The Auto Stacker and the Russian Tank.

The photo above shows a couple of the abstract sculptures mounted on the pavement opposite the hideous fish sculpture - which I suspect nobody notices, as they are too busy wincing at the eye watering fish. They are there anyway, for whatever purpose they were installed.

It most definitely is the silly season in the local press. Many column inches were dedicated by the News Shopper to a story concerning a post box close to Belvedere railway station which some joker partly painted gold, in a parody of the campaign the Post Office had to officially paint gold a post box in every town that housed a British Olympic gold medal winner. The guy was caught red handed by local police in the early hours of the morning, complete with a paint brush and a can of gold Hammerite. As has been so often the case in the last couple of years, the comments made on the talk back for the story have been telling; the level of bad grace and bile exhibited by many of the commentators has become the norm for the News Shopper. They don’t seem to police or moderate comments left by readers, even though in a significant number of cases, the content has been offensive. I think it will be sooner, rather than later before something serious comes of it.

I don’t really watch much in the way of television drama; I seem to spend most of my time watching stuff such as the National Geographic, Military History and the Discovery Channels. I have never watched serial dramas such as soap operas – not through any degree of snobbism, they just don’t appeal to me. I understand that both Coronation Street and EastEnders have huge followings, though I would be personally hard pressed to tell you much about either show. It is interesting to see that EastEnders has a substantial local link in the person of actor Tony Discipline, who plays a character called Tyler Moon in the soap. He was accused of beating up a man in a West End nightclub, and the case went to court last week. The trial lasted less than a day, when the judge determined that the accuser was lying through his teeth, and that there was no case to answer. Tony Discipline was acquitted on all charges. I was surprised to discover that he actually lives in one of the town houses in Rutland Gate, just off Erith Road in Upper Belvedere. Not the kind of glamorous address one would assume a soap actor would choose as a base, but then, acting is really just another job.

Next week’s Maggot Sandwich update will be a bit of a landmark, for it will be the 400th entry since I started the Blog in July 2006. It has come a long way from then, though I am conscious that it really needs an overhaul to the look and feel, as the design is becoming very stale. I have, as previously mentioned, been putting this off for a very long time, primarily as it will involve a lot more work than a bog standard re – skin. The design that I have been using for many years has a bug in it, which means that embedded photos do not display correctly, they appear to be justified to the right, rather than centred. I have had to manually edit the HTML code for each picture for as long as I can recall. When I change to a new template, my manual code hacking will mean that all images are skewed to the left in the new, un-buggy template. It will be a huge amount of work to correct this, but this is a nettle that I will have to grasp.

A few weeks ago I featured a story about the food hygiene scoring system recently introduced by Bexley Council. It is designed to give customers an idea of the attention to hygiene and cleanliness in the borough’s restaurants, shops and other food outlets. The rating goes from five stars (outstanding cleanliness) to zero (violent squits virtually guaranteed every visit) A score of 0 or 1 means that the food outlet is under council supervision, and may be forcibly closed if their approach to food hygiene is not markedly improved. Apart from the large chain restaurants like KFC and McDonald’s, no independent place in Erith scored higher than two stars out of five. The plan was for food outlets to display their star rating on a certificate in their windows, to give potential customers an idea of the kind of hygiene experience they will get. Over the last week or so, I have been walking around Erith, looking in the windows of places like Panda Garden, Town Kebab, Starburger, the West Street Cafe and others. Unsurprisingly not one of them has their certificate on display, as it is not a legal requirement at the moment. No doubt they are ashamed of their poor scores and hope that local people don’t become aware of the situation –  I am keen to promote awareness of the scheme for this very reason. Local people should not be subjected to a lottery regarding their health every time they eat out, or order a takeaway.

Once again the poor rail commuter is being hammered with above inflation fare rises; the crux of the problem is that for many in the local area, if you work in London, there is no choice of options to get to work; you are pretty much consigned to using the overland train. We have no underground infrastructure, the DLR only goes as far as Woolwich Arsenal, and the forthcoming Crossrail service will terminate at Abbey Wood – when it eventually opens, which will still not be for a number of years. Unless you have a company car or van, and are prepared to pay the crippling congestion charge, you are stuck with the train. People cannot “vote with their feet” – as there is no viable alternative – and before some wag suggests using a bicycle, it is 1) too far to cycle in a reasonable amount of time, and 2) too dangerous, as the recent roll call of dead cyclists can attest. It would seem that Southeastern Trains have got us over a barrel, and are milking the area for as much cash as they think they can get away with. I don’t see any way to effectively vent our displeasure with them – a boycott is impractical, and although I understand a number of demonstrations have already taken place, I doubt that they will really do very much, other than get a bit of much needed publicity to the pernicious issue. On top of this, there is still a strong possibility that staff at a number of stations in the local area, including Erith Station, will lose their jobs, or be redeployed in a non customer facing role. As our MP, Teresa Pearce proved some time ago, unmanned stations suffer a higher rate of crime and anti social behaviour than those that have staff. Personally Erith Station has been understaffed for years – many are the occasions when I have had to renew my monthly travel card by getting off the train at Woolwich Arsenal or Abbey Wood, where the counters are manned for pretty much all of the time. Bearing in mind a monthly ticket from Erith to London and all travel zones now costs £205.00 -  you would expect Southeastern to be keen to collect this sort of money, instead of making it as difficult as possible to do. The automated ticket machines are a joke – they don’t sell all the types of ticket available, they don’t cater for extensions and they are unreliable as hell. There have been several occasions when I have visited Dartford by train; the ticket office at Erith has been closed, and the machine does not enable me to purchase a ticket from Slade Green (the end of travel zone six) to Dartford – so technically I am over riding on my ticket, though it has to be said, in the cases when I have been forced into this situation, the ticket inspectors at Dartford have been helpful and understanding. I would take a guess that they see this kind of thing all of the time, and are powerless to do anything much about it.

I see that some of the traders in Woolwich town centre are using some pretty subtle and clever psychology to try and prevent any future instance of rioting from damaging their shops. They have hired an art collective to paint pictures of happy looking toddlers on the metal shuttering covering the shop windows. The idea being that when the prospective rioters see the photo realistic images of children, they will hesitate before trashing the place. This might sound like quite wonky thinking, but as studies in the USA have show, even having a cardboard cut out of a police officer in a shop will cut the level of shop lifting by around 25%, probably as a result of subconscious suggestion. I think the main effort of riot prevention should remain as robust and proactive policing. If you have to rely on some pretty pictures, then things have already gone way too far. I found out something interesting and a little bit bizarre about Woolwich when carrying out some research on the area; it was the home to a fascinating, if ultimately doomed engineering venture. The Auto Stacker in Woolwich was meant to be an engineering and automotive first, when it was constructed in 1960 / 61. It was meant to be the first entirely automated, mechanical stacking car park in the United Kingdom. The idea was that the entire facility could be operated by a single person in a control booth near the entrance. At the touch of a button, a car would be magically carried away to its’ parking bay with no intervention by the driver. The Auto Stacker was designed to hold 256 cars; it was anticipated that it would solve the car parking problems in Woolwich town centre for years to come. The whole construction project ended up costing somewhat in excess of £100,000 – a lot of money in the early 1960’s. The ground floor of the building housed a car sales showroom and a garage workshop, with a petrol station forecourt to the front. The idea was that the driver wishing to park his car in the Auto Stacker would drive onto a conveyor belt in front of one of four vehicle lifts, then leave it. The car would then be automatically moved into a stacked storage bay on one of the floors above – all remotely controlled by an operator in a small booth on the ground floor. When the driver returned, and wanted his car back, he would pay a fee, and then be presented with a Yale type key, which would be inserted into a console, returning the car from whence it came. The Auto Stacker was ceremonially opened by Princess Margaret on the 11th May 1961 – she was to have “stacked” a van specially donated by Dagenham Motors for the purpose. The operation was a failure – a couple of assistants ended up having to manually push the van into the parking space. This was merely an omen of what was to come. The Auto Stacker never worked properly, and a year later, after much unsuccessful remedial engineering work, the then newly formed London Borough of Greenwich pulled the plug on the project, and the whole structure was demolished at an additional expense of £60,000. The whole affair was a great embarrassment to all concerned, and effectively ended the development of mechanically automated car parks in the United Kingdom for decades.

I don’t know if any local residents can recall that in the early to mid 90’s the scrap yard in Manor Road, Erith used to have a rather unusual mascot parked out at the front. It was a Ex Iraqi Republican Guard T-55 main battle tank. I did a bit of digging a few years back, and I managed to find out a bit about it. The company (now European Metal Recycling) were contracted by the Ministry of Defence to import, break and recycle tanks and other military equipment after the defeat of Saddam’s army in the first Gulf War. The company experimentally brought three or four (the precise number is uncertain, but it was very low) T-55 Russian produced main battle tanks over to explore the logistics of breaking them for their component metals. The story goes that all but one of them were cut up, but the process took far longer and was far more expensive than had been anticipated. For this reason the remaining T-55 – the one in almost mint condition (though minus ammunition and without firing mechanisms for the guns) was retained as a mascot for the company. I can recall that before I lived in Erith, I would occasionally see the T-55 when I drove past the yard. The thing became a bit of a minor local landmark for quite a few years. On one occasion it needed to be moved around the yard; one of the staff was an ex tank driver in the British Army – he was tasked with the job. What he did not know was that the controls for Warsaw Pact tanks were an exact mirror of those from NATO countries. He ended up driving the tank clean through the brick wall surrounding the yard, and across the road – it only stopped a couple of feet short of the industrial units on the corner of Frobisher Road. You used to be able to see the patch of fresh bricks which were used to repair the tank shaped hole, though nowadays these have faded and it is now invisible. The tank was none the worse for the accident, and later was used in several music videos, and also was the central vehicle in the movie “Tank Girl”. It has not been seen for several years now, and I have no idea what its’ eventual fate was. I wonder if anyone has a clue? Leave a comment below.

Pewty Acres uses BT Infinity 2 fibre optic broadband to connect to the internet; I have just had an upgrade to the service, and I am now getting a reliable 73Mb/second download speed, and a 19Mb/second upload speed. I can recall when, back in 2001 I was the first person to have broadband enabled, not only in my road, but the first on the Slade Green telephone exchange. The BT engineer spent all day physically connecting my house, and had to make two visits to the exchange before my connection was fully set up with what was then an astonishing 512 Kb / second download capacity. This was well over ten times what I was used to with my old U.S Robotics V52 modem, and at the time I was more than happy with it. Times have changed though; my smart TV hooks up to my wireless and plays streaming HD video content quite happily - something not even considered back in the day.

The video this week shows the arrival of the Olympic Torch at Erith Yacht Club a few weeks back; to be honest, it could do with some fairly aggressive editing, as it is far too long, but if you fast forward through it, you will get a good idea of what the event was like. After arriving from across the River Thames by RNLI lifeboat, the torch was then borne along Manor Road, and though Erith Town Centre, before making its' way to Hall Place in Bexley.

The torch.

Oh the irony; after much internal debate about the morality of photographing the Olympic torch as it was carried past Pewty Acres, I decided that it was my duty to record the moment as part of Erith's history. I took around a hundred shots with my Nikon D300 DSLR prior to the torch bearer actually appearing; as he ran into view, my very expensive professional camera threw a mighty strop, and crashed. I rebooted it, and it carried on throwing a wobbly; by the time I had switched to a backup battery the runner was long gone. The camera is still sitting in the corner of my home office, sulking. The photo above was taken by Ian with his iPhone - and bearing in mind the limited capabilities of phone camera optics, it has not come out badly at all. Still, the camera has done me proud this weekend - I took several hundred photos yesterday whilst attending the nuptials of colleague and friend Martha - she and her other half got spliced in Putney, and the reception was held at the London Rowing Club on the banks of the Thames at the aforementioned Putney. You can see my photos of the event by clicking here.

On Monday evening I was making my way home from Erith station after having spent the day in Canary Wharf; I was cutting through Morrison’s car park as is my normal habit when I saw a disturbance; as I approached the part of the car park that is bounded by James Watt Way, I could see a black and white piebald pony running freely amongst the parked cars. A couple of Morrison’s staff were trying to capture it, with little success. I suggested to one of the departmental managers who had come out to find out what the fuss was about that he should telephone the RSPCA hot line, to see if a duty inspector could attend and take control of the situation. At this point I left; I have no animal husbandry skills and hardly know one end of a horse from the other (apart from the fact that one end bites and the other end poos) so I would not have been able to contribute much to capturing the beast. The last time I saw of the pony and its’ retinue of pursuers, it was heading along Wheatley Terrace Road, past Abbey Car Breakers – the road is a dead end, so I reckon there was a fair chance the Morrison’s staff would be able to corner the beast. The small piece of waste land behind the recycling centre that lies next to the banks of the Thames

The National Radio Centre was opened by Ed Vaizey, the Minister for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industry last week. The centre  The centre has been set up by the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB – of which I am a member) and is being run by a small group of dedicated volunteers. The aim of the National Radio Centre is to inform visitors of the role of radio in everyday life, to promote the aims of the RSGB, and to give visitors a chance to learn something about amateur radio, including allowing them to transmit on an amateur radio under the supervision of a qualified operator. Amateur radio is pretty much a niche hobby nowadays – there is much talk amongst its’ proponents about the ageing demographic. Amateur Radio is a very broad church, encompassing many areas of electronic and physical research, along with the opportunity to interact with similarly minded individuals from all around the world.

Some years ago, the Amateur Radio licensing system was revised and simplified, and a great effort was made to encourage youth groups such as the Scouts and Guides to adopt the (then) new Foundation licence syllabus for their communications badge. This has met with a fair degree of success. To elaborate; the revised amateur radio licensing structure has three levels, each of which gives increasing levels of privileges to those who successfully pass each exam. The Foundation level is designed to give students a basic grounding in radio and electrical theory and practice. Most of the training is “hands on” and practical, with just enough theory for a successful candidate to understand how fuses work, and how to calculate the correct size of an antenna for a specific radio frequency. The exam is a simple multiple choice paper which lasts for 45 minutes. Once this exam has been passed, the newly qualified candidate will be able to apply for a UK amateur radio call sign, and can then go on air on certain specific frequencies on a low power of not more than ten watts. The next, Intermediate level of licence is where things start getting somewhat tougher; there is more theory based learning to the course, and participants are also expected to learn practical skills such as soldering. Successful completion of the Intermediate exam allows the amateur to transmit on an increased power of fifty watts. The ultimate level of amateur radio qualification is the Advanced licence; this is pretty tough, and requires a lot of personal study, as well as the recommendation of attending a recognised training course. Unlike the two lower levels of qualification, there is no practical element to the Advanced licence course – it is purely academic, though in addition to electronic and radio theory,  there is a significant element of law, specifically in relation to planning permission for antennas, resolution of radio interference disputes and the use of radio in vehicles. The advanced exam is roughly equivalent to a City and Guilds level 2 qualification. If this all sounds a bit like Scientology, with their arcane and ever more expensive courses, nothing could be further from the truth - for a start amateur radio is based on sound, proven science and engineering fact. With some self discipline and a fair amount of study, one can pass all three exams within a period of not much more than a year; the cost, including course materials will not exceed £200. Some amateurs decide that the extra privileges that the higher licence levels grant are not for them, and stick with a Foundation or Intermediate licence. One thing no amateur needs to study these days is Morse Code. The requirement for this was dropped some years ago, though many operators still learn it voluntarily, as it is a very efficient method of communication, especially if power levels are limited, or reception conditions are poor. Personally I have an Advanced class licence, though I have to say I don’t go on air very often nowadays. Many think that the use of old fashioned radio is outmoded in the age of widespread Internet access and the ubiquity of the mobile telephone. Nothing could be further from the truth. During national emergencies where communications infrastructure such as phone cables, mobile masts and other hardware is damaged or otherwise unavailable, the only reliable method of communication is by radio, as it requires absolutely no infrastructure to work. To this end, the amateur radio community has a well regarded and very professional group of volunteers known as RAYNET – which is an additional emergency service with the same status as the RNLI. RAYNET set up and operate emergency communication systems in areas where conventional mobile phone coverage is negligible, or where other forms of communication are down due to adverse weather conditions (flooding / high wind damage etc.) They work in conjunction with Police, Fire Brigade and the Ambulance Service, and regularly practice in joint exercises. You may see them at large public events such as county shows and other meetings that involve large numbers of the general public. They are easily identifiable by their high visibility tabards with RAYNET labelled on the back.

The photo below shows muggins, taken yesterday at Martha and Tracy's reception. I am standing on the balcony of the London Rowing Club, talking to a couple of other guests, whilst admiring the view of the River Thames at Putney. Very civilised.

Following my announcement of the Maggot Sandwich having reached 100,000 unique page views last week, I have had a very nice comment posted by a mister Darren Magin, of Brisbane, Australia. He congratulated me, and said that he used to live in Northumberland Heath, before migrating to Brisbane some years ago. Quite why he would want to read about the comings and goings in rain soaked South East London / North Kent rather evades me – especially since he’s now ensconced in one of the more salubrious and picturesque corners of Australia. For all its’ charms, I would personally not want to live there though; it’s too hot (anything over 22 degrees Celsius and I am good for nothing), but more importantly I would not wish to live in a place that seems to have more naturally occurring things that could kill you than anywhere else that I can think of. Darren is a fellow real ale fan; you can read more about him and his quest for the perfect pint on his blog here.

The Pub Spy in the News Shopper dropped a bit of a bomb during this weeks’ pub review. They stated “But you can also choose from several different bottled ciders, lagers and ales, like Badger Tanglefoot. I hate ale but I might just try it for the name one day.  You can also get feathered up with an Old Speckled Hen.  But which is better, Badger or Hen?  There’s only one way to find out... “ This shocked me – surely the very most desirable attribute in a pub reviewer is a affinity for, and knowledge of real ale? How can you review a pub if you are ignorant of its’ most fundamental offering? It would be like Jeremy Clarkson only being able to ride a push bike. No point at all. I know I have been accused of being Pub Spy in the past; and to be honest I would gladly offer my services to the News Shopper had I more free time. Am I a beer snob? Er, yes, I suppose I am. I have never liked over chilled, tasteless gassy lager. Quality real ale is to my mind a far superior product, and also the very first manufactured product in history - it predates the creation of bread by Bronze Age man by several centuries.

Talking of pubs and beer; since Ian and I were in Putney for the wedding reception, we decided to make some good use of our time, as we arrived in the town over an hour early for the event; we sojourned across Putney Bridge and soon found ourselves ensconced in The Bricklayers Arms (see the photo above - click for a larger view) - a very famous pub that is one of the very small handful that can rival the Robin Hood and Little John in the range and quality of its' real ale. It is a gem of a find, and I can highly recommend it.

The London Evening Standard reported this week that the London Borough of Bexley is the best London borough to live in if you are retired. Quite how they came to this conclusion I do not know; it is very unusual for Bexley to come to the top of any satisfaction list – as far as I can tell it normally bubbles along fairly close to the bottom in most respects. I imagine the announcement is probably linked to some estate agency and a publicity drive or advertising campaign.

The photo above shows the wrecked and vandalised interior of the old Erith Swimming Baths shortly before they were demolished a couple of years ago; the site is still empty and unused - the row over what the baths should be replaced with is still ongoing.  The picture of the abandoned baths does rather remind me of the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. 

On Tuesday afternoon I reached London Bridge underground station on my way back home after attending work meetings in Watford. I try to avoid travelling to Watford wherever possible, as the train journey and interchanges take an average of two and a half hours on a good day – and substantially more if anything should go wrong. I detest travel at the best of times. I think that now we have high speed web access and reliable voice and data interchange, the need to physically attend a particular location in order to undertake office type jobs should be greatly reduced – obviously a fire fighter or chef would be hard pressed to work from home, but many jobs do lend themselves to working remotely. I digress; As I got off the tube train, a tube in the other direction was disgorging its’ passengers at the same time. I was met by a striking and rather surreal sight – a group of thirty or so gay guys all dressed in fancy dress – but also they were all wearing wellies! When I saw a couple both dressed in replicas of the infamous Jean Paul Gaultier pointy boobed dress, I twigged – they were all off to see the Madonna concert at Hyde Park! There was less press coverage of the Madonna gig than the very controversial Bruce Springsteen one a few days earlier, and most reports say the Madonna gig amplification was so quiet that many struggled to hear anything at all. Personally I think it very unlikely that any future licences will be grated for Hyde Park – not only do the exceedingly well heeled (and connected) local residents not want concerts in the park, the audiences are slowly realising that the park is an absolutely terrible music venue. The shape of the open space has terrible acoustics, sucking up sound, and because the grassed area is so flat, rainwater does not run off, and the grass rapidly turns to thick mud. The bark chippings used by the concert promoters apparently smelled so bad a few people were actually ill. I think its' days are numbered - maybe the Stratford arena will host some gigs once the fiasco Olympic Games are over. 

Minister for Justice, and Sidcup MP James Brokenshire is (understandably) getting very hot under the collar about scrap metal thefts; it is very good to see cross party support on this ongoing and serious matter from our own MP, Teresa Pearce. The whole area has been blighted by repeated cable thefts; some parts of Lower Belvedere have been without phone and broadband for up to four days at a time. This has also had the knock on effect of stopping emergency call systems used by elderly and infirm people from working – a potentially fatal issue. The thieves cause this horrendous disruption for metals with only pocket money value – and in some cases the numpties cut through fibre optic cables, not realising they have no resale value at all – this deprives local resident of vital broadband coverage, often for days at a time. Both Brokenshire (Conservative) and Pearce (Labour) are united in supporting a Scrap Metal Dealer’s Bill. This bill, if enacted in Parliament, will make the anonymous sale of scrap for cash a criminal offence. People wishing to sell scrap metal will need to be registered with a dealer, and any financial transactions will have to be by fully documented bank transfer – this will also have the secondary effect of making tax evasion much more difficult for what has historically been a part of the black economy.

The video clip this week is in memoriam of one of the most talented keyboard players in contemporary music - the inimitable Jon Lord, who sadly died this week. The clip shows him playing with Deep Purple, and readily showcases his classically trained technique. Watch and feel free to leave a comment below.

Green light for Bexley College.

I have been told of a serious and very nasty incident on Erith Pier (photo above - click for a larger view) on Tuesday afternoon. A man got out of a van, carrying a box, he walked up the path leading to the pier; a few local fishermen saw him, but initially paid him little attention – after all, lots of people walk on the pier – it is very popular, especially on a warm and sunny day. The man took the box and suddenly dropped it over the side and into the water – I am told that he then made a rapid exit. Several anglers then noticed a faint mewing sound coming out of the box, and some clear thinking person used their mobile phone to ring the RSPCA emergency line. An inspector was very quickly on site, and after some trouble managed to retrieve the box. It contained a number of very small (possibly new born) kittens, all but one of which had drowned.  An adult female cat was also found, clinging to the underside of the structure of the pier - it was rescued by the RNLI, who were called by the RSPCA to assist. The cat was heavily pregnant, and thus not thought to be the mother of the dead litter. This story intensely annoys me on a number of levels; firstly it is a criminal offence to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal – and has been proven on a number of occasions in the past, people who are cruel to animals are quite often cruel to people too. The lack of personal empathy (psycopathy) is a common thread. Secondly there is absolutely no reason to drown unwanted kittens – there are numerous organisations who will take them in and find them suitable, loving homes – the RSPCA, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, and Cats Protection  are but three of many. The scrote who carried out this reprehensible action may well meet his Waterloo. He would have had to have parked his vehicle in the car park outside of Morrison’s  - and they have CCTV all over the place. The Police are fully aware of the incident, and hopefully they will be able to trace the perpetrator and arrest him. The incident has now been picked up and reported on by the News Shopper - you can read their report by clicking here. 

Erith Riverside Shopping Centre is planning to hold a community activity day on the 4th August; the plan is to invite local organisations and volunteer groups to have displays and stalls with information about themselves, in order to promote what they do locally, and possibly recruit new members. They are keen for clubs and societies to take part, the News Shopper are reporting that Barry Owen, the general manager said “Erith Riverside Shopping Centre is the ideal venue for community interaction with over 2.5million visitors each year. "It is perfect for engaging the local community and provides a great opportunity to generate awareness for groups in the area. "It is sure to be an entertaining and interesting day and I am thoroughly looking forward to seeing what Erith has to offer. "With the summer holidays coming up, it is an unmissable opportunity to gain interest for your groups and maybe even get a few more people to sign up on the day!"  What is interesting about this is that 2.5 million annual visits is a bit misleading. A lot (I would say most) of the visits are people returning on a regular basis; many local people visit the centre on an almost daily basis; Personally I often use it as a convenient cut through when heading through the town centre – I certainly don’t always stop to go into a shop. I wonder how the figures were calculated? I would imagine it was someone in a high visibility tabard with a little counter over a day, and then they multiplied the results by 364, or something similar.

Thanks to the couple of readers who sent me valuable information about Erith Oil Works, after the question I asked in last weeks’ update. It turns out that the works is fully up and running, producing several types of high quality rapeseed, palm, and coconut oil, and is in fact the largest producer of edible cooking oils in the UK. The factory is owned by an American conglomerate called Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). It amazes me that such a big factory can seem to exist almost completely off the town’s radar, and yet employ a sizable number of local residents. Still, it does not pong like some similar factories I have encountered in the past. You can read more about ADM and what they do by clicking here.

In general, I am the kind of person who dislikes “getting into” a TV show or series if I have missed the first episode. I like to watch a series in chronological order. I have made an exception to one programme though – I have only recently succumbed to the geeky charms of The Big Bang Theory.  I know it has been shown on Channel 4 for what would appear to be ages, but it never really showed up on my radar for some reason; strange, as I used to like The IT Crowd, which follows pretty much the same premise (a group of socially awkward geeks getting by in the world). But whereas The IT Crowd was pretty much written for a general audience, the script content of The Big Bang Theory does not make any allowances for ignorance. If you are not pretty much up to speed with science (and physics in particular), sci fi series like Star Trek and Doctor Who, comic book characters and cult TV in general, you will probably have a hard time with the show. My conclusion is that the writers are genuine geeks, and are writing for an audience of geeks – something that you would expect would be commercial suicide. Instead of dumbing the dialogue down, they have deliberately made it at least partially inaccessible to those without a certain affinity with technology and cult media. The series is actually a huge world wide hit; I guess that the producers have not underestimated their audience, and they are now reaping the rewards.

Some news has leaked out in a fairly low key manner – which, considering its’ potential impact to a lot of computer users, is somewhat surprising. Google is going to phase out its’ iGoogle home page service. If you are not aware of this service, it enables the user to create a customised web home page with drag and drop elements so that you can have your web mail inbox, weather and news feed and other functionality all in one place. I know a lot of people use this – it aggregates a lot of tools and services onto a convenient home page screen. Google have sadly now announced that they will be phasing out iGoogle over the next year or so, something I know my own mother will be unhappy about, as she loves it. The announcement from Google reads:” On November 1, 2013, iGoogle will be retired. We originally launched iGoogle in 2005 before anyone could fully imagine the ways that today's web and mobile apps would put personalized, real-time information at your fingertips. With modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time, so we’ll be winding it down. Users will have 16 months to adjust or export their data”. I think the real reason for this action is most likely politically motivated; the European Competition Commissioner is currently investigating Google for anti competitive / biased behaviour. The Commissioner alleges that “ Google favours its own services in its search results; how it displays content from other websites; how it manages ads appearing next to search results, and how its actions affect marketers' ability to buy ads on rival networks. All serious stuff; I reckon that Google are worried they will end up getting penalised as Microsoft did when they got punished for anti competitive behaviour with Internet Explorer. To be honest, for a company who famously have the motto “Don’t be evil”, they are doing what appears to be a very good job of the opposite.

I was also contacted in the week by a chap who is researching the history of Arsenal football club; he had read my recent article on the history of Erith football club, and how some of the members broke away to form Woolwich Arsenal, which later relocated and changed its’ name to just Arsenal. He was wondering how much more information I had on the subject; unfortunately very little. I was however able to point him in the direction of the Local Studies Centre at Bexleyheath Library, who are a fount of knowledge in respect of the history of the Borough.

It is nice to see an organisation moving into Erith and occupying a long empty industrial unit and offices. Last week the not for profit group Avante Partnerships opened their new headquarters in a formerly empty office unit in Turpin Lane, off Manor Road in Erith (see the photo above). The Partnership help people with physical or learning difficulties or dementia stay living in their homes whilst being cared for. I think they have made a wise decision in moving into the town – the office unit they have taken is in pretty good condition, it has been empty for ages, and I would suspect that the rent and rates will be set at a pretty affordable level; I know that the council are keen to promote companies and organisations moving into Erith – the area needs the jobs.

Did you know the Apple iPhone is now half a decade old? As with their computers, Apple have not had the most cutting edge features, or the latest technology; instead they concentrate on the user interface and user experience – which is one of the reasons that they have been phenomenally successful. Most users don’t care that they are stuck within Apple’s “walled garden” and cannot download and install what they wish on their mobile devices. I suspect that Apple will try and follow suit with the various ranges of Mac computers soon – there have been rumblings for a few months that Apple wants to prevent users from installing applications they have downloaded from the web. Personally this would be a really bad move by them – I use Libre Office, rather than MS Office, my browser of choice is Chrome (I like the default large amount of screen real estate, and the minimal interface). I also use a lot of open source software sourced from way outside the Apple “bubble of love” and would not appreciate the inability to do this. Time will tell; the next release of OS X is due in the next month or so, any moves to restrict user choices may make an appearance then.

Several people I know have now tried a journey on the Arabfly Dangleway (a much more evocative name than the rather staid and sterile Emirates Thames Cable Car). All have said the same thing – it goes from nowhere and ends in nowhere. Once you have made the (quite impressive) short journey over the River Thames, there is so little to do in the immediate vicinity of either end that the only viable alternative is to take the cable car back the way you came – thus doubling the operators’ revenue. It is abundantly obvious that the cable car is not going to be an integral part of the capital’s transport infrastructure as has been touted by Boris’s team; it is nothing more than a glorified tourist attraction, whose ability to attract may not last very long. One person I spoke to said that in his opinion it was built in the wrong location – if it had been constructed in central London, say in the gardens adjacent to the London Eye, it may well have become a London landmark. Only time will tell.

Some good news (for once) for Erith – Bexley Council have approved two planning applications on Thursday last week that mean Bexley College will indeed be able to build a new campus on the old brown field site that once housed Erith Tram Shed, opposite the old Andrew Carnegie gifted library building, but that has now been left derelict for at least thirty years. It is currently not much to look at - as the photo above attests. The project to construct the new campus building will cost £20 million to complete, and will begin construction in January 2013 with the aim of having the first students move in by the start of the new educational term in September 2014. I gather that the new building will house just under five hundred local students. Erith Town Forum, and indeed just about anyone I have spoken to regarding the campus move have been fully behind the project – the whole thing is a win / win for all concerned. The students get a swanky, state of the art learning facility with far better public transport links to all parts of the Borough, and central London via the nearby Erith Station. Traders in the town centre will have around five hundred willing new customers to serve – I reckon one of the biggest winners will be the Town Kebabs opposite the hideous fish sculpture roundabout – they have been struggling ever since Tease (formerly T’s) nightclub closed down a few years ago. A gaggle of hungry students would be almost guaranteed every lunch time. Other businesses in the town centre will also benefit from an increased customer footfall as well. I just hope that the criminally underused old Erith Library building will be re-tasked as a study centre; currently it sits empty, its’ function as a library being now undertaken by the airless and characterless new building in Erith High Street. Bearing in mind the Carnegie building in Walnut Tree Road is directly opposite the new campus site, it would (to my mind at least) make perfect sense to make good use of it, and to put it back to its’ original purpose of proving learning to the people of Erith. The other part of the win / win scenario is that the whole new campus build project is cost neutral – the selling off of the old Tower Road site to property developers to build new houses will cover the expense.

Several times recently I have mentioned the Olympic torch relay, and explained the real history of it – of how the Nazi propaganda minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels conceived the torch as a symbol of the spirit of Nazi youth – and how the torch ceremony was first performed at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Well, last Tuesday morning the story was covered on the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2. It was amazing how many listeners thought that the torch ceremony was something hundreds of years old at least – such is the power of synthetic legend. Last week I posed the question as to whether it would be morally hypocritical of me to photograph the torch relay as it makes its’ way past Pewty Acres on the 22nd July, bearing in mind the dark history of the torch, and what the symbolism actually meant. Well, I have had a detailed and very thought provoking deconstruction of the quandary sent to me by regular Maggot Sandwich reader Scotty. To paraphrase his take on things, would I have felt morally repelled by the Apollo space programme to land humans on the Moon and return them safely to the Earth? After all. Doctor Wernher Von Braun, the man behind NASA’s rocket engineering programme was a former Nazi who helped the Nazis develop both the V1 flying bomb, and more importantly the A4 rocket, commonly known as the V2. These weapons caused death and destruction both in the South of the UK, and in the last stages of the war, in The Netherlands and Belgium too. Just because something is developed by evil does not make the thing evil in itself – it is how it is used that counts. After pondering this nugget of wisdom, I have decided on balance that I will photograph the event, as it is something contributing to the history of Erith. Hopefully nobody will try and nick the torch for scrap whilst it is in the area.

This weeks' video clip comes courtesy of Darryl of the excellent Charlton based 853 blog. He was one of the first people to try the Arabfly Dangleway, and whilst doing so he shot some good high definition video of the event. Watch below and do please feel free to leave a comment.