Fit4Less.

The top photo was taken recently by me in Manor Road Erith; the lower one a while back in Erith High Street. The upper photo shows one of the large advertising hoardings that are erected on the Eastern end of the extremely long road.  Fit4Less are a no - frills gymnasium franchising company, which is part of the énergie Group, has approaching 100 clubs and more than 110,000 members across the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe are shortly to set up a gym in the units adjacent to Erith Library in the High Street, in a trio of units that have lain unused since they were built around nine years ago, as shown in the lower photo - click on either for a larger version. Fit4Less describe themselves thus:- "Fit4less is a fast-growing budget gym within the fitness and wellness sector. British Franchise Association. With in-depth training and on-going support from the énergie group, who are leaders in the UK fitness sector, franchisees are given the tools to launch and manage their own ‘no frills’ budget gym business. With our tried and tested system and a steady market, franchise owners are equipped in all areas so as to provide customers with a quality Fit4less experience. Franchisees secure their future, ensuring they create the life/work balance that suits them. Fit4less is an Associate member of the British Franchise Association. How much does a Fit4less franchise cost? The initial franchise fee is £19,999 outside London or £24,999 within London and the minimum total investment is £95,000. We have a strong relationship with all major banks. Fit4less is an innovative low-cost franchise business which is part of the énergie group, an undisputed market leader in the fitness and wellness sector. Fit4less franchise business opportunity energie group sport gym budget management lucrative job career. Offering a ‘no frills’ service to customers, Fit4less’ budget gyms are one of the fastest growing fitness and wellness franchise businesses in the UK. With over 100,000 active members across their network in the UK and Europe, our franchisees are part of a rapidly expanding and highly profitable tried-and-tested system. Fit4less is expanding further and are searching for individuals with a ‘can-do’ attitude and a thirst for success! Does this sound like you? Fit4less works on the premise that we offer customers a valuable service at a fantastic price! In offering a low cost price, the Fit4less gym is a highly attractive and appealing option; this, in turn, pushes profitability. With this in mind, it is no surprise that budget gyms constitute the biggest growth in the health and fitness sector. Recent examples of success include the Fit4less gyms in Scunthorpe, Loughborough, Glasgow, Hoddesdon (Hertfordshire) and Brentford which all had more than 1,000 members within a week of opening. There are many others, like Kilburn (North London) which has surpassed its 3 year target of 2000 members within 4 months! Fit4less Highbury sold over half their 3 year target of memberships in just 3 months. These gyms are not exceptions and you too could be enjoying the same success." Quite. The people who have taken the Fit4Less franchise in Erith (which is due to open on the 27th October - though I strongly doubt this opening date - the site is still an empty concrete shell, with no fitting out taking place at the time of writing) have already unwittingly landed themselves in hot water, through no fault of their own, I must emphasise. The parent company engaged in a UK wide advertising campaign back in the Spring of 2016; the bulk of the advertising was concentrated on the use of roadside hoardings like the one in the photo above. They used a couple of "humorous" adverts, which offended so many people that the story made the national papers and the BBC News website back in April.  The case was not referred to the Advertising Standards Authority, but the story made so many headlines critical of the style and tone of the adverts that many of them were voluntarily taken down. Not so the one for the forthcoming Erith franchise, which is still on display at the time of writing. I would have thought it critical to any marketing scheme for a new business to make absolutely sure that you engage your local customer base. It will be interesting to see how things work out for the Erith branch of Fit4Less, and what type of clientele they attract. I get the feeling that it could be rather successful. The other gym in the town - the Nemesis Muy Thai gym is a specialist kickboxing place, which is not very likely to appeal to the mainstream public in the same manner that a popular brand that has UK wide recognition will. I am fortunate that if I was athletically minded (not that I am) I could make use of the huge gym in my company's giant HQ office building in Canary Wharf, so you won't be seeing me in the new place in the High Street, but I suspect that many people will be. Since I wrote the piece above, I have met Josh Waters, the owner of the Erith branch of Fit4Less, and I ran the piece past him prior to publication. He provided some interesting and insightful feedback which you can read here:- "What seems to feature heavily is the advertising and in your opinion on our opening date. With the billboards we have 4 up and only 1 of this nature and I'm sure you would have noticed we had the one next to it as well, which is normal. We actually only paid for that specific billboard for 4 weeks and has run out already, I guess it hasn’t been replaced as no one else has bought the space since. We don’t mean to offend and haven’t received any negative feedback from anyone so far, but I feel this may change with the tone of your statements. Again this is fine but we are just trying to show that we don’t take ourselves particularly seriously and the gym will be a fun place to be and try to reflect that in our national marketing campaigns. In regards to this fit out – works have started and the screed floor went down over the last couple of weeks. That is setting as we speak and dry liners will be in starting next Tuesday to start putting up walls etc. Windows were on a lead time and couldn’t order them until the lease was completed so they are due in another 2 weeks at the most. In the next couple of weeks you will start to see a lot more progress but we are well on track to hit our opening date set by our contractors that have fit out many of the F4L London sites". Well that clears those concerns up then. I will be covering the fit - out and opening of the gym, and think that it will become an important addition to the town centre. It is good to see the long vacant units finally going into productive use after lying empty for so long. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Long-time Maggot sandwich readers may recall that some time ago I bemoaned the closure of my favourite restaurant –the cheap and cheerful Sweet and Spicy in Brick Lane, which closed due to a huge increase in the cost of their shop lease a couple of years back. As I mentioned at the time, the area around Spitalfields and Brick Lane is becoming increasingly gentrified; when I used to work in the area in the mid 1990’s it was still primarily involved in the clothing industry, with many small factories and warehouses in the locality. It was rather rough and ready to be honest, but in a way I am quite grateful that I was able to experience the end of the East End as it had existed for a good couple of hundred years. Sweet and Spicy was nothing like the other restaurants in Brick Lane, which even twenty years ago were pretty much tourist traps. Instead Sweet and Spicy catered for the local residents – the Pakistani and Bangladeshi factory workers, and the congregation of the nearby Brick Lane Mosque. It had lino on the floors, melamine wipe clean tables and counter service. The menu was short compared to a normal British Indian style high street restaurant, and the curries cooked long and slowly, with the meat mainly being served on the bone. Food portions were huge, extremely cheap and utterly delicious – it was home cooked, rather than restaurant style, and all of the better for it. The place had an amazing reputation, and was busy from 11am until they closed at 11pm. It was one of the only places where you could get a curry for breakfast in the whole of Greater London. You can read more about the legendary Sweet and Spicy here. When it closed down in 2013 I was upset – it was a rough diamond of a place; when I first went there I was usually the only white face in the place, but only a handful of years later the customer demographic was far more diverse. This diversity ironically may have been what eventually led to its demise. As wealthier people started using the area around Spitalfields and Brick Lane, the rents started going up and the traditional look and feel started to change. I never thought that I would find anywhere that had anything approaching the atmosphere and food that Sweet and Spicy had, but I am pleased to announce that I have found a restaurant that comes pretty close in many ways, and it is local! The Punjab Curry and Grill in 309 Broadway, Bexleyheath is the nearest place I have come to proper, home cooked food that is generous in portion and reasonably priced. I went there last Friday evening with two friends – including the one who recommended the place – and his family is originally from the Punjab. We had poppadoms and dips, starters and a main course each with rice and garlic naan breads. The food was excellently cooked, nicely presented and the final bill for the three of us came to £32.95. The Punjab Curry and Grill does not have a drinks licence, but a wide variety of non – alcoholic drinks are available, and visitors are able to bring their own with no corkage fee. There is a small independent (and rather quirky) off – licence a couple of minutes’ walk away in Lion Road if this takes your fancy. The Punjab Curry and Grill could be a bit of a culture shock to someone used to a bog standard high street curry house. It is more akin to a transport café with nice décor and waiter service. The food menu does have a few nods towards the high street favourites, but many of the dishes are most definitely not the usual kind of thing one would expect; for example, I had Punjabi Goat Curry, which came served as a plate of meaty ribs with a thick, rich and spicy curry gravy. Other curries include Rabbit, Turkey  and Bater (Quail).  I will be heading back to the place sooner rather than later – and it has the added bonus that it is also within easy walking distance to the superlative Robin Hood and Little John – my favourite pub of all.

The Erith Quarry housing development will be holding an open day on Saturday the 15th October between 10am and 4pm. You can find out more on their website here. I will be going along with my camera, so please feel free to come and say hello.

As I have written in the past, the "legitimate" UK gambling industry is now starting to be regarded in the same way that the tobacco industry became in the 1980's, when the long disputed health risks of smoking became apparent to those outside of the medical profession. Last Monday night, a Panorama special investigation into high street bookmakers and the proliferation of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals was broadcast. The main reason that the large betting companies want to open more outlets is that the law limits the number of FOBT’s in any specific betting shop to four machines, but it says nothing about the number of betting shops in any location. To increase the number of very lucrative FOBT units in a town, the bookmakers just open additional shops. Many local councils have been reluctant to block this, due to the fact that during the recession, many shop units have stood empty, and the betting shops offer a steady council tax income, which the council otherwise would not get. A recent report makes for extremely troubling reading; it reveals that in the 55 most deprived boroughs in the UK – overwhelmingly located in Northern cities and urban Greater London have a  total of 2,691 bookmakers shops, in which £13 billion was gambled on FOBT machines, and £470 million lost by gamblers in the last year alone. In the same time period, there were 1,258 bookmakers shops in the 115 wealthiest areas, adjusted to cover the same volume of population, within which players gambled a total of £6.5 billion, losing £231 million. The figures are now a couple of years old, and may now be appreciably higher. The report was commissioned by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, and shows that the large betting companies have targeted the poorest areas that have the highest unemployment, lowest per capita income and higher crime rates. The last year has also seen a large increase in the number of high street betting shops, mainly due to the leap in the total number of FOBT machines, such as digital roulette in use. In December 2013 there was a total of 9,343 active betting shop licences in the entire United Kingdom, which was an increase of 280 since 2012. The most deprived town council in the UK was identified as being Liverpool. A total of £118 million was gambled in 570 machines, and £23 million was siphoned off by bookmakers in the process. In the same time scale, the place voted as the most desirable place to live in the UK – the Hart district of Hampshire there are just seven betting shops with a total of 24 Fixed Odds Betting Terminals. Liverpool council have understandably got very worried by the figures, and are now keen to place strong control measures on the betting shop operators. The problem with FOBT machines is that large amounts of money can be spent on the machines very quickly, and losses can mount up almost before the gambler realises. A hundred pounds can be lost in no more than thirty seconds. Nick Small, of Liverpool City Council said of the situation “millions of pounds that should be used for paying for food and rent was being sucked into the FOBT machines”, and that “Bookies are arriving all the time into prime retail locations. This is all driven for FOBTs. I have no doubt of it. We are seeing horrific reports of family breakdown caused by gambling debts, problems with loan sharks. We are pretty sure organised crime is using the machines to launder money. It's out of control in a city like ours, where there are a lot of poorer people”.  The same situation exists all around the UK, with poorer areas – just like Erith, being hit far harder than wealthier regions. Industry observers have commented that one way to reduce the problem specific to FOBT machines would be to limit the maximum stake gambled to £2 – like ordinary one armed bandit machines, and to limit the maximum payout to £100. The gambling industry is not keen on this approach, for obvious reasons. To add to this, the Government are now showing an interest, as the subject is gaining column inches in the press now, and following the Panorama documentary last Monday evening. The government have taken a very weak stance, saying that they will wait for the findings of the (gambling industry sponsored) research before any decision will be taken; at the rate things are progressing, it will be the end of the year before any changes come into force, if at all. 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 percent 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.

The photo above shows part of Erith High Street back in the summer of 1966, shortly before it was all demolished to make way for the hideous 1970's brutalist concrete shopping centre, which was universally hated by all. It took the extensive remodelling and re - engineering of the centre around ten years ago to turn it into the light and pleasant venue it is today.

As a lifetime non - smoker, the upsurge in the use of electronic cigarettes really means little to me personally, but I know many people feel that they are a way forward in their desire to give up smoking completely. I have written in the past that I would reserve my judgement on the use of them until better scientific evidence became available - well, it would appear that it has now done. More research into electronic cigarettes has reported positively on the devices, finding evidence of their use as smoking cessation aids and finding that they do not appear to cause any serious side-effects. An update to the Cochrane review on electronic cigarettes has restated the findings of the initial research, which was completed two years ago. It found that e-cigarettes are potentially a valuable smoking cessation aid, although there was not enough evidence to conclude that they helped people quit smoking confidently. The updated review now also includes observational data from an additional 11 studies which found no serious side-effects from using e-cigarettes for up to two years. Aside from throat and mouth irritation, which commonly dissipated over time, the review’s co-author, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, said “in the short to medium term, we didn’t find any evidence that they were associated with any serious side-effects.” Evidence from two trials found that e-cigarettes helped smokers to quit in the long term, but “the small number of trials, low event rates and wide confidence intervals around the estimates” meant that the researchers could not conclude with confidence that e-cigs helped smokers quit more than other cessation aids". Nevertheless, it would seem that they are a hell of a lot less harmful than traditional cigarettes - and I reckon it will not be long before the government begins to tax them like the real thing.

In a story first covered by Darryl of the excellent 853 Blog (so named because it covers Charlton, Lewisham and Woolwich – which at one time was covered by the old 853 telephone dialling code). As well as being a blogger, Darryl is a “proper” journalist with all of the skills that entails. He has uncovered a story around the venerable News Shopper – our once local, but now a regional paper. The paper had offices in Petts Wood, but these were closed down last year, with the remaining staff transferred to offices in Sutton, Surrey in order to share offices with its sister newspaper, the South London Guardian. Darryl writes:- “Last month, the Shopper’s Greenwich edition was merged with the neighbouring Lewisham paper. The Gravesend edition was also merged with its Dartford counterpart. Now all the Sutton-based staff – bar the web editor and managing editor – have been put on notice of redundancy. Four reporters, two content editors, three sub-editors, an editorial assistant and the deputy managing editor will lose their jobs by mid-October. This will leave just 12 reporters and four content editors to produce 11 South London Guardian papers, four News Shopper editions and their websites, the National Union of Journalists says, including news, sport and leisure coverage. The cuts come despite Newsquest making £70m profit last year. The News Shopper is one of its most successful titles on the web, although the strain of cuts is starting to show with simple mistakes showing in news stories and, more damagingly, in the printed papers. Staff are already being balloted for strike action over inadequate staffing, increased workloads and “reduced quality of newspapers”. Reporters walked out last year in protest at a previous round of cuts and the move to Sutton”. I knew about - and have written about the ill – advised move to Sutton, but until I read Darryl’s piece, I was not aware of the further round of redundancies. I have commented at length at the inaccuracies and obvious lack of knowledge that has crept into the News Shopper journalism over the last couple of years; on recurring error is the News Shopper repeatedly referring to Yarnton Way as being located in Erith, when it is actually on the Lower Belvedere / Abbey Wood border. I have written to the paper on more than one occasion to point this out, but with no effect.  Errors of this nature will only get worse. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or send me an Email to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The end video this week is some aerial footage taken over Danson Park. I know aerial drones are pretty commonplace these days - you can even buy quite decent ones in Maplin, but this footage is pretty awe inspiring. See what you think.

Farewell Sweet and Spicy.

With the construction programme now well under way on the new Bexley College campus in Walnut Tree Road, focus has once again fallen on South Eastern Trains and their lack of provision of a lift or other step free access to the London bound platform at Erith Station. At present, the only method of getting onto the London bound platform is via an ancient and very steep wrought iron footbridge as seen in the photo above (click for a larger view), which is functionally unusable by anyone with a baby buggy or who has to use a wheelchair. Local MP Teresa Pearce started an online campaign to try and get South Eastern to do something about this, but their bland reply was that anyone needing to use the London bound platform should get on a Kent bound train on the platform adjacent to the ticket office, to travel three stops in the opposite direction to Dartford Station, use the lift there to change platforms to pick up a London bound train, then travel back through Erith towards London. Aside from any additional expense and inconvenience that this would cause to someone, there is the matter that even if you managed to get a quick connection at Dartford, it would still add at least thirty minutes to the journey time. This clearly discriminates against travellers with a buggy or using a wheelchair. I know that many locals feel strongly about this issue, but the rail company just don’t seem to want to do anything about it – probably due to the expense. The fact that they are almost certainly in direct breach of the Disability Rights Act seems to completely pass them by. You can join the ongoing campaign on the Fix My Transport website here.

Some readers may be aware that I am very fond of a curry; back in the mid to late 1990’s I was a reviewer for the Good Curry Guide – an unpaid volunteer who would assess and rate my visits to Indian restaurants. I got quite a few entries in the guide, and wrote a number of articles for “Curry” magazine (now sadly no more).  At the time I worked for a company on the boundary between the City of London and the East End, which meant I was well placed for lunchtime curry house visits. Back then, the area now known as “Banglatown” was just plain Brick Lane, well prior to the areas’ gentrification. It was rough. Brick Lane and its’ environs were still the home of the rag trade, with multiple sweat shops and factories churning out cheap clothing which would mainly go on to be sold on market stalls and discount shops around the country. Around a third of the shops in Brick Lane itself were showrooms for the clothing and cheap jewellery factories, and you would see men unloading overfilled vans with armfuls of fabric. Back then, Brick Lane was pretty much the sole domain of the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshi people who both lived and worked locally. I was unusual in exploring the area during my lunch breaks – the place was not like it is now – a tourist trap with many visitors. Then it was fairly insular and inwards looking. Whilst not exactly hostile, many locals were pretty ambivalent about visitors. Then, as now there were many curry houses in the road, and most of them were as bad then as they are now, though then they did not employ hustlers to try to tempt passers by into their restaurant with improbable offers of discounts and free offers – a practice I understand has recently been banned. One thing became apparent during my walks down Brick Lane. The locals only ate at one place – they studiously avoided the commercial curry houses, which were there purely to extract money from external visitors (nothing has changed there, to be honest). There was a cafeteria type restaurant on the corner of Brick Lane and Chicksands Street, almost opposite the Police station which seemed to attract a lot of local men – looking through the window, one could see a mass of skull caps and beards. It occurred to me that if the locals rated the place, it must be worth checking out. Later that week I plumped up the courage to go into the place – it did look pretty scary, and I was the only white face in the establishment. It was a revelation; the food was ordered and paid cafe style from the counter; the staff then brought the dishes to your table, which was a McDonalds type Formica affair. The floor was plain linoleum, and the walls were decorated with posters of Indian wrestlers from the 1950’s (I later found out that the proprietor was a former Indian Olympic wrestling champion). The food was amazing – not restaurant type fare, but high quality Bangladeshi home style food in huge portions at a very low price. Back then I could have a spicy mutton curry, boiled rice, a couple of chapattis and a samosa or two, plus a side dish of natural yoghurt, their trademark red sauce, sliced raw onion and a few green chillies for around £5.50. The place had no licence and did not allow the consumption of alcohol, but they had a wide selection of soft drinks, and anyway each table had a large complimentary metal jug of water which was kept refilled by the serving staff; cups were self service and obtained free from the counter. The place was called “Sweet and Spicy”, and it was an East End legend and institution. I was a regular, going there for lunch at least twice a week until I changed jobs in the year 2000. After then I would still visit when able, and the owner, Omar Butt would always greet me warmly, usually with a free cup of tea. “Sweet and Spicy” had been opened in 1969, and it was one of the only places in London that you could have a curry for breakfast. Over the years, as Brick Lane changed, market staff from the nearby Petticoat Lane Market would eat at the place, and gradually more European faces would be seen sitting at tables. Sweet and Spicy became a melting pot of the East End – the food was consistently good, whether one popped in to pick up a kebab roll takeaway (a kebab roll was a mutton sheikh kebab wrapped in a chapatti with finely sliced onion and lettuce, a chilli or two and a generous dash of their secret red sauce) it was cheap, tasty and very filling. If you went for a full sit – down lunch you would be unlikely to want to eat again for twenty four hours – I don’t think Omar Butt had any concept of portion control. Curries were simmered very slowly, and the meat was served on the bone – something almost unheard of anywhere else. The result was meltingly tender and stunningly flavour full curries. Over time, word got out (possibly helped by a glowing review I wrote for the Good Curry Guide) and "Sweet and Spicy" won the Time Out cheap eat award as best cheap eating venue in London.  The restaurant went from strength to strength and it was often hard to find a seat, especially on a Friday when the local Mosque kicked out after midday prayers.  Over the last couple of years I have only managed to eat there a couple of times, though I did manage to introduce a couple of friends to the eaterie. I was shocked to discover this week that after 44 years of serving London the finest authentic curries, that Sweet and Spicy has closed down. I was truly gutted – it was a key place in the East End. It would appear that I am not the only person to feel so strongly about it – you can read an obituary on the end of "Sweet and Spicy" here – check out the comments under the article – there are a lot of people who mourn the loss of one of London’s culinary landmarks. You can also read more about the place here. Brick Lane really is not a place worth visiting for food any more; it is just a tourist trap and that is all. The nearest other curry houses worthwhile visiting in the East End are the Lahore Kebab House in Umberston Street E1, a huge 350 cover restaurant that is very popular with the braying city trader types - it offers outstanding tandoori cooked meats and some very creditable curries, though it does tend to get quite loud. My own favourite alternative place is one of the oldest Indian restaurants in London, that first opened its' doors to the paying public in 1939, and has been in the same Grade II listed building ever since. The place is called the Halal Restaurant and it can be found in Mark Street, E1. It is a more quiet and traditional affair than the Lahore Kebab House, but the food is excellent - properly "old school". Their meatball vindaloo is a thing of wonder. Recommended if you are in the area. 

The photo above was taken earlier this week by regular Maggot Sandwich readers Dawn and Richard of a seal swimming in the River Thames at the Crossness Outfall in Thamesmead. Seals will not swim in polluted water - their presence is a very good indicator of the health of the river water, so seeing them locally is a very welcome thing. People look at the greenish - grey colour of much of the lower Thames and assume that it is still terribly polluted, as it indeed used to be; in fact the colouration is mainly due to the large amount of silt and other natural particulates that are held in suspension by the water. Ironically these are good news for much of the wildlife that lives in or on the river - lot of nutrients eaten by small bugs, larvae and other creatures at the bottom end of the food chain, which in turn get eaten by the fish, and then the fish get eaten by the top end predators like the seal in the photo above. Dawn and Richard tell me that the Crossness Outfall is an excellent spot for nature viewing. I may well take my camera along there soon and see for myself. You can see some photos taken by a local bird watcher here. 

The compact cassette has its’ 50^th birthday this month. Whilst now a dying, (if not quite truly dead) breed, the cassette did as much in the 70’s and 80’s to spread and popularise music as the 45rpm single did in the 1960’s. The cassette format was developed and patented by Philips, and the European launch of the cassette took place at the Berlin Radio Show in August 1963. To be honest, the early cassette recorders were pretty dire – the format was originally created to be used for voice recording and other dictation type duties. It was only later when Sony and Nakamichi (a specialist Japanese electronics company that made the Dragon – the ultimate audiophile cassette player / recorder) became involved in created much higher quality read / write heads and far greater precision tape transport mechanisms that the format started to get used for high fidelity recording and playback. The “killer app” for the compact cassette was the invention of the Sony Walkman in 1979 when music could be enjoyed on the move by an individual for the first time. It is hard to credit now the impact the invention of the Walkman had at the time – I recall saving up for ages to be able to afford the Sony WM-10 Walkman, which was actually physically smaller than the size of a cassette box, and expanded to take a cassette. It was an amazing bit of precision engineering; back in the early to mid 1980’s Sony really were on a roll – their portable cassette decks and radio kit was exceptionally good. I still have my Sony ICF 2001D receiver in good working order – a portable shortwave communications receiver that has not been bettered to this day. The model had such a good reputation that the BBC issued it as standard equipment to all of their foreign correspondents for many years. Mine sits on my bedside cabinet, acting as a alarm clock / radio, and means I can lay in bed listening to the broadcasts of shortwave stations like Laser Hot Hits on 4.026 MHz. 

On Monday afternoon I popped into Morrison’s to pick up something for my dinner. As I picked up a hand basket, I noticed a chap giving me what I term “the Look”. The Look is a combination of curiosity, surprise and recognition – and is nearly always when a Maggot Sandwich reader has twigged that yours truly has made an appearance. It was indeed the case on this occasion; I had a very pleasant chat with the gentleman, who has been a reader for a couple of years. It is always nice to get feedback from readers. I am aware that there have been some intermittent problems with the comments function on the Maggot Sandwich – sometimes a comments box appears, and other times not. The behaviour is intermittent, but would seem to be more common when viewing the site with Google Chrome (which is curious – one would have thought any rendering issues would be more likely with a non Google browser). There is also a bug which shows the location of the posting as “undefined” when in fact the location is correctly set as Erith. Both of these issues I need to log with Google’s Blogger support. I think both issues are problems with the Blogger template that I use.  Hopefully I will be able to get both resolved before too long, as both problems are annoying, if not actual show - stoppers.

Talking of Google Chrome, sales figures for the first half of this year are now in, and the biggest surprise has been that sales of Google’s Chromebook laptops have greatly exceeded expectation . On both Amazon US and Amazon UK, Chromebook sales have dominated the under £300 laptop sector. Fears that buyers would return the machine once they discovered it only ran a web browser, rather than being a fully featured laptop have been unfounded. Users spend 95% of their time on the web – social media, Email, and even relatively demanding tasks such as photo editing can all be done online via the browser, and video is supplied by sites such as BBC iPlayer and YouTube. I think that most users would find the Chromebook an ideal second computer – I certainly do, and would not be without it. A real bargain at £229, and well worth a go if you are curious.

If you ask most locals what the oldest building in Erith is, they don’t have a clue. This is understandable, since nearly all of the original, Victorian town was butchered when the hideous concrete shopping centre was constructed in 1966 to 1973, leaving only the High Street in a conservation area, and relatively untouched. The oldest building is actually the Post Office. The structure was originally built as a stables and livery store in the 17^th Century – if you look at the roof of the structure from a high point such as the steps leading into the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre opposite, you can see the ancient design of the gabled roof. Actually the Post Office takes up less than half of the building. The rest is occupied by long established local sign making company WDS Signs, whose website you can see by clicking here. The history of Erith was obliquely referenced yesterday morning in a BBC Radio 4 documentary presented by Steve Punt about a chap called William Cantelo, who allegedly was the original inventor of the recoil operated machine gun. Cantelo was a Southampton pub landlord whose experiments in the cellar of his pub often caused consternation to both his regulars and his neighbours. Once he was confident that his machine gun was ready for the world, he packed several prototypes up and went off to market the weapon. That was the last anyone ever saw of him. Not long afterwards, Erith's won Hiram Maxim (born in America, but a naturalised Briton) started producing his range of Maxim Guns - touted as the first recoil operated machine gun, which were made at his large factory in Fraser Road, Erith - to this day the area is known locally as "The Pom Pom" - after the noise of the guns being tested made. Investigators have noticed that Cantelo and Maxim looked remarkably similar - and certain conspiracy theorists have had a field day in supposing what the connection between the two men was. The thing is, back in the late Edwardian period, most men over the age of thirty had large bushy beards - as did both Cantelo and Maxim, and a lot of their physical similarity would seem to be due to the beard element. Later, Hiram Maxim claimed that he had a double who was impersonating him, but this was never independently confirmed (Maxim was fond of making sweeping statements, so this was nothing remarkable or at all unusual). Anyway, UK residents can listen to the radio programme investigating the very strange case by visiting the BBC iPlayer website here. It is a fascinating story that I was unaware of, though as long - term Maggot Sandwich readers will recall, I have written at length about Hiram Maxim in the past, listing some of his less well known inventions (the spring loaded mouse trap, for one) and his semi successful attempt at heavier than air flight which took place in Danson Park five years before the Wright Brothers claimed the record for themselves. Listen to the excellent documentary and then decide for yourself.

The ending video this week is something of a curiosity. It is the first episode from a BBC2 situation comedy starring George Cole, called "Comrade Dad" from back in 1983. Personally I don't remember it at all, but when mentioning it to a couple of friends, they do dimly recall it. "Comrade Dad" is basically a version of George Orwell's "1984" but with laughs. The premise of the show is that Britain in 1999 has been invaded by the Russians, and is now under Communist rule. George Cole plays the everyman head of a London family trying to make their way through the layers of socialist bureaucracy and petty rules, whilst trying to remain true to his communist beliefs, despite the clear evidence that Communism does not work. It is actually quite good, and I am surprised that they only made one series of it. This clip shows the first ten minutes of the pilot episode. When this was uploaded, you could only upload a maximum of a ten minute video to YouTube; if you want to see the rest of the episode, you will need to click here and here. Enjoy. Please feel free to leave a comment below.

Kebabs and college.

I recently wrote about the derelict and long abandoned building in James Watt Way that used to house Erith Trades and Social Club (see the photo above - click for a larger view). The club closed down about three years ago, and the building has been empty ever since. Thieves have stolen all of the electrical cabling and both the gas and water piping from the place, and it is in very poor shape indeed. One of my sources has discovered that a planning application has been submitted for the location.  The application involves the demolition of the existing club building (this was always going to be close to inevitable – the structure is in such a state that it is beyond economic repair).  The proposal is for a six storey block of flats, with forty individual flats. Of these forty, six will be one bed, thirty one will be two bed, and the remaining three will be three bed. This is to be accompanied by twenty nine parking spaces, a refuse disposal facility and a communal garden. Quite how the developers are going to fit all of this on the site is beyond me; the parcel of land is of modest dimensions and is sandwiched by the KFC drive through on one side, and the Morrison’s petrol station on the other.  Quite who would want to live with the smell of frying chicken mixed with petrol and diesel fumes, not to mention the almost 24 hour noise from the sites is a mystery. I am guessing that the Council planning team will probably refuse this application on the grounds it is too many flats on too small a piece of land. This well may be a ploy on the part of the developer – put in an over ambitious application initially, only to “revise” it to that which they actually wanted all along. Time will tell. Over the last few years – basically since the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre opened with flats above the shops, the population of central Erith has ballooned.  It is understandable in a way, after all, Erith is one of the cheapest places to live within relatively easy access of London. That’s why I moved here, along with I guess quite a lot of other people.

Am I alone in noticing a local trend in womens’ hair styles? There seems to be a fad for having hair tied up in a very tight bun right now. Some of the ladies I have seen out and about have buns that look so tightly woven that they look like they were made of fibreglass and glued into place. They remind me of the BMW multi function selector iDrive system. I doubt twiddling the hair bob would change any functions however, other than to get you a smack in the mouth, or worse!

The Maggot Sandwich updates keep growing; I originally intended for each weekly submission to be no more than two thousand words a week. It then rose to two thousand five hundred words, and at present it hovers at a little over three thousand words. I am concerned that the length may start to put off causal readers, who may see a dense mass of text, and then think "I cannot be bothered to read all of this", which I can fully understand. As it is, I have had to carry over a couple of stories I would have liked to feature - they will now be recounted in the next update. Apologies to Erith and Belvedere football club, and the Blues Brothers International - you have not been forgotten about. 

Have you noticed that most mobile phones and portable MP3 players make great stock of the sheer number of tracks that they can store and play. It does seem to be that in the last decade or so we have regressed dramatically in terms of what is deemed acceptable audio quality. Back in the eighties, as CD gradually overtook vinyl, compact cassettes were the preferred portable audio medium. Other, superior formats such as DAT and Mini Disk came and went, but never really competed. With the advent of digital downloads popularised by the illegal likes of Napster and LimeWire, the emphasis switched from the quality to the quantity of music that could be acquired. Instead of owning a curated library of hand-selected albums, 21st-century listeners have seen their music libraries become repositories of multiple thousands of song - often downloaded or transferred in bulk, often without any particular attention being paid to what was arriving. The more that our new century's music fans were obtaining for free (typically via illegal file-sharing on peer-to-peer networks) the less they tended to pay close attention to what they were hearing. There were just too many songs to deal with. And more arriving by the day. If listening to music was once a purposeful, attentive act, it has become over the past 10 or 15 years a random and distracted act. People often listen to whatever their iPod wants to shuffle into their earphones, and are usually doing a couple of other things at the same time. Online commenters boast about their "massive" libraries - rarely about the quality of the music they're listening to. Meanwhile, streaming services, such as Spotify, brag about the many millions of songs available, and assure us that we should be regularly sharing our hastily assembled playlists with both friends and strangers via social media. As if the constant over-feeding of our ears is now music's primary goal. Music, basically, has become the aural equivalent of fast food: consumed quickly, in super-sized portions; users get filled up but not necessarily nourished. The act of taking a record out of the cover, removing the paper sleeve and placing it on the record deck (in my case, my highly prized Linn Sondek LP12)  became like an act of supplication – a ritual to be performed with care and devotion. The spinning of the record, and the gradual motion of the tone arm and stylus across the face of the vinyl could become almost hypnotic; one did not stick on a record and go off and do something else – at least I never did. The value of music via digital downloads seems to be to have been diminished – the look and feel of the sleeve, the notes and credits were to me all part of the overall experience. How can you ever replace the thrill of reading the cryptic messages left on the run – out groove of the record by the cutting technician? It turns out that there are a couple of websites dedicated to recording this unusual phenomenon – click here.

Now that construction of the new Bexley College campus has begun on the site adjacent to Walnut Tree Road, I think it is high time for the businesses in Erith to step up to the plate in order to be ready for the influx of students, most of whom will have money to spend locally. The most obvious contender for improvement is Town Kebab in Bexley Road (photo above - click for a larger view), as it is the fast food outlet located closest to the campus site, just on the opposite side of the hideous fish statue roundabout. The problem that Town Kebab currently has is that it currently only has a single “Scores on the Doors” star, so has a woeful record of food hygiene. One would think that the prospect of over a thousand hungry students on his doorstep would encourage the proprietor to raise his game to compete with the likes of Domino’s Pizzas, or both Macdonald’s and KFC, which are a bit of a longer walk for the hungry teenager. If the place was tidied, given a deep clean and a lick of paint, it might do much to improve its’ image - historically it made most of its’ money on a Friday and Saturday evening when it fed clubbers after they had spent the evening in the nearby T’s (later Tease) nightclub. When that closed down, much of their revenue stream was lost, and the place now looks to be struggling. If they can hold out to the end of this year, and invest a little in fabric of the shop, they could well find themselves sitting on a small gold mine.

Much of the mainstream press (specifically the Guardian, which has worked itself into quite a tizzy) have been writing at length about Google Glass – the beta test version of Google’s new wearable computer / enhanced reality headset that has gone on limited release to a number of U.S based testers, who have each paid $1,500 for the privilege. The problem that some security analysts see is that you cannot readily tell when a Glass user is taking video or photographs. In one example, a journalist was demonstrating a Glass headset to a film crew in a Starbuck’s coffee shop. The shop manager asked the film crew to stop filming, but ignored the presenter, who was also shooting video through the Glass headset. I think this is the crux of the privacy problem; when someone is using a DSLR or even a mobile phone to take video or still photographs, it is obvious that they are doing so, and if you don’t want to be filmed, you can take action to avoid it. With devices like Google Glass, it is impossible to determine what the wearer / operator is doing. Mobile phones make a synthesised and quite loud shutter “click” when they take a photo to make certain that surrounding people are aware that a photograph has been taken. The reason for this? Some early camera phone users in Japan were using their phones to covertly take photos up women’s skirts on the Tokyo Underground. The shutter sound was added to make this far more difficult. Not only this, but Google Glass video and still photo content is automatically uploaded onto Google’s servers – potentially for the world to see.  Much in the same way that Google Street View has suffered from the law of unintended circumstances, catching people up to all sorts of humorous / criminal / dangerous activities, what will Google Glass end up doing? I have a few ideas, and I am sure that others have too. It does seem that Google senior management have the attitude of “sod the consequences, let’s chuck this technology out and see what happens.”

In the mid nineties, I worked for a company that was based in the East End of London, very close to Cable Street, the location of The Battle of Cable Street.  Due to the proximity with Brick Lane, I would invariably head to the lane for lunch at least one day a week. Nowadays Brick Lane and the surrounding area has become gentrified, with media companies moving in, and the widespread restoration of the Spitalfields area; back then it was a slum; nowadays the Huguenot period houses sell for millions.  Brick Lane back then was still dominated by wholesale clothing shops, and the side streets were full of illegal sweat shops. Now it is smart and feels a lot safer, though it has definitely lost the edge. I used to be one of the few European faces seen walking down the road at lunch time, especially so if the service at the Brick Lane Mosque had just finished. The huge number of “tourist trap” curry houses had yet to spread. Nowadays waiters tout for business outside many of the restaurants, offering passing visitors unbelievable deals if they choose their restaurant over the plethora of others. I detest this – many, maybe most of the restaurants on Brick Lane are poor quality, and certainly not worthy of your patronage; they exist mainly to fleece the tourists, who won't be back to complain. One place that stands head and shoulders above the rest is one of the oldest restaurants on Brick Lane, and a place I used to be a regular at. It is an unpretentious cafe style place located on the junction of Brick Lane and Chicksands Street called Sweet and Spicy – you can read a recent review of the place by clicking here.

This week the Maggot Sandwich plays host to Richard, a local resident who has picked up on my comments concerning the apparently illegal parking notices in the B and Q car park in Lower Belvedere, and I suspect all over the country. The story was first broken by Malcolm of the Bexley is Bonkers blog, but Richard has carried out some quite extensive research into the legalities of the situation. I should point out that Richard is an enthusiastic amateur, not a legal professional, so your mileage may vary. Here is his take on the situation:- "A company calling itself 'Vehicle Control Services Ltd' have placed signs in the car park of B and Q in Lower Road, Belvedere. They say “24 hour parking enforcement in operation”.  The notice in it's present context is meaningless as the car park is on privately owned land. Parking enforcement procedures can only be carried out by an approved local authority enforcing a Penalty Charge Notice:

Penalty Charge Notice (Local Authority) 
This is NOT a fine but a civil debt recoverable in the county court.

Traffic Management Act 2004.
The regulations made under Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 enable a Local Authority 
in England, provided it has been given the relevant power by the Secretary of State, to enforce 
parking contraventions within a particular geographical area (CEA) and to enforce other 
contraventions such as double parking and parking across a dropped footway within a Special 
Enforcement Area (SEA).

The signs then go on to state “maximum stay 3 hours”. This statement is totally ambiguous and could mean anything, 3 hours a day, a week, forever. Who knows? The notice continues to list conditions that, if not complied with will result in a series of what it calls 'enforcement procedures'. (See above). These conditions are interesting. To paraphrase, “if a valid ticket/permit is required it must be shown in the front windscreen of the vehicle”. No valid ticket/permit is required as it is a free car park so none of the penalties would apply even if they were legal. A Parking Charge Notice charge is only enforceable by the court. In order to get such an order the car park operator would have to establish that a contract existed between themselves and the motorist. A contract requires an object (something the car park operator provides) in exchange for a consideration (something the motorist offers in exchange). No consideration, void contract. End of story. A Parking Charge Notice is a claim of civil debt governed by contract law and property law. While this may look like a penalty charge notice it is no such thing and can be treated as a speculative invoice for a breach of contract. Other penalties they threaten refer to wheel clamping and towing. This became a criminal offence under the Protection of Freedoms Act on 1st October 2012. It may also be considered a threat to commit a criminal offence with the intention to obtain money which is an offence under the Public Order Act, S4.

Section 4  Fear or Provocation of Violence 
A person is guilty if he either 
a) uses towards another person threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or 
b) distributes to another person any writing or sign which is threatening, abusive or insulting.

The above would also apply to the land owner for allowing the sign to be displayed. 

Contracts with unlawful objects are also void.

PARKING FINES

There is no such thing as a parking fine.  Although the term is widely used it is almost always incorrect. A 'fine' in English law is issued as a punishment for a criminal offence. The only time the term could be considered is when a fixed penalty notice is issued by the Police for a traffic violation such as:-

parking at bus stops 
parking on pedestrian crossings 
parking in safety zones outside schools 
parking on yellow lines. 
Anything else is only a civil penalty which can be challenged in the county court."

Many thanks to Richard for his work in clarifying this; it would appear that B and Q and their security sub contractor have dropped a massive clanger. It will be interesting to see if either the Bexley Times or The News Shopper pick up on the story, as it certainly has legs. Time will tell. *Update* Since I was sent the piece above in the midweek, I had to attend a conference hosted at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as part of my day job. One of the other delegates was a lady called Margarita McNee, the Legal Policy Manager for B and Q. I bent her hear at some length about the parking warning sign issue at Lower Belvedere (she knew the shop well). She said that in general, B and Q does not own the land its' stores are built on, it is merely a tenant - apparently there are tax reasons for this. The land owner has responsibility for the car park, and B and Q pays a fee to use them. Any enforcement of the parking rules is outsourced by the local landlord to a third party enforcement company. I explained that the general public don't know this, and the current signs obviously damage the B and Q brand. She was very interested, and promised to investigate. Hopefully something positive will come out of this fortuitous meeting.

Whilst I was at the Foreign and Commonwealth office, I walked past the office door of the Minister for Europe, currently the role is held by David Lidington MP. The door was open, and he was sat at his desk with his head in his hands; I have no clue as to what sort of crisis he was managing, but he did not look too happy. I get a good idea of the esteem the Minister for Europe is held within the FCO - his office is right next to the toilets!

The row over the proposed road bridge over the River Thames between Beckton on the North bank, and Gallions Reach in Thamesmead on the South bank seems to have stepped up a gear. Councillor Gareth Bacon of Bexley Council said that building a bridge would be “disastrous” and that “Bexley will not stand by and let the bridge back in with all the congestion that would entail in our borough. It has been proven to be a fundamentally flawed idea and would be disastrous for local people. There are other locations which would be clearly much better suited, such as Woolwich”. Politics aside, there would be powerful engineering and legal challenges preventing a bridge at Gallion’s Reach.  Under international aviation law, it is illegal to build any structure higher than fifteen metres within one kilometre of an airport. Any bridge between Beckton and Gallion’s Reach would need to be substantially taller than this in order to allow enough rooms for ships (including large passenger liners which will be using the new facility on the banks by the O2 Arena) to pass underneath. Guess what? London City Airport is directly adjacent to the proposed bridge site. I think for this reason alone, a bridge at this location is a non – starter.  Environmental concerns, as expressed by Darryl of the 853 blog, and my own worries that the sleepy residential area of Gallion’s Reach would get turned into a rat – run for heavy goods vehicles may come to nothing due to the simple fact that it is forbidden to build tall structures close to airport runways – a fact that those involved don’t yet seem to be aware of.

The ending video this week is from a 1973 BBC live recording of Mike Oldfield and a host of very talented musicians playing the whole of "Tubular Bells" with no studio trickery or overdubs, something that you just would not see nowadays. Maximise the video window and sit back to enjoy a piece of classic Prog Rock. Please feel free to leave a comment below.

The gentrification of Brick Lane.

Last week I visited an eaterie that used to be a regular haunt of mine at least twice a week between 1996 and 2000, when I worked close to the East End of London. Brick Lane is a well known venue for tourists wanting to try an "authentic" curry experience whilst in London. In years gone past one could visit one of the plethora of restaurants in the road and get something not too bad to eat.  The area was extremely rough and ready, with a mix of sweat shop clothing factory workers, market stall owners, general labourers and a smattering of adventurous city types somewhat off their normal patch, all mixing together and getting along in a somewhat tense environment. Most of the curry houses in the road were of the general "high street" variety, but clothed in a smattering of the credibility the address gave them. The food was OK, but nothing like what you would get in a Bangladeshi home - more of what the English would expect from what increasingly year on year became a culinary theme park.

Since I changed jobs in 2000 and moved away from the area, I have not visited Brick Lane more than a couple of times, and I have only witnessed to the changes to the area as an obeserver. The road has become vastly more commercialised; most Brick Lane curry houses have "greeters" outside in the evenings, inviting passers by to try their establishment with extravagant claims and offers of eye watering discounts which border on the fraudulent, or at least fanciful, and claims about the quality of the cooking which would not bear close scrutiny; they aim to cram as many paying bodies through the  doors as possible, and to hell with the food and service. The road has been "cleaned up' to look far more respectable to the average tourist, to the extent of branding itself "Bangla Town", and the "edgy" nature of the area has been toned down markedly. Of all of the restaurants in Brick Lane, only one has throughout this transition stayed remarkably unchanged, and also the only one visited on a daily basis by the local East End Bangladeshi community. Even now, one can enter the building to see a group of initially slightly scary appearing asian blokes in turbans with impressive bushy beards sitting at tables and eating piles of hot parathas with great metal bowls of steaming, garlicky lentil dhall. To the uninitiated, it can look like the Taleban have taken over a small corner of London. Back in the mid 90's when I first visited this establishment, I was greeted with a similar scene. I nervously walked in, started to read the days' menu, chalked up on the wall, and a turbanned guy slapped me on the shoulder, gave me a toothless grin and handed me a metal mug of water. I soon realised that although we shared no language, it was his greeting, and we soon became aquaintances through food. The restaurant I am describing is the multi award winning Sweet & Spicy. It is pretty basic, even today when it too has suffered at the hands of those that would gentrify the place. It has a limited menu - one orders at the food counter (the place is basically a transport cafe serving excellent Indian and Bangladeshi home cooked food, rather than a Western palate pleasing restauarant, as in the rest of Brick Lane).  The place is definitely worth a visit - the food is cheap, hearty and plentiful, and light years away from that which you will get from your average high street curry house. You can see a couple of photos of their menu below.  Sweet & Spicy is one of the few eateries in the whole of Greater London where you can get a curry for breakfast - indeed they have a special curry breakfast menu which they have been serving daily since they first opened back in 1969, which is served from 7am until 11.30am. I know that this is a favourite of both locals and the licenced cab trade, many of whom get their evening meal in the place on their way home after a solid nights' work. Most of Brick Lane is a facade created to pander to the predudices and expectations of the visitor and tourist trade; Sweet and Spicy is a notable exception to this rule, and I would strongly recommend you try the place - it may look rough and ready, but it is friendly; the food is also great value and tastes fantastic. You can read a few reviews of the place here. Click on the photos below for a larger version of the menu.

On a more local note, the Erith mosaic has finally been completed, adjacent to Blockbuster Video. I photographed it several months ago, whilst it was still being installed, and now the former panel attached to the old Erith Swimming Baths now has a life of its' own. Quite why it has taken the council nearly three months to erect a small metal sign with an explanation of the mural is quite beyond me. The mural itself got erected in three days, the sign has taken almost as many months.

I got accosted in Morrisons' in Erith yesterday; a young lady was asking me if I would sign the petition to get England as the destination for a World Cup in the future. I slowly and patiently explained to her,  that I would rather forfeit several key internal organs, rather than be compelled to watch twenty loutish, overpaid and under educated Chavs chase a piece of inflated pig's bladder around a lawn for ninety minutes, then all jump in a bath together.  In my mind, football is of utterly no interest whatsoever, but as I always say, if it works for you. This years' World Cup is being used quite cynically as a marketing ploy by most of the major electronics manufacturers. Have you noticed the sudden surge in the number of adverts for Hi Def televisons suddenly on our screens and on our newspapers "just in time" for the football? Surely if one wanted a TV, one would have already bought one? The worst offender in my mind is the current Tesco advert which show a husband and wife - contrary to the husband's expectations, the wife encourages him to buy a massive new television, get in lots of gassy lager and generally behave as a stereotypical boorish male when the football is on. The wife then takes advantage of the double points the purchases have racked up to buy stuff that she wants. This commercial makes me want to spit cinders - reinforcing archetypes and generally being very lazy indeed. The most ardent and dedicated football follower I know is a woman, whose knowledge of the game surpasses many males. A pity that Tesco's advertising agency don't come up with something a little more challenging and less stereotypical. No wonder the amount of time UK residents are spending watching television is now dropping, as instead they have begun to watch video online. The likes of YouTube and Vimeo, not to mention BBC iPlayer are starting to make inroads into people's viewing behaviour.

Top Gear car of the year 2009, the Caterham Seven is produced locally by Caterham Cars Ltd; not many people know the Caterham car factory is actually in Kennet Road, Crayford (see the photo below) not Caterham in Surrey - where the company offices and show room are based.  As you will see, the factory is pretty small and unremarkable. You do see cars on test on occasion in and around Thames Road and up and down University Way as far as the Dartford tunnel and back. I once saw a Caterham Seven overtaking a Porsche 911 Carrera on the outside of a roundabout half way along University Way! The Caterham R500 superlight was actually quicker around the Top Gear test track than the Bugatti Veyron - and cost less than £40,000, compared to around £1 million for the Veyron (which incidentally is not the fastest production car in the World, as is often claimed) - there are a hand full of other cars which have a more credible claim to that title, not least the unrestricted version of the Bristol Fighter T, which it is reputed can hit 270mph on a runway.

On a somewhat different note, I see that a minor league rock band I followed during the early 1980's have suddenly been thrust into the limelight. Twelfth Night have made a welcome, though somewhat unexpected comeback. You can read all about them on the BBC News Website here. They are well worth seeing. 

Software company and philanthropists Canonical have just released version 10.04 of their award winning Ubuntu Linux operating system. It is available in Server, Desktop and Netbook versions, all of which are completely free to download and use as you see fit. All Ubuntu software is totally free and open source. I use the Ubuntu Netbook edition on my Asus EeePC 910, and it is fast, secure and reliable. And did I mention it is also free? Yes I did. You can read more about Ubuntu Linux and the amazing features it has by clicking here.

Also in computer news, Series 4 of the IT Crowd is currently in pre production - if you click here you can read about the attention to detail that goes into the set design and dressing. As anyone who works in IT support knows, the IT Crowd provides a gritty and realistic documentary insight into technology in the workplace. Not.  Actually it is a very funny sitcom by the same people who made the outstanding show Father Ted - one of my favourite comedies of all time.

The video this week is also of local content; it shows the annual exhibition by Erith Model Railway Society, held this year at Temple Hill Primary School in Dartford. Watch and feel free to comment below; as previously mentioned, comments are now moderated due to continual attacks by Chinese Spammers, even so, you should see your text up and running within 24 hours of posting.