The fate of the White Hart / Potion bar?

The photo above shows the excellent Thames sailing barge mural on the side of the currently empty former White Hart pub in Erith High street; some readers may recall the abortive and short lived transformation into Potion – the cocktail cum lager bar which attracted drug dealers, thugs, drunks, fights and final closure after a series of enforcement orders by both Bexley Council and the Police. Notably the owners of Potion illegally ripped out the locally listed acid etched glass and green tiled frontage and replaced it with hideously inappropriate plate glass. They were taken to court by the Council, but never complied with the court order to restore the pub to very close to how it had looked before their vandalism of the historic building. Now the White Hart is empty and lifeless, and the lease is up for sale, as you can see by clicking here. There have been a few rumours over the last couple of years as to what the future was likely to bring the building, but thus far none have come anywhere near fruition. I am now becoming concerned about the place; Any company taking on the building will need to commit to a sizable investment in the fabric – the aforementioned frontage will need to be replaced with a close facsimile of the original (architect’s drawings exist), and the interior will need to be completely re – built, as it is currently gutted. I understand that any requirement of the place to serve food would mean that both the kitchens and the ventilation system would have to be ripped out and replaced. All very costly work. To any potential investor, the site is now almost certainly worth more than the listed building. A block of riverside apartments on the site would be a very attractive concern, and could generate quite a pile of cash. I hope that it does not happen, but if the White Hart was to undergo an “accidental” fire, I would not be at all surprised. It would not be the first time something of that nature had happened in Erith – back in 1992 the Prince of Wales pub in James Watt Way (see the historic photo below, kindly supplied by historian Ken Chamberlain) was mysteriously gutted by fire; not long thereafter it was demolished to make way for the current MacDonald’s drive through. Coincidence? Maybe, but I would not be too certain. More on these two former pubs in Erith High Street a bit further down this update.

I have noticed some very strange behaviour in and around Erith recently; I have seen shoppers both in the Riverside Shopping Centre, and in Morrison’s who have an overcoat on, but it is clear that underneath this, they are dressed in their pyjamas. These sightings are not confined to evenings – the other afternoon I was walking along Wharfside Close on my way home from work at around half past five in the afternoon, when a woman in her middle thirties got out of a car, wearing an anorak and a pair of pyjamas. She then walked across Morrison’s car park and entered the store. She’s not the only one I have seen recently. I was doing some evening shopping, again in Morrison’s when I encountered a bloke in his late fifties, pushing a large trolley around the store whilst clothed in a trench coat, pyjama bottoms and flip flops. Outside it was raining at the time. Is this kind of behaviour unique to the area, or is this something happening in other parts of the country? I think we need to know.  Perhaps we should form an observer group to monitor and report on inappropriate use of nightwear in public – we could call it “Pyjama Watch”. What do you think?

Another horse has had to be rescued from a water filled ditch in a field in Lower Belvedere this Friday. You may recall that a similar incident took place in the same location back in January. Fortunately firefighters from Erith Fire Station were able to free the animal without causing it too much distress. Like the previous incident, the horse was a well loved pet, and not one of the many horses and ponies that have been virtually dumped in the area, as I have covered several times in the past. Quite whether the owner will have to contribute towards the cost of the rescue is currently unclear. I have heard local calls for the ditches that surround many of the fields on the Lower Belvedere Marshes to be filled in to stop this kind of incident from happening; the trouble is, the ditches help to stop the fields from flooding when there is heavy rain, so currently there is not a great deal that can be done about the situation. I don't think that we will be seeing too many more incidents of this type, as the land in the area in question is ripe for redevelopment, especially bearing in mind the proposed river crossing between Rainham in Essex and Lower Belvedere, which would be built in this very location. Already pub giant Marston's are building a pub, restaurant and hotel in the area, as I first announced back in November of last year. Marston's are currently recruiting locally for staff to work in the outlet, which is scheduled to open in May - you can see details by clicking here. I will be reviewing the place shortly after it opens. Many more businesses and services will be built on the marshes over the next few years, and the horses that currently reside there will have no option than to be moved elsewhere by their owners. 

Last week there was an important anniversary that has been almost completely overlooked by the popular press. There was a ceremony which included the unveiling of a plaque at Abbey Road Studios in London. The event was to commemorate the prodigious scientist-engineer Alan Dower Blumlein. The reason the event was hosted by Abbey Road Studios was that it was the location in 1934 where Blumlein demonstrated his invention by recording the London Philharmonic Orchestra in stereo within a single groove on a gramophone disc. This was just one of the 128 patents earned by Blumlein before his untimely death in a plane crash at the age of 38. His life’s work revolutionised everything from audio to telephony to transatlantic cables to television to radar. This devilishly handsome young man with the brain the size of a planet knew how to look comfortable in a three-piece suit, sported round spectacles, puffed a pipe, had a playful sense of humour and spoke like Harry Enfield’s Mr Grayson. His lack of fame among the general public can be attributed to several factors, not least that he died young while working on top-secret inventions during World War II and, having a German surname and Jewish ancestry. Additionally,  home stereo systems only began to take off in the mid -1960s, more than thirty years after he invented it and more than twenty years after his death. In addition to inventing stereo recording, Blumlein’s disc-cutting machines, microphones and other studio equipment were far and away superior to anything that had been devised before. In effect, he invented the notion of high-fidelity for music lovers. It is a shame that he is so forgotten today, especially as the use of mobile phones to replay low bit rate MP3 and AAC files – for the first time in history, audio fidelity is decreasing instead of increasing. Audiophile equipment is still being manufactured and sold, but the general public seem to prefer convenience over fidelity. Somehow I don't think that Alan Dower Blumlein would be impressed. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Following the modern photo of the Cross Keys Centre, the Playhouse and Potion at the top of this update, here is something from the past. The photo above (click on it for a larger view) was taken back in 1971 / 1972 by the look of the cars in the shot. It shows the Cross Keys pub, the Playhouse and the White Hart pub in Erith High Street. This was shortly before the Playhouse was rebuilt with a new frontage, which joined together the two buildings in the centre of the photo. The dark coloured structure (known locally at the time as number 38) directly to the left of the pale coloured Playhouse was incorporated into the new frontage a couple of years later; I was reliably told that the dark coloured building actually functioned for several years as a brothel! Bearing in mind the proximity to the (then active) riverside Police station only a hundred yards along the road, if this is true, I would not be surprised is some kind of accommodation was reached back in the day. If you have any information, please let me know.

The Bank Holiday weekend gave many rail companies a chance to undertake maintenance and modification of their rail networks; this was very widely reported in the popular press. The North Kent rail line was again mostly offline – the ongoing construction work for the forthcoming South East Crossrail terminus at Abbey Wood made this an inevitability. One unexpected outcome of this was a temporary service that ran from Dartford to Blackfriars via Blackheath and Lewisham. The service was a stopping one as far as Lewisham, from where it then ran fast all of the way to Blackfriars, via Brockley, then on to Nunhead, Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill, Loughborough Junction and Elephant and Castle, then terminating at the modern, airy and impressive Blackfriars Station, located above the famous Blackfriars Bridge. It was a pleasant journey with very interesting scenery; back in the late 1980’s trains on the Dartford via Lewisham line used to regularly run on to the old (and now long gone) Holborn Viaduct station via Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill; in the intervening years the old mostly industrial landscape seems to have been replaced with residential accommodation – though there is still the odd scrap yard and empty warehouse to show what the route used to look like.  I am no transport expert, but as far as I am aware, there has never before been a direct service to Blackfriars on the North Kent Line. Personally I would like to see one train an hour each way on the route as a permanent service – what do you think?

On previous Maggot Sandwich updates, I have mentioned various radio stations that I listen to - some on broadcast radio, some online, and some both. One of the oldest unconventional stations that I have been following for many years is Laser Hot Hits. They have their 25th birthday this very weekend. Laser D.J Gary Drew is my guest contributor this week, and you can see his article on the station below. Please feel free to leave a comment, or email hugh.neal@gmail.com.

25 years of the hottest hits from Laser Hot Hits. Compiled by Gary Drew.

April 2015 marks 25 years of broadcasting from Laser Hot Hits. The station began as an FM pirate broadcasting to the home counties going on air on Bank Holiday Monday 16th April 1990 on 101 MHz VHF in stereo. Transmissions continued on FM most weekends with many frequency moves following the start of Classic FM. In 1993 Laser merged with staff from the former pirate Hits FM in London to emerge the reborn, bigger Laser Hot Hits that we know today. Shortwave broadcasts were added on 6220 KHz in the 48 metre band shortwave for over 10 years with many other shortwave frequencies being used in other bands and many channel changes over the years. They still come and go and in 1997 Laser started identifying on air as ‘Laser Hot Hits International’ and the name has stuck to this day. The strapline ‘the shortwave legend’ has also been added in the past few years and anybody looking for Laser on a Wi-Fi radio server or mobile phone app will see that ident so they know they have selected our version of Laser. Your favourite version! There are some imitators using the same name but we were first to claim it way back in 1990 when we built the station as a tribute to the format from the offshore pirates Laser 558 and Laser Hot Hits 576. Our format now still consists of popular music that everybody recognises but also in recent years we have developed a specialist music interest with some selected programmes dedicated to different types of music. The anorak and offshore theme is still present but in smaller doses as our audience has changed in recent years. In fact some younger listeners have been attracted to us which is why we recently launched a new dance stream on our internet service separate from our original shortwave or classic hits stream. The new service is identified as ‘Laser Dance Hits International’ you can find that on Twitter @LaserIntDance. We now operate on 4026 KHz in the 76 metre band and this goes out weekday evenings right through the night from around 18.30 UTC – 08.30 UTC and it is on air right through the weekend non-stop from Friday night to Monday morning. Meanwhile our internet streams are on 24 hours per day 7 days per week. Sometimes the shortwave is in parallel with the stream and other times it is playing archive a few weeks behind. We have relay partners like Magic 6205 http://magic6205.com/ helping us get more coverage and Radio Black Beard on 6950. There are also people who are radio enthusiasts and anoraks relaying our stream on FM in parts of the UK and USA on various frequencies at various times and again these come and go. Some are high power and some are low power. Recent frequencies we have been heard on are 105.8 FM in the West Country, 87.8 FM in the east of England, and 103.3 FM in north Norfolk, 93.5 FM in Indiana USA. 1476 KHz and 1566 KHz Medium wave. There are even internet stations relaying us at certain times as well. We have a Face book page www.facebook.com/laserhothits and you can visit our website at http://www.laserhothits.co.uk/

The current line of DJ’s and music is as follows:-

Martin Scott – Dance, Pop and charts, 80’s
Mike Andrews – Classic Hits, Adult contemporary, Pop, American Billboard
Stewart Ross – Rock, Euro Rock, Disco, Pop
Tony James – Oldies, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, TV themes, Film music, Album music
Dave Norris – Dance, Pop, 80’s
Dave Simpson – Rock, Motown, Blues, R&B, Oldies
Gary Drew – Jazz-Funk, Soul, Dance, Rap, Rare Groove
Ian Lawrence – Dance, Pop, Chart, 80’s
Paul Stuart – Pop, Chart, 70’s, 80’s

We stream at 192 kpbs and 32 k AAC+ for mobiles. Our streams are as follows:
Classic Hits (original shortwave) 192k mp3 stream : http://usa2-vn.mixstream.net:8922/listen.pls
Classic Hits (original shortwave) 32k AAC+ stream : http://usa2-vn.mixstream.net:8972/listen.pls
Dance 192k mp3 (Laser Dance Hits International) stream : http://usa5-vn.mixstream.net:8993/listen.pls

We have an archive of shows on our mix cloud site at https://www.mixcloud.com/laser_hot_hits/

The internet stream is playing live shows in real time most Sundays from around 11am – 7pm give or take an hour at each end with various jocks on rotation but usually Ian Lawrence, Paul Stuart, Martin Scott, Dave Norris for the most part with some other jocks coming on live from time to time. Live shows also commence some weekday evenings with Mike Andrews on Mondays from 9pm – 11pm and Friday nights is dance night with Ian, Martin and sometimes Paul. Gary Drew is on almost every Sunday at 9pm pre-recorded with his regular ‘tribute to radio’ feature and the rest of the schedule across the week is filled with repeated shows from the archive and non-stop music. Sometimes we play documentaries with a radio related theme so there’s something for everyone with a free radio or offshore interest. This version of Laser Hot Hits has nothing to do with any other station using the same name and we are established as Laser Hot Hits International - the shortwave legend. Our hard working team continue to bring you the best radio entertainment we can offer in keeping with the spirit of the heyday of offshore and land-based pirate radio. These are memories of a bygone era we must never forget........... Here’s to the next 25 years. Cheers! Thanks Gary - excellent stuff! Congratulations on your 25th anniversary.

There has been some controversy concerning the announcement last week that Aldi are planning to open a superstore in Crayford, very close to the giant Sainsbury’s supermarket (I have been told that it is the largest Sainsbury’s in the UK, though I have had no verification of this – if you have any information, please drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com and let me know).  Whatever the specifics of the size of the Sainsbury’s store, it is undeniably large, and Aldi are obviously taking a tilt at Sainsbury’s in building a store in such close proximity. Some locals welcome the competition, whilst others think that the additional traffic that a second supermarket in a relatively small area would be intolerable; those residents say that they would prefer more new housing – a subject that seems to divide many people. Crayford is one of those places that unless you live there, you tend to go through on the way to somewhere else. It has some good points – being close to the A2 and M25, and also has a micro – pub in The Penny Farthing. I get the feeling that Bexley Council would rather have a second supermarket on the site than more housing – mainly as the business rates that a large retail outlet would generate would far exceed the rates paid for residential properties, and as we already know, Bexley Council treat the bottom line of a spreadsheet as the most important motivator to certain Bexley Councillors. The proposed Crayford development may be significant for other, wider reasons as well; Aldi has overtaken Waitrose to become the UK’s sixth-largest supermarket chain. Aldi has grown rapidly in recent years as shoppers have kept a tight rein on their budgets. Having leapfrogged Waitrose, it is now closing in on the Co-op, the UK’s fifth-largest supermarket chain, which is now less than one percentage point ahead of the German chain in terms of market share. I understand that this success has been at least partly to a very aggressive campaign of store openings, often very close to premium supermarkets in order to steal some trade from under the noses of their rivals. It would seem in this instance the victim will be Sainsbury’s – who have a reputation for being somewhat on the pricey side. Lidl too have plans for a new supermarket on the site of the old Dartford Police Station in Instone Road, directly opposite the Dartford Sainsbury’s. It definitely seems to me that a supermarket war is about to break out in the local area, and both of the German discounters are taking the attack quite firmly to Sainsbury’s.

Last week the News Shopper published the latest of its lists. Over the past year or so, the local newspaper has changed editorial direction, and has become somewhat more tabloid in nature. Personally I feel this is an ill – advised move, but I understand the struggle for many local papers, who find attracting advertisers difficult now that so much has migrated online. Each week, the News Shopper now publishes an article which appears to be attracting comment and feedback – no doubt to improve the number of hits on their website, and thus increase the value to advertisers and keep the revenue rolling in. Usually the lists are quite anodyne and superficial – and the last list did not disappoint in this respect. It listed the top beef burger outlets in the area, and somewhat to my surprise, amongst the entries for the long established and well – loved Blackheath Tea Hut and the upmarket Five Guys and Byron Burger at Bluewater, they listed the Starburger outlet in Cross Street, Erith. The unprepossessing fast food restaurant has been quietly serving all day breakfasts, burgers, jacket spuds and several types of grilled chicken, all served up with artery hardening portions of chips. One customer told me that even if you ordered a portion of chips, it would come with a side order of chips! Still, the place is popular – it could not have kept going for all of these years if it was not doing something right. Starburger score a three out of five on their “Scores on the Doors” kitchen hygiene rating, so there is some room for improvement – especially as so many other food outlets in and around Erith have dramatically improved their ratings over the last year, albeit from a woeful starting point. Still, it goes to show a small food outlet in a quiet side street can compete successfully with the major chains. 

The dreaded Emirates Airline Cable Car, better known to locals as the Arabfly Dangleway has announced that it will be offering ‘Night Flights’ from this weekend - giving passengers unique views of the capital during night hours. Transport for London said the cable car service will remain open for journeys across the River Thames until 10pm from Sunday to Thursday, and until 11pm on Saturday. Journey times will also be extended from 20 to 25 minutes from after 7pm, with music and video entertainment on offer during the journey. It comes after it was revealed the service was closed 354 times in its first two-and-a-half years of operation, mainly as a result of weather conditions. The evening opening of the service is a tacit admission of something that observers have been aware of since the cable car opened – it is not, as Boris Johnson originally stated, an integral part of the transport system for London, instead it is a tourist attraction, designed to get more footfall in the South East of London – which apart from Greenwich has historically not had the number of foreign visitors that other parts of the capital enjoy. As a commuter service, the cable car is slow, unreliable and expensive – the Jubilee line which runs under the river is a far more convenient and speedy (not to mention cheaper) alternative. Boris called it an infrastructure project to be able to claim part of the funds from central government; the fact that Oyster cards and conventional season tickets cannot be used on the service was the first key indicator that the cable car was not as integrated as Boris would have liked people to believe. The whole project must be haemorrhaging cash – there is absolutely no way the numbers of passengers on the cable car can even be servicing the interest on the debt – and word has it that Emirates are keenly aware of the deleterious effect their sponsorship of the “white elephant” is having on their corporate image. I would be not at all surprised to see them quietly back away from the whole project in the not too distant future. I regularly travel on the Docklands Light Railway past the cable car; the only time I see people using it are in the school holidays, when parents take their offspring for a jaunt across the river and back – apparently the small number of users mainly don’t stay on one or other side of the river, but return almost immediately to the side that they started from. This reinforces the assertion that the whole thing is a failed tourist attraction, rather than a serious way for Londoners to get around town. If the Emirates Airline Cable Car had been built next door to the London Eye, I have no doubt that it would have been  a massive attraction, and a great success – the problem is that it was built in the wrong place, going from nowhere to nowhere over an industrial park, a scrapyard and a few warehouses on the way.

Over Easter, ITV launched their new rebooted version of Gerry Anderson's classic 60's sci fi action television series "Thunderbirds". Contrary to much press coverage, the new show is aimed at a family audience, rather than just children on their own (there are several very subtle references that only total anoraks like myself would notice - the pilot episode features a rescue from an underwater scientific research station run by a Dr. Meddings - a reference to the original series special effects supervisor, Derek Meddings, who also worked on several James Bond and Superman films). Instead of using puppets, the new series uses CGI for the main characters and the ships, but the scenery such as Tracy Island is built as physical models. The animation and model effects were carried out by Weta - the New Zealand company responsible for the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films, so the quality is excellent. Below is the title sequence for the reimagined show - I think it will do well.

The Sandwich in exile - week two.

The photo above was taken by me last Sunday afternoon during the brief but very pleasant break in the current cold weather. It shows a couple of Dutch bulk freighters that regularly moor on Erith Pier - click on the photo for a larger view.

Following my Sunday morning sojourn to my Mum’s to publish last weeks’ blog update after losing my broadband connection - which turned out to be due to my wireless router. It was transmitting OK, but it had become completely deaf to the fibre optic connection linking it to the outside world. A BT engineer visit on Wednesday morning swiftly rectified this with a replacement router, though this lasted barely 24 hours before it too died; at the time of writing I am once again without an internet connection, and am for a second week running posting this from my Mum's computer. BT intend re - visiting on Monday afternoon. I will have to come home from work at lunch time, and just hope that the engineer turns up as booked.

When I returned to Erith last Sunday afternoon, the weather was unusually sunny and pleasant for the time of year, so I decided to go for an extended stroll around the town with my camera; it had been nearly a year since I last took any local photographs, and I was aware that there had been a number of changes that deserved documentation. Mindful of the story concerning the Aleff Group, and their plan to renovate and convert the former Cross Keys pub into a new corporate headquarters for their Anglo American management consultancy, I thought that I would walk along the Thames path on the section that cuts between the side of Erith Playhouse and the side and garden of the Cross Keys. I wanted to see how the renovation work to the building was progressing. I was quite disappointed to see very little evidence of any external improvement to the building. The previous owners had run the place into the ground over a period of many years, and the resulting neglect is most evident to the rear of the structure. The windows, though covered with anti vandal metal shutters, could clearly be seen to be in need of replacement, as the frames were rotten. The cold water overflow pipe looked like it had been dripping for possibly a couple of years, and there was a bright green streak of algae growing along the path of the dripping water . The former pub garden is very overgrown and in dire need of some serious attention. All in all a rather sad looking state. On Wednesday I contacted the Aleff Group, and got a very friendly Email from their Chief Executive; he informed me that renovation work on the Cross Keys is actually scheduled to begin in the next couple of weeks. The first phase will take approximately two months, and once this is completed, a skeleton staff will move into the building before phase two begins. When this is completed, the building will be renovated and modified to suit its’ new role as the HQ for the multinational organisation. Chief Executive,  Doctor Julian Hilton also wrote in his Email that he has been very pleased with the welcome he and his team have received from passers by when they have been visiting the Cross Keys site. The Maggot Sandwich will be getting a tour round the building once all of the renovation work has been completed; I hope to get photos as well. Anticipate an extended article on the Cross Keys and its’ new occupants sometime in late Spring / early Summer.

Prior to my Email conversation, the Aleff Group appeared to be a bit of a mystery; being charitable, their website certainly has a retro and homespun look. To be honest, until I did some research on them, I was half of the opinion that they were a dodgy front for some dubious fraudulent organisation. After a bit of online digging around, I came across the following: “The Aleff Group was founded in 1992 at the suggestion of the European Commission (DG XII and DG XIII) Its initial charter was to act as a mechanism for taking leading edge research and development in science and technology into the market. It has developed into a small group of operating companies dealing with consultancy, training and capacity building, project management and technology transfer. It also comprises a property company and an investment company. Each company operates on a standalone basis, but has a single ownership and management structure. The Group is privately held. It is headquartered in London, UK. It has US offices in Lakeland, Florida, and Atlanta Georgia, and an office in Ifrane, Morocco. In addition to its core staff of management, finance and IT professionals, Aleff Group retains an international team of specialists consultants. It also has long-term collaboration agreements with a small number of specialist organisations in both the public and private sectors." Well that explains that then.

The much awaited 99p shop opened on Monday this week - see the photo above, which was taken last Sunday, just as the owners made their last minute preparations for the opening the next morning; it is located in the old Pound Town unit on the corner of Bexley Road and Cross Street. Compared with Pound Town, the new shop is much better lit and not nearly as airless and stuffy. The amount and variety of stock seems a lot higher too. I had a nose around the place on Monday afternoon after travelling back from a business trip to Watford (here there be dragons!) I was impressed with what the new tenants have done with the space; I hope that they make a success of the venture. One of my local contacts told me that the previous Pound Town shop moved out not because  the business was not profitable – quite the opposite, apparently they were doing very nicely indeed. The reason for the move to their new location in the old Peacock’s shop in Crayford was that the landlord who owns the Erith shop would not extend their lease – something that seems rather strange; although I don’t know if there were any extenuating circumstances. As far as Erith’s value conscious shoppers are concerned, at least another shop offering even better low cost goods has now taken the same site, so for them, it is pretty much service as usual.

Here is a bit of fun. Maggot Sandwich reader the Rev created this spoof publicity poster - all rather "Bleak Expectations" I think!

Another couple of technology anniversaries this week; the first will surprise many. The Light Emitting Diode(LED) is fifty years old this week. I think most people think that they only appeared in the mid 1970’s, famously in early digital watches and calculators. In fact they were created in 1961, and came to market (in the USA at least) early in 1963. Several companies were working on developing the technology in parallel – GEC, Texas Instruments, and IBM all did work in the field, and the final patent was registered to GEC. Early LED’s were quite dim, and only available in red. They proved very popular, as they (and are) far more efficient that incandescent bulbs – they have an efficiency rating in excess of 90% and have a life expectancy of 100,000 hours. Other colours such as yellow and blue became available in the mid 1980’s, although they were still relatively dim, and were not commercially viable to produce until the 1990’s. The ultra bright LED’s that are nowadays starting to replace conventional domestic light bulbs were something developed by Hewlett Packard, although once again these turned out to be prohibitively expensive to manufacture in quantity. It is really only in the last ten or so years that multi coloured, extra bright and sufficiently cheap LED lights have become available, and they are rapidly beginning to dominate the market. Industry sources say that it will be less than a year that all car headlights and indicators will be exclusively LED. They are also getting progressively brighter – the latest types can generate 250 Lumens per Watt of electricity – an astonishing figure. This almost certainly the death knell for the universally hated fluorescent “energy saving” bulb. The slow to start up, not as long lasting as claimed and poor light quality mini fluorescent bulb is dodo technology. It is not nearly so efficient as LED, it contains harmful chemicals such as Mercury, and has a relatively short service life compared to LED. I have LED lights in my kitchen – both in the ceiling as down lighters, and above the work surface as multi coloured concealed mood lighting. The are brilliant – on instantly, silent, cool, energy efficient and good looking. They are still slightly more pricey than fluorescent lights, but the hugely longer service life more than compensates – you would get through thirty or forty (or possibly even more) fluorescent bulbs for the life of a single LED, not only that, but the far higher efficiency would have saved a packet on your electricity bill at the same time. Personally, I tend to leave the kitchen multi coloured mood lighting on at night – if I come down for a drink in the early hours, it saves blinding myself switching on the main lights, whilst being bright enough to see. The power consumption of the mood lighting is roughly equivalent to the output of a nine volt dry cell battery, so it is a very cost effective option. 

I was queuing to pay for some shopping in Morrison’s midweek, when a lady with a toddler approached me. “Are you Arthur Pewty”? She asked. I confirmed that sometimes I was. She then told me that her husband (who was sitting in the cafeteria with their other toddler) was a regular reader and great fan of the Maggot Sandwich, and once I had completed my shopping, would I go and have a word with him? Flattered, I agreed and shortly popped over for a very pleasant natter with Tom, who is an Erith local who has been following my inane ramblings for a good couple of years. Getting recognised in public is a bit of a novelty; it does happen on the odd occasion – mainly at public events like the Alexander Selkirk day, where I got collared by a handful of people. The experience, which I have found to be productive and congenial does make me wonder why a small but significant number of people seek fame at almost any cost. The rise of reality TV (which itself is a misnomer; it is about as divorced from reality as you can get) has left some people under the impression that appearing on television and in public is the peak of possible achievement. Of course, television does not seek to kill the golden goose by dispelling this myth. Personally – with the occasional exception as described above, I am more than happy to retain as much anonymity as possible. Not being on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter or other social networking sites does enable me to have rather more control of my online profile than can be said of most people. You won’t find any embarrassing photos of me, or really get any clear picture of my interests and habits apart from that published via the Maggot Sandwich – though I would say that when I have done searches on a number of locally related subjects,  photos I took sometimes years ago for the blog do turn up. I have also noticed that if you Google “Arthur Pewty”, this blog now comes up at the top of the list, above Monty Python, where the name originates. The power of persistence.

During the few days I was without broadband, I spent more time listening to my JRC NRD 345 communications receiver. I have had the excellent since I bought it new in 1997 and it has given me countless hours of listening pleasure. Recently it has been rather neglected, as reception conditions on many shortwave bands have been unusually poor. I did stumble across a radio station I had not previously encountered at the weekend. Anglo Dutch station KBC Radio – who broadcast on 6.095 MHz on shortwave, using a hired broadcast transmitter located in Holland are an oldies station featuring archived programmes from broadcasting legends Wolfman Jack and Emperor Rosko amongst others. Rather than the usual shortwave music pirates, KBC Radio are legitimate, and are sponsored by the Dutch equivalent of Maplin. If you have a shortwave radio, try tuning to them during daylight hours at the weekend; they are definitely worth a listen. I have added them to my regular favourites, though in my opinion, the best music station on shortwave is still the excellent Laser Hot Hits on 4.026 MHz, 24 hours a day. As previously mentioned, they are rather suffering from poor propagation conditions for much of the time at present.  Check out their website here, as you can stream them online in high quality stereo if you are not a masochist like me who likes to listen via “real” analogue means via old fashioned AM radio.

Nowadays people are so used to using the web to assist with their personal and business requirements that it seems long ago that services such as Gmail and Google Docs were not around. Back in the 1980’s when most computers were stand alone units, and even with a modem you would be hard pressed to communicate with anything other than a simple bulletin board.  Big businesses had embraced computing almost from the get – go; most famously in the UK by the Lyons tea shop chain using LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) – the world’s first range of business computers. On the other end of the market, very few small and medium sized companies thought that they would either be able to afford, or indeed would ever need a computer, let alone lots of them. In 1979, the very first “killer app” was created. A “killer app” is defined as a piece of software which is so compelling and revolutionary that people will buy a particular computer than runs the application, just so that they can use it. An example of this was “Elite” for the BBC Micro – as many copies of “Elite” were sold as there were BBC Micros sold, and that was even before the game was ported onto other 80’s home computers. But I digress; the first “killer app” for small and medium businesses was also the first micro computer spreadsheet program, called “Visicalc”. You can read all about Visicalc by the people who developed it here. Visicalc was a pioneering piece of software, but it was pretty limited in its’ capabilities, and was soon overtaken by other business packages which had more power and flexibility. The most significant of these was a package called Lotus 123, which is possibly the single most influential piece of business software ever created – even web based office applications such as Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s Google Docs use much of the model first established by it. Lotus 123 was so called because it integrated a (for the time) powerful and flexible spreadsheet with a database and a graphics program. Back in 1983, it sold for £495 ( a huge amount of money, and more than some of the computers it ran on) Lotus 123 packed more commands and options than the competition - it automated tedious charting, detailed spreadsheet manipulation and allowed you to calculate formulae using rows and columns instead of just row and column order. Unlike the rival applications on the market, Lotus 123 wasn’t hard to understand or difficult to use. There were jargon-free prompts, explanatory messages, and fail-safe mechanisms in case of mistakes. Lotus 123 was the first program to make full use of the IBM keyboard enabling commands via the F and slash keys. Lotus 123 packed a tutorial package and context-sensitive help – You can read more about it in a contemporary review here. Lotus 123 is thirty years old this week; it scarcely seems like it. I once used the software to track and record structural steelwork building progress,  when I was a trainee quantity surveyor for Cyril Sweett and Partners, now known as Sweett Group, just before I decided that construction was not actually for me, and I ran away to sea to join Radio Caroline. That, as they say is another story.

I see that the London Borough of Bexley is due to get its’ fifth senior Police officer in four years. The current incumbent, Chief Superintendent Victor Olisa is moving on to a new position as the chief of Haringey Police, after less than a year in his current role in Bexley. According to the interview that he gave the News Shopper, the decision to move was not his, but was imposed by senior management. This can be interpreted in a number of different ways. Either they are moving him away from Bexley, or they are moving him to Haringey. If they are moving him away from Bexley, what is the reason? If they are moving him to Haringey, then is this because of the ongoing Mark Duggan enquiry. What special qualities can Victor Olisa bring to that distasteful situation? I don’t know. One thing that has been suggested by one of my informers is that the Police forces in Bexley and Bromley are going to be combined under a single unified command. This seems to have been reinforced as an announcement has now been made that Victor Olisa's replacement is to be Superintendent Peter Ayling - the plans to integrate Bromley and Bexley would appear to be reinforced,  as Ayling is only a Superintendent, not a Chief Superintendent like his predecessor. This would indicate that he will effectively become second in command to a Chief Superintendent in Bromley. Time will tell. This would make a substantial cost saving, not only with the loss of a senior officer’s salary, but possibly by the closure of a Police station. Does this potentially mean the end of Bexleyheath nick? I don’t know, but I suspect that it remains a possibility. The loss of the only remaining police station in the borough would be a politically risky move, and something to be resisted if it ever came to pass. The trouble currently is that there is so much that we don’t know, or has yet to be decided.

Did you know that a giant, 50 metre wide stone asteroid will pass astonishingly close to the Earth on the 15th of February? The asteroid, fetchingly named 2012DA14 will be the biggest object passing the closest to the planet since records began in the early 1990’s. The asteroid will pass inside the orbit of many satellites, and is predicted to miss the Earth by approximately 3.5 times the radius of the planet – a hair width in astronomical terms. If it did hit the Earth, it would make a hell of a bang equivalent to around a two megaton nuclear device, but would not be big enough to wipe out all life on the planet. NASA have said that “the impact of a 50 metre asteroid is not cataclysmic, unless you happen to be underneath it” – not exactly the most reassuring news, I have to say. All of this activity coincides with the launch of a privately financed project to mine the asteroid belt for minerals and rare earth metals. Film maker James Cameron, along with Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt bankrolled a company called Planetary Resources. It plans to send small and cheap robotic probes to nearby asteroids to survey them prior to possibly mining them for raw materials. The (theoretical) beauty of asteroid mining is that the valuable minerals and metals tend to be distributed in a fairly even way throughout the body of the asteroid, unlike on Earth where they tend to be hidden away, very deep underground. How the cost of launching and maintaining a fleet of robot mining spacecraft would be offset by the sale of the mined material is not yet clear. It is apparent that a huge investment with the possibility of little or no return is possible. Still the chaps at Google have exceedingly deep pockets.

The ending video this week is a warming and wholesome winter vegetable pie from bonkers web based cookery teacher Titli Nihaan. I think that it is high time a television production company gave her a TV show - I am sure that she would be a great success on the small screen. Do leave a comment below.