As a teenage girl with Asperger’s, Greta Thunberg has shown us how liberating it can be to swim against the tide

Cometh the hour, cometh the teenage girl. In recent years we’ve been shown the way by Malala Yousafzai, by Parkland school shooting survivor Emma González and now by the magnificent Greta Thunberg. The Swedish schoolgirl arrived on British soil over the weekend to shame world leaders, and adults in general, into taking meaningful action on climate change.

We should all be grateful for her reminder of what actually matters but I’m doubly so, since around the time Thunberg was preparing to address Extinction Rebellion protesters and MPs in Parliament I was being dragged over the (non-renewable) coals on the internet for expressing unpopular views about the TV show Fleabag (“Brave girl!” said my dad, when I told him of my plans. This was not really a compliment, “brave” and “stupid” being essentially synonymous in our house).

From the calm eye of the Twitterstorm it was easy to see the futility of fighting back. Hot outrage outplays cool reason on social media by a factor of about 100 to one, and there was no way I could compete with the fiery take-downs of an argument I’d never even made. So I logged out, deleted the app from my phone and took my children to the seaside for the day. East Londoners, did you know you can take the c2c line to the beautiful Essex coast in less than an hour? Glorious.

Still, even on a packed bank holiday beach it’s lonely swimming against the tide. A few kind people might shout encouragement from the safety of the shore (my DMs and email inbox were heaving) but hardly anyone is willing to jump in and join you. Later, I reflected on what I might have done differently, and decided that since life is short and Twitter is thick, really, there was only one course of action: tell more truth, give fewer f**ks. I’m currently on about three and aim to get that number down to a nice round zero by the week’s end.

Thunberg should also be our role model in this endeavour. She’s spoken about her Asperger’s diagnosis and how she views it as “a gift”. She has also attributed her school-strike campaign, and its success in reviving the global green movement, to atypical neurology: “Because if I would have been ‘normal’ and social I would have organised myself in an organisation,” she wrote on Facebook. “But since I am not that good at socialising, I did this instead.”

Not everyone with autism experiences the condition in the same way. For some it is more “burden” than “gift”, and it’s important that these people’s needs don’t get overlooked in a rush to congratulate Thunberg on her positivity. But she does show what immense power lies in embracing difference.

So often people limit their own potential with the desperation to conform, in order to be “liked” in both the on- and off-line senses. But guess what? Those differences usually emerge anyway. And when they do, it’s liberating. Come on in, guys, the water’s lovely!

Bring me sunshine, via the big screen

The honeysuckle in full bloom, the first tights-free commute to the office, or the tinny jingle of an ice cream van rounding the corner — everyone looks out for their own signs of summer on the way. For me it’s the launch of Sundance London’s annual film festival. This spin-off from the Utah-based indie institution runs from May 30 to June 2 but this week tickets finally went on sale.

What is it about spending the entire day in a dark, windowless, fiercely air-conditioned cinema that really puts me in a summery mood? Partly it’s a sense memory. A favourite thing to do during the school holidays was to rock up to Enfield Cineworld or Holloway Odeon, buy a ticket for the first film showing, then make carefully timed dashes between screens, seeing as many new releases as possible before the ushers caught up with us. Bad behaviour, good times. When, in ordinary adult life, do you get to see several films, back-to-back, in a single day?

Any trip to the cinema feels like a mini-break.

It’s certainly the cheapest and most comfortable way to travel.

This year’s Sundance London programme jets off to a wedding in China, a corporate awayday in New Mexico and a revenge quest in Tasmania, among other exciting destinations, before landing you safely back in the sticky streets of Soho, just in time for dinner.

Don’t bin Bridget just yet, Renée

At first, it comes off like a perfume ad. A mysterious woman, in a slinky dress, walks slo-mo through a room full of beautiful people, all sipping cocktails and stealing furtive glances in her direction. What it actually is, though, is the teaser trailer for new Netflix series What/If, and Renée Zellweger reintroduced as her original, glamorous, Hollywood self. But I miss Bridget of the big knickers, patron saint of pratfall-prone Londoners. Is it wrong to hope the longer edit features Renée taking a comedy tumble down that sweeping staircase?