Uncle Charlie's Dead - but Barnet's got Talent

I had writers block for a while, but a comment from one of my regular contributors, "Pat" cured it - more of that later ! Anyway thanks to Pat, I've reprised an idea I've been working on for a while. Tell me what you think?

We are set in Barneii, a suburb of the great city of Londinium, set on the side of a volcano, in the last decadent days of a failing civilisation. The Borough Council abolished sheltered housing wardens a short while ago and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Casting

Freerstone Michaels - Council Leader (A Brian Glover type character)

Miss Ermentrude Hilarious - Deputy Leader ( Hyacynth Bucket when happy/ Hilda Odgen when agitated)

Coley Brianman - Mayor who loves wearing the full regalia (A Michael Gambon type character)

Offley Mattford - the former deputy Leader, keen to curry favour with the boss and et his job back (a Baldrick type figure)

Any resemblense to any real person is purely coincidental and purely reflect the type of people who may find themselves involved in local government

Uncle Charlie's Dead

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Scene 1

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Set in Leader's sumptuous office, large plasma telly on desk. FM sit's at desk, CB reclines in armchair, OM stands to attention, towel over arm.

FM: Offley, get me a tea now. I'm thirsty

CB: Tea?? I want my dinner

FM: Dinner Cole, It's only 10 past 10?

CB: I'm hungry !!!!

EH enters the rooms

FM: Ermie, what on earth is the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost

EH: Disaster, disaster, we have a problem

FM: Calm down dear ! Tell your leader all about it

EH: You know those Horrible wardens we abolished. Well one of the Tenants in a flat has had a fall. He lay there for 14 hours before anyone noticed. The warden used to pop in every morning to check. He would have found him and may have saved him.

FM: So what? Offley, I told you to get , me a tea

CB: I want my dinner !

EH: No, you don't understand, the press have got hold of the news, the BBC are on their way over.

FM: Calm down dear, Offley get her a tea !!!!

OM: Yes, boss, shall I get her a biscuit

FM: Just get her a tea. Look it's not a problem. I'll get on telly again and I can tell them how much money we've saved and what a great job I'm doing. Who is this silly old fool who's dead anyway?

EH: His name is Charlie McFarley. Everyone on the estate knows him as Uncle Charlie. He to coaches the local football team. He's a real local hero.

EH: You don't understand. What will happen when the bloggers get hold of it?

CB: Bloggers, Bloggers, Bloggers, Bloggers !!!! (CB starts movin his arm rather rapidly under his robe of office)

FM: Ermy, don't say that word. You know how excited that makes him !

EM: Sorry Boss, I forgot myself. What about Charlie MacFarley, we're doomed !!!

FM: Oh well, look on the bright side, that's one less grant we'll have to pay next year. If they all died it would save us a fortune. We could raise our allowances again

CB: I want my dinner, hungry, hungry, hungry !!!!!

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End scene 1

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Copyright R Tichborne 2009

So what do you think? Ken Loach showed up for the Future Shape rally, maybe he'll make us a You Tube video of it for us. Maybe I'll stage a Barnet's Got Talent show for a casting and we could put it on at the Arts Depot? We could ask Mike Freer, Lynn Hillan, Brian Coleman and Matthew Offord as guests of honour. I'm sure they'd really enjoy it !

Thanks to Pat for his comment about Uncle Charlie's Dead. We wrote that song in 1979. It was about corporate neglect of the elderly. Maybe I'll write an updated version. It is great to hear that some of my ex band members are still angry enough about mistreatment of the elderly to still include it in their set. It is also great to see that it's the one which really moved Pat (Here's the full blog and comments)- It's just sad that 30 years on a song about neglect of the elderly is still relevant and memorable. Here's Pat's comment about the song. :-

pat said...

Best original song they did was "Uncle Charlies Dead". I can't really remember others.

16 June 2009 08:30

The real reason for the failure of Great Britain !

If you'd asked me two years ago what the biggest problem with Great Britain was, I'd have said "Haven't got a clue". Over the past couple of years, mostly as a result of writing this blog, I have a very clear idea. It may surprise you to hear that the problem isn't the Tories and it isn't Labour. It's not the Lib Dems or the BNP.

It is nothing to do with Party politics. It is however the major problem with party politics. What am I talking about? Secrecy in Government. We all pay taxes but the powers that be make all of the important decisions behind closed doors. In the USA this is not the case. The culture of Freedom of Information in public office is a fundamental right. Expenses are publicised, meetings are minuted and documented. The opposition have access to all of this so the rulers have to do a good job. There are no dodgy deals behind closed doors. That is why the USA has become the richest and the most powerful nation on Earth.

Over here things are done slightly differently. If you go to the public gallery at the Council to watch meetings, you'll know that all of the important discussions are taken with the public excluded. Are they discussin national security? What do you think.

There is a truly disgusting story in the Guardian today. It illustrates to me that Jack Straw is just not up to the job. The government and the judiciary can continue to conceal the names of more than 170 misbehaving judges, a freedom of information tribunal has ruled.

The ruling came out in favour of justice secretary, Jack Straw, and the judiciary as they have fought a four-year battle to hide the identities of miscreants.

The three-member tribunal, led by David Marks QC, dismissed a challenge from the Guardian which had argued that the public should know which judges had been disciplined and why.

The reason for this? Members of the judiciary who have been sacked or reprimanded for misconduct would suffer "great distress" if details of their misdemeanours were made public.

These people are paid a great deal of money. They are paid this in expectation that they behave themselves. How anyone, let alone a justice secretary could possibly claim that it is not in the public interest for bad apples to be exposed is beyond me.

Until we abolish secrecy and open the whole system up to proper scrutiny, this country will never be fair, free and honest

Getting the Humps !!!!

Let me tell you about Mr Novak. Mr Novak lives in Uphill Road, Mill Hill. For those of you who don't know Uphill Road, it is one of Barnet's most well to do roads. It is also used by many children walking to Mill Hill County High School. It is also used as a ratrun by many drivers travelling between Totteridge Lane and Mill Hill Circus roundabout. You don't have to be a genius to see that this is a potentially dangerous mix.

The previous Council addressed this problem by putting in road humps. The current Tory administration resurfaced the road and as they are "pro car" removed the humps. To moderate the speed on the road, they installed 4 speed operated warning signs which tell you to slow down if you exceed 30 mph. These 4 signs replace 14 humps.

Now cars, if they wish can hurtle up the road as fast as they like. Mr Novak sees this every day. Being a responsible citizen, he decided to do something about it. He lobbied his neighbours and managed to get all but three of them to support him in his campaign to reinstate the humps. As I was leaving last Mondays lobby of the Barnet Council Cabinet, I saw Mr Novak going in. I recognised him as he is a customer of my studio. I thought I'd see what he was up to.

He had spent his time preparing his case and he gave a presentation to the Cabinet of Barnet Council. Mr Novak presented a very compelling case and was clearly on top of his brief. The Cabinet listened. Mr Novak explained how

a) There was near unanimous support for the humps to come back by residents
b) How there have been a string of minor accidents caused by speeding cars
c) The only objections were from the emergency services and these fears could be shown to be unfounded
d) There were 14 humps, there are 4 signs. Motorists soon learn that the signs are merely advisory & hurtle past them
e) The road is one of the most popular thoroughfares for children and they were at risk

Mr Novak has clearly given many presentations and was very impressive. When he finished, the Leader asked councillors if any would like to question Mr Novak. To my surprise, they all chickened out. Mr Novak was dismissed.

Councillor Andrew Harper, supremo for roads stepped up to demolish Mr Novaks case. The trouble is, unlike MrNovak, although Harper is a lovely bloke, he's rather dim. It seems as if maths is not his strong point. He announced that a speed survey had refuted Mr Novaks claims of speeding. The average speed of cars on Uphill road is 29.6mph he triumphantly announced. Now as Mr Novak had been dismissed he couldn't point out a couple of rather obvious facts to Harper. Firstly if the average speed is 29.6mph, this must mean that almost 50% of cars are breaking the speed limit. As the road is prone to congestion at busy times, some of the cars are travelling at a virtual standstill. Harper didn't reveal how many cars were travelling at or above 40mph a day, although he surely knows. 40mph is the speed at which 95% of children will die if hit.

As to the accidents, he stated that as no one had been hurt yet, there was no case to answer. It seems the Harper strategy is wait for a child to be killed or injured, then look at the problem. I suppose that when this happens a Council Officer will get the sack.

Harper also stated that the emergency services objected to the reinstatement of humps. He didn't address Mr Novak's points that these could be shown to be invalid. The humps were down for years. If there was a case to answer about the humps delaying emergency vehicles, these would have been available. One other point of note, several teenagers have been killed by speeding police cars. Maybe there is a case for slowing these down where children are walking. Let me just quickly summarise what shocked, amazed and disgusted me about this.

1. The opinion of residents were ignored
2. The facts were ignored
3. The figures were misrepresented
4. Mr Novak was treated with contempt and not even given the opportunity to answer questions

Perhaps the thing which most shocked me is the fact that Mill Hill is a marginal ward. It has 2 Lib Dems and 1 Tory Councillor. Uphill Road, one of Barnets most wealthy roads should be staunch Tory territory. The sheer contempt for their core voters was stunning. Harper told Mr Novak that Barnet was a pro car Tory Council who don't like roadhumps. If this is how their "core voters" are treated, it's no surprise that the rest of us don't stand a chance.

Following on from the sheltered housing debate, it demonstrated, in it's own way exactly what is wrong with Barnet's Conservatives. I don't suppose Harper will take much notice of me, I don't suppose he takes much notice of anyone apart from his boss, Mike Freer.

The funniest headline of the week

I had to check this story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8099987.stm

The Headline "Flu risk still low after death" - I suppose that once you are dead, there is no risk at all from flu?

On a serious note, one person has now died from flu in the UK. Very sad, but compare that to the number of elderly who die because of cold weather every year. How many headlines does that get? Thousands die every year and the problem is completely preventable.

Last blog of the week.

Thanks to the anonymous emailer who asked if I've got nothing better to do than sit around writing blogs moaning about the Council (amongst other things).

This was a fairly typical week. In 2 weeks when we're doing the festival, it will be bonkers - check the program, we've got some great bands. I'll be featuring details next week - www.millhillmusicfest.co.uk


Oh and by the way, I'll be plugging it shamelessly here. My Band the False Dots are playing on Friday 26th June as part of the festival at The Mill Hill Sports Club, Graham Park Way. It'll be your chance to see if I'm really as handsome as I pretend !

Decide for yourself. This was my week.

Monday.
7am-8am - emails, breakfast blogs.
8am-12:30 - Work
12:30-13:30 - Gym
13:30-18:00 - Work
18:00-18:15 - Eat
18:15-20:00- Attend lobby & Cabinet meeting
20:20-22:00 - Make dinner for Mrs T who was at BBC band rehearsal. Watch Ashes to Ashes
22:00 - Midnight Blogs on Warden Protest

Tuesday.
7am-8am - emails, breakfast blogs.
8am-12:30 - Work
12:30-13:30 - Gym
13:30-18:00 - Work
18:00-18:45 - Eat/read paper
18:45-19:30 - Meetin of Mill Hill Music Festival Organising committee
19:30- 23:30 - Back to studio for recording session with Artist we are developing
23:30 - 01:00 - Emails & blog

Wednesday
7am-8am - emails, breakfast blogs.
8am-12:30 - Work
12:30-13:30 - Gym
13:30-18:00 - Work
18:00-18:45 - Eat/read paper
18:45 - 19:45 - Collect Son from Football/Daughter from Swimming
19:45 - 20:45 - Blog
20:45 - 23:00 - Family time

Thursday
7am-8am - emails, breakfast blogs.
8am-12:30 - Work
12:30-13:30 - Lunch at The Old Cheshire Cheese - Fleet St
13:30-18:00 - Work
18:00 - 19:00 - Emails & blog
19:00 - 23:45 - 5 a side football & pub
23:45 - 01:00 - Blog & emails

Friday
7am-8am - emails, breakfast blogs.
8am-12:30 - Work
12:30-13:30 - Lunch with Mrs T & Daughter
13:30-18:00 - Work
18:00 - 19:00 - Emails & blog
19:00 - 23:45 - Collected daughter from swimming, Watched Australia DVD & had bottle of wine
23:45 - 01:00 - Blog & emails

Saturday
8am - emails, breakfast blogs.
9am-9:30 - Took son to Music School
9:30-10:45 - Gym
10:45-11:45 - Emails & blogs
11:45-12:30 - Daughter to drama, collect son, drop him at football.
12:30-15:30 - Work (yuk VAT return)
15:30 - 19:00 - Look after younger daughter & son
19:00 - 23:45 - Attended Charity dinner (I'm a trustee - raises money for healthcare projects in Sri Lanka) a great success.

Sunday
09:30 - 10:00 - Lay in. got up, breakfast.
10:00 - 18:00 - Took eldest daughter to Crystal Palace for London ASA BAGCAT age group swimming championships - Watched her win old 13yr old 800m Freestyle. Also won 13 year old Girls BAGCAT trophy.
18:00-19:00 - Church with Family
19:00-20:30 - Dinner with Daughters & wife at "The Good Earth" Chinese restaurant in Mill Hill to celebrate daughters success in London Regionals & new club 800m record (son at Youth club at Church).
20:30 Collected son.
20:45-21:30 Caught up on emails.
21:30 - 23:00 Wrote blogs & checked a few blogs I follow. Checked emails, got crank email, wrote this blog.
23:07 - Put dog out, went to bed.

Oh and as you asked, I'd much rather be doing something else (See above picture). I enjoy everything else on the above list. I hate writing about the Sheltered Housing Warden issue. It makes me feel physically sick. It's just that, to quote the old saying "All it takes for the success of Evil, is for good men to do nothing" I can't do much, but with my limited time I can write this blog & hopefully inspire a few of you do something as well.

One other thing, if I didn't get the odd crank email or nasty comment, I'd probably not be doing a very good job, would I?

Barnet Council : Only following orders ?

If you work for Barnet Council and are in any way involved in the provision of Sheltered accomodation, you may wish to consider the following points.

The officers of Barnet Council's primary role is to serve the residents of Barnet, not the political whims of Councillors who behave in an undemocratic fashion. The current policy to abolish sheltered housing wardens has no democratic legitimacy for the following reasons :-

1) The proposal was not mentioned in the Tory manifesto at the last Council elections.
2) Mike Freer was not the Leader when the Tories were last elected. He deposed the elected leader, Brian Salinger shortly after the election in a Palace Coup.
3) The people Barnet Council asked comprehensively rejected the proposal in the Council's own consultation.

Mike Freer could easily achieve legitimacy for his proposal by holding a borough wide referendum on the policy. As it is we have a leader who wasn't elected, imposing a policy that wasn't in the manifesto on people who told him that he was wrong in over 80% of responses.

There is absolutely no question that people will die because of the stress caused by the changes, let alone the impact of the remote warden service. Any Barnet Council staff who meekly go along with the proposal are complicit. It has been proven in the courts that only following orders is no defence. Should the policy survive the judicial review, what will happen when the first dearly loved granny dies due to the changes? If staff end up facing corporate manslaughter charges in the Courts, what will the defence be.

Lets examine the issue.

Was the issue forseeable? Yes, it's been predicted here and in many other forums.
Was the issue preventable? Yes, you could have voiced your objections and insisted that the council maintained a safe service
Will the Council be guilty of neligence in their duty of care to vulnerable people? Yes
Are there reasonable alternatives? Yes these have been widely documented
Are the cuts financially necessary? No, Mike Freer said this on BBC television

The first time someone dies, all of the questions above will be asked. If you are in any way, shape or form part of the process, you could be facing a criminal record, prison, the sack, press interest & social ostracisation.

Watch this video :-



Look what happened to the head of social services in a recent, rather well publicised case concerning Baby P. All of this is far more predictable and preventable. In every case where the Council has screwed up since Mike Freer came to power a Council Official has walked the plank. If there is a risk of prison & a criminal record, I see no likelyhood of Councillors steppin up to take responsibility. They will just say, as they did in the Iceland case "We believed the officers, they told us it was a safe policy". I'm sure they'll even have reports to back that up

The horrible truth about Tories !!!!!!

They say that the most awful thing about Absynth is that if you drink enough of it you see the world as it really is and that is a horrible thing. Well I haven't been drinking Absynthe, but I've had a glass too many of red wine and an awful truth has dawned on me. Let me explain. I've left many messages on the Leader of Barnet Council, Mike Freer's blog - Leader Listens. He virtually never publishes them. He hides them so nobody can see them. He hopes that by doing this, everyone will think that he's popular. It isn't only my message either. Other people tell the same tale. As he's the highest profile Tory in Barnet, I've assumed that this is how all Tory politicians behave and there is a "central blogging control" which keeps all Tory bloggers on side.

Only one other local Tory councillor locally had a blog, Richard Weider, who recently emigrated. Now I left messages on Richards blog and up they popped. I thought "That Richard Weider is OK. He's brave enough to publish nasty comments". Then I left some comments on Roger Evans blog - Tory GLA leader. Roger put them up & I thought "He's OK, he puts comments up". Then I put some on his GLA colleague, James Cleverly's blog. James put them up "He must be OK as well". Then I left one on Tory West Harrow PPC Rachel Joyce's blog. She put it up and I thought "Rachel is OK". Today I posted a message mercilessly ribbing Bedford Tory MP, Nadine Dorries. Nadine put the comment up. I thought "Good old Nadine, she must be OK as well". Then I thought "Hang on I've also left messages on Iain Dale's blog, Don't call me Dave's blog, Guido's blog......." They are all Tories. They all posted the message. Then I thought "who doesn't post messages who is a Tory? It's back to that list of one - Mike Freer.

I've been under the impression that all Tories are a bunch of cowardly yellowbellies who don't post critical messages, when the evidence is actually quite the opposite. It just happens that the one Tory I first left comments on is completely unrepresentative. You see the horrible truth about Tories is that they are all rather keen on free speech and a bit of banter.

Well all except Mike Freer !

Lincolns Inn & dodgy barristers

Dave Hill posted a beautiful picture of Lincolns Inn on his blog yesterday. I've not been there for a very long time. My sister is a member and we had a rather special family occasion there as members are allowed this privelidge.

Dave's picture reminded me of a rather amusing anecdote from when my sister was studying law. Whilst I am undoubtedly the thickest of my five siblings, my sister is probably the cleverest (this will have the other four in uproar - one is a teacher, one is a rocket scientist, one is an artist/ nursing practitioner and one is a classically trained welder).

At the time she was qualifying, I was playing guitar in one of London's wildest bands. She decided to have a party at her flat in Hampstead and we were told that we could come, but if any of us embarrassed her in front of her classmates, she'd never talk to us again. Now I love my sister, so I made it perfectly clear that it was best behaviour. As many of my friends could see the value in knowing a friendly barrister, they bought into the plan.

All went well until rather late on. One of my sisters classmates, an Oxbridge graduate, rather disgraced himself by starting a fight with my sisters boyfriends boss. Luckily myself and a few friends stepped in to prevent the altercation becoming nasty. The Oxbride assailant then sat down and passed out in the chair, much to the amusement of everyone. As was the way then, eventually everyone crashed out. Many of us had brought sleeping bags and we bedded down in my sisters front room. During the night, my then rather lovely Swedish girlfriend woke me up and said "Roger, a bad thing is happening". I looked up to see the Oxbridge Assailant urinating all over my sister's boyfriends boss, who was fast asleep.

At this I jumped up, grabbed the assailant, frogmarched him to the front door and slung him out. He protested that he didn't have his shoes or jacket. I informed him that he'd forfeited the right to shoes and a jacket and slammed the door. By this time the victim of his attention had woken up, oblivious to the nature of the crime committed. I found it quite funny until I realised that he'd used my leather jacket as a make-do blanket and it was rather wet. On many occasions since, I've reminded my sister of her rather badly behaved friends.

The Oxbridge assailant had to walk back to Richmond as he didn't have his wallet. He came back the following day and apologised. The down side of having a sister who is a barrister is that she can be quite good at arguing her case. The up side is that I get my legal advice for free (unlike some people I could mention).

Mike Freer is Gordon Brown's evil twin !

One of my best mates is a quite senior Tory in South London. I've known him for a long time and we often meet up for a couple of beers and a curry. Generally we don't discuss politics, preferring to chat about beer, football & Uma Thurman. However as you can probably guess about a mate of Rog T he rather enjoys the opportunity to wind me up and will occasionally send me one of his masterpieces to try and ruin my weekend. I just received his latest effort. He asked me if I could think of any amendments to it. I was happy to oblige !

10 Reasons why Gordon Brown Mike Freer should resign today

1. He wasn't the Leader at the last election

2. He plotted behind the scenes to depose the man who the country Barnet elected

3. He has used his leadership to promote a raft of people who clearly aren't up to the job

4. When the country went into recession Barnet Council lost £27.4 Million in Iceland he took no responsibilty whatsoever despite being Prime Minister Council Leader and Cabinet Member for resource management, with a £3,000 responsibility allowance

5. He is happy to tolerate a Cabinet full of people who have gorged themselves on expenses allowances

6. He has promoted people such as Peter Mandleson Brian Coleman despite a long history of scandals

7. He never apologises for his mistakes

8. He is the architect of shameful policies which have destroyed peoples pensions will destroy the Sheltered Housing system and threaten the wellbeing of the Great Britains Barnets elderly

9. He has become a laughing stock, which is bad for Britain Barnet

10. He has completely lost touch with the voters

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Uncanny isn't it ! I don't need to write blogs anymore. I just get my Tory mates to send me their stuff & I change a couple of names and places.

Jewish Chronicle backs campaign to fight Sheltered Housing warden Cuts

How do you know when a Leader of Barnet Council has lost the plot?

When his keynote policy is slated in the Jewish Chronicle !

http://www.thejc.com/articles/outrage-removal-housing-wardens

As I said in my blog yesterday. If you work for Barnet Council and want any sort of career for the rest of your working life, get out now while your CV has some credibility.

We all know that "only taking orders from our Political masters" is no defence !