Two stars.

The photos above show a couple of views of Erith Pier - the longest pier on the River Thames by quite some distance. Last year the very first Erith Pier Festival took place; the organisers expected around four hundred people to turn up to the inaugural event. As it turned out, something over four thousand people visited the pier on the day - helped by the excellent weather at the time. The Erith Pier Festival will be returning to the riverside on the 21st September 11am - 9pm this year. The festival will feature live music, various pop - up food stalls from the Erith Kitchen, Bexley Brewery will have a beer tent serving some of their excellent, locally brewed real ales, and there will be a number of children's entertainers as well. You can read more about the event by clicking here. Please note that the "Get there by boat" option is erroneous - it is not currently possible to visit Erith Pier by any public river service. If you own your own ship, that is however another story. 

I know that some sections of the popular press have been getting quite upset over the price of computer printer toner, and it is indeed a complete rip – off. I think that they were missing a trick, however, as there is something that is an even bigger con; I know it is something I have mentioned before, but I do feel strongly that it needs to be revisited. Why is the cost of men’s wet shaving razor blades so extortionate? Some are £15.75 for a measly eight blades. The materials involved in their construction and the labour utilised is minimal – the production lines are almost completely automated, and the materials are high quality, but there is little metal involved in reality. The only conclusion that I can come to is that the reason razor blades are so eye wateringly expensive is that the companies that produce and sell them seem to have the market completely sewn up. They charge so much just because they can. I think the only solution to this would be for a new player to enter the market to produce blades of an equivalent quality and durability (don’t get me going as to how quickly blades wear out – you are lucky to get four shaves out of a blade, nothing like the month of use that the manufacturers’ claim) at a fraction of the cost. I cannot believe that this would be technically or financially impossible. It takes someone with the kind of business expertise and audacity that have caused Ryan Air to overturn the short and medium haul air travel industry, to be able to challenge the big players in the men’s grooming market.  I bitterly resent being held over a barrel when it comes to shaving. On a side note, does anyone have a clue why there are no mousse or gel hair removal products targeted at men? A facial “Immac for Men” or similar might be an interesting product. I don’t know if there are any technical or medical reasons why such a product could not be brought to market. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please leave a comment below. All comments will be moderated and published within 24 hours of receipt. Email me at the usual address:- hugh.neal@gmail.com.

A form of ferry service has been in place at Woolwich since the 14th century, as a way of allowing the community to safely cross the Thames. The service pre-dates all other tunnel and bridge crossings in the capital. The documentation from that date refers to the waterman who ran the ferry, William de Wicton, sold his business and house to William Halle, for £10. In 1320 the ferry was sold again for 100 silver marks. There is no further mention of the ferry during the years that Woolwich rose to prominence as a royal dockyard under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Much later, in 1810 the army established its own ferry that ran from Woolwich Royal Arsenal to Duvals Wharf. In 1811 an Act of Parliament was passed to establish a ferry across the Thames from Woolwich at the Old Ballast or Sand Wharf, opposite Chapel Hill, where the dockyard then terminated. The ferry became known as the western ferry and was run by a company that called itself The Woolwich Ferry Company. The Western ferry continued to operate until 1844, when the company was dissolved after a history of inept management. The current free ferry was set up in the 1889 and has run ever since. The ferry infrastructure at the Woolwich terminals had been in operation for over 50 years, providing a ‘roll-on/roll-off’ transport service, and has seen traffic volumes using the service dramatically increase over this period. Over 1 million vehicle crossings and 1.95 million passenger journeys were recorded using the service in 2014, which is operated and run by Briggs Marine Contractors, under a long term operating contract with Transport for London (TfL). Since the two new ferry vessels entered service earlier this year, there have been an almost constant series of mechanical and electrical breakdowns, labour strikes and other disruptions to the service, which the public was erroneously told the introduction of the new ships would prevent. There have been several problems with the new service; the ships are run by electric motors powered by diesel generators, and the new automated docking system is also powered by electro magnets. The diesel generators have so far proved far less reliable than predicted. On top of this, the electro magnetic docking system only seems to work properly when there is little wind or tide affecting the movement of the ferries as they dock. Anything less than perfect conditions causes the ferries to bounce on the docking mechanism, and fail to make a secure contact. I have read reports that the new ferries, despite their new technology, are actually far harder to operate than the old 1960's models that they replaced. On top of this, there are a series of ongoing labour disputes between the ferry crews and the management of the service; at the time of writing these are unresolved.

Shock news following the recent health and hygiene inspection of the KFC Drive Through (I will not call it "Drive Thru" as that is an abomination). Bexley Council inspectors visited the restaurant located at 1, Manor Road, Erith on Tuesday the 6th of August. After the visit, the chain outlet scored a worryingly low two out of a possible five stars on the "Scores on the Doors" hygiene rating system. The low, two star award, means that "Improvement is necessary" - not what you would expect of a large multinational food franchise. How could a multinational mega brand allow one of its stores get into a position that it can only rate a two out of five star rating? It is immaterial whether the store is company owned or a franchise – the standards expected are identical. The damage to the KFC brand should such information become widely known is difficult to calculate, but it certainly would not be good. The Erith store has had a history of problems; In the summer of 2016, I received several reports of certain menu items being unavailable when requested, and I also heard a couple of unsubstantiated rumours that the store was suffering cash flow problems. It would seem from the investment subsequently made into the store, that these rumours were either incorrect, or had been successfully resolved. The Erith KFC branch made it into the tabloid papers back in February of last year; one of the largest news stories both nationally and locally had been at that time that of the temporary closure of a majority of KFC fast food restaurants around the country due to problems with their supply chain management, which had recently been taken over by courier firm DHL. KFC outlets around the UK ran out of ingredients, and had to temporarily close. Footage, allegedly showing KFC staff transferring raw chicken from a car into the side entrance of the Erith store was taken by a local person and uploaded to Facebook. The uploader made a number of unsubstantiated claims about the restaurant, including that staff were sleeping in the building. This was all published by the Sun newspaper without verifying any of the claims - not surprising as the Sun is well known for not letting the facts get in the way of a good story. A local source informed me at the time that the box the workers had taken from the car into the back of the restaurant actually contained a selection of cleaning materials. I was also told that when the Erith KFC Manager realised that the workers could not serve much in the way of food, and they could not at that stage be sent home, he got them to carry out a deep clean on the kitchen and the public areas of the restaurant - an instruction that apparently did not go down too well with some of the staff.

The vintage photo above (click on it for a larger view) was originally taken by me as part of a school geography project on the River Thames, way back in 1981. You can see Erith Police Station - when it still was a police station, and not a seedy and badly converted bunch of low rent apartments as it is nowadays. Next to it are some buildings that were a remnant of the old Erith - they are boarded up in the photo; not too long afterwards they were demolished to make way for sheltered housing. I came across the photo whilst going through a huge pile of photographs whilst clearing out a cupboard in my Mum's house some years ago. Nearly all of the shots were consigned to the bin. A few choice ones I have kept, and may share a couple with you online in the next few weeks. Unfortunately the rest of the geography project photos of Erith have disappeared - I was hoping to be able to archive them, but sadly this is not going to be the case.

Erith has been the location for an astonishing number of world changing inventions. It is unfortunate that prime amongst these is one that will forever be associated with the carnage in the trenches of the First World War. Hiram Maxim, the American born, naturalised Briton who invented the eponymous Maxim machine gun had his factory at Erith, which I covered in some depth recently; Maxim's company later merged with the larger Vickers company to become Vickers Sons and Maxim, and went on to produce the most heavily used machine gun of WW1. It was responsible for more deaths in combat than any other weapon at the time. What a lot of people don’t realise is that the biggest killer of World War One was not a weapon at all, it was a disease. More people died during the great flu pandemic of 1918 than died as part of the conflict itself. Figures are somewhat vague, but it is estimated that five hundred million people around the world  became infected with the H1N1 influenza virus, of these, between fifty to one hundred million ended up dying; at the time this was between three and five percent of the world population, making it the deadliest natural disaster in recorded history.  What was especially unusual about the outbreak was that the victims were mainly young, normally fit people, rather than the elderly and infirm. The reason for this was that the H1N1 virus caused a massive over – reaction in the body’s auto immune system. The strong immune systems in healthy people were thus far worse affected than those in elderly people or infants, and consequently more people at the prime of their lives ended up dying. To maintain wartime morale, British and allied censors removed almost all references to the horrendous flu outbreak in newspaper stories featuring the UK, Germany, France and the USA, and instead focussed on flu stories in the then neutral Spain. Consequently the outbreak nowadays gets called the Spanish Flu, when in fact the terrible effects were felt all around the world.

It is now just over three months since I quit Sky TV after twenty three years of subscription to their satellite TV service. I was expecting to "go cold turkey" but quite the opposite has actually been the case. Despite Sky writing to me on a weekly basis, unsuccessfully trying to persuade me to rejoin. The quality of programmes on Sky, and especially the selection of premium movies leaves much to be desired, and I seriously resented paying for premium channels like Sky Atlantic, and still have to sit through advert breaks. All Sky subscribers are actually paying a subscription to watch adverts – it makes no sense. In the USA, commercial TV companies are already feeling the pinch. Some are cutting back on the number and length of their commercial breaks to try and tempt back customers who are now voting with their feet and leaving the traditional broadcasters and moving to subscription based, advert free streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Netflix knows their customers hate adverts. "We know one of the benefits of an ecosystem like Netflix is its lack of advertising," Howard Shimmel, a chief research officer at Time Warner, told Bloomberg in an interview last year. "Consumers are being trained there are places they can go to avoid ads." In response to Netflix's advertising policy, many networks have actually cut back on the amount of ads they show in an effort to lure back in the younger Netflix / Amazon Prime Video generation. Media analyst CordCutting.com crunched some numbers and found that each Netflix subscriber saves themselves about 158.5 hours of commercials per year. The number will be somewhat lower in the UK and most of Europe, where fewer adverts are allowed per hour of broadcast television, but it is still a substantial number. As I have previously written, I consider the Sky business model to be fundamentally broken, and if they don’t move away from hugely expensive satellite broadcasting and convert to a full streaming service, I think they will be dead and gone in the next five years. What do you think? Comment below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly the report from Barnehurst ward:- "There was a recent report of a burglary early hours of Thursday 8th August along Drummond Close Erith, entry was gained by smashing the front door of the property. Also there was a report of theft of motorbike outside an address along Normandy Way Erith between 9 pm and 9.30 pm The team shall also be holding a contact session between 4 pm and 5 pm at the Barnehurst Golf Club along Mayplace Road East if anyone wishes to speak to the team. If you do wish to pass on information to Police then please contact Crime Stoppers on 0800 555111. If you are after crime prevention advice, please look at the Met Police website which has lots of information that you may find useful. Remember in an emergency please dial 999 and 101 for non-urgent reporting". Belvedere ward:- "On the 31/07/2019 we had a burglary in poplar mount. The thieves stole gold, jewellery and tools. They gained entry via the rear windows and door, from the alleyway it is believed. Happened sometime between 10:00 and 21:00. The team assisted the RSPCA on 07/08/2019 by seizing two mistreated dogs form an address on Erith Road. Just over our border by PC Smith was happy to help out. We have, for a while now, had complaints about certain HMO's in Barnfield Road. If you are experiencing problems with any of the residents of the HMO's please let us know. Our next Street-a-Week will be on 18/08/2019 from 12:00 - 12:30 on Halt Robin Road, at the junction with Upper Park Road". Bexleyheath ward:- "There have been reports of fights and disturbances in and around the Golden Lion public house, Bexleyheath. The council is seeking witnesses for more information. here seems to be no reports off any burglaries or attempted burglaries on the ward over the last week A theft from motor vehicle was reported overnight on the 04/08/2019 & 05/08/2019 along Pinnacle Hill, tools were stolen from a van. Also along Rochester Drive Bexleyheath, suspects had tried stealing a van off the driveway at about midnight. A purse was reported stolen from an elderly female. Believed to have been taken in the H and M store on the Broadway, this was reported on the 03/08/2019. Also a wallet was reported stolen which was reported in ASDA on the 6/08/2019. There was a report of a victim using an ATM on the Broadway on the 01/08/2019 and was unable to use the machine. They were approached by two youths who allegedly tried to help him get the card out of the machine and victim thought this was suspicious and took their card and walked away. Money was taken from victims account, card was cloned. There was also another report of suspects calling the victim to say they need to upgrade their online banking security and to log on to their online banking which they did and money was stolen. The team regularly conduct patrols along drug hot spot areas and ASB areas on the ward and conduct regular stops and searches where necessary".

Crayford ward:- "On 3rd August between 12.00-14.30 a catalytic convertor was stolen from a vehicle parked in Bexley Lane. Between 1.20-1.25am on 3rd August two vehicles had items stolen from them in Falsfaff Close, items included two pairs of Rayban sunglasses, a handbag and a wine coloured Barbour jacket. Number plates were stolen from Stadium Way on 3rd August between 11.15-12.15, LX16VXB should be on a red Citigo Skoda. At about the same time on the same day and place, someone attempted to remove number plates from a silver Ford Focus. A Bosch garden strimmer and other items were stolen from a garden shed in Marden Crescent overnight between 3rd and 4th August. A green and white Greenmech Dual Feed towable wood chipper was stolen from a locked yard in Thames Road over the weekend 3rd and 4th August. A white Fiesta van GJ68XYU was involved in a road traffic accident at Swan Lane on Saturday 3rd August. It has since been reported stolen by an unknown person. Our next community contact session is on Wednesday 14th August between 16.00-17.00 at Vintage Lindy Lou's in Waterside Gardens, Crayford". Erith ward:- "We had the Erith Ward panel meeting and had a really nice turn out of people, if this meeting would interest you feel free to contact me for more information. The priories we set out which was chosen by the residents of Erith are as follows - Extra patrols around Compton Place which includes a meeting with the local Cllr. ASB patrols around West Street. Crimes of note - Burglary Residential 01/08/2019 Rutland Gate - By unknown suspect attempting to gain entry into victims house and damaging the front door and making off without gaining entry. Theft of Motor Vehicle 01/08/2019 Fraser Road. Theft of a  Motor Vehicle 02/08/2019 Avenue Road. Theft from Motor Vehicle 20/07/2019 Park Crescent. Theft from Motor Vehicle  03/08/2019 Bexley Road, Theft of Motor Vehicle 06/08/2019 James Watt Way".  Northumberland Heath ward - no report this week. Slade Green and Northend ward - no report this week. Thamesmead East ward:- "Burglary - No household burglaries this week. Crime prevention: Close and lock all your doors and windows, even if you're going out for a few minutes. Photograph and keep a detailed inventory of each item of jewellery and keep it in a separate place. Remain vigilant at all times Burglary Business/Commercial The Beam Engine House, located in Bazalgette Way, SE2 was broken Into between the hours of 4:00pm on Friday 02/08/19 and 07:50am on Sunday 04/08/19. Numerous items taken, unknown Total value of items taken and damage caused to gain entry, however a new roller shutter was costing about £3,500. Theft from Motor Vehicles - Between the hours of 11:245pm on Thursday 01/08/19 and 10:15am of Friday 02/08/19, a vehicle parked locked and secure on the drive of a property in St. Katherines Road, DA18, was broken into. No damage was caused to gain entry, the glove box was searched. A hire vehicle locked and secure parked Kale Road, had windows smashed, untidy search. The theft of a Catalytic converter had occurred at 10:55pm on Monday 05/08/19 in Grange Crescent, SE28. Between 9:am of Monday 05/08/19 and 8:00 pm of Tuesday 06/08/19,a vehicle was stolen from Eastgate Close, SE28.The theft from a motor vehicle occurred in Kale Road .The incident happened in May 2019, after the victim had noticed the passenger door was open and the victims purse was on the passenger seat. Bank cards and cash ,which apparently the victim had left in the vehicle were taken .bank cards were cancelled Victim had not contacted police regarding the theft, it was only after officers contacted the victim following a search of a male found to be in possession of the stolen cards. Good News - Message of thanks from the staff from at the Beam Engine House to Mark Headley - Designing Out Crime Officer and PCSO Dennis Hobbs for help given". West Heath ward:- "No burglaries reported to us over the last week. Unfortunately we have had a number of vehicle crimes. On Friday August 2nd at approximately 8.30 am a vehicle was broken into in Hythe Avenue, an untidy search of the vehicle was made but nothing appeared to be stolen. Attempted theft of an exhaust/ catalytic converter in Bedonwell Road on Tuesday August 6th between 10.30 – 10.40 am. A vehicle was broken in to in Glenview on Monday August 5th at approximately 9.45 pm via the driver's window. Untidy search of the vehicle, no further details known at this time. Theft of motor vehicle from Cranbrook Road between Saturday July 27th and Sunday August 4th, the victim was on holiday and returned to discover the vehicle missing. The victim was still in possession of the keys. Theft of a motor vehicle from Preston Drive on Wednesday August 7th between 4.15 – 4.30 am, thankfully the vehicle was later recovered. One report of criminal damage to a motor vehicle in Longleigh Lane on Saturday August 3rd between 1 am and 2 pm when the owner returned to the vehicle and discovered several dents that were not there before. The team arrested two prolific offenders over the weekend, one for failure to appear and the other was wanted on recall to prison".

The end video this week is a return to a local jazz combo who I first featured a couple of weeks ago; The Tom Fleming Trio were filmed in the main hall of the former Carnegie Library in Walnut Tree Road, courtesy of The Exchange. Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.  

Spamalot.

After all of the controversy surrounding last year's licence application by the owners of The White Hart African Restaurant and Wine Bar at 44 Erith High Street, and their rejected request to open until 5am every day of the week, I was hoping that the restaurant would settle down and become an active part of the local community. Proper sit down restaurants are not as common as many would like in Erith, and anything that would encourage more local night life should be welcomed. Unfortunately The White Hart seems not to be living up to that ideal. It was recently examined by health inspectors from Bexley Council, and ended up with a deplorable one star out of a possible five on the "Scores on the Doors" food hygiene rating website. Bearing in mind the kitchen installation is only eight months old, and was apparently brand new when installed, it beggars belief into what must have happened in less than a year to qualify it for a one star health rating. I have had reports from  a couple of trusted local sources that on top of the poor standard of hygiene, the food produced by the restaurant is of dubious quality - one local critic wrote "it looked like it came out of a tin". Another customer wrote that:- "We were seated at 7.30pm. I received my food 9.42pm. The last person received their food after 10pm. There was no kind gesture, or proper apology. No discount off the bill for poor service. They admitted that the mistake was on their part but didn’t see how they could ensure that customers left feeling satisfied. Restaurants stay afloat because customers come in and choose to spend their money there. If they have to wait 2.5 hours for food that was pre ordered days in advance, this is considered poor service. The manager refused to be a part of this conversation. They left a server to deal with a matter that was beyond her. I am deeply disappointed with this service and the lack of compassion and lack of professionalism!" It would also seem from the photographs posted online on various social media channels, that the former pub beer cellar, which has been converted into a VIP lounge would appear to be in regular use, despite the licence condition that the cellar could not be used as it did not have a fire exit, which contravenes health and safety legislation, and also, if true, would be in breach of the building's fire certificate. I attended the council licencing meeting for The White Hart, and was present when a senior Bexley fire officer underlined this fact. This is all very disappointing. I was hoping that The White Hart would become a destination venue for the town, and a lead venue in regenerating night time socialisation in Erith; at present many people - if they go out at all - journey to Bexleyheath, Dartford or Bluewater, rather than eat and drink locally. This also is disappointing when one considers that the food health standards in Bexley have been improving markedly over the last few years. Bexley continues to be one of the highest rated places to eat out in London. Figures released by The Food Standards Agency (FSA) for 2018/19 show that 93.4 percent of food businesses in Bexley are rated at 3, 4, or 5. This is higher than the 90.5 percent rating for the whole of London. The food hygiene ratings scheme scores food businesses from 5 to 0. The ratings are: 5 - very good; 4 - good; 3 - generally satisfactory; 2 - some improvement is necessary; 1 - major improvement is necessary; 0 - urgent improvement is required. Food safety officers from the Council inspect businesses to check that it follows food hygiene law so that the food is safe to eat. Food hygiene ratings are given to restaurants, pubs, cafes, takeaways, food vans and stalls, canteens, hotels, supermarkets and other food shops, schools, hospitals and care homes. The allocated score is supposed to be displayed both at the premises and online, although low scoring premises often use fake ratings stickers, or re - use previously issued stickers with higher ratings. Currently it is not compulsory for food outlets to display their "Scores on the Doors" ratings - however much this might be desirable. What do you think? Have you eaten at The White Hart? What was your opinion of the food and the service? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com with your thoughts.

Yesterday the London Evening Standard published a story which damned the local area with faint praise, and made a factually inaccurate statement - the article read:- "With an average asking price of £305,700, the riverfront area of Erith in south-east London is the cheapest place to buy in the capital. It’s not currently the most prepossessing spot – it's surrounded by sewage works and industrial estates – but you can buy a detached house for under £500,000 and there is change on the horizon. There are new-build three-bedroom houses for less than £400,000 at The Quarry, which describes itself as an eco-development with 600 new homes, a primary school, park and play areas. Help to Buy is available on the scheme. In the as yet undetermined medium to long term the area will also benefit from Crossrail stops at Abbey Wood and Woolwich once the new line is finally up and running.  Erith’s western neighbour, Thamesmead, is the second cheapest place to buy in London with an average price of £309,400". You can read the whole of the original article by clicking here. 

Did you know that Gmail in the UK is fifteen years old in the this week? Google announced the (then) revolutionary browser based Email client in the USA on April 1st 2004, and released it in the UK later in June. Many industry pundits at the time thought the whole thing was an elaborate April Fool’s Day hoax – who would ever offer each and every user an online message storage capacity of 1 Gigabyte – five hundred times the capacity of the then market leader, Microsoft’s Hotmail? As history shows, it was anything but a trick – it was the single most important release Google had made to date since it launched its search engine in 1998. Gmail was revolutionary for a number of important reasons: It has vast storage, a very zippy and responsive user interface that was well thought out, user friendly and intuitive. It also had a very powerful message search function, which other browser based Email solutions were not able to replicate. On top of this, it was the first major cloud based application that was feature complete and capable of replacing conventional PC software, rather than complimenting it. Gmail was started by a chap called Paul Buchheit – a (then) young software engineer, who was Google’s 23rd employee. He wanted a tool that would search through his archived Email messages, and realising nothing suitable was available, decided to write a search function himself. Initially the Email search engine was running on an old PC on his desk; then other Google engineers asked if they could use Paul Buchheit’s search engine to search their own emails. At the time, the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail had little or no inbuilt search functionality – but then, it was not really a priority when users were limited to twenty megabytes of storage, and were having to continually delete messages in order to keep under their storage limit. Messages were hard to lose when the limits were so small.  Gmail gave users a Gigabyte of storage – all for free. Initially the web based Gmail was a product only used within Google itself. The company managed much of its business via Email, and having an in – house solution made a lot of sense to them. A decision was made to offer the web application (a first – previous web based Email clients from other vendors had been clunky and dog – slow efforts written in HTML – every time something changed on screen, the whole page needed to be reloaded, which was slow and flickery and gave a very poor user experience – something Google were keen to avoid). Instead Google wanted Gmail to feel like an installed application that one merely happened to be accessing via a web browser – something revolutionary at the time, and not that common nowadays. With Gmail, Paul Buchheit worked around HTML’s limitations by using highly interactive JavaScript code. That made it feel more like software than a sequence of web pages. Before long, the approach would get the moniker AJAX, which stood for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML; today, it is how all web applications like FaceBook and Google Docs are built. But when Gmail was pioneering the technique, it wasn’t clear that it was going to work. The fundamental issue was that back in 2002/3, when Gmail was being developed, web browsers were far less sophisticated than nowadays. The problem with using large chunks of JavaScript programming code to make a slick, quick web experience was that Internet Explorer 6 (by far the most widely used web browser at the time) was pretty poor at handling JavaScript, (actually IE6 was pretty poor at everything, but that is another story). Google were worried that by making a sophisticated, cutting edge product, they would end up crashing Internet Explorer 6 every so often, which would annoy and alienate their key user base. Eventually the quirks and shortcomings of Internet Explorer 6 were tamed, and Gmail was ready for release. Initially it was going to be offered to a limited number of public Beta testers (I was one of these people – I have one of the first 1,500 Gmail user accounts ever created). Google were so unsure of how Gmail would be received that they initially hosted the entire service on three hundred old Pentium III computers that nobody else at Google wanted, and were otherwise going into the recycling skip. The initial limited run of accounts was soon boosted, as a Gmail address became the new, fashionable thing to have – the scarcity made it cool. Not everything was going Google’s way though. The Gmail business model, which was (and still is) based on scanning the message text, and serving up discreet, context sensitive adverts was not universally well received. A U.S politician, California State Senator Liz Figueroa  sent Google a letter of her own, calling Gmail a “disaster of enormous proportions, for yourself, and for all of your customers.” She went on to draft a bill requiring, among other things, that any company that wanted to scan an email message for advertising purposes get the consent of the person who sent it. (By the time the California Senate passed the law, cooler heads prevailed and that obligation had been eliminated.) Nevertheless, if ultimate privacy is a concern of yours, Gmail is not for you. Despite this, the last time Google released usage figures was back in 2012; at that time Gmail had 425 million active and frequently used accounts - it is now thought that figure comfortably exceeds 1.4 billion, which suggests to me that discomfort with Google’s approach to online advertising is a minority concern (either that, or many people know no better, which is a possibility). Compared with Hotmail (now Outlook.com) the look and feel of Gmail has changed little – any updates and changes are incremental and subtly performed; Google realise that a substantial portion of their customers value the familiarity of the application, and don’t want change for change’s sake. Whatever your views, Gmail has come a hell of a long way in the last fifteen years, and it is a cornerstone of many people’s lives. Happy Birthday Gmail.

Last night I attended the final performance of Spamalot, performed by members of Erith Playhouse. It was a sell - out show of the classic Monty Python comedy musical. Incidentally the production made history - it was the first time that Spamalot had been performed by an amateur theatre company - all other shows until now had been professionally presented. It was a wonderful - if extremely hot evening, and a very entertaining play. You can read a review of the Erith Playhouse production of Spamalot by clicking here. Click on either of the photographs above to see a larger version. You can visit the Erith Playhouse website by clicking here. 

Once again Belvedere has come out with the dubious distinction of being the hardest place in the UK to pass your driving test, with a pass rate of just 31 per cent over the last decade. December is the least fruitful of months, with success rates declining as low as 29 per cent, the recently reported statistics suggest. The national average of passes is just over 50 per cent. If you sit your driving test in Scotland, you have a far higher chance of passing - go to Campbeltown, Argyll and Bute where it is 73 per cent, rising to an incredible 90 per cent in May. Quite why it is so difficult to pass your driving test in Belvedere is not clear; if any reader can cast light on this situation, please feel free to contact me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

It would seem that after several years of on / off negotiations, the theme park that has been so long planned for North Kent is not only back on, but the original partner - Paramount - who backed out of the huge project, are now suddenly back on board. The theme park was originally due to open this year, but has now been delayed until some point yet to be determined. It is to be located on the Swanscombe Peninsula, which will feature Europe’s largest indoor water park, theatres, live music venues, attractions, cinemas, restaurants, event space and hotels. Allied to the project will be a training academy for the entertainment and hospitality sectors, a new country park, a large science and education visitor complex and the biggest performing arts centre in Europe.  The plans for the park received considerable backing from the British government when Paramount London became the first commercial venture to be awarded Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project status allowing the developers to bypass local planning requirements. It will involve at least 25,000 permanent full and part time jobs in an area which has exceptionally high regional unemployment. An area estimated to stretch between Dover and Greenwich will benefit from the jobs and money that the theme park will generate. The theme park have hired a new Chief Executive in the form of PY Gerbeau, who famously took on the failed Millennium Dome project, prior to its conversion into the successful O2 Arena that it is today. London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH) said in  a recent press interview:- “The new partnership with Paramount is fantastic news for everyone. Now the best of Hollywood will be joining the best of British from BBC Studios and ITV Studios, to create amazing and unique experiences for the whole family. I am delighted to join The London Resort and to play my part in helping to create a world-class destination to rival all others. Central to that strategy is to partner with the best brands from across TV, film, music and entertainment. Having Paramount on board is a major step towards realising that ambition". I suppose that the pessimist in me says that Paramount have dropped out once before; I can see no guarantee that they won't do it again. Having said that, with intellectual property from the BBC and ITV, along with Paramount, if the theme park does indeed go ahead, it will be a huge benefit to the entire region in terms of jobs and prosperity that will follow. Three times larger than other UK parks, it will have 200 acres dedicated to rides and experiences and a bespoke entertainment district devoted to a full-suite of hospitality experiences including the provision of thousands of hotel rooms. This is inevitably going to push up the local house prices, and the areas such as the North of the London Borough of Bexley are almost certain to be disproportionately affected. If you are contemplating purchasing a property in Erith, Slade Green or the surrounding towns, I would strongly advise you to do it as soon as possible, as prices are set to go through the roof.

I was pretty much self taught in computing; when I was at school, computer studies was a very new field, and generally maths teachers were given the job of teaching pupils about computers. Some were excellent, many had little training and less aptitude for the job. At my school, a fair number of pupils knew way more than the computer studies teacher. I recall the time when my friend Roy and I rewrote the CP/M operating system disk on the school’s solitary Research Machines 380Z so that instead of saying on boot up “Research Machines 380Z Basic (C) RM 1979” it said “Washing Machines 380Z Basic (C) Hugh and Roy”. The teacher went ballistic – saying “you’ve broken the computer” and banning us from the computer room for a month. He could not grasp the fact that we had copied the operating system onto a fresh floppy disc, and only made changes to the copy. This kind of innocent (and sometimes not so innocent) tinkering was a key way we learned how to program and also modify computer hardware. It also helped that this all happened at the beginning of the home computer revolution in 1981/82. The BBC Micro, the Sinclair ZX81, and a little later the ZX Spectrum, and a host of other pioneering machines were making their way into the bedrooms of children all over the UK. Compared with kids in the USA, who had Apple II‘s and IBM PC’s, which at the time had a substantially greater amount of processing clout, us Brits were struggling with computers with very limited resources indeed. Back then almost all kids could program their computers with a varying degree of skill. My own programming abilities were okay – my BASIC programming code was horribly inelegant and messy, but it usually worked – in the end. Since these golden days of the dawn of the home computer age, things have changes in many ways, some for the better, but many for the worse. School children have not been taught programming for years; instead computer studies lessons are mainly in how to use Microsoft Office or other proprietary applications. This was until as recently as 2012, when a charitable organisation called the Raspberry Pi Foundation was established. They are a not for profit group aiming to promote children learning programming by using a Raspberry Pi computer - a cheap and easy to use personal computer, which has just been updated to its fourth incarnation. Raspberry Pi computers are a partial return to simple, easy to use and learn computers; in spirit very similar to the original Sinclair ZX Spectrum, although in reality many magnitudes more powerful. It has been commented that the new model 4 Raspberry Pi is actually more powerful that the Cray 1 Supercomputer, which, in 1976 was the most powerful computer on the planet. The photo above shows my own Raspberry Pi 3 model B+ - it is inside the small black box a little smaller than a kitchen matchbox next to the monitor. I use it as my backup computer; it runs a version of Linux designed for the Raspberry Pi. I will be upgrading it to the new model 4 in due course. Click on the photo above for a larger view.

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association, firstly a report from Barnehurst ward:- "Yet another week goes by and no burglaries on Barnehurst Ward so good news there. We have just had one incident of vehicle crime, this took place in Twigg Close on Tuesday 25th June 2019 at 2.00pm. A Grey Yamaha Vity Motorbike Registration number LY62 GJO was stolen from outside the victim's property. The victim heard the alarm sound and on looking out he saw the motorbike being driven away, the lock to the bike had also been broken. The suspect riding the bike was wearing a brown Nike fleece type jacket and was not wearing a helmet. Three other suspects on motorbikes were seen driving off too. If you have any Information regarding this Incident please contact us. Our next community contact session is on Tuesday 2nd July 2019 at 11.00am, Barnehurst Golf Club". Belvedere ward:- "The team have visited the Smerdon Centre in Lumley Close in relation to damage to the roof that was caused recently and have also been patrolling around Nuxley Road and the Albert Road park area as we have been informed that there are incidents of criminal damage (in the park) and youths gaining access to the rooftops of certain shops. These patrols will continue for the foreseeable future as these incidents appear to be continuing. We were able to return a found wallet to the owner recently – many thanks to those helpful members of the public that were kind enough to approach the team to hand the found item to us. Happy to report that the wallet was not stolen, just lost. The team witnessed an off road bike being driven in Halt Robin Road and Lower Road last weekend, the rider of which refused to stop and speak to us. The team believe we have identified the rider and will be visiting his home address in the coming days. We have had a report of a strong cannabis smell lingering around Battle Road / Stanmore Road / Glendale Road. We have been unable to place where it is coming from yet. If anyone has any ideas or know where it is emanating please get in touch". Bexleyheath ward:- "There has been no reports of burglaries or attempted burglaries on the ward Along Martin Dene Bexleyheath there was a report of a theft from motor vehicle that seemed to have happened overnight between Tuesday 18/06/2019 & Wednesday 19/06/2019; A theft of purse was reported along the Broadway Bexleyheath on Wednesday 19/06/2019. No exact time or location was given. There has been three report of phones being taken. One was taken from the victims pocket in TKMAX, reported on Saturday 22/06/2019. Another one reported stolen from Costa Coffee shop in the Broadway on the same day – Saturday 22/06/2019. The others had their phone stolen along Belvedere Road Bexleyheath on Thursday 20/06/2019. Phone was taken from victims hand whilst suspect was riding a bike. There was also a report of cash taken from the victims pocket on Sunday 23/06/2019 in the Lidl Store in Bexleyheath; Thursday 20/06/2019 - Four males stopped by the bowling alley Bexleyheath and one was found to be in possession of cannabis. Also a PND was also issued for possession of cannabis which was also by the Bowling alley. On Tuesday evening the ward panel meeting took place and new ward priorities have now been set, these are now as follows: - Tackle Drug Dealing along Methuen Road, Hawthorn Road, Oaklands Road, & Sherbrooke Close; - ASB with bikes/youths along Braeside Close and Bursted Woods including the surrounding roads; - An increase use of social media regarding information around theft of purses along the Broadway. The team regularly conduct patrols along drug hot spot areas and ASB areas on the ward and conduct regular stops and searches where necessary". Crayford ward:- "Tools were stolen from a blue Peugeot 307 whilst parked at Tower Retail Park on Monday 17th June at 11.55. A white Mercedes Sprinter (number plate YF18FXW) was stolen from Crayford Way in the early hours of Friday 21st June, no keys were used. Between 22.00 on Friday 21st June and Sunday 22nd June at 07.00 a wing mirror which had been turned in on a Citroen whilst parked at Perry Street was forcefully kicked off. Criminal damage was caused to five vehicles whilst parked at Bookers Cash and Carry on Monday 24th June, it is believed that the suspects of this were going to rob other vehicles. On Wednesday 26th June between 19.00-19.05 there was an attempted robbery in Watling Street, the male was walking towards London Road when he was approached by two Males on a moped who attempted to rob him. Number plates RF66ONB were stolen from Swale Motor Group at Thames Road on between 17.30 on Thursday 20th June and 08.30 on Friday 21st June. These plates are registered to a grey three door Fiesta. Criminal damage was caused to vehicles parked at Crayford Industrial Estate by males in a black Volkswagen on Monday 24th June at 12.30. In the early hours of Monday 24th June a suspect attempted to turn and push away a motorcycle parked in Woodside Road, luckily it was well secured. The Crayford Ward Panel meeting was held at Vintage Lindy Lou's on Tuesday 25th June, our thanks to Fay for refreshments. The new ward promises are Anti-social behaviour and preventing burglary. There will be no community contact sessions for the next two weeks". Erith ward:- "We spoke about scams and took questions from members of the public in Erith Library. This small event went well and we will be looking at doing this again soon. Weapon sweeps have been carried out across Erith. Nothing of note has been found which is a good thing. The next Community Contact Session is at Erith Costa Coffee on Saturday 29th June 2019 at 5pm. Crimes of note - Theft from motor vehicle Tuesday 18/06/2019 Bexley Road; Theft from motor vehicle Thursday 20/06/2019 James Watt Way; Criminal Damage motor vehicle Thursday 20/06/2019 Maximfeldt Road; Theft from motor vehicle Monday 24/06/2019 Vickers Road; Theft from motor vehicle Sunday; 23/06/2019 Fraser House, Fraser Road; Theft of motor vehicle Monday 24/06/2019; C/Dam Vehicle Sunday 23/06/2019 Erith Road; Theft of motor vehicle Tuesday 25/06/2019 Compton Place; Theft of MV Wednesday 26/06/2019 Arran Close". Northumberland Heath ward:- "PCSO Lorraine has been conducting patrols on Bexley Road in relation to an increase of ASB, She has also visited the affected venues and gathered CCTV footage and liaised with local schools and managed to identify 3 of the main youths causing this ASB. Joint home visits will be arranged in conjunction with a member of the Bexley council ASB team. There have been no burglaries on the ward this week. This is good news, however Please do remember to keep doors and windows locked and secured when you leave your premises. In the warmer weather it is more likely your windows are open, so just be mindful to remember to check your property from top to bottom and make sure all windows are secure. There have been a number of Motor vehicle crimes of note as follows: Friday 21st June there was criminal damage to a motor vehicle parked on Swanton Road; Sunday 23rd June there was criminal damage to three motor vehicle parked on Belmont Road. (same suspect caused all 3); Monday 24th June a Grey Ford Transit Van was stolen from Swanton Road; Monday 24th June a Blue Honda Motorbike was stolen from Brooke street. Our next community contact session is on Thursday 4th July at 11am in the Mill Road Library, please do come along and meet a member of the team and discuss any issues or concerns you have, or just pop in and say hello".

Slade Green and Northend ward:- "There was an attempted break in at St Pauls Primary school overnight on Weds 19th June. Entry wasn't gained but damage was caused to one of the doors. CCTV enquiries have been negative. 2 criminal damage to vehicles have been reported. Overnight on June 19th a van in Craydene Road had its locks damaged in a possible attempted break in. And overnight on Friday June 21st a vehicle had deliberate scratch marks made to the bodywork in Fern Close. No suspects at this time. PCs Mark and James saw 2 motorbikes being ridden with no licence plates on Sunday evening in Bridge Road. After a short chase one of the males was caught and arrested and the bikes recovered. The other male has been identified and will be arrested in the coming days. A great bit of team work from both PCs again. PCSO Mark attended the St Augustines Summer fete last Saturday with many people enjoying the various stalls, bouncy castle and BBQ".  Thamesmead East ward:- "Burglaries: Good news, no burglaries this week. Crime Prevention - Close and lock all your doors and windows, even if you're going out for a few minutes. Photograph and keep a detailed inventory of each item of jewellery and keep it in a separate place. Remain vigilant at all times. Motor Vehicle Crimes: Theft of Motor Vehicle, between the hours of 06:30 am of Saturday 15/06/19 and 06:30am of Friday 21/06/19. A vehicle parked in Holstein Way was stolen; On Sunday 23/06/19 between the hours of 07:30 and 08:00 a vehicle parked in Wolvercote Road had the passenger window smashed and £7.00 taken; Theft of Motor Vehicle between the hours of 06:00pm on Saturday 22/06/19 and 02:30 pm Tuesday 25/06/19 - a vehicle parked in Maran Way was stolen; Theft from Motor Vehicle overnight between the hours of 05:30pm Tuesday 25/06/19 and 07:30am Wednesday 26/06/19 . A vehicle parked locked and secure in Glimpsing Green - a small amount of money was stolen. Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention - Did you know that your vehicle is like a shop window? If you can see ANY property left on view then so can a thief . Take it with you. Goof news - Following good work by PC Pruden, a female who failed to appear at court for various theft offences was arrested, appeared at court and was sentenced to 18 weeks". West Heath ward:- "Good news to start with this week, no burglaries have been reported. On Saturday June 22nd PCs Mo and Gill arrested a male wanted on recall to prison. A second arrest of a male was made in relation to harassment on Monday June 23rd. Once again we have been hit with several Motor Vehicle crimes. A ford Fiesta was stolen from the Pantiles between 2am and 7am on Thursday June 20th. Theft from a motor vehicle in Gypsy Road on Saturday June 22nd. The victim discovered the car had been rifled through and cash to the value of £5 was taken. A similar incident took place in Harvel Crescent on Saturday June 22nd when the victim discovered their car had been entered by an unknown suspect but nothing had been taken. On Monday this week PCSOs from West Heath, Crook Log and East Wickham wards attended 'Raising the Flag for Armed Forces Day 2019' which took place outside the Civic Centre in Bexleyheath. The Mayor was in attendance along with other dignitaries to give our thanks and support to past and present members of the Armed Forces".

The end video this week is from popular YouTube channel Hub Nut, by motoring journalist Ian Seabrook, which specialises in videos of old and unloved cars such as the Austin Allegro, Vauxhall Chevette, and even the three wheeled Invacar. The video features the 2019 Bromley Pageant of Motoring. Comments to hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

Hanlon's razor.

Erith took on the appearance of a Mediterranean town over the Bank Holiday weekend; the skies were deep blue and the weather was unseasonably warm, as you can see from the photographs of the Riverside Gardens and the wooden jetty above - click on either for a larger view. I overheard one lady on the 99 bus, saying to the driver that it was "like being on holiday". The weather was a touch too hot for me - anything over around 22 degrees Celsius is more than I find comfortable - I know some ask me why I refuse to remove my tweed jacket in high temperatures; the main reason is as it offers an equivalent sun protection factor of somewhere around 1000. If exposed to strong sunlight, I do not tan, I just burn - and I hate being hot. If it is cold, you can add layers of clothing to compensate, but when it is hot, there is little you can do. If the hot weather shows signs of returning later, I may seriously consider the purchase of a Pith Helmet. One thing that warm weather brings to the local area is somewhat less welcome. I don't know if you have noticed, but for some obscure reason a certain sector of the local population takes the opportunity to shed their clothes. It seems to me that as soon as the ambient temperature exceeds the aforementioned 22 degrees, a large number of skinny blokes remove their tops and strut around bare chested. They seem to think that this in some ways makes themselves look attractive, yet it seems to have precisely the opposite effect. This strutting around minus a top only seems to last a day or so - mainly as the individuals who do it start off pasty white, and seem to not have any idea about using any form of sun block. Consequently very soon they resemble cooked lobsters, with sun burn which is only obscured by their inevitable tattoos. They seem to exhibit this behaviour year in, year out, and never seem to learn from their previous errors. Whilst you do see this behaviour elsewhere, for some reason it seems to be especially prevalent in Bexley - I wonder if it is something in the water?

You may recall that last week I wrote about the two brand new Bombardier Aventra class 345 trains that are currently based at Abbey Wood station whilst they are being tested, prior to them going into service on the Crossrail / Elizabeth Line at the end of the year. These multi million pound trains are a huge part of the investment made in the new cross London transport system that will do much to improve the transport links into our area. I must admit that when I found out that some local scrote had sprayed graffiti all over one carriage causing several thousand pounds worth of damage to the brand new train, I was extremely annoyed. What also concerned me was that the damage would have taken quite some considerable time to carry out. What if the graffiti vandal had been a terrorist? The time taken to carry out the extensive paint disfigurement of the carriage could have easily been used to plant a bomb, or to sabotage the trains' mechanisms. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. More on Crossrail later.

Something I have discovered, which until now has not been public knowledge; currently the Metropolitan Police currently have their main vehicle servicing and repair facility located in Vauxhall in Central London. Sources inform me that it will be relocating to Lower Belvedere in January 2019. I am not currently aware of the precise future location of the new workshop facility, but I am sure that information will become available soon. It is good news for the local area, as it will bring some much needed new jobs. Currently the Metropolitan Police are recruiting new Motor Vehicle Technicians - you can see the job advertisement by clicking here.

I am disappointed to say that several restaurants and takeaways in the local area that have previously achieved good results on the Scores on the Doors food hygiene rating system have now been re - tested with some appalling results. For example, the Alford Road, Erith based takeaway China Red has been demoted from a score of 4 out of 5 stars to a worrying 1 out of 5 score. Double Dragon in Gilbert Road, Lower Belvedere has also been reduced from 4 stars to 1. Fortune Star in Erith Road, Bexleyheath has gone from an excellent 5 star rating to a one star, and K's Cafe in Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere has been rated as 1 star; what is also shocking is the former 4 star rated Radhuny Indian takeaway in Pickford Lane Bexleyheath has been reduced to a single star. The Radhuny has had an excellent reputation, and has published its four star hygiene status on its advertising materials. This is also true of the Root of Spice takeaway in Parsonage Manorway, Upper Belvedere, which also has been rated with 1 star - many locals have regarded the Root of Spice as one of the best Indian takeaways in the borough. This hygiene rating will be a shock to many regulars. A recent review on the Root of Spice dated the 8th of April this year stated:- "Recently moved and so happy to have a brilliant Indian takeaway that deliver! Best curry ever, and we have had many! Won't go anywhere else now. Speedy delivery and good portion size. 10/10". The poor old Belvedere Tandoori gets kicked whilst it is down yet again - the nowadays much unloved sit - in restaurant gets another 1 star rating. I don't know how it manages to struggle on - it has been up for sale for nearly two years, and after relinquishing its drinks licence. Rumours that it is to relaunch as a Turkish restaurant have thus far come to nothing. I really hope a buyer comes along soon to turn around this once much loved restaurant and put it back on a better footing.

There was a discussion in Parliament on Thursday regarding the proposal to extend Crossrail from Abbey Wood, where it currently terminates, down to Ebbsfleet - the short hand for the Crossrail to Ebbsfleet project is "C2E". Gareth Johnson, MP for Dartford, said Government should prioritise finishing the job of Crossrail. Calling it “absurd” that the two great achievements of HS1 and Crossrail are not connected, despite being so close - and despite their joining-up being part of the original vision for Crossrail. He said that the decision to not finish the job on Crossrail had created “ten miles of missed opportunity” between the two lines. Ten miles that will be transformed by C2E, and where the availability of brownfield land offers a unique opportunity to bring much-needed regeneration and housing. Local MP Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead), made it clear that Crossrail was integral to growth and regeneration strategies in South East London. David Evennett MP (Bexleyheath and Crayford), highlighted the huge support across the area for finishing the job - describing the case for extending beyond Abbey Wood as compelling, and warning that not pushing on risked missing major opportunities for residents and businesses. Responding for the Government, Jo Johnson MP paid tribute to the C2E campaign, local MPs and Council Leaders for their consistent championing of the C2E extension. Jo Johnson agreed that there had been considerable change in South East London and North Kent since the decision to not extend beyond Abbey Wood had been finalised in The 2008 Crossrail Act, and in light of this said Government would take a fresh look at the case for extending to Ebbsfleet. Now that the giant theme park that was due to be constructed near Swanscombe - formerly called the London Paramount theme park, has been delayed yet again, and the development is now looking to be very doubtful. What effect this will have following the statement by Jo Johnson is currently unknown. More in the weeks to come.

Further to my article last week in respect of possible potential problems with mobile phone usage. A senior British judge has highlighted the benefits of legislation that obliges people to carry their mobile phone at all times. Sir Geoffrey Vos QC, Chancellor of the High Court and former head of the Bar Council, raised the prospect of compulsory mobile phone carrying in a speech to the Law Society. Judge Vos drew attention to the advantages that a permanent record of an individual's movement could have on cutting crime. He did not personally advocate the compulsory carrying of location-aware technology, but speculated that public resistance to it may diminish in the future. "I think there will be far fewer contested criminal cases in the future, mainly because of the surveillance of which I have already spoken. We have recently seen the impact that digital disclosure of mobile phone records has had on rape prosecutions. One change in behaviour is already having a big impact on the eradication of contested criminal cases. Most people carry their smartphones on their person at all times with their GPS location switched on. They do this voluntarily, but if the legislators were, for example, to require citizens to carry phones at all times, it would be even more difficult to avoid detection. With or without such a rule, as the location of all persons is continuously uploaded to the cloud, there will be far fewer identity issues in criminal cases. As society seems to accept more and more surveillance, I wonder how radical the change I have mentioned will seem to the population in 10, 15 or 20 years' time". Digital mobile phones have always offered law enforcement the ability to obtain the location of devices via cell tower triangulation, but Silicon Valley's obsessive data hoarding has made the job easier. Google never throws anything away, and continues to collect (and store) location data even when GPS location services are disabled. Two years ago a US appeal court ruled that law enforcement requests to obtain the location history acquired and stored by Google Maps did not require a warrant, as the user had shared the data voluntarily. All this is somewhat moot; Judge Vos does not seem to have a very good handle on human behaviour. He does not seem to understand that quite a large number of people have more than one mobile phone, which may not all be in the same location. Conversely, according to The Office for National Statistics, seven percent of the UK population do not use, or indeed own a mobile phone. Unless Judge Vos has his comments picked up by one of the tabloid newspapers, I doubt we will hear very much more of this story. I believe that Hanlon's razor applies here:- "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence."

The highly influential iMac range of computers from Apple had its twentieth birthday this week. The original - and some way the most revolutionary - version of the computer was launched in May 1998. You can see a photo of the "mark one" version above - click on the photo for a larger view. The original iMac was a product full of firsts. It was Apple’s first computer to be built for the internet era (that is where the i comes from.) It was the first to drop all legacy I/O such as serial and parallel ports in favour of the more modern USB standard. It was the first to show that computers could be cool. To design the iMac, Apple pushed its latent industrial design team, a group that had been underserved by previous company leaders. While the iMac wasn’t the first Apple product to use translucent plastic, it was decidedly more “Un-PC,” without a spot of beige to be found. At the time, all other desktop computers were inevitably beige in colour - whilst other manufacturers were aware that other colours were available, the beige option was the cheapest to produce, as being beige at the outset tended to hide the case discolouration over time due to the Bromine compounds introduced into the ABS plastic to act as a fire retardant. Incidentally old computer restorers have created a chemical cleaning product called Retrobright to restore discoloured computer cases, which I wrote about back in 2014, that you can read here. I digress; The iMac did not come with a bland beige case; quite the opposite. Then-Vice President of Industrial Design, Briton Sir Jony Ive asked “What computer would The Jetsons have had?” when designing the original iMac. Retro-futurism played a quietly important role in the computer’s appeal to customers, which was reminiscent of both the aesthetic used in the animated cartoon series and even vintage computer terminals. The iMac’s vibrant hues also embodied the spirit of 1960s Olivetti typewriters, which were notable for their use of colour in a market dominated by dull, corporate designs.

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly an announcement regarding ward boundary changes:- "With the local elections last week came the Borough's ward changes. With the police SNT Teams not initially expected to have changed their wards until November, it was decided at short notice to implement the changes this week. Hence, our slight delay in sending this email. So you will see that the weekly ward updates below are listed under the new wards. If you are unsure which ward applies to your street, fear not! Visit https://www.met.police.uk/your-area/, enter your postcode and it should show. Even if your ward still shows below unchanged, your street may still have been allocated to another so it is well worth double-checking". Barnehurst ward:- "Good news again for Barnehurst as we did not have many crimes. Criminal Damage to Motor Vehicle- We had 4 motor vehicles on Mayplace Road East that had paint poured over them between the evening of 06/05/18 and the early hours of 07/05/18. We have continued to tackle anti social behaviour on the ward as 1 Section 59 warning was issued to a driver of an off road motor cycle, who was driving in an Anti- Social Manner". Belvedere ward:- "As you are hopefully all aware the ward boundaries have changed in Bexley. Belvedere has expanded, taking over part of Lesnes Abbey and Erith. Welcome to our new Neighbourhood Watch residents. To contact your team you can e-mail us on belvedere.snt@met.police.uk or call us on 0208 721 2050. We are still delivering recruitment letters to residents on our ward and will hopefully set up some new ones in our expanded area. If you know anyone that would like to join please contact the Neighbourhood Watch office [by replying to this email]. Thanks to Peabody housing, we have recovered a stolen moped and returned it to its owner. It was found by their staff on the Galleon Estate in some bushes. If you do see any abandoned vehicles which do not look quite right please let us know as they may be stolen. Last Friday the Belvedere team assisted the North Heath team with a drugs warrant where an amount of cannabis was seized. On Saturday we assisted the North End team with a drugs warrant on their patch. Nothing found on this occasion. If anyone suspects that one of their neighbours are dealing drugs then please tell us, we will act on the information and it will be kept confidential. We keep seeing a red moped with the index of YX07 EVN driving around Lower Belvedere. The rider is causing a nuisance by doing wheelies and driving on the pavements. We have tried to catch the rider but he has eluded us. The moped is not currently registered. If you see it parked up anywhere please let us know as we want to take this moped off the streets and have it crushed for causing anti-social behaviour". Bexleyheath ward:- "Apologies that we have very little today as the systems are all out of sync at the time of submitting this update due to the ward boundary changes. Welcome to parts of our new ward from the old Barnehurst and Brampton wards.  We have been assisting the rough sleepers finding suitable shelter rather than sleeping on the streets. We intervened in a rogue trader who was trying to extort more money from a local resident. We worked with partner agency, Trading Standards; Persons selling fake items on the Broadway have been dealt with. Good news - there have been no burglaries or attempted burglaries". Crayford ward:- "Crayford SNT met on site at the Braeburn Nature Reserve with Shaun Marriott of the London Wildlife Trust to discuss ways of preventing off road bike riders gaining access to the area. This is private land and it is not legal to ride off road motorcycles anywhere here. Volunteers are working hard to restore pathways, create fencing and encourage wildlife to the area. They hold regular events and walks - it’s lovely for family walks and dog walking so it is a pity if a few spoil it for others by their anti-social behaviour. We were given the details of a van that had brought three motorcycles to the Nature Reserve and have contacted the company to make them aware that their employee had done so. He will not have the authority to use this vehicle again. On Polling Day, members of our team paired up with Brampton and Barnehurst officers to ensure that regular checks were made on fifteen Polling Stations across our area for the opening times of 07.00-22.00. On Tuesday 08/05/2018 at 17.10 there was a violent shoplifter at Sainsbury's. Off duty police officers assisted in the arrest. Overnight between 15.00 on 6th May and 09.00 on 7th May a Ford Transit Camper Van was interfered with whilst parked on the driveway in Station Road. The driver’s lock was found on the ground, the passenger lock was tampered with, the ignition had been barrelled and wiring pulled out and the housing surrounding the steering column had been removed and taken. In this instance it would seem that the vehicle battery was flat. There have been a number of ABH, racial and public order offences and arrests have been made. Between 1st May and 5th May a smart car had number plates and wing mirror glass removed whilst parked in Wyatt Road. The London Fire Brigade called police on Sunday to Ridge Way after a sofa was set on fire outside a property, although no accelerants were found the fire was viewed as suspicious, some cosmetic damage was done to the house. This is not the first time recently, please be aware that it only takes a discarded cigarette and dry conditions for an accident to happen, please don’t let this happen to you. Boots reported a shoplifter on 30/05/2018 at 08.59 am. Hobbycraft were able to recover goods stolen from them on 01/05/2018. On 1st May it was discovered that the empty Duke of Wellington Public House at London Road had been broken in to. Entry was made by forcing the rear doors, security cameras were stolen as well as a copper cylinder, the alarm was smashed. We assisted Brampton SNT on Wednesday with a S23 Drugs Warrant. A lady was processed for using her mobile phone whilst driving in Crayford last week. Officers were alerted to a house alarm going off in Iron Mill Lane, thankfully no burglary, it had gone off in error". Erith ward:- "We have a little change of staff in Erith. PC Tom Brown is on an attachment to Lewisham for a few months, PC Charlie Moore is covering Erith as DWO in his place. Also, PCSO Maxine is back on Erith after being on an attachment in Sidcup. So currently your officers in Erith are as follows: PS Bryan Young, PC Gill Couzens, PC Charlie Moore, PCSO Adam Winch, PCSO Maxine Cypher. Ward changes for Erith - We are losing the area of Battle Road including all the side roads from Willis Road to Beltwood Rd, Franks Park and most of Carlton Road. Most of this area is going to Belvedere Ward. We are taking the areas of Larner Road, including Erith Park". Longlands ward:- "Attempted Burglary reported in Carlton Road between 05/05/18/ - 07/05/18. Victim states that she left her house in the morning to go away for a couple of days making sure that everywhere was locked and secured. Unknown Suspect have attempted to break into the garden shed out the rear of the property. Victim states that the suspect/s have attempted to gain entry to the bike shed and have also tried to enter the main shed and have damaged the roof. Entry was not gained. Nothing has been stolen. There have been no reports of Vehicle Crime in Longlands over the last week. On the 4th of May 2018 team arrested a male juvenile for the offence of Possession with intend to supply where after a search he was found in possession of several bags of cannabis". Northumberland Heath ward:- "On Friday 04/05/2018 the team executed a search warrant in Brook Street following intelligence that drugs were being dealt from an address. A number of drugs exhibits were seized and a full investigation will follow. We will continue to tackle all forms of anti-social behaviour including drug delated crime. Please contact us if you have any information that would assist us in tackling these issues. We are pleased that we have had no burglaries reported to us over the last week. One criminal damage to a motor vehicle in Sussex Road. Following the recent ward boundary changes that came in last Thursday following the local council elections, we have gained a number of roads from the Colyers ward. If you have any concerns about which Policing team cover your road, please contact us and we will do our best to help you". Slade Green and North End ward:- "In the last week there have been 4 vehicle crimes, all of which took place overnight. Number plates were stolen from a car in Alderney Road and a reflector light taken from the roof of a council work truck in Wallhouse Road. Both of these happened on the evening of the 4th/5th May. A Sat Nav was taken from a car in Rainbow Road on the evening of 7th/8th May. On the evening of 8/9 May a vehicle had all its windows smashed in Raleigh Close, Frobisher Road. Enquiries are ongoing to ascertain why the victim was targeted. PC’s Mark and James carried out several stop and searches this past week. A vehicle and 2 occupants were searched in Manor Road close to Appold Street after a strong smell of cannabis was detected coming from the car. Drugs paraphernalia was found but no actual drugs. Last Thursday was Polling day and all 3 officers from the team spent the day patrolling the ward and visiting the various polling stations. During these patrols 2 stop and searches were carried out, one in Shermanbury Close leading to a cannabis warning being issued and the second one ended up with the male being arrested for Possession with Intent to Supply (PWITS). A search warrant was executed at Frobisher Road last week with help from our colleagues from North Heath and Colyers Ward and we reciprocated the favour by assisting them with a warrant in Brook Street on North Heath ward. Drugs were seized at both warrants. PCSO Mark has this week attended the Slade Green Big Local Stakeholders Conference where he has made several good new contacts to work in partnership alongside in looking at ways for everyone to improve the local community". Thamesmead East ward:- "Burglaries - Over the bank holiday week-end a burglary occurred at The Link in Bazalgette Way. Motor Vehicle Crimes - Between the hours of 06:00 pm and 08:00 on Friday 04/05/18 both the front and rear number plates were taken from a vehicle parked in Dalberg Way. On Friday 04/05/18 between the hours of 08:00pm and 02:00pm on Saturday 05/05/18 a number plate was taken from another vehicle parked in Dalberg Way. Following the recent Local Elections Thamesmead East has acquired another 7 streets and 6 tower blocks to patrol, as the Lesnes Abbey ward is no longer".

As you may have read back in December, several swans were killed and mutilated in Thamesmead; it was thought that the perpetrator was the so called "Croydon Cat Killer" - a bit of a misnomer in reality, as the person has killed all sorts of domestic animals as well as hundreds of cats in the last few years, and the killings have been spread over a very wide geographic area. Charity workers trailing the so-called Croydon cat killer linked to more than 400 brutal animal murders nationwide have said in a recent interview that “everything points to one person” carrying out the attacks. Boudicca Rising and her partner Tony Jenkins, the two members of South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty (SNARL), have detailed the tell-tale signs of the murderer in a new documentary. The pair have been investigating since 2015, when they began noticing reports of cat mutilations in and around Croydon. They have since launched a UK-wide hunt for what is thought to be the country’s first serial animal killer, with reports of murders as far as Manchester, Brighton and the Isle of Wight. “We are not sure if we are talking about one person or a group. Everything we have learnt so far points to one person. Unless he is working with someone very closely, he is by himself because of the way he is working.” Mr Jenkins added: “We have not had any killings on the same day very far away from each other, which could indicate one person.” Rescue organisation SNARL was launched in 2014 to rehabilitate and re-home poorly treated animals. Now, a sometimes harrowing documentary has been made on SNARL's investigations into the pet killer. In 2015, Tony Jenkins, one half of South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty (SNARL) began noticing reports of cat mutilations in and around Croydon, London. Following the scent, he and his partner Boudicca Rising unearthed a shocking history of animals deaths which would lead to a nationwide hunt for what it thought to be the UK’s first serial animal killer. Now with over 350 victims, the killer has been given many names:- the Croydon Cat Killer, the M25 Animal Killer, the UK Animal Killer. The brutal “signature” display of the dismembered pets around the homes of their owners is a chilling indication of the killer’s intention to do harm to people as much as the animals. In an unlikely union between two renegade animal rights activists and the establishment, Tony and Boudicca are joined in following the trail of bodies by the RSPCA and the Metropolitan Police. Together they balance the emotional demands of the case with the need for a clear minded approach to a bewildering and unrelenting string of attacks. With unprecedented access to the action as it unravels, “Catching a Cat Killer” goes to the heart of of a strange and chilling quest to end the killing spree. The documentary runs for just under half an hour, and can make harrowing watching. Let me know what you think by either leaving a comment below, or by Emailing me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.