Blitz Spirit.

British Blitz spirit is still in evidence, however much we think it could not exist in a cynical modern age. Yesterday afternoon, I was walking home from Morrison's when I came across a Police line in my road; from the number of emergency service personnel on the scene, it was immediately obvious that something serious had occurred. A 7.5 tonne flatbed lorry had crashed through my front garden, smashing the garden fence; it had then gone on to flatten the brick garden walls of the adjacent four houses, before coming to rest millimetres from the porch of the fifth house along from mine. The local police had summoned the specialist traffic police, and they had arrested both the driver and passenger of the vehicle. The lorry apparently had a faulty tachograph and was also uninsured; it would appear that the driver may have been unfamiliar with driving on the left and misjudged the width of the road, clipping a parked car quite vigorously, before skidding to the opposite side of the road, then ricochetting back across, and through the line of gardens, thus demolishing everything it its' path, including completely uprooting a steel street light. It also transpired that the two occupants of the vehicle were Romanian, possibly with disputed immigration status - one had tried to conceal his Romanian I.D card under the passenger seat cushion, but an alert neighbour saw the act and the police soon retrieved the errant document. I asked the senior officer on the scene what the two would be charged with; his words were "I don't know yet, but we'll think of something" - which sounded ominous for the two miscreants. The incident took place mid Saturday afternoon, and the road was not re - opened for traffic until just after 8pm, after two large truck haulage vehicles has salvaged the wrecked truck; it was so embedded in the brickwork of the garden it came to rest in that the recovery operatives ended up removing the entire front sub chassis and axle, complete with both wheels in order to free the rest of the structure for removal.

Click on any photo on the page in order to view a larger and more detailed version.





In the photo above you can see council contractors in the process of cutting up the street light that had been uprooted from outside of my house by the impact of the truck, then deposited horizontally two doors down, neatly bent into a right angle. Understandably several of the neighbours affected by the accident were upset and unhappy with the two blokes responsible for the crash; one good thing came out of the the whole mess was that people began to talk to one another - the much vaunted (and previously to my mind fictional) Blitz spirit became apparent; when the truck had been salvaged, everyone pitched in to help clean up the mess, and collect the hundreds of bricks into some semblance of a neat pile. There was almost a festive atmosphere by the conclusion of the clean up, and I have taken a number of Email addresses in order to send members of the local community a link to my photographs of the incident, which I have posted onto my Flickr photo site - click on this link to go there.



If this is the first time you have read my Blog, then I should explain; I chronicle events in and around Erith and the local area, and cast my wry opinion on issues such as petty crime and social injustice; my views and comments are often made in a slightly tongue in cheek manner, and whilst everything I report on the trusty Maggot Sandwich has occurred exactly as I write, any opinions expressed are to be taken lightly. When in petty local crime fighting mode, I have an alter ego - the suitably monickered Captain Tweed. You can read about one case I cracked by clicking here to go to the story. I have been posting weekly articles here for over three years now - there are now in excess of 230 posts; updates are published regularly on Sunday afternoons / early evenings, and an Email is sent out to inform veteran readers. The ten most recent postings are on the front page, older postings are automatically archived, and can be read by clicking on the "Blog Archive" drop down menu button to the right of the editorial. Also on the right are a series of links to other websites you may find of interest. The list updates whenever one of the linked sites posts any new content, so the links at the top of the list are those with the most recent updates - the lower on the list, the older the content - all clever stuff.

Does anyone have a clue as to just what the function and place in the natural scheme of things flying ants play? They seem to appear for a few days each summer, seemingly only to fly into my face and any orifice they can find - surely not a successful survival tactic for the species?

On Friday night I went to see the Bootleg Beatles at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford. I was a little dubious about seeing this tribute band, but my doubts were unfounded, they truly are excellent, and I would highly recommend catching them if you can. They look and sound absolutely spot on; I can see why they are regarded as the very best tribute band on the circuit.

Please feel free to post a comment on anything I write - if you click on the small "Comments" tag at the bottom of the posting, this will bring up a dialogue box. You don't have to sign up to anything, and can post anonymously if you so wish.

This weeks' video clip is something I have posted once before, a couple of years ago, but I feel it deserves a new airing. It is a short news story on secret numbers radio stations - those strange signals one sometimes comes across whilst listening to shortwave radio. They apparently broadcast coded messages to spies and intelligence agents under cover in various countries around the world; it would appear that the cold war is really far from over. Watch and make up your own mind.