For the last few days I’ve been hanging out with Fran. We’ve been friends for many years. For the last year she’s been living in Sri Lanka, but she’s back in the UK now and is providing me with regular support.…

It’s half term this week. When I worked at Oasis, a busy children’s play organisation in Stockwell, the school holidays were always our busiest period. Now that Leftwing Idiot and I work full time for Touretteshero, the pattern’s changed slightly and we’re a bit more in control of how intensively we work.…

Fran pulled the covers tightly across my body. She sat next to me on the bed, her hand applying gentle pressure to my head. Exhausted, my body moved erratically, my forceful, regular and rhythmic vocal tics punctuating the quiet darkness of my room.…

When I was twelve I threw a basketball into my PE teacher’s face. The whole class had been told not to touch the balls, but to my horror I did just that: I picked up the ball and hurled it hard into his face.…

As a child I loved Children’s TV. Among my favourite characters were Mr Bump, Super Ted, and Rachel in Grange Hill (played by Francesca Martinez) and the thing all these characters had in common was that they were identifiably ‘different’: Mr Bump – poorly coordinated, Super Ted – rejected in the opening sequence because ‘they found something wrong with him’ and Rachel ‘wobbly’ as the result of cerebral palsy.…

Fran and I have spent the day de-mudding everything after one of the muckiest Glastonburys on record.

It was my wheelchairs that needed the most attention, with my all-terrain chair almost a solid block of mud. I was anxious to get both of them clean and dry quickly so that none of the delicate parts got damaged.…

During the night the rain battered the tent so hard that several times I felt a fine mist on my skin. But by the time I was properly awake the rain had cleared. I pulled myself out into the grey morning and sat and watched Glastonbury get going.…

I woke suddenly at 5.15 this morning and it wasn’t from the rain on the tent or the noise of Festival revellers outside. It was a text from Fat Sister, who’s joining us at Glastonbury later today. Her text said simply: “It’s all fucked!”…

A week ago I got back to the UK after a month-long tour of North America. This afternoon I left the castle again and headed off on another adventure, this time at Worthy Farm in Somerset.

I’ve been preparing for Glastonbury for the last few days, packing, organising support rotas, obsessively checking the weather, and buying enough biscuits for the audiences at the three shows I’m doing with Captain Hotknives this weekend.…

Yesterday we said goodbye to Rachel – a sad moment in a happy tour. Today we said goodbye to San Francisco and said hello to Los Angeles.

We arrived in the late afternoon and the place was bathed in Californian sun.…