** Updated ** Seven years old today! The Barnet Eye still going strong!

As regular readers will know, I am dyslexic. One of the downsides of this is that very occasionally I put completely the wrong date in my diary. This is one such occasion, I put 11/10 instead of 10/11 in. Initially I was too embarrassed to post this, but then I thought, hey WTF. So here it is. A month and a day late, my 7th birthday blog. 

Seven Years? Seven Years? an eternity. My more recent readers may not be aware that I used to write a blog on the Barnet Times website. This was back in 2008, in the days before the Barnet Eye. What happened was, in hindisght, quite interesting and educational. The Barnet Times has never been noted for being a particularly controversial or investigative paper. Barnet isn't downtown Baghdad and if there is a major incident, it is more likely to be a shed burning down due to bad wiring than civil insurrection. The local paper generally reflects this rather genial tone, with exciting stories about quizzes at care homes for the elderly and the such like. When I started blogging, the first thing I did was to put on my size 11 Doc Martens and start putting the boot into all and sundry. I'd always felt that a more exciting tone was what was needed and that our local politicians needed a huge leather suppository planted firmly up their collective Jacksies. Much to my amazement, they didn't simply ignore me. The shock to the system sent them into collective meltdown and they spent the next five months leaning on the Times to sack me. I realised that I have a choice, toe the line and tone it down or up the ante and put the boot in as hard as I could before the Times bowed to the inevitable pressure.

Guest Blogger John Sullivan

It wasn't a hard choice to make. I've never ducked a fight in my life, I certainly wasn't going to duck this one. What was also rather interesting was that the readership of the paper realised something was going on. The blog developed a large readership and entries would generaly top the most viewed table when written. Clearly this made it even more important for our esteemed councillors to put the boot in. Although I couldn't blog about the "new guidelines" I'd be issued with, almost on a daily basis, the public is smarter than they are often given credit for and soon twigged. When the inevitable day came, strangely for me compaining about the Council putting a BNP supporter spouting anti semitism on the council website, there was outrage. I launched this blog, The Barnet Eye, in retaliation. Robert Rams, who was working as the then Tory GLA rep Brian Colemans press secretary took to boasting that he'd ended my blogging career (that went well, didn't it Bob?).

Ex Tory Councillor Dan Hope

In fact, it was the most stupid thing that Rams could have done. At the Times, I had to follow rules. I wasn't allowed to mention Mike Freer, then leader of the Council at all. I was only allowed to mention Brian Coleman if there was a "genuine story". I was "encouraged" to write nice, neutral articles, so that the paper could say "well he only writes the odd story about Barnet Council".  I'd largely forgotten about all of this, after all, it is now seven years since the Barnet Eye replaced the Rog T blog. Sadly they never put the final blog back, the one which caused Mr Ramsbottom to blow a fuse. Perhaps my favourite of these more chilled out articles was "As happy as Clarry".

Today, seven years ago, we published our first blog.  I was so scared no one would read it, that I never even looked at the stats for the first six months. I thought that would demoralise me. It didn't go unnoticed that the first two comments were from an ex senior Chipping Barnet Tories bigwig and a former Conservative Councillor (Dan Hope). They were disgusted an appalled by the Maoist tendencies of their friends in the Conservatives stifling free speech.

Thanks for all your support!

I won't pretend it's all been fun. It has been a right slog, but I do feel that the blog has made a difference. This was the first of the legendary "fantastic five" Barnet Blogs. We've had the most hits and published the most entries. We've had over 50 guest blogs from other Barnet Citizens, made two films which attracted national TV coverage. We launched the Friern Barnet Peoples Library, a pop up library on the village green outside the closed Library. This meant that when squatters from Occupy took over the building, there was a ready made stock of books. We helped expose Metpro, saving taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds. We've supported dozens of other campaigns, most of which have been successful.

So here's to the next seven years.


 Updated 13:35
By the way, if you want to see what I wrote that persuaded the Barnet Times to sack me, just click here. Also Robert Rams has tweeted that he never said anything of the sort as claimed above. 

Robert Rams ‏@RobertRams1 4h4 hours ago

Sad to see people in Barnet still making things up about me http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/seven-years-old-today-barnet-eye-still.html … i never ever said anything of the sort #getalife

Brian Coleman has also used the opportunity to call me a few names.

Brian Coleman ‏@BrianColeman251 3h3 hours ago

@RobertRams1 he lives in a fantasy world of his own . A rather sad and obsessive man and purveyor of lies

I can assure you my source as to Rams comment was impeccable, however you can make your mind up whether to believe Coleman (who lied to the Cops for six months about assaulting Helen Michael) and Rams or myself.  

We're all in it together? 25 Barnet Council bosses paid over £100K

The Barnet Tmes details how 25 Barnet Council Bosses are earning over £100K a year. One of these earns over £200K per year and five earn over £150K. We're all in it together? It is interesting to note that this mobs salaries in light of the decimation facing the library service, which is something us little people use. Barnet Council is a top heavy, bloated organisation with highly paid bosses, who shuffle pieces of paper, whilst letting Capita do all the work, reaping handsome profits for their shareholders into the process. The residents are never considered, it is simply a gravy train for a powerful cabal of highly paid officers, who run rings around incompetent politicians. I suppose it's good work if you can get it. Sadly the rest of us pay a fortune in Council tax to keep this lot in big dinners. What aworld we live in. No wonder the ordinary staff are on strike.

The Six Wives of King Henry the Ninth?

Ello Grandma

History teaches us many things. When we study English history, we study periods defined by the Monarch or the dynasty. I was wondering what will happen in the future when they look at our period? There has already been an Elizabethan period, under Queen Elizabeth I. The period of the second Elizabeth is perhaps as interesting, seeing the end of the British Empire. I think that Queen Elizabeth has managed a feat beyond comprehension in a modern democracy. Being an unelected head of state, she has nonetheless become a figure beyond criticism or challenge. This is demonstrated by the fact that we have the most left wing ever leader of the Labour Party, but even under a Corbyn leadership, the status and position of the Queen is untouchable. The general consensus among the British is that it is simpe bad manners to discuss the position of the monarchy whilst Queen Elizabeth is on the throne. I think it is a testament to us as a nation that we take such considerations seriously.

There is absolutely zero appetite for a change. That doesn't mean that there aren't people who believe that a monarchy is antiquated. I suspect that is a major reason why the Queen doesn't see the concept of abdicating in favour of her son Charles as an option. The Queen is an extremely astute and intelligent woman. I believe that she recognises the fact that anointing her son as the next King would open a Pandora's box of questions of the role of the Monarchy in a modern democracy. In the circumstances that she passes away, there will be a huge outpouring of grief, people will feel suitably upset and will recognise that Charles will be grieving, therefore there will be surge in support for the Monarchy and the questions will have to wait until a suitable time.

Then there is the question of whether Charles will actually take the reigns. He's waited forever for the job. The queen has good genes. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that he could spare his son the same fate. Whilst the Queen is more or less universally loved and admired, many feel that Charles is a different cup of tea. He's opinionated and has inherited some of the gaffe prone tendencies of his father Prince Phillip. His son William is seen as a thoroughly good egg. As the Windsor brand goes, he is a far more bankable brand. He has young sons and a beautiful wife. I had a bizarre dream last night, which inspired this blog. I suspect it was caused by eating a bag of Monster Munch for tea. I had a dream that Sir Alan Sugar was running a special "Royal Apprentice" to select the next monarch. In this X Factor age, it seemed to make perfect sense. He had Princes William and Harry. Much to my amazement, he said "William, you are a safe pair of hands, you've got the right wife and two lovely sons, but in this day and age, we need a King who takes a few chances and knows how to deal with Al Quada, you're fired!". Can you imagine it? King Henry the Ninth? I was in a state of shock when my darling wife woke me up with a cup of tea.

You are probably reading this thinking "what a stupid thing to write in a blog, what a stupid idea at all". You'd of course be right, but it is a far less stupid idea than the one we currently buy into. With the current system we simply say, "This geezer is going to be the King just because an accident of birth put him next in line".  At least if Sir Alan put Wills, Harry and Charles through their paces, there'd be some sort of quality control. The whole system of Monarchy is horribly antiquated. Until recently it was inherently sexist and discriminatory. Females could not take the role as heir to the Throne. Personally, if I was in charge of the brand, I'd have reversed the law and made it so that the female took precidence. Women had a thousand years of negative discrimination. Despite this, the three greatest monarch we have had were females, Elizabeth I, Victoria and Elizabeth II were without parallel. The first Liz saved the Country, Vicky made us the pre-eminent super power in the world and the second Liz transformed us into a modern and civilised state. If I had the choice, I'd take Princess Anne as the Monarch over any of them. However nice Wills seems, I suspect that Sara Phillips has far more gumption and is much more down to Earth'. The boardrooms of the UK are stuffed full of stuffy old men, who are their due to their sex and connections, rather than any great talent. What a message it would send to them to say "We are a country that takes addressing sexism seriously, we've brought in positive discrimination for the Monarchy and you are next if you don't sort your act out".

I was thinking about the issue. If you'd have asked me yesterday, I would have said I am a republican and I would vote to abolish the monarchy. Today I am really not so sure. Of course a hereditary head of state is no way to run a modern democratic state. That said, I do believe that the British are somehow different. Despite the fact that the Queen is white and definately rather upper class, I know very few commonwealth citizens who do not think she is the best thing since sliced bread. I think she reassures us all. Her birthdays and Jubilees are causes of national celebrations. We love the soap opera of her offspring. As family businesses go, it is a pretty successful one. It is part of the UK brand and it does bring in the tourists and the foreign cash. People love all that pomp and ceremony.

If you look at the list of State visits made by the Queen and the list of State visits received by the Queen, you see a list which will probably never be equalled by anyone. If you add in all of the Leaders she's met at Commonwealth conferences and at the UN, you see someone who has had unique insite into the way we run our planet. While she's around, the question of the job is locked away in a little box somewhere that few even care to look. But with the sands of time, sooner or later we will have someone else on the throne. Maybe it will be Charles, maybe it will be Wills, it probably won't be Harry unless Sir Alan gets his way. There is virtually no chance it will be Anne and even less that it will be Sara. But that really isn't the interesting question is it? The really interesting question is who will be the next but one monarch. I suspect the answer to that, may in the fullness of time, prove to be nobody at all. And I suspect that in five hundred years historians will look back on this little period now and see it as the end of an era, which was in some ways beyond comprehension. The concept that an unelected Monarch could rule for so long and out of good manners, no one even discussed whether it would seem like a good idea will seem as strange as belief in a flat earth. It sort of reminded me of my old RE teacher at my Catholic secondary school explaining about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He said "God told them not to eat the apple, but they thought they were too clever, so they did what they wanted to. Then they saw what the world was really like and no one was ever happy again". I'm not saying that the passing of the Queen will lauch us into an age of eternal misery, but I suspect that like many things, we may not really understand the vaule until its gone. But thats progress isn't it? That's why I've got the M1 at the bottom of my garden instead of an orchard. Personally, I'd rather have that Orchard. But you my friend wants to be able to drive from Watford to Brent Cross a little quicker, so in the name of progress, the idylic orchard of my early years was bulldozed and now it is a concrete Highway.

It''s called progress my dear, and however much you may loathe its, there is nothing at all you can do,

George Osbornes plan for a £10 billion budget surplus is simply stealing from the poor

Exposing the porkies about a budget surplus

The core objective driving everything in George Osbornes economic strategy is to achieve a £10 billion budget surplus by 2019-20. This is why Barnets Libraries are being decimated. This is why hard up families are being crucified by cuts to tax credits. George Osborne tells us that we must do this because to do otherwise would be fiscally irresponsible. Whilst Mr Osborne is entitled to his view, what disturbs me is that seemingly no one is prepared to stand up and challenge it. I am especially surprised that no one on the right of the British political divide has said a dickybird.

It is quite clear that the ideal budget is one which is balanced. The government should work out what it needs to spend and collect the required amount of tax to meet those bills. Clearly this cannot be done down to the last penny, but to plan a surplus of £10 billion is simply theft from the hard working families of Britain. To have £10 billion a year simply sitting in the treasury, whilst families suffer, the NHS crumbles and libraries are shut is nothing more than robbery.

George Osborne believes debt to be  a terrible thing. This is the workings of an intellectual lightweight who clearly doesn't understand the way economics work. In a modern economy, debt is an essential part of financial management. Borrowing should be managed responsibly. Where there is a clear case for infrastructure spending, it is clearly sensible to borrow. The UK has an excellent credit rating, so can borrow money very inexpensively. A well planned infrastructure project will produce a return on investment. With the base rate currently at 0.5% many infrastructure projects returning 5-10% on investments produce huge profits for the UK PLC. Why swould we not want to borrow. As a business owner, I've borrowed for business projects on numerous occasions. It is a simple process. You identify an opportunity for your business to grow. You work out a budget for the project. You then work out how much you have to borrow, go to the bank with a proposal and they lend you the money. If you are sensible, you use very conservative projections. In general such projects produce a far greater return on investment and so your profits are robust. We live in a capitalist economy and such projects make profits for my business and the bank. The bank uses this to lend to other customers and generate even more wealth for the nation.

If George Osborne believes that cancelling profit generating projects because he wants a budget surplus is a sensible way to run the economy, then the UK will see a rapid deterioration of both our infrastructure and our national wealth. When we look at national debt, we need to look on what that debt is servicing. I would agree with George Osborne that debt should not be used to pay normal running expenses, such as wages for teachers, nurses and politicians. Where there is a clear case that spending a penny today saves a pound tomorrow, the case is completely different. Just suppose a new strain of flu is found. It is far chearper to have a rapidly implemented immunisation project than to have the costs of a flu pandemic. If this isn't to be found in this years budget and no contingency funds are available, it would be sensible to borrow to pay for it.

All of this is however, skirting around the main issue. A budget surplus means that people have been taxed, but the money is not being spent to make the country a better place. There is no way we can justify taking money from the poor to meet such a completely pointless objective. Of course for George Osborne, this isn't a pointless objective. Once he has the billions in the bank, it gives him the cash to do what the rich backers of the Conservative Party paid all those donations for. It means he can give the very richest people in the land a tax cut. In effect George Osborne is Robin Hood in reverse. He steals from the poor, to give to the rich. As someone who is not badly off, I don't want any improvement in my lifestyle to be funded from the pockets of the poor. I really don't understand the mentality of people who are mega rich, have fantastic lifestyles, but still want to see those who have none of the luxuries they take for granted squeezed, just so they can see even more digits on their bank balance.

#SaveLondonMusic - Campaign Launch Party - An awesome night

The False Dots at the Save London Music Launch party

Last night we saw the launch of the #SaveLondonMusic campaign at the Fiddlers Elbow. It was a great night with a big crowd, who thoroughly enjoyed four great bands. Many thanks to The Fiddlers Elbow for hosting the night. The Elbow is one of the biggest supporters of up and coming bands and is a vital cog in the London Music scene. London has many such pubs and clubs, but the number has shrunk by 40% in the last ten years. The SaveLondonMusic campaign is fighting to highlight the issues facing such clubs and pubs and to fight for some protection from greedy developers.  There is all sorts of legislation to protect various sites that we deem important. We protect the countryside with Green Belt legislation and conservation areas. We protect palaces and important buildings of architectural importance with Listed buliding legislation. We  protect areas with unique or rare wildlife with designation as a site of special interest.

Wendell Richardson and friends

Last night, the mighty Dell Richardson of Osibisa fame headlined and put in a stirling set, having the whole place rocking. The finale was the 1970's worldwide hit "Sunshine day" which saw the whole place rock. Dell is one of the nicest men on the music scene and he has put together a band so hot that the wallse nearly melted!

The show started with the awesome Black Doldrums , a power duo who are building a reputation and a large group of admirers. We suggest you keep an eye out for them. Next up were Hamptons, lead by a great friend of this blog and many people in Barnet, Charles Honderick. They are a truly great band.

A great night. I was priveliged to be a part of it. Please support the campaign and support your local venue. My ambition is that in 2016, we will have a gig at every small pub and club in London under the banner #SaveLondonMusic. We are currently planning this campaign. It won't be easy, but then nothing that matters is ever easy, is it?

Many thanks to John Keough for the greta pics

What I did yesterday morning

Breakfast at the Passage

Let me tell you what I did yesterday. At 7am I arrived at http://passage.org.uk/ in Victoria which is a day centre for homeless people. We set up and provided a breakfast for approx 100 homeless people. For those with no money, they get a voucher to a value of 60p towards breakfast. We charge 15p for a rasher of bacon or a sausage and 10p for eggs, bean & Porridge. 2 slices of toast are free as are the tea and coffee. We also get the left over sandwiches from Pret, which are distributed free of charge. Clients are given access to various services, including medical and counselling services, help find accomodation and job advice. There are also laundry and washing facilities.

Due to work commitments I finished at 9am and then went and did a days work. Why am I mentioning this. The Passage runs because people like me volunteer. Can I be so bold as to ask a favour? Would you consider volunteering for such an organisation? There are thousands of community projects which need people to help. Why should you do it? Well I did it because I was initially asked to help over Xmas three years ago when they were short of volunteers for a Thursday between Xmas & New Year. I had no intention of doing it regulary, I just thought I'd go once. Then I found I actually got an enormous amount out of the experience and have been every Thursday I could since.

If you see homeless people and feel sorry for them, the best way to help is through such a project. You would probably be quite surprised at the mix of clients. No one wants to become homeless, it happens because things don't work out. Some have problems with mental health issues, some have problems with addiction, many are suffering due to relationship breakdown. Some are difficult, most are really nice.   All would go hungry if volunteers didn't get up at an unearthly hour to help. Please note this blog is written in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the Passage.

Why you should support the #SaveLondonMusic campaign

Please have a look at this website detailing how 37% of London music venues have closed since 2007.  This is why we are asking you to support the #SaveLondonMusic campaign and our official Launch event is tomorrow (Fri 6th Nov). Please make the effort to come along. The Barnet Eye has supported numerous important campaigns in Barnet, we are asking all our friends to return the favour tomorrow. It is free entry and there will be some great music.

Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear

"Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear" - to me this is the most frightening citizen in the world. If I hear a Politician say these words, I know they are a disreputable scoundrel. If I hear a senior policeman or army officer say it, I know that we are in trouble. These were the words I awoke to when my alarm went off at 7am. Not sure who was saying it, but it was in relation to the latest proposls to give the police and security forces the power to snoop on us. But I hear you say "I am a law abiding citizen, I have nothing to fear". The question is "are you really", I am sure you are a truly fine citizen and a fine upstanding human being, but are you a law abiding citizen? Perhaps even more pertinent, even if you are a law abiding citizen today, will you be one tomorrow. Here's a little list, see if you can work out the pattern.

Being a Roman Catholic
Being a Jew
Being a Homosexual
Drinking beer in a pub after 1pm on a Sunday
Driving at 31 mph in my street
Dropping litter
Driving a Taxi without a bale of hay in the boot
Practising witchcraft
Going on Strike without being ballotted
Owning a pit bull terrier
Looking at a website which contains bomb making instructions
Promoting homosexuality in schools
Marrying the aire to the Throne if you are a Roman Catholic
Drinking beer on the terraces at a football match
Having a crafty cigarette in the pub

All of these activities are or have been illegal at some point in the UK.  Some of them were punishable by death. You may say that times have changed. Of course they have, but remember that the tide comes in and the tide goes out. What is the norm and acceptable today can become illegal tomorrow. Prior to the Nazi takeover in Germany, it was the European country which was most tolerant of Jewish people. Public mood changes and anyone who thinks that we are immune to such repressive laws is a fool.

Whilst the changes in the law are being deemed vital to protect the state against terrorism, the scope of the laws and how they will be used is something none of us can even imagine. We saw local councils using the RIPA legislation to spy on citizens who  put the wrong sort of rubbish in their bins. We've seen bloggers prosecuted for saying nasty things about their council. I have been threatened on several occasions by the Council with legal action, when I have published supposedly secret information on my blog. What was this secret information? Supposedly confidential information about a commercial contract with a private company. There was no private or personal details contained and everything published was clearly information which had no implications for the negotiation of the commercial details. It was the sort of thing that in the USA the council would have to publish in a public tender document.

Has the Council, State and security services spied on me and my blogging activities? I have no idea, but I'd be amazed if they hadn't. I have had some truly odd things happen over the years that the Barnet Eye has been running. Am I a threat to the state or even the council? I'd suggest that if they'd actually bothered to listen, they'd be a better run and more efficient organisation. This blog actually exposed serious wrongdoing in the council in regards to Metpro, a security company used by Barnet Council. Due to investigations by myself and other bloggers, a scandal was exposed where the council was paying a company with no proper licenses far above the going rate for services it did't need. Did we get  a civic award for the hundreds of thousands of pounds we saved? Nope, we get dismissively criticised by the people who run the council. If you hear a Barnet Tory councillor use the word "blogger" you can be assurred that it is not being used in a complimentary manner. I suspect that given the chance several Barnet Tory councillors (and ex councillors) would simply make blogging illegal. They see bloggers as something which gets in the way of their plans. They never acknowledge the fact that on numerous occasions we've tried to save them from themselves.

In 2008, when I started writing the Barnet Eye, I was quite naive and believed that most politicians were basically decent people who simply wanted to do a good job. I still believe that a fair number are. However time and time again, I've seen the most appalling people doing the most appalling things. When you see a man who gets a £25,000 allowance for being a councillor and chairing a committee, telling parents of severely disabled children that respite care is a waste of money, you realise the true depths of the cesspit into which our local politicians exist. There are many things in this country which are illegal which are trivial. Sadly there are also many things which should be illegal which never will be. For a wealthy society to strip parents of disabled children of their respite care is a prime example. Personally I'd make closing libraries another thing. What is more socially damaging, dropping a sweet wrapper in the street or shutting a library? Don't get me wrong, I don't condone littering, in fact I think its disgusting, but it is nowhere near as disgusting as shutting libraries.

In short, I am against this legislation as I don't trust the politicians who want the final say on who will be monitored. I don't trust politicians to pass fair laws. I fear for the future. This isn't a party political thing. The politician I admire most in terms of protecting our liberty is Tory David Davis. He eloquently sums up the risks. I have no issue with the police and security services having the right to snoop when there is clear evidence that people are planning to carry out atrocities. I also understand that as technology develop, laws need updating. But we need cast iron checks and controls. This should be under the control of judges and there should be cross party oversight of such activities. Sweeping laws, with little control is a recipe for a totalitarian state.

The destruction of our libraries and the fundamental threat to our civilisation

The heart of our civilisation is under threat. It amazes me just how we are sleepwalking into a situation where our society breaks down completely and we enter a brave new world of such horror that it is impossible to imagine. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but if you stand back and look at the facts, it makes some pretty scary reading. On Saturday, I detailed how the national papers are lying and misleading us, by non reporting of inconvenient facts. There are many other warning signs. Lets examine a few. What is the difference between a book and an online book? Last night, I went to see Spectre, the new James Bond film. At the very end there is a scene where Bond has to make a difficult moral decision. It is widely reported that the producers had this changed, so that it had a happy rather than a rather ambiguous ending. That is there perogative. Perhaps Romeo and Juliet would have been a better story if they'd both lived happily ever after. The sad thing about Romeo and Juliet is that the ending is set in stone. Millions of versions of the book have been printed and so we can't change the ending. Hitler was rather keen on burning books, as he realised the old adage that "knowledge is power". 

Knowledge is Power. Quite an obvious statement really. But take a second to consider the implications. On a superficial level, to take power you need knowledge. But look at Hitlers actions. His book burning wasn't based on the need to acquire knowledge. It was based on the requirement to control knowledge. Hitler recognised that if you can control the information people have, you can control how they think and how they behave. In the printed age, this was extraordinarily hard. Every individual book was a statement of record. You'd have to destroy every last one to truly kill the message. We are in a different age today. My friend Dan Bleich is worried about an accidental catastrophic event which would destroy the interent such as what happens when the internet goes down for a significant period of time say because of a coronal mass ejection -  http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-flare-electronics.htm - or the Russians torpedo the undersea cables that connect the internet - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34639148 -  thus reducing Google to a useless pile of circuits and Siri into rather expensive paperweight? Dan doubts"we will even know how to work out how to use the Dewey Decimal Classification system in the libraries if you don’t have a qualified librarian to tell you how it works!"

Dan is of course correct. The internet is growning at an exponential rate. In 1943, there was one computer in the UK. It was called Collusus. It was at Bletchley Park and it was used to decode German Ultra encrypted messages. Now your washing machine has millions of times more processing power than that. To service the huge demand for IT, we have ever larger computers and networks. If a small part of this was taken down, then there simply wouldn't be enough bandwidth for the rest of the network and the whole thing would grind to a halt. No Barnet Eye, no BBC News, no Amazon, no Youtube, no Facebook.  The government has contingency plans for just such events. The foirst thing they do is to get the Internet Providers to exclude the general public, so that their traffic works. Most people don't realise how many things are digital. It would mean no Radio/TV. It may affect power supplies, water supplies, transport, even sewage. Train information and signalling is all run via digital transmissions. Food deliveries to supermarkets would be one of the first casualties, as organisations such as Tescos & M&S use the internet to manage stock levels and collect payments at cash tills via credit and debit cards. How much food do you have in your larder? And how will you cook it when there is no electricty. I hope you like tinned sardines and cold baked beans. 

So how will you cope? Well I suppose you could go to the Library and get a book on survival skills, or how which mushrooms are edible. Maybe a book on the seige of Leningrad, when the populace survived on 600 calories a day in sub zero temperatures may be useful. Whilst Dan is right, I fear a far more pervasive threat. Who controls the Internet? Whoever does control it, effectively controls us, don't they? Anything that is a digital file can simply be erased or updated. In a fully digital world, our books will be held on central servers. Just suppose Orwells 1984 is deemed a bit to close to the bone for a future government. Simply delete the file? Not if they were clever. Maybe a version, where Winston Smith was a dangerous subversive who got his just rewards and Big Brother was a kindly and benign leader who simply cared for the masses? Think it can't happen? Have a look at how the Internet is managed in China. Libraries empower us. 

There is another thing which worries me. Anyone can enter a library and read any book they choose. It costs money. Your laptop, the software on it and the internet all cost hundreds of pounds. In effect the poorer you are the more excluded you are. Libraries redress this balance. You can access the internet from a library as well as borrowing books. It is a great leveller, but one which our council wishes to withdraw. 

Finally lets have a look at the "unmanned libraries" proposal. This relies on a smart card to gain access. Again this is a digital tool, so it may well be that in a digital meltdown, this accedentally or by design keeps out the people who have had their flow of information on the web cut off. 

Does this bother you? It scares the hell out of me.

Come down to the Fiddlers Elbow on Friday 6th November for the Launch of the Save London Music Campaign

As regular readers will know, The Barnet Eye has been instrumental in setting up the Save London Music campaign. We have our official Launch party this Friday. There are four great bands playing, who all showcase just what a magnificent music city we have. Why do we need a campaign?

* London Music Venues and Studios are closing at an alarming rate
* Londons next generation of musicians need venues and studios to flourish
* Music is one area where the UK leads the world but without the London music scene this will change
* People come from all over the world to listen to music in London venues, as they close, London becomes a less attractive destination
* Musicians come from all over the world to use Londons excellent music studios, if they close, we will lose his vital source of creative regeneration.

To whet your appetite for this fantastic event, here is a taster of what you can expect. We've chosen an eclectic line up featuring London based musicians, with roots all over the world. Entry is free and the fun starts from 7.30pm

Our headliner is the Mighty Dell Richardson of Osibisa





Next on the bill are The False Dots. Here is a taster from their forthcoming album "Songs of Love and War"




Then we have the amazing Hamptons




And the simply awesome Black Doldrums