Wetherspoons in Erith.

I had some very welcome news earlier this week. I have been in correspondence with several hospitality companies recently, to try and find out if any of them had plans to open a pub or restaurant in Erith. The town is woefully lacking in anywhere to go for a drink, or get something  to eat in the evening. The only places in central Erith serving food to be eaten with a knife and fork whilst sitting at a table are Mambocino – which closes at 6pm when the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre closes its security gates, and the café in Morrison’s supermarket. The Running Horses pub on Erith High Street does still sporadically have a food offering, but according to several reports I have received it is so awful that I have not included it here - I have also heard that what food there is tends to only be offered when the staff can be bothered, which is not daily. It seems that the riverside pub, which back in the 80’s and early 90’s was so popular that you would often have to book the upstairs carvery in advance, especially on Sundays when it was always packed, is nowadays in what seems like a terminal decline. The place has been bravely slogging on with a hard-core of regular drinkers for a long while, but the food side of the business is nothing whatsoever like it used to be. The Running Horses is in a superb location and is a lovely 1930’s era reproduction Tudor style building. To be honest it could be restored back to its heyday if a substantial financial investment was made in the place, which I don’t think the current landlord / manager is in a position to do. I have long suspected that the land The Running Horses is sitting on is now worth substantially more than the pub itself, and that it is quite possible that the building is currently being “land banked” waiting for a suitable developer to come along and build yet more flats. Land in Erith is about to skyrocket in value, and it seems to me that it is not a question of if, but when this will happen. I would love to see The Runnning Horses become the massive success that it used to be, but honestly, unless something dramatic happens, I don't see a bright future for it in the current guise. Anyway, on Monday morning I received an Email from JD Wetherspoon which said (and I quote):- "We are currently considering Erith as a possible location for a JD Wetherspoon pub, and we are in the process of obtaining feedback from our Operations Teams on their views on the viability of acquiring a site in the town". I don't know what locations they are looking at, but the three options that seem most likely to me are:- 1) The three empty retail units opposite Erith Health Centre, but this would likely elicit objections from the residents in the apartments above, and the units are also quite close to the Sherwood House residential care and sheltered housing home. The proximity of the home was the primary reason why Wetherspoon’s were unable to convert the old Erith Odeon Cinema into a pub back in 1998. The levels of noise and disturbance which customers would make in the evenings was judged as being too high in what is classed as a residential area. On top of this, I understand that a commercial gymnasium has designs on the site. 2) The old Carnegie Library building in Walnut Tree Road, which has been abandoned and unused for nearly six years - a photo of it is above - click on it for a larger version.  The old library building was going to be converted into a training centre for the hospitality and hotel industry as part of Bexley College, but the funding fell through, and the project was cancelled. Now that Bexley College is being administered by Bromley College, the future of other potential collaborative projects is unclear. Wetherspoon’s have a very good reputation for sensitive restoration of old buildings; my understanding is that the former Carnegie Library has a severe damp problem on the main brick frontage, and the lack of preventative maintenance has caused a number of fairly serious issues with the building fabric. Wetherspoon’s have deep enough pockets to be able to finance major construction, conversion and conservation work if they did decide to purchase the building for use as a pub / restaurant. The only downside I can think of is that the former library has no local parking, though local public transport links are excellent. This does not usually deter Wetherspoon’s, who seem more interested in the local customer demographic, than parking issues. 3) The aforementioned Running Horses – which also has good public transport links, on site car parking, and an excellent location – the downside is that the interior would need extensive modification to make it more open plan. Currently the pub has a downstairs public bar, and a smaller saloon bar which is seldom opened. Upstairs there is a large open plan area which has been used both as a restaurant / carvery and for wedding receptions and the like. The Running Horses ticks most of the boxes that I imagine that Wetherspoon’s would be looking at, with the exception of the internal layout. It would be difficult but possible to convert the two downstairs bars into a single open – plan layout as favoured by the pub company. Of the three locations considered thus far, my own opinion is that the Carnegie Library and The Running Horses are the two most likely to be considered by Wetherspoon’s.  I don't think that the former White Hart / Potion bar would be an option – the ground floor bar area is too small, and will have residential property on top and behind it, when the plans to redevelop  the upstairs of the pub, and the extensive gardens get a block of low rise flats built on them, as I have previously featured. I also think the three units opposite the Health Centre don’t stand a chance due to the proximity to residential accommodation. What do you think? Personally I feel that Erith is crying out for somewhere to go for a drink or informal “sit down” meal. If it gets the go – ahead, it will provide some much needed local jobs, and enable local people to actually socialise in Erith, rather than having to travel to Lower Belvedere (The Morgan), Bexleyheath (lots of places) or Dartford (ditto) in order to get a drink and a reasonably priced meal. I think a Wetherspoon’s pub opening in central Erith would be a very positive event, and the sooner it happens the better. If you disagree, or have a particular point to make, you can either leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com

Regular readers will know that I have been banging on about IT security issues for a very long time. I am especially concerned by contactless debit cards, as they are notoriously insecure. The situation now seems to have got worse, as a criminal group have commercialised the card cracking process, and it can now be bought online. A criminal group going under the name of The CC Buddies is selling a high tech device on the Dark Web that is capable of copying details from contactless debit cards if held as close as eight centimetres away from a victim's card. CC Buddies claim that their device, named Contactless Infusion X5, can copy up to 15 bank cards per second, something that may come in handy if a crook is going through a crowd at a concert or is in a crowded tube carriage.  X5 is designed to copy data from the radio chip embedded in modern RFID contactless bank cards. This data is stored on X5's internal storage system, and thieves can connect the device to their PC using USB cables and transfer it using special software, also supplied by CC Buddies. The device can collect data such as the card's number and expiration date. If the debit cards RFID chip stores information such as the card holder’s name, home address, and a mini statement, X5 can steal that data as well. When it copies credit card numbers, X5 encrypts the data. The software provided by CC Buddies will allow the crooks to decrypt and download the stolen information from their X5 device to a Windows (XP or higher) PC, and start creating fake debit cards using blank plastic cards. Crooks can get their hands on an X5 device for only 1.2 Bitcoin (around £600). CC Buddies says they ship devices via mail, and each buyer will receive the X5 device, a USB cable for charging and data transfers, and 20 blank cards. Below are X5's technical specifications, as provided by CC Buddies in their Dark Web advert, at the time of writing. “The Contactless Infusion X5 is the first contactless bank card hacker sold in the black market. This product has been designed and developed by The CC Buddies. The Contactless Infusion X5 is capable to detect and read ANY bank card from just 8 centimetres away! And reading at an amazing 1024kbps this powerful contactless reader will read and save at approximately 15 bank cards per second! The Contactless Infusion X5 has a built-in 5V battery charged via a USB 3.0 cable (provided). Takes approximately  3 hours to fully charge and it will last up to 10 hours in constant use. It’s also capable to read many other cards! Any card that is running on a 13.56mhz frequency, the Contactless Infusion X5 is able to read, and capture the data! But because the software we provide has been developed specifically to decrypt bank cards it won’t be able to decrypt any other cards, but we’re working on it and soon it will!!  ” This is all very worrying stuff. Personally I avoid all contactless cards - they are more trouble than they are worth in my opinion.

You may recall that there was great controversy when Bexley Council announced that they were ending the Danson Festival. Back in May 2014, I wrote: "It would appear from what I can gather that Bexley Council have effectively pulled the plug on the Danson Festival permanently. It has been known for some time that the festival was being called off this year, due, so the council said to drainage problems made worse by the terribly wet conditions last Autumn and Winter. It was originally intimated that the festival would be back as normal next year. Now Councillor Don Massey has announced that substantial engineering work is required to fix the problems, and that the council currently does not have the money to carry out the work. Bearing in mind over 60,000 people visited the festival last year, to drop it completely is quite a brave move, especially in the light of the forthcoming council elections. My understanding was that the festival was pretty much self funding, and usually turned a modest profit. It showcased local clubs and not for profit groups, and gave a lot of good causes the opportunity to both raise awareness and also fund raise. Several readers have left comments on the News Shopper website stating that the real reason for the cancellation of the Danson Festival is that the wealthy people who live in the big houses around Danson Park do not want the noise and disruption that the festival brings. Compared with other boroughs in the area, Bexley does very little if anything in terms of public festivities or events; it seems to be very keen to be able to continue to boast that they have kept council tax rates the same as last year, which seems to involve making more cuts upon cuts. The same cannot be said of the wage bill of the council leaders, which, as Malcolm Knight of “Bexley is Bonkers” has repeatedly pointed out, are amongst the highest in Greater London". The myth about the poor drainage in the park has been exposed now - a commercial company called Oakleigh Fairs is running an event called the "Danson Park Country Fair" on Saturday the 2nd and Sunday the 3rd of July in Danson Park, Welling. Unlike the previous fair, it is not free, and an entrance fee will be levied against visitors. Bearing in mind that Bexley Council stated that the reason for the cancellation of the original fair was that the cost of improving ground drainage to make the grassed areas suitable to use after heavy rain was too great for them, and that they were regretfully having to end the very popular free event turns out not surprisingly to be completely untrue. No drainage improvements of any description have been made, and yet after what is turning into the wettest summer in living memory, a mass event in Danson Park is able to go ahead with absolutely no reference to the reason the council used to cancel the original, free event. Of course, the commercial company called Oakleigh Fairs are able to go ahead with their for profit event; no doubt they are paying a fat fee to Bexley Council for the right to hold the two day fair. I could not make this up. Please feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The News Shopper have been running a story on how “shoddy” the grounds maintenance work has been in a number of public open spaces in the London Borough of Bexley. The poor level of workmanship in relatively simple tasks such as mowing a lawn is evident from the photographs sent to the local newspaper. I understand that some local residents have taken to mowing the grassed areas themselves, as they are so frustrated by the poor service the council contractors have been providing. I have spoken to a couple of residents of Manor Road, Erith who share this frustration. As you may know, Manor Road is a very long carriageway that has mixed use. The Western end is exclusively residential, whilst the Eastern end is almost exclusively industrial. Many heavy vehicles and plant travel along the road during the day, and consequently a lot of dust in the summer, and mud in the winter is generated. Historically the road and pavements were regularly swept to keep the level of pollution down, but in the last few months the sweeping has ceased and both the road and the pathways are in a right old state. You can see an example in the photo above, which shows one of the pedestrian crossing points near the Frobisher Road Estate. The photo was taken just after the torrential rainfall and minor flash flood on Friday afternoon, and much of the dust and silt that normally lines the kerb had temporarily washed away, but it will be back very soon. It would seem that the rapacious Bexley Council have cut back on street sweeping on top of everything else they are notorious for cutting. Do you have any similar experiences? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

You may recall that back in August of last year I featured an expose of a fraud called the “Funky Clock”. This scam may have now disappeared, but another called Zuuvu seems to have taken its place. A number of readers 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 had 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 was called “Funky Clock” which ran “special offers” amongst “skill and speed” competitions, where participants purchased credits to use to play games, the winner of which supposedly won an iPhone 6. When you signed up for the “free” service, you were prompted to enter your bank details “for verification purposes”. What was only displayed in microscopic text is that the “free” period only lasted for three days, and that after that Funky Clock debited your bank account by £74 a month, from then until the end of time. They also took large amounts of unauthorised cash, sometimes into the thousands of pounds from subscribers accounts. No cheap iPhones, no deals – the whole thing was a massive scam. It would appear that many Internet Service Providers, notably including Virgin were 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”. After a massive amount of negative publicity, the scammers closed that particular operation, but did not close down altogether. They are now back with a new look, but the same nefarious purpose – to rob innocent people of their hard earned cash. You can see a screen capture of their redesigned website above - click on the image for a larger version.  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. The Zuuvu scammers do make an elementary error on their deceptive website - they talk about the UK, but they mention prices in Euros - anyone with half a brain cell will know that the UK uses the Pound Sterling, not the Euro. Basic error and in its way, a giveaway to the whole fraud.  You have been warned.

Now that British Astronaut Tim Peake is safely back on Earth, I thought I would feature one of the educational projects he was working on whilst in orbit. He was very involved with encouraging school children to develop an interest in science and technology. This was promoted by a series of live video links from the International Space Station, and by pre - scheduled audio contacts via amateur radio.  The ten school contacts with Tim Peake on the ISS during his Principia mission have inspired thousands of young people and introduced them to amateur radio in a new and exciting way. The new video below celebrates these historic events and the range of linked activities the schools have enjoyed. Beginning with the exhilaration of the launch, it follows the competition for schools to host the ARISS contacts, and showcases the variety of science, technology, engineering, maths (STEM) and arts activities that helped pupils to understand more about space and amateur radio. The contacts themselves, often led by newly-licensed pupils, were the successful culmination of many months of work and anticipation. Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Bollards!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mother's Pride.

The photo above was taken by one of my confidential sources earlier this week. It shows the platforms and footbridge at Bexleyheath station. The reason that my informant took the photograph was that there is  construction work under way directly adjacent to the footbridge over the rails. From what can be seen, it is to install a passenger lift. This is excellent news for commuters from Bexleyheath, but it does beg the question, why is Bexleyheath getting a lift, when South Eastern have repeatedly refused requests to install a lift at Erith station, despite such a refusal being a contravention of the Equality Act 2010? I have contacted someone in a position to know about such matters, and I have been told that South Eastern and Network Rail are carrying out the lift construction as part of planned maintenance to the footbridge, as it is much cheaper to carry out such modifications whilst the bridge is being worked on anyway. A stand alone project would have been more expensive. It turns out that even Bexleyheath MP David Evennett was shocked that Bexleyheath was chosen over Erith, as Erith has a far worse accessibility problem. At Bexleyheath, there is a nearby bridge over the railway which can be easily used by those using wheelchairs or baby buggies – Erith has no such option. If you want to go to London, and cannot climb the footbridge steps, you have no option but to go to Dartford, two stops in the wrong direction, in order to use the lift there to change platforms to come back the other way. The reasons cited for choosing Bexleyheath over Erith also include a claim that the footfall at Erith is too low to justify a lift at this point. To my mind this is blatantly untrue. If you stand on the London bound platform (providing you can get to it) from around 6.30 on a weekday morning, you will see just how many people use the station. South Eastern’s usage figures are almost certainly distorted to read on the low side, as the only passenger data they will get on a daily basis will come from the Oyster card readers; many passengers, myself included, use paper tickets, and since there are no ticket barriers at Erith, there is no way to record the footfall accurately. The fact that Erith station has a car park that passengers are forbidden from using, and if you travel by car to the station, you end up being forced to park in nearby residential roads, though this is being stopped; there are already parking restrictions in Christ Church Avenue and Victoria Road. I am told that these restrictions are going to be widened to cover other roads around the station before the new Bexley College campus opens in September. Whatever the footfall for Erith station is now, it is inevitably going to increase. Not only will the new college attract passengers, but the massive increase in residential construction in the area will have an effect on commuting. Not only is Erith Park – currently the largest residential housing project in Europe – shortly coming to fruition, but, as mentioned last week, a further thousand houses and apartments may soon be built on the waste land, and former quarry located between Fraser and Bexley Roads. The residents are going to have jobs, and my guess is that many will need to travel to and from London. When these two large housing estates are factored in with all of the other smaller construction projects in the local area, it stands to reason that the demand for public transportation is going to explode. One does also wonder if the priority is being given to Bexleyheath station due to the demographic makeup of the passengers. Bexleyheath is generally regarded as being somewhat middle class, whilst Erith is regarded as working class. The North of the London Borough of Bexley is generally less favoured than the centre and South for this reason.

Some time ago I wrote describing how Tesco are shortly going to install display screens using facial recognition technology in their petrol station shops – the idea being that the screen will scan the shopper as they queue to pay for their fuel, and depending on the age and gender of the person, targeted adverts are played at the person. If this does not sound worrying enough, as the software improves and becomes more sophisticated,  it will be able to scan a database of previous customers to see if the shopper has used the outlet before. It can then check to see what the shopper previously bought and target adverts accordingly. There is a huge issue of invasion of privacy and lack of consent. If not only private companies, but government bodies employ facial recognition technology as a means of determining identity (which is already happening in the USA and China, for example), there are immediately problems when the system gets it wrong. At present, in ideal circumstances (good, even lighting, no rain or mist) the best facial recognition systems will be accurate about 97% of the time. That is a whole three per cent error rate. Unlike a PIN number or password, your face is not something you can change without resorting to surgery.  There have already been cases in the USA where mis – identification has had serious repercussions. In 2011 a blame free and conscientious driver called John Gass received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informing him that he was ordered to stop driving immediately. After Gass made a series of concerned phone calls to the Registry, he eventually was able to determine that he had been incorrectly identified by a facial recognition system as a serial motoring offender, when in fact he had never had a driving ticket in his life. When he queried this, the Registry of Motor Vehicles official said that it was John Gass’s “burden” to prove his innocence, as the pros of protecting the public outweighed the inconvenience of the wrongly targeted few. I must admit that this made my eyebrows rise. The USA is often touted as a shining example of a country that espouses personal liberty; this example would seem to contradict that view. This kind of situation is going to become increasingly common; some bars and nightclubs are looking at introducing a facial recognition system called Scene Tap. This analyses high definition CCTV camera footage from within each establishment and can establish the gender ratios in the bar, it can also determine the age of patrons, and link their facial image with online social networking sites (in their words) to “determine the relationship status, intelligence, education and income.” Scary stuff. All this is done without the permission – or even knowledge of the patrons. You may think this is all rather “Minority Report”, but Scene Tap is already deployed and in operation in over four hundred bars and night clubs around the USA, and it is inevitable that it will be in the UK very soon, if it is not already here on the quiet. Even if you as an individual have no problems with facial recognition, it does raise the issue of identity. Once the technology becomes ubiquitous, cheap and interconnected, it will only take one system to mis – identify you for your entire online identity to become suspect; you may not even realise it for some time, and may have no way of even knowing why you suddenly get turned down for a loan, or barred from a nightclub where you have formerly been a regular visitor. At least where governments are involved with things like this, there are usually established processes to identify and rectify mistakes. When it comes to private businesses there are no such constraints.

Last week I posted an image of an advert from Groom’s bakery from back in 1903. Subsequently I have been in contact with local historian Ken Chamberlain, who sent me the photo above (click on it for a larger view) and gave me some valuable background information. I must admit that until Ken contacted me,  I had no idea how Grooms “the hygienic bakery” became so successful and known all around the country.  After starting off with the West Street bakery, the business rapidly expanded; eventually they ended up building the large bakery in Belmont Road, Northumberland Heath. The site had a stables for the horses that pulled their vans, plus workshops for the company mechanics, farriers and coach builders. The most famous product created by Grooms was “Mother’s Pride” – bread that ended up being sold all over the country, and is still a favourite today. The horse drawn vans were still in use until the late 1950’s – more I think as an advertising and publicity tool, than as a practical means of delivery. My late Dad would often hitch a lift with a van when he was a boy – he knew several of the drivers; if the were not following a route he wanted to go on, he would then roller skate the rest of the way. By 1957 this was to change though. Grooms merged with the Rank, Hovis McDougall Group, although the family continued to run the Northumberland Heath bakery until 1959. The bakery is still on the same site today, and is now owned by British Bakeries; it produces a substantial amount of the bread eaten by Londoners and those further afield.

On Friday night I went out for a curry with an old friend. Nothing unusual there then. It did get me thinking; whilst the contents of the menu in most high street Indian restaurants are usually fairly similar, depending on the chef and the target market, the same is almost always not true of the drink available. It is almost without exception going to include three or four varieties of lager.  Apart from my personal preferences not including lager (too cold, too gassy, too tasteless) it strikes me as an opportunity for a curry house owner to do something to stand out from the crowd. Personally I think that real ale is a far better accompaniment to curry than lager is ; real ale does not fill you up with gas, for one thing. It tends to have a more robust, malty and hoppy flavour which works well with the strong flavours Indian spices create. I think the only down side with serving real ale in a curry house is one of shelf life. Once a cask has been opened, it needs to be used within three or four days before it goes off; I doubt that many curry houses would serve enough to justify it. I would like to hear your views on the subject – either leave a comment below, or Email me hugh.neal@gmail.com. More on ale later.

It would appear from what I can gather that Bexley Council have effectively pulled the plug on the Danson Festival permanently. It has been known for some time that the festival was being called off this year, due, so the council said to drainage problems made worse by the terribly wet conditions last Autumn and Winter. It was originally intimated that the festival would be back as normal next year. Now Councillor Don Massey has announced that substantial engineering work is required to fix the problems, and that the council currently does not have the money to carry out the work. Bearing in mind over 60,000 people visited the festival last year, to drop it completely is quite a brave move, especially in the light of the forthcoming council elections. My understanding was that the festival was pretty much self funding, and usually turned a modest profit. It showcased local clubs and not for profit groups, and gave a lot of good causes the opportunity to both raise awareness and also fund raise. Several readers have left comments on the News Shopper website stating that the real reason for the cancellation of the Danson Festival is that the wealthy people who live in the big houses around Danson Park do not want the noise and disruption that the festival brings. Compared with other boroughs in the area, Bexley does very little if anything in terms of public festivities or events; it seems to be very keen to be able to continue to boast that they have kept council tax rates the same as last year, which seems to involve making more cuts upon cuts. The same cannot be said of the wage bill of the council leaders, which, as Malcolm Knight of “Bexley is Bonkers” has repeatedly pointed out, are amongst the highest in Greater London.

I find that whenever I check the BBC News website for the weather, it is wrong. It might not be out by that much, but at around this time of year when the air temperature can vary quite widely, the difference of a couple of degrees can strongly influence your choice of clothing. Quite some time ago I found the answer to this quandary. Local resident Bob Hewitt has an amazing automated, digital weather station, which is internet enabled. The station has a website that can be accessed by anyone wanting to know what the weather is like in the Erith and Northumberland Heath area. I consult the site several times per day – the information available is very detailed – not only temperature, but wind strength and direction, rain level, humidity, barometric pressure and so on. Weather Display Live is an excellent web resource that I visit every day, and would highly recommend to you.  

The list of beers for next weeks' 9th Bexley Beer Festival has now been published - see the image above, and click on it for a larger view. The festival will run from the evening of Thursday 15th May at 5pm until Saturday the 17th May. You can see more details by clicking here. I plan on attending on Friday evening - usually the most popular day of the event. A full report will be published next week.

I have been passed some documentation regarding Bexley Council and the refurbishment work that they propose to undertake in Northumberland Heath. It is only right and fair that the area gets some money and attention, as both Erith and Bexleyheath, which border the town have both had considerable regeneration efforts in the last couple of years, but Northumberland Heath has until now been missed out. The council propose some fairly dramatic changes, quite a few of which may not actually be necessary or indeed desirable. The Northumberland Heath Community Forum have analysed the council proposals and countered with their own proposal document, which actually would involve significantly less council expenditure. Most of the proposed works will centre around Bexley Road, and the main shopping area. The council propose replacing the existing powder coated steel park benches with stone ones. There are concerns that this is not necessary; the existing benches are in pretty good condition, and only require a coat of enamel paint every couple of years. They also have the advantage of having a back, allowing people to lounge, whereas the proposed stone benches will not. Much of the weekday population of Northumberland Heath is elderly, and are those most likely to use the benches, and back support is a definite requirement, and the feedback from the forum is that a lick of paint on the current benches is all that is really required. Similarly, the council propose replacing much of the existing block paving and granite kerbs, when the existing paving is not in bad order at all. It would seem that a decent regime of weeding and some re-pointing would be sufficient – and would also save a wad of council (our) cash. The money saved by abandoning these works could be better spent on resurfacing the Mill Road car park, which currently is so cratered that it resembles the surface of the moon. The council also propose replacing many of the dented metal roadside barriers with new ones. This is laudable, but the feedback from the forum members is that this would only be practical if bollards were used to protect the barriers; otherwise passing lorries tend to clip and bend them within months of them being replaced. All in all, the works required to enhance Northumberland Heath shopping area are not that extensive, and a proportion of the money the council propose to spend could better employed, say in refurbishing the library, which is looking quite tatty at present. The counter proposal document from the Northumberland Heath Community Forum is well argued and presents what I consider to be a strong case. Whether the council choose to abide by their findings is something we will have to wait and see. More on this when new information becomes available.

Are you a FaceBook user? Chances are that most Maggot Sandwich readers will be, as it would seem to be the most pervasive social network round. If so, have you ever wondered just how much your personal data is worth to FaceBook? If you are interested in what can be done with your information, and who would want to buy access to it, there is a new web service called Digital Shadow. The website scrapes your FaceBook profile (after you grant access), creating its own profile of you that focuses on vulnerabilities. The access granted is similar to the access offered to cameras, location services, apps and other websites that users commonly associate with FaceBook. Digital Shadow spells out exactly what they have access to: "Watch Dogs Digital Shadow will receive the following info: your public profile, friend list, News Feed, relationships, birthday, work history, status updates, education history, groups, hometown, interests, current city, photos, religious and political views, follows and followers, personal description and likes and your friends' status updates and photos." So, pretty much anything and everything you've ever put on the Internet. The website also predicts your location if you have geotagging or location services turned on. It also estimates your salary and produces a very well educated guess of your passwords. The password generator pulls from your friends, pet names, interests, frequently used words, and more to auto formulate potential passwords. It then estimates the time it would take for the passwords to be tested against FaceBook's log in by a hacking program: over a million can be tested in about two minutes. After you have finished being scanned by Digital Shadow, you can easily remove the app from your FaceBook settings by logging into your account, selecting Settings, then Apps, and pressing the X next to Digital Shadow. While you're there, you should check out what other apps have permissions to use your data, because they're likely to be turning a profit on your digital presence. Unless you stop using social media completely, and delete — not just deactivate — your profiles, your data can always be mined. While Digital Shadow won't make that disappear, it will bring attention to the pieces of your personal life that are most useful as data points, offering you a chance to adjust privacy settings. I have had several people querying why I am not on FaceBook, or indeed any similar website. Now perhaps you can better understand why.

The World Wide Web is 25 years old this week. Many people think the World Wide Web and the Internet are one and the same, but they are not. The video below gives a little background explanation and history - watch and enjoy.

Skinny fries and Late Red.

Today was the second and final day of the Danson Festival 2010. The event was held in Danson Park, next to the extremely picturesque lake; it was huge, very well organised and attended. The hot weather helped too. One of my contacts informed me that Bexley Council outsource the organisation and operation of the event to the company that manages the Glastonbury Festival. Okay, Glastonbury is a hundred - fold larger and more complex an event, but the Danson Festival was slick and professionally run, with a heavy, if low key Police presence. I only saw one brief unpleasant incident, where two greasy looking chavettes threatened a man with two small dogs with their own huge and vicious Pitbull crossbreed monstrosity. I reported it to a passing officer, and their very efficient communication and control system swung into operation, and officers were zeroed in on the low - lives for immediate action. Other than that minor wrinkle, a good time seemed to be had by all.

On Friday, Shirley and I were sitting in the newly refurbished “Ship and Trades” pub at the river front at the Chatham Maritime development. The pub, owned by Shepherd Neame has been open for a while; it was converted from the Royal navy dockyard offices about ten years ago. The place has always had a slightly industrial look and feel, with high ceilings and exposed pipework and trunking. Some visitors have complained that the place consequently has little atmosphere. Since last time we visited the place, it has undergone a sympathetic makeover, with new soft furnishings and plenty of dark wood. It now feels a lot more homely, and by the number of customers yesterday lunchtime, the locals certainly seem to like the changes. We sat in an alcove, which in its' former life was one of the managers' offices, as the original black, cast iron fireplace is still visible. It was a blisteringly hot day, making me feel very uncomfortable whilst outside; fortunately the Ship and Trades has a very efficient air conditioning system and it was blissfully cool within. We went to eat – and here was the real rub. I had an excellent piece of sustainably grown Alaskan cod in a very light and crisp beer batter made with Spitfire ale. It was the best piece of fish I have eaten for many years – a real revelation, and worthy of a high end restaurant. The sticking point were the chips. They weren't what I class as chips at all, they were American skinny fries. Before any of my American readers complain, I don't have anything against skinny French fries – it is the context that I have issue with. Fish and chips is a quintessential British dish, alongside curry and roast dinner. British chips are chunky, macho things served with vinegar and tomato ketchup and best eaten out of paper. Skinny fries are best at home with a decent cheeseburger and spicy relish. The cross pollination of culinary genres simply does not work in my opinion. Shirley agreed, to the extent she did not nick any of my fries – something unheard of until now. She stuck to her prawn bruschetta and salad. I was expecting her fingers to come creeping across the table to do a quick raid on the fried potato comestibles, but it never happened, and I ended up leaving quite a pile of them – something I almost never do.

Incidentally, with all of my talk of Shepherd Neame, Britain's oldest brewer have now made their excellent Late Red ale available all year round. Originally it was only available in October and November as their autumn seasonal ale. I wrote to the head brewer, and I had a very positive response to the suggestion I made, requesting it be brewed throughout the year; I guess that I was not alone, and the company has acquiesced to our request. Chalk up one to the consumer!

Does anyone know whatever happened to Vinyl Weld? As a kid, my Dad used it to repair rips and scuff in vinyl furniture on a number of occasions. The 70's were most definitely the heyday for the plastic pseudo leather substitute material. I need to source a bottle of the miracle liquid that would melt and set vinyl, in the process repairing splits and tears. Why, you ask? I have a chair in my study back at Pewty Acres. The chair is an old orthopaedic one my dad had following an operation on his spine back in the 1980's. It is a supremely comfortable work chair, ensuring I sit correctly in front of either my work laptop, or my adjacent Apple iMac. It has had a small crack in the vinyl on the left arm for years, small enough for me to ignore, it. Now time, and many bum impressions on the seat have caused a crack / tear to appear and I now need to take some restorative action. It is either fix the damage with Vinyl Weld, or get the chair professionally re - upholstered.

Incidentally, my Blogger profile has recently hit the three thousand views point. People must be disproportionally interested in either me, or the piffle I spout each and every Sunday afternoon. I have no  idea why, but I am extremely grateful nevertheless.

Below is a short clip from a new BBC2 comedy series called Rev. It is about a small time country vicar who moves to take over a run down parish in the deprived East End of London. Ian is none too pleased that his nick name is used as the title of the show - he's been known as the reV (note the spelling) for well over twenty years, and I suspect he regards the show as a bit of an upstart. Nevertheless it is an entertaining and fresh look at organised religion, and light years away from the safe and somewhat saccarine world of the Vicar of Dibley. Actress Olivia Coleman plays the vicars' wife. You may recall I mentioned her a while back in one of her other comedy roles - that of psychopathic secretary and member of the Polish resistance, Minka from the outstanding BBC Radio 4 comedy "Hut 33".

I see that the town of Salou on the Costa Dourada in Spain has banned men from appearing shirtless, and  women from wearing bikinis on anywhere but the beach. This bye law is mainly aimed at the feckless Brit tourists who have exported their slovenly and repulsive behaviour from the UK.  You can read about the story here. I just wish that the same kind of law would be passed here in the UK; I cannot abide seeing the number of skinny, tattooed and sunburned chavs that parade around the place semi naked. It is distasteful and inconsiderate of others to say the least. 

If you watched the first episode of the new series of Top Gear on BBC 2 last Sunday evening, you will have seen the footage of the destruction of the old "Reasonably priced car". Something that I scooped on the Maggot Sandwich back on the 4th of April. The car was placed at the base of two giant chimneys in Northfleet when they were blown up by local construction and demolition experts Erith Construction. They have their headquarters building in what was the old Erith Job Centre - an excellent piece of recycling in itself. Erith Construction were one of the first small to medium sized enterprises (ooh - that's work talk for you) to employ cloud based computing. They moved their entire workforce from using the expensive and difficult to support Microsoft Office over to the web based Google Documents for Enterprise; Google regard the company as somewhat of a reference site now. A good or a bad thing? You decide.

The main video clip this week is a bit of a gem if you have even a passing interest in aircraft. The footage was shot in West Wales last year during a joint US / UK airforce exercise. Plane spotters have found a spot at the mouth of a deep valley, and the planes, including F15's, F16's, Tornados, Eurofighter Typhoons, and even a C-130 Hercules transport plane come shooting down for them to photograph. I get the feeling that the military pilots knew full well that the air anoraks were there, and put on a bit of a performance for their benefit. It is all pretty impressive stuff. See what you think and don't forget to leave a comment below.