Asperger's.

What most people will deduce from my writings on here, for the past 11 years or so, is that I don't profess to know anything about anything. You read my views and opinions at your peril.

I was watching Jeopardy one evening in Los Angeles, a quiz show that I enjoyed right up to the day we came back. One of the answers – they always give you the answer first, and then you have to answer with a question – was 'I coined the phrase autism' and the question to the answer was 'who is Asperger.'

I am sure I heard it before, and it intrigued me so I looked it up and from then on I could usually tell, when I met someone who had Asperger's Syndrome.

First of all let me say here that I am not talking about you or our other friends and acquaintances so rest assured. None of you know these guys.

There is an English TV host here who would go on and on about how the way the Americans pronounced it; he would say, they say AssburGers – AssburGers! The usual, oh the yanks are saying it wrong, act, as if they should say things the way we say them – even if we're wrong. I mean the guy, Hans Asperger was Austrian and worked with the Nazis during the war and sent Asperger people to the camps. Asperger should really rhyme with Hamburger but it has been un-nazified for the English ear.

I had to meet a film director, one day, at his lovely big house in Beverly Hills and when I got there, he answered the door. There was something about him, something about his eyes which seemed half closed, kind of with a few blinks, looking away and then back again and he would make a wise crack at nearly everything.

I was supposed to audition for a role and as we chatted I made him feel more comfortable and I said 'do you want me to read?' and he said 'oh er, yes . .yes. I can see you can act, but er . .yes . .why not?'

So I read for the role and we eventually worked together.

There were other things about him, later on, which made me doubt his Asperger status and I got used to it but eventually I settled at my first impression.

I do things like looking up a name when I hear it and these days, with the Internet, it's a lot easier.

I saw a movie called 'The Land that Time Forgot,' years ago, Doug McClure was in it and there was a line 'Plato was right!'

So I had to find time to look up Plato – a Greek Philosopher. And what was he right about? His name – Plato – platonic?

He taught Aristotle – another Greek philosopher, but don't worry; we're going back to Hans Asperger. What was his nickname at school? Arse? Ass.

My film director guy used to think the world revolved around him. He made many documentaries in foreign countries making fun of the Russians, the Armenians and other countries and I never saw him eat. He would sit and watch me eat because by the time I got to the table he had finished his meal. All gone, down like a dog.

The best demonstration of Asperger's is a film about someone who doesn't have it. Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman. Tom Cruise is also in the movie playing Hoffman's brother. They build up a relationship, what we believe is a strong relationship, and he finds he has many talents. He can remember numbers, facts that we wouldn't necessarily think of and the audience feels a warmth to him. We can see that Tom Cruise is loving him as a brother and we think we can see an improvement but there is nothing there. He has no feeling at all for Tom Cruise. And at the end he just walks away.

Most movies about people in crisis are about that crisis and the crisis gets better or it is solved. Not with autism. Not a jot, they never ever change, they can seem normal – and in fact they are but just not our kind of normal – but they have problems communicating, don't read body language and have no empathy.

 Psychopaths have no empathy, get bored easily etc. and other things which are in the book The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson.

But the Asperger is no psychopath. They can be depressed, can be alcoholics and never figure out why ceasing to drink will bring their problems to an end. They could read this and get nothing from it. They will threaten suicide when up against it. My pal the director had it figured out exactly how he would top himself and went into it with me in every frightening detail.

Today the people with Asperger's run the world. They are the people in Silicon Valley, they built Google, Facebook and the rest of it. Einstein, it is said, had Asperger's even though it wasn't fully diagnosed by anybody till 1991, and if he'd have stayed in Germany he would have been sent away as he had two minuses, as far as the Nazis were concerned; Jewish and an Asperger.

But we all remember those strange kids at school. Not the ones who had no hope but the ones who would be obsessive with things, doing every painting in the paint by numbers series, remembering every date and happening, when their pets were born, when they died, what time their dad came in last night. The Asperger guy would be the guy who would go to Wembley to see the cup final and go on and on about the décor in the bus that took them there.

But the thing about Asperger was that he did work with the Nazis – this from Wikipedia - Asperger managed to accommodate himself to the Nazi regime and was rewarded for his affirmations of loyalty with career opportunities. He joined several organizations affiliated with the NSDAP (although not the Nazi party itself), publicly legitimized 'race hygiene' policies including forced sterilizations and, on several occasions, actively cooperated with the childs 'euthanasia program.

Look at those last three words and the first two in particular 'child's euthanasia'. Here is a picture of the bastard.