The big sky.

Over the last few weeks, the Maggot Sandwich has had a fairly consistent theme – that of the extent of new construction in and around Erith. It is certainly a royal pain in the backside in the short – term, but should prove a real bonus and an improvement to the whole area in time. We currently have the Erith Park redevelopment well under way – which incidentally is currently the largest mixed rental / shared ownership / retail sale housing development in Europe. On top of that we have the construction of the new Bexley College campus next to Erith Station (and more of this later), the refurbishment and internal conversion of the former Cross Keys pub into office and meeting room space for the international management consultancy the Aleff Group, and the refurbishment and partial re-engineering of the bridge over the railway in Bexley Road. On top of this, a new piece of civil engineering is currently under public consultation. Manor Road, one of the busiest main roads in Erith has had a severe problem with speeding and a high incidence of road accidents for many years, something that I have historically documented on various occasions. Bexley Council have sent out a consultation document to local residents to ask for their opinions and feedback regarding a number of proposals; these proposals include: 1) To raise the existing zebra crossing near the roundabout at James Watt Way with 2 metre wide new refuge island. 2) To raise the existing zebra crossing near Appold Street and move it slightly Eastwards. 3) To provide unrestricted parking bays between Springfield Road and Alexander Road. 4) To provide restricted parking bays between Aperfield Road and Springfield Road. 5) To provide 3 pairs of speed cushions just after Turpin Lane and Frobisher Road, and 6) To provide red road surfacing roundel of 20mph showing the road speed limit on Manor Road of 20mph. Local residents have been sent a letter with further details, along with a printed copy of the drawing that you can see above – click on it for a larger view. Overall the plans for traffic calming are sound, but there are issues; the huge Frobisher Road Estate on the South side of Manor Road is visited nightly by the emergency services – usually to deal with a drugs overdose, or a chip pan fire. So frequent are the visits that the vehicles only use their blue flashing lights after dark – otherwise Manor Road residents would have a nightly dose of sirens. The problem that any traffic calming measures have is twofold; firstly they can increase the response times of ambulances and fire engines; quite often the most powerful objections to speed ramps are actually the emergency services themselves. The other downside to ramps and speed cushions is the oft cited problem of increased noise and air pollution. The thinking is, a significant percentage of road users detest speed restrictions, and do everything in their power to circumvent them. This usually means dramatic slowing down at the last minute when approaching a speed bump, then hard acceleration as soon as the vehicle is over it “to make up for lost time”. To be honest this makes bugger all difference to an overall journey time, but it does make a lot of unnecessary noise and air pollution, as a vehicles’ engine emissions go through the roof under heavy acceleration. Manor Road has had a blanket speed restriction of twenty miles an hour for many years; as well as being an important transport thoroughfare for the various industrial estates in Manor Road itself, and Eastwards into Slade Green, but it is also an important residential area. Cars and motorbikes regularly speed along the road – I think they get encouraged by the relatively long straight stretches of the road. Some years ago a motorcyclist was killed heading Westward towards Erith; at the time there was a blind junction with Frobisher Road, and a van pulled out in front of the motorbike – the biker was killed instantly (his head came off, complete inside his helmet). Police later estimated he had been travelling in excess of eighty miles per hour when the impact happened. I felt sorry for the van driver, who was completely exonerated after the incident. The junction was rebuilt to try and give drivers pulling out of Frobisher Road a better chance of seeing oncoming traffic, but the fact remains that some cars and bikes travel far too fast along Manor Road, and in built up areas, excessive speed is one of the largest contributory factors in traffic accidents.

Talking of Manor Road, this photo was taken earlier in the week by Manor Road resident Norbert, who saw the air ambulance hovering over the yard of Vinton Metals. It is not one of the air ambulances one normally sees in this area; in fact it is normally based in rural Gloucestershire. You can see the details of the helicopter in question here. I think it may be standing in for our regular chopper, which may be in for servicing or repair. 

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece relating to the relative affordability of living in the local area, and how Erith and Slade Green were one of the cheapest places to live that are within easy commuting distance of central London; well once again a theme that I have espoused has been picked up by the London Evening Standard. A series of letters have been published over the course of the week on the subject of affordable places to live near to London – a couple of quotes should give you an idea of the content: “I was really surprised that Mike Hoff says that he can’t afford a flat in zone 4 for £200,000 (Letters, Monday), Abbey Wood is in zone 4 and is a decent place with lovely woods and parks. It’s 25 minutes to London Bridge. You can get both houses and flats for under £200,000, although the houses will need work.” A second letter has a differing viewpoint “Catherine Raheem (Letters, Monday) suggests that aspiring home owners priced out of London should look further afield in areas such as Slade Green. What self respecting thirty something with a shred of ambition would want to live in distant suburbia?” Ahem. One could counter by asking what self respecting thirty something would want to live in central London? It is all a matter of perspective. Personally, whilst I like London, I would not wish to live in the middle of it, even if I could afford to. It is simply too busy, crowded and noisy. Whatever else you say about Erith and Slade Green, you cannot deny we have one thing London sorely lacks – a very big sky. Go onto Erith Pier, or stroll through Slade Green Marshes and look around you; a view from horizon to horizon almost uncluttered by man made structures – it is about as close to a natural wilderness that you will get anywhere within the M25, and something that many people overlook to their loss.

One of my confidential local informants has come across some interesting, and possibly hopeful information; the “Fix My Transport” campaign to get Network Rail to install a lift at Erith Station is not as dead in the water as many had been led to believe. A source in Network Rail Emailed my contact to say that currently they had no funding for architectural changes to Belvedere, Erith or Abbey Wood stations (which is quite ironic when one considers that the current Abbey Wood railway station is shortly to be demolished, replaced with a temporary structure, which in turn will be replaced by the huge, two storey Crossrail terminus station – but of course that all comes out of someone elses’ budget, so to Network Rail, it does not count). Anyway, Network Rail are submitting requests for step free access to Erith Station to the Department of Transport for consideration in April 2014; any funding would come from them. Apparently Belvedere station is not regarded as a priority, as it already has a ramp accessible to buggies and wheelchairs, in addition to the normal footbridge. Erith has no such provision, and it is to be hoped that it will be given a higher priority. Bearing in mind that over and above the existing usage profile of Erith Station (principally people commuting in and out of London), the opening of Bexley College, literally right next to the station will mean that the throughput of users will likely increase, giving an even stronger reason for Network Rail to comply with the Disability Rights Act and give wheelchair and buggy access to the London bound platform, as should really already be the case.

I have in the past complained that Erith has no proper “sit down” restaurants, and to date this is still the case; we do have a large number of takeaways and cafes (I classify the Mambocino coffee shop / cafe under this heading, although it does server proper “knife and fork” meals, as does the very highly regarded T-Bone Cafe in Fraser Road. The difference is, that these places are the kind you visit when you are hungry, rather than somewhere you would take someone to impress them. Also, neither are open in the evening – the T-Bone Cafe closes at about 3pm, and The Mambocino closes when the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre locks its’ gates at 6pm. If you want an evening meal with a little more style, you need to travel elsewhere, the nearest places being Northumberland Heath and Upper Belvedere. One place in Upper Belvedere that I visited with friends last weekend was the Spice Master Indian restaurant in Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere. The building that the restaurant is located in has a lot of history. It was originally constructed as a Victorian temperance cafe called the Belvedere Coffee Tavern and Refreshment Bar – see the period photograph above - click for a larger version. I can dimly recall it as a “greasy spoon” type cafe when I was a child, growing up in Upper Belvedere. I never went in it, but would go past regularly. In the mid to late eighties the cafe building was extensively extended and remodelled, to the extent that the owners got into some rather hot water with Bexley Council planning department, as the original structure was a grade II listed building, and they altered it so much that it lost its’ listing. At the same time it was extended, it changed from being a rather scruffy looking cafe into a rather upmarket Italian restaurant called La Dolce Vita, which seemed to be frequented by elderly Jaguar driving wide boys and their brassy wives. It was very popular at lunch times for people holding business meetings, and at weekends it was packed – especially for Sunday lunch when one would need to book in advance to stand a chance of getting a table. During the middle of this period, it was exposed by the News Shopper has having the worst kitchen hygiene recorded in Bexley to that date; the place was so bad that it was featured on at least one television consumer protection programme. This had the effect of killing trade off almost overnight. They cleaned the place up, and re-launched it the next year with a new name –“The Garden”, but people had long memories, and the trade did not return. One diner of the time told me ”It was nearly always empty and almost overly friendly with the service. We knew of its health and safety problems (but that was like a year before we'd started going there so it had cleaned up its act) and we had some lovely meals. We tended to use it as a "sod-it-we-can't-be-arsed-to-cook" night as it was local, quite reasonable and they had a tolerable/well priced wine list. It was nice enough but I'm not a fan of Italian Restaurants seeing as at home we eat a lot of Italian style dishes (pasta, lasagne, meatballs, Mediterranean salad etc) so I like to have stuff a bit different when I go out.  It was the height of mid-80's home decoration inside, if I remember rightly. Artex about 3ft thick and everything covered in fake Roman columns, plastic ivy and plaster statues with B and Q's finest wall-hangings and light fittings. Probably quite swish in the day but when we were there in the mid-90's it was a little tired and dated and not my type of thing at all”. Not long after this, it closed for good and lay empty and boarded up for quite a time.It was about at this time that I moved to Erith, and was less aware of the goings on in Nuxley Road than I used to be. The old restaurant building was again gutted and refurbished, this time as an Indian restaurant; the first competition for the venerable and long established Belvedere Tandoori, which was one of my introductions to high street curry eating back in the day. Nowadays the reviews suggest that the Belvedere Tandoori still produces tasty food, but the online review consensus is that the staff are terrible – slow and surly on a good day, and worse than that at other times.

I did not try the new restaurant, now called Spice Master for many years; I was working in the East End, and used to visit the legendary, and sadly now closed Sweet and Spicy a couple of times a week; I would also make regular lunch time trips to the Halal Restaurant in Mark Street E1 – which has been serving up genuine Bangladeshi food since shortly before WWII, and is one of the oldest continually in service curry houses in the UK. In many ways at this time I was spoiled for choice, and “ate what the locals ate”. Consequently I did become quite sniffy about ordinary high street curry houses and the food that they cooked. I felt that it was not “authentic” and was too engineered to suit a Western palate. In essence I had become a bit of a curry snob.  During this time, the Spice Master just curried on (oh the wit!) and our paths did not cross. Once I had moved on from the job based in the East End, the curry consumption drastically reduced, but I still had a degree of distain for ordinary high street restaurants. Over the last few years I have come to realise that your high street curry is a thing on its’ own. It may not bear much resemblance to food you would eat in Bangalore or Karachi, but it has now been around for long enough to have created its’ own unique identity – it is what it is, and it is rightfully unapologetic. Most high street curry, whilst being called “Indian” is actually far closer to Bangladeshi cuisine, as most of the original restaurant owners came from Bangladesh, rather than India, but were quick to realise that in 1950’s / 1960’s Britain, most English people had not heard of Bangladesh, so a bit of inspired re - branding labelled the new food outlets as “Indian” restaurants. The Spice Master hits pretty much all of the modern curry house clichés straight out of the box. No flock wallpaper, but a light and clean look. Usually in the evenings there is a doorman in a turban and sparkly tunic standing outside – which cannot be much fun at this time of year, though it does add a touch of unexpected glamour to the place. The restaurant is absolutely huge; it must have around 150 covers, and does get very busy at times, though I have found service to be pretty good. A couple of times a month they have themed nights with a singer – usually an Elvis impersonator, or songs from Bollywood. All very cheesy and fun if it is your thing. It is not mine, I have to say. You are best advised to check when the musical special nights are on, by checking the Spice Master website here.  All in all, it is what it is, and this is no bad thing. If you like a curry and don’t want to travel very far, you could do far worse. It gets a thee out of five star rating for food hygiene, which is acceptable, if not great. Overall a thumbs up, anyway.

Culture and Communications Minister Ed Vaizey is in some hot water with the broadcasting industry right now. Vaizey is supporting a scheme to remove all national and regional radio stations from the FM band, and make them only available via DAB digital radio. Nathan Rogers, owner of Brighton’s Juice 102.7 radio station said "As the government gets ever closer to announcing what it intends to do, it needs to stop this forced switchover nonsense and start making decisions based upon the interests of the listener and not half-baked ideas and fantasy timetables, It's a classic case of emperor’s new clothes. DAB was never going to be a viable replacement for FM. In radio’s multi-platform future, DAB is simply one extra way to listen”. Rogers has started a “No to DAB” campaign, mainly attracting the small, independent stations who cannot afford to purchase a DAB multiplex slot. They also say that for local radio listening, only 15% is done via DAB, a vast bulk is still done via analogue FM, where something in the region of 90% still listen at least some of the time via an analogue source. More listening tends to be done via Internet streaming than by DAB. The proponents of DAB cite better audio quality (after all, it is ”digital”, thus one would think, automatically better) actually this is almost always not the case. In order to squeeze as many stations into the available bandwidth, the bit rate at which they transmit their content is limited. Some stations have even had to reduce their output to mono in order to keep the audio available. Digital audio signals are an almost “all or nothing” affair – you hit a weak signal,  and is sounds like it is coming through bubbling water, then it dies completely. FM analogue signals do what they call in the trade “degrade gracefully” – as the signal strength drops, the noise – usually in the form of “hiss” increases – but you can still hear the station quite clearly. The signal loss has to be pretty catastrophic to lose the audio completely. The real reason for the attempt by the Government to close down as many FM radio stations as possible has absolutely bugger all to do with the technology of DAB, it is all to do with them wanting to free up the FM radio spectrum so that they can sell it off for other uses; this is exactly what happened to the analogue television network when it was switched off (except that there were much better reasons for moving to digital television which don’t apply for radio). The British DAB broadcasting network is now nineteen years old, but it has never really penetrated the market in the way it was intended. This can be attributed to a number of factors; the audio quality is generally sub – par, signal coverage is very patchy across the UK, and portable DAB receivers eat batteries like they are going out of fashion. Don’t get the impression I am being a Luddite about this; I do have a DAB radio which I use to listen to Planet Rock and BBC Radio 4 Extra on a daily basis – but that is despite those stations being on DAB, not because. Technology has moved on, and DAB has never really been updated. To get audio quality up to the standards of say BBC Radio 3 on FM with a good analogue signal, a DAB radio needs to receive a data stream of at least 256kb/sec; the trouble is, almost no DAB stations do this – most are a maximum of 128kb/sec or lower – when you can get a signal at all. A growing number of stations are switching to mono to save bandwidth and thus cost. DAB is basically the Betamax of radio transport formats; it was a good idea on paper, but due to poor implementation it never really took off as intended, and it has now been surpassed by the huge explosion of web based broadcasting. With the advent of 4G phone networks, and fast, fibre optic home networking, much more radio listening is being done via the Internet. DAB is dead, it has just not realised it yet.

The ending video this week is a bit of a treat; the BBC normally disable embedding videos they upload to YouTube; but this seems to be an exception to that rule. It is a short mini Doctor Who episode that explains how the Eighth Doctor regenerated into the previously unknown "War Doctor" played by John Hurt. Paul McGann was a great actor to play the Eighth Doctor, and it is a real pity he got so little screen time. His contribution to the Doctor Who audio adventures show his commitment to the character though; at least his version of the Doctor gets to choose his regeneration. Watch below, and click to make full screen. 

The Air Ambulance.

On Tuesday afternoon I was strolling homewards from Erith station after a day spent working in Canary Wharf. I could hear the distant whine of a gas turbine engine, but could not determine where it was coming from; giving it no heed, I passed through the Tunnel of Doom (tm) and then up the steps and into Pier Road. The engine sound was suddenly much louder, and I could see a helicopter swooping low over the area in front of Erith Riverside Shopping Centre, where the buses stop. It was the Air Ambulance, and it was clear to me that the pilot was looking for a place to land. He quickly realised that the bus halt area was unsuitable – there were too many street lamps and covered bus stops in the way. The helicopter then climbed, probably to give the pilot and the observer a better look at the area, before it flew towards the river front. I followed on foot, in time to see the helicopter land on the piece of grassland next to the Running Horses pub that used to be home to the old Erith Swimming Baths. As this happened, the sound of Police sirens seemed to be coming from all directions; it was pretty obvious to anyone in the area that something pretty serious had kicked off. I charged home at top speed, picked up my camera and strode back to the riverside as fast as I could. The helicopter observer had exited the craft, and used a large pair of bolt croppers to cut through the padlock which secured the gates in the fence that surrounded the piece of land. It was pretty obvious that the helicopter crew had to do this sort of thing on a regular basis, and came readily equipped. From speaking to the Police who had turned up en masse, it appeared that a young lad had been in some kind of altercation, and had been stabbed in the chest. I did not actually see the victim, as he was being treated further along West Street; the helicopter crew assisted the local ambulance crew for some minutes, before it became evident that they were no longer going to be required. After a few more minutes the helicopter crew returned to their aircraft and they took off, heading Northwards across the river.  I took quite a number of photos, some of which you can see on my Flickr account here, and they are also being used by the News Shopper with my permission here and here.

The much anticipated break in the wintry weather was greeted by pretty much everyone I have spoken to; having said that, there does seem to have been some reluctance to shed the winter garb; despite the welcome rise in temperature, I have still seen quite a large number of people dressed in heavy coats and woolly hats. I am unsure if this is because they are creatures of habit, and are reluctant to change their outer garb, or whether, after such a long periods of bitterly cold weather, they don’t trust the forecast and think it will still be freezing outside. It all rather smacks of the legendary cold weather protections espoused in Victorian Yorkshire and elsewhere – where certain protagonists were sewn into their woollen underwear from Autumn until the middle of Spring.

The Woolwich ferry celebrates its’ 50th anniversary this week; or more accurately, the current ferries that make up the service are in their 50th year of use. There has been a ferry on the River Thames at Woolwich for  far longer than this. The three vessels in service are currently undergoing a major refit in order to extend their service life, decrease their running costs and reduce harmful exhaust emissions. The £50 million project to life extend the vessels is being undertaken by marine engineering firm Briggs Marine; this should extend the operational life of the ships by another seven years or so.  The M.V James Newman, the M.V John Burns and the M.V Ernest Bevin carry between them approximately fifty thousand people and twenty thousand vehicles a week, and make an invaluable contribution to the transport infrastructure of South East London. The seven year life extension is important; it is designed to cover the period in which a new river crossing – either a bridge or a tunnel can be constructed to replace the Woolwich ferries.  The favourite solution with some local Councillors is a bridge at Gallions Reach, between Woolwich and Thamesmead. The counter to this which seems not to have registered on the said councillor’s radars is that the site of the proposed bridge would be located slap bang next to London City Airport. The problem for any potential bridge developer is international aviation law. Under this law, it is illegal to build any structure more than fifteen metres tall within a kilometre of an airport runway. Any bridge built over the Thames at Gallions Reach would need to be taller than fifteen metres to allow ships to pass underneath into the Pool of London, and the new liner facility opening adjacent to the O2 Arena, not to mention the possibility of the QE2 moving opposite the O2 Arena to be converted into a luxury hotel – a story I covered here.

Many people get targeted by cold callers; some of these want to try and sell you compensation services for mis – sold personal loan insurance, or the classic silent call that comes from an automated call centre somewhere obscure and outside of Europe. The big threat nowadays is from what is known as virus call centre scammers.  You may receive a call out of the blue from someone purporting to be from Microsoft, telling you that your computer has a serious virus and that they have detected it remotely. If you go along with this (and many do, not realising that neither Microsoft or Apple will phone users directly) the scam will proceed along these lines. The caller will tell you that your computer has been remotely detected with a number of serious virus infestations. The caller instruct you to download a remote access tool such as PC Anywhere. The caller will then get access to your Windows PC and start the event viewer utility, saying that a number of the event viewer notices are warnings of a virus infection; at this point the caller may well also tell you that your Windows activation key is invalid and has expired. The caller will then offer to “re- activate” your Windows installation for a fee of $160, payable annually, as part of their “software loyalty programme”. All of the above is utter tosh, and completely fraudulent. The scammers are trying to create FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) in the person on the other end of the phone line. These calls are coming mainly from organised fraudsters in India, who have industrialised this phone based crime with large call centres targeting people in Europe, the USA and Australia. Investigations are ongoing as to who the master minds behind this activity are, but in the meantime, don’t believe anyone who phones you saying that you have computer problems – just put the phone down. If you have any questions or concerns, get in contact with me for advice – hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Erith couple Jerry and Wendy Crabtree appear to have stirred up a hornet’s nest in the News Shopper this week. They have made a complaint to Bexley Council regarding the behaviour of staff working for the council’s parking warden contractor. Wendy Crabtree is disabled, and the couple had to fight hard to get permission for a disabled parking bay to be created outside their house in Appold Street, off Manor Road. The traffic wardens were checking cars parked in the road, and in doing so they parked their own vehicle in the Crabtree’s parking bay. The Crabtrees then then returned in their own vehicle to find the bay occupied; they beeped their car horn and asked for the warden to move the vehicle, but they were ignored. When the wardens had finished their checks, they then drove off without an apology. I am surprised by this turn of events because of a number of factors. 1) I have never seen parking wardens in Appold Street or Manor Road – I wonder what caused them to visit? 2) I know Appold Street well – it is the road I recently highlighted as being the most infested with dog mess of anywhere in Erith, and the place where I ruined a previously perfectly good pair of boots after I accidentally stumbled into a particularly juicy and noisome turd – which I discussed at some length a couple of weeks ago. 3) Appold Street does have traffic problems, but not usually caused by people parking badly – quite the opposite- the road gets used as a cut through, or rat run when Manor Road gets busy in the mid afternoons, when traffic to and from the Slade Green Industrial Estate is at its’ peak. At the far end of Appold Street, where it joins with Wheatley Terrace and the site of Abbey Car Breakers, there are a row of bollards sunk into the roadway to prevent cars from taking a short cut round James Watt Way (the road that runs around the edge of Morrison’s car park) to bypass a great wodge of traffic that at times sits almost immobile in Manor Road. The problem is that the bollards are too widely spaced apart, and small cars can squeeze through the gap. This fact has become widely known by local drivers, who break the law using the shortcut all of the time. The mix of dog poo, fly tipped commercial rubbish (I nearly forgot to mention this) and illegally driven cars makes for quite a potent mixture in the street. I don’t think the offending traffic wardens had any clue about Appold Street being used as a rat run – from the News Shopper article describing the incident, the wardens were too busy looking for cars to ticket to actually address the far more pressing issue of the improper use of the road.

I took the photo above last Sunday afternoon; it was the first day when the terrible weather finally broke, and I took the opportunity to take a stroll up to the Larner Road Estate with my camera. Nowadays the place is a ghost town; all but one of the tower blocks have been evacuated, and the residents housed elsewhere until the demolition and reconstruction work has been completed. What was rather spooky was that a lot of the flats still have curtains at the windows, and some windows are even open, making the place feel like people are still living there, even though the tower blocks are blocked off with high hoardings and locked gates. When I visited, the main part of the physical demolition had yet to be started, but by the time you read this, much of the real estate depicted in the photo above will be gone; it is likely that the photos I took of the Larner Road tower blocks are some of the last ever taken, and may with luck become some kind of historical record of the events.As I wrote last week, I do feel that the new name for the reconstructed estate is anodyne and bland in the extreme - "Erith Park" is meaningless and non descriptive of the ambitious new development that will spring from the corpse of the old, failed estate.  

I gather that there have been a number of very specific rumours circulating on Facebook concerning a couple of alleged attempted child abductions in the last week or so in the local area. The first of these was raised at the start of the week, and was concerned with an alleged abduction attempt in Dartford. In my role as Neighbourhood Watch Co-Ordinator for part of Erith, I was contacted by a couple of concerned residents, and I did some research into the subject. It turns out that several non - specific accounts of "Eastern Europeans" trying to abduct British children had been voiced. The Police investigated, and the stories turned out to be incorrect - there was no factual basis to the allegations whatsoever. It does sound like someone with an axe to grind has been making up these tales in order to make scurrilous and racist accusations where in fact there is no case to answer. A second, similar story arose later in the week, where a parent alleged that an Eastern European woman had tried to abduct a child in a very similar scenario in a park in Beckenham. The original Dartford abduction incident has now been dismissed by Police as nothing more than a fantasy that has been fuelled by online gossip mongers on Facebook. I have little information about the second reported incident, but at the time of writing, it seems to have a very similar profile. Abductions of children do occasionally occur, but they are extremely rare, and almost never occur where the parents are present, as has been alleged in the two incidents this week. I get the feeling that these are protective hysteria mixed with a racist subtext, and fuelled by someone with a hidden agenda. As always, time will tell.

About this time last year, rumours started circulating around a number of technology gossip websites; the scuttlebutt was that Google were investing a huge amount of their unbelievable fortune in a research and development of an enhanced reality set of goggles. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this rumour turned out to be correct, and Google have just launched the pilot of their  Google Glass wearable computer  hardware. A select few Americans, who entered a lottery for the privilege of paying $1,500 for a pre- release set of glasses, are now receiving them, and they are beginning to publish their findings online. Google Glass is an attempt to free data from desktop computers and portable devices like phones and tablets, and place it right in front of your eyes. Essentially, Google Glass is a camera, display, touchpad, battery and microphone built into spectacle frames so that you can perch a display in your field of vision, film, take pictures, search and translate on the go. The principle is one that has been around for years in science fiction, and more recently it has become a slightly clunky reality. In fact, the "heads-up display" putting data in your field of vision became a reality as early as 1900, when the reflector gun sight was invented. Google Glass consists of a spectacle – like frame that has a miniature camera and a refractive prism screen, which acts as both a viewfinder for the motion and still camera functionality, and as an output device for the enhanced reality features, such as simultaneous language translation – a person talking to  you in for example, Mandarin, could have their words translated into English to be read from the tiny screen; the conversation could then also be automatically transcribed to read later.  The prism screen has  a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels, the camera has a five megapixel resolution, and is capable of recording 720p HD video. Connectivity is via both 802.11 b/g WiFi and Bluetooth tethering to a mobile device running an Android device running Android 4.0.12 or higher. Glass comes with 16Gb of built – in storage, 12gb of which is available for the user (the remainder is used by the operating system). Voice recognition software used by Glass cleverly circumvents the problem of ambient noise by using a bone transducer to pick up voice sounds from the wearer’s skull, rather than using a more easy confused conventional microphone. Glass tethers with Android and iOS devices using an app for extended functionality. You will be able to dictate Emails whilst on the go, and quite creepily, developers are working on software that will recognise the faces of your friends in a crowd, which can be linked with data from the Glass’s onboard GPS receiver to record location data. This creates serious privacy and security concerns – what is to stop someone continuously scanning attendees at an event, or even people in your average high street, and comparing them with faces in photos online to record who is where and when? The technology being developed both by Google and large numbers of third party Glass software engineers is awesome – a real sci – fi gadget that is coming into real life. As with many things of this nature, the marriage of cutting edge technology and the law of unintended consequences can produce results that nobody can predict.  The initial version of Glass, code named Explorer is currently being deployed to the beta testers who have paid handsomely for the privilege. The current version cannot be used if you wear prescription spectacles or sunglasses, but later versions are planned which may involve collaborations with companies like Ray – Ban, and versions for prescription spectacles are planned for late in 2013. On top of the previously stated privacy concerns, there are also legal issues relating to the use of Google Glass in public, not least whilst driving. I would expect that in the UK at least they will be classed in a similar manner to mobile phones – and banned from use whilst driving. It will be instructive to see when the first prosecution takes place. British users are not able to join the initial beta rollout of Glass. When the production versions become available later in the year, it is anticipated that the UK retail price will be around the £995 mark – which is sure to come down in time.

The Bexley Times are reporting a story about a graffiti “artist” being found guilty of a string of graffiti offences over a ten year period. The scrote – a certain Kristian Holmes of Sidcup was convicted of a total of thirty eight counts of criminal damage, with repairs to his vandalism costing a total of quarter of a million pounds. The damage was mostly around railway stations and trains; I recall seeing a great deal of graffiti at the South Eastern Trains depot at Slade Green; from the account it seems probable that it was indeed Holmes that was responsible, as he seems to have been “target number one” by the British Transport Police. What amazes me is that Holmes is now thirty two years old, and has a job as an accounts manager. Considering he has been carrying out criminal graffiti damage for the last ten years, whatever possessed him? Even as a twenty two year old, he surely should have gown out of the juvenile desire to vandalise? All I can surmise is that he must be amazingly immature and self obsessed to continue with this childish activity. Hopefully when he is sentenced, the court will punish him effectively. Before you counter “well, what about Banksy then?”. I have first hand experience of Banksy’s early work. Between the year 2000 and 2007 I was based in an office building in Blackfriars Road, on the South Bank of the Thames. All around the area were railway arches and warehouses – a relic of the areas’ industrial past. This was where Banksy first started his unique and humorous take on street art. I recall seeing one of his very earliest pieces – a life sized cartoon of a Coldstream Guard in full ceremonial uniform, taking a surreptitious leak against the pillar upon which he was painted.  Even at the very beginning it was obvious that this was no mere destructive paint dauber, but someone of a unique and unusual talent. I have been a follower of his career ever since.

The end video this week is a bit of a departure; it is a cover version of the classic Genesis track "Entangled" - a song about hypnotic past life regression in 6/8 time. This version is a bit of an update and change from the original, in that it uses heavy fuzz guitar instead of the original trio of two twelve string and a third six string Ovation acoustic guitar, and eliminates the huge Mellotron choir and Moog Taurus bass pedal ending. It is  an interesting take, but to my mind not a patch on the original Prog Rock classic. See what you think, and please feel free to leave a comment below.