Strike Factory

Here was a nice facebook status by a facebook page called ARMY of Autism Awareness Angels, run by a mother of an Autistic child Brooke Clarke of Adelaide, Australia raising awareness of autism, it really sums up the difficulties of being an adult with high functioning autism/ aspergers! Thought I would share it :) The page can be accessed here!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/armyofautismawarenessangels

AUTISM FACT: Autism is a Lifelong condition ! That means that kids with ASD will grow into Adults with ASD. Whilst the traits of an Adult with Autism (especially High Functioning) may not be so evident than those of a child with ASD, we need to therefore be in tune with and understand those signs to make them more comfortable in our interactions. We asked on of our Supporters, a 19 year old young lady with High Functioning Autism, what she would like to share with people about her Autism. Thank you "Miss H" for sharing with us :)
"SETTING PEOPLE STRAIGHT:
-When I don't make eye contact it does NOT mean I don't care or am disinterested, i find eye contact hard and at times stressful (makes job interviews etc pretty interesting).
-My body language might say "get me out of here" but that doesn't necessarily mean "get me away from you" too. Sometimes it's the place/noise/situation that gets to me.
-We aren't asking the questions repeatedly just to annoy you, we just want it to make sense and get it right.
Empathy: sometimes it can be so hard for to try comforting another person, for me I think it may be that I was terrified of looking ridiculous or more so, being rebuffed. Much better now though!"
THANK YOU MISS H XXX
Please everyone, BE AUTISM AWARE !

I managed to enjoy the Olympic experience live over the weekend, I travelled up to London to watch the London marathon, which was the experience of a lifetime seeing sports fans from all over Britain and the world gathered! It was a great atmosphere, and lovely see fans from all around the world! Main highlight was after the marathon I was at the Walkabout bar by the Thames, and witnessed some French fans gathered around a small screen watching the Mens Handball final whilst most in the bar were focused on basketball final on big screen chanting 'Allez le Bleus'. In the closing minutes of the final the screen suddenly cut out to some PC (Personal Computer not Political Correctness) error nonsense. At first the French fans attempted unsusessfully to fix the problem (touching OK on screen does not always work!), but a lovely member of staff managed to sort out the problem just as the match finished with a Gold Medal for France!

All in all it was a great opening ceremony though closing ceremony was poor at the start it was decent by the end with the legendary Fatboy Slim getting the crowd going! It was Great Britain’s best showing for 100 years a long way from the first Olympics I got into Atlanta 1996 where we only managed one Gold Medal! Sad the Olympics are over but you have got Brighton and Hove Albions league campaign starting on Saturday and looking forward to the US Open tennis at the end of the month! :)

As for life, struggling a little bit, as I lost some crucial business admin certificates and been a bit slow on the job front but with Olympics over should start to pick! Anyone willing to help me out and office advice get in touch!

Plus been reading ebook by former Neighbours lovely Carla Bonner (aka Steph Scully) titled Hook, Line and Sink Her, which gives a fun insight into how to win women seeing things how they see it and seeing all the signs men dont normally see, certainly worth a read.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/162812

Finally Strike Factory has its own facebook page if you want to like! :) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Strike-Factory/177008902429203

Jobsearching and my retro Aussie soap fetish

Sadly I did not get the job with West Sussex county council, but seeing folk at Central Sussex College, and trying to get the best direction, and enjoying the Olympics at the moment

Not easy to admit, but down the years I have had an on and off love for the soap operas produced by Australia and recently purchased 2 DVDs of classic Neighbours episodes from 1985 to about 2004! My mother could be partly to blame having been a keen watcher of various Aussie soaps down the years the likes of Prisoner H Cell Block and Sons & Daughters (both a bit before my time though I managed to watch repeats on Channel 5 a few years ago as adult!), but she has watched Neighbours and Home and Away right from the start when I was a toddler which means amongst my early infant memorys include 'Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours...' and surfers having accidents dancing to 'You know we belong together...' in the closing credits of Home and Away!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBzYtrnpst8

Now a bit of history and info esp for those not British or Australian, if it bores you skip this paragraph to the next one. The UK Australia relationship is a sort of friendly Commonwealth love-hate kind of thing, with most Australians having either British or Irish blood in some form and English/ British folk with Aussie parentage in some form (eg Bradley Wiggins and Laura Robson spring to mind!)! Australia first half of the 20^th century was very British influenced with ABC being modelled on BBC and older characters on early soaps like Anne Haddy (Helen Daniels), would have accents that sounded more English home counties than down under despite being Aussie born and bred! However just after World War II things changed not only was the Empire falling apart the Australian's were suddenly outclassing the mother country at cricket, rugby, Olympics and tennis they were producing about a million grand slam winners (Impressive for a nation whose population was about 18 million then!), whilst us Brits waited and hoped the likes of Roger Taylor, Tim Henman or even bloody Andrew Castle only when desperate. But gradually not only was it sport, they were starting to dominate us culturally! In the 1970s and 1980s a series of various Australian produced shows came to our shores that seemed more bright and postive than the likes of doom and gloom Eastenders and Coronation Street, the Aussie's term for 'Whinging Poms' seemed more apt watching those UK soap operas in 1980s! We did not know it but we were being Aussified even the way we dressed and talked was being influenced by the 'good day' folk esp the likes of me that grew up in the 1990s, however with the 2003 Rugby World Cup lack of recent Aussie tennis success and recent British Gold success at the London 2012 Olympics the tide seems to be turning again!

However Neighbours (a show so popular here that the British population was happy to part fund it via the BBC for 21 years until it switched to Channel 5!) was the first overall soap I fell in love and got into as a kid due to a certain Golden Labrador by the name of Bouncer, but a few years later when Bouncer and most of his host Robinson family had departed and increasing silly storylines, I drifted onto Home and Away, loving the warmth of Alf and Alisa Stewart, Irene (I saw Lynne McGranger perform Panto at the Dome in Brighton 1995!), moody headteacher Fisher and his comedy realitionship with Marilyn, and the goings on with Sally and the complex Fletcher-Ross foster clan!

However by the late 90's I switched back to Neighbours (the return of Harold Bishop and the teenage gang that revolved around the likes of Toadie, Kennedys etc possibly played a part!) and has pretty much been the main Aussie soap I have watched since then! So whilst looking for oppertunitys to get into work been watching old Neighbours episodes, enjoying the chance to see the likes of Harold Bishop, Bouncer, Philip Martin, Joe Mangel, my and old crush Stephanie McIntosh as Sky Mangel! As well as the rivalry of the early Ramsay and Robinson clans and the Scott Charlene relationship that I was too young to see! Then suddenly just after purchasing the DVDs Channel 5 announce that as Home & Away is taking a summer break they would be showing two retro episodes from 1988 to the present day, so enjoying the chance to relive the original theme and the classic opening and closing credits seen in video below, as well as the up and down acting of some of the early Home and Away actors, and the original Fletcher family! Sad I know. lol