelings and so it’s difficult to interpret people’s intentions.

Like many autistic people I don’t show emotions, unless they are extreme and come bursting out. So my default is friendly and chilled, I don’t treat anyone differently whether I’ve known them for days or minutes or if I’m comfortable or angry with them. This is often misinterpreted as too friendly or as being romantically interested in someone and can put me in a vulnerable position.

I could use today as an example. At work I will speak to anyone, making a point of saying hello to my colleagues as I pass them. I have helped a few people when they have been in difficult situations, such as helping migrant staff find accommodation and I seem to be the “go to” for advice. However a colleague misconstrued my friendliness for availability, I’ve never said more than hello and smiled as I do to everyone. He doesn’t speak English so they decided to pictorialy describe what they would like to do to me whilst at work, I’m not payed enough for that shit.

He’s employed by a subcontractor and I approached his boss and explained what had happened and how uncomfortable I felt. His immediate response was to blame me for being “too friendly” and that I should keep my distance, despite the fact we work at different sites and I’ve not even seen the guy for over a month. He then proceeded to give me advice on my personal safety, like not being alone in my office or out in the field. I walked away but he called me back, to tell me that I need to check my conduct. I asked the contractor if he thought that I was asking for it because my skirt was too short (I wear riggers, dickies oversized work trousers and my work provides me with t-shirts and fleeces that I could set up camp in)

Thankfully my own (new) boss is a lot more understanding and professional, but now I have to go through a meeting and make a statement

@Cougar +1

I’d also like to see:-

Free public transport and childcare, this would remove barriers to employment allowing more people to work if they wish to.

Housing first scheme, this would provide security allowing people to focus on their issues without fear of losing their home if they mess up.

Universal income, reducing administration the costs of social security and recognises that productivity isn’t just measured financially.

Legalise recreational drugs, this would reduce the prison population by about half and save a fortune. This would be spent on rehabilitation services.

Income cap, like in Japan where managers can’t earn more than 26% more than their staff. (figure may be wrong)

4 day week, it’s been proven to increase productivity and decrease sick leave. It also allows for a better work/life balance.

No head of state or PM, the government would follow the consensus of the majority unless it infringed upon human rights, like the death penalty would.

Basically the state would be to provide services and you’d be free to do as you please as long as it’s not detrimental to other people.

🏴

I found this

<h2 id=”asking-for-a-date-of-birth”>Asking for a date of birth</h2>
You can only ask for someone’s date of birth on an application form if they must be a certain age to do the job, for example selling alcohol.

You can ask someone their date of birth on a separate equality monitoring form. You should not let the person selecting or interviewing candidates see this form.

on https://www.gov.uk/employer-preventing-discrimination/recruitment
<h2 id=”questions-you-cannot-ask-when-recruiting”></h2>

paradise

what do you do for the day job?

@mrmonkfinger sorry I missed your post earlier. I work in a forestry nursery as a handpicker, a bit like a personal shopper for forestry and conservation projects. I spend most of my day out in the field, which is bliss, but the “shed” is busy with about 50-100 people in there. I’ve been given my own space to work in as I found that working amongst the others hindered me, I couldn’t concentrate with the noise and people kept moving my stuff 🧐

I love my job (pay’s crap) and having my own space has allowed me to develop my role into something I find really interesting and rewarding

Although it’s not expressly illegal they do need to be able to justify their request, reference number generating sounds like discrimination by the back door. Contact the Equality Advisory Support Service, they should be able to help (although it probably won’t affect your wife) and prevent them from asking further applicants

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/contact-us/equality-advisory-and-support-service

Music has been a massive part of my life, when CD players came out we ate beans on toast for a month as my dad went to do the monthly shopping and came back with one 😂

I began developing my own taste in music in the late 80’s and began going to gigs and then clubs that my friends were doing, some were extremely successful and influential in the music industry and continue to develop new sounds. TBH, it was the more the availability of drugs that would appeal to me rather than who was playing.

I still listen to the old stuff, I’ve not long got a master tape of Lenny Dee playing at Pure, Summerhouse or possibly Soma in ’93 (it’s all a bit hazy) I’ve still got the connections and they share the music they’ve found on various apps, so my tastes are still developing.

The tune association thread has led me to some stuff if not heard and quite like, I think dezb’s taste is similar to mine :-\ 😂

Although there’s limited scope to answering the questions in ropers test it’s more detailed than the official ones and it’s based upon the questions that the psychiatrist asks in the assessments. My assessment took 4hrs on 2 separate days and was by no means as intensive as it would have been if I was younger, I was expected to have developed coping strategies and not in need of any support services. In the assessment the psychiatrist wasn’t interested in the answers that much, they are only “traits” which are observable across several personality types but he paid a lot of attention to the way in which I moved, reacted and how I arrived at my answers which indicated my thought process. A lot of people think that autistic people have a “male brain” and empathy deficit, as Simon Baron-Cohen advocates. However his theory is unable to address a lot of queries about autism, I’d even go so far as to say it perpetrates detrimental myths. Gina Rippon is closer to a definitive description of as to how autism presents, by examining the neurology of the autistic brain rather than perceived traits

Unicorns are filled with glitter and dreams, there’s no substance to them

I could concede on that point @batfink but I do think that the use of a certain western body type ideal of 5’7/6′, straight hair (always long for women) St Tropez orange and a bmi of 22, whether it’s male or female is detrimental to people’s wellbeing. Don’t confuse my views with prudishness, I’ve lived nextdoor to a brothel in the Netherlands; but I think that there should be a better representation in the media of “normal” bodies. By normal I don’t just mean different weights but also different ethnicities are underrepresented.

That’s the Christmas shopping sorted, do you think they do a vegan version?

Clearly the correct course of action in our gender equal PC world would be to grab/cup the perpetrator back and see how he likes it?

An eye for an eye n’ all that? We’d all be blind. He’d probably see that as a come on anyway. In a gender equal PC world he’d probably not do that in the first place, as he’d have a bit of respect for other people’s personal space and boundaries. If he did do it in the above utopia he’d probably do a course on mindfulness and apologise to the victim. I find a swift slap makes them think twice, but then they just move on to the next inebriated woman.

As it is he could be done for assault