Barnet Eye weekly round up - Philistines trash Barnet

I've been in France, no internet, no papers for a week, so I've been totally out of touch with the news in Barnet. For me the big news (and sad news) is the story that Barnet Council is selling off Church Farmhouse museum.
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/9167638.Farmhouse_museum_sale_sparks_anger_among_supporters/ 

I made this video about Church Farmhouse museum on the sunday before it shut. It features Gerard Rootes, the now Ex curator of the museum, giving his views on the museum. Sadly this video and a few memories are all that is left of the museum, thanks to Councillor Robert Ramsbottom and his Tory chums.


Shame on them. This is an act of philistinism. I had absolutely no doubt that this would happen, from the first moment that the cuts to it's budget were announced. Barnet Council really do make me sick. It's OK to concrete over green spaces, build mini cities in Brent Cross, build incinerators next to them, but when it actually comes to providing things for the people of Barnet to enrich their life what happens?

Museums budgets are cut
Libraries are closed
Football pitches are sold off
Grants to voluntary sector organisations are cut

So I hear you ask, how can we justify supporting the arts in these times of recession and debt?

Well lets look at a few things which haven't been cut

The pay of the CEO of Barnet Council and other senior executives
The allowances for Councillors (committee chairmen got a 50% rise)
The budget for consultants to outsources the council

Do I hear you say that "The consultants are increasing efficiency". This is complete codswallop. The Future Shape/OneBarnet/Barnet Track project has been running for over three years, has sucked millions from the coffers and delivered no net savings whatsoever. In fact if they had just concentrated on realising efficiencies using the Councils own staff and resources, they would have had enough money in the kitty to fund all of the chopped museums, libraries and other voluntary sector grants.

Whilst spending huge amounts on these consultants, they've let purchasing run out of control. This has been demonstrated by the Metpro fiasco, where £1.4 million was spent on a company which didn't even have a contract or the licenses to legally provide the services.

As for the Barnet blogs - my pick of the week. Mr Mustard notices that the One Barnet project has ceased to exist. Imagine my surprise. A week in Lourdes and we have a miracle whilst I'm away !


http://lbbspending.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-barnet-now-you-see-it-now-you-dont.html

Sadly Mr Mustard had played a nasty practical joke (we have a good sense of humour, us Barnet bloggers). Nope, OneBarnet hasn't disappeared, they've just stopped telling us how much they spend on it.

Mr Reasonable reports that he's listed a whole plethora of errors in the way Barnet Council pay invoices without proper supporting information.
http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.com/2011/07/audience-with-auditors-part-two.html

There is an absolutely fantastic post from VickiM on Colindale. Vicki shares my concerns about the fact that the council is obsessed with shiny new developments, whilst leaving existing Council victims housing tenants to rot in run down, badly maintained, pseudo slums. Top blogging Vicki - no one seems interested in Graham Park, Burnt Oak etc, it is truly shameful.
http://vickim57.blogspot.com/2011/07/colindale-can-you-feel-rhythm-or-would.html

Mrs Angry reports provides documentary evidence showing that Councillor David Longstaff is without doubt a prize cock. Which stone did they find this failed actor under?
http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.com/2011/07/recall-performance-appraisal-for.html

I would also have given a roundup of Robert Rams blog, but old lazybones couldn't be bothered to post anything, despite being responsible for selling off Church Farmhouse museum.

Barnet Eye Weekly Round Up - The Finchley Fishwife strikes back

After all the fun of the Barnet Council Leadership battle, todays blog is a "Leadership Battle Freer Zone". There will be no mention of Lynne Hillan, Mark Shooter or the shenanigans of the war in the local Tory party. Instead we'll concentrate on all of the tittle tattle we've been neglecting recently, in and around the various Barnet blogs and the wider world.

Perhaps the most interesting conversation I had was with an esteemed journalist, who contacted me to ask my opinion, as a blogger, as to my views on the William Hague reaction to the blog rumours about his "relationship" with a rather handsome 25 year old aide. I think he was rather disappointed with my response. I told him if I was Hague I'd have just said "don't believe everything you read in blogs". Until Silly Billy made his statement, virtually no one knew what he had or hadn't been up to. If you don't want malicious bastards like me saying horrible things about you, then you are in the wrong job being a politician. Develop a thick skin. The only person Hague has to convince is his wife and he didn't need a statement to do that. When asked whether I thought William Hague should be foreign secretary I said "If you had your life savings to invest and you had the choice of three brokers to invest it, one is gay, one is bisexual and one is straight, which one would you choose". My esteemed friends said "Er, um, why". I replied "I'd choose the one who could get me the best rate of deal". Same with Hague doing the job.

Sadly my view didn't really make good copy, so there weren't national headlines saying "Rog T says". In fact no mention at all. 

As to the blogs of Barnet. For those of you who haven't heard of her, there is a rather good blog, written by a certain Mrs Angry. It seems she's attracted the ire of a certain Councillor Brian Coleman. Councillor Coleman has taken to referring to this esteemed member of the Finchley community as "The Finchley Fishwife". Rather amusingly, Brian Coleman has also used this term in the past to describe Dr Vanessa Gearson, Mike Freer's hatchetwoman (although never in the presence of Freer or Gearson). I suspect that if Brian Coleman manages to unite these two in a vindictive pact against him, he really could be in trouble. Mrs Angry has clearly been fantasing about Colemans demise in her latest blog. I don't exactly think Coleman is quite up there with Rasputin. The pickled penis of Rasputin is on display in a Russian museum. I doubt that we'll ever see Colemans chipolata on display in the Church Farm Museum any time soon.

Barnet's most esteemed political blog, Statler and Waldorf have been speculating as to which Councillors would be chopped when the number of Councillors is reduced from three to two. There are only two ways this could be implemented. Either at the next election, or by removing the candidate who got least votes at the last election. The idea that elected members could be shoved out on the whim of a few people in a smoky room is disgusting.

Mr Toads blog has caught esteemed Councillor Brian Coleman out, exposing a claim for travel expenses, when transport to and from a social event was provided free of charge. Brian Coleman earns over £124,000 per annum. How tight fisted is a man who earns such a huge sum, but still needs to fiddle his expenses to the tune of £19.44. It really is all rather sad.

As to the more traditional press. I got an excited phonecall from a correspondent asking whether I'd seen the story of a how a group of pensioners had been menaced by a deranged cow. In my excitement, I thought that the Times had finally decided to expose how Lynne Hillan was championing the sheltered housing cuts, her "pet project" since it's inception. Sadly this wasn't the case, it seems that a group of old dears were duffed up by a humpy heffer on a nice walk around the fields of Totteridge. It seems that the moo cows of Barnet are not too happy with harrassment at this time of the year, so if you see a fiesty fresian on the warpath, take care.

As to the Barnet Press. This seems to have stopped updating it's website. a quick trawl through the paper has an interesting story about a large quantity of "fake cannabis" being seized in Colindale. The substance in question is Hemp, which is closely related to Cannabis, but doesn't contain enough of the active ingredients to get you stoned. According to the police "A person could smoke a barn full of hemp and not get high". I do wonder if it is actually illegal to smoke hemp? The police tell us it only contains 0.3% THC, whilst the normal whacky baccy contains 20%. As there is a huge market for low alcohol drinks, maybe there is a market for low THC skunk weed. That way you would not feel left out, if all your mates are stoners, but not actually have to feel the effects of the weed. Personally, I think that the idea could be a real moneyspinner - money for old rope?

Perhaps one person who could benefit from low THC skunkweed is George Michael. The Ham & High reports that George has yet again been caught driving whilst stoned. I have a little bit of advice for George. Why don't you give William Hague a bell, I hear he has a former assistant who's looking for a job. I really think George, with all his millions, should consider getting a personal assistant who can drive. We'd all be a lot safer - although in George's defence, he tends to just fall asleep at traffic lights rather than actually mow people down. I have a little George Michael story which might amuse you. As many locals will know, George's parents used to own a local restaurant. In the early days of the False Dots, I took a girlfriend their for her birthday. I got chatting to George's dad and when he found out that I was in a band, he was really friendly. He told us that his son had hooked up with a brilliant musician and that he thought they would do great things. He said that George was painfully shy and he thought that being in a band would do him a power of good. The really talented musician - Andrew Ridgely. I often visited the restaurant and whenever I saw George's dad he was always extremely friendly and suggested I "get in touch with George" as he'd help us with our career. As the False Dots were an experimental punk rock underground band, I never took him up on his offer. We weren't really interested in the mainstream.  In 1985, I wrote a song called "It's raining outside" and recorded it with a mate of mine, Johnny Shillibeer - it was the first real pop song I'd written.

When I played it to friends, they all laughed that I'd finally decided to take George's dad up on his offer. I feel a bit sorry for George Michael as I sometimes think that all his money hasn't made him happy. Mind you if he didn't have the millions, he'd probably be just as miserable and skint as well.

Enjoy the weekend.