Yesterday’s journey to Glastonbury was smooth and trouble-free. Remarkably we were able to get through security and into the Festival itself despite my tics going into overdrive the moment we got to the entrance. There’s a list of things you’re not allowed to take on site, which includes:

Glass bottles
Animals
People without tickets
Drugs
Fireworks

As the security staff checked our car and asked if we had any of these banned items, my tics announced:

“We have a Springer Spaniel in the boot.”…

My tics often come tumbling out in a rush, many with their own distinct voice and intonation. So this morning it was strange to find myself ticcing in a way that sounded a bit different.

I was ticcing like a language learning tape – the type advertised during afternoon TV – where someone speaks a line in a particular language followed by a gap during which the listener’s expected to repeat what they’ve just heard.…

It’s the early hours of Monday morning. It’s a humid night and I’ve been struggling to sleep, partly because of the heat, and partly because I’ve been reading Francesca Martinez’s brilliant new book What the **** is Normal?

If you’re looking for an inspirational story of a courageous disabled person overcoming adversity, then this might not be for you.…

I’ve written before about my well-established ticced animal sex song which includes the line ‘Hard in the face’ sung in a loud gravelly voice.

This evening it wasn’t animals getting it hard in the face, it was me!

I’d been sitting in my living room when I suddenly got up and lurched forward uncontrollably towards the wall.…

Before moving into the castle I lived at Leftwing Idiot’s flat for a bit. While I was there my tics developed a fascination with a particularly bright star that I could see from my bedroom window as I was going to sleep.…

Much of this blog’s a testament to the strangeness of having Tourettes. But there’s one on-going feature of my tics that I find specially baffling.

In the last eight years I’ve always had a ticced name on the go. Sometimes I know people with that name and sometimes I don’t.…

Most of the time my colleagues at work don’t seem to notice my tics, except when they’re really funny. And they’re often funny – adding loads of shared laughter to our working days. But they also bring a few extra challenges not found in most offices.…

I’m forever bombarding my friends and family with very strange ticced questions such as:

“Have you pissed on a unicorn in the last four days?”

or

“Can you get a kangaroo holding a jelly through your letterbox?”

But recently my questioning has taken a new turn and I’ve been quizzing people on what they’re thinking.…

Ruth’s taken over as my regular Sunday night support worker so she was with me at the castle last night. It’s lovely hanging out with her, and our tics are enjoying a strange camaraderie too.

Her tics tend to add to mine to create new meanings.…

I’m well known for my biscuit tics, hedgehogs are constant companions, and I talk incessantly about the sexual habits of sheep, goats and cats.

But what about bears?

This is a question my tics have asked many times a day for several months in a row, and it elicits a variety of responses from my friends and family.…