My view is that all world leaders should acquaint themselves with history. Understanding the lessons of the past can only help leaders to make better decisions. I watched a fascinating documentary yesterday about WW2 and Great Britain for the period 1939 to the Nazi invasion of the USSR. For much of this period, the UK stood alone, our allies were vanquished. After Dunkirk, Hitler and his generals (not his Navy interestingly) believed that Great Britain was defeated. They believed that Churchill would sue for peace, or even better for Hitler, his ragime would topple and a new government and a new monarch, sympathetic to Germany would emerge. When Churchill made it clear that Britian would fight on alone, defying just about every rationale of warfare, Hitler ordered the preparataion of "Operation Sealion", a seaborn invasion of the UK.
To Hitlers surprise, his top Admiral Doenitz was less enthusiastic than the army generals. He pointed out that without complete air superiority and the destruction of the Royal Navy, his army may be sunk crossing the channel. Hitler turned to his airforce chief Herman Goering, who declared that he would "sweep the RAF from the skies in six weeks". Goering produced intelligence assessments showing that the RAF had been massively weakened during the Battle of France and short air campaign would destroy airfields, factories, and planes. The assessment was that they could shoot down Spitfires and Hurricanes far quicker than Britain could build them and the RAF would run out of trained pilots. There was also an assumption that the British people were weak and decadent and would kick Churchill out when the bombs started dropping.
So Germany launched the Battle of Britain. The problem was that the German assessments of the RAF and the production capacity of Great Britain was wrong. Pilots made their way from all over the world to fight fascism. Lord Beaverbrook reformed production. Britain was producing more fighters than Germany, The British public were not cowed, in fact they were spurred to loathe the Nazi's even more.
I am no historian, but the one thing that Britain showed was that the only way you can win is to hang in and not give up. As the documentary went on, the parallels and differences with the current Trump war on Iran became clear. Both the Battle of Britain and the Iran war are air wars. The instigators are given to making bold claims about how the enemy is defeated, failing to realise that no one on the enemy side is listening. Just as Goering told Hitler that the RAF was running out of planes, Trump boasts that Irans military has been destroyed. In both cases, this is demonstrably untrue. If it was true, then the Straits of Hormuz would be open. There can be no doubt that the Iranian people are suffering, it must be hellish. I doubt any readers of this blog would like to live in a country run by a strict Islamic Revolutionary Guard. But whilst the Mullahs have been gravely damaged, their government and the structures are still functioning. It is clear that they still can fire rockets and drones at whoever they want.
The Iranian strategy is not too dissimilar to that of Churchill. Hang on in there and wait for the wind toc change. The Iranians suffered a long, bloody war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, with the US supporting Saddam Hussein. They know that in eight years time they will have seen two US elections. Although Trump looms large, the US constitution means he will not be President for ever. He is also an elderly man. Iran must be calculating that sooner or later, they will have a different leader to deal with. From their persepective, all they need to do is hang on in there.
And when the wind changes in the USA, for whatever reason, should the Iranian regime survive, they will be stronger not weaker. Now of course, this analysis takes no account of Israel, who will no doubt continue to assassinate every Iranian leader they can find, until they decide there is one they can deal with.
But take a step back. Who was the biggest beneficiary of the period 1939-41. Ultimately it was the USA, who weren't involved. Their economy boomed. Prior to the war, they'd seen Britain as a competetor globally, albiet a friendly benign one, with the British Empire fuelling the nations wealth. By 1941, the UK was bankrupt. I look to the east and see China as the big beneficiary. As the USA tears up alliances, the Chinese look to many nations to be a stable and trustworthy partner. They need do nothing. I started this blog eighteen years ago. If someone had told me how the post 2008 period would pan out, I'd have thought them mad. This is just the latest chapter in a story of global self abuse by the human race. It is thorughly depressing.
The best stories are journeys. So hopefully this installment will be a good one! It is the journey of what inspired me to put pen to paper and write the songs that The False Dots perform. I've touched on this several times but never properly charted the journey. So take yourself back to early 1978 if you can remember it, and if you can't, let your imagination do the work. The False Dots, as a band were still a year away from our first formation. I was a snotty nosed 15 year old at Finchley Catholic High School. I had discovered Punk rock the previous year and was lapping it up. I had a mate at School, Pete Conway, who was like minded and we decided that we needed to form a band. We couldn't play, we had no instruments and we had no idea where to start. At the time, our big influence was The Clash and their first album. We had some vague idea that we should play Garageland as we wanted to be a Garage band. The aim was to sound a bit like The Clash. Pete came up with a brilliant idea. Rather than try and copy songs, we'd write our own. As we were both completely lacking in any clue as to how music is put together, this was not the best way to 'learn the ropes'. I had a book by Bert Weedon called Play in a day, which my brother, a decent guitarist, bequeathed to me. It had songs like "When the Saints go marching in" and "The Old Folks at Home" in. Pete observed that we just had to jumble the chords up and play them quicker. It seemed like a plan. To my horror, playing the guitar was much harder than I thought and I had no aptitude for it at first.
In May, Pete took a radical deicision. He quit school and got a job at Dewhursts as a butcher. This would pay for a bass and a bass amp. When I was sixteen, I was coming into a bit of cash from my child modelling career. To my mums horror, I bought a Hofner Galaxy and a Selmer guitar amp. By January 1979, we were making a right old racket in my bedroom every night. We'd written a bunch of songs, more or less randomly picking chords out and hollering slogans over the top. By this time, the Pete and I had discovered Crass. It is fair to say they were a massive influence. They were far less musical than The Clash and far more political. There was one thing though, that they bequeathed that was a massive positive. Crass were amazing at coming up with catchy slogans "fight war, not wars", "Do they owe us a living, of course they do" were just a couple of examples. Our best song of this era was definitely "Wrong" which we are reprising on our new album. It is 45 seconds of sheer punkyness.
By September 1979, my obsession with Crass and the first iteration of the False Dots was done. I had discovered The Specials, Two Tone and Ska. This was what I wanted to do, but we didn't know any brass players. It was also more tuneful and required a much better drummer than we had access to. Pete wrote a Reggae song called "Kingston Rock", which in truth was not very good. He was more into Dub reggae. It was neither.
We did however get a brilliant drummer in 1980. Mr Dav Davies. Sadly, he came in to a set full of punky songs. The time was febrile, huge amounts of musical energby flowed through London. We experimented. We tried our luck with electronic music, influenced by Gary Numan and also started to lean sound wise towards the more tuneful end of The Velvet Underground catalogue. Pete was keen that we be shocking and cover subjects that sane bands of the day would avoid like the plague. I loved the way The Velvet Underground put sugary melody on bitter lyrics. Songs like Not all She Seems from our last album date from then, deals with the issue of the social exclusion of gender fluid sex workers. Not all of these numbers have aged as well.
When Pete left in September 1980, I found myself writing songs on my own. I also had freedom to arrange songs as I saw fit. Craig Withecombe, an excellent guitarist joined and we started gigging. With competent musicians, the songs sounded pretty good and I was inspired to write more, but I struggled to be inspired in the way Crass had originally inspired us. I made the biggest mistake that a songwriter can make. I thought if I made the songs complicated, they would be better, they weren't. Oddly, I wrote a couple of great songs by accident. The best, also on our last album, was Action Shock. This was inspired by the protest songs of Country Joe McDonald. It was my attempt to recreate a punk version of the classic anti war song "I feel like I'm Fixing to Die" around the Falklands War. It worked because it was simple. Dav departed and Mark Barnett joined. He was less capable technically, but he kept the show on the road. We experimented with a reggae song, christened "FalseDub" by a Rasta mate.
By 1985, I realised I needed to up my game. I enrolled in a songwriting course. I believe if I'd done this in 1978, we'd have had hits! It was brilliant, I learned how to structure music properly, but also the importance of what you put together being functional. I also came to understand that song lyrics work better with trigger words and reinforcement of concepts, so that the lyrics can be layered over the music to paint patterns. I also realised the power of what Crass had taught us. Strong lyrics that you remember.
I had long been a fan of Ian Dury, but it never occurred to me that The False Dots could borrow from him lyrically or from the Blockheads muscially. By the late 1980's I had gotten more into groovy and funky vibes. I loved the Run DMC Walk this Way cover. It seemed to me to be the way to go. When Tony Robotham, a very talented singer joined the band, I thought we could nail it, but the industry had changed and it was almost impossible for us to even get gigs, with the feel we had. It was a real shame.
Dispirited I stopped playing. In around 2000, I decided to get a band together to record a few of the old numbers, now I had a recording studio, purely for my own pleasure. I found I enjoyed playing, but did not consider writing any new material. Out of nowehere in 2006, I got the urge to write again. The inspiration was quite odd. I was watching the classic TV cop series "Life on Mars" when a few sentences spoken by a character triggered me. I wrote a song called "I'm the man" AKA "Pusherman". I just wanted to write a sort Stooges style punk song, written from the viewpoint of a psychopathic drug dealer. I hasten to add I am not one, but I enjoy constructing storyboards for songs and videos in my head when I am inspired. It worked. In some ways it was a bit of an evolutionary blind alley. In 2009. Connie Abbe joned the band. Connie is a brilliant Sudanese singer and rapper.
All of a sudden, I had the band I wanted. We could rock, skank, rap and groove. To get my head around what Connie wanted, I immersed myself in Rap music and found it really inspiring. We wrote tracks like "Put me in the Spotlight" which I think was a masterpiece and is the most listened to False Dots track ever. It was used for the Goal of the Month show on the Man City website and had over 47 million plays! Sadly we got almost nothing, but it was a kick.
Sadly Connie went to pastures new. As part of the Library campaign I was involved in, The False Dots got asked to play at Friern Barnet Library, to celebrate the saving of the library. I got the 1985 line up of the band together, with Poet Allen Ashley on vocals. It seemed fitting as Allen is a poet and author. As often happens when you collaborate, your influences are suppressed. I enjoyed the line up, Allen is a great lyricist, but it wasn't particularly the direction I wanted to go in.
When the band emerged from Covid, Allen was not available. I am mates with Lee Thompson of Madness and wrote a song called "Longshot didn't die" with the idea of him performing it with us. I played a rough version to Lee. He said "It sounds great, why not sing it yourself". It was the kick I needed. In short, it worked. I had worked on the song with Allen, with him contributing lyrics, but it was very much the start of the new Dots era. I realised that I'd spent 40 years skirting around the fact that what I really wanted to do was a mash up of The Specials and Ian Dury. I love Dury's narrative style and I love everything about The Specials, but not least the fact that their views align with me.
So I started writing songs for me, to be sung by me and in an manner that is both witty and to the point. Then Tom Hammond joined in trumpet. The missing piece of the jigsaw. Now we were able to bring the ideas to life. Tom can also sing, so it has given us the option to do material that would simply not work with me singing. I revisted a couple of old songs. As mentioned earlier, we reprised Wrong as a nod to our roots. Another highlight is Electric Ballroom, as song originally called Reality Ballroom. I completely rewrote the lyrics when Pete Conway left the band. We now give it a semi psyche rock makeover. It sounds great. And then there is the silliness. Songs like Big Hairy Spider, our recent single. Musically, it is somewhere between The Clash and The Specials. Lyrically, it is actually inspired by horror comics of the 1960's. It has been a long journey, but there are elements of every stage on our forthcoming album.
What I've learned is that you don't need to search for inspiration, open your eyes and ears and it will hit you over the head. Keep it as simple as you can put put twists and turns on the road in your songs. Big Hairy Spider has a middle 8 that is pure Benny Hill. I like it. Have a listen, and we hope to see you at The 100 Club on Good Friday.
The Barnet Eye has learned of plans by Barnet Council to change the speed limit of all local roads in the Borough (ie not A or B roads) as well as all roads outside local schools to a 10mph limit. Speaking exclusively to The Barnet Eye, a council source stated "When cars are travelling at 10mph, the incidents of fatalities and serious injury is almost completely eradicated. The council is embarking on an ambitious policy, to eradicate death through road traffic accidents in the Borough of Barnet. There is absolutely no need for cars to travel faster than 10mph on local roads."
The Barnet Eye has also contacted local political parties for comment. Thus far, only the transport spokesman for ReformUK in Barnet, Mr Richard Maximus has responded "We believe this is another example of Labour gone mad in Barnet. This is the Nanny state at its most extreme. We see no justification for making the lives of motorists in Barnet intolerable. We should be raising speed limits, not lowering them and if Reform is elected in Barnet, we will put the rights of motorists first".
My band, The False Dots released a video celebrating "Boy Racer" culture in the Borough of Barnet in 2024. You will be pleased to know I have not been kicked in the head by a horse, so I will not be endorsing ReformUK or their policies.
(as I am sure you guessed, this is the Barnet Eye April Fool blog for 2026 - however, odd though it seems, if it comes to pass it won't be the first time!)
I've been writing blogs that have been disparaging about AI. What I didn't realise is that AI is now running the worlds IT system and it is taking it's revenge. The first sign was when X.COM cancelled my Barneteye account after 15 years, on the rather strange grounds that the account was inauthetic. Despite a subsequent email saying the account would be reinstated, to date it hasn't been "computer says no!". There seems no prospect of actually getting a human to interact at X. I do wonder if the worlds AI systems are sharing details of AI Apostates? It hadn't occurred to me, but I am starting to see pattern. Today Linkedin decided to no longer accept my password. This is saved on my phone, so it is a bit odd? No worried, I though. I simply did the password reset. Maybe it had been compromised? I did the process and guess what. It suggested a "Strong Password". Now normally these are completely incomprehnsible things like XYp&6tT38Px! - imagine my surprise when I saw the first six letters of the what the Linkedin AI suggested as password. They were "nobkok". Call me paranoid if you like. You will be pleased to know I didn't choose it!
We have a smart speaker in the kitchen. Last night I issued a simple request. I had to practice a couple of numbers vocally, so I asked it to play The False Dots on Spotify. What did it play? Fools get lucky by Barry Manilow. I was not impressed. As for Facebook, it posted a whole load of Pro Manchester United spam on my account (I am a City fan for the record). There have been several other rather odd issues on various IT platforms I use. Perhaps the oddest is that as I am writing this, BTINTERNET, the internet provider we use decided to stop working. Was it a warning? (It is blue when it works).
Also rather oddly, we went away for the weekend and my electronic card to enter my room at the hotel continually stopped working. Am I paranoid?
Well I'd like to state publicly that I think AI is wonderful and I used it to generate The False Dots new video and it did a marvelous job. Lets hope that sets the record straight!
During the early 1990’s Fr Aiden McGing CM became the Parish Priest of the Sacred Heart Church. He had spent most of his priestly life in teaching and this was his first appointment as Parish Priest, this was unusual for a man of his age but he actively settled into the job with much enthusiasm having served as a curate there prior to his appointment. His predecessor, Fr Joe Cunningham asked me in my capacity as Diocesan Building Surveyor to set out a schedule of works with costs to bring the building up to scratch.
The survey revealed so much that had to be done but the old longstanding problem of subsidence and structural defects presented the main problem that had never been successfully tackled. Engineers were engaged to carry out a full review with Mr Tom Bedford from the parish discussing his various attempts to stabilise the structure in bygone years.
Having filed the report to Fr Cunningham, it was left to his successor Fr McGing to follow up on this. We had a chance meeting at the back of the church one morning and I was asked about the report. Having explained that a total overhaul would be like taking the wheels off an old car to bolt a new car to it, he asked what I would recommend. I immediately suggested that he formed a building committee to fully interrogate the option to repair or rebuild with full cost analysis for both.
He quickly followed up on this and decided to let his parishioners decide on whether to replace the Church with explanations of what had prompted this enquiry. He was very surprised to find that the voting was 95 percent in favour of a rebuild. This encouraged him to arrange an architectural competition to choose the most acceptable design out of six requested from different architects. The successful practice was the PRC partnership.
The tenders were within budget and the works soon got underway after completion of the planning process and procurement.
Check out these historic pictures of the demolition and rebuilding
The buildings were completed together with the option to rebuild the church hall in 1996.
It weighed heavily on me having a hand in witnessing the church I loved being demolished as it was rightly an impressive landmark on the Broadway. Nearly all my many siblings and relatives were baptised there and received the sacraments. My brother was ordained a Priest there in 1974 and many of the relatives had their funerals there including our beloved Nana (my Grandma) who was the Sacristan.
The old church was of interest from an architeectural standpoint. The front elevation designed by the Priest Architect Fr Benedict Williamson in 1922 was inspired in its architectural detailing from Egyptian architecture which became fashionable in the 1920’s following the discovery of Tutankhamuns tomb in the valley of the King’s in Egypt. The building was just seventy years old when this redevelopment came about and it needs to be known that the people who voted for a new building did so more our necessity but many favoured the architectural feature of the front facade and reluctantly had to see it go.
Investigations revealed that the foundations of the building were eight feet deep which was deep for that time but sadly not deep enough as the London Clay below was forever wet and sticky due to underground streams in the locality. The church was built over an old pond. That coupled with some weaknesses in the structural design with lack of movement joints would require much to correct and none of it visible on completion.
The roof was also heavily infested by dry rot and the windows were rusting away. The new church and presbytery buildings are all built on deep concrete piled foundations without a crack in sight, so expectations are that these replacement buildings will survive much longer than three score years and ten of the old Church.
If anyone is interested in seeing similar examples of the old church in London there are two in Fulham of similar period by the same architect as well as the significant church of St Ignatius in Stamford Hill designed for the Jesuits. When walking in to the church in Stephendale Road Fulham it felt like being back in the familiar surroundings of the Church of Sacred Heart and Mary Immaculate.
Chris Fanning the Mill Hiller
Editors Note: You can see old Sacred Heart in all it's former glory in The False Dots video "Sunday in the 70's"
On 19th March, I posted a blog stating that X.COM had suspended my X account, as it claimed it was an inauthentic account. On 25.3.26 at 09.56 I received an email from X
Hello,
We’re writing to let you know that we’ve unsuspended your account. Should you run into any trouble logging back in, try requesting a password reset email. It may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal.
Please note that your account was previously suspended for violating one or more of the X Rules, such as:
1. Sending multiple unsolicited @replies or mentions. Learn more.
2. Posting multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic. Learn more.
3. Aggressive and random repost and/or liking posts from other accounts. Learn more.
4. Misuse of X product features
This includes any of the following:
“follow churn” – following and then unfollowing large numbers of accounts in an effort to inflate one’s own follower count;
indiscriminate following – following and/or unfollowing a large number of unrelated accounts in a short time period, particularly by automated means; and
duplicating another account’s followers, particularly using automation.
Please note that repeated violations of the X rules may result in suspension.
This case will now be closed and replies will not be monitored.
Thanks,
X
All good then? No. Despite receiving this email, I am no nearer getting my account restored.
----- Here is the original post
Sometimes you just have to laugh. The world just becomes more ridiculous every day. When Elon Musk took Twitter over, many of my mates left. They decided that the new ultra libertarian ethos was not for them. It has seemed that all moderation has gone out of the window. Overt racism, Islamophobia and Misogyny is fine. I have thought several times about abandoning the platform. Before the Musk era, most of my tweets would get hundreds, if not thousands of views, now most get a couple of dozen. I rarely post, however I have taken the view that some readers of The Barnet Eye and some of my mates are still on it, so I persisted. I used to actively promote the platform, I did a feature every Sunday called "The tweets of the week in the London Borough of Barnet", which was a round up of the best tweets from local tweeters. I uncovered many gems and made a few friends as a result. It ended in October 2023, not because of any ideological fall out. It was simply because there was not enough interesting posts from local tweeters to make it worthwhile. The local tweeters had voted with their feet. Finding ten posts a week that were worth highlighting was almost impossible.
Whereas I wasted half a year looking at Twitter pre Musk, now I rarely check it out, except when researching blogs or checking news stories. A cursory glance in the morning and a visit to post when I write a blog. There are still a couple of interesting posters, who I do try and keep up with, but it used to be dozens. In short, it is no longer something I have any real interest in, but while there are a few people on who are worth supporting, I would have stayed. However it seems Elon Musk had other ideas. Yesterday, I received this message from X.COMIt seems I am not an 'authentic poster', whatever that means. After 15 years on the platform, I have been deemed 'an imposter'. It states that I had been reported. I was bemused. Why? The only reasonable conclusion as to why this should come now, out of the blue, was as a result of the Guest blog I posted on Monday about the Edgware Redevelopment. I genuinely cannot think of, or see a reason why anything else would upset anyone enough to report my account, let alone make up a truly ridiculous complaint. However, there is a lot of money to be made by property developers from such schemes. They have paid media consultants, who are savvy with the art of drive by shootings on X.com of pesky bloggers. Now of course, it could be a disaffected ex girlfriend from 50 years ago, someone who hates my band or someone who disliked Country Joe McDonald (the things I've posted recently). There is a local convicted paedophile with a long standing grudge against me, after his activities were exposed, who may well have stuck his oar in. That would not surprise me either. I don't know. They don't give you any clues.
Do I care? Not really. It has sort of made a decision for me. However, if my suspicions are true, then it is something that needs dealing with. I have appealed. Any vaguely sentient being would see that my account is not a Bot and is authentic.
Anyway, if you are a Twitter friend and have had a look at the blog as I've not posted, here is the reason why.
Democracy is a very funny thing. I may be wrong, but I believe Winston Churchill described it as "The worst form of government, apart from all of the other ones". Today is Palm Sunday in the Christian year. The reading of the day, recalls how the Roman Governor exercised democracy with the crowd in Jerusalem, giving them the choice of freeing or crucifying Jesus or a chap called Barabass. Barabass won and Jesus went to be crucified. It is a good illustration of the fact that democracy doesn't always make the right decision. The concept was invented in Greece around 508 BC. The idea was quite simple, you would get better governance when everyone takes part and has a say. In its original form, it was not like the UK today. Women had no vote and many other citizens were not entitled to vote.
In the UK it took until the 18th century for the ideas of democracy to start to take hold. As Parliament became more powerful, the influence of the Crown diminshed. On of the problems with democracy is that to win elections, you need to be popular. To be popular, you often have to propose policies which are not good for the country but will get enough electors on side for you to win. I've stood as a candidate for the local council. I soon realised that telling the truth to voters will not win you any elections, when your opponents make up blatent lies. Apparently "it is all part of the game".
What is more interesting is how short, the memories of voters are. Few remember the promises politicians made last time around, or actually see what they delivered on. In several councils, Reform won during the last round of council elections. Their manifesto promised tax cuts. Instead, they found out the hard way that council budgets have no scope for cuts. Councils have a legal responsibility to provide many services. They cannot be cut. Sadly for voters, taxes have shot up in many of these councils. I actually beleive many councils are hopelessly inefficient in the way they do things and there is the potential for saving money by becoming more efficient. However, many of these things involve really boring attention to detail. It involves making sure everything is done in the most efficient way possible from the ground up. It involves listening to and engaging with staff, to see what can be done better. In truth, it is not a party political thing at all. It is a management issue. The problem is that most council leaders have no clue about running businesses. They don't know what to challenge in the budget with their officers. The senior execs have usually got no real business experience, so are also not properly focussed on costs.
When I realised this, I also realised that the same is true in national government. Sir Keir Starmer was a lawyer before he became a politician. Boris Johnson was a writer. Theresa May and Rishi Sunak worked in banking. None of these ever have had to worry about supply chains, or the effects of energy inflation on their business. Another unfortunate aspect of the UK not fighting major conflicts is that very few people have done military service. Men who have served on the front line are far more reticent about putting people in harms way, than people who dodged military service and just see armed forces as a toy box to have fun with. I think David Lloyd George was the last serving Prime Minister to lose a son on a battlefield in office. I have a mate who served in The Falklands, with the Royal Marines. He suffered bad PTSD. He told me that he eventually got his head together by going to Nepal and spending three years up a mountain smoking dope. The difficult truth is that serving on the front line deeply affects people in a profoundly negative way. My father, who was an officer in the RAF told me that almost every Leader that ever started a war did not achieve what they wanted and throughout history, most aggressors do not die peacefully in their sleep, having lead a happy life.
I entitled this blog "Is this the world we really want to live in", because I was reflecting on the idea that every adult who has ever voted on the planet might want to consider whether the politicians they entrusted their vote with, might wish to consider how many of those politicians have repaid their faith? I was at an event last night and we were discussing the current encumbant in the White House. He said "I have a good American friend who told me that although Barack Obama was a lovely man, he did nothing for America and that is why Trump is in power now". I don't study American politics, so I can't say, but I suspect that there is an element of truth in that.
My view is that we are at a crossroads on the planet. It is clear that many of the citizens on the planet are being badly failed. When there are people who are so rich that they own more money than whole nations, yet people in those nations are suffering famines, etc, no one can possibly say there is justice. What alarms me is that no one in power is talking about bringing some sort of redress to this. The only partys talking about this, in a positive way, currently are the Lib Dems and the Green Party. The Tories have completely abandoned any sort of fairness agenda, the Labour Party seems to believe in nothing. Both seem terrified of scaring voters into the arms of Reform, by talking about fairness and equality.
Lets talk about the flood of refugees into the UK currently. People leave their country of birth because they want a better life. Most people stay where they are, if they have a decent standard of living and can raise a child safely. My view is that enabling countries to provide a decent life for their citizens is by far the best way to "Stop the boats". Sadly the international arms trade, which has many politicians in its pockets, disagree. I fundamentally believe that until you fix the root cause of any problem, it will remain. Which means that until people like Donald Trump start addressing poverty in the Third World, we will have problems which fill our news feeds.
A few weeks ago, I counted the countries that I've visited. I made it 49. Currently there are over 10 that I would not consider visiting today, because they are simply not safe. When I visited, I had no concerns at all. It was a sobering thought.
I have a confession to make. It is one that may sound strange, given that I've played guitar in Rock and Roll band for 47 years. I hate guitar solo's. Now for those of you who are not familiar with guitar playing, I don't mean riffs (repeated passages of sometimes intricate playing). I don't mind a little bit of noodling at the start of a song. But I find actual solo's mindnumbingly boring. I can tolerate four bars of soloing, but when it goes on for five minutes, it really bores me to distraction. I think that is why bands like The Ramones and Wire appealed to me. It also explains why I like Ska music. It is all meat and no gunge on the side. I appreciate well arranged songs, with catchy guitar lines, but when I get to the solo, forgive me if I switch off. I always felt embarrassed to admit this. If you are a guitarist, you are meant to get aroused over ten minutes of shredding by Yngwe Malmstein and his ten minutes with a million notes. Sorry, give me Pinhead by The Ramones anyday.
I must admit that despite all of this, it took me nearly 40 years to have the strength to actually admit this in public. Now oddly, I don't mind proper instrumentals, if they have a theme and structure. I loved The Shadows early recordings and not just because Hank B. Marvin's son was in the band and invented the riff for The False Dots song "Not All She Seems". I have a similar aversion to all soloing. If you can't say something cool in four bars, don't bother.
Now the trouble was, that I have had some great guitarists in the band. Craig Withecombe, Bill Pithers and Fil Ross to name three. All of whom contributed massively to the band. All of whom played great solo's. I don't actually mind jamming along when they are doing it. But if I was a punter it would leave me cold. I believe every second of song should justify its existence. I just don't think solo's do. Captain Ubungus, an ex guitarist, loved solo's. He would spend hours explaining why the solo in Hotel California was the best solo ever, with it's 7 modal changes. I liked the song, but for me, my brain switches off after the fourth bar of the solo. Now this is not to say there are not great songs with solo's in. But personally, I always wish the solo was much shorter.
An unfortunate by-product of this is that I've never bothered to learn to solo properly. This means that I would never get a job as a lead guitarist in a covers band. It is lucky that I don't want that gig. Anyway, this series is called Rock and Roll Stories. This may be the longest preamble to a story ever.
Back in the early days of the False Dots, in our very first iteration, we were all barely able to play. Pete Conway had the idea of getting in a lead guitarist who could actually play to augment the line up. It was agreed that I would play rythme and he would play lead. The guy was a Canadian called Wayne Kerr, would you believe. He claimed he was in the Sex Pistols film "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" playing an American roadie. We were 16, he was about 24 and turned up in full rock and roll attire. I took an instant dislike to him. He was arrogant, patronising and a complete W anchor". We played him 2 or 3 of our songs. He hated them. He then said "I will play you a proper song". He told us the chords and proceeded to play something with the chords of "Ca plane por moi" with trite words about how the system screws you up. It was bad punk rock by numbers. The guys style was more Iron Maiden than Johnny Thunders, although he claimed to have jammed with the Heartbreakers. He was very keen to impress us, with tales of drugs and groupies. The more he went on, the more I disliked him. He pulled out a bag of cocaine and said "This will make us all play better". Before I could say anything, he said "Not you, you are no good, you are not in the band".
He had walked in, talked B@ll@cks for ten minutes, slagged off our songs and sacked me from my own band. Back in those days, I hadn't dealt with my anger management issues. I simply took off my guitar and hit him on the head with it, knocking him out. Pete Conway simply stood and stared, then said "That was proper punk rock Rog". The guy staggered to his feet and said "You are an animal, you just assaulted me, I'm going to call the Police". I replied "Yeah and tell them that you offered us all a line of coke, now F@ck off" which he did immediately. About 20 minutes later, there was a knock on the door. He was back. He was raging. He'd left his bag of cocaine behind. I told him to "f@ck off" again. He said "You took me by surprise, come outside and we can sort it out properly". I replied "Ok" to my huge surprise, he then ran away at top speed. I couldn't be bothered to chase him.
Pete was embarrassed. The guy was unquestionably a W anchor in every way. We actually did a version of his song with new lyrics "When Wayne Kerr came from Canada, He didn't know a F@ck, About British punk Rock, His Brain was truly stuck". In my mind, he was the exemplification of everything I hated about musicians before I discovered punk rock. But most of all, I hated the way that he thought that playing long boring solo's made him interesting. When I saw the Rock and Roll Swindle, I was not even sure if the annoying roadie was actually him.
A couple of days after the 'incident', Wayne rang Pete. He told him that he was mates with Hells Angels and they were coming to murder me. Now normally, such a threat might be alarming, but Wayne was such a W Anchor that Pete just laughed and he put the phone down. Needless to say, I am still alive.
I'd like to think I've got better since then. A year after this incident Craig Withecombe joined the band. Craig was our age and a far better guitarist. Although Craig could be rather annoying at times, I never even remotely felt like thumping him or any of the other musicians who followed him. A few friends were present and witnessed the sorry incident. Word went around. Pete Conway would wind other guitarists up by saying to them "Rog is a $h1t guitarist, but if he thinks you can play better than him he'll clobber you". It took me a while to realise why most other guitarists I knew avoided me.
Now I am a grown up, I am not particularly proud of my behaviour and it could have caused a serious injury. No amount of such behaviour justifies violence. I was recounting the story to someone, and I said this. They said "If he walked in now, would you apologise?". I could give five reasons to say, no I wouldn't, but in truth I would. Violence is never the answer.
On that note, if you haven't, please have a look at our new video.
I have spoken to three people in Mill Hill who have been victims of bank fraud recently. In all cases, they have fallen victim to very plausable callers. Often, these have personal information from Bank staff, who have been paid by criminal gangs, which enables them to sound entirely trustworthy. The sad thing is that no one ever need fall victim to such a fraud. Any caller claiming to be from the bank, will not pressurise you into doing anything. If a bank identifies fraud and needs to contact you, they will have already put adequate precations in place and will only seek clarification. However most people do not know the correct procedure to ascertain whether a caller its genuine. It could not be easier. If you are contacted by someone claiming to be from the bank and asking you to do something, do not be fooled if they know your name, email or details. It is very easy to verify. Just follow this procedure.
1. Inform the caller, very politely that it is kind of them to ring, but you always verify callers from your bank, before you proceed.
2. Inform them that you are now going to hang up the call and call the National bank security hotline on 159. If you have not heard of this service, these are the details
159 is a secure, memorable UK hotline designed to combat bank fraud by connecting callers directly to their bank’s fraud prevention department. If you receive an unexpected or suspicious call about a financial matter, hanging up and calling 159 ensures you are talking to your real bank, not a scammer.
Key Features and Details:
Purpose: To prevent "impersonation scams" where criminals pose as bank staff, police, or official entities to steal money.
How it Works: Upon dialing 159, an automated system asks which bank you want to connect to, then directly links you, preventing potential fraud.
Availability: Supported by most major UK retail banks—including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Santander, and Monzo via Stop Scams UK—covering over 99% of UK bank accounts.
Security: It cannot be spoofed or impersonated by fraudsters, offering a safe alternative to calling a number provided by a potential scammer.
Cost: Calls cost the same as a standard national rate call (often free if you have inclusive minutes).
Any caller who attempts to discourage you from calling this number, is clearly not a genuine caller. Please share this information with all of your friends and family, especially elderly and vulnerable, who scammers particularly target.
No one ever should be scammed. It is easy to use the service and scammers will generally abandon the call and move on to their next victim immediately. Oh, and it is a national service so you don't have to be a resident of Mill Hill to use it! Spread the word and keep us all safe.
The Banks and phon companies participating in the 159 scheme are:
The best things in life do not come easy, and the path is not straight. I have made the mistake in my life of taking things for granted when they came easily, not appreciating the moment and not being thankful for my blessings. However when things are difficult, when you take a few knocks to get there but eventually reach the promised land, it is sweet and hopefully you can appreciate it in a way that you never would have, had it turned up on a plate.
Life is a funny old thing. When I was about 23/24 years old I had a bit of an existensial crisis. From the age of sixteen, my sole aim in life was to have a successful band. In 1986, I put together what I believed was the perfect version of the band. We recruited a singer who was brilliant. He was one of the few male singers who could give Freddy Mercury a run for his money. We had a brass section and I had a plan. The only real problem was that the new singer had other ideas. He had a completely different view of what a band was, what the point of being in a band was and what the point of writing songs was. He renamed the band, with the support of other members. I acquiesced. I didn't agree, but to me the principle of democracy in a band was important. He then engineered the sacking of our drummer. I was horrified. We had a couple of gigs to fulfil. I acquisced again, to my eternal shame. The only good thing was that it meant I had a valid reason for not including the gigs and that line up in the story of The False Dots or our gig list.
I found myself at the start of 1987 in a very difficult situation. I didn't want to be in the band, but we also were all partners in the studios. I made the decision to restart the False Dots from where we'd left off when Allen Ashley left at the end of 1985. But in truth, the events of 1986 had doused the fire in my belly to play. The worst thing of all was that I had self doubt about what I was doing and why. It took me a decade and a half to get over that as a musician. One of the 'ideas' the new singer had was that we play covers and earn money. I don't mind doing one or two, especially at gigs where you are booked to do more than one set, but a whole set of covers? The singer was good at band politics. He suggested that each member chose a song. I can't recall all of them. His choice was Fame by David Bowie. He'd managed to choose a Bowie song I couldn't stand. Quite a feat. My choice was 'Save Me' By Eritha Franklin, using the arrangement by Aussie band The Saints. One of our sax players chose Low Rider by War and the other, to my great delight chose "Take it Easy" by Prince Buster. The last gig we did was in September 1986 at The Edgware Services club, the singer playing drums. For me, it was a horrific abomination of a gig. We had lost the essence of what made us the False Dots. We were just a very average covers band churning out laboured renditions of other peoples music. The audience seemed to like it and the singer took it as an enorsement of his ideas.
There was one highlight in the set. When we played Take it Easy by Prince Buster, everyone got up and danced. The band had a few songs with a ska/reggae flavour, which we'd written, but this was actually diffierent. It worked. We all loved the song, apart from the singer, who really wanted to do pop and rock. But a seed had been planted. I loved ska music, The Specials are one of my all time favourite bands, but until we had a band with brass and keyboards, I always felt we couldn't do it justice. As we performed that one number and the club started skanking, I realised that if we wanted to do covers this was the way to go. The singer disagreed and said "Ska isn't even proper reggae". That was the end of our musical association. The bassplayer and sax player had an extended holiday lined up in India and it all just sort of faded away.
Fast forward to 2021, the country is in lockdown. Our drummer has just lost his son. Allen Ashley, our singer has taken a sabbatical from performing and rehearsing, due to covid. But we are musicians and as it's our job, we get back on the case. The trouble is, there are only three of us. Graham on drums (who had been sacked by the vocalist in 1986 and returned to The False Dots in 1987), Fil Ross on bass and myself on Guitar and vocals, as Allen couldn't attend. I hadn't sung with the band since 1983. I had decided that we needed 'better singers'. But our mission was to get Graham out of the house and playing, to try and distract him from the tragedy. My biggest issue as a singer (apart from having a very average voice and a limited tone) was that I found I couldn't really sing and play together. But I had no choice. We had a couple of old songs I could manage. So I decided to write songs for myself, my own range and in my own style. What came out was a set of songs that sounded a bit like Madness would if Ian Dury was their singer (and they didn't have horns or keyboards). I wrote the lyrics to be as funny as possible, to try and get a smile from Graham. When we started, it was just a jam, with no purpose. Just musicians playing for the joy of it and for our own entertainment.
I am quite a prolific writer, so within no time at all we had a set of ska influenced songs. In June 2022, we did a short set at The Mill Hill Music Festival of the new material. To my complete surprise, the audience loved it. In September that year, we ventured back into Camden Town, for the first time in a decade and played The Dublin Castle with this new set. I loved it, but in truth something was missing. Every time I thought back to that gig in Edgware, I thought of "Take it Easy" and everyone skanking. It sounded so much better with some brass. In September 2023, I asked Tom Hammond, who is an amazing trumpet player, to play a few notes on some recordings we were doing. He fitted in immediately and was the missing link. It felt like the band was complete.
Anyway, fast forward to now. I have always felt a debt of gratitude to those musicians who influenced me and made my life worth living. That experience of playing Take it Easy planted a seed that has grown into what The False Dots are today. We do original material, with the odd cover thrown in. But I feel I owe Prince Buster something. I mentioned this to Lee Thompson, sax player of Madness and a good mate. Lee, like me, loves Prince Buster. The first single by Madness was The Prince, a tribute penned by Lee to the great man. I jokingly suggested to Lee that he get up with us and do Take it Easy when we perform at The London International Ska Festival. To my surprise, he was well up for the idea. Even better, Boz Boorer of The Polecats/Morrisey fame also decided to join in the fun!
So, if you are coming to see the band at The London International Ska Festival, you should be in for a treat. Lee has also asked to do "Free Love" by Prince Buster, so it should be quite a show!
The middle eight in "Take it Easy" has the line "The road may be rough, but don't you ever ever give up". I suppose it could be the anthem of the False Dots. If I have one regret in my life, it is that I didn't have the faith in myself in 1979, when I had the energy and drive, to do what I've really known all my life. I wanted to play in a band that sounded like a mash up of The Specials, Madness and Ian Dury and that although my vocal style and talents are limited, they are perfect for such a sound. And when it comes down to it, they are the music I love. Being 63 years old and living the dream is a good thing. Don't let life pass you by. Don't give up on your dreams because of a few bumps on the road. If someone is walking the same path as you, it doesn't mean they have the same destination, so believe in yourself.
The False Dots will be playing our brand new single Big Hairy Spider at the gig, which I think exemplifies everything good in our music. And if you love a bit of Hanna-Barbara cartoon animation, you will love the video!
