The 150th Thames Sailing Barge Race.

Saturday saw the 150th annual Thames sailing barge race, which ended at Erith. The weather was scorching hot and very sunny (incidentally my method of dealing with the sun is quite traditional. I don't believe in smearing on noxious sun creams and other such potions on any exposed portions of skin. My tactic is not to expose any skin at all. I find a good quality tweed, or on the day, moleskin blazer with a stout, wide - brimmed cricket umpire's hat, which gives a sun protection factor of something like 10,000 - far better protection from the sun's rays that anything else less civilised that I can think of). Anyway, a surprisingly large crowd of onlookers turned up, both on Erith Pier, and in the Riverside Gardens, where a small fair had been set up. See the photos below (click for a larger view).

There was a periodic explosion from the judges' cannon that was moored on a small launch next to the pier, which marked a barge completing the race - something was a rather leisurely affair, due to the almost windless conditions. This did not seem to deter the competitors one bit. The whole affair finished very amicably about four thirty on Saturday afternoon.  You can see some more photos of the day by visiting my Flickr photo site here. Do leave comments below, as always.

On Tuesday I had occasion to travel up to Watford for a couple of meetings. On my return I decided that rather than staying on the underground all the way to London Bridge from Euston, I would break my journey at Bank and get the Docklands Light Railway to Woolwich Arsenal, then pick up an overland train to complete my journey to Erith. It takes a little longer this way, but when the weather is nice, it is a pleasant alternative travel route, and the DLR route through East London is an interesting one – probably due to the novelty that I only travel that way a couple of times per month. One thing that I share with Darryl of the excellent Greenwich and Charlton based 853 Blog is a fascination with the continuing saga of the Emirates Airline cable car system, better known locally as the “Arabfly Dangleway”, which reached its’ first birthday last week, as I wrote at the time. The DLR trains run directly underneath the path of the cable cars, and one can clearly see any occupants of the cars as the train passes underneath. At around 4.45pm on Tuesday afternoon – a bright, sunny and warm afternoon there were precisely zero passengers in any of the ten or so cars I could clearly see from the DLR carriage. According to Transport For London, only sixteen people regularly use the Arabfly Dangleway to journey across the river (bearing in mind that the system was originally touted as a new addition to London’s main transport infrastructure, this does not bode well).  In my opinion, the problems of the cable car are twofold. 1) It was built in the wrong location; there is no need for an additional cross – river link at that point in the Thames. The Jubilee line connects the North side of the river with North Greenwich (which confusingly is located on the South bank of the river). You can use Oyster card or travel card on the tube, and the journey takes only around three minutes. If you elect to go via cable car, you have to pay an additional fee and it takes either five, or ten minutes, depending on the time of day of your travel. The service is also problematic for travellers in that it is closed in the evening – if you go to a show at the O2 Arena, you cannot use the cable car, as it closes to passengers at 9pm. The thing has really been set up as a limited service tourist attraction, disguised as an integral part of London’s transport infrastructure. The only way this would have worked and attracted a large enough user base to have been financially viable would have been to have located it in central London, near other tourist traps like the Tower of London or the London Eye. Most novelty travel systems like a Ferris Wheel or cable car find it difficult to make a profit in any large city; even the London Eye  - the most successful and most visited big wheel in the world does not run at anything like full capacity, and it is located smack bang in the centre of London – the greatest tourist city in the World.

There has been a lot of press interest over the last few weeks in the burgeoning trend for high quality burgers. Almost every day I read press reviews and articles about new up market burger chains opening in and around the capital. The latest one to join the ranks is Five Guys Burgers, which opened in Covent Garden last week. I am not about to debate the relative merits of one brand of minced beef pattie in a bun with salad and relish over another – in general it really comes down to personal preference. It got me thinking though. We have such an amazingly wide selection of food available via takeaways and home delivery (though around the London Borough of Bexley, you really need to be careful if you are not to get food poisoning, as I have banged about repeatedly in the recent past); I would guess that London probably has the greatest variety of food on sale of any major city in the World, with the possible exception of New York city (though not having been there, I cannot be certain). I notice that one very traditional London fare is not very well represented at present; the Pie and Mash shop.  A few high streets locally still have a Pie and Mash shop – Upper Belvedere has a long established shop in Albert Road, and Bexleyheath has one in the middle of the Broadway. They are not exactly “destination” eating places, and tend to be frequented mainly by pensioners. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if some kind of promotion of Pie and Mash shops took place? Before you counter with “what about the Square Pie chain?” I don’t regard those as “proper” Pie and Mash shops, as they don’t have the ambience or character of the real thing, and in general Square Pie shops only reheat pies made offsite in a large factory; all real pie and mash shops make the pies and mashed potato from scratch in the shop – something that gives each one its’ own unique character. I am a great fan of exotic, unusual and somewhat challenging food – and we have this in many high streets in spades. What we seem to be doing nowadays is ignoring our own traditional cuisine, which is a real pity. One thing I don’t think we will be seeing in any future pie and mash shops is a food that was once a staple – the steamed or jellied eel. Very few pie and mash shops serve eel any more, as they have become scarce and the price of eel has rocketed accordingly. Erith was one of the main homes for eel fishing on the River Thames.  Nowadays the trade is almost completely dead. Coincidentally when I took the photos of the Air Ambulance landing on the site of the old swimming baths site on Erith River Front back in April, I was in Email and telephone contact with journalist Tim McFarlan of the News Shopper about human interest stories in and around Erith that he might like to write. It would appear that he made good on this; there is a story about one of the last eel fishermen on the River Thames, who plies his trade from the jetty on Erith river front that was the cause of much consternation two weeks ago when the fugitive from justice jumped off the jetty and had to be rescued by the RNLI.  You can read all about Erith’s history of eel fishing and how it has gone from a pretty important local industry to little more than a hobby for a handful of people by clicking here.

The detailed architects drawings for the new Abbey Wood station have now been published. The new, two level building will combine both the overland conventional rail service and the forthcoming Crossrail services in one large structure. The existing station building will be demolished and replaced by a temporary station by summer 2014, which will be located in the current station car park – preparatory work has recently been started - a number of shipping container shaped site offices have already been delivered and set up. In addition, two tracks for Crossrail services are currently being installed next to the existing North Kent lines and work will be carried out to raise and lengthen a number of bridges along the track so they can accommodate the overhead electric wires that will be used by Crossrail trains. Tunnelling work is well under way between Abbey Wood and Plumstead stations – the route will be underground between Plumstead and Woolwich, then back underground through Custom House to Canary Wharf station. Travel time from Abbey Wood to Canary Wharf will be only eleven minutes. Keep this in mind, as I will come back to it later. The whole travel infrastructure for the South East will be radically improved by Crossrail; the journey time from Abbey Wood to Heathrow airport, terminals 1, 2 and 3 will be slashed from over two hours down to fifty one minutes! This may well have an adverse effect on local mini cab companies, who rely on airport pick-ups and drop – offs for a substantial part of their business. Overall though I think it will be beneficial for the local area; travel time to Tottenham Court Road for the West End will be only 23 minutes, Whitechapel in 15 minutes and even Southall will be accessible in only 41 minutes – quick enough to venture there for a lunchtime curry on a weekend. One thing that will no doubt occupy the minds of many Abbey Wood, and to a lesser extent, Thamesmead residents is that property prices are bound to be affected by the improvement to the transport links. The fact that the Crossrail station in Canary Wharf will be only eleven minutes will be extremely attractive to many Wharf workers (and here I have to express a personal interest, as the new station is currently being built right next to the office where I spend a majority of my working time). Currently it takes my around seventy minutes travelling door to door to go from Pewty Acres to the Canary Wharf office – I get the overland train from Erith to Greenwich station, where I then pick up the Docklands Light Railway to Canary Wharf. At a rough guesstimate I will be able to get from my front door to the office in about 25 – 30 minutes via the forthcoming Crossrail route – not counting service interruptions due to signal failures, mechanical breakdowns, bodies on the line and cable theft, of course. How much a ticket will cost will also factor into what route commuters decide to take, though if the area around Abbey Wood station attracts a lot of people working in Canary Wharf, house prices may well shoot up. From talking to (an admittedly unrepresentative group) of Canary Wharf workers recently, I got some very interesting feedback about what they thought Abbey Wood residents would be like. The general feeling was that the outer London suburbs are the home of white van men, black cab drivers, and the kind of people that keep central London businesses ticking over (maintenance, construction, admin support and the like). I think there is an element of truth in this; certainly if you look at the cross section of passengers who travel from stations such as Erith, Belvedere and Abbey Wood at present, you get some people obviously dressed for the office, but you also get facilities maintenance engineers (usually easy to spot, as they invariably wear company branded sweatshirts), builders and other people involved in physical work. How this demographic may change if the more wealthy city and wharf workers decide to move into the area is something that only time will tell.

The owners of the New Beijing City Chinese takeaway (rated a poor two out of five stars for food hygiene in the Bexley Scores on the Doors website) in Brook Street, Northumberland Heath are in a lot of hot water right now; they were raided by the Police and immigration officials and found to be employing two illegal immigrants. If found guilty by a court, they could face fines of up to £10,000 per illegal employee. I think it is an open secret that takeaways and restaurants around the country employ a lot of illegals. To be honest, it is not much of a surprise; most people want food from these establishments, they want it served quickly, and most importantly they want it to be cheap. Employing illegals has attractions for many food outlets, especially those serving ethnic food. If you are running a Chinese or Indian takeaway, for example, you may feel more comfortable with an employee who shares your mother language and culture, and is likely to know the food, and how best to prepare it  to a greater or lesser extent. Illegals also don’t get minimum wage – they are often grateful for a roof over their heads and regular meals, and can be easy to exploit due to their immigration status – something that can be used as a threat if any complaint about employment conditions is made. I think that as long as we have takeaways, we are going to have problems with illegal immigrants – and don’t think I support the likes of the BNP, EDF or other neo Nazi groups, who would want to shut the UK borders, and “chuck them all out” – historically Britain has always been a melting pot; something that has done much to strengthen both our culture and our economy. The cliché about immigrants doing jobs that native Brits don’t want to do has more than an element of truth in it. Anyway, whilst researching some of the views and policies of the far right, I came across something rather interesting; The name “Nazi” was meant as an insult when it was first coined. If someone called Hitler a Nazi, he would have been offended (admittedly briefly, before the name caller was taken away and shot). Hitler was the head of the catchily named “Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeitpartei” – which translates as the National Socialist German Workers Party. When Hitler invented this name, he apparently did not think it through very thoroughly. Hitler’s political and moral opponents soon caught on to the fact you could shorten Nationalsozialistiche to Nazi. Why would they do this? Well, because Nazi was a very old and unrelated term of abuse in the German language. The standard butt of German jokes at the beginning of the twentieth century were stupid Bavarian peasants; just as Irish jokes always involved a man called Paddy, so Bavarian jokes always involved a peasant called Nazi. The reason for this is just as Paddy is a shortened form of Patrick, Nazi was a shortened form of the very common Bavarian name of Ignatius. This meant that Hitler’s many opponents had an open goal; He had an extreme right wing party that was filled with Bavarian hicks, and the name of that party could be shortened to the standard German joke name for Bavarian hicks. At first, Hitler did not know what to do about the derogatory nickname “Nazi”, and it was a source of embarrassment – at least until he got into power, when he and his evil cohorts persecuted their opponents. Those that managed to avoid the concentration camps ended up fleeing Germany; refugees started to turn up all over Europe in the pre WWII years, where they understandably started complaining loudly about the Nazis, and pretty much everyone who was not German got the erroneous idea that this was their official name. To this day most people go round believing that Nazis went around calling themselves Nazis, when in reality they would have probably beaten you up, or worse for saying the word!

When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. This seems to be something that has completely eluded the deputy head of Bexley Council, Colin Campbell when he appeared on the BBC1 Politics Show last Sunday morning. He was defending the council against the accusation that they wasted Police time when a chap called Nicholas Dowling requested permission to film the public realm, community safety, economic development and regeneration overview and scrutiny committee meeting on June the 19^th, as I have covered previously.  Campbell made several statements that were in direct contradiction of factual reality, and did so on one of the most prominent stages in the United Kingdom. You can read more about the story here – if you scroll down the News Shopper article, and read the comments, you will note that “Bexley is Bonkers” makes a couple of relevant points. Local activist Malcolm Knight runs the popular Bexley is Bonkers website and daily blog – he was actually present at the incident reported, and was witness to the events in question. I note that another person who has used the screen name “Sleazebuster” comments on the article: “The Deputy Leader of Bexley Council, Councillor Colin Campbell, appeared on national television on Sunday 7th July, to defend the council's decision to call the police to remove a member of the public who was attempting to film the proceedings, in accordance with instructions issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government. When asked why Bexley Council does not allow meetings to be filmed, Mr Campbell responded "If you want to film you simply call us on the day to say you would want to film, you don't even have to give a reason." Accordingly, I emailed Bexley Council to seek permission to film the Cabinet Meeting on 9th July. I have just received a response from Mr Nick Hollier, Deputy Director of Human Resources at Bexley Council, refusing to grant me permission. A complaint is on way to Bexley Council, alleging prevarication against Councillor Campbell. I am also forwarding a copy of the email to the Sunday Politics programme for their information. Mr Pickles will also get a copy of the email, asking him what he intends to do about having two fingers put up to him by his friends and colleagues at Bexley Council.” Well said, Sleazebuster! Let us see what happens now. 

And now, for the first time ever, you can watch excerpts from the original manuscript of "Star Wars" by William Shakespeare in his original folio form from 1617. This was apparently lost for many years until discovered by a little known writer and film director called George Lucas, and the rest they say, is history....

It's here!

The photo above shows my brand new and much anticipated Raspberry Pi model B computer, which arrived at Pewty Acres on Friday morning. Unfortunately at the time of writing I need to obtain a power supply, micro SD storage card and a HDMI mini cable before I can put the Pi into action. More in the next few weeks.

As I have previously written, the Olympic torch will be making its' way through Erith after being delivered to Erith Yacht club by boat from the Essex side of the Thames. It will route along Manor Road (not the most picturesque of locations at the best of times) before making its' way to Hall Place for an evening event. I was doing a little research into the torch parade, and came across some fascinating information. "The relay of the flame" as it was originally called was not a relic of hundreds, or even thousands of years of Olympic tradition as many people think; it was invented in 1936 by Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels for the Nazi games. Goebbels and several other high ranking Nazis were fascinated by the occult, and the image of the flame being transported around Germany prior to the start of the games was meant to symbolise the Nazi spirit alive in the citizens of Germany. All utter tosh, of course. What stuns me is the the British allowed the flame bearing and lighting of the Olympic flame ceremony to continue in the 1948 games in Britain. All I can surmise is that with less access to historical information back then, the organisers did not know that the torch was a Nazi invention, and thought that they were maintaining a long held tradition. Such is the power of "tradition". Even though the torch will be coming past my front door, I somehow doubt that I will bother to go out and look. Some of the torch bearers have not exactly covered themselves in glory, before the event has even taken place. Putting Olympic torches for sale on Ebay is something the press quite obviously were going to fall on in a feeding frenzy - it was just asking for trouble. To me, the Olympics represents the triumph of that class of people who used to obey orders without question, and have ascended to giving orders in turn. In consequence, there is order, hierarchy, "stand behind that there barrier", and a belief that what really matters about your nation is that some bloke can suspend his education for years and at the end of it jump three inches further than a fellow from Papua New Guinea. It all seems utterly pointless and very expensive, and for what?

I was quietly minding my own business, standing in the checkout queue in Morrison’s earlier this week, when I was violently jabbed in the side by an elbow; startled, I looked around and saw an elderly bloke – probably in his mid to late seventies. He looked like a shorter and less immaculately tailored version of Noel Coward in his later years, albeit with a purplish nose, less hair and a growth of stubble. OK, actually not a lot like Noel Coward at all, but you get the idea. I would have normally given the deliverer of the elbow jab a sharp piece of my mind, but in consideration of his advanced years, I thought better of it and held my tongue. The man then said something indistinct; I decided that I would ignore him and returned my attention to the progress of the checkout queue. Moments later I heard a commotion behind me; the man slurred to the woman behind me “Let me in here –  I have only got three items” – he sounded drunk, but then I thought that with his age, he could have had a stroke affecting his speech, or some other impediment. My charitable thoughts were interrupted as a blast of whisky fumes hit me like a smelly whirlwind – he reeked of booze and was clearly rather more than a little over refreshed. Fearing for my eyebrows, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and hoped that he would not make any more of a scene. A difficult situation due mainly due to his age and apparent infirmity. Goodness me, he did whiff. Hopefully it was a one off. I just hope when he does turn up his toes that they don’t cremate him as I reckon he’d go up like a Roman candle and take a week to go out!

I have never understood why modern computer keyboard are fitted with Caps Lock keys; just what is the point? I can fully appreciate the need to physically lock up the keyboard on a traditional manual typewriter, but who ever needs it on a PC or Mac? Anyone who types online in block capitals is pretty much guaranteed to be psychotic. I even know one chap who physically removes the caps lock key from any computer keyboard he owns, just to stop himself inadvertently pressing it mid sentence, as I am sure we all do from time to time. Any reasons why we need to keep this anachronism? Answers on a post card please.

Whenever two or more local people get together, it is only a matter of time before the subject of the conversation turns to the Dartford River Crossing. Local MP David Evennett is campaigning for residents of the London Borough of Bexley to be included in the discount zone when the toll fees are increased by 50p in October 2012. Cash charges for car users will go up from £1.50 to £2, from £2 to £2.50 for lorries and from £3.70 to £5.00 for heavy goods vehicles. Mr Evennett said to an interviewer from the News Shopper: “Bexley residents should not have to pay any more to use the Dartford Crossing”. This statement raised the ire of a number of readers, and as any local will gladly tell you, they almost to a person feel cheated and aggrieved that the original promise made by the crossing developers to abolish the crossing toll entirely once the structure had been paid for was ditched years ago. The communal resentment of this betrayal is something that is deep in the local psyche, and frequently crops up in conversation. I really don’t see that the cash cow that is the crossing toll will ever be abolished, however annoying it is to local residents.

Did you know that Bananas are radioactive? Not an urban myth, but a verifiable scientific fact. Bananas contain a small amount of a naturally occurring form of radioactive potassium.  There is even a unit of radioactivity measurement called a BED (Banana Equivalent Dose). It does beg the thought, are the physicists at CERN considering constructing a Large Banana Collider?

So, the illustrious Jonathan Ive, head designer at Apple got an knighthood this week. I think this was a really bad move, and wonder who nominated him for the award, which to my mind is misplaced and inappropriate. Ive was born and raised in Chingford, Essex, but during his fifteen year tenure at Apple he has lived and worked almost exclusively in California, USA. He pays no British taxes, and brings no corporate benefit to the British economy. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing personally against Ive, I am sure he’s a nice bloke and everything, but all his work has been for an American company in the USA. I don’t doubt he deserves public recognition for his ground breaking design work, but it should be the American government that is making the award, not the British. I fail to understand why he would get a knighthood for working for a foreign power?

I recently stumbled across a curious and intriguing website; for a (short) while I was almost convinced by it. The site is called The Sci Fi Air Show. The concept is simple but very clever. Back in the 1960’s and 70’s, when many classic / cult science fiction TV shows such as the original Battlestar Galactica and Space: 1999 were in production, the spaceships used in the programmes were not models filmed in special effects studios, but instead were full sized, working space vehicles. After production of the various shows ended, the vehicles quite often were abandoned to rust and decay. A dedicated group of rich enthusiasts have clubbed together to restore and fly the spaceships at air shows and rallies around America, in a similar fashion to the real life Commemorative Air Force. A complete history of each vehicle, along with details of the restoration and notes relating to their flying characteristics is included on the website. Do check it out; it really is very clever.

This week I seem to have come across, or been sent links to a number of curious websites this week the one above was fiction presented as fact. The next one is fiction potentially turned into fact; they seem to be a bit like buses – you see nothing for an age, then several turn up at once. This one is a gem; at first impressions are that it is the work of a crank – a dreamer who does not understand the real world. When I continued reading the details of the site, my view began to change. The project the chap proposes is heavily researched, and the engineering involved is extremely difficult, but not impossible using current or very near future technology. The proposed project is called Build the Enterprise; it proposes that work should begin to research and build a real version of the Starship Enterprise that would be capable of acting as a vehicle with which to reach Mars, to act as an orbital spaceport and a space station with accommodation for up to a thousand people. It would obviously not have warp drive or transporters, as that kind of technology is possibly hundreds of years from being possible, if at all. This all sounds like the wish fulfilling ravings of a lunatic, but if you actually read the website and study the figures, it actually makes quite a lot of sense. It would be a massive undertaking over many years, but the potential end results would change the exploration of space forever. Do take a look and see what you think.

Talking of fictional space hardware, in the real world I was surprised that the successful launch and docking of the SpaceX Falcon rocket, fitted with a Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station did not make a bigger news story. OK, it was covered, but I would have expected it to be headline news, not a third division story. Private enterprise has always been involved in the exploration of space, but until now it has always been as a contractor to government organisations, rather than actually running a full space service. Historically speaking, most earthbound exploration was carried out by private enterprise, rather than governments. The East India Company was a prime example of a private company that eventually became as powerful as many nation states through its’ aggressive exploration and commercial exploitation of the resources it discovered. Much of the foundation for the British Empire of the 19th and early 20th century was down to the actions of commercial organisations such as the aforementioned East India Company. Certainly the principle of NASA outsourcing the bread and butter activities such as provisioning the space station to companies such as SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation, makes operational and commercial sense, and frees up their resources for the more cutting edge deep space and near planet exploration.

Sometimes I despair. On Wednesday evening something happened that made me doubt whether the generosity of human spirit really exists in Erith. It was a lovely dusk; the blood red sun hung low in the sky, and I felt it was a good opportunity for me to fire up my Nikon D300 camera. I walked down Appold Street and took around half a dozen photos of the setting sun over Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. As I snapped away I heard a man’s voice behind me saying loudly “F*** Paedo!” There were two men accompanying a small boy of five or six years of age walking past me, down towards Morrison’s car park. I was first confused – who else was around that they were referring to? There was nobody; it became obvious that they were referring to me. Bearing in mind they approached me from behind, and I was clearly taking photographs of the stunning sunset, I was astonished that they could make such a surreal assumption. I debated having a go at them for their offensive, inaccurate and hurtful comment, but bearing in mind the impressionable little boy, I decided it was not appropriate. Being subject to behaviour of that nature, I would not be surprised if he grows up to mimic his warped mentors. How the feckless scrote who addressed me could associate a bloke clearly photographing the evening sky with a child molester was something I could not connect in my mind. It then occurred to me that he probably considered anyone with a professional camera a pervert – despite from my understanding that most genuine abuse images being recorded by camera phones – being discreet and common place. Then I thought that he was clearly of low intelligence and even lower social skills – he probably thought the camera would steal his soul if pointed in his direction (not that it was).  Using a Digital SLR camera in public is a lottery nowadays; in my experience people either want to be in your photo, or they take great offence in you even being present. As I wrote a while ago, the security guard in the Riverside Shopping Centre tried to ban me from taking photos of the building, despite it being a public place and him having no rights to stop me. The irony seemed to escape him that the entire shopping centre is festooned with CCTV cameras.

Probably at least partly due to the recent retro Halfords TV advert, and the death of its’ creator, the Raleigh Chopper bike is in the news. There are many fan websites, and reproduction versions are now on sale. When I was a kid I had a bright yellow Chopper bike, and I can tell you for certain, even after several decades I still recall it well. Some writers eulogise over the bike, but I am not one of them. Sure, it looked good in a garish kind of way, and it no doubt cost my parents a packet at the time. The overwhelming memory I have of the bike is that it was so HEAVY. It was very strongly built, from heavy gauge tubular steel, but this meant it weighed a ton. It was also ridiculously over geared, thanks to the gigantic rear tyre – it was almost impossible to get out of first gear without having to stand on the pedals to keep the bike moving forward. The large tyre also made wheelies impossible – and the tiny front one also made riding with no hands almost suicidal; the wheel diameter meant there was little in the way of centrifugal force to give a gyroscopic stabilising effect as you get on more conventional bicycles. I had many a happy day riding it however, mostly as I was blissfully unaware of the drawbacks at the time.

The ending video this week is the first part of a three episode series of lectures on the life and times of Alan Turing, one of the fathers of modern computing.