Sunday, 22 September 2019

The Tweets of the Week in the London Borough of Barnet - 22/9/2019

Here we are. This week's selection

1. We agree!


2. Someone enjoyed our company!


3. Mill Hill has some fine views


4. Good to see twitter can get a result!


5. Historical tweet of the week


6. We support this!


7. Superb Jazz in Mill Hill


8. I knew he liked a drink but.....


9. another fine bit of local history



10. Great to see young local talent. This is some we've been championing



That's all folks!
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Saturday, 21 September 2019

The Saturday List #233 - My mum's top ten sayings

Mum with me in 1981
It's eleven years since my mum left this mortal coil.  I miss her. I was thinking of her this morning, something reminded me of her talent for rather interesting sayings. These were often triggered by seeing people she didn't like or disapproved of for some reason. Some, to this day, I haven't a clue what they mean. I thought I'd preserve them for posterity today.


1. There's now't so queer as folk. (She was from a generation where queer meant odd rather than a description of sexual orientation. I suspect the TV series has rather changed the meaning of this).


2. She's stuck like a pig in a ginnel. (I've no idea at all what this meant, but it was often uttered, it intrigued me. What ginnels were and why pigs got stuck in them, I've no idea).


3. He's the victim of a good education and a bossy mother. (I can't remember who she said this about or why. I think it probably describes one or two members of Parliament quite well).


4. She's got the face she deserves. (This was often uttered about a particularly sour neighbour, who my mother rather disliked).


5. He should have been a Priest. (My mum would often say this about men she thought were useless at everything. Bizarrely she generally held the Roman Catholic clergy in high esteem).


6. He's a typical bloody Tory. (My mum was a Socialist. This would be exclaimed often during the news, when my mother felt a minister was being heartless. This inevitably lead to a row with my Dad who was a Tory).


7. All the makeup in the world can't hide her ugly character. (There were one or two local ladies who my mother used to think were too liberal with the makeup and too uncaring about anything else).


8. She's had one facelift too many. (This was an insult reserved for Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. My mother became convinced that Thatcher had a facelift and I think she disliked this almost as much as her policies).


9. He should have been the Archbishop of Canterbury. (My mother often said this of me. I don't think it was a compliment, especially given that she was a Roman Catholic and the Archbishop of Canterbury was CofE).

10. You're an idiot, just like your father. (My mother did not think my father was an idiot at all, but she thought he was useless with money. Whenever I made a purchasing choice that she disagreed with, this would be uttered. She would make a point of saying it so my father could hear. I think this was to remind him of her displeasure with his spending. Generally he'd respond by going to the Mill Hill Services club, drinking five pints and putting fifty quid in the one armed bandit. He would play until he won, which usually was probably less than he'd put in. He'd come home with pockets full of fifty pence pieces, as proof that he was sensible with money. This would result in an even more searing insult. After he passed away, my mum told me that she'd always been terrified that he'd gamble the house or business away, but she had realised in hindsight that he only ever gambled with what was in his pocket. She'd wait until he was out of sight and nick half of it for the family budget. In 1977, when the family had a business opportunity that required a £15,000 investment, my father was demoralised because he didn't have the cash. When my mother announced that we did, he couldnt believe it. When he asked where it came from, she confessed that she'd been emptying his pockets and putting it in the bank since they first married. He didn't know whether to be delighted or furious).

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Friday, 20 September 2019

The Friday Joke - 20/09/2019 - A load of bull?


An Australian stopped at a local restaurant following a day roaming around in Madrid .
While sipping his wine, he noticed a sizzling, scrumptious looking platter being served at the next table.
Not only did it look good, the smell was wonderful.
He asked the waiter, 'What is that you just served?'
The waiter replied, 'Si Senor, you have excellent taste! Those are called Cojones de Toro,  from the bull fight this morning. A delicacy!'
The Australian said, 'I will have the same please.'
The waiter replied, 'I am so sorry senor. There is only one serving per day because there is only one bull fight each morning. If you come early and place your order, we will be sure to save you this delicacy.'
The following day he returned, placed his order, and that evening was served the one and only special delicacy of the day.
After a few bites, inspecting his platter, he called to the waiter and said, 'These are delicious, but they are much, much smaller than the ones I saw you serve yesterday.'
The waiter shrugged his shoulders and replied,
'Si, Señor. Sometimes the bull wins."

Have a great weekend! If you are eating Spanish tonight, you know what to order. I'm a fan of El Camino in Kings Cross, but I don't know if they serve  Cojones de Toro?

 (Note: if you don't get it, do a  translate on  'Cojones de Toro' Spanish to English)
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Thursday, 19 September 2019

Am I alone in feeling terrified of the future?

I recently turned 57. If you knew me, you'd know that I am an optimistic and generally happy go lucky person. Many people tell me that when they meet me, I am not at all like the personality of my blog. I am a naturally very lucky person. For reasons I can't fathom, God has generally smiled on me. I was lucky to be born with the parents I had. I've been lucky with the friends I've made. I've been lucky in love. My kids are great. I play guitar in an amazing band, with some fantastically creative people. I've been lucky in business. I've even been lucky with my blogging. For reasons I can't quite fathom, people seem to enjoy reading the blog in vast numbers, I've even been lucky blogging.


With all of these marvellous things going on, I have found myself becoming ever more terrified of the future, for reasons I can't really understand. When did it start? I can pin a date on it. January 10th 2016. That was the day David Bowie died. It seems to me that the transition of Bowie from this plane to the celestial one, resulted in a strange shift of the axis of the earth. Sure, before 2016 bad things happened. We saw 9/11, we saw the credit crunch and the global crash. We saw the Iraq war. We saw all manner of terrible things. David Cameron was the Prime Minister at the time. Although I found him , smug, arrogant and charmless, I sort of thought he was Prime Minister material. If you had to have a Tory running the country, apart from Ken Clarke there are few I'd have preferred. 

But as we recovered from our new years hangovers, the Bowie death was like a jolt. I had a deep sense of unease for months after. I don't know if it was just because Bowie was such a pivotal figure in my life. As a North London musician, you couldn't help but be influenced by and love Bowie. I suddenly found that I couldn't listen to Golden Years, my favourite Bowie track. It was as if the Golden Years were now behind us and we were in for a time of plague and pestilence.
David Cameron announced the #Brexit referendum. This destroyed all trust we had in our politicians. They launched, en mass into a lie fest. Boris painted a massive Porkie on the side of a bus and started hurtling around the country in it. George Osborne lead a campaign that was as slippery as it was ineffective for the #Remain side. They split the country down the middle. 37% voted leave 35% voted remain and 28% didn't vote. Over a quarter of the people eligible to vote declined the offer. Didn't they care or where they just too put off by the porkie fest. There is no such thing as 'the 52%'.  There was not a majority of voters for #Brexit. The hard Brexit mob changed their stance from 'negotiating a deal will be the easiest thing in the world' to 'We want to leave with no deal'. 

The best advice we've got, which was the leaked Yellowhammer documents show this would be a disaster. The hard #Brexiteers claim this is part of 'Project fear', which when you think of it is ridiculous, because it was never meant to be made public. The concept that the government would commission a secret report that they didn't want the public to see, to terrify them into backing remain is insane. I can't see any way out of the mess. The country is hopelessly divided. Many people I know are avoiding life long friends as they don't want to have the #Brexit conversation. People who have always been mild mannered and reasonable have become frothing balls of rage. 

The country has responded to the challenge by letting the Tory party appoint Boris Johnson, a man best known for being a tactless buffoon. People who previously couldn't stand him but support Brexit now are placing their faith in him. Others who had admired his tenure as London Mayor, now are scared to death. The most positive thing I can say about Boris is that he's not Donald Trump. Trump makes Boris look like a paragon of virtue. Sadly Trump is the most powerful man on the planet. At a time when we need wise and pragmatic leadership, we have a man who conducts diplomacy through Twitter. Not only that, but a man who has fostered an atmosphere where qualified scientists are abused and pilloried. This is done so that big business can continue to damage the environment. We are facing a huge threat from climate change, but the one man who could make a difference doesn't care. 

Every time I turn on the news, the world seems to be tilting more and more towards disaster. I have three grown up children. I feel that my generation has failed them. We will just leave them smoking debris to play on. We had a beautiful planet and we are systematically trashing it. I used to think I'm lucky, I have had so much, but I am simply a passenger on a bus being driven over a cliff by a maniac. Am I alone in feeling this? 
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Monday, 16 September 2019

Environment Monday - The solutions are there, why don't we use them

If you've read our environment Monday column before, you can skip this paragraph. It just explains what it is all about. So you want to save the planet, combat climate change, leave a legacy for your children that you can be proud of but you just don't know where to start? I started the Environment Monday series of blogs to try and spread a few practical ideas, things that are practical and work. I'd love your ideas, guest blogs and help. The old adage of think global, act local has been my mantra for decades. If we all start with ourselves, look at our lifestyles, look at the small changes we can make in our carbon footprint, on our own we will make a miniscule difference, but if we do it and it works, maybe our friends will sit up take, notice and over time (which is precious), together we can start to make a big difference. Each week, we will explore a different theme, a different way that we can all make a difference.

Did you see this tweet at the weekend?



This got me thinking. The Post Office sorting office in Mill Hill has been there for decades. Most Mill Hillians will at some point have made the journey to collect a parcel or registered letter. We see the posties making their way around Mill Hill, delivering our letters. I know most of them, some I went to school with, others I have had a pint with, some I just know from the friendly morning greetings as letters are delivered. I am a big fan of the Post Office. When I used to work as an IT consultant, I worked on the Post Office Cardholder Account project. This system enables people on benefits  to be paid cash at Post Offices. This system has provided the financial support to keep many small post offices open. It is safe to say that I am a fan of the Post Office.

One of the sad things about the Post office is that we've had appalling governments that do not see the opportunities for using the Post Office as a tool for improving the environment. There are many things that have actually been regressive rather than progressive in the way the Post Office operates. Saving cash has been the number one driver in most developments in the mail delivery systems. Delivery of packages is one of the huge growth areas in producing pollution. This demonstrates the lack of joined up thinking.

If I was Prime Minister, I'd enact a 100% tax on all parcel deliveries that are not done using carbon free technology. The Post Office used to be one of the most green organisations, without really trying. They had a dedicated electric railway to move mail around London, producing zero emissions and zero congestion. They used to move most of their regional mail by rail, the least polluting of modes of transport. Posties would walk their rounds. Sadly in the name of cost efficiency, the Royal Mail underground was closed, bulk mail was moved from rail to road, vans replaced a lot of the walked rounds. The reason? The Post Office has to compete with private delivery services that can cherry pick the lucrative contracts. They are always at a financial disadvantage. An enlightened government would recognise the huge amounts of pollution that all of these vans are creating and seek to force these companies to 'go green'. It would be great to see the Post Office go all electric, with long distance mail going back on the rails. This will only happen when it becomes financially viable. This is where government legislation comes in. An added bonus to this would be that the more traffic we have on the railways, the better the case becomes for electrification, investment and line re-openings.

The line of vans parked on Sunday outside of the sorting office is an example of how we've gone wrong. There should be cables charging the batteries of all of them. That can only happen when the government gets it act together. The Post Office is just one example of a large, formerly nationalised organisation which could make a huge difference to climate change. The decision by the government to halt the electrification of the Midland Mainline, ensuring a reliance on polluting diesel traction is a scandalous example of bad decision making. The airports used to be run by the government, British Airways was nationalised these are now all run by private companies. Their whole mission is to promote air travel and footfall at their airports. Their board level decision making process is all about maximising profits. Whilst that means we've got nice, bright, shiny airports it also means that protecting the environment is way down the list of priorities. When it comes to choosing how to get from London to Manchester or Edinburgh, few people ever think of the pollution we produce. We look at the price of a ticket and the time it takes.

When these large companies and corporations were privatised, no one said "is it a good idea to move organisations that could drive social good into the private sector, where profit is the only purpose for their existence?". All the government of the day looked at was how they could make some money. Now we have a global climate crisis and the government has no control over the organisations that are driving the problems. If we want to move to becoming a carbon neutral nation, we need to take tough decisions and these will come with a cost. But the solutions are at hand. Electric vehicles are a part of the solution, renewable energy sources are another part. But changing what we do is a key. For us to buy into it, we need to see the government and big business taking the lead. The solutions are there, why don't we use them.
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Sunday, 15 September 2019

The Tweets of The Week in the London Borough of Barnet - 15/09/2019

So what has been going on in the wonderful world of Barnet's Tweeters? It's been a pretty good week for interesting tweets, even had to bend my ten tweets rule slightly.

Don't forget to follow anyone who tickles your fancy (or anything else).

1. We start with a great picture of the business run by some esteemed Mill Hill residents, based in Cricklewood

2. I love this tweet from Cricklewood coffee roasters! Didn't realise Cricklewood could look so continental

3. And a rather nice Tweet from the Mill HilL Historical Society.  I've bent the rules for them, as rules are made to be broken!




4. And East Finchley has gone all Bollywood on us!

5. How Brent Cross looked before the shopping centre. Great picture

6. You can't have too many reminders of what can go wrong when right wing, nationalist, populists take over a country.


7. Any kids in Colindale fancy a Holloween Party?


8. Not quite sure if these mushrooms look magic?


9. Fancy some qquality jazz in Mill Hill?

10. Is it just me or the Rock stars getting younger every day?



That's all folks!!! Have a great Sunday
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Saturday, 14 September 2019

The Saturday List #232 - Ten ways to spot a psychopath on Twitter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindhunter_(TV_series)Add caption
Recently, myself and Mrs T have been watching the rather good series "Mindhunter". It is about the early days of the FBI profiling of psychopaths, to help catch serial killers. It got me wondering about the Internet and in particular Twitter. We see all sorts of strange and wonderful people posting all sorts of odd and bizarre things. It got me wondering whether you can spot a psychopath from their Internet profile. I wonder if the FBI have developed a tool that can catch such people simply from their Tweets?

The Encylopedia of Mental Disorders has a very interesting page on how to spot a Psychopath. They describe a psychopath as

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is a diagnostic tool used to rate a person's psychopathic or antisocial tendencies. People who are psychopathic prey ruthlessly on others using charm, deceit, violence or other methods that allow them to get with they want. The symptoms of psychopathy include: lack of a conscience or sense of guilt, lack of empathy, egocentricity, pathological lying, repeated violations of social norms, disregard for the law, shallow emotions, and a history of victimizing others.

I think every regular use of Twitter will have come across accounts that display such behaviour. The site also gives a list of 20 markers. Clearly people hiding behind anonymous accounts  only tell you what they want to tell you, so about half, such as sexual delinquency and early behavioural problems they will want to keep quiet, but ten of the markers are quite easy to spot. Here is there checklist and a few notes from me on what to look out for on Twitter.

1. Glib and superficial charm

Key markers to look out for are grown up adults posting rather adolescent looking gifs of kittens, etc and liberally sprinkling all sorts of happy emoji's into tweets, to create an aura of friendliness. If these posts are interspersed with tweets of a vaguely menacing nature, it is a clear indicator.

2. Grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self

For psychopaths, it is essential to control situations. Posts from anonymous accounts, bragging of fantastic academic qualifications and top jobs that cannot be verified are typical behaviour. Often psychopaths are quite intelligent but can't work with other people, so will have had decent jobs at some point, but these were very short lived. They invariable end up 'working for themselves' bashing away on a keyboard into the early hours. Often to make up for the lack of real friends, they invent other Twitter persona's to chat with. If you notice an account where tweets are always liked by a subset of linked accounts, this is a sure sign of bogus self affirmation.

3. Need for stimulation

Often psychopaths are driven by paranoia. They tend to think everyone thinks like they do, so are constantly on the look out for new sources of stimulation to feed their delusions. They are very prone to fall for conspiracy theories, as they believe they provide a cover and an excuse for their poor behaviour. They will obsessively hunt out ever more bizarre information sources, the more absurd the better.

4. Pathological lying

As previously mentioned, the need for control is a pivotal feature of a psychopathic personality. When events and facts don't fit a narrative, they will invent one. They believe that if a lie is continually repeated, it will become a truth. Often on Twitter, a psychopath will get rumbled and then take on a campaign of harassment and intimidation of those they see as a threat. They will then construct a whole parallel reality of untruths about those they are targeting. This will involve inventing all manner of claims about what a person has done or said, none of which are ever substantiated with evidence.

5. Cunning and manipulativeness

Psychopaths are very cunning and manipulative. They will devise all manner of cunning ruses to ingratiate themselves with people they see as useful. Once they have dragged someone into their sordid world of fantasy, they make it very hard for those snared to escape. Fortunately on Twitter, it is quite easy to block such characters. The best thing is to block all of their persona's and ignore all of their nonsense. Eventually they will get bored and find someone else to pick on. If threats are made, report them to the Police.

6. Lack of remorse or guilt

This is the classic sign of a psychopath. However badly they behave, there is always an excuse. They seek out cases of other people who have been victims of injustice and convince themselves that they too have been unfairly treated.

7. Shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness)

This can be quite hard to spot on Twitter. Something bad happens and whilst normal people seek to offer support and solace, a psychopath will see it as opening a door to exploit a vulnerability. They will seek out people who display vulnerability and  offer support, but the purpose is purely to gain trust and confidence. Such individuals rarely create content of genuine interest, as they do not see the need to actually engage intelligently with other people.

8. Callousness and lack of empathy

This is far easier to spot. A psychopathic tweeter will seek out opportunity to undermine and make other people feel badly about themselves. They will see a tweet where someone is genuinely upset and will try and inflict a devastating knock out response to it to ensure the person feels awful. They lack empathy, so will have no qualms about saying things that upset people. There is never the slightest effort to see the other persons point of view or to find common ground. It is dominate or destroy.

9. Parasitic lifestyle

Twitter psychopaths are generally rather unemployable. They often have self defined non jobs, claiming all manner of business interests. Often they will see themselves as 'social media experts' and imagine that they are in charge of huge organisations with multiple employees, but are simply bashing away at a keyboard in their bedroom. They make inflated claims about their social media reach, they actively seek spam follows as validation, so that they can con people into supporting their non productive lifestyle. If they have websites, you will see no evidence of anything to back up these claims. No large offices, no names, no official partners.  And yet they seek your cash, don't be fooled.

10. Poor behavioral controls

Indiscipline on their accounts is another telling sign. They will often set up an account for one purpose, but when they need to 'dominate a debate', the account will be re-purposed to another, role. The typical modus operandi is to set up an account that will generate interest from the wider Twitter community, then when a following has been gained, the account will suddenly start posting all manner of bonkers nonsense, unrelated to the original purpose of the account. If you spot this, then I'd recommend unfollowing. Twitter psychopaths always have an agenda and it is never your health and well being.

What fascinates me is whether the FBI and the Met Police are actively profiling these individuals. I don't think it will be too long before 'Twitter Psychopath" is recognised as a genre of dangerous criminal. I suspect that many of these people have criminal records and have found that Twitter is a perfect platform for their dodgy activities. I get very concerned when I see such accounts grooming schools and youth clubs. Sadly I think we will need some high profile cases to come to light before this is properly recognised.

And in the spirit of this topic, one of my favourite songs on the subject from The Vibrators. A much underrated band IMHO.
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Friday, 13 September 2019

Guest Blog - The characters of lost Mill Hill by Richard Wilkinson


Mill Hill Broadway circa 1973
Mill Hill has changed beyond recognition over the 70 odd years that I've spent living in the locality. My last blog talked about what it was like in the 50's as a teenager. But there is much more to Mill Hill than just the shops. The characters of Mill Hill are just as interesting. Many have passed away, many have moved, many I've lost touch with. I could tell many a tale of the shenanigans of old Mill Hill. The characters who frequented the pubs and the clubs.  As the Broadway didn't have a pub, if you liked a drink, you had to join the Mill Hill Services club. The club was set up in 1926 and has been going strong ever since. In the 1960's, you'd see all manner of stars of the film industry. Patrick McGoohan, star of Dangerman and The Prisoner was a local and would often bring his mates in for a beer and a game of snooker. There were many other famous people in Mill Hill, Graham Hill lived in Parkside and Roger Moore, then The Saint lived locally as well.




Stuart Taylor (on left) Pic courtesy Ray Randall
Kelly's Corner garage was run by Keith Taylor and his brother Stuart was the lead guitarist of 60's legends The Tornadoes. You'd often see Keith helping keep their van on the road, as I recall it was an old Bedford model. There is an amusing story about the van. The band had picked it up for about £15 and it was almost falling apart. When they started to become well known, they were booked to appear in a gig up North. Having signed a record deal, the band had bought a stack of expensive musical equipment. On returning, they decided to stop at one of the all night truckers cafe's that you'd find on the A1. As the band emerged after tea and bacon sarnies, they were horrified to find that the van had been stolen. As there was several thousands of pounds of equipment, including newly imported Fender guitars, they were absolutely gutted. Then they spotted that the theives had kindly removed all of the equipment from the van and left it neatly piled at the side of the road. They couldn't believe their luck.


Many of the local shops had interesting characters as well. The Blunt brothers ran the Model Shop, by Mill Hill Circus roundabout (next to Cosways). They had a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of everything that, as a young boy, you'd want to know. Trains, model aeroplanes, meccano. They sold Humbrol paints, balsa wood, enthusiasts magazines and all manner of bit and pieces that were highly useful for putting bits and pieces together. I recall once asking the older of the two brothers how he happened to know so much about second world war aeroplanes, as I bought a kit. He replied "because it's a very interesting subject". He then explained that they'd set the shop up because they loved the products they sold and enjoyed helping develop a love of engineering and making things in young people. They used to fix peoples train sets when they had broken engines etc. He explained that it was fascinating and getting paid to do it was a bonus.

The other great little shop in the Broadway was Kentfields toy shop. Run by Mr Kentfield and as I recall assisted by his sisters. It was a great source of board games, my younger sister would buy accessories for her dolls house, beautifully crafted miniature, chests of draws and lamp stands. In late November, we'd be taken in for a 'look around'. Mum was doing a recce for Christmas presents and wanted to see what caught our eyes. I recall Mr Kentfield being rather knowledgeable about the various board games on offer. I can recall that at one time I developed an interest in chess. I went to Kentifields to purchase a chess set and he enquired whether I was any good. When I told him that I was just starting out, he recommended that I borrow a book on the subject from the library. He said "if you read that and you can take it all in, you'll soon be beating all of your friends". This was sound advice, and I was soon the form champion at school! A few months later, I nipped in for something else and he asked how the chess playing was coming on. When I told him that I'd won a tournament at the school, he said "just remember, if you want success at anything, do your homework, it pays dividends". Those were wise words and

Then there was Mr Frank Callis who ran the bike shop. The shop was dark and dingy, but he was a mine of useful information. He'd always spend time to explain things, show you little tricks and get you on your way when you had a problem with your bike. There aren't any shops like Callis in Mill Hill any more, I wonder if there are any in London at all? Callis bike shop was demolished to make way for what is now Marks and Spencers.

Another shop that had an interesting Mill Hill character was Woolworths. Mrs Clitheroe was the floor supervisor. She would keep an eye on the staff and the customers. I had quite a few friends who had Saturday jobs over the years and they were all a little bit scared of her, but she was also very kind to staff when they had problems. She took a real pride in the store, it was her shop. She would walk the aisles, straightening up merchandise that customers had had the temerity to look at and not put back neatly.

Mill Hill was the type of place where everyone knew everyone. The local roadsweeper, who also kept an eye on the loo's in Hartley Avenue was for many years Mr Day. He'd walk up and down the Broadway, keeping the street clean and an eye on what was going on. He had a magnolia coloured cart that he'd put any litter he swept up into. If he saw any hoodlums dropping litter, he'd fire a volley of abuse at them and insist it was picked up. He lived in Mill Hill, latterly in Goodwyn Avenue and he took a pride in the area.

The local bobby in the 1960's was Charlie Dawson. He was a big man who liked a beer. If you misbehaved, he'd give you a thick ear. He was a stalwart member of the community and whilst he could be rather stern in his line of work, he was also a kind hearted and generous man. He was an old school copper, who knew the difference between the spirit and the letter of the law. He once saw me driving a friends Dads car, before I had a licence. He made a point of stopping me later and saying "I saw you driving, you don't have a licences, do you?" I was terrified. He said "You do realise that I could arrest you on the spot and driving with no insurance is a prisonable offence". I explained that my friends Dad (the friend had a licence) had asked him to fill it up with petrol and he'd let me drive it back (it was about a quarter of a mile from Kellys Corner Garage). He sternly said that if he ever saw me driving illegally again, he'd arrest me on the spot. He then said "If you want to learn to drive, get yourself a licence and do it properly, don't be a fool". About a year later, I passed my test. I bumped into Charlie and told him as I didn't want him pulling me over. He was very friendly and said "Well done son".

Of course there were also the characters in Mill Hill who were rather more interesting. The likes of Bunny Ennis and Porky Faulkner. You'd catch Bunny in the bar of Hendon and Edgware Rugby club in Mill Hill Park, regaling all with his tall tales. Bunny was involved in the motor trade and was perhaps Mill Hills answer to Arthur Daly. He was always entertaining and good humoured. Porky was involved in all manner of ventures. His favourite haunt was the Mill. Perhaps his best claim to fame was that he caught two travellers trying to steal his car. One pulled out a knife and stabbed him. Porky retrieved the knife from his own stomach and proceeded to stab the assailant to death. The judge concluded that it was a justifiable act of self defence.

Brother Hermann of St Jospehs College
Another fascinating character was Brother Hermann. He used to run the farm at St Josephs College on Lawrence Street. Herman was a Dutchman, who spoke very basic English. My mum used to do some sowing for him, in return, he'd supply us with fresh eggs, bags of apples from the College Orchard and the occasional lettuce. When we were small, he'd let us see the piglets when the pigs had given birth. It took me a long time to figure out what 'Goooood Baycon" meant. If we were really lucky, he'd take us for a drive around the farm in his tractor. The lower field, as you walk across the footpath from Lawrence Street was a football pitch for the numerous students at the college in the 1960's. In the summer Hermann would graze the cows on it. He'd take us down and tell us the art of rounding them up. For many years, he had a large German Shepard dog, that was a friendly fellow, sadly and perhaps rather ironically for a dog that kept guard of a religious institution, he was struck by lightening and died. 

As I recall, his name was Pluto. For a couple of days a year, Hermann would be the least popular man in Mill Hill. Every year he'd do muckspreading and the whole of Mill Hill would stink. In the 1950's and 60's, people accepted that Mill Hill was semi rural and would accept it. I wonder what locals would make of it today?

There is an amazing library of pictures of Mill Hill as it was on the Mempics site. Have a look, it is well worth it.

http://mempics.jalbum.net/Mill%20Hill%20Memories/

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Guest blogs are always welcome at The Barnet Eye. Richard Wilkinson is a long time Mill Hill resident who enjoys writing about his memories. Please note Richard writes under a pseudoname as unlike some people in Mill Hill, he's not an attention seeker! He has also put together an excellent website for local people - https://millhillbroadway.org/
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Thursday, 12 September 2019

Why Thameslink's new trains can't cope with a power outage

Like many people in Mill Hill, I regularly use the the Thameslink service. Like many, I was massively impacted by the power supply problems on 9th August.  My wife even had to be evacuated from a train north of Kentish Town and walked along the railway lines. I am endebted to Robin Morel of Network Rail for sharing the report.  nationalgrideso.com/document/15235


Older trains were unaffected - Pic Copy Barneteye
The reason for the problem is that a 'Safety feature' of the new Thameslink 700 class trains means that if the power supply drops below 49Hz, the train will do a protective closedown. The drivers can do a manual reboot that takes ten minutes, but for 30 of the trains this didn't work, so technicians had to be sent out with a Laptop to restart the trains.

The section on planned mitigations is fascinating. It seems that Siemens, who manufacture the trains are now working on software to allow the train to restart itself automatically when the power returns to 49Hz. None of the older trains on the network were affected. One has to ask how they could not have considered that a power outage might occur and that needing an engineer with a laptop to access the train was not an acceptable or safe solution.

I am not an expert, but this is not only dangerous, but shows an almost criminal level of negligence in design by Siemens. Just suppose that my wife had been in a wheel chair or suffered from claustrophobia, as the power and air conditioning had shut down. Luckily her train was not too far from the station, but had it been in the middle of the mile long Belsize new tunnel, then that would have been terrifying.

Electric trains should be resilient and a driver should be trained to restart them. We need to know how long these changes will take to be implemented. We also need a robust recovery plan for such issues from GTR and Network Rail, in the event of such problems. Engineers need to live in the real world. It is all very well designing massively complicated trains, but if they are not resilient and predictable problems, that clearly can easily be resolved, cause the whole network to pack up, then it is clear that the whole design process is flawed. When the emergency cutoff was designed, someone should have said "what would happen if this train was packed and in a tunnel?".

Since the new class 700 trains were introduced, we've had air conditioning problems, ironing board seats and now we find out that if there is momentary power blip, half of them pack up completely. To me this is a sign of a very badly managed railway. Siemens should compensate commuters for the aggravation their bad design has caused. Maybe this would focus their minds when they come to designing their next generation of trains. The thing that irritates me beyond belief is that these issues always end up in a blame game. Obvious problems are excused as the contractors all start blaming each other, the government and the regulator. British Rail had its faults, but at least we all knew where the buck stopped.

Here is the full report.

Appendix F – Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) technical report 
This Appendix contains the independent technical report provided to the ESO by GTR into the impact of the frequency disturbance on their trains on 09 August as part of the detailed investigation into the incident. Title Power Surge Disruption on 9th August 2019: Technical Review.

Date 3rd September 2019

Event Summary

1. From information supplied by the National Grid at 1653 on Friday the 9th of August the frequency of the OLE AC voltage supply dropped below 49Hz for 16 seconds. It dropped below 48.89Hz to a minimum of 48.8 Hz for milliseconds.
2. There was no identified OLE AC Voltage supply interruption.
3. All Desiro City class 700 and 717 units operating on AC Voltage suffered a Protective Shutdown where the converter, known as the 4QC (4 Quadrant Controller) shut down. None of the other AC trains in the GTR fleet suffered any power related issues from this event e.g. Class 387, Class 365, Class 313.
4. In Passenger Service this involved circa 60 units, consisting of Class 700 FLU/RLUs and Class 717, suffering a 4QC lock out.
5. The effect of the 4QC shutting down on the train is that the train switches to battery power which causes a loss of HVAC (fan only fresh air supply), stand by reduced lighting (emergency lighting is activated when battery voltage drops), no at seat power, no PIS displays (audio only from the cab), and no traction power. The GSM-R radio remains active.
6. Following failed attempts to repower the trains, the established first response for a train failing with these symptoms is for the Driver to perform a reboot of the train known as a Battery Reset. This takes approximately 10 minutes.
7. Fleet Control diagnosed the issue quickly and a global GSM-R call was broadcast to instruct drivers to carry out the Battery Reset process.
8. After this 27 of the affected units were recovered.
9. The remaining circa 30 units required the Protective Shutdown to be unlocked by the intervention of a Technician with a laptop attending each unit.
10. There were 17 Technicians available at the time of the event. These 17 were immediately sent to stranded units with laptops and a further 24 technicians were mobilized within the next hour. The trains affected were widely spread geographically and some were not easily accessible.
11.Therefore, this process took some time and resulted in 23 train evacuations and severe levels of service disruption.

Cause

1. The Desiro City from Siemens Mobility is the latest generation software enabled commuter train, so requiring protection against power supply frequency excursions for safety reasons and to protect low power electronics.
2. Siemens Technical Specification for the train states that the train will continue to operate with supply frequency drops down to 48.5Hz for short periods of time.
3. The NR Electrification System Compatibility document, NR/GN/ELP/27010(“Guidance for compatibility between electric trains and electrification systems”), a Manufacturing and Supply Agreement compliance requirement, identifies that the supply frequency can fall to 48.5Hz in extreme conditions.
4. A review of the Class 700 NoBo design submission (Siemens document A6Z00036309602 item 4.2.8.2.2) shows that compliance with both NR/GN/ELP 27010 and EN 50163 (“Railway Applications – Supply Voltages of Traction Systems”) would be demonstrated.
5. Following investigations, Siemens advised that the supply frequency response of the train was designed to comply with the EN 50163 Clause 4.2 Note 2. This note permits train drives to disconnected at 49Hz. Use of this supply frequency value in the train design led to the train protectively shutting down its drives when the supply frequency response fell below 49Hz.
6. Importantly Siemens have also clarified that there should not have been a Permanent Lockout on the train following a protective shutdown caused by a supply voltage frequency drop. All trains should have been recoverable via Battery Reset whereas 30 trains were not recoverable. This was not the intended behaviour of the train.
7. Therefore, the affected Class 700 and 717 sets did not react according to their design intent in these circumstances. The risk of this happening was not known prior to the power event on Friday 9 August.
8. Separately as a part of the new TCMS (Train Control Management System) software version 3.27, the ability for the driver to recover from a Permanent Lockout by using the Battery Reset process was removed.
9. On the 9th of August all the units which required a Technician to recover power were at software level 3.27 or above. The 28 units recovered by the driver performing a Battery Reset were at the previous TCMS software level of 3.25 or below.

Conclusion

1. All the Class 700 and Class 717 trains operating on AC suffered a Protective Shutdown of the 4QC controller because of a drop in the supply frequency below 49Hz for 16 seconds.
2. This was not how the train system had been specified to operate. This event should not have caused a Permanent Lockout fault on the trains.
3. The effects of this were exacerbated as the fleet was undergoing a software change, contained in this was a change in functionality removing the Battery Reset remedy for Permanent Lockout events. 4. This meant that the driver could not recover failed trains which were operating on the new software, instead a Technician was required to attend.

Planned Mitigation

1. Siemens are developing a software patch to allow units which protectively shutdown below 49Hz supply frequency to recover themselves without the need of a reboot or laptop when the frequency rises above 49.5Hz.
2. It is not proposed by Siemens or GTR to revert units to previous software versions as there are concerns this could severely impact unit availability. Based on discussions with the National Grid Head of Networks, the risk of frequency excursion dropping below 49Hz before the patch is fully introduced are considered extremely unlikely.
3. In addition to this Siemens will investigate how the train could be made to operate for a short time with supply frequency falling to 48.5Hz.
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Wednesday, 11 September 2019

The Wednesday Poem - The most boring man in the Universe

Have you met him? Did you know he lives in Mill Hill? Sadly I do. Who is he? He's the most boring man in the Universe. If you are extremely unlucky you may meet him. Who is he? Well I wouldn't be so unkind as to say. I didn't christen him with the name, but it is so appropriate.

The Most Boring Man in the Universe

I'm sure you know the feeling, 
the desire to get away,
the impenetrable dullness, 
of every word he says.

If you see him at a party,
you run for the door,
he's a psychic vampire,
a pathologic bore.

Once he's got you cornered,
You know there's no relief,
everybody scarpers,
laughing through their teeth.

And now he's found the internet,
there's a world of dull to drone,
with all of the charisma, 
of a broken metronome.

As he prattles nonsense,
I thought I'd make a list,
Of words that would describe him
I hope you get the jist.

Dull, mundane and boring,
doltish, dim and drab,
trite, vapid and hackneyed,
Oh Lord call me a cab.


I wonder if he's conscious,
or knowing of his curse,
the most boring individual,
in Gods own Universe.








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