Goodbye Sky.

Now that we are heading into Spring, the use of Erith Pier will increase, as the anglers, ship spotters, parents with buggy - bound children and all of the other patrons of the unique structure come out to enjoy it. I feel that only in the last couple of years has any real appreciation of the longest pier on the River Thames really come to the fore - and with the inaugural pier festival last year hopefully going to become a regular event in the social calendar of the town. 

Some bad news; it would seem that my announcement of the forthcoming improvements to the accessibility of Erith Station were somewhat premature, despite having information provided by two previously reliable sources. Only a few minutes after I published last week's update, I was contacted by local MP Teresa Pearce with a list of the stations that had been confirmed as being ones who would be getting improvements. Much to my shock and disappointment, Erith Station was missing from the list. I hope to have more detailed information on the subject soon, but at the time of writing it unfortunately looks like once again Erith Station is being overlooked for a much needed lift. One reader with an interest in this issue has advised me of the following:- "Did you know that if any disabled person has not got a Disabled Access Station they can phone South Eastern Railways Head Office and asked to be put through to Disabled Travel Section and request Taxi Transport to take them to the nearest Access Station. I did use this service when living in Erith a few times. The taxi cab does not cost them anything, that is paid for by South Eastern Railway. When phoning South Eastern Railways they must make sure that they ask for a “Wheelchair Friendly Taxi If they use a wheelchair”. That is very important, otherwise they could just send a standard size taxi. Even though Taxis are supposed to be Access Friendly now". More railway news to come.

Last week you may recall that I published a story about the Erith Fun Day 2019 had been cancelled. I appealed for background information about the cancellation, and the organisers named Tracy has been in contact with me. She writes:- "I just wanted to let you know why there will be no Erith Fun Day in 2019.  We (a group of local people along with members of Erith Rotary) have worked tirelessly for the last 6 years organising this event for the community of Erith. It takes up many hours of work each week all year round to organise the event and in the last few months leading up to the event, it takes up even more time, virtually taking over our lives.  A couple of people from the committee stepped down after the 2018 event, others have increased family commitments (including myself) and those of us left on the committee have struggled to recruit new committee members able to commit to the time and effort needed to stage the ever growing event. It was therefore with regret we decided we couldn’t organise something for 2019. We hope to maybe try and bring the event back in 2020, but this will depend on being able to recruit people onto the organising committee who have the time, energy and commitment needed to assist us in putting on a great event for the local community". 

One of the most popular end videos I have featured recently was that of YouTube star Geoff Marshall exploring the unique pedestrian crossing at Angerstein Wharf in Charlton. The video got more feedback from readers than any other for the last couple of months. Thanks to "From The Murky Depths" blog, and a couple of readers who also brought the story to my attention, plans by Network Rail to close the foot crossing are shortly to be implemented. When questioned about the very short notice, and the disruption to many Charlton residents, who use the route to travel to Westcombe Park Station, a spokesperson from Network Rail wrote:- "Thank you for contacting us with regards to the footpath over the Angerstein railway. In order to make the infrastructure safer, the track and signalling in this area must be reconfigured to enable safer operations and stop the risk of derailments. The reconfiguration will mean that freight trains exiting Angerstein Wharf are more likely to sit on the crossing while waiting to exit the Wharf onto the mainline. This will increase the risk of the public coming into contact with moving freight trains and the only way to mitigate against this is to permanently close this crossing. I am also able to inform you that there are no rights of way across this footpath crossing. We are unable to build a tunnel under the railway, however there are alternative ways around the railway which are of a short distance. The safety of the public and our passengers is of the utmost priority and importance". I gather that the real reason is that on the one or at most two times per day that a train makes the journey from the Angerstein Wharf to the North Kent line junction, a safety supervisor has to be present by the pedestrian crossing. Network Rail don't want that inconvenience and expense, and so are closing the crossing as a result. If you were not aware, The freight trains one sees on a fairly regular basis travelling on the North Kent line almost exclusively transport sand and gravel to various sites in the region. They load up at Angerstein Wharf, which is located on the banks of the River Thames between Charlton and Greenwich. There is a branch line which connects to the main line just outside of Charlton Station on the London bound side. This branch line is believed to be the oldest privately owned standard gauge siding in the world. Angerstein Wharf was built and opened by Russian born Charlton landowner John Angerstein in 1852 in order to get rail access to the to Angerstein Wharf on the River Thames; it also ran deep into the old East Greenwich gas works. Nowadays it is purely used for freight. Many of the ballast and gravel trains one sees passing along the North Kent line divert onto the Angerstein Wharf branch line. Gravel and sand that has been dredged from the sea is collected by the freight trains for use in the construction industry. No passenger trains run on the branch line; it is exclusively used by freight trains.

Now for part one of a three part special feature by a guest writer to the Maggot Sandwich. Parts two and three will be published next week, and the week after:- "Southeastern: The franchise that didn’t die, the pensions scandal, the private companies vying for a contract and the sorry state of the railway. Firstly, might I introduce myself. I am former Train Driver and Commercial Manager of a few railway companies Nicholas Hair. Following a 5-year career in ‘the trains’, I set up and own the Kentish Belle Micro Pub in Bexleyheath. The reason? Well, the railway is very rapidly going downhill as a result of mismanagement, wastage, Government interference, a loss of knowledge and, most importantly, a complete lack of care for the infrastructure and services by various bodies. I count Hugh Neal as a friend of mine and, following months of interaction since the Kentish Belle’s opening, I have continued to speak to dozens of industry and political contacts and have formed the Lewisham and Bexleyheath Community Rail Partnership to begin to address these concerns. I could never have hoped to form or even participate in a group such as this due to a perceived conflict of interest from companies I have worked for; so to be able to not only have a thorough technical understanding of legal and operational matters (from the movement of sets of points, to the numbers of trains and coaches, through to the stations and whether they get staff or not) without fear of reprisal is a great opportunity for the local area and the line’s passenger base. So, what’s the news? This week, Andrew Jones (Minister of State for Rail) announced that the South Eastern franchise (in the olden days the Integrated Kent franchise) was not going to be awarded. The proposed date for launch in June would have been almost impossible as we were within 7-8 weeks of it starting yet needing around 16-17 weeks to fully mobilise a private franchisee; and therefore a Commons Written Answer to our new friend Teresa Pearce (MP, Erith and Thamesmead) in early April in which it was stated that bids were still being assessed we deem to have been nothing short of an outright lie to all of the MPs of the House of Commons. Whilst Ms Pearce could not make such a ferocious comment for fear of suspension, we are willing to say that given the full facts of the situation it is obvious that Andrew Jones and Chris Grayling must have known many weeks ago that the South Eastern franchise would be extended further and continue to be under another ‘Direct Award’ to Govia (a consortium of Go Ahead and Keolis). A brief run-down of rail franchising, perhaps? A franchise is let from a set start date to a set end date. It is usually about 7 years long and, based on key performance indicators (KPIs), it can be extended under a ‘direct award’ to the private company holding the franchise (it’s almost like being allowed to stay out later playing with your friends for being good and doing as you’re told; whereas giving your mother attitude will get your privileges cut short and you’ll be brought back inside to tidy your room and have to watch everyone else play outside for another hour!). Southeastern was first extended in 2014 to June 2018 (an almost unprecedented franchise extension in respect of length) to cover the London Bridge rebuilding programme, and thence again to December 2018 and then again until June 2019. At this point, we should finally have received a new full franchise, but the Department for Transport has decided to extend until October 2019 with an optional extension again until April 2020. There is a review being undertaken at the moment by former John Lewis Chairman Keith Williams which aims to find all of the ‘fatal flaws’ of the current privatised railway network and identifying how to fix it such that future franchises don’t end in failure or, at least, actually deliver for the customer. It is felt that Govia’s continued extension would be due to awaiting the outcome of the Williams Review but the East Midlands contract was let this week to Abellio and thus we must assume that the Government does not value the outcome of the Williams Review all that much! And therefore we move onto the ‘what on earth next?!’ part of the presentation. Well, Hugh’s previous blogs alluded to several service improvements that were due in May 2022 as part of a mass overhaul of the South Eastern timetable. It was widely-anticipated that new direct peak-time services would operate from Maidstone West to Cannon Street or Charing Cross via Gravesend, Dartford, Abbey Wood and Woolwich Arsenal to create connections with Crossrail; that early morning services would exist from stations such as Bexleyheath to Abbey Wood on the ‘Loop’ service so people could get to Abbey Wood quickly for Crossrail and that Victoria trains would go via Sidcup instead of Bexleyheath to stop trains ‘cutting each other up’ on the unreliable flat diamond junction at Lewisham which was felt would make things more reliable. Whilst we have reasonable confidence that these services will start and run May 2022, it is trains that are now felt to be the problem". Part two of this article will be featured in the next edition. 

Historically, Erith has made quite a large contribution to the world of sport. Did you know that Erith was once one of the centres of English cricketing excellence? What is now The Europa Industrial Estate was once a cricket pitch and recreation ground? On Saturday 20th September 1884 a local team of sixteen played an eleven raised By a Mr. H.H Hyslop - a local businessman, from the Australian touring side of that year. Hyslop's Australian team won. A similar match took place between another scratch Australian team again put together by Mr. Hyslop on the 3rd May 1890. The Erith local team was composed of eighteen local men, pitted against a visitors team which included nine members of the Australian test side. This match resulted in a draw. Hopes for a rematch were dashed when the cricket ground was sold and a heavy engineering factory built on the site. Nevertheless, local historians refer to the matches as "when Erith took on the Australians". As many of you know, I am not a sports fan, but it is fascinating to discover, as I have done during my research for this week's entry, that Erith and the surrounding have been pivotal in the development of several now major sports. Football had much of its' origins in Erith in the early 1880's. Prior to 1885-1886, only Rugby Union was played in Erith - there were three clubs in the area; Star Rovers RFC played on Lessness Heath, near the Eardley Arms pub. Erith Raven RFC played on the recreation ground adjacent to the aforementioned cricket ground, and lastly, Erith Anglo - Normans RFC played on Faulkner's Meadow. This club had to be disbanded when the meadow was purchased, and the Nordenfeldt gun works was built on the site; no suitable alternative playing ground could be found for the club and it was wound up. In April 1885 Association Football was introduced to Erith by a gentleman called Bernard Beard, who came to Easton and Anderson's engineering works as manager of the boiler shop. A club was formed, called Erith F.C which played on an area then called Hartley's Meadow - which was located on the banks of the River Thames, just of what is now Lower Road. As a result of a personal dispute between club members, a rival club was established called Erith Avenue F.C. At first, as they had no ground, they were forced to play all of their games away, but they later were successful in securing a ground in what is now Avenue Road. Meanwhile, Erith F.C relocated from Hartley's Meadow to Lower Belvedere. Several members of the team subsequently played for Woolwich Arsenal F.C, what was later to become the current Premier League Arsenal club. The present Erith and Belvedere football club was founded in 1922 and had its' ground adjacent to Belvedere railway station for many years, until arsonists destroyed their main clubhouse and Park View stand in 1997. The club soldiered on for two years, using portakabins on the site, until they entered into a ground sharing arrangement with Welling United in 1999, which is still in place to this day. Most recent local football club to play in the area is Erith Town FC, who are based at Erith Sports Centre.

Sarah Batten of The Exchange has published an announcement and update on activities in the former Carnegie Library and The Bookstore Cafe within it - photo above. The update reads:- "We have a number of things going on over the spring holidays at The Exchange, including Garden Games available from The Bookstore, and a trail of our new exhibition Ex Libris. Here are a few more things that might interest you: The next stage in the creation of the Kitchen Garden at The Exchange! Participants will get crafty and green-fingered painting pots and planting up the the budding seedlings (which were planted at a previous workshop). Once grown these plants will be planted in our kitchen garden and all participants will be invited back later in the year for a feast made from the produce! There will also be mini-eggs to take away for all those who get involved. Throughout the Spring Holidays, young visitors to The Exchange will be able to borrow art materials - paper, clipboards, easels, paints and pencils - from The Bookstore Cafe, to create artworks for exhibition in our pop-up Young Person’s Gallery. Young People can enter their artworks into a competition where there are 3 categories:- Using The Old Library as inspiration - What I think should happen in the Old Library in the future? - Freestyle - drawing whatever I want! These entries will be judged by a group of local artists, and the winners of each category will win a set of art materials. Details of the judging to be announced very soon". Following this, you may be interested to learn that I will be conducting guided tours of the former Carnegie Library, starting next Saturday afternoon at 3pm. Visitors will be shown around the building, including areas not normally open to the public. You can learn about the historic building, and also of the future plans for the amazing space. Please note that some parts of the library are still a building site, so stout shoes are recommended. If you would like to join a tour, then please click here to book a place. The tours are free, but in order to manage numbers, we need you to book in advance. Please don't Email me personally about booking a place, but use the link above - many thanks, and I look forward to seeing you on a tour soon.

Early last week the BBC News website published a story about an experimental TV built by Sony that is designed to showcase cutting edge technology. The 63ft by 17ft (19.2m by 5.4m) screen is currently being installed at a new research centre that has been built for the Japanese cosmetics group Shiseido in the city of Yokohama, south of Tokyo. It is so large it will stretch between the first and second floors. The 16K display, contains 16 times as many pixels as a 4K television and 64 times as many as a regular 1080p high definition TV, meaning it can show images in far more detail than normal. this kind of technology is unlikely to emerge into public use for many years, if ever, as the resolution is actually far higher than the human eye can detect. nevertheless it gives an idea where one of the major high technology players is heading, and other large TV manufacturers such as Samsung and LG will no doubt be undertaking similar ventures. In practical terms, in a normal or even large lounge or dedicated home cinema room, the size of screen able to be accommodated and the viewing ranges involved mean that a screen of more than 8K resolution would be a waste of time, as people simply would not be able to detect the higher resolution. Having said that, I can recall when many pundits said that PC's would not need any more than 640K of RAM - and we all know how that panned out. In all this cutting edge technological development, let us not forget that not every new discovery gets accepted by the public, or ends up making the manufacturers pots of cash. A prime example of this is 3D television, which has turned out to be a massive white elephant. Initially 3D TV's were seen as being the future of home entertainment - at least by the vendors. In reality,  as early as 2013, 3D televisions were being seen as a fad. DirecTV had stopped broadcasting 3D programmes in 2012, while ESPN in the USA stopped in 2013. In the UK, Sky moved its content to on demand. Fewer and fewer 3D TVs were sold and soon TV manufacturers stopped making them. Vizio stopped production in 2014 and was followed by others. In January 2017, the last two major television manufacturers still producing 3D televisions, Sony and LG, announced they would stop all 3D support. Some viewers have complained of headaches, seizures and eyestrain after watching 3D films. There have been several warnings, especially for the elderly. Motion sickness, in addition to other health concerns, is more easily induced by 3D presentations. There are primarily two effects of 3D TV that are unnatural for the human vision: crosstalk between the eyes caused by imperfect image separation and the mismatch between convergence and accommodation caused by the difference between an object's perceived position in front of or behind the screen and the real origin of that light on the screen. It is believed that approximately 12 percent of people are unable to properly see 3D images, owing to a variety of medical conditions. According to another experiment, up to 30 percent of people have very weak stereoscopic vision preventing depth perception based on stereo disparity. This nullifies or greatly decreases immersion effects of digital stereo to them. 

In a second television based post; I want to share something with you which reflects my own personal experience, but not something that I am inclined to encourage others to do. As regular readers will be aware, I have been of the opinion for quite some time that the business model used by Sky TV is unsustainable. When Sky launched their original analogue satellite based service back in February 1989, there was no broadband infrastructure in the UK (or anywhere for that matter), as the World Wide Web had yet to be invented by Tim Berners – Lee. Satellites were the only economic method of broadcasting to large areas of the planet. Now the use of satellites for broadcasting is soon to go the way of using hot air balloons for air travel – yes you can still do it, but why would you bother? Fibre optic broadband is the way forward. Mark my words, the age of Sky using hugely expensive satellites to broadcast will soon be at an end; they will either change their operating model and switch to online, or they will slowly die. To this end, after being a Sky TV customer for 23 years (I was originally an Analogue subscriber, and an early adopter of Sky Digital, and subsequently the HD service), last week I cancelled my subscription. Sky have been endlessly bombarded me with promotional material encouraging me to upgrade to Sky Q 4K UHD, but I have neither the desire to spend money on a 4K television to watch a handful of channels that are actually in 4K. The ultra high definition offering is primarily aimed at those watching the sports channels, which are of no interest to me. I also have recently got increasingly ticked off with the fact that even though you are paying a substantial monthly subscription for Sky, they still show commercials. In essence you are paying to watch advertising. After around a year of prevaricating, I have now bitten the bullet and cancelled my Sky contract. I have Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Freeview and BBC iPlayer, so I am hardly going to be short of entertainment. What do you think? Are you a fan of Sky, or do you too feel that the costs have now so far exceeded the benefit? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly the report from Barnehurst ward:- "Barnehurst ward has yet another week with no residential burglaries to report however there has been an Incident in Eversley Avenue overnight on Monday 08/04/2019 whereby a garden shed was broken into and tools stolen from within. Vehicle crime on Barnehurst continues to be a concern following a further three Incidents over the past week. On Friday 05/04/2019 between 06.45pm – 11.15pm in Selkirk Drive both number plates were stolen from a vehicle. In Parkside Avenue on Monday 08/04/2019 overnight a spare tyre was stolen from a brand new Ford Transit van. Tool marks were seen on the van where it is believed the suspect went under the van to remove the tyre cutting the cables that held the tyre in place. Most recently on Tuesday 09/04/2019 overnight in Hillingdon Road a vehicle was entered and a Superdry jacket stolen. There was no damage found on the vehicle. We are asking residents to remove items from vehicles and once you have locked your vehicle please take a second to double check that the vehicle locked. There are opportunists out there that will stroll around and try door handles. On a good note Barnehurst Officers stopped a vehicle in Stephens Road and following checks it was established this vehicle was being driven with no Insurance held and the driver had also been disqualified from driving. The vehicle was subsequently seized. Our next Community Contact Session is on Tuesday 16th April 2019 at 04.00pm at Barnehurst Golf Club. Please come along and join us for a chat". Belvedere ward:- "PC Holmes and PC Smith took part in plain clothed patrols throughout the ward last weekend after reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB) in Nuxley Road/ Lower Road and drug use/ dealing in and around Picardy Street. During this, five stop and searches took place in relation to drug possession (cannabis). A community resolution was completed (this is a first instance warning to the person to cease their behaviour which will result in harsher penalisation should they come to notice for similar offences in the future). We recently received several different reports of a large group of youths causing ASB in Nuxley Road, Lower Road, Coleman Road and Essenden Road. Members of this group were committing various offences. PCSO Worrall and PC Holmes were able to view CCTV from these locations and ascertained that the same group were causing issues across the ward. We were able to identify six youths from the group and over last weekend visited each of the youths at their homes, where they were spoken to in the presence of their parents to make it clear that their behaviour was unacceptable. The youths were handed banning letters from both Asda (Lower Road) and Sainsburys (Nuxley Road) and have all been referred to Bexley Councils ASB team – further action is currently being considered by Bexley Council (the team will work alongside Bexley Council should further action be taken). The team were present at a vehicle collision that occurred in Heron Hill at the junction of Lessness Park shortly before 9pm on Saturday 6th April 2019. Two vehicles were involved however the driver of one of the vehicles failed to stop at the scene of this accident. If anyone was witness to this collision, or has any information in relation to this please contact the team. Our next drop in surgery is due to take place on Thursday 18th April 2019 from 11am at Belvedere Community Centre in Mitchell Close". A report from a Belvedere resident:- "At approx. 16.10 on Wednesday 10th April a group of youths aged approx. 14/15 years old in Kentish Road were picking up rocks from peoples front gardens when three more youths came running down the road after them with very long knifes shouting that they were going to ‘cut' them. The group of youths with rocks ran down Kentish Road and turned left into Abbey Crescent. The three youths with knifes ran back up Kentish towards Picardy Road. The Police arrived and were driving round looking for what we assumed were the youths. One of the knife wielding youths had a olive coloured tracksuit with what we would describe as a mop-top haircut - short at the sides with a ‘mop' on top while another was wearing a black top". Bexleheath ward:- "We have had no reported residential burglaries this week which is good news. There was a report of theft from motor vehicle between Wed 03/04/2019 & Thur 04/04/2019. The times were between 2200hrs and 0640hrs along Rochester Drive Bexleyheath. Laptop was stolen from the boot of the vehicle; On Sunday 07/04/2019 at 0100hrs headlights were stolen from a vehicle along Oaklands Close Bexleyheath; Monday 08/04/2019 between the hours of 1030hrs and 1815hrs – Catalytic Converter was stolen from a vehicle parked in the Marriot Hotel car park; Saturday 06/04/2019 between the hours of 2000hrs and 0800hrs Indicator lights were stolen from a vehicle along Meadow Close Bexleyheath; On Friday 05/04/2019 from about 1700hrs - Four stops inside the stairwell inside the Marriott Car Park which resulted in a community resolution and a fine (PND). Patrols have been and still will be conducted in and around the Premiere Inn car park and including the cinema car park to help tackle anti-social behaviour. The team have had reports of youths riding motorbikes at Bursted Woods. As a result the team shall be continuing to patrol this area. Along Haskenere Road Bexleyheath – There has been reports of scooters causing anti-social behaviour and drug use, area is being targeted with patrols. If you do wish to pass on information to Police then please contact Crime Stoppers on 0800 555111. Please do not hesitate to contact us via Twitter, Facebook, email and the ward phone. Remember in an emergency please dial 999 and 101 for non-urgent reporting". Crayford ward:- "Firstly, we are really pleased to be able to say there have been no burglaries on our ward this week. A padlock was stolen from a gated access to a building site at St Paulinus School overnight Sunday 7th April to Monday 8th April. Number plates were stolen from Woodside Road overnight on Saturday 6th April, number plates AV12BWZ should be on a black Vauxhall Zafira. Two company vehicles were significantly damaged between 21.00 and 22.00 on Thursday 4th April whilst parked to the rear of The Parade, Crayford Way. A male was arrested for assaulting a female member of staff at Tower Retail Park on Thursday 4th April. Between 18.00 on Saturday 23rd March and 06.50 Sunday 24th March a silver Kia had the front number plate (GU58HFW) removed whilst parked in Crayford High Street. A wallet, driving licence, cash and perfume were stolen from a black Mercedes YA17 *** whilst parked overnight at Alcock Crescent, the suspect was seen running to a white Ford Fiesta. At 1am on Monday 8th April a resident in Barnes Cray Road was woken up and realised that their Blue Yamaha XJ6, registration EA60 SOH was being stolen and loaded in to a van. Unable to get any description of the thief or vehicle. There have been a series of thefts of commercial high value recycling bins in Crayford. An eagle-eyed security guard recognised the van involved and called police and a male has now been arrested for these offences". Erith ward:- "Another week in Erith with zero burglaries. We have been talking to shop keepers and asking them to fill out ASB questionnaires so we can get an over view of any issues they may be having. Helped out with a warrant on Northend ward, arranging ward panel dates. If you would like to attend the Erith Ward panel we are looking for new members at the moment please email the Erith team for more information. Crimes of the week of note: Theft of MV Tuesday 02/04/2019, Pier Road; Theft from MV Saturday 06/04/2019, Bramble Croft; Shoplift <£200 Sunday 07/04/2019 supersaver, West Street; Shoplift <£200 Monday 08/04/2019 16:20:00 Screwfix, Fraser Road'. Northumberland Heath ward:- "We have very little to report this week. A couple of motor vehicle crimes reported to us over the last week. Between Friday evening of April 5th and Saturday afternoon of April 6th a number plate was stolen from a motorbike parked in Valence Road. The owner discovered that the chain and lock had been tampered with in an attempt to steal the bike. A Mercedes car was stolen near Carlton Road at 7.40pm on Sunday April 7th. The victim was in the process of selling the vehicle and took a prospective buyer out for a test drive ,along with another male who was with him, with as the victim got out of the vehicle, one of the males drove off in the car towards Bexleyheath. The first male was described as white, approximately twenty years old chubby build wearing jeans and a blue top. The second male was described as white, approximately thirty years old and slim. Another week with no reported burglaries".

The photo above shows a (possibly stolen) Honda scooter found hidden amongst the glass recycling bins in the Council recycling centre behind Erith Morrisons in James Watt Way on Friday evening. Both Erith and Slade Green and Northend Safer Neighbourhood Teams have been informed.

Slade Green and Northend ward:- "On Saturday 06/04/2019 the team (along with help from Erith and North Heath SNT) executed a drugs warrant on the Frobisher Road estate. Unfortunately the suspect we believed to be involved in drug dealing was not present at the time. A thorough search was completed but this time sadly we left empty handed. On Sunday 07/04/2019 between 3pm and 5pm an attempted burglary was reported in Frobisher Road. Entry wasn't gained. Reassurance visits have been carried out to the victims. A possible suspect has been linked to male who has been seen entering Bushey Court sheltered scheme late at night several times in recent weeks. Enquiries are ongoing to try and establish a positive ID. It seems that Catalytic converters being stolen is becoming a growing trend. 2 have been reported in the last few weeks on our ward (Frobisher Road, Howbury Lane) and there have been others reported in neighbouring wards. Although this is a hard one to prevent, if you do become a victim, please ensure it is reported via 101 or online so we can see where patrols may be needed. Our next CCS is on Thursday 18/04/2019 from 3.30pm in Slade Green Library". Thamesmead East ward:- "Motor Vehicle crimes - Between Sunday 5:00pm on Sunday 31/03/19 and Monday 5:30am on Monday 01/04/19 a vehicle parked in Overton Road had a window smashed and money taken .On Tuesday 02/04/19 between the hours of 7:00am and 8:00pm a vehicle parked outside of Dutton House, Southmere Drive had the passenger side wing mirror damaged .Between the hours of 10:00pm on Friday and 5:10am a vehicle parked in Northwood Place had both wing mirrors smashed. Overnight between the hours of 4:00pm of Sunday 07/04/19 and 11:10 am on Monday 08/04/19 a vehicle parked in Holstein Way had the front passenger window smashed, nothing taken. Damage to Property - On Thursday 04/04/19 between the hours of 8:30pm and 8:40pm a property in Overton Road, had a ground floor front window smashed, unknown person/s seen". West Heath ward:- "This week on West Heath Ward some scrap metal was stolen from a shed in Sidmouth Rd on Wednesday 3/4/19 at 4.30pm and there was an attempted burglary in Berkeley Rd where a male was seen on a video doorbell trying cars and front doors at 2.25am on Saturday 6/4/19 (see photo in Borough-wide news above). There was a burglary in Cranbrook Rd on the Monday 8/4/19 between 5.20pm and 9.40pm. Entry was gained by smashing the rear patio doors where an untidy search was carried out and cash and jewellery taken. We have also had an attempted theft of a motorbike in New Rd on the Saturday 6/4/19 at just after midnight, several male were seen trying to cut the security chain. The rear window of a car was smashed in Lenham Rd overnight Tues 3 - Wed 4th April and a male was seen on camera stealing change from an unlocked vehicle in Woolwich Rd in the early hours of Tuesday 9/4/19. Next week's street briefing is in Exmouth Road at 7pm on Saturday 20/4/19".

Singer / songwriter Si Cranstoun has been in the press quite a lot lately; he is shortly to go on tour, and his records have been getting a lot of radio airplay. Industry pundits seem pretty unanimous that he is going to be a major, mainstream star. What is less known is that he and his brother used to busk in Bexleyheath Broadway as "The Dualers". Below is a video from Christmas 2011 which shows Si Cranstoun performing to passing shoppers in Bexleyheath. Leave a comment below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

The 3D turn - off.

I took the photo above in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre on Friday lunchtime. You can see some others that I took at around the same time on my Flickr site here. It is some time since I took any photos in the shopping centre, and many new shops have opened, and a couple have closed. I thought that it was high time to document the changes that have happened over the last couple of years. Whilst I was taking shots, a couple of Maggot Sandwich readers came over to say hello, which was very nice - it never ceases to amaze me as to how many people read my weekly ramblings. 

Well, just for once I can say that I told you so. Regular readers may recall that back in August 2013 I predicted the demise of 3D television - you can see my original article by clicking here. Well, only this week the BBC News technology website has been reporting that both LG and Sony have now stopped making 3D-enabled televisions. The firms follow Samsung - the world’s biggest TV maker - who confirmed the move last year. It means there are currently no major manufacturers making 3D TVs. Very few movies are now being shot in the format, and it is rumoured that the sequels to Avatar (the most financially successful film shot in 3D) will be shot in 2D and only converted to 3D in post production - mainly to save money, as it is not felt that a native 3D production would recoup its' increased production costs with the greatly reduced share of the potential audience being prepared to pay extra to see the movie in 3D in any form. Since the original Avatar was released in 2009, the numbers prepared to sit through what a significant proportion of people find to be a headache inducing, eye strain causing ordeal will be instructive to see. Personally I can get on with 3D for about twenty minutes at a time. I would most certainly not be able to sit through a full length movie without feeling distinctly unwell. I gather that the way that the 3D processing works relies on the viewer having perfect unassisted 20/20 vision – the overlapping dual images that are displayed on screen and filtered by the stroboscopic (in the case of active 3D) or polarising (in the case of the cheaper and less effective passive system) glasses are not interpreted correctly by the brains’ visual cortex if vision is anything less than perfect – this is why problems with watching 3D content are more common with people who wear prescription spectacles like myself. It would appear that consumers were buying the TV’s despite the 3D features, not because of them. My suspicions regarding this were confirmed recently when a while ago I had a detailed conversation with the senior A/V installation engineer from local electronics retailer Wellingtons and he confirmed my suspicions. He said that people buy smart TV’s mainly for applications such as BBC iPlayer and other streaming “catch up” services – the other smart functions are generally regarded as a novelty – as is 3D. This novelty soon wears off. 3D is a solution to a problem that you never knew that you had.

Many local residents commute into London to go to work; unfortunately the means of doing this for many people who live in the Northern parts of the London Borough of Bexley are somewhat limited - you either get the overland train via either the Dartford to London Via Greenwich line, or alternatively via the Bexleyheath line. Some lucky people such as myself have an alternative of getting a bus to Woolwich Arsenal and then joining the Docklands Light Railway into London - but for many this is not a practical option. This week travel was greatly disrupted by the derailment of a freight train on a section of line near to Lewisham station. The train was eighteen cars long and contained building materials - mainly sand and ballast, several tons of which got dumped onto the tracks during the accident. The derailed train also bent and broke a fairly long - around fifty metres - section of rail track which needed to be replaced. In an interview with the London Evening Standard on Wednesday, Andy Derbyshire, chief operating officer for Network Rail’s South East route, said: “We know that this incident is disrupting many peoples’ journeys and I’m sorry it will be a few days yet before services return to normal. We are doing everything we can to get the site clear and our repairs under way as quickly and safely as possible. We need to completely rebuild more than 50m of railway from the foundations up, just a few metres from one of the busiest railway lines in the south east. This is a significant job but we’ll be working round-the-clock until the work is done and trains are back up and running for passengers.” The last time a similar event happened was on the 3rd of June 2015, when a similar freight train derailed on the junction close to the Angerstein Wharf branch line, on the London bound track just past Charlton station - you can see a photo of that incident below. The 2015 incident took Network Rail engineers a week to clear and resolve; bearing in mind it is less than eighteen months since that serious incident, is one to assume that derailments are becoming a far more regular occurrence. I know that a substantial number of my regular readers are transport enthusiasts - I wonder if any of them can give me greater insight into the reasons for such derailments - does it have anything to do with the UK's rail network being almost unique in the world in allowing freight and passenger trains to share the same tracks, for example? I am concerned that whilst the last two derailments have involved freight trains and no people were injured, the next time may involve a passenger train on what is one of the busiest and most heavily used lines in the country. We may not be so lucky next time. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

I recently had a most unpleasant shopping experience; last weekend I needed to work Friday night, then all day Saturday and Sunday and into the early evening - some vital IT infrastructure work that could only be performed out of hours in my "day job". This meant that I was unable to visit the shops during the daytime. I did get a chance to visit the large Morrison's supermarket in Erith with a mind to getting myself something for my dinner on Saturday evening. I spent less than ten minutes getting a few essentials and then headed to the tills in order to pay and go home after a long day working. When I got to the checkouts, I found that none of the regular ones were staffed, and only the self service tills were available. I politely asked the supervisor if any conventional tills were available, and was told "It is only self service now - the standard tills shut at 8.30". Please bear in mind that it was around 8.45pm, and the store stays open until 10pm, and there were still many shoppers with large trolleys full of goods in the store. I put down my hand basket and walked out of the store empty handed in protest. I am vehemently opposed to self service for a number of reasons; firstly it has been demonstrated that the average time to complete a supermarket self service transaction is up to three times as long as one carried out by a staffed till – and that is without allowing for system errors. Secondly, why would you have a dog and bark yourself? Quite often the checkout person adds to the whole retail experience, and can problem solve on the go. Elderly people, or customers with small children can also find self service stressful. On top of this, the supermarkets only introduce self service as they think it will reduce their staffing overheads. This has proved to be a false economy, as although the number of checkout staff is reduced, the number of supervisors and security operatives has to increase – who tend to be paid a higher rate than the checkout staff. This particular matter has caused Wilkinson’s to remove them, as they discovered that the self service tills actually cost more by the time all the overhead costs were factored in; they were also finding the incidence of thefts and under age purchasing were on the rise. Self-service counters cost about £9,000 each, including installation, and manufacturer NCR estimates that they pay for themselves in about 15 months. A third more tills can be squeezed into a store and checkout staff can be deployed elsewhere. But the devices — and their frequent complaint of “unexpected item in bagging area” — are disliked by many shoppers, who argue that retailers are asking customers to do their work for them and that it reduces interaction with staff. NCR argues that the counters cut prices. “Staff can be redeployed to the shop floor, so it can actually improve service,” A claim that has since found to be incorrect in  a very many cases. NCR believes that it is benefiting from modern social change, especially the growing convenience market. People are making more shopping trips, for fewer items — hence the spread of convenience outlets to meet demand — a phenomenon attributed by analysts to the breakdown in the nuclear family and traditional working patterns. NCR believes, moreover, that shoppers’ desire for healthy and fresh food and a growing desire to have cravings satisfied immediately have also driven the convenience boom. In my opinion, part of the whole shopping experience is the service and interaction with the staff - and as has been previously proved, the auto tills are not very secure. In fact, the whole chip and PIN security system is indeed threatened, as I have written about in the past. I refuse to do the supermarkets' work for them - and I detest these impersonal infringements on our shopping experience. Earlier last year a report was published by the Criminology Department of the University of Leicester on self service checkout tills. The report found that installing self-service checkouts raises lost revenue by 122 percent. Some of it is accidental – people forget to scan items, or get confused by instructions; other times shoppers get so frustrated with self-service kiosks that they feel justified in not paying. But the report  states that mostly people shoplift because the technology makes it so easy. Mobile phone scanning technology is just as vulnerable – the study found that at the end of a typical shopping trip, up to ten percent of items had not been scanned, leading to “shrinkage” (loss through wastage or theft) of about 3.9 percent of turnover. Unfortunately the technology makes it very difficult to prove that customers are deliberately stealing. One retailer admitted they almost never prosecute people. For that reason supermarkets are now introducing tagging systems so un-scanned items trigger alarms. Supermarkets such as Morrison’s in Erith have now expanded the number of self – service checkouts so that now half of all tills are of this type, as I found to my cost. Finding open, traditionally staffed checkouts are becoming a challenge to find. I have always wondered why you have to pay the same price for an item when it is purchased via a self – service till when compared to a traditional one – after all, you are doing work on behalf of the supermarket, and surely this should be reflected in a cheaper cost? If I wanted to operate a till, I would get a job at Morrison's. I have filed a complaint with the store management and am currently awaiting a response. More on this in the weeks that come. 

The photo above shows another “then and now” photo from local history enthusiast Martin Barnes, who has spent considerable time putting together a load of such shots from around the London Borough of Bexley. The “now” photo is actually from 2012, and it shows the Potion Bar still open, before it lost its’ licence and was forcibly shut by the authorities. The former White Hart pub is currently in a very sorry state indeed; the metal security shuttering which has covered the outside for the last couple of years has now been removed, and workers are currently stripping the interior. What is actually going on with the building seems currently to be shrouded in mystery. When any of the workers are asked what is happening to the building they claim to not know, and say that they are “just tidying it up”. This seems to be stretching a point as they have been hard at work for several weeks. I know that plans were submitted to Bexley Council to convert the upper floor into residential apartments , and for a low level block of flats to be built on what is currently the very large pub garden, which overlooks the River Thames. What I currently don’t know is if these plans got approved – and the Bexley planning website does not seem to be giving anything away. I do know that any redevelopment / refurbishment of the listed Victorian building which is located in the Erith High Street conservation zone will insist that a replica of the original acid etched glass and green glazed tile pub frontage will have to be installed. The original historic frontage was illegally demolished by the then owners of Potion Bar, who instead installed the hideous plate glass and metal “fish tank” exterior you can see in the 2012 photo above. The council took legal action against the owners of Potion, who did not turn up in court. When the court found in favour of Bexley Council, Potion was declared bankrupt – to avoid the punishing fine and requirement to enact the restoration of the historic frontage.  Now the building looks extremely shabby, unlike the nearby Cross Keys, which has been sympathetically and methodically restored inside and out at great expense by Anglo American management consultants, the Aleff Group. The whole of the Erith High Street Conservation Area looks amazing – with the exception of the shell of the White Hart / Potion Bar. I am concerned that the building may go the way of The Prince of Wales, which was closed and unused, and just before it was due to be listed by Bexley Council, it mysteriously burned down, caused by a fire which began in more than one location some years ago. The plot of land it once occupied is now the site of the Erith McDonald's Drive Through Restaurant.

Things have also gone very quiet regarding the £19.7 million pounds local regeneration grant due to be spent on Erith. It was announced last March, as you can see in the video clip here, but little has been heard since. Bearing in mind the very positive impact such a large investment will have on the town, it is a pity that this is not given greater prominence. What would you like to see the money spent on, and why? If you have any information as to what is happening regarding this large amount of regeneration cash, please let me know. Leave a comment below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.



The train service on the local train lines has been utterly appalling recently, especially after the early morning derailment that I mentioned earlier; I have given up on using it to travel to my company's office in Canary Wharf, and instead get the 99 bus from Erith to Woolwich Arsenal Station where I pick up the Docklands Light Railway. It may take a few minutes longer, but it is a far more reliable and less stressful method of travel in my opinion. One thing that the journey from Erith to Woolwich has done is given me a greater appreciation of the journey between local towns, and the often poor state of repair of so many key buildings on the journey. In my opinion the worst by far are some of those in Plumstead High Street, especially the former bed store at number 64, which has now been the subject of a local news story. The News Shopper have reported that Greenwich council have come under fire for neglecting Plumstead High Street and leaving old, dilapidated buildings unchallenged.The state of disrepair of 64 Plumstead High Street in particular has frustrated locals who want to know why the council haven’t acted sooner on the issue. A residents group called Plumstead and Abbey Wood Regeneration Committee (PARC), consisting of 25 members, to try get something done about the state of their high street. Johnny Beverton, a member of PARC, said: “Plumstead High Street has been neglected for some time now and one only needs to take to social media to see that locals and newcomers alike are becoming increasingly frustrated with the seeming lack of activity or dialogue from the council. The state of some of the buildings is an ongoing concern and has been for some time now, with blatant disregard by owners for the state of their properties contributing to a negative atmosphere and lack of civic pride. Plumstead has a thriving community of people who really care and PARC are looking forward to taking a proactive approach working with the council to secure ongoing progress." PARC members believe the council should be using their powers to force property owners to tidy their land up, citing the Section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1990. The act gives local councils the power to force property owners to clean land when its condition adversely affects the amenity of the area.

Erith is still somewhat of a building site at present; many bus services are still on diversion due to the ongoing roadworks outside of the Fit4Less gym at the junction of Erith High Street and Pier Road, as you can see in the photo above - click on it for a larger view. Apparently the works are necessary to upgrade the gas pipes that run under the road - whatever, there has been a hole for over two weeks, with very little sign of an end in sight. If anyone has more information on the road works, I would love to hear from you - Email hugh.neal@gmail.com with your details.

Do you have an Apple Mac and a need to run a Windows only application? Well aside from dual booting, which involves buying a retail copy of Windows, there is an alternative that until very recently was only really the option for very technically minded people such as me. That is all changing with the arrival of Wine 2.0 which has been released following a year in development with support for Office 2013 among a list of 6,600 changes. Wine is an open-source compatibility layer first released in 2008 for Windows apps to run on Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux and Apple's OS X. Office 2013 is the latest in a line of Microsoft's productivity suite to work with Wine and therefore Linux. Other changes in Wine 2.0 include 64-bit support for Mac OS X. Gamers also get a boost, with more Direct3D 10 and 11 features implemented – including more resource formats – while the Wine 3D graphics card database recognises a broader number of GPUs. Wine 2.0 is free and open source - a much cheaper option that shelling out for a retail copy of Windows 10 Professional at £189.99 including VAT.

Readers may recall that in my update entitled "The Jetty" on the 8th of January, I was extremely worried about the proposed compulsory purchase of Millwall FC's football ground, and the possible precedent that it could set for local councils to similarly compulsorily purchase other leisure spaces and then sell them off to property developers in order to raise cash - bearing in mind Bexley Council's absolutely horrifying reputation for doing exactly this at the slightest opportunity. Well, it would appear that common sense has finally prevailed. It was reported on Wednesday afternoon that the plan to evict Millwall football club from its land around the Den by compulsory purchase has been abandoned after months of fierce public pressure. In a statement Lewisham council’s elected mayor, Sir Steve Bullock, said that the CPO on Millwall’s land “should not proceed”, pulling the plug on the plan that could have threatened the club’s future existence in its historical South East London home. Residents threatened with eviction by the £1bn regeneration scheme will also be celebrating as a concerted campaign to expose the plans to the light of scrutiny has finally borne fruit. In a statement Bullock wrote: “I have always been clear that Millwall must be at the heart of the development and it is my view that these concerns need to be thoroughly addressed, the CPO should not proceed and that all parties concerned should enter discussions to identify an agreed way to achieve the regeneration of this area while resolving these concerns.” Under the proposed scheme Lewisham council planned to seize Millwall’s land, evict the club’s prized community trust and sell the land on to an offshore-registered developer called Renewal. Renewal was founded by two former Lewisham council officers, one of them the previous Labour mayor. The developers are ultimately owned and administered behind the veil of secrecy in the British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Man.

Regular reader and occasional Maggot Sandwich contributor Brian Silk was in contact with me earlier this week; he had spotted something that had completely passed me by. He had discovered that part of a BBC comedy show called “Revolting” was filmed in Erith. You can watch the episode in question on BBC iPlayer here - if you fast forward to the 13 minutes and 50 seconds point, you will see the footage shot in and around Erith. To be honest I am not impressed with the piece. It begins with “In Erith always have a Nigerian phrase book to hand” – advice that is both inaccurate and offensive. Yes, Erith does have a significant proportion of residents whose predecessors came from Africa; not all are of Nigerian origin, and in any case there is no such language as “Nigerian” - I do get the point that they are trying to parody the extreme right wing views of former Erith resident and former BNP and Britain First member Paul Golding, who appears earlier in the episode, but it is very poorly done in my opinion. According to a number of reliable sources, historically something in excess of 520 languages have been spoken in Nigeria. The official language of Nigeria, English, the former colonial language, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country. Communication in the English language is much more popular in the country's urban communities than it is in the rural areas (comprising about three quarters of the country's population).The other major languages are Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Ibibio, Edo, Fulfulde, and Kanuri. Nigeria's linguistic diversity is a microcosm of Africa as a whole, encompassing three major African languages families: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Niger–Congo. Nigeria also has several as-yet unclassified languages, such as Cen Tuum, which may represent a relic of an even greater diversity prior to the spread of the current language families. Calling an African language “Nigerian” is like calling the English language “European”. To be honest, the piece was pretty crass and personally I found it offensive and clumsily executed. I felt that it also painted Erith in a negative light. I wonder what made the producers pick Erith as a destination? Was it purely that racist bigot Paul Golding originates from here? The town does not exactly have a high profile, and I can think of other places that they might have selected instead. It is unfortunate that Erith does have a negative image when it comes to comedy; I can still remember the late comedienne Linda Smith, a former Erith resident who once joked “Erith is not twinned with anywhere, but it does have a mutual suicide pact with Dagenham” – a comment which has taken years to overcome since.

The ending video this week is a short piece from the excellent website The Londonist. It features a concise history of London telephone dialling codes - a lot more interesting than you might expect.

The Bridge.

The photo above shows the view looking West, along Bexley Road, from Erith towards Northumberland Heath. You can clearly see the scaffolding that runs underneath the bridge across the railway line that connects Erith and Slade Green stations on the Dartford to London Bridge / Cannon Street and Charing Cross stations via Greenwich. To say that I am perplexed by the actions of Bexley Council would be an understatement of epic proportions. As you may well have read over the last few weeks I have been recording the progress of the work to refurbish and strengthen the road bridge over the railway in Bexley Road, Erith, as shown above. This vital communications focus point connects The A206 Queens Road, which leads to the Dartford Tunnel and M25 with the A2016 Bronze Age Way, which leads to Woolwich and the South Circular, and the A220 Bexley Road, which connects with the A2 and the coast. As you can see, the single lane each way bridge forms an almost perfect choke point – the Bronze Age Way, and Queens Road are dual carriageways, that are filtered down into a single lane when traffic needs to head West along Bexley Road towards Northumberland Heath and eventually the A2. There has been talk for several years about widening the carriageway, which would involve replacing the existing road bridge with a double width structure. This was discounted a couple of years back, as Bexley Council decided that they could not afford the cost of the work in the current economic climate. Instead they did commission some urgent refurbishment and strengthening to the bridge, as the years of heavy traffic passing over it, and the corrosive atmosphere had caused the steel structure to develop cracks and weaknesses. None of this has been readily apparent from the road side – it is only underneath the bridge that the damage had become obvious. At the time of writing, the bridge is swathed in scaffolding as you can see above, and is reduced to a single carriageway, which is controlled by temporary traffic lights. Much local traffic is being re – routed via Bronze Age Way and Lower Belvedere, where it then can re – join Woolwich Road via Picardy Road (often erroneously referred to locally as Picardy Hill). The heavy foods vehicles and double decker buses on diversion up Picardy Road have caused all sorts of chaos and congestion, as for much of the roads’ length it is very narrow and winding – a fact that is not helped by parents who park their Chelsea tractors there whilst dropping off their children at the nearby Lessness Heath Primary School. The reason for my astonishment with the actions of the council is that whilst work is still under way to repair the existing bridge, at some not small expense, the council are now sending out letters to local businesses and stakeholders, in which they propose to replace the (newly refurbished) single lane in each direction bridge with a double width, dual carriageway bridge in 2015. If they had been contemplating this project, why did they authorise the repair work on the existing bridge? It seems that they are throwing good money after bad; the bridge will have less than a years’ use before it is replaced with the new structure – surely it would have been preferable to bring forward the dual carriageway bridge project, and not bother to have the expense of repairing the existing structure at all? It seems to make absolutely no sense to me; it would appear that the work, if it receives approval, will take up a year of time, starting at an unspecified date in 2015. It would thus appear that the current work, which is causing a huge amount of disruption to both local traffic and businesses, may be completely pointless, since it is all going to be dug up and replaced in a relatively short time frame. I fully appreciate that the bottle neck that is currently formed by the old bridge needs to go; it just seems that if the council had been proactive, rather than reactive in their traffic planning, they could have avoided expensive, unnecessary and embarrassingly wasteful work.

South Eastern Trains have been given a well deserved slippering by the local press this week; on Tuesday evening the main signalling control centre at London Bridge Station suffered a fire. The control centre manages the signalling on the Bexleyheath, Bromley South, Hayes, Sevenoaks, Sidcup and Greenwich train lines – basically everything running into and out of South East London and North Kent. There is no backup to this system, and all trains were suspended at the start of rush hour; many services did not start again until 11pm or thereabouts, and the whole of the region was in transport chaos. On top of the usual commuter related problems, the Greenwich line has the additional passenger load of travellers returning from a concert at the O2 Arena, and a football match at Charlton. This led to a complete train melt down. OK, in rare instances, this kind of problem can be expected; the important thing is how those responsible for getting things moving again react to the crisis. Typically for South Eastern, to whom it would appear that competence is an anathema. The Public Relations department of South Eastern Trains went into overdrive, sending out messages on Twitter that were not so much hopelessly optimistic, as completely untrue and misleading. At 5.45 pm they tweeted that the signalling issues had been resolved, and that normal service would be resumed shortly. In fact, severe delays and disruption continued for the rest of the evening, with commuters reporting four or five hour journeys home on overcrowded buses and an overloaded Docklands Light Railway service. South Eastern Trains abruptly deleted their misleading tweet, but not before many commuters had read it. Later, South Eastern Trains blamed the tweet on Network Rail, the company that maintain the railway infrastructure, then to make matters worse, then blamed customers who were trapped on trains stuck just outside of London Bridge Station for opening the train doors and climbing down onto the track to return to the station. Traction power had to be switched off due to safety concerns. Nobody it seems was talking to each other in an effective manner, and even though the signal control centre is a point of critical failure, little consideration of a backup system seems to have been made. What really comes out of this horrible situation is that people want honesty from the transport suppliers; Better to be told an accurate “the service is completely stuffed and we’re not sure when it will be back” than a completely erroneous and falsely optimistic “it will all be back to normal in a few minutes”. I just fear that South Eastern Trains will try and put gloss over substance when this happens again; they don’t appear to be capable of learning from their experiences.

The photo above dates back to 1920; it shows shrimp fishermen employed by William Gilder, the fishmonger who had a shop in Erith High Street for many years between the two World Wars. The distinguished chap in the Fedora hat the helm of the vessel is Mr. Gilder himself; I am not sure if he regularly went out on shrimping trips, or if this was a special occasion that merited a commemorative photograph. I was surprised when I came across the photo; I knew that the River Thames off Erith was a rich source of Lemon Sole, Dabs and Eels, but I did not know that it had been a historic source of shrimps. What is somewhat troubling is that back then, raw sewage was pumped into the Thames from Crossness Sewage Works. Shrimps and Prawns get their nutrients from filtering the water they swim in, and any noxious substances tend to get concentrated in their bodies as a consequence.  This would have made eating Erith caught shrimps a bit of a lottery regarding whether they would give you food poisoning or not; I guess that people’s constitutions were a bit more hardy back then; personally I would have avoided local shellfish just to be on the safe side. More on this later.

One unexpected outcome of the proposed transfer of the Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre to Bromley Library would be the cessation of local studies book publication; Bexley has for many years run a small publishing house, printing small runs of books that are of local historical and social interest; if the transfer to Bromley takes place, there will be no more local studies books once the current stocks have been depleted. I found out this shocking fact from the Librarian in Erith Library – somewhere I frequent only very occasionally, as the new building is airless and horrid compared to its’ beautiful old home in the Andrew Carnegie gifted building in Walnut Tree Road, which now stands empty and unused.  Although I am far from convinced that Bexley Council will outsource the Local Studies and Archive Centre to Bromley (it is too much of a vote loser, and it is not that long before the local council elections) and I share Malcolm Knights’ opinion that it will be a popular vote winner to retain the service, which after all costs very little to run in the greater scheme of things, and the size of the petition against the plan may mean that Bexley drop the scheme. Either way, I would strongly recommend that if you have an interest in local history, you purchase any books on the subject sooner rather than later, as I don’t think the local studies publishing house will survive, whatever else happens.

I have a smart TV that has active 3D technology embedded in it. Like nearly all owners of such televisions, the 3D functionality gets little, if any use. I have to admit that whilst I have a degree of antipathy about 3D in general, I did watch the 50^th Anniversary of Doctor Who on the special Sky channel that the BBC hired just for the one – off show. What was novel was seeing the old classic BBC test card having been re – jigged for 1080i HD and 3D before the programme started. The show itself was excellent, and the use of 3D actually added an important element to the story, if you saw it. The thing is, the BBC have very little experience with 3D, and whilst the overall viewer experience was good, the Beeb did make one very basic error. The format chosen for streaming the show in a form suitable for  passive 3D TVs, computers and tablets is "side by side": each transmitted frame contains left- and right-eye images alongside each other. The receiver splits the frame into two down the picture’s vertical centre and presents one and then the other. Stereoscopic glasses make sure the correct eye sees the correct image. The BBC forgot to embed the station ID logo in the right hand image; this can cause the visual cortex of viewers to confuse the 3D illusion, causing eye strain and blurred vision. The active 3D transmission was not so affected, as it uses a single image that looks similar to a blurred conventional picture – the active shutters in the glasses synchronise with the TV to ensure that the correctly separated image is sent to the relevant eye. The Doctor Who 50^th special is likely to be the last venture the BBC makes into the 3D market for quite some time, if ever. The take up of 3D technology is very low, and it is not financially viable for them. As I have written in the past, 3D will never become mainstream until such time as a practical system that does not require special glasses can be perfected.

I have been doing some more historical research this week, following the excellent photo sent to me recently by reader Dana of Bexley, which showed an open topped tram from the original 1905 Erith Tramways fleet undergoing restoration at the National Tramways Museum at Crich in Derbyshire.  I wrote about how the tram company was tiny, and their network only ran from Abbey Wood to Northumberland Heath via Erith. Subsequent to this, a chap called John King, who patently knows far more about the history of Erith's trams wrote me this Email:- "I read with interest about Erith Council Tramways, However this is not an Erith Tram. 106 was built for the LCC (London County Council) in 1903. In 1926 it was converted to a snow broom. I think Dana of Bexley may have been confused by the board on the tram displaying Belvedere, Erith, and Dartford. But is does say change at Abbey Wood for those destinations. Seen the LCC Tramways Trust for details. I have a small piece on my website here ". Thanks to John for the additional information - much appreciated. Since my piece, I have uncovered an old photograph of the dedicated tramway power station, which was located in Walnut Tree Road, on  the site of what later became Erith Swimming Baths.  The photo above dates from approximately 1910, and shows not only the power station, but also some allotments in the foreground. The site is still used today by EDF energy for their local high power step – down transformers – it turns high voltage current fed from underground cables into lower voltage power, suitable for domestic and industrial consumption.

As previously stated, I am not a hardcore video gamer; I have played and completed all three BioShock games on my Apple iMac, but I don’t have a games console, and could only really be called a lacklustre dabbler in the genre. Nevertheless, I have had quite a number of Maggot Sandwich readers contact me recently; they know of my professional background as a technology analyst. Despite the question being asked and answered many times online and on TV shows like the excellent “Click” on the BBC, I have still been asked on my opinion of the debate of  the day – which is better, the Xbox One, or the PS4? Well, they are both excellent machines, and to be honest, the real deciding factor between the two machines will be the quality and range of games that are made available for them. Both machines have very similar specifications – this incarnation, both are based on a conventional PC architecture. This will almost certainly be good news, as it will make porting games between the two competing platforms much easier than has been the case with the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The problem (which has impacted PS3 sales) is that the PS3 used a very powerful, but difficult to program processor called the Cell. This meant that many developers did not bother with the difficulty and expense of converting Xbox 360 games for the PS3, and sales of the PS3 suffered in consequence. Sony have not made that design error this time around. The bottom line is if you want an integrated entertainment centre, which is capable of handling everything from your BluRay collection, streaming online content, Skype calling and gaming too, with a high definition motion capture camera, then the Xbox One is likely to fit the bill for you. Of you want something a little more powerful, but a little cheaper, that has a stronger focus on games alone, then the PS4 will be my advice for you. Alternatively you may wish to wait a while, as Valve Software are currently working on several prototypes for a future Steam console, which will run a modified version of Ubuntu Linux. Why would you want one of these, from a newcomer to the console hardware market? Well, there are a number of strong rumours that when the console gets launched next year, that the launch title will be Half Life 3. This will go a long way to attract gamers even if they have already bought one of the consoles from the big players in the market. As always, your mileage may vary. As to which I would go for personally? I would rather purchase this little beauty. Please feel free to leave a comment below.

I do from time to time wonder exactly who does read the Maggot Sandwich. The Blogger management console does offer quite detailed and varied information into where readers are geographically located, what computer operating system and web browser they are using, and what particular posts they have found interesting. What it does not do is let me see who they are – understandably, as this would be a major privacy issue. The reason I mention the subject is that I suspect the member of the Welsh Assembly, and Welsh Health Minister Mark Drakeford must be a Maggot Sandwich reader, as he has put into law something that I have been proposing for a long time. On Thursday, Wales became the first country in the United Kingdom  to make it compulsory for food outlets to display their “Scores on the Doors” health rating sticker. The scheme is still voluntary outside of Wales, as I have  written about extensively in the past – this means that essentially the scheme is toothless – food establishments that get a bad rating just don’t display their sticker, or put up an older one with a better rating (or worse still, just change the name of the restaurant or fast food outlet, as has happened in Erith – the Oyin Nigerian restaurant merely changed its’ name to the Wazobia in order to evade a dreadful health rating). Other countries have similar systems; in New York the Metropolitan Authority introduced a compulsory rating system a few years ago; Food outlets were inspected, and graded as A, B or C for food hygiene. Since this compulsory system was introduced, 95% of inspected restaurants now merit an “A” rating. Anything with a lesser grade risks going out of business. We urgently need a similar level of enforcement that is backed up with law for the whole of the UK, and not just Wales.  Erith holds the unenviable title of having the worst rated food outlets in the whole of the country; a total of nine places rating zero out of five hygiene stars – yet the Council don’t shut the places down. Consequently I have not eaten anything from a takeaway or local cafe for several years. I should point out that there are a couple of independent local establishments that buck this dreadful trend. Both the Mambocino coffee house / restaurant in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre, and the T-Bone cafe in Fraser Road both score a creditable four out of five hygiene stars, and both proudly display their stickers. It is a pity that they are the exception to the general rule.  The newly opened King of the Grill kebab shop in Manor Road has not yet been rated, but I think it will do well. The Food Standards Agency has released statistics showing that there are over a million food related poisoning cases every year in the UK, with twenty thousand people hospitalised as a result, and a staggering five hundred deaths, all directly attributable to poor food hygiene. Perhaps Mister Gilder would not get a great rating if he was alive and working in his fishmongers’ shop today – I doubt his pooey prawns would go down very well with the inspectors (actually, they would probably go down fine, they would just come back up shortly thereafter!)

Longer term readers will recall that I have been banging on ad infinitum about the Raspberry Pi computer – the small, cheap (£35) computer designed to teach school children how to program. I had several people doubt my claims that the machine was a game changer – until recently, kids had zero exposure to computer programming at school; most “IT” lessons consisted of learning how to use proprietary software, like Microsoft Office, rather than writing programs. I was accused of wanting to turn back the clock to the 1980’s when pretty much any kid could write a simple BASIC program on a machine like a Sinclair Spectrum, BBC Micro, or Commodore 64. I am pleased to say that I was correct – the Raspberry Pi has become a game changer. Since its’ launch in February 2012, the Raspberry Pi has sold two million units, mainly to school children (and not just to 80’s throwbacks like their parents, as had been thought by some). The Pi has not only exposed kids to languages like BASIC and Python, but it has done something many pundits thought impossible – it has got Linux on the popular desktop. The Raspberry Pi can use a number of Linux distributions specially compiled for the little computer, and children are seeing that there is more to a computer than a PC running Windows. So great has the impact been, that the Raspberry Pi has entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the most successful educational computer in British history. It has sold two million units in a little under two years; it took the BBC Micro seven years to sell 1.5 million machines, and that was considered a resounding success. Many of today’s elite programmers started off on the “Beeb” – in fact the team that wrote “Grand Theft Auto 5” were almost exclusively BBC Micro users in their pasts. The game was written in Scotland, not California as many people think.

This weeks' ending video is something that I have featured before, though this video is brand new. It is the world's largest model railway, located in Hamburg, Germany; the place is known as the "Miniatur Wunderland", and it certainly looks worth a visit if you are ever in the neighbourhood. Do feel free to leave a comment below, as always.