Atoning for my sins!

 How are you feeling today? Great, I hope. Me, well lets just say that the worlds oldest man is João Marinho Neto  who is 112 and right now, I feel about ten years older than him. Everything that could possibly ache is aching, my ankle, knees, back, shoulders, neck and even my wrist (which I broke when I was playing football when I was 22).I also feel rather ill. Oddly enough though, yesterday, I felt about 23 years old and made the mistake of acting like it. So you could say, it is all my own fault. Yesterday was my band, The False Dots 46th Birthday party at The Dublin Castle. It was an absolute blast. For about an hour, I was jumping around like a looney. I also had perhaps one of two sherbets more than was sensible, not totally wild as in the good old days of the Dots, but when you start at 2pm, and don't finish until 8pm (we went for food and more drinks with friends after the show), it is a long day. 

I woke up in the night with both my knees hurting, as they used to after I played 5-a-side football and I changed my plan to go to the gym. If truth be told, I'd be quite happy to go to bed right now (it's 6.30pm), but we've got to walk the dogs etc and I've learned that all that happens is you wake up at 3am and can't get back to sleep if you retire too early. The human body is an amazing thing. How can your mind trick your body into shedding 40 years of wear and tear, and then shovel it all back on with interest the next day? 

What surprises me most, is just how good our band has become in the last two years. I've always loved playing, always enjoyed being in a band, always been excited to play gigs and always enjoyed the comradeship of the setup. The difference over the last two years, and I put this squarely down to the addition of Tom Hammond on Trumpet, is that we make a sound that truly excites a crowd. When you are a non chart band, playing the Dublin Castle, I think it is some mean achievement to suddenly find the crowd launch spontaneously into a Conga! I even had knickers thrown at me, a real first for the band! We don't take it too seriously, but when you see all that going on, it is the best feeling in the world for a musician!

Today I am atoning for the sin of having far too much fun yesterday. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone! 

Please note, I fell asleep so am posting this on Tuesday morning! Here's a short clip from the gig. This is Wrong, which was the first song the False Dots played at our first ever rehearsal in 1979, and we've never played publicly before! Tom sings it. A bit of a blast from the past, proper punk rock. 

Guest Blog - First there was Capita, then there was Long Capita: Part 1 - By Concerned Resident

By 'Concerned Resident'

The idea for this blog started after reading the one from 22 January 2025 about the origins of Barnet Council’s woeful finances (Capita), the armchair auditors that uncovered it (‘Barnet Bloggers’) and some of its legacies (the unaccountability of the Barnet Group/Council). 

Crucially, it also referenced the (no longer new) Administration’s lack of interest in “critical scrutiny” and its failure to properly expose the finances it inherited, the disgraced former cabinet member for ‘Financial Sustainability & Reducing Poverty’ (ex-Councillor Naqvi) and the (then) forthcoming by-election in the (still!) super-safe Labour seat of Burnt Oak Ward.  

The Leader of the Council was invited to write a guest blog, but from the look of it, he wasn’t keen.  

So, I thought I’d have a go - only it won’t be in the Council’s defence, seeing as I happen to live in Burnt Oak and because what the Council is now attempting to do to Burnt Oak, is a symptom of what I now call, ‘Long Capita’.

Part 1: You can take the employees out of Capita, but can you take the Capita out of the employees? OR “Floodplain?! What floodplain?!”

A quick recap may be in order for those who haven’t been following what has taken place in Burnt Oak over the last few weeks and months.

Readers are no doubt aware of the jaw-dropping redevelopment proposals for Edgware Town Centre.  But what people are barely aware of is the similarly jaw-dropping (but comparatively smaller scale) redevelopment for Burnt Oak.

The planning application for what is often unhelpfully referred to as the ‘Watling Car Park’ (“WCP”) redevelopment went out for formal consultation in late November 2024 and officially concluded in the first week of January.   The “WCP” name is unhelpful, because it involves at least five sites not just the Car Park area.  The other four sites are Burnt Oak Library (Site 2), a former builders’ yard (Site 3), plus two areas adjacent to the car park a car lot and fenced-off greenspace (which together with the car park are known as Site 1, which is the main site).  

Developers propose demolishing the library and relocating it to the builders’ yard (which is on a residential side road, barely a 5-minute walk away from the current library).  In its place, they want to build flats instead.   If that wasn’t stupid enough, the worst of it is, they want to build flats, 6 to 13 storeys high on ‘Site 1’, which is on a functional floodplain. 

The fact that the site is on a functional floodplain shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, because Council minutes prove that this is precisely why Lidl failed to build on it in the noughties.  Council minutes are silent about why Tesco’s/St James’s Investments failed to build on it a decade later, but we can guess!

The current attempts to build on the floodplain is all the more alarming because in 2021, the Environment Agency objected to the very notion of Site 1 being part of the Local Plan’s ‘Site Allocation’ list (although in that document it is known as ‘Site 6’).  Their objections resulted in the Planning Department agreeing to remove the Site 6 from the Plan in September 2022, just before the Planning Inspectorate arrived to conduct Local Plan Hearings.  As a result of the agreed removal, the EA did not need to turn up to the Hearings and make representations in person, for all to hear and see.  This may have been seen as a win for the EA in policy terms, but problem for us is, their floodplain objections remained under the radar for another year, and unfortunately would have made it easier for interested parties to carry on with redevelopment ideas regardless.

Thus, in a parallel universe down the corridor to the Planning team, the “Re”-gen Department had their own ideas:
- Spring 2020: they invited developers to express an interest in the redevelopment;
- July 2020: H&G Committee’s ‘Development Portfolio Programme’ paper includes the Car Park along with another site, and the combined number of housing units is 300;

- June 2021: the disposal of the Car Park was approved at a Housing & Growth Committee meeting.  Only at this point, the library site is included as part of the mix. 

The inclusion of the Library is an eye-opener, because until June 2021 it isn’t mentioned.  Furthermore, it doesn’t crop up in the first or second draft of the Local Plan.  On top of that, EA’s initial objections to Site 6 (made during the first draft consultation of Jan-Mar 2020) only pop up in the papers for the Policy & Resources Committee, which takes place TWO DAYS AFTER the H&G Committee in which the disposal vote was taken!  

So, the likelihood of any newbie on the H&G being asked to vote to dispose of the sites for redevelopment actually knowing about but the flood risk is likely to be nil: the officers report recommending disposal doesn’t mention it and the ‘Background papers’ list does not link to the October 2012 Cabinet & Resource Committee minutes (which provide chapter and verse about Lidl’s abandonment of its aim to develop the site and Tesco’s, presumably misguided interest in acquiring the freehold!).

If that isn’t iffy enough for you, bear in mind that the most of the above meetings are scheduled during a global pandemic, when the last thing the average person cared about was what may have been going on in largely obscure Committee meetings.  And even the most committed geeks are unlikely to notice the blatant inconsistencies between the housing numbers fed into Regen-driven committee papers (which doubled in the space of one year from c.150 to 300) vs those found in ones concerned with the Local Plan (which dropped from 229 to 160 during the same time period).

Two years later, things get even more iffy, when, from Spring 2023, the redevelopment was introduced to the Council-sponsored Burnt Oak Partnership Board (“BOPB”).  During the months that followed, the developers revealed their early proposals and then commenced their informal consultation (Autumn 2023).  Not a dickie bird was spoken about the floodplain!  But residents discovered the issue at the tail end of the consultation and fed it into their responses.  It was not until December 2023 that the Comms Officer (who quit Barnet in the Summer - for a job as Head of Comms at a Property Developer!), dared to mention the floodplain.  But the BOPB minutes neglected to mention anything he had said.  Even after corrections were sent, guess what? Nothing again.

To misquote Suella Braverman (with whom I share absolutely no political allegiance whatsoever), “Pretending we haven’t got a functional floodplain, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have a functional floodplain, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious community engagement”.

Then a rumour started -seemingly from within the Council, but diffused through residents- that the redevelopment was/is a “Foregone Conclusion” as.  There is a kind of poor and self-sabotaging reasoning going on in the mind of any resident who goes around spreading this stuff, which I hope is rather obvious to this readership…

The iffiness didn’t end there.  The start of the Council’s formal planning consultation (winter 2024) was inexplicably delayed for two weeks after the application was validated.  This pushed the consultation period deep into Christmas and the New Year (instead of it finishing on Boxing Day).   Again, normal or abnormal, who is likely to be noticing, let alone responding to planning applications at that time of year?

The only thing I can conclude from all the nonsense is the following: the WCP redevelopment phenomenon could ONLY arise and be sustained under a Capita (and later ‘Long Capita’) Culture, within which Officers have been stewing for years.  Because to pursue what looks like some kind of “Shhh, don’t mention the floodplain!” injunction, then a super-injunction about NOT mentioning the mentioning of it, and then a super-super-injunction as if to gaslight everyone into thinking there isn’t one at all, is a kind of madness, both morally and legally. 

 -----------------------------------------------------
Part 1 of a three part series. Concerned Resident is a Barnet Resident who does not wish for their idendity to be known. Guest blogs are always welcome at The Barnet Eye

The Sunday reflection #42 - What makes us happy?

I can think of four moments that I've felt truly happy this week. The first was briefly, on Thursday, when the Sun came out after a week behind the clouds and I felt its warmth on my back. It was just a moment, but for a few seconds it seemed like the world was actually alright. The second was yesterday. We had a family meet up and for a little while, whilst enjoying some rather good fish and chips and having a chat, things seemed good. Seeing people you love that you've not seen for a long time and having a chat with them is always nice. The third time was about two hours later when the referee blew the final whistle and confirmed Hadley FC's 4-0 victory over Northolt. The fourth was this morning, when my alarm clock went off at 8am and I realised that I had to go to the Dublin Castle to play the False Dots 46th anniversary gig. I feel proud that I've kept a band going for so long and also that I think we play great music and make other people happy. The best thing about the gig is not so much being a big rock star and showing off. It is that lots of people I like will be there and hopefully we'll all have a great time. A few of us are going for dinner after at Andy's Taverna in Camden. I am looking forward to it immensely.

Happiness to me is a moment, a feeling. Sometimes it is just the joy of being alive, when the Sun shines. Sometimes it is being surrounded by love, as I was when I saw my family. Sometimes it is just being there in a moment, as I was when Hadley won. Sometimes it is being able to be happy with something you achieved. Whatever it is, appreciate it and give thanks to God (or whatever you want to thank for the blessing of happiness). Life has too much sadness, hurt pain and hatred in it to pass up the chance to appreciate those fleeting moments when everything is alright. Have a great Sunday and if you've nothing better to do, come and share some happy moments with me at The Dublin Castle. The fun starts from 2pm and we are on at 4pm.

The Saturday List #472 - The Top Ten bands/Artists who've appeared on the bill with The False Dots

Click for tickets

And on to this wee Tomorrow, the False Dots celebrate our 46th year as a band at The Dublin Castle. In the course of of our career, we've appeared on the bill with some very good bands, some of which you may have heard of! Here is our list

1. The Foundations - 1960's legends. We appeared with them at The Arts Depot on 29th January 2011.

2. Kate Nash. Brit award winner supported us at The Mill Hill Sports Club 3rd November 2006.

3. Chris Spedding & Lee Thompson (Madness) at The Bull Arts Centre 3rd March 2008.

4. Way of The West at The Midland Arms 3rd April 1981. Almost forgotten now, but their single Don't say it's just for White Boys was Radio 1 single of the week at the time.

5. Dell Richardson (Osibisa) at The Fiddlers Elbow 6th Nov 2015

6. The Silencerz (feat Lee Thompson Madness), Numerous times

7. The London Sewage company (Punk supergroup) The Dublin Castle 23rd December 2023

8. Tokyo Olympics (Featureing Shane MacGowan collaborator Paul McGuinness) The Moonlight Club, 23rd Feb 1983.

9. The Bollock Brothers The Purple Turtle Camden 15 June 2011 

10. Huw Lloyd Langton (Hawkwind) Mill Hill Music Comple 7th September 2002.

Friday Fun 14th February 2024 + local gig round up

 As is the way with the Friday Fun, we always start with a bit of humour to set the weekend off properly. So I'll share with you a sad little tale of romance from my past. Back in the 1970's, when I first started taking an interest in things romantic, we lived in a different world. I met a beautiful young lady at a gig in Camden. Things were very different then. We didn't have mobile phones. Where she lived did not have a telephone. She lived in Camden Town. She wrote down a number and said "This is the telephone box at the end of my road, call me at 4 O'Clock tomorrow and we can arrange to meet up". Our family only had one telephone, it was in the front room. The last thing I wanted was all of my siblings listening in and winding me up. So I decided to go down the road to the phone box. The only problem was that when I got down there, an old lady was in there. She seemed to chat for about 20 minutes. I was desperate. In the end, I knocked and said "Please can I make a really quick call, it's urgent", she told me where to go in no uncertain terms. After another 20 minutes, she eventually finished. I jumped in and excitedly dialled the number. It was engaged. I tried another ten times, it was still engaged. In the end, I gave up. I was dejected. 

About two weeks later, I went to see another gig at the Marquee. As I entered, I saw her at the other side of the club. I thought she'd be really cross at me for wasting her time and not calling. We made eye contact and she just looked away and stared at the floor. I've always been one to apologise if I screw up. I plucked up the courage to speak and made my way over. I said "Hi" and I was just about to launch into my long apology when she said "I am so, so sorry. I went to the phonebox and there was this old lady in their calling all her kids, she was on the phone for an hour. You must have been so fed up". I then explained what happened to me. We'd both spent a fortnight thinking that the other one would be really cross. Youngsters today have no idea of how easy things are. 

And on to this weekends gigs. A very special one on Sunday, my band The False Dots celebrate our 46th Birthday with an afternoon gig at The Dublin Castle in Camden Town starting at 2pm. Please come down and say hi! It will be a great afternoon. The last 46 years have been a blast. When we started in 1979, I'd have thought you were mad if you said we'd still be playing trendy Camden venues when I was in my sixties. But here we are. 

And perhaps there is a lesson to be learned. I have realised that age is a false measure of who we are. What matters is what we do. If you do something and you enjoy it, then it would be the height of stupity to stop doing it, wouldn't it? Apart from my family, my two passions in life are music and football. I'd still be playing football if my ankle hadn't given up the ghost. Fortunately, I can still make music. And we are not the only ones. Here are the best of the other gigs in the Borough this weekend.

Friday 14th

Fri

Feb

14

Blue North (Covers, 6 piece) at The Catcher In The Rye, West Finchley 

8.30pm - 11pm

The Builders Arms 8pm – 11pm Food Of Love (Covers) Duo

Butchers 8.30pm – 11.30pm Tracer (Indie rock, Alt, Dance)

The Catcher In The Rye, West Finchley 8.30 - 11pm Blue North (Covers)

Barrington 8.30-midnight Karaoke with Neil

Ye Olde Monken Holt 9.30 pm – late DJ Sadie (DJ) 

Saturday 15th

KD Band Duo (Covers 50s - present) at The Bodhran, Hendon Central 5.2 miles

9.30pm - midnight

The Builders Arms 7–11pm Vinyl Countdown

East Barnet Royal British Legion 8.30pm – 11.30pm Dream Circle

The Butchers Arms 9pm – midnight  Hot Fondu (Covers)

The Arkley Club 8.30pm – 11pm £5 cash The Latest Flames

Maddens 9.30pm – midnight Odyssey Blues and Soul Band (Souls/blue/jazz)

Ye Olde Monken Holt 9.30pm – late Tyler

The Barrington 8pm – midnight - Rebska plus Less Kix Thompson (Ska/Reggae/Motown and soul on vinyl)

Sunday 16th

Ye Olde Monken Holt 7-9pm Brian Connell and Dave Williams

Butchers 8.30pm – 11.30pm Pauls Jam

Monday 17th

Mon

Feb

17

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

9pm - 11pm

Ye Olde Mitre Inn, High Street 8pm – 11pm (stables room) Barnet Acoustics Sessions

Wednesday 19th  Ye Olde Monken Holt 8.30pm – 11pm Open Mic Night

Thursday 20th 

Ye Olde Monken Holt 8.30pm – 10.30pm Traditional Irish Session (Irish Folk)

Rock and Roll Stories #24 - Forty Six years of making a Godawful racket!

The False Dots are forty six years old tomorrow! We have our birthday party at The Dublin Castle on Sunday from 2pm to celebrate. Around this time of every year, I start to think about the rather long story and the rather unlikely group of people who made it happen. We had our first rehearsal on the 14th February 1979. The first song we played was a song called Wrong. It probably sums up how our career has gone ever since! 

The Dots, with Dav (flat cap) at
our birthday party last year!
L-R Tom, Graham, Rog, Dav, Fil
Dublin Castle, Camden

By pure coincidence, I had a beer with Dav Davies, the drummer who performed our first gig with us back in 1980, at the Mill Hill Services Club. Dav lives in Shrewsbury now and it is the first time he's been to Mill Hill since he quit the band in January 1980. He was in the band for about six months. Dav was five years older than the rest of us. He was also a far better musician and when he joined, he transformed us into something that actually sounded like a proper band. I was chatting with him about this yesterday. He said he liked the fact that we had attitude and were a band. He liked performing original material. He said that when he saw the Beatles video, he noticed how Ringo was watching what the other three were doing, before he joined in. Dav said he'd just bash everything and hope for the best. When I listen to the demo's with Dav playing, that is certainly not how it sounded to me. It got me thinking about key people in the history of the Dots.

In the history of the Dots, we've had quite a few drummers. Some have been deeply technical, such as Bill Lucas, who was a jazz drummer, some have been very metronomic (in a good way) such as Adam Francis. For me, Dav and our current drummer Graham Ramsey are the ones who suit the music I write the best. This is because both enjoy what we are doing and the songs we play. I always felt most of the other drummers kind of liked the music, but if a genie granted them a wish, they'd be in another band playing a different genre of music, be it Jazz, Rock or Pop. Don't get me wrong, they all made a massive contribution, but only Graham and Dav have embraced the more weird and wacky ideas we've presented. I should mention Tony Cavaye here, who drummed when we reformed around 2000. Tony was a great rock and roll drummer. When we played Rock and Roll, he sounded amazing, but all attempts to get a good Ska/Reggae vibe faltered as I just felt he didn't like the musical genre. He'd rather be playing twenty minute long blues/rock jams.

Perhaps the most important person in the formation of the band was Pete Conway. He was my primary school mate. We were the first two punks at FCHS and we spent from September 1977, when we both realised we'd discovered punk rock until the formation of the band in February 1979, talking about it and planning to get the band together. To this day, I am not really sure whether we'd have been the best or the worst band in the world if Pete had stuck with us. What I do know is that we'd never have had the band. Pete was a  brilliant lyricist and had some amazing ideas for songs that sounded like nothing else I've ever heard. For his own reasons, he left for good in December 1980. 

Paul & Rog 1981
Harrow Art College

The next key member was Paul Hircombe. Paul was fourteen when he joined, in February 1980. He was a great musician. When Pete Conway quit, he switched to bass. Although Pete was the reason we started, Paul was reason the band still exists today. He was the rock that kept us going. Whenever there was split or someone left, Paul would quietly encourage me to keep going. Paul was an outrageously good looking guy, very quiet, very sharp witted. I always felt he had my back. He was talented when it came to putting music together, but didn't want to take the lead, he'd just quietly suggest improvements or play me things he'd heard that inspired him. Unlike Pete Conway, he wasn't passionate about the music we were playing, but he was totally committed to the band. Paul was the bass player from December 1980, until December 2008, when he moved away. He died in 2012. God rest his soul. 

Top row - Rog & Mark
Bottom Paul & Craig
Orange Hill School 1981

Perhaps one of the most important and difficult, for me, person in the history of the band was Guitarist/singer Craig Withecombe. Craig came in when Pete Conway left. He was/is a brilliant guitarist. I am not really sure if he knew how good he was. When Craig came in, with Dav drumming, the band sounded amazing. There were three problems for me with Criag. One, which is probably a sign of my own immaturity at the time, was that he was very straight laced and square. He always looked awkward and had no real sense of dress sense. He did try and he'd take onboard our mad ideas, but he always looked like Craig. Two. He wrote cringeworthy and bad lyrics. He wrote great tunes, but his words were awful. If he'd been in a band of geeky nerds, it would have been brilliant, but it wasn't The False Dots. As I wanted him to be happy, we recorded some of his songs on demo's, but I'd always feel embarrassed playing them to anyone and never really felt they were real Dots songs. I think Craig realised this and it probably annoyed him, but at least he was in a band doing stuff, I always felt he was waiting for the main chance, the big problem was every time we saw A&R people, they'd say "lose the nerd". Three. He was a bit of a schemer. He was a bit more crafty than he seemed. When he left the band, it was on very bad terms. He'd tried to stage a coup and sling me out of my own band. Paul, of course, stayed. He took the drummer, Bill Lucas and the female singer we had at the time, who wasn't very good. I don't think they ever played another gig. I was mad at him for decades, but tried to reach out to him last year for our 45th party. Enough time has gone by. I failed.

Venessa Dingwalls 1984

When Craig went, we got Venessa Sagoe in. She was a brilliant singer. In any sane universe, Venessa would have been a superstar, but her size and colour was deemed not suitable for the UK pop scene. If I knew then, what I know now, things would be different. For about six months, I think we had the best club band in London. It all came together, but it completely imploded. To this day, I regret a couple of very bad decisions in regard to the band. The biggest mistake was getting a flat with Venessa and her boyfriend. I am not an easy person to live with. I've not seen her for decades, but still love her to bits.

Chris Potts, Rog, Graham, Allen & Ubungus
Belgium - Le Tiki Club 1985

Venessa went and poet Allen Ashley arrived. The band could not have pivoted more. Allen made an amazing contribution in his two stints - 1985, 2012-2019. As a lyricist, Allen is second to none and I really enjoyed working with him. I think he wrote/co-wrote some of the Dots best songs. He also gave me a lot of inspiration to keep working as a musician in both stints. In 1985, I was feeling very down after the line up with Venessa imploded. Allen got me back into doing music and got me excited about the songs. In 2012, I was raw after the death of Paul Hircombe. Allen came in and we did songs not associated with Paul, which was easier for me. I will always be in his debt.

When we got the band back together in around 2000, Fil Ross joined. He did it as a favour and has been with the band for 25 years. Given that we had a break from 1990-2000, he is the person who has played with the band longest, apart from me. I cannot possibly understate Fil's input and influence. Like Paul, he joined on Lead guitar. Like Paul, he switched to bass to help out. Fil is an amazing songwriter/arranger. He is also brilliant when we play live. His bass playing has really developed and is now exceptional. Fil makes the band fun. 

I must mention Connie Abbe who sang with the Dots from 2009 for a couple of years. Connie is a South Sudanese singer, who proved my belief that we'd never have a better singer than Venessa Sagoe. We did a stack of really decent gigs with Connie, at some of London's better clubs. The injection of raw talent and energy she gave the band disabused me of my belief that we were too old, as a band, to do anything worth doing musically. I really hope to work with Connie again at a suitable point. Like Venessa, she should be a star. 

And finally, the last of the hall of False Dots Fame. Mr 'Trumpet' Tom Hammond. Tom agreed to help out on some recordings in the Autumn of 2023. He just fitted in. He has transformed our sound and our energy. Tom was born in 1985, the year Graham Ramsey first joined the band. Tom is a highly accomplished musician, who has played on a stack of songs (CLICK HERE TO CHECK HIS WORK OUT). Having a trumpet player has enable me to realise quite a few musical ambitions, especially when it comes to our reggae/ska numbers. Tom is also singing a few songs, which adds a different dimension to our sound, which is a very good thing. As a special treat, he'll be performing Wrong! which is the first song we ever played at a rehearsal. We've never performed this live before, but we did it and it was actually rather fun!

So there you go, those are the people who got us to where we are today.