Blogs - Newsroom and Reader Blogs from the Times Series

Tom studied English Literature at Queen Mary College, University of London, before embarking on a lengthy spell of inactivity.

He then set up a landscape gardening company with two friends in leafy Wimbledon. After almost two years of early starts, rainy days and tax returns, however, Tom realised that the pen is mightier than the pitch-fork and retrained as a journalist.

He joined the Hendon team this summer after a long and happy spell of work experience on the paper.

Despite early scepticism, Tom says he is developing a fondness for the intrigues of local politics and finds himself consistently suprised by the wealth and variety of stories on our patch.

Valentine's Day: Watch out for those STDs!

As Valentine’s day fast approaches, there is seemingly no end to the stream of press releases using the occasion to plug their businesses, promotions or causes. Of course, Valentine’s day was created by satan in a pact with florists and PR people (you try telling that to the missus), so they are entitled to savage it.

The footballer, the banker and the civil servant

What have Heurelho Gomes, Sharon Shoesmith and Sir Fred Goodwin got in common? Well, they have all been paid a lot of money for doing their jobs, and they were all particularly bad at them.

The status quo is not an option

“The status quo is not an option,” announced everyone’s favourite Lord, Peter Mandelson, last night as he defended the impending privatisation of Royal Mail to Jon Snow. Now where have we heard that before?

Sail away

Amid the furore over the billions the Government will borrow to fund its tax give-away this week, Lib Dem treasury spokesman Vince Cable repeated his oft-voiced call to end the tax breaks for the super rich. Why this does not get a more sympathetic hearing, or form a much stronger part of the debate over ways to provide a cash-boost to the economy, is almost beyond me.

Getting the spliff to your ashtray

The vice-president of Columbia has attempted to instill a sense of social conscience in the middle-class, casual users of cocaine, a drug which has torn parts of his country to shreds.

Yes we can!

Barack Obama's triumphant election has captured the imagination in some unlikely corners of Barnet.

We're all such good friends!

There’s something about the Mandelson-Osborne-Rothschild story that truly captures the imagination. It’s just all so utterly, inescapably filthy. Everyone is trying their best to remain aloof and come out of it whiter than their crisply-starched holiday polo shirts. But they all come out of it coated with the lustre of filthy lucre.

Stop the trend

Yesterday morning I looked on as dozens of armoured police officers, backed up with dog handlers, raided an East Finchley flat. They thought they might find four or five dogs, each easily capable of killing a child - in someone’s home.

Follow the money

In 2004 the then Prime Minister Tony Blair - remember him? - had this to say on the definition of national security: “There is no statutory definition of national security. The courts accept that the interpretation of what is national security is, within a wide margin of appreciation, a matter for the Secretary of State to determine on a case-by case basis.”

Are newspapers history?

One of the finest characters I’ve come across in my travels around the borough is an elderly fellow by the name of John Frost.

Nudging to the right

As Barnet Council gears up to 'nudge' us into being better citizens, the theory is holding sway with policy makers at Conservative HQ.

The buses are back

Regular readers of this blog will recall how buses became the ideological battleground for Brave New Barnet during the election campaign for the Mayor of London and London Assembly. Proponents of routmasters did battle with those of bendy buses - or pragmatism, as would say - as the fight for City Hall reached fever pitch. It was a striking example of the blandness of the political landscape.