This morning, there has been all sorts of activity at The Railway Hotel in Edgware. It appears that three months after the fire, the temporary repair has been secured.
Edgware Councillor Sarah Wardle stated on Twitter that a multi agency task force had been set up to ensure that the Grade II listed building is properly looked after.
Whilst it is clearly a good thing that the hotel is finally waterproofed, it is ridiculous that it has take 3 months to get to the point where this work has been done. We clearly hope that this is just the start. We will be giving regular updates to our readers on this matter. We are sure that Sarah will find these useful in her tireless efforts to ensure that Barnet Council enforcement department are able to say they are on the case.
It is quite clear that Barnet Council and Sarah are being lead a merry dance by the people who are operating this service. If we can see what is going on, why can't the Council Officers, who are paid your taxes to enforce this, do their job?
If you want to get a full update on the awful state of this Grade II listed building, watch the video at the bottom
According to The Huffington Post, there are ten types of Twitter user. I was rather disappointed to read this article, in that it failed to mention the three categories of people I seem to almost exclusively interact with. These are
1) Politicians, who spend most of their time on Twitter arguing black is white to defend totally ridiculous behaviours, which their parties have rather unfortunately decided are party policy. Many of these hibernate between election campaigns, then Tweet frantically like demented gerbils the closer the election gets.
2) Activists and campaigners, who are generally highly passionate about causes they care about and get really upset at the slightest hint of dissent from their viewpoint.
3) Wind up merchants, who simply get a kick out of irritating and annoying the above two groups.
I could make a fairly good case that in some way, shape or form I belong to all three groups. But I primarily associate with group 2. Most of the people I consider "twitter friends" do as well. In the Barnet scene, I've actually met most of these over the years. It is quite interesting when you've been exchanging tweets with someone for a couple of years, then they bump into you in Tesco's in Finchley and they look nothing like you imagine. As I'm a shameless self publicist in a Rock and Roll band, who has been appearing on telly and in public most of my life in some way shape or form, most people locally have an idea what I look like. Over the past month, on three occasions, people have stopped me, said how much they enjoy the blog and then said something that has rather upset me. They have mentioned that they have stopped "doing Twitter". When I asked why, I got exactly the same answer from all three. "It was starting to get too stressful, I was unable to go to bed without checking twitter and sometimes was sitting up to 3am arguing with people and getting very upset".
Interestingly, two of the people cited the same major source of this stress as a single maicious tweeter. I was quite stunned by this. I had easily identified the said individual as an unprincipled wind up merchant and a bully. Generally they leave me alone, I suspect that it is because they know it isn't particularly worth the effort in my case.
I have had mental health issues in the past. When I was in my early teens I was clinically depressed and was put on medication at age 13. This was a culmination of several things, being dyslexic and underperforming at school. As a result of being an August birth (six weeks premature), I was one of the smallest children in my school year and I was being bullied by both older children and some teachers. I hadn't yet discovered the resilience to fight back. My mother had cancer when I was eight and we had a period of two or three years, where we thought she was going to die. Seeing my Father, who was a very strong ex RAF officer crying disturbed me. I had constructed a fantasy world, in which I lived and I had no wish to come out of it. In 1975, my mother was given the all clear. When I was 14 in 1976 I discovered punk rock music and found myself. I started to grow and so the bullying stopped. I started to argue back with teachers. I realised that being beaten with a cane was less painful than being humiliated. That was an important lesson, one I've never forgotten. I understand what it is like to feel stress, to feel fear and loathing at having to be in a position where you are going to get torn apart. Why would you want to do that?
What shocked me was that this same fear and stress seems to be triggered by the simple act of logging on to Twitter. At first I struggled to understand how the blatherings of strangers could possibly cause such anguish. When I thought about it, it became apparent that in many ways it is the same thing. The thing that used to really hurt me when I was 13 wasn't people kicking or punching me. It was the humiliation in front of the world, the belittling. It is the thought that you are just trying to the right thing, make people aware of important things in your community and someone comes in and kicks seven shades of literary $hite out of you, mercilessly winkling out your weaknesses and then, having located your achilles heel, ripped you apart. You feel that all of the people who you thought liked and respected you, now realise you are an imbecile. The fact that this world is unseen, the "friends" are simply people you largely don't know on the other end of an IP Address is irrelevent. Put on top of that the disruption to the sleep patterns, the interruption to work as you frantically check your twitter feed to see the next humiliation. You see it, you don't want to respond, but you can't bear the thought of letting the bully put the boot in unchallenged, so you ping another message and wait with that ever sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.
One of the questions I get is whether it ever gets me down. The honest answer is that when I first got into Twitter, I did have a few occasions when it was becoming a pain in the bum, but I soon learned that it is not worth having lengthy debates with people who are simply trying to wind you up, unless you are actually enjoying it. I also learned to limit my time on social media and not to look at it when I am not supposed to be (according to my self imposed schedule). I never look at it at work (apart from our business account, which we use to promote the firm).
My advice to anyone who is using Twitter is quite simple. If people are trolling you, block them. If Twitter is makingyou feel unhappy, take a break from it for a week. If your life is better, knock it on the head. Never look at Twitter for an hour before you go to bed, no matter how strong the temptation. Have a long, hard look at how you are using it and make sure it is working for you, not destroying you.
The
Leader of Barnet Council has provided an update on the progress being
made in relation to the new recycling and waste collections.
The Leader of Barnet Council, Councillor Richard Cornelius,
said: “I’m pleased to report that we have started this week on a
positive note, building on the progress that we started to see last
week.
“The vast majority of collections were completed to schedule
yesterday and we are carrying out collections scheduled for today. We
expect to complete these by the end of today.
“We will continue to build on this progress this week by doing our
utmost to collect residents’ recycling and waste on the allocated days.
We have brought in additional staff to help us do this.”
Refuse collections on a small number of roads in the N20, and EN5
areas, specifically flats and roads with narrow access, could not be
completed yesterday. These collections have now been completed.
There were also some collections that could not be carried out
yesterday in the Mays Lane area due to utilities works blocking access
to bins. We will return to carry out these collections as soon as
possible, when access is available.
If your bin is not collected, please leave it out at the boundary of
your property and it will be collected as soon as possible. Barnet
Council will be collecting real Christmas trees up until Sunday, 3
February 2019 if they are left out by residents' bins on their correct
collection day.
To report a missed bin collection, please visit here
There definately seems to have been a marked improvement in the collection rates. Last week Edgware Councillor Linda Freedman claimed on Facebook "We are having a much better week this week – we have deployed
additional resources and are fully up to date with Monday and Tuesdays
collections. We will have a full service operating tomorrow that will be
capable of collection all of Thursdays work, along with any excess
material that we didn’t collect last week."
I was intrigued by this and emailed the CEO of the Council John Hooton, to clarify what was going on. I had rather hoped that he would be keen to inform residents of what was going on. Sadly, Mr Hooton doesn't seem to consider responding to residents as part of his job. Yesterday I think the mystery of the "extra resources" was solved. As I was walking the dogs in Mill Hill, I saw a bin lorry collecting commercial waste from the offices on the Watford Way. I was intrigued to see that the binmen were wearing Harrow Council hi vis jackets.
I made some enquiries (another unanswered email to Mr Hooton and a call to contacts in the council). I also posted a question on facebook on the Mill Hill group. It seems that quite a few residents had noticed these extra resources. It is quite clearly a good thing that the piles of rubbish are being cleared. What is not such a good thing is how much all of this must be costing. The bin rounds were reorganised to save money. Bringing in the cavalry from Harrow must be costing a fortune. Ultimately the whole reorganisation has been a complete fiasco. The council was forced into this because they have mismanaged finances and now they are spending a fortune just to keep things on track.
This morning, I received a whole stream of emails etc from local pubs and heritage campaigner Mark Amies. Mark is currently featured on a series on the Robert Elms Show on BBC Radio London, discussing Londons Industrial Heritage. When Mark isn't preparing for his broadcast career, he's busy fighting the good fight preserving our local pubs and other landmarks.
I was shocked to see what Mark was reporting this morning. Firstly, he has found a list of enforcement actions against the owners. Mark has tweet this (click on the picture for more details)
I suspect that Mark was tipped off by another local Tweeter concerned with local issues.
This planning application for the Railway Hotel confuses me. Why the need to apply for such a small extension? Also the operation hours of 7am till 2pm is such a lie it's laughable. Lots of anecdotal evidence of them turning up way outside these times.https://t.co/tkIb3RB0GB
The planning permission contains a document that shows just how badly the situation is with the neglect of the area. The owners have demonstrated a blatent disregard for the local community. This scheme will damage the ability of any business in the building to prosper. It will remove car parking spaces and generally contribute to the run down nature of the building.
It is clear to me that only someone with total disregard for the neighbours could think that thee pictures would help a planning application.
Click here if you want to object to this awful proposal. It is clear that the owners have only decided to comply with the law as there is enforcement action. A quick search and review of the Councils enforcement pages reveal that a complaint was received in Jan 2018 and the case was closed with "informal compliance". I assume that the council rang up and said stop this and they said "Ok" and carried on without taking any notice. The latest notice was issued on 12th December. As the owners have shown that they take no notice of what the council says, it really is beyond belief that they will start to comply now.
The other local Councillor with a Twitter account is Sarah Wardle. She at least promised us an update on 20th December.
A cross-discipline officer task force has been assembled r.e Railway Hotel. There are a no of complex problems on the site, when I have an update on how we’re moving forward I will let you know.
We are still waiting for this and have just given Sarah another nudge.
If you want to see just how bad the whole site is, myself and Mark Amies made a short film about it last week. Please make sure you comment, tweet to your councillors and do everything you can to make sure that our community is not destroyed by such awful schemes.
This blog has made no secret of its position regarding the EU and Brexit. Last October, we laid out the evidence showing that the result of the referendum no longer represented the views of the UK electorate. This was based not on people chaning their mind, but on the change of the demographaics of the electorate and the narrowness of the vote. When we analysed the vote, we found that the number of elderly Brexit voterds who passed away and no longer have a stake in the process and the number of young people likely to favour remain, meant that if not a single soul had changed their mind, the current electorate would be highly likely to deliver a different result. As the majority for #Brexit was tiny, we've always felt that another referendum to endorse or reject any final position would be appropriate.
We believe that if the #Brexiteers have made their case, this would be a formal rubber stamping and would offer the opportunity to put the argument to bed forever. If the electorate decides that after the years of attempting to work out something that would be in the interests of the UK, remaining is the best option, then that too should be respected. If the ERG and the rest of the #Brexit family believe they have a good case, why can't they trust the people. For the last referendum, we had dodgy Dave Cameron and Greasy George Osborne in charge of Remain, they ran an inept campaign based on a load of highly dodgy claims. I for one am not in the least surprised that they lost. If Dave had been honest and said "The EU isn't great, I've not managed to get any meaningful concessions from them, but the alternative to remain is years of political chaos, which will damage the UK for decades and split the country, so please vote remain as it is the least bad of all options", people may hae trusted him a bit more. It would also have helped if he'd actually bothered to talk of all of the benefits.
But that is history, here we are today. There is no majority for anything in Parliament. I suspect that the only solution is to let the public do the job that the politicians can't. I just wanted to lay out my position, so that my comments about our local MP's can be taken with full background and context.
In the London Borough of Barnet, we have three MP's. These are Mike Freer in Finchley and Golders Green, Theresa Villiers in Chipping Barnet and Matthew Offord in Hendon. All three are Conservatives. In yesterdays vote, Freer voted for the Government motion and Offord and Villiers voted against, as they are both hard line Brexiteers. Lets discuss Mike Freer first. He is a junior whip, and it would be the end of his pretty unspectacular career if he defied the whip. Like his two colleagues, Mike Freer was not elected because there is a large consensus in Finchley and Golders Green that thinks he's a marvellous MP, clever, good looking or full of saintly compassion. He was elected because he persuaded the Conservative Party that he was the best candidate. The party invested a huge amount of money and effort into making sure local people knew he was a Conservative Candidate and that they knew what the Conservative manifesto was. Every single Conservative voter should expect Mike Freer to vote in line with Conservative Party policy. Therefore no one could reasonably complain that Freer had not done what he was mandated to do.
However there is a big difference between this vote and every other vote. This vote was one where there had been a national referendum. Freer voted Remain.He knows that Brexit, whatever its form will be bad for the UK. We can make a case for him doing what he is paid to do, to enact Conservative policy, however there is another side to this. Freer's constituency voted strongly to remain. He knows that any sort of leaving will be bad for the UK. But Mike Freer has kept his head down and said nothing. His website has said nothing about the EU and last nights vote. In short, he has shown no backbone. Is it any surprise that we are in this mess if MP's show no backbone to stand up for what their constituenciesvoted for.
Then there is Villiers and Offord. Like Freer, they only have their job because they were selected to represent the Tory party. But unlike Freer, they are Brexiteers. They represent trongly remain constituencies, but have voted against May as they want a hard Brexit. Whilst at least Freer has a fig leaf of being able to say he voted in line with the party that sponsors him, the other two have simply gone off on an ego trip. They are not representing either their party or the majority will of their voters. I suspect that amid all of the chaos, they will get away with it. Not least because all of the local Tory associations are strongly biased towards leave. Maybe I am just very naive, but ultimately I think that MP's should represent the people who elect them. As such, the behaviour of these three is shameful.
My suspicion is that this chaos will go on for a very long time. Whilst MP's feel that they can stick two fingers up at the public and get away with it, there is little hope. To be honest, I am sick of the whole thing. Whilst the vote was being cast, we went to watch the new Laurel and Hardy film. It is brilliant. The fim has many parallels with how I suspect Brexit will play out (from the perspective of leavers). The film starts with them at the height of their careers in 1937. They want a better deal. It ends in Ireland in tears.
If you have ever wondered what privatisation means in practise, when it comes to Council services, you need look no further than Hendon Cemetery. I visit this regularly. My parents and grandparents are buried there, as well as Aunts, Uncles and some of my best friends. When my Father was buried there in 1987, it was spotless, a feature of civic pride. I felt it was a fitting place for my Father to be laid to rest. He was an RAF bomber pilot (you can read of his heroism here - http://aircrewremembered.com/tichborne-lawrence-franklin.html ). I always hae felt that if I was a tenth the man my father was, I'd have done alright in my life.
In 2014, as part of the outsourcing contract with Capita, Barnet Council came to an agreement with Capita to run the cemetery. The idea was that Capita could turn my father's final resting place into a cash generating pot of gold. You may wonder how you make more money out of a Cemetery. Sadly there are three ways. The first is that you cut back on maintenance. The second way is that you charge people more to bury their dead and the third is that you rent it out for events and TV/Filming. Sadly Capita have vigorously persued this. Last April I made a short film detailing the neglect inside the cemetery. I hoped that this film would explain one of the reasons I allowed my name to be put forward to run as a candidate in the local elections.
I am sorry to report that it is no better today. Today I posted a series of tweets showing just how awful the external appearance of the Cemetery from the road appears. Are Barnet Council and Capita really happy to have this as an advert for how they run things and treat our dead loved ones.
How @Capita have colluded with @Barnet to let Hendon cemetery go to rack and ruin #1 - fences and walls in terrible state of disrepair pic.twitter.com/wnAg3Odmik
Have a look at this thread. Perhaps the most appalling thing of all, from my perspective was the shoddy, laminated advert for slots in the Mausoleum. The worst of all of these is this one, adertising slots in the mausoleum for £10,000 for a hunded year lease on a slot. I showed my wife this picture and she said "That is really tasteless, how can you think that's funny". She had thought that this was something I'd knocked up as a joke. I am sorry to say that it isn't. I have never seen anything as ugly in all my life and to take a shoddy picture, laminate it and stick it over the previous, tasteful opening hours time is sickening.
It really doesn't seem to occur to Capita or the Conservatives who run Barnet Council that many people who visit the cemetary are elderly people who just want quiet time with a loved one. They need a large, clearly written sign with opening hours on. Sticking these shoddy signs over these details is simply irresponsible.
How do you think I feel when I see this as I go to pay my respects to my father and mother. Let me tell you. I saw this and turned around and went home. I was simply no longer in the right state of mind to spend any time with my parents memories. I was bloody furious, so I came straight home and wrote this f'ing blog. If ever you wonder why I do all this, just think for a second how I feel today.
And you know what makes me sadder than anything. I used to want to be buried there next to them. I have changed my mind. Now I wish to be cremated and have my ashes scattered over Areendene. I'm sure that sooner or later the Tories and Capita will ruin that as well, but at least I won't die knowing I'll be lining the pockets of such sickening leeches.
Older readers of this blog will fondly remember the TV series 'Minder', that featured George Cole as Arthur Daley. Daley was a spiv who got by selling dodgy second hand cars and other knocked off goods. As part of my research, I came across an episode of Minder that has large sections filmed in the Borough of Barnet, at Scratchwoods services, and a scene on the road navigating Staples Corner.
The episode features actor/musician Mark Farmer, best known for his role in Grange Hill, but a talented musician, who also played bass with Bad Manners. Sadly Mark passed away in 2016. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the episode, as Arthur Daley enters the world of ticket touting, only to find he's bought a bunch of fake tickets from a washed up player eking out a last payday at Brentford.
It is interesting to see how culture and society has changed since the mid 1980's when this was filmed. As an experiment, I asked my 18 year old what a Spiv was. His reply? "Is it a sort of knife?". I was thinking about Spiv culture. I am sure that Arthur Daley would thrive in the year 2018. The internet would offer endless opportunities. At this time every year, in our music shop we see a procession of people coming in with dodgy, unplayable guitars that they bought on the Internet. Nearly all came through the shop in November and December looking for Xmas presents. Nearly all had care, advice and service. Nearly all promised to come back and purchase the guitar we advised, having taken our time and tried our instruments. Now they come back with a guitar they bought on the Internet, asking how to sort out the myriad of problems. Some even claim they bought the instrument from us, but don't have a receipt and strangely there is no record of this on our system. They are horrified when they find out that simply to make the instrument playable, they will have to pay anything between £30-£100. Some are simply fit for the bin. It is called a false economy. We take great delight in reminding them that we warned them that whilst we maintain customers guitars free of charge as party of the service warranty, the ones bought elsewhere are charged at £25 per hour to fix, plus parts. They realised that the £15 or whatever they saved was not a saving at all.
The modern day Arthur Daleys, don't drive around in Jags and have a smooth patter, business is conducted via the internet, where price is king and if something doesn't work, you just send it back. Recognition of quality it seems is an ever disappearing feature of life. It's not just when we buy consumer products that this race to the bottom has taken a grip. All over the Borough of Barnet, we've seen the same pattern as our bins are unemptied, our roads are pockmarked with potholes, our streets are full of litter, graffiti is everywhere and if you need to call the council, you better book a long lunch as it takes forever to navigate the switchboard, be held in a queue and actually talk to anyone.
The reason? Well it all dates back to the days of Arthur Daley. When Arther was plying his trade, Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister and she brought in the mantra of Privatisation. Thatcher had three main philosophies. They were
1. Taxes should be as low as possible.
2. The private sector should replace the public sector in provision of services.
3. Councils should only provide housing as a matter of last resort for those who genuinely can't afford accomodation from the private sector.
Today we are probably seeing the low tide mark of these policies. Thatcher believed that the "dynamism of the free market" would provide better, cheaper solutions to the problems facing the country than regulated, state run national industries. The list of industries privatised by the Conservative governments of 1979-1997 is quite incredible.
It is fascinating to look through the list and ask ourselves how many of these organisations are now viewed as providing better, cheaper services. At a guess, I'd say that most people would say that the airports, BT and National Express buses are decent enough. The Railways and the service/costs of energy companies are constantly held as examples of what is wrong with privatisation. I am not completely ideologically opposed to privatisation and outsourcing. I think sometimes it is the best way to sort things out. Where it doesn't work is where there is a monopoly and where it goes horribly wrong is when it is simply done out of misguided ideological zeal.
I run a company, I've even provided services to Barnet Council in the past. But that is because we are specialists and good at what we do. Barnet Council has been run since 2006 by hard right ideologues who simply refuse to accept that some things should not be run by private companies. Since 2010, we've been in a cycle of decline otherwise known as "One Barnet". When this was first mooted, we were told that this would result in lower council tax bills. A mega deal was signed with Capita, which was worth a billion quid over ten years. Sadly much of the savings are illusory, services have declined, the council couldn't even manage to meet statutory deadlines for recent audits, as Capita couldn't provide reliable information. Sadly the Capita contract has become like the dead parrot in the Monty Python sketch. It is dead, but the leaders of the Council cling to the idea that the whole scheme is in vigorous good health. Recently, they signed a deal with Capita, where they were paid £4 million in cash as compensation for over £20 million of savings, contractually guaranteed, that never arrived. How on earth anyone can think getting such a paltry sum for such a major contractual defect is a result is beyond me, but that is exactly how the regime of Richard Cornelius has portrayed it.
Another part of this toxic mix is the obsession with lower taxes. No one wants to pay more than they should for anything, but when it comes to public services, schools, street cleaning, bin emptying, do we want an Arthur Daley service? If I am hungry, there are a myriad of offerings on Mill Hill Broadway. If I want something to simply satisfy my hunger, I can pay around a quid for a bag of greasy chips. I do this on the odd occasion, usually when I stagger out of the Mill Hill Services club and am peckish. But if I had this for every meal, every day, I'd soon get all manner of associated health problems. That is why most of the time, I only eat fresh food, which I prepare myself or if I eat out, I eat in restaurants that make decent, well cooked food. I don't eat out in fast food places or ones which simply produce low quality production line food (unless I am out with friends who insist)..
Sadly when Barnet Council set their budget, it is simply a diet of chips every meal. This is because the local Conservatives know that we've been brainwashed to believe that low taxes mean "we spend your money wisely". Any party proposing realistic taxation, to support decent services would get crucified at the polls. The mantra the Tories always deploy is "They are always happy to spend your money for you". But this has resulted in a situation where even basic services can no longer be provided reliably. The bin situation has demonstrated this. Recycling has all but stopped as the council desperately tries to clear the backlog caused by a defective plan. If you want a reliable car, do you go to a reputable dealer, or do you go to an Arthur Daley? It is the same with Council services. Historically, Barnet ran its services well. Before the One Barnet project, the then leader of Barnet Council used to boast that Barnet was rated as a four Star Council. How many stars now, with tweets like this?
Complete disgrace bins haven't been completed for over 2 weeks. Totally becoming dirty unhygenic Barnet don't care we pay our council taxes on time and bins can't be collected on time. I called barnet some pathetic person advised to load up the car and take it to pic.twitter.com/Qa5y6ysXkL
This is simply a symptom of what happens when you are not prepared to pay enough money for the important things in your life. If you don't want to pay the amount of tax that is required to run a council, this is what happens. Chips every day will kill you!
The final part of the jigsaw of decline is what Thatchers policies have done to our housing stock. When my parents were married in 1945, they applied for council housing. As my Dad was in the Air Force, they eventually got a place in Wise Lane in Mill Hill, I believe in 1948. That began our families long association with Mill Hill. In 1960, as my father's business was doing well, they bought a home and another family moved in to their old council house. Council housing was where most young couples started their married life. My eldest Brother was given a council flat in Gunter Grove in Burnt Oak in the early 1970's when he married. By the time I was ready to leave home, the Thatcher government had started to rewrite the rules. I have always had a few pennies in my pocket. When I was 21, I got a great job working for an IT consultancy. I went down the "rent a private flat route". By the time I was 25, I had enough cash to buy a four bedroom semi in Mill Hill (£47,000). I still live there, it is probably worth £800,000. When I bought it I worked for BT and earned £18,000 a year as a basic salary, the mortgage company said they'd pay up to three times my salary, I paid a £4,700 deposit (ten percent). This was manageable. By the same rules, I'd have to earn about £275,000 a year and have £80,000 in the bank as a deposit. It is simply impossible.
The reason is simply because the Thatcher dream of home ownership has strangled the supply chain of new homes. Councils stopped building, developers realised they could make more money sitting on land than developing it and now we have an impossible situation. If anyone ever manages to fix the supply side issues, there is a real prospect that everyone who has bough a home in the last ten years will be sitting on massive negative equity. In short, we have priced our children out of the market, and we simply don't care. The Arthur Daley's of the world realised that property, not cars and fake perfume are the best way to turn a quick buck. And best of all it's all perfectly legal.
There are thousands of people on the council waiting list for homes, all local people who need somewhere to live. They are out of luck, because in Barnet, we simply don't want to spend any money to have a cohesive community. Our pubs are being redeveloped, our libraries downsized, our roads are in an appalling state. Perfectly good paving stones replaced with cheap asphalt. Never mind though. We've all got computers so we can console ourselves with repeats of Minder on Youtube.
Every Sunday we put together our selection of the best tweets in the London Borough of Barnet. Here is this weeks selection. I must say that this is one of the best selections we've had for many a moon! Don't forget to follow any tweeters who tickle your fancy!
1. This is my favourite tweet this week. It's official Burnt Oak is "not that bad"! It must be true, the Sun says so!
Even The Scum did a piece on us (Burnt Oak is next to Colindale) and although they're clearly trying to fins problems with so many Romanians, every paragraph seems to end with 'actually, it's not that bad'https://t.co/0NNLNJzlrj
2. Whilst we are in that neck of the woods, if you like a bit of Hip Hop, Ragga, Dance and Soul music then check this out. It is always great to see people putting shows on locally
4. Whilst there are many differing views as to whether Cannabis should be legal, if you live next door to a cannabis factory, you are very likely to be at risk. This tweet from the Colindale Police tells you what to look out for and what to do. I think this is probably one of the best uses of Twitter by a public body that I've seen. Well done guys
6. This weeks historical Tweet of the Week! I didn't know there used to be a vineyard in Finchley
Finchley Central looking over what was Claigmar Vineyard off Squires Lane/Long Lane. There's a train by the bridge and I think there was a goods/wagon yard where Finchley Central station car park is now. The now demolished Railway Hotel was opposite the station on Ballards Lane. pic.twitter.com/9yqweAv8xS
7. I rather hope one day Mark Amies receives a peerage for his work trying to protect and document our local heritage. I am pleased that he simply doesn't give up when he sees something is wrong
I took these photos of the Grade II listed #railwayhoteledgware this morning. Yesterday I was assured by @HistoricEngland that @BarnetCouncil Conservation Officer had told them the roof was being secured. That is clearly nonsense. I was also told the last visit to site was 2017. pic.twitter.com/ZOkaVOK9li
8. Those fine people at the Mill Hill Musical Theatre Company are putting in a shift for your pleasure!
#meandmygirl looking forward to the first rehearsal of 2019... a readthru of our next show - strictly for our patrons - on fri 29th and sat 30 of March 😍💥 pic.twitter.com/lSCs0QJVsY
I was born in 1962, I grew up with black and white TV, in 1970 we were lucky enough to get a coulour Telly, in time for the World Cup. My Dad was friends with Derek Tyne, who ran Mill Hill Television, a shop in the Broadway. They were good friends, with a love of cars, aeroplanes and gadgets. Derek was a successful businessman and had his own private plane at Elstree, a Rolls Royce and his company not only sold but built TV's. In return for resprays etc, we'd return home to find the latest gadget (such as Betamax video's, teasmades etc). The best of these though was the Colour Telly. As a seven year old, this was not only great for the football. The thing I loved most was watching cartoons in colour. I was thinking about this and it occurred to me that there was a magnificent seven of TV cartoon series that I absolutely loved.
1. Tom and Jerry.
The absolute best. My sister in law once informed me she disliked it intensely because it was "anti cat propoganda". I rather like moggies, but Thomas is not a great advert for wiles of moggies. But there is a subplot that they actually like each other and even save each other and work together on occasions, such as when the baby escapes. The other thing that should be mentioned is the high quality of the animation. The expressions on Tom & Jerries faces are pure genius.
I loved Yogi bear, sadly it was rarely shown. Yogi was never content with his lot. He was living in what in many ways was an idylic setting but it drove him mad. He saw Tourists hampers as fair pickings and was always up to trouble. I felt a deep sense of empathy with him.
Wheras Tom wasn't the best advert for the intelligence of moggies, Top cat was the poster boy for feline intelligence. All of the humans were portrayed as rather dim, not least Officer Dibble who's job seems to be to keep Top Cat in his place. I particlarly liked the depictions of when Top cat's heart was stolen by glamourous female moggies. It is a good warning of how even the smartest of us can turn into fools in the face of romance. I think I learned more about life watching Top Cat cartoons than I ever learned at school.
When I was a kid, I thought that Fred Flintstone was the man I wanted to be when I grew up. His life was pretty much how I wanted to live. He was lazy, he had a family, animals and a job with dinosaurs. He had a best mate and would drink and bowl. He isn't particularly smart, far thicker than he thinks he is. Just like me. In many ways Wilma reminds me of the love of my life!
This was the cartoon that shaped my life. Like the Jacksons, I come from a big family (There are six of us). Like the Jacksons, when I was small, I used to share a room with my brothers. This video was the closest thing to real family life ever shown on TV. Like the Jacksons, my elder brothers were amazing musicians. Unlike Michael, I sing like a hog. I used to dream that we'd put a band together, and I could be the front man. Unlike my brothers, I'm a natural show off. I also loved the images of a broken down American landscape, as the boys bus drove from city to city.
I used to love Basketball as a result of this series. Eventually I nagged and nagged my Dad and we went to see The Harlem Globetrotters on a tour at the Wembley Arena. That was when I realised that watching Basketball is incredibly dull. Like many things, it is far better as a cartoon. It made me realise tha Football really is the only team sport that is worth getting the beers and curry in to watch. I don't really understand why, but I had a great empathy with the black community, a love of Reggae, Motown and Soul. I think that the Jackson 5ive and The Harlem Globetrotters have a lot to do with this as the music in the series was always amazing and the dudes were cool. Something I've always aspired to, if not always succeeding.
I finish with Scooby-Doo as this is really where my childhood love of cartoons ended. I remember the huge excitement of my friend, who lived up the road, Dale Malone, telling me that there was a new cartoon series on the TV. I made my way, excitedly up to number 65 and we sat enthralled as the action unfolded. For a few months, I loved Scooby Doo, but the more I watched, the less I actually enjoyed it. Wheras Tom and Jerry stories were all action and slapstick, the Scooby Doo tales all had plots. Once I realised they were all the same, there was never a ghost and the whole thing was ridiculously implausable, I stopped watching it.
Over the years, there have been all manner of cartoon series designed for cynical adults that I've enjoyed, perhaps the best is The Simpsons. When the children were small, we'd watch some of the newer offerings on CBBC. I always struggled because I just don't think they were a patch on the list above. Maybe it is just the rose tinted spectacles of my own past, but I think that in terms of production quality and sheer enjoyment, Tom and Jerry is simply in a class of its own.
There is a full list of all animated 1940's &50's, 1960's and 1970's on Wikipedia. It is well worth a peek! What are your fave cartoons?
Now we are back into what the Roman Catholic church call "Ordinary Time" after the Xmas frivolities, we are back into the normal cycle of weekly blogs, which means that it's Friday so it's time for a joke!
In Barnet the hot topic is bin collections. I was challenged by one of my friends to come up with a joke about what was happening in Barnet that was actually funny. Of course, if none of your refuse has been collected for weeks and it is starting to emit a bit of a pongy niff, you probably won't appreciate it, but here goes.
The Leader of Barnet Council, Richard Cornelius, passes away after a long illustrious life of public service and finds himself at the Pearly Gates, stood before St Peter.
St Peter asks him his name and what he's done with his life, so that he can work out where to put him.
Richard replies "I'm Richard Cornelius and I was the Leader of Barnet Council" St Peter says to him "Oh, Ok. Yes I can see your name. He then says "Ok, before I let you come in and give you your harp and cloud, we are giving special people a chance to have a look at the other place"
Richard is quite disturbed and says "You mean hell? Why would I want to go there?"
St Peter responds "Well some people feel that it has had a bad press and is actually quite a nice place. If you don't like it you can come up here and assume your place here".
Richard thinks to himself "I've always been curious what its like". So he says "Ok, I'll have a look".
When he get's down there, he is shocked to find a mssive party going on. Satan, unlike the biblical portrayals, is a lovely charming chap and he says "Come in, some of your friends are here. There they all are. They are eating, drinking and generally having a whale of a time". Richard is confused and says to the Prince of Darkness "This is amazing, how come they don't tell you in the bible it's like this?" Satan responds "Oh we don't want everyone coming in, just those who fit in. All of that nonsense is just to keep the plebs out. Do you really think I'd get kicked out of heaven to live in a $hitehole?". Richard is amazed, but it makes perfect sense.
Then Satan says "Right, you've got to go back and tell St Peter your choice".
Richard makes his way back and says "Sorry, I really like the look of heaven, but it's great down there, all my friends are there and it is great fun". St Peter looks truly sad and says "Ok, just sign here".
At that Richard is transported back. However all of his friends are no longer having a party. Their clothes are torn and dishevelled. They are covered in sores. He is taken to the largest pile of garbage he's ever seen, with vicious rats running around sinking their teeth into the poor souls, who are throwing the endless piles of rubbish onto a massive burning fire. Demons make sure there is no let up, prodding the poor souls with huge spears when a rest is taken".
Satan says "RIGHT OFF YOU GO, WELCOME TO HELL!"
Richard turned to him and said "Hang on, where is the party, why is it not like what you promised".
Satan turned to Richard and laughed "Do you remember when you wrote the Barnet Conservatives manifesto in 2017? Remember the promises, bins emptied, finances run properly. Surely you of all people would realise that you never tell the truth to the mugs until you've got their vote in the bag. Off you go now".
******
For the purposes of clarity, we rather like Richard and has friends and we are sure that St Peter will usher them straight to their cloud and harp with no detours on route when the sad day comes. This is just a joke (we hope).
This morning, there has been all sorts of activity at The Railway Hotel in Edgware. It appears that three months after the fire, the temporary repair has been secured.
