Mrs Angry's Broken Barnet: "We are disappointed, or: 'Barnet decides - the day of reckoning'."

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"Allianz Park stadium and sports centre sits in a semi-rural setting, in the middle of Copthall playing fields, in Mill Hill, surrounded by fields, and old hedgerows, miles from anywhere, inaccessible by public transport, approachable only by a manically road humped meandering road: its splendid isolation a perfect venue, in short, for the process of counting the vote for Barnet's council elections.

"We say splendid isolation: in fact the old centre and stadium, long regarded as a white elephant by Barnet Tories, was handed over by them to Saracens rugby club, for a peppercorn rent, and has been tarted up and customised to their specification: the result is an incongrous building, with a shop, and bars, the public one, as Mrs Angry noted with wry amusement on arrival, boasting large windows etched with commendable aspirations to 'honesty', 'humility', and 'discipline'.

"... Another Tory who did not bother staying to hear the declaration was Ansuya Sodha, the former Labour councillor for West Hendon who was deselected, and became so outraged at losing what she had thought was her right to remain a councillor, she defected to the Tory group, when they offered her a nomination.

"Elected instead were three Labour councillors, the redoubtable, wonderful Agnes Slocombe, now the longest serving councillor in Barnet, the hardworking assistant to Andrew Dismore, Adam Langleben, and Mrs Angry's dear friend, the lovely Dr Devra Kay, who is a woman of many parts: Yiddish scholar, jazz singer, and a real delight." [West Hendon is in the same 'Supplementary Planning Guidance' area as Brent Cross.]