The Hub in a Pub.

I took the photos above on Thursday, when I was a guest at the inaugural local small business advice and support event held in the newly opened Cross Keys Centre in Erith High Street. You may recall that back in the summer of 2010 the old Cross Keys Pub was invaded several times by a large group of travellers who rode ponies into the pub building on multiple occasions. The story made the national press, and for a while Erith got a reputation akin to the Wild West with outsiders thinking that this kind of behaviour was normal. Sense prevailed, and the Cross Keys lost its drinks licence, and it was compulsorily shut down. It stayed empty and abandoned for ages, but as I have recounted previously, international management consultancy the Aleff Group purchased the building and have been employing local contractors to extensively refurbish the locally listed building for multiple alternative uses. The building offers reasonably priced air conditioned meeting rooms and hot desking space for small local businesses, complete with WiFi and printing facilities. On top of this the presentation suite that you can see in the photos above will be open for community events - more details in the near future. It is hoped that local organisations such as the rotary club and Bexley College will also use the resources of the Cross Keys Centre. Local graphic design company IV.Q Branding and Design have relocated their offices from Redhill in Surrey to the Cross Keys Centre; in the top photo you can see IV.Q CEO Mark Smallcorn giving a very well received talk on what mistakes small business make in their graphic design policy and public image. In the second photo you can see Dr. Julian Hilton of the Aleff Group outlining their strategy to promote and support local small businesses. In the third photo you can see Dr. Malika Moussaid talking about their strategy to ensure the building gets wide community use. Over the next couple of months I will be covering this innovative and important new business and social resource in the centre of Erith in greater detail.

In the photo above, taken by Studio Coordinator Liam Hinds of IV.Q, you can see the group of local entrepreneurs, business leaders and executives who attended this first Cross Keys session; further events will be held throughout the year, and I will be featuring these in due course. If you look carefully, you may also spot yours truly in the shot. You can also see the custom made railings that have recently been fitted to the first floor balcony, including the iconic crossed keys logo. Eagle - eyed locals may recall that the last railings were made of wood, and ran horizontally. This is the only visual change to be made to the front of the building during the fastidious and very expensive restoration - and it was done due to changes in the health and safety laws; railings with horizontal elements are no longer allowed on balconies - as small children are able to climb up and over them - all railings must instead have vertical bars, which are far harder to climb over.

The campaign to save the Belvedere Splash Park has taken a new turn after a period of apparent inactivity; an online petition hosted by Change.Org has been started by the team behind the overall campaign. In three days they have already got over 2,000 signatures - whilst the Facebook site they set up a few months ago now has a total of just over five thousand members. There is going to be a protest at the Bexley Council meeting on Wednesday the 22nd April at 7.45pm. All concerned residents are encouraged to go along to the meeting to show their support for the retention of this important local facility. Some time ago Councillor Sawyer told the Save the Splash Park campaign that he did not recognise or accept petitions; it is now being reported that this is contrary to Bexley Council official policy which is to accept petitions. There seems to have been a misunderstanding on Councillor Sawyers behalf; either that or he has not been telling the truth - with the reputation for chicanery Bexley Council is already renown for, I know what version I believe to be more likely.

One story that started out as little more than a footnote on a couple of local news websites seems to have got a life and momentum of its own over the course of this week; Councillor Gareth Bacon has announced that he is renouncing his roles as deputy leader of Bexley Council, and cabinet member for finance and corporate services to concentrate on his position as chairman of the London Fire Authority. He will step down at the council’s annual meeting on May 20th, although he will remain a backbench councillor. The relevance of this will not be lost to anyone who is a regular reader of Malcolm Knight's excellent "Bexley is Bonkers" blog. 

Within an hour of publishing the Maggot Sandwich update last week, one of my very well – placed and reliable local informants sent me a copy of an Email that they had received concerning the possible future of the White Hart / Potion bar. As you may recall I expressed my concern that the place has been standing empty and unused for so long, and that it seemed like nobody wanted to take the place on, due mainly to the high cost of refurbishing the interior of the pub, installing a new kitchen and fume extraction system, and most importantly of all, the replacement of the hideous plate glass frontage which was illegally installed by the operators of Potion, despite explicit instructions to the contrary by Bexley Council planning department. Plans have been in place since the middle of 2011 to replace the current anachronistic pub frontage with a close replica of the original acid etched glass and salt glazed green tiles that the original Victorian design had. You can see the plan above – click on the picture to see a larger version. I can clearly recall the horror I felt when back in 2009 I was standing outside of the corner by Matalan, looking across the road to the White Hart as the criminals from Potion talked to the borough planning officer about the work that they were undertaking. I clearly heard the council official tell the crooks that they were to leave the existing White Hart pub sign in place, as it had historical and aesthetic significance. Literally moments after the planning officer drove off, one of the Potion workers got out a large angle grinder and cut down the protected sign and threw it into a nearby skip. From this point I knew Erith was in for trouble; sadly I was not wrong. After several years of drug dealing, fights, public drunkenness – and even a visit by Peter Andre, the venue closed after a series of enforcement notices by both Bexley Council and the Metropolitan Police. It was also convenient for the operators of Potion to declare themselves bankrupt, as it absolved them from having to restore the historic building frontage, as per two court orders that they successfully ignored. News now reaches me that something may finally be happening to the historic building – although the details are currently sketchy. My informant questioned the Development Control team at Bexley Council, and got this response “Discussions have taken place with the current owners regarding the outstanding enforcement notice requiring the reinstatement of a more historic frontage. I understand they are currently obtaining quotations for some of the replacement materials and mouldings that would be installed in the event that the application  for the pub front is successful. Whilst they are aware of the importance of this element they are  also reviewing the possibility of an application that includes a residential element on the site. I understand that the Local Authority may receive two applications by the end of the month the first being for the replacement of the historic pub frontage and the second possibly for a residential element on the site. The two applications would be mutually exclusive and looked at on their individual merits”. This strikes me as being both encouraging and worrying; OK, the restoration of the historic pub frontage is most definitely to be applauded, but I do get the impression that if a developer was to come along with an offer to convert the entire pub into flats, they would get a sympathetic hearing from the Council – after all, they are never ones to turn down an opportunity to rake in extra cash from council tax to feed their huge wage bill. Nevertheless, I feel that the White Hart (no longer the appalling Potion to my mind) needs to retain a public use in at very least part of the building. A restaurant would be nice – but I doubt the cost of conversion and upgrading the ground floor would make a restaurant financially viable. I would understand the upper floors being sympathetically converted for residential use, but the essence of the historic building needs to be retained. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com .

Every so often someone comes up with an invention or idea so simple, yet so elegant that I think “why didn't I think of that?” Recently the Bexley Times announced a scheme that is formally backed by Bexley Trading Standards Department. It is run by a commercial company called trueCall who market a range of smart devices designed to filter phone calls to remove nuisance messages from persistent PPI companies, debt consolidation organisations and energy suppliers. This information is then transferred back to other trueCall units that are part of the community, which are automatically updated to block those numbers using software containing a dynamic database called Community Blocking. Users can choose how they want to handle calls from Community Block list numbers.  For example, they can be intercepted, sent directly to the built-in answer machine or played a block message, such as: “We're not interested in your call – please hang up and don’t call us again”.  trueCall can even play the unobtainable tone so the call centre thinks that you have moved – this encourages them to delete your number from future campaigns. The Community Blocking software becomes smarter as more information is fed into it, and is a valuable line of defence against call centres that change the numbers from which they call. trueCall’s algorithms are designed to place more emphasis on recent blocked numbers, allowing it to quickly identify the latest numbers which are being used. true call  have been selling services along these lines for several years, and reports are that they are pretty successful. They have now introduced a new service which is stunningly simple, but very clever. People often find that when they try to complete online forms, such as for booking tickets, donating to charity, making a sales enquiry or obtaining an insurance quote, they are asked for their phone number. In reality there is no reason to provide a phone number. If the company needs to contact you they can email. Unfortunately, these online forms often cannot be completed unless a phone number is provided, even if you would prefer not to give it out. Personally my home phone number is known by perhaps a dozen people at most.  The beauty of the new service by trueCall is that they supply a phone number that you can input into any online forms in place of your own number. If you use 0333 88 88 88 88 instead of your own phone number,  when a call centre or other nuisance phones, they will then hear the announcement: “TrueCall38 is handling my calls. I prefer not to be contacted by phone, so please contact me via email address. Goodbye!” Very simple, but very effective. Do you have problems with nuisance calls? What do you do about it? I know someone who keeps a football whistle beside the phone – I am unsure how effective blowing it down the phone at the unwanted caller actually is, but I am sure it is very satisfying.

It is often difficult to recognise that we have a national arena almost on our doorstep; the O2 Arena in North Greenwich is pretty close by, and hosts all sorts of events, including a lot of concerts. For some reason it does feel a lot more remote than it actually is – mainly I feel due to the relatively poor public transport links from North Kent and South East London to the Arena. The only quick and relatively reliable method to get to the O2 Arena from Erith is to get the train from Erith station to Charlton, and then pick up the dedicated bus service from just outside the station. The bus journey takes about fifteen minutes – not too bad at all. Nevertheless many locals think that the O2 Arena is on the North side of the River Thames, as the cross river communication courtesy of the Jubilee Line tube is so excellent. Nevertheless, visitors from the area do visit the O2 Arena on occasions, and this week, guest contributor Dana Whiffen describes the 50^th anniversary concert for The Who at the venue recently. "The Who 50th Anniversary Concert at the O2 - 22/23rd March 2015 Review by Dana Wiffen. As the crowds made their way into the O2, looking around it was clear that there were many oldies like myself in the early sixties. I find it harder to motivate myself to go to large venues around London although once there I always enjoy myself. The audience cross section was of thirties couples and some grandparents with their grandchildren, as well as sixty and seventy plus followers. It was also quite clear that there were a large number drinking a lot It was also quite clear that there were a large number drinking a lot of alcohol, not only the younger ones either. Three guys next to where I was sitting arrived 'blotto' and one of them then fell asleep during Pinball Wizard which is one of their loudest songs. Call me Victor Meldrew if you like but I sometimes wonder what this country is coming to! Unlike the old-days and now in their seventies The Who were on stage prompt at 8pm, to a packed audience at this O2 concert, which was rescheduled from December 2014. Titled “Greatest Hits Tour” the band smashed straight into their hits, including all the well-known songs including Substitute, My Generation, I can see for Miles, Pinball Wizard and; Won’t Get Fooled Again, the last two songs probably receiving the loudest cheers. They added some songs that they had either not played for some time or in the case of 'Slip Kid' not at all, Slip Kid being on their album 'The Who by Numbers'. Other tracks that were seldom included in previous tours were my favourites The Seeker and Join Together and Pictures of Lilly. They also played for the first time for many years Pete Townshend’s early stab at a 'rock opera' originally written as a birthday present for their then manager Kit Lambert, called 'A quick one while he’s away' from their album 'A Quick One' and this also included a rarely heard song called 'Ivor the Engine Driver' followed later by 'So Sad' There were three songs from 'Tommy' and two from 'Quadrophenia', Two hours and ten minutes later they finished and it was time to leave. The O2 arena has numerous facilities outside and around it, including restaurants, bars, coffee shops, noodle bars and a bowling alley, not forgetting the smaller venue called the O2 Indigo. The Who are of course visibly looking older but aren't we all.?There is still the microphone twirling by Daltrey and the occasional windmill guitar playing from Townshend. They have a superb support band of six additional musicians including Pete’s younger brother Simon and Beatle Drummer - Ringo Starr’s son Zak on drums who was taught to play by Keith Moon. This was the first of two nights at the O2, before a midweek concert at The Royal Albert Hall as part of a week-long series of concerts for The Teenage Cancer Trust, before they are off to North America next month, which will be their last full tour. They are promising to still play one off dates and a new album.  They are also headlining a concert at Hyde Park on 26th June which includes Paul Weller, The Kaiser Chiefs and Johnny Marr amongst others". Thanks Dana - excellent stuff. 

I feel a rant coming on; I have not had one for quite a while – but there is a subject I feel is hiding in plain sight – so called “Clickbait” – websites that exist only to get as many visits as possible to increase the rates that they can charge for online advertising. You often find photos at the bottom of the page on some relatively otherwise reputable websites with titles such as “Hurry up before this video gets banned”, “Eat this and never diet again”, “Rich people try anything to ban this”, “Diet trick that melts fat like butter” and so on. You will have no doubt come across these many times before. You also get what appear to be ads personally directed at yourself. These have titles like “Moms in Dartford earn $30 an hour” – it does not take a genius to work out that an automated script on the web server looks at the I.P address of the incoming page request, does a basic lookup of the I.P address and where it is geographically located, then inserts the name of a nearby town to try and attract your attention. Obviously the word “Mom” instead of “Mum” and the dollar rate quoted give the game away. Clickbait is a pox on the web – if people did not click on the stories, the companies who run websites like Timetobreak.com and Healthymumdaily.com would go out of business. Not only do they fill your browser with annoying animated adverts, but some pages have code that hijacks your browser and takes you to other unwanted sites – Healthmumdaily.com also markets expensive, untested and quite possibly illegal diet pills and “miracle” slimming aids to gullible people with more money than sense. What amazes me is that these Click Baiters have used exactly the same techniques to elicit visits to their tawdry websites in exactly the same way for years; it seems like the techniques still work – as soon as they post an announcement along the lines of “you have to check this out before it is banned” (they love using the threat of something posted online being “banned”) – as to who or what could actually ban something is left unsaid for the reason that the whole thing is blatant tosh designed to farm clicks to create advertising revenue. In the graphic above you can see a typical “warning” message which was crafted to overcome the pop – up blocker in Google Chrome when a user clicked to shut the browser tab with the Clickbait page on it. This is just one of the less dodgy activities these scumbags get up to.  I visited a few Clickbait sites whilst researching this piece – so that you don’t have to do the same. Please leave them well alone. More on this subject next week - how Clickbait sites mislead and sometimes defraud the gullible.

A reminder that the 10th annual Bexley CAMRA Beer Festival will be taking place from the 23rd to the 25th April, at the Old Dartfordian's Sports Club in Bourne Road, Bexley Village. This festival will also celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of Bexley CAMRA. I will be going along on the evening of the 24th - generally the Friday session is regarded as the best time to attend. Do come and say "hello" if you see me - I shall be taking along my trusty camera to get some shots for the Maggot Sandwich. The two graphics above show the beer list for the festival - click on either for a larger view. I find one ale particularly intriguing - the arrestingly monickered "Nessun Korma" from the Loch Ness Brewery; it is described as "A curried stout - a Black and Tandoori if you will". It sounds vile, but I am certain that it will sell well - out of curiousity, if anything else. Interestingly the Indian Restaurants in the nearby Bexley Village always seem extra busy over the beer festival period.

Streaming ultra-high definition video could soon be significantly less of a burden on your home broadband network. As I have mentioned previously on the Maggot Sandwich, one of the biggest barriers to widespread adoption of the new 4K Ultra High Definition TV format has been the huge amount of data a 4K picture stream requires – something that most home broadband or fibre optic systems would seriously struggle to deal with - I have covered this issue in the past, and advised readers to steer clear of 4K televisions because of this limitation. Recently an announcement has been made which, if it lives up to the hype, could go a very long way to solving this problem. This will be due to a new method of compressing data that can reduce the size of 4K video files without a noticeable depreciation in footage quality. The technology, which has been developed by a company called V-Nova, uses around fifty per cent of the space currently needed by existing 4K formats. V-Nova has roused interest amongst the telecoms and broadcasting industry, with twenty large companies now backing the technology, including Sky, Intel, and the European Broadcasting union. The actual compression method is called ‘Perseus’, and could potentially see the average UK home broadband connection become capable of handling three simultaneous 4K streams. At present, the average UK home data network – that’s a speed of around 22Mbps - can only facilitate a single UHD stream, because the high-quality footage demands such vast amounts of bandwidth. Netflix currently recommends a steady 25Mbps (Megabits Per Second) broadband connection to utilise its 4K streaming service, while analysis shows that between 12-16Mbps is typically required. According to V-Nova, its Perseus technology can offer the same picture quality, albeit using network speeds of just 7-8Mbps. Media expert Ian Maude, from Enders Analysis, said: “This is cutting-edge technology that will be welcomed by pay TV companies, and TV manufacturers because it will help drive 4K sales; but there are still limiting factors to the take-up of 4K including whether networks are capable of meeting demand, having a device able to display an ultra-high definition picture, and the amount of content currently being shot in 4K. Ultra HD will still remain niche for some time but this technology will help.” V-Nova claims that the compression technology will also make it easy to stream Full HD 1080p footage to mobile devices, by bringing bandwidth usage down to a similar level needed to play music. UK content distributors and broadcasters, meanwhile, will begin utilising the technology ‘before the end of this year’. My guess is that Sky will launch a dedicated 4K service that will require a new set – top box incorporating the Perseus codec in some kind of dedicated processor. Knowing Sky’s normal business strategy, I think that they will sell the boxes pretty much at cost – not more than £200, but recoup their huge investment in 4K subscription fees. What is not known is how many of the Sky satellite fleet have transponders capable of handling 4K data streams, even if they do feature this revolutionary new method of data compression?

The ending video is a piece of film showing the exhibitors at the 2015 Erith Model Railway Exhibition. Erith Model Railway Society meet Founded in June 1962, the Erith Model Railway Society (or EMRS for short) has been in existence for more than fifty years. It is very friendly and informal in nature, and comprises people engaged in modelling railways in most scales including N, HO, OO and O. As well as modelling railways, the society holds an annual modelling contest and many social events. Members' families are more than welcome to attend any EMRS-organised events such as dinners, Christmas and summer celebrations, held at a local family restaurant, pub or club, visits to prototype railways and rail-tours. The society meets every Wednesday evening from 7:00pm up to 10:00pm at their dedicated clubroom in Belvedere Working Men's Club, Invicta House, 66 Gilbert Road, Belvedere, Kent, DA17 5DA. They are in the enviable position of not having to share their facilities with anybody else, so the rooms are potentially available every day of the week. Some of the members also meet on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7:00pm up to 10:00pm to work on the various club layouts that they are currently building.

The mystery of the vanishing scrap vans.

The photo above was taken at around half past eleven yesterday morning in the main assembly hall in Trinity School, Erith Road. It was the site of the second consultation event undertaken by the property developers and their public relations consultants in respect of the proposed housing and school development on the old Erith Quarry site, that has lain fallow and unused for at least thirty five years. A mock - up of the proposed layout of the new development can be seen below.

The turnout of local visitors to the event was impressive; when I arrived and took these photos the doors had only just been opened, and the event was due to run until around 4pm. I had detailed discussions with the development consultants, and was given the very strong message "we are in this for the long run". Subsequent to the first consultation event a couple of months ago, the feedback was generally very positive, but some concerns were expressed about the sheer number of houses and flats that were going to be constructed on the site; the number has consequently been reduced from 700 dwellings to 600, and the amount of space dedicated to open land and woodland has been proportionately increased. The circular structure that you can see on the mockup above (click on the photo for a larger view) is the proposed primary school. The green area next to it will be the school's all - weather sports pitch, underneath of which will be the staff and visitors car park - a very clever space saving design.

Most of the visitors were broadly in favour of the development of Erith Quarry, well aware of the jobs and opportunities that the former loam and gravel pit development would bring; one rather senior lady was having none of it though - she was walking round the room trying to get visitors to sign her petition to get the development banned. When I saw it, she had two signatures, one of which I suspect was her own. I suggested to her that she would probably be better off helping the campaign to prevent the Upper Belvedere water splash park from being closed by the council - all to save a measly £20,000. She thought this was an excellent idea, and left with a spring in her step. Sometimes it does not take much. What do you think of the proposed development? Leave a comment below or Email me on hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Since June, the road traffic around Erith and the surrounding towns has changed markedly since then. I was chatting to my builder whilst he carried out some work in the kitchen at Pewty Acres and he commented on how the once very familiar scrap collecting vans had all disappeared, almost overnight. He was entirely correct; before the start of June, the roads of Erith were flooded with “Scrappies” – small vans, usually based on a Ford Transit chassis that were crewed by a wide variety of people – but always men. I have never seen a female scrap van driver. If you walked down Manor Road at around 7am on a weekday morning, you would see whole convoys of these vehicles as they left their depot on the Wallhouse Industrial Estate on the Slade Green Marshes. The biggest local scrap company by far was City Scrap; I would have said that prior to June, around eighty five percent of scrap vehicles in the area were theirs. As you may recall I wrote at the time, Police and Revenue and Customs officials raided the offices and yard of City Scrap after finding strong evidence of a series of frauds and tax evasion, including an insurance fraud worth around £30,000. On top of the list of forty five offences the owners were charged with were making a false statement to obtain insurance, perverting the course of justice, and making a false statement to obtain  a scrap metal licence. I also understand that many of the scrap lorry driver / operators were claiming benefits whilst working, as well as other offences. All in all the closure of City Scrap was a necessity; they were operating well outside of the law. What surprises me in the four months since City Scrap were officially wound up as a company, no other scrap dealer has emerged to occupy the void left by the once dominant, if corrupt firm. Metal recycling is a vital part both of the local economy, and it also has great environmental benefits, so a new company taking over the business makes sense in a number of ways. Before June, if you left a scrap of metal anywhere in Erith it would disappear in moments. I recall that back in 2009 I had a new central heating boiler installed. Part of the process involved flushing the existing radiators of accumulated sludge and treating them with a rust inhibitor; a special pump had to be fitted to the lowest point in the heating circuit – in my case, one of the radiators in the living room. This was carefully removed and taken outside by the heating engineers. Despite the radiator being laid on a tarpaulin and two heating company vans being parked outside, in the space of the two hour flushing period I had a total of seven scrappies trying to take the radiator, even though it was obvious it had only been temporarily removed whilst work was carried out. One even accused me of taking food from his children’s mouths when I caught him trying to steal the radiator. He soon shut up and ran off when I told him that he was being recorded on CCTV! Nowadays it has all changed – a friend had a dead fridge freezer and left it in their front garden for four days before a scrap dealer removed it. The local scrap market seems to have dried up - which is not good news for those wishing to recycle old appliances and the like, and is not good for the environment. I will be further investigating the situation, and will report back in a week or two. 

Has anyone noticed that there are a number of old red double decker buses parked in the car park of the Europa Industrial Estate in Fraser Road. They are not visible from the road, but if you stand on the London bound platform at Erith station, you can clearly see them. I don't know who owns them, or what they are actually doing there, but they have been there for some time. One in particular has been extensively vandalised – the windows have all been smashed and graffiti scrawled all over it. Does anyone know who owns the buses, and exactly what they are doing there? I have heard all sorts of wild theories, such as they are part of a plot by a “Happy Shopper” style sub Bond villain to take over Lower Belvedere and Thamesmead with a fleet of second hand double decker buses. Do you know better? Then let me know.

Several media websites such as Digital Spy have had online discussions in respect of the planned movie spin – off from the popular E4 television show “Misfits”. Since the huge success of the two “Inbetweeners” films, the executives at Channel 4 have been looking for another show to turn into a film, that would hopefully rake in more huge profits.  “Misfits” was chosen as the most likely programme to transfer to the big screen, mainly following the recent spate of Marvel superhero movies that have dominated the box office and on demand streaming for the last few years. I case you were not aware “Misfits” follows the adventures of a group of young offenders on community service who mysteriously get given super powers. They operate in a dystopian world not far removed from that in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”. “Misfits” was filmed on location in and around the Tavy Bridge area of Thamesmead, and on the old Bexley College campus. Online fan speculation went wild when the plans for the “Misfits” movie were shelved indefinitely – the film is now not going to be made. All sorts of theories were mooted as to why the project had been cancelled, ranging from some of the stars from the TV series not being available, to the script was not good enough. The real reason is far more prosaic – nearly all of the regular locations used in the show have now been demolished – Tavy Bridge has been redeveloped, and the old Bexley college is currently in the process of being knocked down, as you can see from the photo above – click for a larger view. There are no other locations that look more than remotely similar, and the cost of recreating them in CGI would have been prohibitive for what would have been a low budget production. One of the strong points of “Misfits” is the very distinctive production design, typified by the late 1960’s brutalist architecture of Thamesmead that provides the backdrop for the show; this is also its weak point – it is so distinctive that nowhere else can be used as a believable substitute, and recreating it using physical scenery or computer imagery would just cost too much money. Thus the film project has been dropped. Personally I did not care for the show much anyway, but then I was not in the target demographic.

The debate about new Thames river crossings seems to be hotting up both in the local and the regional press. The population of Greater London is set to hit ten million in the next few years, and most of the viable areas for housing development occur in south East London and South Essex, which also happen to be relatively inexpensive areas in which to live when compared with the rest of Greater London. As we have already seen locally, The Erith Park and Erith Quarry developments, as well as a host of smaller building projects such as the Moat Housing Association flats being constructed adjacent to KFC and Morrison’s car park, there is already a great deal of new housing going up. This is only set to increase; historically London increased in population sevenfold between the 19^th and 20^th centuries – and most of this was concentrated in the now wealthy West London, which has been attributed to the large number of bridges spanning the river on the western side of town. The Thames is much narrower in the West, and bridge construction is consequently much more straightforward. The situation in the East is different; when you go past Tower Bridge, the only river crossings are the Rotherhithe Tunnel, the Blackwall Tunnel, the Woolwich ferry and the Dartford QEII bridge and tunnel. The more observant of you will notice that I have not included the “Arabfly Dangleway” – the Emirates sponsored cable car that connects the Royal Docks with the Greenwich Peninsular. The reason for this is that it is not a serious means of mass transit, and it certainly is incapable of moving any cargo. I was searching for opinions on the cable car earlier in the week, when I came across a blog written by the Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire Transport Review (a group whom one would suppose would be particularly amenable to a new form of public transport). Their opinion however was:-“ Many see the Air Line as a vanity project by the London Mayor, with its planned opening by hook or crook for the 2012 London Olympic Games. I didn't follow the story of its inception to completion in enough detail to be able to comment, though the Air Line does seem under-used if yesterday's visit is anything to go by. Yes, it offers another cross-Thames option, but at a price. Even with Travel cards, you're looking at £3.20 one way and both terminals aren't exactly in the throbbing hearts of local communities. To summarise, the Emirates Air Line is OK for a one-off on a tourist's bucket list, but nothing more. This could be its Achilles heel: once you've visited, you don't return. I honestly can't see it becoming a shining example of commercialism through regular commuters. Would I make use of it again? Possibly - if I was with friends who'd not used it before. It's not the easiest attraction to reach for tourists who are sunning themselves in Hyde Park and who spontaneously decide to have a cable car ride, and this is another of its problems”. I think that pretty much sums it up; it goes from nowhere to nowhere, and carries fewer people on a busy day than the Blackwall Tunnel does in five minutes on a quiet one. For me this disqualifies the cable car as a credible means of cross Thames transportation. The proposed new river crossings at Beckton to Gallions Reach and from Rainham to Lower Belvedere are predicted to generate an increase in cross – river communication and trade that would fuel sixty thousand new jobs and around forty five thousand new homes by the year 2030. Public opinion polls broadly support the creation of new cross river links, though of course there are specific reservations; any bridge across the Thames at Gallions Reach would have to be high enough to allow ships to pass underneath, which in itself would cause air navigation worries due to the close proximity to London City Airport – a plane making an aborted landing, or landing due to mechanical problems will find a large road bridge about the last thing they would wish to encounter. In fact, under international air law, it is illegal to build any structure higher than fifteen metres within one kilometre of an airport. On top of all this, there are also plans, which were announced this week by Secretary of State for Transport Andrew Adonis for an additional link, most likely in the form of a tunnel from Greenwich to Newham. Quite where all the money is going to come from for all these cross Thames connections is anyone’s guess. I suppose that they will be privately funded by developers who in return will be able to rake in the subsequent toll fees from the hapless motorist. I get the feeling that the momentum is building up to the point where after years of prevarication and dithering, at least a couple of projects will actually come to fruition. Time will no doubt tell.

The News Shopper have developed a photographic cliché – whenever they feature a person or group who have a dispute or argument with someone, they always photograph the people with their arms folded in front of them. I suppose that it is intended to indicate that the person is fed up, but it has now become tired and predictable. The current story involves a dispute with the proprietor of “The Real China” restaurant in Bexleyheath Broadway. You can read all about it here. I won't debate the pros and cons of the story; it speaks pretty much for itself. What does interest me is that the customers featured actually went to “The Real China” in the first place. I have walked past it on many occasions – it is dark, dingy and looks grubby and somewhat unwelcoming. When I checked the restaurant on “Scores on the Doors” I was not surprised to discover that it had a zero out of five star score for food hygiene – the place should be closed down, as should anywhere with a score of less than three stars out of five, as I have discussed several times in the past. I predict that with all the negative publicity that "The Real China" has suffered, and the highlighting of the absolutely appalling food hygiene rating the place has, it will go bust and be closed for good in a matter of weeks, and quite rightly so. 

Dana Whiffen of Bexley Neighbourhood Watch Association made the following announcement this week:- "Next Wednesday 22nd October 2014 as part of "Operation Big Wing" there is a Community Crime Prevention Day in the Freemantle Hall, Bexley Village, 51-75 Bexley High Street, from 12.30-4pm. With Christmas approaching its a good time to be extra aware of the increase in theft over this period so why not come along to meet St.Mary's Police Team, Neighbourhood Watch Volunteers, Trading Standards and Citizens Advice representatives. There will be free purse bells, anti theft number plate screws, "message in a bottles" as well as offering property marking advice and UV pens. Why not come in for a chat? There will be teas/coffees and cakes available too. Additionally Bexley Police and Neighbourhood Watch will have a stand in Bexleyheath Shopping Mall from 10.00am to 3pm, similar advice and crime prevention items and reading material will also be available, so if you are shopping in Bexleyheath find us for a chat". Thanks Dana - more details are included in the poster above - click on it for a larger and more detailed version. 

You might not realise it, but Erith was home to one of Britain’s best loved comedians – the late Linda Smith was born and raised in Erith, and attended what was then Erith College. She had an entire line in Erith jokes which to be honest were spot on, but ended up being believed by people unfamiliar with the town, and have ended up creating a bad impression. For example, when talking about Erith’s teenagers she said “People knock ASBOs but you have to bear in mind they are the only qualification some of these kids are going to get”. Most famously she also said “Erith isn’t twinned with anywhere, but it does have a mutual suicide pact with Dagenham”. The News Shopper is reporting that a new night of stand-up comedy is soon to begin at Erith Working Men’s club; the first event will be on Friday the 24th October at 8pm. The evening will be hosted by a group called Runaway Comedy and they will be holding bi – monthly comedy nights at the club in the future. I think this is an excellent idea; efforts were made a couple of years ago to set up a similar stand-up comedy night at the Running Horses, adjacent to Erith Riverside Gardens. A few events were organised, and the feedback that I had from someone who visited was very favourable. The nights seemed to fizzle out after a relatively short amount of time – I don't think that they were particularly well publicised, and the audiences were not very big. I reckon that a well-run comedy club held on a regular basis could be just what Erith needs. I am not so sure that the Working Men’s club is the best of venues though – it is too far from the town centre, and not easily accessible by public transport. I can think of at least one venue which would be absolutely ideal for a comedy club that would have long term viability, be easy to reach, have close parking and slap bang in Erith town centre. The Cross Keys Centre would be ideal for such a club – whilst the ground floor former bar area is currently being converted into a restaurant / coffee shop, the upper floors of the building are complete, or almost complete; as I have previously written, the accommodation and the first floor function room have been converted into office spaces, meeting rooms and a multimedia presentation suite. Originally this was intended to be for the sole use of Anglo American management consultants the Aleff Group – who own the building and have paid a fortune to have it sympathetically restored and adapted for business use. They soon realised the level of interest and support from the local community, and that there was a great deal that they could do to be a socially responsible organisation. Now, local independent traders or small businesses can hire a hot desk or meeting room for a couple of hours, or as long as they require at rates far lower than are normally commercially available; there are break out areas, climate controlled air conditioning, a kitchen to make hot or cold drinks, free Wi-Fi and printing capacity, along with 24 hour CCTV security. The building will also be used for meetings by organisations such as Erith Town Forum, Bexley Rotary Club and Bexley Round Table. It is anticipated that local councillors will be able to hold surgeries in the building, and they will generally improve accessibility to local government by members of the public. The first floor presentation suite can be used as a large seminar space, a cinema or a small theatre suitable for music recitations or indeed for stand-up comedy. It will be interesting to see what contribution to local culture and the arts the Cross Keys Centre will make in the future – as I have previously written, I have very high hopes for the enterprise. Perhaps the next Michael McIntyre or Jason Manford will be found at the Cross Keys in a couple of years? Only time will tell. contact me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The ending video is something I found on YouTube; someone has digitised a copy of part of a VHS video tape which was released quite a few years ago, which showed film footage taken in and around Erith, Bexleyheath, Crayford and Welling over the years. Most of the film footage seems to be from the early to mid 1950's, although some sequences may be a little older. take a look and see what you think.

The Broken Drum.

Micro Pubs in Bexley seem like buses – nothing for ages, then two turn up almost at the same time. One of my regular anonymous informers tells me that an application has been submitted for a new micro pub to be set up in a former nail salon shop in Woodman Parade, Blackfen. The micro pub is to be called The Broken Drum – the prospective landlord / landlady is obviously a fan of Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” novels, as this is the name of the pub in the city of Ankh Morpork which features in many of the books. The proposed location of the micro pub is quite interesting; it is only a hundred metres or so  along Westwood Road from The George Staples pub (what used to be known as the Woodman).  I last visited The George Staples about three years ago, and it was not inspiring. It is basically a chain pub run by a pub company called The King’s Feast pub co. (where size matters) which I think tells you a lot before you go any further – never mind the quality, feel the width. The George Staples seems to concentrate on attracting families with small children and serving cheap food in vast quantities – it scrapes by with a three out of five star “Scores on the Doors” food hygiene rating. The News Shopper Pub Spy liked the pub overall, as it was child friendly (I cringe whenever I hear  that phrase in relation to a pub or restaurant) but the verdict on the food was a lot less favourable – limp and soggy scampi, served with bullet hard microwaved peas was not to the reviewers liking. The Broken Drum will no doubt cater for a somewhat different demographic, and I can see the two establishments co-existing without issue. The new micro pub will serve real ales, wines  and cider, along with snacks such as locally sourced pork pies and scotch eggs. As is the norm with micro pubs, there will be no TV, no music and no lager or alcopops. I would hope that the Broken Drum would serve at least one local ale such as the excellent BOB (Bexley’s Own Beer) by The Bexley Brewery, which will be in full production by the time the Broken Drum is ready to open shop. By Christmas, the borough will have three operating micro pubs – The Door Hinge in Welling (so good that it won Bexley CAMRA pub of the year in its first year of opening). There will also be the Penny Farthing in Crayford, which is currently still in the planning stage, as mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I suppose that it would be too much to ask for a micro pub in Erith; it is not as if the town is lacking in empty ground floor shop units ready for conversion. There are three units in the block opposite the Health centre in the High Street that have not been occupied since they were constructed around seven years ago - see the photo above, and click on it for a larger view; I am sure the owners would love a tenant in at least one of the shop spaces. Alternatively there are units available in Cross Street; the former law centre is unoccupied, after changes to the legal aid system  forced it to close earlier this year. The larger unit that for many years was home to Owens the DIY and engineering supplier is also free, though I wonder if it would be too large for a typical micro pub. Obviously the former White Hart / Potion building is empty, but that would require a large amount of investment and refurbishment to make it a viable proposition – all of which is counter to the basic Micro Pub philosophy of opening in cheap accommodation with only basic changes to the unit to turn it into a hostelry. Keeping the costs down, and keeping it simple are the most basic tenets of running a micro pub. This is to keep the bar as low as possible for others thinking of doing the same. Quite often people running micro pubs have never owned a pub, or even worked in one before. Ray Hurley, the landlord of The Door Hinge in Welling is a former black cab driver who has turned his love for real ale and convivial company into a thriving small business. It would seem that other local people aim to replicate this, which can only be a good thing.

A local information source who wishes to remain anonymous has forwarded me the following story:- "A company called Partizan was filming a commercial in Erith last week for the Royal British Legion. The venues were the Leisure Centre in Erith recreation ground, outside the Erith Yacht Club, outside Christchurch, inside a house in Avenue Road and inside the Royal Standard pub in Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere. I think the film is to be called "Who Will You Remember?"  So far as I know it will be shown during a few commercial breaks, possibly as early as 20th August, but I do not have all the details at present". Fascinating stuff; I will be looking out for the commercial being broadcast.

The News Shopper website has been getting some rather vexed feedback from readers in response to a story that they are currently running on complaints made by a local cyclist who commutes by bicycle from his home in Hartley on the outskirts of Dartford to the Darent Industrial Estate on the Slade Green Marshes. He is somewhat put out at the state of the cycle paths, especially in and around the marshes. I think that cycling provides a viable alternative to other methods of travel in certain circumstances, and is something to generally be encouraged. The trouble is, in the News Shopper story, the cyclist, a Mr. Neil Jobbins does himself few favours and does come across perhaps unintentionally as somewhat of an archetypal “cyclo – Nazi”. He cycles the ten mile route from Hartley to Slade Green and comments “Everyone should be cycling to work, whether they live in Dartford and work in Woolwich. They should be able to do that and this is the cycle route for it”. Quite. How the average person is meant to negotiate a pushbike up Bostall Hill from Woolwich after a hard day at work quite evades me – the buses have a difficult enough time, and they have stonking great turbo diesel engines. The main thrust of Neil Jobbins complaint is that the cycle paths on the Slade Green Marshes are uneven, potholed and overgrown with brambles and other vegetation.  I have some sympathy with this; I know that the cycle paths on the marshes get a lot of abuse, due principally to the illegal actions of off road bikers who tear up the pathways and generally cause a nuisance. The police periodically chase and arrest the offending bikers, and every so often one of their untaxed and uninsured motorbikes gets confiscated and crushed, which tends to discourage the others for a while; generally once the weather improves and the sun comes out, so do the illegal motor bikes. The counter argument to the situation with the cycle paths that seems to have annoyed many News Shopper readers runs along the lines of “what does he expect – it is wilderness marshland” and also “cyclists don’t pay any road tax and are uninsured, why should they have any rights at all?” Whatever your personal view on the situation, the fact remains that the cycle paths on Slade Green Marshes are nothing to do with either Bexley or Dartford Council and are instead  maintained by a charity called Sustrans, which maintains cycle paths all over the UK. Sustrans have little money, and cannot afford to restore or improve the paths on the marshes – which to be honest, don’t get very much use anyway. I think a better and more rounded solution would be for a concerted anti illegal motorbike campaign by the local police. When any offenders were subsequently prosecuted, any terms of community service that the crooks got sentenced to should be spent clearing up the cycle paths for the legitimate users. It would seem to be a logical course of action as far as I can see. The marshes are a wonderful place to visit on a sunny day. Fifteen minutes walk from Erith Town Centre and you are in an area of outstanding natural beauty that feels like it is hundreds of miles away from urbanisation. It is one of the best places to see the Erith “big sky” – where you can clearly see an unhindered view from horizon to horizon – something almost impossible in large parts of Greater London.

One of my occasional sources informs me that surveyors and environmental scientists have spent the last week carefully examining the site of Erith Quarry. On top of this, work is being carried out to identify and carefully remove the Japanese Knotweed that infests the site. Japanese Knotweed is a non – indigenous, invasive plant that grows prodigiously and can damage the foundations of buildings; it is very difficult to eradicate – the roots can go as far as ten feet deep, and if even a small portion of root is left in the ground, the entire plant will re – grow in short order. It is illegal in the UK to plant or spread Japanese Knotweed, and when it is pulled up it is legally classified as controlled waste that has to be disposed of by licensed landfill sites. Young shoots of Japanese knotweed are cooked and eaten in some countries – apparently it tastes like super sour rhubarb, but it contains a lot of Oxalic Acid, which is really not very good for you. When the weed is completely removed, work will commence to dig some trial pits to analyse the geology of the site – I suspect it may well also be to identify any chemicals that may have been dumped on the site in the past. Personally I suspect that when the Atlas chemical works that used to be in Fraser Road was closed down in the early 1980’s, many of the remaining drums of chemicals  on the site disappeared in very quick order. I would not be at all surprised if they were dumped on the quarry site. If the surveyors find evidence of this, a cleanup operation could prove costly. No actual building work will be undertaken for a while yet; the reason for this is that the Erith Quarry development has not yet been granted planning permission. The development is to my mind long overdue; the quarry site has been closed and abandoned for as long as I can remember – I recall as a child being warned not to play on the site as it was dangerous – something many local kids studiously ignored of course. With Erith Quarry soon to be joining Erith Park as a major local residential development, the population of Erith is set to increase still further. Overall this should be a good thing, but I do have concerns that the infrastructure may suffer as a consequence. Will there be enough water and electricity to go round? I know the developers of Erith Quarry intend to build a new primary school on the site, and Trinity secondary school is just around the corner, but other resources may be thin on the ground. I would imagine the owners of the mini market and the couple of takeaways at the Pom Pom must be rubbing their hands in anticipation of an increase in trade once the construction is complete and the new housing estate becomes occupied.

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Bexley Council Environmental Health Team seem to have really upped their game in respect of hygiene inspections on local food outlets, and overall the results have been impressive. Many more places are getting acceptable or better ratings (anything 3 out of 5 stars or higher) and the overall situation in respect of woeful graded places is getting better. There are still a number of fast food outlets in West Street that are definitely letting the side down in regards to cleanliness; indeed one place that was checked on the 16th of July was Masala Reef – an Indian takeaway that actually managed to go from a woeful one star rating on its last inspection to a zero star this time. Bearing in mind the inspectors give constructive advice to the owners of food outlets during the inspection process, one would have expected that the rating would have reflected a greater understanding of food hygiene and an awareness of what is required to obtain a good star rating. It would appear that Masala Reef have gone the other way. The inspection rated their food hygiene and safety as bad, their structural compliance as very bad, and confidence in management as none. Just why the Environmental Health inspection team did not close the place down immediately is beyond me. I would strongly recommend that you avoid Masala Reef at all costs.

You may recall that two weeks ago I featured a screen capture from an old cine film taken in Erith in 1967; it showed a very distinctive orange lorry, photographed coming along Erith High Street. Well, a few days ago I received an email from a chap who is very much in the know about the story behind the lorry - here is his account in his own words:- "My name is Allan Bedford a former 'Erithian' but living in Devon since 2005. I am a bit of a transport historian and have been taking photos of road transport for over 50 years. I previously lived in Brook Street opposite the 'Duchess' I sometimes look at your postings and was 'gobsmacked' to see that frame from Mr Stevens cine film of Erith High Street in 1967 you posted on 03/08/14. The 'orange lorry' is none other than the last ex Erith Corporation Dustcart in their lovely 'Burnt Orange' delivered in August 1964, just nine months before the new London Borough of Bexley came into being. It was a most unusual purchase being a Ford Trader K series, the 'K' refers to the cab pressing as it was originally used by Ford of Cologne (Koln), although this was built in Dagenham. It carries the very obsolete, even in 1964, 'Chelsea Pattern ' sliding shutter style body. As it so happens I took a photo of this very vehicle outside the old Brook Street Primary School one evening in May 1970, due to it's unique status. It was then used to collect food waste from the school canteen,the two man crew were happy to let me snap this while I stood in the middle of the road, I doubt you could do this today. I used to belong to the 'Erith and Belvedere history group, and I know Ken and Benitta who of course worked at the school and taught both my kids back in the eighties. Until I found that 'still' I thought this was the only record of this 'one off' so it's great that another image survives. Feel free to use this image, a little bit of 'OLDE ERITH'!!" Brilliant stuff Allan - extremely interesting and many thanks for sending it through. It all adds to the sum of knowledge of the area. If anyone has old photos, memories or stories about the local area that they would like to see published, please send them through to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Microsoft are currently losing money hand over fist in respect of their Surface Pro range of not quite laptops, not quite tablet PC’s. The Surface is now in its’ third incarnation, and Microsoft are still heavily subsidising the devices, selling each one at a loss in order to try and buy market share. Historically Microsoft have been patient when launching new products; they got hit very hard for a long time when they launched the original X-Box games console – they subsidised it and gave great financial incentives to developers in order for them to create games for the console. This paid off in spades, and nowadays the Xbox One is a very credible platform, with many fans amongst gamers.  Whether the same can be said of the Surface range is doubtful – the whole tablet market is slowing down at present – and even market leaders Apple are struggling to shift significant numbers of new units. Since Steve Ballmer left Microsoft, it would appear that their business strategy is starting to evolve; the company has made 18,000 people redundant, and is streamlining itself to try and stay competitive in a changing market. I feel that under their new management, Microsoft may be less willing to support a “lame duck” product line – I would not be surprised if the Surface Pro range quietly disappears quite soon.

Proof if it was ever needed that Erith is indeed a maritime town can be seen in the photo above; it shows roll on – roll off HGV ferry the M.V Cymbaline passing Erith on Saturday afternoon. In the foreground you can see the MV Shetland Trader  moored on Erith Pier. It is used to transport earth and spoil from the Crossrail tunnelling works down river to the Essex coast to be used in land reclamation work.  It was not clear at the time, and it is not clear even now what exactly the tug in the photo was up to; it was travelling, apparently at full speed astern, right behind the Cymbaline. If any reader has a clue please enlighten me using the usual contact details. I have found the Port of London authority ship movement website  to be a very good source of information relating to shipping moves on the River Thames and beyond. As I have said on occasions before, we don’t make nearly enough use of the river. I understand that plans to try and get the Thames Clipper ferries to extend their coverage to Erith are pretty much dead in the water, due to a number of problems, not least of them being that the authorities don’t consider that the number of passengers heading to and from Erith would be sufficient to justify the cost and effort of extending the service. On top of this, Morrison’s were not keen on their car park being used by commuters – a parking space used by a commuter is one less space to be available for a shopper. On top of this, once again any project to improve public transportation in the North of the borough would be inevitably blocked by Bexley Council planning committee. Most of the members live in the more prosperous South of the borough, and don't want the unwashed oiks in the North to have anything that they can’t .

Following on from my announcement last week of the reasons for the building and restoration work being carried out on the former Cross Keys pub in Erith High Street, I have been asked to go into a little more detail. The building is owned and operated by Anglo – American management consultancy, the Aleff Group. When they purchased the pub a couple of years ago, they were looking for a place that was close to the M25 and A2 and had good overland rail links into central London. Many of their consultants spend much of their time on client sites, or travelling, and they felt that the Cross Keys could provide a good place to convert into offices, hot desking areas and touchdown space for their mostly mobile workforce. The Aleff Group already have offices in Canary Wharf and in Florida, USA, and were initially only thinking of using the Cross Keys for their private business. Once the restoration and conversion work began, they were pleasantly surprised by the level of local interest in what they were doing. They soon realised that there was far more space in the building than they would ever actually need for their own company, and the idea was formed to open up the building for locals to use in a variety of ways.  At this point they contacted a number of local individuals, including myself, in order to form a local steering committee. For commercial confidentiality reasons I was asked to remain tight – lipped as to what was going on, and I have stuck to this for quite some time now. The work to the building has now progressed to the point where the upper floors will be “soft launched” in the next few weeks, prior to an official launch sometime in October. The upper floors have been beautifully restored and updated with air conditioning, fibre optic lights, full Cat 6 wired networking and WiFi coverage. The original cast iron fireplaces have been professionally restored and the floor and ceiling voids fitted with sound deadening material. New windows and doors have been fitted – all custom made to the original drawing specifications. There are a number of meeting rooms and areas to hot desk, along with an informal lounge, small kitchen and really high class designer bathrooms / wet rooms lined with polished marble. The first floor function room has been converted into a climate controlled presentation suite with a digital projector and surround sound audio system which is suitable for meetings, training courses and lectures, and even suitable for use as a small cinema or concert venue. The ground floor bar and kitchen areas are the only parts of the building that have so far not been restored; depending on the results of the questionnaire that will be distributed to local people during the Erith Fun Day on Saturday the 30^th August, the ground floor will be converted into a coffee / tea shop and restaurant with a rear terrace for people to be able to sit outside and watch the river view on nice days. It is hoped that the bar area can be restored to its Edwardian splendour so that diners can experience what the Cross Keys was like a hundred years ago. Local small businesses will be able to use the meeting rooms and hot desking areas of the building to carry out client meetings; it is anticipated that local councillors and our local MP will also use the Cross Keys to hold constituency surgeries - at present there is very little choice of public enclosed space in Erith and community events can be difficult to organise for this reason. Organisations like the Rotary Club and Bexley Business Forum will be able to hold meetings in the large and sound proofed meeting rooms on the second floor. The Cross Keys is a very tall building with lots of steep stairs; this has been thought of as a problem for both people with mobility disabilities and parents with children in buggies. For this reason a glass lift is being installed on the rear of the building, adjacent to the patio garden. The lift will look very similar to those used on the Lloyd’s building in the City of London, and will allow disabled access. The rear of the building is plain brick, and not the reason the structure is listed – it is the frontage that legally has to be preserved. Even the employment of local staff has been given a priority. All of the contractors employed on the Cross Keys project come from less than twelve miles from Erith, unless nobody with the specific skills could be found nearby. All the conservation work has been undertaken with close reference to period photographs supplied from several sources, including local historian Ken Chamberlain and myself. I cannot emphasise what a stunning transformation has taken place inside the former pub. All of the work has been done to an incredibly high standard with very high quality materials. Unfortunately as building work is still taking place, the Aleff Group will not be able to offer guided tours on the 30^th August during Erith Fun Day – their insurers would not permit it. I would imagine the public will be able to take a look around in October, when the building officially opens. Take it from me, you are in for a real treat!

This week the end video is an excellent and very funny "Simon's Cat" cartoon - enjoy.

Worse than ever?

You may recall that back, almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a feature on the Pizza Hut franchise in Northumberland Heath, and how appalling dirty and unhygienic the place was. The News Shopper also had it as their headline story at the time. The scandal ended up being covered by several national newspapers, the conditions were so bad. The shop ended up being closed for emergency remedial cleaning work; I had thought that the story was now closed; On Friday morning an anonymous person uploaded the following comment onto my original blog posting. I am reproducing it here, as it is shocking, and if true (and I have no reason to believe it is not), then the public needs to know. I work in this "disgusting" pizza hut you mentioned and let me just say, you have mentioned the fact that "Apparently the place has received a deep clean and its’ hygiene standards are improving". The shop was recently given a new shop front to improve the customer perception of the shop but this was as far as improvements actually went. The general conditions within the shop is probably in my opinion worse than ever. In November 2011 most Pizza Hut delivery units were franchised off to private companies and this is when the trouble started. The company that runs this and many other stores in the surrounding area presented managers with such unreachable targets that they soon all left. This then left it open for the company to get in their own managers. Just before Christmas 2013 conditions within the shop were so bad I was having to work in pools of water leaking from various fridges walls and ceilings. Toilet facilities at one point were completely non-existent, the toilet was in fact broken and laying on its side exposing the sewage pipe where rats were seen and making the whole inside of the shop smell of raw sewage. Dates on ingredients are changed to extend the shelf life rather than discarding then like they should be. Things like the can opener, vegetable slicer and oven are no cleaner really now than they ever were. Finally, Just to say that if any of your readers think that eating here may make you sick, believe me, even I won't eat from here. I have passed the information onto reporters at the News Shopper, as they have the resources to carry out a full investigation, and I do not. It will be interesting to see what they discover.

During my enforced period of quarantine whilst I suffered with Gastroenteritis recently (fortunately not caused by eating from Pizza Hut, as I don't eat takeaway pizza), I decided that I would grow a beard. Actually I was so unwell that I could not be bothered to shave, but that is another story. Once I recovered, I decided that it was high time for the beard to go, as it was getting itchy and anyway, I don’t think a beard particularly suits me. I am one of those individuals who uses a Gillette Fusion wet shaving razor. It is claimed by Gillette (actually a company in name only, as they are 100% owned by Procter and Gamble) that each fusion blade will give many comfortable shaves before they need to be replaced. The number of shaves varies between adverts and promotional material, but nevertheless they do cite multiple uses. In my own experience I am lucky to get three shaves out of a single blade unit before it is too blunt to use, and in the case of the beard removal, a single use was enough to completely knacker a brand new blade head. Bearing in mind that a four blade pack of Fusion blades costs £9.95, this is no small expense. I have read research which states that each blade head costs the manufacturer around 5p per unit to manufacture – which, by the time the supermarkets have taken their cut is a total mark up of 4,750%. Nice work if you can get it. If you search around online, and even look for buying these type of blades in bulk, there are surprisingly few discounts of substance to be had. One would have thought with such a huge profit margin, some savvy retailer would have bought a few lorry – loads and set up a discount service. I can find no evidence of this. I then got to doing some thinking. Why has no savvy business person seen the gap in the market, and gone to some manufacturing supplier in somewhere like China where high quality, well engineered kit can be made to a customers’ specification in fairly short order, and got them to make huge numbers of “own brand” blades that are compatible with the popular razor hand units, then sell them online at a fraction of the outrageous prices charged by Gillette / Procter and Gamble. I got so taken up with this idea that I contacted a very good friend, who just happens to be MD of one of Britain’s’ most highly respected market research / market analysis companies, and asked his professional opinion on the matter. He said that a couple of the big supermarket chains tried this very approach a few years ago, but soon found that it was a bigger problem than they had initially expected. Procter and Gamble, owners of the Gillette brand, supply something like 25% of all the goods sold in most UK supermarkets. As soon as Procter and Gamble heard of this endeavour, they rolled out their heavyweight lawyers and started muttering about copyright infringement. The supermarkets backed down, unwilling to cause potential disruption to other goods in their supply chain. Thus the whole “own brand” razor blade project withered on the vine. My business contact did say that he could see a potential way an entrepreneur could challenge the current corporate razor blade monopoly – but it would need someone like a modern day Richard Branson to attempt it. In essence, the entrepreneur would need to set up a business in somewhere like the British Virgin Isles, and conduct all business from there (a place where it is very difficult for third parties to carry out malicious prosecutions). They would need to hire a Gillette product manager – someone who knows how the company works and how they think. The blades could be made in China, then shipped in bulk all over the world; all ordering would have to be done via an online shop located outside of the European Union. If this could be kept up for a year or so, to the point where the blades had got a degree of market penetration as a viable alternative to the much more expensive “big name” versions, you might well end up in a situation where Gillette / Procter and Gamble would be forced to lower their exorbitant prices due to the newly introduced competition in the market place. To be honest, this is all a bit of a pipe dream; the idea of selling lower cost, high quality razor blades to compete with the big producers is such an obvious business opportunity that if there was any viable way to do it, someone would have done it by now. The fact that they have not really goes to show how tightly the market is already tied up. Please leave a comment below.

Last weekend local drivers had a new challenge. Bexley Road, from the roundabout by the railway bridge and Fraser Road, as far up as Park Crescent, was blocked off from very early on Saturday morning to midday on Monday. I went for a snoop when I heard the news; The News Shopper is reporting that a Mini Cooper crashed into a parked Mercedes saloon in the early hours of Saturday morning, and this left a mixture of Diesel and engine / transmission oil on the road. Apparently the driver of the Cooper was badly hurt, but his passenger did a runner – which sounds very suspicious indeed. The Police had blocked off the road for a stretch of several hundred metres, and the Fire Brigade had spread some kind of moisture absorbing granules over the leaked fluid. I am unsure why the section of main road was closed for quite so long; all I can assume is that there was damage to the road surface – which would not be surprising – petro chemicals eat away at tarmac like acid eats away at metal. It may well have been that the Borough Surveyor needed to check the damage before the road could be re – opened. Residents in the adjoining side streets have been most put out, as drivers have been using diversions to skirt around the normally very busy closed section of Bexley Road.

The photo above was kindly sent to me by local history expert Ken Chamberlain; it is my current favourite shot of old Erith, as it shows so much life and activity, and is not a posed photograph. It shows the view looking Northwards along the High Street, towards the River Thames. Unfortunately it is impossible to take a modern equivalent photograph from the same location as the historic one, as the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre is now in the way, and the road layouts in and around the centre of Erith have drastically changed in the intervening years. The one thing we do know for certain is that the photograph was taken in 1910. By the looks of it, the shot was taken late on a Saturday morning in Spring or Summer - there are a lot of adult men in the photo, most of whom would be at work if the photo was taken during the week; secondly the shadows are very short, indicating the photo was taken around midday. Quite why so many people are standing around in the street is unclear. There are no apparent indications of preparations for a parade or other festival; it just appears to be a very busy street scene. The one building that is still readily recognisable in modern Erith is the Cross Keys pub, which is shown in the distance in the old photograph. Nowadays it is being renovated and converted into offices and meeting rooms for management consultancy the Aleff Group. They are making sure that the external appearance of the building is as close as possible to the original, as they are keen to preserve the building, which is located in Erith’s conservation area. They take the preservation of the historic building very seriously, unlike the people who ran the nearby White Hart, and who ripped out the listed frontage to install hideous plate glass. I don’t normally like seeing empty premises, but the Potion Bar that replaced the White Hart was definitely a bad move, and I have to say that many locals are glad to see the back of it, now that the business has failed. I may be a tad on the optimistic side, but it would be nice to see the building housing a proper sit – down restaurant. The trouble is, the work required to bring the building up to a decent standard in order to open such a restaurant would almost certainly be prohibitively expensive.

This week I have a guest writer, who for reasons best known to themselves, has asked to remain anonymous. He's one of a small team behind a very influential online publication that has its' roots in the local area:- One little known aspect of the north of Bexley borough is that it saw the birth of a science fiction venture that still continues today. The Science Fact and Fiction Concatenation began in 1987 as an annual fanzine produced by a group of local scientists and engineers reviewing the SF genre. The editorial team has since now largely dispersed across the UK but the zine still continues, including with some editorial support from those still within what was the old Erith borough (now Belvedere, Erith, Slade Green and Northumberland Heath), in an on-line largely text-only webzine. Over the 1990s interest expanded and SF enthusiasts from overseas began to take interest including from Eastern Europe with the Iron Curtain coming down. This led to SF2 Concatenation appearing at Eurocons and a trilingual edition (English, German and Romanian) in 1994. This edition saw Concatenation's first of, to date, 4  European SF Society Eurocon Award wins for 'Best Fanzine' and other categories: all  Concatenation's European Award wins have been when the Eurocon that year was in another country than Britain, and this is a small matter of pride for the team garnering such attention away from their home turf. In addition to running the zine, the team have engaged in a number of allied projects. These have included a number of Eastern European (Romania and Hungary) cultural exchanges in the late 1990s to early 2000s. In addition to members of the team going to Eastern Europe and staying with local fans there (including  to see the eclipse of the Sun in 1999, the team sponsored Eastern Europeans to visit Britain. Among the many things they did included a welcome by Bexley's Deputy Mayor, visiting Dartford Groundwork, seeing the Crossness Engines in Thamesmead, and broadcasting back to Eastern Europe via the BBC World Service. Another of the projects was to catalogue all the SF works up to 2004 that have won SF enthusiast popular voted awards and publish this as a book called Essential Science Fiction A Concise Guide. Today the Concatenation site is still maintained by a couple of locals to the north of the borough. Others who have left the area (and are now elsewhere in Britain) do still contribute. This summer will see a reunion as many of the team will join a few thousand of SF enthusiasts, writers and professionals at the annual World SF Society Worldcon which, (called Loncon) for the first time in many decades, will be in London! Indeed it is arguably worth passing this news along to anyone locally you know with a penchant for science fiction as this year the SF World is coming to our door step. So you can see from all of this that there are those in the north of Bexley borough who have an eye on the future and the far horizons of other worlds.

As I have mentioned in the past, there are weeks when writing the content for the Maggot Sandwich is a real uphill struggle, and other weeks when it pretty much writes itself. This week I have had an embarrassment of content, which makes nailing the update together very straightforward. Reader Stephen dropped me a line midweek to ask if I had heard of a new online service called Jabbakam.com which takes feeds from web cams and network connected CCTV systems and enables groups of people and communities to be able to share the video feeds, irrespective of geographical location. This somewhat coincided with a story in the News Shopper which relates to an Erith resident who has installed four CCTV cameras on the outside of his house in order to monitor and record any criminal activity occurring on his private property. The Council have decreed that he will have to apply for planning permission for the cameras, as apparently under the Town and Country Planning Act, cameras on private dwellings have to be located a minimum of ten metres apart, otherwise they need planning permission. When this law was passed, I could understand this; back in the 1980’s CCTV cameras were large, bulky and unsightly items which definitely could adversely affect the looks of a property. Nowadays modern cameras are tiny and extremely discreet, and any requirement for planning permission now seems utterly superfluous. It seems to me to be a classic case of the law not keeping track of technology. It also seems that the house owner – a chap called Michael Hix, has been unfairly targeted. There are a large number of local structures that have multiple CCTV cameras mounted on them, all of which are very unlikely to have requested planning permission. My understanding of the position the Police take regarding private CCTV is that they are not really bothered, just as long as the cameras are only pointing onto the owners’ property – they (quite rightly) take a dim view of CCTV cameras pointing out into the public street. This seems to be a more enlightened view than that taken by Bexley Council. The fact is, a mobile phone can be used as a portable CCTV recorder just by downloading a suitable app. This video can be shared worldwide with services such as Jabbakam, and the council are living in the Stone Age if they think they are able to control such actions by using a blunt force such as the planning rules. The game has changed, but the Council are unaware of it.

Malcolm Knight of the Bexley is Bonkers website has reported that, just as he correctly predicted, Bexley Council are in the process of halting the move of Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre from Bexleyheath Library to Bromley. Indeed, his sources indicate that Bexley Council never formally approached Bromley Council regarding the project, and that the whole thing could well be something he describes as an “Aunt Sally” – something set up to make the council look good, as if they have actually been listening to the views of the local population, and amended their plans accordingly, when in fact they had never seriously intended on moving the Archive in the first place. The wording on the Bexley Conservative Party website is currently very vague and non – committal, but it does begin to sound like the Local Studies and Archive Centre may well be safe – for now, at least.

Things are looking even bleaker for the Arabfly Dangleway – otherwise known as the Emirates Airline Cable Car. As I have said in the past, the service gets very little use, and it has been losing money hand over fist since it originally opened just prior to the 2012 London Olympics. Figures have recently been released, which, according to the Evening Standard, show that for the second quarter of the 2013/14 financial year, the income from the cable car was thirty five percent lower than budgeted.  The Mayor’s office had predicted that the £60 million cable car would generate £8.3 million in tickets for the period, but in reality it only took £5.4 million. Transport for London are still in denial, publicly stating that the service is not making a loss, but this can only be because of the quarterly £3.6 million sponsorship package supplied by Emirates Airline, which is effectively propping up the entire enterprise.  As I have previously wondered, once the sponsorship deal comes to its’ first potential break point, I feel that it would be unlikely for Emirates to continue, as the whole cable car issue has become a farce – Boris is reluctant to intervene to improve the ticketing structure, and pretty much anyone who has any familiarity with the service is aware that it is a vanity project which was built in entirely the wrong part of London. It goes to nowhere from nowhere, and over a warehouse, truck park and a couple of derelict factories – all in all, not a very enticing prospect. The fact is, the current exclusion of Oyster card, London Travel Card and Freedom Pass users from the cable car has done nothing to encourage commuters to use the service – which in any case is far quicker by tube. I regularly pass underneath the cable car when I use the Docklands Light Railway, and it is quite usual to see nobody in a cable car at all; indeed there have been occasions where the operators have switched the system off until a customer turned up – just to save on the electricity bill! Whatever does happen, I seriously doubt that it can carry on in the current manner for very much longer – it is haemorrhaging money. Boris needs to pull his finger out.

I read with disgust that Thamesmead resident Michelle Roberts, who was found guilty by Basildon Crown Court of a number of cases of theft - including from her own family members at a wake after the death of her Uncle; she is to be sentenced in March - you can read the full story on the News Shopper website here. Apart from anyone's normal sense of affronted decency after hearing of the crimes against innocent and often vulnerable victims, what makes it worse for me is that I used to know her. She was a care assistant at my late Dad's nursing home. We don't think she ever managed to steal anything from him, but we have no way of knowing what she may have stolen from others. She's thieving scumbag and a nasty piece of work; she deserves to be locked up for a very long time indeed.

I am afraid the ending video this week is somewhat predictable. Pretty much every media outlet has been banging on about how we are at the 30th anniversary of the launch of the original Apple Macintosh computer; I decided not to give the event as much coverage as I otherwise might, due to the fact the story has been so widely reported elsewhere. Anyway, here is a short video summary of the history of the Mac range. Please feel free to either leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.