The gangs of Erith.

The photo above (click on it for a larger view) was taken by me on Thursday evening in Alexandra Road, Erith. A rubbish skip had been set alight by local low lives, which had spread to some out buildings at the rear of a house. The Fire Brigade were swiftly on hand to deal with the conflagration, though the smoke the fire produced was noxious in the extreme - to my reckoning some plastics, car tyres and other hydrocarbon based materials were involved. All soon extinguished and made good though.

I was sitting quietly at the bus stop outside of Matalan, waiting for the 99 bus to take me up to Belvedere yesterday, when an altercation took place. At the opposite end of the bus shelter, a hooded figure lurked; I was not overly concerned, as I was far bigger than him, and as always, equipped with my trusty +3 boots of steel toecapped kicking. He was on his mobile telephone, then suddenly looked around to see three further threatening looking chavs accelerating towards him - within seconds the three, led by a particularly odious looking figure, has descended onto the phone bound one at the bus shelter - the leader then immediately proceeded to beat seven bells out of the protagonist. My initial instinct to intervene was overridden after some consideration; it was patently obvious that they were all members of the same gang, and had some internal dispute to resolve in their neanderthal manner. I decided to take a stroll along to the next bus stop, just around the corner and away from the fracas. The next stop is located at Erith mini bus station in front of the shopping centre. My thoughts were confirmed when the bus arrived; the original chav was on board, looking somewhat frayed at the edges, and worse for the wear - he was on his mobile phone, calling his gang mates and other confederates to arrange retribution on those that had assaulted him. From what I overheard (I was sitting directly behind the waste of protoplasm) he was a member of the notorious local T-Block gang, and there was some kind of internal dispute going on. This confirmed my initial suspicions - I am more than happy to let two groups of local organised criminals beat seven bells out of each other, or worse. The sooner they exterminate each other, the better in my opinion. In addition to the T -Block group, the other main local group of organised low - lives is known as the RA gang. The would appear to be arranged along racial lines, with the T-Block being composed of African and Afro Caribbean crooks, and the RA gang run by white scumbags. They are all as bad as each other, and the sooner that the Police can crush them the better. It is a somewhat media intensive entry this week; I have found a video posted onto YouTube by the T - Block gang, which is embedded below. Please be aware that it is not exactly Beckett - as it is full of bad language (in the rare points in the video where you can actually understand what they are on about) - most of the time they are using faux Jamaican patois, so they sound like "gangstas". You have been warned...

Local radio station WNKR are celebrating their 22nd birthday next weekend, which coincides with both the August Bank Holiday, and their change in frequency, due to interference from a Catalan language power house medium wave radio station in Spain, which obliterates their signal at night. You should find that WNKR will move from 1476 KHz medium wave to 1395 KHz, which I understand should be a clearer channel.

I was working from home on Friday; my office is located on the back of Pewty Acres, and as such I don't hear a lot that happens out in the road at the front. When I emerged to look out of the front window a somewhat familiar sight met my eyes; the road was once again closed off and filled with emergency service vehicles. It would appear that two or three vehicles had been involved in a pile up. I could not see much as the event had occurred further along the road, but later in the afternoon when things had quietened down, I managed to get the photo below of the damage caused to one particular rather elderly and unloved car. Ironically the vehicle was parked up directly outside the depot of the Erith branch of European Metal Recycling - one of the largest car scrapyards in the country - a few yards pushing would take it directly to its' fate.



Upper Belvedere pub the Eardley Arms would appear to have closed down. The place has had a reputation as a dive and hang out of local crooks and lager drinkers for some time; there have been rumours that the publican was using the place as a base from which to fence stolen goods, though this has never been confirmed. The place has however had a poor reputation for years. More news as it happens.

I have noticed that the Maggot Sandwich is getting the occasional bit of Chinese spam - a couple of comments have been posted by oriental spammers; I managed to find out what odious crap they were peddling by copying and pasting the Chinese ideograms into Google translator and cranking the handle. Disappointingly it was jut the same kind of junk as those vermin that spam in English.

As previously mentioned, this weeks' update is somewhat multimedia heavy; the next video clip is exceptionally funny - imagine if Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies had the personality of a cockney "Tasty Geezer" gangster boss. Watch the clip below - which contains a lot of bad language - you have been warned.



Bexleyheath based North Kent Amateur Radio Society have been taking part in the annual International lighthouse weekend, setting up an amateur radio station adjacent to the small lighthouse located on the River Thames at Lower Belvedere. You can read more about it by clicking here.

Now for the main video clip of the week; this is a teaser trailer for the forthcoming movie from ace director James Cameron - the most expensive ever made at well over $200 million. It is a sci fi film called Avatar, shot in Hi Definition 3D - (a first) it would appear to be a mix of the Dark Crystal, Aliens and Dances with Wolves. The full film is due out at Christmas. See what you think of the trailer, and please feel free to post a comment below.