The Barnet Eye - An announcement and an invitation

Firstly an announcement.

Following the general election on May 7th, I have decided to take a break from political blogging. This is not a retirement, simply a refocussing of my priorities. I put a huge amount of effort into writing this blog, usually spending 2 hours a day on writing and researching blogs and given the fact that the next council election will be in 3 years and the next general election will be in five years, there is little of value to add for a very long time.

This does not mean I will not be supporting campaigns that are required for the good of the London Borough of Barnet, but this will be on a more ad hoc basis than before. I will also be inviting the people of Barnet to submit guest blogs and I am trying to see if we can get a few regular guest bloggers from across the political spectrum to fill the gaps. If you are interested in becoming a regular guest blogger, please get in touch! We will be retaining a few regular features, such as the Friday Joke and the Tweets of the week.

None of this means that the Barnet Eye is going away. To the contrary, I will be focussing on a few other aspects of life. The most significant will be the #SaveLondonMusic campaign. This campaign is trying to preserve the musical heritage of London and get proper protection from developers for music venues and studios. I will be tirelessly lobbying our local MP's to support the campaign, as ultimately we need an act of parliament to resolve the issues. Over the next few days I will spelling out in more detail what is needed and how we can achieve the preservation of Londons Music scene.

I will also be looking at local life and places of local interest in more detail. We live in a great place, lets appreciate it.

Finally an invitation. If you have nothing to do on Saturday evening, please join me at the Midland Hotel, by Hendon train station on Saturday night, for my long delayed 50th Birthday party. It is free and is part of our campaign to save London music. There will be three bands, including my band, the False Dots, featuring the brilliant vocal talents of Allen Ashley on vocal, Fil Ross on bass and Gray Ramsey on drums. Here is a clip of one of my songs, Feelings from Fridays recent rehearsal. This was filmed on my iPAD hence the quality. If you think you might enjoy a bit more of this, please come down and say hello. The other bands are Hamptons and Misdemeanour


Hope to see you for a chat and a drink on Saturday.