Wednesday 6 November 2024
The economy, stupid - Why Kamala Harris lost
Six weeks ago, I thought Harris was a shoe in. Six days ago, it was clear to me that Trump would win. Harris blew it. Why? To quote Former President Bill Clinton, The Economy, Stupid. The Democrats are historically the party of the blue collar workers, the lower middle classes, the workers. The people on the sharp edge of the economy, who suffer when times are bad. This is the core of the democrat vote. They want a candidate who talks about their problems. Whilst issues such as 'reproductive rights' are important, they are not what talks to the Democrat core. In the rest of the world, we see Trump very differently to the average American. They see him as a 'regular Joe'. They see him as a guy they could have a beer with and watch Baseball. They see him as successful and decisive. His message is simple "Make America Great Again". He talks about putting America first. Harris never addressed this. How can you hope to be become President when that's your opponents pitch and you have no catchy riposte? You might not like it but he ordinary Joes voted with their pockets. Biden won in 2020 as Trump was running on his record, which was awful. Kamala Harris wasn't associated with Bidens successes and Trump successfully painted her as the author of the regime's failures. That's how election in democracies work. Whether you like it or not, Trump won and he will be the President in January. Its not the end of the world, we had four years already of him and we survived. My Dad gave me one bit of important advice. Things are never as bad, or as good as you think they are at the time.
Tuesday 5 November 2024
You can't sort your work life balance out until you get your head in the right place
Seven years ago I made a massive personal decision. I was fifty five years old at the time. I deciced to stop working as a freelance IT consultant and concentrate my time on my musical interests. Although the studio has been running for 45 years, for the first fifteen it was a musicians collective and didn't make a profit. In 1994, I bought out my former partners, restructured, got a new business partner, who managed day to day stuff, whilst I carried on with a well paid IT career and made strategic decisions with my managers. The plan was to build the business into a lucractive venture that was at the heart of London's community of professional musicians. We set a date of 2004. Sadly, when my partner contracted pancreatic cancer in 2000 and passed away six months later, it deraled my plans. By 2017, I thought I was ready to finally bite the bullet.
When I first stepped back from the world of IT, I carried on spending as if I still had a well paid IT contract. I managed my time badly, so I got nothing done, despite having more time on my hands. I'd go through manic spells of working on pointless, unproductive projects, which didn't get finished. I'd neglect the things that needed to be done. I felt I had to fill my time.
Seven year on from leaving the world of corporate IT, I have realised that I've only now properly adapted. I am almost spending the time on my music that I intended to do in 2017. I am spending the appropriate amount of time on the business. We've sorted our spending out (which sadly has meant no expensive holidays recently). I was speaking to a friend who recently retired from a high pressure job. He said that it wasn't his intention to retire, he couldn't get his head around the idea of having nothing to do, but his job finished and he had nothing lined up. His partner suggested he took the summer off. She also booked a long holiday. When he got back, his head was in a different place. He now has a raft of new hobbies, such as fishing for whiting from Clacton pier. He says that he no longer has any desire to work and is feeling happier and more chilled. I realised that to sort out your work life balance, you need to get your head in the right place.
However the biggest change is that my head is in the right place. I am doing the right things at the right time and before I launch headlong into random schemes, I take a raincheck and think about them properly. As a result, the last eighteen months has seen a positive transformation of the studio. Rather spending months putting together grandiose plans, we've sorted out the basics of the studio that had been neglected, to make it work properly now, not at some distant date in the future. We've redeveloped the website, and we've paid attention to detail. I am spending less time on the business, but spending it more productively.
Since I finished my IT career, I am watching far more football, as I have time on my hands. I'm drinking much less most of the time, as I'm not constantly getting waylaid on the way home by friends I met on the train. I have a better balance on this blog! I am writing about things I enjoy far more regularly. I am still keeping an eye on Barnet Council for the blog, but I am trying to focus on the big issues, which need sorting.
In hindsight, I am not surprised that I had a brush with cancer. I was living an unhealthy and a stressed lifestyle for the best part of 37 years. I dealt with the stresses of it by drinking a bit too much, not all the time, but often I'd get home and all I wanted to do was have my dinner and a stiff drink. I don't feel like that at all. It would have been impossible to change my lifestyle, without changing my circumstances, but I couldn't change my circumstances as my lifestyle wouldn't permit me.
I have come to realise that winding down from a high pressure situation is not like turning off a tap. You actually need to plan it properly, something I did not do. If you have a significantly smaller pot of money, you need to manage your spending accordingly. If you are used to having no time and suddenly you have all the time in the world, it is easy to fill it with unhealthy or anti social pastimes.
What really made the difference for me has been finally getting my band to be the vehicle I always dreamed it would be. Somewhere that I can create music I love and that gives me the odd night out a month that I thoroughly enjoy. I've written songs of a quality that I formerly could only dream of. I play them to industry friends who tell me "If you were writing this sort of stuff in 1979, when you were not fat and old, you'd have smashed it". Sadly they are not interested in old geezers playing Ska and Punk, but we've built up a small following of people who get it and that is just fine by me! This year we've played the most gigs we've played in any year in the history of the band. Unlike 1983, we are not waiting for the big break, just having a great time and enjoying the moment. Its called having your head in the right place.
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We all have different passions, mine are music and football. I can honestly say that having time to indulge both is the best thing in the world.
Sunday 3 November 2024
The Sunday Reflection #28 - Why are we here and what comes next?
About forty years ago, I was awoken at 3am on a Sunday morning by a mate of mine, in an agitated state. I wasn't too thrilled to see him, but I always open my door if someone turns up out of the blue (and my mates have done the same to me when I needed them). I ushered him in and offered him a cup of tea. He was clearly not in a normal state of mind. I soon ascertained he'd taken a large amount of LSD and was in the middle of a trip. He explained that he'd come around as he knew I was sober (I wasn't drinking at the time) and he wanted 'someone who was straight who I can trust to listen'. He'd been with a group of mates and they'd all gone to Arrendene open space to 'enjoy the trip'. They had suddenly disappeared and he'd found himself alone. He had spent some time staring at the stars, when he'd had a revealation. It was really important that I took note of this and listend. So I did. He wanted it to be preserved for posterit. He knew that when he came down, he'd forget it and couldn't risk this.
My friend was a self identified atheist who considered all religion to be a 'load of old cobblers'. I've always respected my mates views, regardless of whether I agree with them on matters such as religion etc. Most know mine, and we live and let live. He then explained. "Rog, I've got it all wrong about God. I always thought that God was just a figment of the imagination of people who couldn't cope with fact that our reality is a transient thing and that when we die we cease to exist". I was familar with this line of thought as he'd voiced this opinion many times. He then said "Rog, you've got to listen to this and remember it. This is really important". I was waiting for something profound and important. He then said "Rog, I've realised that God does exist. It is us who don't exist, we are just a figment of God's imagination, none of this is real". At this, he downed his tea and said "I've got to go now, but you must write that down and remember it". I got a pen and a piece of paper and wrote it down and put it in my pocket. He then said "When I am straight, I'll be back, we can discuss this properly". He then went off on his way, I went back to bed, sightly irritated, but looking forward to our next chat.
We met the following Friday at the pub. He hadn't called but we used to gather there on a Friday. I was looking forward to the discussion. When he saw me, he was huegly embarrassed. He immediately said "Rog I'm so sorry about last week, I was off my nut". I just laughed. I said "Do you remember our conversation?". He looked really embarrassed and said "I don't really want to talk about it right now, can we forget about it?". I agreed. We never spoke about it again. I did notice that he never expressed a veiw on religion in my presence again. I don't think he really changed his views on life and the afterlife, but I got the feeling that the 'revealation' had affected him and he didn't feel comfortable with whatever had been going through his mind.
I was reminded of it this week. I had a beer with a mutual friend of ours on Thursday. We were having a beer and a game of pool before I did a recording session at the studio. A friend of his joined us. We were having a chat about death and funerals. I was recalling our friend, and the unfortunate event that happened when we gave our friend who had the revealation's ashes to his girlfriend. We were sharing a few jokes. As we chatted, his mate interjected that when we die, that's it, there is no afterlife, no God, that's it and religion is a load of old nonsense. It made me racall our departed mate and conversations I had with him, before his LSD experience. I did wonder if this chap had ever had such a moment in Mill Hill Park?
At the time of his experience. I myself identified as an Atheist and a complete non believer. This infuriated my Father, who was a devout Roman Catholic. I never sought to upset him and knew how important faith was to him. Dad passed away in 1987. In November 1986, around this time, my mum visited her sister in Bournemouth. My Dad had stayed at home. We went for a game of snooker and a beer at The Mill Hill Services club and then a curry at The Mill Hill Tandoori. We ended up drinking half a bottle of scotch and staying up until 3am. We got onto the subject of religion and faith. Dad explained to me that he passionately believed that he survived the war purely through his faith. He was a bomber pilot. He served a full tour of duty and was shot down on his final mission, bombing oil fields in Ploesti in Romania. He told me of the final moments of the mission. As they were flying in, he suddenly saw a mate of his in the co-pilot's seat on the Wellington. It was a mate of his called Jack Scheider, who had been shot down the week before. Before my Dad could say anything, Scheider said "It's a killer the way these Wimpeys (RAF slang for a Wellington bomber) go down, istn't it Laurie".
Dad was startled. Before he could say anything, Scheider had disappeared. As he stared at the empty seat, he heard some terrible bangs. A German nightfighter had attacked the plane, shooting and killing the rear gunner. Dad tried to take evasive action, but the fighter came back and shot out the engines. He gave the order to bail out. He was last as captain. As he was preparing to abandon the burning plane, his sole thought was to pray to the Virgin Mary. He said "Our lady, if you give me my three score and ten years, I'll lead a good life". He baled out at about 1,000 feet. He landed almost unscathed apart from two sprained ankles. He survived. Dad was in his 70th year. It didn't occur to me to ask, but was he worried? His deal was up. Dad was so superstitious that I knew pointing this out would really upset him. He then said "Rog, keep an open mind on things. I know you don't like all the ceremonies and services of Churches and you have had issues with some of the priests in Mill Hill (I was an alter server and there were I couple who I really disliked, they were not sexual predators, just silly men), but there are good things in religion. I didn't want to spoil a wonderful evening with a debate, so I said "I try and keep an open mind Dad". In truth, at the time I didn't. His stories bothered me. He was a very solid man, not given to flights of fancy.
When he passed away, I had even more cause for thought. Two days after he passed away, very suddenly with a heart attack, he appeared to me, at the end of my bed. He gave me a message for my mother. It was nonsense. I didn't want to bother my mother with it, so I didnt' tell her. A year later, I mentioned to my sister about the message. I didn't share it, but told her it was nonsense. Six months later, I was having a beer with my Mum. She suddenly said "Roger, your sister tells me Dad gave you a message for me? Why haven't you told me?". I was really embarrassed. I said "Mum, it was nonsense, I didn't want to bother you". She said "How dare you, that is for me to decide, what was it". I said "He said 'Tell your mother I am really sorry for leaving her, I didn't want to but I had to go' ". At that she went mad and threw me out of the house. I was really cross at my sister for telling her. I assumed Mum thought I'd made the whole thing up and it had upset her.
We didn't speak for a fortnight. Then she rang and asked me around for a beer. I expected another dressing down. My mum was not one to forgive and forget. We sat down and then she said "Roger, I am really sorry for how I reacted. I have realised that Dad told you as he knew you'd tell me when I was ready. If' he'd told the other kids, they'd have told me when I was still in shock and it wouldn't have sunk in". I was flabberghasted. I said "Did the message mean anything?". She replied "I have been furious at your father for leaving me, since he died. He always promised that he'd never leave me alone. It has helped me finally get closure". I couldn't have been more shocked.
A couple of years before she passed away, she told me that she had come to realise that not only was Dad apologising for breaking a promise, he was also telling her that everything was OK. She said that as she was getting older, that was more important to her. She asked me if I'd ever thought about why we are here and what comes next. I have thought about it quite a lot. She said that we shouldn't really worry too much about such questions. Everything will be alright. The older I get, the more I agree with her.
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My band, The False Dots are holding an album launch party at the Dublin Castle on the 17th November at 2pm. A few of our songs deal with life and mortality. Here is one of my favourites, a live version of Buy me a bottle of Jack
Saturday 2 November 2024
The Saturday List #460 - My top ten songs with amazing brass arrangements
As we count down to The False Dots album launch at The Dublin Castle, Camden on Sunday the 17th November at 2pm, we will be looking at all things musical over the next couple of weeks. I thought I'd start with some brass. There is a reason we are starting with my favourite brass arrangements. Last year, Tom Hammond, an amazing trumpet player joined the band. Tom only features on one track on the album as it was largely recorded before he joined the band, but he has transformed our sound and he is an intrinsic part of our sound now. I never really listend too much to the brass before Tom joined. I have had an education. This week we've been recording tracks for our 2nd album and I am absolutely chuffed with the what we have done. Anyway it inspired me to put this list together. Now these songs are a personal choice. I am sure there are far better, but for me these really do it.
1. Save me by The Saints. Aussie proto punks third album "Prehistoric Sounds" has some amazing brass as the band not only developed beyond three chord guitar thrashes. This really inspired me. It is a cover of an Aretha Franklin song. I love Aretha's version as well, but this was such a massive part of my journey that I have to have it here.
2. A message to you Rudy by The Specials. I've spoken many times about the huge impact The Specials had on me. I really didn't know which Specials song to pick, it could be any, but this one has such a lively skank, which the brass is intrinsic to, so I went for this one. I am of the opinion that The Trombone was invented by God solely for Ska music and it's the only genre where it really works.
3. Night Boat to Cairo by Madness. IF you've ever seen Madness or been in a disco when this is played, you will get this choice. I am biased as Lee Thompson is a mate, but I loved it even before he was.
4. Higher by Sly and The Family Stone. I first discoverd them when I watched Woodstock the movie at The Scala in 1979, in a haze of smoke. I was a punk, I wasn't interested in Soul music. Then this came on. I've seen the band a few times, they are the best live act on the planet, with the possible exception of the Ramones. The brass section in this is absolutely impecabble.
5. Torch by Soft Cell. I am not sure if it's a sax or a keyboard sounding like a sax, but the brass line in this is amazing. I always had a soft spot for the band following their take on Tainted love.
6. Take Five by The Dave Brubeck Quartet. No credible list could leave this out. Such a great groove.
I'd not seen too many bands with brass sections at the time. This was an amazing night. Oddly, the main reason I went was because I liked Manicured Noise. I'd not seen any of the top three bands, who were all brilliant, but as I recall The Teardrop Explodes stole the show.
Reward is such a good song and I find it strange how the band are more or less forgotten.
8. Ali Baba - John Holt. Perhaps the greatest ska brass arangement of all time. It is a quite unearthly sound, it transports you to that carpet floating above the desert. I am a massive fan of the way Ska bands use brass and this is one of the finest example of the way you can really use brass to push the dynamic of a song.
9. Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley and The Comets. This is the track that started the whole rock and roll thing. It is amazing to think that when the film came out, Teddy Boys smashed up the Hendon Odeon, an outrage that was on the front page of the Daily Mirror.
10. We all love a party by The False Dots. As it's my list, I had to choose this one. Plenty of songs by The False Dots had brass arrangements previously, but I'd never got involved. This was the first one which I had a major input into. Most of the work was done by myself, Tom and Fil, sorting out lines and refining them. I think it's a pretty good arrangement.
Friday 1 November 2024
Friday Fun 1st November 2024
Firstly an unsahamed plug for the next False Dots gig. A monumental event. After 45 years we launch our first album at The Dublin Castle in Camden on the 17th November at 2pm. Three great bands. Click here for tix of scan the QR code on the picture!
Wanna joke? Here's a cracker courtesy of our old mate Robert Wilkinson
The weather forecast for tomorrow has been described as 'Motown.' So we can expect temperatures of three degrees, four tops.
— Robert Wilkinson (@robertwlk) October 28, 2024
And here's some gigs to boogie on down to
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Thursday 31 October 2024
Labours first budget in fourteen years and I couldn't be more depressed
Yesterday we had the first Labour budget in fourteen years. What is the good news? Well at least we know what Labour's priorities are. I had high hopes for Rachel Reeve, as she is an economist by trade. I have now concluded that she went into politics because she clearly wasn't much good at her former job and realised that as most politicians are completely economically illiterate, she'd most likely bag a top job.
This may sound harsh, but there are two things that are indisputable. The first is that the UK's finances are in a complete mess. The second is that the only realistic fix for this is growth and increased prodictivity. Logic would say that any budget should have made this a priority. The fact that there was virtually no mention of measures to spur growth and improve productivity says to me that she is not up to the job and doesn't understand economics as well as we were lead to believe.
Of course the £22 billion extra funding for the NHS is a good thing. However, as someone who has seen far too much of the NHS over the last fourteen years, I can say without a doubt in my mind that the NHS needs massive reform and although it needs more money, a plan to reform it and invest the money sensibly is needed more. The organisation is clearly too bureaucratic. Once you are diagnosed with something like cancer, you get excellent care. However, you also get very frustrated at times because many things that should be simple end up being very complicated. I will give one example. Last March, I got an appointment to review my MRI results. This was all well and good, but they booked the MRI for June. Luckily, I spotted this, but it would have wasted both mine and the consultants time. It toom my five phone calls to rectify the problem and there was little interest from the receptionists in sorting it out.
Another worrying thing for me, was that my appointment with the Royal Free oncology department for a follow up consultation took three months to arrive and actually arrived a month after I'd had the operation to resolve the problem. With cancer, time is of the essence. With cancer, the sooner you catch it, the easier and cheaper it is to fix. Sorting the mess out that is NHS bureacracy would save billions that could be reoinvested in better treatments. I'd like to see far more spent on preventative medicine, as this would also be an investment with a huge reward. I did some work on IT systems used by the NHS a couple of decades ago. Anyone who worked on those projects. will testify that the way IT developments are done in the NHS is extremely badly managed. Sadly, no one in NHS senior management or government had the skills to even understand the issues. I saw a similar thing with Police systems in the early 1980's. My old company provided a command and control system for Northumbria Police. Every police authority paid to develop their own system from scratch, meaning hundreds of millions of pounds were spent duplicating functionality. The Greater Manchester police system was so bad that the Home Office eventually forced them to take the Northumbria Police system, which was properly designed and built.
I also worked on a system called The Post Office Cardholder Account system, that was developed in 2004 to pay benefits (this was seperate from Horizon I must add). This project was the only major government project of the decade that was delivered on time and on budget. Why? Because they bought a proven, off the shelf system that was already widely used in the USA and did minimal modifications. My advice would always be to find something that has been developed and is best in class. If you need to develop something from scratch, then choose people with a strong track record of delivering on time and on budget. It sounds simple but rarely happens. What seems to happen in the UK is that public sector authorities choose suppliers that have a record of bad delivery and high add on costs (regular readers will be familiar with what happened in Barnet Council with outsourcing).
Having looked at the NHS investment and how it should be managed, even more important is private sector investment and productivity. Unlike most MP's, I've run a successful business for four and a half decades, building it from nothing. We work in the music sector. That is worth £5 billion a year to the UK. For some perspective, that is three times larger than the UK Railfreight industry. It brings a huge amount of money into the UK.
Between 2020 and 2023, my company made a huge loss on trading due to the pandemic. We were kept alive by grants from the government during the pandemic. We ran up huge debts to our landlords (which luckily for me are my family). As we re now making a small profit, we are paying those debts back. It will take five years. We also did alost no repairs and upgrades during that time. This means that we also have a huge backlog of maintenance and equipment upgrades, which is gobbling up what little profits we earn. I am paying myself half the minimum wage for my time. The business employs ten staff, mostly students etc, on shifts, who like a part time job, where much of the time they can do coursework. Historically, we've always paid above the minimum wage. This gives us the opportunity to attract the best staff. The massive increases in this over the last 20 years have meant that it is almost impossible to do this. Whereas we paid 30-50% more when the minimum wage was introduced, now we can pay around 20p an hour more. With the massive rise in April, it will turn our business from profit to loss unless we rise prices. On top of that, the changes to employers NI will have a huge effect. I've not managed to calculate exactly how much, yet, but cutting the threshold where Employers NI kicks in means that many of our part time staff, who previously didn't atrract employers NI will now cost us money. What we will probably have to do is cut down the number of shifts staff do and have more staff doing shorter shifts. It will increase our admin, but will save us money we don't have. The chancellor will not get the money she's expecting as every such change makes us review our staffing patterns. Every business does the same thing. If an employee cannot generate a profit, then their job goes and the Chancellor pays more social security. As we have less money in the pot, we have to put off refurbishment and replacement of equipment. This has a knock on with tradesmen and suppliers. It dampens economic activity. This is happening across the economy at every level.
Our sector, the music industry gets no support. There are no schemes for musicians to support them. The pandemic and the changes to tax rules for touring bands following Brexit have clobbered the sector. Now we have to put our prices up for these hard pressed musicians. Less will come. The balance between charging enough to keep the show on the road and still being affordable is almost impossible to balance. In 2016, we had to increase our prices following a long period of stability. We lost 20% of our customers overnight, on the back of a 10% rise in costs. Luckily, most eventually came back as our competetors, who didn't bite the bullet and hike their prices went bust or shut down. What it did was make me very aware of the brittle nature of our customer base and their finances.
Rachel Reeve has completely failed to explain how businesses that are still recovering from a global disaster in the pandemic are supposed to fund a 10% pay rise for staff. She has failed to explain how companies will grow and improve productivity, when they have to divert cash earmarked for investment in the business into simply paying higher wages and Tax. She has failed to explain how the UK's woeful productivity will improve if we have no cash to develop more efficient working practices.
My main studio competetor in the UK has a business model where they have no staff on site. You simply get an online access code. All bookings are done via a website and any problems in the room require a telephone call to someone who is on call and may turn up if they can get there in time. Some of our customers do use them occasionally, often until something goes wrong and they have to abandon their rehearsal. From a financial point of view, I can see the attractions of it. However I got into the music industry because I wanted to provide a good service for musicians. The current climate in society is to get rid of staff. Shops force you to use unmanned tills, then wonder why they are plagued with shoplifting. If you have a problem with your insurance or bank, it is almost impossible to talk to anyone. Why? Because the government has made it uneconomical to emply people. As a result, we have a society where nothing works. Ask yourself this. Does this budget make that situation better or worse?
Wednesday 30 October 2024
A Poem For Donald Trump
When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, I wrote a special poem for him. I thought that was it, we'd seen the last of him. How wrong I was. Seems like a good time to run it again.
Donald Trump
It shouldn't concern me, but I've got to speak,
About the end of the era of Donald the Thick,
It's been quite 'interesting ', I've got to say,
To witness all the fun in the USA
President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump
Why don't you move to Russia, do us all a favour?
But what will you say when you meet your maker?
What will the history books say about you
The shame of your reign, you just can't undo
From travel bans, to covid, from BLM to bust,
"grab them by the pussy" mate, you can't control your lust
I don't want to share my world with you
But your time has run out now, there's nothing you can do
President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump
Maybe if there's Aliens they'll do us all a favour?
Take you on a one way trip, to the planets around Vega,
What will the history books say about you
The shame of your reign you just can't undo.
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