The suits.

If you dropped into Morrison's supermarket in Erith on Wednesday or Thursday last week, you would probably have seen something quite interesting. Thirty or so directors and senior managers from Morrison's headquarters in Bradford, West Yorkshire descended on the Erith store to meet with the local management team. Word from a couple of my inside sources is that Morrison's have been concentrating new developments and services in their Northern stores, and the ones in the South have been missing out. Morrison's started out, and for many years was a regional store chain only operating in the North of England. It would seem that mentality is still present in the board of Directors. A downturn in sales has been especially noted in the Southern stores, and they have finally realised that they have a country - wide operation that needs to be treated as such. The "suits" were on site at the Erith store on a fact finding mission. I understand that a partial refit and upgrade may well be on the cards in the not - too distant future.  More details will hopefully be soon to come. 

As regular Maggot Sandwich readers will be aware, I have been banging on about the forthcoming London Paramount Theme Park for the last couple of years. Until recently the local press have been noticeably quiet on the subject. This week the News Shopper finally featured the subject in a fairly lengthy article. The theme park will be the third largest in the World, covering an area in excess of 100 acres. Unlike the Disney theme parks, which concentrate on Disney only franchises, the Paramount park will feature franchises from outside the Paramount field, including but not limited to the BBC, Aardman Animations and the British Film Institute’s back catalogue.  Franchises including the likes of Mission Impossible, Sherlock, The Italian Job, Star Trek, Spooks, Dr Who, Wallace and Gromit, The Godfather, Shaun the Sheep and huge amount more. I understand that over seventy five percent of the rides will be indoors, as the operators know how unreliable British weather can be – this was a mistake made by Disney when they opened Disneyland Paris – they merely built a copy of their Florida theme park in mainland France, and most of the rides were in the open, which meant empty rides when it rained.  The Paramount park will have 1,500 seat theatre for ‘West End quality shows’, exhibition, conference and gig space, 5,000 hotel rooms, a cinema and nightclubs, restaurants and bars and a giant water park. As I have previously featured, the park will have a massive economic and social impact on the entire South East region.  The developers confidently expect that the park would attract around 10 million visitors in the first year and around 15 million a year by the fifth, when there’s more on offer. By way of comparison, Thorpe Park pulls in about 2.5million visitors a year.  Paramount will also be open 365 days a year. The park will also offer a lot of well-paying permanent jobs – several sets of figures have been bandied about over the last couple of years, but at least twenty thousand full time permanent roles will be created. It won’t just be people wearing furry animal suits either – the park will need electricians, cleaners, maintenance people, accountants and administrators. It will in essence be a new town in itself, and it is anticipated that many of the park workers will live in the forthcoming Ebbsfleet Garden City. Whilst the plans for the Paramount London theme park have not yet been signed off, my sources tell me that it is going to be a formality – the level of unemployment in Kent is above the national average in many areas, and a prime wealth and job creating enterprise of this nature will get the nod from the Government. Time will no doubt tell.

I had quite an unexpected response to my article about curry houses that I published last week; I must admit that I did not think the piece would provoke the level of interest that it has. Several regular readers were curious as to how I acquired my knowledge of Indian restaurants. Well that is actually very simple. For several years I was a reviewer for The Good Curry Guide, and regularly wrote articles for the (now discontinued) Curry Club magazine. You can see a reproduction of a couple of reviews above that I had published almost exactly twenty years ago – a fact that becomes clear when you see the price of the dishes I reviewed! £2.95 for Chicken Vindaloo is something you won’t see nowadays. I would anonymously visit curry houses and review them as a normal customer – the only restaurant that ever found out that I was a curry house critic was Sweet and Spicy in Brick Lane, where I was a regular. They saw my glowing review, photocopied and enlarged it, and posted it in their front window, next to their “Time Out” best cheap eats award. The owner Omar Bhutt, came over to my table one day and asked me outright if the review had been written by me. I could not lie, and I admitted it. From that day onwards, I always got free extras like a couple of samosas or a gratis cup of tea, which was very welcome, as my visits were at lunchtime. The restaurant was a victim to the bout of gentrification that hit Brick Lane a couple of years ago, and it is now a fried chicken outlet; a sad end to one of the earliest Indian restaurants in Brick Lane – it opened in 1969, and was the only place in London that served curry for breakfast – it was an East End legend. You can read more about the place by clicking here. The Curry Club magazine ceased publication some years ago, and I very rarely eat out nowadays, so my hobby of curry critic is now no more. One of the few times I will visit a curry house is after the annual visit to the Bexley Beer Festival in Old Bexley, which coincidentally is scheduled for next weekend:-

Readers should be worried about their personal information that is being stored and accessed by the National Health Service; a recent independent report states that healthcare providers, including the NHS are likely to still be using Windows XP – an operating system that has been unsupported since the middle of 2014. Researchers from security consultancy Duo found that healthcare devices were significantly more out of date and less secure than ones from finance, after comparing its healthcare customers' devices to its finance customers' equipment. Healthcare has a four times greater density of Windows XP computers compared to finance. Windows XP has been unsupported by Microsoft since 2014 and unsupported OSes do not receive any software patches or updates, making them an easy target for attackers. The risk is far from theoretical. For example, earlier this year Melbourne Health’s networks were infected with malware after an attack compromised the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s pathology department, which was running Windows XP. The Qbot malware linked to the infection is capable of stealing passwords and logging keystrokes. A significant minority (three per cent) of Duo’s installed base is stuck on Windows XP, which compares to one per cent of users across Duo’s entire client base. Across that customer base, finance has 50 per cent more instances of computers running on the Windows 10 operating system than healthcare. Twice as many healthcare endpoints have Flash installed and three times as many healthcare customers have Java installed on their devices, again putting them at greater risk of vulnerabilities and exploitation, as both Java and Flash are relatively easy to find security vulnerabilities in – and are often the first point a hacker will try and exploit. A separate study from IBM last week warned that crooks were increasingly targeting healthcare concerns rather than banks partly because systems were more weakly defended. Stolen healthcare info contains personal data that is readily marketed through underground forums because it offers the collateral to carry out identity fraud and other scams – a classic case of “low hanging fruit”. In a similar vein, the susceptibility of bank cash machines to malicious exploitation of ATMs in particular is due to the widespread use of outdated and insecure software, mistakes in network configuration, and a lack of physical security for critical components of ATMs. For many years, the biggest threat to the customers and owners of ATMs were skimmers – special devices attached to an ATM in order to steal PINs and data on bank card magnetic stripes. However, as malicious techniques have evolved, ATMs have been exposed to a greater range of dangers. In 2014, IT security specialist Kaspersky Lab researchers discovered Tyupkin – one of the first widely known examples of malware for ATMs – and in 2015, they uncovered the Carbanak gang, which among other things was capable of jackpotting (completely emptying of cash) ATMs through compromised banking infrastructures. Both examples of attack were possible due to the exploitation of several common weaknesses in ATM technology and in the infrastructure that supports them. In an effort to put together a more complete picture, Kaspersky Lab security penetration testing specialists looked at software and physical security weaknesses that leave cash machines open to looting. Malware attacks against ATMs are possible due to two main security shortcomings: 1) ATMs are essentially PCs running very old versions of operating systems, such as Windows XP. 2) In the vast majority of cases, the special software that allows the ATM's PC to interact with banking infrastructure and hardware units, processing cash and credit cards, is based on the XFS standard. This is a rather old and insecure technology specification, originally created in order to standardize ATM software so that it can work on any equipment, regardless of manufacturer. The XFS specification requires no authorisation for the commands it processes, meaning that any app installed or launched on the ATM can issue commands to any other ATM hardware unit, including the card reader and cash dispenser. That means if malware successfully infects an ATM, it inherits almost unlimited control capabilities. It can turn the PIN pad and card reader into a 'native' skimmer or just give away all the money stored in the ATM, upon a command from a hacker," the Kaspersky Lab research team warns. Physical security is, if anything, even weaker. The lack of physical security for the ATMs themselves makes criminal hacking possible without any recourse to malware needed. ATMs are often constructed and installed in a way that means a third party can easily gain access to the PC inside the cash machine, or to the network cable connecting the machine to the internet. By gaining even partial physical access to an ATM, criminals can potentially install a specially programmed microcomputer (a so-called black box), which will give attackers remote access to the ATM. Reconnecting the ATM to a rogue processing centre is also possible. Criminals are able to exploit insecurities in the network communication between the ATM and the banking infrastructure thanks in part to a lack of secondary controls, such as VPNs and authentication. The results of the security research show that even though vendors are now trying to develop ATMs with strong security features, many banks are still using old insecure models.  This makes them unprepared for criminals actively challenging the security of these devices. This is today's reality that causes banks and their customers huge financial losses. It would seem that cyber-criminals are not just interested in cyber-attacks against internet banking – they are increasingly turning their hands toward direct attacks. They see the value in exploiting ATM vulnerabilities because a direct attack against such devices significantly shortens their route to real money. You can be certain that any losses experienced by the banks will trickle down to customers in the form of higher interest rates and increased service charges, so it is most timely to find this to be of serious concern.

Since I covered the story of the huge fire at the Europa Industrial Estate in the early 1980’s, I have had some fascinating feedback from readers. Local Historian Ken Chamberlain sent me the aerial photograph that you can see above – click on it for a larger view. It shows the devastation left once the fire burned itself out. I am guessing that the photo may well have been commissioned on behalf of the loss adjusters working for the insurance company that insured the warehouses. The site is so large that an aerial photo would be the only way to really assess the extent of the damage. Nowadays it could be done far more quickly and cheaply by an aerial drone, but back in the day it would have had to be done by a light plane. Maggot Sandwich reader and retired firefighter Alan Magin was one of the team who tackled the blaze. He recalls:- "My recollection was that we made up the attendance from Greenwich, as we had the 100' turntable ladders. It was impossible trying to put it out, as the corrugated metal roof covered the combustible materials. I remember a plastics factory was also involved, melting its produce into the drains, so they needed replacing in the rebuild. What was handy though was the floating pontoon at the Erith Deep Water site. It was a case of relay pumping, from an appliance on the pontoon, as in effect we always had water! A senior officers decision no doubt, a good one if you ask me. Rather than use fresh water from the hydrants. I think the damping down operation lasted a week. It was interesting to hear you say the fire started in a paper warehouse with perhaps reeled paper? for newsprint maybe? If these reels got anywhere near damp they started to expand/unwind creating heat, hence the spontaneous combustion.  I attended a slightly larger fire at one of Mr Murdoch's warehouses in Grove St, Deptford, that one was started deliberately. I think he might have upset a few people!  Incidentally, I was shot up again on our 100' turntable ladder, (I must have been a glutton for punishment) only to be told by the operator to come down immediately. After my descent (walking down) the operator in his excitement had forgotten to put out the manual jacks to stabilise the appliance!!! I still think what might have happened if he had tried to manoeuvre the ladder? I might not have been here writing to you!"

It is that time of year again; the Friends of Riverside Gardens Erith (FORGE) are working in partnership with the environmental charity Thames 21 and volunteer groups including the Army Cadets to carry out their annual river cleanup on Sunday the 8th May. Volunteers are invited to join the work - protective clothing will be provided, and you get a free lunch. I will be going along to provide encouragement and to take some photos for future publication. Do come along to help clear the shopping trollies and other detritus out of the river.

At work, I, like many unfortunate people get quite a large number of unsolicited sales calls. The company switchboard are pretty good at filtering them out, but nevertheless a fair number do manage to get through. My normal technique is just to slam the phone down immediately. I was looking around online for a possible better solution when I came across this:- "I get 20 sales calls a day at least, as our organization is relatively large. All of them are unsolicited, and they use shady tactics to make it past the receptionist. So yesterday, in the middle of a team meeting, an emergency call came through the IT support hotline, interrupting our meeting. One of our help desk guys picks up and it's a sales guy claiming that he had just been chatting with me, the IT Director, and wanted to be transferred through so he could "finish the conversation." This was obviously untrue, as I had just arrived in the office, and I don't take sales calls. The help desk guy asked if I wanted him passed through to my voicemail, and I said: "I'd prefer that you transfer them straight to hell instead. In fact, we should have a special queue called Hell, playing the most obnoxious music over and over again." The guys start joking: "It could be playing Barney." "It could be playing 'The Song that Never Ends'." "It could be playing a detuned or desynchronized version of a Smash Mouth song." Our seasoned help desk veteran says: "I have just the thing!" and plays the most awful song I've heard in my life. Everything in the department stops, and then everyone busts out laughing. We are actually a well-oiled IT team – we've worked together for years. My background is in film soundtracks and audio production, and my senior network admin's is in broadcast radio audio engineering. We edited and snipped the audio, pitched shifted a few things, and generally set out to make the worst recording ever. Once finished, we uploaded it to the phone server and created the queue to repeat eternally. We assigned it extension number 666. Once in the queue, any button you press once in this queue restarts the recording. Our new department policy is: when sales people call they are to be transferred straight to hell". You can hear the wait music and message from hell by clicking here. Make sure you have your headphone / speaker volume turned down! You have been warned. 

You may in the past recall me bemoaning the audio quality of DAB radio broadcasts in the UK - due mainly to the fact that they DAB transmission standard employed in the UK is for the most part archaic. A DAB audio signal is encoded in MP2 (the ancestor to today’s MP3 format). The newer and more efficient DAB+ audio signal is encoded in aacPlus (strictly, aacPlus HE v2). Your iPod / iPhone uses AAC as standard; aacPlus uses a number of clever techniques to make it more efficient, so audio sounds better at lower bitrates. Roughly, 48kbps DAB+ sounds the same as a 128kbps DAB signal. A DAB+ audio signal also includes slightly better error correction, which might mean a reduction in 'bubbling mud' distortion when the signal drops, or other problems in poor reception areas. Apart from that, there are no differences. DAB+ and DAB use the same transmitters, same multiplexing equipment, and so on, and DAB and DAB+ signals can happily live on the same DAB multiplex. A DAB+ radio will also happily decode DAB signals as well (although a DAB radio won’t decode DAB+). Many DAB radios on sale today will cope with DAB+ automatically, or will prompt you with instructions on how to upgrade (which could be as easy as typing a code in, or downloading some new firmware). Any radio with a Digital Radio tickmark will cope with DAB+. DAB+ is now the standard way to launch new DAB services, and is in use in, among other places, Australia, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, and many more. The main benefit is that you can get many more channels onto a typical DAB multiplex. The UK has no plans to move from DAB to DAB+. While DAB+ services are now appearing in the UK, there are no plans to switch the majority of radio broadcasting over to DAB+: not yet, anyway. There have been a lot of DAB sets sold in the UK. DAB sets are in over half of all households here, and generally we don’t replace radios as fast as any other entertainment equipment (like a TV, a set-top box, or a mobile phone). Given this, it is unlikely that the UK will be switching to DAB+ any time soon, and there are no plans to make that change. DAB+ doesn’t automatically mean better audio in comparison to DAB Some of the main proponents of DAB+ in this country want it because they think it’ll result in better-sounding audio. It probably will not; The main benefits to radio listeners from DAB+ will be additional choice, not enhanced sound quality. (That said, DAB+ normally means stereo is available at bitrates formerly only used for mono, so there is that.) Because the UK was an early adopter of DAB, we have been stuck with what is now a mostly out of date transmission infrastructure. No wonder take - up of DAB is far below the expectations of OFCOM. 

As you may have read in the London Evening Standard and elsewhere, there are plans to open a new terminal for cruise liners at Enderby's Wharf in Greenwich. Up to fifty passenger liners will sail past Erith on their way up the River Thames to Greenwich every year once the new terminal is opened. It will be a real treat for the ship spotters that you see on Erith Pier from time to time. What it will not be a treat for is the residents of the area surrounding Enderby Wharf. The cruise liners will need to run their auxiliary generators to generate power whilst docked, as the development plans don't include clean shoreside mains power in their scope. This week A powerful committee of MPs stepped into a row over plans to let cruise ships spew diesel fumes day and night in the heart of London. The cross-party group of MPs ruled: “Planning permissions for new shipping facilities must require appropriate mitigation measures from developers. This should include, where practicable, a requirement to provide infrastructure to supply electricity to ships at berth.” Whether this will in any way influence the developers is currently uncertain. Providing clean, shoreside power would be an expensive option, but to my mind is the only way forward. Air pollution on the Greenwich peninsula is already running at unacceptable levels, and cruise liners running on auxiliary generators would only make things far worse.  You can watch a BBC London news report on the situation below. Feel free to leave a comment, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Crayford Island.

The posters above are as they say, for the forthcoming "Our Erith" art exhibition, being hosted by the Friends of Christ Church, Erith. You can read more about the event, and how you can take part by visiting the "Our Erith" page of the Christ Church website here.

One of the perks of being a moderately well known local blogger is that I do tend to get sent all sorts of press releases and publicity documents before they are made available to the general public. One announcement reached me too late for last week's Maggot Sandwich update. Bexley Council have made a two decisions which will do nothing to increase their popularity with residents. Firstly they have cut the funding to Bexley Youth Services to the tune of a total of £358,000 by the end of March this year, effectively closing down much, if not all of the service. Up to twenty seven Youth Service jobs are at risk. The council claims that the restructure, which will target Bexley’s most vulnerable children - including those with special needs and those caught up in crime - is the right way forward. In the build-up to the announced cuts, an online petition against changing the structure of youth services gained more than two thousand signatures - this seems to have been in vain, as Bexley Council are steam - rollering through the cuts anyway. So much for their motto:- "Listening To You, Working for You".

The News Shopper are reporting the results of an extremely unscientific piece of data analysis that nevertheless sparks some degree of interest:- Bexley has been revealed as the happiest borough to live in London, according to tweets.  Data analysis company Tekja produced a new Twitter study which gave an insight into the capital’s happiest to saddest boroughs.  The data was collected through 50,000 tweets each day and Bexley came out on top – with Lewisham third bottom and Sutton last. The point of a tweet was determined by examining each word against a list of 2,500 English words rated for happiness from -5 (negative) to +5 (positive).  All of the results are being displayed at Somerset House’s Big Bang Data exhibition which runs until February 28. All very interesting, conversation provoking stuff, but it does not really stand up to any kind of rigorous analysis.

Word reaches me that a new shop will shortly be opening in the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. Subway are opening an outlet in the vacant unit opposite the clothing store Blue Inc. I for one welcome the move; of all the “fast food” outlets, Subway offer by far the healthiest food options – and I find their offerings to be very tasty. They certainly will be a credible alternative to the salt, sugar and fat laden stuff sold by KFC and McDonald’s. Subway are far from perfect, but better than many of their competitors. I also understand that Mambocino still intend on taking the large corner unit opposite Argos (shown in the photo above - click on it for a larger view); not only does the very successful coffee shop / informal restaurant need the extra space to expand, but the new unit at the front of the shopping centre has a door that would allow customers to access the restaurant after the main shopping centre gates are closed and locked at 6pm every evening. This is the one issue that has prevented the evening opening of any business in the shopping centre. I understand that Mambocino wish to retain their current daytime premises within the centre, and to expand with an evening opening “sit down” restaurant opposite Argos. I feel that this is a very good idea; at present the only place where one can sit down to a knife and fork meal after 6pm is the café in Morrison’s – hardly somewhere you would want to book! I think Mambocino could well be on to a winner. My source informs me that the reason the whole development has taken such a long time is that new power cabling and a full kitchen ventilation system are having to be installed in both the prospective Mambocino corner unit and the smaller unit which will house the Subway franchise. Things are looking up when it comes to eating choice in the town.

Although, as many readers know, I personally detest mobile phones, I am acutely aware that many people run their lives around such devices. Tus I do keep an eye on developments in mobile phone technology. Windows Phone started off life as a promising alternative to Android and iOS five years ago. Microsoft positioned its range of Windows Phone 7 handsets as the true third mobile ecosystem, but it is time to admit it has failed. If a lack of devices from phone makers and even Microsoft itself wasn't enough evidence, the final nail in the coffin hit today. Microsoft only sold 4.5 million Lumia devices in the recent quarter, compared to ten point five million at the same time last year. That's a massive fifty seven percent drop. Even a fifty seven percent increase wouldn't be enough to save Windows Phone right now. Microsoft and Nokia have sold a total of 110 million Windows Phones compared to four point five billion iOS and Android phones in the same period. With Lumia sales on the decline and Microsoft's plan to not produce a large amount of handsets, it's clear we're witnessing the end of Windows Phone. Rumours suggest Microsoft is developing a Surface Phone, but it has to make it to the market first. Windows Phone has long been in decline and its app situation is only getting worse. With a lack of hardware, lack of sales, and less than two percent market share, it is time to call it: Windows Phone is dead. Real Windows on phones might become a thing with Continuum eventually, but Windows Phone as we know it is done. It won't stop Microsoft producing a few handsets every year as a vanity project, but for everyone else it is most certainly the end of the line. I doubt that many people will even notice, to be honest. 

I reported some time ago about the plans that Aldi had to challenge the domination of Sainsbury's in Crayford; news has now been released that the construction of the new Aldi store is now beginning. The new 18,200 sqft supermarket will be the prime focus of the development in Roman Way - which will sit adjacent to the Tower Retail Park, and just over the road from Sainsbury's. You can explore the area in the embedded Google Street View above. There will be 157 parking spaces on the site, and other smaller retail buildings. Planning permission for the store was passed last year, and Aldi hope to open in November. The new store is going to be located on the quaintly named Crayford Island, almost directly opposite the huge Sainsbury's, which I understand was the largest one in the country when it opened; I am unsure if it still holds that title nowadays though. 

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I featured a story about a campaign to raise a petition to the government to remove the rail franchise from Southeastern. It all went quiet for a while, but finally a government response to the petition has now been published.  “The industry is working hard to improve services and we are reforming passenger compensation. We are determined to provide the service passengers expect across the country. We know that some passengers are very frustrated about the performance and the service they receive. We expect Southeastern to continue to work with Network Rail in order to minimise disruption and ensure services improve in 2016. The Department for Transport is closely monitoring the performance of the rail network across London and the South East and operators must inform customers properly when things go wrong. As the Chancellor stated in his Autumn Statement, we are committed to reducing the time threshold for which passengers can claim from 30 minutes to 15 minutes, and the Department is gearing up to reform the compensation arrangements as set out in that commitment.

As part of our robust franchising programme, the current operator of Southeastern is delivering millions of pounds of investment to improve journeys, which includes:

•       New high speed and classic services delivering more than 95,000 extra seats, including 1,000 extra seats on Southeastern’s High Speed services every day

•       Refreshing 112 trains and updating toilets on a further 190 trains as well as improving accessibility by investing over £10 million in the train fleet over the franchise

•       An obligation to improve stations by investing £4.8 million by 31 October 2016 and from January 2015 opening Cannon Street 21 hours a day with additional staff to assist passengers

•       Extra staff will be available at stations as Southeastern have committed to ensuring that its gatelines are staffed for 90% in London and 70% of opening hours.

•       The new £26m Rochester Station completion was opened on 13 December 2015 and forms part of the East Kent Re-signalling programme, an investment of £145m.

•       Strood Station - a £2.6 million project to demolish the current 1960’s style station and replace it with a modern building – Work is due to start in Spring 2016 and to be completed by 2017.

•       A programme to deep clean all Southeastern stations and a programme of station improvement works across the franchise.

Alongside this, our record investment in the railways, and the transformative work which the industry is doing on this part of the network, is essential in building a world-class railway, providing more services and better journeys. We understand that passengers are concerned about performance and the service they receive, however we know that Southeastern are working together with Network Rail in order to minimise disruption and to recover services faster where infrastructure failures occur. We would like this work to continue in order that service improvements continue. Southeastern have been working on their fleet of trains to improve capacity in the Metro area, and the Department for Transport is working with Southeastern to look at whether additional capacity can be introduced in the near term and improve the service for passengers. This Government has long recognised the importance of improving the performance of train operators, and through Network Rail we committed to seeing £38 billion invested in the rail network, and the hugely ambitious infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and HS2, as well the transformation of London Bridge. We closely monitor the performance of both the operators and Network Rail, and incentivise their performance through the Franchise Agreements and Track Access Agreements. Whilst we understand the frustration felt by all constituents affected by any delay, we would like to assure you that the Department for Transport is determined to see further improvements and provide the service that passengers expect". In a very long – winded and bureaucratic way the Department of Transport are in essence telling commuters to get stuffed. This is precisely what I was expecting; the only real light at the end of the tunnel is the news that there is a strong likelihood that the whole Southeastern franchise may be taken over by Transport for London, who have a pretty good track record of turning around failing rail businesses. Time will tell.

In the past there have been rumours (which I have reported) about the forthcoming Crossrail project being extended past its currently planned terminus at Abbey Wood, and extended down to the proposed Paramount London Theme Park. Until now there has been little concrete evidence that anything other than a bit of talk had been going on. This has now changed. The News Shopper have reported that MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford, David Evennett attended a meeting with other local MP’s at number eleven Downing Street last week. The event was to lobby the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne to agree to extend Crossrail down to Ebbsfleet. Evennett said “We have so much potential along the riverside but transport services must be improved and extended. Local rail services are poor and Southeastern has failed to cope with the growth in passenger numbers. The extension of Crossrail could give a huge boost to economic development in our area, together with new housing and business opportunities”. The group were lobbying for extra regeneration in the east of London and along the River Thames with constituencies in south east London, Kent and Essex represented at the meeting. Thus far, no decision has yet been made as to whether an extension will be allowed. Please feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The Maggot Sandwich has a guest contributor this week; Gary Drew is a well - known radio presenter who broadcasts a weekly show on Laser Hot Hits. Gary is a renowned authority on 1980 's Jazz Funk and Soul music, and he has a very wide background in radio broadcasting. He writes a piece on his take on DAB Radio, following the article recently submitted by Peter Moore, station manager of Radio Caroline. Gary writes:- "It is well known in free radio circles that I am a supporter of DAB and I have been on board with this method of broadcasting since 2005. However despite much banter and teasing from fellow free radio colleagues on laser and friends having a polite dig at me for this I began to take DAB seriously around late 2012. I am aware that early DAB began in the mid 90's with stations being duplicated on DAB in parallel with the analogue versions. In those early days it is true that if you was able to get a good signal (mostly from the national BBC stations) you were able to get decent quality 198 kbps or 256 kbps and mostly stereo or something called joint stereo. I didn't bother purchasing my 1st DAB set until 2003 but I sent it back within just 3 weeks out of disappointment as the signals were weak on my local services and there was lots of burbling and cut outs most of the time. By 2005 the network had improved but a consequence of this was dropping bit rates of many stations and switching to mono in some cases not just to fit more stations onto the multiplexes but also to improve signal quality for those who had purchased earlier radio sets. Back then DAB radios were expensive and I think I paid over £150 in 2005 for my trusty Sony midi system with built in DAB which still works very well to this day. As I knew the framework for DAB was being upgraded albeit slowly, I decided to stick with it and I wasn't bothered about mono or low bit rates as long as I could hear the station I wanted to listen to. The same applies today with me in that the bit rate and mono signals of some stations doesn't really concern me as long as it's out there and I can get it. Your average Joe public would think in much the same way even now.  A serious issue would be if the stations could not be heard or cut out much more often like the old world space radio service which I believe suffered that fate even though it relied on satellites to get a signal. However to be fair, although I never had world space radio myself I did hear reports that when it did work it was okay. I think it was a victim of early technology launching to the masses too early without being developed enough. A proven record of a success story in satellite radio would be Sirius XM in the USA. Anyway back to DAB and over the years many stations that were DAB only (the selling point) with no analogue alternative changed ownership or closed down or were taken over thus not lasting very long. Some of this was to do with investment and running costs or restricted listenership as DAB was still in its infancy in my opinion until at least 2010. By then it seemed that more stations were coming on board and lasting longer, reception was improving and stations became settled in that they would not be moved around on the multiplex as much forcing a retune. However that said I have had to perform 3 re-tunes since October 2015 as the operators of DAB can be a bit ruthless at times by moving a station to a different multiplex sometimes without warning meaning that the station is still on the air but your radio won't find it unless you do a rescan where it has moved frequency within the DAB bandwidth.  In 2009 I bought a Pure Evoke flow wi-fi radio for the internet mainly but also for DAB. This newer radio worked better than the Sony on DAB as the firmware had improved and it is upgradable over the airwaves. I wanted to get all the London stations I could get on FM many years ago but I am out of range where I am so DAB was the answer and having more than one DAB radio was better so in 2011 I bought a Pure One Mi for the kitchen. Now DAB was taking off with more stations being added every few months but it wasn't until around 2012 when I bought a Pure One Classic when the real fun began. It was now possible to record, pause and rewind live radio. The ultimate selling point for DAB was here and I have had many years of success with this radio by setting the timer when I'm away and being able to playback and listen again to my favourite shows. In December last year just a few months ago I learned that DAB+ upgrades were now available for some Pure radios and DAB+ sets were now on sale and affordable in the UK. DAB+ a better version of DAB had already been adopted in most of Europe and stations were (and are) still closing there to go onto the DAB+ platform. Many Medium Wave stations closed on New Years Eve in France and Germany and other countries are following soon. In the UK we are already starting to see medium wave closures  with BBC Radio Bristol due to close on February 18th. There are unconfirmed reports that BBC Radio 5 Live is to go digital only soon as well. I was lucky and managed to get a free upgrade sent to me from Pure for my Pure One Classic mark 2 and Pure Evoke Flow mark 1 but now some people are paying £10 for DAB+ upgrades and these can now be done over the air rather than by plugging the radio into a laptop with a USB cable like I had to do. There is an upgrade for the Pure One Mi but you have to pay and not all radio's will be able to update. Why pay £10 to upgrade? A very good reason is that the new national multiplex is already testing on 11A and some of the stations will be broadcasting in DAB+. A DAB+ test is already going out for engineers and this is moving forward at a pace. I am still a big fan of analogue radio and as a free radio broadcaster and DX'er myself - I get a lot of joy from listening to pirate, clandestine and free radio but in recent years I have found myself not wanting to put up with poor signals on shortwave so I use the Twente SDR in the Netherlands and likewise the noise floor on medium wave is intolerable at times so I would rather find the DAB or online equivalent of a station. FM is okay but limited by local range and national stations require retuning. In most cases RDS or EON on analogue FM will take care of the retuning process especially while driving. Internet and wi fi radio and phone apps are very good but there is some waiting to connect or sometimes there is buffering so DAB is better for me as it's almost as instant as analogue radio, you can get almost everything you get on analogue, you can pause, record and rewind, you can listen to stations out of area in the crystal clear like clear DX and DAB+ is already here and improving and it will not be going away. Small scale DAB multiplexes have started and these are for stations who cannot afford to go onto the DAB platform on their own so they can be privately funded or run as a group of stations. There are 10 near me on one SS multiplex and stations like Radio Caroline and Solar Radio are already on some of the small scale multiplexes but not in all parts of the UK (yet). I am also lucky in that I can get 6 local multiplexes with my nearest 13 miles away and my furthest 50 miles away which only comes in on good days. Sometimes the station ident comes up but with no audio. I would like to thank Hugh for the web space and close by saying - love it or hate it DAB is here to stay. The analogue noise floor will get louder as more people buy electronics and medium wave frequencies will be sold off. Bye for now". Thanks to Gary for that very informative piece; if you have a view on what he says, please leave a comment below, or Email me directly to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Last weekend Erith Model Railway Society held their annual exhibition. One of south east England’s largest shows, it moved to a bigger venue this year at the Longfield Academy, having outgrown previous venues. Over two thousand visitors turned up to look at the model railway layouts. The exhibition encompassed over thirty quality layouts and sale of a range of products including transport books, DVD's and model building kits. You can visit the Erith Model Railway Society website here. The video below shows several layouts taken at last year's exhibition - do give it a watch.

The "Wear it Pink" Campaign.

This weekend marks the first anniversary of the opening of Bexley Brewery, which is based in Unit 18 of the Manford Industrial Estate, at the Slade Green end of Manor Road, right at the foot of the Erith Wind Turbine. Brewers Cliff and Jane Murphy are helped by various friends and family, and in their first year of operation have already won multiple awards for their high quality real ales. They have also won the 2015 award for Best New Business from Bexley Council. The virtual birthday card shown above (click on it for a larger version) was created by local musician / artist and man about town The rEV. The Bexley Brewery is the first brewery to operate in the borough since Reffells Brewery ceased independent trading in July 1956, after being sold to what eventually became Courage. Bexley Brewery held an open day and tasting bar yesterday, to celebrate their official first birthday. Unfortunately I was unable to attend, as I had to go to work (I work in I.T and quite regularly have to work during evenings and weekends - system upgrades and maintenance cannot often be done during office hours). Below shows a wide angle photo of the birthday event; I just wish I could have been there to share the experience.

I have been writing about Erith and the surrounding areas for over nine years now. One former local resident who looms large in the public perception of the town is the late comedian Linda Smith. Smith was born in Erith  in 1958 and was educated at Erith College of Technology (now Bexley College) and at the University of Sheffield where she graduated in English and Drama. She joined a professional theatre company before turning to comedy. In 1987, she won the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year, then known as the New London Comic Award, and performed on the Edinburgh Fringe before breaking into radio comedy. Many of her early stand-up appearances were benefit concerts staged in solidarity with the British miners during the Miners' Strike in the 1980s. She was a lifelong socialist. Her first appearances on national radio were on Radio 5's The Treatment in 1997. She was subsequently a regular panellist on The News Quiz and Just a Minute and appeared frequently on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (from June 2001 onwards), Have I Got News for You, Mock the Week, Countdown and QI. She wrote and starred in her own Radio 4 sitcom, Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting. After appearing on Radio 4's Devout Sceptics to discuss her beliefs she was asked by the British Humanist Association (BHA) to become president of the society – a role that she occupied with commitment from 2004 until her death. In 2002, she was voted 'Wittiest Living Person' by listeners to BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth. On 17 November 2003, Smith appeared on the BBC television show Room 101, where she successfully managed to put in "adults who read Harry Potter books", Tim Henman, "Back to School signs that appear in shops" and "posh people". However, she failed to put in Bow ties after host Paul Merton pointed out that Stan Laurel regularly wore a bow tie. On 27 February 2006, Smith died as a consequence of ovarian cancer at the age of 48. She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer three and a half years earlier but, not wanting to be thought of as a patient or a victim, she did not want people to know. Before she died she chose that her funeral be humanist, and her memorial at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, on 10 March, was dedicated to the BHA. Her life and work were honoured at the British Academy Television Awards in 2006. The first episode of Dawn French's Girls Who Do: Comedy was dedicated to the memory of Linda Smith. Two tribute gigs were held in her memory. The first took place on 14 May 2006 at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, In Praise of an English Radical, the second on 4 June 2006 at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London entitled Tippy Top: An Evening of Linda Smith's Favourite Things. In August 2006, Andy Hamilton presented a BBC Radio 4 tribute entitled Linda Smith: A Modern Radio Star. An anthology on CD, entitled I Think the Nurses Are Stealing My Clothes: The Very Best of Linda Smith, was released in November 2006 as was a book with the same name. A tribute show of the same name was aired on BBC Radio 4 on 10 November 2006. Linda Smith was an amazing entertainer and observer of the human condition; unfortunately her most famous one - liner has come to haunt the local area, and to (in my mind, anyway) give an unfair impression. She said "Erith isn't twinned with anywhere, but it does have a mutual suicide pact with Dagenham". More on Linda Smith and her impact on the local area next week.

The aerial photo above was taken back in 1938; it shows what Erith looked like just prior to World War 2. The only readily recognisable building that is still in existence today is Erith Town Hall, in the bottom left of the photograph, which apart from having a third storey fitted to the building in the 1990's, looks remarkably unchanged. The building to the right of the Town Hall is the original Erith Fire Station, which was destroyed on the night of 21st/22nd January 1944. Local historian Ken Chamberlain wrote about it, saying: "the Bexley Road station suffered a direct hit by a delayed action bomb. Several years ago I spoke to a survivor of the incident he recounted how they were in the engine room when they heard a loud crash and debris started falling about them. They ran out to see where the bomb had fallen. This action undoubtedly saved their lives as at that moment the bomb exploded. He claimed not to have heard a bang, but was stone deaf for six weeks afterwards. He did however suffer injuries. He was taken to Erith Hospital, treated and was back on duty in two hours. There were no fatalities. The 1907 building was demolished and a temporary structure was put in its place. The wartime control room remains as does a part of the entrance doorway. The temporary station remained until 12th July 1961 when it was replaced by the station that is now located in Erith Road, Belvedere".

When I was at school my tastes in music were very rigidly defined; I liked certain bands and detested pretty much everything else. If it had been on “Top of the Pops” I would automatically detest it without consideration; I liked album rock from bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen and early Genesis and to hell with anything else. To be fair, when you were a kid in the 80’s, music was very compartmented and tribal – the heavy metal fans hated the new romantics, the indie fans hated pop fans, and everybody hated the Goths. Nowadays my musical tastes are far more diverse; I listen to pretty much every genre of music, with one notable exception. I, like many others, utterly detest Country and Western music. I find it maudlin, sentimental, clichéd and treacly. Its followers appear to consist mainly of the under educated and over fed. Anyway, I have found myself on the horns of a dilemma with the news that Erith based singer / songwriter Wayne Jacobs whose music has been played on BBC Radio Kent and Essex, was delighted to be awarded the ukcountryradio.com’s Listeners song Club award with his 9/11 tribute song, "May We Never Forget". This is now the fourth year in a row that Wayne Jacobs has won this award. I really don’t want to promote Country and Western music – on the grounds that if we ignore it for long enough, it might go away, but at the same time, with my personal libertarian philosophy of “if it works for you” I feel that I should offer Wayne my full support – after all, he’s out, making a new career in show business – and Erith’s only other showbiz personality of note was the late comedienne Linda Smith, as previously mentioned. Who says I don't plan these things?

The rules over smoking in public are just about to get a whole lot more complex. From October 1st, 2015, it will be illegal for retailers to sell e-cigarettes or e-liquids to someone under 18, for adults to buy (or attempt to buy) tobacco or e-cigarettes for someone under 18 and to smoke in a car or other vehicle when someone under the age of 18 is present. All private vehicles (including hire cars) must be smoke free if they are enclosed, there is more than one person present and one of them is under 18. It will be an offence for a person of any age to smoke in a car (or other private vehicle) with anyone under 18 present. And for a driver - including those aged 17 and people with a provisional licence -not to stop someone smoking in these circumstances.The fixed penalty notice fine for both offences is £50 and both the driver and the smoker could be fined, whatever their age. Somebody who commits both offences could get two fines. All this sounds fine and laudable, but if it is enforced in a similar way to the rules on the use of mobile phones when driving, it will be yet another toothless law.

Citizen Smith, the 1977 to 1980 sitcom starring Robert Lindsay, is the subject of revival rumours - several national newspapers have been printing stories that the programme is shortly to be remade with many members of the original cast. The classic BBC comedy followed the adventures of 'Wolfie' Smith, a young Marxist "urban guerrilla" living in Tooting, south London. With his slogan "Power to the People", Wolfie attempted to emulate his hero Che Guevara through his own Tooting Popular Front - with little success due to disorganisation, laziness, and general fecklessness. Citizen Smith was written by John Sullivan, the writer of Only Fools And Horses, who died in 2011.Jim Sullivan, one of John's sons who wrote for Only Fools And Horses sequel The Green Green Grass with his father, appears to have put an end to the proposals. Jim said: "The stories are news to us - and we own the rights to the series. It's not the first time that people have suggested bringing the series back but that is not something we would want to do. Every episode of Citizen Smith was written by Dad - all the lines, ideas and plots were his. As we have said about Only Fools And Horses, the show only ever had one writer and it is going to stay that way."

You may have heard a number of adverts on various commercial radio stations promoting digital radio over the last few weeks. The current version is read by TV presenter Suzie Perry.  The fact is that DAB digital radio - in the UK at least - has been a bit of a disaster. There are some great stations broadcasting on DAB (one of my personal favourites is the excellent Radio 4 Extra). There are some pretty horrible problems with the way that digital radio has been deployed in this country however; the real challenge isn't coverage, even if that does need improving. That is a well understood issue and the solution is obvious enough. The main problem is bandwidth. And it's an issue that came up once again today because Norway has recently announced plans to kill FM broadcasting and switch everything to digital by 2017. Did you know, for instance, that many DAB radio stations in the UK are broadcast at just 64 kbps mono using the venerable MP2 codec?  That really is mono not stereo. That really is MP2 and not MP3. To put that into context, MP2 is a less efficient codec than MP3, so that 64 kbps figure is more like equivalent to 48 kbps in MP3. Opinions vary on what makes for decent music quality in the MP3 codec. That's especially true if the context is in-car radio where background noise is prevalent. the tolerable minimum for most people who remotely care about sound quality tends to be in the 128 to 192 kbps range for the MP3 codec. In other words, far, far more than many current DAB stations. Actual bit rates will vary depending on where you are in the country. But stations that broadcast at 64kbps - at least from some transmitters - include Absolute Radio 80s, Amazing Radio, BBC Radio 5 Live, Jazz FM, Rainbow Radio and many more. All the rest broadcast at 80 kbps to 128 kbps with a single, solitary exception, namely BBC Radio 3 which is 160 kbps to 190 kbps. Those are all MP2 bit rates. Even Radio 3 is scraping the barrel for tolerable sound quality. The problem is bandwidth. The best way to think about DAB is as a single data stream carrying all available stations. And the single data stream has a fixed data rate. For the sake of argument, imagine that data rate in 1Mbps. All your radio stations have to fit inside that 1Mbps budget. With, say, four stations, you have a healthy 256 kbps per channel. Every time you add a station, something somewhere has to give. Immediately, you realise DAB is fundamentally at conflict with itself. It is supposed to offer better quality and more stations, but the more it does the latter, the less it can deliver the former. There is limited bandwidth available - the more stations, the lower the audio quality becomes. Early DAB adopters may even remember how good the technology was at launch. Some stations were broadcast at 256 kbps back when it was essentially a test technology for the BBC. But as stations were added, bit rates fell off and quality worsened. Essentially the UK has paid the price in being one of the first countries in the world to roll out digital radio. The DAB technology is now very old and no longer up to the job - and it shows. As for what is to be done, part of the answer is simple. Switch the UK to the newer and far more bandwidth efficient DAB+. That is the follow up to DAB that supports the AAC codec which is more efficient even than MP3. Most recent DAB radios either already support DAB+ or can with a firmware upgrade. It will be somewhat painful for owners of older DAB radios that are not capable of receiving DAB+. The simple fact is the UK jumped too fast into DAB. The fundamental idea is sound, it is just that the current implementation is not now fit for purpose. Other broadcast technologies such as internet streaming via 3G or 4G do not have the country - wide coverage to rival DAB+ (yet), but it may well be that rolling out DAB+ may be too little, too late. What do you think? Drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com with your thoughts.

MP for Erith and Thamesmead Teresa Pearce has been promoting the charity Breast Cancer Now, and their "Wear it Pink" campaign which is asking people to wear something pink on Friday the 23rd of October. Teresa is encouraging people in the constituency to get involved and raise money for research into the disease. She said: “Breast cancer affects so many people’s lives. Sadly, nearly 12,000 women a year still lose their lives to the disease. Breast Cancer Now wants to ensure that no-one dies from the disease by 2050. We need to make sure that they receive the funding to carry out the cutting-edge research necessary to make this goal a reality.” This is excellent stuff; I think however that there is a wasted opportunity here. Men can and do get breast cancer too - though the numbers are far smaller than women, but it is actually a condition that can affect both sexes - and very few people appear to realise this.  In men, breast cancer is very rare. There are between 350 and 400 men diagnosed each year in the UK, compared with around 50,000 cases of breast cancer in women. Because so many cases of breast cancer occur in women and it is very rare in men, a lot of the information is directed specifically towards women, but much of the information that men with breast cancer need is the same.  The symptoms, diagnosis and treatment are all very similar to women with breast cancer. The risks and causes do vary slightly. There are some areas where men need different information to women, such as types of breast surgery. The most common symptom for men with breast cancer is a lump in the breast area. This is nearly always painless. Other symptoms can include:-

Oozing from the nipple (a discharge) that may be blood stained

Swelling of the breast

A sore (ulcer) in the skin of the breast

A nipple that is pulled into the breast (called nipple retraction)

Lumps under the arm

If you have any of these symptoms it is important to go to your GP straight away. Finding a cancer early gives the best chance of successful treatment. Because breast cancer is relatively rare in men, getting an accurate diagnosis as early as possible is imperative. The outlook for breast cancer is not as good in men as in women. This is because there is a reduced awareness of the condition and it may take longer to diagnose. The survival rates for breast cancer in men largely depend on how far the cancer has spread before it is diagnosed. Breast cancer diagnosed at an early stage can often be treated successfully, but effective treatment is more difficult if the cancer has spread beyond the breast tissue. Unfortunately, many cases are diagnosed after the cancer has already started to spread. It may be rare in men, but it can and does occur, and more men need to be aware of this.

A story that utterly astounded me has been reported on ITV News this week; Ebbsfleet Academy’s principal Alison Colwell. when interviewed for the news programme said that "mobile phones are the nightmare of our time and should be banned in classrooms". Mrs Colwell told ITV News the school’s ban, and the threat of confiscating a phone for a month or half a term, has been a successful deterrent and has stopped mobiles going off in class. The school is now a phone-free zone, with all mobiles switched off and in the bottom of pupils' bags – meaning teachers hardly ever have to make the dreaded confiscations. "The success of the ban is it’s a very rare occasion we have to confiscate a phone. It’s a very clear rule that we enforce. The students know that if their phone is seen, if their phone goes off, they will lose it. So they are cautious and they are wise. I can’t see the place for phones in the classroom - to me they are a distraction." Mrs Colwell said she is teaching the kids "not to be phone dependent, and to communicate better with their peers". What astonished me was that this story made both the national and local news. Surely all schools ban the use of mobile phones during teaching time? If so why not? Why have school pupils ever been allowed to use a mobile phone during school time?

Back in May I wrote about how Bexley Council were debating converting the former Homeleigh Care Home into temporary accommodation for homeless people. Bearing in mind that Avenue Road and the adjacent Park Crescent are the two roads in the town with the best addresses, I have already heard some concern from residents about the plan. Worries regarding possible criminal activity and drug taking / dealing have been the principal concerns. Bexley Council have now gone forward with the plans, and after refurbishment, the building will be able to provide accommodation for up to fifteen families and ten individuals. The council has stressed using Homeleigh for temporary housing is not a permanent use for the currently empty building, and the use will last a maximum of two years. My personal view is that nobody chooses to be homeless, and a vast majority of those likely to be housed in the former nursing home will be “nice” people who are down on their luck. Being homeless does not make you a criminal. The fact that Bexley Council are (uncharacteristically in my opinion) acting in a pragmatic and practical way to address the serious problem of a local lack of affordable housing by recycling a currently empty building seems eminently sensible and, dare I say it, a very good idea. As with anything of this nature, the devil is in the detail; if the Homeleigh centre was used as a halfway house for a large number of people with dependency problems, then I could see a good deal of reason for local concern. I can also appreciate worries about the effect such a centre could have on house prices (for non - local readers, Avenue Road and Park Crescent are the two “upmarket” roads in Erith, with some lovely 1930’s era detached and semi-detached houses in quiet, tree – lined surroundings, making a very desirable and quite expensive environment).

In March I wrote about the Apple iWatch, and why it was a really bad idea to buy one then. You may recall that I said that Apple would have a new, improved model out within a scant few months. In fact version two of the iWatch was due out this Wednesday, but it has been unexpectedly delayed due to a bug in the operating system. Apple has not let slip anything further about the nature of that bug or just when it will be able to deliver the update to Apple Watch owners. The watchOS 2 release has been touted by Apple as a major overhaul to its smartwatch firmware. The update will bring the first support for native watchOS applications, rather than those built through iOS. The addition of native applications promises to give developers greater access to the hardware components in the Apple Watch (such as the microphone and speaker) and can interact with Apple's HealthKit and HomeKit application programming interfaces. Apple has also added a number of its own new features, including a "Time Travel" option to view upcoming appointments and the addition of customization options to set the default screen to a watch face, photo, or one of several time-lapse photo collections. Personally I feel that smart watches of all types - the iWatch included - are a solution in need of a problem. What do you think? Drop me an Email to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The ending video this week is quite relaxing; it shows a bicycle journey from Dartford to Erith via Crayford Ness and the Slade Green Marshes, which are an ancient wetland and an area of outstanding natural beauty. It is very peaceful and relaxing to watch when the rider gets onto the marshes - somewhere that even many local people are completely unaware of.

The "Funky Clock" scam.

The photo above shows the Cross Keys Centre as it looked on Friday lunchtime. The new sign lettering was being fixed to the frontage of the magnificent, sympathetically restored Victorian building. When I took the shot, the final "S" had yet to be fixed in place on the fascia - the worker installing the lettering had gone off for his lunch; now the sign is totally complete, and looking good. Parts of the building are already in use as office and meeting room space, both for the owners, Anglo - American management consultancy The Aleff Group, and for small local companies that need a certain amount of office and touch - down space. As previously mentioned, I have been an advisor to The Aleff Group for a couple of years now, and it is really gratifying to see the former run - down and very scruffy pub take on a new lease of life as a business, social and community centre for the area. I was there for a meeting with some business associates who are creating a new start - up company. Suffice to say that's all I can say on the subject for now, but in the months that come there will be some very interesting, creative and involving news to report. Watch this space. Whilst I was in the Cross Keys Centre, I was called out of the meeting room I was in, with a cryptic message "There's someone you might like to meet". Who should the person be than the power behind food delivery service Got Breakfast, local businesswoman Bukky Alabi. Although we have corresponded at some length, it was the first time that we had actually met face to face! The Cross Keys Centre is already fulfilling its objectives of becoming a hub where local small businesses and social groups can meet to exchange ideas, network and socialise. 

At this time of year, so many people seem to carry around a bottle of water; when the weather is hot, this seems like a sensible move. What I find very hard to understand is that rather than carrying an individual bottle containing up to half a litre, I see many people carrying 1.5 or even two litre bottles of water. Are they really planning on drinking that much? What will happen when they need to use the loo, and as we know, the number of public toilets in the UK has been cut back to almost nothing. Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to do more to save Britain's dwindling number of public lavatories. The Prime Minister said he would examine the case for lifting thousands of pounds of taxes from them every year to try to save them from closure. The search for public toilets in towns and cities has become more and more desperate in recent years because the number of lavatories has fallen markedly. Campaigners say that many have had to be closed because of councils have to pay onerous business rates on them. The British Toilet Association has estimated that 40 per cent of local authority run public conveniences have disappeared in the last decade, taking the number down from 12,000 to 6,000, in part because councils have to pay business rates on them. The Daily Telegraph reported earlier in the week that Public toilets have traditionally been liable for business rates in the same way as non-domestic premises such as shops and offices, while churches and premises used to care for disabled people are exempt. Raymond Martin, managing director of The British Toilet Association, said: “This is a public facility. People have to go to the toilet. We have to do five things in life – we have to eat, sleep, breathe, drink and we have to go to the toilet. Failure to go to the toilet we get sick, we get disorientated, we have high blood pressure, we can have strokes – this is a health and wellbeing issue. It is about equality, social inclusion and bringing more older people into town. The reason that toilets are closing is councils do not get any financial support from government to do it, so they have to sit down and look at costs. I have calls coming into me from councils saying ‘how do we close down all our toilets’. Councils really want to provide these facilities, they really want to have them but commercially and economically they can't afford to do it. The fall in numbers of public lavatories meant more and more shop owners are complaining about people urinating in the street, and worse".

Once again this week, the News Shopper report on yet another incident involving Gravesend RNLI being called to an emergency on the River Thames at Erith. This time a person was found trying to enter the river at 2.30pm on the 31st July - I must admit that I was working from home on Friday, and i saw the Police helicopter flying along the river from the window of my home office. I did not immediately realise that it was a person in trouble. A person was found on the shore and taken into custody. We are now getting an average of one river related incident a week; I seriously think that we need a permanent RNLI presence in Erith - as I have written before, the former Port of London Authority hut directly adjacent to the Erith Jetty (as seen in the photo above - click for a larger view) would be an absolutely ideal base for the sub station - what do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. incidentally, if you check the photo of Erith Pier in the News Shopper piece, you will see that it is an ancient shot from back in around 1978, when the pier formed an integral part of Erith Deep Water Wharf. How they managed to dig up such an historic relic, I really don't know. I could have easily supplied them with an up to date shot of the excellent refurbished and very popular pier as it stands nowadays. 

Following on from my piece a couple of weeks ago, where I discussed the relatively low average house price in the London Borough of Bexley, I have come to the conclusion that averaging prices over the whole borough actually gives a very distorted picture. Houses in Bexleyheath and Sidcup (the “posh” Southern part of the borough) are pretty much in line with other parts of outer London – with the exception of certain parts of West London. The reason the average is brought down overall is that in the less wealthy Northern part of Bexley - Thamesmead East, Abbey Wood, Lower Belvedere, Erith and Slade Green - is very much cheaper that the rest of the borough. The News Shopper have been reporting that more than three quarters of London boroughs, 78.1 per cent, showed an increase in new properties with Bexley the highest at 30.6 per cent. As we know, the Northern part of the London Borough of Bexley has a high proportion of first time buyers – mainly as it is one of the very few areas where first – timers have a chance of getting a mortgage. Sadly, this is already changing, as greedy property developers are hoovering up places as they come onto the market; they are acutely aware that there is about to be a house – price boom, fed by the arrival of Crossrail to Abbey Wood, and the almost inevitability that it will be further extended to link up with the forthcoming Paramount London Theme Park on the Swanscombe Peninsular, which will feature Europe’s largest indoor water park, theatres, live music venues, attractions, cinemas, restaurants, event space and hotels. Allied to the project will be a training academy for the entertainment and hospitality sectors, a new country park, a large science and education visitor complex and the biggest performing arts centre in Europe.  The plans for the park received considerable backing from the British government when Paramount London became the first commercial venture to be awarded Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project status allowing the developers to bypass local planning requirements. The Secretary of State may make a decision on the park's planning application in autumn 2016 – though I seriously doubt any politician would contemplate putting a stop to the project, as it will involve at least 25,000 permanent full and part time jobs in an area which has exceptionally high regional unemployment. An area estimated to stretch between Dover and Greenwich will benefit from the jobs and money that the theme park will generate, and this is inevitably going to push up the local house prices, and the areas such as the North of the London Borough of Bexley are almost certain to be disproportionately affected. If you are contemplating purchasing a property in Erith or the surrounding towns, I would strongly advise you to do it as soon as possible, as prices are set to go through the roof.

The News Shopper is reporting an incident where a motorcyclist with a helmet – mounted camera caught a woman driving a car whilst not only sending a text from her mobile phone, but also eating a bowl of cereal! Personally I don't find this at all surprising; when walking around Erith on a daily basis I see drivers using mobile phones whilst on the move. Only on Tuesday afternoon did I see a man driving a seven and a half tonne box van around the roundabout at the end of James Watt Way, as he headed into Manor Road, and past the KFC drive through; he had his left hand on the wheel, and his right hand holding his mobile phone to his left ear. As he went round the roundabout, he momentarily lost control of the van as his grip in the steering wheel slipped. Fortunately he recovered quickly, but the incident could have easily escalated into something more serious – especially as there are two pedestrian crossings very nearby. What was even more disturbing was that the van was owned and operated by a very high profile local company, who almost certainly have policies in place to prohibit the use of mobile phones whilst driving – in accordance with the law. I will be keeping a lookout for such illegal activity in the future –  the law on the subject is widely flouted, yet it is also one of the most dangerous behaviour a driver can exhibit whilst behind the wheel. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The DAB debate which started a decade ago, and which I have covered in the past has been brought back to life by BBC Radio 4, with the results appearing to be somewhat familiar. Ten years ago listeners complained of poor reception on DAB, with either no audio, or audio sounding like it was being broadcast from under bubbling water, and BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme has sparked a debate resulting in listeners complaining of exactly the same thing today. On Monday morning, James Cridland and Laurence Harrison appeared on the Today Programme to defend DAB, and talk about the possible ‘end of FM’. Both provided facts and figures about DAB listening and a multi-platform world, but listeners reacted by complaining of the lack of reception which still blights many areas in the UK. The problem is down to a number of factors; the DAB standard used in the UK is the oldest and most basic type, which has been superseded; newer DAB+ which is currently either being rolled out, or already in use in much of mainland Europe uses a far newer and more sophisticated codec, which enables better sound quality at lower bitrates – meaning even if the signal is poor, you have a better chance of actually hearing something intelligible. The other side of the coin is that the FM broadcast band in the UK has been incredibly successful, and stations such as BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 3 have extremely high sound quality when listened to with a decent receiver – and the signal coverage is generally far more complete than DAB. To be honest, DAB has several advantages, but in my opinion these are outweighed by the disadvantages. DAB coverage is not the only issue; sound quality is poorer (don’t let the “Digital” tag fool you – a low bit rate DAB signal sounds far worse than an equivalent analogue FM signal). As I have mentioned before – analogue radio signals exhibit a phenomenon known as “Graceful Degradation” - a form of fault tolerance – as the signal strength at the receiver reduces, on AM the audio from the speaker gets quieter, and on FM the amount of hiss increases. Eventually the signal will get so poor that no audio is intelligible at all, but for quite a long time the listener can “get by” even though the sound is less than perfect. With DAB and other methods of digital sound transmission the degradation is somewhat different. As the signal level drops, the receiver will start to “burble” as if the audio is being under water; there will be sudden silences, a few farts and blips, then nothing. There is no period where the listener is able to make out the audio as the signal drops – it is “all or nothing”.

Southeastern rail bosses have taken a bit of a slippering recently; A public meeting was recently organised in Sidcup for local commuters and other train users to attend and give feedback to the managers of the rail company; I understand that it was what the armed forces refer to as “a meeting without coffee”. The meeting was chaired by Old Bexley and Sidcup MP James Brokenshire. One of the most common complaints about the Southeastern service is that trains are comprised of too few carriages – especially in busy times of the day. Apparently Southeastern don't have any more carriages to enable them to run longer trains, even though they extended many platforms on the North Kent line before the Olympics, to allow twelve carriage trains to run on the line. The only problem back then was that trains could not stop at Woolwich Dockyard station, as the station platform has tunnels at both ends, which only permit ten carriage trains to stop, meaning that the first and last carriage on the train would be left in the tunnel when the train stopped – a similar situation to the DLR station Cutty Sark for Greenwich, where passengers have to move to the middle of the train to get off. The way the travel planners worked things during the Olympics and Paralympics was they just closed Woolwich Dockyard station for the duration of both competitions – ostensibly to prevent visitors “getting confused and alighting at the wrong station” – this had a side benefit that Olympic visitors were somewhat shielded from seeing what a terrible dump much of the area around Woolwich Dockyard station is. The upside was that they ran twelve car trains for the duration of the sporting festival, but reverted to the shorter trains with a maximum of ten carriages directly thereafter.

I have been contacted by a couple of long – time readers who had some questions and concerns about a couple of websites that they had encountered; knowing my background in I.T, and my special interest in online security, they asked if I could investigate. They had rightly become suspicious of a website which claimed that one could legally purchase a brand new iPhone 6 for the price of £1. The website advertising this has links from the tabloid newspaper website The Daily Star, and several other reputable (!) locations. When one followed the link, you were presented with what appeared at first glance to be a page from the BBC News website. It included a story about how people in the UK could get a brand new iPhone 6 for £1. Upon reading the story, alarm bells started to ring; the writing style was nothing like BBC News standard, and there was a problem with the links on the page – they all led to the same website – this is a common trick carried out by scammers – create a fake “honey trap” site to redirect web traffic to another website. The so called "BBC" site was nothing but a fake. The second site is called “Funky Clock” which runs “special offers” amongst “skill and speed” competitions, where participants purchase credits to use to play games, the winner of which supposedly wins an iPhone 6. When you sign up for the “free” service, you are prompted to enter your bank details “for verification purposes”. What is only displayed in microscopic text is that the “free” period only lasts for three days, and that after that Funky Clock will debit your bank account by £74 a month, from now until the end of time. No cheap iPhones, no deals – the whole thing is a massive scam. It would appear that many Internet Service Providers, notably including Virgin have been duped into forwarding “Genuine offer” messages from Funky Clock to their subscribers, thus giving a veneer of apparent respectability to the confidence trick. This is a classic case of “if it seems too good to be true, it generally is”. Be warned – treat anything that says they are giving away high value items for next to nothing as a con until it can be verifiably proved otherwise (a very fat chance indeed). Unfortunately the criminals will continue such scams for as long as there are vulnerable people to fall prey to them. You have been warned.

I make no secret that I am a big fan of Google; they have turned online search into a verb, they are that good at what they do that to perform a web search has for many become “to Google”. Many of their products such as GMail and Google Docs are excellent and widely used, but they have one product, which many people – myself included, actively dislike and avoid. Google+ was intended to be a direct competitor for social networks like Facebook, but it has never gained the popularity or traction with Google users – and nowadays Facebook is a verb as well. I predicted around a year ago that Google would pull the plug on Google+, and it would seem that this has now begun. Earlier this week, the company announced its most drastic step for breaking up Google+. Google has announced more sweeping changes for Google+ over the next few months as it restructures network into two distinctly separate products: streams and photos. Previously, many tasks within Google products (such as, say, commenting on a YouTube video) required a Google+ profile, but that won't be the case in the future. Forcing Google users to sign up for a Google+ account in order to the use some of the company's other products and services was a clear bid to generate interest in its social network, but it backfired with many users. Google+ claimed 300 million monthly active users in late 2013, although Stone Temple Consulting, a third-party digital marketing agency, pegged that figure at a far lower 111 million this past April. For many users,  the biggest issue with Google's social network is that it just wasn't social enough -- the layout of the site wasn't as inviting or friendly as Facebook's traditional layout has been and we still haven't seen any indication that Google really gets how the social web works – something that Facebook seem to have got right, despite their own illogical and inconsistent user interface – which users don't seem to mind. The move means users will soon be able to use their standard Google account to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel, and so on. Unlike your public Google+ profile, your Google account is not searchable or follow able. If you already created a Google+ profile (read: Google conned you into doing it) but don't plan to use Google+, the company says it will “offer better options for managing and removing” your public profile. The changes are meant to strike a balance between the select few who actually like using Google+ and everyone else whom Google forced to sign up for its social network. I predict that Google will keep Google+ for another year or so, then quietly retire it as an irrelevance. What do you think? Do you like Google+ Let me know – Email hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The controversy over Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond may now have finally been put to bed, now that the announcement that their new car show will be hosted on Amazon Prime. Having said that, as I mentioned a while back, there are a number of excellent car shows broadcast on YouTube. One of them, by a chap called Harry Metcalfe is a real find. Harry is thoughtful and quietly spoken, but really knows what he is talking about; he is the former editor of the car magazine Evo, and a consultant to the Jaguar Range Rover group. In the video below, he drives an immaculate 1980 vintage Jaguar XJS V12 over a thousand miles from the UK to Monaco. Harry is either in possession of an incredible insight into the mechanical reliability of the thirty five year old grand tourer, or he has amazing faith in the build quality of the old Jag, built during their ownership by British Leyland, a company not exactly famous for the reliability, or indeed mechanical build quality of their cars. Watch and enjoy the latest episode of "Harry's Garage".