The Barnet Eye weekly round up

First off,
Just a quick few highlights of my week  :-


Last Friday, I was out with the boys from our Thursday Night footie crowd for Bowling in Finchley, followed by a nice Italian meal at ASK  (and a not so nice hangover)
Saturday we went around to some friends to polish off the leftovers of their rather tasty Chanukah dinner and quaff a few more tinnies.
Sunday, I was up early to watch my Boy play football for Watling Under 10's at Burnt Oak Leisure Centre. One of the boys scored a goal just like the one for Wigan Vs Sunderland, which all the parents of both teams (congrats to Total Football Academy for their sportsmanship) applauded. In the evening off out for our Sunday Football Crew night out at the Three Hammers. Another late night and another hangover.
Monday, it was down to the Blue Posts in Newman Street to meet an old boss of mine (now long retired and spending his life on the Golf Course) and a few old cronies for a few beers and to plan our annual reunion drink in January.
Tuesday, I finished a work assignment I'd been working on for a while. Went up to All Bar One near St Pauls and bought them all a drink. Bumped into someone most unexpectedly, who I was most pleased to see and had a very interesting chat.
Wednesday - Band night. Had a jam with the boys and once reaffirmed what a great band we are. IT also reaffirmed how lucky I am to play music with such talented individuals.
Thursday - Watched my boy in his school's Xmas Carol Concert, then played 5 a side in the freezing snow. Not for the feint hearted. Heard all the gossip up at the pub afterwards.
Today. Did some recording. Found out I could make my guitar sound just like a trumpet with Fil's Boss effects pedal. Absolute result. Great effect for the current project. Off out for a curry with my beloved tonight.



In between did lots of work, wrote lots of blogs, drove lots of kids to football, swimming, school, etc



I was out canvassing for the Lib Dems on Saturday in Mill Hill Broadway and someone said to me "You politicians are all the same, you only come out just before the election. You aren't like normal people, just obsessed with politics and stuff." I asked him to read this blog on next Friday evening (Today) and I'd list what I'd been up to during the week, so he could judge whether I was purely obsessed with politics. He promised he would. I said "You can see when I started the blog and what I've had to say. Decide then whether I only say anything just before the election.Once you've had a look, drop me an email and tell me what you think". I'm not obsessed with politics at all, I just want the best for my family and my friends. I'd far rather talk about football or music. I just feel I have to do something because Barnet is in a mess.
On the subject of the blog. I thought I'd give anyone who is interested a few stats about the blog and what people have been looking at and what they've been looking for on it.

Here's the top 10 blogs at the Barnet Eye this week


1 -http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/11/12-stds-of-christmas.html
2- http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/12/barnet-councils-latest-punt-with-your.html
3 - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/07/john-prescott.html
4 - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/12/barnets-new-road-supremo-count-dracula.html
5 - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/12/barnet-council-scandal-barnet-councils.html
6 - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/07/great-britain-will-join-euro-within-5.html
7 - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/03/5-songs-that-make-me-miserable.html
8 - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/10/strange-lonely-and-troubling-death.html
9 -http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/12/hallelujah.html
10 - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2009/12/hot-press-bbc-reports-barnet-council.html
 

Lots of our friends across the USA are interested in catching STD's at Christmas.That is far and away the most popular global story we've ever posted. Rather sadly in at no 8  was the piece about Steven Gatelys death. For a blog that has had a massive number of hits since it was posted in October, I've not really had any feedback so I'm not sure what people thought about my comments. 




Now here's the top 10 Google searches people used to find the site

1 - rog t
2 - barnet eye
3 - lynne hillan
4 - christmas gave me std
5 - 12 stds of christmas
6 - first crapital
7 - mike freer private eye
8 - barnet council + star
9 - . dinner register
10 - moir lockhead

Now usually the list is fairly predictable. I'm rather intrigued by no 7. This implies that there is a rumour Mike Freer is gracing the pages of Private Eye yet again. With here ascent to Leader of Barnet Council, Lynne Hillan has managed to become the third most popular google search to find the Barnet Eye. In at no 10 is Moir Lockhead, managing director of First group, who run the Thameslink Service.Interestingly not many people found the blog looking for First Capital Connect, but lots of you were looking for First Crapital Connect. As ever the Dinner registers are popular

The map at the top is where this weeks hits came from. None from my rellies in Austrialia this week.


 Since February when I started keeping stats I've had a truly astounding number of hits for a blog which is mostly about stuff in a leafy suburb of Barnet. Thanks for keeping on visiting

Hot Press : BBC reports Barnet Council have lost £8 Million in Icelandic Bank Glitnr

Hot Press. The Barnet Tories under Lynne Hillan and Mike Freer have been claiming that we'd get all of our money back. The BBC have said that we will lose £8 Million of the £12 million we had in Glitnr. All of this is because the Tory Administration neglected to check up properly on our council officials. If like me you sat through the debates after the event, you will know that Former Leader Freer repeatedly said "The money hasn't been lost". Mike Freer wants to be the MP for Finchley and Golders Green. Nuff said

A very good week for Andrew Dismore

The sitting MP for Hendon, Andrew Dismore has not been getting too much good press of late, what with expenses scandals and the associated incoming flack. Although he has a decent sized majority, he must know that he is more vulnerable than at any time since he took the seat from Tory John Gorst in 1997. I should imagine that last night he nipped out from his lovely house in Notting Hill Gate to one of the rather nice, swanky bistros around the corner and sunk a bottle or three of the good stuff. Why would Andrew be in such upbeat spirits? Well he's nothing if not hard working, our Andrew. He will have read the latest press release from Lynne Hillan's Barnet Tory Council announcing her cabinet.

There are several pieces of very good news for Andrew contained in this document. Firstly and most obviously the fact that his Tory opponent for the seat, Matthew Offord, appears to have given up on the chance of winning in Hendon. How could he tell this. Well Mike Freer, former Leader quit the cabinet to concentrate on his duties as a candidate for Finchley. Given that Finchley is a far more winnable seat for Freer, surely Offord should be devoting every spare second if he thought he had a chance, as Freer has done. Secondly, Bulmer has kept Offord in his Community Engagement and Community Safety job. So far this has involved Offord putting out nanny state style press releases which have been widely lampooned and have only succeeded in making Offord look silly. Here is my favourite quote from Matthew

Councillor Matthew Offord, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement and Community Safety, said: “Toys are usually at the top of most children’s Christmas lists, so it is particularly important this time of year to think carefully when buying gifts whether the toy is age appropriate and safe. Remove all packaging once the toys have been unwrapped and keep a careful eye to make sure little ones are playing with the right toys. By keeping toy safety at the top of your list you should be providing your children a safe and fun Christmas to remember.”

You see Matthew seems to believe that we all give our three year olds flick knives, plastic bags and matches for Christmas. It doesn't seem to occur to him that parents no1 concern is the well being of their children and we don't need advice from him to tell us to look after them.

The third piece of good news, probably the best bit as far as Andrew is concerned is the fact that Robert Rams is continuiung as Cabinet Member for Investment in Learning. Why should this be such good news for Andrew? Well for most families in Hendon, the one area where they are most likely to come into conflict with the Tory Council is their childrens education. We currently have countless children being taught in portacabins, we had new IT suites closed to make way for emergency classrooms and we had thousands of parents getting stressed due to the council not providing enough places at their schools of choice. Who is this down to? The cabinet member responsible for Investment in Education. When is this whole fiasco going to be at it's worst next year? Right in the middle of the general election campaign? Councillor Robert Rams has built up a reputation for not being up to the job. Apparently he's very good at ringing up the local paper to complain to the editor that articles are beastly, but when it comes to actually doing his job? Andrew Dismore knows this and as I mentioned he's a hard worker and extremely meticulous. I expect him to throw the kitchen sink at Rams and his incompetence. I fully expect Rams to shout back, "that's not fair, it's not my fault, someone else did it".

The bottom line for the voters of Hendon is this. Do you want someone who clearly can't even be bothered to pull his finger out and campaign - Matthew Offord, or do you want Andrew Dismore, who lets just say has been filling the papers with stories about his expenses? If the thought of choosing between these two doesn't exactly fill your heart with joy, you could always have a look at what Matthew Harris, The Lib Dem alternative has to say.

(Picture : Andrew Dismore MP nips around to no 10 for tea and biscuits with Gordon Brown, with Sgt Dan Reid of the Edgware Safer Neighbourhood team)

Mr Bean has joined the BNP

Yes it is true. Mr Bean is now an official BNP member and even writes articles on their website.

To save you the trouble of having to read through all of his blatherings, here's a potted (or is that potty) selection of quotes.

I have pointed out that as someone who has no remorse for holding a Trafalgar Square meeting back in 1959 under the banner ‘Keep Britain White’

Finally, one could not help noticing the joy upon the news announcers faces, both ITV as well as BBC, when after 48 hours devoted to the second coming they were able to announce that Lewis Hamilton, our “black” Formula One racing driver was now world champion – which he fully deserved. The point is that both Lewis Hamilton and Saint Obama have white mothers. Is this another form of racism disregarded by the liberal intelligentsia who apparently consider that only the black blood counts? I am not suggesting that we should return to Kiplingesque terminology of “half castes”, or even accusing the parents of having “warped biological instincts”, as was once fashionable, but surely “mixed race” would be more accurate?

Because Septimus Severus was born in Carthage, what is now Tunisia, our children are told he was a “Black Emperor”. He even appears on a website entitled “100 Great Black Britons”. Wikipedia and other sites all agree that his mother was of Roman descent from an ancient clan and his father came from a distinguished local Berber family. The Berbers lived in North Africa for at least 2,000 years before the arrival of Arabs or any sub-Saharan black Africans and are described as more akin to modern Spaniards, Sicilians or even ancient Egyptians. A glance at the photo of a bust of Septimus Severus that appears on both of the above mentioned websites shows that he is about as black as I am!

So there you go. Because a photo of a bust of a Roman Emperor doesn't look black, he must have been white. I don't really know whether this is extremely sad or extremely funny.

Proof that God has got a sense of humour

The big story in the world today is the Copenhagen summit which is aiming to combat global warning. The big story in London is Snow !!! What more proof do you need that God has a sense of humour, but what message is he sending?

Having spent a winter in Scandinavia in 1981/2 I thought this was a rather stupid place to hold a summit about global warming. It's only human nature for the delegates to wake up this morning, look out of the window and think "This is a load of cobblers".

 I've no idea how they choose these venues, but yesterday I printed a guest blog from Fr Jim Fanning who detailed the effects of man made climate change. They should have held the conference somewhere in the midst of a man made disaster so the delegates could actually see some evidence of whats going on.

Weather for Copenhagen, Denmark  - Add to iGoogle

-3°C | °F Current: Light snow Wind: NE at 21 mph Humidity: 86% Fri 0°C | -4°C Sat -1°C | -6°C Sun -1°C | -6°C Mon 1°C | -2°C

Kaboom

Lynne Hillan's Sheltered Warden Policy

Barnet's new road supremo - Count Dracula?

A shocking story in the Times today. Barnet Council is disregarding national guidelines on bus lane markings. What this means is that the broken lines marking the start of the lane is not properly tapered. This means motorists do not have ample time to move into the non restricted lane. Why would the council do such a thing? Because it has netted them £680,000 in fines. Is this illegal? No. Is it immoral? Most definately. Barnet Council bangs endlessly on about how it cares about motorists, how it loves to rip out road humps. They remind me of Dracula seducing virgins before bleeding them dry. Barnet makes more out of parking than any other council, now we find out they are conning us on bus lane fines. Tory Council Leader but it seems that the story in Barnet is the same old one of stealth taxes.

Who knows, given the paucity of talent in the new Barnet Council cabinet, he'd probably be a welcome edition.

Barnet Council Scandal: Barnet Council's open chequebook

Yesterday I posted a blog detailing how Barnet Council were gambling with your money on the property market.Don't Call Me Dave left this comment on the post, which shocked and amazed me
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Under the Local Government Act 2000, council officers are allowed to engage in property transactions up to £100,000 using delegated powers, i.e. without consulting councillors. I think the limit has now been raised to £150,000.

Previously, officers would be required to submit a report to the council with details of the transaction but officers put forward a motion earlier this year that would dispense with that formality. All in the name of greater efficiency you understand.

But then you have to consider the recent rule change whereby property transactions are no longer sealed by the Mayor (which has been the way since the year dot). Now transactions can be signed and sealed by an unelected officer.

In short, this means officers have the power to buy and sell property and not even report it to the councillors. Given this council’s track record on property sales, this is a deeply worrying move.

Under Freer, and now under Hillan, the concept of democratic accountability has simply ceased to exist.
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It's quite simple. We pay taxes. This is our money. We pay a million quid for a team of nearly 70 councillors to protect our interests and oversee the workings of the council. They are meant to protect our interests. Why have they "delegated" this. Because they are too lazy to do the job properly.

Boris Johnson at the GLA has put all expenditure over one thousand pounds on line. This is how I know that in November Boris paid Inserters R Us Ltd £3053.25 and Antony Gormley £23,000.

If Boris can do this, Barnet Council can. Council Leader Lynne Hillan claims that it is vital to destroy the Sheltered housing wardens because she wants to save £400,000. She's in charge of "resource management" but cannot even be bothered to check what the officers are spending money on. Council Tax in Barnet will not drop until the people we elect start doing their job, checking things proeprly, asking difficult questions and  start earning their allowances. Barnet Council has many problems, but I believe that the route cause of them is that Barnet Councils ruling Tories are just too lazy to bother doing their job. Cutting out waste is not rocket science, it's just about saying "do we need this", "is this the cheapest way to do it", "could we buy it somewhere else for less". Council officers have no reason to do any of this, why should they? This is why scrutiny by councillors is needed. Everyone who knows anything about Barnet Council knows this.

I am standing for the Lib Dems at the next council elections because this just cannot go on. If you live in Mill Hill and you've read the 761 entries on this blog, you will know that you'll have someone who will work hard to sort this out. The taxpayers of Barnet need people to stand in every ward who are prepared to roll up their sleeves and end this slothering and troughering.

Guest Blog : A message from Kenya

By Fr Jim Fanning MHM

Dear Friends,

How was your year? It is customary at the end of the day in the Church to reflect on all the blessings we have received during the day and repent of any failings. Well we thank God that this year has been a year of relative peace in East Africa and that the road building programme has continued with good roads at last from Nairobi to Kampala. The long delayed under water fibre optic cable has arrived and we are now promised high speed internet access in line with the rest of the world.

These are three big blessings but the big disaster has been the weather. I have never known such an irregular and poor rainfall. Instead of our usual afternoon downpours we seem to have had just sprinklings of rain. Often the clouds have built up with black skies and then nothing comes of it. There was both water and electricity rationings in Nairobi and many people and livestock have died in Kenya because of drought and crop failure. There has been a dawning realisation that cutting down trees is partly responsible for the poor rainfall. Sections of the Mau forest which have been cut down will now have to be replanted.

My work has taken me much further afield this year with visits to my old mission in Basankusu in the Congo in June and to Anglophone Cameroon in November. Everywhere people seem ready to support their own missionaries from Africa. This year has seen our numbers of African Mill Hill Missionaries rise from 15 to 18, with the newly ordained being appointed to more distant fields in Pakistan and the Philippines. One of the first African missionaries Fr. Ephraim Odhiambo, who was ordained in 1996, has now arrived in England to do mission promotion there. For years we have heard predictions that peoples from Africa will bring the faith back to Europe.

I continue to ply the highways and byways of Kenya and Uganda in my red Suzuki Grand Vitara with  ‘Friends of Mill Hill’ written on the door. It enables me to pass without many questions and difficulties back and forwards through the borders of Kenya and Uganda as well as the police checkpoints.

I have had many nice visitors this year. Fr. Sebastian Park from Korea came to visit me at

Easter. We travelled together from Kampala to Nairobi visiting all the beautiful spots in Kampala, Jinja (source of the Nile), Tororo, Kisumu, Masai Mara and Nairobi . I also enjoyed the company of my niece Alicia who came out to visit her Dad, my brother Paul, around the same time. Her brother John Paul with his girlfriend Danielle also paid us a joint visit just after the departure of Fr. Sebastian. Following that my sister Mary came to visit once again in September. She is becoming a regular visitor and this time we managed to finish with a very nice stay in the southern beach at Mombasa. Visitors are always nice to have as they pull me out of my routine and give me a chance to see places which otherwise I would not visit. Having reflected on the year and thanked God for his blessings I am aware too of my shortcomings and wrong directions. Sometimes we err in the things we do and other times it is in the things we fail to do. I won’t bore you with the details of all this but just simply ask you for your prayers.

In 2010 I look forward to celebrating my 60^th birthday. I am beginning to feel that my time on the road should be coming to an end soon. I have been mobile now for ten years and whilst relatively still in good health I would dearly like to work in a parish for a few years before I get too old. I am eyeing my old diocese of Basankusu in the Congo (DRC) as my next appointment if I can convince my superiors in two years time. I feel more comfortable having a focus for the future. Please keep praying for me and helping me. I love doing this missionary work of witnessing to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is his birthday which is the occasion for writing  this letter and I wish you all a happy and holy Christmas celebration and once again a peaceful New Year,

With much love and prayers,

Father Jim Fanning MHM

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Fr Jim Fanning is a Missionary working in East Africa. He was born and raised in Mill Hill before joining the order and being ordained in 1973. His work is supported by many people in Mill Hill.

If you wish to have a guest blog featured in the Barnet Eye, please email my by CLICKING HERE.

Barnet Councils latest punt with your money - the next big scandal in Barnet

Ex Council Leader Mike Freer lost £27.4 million of your money playing the markets.  He borrowed the money at one rate of interest and then invested it in Icelandic banks at a much higher rate of interest. The income this generated was used to fill holes elsewhere in his budget. It seemed like a masterful ruse, until all the Icelandic banks collapsed. His punt failed and we, the taxpayers of Barnet, had to pick up the cost. How did Mike Freer suffer for this? Well he didn't. He still got his £3,000 responsibility allowance for losing the money. Despite his sheer incompetence, his colleagues still laud the "magnificent job" he did.

You would think Barnet Council might have learned their lesson. Well it appears not. A Council official sent an email to a member of the public yesterday which said the following :-

The current market conditions are not favourable towards a disposal and indeed the Council is currently looking at buying properties.In fact the Deputy Chief Executive has specifically instructed the Investment Manager to find suitable properties and I will be assisting in this task.

 There you have it in black and white. Barnet Council is looking to invest in properties as they think it is a good time to buy. This is called gambling and they are doing it with your money. Lets get this right. The council has spare cash. They could  :-

a) keep the sheltered housing wardens
b) Give you a tax cut
c) Gamble it on your behalf on property

Now I was personally shocked that Barnet Council even has an "Investment manager", whilst I'm sure he's a fine chap and does a great job, this is our money. If I want a punt, I'll go to William Hill and spend it. If they were buying properties to fill the council housing shortage, I'd applaud them, but from the wording of this, it is clear as day that  this is not the purpose of the "Investment Manager" strategy, it is to exploit the state of the market. As we all know, property values can go up or down.

My message to Council Leader Lynne Hillan, Mike Freer and everyone else in the Tory cabinet. You are a council, not  a bookie. Stop gambling with our money. I just can't believe that they didn't learn their lesson after Iceland.

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If Barnet Council have sent you an email containing evidence of dodgy behaviour and you want the people of Barnet to know about it, email me BY CLICKING HERE.