Erith Fun Day 2015.

A view looking Southeast from the Riverside path into the Riverside Gardens, showing some of the many stalls and Marquees that filled the grassy area. It could not have been a better day to hold the Erith Fun Day - it was bright, sunny and warm, but not too hot as to discourage visitors. Several people said that they thought it was the best turn - out for an event on the Riverside Gardens that they could recall. I think it is safe to say that everyone had a good time.

Erith Drum Club had an impromptu jam session going for much of the day; their gazebo was located in the far Western corner of the Riverside Gardens - last year I think they were a bit too noisy for some of the other nearby stall holders, so their new location was agreeable to all.

Volunteers from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association on their stall at the centre of the Riverside Gardens. They are shortly to make a very interesting announcement regarding the provision of the SmartWater property marking system. I will cover this in the next week or so.

Erith based bagpipe master Chic Mackie leading a mini pipe band through the crowds.

Many visitors took shelter under the shade of the trees in the Riverside Gardens. By 2pm the temperature reached 27 degrees Celsius. The ice cream van, pop - up bar and burger trailer all did a very brisk trade throughout the day. The Running Horses pub, directly opposite had a Hog Roast going, which smelled very appetising, but I had to forgo, as I am Pork Intolerant. The pub garden was full of visitors, and the hostelry was busier than it has been for a very long time.

Our elected representatives were at the Fun Day - (left to right) Councillor Joe Ferreira, Teresa Pearce MP, and Councillor Edward Boateng. Councillor Abena Oppong - Asare was also present, but she was was not around when I took this photo. Ed and I spent quite some time helping out on the Erith Town Forum stand, getting signatures on a petition from visitors to support the forum's campaign to preserve both the Carnegie gifted old Erith Library building, and the historically important former Potion / White Hart pub preserved as public buildings. Quite a staggering number of signatures were collected throughout the day. Fellow local bloggers The Thamesmead Grump and Malcolm Knight of Bexley is Bonkers were on hand - it will be interesting to see their individual takes on the second Erith Fun Day. I enjoyed myself, and met countless Maggot Sandwich readers, even though I was semi - disguised in a wide - brimmed floppy sun hat and sunglasses - both for entirely practical reasons - I get sunburned very easily, and don't like greasy sunscreen creams. My solution is old fashioned, but very effective - I keep as much of my body covered with layers of moleskin or tweed cloth - all of which has a sun protection factor that is way off the scale.

The situation regarding the closure of the Belvedere Splash Park has got worse. The council say that they won't spend any money on refurbishing it, even though it would benefit so many families in the local area. Please mark the weasel words from Councillor Peter Craske - a man who was arrested in June 2012 for alleged misconduct in public office. He said of Bexley Council's plans to close the well - used and much loved Belvedere Splash Park "This isn't an easy decision to take. No one wants to see the Splash Park closed, but we really have little choice.The expert report is clear, the level of costs needed to keep the splash park running are just too high for the council to continue bearing, in this exceptionally challenging financial climate. We're not talking about a 'one off' cost here - we would need to find as much as £300,000 to make the park usable again and then an annual cost to keep it running. We cannot justify spending our council tax payers' money in this way when we are having to make savings on so many other services. We know how that many people love the park and that's why we are giving organisations the chance to put forward a serious business case. They will have to be able to demonstrate to everyone how they plan to run and maintain the park. If the right business and the right plan comes along the park may still have a future." Like so many (but not all) politicians in both national and local government, you can tell they are lying as their lips are moving.

The ongoing situation with extreme right wing racist, homophobe anti-Semite Joshua Bonehill has taken an interesting turn.  Bonehill is almost constantly in the national press because of his extreme Nazi views, which make Adolf Hitler look like a dreamy Tofu munching liberal in comparison.  As you may recall, Bonehill wrote me a threatening Email some time back, which after some consideration I published in full. Since then he has been involved in a number of activities which led to his arrest at the beginning of July for incitement to racial hatred, amongst a number of other charges. He was already on probation for a number of previous offences, and was also waiting to go to court for accusing Tesco of selling fruit and vegetables in the UK that were grown in Africa that were infected with the Ebola virus. Now, after setting up a campaign for the “De – Jewification” of Golders Green, the authorities have finally acted to lock the scumbag up. He was remanded in custody on the 5th of July; he had a court hearing on the 13th of July where it was decided that he would be returned to jail until his next court appearance on September 21st. He is charged with publishing or distributing written material intended to incite racial hatred. He was arrested by officers from Avon and Somerset Police earlier this month after an investigation run by the Metropolitan Police. Bonehill had previously claimed to be one of the organisers of the neo-Nazi rally planned to take place in Golders Green, North-West London, on Saturday, July 4th. Bonehill never seems to learn the lesson that “when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging” – quite the opposite, he seems to be trying to set himself up as an extreme right wing martyr. Ironically prison may be the best place for him to get some treatment for what is likely to be his mental illness. More in the weeks that come.

You may recall that I have written extensively in the past on the subject of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBT) which are regarded as the “Crack Cocaine of gambling”. These machines are the primary source of income for many betting shops, and it is possible to lose £100 in twenty seconds on such machines. Some authorities have said that the rules regarding the maximum stake to bet should be reduced from £100 per go to £2 per go, which would bring FOBT’s into line will one armed bandits and other gambling machines found in betting shops and elsewhere. This week the government (under intense lobbying pressure from the gambling industry) refused to drop the maximum bet as had been recommended - Bexley's own Peter Craske, who in addition to being a Bexley Councillor who was mentioned earlier in his role to close down the Belvedere Splash Park, is also a professional apologist for the gambling industry as the spokesperson for the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) said: ‘The number of betting shops has remained constant for the last 10 years at about 8,500. They are a key part of a local high street and play a key role in supporting a local economy.’ Although the ABB did tell a parliamentary select committee that the ‘geographic distribution [of betting shops] has been changing.’ Recently the Campaign for Fairer Gambling employed a research company to investigate the issue of problem gambling, and how FOBT machines fuel gambling addiction. In September 2014, the Campaign for Fairer Gambling commissioned polling company 2CV to conduct interviews with FOBT gamblers, in a bid to obtain effective research into player behaviour and patterns. Conducted in areas known to have issues with FOBTs - Newham, Medway, Manchester and Liverpool - the research conducted face-to-face interviews with gamblers as they  exited betting shops. The research showed that 82 percent of betting shop customers perceive FOBTs as an addictive activity, with 32 percent of these borrowing cash in order to feed their habit. The study also looked into abusive behaviour and found that 72 percent of all betting shop customers have experienced other customers acting violently towards FOBTs. One third of Roulette players have borrowed money in order to play. Peers are the main source relied upon to borrow, with personal credit options and pay day loans / pawn brokers also used. Younger players (18-34), those in the lower social grades, and the most frequent Roulette players are most likely to borrow money to play Roulette. Those borrowing money and investing higher stakes are most likely to show a preoccupation with gambling; over 80 percent have gambled for longer than planned, and over 70 percent need to keep increasing stakes for the same enjoyment. FOBTs are perceived as an addictive activity by all betting shop customers, regardless of engagement with the machines. The potential for loss is high, with only 1 in 10 players regularly ending a session with more cash than they started, and frequently reinvesting any winnings back into the machines. Despite this, FOBT engagement is frequent with over half of players using the machines at least weekly. With higher frequency of play comes higher engagement and cash insertion; those playing weekly or more account for 63 percent of annual session activity and 90 percent of cash inserted, highlighting  evidence of problem gambling behaviour. FOBTs have a negative financial effect on players, with one third of Roulette players spending beyond their means and borrowing money in order to play. Whilst borrowing from a multitude of sources, family and friends are relied upon heavily, indicating the wider social impact of FOBT problem gambling. Those borrowing money and investing higher stakes exhibit stronger problem gambling traits and behaviours than other FOBT players and betting shop customers. These players should benefit the most from  a reduction in maximum bet per spin from £100 to £2, if the change can be enforced –the gambling industry are renowned for their resistance to change – especially where it would affect the bottom line on their spreadsheets, and the government have rolled over and accepted that there will be no change at this time. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Once again the RNLI have been called in to an incident on Erith river front. Last Sunday afternoon a person was seen hanging off the wrong side of the railings by Erith Riverside Gardens. The Gravesend lifeboat was called away from a training exercise they were on, but by the time they arrived in Erith, the Police had arrested the individual and taken them away for questioning. Once gain I feel this highlights the requirement for a lifeboat substation at Erith, possibly housed in the former Port of London Authority building adjacent to the wooden jetty on the riverside by Erith Riverside Gardens (see the photo above - click for a larger version). Erith is roughly halfway between Gravesend and London Bridge, where the two nearest lifeboat stations are located. I know issues of staffing and practicality have been raised in the past, but the sheer frequency of emergency events on the river in and around Erith would surely justify the additional presence – especially when one considers the attempted (and on at least one occasion, sadly successful) suicides from Erith Pier. Sooner or later we are going to have a major incident - we need to be prepared.

You may have seen the recent article on Pirate Radio in the London Evening Standard. It describes that following the submission of a Freedom of information request to OFCOM, the regulator has announced that in the last year it has carried out nearly four hundred raids on the sites of illegal transmitters. Nearly a quarter of the raids took place in Haringey, North London, while 90 resulted in equipment being seized. Lambeth, South London, was the next biggest offender, with more than fifty raids on suspected pirates between April 2013 and March this year. I must admit that my views on this have changed over the years; back in the late 1980’s when I was involved with Bexleyheath based pirate station Radio Lumberjack, there was very little to listen to on the FM bands, save the BBC and a handful of heavily regulated independent local stations. If you wanted to hear specialist music, there was very little option but to listen to one of the many pirates operating from in and around London. Radio was the only option; now the web offers a means of transmission around the globe that back then the pirates could only dream of. With mobile apps available to enable streaming content to be sent to all manner of mobile devices – phone, tablet, smartwatch etc. The need to have a transmitter on the top of a tower block seems to be gone. Back in the day we only had one option; nowadays the openings to get your message across are legion – and to be honest a lot more effective. Even a relatively powerful VHF broadcast band transmitter, well located high up on top of a block of flats is unlikely to have a range of more than ten to fifteen miles at best. With an internet connection, you can “broadcast” to the world from your bedroom. Technology has in my opinion changed the nature of broadcasting, just as it has in many other areas. It is easy to romanticise the land based pirates of the 80’s and 90’s, but in reality lugging around car batteries, breaking into the lift motor room on top of a tower block and fitting antennas on the roof whilst keeping an eye out not just for the Police and the DTI, but potential rival station operators was really not much fun for the most part. In my opinion all that has now become redundant. Which brings me on to a piece of information which is pretty ironic, bearing in mind what I have just written. I was recently inducted into The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. I get the feeling that now that the Hall of Fame is already filled by the famous and influential faces in pirate radio, they are now inducting the less well known – they are scrabbling around for the minnows such as me, now all of the big fish have been caught. Still, it is nice to be so recognised. You can see some of my photographs from Radio Caroline here, here and here, and my Caroline Flickr album here.

On Friday I received the following message from Roy Hillman, the Treasurer of the Slade Green Community Forum. Roy wrote:- "For the first time since it was installed in 2012 the plaque at Slade Green station commemorating the bravery of local men on the night of 16th/17th April 1941 has been graffitied ... this turns into a 'good news' story as by the time we held a Slade Green Forum meeting and discussed the problem, staff from the rail companies (best guess Southeastern rather than Railtrack) had successfully cleaned it." I am glad to hear that the plaque was cleaned so efficiently - much of the work to create the plaque can be attributed to former Slade Green Councillor John Eastaugh. What annoys me is that some scumbag would have chosen to deface it in the first place. Hopefully there will have been witnesses to the act of vandalism. I understand that the North End Safer Neighbourhood Police team are aware of the situation. Hopefully the perpetrator can be caught and brought to justice. 

I have been giving some thought to the matter of Erith Morrison’s, and the reduced number of customers it is currently attracting. I think that there is no one single reason behind the fact that for the last couple of years it has been haemorrhaging customers, but there are a number of complementary factors. Firstly the well documented rise of the very low cost German supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi, and the middle class realisation that low price does not mean low quality when purchasing from these stores, along with the opening of the Asda in Lower Belvedere, on the former site of Erith and Belvedere football ground. There was a great deal of very vociferous opposition to the Asda, as many locals were concerned about the impact of the additional traffic the store might attract to an area already beset by traffic jams, especially on Picardy Road, where the narrow, circuitous and winding road uphill has caused problems for drivers for years. Once the Asda opened, the silence from the former critics was deafening. It seems that everyone loves the new (ish) store; it has certainly hoovered up a portion of former Morrison’s customers. The biggest problem facing Morrison’s in Erith is Morrison’s themselves. The company have become so complacent about their position as the “go to” supermarket for the area that it is alienating their formerly loyal customers. For example, the Erith store stays open to 10pm on Monday to Saturday, but if you go in the shop much after 7.30pm, both the fishmonger and the self service salad bar are closed. In my opinion these should be open until the dot of closing time, and not as seems to be the case at present, open to suit the needs of the staff - a fact I mentioned when I complained to the Manager on Tuesday evening when I went in the store to get a self - service salad at around 7.15pm, only to find the salad bar empty and cleaned ready for the next day, even though the shop had nearly three hours of further opening time still to run. On top of this, whilst many of the staff are efficient and friendly, there are a significant minority who are surly, unhelpful and stand around chatting rather than serving customers. This is not the kind of behaviour I would expect to see in a big name organisation of this type. Unless Morrison’s can pull their metaphorical socks up, they will continue to have customers voting with their feet, and taking their custom elsewhere.

It is a matter of history that the beach ball-sized Sputnik 1 satellite was the first manmade object to orbit the Earth after it was launched by the Soviets in October 1957. It is possible the US managed to put an object into space a few months before that. In 1956, astrophysicist Dr Robert Brownlee was asked by his boss at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to figure out a way to test nuclear weapons underground. The scientists working on “Operation Plumbbob” were concerned about the amount of radiation emitted  out by nuclear warheads during tests above the surface, so Dr Brownlee started experimenting with the idea of blowing up small atom bombs below the surface. "Most of the radiation generated in a blast has a half-life of about four hours," Dr Brownlee, now 91, of Loveland, Colorado, told an interviewer from technical news website The Register. "We figured you could keep everything in but for a few per cent by going underground. But Mother Nature can outwit you in a great variety of ways." In July 1957, for an experiment codenamed Pascal A, the team drilled a borehole 500 feet deep for what was to become the world's first underground nuclear test. Unfortunately, the bomb yield was much greater than anticipated – 50,000 times greater, apparently. Fire shot hundreds of feet into the air from the mouth of the uncapped shaft, in what Dr Brownlee described as "the world's finest Roman candle." The next month, in a test codenamed Pascal B, the team wanted to experiment with reducing the air pressure in the explosives chamber to see how that affected the explosion and radiation spread. A four-inch-thick concrete and armour plate metal cap weighing at least half a ton was placed over a 400ft-deep borehole after the bomb was installed below. The lid was then welded shut to seal in the equipment. Before the experiment, Dr Brownlee had calculated the force that would be exerted on the cap, and knew that it would pop off from the pressure of the detonation. As a result, the team installed a high-speed camera to see exactly what happened to the plug. The camera was set up to record one frame every millisecond. When the nuke blew, the lid was caught in the first frame and then disappeared from view. Judging from the yield and the pressure, Dr Brownlee estimated that it left the ground at more than 60 kilometres per second, or more than five times the escape velocity of our planet. It may not have made it that far, though – in fact the scientist, who retired in 1992, believes it never made it into space, but the legend of Pascal B lives on. "I have no idea what happened to the cap, but I always assumed that it was probably vapourised before it went into space. It is conceivable that it made it into orbit though," Doctor Brownlee told interviewers.

The London Borough of Bexley is now officially the top place in Greater London for first time house buyers. Just over sixteen  percent of first time buyers opt for Bexley, mainly due to the relatively affordable accommodation prices compared to the rest of the capital. For some inexplicable reason, the London Evening Standard have reported that Bexley was voted as the best London borough in which to bring up children (this is somewhat surprising, bearing in mind Bexley council’s stance against children as it sells off public spaces, including recreation parks, and most notoriously closing the massively popular and heavily used Belvedere Splash Park, as previously mentioned).  The Standard reported on Wednesday that the most popular town in Bexley Borough for first time buyers was Bexleyheath, I quote “which has great schools, a thriving High Street, and good commuter links. Houses are also affordable compared with the rest of London”. The report goes on to list comparative house prices. It was obvious to me that the author of the piece, journalist Ruth Bloomfield was completely unfamiliar with the London Borough of Bexley – for a start Bexleyheath is one of the last places that first time buyers would look at in the area – it is just too expensive. The Northern parts of the Borough – Lower Belvedere, East Thamesmead, Abbey Wood, Erith and Slade Green are the real areas that are attracting first time buyers. As for Bexleyheath Broadway being “thriving” – I beg to differ; there are still far too many vacant retail units and discount retailers – and as I have written before, the Broadway has one sure – fire identifier of a financially struggling area – it is home to a branch of Brighthouse.

As I have previously mentioned, both the long established Oyster card system, and the newer contactless bank debit cards have proved to be as problematic for the end user as I have previously described. Contactless was introduced as a more technologically advanced alternative to Oyster, and deducts each fare direct from the passenger’s bank account. It has been revealed that passengers using contactless bank cards have been penalised by almost £8 million in eight months after failing to touch out at ticket barriers. Of the 58 million journeys using the new technology between September and May, 1.38 million were classed as “incomplete” - with travellers being charged the full fare. About a third of the £8.374 million in excess charges has been reclaimed by passengers, leaving £5.776 million sitting in Transport for London’s bank accounts - alongside about £100 million on dormant and unused Oyster cards. TfL believes some passengers deliberately trigger the excess charge, because it is cheaper than paying the correct rail fare. It insists it is not “sitting on £5.7 million” - saying the bulk of this cash is owed to it in fares. In addition to this, there have been 342,000 contactless “card clash” incidents worth £2 million since September last year - when the wrong card is read by the barrier, due to being in close proximity to another contactless card – something I warned about nearly a year ago. I have found the easiest way to keep my peace of mind has been to stick to the old – fashioned monthly paper travel card – no problems with tapping in or out, no card clash, and no chance of the card being cloned by a crook. Sometimes the old ways are still the best.

Don't forget that next Sunday's Maggot Sandwich update will be a special one; it will be the ninth anniversary of the first edition of the blog - I have never missed a Sunday update in all that time, and the blog now consists of something around sixteen million words! If you have any thoughts, memories or opinions on the whole Arthur Pewty's Maggot Sandwich corner of the interweb, please let me know, as I want to publish as many people as mini "guest writers" as possible for the ninth anniversary edition. You can remain anonymous should you so wish, or have full credit - the choice is entirely yours, as always. Drop any submissions to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The end video this week comes from The Institute For Alcoholic Experimentation. It demonstrates the method of mixing three distinctive cocktails from the 1930's. In the true spirit of the time, the demonstration was filmed in the magnificent Art Deco entrance lobby of Eltham Palace - most certainly the finest piece of architecture in the area. The original owner, the multi millionaire textile magnate Stephen Courtauld used to mix his own cocktails in the lobby, every day at 6pm sharp. 

Sewage Street.

The photo above shows the apartments and town houses in Wharfside Close, right on the banks of the River Thames. Currently a large, two bedroomed flat is available for sale for offers in excess of £180,000. If this riverside property was located in Greenwich or Docklands, it would be the thick end of a million pounds or thereabouts. Property in Erith offers exceptional value for money when one considers you can be in central London within an hour by train, or anywhere around the M25 or A2 in very little time at all. It is also very convenient for Morrison's supermarket, which is right next door.

Much as I predicted, there are currently serious problems with the Oyster card system used on public transport in and around London. A report compiled by consultants working for Transport For London has found that every day a little over two thousand travellers experience “card clash” when tapping in or out of a tube or railway station. Card clash is defined as when money or credit is taken from the wrong card during a transaction. This is usually due to several eligible cards being kept in close proximity, usually in a wallet or purse. An example of this would be a person swiping in at one station and their Oyster card being debited, but when they swiped out at the other end, a bank debit card was charged. Not only would any daily fare cap (currently £10.60 in London fare zones 1-4) not be enacted, but a penalty fare would be charged for not tapping out using the Oyster card. Bank debit cards will not currently be charged even if they become the victims of a clash, but after September the 16^th, when the use of debit cards is permitted, they will be.  This is a prime example of the law of unintended consequences – I warned several years ago that something of this nature was close to inevitable; whenever you add an extra layer of complexity to a system, the chances of an unintended consequence resulting increases by a factor of four. The TfL study found “We are currently seeing about 2,000 instances per day of customers presenting a CPC (contactless payment card) in a way that, had the system been live, they would have been charged on it. As the system is not yet live, we have to infer that the presentation of a CPC is unintentional”. Contactless payment by debit card will be permitted on suburban railways such as Southeastern Trains Metro service on both the London via Greenwich and London via Bexleyheath routes. Erith station is covered by Oyster readers, but it is still unclear what will happen to travellers who continue their journey to Dartford, as Dartford station is outside of the Transport for London travel zones, and does not have oyster card readers at the station exits. I have previously warned of the dangers of contactless debit cards of the type being issued by many banks at present. I was issued with one last year, which I returned unused. I requested a conventional chip and PIN card with no wireless connectivity, and was issued with one. Banks will still supply the conventional cards on request, but they are not keen on their customers knowing this. Contactless cards can be read at a distance by a smart phone or laptop running software readily downloaded, and using a reader head unit which can be purchased from Maplin or Amazon. It is possible for crooks to then capture the transaction data and extract information from it; a scenario in which this could happen would involve a victim boarding a double decker bus. The current model used in most of South East London is the Alexander Dennis Enviro 400. This bus has a single passenger seat located directly behind the drivers cab. A hacker sat in this seat equipped with a smart phone and remote card reader could easily capture the transaction data as the passenger swiped their debit card to pay for the journey. It can also work in any other instance where a crook can get within a few feet of a victim and a contactless reader unit during the transaction period. You have been warned.

Most of the heavy road reconstruction work in and around Manor Road has now been completed. The traffic calming features such as width restrictors and speed humps are now in place, and already locals are seeing the law of unintended consequences coming in to play. The speed bumps are primarily located on the stretch of road to the East of Frobisher Road, and are designed to slow traffic heading towards and from the long, straight section that connects to the various industrial estates that make up the Eastern half of Manor Road. The bumps are in the form of low, square shaped areas that are highlighted in fine red gravel. I stood for around ten minutes on Saturday morning, watching the behaviour of vehicles approaching these speed bumps, and it was not what I was expecting. Instead of slowing down before driving over the bumps, almost every single driver instead chose to swerve into the gap between the bumps, and continue without slowing down. This has the effect of forcing traffic in both directions to share the middle of the road. It would appear that the speed bumps are actually making the road more, rather than less dangerous due to the irresponsible behaviour of drivers. I am not sure what can be done to remedy this, other than constructing a barrier down the middle of the road, which would be neither practical or desirable. If you have recently travelled on the road, what were your experiences? Did you feel the new design was inherently less safe than the previous one, or were you satisfied with the new configuration? Either leave a comment below, or drop me an Email to the usual address. hugh.neal@gmail.com

Sandcliff Road in Erith has been flooded with raw sewage yet again. The road is cursed with awful drainage, and it seems that whenever the town gets very heavy rainfall, the poor residents of Sandcliff Road end up ankle deep in poo. This has happened at least six times in the past, and it seems that Thames Water make sympathetic noises, but to date they have failed to solve the fundamental problem of the existing drainage system being overwhelmed when storm conditions dump heavy rain in the area. The damage caused to houses has been severe – one place is now condemned as uninhabitable, and the road is blighted – residents find it next to  impossible to sell their properties to anyone other than landlords wanting to let the property privately. This is the kind of problem I was highlighting when I referred to the need to improve local service infrastructure. It is not just things such as schools and doctors’ surgeries that need to be in place when new residential developments like Erith Park and Erith Quarry are built, but the fundamental things such as electricity and drinking water capacity, along with efficient drainage need to be in place. Last Thursday it was not only Sandcliff road that suffered under a deluge of rain; Fraser Road and Alford Road were also temporarily flooded. Bearing in mind the Erith Quarry site is directly adjacent to this location, it really does highlight just how much of a fundamental upgrade the local sewage and drainage system is going to require. I recall on my first visit to Erith Park on North End Road last year, I was extremely impressed by the utterly huge storm drain that was at that time being installed under the site. One of the workers told me that it was big enough to drive two hatchback cars though abreast. When I questioned whether something so big was really necessary, I was told that the engineers were having to take into account possible freak weather conditions in forty or fifty years time, not just those in the present day. What is also of increasing concern is that problems even worse than this are being reported in places other than those already mentioned. A prominent local business leader forwarded me some very disturbing photographs taken in Mitchell Close, Lower Belvedere, adjacent to both Belvedere Infant School, and also Belvedere Youth and Community Centre. My source reports that whenever heavy rain storms occur, the main sewers back up – this should never happen – the storm drains that handle rainwater are entirely separate from the foul water / sewage system. I was also told that Thames Water took over a day to attend the most recent incident featured in the photos, and even then they did a half hearted job of cleaning up the mess. I can imagine what the smell must have been like – stomach turning. Residents in the area don’t exactly flush the loo and expect to see what they waved goodbye to sailing down their street the next time it rains! It would seem that the foul drainage system for whole swathes of the area need urgent upgrading if public health is not to suffer. Do you have a story you would like people to know about? Drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com

Just in case you read the article on computer passwords which was published in last Monday's edition of the London Evening Standard, the following piece was not lifted from it; the piece was actually written over a week earlier, and held over from the last blog update as including it would have made the update too long. A team of information security consultants carried out a detailed survey into computer password use over the last two years in the USA. I suspect that had the test been carried out in the UK, the results would have been broadly similar. When the white hat ethical hackers (with the permission of the organisations involved) penetrated various computer systems, they found that the user passwords most commonly used were worryingly rubbish, and extremely weak indeed. The worst offenders were, in no particular order:- Password1, Hello123, Welcome1, Letmein – you get the idea. Some people think substituting a non – standard character in a word makes their password more secure, for example by wiring Pa$$word instead of Password. To be honest, this is a false sense of security. Password cracking applications like OPHCrack use a combination of techniques to break the password on a machine, one of which is by comparing the password with a list of passwords in its memory – a so called directory attack. It is important not to use a familiar sequence like “Manchesterunited” or the name of a pet, as a cracking program would guess it in a couple of seconds. Also, when people substitute characters in passwords for non standard ones, they tend to use a shorter password, which negates any extra security the substitution might have brought them. An old password I used to use which was both extremely strong, and also easy to remember (often a difficult task) was “NoMi$terB0nd-Iexpecty0utod1e!” That would have kept a commercial cracking password program thrashing away for weeks, though GCHQ or the NSA would still break it in a blink of an eye.  Before you ask, no, I don’t use that phrase, or a variation thereof nowadays, but it does give you an idea of what a really tough to crack password looks like. To be honest, passwords are a bit of a red herring; most serious black hat baddies use other techniques to circumvent the security of a network. More on this another time perhaps.

Don’t forget that next weekend will be the first Erith Fun Day, held in Erith Riverside Gardens from 12 midday to 5pm on Saturday the 30^th August. There will be all sorts of stalls selling organic food, homemade jewellery, children’s clothes and accessories, as well as all sort of activities going on, including an appearance by the Port of London Authority display vehicle (and I have absolutely no idea what it will be). On top of all this, Erith and Thamesmead MP Teresa Pearce will be unveiling a new Alexander Selkirk memorial signpost in the Riverside Gardens at 3pm, accompanied by a chap playing bagpipes – but please don’t let that put you off! It promises to be a good day; you may well see me wandering around with my camera if you come along. Do come over to say hello.

There have been a couple of sad anniversaries in the last week; as many will have read in the press, 25 years ago last Tuesday the Thames river boat the Marchioness was hit by the dredger Bowbelle and sank with the loss of 51 lives.  I was actually in London and by the banks of the Thames when this tragic event unfolded, though I have to say I saw nothing as I was about a mile away from the location of the accident. The reason for me being in London late on a Saturday night was nothing to do with a desire to be in the capital , but to do with the other event that took place on the same day – one which had severe implications to both British and European Union law, and also had a profound impact on the right to free speech in the pre World Wide Web era. On Saturday the 19^th August 1989 representatives from the Dutch PTT and the British DTI travelled out into the international waters of the North Sea (where they had absolutely no legal jurisdiction, as was later proved in court) and boarded the Ross Revenge, home of Radio Caroline, where they smashed the transmitters and damaged the generators and illegally removed all of the studio gear and records from the library. Several of the Dutch PTT officers were armed with revolvers and some uncooperative Caroline crew members were both physically and verbally threatened. Much of this raid was broadcast live on air to most of Europe, before the transmitter was put offline and the valves smashed. I was out in Bexleyheath doing some shopping when this happened, but when I returned to my parents house, my sister played me a cassette recording of the events. Ironically I was already involved with the station at this point, and had been on board only two weeks previously. My photos were some of the last taken prior to the raid, and copies were used in evidence in the later court case. Caroline’s shore based management were racing down from North London to get out to the Ross Revenge as quickly as possible – a light aircraft was chartered to fly over the ship, and a speedboat was commandeered to get Peter Moore, the station manager and a couple of engineering staff on site as quickly as possible. Meanwhile I met up with the staff of local land based pirate radio station Radio Lumberjack in the Fox pub in Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere where we had a council of war. Friend Captain Colin brought along his giant Land Rover V8 station wagon (a vehicle fitted with two RSJ girders on the front in lieu of a conventional bumper bar – Colin believed in crumple zones, just as long as they only involved the other vehicle).  We decided we would head into town and try and get onto as many radio stations with the story as we could. Suffice to say that Radio Caroline was back on air in only a few weeks; in fact it should not have come on air when it did. I was one of the team that had arranged for a very large supply run of fuel, drinking water, food, replacement transmitter parts and new records to be sent out to the Ross Revenge from a secret port in Kent (the Gravesend Canal basin) on a ship called the M.V Galexy (not a typo) – a former Tyne ferry boat that was featured in the classic Michael Caine crime thriller “Get Carter”.  We were ready to go for a very quiet and stealthy “fishing” trip when Caroline came back on air, and the authorities were alerted that the station was not dead after all. Caroline management got into a furious row over the correct policy and course of action and the supply run had to be delayed, though it eventually went ahead. Some months later with the ship, transmitters and studios patched up, I chucked in my day job and went to work for Radio Caroline. All a very long time ago now. Caroline may no longer be broadcasting from the North Sea, but they are still a very important presence online – you can read more about the station and also listen to their programmes by clicking here. The British Department of Trade and Industry had chartered a former Trinity House pilot boat, the M.V Landward - the smallest of the three vessels in the video clip above. Some weeks after it was involved in the raid, we got word that it was moored in Gillingham Marina. A sympathiser had been speaking to the owner, who was smugly boasting of how much money the British government had paid him to take officials out to the Ross Revenge at its mooring fifteen miles off the North Foreland. A small team of Caroline shore staff paid the Landward a visit late one night after everyone had gone home. There had been some debate about whether we should pour a couple of bags of Lime into the bilges; this would quickly eat through the wooden hull and sink the ship. We decided that as Caroline preached a philosophy of peace and non - violence, known as Loving Awareness that this would be inappropriate. Instead when the owner came back on board the Landward the next day, he found a Radio Caroline car sticker neatly stuck on the wheelhouse window on the inside, with no sign of the door lock being forced, and no signs of any damage. We later found out that he had been incredibly rattled by this - as it sent the message "we know who you are, and what you did, and we are watching you". He was looking over his shoulder for months afterwards! He never discovered how we did it, which to be honest was a bit of a Happy Shopper "Mission: Impossible" project. Our informer was the owner of the yard, who was a big Caroline fan; the owner of the Landward left the keys to the ship in the yard office when he went home - we just borrowed them, opened the wheelhouse door, put up the sticker and locked the door back up. Simple but very effective.

Next month there is going to be a very interesting event held at the Crossness Pumping Station; The station was built by Sir Joseph Bazalgette as part of Victorian London's urgently needed main sewerage system. It was officially opened by the Prince of Wales in April 1865. The Beam Engine House is a Grade 1 Listed Industrial Building constructed in the Romanesque style and features some of the most spectacular ornamental Victorian cast ironwork to be found anywhere in the world. Since 1987 the structure has been laboriously renovated and restored by a team of unpaid volunteers who formed a charitable trust to care for the building, which is one of the most important structures in British industrial architecture. The trust describe the place thus:- “ The culmination of the great Metropolitan Board of Works' epic civil engineering project devised and led by Sir Joseph Bazelgette. The Crossness Pumping Station is a lasting testament to the genius, craftsmanship and foresight of the great Victorian engineers and notables. A gargantuan project that saved London from disease and decline, the benefits of which we still enjoy today. Experience this magnificent 150 year old building with its 1,000 tons of cutting edge Victorian construction hailed in its day as a modern wonder of science and engineering. Decorated in the highest of Victorian design the architecture of the building is a feast for the eyes. The multi coloured wrought iron interior is both beautiful and practical. A hidden gem in the hinterland of Erith and Thamesmead, it is rightfully described as the ‘Cathedral of the Marshes’. This is a rare chance to experience this beautifully restored Grade 1 building and grounds”. The Beam Engine House is periodically opened to the public, but on the Sunday 28^th September, between 10.30am and 6pm, the venue will be hosting the First Crossness Steampunk Convivial – an event celebrating Victorian engineering and derring do; the Convivial promises a working exhibition of Tesla Coils, tea duelling (which sounds mildly disconcerting) peripatetic accordionists, umbrella fencing, refreshments, and intriguing historical displays, all amongst the giant preserved beam engines. The event will have live music courtesy of musician Tom Slatter, who describes himself as ”What would it sound like if Nick Cave started writing songs with Genesis after watching too many episodes of Dr Who? How many songs about replacing your body parts with mechanical alternatives is too many? Does the world need a Steampunk / sci-fi inspired prog rock act? Tom Slatter set out to answer none of these questions, but accidentally did”. Well, it certainly has whetted my curiosity; there is going to be a guided walk from Abbey Wood Station starting at 10.45 and culminating at the pumping station; if you wish to see some of the dandiest Steampunks adorned in their Sunday finery, this would be the place to be. The guided walk is free, and entrance to the event itself is £8 per adult, or £4 for children (referred to as “coglets”).

This week the Maggot Sandwich has a guest writer in the person of businesswoman Aaisha Knights - see her piece below:- "Hi everyone; First of all let me say thank you to my good friend and former colleague Hugh who has kindly allowed me to do a short write up (aka shameless plug) on his blog. While I don’t actually live in Erith, I have been an avid reader of the Maggot Sandwich for some time now and was surprised (and very pleased), to learn that it is so popular! I read it most weekends with avid interest in what is going on where you guys live and how it has become, via this blog, an unusual yet fascinating place I visited Erith to attend a Cross Keys steering group meeting and when I came out of the station, one of the first things that I said to Hugh is “it isn’t so bad!” in reference to how the borough comes across from an outsider’s perspective via the blog. So what is the point of all this I hear you ask? Hopefully some of the citizens of Erith might want to use my services – I am CEO and founder of Dream Tresses, a luxury hair extensions brand that caters to all hair types and textures from Afro-Caribbean to European and everything in between. I also offer a premium mobile hairstyling service where I can install extensions in the comfort of your own home. I only provide the highest quality 100% human hair extensions which are guaranteed or your money back. It would be lovely to come back to Erith on a more regular basis to give some of the citizens amazing hair instead of having to travel out. I’m dedicated to customer service and won’t consider a transaction completed until my client is completely happy. I’ve included a video review of just one of the types of hair that is available on my website below and also one of me styling my own extensions. Please check out Dream Tresses for more info and thanks for supporting me by taking the time to read this! You can see my YouTube videos here and here. You can also see my FaceBook page here, and my Twitter page here." Aaisha is involved with the Cross Keys regeneration project - you may see more of her in the months to come. 

I think that some of my readers must think that I am some sort of tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist when it comes to mobile phones. I won’t bore you again with my reasons for not owning or using one. What is clear is that as mobile devices become ever smarter, a greater number of unintended consequences happen as a result. A recent report by the Computer Science Department at the prestigious Stamford University concludes that it is possible to extract audio information from the accelerometers and gyroscopes embedded in mobile devices such as computer tablets and smart phones. The microphone embedded in a mobile smart phone is under control of the operating system, and is configured to only operate under certain conditions which are strictly controlled by a set of rules coded into the phone OS. This means that it can be difficult for an attacker to switch the phone on and get the microphone to act as a bug. The Stamford research has taken a different, and really inventive approach. Security researchers instead looked at other resources common to mobile devices that were not so strictly controlled by the operating system. They discovered that many smart phones and tablets contain gyroscopes and accelerometers (used within the device when it is being used as a games controller, or other interactive device using motion sensing). These sensors have almost no oversight from the operating system or security settings, and seem to be pretty much left to do their own thing. They then determined that a gyroscope could be used as a crude form of microphone, and when allied to some pretty sophisticated signal processing algorithms and speech recognition software could readily be used as an almost undetectable bug which could record and retransmit conversations made by the owner, even when the phone was in standby mode. This is something that would be way outside the capability of even a fairly sophisticated hacker, but would most certainly be well within the ability of a government agency such as the American NSA or British GCHQ. If you are interested in this kind of “left field” use of technology, you can read a detailed paper here.  It is pretty technical, but if you have an interest in security, it makes for fascinating reading.

The end video this week is from the musician Tom Slatter, who was mentioned earlier; here he appears in his most recent video, hunting the horrendous monster the Kraken over England. See what you think and please feel free to leave a comment below.

Captain Tweed and the sofa from Hell.

My crime fighting alter ego, Captain Tweed is on a case; as you may have read last week, I caught a local company - Sofas4House, who are based at Unit 20 of the Manford Industrial Estate in Manor Road, red - handed, illegally fly tipping old sofas and furniture at the recycling facility at the rear of Morrison’s. The idea behind the facility is that rather than waiting for the bin men to collect, you can take your cans, glass bottles and jars, card, paper and plastic items around to the back of Morrison’s and deposit them in the relevant hopper, all ready for recycling. I don’t actually use the domestic garden wheelie bins at all – I take all of my suitable waste straight round to the recycling centre for responsible disposal – it cuts out the middle – man and is good for the environment. It suits me too – I don’t like having rubbish sitting round, potentially attracting rats and flies and getting smelly. I take any small quantity to be recycled on a daily basis. Because of this daily familiarity with the recycling facility, I get to see the ways in which it is being abused. After alerting the Police about what I witnessed – a local furniture supply company - Sofas4House - who offer to take away and dispose of your old sofa when you buy a new one from them. Instead of taking the old sofas to the Council tip at Thames Road in Crayford, they are illegally fly tipping them in Morrison’s car park, using the recycling facility as a cover. I spoke to Bexley Council Environmental Health Department about the situation. I was informed, that although the recycling facility (which is actually owned and operated by the Council) is amongst the smallest in the Borough, it has the worst by far problem with illegal fly tipping. It is not difficult to see why. Although it is owned by the Council, it is on Morrison’s land; I was told by a nice lady from the Environmental Health Department that Morrison’s “don’t give a hoot” about what happens regarding recycling and fly tipping, even though it is taking place on their land. I think the main reason that the facility is so badly abused is down to a number of key factors. 1) It is secluded and out of the way, round at the back of Morrison’s supermarket; the only traffic that ever goes past are delivery lorries heading for the supermarkets’ loading bay. 2) The legitimate use of the facility can easily be used as a cover for illicit activity. 3) There are currently no security video cameras covering the area, even though it is an integral part of the Fly Tipping Enforcement Zone. I believe that the camera issue is to be addressed by the Council, as Morrison’s really don’t seem to care as to what happens, even though the illegal dumping is taking place literally in their back yard. The dumping has spread from dry items like old furniture to now include old and contaminated engine oil. The containers are dumped at the base of the recycling hoppers, and then kids come along, open the containers and pour the filthy and stinking liquid over the ground; used engine oil is a carcinogen, and a hazard to the water table. If it finds its’ way into the water course, it is possible for it to end up in the drinking water, causing all sorts of serious problems; on top of this it is a vile, sticky mess – legitimate users of the recycling facility are in danger of getting the oil on their footwear if they are not very careful where they step – even the local rats have walked through it – when freshly spilled old oil is on the ground, tiny tracks of rat foot prints can be seen. Hopefully now that the Council have been supplied with the company details of Sofas4House and the vehicle registration number of the fly tipper that I caught red handed, they will be able to prosecute them and make an example to others thinking of doing the same; *Update*  Sofas4House are being given a formal warning by the Environmental Crime Team of Bexley Council. Sofas4House have a very slick and professional looking website, and anyone coming across it might assume that the company was well run and responsible. As you may recall, I am keen to promote and publicise independent local businesses; in this case I am unable to do this after personally witnessing Sofas4House staff illegally fly tipping materials that they should have properly disposed of at the Thames Road waste facility in Crayford. The reason that they don’t use the proper disposal facilities is that as a commercial organisation, they get charged to dump, whereas fly tipping is free – until you get caught. A small victory for Captain Tweed, I feel.

Next Saturday the Royal Artillery Firepower Museum in Woolwich is holding a free open day. The press release for the event says “On Saturday 14 September, Firepower, The Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich will be opening its doors free of charge for the local community and all visitors for its Community Day. A fascinating fun and activity-packed day is on offer at the popular museum located in the historic riverside Royal Arsenal. The day will start at 10.00am with a 30-minute visit from the world-famous King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. Up to fifty horses will trot to the Museum from their nearby Woolwich Barracks base to give visitors a rare, informal opportunity to meet the horses of the King’s Troop and witness the spectacle of fifty horses out for their regular exercise.  A new permanent audio-visual exhibition will open on the day showcasing the Museum’s Fighting Talk oral history project. Visitors can see and hear extracts of the many interviews with Royal Artillery veterans of major conflicts in the Falklands, Northern Ireland, the Gulf, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The project’s Memory Boxes will also be launched on 14 September, giving visitors the opportunity to try on genuine camouflage dress and handle full-sized replica campaign medals of each of these conflicts. A range of activities and experiences will be on offer at different times of the day. Visitors can also hear some of the remarkable stories behind some of the Museum’s renowned Royal Artillery Gunner’s medal collection in Marvellous Medals sessions hosted by the Museum’s Curator. Since its formation in the early 18th Century, over 2 million men and women have served in the Royal Artillery so this means literally millions of people in Britain and around the world are descended from Gunners. Firepower’s expert team have helped a number of celebrities with their family tree research on BBC TV’sWho Do You Think You Are? and the same team will be running a three hour advice session to help answer the question Is There A Gunner in Your Family Tree? for visitors.  “Our Community Day has been developed to showcase the many aspects of the Museum’s activities and collection.” says Firepower’s Director Joanna Ruddock “This exciting event is being offered free of charge for all visitors and we hope this may also encourage local residents who may not have visited recently to return and see the more recent additions to the Firepower visitor experience.” Younger visitors can take part in regular sessions firing toy rockets at a fort to find out more about the Royal Artillery use of rockets during the Napoleonic Wars. Visitors can also meet Firepower’s Second World War Air Raid Warden who will be telling visitors about Woolwich at war and reminding all visitors to “Put That Light Out!”  In addition the Museum’s Second World War Living History Team will be in wartime uniform, giving kit demonstrations and firing the Museum’s historic 2-Pounder Anti Tank Gun during the day.  Visitors will also be offered exclusive behind-the-scenes tours of the Museum’s Cold War exhibit collection Firepower’s Community Day will take place on Saturday 14 September from 10.00am to 5.00pm and admission will be free of charge. For details of timings of the different activities please visit www.firepower.org.uk. For more information on the Firepower Community Day visit www.firepower.org.uk, email info@firepower.org.uk or call 020 8855 7755”. This sounds like an excellent day out; I will be making an appearance in the morning, so look out for me with my trusty camera.

Following my recent article on the 50^th birthday of the compact audio cassette, there have been a few articles about analogue cassettes in the popular press; it is unfortunate that most of them have been written in a manner which suggests that cassettes are a dead and buried media format. Indeed in most cases this is true, but places such as Police custody suites still use them as they are regarded as less susceptible to tampering than other storage formats. Specialist audio electronics companies such as Teac do still manufacture cassette recorder / players in small batches, mainly for people who want to archive treasured old recordings from cassette onto a digital format. The problem that many are unaware of is that magnetic tape has a finite life – recordings start to deteriorate from the moment they are made. Many the time has someone dug  out their old wedding video from fifteen years ago, only to fine the picture is full of snow and the sound is muffled. This is also a problem with computer data backup tapes. One reason for the deterioration is a phenomenon known as “print through”; this happens where the magnetic signal from one layer of tape starts to imprint itself on the layers above and below it whilst wound around the spindle. Ironically print through seems to affect high quality tapes more seriously than lower quality tapes – the reason for this is high quality tape such as Chrome or Metal suffering more seriously is that these tape compositions can store recordings with stronger magnetic fields, which in turn tend to print through more easily. If you have any historic or valuable video or audio recordings on analogue tape, I would urge you to get them backed up as soon as possible, as  they will have already begun to deteriorate. Tape in all formats is really coming to the end of its’ life cycle. The last major use for magnetic tape has been for archive storage of bulk computer data. Even this is now slowly phasing out. Former recording media giant – TDK, who pulled out of making audio tape several years ago, announced this week that they were ceasing production of their data storage tape range; the last of their data tapes will roll off the production line in early 2014, leaving only Fujifilm, Maxell and Sony as the final three tape producing companies.

There has been an interesting, if rather one – sided debate on the News Shopper website recently. Transport for London are considering removing the option of paying for bus fares in cash, leaving using an Oyster card contactless debit card, or season ticket as the only options. TfL say that less than one percent of travellers pay by cash nowadays, and it costs them a fortune to collect the money. Lets’ look at this fact by fact. Firstly, it is true that many commercial organisations and retailers don’t like cash; for that matter, banks don’t like cash either. It is bulky, hard to track and a continual security risk. From the standpoint of TfL, I can understand the drive – cash for them is a pain in the neck. Let’s turn this on its’ head for a minute though. TfL is tasked with providing a transportation service for London. The key word here is service. Whilst bus drivers may huff and puff about taking cash, the root of the issue is that not every Londoner has an Oyster card, or a contactless payment card (the insecurities of which I have written about in detail in the past). What about those who only occasionally use the bus, or perhaps more importantly, the large number of overseas tourists that use public transport whilst exploring the capital. I don’t think that they can be expected to understand the complexities of the rather arcane Oyster ordering and updating system when they may only be in London for a couple of days. On top of this, complaints that people paying bus fares with cash slow down the boarding of a large number of people behind them in the queue (queuing – what’s that nowadays?) The thing is, how many times have you got on a bus to find the person in front of you has either forgotten to get their Oyster card out of their handbag, and is then engaged in a furious hunt through the detritus in the bottom of the bag, or has it to hand, and then repeatedly swipes the out of credit card against the reader, in the vain hope that some credit will miraculously appear on the card. I don’t think that abolishing cash payments on buses is currently a viable option, however much TfL might like to think otherwise.

I am sorry to report that one of my heroes died this week; Wing Commander Ken Wallis MBE, DEng, CEng, FRaS, FSETP, PhD, RAF (Retired) died in his sleep at his home in Ely, Cambridgeshire, aged 97. Who was Ken Wallis? Well, he was an engineer, pilot, inventor and somewhat eccentric daredevil who piloted James Bond’s armed autogyro “Little Nellie” in the film “You Only Live Twice”. He did much to promote and publicise the use of autogyros and became synonymous with the little aircraft. What is an autogyro? Well, although it looks a bit like a helicopter, an autogyro is fundamentally different – for  a start an autogyro is a hell of a lot easier to fly than a helicopter, as its’ rotor blade is not powered – it spins under the forwards air flow generated by the pusher propeller. Autogyros cannot hover as their lift is entirely dependent on forward momentum. The upside of this is that they are very much simpler both to build and maintain than a helicopter. Most autogyros are home built. Ken Wallis promoted their use for civilian work such as inspecting overhead power cables and for Police searches; for some reason autogyros have never really caught on in the way that he hoped – ironically this may have at least in part be due to their close association with him, and being one of the most famous Bond gadgets. Nowadays the role of both helicopters and autogyros is at least partly being supplanted by remotely piloted vehicles, which are cheaper to operate, quieter, and don’t require much space to take off and land. As you may recall, Erith was the location of some remotely piloted vehicle activity a while back, when a company called Aerosight carried out some tests just off Manor Road, which I was happy to be invited to witness. You can see a short video below of Ken Wallis flying one of his eponymous autogyros below; it is a credit to his incredible constitution that he continued to fly regularly until only months before his death.
I travel regularly on the Docklands Light Railway; I have to say that it is usually a very well run and efficient service, and could teach South Eastern Trains a thing or two about reliability and customer service. The DLR is used by a lot of tourists travelling from central London out to Greenwich, though in my experience around half of them end up getting off at the wrong DLR station. Cutty Sark for Greenwich is the station actually in  Greenwich Town Centre; a lot of tourists don’t realise this, and stay on the train to Greenwich station itself – which is quite a way from the main tourist attractions. I digress; on Wednesday I was on the DLR from Bank station heading towards Woolwich Arsenal station. Sat adjacent to me were a group of students who, from their conversation were from Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain and China. What was interesting  was that they were all speaking to each other in fluent English. It was apparent that whatever native language they spoke, they regarded it as natural to converse in English when dealing with foreign language speakers. Quite frequently one sees in the media articles bemoaning the average British persons’ lack of foreign language skills. The trouble is, there is little incentive to do so when it seems like the whole world already speaks English.

I found out this week that the 150th Thames Sailing Barge Race, held off Erith Pier on the 12th of July this year, will actually be the last time the historic race will be held. The only consolation regarding this, is that it has been cancelled "for good" on a number of previous occasions, so there is every chance the race will be resurrected again in a couple of years; we can only hope that this will be the case, as it was a superb, and very well attended local event. You can see some photos taken on the day by clicking here.

Well, there seems to be some drastic back pedalling and driving in a U-turn going on in the chambers of Bexley Council. Malcolm Knight of the Bexley is Bonkers website attended a meeting on Tuesday night at the Council offices in Bexleyheath. The meeting was an extraordinary one – it was the first gathering of the Constitutional Review Panel for two years; they were spurred into meeting by the comments of Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, who has said on a number of occasions that local councils need to be more open and accountable to their council tax payers. As Malcolm Knight has written on many occasions, and I have repeated occasionally, the current policy of the council is that filming or recording the council when sitting in session is prohibited. They use weasel words in their current policy, saying that filming or audio recording is only permitted if written application in advance is made. The thing is, permission is never, ever given. It sounds like Teresa O’Neill and her cohorts have taken a real slippering from central government, and at Tuesday’s meeting the members of the Constitutional Review Panel unanimously agreed to recommend to the next full meeting of Bexley Council on November the 6^th that recording and webcasting should be permitted. From what Malcolm says, it would appear that the decision of the panel was pre – arranged, and that many of the representations from panel members were rehearsed in advance. Whatever the circumstances, the fact that the panel (and almost certainly the full council when they meet in November) have come about face on their policy. This is great news for local democracy and transparency; I am of the opinion that when the full council next meet, the new policy will get rubber stamped with little or no further discussion, in the normal, mid 1950’s Soviet manner. Personally I doubt that many people will actually be interested in the filming or audio recordings made inside the council chamber – most proceedings seem to make watching paint dry look thrill –a – minute in comparison, but the principle of openness is fundamentally important.

Local professional film makers Amrit and Leonora Fox-Bharry of Splice Media have made a short movie that you may find of interest; it is a horror film with an unexpected twist. The film was recently shown at the Film 4 sponsored Fright Fest in London. Chicken curry will never be quite the same again. Watch below and see what you think.