Dobbin and chips?

The photo above shows the M.V Shetland Trader - a bulk freighter that plies its trade on the River Thames past Erith on an almost daily basis. You may have seen photos of the ship featured on the Maggot Sandwich in the past. I took the photo above recently whilst the Shetland Trader was moored on Erith Pier. You can see a member of the crew engaged in some painting and maintenance duties - not much fun when the weather is currently so cold and windy.

You may recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about the level of unpaid crossing fees that have already built up since the Dartford QEII Bridge and tunnel converted from physically collecting tolls from motorists via a series of toll booths, to a new ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) technology, whereby a high definition camera will record passing number plates, compare them to a database and charge the owner of the vehicle accordingly. This week the News Shopper are reporting that Bexley Police have begun a campaign to educate local residents about number plate theft. On Thursday they visited a number of locations around the Borough, including B and Q in Lower Belvedere, Harrow Manor Way in Thamesmead, and the BP Connect garage in Northumberland Heath. The Police teams gave away anti – tamper number plate screws free to visitors. Some crooks physically steal number plates so that they can evade things like the London congestion charge and the Dartford crossing toll. This is a crude, but very effective form of identity theft. Other crooks look out for vehicles that closely resemble their own, and make a note of the number plates. They then get copies of the plates made up – plate blanks and lettering are easy to come by if you know where to look – I have even seen whole number plate making “turnkey” systems for sale on EBay, albeit not in the UK. This is a major issue – hundreds of false plates are in circulation, and the onus is on the legitimate owner to prove identity theft, rather than the other way around. Often many people don’t realise their plates have been duplicated until they get a letter in the post accompanied by a fine for non – payment of charges. I foresee this becoming an increasingly serious issue, and it will not be long before the popular press pick up on the story. It will only take a celebrity or senior politician to get sent a fine or summons for prosecution due to their vehicle ID having been hijacked before the tabloid press will be all over the story.

There have already been some consequences regarding the changes in the train services on the North Kent Line. Apart from the lack of trains into Charing Cross, the planners at the Docklands Light Railway have decided to increase the number of DLR trains outside of rush hours on the Woolwich Arsenal to Canning Town branch. They are effectively doubling the number of trains on off – peak times on the Bank to Lewisham via Greenwich line, so that travellers should not have to wait more than five minutes for a train at any time. This can only be a good thing; the downside to all of this is that DLR staff are likely to go on strike from the 28th January for two days – I don't fully understand their complaints, but it seems to me that the withdrawal of labour is a fairly drastic move, and usually means that communications between the parties in dispute has failed. For many hard pressed commuters, it is very bad news, myself included, as I spend a great deal of time working in Canary Wharf, as do thousands of other people, all of whom will be inconvenienced by the action. Personally since the trains are all computer controlled, I don't see why that don't just run without their normal supervisor, who seems to be not much more than a glorified ticket inspector anyway. I have more trust in the computer to operate the train than I do in a human. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

You may have read in the popular press that certain car insurance companies are refusing to insure certain models of vehicle, the most widely known model being the latest Range Rover. The reason they cite is that crooks have cracked the digital keyless entry system on the upmarket off – roaders, and crooks can just walk up to the cars and drive away – the hack involves a device that mimics the electronic key fob, not only unlocking the doors, disabling the alarm and the immobiliser, and even starting the engine. I understand that Range Rover are currently investigating, and it is said that a recall of certain affected models for a firmware upgrade on their security systems is imminent. This is a bad state of affairs, but it would seem to be limited to a small number of vehicles from a specific car maker. Things are possibly going to get a whole lot worse though.  American security analyst Corey Thuen has discovered a state of affairs that could make the Range Rover security vulnerability look like small change. You may be aware that a number of UK insurance companies offer reduced premiums to drivers who have telematics “Black box” devices installed. Black box insurance works when your car is fitted with a small 'black box' device, about the size of a smartphone, which records speed, distance travelled and the time of day or night that you are on the road. The device also assesses your driving style by monitoring braking and cornering. It will also record the types of road on which you typically travel, and the times of day and night you tend to drive, to build up a comprehensive profile of you as a driver.  With a device fitted to your car you can access a website to find out how you are performing in each category. This will show you if you need to make any changes to your driving style, and will provide tips on how you can improve your driver score and bring down the cost of your insurance. As a rule of thumb it is assumed that driving fewer miles on less dangerous roads, while also limiting night time driving, will result in lower premiums. Policies linked to black box recorders charge premiums on a monthly basis, which means the insurer can adjust them swiftly to reward better driving (and punish those who show themselves to be a risky proposition). Aside from privacy concerns (personally I find the concept of being monitored via satellite repugnant, but I know many do not share my worries). The telematic devices may suit younger drivers – indeed I understand that some insurance companies will only issue policies to newly qualified drivers if they have a “black box” installed – at the driver's expense. In the USA there are over two million telematic monitoring units installed on vehicles, and it is likely that in the next few years they become widely spread all over the world. The problem is that the devices currently in use are extremely vulnerable to malicious interference. Corey Thuen said  “The firmware running on the black box is minimal and insecure. It does no validation or signing of firmware updates, no secure boot, no cellular authentication, no secure communications or encryption, no data execution prevention or attack mitigation technologies… basically it uses no security technologies whatsoever.” A skilled attacker could almost certainly compromise such telematics black boxes to gain remote control of a vehicle, or even an entire fleet of vehicles. Once compromised, the consequences range from privacy data loss to life and limb; also, there is the attack vector of progressive backend infrastructure. If those systems are compromised, an attacker would have control over the devices that make it out to the field. In simple terms, we have seen that cars can be hacked and we have seen that mobile cellular communications can be hacked.” Privacy of data within cars is also a growing concern, one highlighted by Thuen’s research. BMW this week said it had repeatedly been asked by technology companies and advertisers to hand over the data their cars generated, but it has refused to give in to those requests. Thuen said it would be possible to intercept data passed between the black boxes and the insurance providers’ servers, likely including location and performance information, as they do nothing to encrypt or otherwise protect the information they collect. From my research, unless the telematics companies and to a lesser extent the car manufacturers take data integrity and security more seriously, it is only a matter of time before there are disastrous consequences. I predict that hackers will compromise whole fleets of vehicles, demanding cash ransoms to release vehicles from their control, in a very similar method to the current spate of “ransomware” that has affected many PC’s – a remote hacker encrypts a users’ files, then demands a fee to release the encryption key. I don't see any difference between a desktop or laptop PC and a car – indeed modern cars have as much if not more processing power than a home PC, so the analogy is sound.

My observations last week in respect of the changes made to the Southeastern Trains service into London on the North Kent Line have inspired a response from regular Maggot Sandwich reader Paul Thomas, who writes:- "Interested in your comments on the changes to the train services along the Greenwich line and your comments regarding the platform alterations. When the Thameslink Programme(as the alterations caused by the works at London Bridge are called) was first mooted it was envisaged that the Greenwich Line would lose many services during the 4 year building programme. This has not happened to the extent that was originally envisaged, although the fact that trains from Erith run exclusively to Cannon Street is a pain for me personally as I used an early morning Charing Cross train. Getting to Cannon Street after work at night is also an inconvenience, but there really was no alternative to severing the link that allows Greenwich Line trains to cross the tracks as a new dive under is being created in the space the cross over occupied. These new lines will help the movement of trains and ease conflict of movement that currently cause delays on the approach to London Bridge. The platform extensions were done at the time they were simply because the engineers were available to do them at that point. The UK has a chronic shortage of civil engineers and the work has to be planned many years in advance. Network rail is already planning projects for the period 2019-2024, and seeking requests from rail companies, local councils and Government for infrastructure enhancements for 2025-2030. Crossrail is also using many engineers, as are many other civil engineering projects such as the alterations to the Dartford Crossing. The longer platforms were generally expected to accept 12 car trains from 2018/19 when The Thameslink Programme is complete. Once all these new works are complete and 12 car trains introduced and Crossrail starts from Abbey Wood, travelling along the Greenwich line and reaching Central London will be much easier and smoother. With regard to Woolwich Dockyard Station; The first carriage of the train cannot be inside the Tunnel if selected door opening is to be used as the driver needs to see the on-platform cameras for safety reasons. It was closed during the Olympics as the special timetable run during the events meant that in order to run the extra trains more capacity was needed and by not stopping at this much underused station precious minutes were saved. Hope this info helps a bit". Very interesting insight - and thanks very much for sharing it with everyone. Much appreciated. If anyone else has information that you feel others might find of interest, please get in touch with me - you will get full credit, or can be anonymous as you so wish.

I have written on several occasions in the past about the situation in respect of unwanted ponies and horses that seem to about around Erith and Thamesmead (in fact the problem exists in many parts of the country). The problem is that there is a glut of animals which has in turn depressed the market to the point where they are now practically worthless. Only on Monday this week a foal was discovered in a water and mud – filled ditch in St. Thomas Road, Lower Belvedere. Despite the best efforts of the Fire Brigade, the foal died, most probably from Hypothermia. It is thought that the animal had probably fallen into the ditch the night before, and had spent all night in sub – zero temperatures. It was only when a passer – by noticed the foal in the morning that anything was done – albeit too late. The problem is that as the animals have no monetary value, their owners have little incentive to care for them. Some economists have suggested that if horse meat was more widely eaten in the UK, the large number of unwanted ponies and horses would have a monetary value as food; this ironically would ensure that many of the beasts would be better cared for. Personally I have no problems with eating horse – it tastes not dissimilar to steak, and is very low in saturated fat – what do you think – would you be averse to a portion of Dobbin and chips? Feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Guest contributor Dana Whiffen has written a very engaging piece on a band with local connections that teetered on the brink of major league stardom in the 1970’s. "Remember “Something in the Air” by Thunderclap Newman? John Speedy Keen was a friend and driver for Pete Townshend of The Who, Pete had recognised his songwriting skills and even included his “Armenia City in the Sky” on The Who Sell Out Album. Such was Pete Townshend’s admiration for Speedy’s song writing that he brought together with Keen two other musicians Andy Newman and Jimmy MCCulloch at the end of 1968 and they became known as Thunderclap Newman. They went into the studios in January 1969 with Speedy Keen on Vocals, guitar and drums, Andy Newman on piano and Jimmy McCulloch on lead guitar and Pete himself playing bass guitar and they recorded what was to become an iconic song titled “Something in the Air”.  It went to number one in the UK single charts holding off both Elvis and The Beatles from the top spot where it stayed for 3 weeks. Something in the Air was originally written for The Magic Christian film and by the end of 1969 it had sold 1 million copies being awarded a gold disc and was to later be used on soundtracks for The Strawberry Statement and Easy Rider CD deluxe edition and later in 2000 used in the film Almost Famous and in 2008 in an episode of My name is Earl and it continued to earn Speedy Keen a lot of money from royalties. Following on from the records huge success was the demand to see the band live, in order to perform they needed to add additional members so in the second half of 1969 they were joined by Jim Avery on Bass Guitar and Jimmy’s elder brother Jack McCullock on drums and they undertook a 26 tour date of the UK including playing THE BLACK PRINCE in Bexley Kent in a concert for Erith College Rag week. Due to Pete Townshend working on the next Who album “Tommy”, both Thunderclap Newman’s  “Hollywood Dream” their Townshend produced album and follow up single “Accidents”  were both delayed. This meant that the band lost important ground in a competitive music market and they failed to capitalise on the success of “Something in the Air” and by the time they were released , both failed to make their mark on the charts with “Accidents” only making number 44 and the album only 163 out of the Billboard top 200 chart. Speedy’s song writing talent was evident but he lacked the will to tour and upset his other band mates but either turning up late for rehearsals or not at all, because of this after their first UK tour both Jack McCulloch and Jim Avery left the band and they were replaced by Australians Ronnie Peel (bass) and Roger Felice (drums). They went onto to appear on TV programmes “How late is it” Top of the Pops” and “Beat Club” in Germany, and they toured the UK again in March 1971 and went on to tour Scotland  in March and early April 1971 again supporting Deep Purple on the UK  dates as well as in both tours of Holland and Scandinavia. Friction in the band mainly caused by Speedy’s low work rate and lack of motivation especially caused problems between him and Andy and reached an all time low and on returning to the UK in mid April they split up, just prior to being part of a 12 week package USA tour with Marsha Hunt and The Who, missing out on a chance to break into the USA market. Jimmy McCulloch had been recognised for his superb guitar playing and he went on to play with many bands including John Mayall, Stone the Crows and Paul McCartney’s Wings before his premature death at the age of 26 in 1979. Andy Newman went on to record a solo album titled “Rainbow” and also play on Roger Ruskin Spear’s (formerly of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) first solo album as well as touring with him. In 1973 Speedy released a solo album titled “Previous Convictions” with included Jimmy McCulloch and Roger Felice on some tracks, he also released another album in 1975 titled “Y’know wot I mean” but neither had much impact on the charts. Discouraged he tried his hand at production working on punk band “Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers first album LAMF in 1977 and also on Motorhead’s first album before quitting the music industry; he died at the age of 56 in 2002. With more recent increasing interest in Thunderclap Newman’s music,  In February 2010 Andy Newman resurrected Thunderclap Newman with new members Tony Stubbings on bass guitar, Nick Johnson on lead guitar, former Big Country drummer Mark Brzezicki and Pete Townshend’s nephew Josh Townshend on guitar and vocals, they went on to support the Big Country tour of the UK in 2011 releasing a CD titled “Beyond Hollywood”. Both former members Jack McCulloch and Jim Avery are still in touch with Andy Newman today". A fascinating story – thanks to Dana for writing such an interesting piece.

I noticed something on my way to Erith Station earlier in the week. A few years ago, many cars and people carriers would have stickers, usually in their back window with announcements like “Baby on Board” and “Show Dogs in Transit”. I gather the reason for this was that in the event of a serious accident, the emergency services would know to look for an occupant on the rear seat or parcel area of the vehicle. It did strike me that to have such a sticker in one’s car would be rather self – serving and self-important. I was not the only person to form this opinion; satirical magazine Viz printed spoof stickers reading “Dog’s Eggs in Transit”. Ahem. I notice that nowadays these stickers seem to have entirely disappeared. I don't know if others have observed the same issue?

Bexley Neighbourhood Watch Association have just published the following announcement that may be of interest to local readers. Shopwatch is a Neighbourhood Watch scheme, originally set up as a trial in Bexley Village, it is works via an email loop (sharing of information) between Neighbourhood Watch, the shops registered and their local police team. We heard of various stories of distraction theft even from charity shops in the Village and were also aware that shops either end of Bexley Village were unaware of what was happening. Under this scheme "ShopWatch" all registered shops which is most of them were kept informed of crime trends and also let us know of any incidents so that all information could be shared and this saw a significant fall in shop crime in the Village. Because of its success and the eagerness of other Police Teams to see this rolled out in his areas/wards shops we have since worked with them to increase membership to a wider area in different towns in the Borough. We have now enrolled most shops in The Oval Parade Sidcup, Blackfen, Wellington and Blendon Parades, Mayplace Road East, Crayford Town Centre, Northumberland Heath-Erith and Welling with membership now well over 250 shops, we plan to continue to include other shopping parades throughout the Borough in 2015. Our most recent ShopWatch alert has seen information passed on about a shoplifter with a full description of person. ShopWatch is our latest non-residential schemes, which we run in addition to HoundWatch (Dog Walkers registered members walking their dogs report suspicious people etc) PlotWatch (fighting against allotment crime), FaithWatch (combating crime in and around places of worship), and finally HorseWatch for Stables (here they have had theft of saddles etc). If you would like to become a member of any of the schemes mentioned or alternatively you would like to set up a Watch in your road/area/block please contact us at the following;-

Telephone: 0208 284 5537
Email: bexwatch-office@btconnect.com

The end video this week is a sequel to the piece of historical video that I featured a while back that was compiled by local history enthusiast Martin Barnes. It shows all sorts of activities centred in and around Bexleyheath Broadway over the last hundred years - do give it a watch and let me know what you think - leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Captain Tweed and the sofa from Hell.

My crime fighting alter ego, Captain Tweed is on a case; as you may have read last week, I caught a local company - Sofas4House, who are based at Unit 20 of the Manford Industrial Estate in Manor Road, red - handed, illegally fly tipping old sofas and furniture at the recycling facility at the rear of Morrison’s. The idea behind the facility is that rather than waiting for the bin men to collect, you can take your cans, glass bottles and jars, card, paper and plastic items around to the back of Morrison’s and deposit them in the relevant hopper, all ready for recycling. I don’t actually use the domestic garden wheelie bins at all – I take all of my suitable waste straight round to the recycling centre for responsible disposal – it cuts out the middle – man and is good for the environment. It suits me too – I don’t like having rubbish sitting round, potentially attracting rats and flies and getting smelly. I take any small quantity to be recycled on a daily basis. Because of this daily familiarity with the recycling facility, I get to see the ways in which it is being abused. After alerting the Police about what I witnessed – a local furniture supply company - Sofas4House - who offer to take away and dispose of your old sofa when you buy a new one from them. Instead of taking the old sofas to the Council tip at Thames Road in Crayford, they are illegally fly tipping them in Morrison’s car park, using the recycling facility as a cover. I spoke to Bexley Council Environmental Health Department about the situation. I was informed, that although the recycling facility (which is actually owned and operated by the Council) is amongst the smallest in the Borough, it has the worst by far problem with illegal fly tipping. It is not difficult to see why. Although it is owned by the Council, it is on Morrison’s land; I was told by a nice lady from the Environmental Health Department that Morrison’s “don’t give a hoot” about what happens regarding recycling and fly tipping, even though it is taking place on their land. I think the main reason that the facility is so badly abused is down to a number of key factors. 1) It is secluded and out of the way, round at the back of Morrison’s supermarket; the only traffic that ever goes past are delivery lorries heading for the supermarkets’ loading bay. 2) The legitimate use of the facility can easily be used as a cover for illicit activity. 3) There are currently no security video cameras covering the area, even though it is an integral part of the Fly Tipping Enforcement Zone. I believe that the camera issue is to be addressed by the Council, as Morrison’s really don’t seem to care as to what happens, even though the illegal dumping is taking place literally in their back yard. The dumping has spread from dry items like old furniture to now include old and contaminated engine oil. The containers are dumped at the base of the recycling hoppers, and then kids come along, open the containers and pour the filthy and stinking liquid over the ground; used engine oil is a carcinogen, and a hazard to the water table. If it finds its’ way into the water course, it is possible for it to end up in the drinking water, causing all sorts of serious problems; on top of this it is a vile, sticky mess – legitimate users of the recycling facility are in danger of getting the oil on their footwear if they are not very careful where they step – even the local rats have walked through it – when freshly spilled old oil is on the ground, tiny tracks of rat foot prints can be seen. Hopefully now that the Council have been supplied with the company details of Sofas4House and the vehicle registration number of the fly tipper that I caught red handed, they will be able to prosecute them and make an example to others thinking of doing the same; *Update*  Sofas4House are being given a formal warning by the Environmental Crime Team of Bexley Council. Sofas4House have a very slick and professional looking website, and anyone coming across it might assume that the company was well run and responsible. As you may recall, I am keen to promote and publicise independent local businesses; in this case I am unable to do this after personally witnessing Sofas4House staff illegally fly tipping materials that they should have properly disposed of at the Thames Road waste facility in Crayford. The reason that they don’t use the proper disposal facilities is that as a commercial organisation, they get charged to dump, whereas fly tipping is free – until you get caught. A small victory for Captain Tweed, I feel.

Next Saturday the Royal Artillery Firepower Museum in Woolwich is holding a free open day. The press release for the event says “On Saturday 14 September, Firepower, The Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich will be opening its doors free of charge for the local community and all visitors for its Community Day. A fascinating fun and activity-packed day is on offer at the popular museum located in the historic riverside Royal Arsenal. The day will start at 10.00am with a 30-minute visit from the world-famous King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. Up to fifty horses will trot to the Museum from their nearby Woolwich Barracks base to give visitors a rare, informal opportunity to meet the horses of the King’s Troop and witness the spectacle of fifty horses out for their regular exercise.  A new permanent audio-visual exhibition will open on the day showcasing the Museum’s Fighting Talk oral history project. Visitors can see and hear extracts of the many interviews with Royal Artillery veterans of major conflicts in the Falklands, Northern Ireland, the Gulf, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The project’s Memory Boxes will also be launched on 14 September, giving visitors the opportunity to try on genuine camouflage dress and handle full-sized replica campaign medals of each of these conflicts. A range of activities and experiences will be on offer at different times of the day. Visitors can also hear some of the remarkable stories behind some of the Museum’s renowned Royal Artillery Gunner’s medal collection in Marvellous Medals sessions hosted by the Museum’s Curator. Since its formation in the early 18th Century, over 2 million men and women have served in the Royal Artillery so this means literally millions of people in Britain and around the world are descended from Gunners. Firepower’s expert team have helped a number of celebrities with their family tree research on BBC TV’sWho Do You Think You Are? and the same team will be running a three hour advice session to help answer the question Is There A Gunner in Your Family Tree? for visitors.  “Our Community Day has been developed to showcase the many aspects of the Museum’s activities and collection.” says Firepower’s Director Joanna Ruddock “This exciting event is being offered free of charge for all visitors and we hope this may also encourage local residents who may not have visited recently to return and see the more recent additions to the Firepower visitor experience.” Younger visitors can take part in regular sessions firing toy rockets at a fort to find out more about the Royal Artillery use of rockets during the Napoleonic Wars. Visitors can also meet Firepower’s Second World War Air Raid Warden who will be telling visitors about Woolwich at war and reminding all visitors to “Put That Light Out!”  In addition the Museum’s Second World War Living History Team will be in wartime uniform, giving kit demonstrations and firing the Museum’s historic 2-Pounder Anti Tank Gun during the day.  Visitors will also be offered exclusive behind-the-scenes tours of the Museum’s Cold War exhibit collection Firepower’s Community Day will take place on Saturday 14 September from 10.00am to 5.00pm and admission will be free of charge. For details of timings of the different activities please visit www.firepower.org.uk. For more information on the Firepower Community Day visit www.firepower.org.uk, email info@firepower.org.uk or call 020 8855 7755”. This sounds like an excellent day out; I will be making an appearance in the morning, so look out for me with my trusty camera.

Following my recent article on the 50^th birthday of the compact audio cassette, there have been a few articles about analogue cassettes in the popular press; it is unfortunate that most of them have been written in a manner which suggests that cassettes are a dead and buried media format. Indeed in most cases this is true, but places such as Police custody suites still use them as they are regarded as less susceptible to tampering than other storage formats. Specialist audio electronics companies such as Teac do still manufacture cassette recorder / players in small batches, mainly for people who want to archive treasured old recordings from cassette onto a digital format. The problem that many are unaware of is that magnetic tape has a finite life – recordings start to deteriorate from the moment they are made. Many the time has someone dug  out their old wedding video from fifteen years ago, only to fine the picture is full of snow and the sound is muffled. This is also a problem with computer data backup tapes. One reason for the deterioration is a phenomenon known as “print through”; this happens where the magnetic signal from one layer of tape starts to imprint itself on the layers above and below it whilst wound around the spindle. Ironically print through seems to affect high quality tapes more seriously than lower quality tapes – the reason for this is high quality tape such as Chrome or Metal suffering more seriously is that these tape compositions can store recordings with stronger magnetic fields, which in turn tend to print through more easily. If you have any historic or valuable video or audio recordings on analogue tape, I would urge you to get them backed up as soon as possible, as  they will have already begun to deteriorate. Tape in all formats is really coming to the end of its’ life cycle. The last major use for magnetic tape has been for archive storage of bulk computer data. Even this is now slowly phasing out. Former recording media giant – TDK, who pulled out of making audio tape several years ago, announced this week that they were ceasing production of their data storage tape range; the last of their data tapes will roll off the production line in early 2014, leaving only Fujifilm, Maxell and Sony as the final three tape producing companies.

There has been an interesting, if rather one – sided debate on the News Shopper website recently. Transport for London are considering removing the option of paying for bus fares in cash, leaving using an Oyster card contactless debit card, or season ticket as the only options. TfL say that less than one percent of travellers pay by cash nowadays, and it costs them a fortune to collect the money. Lets’ look at this fact by fact. Firstly, it is true that many commercial organisations and retailers don’t like cash; for that matter, banks don’t like cash either. It is bulky, hard to track and a continual security risk. From the standpoint of TfL, I can understand the drive – cash for them is a pain in the neck. Let’s turn this on its’ head for a minute though. TfL is tasked with providing a transportation service for London. The key word here is service. Whilst bus drivers may huff and puff about taking cash, the root of the issue is that not every Londoner has an Oyster card, or a contactless payment card (the insecurities of which I have written about in detail in the past). What about those who only occasionally use the bus, or perhaps more importantly, the large number of overseas tourists that use public transport whilst exploring the capital. I don’t think that they can be expected to understand the complexities of the rather arcane Oyster ordering and updating system when they may only be in London for a couple of days. On top of this, complaints that people paying bus fares with cash slow down the boarding of a large number of people behind them in the queue (queuing – what’s that nowadays?) The thing is, how many times have you got on a bus to find the person in front of you has either forgotten to get their Oyster card out of their handbag, and is then engaged in a furious hunt through the detritus in the bottom of the bag, or has it to hand, and then repeatedly swipes the out of credit card against the reader, in the vain hope that some credit will miraculously appear on the card. I don’t think that abolishing cash payments on buses is currently a viable option, however much TfL might like to think otherwise.

I am sorry to report that one of my heroes died this week; Wing Commander Ken Wallis MBE, DEng, CEng, FRaS, FSETP, PhD, RAF (Retired) died in his sleep at his home in Ely, Cambridgeshire, aged 97. Who was Ken Wallis? Well, he was an engineer, pilot, inventor and somewhat eccentric daredevil who piloted James Bond’s armed autogyro “Little Nellie” in the film “You Only Live Twice”. He did much to promote and publicise the use of autogyros and became synonymous with the little aircraft. What is an autogyro? Well, although it looks a bit like a helicopter, an autogyro is fundamentally different – for  a start an autogyro is a hell of a lot easier to fly than a helicopter, as its’ rotor blade is not powered – it spins under the forwards air flow generated by the pusher propeller. Autogyros cannot hover as their lift is entirely dependent on forward momentum. The upside of this is that they are very much simpler both to build and maintain than a helicopter. Most autogyros are home built. Ken Wallis promoted their use for civilian work such as inspecting overhead power cables and for Police searches; for some reason autogyros have never really caught on in the way that he hoped – ironically this may have at least in part be due to their close association with him, and being one of the most famous Bond gadgets. Nowadays the role of both helicopters and autogyros is at least partly being supplanted by remotely piloted vehicles, which are cheaper to operate, quieter, and don’t require much space to take off and land. As you may recall, Erith was the location of some remotely piloted vehicle activity a while back, when a company called Aerosight carried out some tests just off Manor Road, which I was happy to be invited to witness. You can see a short video below of Ken Wallis flying one of his eponymous autogyros below; it is a credit to his incredible constitution that he continued to fly regularly until only months before his death.
I travel regularly on the Docklands Light Railway; I have to say that it is usually a very well run and efficient service, and could teach South Eastern Trains a thing or two about reliability and customer service. The DLR is used by a lot of tourists travelling from central London out to Greenwich, though in my experience around half of them end up getting off at the wrong DLR station. Cutty Sark for Greenwich is the station actually in  Greenwich Town Centre; a lot of tourists don’t realise this, and stay on the train to Greenwich station itself – which is quite a way from the main tourist attractions. I digress; on Wednesday I was on the DLR from Bank station heading towards Woolwich Arsenal station. Sat adjacent to me were a group of students who, from their conversation were from Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain and China. What was interesting  was that they were all speaking to each other in fluent English. It was apparent that whatever native language they spoke, they regarded it as natural to converse in English when dealing with foreign language speakers. Quite frequently one sees in the media articles bemoaning the average British persons’ lack of foreign language skills. The trouble is, there is little incentive to do so when it seems like the whole world already speaks English.

I found out this week that the 150th Thames Sailing Barge Race, held off Erith Pier on the 12th of July this year, will actually be the last time the historic race will be held. The only consolation regarding this, is that it has been cancelled "for good" on a number of previous occasions, so there is every chance the race will be resurrected again in a couple of years; we can only hope that this will be the case, as it was a superb, and very well attended local event. You can see some photos taken on the day by clicking here.

Well, there seems to be some drastic back pedalling and driving in a U-turn going on in the chambers of Bexley Council. Malcolm Knight of the Bexley is Bonkers website attended a meeting on Tuesday night at the Council offices in Bexleyheath. The meeting was an extraordinary one – it was the first gathering of the Constitutional Review Panel for two years; they were spurred into meeting by the comments of Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, who has said on a number of occasions that local councils need to be more open and accountable to their council tax payers. As Malcolm Knight has written on many occasions, and I have repeated occasionally, the current policy of the council is that filming or recording the council when sitting in session is prohibited. They use weasel words in their current policy, saying that filming or audio recording is only permitted if written application in advance is made. The thing is, permission is never, ever given. It sounds like Teresa O’Neill and her cohorts have taken a real slippering from central government, and at Tuesday’s meeting the members of the Constitutional Review Panel unanimously agreed to recommend to the next full meeting of Bexley Council on November the 6^th that recording and webcasting should be permitted. From what Malcolm says, it would appear that the decision of the panel was pre – arranged, and that many of the representations from panel members were rehearsed in advance. Whatever the circumstances, the fact that the panel (and almost certainly the full council when they meet in November) have come about face on their policy. This is great news for local democracy and transparency; I am of the opinion that when the full council next meet, the new policy will get rubber stamped with little or no further discussion, in the normal, mid 1950’s Soviet manner. Personally I doubt that many people will actually be interested in the filming or audio recordings made inside the council chamber – most proceedings seem to make watching paint dry look thrill –a – minute in comparison, but the principle of openness is fundamentally important.

Local professional film makers Amrit and Leonora Fox-Bharry of Splice Media have made a short movie that you may find of interest; it is a horror film with an unexpected twist. The film was recently shown at the Film 4 sponsored Fright Fest in London. Chicken curry will never be quite the same again. Watch below and see what you think.