Capt SpaceBat

Dear Mr Obama,

I am writing in the hope that you will consider recalibrating your government’s stance over the proposed extradition of the UK citizen Gary McKinnon.

You will not doubt be aware that people with Asperger Syndrome are often far more vulnerable than initial appearances would suggest, frequently isolated, often bullied and sadly many experience severe mental health problems if they do not get the right support.  Many consider that his extradition is unnecessary, avoidable and disproportionate as such a process has not taken place in other similar cases.

I too am one of those people.  I have Asperger Syndrome, co-morbid with other mental health issues, and like Mr McKinnon, have a deep fascination and extreme skill with technology.  Were it not for my heightened sense of clinical paranoia, I too would probably have done just what Mr McKinnon did in his search for what he perceived to be the truth.

The fact that a number of the systems that he accessed had default passwords - that is a blank field - shows recklessness on the part of the systems administrators responsible for your national security, all the way up the chain of command.

Without a wholesale overhaul of these systems and censure of those responsible, your government’s actions appear to be persecution of one of the most vulnerable members of our or any society for highlighting the failures of others.

Mr McKinnon is now a scapegoat for pointing out that the Emperor’s new clothes were in fact illusory and so I implore you to reconsider your government’s request for his extradition.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Springham

Apologies to my followers and readers for being out of the loop for so long, but I have been - finally - working on my autobiography.

“Between the Cracks” is a bit of a (so far!) life-long work in progress, having undergone a range of name changes, abortive starts, diversionary tactics and writers’ blocks.

Synopsis: I am an adult survivor of extended childhood abuse.  I only started addressing these issues in 2005, undergoing psychotherapy and taking legal action against the local authority responsible for my childhood “care”.  They settled out of court in 2008.  I have obtained access to most, if not all, of my early life records and am compiling them into a book – along with my thoughts and recollections, art and photographs – to highlight how easy it is to fall “between the cracks” and be failed by the social and other services.

This is in part to encourage the others as well as to help me continue to come to terms with the pervasive after-effects of such neglect, oversight and exploitation.

Active involvement seems to be the key to keeping going; knowing what to do seems the most difficult part.

What motivates you? London, where I live, has so many opportunities available; at least in theory.  The perils of going out, mixing with new (and comparatively strange) people - not to mention the costs involved - do make for what seem to be insurmountable hurdles.

One solution that I have found is to take an area of fascination and see what else can be done with it, given an askance view and the removal of the usual limits that gang up  to prevent even the most normal or mainstream of events ever being realised.

My latest project, you will no doubt be delighted to hear, concerns my interest in food generally and the Onion Rava Masala Dosa (very) specifically, along with web mapping and interactivity.  What occurred was the collision of several ideas, questions mainly:

• Where can one get a really good Dosa?
• What variations are there on the theme?
• Does anyone have any good recipes?
• Do all cultures have a dish roughly comparable?
• Could this all be put together using Google Maps?
• How could I build a community site based around this idea?
• Would this make a great guide for others?

Thus the “DosaDirect ” project was born, only after answering “yes” to all the above.  I am still working on the mechanics of the project, but something further should be forthcoming soon.  More news as it breaks …

The European elections are on the 4th of June which is our chance to influence the future political and environmental direction of Europe when electing our local representatives.

Will members use it as a means of punishing their local and national leaders or to direct European representation? On the other hand, will they ignore it as just another opportunity for the self-serving to line up at the trough.

What are the dangers of a low turnout allowing single-issue and extremist parties wielding disproportionate power?

Herewith some of the latest outpourings from the brush, pen & mouse of yours truly:

“Rear Window” or “Work/Life Balance” (Preliminary sketch)

“The Ballad of Epsom General” A sideways view of life on the trolley

“Enough!” Fight against the stigma of mental health (in bad Spanish)

What a week! Missed out on a job performing online support within the public sector because I was “over experienced.” Then I had an application for help with essential flooring materials turned down.  To top it all, one of my potential long-term clients has “run out of cash” just before launching their innovative scheme to direct vulnerable young people towards positive rôle models and life choices and have decided that the new aim is to provide a few links without any of the social bookmarking, geomapping and streaming video that I have spent months developing …

The immortal words of Tony Hancock spring to mind: “stone me! what a life …” or to misquote Frankie Howerd, “Twitter ye not!”

It’s only being so cheerful that keeps me going when surrounded by such shining examples of what the ancients called a “Causas Banjo “

With amazing precision and luck over judgement, I put together a mock-up of “Dirty Instruments” using PowerPoint - it *has* a purpose , at last! The paint brush effects to simulate my cack-handed attempts at replication were then thrown into the mix, producing the following:

“Dirty Instruments” - preparatory sketches 2 & 3

On other fronts, lumbar stability continues, I had an haircut and I have a job interview lined up … what a few days! Amazing how a few simple and relatively small changes can have a massive effect of one’s outlook.  I heartedly recommend it.

I was telephoned on Sunday by someone claiming to be helping raise awareness of the work of a UK charity against child cruelty.  I said that I was not in a position to offer funds in support but the caller insisted that I listen to the sales pitch, which I did.  After hearing about cruelty and exploitation of children and the uphill struggle suffered by the charity in trying to find help and support for these victims, I explained that I am an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, that it had taken me over 20 years to pluck up the courage to tell anyone, that I had taken legal redress against my abuser’s employers (a local authority) and that the post traumatic stress has left me with such mental health issues that I am considered disabled and thus unlikely to be in a position to have enough money to hand to make a financial commitment to any cause, no matter how keenly felt.

I explained that, as such, the sales patter was extremely “triggering” for myself and was likely to be too for any other adult survivor.  The insistence that I listen to all the terrible things to which exploited children are prey seemed to me later to be somewhat akin to “grooming” – another experience that would be shared by many of those who had suffered in such ways and - I hope - quite contrary to the ethos of the organisation.

Being the member of several adult groups (online and ‘in real life’) concerned with mental health and sexual abuse issues, I have found it to be common practice to warn fellow members if a discussion topic may contain “triggers” that some may find uncomfortable or distressing; would not this be a sensible precaution when spreading the word of such work to people who, by the very nature of their interest, may well have been affected in some way by the issues that such charities seek to alleviate and address?  An unsupported person in their own home having a stranger phone them out of the blue saying what seems like “help us to help people who have been damaged just like you were – oh, as a reminder, here’s what happened … please carry on listening” is a hardly a recipe for helping an already fragile person for whom such services are available woefully too late.

Today was another rather mixed day, not unlike many: this time with new and subtle twists and a new direction.  Quite a lot for a short sentence, I grant you; please bear with me.

Sarah and I had several things to do today; some it would seem deliberately thwarted by the ill preparedness of others.  Going into town, we were held up at Balham due to an unspecified - free-floating, even - track or signal problem.  After a long wait and the return of the law of diminishing returns , we decided to change both route and mode of transport, managing to achieve all of our goals with comparative ease.  So far, so good, until our ultimate port of call.

Sarah was to exhibit some of her paintings at a new art gallery, to which we ventured through the residual snow and concomitant transport chaos to arrive in good time to hang her works.  When we arrived, we found that the venue was not prepared, the hanging space was in process of assembly, and the fellow artists were hanging around bemused in the ensuing chaos.  We repaired to a nearby hostelry for refreshment - as not was available at the venue - and to reconsider our options.

After a short discussion, it transpired that we would probably be hanging around for another three or more hours before the exhibition actually began, if the venue was ever ready in time.  Then we would have to try to “smile & look attractive” whilst surrounded by similarly glum exhibitors and apparently uncaring organisers: thereby throwing good time and money after bad.

The scenes of chaos, despair, and misery were not unlike those found in the catering facilities of hospitals throughout the land.  Sarah had found much the same feeling when waiting in the canteen for me to emerge from my psychotherapy sessions at Springfield Hospital .  During this period, she wrote poems to explore her thoughts and feelings of what was a very bleak situation.  Sarah has collated her poems into a work entitled, aptly, “The Green Canteen.”

We decided that collaborative and collective work was the way forward – as outlined by Mr Marx and others  -  combining the artistic experiences and endeavours of both carers and sufferers (people like me) their charges  was the only possible way forward.    We hit on the idea of “the Green Canteen” as a forum for our work and of those of people in similar situations, leading to proper, respectful exhibitions of works from both end of the mental health spectrum.

This will happen in another place, without angels.  It is “time to change.”

“Artists in Rectitude”
(c) Ian Springham, 2009

Diminishing returns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns

Springfield Hospital: 
http://www.swlstg-tr.nhs.uk/contact/springfield_university_hospital.asp

Artists Collectives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist_collective

Marx & Collectives: 
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/rbr1_marxstat.html

Carers UK 
http://www.carersuk.org/

Time to change: 
http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/

“Act on CO2″ said the voice from the television and so - easily-led person that I am - I went to a search engine and entered that very phrase.  Over 24,000 results matched my query, the majority of them on the first page were UK government sites giving advice on reduction of one’s carbon dioxide footprint.  This is itself is very gratifying, showing that the Government is starting to get its message across and that its search engine optimisation strategy has been pretty successful so far.

Having an enquiring mind and a keen devotee of wordplay, the permutations of the words I heard ran through my head: “Acton CO2″ was thee most obvious pun, then I thought “that’s not Acton’s postcode, it should be Acton W3.”  This, I realised was in last in part to the mass of geocoding that I have been working on recently. CO2 seemed familiar: then it struck me that it was my sister’s root postcode.  Having spouted on recently about the importance of accepting onesself and one’s seiblings and valuing the importance of having living relatives, it was with some joy that I answered the phone to my sister this evening.  Without going into details, we discussed her forthcoming joint birthday & reunion party: the whys, wheres and wherefores were mulled over and I confessed that I would be unlikely to make it - distance, alcohol, other people and my paranoia militating against such adventures into the darkest corners of southern eastern England.

My wife, having heard a rough analysis of our conversation and spotting 4 of my areas of cowardice, suggested “why don’t we go? it would be fun to meet up at a party!” - a brilliant idea as we would meet at a happy event without any pressure on any of us.  So, I hope that it will still be a surprise for her, a joy for all of us and a good starting point for future meetings and a developing relationship.  Which is nice.