Fit4Less opens.

After nearly two years of preparatory work, Josh Waters has opened the Fit4Less gym in Erith High Street, directly opposite Erith Health Centre. The commercial units that the new gym occupies have been vacant since the block was built nearly ten years ago. I for one am glad to see that they are finally being put to productive use after standing empty all of this time. I have been reliably informed that the gym is already doing very good business – word reaches me that it has had the largest pre – opening member sign – ups of any gym in the Fit4Less franchise chain. Not bad at all. I feel that it will do very well indeed – it is conveniently located in the centre of town, with lots of free car parking very close by, courtesy of Morrison’s supermarket; it also is very convenient for commuters heading home from Erith station, and is adjacent to the 99, 229, 428 and B12 bus routes, with more bus stops just around the corner. Compared with other gyms, Fit4Less offer a very competitive membership rate, with no long term annual commitment – an area where other gyms make their “hidden” money – usually by encouraging post - Christmas sign – ups to an expensive annual membership, which then gets used for a while, then forgotten. In this traditional business model, gyms are somewhat like mustard – the money is made by what is left on the plate – or in the case of the gyms, by the memberships purchased, but rarely if ever actually used.  As you can see from the photos above, the Fit4Less Erith gym is very modern and well – equipped, and is already proving to be very popular. I passed by on the opening night, and the place was crammed with local and not so local people having a look round at the facility. I happened to bump into Josh later in the evening, just before they closed for the night – he looked utterly exhausted, but very happy with how things had gone. He has been working incredibly long hours to get the gym open as soon as possible, after a couple of setbacks which were completely outside of his control. All is back on track now, and I predict a bright future for Josh and his venture. 

The photo above shows what I occasionally refer to as "The Erith Big Sky" - Erith is the only place in the London Borough of Bexley where you can see from horizon to horizon without anything being in the way. I took the photo from Erith Pier a while ago. You can see Westwards, upriver towards London; the old wooden Erith Jetty can be seen in the middle distance, and on the horizon are the grain silos belonging to ADM Oils - the largest manufacturer of edible oils in Europe. If you have bought a supermarket ready meal in the UK, the oil used to cook it will have come from ADM Oils in Lower Belvedere. It is also one of the largest local employers, with around 1,200 workers, many of whom live in the local area. More on ADM Oils later in this update. The view above will be similar to that seen by visitors to Erith during the last Saturday in November; Just for once some good news from Bexley Council; Erith Riverside Gardens will be the location for a Christmas themed pop - up cinema on Saturday November 26th starting at 4.30pm. Two films will be screened - Home Alone  will be shown at 4.30pm, which will be followed by Gremlins at 6.30pm. The screenings follow Erith Riverside Shopping Centre’s Christmas fair on the same day, which will last from 10am to 4pm. The event is to be part of the Greater Erith programme, which aims to bring more people into Erith. Specific details of the pop - up cinema event are still sketchy - hopefully the event will be held in a marquee tent or other form of cover. The weather at the end of November is usually terrible, and the Riverside Gardens are one of the most exposed areas of Erith - the wind comes straight off the Thames, seemingly directly from Siberia. This could be a fantastic, creative and unusual event, providing the planning and execution are properly carried out. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

There have been numerous reports in both the local and national press about a higher than usual number of residential fires over the last few weeks. There have also been a number of violent assaults by youths against others in the form of firework attacks. Both the increase in fires and the attacks can be directly attributed to the misuse of fireworks. I have heard an increasingly large number of people voice the opinion that the law regarding the sale of fireworks to the public really needs to be revisited. Personally I  am of the view that one should need a licence to purchase fireworks, and that these would only be permitted for public displays, outdoor concerts, weddings and suchlike. The problem is that at the moment total idiots have access to fireworks, which are basically low explosives. The number of accidents and injuries that occur every year at this time are mainly down to irresponsible and malicious abuse of fireworks. Banning the general sale of them to individuals would go a long way to mitigate this. What do you think? Would this be an affront to personal liberty? Is it a price too high to pay? Let me know your thoughts.

This week marks what I refer to as TRP – Tweed Retirement Point. This is where the weather has got colder to the point where a tweed jacket worn over a shirt is no longer sufficient protection against the elements, and a hardier form of outer wear is required. For me, along with the first switching on of the central heating, this marks the first steps towards winter. It does seem that after the indifferent spring, followed by the uncomfortably hot summer, we seem to be heading back to distinct seasons, after a few years of cool summers and mild winters. Not sure if this is a good thing from a personal viewpoint (I really don't do heat well - anything over around 22 degrees Celsius is too much for me), but it should at least temporarily shut up that group who every year trot out the same mantra "we don't get seasons like we used to" and blame it on global warming. As I featured some time ago, all of the data used to model potential climate change is inaccurate, and the predictions made by both the pro and the anti - global warming theorists are now worthless. The reason for this is that nearly all weather stations that are used to collect temperature, precipitation, sunlight and wind data are located in towns and cities - wherever in the world you care to check. Some of these weather stations have been in continuous use for many years; quite often for more than a century. When the weather stations were first set up, they were often on farms and smallholdings in what were then the suburbs. Urban sprawl has now happened, and what were the suburbs are now in many cases a part of the city. Cities suffer from a condition known as Urban Heat Island - the concrete and metal that make up city tower blocks, and the tarmac that covers the ground acts like a giant storage heater, keeping the overnight air temperature artificially higher than it would otherwise actually be. When climate analysts compare the heat data, say from 1916 with 2016 they then see a marked hike in the overall temperature, which immediately gets blamed on increased Carbon Dioxide levels, due to pollution. Indeed this may also be happening, but the vast majority of the temperature increase is actually due to the heat leakage from air conditioning units and the buildings which house them. The overnight temperatures stay higher than expected, as the fabric of the buildings slowly leak the heat that they had built up during the day. What this means is that the historical meteorological records bear no relation to contemporary ones - it is a classic case of comparing apples and oranges. Both pro and anti camps in the climate change discussion really need to go away and re - evaluate their computer models, as they are all based on fundamentally faulty data. 

Word reaches me that the Bexley Police body worn video camera project has been delayed until January. The programme had been originally intended to begin in September, as I wrote at the time, but for reasons unknown there has been a delay. I am broadly in favour of the Police wearing video cameras to record their actions, as this will protect both the innocent and the Police from malicious claims of wrongdoing. My only concern is that the Police will be able to switch the cameras off and on at will. Personally I would like them permanently on, to save the accusation that for example, the Police turned off their cameras before giving a suspect a good kicking.  What do you think?

The photo above shows the original Erith Swimming Baths, which was opened in 1907; the pool was of relatively modest dimensions - it measured 60 x 25 feet, and was heated with waste heat from the adjacent Erith Power Station in Walnut Tree Road. The old baths were closed in 1967, when work on the Erith Riverside Swimming Baths began. That has now in turn been demolished, and the site on the corner of Walnut Tree Road and Erith High Street is undergoing preparatory groundworks before the construction of a series of town houses and apartments which will overlook the Riverside Gardens, which are to the West of the Erith High Street conservation area, and date back to 1937, when they were created to replace the former Cannon and Gaze flour mill, which was built on the site in 1903. Another firm that was established on the riverfront at Erith was Herbert W. Clarke and Sons, which was set up in 1890. They started out as barge owners and lighter men, but by 1911 they took over Anchor Bay Wharf, which until then had been owned by Eastern and Anderson. As soon as Herbert W. Clarke and Sons took possession of the wharf, they formed a new import and export business, which mainly exported coal to Holland and Belgium.  Nearby was a company called Mayer Newman and Co. who were engaged in the scrap metal business – the scrap yard still exists today. It is now called European Metal Recycling, but is still in the same location in Manor Road. Further East along Manor Road was a truly massive factory and works owned by Turner’s Asbestos Cement Co. Ltd. The site covered a little over forty three acres; by 1912 the company pioneered the development of asbestos roofing material, and also produced a wide range of guttering, piping and fireproof insulation material, as well as a lot of other components for the building industry. We are still living with the legacy of this today; many old buildings need to have specialist demolition contractors to remove Turner’s asbestos building products, as the dust asbestos produces when cut or abraded is severely poisonous. I think if the company was still around today, they would have been sued into bankruptcy – but of course, around a century ago, nobody was any the wiser. Another world renowned company that had a base in Erith were Royal Doulton, who had an extensive factory located just off Church Manorway. They made salt glazed piping and tiling (I wonder if the lovely green salt glazed tiles that used to adorn the exterior of the former White Hart, before they were illegally removed when Potion bought the place came from the Royal Doulton works? We will never know). Royal Doulton also made their fine china in Erith, when experimental designs were produced that depicted local scenes as their decoration. These pieces are now rare and extremely collectible. I recall seeing one piece featured on “Antiques Roadshow” some years ago. Erith has been the historical home to many other manufacturers over the years, some of which are still in existence. One such company is ADM Oils (whom I featured in detail a while back, and mentioned earlier in this update), which has a huge processing facility in Church Manorway, which employs nearly 1,200 local people. It originally started up in 1908, when it was known as Erith Oil Works – the business then was similar to now; they crush and process all kinds of seeds, to extract their natural oils, which are used in foodstuffs, cooking oils and animal feeds. The seeds, then as now are brought upriver in large bulk freighter ships. The distinctive huge concrete silos that are still present on the ADM site were constructed in 1916, where they were some of the earliest surviving examples of reinforced concrete construction in the UK. They were constructed by Danish structural engineering company Christiani and Neilsen, who invented reinforced concrete construction techniques. The earliest recorded industrial company established in Erith was a timber importing business called W.R Crow and Son, which was set up way back in 1795! I will feature more on the history of Erith and the surrounding area in the future. The best reference work on the local history of the town was the four part “A History of Erith”, written by John A. Pritchard, which is now out of print. It was originally written in 1965, and substantially updated and revised in 1989, when it was reprinted. I have not seen a work since which is a patch on this venerable publication. If you have any information which can add to this, please feel free to drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Long term readers may recall my antipathy towards automated payment tills in supermarkets, similar to the ones you can see on the photograph above - click for a larger view. It would appear that I am far from alone in this view. Academics at the University of Leicester's Department of Criminology have just published a report entitled:- "Developments in Retail Mobile Scanning Technologies: Understanding the Potential Impact on Shrinkage and Loss Prevention." What the academics discovered was that Although shops may think they are saving money by ditching staff in favour of automated systems, in fact, the amount of money lost through theft rockets after the introduction of self-checkouts. The criminologists found that the cost of stolen items more than doubles after the introduction of self-scanning. It is not just criminals taking advantage of the lax security. The report found that people who are usually honest resort to theft simply because they can, and do not feel it is as wrong when there is no human interaction. The frustrations many people feel at the self-service till may also lead shoppers to feel justified in stealing, the report found, while technology gives offenders ‘ready-made excuses’ for failing to scan items. Self-checkouts were found to provoke aggressive behaviour particularly when products would not scan correctly, or when staff had to intervene to over-ride faults or check age verifications. Giving customers the freedom to self-scan also gives them the opportunity to blame faulty technology, problems with the product barcodes or claim that they are not technically proficient as reasons for non-scanning, said the report. The study involved data from nearly 12 million shopping trips from four major British retailers as well others in the US, Belgium and Holland between 2013 and 2015. The researchers found that introducing self-checkouts raised the rate of loss by 122 percent to an average of 3.9 per cent of turnover. It is also difficult for retailers to identify whether a customer wilfully took items without scanning or were simply absentminded. The report found that prosecutions were a ‘legal and customer relations minefield’ with one company admitting it never prosecuted because a shoplifting charge could never be proved in court. The study concluded that retailers have made theft so easy that customers who would ‘normally and happily pay’ are tempted to commit crime and may start to see it as a normal part of shopping. Scanning items using hand-held devices or mobile phones was also fund to lead to errors. At the end of one shopping trip in a large supermarket researchers found that 10 per cent cent of items in a basket had not been scanned through genuine error caused by distraction because the ‘shopper is being asked to do too many things at once.’ Professor Adrian Beck, of the University of Leicester Department of Criminology, said: “Both loved and loathed by consumers, with the phrase ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ striking dread into many a shopper, self-scan technologies are growing in use and likely to become even more prominent as we begin to be encouraged to use our own mobile devices to both scan and pay for products in the stores we visit. From the retailers’ perspective, the benefits seem obvious – less investment required in staff and checkout technologies, with the former being the biggest expense they face. For the shopper it could mean the end of checkout queues as product scanning and payment can in theory be performed anywhere in the store at their convenience. To borrow a well-worn phrase, ‘what could possibly go wrong’? Well, our research found that quite a bit could and does go wrong, with some potentially rather worrying long term consequences.” So it would seem that my thoughts on self service supermarket tills are actually backed up by factual evidence and academic analysis.  Whether the supermarkets will take any notice of this is another matter entirely. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

A relatively new programme has begun at Christ Church, Erith - the Parish Church near the Fish roundabout and the Bexley Road railway bridge. "Men in Sheds" is a project that is designed principally to help elderly men who have problems with isolation and associated depression. A Men’s Shed is a larger version of the typical man’s shed in the garden – a place where he feels at home and pursues practical interests with a high degree of autonomy. The Men in Sheds programme offers this to a group of such men where members share the tools and resources they need to work on projects of their own choosing at their own pace and in a safe, friendly and inclusive venue. They are places of skill-sharing and informal learning, of individual pursuits and community projects, of purpose, achievement and social interaction. A place of leisure where men come together to work. A Shed’s activities usually involve making or mending in wood (e.g. carpentry, joinery, turning, carving, whittling, marquetry, furniture renovation) but may include metalworking (milling, sheet metal, welding, etc.) bike repair, gardening, electronics, tool renovation, boat renovation, model engineering (model railways, planes) and even building a car! Reclamation, reuse and restoration will feature strongly – and some say that is true of the men too. Although Sheds mostly attract older men, some have included men of any age, women and young people. Whichever activities are pursued the essence of a Shed is not a building, which some don’t have, but the network of relationships between the members. You can read more about the Bexley men in Sheds project, based at Christ Church Erith by clicking here.

Half of British children will own a mobile phone by the age of eleven, according to new research published this week. The study of 2,000 parents shows the average child will receive a phone worth £120 on their eleventh birthday, and will then spend two hours every day glued to the device. But four in 10 parents end up regretting giving their youngster a phone at such a young age – as by their teenage years the child is transfixed by the likes of social media, texts, and computer games. Incredibly, researchers found one in 20 children will own a mobile handset by the age of six, as parents give in to primary school peer pressure. Owning a mobile phone comes at a price for parents – in addition to the £120 upfront fee, mums and dads will be expected to replace the phone at least twice due to it being lost, stolen or damaged. The study, which considers mobile phone ownership amongst children, reveals two thirds of parents will allow their child to have internet access on their device as soon as they get it. On top of this, 28 per cent of children are then allowed to use their phone all day without any supervision from an adult – despite 46 per cent have access to social media channels. The report also highlights that a third of parents fear their children spend far too much time on their phone – with one in eight youngsters spending more than four hours a day chatting to friends and playing games. According to the data, one in 10 children will use their mobile during the school day, and 12 per cent will log in to their phone as soon as they get home from school. Just 10 per cent of children can wait until after dinner before checking their phone. Just one in six parents will limit their child’s phone usage to emergencies only – with many admitting their child uses their phone for a range of activities. Unfortunately, purchasing a phone only adds to the worry parents have. A fifth of parents are concerned their child’s phone has now led to them not enjoying enough quality time with the family, and 16 per cent are concerned their child is missing out on face-to-face interactions with others. Apart from my usual antipathy towards mobile phones, I do have a concern that giving children such devices limits their ability to think for themselves or act fully independently. If they are out and miss the last bus, or some other problem occurs, all they have to do is ring Mum or Dad on their mobile phone to get picked up. They won't learn about improvisation, and in later life this will impair their ability to act in a fully independent manner. What do you think? Do the safety aspects outweigh the downsides of giving children mobile phones? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Bexley Council announced this week that they are rebuilding the former Belvedere Splash Park and transforming it into what they call the "Belvedere Beach" - a new play park, which will be open throughout the year. It has been designed to be fully inclusive, with a range of equipment that includes sensory and educational play areas. In keeping with the beach theme the park will also contain an interactive water play unit. The park has been funded by Cory Environmental - the company that operates the energy from waste station in Lower Belvedere. You can read more about the forthcoming new park here.  The new park is due to open in the Autumn of 2017. More in this story as it develops over time. The former Splash Park itself was something that had been very well used by parents with children – not just locally – I know of people who came from as far as Eltham, Chislehurst and Dartford to use the very popular summer facility. There was also a contributory factor that many Erith, Belvedere and Abbey Wood locals felt disenfranchised with the current administration running Bexley Council. The North of the London Borough of Bexley has traditionally been where heavy industry, the services and warehousing has been undertaken – historically this was due to the location of the River Thames, which was a primary source of communication. The South of the borough was wealthier, with many of the factory owners and industrialists needing to be fairly close to their business empires without living cheek – by jowl with their employees. One exception to this was the community in Upper Belvedere, which was extremely upper middle class in Victorian Times. Nevertheless history has dictated that there has always been an economic and social divide within the London Borough of Bexley – the borough gets wealthier the further South one travels – one could almost liken it to a microcosm of the entire United Kingdom I suppose. The problem that has vexed the Splash Park protesters was that a majority of the Bexley councillors don't really give a stuff about what happens in the North, since their mandate comes from voters in the South. The councillors feel that there are no votes to be won (or more importantly in the circumstances, no votes to be lost) in the North. They therefore invest little if any time, effort or attention in those areas. This may well be one of the reasons that the Danson Splash Park did not have the same closure threats – the councillors care about the wealthy voters in Danson, and want to keep them on side so that they can continue with their snouts in the trough. Those residents in the North just don’t count, I am sad to say.

The ending video this week is a short film on the new ArcelorMittal Orbit - the world's largest and longest helter skelter, which is located in Stratford, East London. See what you think.

The Quiz.

Last night well over a hundred people turned up to the annual Friends of Christ Church Erith Quiz Night. The evening also marked the launch of the Friends of Christ Christ Church Erith fund raising calendar, which features thirteen artworks from the "Our Erith" art exhibition held in the church earlier in the year. The calendar is now on sale for a very reasonable £3 a copy, and all profits go to the Friends in their work to maintain the historic Grade 2* listed church building. The quiz was tough, and the friendly competition fierce. The winning team was led by local MP Teresa Pearce and her other half Paul - you can see them in the photo below. This is one scoop neither the News Shopper or the Bexley Times are getting!

In the last week Bexley Police rolled out body worn video cameras to all patrolling officers. This is as part of a programme to get all 22,000 serving Metropolitan Police officers to be so equipped. Over the coming months, the cameras will be issued to all thirty two London and other frontline specialist roles, including firearms officers. Police said members of the public will be told as soon as practical that they are being recorded, and when the camera is recording it is highly visible - notable by a flashing red circle in the centre of the camera and a frequent beeping noise when the camera is activated. The trials of body worn video cameras has shown that people are more likely to plead guilty when they know Police have captured the incident on a camera. That then speeds up justice, puts offenders behind bars more quickly, and most importantly protects potential victims. Last month, a study by the University of Cambridge found a 93 per cent decrease in complaints made against officers clearly wearing body cameras. Video footage is not continuously recorded - officers manually switch on the video recorders when they expect trouble. I have covered this issue in the past; problems occurred during the Bexley Police body worn camera trial back in August of last year. As you may recall, I was contacted by Sky News investigative journalist Gerard Tubb. Sky News discovered that whilst the Police had told the public that the body worn video data was uploaded to secure Police video servers, it was actually being uploaded to an external commercial data storage company with a history of data security breaches. Gerard Tubb had already uncovered this story, but approached me for a copy of the Police announcement to interested parties. He had been assured by the Home Office that the document had never been published, but he suspected that it had. I was able to confirm that the document had indeed been published, and I supplied him with a copy, along with the associated Email trail, thus giving him the "smoking gun" proving the veracity of the story. I am hopeful that after the story made the headlines on Sky News that the Metropolitan Police have improved their data security practices now that the camera footage is going to be collected by all Police officers who deal with the public. A Metropolitan Police document on body worn cameras states:- "Why use BWV at all? 
 BWV provides an additional option for officers to gather evidence at incidents.  BWV cameras have already been used in the MPS and in other forces to good effect. The cameras can capture evidence of criminal behaviour and can help to ‘set the scene’ for the court at a later date.  By capturing this evidence, officers can spend less time writing statements and completing paperwork at the station. This allows them to spend more time patrolling and responding to incidents in the community.  The use of BWV in other countries has been shown to moderate the behaviour of people present at incidents, resulting in less of force by officers and reduced complaints against police. It is hoped this will help to ensure public confidence in police actions.  Evidence from other forces in the UK has shown that, where BWV is key evidence, guilty pleas at the first opportunity at court rise significantly - this means reduced burdens across the Criminal Justice System, not just in policing. When will officers be using the BWV? Will it be ‘always on?’  No - the use of BWV will be ‘incident specific’ - officers will switch on the camera when they would ordinarily be considering recording an incident or interaction by conventional means - for example, a statement or notebook entry - or if they feel that there would be evidential value in recording the incident. Officers will, when practicable, tell those present when they are recording and when they are about to switch off the camera. They will usually only switch the camera off when the incident has concluded or where there is no further evidential value to be had in continued recording.  To have the cameras ‘always on’ may result in private or confidential interactions with the public being recorded and also may represent a significant intrusion into the privacy of those who might be caught on camera. As well as this, continual recording will result in massive amounts of data being retained and stored by the police, which would result in increased logistical problems in back office functions. What about rights to privacy? It is understandable that some people may be concerned about officer’s recording their interactions with the public at incidents. They may be worried that footage concerning them may be held on police data servers. This is a key reason why officers will not indiscriminately record all interactions and activity. This is to ensure that any intrusion into private lives is kept to the minimum level necessary. All footage recorded on BWV in the MPS is subject to legal safeguards and guidance set by the Information Commissioner’s office and the Home Office. Footage that is not likely to be of evidential value will be removed from the system within a very short time - the current guidance is within 31 days. Footage that is retained is subject to regular review and, if no longer required or likely to be required as evidence, will again be weeded. People who have been recorded have the right to see footage of them that has been retained by the MPS. See our website - www.met.police.uk for details on how to obtain this footage". Overall I think this move to recording is a good idea; I just have reservations about the potential for a bad cop to switch the recording off midway through an encounter if they thought it might go badly for them if the footage was filmed and later reviewed. What do you think? Either leave a comment below, or drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Halloween seems to be taking over as the main winter festival from Guy Fawkes Night. Halloween was originally created in pretty much its’ current form by 18th century Irish people, the word is a corruption of All Hallow’s Eve. Irish immigrants to America took the tradition there, and it was exported back across the Atlantic in the early 1980’s. Although Halloween was celebrated before this time, it was a far lower key and less involved affair. I am convinced that the increase in popularity of the Americanised version of the festival can at least partly be laid at the feet of Stephen Spielberg and his movie “ET – The Extra Terrestrial”. The film carries strong Halloween themes such as dressing up and “Trick or Treating” which prior to the opening of the film had been relatively uncommon in the UK. The massive popularity of the film exposed may children of the time to take on the American aspects of the Halloween festival; many of those children now have children of their own, and the festival thus now has an amplified resonance not previously seen. Personally I am not struck with the whole thing, which basically encourages small children to demand goods with menaces, but I am probably in a minority.

Something very strange has been happening to the demographics of the readership of the Maggot Sandwich, and it is something that I would like some help with from you, the readers. Blogger uses Google Analytics to generate statistics on each blog it hosts. I can see how many people are reading the Maggot Sandwich, divided up by what web browser they are using, what country they come from, and lots of other diverse criteria. If you look at the screen capture above, which shows activity on the website since last Sunday, you can see that by far my highest readership is located in the USA. Bear in mind that each blog update normally is written in stages across the week before it is published on Sunday afternoons, and this part was written on Friday evening, the total number of readers at the time of writing was 17,460 - well on the way to the average of 22,000 unique page views I have once the week is fully complete. I am rather mystified as to why so many people in America are reading this blog - after all, nearly all of the stories that I cover are very much about the area around Abbey Wood, Belvedere, Erith and Slade Green - not exactly the most attention grabbing subjects, unless you happen to be a local resident. I cannot believe that there are that number of expatriates in America who now follow the blog on a regular basis. I am aware that the Maggot Sandwich does have a legitimate world - wide following. I am aware of readers in Melbourne Australia, Tasmania, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Washington DC. Quite why so many Americans regularly read this blog is very much a source of bemusement to me. I am also aware that the Maggot Sandwich is banned in China, though I have absolutely no idea why. I have never said anything remotely negative about the country or its citizens, so I am at somewhat of a loss. Quite why the maggot Sandwich is blocked by The Great Firewall of China is a mystery. The hits marked as coming from China on the graphic above are quite possibly coming from Hong Kong - where the Chinese firewall rules are somewhat more relaxed; although officially a part of China, Hong Kong has a fierce independence and the Chinese government seem to cut them quite a lot of slack. One of my readers used to regularly commute from mainland China to Hong Kong, and he was the one that told me about the different levels of online filtering dependent on geographical location.

Still, having ticked off the World’s second largest power, I could stop, or I could dig myself even deeper. I think most regular readers will know which way this is going. There have been some interesting comments over the last couple of weeks regarding the nomenclature of Nuxley Road in Upper Belvedere (by the way, Belvedere means “beautiful view” in Italian), which some people misguidedly refer to as “Nuxley Village”. The origin of the names of the  places in the local area, and some of the surrounding landmarks dates back to the early fifteenth century, and the name Belvedere even earlier. The area of Bedonwell gets its name from the Bedon stream, which runs through what is now known as Streamway; the Bedon is a minor tributary of the River Thames, which is now run though an underground drain for much of its length. A fifteenth century form of the name was Beton Well, meaning “praying well”. The exact origin is lost in the mists of time, though the old English word “bydan” meaning a shallow valley may have something to do with it. On the South side of the stream was a further area of open heath land, called Nuxley or Little Heath, which occupied an area around what was later Belmont Primary School (and is now a Doctor’s surgery and private flats). The name Nuxley was sometimes spelled Naxley, which in turn is a corruption of Knocksley, meaning a small hill. Nuxley Road was originally named Bexley Road, until March 1939 when it was renamed as Nuxley Road, which it remains to date. There is no record of Upper Belvedere ever having been named Nuxley Village, and parish records for the area date back to 1235 AD, and survived the reformation, when ownership of the parish was transferred from Lesnes Abbey to the owners of Parsonage Farm (on what is now Parsonage Manor Way). During the late 19th century, Parsonage Farm was owned by the Vinson family, who were at the time rich and powerful enough to issue their own trade tokens (a kind of informal local currency). There are records that beer houses such as the Fox, and full pubs such as The Eardley Arms took trade tokens for payment for food and drink until sometime around 1900. The farm buildings, which were  constructed in the Middle Ages (principally to provide food and drink for Abbot and Monks at Lesnes Abbey) lasted until the end of WWII, when it was used to house an auxiliary fire station. After the war the building was so derelict it was demolished. Thus, the name “Nuxley Village” is a construct – a fictional creation of local estate agents who have no knowledge of the history of the area. Upper Belvedere has been so called for at least the last 781 years, and the thoughtless action of a handful of ignorant house peddlers from outside of the area is not going to change facts any time soon.

I have banged on at some length about how Smart Meters are a lot less of a good idea than the utility companies would have you believe. My concerns are mainly about the cost savings made by switching to a Smart Meter being far lower than has been publicised; but my main concern is to do with their almost total lack of security. Only this week was a report published into "Internet of Things" (IOT) devices, and how easy they are to compromise. On average, an IoT device is infected with malware and will launch an attack within six minutes of being exposed to the internet. IoT devices are probed for vulnerabilities 800 times per hour by attackers from across the globe. Every day there are an average of over 400 login attempts per device, an average of one attempt every five minutes and 66 per cent of them on average are successful, according to the report. The Blaster and Sasser worm of 2003 and 2004, respectively, was brought to heel after Microsoft enable a firewall technology with Windows XP SP2. On Friday there was a massive Denial Of Service attack on several popular websites including Twitter, Reddit and Spotify, which was undertaken using "Smart" devices as the attack vector. Basically at present, so called "Smart" devices are complex enough to be hijacked by bad people, but but not sophisticated enough to detect that they are being criminally manipulated. Things will only get worse before they get better. To add to this, Vodafone have just announced a new dedicated mobile network especially designed to work with smart meters and “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices. The roll – out will initially be in mainland Europe, but may well come to the UK sooner rather than later. It is an aggressive timetable but probably not unrealistic. For most of its networks, Vodafone has said that the rollout will require just a software upgrade (i.e. no site visit would be required). From its trials in Spain and elsewhere, Vodafone is also clearly satisfied with the performance of the technology. The issues it faces now are probably as much commercial (e.g. agreeing the licencing terms) as they are technical. Other rival mobile “Internet of Things” communication technologies exist, and at this point it is unclear as to which will win out. It would seem that the telecommunications industry may be about to have a Betamax versus VHS battle on its hands in respect of the technology and data format that smart devices will use to communicate with each other and their service provider. As previously mentioned, I am cynical about Smart Meters, which may well not save the user anything like as much money as the utility companies are saying; different energy suppliers use different types of incompatible meters, which makes switching companies more difficult, as the meter will have to be changed – usually at the home owners expense. On top of this, as I have explained before, the Smart Meters have little if any effective encryption on their communications, which makes them a very big target for malicious exploitation, as was seen on Friday. The only sector than really benefits from the deployment of Smart Meters are the utility companies themselves – as they have no need to employ staff to read meters. The energy companies are promoting Smart Meter as if they will be a boon to users, whereas in reality they will only actually benefit themselves.

A pilot scheme to deter people from littering started this week. Bexley Council published the poster you can see above - more on which a little later. The scheme will see uniformed enforcement officers patrolling the Borough, from 24 October, issuing fixed penalty notices, of up to a maximum of £400, to people seen committing environmental offences such as littering. Cabinet member, Cllr Peter Craske said, “Bexley is one of the best places to live in London and I know from talking to residents that they are fed up with the tiny minority who leave litter and mess in their wake.‘It also costs thousands and thousands of pounds of taxpayers money to clear this up, and I have had many people contact me welcoming this new initiative." Following a period of training, up to five uniformed enforcement officers, will patrol areas in the Borough which are hotspots for litter offenders. On the spot fines will be issued to those seen committing the offence of littering, allowing their dog to foul in public areas or fly tipping. The level of fines will be £80 for littering, £50 for dog fouling and a maximum of £400 for fly tipping. Full payment of the fine will be required in all cases - with no reduction for early payment. The aim is to recover the cost of running the service through the issue of fixed penalty notices. During the pilot, young offenders will have their details recorded and a warning letter will be sent to their parents or school. At the end of November, posters using the headline ‘Don’t be a Tosser’, along with a picture showing some examples of litter offences, will appear throughout the Borough. These will also feature the campaign hashtag #cleanerBexley. The campaign is designed to attract attention and get people thinking and talking about the problem of litter. It was originally used in a Keep Britain Tidy campaign and has already proved to be a successful anti-litter message in other parts of the UK, including Essex and Suffolk. If the enforcement service proves effective and financially sustainable, a decision will be made next summer on whether to make it permanent". I see problems for Bexley Council with the anti littering poster shown above; firstly it is crass and subtle as a brick, secondly it uses copyright material which is the property of Coca Cola - the crushed soft drinks can in the picture is meant to be a generic can of soft drink, but the poster designer has made two errors - first they have used the exact PanTone red colour (484C for the initiated) as the famous brand, and they have also used the Coca Cola font on the can - which is copyrighted. I would imagine that Coca Cola's lawyers would take an extremely dim view of the whole thing. We shall see. Once again the law of unintended consequences comes into play.

I was returning home on the B12 single decker bus (a very under rated bus route in my opinion) on Tuesday evening. It was travelling Southwards along Queen’s Road in Erith when the bus stopped at the traffic lights and Zebra Crossing at the end of Pier Road. Nobody crossed the road. When the lights changed to green for the road traffic, the bus started up – then the driver undertook an emergency stop as a young woman stepped out into the road with no warning. The bus wing mirror clipped the woman’s head and she staggered backwards. The woman had been oblivious to the bus due to the fact that she had been staring intently at the screen of her mobile phone, and could not hear what was going on around her due to her wearing ear buds plugged into the phone. She had been so unconscious of the real world around her that she very nearly ended up being run over by the bus. It was only the very quick actions of the alert driver that prevented what could have well been her death. The woman was shaken, but largely unhurt; the driver pulled over to the side of the road and asked if she was all right –she said that she was – he got her contact details as he had to file a report on the incident, and he also got the details of a couple of witnesses in case of any further action. Fortunately the bus is fitted with a forward – facing dash camera, the footage from which would completely exonerate the driver from any blame in the matter. As many readers know, I have a degree of antipathy towards mobile phones, and the incident just described only reinforces this. Every day I see pedestrians bumbling along, with their heads stuck into the screen of their mobile devices, ears deafened to the outside world by a set of headphones. Even more worryingly, I regularly see cyclists on the road bedecked by Beats style, full – ear coverage headphones. The Royal Marines have a description for this kind of behaviour – they call it “a lack of situational awareness”. I am of the opinion that if cyclists and pedestrians were subject to the same laws as vehicle drivers in respect of the use of mobile devices - and that those laws were properly enforced, then the frequency and severity of road accidents would significantly reduce. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Erith came to the attention of the press for an entirely unwelcome reason in the early hours of last Monday morning. The News Shopper has reported on the story of a serious fight outside of the Ship pub in West Street. The details are somewhat hazy, but it would appear that a group of youths attacked an individual, and then a second group defended the individual – the attackers then apparently ran off in the direction of St. Fidelis Road. Several of those involved required hospital treatment. The Ship does not have a particularly bad reputation as local pubs go – the landlady did get into hot water back in 2010, when the pub got close to losing its licence. This was due to the toilets in the pub indicating positive for traces of Cocaine when they were swabbed by the investigating authorities. After a concerted campaign by locals, the Council agreed to let the Ship keep operating, but with strict new conditions to their licence. These conditions included staff checking the toilets for drugs every half an hour during the time the pub is open. CCTV was also ordered to be installed – this may well have recorded the assault that occurred in the early hours of Monday morning. Currently Erith only has two pubs – the aforementioned Ship, and the Running Horses, neither of which particularly prove attractive. Things have gone rather quiet regarding the possible opening of a Wetherspoons in the town, potentially in the old (and currently unused) Carnegie Library in Walnut Tree Road. I am cautiously optimistic that the giant pub company will see fit to refurbish the historic public building and re-open it as a pub / restaurant, as I think it would be very successful and well – received. There have been rumours that Wetherspoons are looking at the Post Office building in Erith High Street, but I feel that this is rather unlikely - it is not a suitable structure for conversion into a pub / restaurant, it would do away with the only Post Office in the town - and would thus be very unpopular - and when you have the eminently suitable former library only a couple of hundred metres away, it seems to me to be a no brainer. If you have any information regarding this, then please drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The ending video this week is entitled "Memories of Erith". Give it a watch and see what you think.

The Scoop.

One of the most distinctive, and historically controversial landmarks in Erith is the fish roundabout which has variously been described as "hideous", "an eyesore" and "it looks like a passing giant space alien took a massive psychedelic 'Mister Whippy' style turd, and dumped it over Erith". Personally I have moderated my views on the giant mosaic sculpture since it was installed by artist Gary Drostle back in 2006. Yes it is still horrid to look at, but it does perform a valuable function; whenever someone from outside of the area wants directions, they can easily be told "when you see the fish roundabout, you are in Erith!" Thankfully no other town in the UK has anything quite so unique, and it does provide a unusual theme to the main roundabout in and out of town. What do you think? Have you got so used to the fish sculpture as part of the town's identity that Erith would be worse off without it, or do you still find it an unwelcome part of the local landscape? Let me know by leaving a comment below, or by Emailing me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

I had a very busy and also interesting day on Thursday. As well as being interviewed by a reporter from The Financial Times on a subject related to my day job, I was also contacted by investigative journalist and Sky News reporter Gerard Tubb about a story I featured on the Maggot Sandwich back in May of last year. Gerard Tubb had been undertaking some investigation online, and had discovered that I had information which he needed. He Emailed me, and I phoned him back. You may have seen a story about the use by the Metropolitan Police Service of Body Worn Video Cameras. Sky News discovered that whilst the Police had told the public that the video data was uploaded to secure Police video servers, it was actually being uploaded to an external commercial data storage company with a history of data security breaches. Gerard Tubb had already uncovered this story, but approached me for a copy of the Police announcement to interested parties. He had been assured by the Home Office that the document had never been published, but he suspected that it had. I was able to confirm that the document had indeed been published, and I supplied him with a copy, along with the associated Email trail, thus giving him the "smoking gun" proving the veracity of the story. Update:- Following publication of this article, Gerard Tubb updated me with the following correction:- "I had found the document on the Met Police site through Google, but had no evidence it had been sent to anyone. By searching for a particularly phrase in the document I found your blog, proving it had been circulated. Proof if ever it were needed that publication of information by journalists, citizen or otherwise, is vital". Gerard Tubb was very complimentary about the Maggot Sandwich, and the quality of my writing (though I suspect that he was flattering me, as I was helping him break a very juicy scoop). It is not often that the Maggot Sandwich makes an impact on nationally important news - truth be said, this is actually the first time. I suspect that it will not be the last. Time will tell. 

Over the last handful of years I have been keeping a quiet eye on the personal computer industry to see how trends have played out. A quick look at iPad and tablet shipment data would show that things have slowed down in recent quarters. In reality, things are much worse than the figures would suggest. The seasonality found in the tablet segment makes it difficult to see these long-term problems. A much better way at understanding what has been taking place is to look at the year-over-year change in shipments on a trailing 12-month basis. This highlights that the iPad and Android tablet have been on the decline for years, and things continue to worsen with the overall tablet market hitting negative territory for the first time. All momentum has been lost. It is a pretty grim picture, but it is not actually surprising. After modern tablets burst onto the scene - led by the iPad - we were pummelled by hyperbole after hyperbole about the post-PC revolution and how the tablet would destroy the PC; and indeed, for a short while, the staggering sales numbers of the iPad (later overtaken by Android tablets) seemed to lend credence to these hyperboles, and then things stagnated. Google has never really taken tablets seriously, and with hindsight we can now say that was probably a good idea. Apple, too, has completely ignored and squandered the potential it saw for the iPad. Little to no tablet-specific work has been done on the iPad side of iOS, and as such, the iPad has never managed to grow beyond its status as a consumption-only device. Since the iPad's introduction, there've been only two groups of people claiming that the iPad was not strictly a consumption device: Apple employees and Apple bloggers/reporters. Everybody else has been fully aware of the iPad's (and other tablets') main use case from day one. And then there's the fact that few developers are willing to invest a lot of money into productive apps on the iPad. They are expensive to create, the market is small, and Apple's handling of how apps are sold on its devices does not instil confidence.  The thing that's preventing people from using the iPad productively is not the small screen, it's the operating system. All this is further made worse by how hard iPads are to deploy and manage in educational and corporate settings (compared to Windows laptops and Google Chromebooks). Do we need a larger iPad, as has been rumoured for so long now? Or do we just have to accept that no, tablets and touch just aren't going to work for anything but simple, consumption-focused computing tasks? Personally I have answered this myself in the past. I find that there is no substitute for a QWERTY keyboard if one is creating, rather than consuming online content. The Maggot Sandwich averages four thousand words a week, which is a lot of typing. A tablet with an on – screen virtual keyboard is just not going to cut the mustard when it comes to industrial levels of typing. On – screen keyboards have no “give” and this quickly leads to numb fingertips and typing fatigue. A traditional keyboard makes for a far more rewarding typing experience. What do you think? Do you disagree? Let me know by leaving a comment below, or emailing me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Some really great news for crime fighting in the London Borough of Bexley. The Police have recently published the following announcement:- "The Metropolitan Police Service are currently issuing their own branded SmartWater® forensic marking packs to residents of Bexley, as part of the MetTrace initiative, over the next three years. They are concentrating on high burglary hotspot areas. London Neighbourhood Watch Association have agreed a special discount, so local residents can buy the SmartWater Home Security Pack at a significantly reduced rate. Police routinely check for SmartWater, if your marked items are stolen but later recovered, the police can see you have used SmartWater, by checking with UV light. Any property marked with SmartWater can be identified and traced back to you, whilst the thief can be prosecuted. When you buy a pack online, your details are automatically associated with the unique forensic code in the SmartWater that is sent to you. Prevention is always the first line of defence when protecting your home, so please make sure you display SmartWater’s THIEVES BEWARE® window stickers clearly, they are an important deterrent to would-be thieves. There have been many SmartWater projects deployed by the UK Police service, including the deployment of 1,000 SmartWater packs to homes in the London Boroughs of Brent and Islington in 2013. Six months after the launch, police reported an eighty five percent reduction in domestic burglary in Brent and a sixty three percent reduction in Islington. The London Borough of Bexley is often targeted by burglars and would benefit greatly for the crime reduction successes experienced in Brent and Islington. What criminals fear most is being caught, and SmartWater puts that fear in the thief’s mind. With SmartWater’s 100% conviction rate, thieves know that if they are caught with SmartWater they have nowhere to turn. Independent research amongst offenders even shows that SmartWater is the top deterrent amongst thieves, beating burglar alarms, CCTV and even police patrols. This special offer is a great opportunity for you to take an active part in that reduction. To order your five year (minimum) SmartWater pack for £25.00, including free delivery log into https://shop.smartwater.com/ and enter promotional code: L3RY25NW. These kits normally retail for £75.00". I will be taking up the offer myself.

Mark Backhouse, the leader of the Christ Church Erith bell ringing group (he's the chap in the blue jumper in the photo above) has written the following fascinating article on local bell ringing history. "In 1552 a survey of all the possessions of the English church was carried out following the formation of the Church of England under Henry VIII, and St. John the Baptist church in Erith (West Street) was recorded as having 3 bells. These bells would have been rung singly for specific church uses, and would have been swung through a small arc by the action of a rope attached to a simple lever. One of the timbers supporting the spire at St John's still shows the bearing location of such a bell. During the late 1500s and the early 1600s bells were being rung for more secular functions including celebrations for weddings etc. and teams of ringers would ring all the bells at once to make a cheerful noise, but different sized bells would swing at different speeds and the old bells in a tower were not necessarily in tune with each other. By the 1600s techniques for hanging bells to give greater control had evolved, with bells being swung through a greater arc with the rope attached to a half wheel, developed eventually to a full wheel with the bell turning full circle, giving total control of when the bell would strike. Once the bells could be fully controlled it was found possible to change the order of the bells at any stroke, changing the “tune” being rung and opening up possibilities for increased numbers of bells and more complicated sequences. In 1703 a brand new peal of 6 change ringing bells was installed in a new bell frame in St John’s church tower, the earliest such installation in the local area, following the fashion developed in major cities and university towns during the late 1600s. One of these bells still exists in use within the peal of bells at St John’s, and the outside perimeter of the old frame is still in use in situ for the present frame. Three of the bells were recast in 1763 and a further bell recast in 1882 when two extra bells were added to make the peal up to eight. At this time the frame was modified to accommodate the two extra bells on the same level as the originals and many of the old frame timbers were re-used in different locations, evidenced by old empty mortice joints in odd places. This peal of eight bells enabled the ringers to extend the complexity and length of their ringing as far as they would ever need, and they began ringing regular full peals of over 5000 different changes performed over a time period of about three hours of continuous ringing. Local ringing became very active, with a great number of peals being rung at St John’s. The bells were so popular that they had been rung to 241 peals by 1914, when the First World War caused a pause. Christchurch Erith did not even have a tower at this time, but a new tower, spire, clock and a peal of eight bells was added in 1915, with a band being trained by local ringers. Following re-hanging of the largest bell on ball bearings in 1921 Christchurch’s bells were perfectly manageable, but few peals seem to have been rung there. Only 61 peals had been rung by 1939, with a mere 20 being added since the Second World War, giving a total of just 81 to date. In 1925 one more of the original bells at St John’s was recast and all the bells were hung on single row ball bearings, making ringing easier and the bells more musical. Peals continued to be rung at a great rate, increasing the total to 403 by 1939, when the Second World War stopped ringing for a while. This total was almost certainly the highest at any tower in the country, making Erith famous among ringers. The bells continued to be heavily used for peal ringing right up to 1977, when the total was 727, with St John’s still one of the most prolific peal ringing towers in the country. Ringing at St John’s seems to have then gone into decline, with only 8 peals added to date, making the current total 735. The local band at St John’s has dwindled in recent years, with lack of numbers meaning that only a few bells can be rung for Sunday service, the main duty of bellringers everywhere. Conversely, the band at Christchurch has strengthened over the years, with several attempts to train new ringers for St John’s and to help maintain the old worn out equipment there. Regular support is still given at practices and for special services when the two bands ring together. The local band at Christchurch re-hung all eight of their bells on modern double row ball bearings in 2003 as the old plain bearings had become very hard work, and replaced other worn out fittings, making the bells some of the nicest to ring in the area. St John’s band too have overhauled their worn out fittings and their bells are now reasonably manageable. Both bands would welcome new members (particularly St John’s), with tuition available for all ages from 12 upwards (no top limit!) for those interested in learning this historic English art and supporting a local tradition. If you would like to find out more about bell ringing at Christ Church Erith, you can find out more by clicking here. Alternatively if you come along at 3pm on Sunday the 20th September for the final 100th anniversary Christ Church bell tower open day. You can climb up into the bell tower and see a demonstration of bell ringing. Normally the bell tower is not open to the public, so this is a great (and final for this year anyway) chance to see an important part of Erith that the general public rarely get the chance to see. You can also join the Friends of Christ Church Erith, to help support the maintenance of the historic local landmark. 

Twenty six years ago last Wednesday, two events happened that made an impact on British history, for two very different reasons. The first and best known event was the tragic sinking of the Thames pleasure cruiser the Marchioness by the dredger the Bowbelle. The Marchioness collided with the dredger Bowbelle in the early hours of 20th August 1989. In the initial instant of collision the anchor of the dredger cut through the side of the Marchioness, which rolled over and quickly filled with water, while being pushed under by the Bowbelle. As the Marchioness capsized, her entire superstructure became detached. The formal investigation put the time elapsed, from the instant of collision at 1:46 a.m. to complete immersion, at close to 30 seconds. Witnesses quoted in that investigation described the Bowbelle as "hitting it [the Marchioness] in about its centre then (mounting) it, pushing it under the water like a toy boat." Of the dead, 24 were recovered from the sunken hull. Most of the survivors had been on the upper decks at the time of the collision. The dead included Francesca Dallaglio, older sister of future England national rugby union captain Lawrence Dallaglio, and the skipper of the Marchioness, Stephen Faldo, father of Lee Faldo and reality TV star Jeff Brazier. The disaster was found by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to have been caused by the poor visibility from each ship's wheelhouse, the fact that both vessels were using the centre of the river and the lack of clear instructions to the lookout at the bow of the Bowbelle. In 1991, the skipper of the Bowbelle, Douglas Henderson, was tried for failing to keep a proper look-out but, after two juries were deadlocked, he was formally acquitted. A Coroner's inquest on 7 April 1995 found the victims had been unlawfully killed. Following pressure from the Marchioness Action Group, whose publicity front had been handled by photographer and party attendee Ian Philpott, on 14 February 2000, John Prescott as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions ordered a formal investigation into the circumstances of the collision, to be chaired by Lord Justice Clarke. Lord Clarke's report blamed poor lookouts on both vessels for the collision and criticised the owners and managers of both vessels for failing to instruct and monitor their crews in proper fashion. In 2001 an inquiry by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency into the competence and behaviour of Captain Henderson concluded that he should be allowed to keep his master's certificate as he met all the service and medical fitness requirements. However, they "strongly deprecated" his conduct in drinking five pints of strong lager in the afternoon prior to the accident, and for his admission that he had forged some signatures on certificates and testimonials to obtain his master mariner certificate of competency in 1988. Also in 2001, The Royal Humane Society made nineteen bravery awards to people involved in rescues at the Marchioness sinking. Subsequent to recommendations made in the Clarke report relating to the improvement of river safety, the Government asked the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Port of London Authority and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) to work together to set up a dedicated Search and Rescue service for the tidal River Thames. Consequently, on 2 January 2002, the RNLI set up four lifeboat stations, at Gravesend, Tower Pier, Chiswick Pier and Teddington. The Gravesend RNLI station is the one which has supplied the personnel to attend several recent emergencies on the River off Erith that I have described in previous updates. Some good did come from the tragedy, although nobody knew this at the time. I was in London at the time the accident happened, but did not know anything about it until hearing the story on the breakfast news on Sunday morning. The reason for the late night trip into London was because of the other event that happened earlier that day; On Saturday the 19^th August 1989, I had been on a shopping trip to Bexleyheath, and I clearly recall walking along Nuxley Road in Upper Belvedere, back home to my parents’ house nearby. I got indoors and found my sister highly distressed. She had been recording the output of Radio Caroline over the course of the morning, as it became increasingly clear that the authorities were raiding the iconic offshore radio station. My sister had made a tape which covered the last ninety minutes of broadcasts from the Ross Revenge. The ship had been boarded (illegally, as was later proved) by officials from the Dutch PTT and the British DTI. The Dutch officials were armed with handguns, and several of the party were drinking beer during the raid. The transmitter valves were smashed, the studios ripped out, and at one earlier point the raiders intended to use a fire hose to spray salt water over the antenna system to short out the transmitter, when it was pointed out to them that in doing so the people holding the hose would certainly be fried by the high power RF field. In any case, the station was silenced, the huge on board record collection was seized, and the station taken off the air. Ironically the British and Dutch governments engaged in a genuine (legally defined) act of piracy against a group of defenceless people whose only “crime” had been playing good music to millions of listeners around Europe. I had been on board the Ross Revenge only two weeks previously, on a tender supply trip. I was slowly becoming involved in the organisation, mainly though helping in the “back office” – buying food and supplies, and arranging covert tender delivery runs from a number of ports around the River Medway and South East coast. After the raid, the Caroline Movement (which was pretty much a cover for the shore side organisation) organised a formal protest march in central London. Caroline fans were encouraged to bring along food and records as “presents” for the crew, many of whom stayed aboard after the raid to keep the ship safe in international waters. Listeners correctly interpreted this to mean “bring along your record collection so that we can re – stock the record library”. Also in the background, several well – known radio stations quietly donated studio equipment to rebuild the Caroline studio. The engineering team were able to rebuild one of the AM broadcast transmitters from components that had been hidden before the illegal raiding party came on board. The station was back on air, albeit on somewhat reduced power within six weeks. How that happened, and my small part in the events that followed is a story for another time. Below is a contemporary news report on the raid, courtesy of YouTube. Feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

When you can buy a 4K ultra high definition television at the supermarket, along with your bangers and mash, you know Ultra HD has entered the mainstream. Retail giant Asda is now stocking the Polaroid-branded P55D600, a 55-inch Ultra HD screen for just £699. If you want to really push the boat out, you can heft the 65-inch version into your shopping cart, for only £300 more. Even without readily available 4K content (as I have written about before), the TV industry has seen an inexorable shift in panel production from 1080p to 2160p. In 2014 there were 235 million UHD TVs, worth an estimated $94 billion, which went into retail. Industry researchers are forecasting that UHD TV shipments will grow 147 per cent this year. You can bet on even bigger numbers to come, as first generation flat screen adopters prepare to re-enter the market, as part of the traditional (replacement) cycle of life. By November the choice in low cost 4K screens might well have mushroomed. Chinese TV maker Hisense has a wide range of UHD televisions ready to march. The brand may not ring bells with the average UK shopper, but it is a formidable operation. The company is the fourth largest TV set manufacturer in the world and has been market leader on its own territory for years. Exactly how affordable remains to be seen. Recent devaluations of the Chinese yuan could see the cost of models plummeting.  Hisense has been exporting low cost screens into Germany, Italy, Spain, and to a lesser extent the UK, but is saving its real muscle flexing for the autumn, when it will introduce 4K UHD screens in 40-, 43-, 50-, 55-, 58- and 65-inch screen sizes. Most will be flat, but there are also 55 and 65-inch curved options due too - though personally I cannot see the point of a curved screen. This formidable line-up will be unveiled at IFA, the Berlin technology showcase extravaganza which runs in early September. The quality should be high. Hisense provides 4K screen displays to high end German TV maker Loewe. What we don’t know yet is just how compelling its user interface and Smart offerings will be (I have a Samsung Smart HD TV, but would not buy one again - even high end Smart TV's are no match for a laptop when it comes to the computer side of operation). We do know though that Hisense’s pockets are enviably deep. To help build brand awareness, the company has signed a long term sponsorship deal with the F1 Infiniti Red Bull racing team.  It has also acquired Sharp America in a deal said to be worth $23.7million. The move grants Hisense rights to use the Sharp name in both North and South America, as well as the Sharp TV factory in Mexico. Given the UK's current broadband infrastructure, it’s difficult to imagine high-frame 4K is actually going to be commercially viable over the Internet. BT will almost certainly drop its crippling speed requirement once the service beds in, but will fibre come anywhere close to being as practical as satellite delivery? I doubt it. Rival Sky continues to play its cards close to its chest, although its next-generation satellite box, widely referenced as SkyQ, is now probably only a few months away from launch. SkyQ is 4K capable and will offer a raft of new network functionality along with a prettier user interface. If neither streaming service appeals to the potential customer, there's always physical media. Expected to be seen for the first time at IFA Berlin technology showcase, Ultra HD Blu-ray remains on course for a pre - Christmas launch. One way or another, we'll all be much closer to a 4K reality by the end of the year, than we were at the start. People who have bought 4K will finally have ultra high definition that they can actually watch. I still think that most people are better off waiting until roughly this time next year before making the upgrade. My motto when considering technology purchasing is "never buy version 1.0 of anything".

Progress with The Crossrail Project has been extensive; you can watch a short video below showing the work that has been undertaken between Plumstead and Abbey Wood over the last few months. The tunnel and rail network infrastructure are really starting to take shape now, and one can get an idea of what the finished engineering development will look like.