Kung Fury.

The photo above shows a Police helicopter taken from the back garden of Pewty Acres on Thursday evening. The helicopter flew around for around half an hour, taking particular interest in the river front area, before it flew away – I suspect as it was running low on fuel. At the time I wondered of it was tracking the two youths on the stolen high – powered motorbike that I reported last week. It turns out that there had been a report of a “despondent” person on Erith Pier who was threatening to throw themselves in the river. The RNLI also attended from Gravesend, but nothing was found, and no person identified. This is the third such incident in as many weeks; apart from my recent thoughts on having an RNLI resource based in Erith, I am not sure how the pier could be made less attractive to those contemplating suicide. There was an unfortunate case back in 2011 when a young man did jump to his death from the pier – and a small metal plaque on the small white building at the far end of the pier now commemorates the event. I understand that the currents and undertow in the Anchor Bay portion of the river (where the pier is located) are some of the strongest and most deadly of any on the entire length of the River Thames. It has been said that even a very strong swimmer who fell in accidentally would only have a life expectancy of eleven minutes without aid.

If you walk around Erith fairly early on a weekday morning, amongst the heavy traffic coming along Queen’s Road heading North West over the hideous fish roundabout and into Bronze Age Way in the direction of Thamesmead and Woolwich, one can see a procession of white vans with dark windows in the sides. These are the Serco prison transport vehicles, which are ferrying prisoners on remand to both Woolwich Crown Court at Belmarsh Prison, and to The Central Criminal Court (better known as the Old Bailey). The vans start appearing a few minutes before 7am each weekday, and usually have gone by around 7.15. It strikes me that as one can generally set one’s watch by the regular appearance of the vans, their location must be known by many. Bearing in mind that the accused only gets detained on remand in the most serious of cases, and those on remand tend to be prisoners with previous convictions, or are accused of serious crimes such as murder or terrorism, there may be those close to the prisoners who wish to see them free. Erith seems to be an ideal choke point to hijack a Serco van to free a prisoner on their way to or from court. The predictable behaviour of the vans would make setting up an ambush relatively straightforward, and there are multiple escape routes by car – you can head through Northumberland Heath down onto the A2 for the coast, or back along Bronze Age Way to head into London – the options are legion. I wonder if Serco (a commercial organisation) have given this aspect of security any real consideration? I am concerned that Erith is going to be getting press attention for all of the wrong reasons if something is not done. I have been in contact with Serco in respect of the matter, and will let you know when (if?)  they get back to me.

It is not often that I celebrate the closure of a shop, especially one in the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre, where there are unfortunately still units un-let since the place opened. In this case I will make an exception. The Money Shop has closed down and a notice in the window indicates that it has “relocated” to Woolwich. I am glad to see the back of the place, which exploited down on their luck locals. The money shop charge a basic 1305% APR on cash loans – an utterly extortionate amount for people who are often at a very low and vulnerable point in their lives. As I have stated before, it is very expensive to be poor nowadays – whether it be by using pre – pay utility meters, payday lenders or buying goods on the “never-never” from exploitative stores like Brighthouse, who I have written about extensively in the past. Suffice to say that all of these legal, but to my way of thinking, immoral organisations prey on the poor. Seeing the back of one of them can only be to the long term benefit of local people. I am told that a credit union may be on  the way – though the talks seem to have been going on interminably; hopefully we will get something in place before too much longer. Now that The Money Shop are no longer in the shopping centre, I wonder how long it will be before another retailer moves into the space? Nearby neighbour Mambocino have made a great success – what started out as little more than yet another coffee shop has metamorphosed into a lovely café cum informal restaurant that always seems to be buzzing with visitors. Some time ago I reported on a rumour that I had heard that Mambocino were going to expand into the large corner unit that takes up the space to the left of the large precinct gates at the front of the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. Currently this unit is still empty with a “To Let” sign in the window, but I am hopeful of developments soon.

Thirty years ago this month, Dire Straits released their fifth album, “Brothers in Arms". It went on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time, it revolutionised the music industry. For the first time, an album sold more on compact disc than on vinyl, and passed the one million units sold  mark. Three years after the first silver discs had appeared in record shops,”Brothers in Arms” was the symbolic milestone that marked the true beginning of the CD era. “Brothers in Arms was the first flag in the ground that made the industry and the wider public aware of the CD’s potential,” says the British Phonographic Industry spokesperson Gennaro Castaldo, who began a long career in retail that year. “It was clear this was a format whose time had come.” CD sales overtook vinyl in 1988 and cassettes in 1991. The 12 centimetre optical disc became the biggest money-spinner the music industry had ever seen, or will ever be likely to see. In 1974, 28-year-old electronic engineer Kees Schouhamer Immink was assigned to the Optics Group of Philips Research in Eindhoven, Holland. His team’s task was to create a 30 centimetre videodisc called Laservision (Laserdisk in Europe), but that flopped (the quality was pretty poor, and the disks were notorious for skipping and stopping dead for no apparent reason) and the focus shifted to designing a smaller audio-only disc. “There were 101 problems to be solved,” Immink says. Meanwhile, in Japan, Sony engineers were working on a similar project. In 1979, Sony and Philips made an unprecedented agreement to pool resources. For example, Sony engineers perfected the error correction code, CIRC, while Immink himself developed the channel code, EFM, which struck a workable balance between reliability and playing time. “We never had people from other companies in our experimental premises,” Immink says. “It was unheard of. Usually you become foes, but in this case we really became good friends, and we're still friends after so many years. It was remarkable, actually.” In June 1980, after complicated negotiations in Tokyo and Eindhoven, the so-called Red Book set standard specifications for the compact disc digital audio format. The story goes that the size (12 cm) and length (74 minutes, 33 seconds) were changed at the eleventh hour when Sony’s executive vice president Norio Ohga insisted that the disc should have enough space for the longest recorded performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, his wife’s favourite piece of music, but I and others suspect that is an urban myth. There were so many technical and financial considerations that it is unlikely such a key decision came down to one woman’s love of Beethoven – there were simply too many other factors.  The CD was introduced to the British public in a 1981 episode of the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World, in which Kieran Prendeville famously mauled a test disc of the Bee Gees’ Living Eyes to demonstrate the format’s alleged indestructibility – the spreading of jam on the test disc is something that has passed into popular legend.  It caught the public imagination, but Immink found the claim puzzling and embarrassing because it was clearly untrue. “We should not put emphasis on the fact it will last for ever because it will not last forever,” he says. “We should put emphasis on the quality of sound and ease of handling.” (I read an article recently where Paul McCartney recalled the first time George Martin showed him a CD. George said, ‘This will change the world.’ He told us it was indestructible, you can’t smash it. Look! And – whack – it broke in half.”) Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler was an early convert (the second track on Pure, Perfect Sound Forever, the promotional 1982 compilation that came free with early CD players, was Dire Straits’ Once Upon a Time in the West). Knopfler insisted on recording Brothers in Arms on state-of-the-art digital equipment, so a promotional partnership was a natural fit. Philips sponsored Dire Straits’ world tour and featured the band in TV commercials with the slogan, attributed to Knopfler: “I want the best. How about you?” Brothers in Arms was an iconic release, the CD came to symbolise the so-called yuppie generation, representing new material success and aspiration. If you owned a CD player it showed you were upwardly mobile. Its significance seemed to go beyond music to a lifestyle statement. CD’s still sell nowadays, but the emphasis on convenience and ease of use of digital download services such as Apple’s ITunes have reduced the demand for physical recordings – it was It was the 2001 launch of the iPod, an aspirational premium product which made MP3s portable, that turned the tide. Before that the MP3 was an inferior good; Once you had the iPod, the CD was an inferior good. It could get cracked or lost, whereas MP3 files lasted.  Not pure, not perfect, but sound for ever. It is just a pity that unless recorded at very high bit rates, MP3 files sound inferior to CD, and way worse that vinyl – my own format of choice to this day. What do you think? Are CD’s on the way out for you? Do you still have a much loved collection of vinyl? Please make a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The occasional Maggot Sandwich restaurant critic Brian Silk has written the following review on the restaurant in the Running Horses in Erith High Street, opposite the Riverside Gardens.  "I recently returned to the Running Horses pub for yet another meal before going to see a production at the Playhouse. I've been doing this, with the same group of friends, for a few years now. We go there for the reliable menu and the ability to buy a chilled bottle (or two) of white wine – this sets us up nicely for short stroll up the hill to enjoy the rest of our evening at Erith's fine theatre. The menus at The Horses are well worn. That's not a criticism, but rather to say that the pub has been serving the same extensive menu for quite a few years now. So it's tried and tested and they are very good at what they do. And what they do is serve up freshly-prepared large, and very tasty, pub grub. It never fails to hit the spot and it's accompanied by friendly efficient service. There's every dish you might imagine would be available in a pub and there are some excellent meal deals. A final plus point is to say that the Running Horses is a pleasant place to eat with friends – it's nicely decorated and, best of all, there is no blaring music or sports TV to get in the way of having a conversation".

The photo above shows the second freight train derailment at the Charlton Junction, which happened this Wednesday afternoon, once again meaning that no train services to and from London were able to run on the North Kent Line. The photo above is the copyright of Daniel Rudge. Part of the problem is that the UK is unusual in allowing freight and passenger trains to run on the same lines - most other countries have separate train lines for each service. After years of griping about the poor service, high ticket prices, and general “couldn't care less” attitude of Southeastern Trains, a possible development has appeared on the horizon. Following last week’s Transport for London (TFL) takeover of rail services out of Liverpool Street and between Romford and Upminster, which were previously run by the operator Greater Anglia. London Mayor Boris Johnson has said that he wants to extent TFL’s influence to include Southeastern – their franchise is not due for renegotiation until 2018, but their poor level of service, late trains and high levels of sudden cancellations mean that Boris may well force the issue. TFL took over running the North London Line and Silverlink, which meant that all of their stations were staffed all of the time they are open, they also became part of the Oyster card system, rather than the national “pay as you go” scheme, and this has on average reduced journey costs to passengers by a little over fifteen percent. The plan would seem to be to include all over ground train networks within Greater London under the control of Transport for London, and remove the franchised companies altogether. At a press event in Enfield last week, Boris Johnson said “Since TFL took over underused rail lines and created London Over ground there have been massive improvements – with delays down and passengers giving the network their vote of confidence in huge numbers. Now that London’s population growing at a phenomenal rate, it is the perfect time for these new routes to pass to TFL so that they can be brought up to the same high standard. Beyond this important addition to London’s integrated transport network, I will be urging government colleagues to look at how Southeastern services could operate when this franchise ends in 2018”. Personally I don’t see this coming a moment too soon – especially as the existing rail operators have once again been held ransom by their staff – the much anticipated national rail strike was called off at the start of last week – until the union members decide they want to line their pockets still further, and make another threat. The railways form an integral part of the communication infrastructure of the country, and as such I feel that they should be treated in a similar way to the Police or Armed Forces. It is not like we in the South East are exactly unfamiliar with a lack of train service anyway – what with both the rebuilding and expansion of London Bridge station, and the even closer Crossrail Terminus project at Abbey Wood, the trains are out of service most, if not all weekends, which restricts people's leisure travel into places such as Greenwich and central London. I think that when Crossrail opens in 2018, the Southeastern franchise will transfer to TFL, and the real start of London transport integration will have begun. For me I don't think it can some soon enough.

One less well known than it should be local landmark is the Victorian pumping station at Crossness. It opens occasionally to the public, but for much of the year it is closed, except to those volunteers who are working to restore and maintain the Grade 1 listed building and the giant steam powered pumping engines that it contains. The whole Crossness project began in the long hot summer of 1858 and the infamous “Great Stink”; at the time, toilets flushed into sewers that fed directly into the River Thames; consequently the smell that came off the river was awful , and the summer of 1858 made it even worse, to the point where questions were asked in the House of Commons (which, of course is right next to the banks of the Thames). With a river soaked in effluent, the stench back then came from outside the House of Commons rather than inside. Cholera raged across London, killing three times as many as in areas with cleaner water. While pioneering epidemiologist John Snow had traced an outbreak in Soho to a water pump, many still believed in theories about miasma – that the source of illness was in the air. Against this background, engineer and businessman Joseph Bazalgette was given the go-ahead to build the sewer system that finally made London a really modern city. With a system of interconnecting sewers both North and South of the river connecting to the growing suburbs, the Thames was finally tamed. In fact, the system had been planned four years previously, in response to the cholera crisis, but it was the Great Stink that gave the impetus to pass an enabling Act. Bazalgette’s system was really two separate ones, with the separate branches of each converging, before ultimately the sewage was still dumped into the river – just not where it would bother anyone who really mattered. In the north, the sewers converge at Abbey Mills, where a pumping station linked them to the Northern Outfall Sewer. In the south, sewage was originally dumped into Deptford Creek. By 1860 work had begun on the Southern Outfall Sewer, which was to take the waste all the way to Crossness, adjacent to what is now Thamesmead, but at the time was an uninhabited area of marsh land. In 1865 – 150 years ago this year – the Crossness Pumping Station was opened. At Crossness, a huge covered reservoir stored everything that came from the sewers South of the river. Covering over six acres, and capable of holding 27 million gallons, it was filled by the engines in the pump house raising the sewage up, and then opened at high tide, to allow the contents to flow out to sea as the waters ebb. In 1865, sewage treatment as we know it had not been developed, so the aim was simply to dump the muck as far away from where it mattered as possible. It just goes to show that little has changed – politicians at both national and local level (Teresa Pearce, the MP for Erith and Thamesmead excepted) want as little as possible to do with the area even nowadays. Anyway, The Victorians, of course, did things in style. Just as two years before, a banquet had been held at Farringdon Station to mark the opening of the world’s first underground railway, so Crossness was opened with pomp and circumstance, with the Prince of Wales starting the engines in the company of two other princes, a Duke and a pair of Archbishops. As you might expect, given the spirit of the age, the four engines – built by James Watt – were given suitably regal names: Victoria, Prince Consort, Albert Edward and Alexandra. Another four engines were added in 1897 to provide additional capacity. A few years later, the original steam engines were upgraded with additional cylinders, before the four additional engines were replaced by diesel in 1913. By 1956, all the steam-powered machines had been decommissioned, with the last major use of the Prince Consort engine being to help pump water after the great floods of 1953. Like much old Victorian machinery, their story would have ended with rot and decay, were it not for The Crossness Engines Trust. In 1985, a group was formed with the aim of preserving the engines and ultimately restoring them. Converted into a Trust to give it legal standing in 1988, it was granted a lease in 1993. The Trust’s aim is to restore the buildings and engines to their 1899 condition, and create an exhibition to accompany them. Despite delays, work is proceeding thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and it is hoped that a new access route to an exhibition – avoiding the still-working sections of the Thames Water plant – will be complete next year. The giant pump called Prince Consort has been fully restored and work continues on Victoria. At open days several times each year, Prince Consort is steamed and visitors can see the engine in action, as well as admiring the interior of the pumping station. The Crossness Engines Trust are currently looking for more volunteers. Many of those in the past have been active in the areas immediately useful to the project – working on the restoration of engines, painting the ironwork, and so on. But with work progressing on the new visitor facilities, they will also need more customer service volunteers, tour guides, people to keep the garden in order and much more. Ultimately, to enable the engines to work more often, there’s likely to be a need for more people who can work them, too. The venue will be open on the following occasions in 2015:- June 21st, July 26th, August 23rd and October 11th. Admission Fee: Adults £6, Children £2, under 5 free.

Long – time Maggot Sandwich readers may well recall that I have commented on several occasions in the past that I could foresee the time when previously every day and relatively ubiquitous pieces of electronic equipment could become modern antiques. This has now happened. You may recall that last year I reported how the Henry Ford Museum stumped up a whopping $905,000 for a working model of the Apple 1 computer. Contrary to the popular press, the Apple 1 was not the first home computer, or indeed very much of a success when it was first released in July 1976, when they sold for $666.66 with no case, keyboard, monitor or storage media. Nevertheless, it was a very early computer that could be used in the home or office by a knowledgeable enthusiast, but it certainly was not operable by the average person. Anyway, the small number of Apple 1’s sold back in the day, coupled with the huge fan base the company has nowadays means that the few surviving Apple 1’s in the world are now worth a mint – working or not. Last week, the specialist IT press reported that a Californian electronics recycling company came across something that they were not expecting.  The company - CleanBayArea said the "anonymous lady around 60-70 years of age" left a couple of boxes of electronic waste at its Silicon Valley warehouse in Milpitas last month, explaining that "her husband had passed away and that she had decided to clean up their garage". According to CleanBayArea vice president Victor Gichun, the woman declined to get a receipt or leave her name. A couple of weeks later, a trawl of the boxes revealed an immaculate 8-bit Apple 1, complete with the sales receipt and supporting documentation, which the company subsequently sold to a private collector for nearly a quarter of a million dollars. CleanBayArea policy is to split sales profits 50-50 with the donor, and to claim her $100,000 prize, the mystery woman "just needs to show up at the company's warehouse". Victor Gichun said: "To prove who she is, I just need to look at her." This story sounds like an urban myth, but it checks out. I think the message is, if you don’t know if something is valuable, speak to someone who knows before you throw it out. Since only two hundred Apple 1 computers were ever made, it is doubtful that this kind of incident will happen very frequently, although I do understand that in addition to genuine replicas of the Apple 1, there are a number of dubious motherboards purporting to be the real thing, but which are actually modern fakes. The huge sums of money that Apple 1’s sell for has inevitably attracted forgers and other crooks.



The ending video this week is in my opinion a work of utter genius. The short, thirty minute film has already been viewed on YouTube over thirteen and a half million times in the one week since it was released. It is called “Kung Fury”, and it is rather difficult to describe. It is a Kung Fu cop movie set in 1985 that contains Laser firing dinosaurs, Wolf riding Valkyries armed with chain guns, Hitler and a horde of Nazis, a sentient and psychopathic video games machine, a computer hacker so skilled that he can hack time itself, and the Norse God Thor. Imagine “Avengers Assemble” if it has been made in 1985 as a low budget, straight to VHS video “B” movie and you will be halfway there.  It is hysterically over the top, and parodies the low budget action movies made by production companies such as Cannon Films back in the 80’s perfectly. You even get a guest appearance by David Hasselhoff – what more could you ask? You can see him performing the title song for the movie above. You can watch the movie in full HD below (only it’s actually in VHS quality, complete with the occasional tape tracking error and drop – out of a typical 80’s well-worn VHS rental cassette!) It is an affectionate and spot – on love letter to cheesy 80’s low budget films that used to make up the bulk of the stock of the thousands of independent video rental stores that were found in every town and village in the U.K in the 1980’s. The film was actually produced in Sweden and was financed by a crowd – funding venture. I have just heard that a full length Hollywood feature movie is to be made of Kung Fury, with the director and star in overall charge. It absolutely hits the spot – see what you think, and feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The Belvedere Splash Park.

The photo above was taken early on Saturday afternoon in the Christian Grey Hall in Albert Road, Upper Belvedere. It shows local residents setting out chairs in preparation for a somewhat heated public meeting that was called at very short notice; nearly ninety people turned up to make their opposition to the forced closure of the Belvedere Splash Park known to representatives of Bexley Council. More on this subject later in the update.

Following the victory against the kid illegally riding an unlicensed and uninsured motor bike that I detailed last week, I was of the opinion that we would have a period of peace and quiet in respect of scrotes riding dodgy bikes. Normally when one of the local low – lives gets nicked for an offence, the word quickly gets around their mates, and they keep their heads down for a couple of months. Not this time I am afraid to say. On Saturday evening I was waiting at a local bus stop. I had planned for a quick trip up to the Prince of Wales in Woolwich Road; word had got out that they were selling Red House Bitter from the Bexley Brewery, and I was keen to sample a pint. I waited for the 99 bus, minding my own business, when I saw a bike rocketing along the road at far in excess of the speed limit. This in itself was nothing unusual, but what got my attention was that neither the rider or the pillion passenger appeared to be wearing a helmet. As the bike rapidly approached, I noted that it was not some clunky low geared trail bike as the previous miscreant had been riding; this was a full – on sports bike along the lines of a Suzuki GSX-R 1000, although it was moving too quickly for me to be certain of the precise model. There were two youngsters on the bike – at a guess they were 14 or 15 years old, though both were wearing hooded tops and had bandannas over the lower halves of their faces. They shot past me so quickly that I was only able to get part of the registration plate details – I suspect that the bike was stolen; I have passed what information I did glean onto the Police. For obvious reasons I cannot describe much more of the encounter at present, but no doubt there will come a time when I can go into full detail. As if this was not enough, last Sunday, not long after I had published the last Maggot Sandwich update, I was talking to a friend on the footpath adjacent to Morrison’s car park in James Watt Way. A lad of maybe twelve or thirteen years old was riding an unlicensed “monkey bike” around the supermarket car park, and on occasion nearly colliding with moving vehicles. He too wore a hooded top and had his lower face obscured by a bandanna. It would seem that the recent arrest and charging of the youth who was caught on film when illegally riding a trail bike on the pavement in Manor Road may not have altered the behaviour of the local scumbags in the way we anticipated. Instead of the other illegal bike riders going to ground, they have started wearing disguises to try and beat the forces of law and order. I get the feeling that the couple riding the high powered sports bike will be getting some very close attention; such a very powerful and fast bike is a challenge for even a fully trained and experienced rider to control, let alone a couple of spotty nerks with more bravado than brain power. Unless they are stopped, it is quite likely that the two will end up losing control of the bike at high speed, and end up causing an accident that could prove fatal for themselves, and possibly innocent members of the public as well. As I have written before, if you see illegal activity of the type I have described, please don't put yourself into any danger, but if you can get a photo of the perpetrators and any vehicle that they are using, this would be extremely helpful in combatting local illegality. The photo should be sent either to the North End Safer Neighbourhood Police team, or to Erith Watch. Either way you would be helping the fight against crime.

I got passed the flyer you can see in the photo above – click on it for a larger view. These are currently being put through the letter boxes in roads around Erith and Belvedere. You may possibly have already received one yourself. What initially struck me was that the flyer breaks just about every rule that the Advertising Standards Authority have ever come up with. It makes wild and unsubstantiated claims, and presents superstition as supposed fact. I am reminded of the now retired stage magician and celebrated psychic debunker James Randi (who famously still offers one million US dollars to anyone who can successfully demonstrate genuine supernatural powers under laboratory conditions – a bounty that has gone unclaimed in over thirty years). The Mr. Jalloh of the leaflet states he can cure love and relationship problems, fertility, job and money issues and “to have good luck”. I am amazed he does not also say he can cure baldness, unblock drains, raise the dead and remove annoying driveway grease stains. The tragedy is that there are a lot of vulnerable and gullible people who will fall for this schtick. As soon as I see the words “psychic” and “black magic” the alarm bells start ringing. These people are all without exception either knowing frauds or suffering from serious psychological delusions. Mr Jalloh also makes the supreme error of using the term “Occult sciences” – an oxymoron of epic proportions. One definition of science is that it works whether you believe in it or not. Normally I don't comment on a person’s beliefs, as my personal libertarian philosophy of “if it works for you” takes precedence, but in this case local residents are in danger of being taken in by someone who is nothing other than a cynical con merchant out to deprive them of their hard earned cash. I could rant on about this, but I think you already get my point. Please feel free to comment below, or drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Bexley Brewery has been doing very well; I have been trying to sample the draught versions of their two beers - Red House Bitter and BOB Pale Ale. The trouble has been that every pub I visit to sample the ales has sold out when I have got there, as I mentioned a little earlier. My frustration will soon pass though, as next Saturday, the Bexley Brewery is opening to the public - one will be able to go along and buy their ales from their retail shop. Both current brews will be available both in bottled form, and soon also in draught. I am fortunate that Pewty Acres is only a short walk to the brewery (I have briefly discussed with Head Brewer Cliff if we could fit an extra long garden hose between the brewery and my kitchen, and have a "pay by pint" beer meter installed - somehow I don't think this is going to happen unfortunately). Bexley Brewery will be open between 11am and 2pm on Saturday 8th November. The address of the brewery is:- 

Bexley Brewery Limited
18 Manford Industrial Estate

Manor Road

Erith 

DA8 2AJ

Following my analysis of the current situation in respect of the proposals for the redevelopment of the Erith Quarry site, I have been passed a very detailed document that a concerned local resident has submitted to the Anderson’s the property developer. The person asks a series of very well considered and detailed questions which cover concerns relating to drainage, planning permission, building standards, traffic levels, the possible return of the dreaded Japanese Knotweed, and also addresses specific concerns relating to Bexley Council and their duties of oversight. I quote the following from their letter; the writer begins with “I have a number of concerns to register, but would first wish to commend those members of your Project Team that manned the exhibition for their openness in trying to address the concerns that visitors to the exhibition raised with them”. They then go on to ask:- “I was told that your planning process would involve you making two separate although related applications to the Council. The area of the site comprising the school, apartments and, main access onto Fraser Road will be a detailed application, whereas the remainder (and larger part of the development) will be more of an outline application seeking general approval to the main development, but allowing the detail of future development to be dealt with under the Reserved Matters process. Will you confirm that this is actually the case? My main concern over the latter process is that it will leave the door open for alterations, particularly under the Planning Officers delegated powers - unless, of course, that the Councils’ Reserved Matters tied you into doing exactly as initially promised. Unfortunately, I doubt whether anyone will have any confidence that the Council will carry out their responsibilities in a manner that we (the public) should expect from their Local Authority. I say this given the Council’s tacit support for the development and its abysmal record when dealing with other developments in the north of the borough – referred to in my earlier note.  However, by way of a further example of my concern over the Council’s operations - what Planning Department, aware of the pre-existing traffic congestion issues at Northumberland Heath, would allow Tesco to open a shop without placing a planning condition on the development that there should be no deliveries to the store between the hours of 7am to 7pm? It beggars belief! Is it really just incompetence or, is it something else? While you may consider this has little to do with your development of the Quarry site, it is another example why the public have so little confidence in the Council carrying out is statutory duties to ensure that those in the immediate vicinity of the quarry do not suffer adversary as a result of its development. Indeed, if anything, the Council should ensure that the development of the Quarry will result in some planning gains for both the Council and the local residents”. It seems to me that the underlying insecurity is not so much in the form of antipathy to the developer, but concerns about the competence (or lack thereof) of Bexley Council in their duty to conduct proper oversight of the development  – a theme that crops up repeatedly in respect of any matter involving local bureaucracy, and you will also see in respect of Belvedere Splash Park, as you read on.

Work finally seems to be speeding up on the Crossrail terminus at Abbey Wood station. The temporary station building has now opened – it will be in use until around 2017, when all construction work on the new multi-level terminus building should be completed. You notice that I qualify the timing? Well that is because at present the development is lagging behind schedule. I have heard from a couple of sources that elements such as the new passenger foot bridges which were prefabricated off – site simply did not fit when they arrived. Because such work can only be carried out during the weekend rail closure periods, the remedial works have been much delayed.  The temporary ticket office also boasts passenger lifts to enable step – free access to both platforms for wheelchair and baby buggy users. We are starting to see a pattern here- high profile infrastructure projects like Crossrail, and places like Bexleyheath station (which had absolutely no need for a passenger lift – even local MP David Evennett agreed no lift was required) get passenger lifts, but then very popular and well used stations like Erith still have no lift, and no current likelihood of getting one. I raised the matter with the developers of Erith Quarry at the recent second public consultation day at Trinity School; I explained that it was in everybody’s interest to get step – free access at Erith station, as it would add value to their development (the main part of Erith Quarry will be targeted at second or third time house buyers, many of which may well have young families and the need for pushchair use; in addition, as the population continues to age, a greater number of wheelchair and mobility scooter users will live in the local area and will need to get around). It would seem that a station lift would be a win / win for the community as a whole. The chap (who was very senior, and I had better not mention his name at this point) agreed that the estimated cost of installing a simple lift system at the station would be something that subject to further investigation might well be something that they would look into. This might not count as a very big step forward, but when you take into account the flat refusal of Network Rail to carry out any accessibility modifications at Erith, it is a start in the right direction.  Local MP Teresa Pearce, who started the campaign for a lift at Erith Station is aware of the situation with the Quarry development; hopefully it can be brought to a mutual advantage.

The photo above shows Upper Belvedere paddling pool back shortly after it opened (though I cannot be absolutely specific as to the precise date the shot was taken - although it has to be between 1908 and 1914). This was the precursor to the current splash park, which certain elements of Bexley Council are keen to do away with. In another "then and now" photo comparison, you can see what the place looks like in the photo below. Click on either shot for a larger view. 

Local TV star backs the campaign to Save Belvedere Splash Park! Young actress Isabelle Doherty from the recent Sainsbury's Halloween TV advertisement (on the left of the photo, looking very despondent) is backing the campaign to preserve the vital local amenity for young residents and their parents. It helps that her Dad Ian is the driving force behind the whole "Save the Splash Park" enterprise. Since I last mentioned the Splash Park and the campaign to keep it open, I have come into quite a lot of new information, much of which makes me slightly more optimistic that the park can indeed be saved. Suffice to say much of what I have been told is currently in confidence, so I cannot divulge specific details. What I am able to say is that there are engineering details why the park has been shut – it was not just a ploy by the council to save a few pounds. The splash park uses water that is recycled and filtered before being stored in a large underground tank, which is located underneath the centre of the park  for re – use through the various jets and sprays around the facility. The tank has developed a series of faults which mean it needs to be dug up and removed for repair by a specialist contractor. The refurbishment work is estimated to cost in the region of £350 - £500K. Thus far Bexley Council have only approached one supplier for a quotation. The council don't want to pay this – and I have had off the record confirmation that certain key council members don’t want to spend a penny on the North of the borough, instead concentrating their efforts on the wealthier South, where the people are more likely to vote for the incumbents. All is not lost however, as a couple of alternative funding options may have become open. It also became apparent at yesterday's public meeting that the council had not taken out a warranty  or service contract on the splash park when it was originally commissioned. This, along with only getting one quotation for the repair work is contrary to all guidelines in respect of due diligence and proper oversight that I have ever encountered. That’s about as far as I can say for now; it seems that there is a huge amount of negotiation and horse trading going on behind closed doors, and the splash park may not be the dead duck that some thought. There is going to be a huge fight, and certain council members may be surprised at the resistance to the proposed closure - a Facebook campaign group has already been set up, and currently it is gaining new members at approximately a thousand people a day. Hopefully I will be able to report more next week.

During the week I got asked a question that really made me think. The question was “If price was no object, what three classic computers would you most like to own, and why?” After a bit of mulling, my response was:- 1) Xerox Alto – the most revolutionary computer since Colossus. More on it in a moment. 2) Xerox Star – the development of the Alto, and the first commercially available computer to use a graphical user interface. 3) NeXT Cube Colour – the great granddaddy of all modern Apple Macs, and the platform used by Sir Tim Berners – Lee to create the World Wide Web. So why did I pick the Xerox Alto as my most desired classic computer? Well, bear in mind that the Alto was never actually available for commercial purchase, and only around fifteen hundred Alto units were hand constructed by Xerox, mainly for internal use, though a handful made it into academia for study purposes, and one made it into the White House. The Alto was the first computer anywhere that had a GUI – a Graphical User Interface, that used the still common desktop paradigm. It had a mouse, used icons, it was able to talk to other Alto computers over an early form of Ethernet data networking. It had a "what you see is what you get" word processing program, it could send and receive Emails with attachments, it could output page set documents to a laser printer and had the world’s first high resolution bitmapped screen. All of this was available in 1973! It was at least fifteen years ahead of anything else in the world, but Xerox did not think there would be a market for such a computer, and eventually wound the project down. This business decision made Decca turning down the Beatles look small change in comparison. Later, the GUI computer project was restarted, and in the very early 1980’s Xerox released the Star – a high end workstation based on the earlier Alto concepts. Bexley Council had a couple of Star units in their typing pool for several years, but they were never really used for anything other than word processing – with their distinctive portrait oriented display screens. Their powerful networking and graphical features were pretty much not used. A couple of years ago, before Bexley Council moved out of their old offices in Bexleyheath Broadway, I tried to find out if any of the Xerox Star units were still being stored on site. I had heard rumours that at least one was stored in the basement nuclear fallout shelter. I had hoped to persuade the council to donate it to The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. Unfortunately my investigation drew a blank – nobody I contacted at the council knew anything about the computers, and they were actually not very interested. Many phone messages and Emails to them went without response, to the point where I got fed up and gave in. Anyone with a Xerox Star, or even more enticingly an Alto stuck in the corner of their basement (it would not have gone in the loft – it was so heavy it would have come through the ceiling) is sitting on not only a very important piece of computer history, but a small fortune. Collectors will pay substantial sums of money for rare and important computers – as was recently seen when an immaculate and completely original Apple 1 was purchased at auction for $905,0000. Personally I think this was a tad over-valued. The Apple 1 was not the first home computer by some way, it was not revolutionary and it was merely one of a number of kit type computers then available. The later fame of the brand has put quite an image boost over the machine that started it all for the Apple brand, and I will not be at all surprised if the next Apple 1 to go on auction breaks the million dollar mark. The ending video this week is  a short commercial for the Xerox Alto - though why they made a commercial for a product that never actually went on sale escapes me. Please feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Bexley Brewery opens.

On Thursday lunchtime I was invited to visit the Bexley Brewery, which is located in unit 18 of the Manford Industrial Estate, off the Eastern end of Manor Road in Erith. It was the occasion of the brewing of their very first production beer - BOB Pale Ale. I could smell the sweet malty aroma that is associated with brewing as I neared the site; and when I got into the brewery it was a scene of intense activity. I realised that I was going to be a bit of a "fifth wheel" so I made my visit brief and took some photos. I will be returning in a week or so to see the transfer of the finished real ale into casks and bottles. The photo above shows a general view of the brewery.

The photo above (click on it for a larger view) shows the hot mash steeping in the mash tun. I was standing on the mezzanine floor that you can see in the top photo, and looking down. A large amount of steam from the grist in the mash tun made the photo quite difficult to take, as the 18-200mm Nikon zoom lens was steaming up!

Here you can see the pile of brand new, still wrapped aluminium beer casks, complete with the customised "Bexley Brewery" logo on them. They will be unwrapped and sterilised before they are ready for use.

Here is the man himself, owner and brewer Clifford Murphy - the man behind the Bexley Brewery, and a very nice chap too. I think he will become an integral part of the Erith business community, and the "go to" person for the supply of quality real ale in the local area. 

In the two weeks since the Erith Fun Day, the feedback that I have had regarding the event has been overwhelmingly positive; people have been saying that contrary to popular opinion, Erith really does have a strong sense of community and cohesion. The turnout at the event was good, helped by the pleasant weather, and even the excruciatingly awful live band covering classic punk tracks could not put visitors off. The band made up for a lack of musical ability (the “singer” could not hold a tune in a bucket) with enthusiasm, but there was a collective sigh of relief when they finished. I lost count of the number of people that I bumped into during the course of the afternoon; it seemed like everyone visited the Fun Day at some point, or that is how it felt to me anyway. It just goes to show what an important resource Erith Riverside Gardens are; it is the centrepiece of the town, and the only place in the London Borough of Bexley where the public can get access to the River Thames. Personally I visit them at least once a week when the weather is nice; the Riverside Gardens and the nearby Erith Pier are two unique places that give visitors and locals alike a chance to see the ever changing Thames and the constant river traffic.

Collecting old computers is becoming a serious hobby for some people. You only have to look at YouTube video channels like “Lazy Game Reviews” to see that there are people who take the whole thing very seriously. Collecting old computers takes a great deal of space; one of the things that discourages me from getting involved – Pewty Acres is very short on storage capacity, which is just as well, as otherwise I might well end up with all sorts of beige tat (if you recall my article on the discolouration of 80’s home computer cases that I wrote about a while ago). In the USA classic computer collecting has already hit the big time; in fact on the 22^nd October, auction house Bonhams will be holding a sale in New York City, where a mint, working Apple 1 computer that is one of the fifty earliest models hand built by Apple guru Steve Wozniak will go up for sale. The computer is a bare mother board (users were expected to build their own cases and supply a monitor and tape recorder as well as a keyboard input device). The machine has a very low specification by modern standards – 4Kb RAM, a one megahertz 8 bit 6502 processor and a screen display of 280 x 192 characters, in upper case only. The machine is estimated to sell for approximately half a million dollars. Like art, rare old computers will sell for what people are prepared to pay for them. In 2013, another pristine, early Apple 1 sold at auction by Christies for $387,750. I think this is all a tad excessive; the Apple 1 was not the first personal computer, though it was a very early one. The first computer actively designed for use by hobbyists in the home was actually the Altair 8800 – the computer made famous by the film “War Games” – the first Hollywood movie about hacking.

News that Gravesend RNLI rescued a man who had somehow fallen off Erith Pier early last Saturday morning has been published by the News Shopper. Apparently passers by saw a man clinging to one of the pier legs just before 7am; he was rescued by the Gravesend life boat. If the tide had been ebbing or flowing strongly there is a good chance that the man would have been pulled from the pier leg and out into the main stream; the undertow would have quite probably sucked him under. All of this can happen in a few minutes. The excellent men and women of the RNLI did a sterling job; my concern is that even by very fast launch, the response times of a rescue vessel to the stretch of the Thames off Erith is still considerable. A vessel has to come from London Bridge or Gravesend, unless by happy chance it happens to be on patrol in the local vicinity. My comments over the last couple of weeks recommending that a RNLI sub station be set up in Erith have been further underlined by recent events. Unless a small Erith based crew are set up, sooner or later the rescue boat from Gravesend or London Bridge is going to take too long to arrive, and there will be a death. The history of river based deaths off Erith would support this. I strongly feel that the old, former Port of London Authority hut by the wooden causeway on the river front would be an ideal location for a small RNLI team. I think that it is only a matter of time before we have a fatality unless something concrete is done. What do you think? Leave a message below, or contact me directly at hugh.neal@gmail.com

The final cosmetic work to complete Bexley College has been under way this week; tons of topsoil have been delivered to the site, and have been laid ready to take grass. It has amazed me just how quickly the site has gone from a series of holes in the ground to a fully functioning building. The first students were able to enter the new building as of last Monday morning, though at this point this is only to enrol on a course. Actual classes will commence shortly. London Mayor Boris Johnson is due to open the new campus on the 7th October, and I have an invitation to the event. I am unsure of when Bexley Council will be clearing the piece of rat infested wasteland at the South end of the site; it really needs to be done soon, as otherwise the rats will migrate into the college building on the lookout for food. My eco friendly “Kentucky fried rat” solution that I outlined last week has not met with widespread approval, though for the life of me I cannot understand why?

Malcolm Knight of the Bexley is Bonkers blog has been keeping a close eye on the work being carried out on the rail lines between Abbey Wood and Plumstead, in preparation for the forthcoming Crossrail development. He notes something that I had suspected for a month or so – the work is running seriously behind schedule. According to the timeline on the Crossrail website, the new temporary station should be finished, and the new footbridge opened. Neither has been done – in fact the station building shows scant evidence of even having been started. I understand that there have been a number of problems – stormy weather making the footbridge sway around so much when it was due to be fitted that a decision was made to abandon the work on safety grounds. On top of this, Malcolm reports that much of the prefabricated components that have been delivered to site don't actually fit – something I thought was nigh impossible in the age of AutoCAD and computer controlled milling machines. I have to say that I have seen much bashing of bits of construction with large lump hammers when I do my twice daily commute past the site, which gives credence to the observations of others. Just when the temporary station will appear is still a mystery.

Following my piece on the hidden waiting room at Erith Station, I got the following comment from regular reader Mrs B:- Yes I do remember the waiting room on the London bound platform at Erith Station.  It became an eyesore and was vandalised quite often and quite a scary place.  I must say that when the station had its makeover some years ago, it was a bit of a relief to find it boarded over and cosmetically it was a good idea.  It is too much to hope that a nice, comfortable, warm waiting room would stay in that condition for very long once the mindless yobs had got their hands on it. The communication system needs improving at Erith Station - if you are up the end of the London bound platform waiting for a train, it is impossible to hear announcements, or to see the one illuminated indicator board which is down the other end. And of course it is ridiculous in this day and age that there is no lift.  I am not sure what is directly underneath the hidden waiting room - but would there be access for a lift shaft there? Some very valid points, though I think the waiting room concept could do with being revisited - possibly with some very visible CCTV to discourage the yobs and vandals? What do you think?

Unfortunately I was unable to get down to Erith Pier to see the tall ships when they visited London; a bit of a flap at work meant my time was taken up elsewhere. On Friday I had an Email out of the blue from blog reader Rosemary Thomas, who wrote:- "I took a couple of photos from my flat in Erith of the flotilla of Tall ships on Tuesday. I am unsure if you managed to get to see them yourself so please use my photos in your weekly blog if you so desire. I have to say I haven't seen so many people on the pier since the Olympic Flame". Thanks ever so much for thinking of the Maggot Sandwich and forwarding the photos above - click on either of them for a larger view.

Much has been written in both the local and regional press about the plans for various new river crossings over the Thames; the Gallions Reach, Lower Belvedere and possible Silvertown bridges. Depending on the point of view of the author, the new river crossings are either going to be a very strong economic stimulus for the entire region, or a massive threat to the environment.  One thing that seems to be clear is that the bridges will almost certainly follow the toll model as used by the existing Dartford River Crossing. It is furthermore mooted that the Blackwall tunnel will start charging tolls at some point in the future. I think that in order to finance the crossings something of this nature is pretty much inevitable. Once again I can see the law of unintended consequences coming into play; now that vehicle excise disks are being phased out to be replaced by an automated vehicle number plate recognition system. The Police would be able to instantly check the licensing database to confirm that a vehicle was properly covered. The problem is that there are already a large number of vehicles on Britain’s roads which are using cloned registration plates. If, as is mooted, the new river crossing tolls will also use automatic number plate recognition technology, it may well result in an upsurge in plate cloning; traders who cross the river on a regular basis may well find the temptation too much. The trouble with recognition systems is that they shift the burden of proof to the accused – you have to actively prove that your car was not in the area where the transgression took place, as the assumption will be that no cloning had taken place. This is a disturbing shift; previously other factors were also taken into account, but whether this will be the case in the future is currently unclear. On another tack, I am still convinced that a relatively shallow tunnel under the Thames between Rainham in Essex and Lower Belvedere in Kent would be a far superior engineering and transportation technology solution than a conventional bridge. You may recall that I wrote at some length about it here.

I work for a large multinational company; staff were recently asked to bring in their passports as it is now a legal requirement that companies can legally confirm the identity of their staff – apparently the UK Border Agency is upping the ante and insisting that companies can verify the identity of their employees. In my case this was a bit of a problem, as I don't have a passport. I contacted the HR team carrying out the checks and asked what other forms of identification were accepted; there was much ooing and umming and scratching of heads before I got two different answers from three different people. It would seem that this issue will be coming up all over the country as companies struggle to comply with the law. I am still waiting to get a definitive answer in respect of other documentation that can be used to satisfy the UK Border Agency. 

There has been much press and television coverage of the hundredth anniversary of the start of the First World War. Understandably much of this has focused on the huge loss of life and the virtual elimination of a whole generation of young men. What has had almost no coverage is the positive things that came out of the first truly modern war. Sadly, large scale conflict seems to have a stimulus to science and technology – and not just in finding new and yet more devastating ways to kill people. A chap called Doctor Harold Gillies – a New Zealand born surgeon, who earned the title of “The father of plastic surgery” pioneered reconstructive surgery on wounded soldiers who had been injured in the trenches, and who had a remarkable local connection. Harold Gillies initially opened a small unit in the Cambridge Hospital at Aldershot which had beds for two hundred injured men. He pioneered the use of skin grafting – a technique he adapted from one first used by professor Hippolyte – Morestin in France, he employed dental reconstruction techniques invented by Charles Valadier, coupled with the use of X-Rays, and photographs to detail the injuries of his patients; he was also fastidious about cleanliness and the use of antiseptics (a very important point, as antibiotics were yet to be discovered, and deaths from sepsis or blood poisoning were still common). Gillies also came up with the simple but effective policy of ensuring that all patients were attached to a luggage label listing their injuries, and where the injured soldier needed to be sent for treatment – many of the men were unable to speak through injury, or otherwise rendered unconscious. Once the Battle of the Somme took place, the two hundred bed unit in Aldershot was drastically overcrowded – at one point there were ten patients for every bed. A new home needed to be found for the plastic surgery unit, and one was found at Queen’s Hospital at Sidcup (what is nowadays Queen Mary’s).  The unit took up much of the hospital, and it was conveniently close to the Royal Artillery barracks at Woolwich, where a small number of patients were located during their convalescence. Doctor Gillies was an interesting man – on top of being a very early pioneer of plastic surgery, he was a great golfer, a professional standard violin player, rowed in a winning team for Cambridge University in the boat race, and created a comedic alter – ego called Doctor Scroggy which he used to entertain his patients. He would walk around the wards of Queen’s Hospital at night, dispensing champagne and oysters to the injured soldiers, despite the strict ban on alcohol within the hospital grounds. He encouraged the recovering men to perform theatrical productions and shorter skits, which often involved the recuperating soldiers dressing in drag. Gillies was aware of the emotional as well as physical trauma he was treating – and his solution was to make recovery fun. His influence was such that later, in the Second World War, he was able to rebuild the burned faces and hands of airmen, alongside his better known cousin, Archibald Mcindoe, whose disfigured pilot patients later formed The Guinea Pig Club. Harold Gillies also performed the first gender reassignment operations, and became a leader in the field of sex change surgery. Between the 14^th of October 2014 and the 14^th February 2015 there will be an exhibition on the life and extraordinary work of Dr. Harold Gillies at the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons in London WC2. He was ahead of his time in so many ways, and much of his work first undertaken at Sidcup has been used as the foundation for modern reconstructive surgery.

Another link with the local area and the First World War has come via transport specialist Dana Whiffen who writes:- "B2737-B-Type Bus honours those transport workers that lost their lives during the 1st World War. A bus will be en route to France as part of the museum’s centenary programme later this month. At the outbreak of the war in August 1914, buses were commandeered for the war effort. Many mechanics and drivers were recruited along with their vehicles. The resulting staff shortages meant women were employed for the first time as bus conductors to keep the city moving. During the war over 1,000 LGOC buses, one third of their fleet, were sent to the front. Most served in France or Belgium but some went as far as Greece.  The buses were fitted with protective boarding and painted khaki. Most were used to transport troops to and from the front lines. Each vehicle could carry 24 soldiers and their equipment, compared to 34 seated passengers in London. The buses also had other uses, some were converted into lorries, others served as ambulances or even pigeon lofts. After the war buses that could be repaired returned to the streets of London. The B2737 began service in January 1914 and served route 9 between Barnes and Liverpool Street. B-Type buses also ran around the Erith and surrounding areas there are photos of them running into Eltham from central London. When war broke out B2737 along with many others were commandeered by the war department. B2737 was luck enough to return to London service after the war many did not as they were destroyed.. Then B2737, served as a Traffic Emergency bus – ‘no frills’ solution to relieving pressure on congested routes. In 1922 it was finally sold to the National Omnibus & Transport Company for use outside London. Few buses have survived the hundred years to tell their tale. The B2737 has been restored using original parts from all over the world, some coming from as far afield as Australia. It will make its emotional journey to both Belgium and France later this month". 

Wherever you look at the moment you will see coverage of Smart Watches, principally the Apple Watch. For some reason Apple always get blanket coverage in the UK press whenever event the most trivial of new products is launched. I have a theory regarding this; even when Apple were in the doldrums both technically and financially, with cheaper Windows PC’s taking much of their market share in the mid 1990’s to the mid 2000’s, one sector stayed loyal to the Mac – the print and publishing industry. Historically this has always meant that journalists tend to be very well disposed to Apple kit. They definitely seem to have a pronounced unconscious bias towards Apple when writing about technical matters. To anyone considering a smart watch from any supplier, I would urge you to wait; they have terrible power consumption problems (you can only expect around 12 – 14 hours between charges), are currently very limited in their functionality, and new, improved models will inevitably be launched  within a few months – look at what happened when the first iPad was released – the public went loopy for it, only to have the iPad 2 released scant months later. The same will happen with smart watches. Personally I think that they are a solution looking for a problem, but it is entirely possible that someone may develop a “killer app” that changes this perception. In the meantime I suspect that many may stump up for one, only to be bitterly disappointed when the reality fails to live up to the hype.

The evenings are now noticeably drawing in and it is pretty much dark by 8pm. The temperature is still pretty reasonable, but this won’t be the case for very much longer. There comes a time in the year where I reach what I like to call the “Tweed Retirement Point (TRP)” this is when it becomes too cold to just wear a tweed sports jacket when out and about. This is my personal signifier for the true onset of winter, and it does tend to be somewhat variable. I think that the annual retrieving of heavier overcoats from the wardrobe is one of the things I least look forward to in the course of the annual cycle, but one that unfortunately cannot be avoided, just like the first appearance of a pale and scrawny, bare chested youth seems to signify the beginning of spring in Erith. It won't be very long before the trouble makers are happily ensconced back in their darkened and noxiously smelly bedrooms, playing their X-Boxes and awaiting the Spring.

It has been a long time since I featured any dark humour on the blog, so here is a video featuring a number of popular cartoon characters from the 1980's and what they are up to now, years after they lost their popularity and high incomes. See what you think and please feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.