The Sunday Reflection #25 - Where did it all go right?

 Have you ever seen Mel Brooks classic film "The Producers". Not the rubbish 2005 remake, but the proper 1967 version with Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel. The premise is that a dodgy theatre producer decides to put on the worst, least successful play ever, which is guaranteed to bomb and close on the first night. The reason? His naive accountant has realised that you can make more money getting lots of investors and then having a massive flop and keeping all of their money. They get the worst scrip (a play called Spingtime for Hitler, written by a Nazi (Zero Mostel's character is a Jewisg film producer), the worst actors, they make it into a musical and have lavish scenes celebrating the genius of Hitler. They try and bribe the uncorruptable Theatre critic of the New York Times to give it a good review, knowing he'll be refused and outraged. The only problem? The fans love it, they think it's a spoof taking the rise out if the Nazis. As the true magnitude of what has happened hits them, Zero Mostel turns to his accountant, Gene Wilder and said  "We got the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did we go right?" It is one of my favourite cinematic moments. I'd put a clip, but do yourself a favour and watch the whole film.

Where did we go right? It could be the mantra of my life. All of my greatest successes have been complete accidents. All of my best plans, complete disasters. At school, I had it drummed into me that I was a useless good for nothing. I recently wrote a blog about the abuse I had to endure at the lower school at Finchley Catholic High School at the hands of headmaster Danny Coughlan. Quite a few people have commented on this. There was one detail that I left out, as it was, in hindsight, rather funny. I used to take the 221 bus from school to Avondale Avenue and then walk to the site. I hated school and I often missed the bus and was late. This meant a trip to 'the office' to sign in. This usually resulted in a detention, unless you had a good excuse. If you said the bus was late, they would say "Well 20 other boys weren't late". Generally only a death in the family, or an atomic bomb attack would get you off the hook. I would always try an excuse. On one particular day, as I waited for the bus, I bumped into Fr Sheil, one of the Priests at The Sacred Heart. We had a chat about the weekends football. He was a wonderful man. He then asked if I could serve mass that evening, as someone on the alter server rota for the 7.30 mass was ill. I agreed, I didn't mind, as he said quick masses and would give us all a few sweets after and have a chat about football. It was simpler times and that was a pretty good evening for us. It meant I didn't have to endure Coronation Street with my mum. 

When the bus came, it was empty. I went upstairs. On one of the seats was a discarded copy of The Sun. Mum wouldn't have it in the house for a number of reasons. I opened it up and on page 3 was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, staring at me completely topless. I was smitten. I took the page out, folded it up and put it in my pocket, for future inspection. Anyway, I got to the office. I went to sign in and I explained that I'd bumped into Fr Sheil. There was an alter servers crisis and he'd asked me to step in. 

A clotehd Jilly Johnson & friend

The secretary said "If I ring the Presbertery at the Sacred Heart, they will confirm this?" I said, with full confidence yes. She said "We will call them and if he says you are lying, you will be in massive trouble". I was confident I'd be OK, fairly smug really and was just about to go to my class, when Danny Coughlan shouted "Tichborne, what are you doing?". I explained that I'd been to the office to sign in for being late. I was just about to give my speel when he said "Turn out your pockets". I have no idea why. I'd forgotten I'd put the newspaper page in, when I pulled it out, he looked at the pert breasts of Jilly Johnson (I think).

He looked at it and raged. I was summoned to come straight to his office. I knew I was in massive trouble. There was no way I could talk my way out of this. Coughlan was a religious fundamentalist and saw one of his missions to beat sexual desires out of the boys in his charge, if there were any overt signs of lust.

So here I was. He towered over me and glowered. Then he said "Tichborne, are you a sexual pervert?". I didn't actually know what a sexual pervert was. I'd only heard the term once, when my Mum got flashed by a man on a bicycle in Mill Hill Park. I hadn't (and still haven't) ever flashed at anyone, so I answered "No Sir". He then said "Yes you are, you were planning to take this disgusting picture home, have filthy thoughts and defile yourself, weren't you?". I said "No Sir". He then screamed "Well what were you going to do?". I replied "I don't know Sir, the picture was on the bus, I just put it in my my pocket as I didn't want to leave it there". This rather stopped him in his tracks. I think if I'd said it was filth and I was going to put it in the bin before young children saw it, I may have evern got away with it. But he then changed tack. He said "Do you know what this woman is?". I replied "She's and actress". He raged "No she's not, she's a scrubber!". I 'd not heard the term. He then said "Do you like looking at this picture. Do you like scrubbers?". Now, we all know what the correct answer was, but Coughlan seemed to know when you were lying. Besides, I really don't like telling lies, so I said "Erm, actually I think she's very pretty". This was not the answer he expected. He said "You think scrubbers are pretty?". What could I say? Jilly Johnson was clearly rather pretty. "Erm yes sir, I do"? At this he lost the plot completely. He screamed "Tichborne, you are a pervert. Come back and see me before you leave for home, I will deal with this then, get out, you disgust me".

I spent the rest of the day in terror. I thought I was going to get expelled, caned, shot, hung drawn and quartered and excommunicated". At hometime, I made my way to his office. I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again, no answer. Maybe he'd forgotten. I didn't know what to do, Sadly, this was one of his games. Just as I was about to shuffle off, he opened the door. He said "I have a letter for your father, under no circumstances give it to him when your mother is present. It will distress her". He then said "I have marked your card. You are a sexual pervert. If I ever catch you with anything like this again, I will expell you, get out". 

It was a long bus journey home. I knew I was going to get clobbered. I then remembered that I also had to serve at mass at 7.30pm. I also knew that they'd spoken to Fr Sheil and in light of what transpired, he'd probably been told  I was a pervert as well. As I was not to show Mum, I decided to bit the bullet. I went straight to MacMetals, my Dad's car crash repair business. What happened next was, shall we say, comical. Dad was playing cards with a couple of his workmen. I just wanted it out of the way, so I said "Dad, I'm in trouble, Mr Coughlan gave me this letter and said I had to give it to you immediately". The workmen, all scalliwags, looked on rather amused. Dad, slightly irritated that I'd interrupted his cards, also glared. He opened the letter. He pulled out the page from The Sun first. He looked at it and said "Blimey, why is Danny Coughlan sending me porn?". He took a few moments to admire Jilly Johnson's fine figure then passed it around to the men. They were very approving and complimentary. Dad looked puzzled. He then saw the letter. He took it out, read it and burst out laughing. 

He then read it out to his workmen. I can't recall the exact words, but it went something like this "Dear Mr Tichborne, This morning, I caught your son with the enclosed disgusting pornographic materials. Your son admitted that he found the picture sexually exciting and was keeping it for depraved purposes later. Your son also admitted that he found such women attractive. I am sure, that as a respected Roman Catholic father, you will take the necessary measures to ensure that yoru son does not grow up in the grip of such perversion, your sincerely Mr Coughlan". 

None of those at the table could contain their laughter. Dad then said "Was this the only picture". I replied "Yes". He then said "Blimey". He then said "Are you mad taking it to school?".  NI replied "I found it on the bus". He then signed the return slip and said "Don't get caught again" and dismissed me and returned to his game of cards. I couldn't believe it. When Dad got home, he'd thought about it. He said "When you take that letter to Coughlan, tell him I was disgusted and clobbered you, then he'll be happy". Don't mention it to Mum, she hates the Sun. 

About a week later, I was again down at the yard. In the gents toilet, one of the blokes had put the picture on the back of the loo door. They'd written Roger's girlfriend on it. It was there for about five years. I was really confused. Was I a pervert? Was there something wrong with me finding Jilly Johnson attractive? When I returned the letter to Coughlan, he informed me that I was a wrong 'un. If I liked scrubbers, I'd never have a proper nice Catholic girlfriend or wife. I'd have a life of misery and end up hanging around in Soho. If I had children, they'd be bastards born out of wedlock and grow up hating me. He described it as 'the wages of sin' if my memory serves me correctly.

He was right about one thing. Mrs T is not a Catholic, but she's proper and she's nice. Next April will be our 30th wedding anniversary. My kids were not born out of wedlock and as best I can tell they all like me most of the time. So where did it all go right for me ? How could some who;s headmaster describerd as a depraved pervert, who was 'never going to have a nice girlfriend' get it all so right? The question has troubled me for many years. Of course Coughlan was right about one thing. The Sun is a horrible rag and I wouldn't have it in the house after its demonisation of Liverpool fans, but I suspect that the sight of the luscious Jilly Johnson would bother him far more than dishonest reporting. In truth, Coughlan did me a massive favour. It clarified something that had been troubling me at the time. His behaviour in RE lessons and other aspects of the way he rn the school was clearly highly dysfunctional, but he was an authority figure. I knew my elder brothers had an intense dislike of him, but I had thought that as the head of the lowerschool, he should be respected. My Dad's response to his letter and the way the blokes who worked for Dad reacted made it abundantly clear that they all thought he was an idiot. I realised that being 13 and looking anjoying seeing a topless picture of Jilly Johnson did not make me a pervert. I was not like the fellow who flashed at Mum in Mill Hill park.

So in answer to the question. It started to go right for me, when I realised that sometimes the people in authority and power are complete idiots and you have to think for yourself. Even if I'd wanted to 'not fancy' Jilly Johnson, as a heterosexual male aged 13, that wasn't going to happen, that's how we are wired. So I stopped worrying about what religious zealots thought about me, as well as everyone else I concluded was an idiot. Once I got rid of all of that ridiculous baggage, life became a whole lot easier. 

The Saturday List #457 - Northern lights Special! My top five heavenly observations

This week, I saw The Northern Lights over Mill Hill. I even managed to get a couple of pictures. It got me asking myself what were the most impressive heavenly observations I've seen. 

Here they are.

1. The almost total eclipse in August 1999. I was working in Leman St. The Sun was 96% blocked out. Everyone and everything in London stopped and we gazed at the heavens. Although it was not total, it was a magical experience. The city went quiet. We watched from the roof of 99 Leman St, the old Co-op building and then went to the pub. It was one of those special days.

2. A lunar eclipse in around 1968. My brother Laurie was living at home. He told me that at 9pm, the moon was going to turn blood red and the vampires would come out. I didn't believe him. At 9pm, he came up and took me into the garden to show me the moon. He told me to sleep with a Rosary by the bed in case Count Dracula came. I was terrified.

3. A large meteorite in around 1971. I saw a huge meteorite pass over Mill Hill in 1971. It was spectacular. Apparently it eventually crashed into a bog in Northern Ireland. The date may be wrong, but I was highly excited. It was on the news the next day.

4. Seeing the moon and Venus through a telescope for the first time. My Dad bought me a telescope for my tenth birthday. I was mightily impressed to be able to see Venus as a crescent and the cratered surface of the moon. For a week, I looked at it every night. Then I got bored, but that first view was magical. I hoped to see aliens on the moon, but couldn't see any.

5. The Southern Cross. When went to Australia, we stayed in a fairly remote part for a couple of nights, on a place called Dunk Island. At night you could see the Milky way clearly (you can't in Mill Hill). Seeing the Southern Cross was special as the son of an Aussie.

What were yours?

Would you sell your soul for a million pounds?

Last night, I had a brief chat with a mate about Jurgen Klopp taking up a job with the Red Bull football franchise. This has totally alienated an army of German football fans, who adored him, from his previous jobs at Mainz and Dortmund. To them, he has sold his soul. My friend is a Liverpool fan and less bothered, but I have to say that I'll never see Klopp as the purist we thought he was again. It does seem that he's sold his soul to Redbull for cash and turned his back on Dortmund, who are one of the most admirable clubs of all. Apart from Red Bull, the Bundesleague is a far more admirable league than our own, IMHO.

I was reminded of all this later.  I was lucky enough to see the Northern lights. The band had just had a reheasal, which was absolutely wonderful. I came out feeling mega energised. I got home and took our mutt out for a late night comfort break. When I looked up, I saw a pink hue in the sky. Sadly, the street lights in Mill Hill prevent a really magnificent show. I was tempted to drive out to Shenley for a better view, but it was late and I had work to get up for. But it was magnificent and I took some amazing pictures. 

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A post shared by Roger Tichborne (@rogtex)

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My mind went back to a conversation I had with my Dad when I was but a wee nipper. Dad had been a WWII bomber pilot. I had been reading about the Northern Lights and he said "The best time I ever saw them was when I was flying". Being from Australia, he'd never seen them, but he was doing some night flying practice and he saw a magnificent display. He was quite taken, but when he mentioned this to his CO, he was brought down to earth. "They make it easier for night fighters to see you, they are not your friend". Dad then said "It was a cursory lesson, not everything that is beautiful is your friend, sometimes it can be a trap".

He then recounted a story that an old priest had told him, when he was about twelve years old. A man had been down on his luck, when the devil appeared to him. The Devil said "what is your problem?". The man replied "I don't have enough money to eat, I am sleeping on the street and my family don't want to know me". The Devil said "That s really sad, how can I help you?". The man replied "Well if you gave me a million pounds that would help". The Devil said "What can you give me in return?", the man said "I have nothing?". To this, the Devil replied "You have something I want very much". The man asked what this was. The Devil replied "Your soul". The man thought about it. What was a soul anyway, with a million pounds he could have everything he wanted. When the time came, maybe he could go to church and get a blessing and lift the curse?, why not. So he said "Ok, you have a deal". The Devil took out a contract and a million pounds. The man signed and the Devil gave him a suitcase filled with cash. The Devil said "Enjoy, I will see you again when the time comes to collect your soul". The man was overjoyed and set off to check into the finest hotel he could find. He was going to have a wonderful time. As he approached the hotel, he felt a tightening in his chest. His heart gave out. As his soul was departing his body, the Devil appeared and said "I've come to collect what is mine" The man said "But I've not spent my money". The Devil replied "You are a fool, you should have checked that you had time left to enjoy your money". The man expired and the devil picked up the case of money and went on his way. 

The story disturbed me at the time. It seemed very unfair. My Dad explained that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. He said "Many times when you grow up, you will find yourself in this situation, it will not be the devil or a million pounds, but if someone wants something you have, which you think has no value, and they are prepared to pay a lot, ask youself why?". I asked Dad if he'd ever seen the Devil. His response was even more awful than I could imagine. He said "We can all see the devil any time we want". I was surprised. He said "I can show you the devil, you won't come to any harm, I'll keep you safe". I was intrigued, how could Dad show me the devil. But I knew he'd never let me come to any harm. I thought he had a picture or a machine. So I said yes. He said "Shut your eyes, if you open them before I say, a terrible thing will happen". So I fixed them hard shut. I held his hand, he went upstairs and then picked me up. He said "Are you sure you want to see the Devil". I said "Yes". He said "Well open your eyes now and stare straight ahead". I opened my eyes and looked straight ahead. Can you guess what I was looking at?

To my amazement, I was looking at myself in the mirror. I was very confused and a tad disappointed. I expected to see a horrible monster. Dad then explained "The only time the Devil will ever harm you is when you let him, he's inside all of us, every time you want to do a bad thing, that's him egging you on. All the bad things in the world are caused when people get greedy and let the devil within them steal their soul and feed their greed." This really disturbed me, so I said "So how do I stop the devil?". Dad replied "That is the easiest thing in the world. Be nice, don't cheat people, don't steal and and don't hurt people. So long as you do good things and try and be decent you'll be fine.

It made an impression on me. I am not sure it had quite the effect Dad hoped. I spent a couple of weeks terrified that if I was naughty, the devil would take me over and I'd turn into Satan. Then I started to think about it. Plenty of the boys at my school were naughty regularly but they were also quite nice most of the time. I figured that so long as I wasn't too naughty I'd be OK. After a couple of months, I asked my Dad if he was worried about the Devil taking him over. It was the question that I figured would give me some idea of the scale of the problem. His response was "Of course not, I go to Church". I was a bit irritated that I'd worried all this time, when the solution was simple and he hadn't explained.

I hadn't really thought about this for a long time, but the Northern Lights reminded me of it. The way Dad described seeing them, from his plane was amazing. I've seen many photo's and they backed up this, but sadly the Mill Hill lights weren't quite as spectacular. It got me thinking about bucket lists. How many things do you desperately want to do, but don't live up to your expectations. I thought of the story of the man that Dad told. It's not having a million pounds that gives you the fun, it's spending it. In fact, you won't get the full value till it's gone. I've often thought of the story and how the bloke should have played it. Of course the answer is you don't sell your soul, but can you get out of the deal once you've made it?

The situation with Klopp answered a couple of such questions I've pondered on most of my life. The dad truth for Klopp is that he's tarnished his reputatation with the fans who built his reputation. He may not care, he has the dosh, but now he's seen as apart of the problem, not part of the solution. It is like your virginity, you only lose it once. In the real world, it is not the Devil that buys our soul. It is mundane greed that kills it. As I mentioned above, our rehearsal was brilliant last night. You can't buy the feeling I had. For me, money really isn't that important. I want enough to get by. Sure, I'd love to win a million or ten on the lottery, but if I did win it, I think I'd rather build a better studio and save a few grassroots venues (once I'd paid the mortgage off) than go on a champagne/cocaine/hookers binge with the proceeds. I guess I am a boring sod at heart, but I prefer the cheap seats at football, the smelly grotty music pubs and the company of friends to anything else. So long as I have that, I really don't need anything else. What would I do with a million pounds anyway apart from clear the mortgage and I'll do that sometime anyway. I do however worry that my missus might sign for me, if I was incapacitated and it meant she could get rid of me. I'd better check that power of attourney.

Here's a bit of fun for you weekend from my band, the False Dots on the glory of old motors!

Barnet Council Planning Committee votes to put my life at risk!

How much asbestos in the air you breath is a safe amount? How much arsenic? How much mercury? How happy would you be to find out that the planning committee at your council was more than happy to allow a development on a potentially highly polluted piece of land, which could expose you to serious health risks,  without even asking for a contamination report of the land? The reason? "We don't normally ask for a report for developments of this scale" even though the representative of the person submitting the plans said they'd be happy to do it.

The ex rail yard which is now my garden

So what am I on about? Well my next door neighbour submitted plans to erect a large building at the bottom of his garden, which will supposedly act as a "private office and gym". I have my suspicions that this is not his actual planned usage. There is a toilet and bathroom and it would make a lovely one bedroom flat. However, because the planning application says it is a "private office and gym", that is what it is.

Having been assured by Mill Hill Councillor Elliot Simberg that Barnet Council were not keen on back garden developments, Cllr Simberg took the trouble to bring the application before the planning committee.  I received a nasty shock when I saw the officers recommendations. I was startled to see that the council officers were recommending approval for a 46 sq metere outbuilding be put in a residential garden and had a whole list of objections prepared to raise at last nights planning meeting, I was completely horrified to see that the planning conditions, which I'd not had sight of before, exposed me and the rest of the street to potential serious physical harm.

My house and the rail depot in 1920

Let me share some background at this point. The bottom of both my garden and my neighbours garden were not originally part of our properties. Both were owned by British Rail until 1991. Before the M1 was built in the 1960's, the rear part of the garden was part of the Mill Hill Broodway goods yard. This was a busy good depot. building materials, chemicals, coal and other freight was transported via the depot. 

It was at it's peak between 1930 and the early 1960's, as Mill Hill was developed from a rural town into a busy suburb. There was quite a lot of industry in Mill Hill until the early 1980's, including the Rawlplug factory, the gasworks and dozens of small engineering companies. During the war, a large amount of munitions were made locally.  Most of the raw materials etc was brought in by rail until the early 1960''s. Unfortunately, associated with this was a lot of heavy industrial pollution. All manner of materials we now have stringent protocols for handling, passed through such goods yards. As such, when any developments are done on such sites, ground surveys are done and mitigation plans drawn up if such materials were found. 

My neighbour only acquired the plot where the outbuilding will stand earlier this year (rather annoyingly with my assistance, I am a good neighbour and he was less than frank with his intentions, but that's another matter). Given the problematic nature of the land, it was acquired by him for £500, as he knew of the potential for contamination and the risks and problems of building on it. When I acquired my plot, I was also made aware of this.  

There was a huge amount of asbestos around such sites. I grew up in Millway and we regularly found asbestos around our back garden. It was a popular material on railways in the steam era, when fire was an ever present problem. Many structures were built with it. It was also cold commercially at builders depots and waste was transported to landfil sites by rail, with contaminated spoil etc. When goods yards etc were raised to the ground, much of the detritus was simply buried. Gardens such as mine and my neighbours, potentially have all manner of such contaminents buried. In the case of the Mill Hill depot, this was done in the mid 1960's when the railway was replaced by the M1 Motorway. 

A boundary marker artefact from the railway in my garden

As much of this has been buried for nearly 60 years and there is a reasonable deposit of earth on top of the contaminents, I was not overly concerned about this aspect. I assumed that my neighbour would simply put a concrete base over the ground, leaving the contaminents undisturbed. When I saw the officers recommendations, I was horrified. They were insisting on screw pile foundations. This process involves drilling deep down into the soil to insert piles. This will clearly disturb any dangerous contaminents. 

The officers recommendations were only released with the papers a few days ago and I only saw them on Tuesday. It was clear to me that they hadn't checked the history of the site, or recognised that it was a former British Rail depot. I completely rewrote what I had to say tto the committee and asked that the council ask for a contamination report, and put the approval process on hold until this had been done and any necessary mitigations put in place. I pointed out that this was necessary for neighbours, building workers and the family of the neighbour planning the development. The agent for the neighbour stated that he had no objections to this, when speaking to the committee. 

To my amazement and horror, when the committee asked the planning officers they stated that "this is unneccessary for a building of this size" they gave now explanation. Do they not believe that handling asbestos, or arsenic, even in small amounts is dangerous? The committee, then passed the application without any extra conditions. 

Now I fully understand that the councillors and council officials may think that poisoning a blogger who regularly criticises them is a wonderful idea. To say they looked rather unchuffed to see me is a mild understatement. What does bother me is that my neighbour has young children, as do the neigbours down the road. Builders loading skips on the street etc, may be exposed to all sorts of things (and presumably be none the wiser). The cost of a profesional soil test starts at areound £300, a tiny price to pay. Now there may well be absolutely nothing to worry about, but none of us know Much as Barnet Council may love the idea of bumping me off, Asbestos kills you over a decade or two. Of course things like arsenic, which are also commonly found in contaminated railway land is more deadly, it is more likely to kill my neighbour, which would be very sad indeed. 

So lets sum up the facts.

1. The land was a former British Railways depot. This can be verified at the Land registry

2. Many such sites have serious land contamination and mitigation is required.

3. The only way to be sure that there are no dangerous substances is a proper soil test at the site.

4. Drilling piles as recommended by the council will bring to the surface any contaminated soil and substances.

5. The agent for the applicant was more than happy to perform a test.

6. Exposure to asbestos, arsenic, etc is extremely dangerous

7. Barnet Council planning officers do not think that such things are important.

I think that the officers and the councillors have been negligent in their responsiblilities. A simple and relatively cheap process would answer the questions and maybe add a month to the process. I cannot fathom why they made such an appalling and shameful decision. I have done all I could, I took an evening out of my life to explain the issue in detail. All of the evidence is there on the land registry records. I ask myself why they didn't do the sensible thing? The developer's agent had no issue with it. I cannot think of a sensible answer. 

I will be writing to the head of the planning committee to ask and CC'ing the CEO and Council Leader. My expectation is that they will not even bother replying, which seems to be the way the current administration runs the council.

Our brains are simply not set up to deal with the information overload we get from social media

I started writing this blog in 2008, Friday will be the 16th Birthday of the Barnet Eye. At the time I didn't have a Facebook account. I wasn't on Twitter, Instagram didn't exist and I still occasionally looked at Friends Reunited. I didn't 'share'' the blog anywhere. I didn't tweet new blogs. I just wrote them and if people stumbled across them, then fine. In hindsight it is a miracle that anyone looked at it. I joined Facebook in March 2009 and Twitter in April 2011. When I joined Facebook, it wasn't to promote my blog. It was a handy way to keep in touch with friends and family and share pictures of events etc. I've no idea when I first started posting my blog to it, but it was a fair while after the blog started. In fact to start with, it was my friends who posted it. I had no intention of joining Twitter. It was only constant nagging of friends, who said that it would help get the message across, that I succumbed. I very quickly realised that all of my fears about Twitter were true. It was a toxic environment, where you could fall out with complete strangers and get absolutely slaughtered. I learned that some groups of people (Militant Cyclists are the worst) are absolutely ruthless at organising pile ins. From time to time I deliberately wound them up to generate traffic, but I long since got over the buzz of getting 3,000 blog hits from people who hated my guts, happy in the knowledge that I'd annoyed them far more than they upset me. 

I used Facebook far more to promote my band, I liked to keep the two things separate. I realised that this wasn't possible, quite quickly. When I worked in the Corporate IT world, I ended up doing a whole series of courses about how social media platforms interact with corporate entities. A malicious troll reported me to the company I was working for, stating my blog brought my employer into disrepute. The HR department didn't know what to do. I didn't state anywhere that I had a job with the company and I didn't mention them in any of my blogs. But I did write controversial political commentary. The company had no rules at all to deal with the situation, one way or the other. The Troll wouldn't let it go and proved I had a link, via my Linkedin profile. The HR people didn't know what to do. It turned out that I knew more about social media than anyone in the company. I was asked to help draw up a 'policy' and educate the staff about the risks. I did some research, found a social media Guru and we ended up setting up seminars for safety on the Internet. It was illuminating. In a short presentation, he managed to explain how staff were putting the safety of their families at massive risk of extortion by organised crime syndicates, by having badly thought out social media profiles. He explained how simply wearing a work pass with your name and company on exposed both you and the company to enormous risk, by putting personal information on line. A criminal who knows where your children go to school, who your friends are and when you are at events etc, is a criminal sitting on a gold mine, if you work for a company where there is the potential to make money from inside information or forcing you to commit fraud.

It was the first time I realised that I was completely unprepared to live in a world where social media was an ever growing power. As the platforms evolved, I started to find out all manner of things about friends and acquaintences. Sadly much of it was things I'd rather not know. There are friends who I politely avoid, because there postings have made me realise that I don't really fancy a curry and beer with them. Occasionally one will launch a tirade at me, taking me to task for something I've written in a blog. Generally when I write a blog, I do a lot of research and acquaint myself with facts. The tirades are usually a bunch of opinions that have little basis in reality. This was especially true during the Brexit referendum. It was clear to anyone who did their research that the UK would a) Take and economic hit b) It would cause a massive issue in Ireland c) Would increase rather than decrease immigration and c) Increase the prospects of instability in Eastern Europe, as Russia would see Brexit as undermining the unity of what was the EU block and removing a champion (the UK) of smaller countries that were exposed to threat from Russia. 

The blogs are there demonstrating all of these points. There are several local Brexiteers who have since conceded that their tirades were ill informed. All of them believe that this was because "Brexit has been betrayed" but as I explained that this is exactly what they would say at the time of the rant and subsequent discussion, they have too concede that on these points they were wrong. However, the human brain has simply niot evolved to deal with the amount of information we have to process. University professors specialise in a topic and know it inside out, but a Chemistry professor will simply be a layman when it comes to a chat about Geography or Religious studies and vice versa. Of course there are polymaths, who can seemingly be genius level operators at all of these, but they are few and far between and generally are unknown outside acedemia.

What Twitter, Youtube and Facebook has made us start to believe is that we know as much, if not more than these experts who have spent a lifetime researching a subject. We see Tweets from sources that seem informed, with links to videos that seem to have incontrovertable evidence and we are convinced. We then see some unworldly professor, usually on a platform we don't trust (The BBC, Fox News, CNN, GBNews, take your pick) spouting views and opionions that contradict our carefully formed views, researched over a tea on Google, and we think that we are being conned and lied to. 

Let me give you an example, Margaret Thatcher was an advocate of Neo Liberalist Economics guru Milton Friedman. Now I fundamentally disagree with Thatcher and think that the effects of Friedman's views have massively damaged the wellbeing of billions of people on Planet Earth. But his knowledge of economics was light years ahead of mine. He was capable of present a coherent case that his view would lead to stronger eonomic activity than the Keynesian consensus that previously was considered orthodox in the West. The problem with theories such as those of Friedman, Karl Marx etc, is that the people who actually implement them are too thick to properly understand them. 

What social media has done is make us all think we are capable of operating on the level of such deep thinking experts. The trouble is, reading a few articles on Google, seeing a few Tweets and watching a few Youtube videos does not mean that you have the same level of knowledge on a subject as someone who has a Degree, a Mastecrs a PhD and has spent their life researching a subject. 

When you look at what has happened with things like the anti vax movement, you have millions of people who have no qualifications at all, passionately believing that the establishment is lying to them, poisoning them and killing them. Academic types rather patronisingly say "How can you believe that, there is no evidence", missing the point that there is plenty of evidence to support such views, admittedly most of which is inaccurate or flawed or lacks rigorous scientific evaluation. 

Let me give you an example. I have received covid 19 vaccines. Last year, suddenly I found that my PSA level doubled and my prostate cancer had changed in a matter of months from benign to aggressive. Both of these things are facts. I have read articles on the internet that claim that covid 19 vaccines 'turbocharge' cancer. I could, quite reasobably conclude that my cancer was the result of having a jab. If I believed this, I could make a very sound case, put it in a well produced Youtube video and claim the establishment is covering everything up. Whilst it is possible that this is true, it is extremely unlikely. None of the cancer specialists I spoke to, and they are amongst the best in the world, suggested for a second that there was any link. My brother in law is a doctor and we discussed this. He agreed with me that unfortunately, in my position, there was always a distinct possibility that the cancer would return after HIFU in 2016. I was told that HIFU was experimental at the time, and was part of a trial. But it would be very easy for me to misrepresent the facts.

Sadly we see all manner of people making claims that on the face of it are reasonable but are complete nonsense in reality. Having seen the work that goes into writing a fairly non controversial blog about Capita in Barnet Council, what you'd need to do to properly support a claim that something like my cancer could be attributed to covid 19 would be monumental. I'd need to find everyone who'd had HIFU, see who had covid jabs, who hadn't and whether there was a credible correlation between the progress of the cancer and the jab. Given that prostate cancer is very expensive to treat and usually takes a long time to kill you, the NHS would be crazy to ignore any link. One thing I've learned about the NHS and health. Follow the money. If vaccines weren't effective and value for money, they wouldn't use them.

The truth is that our brains are simply incapable of dealing with the information overload we get from social media. They work to identify threats and nullify them. When we are bombarded with information, we simply lose the ability to rationally analyse it all. I don't know what the answer is, beyond selling social media detox courses. That will be the next big thing!

Perfection

 Sorry, I couldn't do a Sunday reflectuon yesterday. I was travelling back from my God daughters wedding in Paris on the Euorstar, then I went to the London International Ska Festival gig at the Electric Ballroom with Misty in Roots and The Ruts. As weekends go, I'd say it was pretty good, nearly perfect. My God daughter is the eldest daughter of my eldest sister. She is a mere eleven years younger than me. I was thrilled to bits when my sister asked me to be her Godfather back in 1973. I was only eleven and it seemed a real honour. I tried really hard to always remember her birthday and buy her nice presents when she was small. As she lived in Northampton growning up, we'd see them every few weeks when my sisters kids were small and Dad enjoyed the drive. Now I see her at weddings and funerals mostly.

She married a French chap as a teenager, moved to Paris, had four lovely daughters, but as sometimes happens, she drifted apart from her then husband. She has done well for herself, becoming the general manager of a French theme park, which gave her a good deal on the hospitality for the wedding. It was a lovely setting. As much as anything can ever be described as pefection, the wedding party was. I love seeing my family. My other two sisters went along, but sadly my brothers were unable. As we always do, we had a good laugh, a few nice meals, a visit to a gallery. It seemed to all go by rather too quickly.

My God Daughter was lucky, the Gods of Weather smiled on her. My family are generally lucky with such things. When I was lucky, my Dad told me the secret of making weather. It was something that he said and Aboriginal witch doctor had told him in the out back. My Dad was born in a town called Coopers Creek in the outback of Queensland. There had been a drought and he was four years old before he saw rain. He expalined that he got chatting to a passing witchdoctor, who explained the art of making rain. Dad replied that if he could make rain, why didn't he fix the drought. The old man replied that no one had asked him. He explained that, as a witchdoctor, the medicine only worked when he did it for someone else. So Dad asked him. He then said "It's my job, if you want rain, you''ll have to pay me, what will you pay?". Dd thought and said "Well Mum has just made some biscuits, you can have one if you make it, they are very tasty". The old man looked at him and said "Ok". Dad ran in, explained to his mum. She said "Tell him that if it rains tonight, I'll give him another biscuit tomorrow".

Dad took the buscuit, and told the old man of the deal. He replied "Tell your mother I'll be back at 4pm for my biscuit" and wondered off. Dad's mum said "Don't tell your Dad, he'll be cross, he doesn't believe in all that" and hid a biscuit. Dad was excited when he went to sleep. He was awoken at 6am, to the sound of his dog barking. Dad ran out and couldn't believe his eyes. Water was streaming from the sky. The dustbowl at the bottom of the hill was a huge river. Over the next few weeks, the land turned green and all manner of strange creatures emerged. The old man did not return though. Two weeks later at 4pm, he turned up. He told Dad "Can you get my biscuit". Dad was scared, this man clearly had great power and he didn't want to break the deal. As he was only about four, he ran to his mum and said "Mum, the man has come back for his biscuit". His mum retreived the biscuit from the hiding place and said "Here, go and give it to him". Dad ran back and the old man thanked him and went on his way.  Dad ran back to his mother and said he'd given the man the biscuit and he'd gone. His mum said "Laurie, whatever you do in life, always keep your side of the bargain. The old man didn't say what day he was coming back on, just that it would be at 4pm. He was testing you to see if you were trustworthy and honourable". Dad realised that he knew where the biscuit was all the time, but didn't help himself. 

A few months later, the old man returned. He had a chat with Dad and explained the way medicine works. You can't do medicine for yourself. If you do it for someone, then they must give you something in return to keep the deal in balance. You don't ask for things, just see what they are willing to offer. Dad had offered a biscuit, which to a four year old in the outback of Australia is a pretty wonderful thing, worth far more than if a millionaire had offered him a thousand pounds in terms of what the giver was offering. If you do medicine for someone, don't expect thanks, just that they keep the bargain. Dad asked the old man if he could teach him how to make rain. The old man replied, there is no hocus pocus, you just explain to the ancestors that this fella wants some rain and they've struck a decent bargain and the rain will come. Dad asked if anyone could do it. The old man replied "Yeah, anyone can, so long as they talk to the ancestors". 

In England, we rarely have to pray for rain. Quite the opposite. If I want good weather, for an event such as my neice's wedding, I simply say "Hey Dad, any chance of having a word with the ancestors to sort the weather out". I ask of nothing, just that everyone has a wonderful day. There is a downside though. Sometime in the next few weeks, I'll get drenched. 

Now you may wonder what all of my rambling anecdote had to do with perfection. Well, my God Daughters wedding was pretty much the perfect day. The ancestors came up with some wonderful weather, that was not forecast the day before. But perfection is a passing fancy. Both good times and bad times come and go. When things are perfect, such as Saturday, enjoy the moment. When things are bad, remind yourself that such times pass. The last couple of years have been full of tremendous highs and awful lows for me. For my band and the football teams I follow, things couldn't be much better. For my health, it has been a challenge. I was chatting to my brother in law, a wonderful man, retired teacher, who was explaining how age has been catching up with him. My sister is fourteen years older than me and he's a couple of years older than her. She had some serious health issues a couple of years back and we were terrified we'd lose her. If you saw her on Saturday, you'd never know. 

I was mulling on perfection and I realised that human beings suffer this terrible affliction that we cannot ever appreciate how good things are, when they are good. Shortly after I had my radical prostatectomy, before I had a clear idea of what my recovery was likely to be like,  a mate said to me "are you glad to be done with all that sex stuff?". This was a mate the same age. I was confused by his question. He'd had the same operation a few years ago and told me that it was a relief no longer "having to worry about sex". I replied that the doctor told me I'd most likely see my sexual function return and that I'd not given up hope. He told me "they always say that, it's not true, you'd better get used to the idea that the only thing you'll be left with is memories".

I felt intensely down about what he'd said for a couple of days. Can you imagine that you feel exactly the same in every way as you did a month ago, except for the fact that you knew you'd never be able to have a fulfilling adult relationship with the person you love? All you would have is memories and all these would do is remind you of what you've lost? Before I had the operation, the thought of this situation had nearly made me decline treatment. When I finally opted for the operation, my wife told me she'd been terrified that I would bury my head in the sand and let the cancer have it's wicked way with me. 

That was over a year ago. I doubt that anything will ever truly be totally 'perfect' in my life again. I'll never see the Ramones at the Roundhouse again, Colin Bell charge down the wing for Manchester City again, have Xmas dinner with Mum and Dad, listen to my Dad's stories of Australia as a kid, have a pint of Ale in Bree Lousie in Euston, browse in the Model shop in Mill Hill or nip in for a cuppa with my dearly departed ssurrogate grandma in Homefield road on the way home from School. All of those things are perfect moments in my memories, but like the sands of time have slipped through my fingers. But then again, I had a perfect weekend, some of the gigs I've been to and played in the last year have been amazing, and I have my kids to spend time with. The old perfect is not the new perfect and unlike the past, I can shape the future. 

I wish my neice and her new husband a wonderful marriage. Such things as marriage are not perfect all the time, but I'd not swap my life for anything. In truth, you only realise you reached perfection when it had gone. The trick is to enjoy the moments for what they are and when things are more difficult, keep the faith that there are good times ahead, you just have to negotiate the rocky rapids to reach the calm, still, sunny lake. 

I'll leave the final word to my Dad. He said "Son, it''s not the beer that makes you happy, it's the people you drink beer with, and if you go to the pub and the beer doesn't make you happy, change your pub not your beer". It took me a few years to understand what he meant. I'm glad my God Daughter has changed her pub and I hope she enjoys drinking the beer of life in her new one!

-----

And I will finish with what I think is perhaps the nearest thing to perfect I've managed to write as a songwriter!

The False Dots will be launching our new album at The Dublin Castle on Sunday 17th November from 2pm. Please come along Tickets here  - wegottickets.com/event/627785

The Saturday List #456 - My ten favourite pickled foods

 I am in France as I write this. We've gone to Paris for my Goddaughters wedding and are staying in a suburn of Paris. As you might expect, we've had a few decent meals out here. It may be churlish to criticise French cooking, but there is one thing which always bugs me. This may sound odd, but after I've been here a few days, it starts to irriatte me. You simply cannot get pickled onions with your fish and chips. I love fish and chips on a Friday, most likely a side effect of being raised a Catholic, when there was a prohibition on meat eating. It was meant to be a penance, but we all loved fish and chips. Dad emerging through the front door with a big box of fish and chips, still in the white coat he wore from work, is one of my fondest memories. Huge hunks of fish, far too many chips, pickled onions, gherkins, salt, vinegar and Heinz ketchup. Mum moaning as he'd 'bought too much'. Occasionally mum would make fish. That was a disaster for us. As Dad agreed, he'd rarely agree. Anyway, it inspired me to think about my top ten favourite pickled foods. I have discussed this before in detail. So here we go

1. Pickled onions. Fish and chips is simply wrong without a gherkin (as it is without malt vinegar). I should add that pickled onions give me the same pleasure that most folk get from chocolate. I have many great memories of them. 

2. Gherkins. Ditto above, a nice big juicy wally completes the picture!

3. Pickled Shallots. Very similar to onions, but Boucherie Gerard does wonderful home made ones. I slice them up and put them on the salad I take to work. You really should try it.

4. Pickled chillies. Just as fish and chips is not 'proper' without a pickled onion, a Kebab is not proper without a pickled chilli. At Coban's kebab's in Mill Hill, he gives me a couple. I eat one first and the other half way through.

5. Pickled Eggs. These have simply disappeared. Before pubs lost the plot, a pickled egg was just about the only food you'd get. Many people would say 'yuk' but if you've ever stood on a wet football terrace in the freezing cold on a November Saturday, you'd get just how wonderful a pickled egg is. Best consumed with a bag of cheese and onion crisps.

6. Jalapino chillies. This is a new discovery. Like the pickled shallots, they are wonderful on my lunchtime salad.

7. Pickled red cabbage. Much underrated. I first got into it when I worked with a Hungarian decorator called Mickey, who'd bring it along with Salami as a snack. A hunk of rye bread with salami and pickled red cabbage is the perfect snack.

8. Cockles. Oh yes, love em. Great with mayo on toast!

9. Beetroot. A great and inexpensive food, another one that is brilliant with salads. Also good sliced wafer thin on cheese on toast. 

10. Rhubarb. About forty odd years ago, I briefly went out with a lovely young lady, who was very into gardening and cooking. She had an amazing array of pickled foods, all grown on her allotment. She said "You do realise you can pickle anything". I said "What about rhubarb?". She said "I've never tried it". So we spent an afternoon harvesting the rhubab and pickling it in jars. A couple of days later, we split up, not particularly acrimoniously, but it seemed wise. I thought no more of it. About six weeks later, I got a phone call. She said "I need you to come around, it's important". In truth I was terrified that she was pregnant. When I turned up, she was in a fine mood. After a cup of tea, I said "whats up". She replied "Your pickled rhubab is ready". I'd completely forgotton about it, but she'd said that as I'd helped her, half of it was mine. I was quite relieved. I got home with six jars of the stuff. It didn't appeal to me at all. About a week later, a mate came around for a jam on guitars. At around ten pm, we got hungry. All I had was some sliced white bread, a small amount of cheese and the pickled rhubarb jars. I said to my mate (a rather unhygenic fellow called Ubungus) do you fancy, toast with cheese and pickled rhubarb. He hadn't eaten all day so he said "Oh yes!". I thought it was a good way to get rid of some of the stuff. When I opened the jar, it smelled OK, so I had some as well. With a mug of nice tea, I was astounded. It was amazing. I foolishly gave Ubungus a jar of the stuff. Sadly you can't buy it in the shops. I guess everyone has my suspicion of such things. I may well make some when I get home, we've got some rhubarb growing in the garden. Forty years is lon g enough to wait!

Have a great weekend, here's a song to entertain you from The False Dots reportoire! I selected this as the surrogate grandma I refer to made the most wonderful pickled onions, which she'd always give Mum a jar of around this time of year!

If Punk Rock is dead, how come we are all still making a racket?

 I got a phone call from my old mate Noel Martin from the skinhead/punk band Menace yesterday, inviting me to see the band at the 100 club on Friday. I was gutted as I can't go, we are in France for a wedding. If, like me, your idea of a great night out is to watch a band playing loud music that you can jump around wildly to, then you'd like Menace. I've spent my life appreciating such music. When I was about seventeen, an old hippy informed me that "when your taste's mature, you will appreciate having a big spliff and listening to proper music like Dark Side of the Moon (by Pink Floyd). Sadly for me, whilst some of my mates decided that this was a spiffing way to spend the evening, I could only really bear it if I'd drunk ten pints of beer first, so I could fall asleep. I concluded that any music that required a mind altering substance to make you appreciate it was not really my cup of tea. Generally, we'd listen to Dub Reggae, which was a decent compromise. Reggae has never been down beat, kill yourself music, so it was fine with me. Later, my Dad informed me that I should try getting some good, smoochy music, so that I could have something that any young lady who may be unlucky enough to find herself in a compromising situation with me, may at least have something pleasant to ease the awful situation (more or less his words). That was his way of saying "Beat on the Brat with a Baseball Bat by the Ramones will not set the scene for a nice romantic evening. Luckily, I like a bit of Stax and Motown, so that has seemed to surffice, although a few of my girlfriends actually liked a bit of New Rose. 

But here I am aged 62 and when it comes down to it, I'd still always listen to Ska or Punk Rock. I don't really know any hippies anymore, who smoke massive spliffs and insist on complete silence for Floyd. I've been married for 29 years so we rarely have smoochy situations (more's the pity). But we do go to a hell of a lot of gigs and most are either, Ska, Punk or Reggae. It is funny because I hear may snotty commentators who say "Punk was finished by 1977". That was when I got into it. Of course all of the first wave of Punk Bands had either split or changed their sound by 1978, but the whole time was still absolutely buzzing and for me was turbocharged when Two Tone came along. The Specials were probably the only band that I felt were up their with the Ramones as a live act. 

By the time I got it together enough to have a band and start doing gigs, the music industry had moved on from Punk and new wave. We launched on the world doing punk/new wave songs, just as the music industry lost interest. We were full of anger, energy and passion, as the new romantics took over. We'd play gigs to packed audience, who went mad and loved us, despite our lack of technique, but we were totally ignored. We took our demo's to labels such as Chiswick records. For a laugh, I replaced all the guitars on one of our demo's on a song called Fog. I replaced them with synths. Ted Carroll who ran Chiswick loved it and asked us to come back with a demo of electronic music. I was quite annoyed. His feedback was quite reasonable. He said, in effect that punk was dead and if we wanted a deal, we'd have to write a hit and if we wanted a hit, we'd have to write pop music. 

We eventually decided that we'd see if we could get a deal. None of us wanted a job. We got a female singer, and wrote some more pop material. It was a huge mistake, the audiences declined and we didn't get a deal. Certain members of the band blamed me and split off. I regrouped, got in an amazing singer called Venessa Sagoe and decided to have another go. I chucked out all of the crappy pop songs and wrote a set of fairly dark songs, which we then put pop sounding backing to. Songs such as Africa Morning, which was about exploitative sexual tourism became the new set. Venessa found a half finished punk song called Action Shock in my lyrics tin. It is the story a mate told me about shooting an Argentinian conscript on the Falkland Islands during the war. It has been a key part of our set ever since. Vanessa made it sound like a lush pop song. The feedback from the labels was horrific. They said Venessa was too black and too fat to be a pop star and the music was too dark to be a hit. Despite this, the gigs were great and the audiences loved it. I realised that the industry was full of idiots. I also realised that if I couldn't get signed in a band with Venessa, I'd never get signed. I was a fool. I should have set up my own label and sent the records to John Peel. 

Venessa got fed up, and the glory years of the early band faded. I pretty much lost interest in the music scene. If I saw a band I liked playing, I'd go. I've always gone to lots of gigs, but the late eighties were grim. The bands I loved were falling to bits. Teh Ramones were disintegrating, Johnny Thunders was slowly shuffling to oblivion, Two Tone had given up the ghost. There were some great bands and gigs, but they were on the fringes. 

The band downed tools for the duration of the 1990's.  We got back together in the early 2000's for a fundraiser for Ernie Ferebee's family. We played a gig at The Red Lion in Colindale. It was packed and people loved it, much to my surprise. It was all punky stuff. I'd lonmg given up on getting a deal, but it seemed there was an underground punk scene. The music hadn't gone away. In 2008, The False Dots did a charity gig at The Bull Theatre. The main band was a scratch band put together by Lee Thompson of Madness. Lee is a mate and he kindly helped us get it all together. The band played an amazing selection of Ska tracks, Ian Dury covers and 1970's rock (Chris Spedding joined on guitar and they did Motorbiking). With his Madness connections, the gig sold out. It reminded me of my love of Two Tone and Ska. It sowed the seeds of what is now the False Dots set. 

In 2021, when Allen Ashley departed the band, we put together a set that reflected our true roots, punk, ska,  2-tone and Ian Dury inspired songs. Not only was it fun, but audiences love it. We've secured a residency at The Dublin Castle, Camdens most iconic small venue.

On November 17th, we launch the album we've been working on for the last 45 years at The Dublin Castle. It took me a long time to stop listening to the naysayers and have the courage of my convictions to make the sort of music I love. Bands like Menace, 999 and Wire keep the punk/new wave flag flying. Great new bands like Voodoo Radio will carry it forward. 

The industry hates us all, but we don't care! If Punk Rock is dead, how come we are all still making a racket?

Get behind your local football club! My Hadley FC story

I've really got to share something with you.  On Saturday, I got told off. I went off to watch Hadley FC for their 3pm kick off. My good lady wife was expecting me home for dinner around 6pm, I got back at ten. She was not chuffed, but sometimes you have to enjoy the moment. It was a special moment, let me explain. 

If you don't know who Hadley are, they play in the Pitchings Southern League, Central Division one. This is at step four of the non league pyramid, so eight leagues down from The Premiership. They are the oldest and best supported club in the London Borough of Barnet (now Barnet FC play in Harrow). Back in 2018, my nephew decided to write a blog about non league football in the London Borough of Barnet. He was looking for a project to keep him entertained. One of the first clubs he visited was Hadley FC. He liked the setup and suggested that I join him for a game. I did, towards the end of the season. I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere. I used to go to a lot of non league games in the 1960's, when my Dad's business sponsored Edgware Town and then later when Barnet were at Underhill. I fell out of love with Barnet when they moved to The Hive, finding the experience soulless. I saw a few Wrexham games in the conference, before American millionaires bought them. I'd go with my Welsh mates, when they were playing and we'd do a pub crawl and grab a curry. However Hadley were step five, lower than Edgware were in the 1960 and five steps down from Barnet and Wrexham. 

I didn't take to much notice of crowd sizes. There were probably around a hundred people at the first game I went to, which I believe was 27 April 2019 against Stotfold. Hadley won 3-1. It was the last game of the season and Hadley finished third in the Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division. They were moved sideways to the Essex Senior League. The season was cut short due to the pandemic. 

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and decided to get a season ticket for the 2019-20 season. Sadly, the Pandemic ended this early. The last home game before lockdown was declared, Hadley won 7-0, little did we know what was around the corner!

What a team. @hadleyfc seventh goes in 7-0 pic.twitter.com/u3EKvgf1hx

— Roger Tichborne/Rog T (@Barneteye) March 7, 2020

 In 2020-21, I again got a season ticket. The second lockdown started at Xmas, we attended the match on the 19th December, as it was one of the only public places you could get a beer with your mates legally. The season started again in April, with two games in the FA Vase, Hadley losing to Binfield on penalties in the fifth round. In 2021-22, Hadley were back in the Spartan League, obtaining promotion after a fine season and winning the Gladwish Challenge Trophy against Stotfold. I thoroughly enjoyed the season, the first full one for me as a fan. 

In 2022-23, they were playing in tier four, the highest ever league that Hadley had appeared in. To my horror, their best player left before a ball was kicked in anger. The season was a baptism of fire, with Hadley not winning until October. Our hope was to simply avoid relegation, but as the season wore on, new players came in, the team adjusted and by the end of the season, Hadley had a very respectable mid table finish. I thought the team had massively over performed, given the difference in quality between step 5 an step 4. I had started to make quite a few friends at the club, and was delighted that one of them, Tom Hammond, who organises the half time tennis ball challenge was a Trumpet player. He joined our band, The False Dots in the Autumn and has been a real breath of fresh air. That is what non league football is like though, you stay after the game, have a beer and a chat and get to know people. 

For the 2023-24 season, I had reset my expectations. Not to a ridiculous extent, but it was clear to me that the club would do better than just survive. The season however started with a tragedy. Manager Anthony Clark's son lost a battle with cancer. A huge shadow descended over the club. It seemed that football wasn't terribly important. The team didn't win until the last day of September and there was, in truth, a muted feeling around the place. We all went and supported the team, but it was hard to get too animated. By December, it seemed that the team were in for a relegation struggle, but in January, with a new year and new players coming in, the team found its mojo, losing only four games in 2024. New striker Isaac Stones became the league's top scorer and the team finished a very respectable ninth. The season ended on a real high, with a trip to San Marino to play a friendly against Juvenes Dogana, a team that has several San Marino international players on their books (sadly on duty that night). Hadley won 9-1 and a great weekend was had by all. 

9-1 to the @hadleyfc boys!#Sanmarino @HadleyBricks #hadleyontour pic.twitter.com/fBbvdXxKdF

— Roger Tichborne/Rog T (@Barneteye) June 9, 2024

Hadley Super Fan Chris Nash had arranged the whole thing. It is a measure of how good a fan base the club had developed to see so many make the trip.

The new 2024-25 season started with high hopes. Perhaps for the first time, we could realistically dream of a top half finish. I am not quite sure any of us expected what we got! The team have reached the fourth qualifying round of the FA trophy for the first time in the clubs history. They are also unbeaten, having won six out of seven league games, sitting top of the table as I write this. It is early days and we all need to be realistic, but beating Berkhamsted on Saturday to go clear was a magical moment. The fact that it was club President Tristram's birthday was the icing on the cake. I stayed in the clubhouse, celebrating for far too long with a bunch of hardcore fans. Football is fickle and I know that there will be all manner of challenges, but I felt I had to put pen to paper to chronicle my journey whilst we are on a high. When I first went to Hadley, I had no real expectations. I thought it would be a good way to spend an afternoon, but had no plans to get a season ticket or go to San Marino as a supporter. But the truth is that the club, and the other clubs they play in the lower leagues are the beating heart of football. Where else do the fans have a beer with the club president and chairman after the game? 

Hadley FC have a massive game tomorrow (Tuesday 1st October) at Brickfield Lane (opposite The Gate pub on the  107/384 bus route). They are playing Aylesbury United who are three points behind. We lost our top scorer, Isaac Stones to injury on Saturday and he's very doubtful for the game, against a key rival. It is always a great night under the lights, so if you are not doing anything come along. Say Hi and have a beer! It is a very different experience from the Premiership. You can grab a beer and watch the game. The fans mix and the referee will often join us in the clubhouse, where we usually tell him how bad he was in a friendly manner! The supporters of the opposition also join us and swap tales. It is how football should be. 

The Sunday Reflection #24 - Is there any point praying for peace?

I had an absurd thought earlier. Has anyone ever prayed for unending war across the planet? Then a horrific thought came to me and I realised that the thought wasn't so absurd. Why? Well if you look at the global arms industry, the companies that make arms and the people who's jobs rely on it, and the people who's pensions are funded by companies that make arms, it is not so absurd at all. If we had 'World Peace' and it was enduring, a large number of people would feel a big hit in their pockets. What interests me is that the arms industry and it's lobbyists rarely call themselves arms dealers and manufacturers. They use terms like security. They emphasise the non military use of many of their developments, such as radar, jet engines, rockets, etc, all of which started life as militry equipment.

But the truth is that without situations like the Middle East and Ukraine, there would be a lot of people who would find their 'investments' to be worthless. Do any of them actually pray for new wars to start to line their pockets even more? Whether you look at the Middle East or Ukraine, every bullet, every rocket, every drone has been sold at a profit. Someone, somewhere has lined their pocket for every single item. If you have some spare cash and you want to make a profit, you could write down a list of all the arms companies listed on global stock markets and pull one out at random. You can be sure you'll get a nice dividend and the global situation will mean that the shares will rise.

If you are a Church going sort, every week your priest/vicar/whatever will exhort you to pray for peace, most likely leading a prayer and listing the places that are in the news this week. Chances are that there will be plenty of places missed off the list, such as Yemen and Sudan, simply because there are so many and us Westerner types care far more about countrys that have a European population. I would guess that people have prayed for peace, since the concept of Prayer was first invented by Adam and Eve (a figure of speech, I am sure someone will tell me someone else came up with it first).

Why do we bother? Given the billions of people who've prayed for peace in the world over millennia, is there any point? Does it do anything apart from make those of us saying the prayers feel slightly less bad about the fact that we are completely impotent when it comes to trying to stop war. When I was a teenage punk rocker, I followed a pacifist, anarchist band called Crass, who had a song called "Fight War Not Wars". It was a slogan that endured long after Crass faded away. One of Crass's ideas was that things like prayer was a waste of time, their songs were openly abusive about religion. Sadly singing songs proved no more effective than prayer. 

Is there any point at all in Prayer, especially to stop war, especially when all of the evidence is that it has no effect at all? This does trouble me. I often pray. Often for silly things, like to locate my wallet that has disappeared. More often than not, within a minute of saying a short prayer to St Anthony, it will pop up in the oddest places, such as in the fridge or in the dogs bed. I profusely thank St Anthony for his efforts and muse as to how it possibly made it's way there. My wife, having no faith, just assumes I'm an idiot and put it in the fridge when I got a cold beer out. In truth, it's usually her that finds it and will get irritated if she hears me thank St Anthony, given that she thinks she did the work. To me it works though. But whilst St Anthony can find a wallet in the fridge, it occurred to me that I had no idea who the patron Saint of Peace was. I know St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, so maybe he'd be best, but being a consciencios blogger, I did a quick google.

I was shocked to learn that despite being at thousands of masses in my life, I didn't know this and had never heard mention. It is such an important subject that there are two. There is St Francis of Assisi and St Isabella of Portugal. A terrible, wicked thought crossed my mind. Were the Church deliberately suppressing prayers to perfectly good saints, who mught do the business, because war is actually good for business? If a quick prayer to the pair of the could persuade all of these blood thirsty maniacs to have a change of heart, why on earth aren't we using their services? (for those of you unfamiliar with the concepts of Saints and Catholicism, the idea is that Patron Saints have the ear of the Lord and so ensure the job gets done). Or maybe, a more mundane answer is that in truth, the top brass in our churches have realised that in a match between the saints and the blokes with wonga, the saints will come second.

I suspect that whilst so many people are lining their pockets handsomely and paying off politicians to do their bidding, the idea of peace is a forlorn hope. We have created a world where millions are living in fear of death, where whole continents are suffering drought and famine, because we are spending money on arms rather than fixing people's lives. When I was an idealsitic teenager and young adult, I believed our generation would do better. I believed that bands like Crass singing fight war not wars would open our eyes and make us reject the greedy ways that provides the breeding ground for war and conflict. 

A lovely old lady once told me that if you were praying for something, God only listened if you believed with all your heart and all of your mind that God would answer your prayer. Maybe the reason all of our prayers for peace fail is because we are so ground down that we say them knowing they'll be ignored. So is there any point at all praying for peace? I've spent years thinking about this. I have changed my mind many times, sometimes through despair, such as when Russia invaded Ukraine. Sometimes in joy, when the Northern Irish peace deal was done. 

Where I am now is this. I believe it is encumbant on our religious leaders to show proper moral leadership in this matter. I'll try a little prayer to the two patron saints of peace tonight, but should I wake up tomorrow and Putin & the rest haven't had a change of heart, I will conclude that until all of the leaders of faiths get together and publicly state that this has to stop and that waging war and selling arms at huge profit is immoral, then the rest or our prayers will go unanswered. But if you want to carry on trying, then that's fine as well. Surely sooner or later, humanity will wake up to the fact that the warmongerers are ruining are planet and they have to stop? If we don't then I don't think even God will bother to help us.