Viz.

 

Two weeks ago I wrote an article about an apparently stolen and dumped rental E-bike which I found in the car park of Morrisons at Erith. That bike had come from a rental company called Forest. Since that incident, I took the photo above - click on it to see a larger view. Coincidentally the two hire bikes in the photo were also located in Morrison's - but this time inside, by the security supervisor's post. The guard ironically seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the bikes were not meant to be operated within the London Borough of Bexley, and had to be used illegally. Electric hire bikes, while intended to promote eco-friendly urban transport, have become a source of frustration for Londoners. The convenience of these bikes has been overshadowed by the increasing problem of riders abandoning them on pavements and public spaces. Another E-bike rental company is being threatened with being banned in the London Borough of Brent, and there are signs that other boroughs may follow suit. threatened to evict the cycle hire firm Lime because of the number of abandoned e-bikes that are “causing havoc” on the streets. Brent council has given the dockless bike operator until the end of October to address safety concerns or remove all 750 bikes that are currently permitted in the borough. It is the latest clash between London councils and private hire bike firms amid ongoing concerns about bikes being discarded on pavements and streets. Lime has become the dominant operator in London by flooding the capital with 30,000 battery-powered bikes – but has seen their use soar, with millions of rides a year. In an article published in the London Evening Standard, Brent said it had formally warned Lime that it must remove its bikes by October 31 “if it continues to ignore the council’s safety concerns and suggestions for improvements to the scheme”. The council has been in “partnership” with Lime since 2019 as part of a commitment to promote “green” travel and reduce pollution. But it issued the ultimatum in response to the “high and increasing number of incidents” of inconsiderately parked and abandoned e-bikes and the “often slow response time” by Lime. A year ago, neighbouring Hammersmith and Fulham council seized more than 100 Lime bikes after multiple complaints from residents. Across London, there were more than 12 million trips on Lime bikes by 1.25 million riders between 2019 and 2023. Forest has about 10,000 dockless e-bikes, while TfL has about 15,000 “Boris bikes”, though these have to be “docked” in racks. The London Borough of Bexley has not taken part in any of these schemes to date, and if the current rates of rider abuse of the E-bikes continues, I do not see Bexley Council taking part in the near future. Transport for London is leading plans for a capital-wide set of rules for dockless bike operators and e-scooters but this is unlikely to be introduced before 2026.

The vintage photo above (click on it for a larger view) was originally taken by me as part of a school geography project on the River Thames, way back in 1981. You can see Erith Police Station - when it still was a police station, and not a seedy and badly converted bunch of apartments as it is nowadays. Next to it are some buildings that were a remnant of the old Erith - they are boarded up in the photo; not too long afterwards they were demolished to make way for sheltered housing. I came across the photo whilst going through a huge pile of photographs whilst clearing out a cupboard in my Mum's house some years ago. Nearly all of the shots were consigned to the bin. A few choice ones I have kept, and may share a couple with you online in the next few weeks. Unfortunately the rest of the geography project photos of Erith have disappeared - I was hoping to be able to archive them, but sadly this is not going to be the case.

For many years Erith has had awful P.R – pretty much since the original town centre was demolished in 1966 to make way for the much hated 1970’s concrete shopping centre monstrosity (that I recall as a child always smelled of a mix of Jeyes Fluid and stale wee) Erith has had a reputation as somewhere that you lived because you had to, not because you wanted to. This seems to have been crystallised in an oft told joke by the late Erith – born comedienne Linda Smith – “Erith isn't twinned with anywhere, but it does have a mutual suicide pact with Dagenham”. I feel that this joke has unfortunately done more to harm the reputation of the town than any single other thing. I feel that relatively more affordable housing prices may be the initial motivation for outsiders moving in to the new housing that is springing up all over the town, but in time the newcomers may well start appreciating the place for the more intangible things it offers – where else within a half hour train journey of central London could you see the classic “Big Sky” – an Erith trade mark – being able to see from horizon to horizon? I have historically had talks with a couple of very prestigious economists whose professional view is that Erith is on the brink of a new time of prosperity, and that “it could well become the next Hoxton”. Whilst time will tell, it is an intriguing possibility. What do you think? Is Erith on the edge of a boom, or would you resent the area becoming “gentrified”? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

There are fears that the Government’s drive to increase electric vehicle (EV) ownership is currently stalling, as motorists refuse to play ball. While sales from January to July 2024 rose by 10 percent this year, that compares to an increase of about 18 percent the previous year. Many consumers remain put off by high prices, as well as the perception that charging infrastructure is not good enough, according to recent research by Auto Trader magazine. Fundamentally, the biggest barrier to switching to an EV remains price. Many drivers like the idea of a more environmentally friendly car but, after years of being battered by inflationary pressures, they are less willing to spend big on one right now, according to Marc Palmer, head of insights at Auto Trader. This has been exacerbated by a number of factors. Rising interest rates have made the car finance deals that many people use to buy new cars more expensive, while the more affordable segment of the market has also nearly vanished. New car prices have increased by 40 percent since 2019, according to an Auto Trader report this year, driven by both higher price tags of EVs as well as decisions by brands including Ford to stop selling lower-priced models such as the best-selling Fiesta. It means that five years ago about 21 percent of new cars available were priced below £20,000 but only 4 percent are today, Palmer says. the malaise for new cars threatens to store up problems for the functioning of the rest of the car supply chain, including the used market. This is because of the impact on fleet operators, who are by far the biggest buyers of EVs. In the first seven months of 2024, these businesses – such as car leasing companies and rental firms – accounted for about 80 percent of EV sales, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Their business model typically involves owning a car for a few years and then reselling it. But EV values are depreciating so quickly that it is putting many fleet operators under serious pressure. Two years ago, the average EV would be expected to depreciate by 40 percent over a three-year period and retain 60 percent of its initial value, according to data from the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA). Now, they are depreciating by around 65 percent and retaining just 35 percent of that value – and the decline is continuing to get worse. It prompted Gerry Keaney, the chief executive of the BVRLA, to warn in July: “The used car market for EVs is, I hesitate to say, very close to what any economist would call market failure.”

This month marks the 45th anniversary of the first publication of the anarchic and influential Viz Comic. Viz is a British adult comic magazine founded in 1979 by Chris Donald. It parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with extensive profanity, toilet humour, black comedy, and surreal humour. It also sends up tabloid newspapers, with mockeries of articles and letters pages. It features parody competitions and advertisements for overpriced 'limited edition' tat, as well as obsessions with half-forgotten kitsch celebrities from the 1960s to the 1980s, such as Shakin' Stevens and Rodney Bewes. Occasionally, it satirises current affairs and politicians, but it has no particular political standpoint. The comic was started in Newcastle upon Tyne in December 1979 by Chris Donald, who produced the comic from his bedroom in his parents' Jesmond home with help from his brother Simon and friend Jim Brownlow. Donald himself cannot remember exactly where the name of the magazine comes from. The most he can remember is: at the time, he needed to come up with a proper name for it, and he considered the word "Viz" a very easy word to write/remember, as it consisted of three letters which are easily made with straight lines. In 1985, a deal was signed with Virgin Books to publish the comic nationally every two months, starting with the 13th issue, dated August 1985. In 1987, the Virgin director responsible for Viz, John Brown, set up his own publishing company, John Brown Publishing, to handle Viz. Sales exceeded a million by the end of 1989, making Viz for a time one of the biggest-selling magazines in the country. Many Viz characters have featured in long-running strips, becoming well known in their own right, including spin-off cartoons. Characters often have rhyming or humorous taglines, such as Roger Mellie, the Man on the Telly; Nobby's Piles; Johnny Fartpants; Buster Gonad; Sid the Sexist; Sweary Mary or Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres. Some are aimed upwards, parodying the upper-middle classes and elites, such as the pseudo-leftist but privileged 'Student Grant', 'Nanny No Dumps' and the hypocritical Tory MP 'Baxter Basics', named after John Major's "Back to Basics" speech. In addition to this, the comic also contains plenty of 'in jokes' referring to people and places in and around Newcastle upon Tyne. The comic also prints regular satirical pastiches of typical tabloid and local media news stories, one such story revolved around a man who won an inconsequential amount of money on the football pools, and began living an inordinately lavish lifestyle ("I bought the wife a new cover for her ironing board" being one such example of his largesse), which collapsed when the money inevitably ran out, much to his chagrin ("I wish I'd never set eyes on the money"). A long-running segment has been the Top Tips, reader-submitted suggestions which are a parody of similar sections found in women's magazines offering domestic and everyday tips to make life easier. In Viz, naturally, they are always absurd, impractical or ludicrous: - "Why waste money on expensive binoculars? Simply stand closer to the object you wish to observe." "To stop blue tits pecking at your milk bottles, don't buy any." "Dead moths make ideal hang-gliders for woodlice." I have been a regular reader and subscriber to Viz for many years. Long may it continue. Comments to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

I took the photo above - click on it to see a larger version - back in September 2014. It shows the main brewing hall at Bexley Brewery in the Manford Industrial Estate at the Eastern end of Manor Road in Erith. The brewery was then setting up for its very first commercial brew of BOB (Bexley's Own Beer). The brewery celebrated its' tenth anniversary yesterday, and it has expanded considerably since the photo above was taken. As well as the brewery facility on the industrial estate, Bexley Brewery have their own micro pub, the Bird and Barrel in Barnehurst. Yesterday there was a party at the brewery to celebrate their tenth anniversary; unfortunately I was unwell and unable to attend. The local area was poorly served by local brewers for a very long time, although one former brewery certainly divided opinion.  If you ask a number of retired people who have lived locally for any length of time about Beasley’s Beer, you will get a number of responses – not all of them good. Beasley’s Brewery was located in Plumstead, in Brewery Road, off Lakedale Road. Before the Second World War, it was owned by Harry Geoffrey Beasley, who had inherited the brewery. The income from this made him wealthy, and enabled him to spend much of his life engaged in his passion for anthropology; he travelled the world studying various tribes and peoples, and wrote many academic papers on the subject. He was considered to be a leader in his field of study, and in 1932 he became president of The Royal Anthropological Institute, a post he held until 1937, when ill – health in the form of Diabetes meant he had to stand down from the office. For most of his married life he lived in Cranmore House in Chislehurst, where he set up the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum, which housed six thousand exhibits that Beasley had collected during his travels. He died in 1939, when his collection was moved to the British Museum – just in time, as the house was destroyed during the Blitz. From the records I have read, Harry Beasley had a pretty hands – off relationship with the brewery from which he derived his not inconsiderable income. Some time ago, Local resident Roger Jewiss recalled the following story about day to day life for the average working man in Beasley’s Brewery: "My Grandfather was a blacksmith and during the depression found work a bit hard to find. He was pleased to get two days work to do a repair in the brewery. All employees were given two brass tokens a day which they could exchange for a pint of beer. My grandfather, very hot at his temporary forge, had used his tokens and was indeed very pleased when a brewery worker called down to him, “ Fancy a pint blacky?” “ Not 'arf,” replied my grandfather. Soon after, a copper vessel came slowly down from the vat above, on a long wire, and my grandfather gratefully quenched his thirst. “ Thanks”, he shouted back to his new friend, “that certainly was a long pint.”  “PINT!” came the reply, “that vessel held a gallon!”. The account was originally published on the Plumstead Stories website that you can see here. My Grandfather on my Mum’s side (and indeed my Mum) called the output of the brewery “Beasley’s beastly beer” as they both heartily loathed it. Apparently this was a not uncommon opinion at the time, thought for a period I understand that their beers had a royal warrant – if anyone has any details, I would love to hear from them. Beasley’s Brewery was taken over by the much larger Courage in 1963; not much later it was closed down. You can see a collection of Beasley Brewery photographs and beer mats which have been framed and hung on the wall of the excellent Robin Hood and Little John pub in Lion Road, Bexleyheath.

The end video this week is a short piece on the history of the former Regal Cinema in Bexleyheath Broadway. It was located where the large Asda supermarket now stands. Comments and feedback as usual to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.