Authism - My Top 12 Favourite adverts

I've been meaning to do these for a while  now - they're not set in stone and I'm sure I'll do some tweaking over time. I'm sure you'll have yours too. Most have been included for cleverness, cat-ness or dog-ness (or both), many for  nostalgia or because of an oft-quoted  catchy line or song.

This is said to be an autistic/audhd thing this list-compiling - but it would be very hard to put them in ascending or chronological order.  Unlike pop songs, it's not always easy to pinpoint the exact year. Harder still, to find any evidence of the existence of one or two anywhere on the internet.  Where possible, I've included a link, even if it's just a still.

And so, with no further ado, I give you my favourites.

1. - 'Walk Tall' - you know, the one with the cat walking on two legs advertising a credit card. Courgettes fly off a nearby stall and float around our two-legged feline at one point and nothing fazes it. Probably my all-time favourite.

https://share.google/UXZjJP31N5q8CnrPN

Walk Tall

2.  J R Hartley - this has to be on everyone's favourites list. The old gent trying to track down a rare book and finally being given the good news on an ancient telephone. The punchline - that he is the author of the book - is what makes this, and as an author resonates deeply! If I'm not mistaken, a book may have even been written after the advert.

 https://share.google/jprAVGleBzdzOXUsV 

J R Hartley

3. Another one advertising Yellow Pages - this time, for French polishing. A frantic teenage boy is tidying up his parents' house after a raucous party the night before, where furniture has been scuffed (hence the need for a french polisher) and a painting has been doodled on. 

 https://share.google/f2yzTo9gAoLB0DfKE 

There was another clever Yellow Pages one too,  part of that same group. Young bloke comes home and girlfriend thinks he's been burgled. I'd actually written about the punchline in one of my novels: you do not want to see what they've done in your bathroom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws-0Ea9967o

4. 'Where Has All The Mud Gone?' - This is an example of doggy wittiness, helped on by AI. Yes, many ads have made use of moving a cat or dog's mouth along with the lyrics. But it all seems to have come together with the changed lyrics of Queen's 'Flash Gordon' for the Flash cleaning product in a hilarious way,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TtsMhCVn64&t=14s

Where has all the mud gone? (Flash)

5. 'Daddy or Chips?' This one has always stuck in my mind for the sheer bizarreness of asking your younger sister whether she prefers daddy or chips. We hear the little sister pondering the question all day until at the evening meal 'daddy' nicks a chip from her fork. It's that way she says 'chips' knowingly which gets me every time. 

https://share.google/mHEYCc2kKrB3nPLoe 

Daddy or chips!

6. 'B-B-Baltic in the bathroom'  - I had to delve a bit to find this one and found it mentioned in a forum and linking to the compilation below (it can be accessed at around 4 minutes). It was for the heating system Economy 7. We see a family braving their icy house on rising - Siberia in your slippers, Vladivostok on the landing and b-b-baltic in the bathroom - the final phase being the one that stuck across the years. It was good to revisit it again and of course it ends with Maraca-shaking in minimal clothing  when it is Hawaii all over the house! 

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxGrIkjZfipUpmR0Y6nRrbehmQIDWXqGcb?si=sFjE1tE6Mh3Qoal8       at 4 minutes 

B-B-Baltic in the bathroom

7. Felix cat food - 'It's great to be a cat' but NOT the Robbie Williams one. I loved the one before Robbie where the to be a cat ending was much slower and more emphatic. It's largely disappeared from the internet since the RW version but I managed to salvage a German version and eventually the English one.

https://youtu.be/QIkX-MyHTvk?si=DB2zNu5aYXxSmkNE

Before leaving Felix altogether - when searching through retro adverts this adorable one appeared from 1994, complete with our hungry hero getting his paws tangled in the phone leads and whoops! accidentally-on-purpose cutting off his human.
https://youtu.be/kpPbfkXesRE?si=UCuCun24sto5S8aD

8. Specsavers - once again featuring a cat or - perhaps not. There have been some great ones from. Specsavers. 

https://share.google/fiuHmQdRfGYMNXxYQ 

Should have gone to Specsavers

9. 'Dad, I really need a wee!' - a boy with his dad in Comet as I recall.  This one's no longer easily available online,  except on Vimeo. And one still (below).

https://share.google/images/AtEXHkhbYXmFMahB3

10. Cat and budgie singing. Nowadays, all sorts of things can be done with AI, but this was quite cutting edge in its day which wasn't so long ago.

NB - I don't in any way support birds being kept in cages or cats and birds sharing a living space so please don't try this at home!

https://share.google/DtvG5YODOmQaT3cqS

11. Ovaltine - I'm sure this is on many people's favourites list with the Ovalteenies singing. This was very nostalgic, even in the 1970s. 

https://youtu.be/s_ECxG3xZTY?si=caiFcHQNaNi7H6Ce

12. 'I'm a secret lemonade drinker's R Whites Lemonade - this is apparently another of the nation's favourites  from yesteryear. The one I'm referring to is the first one in the compilation below.

 https://youtu.be/-8qQMi2s8Mo?si=YPebuoX4BO9x_xL-

Secret Lemonade Drinker

It's also worth mentioning a couple of other notables.

Leonard Rossiter and Joann Collins in the Cinzano adverts. This could have easily made the Top 10. 

https://youtu.be/wk31k2BIFR0?si=Eb-lHejKgiZg0SNG

'He's Staying In With Ferguson'. - this also would have definitely been in my Top 10 if I could have found any trace of it. It was advertising Ferguson TV with a woman calling 'Romeo, Romeo, where art thou?' and when there's no reply she repeats: 'Romeo?'. Then another woman (?) replies to us viewers in a loud whisper: 'He's staying in - with Ferguson'. Genius!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed my choice and some of them chime with you too! There are so many more, plus I also have some of my least favourite ones - you could say most hated ones! - but that's for another time.

Authism - discussing time management: autistic on time or early vs adhd last minute or being late

I would like to visit this subject again. Time management and awareness. 

For me, the autistic tendency to get to a place or appointment on time or even early  is predominant. I always joked (because it was true) that I arrived for a train so early I was in time for the one before! As a student, I always got on with essays and assignments to get them out of the way - so I could be free of any deadlines hanging over me. Yet I remember only too well some of my fellow students, burning candles at both ends to get their essays done. I now see this as much more typical of ADHD. The same for always being late for anything. 

Anxiety is common to both autism and ADHD impacting on time management and awareness in different ways. The autistic anxiety is one of needing to stick rigidIy to the routine, to help keep the world predictable and ordered. The fear of running out of time and getting into a paralysing panic has always spurred me to do things early. If I get somewhere early I give myself time to calm myself, and to deal with any other discomforts associated with the many other inevitable conditions associated with autism and/or ageing.  But if a table has been booked,  for a family meal say,  I need to get there early so I can settle myself and get a chair I’m comfortable with etc and calm down as much as I can in such a situation.

People who are predominantly ADHD may be late in getting going or leaving the house for an appointment or meeting etc because of lack of executive function skills. The mind may be in a state of chaos, mirroring our living arrangements, as we try to remember all the things we might need for an outing or an appointment. I experience this a lot more as I get older.  Obviously it will vary according to the situation and people involved - if a  person is laid back and doesn't mind if I'm late then I am less anxious.

Some people who are predominantly or exclusively ADHD talk about time blindness. If there's not a deadline looming it doesn't feel urgent or even real. I personally haven't experienced this very often except when I'm totally relaxed and absorbed in one of my special interests - mainly creative writing. Then I can totally forget the time! 

But anxiety prevents me from forgetting. When very anxious, my mind races and can spin out of control. This mind-racing means I vastly overestimate the time it takes to get somewhere. In his situation, I experience time as passing much quicker than it is, demonstrating how being very anxious or very relaxed can warp time.

Hope some of this resonates 😊 

As always, do leave any comments below.

Authism - latest scammers using AI to reel in authors

Hello

I thought I'd share my latest experience with a scammer. 

I’m usually very wary of things that are too good to be true and I'm pretty savvy at seeing through anything like vanity publishing, so am annoyed at myself for being slow to catch on to this  latest technique. I had an email from claiming to run a virtual book club in Canada. Whenever I get such approaches to my private email address I usually toss them straight into spam. This one seemed different and obviously tailored to make it so.

As you can see she spoke about my novel 'Did You Whisper Back?' as though she’d read it and in glowing terms . That should have been a red flag, but any of us can get caught off guard and be taken in by flattery. We exchanged a couple of emails back and forth, with me asking for more details and she explaining how it all worked etc eg members of the book club encouraged to buy the books. I did look for it online and there was one site showing its existence and previous ‘Spotlight’ sessions, books featured and numbers of attendees etc. (Obviously all part of the scam to make it seem authentic). That’s not to say it doesn’t exist but it doesn’t require a fee or if there’s a fee involved then say so from the outset.

I also asked her how she heard about my book (I had meant to ask her how she got my email) and it’s only when I agreed to her sending me dates to have my book featured in one of the spotlights that she mentioned a small promotional fee. I felt duped then. Of course! 

We 're living in an AI age and she could have so easily picked out salient features of my book using AI, having never gone near it.

I replied saying she hadn’t been upfront  about the costs and that I would have to pass. (I didn’t bother to ask what ‘small’ meant). I also mentioned that when something seems too good to be true it usually is in my own experience and that I had wondered how she'd got hold of my email. 

She got back to me apologetically saying she should have been upfront about the costs and that if I changed my mind she’d still be interested. Then she mentioned the wrong name of my book title in this email! Twice!! Note, The Retreat isn't my book! 

But still it didn't stop there! The latest email didn't even call me by my right name. Here, the scammer blatantly slips up and comes out with the same gushing praise about this other author's book. But only this time it's for a different genre: cozy mysteries. Obviously there's some copying and pasting going on. But for someone who seemed to be a savvy scammer, she badly slipped up.

The point of this blog is to warn others. If after 45 years of writing and scam-spotting, I can be (almost) fooled, then others certainly will be too. Or maybe I've still yet to come to terms with the growing sophistication of AI. 

How about you? Have you come across similar scams using AI?

Many thanks.

Kate

Authism - my changing views on hugging (from a work in progress)

I came across a passage I’d written (I’m writing memoirs at the moment) about how I felt at 34 when I was trying to embrace hugging 😄 (no pun intended!) just interesting to see how I felt at the time - I’m Ok with it now but only people I’m close to.

“What’s more, G was a great hugger. He’d warned me of that before coming down to visit in August and I’d not the heart to tell him I wasn’t. Besides, I was into many things new age then, wasn’t I? And part of the New Age was to hug people indiscriminately - stiff upper lip be damned. As soon as he came through the door into our kitchen the hugging began, long and lingering, and I felt a bit of an imposter. This wasn’t really me, but I was trying it for size. I don’t know where (my sister) was, maybe in the sitting room, but I was relieved when I could break up all this unnatural intimacy.”

I now see this as classic people-pleasing and masking. I wasn't at all comfortable with the intimacy but I wanted to 'fall in' with my new friend. I didn't want to be perceived as aloof or untactile or untouchable. My boundaries were blurry, my assertive voice under-developed. Was I really clear about my needs anyway? Part of my family wasn't huggy but I wanted to change all that. I saw others happily embracing each other and wanted a bit of that. I was sick of passively receiving hugs and being uncomfortable with the two of us hesitating instead of swooping in. I started giving hugs. Not usually to men unless family or close friends. But giving hugs was empowering. I hoped I was picking up the correct cues. One time I hugged a friend and my hair got tangled in her glasses and we were locked together in this awful intimacy. It was probably some time before we hugged again!

I’m particularly interested to hear from other older and late diagnosed autistic  women about the complex relationship to embracing. 

Thank you for reading 😊

Authism - discussing 'lived experience' Vs imagination as an autistic fiction writer.

Today I'm discussing the thorny matter of 'lived experience' as a fiction writer. Discussing both sides in relation to autism (but applies to other 'protected groups'.) 

It's a difficult one as a fiction author in this day and in this climate of culture wars and cancel culture. In these days of 'lived experience' versus artistic license, imagination and freedom to get inside any character as imaginative autistic people!

I don't agree with the idea that you can't write decent fiction about an autistic character unless you're autistic. This was something that came up at the end of Peter Wharmby's book 'Untypical'. There was so much I agreed with from his book but he's not a fiction author as far as I know. Yes, I'm forever mentioning Rain Man too in the way it's informed our view of autism since then but in its defence it was of its time and Dustin Hoffman did a great performance from our knowledge of the time. Years later Saga Noren was a good fictional autistic character in The Bridge, even though the actor wasn't autistic and it may come across as a bit stereotyped now. But as so many people are late or very late diagnosed they will consequently go for years without realising they're autistic. But should this preclude them from writing about an autistic character? I sincerely hope not. This idea that you have to have 'lived experience' can be a bit insulting and restrictive. Followed to its natural conclusion it means fiction writers can't ever imagine and express another's pov (very ironic when many Audhd people compensate for their lack of social life by creating elaborate fantasy worlds). It means men should never narrate from a female pov, straight from a gay, young from an old, white from a POC, middle class from a working class, abled from disabled and so on. As Lionel Shriver once said, we then end up with only autobiography.

She also said: "Who assumes other people’s voices, accents, patois, and distinctive idioms? Who literally puts words into the mouths of people different from themselves? Who dares to get inside the very heads of strangers, who has the chutzpah to project thoughts and feelings into the minds of others, who steals their very souls? Who is a professional kidnapper? Who swipes every sight, smell, sensation, or overheard conversation like a kid in a candy store, and sometimes take notes the better to purloin whole worlds? Who is the premier pickpocket of the arts? The fiction writer, that’s who." I have thought about this a lot but she has said it far more eloquently than me.

And what about historical fiction, especially more ancient history? By its very definition, characters can only be based on good research, social history, anecdotal evidence and a good helping of imagination.

The other side of the argument was expressed at the end of Viktoria Lloyd- Barlow's 'All The Little Bird Hearts'  (autistic author wiith an autistic main character). She states 'I believe the increasing inclusion of underrepresented authors is fundamental to correcting otherwise unchallenged biases....the narrative on autism has been persistently gendered and infantilised; the resultant literary repetition of atypical depiction through young male characters limits understanding of the condition. Within this context of very stereotyped representation, being an autistic woman can feel like a double deficiency, a failure to conform to both social and genre norms. '

So you can see both sides and authors can become conflicted. It can get highly prescriptive, though, and can censor the imagination of the fiction author. Sometimes the content gets conflated with the state of the publishing industry where historically the ones with the power to publish have been - to a greater or lesser degree - white, able bodied, straight, middle class,middle-aged neurotypical males and that has and does reflect what gets published and ergo recognised. In the 1980s, we had tokenism in films and soap operas which was rightly criticised so I think we do need to be fully inclusive with our character portrayals in fiction. 

In many instances, lived experience adds authenticity but will depend on the novel and how central or incidental their protected characteristic is to the book as a whole. Many novels aren't primarily about protected groups, their culture or geopolitics, or authentic dialect - they're about universal themes, emotions and experiences applying to all of humanity: love, loss, fear, relationships and so on.

No doubt this debate will rage on.

Authism - discussing person first or identity first language

How do you identify: as an autistic or a person with autism? The done thing these days is identity-first rather than person-first. But speaking personally and as a boomer, it sometimes takes me longer to arrive at the right terminology. But when you're older you don't necessarily mix in the same circles and as autistics we may not mix in any circles at all! 

I am fairly new to this too. But I usually say 'I'm autistic'. I have also said 'people with autism' too and was told off in a forum! I think it's because the person first (with autism) rather than identify first (autistic) has a negative history from when autism was viewed as something to be cured and mainly used by parents of children from that era. At the same time, I think it should be totally up to a person and what they feel comfortable with. I have used them interchangably. 

However, I do understand how identity first means you can't separate yourself from your autism. Like you wouldn't say 'with gayness' or 'blackness' or 'whiteness'! But on the other hand disabled or people with disabilities - that can be contentious for the same reasons. 'With ADHD' just scans much better. Even  'I'm an ADHDer' just sounds way too clunky 😃 I suppose you could use it as an adjective: 'I'm ADHD/Audhd' but still doesn't sit very well, in my opinion. 

There are other disabilities, too, where there just isn't the right word, so I also have to say 'I have ME/CFS' or 'I have Fibromyalgia' for ease. Then again, those are invisible illnesses and conditions that you wouldn't necessarily wholly identify with.

Times and names change but in the end I  think you have to do what's right for you at a particular time. 

Authism - discussing 'black & white thinking' in autism

Today I wanted to talk about black and white thinking - one of those traits they say is characteristic of autism but I'm not sure I have this. There probably are some situations where I have strong views eg some causes and ideoglogies but feel this is true for many people  not just autistics. I often see too many sides, if anything, which can make me very indecisive - another exhausting autistic trait and contradictory to the black & white thinking one. Reading through my post diagnosis assessment notes, indecision came under another autistic trait but seems to be contradictory to the black-and-white one.

I have included a couple of links here where one of them gives a good example which I can relate to. The  link takes you to the full article where the quote is from.

"Handling conflicts is a tough one to begin with, but for someone with ASD, an argument or lack of agreement about a topic = no more friendship. A young woman with ASD may get in an argument with a friend at school and immediately feel they are not friends with this person anymore, struggling to understand that disagreements are a natural part of any relationship and can be worked through."

https://www.psychedconsult.com/no-room-for-gray-here/

So in the example above I'm assuming the black and white thinking here would be not giving someone you've had a rift with another chance. They are either your friend or they're not. But even then I think that example may be more to do with Rejection Sensitivity Dysphonia.

The link below also offers some interesting insights although must be a bit of an old article as it refers to AS.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/asd-black-white-thinking-style-nelle-frances/

I do grasp the concept of black and white thinking up to a point and those of us who have strong political or social justice views tend to be binary in our thinking. But, talking of binary - or actually non-binary - I've not got the actual figures but it is said that there's a higher proportion of ND compared to NT people who identify as non-binary. So, again,  the argument doesn't hold up about 'black and white thinking' to me. If we look on social media where nuance and shades of grey aren't in abundance, do we assume that autistics are overrepresented in such posts?  

I'd not looked through my assessment notes until thinking about this blog. My assessor said that most individuals with a diagnosis of ASD find change and unpredictability difficult to manage and at times may struggle to adapt to change. "Many have a thinking style which can seem slightly fixed, for example thinking in either/or, literal or black-and-white and it’s very common for individuals with the condition to have a strong preference for structure and predictability as well as a need for certain routines." Yes, change of routine and predictability is something I do get really distressed about eg if something is changed, if transport is slightly late or an appointment is changed. These can throw me completely but is that what’s meant by black-and-white thinking? I didn’t think so. Yes, OK, I can see flexibility is related to being able to cope with change to routines etc but the whole need for structure and routine characteristic of autism seems like a different dimension to me.  I like to think that I do see other  viewpoints. I do think I'm fairly nuanced and not extreme in most things,  depending on the situation and context, of course. But people-pleasing, the agonies of  indecision and masking all seem to contradict or work against black and white thinking in my view.

In the video version I said this wasn't related to writing but it actually is! In writing we very much depend on nuance and different thinking styles of our characters, even if we ourselves don't agree with them or share their view of the world.

Enough about me anyway. What does black and white thinking mean to you? Do you have examples? Then I might say 'ah yes' I can see that now! Please do share your views in the comments below or on the YouTube video. Thank you.