The Maggot Sandwich regenerates.

With all of the engineering work currently being undertaken on the road bridge over the railway by Bexley Road at present, I thought that it would be a good chance to re - acquaint you with the hideous Erith Fish sculpture, which is very close by. It does not get any easier on the eye I am afraid. The only benefit is that you could not imagine such a monstrosity anywhere else, and it does make a handy marker for the town, however horrendous it might be.

If you have visited the Maggot Sandwich during the last week, you may well have noticed that it was looking different – the layout changing and the various page elements not hanging together properly. The reason for this happened on Tuesday evening. You may recall that I have recounted for the last couple of months how the Blogger template I have been using for the last year or so has developed numerous bugs – the “About me” pop – out column on the right hand of the screen would lose almost all of its’ content; the comments box would randomly appear and disappear at the bottom of each entry, and various other small irritations (such as preview not working) which annoyed both myself and a number of readers who have made comments. All of these problems were caused by coding errors made by Google, who own and run Blogger. I logged support calls but got no response (I suspect the reason my request was met with apathy was that I refuse to host advertising on the Maggot Sandwich, despite Google repeatedly asking me to do so; because I am not generating a revenue stream for them – however minuscule in their greater scheme of things, they have little incentive to resolve my ongoing formatting problems). To cap this all off, on Tuesday evening, I noticed that word wrap was no longer working; all of my content is pretty rigidly formatted – all text is justified to make it look neat on the screen – I cannot stand ragged edges when reading text, and suspect that I am far from alone in this respect. The problem was, that instead of inserting variable gaps between words to keep everything looking neat, the template was cutting words halfway through their length when they reached the end of a line. It looked horrible and made reading difficult – on top of that it made the whole blog look amateurish and cobbled together without care, which is anything but the case – each weekly update takes an average of ten hours to research,  write, format and publish. I have now created a new look and feel using a different (and apparently bug free) template; I would like to say "Thank You" to my small group of testers and quality controllers who have been giving me feedback and suggestions as to the new look and feel during the week, prior to the usual Sunday publication and announcement of the enforced redesign. It is ironic, as I was very happy with the template I had been using. It was clean and uncluttered – but chock full of programming bugs, as many of you will have noticed. I have had a couple of readers enquire as to whether I have considered moving blogging platform to something like WordPress. Yes I have, albeit rather briefly. The main thing is, I have so much time and effort invested in Blogger it would be very difficult to change. I fully accept that there are better content management and publishing platforms now out there, but for the most part (present situation excepted) Blogger has been “just good enough”. You will note the return of the blog link list, the "about me" panel, and the drop down "Blog Archive" list - from which you can access all seven plus years of Maggot Sandwich content. 

It would seem that Malcolm Knight’s fears about the management of the Howbury Centre in Slade Green passing to a commercial organisation were met. Howbury Friends, the not for profit volunteer group that had applied to continue running the centre were elbowed out in favour of a commercial organisation called “Greener Bexley / Eco Communities”. Malcolm likened the decision, which was made at a Bexley Council meeting as a theatrical performance, and that it was apparent to himself, and others also in attendance that the discussion had been rehearsed prior to the meeting. You can read his account by clicking here.  As previously mentioned, Eco Communities would appear to have a very poor record of financial management, and have a County Court Judgement against them for non payment of bills. Even if, as the various Councillors said, the Eco Communities presentation and bid was stronger than that submitted by Howbury Friends, surely this should have been weighed by the fact that Howbury Friends are a volunteer run group, whereas Eco Communities are a commercial organisation? On top of that, any investigation into Eco Communities would have uncovered their shaky and tenuous financial position, which does not bode well for their continued existence.  Malcolm Knight has uncovered all sorts of things which Bexley Council should have discovered themselves during even the most rudimentary due diligence checks. It all seems suspect from my point of view.

I have come to the firm conclusion that the Royal Mail now needs to be renamed to accurately reflect its’ function today. In the last week I have received two letters (unfortunately, both bills) and a total of twenty two pieces of advertising, some enveloped to disguise it as if it were a letter. This infuriates me; I consciously go out of my way to avoid the services of any organisation that uses this underhand technique – Virgin TV, I am talking about you! It is now evident that the Royal Mail business model is completely broken. They can no longer make money by delivering items posted; they now charge companies to stuff advertising crap though peoples’ front doors. It has got so bad that I feel like fitting a document shredder to my letterbox – as all the offending advertising flyers only get collected and taken round to the Council recycling centre in Morrison’s car park. When one factors up the thousands (millions?) of people around the country that throw unsolicited advertising leaflets out as a matter of principle, it must amount to a vast waste of resources. Don’t the advertisers realise that many people will actively avoid their products or services if they have them repeatedly rammed down their throats every time they pick up stuff from the door mat? On top of the large corporate advertisers that are the subject of most of my ire, the other guilty party are the local pizza and kebab shops that keep on covering my door mat with their flyers. When I say “local”, I mean that some come from East Hill in Dartford, and I have even had one from as far away as Greenhithe. As if they are going to deliver to Erith, and even if they did, any food would be a greasy, cold and congealed mess by the time it was delivered. Most fast food places will only deliver to a certain distance from their bases, so why on Earth would they leaflet way outside of this range? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The leaflets cost money to print and distribute – if you post them to areas outside of your delivery range, in essence you are throwing money away. Just why would they do it? Answers on a postcard (or better still below) if you have any inkling of the thinking behind this, as I know it goes on all over the place.

The photo above was sent to me by Maggot Sandwich reader Dana of Bexley; it shows one of the original Erith Council Tramways open - topped tram car undergoing restoration work in a workshop at the National Tramways Museum at Crich in Derbyshire. The open topped model is rare; it was one of only seven cars built to this design, as it was used all year round and the open top deck was unpopular in Winter. The tram in the photograph is shown in the companies' later brown and cream livery from 1911; before this the Erith Tramways fleet was painted in a garish pale green and canary yellow, which did not prove popular. Erith Tramways was one of the smallest private tram companies in Greater London; it stretched from Abbey Wood, through Lower Belvedere, into Erith, and up Walnut Tree Road (and past its' own power station on the site of the now demolished swimming baths) to finally terminate in Northumberland Heath. The line opened in on the 21st August 1905. A copy of the brochure commemorating the inauguration of the service is held in the records of Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre in Bexleyheath Library (more of which later - who says I don't plan these things?) The brochure says that the opening of the tram service "marks an important step in the progress of locomotion in the South Eastern district of London" and then went on to envisage the prospect of being able to travel from Erith to far flung places such as Maidenhead and Watford, purely by tram. Of course, this never came to pass; Erith Tramway was never a major financial success, as it was so small and limited in its' scope to generate income. It consisted on only fourteen tramcars in total. The only period when the service ran at a healthy profit was during the First World War, where there was a huge influx of workers to the local arms and ammunition factories which proliferated around Erith and Crayford. Some of the profits during this period were ploughed into extending the service to the Clock Tower in Bexleyheath Broadway, where a new terminus was built. The tram service was finally discontinued on the 9th of November 1935, when the remaining tram cars were replaced with trolley buses. The tram depot on Walnut Tree Road is now the site for the new Bexley College campus, which is currently being built. Going back to the subject of Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre, there was a demonstration in Bexleyheath Broadway last Saturday to protest at Bexley Council's proposal to relocate and outsource the archive duties to Bromley. As I have written before, the amount of money saved by such a drastic move would be minimal, and the impact to local history studies and culture would be enormous. A petition of now over two thousand signatures has been raised by campaigners, who include Bexley Archaeological Society, as well as a lot of ordinary council tax payers such as myself and many other ordinary people.

Very occasionally I will come across a story whilst I am doing my research into the articles for inclusion in the Maggot Sandwich which makes me stop and smile. This week I had such a moment. Whilst reading through “A History of Erith” by John A. Pritchard (the seminal historical text on the town), I discovered that Erith was the first town in the UK to have a dedicated mobile library van. Whilst the much larger and better funded city of Manchester had converted an old truck into a mobile library before, Erith was the first town to have a purpose built, dedicated vehicle, staff and remit. The Travelling Library Service was started on the 24th April 1935. The idea was widely copied both at home and abroad, and the mobile library concept is still in use today – back then it visited Northumberland Heath, Upper Belvedere, Lower Belvedere, Barnehurst and Bexleyheath, in addition to its’ home territory in Erith. The Travelling Library Service was commandeered in the autumn of 1938 as a way to distribute gas masks to the civilian population prior to the widely expected war. At the end of the conflict, the vehicle was used as a travelling war damage compensation enquiry bureau. There is little record of what happened to the van after this, as the records appear to have been lost.

       

As I have written in the past, I am quite keen on our main free local paper - the News Shopper. It seems to do a hell of a lot with very little resources, and does dig up some very interesting and locally relevant news stories. Qualifying that however, they have recently started publishing “non stories”. I don’t know if they are “click farming” on their website to get advert revenue, but who on Earth would want to read about “Quality Street or Roses – which is the better tin of chocolates?” or “Being clever versus funny versus good looking – which would you rather be?” and “Why is white heather considered lucky – what superstitions do you follow?”  Hardly Pullitzer prize winning journalism,  I think you would agree. Being a populist publication does not mean that you have to pander to the lowest common denominator, which seems to be the appearance here.  What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment below.

The Halloween story I featured the other week concerning my one time friendship with double murderer Roderick Newall prompted a huge surge in Maggot Sandwich page views; a link to the story was placed on a couple of pirate radio discussion forums, and after this had happened, the Sandwich got 2,006 page views on the 27^th October alone. It really went through the roof for nearly a week, only returning to something rather more like normal behaviour by the time of the next update. I get an average of 23,500 hits per month; this does fluctuate up and down, due to factors I have been unable to fathom.

Over the past couple of months I have been running an ongoing feature bringing lesser known radio stations to Maggot Sandwich readers attention; there are a number of other such stations I may well mention in the future, but I thought this week I would highlight another radio phenomenon – the weekend hobby radio pirates. These stations come on air sporadically for a few hours, usually on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, almost certainly broadcast from the operators’ spare bedroom or garden shed. They usually broadcast on Shortwave, and probably only have audiences numbering in the couple of dozen. Nevertheless there are a number of people who have made it their hobby to monitor and record when these stations come on air, and what content they broadcast.  The transmitters these pirates use are usually either home – made, or modified amateur radio equipment, re tuned to work on the broadcast radio bands, rather than the legally allocated amateur radio spectrum. These pirates operate pretty much with impunity nowadays – back in the 1980’s at the height of land based pirate radio activity, enforcement was a lot more rigorous, when the likes of the infamous Eric Gotts of the DTI Radio Investigation Service would be chasing round the country, eager to feel a few collars and confiscate an illicit transmitter. Nowadays things are a lot less strict; the Radio Investigation Service is no more – it was subsumed into OFCOM some years ago. Nowadays unless an unlicensed transmission is causing interference with a licensed service, or someone complains, there is a very slim chance that OFCOM would take any action. In other European countries, the situation is different – in the Netherlands for example, penalties for unlicensed broadcasting are pretty strict, with fines and the confiscation of equipment being normal upon conviction.  Whatever the penalties, the number of such stations has remained pretty constant for years. You can read more about them, and what radio frequencies you can find them on, and when here. You can see a daily updated log of stations here. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Are you keen to be seen as a person of taste, style and savoire faire? You might well be interested in a new range of Maggot Sandwich themed T-Shirts that local company RevCo are marketing on my behalf. You can pick up a natty souvenir of Erith’s premiere blog and show your support for local campaigns and issues with just a few mouse clicks. I won’t be making a penny out of any sales, it is purely being made as a public service. Go on – you know you want to! Be the envy of the World - think what your mates down the pub might say (actually, maybe not....).

The very public suffering of the Emirates Airline cable car, better known locally as the Arabfly Dangleway continues. As reports come out saying that only four people regularly use the cable car to commute across the River Thames between Greenwich Peninsular and the Royal Docks, according to figures released last week. Web based newspaper the Scoop lodged a freedom of information request with Transport for London to get the statistics, which TfL were understandably reluctant to release into the public domain. The overall traveller usage figures for the cable car make mortifying reading; as I have written before, I think it is only a matter of time before the plug gets pulled on the whole thing. Emirates Airlines had hope that the service would give them an image boost, but in reality the opposite has happened –the drastically underused cable car has become a running joke; it has become such a figure of derision that someone has now set up a spoof Twitter account for it – the cable car has been tweeting badly spelled messages wondering why he is so unpopular and unloved - This may well be the high point for the £60 million white elephant, as more people are reading the spoof messages than have actually ridden on the service in the last year. The only hope I can see for the Arabfly Dangleway is if it was dismantled, then relocated to a location in central London, for example, next to the London Eye – as at present part of its’ problem is it goes from nowhere to nowhere, whilst travelling over warehouses, truck parks and a rather unlovely breaker’s yard. If this is not done, and soon, I foresee the whole thing being scrapped as an embarrassing failure.

The mystery about the fate of the old Manor Fish Bar in Manor Road seems to be solved. The interior of the dirty, worn and grotty old shop has been completely ripped out, and replaced with shiny new tiles; new catering equipment, grills and other kitchen paraphernalia  is being installed. A sign in the window says “King of the Grill” and “opening 25^th November – first day all half price”. What it does not say is what cuisine is going to be offered. I think some investigation is required.  The chances are that by the time you are reading this, the new shop will be open and trading. I am always keen to support independent local businesses, and from the look of the extensive (and expensive) rebuilding and refurbishment work that has been carried out, the place will hopefully get an excellent “Scores on the Doors” hygiene rating. Watch this space.

The ending vide this week is a seven minute long short film made almost totally one - handed by a young chap called Kaleb Lechowski, who I predict is headed for a stellar career in movies. Give the piece a watch and see what you think. Comments below.

The chippy.

I am always suspicious of anyone who uses more than one exclamation mark in a sentence or announcement. To me it smacks of desperation, as in “look at me!” A prime example of this was for many years displayed outside of the Manor Fish Bar (which, somewhat unsurprisingly, is located at the Western end of Manor Road, Erith). Under the main name board on the front of the shop, there was the phrase “Freshly Prepared Fish!!!” The three exclamation marks would jump out at me every time I walked past the place - as you can clearly see in the photo above - click on it for a larger view. I am in that sense happy to say that the source of my irritation has now ended. The Manor Fish Bar has changed hands and is currently being gutted (fish bar – gutted – oh why do I bother?) I am unsure who the new owners are, or what they plan for the shop; the previous owners were ineffective. They ran the place down into the ground – it was grubby, dingy and the fish was very expensive. The place only rated a one out of five star rating on “Scores on the Doors” and I think that star was being rather generous. When I first moved to Erith in 1996 the fish bar was run by an Iranian couple who had recently purchased the shop. They were excellent – the fish was immaculately cooked, reasonably priced, very tasty and served in large portions. On occasion I would go into the shop not long before it was due to close; rather than giving me a piece of fish from the warming cabinet, they would always insist on cooking it for me from fresh. The wife spoke very little English, but when I saw her in the street, or shopping in Morrison’s, she would always smile and say “hello”. They were by far the best proprietors of the shop in my experience. The photo below was taken during their tenure – it shows the 1950’s vintage marble effect Formica that lined the shop. It was kept immaculately clean and tidy. I had a gut feeling that if I did not take the photo when I did (September 2005) it would not be around for much longer. I was correct; only a couple of months later, the Iranian couple sold up and moved on. Since then the shop has changed hands a number of times, progressively getting shabbier and less welcoming with each passing owner. The last proprietors ripped out much of the classic Formica and opened the back of the shop up. They also started selling pizza and kebabs – and the cleanliness and hygiene of the place slid further downhill. Being just a hundred metres from a large KFC drive through and a similar McDonald’s drive through cannot help – although the Manor Fish Bar did tend to attract more custom from local residents, than passing traffic. I just hope that whoever has now taken the place on can put it back to where it once was. I don’t know what the new owner intends for the shop – my local contacts have thus far drawn a blank.

Erith has a long and varied past, and has been home to many enterprises and industries. One that you may well not be aware of, is that Erith was the home of one if the UK’s top land based pirate radio station for some years. The station is apparently on hiatus at present, although they do still broadcast online - you can listen here, but one never knows if it will come back on air again. West and North Kent Radio (WNKR) originally started broadcasts on the FM band from the roof of the old Norvic House on the Larner Road housing estate back in August 1987. They later moved to Shortwave, where they had listeners all around Europe and beyond. They also broadcast on Medium Wave to South East London and North Kent on 1476kHz until a couple of years ago, when they decided to take a break. I stumbled across this audio only documentary on YouTube which is a fascinating and at times hilarious account of the history of the local radio station during their early years.  Give it a listen and see what you think.

I have had an absolutely phenomenal response to last weeks’ blog posting; specifically my account of meeting murderer Rod Newall when I was working on the Radio Caroline ship, the Ross Revenge, back in the summer of 1992. The blog posting was highlighted and linked to on a number of pirate radio chat rooms and discussion forums. Thanks Dave – much appreciated for the plug! At the time of writing I have had 514 page views for that Halloween special update alone. In case you were wondering, my account is not fictionalised or embellished – everything I wrote did actually happen as described. I had almost completely forgotten about the whole incident, when by complete coincidence there was a dramatised documentary about the whole Newall murder case on Channel 5 the previous Thursday. I had just got in from a Neighbourhood Watch leaders meeting, and switched on the TV to be confronted with a recreation of events that led up to, and resulted from Roderick Newall and his brother bludgeoning their parents to death. I noticed that the documentary was pretty accurate, but missed out on the whole of Rod’s yacht coming to Dover. They said he had gone to France to pick up the vessel – which was not the case. I suppose I should not be too surprised, as to my knowledge, nobody from the Radio Caroline organisation was ever questioned by the Police over the matter. At that time Caroline were beginning the transition from an “outside of the law” organisation and into a more conventional enterprise. Any association with a high profile criminal – however innocently it happened – would have been public relations suicide. It is probably just as well that the Radio Caroline element remained undiscovered for well over two decades. It cannot do any harm for me to have discussed it in my last posting. Talking of Radio Caroline, I have heard the sad news that its’ founder, Ronan O’Rahilly is very ill with an advanced case of Vascular Dementia.  Ronan was the person who changed the face of British radio – before Caroline the BBC only played a few hours of music a week, and were loath to broadcast anything challenging or different. It is probable that many British bands from the 60’s and 70’s would not have had the success they did without the extensive air time Caroline gave them. Ronan was behind the tours of the UK that the Stax and Motown labels undertook – this was when other UK radio stations played no music of black origin. Ronan was one of life’s eccentrics; he would come up with some utterly crackpot idea, but such was the power of his warmth, charm and personality, he would have you believing him – at least until he disappeared. Usually a couple of minutes later, you would get a “hang on a minute” thought, and you would realise how bonkers what you had just been told actually was. Ronan had a soft half Irish / half American accent, and it became a running joke amongst staff that if you heard the “Old Man” start a sentence with “Hey, I’ve got this really great idea!” you knew what followed was going to be challenging, if impractical, dangerous, or downright contrary to the established laws of physics - nevertheless, it would always be interesting. Having lost my own father to dementia (albeit of a different type) I know how challenging caring for someone with the condition can be. My thoughts are with his family in Ireland, who are now looking after the great, inspirational man, and a truly lovely bloke.

As mentioned in some depth two weeks ago, the traffic diversion around the Bexley Road railway bridge has now gone into force. The West bound carriageway is completely out of use for the next couple of months; bearing in mind what a bottleneck the bridge is during rush hours, even when working normally, it will be interesting to see how local traffic copes. The bus diversions are detailed on the poster above (click on it for a larger view). It strikes me that the most popular and heavily used service – the 99 route from Bexleyheath to Woolwich via Erith, is also going to be the most dramatically affected. The 99 normally runs across the rail bridge on both directions of its’ circular journey. Because of the remedial engineering work to the bridge, it will no longer be able to head West along Bexley Road and then turn right into Fraser Road, and in turn Erith Road, where it meets Upper Belvedere. Instead it is being redirected  along the dual carriageway of Bronze Age Way, then onto Lower Road, and finally up Picardy Road (often incorrectly referred to as Picardy Hill) to then join up with Woolwich Road, and resume its’ normal journey. The problem with this is that parts of Picardy Road are very narrow; the existing double decker 401 buses have difficulties on a couple of the bends of the very steep road, which is not helped by a lot of irresponsible motorists parking illegally. This especially true during the school run, when parents park there when taking children to Lessness Heath primary school. The other concern is that the residents of Fraser Road and Erith Road will be without a bus service for the best part of eight weeks. Erith Road especially has a high proportion of pensioners, some of which don’t have cars. Mobility for them during the diversion may well be a headache.

I do my best to bite my tongue, but there are times when I find it very difficult; for example when I hear people saying “them” instead of “those”, as in “them people”, or “we was” instead of “we were” – you know the kind of thing. It is so common locally that it seems to have become almost the norm. I heard a clanger of one the other day whilst in the bakery section of Morrison’s, where a woman wanted a Ciabatta loaf. The bakery assistant took several goes to identify what she wanted, as she had asked for a “Seeabatta” loaf – causing much unintentional confusion. 

I have written in the past about renewed interest in the scientific and engineering community in Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR), which used to erroneously be referred to as “Cold Fusion”. The phenomenon, which was widely embraced, then derided as a con back in the heady days of 1989. Since then, a few amateur researchers have continued to plug away, convinced that the process is real, and that it can be harnessed to produce unlimited, almost free power with no nasty nuclear waste to worry about. It would seem that LENR may well have taken a step closer to achieving this goal, a paper has been published in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics (a very well respected publication with impeccable academic credentials). The paper states that Toyota Central Research and Development Laboratories have successfully replicated an experiment originally carried out by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, where an LENR generator produced energy output far in excess of that which was input to the device. This the first independent, peer reviewed academic journal to record such a success. The fact that multinational industrial giants such as Toyota and Mitsubishi are funding and carrying out research into an area formerly thought of as “crackpot” is instructive; these hard headed corporates would not be spending money on LENR research unless they had a good idea it would not only exist, but be capable of being engineered into a viable power source. This is all very encouraging. People have looked for years to find a cheap, clean, reliable source of pollution free power; there is a distinct possibility that this may be a lot nearer than we previously thought.

The news this week that Blockbuster has gone into administration for a second time in a year really should come as no surprise. The Erith branch closed nearly a year ago now (see the photo above), and it was a constant source of amazement that it stayed open as long as it did. It was scarcely used and had little stock for much of the time. The owners of Blockbuster do not seem to have realised that the age of the hardware media format is now well and truly over. People no longer wish to queue up to hire a DVD or Blu – Ray disk, then have to worry about returning it on time, or risk a fine. The online streaming services such as LoveFilm and Netflix have stolen a march on this business; it surprises me that Blockbuster have not updated their business model to accommodate the dramatic change in their customers’ viewing habits. Online streaming is becoming the norm; I seriously doubt that there will be a physical media storage format to replace Blu-Ray, as the need for such a format will be minimal. Movies and TV series will be streamed over the web onto TV's and tablet devices, and as bandwidth increases, the capacity for ever higher resolutions will be met. 4K high definition television is already with us, albeit with minimal native 4K content. In a nod to the future, the only “proper” 4K content is delivered via streaming, not by Blu-Ray, as it does not support full 4K resolution. Time will tell, but I don’t think physical storage media has very much of a future.

Things seem to be hotting up in respect of the campaign to preserve Bexley Local Studies and Archive Service, and prevent it being absorbed into the service run by Bromley Council. It seems not one single person who I have spoken to is in support of the move, which is said would save the council around £41,000 a year. This is a laughably small amount of cash in the greater scheme of things – when you compare this sum with the wage bill of the senior members of Bexley Council, it is a drop in the ocean. Bexley is Bonkers webmaster Malcolm Knight has already written extensively on the subject, which you can read here.  The problems relating to a potential move are multiple. Firstly there is the issue of distance – Bromley library is approximately ten miles from Bexleyheath library, and the journey by public transport is slow and difficult. Even when travelling by car there are problems, due to the parking restrictions which Bromley zealously apply. Much of the physical records stored by Bexley Local Studies and Archive service are very fragile paper – they have not even been captured on microfilm, let alone digitally scanned for web use. Any mass movement of old and brittle documents, some of which date back hundreds of years is bound to cause irreparable damage. I doubt that Bromley will be interested in the archiving of Bexley’s documents – I think it more than likely they will get thrown into a store room and forgotten – after all, Bexley residents don’t pay the wages of Bromley council workers, so there is little or no incentive for them to make any effort whatsoever. It also seems like cruel irony;  we are on the verge of the 100^th anniversary of the First World War; children and adults alike are being encouraged to find out more both about that historic conflict and the effect it had locally, along with schools running special events based on WW1. An opportunity for school children to learn will be wasted if the archives are relocated – and the costs of the relocation are likely to exceed the savings made by the move. In my professional life, I manage projects, some of which are markedly similar to a local archive relocation – I can say that a £41K saving is a drop in the ocean when one sees the bigger picture – it strikes me as being a classic “box ticking” exercise . It is clear that Bexley Council care little for the history of the local area; it would not be the first time they have acted in this manner; they closed the beautiful, historic Erith Library and Museum in Walnut Tree Road, scant months after an extensive (and expensive) refurbishment project had been completed. They then moved the library into its’ current airless and charmless shop unit opposite Erith Health Centre – and did away with the museum entirely. It seems to me that certain council members who get to make the decisions are acting like modern day Visigoths – destroying the history and local identity of the borough, with no thought for the legacy of future generations. Thankfully the Bexley Times have picked up on the story, and have published an article that you can read here. 

House prices in Greater London are again sky rocketing.  Bexley has some of the cheapest house prices anywhere within the M25, and Both Erith and Slade Green are the cheapest of all. It is one of the principal reasons I moved into Erith in the first place; it is just about the cheapest town in which to live within easy commuting distance of Central London. When I first moved into the town in 1996 that was about the only thing to recommend Erith. It was to be honest, a pretty grim place – a grim, brutalist design shopping centre that was filled with broken glass, litter and the constant smell of wee. There was no big supermarket, and little investment in the town, which was still recovering from post industrial gloom – the place was not nearly as geared up as a place that is welcoming to its’ inhabitants than it is now. Overall the last decade and a half have seen big improvements for Erith. The opening of Morrison’s (the first Morrison’s in the South, closely followed by one in Ilford – the rest is history). This led to the redevelopment of the pier – the longest on the entire River Thames, and now a very popular destination for anglers and walkers alike. The Erith Riverside Shopping Centre redevelopment was a substantial improvement on the frankly shockingly bad old town centre, which nobody had a kind word for, even if the new development did take quite a long time to find its’ feet. Erith is now a pretty nice place to live, despite what some naysayers might think.

The ending video this week is surreally bonkers. It is the campaign film created by Brian May and Brian Blessed to end the Badger cull. Whatever your views on the cull, the short film is extremely odd - it features badgers in the role of Hawkmen from the cult film "Flash Gordon", with a reworked sound track from the film by Brian May. Brian Blessed, who would have won an Oscar for his role in "Flash Gordon", had there been an award for scenery chewing, also makes an appearance. Watch and wonder - what were they thinking?

Rod - a true Halloween story.

The photo above shows the motor vessel the "Shetland Trader" moored on Erith Pier, that I took earlier this week. Click on the photo for a larger view. It is a bulk carrier which is being used to transport the spoil dug out of the ground from the Crossrail project tunnelling work. I hope to be able to say quite a bit more about the small fleet of ships that are carrying out this work, and mooring regularly on Erith Pier within the next week or two; watch this space.

As many Maggot Sandwich readers will be aware, Bexley Council seems to delight in making decisions which frustrate and annoy its’ residents. This perverse behaviour is especially mystifying when one considers that the local council elections are less than a year away, and people have long memories. Malcolm Knight of the excellent “Bexley is Bonkers” website is without doubt the best documenter of this. In addition, it seems that every time a bewildering or illogical decision is made by the council, it affects the Northern part of the borough – Lower Belvedere, Erith and Slade Green, for example. My pet theory behind this is that the people who run the council tend to live in the more prosperous centre or south – in places like Bexleyheath, Sidcup and Old Bexley. They tend to give the impression that they don’t give a stuff as to what happens in the North of Bexley Borough, as long as it does not happen on their doorsteps. A prime example of this behaviour is the decision the council have made to award the contract to manage the forthcoming new Howbury Centre development in Slade Green, not to the existing volunteer group, which has successfully and popularly run the existing centre for the last few years, but to an external organisation called Eco Communities, which is based in Lewisham. Slade Green has been allocated £8.5 million in redevelopment money; a chunk of this will be going into the new Howbury Centre building itself. It begs the question; why would you exclude a local group, which by all accounts has been doing a sterling job running the existing centre, and choose a new, untried organisation from out of the Borough? Now it well may be that there are good reasons for this, but the council’s lack of transparency means the information is not released into the public domain – and thus conjecture starts. Local resident Claire Price wrote the following on the Bexley Times website:- “The Howbury Centre is a community facility, offering a wide range of activities, groups and support to the local community. This means the people who live and work in the area. These are the people who should be running the centre- the people who know the community because they are part of it, who know the issues and needs because they are their issues and needs, and they see and talk to the local people every single day. Taking this out of Slade Green will be taking away the voice of the people who use these facilities. The petition shows what Slade Green wants for its future. A local group like Howbury Friends can meet the needs much more readily than a group which has no link to the area. Do the right thing. Give the residents and visitors what they want, what they need, and what they deserve”. I could not have put it better myself. I personally have already signed the petition, though I suspect in its’ usual manner, Bexley Council will steamroller their decision through however much local opposition there is. It is a classic “Do as we say, not as we do”. £8.5 million may not be a large sum of money by Bexley Council budgeting standards, but it is a huge boost to a deprived area like Slade Green, and if invested wisely can create long term jobs and resources for a lot of people who could really do with the help. Bringing an unknown outside organisation in to spend this money is worrying for many who care about the area – they don’t know local conditions or requirements, and may well try and use a “one size fits all” approach, which is unlikely to succeed. The vibes coming from Bexley Council make it sound very much like a done deal I am afraid. Many local people are campaigning to keep control of the centre; one such person is Carol, who sent me the following piece for publication. These are her own words:- "Ten years ago Slade Green was identified as a 'Hot Spot' under Bexley Councils Areas of Opportunities Programme. ASB and criminal damage being the main concerns, young people being the main identified culprits. An area of high deprivation, low incomes, a 'no go' area, isolated residents, fear of crime and low educational achievement. Just some of the problems the area faced, from the outside, this was the view of many. From the inside, a close knit community who were working hard to improve their community, not least of these residents, the groups who work from the Howbury Centre. Howbury Tumblers a carer and toddler group who provide support to parents and children and Howbury Friends who support everyone - not just those in Slade Green. They are involved in their community, they are volunteers who work tirelessly 6 days a week to provide for the needs of their community. They talk to their community and provide activities based on what their community tell them they need. They provide childcare, so kids are no longer left to see to themselves after school. they provide activities for teens, stopping most of the ASB and damage, they provide for older residents with activities and keep fit, they provide for families and it keeps going. They support the local schools by running literacy and numeracy classes, by providing work experience placements for local kids. They work in partnership with an amazing number of different organisations including Bexley Council. All of this and more they do with very little money, most of the money they spend goes on rent to the owner of the building. They raise it through funding applications to a variety of funders including Children in Need, by raising money themselves and all so they can give a deprived community with little money what it needs. So they can improve their community for all residents, improve their life chances and because they care. The Big Society has been modelled on Slade Green, they are the big society, they volunteer with no expectation of monetary reward and in any other council area would be celebrated. But they are Slade Green and it is in Bexley, there is no justice if the new facility is given to an outside organisation. These groups have worked hard over the last 9 years to fill the gaps in provision that the area suffers, they have succeeded in bringing this community together and they stand up and speak for their community. They have saved Bexley Council thousands of pounds by dealing with problems that would otherwise escalate and impact on council budgets. Their community trusts them, their users trust them, other groups trust them, Bexley Council? make your own mind up. If you would like to support this community sign their petition at  http://democracy.bexley.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?id=12 and please pass on, Thank You".

Talking of done deals. I found it amusing to read a report in the News Shopper that  both Greenwich and Bexley councils have given the go – ahead for the construction of the new Crossrail station terminus at Abbey Wood. This is a bit of a surprise, as building work has been under way at the site for ages! Talk about the horse before the cart! Not only has work to build the temporary new station building begun, but the heavy engineering to create the tunnel, and the lines for where the tunnel emerges from underground just to the East of Plumstead station have been well under way for the last couple of years. The thought that either Bexley or Greenwich councils could have blocked the construction of the South Eastern end of the largest mass transit project in Europe is laughable in the extreme. It smacks of “box ticking” by those responsible. The fact that Bexley has made some rather half - hearted objections to the platform canopy design, complaining that it is too small. The whole Crossrail project is an engineering feat that comes close to rivalling some of the ambitious Victorian projects, and should make access to West London from our local area much easier. I look forward to being able to go to Southall for a curry and get back in less than a couple of hours.

Although what I do for a living has some quite technical aspects, one of the skills I have developed over the years is to be able to take quite an advanced technical idea and translate it for anyone to be able to understand. I thought I was pretty good at this, but having watched the video below, I am in awe of this chap. He takes a couple of quite esoteric concepts behind how the World Wide Web works, and explains them in very straightforward language. In this short video he explains what cross site scripting is, and how it is very useful when using interactive websites like Gmail and FaceBook, but also illustrates how it can be used to carry out all sorts of nasty things like stealing people's account details and passwords from their online bank, if the web page is not properly constructed to prevent it. Trust me, it is fascinating and easy to understand, even if you have little or no knowledge of how a website works.

The News Shopper have reported this week that Crayford pub The One Bell has had a plaque installed outside to commemorate the fact that back on the 21^st June 1844, the pub was the location of the founding of the Chartist movement. The chartists were a group of men (no women’s suffrage back then) who wanted electoral rights for the working classes. The central tenets of the Chartist movement were:- 1) a vote for every man over the age of 21 who was of sound mind and not undergoing punishment for a crime. 2) All ballots to be held in secret. 3) No requirement to be a property holder for members of Parliament, thus enabling rich or poor to stand for election equally. 4) MP’s to receive a living wage – meaning rich or poor could represent a constituency. 5) Equal constituency sizes – enabling the same amount of representation for the same number of electors. 6) Annually elected parliaments – the theory being that a rich man might be able to win an election through bribery if elections were held every five or seven years, but if it was held every year, even those with the deepest pockets could not keep paying bribes to throw the result in their favour. Chartists were pioneers of social justice and equal rights for all; they were also opposed to any form of state sponsored religion. In many ways their aims were predecessors of the Labour movement, though Chartists and their policies were widely opposed by the ruling classes – in some cases leading chartist campaigners were arrested for treason after organising strikes and marches against what they saw as unfair treatment by big business owners and the government. The Chartist movement lost a lot of credibility in 1848 when leaders of the Chartist movement organised a petition to hand in to Parliament urging them to change electoral laws to bring in changes to comply with the six points on their charter. The problem was, they had said that they had gained over five million signatures, when in fact they had actually only got around a million. If this was not a big enough dent in their image, when the petition was examined, it was found that a large proportion of the signatures were forged. Names like “Queen Victoria” and “Mister Punch” cropped up with regularity. Shortly thereafter the group fizzled out. In the end, they achieved none of their original aims; they did however, lay much of the groundwork for the later trade union movement.

The photo above was kindly loaned by local photographer John King - it was taken in August 1971, and shows the place when it was still a busy centre of law enforcement. Nowadays it is a shoddy and not very nice flat conversion - I think an opportunity was missed; it could have been converted into upmarket riverside apartments when it ceased to be a Police station back in 1996. Instead it was left empty for a couple of years before being rather shoddily converted into some very ordinary flats. You can see John's Flickr photo stream here.

Bexley Council have sneaked out a decision very much on the quiet; it had certainly passed under my own radar; it was only the vigilance of one of my occasional informants that brought the situation to light.  On the 15^th October, the council met to discuss “potential service adjustments”. One of the changes they considered was to “provide a shared local studies and archives service run out of Bromley Central Library as part of the shared service library offer across the two boroughs”. What this in effect would mean is the closure of the local studies and archive centre at Bexleyheath Library, and to transfer it to Bromley Library. Bexley Council have a very poor record when it comes to preserving local history resources. When Erith Library moved from the excellent Andrew Carnegie donated building in Walnut Tree Road into the new (and to my mind soulless) building in Erith High Street, the excellent Erith Museum – which had existed for years on the upper floor of the old building, was relegated to a couple of glass display cabinets in the new library – and now even those have gone. No trace remains of the museum dedicated to the local area, despite many protests. I fear that the same will happen if Bexley local studies is forcibly relocated to Bromley Library. Many of the people who use the local history archive at Bexleyheath library would find it very difficult to travel to Bromley – they are often elderly and have to rely on public transport. Travel to Bromley can be time consuming, and to be honest I doubt much effort would be made by Bromley to accommodate Bexley Library, or indeed its’ residents, as they don’t pay council tax in Bromley, and there would be little or no incentive for them to provide much in the way of service. I predict if the archive moves, it will actually be the end of it in all practical senses. Bexley Historical Society is organising a campaign to save Bexleyheath local studies and archive centre. At this point the final decision on the fate of the centre has not been made; Bexley Council will make the final decision in March 2014. You can read more about the situation, and find out what you can do to make you views known to those responsible by visiting the Bexley Historical Society website here. 

The local (and to some extent, the national) press have gone into a bit of a feeding frenzy in relation to arachnids and insects over the last couple of weeks; there have been over wrought stories about the “plague of foreign killer spiders” and other hysterical claims. It turns out that the so called “killer” spiders are false widows, and the false widow is not a newcomer to these shores as has been variously claimed; the spider was first reported in the UK over a hundred years ago. I also have doubts over some of the claims from people that have been bitten by the false widow – limbs being hours away from amputation and other dire symptoms are more likely as the result of venom allergy, or a secondary infection. The false widow bite is similar in damage to that of a common wasp – painful, but not normally life changing. Of course, someone with an allergy can be killed by a single sting or bite if their reaction is severe enough, but the vast majority of people have no such adverse reaction. I feel that the whole story has been blown out of proportion, and sensationalised. As the cold winter weather sets in, and the creepy crawlies die off, the press will have to move onto other subjects, and in my opinion, not before time. 

For some reason the launch of the latest version of Apple’s OS X 10.9 "Mavericks" operating system gets a lot more press coverage than the recent release of Windows 8.1. I get the feeling that the underlying cause of this is that a majority of journalists use Apple products and have an unconscious bias towards them. Whatever the cause, there has been a degree of hype over the release this week of OS X 10.9 “Mavericks”. I downloaded it on the day of release, half expecting problems as millions of other Mac owners would be doing the same thing. My fears were unfounded – the 5.29Gb installation file downloaded smoothly and quickly. The installation was painless, and all of my existing files and settings were preserved (and yes, I do have a full external backup in case of problems). Once I was up and running with the new operating system, things started getting more disappointing. Apple claim that there are over two hundred changes and improvements in Mavericks. I have found it very hard to find many of them – the whole experience is very similar to the older OS version. Apple are once again trying to encourage their users to “go cloud” and store their data on Apple’s own servers – not something I use, as Apple and online storage have a long and not very glorious history. Apple have revised the OS to make cloud storage more user friendly and reliable; unfortunately for them, Google have long ago captured the home market for cloud storage. One other new function built into Mavericks is Apple’s own maps service – something that has been available on the iPad and iPhone for some time. There was controversy when Maps was launched, as it was found to be inaccurate and misleading. I thought that all of this time later, Apple would have learned from their mistakes, and would have polished Map for the iMac to create a reliable solution. Wrong. Apple Map is dreadful. As a test I input the post code for Pewty Acres, only to discover that according to Apple, it was two blocks to the West of its’ actual location. On top of this, my local fish and chip shop was nearly a mile from where it really is; and to add insult to injury, Woolworths was still showing in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. Very poor. Google Maps is light years ahead in accuracy and functionality – even now Apple Maps lacks a “street view” option – something of a unique selling point for Google. All in all, OS X Mavericks feels like a point upgrade, rather than a completely new version of OS X. Had I paid money for it, I would feel somewhat deflated by the experience, which (for me at least) offers very little that I did not have before. Apple’s decision to offer Mavericks for free to all Apple owners who have machines built in 2007 or later means that I cannot really nit pick with it. Overall OS X remains a stable, reliable and easy to use platform; it is just getting a bit staid and boring.

Now that we are upon Halloween, I have a story to tell you. I have never told this in public before. Unlike most Halloween horror stories, this one is absolutely true and totally verifiable. The photo above was taken by me in the summer of 1992. It shows the Radio Caroline ship, the Ross Revenge, moored in the old Dover Western Commercial Dock - click on the photo for a larger view. The ship had broken its' anchor chain during a heavy storm some months earlier and had drifted onto the Goodwin Sands, from where she was only the second ship in history to be successfully salvaged. She was taken to Dover, where a crew of Caroline staff and a lot of volunteers attempted to restore the ship after being continuously at sea for around nine years. She was cosmetically rough, but basically sound. I was still working for Radio Caroline at the time, and spent much of my time living on board. One gloriously sunny day, a magnificent seventy foot ocean going yacht sailed into the dock and moored, stern in, behind the Ross Revenge (to the right of the photo). The yacht was skippered by a young and very good looking chap who introduced himself as Rod. We invited him on board the Ross Revenge, and gave him a guided tour of the ship, compete with studios, transmitter room and the mess. Over the next week or so, we saw a lot of Rod; he had just sailed up from the Falkland Islands, where he had been chartering for a group from the National Geographic, making a documentary on the penguin population of the islands - he showed us some photos from the expedition, and they were very impressive. Opposite the dock was a local pub, used by the sailors and dock workers. The Caroline crew were regulars - the landlord was a big fan, and would invariably put "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond on the Karaoke, then sing the track - unfortunately he could not hold a tune in a bucket, and the end result was painful. The upside was we got lots of free drinks, and there were lock - ins several times a week. I recall several occasions when we returned to the ship as the sun rose over the ships' antenna masts, and on one particularly memorable occasion having the rather refreshed station manager in a wheelbarrow to get him back on board and into his bunk. Rod joined in with all this with vigour. We found out he was an ex army officer who had inherited a substantial amount of money upon the death of his parents, and he was making a living, travelling the world and hiring out his yacht for all sorts of adventures. This was nothing unusual for Radio Caroline - we tended to attract colourful and larger than life characters, and Rod was just the latest in a long line of individualists. One Sunday evening, we returned from the pub at about 11pm; Rod had promised to treat us to a traditional Sunday Roast, complete with all of the trimmings - he had spend hours preparing it, and we were all licking our lips in anticipation. We all followed him down the steps into the luxuriously appointed main cabin on his yacht - the vessel was obviously worth a fortune, but it was a seaworthy, working ship, not a rich playboy's toy. True to his word, Rod excelled himself, producing a very large and succulent joint of medium rare roast beef, which he carefully worked on with a large and very sharp carving knife, whilst we helped ourselves to roast potatoes, cabbage, shallots, carrots and home made gravy. The meal was a great success, and a really great shared memory of our time moored in Dover. The next day Rod popped over for a cup of coffee and a chat. He said he had plans to sail down to Gibraltar for a fashion photo shoot - the yacht was to be the backdrop. He asked me and a couple of the other Caroline crew if we would like a working holiday to help him crew the yacht on its' passage. There would be no pay as such, but he would buy each of us a return air flight. Myself and one other (who shall remain nameless, as he's reading this now) seriously considered it, but for various reasons had to regretfully decline. He said "no hard feelings - see you around". The next day his yacht was gone - he had left on the early morning tide. We were all a bit sad to see Rod go - he fitted in well with the Caroline crowd - we were all a bit eccentric and most definitely ploughed our own furrow. I recall a couple of days later, sitting in the Ross Revenge mess room eating my lunch (a cold roast beef, mustard and onion salad sandwich made from the leftovers of Sunday dinner, which Rod had generously given us) and watching the BBC lunchtime news. The headline story was a feature on how the Royal Navy had stopped a British ship in international waters and arrested the skipper; the video footage showed our very own Rod and his yacht - Rod was being manhandled and handcuffed by some very efficient and burly Royal Marines. The story went on to say the man, whose full name was Roderick Newall, was wanted by the Jersey Police for the murder of his mother and father! It came out in court that he and his brother had killed their parents in order to obtain a very large inheritance - you can read more about the case here. Rod served thirteen years in prison for the double murder. What made it even worse was that there were very strong forensic indicators that the carving knife Rod had used to slice our delicious roast beef joint was the very same weapon used to dismember the corpses of his Mum and Dad. I could not make it up. 

I think the local papers do an adequate job of reporting issues and local events, but they sometimes seem to get only half of a story. For example, the story that Sidcup chef and restaurant owner Sayful Alom has won the Curry Chef of the Year award, for his cooking at the Curry Mahal in Station Road, Sidcup. He was presented with the award at a ceremony held at the Lancaster Gate Hotel. This is great news – someone from the area being recognised for excellence in a given field. What the local papers failed to pick up on was that the Curry Mahal was last visited by Environmental Health inspectors on the 19^th of August this year, when it scored only one out of a possible five stars for its’ "Scores on the Doors" food hygiene standards. As was mentioned recently, some local residents have justifiable doubts as to how the “Scores on the Doors” hygiene ratings are carried out. It strikes me that there are three possible reasons for this disparity between the curry chef award, and the poor hygiene score. 1) The Curry Chef award is a con, and it has little or nothing to do with the restaurant or the chefs’ culinary abilities. 2) The “Scores on the Doors” rating is wrong, for whatever reason. 3) The Curry Chef award is genuine, but takes no notice of hygiene conditions, and thus to my mind is invalid as an award. I have no idea which of these possible reasons is true, but I cannot reconcile poor food hygiene with good cookery – the things are interlinked. Your thoughts would be appreciated. The bug in the Blogger template I use persists – if you cannot see a comment box at the foot of this entry, click on any embedded photograph, then click on your browser “back” button – the dialogue box should then appear. It is a kludge, but all I can offer until Google fix the ongoing template fault, which is entirely outside of my control.

Here is the latest "Simon's Cat" video - always a pleasure. Comments for anything covered this week either below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com as you see fit.