The Maggot Sandwich regenerates.

With all of the engineering work currently being undertaken on the road bridge over the railway by Bexley Road at present, I thought that it would be a good chance to re - acquaint you with the hideous Erith Fish sculpture, which is very close by. It does not get any easier on the eye I am afraid. The only benefit is that you could not imagine such a monstrosity anywhere else, and it does make a handy marker for the town, however horrendous it might be.

If you have visited the Maggot Sandwich during the last week, you may well have noticed that it was looking different – the layout changing and the various page elements not hanging together properly. The reason for this happened on Tuesday evening. You may recall that I have recounted for the last couple of months how the Blogger template I have been using for the last year or so has developed numerous bugs – the “About me” pop – out column on the right hand of the screen would lose almost all of its’ content; the comments box would randomly appear and disappear at the bottom of each entry, and various other small irritations (such as preview not working) which annoyed both myself and a number of readers who have made comments. All of these problems were caused by coding errors made by Google, who own and run Blogger. I logged support calls but got no response (I suspect the reason my request was met with apathy was that I refuse to host advertising on the Maggot Sandwich, despite Google repeatedly asking me to do so; because I am not generating a revenue stream for them – however minuscule in their greater scheme of things, they have little incentive to resolve my ongoing formatting problems). To cap this all off, on Tuesday evening, I noticed that word wrap was no longer working; all of my content is pretty rigidly formatted – all text is justified to make it look neat on the screen – I cannot stand ragged edges when reading text, and suspect that I am far from alone in this respect. The problem was, that instead of inserting variable gaps between words to keep everything looking neat, the template was cutting words halfway through their length when they reached the end of a line. It looked horrible and made reading difficult – on top of that it made the whole blog look amateurish and cobbled together without care, which is anything but the case – each weekly update takes an average of ten hours to research,  write, format and publish. I have now created a new look and feel using a different (and apparently bug free) template; I would like to say "Thank You" to my small group of testers and quality controllers who have been giving me feedback and suggestions as to the new look and feel during the week, prior to the usual Sunday publication and announcement of the enforced redesign. It is ironic, as I was very happy with the template I had been using. It was clean and uncluttered – but chock full of programming bugs, as many of you will have noticed. I have had a couple of readers enquire as to whether I have considered moving blogging platform to something like WordPress. Yes I have, albeit rather briefly. The main thing is, I have so much time and effort invested in Blogger it would be very difficult to change. I fully accept that there are better content management and publishing platforms now out there, but for the most part (present situation excepted) Blogger has been “just good enough”. You will note the return of the blog link list, the "about me" panel, and the drop down "Blog Archive" list - from which you can access all seven plus years of Maggot Sandwich content. 

It would seem that Malcolm Knight’s fears about the management of the Howbury Centre in Slade Green passing to a commercial organisation were met. Howbury Friends, the not for profit volunteer group that had applied to continue running the centre were elbowed out in favour of a commercial organisation called “Greener Bexley / Eco Communities”. Malcolm likened the decision, which was made at a Bexley Council meeting as a theatrical performance, and that it was apparent to himself, and others also in attendance that the discussion had been rehearsed prior to the meeting. You can read his account by clicking here.  As previously mentioned, Eco Communities would appear to have a very poor record of financial management, and have a County Court Judgement against them for non payment of bills. Even if, as the various Councillors said, the Eco Communities presentation and bid was stronger than that submitted by Howbury Friends, surely this should have been weighed by the fact that Howbury Friends are a volunteer run group, whereas Eco Communities are a commercial organisation? On top of that, any investigation into Eco Communities would have uncovered their shaky and tenuous financial position, which does not bode well for their continued existence.  Malcolm Knight has uncovered all sorts of things which Bexley Council should have discovered themselves during even the most rudimentary due diligence checks. It all seems suspect from my point of view.

I have come to the firm conclusion that the Royal Mail now needs to be renamed to accurately reflect its’ function today. In the last week I have received two letters (unfortunately, both bills) and a total of twenty two pieces of advertising, some enveloped to disguise it as if it were a letter. This infuriates me; I consciously go out of my way to avoid the services of any organisation that uses this underhand technique – Virgin TV, I am talking about you! It is now evident that the Royal Mail business model is completely broken. They can no longer make money by delivering items posted; they now charge companies to stuff advertising crap though peoples’ front doors. It has got so bad that I feel like fitting a document shredder to my letterbox – as all the offending advertising flyers only get collected and taken round to the Council recycling centre in Morrison’s car park. When one factors up the thousands (millions?) of people around the country that throw unsolicited advertising leaflets out as a matter of principle, it must amount to a vast waste of resources. Don’t the advertisers realise that many people will actively avoid their products or services if they have them repeatedly rammed down their throats every time they pick up stuff from the door mat? On top of the large corporate advertisers that are the subject of most of my ire, the other guilty party are the local pizza and kebab shops that keep on covering my door mat with their flyers. When I say “local”, I mean that some come from East Hill in Dartford, and I have even had one from as far away as Greenhithe. As if they are going to deliver to Erith, and even if they did, any food would be a greasy, cold and congealed mess by the time it was delivered. Most fast food places will only deliver to a certain distance from their bases, so why on Earth would they leaflet way outside of this range? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The leaflets cost money to print and distribute – if you post them to areas outside of your delivery range, in essence you are throwing money away. Just why would they do it? Answers on a postcard (or better still below) if you have any inkling of the thinking behind this, as I know it goes on all over the place.

The photo above was sent to me by Maggot Sandwich reader Dana of Bexley; it shows one of the original Erith Council Tramways open - topped tram car undergoing restoration work in a workshop at the National Tramways Museum at Crich in Derbyshire. The open topped model is rare; it was one of only seven cars built to this design, as it was used all year round and the open top deck was unpopular in Winter. The tram in the photograph is shown in the companies' later brown and cream livery from 1911; before this the Erith Tramways fleet was painted in a garish pale green and canary yellow, which did not prove popular. Erith Tramways was one of the smallest private tram companies in Greater London; it stretched from Abbey Wood, through Lower Belvedere, into Erith, and up Walnut Tree Road (and past its' own power station on the site of the now demolished swimming baths) to finally terminate in Northumberland Heath. The line opened in on the 21st August 1905. A copy of the brochure commemorating the inauguration of the service is held in the records of Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre in Bexleyheath Library (more of which later - who says I don't plan these things?) The brochure says that the opening of the tram service "marks an important step in the progress of locomotion in the South Eastern district of London" and then went on to envisage the prospect of being able to travel from Erith to far flung places such as Maidenhead and Watford, purely by tram. Of course, this never came to pass; Erith Tramway was never a major financial success, as it was so small and limited in its' scope to generate income. It consisted on only fourteen tramcars in total. The only period when the service ran at a healthy profit was during the First World War, where there was a huge influx of workers to the local arms and ammunition factories which proliferated around Erith and Crayford. Some of the profits during this period were ploughed into extending the service to the Clock Tower in Bexleyheath Broadway, where a new terminus was built. The tram service was finally discontinued on the 9th of November 1935, when the remaining tram cars were replaced with trolley buses. The tram depot on Walnut Tree Road is now the site for the new Bexley College campus, which is currently being built. Going back to the subject of Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre, there was a demonstration in Bexleyheath Broadway last Saturday to protest at Bexley Council's proposal to relocate and outsource the archive duties to Bromley. As I have written before, the amount of money saved by such a drastic move would be minimal, and the impact to local history studies and culture would be enormous. A petition of now over two thousand signatures has been raised by campaigners, who include Bexley Archaeological Society, as well as a lot of ordinary council tax payers such as myself and many other ordinary people.

Very occasionally I will come across a story whilst I am doing my research into the articles for inclusion in the Maggot Sandwich which makes me stop and smile. This week I had such a moment. Whilst reading through “A History of Erith” by John A. Pritchard (the seminal historical text on the town), I discovered that Erith was the first town in the UK to have a dedicated mobile library van. Whilst the much larger and better funded city of Manchester had converted an old truck into a mobile library before, Erith was the first town to have a purpose built, dedicated vehicle, staff and remit. The Travelling Library Service was started on the 24th April 1935. The idea was widely copied both at home and abroad, and the mobile library concept is still in use today – back then it visited Northumberland Heath, Upper Belvedere, Lower Belvedere, Barnehurst and Bexleyheath, in addition to its’ home territory in Erith. The Travelling Library Service was commandeered in the autumn of 1938 as a way to distribute gas masks to the civilian population prior to the widely expected war. At the end of the conflict, the vehicle was used as a travelling war damage compensation enquiry bureau. There is little record of what happened to the van after this, as the records appear to have been lost.

       

As I have written in the past, I am quite keen on our main free local paper - the News Shopper. It seems to do a hell of a lot with very little resources, and does dig up some very interesting and locally relevant news stories. Qualifying that however, they have recently started publishing “non stories”. I don’t know if they are “click farming” on their website to get advert revenue, but who on Earth would want to read about “Quality Street or Roses – which is the better tin of chocolates?” or “Being clever versus funny versus good looking – which would you rather be?” and “Why is white heather considered lucky – what superstitions do you follow?”  Hardly Pullitzer prize winning journalism,  I think you would agree. Being a populist publication does not mean that you have to pander to the lowest common denominator, which seems to be the appearance here.  What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment below.

The Halloween story I featured the other week concerning my one time friendship with double murderer Roderick Newall prompted a huge surge in Maggot Sandwich page views; a link to the story was placed on a couple of pirate radio discussion forums, and after this had happened, the Sandwich got 2,006 page views on the 27^th October alone. It really went through the roof for nearly a week, only returning to something rather more like normal behaviour by the time of the next update. I get an average of 23,500 hits per month; this does fluctuate up and down, due to factors I have been unable to fathom.

Over the past couple of months I have been running an ongoing feature bringing lesser known radio stations to Maggot Sandwich readers attention; there are a number of other such stations I may well mention in the future, but I thought this week I would highlight another radio phenomenon – the weekend hobby radio pirates. These stations come on air sporadically for a few hours, usually on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, almost certainly broadcast from the operators’ spare bedroom or garden shed. They usually broadcast on Shortwave, and probably only have audiences numbering in the couple of dozen. Nevertheless there are a number of people who have made it their hobby to monitor and record when these stations come on air, and what content they broadcast.  The transmitters these pirates use are usually either home – made, or modified amateur radio equipment, re tuned to work on the broadcast radio bands, rather than the legally allocated amateur radio spectrum. These pirates operate pretty much with impunity nowadays – back in the 1980’s at the height of land based pirate radio activity, enforcement was a lot more rigorous, when the likes of the infamous Eric Gotts of the DTI Radio Investigation Service would be chasing round the country, eager to feel a few collars and confiscate an illicit transmitter. Nowadays things are a lot less strict; the Radio Investigation Service is no more – it was subsumed into OFCOM some years ago. Nowadays unless an unlicensed transmission is causing interference with a licensed service, or someone complains, there is a very slim chance that OFCOM would take any action. In other European countries, the situation is different – in the Netherlands for example, penalties for unlicensed broadcasting are pretty strict, with fines and the confiscation of equipment being normal upon conviction.  Whatever the penalties, the number of such stations has remained pretty constant for years. You can read more about them, and what radio frequencies you can find them on, and when here. You can see a daily updated log of stations here. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Are you keen to be seen as a person of taste, style and savoire faire? You might well be interested in a new range of Maggot Sandwich themed T-Shirts that local company RevCo are marketing on my behalf. You can pick up a natty souvenir of Erith’s premiere blog and show your support for local campaigns and issues with just a few mouse clicks. I won’t be making a penny out of any sales, it is purely being made as a public service. Go on – you know you want to! Be the envy of the World - think what your mates down the pub might say (actually, maybe not....).

The very public suffering of the Emirates Airline cable car, better known locally as the Arabfly Dangleway continues. As reports come out saying that only four people regularly use the cable car to commute across the River Thames between Greenwich Peninsular and the Royal Docks, according to figures released last week. Web based newspaper the Scoop lodged a freedom of information request with Transport for London to get the statistics, which TfL were understandably reluctant to release into the public domain. The overall traveller usage figures for the cable car make mortifying reading; as I have written before, I think it is only a matter of time before the plug gets pulled on the whole thing. Emirates Airlines had hope that the service would give them an image boost, but in reality the opposite has happened –the drastically underused cable car has become a running joke; it has become such a figure of derision that someone has now set up a spoof Twitter account for it – the cable car has been tweeting badly spelled messages wondering why he is so unpopular and unloved - This may well be the high point for the £60 million white elephant, as more people are reading the spoof messages than have actually ridden on the service in the last year. The only hope I can see for the Arabfly Dangleway is if it was dismantled, then relocated to a location in central London, for example, next to the London Eye – as at present part of its’ problem is it goes from nowhere to nowhere, whilst travelling over warehouses, truck parks and a rather unlovely breaker’s yard. If this is not done, and soon, I foresee the whole thing being scrapped as an embarrassing failure.

The mystery about the fate of the old Manor Fish Bar in Manor Road seems to be solved. The interior of the dirty, worn and grotty old shop has been completely ripped out, and replaced with shiny new tiles; new catering equipment, grills and other kitchen paraphernalia  is being installed. A sign in the window says “King of the Grill” and “opening 25^th November – first day all half price”. What it does not say is what cuisine is going to be offered. I think some investigation is required.  The chances are that by the time you are reading this, the new shop will be open and trading. I am always keen to support independent local businesses, and from the look of the extensive (and expensive) rebuilding and refurbishment work that has been carried out, the place will hopefully get an excellent “Scores on the Doors” hygiene rating. Watch this space.

The ending vide this week is a seven minute long short film made almost totally one - handed by a young chap called Kaleb Lechowski, who I predict is headed for a stellar career in movies. Give the piece a watch and see what you think. Comments below.

Erith Park.

The photo above shows one of the giant "Nibbler" machines that are currently tearing down the old tower blocks on what used to be the old and not lamented Larner Road housing estate, adjacent to North End Road in Erith. On Friday afternoon I spent a couple of hours as a guest of Orbit Homes and Wates Living Space on the site of the Erith Park development. I was given a guided tour of the site by Caroline Field of Orbit. I must admit that I have been a bit sniffy about the development in the past – especially in the choice of the name. Erith Park sounded unimaginative and unambitious.  I can now understand why the name was chosen – Orbit are very keen to kill off the “bad brand” that was the Larner Road Estate, which had strong local connotations with anti social behaviour, drug dealing and problem families. They want a clean break and fresh start, which I can totally appreciate. The new development is huge – far larger than I realised; once completed, it will comprise a mixture of property for rental, shared ownership  and outright purchase. I was originally quite cynical as to whether they property developers would have difficulties selling the retail housing and flats, but I don’t think that will actually be an issue. What Wates and Orbit are doing is not rebuilding a new version of Larner Road – that would not work, and you would be back at the state that Larner Road ended up in. Instead the new Erith Park is a far more varied mix of two and three bedroomed low rise apartments and houses. There has been a conscious decision to limit the number of one bedroomed apartments on the site, as Bexley Council feel that there are enough one bed places in the area already. I would concur with this – the new build shortly to get under way on the site of the old Erith Trades and Social Club, between the KFC drive through, and Morrison’s petrol station will mostly be for single bed apartments, and much of the other recent construction in the area has also been single bed apartments – the reason for this is that they are relatively cheap to  build, and enable the developer to see a return on their investment relatively quickly. What was most interesting on my visit to Erith Park was how much in it for the long term Orbit are; whilst it is a massive engineering challenge, what was clear was that it is as much of a social project as it is a construction one. Quite a number of Larner Road residents who have been relocated during the building work wish to live at Erith Park, and they will be given priority should they qualify under a number of criteria. “Problem” individuals will not qualify to return once Erith Park is completed. What also struck me was that the quality of materials used in construction, and the degree of attention to detail in the new development smacks far more of a private gated development than a mixed use social / private housing park. There is a real sense of “wanting to do it right, rather than doing it on the cheap”, which is refreshing for the area where the opposite is usually the rule. The size and complexity of the site is impressive – the old Larner Road Estate had a number of steep hills and deep valleys; these have been removed and graded, meaning that no material was needed to be brought on or off site; a huge construction was under way during my site visit, which I will describe in more detail in the weeks to come. A small town has essentially opened up on the edge of Erith, yet very few other than those working there are aware of the fact.  The Erith Park site offices, canteen, changing facilities and meeting rooms are unlike anything I have seen on a construction site before – the offices are more like that which I am used to at work, with nice carpets and glass walled breakout areas – nothing like the usual dusty portakabin you find on most sites. I was very impressed with what Wates and Orbit are doing – they are definitely aiming the for the whole site setup to be judged as “best of breed”. It will be a couple of years before Erith Park is fully open; I plan on keeping an eye on things as they get built, and will be covering the development progress again every few months in the future.

It seems that the events around the tender for the management of the refurbished Howbury Centre are somewhat more murky and nefarious than I had previously realised. Malcolm Knight of the Bexley is Bonkers website has done a very thorough job of dissecting the claims made by Eco Communities Ltd, and it would appear that they have cooked their own books to quite some extent to make their bid to manage the centre much more attractive to Bexley Council. Malcolm has carried out some basic due diligence investigations (something that the Council should also have done) and it is clear that Eco Communities are on shakier financial ground than they would like to admit. You can read all of the details on Bexley is Bonkers here. It would appear that at the very least, the council has not investigated the backgrounds of the competing organisations to the extent one would wish; I am not a contract lawyer, but I would not be surprised if Eco Communities’ bid was invalid due to the way it was presented. No doubt time (and Bexley is Bonkers) will tell.

I noticed that the amount of fireworks used over this years’ Guy Fawkes Night and the surrounding evenings were far less than previously heard; In previous years the noise has at times been almost unbearable, but this year all I heard were a few sporadic whooshes and bangs – very desultory and not at all disturbing. The nasty weather, recession and the close proximity of both Halloween and Diwali seem to be diluting Guy Fawkes Night from the premier mid autumn event to very much an “also ran”. This is a bit of a pity, as there are links between Robert Catesby (the main conspirator of the Gunpowder Plot) and Erith. Long term Maggot Sandwich readers may recall that I wrote at some length about this potential connection last year. It seems that the long held bonfire night traditions may well be on the way out, with Halloween taking over as the main festival. Halloween was originally created in pretty much its’ current form by 18^th century Irish people, the word is a corruption of All Hallow’s Eve. Irish immigrants to America took the tradition there, and it was exported back across the Atlantic in the early 1980’s. Although Halloween was celebrated before this time, it was a far lower key and less involved affair. I am convinced that the increase in popularity of the Americanised version of the festival can at least partly be laid at the feet of Stephen Spielberg and his movie “ET – The Extra Terrestrial”. The film carries strong Halloween themes such as dressing up and “Trick or Treating” which had been relatively uncommon in the UK. The massive popularity of the film exposed may children of the time to take on the American aspects of the Halloween festival; many of those children now have children of their own, and the festival thus now has an amplified resonance not previously seen. Personally I am not struck with the whole thing, which basically encourages small children to demand goods with menaces, but I am probably in a minority.

Take a good look at the photo above; it shows Potion Bar in Erith High Street, as it looked not very long ago. I have some excellent and long awaited good news about the place. Potion has closed for good! I walked past the place with a couple of friends last night, and the windows were whitewashed. A sign was affixed to the door saying that the place had closed down. When looking through small gaps in the whitewash, one could see that the place has been trashed, with anything of value having been ripped out and removed. The place is just a shell now, and not a moment too soon. Potion was a hive of scum and villainy; it was Erith's drug supermarket and home to every criminal low life and lager drinker in the area. Both the Police and the Council have had serious objections to the place almost from the day it opened - not just from the activities of the knuckle dragging, pond life clientele, but from the way the owners of the bar criminally disfigured the grade II listed building, when they ripped out the original salt glazed tile and acid etched glass frontage and replaced it with the plate glass that you see in the photo above, contrary to the explicit instructions of the Council. I don't think that Potion Bar has ever turned a profit, despite the owners saving money by employing an unqualified and un - Police registered manager. I just wish the debtors prison still existed - I would love to see the owners languishing inside. Still, the place is closed, and looks extremely unlikely to re - open in a similar guise. The best news I have had for ages.

Do you find a certain kind of story on the web fascinating or irritating? I refer to the links you find at the bottom of certain websites, most notably the News Shopper, with titles like: “A 55 year old woman has the skin of a 30 year old”, “18 tattoos that are the worst of the worst” and “10 celebrity Instagrams that you may have missed this week”.  These kind of story titles are designed to pique the curiosity of the reader, and encourage them to click on the link to find out more about the subject in question. They are referred to in the trade as “Click Baits”. The websites that the stories are posted on do not have revenue from subscribers, they make money from advertisers who have banner ads plastered all over the site – and who pay the site owner by the number of visits the adverts get; thus it is in the interest of the click baiters to generate as much traffic onto their site as is possible, as this is what generates them cash. One of the worst click baiting offenders is the website Buzzfeed, which is basically a very low end supermarket magazine that has been created on the web. It is primarily aimed at women, as can be surmised by the majority of the content, which bears a lot of commonality with publications like “Take a Break” and “Hello”.  Many of the beguiling or intriguing links you find on websites that ask questions such as “ten things you would not guess about milk” are feeding directly to Buzzfeed and its’ affiliate websites. Their only interest in their content is how they can get you to click through to it – once you have done so, they really don’t care, as you have generated income for them, and they have no further use for the surfer. If you quite enjoy the little bits of online fluff that Buzzfeed and other click baiters publish, then fine, but be aware that you are just being farmed as a commodity for their advertising stream. Personally I find them intensely irritating, and have only clicked through on a few as part of my research into this story. I did it so that you don’t have to .

Something that may surprise you is that Tesco – never exactly the most popular of retailers –are shortly to roll out a technology that seems likely to cause a big furore and probable user backlash. They plan on installing cameras to scan the faces of all shoppers using Tesco petrol garages. The cameras, linked to a computer system will identify the customers’ gender and age group. Once this has been carried out , the system will target adverts on nearby display screens, the content of the adverts will be dictated by the demographic group of the customer. This was all sci fi back in 2002 when the film “Minority Report” was released. That movie showed the character played by Tom Cruise walking down a future street, where the content of advertising hoardings scanned his eyes, identified him, and bombarded him with personalised adverts. This is now science fact – and Tesco are rolling it out to all 450 of their petrol stations nationwide. On top of this, having identified the consumer, the system will also monitor their purchases and record the results to further refine the personalised adverts. It will also identify any social networking sites you use, in order to see what products you “like”. Tesco have already stated that they intend expanding this still further, and they hope to roll out the technology into as many Tesco supermarkets as possible. The system, known as “OptimEyes” has been developed by a technology company Amscreen – which is run by Lord  Alan Sugars’ son, Simon Sugar, who recently was quoted in the Times, saying “This could change the face of British retail, and our plans are to expand the screens into as many supermarkets as possible”.  This level of surveillance is simply unacceptable – would you feel comfortable if the government or police had access to this kind of detailed personal information? What about a commercial company such as Tesco, whose only interest is relieving their customers of as much of their money as quickly as they can? I don’t trust any of them; I stay as low on the radar as possible – no Facebook account, no Twitter, no passport, no mobile phone, no credit card – the list goes on. I do exist digitally apart from this blog, but I keep my profile as low as humanly possible.  It seems that so many people will readily sacrifice their privacy for a little bit of temporary convenience. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Further to my occasional series featuring radio stations that you may not have heard of, but that merit a listen for those interested in trying out a different experience in broadcasting; this week I thought I would cover Radio Seagull – a station based in Harlingen in Northern Holland, but that can be heard on the East Coast of the UK on 1602 kHz medium wave. Seagull also broadcast online in stereo to the world. Recently the Daily Telegraph newspaper reviewed the station, awarding them radio station of the month;  it said of them “As if to prove that the spirit of Sixties-style pirate broadcasting never really died, this charming music station broadcasts from a ship moored in Harlingen Harbour in the Netherlands. Prog rock is the predominant flavour, with plenty of Genesis, Pink Floyd and the like; but genres as diverse as UK blues, world music and jazz also get a look in.” Radio Seagull broadcast from a converted light ship – the M.V Jenni Baynton – formerly named Trinity House Lightship number eight. The staff are volunteers much like Radio Caroline, and the appeal to a similar demographic – indeed, there are a number of crew who work for both stations as required.  Radio Seagull has a warm and laid back sound, and they play a far wider variety of album music than any commercial radio station I can think of. You can see their website and listen live by clicking here.

The photo above shows the closed and gated doorway to the gents public toilets at the rear of Erith Health Centre. Contrary to the label on the door, the toilets were not closed due to vandalism at all - they were closed as the Council did not want to pay for them to be cleaned and maintained, even though they had only been open for a couple of years. Instead they sold off the provision of toilets to a private company; more of this later. The News Shopper are reporting that two Bexley pubs – the Furze Wren in Bexleyheath, and the Tailor’s Chalk in Sidcup have both won Platinum stars in the Loo of the Year awards. The awards rate toilets in publicly accessible buildings from unrated, through Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum for the most exceptionally good establishments. I must admit that I have never been to the Tailor’s Chalk, as I seldom have reason to visit Sidcup nowadays. The Furze Wren on the other hand I have visited twice. I recall that the loos were good, but it was not what really dominated my memories – it was how incredibly poorly lit, and downright dark the pub was – I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. Nevertheless, it was not a bad place overall, but when you have the excellent Robin Hood and Little John a few minutes’ walk away, why would you want to go to a poorly lit Wetherspoon’s boring and generic chain pub when you could be sitting comfortably in the multiple CAMRA award winning best pub in Bexley? What strikes me about the good loo awards (which I think are an excellent idea) is that they will not be able to cover one class of convenience in the London Borough of Bexley, that is public toilets, as there are no council run public toilets anywhere in the borough. The last two such facilities were the loos at the rear of the Health Centre in Erith High Street, and the toilets that were next to Bexleyheath Library in Townley road. The Townley Road kharzis are now the home of W. Uden and Sons funeral parlour, and the Erith public toilets, which had only been open for a couple of years before they were closed, are still there, but the doors are closed and covered by galvanised steel shutters. The reason for this? Bexley Council sold off the toilet rights to a private company who have installed “pay to pee” automated superloos in a small number of locations. There is one outside the main entrance of the Erith Health Centre, just around the corner from the original, hardly run – in before closure public loos (see - I do plan these things). I have seen many people resent paying 20p to use the facility (also known locally as “The Turdis”) instead they go and wee in the bushes around the side of the health centre, in the cut through to the car park at the rear. This is unsightly, unhygienic and results in a strong and noxious smell of urine, especially when the weather is warm.

The story that the body of a man that was washed up on the banks of the Thames at Erith has been one of the most read on the News Shopper website this week; it is a pity that the town seems to be linked with death and violence whenever the river is mentioned in a story. Similarly, I have been walking on Erith Pier on a couple of recent occasions when a small group of teenagers have been playing on the railings – one of the group had climber over the railings and was dangling himself over the water below. It is always difficult to know what to do for the best in such circumstances – if you tell them off, they are likely to undertake even more dangerous stunts, purely to annoy you. If you don’t say anything, then you would have it on your conscience should something untoward happen to them. The chances of survival if you fall in to the Thames from Erith Pier are not high. The whole of the Anchor Bay stretch of the river (where the pier is located) is notorious for very strong currents and an undertow at pretty much all of the time except at slack tide. Any child that did miss their footing and fall in would have a strong chance of not coming up for air at all. There are life rings on the pier, and on the shoreline as well, and I have to say that the notices requesting that vandals don’t throw them into the water seem to be pretty well observed. The excellent RNLI can get from their base in Gravesend to Erith in about twenty five minutes, but this is still way too long for a person who may have been sucked under by the strong current. The best option is for them not to be in the position in the first place. I don’t know what local schools say to their pupils about the danger posed by bodies of open water – which look and act very differently to any life saving drill carried out in a swimming pool. I would also hope that parents teach their offspring the dangers of mucking about on the river – as at that age, kids tend to think of themselves as indestructible – a potent mixture when showing off to their friends. We have had a number of deliberate suicides over the last few years, the most notable one being the 21 year old who threw himself off the end of the pier back in February 2011. There is a metal plaque to mark his passing on the site today.

The end video this week is a bit of a wake - up call to the authorities; you may recall that a few months ago some American chaps came up with a handgun that had been created using a 3D printer. The gun was very crude, could only fire one round before reloading, and had the unfortunate habit of blowing up, as the working parts were made out of plastic. The initial worries about territories where private ownership of such firearms is prohibited by law (such as in the United Kingdom) being able to download the plans for such weapons to enable criminals to 3D print their own guns were then show to be an overreaction - the plastic printed guns were as dangerous to their operator as to any target. All this has recently changed. A federally licenced firearms manufacturer in Texas has used a far more advanced form of 3D printing, called Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) to produce a Colt 1911 model .45ACP pistol, that not only works exactly the same as an original, but is actually made to more precise tolerances than a standard one, and is thus considerably more accurate. The technology used in DMLS 3D printing is way too complex and expensive for amateur use at present, but as has happened with many new technologies, the price drops considerably over time. The video below shows an overview of the construction of the 3D DMLS printed weapon, and the testing phase of the project contrasts with the high tech manufacturing - nothing like sticking the finished weapon in a vice on the range, and firing it with a long piece of string attached to the trigger. Have a look and please feel free to comment accordingly.

Rod - a true Halloween story.

The photo above shows the motor vessel the "Shetland Trader" moored on Erith Pier, that I took earlier this week. Click on the photo for a larger view. It is a bulk carrier which is being used to transport the spoil dug out of the ground from the Crossrail project tunnelling work. I hope to be able to say quite a bit more about the small fleet of ships that are carrying out this work, and mooring regularly on Erith Pier within the next week or two; watch this space.

As many Maggot Sandwich readers will be aware, Bexley Council seems to delight in making decisions which frustrate and annoy its’ residents. This perverse behaviour is especially mystifying when one considers that the local council elections are less than a year away, and people have long memories. Malcolm Knight of the excellent “Bexley is Bonkers” website is without doubt the best documenter of this. In addition, it seems that every time a bewildering or illogical decision is made by the council, it affects the Northern part of the borough – Lower Belvedere, Erith and Slade Green, for example. My pet theory behind this is that the people who run the council tend to live in the more prosperous centre or south – in places like Bexleyheath, Sidcup and Old Bexley. They tend to give the impression that they don’t give a stuff as to what happens in the North of Bexley Borough, as long as it does not happen on their doorsteps. A prime example of this behaviour is the decision the council have made to award the contract to manage the forthcoming new Howbury Centre development in Slade Green, not to the existing volunteer group, which has successfully and popularly run the existing centre for the last few years, but to an external organisation called Eco Communities, which is based in Lewisham. Slade Green has been allocated £8.5 million in redevelopment money; a chunk of this will be going into the new Howbury Centre building itself. It begs the question; why would you exclude a local group, which by all accounts has been doing a sterling job running the existing centre, and choose a new, untried organisation from out of the Borough? Now it well may be that there are good reasons for this, but the council’s lack of transparency means the information is not released into the public domain – and thus conjecture starts. Local resident Claire Price wrote the following on the Bexley Times website:- “The Howbury Centre is a community facility, offering a wide range of activities, groups and support to the local community. This means the people who live and work in the area. These are the people who should be running the centre- the people who know the community because they are part of it, who know the issues and needs because they are their issues and needs, and they see and talk to the local people every single day. Taking this out of Slade Green will be taking away the voice of the people who use these facilities. The petition shows what Slade Green wants for its future. A local group like Howbury Friends can meet the needs much more readily than a group which has no link to the area. Do the right thing. Give the residents and visitors what they want, what they need, and what they deserve”. I could not have put it better myself. I personally have already signed the petition, though I suspect in its’ usual manner, Bexley Council will steamroller their decision through however much local opposition there is. It is a classic “Do as we say, not as we do”. £8.5 million may not be a large sum of money by Bexley Council budgeting standards, but it is a huge boost to a deprived area like Slade Green, and if invested wisely can create long term jobs and resources for a lot of people who could really do with the help. Bringing an unknown outside organisation in to spend this money is worrying for many who care about the area – they don’t know local conditions or requirements, and may well try and use a “one size fits all” approach, which is unlikely to succeed. The vibes coming from Bexley Council make it sound very much like a done deal I am afraid. Many local people are campaigning to keep control of the centre; one such person is Carol, who sent me the following piece for publication. These are her own words:- "Ten years ago Slade Green was identified as a 'Hot Spot' under Bexley Councils Areas of Opportunities Programme. ASB and criminal damage being the main concerns, young people being the main identified culprits. An area of high deprivation, low incomes, a 'no go' area, isolated residents, fear of crime and low educational achievement. Just some of the problems the area faced, from the outside, this was the view of many. From the inside, a close knit community who were working hard to improve their community, not least of these residents, the groups who work from the Howbury Centre. Howbury Tumblers a carer and toddler group who provide support to parents and children and Howbury Friends who support everyone - not just those in Slade Green. They are involved in their community, they are volunteers who work tirelessly 6 days a week to provide for the needs of their community. They talk to their community and provide activities based on what their community tell them they need. They provide childcare, so kids are no longer left to see to themselves after school. they provide activities for teens, stopping most of the ASB and damage, they provide for older residents with activities and keep fit, they provide for families and it keeps going. They support the local schools by running literacy and numeracy classes, by providing work experience placements for local kids. They work in partnership with an amazing number of different organisations including Bexley Council. All of this and more they do with very little money, most of the money they spend goes on rent to the owner of the building. They raise it through funding applications to a variety of funders including Children in Need, by raising money themselves and all so they can give a deprived community with little money what it needs. So they can improve their community for all residents, improve their life chances and because they care. The Big Society has been modelled on Slade Green, they are the big society, they volunteer with no expectation of monetary reward and in any other council area would be celebrated. But they are Slade Green and it is in Bexley, there is no justice if the new facility is given to an outside organisation. These groups have worked hard over the last 9 years to fill the gaps in provision that the area suffers, they have succeeded in bringing this community together and they stand up and speak for their community. They have saved Bexley Council thousands of pounds by dealing with problems that would otherwise escalate and impact on council budgets. Their community trusts them, their users trust them, other groups trust them, Bexley Council? make your own mind up. If you would like to support this community sign their petition at  http://democracy.bexley.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?id=12 and please pass on, Thank You".

Talking of done deals. I found it amusing to read a report in the News Shopper that  both Greenwich and Bexley councils have given the go – ahead for the construction of the new Crossrail station terminus at Abbey Wood. This is a bit of a surprise, as building work has been under way at the site for ages! Talk about the horse before the cart! Not only has work to build the temporary new station building begun, but the heavy engineering to create the tunnel, and the lines for where the tunnel emerges from underground just to the East of Plumstead station have been well under way for the last couple of years. The thought that either Bexley or Greenwich councils could have blocked the construction of the South Eastern end of the largest mass transit project in Europe is laughable in the extreme. It smacks of “box ticking” by those responsible. The fact that Bexley has made some rather half - hearted objections to the platform canopy design, complaining that it is too small. The whole Crossrail project is an engineering feat that comes close to rivalling some of the ambitious Victorian projects, and should make access to West London from our local area much easier. I look forward to being able to go to Southall for a curry and get back in less than a couple of hours.

Although what I do for a living has some quite technical aspects, one of the skills I have developed over the years is to be able to take quite an advanced technical idea and translate it for anyone to be able to understand. I thought I was pretty good at this, but having watched the video below, I am in awe of this chap. He takes a couple of quite esoteric concepts behind how the World Wide Web works, and explains them in very straightforward language. In this short video he explains what cross site scripting is, and how it is very useful when using interactive websites like Gmail and FaceBook, but also illustrates how it can be used to carry out all sorts of nasty things like stealing people's account details and passwords from their online bank, if the web page is not properly constructed to prevent it. Trust me, it is fascinating and easy to understand, even if you have little or no knowledge of how a website works.

The News Shopper have reported this week that Crayford pub The One Bell has had a plaque installed outside to commemorate the fact that back on the 21^st June 1844, the pub was the location of the founding of the Chartist movement. The chartists were a group of men (no women’s suffrage back then) who wanted electoral rights for the working classes. The central tenets of the Chartist movement were:- 1) a vote for every man over the age of 21 who was of sound mind and not undergoing punishment for a crime. 2) All ballots to be held in secret. 3) No requirement to be a property holder for members of Parliament, thus enabling rich or poor to stand for election equally. 4) MP’s to receive a living wage – meaning rich or poor could represent a constituency. 5) Equal constituency sizes – enabling the same amount of representation for the same number of electors. 6) Annually elected parliaments – the theory being that a rich man might be able to win an election through bribery if elections were held every five or seven years, but if it was held every year, even those with the deepest pockets could not keep paying bribes to throw the result in their favour. Chartists were pioneers of social justice and equal rights for all; they were also opposed to any form of state sponsored religion. In many ways their aims were predecessors of the Labour movement, though Chartists and their policies were widely opposed by the ruling classes – in some cases leading chartist campaigners were arrested for treason after organising strikes and marches against what they saw as unfair treatment by big business owners and the government. The Chartist movement lost a lot of credibility in 1848 when leaders of the Chartist movement organised a petition to hand in to Parliament urging them to change electoral laws to bring in changes to comply with the six points on their charter. The problem was, they had said that they had gained over five million signatures, when in fact they had actually only got around a million. If this was not a big enough dent in their image, when the petition was examined, it was found that a large proportion of the signatures were forged. Names like “Queen Victoria” and “Mister Punch” cropped up with regularity. Shortly thereafter the group fizzled out. In the end, they achieved none of their original aims; they did however, lay much of the groundwork for the later trade union movement.

The photo above was kindly loaned by local photographer John King - it was taken in August 1971, and shows the place when it was still a busy centre of law enforcement. Nowadays it is a shoddy and not very nice flat conversion - I think an opportunity was missed; it could have been converted into upmarket riverside apartments when it ceased to be a Police station back in 1996. Instead it was left empty for a couple of years before being rather shoddily converted into some very ordinary flats. You can see John's Flickr photo stream here.

Bexley Council have sneaked out a decision very much on the quiet; it had certainly passed under my own radar; it was only the vigilance of one of my occasional informants that brought the situation to light.  On the 15^th October, the council met to discuss “potential service adjustments”. One of the changes they considered was to “provide a shared local studies and archives service run out of Bromley Central Library as part of the shared service library offer across the two boroughs”. What this in effect would mean is the closure of the local studies and archive centre at Bexleyheath Library, and to transfer it to Bromley Library. Bexley Council have a very poor record when it comes to preserving local history resources. When Erith Library moved from the excellent Andrew Carnegie donated building in Walnut Tree Road into the new (and to my mind soulless) building in Erith High Street, the excellent Erith Museum – which had existed for years on the upper floor of the old building, was relegated to a couple of glass display cabinets in the new library – and now even those have gone. No trace remains of the museum dedicated to the local area, despite many protests. I fear that the same will happen if Bexley local studies is forcibly relocated to Bromley Library. Many of the people who use the local history archive at Bexleyheath library would find it very difficult to travel to Bromley – they are often elderly and have to rely on public transport. Travel to Bromley can be time consuming, and to be honest I doubt much effort would be made by Bromley to accommodate Bexley Library, or indeed its’ residents, as they don’t pay council tax in Bromley, and there would be little or no incentive for them to provide much in the way of service. I predict if the archive moves, it will actually be the end of it in all practical senses. Bexley Historical Society is organising a campaign to save Bexleyheath local studies and archive centre. At this point the final decision on the fate of the centre has not been made; Bexley Council will make the final decision in March 2014. You can read more about the situation, and find out what you can do to make you views known to those responsible by visiting the Bexley Historical Society website here. 

The local (and to some extent, the national) press have gone into a bit of a feeding frenzy in relation to arachnids and insects over the last couple of weeks; there have been over wrought stories about the “plague of foreign killer spiders” and other hysterical claims. It turns out that the so called “killer” spiders are false widows, and the false widow is not a newcomer to these shores as has been variously claimed; the spider was first reported in the UK over a hundred years ago. I also have doubts over some of the claims from people that have been bitten by the false widow – limbs being hours away from amputation and other dire symptoms are more likely as the result of venom allergy, or a secondary infection. The false widow bite is similar in damage to that of a common wasp – painful, but not normally life changing. Of course, someone with an allergy can be killed by a single sting or bite if their reaction is severe enough, but the vast majority of people have no such adverse reaction. I feel that the whole story has been blown out of proportion, and sensationalised. As the cold winter weather sets in, and the creepy crawlies die off, the press will have to move onto other subjects, and in my opinion, not before time. 

For some reason the launch of the latest version of Apple’s OS X 10.9 "Mavericks" operating system gets a lot more press coverage than the recent release of Windows 8.1. I get the feeling that the underlying cause of this is that a majority of journalists use Apple products and have an unconscious bias towards them. Whatever the cause, there has been a degree of hype over the release this week of OS X 10.9 “Mavericks”. I downloaded it on the day of release, half expecting problems as millions of other Mac owners would be doing the same thing. My fears were unfounded – the 5.29Gb installation file downloaded smoothly and quickly. The installation was painless, and all of my existing files and settings were preserved (and yes, I do have a full external backup in case of problems). Once I was up and running with the new operating system, things started getting more disappointing. Apple claim that there are over two hundred changes and improvements in Mavericks. I have found it very hard to find many of them – the whole experience is very similar to the older OS version. Apple are once again trying to encourage their users to “go cloud” and store their data on Apple’s own servers – not something I use, as Apple and online storage have a long and not very glorious history. Apple have revised the OS to make cloud storage more user friendly and reliable; unfortunately for them, Google have long ago captured the home market for cloud storage. One other new function built into Mavericks is Apple’s own maps service – something that has been available on the iPad and iPhone for some time. There was controversy when Maps was launched, as it was found to be inaccurate and misleading. I thought that all of this time later, Apple would have learned from their mistakes, and would have polished Map for the iMac to create a reliable solution. Wrong. Apple Map is dreadful. As a test I input the post code for Pewty Acres, only to discover that according to Apple, it was two blocks to the West of its’ actual location. On top of this, my local fish and chip shop was nearly a mile from where it really is; and to add insult to injury, Woolworths was still showing in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. Very poor. Google Maps is light years ahead in accuracy and functionality – even now Apple Maps lacks a “street view” option – something of a unique selling point for Google. All in all, OS X Mavericks feels like a point upgrade, rather than a completely new version of OS X. Had I paid money for it, I would feel somewhat deflated by the experience, which (for me at least) offers very little that I did not have before. Apple’s decision to offer Mavericks for free to all Apple owners who have machines built in 2007 or later means that I cannot really nit pick with it. Overall OS X remains a stable, reliable and easy to use platform; it is just getting a bit staid and boring.

Now that we are upon Halloween, I have a story to tell you. I have never told this in public before. Unlike most Halloween horror stories, this one is absolutely true and totally verifiable. The photo above was taken by me in the summer of 1992. It shows the Radio Caroline ship, the Ross Revenge, moored in the old Dover Western Commercial Dock - click on the photo for a larger view. The ship had broken its' anchor chain during a heavy storm some months earlier and had drifted onto the Goodwin Sands, from where she was only the second ship in history to be successfully salvaged. She was taken to Dover, where a crew of Caroline staff and a lot of volunteers attempted to restore the ship after being continuously at sea for around nine years. She was cosmetically rough, but basically sound. I was still working for Radio Caroline at the time, and spent much of my time living on board. One gloriously sunny day, a magnificent seventy foot ocean going yacht sailed into the dock and moored, stern in, behind the Ross Revenge (to the right of the photo). The yacht was skippered by a young and very good looking chap who introduced himself as Rod. We invited him on board the Ross Revenge, and gave him a guided tour of the ship, compete with studios, transmitter room and the mess. Over the next week or so, we saw a lot of Rod; he had just sailed up from the Falkland Islands, where he had been chartering for a group from the National Geographic, making a documentary on the penguin population of the islands - he showed us some photos from the expedition, and they were very impressive. Opposite the dock was a local pub, used by the sailors and dock workers. The Caroline crew were regulars - the landlord was a big fan, and would invariably put "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond on the Karaoke, then sing the track - unfortunately he could not hold a tune in a bucket, and the end result was painful. The upside was we got lots of free drinks, and there were lock - ins several times a week. I recall several occasions when we returned to the ship as the sun rose over the ships' antenna masts, and on one particularly memorable occasion having the rather refreshed station manager in a wheelbarrow to get him back on board and into his bunk. Rod joined in with all this with vigour. We found out he was an ex army officer who had inherited a substantial amount of money upon the death of his parents, and he was making a living, travelling the world and hiring out his yacht for all sorts of adventures. This was nothing unusual for Radio Caroline - we tended to attract colourful and larger than life characters, and Rod was just the latest in a long line of individualists. One Sunday evening, we returned from the pub at about 11pm; Rod had promised to treat us to a traditional Sunday Roast, complete with all of the trimmings - he had spend hours preparing it, and we were all licking our lips in anticipation. We all followed him down the steps into the luxuriously appointed main cabin on his yacht - the vessel was obviously worth a fortune, but it was a seaworthy, working ship, not a rich playboy's toy. True to his word, Rod excelled himself, producing a very large and succulent joint of medium rare roast beef, which he carefully worked on with a large and very sharp carving knife, whilst we helped ourselves to roast potatoes, cabbage, shallots, carrots and home made gravy. The meal was a great success, and a really great shared memory of our time moored in Dover. The next day Rod popped over for a cup of coffee and a chat. He said he had plans to sail down to Gibraltar for a fashion photo shoot - the yacht was to be the backdrop. He asked me and a couple of the other Caroline crew if we would like a working holiday to help him crew the yacht on its' passage. There would be no pay as such, but he would buy each of us a return air flight. Myself and one other (who shall remain nameless, as he's reading this now) seriously considered it, but for various reasons had to regretfully decline. He said "no hard feelings - see you around". The next day his yacht was gone - he had left on the early morning tide. We were all a bit sad to see Rod go - he fitted in well with the Caroline crowd - we were all a bit eccentric and most definitely ploughed our own furrow. I recall a couple of days later, sitting in the Ross Revenge mess room eating my lunch (a cold roast beef, mustard and onion salad sandwich made from the leftovers of Sunday dinner, which Rod had generously given us) and watching the BBC lunchtime news. The headline story was a feature on how the Royal Navy had stopped a British ship in international waters and arrested the skipper; the video footage showed our very own Rod and his yacht - Rod was being manhandled and handcuffed by some very efficient and burly Royal Marines. The story went on to say the man, whose full name was Roderick Newall, was wanted by the Jersey Police for the murder of his mother and father! It came out in court that he and his brother had killed their parents in order to obtain a very large inheritance - you can read more about the case here. Rod served thirteen years in prison for the double murder. What made it even worse was that there were very strong forensic indicators that the carving knife Rod had used to slice our delicious roast beef joint was the very same weapon used to dismember the corpses of his Mum and Dad. I could not make it up. 

I think the local papers do an adequate job of reporting issues and local events, but they sometimes seem to get only half of a story. For example, the story that Sidcup chef and restaurant owner Sayful Alom has won the Curry Chef of the Year award, for his cooking at the Curry Mahal in Station Road, Sidcup. He was presented with the award at a ceremony held at the Lancaster Gate Hotel. This is great news – someone from the area being recognised for excellence in a given field. What the local papers failed to pick up on was that the Curry Mahal was last visited by Environmental Health inspectors on the 19^th of August this year, when it scored only one out of a possible five stars for its’ "Scores on the Doors" food hygiene standards. As was mentioned recently, some local residents have justifiable doubts as to how the “Scores on the Doors” hygiene ratings are carried out. It strikes me that there are three possible reasons for this disparity between the curry chef award, and the poor hygiene score. 1) The Curry Chef award is a con, and it has little or nothing to do with the restaurant or the chefs’ culinary abilities. 2) The “Scores on the Doors” rating is wrong, for whatever reason. 3) The Curry Chef award is genuine, but takes no notice of hygiene conditions, and thus to my mind is invalid as an award. I have no idea which of these possible reasons is true, but I cannot reconcile poor food hygiene with good cookery – the things are interlinked. Your thoughts would be appreciated. The bug in the Blogger template I use persists – if you cannot see a comment box at the foot of this entry, click on any embedded photograph, then click on your browser “back” button – the dialogue box should then appear. It is a kludge, but all I can offer until Google fix the ongoing template fault, which is entirely outside of my control.

Here is the latest "Simon's Cat" video - always a pleasure. Comments for anything covered this week either below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com as you see fit.