T's becomes PC's.

The photo above shows the newly completed Police safer neighbourhood office in Erith Town Centre; the place is sandwiched between FarmFoods (Erith's prime purveyor of "chip shop style" microwaveable Chav fuel) and underneath what used to be the notorious T's Nightclub, later renamed Club Extreme - a place guaranteed to be the heart of any casual violence and anti social behaviour. Since the place closed down a couple of years ago after having its' licence rescinded, the area has been bereft of a focus for lager induced mayhem.  The Police office is not yet occupied; I hope to give it some coverage when it becomes operational in the very near future. Click on the photo for a larger view.

I recently purchased an upgrade to my copy of Aperture for my iMac - it is a semi professional photo editing application I use in preference to PhotoShop as it is much easier for a casual user to master. The new version 3 has many more features and tighter integration with online photo sharing services such as Flickr and Facebook. Unusually for Apple, the initial release had some serious bugs, one of which would cause the program to show the spinning beach ball of Hell, then to run for the hills, tail between its' legs. Apple software is usually very reliable indeed, so this was more than a bit of a surprise. Mid week a patch was released which has improved the reliability of the software, but  in my experience it is still not rock solid as one would expect for a premium semi pro level product. You can see a screen shot of the patched Aperture 3.0.1 - showing Shirley gadding about on the banks of the River Medway at Gillingham. Click for a larger view.

Have you noticed that the current television advert for Auto Trader magazine features the theme tune to 70's children's show The Flumps? I wonder how that came about? Answers on a post card please.

Talking of television, am I the only person who finds High Definition television a bit of a swizz? I don't actually think the picture quality as that much noticeably better on most programmes - it is only the demonstration Blu - Ray disks showing tropical fish and similar that really look any better than standard definition. I will be sticking with my venerable 36" Toshiba CRT beast until such time as it dies on me. Incidentally, I feel it is my place to mention that the Maggot Sandwich is made from 100% recycled pixels.

I think the video clip below could end up turning viral. It was put together by those nice chaps at thinkgeek.com - premium vendors of clothing and apparel to the I.T industry. I have several geeky T shirts purchased online from them; their kit is reasonably priced and delivered speedily. What they have done is use some of the novelty wear that they sell, such as a T Shirt with an applique electronic, playable drum kit, a stylophone another T shirt with a playable electric guitar logo on the front, and mini analogue sequencer to recreate the classic Who track Baba O'Reilly - watch and see what you think.

I read in the papers that the BBC are contemplating closing both the DAB stations BBC 6 and the Asian Network; this does not come as a surprise to me. I have heard the controller of the Asian Network say that it would be cheaper for him to record each show onto CD and courier it to each of their listeners than it was to transmit it on DAB.  With the closure of 6 Music, which has an average listener age of 35, and an undertaking to bring more documentaries and comedy to Radio 2, the BBC will also pledge to allow commercial stations to be the main providers of popular music to listeners aged 30 to 50. There will be complaints about the decision to cull 6 Music, which has a small but fervent fan base. Music industry tastemakers revere it as a credible outlet for “real music” but a review last month showed that only 20 per cent of adults knew that the station existed. Personally I find 6 virtually unlistenable; if he had still been alive, I like to think that John Peel would have found it his logical home as controller, and brought some direction to the station. As it is, it will almost certainly be a victim of the now inevitable reorganisation. Ironically, the most successful station on DAB in the UK is Planet Rock - a station which almost disappeared in 2008, until saved by a management buy out.

When I visit the cinema, I don't further inflate the pockets of the conglomerates that own the place; personally I don't like popcorn, and would rather not miss any of the film by visiting the gents every few minutes after having drunk nearly half a gallon of sugar infused fizzy water costing more pro rata than a pint pf premium real ale. After research, I have discovered that when Coke started out in America it was sold in a 5oz bottle, and now you can get it in a 64oz bucket. There are 20 fluid ounces in a pint, so that is a three and a bit pints. There can be nothing materially sensible about that, and no one needs that amount of soft drink do they?

I was on the train back to Euston from Watford on Monday afternoon; two young women got on and sat directly behind me. They were talking quite loudly in fairly posh accents; from their conversation it turned out that they were both actresses, and one had just been to a casting session at Elstree for St.Trinians 3. She was talking about work and filming in the USA - from the details I got, and from a quick look as I got off the train, I was able to Google her, and it was Talulah Riley (copyright free photo below from Wikipedia) - she was the lead in the first two St. Trinians films, and she played Marianne (the love interest) in the Boat that Rocked. She was telling her friend that her best platonic male friend is the Twighlight actor Robert Pattinson - and he apparently is becoming more and more like the vampire character in real life - he's got really dark and moody. As previously mentioned, I don't have much contact with show biz, so this was an interesting interlude.

 

I seem to have picked up a few more new readers in the last week or so. Apologies to my regulars, but here is a little bit of background for novice visitors to the Maggot Sandwich:

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 well over three years now - there are now in excess of 260 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. Links to other websites are shown as underlined words or phrases - click on any of these to learn more about the subject in question. I think that is just about that as far as navigation is concerned.

The last video clip this week was brought to my attention by Ian. It shows some extremely clever software engineers who have used the Microsoft Surface as a virtual Dungeons and Dragons environment. I would love to have one of these...