dm2010

If you were a soldier who was injured, wouldn't you want a medic who knew exactly what size your arm was and had pre-sized dressings made up to fit ? How many lives did this man save before his own was cut short ? Military recruiters take note, dammit. The often blanket bans on Aspies serving in the military front line are just plain wrong and a serious loss to those organisations. But then again military organisations often recruit to a fixed template, and if you don't match it you don't get in. The bravery and dedication displayed here is in the finest traditions of any service.

I think that it's useful to feel insignificant sometimes, because everyone is ! We live on the surface of a small planet, that orbits a very ordinary star. If you look on spacecraft shots from Mars orbit, we are just a pale blue dot. There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy. And 100 billion galaxies . . . . If you feel down, go on the internet and look up the NASA site on "Mars Global Surveyor". See another world in detail. The universe is a very big place.

I had the same diagnosis

This one is for the kids (of all ages) - the original Neverending Story film from 1984 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088323/ Not an official AS film but the title character has many of the traits - the daily misery of bullies, always told he lives in a dreamworld . . . but in this film he really gets to be in one !

This is the best of all Madame Curie,an MGM film from 1943. Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036126/ Nobel prizes for physics and chemistry, she was the most famous woman of her day bar NONE. But even Albert Einstein said that fame never went to her head - and he was certainly qualified to say that.

Well I was diagnosed age 26. AS adults are not unusual on here. I'm not sure that these focus groups are a great deal of help. Personally I've found that it's best to live with AS and work with it rather than try and fight against it. After all there are advantages especially in the type of work I do. But I'm not a socialite and will never be. I avoid that and things work just fine.

It's your house - turn the power sockets off. Teenagers will naturally gravitate towards the easiest route, so don't give them the option.

<Yawn> The next thing you will get told is "you treat this place like a hotel"

Two words to summarise this "Practice papers" You must practice aswering exam questions under exam conditions. Doing well in the exam is a skill by itself independent of the knowledge you have. At university I was able to study just 30% of the syllabus and get 60% in the exams by reviewing 5 years worth of previous papers, seeing what topics came up and writing full answers.

Qualifications do matter but not forever. Even my university head of department said that by the age of 30 they have much less significance. They matter most between the ages of 18 and 22 when you're either going to university or leaving there for a first job. In professional fields everyone is qualified so it is a bar to entry, and no more than that. In a sales orientated business world environment, qualifications have much less value. You're judged on monthly sales figures.

Haha yes vicars are famous for their model trains and boats. Or the real thing as Eric Tracy so famously showed. It's been well known for years that Hornby's best market is men aged around 50 buying for themselves. Personally I'm a huge fan of O gauge live steam, but that needs a garden which I don't have. One day I'm going to have my own steam launch that can run on driftwood and seawater - but that's a few years away !

GCSE's are easy. A levels are harder - it isn't called Advanced Level for nothing Degree is much, much harder - you have to do everything yourself, the support network you had at school disappears completely - and you're probably living away from home for the first time. The shock of going from easy to difficult is pretty big ! Note also that the actual grades you get at A level and degree are less important than how you do in comparison with everyone else - it is a full-on competition for the best universities and jobs which GCSE isn't.

"The Marines are the point. Its the toughest training to create tough people. Its supposed to put a boot in your butt and prepare you for the world, that's why my family are insistent that we all join." This is a very popular view, to a point where everyone thinks it is actually true including most of the media. Tough it certainly is and all credit to those who complete it but the mystique attached to it is in my view excessive. One could argue that the getting a high level professional qualification is just as difficult if not more so. The dropout rate is very high and the willpower to do it has to be sustained over 6 years with you supplying all your own motivation, not the 9 months that it takes a Royal Marine to train with a drill instructor telling you what to do. I would ask the question too - does being a Royal Marine really prepare you for later life ? Perhaps. But I would argue that professional training is more likely to earn you a consistent living.

On the Royal Marines issue - I knew well for many years someone from 42 Commando so I got to know how the Marines work. It's like any other branch of the services - they recruit to a narrow template and if you don't match it, you won't get in. For officers it is even more restrictive. So what if they don't want you ? Pursue your success elsewhere. Incidentally, I did a Bleep running test many years ago with 10 serving Royal Marines in the training group. I beat them all, the last one dropped out at level 16.

Actually I agree with much of your post, with the exception of FOOD ! I'm a fine food junkie and just love a 3 course restaurant meal, especially when it's on expenses hehehe. As an engineer, machines are your friends. They have moods and a language all their own that no one else speaks. A slightly out of balance rotor shaft buried deep inside a machine says "bet you can't find me" but I can. A horrendously complicated manufacturing process that no one has yet cracked says "I've defeated you all" well not me you haven't ! Something that has never been measured accurately before says "I can keep my secrets from you". We'll see about that. My expertise in engineering has been hard won, of all the professions I think it's the most egalitarian and open to those who are willing to work at it. As Thomas Edison said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. People are fickle and hostile to those with AS. Machines welcomed me into their world from day 1. My parents said as much when they toured my factory, remarking that nothing had really changed - my toys had just got bigger and more expensive !

This the the rule rather than the exception in my experience. But I've found such people are quite vulnerable to a short but assertive "get your tanks off my lawn" speech.

Austria is just the posh part of Germany. Vienna is beautiful at any time of year, although I'm not a frequent visitor unfortunately !

Could well be true with the Japanese but I've never done business with them. It's a bit far to go and I don't like the food.

They might not have a word for sarcasm but they certainly use it. The Germans are not humourless as many think, on other discussion boards I've seen several Germans with a quite unique wit. After all they invented the word "schardenfreude" which is has no exact english equivalent. Essentially it means gloating and enjoying it a lot. Also on my German version of the superb 1981 kids TV series "Silas" the lead character (12 years old) keeps saying "Grunspan und entendreck" whenever things go wrong which they frequently do. I invite everyone to google translate this phrase. The English subtitled version deliberately doesn't translate it because the nearest equivalent is a common swear word ! Only the Germans would put something like that in, apparently when first broadcast it got howls of laughter from the audience.

As a veteran of business dealings with the Germans I can report I make use of the following AS behaviours : 1. Sticking rigidly to meeting agendas. 2. Sitting in the same place every time. 3. Arriving and leaving to the minute. 4. Sending emails at the same time each day. 5. No small talk - unless it's about Winston Churchill (their MD is a huge fan) In the UK such behaviour would be considered eccentric or even weird. The Germans love it, because this is the way they behave normally and cannot believe that any English person could understand them so well. I am considered an honorary German even though I don't speak the language. So take heart everyone. Much of the objections to AS behaviours are based on cultural prejudice and are not common currency everywhere.

One of the key taboos broken on the Apprentice is that the clothes you wear should reflect the job you do - nothing more or less. If you are stupid (as most of them are) wearing an expensive suit makes you look even more so. I do know that the casting for these things follows a definite pattern. Only 4 of the contestants are potential winners, the rest are picked for their entertainment value alone. And a good job they make of it too. The "SAS are you tough enough" programs followed a similar tack. Only those with endurance sport backgrounds were ever going to get anywhere but they included lots of gym rats because watching them implode due to over inflated egos and lack of endurance fitness was such fun.

Yes - if only there was a general enlightened attitude. What can actually happen is ridicule from the class, and the teacher saying "he brings it on himself". A combination which regrettably I grew very familiar with.

Relationships are tricky for everyone. Two non AS friends of mine both split up with girlfriends after having things thrown at them. In one case it was candlestick launched with enough force for it to embed itself in the wall he was standing in front of - he ducked just in time.

Finished the preparation today - this is a telephone interview. All the reference documents complete and printed, although these will be backup for the computer. I have 10 pages of questions and answers already prepared with a hyperlink index at the front, nothing is more than 1 mouse click away. That should cover pretty much anything I'm asked. Not that I read out what's on the screen, it's more a question of talking around what's there. Executive job interviews are won or lost on preparation. I'm pretty sure that my prospective future employers would not expect me to do the interview with just my phone and a paper copy of the CV, because they have a reputation for carefully preparing their own questions too.

"He's the most amazing little boy, fascinated by electricity, lights, batteries, recently circuits, but struggling bigtime at school, especially with reading and writing." Well there's a start. He should be joining the school electronics club ! I had late diagnosed AS too but I doubt from many people's experiences on here whether an earlier diagnosis would have helped. I still feel that my childhood was stolen from me, as many on here do. The feeling that I'm an incomplete person still persists. There are compensations of course, my professional abilities are much stronger than they otherwise would be. But does that make up for what I have lost. I'm not so sure.