The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

In which I reflect on things... Hello, I hope you are well. October half term has arrived and I'm excited to have my first proper Autumnal holiday in my flat. I often find that the start of the holidays for me are a time I can slow down and reflect on things so that's really what this post is about- abstraction is the "state of being lost in thought" This time last year I had the dreaded Covid a year on I can reflect that it was one of the very worst weeks of my life. It definitely changed me in some ways, not least with the fact I haven't spent a day just sat in my flat since because I can't face that cabin fever ever again. I've also tried to avoid the isolation I left and have reconnected with old friends and regularly attended social events in a way I haven't done many years.  I'm somehow already 25% of the way through my teaching course. Whilst I'm still ultra-cautious about what lies ahead, I'm amazed at just how brilliantly things ha...

In which I have a dyspraxic discussion... Today marks the start of Dyspraxia Awareness Week 2022, a week dedicated to raising awareness of the condition I and millions of others have. Whilst most neurodivergent conditions have an awareness week it feels like this one is especially important. There's still plenty of work to be done but conditions like autism, ADHD and dyslexia are now pretty well known to the general public and even more so to those working in education. But dyspraxia has been somewhat left behind and to many remains an unknown condition.  I've discussed dyspraxia quite a bit here in the past but a quick recap feels important. Dyspraxia has been historically known as 'clumsy child syndrome' though that's not a very useful or accurate name. Essentially it is a condition which affects how a brain processes information and this is often visible in the way it affects both fine motor skills (like using a pen or sewing) and gross motor skills (like catchin...

In which I reflect on the death of the Queen... Queen Elizabeth II died this week. In principle, I would say that I am not in favour of a monarchy. It's archaic, a waste of taxpayer's money and tied in with centuries of bloodshed. I've never had much of a strong feeling about this though and I think that's mainly because the Queen was just so fantastic at her job.  It says a lot that just days before she died Her Majesty met new Prime Minister Liz Truss. Truss was, just, the fifteenth Prime Minister of the Queen's reign- she started with Churchill, Eden and Macmillan and ended with May, Johnson and Truss; it's difficult not to think that the standard of PM has declined significantly during her reign. The point is though the Queen was so dedicated to her role even in her later life when I suspect most people would have grown tired of saying "and what do you do?" and being part of the same ceremonies year after year. The moment where I really thought ...

In which I discuss a new green goal... Last week I talked about my turning vegetarian. A week on and it seems to be going well. Physically I actually seem to be feeling better than I have for a long time. This may be because I am eating more healthily in general but the most significant change has been cutting out meat and it seems to be doing me wonders.  Becoming a vegetarian is actually just part of my plans to be more eco-conscious. As I have said, I probably already do a lot more than most people but I'm still being much more wasteful than I could and probably should be. I have therefore set myself the goal of getting as close to producing zero waste as possible. The idea is to get to a point where my rubbish bin is empty and I don't send anything to landfill. In all likelihood there will probably always be some rubbish but I am pretty sure I can reduce it significantly. Since living in my flat I generally fill my wheelie bin about three quarters full by the time it is emp...

In which I make a lifestyle change... Summer 2022. I walk past the local park, a slice of British recreation ground that currently looks like it is auditioning for the Australian Outback. Everywhere is dusty and brown rather than the vibrant green it should be at this time of year. I cross over the river and note that I've never seen it with so little water in. Every now and then there'd be a plume of smoke in the distance as another local heathland caught fire in the tinder dry conditions.  This summer has been unlike any I've ever experienced. In the UK you expect it to be raining constantly but here at least we went over two months where no recordable rain fell. 2018 was one of the hottest summers ever and it's thought that the chances of the UK experiencing a summer as hot or even hotter than 2018 is now one in ten. Due to the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that's about thirty times more likely than it was before the industrial revolution. Some scena...

In which I consider how to move forward... This week I had a free day and found myself heading for a day trip to the university city of Oxford. I concluded that it's my sort of place with overheard conversations being especially high-brow what with discussions on molecular physics and a tour guide discussing the connection between Edmund Halley and 'Captain' James Cook (though I did have to restrain myself from correcting the aforementioned guide for his information wasn't very accurate- I should know given my committed impersonation of Cook in a Wiltshire school in 2011).  The only place in the city I'd been before was the Pitt Rivers Museum, which is unusual as it displays it's huge collection of anthropological artefacts from around the world by type. This means you get display cases full of musical instruments, or looms or anything you can think of. It's a remarkable place that was easily worth a repeat visit given you could probably go a hundred times a...

In which I discuss by ongoing self-confidence struggles... Self-confidence. Confidence comes from the Latin  fidere  which means 'to trust' so self-confidence is to trust yourself. Some people seem to find this really easy but it's not something that comes easily to me.  I was getting ready for a party recently when I had a complete crisis in body image. For a moment I looked at the person in the mirror and thought that there was no way I could make it presentable and considered whether I should just give up and stay home.  Fortunately I managed to force myself past this moment but it's occurred to me since then that barely a day goes by where I don't despair at some aspect of my appearance. Body image in women is a subject that is rightly discussed quite a lot but it's not something that is discussed anywhere near as much for men. Research by the Mental Health Foundation found that 28% of men over the age of 18 have felt anxious because of body image issues. I ...

Previously on The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan : I began taking part in The Wildlife Trusts 30 Days Wild event, doing one wild thing every day for the month of June. (See  Part I ) Before I reflect on my wild month, here's what I got up to in the second half of June.  Day 16: I needed to pop to the local shop and decided to sit for a while in the churchyard along the way. My local churchyard is a really spot, full of flowers in the spring and home to several sizeable oak trees which provide a home for so much wildlife.  Day 17: I happened to look about of my kitchen window to see a squirrel running along the back fence. Whilst I have seen the occasional squirrel on my street despite the lack of any trees of note, I've never seen one at the back and I hope my attempts to make my yard more wildlife friendly as well as the growth of some plants along the row of gardens is beginning to attract more wildlife.  Day 18: A lovely walk along the River Stour today. It'...

In which I meet a man on a cliff... (Admittedly Bournemouth does not look like this) It was a sunny June day and I was walking along Bournemouth's East Cliff. Suddenly a man appeared in front of me and asked if anyone had already stopped me. "No" I replied and inexplicably I still found myself stood there. I have a blanket policy of not stopping for people on the street. They usually want to sell you something or more often give money to charity and I am not going to part with my hard-earned money to some person who is interrupting my day.  For some reason I didn't immediately dismiss the man. Perhaps it was because he seemed genuinely friendly, perhaps I was in an unusually tolerant mood due to the sun or perhaps I'd already walked five miles and my oxygen level was depleted. I had stopped and despite myself I now was now committed to the conversation.  "Do you agree that the bible is the word of God?" asked the man. Ah. This man didn't want my mone...

In which I do one wild thing a day... The Wildlife Trusts run an event called  30 Days Wild  in June. The idea is to do one wild thing every day in the month and if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you may have seen that I am taking part this year. In this blog post I'm going to share what I did for the first fifteen days, going into a bit more detail about some things than I have done in my social media stories.  Day 1: I did a few jobs in my backyard, the most significant being building a new planter designed for climbing plants. Since I've moved in I've wanted to get some greenery on the large fence panel at the back of the yard and now I've finally got a new fence I've been able to do it. I'm on year two of my gradual mission to add some greenery and life to my small yard and have managed to add loads of flowers this year.  Day 2: I had arranged to visit my friend, her husband and their kids at a local country park. Before they arrived I spent some tim...

Previously on The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan: I began an odyssey through film history ( See the 1920s post here ) I'm deep into a big project to watch my way through the book  1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die . I'm pleased to say I've now watched every film in the book that was released in the 1930s! It's been a fascinating journey so far, watching cinema develop in front of my very eyes and observing the world itself change too. Whilst Charlie Chaplin was still making silent films throughout the 1930s, everyone else was now making sound films. Chaplin remained famous but the decade saw the rise of the comedy group. The Marx Brothers have both Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera  on the list and I struggled with them. I enjoyed Laurel and Hardy in Sons of the Desert a lot more and the pair exist as a middle ground between the verbal gags of the Marx Brothers and the pratfalls of the silent era. Many of the genres of film we know and love today were refined in...

In which I recall a celebrity experience... I've previously written here about my celebrity encounters including accidentally giving celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh a pen and bumping elbows with the Archbishop of Canterbury. But there was one celebrity encounter which wasn't awkward at all and turned out to be really inspiring.  I was about eleven or twelve I think and most weeks a magazine or newsletter would arrive in the post for me from one environmental organisation or another, be it from the RSPB or in this case the local Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. Their quarterly newsletter for kids included a writing competition where you had to write a five hundred word short story on about the environment.  This was very much in my wheelhouse and I barely had to think about it before an idea developed in my head. A quick bit of research later- well not that quick because this was still the days of dial-up internet- and I'd identified the star of my story. Withi...