Why should I reinvent myself?

The Holloways gig was awesome last night. I really liked the Electric Ballroom as a venue, had never been before, and all three acts were excellent.

First support were Operahouse - have to admit I hadn't heard of them, but they were really good. Second were Newcastle band Kubichek!, who I did know but hadn't seen live and they really kicked as well.

The Holloways ran through their songs, covered off the whole album (I think) and a couple of new songs/b-sides that sounded good too. My favourites are Malcontented One, Reinvent Myself? and Fit For A Fortnight - but the whole set was awesome. Generator was the one that everyone really got going for though. I stayed more towards the bar with my mate, left the moshpit to a lot of boys and girls who looked like they wouldn't have much use for the bar for another couple of years...

A bit randomly, they started the encore with a cover version of Saturday Night by Whigfield, complete with two girls doing the dance. Slightly rockier, faster version though!

Before went to the gig, had a couple of drinks in the Good Mixer - which is my mate Scott's favourite pub, owing to the Britpop connections. First time I'd been there, liked it a lot.

Been a busy, long day at work and another ahead tomorrow... so just had a relaxing evening and going to have an early night.

The Sons

Meant to mention this a while ago, just remembered as I'm heading out to the Holloways gig soon.

I randomly caught a live band in Derby the other week - popped into a place called Five Lamps for a drink and they had The Sons playing, launching a new album.

You can see/hear The Sons on their MySpace page. They sounded pretty good - and Five Lamps was a good place to hang out, if you're ever in Derby...

Sea, Sea, Seasiders!

Day out to Wembley yesterday, few pics attached. The large one is the sea of orange shirts and flags across the Blackpool section.

The top two small ones are the players celebrating reaching the Championship (the empty seats are where the Yeovil fans had started to leave). The bottom photo is one of my mates (Colin) standing outside the stadium after the match - yes, it was a pretty wet day.

The stadium is, of course, impressive - you'll all have seen better photos than these. Blackpool totally dominated the match, especially the first half and definitely deserved to win. 2-0 was actually a pretty generous result for Yeovil.

The second goal was a curling shot from Keigan Parker (which you can find pretty easily on YouTube if you want to take a look). From where we sitting, it didn't actually look all that great and we just thought the Yeovil keeper was useless. But having seen it again, it was a really nice shot.

It was a good day out despite the weather. The only part of the day that didn't go well was strangely deciding to go and see Spiderman 3 at the cinema in Wood Green. Really, not very good at all.

This morning I roped my friends into delivering a letter around the Coldfall estate in my ward, trying to help get a Neighbourhood Watch scheme set up. After we had lunch in The Village in Muswell Hill and they headed off, have been doing a little bit of work (council and 'real' work) before tonight's Holloways gig in Camden.

As I had a good night out in Islington on Saturday too (ending up at Feeling Gloomy), it's been a really good bank holiday weekend all round.

Come on you tangerine wizards!

A guy next to me shouted that during a quiet spell in the last play-off final I saw Blackpool in - the League 2 final at the Milennium Stadium against Leyton Orient (Blackpool won 4-2, as you're asking).

Tomorrow I'm going to watch the Seasiders in another play-off final. This time it's League 1, so a place in the Championship is the prize if they can beat Yeovil. And, of course, the finals this weekend are all at the new Wembley - so I get to see the new stadium for the first time, which I'm really excited about. My ticket (admittedly the top price bracket) is £58 though. Yes, £58 for Blackpool v Yeovil. And, by all accounts, I'll need roughly the same again if I'm going to buy a drink and a hotdog when I'm in there.

I've only been to watch Blackpool play maybe a dozen times, but as I went to school in the town I always want them to win - unless they're playing Spurs, of course. Following their amazing run this season has been great. After such a poor start to the season, they stormed through... that sounds kinda familiar actually... Anyway, they finished 3rd, only just missing out on an automatic promotion place by a point - despite a 6-3 final day win away at Swansea.

All together now... Sea-Sea-Seasiders!

Emma Jones: Trying to be green

One of my Haringey Council colleagues from the Labour group has a new blog.

Emma Jones, councillor for Bruce Grove ward, already had a blog - but she has relaunched it with a different mission in mind.

It was clear from Emma's old blog that one of her main interests is the environment and she has decided to do a blog just about green issues. In fact, instead of me waffling on, why don't you just read her opening post from last week which explains it all.

Good luck with the new blog, Emma!

Land of my fathers

Spurs have made their first signing of the summer - Gareth Bale has signed from Southampton. It's not exactly shock news, as this transfer saga has been rumbling on for ages.

Apparently the fee is £5 million, potentially rising to £10 million. That's a fair bit less than some of the numbers that were being thrown around last January. This is what BBC Sport think about whether that's value for money. I'm confident he is a great signing.

Welcome to Spurs, Gareth - good to have another Welshman pulling on the white shirt.

Lemsip for lazy people

Have been a bit quiet on the blog this week - as well as it being a busy week, have had a bit of a cold which has left me a bit spaced out.

But, thanks to Lemsip, feeling pretty much back on track and ready to enjoy the long weekend. I found out that Lemsip do a sort of instant 'shot' version - meaning that they've taken out the hassle of boiling the kettle, finding a mug and waiting for it all to cool down so you don't burn your lips as you drink. So have just been knocking back the powders since yesterday and it has seemed to do the world of good.

We had the mayor making ceremony (the Council's AGM) on Monday night - again, another Labour Mayor *and* Deputy Mayor for Haringey. Wednesday night had a meeting with my Fortis Green ward colleagues, Sara and Martin, along with our borough organiser, to discuss ward campaigns - and then afterwards got to watch Liverpool putting in a good performance in the Champions League final, but sadly missing out on the prize. Anyway, before I go on any more about pretty boring stuff, I'll stop and maybe blog a bit more over the weekend.

I'm stopping because I remember spotting this cartoon in the current Private Eye...

Buried treasure

Just saw this story over the weekend and thought I'd share, if you haven't seen.

Must be pretty exciting to spend the day diving and find a ship full of bullion, Hollywood-film-style. Well, I say "the day", probably more like a decade or two before you find anything as interesting as this...

Fortismere consulting on foundation status

As I have mentioned before on my blog, I am a governor at Fortismere, which is a secondary school in my ward.

One resident has contacted me and asked that I put something on my blog about the deliberation that the governing body is going through to decide if becoming a foundation school would be of benefit to Fortismere and its pupils, current and future.

As chance would have it, someone has also just pointed out to me that the local Tory has just posted on his blog - about me being a governor. Justin has even included the interesting demand that I resign from either the Lib Dem group or the governing body!

To clarify my position as a governor, I am a "local authority" representative - so in effect am nominated by the local Lib Dems. The local Labour party nominates three governors at Fortismere - I think this is a hangover from before the last elections when the ratio of Labour to Lib Dem councillors in Haringey was a little under 3:1 (whereas now it's roughly 50:50, with a small Labour majority).

But on the governing body, I act independently in the best interests of the school, as all governors should - not on behalf of the Lib Dems or the council.

Hopefully all interested parties have fed into the consultation - which is still at an informal stage. The process has not been a quick one, with discussions having begun last year. After that, a working group of governors spent a great deal of time looking at the pros and cons and eventually produced the informal consultation paper that has been circulated.

Anyone, whether local or not, is welcome to leave their thoughts about foundation status for schools, negative or positive. Usual rules apply - I would prefer comments not to be anonymous, but fine if you want - but I will not publish any comments (i) with bad language (ii) that are personally insulting to anyone (iii) that contain comments or allegations that I can't substantiate (or know to be untrue). And I would point out that I don't think my blog is any substitute for the actual consultation - although I will read all comments, I am unlikely to be responding to them in detail until I have seen all the consultation responses. And I certainly won't be making a decision either way before then.

It is important to note that no decision has been taken by the governors about foundation status - not even an indicative vote. The only votes have been about whether to explore the issue and whether to put it to consultation.

Along with most governors, I have made no decision on whether Fortismere should become a foundation school or not. There are two governors who are members of the Keep Fortismere Comprehensive group, who seem to believe that foundation status is about making a school selective. But I will be waiting to see the different views that come in via the consultation before making my decision either way.

Tamsin is nearly 2!

Been a really busy couple of days (since the Mighty secured 5th place on Sunday). Absolutely flat out at work, Monday night had both Overview & Scrutiny and governors meetings, tonight had another council meeting and then went straight to our HQ (at The Three Compasses pub) to bundle up leaflets ready for delivery, until the pub closed.

But while work is still pretty manic, the next two nights I'll be staying at my sister's - it's Tamsin's 2nd birthday this week and my parents will be visiting too. So I'm really looking forward to the break (sort of... I'll still be going to work during the days!) and even the prospect of getting a couple of reasonably early nights and so some decent sleep for a change.

Zzzzzz....

Parliament's top priority is...

Good to see that MPs are concerning themselves with the important issues of the day.

I don't mean that of course, what a ridiculous waste of time. Eurovision is just meant to be a bit of fun (apparently)? Or did I miss something? Having said that, I did see part of the winning entry at the weekend and that wasn't fun at all.

Terry Wogan will no doubt be happy with the MPs' efforts, obsessed as he is with the idea of political voting. Is it really that strange that countries that share similar cultures might also like similar music?

I can't believe I just wrote about Eurovision on my blog. I've only even seen it once in the last 10 years. Honest.

Area Assembly in the Park

On Saturday, I went to a council meeting with a difference.

We have regular Area Assembly meetings throughout the year - but usually the standard evening meeting in a school hall, church hall or somewhere similar.

Our Area Assembly covers a massive four wards (Fortis Green, Alexandra, Highgate and Muswell Hill), compared with just two wards in many other parts of the borough, but is very ably chaired by my Lib Dem colleague Cllr Gail Engert.

Although we get good attendance at the meetings anyway, with residents from all over the four wards coming with their complaints, queries and suggestions, Gail is always keen to get even more local people involved. So she came up with the idea of a family-friendly meeting and held this Area Assembly on Saturday afternoon at the Albert Road Recreation Ground - with a youth focus on the agenda.

It was well attended and clearly attracted many people who would not normally come to these sorts of meetings. There were lots of activities for kids, as well as food and drink to keep people happy on a Saturday afternoon.

As well as the usual councillors and council officers there to answer questions, the panel also had the co-leaders of Haringey Youth Council - Adam Jogee and Shayan Moftizadeh. I think people were very happy to hear from some people with a strong interest in their local area who weren't boring councillors - especially as they spoke very well.

The top photo shows Adam and Shayan with Gail and middle is our local MP Lynne Featherstone contributing to the debate (although she should have been at home resting up!). At the bottom you can see Gail, my own ward colleague Cllr Martin Newton and another fellow Lib Dem Cllr Wayne Hoban, seeing what some of the kids were up to in the activity area!

The best of the rest

'The best of the rest' - that was how Martin Jol described Spurs' 5th place finish today, in an interview on the pitch after our game with Man City.

He struck the right balance - we finished 5th, for the second season - a good effort, especially in a season where we made the quarter finals of the UEFA and FA Cups as well as the League Cup semifinals. And against a well established big four, getting a solid and consistent 5th as the 'best of the rest' has to be the first step.

But he showed ambition for the club, saying that it had been a good season but we would be looking to do better next season. And as long as Dimitar Berbatov stays with us, then I think we will.

The first half today was pretty much as good as Spurs have played this season - until Man City scored five minutes before half time. Then the second half... well, it might seem unlikely that Stuart Pearce will still be managing City next season, but whatever he said to the City lads at half time certainly worked. They put in a very decent performance in the second half, hassling us well and stopping us from playing at all.

Defoe missed a penalty towards the end and there weren't a huge number of chances either way, but it was an alright game to finish the season with.


As always at the end of the season, afterwards there were a couple of presentations and a lap of honour from the squad. Tom Huddlestone got the Breakthrough award, Aaron Lennon picked up the Young Player award for the second year and, no big surprises, Dimitar Berbatov got the fans' Player of the Year.

The photos are: a random shot of Spurs and City players; Berbatov walking away from our stand during the match; and the squad on their lap of honour after the game (the empty seats are the away fans section).

Now I'm just left wondering what I'm going to do with my "free" time for the next three months...

Dirty Pretty Things gig for Make Roads Safe

Just belatedly spotted that the Make Roads Safe website has some decent pics of the Dirty Pretty Things gig I went to a few weeks ago - where Tim Burgess from the Charlatans was also on stage.

They kinda beat my mobile phone camera efforts hands down.

Norfolk Blogger: Lost in translation - Babelfish is not always the answer

Okay, making a post from a post that has already been made from another post is pretty lame as far as originality goes.

But as I do manage to entertain myself disproportionately by badly written signs and I did German as part of my degree, thought I should share this:

Norfolk Blogger: Lost in translation - Babelfish is not always the answer

Has Hossam Ghaly played his last game for Spurs?

Just back from our penultimate game of the season, a 1-1 draw with Blackburn at White Hart Lane.

The first half was absolutely dire - as bad a half of football as I have seen all season. Hopefully Sky didn't lose too many viewers, as the second half was pretty good.

We now need a point at home to City on the last day of the season to guarantee UEFA Cup football next season. Frustratingly, 5th place is now not just ours to win, as Everton can secure that if they win their final match - even if we thump City. But, nice as it would be to finish nestled in behind the Top 4, 6th would be fine - especially in a season where we made the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup and FA Cup and the semis of the Consolation Cup.

Dimitar Berbatov was again just unbelievable. The only other player that stood out was captain-to-be Michael Dawson - well, and Pas Chimbonda who had the silliest haircut of the season. There were a number of fairly average performances, especially in the first half.

But the most unfortunate part of the night, aside from missing out on 3 points, was the substitution of Hossam Ghaly.

Ghaly is not that well liked by Spurs fans, at least not in the East Lower where I sit. I do like him, I think he is a good player with some good skills - but, yes, it doesn't always work and as I have blogged before he can have some truly atrocious games.

Today was not a good game for Hossam. He came on as a sub to replace the ever unfit Steed Malbranque after half an hour. He didn't play well (but nor did most of the team until the last half hour). He was then substituted to bring Keane on.

As he was walking off, he took off his shirt and - after wishing Keane good luck - threw his shirt on the pitchside, before heading down the tunnel (not, actually, storming down the tunnel as BBC say). Clearly, you don't want to see that and the crowd reaction was not good. After the booing, a fair number of the crowd sang a song likening Ghaly to a fairly intimate body part.

He was disappointed to be subbed and he should not have done what he did. He had also played badly on the pitch. It seems a long way back for him - the fans are not going to be too welcoming on his next appearance. But I hope that we haven't seen the last of him. He's still young, he has talent and he has energy. He may never be a great (who knows, he could be... just maybe), but this is the first time he has made a mistake like this.

Whatever my fellow Spurs fans think of his ability, if they look at his efforts over the season objectively they have to admit he has ALWAYS tried his hardest for Spurs. He is not a lazy player, just picking up his paycheck, and he has never shown less than 100% commitment to the games he has played. He might not be Gazza or Ginola, but that's not his fault. He tries, when he's failed he has had a rough ride from the crowd and when he's succeeded he's got grudging applause at best.

I hope he can stay and play a role at Spurs next season - and I hope us fans will accept that people make mistakes and look at the whole picture, not just one minute of the season.

Announce, announce and announce again

One of the best sign-posted political announcements ever came today, with Prime Minister Tony Blair telling us all that he will be resigning. Quite soon. As opposed to when he told us he was resigning, but not for a while. And the times inbetween where he told us he was resigning, but was vague about when.

As I watched his resignation speech it struck me as pure New Labour genius - as with investment for schools, crime crackdowns or new hospitals - when you have a good piece of news that you know the public will like, don't just say it once... Make your promise on as many different occasions as possible and hope you get positive media coverage each time - until everyone realises it's just recycled news.

The Lib Dem opposition team for Haringey 07/08

We have now published the full list of responsibilities for our Lib Dem team on Haringey Council (following our elections last night). In opposition we always work together and share responsibilities around as issues develop, but these are the key positions that we have all taken on:

Leader - Cllr Neil Williams
Deputy Leader - Cllr Richard Wilson
Chair - Cllr Susan Oatway
Deputy Chair - Cllr Ed Butcher
Chief Whip - Cllr Monica Whyte
Deputy Whip - Cllr Matt Davies

Overview and Scrutiny Committee members
Cllr Martin Newton, Cllr Matt Davies, Cllr David Winskill

Muswell Hill Assembly Chair - Cllr Gail Engert
Crouch End Assembly Chair - Cllr Laura Edge

Audit and Finance Spokesperson - Cllr Robert Gorrie
Children and Young People Spokesperson - Cllr Gail Engert
Community Involvement Spokesperson - Cllr John Oakes
Crime, Policing and Community Safety Spokesperson - Cllr Ron Aitken
Enterprise and Regeneration Spokesperson - Cllr Wayne Hoban
Environment (green issues) Spokesperson - Cllr Bob Hare
Environment (traffic, rubbish, street cleaning) Spokesperson - Cllr Martin Newton
Health Services Spokesperson - Cllr Carolyn Baker
Adult Social Services Spokesperson - Cllr Richard Wilson
Housing Spokesperson - Cllr Catherine Harris
Organisational Development and Performance Spokesperson - Cllr David Winskill
Planning Spokesperson - Cllr Jonathan Bloch

And before anyone wastes their time (you know who you are...), I will not be saying anything about which of the posts were contested or uncontested and any other candidates involved... so don't bother asking!

Elections of a different kind...

Following hot on the heels of the national elections, it was our Haringey Lib Dem group elections tonight.

I got safely re-elected to my position on Overview & Scrutiny and for the next year will also be taking on the role of Deputy Whip for the group. I stood down from my position as our group's Finance spoke, for the eminently capable Cllr Robert Gorrie to take over - but will continue to be closely involved with scrutiny of Haringey Labour's budget through my role on O&S.

We've elected a great team all round - we're all looking foward to tackling Haringey Labour's incompetence over the next year.

Local elections analysis

My old LDYS colleague Anders has put much more thought into an election analysis than I would have got around to - so I'll just suggest you read this.

Patientline - cheap at twice the price

It's been a fairly relaxed bank holiday weekend. Finished off some leaflet delivery, did a little bit of casework and also some work for my job - but on the whole it's been quite pleasant.

Didn't do a huge amount on Friday after work, as Thursday night's drinks at Smiths after our awayday had ended up being pretty late. Saturday evening though was Susan's 40th birthday, so headed up to her party which was in a village hall in Arkley (nice little spot). Yesterday evening went to Stoke Newington (for the first time in my life) to meet a couple of friends to watch the football and have a few drinks. More football tonight - I'm not going to Charlton, but am heading into town a little later on to watch the Spurs match in the pub.

Also spent a bit of time on the phone to my brother, who had a motorbike accident on the way home from work on Thursday. Someone (without insurance or a licence) turned right at traffic lights as John was going straight through, which wasn't too clever. Broken pelvis and wrists and likely a lengthy stay in Leeds General - but he will be okay.

Will try phoning again later, through Patientline of course - the always exceptionally reasonably priced and in no way monopolistic rip-off hospital bedside phone service...

E-mail overload

Not directly related to the GLA selection contest - well, not only related to the GLA selection contest anyway - was amused at seeing this cartoon just now...

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

It's a 22 horse race

Just a brief post aimed only at London Lib Dems reading this blog...

As you'll know, we're in the process of selecting our candidates for the GLA list for next year's elections. You will probably have received your ballot paper today - if you haven't got yours by the end of next week, then you should contact the party to check you're eligible to vote.

Many of you will know that I have been helping one of the 22 candidates to campaign - but all I am saying with this post is please do remember to use your vote, whoever you're giving your 1st preference to. There are a lot of excellent candidates who I know will be great GLA members for us.

You've got until May 25th to send your ballot paper back. But why not do it now?

BBC bias & vote counting 'fiasco'

Watching the BBC 10 o'clock news tonight, it seemed that their piece on the election results had been put together by someone who really doesn't like the Lib Dems...

It essentially said polling day had been a disaster for us. At one point, it said that we had been decimated by the Conservatives across the south of England and gave a couple of (good) examples, Torbay and Bournemouth. But then they said that our *only* consolation had been taking control of Hull from Labour. Uh, hang on, didn't we take control of Eastbourne from the Tories, might that not have been a good comparison? And there were other councils where we took seats from the Tories to take control too. Not to mention the other councils we have taken seats from Labour on to take control. Hull was a great result, but there were plenty of other great results around the country for us too. Heigh-ho.

Seeing the news about the 'fiasco' of the number of ballot papers rejected in Scotland, it was hard not to think that the problem might be with education more so than the system (as ballots rejected by the computers are then checked by hand anyway). It's not that hard to number candidates '1', '2', '3' etc rather than use an 'X'. Well, it will take a bit of getting used to and needs good clear information, as it is a new system for most people. But surely anyone who can put an 'X' on a ballot paper could also use numbers instead - so long as the instructions are clear?

The one thing they did do wrong, of course, was to ignore the advice not to hold STV local elections on the same day as the Scottish Parliamentary elections. Adding a third vote to the two votes for MSPs, with a third different set-up was bound to be confusing - especially when most people were trying out STV for the first time.

And just as I'm going to bed, have seen late news that we have taken control of Northampton. The Tories were the largest party, but we've taken seats from them to take the council from No Overall Control.

What now for Scotland?

Well, most of the results across England, Scotland and Wales are now in. As Arkwright would say... It's been a funny old day.

There have been some bad results for us, with heavy losses in places like Bournemouth and Torbay - but we have still taken seats off the Conservatives (as well as Labour) around the country. Staying with the south coast, that includes taking control of Eastbourne. Looking through all the results, there are a number of places where Labour have increased their majorities (although, of course, their general trend has been downwards) or where we have taken seats off both other parties - and lost them to both other parties.

In most cases where we have lost control of councils, not including the ones mentioned above, it's actually been down to a relatively small loss of councillors. For example, it was disappointing to lose control of St.Alban's - but that was the result of just two councillors losing their seats.

Highlights for me personally were: taking more seats off the Tories in South Lakeland after taking control last year; comfortably holding control of Durham and Newcastle; picking up an extra seat in Manchester and my old friend Neil increasing the Lib Dem grip on Didsbury West; taking control of the likes of Hull, Rochdale and Caradon.

In Wales, there wasn't a huge amount of change. No real Labour meltdown, the net result was three seats more for Plaid and three fewer for Labour. That was despite the Tories winning 3 or 4 new constituency seats - as that resulted in fewer list seats for them and their total was unchanged, as was ours at 6.

Scotland of course had a great deal more action in terms of the shifting numbers. It was very disappointing to see Alex Salmond taking Nora Radcliffe's Gordon seat - but that does show that Salmond seemed to know what he was doing with his ambitious campaign targets. When I worked in Parliament, I used to quite often share a lift with him and have a few little chats - he was always a friendly chap. We lost a couple of other seats too, while picking up Dunfermline West from Labour. The end result was both us and the Conservatives finishing up 1 seat down on 2003 - the SNP surge was just to difficult to repel, it seems.

But what now for Scotland? There is no SNP/Lib Dem or Lab/Lib Dem coalition possibility (well, either coalition would not have a majority). And the Tories ruled out going into coalition with anybody, before the election. So will there be a broader coalition or a minority coalition? Will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few days... or weeks...

Big election day tomorrow

In London we are election-free tomorrow (except for a by-election in Westminster, good luck to the team there). But all around England, Wales and Scotland there are key clashes going on.

If you have an election near you and are thinking about who to vote for - or whether to vote at all - then you might want to look at this short video on YouTube.

Good luck to all those that have worked so hard over the years for good results tomorrow - of course, they'll all be too busy out delivering eve-of-poll leaflets to read this, but it's the thought that counts.

Who will come out on top tonight?

There is a very interesting battle shaping up... and, no, I'm not talking about Radcliffe v Salmond.

Tonight, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will be playing each other in the "Battle of the Surfaces". As you might have guessed from the name, this comes from Federer being the best in the world on grass and Nadal being the best in the world on clay. They could have perhaps played a match on each surface or maybe a set on each surface. But that wouldn't have been crazy enough - you can see here on the photo from BBC Sport the option they have gone for:




It's not going to prove anything of course, but it should be pretty entertaining!

Military coups aren't all that bad, y'know

Negative publicity following your military coup? Best hire a PR firm.