Erase and Rewind

Last week, Don’t Call Me Dave announced his return to blogging for a trial period. His intention was to write solely about issues which made him very angry. Instead, he wrote about things that simply irritated him mildly. DCMD does not wish to compete with other bloggers, locally or nationally. He is angrier than Mrs Angry, although you would not know it from the mild-mannered drivel he posted last week. So the re-launched blog is being re-launched again later today. This time, the gloves are coming off.

A fool and his money are soon parted

To much fanfare, today is the day that Facebook floated on the stock exchange with a valuation of over $100 billion. Yes, $100 billion for a company that doesn’t actually manufacture anything.

A lot of people have made a lot of money from the flotation, including pop star Bono, whose investment company is now sitting on a paper profit of $1.4 billion. Let’s see how quickly he sells those shares and distributes the cash to the poor and needy.

There is an old saying: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” As investors scrambled to buy shares, did not any of them stop to ask: “What exactly am I buying here?” Did they all forget the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s when internet stocks collapsed as people suddenly discovered that the Emperor had no clothes?

What exactly are Facebook’s assets to support such a valuation? 900 million users, the investment bankers cry. Yes, 900 million users who will drop Facebook at the drop of a hat when something newer and shinier comes along. And it will. As you read this, an army of geeks are sitting in their bedrooms designing the next great internet sensation.

Good luck to all the investors who got in early and sold out quick. To the rest, don’t start crying when it all goes pear shaped.

Have the Tories broken election law?

The Barnet Bugle has posted the latest election leaflet published by the Conservatives in advance of the Brunswick Park by-election, to be held on 31st May 2012.

On the front page of the leaflet is a very clear message stating definitively that parking will remain free at both the Osidge Lane and Brunswick Park Road municipal car parks. 

But the Barnet Times today reports that Cllr Dean Cohen has not yet made a decision whether these two car parks will remain free. He told the paper that a decision would not be made until next week.

So if a decision has not yet been taken about Osidge Lane and Brunswick Park Road, it means that the Conservatives are distributing election leaflets with statements that they know to be untrue. Councillors now receive a minimum basic allowance of £10,597. It is arguable, therefore, that by publishing a false statement with the intention of procuring sufficient votes to win the contest, the Conservative candidate is seeking to gain a pecuniary advantage by deception.

How fortuitous for the Tories that Labour are so totally inept, they probably won’t complain.

Geoffrey Howe. Still Dripping Wet.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer under the Blessed Margaret, Geoffrey Howe was responsible for scrapping Dennis Healey’s pip-squeaking 98% top tax rate, shifting the balance from the spongers to the entrepreneurs. But he was also a dripping ‘wet’ who advocated abolishing the Pound and signing up for the Euro. How did that idea work out, Geoff?

Speaking to the House of Lords this week, Lord Howe turned his attention to our tried and trusted system of imperial weights and measures. He said:

“British weights and measures are in a mess. We have litres for petrol and fizzy drinks but pints for beer and milk. We have metres and kilometres for athletics and the Ordnance Survey but miles per gallon for cars. We have the metric system for school but still have pounds and ounces in the market. Certainly, this muddle matters. It increases costs, confuses shoppers, leads to serious misunderstandings, causes accidents, confuses our children's education and, quite bluntly, puts us all to shame.”

Lord Howe is wrong! Shoppers are not confused by imperial measures. When asked, the public have repeatedly stated that they wish to retain pounds and ounces. America is the largest economy in the world and they manage to get along quite nicely using the imperial system.

We were not consulted about changing gallons for litres at the forecourt and if school children are unable to convert yards to metres, then sack their useless teachers rather than abolish a system which has worked for centuries.

There is a well known adage. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. When are dinosaurs like Lord Howe going to get it through their heads that the public are sick and tired of politicians telling us what we can and cannot have, interfering in the minutiae of our everyday lives? In case Lord Howe hadn’t noticed, the economy is going down the pan. His time would be better spent trying to find a solution to our woes rather than worrying about people wanting to buy a mile and a half of bananas.

Brian Coleman should have listened to Maggie

In 1981, Margaret Thatcher sacked Norman St John Stevas from the Cabinet. “I was sorry to lose Norman but he made his own departure inevitable,” she wrote in her memoirs. “He had a first-class brain and a ready wit, but he turned indiscretion into a political principle.”

Sounds just like our Brian.

Long to reign over us

Don’t Call Me Dave was driving home to his country estate this evening, listening to the wireless, when an announcer on Smooth FM gave details of a special event the station was organising on 3rd June “in order to celebrate the Queen’s 60th Diamond Jubilee”.

Are you sure?

This is Her Majesty’s first Diamond Jubilee. Life expectancy is increasing year on year, but it is most unlikely that the Queen will reign for 3,600 years. Prince Charles would not be amused.

If the announcement had been made live, the presenter could have blamed the error as an inadvertent mistake. But this was a pre-recorded jingle. Yet more proof that the standerd of edukashon in this cuntry are falling.

Correction: As if to prove DCMD’s point about standards of education, the first draft of this post referred to a reign of 360 years instead of 3,600. Thanks to Quintus Slide for pointing out the error.

I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!

On 4th April 2011, Don’t Call Me Dave announced the last post for Not The Barnet Times. He had retired on at least three previous occasions, but they all proved to be temporary abatements. This time, however, was different. DCMD explained that, for personal reasons, he was unable to continue writing the blog. He remained true to his word, with the honourable exception of a posting in October 2011 in tribute to his very good friend Neil Mosesson who had died aged just 52.

When DCMD started blogging in July 2008, he was one of just two active political bloggers in Barnet (Statler & Waldorf having taken up residence in the rest home for the bewildered). Today, the blogosphere in Barnet is well covered, although it has a rather unhealthy left-wing bias. DCMD does not much care for Socialism or wishy-washy Liberal-Conservatism and, in recent months, has found it increasingly difficult to remain silent on matters of local and national importance.  Indeed, Neil always encouraged DCMD to speak out and speak up whenever our lords and masters abused the system, broke the rules or committed acts of blatant hypocrisy.

In the grand scheme of things, of course, the world will continue revolving whether DCMD speaks out or not; the number of people who read his witterings are immeasurably fewer than the number who care not one iota what he thinks. None-the-less, 1,000 people a month continued to view this blog after it ‘ended’ in April 2011 and, last month, the hits increased to 2,500 with posts about former GLA member Brian Coleman being of particular appeal. DCMD is grateful for such loyalty and interest.

Accordingly, he has decided, on a trial basis only, to start posting again, albeit with a difference. Previously, DCMD would attend council meetings and read through interminably dull reports looking for evidence of misfeasance, malpractice and incompetence. He has neither the time nor inclination to do so again, especially as Barnet’s Famous Five Bloggers already perform this task far better than he ever did, or could hope to do in the future.

In short, DCMD intends merely to comment on the issues of the day which really piss him off. Readers are kindly asked to note that he has deactivated the blog's Tourette’s filter.

101 Uses for Nick Clegg

1. To remind people how useless and irrelevant the LibDems are.

2. Er…

3. That’s it!

Keep Barnet F.C. at Underhill

Earlier this week, Mr Tony Kleanthous, Chairman of Barnet Football Club, announced that the club was going to leave Underhill at the end of the season. A petition has been set up to keep the club at their current home and you can sign it here. Don’t Call Me Dave urges everyone to sign it, even if you are not a football fan.

Mr Kleanthous blames his ongoing disagreements with Barnet Council as being the reason for the proposed departure. But he has been arguing with Barnet Council for as long as most of us can remember. Even back in the days when Labour and the LibDems were ruining running the council, he was complaining that they were not doing enough to support the club.

The reality is that it doesn’t matter how much the council gives, Mr Kleanthous always seems to want more. In 2002, the Labour led administration secretly sold the freehold of Underhill to Barnet Football Club Holdings Ltd (a company controlled by Mr Kleanthous, but separate to the football club, despite its name) for the princely sum of £10,000. Yes, £10,000 for a three acre site in a prime residential location. Many BFC fans have been posting messages on the internet demanding that the council supports the club. How much more support is the council supposed to give?

The High Court actually ruled that the sale was unlawful, but it was powerless to overturn the transaction, meaning that the taxpayers of Barnet received very poor value.

Under the agreed terms of the sale, the council was due to receive a percentage of the future development value. The percentage split was 60/40 in the council’s favour. However, due to an elementary cock up in the contract, which the highly paid Borough Solicitor, Jeff Lustig, failed to spot (even though he was legally required to approve said contract), the agreement was time limited to ten years. In other words, if BFCH sold the land within 10 years of purchase, Barnet taxpayers would receive a share. If BFCH sold after 10 years, they kept the lot.

DCMD is sure that it is simply a very happy coincidence that Mr Kleanthous has made the decision to move out now, just as the 10 year anniversary (March 2012) is rapidly approaching.

Of course, if Barnet Football Club remain at Underhill forever, the land cannot be developed into housing and private individuals will not be able to profit at the expense of taxpayers, whose land was sold without their knowledge or consent.

It is therefore imperative that everyone does whatever is necessary to Keep Barnet Football Club at Underhill.

The Biased Broadcasting Corporation

The BBC have shelved tonight’s episode of Q.I. featuring Jeremy Clarkson. This is apparently in response to complaints by thirty thousand humourless twats over Clarkson’s recent comments calling for public sector strikers to be shot. The fact that sixty million people have not complained is irrelevant in the eyes of the unelected and unaccountable PC brigade who now run our once renowned and independent State broadcasting corporation.

The episode is being replaced by one featuring Jimmy Carr. This is the same Jimmy Carr who recently made a 'joke' about the disabled children who travel on Variety Club Sunshine buses. The same Jimmy Carr who has also made jokes about children with Downs Syndrome.

The hypocrisy of the left who feign indignation when someone on the right makes an obvious joke, whilst ignoring gratuitously offensive remarks by one of their comrades, is positively nauseating.