Sunday, 23 January 2022

The tweets of the week in the London Borough of Barnet - 23rd January 2022

 How has your week been? I've had a pretty good week. Five a side footy on Thursday, pleasant evening in the services club on Friday and a wonderful evenings entertainment last night at The Black Horse in Barnet in the company of the rather wonderful Mr Lee Thompson of Madness and The Silencerz. It is great seeing a cracking band in a pub again. It was packed.


Anyway, enough of my week. What have the rather wonderful tweeters of the Borough of Barnet been up to.

1. Lets start with a date for your diary from one of our favourite Tweeters


2. A sad little bit of Bunrt Oak history. I didn't know about this, it's one of the reasons I still love Twitter. Ron is a wonderful Tweeter


3. If you want to get on this list, a bit of Rock and Roll memorabilia is a surefire way. The Sparrowhawk in Broadfields, Edgware was a real hub of 70's and 80's rock and roll. The Meteor's are well worth a check out


4. Another great tweet by the Mill Hill Historical Society


5. INteresting bit of local industrial history here


6. This tweet is wonderful!


7. I do like a good console! Nice


8. Goal of the week in the Borough of Barnet (well by a Borough of Barnet team to be correct) - How did the rather marvellous Jordan Edwards get this in?


9. Now this was an impressive setup!


10. And finally.... Ever fancied doing a bit of writing for your local paper? Here's your chance!



That's all folks!

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Saturday, 22 January 2022

The Saturday List #334 - Ten words or phrases that completely baffle me

This is a list I should have done years ago. Some real bugbears of mine. I make no bones about it. I'm as thick as two short planks. It is a wonder that I've managed to do anything at all in my life. I couldn't read or write effectively until I was 12. I couldn't do long division either. At St Vincents, we'd have a weekly spelling test. If you learned all ten words correctly and wrote them down properly, there was a list of everyone in the class and you'd get a star next to your name. I never got a single star. When my folks went up for parents evening, they were horrified. Both made a concerted attempt to get me to learn the words. It failed miserably. The next parents evening, I was still starless. The teacher suggested that they help me and make sure I did the homework. They told them they had. The teacher sighed and said "You will just have to come to terms with the fact that your son is as thick as a plank". It never occurred to anyone that I was dyslexic. Miraculously, when I was 14, the problems seemed to abate. I am still rubbish at spelling, but I actually started to pass tests and exams and read books. I got into trash Sci Fi, I think the escapeism appealled to me. I even learned to do long division, I'm not too bad at Maths and may even have passed a Maths A Level if we hadn't had six teachers in two years for the course, five of whom were useless. The sixth was brilliant, but got a better job at another school at the end of the first Xmas term. 

However, to this day, I have a real problem with some words and phrases. Some completely baffle me, some just irritate me because they are wrong. Often people assume that I know what they are on about when I am totally clueless. Here are my top ten baffling words and phrases.

1. Non Fungible Tokens.  Someone at the studio was talking about them. I looked up the term on Wikipedia, but I am still baffled. How can a unique item of data be an art scam? 

2. Nouns, verbs and synonyms. I've always got all of these things mixed up.  I had a horror of this as a child. At St Vincents we had a fierce teacher called Miss O'Donovan who would bark "Roger, give me a verb" and my mind would go blank and I'd say "A dog" because my sister had explained that "The dog ate my homework" used a verb. No matter how many times it's explained, I instantly forget and mix them all up. 

3. Crotchet and quavers. This is a bit embarrassing, being a musician, but I also mix these up. When I started writing songs with Pete Conway, I'd say "It starts with three fast chungs like this" and strum the chords out. I'm lucky enough to work with people who know what they are actually doing.

4. Heraldic authority. When I was about nine, my Dad told me he was getting me a very special present for my birthday. I was hoping for Scalextrix or a train set. I was presented with "The Tichborne coat of arms, certified by a heraldic authority". To say this disappointed me would be an understatement. But my Dad was enormously proud of it. I asked him what a heraldic authority was. I've never heard such a stream of meaningless gobbledygook in my life. It was probably the only time I can recall my Dad being pretentious. A few years later, we went to Tichborne Mansion in Hampshire. They had the Tichborne coat of arms on the wall. It was different. 

5. Existential phenominology. I occasionally throw this phrase into conversations to pretend I'm clever, but I have no clue what it means. My sister Valerie took part in a beauty contest in 1970. The host was Monty Modlyn, a big celebrity back in the day. He asked her what her hobby was. She replied existential phenominiology. Monty was taken aback. He whispered something in her ear. We all assumed he had asked her what it meant. She revealed he said "If you come for a drink with me later, I'll make sure you win". All I can really say is that she came second and we all knew she'd been robbed! I asked Val what it meant and she said "Dunno, just thought it sounded impressive"

6. Agile working. I worked in IT for many years. Over the years there were many fads, towards the end of my career, the key one was agile working. People were sent on courses, we were all instructed to "Go agile". I got sent on a couple of courses. I got the feeling that no one had a clue what it was all about. I did my own research. I found that Agile is allegedly based on the 12 founding agile principles. As this resulted in an absolute deluge of useless processes, I was amused to learn that one of the principles is this "The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation"   the truth is that no one really seems to know what it really is and many of those who claim to be experts don't even know the basic principles.


7. "The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams". This is another of the Agile principles. As you can see, Agile really is a bugbear of mine. This is one of the principles that is a totally meaningless statement, yet people fell for this hogwash. In my experience, the best architectures, requirements and designs emerge when you employ people who know what they are doing and give them the resources and trust to do it. It all goes wrong when you employ incompetent buffoons. In my esxperience if you let such people self organise, they create mayhem. 

8. Stereotypical. Of course I know what stereotypical means. But I just don't understand why the word is used. The word stereo, according to the dictionary means "sound that is directed through two or more speakers so that it seems to surround the listener and to come from more than one source; stereophonic sound." I've no idea how this makes someone stereotypical? Baffling

9. Spam. This is another word that I understand what it means, but I have no idea why it was adopted to describe crap emails that you don't want? I was always rather partial to Spam fritters. When you were skint and walking home in the cold, nothing was better than a spam fritter and chips. I can only assume that the Internet and email systems were set up by gastronomic snobs, who think decent nosh is fois gras?

10. Nouvelle Cuisine. This is a phrase I just don't understand at all. I sort of translate it to "a form of food designed for snobbish fools, who are too stupid to realise that being palmed off with tiny portions and charged an arm and a leg for it, is a complete scam". A couple of times I've endured this. The last time, I had to nip into burger king after as I was bloody starving. As far as I'm concerned, if you leave the restaurant hungry, they are a dodgy institution. It literally means new cooking. If you want to overcharge for a service, just spell it in French, although for my business, renting a Salle de répétition doesn't exactly sound sexy!


Anyway, have a great weekend. If you haven't heard my new single yet, please have a listen.


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Friday, 21 January 2022

When did we vote to abolish the Metropolitan Police?

In 2018, local MP Matthew Offord hosted a Q&A with the local Police chief in Mill Hill, following the murder of a local shop keeper. The meeting saw people tell tales of violent burglaries that no one had been caught for doing and an explaination that the Police really had more important things to do in Mill Hill than catch violent burglars and deal with anti social behaviour You can read what happened here 

Matthew Offord hosts meeting to discuss crime in Mill Hill at Hartley Hall - Part 1


and here

Since those meetings took place, friends of mine have suffered the following:

Stolen cars

Burglaries

Violent Assaults

Thefts from businesses

Vandalism of property

Not a single one has resulted in anyone being apprehended or a conviction being secured. In each case, a crime number was given and an offer was made of victim support. That was it. The victims were given an almost zero expectation of any sort of resolution of the crime. It has become clear to me that we no longer have what we used to call a working police force. We have a semi paramilitary force. which only interacts with the public when there is a strong reason to, ie policing protests, protecting airports. Then we have a bureacratic organisation that simply takes reports doles out numbers and sends people around to dole out sympathy. We are advised to dial 101 for non serious crime. Whenever I've tried this, I've had to hang on for 10-20 minutes before getting through. Usually by this time the situation has resolved itself. A year or two ago, I observed some young people starting fires at Arrandene in the car park. I rang 101. By the time I got through, they'd left. 

If you query this, the answer is always the same "It's not a priority". There is a culture pervading that saying 'we have higher priorities' makes this OK. But I don't know anyone who actually agrees. I have yet to meet anyone who wants to see less police on the street to save the price of a espresso coffee a week. It is almost universal that people want an effective police force and unarmed police walking the street. They want burglars to be caught, kids to be prevented from vandalism. I can't remember an election where any candidate said "We are going to put less Police on the street" or "We are going to try less hard to arrest criminals".

 I was having a drink with a couple of friends last night after 5 a side football and one of them said something that struck a rather disturbing note. He mentioned about getting nabbed by the Police for scrumping as a child. He was marched to his parents house and got a good telling off. I was mulling over this as I was walking to work this morning. The walk is approximatetly half a mile and in the process of this walk, five police cars sped past. Three were unmarked but had blue lights. A blue van with "Territorial Support Group" also sped past, sirens blaring. It made me wonder when I'd last seen a policeman on the street. The answer, rather disturbingly was outside St Pancras Station before Xmas. A couple of Officers were standing guard with machine guns. This is the current state of the police in 2022.

I believe that we need a massive recruitment drive for the Metropolitan Police, not just police, but back office support staff as well. These would free up expensively trained officers to do their job. We need to see the Police back in the community and back on our high street. We need the Police to talk to people on the street and build up good community relations. We need burglars and car theives to have an expectation that they will get caught and punished.

Did we Vote to abolish the Metropolitan Police as we used to know it? I don't believe we did. Quite the opposite. Time and again, we get promises of better policing from both the Tories and Labour parties.  We have a Labour Mayor and Tory government, but between them we have a situation where if you are the victim of a crime, unless someone murders you or blows your place of work up, you are most unlikely ever to get more than a crime number from the Police. This is simply not right. If it is a question of "priorities" that simply means the Police lack the cash to do the job. I cannot believe that us as citizens are prepared to put up with a service that puts our wellbeing at such risk.

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Thursday, 20 January 2022

Calling all Barnet Small Businesses - Make sure you apply for your Covid Relief ASAP

 If you are a small business in Barnet, you are most likely to be able to apply for a Covid grant. These must be applied for by the 14th February 2022 and can be up to £6,000. The process is slightly cumbersome, you have to load copies of your last accounts, 2 Utility bills, a rent statement (or other docs if you don't rent), your last four months bank accounts and proof you are trading (sales receipts etc). It took me approx 40 minutes to apply on Tuesday night. This morning I received the following message

a

Your claim submitted through GrantApproval.co.uk under reference number: ****** has been updated

Message from London Borough of Barnet: I can confirm that your grant claim has been approved and you will receive payment within 5 working days.

For our business, this is a lifeline. We had a negative cashflow in December. In the music industry, bands book and pay for rehearsals months in advance for Xmas shows. We had to refund tens of thousands of pounds of bookings, as bands had their shows cancelled as Omicron hit and the Govt cancelled Xmas parties by issueing work from home advice. The grant has meant that we can pay our rent this month. 

I must compliment Barnet Council on their efficient processing of the claim. 

There is a limited pot of money for this particular relief. It is being paid on a first come, first serve basis, so if you don't apply you will miss out. 

Visit https://www.grantapproval.co.uk/ to apply. If you have any problems with the process, contact your local councillor ASAP and they will assist. If they cannot help, please email me, do not include personal details, just a contact number and a brief description of what the problem is with the process and the Council Ward you live in. I will treat any requests in strict confidentiality. I have helped several Mill Hill businesses to claim relief, but I can make no promises. Good luck with it and please, don't delay. 

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Wednesday, 19 January 2022

Introducing London Symphonies

What are London Symphonies? Let me tell you the whole story.

This is a special year for me. If I make it through to August, I will be 60 years old. I can't believe that the time has passed so quickly. I have to be honest and say that 99% of the time it's been an absolute blast. I was asked if I was a glass half empty or glass half full person recently. I said that I am someone who drinks the glass and fills it up again. When the glass is empty, it is an opportunity to try a different tipple.

Over the past four years, I've been working diligently on a little project. It started off as an idea for a concept album for my band, The False Dots. We started writing songs and then the pandemic struck.  During the period of lockdown, I sat at home, sorting out old photo's, getting boxes out of the shed, looking at all manner of things I'd put away for safe keeping. In the middle of the pandemic, I had to go to UCH for an MRI for my Cancer. As we were only allowed out for 'essential reasons' I realised I would be seeing a London that most of us would never see and it was a unique opportunity to record this for posterity. I photo'd the journey and recorded it on Instagram. I then put this together as a blog - From Mill Hill to UCH, a lockdown journey through London as you've never seen it before - as I was doing this, I came to realise just how fascinated I was with London. I reflected long and hard on the album we'd started to write. I came to the realisation that what I wanted to do was something completely different. London is such an amazing subject for a project, but there was more scope than just music. The old photos in our family collection made me realise that there was a visual story to be told. The old videos I found also told a story. For a couple of years, I've been chatting with my good mate Richard Wilkinson, who has provided guest blogs about Mill Hill in the 50's and 60's about London and the suburbs. Richard is an amazing storyteller. His storys got me thinking about whether we could encompass such reminiscences in London Symphonies. 

As I thought about the project, I realised that I didn't want to do a history project. I wanted to do something that encapsulated living London. I wanted to capture the stories, images and sounds of London through the lifetimes of living Londoners, be it memories of times gone by or current times.

If it can be called  Eureka moment, it was when I was putting a song together with The False Dots at a rehearsal recently. I'd written a song called "Sunday Morning at The Sacred Heart". It was based on my experiences of having to go to Church as a child, being an alter server, etc.  I got the band playing it, and our drummer, Gray Ramsey said "That really reminds me of Sundays at our house. My Mum would always do a big seafood spread in the afternoon. It was lovely, there was great big crabs, whelks, prawns. All my mates would come around. It made me realise that there was far more to Sunday in the 70's than going to Church for most Londoners. I remembered how my Dad would take us to Church and then go to the club for a few beers, arriving home just after 2pm when the bar shut. 

I remember my Aunty would nip around and borrow two shillings for the meter and we'd all have to shut up whilst she gossiped with Mum. Her husband Michael drove a skip lorry and he'd chat football with us and tell us stories. I threw out most of the old lyrics, rewrote the song and we recorded it. I was blown away. I dug out old footage of Mill Hill, a video we had of me starring in a Heinz beans commercial, some old photo's and my good mate Richard Logue got some footage of one of the vintage tellies he collects and put it together into this. 



I didn't want to make a big thing of it, just gauge the response. The response has been amazing. It has been really well received by just about everyone I know. 

I've been reflecting on the project and I realised that there are four main strands to what I want to do.

1. Stories of London. 

When I was at School, I did a project on St Pancras Station. I was given a guided tour by an old railwayman, who was close to retirement. He'd started on the railway in 1940 at the height of the blitz. St Pancras was bombed. He'd been working on the day it was bombed. He told tales of the station through the years. At the time, in 1976, the station was run down and at risk of demolition. If I had a regret, it was that those stories were lost. Another similar thing was a Cafe I used to visit in Aldgate called Sidoli's on Leman St. Margaret who served the tea was always good for a chinwag. She'd tell me stories of when the cafe was full of sailors from the London docks, rather than city types from Nat West banks offices next door. Another such great racontour is the much missed Stan Davison RIP. We video'd Stan for the film "A Tale of Two Barnets". The interview was so good that when he passed away, I posted the whole thing on my Youtube channel. It is well worth a look


I really want to capture as many of these stories of London as I can. 


2. Photographs. 

London may be the most photgraphed city in the World. I realised that what I want is not pictures of buildings, but pictures that tell the tale of London. I found a picture of my sister and my cousin as kids in the fountain at Mill Hill Swimming pool in the summer of 1963. For many, this is the London they remember, not Big Ben.  These are the images I want to capture.

I want images that someone, somewhere will say "Wow, I remember that". I want pictures that spark memories, not just well composed images of buildings and routemaster buses etc. It would also include times of change, where the passing of something is marked.

3. Films.

I've made films of a couple of things of interest in London, I hope to make some more. A good example is the film I made of the official opening of the Handley Page memorial at Cricklewood.  I love the memorial and it was an honour to make this film. I hope that in years to come, people will see the memorial and be inspired enough to search out the film. I'd really like to make more of such films. I'd also be happy to include other things, I'm not so much looking for mini history films as getting an insight into the people behind them. 


4. Music.

Initially, this will be the songs that The False Dots have been working on for the album. That will be volume 1 of London symphonies. Who knows if there will be a volume II, if there is I'd like it to be something radically different to the first album. The first album will be songs that evoke the spirit and sound of London in our lifetimes.

Initially I will be collating all of this into a website. If that works out OK, I'll be looking to make some sort of multi media show or exhibition. I hope that there is something in this you think might be worth a look. My intention is to spend 1 day a week working on it all year. I plan to visit a neighbourhood I know, where I've worked etc and re-explore it. I've deliberately not overplanned it. Next week will be the first day. I'll be spending the day in and around Aldgate and Spitalfields, My plan is to just spend a few hours walking around, taking pictures, making videos and see how it all comes out. We'll take it from there. 


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Tuesday, 18 January 2022

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

 


This morning I walked the dogs over a rather frosty Arrenden open space. It looked stunning in the sunshine. But what really took my eye was the frost on the fallen leaves. I snapped the above picture. I happen to think it is one of the best I've taken. I showed my wife the picture and she was rather underwhelmed. She much preferred the pictures below, far more standard shots of the fields and trees.

It got me to thinking about the subject of beauty. Have you ever had the experience of telling friends that you think someone is stunningly attractive only to see a universal look of disbelief. When I was at school, a couple of times I was ridiculed for saying I rather liked someone, only for my friends to be very dismissive. What was interesting is that I've realised they were not telling the truth, but were scared of being honest.  I recall one incident where a friend started a new relationship ( we were all about 18). One of my friends commented that the new girlfriend was 'a bit of a battleship' and that our friend could "do better for himself". I was quite shocked because I thought that the girl in question was very attractive, albiet in a rather unconventional way. I pulled up my friend for his comments and said "How do you think he'd feel if he heard that?". As this turned out to be a very long term relationship for my friend. The guy who made the comment later quietly asked me to never mention his comments, when it became clear they would be a long term item. I asked him whether he'd changed his opinion or whether he just didn't want to look like a knobhead. His response somewhat surprised me. "Well as I got to know her, I still think she's ugly but she's really sexy".

It is interesting how some of us let good looking people take liberties but if they find someone unattractive, they won't give them the time of day, unless they are rich and powerful. At the weekend, I was discussing (The artist formerly known as) Prince Andrew with the family, as we sat having Sunday lunch. I'd forgotten, but about 15 years ago, we were at The Cobden Club, formerly in Notting Hill. The ex-HRH happened to be at a private function downstairs. A couple of our group were outside having an Oily when His Royal Highness (or whatever you are meant to call him) departed. To say he didn't cover himself in glory with his behaviour is an understatement and alcohol may or may not have played some part in that. I took the view that it didn't matter who he was, it was disgraceful and I've never liked him since. A couple of people in our group had snuck off and managed to gatecrash the private party. They were somewhat starstruck by the errant Prince and were thrilled to have met him, even though he'd been less than pleasant. It is strange how for some of us wealth and power can warp their perception of beauty. 

I've only ever really met Royalty once. The False Dots performed for the Princess of Tonga in 1989. I've been accused of being anti Royal on occasion, but she was what a Princess should be, as far as I'm concerned. She got down and boogied and thanked us for a great night at the end of the show. She was a lovely lady and told us we must one day visit Tonga, telling us it was a beautiful island. The dreadful events of the last two days, with a volcano and a tsunami made me think of the Princess and say a quiet prayer that she's OK. 

I do hope that Tonga recovers it's beauty and that the Islanders are not too badly hit and do not suffer too much hardship. 

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Sunday, 16 January 2022

The tweets of the week in the London Borough of Barnet - 16th Jan 2021

 So how has your week been? Mine has been pleasant enough. Having had a dry two weeks at the start of January, I thoroughly enjoyed having a couple of beers and watching Hadley FC yesterday (more of that later). On the work front, we had the hassle of a break in at our premises on Thursday night. The hassle that scumbags who thieve and rob cause for small businesses trying to survive a pandemic is absolutely unforgiveable. Whilst insurance covers the cost of losses, it doesn't cover the stress, aggrevation and general unpleasantness of what you have to deal with. Please support your local small businesses and please do not buy hooky goods. You are just encouraging scumbags who need no encouragement. 

Anyway, enough of my week. What have the esteemed tweeters of the Borough of Barnet been up to?

1. Lets start with the best goal you'll see in the Borough of Barnet this year. A cracking game at Brickfield Lane last night


2. This is a tragedy. The Station that never was. Mill Hill Tube station, which would have made getting between Edgware, Mill Hill, Finchley and surrounding areas far better, reducing pollution etc


3. Following up on one of last weeks selection, Mr Ian McGreevy, our unofficial loca roads correspondent, has produced a definitive guide to the abandoned accesses to the M1 motorway in Mill Hill.


4. And now for something completely different. A big shout out to the rather marvellous Silkstreamers and the amazing work they are doing preserving our local waterways. Mind you, not sure if the paddling pool would have too many takers.


5. If you want to get included in this list, a bit of gold dust North London music history is a surefire way, This is brilliant. I loved the Torrington


6. This is a great pic.


7. I can thoroughly recommend this. A great way to learn about one of London's finest green sapces


8. The most wonderful tree in Totteridge


9. It's how things get better. Please make the effort


10. A tale of dodgy drummers and rule breaking!



That's all folks!

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Saturday, 15 January 2022

The Saturday List #333 - A magic list!

 There is a song that called "Three is a magic number" as this is blog three three three, it must be triple magic. I've always been intrigued by magic. My Uncle Harry, a former Mayor of Southport was a member of the Magic Circle. When we were kids, it was always great to see him. He'd bring cakes, do tricks and was great fun. He taught my Sister Caroline how to perform fire eating. He tried to teach me tricks, but I told him I'd rather believe it was magic. Harry died in the 80's. In 2004, I was at an airport in France. I was at the bar,ordering a beer. A scouser in a Liverpool top was also at the bar. We started chatting. He mentioned that he wasn't really a Scouser and that he was from Southport. I said "My Uncle Harry was the Mayor of Southport". An incredulous look appeared on his face. He said "Paul and Elaine's Dad?". I said "yes". We had a long chat, it turned out that he was Harry's next door neighbour and Harry's kids were his best friends. He had the same stories of Harry's magic tricks. Harry moved to Australia as his daughters had moved out there. I was never actually sure how he was related to us, but he was probably our best loved rellie. He knew all of the famous TV magicians, he'd make a point of meeting them when they appeared at venues in Southport. Perhaps his best revealation was that Tommy Cooper was a fine magician, but unless the tricks went wrong, people felt cheated. He made more money playing the incompetent buffoon, so he stuck with it.  In these days of cameras everywhere, we are all cynics. I am always amazed at people who claim that they've been cheated because the magician didn't really saw the Lady in half! I thought a list of my favourite magic tricks would be suitable for todays list.

I sort of feel that much of the current TV and film content about magic lacks the joy of the 60's and 70's. I wasn't a fan of the Paul Daniels school of magic and the Harry Potter business leaves me cold.  So here is a short list of the magic on TV and in film that made a real impression on me as I grew up. 

1. We had to start with the Late, great Tommy Cooper. I still can't watch Tommy without laughing



2. Second on our list, we have Uri Geller. At the time, this was a sensation. Uri's USP was that it wasn't an illusion, it was the power of his brain. I seem to recall that about three weeks after this Harry turned up and did the same trick. It seems silly now, but this was a really big deal in more innocent times.

3. My father always spoke of Harry Houdini. Dad was nine when Houdini died. He had an obsession with Houdini. He watched films and documentaries and we'd have hot discussions on the subject


4. When I was little my favourite magician was Sooty! I used to love the section of the show where he did magic tricks.


5. I must also mentioned Bewitched. My sister Caroline loved this. I don't really remember too much of it, other than it was essential viewing in our house. I may have imagined it, but I think the Nuns at St Vincents may have ordered parents to stop the kids watching it, a it was the "work of the devil"




That's all folks


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Friday, 14 January 2022

The Friday Joke 14 Jan 2022

Dorothy:

 

"That nice George Johnson asked me out for a date. I know you went out with him last week, and I wanted to talk with you about him before I give him my answer."

 

Edna:

 

"Well, I'll tell you. He shows up at my apartment punctually at 7 pm, dressed like such a gentleman in a fine suit, and he brings me such beautiful flowers! Then he takes me downstairs. And what's there; a limousine, uniformed chauffeur and all. Then he takes me out for dinner; a marvelous dinner,  lobster, champagne, dessert, and after-dinner  drinks. Then we go see a show. Let me tell you  Dorothy, I enjoyed it so much I could have just died from pleasure!

 

So then we are coming back to my apartment and he turns into an ANIMAL. Completely crazy, he tears off my expensive new dress and has his way with me three times!"

 

Dorothy:

 

"Goodness gracious!... so  you are telling me I shouldn't go?"

 

Edna:

 

"No, no, no... I'm just saying, wear an old dress."


Have a great weekend!

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Thursday, 13 January 2022

Barnet Council to charge me £182.50 a year to walk my dog

 Barnet Council are planning on imposing car parking charges on users of Scratchwoods open space. Hale Tory Councillor Laithe Jajeh has posted the justification for this action on the local Facebook group

"Following the murder of a young man in December 2019, issues with an on-site cafe and members of the public that frequented the site and the overall popularity of the car park at all hours (day and night), the council and Cllr’s agreed with police guidance that there is a potential safety concern that needed addressing (monitoring of vehicle registrations that utilise the car park). This will enable the council and authorities to monitor the site and ensure illegal activities are deterred. The best option tabled was a system that did the above and in order to pay for and maintain it, a small charge was agreed and introduced at committee. This is subject to a review in 12 months and any thoughts and comments via email are appreciated: Cllr.l.jajeh@barnet.gov.uk"

As Mr Jajeh knows, I walk my dogs over Scratchwoods on a dialy basis (when the park is actually open). I choose this area as it is very quiet. I have two large rescue dogs, who are easily frightened and we rarely get disturbed at Scratchwoods. Mr Jajeh states that a 'small charge' will be levied. As I usually walk the dogs for 1.5 hours 3 or 4 times a week, the small charge equates to approx £182.50. I have walked over the area with Mr Jajeh on several occasions, discussing the issues with fly tippers and other nuisance users. Mr Jajeh declares that the charge will 'deter illegal activities'. I hardly think that people who dump stolen cars with bodies in the boot will be deterred by a 50p parking charge, it will however penalise perfectly ordinary people such as myself, who have dogs that require quiet open spaces. Several of the people I know who use the space also have rescue dogs who also benefit from the relative tranquility of the space. 

Mr Jajeh states that the on site cafe has caused problems. I have no idea if this is true, I personally have not seen any evidence of this. In fact having the cafe made the park seem safer to me. If what he is saying is true, it would seem fair to address this with the Cafe owners and not penalise dog walkers and families who usethe park for recreational reasons in a perfectly social manner. 

I am not really one for conspiracy theories, but I can only wonder whether it is Laithe Jajeh and the Barnet Tories way of 'paying me back' for my criticism of them over the years on the local Lib Dems Mill Hill account? The only people who will really suffer financially are the regular users, all of whom value the wonderful facility. 
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