Breakfast.

The photo above was taken by me on Friday evening; it shows the sun setting over Erith Pier. Recently there has been much wildlife activity in the river around the pier. There have been  several recent “false alarms” to the RNLI over the last few months. Regular readers will have seen the aerial drone footage of Grey Seals basking on the muddy river foreshore by the Slade Green Marshes that I have published in the past. The seals swim in the River Thames and often into the River Darent; they often float in  the water with their heads above the surface in and around Anchor Bay, and well-meaning passers by on the shore mistake the Seals for swimmers who appear to be in trouble in the water. Indeed, the average survival time for a person in the water is estimated to be eleven minutes, due to the extreme currents and undertow in the river in and around Erith Pier. Obviously the situation is somewhat different for Seals – the water is their natural habitat, to which they are perfectly evolved. 

A report published recently in the New York Times poses serious questions about the long held belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It turns out that the idea is the result of spin over the years by breakfast cereal companies and others. Skipping  breakfast can allegedly lead to weight gain, a sluggish metabolism, or stress. According to the piece in The New York Times however, our beliefs about breakfast are all based on "misinterpreted research and biased studies"– propaganda, basically. Author Aaron E. Carroll notes that almost all breakfast studies suffer from a "publication bias." There are flaws in reporting of studies that skew findings to link skipping breakfast with causing obesity. Carroll writes: "The reports improperly used causal language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited other's results. And they also improperly used causal language in citing others' results. People believe, and want you to believe, that skipping breakfast is bad. Additionally, there are usually conflicts of interest behind the studies, considering most of them are funded by the food industry. The Quaker Oats Centre of Excellence, for instance, paid for a trial that concluded eating oatmeal or frosted cornflakes reduces weight and cholesterol. People are conditioned from a young age to believe that breakfast is essential to performance. It turns out that's because most of the research geared toward kids is meant to evaluate the impact of school breakfast programmes. They don't take into consideration that 15 million children in the U.S. go hungry at home–of course they would do better in school if they eat. That isn't the same, though, as testing whether children who are already well nourished and don't want breakfast should be forced to eat it," Carroll writes. Overall, you should just go with your gut. If you're hungry in the morning, eat. If you're not, don't think you're sinning by skipping it. Finally, approach all studies sceptically – Carroll put it best: "Breakfast has no mystical powers."

On the first of June this year, the driving test will be 85 years old. Here is a little piece of driving test history. The driving test was introduced in 1935. Volunteers started to be tested on March 16 of that year in order to lessen the burden when it became compulsory, less than three months later, on June 1. Approximately 246,000 candidates applied — 63 percent of whom passed (against around 50 percent today) — with between nine and 16 half-hour tests being conducted each day by a total of 250 examiners. Examiners checked the applicant’s driving licence (which came in well before the test, in 1903, as a means of identifying drivers and their vehicles) and insurance documents before carrying out a basic eye sight test. Then drivers were tested on The Highway Code, with questions including the correct use of arm signals (this was before standardised light indicators, of course). Then came the practical test, with the examiner watching for correct signals and road courtesies, as well as checking manoeuvres such as stopping, starting, hill starts, making an emergency stop, reversing and carrying out a turn in the road. The first person to pass the test was Mr R Beere, at a cost of 7/ 6d (about 38p). The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency estimates that more than 46m tests have been taken since 1935. Below you will see a Pathe News feature on the then new - fangled driving test. It is certainly a period piece. Comments to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Last week I wrote an article on Chemtrails, and the flat Earthers and other conspiracy theorists who believe such rubbish; after a series of Emails from a regular reader, this week I am going to put another strange and rather disturbing alleged phenomenon under the spotlight. Nontrivial numbers of otherwise apparently rational people believe in the paranormal. These beliefs have spawned thousands of groups dedicated to investigating paranormal phenomena and a proliferation of ghost-hunting entries in the reality television market. Anecdotal evidence even suggests that ghost-hunting reality shows have increased public openness to paranormal research, which usually entails a small group traipsing through reportedly haunted locales at night with various ghost-hunting technologies. Notably the producers of such shows are careful to start each episode with a disclaimer saying that the programme is for entertainment purposes only - which tells a great deal about the veracity of what is subsequently shown on screen. Audio recorders figure prominently in paranormal researchers’ toolkits. Microphones capture ambient sounds during the investigation. Later, the audio recordings are scoured in search of messages from spirits. The premise is that audio recording devices can register otherwise inaudible communications from discarnate entities. These purported communications have been dubbed electronic voice phenomena (EVP). The sounds are generally brief – most examples consist of single words or short phrases. Perceived contents of EVP range from threatening (“You’re going to hell”) to bizarre (“Egypt Air”). One definition of Electronic Voice Phenomenon reads thus:- "Electronic voice phenomena, more commonly known as EVP, is a mysterious event in which human-sounding voices from an unknown source can be heard on recorded data from audio tape, radio station noise, and other electronic media. EVPs have been captured on audiotape more than any other media but the mysterious voices aren't present at the time of recording. It's only when the tape is played back—sometimes with the application of amplification and noise filtering—that the voices can be heard. One fascinating aspect of EVP is that the voices sometimes respond directly to the people making the recording. For example, the researchers ask a question to which the voice will answer or comment. Again, this response is not heard until later when the tape is played back. EVP recordings vary by gender (men and women), age (adults and children), tone emotion, and even language. Some are more easily heard and understood than others. Most EVPs consist of single words, phrases, or short sentences, although sometimes, they are made up of grunts, groans, growling, or other vocal expressions. The quality of EVP also varies. Some are difficult to distinguish, with meanings that are open to interpretation. Some EVP, however, are quite clear and easy to understand. EVP often has an electronic or mechanical character to it, although sometimes, it can be very natural sounding". Part of the attraction of the audio recorder for paranormal researchers is its apparent objectivity. How could a skeptic refute the authenticity of a spirit captured by an unbiased technical instrument? To the believers, EVP seem like incontrovertible evidence of communications from beyond. But recent research suggests that people don’t agree much about what, if anything, they hear in the EVP sounds – a result readily explained by the fallibility of human perception. Despite the technological trappings, EVP research bears several characteristics of pseudoscience. The chain of evidence for most purported EVP makes hoaxes difficult to rule out, but let’s assume that many of these sounds are not deliberate fraud. In some instances, alleged EVP are the voices of the investigators or interference from radio transmissions – problems that indicate shoddy data collection practices. Other research, however, has suggested that EVP have been captured under acoustically controlled circumstances in recording studios. What are the possible explanations for these sounds? The critical leap in EVP research is the point at which odd sounds are interpreted as voices that communicate with intention. Paranormal investigators typically decode the content of EVP by arriving at consensus among themselves. EVP websites advise paranormal researchers to ask themselves, “Is it a voice…are you sure?” or to “Share results among fellow investigators and try to prevent investigator bias when reviewing data.” Therein lies a methodological difficulty. Research in mainstream psychology has shown that people will readily perceive words in strings of nonsensical speech sounds. People’s expectations about what they are supposed to hear can result in the illusory perception of tones, nature sounds, machine sounds, and even voices  when only acoustic white noise – like the hissing sound of a detuned FM radio – exists. Interpretations of speech in noise – a situation similar to EVP where the alleged voice is difficult to discern – can shift entirely based upon what the listener expects to hear. EVP are an auditory example of pareidolia – the tendency to perceive human characteristics in meaningless perceptual patterns. There are many visual examples of pareidolia – things like seeing human faces in everyday objects (such as Jesus in a piece of toast). Research from cognitive psychology has shown that paranormal believers may be especially prone to misperceiving chance events. A face-like configuration in a slice of toast seems meaningful. People ask, "What are the chances?“ But if you add up all of the slices of toast you see over the days and weeks and months of a lifetime, it becomes inevitable that you will encounter some of these human-like configurations in toast due to chance. Similarly, paranormal investigators record a practically limitless amount of audio and use all manner of sound-processing techniques including filtering the sounds to remove particular frequencies and boosting the volume. Inevitably they’re able to find samples of audio that sound somewhat like a voice. Assuming some of these voice-like sounds can’t be attributed to shoddy data collection practices, their actual sources likely run the spectrum from ambient environmental noises to electrical interference to audio processing artifacts. If the listener is intently expecting to hear a person, virtually any sound can meet that expectation. One writer aptly suggested that EVP are like an auditory inkblot test: a blank slate upon which the listener can project any interpretation. The tendency for EVP investigators to hear a voice – a meaningful sound with agency and intention – is likely amplified by the suggestion of a paranormal context. What do you think? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

In a loose connection to the previous EVP story - one that has far more basis in scientific and engineering reality. Commercially viable (rather than just experimental) magnetic tape recording had its seventty fourth birthday last week - an event which has not been covered in the press.  Thanks to the good fortune of suffering from insomnia, a curious observation by John T. "Jack" Mullin led to the introduction of tape recording and, by extension, the entire home media business. Mullin, a slight and surprisingly humble man, considering his future status in the recording business, graduated from the University of Santa Clara with a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1937, then worked for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph in San Francisco until the war started. By 1944, he had attained the rank of major in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and was attached to the RAF's radar research labs in Farnborough, England. While working late that spring night, Mullin was happy to find something pleasing playing on the radio — the Berlin Philharmonic playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on Radio Berlin. But Mullin was mystified: The performance's fidelity was far too fine to be a 16-inch wax disc recording, the prevailing radio recording technology at the time. And since there were no breaks every 15 minutes to change discs, Mullin figured it had to be a live broadcast. But it couldn't be — if it was 2 am in London, it was 3 am in Berlin. Mullin was right — the orchestra wasn’t up late, and it was a recording. Just not the usual kind, which is why Mullin was confused. After the war, Mullin was assigned to the Technical Liaison Division of the Signal Corp in Paris. "Our task, amongst other things, was to discover what the Germans had been working on in communications stuff — radio, radar, wireless, telegraph, teletype," explained Mullin. Mullin ended up in Frankfurt on one such expedition. There he encountered a British officer, who told him a rumour about a new type of recorder at a Radio Frankfurt station in Bad Nauheim. Mullin didn't exactly believe the report — he had encountered dozens of low-fi magnetic recorders all over Germany. He pondered his decision of pursuing the rumour, literally, at a fork in the road. To his right lay Paris, to the left, Radio Frankfurt. Fortuitously for the future of the home media business, Mullin turned left. He found four hi-fi Magnetophons and some 50 reels of red oxide BASF tape. He tinkered with them a bit back in Paris and made a report to the Army. "We now had a number of these lying around. I packed up two of them and sent them home (to San Francisco). Souvenirs of war. (You could take) almost anything you could find that was not of great value. (And) anything Germany had done was public domain — it was not patentable." He also sent himself the 50 reels of the red-oxide coated tape. When Mullin returned home, he started tinkering to improve the Magnetophons. On May 16, 1946, exactly 74 years ago last week, Mullin stunned attendees at the annual Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) conference in San Francisco by switching between a live jazz combo and a recording, literally asking the question "Is it live or...?" None of the golden ears in the audience could tell. It was the world's first public demonstration of audio tape recording. Bing Crosby hated doing live radio. And he hated recording his shows on wax records because the fidelity sounded terrible to the noted aural perfectionist performer. When Crosby's engineers heard about Mullin and his Magnetophons, they quickly hired him and his machine. In August 1947, Crosby became the first performer to record a radio programme on tape; the show was broadcast on October 1st. Bing Crosby wasn't the only one interested in Mullin's Magnetophons. Up in Redwood City, California, a small company called Ampex was looking for something to replace the radar gear they'd been producing for the government. Ampex hooked up with Mullin and, in April 1948, perfected and started selling the first commercially available audio tape recorder, the Ampex Model 200. Crosby, Mullin, Ampex and American electronics giant RCA all sort of formulated the same follow-up thought at around the same time: If you could record audio on tape, why not video? Crosby and Mullin teamed up. Ampex formed a team that included a high school student named Ray Dolby. And David Sarnoff gave his engineers their marching orders. A highly-public race began to see who could invent the video tape recorder. Ampex had a leg up on its more well-heeled competition. It had a deal with a Chicago research consortium called Armour Research Institute, now the Illinois Institute of Technology. Working for Armour was none other than wire recording maven Marvin Camras, who solved the most vexing problem facing all the video tape inventor wannabees: Tape speed. Audio recording is accomplished by pulling tape past a stationary recording head. Video, however, is a far fatter signal, which meant tape had to be pulled past the recording heads at ridiculous speeds. A two-foot wide reel of tape could hold, tops, 15 minutes of video — not exactly practical. So instead of spinning the tape, Camras, who got the idea from watching vacuum cleaner brushes, he calculated that he would spin the recording heads instead. Once Ampex got ahold of this key, its engineers shot past Crosby/Mullin and RCA. Even with the spinning head secret, it took five years for Ampex's sometimes part-time six-member team to get things right. On April 14, 1956 — 64 years ago last month — Ampex introduced the desk-sized Mark IV, the first commercial video tape recorder, to a stunned group of TV execs and engineers at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Chicago. To say that this machine changed the world is an obvious understatement. It would take almost another 10 years before Philips reduced audio tape to a cassette and ignited the home audio recording craze, and another nearly 10 years before Sony introduced the Betamax and won a U.S Supreme Court case to allow users to legally record TV shows at home and create the home video business. The U.K had few such concerns - one of the reasons why Britain had the largest number of video recorders per head of population back in the 80's / 90's. Ultimately it was the introduction of Jack Mullin's rebuilt Magnetophons that were the first shots fired in the home media revolution, 74 years ago last week - and nothing got mentioned in the popular press, more is the pity.

The above logo was sent to me by Ian, the webmaster of The Belvedere Splash as a sort of 80's retro look banner for the Maggot Sandwich. What do you think?

Some good news. As regular readers may well recall, I have in the past mentioned the excellent Romford based radio station Time 107.5FM. The station is very popular outside of its target area, with many listeners in Thamesmead, Belvedere, Erith and Dartford, amongst other locations. The station has just received its latest listener statistics from the official monitoring agency, RAJAR. Here is the press release detailing the results of the survey:- "Time 107.5 is proud to have achieved the highest average listening hours of any radio station in the UK, according to the latest RAJAR figures, which have been released today. The data, which covers the three-month period up to March 2020, reveals we have 30,000 unique listeners each week – up by 3,000 on the previous quarter. Our average listening hours have also risen to 14.1 hours per week – up two hours on the last set of figures and higher than any other radio station in the country. The average person in the UK listens to 17.9 hours of radio per week, which suggests many of our listeners tune in almost exclusively to us. Time 107.5 Station Manager, Lorna Waters, said: “We have a strong record of high average hours figures and it is clear to see that our consistent approach to programming is retaining our loyal listenership. All of our staff have a real passion for what they do and that’s led to a special bond with our audience. Many listeners consider us to be their close friends and, while this can sometimes feel a bit strange, we really appreciate the affection our listeners show. We also have a reputation as a trustworthy source of information, and some see us as the font of all knowledge, which does sometimes mean we get strange requests. But we’re always happy to help, whether that’s by responding to a question about whether or not the local tip is open, or helping people find information about local events. Time 107.5 plays such an active role in our local community. We provide the music for many of the local Christmas light switch-ons each year, we hosted the main stage at the 2019 Havering Show and had a big presence at the Havering half-marathon, and we also support underprivileged children through our annual Christmas and Easter gift appeals. Lorna added: “We are grateful to be part of such a wonderful local community across Havering, Barking and Dagenham, and the surrounding areas. There is such great spirit around here and we share that love for where we live.  Now more than ever, we all need the support of those around us. Times are tough but we are doing all we can to help out in our community. Whether that’s by supporting businesses spread the word that they are still open, or by helping a charity publicise that they need volunteers, we are here to help.”Time 107.5’s Programme Controller, Mark Dover, said: “The figures released today are fantastic news for Time 107.5. Our mixture of All Time Favourites, new music, and some of those classic songs you don’t hear very often, is engaging lots of listeners.“Our truly local content is shining through. We do our best to promote local events, support charities, and shout about all that is good in Havering, Barking and Dagenham, and the surrounding areas. A big thing recently has been the way we hold local politicians to account, and it is clear that all this has contributed to these improved listening figures. These excellent figures would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of our staff. The team of charismatic presenters and our diligent journalists, as well as those who work hard behind the scenes, are the key to our growth and I want to say thank you to all of them. And all of this wouldn’t be possible without the support of our wonderful listeners. Thank you all so much.”

The photo above was taken last week; it shows a large number of illegally dumped empty metal Nitrous Oxide mini canisters on the road and pavement outside of the Premier convenience store on the corner of Manor Road and Appold Street in Erith. The store owners were most displeased with the situation. The Police were informed accordingly. Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly the report from Barnehurst ward:- "Good news again, Barnehurst Ward have had no reports of burglaries over the past week. There have also been no reports of vehicle crime. We did receive a report of criminal damage in Erith Road where plant pots were thrown over a balcony. Other than this it's been business as usual with foot and mobile patrols being carried out around the ward". Belvedere ward:- "The team have been continuing to patrol open spaces throughout the ward - Franks Park, Lesness Abbey and the somewhat smaller Albert Road recreation ground. There have been minimal instances where we have advise people to refrain from using gym equipment or apparatus in children play areas. We will be continuing these patrols for the foreseeable future even in light of the updated government advice. Over recent days the team has been made aware of several youths gathering at Streamway, some of whom have been acting in an anti-social manner. We have also been focusing our attention on this area where possible. This area shares a boundary with the Northumberland Heath SNT so we will be working with them in this area of the ward". Bexleyheath ward:- "Dear residents we have had no crimes this week to report which is wonderful news. One to be aware of is a ball bearing was fired into a garden in Mayplace Road West on Monday 11/05/2020, please be vigilant and if you see anything like this occurring please do let police know. Our Anti-Social Behaviour patrols continue and again if you are aware of groups congregating, smoking cannabis or anything illegal then please do let us know". Erith ward:-"Along with Belvedere SNT we have patrolling Northumberland Heaths ward focusing on the high street and open spaces. We have also posted letter and contact details to all residents in Streamways regarding the slight ASB in the area. As well as posted letters to all local businesses In Erith we have been patrolling the open spaces, every open shops in Town Centre and around Erith Pier. Crimes of note Theft from Motor Vehicle Monday 11/05/2020 Mildred Road; Theft from Motor Vehicle Monday 11/05/2020 Chandlers Drive; Theft from Motor Vehicle Friday 8/05/2020 Upper Holly Hill Road; Theft from Motor Vehicle Saturday 2/05/2020 Galleon Close. No burglaries this week in Erith. There is a rise with theft from vehicles again in Erith. Secure your number plates with tamper-resistant screws – If you want a set of these please email us". Northumberland Heath ward:-"Another good week. Crime levels are very low; unfortunately there have been several reports from local residents from Streamway this week regarding local youths causing anti-social behaviour and intimating residents. Officers have been able to gather brilliant CCTV evidence and have been able to identify a male involved. Police will now be able to complete further investigation . A CCTV camera has also been placed on Streamway to enable the police and Council to take appropriate action on the males involved . Please see our twitter page for any advice regarding reporting COVID related offences". Slade Green and Northend ward:- "No burglaries to report in the last week or any other significant crime on the ward. PC James searched a male in Dale View on Saturday afternoon and he was found in possession of drugs and will be returning for an interview this week. Patrols of our open spaces are ongoing as and when possible. Please be mindful of the new Government guidelines around Covid 19 as we now enter a period of regular updates and changes to our day to day lives". Thamesmead East ward:- "Thursday 07/05/20 building materials were stolen from a demolition site in Coralline Walk. Motor Vehicle Crimes Between 2:30pm on Monday 08/05/20 and 6:00am on Monday 11/05/20 company van parked near Harlequin House St. John Fisher Road had a hydraulic pump stolen. A vehicle parked in Rushdene had money and white cables stolen, no signs of forced entry. This incident occurred between 11:00am on Sunday 10/05/20 and 5:00pm on Monday 11/05/20. At 2:45pm on Tuesday 12/05/20 a Toyota Corolla was stolen from Maran Way. An attempted theft of a motorcycle by two males occurred in Wolvercote Road on Monday 11/05/20 at 3:20pm. Pedal Cycle Crimes - Sunday afternoon between the hours of 3:00pm and 3:15 pm on 10/05/20 on FAIRWAY DRIVE an attempted theft of 2 rider's pedal cycles by youths on mopeds who being unsuccessful made off towards the Thames path. Between midnight and 4:00pm on Tuesday 12/05/20 Fairway Drive 2 pedal cycles kept in a bin cupboard which is locked with only residents in the flats have access were stolen .One of the pedal cycles was locked with a 'D' lock was found on the floor cut in half. Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention. STOP - Check your car security Have your locked your doors and windows? Did you know your vehicle is like a shop window? If you can see, items left on view then so can a thief. Take it with you or put it out of sight". West Heath ward:- "No burglaries have been reported over the last week. One theft from a motor vehicle in Clovelly Road on Saturday Saturday 2/05/20 between Midday and 11pm. Entry was gained via drilling in to the van and a power tool was stolen from within it.Theft of a black Range Rover from Denton Road on Saturday 9/05/2020 18.00 – Sunday 10/05/2020 at 09.37 when the owner discovered it missing. Theft of two Topiary trees on Saturday 9/05/2020 from Ashbourne Avenue. A male was captured on CCTV stealing the trees from the front of the victim's front garden. One arrest of a male for immigration offences on Tuesday 5/05/2020".

The end video this week was recorded in Avenue Road, Erith. Four youths in a speeding car crashed into a tree - hard to determine why, when Avenue Road is one of the straightest roads in the area. As you will see in the video below, there was a huge turn out by the emergency services to deal with the incident. If you witnessed the crash and subsequent rescue of the trapped car occupants, please drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

Erith versus the Australians.

Bank Holiday Monday certainly brought the strongest storm winds to Erith that I can recall for several years. Many local residents lost garden fence panels and many trees were damaged; I noticed that the green panted security shuttering around the entrance to Morrison’s was buckled and seriously damaged by the high winds. The proximity of the wide open expanse of the River Thames right next to the supermarket means that the wind is effectively funnelled – amplifying the potential damage that very strong gusts can cause. There were also several calls made for the assistance of the RNLI. Gravesend's inshore rescue team were called to Erith Pier at 10.20pm on Saturday night (March 26th), and assisted shore-side police with their search for the person. No one appeared to be in need of help, and the lifeboat was stood down and returned to station. I am pretty sure I know the reason for this call – and of several recent “false alarms” to the RNLI over the last few months. Regular readers will have seen the aerial drone footage of Grey Seals basking on the muddy river foreshore by the Slade Green Marshes. The seals swim in the River Thames and often into the River Darent; they often float in  the water with their heads above the surface in and around Anchor Bay, and well-meaning passers by on the shore mistake the Seals for swimmers who appear to be in trouble in the water. Indeed, the average survival time for a person in the water is estimated to be eleven minutes, due to the extreme currents and undertow in the river in and around Erith Pier. Obviously the situation is somewhat different for Seals – the water is their natural habitat, to which they are perfectly evolved. There was a genuine additional incident involving a human this week - Gravesend's RNLI crew were called at 9.55am on March 30th to reports of a "person in distress" on Erith Pier, and concerns about the person's safety. The Met Police were also called, and the person was rescued and taken into the care of shore-side officers away from the River Thames. As I have mentioned before, the RNLI had to travel all the way from their base in Gravesend, which even at top speed must have taken quite some time. The nearest other RNLI station is at London Bridge, meaning that Erith is about equidistant between the two, and thus the furthest point from an RNLI boat and crew.  With the level of river activity increasing, and the number of incidents revolving around Erith Pier, it again strikes me that we could really do with an RNLI substation in the area. The number and seriousness of incidents should surely justify this? As I have previously mentioned, the former Port of London Authority office next to the wooden jetty and Erith Riverside Gardens would seem to be an ideal location (click on the photo above for a larger version) – it has electricity, running water and a loo / wash basin, and sufficient space for three or four volunteers to stay whilst on call. The adjacent wooden jetty would also provide an ideal place to launch an inshore rescue boat. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The photo above shows Christ Church Erith, which forms one of the most noticeable landmarks in the town. It is actually quite a modern construction – the cornerstone was laid back in 1872; the land the church is built on was donated by Colonel Wheatley – initially church services had been held in a temporary building made of corrugated iron. The consecration service took place on the 6th June 1874 by Archbishop Tait of Canterbury. The church is built mainly of brick, in the Early English style that many Victorian architects favoured. The building cost around £8,000 – a sizable fortune at the time. A few years later the interior of the church was “Beautified” with a series of frescoes being added; representations of the resurrection, Christ with Angels, four historic Bishops of Rochester, and scenes from English history. These painted wall panels make the church interior look Medieval – certainly far older than it actually is, and make the interior one of the most stunning of any church in the area. I would strongly recommend that you pay the place a visit – the place may look fairly unremarkable from the outside, but the interior is something else altogether. The church bell tower and spire was added forty years after the main building was completed; the first stone on the 13th of June 1914, and was completed and dedicated on the 5th June 1915.

The News Shopper have reported that Bexley is the only London borough where property is on the market for less than £100,000, and buyers need to be looking for an Erith studio flat. The one-room apartments are selling for £94,995 in Frobisher Road, and £95,000 in St Johns Road, with Able Estates in Northumberland Heath. Online estate agent HouseSimple has ranked London’s 32 boroughs by the cheapest one-bed or studio flat available. The next cheapest to Bexley are the boroughs of Newham where studios are priced from £100,000, Lambeth where buyers can bag a flat for £105,000, and Croydon where residents can get on the property ladder for just £119,950.

Historically, Erith has made quite a large contribution to the world of sport. Did you know that Erith was once one of the centres of English cricketing excellence? What is now The Europa Industrial Estate was once a cricket pitch and recreation ground? On Saturday 20th September 1884 a local team of sixteen played an eleven raised By a Mr. H.H Hyslop - a local businessman, from the Australian touring side of that year. Hyslop's Australian team won. A similar match took place between another scratch Australian team again put together by Mr. Hyslop on the 3rd May 1890. The Erith local team was composed of eighteen local men, pitted against a visitors team which included nine members of the Australian test side. This match resulted in a draw. Hopes for a rematch were dashed when the cricket ground was sold and a heavy engineering factory built on the site. Nevertheless, local historians refer to the matches as "when Erith took on the Australians". As many of you know, I am not a sports fan, but it is fascinating to discover, as I have done during my research for this week's entry, that Erith and the surrounding have been pivotal in the development of several now major sports. Football had much of its' origins in Erith in the early 1880's. Prior to 1885-1886, only Rugby Union was played in Erith - there were three clubs in the area; Star Rovers RFC played on Lessness Heath, near the Eardley Arms pub. Erith Raven RFC played on the recreation ground adjacent to the aforementioned cricket ground, and lastly, Erith Anglo - Normans RFC played on Faulkner's Meadow. This club had to be disbanded when the meadow was purchased, and the Nordenfeldt gun works was built on the site; no suitable alternative playing ground could be found for the club and it was wound up. In April 1885 Association Football was introduced to Erith by a gentleman called Bernard Beard, who came to Easton and Anderson's engineering works as manager of the boiler shop. A club was formed, called Erith F.C which played on an area then called Hartley's Meadow - which was located on the banks of the River Thames, just of what is now Lower Road. As a result of a personal dispute between club members, a rival club was established called Erith Avenue F.C. At first, as they had no ground, they were forced to play all of their games away, but they later were successful in securing a ground in what is now Avenue Road. Meanwhile, Erith F.C relocated from Hartley's Meadow to Lower Belvedere. Several members of the team subsequently played for Woolwich Arsenal F.C, what was later to become the current Premier League Arsenal club. The present Erith and Belvedere football club was founded in 1922 and had its' ground adjacent to Belvedere railway station for many years, until arsonists destroyed their main clubhouse and Park View stand in 1997. The club soldiered on for two years, using portakabins on the site, until they entered into a ground sharing arrangement with Welling United in 1999, which is still in place to this day.

The Co-Operative Society also has strong roots in the Erith area. A co-operative shop was opened in Erith in 1868 by Sir William Anderson of Easton and Anderson engineering. The shop unfortunately soon failed, as it refused to give credit, and was patronised mainly by the emerging middle classes, for whom it was not intended.  1868 also saw a much more successful launch of the Royal Arsenal Co-Operative Society at Woolwich. By 1881 they had extended the delivery of bread and groceries into Erith. On the 30th March 1882, a co-op branch store, costing £1,225 was opened on the corner of Manor Road and what is now James Watt Way. A reading room was provided on the first floor by the society's education committee, and supplied newspapers and periodicals for public use. In 1887 this was extended to form a purpose built district library, with a budget of a whole £30 to purchase books. Over the years the trade increased with the surge in growth of the local population, to the point came where the building was not large enough, and new premises were constructed in 1893. It was not very long until this co-operative library fell into disuse, when the Andrew Carnegie sponsored public library in Walnut Tree Road opened in 1906. Records show that the co-operative library had some strange rules in respect of their employees. The first manager of the Manor Road based library was a Mr. James Hall, who had left school at the age of eleven. He was soon promoted to General Manager on the condition that he got married within three months of the appointment! He eventually got spliced four months after his appointment, but this was deemed to be near enough for his employers. Hall eventually rose to become General Manager of the RACS from 1902 until his retirement in 1918.

A new kind of fraud has been uncovered in the USA, and there are indications that UK based criminals are now copying the practice. As is often the case, what starts in America, soon gets exported elsewhere. This week the U.S Federal Courts warned of swindles involving people posing as federal court officials and U.S. Marshals targeting citizens, threatening them with arrest unless they pay some fake fine for failing to show up for jury duty. In an interview with Network World magazine, Melissa Muir, Director of Administrative Services for the U.S. District Court of Western Washington said in a statement “This year’s scams are more aggressive and sophisticated than we’ve seen in years past; Scammers are setting up call centres, establishing call-back protocols and using specific names and designated court hearing times. The bottom line is this: A federal court will never threaten an individual or demand the immediate payment —either over the telephone or money wire service— for fines or for not responding to a jury summons.” The court has warned in the past of e-mails scams from people claiming they have been selected for jury service and demanding that they return a form with such information as Social Security and driver’s licence numbers, date of birth, mobile phone number, and mother’s maiden name. According to the e-mail, anyone who failed to provide the information would be ordered to court to explain their failure, and could face fines and jail time. The e-mail also falsely claimed that it was affiliated with eJuror, an online registration programme. The email is fraudulent and has no connection to either the federal courts or to eJuror, the court system said in a statement. The Administrative Office noted that eJuror never requests that personal identification information be sent directly in an email response. Requests by courts to complete a qualification questionnaire would be initiated by formal written correspondence. Such letters tell jury participants how to access an authenticated, secure online connection. The court has also in the past warned of scammers using the threat of arrest unless of course you pay them off. Specifically the US Court statement said: "You've received a warrant by fax or email saying a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government wants to arrest you. Charges may be for money laundering or bank fraud, or missed jury duty. To avoid arrest, the warrant says, send money. Again, it’s a scam. Be warned – it is very likely this practice has already made it across the Atlantic, and pretty much all of what applies in the USA will hold true over here.

The photo above was sent to me by fellow local blogger, Malcolm Knight of Bexley is Bonkers. It shows London Mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith visiting the first session of the reinvented Erith Market on Wednesday. I was unable to make the event, as I was at work. I am sure that many other locals were in a similar position; I am extremely happy that the market has been revitalised, for a trial run at least. I would like to see it to also take place on Saturdays when more people could potentially attend - holding it midweek excludes a lot of potential customers, which is to nobody's advantage.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Heseltine, now Lord Heseltine could be spending much of his time in and around North Kent over the next few years. He has been appointed to lead and establish a commission for growth in the Thames Estuary and surrounding areas. The Thames Estuary 2050 Growth Commission is expected to bring new infrastructure to help develop housing in areas of North Kent, South Essex and East London. Areas he will be responsible for include the forthcoming London Paramount Theme Park, the North Kent innovation zone and Ebbsfleet Garden City. In an interview with the Bexley Times, the acting chair of the South East Local Enterprise Partnership, George Kieffer said: “There is nobody better qualified in the context of both the Thames Gateway and regeneration than Lord Heseltine. The economy of the Thames estuary is integral to the long-term prosperity of the UK, thanks to its ports and trade links to mainland Europe. The timing of the commission’s announcement sends a positive message to everybody in the area that the government is committed to ensuring communities east of London realise their full economic and social potential.” On top of this, the Thames Gateway Partnership said “In the north Kent part of the gateway alone we estimate there is scope to deliver an additional 58,000 homes and 59,000 jobs. But for those new homes and jobs to be provided we need to find ways of securing new investment, especially in transport infrastructure. As the commission is established, it will report back at Autumn Statement 2017 with an outline for planned developments”.



This week I have a guest writer, who is a Maggot Sandwich reader of long standing, but has not made a contribution until now. My confidential informant has put together the following very well - written and informative piece regarding a local landmark, and their concerns about its future.

Redevelopment of the Leather Bottle Pub on Heron Hill

The Leather Bottle has closed a few times over the past few years but new owners have always come in and it always opened back up again. It became obvious it had closed for good when over a weekend last year a JCB excavator arrived and started to flatten the site. Everything including trees and shrubs were removed and tons of soil taken away, as the site is at the bottom of the hill its neighbouring house’s foundations were looking precarious, the owners of the Leather Bottle site obviously thought so too as they hastily piled soil back to shore up the danger, tamping it down with the bucket of the JCB. My neighbours opposite started to notice things happening when previously their houses looked out on to trees, and greenery, these were now gone and the privacy that they enjoyed disappeared as well, now they felt exposed, they were now overlooked by the flats in Hattersfield Close. A quick search of the councils planning portal revealed no planning had been applied for, and people start calling the council panicking that they were going to start construction of buildings that would look directly into their properties. The council arrived in their own time at the site, they explained that the owners of the Leather Bottle were within their rights to clear the site but they were not within their rights to block the right of way / footpath that runs across what used to be the car park and garden area, the council also discovered that they'd cleared into council land (the woods). The owners of the site informed to council that they intended to build flats on the site and that in due course they would apply for planning permission. Everything went quiet for months at the Leather Bottle apart from the comings and goings of people now living in the pub. Fast forward until the Easter weekend just gone, another JCB turns up and starts to excavate tons more soils, the fence to the neighbouring house has fallen down and its replaced by plastic sheeting in an attempt at safety, its curious that these works seem to happen over a weekend and this latest major works happened over a the long Easter weekend when the council enforcement officers are not around. Tuesday morning came and I opened the children’s bedroom blinds to be greeted with the sight of a huge mobile crane, then what seems like an influx of building machinery and equipment starts to arrive. We are then treated to days of noise of sheet piling being installed. The Leather Bottle had appeared to have become a full on construction site with contractors turning up constantly.  Another check of the Councils planning portal reveals still no planning permission on the site. My neighbours and I are furiously trying to contact the council by phone and email, the former being pointless because there’s nobody available to take your call. Finally after three emails I get a response from the council which curiously is exactly the same as the one received by my neighbour. I am informed that ‘The current works are to stabilise the grounds’, well, I'm sure this wasn't helped by the removal of tons more soil over the Easter weekend, I'm told building control will visit the site once the installation of the pilings is complete to ‘check the integrity of the boundary fence and if necessary get this fully replaced’. They have received an application for the ‘pub itself to used as accommodation until they are in a position to submit an application for the redevelopment of the entire site’, its been used as accommodation since the cleared the site last year. Apparently planning has been submitted but currently there is a backlog on the planning portal. For a site that has no planning permission in place or the guarantee of it ever being so (unless they know something we don’t) they are spending thousands and thousands of pounds readying this site for major construction. House prices in the area have taken a leap in the last couple of years with the arrival of Crossrail, in my road alone we've seen increases in the region of 187 percent, ridiculous levels some may say. Major investment in the area has taken place with the building of the new Sainsbury’s by Abbey Wood station, the lottery funded redevelopment of the Lesnes Abbey area, and the council sinking money into the children's park with the addition of parkour and BMX/skateboard facilities. Are the council onboard with the development of the Leather Bottle site? You have to wonder, they've not been too perturbed by the level of work that been happening there and the would-be developers seem at ease pouring money into ground works for a site with no planning. I know that Malcolm Knight of Bexley is Bonkers shares my guest writers concerns; it will be instructive to see what comes of the case. If you have similar concerns, or some insight into what is going on with the former Leather Bottle and what was the garden area, please feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Earlier I mentioned candidate for London Mayor Zac Goldsmith did a meet and greet at Erith Market on Wednesday (there are other Mayoral candidates - your mileage may vary) one of the biggest challenges to whichever person wins the race to be the next Mayor of London will be dealing with the massive housing crisis which London and the entire South East of the UK is suffering. A short explanatory video is shown below.

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.