Contrasting conversations overheard.

The photo above was taken in Erith Town Centre early this morning by me. The shot shows the former Wise Furnishings site, which has now become a discount bedding and settee shop; Actually, as previously mentioned, I would not be at all surprised if it was actually Wise trading under another identity, trying to flog off all their unsold stock at cut price. "Furniture Liquidation Store" - sounds ominous; maybe it is a cover for a concentration camp for sofas.

This years' Erith Riverside festival approaches; the festival will run from 10am to 4pm on June 6 in Riverside Gardens and Erith High Street North. Entry will be free. More information can be found on the News Shopper website here. After the cancellation of the event last year, I think that many local people are keen to see the event back on track; the festival in 2008 was absolutely excellent, and a great improvement on previous shows. You can see my photos of the 2008 festival if you click here.

Well, this week has been an extremely busy one for me; my normally white collar job in IT support for a large multi national company has led me to have spent the last few weeks  as part of a team supervising the installation and commissioning of the data and audio visual systems in a new £350 million flagship office building in Canary Wharf. I have been trotting around the vast building site in a day - glo jacket with bunches of screwdrivers and spanners hanging out of the pockets of my cargo trousers. Fascinating but extremely tiring work - the place is utterly gargantuan, and many of the lifts currently do not work; much exercise is had climbing the fire escapes between floors to get where I need to be. Incidentally the office building is very close to the giant Canary Wharf Waitrose store; the only supermarket I know that has security guards at the door to keep the chavs out. The store is actually a combined Waitrose and John Lewis store - utter heaven and actually no more expensive to shop in than Tesco, and much better quality to boot. I have been coming home carrying Waitrose shopping bags - something rather out of place in Erith. Incidentally, I have noticed that recently Morrison's have instructed the check out staff to ask every customer if they would like to purchase some saving stamps when they reach the check out. Whilst this might seem a quick and easy way to save towards Christmas, it is really just a way of giving the supermarket an interest free loan.

Last weekend my old Belkin broadband wireless router had the exceedingly bad grace to die on me. I went to Argos to purchase its' replacement - the Belkin N+ wireless router, billed as being the most powerful and easiest wireless router to set up and use. Utter tosh. The router 802.11 N+ signal is powerful and far reaching, but the device, server and internal firewall were utterly horrible to set up - it took me all of Sunday afternoon and into Monday evening to get the box working as it should. How the general public fare with such things makes me shudder. I do this kind of thing on a daily basis as part of my job, and I still found it traumatic. Routers still have a long way to go when it comes to the usability stakes. Further down the page you will read my updated thoughts on mobile telephones, and why I don't have one; you may think that my behaviour is inconsistent, in that I do use wireless data networking, but not voice. The reason for this is straightforward; the IEEE 802.11 standard uses frequencies in the 2.4 and 5 GHz microwave bands, well away from the 3G mobile phone band of 2 - 2.1 GHz where the trouble really lurks, on top of this, my router does not spend any time strapped to the side of my head. As Ian stated in an email to me earlier this week, wireless routers truly are Satan's playthings. Your thoughts and comments below are welcomed.

I have been harping on about the potential health dangers of mobile phones since the mid 1990's - for many years I have been regarded as somewhat of an eccentric, being possibly the only person in Erith who does not own a mobile telephone. The Radio Frequency energy saturation scan image below will give even the sceptic some understanding of why I have taken this long term view on what I view as a malevolent and hazardous technology. An article in the Daily Telegraph this Saturday stated that: "A landmark study will include some evidence that those who regularly hold long conversations on handsets are at increased risk of developing potentially fatal brain tumours. Its findings may lead the Government to update its health advice on the safety of mobile phones, which has remained unchanged for four years despite increased usage in Britain particularly among children. It was known that radio frequency radiation emitted by mobile phones is absorbed by the body, much of it by the head when the handset is held to the ear. Of the studies that have been published individually showed increased risk of glioma - the most common type of brain tumour - among those who talked on a mobile for about 30 minutes a day for 10 years. Many who developed the tumours saw them grow on the same side of the head as they held their handsets. Though the scientific debate is heated and far from resolved, there are multiple reports, mostly out of Europe's premier research institutions, of cellular telephone use being linked to "brain ageing," brain damage, early-onset Alz­heimer's, senility, DNA damage, and even sperm die-offs (many men, after all, keep their mobile phones in their trouser pockets or attached at the hip). In September 2007, the European Union's environmental watchdog, the European Environment Agency, warned that mobile phone technology "could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking, and lead in petrol." You can read the full article from the online version of the newspaper by clicking here. There is another, in depth article which researches the response from the mobile phone manufacturers, and the detailed clinical study that is being done into the effects of low band microwave radiation on human physiology which you can read by clicking here.

In case you are wondering what a Voxel (mentioned in the scan above) is, it is a three dimensional pixel - in addition to width and height, a Voxel also has a measurable depth. The body scan above is divided up into Voxels of 1mm x 1mm x 1mm. Worrying stuff, as I am sure you will agree. You can read my original posting about the potential health hazards of mobile telephony from the Maggot Sandwich back in August 2006 by clicking here.

On a similarly gloomy note it has come to my attention that the Chequers pub on Picardy Road, Lower Belvedere has been demolished to make way for flats. This historic building was one of the oldest in Belvedere, and really should have been subject to a historic listing order. Big money got around this, and it is now sadly no more. Here is a photo of it taken in rather happier times.

It amazes me the information people will let slip whilst in public spaces; earlier this week I was on a 99 bus travelling homewards after visiting Dad. A couple sitting directly behind me were in conversation; the woman was asking the bloke what he was up to. The man (who reeked of strong lager) replied that he was going to Erith to visit his psychotherapist for his weekly anger management course, then to pick up his Methadone prescription from the chemists. This conversation was conducted in a very matter of fact manner - the woman seemed unsurprised by his reply, and his general demeanour seemed to indicate this was normal life to him. Contrastingly, whilst waiting for a DLR train at Heron Quays station on Friday evening, a bloke in designer jeans and a trendily faded repro T - shirt was barking angrily into his mobile phone. He was complaining to the person on the other end that he had just received his first pay slip since the change in the tax allowances had come through - he was loudly saying that he was appalled that all his earnings over £150,000 per year were now being taxed at 50% and that he was disgusted by it, and did not know how he was going to make ends meet (!) I think a bit of real life "Trading Places" might well be an eye opener for both blokes.

This weeks' video is a bit different; it was produced by Ian, and it is a short animation describing the Maggot Sandwich to a novice viewer. Click on the image to begin (you may need to try a few times, the interface is a bit clunky). Do have a watch and let me know what you think. As previously stated, comments no longer appear immediately - I have been forced to enable comment moderation due to the actions of Chinese spammers.