400,000!

I took the photo above a couple of weeks back - click on it for a larger view. It shows the traveller pony which is kept on a piece of waste land that is sandwiched between the back of Erith Morrison's and the riverside path. A pony of one sort or another has been kept on the site for several years now; the RSPCA have visited on a number of occasions, but as long as the animal is kept fed and watered, there is no crime being committed, and nothing much can be done about it. To be honest, the animal gets pretty spoiled by local people; quite often parents or carers with small children will take them to see the pony, which usually ends up with it getting fed carrots or apples. I have a theory that whenever a pony is kept on the land, it ends up getting fatter due to all of the attention it receives. Nevertheless, there is a serious and growing problem with ponies and horses being illegally kept all over the region. A couple of parks and open spaces in Thamesmead have actually had signs erected warning people against bringing ponies onto the land. There is an issue whereby these animals are worth very little in cash terms - it is possible to purchase one for between five and ten pounds. They do cost a lot in feed, accommodation and vets fees, hence why they tend to be "squatted" on areas of waste land.

Some time in the early morning of last Tuesday, the Maggot Sandwich hit a landmark. The site got its four hundred thousandth unique page view - that is 400,000 different people have visited the site on at least one occasion - the repeat views are not recorded. This also does not mean that I have that many regular readers, just that 400,000 people have stumbled across the site, quite possibly when looking for something else. I am aware that any Google search for content or images that contain the word "Erith" will feature a large amount of Maggot Sandwich material. This is because I ensure that I embed relevant meta data for search engines to discover in every post; I also always location tag every post and update. Last Saturday evening I popped into the Royal Standard in Upper Belvedere and as soon as I walked into the bar, three chaps came over and said "Are you that Arthur Pewty bloke?" to which I replied in the affirmative. It turns out that they were regular readers. I was gratified they had some nice comments to make about the blog - it could easily have been the other way around!

I was walking along Erith High Street on my way to my barber (Liam at Bojangles, since you ask) when I noticed something I really never thought would happen. The Ladbrokes betting shop was closed and empty - the place had gone out of business. You may recall how I recently wrote about the seemingly incessant rise of high street betting shops, and especially how the almost unregulated spread of fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT) has enabled the big betting companies to increase their revenues several fold over the last few years. This success seems to somehow have evaded the Erith Ladbrokes. I suppose one could surmise that Erith High Street is a little secluded and out of the way when compared to the location of the large Paddy Power bookmakers in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre - where I am guessing most of the local gambling transactions take place nowadays. I don’t know how many people were employed in the Ladbrokes shop, but I feel sorry for their loss of livelihood. I did wonder how a relatively small and not particularly well off town like Erith could support three bookmakers - and it would seem I have now got my answer - it could not. I am uncertain of the number of regular gamblers in the area; I certainly see a regular flow of people in and out of the two remaining shops. Personally my knowledge of betting is minimal at best. I have only ever been into a betting shop once, and that was around 25 years ago in order to place a wager on the Grand National for a friend who was wheelchair bound. My opinion that the only long term winner when gambling is the house has not changed in the intervening years, and I doubt that it ever will.  Still, I do strongly subscribe to the philosophy that “if it works for you”. Nevertheless it is interesting to see that the business model of the gambling companies does not always function to their benefit.

Last week you may recall I mentioned how so many of the most important inventions of the last century were developed in and around Erith. The reality was in most cases, other inventors got a commercial product launched first, or the local inventor gave up just before making a significant breakthrough – a case in point would be Edward Butler – the inventor of the internal combustion engine motor car, named the Butler Petrol Cycle (see the photo above, courtesy of Garry "Tadge" Taylor), which pootled around Erith at speeds potentially up to fifteen miles per hour, back in 1884 – a full two years before Karl Benz in Germany would come up with what is popularly considered to be the first automobile. The big problem faced by anyone experimenting with self powered vehicles at that time was the 1865 Red Flag Act, which forced all self powered vehicles to travel at a speed of no more than two miles per hour in built up areas, and no more than four miles per hour in rural areas. On top of this, the vehicle had to be accompanied by three people, one of whom had to walk in front, waving a red flag to warn other road users. Bearing in mind the 15 mph and 40 mpg capability of the Butler Petrol Cycle, the act seriously impacted the testing and development of the vehicle. Edward Butler said at the time” "The authorities do not countenance its use on the roads, and I have abandoned in consequence any further development of it.". He then abandoned the project as unworkable under the regulations of the time. Edward Butler broke up the machine in 1896, and sold the metal as scrap. Karl Benz was not so hindered by traffic laws, and was free to develop his automobile in peace. I can sympathise with Edward Butler, but he does seem to be symptomatic of local ground breaking inventors who get to within what seems to be inches of a truly stunning piece of engineering creation, only to say “sod it, I can’t be bothered to take this any further” and chuck in the metaphorical towel. Even prestigious local inventor Hiram Maxim had a stunning failure in addition to his many successes. The very first heavier than air flight was not as is commonly believed made by the Wright Brothers in 1903, it was actually undertaken in 1894 by a team led by outstanding inventor Hiram Maxim when the experimental steam powered aeroplane accidentally took off during ground testing in Baldwin’s Park, Bexley – it flew for an estimated 281 meters at a height of 1.4 metres, according to contemporary accounts. You can read more about the story here. Suffice to say that Maxim realised that his design of flying machine was dynamically unstable, and not viable for any longer flights. He abandoned the project shortly thereafter, leaving the Wright brothers to gain the fame and fortune that went with the first viable aerodynamic flying vehicle. As well as being a skilled engineer and inventor, Hiram Maxim was a very shrewd businessman, and I think he realised that his own flying machine was an engineering dead end, and he decided to stop throwing good money after bad, and work on other projects instead. Maxim was already a very wealthy man, and did not really need the flying machine to be a financial success at all. There was a second foreign born engineer and inventor who worked in Erith at around the same time as Hiram Maxim; his name was Thorsten Nordenfeldt. He was a Swedish born and educated man who married a British woman and moved to the UK; initially they lived at an address in the Uxbridge Road, Paddington, after migrating to the UK in 1867. Thorsten and his British brother in law started a business trading high quality Swedish steel for British railway rails and engineering fittings. After a while, he founded the Nordenfeldt Arms and Ammunition Company, which manufactured a variety of medium calibre deck mounted guns for arming motor torpedo boats and coastal patrol vessels. The guns were manufactured in Erith (as you may gather, in Edwardian times, Erith was a major centre for weapons manufacture, and many locals were employed in the factories).  The problem that Thorsten Nordenfeldt had was that he  was an excellent engineer, but an absolutely terrible businessman. His arms factory was losing money hand over fist, and after much pressure from his bank – Rothschilds – Nordenfeldt was forced to merge his company with Maxim to form the Maxim Nordenfeldt Guns and Ammunition company, with Maxim as the majority shareholder. Two years later Nordenfeldt was declared personally bankrupt, and lost complete control of the company, leaving Maxim the benefactor. Not to be deterred, Nordenfeldt and his family upped sticks and moved to France, hoping to start afresh. He set up a new company designing arms, and developed a revolutionary new breech mechanism for the French 75mm field gun. This all went swimmingly until he received a letter from Maxim’s lawyers, reminding him that he had signed a non compete clause that Nordernfeldt had signed upon leaving the Maxim Nordenfeldt company. The case went as far as the House of Lords, and was found partially in Nordenfeldt’s favour, but by this time he had grown heartily sick of the arms business, and decided to go into the then brand new submarine business instead. He formed a new company with a vicar and keen amateur naval architect called the Reverend George Garrett. They jointly designed a new submarine – the Nordenfeldt One, which weighed in at fifty six tons, was 19.5 metres long and had a range on the surface of 240 kilometres, powered by a one hundred horse power steam engine which gave the vessel a speed of nine knots. It was armed with a single torpedo, and a deck mounted gun. It had to shut down the steam engine before it could dive. It was accepted by the Greek Navy, but never saw active service, and ended up being scrapped in 1901. A Nordenfeldt Two submarine was later built, followed by a Three, which was larger at thirty metres long; It did have one claim to fame – it was the first ever submarine to successfully fire a torpedo at a target whilst fully submerged. The final Nordenfeldt submarine was the Four, which was commissioned by the Russian Navy, but in sea trials it proved to be unstable and very unseaworthy, and ended up running aground off Jutland. The Russians refused to pay for it, in yet another commercial disaster for Nordenfeldt. He then decided to call it a day and retired to Sweden, where he died in 1920 aged 78. Some small signs of Thorsten Nordenfeldt do still exist in Erith. Nordenfeldt Road, off West Street is one link, as was the Nordenfeldt Tavern at 181 Erith Road – a local pub named after the man; it is now long closed and converted into flats, and so another link with our past is severed.

As longer term readers will know, I am keen to promote and encourage independent local businesses wherever possible. This does also mean that when I experience poor service from a local company, I will highlight this too. To expand; Pewty Acres is currently undergoing a makeover and partial refit to complement the extensive remodelling work I had done in 2012. Part of this work involves having the lawn and rockeries in my back garden stripped out prior to the large pine tree being professionally removed by qualified tree surgeons. The lawn stripping and rockery removal is being done by my preferred local contractor, who I have been using reliably for several years. He started work on Monday morning at 7.30. He’d made arrangements to have a skip delivered by J. Hearnden Skip Hire of the Darent Industrial Park in Erith, only a couple of minutes from Pewty Acres. He contacted them a week in advance, got a firm booking and also confirmed by text message. By 10am the skip still had not turned up despite numerous chasing calls to their office. Initially they said that they had “forgotten” about the job, which later changed to “we are really busy”. In the end my builder ended up cancelling the skip, which still showed no signs of appearing. He had to then transport around two and a half tonnes of spoil to the Crayford tip in the back of his van in a series of journeys. Pro rata, spoil properly disposed of at a licensed disposal site from a skip is about half the cost of a van load. Understandably my builder has had to pass the increased costs onto me, as it is no fault of his. I find the working practices and “could not care less” attitude of J. Hearnden Skip Hire to be extremely unprofessional, and would urge you to check them out carefully before employing their services. In my experience, the claims made on their website are not reflected in the real world, and I would not recommend them to anyone. Beware!

Further questions have been raised as to the viability of the KFC franchise in Manor Road. You may recall that last week I raised concerns as to how much longer the place could operate as a going concern – they had a sign in the door saying “No Credit or Debit cards”, and several menu items were unavailable. This has continued; a report reached me earlier today saying that not only did the KFC have no coffee, but they also were out of Pepsi, and were offering customers a Fruit Shoot instead. My informant (who wishes to remain anonymous) visited the fast food outlet on Monday and after finding no coffee or sachets of tomato ketchup available for him or Pepsi for his son, made his views about the dubious financial viability of the place known to the staff – only to receive some very stony stares from the staff and managers. As I wrote last week, the chances are that any change in the franchisee will be invisible to the customer – saving in that a full range of products would once again become available. KFC as the brand holder would ensure a smooth transition to a new franchise holding company. As it happens, my informant was given a customer feedback form with his meal receipt, and he was going to register his concerns regarding the branch online. Time will tell, but I get the feeling the current intolerable situation will not last for long.

Since I mentioned a while back as to how the garden at Pewty Acres was to have an artificial lawn installed, I have been amazed at just how many people have, or are now considering having an artificial lawn to replace an end of life “real” grass lawn.  It seems that almost everyone I mention the subject to is aware of the benefits of synthetic turf; please don’t call modern synthetic grass “Astroturf” as that is a trade name that refers to the original very crude fake grass that was patented in 1965 in the USA – it was lurid green, coarse and was designed for use in covered sports stadia that had no access for natural sunlight. Astroturf caused nasty grazes and skin burns if you fell and skidded on it, and it quickly got a pretty unfavourable image and reputation;  it however bears little resemblance to the modern stuff which is indistinguishable from the real thing.  It would seem that the uptake of synthetic lawns has come at an ideal time – we have had droughts followed by floods, and many lawns have either died through moss infestation (as had mine) or been turned into a morass of mud through poor drainage. Synthetic turf is not that much more expensive than top quality real grass, it never needs cutting or weeding, and is guaranteed against fading and wear for at least ten years. All it needs to keep in top condition is a regular sweep to remove leaves , and in some types an occasional sprinkling of sand to keep it looking top – top. I plan on publishing “Before and After” photos in due course, so that you can make up your own mind.

Following Dana Whiffen’s piece last week on the 75^th anniversary of the launch of the AEC Regent  RT model double – decker bus, regular reader Teresa dropped me a line with the following memory of the very same bus:- "Your blog entry about the London buses in green livery reminded me of my childhood! I used to catch the 410 to school from Westerham Hill to Bromley.  This was a special design as there was a low bridge on the route so the seats upstairs were in rows of 4 with a gangway in  a well at the side to reduce the height, rather than a central gangway with pairs of seats on each side. They were really odd buses (Dana later commented that “ I  believe this bus was the RLH which stands for Regent Low Height, this was a specially designed low height (RT) bus, which had four seater seats up stairs and a corridor along one side which was below the ground level of the bus (downstairs) anyone sitting below would have seen a sign saying "Mind your Head" on the right hand side of the bus. I did not realise they ran on the 410 bus route). "Downstairs the passengers along one side had restricted head height to accommodate the upstairs well, and it was a good step up to the seats. As a schoolgirl, I travelled from the top of Westerham Hill (Hawley Corner) to Bromley High Street each school day from 1959 to 1966.  The route ran from Reigate to Bromley North and the service was every half an hour. The 705 Greenline coach also ran on the route but that went from Slough/Windsor to Sevenoaks and the school bus pass did not entitle me to use the Greenline so it was the bus every time. The children who used it were those from Biggin Hill who had to travel to schools in Bromley – the Grammar School and the Tech – as the secondary modern pupils had a school bus to Hayes.  Eventually the grammar school pupils had a coach service so the number of schoolchildren from Biggin Hill using the service to Bromley fell substantially.  I went to Bromley High, so continued to use it until I left school. It was always quite lively on top of the bus and all the schoolchildren would congregate upstairs.  As you can imagine, it was a pain for the bus conductors and upstairs was a no-go area for anyone with any mobility problems.  The best seats were those at the front where my friends and I would sit! The London Country Bus services also ran from Bromley to Tonbridge – one of my school friends used to catch what I think was the 402 to Hildenborough, but that was a ‘normal’ bus in green livery. I also have fond memories of the little 271 service which did a circular route from Orpington to Cudham, Knockholt and Pratts Bottom.  Indeed, I remember going shopping in Orpington with a friend in the bad winter of 62-63 and the bus getting stuck in the snow just short of Cudham church.  It stayed there for the next 3 months!" Thanks to Teresa for her memories.

The ending video is a follow - up to the post of last week that featured the Vox range of guitar amplifiers and musical instruments, all of which were made in Erith in the 1960's. In this short clip, Queen guitarist Dr. Brian May (who is an authority on Vox) demonstrates the classic AC-30 amplifier to a bemused interviewer. The look on that chap's face at 1 minute 43 seconds is brilliant! Do give it a watch, and leave a comment below. Alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The Door Hinge.

Building work on the new Bexley College Campus site is really ramping up now. The site is now fully cleared with the exception of a small area of rough scrub and bush at the Southern end of the triangular piece of land.  I don’t know what the developers intend with this part, as the equipment to remove trees and bushes has now been removed. I am guessing that they may wish to keep it as a nature reserve. The main part of the site is now being drilled for cast in situ piling – this is made by using a giant drill (see the photo above) and drilling down into the ground to make a vertical tubular hole. When the hole reaches the correct depth, steel reinforcement rods are inserted, and liquid concrete is poured down. It is a very efficient way of creating heavy duty foundations. This construction method is a lot quieter and less intrusive to local residents, as you don’t have the constant “bang, bang” of a pile driving machine – and bearing in mind that the nearest housing to the site is only about thirty metres away, this surely must have been a major consideration. Just as the pile drilling started, new plywood fencing begun being erected around the site, covering over the old chain link fencing. Apart from increasing physical site security (there are plenty of high value objects used on a major construction site, not to mention bowsers of fuel that are wont to disappear if left unattended), the high, solid fencing helps to contain noise and dust – all very important when building near to a residential area. I have a pretty good insight into the whole construction and civil engineering process, as many moons ago I was training as a Quantity Surveyor, and worked for a large company in London, and spent over a year based on a very large construction site adjacent to the Barbican. I decided that the job was not for me, which coincided with my involvement with Radio Caroline. I solved the problem of being fed up with the job and all the studying and exams it involved, by running away to sea to play records to most of Northern Europe - you can see some photos of this by clicking here. I am very glad I did. Life on a building site is dusty and hot in summer, muddy and cold in winter and noisy all of the time.

The photo above may not be recognised by many Erith locals. It shows a building that has been in situ on Erith High Street for as long as I can recall. The small office was once used by the Port of London Authority as their local base of operations. Originally it was occupied pretty much all day every day, but later it was only used occasionally, and nowadays it appears to have fallen out of use completely. It is fenced off and locked, and would appear to be empty, but is still in good repair. The office is one of those sorts of places you walk past but don’t really register (unless, like me, you are intensely curious). It is located right next to the path that leads down to Erith Jetty (a far older structure than the adjacent Erith Pier). It was ideally suited to the use of the PLA, as they could drop staff off by boat on the jetty, and be in the office in seconds. Now, it sits there empty and unused. I think it would make an ideal office for a small start – up company; the site has electricity, and I think plumbing. It might need a phone line running to it, but other than that, it should not be too difficult to get it ready for re – use. I am trying to find out what the current legal status of the building is, as it seems a stupid waste of a building that has a stunning river view and is close to all of the amenities of Erith Town Centre. More news as I continue my research.

Many people in the local area have recently received a card though the post. It is quite likely that a fair proportion of these cards may well have been binned, as many such cards and flyers are advertising for fast food delivery services and the like. The card in question was somewhat more useful – it notified the recipient that Erith and the surrounding area will be 4G phone enabled in the near future, and people who watch Freeview terrestrial TV could possibly have their TV enjoyment spoiled by interference from the 800MHz signals coming from the new 4G mobile phone transmitters. The main location for 4G transmitters and antennas in Erith is on the roof of the block that contains Erith Snooker Centre on Pier Road. If you use Freeview, rather than cable or satellite TV, you may find your television picture becomes blocky or freezes intermittently. If this happens, you can be supplied with a free antenna filter to block the portion of the 4G signal that interferes with the Freeview TV signal. If you go to www.at800.tv they will send you a free filter in the post.

At some point over the last couple of days, the hit counter has clicked over the 250,000 unique page views on this blog. I am quite staggered that the Maggot Sandwich should attract quite the level of interest that it does - I am currently getting something in the region of 23,000 regular hits every month - thank you one and all. I was also pleasantly surprised how many times I was approached by several Maggot Sandwich readers whilst I attended the Erith Riverside Festival last Sunday. Thanks to everyone who came over to say hello; I must admit that I was expecting one or two criticisms of my writing – either relating to the content or the style, but none of it; everyone was very complimentary – thank you. I had intended staying longer than the ninety or so minutes I spent in the gardens, but I was starting to burn – mainly on my forehead; I am not someone who has any kind of resistance to sunlight – I burn almost immediately, even though on the Sunday the weather was not that hot, the UV levels must have been above normal. I think I may need to invest in a Panama hat to go with my sports jackets – tweed has a sun block factor that must measure into the thousands! Smearing oneself in sun block cream rather sends the message that you like to be out in the sun; personally I would rather invest in some dignified millinery than taking the pharmaceutical route to skin protection.

The rather abstract photo is one that I took a few years ago, when I was exploring the possibilities of black and white photography. It shows a section of the so – called Iraqi “Super Gun” designed by Dr Gerald Bull and constructed by Matrix Churchill prior to the first Gulf War in 1991. The section of gun barrel is located outside the Royal Artillery Museum in the Woolwich Arsenal development. Personally I think that Gerald Bull paid for his life for being the mastermind behind a huge confidence trick. The official story is that either the Mossad, CIA, or MI6 had him killed to stop him working on the super gun project for Saddam Hussein, as they feared that an ultra long range gun could drop huge shells onto Israel or Saudi Arabia, thus breaking up the allied coalition, and giving Iraq a strong advantage in any ground war. My own theory is somewhat different. Looking at the size and design of the so called “barrel”, it strikes me that the design was never actually going to work. Gerald Bull had an astounding career in aeronautic engineering and using cannons to launch scientific projectiles containing sensors into high, sub orbital flights in order to monitor weather patterns in the upper atmosphere. These cannons were modified U.S Navy WWII sixteen inch battleship guns, two of which were welded end to end, then re-bored for the sensor carrying shells. The so called Iraqi “Super Gun” was to have been constructed of a large number of sections that would have been bolted together just like bits of large bore gas or water pipe; indeed when the shipment of “gun” parts were intercepted by H.M Customs and Excise (as they then were known) it was widely thought that this was exactly what the parts were. It only later came to light that they were supposedly parts of a proscribed weapon. My take on the story is that the intense temperatures and pressures inside a giant gun would be so high that all of the joints between the sections would “blow” and leak, making the weapon entirely impractical. If you recall the pioneering work on high altitude / long range guns was done with modified battleship cannons – a far more robust and practical solution to bunging a large projectile half way across a continent than a device made of a series of bolt – together sections, which was always going to be intrinsically weaker than the sum of their parts. I think that Gerald Bull knew all this, and was milking the Saddam Hussein regime for as much cash as he could, counting on the defeat and demise of the dictator meaning he would be able to walk away with millions. I think his killers were actually Iraqi secret agents, who were sent to make an example of Bull, after Saddam realised he was being taken for a sucker by the Canadian scientist. I doubt any theory around the true story of the Iraqi Super Gun will come out now, as most of the protagonists are now dead. It makes for interesting reading, however, and the “what if?” scenarios around the idea of Iraq having a secret, history changing super weapon are legion. Fredrick Forsyth wrote an excellent, fictionalised thriller about the super gun project. The book is called “The Fist Of God” and is well worth a read – it would make a potentially excellent movie as well.

Well, as promised in last weeks' Maggot Sandwich update, I have now visited the areas' first and thus far only micro pub - The Door Hinge, which opened not long ago in Welling High Street. The venue is currently fairly small - the Micro Pub (better described as a traditional ale house - more on this shortly) occupies what was the front of house shop area in what used to be an electrical hardware store, that has been lovingly refurbished with traditional wooden benches and chairs. The place is decorated with period framed posters and adverts for breweries like Reffells and Beasleys - two local companies that have long disappeared. The Door Hinge has a temperature controlled room behind the saloon area, where the beer is dispensed directly to the glass via a tap on the cask - no pumps are used; there is also no bar as such, just a small and neat counter. This all helps to save space, and is very much in keeping with the whole micro pub philosophy. I always feel that you can judge how well a drinking establishment is run by the state of the toilets - in this case the Door Hinge gets a 10/10 - the loos were immaculate, clean and well stocked with liquid soap, air freshener and loo paper. The loo is a short trek from the saloon, through an area of the former shop that is currently not used. I understand that the currently redundant back room is shortly to be converted into a "reading room" for customers who wish to peruse the fat stock prices, to complete a newspaper crossword, or to otherwise have a more contemplative experience than in the congenial saloon. Micro Pubs hark back to the days of the historical ale houses - places that were not fully licenced pubs, in that that did not serve spirits, and opened for shorter hours than full pubs. Modern Micro Pubs are a relatively new phenomenon - they are usually run by enthusiasts as an addition to their normal day job. Micro pubs do not have music, tv or slot machines in them - they encourage conversation between their customers. Micro pubs have one thing in common with each other - none serve lager in any form; they specialise in high quality real ales, usually served directly from the barrel. The Door Hinge hits all of these targets square on. The landlord, Ray Hurley is a welcoming and friendly host, with many amusing anecdotes. The ale house is in an unusual location, but I think it will do well, judging by the wide range of customers that were there during my visit on Saturday evening. I highly recommend the place. The Door Hinge is located at 11, High Street, Welling. If you want to check their opening hours, or to find out what well kept real ales are currently on tap, ring Ray on 01322 404848 for the details.

Another technical anniversary has come up this week; on Wednesday it was the 35^th anniversary of the launch of the original Space Invaders game. It was not by a long way the first video game (the honours for that go to Space War, a game written for the DEC PDP1 minicomputer in 1961/62. You can play the game online in your browser via a modern emulator – click here to play). What did differentiate Space Invaders from other games of the period was the addictiveness of game play, and the dedication of the players. It was so incredibly popular upon its’ original launch in Japan, there was a countrywide shortage of 100 Yen coins that the Space Invaders machines accepted.  The heartbeat – like thud, thud sound of the invaders ponderously chugging over the screen slowly got faster and faster as their numbers were destroyed by the players’ shots. This looked like clever programming – with the invaders getting harder and harder to hit as their speed increased. The reason for the speed increase was actually rather more prosaic; the (by modern standards) low powered 8-bit Intel 8080 processor which powered the game seriously  struggled to update the screen display and also run the game code when there was a screen full of invaders (this was in an age where the processor had to handle everything – there were no dedicated graphics cards back then). As the invaders got shot and destroyed, their numbers decreased, and the load on the processor went down. This allowed the game to speed up. All clever stuff, which added to the mystique of the game. A lot of people recall that the alien ships changed colour as they moved down the screen; again, this was an illusion – the Space Invaders hardware did not have the resources to support a colour display – it was purely black and white. The screen was covered with a series of transparent  horizontal filters of differing colours – the white invaders would make their way down the screen, going through filter after filter, and thus appearing to the player as if they were changing colour – a simple but effective ruse. The game has been ported to pretty much any platform that is capable of playing games. The first official port was to the Atari 2600 VCS games console (more on this below - who says I don't plan these things?). Many people bought the console on the strength of the game – the first instance of a “killer application”. Since then it has appeared everywhere. It also has the dubious distinction of being one of the most pirated software titles of all time, most of this occurring before any decent software intellectual property rights existed. Nowadays every smart (and indeed, not so smart) phone and tablet runs a version of the game that is almost as popular now as it was when it first hit the amusement arcades, pubs and kebab shops of the UK in 1977. On top of all this decadent Western computer technology, the Soviet Union was doing its' best to keep up; contrary to popular opinion, home computers were available in the Communist Eastern Bloc in the mid 1980's, although you still needed a pretty healthy income to be able to afford one - and they were not all cheap pirated clones of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum as some believe. Watch the video below for the full, and very interesting story of the ingenuity and creativeness of the Russian computer enthusiasts in the early to mid eighties. It is eye opening stuff, and something that I too was completely unaware of. 

Earlier this week you may have seen a story on the BBC News website and elsewhere about an early game for the Atari 2600 VCS that was as spectacularly unsuccessful as Space Invaders was a hit.  The video game of “ET” was so badly designed and coded that even those unlucky gamers that bought the game usually ended up returning it for a refund. For a game that was possibly the very first blockbuster movie tie – in, this was very bad news indeed – especially for Atari, who allegedly spent $20 million securing the rights from Steven Spielberg. The BBC report that the unsold game cartridges were dumped in a landfill site back in 1983, and a small team are now trying to locate the dump site to unearth the digital archaeology.  Actually, the tech press have known about this for literally years. Back in the 80’s it was quite common practice to consign old, unsold or faulty electronic kit directly into landfill, as there was little if any ability to economically recycle electronic circuits back then – it made no financial sense. Apple buried thousands of unsold Apple III computers – their badly designed and very unreliable first foray into the world of the business computer,  way before the Lisa and the Macintosh were a gleam in Steve Wozniak’s eye (Steve Jobs did the marketing, he was a business man, not a hardware engineer, before anyone asks).  They were all at it, it was nothing extraordinary at all. The spin on the story seems to make it sound like an urban myth, which it most certainly was not.

A story that I originally broke back in 2011 has come back to roost; I wrote back then how Bexley Council wanted to widen the road bridge over the railway just adjacent to Erith Station, on Bexley Road as it joined Queen's Road have been revived after being shelved through a lack of funding. The bridge is a major bottleneck for traffic that has come off the A2 at the Black Prince interchange and then up through Bexleyheath, Northumberland Heath and heading for London via Bronze Age Way and the South Circular. Traffic at this junction is always busy, but in the late afternoons, it can get completely gridlocked in both directions, causing traffic disruption for literally miles around. Bexley Council, the Mayor of London's Enterprise Panel, and Transport for London have now agreed to jointly fund the £6 million development to create a dual carriageway bridge over the road, which would greatly alleviate the congestion problem. The plans still need the final approval before work can actually commence, but things are now looking optimistic that the road widening will actually take place; before if was little more than a pipe dream. The programme to widen the bridge may well, if enacted, do much to secure much needed jobs in the local area. I do have a lingering worry about disruption to the rail services between Dartford / Slade Green and Erith heading into and out of London; bearing in mind the forthcoming major redevelopment work at London Bridge station which is going to mean fewer trains per hour - the reason that the on / off work to extend the platforms has been going on. Fewer but longer trains is going to be the answer between next year and some time in 2017, if the planners have got it right. Both for the Bexley Road widening scheme, and the London Bridge expansion project, it would seem that there is going to be a long period of inconvenience and discomfort before the benefits of either scheme come to full fruition.

Now for the ending video. As you probably know, I steer very well clear of television talent shows, and anything that involves "celebrity" judges or so called mentors. The product of anything to do with Simon Cowell or his cohorts in mediocrity has absolutely no interest to me whatsoever. If that's your thing, then fine, as I always say "if it works for you". Instead I prefer to listen to music by people like the chap below. He's a 37 year old American former child prodigy. His speaking voice is high and somewhat squeaky, and he's got a head that looks a bit like a badly peeled potato. Not exactly high on the looks and charisma stakes, you might say - and certainly someone like the aforementioned Mr Cowell would take one look at him and walk away. You may not heard of Joe Bonamassa, but plenty of people have. He's the best blues rock guitarist to come along since Dave Gilmour, and many call him "the new Eric Clapton". Whatever, listen to this track, recorded live at the Albert Hall, and see what you think. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Joe Bonamassa, playing "Sloe Gin". Leave your comments below, as always.

200,000!

The photo above was taken recently outside of the Mambocino coffee shop / cafe in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. The whole of the shopping centre is plastered with "No Smoking" signs. You may notice that the rubbish bin on the wall is directly under one sign, and there is another to the left of it. The stains on the wall surrounding the bins are the result of smokers stubbing out a cigarette before throwing the butt in the bin (at least most of the time - plenty still end up on the ground). This is not to obey the rules, it is mostly so that they can light up a fresh cigarette. The anti smoking law is so blatantly flouted in the centre that even staff employed by the shops in the centre light up in the banned areas. The whole thing is out of hand, and the reduction in the number and quality of security guards patrolling the centre is such that I have even (on the rare occasions when a guard has been around) seen a security officer dragging on a fag outside of Wilkinson's. I really think the whole thing is unenforceable; I cannot for the life of me see the point in having a rule that is not enforced. It just seems pointless. There would appear to be neither the will, nor the ability to uphold the law. Your thoughts are welcomed - please leave a comment below.

Some time on Friday afternoon, Google Analytics informed me that the Maggot Sandwich had just logged its' 200,000th unique page view. This does not mean that 200,000 people read the blog, what it does mean is that over the course of the six and a half years it has been running, just over two hundred thousand different people have read it. I do get roughly 20,000 regular hits each month - sometimes a little more, at present slightly less. I was approached by a marketing company a while back, who tried to encourage me to take advertising on the site. I refused. If I took adverts or some form of sponsorship, I would lose my impartiality. The fact I am free to praise or criticise as I see fit is not something I would give up, so no advertisers, thank you very much.

Erith Blockbuster closed for good on Monday morning; although some stores were sold top Morrison's, and others have been bought by a venture capital group, the Erith store is now no more. The store has been emptied of the little remaining stock, and it now stands empty, though last time I walked past, the lights were still on. I hope that the corner unit gets taken soon, as it would otherwise be a magnet for vandals and metal thieves (often one and the same).

The popular press have picked up on a subject that I raised on my entry "The Electric Gasper" on the 24th February. The whole privacy issue with the forthcoming Google Glass project has finally been made widely known via the BBC News website. You saw it here first!

I use public transport daily; nowadays it is usually the overland trains and the Docklands Light Railway. Something that has been noticeable ever since the invention of the smart phone is the “phone hunch” – people sit, transfixed by their mobile devices, and usually oblivious to the world around them. I see young mothers pushing babies in buggies, oblivious to their offspring as they are preoccupied by the latest FaceBook status update. I am of the opinion that a prediction made by Albert Einstein has now already come to pass. Einstein said " I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots". On a number of occasions I have been in a conversation with someone, only for them to suddenly reach for their pocket, pull out their phone then proceed to ignore me for several minutes, without so much as a “by your leave”. I find it extremely rude, though when I have challenged this behaviour before, I have been met with blank incomprehension.  They genuinely could not see that their behaviour was rude and inconsiderate to those around them. A new psychological condition has been diagnosed by psychologists, it is known as “Phantom Vibration Syndrome” a stress induced condition where the sufferer incorrectly believes that their mobile phone is vibrating to alert them to a call.  You can read more about the recognised medical condition here. It would seem that a significant percentage of mobile phone users are in a constant state of anticipation – for a call, text or tweet from their extended virtual network of friends and associates, and this builds stress that can exhibit as the perception of phantom calls. Some of the worst stress effects of mobile phones arise through social habit. Despite the phones' promise of making daily life more convenient,  they often make things  more difficult. A study by Intel has found that one in five people admit to being wilfully late because they can reschedule dates and meetings at the last minute via mobile phone, and three-quarters say that mobile phone ownership has made them 'more flexible when meeting friends'  (i.e., they are wilfully late, but lie about it). My own conscious decision not to have a mobile phone has made me a bit of an unusual case; it does mean that I am always prompt for appointments, and never cancel at the last minute. Because I am very organised, I would say that there are only one or two times a year when having a phone would be to my advantage, which really is not a significant issue in my case. For me the upside is not being constantly bombarded with messages that I neither want or need, and also when I am at work I don’t have the distraction that so many people have. All in all, it works for me.

Did you know that Status Quo have made a full length cinema movie, which is being released in the summer? I didn't until recently either. It turns out to be a knock about comedy adventure. After watching the trailer, I cannot decide whether it will be a knowing, tongue in cheek bit of fluff, or one of the most dreadful movies ever committed to celluloid. Judge for yourself and let me know what you think.

An early build of the successor to Microsoft’s’ much derided and very unpopular Windows 8 has “leaked” onto several file sharing sites. Normally when this happens it is the manufacturer deliberately releasing a very early build in order to garner feedback from enthusiasts and early adopters. The next version of Windows, currently named Windows Blue is available for download from a number of shady an disreputable sites (no, I am not providing any links, the chances are you would end up with a hard disc full of malware and other junk if I did, and I don’t want to encourage illegal downloading anyway).

I reckon that Erith is the cheapest place to purchase residential property of anywhere within 30 minutes train journey of London Bridge station. There was a bedsit for sale on the Robinson and Jackson website that was on offer for £49,950. OK, it was not exactly large or well appointed (actually it was a squalid little shoe box of a place), but it was relatively modern, close to Erith Station, and a real foot on the property ladder for someone. It got taken off the estate agent's website pretty quickly, so I can only assume that it got a buyer very quickly indeed.

When standing in a supermarket queue, or waiting to pay for my paper in my local corner shop, I am struck by the large number of women’s scandal magazines that are on sale. I am thinking of titles like “Take a Break”, "That's Life!", "Love It!","Pick Me Up!", "Full House!" and a handful of others. Apart from having an almost compulsory exclamation mark in their titles, the other thing that all of these publications have in common is that they sell stories about personal tragedy in the same way that other magazines aimed at a mainly female audience sell celebrity gossip and slimming tips. These magazines are marketed as light reading, something to be absorbed whilst lingering over a cup of tea, yet they are filled with disturbing, harrowing stories that would only be covered after the 9pm watershed if they were a television show. The design, format and colour scheme of all of these magazines are rather formulaic; They generally have a young, smiling woman on the cover, a sort of "girl next door" type. The rest of the cover is filled with boxes and banners in primary colours - a means of grabbing the attention of a potential buyer. The trouble is that the content of the banners is horrifying - life changing events such as murder, incest, acid attacks, crimes of violence and personal tragedy. The irony is that many of the stories involve violence against women, yet they are read by mainly women as light entertainment. They seem to be the printed equivalent of the Jeremy Kyle show; I worry about the people who purchase these magazines. It strikes me that anyone who enjoys reading about the misfortunes of others probably has some issues themselves. I would be interested in what you think. Please leave a comment below; all comments are moderated and published within 24 hours at most.

Did you know that there are only two industrial buildings in London that have Grade 1 listed status? One is Tower Bridge, and the other is the pump house at Crossness Sewage Works. The ornate Victorian structure was designed by engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette and architect Charles Henry Driver. It was constructed between 1859 and 1865 as part of his redevelopment of the London sewerage system. The pumping station was an essential part of the clean up of London’s water system, and led directly to the elimination of many water borne diseases, notably Cholera, which prior to this time was a significant killer. If you have not visited the pumping station, it is a cathedral in cast and wrought iron. The charitable trust that runs the building and that is nowadays responsible for restoring the giant boilers and pumps to a working state have just announced the schedule of days where the pumping station will be open to the public in 2013. The first event takes place on Sunday, April 21, from 10.30am to 5pm, and will be a local history fair with exhibitors organised by Bexley Civic Society. There will be another four steam days until October, but at the time of writing the exact dates are not yet available. The place is well worth a visit, whether you have an interest in engineering, architecture, local history or films and television. As I have mentioned before, the pumping station has been used as a location for both TV and films – the recent Victorian drama “The Crimson Petal and the White”, the first Guy Ritchie directed “Sherlock Holmes” movie (the opening sequence where Lord Blackwood is about to perform a human sacrifice in what looks like a Masonic temple was actually filmed in the centre part of the main pump hall). Many other films, such as the first Tim Burton directed “Batman” and the first “Alien” film also used the place as a major location. What is both interesting and ironic is that Sir Joseph Bazalgette is the great – great grandfather of TV producer Sir Peter Bazalgette, the person who brought us programmes such as Ground Force, Ready, Steady Cook and Big Brother. There is a running joke in the media industry that whilst Joseph Bazalgette was responsible for removing excrement from the home, Peter is now responsible for introducing it!

Erith based graphic design consultancy 4Q Graphix are looking for an office in or around the town. If you know of any spare office space suitable, and at a reasonable cost, please let Mark Smallcorn at 4Q Graphix a call; their details, and a bit about the company are below - click for a larger view.

Next week will mark a key event in the history of Erith. The much heralded regeneration of the Larner Road housing estate will begin. On Friday the 5th April, demolition of the seven large tower blocks will commence; all of the high rise elements of the original estate are being razed to the ground; the replacement £100 million plus development will consist of low rise accommodation and some conventional housing; part of which will be put on sale. The remainder will be administered by the housing association. The building programme is quite ambitious, and the construction workers will have a tight schedule to keep, as the first new houses are due for completion in 2015. A special viewing area will be set up for local residents to watch the demolition work as it happens; I would hope to get along there at some point over the weekend to photograph the work for posterity. The Friday commencement of demolition will be heralded with a party – A group of acrobats will be performing, live Zulu music from the Majuba Drummers. There will also be t-shirt painting, magnet making, a photography workshop and cinema showings of The Ballad of Larner Road film, that I featured on the Maggot Sandwich a couple of weeks ago. I won’t unfortunately be able to make this party, as I will be at work, and shortly after work I will be covering the 8th Bexley Beer Festival at its’ new venue – the Old Dartfordian’s Club in Bexley Village. I hope to have photos of the festival, ready for the next Maggot Sandwich update on Sunday. One of the breweries that will be exhibiting their wares at the festival is a brand new one. The Caveman Brewery is located in Swanscombe, and brews beers for a number of pubs and clubs around North Kent and beyond; their beers are even stocked at the prestigious Bricklayers Arms pub in Putney – consistently voted as one of the best pubs in the country. You can see the Caveman Brewery website here.

I took the photo above yesterday afternoon, dodging between snow and sleet showers. I have to say that I cannot recall it ever being so freezing cold at Easter before. The weather really is getting everyone down. Anyway, Erith Pier is host to a number of commercial ships on an almost daily basis. Generally they tie up for a day or so, before heading off to places unknown. Quite often the crews take advantage of the close proximity of Morrison's supermarket, and they have on several occasions been seen pushing trollies full of food along the pier and onto their ships. To my knowledge, this is the only place on the River Thames where a commercial ship can moor and the crew go shopping. Even the River Police have been seen going for a quick all day fry up in the cafeteria in the supermarket. Talk about a local service. I'm hoping to be able to make an announcement about the pier in the near future, but for the meantime, I need to keep my own counsel. Keep watching this space over the coming weeks.

I have heard consternation expressed that Belvedere Police station is reducing the hours it opens to just three a week. Many people seem to be unaware that it has been a public facing police station in name only for many years; most of its’ main functions are now undertaken at Bexleyheath Police Station, and I think it will not be long before the building is sold off to try and refill the Metropolitan Polices’ drained coffers. The hard fact remains that apart from being asked to produce motoring documentation, many people around the country don’t ever visit their Police station. In Erith, we have the Police office, next to the Farm Foods supermarket. It is not open to the public, but is a place where the various Safer Neighbourhood Police teams are based when not actually out pounding the beat. There are no cells or interrogation rooms in the building, just an office and storage facilities. This is the way that the police will be operating for the foreseeable future, reflecting the austerity the government is bringing to all public services. Having said that, I do detect an element of “do as we say, not as we do”. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a high level meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Whitehall as part of my job. I wrote a bit about it back then; what I did not say was that once I had got through the first two layers of intense security that surround the building (and pretty much all of Whitehall, for that matter) I was guided into an inner courtyard in which twenty Jaguar saloon cars were parked. It was obvious that they were government owned cars – they all had very similar registration numbers, and they were all less than a year old. After looking on the Jaguar website, the cars I saw, with the options they had, would have retailed at approximately £90,000 each. Whilst I am sure that the government would have got a bulk discount, a roughly £1.8 million bill for a bunch of ministerial Jags during a recession does strike me as “one rule for you, and one rule for us” and certainly sends out a mixed message. Personally I think Ministers should use public transport like the rest of us (with the added bonus that when they realised how horrendous it can be, they might be better motivated to actually get it improved!)

The ending video this week was sent to me by Alan, who (correctly) thought that it would appeal to me. The video was taken during the Earth Hour light switch off, it shows thirty remotely piloted UAV's equipped with LED lights. They are flown in formation to create the Starfleet insignia, as part of a promotion for the forthcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness movie. Very cool indeed.