When Will and I were going through a park on our way to lunch a couple of days ago, my tics noticed a leaf falling from a tree and called out “Pull the cord, leaf!” It fluttered to the ground but I continued to shout instructions into the treetops:

“Stay on the trees, leaves.”…

The Globe on London’s South Bank is a replica of Shakespeare’s famous theatre, recreated as faithfully as possible and sited near the Elizabethan original. It has no seats so the audience must stand throughout each performance.

Zoë and I passed it the other day and she said, ‘It might be because I’m lazy, but I wouldn’t really fancy standing up for ages.’…

This morning I woke from a vivid dream feeling foolish for taking a silly risk. It took me a moment to realise I’d been dreaming and that I wasn’t about to get told off by my friends for dangerous decision-making.

Recalling the dream made me laugh, so for your amusement here it is:

I’d been to a hospital appointment in town by myself and for some reason I’d decided to experiment with walking through Covent Garden rather than using my wheelchair.…

Leftwing Idiot and I were having dinner together last night when I suddenly said:

“Salman Rushdie had AIDS.”

Leftwing Idiot did a double take and then with a quizzical look asked ‘Was that a tic?’ Surprised he’d had to ask, I said ‘Yes, of course’.…

Remember how my wheelchair broke at the beginning of the summer? Wheelchair Services declared it a write-off, and ordered an almost identical new one for me. But it took ages to come and well before it did, the original chair, which was still within warranty, was fixed.…

For several months now I’ve been ticcing a song accusing various friends of having inappropriate sexual relations with furniture and animals.

To start with the song focussed solely on Zoë and was sung loosely to the tune of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean:

“Zoë had sex with a table,
Zoë had sex with a bin.…

Last week I wrote about an interesting conversation I had about Tourettes with a group of young boys at the Nature Garden, one of the projects where I work. I was back there yesterday showing a prospective volunteer round. As we walked through the tiny bit of woodland at the back of the site we came across a group of children playing.…

Last week I spoke at TEDx Albertopolis, an event exploring the relationship between art and science held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. As an organisation TED is dedicated to sharing ideas. A key part of their ethos is that videos of their talks are made available online.…

OK, so it’s not entirely related to Tourettes but I thought I’d share a funny experience I had with Leftwing Idiot at a hospital yesterday. Don’t worry, it wasn’t an emergency – I’d gone in for my pacemaker’s annual check.

We made our way up to the waiting area of the Cardio clinic and found a space to sit, near the giant TV on the wall.…

I had a hospital appointment in town yesterday afternoon and Leftwing Idiot came with me. The appointment went well and afterwards we wandered through the streets for a bit, enjoying being out in the autumn sunshine. We went home by bus, and shortly after we got on I started to have a ‘ticcing fit’.…