Warning: those of a squeamish disposition might not like to read any further.

No really, I mean it.

Still here?

Well don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Faeces, Excrement, Dump, Discharge, Stools, Crap, Droppings, Logs, Doo Doo, Dung, Number 2s, Manure, Turds or Sh*t… whichever way you describe it, it all comes down to the same thing…

Poo.

Now it has to be said that I’m quite fond of poo and have a very close relationship with it. It’s a subject that’s very close to my heart and never very far from my bottom. For various reasons (not least of which is a certain amount of laziness on my part) I don’t use the toilet and therefore wear nappies – but if it was good enough for Neil Armstrong I don’t think that’s anything to be ashamed of.

A dirty nappy is hardly a pleasant task for a parent to deal with when it’s on a newborn baby, but let me assure you when it’s produced by a 14-year old boy it’s a whole new experience.

Just take a moment to try and imagine it. Not pretty is it?

Nature dictates that I produce around three of these per day and there’s no way I’m going to clean them up myself. Well, would you? That’s what parents were created for; I think it’s their moral duty. I can’t help feeling a little sorry for them, but hey, c’est la vie.

I have less sympathy for school assistants and care workers who are contractually obliged to roll their sleeves up and get down and dirty with it; at least they’re being paid for the job and quite frankly it’s their own fault for not reading the small print in their employment contracts more closely. They won’t be making that mistake again.

Anyway, on to the nitty gritty. My poo comes in just about every consistency you can imagine, from something similar to modelling clay all the way down to a warm brown liquid not unlike hot chocolate. If it is a little on the runny side and I put in a lot of effort I can sometimes get the thing to overflow and run down my legs, which is an absolute sensory delight.

As for the smell, there are occasions when it’s so bad that people are barely able to be in the same room as me and those that try and brave it out start gasping for breath. At the opposite end of the scale it can be almost completely odourless which can be a problem if no one notices for a while – makes it very difficult to walk.

Although I don’t take part in the actual cleaning process, that doesn’t mean I have an aversion to the product. Quite the opposite in fact and I like to take every opportunity to get involved at some point and see exactly what I’ve managed to produce. These days it takes two people to handle a changing session and if one of them isn’t paying attention I can easily grab a handful and study the texture. If you’ve never let your own excrement (or anyone else’s for that matter) squeeze through your fingers it’s an experience not to be missed.

In fact I like to grab every opportunity with both hands: many barriers have been put in my way from mesh over-pants, tight belts, long vests with poppers between the legs and all-in-one outfits… but puh-lease… do they really think these will stop a boy on a mission? If I want a handful of poo I’m going to get a handful of poo no matter what. Nappies are surprisingly flimsy when you start tearing at them and they can easily be shredded in under 10 seconds. And once you’re in there you can really go to work; I’ve used the contents to re-decorate my room on a couple of occasions.

And it’s not just my poo that I’m a fan of; I like to study it in all its forms. Cat poo is surprisingly unsatisfactory: small and stiff and curly. I regularly try samples that are studded in cat litter but I can’t say I’d really recommend it. Dog poo comes in a much wider variety of shapes, sizes and textures and the local park can be particularly rewarding source. Most of the time I’m kept well away from any unpleasantness but there are plenty of opportunities when people are chatting or occupied with some toddler I’ve just sent sprawling. If there’s a good-sized doggy doo-doo on the ground I’ll always pick it up and examine it. They’re generally very squishy, especially if still warm, and if you press one firmly between both hands it squidges through the fingers in a very satisfying way. The smell is very different to anything I can produce and I like to push it right up to my nose for a really good sniff.

But that’s only half the fun as the clean-up at this point can be a hilarious game: whoever’s with me can’t leave me like that but doesn’t want to come near me. Quite a dilemma for them. Eventually they’re faced with the reality of having to dive in with whatever inadequate cleaning materials they’ve brought along: despite my well-documented history of this kind of behaviour you’d be surprised how ill-equipped people still are for the task so little bits of tissue, leaves, newspapers and whatever else comes to hand are all employed. For bonus points I can usually smear a good quantity on their clothes and if I’m really lucky, their hair. On a couple of occasions things have gone really well with one or two passing strangers being drafted-in to help. There are few things in life more satisfying than smearing a Good Samaritan with excrement.

Of course I always save the best bit till last: taste-wise doggie poo is a lot nicer than you’d expect… not exactly chocolatey… it’s difficult to describe without a common frame of reference so I recommend you try it at the earliest opportunity.

I’ve always had a bit of a problem with footwear.

In fact I hate boots.

I don’t even like socks – I didn’t start walking until I was four years old (more of that another time) and it can take me up to a year to get used to the feel of a new pair of boots, by which time I’ve usually managed to destroy them or grow out of them so we have to start the whole cycle of torture again. Quite frankly I’d be far happier to go around barefoot. Much more comfortable and just as nature intended.

Ok, I will admit that when walking on gravel or hot tarmac things can get a little uncomfortable, but then I’d much rather be delivered to a destination than have to walk there anyway. Winter can be a bit chilly on the toes but I’m sure I’d cope somehow.

But no.

Early on it was decided on my behalf – and without my consultation – that I must wear footwear of some sort. Shoes were a complete non-starter, I could get those off with just a flick of the toe, and with the speeds I was reaching (Usain Bolt? Pah!) it was also thought that a bit of extra support wouldn’t go amiss, so the consensus was that I should wear heavy boots at all times. These are more of a challenge to remove but with a little determination and the help of a solid object (the back of a car seat works well) I usually find I can get one or both off in under a minute.

If no solid object is at hand (or foot) I usually just kick my heel on something which looks expensive until the offending boot is removed for me. I once tried this on a built-in DVD player in the back of a Mercedes S-class and you wouldn’t believe how quickly they took the boots off.

I will admit that wearing big boots does have some advantages: if you want to kick your way through a panel door or a plasterboard wall then a pair of substantial boots is highly recommended. And it’s not too taxing to tap someone in the nose while they’re struggling to lace the things up. I once kicked a toddler in the face while in the queue for the checkout; well, she was an annoying little brat and it did get me out of the shop and back home very quickly. But on the whole boots slow me down.

I really hate boots.

Now don’t go jumping to conclusions and assuming all of this behaviour down to my sheer determination not to wear footwear of any sort – ok, 90% of it is that – but some of it is due to the negligence of others: you’d be amazed at the number of times I’ve tried to tell people that I have a stone in my shoe or that it’s uncomfortable in some way. The most incredible incident took place in a shoe shop which carefully measured and fitted my feet for a pair of new boots… only when we arrived home did Smiley discover that the balled-up paper was still stuffed in the toes. On another occasion school sent me home with a sock stuffed in the toe. Ouch.

And to make matters worse, most of the people who look after me think the remedy to my kicking the blasted things off is to tie them doubly-tight. This can be excruciating, both for me to wear (making me more determined than ever to get them off) and for the person being kicked in the face while they’re trying to untie the knots.

I ask you, is it any wonder I’ve grown up with an anti-footwear fetish?

Anyone with experience of Special Needs suppliers will probably be familiar with Piedro boots. These could hardly be described as the cutting-edge of fashion but to judge from the feet of other people I see that might be a good thing. They’ve done the job well enough over the years: they’re stiff and relatively strong (even if the lace hooks do always bend off in the first week) but hardly what I’d call comfortable. In fact I’d go further and call them decidedly uncomfortable. We had a brief flirtation with Caterpillar boots but as I was able to pull the sole off one of these on the first day they were consigned to the drawer Smiley refers to as “Expensive Mistakes”.

Now to the problem.

After 10 years of walking about in clumpy boots my feet have started to look decidedly odd: the bones at the sides have begun to protrude and I’ve been getting various calluses and blisters. Frowny and Smiley aren’t the most observant people in the world so the only way I could persuade them to take a proper look was to refuse to walk altogether until they did something about it.

They consulted various specialists who, as usual, umm-ed and ahh-ed. Apparently ‘old’ thinking is that boots should be stiff and offer lots of support, while ‘new’ thinking is that boots should be soft and as close to the sensation of walking barefoot as possible. Very little evidence seems to have been offered either way (at least not to me) so as we’ve tried the ‘stiff’ option for several years, this summer we went ‘soft’ in the form of canvas Converse boots. Ok, they were cheapo Converse rip-offs… times are hard.

Much better! I was back on my feet again and running hard. Trouble is they weren’t up to my levels of daily abuse and I was stripping the canvas in a week. Good job they didn’t pay full price for the brand name. After four pairs it was decided enough was enough and that they’d have to address the problem properly.

Then Smiley noticed one of Frowny’s more Bohemian friends was wearing a pair of ex-NATO Desert combat boots. Ideal. Soft straight out of the box yet tough as, well… old boots. Normally it takes me a few weeks to get used to the idea of anything new on my feet but these were great straight away: soft enough to run in but still tough enough to give someone a bloody nose.

Of course, they may be NATO combat-tested, but are they up to the sort of abuse I’m likely to give them?

I’ll let you know.

Addendum

NATO boots destroyed after first day back at school. So much for combat testing.

Ah, well… back to the drawing board.

Christmas, don’t you just love it?

Most special celebration days – birthdays, Easter, Valentines, Halloween – can be a bit of a non-event: they start and finish pretty much like any other day but with more cake or chocolate. That’s not a bad thing, but hardly worth all the fuss they make about them.

But Christmas is different. Christmas is a time for serious fun and concentrated chaos.

A few weeks beforehand the house is decorated with glittery bits and pieces and flashing lights… talk about sensory overload! Woah… I never know what to go for first! Rich pickings for a fiddler like me, and if I time it right I can wreck several things in turn: start with something fairly large then keep moving on to the next as they’re rebuilding each of the previous displays.

Now whenever I bring any kind of shrubbery in from the garden Smiley and Frowny usually go nuts, but apparently it’s acceptable behaviour if they bring a tree into the living room. I don’t know, it’s one rule for them… Actually I shouldn’t complain because I really like having a tree indoors. We usually have one that reaches all the way to the ceiling so over the years I’ve had several attempts at pulling it down – well I bet you would if you thought you could get away with it, wouldn’t you? And a falling tree in the living room can be quite a spectacular way of gaining attention.

But these days I often find myself distracted by all the twinkly things hanging from the branches. When I was younger these used to smash in a very satisfying way and you could walk through all the broken pieces but nowadays they just seem to bounce pathetically. Health and safety gone mad if you ask me.

Did I mention the lights? These are great fun and can be tackled in a couple of different ways; you can grab one end of the cable and walk out of the room with it trailing a whole string of fairy lights behind you (if you’re lucky it can also bring the tree down), or you can bite them one-by-one and they make a lovely crunch which fizzes on your tongue. Frowny gets very anxious when I do this and frowns even more than normal.

On the whole Christmas cards aren’t worth bothering with: I still grab an occasional handful and run around tearing them up or biting large chunks out of them in the hope that someone will give chase but no-one seems very interested. In fact they often look glad to be given an excuse to throw some of them in the bin, which makes me wonder why people bother sending them in the first place.

I find the rules for the whole ‘presents under the tree’ thing a bit complicated; apparently a lot of the gifts are put there for me, but then I’m not allowed to open them. What? Well I always regard those sorts of rules as a challenge and open one of the parcels whenever I get the opportunity. Of course I can’t read the labels to identify which presents are for me so I just open whatever’s closest. The contents are often not worth bothering with: jewellery, perfume, books… you know, nothing of real value that you can actually eat, though sometimes I can hit the jackpot and discover an entire selection box full of chocolate. But even if the contents are a disappointment, the sensory reward in ripping the paper is brilliant and it always brings someone running so there’s the added bonus of a bit of attention when service gets a bit slow.

Then comes the day when Frowny starts her advance baking ritual and the smell drives me bananas because I rarely seem to receive more than the usual rations. I’m sure she only does this in retribution for all the tree-related mishaps. Very petty.

And to make things worse, my whole routine goes to pot because my school bus stops coming in the mornings – however long or hard I rattle and kick the front door – so I’ve no real way to gauge the amount of time passing.

I know the big day’s getting close when they start talking about the big, jolly, fat guy with a white beard and no dress sense who supposedly travels about with flying reindeer, squeezes down the chimney in the middle of the night and gives us free stuff. Yeah, right… and they say I’m intellectually challenged? Well I’ve never seen him and I’m awake a lot during the night, but the free stuff is definitely there in the morning so who am I to argue? I was taken to meet him last year but he didn’t look particularly jolly when I pulled off his beard so I don’t think it was really him after all.

So, finally Christmas day arrives and all hell breaks loose. People rush about madly, wearing funny paper hats and thrusting parcels at me. And on this one day I’m ‘allowed’ to open the presents, which completely takes the fun out of it so I often throw them to one side just to see the looks on their faces. Some of the parcels are opened for me and I have to admit the contents can be pretty good: in my opinion one can never have too many primary-coloured-music-playing-flashing-light-bits-of-plastic. Often I’m given several of these so I spend the entire day setting them all off at once.

But the very best thing about Christmas is of course the ‘Eat your own bodyweight in food’ competition, of which I’m the reigning champion. They try to make me wait for this for hours and hours, but I’ll have none of that sort of behaviour from them and frequently have to remind them who’s in charge. If I make enough fuss I usually find they’ll ply me with several smaller meals and snacks on the lead up to the big event.

If I was the sort of person who could be patient (which of course I’m not) this would certainly be the meal worth waiting for. My plate is piled high in the vain hope that this will ‘keep me busy’ while they sit and try to enjoy their own meal. They do this every year. And every year they underestimate my capacity to eat as fast as humanly possible and demand more. With some concentrated effort I find I can manage a ratio of at least three full platefuls to their one.

Then it’s on to the trifle, chocolate roulade and Christmas pudding… all in the same bowl… topped off with cream and a good dose of medication as a chaser. And after all that I often find myself unaccountably unable to move and usually crash out on a bean bag on the living room floor.

I’m so Rock & Roll.

A day well spent I think.

Even at the age of 5 months I knew I was on to a pretty cushy thing.

The early merry-go-round of heartburn, indigestion, crying and vomiting had eased… ok I was still vomiting but at least I’d now got it to the level where I could make it entertaining (for me at least) and was able to eat enough to gain on the weight loss. I was now on a regime of constant attention, sleep, an all-you-can-eat buffet and best of all the hippy-trippy delights of phenobarbitone, which I can’t recommend highly enough.

In fact the hospital was allowing me to experiment with a number of drugs at this age, but to ensure they kept supplying me with the really good stuff I still had to make an fair old effort to ensure that my behaviour gave them good reasons to continue with the weekly visits, until one of the doctors declared I did not have Cerebral Palsy.

No s*** Sherlock.

Now nobody had thought to mention to me that I might have Cerebral Palsy… honestly, doctors do tend to spring things on you at a moment’s notice, but if they were going to start listing all the things I didn’t have I suspected this was going to take a while. He then thought he’d have a crack at narrowing it down by diagnosing “Global Developmental Delay” which sounds like a hiccup at NASA but is actually Doctor-speak for “We haven’t a clue what’s wrong with your child and don’t really want to spend lots of money on expensive tests in finding out if we don’t have to.” And they go to medical school for this?

Now if it had been up to me I would have been quite happy to let it rest there. But not Frowny. Oh no. She was determined to get to the bottom of it.

Frowny likes to watch lots of medical dramas and has always harboured a not-particularly-secret desire to be a doctor, so she didn’t appreciate it when ‘real’ doctors poked and prodded me as if I were some kind of science experiment and chatted between themselves as if she wasn’t there. I was probably around 7 months when one of the consultants – a refreshingly un-PC-old-school doctor – held me up naked, passed me between his colleagues like a game of pass-the-parcel and had a muttered conversation, during which Frowny was able to make out the comment “Doesn’t seem to recognise his mother”. I don’t know who she was more miffed with: the doctors for ignoring her or me after having putting in all the effort for so long.

Strictly speaking the doctor’s comment wasn’t accurate: I did recognize her, I just feel the way babies make a huge fuss every time their mother walks in the room is deeply uncool… makes them look really needy. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I find all this ‘bonding’ malarkey very over-rated. For instance I’d also started seeing this rather attractive physiotherapist at home who was every bit as nice as Frowny and had been making a real effort to play all the games I liked. Sadly the relationship only lasted a few months as she became a bit demanding and began to treat me like a dog with all her requests for rolling over or sitting up, so eventually I had to end it and just ignored her.

She got fed up with this so referred us to a support group in one of the hospital units for a coffee morning. Frowny took me along but found it all a bit perplexing as it was full of children who were, well I think the modern phrase is ‘Differently Abled’. Apart from the ‘Global-NASA’ thingy nobody had said there was anything wrong with me, in fact they’d been more keen to say what wasn’t wrong with me, so she was a bit surprised to be included in the group. I thought they were pretty groovy and picked up several tips on ways I could make my behaviour even more demanding.

But this modern, polite jargon wasn’t for our old and gloriously-un-PC-doctor friend.. soon after he declared me “Definitely Mentally Handicapped” and that we would “probably never know why”. Despite his candour he obviously felt he ought to go through the motions for appearances sake and ordered an MRI-scan and blood tests. Result! I wasn’t at all bothered by his blunt talk – sticks and stones as far as I was concerned – I was just pleased that I wouldn’t have to make so much effort to assure the phenobarbitone supply.

Unfortunately Frowny isn’t as thick-skinned as me and doesn’t take bad news quite so well. Although she’d always suspected as much, she was still distraught at the guy’s throwaway delivery and glib attitude. To make matters worse Smiley was working that day and hadn’t come with us to the appointment, so she ended up wandering round the supermarket in a bit of a daze before going to the nursery school to pick up Flower Girl.

One of the other mothers noticed she looked a bit shell-shocked and questioned her about it. Frowny blubbed out the whole story and the other mother replied: “Well he’s still the same baby, and you’ll love him just as much”.

This was without doubt the most trite, clichéd nonsense I’d heard since I was born.

But for reasons known only to herself it cheered Frowny up no end.

Funny old world.

I don’t like pets.

Well, that’s not really true, perhaps I should say I don’t see the point of pets. I mean, what exactly are they for? They smell funny, they get under your feet all the time, they don’t talk, they can’t even manage simple tasks like turning the TV on or off. As far as I can tell they contribute nothing to the family unit.

Smiley’s sister often brings her dog over. Smiley goes all soppy over dogs and talks to them in a patronising voice that makes him sound like a simpleton. He’d really like a dog but every time he raises the subject the conversation always ends with the phrase “We have enough going on in our lives at the moment”. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t think a dog will be taking up residence any time soon.

Anyway, Sister Smiley’s dog is an enormous brown thing and pleasant enough in it’s own way, but I just don’t get it. It needs walking all the time or letting out into the garden and you have to follow it round with little black plastic bags and pick up what Sister Smiley charmingly refers to as ‘presents’. And it eats huge amounts of smelly food that it can’t prepare for itself. I’ve tried pulling its ears, pulling its tail, kicking it, grabbing large clumps of its saggy skin and even yanking its baggy, slobbery lips to provoke a reaction but it just stares at me with its big dopey eyes. Other people in the family have remarked on this as ‘A Good Thing’ in that the dog has shown remarkable restraint and intelligence in not biting my head off. I think it’s just extremely dim.

Frowny pretends to like dogs just to please Smiley and his sister, but I’ve seen the sideways looks she gives them. She and Flower Girl have a real thing for cats…. as if dogs weren’t bad enough! I mean, what exactly is the point of a cat?

We currently have two cats who stay well away from me. Quite right too, but even from a distance I can tell they’re a complete waste of space. At least a dog can fetch a stick or play with a ball or look at you as if it understands you… a cat never changes its expression, stares at you with utter contempt, sleeps for 23 hours of the day and expects to be fed as soon as it’s awake. If I behaved like that I’d… well ok, I do behave like that a lot of the time but that’s not the point.

By now you’re no doubt thinking that I’m a serial pet-hater. But you’d be wrong.

I was more surprised than anyone when Smiley and Frowny brought home a kitten one day. A really stupid looking thing even by kitten standards, with enormous ears out of all proportion with its head. It looked more bat than cat. And because it was bright orange it was immediately christened ‘Jaffa’ (Do you see what they did there? They were so pleased with themselves when they came up with that one).

This animal was mean and vicious. The previous owners had hinted at this when they’d mentioned it had had a few homes, each time lashing out with its claws and scratching whoever it came into contact with. Smiley and Frowny, gullible as ever, presumed they’d been exaggerating. And at first it seemed quite cute, sitting on Frowny’s lap it would latch it’s little teeth and tiny claws into her hand. But after a few days it became obvious that this thing was potentially lethal.

It would lie in ambush at the side of the staircase and shoot out a claw to slash at Frowny’s passing ankle. If Flower Girl attempted to go to the bathroom without shoes it would leap on her toes and attempt to kill them. Another of Jaffa’s party tricks was to lurk at the bottom of the bed or across the other side of the living room; like a coiled spring he’d sit in the pounce position and stare at you for several minutes with a crazed look in his eyes that would completely freak out the chosen victim. Poor Smiley’s hands were scratched to bits by this thing every time he had to separate it from someone’s flesh. Soon even they had to admit that Jaffa was a killer that could not be tamed.

Except….

For some reason Jaffa never attacked me. While apparently hating everyone else on the planet this cat would roll over and want it’s tummy tickled as soon as I came near. I lack the fine motor skills and temperament for that kind of behaviour, but it would still frolic and play with me and share the toys I liked. I have a large fabric tunnel that I used to enjoy crawling through, and Jaffa would play a game where he’d run in and out of the opposite end. He never once bit, scratched or hissed at me.

And then one day he was gone.

I overheard Smiley saying something about the fact that Jaffa had finally met his match in taking on a Range Rover but I’m not absolutely sure what this meant. Or what it had to do with the shoe box.

Ok, even I’ll admit that this is pretty gross, so anyone of a squeamish disposition should stop reading now…

Still with me? Oh well, don’t say you weren’t warned.

I once ate a balloon. It was one of those long ones shaped like an enormous, thin, curly sausage. That’s not so unusual in itself, I’ve heard of lots of kids who’ve eaten a discarded, deflated balloon that they’ve found lying about on the floor.

The impressive thing is that when it was retrieved (with a great show of consternation) from the contents of my nappy, this one still had air in it.

So the question is, just how much air did it have in it at the time I ate it? Could I really have swallowed it fully inflated? It’s an interesting picture isn’t it?

I’ll never tell.

A number of people have asked exactly why Frowny is called Frowny.

Well, Duh!… and they call me ‘slow’. It’s because 80% of the time she’s frowning. It’s not her fault, I think it’s because she concentrates a lot and forgets what her face is doing. The funny thing is that all those people who’ve asked why, haven’t needed to ask who Frowny is… so presumably they’ve noticed it too.

I’m not much of a one for names. If I’m told this person is Trevor or that one is Brenda they’re just nouns that don’t really mean anything and I forget them right away, but from what I hear most people do that. If on the other hand you throw a couple of adjectives in there and say “Scary Woman” or “Enormous Moustache Man” it’s very easy to remember people, even years down the line. You should try it.

Of course the reason for Frowny’s furrowed brow might be because she has a lot to frown about. There’s all the usual stuff like shopping, preparing the next meal, cleaning the house and co-ordinating everyone’s social lives, but I have to take my share of the blame and admit that I pile a lot of work on her with all the extra washing, repairing clothes, hospital appointments and feeding my daily drug habit (some call this ‘medicinal’ but I hope we understand each other well enough to know better by now).

She didn’t go to University for three years and have a proper grown-up job that she loved for another 12 to end up like this. And Smiley’s not much help, sitting in his shed at the end of the garden drawing his little pictures and writing his little jokes… I think he could do a lot more. Sometimes she cries at night when she thinks no one is listening, so it’s hardly surprising that she frowns a lot. That’s why I chose a photo of her where she looks really happy – it’s the least I could do. Everyone say “Ahh!”

More than anyone else, she looks after me: prepares my meals (she’s the only person who gives me the portion sizes I truly crave), makes sure I’m warm enough and diligently attends all those dull welfare meetings I have no patience for. If I was capable of feeling guilt I’m sure I’d feel bad about everything I’ve put her through over the years.

Yeah, whatever.

Anyway, biologically speaking, Frowny is absolutely, definitely, 100% my mother.

But… you could sense there was a ‘but’ coming couldn’t you?…  I’m not much of a one for the social conventions of the traditional family unit, I’m more of a moment-to-moment kind of guy. Some days Frowny, Smiley, Flower Girl and Curly Top are the centre of my universe – in fact there are days when I focus all of my attention on any one of them to the exclusion of everything else. But on other days they seem to be just going through tedious drudgery of everyday life and they’re no fun at all, so I ignore them completely. Some days I just ignore them anyway because, well, I’m easily distracted. People who don’t know me very well are often bothered by being ignored, but I think they need to grow up and get over themselves.

Besides, I don’t want to tie myself down too young in life, there are plenty of friendly, entertaining people in the world. If I take a fancy to someone new I’ll let them know; it could be a total stranger in the park or a person on a bus or at the swimming pool or at school, and if they’re being more convivial than the person I arrived with I’ll often attempt a hug. Some people enjoy this and take it in good spirits; other people are completely freaked out by it, which can be entertaining in itself.

I’ve been told not to do this (which is like telling the wind not to blow) and people who work with me have been asked not to do it either, apparently it’s not ‘appropriate behaviour’. I can’t help thinking that if more people behaved like this and were a bit less controlled with their emotions the world might be a happier place.

But for the time being I think I’ll stick with Frowny. She’s the only person who’s ever looked at me as if I’m everything she ever hoped for in life.

She really needs to get out more.

My hair used to be a lovely light blond colour, which with my blue eyes gave me the look of a young Steve McQueen. As I grew my hair darkened a little and people remarked that I had the look of a young Leonardo DiCaprio… presumably before he got fat. Lately I’ve been trying to project Daniel Craig, but people have stopped making comparisons so I can only assume that I look like me.

My hair grows thick and fast: luckily I seem to have more genes from Frowny than Smiley in this respect as his hair is getting thinner by the day and the very top part is disappearing altogether. Perhaps he has ambitions to be a monk. Curly Top – as his name suggests – also has a lovely crop of thick hair, which I often admire by yanking a tuft of it out. Sometimes there are tiny pieces of scalp still attached.

In my experience hairdressers are a pretty mixed bag. Those that have been lucky enough to work with me are often very young girls of a nervous disposition. They’ll start by tying a smock around my neck which, like most new things, I like to study in very close detail. If it’s of a plastic or rubber texture it’s usually worth a taste and I’ll follow this up with a test of the tensile strength with my teeth.

Bib abandoned – Boo! – she’ll start snipping away. Now I don’t think it’s very polite for people to start hacking away at me unless I’ve had a chance to examine the tools they’re using, so at this point I think it’s perfectly reasonable for me to grab the blades as they’re passing for a closer look. And when I say closer look I like to hold them very near to my eyes.

I always do this.

Smiley forewarns them that I will do this.

And yet they’re always surprised, sometimes traumatised when I do it.

Some girls have been known to give up at this point. One poor girl was reduced to tears – I really don’t think she had the temperament for hairdressing. This has become a problem: as long as the hair is out of my eyes I don’t particularly mind how I look but Flower Girl keeps telling me that it’s social suicide to go about with half a haircut. Sometimes a more senior hairdresser will appear and make the best of what’s been started and we make a hasty exit. Sometimes it’s made plain that we aren’t going to be welcomed in that establishment again and we have to find another hairdresser. I’ve been to a lot of hairdressers.

Aside from the need to inspect the equipment I’m afraid I also suffer with a short attention span, and the need to sit still for 10-15 minutes while someone minces around behind me with a pair of scissors is so Boooooooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiing…

I try to amuse myself with a look around the shop but Smiley and the hairdresser seem to think this is a bad idea and try to get me to look at my own reflection. I can appreciate other people’s high regard for my appearance but I really don’t feel I can stare at myself for that length of time without appearing vain. So I’ll look down at the hair falling in my lap or on the floor, or if there’s a sink I’ll sit as far forward as possible to see if any water has appeared. Sometimes I’ll try to slide down in my seat to the floor, or tilt my head back as far as I can and take a look up the hairdresser’s nose. Mmm!

Over the years Smiley has developed a lot of techniques to entertain me. These usually involve hand-held mirrors (easily dropped), water sprays (which make me jump, with unfortunate consequences to the haircut) or toys which he’ll give me, then immediately remove when he realises the hair is sticking to them. If it’s a particularly dull session I’ll take a handful of hair clippings and give them a quick chew, though I’ll admit this is probably an acquired taste and not for everyone.

For the last couple of years we’ve been going to a big, smiley Northern man who tells rude jokes and waves at me every time I pass his shop. This is about as far removed from the cry-baby little girl hairdressers as it’s possible to get; although jovial and entertaining, he doesn’t stand for any nonsense. He gives me all the tools to examine before we start and he lets me sit in my own chair and do my own thing: as I look one way he swoops in and cuts the back. As I look up he swoops in and snips the front. He even lets me play with the buzzy clippers that he uses on the back and the sides (though last time I tried them on my tongue so we might not be doing that again). He is always happy when he cuts my hair – though he does sometimes work up a sweat – and I’ve never left with half a haircut.

He’s a professional, and I admire that.

Respec’.

Lately I’ve taken to eating my clothes.

Well, not all my clothes, mostly just my shirts, so the title of this piece is a gross injustice. Ok, I’ll admit that I do occasionally have a mouthful of trousers but I wouldn’t say it was every day. Socks don’t even count as clothes so I’ll chew on those whenever I get the chance. Actually now I come to think of it I also eat fleeces, vests, pyjamas, hats, scarves, gloves and shoes. But that’s it. Definitely nothing else.

Unless you count nappies. I don’t even like nappies, all that urine-soaked silica gel stuff tastes bleeaahhh!.. and it’s terribly difficult to get out of your mouth once it’s in there, but I just can’t resist the texture when you yank on a good handful and the thing explodes in a fountain of sticky gel crystals. Wonderful stuff. And surprisingly difficult to get off a wooden floor.

Anyway, the clothes thing is relatively new, at least on this scale. I’ve always been partial to a bit of nibbling but recently I’ve realised just how insubstantial a lot of modern clothing is (no doubt attributable to economies of scale and the exploitation of the Asian workforce, but as people keep reminding me I’m ‘special needs’, so wouldn’t know anything about that) and I can quite easily rip a shirt completely in half. Trousers are certainly more difficult but with a bit of effort you can usually get them to tear all the way up the seam of one leg. Sometimes they’ll put a hoody on me in the belief that I won’t be able to tear through something that thick. BIG mistake. I just regard it as a challenge and it makes their clothing bill much more expensive.

I do feel a little guilty about this: clothes aren’t cheap, Frowny and Smiley aren’t exactly rolling in cash and having to replace an average of a whole outfit each day must add up. Especially when they’ve taken the time to choose clothes for me. They quite like all this matchy-matchy stuff and I suppose I really should be taking more pride in my appearance at my age, but quite honestly I don’t care what I’m wearing as long as I’m warm enough.

And tearing up my clothes is just too much fun to resist; if you’ve never tried it you should… the sense of freedom and liberation is joyous.

In truth I don’t eat much of it: I usually start with my teeth before getting both hands involved and giving whatever it is a good old rip. Sometimes a large piece of the material comes away in my mouth and I’ll have a munch on that. Thin stuff like T-shirts and pyjamas are actually pretty good. Socks aren’t bad either, and the stringy stuff that comes off a one-piece bib is absolutely lovely, though it does get stuck in the teeth. But when it comes to the thicker stuff like denim or fleece material it’s usually too difficult to swallow so I’ll spit it out.

I originally started eating my clothes when I was bored but once I realised people had started taking notice I’ve found it equally effective when I’m hungry or when I feel I’m not getting the 100% attention I deserve. I also do it when I am getting attention, just to confuse people. I’ve had a clinical psychologist ‘observing’ me recently and this clothes-ripping behaviour is driving her nuts: just when she thinks she’s pinned it down to one cause and effect I’ll mix it up a little and do it for no reason whatsoever.

Frowny thought she could outsmart me by dressing me in ‘sacrificial’ clothes when she thinks I’m in a particularly destructive mood (things I’ve already partially torn, but also presents from relatives), so another good trick is to leave these totally intact and wait until she puts the good stuff on me.

Now I wouldn’t want you to go away with the idea that my tastes are exclusively in clothing. That would be ridiculous and hardly a balanced diet for a growing boy.

I also eat curtains, furniture coverings, cushions, duvet covers, duvets, pillow cases, pillow stuffing, towels, bean bags, plastic mattress covers, change mats, lamp shades, tablecloths, car seats, shoes, shoelaces, rucksacks, handbags, tissues, paper, plastic, leather, rubber, toenails, excrement…

For those that don’t know, a Blue Badge is a parking permit for disabled people, allowing them to park in specially marked parking bays or sometimes have exemption from parking fees. The recipient of these badges is supposed to be “significantly impaired by one or more of age, illness, disability or infirmity.”

Blooming cheek!

I take exception to these requirements as I don’t believe I fit into any of the above categories. I’m not an old dodderer, I don’t have an illness, I don’t think of myself as disabled in any way and I’d certainly describe myself as firm (you should see my six pack).

So what gives? Well I heard them talking between themselves about this (I can never decide whether they’re just extremely rude or imagine I’m completely deaf) and they reckon I’m ‘difficult’ to get in and out of the car. Difficult? Me? That’s ridiculous… I’m always keen to get in and out of the car as quickly as possible. In fact when I’m getting out I like to run as fast as possible in whichever direction looks the most appealing. Usually that’s to wherever I see some food. Sometimes this is through a car park or across a busy road, which is nothing like as dangerous as people imagine as in my experience most cars can stop surprisingly quickly.

Frowny tries to hold my hand while she’s getting ready but she’s not very strong so it rarely slows me down. If Smiley’s there it’s a different story – he’s a lot stronger than his flowery shirts suggest – but I find the old ‘passive resistance’ trick of making my body completely limp means I can often flop to the floor, escape from his grasp and take off on all fours. Hard on the knees though.

Of course I say I’m always keen to get in and out as quickly as possible, but now I come to think about it there are occasions when I really don’t want to get in or out of the car. This is usually on days where the entertainment has been a bit thin and I’ve found making my body as rigid as possible can be side-splittingly funny if I do it when they’re trying to get me through a narrow door opening, into a car seat and fasten a 3-point harness as well as a safety belt. If I can get my feet in the right place and grab onto the roof rails I can also make a good attempt at climbing up onto the roof of the car. It’s even better when a well-meaning but dim Samaritan passes by and offers to help, then I can grab spectacles, hats, hair, moustaches, necklaces, breasts… you name it.

To double the fun you can also make this routine work in the other direction: if we’ve arrived at somewhere that looks pretty dull, a 3-point ‘Houdini’ harness (I don’t know who this Houdini bloke was but he wasn’t up to much if he couldn’t escape from one of these) and a safety belt have so many straps between them that you can easily thread limbs through them and tie yourself in knots surprisingly quickly. If things are going really well I can sometimes roll into the footwell, making it all but impossible to separate me from the car. For maximum effect this is best carried out when they’re late for an appointment.

So there you are, I think we can dispense with all this talk of needing to park any closer to the shops than anyone else as I have no mobility problems whatsoever. Frowny and Smiley are plainly just milking the system.

Ah well, good luck to them I say – they need all the breaks they can get.

PS  One of the requirements for the Blue Badge is that the recipient has to display a head and shoulders, face-on photograph. Frowny fancies herself as a bit of a photographer and thought she’d have a go. I tried, I really tried to concentrate while she was taking these, but I’m afraid my mind kept wandering. Eventually she gave up and Smiley said he could put two or three of them together with something called Photoshop.