No Comment !!!!! Some hope

I love reading the comments that get left on this blog. The nastier the better, it sort of fires up my adrenaline and makes me even more belligerent. As we approach the end of the year, I can now make a few awards to my avid army of fans. Before I do I'd like ramble on for a while about nothing (well almost nothing). Why am I such an awkward sod? Well it all dates back to when I was about 14. At the time I was at Finchley Catholic High School in class 4b. The headmaster at the time was known to all and sundry as "Ned". Ned and myself really didn't get on. For some reason (can't possibly think why?) he'd taken a real dislike to me. As we were still living in the grand old days of corporal punishment and he was the headmaster, this put him at something of an advantage in our tussle. Not being particularly partial to being beaten black an blue, it limited the opportunities for obtaining revenge !!!! One fine opportunity which presented itself was when he took us for RE. Although Ned fancied himself as an intellectual, I found him rather easy to wind up. Ned decided to stage a "class debate". Red rag to a bull!!! Anyway, to cut a long story short, Ned rather lost his rag. He asked me to stand at the front of the class. He then announced that every single member of the class would tell me what they thought of me , so I would be fully aware of my many failings. In short, a ritual humiliation.

In a very Nedesque move, he asked my best friend at the time, Pat Walsh to get the proceedings going. Pat stood up and announced "He's my mate, I'm not saying anything about him, do your own dirty work". The class erupted and at that moment, Ned realised he'd lost it. I was very proud of class 4b. I doubt any other class would have reacted quite the same !!! At that moment I learned three very important lessons.

1. If you stand up and be counted (as Pat Walsh did), then you can change the course of things.

2. You should stand by your friends through thick and thin.

3. That if you stick together you can win and when you do it feels great.

I vowed that I'd never stand by and let things pass that I didn't agree with.

Mind you I'm not the only one with friends. Our council leader, Mike Freer has many friends. Now I'm not sure whether these friends are real or imaginary as their Blogger profiles are rather, shall we say, sparse. We have BARNETRESIDENT, NORTH LONDON, AMANDA, JULIE, DO CALL ME DAVE, JOHN-PAUL, P.,ALISON, ANDREW and CLEFTY.P. They're all rather keen on Mike (generally only leaving posts only where he's mentioned). They all have a remarkably similar use of English to Mike, I wonder if they were all his classmates?

Then there are the non Freerite Barnet Tories. We have DONT CALL ME DAVE and DAN HOPE. Now unlike Mike's (imaginary?) friends, they are most certainly real people. They are both Tories and I guess they're what I would consider "traditional" in as much as that they're anti waste and pro democracy.

Then we have BRIAN COLEMAN AKA MR TOAD HAS GOT TO GO. He's doing a ine job of keeping us all up to date with what a fine job Brian Coleman is doing promoting Global warming and spending any council surplus money. Then there's good old STADLER AND WALDORF reminding us all how blogging should be done. We have DUNCAN MACDONALD for the LibDem's and VICKIM57 for Barnet UNISON, both of whom run fine blogs to boot.

Anyway here's my awards, voted on by the Barnet Eye awards panel.

1. Best (other) Blog in Barnet - 2008 - BARNET COUNCIL WATCH by DON'T CALL ME DAVE
- Highly informative and revealing, fine work in 2008

2. Best single issue commenter - 2008 - BRIAN COLEMAN AKA MR TOAD HAS GOT TO GO
- Staying focused on the big prize

3. Best Blog - 2008 - Frequent Flyer Freer (Tuesday, 29 July 2008 -
http://www.notthebarnettimes.co.uk/)
- This story has opened many a can of worms - Well done David

4. Nastiest Comment on a blog - Julie (click HERE for full blog for context)

Your late friend is entirely responsible for the situation he created for his family when he died. He did not plan for them.....

Had a taken out enough life cover and income protection they could have bought somewhere and had an income for a set period.

- As I said above, comments like this only make me want to blog a bit harder. If I were Mike Freer, this is one of my friends I'd give very a wide berth to.

5. Lifetime achievement award for blogging - STATLER AND WALDORF
- Nuff said

6. Most Expensive blog in Barnet - WWW.LEADERLISTENS.COM - Mike Freer
- I just hope all of his friends enjoy it.

7. Biggest inspiration to Barnet Bloggers - Brian Coleman.
- Without his tax funded excesses, freeloading, displays of pomposity, offensive outbursts and rather amusing speech impediment, these blogs would be so much more bland.

8. Barnet Council's Breakdancing award - Mike Freer
- Anyone who saw him trying to open the window during the council debate on the Icelandic Financial scandal would be truly amazed. He should be on "Strictly come Breakdancing"

9. Most Missed blog in Barnet - Mike Freer - Barnet Times
- Didn't say much but at least I didn't have to pay for it !

As I said, 2008 has not been a great year for me, here's just a few of the things I'll miss.

RIP for 2008 (From a personal perspective). My mum, My father in law, Claremont Road football Ground, My Edgware Times Blog, Mike Freer's Barnet Times blog, Woolworths in Mill Hill, Sven Goran-Erikson at Manchester City, various local post offices, MacMetals in Mill Hill, Paul Hircombe leaving the False Dots after 29 years.

Can't leave on a low note though. He're a few good things from 2008.

Great Cancer Charity gig in March with Lee Thompson & Chris Spedding, Highly successful Mill Hill Music Festival Jazz Long weekend, Fast trains to London reinstated from Mill Hill, The Barnet Eye, Adi Denton joining the False Dots on Bass, The Watling Festival, Finchley Carnival, the Sex Pistols at Brixton Academy, X-ray Specs at the Roundhouse, Miss Pearl by Boz Boorer, The Pogues at The Brixton Academy.

Unless our friends at Barnet try and sneak a sly one in under the wire, whilst we are all looking the other way, this will be the last blog until the New Year, so I wish you all a great 2009.