The Saturday List #513 - My top ten theatre shows

Last Saturday, Gary Crowley on BBC Radio London asked listeners about the best Theatre shows they'd seen. It got me thinking, what are the best shows I've seen. I am more a gig person than a Theatre lover, but I have seen some banging shows. Here is my Top Ten.

1. Jersey Boys. Absolutely the no 1 show I've seen. No Question at all. Not only are the songs brilliant, but the inter band relationships and politics are so well portrayed. I've seen dozens of films, etc about bands and it is rare that they get anywhere near portraying the complexities of having several creative people working in close proximity for years and sometimes decades. One of the things it showed so well is how the dynamic changes over time. 

2. The man in the womens shoes. I saw this at the Tricycle theatre in Kilburn (now The Kiln). It is the work of Irish actor/playwrite Mikel Murfi. It tells the story of a man in rural Ireland who is unable to speak and works as a cobbler. It is a one man show and Murfi shows us two sides of Pat Farnon, what he is thinking and what everyone else sees. It is a brilliant depiction of rural Ireland, but also an object lesson for all of us into how we judge and misjudge people. This is definitely my No 1 non musical show. I've now seen it three times.

3. Love and death and rock and roll. The story of Wilko Johnson. Few musicians had such a fascinating life as Wilko. A founder of Dr Feelgood, a member of The Blockheads. One of the few people to recover from pancreatic cancer. We saw it at the Southwark Playhouse. Paul Weller was in the audience. Well worth seeing.

4. All or Nothing. The story of The Small Faces. A band I love. For some reason, despite being massive in the 1960's they seem to me to be criminally overlooked and underrated. It was on at the Arts Theatre

5. The Harder they Come. This was originally a film vehicle for Jimmy Cliff. As I love Jimmy Cliff, it was great to see the production at Stratford. It did not disappoint. 

6. Don Juan. We went to see a production of Don Juan, performed by a Georgian Theatre company. I can't recall where or when. It was a bizarre night as there was meant to be alive translation subtitle system, but it broke down. It was a truly bizarre evening. I thought it was wonderful.

7. Once a Catholic. This was the first theatre production I saw without my parents. I think it was in 1979 at The Wyndham Theatre. I believe I went with my mates from Orange Hill. I think I was the only Catholic, so I saw it in a completely different light. They didn't really get how most people felt about nuns who'd been taught by them. It made an impression on me. 

8. The Ferryman. A Jez Butterworth play, about an Ireland during the troubles. Intense and gripping. Perhaps the best really serious play I've seen. I am a fan of Butterworths work.

9. The Rat Pack. The story of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin et all. It was the last show I went to with my dearly departed Father in Law, Mr Leslie Harrison. Les was a wonderful man. He loved Sinatra, et all. I had never really been into that whole thing. However, the play was fascinating. not least the way that the pack stood up against the racism of the USA and how they stood up for Sammy Davis Jnr. A good play, for me, is one that engages you and maybe, you learn something from. This one ticked all the boxes. Perhaps the thing I recall best, was a technical point. The main characters had microphone cables, coiled on the floor so they wouldn't trip over them when singing and performing dance routines. I was fascinated by this (I know, its  a bit sad!).

10. Lazarus. We went to see this at the Kings Cross Theatre soon after Bowie passed away. It is a sort of follow on from the film "The man who fell to Earth". I think we were all still mourning Bowie at the time and it felt like a connection to him. I am not sure if it was any good, but it was quite cathartic for me as a Bowie fan. I think I enjoyed it more than any of the mawkish tribute concerts we saw. 

What are your favourite Theatre productions? Why? 

And finally, a couple of bits of housekeeping before I dive into the list. Thanks to everyone who came down to Nambucca last night for The False Dots show. There was a great support set from The Monoversals. I am also delighted to announce the next False Dots show, and it will be a banger

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Anyway, onwards and upwards.

A few thoughts on the Manchester City vs Premiership case

 On Wednesday night, I was in Manchester, to watch my team, Manchester City FC play PSG. Although City lost, it was one of the best games of football I've seen. PSG were unbeleivable in the first half, City the better team in the second half. At thise stage inthe Champions league, there is no real jeopardy, so botth teams could play expansive attractive football, which they did. 

But no supporters of other teams want to talk about football when it comes to City. Last night, I spoke to two fans of other clubs. They support Man Utd and Arsenal. Both are reasonable guys. Both strongy feel City should be stripped of all titles and relegated. Both challenged me and asked my opinion. I stated that the case has not been resolved and I'll accept whatever the final punishment is. It is irrelevant, as the memories will always be there. I understand that both feel especially aggrieved as they feel their clubs, respectively, have 'suffered'. I have no real sympathy with this position.

There are many reasons why. Now whilst I don't like the setup of the Premiership and have explained my reasons at length, I believe that they are extremely blinkered. Let us first start with an alternative world. A world where Roman Abramovich never took over Chelsea and City were never bought by an oil state.  Would the Premiership be more competetive and exciting, or less? It is highly likely that the Arsenal/Man Utd hegemony would have continued. Would their owners have invested more or less in their clubs? I think we know the answer. Arsenal made a huge profit on transfer dealings with City. Without that influx of cash, would they be in the position they are? 

And the rest of the league? City and Chelsea have amazing youth team systems, unarguably the best in the league. Squads up and down the league are full of gradtuates of the schemes. This has benefitted the whole of the league. Better players, more skill. Then we have the managers that have come in Guardiola, Mourinho. Can anyone argue that both haven't had a massive positive effect on the quality of football in the Premiership? Would English teams have done better in European had the money not come in. I do not believe it would and I believe that the Premiership would be a far less valuable product for TV etc.

Now lets consider what happens if City's owners are banished and the club relegated. You may hate the fact, but a billion has been invested in players by the owners. This has, you may argue, artificially inflated transfer costs and wages, but when that money goes, every club will be faced with a huge asset write down. The balance sheet of every club will take a hit. For a club like Man Utd, who are already massively in debt, it would be ironic if their campaign against City results in liquidity problems. 

A BBC report this week showed just how dire the finances of English football are. Anyone who argues that taking the City billions out will improve that is simply detatched from reality. There is a massive possibility of a mass exodus of the best players to foreign leagues, once the investment dies down. The cost of football is ridiculously inflated. This is justified by the sheer quality of the football we see. Would fans pay the same, if they were payng Premier league prices to watch Championship style football? Of course, many like me, who are also season ticket holders for Non League clubs would, but I doubt it would attract the reach that the current setup has.

Does this mean that I think City should "get away with it" if they are found guilty? Ask yourself this. If you are a fan of say Arsenal or Liverpool. If the people running your clubs, who are Americans who care nothing about football, engage in rule breaking and the club gets trophies stripped and relegations, their only concern is financial. It is you, the fan, who has done nothing wrong, and will support your team no matter what, who will suffer. Do you seriously believe if Man Utd were stripped of every trophy since the Glazers took over, that the Glazers would care, so long as the money rolled in?

The punishment should fit the crime. English football has hugely benefitted from the investment of City's owners. If the owners are not fit and proper owners, then boot them out. The shame and their financial loss in a fire sale would act as a cursory warning to other dodgy owners. Of course, this is based on the premise that City lose their appeal. 

In five years time, if City are in the Northern Premier League, stripped of titles and UK football is in dire financial straits, with all of the stars playing for Barcelona and Real Madrid, where FFP does not matter, you may look back at recent events and say to yourself  "How did we kill the goose that laid the golden egg". Footbal in England is running on fumes, clubs are living on debt. When they all have a massive write down of their playing assets, and there is no one to bale them out with injections of cash, don't say I didn't tell you.

I guarantee that in five years time PSG, Real and Barca will all still have plenty of cash. 

You are in for a treat

Our next show

Music makes life better! Much better! I have had a strange week. I've been attacked by crocodiles, unfriended by email, had a lurgy and perhaps worst of all, our 15 year old, geriatric doggy is not in good shape. By about 8pm yesterday. I was feeling pretty down, if I am honest. However, I had a rehearsal with The False Dots, as we have a show at Nambucca on Friday (on the Holloway Road, Near Archway and it's free to get in to). I really wasn't feeling like it at all. Yesterday was also one of my designated non drinking days. Generally I don't mind, but if it wouldn't have inconvenienced everyone, I'd have just gone to the pub. But I didn't. With regards to my band, I am anything, if not professional. So I printed out the set lists, printed some updated lyrics and waited for the band to arrive. When I rehearse, I have to get my 'rehearsal head' on. When I play with the band, I step into my band persona. 

When the guys turned up, we had a short listen to some of our recent recordings, before we started. I had made some changes to arrangements and I wanted the boy to be clued up. We all had a cup of tea and a brief chat. As it was a gig rehearsal, it was a short run through of the set. We have different patterns of rehearsals, depending on what we are rehearsing for. When it is a gig rehearsal, we only run through all of the songs once and we time it, to ensure that we don't overrun. We are playing for an hour, so we timed the set. 

There is one new song in the set, called "Moderately priced Hedonism", which is both the slowest and the fastest song in the set. We play the songs in order and I also do intro's. These usually change, but it helps with timings etc. The band has been going for 47 years, we've had many incarnations and some brilliant musicians and vocalists in the band. I do however believe that our current incarnation is one of the best, if not the best in terms of the show we do. We have a really strong set of songs and a very good band dynamic. The set lasted 58 minutes, which is more or less bang on the money. 

When we play live or do a full gig rehearsal, it expends a fair bit of energy, but it also gives you a massive ebergy boost. I left the rehearsal feeling 20 years younger and in a brilliant frame of mind. This is what music does. There is a famous song called "last night a DJ saved my life". I am not going to be so dramatic as to say "The False Dots saved my life last night", but the band certainly helped get my mindset back on the right path. Music doesn't get old or ill, it doesn't cheat or lie. It doesn't demand anything in return. I believe that as a musician, I am just channelling something bigger, more powerful, something good. It is a privilege to play with my fellow False Dots and I will always be eternally grateful to everyone who has ever helped keep the band on the go. That includes not only musicians, but roadies, promoters, bar staff, journalists, radio presenters and prorducers who have helped us to do what we do. Most of all though, thanks to all of the people who come to the shows and listen to the tracks. Without them, we'd be nothing. 

And as to Fridays gig, I beleive The False Dots always play our best when we play live. Nambucca has a brilliant sound system and is a great venue. I believe that if you are coming, you will be in for a treat. 

Unfriended by email - What a strange world we live in

 My friends mean the world to me. I rather hope that for all of my flaws, of which there are many, they know I am decent, honest and I have their back if needed. I am pretty careful who I make friends with. I have lots of casual friends, who I might have a drink or a chat with, if I bump into them, but people I seek to spend time with and trust, that is a far smaller group. Sometimes situations arise that cause friction between people. Usually, it has been because there is a problem with a third party. I have a life policy of trying not to drag my friends into disputes, or force them to pick sides. It is unfair and in most such situations, both parties think they are right. It is pretty rare for one side to be totally wrong. So I try and refrain from slagging people off to mutual friends and performing character assassination's. Generally such behaviour may secure some sort of short term advantage, but I believe the truth will always out and often when it does, it ends up with everyone falling out, when people realise they have been taken for mugs. There is a downside to this. I have, perhaps far too often, let things go unchallenged at the time. 

I also don't seek people out to sow division and turn them against people. If I have a genuine problem with someone, I will say what I have to say to their face. I try and do this as politely as I can, but on occasion this is not possible. Life is to short to be eaten up with petty grievances and settling scores. I have a band to run and people I like to spend time with. It is a philosophy which works pretty well. It is not perfect, but holding on to grudges is a negative waste of energy.

So today, I found myself in a very strange situation. I was copied into an email by someone I considered a very good friend indeed. So imagine how I felt to see this contained in the email "he added that 'I am a very close friend of his', referring to me. This is the second time now that Roger has openly made this statement that is both untrue and incorrect.". I was absolutely taken aback by this. I won't go into the details, other than to say, our families have known each other for decades and we have spent a lot of time, very cordially, in each others company. 

I was shocked to see this. Now, I perfectly accept that maybe my friend has always hated my guts and the time we spent in each others company was done by him as penance as a good Catholic lad. I don't know, but I do know that he has never given an inkling to me that we weren't good friends. It is up to him. Once I got over the initial shock of being unfriended in a cc'd email, I saw the wider picture. I'm a grown up. I have strong views and I speak my mind. This means I can upset people. Maybe he just never had the gumption to tell me the truth and because we have lots of mutual friends, he felt obligated to pretend to like me to keep the peace. 

The fact that I had no inkling of this probably reflects worse on me than it does on him. I am hoping he feels a great sense of burden lifted, now he no longer has to pretend to like me. That is one of the wonders of technology. We can unfriend people, ghost them, without ever having to actually say anything to their face. Personally, I am old fashioned, and believe that men should say what they have to say to each others faces and be damned. But why waste your time chatting to someone who you don't like, when you can tell them in a cc'd email and then list 13 other reasons as to why they are a terrible person. 

Given our social circle and other things we have a common interest in, we are bound to see each other face to face at some point. That is perhaps the most awkward part of this sort of thing. This is where life experience is a great help. I have worked for five decades in one job or another. I have spent my life in offices, etc, where someone hasn't had a good word to say about me, belittles my work, talks about me behind my back, sticks the knife in. This email made pretty clear that despite the cordiality, that is exactly what has been going on. So I will do what I always did at work. Be polite and keep my powder dry. But most of all, tell the truth. The problem for such individuals is that they have clearly not been upfront about anything. They have said and done things, without giving due respect to a friend or colleague, to explain whatever it is they were upset about, talk it through and get both sides of the story. 

Life is full of sad people with ill intentions towards you. You can either get dragged down by their malicious little world or take a step back and say "fine, jog on". The one lesson I've learned in life is that when people bear you ill intent and they show their hand, it is a good thing. You know where you stand and you know that the said individual is untrustworthy. That is on them, not you. 

But always remember the wise words of Richard Hell - Betrayal takes two - so I am sure if he is reading this, he is fuming at all the terrible things I've done that he's never had the gumption to pull me on to my face!

Last night I nearly got eaten by a crocodile at the Virgin Active gym in Mill Hill East

 I go to the gym most days. Since I had to stop playing 5-a-side football, it is my concession to healthy living. I don't massively enjoy it, but I've found if I go on an exercise bike for 30 minutes and do an online Soduko puzzle, I don't get bored out of my brains. I used to do a lot of rowing, which I actually quite enjoyed, but my ankle gets inflammed by this, so I've had to stop.  Yesterday I went as normal. I was feeling really under the weather. I didn't enjoy it, my brain was struggling with the Soduko and I felt totally cream crackered. But I am not a quitter. I stuck it and did my 30 mins. 

I shuffled off with all the grace and poise of a 90 year old man. I decided that a sauna and a soak in the Jacuzzi was order of the day. I was rather hoping to see one chap, who is a barrister and a Liverpool fan to discuss the match on Sunday, but he was nowhere to be seen. In fact the sauna was empty, which suited me as I didn't really want a chat. As I always do, I lay down in the hot bit and did 10 minutes. I then made my way to the Jacuzzi, which was also empty. I put the jets on and started to relax. Probably due to not being to well, I drifted off. Before I knew it, I was sparko. It was lovely, I was on the beach in Australia. I was just relaxing without a care in the world, in the sea. It was wonderful, then I spotted a large saltwater crocodile, eyeing me up from the beach on the other side of the river. I decided that perhaps, I should slowly make my way out. As I was thinking about this, bang! Something touched my leg. For a millionth of a second I thought the croc's brother had got me. Happily it was just another gym member getting in the pool, who'd brushed my leg. I am rather glad I didn't scream!

I genuinely don't know whether I was pleased or gutted to find I wasn't on holiday and being chased by crocodiles. As it was, I went home, had dinner and then had an early night! I feel much better today.

A conundrum for you, well more for me actually!

For my sins and perhaps much to my surprise, BBC Radio London seem to like me and I get periodically invited on to shows to do 'guest slots'. Today, I was invited onto the Eddie Nestor show, currently being hosted by Jim Davis, to do the trends at 12 slot. I have done this a few times and generally I enjoy a bit of banter with Eddie. I've spoken to Jim a few times, but this is the first time I've done the Trends slot with him. The slot involves me picking three stories that are of concern to me. A local one, something we should know about and something fun. 

I do not need too much encouraging to get up on my high horse and tell the world my views. I know the format and I had three things that I was determined to discuss. The first was the appointment Laura Johnson as a senior housing officer for Barnet Homes. She was in charge of housing an Kensington and Chelsea Council and was involved in cost cutting measure at Grenfell Tower. Now clearly there were issues at many levels, but given the current state of play with the investigations etc, it seemed to me a very unwise move and on many levels an unfair one. Barnet Residents and Trades Unions were preparing a lobby of Council offices on 20th October. Last night, I was informed that she was "no longer working for Barnet". I felt that residents really should be aware of what has been going on. It is my view that where potential negligence leads to deaths, the Police should investigate from day one. This was my first story and I was delighted that the BBC have now picked the story up. 

My second story? Something we should all know about. I chose the fact that TFL are consulting on a new passenger rail service, using existing freight only lines, between Hendon and Hounslow, known as the West London Orbital railway. This proposal has been knocking around ever since I started the blog, in various forms. Like all important Infrastructure projects in the UK it seems to take decades to bring absolute no brainers to fruition. You can read more about the consultation here. 

The False Dots next gig

The third story, a fun one, was about the relaunch of Nambucca as a fully fledged music venue. I am delighted that my band, The False Dots are part of this. We are playing on Friday. The full listings are here. I am really excited to see that 70's Stiff Records sensation Lene Lovich is playing. When I told Jim, he said he'd seen her recently supporting the B52's and she's great. 

You can listen to the show again here. Now I mentioned a conundrum. Before we started chatting about my stories, we had a chat about music and vinyl. I could chat all day to Jim about records and vinyl. As I mentioned to Jim, I have a huge collection of vinyl and I love it. However, all of the recent False Dots releases have been done purely on line. The main reason for this is it is cheaper and we can connect easily with our fans. However, the purist in my says we should put stuff out on Vinyl. No record companies are interested in bands with 63 year old singers. They (to me rather foolishly) think there is no market and no money in bands like me. Whereas it costs a tenner to release an album digitally, it costs a significant sum to put one out on vinyl and you've no real idea if it will sell. So what do you think, should we bite the bullet and do it? 

The Sunday Reflection #101 - A better man than me

 As often happens, when I go to mass on a Sunday, I drift off into my own little world of memories. It is a constant throughout my life. I get it isn't for some, but an hour's peace, no interruptions in a spiritual setting is, in my opinion, highly beneficial. The Priest who said todays mass is one Fr Stephen Monaghan. He is an Irish Vincentian priest. Many of the local Irish community like him, as he brings Irish brevity to his masses. Our wonderful African priests prefer to say a longer mass. Anyone who knows Irish culture, will know that not all of the Irish community enjoy a long mass. 

Once we get past the readings and the sermon, I do tend to mentally drift. I used to think I'd go to hell for  this, but now I am pretty sure God is OK with it. I tend to find a thought pops into my head, then my brain runs away with it. For some reason, Fr Stephen reminded me of our Sunday ritual in the 1960's. We would always go to the 11am Mass, as Dad liked a lie in. He would round up all of us younger kids at around 10.30am. Myself, Caroline and Valerie. He'd load us all into his motor, I believe it was a Humber Sprite to start with. It had bench seats and walnut panelling. He then got a Ford Zephyr 4 followed by a Ford Zodiac. He'd drive up to the Cottage Homes, now known as The Retail Trust, and pick up a posse of Old Ladies. I can recall Miss Monaghan (this was what started the train of thought, was she a relative of Fr Stephen), Miss Faller and I think a Miss Devereaux. The estate was also known as The Drapers Homes, as many had worked in the clothing industry. They were always immaculately turned out, incredibly polite and pleasant. Often, they'd bring us sweets for after mass. Dad would take them and drop them back.

I never really questioned why Dad had started doing this, or how he knew the ladies. I assume, a Priest had asked him to help. It was the sort of thing Dad would do and he took it very seriously. He'd always tidy the car up beforehand and make a big song and dance of escorting the ladies to and from the car. I'd never really thought it through, but in hindsight, Dad was clearly trying to make them feel special. When Dad was on holiday, he'd get my brothers to do the run. As I recall both had decided Church wasn't for them. Frank would wait outside for the mass to finish, listening to the radio in the car. Laurie would go in and sit with them. Both were quite happy to help, although they'd volunteer the other if they could. 

I can't recall when this stopped or why. I can recall one of the ladies passed away, and also that Dad had a row with the Parish priest and started going to Burnt Oak for a while, but I don't know if he'd stopped before that. After Dad dropped them off, he'd take us to a little convenience store, run by his mate Bill Cardon, on Shakespeare Road. Dad would buy fresh cut ham, garibaldi biscuits and tinned salmon. My mum would berate him, as it was expensive, but Dad didn't care a jot. Bill was a mate from Mill Hill Services club. He was also a Watford FC season ticket holder. He had a green mini van and I thought he was a pretty cool dude. As I recall, he had a heart attack and retired. Some ladies took the shop on. They upset Dad because during a sugar shortage, they wouldn't sell him any. They said he wasn't a regular, even though he'd go in every Sunday and spend a small fortune. That was the end of that tradition.  Sadly, they didn't last too long. The shop is now a house.

One of the big differences between myself and my Dad was that he'd never walk to church. He'd always drive, even though it is only five minutes walk. I queried this and he said "What is the point walking if you have a car?". I actually quite enjoy walking. I was mulling over all of this, and I got to thinking of my Dad's funeral. Although it was held in the Sacred Heart, it was not held in the current church, but the old one that got knocked down in 1996. I was quite pleased when they knocked it down, as going in always reminded me of that day, which was the worst period of my life. I was totally in awe of my Dad and believed him to be indestructible. He'd survived WW2 as a bomber pilot, being shot down, a POW and escaping. He had a seemingly total self belief and would always back himself to win in any situation, no matter how sticky. I always felt almost embarrassed to be his son, as I felt I lacked all of the attributes that made him such an amazing person. 

This week, we saw the burial of the President of Mill Hill Services Club, Jack Leach. Jack joined the club in 1967. HE knew my Dad quite well. He was 97, twelve years younger than my Dad. He'd been conscripted into the Royal Engineers, which was why he ended up in Mill Hill/Edgware. Jack's funeral was packed. It is sad that there are so few of the old members now, who remember my Dad. I believe Jack was our oldest member who still regularly attended. It is odd to think that Dad would have though of him as a youngster. When they first met, Dad would have been 50 and Jack 38, both men in their prime. 

If I had a time machine for a day, there is nothing I'd like more than to go back to those times and have a drink with Dad as a mate and a peer. We never really did that. I have often thought about that, but today at mass, a darker thought entered my head. What if I could collect Dad and take him for a day out in Mill Hill in 2026? What would he make of it? What would he make of learning his errant Punk rock son had become the chair of the Mill Hill Services Club? What would he think of the new Sacred Heart Church? What would he make of Mill Hill Broadway, with no butcher, no greengrocer, no telly shop? What would he think if he saw Bunns Lane Works, where he ran MacMetals for nearly 40 years? What would he make of the fact that there is not a dedicated off licence and that La Katarina, where he enjoyed succulent steaks has gone? Dad was someone who had travelled the world and loved progress, so I suspect he'd be OK with all of that. What he may be less OK with would be if we saw the news and he learned of what the President of the USA was doing. I thought of Dad and his respectful treatment of those old ladies that he drove to mass. Dad believed that men should always be gentlemen around ladies. I think that things like the Epstein files, Trumps totally uncouth behaviour and worst of all the revelations of clerical sexual abuse would have been too much for a man who was both very Conservative and very Roman Catholic. I have no doubt in my mind that Dad was a better man than me. I am glad he didn't live to see all that. It would have broken his heart.

The Saturday List #512 - Ten reasons why 512 is a magical number

 When I realised what the number in this series of blogs was, I was immediately reminded of my 37 year career in IT. I'm going to go a bit  nerdy on you all today, but 512 is one of those significant numbers in the world of legacy data processing. Although I am dyslexic, I am pretty good at maths. I once got 96% in my O Level mock at FCHS. I was accused of cheating and copying the work of Simon Stebbings, who was sitting in front of me. I had a simple refutation to this heinious charge. How could I have possibly cheated and copied his work, if I got a higher mark. My maths teacher, Mr Small (no not the Mr Man) hated me, but he couldn't refute the logic. In actual fact, I had cheated slightly. Myself and Simon finished at the same time. He then held his paper up to check his answers. I could see them and I realised I'd got one wrong! The funny thing was, so had he, hence the cheating accusation. We both had the same wrong answer (which I copied from him). When this was queried, I simply said "great minds think alike". 

When I started working in IT, I soon realised it was important to learn what key numbers are. The computers I worked on, worked in Octal (Base 8) and Hexadecimal (base 16). A lot of the time, I worked in support, which was all about fixing systems when they went wrong. I'd say 90% of the problems, were caused by systems adding numbers together that were bigger than the space available for the answer, which caused a crash. Numbers that are to a power of 2 were the point at which this happened, so understanding this was an absolute key. 

When I went to Orange Hill, I did an A level in Maths. Our teacher was a certain Mr Rackyliffe. He was brilliant. He took the time to explain to me that if you wanted to succeed in maths, you should learn to enjoy 'doing sums' and see equation solving as simply doing a big, really interesting puzzle. Sadly, he left after a couple of terms, and his replacement was rather uninspiring. These days, I don't get out of bed until I've done the Soduko puzzles in the paper. Strictly speaking, they are not maths but I find the patterns fascinating. 

Anyway, here are ten interesting things about the number 512. 

Power of Two: 512 is equal to 2⁹ (2 raised to the 9th power).
Cube of 8: It is the cube of 8 (8 × 8 × 8 = 512).
Digit Sum: The sum of its digits (5 + 1 + 2) is 8, which is the cube root of 512.
Palindromic Bases: It is a palindrome when written in base 7 (1331₇) and base 15 (242₁₅).
Divisors: It has 10 divisors in total (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and 512).
Disk Sectors: 512 bytes is a traditional and standard size for a single computer disk sector.
Kibibytes: It is exacty half of a kibibyte (1,024 bytes).
VGA Graphics: 512 (2 × 256) is the highest number of glyphs that a VGA character generator can use simultaneously.
Binary Scaling: It represents a classic milestone in binary doubling (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512).
512 is the telephone area code for Austin Texas:  Austin is famous for North America's largest urban bat colony, housing about 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats from March through October at the Congress Avenue Bridge. You may wonder what this fact has to do with my career in IT? Well one of my first jobs was constructing Mini Bat detectors for Queen Mary College. I've taken an interest in Bat colonys ever since. 

Rock and Roll Stories #79 - Why I still love being in a band

 It's issue 79 of this series. My band, The False Dots started in 1979! So I thought I'd mark this episode with a few tales that tell the story of why I love being in a band. Until the 6th June 1977, I never saw even considered being a musician. The Choir mistress at The Sacred Heart told me I was tone deaf and totally unmusical. My then favourite artists were people like Bowie and Bolan, who seemed to me to be impossibly glamourous. I couldn't imagine walking down the street dressed as Ziggy Stardust. I'd picked up my sisters guitar a couple of times and couldn't get a chord out of it, let alone a tune. I thought I was destined for other things. 

Then I saw the Ramones at The Roundhouse. They weren't mythical, elfin creature playing mind bogglingly complex masterpieces. They wore jeans, t-shirts, sneakers and leather jackets and played short, simple songs. For the first time in my life, I saw someone doing something I loved and I thought I could do it. When I bought their albums, it was a revelation. Music could be simple, raw and angry, but still be a thing of great beauty. When I met like minded people who thought the same thing, I realised that I wanted to be in a band. I didn't want to write complex masterpieces like Bohemian Rhapsody. I didn't want to play ten minute guitar solos. I just wanted to play high energy music that I could relate to. When I saw The Specials at the Lyceum, supporting The Damned and The UK Subs, in my head the final piece of the jigsaw was found and the picture was complete. Although the Ramones were brilliant, they were American. Although their songs were brilliant, I couldn't really relate to most of them. With the Specials, their songs were all about the subjects I wanted to write about. Ian Dury was another huge influence. His style of writing, bringing characters and situations to life appealed to me. 

I knew that if I could get a band that encompassed all of the elements of the music of these, it would be brilliant. I have never been interested in playing mega gigs. I wanted to play smaller venues and get to know the people who came to see us. We realised that the way to build an audience is to be entertaining. My punk ethos meant that I didn't really earn to play guitar with any great degree of technical accomplishment. As I've never really enjoyed long solo's, I saw no reason to learn to play them. 

From the first moments that The False Dots played our first song, in our first rehearsal, I felt a magical energy flow through me. It was a buzz. I never dreamed that 47 years later, I would get that same feeling when we get together. We have a gig next Friday at Nambucca on the Holloway Road. It is a free entry gig and we're playing with an amazing reggae/ska band called The Monoversals. We had a rehearsal of our set on Wednesday. We are playing a brand new song, called Moderately Priced Hedonism. It is probably the fastest song we've ever played. Tom, our trumpet player loves it and reckons it sounds like The Fratellis. I sing the first verse and Tom sings the rest of it. To me, it is reminscent of Sweet Gene Vincent by Ian Dury and The Blockheads, although I doubt too many people will think that. When we played it, I was really buzzing. 

There are times when being in a band is, for me, the absolute affirmation of life. It is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. I like to think that the people who come and see us have a real blast. There are very few things I can say with absolute certainty in life, but one thing I can say uniquivocally is that without The False Dots, my life would have been infinitely worse. The best thing though is that, unlike football, there is no downside to loving music. There  is no VAR where you find out a piece of brilliance counts for nothing. There is no financial fair play. Your favourite band does not get relegated. You can listen to song you love a thousand times and still enjoy it. But best of all, you will always find something new and exciting. 

So why not come along on Friday 16th and see what all the fuss is about. It is free to get in and the beer is cheap at Nambucca. It is five minutes walk from Archway Tube on the Northern Line.

Running a business - Rules vs common sense

 Something I heard on the radio today reminded me of an incident that happened many years ago, when I first started working as an IT contractor. My then boss, who I always have rated highly, posed a dilemma to me. One of the team was a very talented female. She was extremely intelligent and a very hard worker. However, she could become emotional very easily. She always took work appraisal feedback as unfair criticism and I often saw her by the tea machine in flood of tears, over some perceived slight or comment from another member of staff. I really liked her, as she was great fun most of the time and did her job well. 

However, on this day, my boss had a terrible dilemma. She had phoned in and requested compassionate leave, as she had suffered a bereavement. Normally no debate would be had about such a thing, but the problem my boss had was that the bereavement was her cat. His instant reaction was to say "Don't be so silly" but knowing the individual involved, he said "I'll get back to you, I don't know what the rules are on compassionate leave". My boss then asked me my opinion. Should someone be entitled to compassionate leave, when their moggy has snuffed it? The rules were pretty clear, moggies don't count, but he knew he'd be called a beast by her and there would be tears. The lady in question lived alone with her cat and she spoke of it, like many of us speak of our spouses. 

I posed the question back "Do you really think she'll be fit to work?". His answer was unequivocable "No, she'll be in bits". I then asked "How much sick leave has she had this year?". He said "She never takes sick leave". So I said "Call her up, tell her to take off the time she needs to get herself back on her feet and tell her it won't be a problem", then sign it off as sick leave. 

That was the end of the matter. She took three days off, then returned and was extremely grateful to him for being so understanding. It was pretty clear to me that a good compromise had been reached. There was however one member of staff who was most disgruntled that she'd had 'special treatment'.  A few weeks later, he approached the boss and said "If my cat snuffs it do I get three days off?". My boss had anticipated this question and his reply was "Do you think you'd genuinely be in such an emotional state that you'd be unable to do the job". His reply "Of course not, but that is not the point". My boss replied "It is the point and we both know it". 

Sadly as time went on, HR departments have removed all flexibility and common sense from such decisions. Everyone is different and everyone is affected in a different way by situations. I personally don't think there is anything to be gained by forcing people to work, when they are in no fit state to. In general, they will disrupt the environment and will be unproductive, let alone any bad effects on their mental health and wellbeing. But then we have people who 'play the system' and use any excuse to be lazy. That is a different situation and should be handled in a different way. Ultimately, I try and judge people by their productivity overall. That generally is the best indicator, not just whether they have a melt down when the cat dies.