make me normal on C4 last night

Fairly sure that this is a pointless question, but did anyone happen to video the Channel 4 documentary about autism that was on last night? It was called 'Make Me Normal' and I clean forgot to watch it, and I really wish I had. If anyone did and would be happy to lend me the video (I'll pay the postage) I'd be really grateful. Failing that, anyone who wants to tell me anything more about it than I already know would be very welcome to do so...

Update: Looks like I'm not the only person making appeals on the web today; anyone with a spare D string for a double bass please get in touch with James, and admire his fine story about vomiting.

music, illness and identity

Okay, so they weren't exactly the best band in the world, but I liked some of their stuff and took an interest in Craig Nicholls, who it was revealed last year suffers from asperger's syndrome, but I'm disappointed to note that, after promising to retreat and regroup as a studio band when their singer was diagnosed, The Vines seem to be pretty much at the end of the road - according to this report, Hamish Rosser, the band's drummer, has had to advertise his services as a musician-for-hire, such is his financial situation. A shame that the spoils of success don't last longer than they do, and a shame that it sounds like the band have been unable to negotiate their way through this sad situation.

Elsewhere, I'm interested in this 'piano man' who has turned up alone on a windswept cliff on the Isle of Sheppey, and who is only able to communicate through drawing and music - specifically he drew a picture of a piano and, when introduced to one, played splendidly and with a calm at odds with his otherwise panicked persona. He has not spoken, nor been identified, and a nationwide search is on to uncover who exactly he is, and what trauma brought him to his current state of affairs.



What interests me more than anything else, though, is the extent to which such a story catches the public imagination - in pure romantic terms, the story is almost cinematic, so it's not surprise that people have reacted. As an establishing shot, a camera panning accross a cliff to reveal a mute, stricken man dressed in a smart performance outfit walking alone against the elements, it's pretty hard to beat.

But it also says something about how people in this country continue to see music as fabulously romantic; were he not an accomplished pianist (and interestingly the tone of articles I've read has ratcheted up the description of his talents from 'adept' to 'extraordinary') but instead a poet, I wonder if he would have had the same attention. Nonetheless, it's clearly fascinating on a number of levels, and I think we're all a bit compelled by the idea of disappearing, of losing one's identity, which has happened here, too.

I wonder how Craig Nicholls, over in Australia and adjusting to life as an autist (rather than a megastar), is adjusting to his changed circumstances and the anonymity it brings.

article shuffle

"Now, pass the jam while I listen to Sergeant Pepper and a Gregorian chant."

Hey, I read an article about maths this morning. Better, I even understood it. John Allen Paulos's lovely 'last word' in the Life supplement of the Guardian today was a peculiar, concise pleasure for someone who doesn't think about science or maths very often.

Ok. At all. But Paulos is sneaky, and he pulls me in by starting off talking about the iPod shuffle and its method of re-arranging components in unforeseen sequences, creating new associations and juxtapositions, and endorses the 'random' element as something we should explore more of in life, even if that just means taking different routes on the way to the train station each morning. Of course, about half way through the article gets a bit more taxing, but I liked the following:

"Imagine a blob of white dough moistened, moulded and compressed into a cube. Suppose that through the middle of this cube runs a thin layer of red jam. Now stretch and squeeze this sandwich to twice its length, then fold it smoothly back upon itself to re form the cube. The jam layer is now shaped like a horseshoe.

Repeat this stretching, squeezing and folding a lot of times and you'll notice that the layer of jam (I'm idealising here) is soon spread throughout the dough in a most convoluted pattern. Points in the jam that were close are now distant; other points that were distant are now close. The same is true for points in the dough. Smale used this "horseshoe" procedure to clarify the advent of unpredictable chaos in so-called dynamical systems, of which human beings are examples.

The punch line, of course, is that the activities listed above - listening to shuffled favourites, rifling through photo albums, randomly surfing the net - are all efficient means for doing to our minds what the stretching, squeezing, and folding does to cubical jam sandwiches. The stretching and squeezing correspond to our envisioning of the disparate events, different songs or people, and unusual situations, and the folding corresponds to what we do if we try to make sense of these weird juxtapositions. If there's a formula for serendipity, this is probably it."

So I feel better for getting to grips with that. Something tells me there's a lot left to learn. Like what prime numbers are, for example. I mean, I've had it explained to me, so I should know. But.... Hmm.

I can tell you, mind, that 31, 19, 79 and 1979 are all prime numbers, but I only know that because I read, thanks to the eagle eyes of graybo and Vic, the best newspaper article I've read so far this year.

"When I multiply numbers together", says Daniel Tammet, "I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think."

"Daniel Tammet is talking. As he talks, he studies my shirt and counts the stitches. Ever since the age of three, when he suffered an epileptic fit, Tammet has been obsessed with counting. Now he is 26, and a mathematical genius who can figure out cube roots quicker than a calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places. He also happens to be autistic, which is why he can't drive a car, wire a plug, or tell right from left. He lives with extraordinary ability and disability."

He is an autistic savant, one of an estimated 10% of the autistic population (and about 1% of the non-autistic population) who has an amazing capacity for mental ability. Yep, you know - Rain Man. But he's unique in that he is able to describe his thought processes to an extraordinary level, and this ability is as wondrous as his savant condition in the first place. Well, almost.

"Tammet is creating his own language, strongly influenced by the vowel and image-rich languages of northern Europe. (He already speaks French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto.) The vocabulary of his language - "Mänti", meaning a type of tree - reflects the relationships between different things. The word "ema", for instance, translates as "mother", and "ela" is what a mother creates: "life". "Päike" is "sun", and "päive" is what the sun creates: "day". Tammet hopes to launch Mänti in academic circles later this year, his own personal exploration of the power of words and their inter-relationship."

The article is fascinating and touching, not least in its description of Neil, the love of Daniel's life, which turns the article, in some wonderful juxtapositional twist, into a fascinating and unexpected take on the Guardian's 'Why we love each other' column. When they first met (after they had first met online, I mean), Daniel says.

"Because I can't drive, Neil offered to pick me up at my parents' house, and drive me back to his house in Kent. He was silent all the way back. I thought, 'Oh dear, this isn't going well'. Just before we got to his house, he stopped the car. He reached over and pulled out a bouquet of flowers. I only found out later that he was quiet because he likes to concentrate when he's driving."

thoughts on craig nicholls

I've made a few mentions of The Vines on this blog, mostly because I've been interested in the unusual behaviour of their singer, Craig Nicholls, who was recently - as I mentioned the other day - diagnosed with aspergers syndrome; another subject which interests me.

I wasn't one of the people proclaiming the first Vines LP as 'the greatest debut album ever made', although the NME were going all guns blazing on that front at the time of its release. Back then, opinion seemed to be sharply divided. I thought that the first two singles from the album, 'Highly Evolved' and - particularly - 'Get Free' were tremendous, but when I mentioned this I would often be rebuked by friends who thought that The Vines - and Nicholls in particular - were the epitomy of shallow, overproduced indie rock masquarading as 'punk'.

In many senses, they were right - the album itself was thin, trebly and one-dimensional (or rather, two dimensional, as it resorted to, in turn, karaoke grunge and stoned californian balladry). The production was hopeless and the songs generally either too fast, too slow, or too sludgy. Meanwhile, Nicholls was making a fool of himself whenever his band appeared; seeming childish and conceited in interviews and crazed on stage.

I watched one performance of The Vines on Later with Jools Holland and remember it as the most embarrasing TV appearance by a band in living memory - Nicholls trashing the stage, screaming incoherently and wrecking the song with clueless guitar playing. At the time I had started to agree with my friends that The Vines were a contrived mess, and felt that Nicholls was just a joke. He didn't even seem to know what he was angry about.

Fast forward a couple of years - plus a second album which all but sunk without trace - and it's tempting to apply a bit of revisionism to the Vines story. Diagnosed with Aspergers, Nicholls' misunderstandings in interviews, stage behaviour and odd and obsessive behaviour begins to make a little more sense.

Asperger's Syndrome, also known as Asperger's Disorder or Autistic Psychopathy, is a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) characterized by severe and sustained impairment in social interaction, development of restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. These characteristics result in clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Now the Vines's manager, Andy Kelly, has explained that

"it's never going to work in a traditional 'demo, record, release, tour' cycle again. It's going to be much more – probably - relaxed and... unconventional, I suppose."

It's interesting to note that while Craig's bizarre behaviour had driven his own bandmates up the wall, alienated a fair degree of the band's fanbase and probably influenced his own songwriting negatively (because it's worth stating that there's enough on that first record to make a claim that he is a decent - perhaps potentially excellent - songwriter), it takes a medical diagnoses to force the band's label to do the decent thing and excempt them from the schedule, schedule, schedule cycle which bands like The Vines have to endure.

"Obviously the big part of Craig's diagnosis is to just let things happen when they happen. After Friday, when the charges were dismissed [Nicholls had been charged with assaulting a photographer] and now that Craig has been diagnosed with Asperger's, it's a huge relief for the band and a huge relief for him - the first thing that he said when he came out of court was; 'It's so great that now we can just play music again and not worry about other stuff.' And that's sort of the approach that everyone's taking – not to suddenly feel locked in to a schedule where you have to have demos done by this time and an album done by this time and a tour booked by this time... because that's just not how it's ever going to work for The Vines again."

Apart from being pleased for Nicholls that his lifestyle will not again be disturbed in such a calamitous way by touring, one wonders what result this will have on future material by The Vines, assuming that they do stay together and continue releasing records.

Second album syndrome is a common problem in pop music; that a good band fails to follow up on the promise of their debut with their next (and often subsequent) albums. One theory for this is simple - the pressures and demands of success (and striving for success) interfere with the creative process. How many excellent albums have been written on tired, stressy evenings after work while a young band fights for some attention? How many more have been bloated by pressure, coke, the arrogance of success. In Nicholls' case, was the second album poor because his life had become too complicated?

I think there's a decent chance that the next Vines album will be far better than we might have otherwise expected. I hope Craig Nicholls goes home, calms down, and concentrates on what he's good at.

"Craig's just happy writing songs and recording, and that’s pretty much how it’s going to be. Craig has no intention of doing any more interviews or anything like that – and everyone totally accepts it. It’s even… if that’s the case, you have to accept that you’ll probably sell a lot less records, but everyone just wants him to be happy, so that’s kind of what it is. (Dealing with Asperger's) is just about managing your lifestyle and your situation - Craig’s comfortable as much of the time as he can be."

Good.

Vines singer has aspergers

This is interesting, from the NME website.

THE VINES’ singer CRAIG NICHOLLS has been diagnosed with ASPERGER SYNDROME.

Nicholls’ condition was revealed during a hearing at Sydney’s Balmain Local Court yesterday (November 19).

The star was facing charges of assault and malicious damage, which were later dismissed. The charges stem from an incident at the Annandale Hotel (May 27) when he allegedly kicked a photographer’s camera during a gig for radio station Triple M.

According to The Herald Sun, following the brief ten-minute hearing Nicholls said: “I’m free.”

Nicholls was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome after one of the band’s crew members alerted management to its existence, despite years of attempts by psychologists and psychiatrists to find the correct diagnosis.

Asperger’s Syndrome is a neurobiological disorder which causes the sufferer to exhibit autistic-like behaviour and marked deficiencies in social and communication skills.

People with AS have difficulties with transitions or changes and prefer sameness. They often have obsessive routines and may be preoccupied with a particular subject of interest.

george and sam

Nancy Banks-Smith's short television review in the paper yesterday was a typical example of the brilliance of her writing, which is always economical, direct and insightful. But she can't take the credit for the most charming extract, as follows.

"Nowadays candles suggest birth, not death. In Charlotte Moore's book George and Sam, her autistic son, seeing candles in a church, runs down the aisle shouting "Cake!" and blows them all out. Giving God a much-needed laugh".