The Sunday Reflection #4 - Sometimes there is no answer

 So we are now two weeks into 2024. How has it been for you so far? We've all had a week or two back in 'the swing of things', or not as we are all skint after Xmas, the weather has been either cold or wet and we have that collective hangover known as 'dry January'. I always take two weeks off booze at the start of the year. This year, I allowed myself a couple of days off this. Last Sunday, I went up to Manchester to watch City play in the FA Cup with my son. Having paid a silly amount of money for the train, ticket etc, I thought it would be silly not to 'enjoy' the day. We had a pint before, a pint at the game and a couple after, before getting the train back to London. Then on Wednesday, we went down to Clanfield in Hampshire for a night. We stay in a hotel called The Hampshire Hog, which is dog friendly and by the South Downs. We had a couple of amazing walks on the Downs and on Thursday we visited Bosham, on Chichester Harbour which is lovely. On Saturday night, I shared a bottle of wine with the family. Again, I felt that the circumstances justified it. As I started the fortnight a day early on December 31st, I felt I had some leeway. If I took the amount I normally drink on New Years Eve, it would be less than these two relatively moderate days. 

Tonight I go to see 999 at the Resolution Festival at The 100 Club. This was the day I designated that I would start drinking again. I've not made my mind up yet as to whether I'll have a pint or not. I am quite enjoying not drinking. Since I had surgery for Prostate cancer in August, I've not really enjoyed drinking in the way I did previously. Yesterday, I went to watch Hadley FC play Waltham Abbey in the Isthmian League. I had three pints of Guinness Zero. It was an amazing game, with Hadlye scoring a dramatic winner in the last minute, in a 4-3 thriller and I can honestly say that I didn't miss drinking at all. I then went home and watched Manchester City play Newcastle on TV. I joked to my son that I hoped City didn't shred my nerves in the way Hadley had. Again it was a brilliant game, with five of the best goals you will see this season and another last minute winner. Normally I may have had a drink as I watched, but I had a cup of decaf tea. The sheer stress of watching a tight and important game of football, where there is real jeopardy, and you have a stake invested is one of the most stressful feelings of all. I joked to one of my mates at Hadley, that it was good that Waltham Abbey brought the game to 3-3, after Hadley lead 3-1, as it made the final victory all the sweeter. In truth, until Jordan Edwards banged the winner in, I felt completely different.

I sometimes wonder why I like football. Nothing in my life has made me more miserable. There were 36 years when Manchester City were rubbish. I lost count of the relegation, the false dawns, the managers, but still I supported them, with the blind faith that one day things would be better. 25 years ago, I saw them at Wembley in the third tier play off final against Gillingham. They were 2-0 down in the 89th minute, heading for another season in the doldrums, when in a famous comeback, they made it 2-2 and won on penalties. When I came out of  Wembley, I was frazzled. I took my nine year old nephew along. In the 110th minute, he told me his heart was racing and he thought he was having a heart attack. I explained that this was excitement, and only football can do this to you.

But why do we put ourselves through the pain? I love music, there are ecstatic highs, but no jeopardy. If I had no interest in Football and had just been a muso, my life would have been infinitely happier. No weekends, sitting in the dark, with curtains drawn, as City get relegated again. When City won at Wembley, I'd have said you were insane, if you'd told me that in 25 years time, they'd win the treble and be world club champions and have a bigger turnover than Manchester United. My dream at the time was that they'd be in the Premier League and occasionally win a cup and score the odd victory at Old Trafford. Anything more seemed ridiculous. But this reflection is not about football, although I have used football as an analogy.

Things change. Human beings are strange things. We adapt to change, almost seamlessly. Things that seemed permanent turn to dust. Things that seem trivial and insignificant, turn out to be monumental. I grew up in the 60's and 70's. It was the time of the cold war. There were two superpowers. The USA and the USSR. This had been the order since the second world war. Then the USSR simply disintegrated. I watched Caesar recently. Before he came along, Rome had a stable government run by the Senate, for 500 years. Within a decade Caesar had destroyed the model. The Roman Empire was the original superpower, but a few centuries later, it simply dissolved. I could never understand how that happened. 

Last year, Queen Elisabeth died. Consider her reign. When she became the monarch, Winston Churchill was PM and Great Britain ruled much of Africa and many other far flung places. When she passed away, Rishi Sunak was Prime Minister and it is not even clear whether the UK will survive the reign of her successor. Why do Empires, dynasties and even successful football teams fall apart? Surely the people who run these organisations can read? Surely they study history books and acquaint themselves with why things can fall apart so suddenly? Back to Football analogies. In the 1960's Manchester United were the finest team in the land, under Sir Matt Busby. He retired and they were rubbish for the best part of two decades, even being relegated. It was only when  Alex Ferguson came in, that they reclaimed their crown, one which as the richest club in England, logic said they should never have lost. Ferguson overcame all, until he retired. What happened then? Exactly what happened under Busby, the success ended and the club had a succession of managers, none of whom could harness the huge resources to produce a consistently successful team. Did the owners not read what happened after Busby and thing "Lets sort the succession out this time and not have a decade in the wilderness". It seems that the people who seek power are not interested in learning the lessons of history. Historians end up becoming professors, the people who run things are often borderline psychopaths, who believe they know better and there are no lessons to learn.

But as to why things fall apart so spectacularly, so quickly, that is far too simplistic a solution. Take the latest crisis. Most of us would have struggled to identify Yemen on an atlas two weeks ago. As to the Hoothi's, when I first heard of them, they sounded like a tribe from a silly Carry on Film in the 60's. We no so little about them, that we don't know their leaders name, what they want and why we are bombing them, beyond the fact that they launch missiles at ships. Surely there is more to it than that? It reminds me of when the UK went to war with Argentina over the Falklands. Before the war, almost no one had heard of them. No one knew about the dispute with Argentina. Out of nowhere, we had a war with a huge death toll and thousands injured. What was the lesson learned? At the time, papers such as The Sun and The Mail said it was that we should never have "run down the Royal Navy".  Was the lesson learned? The Navy is now a quarter of the size it was then. The first major act of David Cameron, in regards to defence, was to scrap the Harrier jump jets that saved the Falklands. This meant that we were the only country ever to have aircraft carriers with no planes to fly off them. How on earth could we have such a stupid situation?

:Look at the UK today. We've spent billions on a railway, that was meant to connect London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. They bought the land, signed contracts and then gave up, wasting billions. It is clear to me that it will eventually be built and cost even more. I use trains all the time and I follow the industry. What makes me say this? Well look at the line that goes through Mill Hill, the Thameslink line. When it was opened in the 1980's and it became clear it was a major part of London's transport infrastructure, the powers that be realised it needed to be done properly and a huge project was set up to realise the potential that the route had. It was called "Thameslink 2000" as the new, upgraded line would be completed in the year 2000. The government prevaricated. It was only when the channel tunnel link was moved to St Pancras, that the government spent the money enabling the project to be done. It was finally completed in 2017. It cost ten times what the original estimates. What it delivered is the UK's busiest railway. Why? Why is it that we, the UK never learns. What is it that means that we don't learn.

I have come to realise that HS2/Thameslink gives an insight into why Empires crumble. The problem is that the people who make decisions are not interested in anything else other than the present. We elect parliament for a maximum of five years. A project such as Thameslink/HS2 lasts two or three times this. As such, the people who initiate the scheme are long gone by the time its delivered. When problems and cost overruns happen, the current incumbents see a quick political win by cancelling necessary projects. This then means that the country gets more inefficient and less able to function. The bureaucrats running the show, rather than learning become ever more risk averse, until the point where nothing gets done and the empire crumbles. The trouble is that you don't realise that the inside is rotten and not working until it falls apart. The examples of this go beyond HS2 etc. One of the reasons that Manchester United have lost their gloss is that Old Trafford is literally falling apart. The owners have not invested in it. What was once the finest stadium in the land has a laky roof, uncomfortable seats and feels derelict. City fans gleefully chant "Old Trafford is falling down". As to the UK's armed services. The Navy simply doesn't have the tools to mount an operation like the Falklands today. God help us, if we ever find ourselves in such a situation where we need our armed forces to face down an existential threat to the UK, because we'd run out of bullets, tanks, planes and ships in no time at all and we have no industries to rebuild them.

I sometimes wonder what the UK will be like in 50 years. I am now sixty one. I had the same thoughts when I was eleven, in 1973.  I didn't foresee the internet, mobile phones, the downfall of the USSR, Brexit, The Falklands war, Ryanair, Global warming, Covid, Lockdowns, Hong Kong returning to China, Thameslink whisking me from Mill Hill to Brighton. I thought we'd have colonies on the Moon and Mars. I thought we'd have next  generation supersonic Jumbo jets, building on the Concorde design, whisking us to Australia in two hours. My biggest fears were nuclear war. The UK was going into the Common Market and I thought we'd all be proud Europeans and not need passports. 

When I look at the world today, I find it impossible to work out how we got here. We put a man on the moon in 1969, no one has been back for over 50 years. We still have passports and it takes longer than ever to get through airports. Global warming took over from Nuclear war (although it is making a comeback), passenger planes are no quicker than in 1973 and we don't even have Concorde. It all makes no sense to me. How did we end up here? When the Berlin wall came down, I felt that we were on the verge of a period of peace, unparalleled in history. Look where we are now? At the start of this blog, I asked why I put myself through the stress of 90 minutes watching football. The truth is that only the stress I experienced yesterday lifts truly distracts me from the fact that human beings are extraordinarily good at buggering things up. Why do we never learn? The sad truth is that there is no answer.

All we can really do as individuals on a planet with 8 billion people on is to try and get through as best we can. With that thought, I leave you and suggest that if you need cheering up, come and see my band, The False Dots on Friday 3rd February at The Dublin Castle. It is our 45th Birthday party. When we started James Callaghan was the PM and we were in the tail end of the Winter of Discontent. Scary really

The Saturday List #427 - How I'd spend my lottery winnings - Updated

Back in 2012, I did The Saturday List #22 - How I will spend my lottery winnings 

I came across this during the week.  I wondered if, after 12 years, I'd changed my mind.

So here is the updated list. 

Here is the list I put together in 2012 - Ive struck out the things I'd no longer do

Gifts Number Amount Total Brothers & Sisters 6 7,000 42000 Nephews & nieces 18 7,000 126000 Children 3 7,000 21000 In laws 2 7,000 14000 Staff 9 7,000 63000 Friends 16 7,000 112000 Commercial, business and charity Studio refit  1 200,000 200000 Share Foundation 1 50,000 50000 The Passage 1 50,000 50000 Donation to HCPT 1 50,000 50000 Buy Friern Barnet Library for community 1 430,000 430000 Make a film about Barnet with a proper budget 1 30,000 30000 Set up foundation to make the Barnet Eye blog into a commercially successful online magazine with staff 1 500,000 500000 Luxurys Studio flat in Brighton 1 700,000 700000 Aston Martin DB6 1 40,000 40000 Family Holiday in Australia 1 20,000 20000 Redecorate the House 1 30,000 30000 Slap up Night out for all friends and familty 1 10,000 10000 Trip to see Steve Miller band in Las Vegas 1 2,000 2000 Get Married in the Elvis chapel in Las Vegas 1 10,000 10000 2500000

              

So lets start with why the things I struck out, I'd no longer do.

I was a Trustee of The Share Foundation. The organisation was wound up a few years ago and I believe its operations are carried on by another organisation, but I am not involved. I am proud of the work we did then. 

As we saved Frien Barnet Library, it doesn't need to be saved anymore.

Time has moved on and there is no longer a need to persuade Barnet Council that the One Barnet outsourcing project would be a disaster, before they made a big mistake. They ignored our protest and made a big mistake. This has now been acknowledged. I did my best, but didn't win the lottery.

I no longer have the desire to do do any more than write a personal blog. Any delusions of granduer I had have long gone.

As to the Aston Martin, I am well past any mid life crisis that may have fuelled that.

 

-- So what would I add?

I'd set up a record label, to promote young artists playing Ska and Punk, and pay for them to put together proper albums. I'd spend £500,000 on this (I'd also sneak out a few False Dots releases).

Well, I'd have to win a lot more money, but if I had £2,5 million, I'd build another block on our studio, including a microbrewery, a proper music education facility and a proper venue area, with an onsite micro brewery. 

If I had another £3.5 million, I'd buy the Midland Hotel in Hendon and transform it into the pub that the West of the Borough of Barnet deserves. It would become London's best suburban music pub, but would have all manner of other community activities. It would sell the beers from my microbrewery and other small scale breweries. I'd take advantage of the proximity to Thameslink, get it in tge Good Beer Guide and pay the musicians who play a decent whack, to ensure the best artists play. 

So I've saved £1,005,000 but spend £6.5 million more. Seems like I've even less self control than before!

Anyway, if you've got the odd eight million quid spare and you want to make an old git very happy, drop me a DM. I'll be buying a ticket tonight, fingers crossed!

If I had the dough, I'd spend a bit on promoting this a bit more. The False Dots are playing at The Dublin Castle on Sat 3rd February, if you fancy a good night out, click here for tickets. 

I worked on the Post Office Horizon project but I couldn't spill the beans, even if I had beans to spill

So first of all, yes, I worked on the Horizon project. I didn't work for the Post Office, I worked with a partner company and was involved in extensive testing of our systems with the Horizon system. I can say this as it's on my CV and is no secret. I worked as a freelance IT contractor and had responsibility for much of what we called integration and performance testing between our system and the Post Office systems. For clarity I didn't work on any of the systems that went wrong. That is really all I can say. 

I can't say any more, as I signed a non disclosure agreement when I commenced work on the project and was reminded of this by the legal bods, when they realised I was a prolific blogger. Having said that, there are many aspects of what has happened that anyone who has ever worked on a large scale IT project should have concluded. Anyone who has worked on a large project, would end up concluding the same. 

Firstly, let’s talk about the issue of client confidentiality. Any financial institution handling money will require staff to sign up to prevent client and customer confidentiality being compromised .This is a perfectly reasonable thing for an organisation to do. There are many extremely commercially sensitive elements of the job and it would be almost impossible for companies to implement projects, if every time someone got a beef, they contacted the press. Every IT system I worked on, and this included for Nat West, Lloyds, LINK and BACS has problems. It is highly unusual for these to impact people and generally when they do this is recognised and fixed, and those people who are out of pocket are properly re-imbursed. Billions of electronic transactions happen every day in the UK, every time you tap your card, a transaction occurs and it is almost unknown for that to fail. These systems are incredibly reliable. But sometimes, they do go wrong. Usually, the problems are caused by the sheer volume and growth in the systems. What should happen when a customer reports a problem, is that an IT support team should investigate it. It should be fairly easy to identify that something has gone on. Fixing it is a different matter, but once a problem occurs, it should be logged and investigated and if the same thing happens again, then the priority of fixing it increases. When a problem is logged, should a customer experience a problem, you will check whether the symptoms correlate with a known bug.

There has been a lot of talk of Horizon and what went wrong. I am surprised that no one has offered an explanation of what the issue actually was. Lets start by looking at how the situation occurred.

The system was brought in by the Post Office to be a single entity to manage the business requirements of running the post office business. When you go into a post office and send a parcel, buy some sweets, take money out of your account over the counter etc, the system you interact with, that takes the transaction and gives you a receipt was Horizon. It replaced a hotch potch of older systems, some manual such as giro cheques for benefits. The company that supplied it was Fujitsu. The company had a decades long relationship with the Post Office. It had previously been ICL, the UK computer company. Fujitsu bought the ICL business in 1990. As a British company, ICL was the IT supplier of choice for the UK government. Fujitsu inherited this preferred supplier status. The UK organisation that the Post Office dealt with was pretty much the same on that had been ICL previously. I doubt too many people would have an issue with a UK government company dealing with a UK company. Of course, there is the issue of senior executives giving money to the Tory party. This does fail the sniff test, but it must be said that the contract was signed under Labour and ICL/Fujitsu was a preferred supplier under both parties. In fact, I am more than happy for the Government to give business to UK based companies.

As to why the Horizon programme came into being. This would have happened regardless of the government, unless a Tory government had broken up the Post Office, which I doubt anyone would have wanted. Maintaining a system that has been cobbled together and evolved over the years is expensive and hard to maintain. The new system offered the Post Office, which had huge financial challenges, a massive cost saving. Executives were under pressure from the government to get the system in. Horizon was a key plank of the savings. I must add that I wasn't involved at a senior level, so all of this is not privileged knowledge, it is a statement of fact, that anyone with a knowledge of such things and an interest could conclude. The Post Office has been under massive political pressure for decades to save cash. Executives were terrified that if they failed to save money, the organisation would be broken up. The management of the IT teams implementing Horizon knew that the future of the Post Office was very much reliant on a successful implementation of Horizon and the savings it would deliver. A failure to deliver may have been the end of the Post Office as we know it. This pressure is the real root cause of the whole mess.

Fujitsu developed the system and it was delivered for testing (this predated my time on the project).  The Post Office, as the client had a responsibility to test the software properly. There would have been several phases. System testing, where the components are tested with data that mimic real life situations are tested. The Post Office IT business analysts would (or should) have identified every scenario that can occur and written scripts to exercise the code. Once all of this was done, there would be integration testing. This is where all the components are joined up and end to end testing happens. So the parts that link the till functions are linked to accounting systems. Again full test plans of all scenarios are executed. The next phase of this testing is performance testing, where the systems have loadings that simulate real life operations are tested. Once the software has been signed off as working, there is user acceptance testing, where people who work in the business use the system, to ensure it meets their requirements and useable by normal people and not just IT geeks, and operational testing, where the IT teams make sure it is all manageable.

 All of these phases have to be completed successfully before the system can be put live. 

In each phase, defects with the software will be identified. Some of these are deemed cosmetic and the system can be put in with these. A cosmetic error is one where customers are not impacted, such as where a screen item should be in bold and isn't etc. Then there are defects which may impact a customer, but may still be considered to be OK to proceed. It may be something along the lines of information on a till receipt not being displayed as it should be, but still being correct. Then there are what are known as showstoppers. These are the problems where a customer is impacted (for the absence of doubt, we will consider Postmasters as customers of the Horizon system). This typically means that there will be a financial impact. All of the above feeds into a process known as acceptance testing. Once the criteria to put a product live has been met, the senior management sign off the test results and the system can be put in.

What surprised me about the discussion, is that there has been no discussion at all as to whether the Horizon system passed these tests, or whether serious defects were identified and the system signed off with defects, on the basis that the problems were known and could be managed. This does happen occasionally, especially if the new system reduces similar errors in an older system. I would have thought this would be the key. Of course, IT business analysts cannot identify every scenario. Sometimes equipment doesn't behave in the field as it is supposed to. Sometimes the people operating it do not properly understand how to operate it, as they are complex and require a degree of training. There are very few systems that have no errors or defects at all, but most are minor and happen only when weird and whacky things happen.  

Typically, a new system has a warranty period from the suppliers (Fujitsu). Defects are fixed for free during this period. After that, the system goes into a period of paid support. What we no know, is  that Horizon had serious defects, that caused tens of thousands of pounds to 'disappear'. Up to this point, I can understand what happened. Sometimes, when things go live, scenarios that were not predicted happen. 

What I can't understand is what happened next. The system clearly had a massive defect. This is not unique, it happens quite regularly when new software is implemented on all manner of systems. There have been many documented in the press. What doesn't happen is that there is no effort at all to identify it. I have worked on all manner of financial systems. The first time a Postmaster was 'investigated',  a full audit of the post office should be done. This should mean that every single transaction should be checked by an auditor. Quite rightly, the Postmaster should sit down with the auditor and all of these verified. The sad truth is that people do nick money, but it is almost always easy to spot. When the Post Office started to see hundreds of postmasters being flagged up as performing fraud, there most certainly should have been a forensic investigation. The idea that anyone in IT would believe a new, highly complex system to be infallible is ridiculous. What puzzles me, in all the coverage I've seen,  no one has offered an explanation of how the cash disappeared from the system. 

Were multiple debits for the same transaction appearing on the system? Were huge single transactions being spuriously generated by the system? It is all bizarre. Post Offices have cameras, surely these were checked? The thing is, that whatever happened, no one should end up in court for fraud, without a proper audit of what has happened in their Post Office where the alleged fraud occurred. It cannot be the case that a system said "This person nicked £75,000" and that was the sole evidence. There are till rolls that can be tallied etc. Was it the same problem for all of the victims, or was it a myriad of problems?

I wasn't going to write this blog, but I watched the testimony of the investigator yesterday. I was horrified. It seems to me that rather than going through and forensically producing a list of dodgy transactions and asking for an explanation, a highly aggressive form of interview was conducted, where there was pressure put on innocent people to explain something that they clearly couldn't.

I would have expected that as soon as a pattern of unexplained fraud came to light, the IT team should have taken a look at what was going on and identified the problem. Another thing I don't understand is that when people have conducted large scale fraud, there are tell tale signs. People generally don't conduct fraud and simply stash the cash under their bed. They spend it. Be it on a new car, a new house, their mistress, the bookies, drugs. There is nearly always some sort of giveaway. Of course, investigators are told that the system has the poor sod who has been misidentified bang to rights, but a competent investigator should keep a degree of an open mind and look for some sort of evidence that there has been a lifestyle change. 

As the number of people affected started to spiral, the alarm bells should have rung. No one, to this day, has said a word as to what the problem was, when it was actually identified as a software problem and whether there was a forensic investigation of those wrongly charged, as to whether they were a victim.

So where did it go wrong. The politicians are all saying that the Post Office lied to them and they had no idea of the scale. I have a degree of sympathy with this. Although 700 postmasters were identified, it is unlikely, given that we have more than 600 MP's that any MP had more than one or two constituents affected. The MP's would have initially thought that whatever happened was a one off, especially of the Post Office assured them that was the case. When the scale became apparent, the Government, as the chief shareholder, should have demanded an explanation. By the time this came to pass, it is likely that the Post Office team that implemented Horizon had been redeployed, people had left etc. I do wonder what happened to the test results, defect logs etc, from the acceptance testing phases. I wonder what happened to the logs from the Post Offices where fraud cases were brought. I wonder whether people in IT support knew, but had no effective whistle blowing process. I wonder if senior managers, under pressure from Government, to save taxpayers cash, lied so the the PO could achieve the savings that Horizon promised.

I have seen a lot of criticism of Fujitsu. I believe this is unfair. They should not have had access to the live data. If the Post Office new of problems, they should have managed them. Fujitsu would not have access to the data that caused the problem, as financial institutions do not share real customer data with suppliers. If the Post Office knew there were bugs, they should have managed the problem and not sent people to prisons, it was there problem alone. You may not like companies that donate money to the Tories, but if the Post Office managed their IT systems properly, this simply wouldn't have happened. I have no links to Fujitsu, but my understanding of the IT development process, to my mind exonerates them.

To my mind, there are three causes for this.

1) The Post Office IT management were put under unreasonable political pressure to save money, resulting in a breakdown in the accepted process of managing IT change.

2) The Civil Servants charged with oversight of the Post Office were too incompetent to spot the red flags that should have been waved when hundreds of Postmasters started to get prosecuted.

3) Parliament is not fit for purpose in the 21st Century to deal with victims of corporate IT failure. MP's lack expertise and understand of the complexity of systems and there is no proper support that they can call on. If Parliament had and expert team that MP's could call on to advise, then once dozens of MP's started reporting issues in their constituencies, then this would have been identified far more quickly.

Bear in mind that this is not the first major failure in a Government IT project. The vast majority are late and go over budget. I don't think this is always the fault of the IT firms. In my opinion, it is due to the government not allocating proper budgets in the first place. IT companies deliberately underbid, knowing that once they get the job, they can hike prices up. In short, this results in shoddy developments. To some extent, the same is true for other infrastructure projects such as HS2. Underbidding and then ramping up costs and timelines mean things end up costing more than if done properly in the first place. 

In my opinion the Horizon fiasco is only a symptom of the utter failure of the UK to manage large infrastructure projects. Until Parliament gets to grips with this, we will see this happen time and again, costing money, ruining lives and causing scandals that we are outraged for a week or two about, and then we forget until the next scandal. 

Rock and Roll Stories 2 - How to be a Rock and Roller by Lemmy

 Lets start with a confession. I am not a Motorhead fan. They are just a bit too heavy for my tastes. I love the idea of the band, I love their logo, I love Lemmy, but the actual music simply never floated my boat. I'd probably be more likely to wear a Motorhead T-shirt than buy a record. But for me, Lemmie was Mr Rock and Roll. A wise sage, the John the Baptist of Rock, who has a million times more fans than record sales. I do have a big sweet spot for their music on a jukebox, you cannot hear "The Ace of Spades" on the Jukebox and not smile. Back in the late 1970's and early 1980's, there were a bunch of bikers who would sit at the back of the Beehive pub in Edgware and deal various illegal substances. They by and large kept themselves to themselves and only really interacted with the rest of the pub when dodgy deals were being struck. I knew a few of them to nod to. My sister had hung around with the Mendes, the local bike gang of the era, going out with one of the members briefly, until he was locked up for a failed drunken theft from a dirty book stall in Euston. They knew I was in a band and we had a short period, where the band used to play at local bike rallies. I had huge kudos with one or two, as they knew I "knew Lemmy". I'd always make sure I put Ace of Spades on the jukebox when I went in, just to keep up the illusion. 

So, you may ask, how did I actually know Lemmy. Well the truth is that I didn't. I spent one evening in Dingwalls, chatting to him. Not just for five minutes, but for most of the night. What would Lemmy have to say to a snotty nosed teenager from Mill Hill? Well quite a lot actually. I've never imparted this wisdom before and bear in mind that it has aged, as have I, with time, but it is not embellished. Any errors are omission, by alcohol and age, but the substance is largely correct.

So how did I come to be Lemmy's best mate? Well, lets go back to January 1980. This was immediately after events in the previous episode. Pete Conway, my best mate and the person I founded The False Dots with, had not turned up for our first gig, letting the me down in a devastating manner. We'd been mates since we were four years old and had spent two years building the band. Then he simply didn't show up.

We had a good band, but we lacked a proper singer and front man. At the time, it hadn't occurred to me to sing. The choir mistress and my teachers had convinced me that I had no talent at all. I was still mastering the guitar and there was no way I was ready for that challenge. In hindsight ( a wonderful thing), I should have just done it and got on with it, but I had no confidence. I did a few numbers, but they were the wrong songs for me, something it took a long time to understand. I was in a crisis. I'd spent two years with Pete planning how The False Dots would take over the world, but it had all dissolved. To say I was gutted was the understatement of all time. It was worse than most of the romantic break ups I've had. It wasn't a sexual thing, but I loved Pete and thought we'd be in the band together for ever. He simply hadn't turned up. It was the most casual and hurtful snub imaginable.  But we still had a band and I was more determined than ever to make a go of it, if for no other reason than loyalty to Paul, Craig and Dav, who'd stood beside me when Pete let me down.

At the time, I was going to gigs all the time. I'd go with mates or on my own. Mostly, I went to the Moonlight Club, The Marquee and The Music Machine. There was one place though, I particularly liked, for the worst of reasons. It was Dingwalls. At the time, if you arrived before 10pm, drinks were half priced. The plan was to get there at 7.30pm when it opened, get tanked and then watch the band. I can't remember who I was seeing, who I went with or why, but in January I found myself there as they opened. I was the second person in the place  The first? At the Bar was Lemmy. He was almost a permanent fixture at the bar at the time. I went over and say down next to him, ordered a pint of lager and asked if he wanted one. He nooded and took a double JD and Coke. This was pretty much the etiquette at Dingwalls, when in the presence of the great man. Usually he'd say cheers, have a sip and turn away, but he looked me up and down, saw my Ramones T-Shirt, bought at The Rainbow in 1977 and my badge that said "The Doomed" (which was what the Damned billed themselves as when they reformed in 1978 and played at The Moonlight club) and gave me an inquisitive look. 

He enquired "Were you at those gigs?", to which I replied "Yeah, I love the Ramones and The Damned". Lemmy nodded "Proper Rock and Roll". I then said "Yeah, if I hadn't seen the Ramones at The Roundhouse, I'd probably never have started my band". Lemmy looked me up and down and said "You've got a band, what sort of stuff do you do?". I said "Most of its our own stuff, a couple of covers, we do  a Heartbreakers song. Wild thing and Rockabilly guy by The Polecats as covers". He sort of nodded approvingly and said "Doing any gigs?". I laughed and said "We did one before Christmas, but my best mate, who was the lead singer never showed up. We'd been putting it together for two years and he let us down". Lemmy shook his head and said "Bastard". He then said "You know, if you wanna be a rock and roll band, you've got to live rock and roll. You can't work in an estate agent and wear a suit in the day, then dress up in a t shirt and jeans and become a band". I replied "Well he's a butcher, but we'd spend more or less every night practicing and writing songs". He then asked what we did about the no show. I said "Well we just did it without him, it was a bit chaotic, the drummers snare broke after three numbers, but the crowd seemed to like it. We made a load of cash and had a bit of a party after, which was great". Lemmy said "Yeah" and nodded approvingly. He then said "You know Rock and Roll isn't the captain of the football team and the best looking girl in the school, it's all the deadbeats, weirdos and misfits, who feel like outsiders, the hookers, the dealers and the drunks. If you give them a place to go, you'll get by in rock and roll". He then said "there's two types of music, there's the stuff where clever people show off to other clever people and then there's rock and roll, which beats your brains out and you leave with your head spinning. The people who love rock and roll want to be completely blown away by the band and any discussions after will simply be "That was F@@king great". Around this time a couple of Motorhead fans in well iron T-Shirts came up to have a chat. Lemmy gave them short shrift and said "I'm having a conversation" or words to the effect. At some point in the conversation, we discussed The Damned, who he did a few collaborations with around that time. He also mentioned that he'd saved Johnny Moped from getting his legs broken by the local Hells Angels chapter, but I only found out the full story when I watched the Johnny Moped documentary recently I'd assued it was some punk/biker thing. 

I was quite stunned. Here I was having a good old chit chat with a rock and roll legend. I asked him how he got the right people in the band, he simply said "it just happens, you do the right things and it happens". Around this point, I realised my mates had arrived and were gawping at me from afar. I bought Lemmy another JD and Coke. I figured that was the least I could do for the advice. A couple of people he knew then came over and started chatting and I joined my friends. A couple of other locals had also spied me and the word went around that I knew Lemmy. 

I never really gave it too much thought. If he'd been a Ramone, I'd probably have been too starstruck to speak. After that if I saw him I'd nod and he'd usually nod back, although I've no idea if he remembered chatting to me. It did change the way I thought about the band. I realised that you had to do the things to "make it happen" and you had to find your audience. The False Dots would never have and audience that came to see virtuoso musicians playing clever music. What we could do was make the night as much of a party as we could. All of the wrong turns and cock up's we made, were when we got members in the band who wanted to move away from this ethos. That is not to say we don't make great music, but we were not going to do things the normal way. We attracted a string of rather strange characters that we gave some sort of home to. We had the the local punk Poet DC who'd always turn up and read poetry at our shows. We had the local acid casualty Yogi, who'd turn up and try and sell his wares to the crowds and talk of the Grateful Dead. We had an arsonist, who I won't name, as he's a reformed character, who never said much but was always setting things on fire. We had a whole collection of waif's and strays who'd come back with us after gigs, for parties that sometimes lasted for days on end. I occasionally wondered if we'd have developed that side of the band anyway, without the Lemmy giving me an audience as our guru. But in a very few words, he solved, for me at least, what the conundrum of good rock and roll was. Anyone who knows me, knows the bands that I can't stand. Maybe, if they read this they'll have a better insight as to why. 

---

If you'd told me then that The False Dots would still be going now, 45 years later, I'd have thought you mad, but here we are!

 Lemmy's advice must have done some good as we are celebrating our 45th Birthday gig on Sat 3rd Feb at The Dublin Castle. Come along! 

The full story of the band is on our website CLICK HERE

This is our new single. A celebration of the Sci Fi Girls of the 1970's, with a bit of a glam feel thrown in.

Joey Barton, Matthew Le Tissier, football commentary and the art of talking complete bollox!

Ask anyone my age to name the greatest ever football commentator and they will hark back to the 'Golden Age' of football commentators. The names they mention will include Brian Moore, John Motson and of course the legendary Kenneth Woolstenhome who exclaimed "They think it's all over, it is now" as Geoff Hurst completed his hatrick and England won the World cup in 1966. There are plenty of others, perhaps not held in such high esteem, but loved none the less, such as David Coleman, who's mistakes prompted his own column in Private Eye called "Colemanballs". One feature all of these shared was that they were not footballers, they were media professionals. No one has ever stated that they were rubbish at their job because they had not played professional football at a high level. 

Then we have the pundits. My first recollection of "Expert pundits" was Jimmy Hill on match of the day. Hill had been a player, manager, chair of the PFA and was an excellent pundit. He would cast a professional eye over the weekends football and give informed views. His experience was second to none and he always had something interesting to say. I'd love to hear his views on VAR. Football punditry started to change with the Saint and Greavsie show. Both Ian St John and Jimmy Greaves had been top level footballers, but the show was as much about the banter and chemistry of the pair as it was about their expert views. They were both great on TV and the show was a classic. 

When Sky TV became a player, we had Richard Keys and Andy Gray. In some ways the Morecombe and Wise of football punditry. Keys, the professional broadcaster, was the straight man. Gray, a top level footballer, but also great on TV and an informative pundit. As Satellite and online coverage grew, more and more pundits were called upon. Sadly, the quality control did not really improve. Match Of the Day had Gary Lineker as lead. Lineker was a brilliant player, Englands second highest ever goal scorer when he retired. He comes across as an affable and pleasant presenter and adapted to broadcasting as easily as he'd scored goals. He has had a conveyor belt of pundits, until recently retired male footballers tow ork with. Some have been brilliant. The chemistry between Roy Keane and Micah Richards perhaps the best modern example. Some have been rather boring and uninformative, such as Paul Scholes, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen etc. 

With the advent of Twitter, we started to see a new trend. Footballing demagogues, who decide that a career kicking a football around qualifies them as social commentators. It's a free world, I'm a self appointed social commentator, so I have no problem with an ex footballer doing the same. What perhaps I do find a tad galling, is the sense of self importance that they develop. What is a tad strange is that the two biggest proponents of the art are players that I used to like in their playing days. Matthew Le Tissier was a brilliant player, one who I loved watching and one who should have been a guaranteed pick for England. His tweeting, is rather 'interesting'. Matt has carved out a career on Twitter as a bit of conspiracy theorist. He is one of the leading voices of the anti vax movement and has over half a million followers. Sky dispensed with his services after 15 years as a result of his tweeting. Le Tissier challenged the company and was told his tweeting risked bringing the brand into disrepute. Le Tissier countered asking why they still employed Jordan Henderson, who had been suspended for spitting at a young girl. He clearly felt aggrieved that he felt his activities were held to a different standard that certain other well known pundits. For me, the issue is a difficult one. I believe that Le Tissier is wrong and his tweets are dangerous, as vaccination has clearly worked in ridding the world of terrible diseases such as smallpox and diptheria (which nearly killed my mum in 1937). But if he's not spouting this on Sky, should he be allowed to hold and tweet about controversial views, if it is not illegal? The BBC is more tolerant of Gary Linaker's tweeting and I can understand why Le Tissier feels he has not been equitably treated. Then again, Sky was set up by the Murdoch empire and when has The Sun or The News of The World ever treated anyone fairly. They are a private company, unlike the BBC, so if they decide that Le Tissier is bad for the brand, then that is up to them. Matt really should have thought about who he was getting into bed with, when he started collecting the pay cheques.

The second of our fledging football demagogues is Joey Barton. Joey was a product of the Manchester City academy. At a time when the team was rubbish, I rather liked Joey. He always wore his heart on his sleeve. He would put a shift in. He had a poor disciplinary record, but from my own days playing pub football badly, I took the view that a player that never got booked or sent off was a player that didn't really care enough to get stuck in. I recall one rather dodgy manager berating me, after I got sent off, saying "If you are going to get sent off, at least do the b@st@rd properly!". Joey took that to heart. When Manchester City beat QPR with the last minute Aguero winner, Barton (who by now was at QPR) was sent off. As he went off he started punching and picking fights with City players, in an attempt to take a City player with him. Joey rather amused his many admirers during a loan spell at Marseille with a TV interview, where he spoke to French TV in English, but put on a fake French accident. 

When Joey finished playing, he had a couple of stints as a rather bad manager at Fleetwood Town and Bristol Rovers. His last job ended in October 2023. Joey has clearly been looking for a new outlet for his many talents. Sadly, it seems that the job offers have not rolled in. He has launched a campaign against female football commentators. Barton feels that as they have not played football at a proper standard, they are not qualified to be commentators or pundits. Barton feels that they spoil the whole thing and even called Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward as "the Fred and Rose West of football commentary" after they appeared as pundit and co-commentator on an ITV match broadcast.

I went up to the Etihad to watch Manchester City play Huddersfield on Sunday with my millennial son. On such trips, we spend a lot of time discussing football and the issues that surround it. The subject of Joey Bartons comments came up. I watch a lot of football with my son. One of the biggest gripes we have is that the commentary and punditry is rubbish. We refer to the talking head discussions at the end of the game as "the old b@ll@cks" and he refuses to watch it. He has a special dislike of BT sports commentary, which is invariably awful (now TNT Sports). Football is not science, almost every controversial issue in a game is to some degree subjective (apart from goal line technology). The number of times there is a red card, that an ex player will say "If ever you've played the game, you'd never give that". Oddly though, there are no ex players acting as refs of advising VAR. It is a long time since I played any sort of game with a manager, but they'd always tell me to "get stuck in". If you took out an opponent, in the act of winning a ball, that was always seen as a benefit, not something terrible. I've no idea whether this is now out of fashion, but I simply refuse to believe that managers like Revie, Clough, Shankly, Ferguson etc would not think along those lines. The likes Norman Hunter, Stuart Pearce, Roy Keane etc did not take care of opponents wellbeing in a tackle. Oddly no pundits ever really mention this in the modern game. As the rules have tightened, to prevent injuries, so the pundits have become less honest about what is expected of players by their managers. 

When we discussed Bartons comments, there were three main reasons we disagreed with him. The first and most obvious is that most pundits are as dull as dishwater. If dull female pundits were replacing sparkling experts, who astound us with their wit and knowledge, he'd have a point. But they don't, they either have nothing of interest to say, or are opinionated, biased and rather uninteresting (Robbie Savage is a fine example of this genre). The second is that, as mentioned at the start of this blog, some of the greatest commenators were not even footballers, they were excellent broadcasters, on top of their brief. Third, the level that a player played at has no correlation with their ability to commentate. Take for example Roy Keane and Micah Richards. Much as I loathe Keane as a Man City fan, I concede he is a far better player than Micah Richards. Not only that, he is far more knowledgeable about football. However Richards is far better TV. When he works with Keane, he elevates Keane's punditry. Often he does this by talking rubbish, which riles Keane and gets something interesting that he wouldn't say otherwise. Sometimes he flatters Keane to get a golden nugget. The bottom line is that Richards is a great TV performer, despite being a fairly average footballer. If you take Joey Bartons theory as to who should commentate to its logical conclusion, only Champions League winners should commentate on Champions League finals. I don't think a team of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes would do much for my enjoyment. As to the World Cup? We'd be stuck completely there. 

As far as I am concerned, Barton hasn't really thought this comments through. As female pundits are a fairly new phenomena, many are finding their feet as media professionals. As far as commercial broadcasters such as Sky are concerned, they act purely in their own commercial interests. When Sky started broadcasting football, the audience was largely male. With the rise of Womens football, this has changed and the female pundits help grow the audience. My daughters never watched football when they were small. The England womens team has changed that. The advertisers and subscribers, who ultimately pay the wages of the pundits and commentators, want as wide an audience as possible. They see female pundits as key to accessing their audience. 

It may be a useful experiment in socialogical research, given the red button technology, to give a Joey Barton option on Sky, where you have a commentary team picked by Joey Barton as an alternative option. I suspect that there would be an audience for it, but I'd be surprised if too many people under 40 years old would bother with it. 

The bottom line in all of this, is that as far as I am concerned, football punditry is pretty much the art of talking b@ll@x about football and no sane person would want to watch too much of it, except when they want to see replays of their chosen teams goal. I don't much care who is spouting it, so long as they are entertaining. I suspect that where Joey is going wrong is that he's taking the whole issue too seriously. Who would have thought that someone who puts on a fake French accent to do a TV interview in France,would fall into such a trap. 

Environment Monday - So you don't believe in climate change and global warming because it's snowing

One of the most depressing things for me on Twitter is that people will argue, until they are blue in the face, that black is white, just because they saw a tweet or a dodgy youtube video where someone made a compelling case. Global warming and climate change are perhaps the best examples of this. What I don't quite understand is why so many people with this view end up presenting a show on GB News, but that's another matter. 

A rather strange modern tendency is to apply the rules of religious belief to scientifically proveable fact. Something like belief in God is an intangible thing. It is a belief in something that cannot ever be proven or disproven. Things like global warming are proveable. There is a simple experiment, that can be done in any basic school science lab, that empircally demonstrates how this works (CLICK HERE TO READ HOW IT WORKS). This shows how CO2 in the atmosphere acts as an insulator and raises temperatures.

As for the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, this again can be measured and the insulation effect calculated as it rises. Given the nature of the earths weather systems and all manner of other variables, this is a very imprecise art, the general trend can be plotted and the models refined.

In truth, we've only had accurate weather forecasting since the advents of satellites and supercomputers. It is all a relatively new art. We have temperature measurements in countries such as the UK going back a few hundered years, but not for islands in the Pacific etc. One could reasonably make a case that we lack the data to definitively predict the effect, as we didn't have supercomputers, satellites etc  even 75 years ago, but given the potentially castastrophic effects, is that really wise. There is enough data available to demonstrate that things are changing, CO2 levels are rising, climate is changing in many countries and the world is getting hotter. 

In the UK, the weather is dictated by the direction the wind blows in. If it is coming from the south west, the weather is generally wet and cold in summer and warm in winter. If it is from the North East, the opposite is true. It is hard to see patterns here. If you live in Sub Saharan Africa, then the change is very noticeable. When it comes down to it, lets consider an anolgy. If you are driving your car down country lanes, do you drive slowly, because you have no idea what is around the corner, or do you put your foot down, because you will get to the pub early and there may be nothing around the corner? To my mind, the sensible thing to do is to be cautious and be sensible. Proceed carefully. 

We have enough evidence to indicate caution is wise. 

The Saturday List #426 - Twenty things that only people who know me very well might possibly understand the meaning of

 For New Year, we went way with friends.  The group are based on friends I made between 1983-1986 when I worked for an IT company called SPL International. The firm was based on Windmill Street, just off Tottenham Court Road. Every year, they would take 30 new graduates on. They'd be fresh out of Uni, from the sticks and looking to enjoy themselves, as they earned decent money and had time on their hands. I am not a graduate, my boss took me on to do all the rubbish work that he'd be embarrassed to ask graduates to do. A group of us would go to the pub every night and on a Friday go to the Neel Kamal on Percy Street, for a curry and then to the Windmill for a few pints, before finishing the weeks work. We formed some very strong friendship bonds, which are still in place. This year's group comprised of five couples. If you think that it was a bunch of nerdy blokes plus partners, you'd be wrong. Two of the original SPL group are female, and partners have been added and assimilated into the group. Over the years, the partners have become as strong friends as the original boozing club. Only one of the group still works in IT, the rest are retired. 

I was contemplating the conversations we had and other friendship groups I have. I have a similar one around my band, people who've been around since the start. Occasionally, we talk about the early days of the band. Single words will result in everyone bursting out into laughter. We had a whole protocol of things that we could and couldn't say, on pain of near death.

It got me thinking. There are lots of things that I could say, that only someone from one or other of the group may know. Now I know that this will be of no interest to anyone else on the planet, but hey ho, this gives me great pleasure to write, so enjoy or not. There will be about a dozen people on the planet who will snigger when they see this, and I suspect that the most they will understand is 10. Apologies to the rest of you.

1. Cuban Troop Formations.

2. The round number club

3. Mork dance

4. La Vie En Rose

5. The barrel of doom

6. The Feast of St Lucia

7. Piece of wood

8. The School Room

9. The Turkish Cell

10. "I'm Nick Perks"

11. Emil's van

12. First 100 pints of Guinness free!

13. Late night football under the motorway

14. "Alan Haimes ten points"

15. Goatybeard United

16. Tandem beer bust

17. "Don't go that way, go this way, that way's much quicker"

18. ADS 365 drinks cabinet

19. "Cuppa tea"

20. Thorpe Park

This may have been totally incomprehensible to you, but every one made me snigger or smile

Gabba Gabba Hey to one and all!

Friday Fun 6th January 2024

 Only three hundred and fifty three shopping days until Christmas. It's raining, everyone is skint and it's cold and grey. I think we all need a joke. I am endebted to Mr Robert Wilkinson for this one. A bit un PC, but it made me laugh and spill my tea (Happy New Year Robert!)

Earlier today my wife told me that she'd been looking online into her family's past whereupon she discovered that she had some Viking ancestors.

I always thought she had a face like a Norse.

— Robert Wilkinson (@robertwlk) January 4, 2024

If you are looking for some fun this weekend, there are some great things going on locally. First off, local(via Merseyside) legends Those Naughty Lumps are playing at Maddens bar in Finchley, they are always good for a night out, if you like your music Young, Old, loud and snotty!

Other gigs

Friday 5th January

NewMickey Rose (Karaoke) at The Three Wishes, Edgware 4.5 miles

9pm - 11pm

Saturday 6th January

Mayhem (Covers 60s - present, Duo) at East Barnet Royal British Legion Club, East Barnet 1.8 miles

8pm - 11pm

NewJust Jammin' (Rock / Blues, 4 piece) at The Three Wishes, Edgware 4.5 miles

9pm - 11pm

Monday 8th January

Jan's North London Jam (Jam Session) at The Three Wishes, Edgware 4.5 miles

9pm - 11pm

And finally, don't forget that my band, The False Dots will be celebrating our 45th Birthday on Friday 3rd February at The Dublin Castle.

Rock and Roll stories 1 - The Birth of the False Dots in 1979

This February, The False Dots will be 45 years old!

 I cannot really believe it, where does the time go?

On the third of February at The Dublin Castle, we will be having a party to celebrate. 

Please come along and join in the fun, we promise you a night to remember.

This is the story, warts and all, of how it started, up to our first gig. I think it might make quite a good film, if anyone out there is looking for a good rock and roll story

The first year of the False Dots, was like a story from a horror movie, in truth an unmitigated disaster as I recorded in my scrapbook. We got together for the first rehearsal on the 14th February 1979. Myself and Pete Conway had been planning to put a band together for a couple of years. Pete left Finchley Catholic High School in June 1978, got a job at Dewhursts Butchers and bought a bass guitar. I borrowed my sisters Kimbara Les Paul copy, which looked amazing but played like a cheese grater. I hustled some money together and bought a FAL 50 watt amp, that Pete and I could play through. We started madly writing songs and learned a few cover versions. By December1979, we thought we were ready and recruited Dave Edwards and Mandy Spokes, at a gig at the Marquee featuring The Fall and Manicured Noise. We spent a month or so discussing things, getting songs together, Dave Borrowed a drumkit, the most basic possible. It had a bass drum, snare and hi hat. It suited our ability and our minimalist music. The original songs were nihilistic blasts, with strong and very naive political rants, with titles such as Never Free, Power Game, Wrong and No Confidence. The covers were dodgy versions of songs that we sort of thought we could manage, including WIld Thing, I Wanna Be Loved (by The Heartbreakers) and Johnny B. Goode. We also did a punk version of Rockabilly Guy by The Polecats, who were our mates. I'm not sure that they appreciated the tribute. 

In August, following a rehearsal, our drummer Dave Edwards was viciously attacked on his way home from a rehearsal. He was pushed head first through the window of WH Smiths on Mill Hill Broadway. He was then chased up the road and thrown through the window of the Jewellers, where Rockman now is. The reason? the lads thought he was Pete Conway, who had taken the mickey out of one of them for wearing a Fred Perry shirt with a tie. Dave severed a tendon as he put his arms up to shield his face. He was with his girlfriend and our then singer Mandy Spokes. The band had been booked to support the UK Subs in Derby. We also had an interview booked with Xpert-I fanzine.  His assailants were arrested at the time, by a passing Police van and got 18 months. The fallout from this resulted in a  big tear up in Mill Hill Broadway a couple of weeks later, between the mates of his assailants, who were Mods from Burnt Oak and the local Rockers, who were our mates. One of our mates had his car set on fire in Hartley Avenue. It was a customised Rockabilly motor, his pride and joy and he was devastated. I think it was the only riot in the history of Mill Hill. 

Two weeks later, Pete Conway was ambushed by the same group. He had a severe beating and made his way to my house. We were supposed to be going to see Crass. My Dad wanted to take him to hospital, but Pete refused and we went to the gig. A week later, I was waking back from Burnt Oak station, when three of the gang approached me. They chased me all of the way from the Watling to the bottom of my road. I was fitter and they ran out of puff. I ran in, found my Dad's woodchopping axe, and then ran back and chased them all the way back. I lost them in the park and started screaming that if I ever saw them again, I'd chop them up. I then came to my senses and ran back to Mill Hill. I had taken a large amount of amphetamine sulphate that night and I felt like Superman. In the morning, I reflected on what happened and never took any, ever again. A few weeks later, a friend that I'd bought it off, who lived in Kings Cross and a bunch of their mates died after taking a batch cut with something poisonous. It made the front pages of the press. I concluded that someone, somewhere was looking after me. 

We had to cancel the gig with The UK Subs and the interview with Xpert-I was as disasterous as you could imagine. Pete was completely pissed. All we could play them was dodgy cassette recordings of rehearsals, that sounded awful. Pete, who was normally eloquent and highly intelligent acted like a complete idiot. We realised it was a disaster, but Pete thought it was hilarious and we'd got one over on the inteviewer. When it came out it said that the only thing more immature than our music was our personalities and that we were the perfect example of how not to be in a band. I wish I could find a copy. 

The band had two more rehearsals, but the fun had gone and we split up in acrimony in September. That was that....

Until December 1979. I'd not seen Pete, who I'd known since I was four for three months. I bumped into him on Bunns Lane. Having both spent three months telling everyone we hated each others guts, we immediately got talking and decided to reform the band. We both agreed we were rubbish. We needed new songs and new ideas. Having sworn to everyone that I'd kill Pete next time I saw him, we went to the Railway pub, drank five pints of Guinness, got into a fight with some other customers and banned, then went back to my house. We talked about music properly. We'd both expanded our interests since we last spoke. I'd seen the Specials and the 2-Tone tour in 1979 and this influenced me. I'd also listened to the Velvet Underground. We realised that the political rants left a lot to be desired. The Specials songs, such as Much to young made me realise that you could tell stories to get points across. 

Pete and I discussed the 'new material'. We said we'd write one song at a time and get it right and only play songs we were proud of. If it meant taking five years to get a set together, so be it. We decided that the first song would be a statement. We would write something so shocking, so controversial, so left field that we could not be ignored. But what subject? With some influence from the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed and also an incident in the Moonlight Club, where Pete chatted up someone we'd now describe as pre op transsexual, without realising, we decided to write a song about a boy in the sticks, who decides he's a girl, moves to London and starts working as a prostitute. She gets involved with a Tory MP, who falls in love, but cannot take the relationship further. She had been controlled by a violent pimp, who stole all her money. She disappears and is never seen again, when he catches up with her. The song took her side, the marginal person, the person no one ever sees. It was a far more mature song than the people who wrote it, we'd sing it and giggle. 

Then one day she won't be there

She can't have taken enough care

She met someone that she used to know

She packed her bags and she had to go

We wrote a proper song, with a proper structure. Pete started going out with "Deb", who played drums. We had a rehearsal at my sisters flat, playing this and two other songs. It sounded so good, that we knocked on the door of the Hippies who lived next door and asked them to come in to listen. They rolled a few spliffs and said it sounded great. 

Until that moment, the band had no identity and nothing of interest about it We were a few kids posing as musicians. That was the moment when The False Dots really became something more. We realised that being in a band requires more than posing, playing tightly and shouting slogans. We then had a two or three month period where we were madly writing songs. When we fell out in September 1979, we stopped hanging around and going to gigs together, we'd made new friends, but for 2 or three months, we spent three nights a week writing songs. We recrited the son of Hank Marvin, Paul on drums. He brought Paul Hircombe in on lead guitar, a 14 year old school mate from Moat Mount. We got to jam at Hank's private studio in Radlett. In June, Paul Marvin left and Dav Davies, a brilliant drummer and mate of Alan Warner joined to do a demo. With two competent musicians in the band in Dav and Paul Hircombe, the band, which had widely been considered a joke by our friends, became a serious proposition. The demo turned out far better than anyone could have anticipated. We agreed to start looking for gigs, then to my horror, Pete Conway left in August, he had a new girlfriend and could no longer be bothered with the band. This was a pivotal moment. The band had always been Pete and myself. He was the bassplayer and singer. I was horrfied.

By now, I was at Orange Hill School. There was an excellent guitarist there, called Craig Withecombe. Craig said he liked the songs and could do something with them. He joined. He lacked Pete's electric persona, but was a brilliant musician. He joined on lead and Paul moved to bass. We started to rehearse and the songs sounded amazing. I immediately decided to do another demo. I then set up a gig for the band at The Harwood Hall. Three weeks before the gig, in December, Pete Conway got in touch. He didn't know that we'd replaced him. He suggested a beer. We went and he said "How about giving the band another go?". He'd been unaware that we'd replaced him. I knew Pete would do a better job as a singer, but he was rubbish on bass. The band was far better without him. However, they were his songs as much as mine and we'd spent three years getting to this point. I agreed that he could come back, but only as singer. 

I discussed it with Paul, Craig and Dav and they all agreed. They were quite pleased as all felt Pete would be a great front man. We rehearsed for two weeks and I felt we were more than ready. The gig was at The Harwood Hall in Mill Hill on the 13th December 1980. We got local reggae band, featuring my mate Roy Nkoji on guitar. We billed it as a Rock Against Racism gig, something important to us. I blagged a Rock Against Racism badge off a mate, Debbie Pointer at Orange Hill. I promised I'd wear it at every gig I played if she gave it to me (a promise I kept, apart from for one gig, where we had a singer we called Mark The Fascist, who was a Thatcherite, who hid it to piss me off). 

We got the local paper down to review us. We got all our mates along. We borrowed a PA system in. We had a couple of brilliant rehearsals. Without a bass to think about, Pete was a simply electric front man. He was good looking and stylish and had a massive personality. How could we miss? Sadly very easily. Pete didn't show up. Fortunately we'd rehearsed quite a lot without him. 

What should have been brilliant was sort of OK. A triumph from a disaster. Just about everything that could go wrong did. Dav's snare drum broke in the third song to top it all. But we came through. Dav left the band shortly after. I saw him last year for the first time in 43 years, when I visited Shrewsbury, where he now lives. He told me that he found a tape of the gig, He said that the songs sound surprisingly good and fresh. 

The press did turn up. Kevin Black from the local paper wrote this article >>>>

In some ways, I think that what happened was all for the best. It made me reealise that music isn't easy and there will be tears. You lose lifelong friends and you will sometimes be distraught. 

But that gig also taught me the elation you get when you do it. 45 years later, we are still going.  We still play Not All She Seems live. It is a great song. Later this year, we will release it as a single. I hope I can finally give Pete Conway his 30 pieces of silver from the royalties!

Please come and see us at our 45th Birthday party, here's our latest single

How ULEZ is devastating business in edge of London Borough's like London

The Sun sets over Mill Hill Music Complex

Every year, at this time of the year, I sit down with the bookings and sales from my music business and do an in depth dive into how the business performed, on a week by week basis for the previous year comparing with years before. We use this data to plan such things as advertising strategies, maintenance windows, etc. We analyse what we spent on advertising and how this worked.  This enables us to see what we did right in the year and what we did wrong. It shows trends in our business and enables us to work out how external events impact our business. 

In 2022, the business performed exceptionally well for the first three quarters, then had a drastic and unexpected slump for the fourth quarter. There were two main reasons for this end of year slump. The first was the death of Queen Elizabeth, which added bank holidays and cancellation of gigs, which resulted in a drop off and cancellation of bookings. The second was the world cup, which meant venues were showing football, instead of music.  This resulted in bands not requiring rehearsals. The situation was so bad for us, that we had to take out a loan to pay the VAT for the final quarter. As the final quarter of the year is traditionally the best for us, it really blindsided us. By analysing the data, we now know that if there is another world cup in the Winter (Saudi Arabia?), we will have to build cash reserves to tide us through. In 2022, we actually did some serious studio refurbishment in the summer, with cash we should have earmarked to pay bills. Had we anticipated the world cup effect, we certainly wouldn't. 

When we did some forward planning for 2023, at the start of last year, we anticipated growth of 25% as we went through the year. Our projection was that for the first two quarters this would be 15%, 20% for the third quarter and 50% for the final quarter, as Xmas gigs that didn't take place last year generated decent rehearsal income. We also expected a significant increase in retail sales. We anticipated a 10% growth in this. We have adapted our model, to try and adapt to the post covid world. This worked well generally, but we need to constantly ensure we are on top of trends that damage us.

I spent the whole of yesterday crunching the numbers. I have a lot more work to do on this but some trends are unmistakeable. On the 29th August, The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan extended the ULEZ zone on the 29th August 2023 to the edge of his jurisdiction. We are located in Mill Hill and are about 1.5 miles from the edge of the ULEZ zone. Approx 40% of our trade comes from outside of the ULEZ zone. Many of the customers for our studios and shop come from Borehamwood, Watford, other parts of Hertfordshire and beyond. Many are musicians with older vehicles. Whilst our prices are highly competetive, any customer with a non ULEZ compliant vehicle (which includes many musicians, who need to ferry gear in vans), now have to pay £12.50 per vehicle to visit us. Adding £12.50 to the cost of a session (or multiples of), makes us relatively expensive. A band of 5-6 people only needs one to have a non ULEZ complaint vehicle for the impact to be huge. 

So how did this affect us? In short, it has been pretty catastrophic. We have seen a 60-75% fall off in customers from outside the ULEZ zone, whilst seeing a 30-50% rise from customers within the zone. Whilst some businesses in central London have seen a benefit from the expansion, as customers who previously wouldn't travel in have traded cars and now are using their services, businesses like us that are on the margin, have been clobbered. We are not alone. People with non ULEZ compliant cars in Hertfordshire, who may have nipped down to Mill Hill to shop, buy services and visit our cinemas, pubs and clubs are now going elsewhere. I'd love to see how cinemas like the Phoenix and the Everyman have been affected. 

Many Londoners got rid of non compliant cars in the lead up to the ULEZ zone. They sold good vehicles off at well under their true value. Most were not scrapped, simply sold to people in areas outside the zone, who rubbed their hands at bargain. Those people are not inclined to spend money travelling into the zone. This means that businesses like ours have been clobbered. The Mayor of London has absolutely no interest in people who run small businesses. He has no interest in people working in music and the creative industries, who require large expensive vehicles to move gear around and who's finances have been devastated by the pandemic. For businesses like ours, which have a huge capital investment in our firms, it makes planning almost impossible. We have to try and work out what our cashflow is going to be for 2024, so we can plan how we spend our money. Before I did a deep dive, I'd have expected a 15% increase on last year for the studios in 2024, as the music industry continues to recover. If we factor in the ULEZ hit, we could actually see negative growth. As best I can tell from our figures, the ULEZ hit will be about 12.5% so that just about takes out any growth we would normally achieve. 

So what can we do? Well we have to decide whether it is even worth bothering advertising in Watford, Borehamwood. We currently target these in Google Adwords campaigns, but we are seeing almost zero traction. We had been planning some more studio upgrades, but we cannot realistically plan these until we can see a couple of months data against last years, to see year on year effect on normal business, as Q4 2022 was  not a normal year to baseline against, so the hit was very hard to estimate. 

It is clear to me that Sadiq Khan is not a Mayor for all London. He is a Mayor for his own, rather narrow vested interests. His ULEZ scheme offered nothing for businesses struggling to recover from the pandemic. Without people like me, who work their socks off and invest huge amounts of money, London would not be the creative hub it has become. One of his first acts was to appoint a Night time Tsar in Amy Lame. Her job was to stand up for people in the creative sector. She has done nothing to make the case for artists and others in the sector affected by ULEZ. 

On a wider note, Mill Hill Broadway, our nearest high street, is seeing more empty units than ever. It is no surprise to me that shops, etc have taken a hit as people living a mile or so away now have to pay £12.50 in ULEZ charges, if they need a pint of milk and they have a non ULEZ compliant motor. 

The real tragedy is that the Tories have chosen a virtually unelectable candidate as a challenger. Whilst her scheme to abolish ULEZ would definitely benefit businesses like mine, she seems to look like a rabbit in the headlines every time she is interviewed. 

Later this year, the studio will celebrate it's 45th Birthday. What is the biggest tragedy is that it seems that both the local council and now the Mayor of London have done everything in their power to strangle us. I am not the only local business owner to feel like this. The Federation of Small Business has done sterling work making our case, but the Mayor of London is not interested.