Lets do a bit of nostalgia. Lets look back on those heady days of last month when it snowed and the borough ground to a halt. I asked my kids whether they remembered it. They grinned. What was the best bit, I asked Matthew, my 8 year old. "The snowball fight with Max (his cousin) and the naked guy". I asked Lizzie 11, the same question. I got the same answer. We had a great snowball fight in the middle of Mill Hill Broadway. I'd hitched our boxer dog to our sledge and she'd towed the kids to the park and back, after tackling Mill Hill's most prized black ski run. Then we'd gone to Leyla's Turkish restaurant for a long and boozy lunch. During the course of lunch, one of the kids noticed a naked guy in the flats above Nat West dropping snowballs on unsuspecting shoppers. This provided much entertainment, especially when his girlfriend joined in the fun. I suspect that they were as unaware of the amusement they were providing us, as the shoppers were of the source of the snowballs. In case you were wondering, the height of the window preserved his modesty.
For us, we turned it into a truly memorable family day. The fact that nothing was moving, most of the shops were shut and all the kids were off school only added to the fun. So why do I mention it. Well if you read the latest edition of Barnet First, the councils magazine, it seems that the council kept everything running like clockwork?
It reminds me of the Soviet newspaper "Pravda" in the days of Breshnev. My wife studied Russian at Uni and we travelled a fair few times to the USSR before it collapsed. One of our friends ran a pirate radio station in Minsk. Even playing a bit of decent music was subversive then. I invited Igor over to the UK. When he arrived, I
took him down to Budgens in Mill Hill Broadway. As we walked around he pronounced "It's so depressing". I replied "It's not that bad". He wasn't referring to the state of the shop. He was commenting on the fact that the shelves were full. It was becoming clear to him that the picture of the west painted by Pravda (which means Truth in Russian) was anything but honest.I was at a meeting of the Barnet Community Action group last night. One of the subjects we discusse
d was future shape. Apparently the seventh principle is democratic accountability. This would be easy to achieve. Give the people of Barnet a referendum on whether they want full scale privatisation of the council. If they won, they'd have a mandate and us malcontents would have to shut up! Trouble is, if they can't even tell the truth about a bit of snow, that everyone with eyes could see, what hope is there for an honest and open debate.
3 comments:
Rog
According to Barnet First, we experienced a “once in a generation level of snowfall.” Generations must be getting shorter because I remember a similar severe downfall just three years ago. It was so severe, it took 6 hours to drive home from my office (15 miles).
Barnet First costs the taxpayer £103,000 a year. Perhaps the money could be used to re-open Totteridge Library which used to stock a similar range of fiction.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
The fact that Barnet ground to a halt doesn't bother me, the weather was unusual. The fact that the council is pretending it did a marvellous job does.
This is a complete waste of money. It is disgraceful that they can fund this but not wardens in shared accomodation
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