How affordable is "affordable"?

The dramatic photo above was taken by a local chap called Daniel Fee; he took the shot of the demolition of one of the remaining tower blocks on the old Larner Road Estate using a flying drone equipped with a camera. The skyscrapers are being demolished to make way for the second phase of Erith Park - the large development of mixed social and retail housing and low - level apartments that is now replacing the worn out and no longer fit for purpose late 1960's tower blocks. Daniel writes:-  "Being an Erith resident for 50 years, and an Erith Plumber for 33 , I've witnessed many changes in that time, I've always considered the Larner Road estate to be a blot on the landscape, so was delighted to hear that they were to be demolished. Around the time of the first phase of demolition I was not in possession of drone, but took snaps from the ground of the muncher biting into the concrete, I was keen to take snaps of the old Erith College being munched down too, I attended there in the early 80s for my apprenticeship course, but before I found the time to pop up there the thing was already flattened. It's an amazing thing to be able capture such aerial images, Wates the builders in charge of the demo looked on enthusiastically and I have forwarded several images to the site foreman who was thrilled to see the muncher in action from such a height. Even though I hated the sight of them when they were there, it's slightly sad to see this last one making its way down. The sun was very bright today making filming difficult to see and there was a fair cross wind up at that height making it a little tricky to manoeuvre, I'm hoping to have another go next week if I get a break from my work, I plan to fly across the top with the camera looking straight down". Excellent stuff Daniel - please continue sending me the great photos!

This week,  the London Evening Standard reported that an “affordable” flat in Hackney has gone on sale for more than one million pounds. The shared ownership apartment, between the trendy Old Street roundabout and Regent's Canal, is listed for £1,025,000 on Sharetobuy.com - a website geared towards properties available on a part-buy part-rent basis. For the three-bedroom flat, which the website describes as being part of an "affordable housing scheme", buyers need to purchase a minimum 25 per cent stake in the property. With a deposit of £12,813, the website's calculator estimates the monthly cost of the home to be in excess of £2,700 - of which £1,352 comprises mortgage payments and £1,121 is rent payable on the stake the tenant does not own. The sixth-floor property is being offered by the Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association. It said the flat was one of only three shared ownership properties to have been valued above £900,000, and all of them were on the edge of the City of London. The problem of high property prices is not just one affecting inner and West London – the typical areas for high end accommodation. Now East and South East London are also seeing prices rise way above inflation, a situation which will only get worse when the Crossrail project nears completion in 2018. It is anticipated that people who have formerly lived in other parts of the London suburbs will be tempted to move into the local area because of the relatively “cheap” housing – prices in the London Borough of Bexley have historically been lower than average due partly to the lack of tube or DLR trains – commuters into central London have been limited to overland train travel, which has depressed the housing market. Crossrail will change all this – and the prospect that it will almost certainly be extended from the current planned terminus at Abbey Wood and on down to the proposed Paramount London Theme Park at Swanscombe. This rise in house prices has prompted London Mayoral candidate Dame Tessa Jowell to undertake some research. It turns out that that in twenty nine out of thirty two London boroughs, the house prices are rising so quickly that the cost of a house deposit is outstripping the ability of first time buyers to save for it. For example, in Hackney – the location of the so called “affordable” shared ownership flat mentioned earlier, the cost of a ten percent deposit in a fairly average priced property has risen £6,000 in a year, whilst an average paid saver putting aside seven percent of their earnings could only raise £2,200 in the same time. This means that the number of years needed to save for a first time deposit has risen from 17 to 19 years in twelve months. Bexley is still one of the most affordable boroughs in which to live, but I feel that this situation is about to end – and anyone wanting to get onto the property ladder locally should do so as soon as possible.

Erith made the headlines for all the wrong reasons this week; More than seventy people were arrested after Scotland Yard set up a second-hand clothing shop trading in stolen goods to target thieves and burglars. Undercover detectives opened the store in a formerly empty shop unit in Londonderry Parade in Stelling Road, Northumberland Heath and offered cash for clothes and what a judge described as “less legitimate items” as a part of a sting operation. The shop,  was called “Ward’s Cash 4 Clothes” and staffed with two undercover detectives known as Dan and Charlie. It even had its own Facebook page.  Deals with customers for goods ranging from stolen passports, laptops, jewellery and watches to a shotgun were recorded by hidden equipment. In the latest in a series of convictions following the operation, two brothers and their father were jailed for offences including possession of a 1924 shotgun, handling stolen goods and burglary. Mark Pearce, 31, of Erith, and his brother Matthew, 29, of Thamesmead, were each jailed for six years and three months after admitting 58 offences including possession of a shotgun, fraud, burglary and ID crimes. Their father James Pearce, 58, also of Erith, was sentenced to three years and eight months imprisonment after admitting thirteen offences. Sentencing at Inner London crown court, the Judge said the officers “let it be known that besides buying second-hand clothes, they would also buy less legitimate items. The whole purpose of the shop was in fact to buy stolen goods or other illicit material and to apprehend those who were selling them. All three of you were prolific, professional offenders. None of you had legitimate paid employment. You were literally living from the proceeds of crime. There has been no expression of remorse from any of you. In those circumstances, lengthy sentences are inevitable.” The three were among forty men and a woman arrested in mass raids at addresses in Bexley, Lewisham, Greenwich and Bromley in March. The covert operation was run by Bexley police and Scotland Yard’s Serious and Organised Crime Command, the operation tackled criminal networks suspected of being involved in burglary, theft, fraud, motor vehicle crime, drug dealing, money laundering and violent crime. A further thirty one people were also arrested as a result of the initiative, codenamed Operation Belmont. So far fifty people have been convicted, with sentences totalling more than one hundred years years. Brilliant stuff from the Police. I hope we see more of this kind of operation against the criminal scum that prey on the vulnerable in society.

After my article last week in regard of Ultra High Definition 4K television, I have had several readers ask me for more information about how the UHD content will be delivered, as Sky have just announced a new UHD set top box capable of delivering 4K video content to the home. The knack with any digital video stream is the way the data is compressed. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265, promises twice the compression possible with current Blu-ray’s best video compression methods. But how does it work, and is it enough to get us better-looking 4K content? It is the new successor to Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also known as H.264, which is one of the compression schemes used by Blu-ray. The idea of HEVC is to offer the same level of picture quality as AVC, but with better compression, so there's less data to deal with. This is key if we want 4K/Ultra HD broadcasts (including satellite services such as Sky), 4K Blu-rays, and more. The amount of raw data coming out the back of a professional HD camera is a massive. There is no way to conveniently transport it to your home. Instead, the video is compressed to reduce the amount of data into a more manageable form. There are many ways to do this, one of the easiest being reducing the quality. In some cases this is OK. Think of your average YouTube video quality. Not great, very often. This is usually the case that because the video is highly compressed (either before or during the upload); heavy compression might keep the resolution technically the same, but the image can appear softer, noisier, or have strange distortions known as digital artifacts. The other option is to use better compression. In this case, you can basically think of "better" compression as "smarter" compression. So it's taking the same original (the video), and finding out better ways to make the amount of data less, without sacrificing quality. Every few years the processing power of gear has improved enough to let more processor-intensive compression algorithms to be used, and further compress the data without making the image worse. This distinction between "more" compression and "better" compression is important, as really, the terms aren't interchangeable in this context. You can decrease the amount of data required for a signal either by cranking up the compression and making the image ugly (just "more" compression), or using a more efficient compression technique ("better" compression). An example; you have a theoretical basket of apples. You need to fit 100 apples inside. You can do it with more compression (reducing the apples to sauce), or with better compression (finding a better way to make them all fit, but preserving their appleness). More compression = apple sauce. Better compression = more apples, same space. The Moving Picture Experts Group and the International Telecommunication Union's Telecommunication Standardisation Sector (ITU-T) were already starting work on the next generation of video compression, with an eye on the future. Not wanting to mess around with small, incremental improvements, whenever a new compression standard is introduced, it has to be a sizable change. With each jump, the general rule is half the bitrate for the same quality (or greater quality at the same bit rate). How does it do this? Largely by expanding on how the compression technique works. Firstly, it looks at multiple frames to see what doesn't change. In most scenes in a TV show or movie, the vast majority of the frame doesn't change much. Think of a scene with someone talking. The shot is mostly their head. The background isn't going to change much for many frames. For that matter, most of the pixels representing their face probably won't change much (other than their lips, of course). So instead of encoding every pixel from every frame, an initial frame is encoded, and then after that only what changes is encoded. HEVC then expands the size of the area that's looked at for these changes. Larger and smaller "blocks" essentially, which offers additional efficiency. Ever seen blocks in your image, when the satellite picture goes foul during heavy rain or snow? Those can be bigger, smaller, and differently shaped with HEVC than with previous compression methods. Larger blocks, for example, were found to be more efficient. Then other things were improved, like motion compensation, spatial prediction, and so on. All of these things would have been done with AVC or even earlier, but it required more processing power than was economically feasible at the time. As processor speed has gone up, and price gone down, it is now possible to implement compression algorithms that would have previously been too complex or expensive. While this arrangement offers flexibility, it also means that "4K" and "UHD" won't necessarily guarantee better picture quality any more than "1080p" or "HD" do today. A highly compressed 4K signal could, in many ways, look worse than a less heavily compressed HD signal. In other words, streaming 4K might look worse than current 1080p Blu-ray, depending on how much compression is used - in a similar way to a current standard definition picture can look remarkably good when it has a low level of compression when compared to an HD picture with poorly chosen compression. As with many of these things, in the "real world" your mileage may vary. 

As many readers will know, I am not only a fan of properly produced real ale; I am also a real devotee of Erith’s own Bexley Brewery on the Manford Industrial Estate in Manor Road, right at the foot of the Erith Wind Turbine. The photo above, which was taken on Friday afternoon shows head brewer Cliff as he prepares a unique green hop ale from hops which were only picked hours earlier from a farm in Faversham. They produce an excellent range of hand crafted real ales, which are on sale in draught and bottled form in a number of local outlets. One of their competitors is the somewhat larger Meantime Brewery in Greenwich which has recently  had a bit of a public relations disaster. An investigation by Beer Insider and London 24 has revealed that Meantime’s London Lager, famously brewed in Greenwich, is occasionally part-made at the Grolsch brewery in Enschede in The Netherlands. Meantime is one of London’s best-known real ale breweries, and London Lager is their flagship beer. The labels proudly claim that it is ‘Born and Brewed in London’. But now the brewery has admitted to Beer Insider / London 24 that the bottles sometimes contain a blend of locally-brewed and Dutch-brewed lager when their London site cannot  keep up with demand. Meantime stress that “the liquid was brewed to the precise specification and recipe of London Lager and has the exact profile and microbiological makeup as any batch of London Lager brewed here at our brewery in Greenwich.” This is actually quite a common practice – Doom Bar Bitter, reputedly brewed in Cornwall is sometimes made in Burton on Trent. Similarly, Young’s, who for centuries brewed beers in the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth infamously sold off the site to property developers and relocated all of their brewing to the Eagle Brewery in Bedford back in 2006, as Young’s merged with Charles Wells to form a new company Wells and Young’s. The only brewer who can genuinely claim that their beer is brewed in central London is Fuller’s, whose Griffin Brewery has been located in Chiswick since 1845. What should qualify a beer in respect of its provenance? If you consider wine, the region that the grapes are grown is quoted. Some may be made on the estate, but quite often wine is made in a different geographical location to the vineyards. Incidentally, Wine, Cider and Perry are made, rather than brewed. Only in brewing are some of the raw ingredients boiled. Wine, Cider and Perry making involve no application of heat in the process.

Regular Maggot Sandwich reader Teresa, a resident of the West Country, wrote to me last week after I commented on the slowdown in sales of tablet devices such as the Apple iPad; she said "I bought an iPad, but quickly donated it to my grandchildren who are much more adept at using it than I could ever be.  My uncle's widow carries her ipad everywhere.  She even produced it at the table at my mother's wake (one of my sisters had organised a sit-down meal as many of those attending had travelled a considerable distance for the funeral ) and proceeded to show my children her holiday snaps and pictures of her latest birthday party with her friends, none of whom we know. Whilst it was not a sad occasion (Mother's passing was a blessed release) I did think that was inappropriate. On the way back to my house, she sat in the car and proceeded to take pics of rainbows and showing them to me (my son was driving).  She is in her eighties - who said it was only the young who are fixated...?! I wonder if any of your readers have encountered anything like it?" Interesting observations Teresa - I wonder if anyone else has their own thoughts that they would like to share?

Malcolm Knight of the excellent “Bexley is Bonkers” blog has been covering the building works that have been going, very slowly at Lesnes Abbey. I suspected that he knew far more than he let on about the reasons for the delays to the works, and I was correct. On Tuesday Malcolm published an update which explained what had been going on. Following this, Bexley Council issued a press release, the wording of which you can read here:- “Significant archaeological artefacts have been unearthed close to the foundations of the old 1930’s amenity building in Lesnes Abbey Woods Park during works to improve the site. Some of the artefacts found, which include human remains, are currently being examined offsite by specialist professional teams. In order to safeguard the find the foundations and steel structure for the new Lesnes Lodge building have been redesigned. This redesign has impacted on the timings for construction of the new building which is expected to be complete in early 2016. Cabinet Member for Community Safety, Environment and Leisure Councillor Peter Craske said, “This is an exciting discovery that highlights the historical significance of Lesnes Abbey Woods which we want to preserve for the local community. The find was made a while ago but it was imperative that we protect the immediate area before releasing any information on it. We are continuing to work with specialists to manage and safeguard the site’s unique archaeology and will update the local community as things progress. In the meantime we would urge people to treat the park with respect and refrain from metal detecting, in particular, as this is illegal and could cause irreparable damage.” The construction of the new Lesnes Lodge on the site of the old amenity building is just one of a number of significant improvements which are being made to Lesnes Abbey Wood Park to encourage more visitors and to unlock the rich history of the site. The improvement work is on schedule to be completed by summer 2016. Work to highlight the Lesnes Mulberry tree as a feature is almost complete. New fencing and temporary information lecterns have been installed to share the tree’s special history with visitors. Landscape work will begin in the autumn on other new facilities which include a new trim trail, outdoor gym, table tennis and picnic tables. In addition several outdoor learning experiences such as a heathland classroom, a Monk’s Garden and a new skyline viewing point, will be created. The Lesnes Abbey Woods Enhancement project team will be holding another of the regular ‘Meet us at the Park’ sessions on 28 August to update the community on how plans to improve the park are developing. The event is free and will feature activities such as medieval tile making, stone masonry and guided walks around the semi ancient woodland at Lesnes. The Meet us at the Park session will also include demonstrations of parkour activities along with workshops to introduce people to the sport and enable them to make full use of the parkour zone at Lesnes, which is the first of its kind in the borough. These will be run by Parkour Generations, the largest UK professional free running organisation, who have performed all over the world and whose previous work includes performances in Hollywood movies such as District 13, Babylon A.D, and World War Z. The improvements at Lesnes Abbey Woods have been made possible by a ‘Parks for people’ programme grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The £4.2m project is funded by the London Borough of Bexley and the Heritage Lottery Fund (which is investing £3.5m)”. This is all great stuff, but it does beg the question, if they can afford to do this in Abbey Wood, why are Bexley Council so keen on closing down Belvedere Splash Park for good? I am firmly of the opinion it is mainly about revenue, and the fact that the Conservative led council do not need to chase votes in what is a primarily Labour voting area – it does not matter if the locals are annoyed, as they generally did not / would not vote for the incumbent councillors anyway. Coupling this with the value of the land freed up when the Swings Park on the opposite side of Woolwich Road moves over to the former Splash Park site, leaving a large triangular piece of land, including Belvedere Library, and the Pop in Parlour – something which would be ripe for selling off to a developer. No official plan has been announced, but I would not be at all surprised if something of this nature is actually intended. Locals are deeply cynical of Bexley Council, and their emphasis on promoting events happening in the South of the borough. For example, at least half a dozen public events were scheduled in relation to the launch of the new, subscription system for the collection of garden waste, yet not one of the events was scheduled for a venue anywhere North of Bexleyheath. I think this says a lot about the powers that be, and their attitude towards those of us who live in Belvedere, Erith, Northumberland Heath, Barnehurst or Slade Green. What do you think? Do you feel hard done by if you are a resident of the London Borough of Bexley? Do let me know; you can leave a comment below, or alternatively you can Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The News Shopper are reporting the story of a teenager named Ashlee Fowler, was killed in a road accident in Mottingham last week; whilst Mottingham is rather outside of the Maggot Sandwich normal area of remit, some facts in the case got me thinking. The teenager, who was a passenger on a motorbike, which crashed,  left an 18-year-old dead and another teenager fighting for his life after they both allegedly were not wearing helmets. The incident in Mottingham Road, near its junction with William Barefoot Drive, happened just after 4.30pm on August the 24^th. It is thought the teenagers crashed into the central reservation, which has a mounted speed camera, before flying ten feet over the handlebars, and landing in the middle of the road. Emergency services rushed to the scene, but despite the best efforts of paramedics the 18-year-old died.  He is believed to have been the pillion passenger on the motorcycle. This behaviour – riding illegally without helmets and weaving in and out of traffic sounded very similar to the irresponsible biker behaviour exhibited in Lower Belvedere recently. One of the riders got killed on the 9^th of July, when he lost control of his bike whilst racing,  and collided with a lamp post at the roundabout which joins Eastern Way junction with Yarnton Way, opposite the Morgan carvery restaurant /  Pub. The London Air Ambulance attended the scene to take the critically injured motorcyclist by air to the Royal London Hospital where he later died. The biker gang he was with were identified as part of Bike Life TV UK group who have previously been seen riding in large numbers in both Thamesmead and Lower Belvedere. They usually don't wear helmets, wear bandannas around their lower faces to hide their identities and many of their bikes are stolen and have false number plates. They post videos of their members pulling wheelies, performing stunts and racing on public roads, often weaving in and out of law – abiding traffic. Their Facebook page contains a large number of videos showing their members engaging in illegal activities, and they are even stupid enough to make occasional drug references. I have spoken to a couple of local law – abiding bikers, both of whom were concerned that members of Bike Life TV UK were giving responsible bikers a bad name. I wonder if the Mottingham incident involved Bike Life TV UK members? The behaviour shown certainly matches that exhibited nearer home. If anyone has further information on this group, please let me know.

This week marks the twentieth birthday of Windows 95 - almost certainly the most widely used and influential desktop operating system of its' time. A contemporary video review below gives an idea of what people back in 1995 thought of the then revolutionary operating system, and also gives viewers today an idea of the huge amount of marketing hype that Microsoft used to launch their then brand new product. Feel free to comment below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com.

200,000!

The photo above was taken recently outside of the Mambocino coffee shop / cafe in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. The whole of the shopping centre is plastered with "No Smoking" signs. You may notice that the rubbish bin on the wall is directly under one sign, and there is another to the left of it. The stains on the wall surrounding the bins are the result of smokers stubbing out a cigarette before throwing the butt in the bin (at least most of the time - plenty still end up on the ground). This is not to obey the rules, it is mostly so that they can light up a fresh cigarette. The anti smoking law is so blatantly flouted in the centre that even staff employed by the shops in the centre light up in the banned areas. The whole thing is out of hand, and the reduction in the number and quality of security guards patrolling the centre is such that I have even (on the rare occasions when a guard has been around) seen a security officer dragging on a fag outside of Wilkinson's. I really think the whole thing is unenforceable; I cannot for the life of me see the point in having a rule that is not enforced. It just seems pointless. There would appear to be neither the will, nor the ability to uphold the law. Your thoughts are welcomed - please leave a comment below.

Some time on Friday afternoon, Google Analytics informed me that the Maggot Sandwich had just logged its' 200,000th unique page view. This does not mean that 200,000 people read the blog, what it does mean is that over the course of the six and a half years it has been running, just over two hundred thousand different people have read it. I do get roughly 20,000 regular hits each month - sometimes a little more, at present slightly less. I was approached by a marketing company a while back, who tried to encourage me to take advertising on the site. I refused. If I took adverts or some form of sponsorship, I would lose my impartiality. The fact I am free to praise or criticise as I see fit is not something I would give up, so no advertisers, thank you very much.

Erith Blockbuster closed for good on Monday morning; although some stores were sold top Morrison's, and others have been bought by a venture capital group, the Erith store is now no more. The store has been emptied of the little remaining stock, and it now stands empty, though last time I walked past, the lights were still on. I hope that the corner unit gets taken soon, as it would otherwise be a magnet for vandals and metal thieves (often one and the same).

The popular press have picked up on a subject that I raised on my entry "The Electric Gasper" on the 24th February. The whole privacy issue with the forthcoming Google Glass project has finally been made widely known via the BBC News website. You saw it here first!

I use public transport daily; nowadays it is usually the overland trains and the Docklands Light Railway. Something that has been noticeable ever since the invention of the smart phone is the “phone hunch” – people sit, transfixed by their mobile devices, and usually oblivious to the world around them. I see young mothers pushing babies in buggies, oblivious to their offspring as they are preoccupied by the latest FaceBook status update. I am of the opinion that a prediction made by Albert Einstein has now already come to pass. Einstein said " I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots". On a number of occasions I have been in a conversation with someone, only for them to suddenly reach for their pocket, pull out their phone then proceed to ignore me for several minutes, without so much as a “by your leave”. I find it extremely rude, though when I have challenged this behaviour before, I have been met with blank incomprehension.  They genuinely could not see that their behaviour was rude and inconsiderate to those around them. A new psychological condition has been diagnosed by psychologists, it is known as “Phantom Vibration Syndrome” a stress induced condition where the sufferer incorrectly believes that their mobile phone is vibrating to alert them to a call.  You can read more about the recognised medical condition here. It would seem that a significant percentage of mobile phone users are in a constant state of anticipation – for a call, text or tweet from their extended virtual network of friends and associates, and this builds stress that can exhibit as the perception of phantom calls. Some of the worst stress effects of mobile phones arise through social habit. Despite the phones' promise of making daily life more convenient,  they often make things  more difficult. A study by Intel has found that one in five people admit to being wilfully late because they can reschedule dates and meetings at the last minute via mobile phone, and three-quarters say that mobile phone ownership has made them 'more flexible when meeting friends'  (i.e., they are wilfully late, but lie about it). My own conscious decision not to have a mobile phone has made me a bit of an unusual case; it does mean that I am always prompt for appointments, and never cancel at the last minute. Because I am very organised, I would say that there are only one or two times a year when having a phone would be to my advantage, which really is not a significant issue in my case. For me the upside is not being constantly bombarded with messages that I neither want or need, and also when I am at work I don’t have the distraction that so many people have. All in all, it works for me.

Did you know that Status Quo have made a full length cinema movie, which is being released in the summer? I didn't until recently either. It turns out to be a knock about comedy adventure. After watching the trailer, I cannot decide whether it will be a knowing, tongue in cheek bit of fluff, or one of the most dreadful movies ever committed to celluloid. Judge for yourself and let me know what you think.

An early build of the successor to Microsoft’s’ much derided and very unpopular Windows 8 has “leaked” onto several file sharing sites. Normally when this happens it is the manufacturer deliberately releasing a very early build in order to garner feedback from enthusiasts and early adopters. The next version of Windows, currently named Windows Blue is available for download from a number of shady an disreputable sites (no, I am not providing any links, the chances are you would end up with a hard disc full of malware and other junk if I did, and I don’t want to encourage illegal downloading anyway).

I reckon that Erith is the cheapest place to purchase residential property of anywhere within 30 minutes train journey of London Bridge station. There was a bedsit for sale on the Robinson and Jackson website that was on offer for £49,950. OK, it was not exactly large or well appointed (actually it was a squalid little shoe box of a place), but it was relatively modern, close to Erith Station, and a real foot on the property ladder for someone. It got taken off the estate agent's website pretty quickly, so I can only assume that it got a buyer very quickly indeed.

When standing in a supermarket queue, or waiting to pay for my paper in my local corner shop, I am struck by the large number of women’s scandal magazines that are on sale. I am thinking of titles like “Take a Break”, "That's Life!", "Love It!","Pick Me Up!", "Full House!" and a handful of others. Apart from having an almost compulsory exclamation mark in their titles, the other thing that all of these publications have in common is that they sell stories about personal tragedy in the same way that other magazines aimed at a mainly female audience sell celebrity gossip and slimming tips. These magazines are marketed as light reading, something to be absorbed whilst lingering over a cup of tea, yet they are filled with disturbing, harrowing stories that would only be covered after the 9pm watershed if they were a television show. The design, format and colour scheme of all of these magazines are rather formulaic; They generally have a young, smiling woman on the cover, a sort of "girl next door" type. The rest of the cover is filled with boxes and banners in primary colours - a means of grabbing the attention of a potential buyer. The trouble is that the content of the banners is horrifying - life changing events such as murder, incest, acid attacks, crimes of violence and personal tragedy. The irony is that many of the stories involve violence against women, yet they are read by mainly women as light entertainment. They seem to be the printed equivalent of the Jeremy Kyle show; I worry about the people who purchase these magazines. It strikes me that anyone who enjoys reading about the misfortunes of others probably has some issues themselves. I would be interested in what you think. Please leave a comment below; all comments are moderated and published within 24 hours at most.

Did you know that there are only two industrial buildings in London that have Grade 1 listed status? One is Tower Bridge, and the other is the pump house at Crossness Sewage Works. The ornate Victorian structure was designed by engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette and architect Charles Henry Driver. It was constructed between 1859 and 1865 as part of his redevelopment of the London sewerage system. The pumping station was an essential part of the clean up of London’s water system, and led directly to the elimination of many water borne diseases, notably Cholera, which prior to this time was a significant killer. If you have not visited the pumping station, it is a cathedral in cast and wrought iron. The charitable trust that runs the building and that is nowadays responsible for restoring the giant boilers and pumps to a working state have just announced the schedule of days where the pumping station will be open to the public in 2013. The first event takes place on Sunday, April 21, from 10.30am to 5pm, and will be a local history fair with exhibitors organised by Bexley Civic Society. There will be another four steam days until October, but at the time of writing the exact dates are not yet available. The place is well worth a visit, whether you have an interest in engineering, architecture, local history or films and television. As I have mentioned before, the pumping station has been used as a location for both TV and films – the recent Victorian drama “The Crimson Petal and the White”, the first Guy Ritchie directed “Sherlock Holmes” movie (the opening sequence where Lord Blackwood is about to perform a human sacrifice in what looks like a Masonic temple was actually filmed in the centre part of the main pump hall). Many other films, such as the first Tim Burton directed “Batman” and the first “Alien” film also used the place as a major location. What is both interesting and ironic is that Sir Joseph Bazalgette is the great – great grandfather of TV producer Sir Peter Bazalgette, the person who brought us programmes such as Ground Force, Ready, Steady Cook and Big Brother. There is a running joke in the media industry that whilst Joseph Bazalgette was responsible for removing excrement from the home, Peter is now responsible for introducing it!

Erith based graphic design consultancy 4Q Graphix are looking for an office in or around the town. If you know of any spare office space suitable, and at a reasonable cost, please let Mark Smallcorn at 4Q Graphix a call; their details, and a bit about the company are below - click for a larger view.

Next week will mark a key event in the history of Erith. The much heralded regeneration of the Larner Road housing estate will begin. On Friday the 5th April, demolition of the seven large tower blocks will commence; all of the high rise elements of the original estate are being razed to the ground; the replacement £100 million plus development will consist of low rise accommodation and some conventional housing; part of which will be put on sale. The remainder will be administered by the housing association. The building programme is quite ambitious, and the construction workers will have a tight schedule to keep, as the first new houses are due for completion in 2015. A special viewing area will be set up for local residents to watch the demolition work as it happens; I would hope to get along there at some point over the weekend to photograph the work for posterity. The Friday commencement of demolition will be heralded with a party – A group of acrobats will be performing, live Zulu music from the Majuba Drummers. There will also be t-shirt painting, magnet making, a photography workshop and cinema showings of The Ballad of Larner Road film, that I featured on the Maggot Sandwich a couple of weeks ago. I won’t unfortunately be able to make this party, as I will be at work, and shortly after work I will be covering the 8th Bexley Beer Festival at its’ new venue – the Old Dartfordian’s Club in Bexley Village. I hope to have photos of the festival, ready for the next Maggot Sandwich update on Sunday. One of the breweries that will be exhibiting their wares at the festival is a brand new one. The Caveman Brewery is located in Swanscombe, and brews beers for a number of pubs and clubs around North Kent and beyond; their beers are even stocked at the prestigious Bricklayers Arms pub in Putney – consistently voted as one of the best pubs in the country. You can see the Caveman Brewery website here.

I took the photo above yesterday afternoon, dodging between snow and sleet showers. I have to say that I cannot recall it ever being so freezing cold at Easter before. The weather really is getting everyone down. Anyway, Erith Pier is host to a number of commercial ships on an almost daily basis. Generally they tie up for a day or so, before heading off to places unknown. Quite often the crews take advantage of the close proximity of Morrison's supermarket, and they have on several occasions been seen pushing trollies full of food along the pier and onto their ships. To my knowledge, this is the only place on the River Thames where a commercial ship can moor and the crew go shopping. Even the River Police have been seen going for a quick all day fry up in the cafeteria in the supermarket. Talk about a local service. I'm hoping to be able to make an announcement about the pier in the near future, but for the meantime, I need to keep my own counsel. Keep watching this space over the coming weeks.

I have heard consternation expressed that Belvedere Police station is reducing the hours it opens to just three a week. Many people seem to be unaware that it has been a public facing police station in name only for many years; most of its’ main functions are now undertaken at Bexleyheath Police Station, and I think it will not be long before the building is sold off to try and refill the Metropolitan Polices’ drained coffers. The hard fact remains that apart from being asked to produce motoring documentation, many people around the country don’t ever visit their Police station. In Erith, we have the Police office, next to the Farm Foods supermarket. It is not open to the public, but is a place where the various Safer Neighbourhood Police teams are based when not actually out pounding the beat. There are no cells or interrogation rooms in the building, just an office and storage facilities. This is the way that the police will be operating for the foreseeable future, reflecting the austerity the government is bringing to all public services. Having said that, I do detect an element of “do as we say, not as we do”. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a high level meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Whitehall as part of my job. I wrote a bit about it back then; what I did not say was that once I had got through the first two layers of intense security that surround the building (and pretty much all of Whitehall, for that matter) I was guided into an inner courtyard in which twenty Jaguar saloon cars were parked. It was obvious that they were government owned cars – they all had very similar registration numbers, and they were all less than a year old. After looking on the Jaguar website, the cars I saw, with the options they had, would have retailed at approximately £90,000 each. Whilst I am sure that the government would have got a bulk discount, a roughly £1.8 million bill for a bunch of ministerial Jags during a recession does strike me as “one rule for you, and one rule for us” and certainly sends out a mixed message. Personally I think Ministers should use public transport like the rest of us (with the added bonus that when they realised how horrendous it can be, they might be better motivated to actually get it improved!)

The ending video this week was sent to me by Alan, who (correctly) thought that it would appeal to me. The video was taken during the Earth Hour light switch off, it shows thirty remotely piloted UAV's equipped with LED lights. They are flown in formation to create the Starfleet insignia, as part of a promotion for the forthcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness movie. Very cool indeed.

Master Chef in Erith?

The partial resurfacing of Manor Road took place overnight on Tuesday. Bexley Council Highways department, along with a small army of contractors from Conway started work at 7pm, and continued through until some time after 2am the next morning. I took photos of the action as you can see – click on them for a larger version. I got talking to the project manager from Bexley Council, who recalled me from the previous time the road was resurfaced in 2009 when I also took photos. He said that the work they were carrying out was purely first aid; they were removing the crumbling top layer of tarmac, skimming the remaining surface smooth, laying a fresh layer of special sound deadening tarmac, rolling it smooth, then re – painting the road lines – all in a space of around nine hours. Pretty impressive stuff. The fact remains that it is a temporary repair which will only buy the council a year or so’s time until it needs to be done again. The project manager told me that the problem was down to the underlaying material that was acting as a foundation – the material was too springy and yielding, causing the top layer of tarmac to flex and eventually crack under the weight of the heavy goods vehicles and buses that use the road. He said that at some stage they were going to need to close Manor Road for anything up to a couple of weeks in order to dig down up to three feet in some places to remove the foundations, and also remove the remains of the tram lines which still exist along much of the length of the roadway, that were covered over by surfacing when the tram was decommissioned. The rails are still there, rusting and weakening the foundation level of material; they were originally left in situ as the cost of removing them was at the time thought to be prohibitive. It has turned out to be an expensive error in the long run; any permanent repair for the road will entail removing the rails for disposal. It might be easier to just dig up the road and let the scrap dealers know that there was some steel going free – the rails would disappear in a flash – problem solved! Anyway, the issue of the crumbling surface of Manor Road will not go away, it has just been deferred for a while longer.

The big technology success of this year came from a rather unexpected angle. Rather than the iPhone 5 or the iPad Retina being the sat hardware release, as so many I.T pundits incorrectly predicted, it was a not for profit educational foundation and a group of hackers that produced the Raspberry Pi. This tiny, ultra cheap computer built with off the shelf components, and capable of running a number of operating systems, including several Linux builds, Android and AmigaOS has taken the IT industry by storm. It was predicted that the Raspberry Pi would sell around 10,000 units over the course of its’ first year in production. Since February over 750,000 units have been shipped, and it is predicted that by February next year – the first anniversary of its’ launch, that the diminutive machine will be owned by over 1 million people. A stunning success from a tiny organisation that is staffed entirely by volunteers.

Over the past couple of years I have been quite critical of Bexley’s main free local paper, the News Shopper. I think the print edition is a very strong community news source; and I like it very much. The web base version attracts my ire mainly due to the lack of editorial moderation of the reader comments, which on occasion have been so strongly worded as to be offensive. Overall though it provides a pretty decent news service for the area, and I understand that it does so on a shoestring. There are times when the quality of journalism goes out of the window, and the sub editing fails. This has happened most recently on a story by reporter George Sargent on a lovely story about how Erith chef Keri Moss won the recent BBC Master Chef – the professionals competition. In his interview with her, Sargent writes that she attended “Piccadee” school in Erith as a child. When I read this, I spat cinders – any cursory amount of research would have revealed that the name was “Picardy”; on top of this, how was the phonetic spelling missed by the sub editor? It is blatantly obvious from the way the article is written that mister Sargent had never heard the name before. On  lighter note, it is very heartening news to read that a local lady has won what is a pretty prestigious, not to say high profile cookery award. In the interview, Keri Moss talks of her ambition to open a restaurant in London or the South East, serving high quality traditional British food. Keri, if you are reading this (something I seriously doubt) why not put your money where your mouth is, and open a high profile restaurant in Erith? There would be no local competition, there are plenty of premises available, and with your newly won fame, you could put Erith on the gastronomic map. Simple, high quality traditional British food should prove to be a real winner, and could give Erith a name for something other than facial tattoos and casual violence. Look what happened to Thomasina Myers; she won Masterchef and now co – owns the Wahaca chain of Mexican restaurants. OK; it helps that her husband is an investment banker who helped her raise the finance for the venture, but if you were to start out small, with a double unit in the vacant retail outlet opposite Erith Health Centre, you would have the best of both worlds – there are three nearby car parks, the rent on the units would almost certainly be negotiable (they have been empty since they were built and any developer worth their salt will want to get some kind of revenue stream going) and I reckon that Bexley Council would give you a couple of years respite from business rates. Come on Keri – you know it makes sense!

Another piece of excellent news comes from the announcement that the proposed redevelopment of the Larner Road sink hole estate has now received planning approval. Work on the £100 million regeneration project is due to start as early as March next year, with the first new homes ready in 2015. The proposal will see housing association Orbit South replace the estates five tower blocks with a mix of houses and low-rise apartments, comprising between 550 and 622 new homes. I understand that the plan is to make far more use of the open space that will be freed up by the demolition of the ugly and worn out tower blocks, and that the Dell nature area is to be expanded and improved. The focus is going to be far more on making welcoming and accessible public spaces, with the added bonus of doing away with all the current dark corners where the drug dealers and muggers lurk. One other ambitious and quite brave move being made by Orbit is that the low level housing will be a mixture of rental, shared ownership and around sixty new houses for sale. I think that the quality of the housing will need to be exceptionally good, and at a very reasonable price if it is to attract buyers. The poor reputation that the Larner Road estate currently has will be hard to overcome – which may lead to problems in future re-sales. The fact that the estate is known to be a sink hole for problem families will count against it, unless some concerted marketing effort and a genuine social re-engineering take place. The general feedback I have encountered is that the area will always be undesirable until such time the anti social behaviour and problem families are sorted out. I think that this is a fair point, but it does rather unfairly paint all Larner Road residents with the same brush. I know of many law abiding and sensible people who have lived there for years – yes, there are more than the area’s fair share of villains and scumbags on the estate, but don’t forget the good people too. Some have suggested that a system similar to that about to be piloted in The Netherlands may be in order. They are implementing something that is informally termed “Scum Village” – repeat offenders with charges of anti social behaviour, are being re-housed into units converted from shipping containers in a private village well away from their previous homes and local contacts. They will live in the units for six months, under the supervision and guidance of social workers and the Police. If they can prove that they are able to lead normal, productive lives after this period of mentoring and training, they can re – integrate into Dutch society. The scheme is designed to stop the exodus of the “nice” families that are victimised by the problem families, leaving only anti social trouble makers in certain housing estates. It is certainly an intriguing idea, but I have my doubts as to how the Dutch experiment will pan out. It is clear that one cannot simply move the problems on, as the root cause of their misbehaviour needs to be addressed. I think Orbit are to be congratulated for taking on what is going to be a massive engineering project in a relatively short build period; the greater challenge will be getting the mix of residents correct, rather than any issues with simple bricks and mortar.

One of the biggest growth areas in contemporary consumer electronics is the Smart TV. These devices, which merge the functionality of a computer with a large high definition screen are becoming an increasingly common sight in people’s living rooms. Something that the owners of Samsung smart televisions need to be aware of, is that a theoretical security exploit has been discovered which could allow a third party to completely take over control of their television, including the camera and built in microphone. Thus far nobody has managed to carry out an attack of this nature “in the wild” – just in a security laboratory. Currently the exploit only works if the attacker has direct physical access to the television via the Ethernet connection. It is however only a matter of time before a remote exploit is developed. I have a Samsung 46 ES8000 smart television, which is one of the models said to be potentially vulnerable, but I am sleeping easily in my bed. My TV is sat behind a fully stealthed fibre optic router complete with strong wireless encryption and a hardware firewall that I have penetration tested. I am not saying my network is invulnerable (there is no such thing, and only a fool would say otherwise) but it would be a very difficult one to crack, and there are far easier targets nearby. The worry is, not that someone may potentially be able to see you sat in front of your telly in your jim jams, but if they can access the TV’s computer, they may be able to install Ransom Ware – malicious software that blocks functionality of the device until a web page is visited and a “fine” is paid – after which, the ransom ware may, or more likely may not be uninstalled. This kind of digital hijacking is going on with increasing frequency. Some ransom ware writers are even posing as national Police services, accusing users of accessing child porn and suchlike; this is exploiting peoples’ fears of “getting into trouble” and psychologically intimidating them into paying the “fine”. This has been happening on mainly Windows PCs for some time, and I would not be surprised to see it on Apple OS X and smart televisions of all brands in the near future. The black hats are always looking for a new attack vector and platform to exploit. It is all about cash at the end of the day, and the best way to extort it from the innocent users.

The Erith Watch website reports a theft of a much treasured bicycle from a back garden shed in Manor Road, Erith during the early hours of Friday the 13th of December. Property crime always rises in the weeks before Christmas, as the burglars realise that people will have been out buying presents for Christmas. Simple measures such as making sure doors are double locked and windows secured can help, and out buildings are kept secured – not always easy if you have a rather rickety shed, of course. Personally I have some rather more robust measures in place, though I understand the Police took a rather dim view of my request to install land mines in the back lawn... Seriously, if you need advice on home and domestic security, contact your local Safer Neighbourhood Police team – they can send an advisor to look at your place, and make suggestions of effective ways to improve security and deter property theft. They don’t charge for this service and it is completely confidential

Morrison's in Erith were promoting a seasonal real ale by Kent's premier brewer Shepherd Neame last week. Their Christmas Ale was displayed in a pallet by the off licence section of the store; I picked up a couple of bottles, as I am a big fan of Shepherd Neame beers. They have a very distinctive taste like the beer from no other brewery - probably due to the fact they have their own artesian well, which supplies all of the water for their brewing. Christmas Ale is not some novelty product with chocolate or Cinnamon in it, as some lesser brewers are wont to do; instead it is a subtle, yet powerful ale, with many distinct flavour undertones. You can watch a video review of the beer below. Unfortunately the ale was a victim of its' own success, and stocks were rapidly snapped up (somehow I doubt that all of the buyers were ale enthusiasts - I have a sneaking suspicion that a certain percentage of buyers were attracted by the fact it was a pint that was 7% alcohol by volume at a bargain price of £1.50 per bottle, and sod the superior quality) - still, if a few Stella heads are converted to the cause of real ale, it is a price worth paying.

Since it is Christmas (however much I am not in a festive mood) here is a second ending video. As you may be aware, the most over subscribed live concert in entertainment history was recently released on DVD and BluRay. My one - time boss, Peter Moore, the station manager of Radio Caroline was the only person fortunate enough to gate crash the gig.  Led Zeppelin's 2007 concert at the O2 Arena in Greenwich has now been released as a film called "Celebration Day". You can see what many consider to be their finest track below. Click to make the embedded window full screen, and enjoy the sepulchral majesty of Led Zeppelin playing "Kashmir". I rest my case.

The ballad of Larner Road.

For the second time since it was installed, the hideous fish sculpture on the roundabout opposite the Council offices in the centre of Erith has been attacked by a car. Some years ago I reported on the sad story of a bloke who tried to end it all by crashing his vehicle into the statue – but he forgot to disable the cars’ airbags and he survived almost unscathed. Unfortunately a couple of weeks later he threw himself off the top of one of the tower blocks on the Larner Road estate (of which, more later). This week another car was involved in an incident with the fish. A young man drove over the gassed roundabout reservation, narrowly missing the sculpture itself; he was intercepted by the Police, as he tried to make his escape, with his car trailing oil from its’ damaged sump. It would appear from the sketchy information currently available, that he was either drunk, drugged or otherwise incapacitated, rather than trying to end it all. As hard bitten Maggot Sandwich readers may well recall, I have on many occasions railed at the fish sculpture – calling it a waste of council tax payers money, a hideous “Mister Whippy” style psychedelic turd, crapped onto Erith by a giant passing alien creature, and worse. My view is subtly changing nowadays; I still think it is hideously ugly and completely unsuited to its’ role as symbolic guardian to the gates of Erith, but it is now used as a landmark by so many people when giving directions to the town (“When you see the fish sculpture, you’ve reached Erith”) that it has become part of the DNA of the area. It has to my mind become a case of “it’s so bad it is good” now. Please feel free to comment with your own views on the sculpture; I am interested on what others think of it.

A Norfolk based professional poet named Luke Wright was commissioned to write a long form poem by Orbit Housing Association. The subject of the poem is the Larner Road estate. I wish this was the first line of a joke, but it is not. The poem describes the (fictional) experiences of a number of residents of the estate, and their reactions to the forthcoming regeneration of the area. As a bit of promotional fluff, one has to hand it to Orbit – their public relations department have certainly got some original thinkers working there. The poem is pretty undemanding stuff – almost Happy Shopper Pam Ayres material; it just somehow feels rather surreal and inappropriate to write poetry about an Erith housing estate with such a poor local reputation. Back in the mid nineties, I had a friend who lived in one of the ghastly high rise tower blocks; back then the pub off Larner Road (then called the Boundary, later the Stile and Winch, and now a convenience store) had a reputation as being Erith’s premier fighting pub. When I visited my friend, we would watch a video, chat and pass the evening. When it got to eleven o’ clock, we would automatically open the door and go out onto his balcony, which directly overlooked the pub. Without fail a Police transit van full of officers would be parked outside; they did not wait to be summoned. Over the next half an hour or so, any onlookers would be able to watch the free street entertainment as drunken / drugged yobs would fight with the Police, each other and anyone else available, before being arrested and chucked in the back of the van. It seemed to me that the same yobs would turn up, week in, week out – it was probably their sole form of entertainment when they were off duty from their day jobs of drug dealing and mugging. The problem is, the Larner Road estate has such a long history of social problems and crime that its’ image is to my mind forever tarnished. The regeneration of the estate is eagerly awaited by many residents, but not all, there have been some negative comments on the News Shopper website, once again stating that the area is drowning in bricks. I don’t know what the anonymous poster would have done instead; the current estate is knackered, the concrete that the tower blocks are constructed of is crumbling in places, the mechanical and electrical services are now several years past end of life – where the wiring and plumbing has not already been illegally nicked for scrap, and the urinals lifts are at best disgusting, and often less than best. Whatever Orbit build to replace the current estate has got to be an improvement. You can read the poem here.

It would seem that once again local bloggers are ahead of the "professional" press on a number of news subjects that affect the area; The relatively little publicised Emirates cable car across the Thames is to open shortly, as Charlton based blogger Darryl of the excellent 853 blog has reported earlier in the week that what was touted as a new means of travelling across the River Thames is really going to be nothing more than a glorified new tourist attraction. The cable car service will only operate until 9pm at night - and it will only begin at 7am in the morning - too late starting for many commuters. It is all a bit academic really, as travel cards - as used by many commuters - will not be accepted - Oyster only, with a fare of £3.20, or £4.20 for cash. The really curious thing is that the service will operate at two different speeds, depending on what time of day you travel. In the mornings and evenings a journey across the Thames will take five minutes, but during the middle of the day it will take ten minutes, presumably to allow tourists more time to take photos as they journey high above the river. Blogger the Diamond Geezer has a very pithy and witty take on the whole Emirates Greenwich Peninsula cable car situation; he renames the service as the "Arabfly Dangleway" which pretty much sums up his opinion - to which I concur. The whole thing is a huge vanity project for Boris - I reckon it will make money for a year or so - mainly from tourists who will not realise the cable car goes from nowhere to nowhere, before it gradually fades from public view. The first major mechanical or electrical failure of the system will also be instructive - as to how the emergency services manage it, and how the public react to the incident.  You can read Diamond Geezer's deconstruction of the claims relating to the cable car service by clicking here. The cable car has been touted as a new part of South East London's transport infrastructure, which upon close examination it is not - it is a bit of tourist fluff. This was a mistake not made by the operators of the Millennium Wheel, which was originally only intended to be a temporary structure, but due to good management has become a vital and much loved London landmark; I somehow think the Arabfly Dangleway will not have such an illustrious future.

More Olympic related doom and gloom (though I promise after the next paragraph I will shut up about the negative sides to the tax payer funded white elephant international sporting event, and talk about something else). The local overground train service special timetables for the period of the Olympics and Paralympics, and as feared, several stations on the Dartford to Charing Cross / Cannon Street / London Bridge line are going to either be closed, or have the number of trains stopping there seriously curtailed for the duration. one thing that does occur to me when consulting the table above is that though some stations on the Dartford / Erith / Greenwich / London line are mentioned, not all are - both Abbey Wood and Erith stations are not covered, even though these are two of the busiest stations on the line. It would seem that once again we do not matter. As previously mentioned, I am fortunate in that I will be able to work from home for the duration of the events, but many people in the local vicinity will not. There is no practical alternative to journey into London by public transport other than the overland train. We have no tube, the DLR does not start until you get to Woolwich Arsenal (and it looks like it is going to be incredibly crowded over the period of the games) and the Crossrail development from Abbey Wood is little more than a scrape in the earth surrounded by heavy construction vehicles for the foreseeable future, though I do understand that building work and earth clearance has been stepped up for the month of June, with contractors working from 8am until 9pm each work day; much concern has been expressed by residents of Plumstead and Abbey Wood about the increase in noise the extended building hours will bring. You can read more about the project, and the efforts to keep noise and disruption to a minimum by clicking here.

True to their usual form, Microsoft announced their entrance into the computer tablet market earlier this week, by showcasing their new “Surface” device. What they did not announce was when it would be available, or how much the two models will cost. This is typical Microsoft behaviour – make a vast, sweeping announcement about a forthcoming product, get lots of press coverage, then produce an actual product some months later which roughly resembles that which they launched, at an even higher pricing point than commentators guessed at. Microsoft did not create the concept of Vapourware, but historically they have been prime exponents of it. I think the “Surface” tablets look interesting; many tech journalists have noted that Microsoft are not keen on making forays into the hardware market – the Zune music player being a classic example of a product that failed so badly it ended up not even being released outside of the continental USA, and countless thousands of the players being consigned to landfill. The only hardware Microsoft have so far released that has been a sales success has been the Xbox range of consoles, and the amount the firm has spent on subsidising the purchase price and marketing the product probably means the actual bottom line profit has actually been minimal. The Surface is a bold move for Microsoft – there will have had to be a substantial investment to get the hardware designed and fabricated, something the company normally eschews – after all when your primary business is software and support services, where the production overheads are relatively low, and the repeat costs are zero, getting involved in actually making a physical product is a real challenge. They don’t really have a choice if they want to remain credible with their shareholders – the market in tablet devices (and indeed portable music players, as Microsoft have already found, to their cost) is dominated by Apple, with Google quickly closing with their Android operating system being installed on devices supplied by a myriad of companies. Microsoft know that if they don’t make a viable go of producing a tablet device that actually takes some substantial market share, they will be out of that market, just as the late arrival of the Zune (complete with technical glitches) did not make a dent on iPlayer sales. I sincerely hope that Microsoft do well with the Surface – the market could do with some solid competition, and thus in the end, better devices for the consumer.

The mealy mouthed talk backers who seem now sadly to frequent the News Shopper website have had another field day this week; as soon as it was announced that Erith post office will be one of a tiny handful which will be permitted to sell the collectable Olympic gold medal winner stamp, they got in front of their computer keyboards to whinge. The plan is that when an athlete wins a gold medal, a stamp featuring that athlete will be printed and made available for sale within 24 hours of the event. (The cynical part of me wonders if they will actually print stamps far ahead of the event with images of all of the likely winners, then just pulp the ones that don’t depict the actual winner).  There has also been a second, connected article prompted by the chairman of Sidcup Philatelic Society, saying that the stamps will be a poor investment. Anyway, comments such as “What a stupid choice, we all know the residents of Erith only go to the Post Office to cash their giros” have become wearyingly common.  As I have previously written, at this rate it is not going to be long before a comment that is legally actionable is made. The News Shopper really needs to moderate comments to their website. Talking of comment moderation, I had hoped to once again permit unmoderated comments on the Maggot Sandwich, but I am currently beset with spammers trying to get what look like genuine comments posted – their comments actually contain embedded HTML to try and hijack the web browser to redirect to some dodgy sites – mostly involved with dubious pharmaceuticals or fake designer hand bags.

Here is a nice video clip - it shows aeroplanes from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight over central London during the Queen's Jubilee celebrations. Best to click on the button on the bottom right of the window to make it full screen - it is in High Definition, and you can really appreciate this on a large screen. Please note that the illusion that several of the planes' airscrews (the correct name for propeller) are moving very slowly, or not at all is caused by a stroboscopic interference effect between the rapidly rotating blades and the digital shutter on the HD camera. 

Last week I wrote about the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, an event that got some coverage in the popular press. Turing was not the only genius working at Bletchley Park; others such as mathematician Bill Tutte and electronic engineer Tommy Flowers did work that was equally important, but they never received the recognition they deserved. The video below is a one hour long fascinating documentary on the two men which was made by the BBC. It tells the story of how a team broke the German Lorenz Cipher, a code even more fiendishly complex and difficult to break than the better known Enigma. Watch and feel free to leave a comment below.