Saturday, 25 January 2025

The Saturday List #469 - My top five "Oh yes' moments

 This week Donald Trump was inaugarated as the 47th President of the United States of America. I deliberately avoided as much of the coverage as possible. I believe in democracy and if that means we have Donald Trump as the US president, then so be it. I can recall discussing politics with my Dad as a teenager and he gave me a brilliant insight. He said "No on is ever as good as hope or as bad as you expect in politics". I thought I had a clever answer and retorted  "What about Adolf Hitler? Surely he was worse than anyone could have thought". Dad's answer was a great insight into why you should listen to people who have been around a bit and know a thing or two. It was considered and very sharp. He said "Well lets consider first what his supporters thought, when he became the Feuhrer in 1933, they believed there would be a thousand year Reich and that he was the future. Within fifteen years, there dreams were in ruins, he was dead and fascism was banished completely" (Dad passed away in 1987, so he thankfully didn't see the current rise, which would have alarmed him, given the sacrifices of him and his comrades in the RAF in WW2). He then said "And those of us who despise Fascism and Nazis genuinely feared that Hitler might win and the World would have been a very bad place. He didn't" . He then added, "I must add that the reason he didn't win is because people stood up to him, volunteered to fight and many, including Spud (the rear gunner in his Wellington bomber who was killed in action) paid the ultimate sacrifice to stop him".

There are two moments from the inauguration that will be remembered. The first was a real "Oh no" moment. Elon Musk giving a Nazi salute. As someone who has no doubt that Elon Musk is an incredibly clever man, who knows what he is doing and as far as I can tell understands exactly how such gestures will be received. Seeing his subsequent tweets, I also see a man who thinks the rest of us are nowhere near as clever as he is, and that we'll fall for his rather dodgy explanations. Now I am a certified thicko. Youngest of six, the only one with no post school education, poor exam results. But I can spot a fraud a mile off. You don't run a business for 46 years without getting a good nose for people trying it on. I suspect that we'll be seeing a lot more of Mr Musk and I also expect more provocations. Is he really a Nazi or is he just winding everyone up? If you subscribe to the concept that all publicity is good publicity, then maybe it is all just a facade. I mean surely someone who is a South African, raised in the Aparthied era and the son of a wealthy mine owner couldn't have such views, could he?

Anyway that isn't what this list is about, this is about the "Oh Yes" moments. These are the moments when you expect nothing, but something happens that shocks you in a wonderful way. 

Of which the Bishop who presided over the New Presidents Church service gave us. She chose to remind Mr Trump that the central plank of Christianity is the Beatitudes and that he should show compassion and be a president for everyone. Jesus was a political refugee. Most hard right Americans have a very Old Testament view of the Bible. Jesus put a layer of compassion and fogiveness on top. I loathe talking about religion. It can me offputting and devisive, but I'll make an exception, as I believe that what the Bishop did was both courageous and proper. In her own way, she did what Spud did on my Dad's bomber. She chose to put herself in the line of fire. Make no mistake, there are people in the USA who will not have liked what she said and have easy access to guns. So when you hear people calling her a "soft liberal" think for a second of the soceity she lives in and some of the people she upset. That is true courage.

I must say it is nice to see a Bishop speaking truth to power, doing their job, rather than covering up for paedophiles and then being their apologist. 

In honour of her courage, here are my top ten Oh Yes moments. 

1. I had to start here!

2. I had to include a football moment. For me, there can only be one. Wembley 1999 The second division (third teir) Football play off final at Wembley. Manchester City are in the doldrums. Having gone down to the third teir, they had a poor start to the season, the campaign bumbled along. They were, in a word pretty rubbish. United did the treble. They stumbled into the play off final. I got a ticket and took my nine year old nephew. As the 90th minute approached, CIty were 2-0 down to Gillingham, playing rubbish. The sky blue half of Wembley was in despair. The Gallagher brothers stormed out with the hump. I told my nephew to believe. Then Kevin Horlock pulled a goal back. Too little, too late. Then this happened. Despite all of the trophies since, this was the ultimate football Oh Yes moment. Nothing since would have happened if this hadn't happened. 


3. Music is a bit different. There are few Oh Yes moments, because unlike football, there is no real jeapordy. You like a band, you go and see them or listen to there music. It's good. Sometimes you get pleasantly surprised, but it is unlikely you'd go and see a band that you didn't like and then suddenly realise that they were great. However, I have one moment that was a real "Oh Yes" moment. It was on the 8th April 1979. I was really into punk. One of my favourite bands, The Damned were playing at The Lyceum. The main support were the UK Subs, another band I loved and who had offerd The False Dots a support slot for a summer gig in Derby. They were mates with our bass player. Bottom of the bill were an unknown Ska band from Coventry. I knew nothing about them, but I always checked out the support bands. They were The Specials. I remember getting a beer and making my way to the mosh pit. I had no expectations. I knew of Ska, but only really as the music of the school disco's of my youth and from football terraces. I didn't think it was very exciting and I couldn't understand why a band would play Ska instead of Punk. I went to take a sip of beer as they started their 30 minute slot. As soon as they started playing, my jaw dropped. The beer didn't reach my mouth and I stood wide eye'd staring at them for the set. They blew my mind. I got it. 

4. Whilst on the subject of music, I was thinking of my own band The False Dots. There have been a few "Oh Yes" moments. But to be a real "Oh Yes" moment, something has to happen that is truly unexpected. That moment happened in September 1983 when Venessa Sagoe, a brilliant soul singer joined the band. A mate of mine was trying to put a band together with his girlfriend. The girlfriend was a flatmate of Venessa. They asked her to come down as a 'backing vocalist'. Venessa was a striking looking, half Nigerian, half Jewish woman, who was both striking, powerful but strangely vulnerable and innocent to me. They had a rehearsal at our studios and I had a listen. She had the most beautiful voice I'd ever heard. To my amazement, when the song finished she walked out and looked a bit upset. I asked what was up. She said that they had said she wasn't good enough. I was gobsmacked. I told her she was brilliant and they were mad. A week later, my band mates called a band meeting. They informed me that I was no longer required in the band. Our bassplayer, to their amazement, said "If Rog goes, so do I". I then informed them, that it was my band and they were sacked. I immediately got together with bassplayer Paul Hircombe and said "Don't worry, I've got a new singer and a new drummer and we'll advertise for a guitarist. The old singer had been female. She was OK, but not great. I knew Venessa would be ten times better and we actually would have a chance of getting a deal. I phoned her. She came for a play through the material. Whereas the previous singer had simply been given lyrics and sung them in a monotone, way, Venessa immediately started to stamp her authority on the songs. My plans to simply get her singing the old songs went out the window. When I asked her, I thought it would be the sort of duff pop we'd been playing with the previous singer. Venessa delved into my lyrics file and found one song, Action Shock. It was only half written, but she loved the lyrics. SHe asked me to play it. I'd only bothered working our a repetitive two chord progression before I got bored. So I played it on my acoustic to her. She loved it. A week later, having worked out eight songs, we had our first rehearsal. I genuinely thought that when we did Action Shock, Venessa would realise it was rubbish. The sings we played until then were fairly soft pop songs. For Action Shock, I smashed on the Fuzz Box and started playing it with a dampened rock beat. As soon as Venessa came in, Paul and I looked at each other. When we got to the chorus, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Oh Yes...

We still play the song and finish the set with it. Sadly, you have to listen to me singing it rather than Venessa, but that was a moment.

5. So we've done politics, football, music and where do we finish? Well as most of my wonderful blog readers know me from the blog, I thought I'd have to mention a blogging moment. It may shock you to know that the moment was provided by Eric Pickles, the former local government minister, praised the efforts of the Barnet Bloggers for holding a Tory Council to account. The Local Government Chronicle reported

He praised local bloggers, including Barnet Eye, Mr Mustard and Mrs Angry, for helping to “uncover this misuse of public money”.

To me, that was vindication of the work I'd done and an acknowledgement from someone who was not an ally, but was clearly a sensible man.  Don't let anyone ever tell you that fighting for your beliefs is a waste of time. The finances of Barnet Council are in chaos and the council is at risk of becoming bankrupt. The work of myself and my fellow bloggers, in exposing scandals like the Metpro scandal, saved the council millions. The inquiry that followed revealed massive weaknesses in the way Barnet procured services. It is clear to me that the hours we put in saved Barnet Council Tax payers a lot of money. It would have saved them a hell of a lot more, if they'd actually listened to us about the One Barnet Capita outsourcing programme. 

I try and write a blog that is funny, interesting informative and sometimes does some good in our community. Barnet needs more bloggers. Sadly, most of the others seem to have retired, semi retired or don't really cover Barnet anymore. I am genuinely suprised that there are no Conservatives outraged by the mismanagement by Labour of Barnet, writing vitriolic blogs about how useless the council are. It is hard work keeping a local blog going. Surely I am not the only person in Barnet who dislikes what Barnet Council are up to and am not too lazy to put views out there?

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I will add a little footnote here. I left out many moments, when my beautiful wife first kissed a scalliwag like me, when I realised my kids took after their mum rather than me and are intelligent, when I found out that a couple of my old school teachers (stand up John Shuttler at FCHS and Bob Wright at Orange Hill) actually quite liked me, when Lee Thompson of Madness agreed to play sax on one of my tunes, when Huw Lloyd Langton of Hawkwind got up and jammed with The False Dots for my 40th Birthday, and when the Burnt Oak Boogie video went viral and strangers started complimenting me on it on the streets, because I thought it sounded like boasting about how clever I am which is most unbecoming. But yep, they were Oh Yes moments as well. I am always surprised when things go right. Luckily experience has taught me that if you stick at it and work hard, good things happen.

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