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.

Bexley College on the brink.

Jane and Cliff Murphy of the Bexley Brewery, accompanied by their son Cameron, were guests of local MP David Evennett at the House of Commons on Wednesday. Their excellent BOB (Bexley's Own Beer) is now being sold in the Strangers Bar in the Palace of Westminster. Bearing in mind that Bexley Brewery only opened in September 2014, they have come a hell of a long way in a very short time. They have won multiple awards for the quality of their ales, and were also recognised as the best new business in Bexley last year.  Contact details for the brewery are above. I can heartily recommend them; you can usually find me visiting the brewery shop on a Friday lunchtime.

If you don't already read The Thamesmead Grump, then I would strongly advise you to do so. Richard produces some very interesting posts, and the quality of his photography is second to none. This week Richard covers the threat posed to the Crossness Nature Reserve, which is now under threat of being virtually wiped out by a massive development proposed by Cory Environmental on part of the brownfield site next to the reserve. If this were to go ahead, it would completely overwhelm the designated nature reserve and destroy most of the last remaining grazing marshes in South East London. Richard writes: "As part of a campaign against this proposal, there is going to be photoshoot at the nature reserve at 10:30am on Friday 1st April (this is not a hoax) where we hope to get as many people as possible for a group photograph that can be used for press release. There will be banners and Skylark kites for protesters to wave so please do come along if you can and bring your friends and family too. You can find directions easily by Googling Crossness Nature Reserve". I fully support both Richard, and the campaign to protect and preserve the nature reserve. If you get the chance, please do go along to support this worthwhile cause.

You may recall that a while ago I wrote an extensive piece on the rogue biker gang Bike Life TV UK, and how they had been causing all kinds of mayhem in Lower Belvedere, Abbey Wood and Thamesmead. I knew that the Police were well aware of the illegal activities of the gang, and had plans to take action against them. On Thursday morning Bexley police released the following statement “An operation was carried out on 28th February utilising approximately 40 officers from various specialist units across the Metropolitan Police Service. This included officers from the Roads and Transport Policing Command, the Territorial Support Group and local officers from Bexley. A group of 20 motor cycles were identified early by unmarked Police vehicles travelling to the area. The group were stopped dealt with by Police resulting in a large number of vehicle seizures for offences such as no insurance and no MOT. A large number of fixed penalty notices were also issued and several riders were reported and summonsed for court for various traffic offences. 4 arrests were also made for offences such as Burglary, Possession of drugs and driving under the influence of drugs.  Of note one of the main organisers of the activity, who was disqualified from driving, had been identified as being involved in activity the previous week on Sunday 21st February. He was arrested early on the Sunday morning and later charged and remanded to court the next morning. He appeared at Bexley Magistrates Court on Monday 29th February and received a 12 week custodial sentence. Police have continued with the same plans for the past two weeks deploying large numbers of officers to the area. We are pleased to report that there have been no incidents involving motor cycle related Anti-Social behaviour for three weeks running. The tactics will continue moving forward and robust action taken against anyone found engaging in such activity in the future". This is all excellent news; I know of many honest, law abiding bikers who were severely ticked off by the activities of the illegal bikers, which reflected badly on the honest ones. Hopefully the members of Bike Life TV UK will realise that their activities will not be tolerated. They are a menace to both the general public and themselves.

A very strange story broke earlier this week, and it seems to have grabbed the attention of a lot of local people. A two year old girl from Greenhithe made the local news after losing her soft toy rabbit outside of the National Westminster Bank in Townley Road, Bexleyheath. An eyewitness believes he saw the toy – called Bunny, being carried away by a woman five minutes after the discovery was made - but nobody else was able to verify this.  After a public appeal, the News Shopper published the story on their website, and it quickly became the most read subject. The toy bunny was later found abandoned in Erith – whoever had taken it had then decided to dump the stolen property. Fortunately the little girl was reunited with the toy, and the story has a happy ending.

In a notification letter dated March 10, American Express warned  cardholders that their account information might well have been exposed after a third-party service provider suffered a data breach. They sent an email to card owners which said "Account information of some of our Card Members, including some of your account information, may have been involved. It is important to note that American Express owned or controlled systems were not compromised by this incident,"  The third-party provider, which isn't named, is engaged by several merchants. Cardholders should expect that their account number, name, and other card details were compromised. The interesting aspect of this notification is that the incident being referenced by American Express happened on Saturday, December 7, 2013. It isn't clear why the there was such a delay. American Express says the notification is just a precaution. The fact that two and half years have elapsed since the security breach was detected and the announcement was made is extremely worrying. Any damage will have been long done – it really makes me wonder what security notification policies a large financial services organisation such as American Express have in place.

An interesting story has come to light this week, with a result that I must admit did somewhat surprise me. The survey results on the Transport for London proposals for the East of London river crossings have now been published. Consultation on the proposals, which closed last month, showed that 88 per cent of people who responded support a new crossing linking Thamesmead and Beckton, or Belvedere to Rainham. Around 3,500 (77 per cent) support new crossings at both locations, which TfL says would cater for public transport and road users and help secure London’s future success. Bearing in mind the anti-river crossing campaigns run by both Bexley Council and the campaign group Bexley Against River Crossings (BARC), the results are pretty conclusive. It would seem to me that after open consultation, both Bexley Council and BARC have demonstrably shown that they don’t have a mandate on the matter. BARC in particular seem to have positioned themselves against mainstream public opinion with their policy to keep Bexley isolated from the rest of London in order to “preserve its character”. In an interview with the Bexley Times, as spokesperson for BARC was quoted as saying "Overall the consultation was inadequate and certainly not fit for purpose. More than two million people will suffer because of the crossings - 4500 respondents is hardly representative. Further, the consultation was flawed and gave the misleading impression that the road crossings would reduce congestion; it is clear that many people responded on that basis. There is overwhelming evidence that this kind of road capacity always increases congestion and destroys communities, yet the consultation did not tell people that, nor did it point out the dangers posed by the increased pollution and decimation of housing that will result from the crossings.” Personally I understand and can sympathise with the sentiments, but it would seem that the public have sent a very strong message that they want more crossings. Getting 4500 responses is actually very high; these kind of consultations tend to have very low levels of response, as most people don't care enough to bother giving feedback, or they don't find out about the survey until they read the results. I think BARC overestimate the level of resident engagement. As if this was not enough, rent a gob champagne socialist Russell Brand has got involved. A third river crossing has been mooted to join East Thurrock and Eastern Gravesend. Brand made the following statement on Wednesday “To build this new crossing they’re going to have mess with green belt land, dig up green belt land, destroy some new homes that were built for people, those people are going to have to be jogged on from their homes, even though they’ve just moved in. And the thing that touches me most - is there’s a school called Treetops which helps kids with Asperger’s, autism and mild learning difficulties of all varieties - they were going to expand that school that school had won its dream for expansion but now not only is the expansion scrapped that school is going to be subsumed in fumes and pollution unless we do something to stop it. Now this was the birthplace of the peasant revolution Thurrock, that’s where Wat Taylor who led the peasants - and I’m not making any comparison - that’s where he came from”. The points made about Treetops School are very valid, and would normally deserve serious debate and examination. The problem is the person who has raised them. Brand would have been better off encouraging another public personality with better credibility taking on the campaign. For me, and many others Russell Brand is like Chris Evans – an instant turn – off; if I catch him on the TV or radio I immediately switch channels. He removes credibility from any argument against a road crossing East of the QEII bridge. It is not like he has any recent connections with the area around Thurrock nowadays – he famously moved out as soon as he was able. Nowadays his main residence is in the Hollywood Hills in California. I occasionally see Russell Brand on the London bound platform at Greenwich Station – when I then studiously ignore the blatant self-publicist. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

I have received some rather worrying news from one of my confidential sources. I have been informed that Bexley College is in dire financial straits, and that things are so bad the college may be forced into a hostile takeover by Bromley College, who are already taking over the failing and bankrupt Greenwich Community College. My contact tells me that the information about the terrible state of the finances of Bexley College is virtually unknown outside of college senior management, and a few people in Bexley Council. I have been shown meeting minutes from 6th July 2015 , which show Bexley College predicted a deficit of £689,000 for 2015/16 (college financial years are August to July) and a cash loss of £660,000,  and with £2 million in reserves, it would leave a cash balance of just £1.34m. However, it then said by the end of July 2017 it would be down to £500,000. A predicted loss of £840,000 is forecast in 2016/17. The “smoking gun” can be seen here – the takeover is being sold to Councillors as a “merger” but my source tells me that this is for political and face – saving reasons. I also understand that the final decision is being made on Monday evening during an extraordinary meeting of the governors of Bexley College. “Bromley College seems to be on a bid for world domination” was something told to me by another of my very well – placed and reliable informants. I hope to have more on this story next week.

Much to nobody’s surprise, Southeastern Trains have been named as the worst performing train company in respect of lateness and cancellations. Four Southeastern trains run up to two hours late every day, making up seven per cent of the country's delayed trains, according to Office of Rail and Road statistics. Think of it. One relatively small train operating company that has managed to rack up a whole seven percent of the entire UK’s train delays and cancellations. If there was an award for running a terrible rail service, surely Southeastern would win it . By contrast, Transport for London (TfL) was the best performing operator - only one in every 7,288 trains were significantly delayed, just 11 journeys-a-year. Surely yet another reason for Southeastern to lose their franchise to TfL. What do you think? Would a takeover by TfL be a good thing, or would it be substituting a known for an unknown? Before anyone points out that some of the blame for the delays and cancellations needs to fall at the feet of Network Rail, I agree; however, other rail companies also have to deal with Network Rail, and by and large they make a far better fist of it than Southeastern. As recently said by local MP Teresa Pearce – “I have just one train line running through my constituency, two tracks, three stations, one train rail line, what could go wrong? Well, Southeastern could go wrong. Before Southeastern we had Connex and Connex was terrible and we thought Southeastern would be better and we were wrong. I have a real appreciation of the frustration of the what it’s like to stand on a platform in the certain knowledge of the uncertainty of the train service.” Well said. Connex were indeed terrible, but Southeastern are demonstrably worse in almost every respect – and I speak as a regular commuter. Extensive works both in relation to the rebuilding of London Bridge station and further engineering activities on the Elizabeth Line between Plumstead and Abbey Wood will mean that there will be no trains whatsoever in and out of London over the long weekend. According to the Southeastern engineering works website:-"Planned engineering work will take place. Between Plumstead and Dartford From 04:00, Saturday 19 March 2016 to 02:00, Monday 21 March 2016. All lines will be closed. All services will be revised. Abbey Wood, Belvedere, Erith and Slade Green will not be served. . A replacement bus service will be in operation between Plumstead and Dartford.” Unlike many other parts of Greater London, there is little in the way of alternative public transport – we don’t have the tube, or even DLR, and to be honest, when the North Kent Line is closed, the only realistic option for travel into London is to get the bus to Woolwich Arsenal, and then pick up the Docklands Light Railway from there. I completely understand the need for line closures when the scale of the engineering work is taken into consideration, it just seems to me that the project managers think that nobody needs to travel into or out of London at weekends, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The Maggot Sandwich has been published every Sunday afternoon for what in July will be ten years; in all that time I have never missed an update – even when I lost my broadband connection at home on one occasion, I headed up to my mother’s house to make sure that an update did indeed get posted. Over all those years, and a total this week of 580 weekly updates, the entry that has had the most visits was a relatively recent one. You may recall that back in August last year I wrote a piece called The “Funky Clock” scam. Well, that piece got picked up by Google and made it onto the front page of for anyone that searched for anything to do with “Funky Clock”. As a result of people curious to find more about the widely publicised online fraud, that one blog update has now has had nearly 30,000 hits. I had Emails from a number of people who had been scammed by the “Funky Clock” website, and some of their stories were heart-breaking. Because of the adverse publicity the “Funky Clock” scam got, the criminals behind it went underground. I think they also got some serious heat from the lawyers employed by the BBC, as their website used the BBC website layout and graphics in an attempt to fool people into thinking it was legitimately from the BBC. For some time the scammers went quiet, but I am afraid that I have to report that they are now back; this time they call themselves “Happy Crocky”, and they still have the colour palette and design of the BBC News website, though they have removed the BBC branded logos. You can see the result in the screen capture above. In case you were unaware of the nature of the “Funky Clock” / “Happy Crocky” scam, it essentially functions thus:  Links can be found on “respectable” websites such as tabloid newspapers and other showbiz and gossip sites; the links lead to a website which appears to be a legitimate news site such as the BBC, where a story claims that a company is “giving away” brand new, current model iPhones for £1. The thing is, the website is actually a “honey trap” designed to fool readers into thinking it is legitimate. In fact it has been created by the scammers to redirect the gullible to their scam website. The second site used to be  called “Funky Clock” and is now “Happy Crocky” which runs “special offers” amongst “skill and speed” competitions, where participants purchase credits to use to play games, the winner of which supposedly wins an iPhone 6. When you sign up for the “free” service, you are prompted to enter your bank details “for verification purposes”. What is only displayed in microscopic text is that the “free” period only lasts for three days, and that after that Funky Clock / Happy Crocky will debit your bank account by £74 a month, from now until the end of time. No cheap iPhones, no deals – the whole thing is a massive scam. The new “Happy Crocky” site even uses the same photos and much of the same text from its predecessor – it is definitely being run by the same shameless bunch of thieving scumbags as before. It would appear that many Internet Service Providers, notably including Virgin have been duped into forwarding “Genuine offer” messages from Funky Clock Happy Crocky to their subscribers, thus giving a veneer of apparent respectability to the confidence trick. This is a classic case of “if it seems too good to be true, it generally is”. Be warned – treat anything that says they are giving away high value items for next to nothing as a con until it can be verifiably proved otherwise (a very fat chance indeed). Unfortunately the criminals will continue such scams for as long as there are vulnerable people to fall prey to them. This was only the first of two scams that have come back out of the woodwork over the last week; a second, much longer running and insidious scam has come to my attention. I have been receiving spam messages that have been successfully filtered out by Google, but every so often I like to sift through the spam, looking for anything of particular interest, prior to permanently deleting them. I came across the message which you can see below from “Chris” – a self-described “Astrologer, Psychic Medium and Parapsychologist” (ahem) the scam involves relieving vulnerable and credulous people of large amounts of their hard earned cash. The composition of the Email graphic is very interesting – the photo of Chris himself is hysterical – the theatrical bar of light over his eyes to symbolise his “special” insight, and the horrendously Photoshopped hair which makes him look like he is wearing a hairpiece made of fibreglass! You may well have received one of his scam messages yourself. I have been tracking the activities of “Chris”, and have found the following comments made on a scam - busting website:-  "please do not ever give your credit card details to this man..or excuse for a man !! be warned .. how can he sleep at night ?? i'm embarrassed to write this here but i must to warn others. he has unlawfully just taken $28 nzd out of my account just after christmas after i was told i could unsubscribe to his emails/hypno sessions (people you are quite capable of helping yourself find friendship and improve your life without his lies) i'm a honest vulnerable financially single mum and now thanks to him i'm broke !! they just took another $115 nzd out of my account without my consent even tho the emails say you can unsubscribe … 10 emails later no response.. been to my bank and will take this further.. how dare he prey on vulnerable people .. my Dad had a stroke recently and now in financial strife .. i've received nothing from him but a bunch of crap emails and exactly as others describe… “i had dreams about you… i care … yadeyada… my friend will pay half… you can have the reading for free… blah blah.. i heard from his so called personal assistant and he said he would stop emails 2 days later my account cleared out of $150 for what sweet fa (excuse me) you @#4$@!!! how can you sleep at night. yes i made a mistake huge lesson learned Scam artist big time … please don't ever send any bank debts to this guy.. i will expose him and please be weary people i got sucked in and i feel so embarrassed and upset o have no money for food or bills this week and i work 3 contract jobs in health care … take care people". Aside from the atrocious spelling and grammar, the message is clear. Avoid.

Here is a guest piece by Maggot Sandwich occasional contributor Dana Whiffen, and his views on War Memorials:- "Listening to the radio recently with a phone-in programme there was a lady saying how annoyed she was when she witnessed parents allowing their children to climb all over a memorial while they sat fiddling with their mobile-phones, she told them off pointing out their lack of respect, although she doubted if they understood her. This was followed by another call from another lady saying that she did not know what all the fuss was about and who cares about memorials, she felt that 90% of the population knew nothing about them and that in a few years no-one would be interested or would care. This comment infuriated me and I decided to investigate their origin and design further and a book that I was reading pointed me towards the Dartford War Memorial. This opened up another door as it turned out this wonderful monument was created by sculptor Arthur George Walker. He was selected after the Dartford War Memorial Committee had seen his soldier memorial in Sevenoaks and they asked him to use a similar British Tommy figure design for Dartford. It was built in 1922 to commemorate Dartford’s fallen soldiers from the Great War, it stands tall pointed towards Dartford library and attracts many admiring glances from passers-by. Although it was built for WWI, it now carries additional dedications to the fallen from WW2 and the Korean War. Such was the influence of Arthur Walkers “Tommy in full battledress” he went on to create similar memorials for Ironbridge in Shropshire, Chesham in Buckinghamshire and Heston in Middlesex as well as Sevenoaks and Dartford. His most famous work though was for the creation of the Derby War Memorial (of a mother holding her baby) and The Florence Nightingale Memorial near Waterloo Station in London. Arthur George Walker was born in 1861 and he died in 1939, he also created statues and plaques along with his numerous memorials across the country that will hopefully leave a lasting legacy for future generations that will outlive the disrespectful and apathetic. There are many other war memorials throughout London and the UK that could well have equal this wonderful design, why not investigate you local war memorial. Those that don’t care or are totally ignorant of our history seem to be absorbed in total oblivion and selfishness unaware of the sacrifices made so that they can live their lives this way. I hope they are only the minority but fear they may not be! The Dartford War Memorial is now Grade 2 listed". Interesting stuff; if anyone has special insight into local history, and would like to share it with others, please do get in contact with me. 

The end video this week is by way of a tribute to the late keyboard wizard Keith Emerson, who recently died. See him with progressive rock giants Emerson, Lake and Palmer in their 40th anniversary concert, filmed in London back in 2010. Comments below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

The "Funky Clock" scam.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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