Erith Fun Day.

Yesterday was the first Erith Fun Day; the event was held at Erith Riverside Gardens, and it was a great success. There were stalls from charitable groups like Thames 21, the Alzheimers Society, St. John Ambulance and other not for profit groups like FORGE (Friends Of Riverside Gardens Erith), Erith Town Forum, Bexley Afro Caribbean Community Association, the Rotary Club of Erith, Bexley College, and the Port of London Authority. Also present were commercial organisations such as the Nemesis Gym, and various stalls selling novelties and other items. There was also face painting, a mobile sweet shop, a fortune teller and an ice cream van. 

The photo above shows the Mayor of Bexley, Councillor Howard Marriner, accompanied by the Lady Mayoress, Dianne Marriner, and Councillor Edward Boateng. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Mayor is a regular Maggot Sandwich reader!

The photo above shows MP for Erith and Thamesmead, Teresa Pearce, along with "Alexander Selkirk" (who was looking remarkably fit and healthy for a chap who has not long celebrated his 338th birthday!) along with a representative from the Rotary Club of Erith. The centre piece for the Fun Day was the unveiling of a signpost, commemorating the coming ashore at Erith of Alexander Selkirk in 1711 after having been cast away on a desert island for eight years; Selkirk was the factual inspiration for the fictional character of Robinson Crusoe - one of the most popular characters in literary history.

The photo above (click for a larger view) shows Teresa Pearce MP unveiling the new signpost in Erith Riverside Gardens; the post can clearly be seen from the road. She was accompanied by a piper, whose playing was certainly enthusiastic. There are even further local connections; the sign was constructed by Erith based sign company WDS Signs, whose works are located less than one hundred metres from the Riverside Gardens.

Over the recent months there have been a steady stream of people throwing themselves into the River Thames at both Lower Belvedere and Erith. As I have previously mentioned, the rip tides and undercurrents on this stretch of the river make it the most dangerous sections of open waterway in the United Kingdom. Even in good weather the average survival time for anyone entering the river is something like eleven minutes. The River Police and the RNLI do an excellent job of keeping people safe on the River Thames, but bearing in mind that the nearest RNLI bases are at London Bridge and Gravesend, that still leaves a very long stretch of the river to be patrolled; it would seem to me that an extra base somewhere in the middle would be a very good idea. The former Erith River Police station building has been converted to office use, and is shared between marine engineering company Kort Propulsion, and the Erith Rowing Club. One alternative would be for the RNLI to renovate and occupy the former Port Of London Authority hut at the top of the jetty on the Riverside Gardens. I understand that the building has electricity and water and is fully plumbed in. The building is not very large, but I think it would be sufficient for a small team of three or four volunteers, and it would have the added advantage of being as physically close to the river as is possible to enable the quick launch of their rescue boat. What do you think? Does the Erith and Belvedere stretch of the River Thames need a lifeboat sub – station, or is the existing service good enough? You can leave a comment below, or email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com

The London Borough of Bexley stands out in a number of ways; we have the cheapest housing in Greater London, as was illustrated in the last Maggot Sandwich update, when I highlighted a large, modern two bedroomed apartment right on the river front at Erith. Such a riverside property would sell for a million pounds or more if it was located in Greenwich or in Canary Wharf, let alone somewhere in West London like Putney. The Erith post code means that the flat is offered for £180,000, which seems a relative bargain. One reason that may factor into the low property prices is that average wages in the borough are commensurately low; around one third of Bexley residents earn less than £8.80 per hour – the current London Living Wage. Bearing in mind the high cost of public transportation and the spiralling cost of rent compared with outright property purchase, this means that a large number of local people are being incredibly financially squeezed at present. The level of unemployment may be relatively low, but many of the jobs that are available don't pay very much. Historically Bexley has been a dormitory area for people working in London. One possible positive factor in the current low wage environment is that an increasingly large number of people are going self employed. These people don't show up on the low wage statistics, and they may well be a very positive contributor to the local economy over the forthcoming years. Traditionally small start-up companies run by sole traders are operated from home, or out of the back of a van.  Meeting with clients in a business environment can be challenging for such individuals – one of the ways in which the Cross Keys Centre will benefit local traders. Amongst the services it will shortly be offering is the use of private meeting rooms, hot desking / touchdown space and areas for networking and other formal and informal meetings. It is anticipated that small businesses that don’t have / need a full time office will be able to rent space by the day or even the hour when they require it. This kind of flexibility is something that should be a real benefit to the increasing number of self employed traders in the local area.

Every day when I walk to Erith Station, I pass by the piece of overgrown wasteland behind the new Bexley College campus. Bexley Council have undertaken to clear the land once the final phase of construction of the college have been completed. This can only be a good thing, as the area is absolutely teeming with rats. They often come out of the undergrowth and run along the path, and they seem unafraid of people. I realise that destroying their habitat next to the college will only move the vermin elsewhere, but if they are not dealt with, I could see a situation with the new college getting rat infested within days of opening, which would be awful. I was reading an article on the BBC News website earlier in the week which got me thinking. People in Cambodia and Vietnam regularly catch rats to be eaten – indeed there is a thriving cottage industry to supply the demand for rat meat. You can read the story here.  Bearing in mind the profusion of rats locally, could an ecologically sound solution to the problem be to trap and kill the rats and then sell the meat on to the various fast food places in the area? It is most definitely organic and free range, after all? People already eat Grey Squirrel, which is also defined as vermin, yet they are treated as a minor delicacy – and what is a squirrel? A rat with better P.R. I reckon that once seasoned , battered and deep fried, most people would not realise what they were eating was anything other than poultry – Kentucky Fried Rat, anyone? Rat Vindaloo? Shish Rat kebab with chilli sauce, salad and a pitta bread? The options are endless. Bearing in mind that it is said that you are never more than four metres away from a rat when you are in Greater London, it does seem that we could be on the verge of both a culinary and pest control revolution. Do leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com

The advert above dates back to 1901, so the "20th Century Cycle co." would have been an extremely futuristic brand at the time. I think it strange that it does not give an address for callers though. An eye catching design, nevertheless.

I don't think I have ever mentioned that I got a joke I wrote used on BBC Radio 4's excellent "The Now Show" some years ago. I was in the audience for the recording of an episode and I was asked to complete a questionnaire - and this is the result. Let me know what you think.

This week marks the twenty third birthday of the free and open source Linux operating system. I have been using Linux since back in 1997, when it was very much the purview of IT professionals; it was lacking features, incompatible with a lot of hardware (getting online with Linux back in the day was an exercise in frustration – even very common hardware such as the then ubiquitous U.S Robotics 56K modem could be an utter bugger to get working).  I recall the hours I spent trying to get my Red Hat 5.1 Linux installation to do what it should do. Back then Linux was far more stable than Windows 98SE or Windows ME (oh the horror!) but conversely you had to be a real guru to get things done. I think this is where the negative image of Linux being unsuitable for the desktop came from. Nowadays things are far better – device support is superb – in many cases better than Windows and Linux now “just works”.  Very few people ever install a computer operating system from scratch – they buy a machine with a preinstalled OS and it stays on the machine for its life. Tinkerers like me do OS installs on a regular basis. It really is straightforward whether you are talking Windows 7, Ubuntu or Apple OS X. You just follow the onscreen prompts and it pretty much does it for you. Personally I think that Linux has made far more of an impact in ways that few people realise – Google, FaceBook, Gmail and 497 out of the 500 most powerful computers in the world all run a version of Linux; it would be true to say that the Internet runs on Linux. If you have a smartphone that is not made by Apple, or a flat screen television, a set top box, whether it be a Sky satellite TV receiver, Virgin cable box or a Freeview receiver, they all run embedded Linux – it is the only operating system that powers devices from a toaster to a supercomputer with everything in between. Android, as used in smart phones and tablets is actually Linux with a whizzy interface suitable for touch operation. You can see from this that whilst Windows has for decades dominated the computer desktop, it has had little influence on the infrastructure and underlying technology of the modern world. As society moves away from large desktop PC’s, (and to a lesser extent away from the traditional laptop) and relies for online connectivity from smart phones and tablet devices, the underlying operating system has less significance than the applications that users wish to run – indeed, many applications are nowadays run online in a browser window – sites such as FaceBook, Instagram, Flickr and Twitter don't require a locally installed application, just a browser with connection to the web. Google grasped this early on with their excellent Google Docs application suite and its close integration with both Gmail and Google Drive storage. The Google Chromebook range of computers embraces this – they are cheap, relatively low powered laptops that just run a the Chrome web browser and enable cloud based storage. I have heard many arguments saying that web based storage is no good without a web connection. Chromebooks are clever in this respect. I can give a recent example. Last Saturday I was in my favourite corner of The Robin Hood and Little John pub in Lion Road, Bexleyheath (by far the best pub in the area by a very long chalk). I was sending a few Emails and writing some content for the Maggot Sandwich on my Samsung Chromebook. The pub had an electrical fault, and the power cut on four separate occasions in the space of an hour or so; this had the unfortunate result of resetting the pubs’ Wifi router. Each time the power died, I lost my web connection. In the end I gave up and powered the device down. When I got home I switched it back on; it detected the Pewty Acres Wifi and connected automatically. It had cached all of the content I had created and it automagically uploaded it all into the cloud as if there had been no interruption at all. I lost nothing whatsoever. All very clever stuff. Google Chrome OS is another iteration of Linux, by the way – you cannot get away from it.

Not many local people are aware that the Erith / Belvedere area was once subject to one of the largest non – nuclear explosions in history You can see a contemporary account above - click for a larger view. Back in 1864 there were two commercial gunpowder factories – that of John Hall and Son and the Elterwater and Lowood Gunpowder company situated on the marsh land that at that time existed parallel to the River Thames between Slade Green in the East and Plumstead in the West. Both factories were physically isolated from residential areas, and many precautions were taken to prevent any kind of fire; workers had to wear felt slippers, and all equipment was made of wood, or lined with copper to prevent sparks; understandably smoking was strictly prohibited. At about 6.40 am on Saturday the first of October 1864 all these precautions proved worthless, when there was a massive explosion which totally destroyed both gunpowder factories, their store magazines and a couple of barges that were being loaded with barrels of gunpowder at the time. No contemporary account exists of exactly what caused the accident, as the eyewitnesses were instantly vapourised. The explosion was heard as far away as Cambridge, and the shock wave was so intense that people in central London were convinced that there had been an earthquake. One report at the time said that as rescuers hurried to the site they found a massive crater and absolutely no signs of any buildings were left “it was if the place had been swept clean by a broom”. Surprisingly there were only around twenty casualties, as though the explosion was huge, the remote location prevented greater loss of life. Witnesses said that a huge pall of black smoke, shaped like a mushroom hung in the air for an hour afterwards. Five of the victims were classed as “missing” as nothing remained of them to bury. Others whose bodies remained intact to some degree or other were taken to the Belvedere Hotel in Picardy Road, which was converted into a temporary morgue. The injured were taken to Guy’s Hospital at London Bridge, where some then succumbed to their injuries. The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times (the story made world headlines) also curiously reported that a man escaped serious injury, but did have “his right whisker blown off, and he has not been seen since”. The unknown reporter then comments “The damage done to property extends to a radius of over twenty miles; the effect upon domestic animals is said to have been very remarkable. Thousands of pets succumbed with fright – the mortality to Canaries being particularly great”. The army was called from the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich to assist with emergency repairs to the river wall, which had been destroyed to a length of three hundred yards from the epicentre of the blast. Fortunately the tide was low at the time, and the Royal Engineers assisted by civilian navvies and some volunteers barely managed to temporarily block the gap before the tide rose. Had they not, much of Lower Belvedere would have been flooded as later happened in 1953. Considering the size of the explosion – it is estimated that something between 45 and 100 tons of gunpowder were detonated, the long term damage was pretty light, though the superintendent of Crossness Sewage Works did put in a grumpy claim for £150 for plate glass that had been damaged by the blast – this sounds like some very creative accounting on his part, as the works was still being constructed at the time, and did not actually go into operation until nearly a year later.

Have you noticed how movies seem to appear on video on demand services like Netflix and iTunes almost as soon as they are released at the cinema? Indeed there have been cases where films have actually been released to video on demand before they have had a theatrical release. The general marketing format of a Hollywood movie is to release to cinemas, then video on demand, then sold or rented on DVD or Blu – Ray, then to satellite or cable like Sky / Virgin, then finally sold to conventional broadcast television. Now that very few Hollywood movies are shot on 35mm cine film, nearly everything is made digitally. This saves a fortune on film stock and duplication, and also enables much easier compositing of special effects – and also means that the cinema projectionist can just download the movie from the film company website. You would have thought that this would mean the big studios would be raking in even more cash than ever, but quite the reverse is actually the case. In recent years the main studios have concentrated on what they term “tent pole” movies – mega budget films filled with special effects, and generally aimed at teenagers. The release of these films at certain times of the year, such as Christmas and the Summer holiday period drives the studios’ entire schedule. In 2013 the major Hollywood studios took a terrible drubbing – they lost a total of eleven billion dollars; the reason for this was a series of mega budget “tentpole” films that were meant to be blockbusters, but which turned out to be turkeys. White House Down, The Lone Ranger, After Earth and a handful of other movies tanked at the box office, virtually bankrupting their producers. Studio bosses got so cautious and conservative in relation to the films that they commissioned in the light of these financial disasters that even when Steven Spielberg, the most respected and commercially successful film director of modern times pitched “Lincoln” at the studios he initially got turned down; the reasons being that the protagonist dies at the end, and as such there is no possibility of a sequel (!) Hollywood seems to be shying away from adult, thought provoking movies in favour of noisy movies featuring superheroes and franchises that offer seemingly endless sequels – such as the Fast and Furious series, or the Expendables. In 2012 Nineteen were based on some other property, eight were sequels, four were comic-book franchises, two were remakes, two were prequels, and seven were originals. Films such as “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” tend to be made by European studios such as Canal Plus with far smaller budgets, but arguably making far more interesting motion pictures. What is interesting is how conversely America is producing some excellent, very high quality shows, but they are for television rather than the big screen. The U.S remake of “The House of Cards” is a prime example – not only did stage and screen actor Kevin Spacey make the transition to the small screen, the entire run of the show was first broadcast via Netflix. This model seems to be becoming the norm – fewer adults want to sit in a cinema surrounded by noisy kids chatting with their mates during the film; with the advent of big screen televisions, HD and shortly 4K resolution there is no longer a compelling reason to get in the car or on the bus to go and see a movie, when nowadays you can actually get a superior experience in the comfort of your own home. Nowadays the content is the king, not the delivery method. I foresee that the studios will continue to make “blockbuster” type films – the type that tend to catch the headlines, but more attention will go to the creation of multi episode dramas with a high quality cast, script and production values – as the audience vote with their feet and stay watching paid for content on their own big screens. The art of cinema will not die – but the way it is delivered to their audience will change markedly.

Prospective new Blackfen micro publican Andy Wheeler of The Broken Drum dropped me a line this week; this is what he had to say:- Hi, my name is Andy Wheeler; I have submitted planning and licensing applications to open a micropub or a traditional ale house or micropub (as is more commonly known) in the Blackfen area, at 308 Westwood Lane, opposite the COOP entrance. There are many micropubs opening in and around the Kent area and the rest of the country, they mainly sell cask conditioned ale (real ale) and encourage conversation. A good definition of a micropub can be found by clicking here. I’m an active member of the Bexley CAMRA, the CAMpaign for Real Ale and I have found the best real ale being served is from micropubs, and I want to emulate that and the culture of micropubs. The London Borough of Bexley already has a micro pub called The Door Hinge in Welling run by Ray Hurley. He has been a great help and an inspiration to me. Another ale house has received planning approval in Crayford, and will be opening soon. My pub is to be called ‘The Broken Drum’. If you want to know why I chose that name then come and ask me when I opened, (someone people know or may have guessed). I propose to sell real ale, a small amount of wine and real cider, traditional locally resourced pub food (pork pies, scotch eggs, crisps and alike). I won’t be selling lager, alcohol pops or spirits. There will be no music, fruit machines or arcade games, and the use of mobile phones is discouraged. Excellent stuff; I will be covering The Broken Drum in the future - watch this space.

You may well have heard about a scam that has been going on for seemingly years. It astonishes me that it still seems to work, as by now you would have thought that enough people would be aware of it to deter the fraudsters, but for whatever reason, it would appear not. The scam involves a phone call from a person purporting to be working either for Microsoft, or a Microsoft affiliate company. The person tells the victim that their PC has been infected by a number of viruses, and that they can talk them through fixing the problem. If the victim is unconvinced, the scammer talks the victim through opening a Windows command line prompt and inputting a series of text commands. The commands produce a series of error messages and a long code string which the scammer tells the victim are proof that their PC is infected; in reality this is not the case – the codes produced are generated by the Windows activity monitor, and actually show perfectly benign computer operations that are normally run in the background, unbeknownst to the average user. After this the scammer tells the victim that they can take remote assistance of their PC to remove the “viruses”. If the victim gives control, the scammer opens a web browser session and asks the victim to input their Pay Pal details to pay for the virus cleaning service. If the victim does this, their account details are stolen and their account is later hoovered clean of cash. If the victim refuses, perhaps after realising the whole operation is a con, the scammer will delete personal files and configuration folders if the remote connection is not terminated by the victim. Over the last six or so year, thousands of people have been targeted by gangs posing as legitimate companies – usually working out of India or South Africa in “boiler room” operations. I would advise anyone receiving a phone call of this nature to just put the phone down – arguing with them is pointless, and they will just move onto a new victim. I had such a call a few years ago; I realised pretty much straight away exactly what was going on, and thought I would play dumb and go along with things for a laugh – also, the longer I tied up the scammer, the less time he would have to hit another innocent victim. After the person asked me to log into my computer and open a command prompt and input a series of Windows specific commands. When I answered that I was not getting the responses he described, he got increasingly annoyed, asking “what version of Windows are you using?” to which I replied “I am using Solaris 9 Unix on a Sun Ultra 60 workstation” he then realised he was the one who had been had – Sun (now Oracle) kit is generally only used by those in the IT trade, as it is very powerful, but not very user friendly. Not much of a victory in the greater scheme of things, but it made me feel better. You can read about the scam in more detail by clicking here.

The end video is something I mentioned a couple of weeks ago; it is a new TV commercial for the Royal British Legion entitled "Every Man Remembered". It was shot recently in a number of locations in Erith, Thamesmead and Upper Belvedere - see how many places you can identify. A very worthwhile cause, and I think the area can be proud to have been part of it.

The Broken Drum.

Micro Pubs in Bexley seem like buses – nothing for ages, then two turn up almost at the same time. One of my regular anonymous informers tells me that an application has been submitted for a new micro pub to be set up in a former nail salon shop in Woodman Parade, Blackfen. The micro pub is to be called The Broken Drum – the prospective landlord / landlady is obviously a fan of Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” novels, as this is the name of the pub in the city of Ankh Morpork which features in many of the books. The proposed location of the micro pub is quite interesting; it is only a hundred metres or so  along Westwood Road from The George Staples pub (what used to be known as the Woodman).  I last visited The George Staples about three years ago, and it was not inspiring. It is basically a chain pub run by a pub company called The King’s Feast pub co. (where size matters) which I think tells you a lot before you go any further – never mind the quality, feel the width. The George Staples seems to concentrate on attracting families with small children and serving cheap food in vast quantities – it scrapes by with a three out of five star “Scores on the Doors” food hygiene rating. The News Shopper Pub Spy liked the pub overall, as it was child friendly (I cringe whenever I hear  that phrase in relation to a pub or restaurant) but the verdict on the food was a lot less favourable – limp and soggy scampi, served with bullet hard microwaved peas was not to the reviewers liking. The Broken Drum will no doubt cater for a somewhat different demographic, and I can see the two establishments co-existing without issue. The new micro pub will serve real ales, wines  and cider, along with snacks such as locally sourced pork pies and scotch eggs. As is the norm with micro pubs, there will be no TV, no music and no lager or alcopops. I would hope that the Broken Drum would serve at least one local ale such as the excellent BOB (Bexley’s Own Beer) by The Bexley Brewery, which will be in full production by the time the Broken Drum is ready to open shop. By Christmas, the borough will have three operating micro pubs – The Door Hinge in Welling (so good that it won Bexley CAMRA pub of the year in its first year of opening). There will also be the Penny Farthing in Crayford, which is currently still in the planning stage, as mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I suppose that it would be too much to ask for a micro pub in Erith; it is not as if the town is lacking in empty ground floor shop units ready for conversion. There are three units in the block opposite the Health centre in the High Street that have not been occupied since they were constructed around seven years ago - see the photo above, and click on it for a larger view; I am sure the owners would love a tenant in at least one of the shop spaces. Alternatively there are units available in Cross Street; the former law centre is unoccupied, after changes to the legal aid system  forced it to close earlier this year. The larger unit that for many years was home to Owens the DIY and engineering supplier is also free, though I wonder if it would be too large for a typical micro pub. Obviously the former White Hart / Potion building is empty, but that would require a large amount of investment and refurbishment to make it a viable proposition – all of which is counter to the basic Micro Pub philosophy of opening in cheap accommodation with only basic changes to the unit to turn it into a hostelry. Keeping the costs down, and keeping it simple are the most basic tenets of running a micro pub. This is to keep the bar as low as possible for others thinking of doing the same. Quite often people running micro pubs have never owned a pub, or even worked in one before. Ray Hurley, the landlord of The Door Hinge in Welling is a former black cab driver who has turned his love for real ale and convivial company into a thriving small business. It would seem that other local people aim to replicate this, which can only be a good thing.

A local information source who wishes to remain anonymous has forwarded me the following story:- "A company called Partizan was filming a commercial in Erith last week for the Royal British Legion. The venues were the Leisure Centre in Erith recreation ground, outside the Erith Yacht Club, outside Christchurch, inside a house in Avenue Road and inside the Royal Standard pub in Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere. I think the film is to be called "Who Will You Remember?"  So far as I know it will be shown during a few commercial breaks, possibly as early as 20th August, but I do not have all the details at present". Fascinating stuff; I will be looking out for the commercial being broadcast.

The News Shopper website has been getting some rather vexed feedback from readers in response to a story that they are currently running on complaints made by a local cyclist who commutes by bicycle from his home in Hartley on the outskirts of Dartford to the Darent Industrial Estate on the Slade Green Marshes. He is somewhat put out at the state of the cycle paths, especially in and around the marshes. I think that cycling provides a viable alternative to other methods of travel in certain circumstances, and is something to generally be encouraged. The trouble is, in the News Shopper story, the cyclist, a Mr. Neil Jobbins does himself few favours and does come across perhaps unintentionally as somewhat of an archetypal “cyclo – Nazi”. He cycles the ten mile route from Hartley to Slade Green and comments “Everyone should be cycling to work, whether they live in Dartford and work in Woolwich. They should be able to do that and this is the cycle route for it”. Quite. How the average person is meant to negotiate a pushbike up Bostall Hill from Woolwich after a hard day at work quite evades me – the buses have a difficult enough time, and they have stonking great turbo diesel engines. The main thrust of Neil Jobbins complaint is that the cycle paths on the Slade Green Marshes are uneven, potholed and overgrown with brambles and other vegetation.  I have some sympathy with this; I know that the cycle paths on the marshes get a lot of abuse, due principally to the illegal actions of off road bikers who tear up the pathways and generally cause a nuisance. The police periodically chase and arrest the offending bikers, and every so often one of their untaxed and uninsured motorbikes gets confiscated and crushed, which tends to discourage the others for a while; generally once the weather improves and the sun comes out, so do the illegal motor bikes. The counter argument to the situation with the cycle paths that seems to have annoyed many News Shopper readers runs along the lines of “what does he expect – it is wilderness marshland” and also “cyclists don’t pay any road tax and are uninsured, why should they have any rights at all?” Whatever your personal view on the situation, the fact remains that the cycle paths on Slade Green Marshes are nothing to do with either Bexley or Dartford Council and are instead  maintained by a charity called Sustrans, which maintains cycle paths all over the UK. Sustrans have little money, and cannot afford to restore or improve the paths on the marshes – which to be honest, don’t get very much use anyway. I think a better and more rounded solution would be for a concerted anti illegal motorbike campaign by the local police. When any offenders were subsequently prosecuted, any terms of community service that the crooks got sentenced to should be spent clearing up the cycle paths for the legitimate users. It would seem to be a logical course of action as far as I can see. The marshes are a wonderful place to visit on a sunny day. Fifteen minutes walk from Erith Town Centre and you are in an area of outstanding natural beauty that feels like it is hundreds of miles away from urbanisation. It is one of the best places to see the Erith “big sky” – where you can clearly see an unhindered view from horizon to horizon – something almost impossible in large parts of Greater London.

One of my occasional sources informs me that surveyors and environmental scientists have spent the last week carefully examining the site of Erith Quarry. On top of this, work is being carried out to identify and carefully remove the Japanese Knotweed that infests the site. Japanese Knotweed is a non – indigenous, invasive plant that grows prodigiously and can damage the foundations of buildings; it is very difficult to eradicate – the roots can go as far as ten feet deep, and if even a small portion of root is left in the ground, the entire plant will re – grow in short order. It is illegal in the UK to plant or spread Japanese Knotweed, and when it is pulled up it is legally classified as controlled waste that has to be disposed of by licensed landfill sites. Young shoots of Japanese knotweed are cooked and eaten in some countries – apparently it tastes like super sour rhubarb, but it contains a lot of Oxalic Acid, which is really not very good for you. When the weed is completely removed, work will commence to dig some trial pits to analyse the geology of the site – I suspect it may well also be to identify any chemicals that may have been dumped on the site in the past. Personally I suspect that when the Atlas chemical works that used to be in Fraser Road was closed down in the early 1980’s, many of the remaining drums of chemicals  on the site disappeared in very quick order. I would not be at all surprised if they were dumped on the quarry site. If the surveyors find evidence of this, a cleanup operation could prove costly. No actual building work will be undertaken for a while yet; the reason for this is that the Erith Quarry development has not yet been granted planning permission. The development is to my mind long overdue; the quarry site has been closed and abandoned for as long as I can remember – I recall as a child being warned not to play on the site as it was dangerous – something many local kids studiously ignored of course. With Erith Quarry soon to be joining Erith Park as a major local residential development, the population of Erith is set to increase still further. Overall this should be a good thing, but I do have concerns that the infrastructure may suffer as a consequence. Will there be enough water and electricity to go round? I know the developers of Erith Quarry intend to build a new primary school on the site, and Trinity secondary school is just around the corner, but other resources may be thin on the ground. I would imagine the owners of the mini market and the couple of takeaways at the Pom Pom must be rubbing their hands in anticipation of an increase in trade once the construction is complete and the new housing estate becomes occupied.

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Bexley Council Environmental Health Team seem to have really upped their game in respect of hygiene inspections on local food outlets, and overall the results have been impressive. Many more places are getting acceptable or better ratings (anything 3 out of 5 stars or higher) and the overall situation in respect of woeful graded places is getting better. There are still a number of fast food outlets in West Street that are definitely letting the side down in regards to cleanliness; indeed one place that was checked on the 16th of July was Masala Reef – an Indian takeaway that actually managed to go from a woeful one star rating on its last inspection to a zero star this time. Bearing in mind the inspectors give constructive advice to the owners of food outlets during the inspection process, one would have expected that the rating would have reflected a greater understanding of food hygiene and an awareness of what is required to obtain a good star rating. It would appear that Masala Reef have gone the other way. The inspection rated their food hygiene and safety as bad, their structural compliance as very bad, and confidence in management as none. Just why the Environmental Health inspection team did not close the place down immediately is beyond me. I would strongly recommend that you avoid Masala Reef at all costs.

You may recall that two weeks ago I featured a screen capture from an old cine film taken in Erith in 1967; it showed a very distinctive orange lorry, photographed coming along Erith High Street. Well, a few days ago I received an email from a chap who is very much in the know about the story behind the lorry - here is his account in his own words:- "My name is Allan Bedford a former 'Erithian' but living in Devon since 2005. I am a bit of a transport historian and have been taking photos of road transport for over 50 years. I previously lived in Brook Street opposite the 'Duchess' I sometimes look at your postings and was 'gobsmacked' to see that frame from Mr Stevens cine film of Erith High Street in 1967 you posted on 03/08/14. The 'orange lorry' is none other than the last ex Erith Corporation Dustcart in their lovely 'Burnt Orange' delivered in August 1964, just nine months before the new London Borough of Bexley came into being. It was a most unusual purchase being a Ford Trader K series, the 'K' refers to the cab pressing as it was originally used by Ford of Cologne (Koln), although this was built in Dagenham. It carries the very obsolete, even in 1964, 'Chelsea Pattern ' sliding shutter style body. As it so happens I took a photo of this very vehicle outside the old Brook Street Primary School one evening in May 1970, due to it's unique status. It was then used to collect food waste from the school canteen,the two man crew were happy to let me snap this while I stood in the middle of the road, I doubt you could do this today. I used to belong to the 'Erith and Belvedere history group, and I know Ken and Benitta who of course worked at the school and taught both my kids back in the eighties. Until I found that 'still' I thought this was the only record of this 'one off' so it's great that another image survives. Feel free to use this image, a little bit of 'OLDE ERITH'!!" Brilliant stuff Allan - extremely interesting and many thanks for sending it through. It all adds to the sum of knowledge of the area. If anyone has old photos, memories or stories about the local area that they would like to see published, please send them through to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Microsoft are currently losing money hand over fist in respect of their Surface Pro range of not quite laptops, not quite tablet PC’s. The Surface is now in its’ third incarnation, and Microsoft are still heavily subsidising the devices, selling each one at a loss in order to try and buy market share. Historically Microsoft have been patient when launching new products; they got hit very hard for a long time when they launched the original X-Box games console – they subsidised it and gave great financial incentives to developers in order for them to create games for the console. This paid off in spades, and nowadays the Xbox One is a very credible platform, with many fans amongst gamers.  Whether the same can be said of the Surface range is doubtful – the whole tablet market is slowing down at present – and even market leaders Apple are struggling to shift significant numbers of new units. Since Steve Ballmer left Microsoft, it would appear that their business strategy is starting to evolve; the company has made 18,000 people redundant, and is streamlining itself to try and stay competitive in a changing market. I feel that under their new management, Microsoft may be less willing to support a “lame duck” product line – I would not be surprised if the Surface Pro range quietly disappears quite soon.

Proof if it was ever needed that Erith is indeed a maritime town can be seen in the photo above; it shows roll on – roll off HGV ferry the M.V Cymbaline passing Erith on Saturday afternoon. In the foreground you can see the MV Shetland Trader  moored on Erith Pier. It is used to transport earth and spoil from the Crossrail tunnelling works down river to the Essex coast to be used in land reclamation work.  It was not clear at the time, and it is not clear even now what exactly the tug in the photo was up to; it was travelling, apparently at full speed astern, right behind the Cymbaline. If any reader has a clue please enlighten me using the usual contact details. I have found the Port of London authority ship movement website  to be a very good source of information relating to shipping moves on the River Thames and beyond. As I have said on occasions before, we don’t make nearly enough use of the river. I understand that plans to try and get the Thames Clipper ferries to extend their coverage to Erith are pretty much dead in the water, due to a number of problems, not least of them being that the authorities don’t consider that the number of passengers heading to and from Erith would be sufficient to justify the cost and effort of extending the service. On top of this, Morrison’s were not keen on their car park being used by commuters – a parking space used by a commuter is one less space to be available for a shopper. On top of this, once again any project to improve public transportation in the North of the borough would be inevitably blocked by Bexley Council planning committee. Most of the members live in the more prosperous South of the borough, and don't want the unwashed oiks in the North to have anything that they can’t .

Following on from my announcement last week of the reasons for the building and restoration work being carried out on the former Cross Keys pub in Erith High Street, I have been asked to go into a little more detail. The building is owned and operated by Anglo – American management consultancy, the Aleff Group. When they purchased the pub a couple of years ago, they were looking for a place that was close to the M25 and A2 and had good overland rail links into central London. Many of their consultants spend much of their time on client sites, or travelling, and they felt that the Cross Keys could provide a good place to convert into offices, hot desking areas and touchdown space for their mostly mobile workforce. The Aleff Group already have offices in Canary Wharf and in Florida, USA, and were initially only thinking of using the Cross Keys for their private business. Once the restoration and conversion work began, they were pleasantly surprised by the level of local interest in what they were doing. They soon realised that there was far more space in the building than they would ever actually need for their own company, and the idea was formed to open up the building for locals to use in a variety of ways.  At this point they contacted a number of local individuals, including myself, in order to form a local steering committee. For commercial confidentiality reasons I was asked to remain tight – lipped as to what was going on, and I have stuck to this for quite some time now. The work to the building has now progressed to the point where the upper floors will be “soft launched” in the next few weeks, prior to an official launch sometime in October. The upper floors have been beautifully restored and updated with air conditioning, fibre optic lights, full Cat 6 wired networking and WiFi coverage. The original cast iron fireplaces have been professionally restored and the floor and ceiling voids fitted with sound deadening material. New windows and doors have been fitted – all custom made to the original drawing specifications. There are a number of meeting rooms and areas to hot desk, along with an informal lounge, small kitchen and really high class designer bathrooms / wet rooms lined with polished marble. The first floor function room has been converted into a climate controlled presentation suite with a digital projector and surround sound audio system which is suitable for meetings, training courses and lectures, and even suitable for use as a small cinema or concert venue. The ground floor bar and kitchen areas are the only parts of the building that have so far not been restored; depending on the results of the questionnaire that will be distributed to local people during the Erith Fun Day on Saturday the 30^th August, the ground floor will be converted into a coffee / tea shop and restaurant with a rear terrace for people to be able to sit outside and watch the river view on nice days. It is hoped that the bar area can be restored to its Edwardian splendour so that diners can experience what the Cross Keys was like a hundred years ago. Local small businesses will be able to use the meeting rooms and hot desking areas of the building to carry out client meetings; it is anticipated that local councillors and our local MP will also use the Cross Keys to hold constituency surgeries - at present there is very little choice of public enclosed space in Erith and community events can be difficult to organise for this reason. Organisations like the Rotary Club and Bexley Business Forum will be able to hold meetings in the large and sound proofed meeting rooms on the second floor. The Cross Keys is a very tall building with lots of steep stairs; this has been thought of as a problem for both people with mobility disabilities and parents with children in buggies. For this reason a glass lift is being installed on the rear of the building, adjacent to the patio garden. The lift will look very similar to those used on the Lloyd’s building in the City of London, and will allow disabled access. The rear of the building is plain brick, and not the reason the structure is listed – it is the frontage that legally has to be preserved. Even the employment of local staff has been given a priority. All of the contractors employed on the Cross Keys project come from less than twelve miles from Erith, unless nobody with the specific skills could be found nearby. All the conservation work has been undertaken with close reference to period photographs supplied from several sources, including local historian Ken Chamberlain and myself. I cannot emphasise what a stunning transformation has taken place inside the former pub. All of the work has been done to an incredibly high standard with very high quality materials. Unfortunately as building work is still taking place, the Aleff Group will not be able to offer guided tours on the 30^th August during Erith Fun Day – their insurers would not permit it. I would imagine the public will be able to take a look around in October, when the building officially opens. Take it from me, you are in for a real treat!

This week the end video is an excellent and very funny "Simon's Cat" cartoon - enjoy.

Bollards!

The building in the above photo is one of the landmarks of Erith. It is the first thing many visitors see when they enter the town for the first time, but it is also one of the least memorable. The large and nowadays rather run down and scruffy brick building is called Electricity House – though many locals are unaware of this. It was built back in 1938 and opened in November 1939 as a showroom and offices for the local electricity company, which at the time was run by the council. Pre – war services such as gas, water and electricity supply were quite commonly managed and supplied by local councils; the idea of private companies being involved was something that did not happen until after the war had ended. Electricity House was also a place where new electrical customers could view domestic appliances which they could buy via hire purchase (it sounds like an early version of BrightHouse, but without the crippling interest rates). As well as the showroom,  Electricity House was home to what contemporary accounts say was a very upmarket dance hall with a fully sprung Canadian Maple floor; there was also a small Pathe cinema. The local electricity business was astonishingly successful – probably much helped by the fact that it offered the cheapest metered electricity in the entire UK at the time – one penny per unit. Ten thousand local people signed up for electrification in the first month alone, attracted by the offer of free connection to the local power grid – unusual at the time – many suppliers would even charge for the copper cable to connect new customers. In 1939 the Erith electricity board made a (for then) massive profit of £13,000. The idea was that the money would be used to improve local services and amenities for all, but the advent of war meant that early in 1940 Electricity House was handed over for war work, and once peace was restored, the money intended to benefit local people was absorbed by the LEB during nationalisation, and nothing was ever seen of it. Much of Erith was still lit by gas until relatively recently. I believe that some houses in West Street did not get electricity until 1947 when the London Electricity Board was formed, and the local council control of power was nationalised. I have heard a rumour (and I must stress that at this stage, it is only a rumour), that Electricity House may be coming up for sale in the not too distant future. The story goes that the current owners of Electricity House realise that the building is end of life, and no longer fit for purpose. The current commercial tenants don’t pay very much rent for the place, and as the building is old and very scruffy, it is unlikely to attract new tenants prepared to pay higher rents. The only real money earning part of the building is actually the roof, which hosts a number of cellular telephone repeaters and their associated antenna masts. The most profitable course of action would be for the owners of the site to sell the building to a property developer, and for the current building to be demolished to make way for a modern alternative which would attract new and more prosperous tenants prepared to pay higher rents. Personally I would rather see the existing building extensively refurbished, but I somehow doubt that would be commercially viable. The longest term tenant in the building is Erith Snooker Centre, which occupies a large portion of the upper floor, and has been there since at least 1946. Others like the various African stores, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, and the Celestial Church of Christ (which seem to both share the former tyre warehouse part of the building that faces Erith Council Offices) would all have to find alternative accommodation if this redevelopment rumour has any foundation in truth.  If anyone has any information about the future of Electricity House, please drop me a private line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Back in 2011 a great FaceBook campaign was set up to prevent Belvedere Splash Park introducing entrance fees. The park, which is the largest computerised children’s wet play area in the UK is incredibly popular in the summer months, when it offers a fun and convenient (not to say cheap) day out for parents with young children. Bexley Council quickly backed down when they discovered the extent and depth of feeling against the introduction of charges, despite council policy seemingly being that anything that involves pleasure being banned or charged for to the point where use is positively discouraged – for example the permanent cancellation of the Danson Festival and the discontinuation of the “Bexley in Bloom” competition, even so the ending of the latter would save only a handful of pennies. I have now heard from multiple sources that the council are at it again; they are now closing the splash park for two days a week for “cleaning and maintenance”, yet on those days nobody is to be seen. Malcolm Knight of Bexley is Bonkers has already written on the subject, which you can read here. Malcolm has the advantage of publishing almost every day, whereas for logistical reasons the Maggot Sandwich only gets updated once per week on a Sunday. What all the concerned people who have contacted me on the subject note is that whilst Belvedere Splash Park is being closed two days a week, the equivalent splash park at Danson is not. The real reason for the Belvedere closure is to save on staff wages; why they are not doing the same at Danson is the usual one – all of the councillors and their families who make these decisions live in the South of the borough, and cutbacks in the North part of the borough don’t affect them – the posh parts of Bexley keep their amenities whilst the “plebs” in the poorer North take all of the cuts. Nothing new there then.

I have noticed that residents in certain parts of Erith, Northumberland Heath and Lower Belvedere are currently being targeted by the marketing departments of certain banks and credit card companies. It would seem that they have been trawling the electoral register and comparing it against a database of areas whose inhabitants are thought to be on a lower than average income. Locals are currently receiving a steady barrage of envelopes containing offers of loans and credit cards, typically with a wording along the lines of “CCJ’s need not be a problem – even if you have been turned down before – tenants and the unemployed welcome to apply – fixed weekly repayments” – the quotation was taken directly from a letter from Provident Personal Credit. Much has been written by both myself and many others about the online payday loan companies such as Wonga, and the high street crisis lenders such as The Money Shop, and their scandalous rates of interest. It would seem that the “respectable” financial institutions are now trying to get a slice of the market. The aforementioned Provident charge an eye watering 399.7 percent interest on their loans, whereas if you shop around (not difficult with online comparison websites) you can get a credit card with 18.9 percent interest and better repayment conditions. The difference is that in order to get a credit card with those kind of terms, one needs to be in full time, well paid employment and have a good credit history. The people the unscrupulous lenders are targeting are not this demographic – they are hoping to snare vulnerable “high risk” borrowers. Once again being poor can be seen to be very expensive. A better alternative would be to approach Greenwich and Bexley Credit Union. I have heard some strong rumours that a group of local churches are looking to set up a credit union for the people of Erith, Northumberland Heath and Belvedere. If this turns out to be the case, it will be a far better prospect than these unscrupulous high interest lenders that are actively seeking out people with a low income to charge outrageous sums in interest to.

If you were watching television on Monday night, you might have happened to come across the Channel 4 cookery show “Food Unwrapped” and the article about the resurgence in interest in eating jellied eels. If the fisherman and his little vessel looked familiar, it is with a reason. The chap featured was Dave Pearce, who fishes for eels off Erith. He and fellow Eel fisherman Gary Hillier are pretty much the only people who regularly fish for the eels nowadays. Back in 1981 there were around thirty eel fishermen, over half of whom made a living from fishing in the river Thames off Erith. The irony is that eels have become rarer, and their price has subsequently risen to the point that nowadays very few traditional pie and mash shops sell jellied or stewed eels, as they have become too expensive for their main customers, who often are retired people on a budget. “Food Unwrapped” gave the impression that eating eels was moving upmarket, and that smoking and barbecuing the fish was becoming increasingly popular.  Bearing in mind how eel fishing has formed part of the historical culture of Erith, it is remarkable just how little the humble eel is celebrated locally. Perhaps something roughly analogous to the Whitstable Oyster Festival could be set up in Erith? After all, the Oyster Festival has been tremendously successful and brings visitors and business to Whitstable, to the point where it is now the commercial and social highlight of the year. Perhaps something like it could be established for an Erith Eel Extravaganza could be set up? What do you think? About a decade ago, we had an Erith Multicultural Festival, which involved lots of food stalls along the high Street, and dragon boat races on the river, along with a big firework display in the evening. Perhaps an Erith Eel Extravaganza could be organised along similar lines. I concede that we might have a bit of an image problem; you think of oysters and you think of James Bond, whereas when you think of eels, you think of Alf Garnett. Eels have been a working class staple food since Roman times, and ironically until relatively recently, so were oysters, but overfishing of oysters caused them to become rare, and consequently they went up market – exactly the same thing is happening to the humble eel nowadays. Is the time right for an eel revival and a new image?  Should Erith be nailing eels to the mast (poor analogy, but you see where this is going).  Should we be celebrating the Erith eel, or is it just a sad footnote in history? What do you think? Do give me your feedback; you can comment below, or Email me to hugh.neal@gmail.com

The Basic computer programming language has just celebrated its fiftieth birthday. Whilst not the first computer language designed to be used by non – professional programmers (Cobol and Fortran could both claim that title) it was the language that gained massive popularity in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when it started to be taught in secondary schools and further education colleges, first on Commodore Pet and Research Machines 380Z computers, and slightly later on the massively popular and ubiquitous in education BBC Micro. Kids of the time, myself included also had early 8 – bit home computers, and learned to program them by a mixture of trial and error, and by laboriously copying game Basic source code by hand from magazines such as Computer and Video Games. One soon learned to save the input code on a very regular basis, as having the computer crash after spending three hours typing in code was a quick way to learn the benefits of a backup. Basic was relatively easy to learn, though different computers often employed slightly different versions, usually to accommodate special features that they had, which meant one could not expect a Basic program from say a Sinclair ZX Spectrum to work on a Commodore 64 without some fairly extensive rewrites to the code. One thing basic did allow you to do which cannot be done with modern programming languages is it enabled you to read and write data to areas of the computers’ memory which would normally not be permitted. The PEEK command enabled a programmer to see the value that was stored at a specific memory location, and the POKE command enabled you to write a value into a specified memory location. This might sound pretty dull and boring, but in reality it enabled you to get the computer to do all sorts of things that it was really not meant to. For example, there was a bug in the chip which controlled the video display in the very early versions of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The bug meant that the clock rate of the chip (how many instructions it could obey per second) could be radically altered by inputting a certain numerical value to a very specific address in the video memory. The increase in the clock rate caused the chip to suddenly heat up, to the point where it would begin to melt the rubber keys and thin plastic case of the Spectrum. Once this trick was discovered, there were numerous little oiks around the country who would go into Boots or Rumbelows (remember them?) and type in a short program to the Spectrums on display. The program had a FOR: NEXT loop in it, which acted as a timer to allow the perpetrator to make a stealthy exit. At the end of the loop, the POKE which over clocked the video chip would be executed. About ten minutes later, the shops’ fire alarm would sound as smoke poured out of the hapless Spectrum. Oh how we laughed. Not that I would condone this kind of behaviour of course (apologies to Boots in Bexleyheath Broadway Shopping Centre) – nowadays shops are covered by CCTV, and in any case this direct control of a computer via software is just not possible. Nowadays the operating system and firmware act as a barrier to such tricks.

I have heard that recently launched London Live – the TV service set up and run by the London Evening Standard is already in deep trouble. The channel, which broadcasts a series of London – centric programmes, along with a lot of re – runs from other channels is already looking to cut back broadcasting hours. At present the station broadcasts around the clock, but I have heard that they would like to cut back to opening at 7am and going off air at around midnight. Initial viewing statistics for the station have been woeful. The station, which launched back at the end of March is only attracting between two and four thousand viewers for its flagship early evening news and current affairs programme. The highest viewing figure for any one day were approximately fifteen thousand people – in a capital of nine million, this figure is statistically as close to zero as makes very little difference. I am really not surprised that London Live has had these problems. The production values and technical quality of their original programming is amateurish to say the least; it is painfully apparent that the broadcasts are made with minimal resources and little in the way of money. One critic wrote” The schedule is appalling; the picture quality at times is worse than a worn-out VHS tape and at other times, it is like watching a 240p YouTube video on a 60" plasma screen. The whole thing is a dog's dinner, so why would anyone want to watch it in the first place? Never mind the advertisers!” Quite. Bearing in mind that the station is heavily promoted in the London Evening Standard every weekday, to the extent that London Live features before BBC1 on their television scheduling page, and London Live based programmes invariably get featured on the “pick of the day” page. Even with the overt and heavy promotion that the paper, which has a circulation in excess of nine hundred thousand readers, they cannot get more viewers to the station. What do you think? Have you watched the station? You can leave a comment below, or Email me directly to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Please click on the questionnaire above to be able to read a larger version. It is a sneak preview of a document that will be handed out to visitors to Erith Fun Day on Saturday the 30th August. I have mentioned in passing over the last few months that I have had some involvement in the work to restore and convert the Cross Keys in Erith High Street into a venue available for all local people to use. I have been a member of the local residents steering committee since it was formed, and over the next couple of weeks I will be outlining the way in which the Aleff Group who own and are restoring the building are very keen to engage with the local residents to create a facility which will act as a community centre, restaurant, tea shop and local small business resource with bookable hot desks, private meeting rooms, 100 seat presentation suite / cinema, WiFi internet access and printing facilities. The project has the full backing of local MP Teresa Pearce, the local Police, Erith Town Forum, the Rotary Club, Bexley Business Forum, and a host of other worthwhile local organisations.

The battle for the radio airwaves over London grinds on. The competition between Capital Radio and Magic has been a close run thing for several years, with Capital finally beating Magic in the most recent polls. This is interesting stuff, as when Magic first started in 1990 it was called Melody FM and had a very old school , unchallenging easy listening music format –  Mantovani style big bands, crooners and hardly any music from later than the mid 1970’s. This, along with the station policy of very little speech from the presenter and no station identification jingles quickly got it the nickname of “Mogadon FM” as the laid back format allegedly sent the listeners to sleep! Advertisers were initially pleased with this approach, but soon realised that the demographic of the station was overwhelmingly amongst pensioners, many of which had little in the way of disposable income; the advertising revenue then began to dry up. This, along with the sudden deaths of two presenters persuaded the owners to change the format slightly to allow more interaction from the presenters and slightly modernise the playlist to allow artists such as Enya to be played. By 1998 the station was sold and rebranded as Magic 105.4 and further marketed to attract a younger audience. The rebranding worked very well, and Capital Radio got its first real direct competitor for the music listening Londoner.

Resurfacing work in Manor Road has been completed two weeks ahead of the planned schedule. I am gratified by this; after my blog posting criticizing the contractor Conway as to the level of resources they were employing on the site, the number of workers and the length of time they were working on Manor Road dramatically increased. There is every chance that this was a happy coincidence, but you can draw your own conclusions. A very useful new confidential contact dropped me a line during the week to let me know that as Conway had finished resurfacing Manor Road early, they were in a position to carry out maintenance on the roundabout opposite the KFC drive through, and a few other small jobs in the area. I think that this makes eminent sense – after all, the workers and equipment are already on site, it will just require some more hot tarmac and a splash or two of road paint. I have also been in contact with the council about the illegal traffic cut through at the end of Appold Street where it joins James Watt Way. There are bollards to (supposedly) prevent vehicles other than push bikes from using this route as a cut - through, but historically the bollards were placed too far apart, and small cars and vans could get through. During the Manor Road surfacing work, there was a constant stream of vehicles illegally cutting through. The matter was raised the with the Police, but by the time this was done, Conway had removed several bollards and were actively encouraging vehicles to used the illegal diversion. Understandably the residents of Appold Street were very upset by the huge increase in vehicles using the road - most have houses with no front gardens, and their front doors open directly onto the pavement. The noise, smell and disruption was very bad, and during rush hour there were often queues of cars waiting to share the one – way only cut through. Impatient drivers hooted their vehicle horns and a number of road rage incidents and two minor accidents involving children in baby buggies being clipped by passing vehicles were reported. Fortunately no serious injuries resulted from the situation. Following a midweek Email I sent to a chap called Dimitri Araj of Bexley Council Engineering Services team, I got the following response on Friday afternoon:- "Thank you for your constructive comments about our works in Manor Road. You will be glad to know that because of the savings we have made in the works, we shall be resurfacing Appold Street on 22 August 2014 after clearing the temporary site holding compound from the bottom of the road at the junction of James Watt Way. We shall replace all the broken kerb stones from the island in the road and renew the road markings as well. We shall write to the local residents about this work next week. Also as suggested by you and other local residents, we will increase the number of steel bollards at the junction of James Watt Way to reduce the gaps between them. We shall endeavour to complete this by the 22 August 2014 or as soon as possible after that if there is problem with the supply of these steel bollards. I am hoping that these additional measures will work. The closure of the KFC roundabout is limited to 10 hours this Sunday afternoon / night and 4 hours on Monday night and we are hoping that the traffic will be very light then. The site holding compound is blocking Appold Street and there will be debris and construction materials to discourage any passage through there while the diversion is in place. My colleagues in Street Works Team have regular contacts with the police and they have asked the police to increase their presence in the area during our works. I have personally reported two incidents to the police recently. Finally I would like to thank you and all the local residents for your patients with us during the Manor Road works which have improved the local environment in my view". What a result!

The ending video this week is a few months old, so it may not be completely up to date. It shows some of the demolition and rebuilding work going on in the Southmere part of Thamesmead, prior to the Crossrail project opening in Abbey Wood, which will bring a lot of new people to the area, and also is certain to put local property prices up.

Forty three versus one.

Work continues on the old Cross Keys building, as it is slowly converted into office and classroom space for international management consultancy firm The Aleff Group. From what I have been able to observe, the upper floors in what was the private accommodation have been refurbished, and decorators have been seen repainting the interior. Below this, the two huge and very distinctive bay windows that dominated the first floor level above the bar have been removed, and at the time of writing the holes are covered by two large blue tarpaulins - see the photo above - click for a larger view. The ground floor, where the bar once was located appears to be a building site, and quite a way from completion. The level of interest in the work has been quite high; I think many locals (who may not be aware of this blog) are unaware of what is going on, or the plans to reinvigorate the building with new occupants and a new purpose.

The project to extend the platforms at a number of railway stations on the Dartford via Greenwich line has mysteriously resumed after the best part of a years’ gap. Whilst Erith Station platform extension is completed (but not open for use – there are barriers preventing commuters from walking on the extended sections), other stations, notably Plumstead, had been abandoned and have resembled a building site for many months What has prompted the resumption in construction work is anyone’s guess. I had heard all sorts of explanations as to the reason for the halt on the extension work – the most plausible one to my mind being that there was no point in extending platforms on the line, as the existing power supply infrastructure would not have sufficient capacity to provide the motive energy for longer trains, and that the reason for the disconnect was that station engineering and power infrastructure were overseen by different teams within the South Eastern Trains engineering department, who did not talk to each other, and outsourced the physical work to different contractors. Presumably any issues related to this have been resolved, and it would appear that the work is back in progress. It does beg the question, why exactly are longer trains being introduced? The original explanation was to provide additional capacity for travellers during the Olympics, but as you may have noticed, these have been and gone. To be honest, with the exception of the morning and evening rush hour, the current provision of five or eight carriage trains every ten minutes is more than adequate, and during the rush hour, if they made all trains ten or twelve carriages for this period, there would be no need for any further provision. The platform extensions, and thus longer train capacity seems to me to be a solution in need of a problem. Please leave your thoughts below.

Last weeks' rant about paper telephone directories has prompted local activist and blogger Malcolm of the Bexley is Bonkers website to drop me a line in order to correct a couple of points I raised. I am always happy to publish constructive feedback – here are his thoughts: “I think you were a little hard on BT last week for sending you a telephone directory that few want any more because I seem to remember that when I worked for BT in 1984 - the year of privatisation - they were statutorily lumbered with providing all the basic telecoms services while the upstart new companies were allowed to cherry pick. My quick perusal of OFCOM's website suggests that nothing has changed. OFCOM is compelled to produce a paper directory and BT gets the job. Like you I see little need for a Phone Book in the internet age and it makes me a little sad to see what a pathetic little effort it has become. From 1967 to 1971 my job was to get all those massive A-D, E-K, L-R, S-Z tomes published - HMSO did the printing - and it was a totally manual job. Across the country 57 separate groups prepared the Telephone Directories and it was my bad luck to be in charge of the London one based in Old Street. Every name and phone number was indexed on cards which overlapped each other in a metal frame which was then photographed in readiness for the printing process. Lots of scope for errors and the Post Office Corporation, for that is what it was called at the time, set up a project team to get the whole operation on to a computer. I got roped in as the nearest 'directory man' to POHQ. Because directories across the country had been a local responsibility no two directories were exactly alike. Although most of the staff knew the alphabet ran from A-Z the rules applied to numerical entries and names that were double barrelled, some hyphenated some not, or included apostrophes, varied considerably. Similar problems arose with the sequencing when a lot of (for example) T. Smiths were all due to appear in the same book. Computerisation was going to fix all that. For some unfathomable reason the Daily Mail became obsessed with what we had planned and headlined it as a scheme to publish directories which would not be in alphabetical order. Their journalists must have been spending far too much time in the Fleet Street taverns. I was interviewed by a DM reporter and found myself on the front page next day confirming that their story was true. I had said nothing of the sort and if the principal Press Officer hadn't been with me during the interview I might well have been for the high jump. I've never really trusted newspaper journalists since then. The computer allowed for a new directory to be compiled, printed and ready for distribution in four days and the first one off the blocks was the Sunbury (Middlesex) local book. My boss insisted the new book was compared end to end with the source records before distribution and we found nearly 100 errors, far fewer than would have been the case with manual preparation but such was his fear of the Daily Mail that he insisted on it being pulped and the thing reprinted. This may seem an extreme over reaction but the PO Corporation Chairman was sacked for his perceived mishandling of what was in effect a pack of lies by several national newspapers". A fascinating story from someone in the know. Good stuff.

I took the photo above (click on it for a larger version) a couple of Sundays ago whilst I was walking around town; Erith Rowing Club is a long established club that rows both on the Thames off Erith, and on Danson Lake in Bexleyheath / Welling. Their club house is in what used to be the car park of the old Erith Police Station, on the river front, next to the Riverside Gardens. They share the area with marine engineering specialists Kort Propulsion, who not that long ago moved into what used to be the River Police HQ (to the left of the photo) and the Police station building itself, which is now (badly) converted into private flats.

As I have written previously, the “Scores on the Doors”  food hygiene rating website provides hours of innocent and instructive amusement. In the last few weeks the entries for many of the food outlets in the London Borough of Bexley have been updated, and the results make disappointing reading.  Whilst Dartford Borough reports only one food outlet with a zero out of five stars for food hygiene (the Ship pub in Sutton at Hone), Bexley Council reports forty three zero rated food outlets! Bearing in mind the fairly similar population numbers and social demographics of the neighbouring council areas, something has to be going seriously wrong. Either Bexley is incredibly strict on its’ scoring of restaurants and takeaways, or Dartford is incredibly lax. I don’t know what the statistical  chances are of such a radically different result are, but if it is not down to differing ways of assessing the hygiene levels of an outlet, then it is extremely worrying for any and all Bexley residents. Having the most unhygienic food outlets in the entire country has to be a source of shame for the Council. Also one needs to bear in mind that any food shop that scores three stars or less is to be regarded with suspicion – clean places are those with four or five stars. This means that a majority of the cafes, restaurants and pubs in the London Borough of Bexley are not recommended to frequent, which is a scary thought.  As I have said before, I strongly believe that any place scoring less than two stars should have to take immediate remedial action (say, within two weeks of the inspection, prior to a compulsory re – inspection) and that any outlet scoring a zero should be closed immediately, and not allowed to re – open until a re – inspection scores a minimum of three stars. I believe that the “Scores on the Doors” score sticker should be legally binding, and compulsory to display prominently in the window, next to the menu, if possible. It should be like a vehicle excise disk – you could not operate without a current certificate. I know this sounds like wishful thinking, but if Bexley Council are going to improve the hygiene levels of commercial food retailers in the borough, they are going to have to take bold and brave moves to substantially improve the situation, and this inevitably should lead to enforced closures. I am contacting local MP Teresa Pearce to see what influence she can bring to the matter. *Update* I have been in communication with Teresa Pearce since I wrote the piece above; she is taking up the matter with Bexley Council as I requested. She did also comment that from her previous investigations, it would appear that the Environmental Health team issue a detailed questionnaire to each food outlet as part of the hygiene inspection. The questionnaire is only available in English, and apparently a lot of the owners and staff of takeaways don’t have English as their first language, and some have very little English at all. In these cases the document does not get completed, and this considerably marks them down before the inspection proper has even begun. This is an interesting point that I must admit that I had not even considered. It will be instructive to see what other information that Teresa can dig out of Bexley Council about the whole thorny subject. Hopefully more on this in the weeks to come.

A second guest writer makes an appearance this week. Brian Spurrell is a stalwart behind Erith and Belvedere football club. He asked me a while back if I would write a feature on the club; after a bit of consideration (and bearing in mind my knowledge of football could be fitted into a very small matchbox, without taking the matches out first!) I decided to hand the editorial reins over to him to give some background to the historically significant local football club:-

"ERITH and BELVEDERE FOOTBALL CLUB

The next month could be historic for Erith and Belvedere FC.  With 11 Kent League games left, “The Deres” are six points clear of nearest rivals VCD Athletic, with a game in hand and superior goal difference.  They visit Lordswood this Tuesday for the Kent League Cup semi-final second leg, defending a 3-0 lead.  The winners play Corinthian in the final.  So Deres have a good chance of a double as well as promotion to the Ryman League. Deres have been groundsharing with Welling United since 1999, but their local roots are deep.  The first football club in Erith was founded in 1885 at Easton and Anderson’s factory in the town.  Its first match was against Royal Arsenal - the Arsenal club’s future would be more distinguished than Erith’s! There were several small clubs in Erith but none representing the area until Belvedere and District FC formed in 1918.  In 1922 they became Erith and Belvedere and joined the Kent League, playing their first match on 26 August 1922 at Park View, Belvedere (adjacent to Belvedere station).  Up against numerous semi-professional clubs and nursery sides for the likes of Spurs and Chelsea, Deres never finished any higher than 3^rd place in 1928-29, but greater success came in amateur competitions.  They twice reached the final of the Amateur Cup: in 1924 they lost the final 3-0 to Clapton at Millwall’s ground, The Den – with the biggest football crowd of the day, over 32,000 - and Erith Town Band played the returning team through the streets to a reception at the Cross Keys (where Deres’ captain Billy Swayne happened to be landlord!)  In 1938 they lost 1-0 to Bromley, again at The Den, with a crowd of 33,346, and supporters danced on the Park View pitch at the civic reception while waiting for skipper Len Scott to return from guesting on BBC radio’s “In Town Tonight”. In 1939 the club joined the wartime South-East Combination league, alongside other prominent London clubs, and found that geography was in their favour.  With many of their players in reserved occupations, working at Woolwich Arsenal or Callenders, Deres lost fewer players to the Forces than clubs in leafier parts and became one of the top clubs in Kent.  In 1941-42 they won a league and cup double, became the first amateur club in 30 years to win the Kent Senior Cup, scored 253 goals in 44 games and had a 64-game unbeaten home run ended only by an Army side fielding four full internationals. After the war Deres were founder members of the Corinthian League, remaining there until 1963 before joining the Athenian League, where they stayed until 1978.  Its most successful manager during this period, when they won the Kent Amateur Cup four times in five years, was Roy Dwight, a Belvedere boy who had won the FA Cup with Nottingham Forest in 1959 and whose cousin Reg was about to become better known as Elton John.  They reached the Athenian premier division in 1971, and won the League Cup in 1974, but chose to return to the Kent League in 1978 for economic reasons.  A local junior club called Welling United took their place in the Athenian League, which was the point at which the clubs swapped places in the local football hierarchy. In 1982 Deres were Kent League champions, their only peacetime league title so far, and entered the Southern League.  Life was hard for Deres in the Southern League, with just six top-half finishes in 232 seasons and a best placing of 7th in 1992-93.  Then on 1 September 1997 arsonists destroyed the main stand at Park View.  The club was based in portakabins for two years before moving to Welling, the Park View ground being sold to B and Q. In 2005 the Deres were relegated for the first time in their history, back to the Kent League.  They were in promotion contention until the final day of 2005-06, but were out of the hunt in the following few seasons.  Current manager Micky Collins, formerly a player with Gillingham and Dartford, took over in May 2010 and guided the team to 5^th in 2011 and runners-up last year.

Remaining fixtures:

March   26         Lordswood (a)   Kent League Cup semi-final 2^nd leg (lead 3-0)

            30         Erith Town (a)

April       1        VCD ATHLETIC (H)

              6        SEVENOAKS TOWN (H)

              9        Corinthian (a)

            13         Whyteleafe (a)

            16         ERITH TOWN (H)

            20         BECKENHAM TOWN (H)

            22         TUNBRIDGE WELLS (H)

            27         Lordswood (a)

            30         GREENWICH BOROUGH (H)"

Thanks Brian - an interesting read to everyone, not just your local league fan. Do visit the club website here if you would like some more information.

On a further hospitality based thread, I read that Bexley Council are not going to charge a late night opening levy on licenced premises that open between midnight and 6am. The council are legally permitted to make a charge, which is supposed to go towards cleaning sick off the pavement and the like. Fortunately Bexley is not exactly Las Vegas, and I struggle to think of anywhere that would be open overnight. The only night clubs in the vicinity are out of the Borough in Dartford or Woolwich. I understand that the amount of revenue that would have been raised had a charge been made would have been so low that it would have hardly covered any administration charge.

You may recall that some time ago I wrote a brief account of an amusing incident that happened as I was waiting at a local bus stop; I was standing, looking down the road for a sign of an impending 99 bus, when a woman walked up to me and told me that aliens were controlling the weather. She made a couple of other rather strange remarks which I did my best not to respond to. Luckily I was saved by the arrival of the bus – the woman did not get on. Well, she has now achieved a fame of sorts, as she features in the most read and commented on story in the News Shopper last week. You can read about her claims that aliens are guiding the British economy back to prosperity, that they are also controlling the weather, and even giving Arsenal football manager Arsene Wenger advice on cup winning strategy. I get the impression that she may well have beamed down a few too many times. You can read the story here – and check out the comments too.

When Doctor Who returned in 2005 I absolutely loved the show; I thought that Russell T Davies was very much the best person to reboot the programme, and that Christoper Ecclestone was inspired casting as The Doctor. I thought the same about David Tennant and I also like Matt Smith. What I have not liked over the last couple of years have been the story lines and the scripts - for my taste the show became an ensemble piece, and more reminiscent of a sci fi soap opera. A lot of this I feel can fall at the feet of current show runner Stephen Moffatt - multi coloured "Fisher Price" Daleks, for example. Moffatt is an excellent script writer, as some of the best earlier episodes can attest, but he has treated the show with what I feel is a certain degree of contempt. I stopped watching two seasons ago, and I know that the viewing figures have dropped alarmingly, so I am obviously not alone in this respect.  I know that the show has had a recent minor reboot, and I am hoping it has regained its' charm and magic. I will give the forthcoming new series a fair chance. Here is a mini prequel for the new series. See what you think. Comments below, as always.

People who know me well long ago realised that the first place to look for me if I was not at work or at home would be in Erith Morrison’s. In fairness, I do visit the store pretty much every day, but I don’t do a “big shop” – I tend to just buy bits and pieces as I need them, which is convenient for me, as the supermarket is on the way from the station to Pewty Acres. In the past Morrison’s has been pretty staid and unimaginative in its’ range of food products, which seemed to reflect its’ roots in the frozen North. That started changing exactly a year ago this week, when they introduced the wider variety of vegetables, and their unique chilled water vapour tables. Recently they have really pushed the boat out with a wide range of both chilled and frozen cuisine from a number of diverse cultures. I currently have in my freezer the following:- Frozen, oven bakeable Seekh kebabs, a selection of Jamaican patties, African Jollof rice stuffed samosas, oven baked masala fries and some kosher chicken and beef sausages. In my store cupboards I have South Korean Ramen noodles, Japanese Miso paste and chilli sauce from the Bahamas. About the only cuisine I have been forced to avoid is the Polish range; the veggies are fine, but it seems that pretty much every meat product contains pig in one form or another, which is a real problem for me, as I am pork intolerant - eating any pork, especially pork fat makes me violently unwell - don't get between me and the toilet if I do eat something pig related by accident.  Still, the variety of stuff available is excellent, as is the new range of spices, pulses and raw ingredients. It is still no Waitrose of course, but it has the advantage of being on my doorstep.

The ending video this week is a previously undiscovered gem. It is a public information film made by the former Greater London Council (remember them? You are showing your age). It was made in 1974 and is called "Living in Thamesmead". The main characters in the thirty minute film are played by professional actors, but all of the smaller parts and the extras are real Thamesmead residents of the time. The place certainly looks a hell of a lot nicer than it does nowadays!