Ben Newmark

This morning there are birds singing and part of the sky is not black but darkest grey. It isn't spring. But it is the promise of it.

Watching Troll 2 on Netflix. Every bit of this would be better if they'd got Saga from The Bridge as the main character.

Lol this was in the charity shop I bought it from and only noticed after you pointed it out.

Also I spoke too soon was not over my cold and now feel dreadful.

Over on Instagram there's a boy and his dad trying to pay back a hundred thousand pound loan the father took out to make clothing with fidgets in it through social media views. This doesn't feel at all ok.

Yep. And the symptoms of it seem to be expanding and expanding. Now they're sometimes even contradictory. It feels hard to see a label as useful if it describes a huge range of behaviours.

Yes. I worry rhetoric is running ahead of robust science and it's all become very ideologically charged. Instagram is wild for this.

Diagnostic overshadowing..?

Black acoustic guitar with bluebird decals.

Just bought a guitar and at the getting over a cold so my voice sounds amazing for blues/folk stuff. Good times!

No review I've read of the brilliant King Sorrow by Joe Hill has pointed out how influenced by Donna Tartt's the Secret History it is.

Horns.

Du dudlah du dudlah du dudlah du dudlah JIMBO..

Absolutely fair take. And even more given what we all pretty much know he was up to at school.

It's taken him longer to get there but I think Joe Hill is now just as good a writer as Stephen King.

Half-serious suggestion for teachers. It should be obligatory to spend some time learning to do something that you are terrible at before going into a classroom so you can build up some empathy for the (many) students in that situation. (I have done my time!).

Ah yes very good. I think a thing that happens often is we frame people with ld as permanent children. They aren't. Obviously!

Yes. This is right. I went to a talk at a conference and was so challenged and inspired by a person with a ld saying "I have the right to make poor choices."

There's a brilliant bit in The Peanut Butter Falcon in which someone has a go at a nurse for not doing better for someone she cares for with downs syndrome. She says something like "I know it's shit. I can't help that. I've what he's got and I'm doing my best."

"They start at three and finish at six. There's no beer or cider. What sort of a party is that?"
(Need to point out this isn't an attack on people organising stuff like this. How dare I do that given in total I have organised zero parties for people with learning disability.)

I think what I'm driving at here is an obvious thing that people with learning disability are totally, fully human. If you'd hate something they probably will too. I think of a talk I had with a friend who has a ld explaining why he doesn't like social events organised for his community..

Yes and so annoying right? Constantly being told you've done it wrong. I'd hate it.

I get annoyed on the behalf of my own daughter even when I'm the one doing it. It must be so annoying to be her sometimes.

When a child has a learning disability they're corrected far more than most children who don't have one. It might be well meaning and it might be necessary but the cumulative effect must be both infuriating and dispiriting.

#FridayFive
1.Homesick Noah Kahan
2. I took a pill in Ibiza, Mike Poser
3. Hot N cold, Katy Perry
4. Dr Jones, Aqua
5. Everybody Hurts, R.E.M

1. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Flaming Lips
2. Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd
3. The Fear, Pulp
4. Bandages, Hot Hot Heat
5. Cure For Pain, Morphine

#FridayFive is various types of poorly.

Watching winter Olympics and remembering a simpler time when everyone in Britain watched Torvill and Dean.

#FridayFive

1. Shake the Disease - Depeche Mode
2. Burning Up - Madonna
3. Blinded by the Light - The Streets
4. I’m on Fire - Bruce Springsteen
5. Dizzy - Vic Reeves and The Wonder stuff

1. Novocaine. Green Day
2. Not the Doctor. Alanis Morissette
3. Puke. Eminem
4. Coconut. Harry Nilsson
5. Insomnia. Faithless
#fridayfive

#Fridayfive Poorly
1. Brain Damage - Pink Floyd
2. I’m Breathless - Madonna
3. Cardiac Arrest - Madness
4. Girlfriend in a coma - The Smiths
5. Infected - The The

#FridayFive

1. Pain killer - Turin Brakes
2. Don’t go - Hothouse Flowers
3. Insane in the brain - Cypress Hill
4. Fever - Peggy Lee
5. Too sick to pray - Alabama 3