Travellers near and far.

The dismantling of the RMC Aggregates facility at the junction of James Watt Way and Wheatley Terrace Road continues apace; I had a chat with one of the guys from the demolition company earlier today. Apparently the yard has been bought by EMR (European Metal Recycling) who already occupy a large yard a little further down Manor Road. They intend using the RMC site as an overflow, and to continue using the river wharf, as per the planning regulations mentioned recently. The demolition is apparently being carried out by just a couple of blokes from a company called Crazy Ltd "Site Clearance, Vegetation and Recovery" - (or so it says on their business card), hence the relatively sedate pace of progress. Three large caravans turned up outside the yard earlier in the week; the travellers stayed for a few days, then left as mysteriously as they had appeared. They did not cause any trouble, did not leave any mess, and my only complaint was that they played a lot of loud country and western music. I detest country and western at the best of times - it is foreign, maudlin, depressing, self indulgent and in my opinion listened to by those lacking of wit. I can just about see its' relevance in its' land of origin, but not here please.

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A lot has been said in the press and on television about the past week being the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo moon landings, and the amazing events that took place then. It has also become a platform for conspiracy theorists to come out of the woodwork, and once again (yawn) tout the story that the moon landings were faked in a studio. To be honest, it would have been harder to fake the landings and keep everyone involved quiet than it would to do it for real; radio amateurs have always known the landings were real, as many listened to the radio traffic between the Eagle and Mission Control - the signals, being VHF and UHF, are highly directional, and could only have been coming from a distant point in space. On top of this, the laser reflector left on the Moons' surface has been used by the astronomy departments of many world universities to bounce off laser beams; doing this they have discovered that the moon is moving further away from the Earth at a rate of four centimetres per year. The existence of this reflector, which is still in regular use, rather puts paid to the rather more exotic theories about actors and secret movie studios - ignoring the fact that something like 400,000 people were directly or indirectly involved in putting the Apollo 11 crew on the moon; if only one percent were in on the conspiracy, it is beyond comprehension that four thousand people would have kept silent for over four decades. There is a fascinating article on the CNN website here on the subject.

I have had a number of compliments regarding the Radio Caroline MP3 download I featured last week; if you missed it, click on this link to download the MP3 file, and hear my dulcet tones from way back in 1990.

I received an excellent Email from Al Weiner of American shortwave broadcasting station WBCQ - the Planet earlier in the week; I had dropped him a line and his fraternal greetings were most welcomed.

WNKR have been transmitting a War of the Worlds special this weekend, featuring the award winning concept album by Jeff Wayne. This prompted me to do a bit of a web search on the whole War of the Worlds story, and I came across a new version, hosted on YouTube. It is an updated British version of the story, featuring clips from Sky News and all sorts of good stuff; infinitely superior to the tragically abysmal Americanised Steven Spielberg offering from a couple of years back. You can view the updated U.K version here.



Unfortunately I missed the Chap Olympics this year; the event coincided with my Mum's birthday celebration lunch, which was held at the excellent Turkish restaurant Tas in the Cut, Waterloo. It was a humid but showery day; luckily I was seated next to the open window at the front of the restaurant, as you can see from the photo above; apologies for the digital graininess in the shot - it was taken with a Canon DSLR, and they are notoriously noisy. The Chap Olympics were covered by a number of press organisations, including ITN News, and you can see the results below in this weeks' video clip, courtesy of messrs YouTube and co. You can also view photos from the event on Flickr by clicking here.