The electric gasper.

The photo above shows Erith Blockbusters, which I took yesterday; closure is iminent, along with most of the rest of the chain. Morrison’s have bought a number of Blockbuster shops, as they think that this will be a cheap way for them to expand into the convenience store market. Morrison’s have an eleven percent share of the UK supermarket business in the UK, but in London and the South East, they currently only have a six percent market share. Buy purchasing ex Blockbuster sites, they aim to expand their portfolio a relatively small cash outlay. Suffice to say that the Erith Blockbuster store is somewhat unlikely to get such a rescue, sited as it is, directly opposite the Erith Morrison’s store, separated by nothing other than the car park. I have not heard if any other retailer has expressed an interest in the site, but I am keeping my ear to the ground. Another shop is about to close in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre, the long established family run business Warmlake Sports, which was one of the few shops to carry over from the old Erith Town Centre before the rebuild and refurbishment some years ago. More on the old town centre later. “The death of the high street”, which has been predicted by a number of publications, including the Economist, really seems to be happening. Walking down Bexleyheath Broadway last week, I found that around 25% of all shops were either closing down, or already empty. It was not just the well known recent failures such as Peacocks and HMV, but family run Kimberley hifi and even outdoor specialist Milletts has gone to the wall. Things are looking more grim for the retail sector than I have ever seen before. Not only are people spending less, but their spending habits are changing; people tend to do a lot more shopping around by using price comparison websites and other web based searches. Quite often the shopper will then end up buying online. I don’t see how the traditional high street business model can continue in its’ present form without some serious changes.

Regular readers will be more than aware that I have been very keen on Bexley Council’s participation in the national “Scores on the Doors” food hygiene scheme, which is aimed at any outlet offering food to the public. Last week reader Brian submitted his review of the Ark Christian book shop and cafe. The place was graded as a 2 out of 5 stars when it was inspected in August last year. Brian’s very complimentary review of the place makes me think that the standards must have improved markedly since the inspection; I am trying to discover how frequently the Environmental Health inspectors check each food outlet, and if it is possible for an improving outlet to request a re – visit and new scoring. One place which only got inspected in mid January this year is the excellent Robin Hood and Little John in Lion Road, Bexleyheath (see the photo above). It is no surprise to me that this paragon of well kept real ale and proper home cooked food scored the maximum five stars out of five for excellent levels of food hygiene. I would have expected nothing less. The Robin Hood and Little John is most definitely not a gastro pub – they serve proper food, in substantial portions at a very reasonable price (click here for their menu as a PDF), which can be washed down by six regular real ales and usually a couple of guest ales, as well as a couple of craft ciders. I understand that they also sell lager, though I am not quite sure why. They have won the Bexley CAMRA “Best pub in Bexley” every single year that they have been eligible to enter; in fact Bexley CAMRA had to change the entry rules to allow other pubs to stand a chance; in reality the competition is about what local pub will come second – first place is a no brainer. I would strongly recommend you try this gem of a hostelry, it is without doubt the best pub in the area by a mile.

I think a lot of rubbish has been written by the Daily Mail and the Express recently; they have been publishing articles stating that millions of Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants will be arriving in Britain just as soon as the temporary migration ban expires. I don't know why they think this will be the case. How will they get here? - We've already eaten all of their transportation!

As many longer term readers will be aware, I am a big fan and user of the Linux operating system. I have been using it in one form or another since 1997 when it was clunky, difficult to use and really only suitable for technically experienced users. Nowadays it is as easy, or easier to use than Windows. Most people think that Linux is for geeks, and yes, us geeks do use it, but a lot of “civilians” use it too, often without realising it. Most TV set top boxes run Linux, as do pretty much every kind of embedded device; most popularly, the Android OS is actually Linux with a swish graphical user interface nailed on top. I digress. Much of the reason that Linux has not got much traction on the consumer desktop is because the software available for it is limited compared to the Windows environment; this is especially true in respect of  games – though this is now beginning to change. The largest game developer by revenue is Valve, and they have ported many of their most popular games onto the Linux operating system, these can be downloaded by anyone with a Steam account. At present only the Ubuntu distribution is supported, but as this is the largest and most widely used distribution, it should not be a major issue. I know of one hardcore gamer who has not considered Linux until now, but he is now about to install the free and open source Ubuntu, purely for the purposes of gaming. The reason for this relatively sudden move into Linux as a gaming platform is that it is widely rumoured that Microsoft are going to launch a Windows 8 app store, in a similar way to how Apple launched their app store a couple of years ago; Apple get a percentage of the purchase price of each game or other application downloaded from the store – Microsoft can see an opportunity for a new revenue stream by restricting software downloads to their own store. Valve are vociferous in opposing this change in business model, and as it is looking like Microsoft are going to hold firm, Valve are looking at the alternatives. The attraction of using Linux as a gaming platform is easy to see. On the same hardware, Ubuntu Linux runs between 14 and 24 per cent faster than Windows 7 – speed is essential for a gaming platform. Valve have written new graphics drivers for Ubuntu – which has historically always had the best hardware driver support of all Linux distributions. It seems to be a win/win for end users – a superior operating system that is free to download and use, and has no digital rights management  (DRM) to cripple what you do with the computer. Hopefully as at first the hardcore gamers, then the more mainstream users will realise that there is a lot more to computing life than what comes out of the Microsoft factory at Redmond. It will also be a healthier, multiple operating system environment, encouraging competition and thus benefitting the consumer in the long run.

Whilst carrying out some research for this weeks’ Maggot Sandwich update, I came across some references to the shops in the old Erith Shopping centre, before it was refurbished and pretty much rebuilt – see the photo above for an idea as to what it was like (in a word – horrible!) The multi storey car park was dark and intimidating, and the stairwells always smelled of wee. All in all it was a pretty depressing place, which many locals consider to have been deeply flawed from when it was originally built. I have heard older residents say with conviction that it was a major mistake to have demolished the original Erith Town Centre; certainly a lot of the buildings that were knocked down would nowadays be granted listed status. There was a restaurant in the town centre, squirreled away under the car park, in the darkest and most ominous part of the concrete monstrosity; it was called Monroe’s Carvery. I never visited the place, but it seemed to turn over a steady business, in the days before the McDonald’s and KFC drive throughs in Manor Road opened. It was a very old fashioned place – in addition to the carvery, they served dishes such as Duck a la Orange and Veal Cutlets, washed down with a bottle of Blue Nun and followed by Black Forest gateaux. I thought that this kind of retro dining experience had died with the fall of the wrecking ball, but I was proved wrong. Monroe’s lives on in spirit via a very long established restaurant in Bellegrove Road, Welling.  The Avenida has been around for donkey’s years, and I don’t think that the place has been changed in all that time. Their menu would have been cutting edge in about 1976, but now it is extremely retro in a non ironic manner. If the place was moved into the West End, it would probably be a hit with trendy twenty somethings wanting a taste of the seventies. Instead it continues to plough its’ own furrow. Not my cup of tea, but some people seem to like it.

As I walked home from the station on Monday afternoon, I noticed some activity on the old brown field site that used to house Erith Tram Shed. The land has been derelict and covered in undergrowth for years. I investigated, and was pleasantly surprised to see that work had just begun on the new Bexley College campus! Workers were clearing the ground at the riverside end of the plot of land, and setting up some portacabins as site offices. The old car park in Stonewood Road has been set aside as a store for building materials and construction vehicles. The campus will replace the old skyscraper buildings off Tower Road down by the Pom Pom, which are being sold off for redevelopment as yet more housing. Bringing the college into the centre of Erith will be a boost the local economy and a benefit to the students as well. It really is an all around win. I just hope that the redevelopment plans include step free access to the London bound platform at the adjacent Erith Station. Hopefully over the coming months we will get a better idea as to how the campus is going to pan out.

I was pleasantly surprised about the reader feedback to my questions surrounding electronic cigarettes last week; it would seem that former tobacco smokers who have switched to electronic cigarettes have found the process of then moving off smoking completely to be easier than with some other methods of quitting. I was a bit cautious about my feelings for the electronic fags, but it would seem that they are a massive improvement on conventional cigarettes – not only are they several magnitudes less health harming, but they don’t make noxious smells either, which was one of my main objections. Hopefully if these devices become more widespread, it may lead to people going out to their local pubs more frequently. It has been a norm to see a huddle of smokers outside licenced establishments come rain or shine. If, as one of my respondents says (and my further research has confirmed) they are legal to use in confined public places in the UK, it may encourage those smokers who stopped visiting the pub when the smoking ban was introduced to return to their local hostelry.  Please feel free to leave a comment below. It will be moderated and published within 24 hours. I have to use comment moderation, as I get around a hundred spam messages posing as reader comments every day. The Maggot Sandwich averages around 20,000 user hits a month, and I feel that it has in some ways become a victim of its’ own success.

You may recall that I recently covered the resurgence of interest in Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) otherwise known as cold fusion; the phenomenon was big news in the late 1980’s but those behind the “discovery” were not able to reproduce a sustained reaction in laboratory conditions, and LENR got written off as a con and a fraud. The research has since been continued by others, who seem to have confirmed that there is indeed something positive going on. The U.S Department of Energy are now so interested, that they have hired Professor George Miley of the University of Illinois Fusion Lab to head a team to investigate LENR and produce a report on it. If the U.S Government are interested in this alternative method of energy generation, and are prepared to invest several  million dollars in so doing, it is pretty likely that a workable LENR generator will be produced soon. I am aware that a number of private engineering ventures are working on generators right now. It is possible that the era of cheap, endless, pollution free energy is shortly to be with us. It sounds like a story that is too good to be true; I just hope that this is not the case.

You may have seen mention of the public launch of the Google Glass project over the last few days. Glass aims to change the way humans interface with computers. Looking very much like a pair of glasses, but with one tiny lens, Glass provides the user with real-time, contextual information about the environment. It could be a glimpse into the future of computing. It is the next phase in enhanced reality. I think the project is interesting, but I have my doubts as to the real life use for the web enabled spectacles. The ability to take photos and video in real time and to instantaneously post it online, along with automatic geo tagging and facial  recognition does mean a further erosion in privacy. The fact that images recorded via Google Glass mean that anyone captured has their details automatically uploaded to Google's servers seems like a gross invasion of privacy to me. Nevertheless, it is an insanely clever piece of technology. I am guessing that the glasses use a Bluetooth connection to an Android mobile phone, which then makes the connection to the Google Cloud, where all the clever voice recognition heavy processing is actually done. As a non mobile phone user, this immediately disqualifies me, not that I would be personally interested anyway. It strikes me that the kind of people who would most benefit from Google Glass are the kind of people who lead rather more adventurous and less cerebral lives than I. See a demonstration of the enhanced reality spectacles below, and feel free to leave a comment as always. Don't think for an instant I am anti the technology as such, just cautious as to the ways in which it can be exploited for the wrong reasons. I have compiled this entry on my Samsung Google Chromebook - more on Google Chrome OS next week.

The Doctor and the Tramshed.

The photo above (click for a larger view) shows the controversial Erith wind turbine; the photo was taken from the end of Erith Pier, looking Eastwards and down river. In the background you can see the QEII Bridge across the River Thames. The wind turbine is 288 feet tall, and has quickly become a local landmark. I can see it clearly from the window in my office in Pewty Acres. I like it a lot. It tells me what direction and approximate speed the wind is blowing, and provides an instant low cloud indicator - all by me looking out of my window. It is also a far more aesthetically pleasing and practical piece of industrial sculpture than the hideous (and useless) psychedelic fish sculpture I have bemoaned in the past.

Work has now begun on first phase of the conversion of the former Cross Keys pub into offices for the multinational management consultancy the Aleff Group. I went along to the Grade II listed building on Thursday afternoon for a look. Builders were just in the process of packing up for the day. There were large blue tarpaulins over the first floor balcony and windows, and lights were on in the rooms on the second floor; it looks like the existing windows were being replaced with identical looking new ones. A high quality CCTV system has been added, with multiple cameras covering what looks like every corner of the structure. The work has only just begun; as I recently wrote, the previous owners had run the Cross Keys into the ground, and a huge amount of remedial work will be needed before the directors and staff of the Aleff Group can move in and carry out their business.  I will be keeping a close eye on the progress and reporting back regularly. I have already secured a tour round the building and an interview with Dr. Julian Hilton, the Chief Executive, once the place is ready to open. It is heartening to see a historic local building being restored and returned to service, rather than converted into unwanted flats or otherwise demolished, as has happened in the past to other local listed buildings such as the former Odeon cinema turned Bingo hall that used to be on the corner of Erith High Street and James Watt Way. It was a grade 2* listed building (essentially halfway to a grade 1 listing). The developers decided it was going to be too expensive to sympathetically convert it for residential use, so instead they knocked it down, stating it was full of blue asbestos. I walked past the demolition site every day on the way to and from work, and I saw no sign whatsoever of any kind of asbestos. I get the feeling this was just a ruse to enable the developers to maximise their profits.  You can see an old photo of what the cinema used to look like below. Click for a slightly larger version. 

One thing the area sorely lacks is a medium sized live music venue. Aside from local bands playing in pubs, there is no outlet for  musical talent, which is a great pity. Years ago the Tramshed in Woolwich was a great venue for seeing local, up and coming bands. I recall that whilst I was still at school, a friend played bass in a hobby band; they were lucky enough to get booked to play support for a then unknown band. By the time the day of the gig arrived, the band he was supporting had a number one hit single, and suddenly the profile of the event went through the roof. The band were Doctor and the Medics, who had a big hit with their cover of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky”. I had a front row seat for the gig, which was compared by the then unknown comedy duo Hale and Pace, before their subsequent TV fame. Nowadays the only place that offers anything remotely similar is the Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford, though this is mainly geared for larger groups. Other than that, there is very little opportunity for bands who are too popular to still play the pub circuit, but not yet big enough for theatre sized venues to play. Somewhere like the now long abandoned Erith Trade and Social Club in James Watt Way. This building would make an ideal music venue; the trouble is that it would require too much expensive refurbishment and conversion, and it has now been standing empty and abandoned for so long that the fabric has deteriorated to the point which I think demolition is the only viable option. The local area has fostered some remarkable musical talent in the past; it seems that it will be more difficult for new talent to find a live outlet in future, and however useful YouTube is for showcasing talent, it is no substitute for a noisy, sweaty live venue. It is not widely known that Woolwich was host to a number of big name gigs in the past. Buddy Holly famously played two concerts in the Woolwich Granada cinema on the 14th March 1958. It was quite common in those days for artists to play a matinee, and then a later evening performance. In 1985, Level 42 recorded much of their live album "A Physical Presence" in the Woolwich Coronet on the evening of March the 30th 1985. You can see some photos taken at the gig by clicking here.

Whilst researching the history of local live music, I also came across an interesting fact. The 3rd of June 2013 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles only local performance, which also took place at the Woolwich Granada, where they performed on the same bill as Roy Orbison. Many locals know that Kate Bush started off in Welling, and played her early gigs in the We Anchor In Hope pub on Shooter’s Hill. What is not so well known is that bassist, arranger and multi instrumentalist  John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin comes from Sidcup.

The national horse meat scandal continues unabated; I don’t know what all the fuss is about –the health authorities have been telling us for years that ready meals contain too much salt and Shergar! I understand that Findus took quite a long time to identify horse meat in their ready meal Lasagna, as it was covered in Marscapone cheese (think about it and groan).

The Arabfly Dangleway seems to hit problem after problem, and the passenger figures are now even further reduced. I have passed underneath it a few times since I last wrote about it, and it seems that the operators are getting so few passengers at certain times of the day that they are switching the cable cars off to save electricity when there are no passengers on board. It already closes down when the wind gets too strong, which at this time of year is quite often. The Transport for London website has weekly passenger usage figures, and for the week commencing the 9th of February, the cable car only carried 16,400 people, which equates to something like one per minute for the entire system. The figures also show that 60% of travellers use the cable car at weekends only, and they only make one round trip journey. It is clear that the system is being used for entertainment (figures also show a slight upward blip at school holidays) – it is clear the system is not being used by commuters as was heavily touted when it opened. The fact that Oyster and standard overland travel cards cannot be used with the system would seem to have impacted on the uptake by the regular commuter.  I have not heard anything in respect of the progress of the plans to move the QEII to be moored on the banks of the Thames to become a floating hotel; about the only thing that could save the Arabfly Dangleway. Let’s see what the spring brings.

There has been some coverage of the widespread take-up of electronic cigarettes by former smokers. The medical opinion seems to be that the ingestion of regulated doses of pure vapourised nicotine is far less unhealthy than traditional smoking, as the part of the cigarette that causes the major health problems is the tar that burning tobacco produces. The electronic cigarette does not generate tar, and is thus thought to be a safer alternative. All this is a bit confusing to me as a lifelong non smoker. I was always under the impression that nicotine was a potent poison in itself. It certainly makes a very effective natural insecticide (if you steep cigarette butts in water for a couple of hours, and collect the resulting liquid, this can be used as a very effective organic poison against greenfly and other nasties, just by spraying your plants with the solution. It is advised that any vegetables should be thoroughly washed before being eaten – again reinforcing the fact that nicotine is poisonous. All very confusing. It seems strange to me that some medical authorities are promoting the use of the electronic fags. It may be that it is a question of degree – they are substantially less hazardous than conventional  gaspers, and they have a very welcome feature in that they don’t smell. One of my confidential contacts demonstrated this to me recently; he had an electronic cigarette and it gave off no noxious pong whatsoever – the small puff coming out of the end of the device was actually water vapour with no aroma at all. Will this mean that these devices will be permitted in public where ordinary cigarettes are now banned? I don’t know, as when the current anti smoking regulations were created, such devices did not exist. Perhaps a reader can enlighten me?

I see that our local MP Teresa Pearce has backed the Scrap Metal Dealers bill which is currently going through the House of Lords on its’ way to becoming law. The bill will make the practice of scrap dealers handing over cash for metal illegal; all trades will have to be done via accredited bank transfers to registered users – and thus stop the current huge level of trader and scrap dealer tax fiddling. The bill will also ensure that all scrap dealers will have to be properly licenced and regulated – I was appalled to discover that many scrap dealers currently are unlicenced. Bearing in mind it is estimated that the scrap metal business is worth something like £5.6 billion a year in the UK alone, there looks to be a ton of money washing around that is essentially anonymous and untaxed. The benefit to the UK as a whole of getting this money out of the dealers pockets and into the general economy must be huge. The bill also seeks to give the Police more power to investigate metal thefts, and greater penalties for those thieving scumbags who get caught. I have written about metal theft on a number of recent occasions; it is a country wide problem, but the London Borough of Bexley is one of the very worst affected areas, and many local residents have bitter first hand experience of metal theft, whether it be from having their front garden gate nicked, to being late for work due to the rail power lines having been dug up and stolen. Metal theft is not a victimless crime, and it is reassuring that at last the Government are taking it seriously. It will be instructive to see what sentences the courts hand out to convicted metal thieves once the new law comes into effect.

Back at the end of last October, I wrote at some length about the area’s independent record shops, and lamented at the passing of Erith’s T.W Records – something that was picked up by a number of readers. I have since discovered that one of the stores I featured – Cruisin’ Records in Welling has lost its’ owner, who recently died after a short battle with cancer. The shop is still open, and hopefully a permanent arrangement can be made so that the excellent shop can continue to provide specialist services to the music loving public. The big music chains such as HMV have been hit by a combination of digital downloads, and by the large supermarket chains, who sell top 20 CD’s at eye wateringly low prices, often as loss leaders to attract customers into their stores. Independent record shops are never going to be able to compete on price – that is a battle they will never be able to win; instead they need, as Cruisin’ Records does, to supply specialist / obscure records, to offer more than just the current album by an artist or group – keeping a stock of back catalogue records for example, or by concentrating on niche markets, as Bexleyheath based record label / online music store Talking Elephant Records does. They are the pre – eminent specialists in folk , folk rock and roots music, and the “go to “ people for these genres. It would seem that by specialising, record shops can not only survive against the big boys, but can actually thrive.

A few days ago I had an Email from local resident, webmaster of the excellent Erithtown.net web resource and Maggot Sandwich reader Brian. He wrote the following: “I checked out Ark of Erith, today. In over eight years living here, I'd never been in. But I fancied a baked potato for lunch and it looked pleasant inside. And it certainly was pleasant. And friendly. And my baked potato was freshly-prepared, taking something like 10 mins until it was ready. In the meantime, I enjoyed a mug of tea and a newspaper - brought to my table. When it arrived, the potato was crammed with cheese and tasted excellent. I'd also add that the man there introduced himself and started a conversation, but in a non-intrusive way. He did tell me that it was a Christian bookshop (I'm not a Christian) but the religious bit didn't seem pushy. One other thing to note are the books, mainly donated. I spotted some 60 year old Penguins in excellent condition, selling for 50p. I told the man they were probably worth more and have since discovered they sell for upwards of £6 on eBay. I do hope he takes my advice and sells them there himself”. Brian’s observations and conclusions are very interesting; as you will no doubt recall, I gave several local food out lets a bit of a pasting for their poor performance on the “Scores on the Doors” hygiene rating system. The Ark Christian book shop and cafe scored a disappointing two out of five stars when it was visited by Bexley Environmental Health department inspectors on the 1st of August 2012; I get the feeling that they have substantially improved their hygiene standards in the following few months - Brian’s findings would tend to support this. It is good to hear of local businesses making a success of things, and hopefully the Ark can be an example to other Erith food outlets to improve.

Did you know that the area has a professional recording studio? Abbey Studios, which house a high end recording facility, as well as rehearsal rooms and all sorts of resources for both professional and amateur musicians is located in the old Goldie Leigh hospital site in Bostall Heath.  It amazes me that such facilities can have been around for years, yet they are almost “under your nose” without ever being apparent. It is in an ideal location – secluded in a woodland setting, yet only moments away from Woolwich Road and connections into London and elsewhere.

One of the perks of my day job is that I get to test out all sorts of new and existing technology; part of my role is to find new and interesting uses for technology, and to work out ways to deploy it in the work environment. I bought a couple of Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet computers running Android 4.1.1 and have been using one of the pair for the best part of a week. The experienced has rather reinforced my opinion of tablet computers. I think they are fine if you are a consumer of content – if you watch a lot of online video content, or listen to music; the caveat here is that unlike a laptop, you have to hold the tablet in order to watch the screen, unless you shell out some money for a case that doubles as an angled support. If, like me, you are primarily a content creator (using a lot of office type applications, or blogging) then they are less suitable. The on screen keyboard on Android devices is pretty intelligent, but typing more than a couple of lines on an unyielding surface is hard work on the finger tips. An external Bluetooth keyboard is really required for any serious text entry. Personally I prefer a “”proper” laptop with an integrated, full travel keyboard, as banging out 2,500 or so words each week on the Maggot Sandwich takes a lot of hard typing. All the stuff above also holds true for the Apple iPad; they are great as passive devices, but not so much fun if you need to use them in an interactive manner. Now that I have had some time with a tablet device, it has confirmed my suspicions that they are not really for me. As ever, your mileage may vary.

The story about the fatal shooting of Kevin McKinley in Overy Street, Dartford on Tuesday night made the national press. From what I have read, the murder victim was no saint, but the reaction of readers of the News Shopper website has been nothing short of venomous; I have said on several occasions that the un-moderated talkback feature on the News Shopper website would sooner or later get them into hot water with the authorities, and I am wondering if this is the story that causes it. In essence, the heated mudslinging seems to be divided into three camps: The first are people claiming to be McKinley’s direct family, claiming what a good person he was. The second group are those who claim to know him and say what a bad lad he was, and the third group would seem to be people who have read a little bit about the story, and have jumped to their own, sometimes wildly improbable conclusions. Those writers who really are in the know about the background to the murder should definitely not be posting information online; they should be talking to the Police in confidence. Everyone else should really be very careful of anything they post online, as it has the potential to influence a future court case. I only know what I read about the case, and that amounts to very little indeed. I am sure that more detail will come out as the case is investigated.

The ending video this week is another cookery lesson from the excellent Titli Nihaan. Will someone please give her a TV series? Comments and feedback below.