The Betamax Challenge.

The serious traffic accident outside of the Running Horses in Erith High Street on Tuesday lunchtime made the regional newspapers – the London Evening Standard covered the story, which you can read here. There was also a very interesting and pertinent comment made on the story on the News Shopper website. A young lady made the following observation “At least 10 accidents have happened in our window view in the past ten years, in that same spot. It was only yesterday, that the police rang my Mum to get evidence after she was verbally abused in the street. The police said there is no CCTV to prove it. It was only 3 weeks ago that there was another accident there and the youths left the car in the middle of the road and yet again, the road was closed off. This is a blind spot. One way traffic and no lights in the evening on the Riverside Gardens. It's just the norm here. Kaitlyn Boxall, age 15. MORE POLICE!!!” The problems with traffic accidents in Erith High Street will only get worse when the new housing development is constructed on the site of the old Erith Riverside Swimming Baths on the corner of Walnut Tree Road. Around seventy residences – a mix of apartments and town houses will be built on the site, and the level of traffic along the river front road will increase. I am somewhat surprised at the number of serious accidents that have been reported on the road over the last couple of years, as Erith High Street has been a one way road for many years, and it has some fairly sizable speed bumps, as anyone who has been on a bus travelling along the road will attest. I understand that due to worn road markings, there can be confusion over rights of way at the junction between Erith High Street and West Street. I have no idea of the precise circumstances of the most recent accident, but it does seem that despite the local traffic calming measures, it would seem to still be a black spot for traffic collisions.  Do you have any thoughts on the subject? Leave a comment below, or drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Bexley Council is continuing in its cutbacks; next week an announcement will be made regarding the fate of a number of Bexley libraries. It is strongly anticipated that the libraries located at Blackfen, Bostall, North Heath and Upper Belvedere will be handed over to community groups to run, in order to save on the wages bill. Basically the staff will be replaced with unpaid volunteers. Under the new management arrangements, the core services of the library will be enhanced by new facilities including a click and collect parcel service, a food ordering service and a coffee shop.  Membership of the libraries will continue to be free of charge. No details have been released about any possible changes to Erith Library, which I pass twice daily on my way to and from work. I think it would be more accurate to call the place the “Erith Wi-Fi Hotspot” as most of the people who use the library are school children and students from Bexley College who use the free WiFi to connect their laptops and tablets in order to undertake research and study. Very few people seem to avail themselves of the actual books. I have to say that the current library feels not very welcoming; it is airless and very much a bland, corporate space that could just as easily be a hospital waiting room. To my opinion it entirely lacks the charm and character of the old Andrew Carnegie gifted library building in Walnut Tree Road (see the photo above - click on it for a larger view), which stands empty and unused – a real shame for what is decidedly one of the landmark buildings of Erith. Debate about the future of the former library building is very much under way. Erith Town Forum have been campaigning for the building to be both preserved and also to be put back into productive public use. Hopefully more news will become available soon.

There has been coverage in the press recently about the number of people who are installing advert blocking software on their computers - a move which is threatening the business models of large numbers of websites that rely on adverts on their sites to pay the bills. There is another, more worrying aspect to the whole story though; online adverts can be subverted to install malware on the computer visiting that site. High end business magazine The Economist recently had some serious problems with their website, when it was taken over by criminals for a short period of time.  "If you visited economist.com at any time between Oct. 31, 23:52 GMT and 01:15 GMT, Nov. 1, using Windows OS and you do not have trusted anti-virus software installed, it is possible that malware disguised as an Adobe update was downloaded onto your PC," the publication said. The Economist advised that anyone who received what appeared to be a Flash update from the website should change all of their passwords on their computer, and notify their banks and other financial institutions to check for suspicious activity. The magazine also recommended that any exposed users should install and maintain up-to-date antivirus software from Microsoft or a third-party security vendor, a good idea even for those who were not exposed to the Halloween weekend PageFair malware attack. The malware outbreak was attributed to an attack on the popular PageFair publishing tool. Hackers were able to get into PageFair's systems and play a devious Halloween trick on the company and customers who use its tools to thwart ad-blocking plug-ins. According to PageFair, the attackers stole employee credentials via a spear phishing attack and then took over the PageFair content distribution network. From there, the hackers began feeding publishers JavaScript code that attempted to download and install a botnet controller masquerading as an update for Adobe's Flash Player plugin. It is estimated that the sites affected by the PageFair breach serve as many as 10 million page views per month. The outbreak does no favours for PageFair's campaign to dissuade users from running ad-blockers, which are popular in large part because of their ability to shield users from malicious advertising copy, just like they have been hit with. It just goes to show that even the most august and reputable websites can be hijacked by bad guys.

Regular Maggot Sandwich reader Lincoln sent me the historic photo above, and wrote:- "I thought you might like to see this picture. I have read your stuff in the MS recently about BICC at Erith, Cable making was also happened on the West side of the Greenwich Peninsula, this picture shows the Cable and Wireless cable making plant and a cable being loaded onto the ship. Yesterday was particularly nostalgic for my old friend who worked for C+W in the very early 1970's and actually used to go to the plant and then worked on this ship laying cable in the West Indies. The plant is now replaced by flats but the loading gantry is still on the dockside. Incidentally the developers have blocked off the Thames Path with no diversion signs at all. I guess money talks". I think you are sadly correct; too much of our industrial history is being quietly erased to make way for more anonymous apartments for absentee foreign owners to purchase as "investments" - often a euphemism for money laundering. Look at the scandalous situation at Enderby Wharf. Enderby House, and the nearby Enderby Wharf where from the 1850’s to the 1970’s the home of undersea telecommunications cable manufacturing. The very first intercontinental communications technology was created and manufactured on the site; The first telegraph cable to France was laid in 1850 after tremendous efforts to find technologies that worked. Until 1970s the cable was made here in Greenwich and loaded onto cable-laying ships moored on the riverside using the equipment that is still in place on the shore today. Enderby House became crucial to the history of the world’s communications after the Atlantic Telegraph Company was set up in 1856 to provide a telegraph link between the old and new worlds. Initially the cables were used to carry Morse Code signals for the fledgling telegraph industry; later voice and teleprinter data capability was added; nowadays the world’s data networks are run by millions of miles of high capacity fibre optic cable - which was invented by a Hong Kong born British / American citizen called Dr. Charles Kao. He attended Woolwich Polytechnic, and in the 1960’s invented the entire field of fibre optic data transmission technology, without which the modern high speed Internet would be impossible. Charles Kao and his work in the pioneering field of optical digital communications gained him a number of awards, including a Knighthood, and the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics. His cables were made and then were wound onto giant drums at Enderby Wharf, where they were then loaded onto cable laying ships, ready to be laid on the seabed of the world’s oceans. The Enderby Wharf factory made 82% of the world’s undersea cable until the late 1950’s, when other manufacturing facilities took on a greater role. There is still a factory owned by Alcatel Lucent on the site behind Enderby House, but now it only makes undersea cable switching and control gear, rather than the cables themselves, which are now manufactured at other locations. Enderby House has been sold by Alcatel Lucent to Barratt’s, and is now in a very shabby and damaged state; the empty building, though listed, has been repeatedly vandalised by local knuckle dragging morons. If nobody intervenes, it is highly likely that Barratt’s will petition to get the historic building de – listed; they would then be able to demolish it to make way for yet more yuppie housing. A campaign has been started to preserve Enderby House and the adjacent Wharf and to turn them into a museum of telecommunications. Barratt have already demolished most of the undersea cable winding section of the factory, and more is likely to go soon.

Bookmaker Paddy Power has submitted an application to open a new shop in Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere. The new shop is said to bring five new jobs to the village. A spokesperson from Paddy Power was quoted in the Bexley Times as saying "We look forward to our new team members bringing our unique brand to life on Nuxley Road and are proud to be investing in the Belvedere community" Er - quite. It seems like every high street now has three or four shops, whereas in the past one might have sufficed. What I have discovered is that the reason for the explosion in the number of shops has got little if anything to do with more people wanting to put a few quid on a horse, or bet on the outcome of a football match – in fact research shows that “conventional” betting is now a minority activity for UK betting shops. What people are visiting betting shops for nowadays is something else entirely – the Fixed Odds Betting Terminal (FOBT).  This bears little resemblance to the old style “one armed bandit” which would accept your 10p in the slot. Fixed Odds Betting Terminals are slick, computerised devices that offer games such as poker, blackjack and roulette. Gamblers can place bets using debit or credit cards, and it is possible to lose £100 every twenty seconds on such machines. In the betting shop industry, these machines are known as “the crack cocaine of gambling” as studies have proved that they are four times more psychologically addictive than any other activity in a bookmaker. There are currently no reliable estimates of the number of people (and it is usually young men) who are addicted to FOBT machines. The insidious spread of bookmakers on British high streets can be followed back to 2005, when Tony Blair’s government passed the Gambling Act, which at the time was feared to allow the creation of “super casinos”. This did not happen; instead it opened the doors for a deluge of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals. There are currently 33,000 such terminals in the UK, and they generate £1.5 billion in profit for the bookmakers. The real reason for the explosion in the number, rather than the size of bookmakers shops is simple. The Gambling Act 2005 placed restrictions on the number of FOBT’s in each bookmaker. What it did not do was place any restriction on the number of bookmakers on any high street. Consequently you may see several bookmakers in the same area, all from the same parent company. If a bookmaker wants to run more Fixed Odds Betting Terminals in a particular area, all it has to do is get permission to open another shop. Until recently many local councils have been reluctant to  block these extra shops, as they bring in council tax revenue, and often occupy otherwise empty premises. This attitude is starting to change, as the realisation that FOBT machines suck cash out of hard pressed communities – yes, the shops do employ a small number of staff –  but these usually on very long hours, and paid the minimum wage. Most of the bookmaker chains are owned by FTSE listed companies who  operate aggressive, but technically legal tax avoidance schemes – so the money that comes out of bookmakers does not go back into the local economy. Personally I have absolutely no interest in any form of gambling – I regard it as a tax on the stupid. The problem is that the gambling industry is wealthy and powerful, and has a strong lobby in parliament – last year the five big gambling firms, which between them account for 92% of all bookmakers shops on the high street made an estimated total gross profit of £1.6 billion on FOBT machines alone – and this does not take into account the additional cash they generate through conventional stakes based gambling; still a very lucrative market, if now being overshadowed by the rise of the electronic gambling machine, and also it ignores the vast amounts of cash spent during online gambling – a somewhat shady and overlooked area of an industry that already has a somewhat tarnished image. Personally I feel that the UK gambling industry needs a massive shake up. It has been allowed far too free a rein for years, and has exploited the market to the point where it is more powerful than some banks. People rightly get annoyed by the activities of certain banks and bankers, whilst seemingly overlooking the scourge of the high street and nowadays also the web, the big five bookies. If all this was not bad enough, the web based casinos and poker sites that operate on the periphery of some country’s laws are proving increasingly aggressive in trying to separate people from their hard earned cash. I have noticed that sites such as 888 Casino and 888 Poker use software resistant pop – ups and pop unders, which are embedded into legitimate web sites, usually without the owner’s consent. The fact that a large organisation would willfully contravene the Computer Misuse Act 1990 to try and promote its dubious services to me says a lot about their intentions. I have a very low opinion of such organisations.  What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The historic photograph above was sent to me by reader Jacob earlier this week; it shows young members of the Queen Street Baptist Church Young Men's Gymnastic Club from back in 1918. It strikes me that the young lads in the photo were extremely lucky to be just a little too young to have been eligible for the draft for the Great War - and they would have been too old for the draft for World War II as well. After the utter carnage that had been, and the carnage that was to come, at least one generation would not have front line experience of global warfare.

E.ON this week became the first of the major energy suppliers to be hit by new fines for failing to install smart meters for business customers. Watchdog Ofgem said that E.ON failed to provide two-thirds of its business customers with advanced meters by the deadline of April 2014 and fined it £7 million.  If the company fails to hit a new target it could face a further  £7 million sanction and a possible sales ban. Two more providers — British Gas and npower — are also being investigated after the energy industry came up short in fulfilling a five-year target to roll-out sophisticated meters which would give businesses more accurate bills, help them monitor their energy usage and make it easier to switch suppliers. When Ofgem began its investigation, just over a year ago, some 40,000 business customers were still waiting for a smart meter, more than half of which should have been supplied by one of these three companies. As I have written in the past, smart meters are there for the convenience of the utility companies, not for the customer; they tie the customer to the existing supplier, as most energy companies use different, incompatible models of smart meter, and if the customer decides to switch supplier, they have to bear the cost of the new meter to be installed, and the old one to be taken away - something the energy companies don't like admitting.

MP for Erith and Thamesmead Teresa Pearce attended the St John’s Ambulance Everyday Heroes awards earlier this week; she is campaigning for compulsory first aid training for all state-educated children. At the ceremony, Teresa said "Basic first aid skills can transform lives and teach responsibility. That’s why the campaign’s called ‘Every Child A Lifesaver’: because every child has the untapped potential to save a life The bill doesn’t expect the impossible to suddenly become possible. But we can give people the absolute best chance of surviving by equipping children with the skills to keep them alive while the ambulance gets to them." I think that this is an absolutely excellent idea - I just wonder why nobody has thought of it before?

Boris Johnson has announced free travel for under 11s will be extended from Transport for London services to the National Rail network from January 2nd next year. Children under 11 years of age can currently travel free on Tubes, London buses, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway services, which has put many in South and South East London at a disadvantage. Other transport fares are to increase by one per cent but single bus fares and all but two pay as you go Tube charges will remain the same. The revised charges, including a 10p increase to £2.40 for some Tube fares and a 20p rise to £17.20 for an all zones travelcard, are expected to raise £43m annually. This all sounds quite fair and equitable - giving under elevens from South of the River Thames the same access to rail based public transportation as their compatriots North of the river. The flipside of this free travel may be similar to what happened when bus travel was made free to minors - a small minority of kids then felt it was OK for them to abuse the privilege. You still get kids travelling one stop on the bus, then getting off. Whether the same thing will happen with the railways, only time will tell.

You may have noticed that earlier this week the BBC News website featured a story about how Sony were finally stopping production of Betamax video cassettes. Something that might quite surprise you is that the price of old Betamax video recorders is currently going through the roof; a couple of years ago you could not give one away if you tried. Suddenly they are turning up on EBay and the bidding competition is fierce. Prices of £250 and upwards have been noted. What is the reason for this? Well, it does not seem to be down to any love for the outdated video format (which whilst it failed in the domestic home market, it was the cornerstone of many TV news and outside broadcast units for many years).  It would appear that people are coming across family videos recorded on Betamax cassettes and wish to digitise them. Most professional video transfer services can handle VHS and the common broadcast formats, but very few are capable of doing anything with a Betamax format cassette. People with old recordings of weddings and family events realise that if they wish to be able to see them again, they will need to locate a device capable of playing the tape format - hence the sudden upsurge of interest. The ironic thing is, it is pretty likely that the tapes will be unwatchable even when a suitable player is used. Both Betamax and VHS cassettes deteriorate over time, even when stored in ideal conditions. A thirty year old video tape will have demagnetised and printed through so much that it will almost certainly show on screen as a mess of flickering static with a few undersaturated, ghostly images of what remains of the original recording now.  I recently have read quite a lot about the format wars between VHS and Betamax back in the early 1980's. From all that I have read, it became apparent that Sony, the creators of the Beta format were pretty much to blame for the demise of what initially was a far technically superior video format than the relatively pedestrian VHS system. The main determining factor between Betamax and VHS was the cost of the recorders and length of recording time. Betamax is, in theory, a superior recording format over VHS due to resolution (250 lines vs. 240 lines), slightly superior sound, and a more stable image; Betamax recorders were also of higher quality construction. But these differences were negligible to consumers, and thus did not justify either the extra cost of a Betamax VCR (which was often significantly more expensive than a VHS equivalent) or Betamax's shorter recording time. JVC, which designed the VHS technology, licensed it to any manufacturer that was interested. The manufacturers then competed against each other for sales, resulting in lower prices to the consumer. Sony was the only manufacturer of Betamax initially and so was not pressured to reduce prices. Only in the early 1980s did Sony decide to licence Betamax technology to other manufacturers, such as Toshiba and Sanyo. What Sony did not take into account was what consumers wanted. While Betamax was believed to be the superior format in the minds of the public and press (due to excellent marketing by Sony), consumers wanted an affordable video recorder (a VHS machine was often around a hundred pounds less than an equivalent Betamax one); Sony believed that having better quality recordings was the key to success, and that consumers would be willing to pay a higher retail price for this, whereas it soon became clear that consumer desire was focused more intently on longer recording time, lower retail price, and compatibility with other machines for cassette sharing (as VHS was becoming the format in the majority of homes). The real Betamax killer was that for the first few years, the maximum length of recording was limited to one hour on Beta, whereas VHS could stretch to four hours with reduced image quality, critically long enough to record an entire American football game - the lucrative mass American market both systems were looking to crack. Sony had the attitude of "We know best" as to what the market wanted, and ignored requests for features that quickly became standard with their competitors. Consequently Betamax is now considered alongside the 8 - Track cartridge as a dodo technology. You can read about the history of the video format war by clicking here. If you are of the opinion that Betamax is far too mainstream, well known and commonplace, do yourself a favour by visiting the Philips V2000 web site here. You can also read more about other format wars by clicking here.

Richard, the author of the excellent Thamesmead Grump blog has been taking photographs of local wildlife for a very long time. He's seen quite a few seals in the river near to Crossness; the presence of seals in the river is a very good indication of good quality water and lots of wildlife, as seals are at the top of the river food chain, and they would not hang around if there were not plenty of fish and shellfish to eat. This is all very good news for the overall health of the River Thames. The video below was taken on the Slade Green Marshes by a local chap with an amateur camera drone. He catches four seals basking on the shore - they seem totally relaxed, despite the flying camera. Give it a watch and see what you think - comments below, or drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Nine years of the Maggot Sandwich.

So, here we are; the Maggot Sandwich is officially nine years old. Every Sunday afternoon for the last nine years I have published my blog, and for some happily unknown reason, a large number of people, both locally and around the world have chosen to read it. The Blog is almost unrecognisable when compared to the start; it has transformed from a rather annoying and shouty rant at life, the universe and everything into what I hope is an entertaining and informative journal with a focus on local events. I must admit that I had absolutely no intention of the Maggot Sandwich turning into what I suppose could be viewed as part of the local online landscape – I suppose that this is mainly due to its’ longevity – throw enough stuff at the wall, and eventually something will stick. As some have suspected, I feel that I am really a frustrated amateur journalist; since I cannot do the real thing, I play at it online. Some readers have accused me of being a “proper” author, but I hold no such illusions. I write because I enjoy it, and some sixteen million words further along from when I started, it would seem that a sizable number of readers do too. Thanks to those who have stuck with me since the beginning, and also to those who have discovered the dubious maggoty delights more recently. I have had a number of messages of congratulations on the 9th birthday of the Maggot Sandwich; here are a selection:-

" The blog honours the past but embraces the future. It has become a firm fixture in everything Erith and long may it continue" Teresa Pearce MP.

"As the Maggot Sandwich celebrates its 9th birthday, I would like to congratulate Hugh Neal for his tireless efforts to make Erith safe. The Sandwich has become the Agenda Setter for the community. Hugh would always be the first to report or draw attention to issues that make Erith safe and healthy to live. He is non partisan in his reporting in the subject he covers. Policing - He has drawn attention to troubled spots on numerous occasions and this has always help the Police to follow up and minimise crime. Trading - He has reported about food safety and the unhygienic conditions of some shops. Public -  His coverage of the behaviour of some people in public has brought great changes. Politics - His coverage of political issues has always been followed by the MPS and Councillors in the area he covers. This has made the area a safer place. As a Councillor I have picked some of my cases in the community from his Blogs and benefited from his personal contacts and advice. One of his greatest achievement is the fight to keep Historical buildings and Archives safe. Thank you Hugh for your service to the community. I hope the Maggot Sandwich will celebrate many more years and I wish its publication Happy Birthday". Councillor Edward Boateng.

"I stumbled across the Maggot Sandwich early in 2010 and first met Hugh at a meeting of “hyper-local bloggers” called by OFCOM in the September of that year. I didn't have much of a clue what a hyper-local blogger was and felt totally out of my depth in such esteemed circles while trying to look inconspicuous so as not to be asked questions. The meeting was memorable for several reasons; firstly it was held in the very same room where back in 1967, when the building was brand new and owned by the General Post Office, I sat designing, or rather specifying the capacity of, telephone exchanges in the days when every unit was bespoke and hand built for its intended situation. BT just buys them off the shelf now, from Maplin's bargain range I shouldn't wonder if the software problems are anything to go by. Secondly Hugh sat next to me adorned by a new Nikon DSLR and me by my seven year old model. I had no idea that cameras had progressed that far and felt compelled to go out and buy a new one. That reawakening of my photographic interests has cost quite a lot of money since. Thanks Hugh. The following year Hugh had another major impact on my life, he used the now notorious ‘pitchforks and flaming torches’ metaphor about council leader Teresa O'Neill. She reported me to the police for a reference to Hugh’s penchant for literary quotations. Whenever I feel I might be being a little too harsh on the great lady I remind myself that she wanted me arrested for being “critical of councillors” and press on regardless. One thing I find rather nice about the local blogging scene is how three authors have never discussed their strategies, but everything has fallen into place naturally with very little overlap. Hugh reports news, fascinating historical facts, gossip and on the local criminal fraternity. The Thamesmead Grump is the place to go for bureaucratic idiocies, a wonderfully warped sense of humour and amazing photographs, and Bonkers digs the dirt. It all seems to work quite well. Long may it continue". Malcolm Knight - Bexley is Bonkers.

"My son is a keen blogger himself (250beers.com) put me onto the Maggot Sandwich in 2012, I have looked in since. Hugh's varied topics touch on music, computing, real ale, what our council spends our money on..........or don't! ne'er do wells fly tipping, yobs illegally riding motorbikes, to hideous waste of money sculptures! He is on committees and has become a keen activist trying to preserve OUR Erith! Well done Hugh, keep it up!  I love the old photo's often shown, supplied by Ken a local historian. The Maggot Sandwich is archived so you may catch up at your leisure!  If you think you may be able to provide an interesting insight into our Erith past or present, Hugh invites guest writers to do this...........I have! Best Wishes for the next 9 years Hugh". Alan Magin.

"Whether it is for the whispers and rumours or reporting on local events, I read Hugh's blog religiously each week. It is great to see somebody keen to talk up Erith publicly as much as possible. Reading Arthur Pewty's Maggot Sandwich has become a part of Erith, just like the fish roundabout!" Councillor Joe Ferreira.

"I can't believe its been 9 years that you have been producing the Maggot Sandwich.  I always look forward to reading it every Sunday.  For me the Maggot Sandwich is a way of keeping up with what is going on in Erith and surroundings.  You are doing a fantastic job, and it amazes me how you find the time to write and research all your input".  Betty, Maryland USA.

"WELL DONE AND CONGRATULATIONS TO THE MAGGOT SANDWICH FOR REACHING ITS 9TH BIRTHDAY. The  Maggot Sandwich is a valuable tool for fighting crime and providing an up to date insight into what is happening in and around Erith. Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association appreciates the support it gets from both Erith Watch and Maggot Sandwich and we are very happy to have Hugh Neal as one of our Coordinators. Keep up the superb and invaluable work you do for your community, we look forward to your 10th Birthday Celebrations." Dana Whiffen, Chairman Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association.

"Happy birthday Arthur - congrats on turning 9. We're still in short trousers here, and have just turned 8" - Harringay Online.

"I first discovered the Maggot Sandwich around two years ago, and it quickly became part of my Sunday routine. I don't remember how I came across it, I think it may have been a link from the Bexley is Bonkers site. 9 Years of continuous weekly publication is a considerable achievement as I know from personal experience. My blog is less than 2 years old and I have never been able to keep up anything like a weekly production. Here's looking forward to another 9 years." The Thamesmead Grump.

"Congratulations on the ninth anniversary of Arthur Pewty's Maggot Sandwich. As an ex-pat Brit, many miles and many years away from my childhood in "Erith on the Mud",  I really look forward to each new Sunday morning  post and I do appreciate the wide range of topics that you cover and your independent and fairly stated opinions. Very best wishes!"Avril Tyrrell (Expat) Ontario, Canada.

"Hi Hugh, I still read your blog each week even if I don't comment and I know many people who read it and don't give feedback. I like learning about your local area and enjoy the pictures. I would like to see a map of your main shopping area past and present so I can see who dominates the high street now and who has bit the dust in the years since your blog began. You often post new builds and developments so this snapshot of your high st would be of interest. Do you have any large shopping centres or malls? I don't mean on the scale of Bluewater or lakeside but still somewhere I could spend half a day at with lunch and coffee and a lighter pocket, lol. I like your features outside of your local blog interest like showing the old computers and stuff and the radio features both about you and other radio stations. I thought of two ideas that may appeal to you... 1. Have you thought of adding perhaps 5 mins of audio to your blog each week to give the headlines and a bit about each feature? 2. Have you thought of adding a twitter feed and embedding it into your blog? That way if there is something major going down that you would deem as breaking news, you could post something in an instant instead of us waiting for your next full blog update. You could still  include it in your usual update in much more detail after tweeting it. The point being to get it out there in real time. Finally I know you listen to Allan Wiener on WBCQ like me so maybe your UK audience would like to know more of it. I am in fact going to contact Allan and ask him if he has any plans to beam his shortwave into Europe. The 7490 transmitter would fare best here at night." Gary Drew, Laser Hot Hits.

Quite a few readers bumped into me at the Erith Fun Day last Saturday; one lady came all of the way from Croydon to attend the event, she said purely from what I had written about it on the Maggot Sandwich previously, which was pleasantly surprising. As you may have seen, I spent quite a bit of time helping out on the Erith Town Forum stand. The Forum have been running a petition to try and encourage Bexley Council to preserve and protect both the former Potion / White Hart pub, and the historic Andrew Carnegie gifted old Erith Library in Walnut Tree Road. The remit of the campaign by the forum may need to be widened, as there are strong rumours reaching me that another historic Erith building may be under threat. I have been told by an impeccable source that Bexley Council are considering terminating their outsourcing contract with Capita – the private company that runs housing benefit payments from Erith Town Hall, also in Walnut Tree Road. The contract with Capita is due to run until 2019, but I am led to believe that an early break point option exists in 2015. The contract, worth £14 million was planned to extend the partnership by three years to June 2019, and has seen the Council’s financial assessment team transfer to Capita Local Government Services. Capita’s original contract with Bexley began in 1996 and today the breadth of services being delivered to the Council includes; council tax and business rates administration; cashiering services; benefits administration, and the financial assessment service. The financial assessments team is responsible for the administration of applications for assistance towards residential care costs and costs for care packages delivered to residents in their homes. There are currently just over 3,700 active assessment cases in Bexley. It would seem that Bexley may be about to enter into a money saving joint contract with the London Borough of Bromley in preference to their individual one with Capita. No other council functions are housed at Erith; the question remains – what would happen to the old Council Offices? It does not take a business genius to see where Bexley’s planning Councillors are heading with their thinking. With Capita no longer in the picture, and pretty much all of the rest of the council functions now being centralised in Bexleyheath, the Erith office building will be ripe for sale and redevelopment. As we have seen on several occasions, Bexley Council will stop at nothing to sell off the family silver just as fast as they can. If the Erith Town Hall is sold, it would be quite probable that the old Carnegie Library next door would also be included in the sale. Now that the economy is beginning to pick up, it would not be at all surprising to me if a property company came along with a proposal to develop the site into “Yuppie Flats” – the evidence is there. The Walnut Tree Road site is large, it has a view out across the River Thames, it is literally two minutes’ walk from Erith Station, and is also very close to the bus halts in front of the Riverside Shopping Centre. With Crossrail coming to Abbey Wood (and strong indications it will later be extended through to Ebbsfleet to connect with the forthcoming Paramount theme park) train connections to Erith from London are set to improve. Already one can get to Cannon Street from Erith in around thirty five minutes – delays and cancellations notwithstanding. It strikes me as pretty much a no – brainer that Erith is set for a further property boom over and above that which I have described in detail in recent blog postings. I have said before that it is entirely possible that Erith will undergo “gentrification” – a term I dislike. Nevertheless, as property prices in Bexley mean that the borough is now officially the most attractive place for first time buyers to move into, does mean that more attention from developers and property investors is bound to come.  I have spoken to two professional economists with strong connections with Erith; they are of the opinion that “Erith is set to be the next Dalston”.  The indications tend to confirm this. Whether we will be able to preserve and maintain historic buildings like the White Hart and the old Carnegie Library will remain to be seen. I can reveal that developments in relation to the Potion / White Hart site are looking promising - but that is all I am able to say for now. More later.

When Oyster was first rolled out, where TfL said that clashes between Oyster and other contactless card systems were simply not possible. I doubted this at the time, and my fears have proved to be grounded in reality.  The fact is that many people are getting penalty fares as they own more than one Oyster card, and keep them in the same wallet or purse – and they swipe the wallet or purse over the reader, rather than taking the specific card out. In these cases, one card gets debited on swipe in, and the other on swipe out – one could end up in a situation where one was penalised £8.50 for the card that swiped in but not out, and another £8.50 for the card that swiped out but not in. On top of this if one presents the wrong Oyster card when questioned by a revenue protection officer, you can be fined up to £80 for travelling without a ticket. This is all about to get even more complex, as Transport for London are heavily promoting “bonk n’ pay” –  the use of contactless bank debit cards to swipe into stations. They would rather passengers used their contactless debit cards, as it saves 2p per transaction in Oyster processing charges. Contactless debit card transaction costs are borne by the relevant bank. Some time ago, my bank sent me a new contactless debit card, which I returned to them in person. As I wrote way back in January 2012, the whole contactless payment system is riddled with security holes and undocumented features. With hardware and software freely available online, it is possible to remotely interrogate a contactless card and to read certain data from it. The range is only about ten feet, but it is close enough for a crook with a card reader and a smartphone running illicit software. You only need to be standing in the same queue, or sharing a lift for the stealing of your card information to happen. I note with astonishment that the popular press has taken until the last week to pick up on this important story, with the Daily Mail and other papers running articles on how contactless “bonk and pay” card security can be compromised. I have to say – I told you so – over three years ago. It is not that I have some mega – amazing level of insight into IT  security matters (though working in the industry does mean I have a better than average awareness), it is more that the banking and retail industries want to play down such security loopholes, as it is bad for their corporate images. To those who say “it is not such a big deal, you can only lose up to £20 on a transaction, and after nine swipes you will be asked for your pass code” really miss the point – the card details can be used as verification when setting up an identity theft; on top of this, the current £20 maximum limit for swipe payment (due to increase to £30 later this year) only applies to pounds sterling. Due to a little – reported bug in the UK implementation, payments made in Euros have an upper limit of £999,999.99 – not something that the banks are keen on their customers knowing about. You have been warned.

You may recall that some time ago I complained about the large numbers of flies that plague the local area, and for some inexplicable reason they seem to particularly target Pewty Acres. I have found that modern fly sprays have very little effect, as house flies and gnats seem to have evolved a level of resistance to the neurotoxins in the fly spray. I am also a bit wary of using such chemicals in the home, as they can easily end up in food and drink, however carefully one covers things up prior to spraying. instead I invested in a Vermatik electric insect controller, as seen in the photo above; it is a version of the classic "Insectocutor" seen in so many public buildings and food outlets. It uses two Ultraviolet flourescent tubes to lure insects onto a high voltage grid, where they are instantly destroyed. It works very well - and apart from the occasional fizz and crackle as a house fly or gnat gets zapped, it gets on with things very efficiently. Vermatik are actually a British company who manufacture a whole range of pest controllers. I bought mine from Amazon for £30. I can highly recommend them. 

Whilst attending Erith Fun Day last Saturday, many of the visitors could see a large pall of smoke coming from the direction of the Slade Green Marshes. The sound of the PA and the piped music covered the sirens from the emergency service vehicles that rushed down to Dayton Drive on the marshes; London Fire Brigade sent six fire engines to the scene and 35 firefighters and officers, who spent more than three hours bringing the grass fire under control. The area burnt was reportedly the size of four football pitches. The blaze is thought to be the result of a carelessly discarded cigarette butt. Whilst most of the traffic on the Slade Green Marshes travels to and from the businesses located in the Darent Industrial Estate, there are still quite a large number of walkers and nature enthusiasts who enjoy spending time on the Bronze Age site of special scientific interest.

Bexley Councillor Peter Craske has landed himself in even more hot water. On Tuesday evening Bexley Council held a meeting in which the future of Belvedere Splash Park was discussed (the photo above shows what the Splash Park looked like back in 1950, when it was known as "The Belvedere Pond and Gardens" - click on it for a larger view). A group from the “Save Belvedere Splash Park” were present at the meeting. As was expected, the technical report on the work required to restore the Splash Park to running order was nodded through. The Council have stated, as expected that a private investor will have to be found if the Splash Park is to have any chance of staying open, as they will not finance it from public funds. Nothing we did not expect; however one thing which was totally unexpected, was Councillor Peter Craske, who described the campaigning group as “complainers and moaners”. Apart from being very rude, it is not surprising that the campaigners are indeed complaining – after all, it seems to me that they have every reason to complain at the way a small cabal of the leadership of Bexley Council are acting like a tin – pot dictatorship in some obscure banana republic. As Malcolm Knight of the excellent “Bexley is Bonkers” blog has analysed, the council could easily have managed its’ finances in a way which would have made the proposed sell – off of much public land in the borough unnecessary. They have historically preferred to cut services, or outsource operations rather than introduce mild rises in the rate of council tax. The latest cut may be Erith Town Hall, as previously mentioned. Compared with the glory days, the number of (outsourced) staff working in the building nowadays is relatively small, but nevertheless significant. If Bexley Council were run like a business, with the Councillors as directors, and the residents the shareholders, I feel that we might well be in a far better position. The trouble is, there are a handful of councillors who currently are in positions of power who would not last five minutes in a real company. In local government it is far easier for them to hide behind layers of bureaucracy and obscure rules which protect them from the kind of pressures that “real” businesses have to endure.

I mentioned some weeks ago that I was glad that the Money Shop in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre had closed down. I am strongly opposed to the very high interest charges which such payday lenders impose, and am really glad that the government has encouraged the industry regulators to crack down on them recently. Short-term lending has been cut by sixty eight percent in two years as regulators imposed price caps, according to the Consumer Finance Association (CFA). In a report to MPs, the trade body said that eighty percent of loan applications were rejected. Of these, four percent have borrowed from illegal lenders instead, the CFA claimed. Citizens Advice said it had seen a fifty three percent drop in the number of payday loan problems it recorded in April to June compared with the same period a year earlier. In many cases payday lenders were lending to people to who could not afford to repay. The fifty three percent decrease in payday loan issues reported to Citizens Advice shows the new regulations are having a positive effect for consumers.  The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) set a cap on the cost of payday loans of zero point eight percent of the amount borrowed per day, which came into force in January. There is also there is a £15 cap on default charges. No borrower has to pay back more than twice the amount they initially borrowed, lenders can no longer roll over a loan more than twice, nor can they attempt to reclaim payment from a borrower's account more than twice. The CFA report suggests that, as result of the new regulations, the number of firms operating in the market has dropped from 240 in 2013 to about 30 to 40 offering a short-term loan within the price cap in 2015. Many payday lenders in smaller towns and villages have already closed down, as the operators have consolidated their operations into larger conurbations in the hope of surviving. The only downside to this is some really impoverished people are now resorting to illegal back – street lenders, who operate in the shadows, and have absolutely no regulation whatsoever. The ethical alternative is a  credit union; unfortunately these have not proved a great success in the UK so far. Across the UK, just two percent of the adult population is a member of a credit union. In the United States they are used by forty six percent of consumers. There is one key reason for this;  although they offer good value loans, most of them offer a very poor deal to savers. Unless more people can be persuaded to save with them, credit unions will never get more cash to lend to needy borrowers. It is, as I have said repeatedly before, very expensive to be poor in the UK nowadays. Let me know what you think - you can Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Concerns over the possible fate of both the former Potion / White Hart pub and the Andrew Carnegie gifted old Erith Library building may have been slightly mollified by the news this week that in a landmark decision that may have direct bearing on the demolition and / or change of use of historic premises by developers. Last week, Wandsworth Council rejected an application for retrospective planning permission from Udhyam Amin following his decision last month to demolish the Alchemist pub in Battersea. The Victorian pub, near Clapham Junction station, was open for more than 100 years before it closed in 2013 and fell derelict. It was pulled down in May by Mr Amin who had plans to extend it and build a block of flats. The council responded to this unlawful demolition by launching enforcement action requiring the developer to rebuild it with original materials. Council Planners ruled that the developer’s application should be refused because the loss of a local landmark and prominent historic building in a conservation area would be against the public interest. The developer will now be required to start work on rebuilding the pub in St John’s Hill and restoring it to its original condition. This really is a landmark case; even if the developer declares his company bankrupt in order to avoid carrying out the rebuilding work, it still sends out a very strong message to unscrupulous developers looking to make a quick buck by illegally knocking down historic buildings. I hope that anyone looking at either the old Erith Library or Potion / The White Hart will take notice. From the evidence from last Saturday’s Erith Fun Day, and the number of signatures gathered on the Erith Town Forum petition, it is clear that many other people feel as strongly about the conservation and appreciation of these historic buildings as I do.

Finally, an ending video that I have been holding back for a special occasion. Long time readers will know that every so often I will feature a fan - made video,  usually of a sci - fi nature. Fans of franchises such as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have been making their own amateur films of varying quality for years. Charitably one could say that most of them were probably fun for the participants to make, but that they are not very polished or well put together. This is particularly true of Star Trek fan films, many of which are pretty awful, to be honest. This is where the video below is radically different. Star Trek: Axanar is the first independent, professionally shot movie set in the Star Trek Universe. It is set in the period between Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: The Original Series and features the back story of Garth of Izar. The production crew of the independent film are all professionals - including staff who worked on Star Trek: Enterprise, and the two recent JJ Abrams alternate universe Star Trek big screen movies; indeed the makeup and CGI leads both have won Oscars for their previous work. The cast are also all professional actors who have either previously worked on Star Trek, or other big budget science fiction shows. The film is currently being shot - it is crowd funded and will be not for profit; it is due for release next year. It will be a full two and a half hour theatrical production, which will be released online and also on Blu - Ray. To give an idea what the film will be like, the production team have already made a twenty one minute short video called "Prelude to Axanar" which you can watch below. It is a sort of "History Channel" documentary look back at the events portrayed in the forthcoming film, with interviews from the main protagonists. Believe me, this is not some shabby fan movie made with cardboard sets and CGI done on an old laptop - this is the first professional Hollywood movie produced using a completely new crowd funded business model. Already the movie exceeds the recent JJ Abrams efforts - a better story, better acting and a real understanding of the Star Trek "history". I highly recommend that you crank the definition as high as your internet connection speed will allow, make the video window full screen, and sit back and enjoy something truly remarkable.

The Erith Arboretum.

Worryingly, Charlton and Greenwich blogger Darryl Chamberlain of the excellent 853 Blog (853 was the old telephone dialling code for the area) is reporting that “contrary to what library staff were telling customers, the old East Greenwich Library is also set for sale to the highest bidder. At the last full council meeting, regeneration councillor Danny Thorpe confirmed that the building - donated to the community in 1905 by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie - was not protected by a covenant”.  As mentioned recently, this sounds very similar to the also Andrew Carnegie gifted Erith Library in the photo above (click on it for a larger picture), which was opened in 1907 and closed in 2010, and has stood empty and unused since. I sincerely hope that the sale of the old East Greenwich Library does not become a blueprint for the old Erith Library in Walnut Tree Road. In my opinion it is one of the best looking buildings in the town, and it deserves to be restored and returned to productive use. It is certainly one of, if not the most important buildings in the town, and should be treated as such. 

The News Shopper is reporting on a subject close to my heart – illegal fly tipping; something that the Maggot Sandwich has covered in some considerable detail over the last couple of years. The paper writes that a poll has been carried out by a furniture company into the public’s attitude towards fly tipping; the results, if accurate, are quite surprising. An astonishing seventeen percent of the people surveyed admitted having fly tipped on at least one occasion. Of that seventeen percent, the reasons they stated for their fly tipping broke down as follows:-

1. There is nowhere else to take rubbish (38 per cent)

2. Unaware it was illegal (30 per cent)

3. It was the easiest option available (28 per cent)

4. The cost of disposing properly was too high (20 per cent)

5. Because they didn’t realise they were fly-tipping at the time (16 per cent)

I find this utterly staggering, and frankly somewhat hard to believe; for a start, if the respondents were only allowed to pick one response, how come it adds up to 132 per cent?. According to Government statistics, local authorities reported 852,000 cases of fly-tipping last year, and almost 98 per cent of fly-tipping prosecutions resulted in a conviction. I feel that the responses listed above are actually covering the real truth. From my own experiences investigating fly – tipping, the proponents are well aware of what they are doing is illegal – but they just don't care, as they think the chances of them being caught are minimal at best. It is a cynical and exploitative attitude from criminals who should (and indeed sometimes do) get jailed for their activities. Your thoughts would be appreciated; either post a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Wikipedia has launched an anti-copyright campaign – but it is one that experts say is bogus and misleading. Thousands of pages on the online encyclopaedia site have been  plastered with an appeal to "Save the Freedom of Panorama", a crusade started by copyright activist and Europe's only Pirate Party MEP, Julia Reda to make the copyright rules the same throughout Europe seem to have backfired. Europe likes "harmonising" things, and one of the things Reda said she wanted to harmonise was an exception to copyright that most European countries already have in place, allowing you to take pictures of (say) buildings in public places. ” Freedom of Panorama” is in essence an exception to copyright that most European countries already have in place, allowing you to take pictures of (for example) buildings and objects such as statues and artwork located in public places; it is a provision in the copyright laws of various jurisdictions that permits taking photographs and video footage and creating other images (such as paintings) of buildings and sometimes sculptures and other art works which are permanently located in a public place, without infringing on any copyright that may otherwise subsist in such works, and to publish such images. Wikipedia issued an announcement saying “Photos of modern buildings must remain on Wikipedia. A proposal in the European Parliament puts thousands of images on Wikipedia in danger” Several newspapers, including the Guardian have jumped on the bandwagon, assuming the story is accurate; actually it is not. Reda’s proposal in a report to the European Parliament prompted an intemperate reaction from a Dutch MEP, who feared its ambiguity would have unintended consequences, and tabled an amendment wishing that French-style Panorama copyright should apply to the whole of Europe. However, neither proposal nor the counter-amendment have any legislative weight. The European Parliament cannot write legislation, and most of its resolutions are thrown in the bin by the European Commission anyway. Wikipedia are now saying “we saved the Internet” – not the first time that the site has created a non – story, then later claimed victory for a battle that actually never existed. This is a great pity – it tarnishes their reputation and makes them appear as self-publicists. What do you think? Please leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

In 1842 a wooden pier was built on the riverfront at Erith (well, there would not be much point in building it anywhere else). Alongside the pier, a pier hotel was constructed; to add to the attraction a large formal garden, complete with an Arboretum (a tree garden) was also created. For a period it was a popular holiday destination You can see the pier and hotel in the photo above, which was taken in around 1860; click on it for a larger version. Some locals were more than a little impressed with the place. A certain James Barnard of Erith was a watchmaker and occasional, very bad poet. He wrote the following poem about the Erith Arboretum, for which I can only apologise in advance - (for long term readers, you may have seen this once before - look on the bright side - you can cheerfully skip it - I don't see why newer readers should get away with suffering as you did!). It is one of the most excruciatingly awful poems ever put to paper. You have been warned!

Upon my life, my dearest wife,
The children we must treat ‘em,
So dress them gay, and we’ll away
To the Erith Arboretum.

We’re now afloat in this fast steamboat,
(There go two more – we’ll beat ‘em),
As with the tide we swiftly glide,
To the Erith Arboretum.

A day like this is health and bliss,
The doctors, how we cheat ‘em,
When we take the air in the region fair
Of the Erith Arboretum.

Now mark the flowers and the shady bowers,
Where lovers fondly seat ‘em,
Or laugh and talk as they take their walk
In the Erith Arboretum.

At the Pier Hotel they’ll serve them well –
No other house can beat ‘em –
So we will dine and take our wine
At the Erith Arboretum.

‘Tis time, I see, to take some tea,
(The shrimps by scores we’ll eat ‘em),
And then away, at the close of day,
From the Erith Arboretum.

Now if my song has been too long,
The strains I’ll ne’er repeat ‘em,
But nevertheless I’ll drink success
To the Erith Arboretum.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote at some length about why I felt the rumours of the old Potion / White Hart pub would not get converted into an Indian Restaurant, and went  on to explain some of the trade secrets of the experienced British Indian restaurant curry chef, and how they were able to whip up a tasty meal in only few minutes from a stock of pre – prepared ingredients. Basically the chefs mix spices into a pre – made base curry gravy – the meat and vegetables are pre – cooked and just need to be heated through – all very clever stuff. And when done well, the results are excellent. This highlighted a problem which has been getting worse over the last decade, and has now got to the point that restaurants have become unable to recruit sufficient kitchen staff.  The government has tightened immigration rules, making it almost impossible to hire chefs from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The restrictions may be popular with the swelling ranks of the unemployed in Britain, but it seems that very few Brits want to learn the curry trade and work in a British Indian restaurant kitchen. Younger generations of Bangladeshi and Pakistani cultural background are now more likely to seek an education and careers outside the kitchen. They understandably don't want to spend nine hours a day slaving over a hot tandoori oven for little pay – they would rather use their education and become a doctor, architect or accountant. It is all happening at a time when interest in Indian cuisine in Britain seems to be growing, after somewhat of a lull. Many new “mid-range” curry houses are opening, and they are struggling to recruit staff. Whilst high - end chefs are still available from the Indian subcontinent – those with fluent English, lots of experience, and the talents to earn around £30,000 a year in an upmarket establishment, the less skilled and experienced chefs are rejected by UK Immigration as they are regarded as having low employability and little English. The government have established a policy of advising restaurant owners to stop recruiting from abroad, and instead to train UK staff to carry out the skilled work. A new scheme has been set up to address this shortage –the Mastara Chef Apprenticeship Programme. Mastara Chef financially supports trainees through a Culinary Arts degree at the University of West London, with a specialism in Asian cuisine. Upon completion of the course, graduates are given an apprenticeship at some of the country’s best Asian and Oriental restaurants. Thus far the Mastara Chef programme has had fourteen successful candidates pass through and get full – time paid work in a curry house restaurant. Candidates have come from a number of backgrounds – including Morocco, the Caribbean and the UK have all passed the programme. Not all British Indian restaurant owners agree that this is the way forward; when interviewed by Public Radio International, restaurateur Sachin Mulane said “I really don't think that’s a very good idea, to become an Indian chef you have to work really hard. It’s not like a one day, one year or two year job. It is an ongoing process and it should be within you for years. That’s where you become perfect. In years past, many curry houses were true family operations and cooks learned the craft at their parent’s side. Nowadays younger generations are now more likely to seek an education and careers outside the kitchen. It is all happening at a time when interest in Indian cuisine in Britain seems to be growing. It is going to produce a problem, because a lot of these restaurant owners go to India because they know they can get staff. Maybe they're friends of families or they know they can get these guys in. They're going to come into a kitchen environment where everybody speaks the same language and these guys will work hard, they will work hard for very little pay, something I believe most British workers will not do”.

Don't forget that next Saturday is Erith Fun Day. It takes place between 12pm and 5pm in Erith Riverside Gardens, opposite the Running Horses pub. I would strongly recommend that if at all possible you come along; last years event was excellent, and all the indications are that this year will be even better. I will be along for the whole day - so look out for me and my trusty camera. Do come over and say hello - you all know who I am, but I don't know who all of you are. It would be nice to put some faces to names. Fingers crossed for some nice weather, and I look forward to seeing you there. 

My prediction about the bike gangs which have taken to congregating around Lower Belvedere and Thamesmead has proved true. I recently wrote about “Bike Life TV UK” and other groups of irresponsible individuals who ride around illegally without helmets, some with unregistered and uninsured bikes, and many pulling stunts such as wheelies, standing on the seat and other illegal activities on public roads. They film videos of themselves, which get posted onto YouTube and other media websites. One of the riders got killed on Thursday last week, when he lost control of his bike 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. If the Air Ambulance attends an accident scene, then one can generally be sure that it is a serious case. What is also disturbing is the group of around twenty bikers with whom it is said the accident victim was racing did not stop to help; they continued riding around pulling wheelies whilst two witnesses have stated that one rider in particular used a hand held video camera to film the accident scene and the emergency workers trying to save the man’s life. So much for comradeship. No doubt further details of the incident will come out with time. Looking at the Bike Life UK Facebook page, it seems that whilst they claim to be a UK wide group, many of their illegal activities seem to be focused on Thamesmead and Lower Belvedere. The group are fully aware of the antisocial and illegal nature of what they do, and actually seem to revel in it. Quite what the Police will do in response is currently unclear. Whilst attempts are made in various Bike Life TV UK online videos to digitally obscure the vehicle number plates, as I have written before, there are many occasions where the number plates can be clearly read (of course, this assumes that the bikes in question are legally registered, and not on false plates, or stolen, both of which are strong possibilities). The group are also aware of Police surveillance on them – their website even has a news story which reads “Brimsdown Feds filming riders - to all uk bikelife  riders .looks like the police are filming  the riders   mostly on the crossers . then putting names to the faces the paying you a visit at a later time so just  be careful  and be aware that you being filmed . keep stuntin uk bikelife.” Apart from the dreadful English, and quite why they refer to the Police as “the Feds”, the picture is one of  a group who are deliberately going out of the way to break multiple laws. 

What responsible and legal bike clubs and organisations like the Gravesend Motorcycle Club - (photo above taken by the Rev at their annual bike and music show at The Railway Inn, Sole Street, Meopham yesterday) make of all this I don't know, but I would guess that they would view Bike Life TV UK in a rather poor light. If you are a biker, please get in contact; I am keen to hear your opinion on this group who seem to be hell – bent on causing trouble locally – even to the extent of the death of one of their own members. One local I talked to about the problem referred to Bike Life TV UK as "Chavs on mopeds" - and I was hard pressed to argue. 

Since my musings on the future of the drive through McDonald’s at Plumstead last week, I have been contacted by a fellow local blogger, who specialises in detailing and analysing the planning applications and development in South East London. From the Murky Depths brought the matter to my attention; it looks like the McDonald’s and the adjacent postal sorting office are to be demolished to make way for a new housing development by the Peabody Trust. Their announcement states:- “350 new homes plus shops, workspaces and community facilities by 2020; and a further 520 homes and new park by 2024”. You can read the full text here. Whilst it is a fair time in the future, it is good to see that a very run down and unwelcoming part of Plumstead is finally going to get some much needed attention. I used to pass through the area daily when visiting my late Dad in the Gallions Reach nursing home, so I am more than familiar with the challenges in the very scruffy industrial area that is only around the corner from Belmarsh Prison. How this timing will affect the reputedly poorly performing McDonald’s I don't know. If the franchise owner can hold out long enough for the site to be compulsorily purchased, they could come out of the arrangement with a substantial pile of cash. Whether they would wish for this I really don't know. What do you think? Either leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Pretty much anyone who works in an office, runs their own business, or who works with figures to any extent will be familiar with using a computer spreadsheet – most commonly Microsoft Excel. Many will curse at them from time to time, but would also find working with numbers far more difficult without a spreadsheet. It was not always the case. The term “Spreadsheet” has been in use for several hundred years; originally. In the realm of accounting jargon a "spread sheet" or spreadsheet was, and is a large sheet of paper with columns and rows that organises data about transactions for a business person to examine. It spreads or shows all of the costs, income, taxes, and other related data on a single sheet of paper for a manager to examine when making a decision. The problem with this is that if a value on the sheet changes – for example if the rate of tax was to increase, then the business person had to erase the related values in the relevant column, manually recalculate the new value, and write it onto the sheet – this could be a complex and time consuming business. Accountants and business owners would spend frustrating hours wrestling with figures in this way. In the early 1960’s several electronic versions of spreadsheets were created, which needed to be run on complex (for the time) and hugely expensive mainframe computers. Thirty six years ago this week, the first spreadsheet application was published for use on a personal computer, and it became the first “killer app” – a piece of software so powerful and groundbreaking that many businesses bought a computer just to be able to run it. The program was called Visicalc, and it is debatably the most important piece of software for business ever written. In 1979, personal computing was very much in its infancy; outside of large companies and universities, computers were really only used by hobbyists and engineers who wanted to learn about the new technology, and how to program. The Apple II had just been released in the USA, which was arguably the first computer for home use that did not require a high level of technical expertise to run. It was a perfect storm –the first widely available and (relatively) easy to use personal computer, along with an incredibly powerful spreadsheet program in Visicalc. Consequently both flew off the shelves; business people bought an Apple II purely to run Visicalc, which greatly pleased Apple, and ultimately led to their giant size and influence nowadays. Visicalc was ported onto a wide variety of other computers in the early 1980’s, and without a doubt it led to the adoption of computers in many companies that had previously done without. Once Visicalc became available for the then new IBM 5150 (what we now refer to as the PC mark one) the future was assured. By this time many other software companies had produced their own versions of an electronic spreadsheet – often with more functions, and Visicalc fell by the wayside. The creators of Visicalc had made one decision which benefitted many in the long run, but led to the demise of their own product – they did not patent or copyright it.  What I find fascinating is that whilst most software has changed beyond recognition over the years, the computer spreadsheet has stayed pretty much the same. If you were to time travel a Visicalc user from 1979 and put them in front of a Windows PC running Microsoft Excel now, they would find that the basic operation was exactly the same, albeit with many more functions and options. The principle has not changed at all. You can see a short video about Visicalc, and the impact it had on businesses large and small below.

Finally the long - awaited report on the Belvedere Splash Park has been published, and not before time. The report, by consultants Waterman Building Services, says closing the park could actually end up costing the council more than fixing it. These are some quotes taken from the report " Soiling from smaller children and babies has resulted in the closing of the facilities for an emergency clean and replacement of the water. The filters lack the efficiency to remove cryptosporidium (an organism which causes stomach upsets), which is resistant to chlorine. There are no ultraviolet filters, which would provide effective control of both legionella and cryptosporidium. The shallow pool for babies and younger children provides an area where standing water can be trapped all day, providing a breeding ground for bacteria, with dirt, debris and whatever else comes into contact with it exposed to high temperatures on hot sunny days". The first option is to update the park’s water treatment system, which would improve water quality and reduce maintenance. This would cost between £230,000 and £380,000, with an additional £42,000 each year for maintenance. The second is to scrap the water treatment and recirculation system and feed the park from the mains water instead. This would involve getting rid of the toddlers’ pool – which the report recommends anyway – and removing some of the features to limit the amount of water used. It would be cheaper than the former option, costing between £175,000 and £330,000, with an additional £35,000 annually for maintenance. The third option is to remove the park and replace it with new play equipment – but even this would cost between £150,000 and £200,000, with annual maintenance costs of £10,000. Many locals suspect that Bexley Council have always favoured the third option; the thinking behind this is that if the Splash Park was fitted out with the swings and roundabouts transferred from the recreation park on the opposite side of Woolwich Road, it would enable the council to sell off the whole plot of land, including the adjacent library to developers - not only would it rake in a lot of cash, but the inevitable blocks of flats that would be built would themselves bring in long term steady revenue in the form of Council Tax. The fate of the Splash Park is now to be decided at the council’s budget meeting on Tuesday, July 21 at 7.30pm in the council chamber. Faye Ockelford, secretary of the Save Belvedere Splash Park campaign, said the report had been “the biggest complete and utter waste of money. They have only looked at three options, The mains-fed solution will never be a viable option because it is a highly residential area and the environmental impact would be horrendous. With no recycling of the water, there isn’t the capacity in the water mains in the area. We want a safe, sustainable splash park, and if the council can't afford to run it we would be happy to look at private alternatives. We have spoken to someone who has offered to take over the running of it. But when we asked Cllr Craske if we could have a meeting, he said no. It seems to me that it has been a cut and dried decision – Old Manor Way is in a Conservative ward, so that has been saved, but the splash park is in a Labour ward, so it’s gone.”

The ending video this week is a little unusual; popular YouTube car review channel XCAR carry out a retrospective review on the Bristol Fighter - a 200mph supercar that many car enthusiasts may not even have heard of. Bristol Cars are a tiny bespoke car manufacturer who have a single showroom in Kensington High Street in London. The make very exclusive, eye wateringly expensive, but very discreet cars - I suppose that you could say that they are the automotive equivalent of a Savile Row tailor. The company make vehicles for extremely wealthy people who consider Ferrari, Aston Martin or Bentley to be too indiscreet and vulgar, or indeed just too commonly seen. Bristol Cars went the way of so many small volume British car manufacturers and went bust in 2011; they were subsequently bought, and have had a large investment made in new premises and machine tools. The company plan to launch a brand new model later this year.  Below is a rare road test of the Bristol Fighter - a car that is rumoured to be one of only fourteen ever built. You can visit the Bristol Cars website by clicking here.