Wetherspoons in Erith.

I had some very welcome news earlier this week. I have been in correspondence with several hospitality companies recently, to try and find out if any of them had plans to open a pub or restaurant in Erith. The town is woefully lacking in anywhere to go for a drink, or get something  to eat in the evening. The only places in central Erith serving food to be eaten with a knife and fork whilst sitting at a table are Mambocino – which closes at 6pm when the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre closes its security gates, and the café in Morrison’s supermarket. The Running Horses pub on Erith High Street does still sporadically have a food offering, but according to several reports I have received it is so awful that I have not included it here - I have also heard that what food there is tends to only be offered when the staff can be bothered, which is not daily. It seems that the riverside pub, which back in the 80’s and early 90’s was so popular that you would often have to book the upstairs carvery in advance, especially on Sundays when it was always packed, is nowadays in what seems like a terminal decline. The place has been bravely slogging on with a hard-core of regular drinkers for a long while, but the food side of the business is nothing whatsoever like it used to be. The Running Horses is in a superb location and is a lovely 1930’s era reproduction Tudor style building. To be honest it could be restored back to its heyday if a substantial financial investment was made in the place, which I don’t think the current landlord / manager is in a position to do. I have long suspected that the land The Running Horses is sitting on is now worth substantially more than the pub itself, and that it is quite possible that the building is currently being “land banked” waiting for a suitable developer to come along and build yet more flats. Land in Erith is about to skyrocket in value, and it seems to me that it is not a question of if, but when this will happen. I would love to see The Runnning Horses become the massive success that it used to be, but honestly, unless something dramatic happens, I don't see a bright future for it in the current guise. Anyway, on Monday morning I received an Email from JD Wetherspoon which said (and I quote):- "We are currently considering Erith as a possible location for a JD Wetherspoon pub, and we are in the process of obtaining feedback from our Operations Teams on their views on the viability of acquiring a site in the town". I don't know what locations they are looking at, but the three options that seem most likely to me are:- 1) The three empty retail units opposite Erith Health Centre, but this would likely elicit objections from the residents in the apartments above, and the units are also quite close to the Sherwood House residential care and sheltered housing home. The proximity of the home was the primary reason why Wetherspoon’s were unable to convert the old Erith Odeon Cinema into a pub back in 1998. The levels of noise and disturbance which customers would make in the evenings was judged as being too high in what is classed as a residential area. On top of this, I understand that a commercial gymnasium has designs on the site. 2) The old Carnegie Library building in Walnut Tree Road, which has been abandoned and unused for nearly six years - a photo of it is above - click on it for a larger version.  The old library building was going to be converted into a training centre for the hospitality and hotel industry as part of Bexley College, but the funding fell through, and the project was cancelled. Now that Bexley College is being administered by Bromley College, the future of other potential collaborative projects is unclear. Wetherspoon’s have a very good reputation for sensitive restoration of old buildings; my understanding is that the former Carnegie Library has a severe damp problem on the main brick frontage, and the lack of preventative maintenance has caused a number of fairly serious issues with the building fabric. Wetherspoon’s have deep enough pockets to be able to finance major construction, conversion and conservation work if they did decide to purchase the building for use as a pub / restaurant. The only downside I can think of is that the former library has no local parking, though local public transport links are excellent. This does not usually deter Wetherspoon’s, who seem more interested in the local customer demographic, than parking issues. 3) The aforementioned Running Horses – which also has good public transport links, on site car parking, and an excellent location – the downside is that the interior would need extensive modification to make it more open plan. Currently the pub has a downstairs public bar, and a smaller saloon bar which is seldom opened. Upstairs there is a large open plan area which has been used both as a restaurant / carvery and for wedding receptions and the like. The Running Horses ticks most of the boxes that I imagine that Wetherspoon’s would be looking at, with the exception of the internal layout. It would be difficult but possible to convert the two downstairs bars into a single open – plan layout as favoured by the pub company. Of the three locations considered thus far, my own opinion is that the Carnegie Library and The Running Horses are the two most likely to be considered by Wetherspoon’s.  I don't think that the former White Hart / Potion bar would be an option – the ground floor bar area is too small, and will have residential property on top and behind it, when the plans to redevelop  the upstairs of the pub, and the extensive gardens get a block of low rise flats built on them, as I have previously featured. I also think the three units opposite the Health Centre don’t stand a chance due to the proximity to residential accommodation. What do you think? Personally I feel that Erith is crying out for somewhere to go for a drink or informal “sit down” meal. If it gets the go – ahead, it will provide some much needed local jobs, and enable local people to actually socialise in Erith, rather than having to travel to Lower Belvedere (The Morgan), Bexleyheath (lots of places) or Dartford (ditto) in order to get a drink and a reasonably priced meal. I think a Wetherspoon’s pub opening in central Erith would be a very positive event, and the sooner it happens the better. If you disagree, or have a particular point to make, you can either leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com

Regular readers will know that I have been banging on about IT security issues for a very long time. I am especially concerned by contactless debit cards, as they are notoriously insecure. The situation now seems to have got worse, as a criminal group have commercialised the card cracking process, and it can now be bought online. A criminal group going under the name of The CC Buddies is selling a high tech device on the Dark Web that is capable of copying details from contactless debit cards if held as close as eight centimetres away from a victim's card. CC Buddies claim that their device, named Contactless Infusion X5, can copy up to 15 bank cards per second, something that may come in handy if a crook is going through a crowd at a concert or is in a crowded tube carriage.  X5 is designed to copy data from the radio chip embedded in modern RFID contactless bank cards. This data is stored on X5's internal storage system, and thieves can connect the device to their PC using USB cables and transfer it using special software, also supplied by CC Buddies. The device can collect data such as the card's number and expiration date. If the debit cards RFID chip stores information such as the card holder’s name, home address, and a mini statement, X5 can steal that data as well. When it copies credit card numbers, X5 encrypts the data. The software provided by CC Buddies will allow the crooks to decrypt and download the stolen information from their X5 device to a Windows (XP or higher) PC, and start creating fake debit cards using blank plastic cards. Crooks can get their hands on an X5 device for only 1.2 Bitcoin (around £600). CC Buddies says they ship devices via mail, and each buyer will receive the X5 device, a USB cable for charging and data transfers, and 20 blank cards. Below are X5's technical specifications, as provided by CC Buddies in their Dark Web advert, at the time of writing. “The Contactless Infusion X5 is the first contactless bank card hacker sold in the black market. This product has been designed and developed by The CC Buddies. The Contactless Infusion X5 is capable to detect and read ANY bank card from just 8 centimetres away! And reading at an amazing 1024kbps this powerful contactless reader will read and save at approximately 15 bank cards per second! The Contactless Infusion X5 has a built-in 5V battery charged via a USB 3.0 cable (provided). Takes approximately  3 hours to fully charge and it will last up to 10 hours in constant use. It’s also capable to read many other cards! Any card that is running on a 13.56mhz frequency, the Contactless Infusion X5 is able to read, and capture the data! But because the software we provide has been developed specifically to decrypt bank cards it won’t be able to decrypt any other cards, but we’re working on it and soon it will!!  ” This is all very worrying stuff. Personally I avoid all contactless cards - they are more trouble than they are worth in my opinion.

You may recall that there was great controversy when Bexley Council announced that they were ending the Danson Festival. Back in May 2014, I wrote: "It would appear from what I can gather that Bexley Council have effectively pulled the plug on the Danson Festival permanently. It has been known for some time that the festival was being called off this year, due, so the council said to drainage problems made worse by the terribly wet conditions last Autumn and Winter. It was originally intimated that the festival would be back as normal next year. Now Councillor Don Massey has announced that substantial engineering work is required to fix the problems, and that the council currently does not have the money to carry out the work. Bearing in mind over 60,000 people visited the festival last year, to drop it completely is quite a brave move, especially in the light of the forthcoming council elections. My understanding was that the festival was pretty much self funding, and usually turned a modest profit. It showcased local clubs and not for profit groups, and gave a lot of good causes the opportunity to both raise awareness and also fund raise. Several readers have left comments on the News Shopper website stating that the real reason for the cancellation of the Danson Festival is that the wealthy people who live in the big houses around Danson Park do not want the noise and disruption that the festival brings. Compared with other boroughs in the area, Bexley does very little if anything in terms of public festivities or events; it seems to be very keen to be able to continue to boast that they have kept council tax rates the same as last year, which seems to involve making more cuts upon cuts. The same cannot be said of the wage bill of the council leaders, which, as Malcolm Knight of “Bexley is Bonkers” has repeatedly pointed out, are amongst the highest in Greater London". The myth about the poor drainage in the park has been exposed now - a commercial company called Oakleigh Fairs is running an event called the "Danson Park Country Fair" on Saturday the 2nd and Sunday the 3rd of July in Danson Park, Welling. Unlike the previous fair, it is not free, and an entrance fee will be levied against visitors. Bearing in mind that Bexley Council stated that the reason for the cancellation of the original fair was that the cost of improving ground drainage to make the grassed areas suitable to use after heavy rain was too great for them, and that they were regretfully having to end the very popular free event turns out not surprisingly to be completely untrue. No drainage improvements of any description have been made, and yet after what is turning into the wettest summer in living memory, a mass event in Danson Park is able to go ahead with absolutely no reference to the reason the council used to cancel the original, free event. Of course, the commercial company called Oakleigh Fairs are able to go ahead with their for profit event; no doubt they are paying a fat fee to Bexley Council for the right to hold the two day fair. I could not make this up. Please feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The News Shopper have been running a story on how “shoddy” the grounds maintenance work has been in a number of public open spaces in the London Borough of Bexley. The poor level of workmanship in relatively simple tasks such as mowing a lawn is evident from the photographs sent to the local newspaper. I understand that some local residents have taken to mowing the grassed areas themselves, as they are so frustrated by the poor service the council contractors have been providing. I have spoken to a couple of residents of Manor Road, Erith who share this frustration. As you may know, Manor Road is a very long carriageway that has mixed use. The Western end is exclusively residential, whilst the Eastern end is almost exclusively industrial. Many heavy vehicles and plant travel along the road during the day, and consequently a lot of dust in the summer, and mud in the winter is generated. Historically the road and pavements were regularly swept to keep the level of pollution down, but in the last few months the sweeping has ceased and both the road and the pathways are in a right old state. You can see an example in the photo above, which shows one of the pedestrian crossing points near the Frobisher Road Estate. The photo was taken just after the torrential rainfall and minor flash flood on Friday afternoon, and much of the dust and silt that normally lines the kerb had temporarily washed away, but it will be back very soon. It would seem that the rapacious Bexley Council have cut back on street sweeping on top of everything else they are notorious for cutting. Do you have any similar experiences? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

You may recall that back in August of last year I featured an expose of a fraud called the “Funky Clock”. This scam may have now disappeared, but another called Zuuvu seems to have taken its place. A number of readers had rightly become suspicious of a website which claimed that one could legally purchase a brand new iPhone 6 for the price of £1. The website advertising this had links from the tabloid newspaper website The Daily Star, and several other reputable (!) locations. When one followed the link, you were presented with what appeared at first glance to be a page from the BBC News website. It included a story about how people in the UK could get a brand new iPhone 6 for £1. Upon reading the story, alarm bells started to ring; the writing style was nothing like BBC News standard, and there was a problem with the links on the page – they all led to the same website – this is a common trick carried out by scammers – create a fake “honey trap” site to redirect web traffic to another website. The so called "BBC" site was nothing but a fake. The second site was called “Funky Clock” which ran “special offers” amongst “skill and speed” competitions, where participants purchased credits to use to play games, the winner of which supposedly won an iPhone 6. When you signed up for the “free” service, you were prompted to enter your bank details “for verification purposes”. What was only displayed in microscopic text is that the “free” period only lasted for three days, and that after that Funky Clock debited your bank account by £74 a month, from then until the end of time. They also took large amounts of unauthorised cash, sometimes into the thousands of pounds from subscribers accounts. No cheap iPhones, no deals – the whole thing was a massive scam. It would appear that many Internet Service Providers, notably including Virgin were duped into forwarding “Genuine offer” messages from Funky Clock to their subscribers, thus giving a veneer of apparent respectability to the confidence trick. This is a classic case of “if it seems too good to be true, it generally is”. After a massive amount of negative publicity, the scammers closed that particular operation, but did not close down altogether. They are now back with a new look, but the same nefarious purpose – to rob innocent people of their hard earned cash. You can see a screen capture of their redesigned website above - click on the image for a larger version.  Be warned – treat anything that says they are giving away high value items for next to nothing as a con until it can be verifiably proved otherwise (a very fat chance indeed). Unfortunately the criminals will continue such scams for as long as there are vulnerable people to fall prey to them. The Zuuvu scammers do make an elementary error on their deceptive website - they talk about the UK, but they mention prices in Euros - anyone with half a brain cell will know that the UK uses the Pound Sterling, not the Euro. Basic error and in its way, a giveaway to the whole fraud.  You have been warned.

Now that British Astronaut Tim Peake is safely back on Earth, I thought I would feature one of the educational projects he was working on whilst in orbit. He was very involved with encouraging school children to develop an interest in science and technology. This was promoted by a series of live video links from the International Space Station, and by pre - scheduled audio contacts via amateur radio.  The ten school contacts with Tim Peake on the ISS during his Principia mission have inspired thousands of young people and introduced them to amateur radio in a new and exciting way. The new video below celebrates these historic events and the range of linked activities the schools have enjoyed. Beginning with the exhilaration of the launch, it follows the competition for schools to host the ARISS contacts, and showcases the variety of science, technology, engineering, maths (STEM) and arts activities that helped pupils to understand more about space and amateur radio. The contacts themselves, often led by newly-licensed pupils, were the successful culmination of many months of work and anticipation. Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The Maggoty Man.

The photos above were taken on a very wet and windy Tuesday evening in the conservatory at the rear of the Royal Standard pub in Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere. The second public meeting of the Save Belvedere Splash Park campaign was held. Nearly thirty people crowded into the conservatory. The main business of the evening was to elect a committee to actually run the protest campaign. Not long after I arrived at the venue accompanied by my camera, a lady came up to me and asked “Are you the maggoty man?” which left me slightly nonplussed. I knew what she meant, and wondered if she had also got it mixed up with The Matt Smith version of The Doctor, who was occasionally referred to as “the raggedy man”. I confirmed I was that person, which seemed to please her. I have been giving some thought to the whole terminology of online journals, and what the names imply. Personally I am forming the opinion that the term “blogger” may no longer be appropriate for the likes of Malcolm Knight, Darryl Chamberlain,  and indeed myself. In my opinion, blogging seems to denote the occasional postings of missives in a casual and inconsistent manner – a quick whinge about something to get it off your chest and into the world, whether the world is interested or not. Long term, regular postings in a consistent format that involves a considerable investment of time and effort, as well as a degree of subject research and accountability to the readership would seem to me to be more than mere blogging. I would suggest that a more suitable term should be "community journalism". What do you think? Does it sound pompous and self-serving, or do I have a  point? I would solicit your opinions and suggestions. Answers on a postcard please, or better still, leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

As I have commented recently, it does seem that the actions of Bexley Council Environmental Health Department are having a very positive effect. The “Scores on the Doors” ratings of many local food outlets have been steadily improving over the last few months. It has just come to my attention that traditional London Pie and Mash shop – Miller’s in Albert Road, Upper Belvedere has been awarded a five out of five star rating for food hygiene and kitchen cleanliness. This is excellent news; I know several friends who eat there on occasion, and the reports have always been that the pie and mash sold is of exceptionally high quality. In this time of fried chicken and dodgy mass produced burgers it is good to see that certain traditions are not about to die off. One friend has two primary school age daughters – they prefer pie and mash to McDonald’s or Burger King, and I know that Miller’s is their destination of choice. On a less salubrious note, I am pleased to see that the application made by African restaurant K’s Spice in Pier Road, Erith to open from 9am until 1.30 am the next morning, seven days a week has been rejected by Bexley Council planning department. The restaurant is located under a row of low – rise flats, many of which are occupied by people with small children. The level of noise and disruption that such long opening hours would cause are simply not acceptable. As if this was not enough, even though many “Scores on the Doors” ratings in the area are improving, as already mentioned, the K’s Spice has consistently had an unacceptable one star out of five for the last three inspections. Personally I think that the place should be compulsorily closed down until such time as it was able to meet or exceed a three out of five star rating – the level that is generally accepted as the minimum acceptable score. What do you think? 

There is another tech birthday this week, but it is not thirty years old as so many seem to have been over this year. This piece of technology celebrates its tenth birthday – the Firefox web browser. If you have been around for a while, you will no doubt record the 1990’s when the web first started to make an appearance. I can recall the heady days of 1996 and browsing the infant web on a PC running Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 3 over a corporate leased line. Even then, it was not a pleasant experience. Private users who were fortunate to have  dial up internet access preferred the Netscape Navigator web browser, which offered a more complete, if somewhat slow and buggy experience. As has been well documented elsewhere, back at this time web browsers were sold in boxes at computer stores. Netscape Navigator was around £35 in PC World – at this time web download speeds were far too slow to download an application, which might be several hundred megabytes in size. Netscape Corporation made a fortune, and for a couple of years they utterly dominated the web browser market. Microsoft came late to the web, but when they did they were ruthless. Microsoft immediately broke the near Netscape monopoly by bundling their rival browser called Internet Explorer free with new Windows PC’s, and by giving away Internet Explorer CD’s on the front of popular computer magazines at the time. Overnight the Netscape market share plummeted, their market capitalisation crumbled, and the company was all but ruined. For the next roughly seven years, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had a virtual monopoly on the web browser market. By the time they had released version six, so confident that the opposition had been crushed that Microsoft publicly announced that they were not going to release a further version, as there was nothing left to do with the product Apple mac users were even further unsupported in that the Mac version of Internet Explorer was never developed past version 5. This stunning piece of arrogance soon came back to bite them squarely on the bottom. The Mozilla Firefox project was created by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross as an experimental branch of the Mozilla browser – an early open source update of the by then abandoned Netscape Navigator software suite, which consisted of a web browser, an Email client, an Internet Relay Chat tool and a basic “what you see is what you get” web page authoring tool. Hyatt and Ross felt that the Mozilla browser was too large, complex and bloated – very few people really wanted or used anything except the web browser element of the suite; instead they decided to branch out on their own in order to create a much lighter, faster and more efficient stand – alone web browser. Initially this was called Phoenix, but this had to be changed as a company had already go the name registered. The change was then made to Firebird, but again copyright issues were raised. Finally the name became Firefox – named after a breed of Red Panda. Version 1.0 of Firefox was released on the 9^th November 2004. The rest as they say is history. I have a small involvement in the early days of Firefox – I was a volunteer tester – I would download the nightly builds for both Windows and Linux and see how long it took me to find the bugs – which I would then report to the development team. It was quite a big commitment, but the team in those days was only about 25 people in total, and the actual software development team less than half of that, so one soon got to recognise names. Since then, Firefox has been instrumental in removing the dominance of Microsoft – who soon realised that they could not ignore the browser market after all; nevertheless they steadily lost market share, not only to Firefox, but also to the excellent Google Chrome web browser, and to a much lesser extent the rather clunky Apple Safari browser, and the very idiosyncratic Opera web browser (yes, it is still going – just!) If Firefox have done anything, it is to democratise web surfing – they are also the only major web browser company whose products are not tied to a large company, and whose programming code is truly free and open source, Happy Birthday Firefox – you deserve it!

Some readers are surprised at the amount of time I spend working on each weekly update of the Maggot Sandwich; on average each update takes around ten hours of work to research, write, edit, create web links and metadata for. Much of the time is spent in research – I try to ensure that I report on facts, not suppositions, and bearing in mind I am both reporter and editor this can on occasions be extremely difficult. This week I have what would have been a couple of local scoops, but the Save Belvedere Splash Park team accidentally blew the stories before I had a chance to properly get the details. I had mentioned the stories to them in passing, and they unwittingly passed them on. Such is the nature of online media. I am constrained by only publishing once a week on a Sunday. Nevertheless I did uncover the following two news stories, one of which is solid fact, and the other at present is still a rumour that has yet to have been properly corroborated, but does come from a previously reliable anonymous source. The first, solidly confirmed story is that there are plans by giant brewing and hospitality company Marston’s to construct a large pub, restaurant and hotel on the North side of the Belvedere flyover at the junction of Picardy Manor Way and Eastern Way in Lower Belvedere. If approved, it could mean some much needed jobs for the area, as any such new operation will be rather labour intensive and will require a certain amount of staffing 24 hours a day. Marston’s are known for their quality real ale (they are the largest brewer of cask ales in the World), but they also run a very sizable estate of hotels and restaurants on top of the nearly two thousand pubs they operate around the country. Marston’s to my knowledge don't have any pubs in the local area; all I can find is one in the City of London (the Pitcher and Piano in Cornhill), and one in Braintree in Essex(Bailey’s Café Bar). Other than that there is nothing Marston’s – wise in the region, let alone the local area. The site, if it gets planning approval, will be very sensibly situated, close to the A2016 Eastern Way to Plumstead and Woolwich and the A 2016 Bronze Age Way to Erith, Crayford and Dartford, with its link to the M25 and the A2 / M2. I think the business planners at Marston’s have been one step ahead of almost everyone, and I can see the benefitting because of it. As I have covered recently, it is quite probable that a bridge or tunnel will be built at some point to link Lower Belvedere with Rainham in Essex; the proposed new hotel / restaurant and pub would be smack bang on the South side of any connection, and in a prime spot for business travellers needing a bed for the night. It is highly likely that any bridge or tunnel connection across the River Thames would require drastically improved local public transport, thus making the pub and restaurant accessible for any locals wanting to leave the car at home when they went out for a couple of pints, or a meal and a glass of wine. The fact that the newly built Belvedere Park residential estate is within a couple of minute leisurely walk would also be a great advantage. A new facility of this nature really has no local competition – the nearest rough analogue would to my mind be the Harvester outlets in Crayford and Dartford, though they are really too far away. The only place I can see that has anything to fear from a pub / restaurant combination is the Running Horses in Erith High Street. A few months ago when it had a previous health inspection, it only merited a woeful one out of five stars on the “Scores on the Doors “ rating system. Back in October it was re – inspected and I am pleased to say that it has seriously upped its’ game and now rates four out of five stars, an excellent improvement. The bottom line is that the pub does not attract anything like the number of customers it used to. Back in the late 1980’s the upstairs carvery was booked weeks in advance, and packed out every Saturday and Sunday. The food was plentiful, well cooked and reasonably priced; The Running Horses was synonymous with family lunches out, and for good reason indeed. Nowadays the reports of the food have been woeful – cold gristly meat, grey vegetables, congealed gravy and sullen service. As I have said before, I don't see the current owners have the financial clout and experience to pull what could be an excellent pub out of the mire. Currently it seems to be living a hand to mouth existence by supplying the lager needs of a handful of regulars who seem to spend much of their time in the smoking shelter outside of the front of the pub, come rain or shine. The Running Horses would seem to need a large injection of capital, both to upgrade the building and facilities, and also to publicise it to the larger area. I am pretty certain that it is not anything like an impossibility to return the hostelry to the glory days of the 1980’s, but in my opinion it requires new management and a pot of money. The only way I can realistically see this happening is if the owners of the Running Horses sell the pub to a pub management company like Spirit, who own brands like Chef and Brewer, John Barras and Taylor Walker. Alternatively I am sure that Wetherspoon’s would be more than interested in getting a foothold in Erith, as they have nothing in Belvedere, Erith, Crayford or Barnehurst, and their outlets in Bexleyheath are very busy. Personally I would rather see a regional brewer / pub owner such as Shepherd Neame or Fuller’s taking on the pub, as they both have excellent records of turning around failing pubs and moving them slightly upmarket with better quality food and drink. I am probably dreaming in vain; it is evident that Erith town centre really misses a quality pub, and there does not seem to be any likelihood of the Running Horses getting significantly better without third party intervention. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or drop me an Email to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The second piece of information is still classified as a rumour, as at the time of writing I have been unable to get any documentary proof, though I am still digging through various sources. The rumour does come from a previously impeccable source though, and I have no reason to doubt its veracity. I am told that the now long empty Potion building (formerly the White Hart pub shown in the photo above - click on the picture for a larger view) is being studied by Subway as a possible sandwich outlet / restaurant. This would be a logical move by the fast food retailer; Erith does not have any equivalent sandwich shop (Greggs is the nearest thing, I concede), and recently a large influx of potential new customers are present in the town – the students from the newly opened Bexley College Campus in Walnut Tree Road. They are already a noticeable presence in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre, and have definitely increased the takings of many shops. If the rumour has substance (and I believe I may have found a smoking gun - a company called Malthouse Retail that operates a variety of fast food franchises from as far away as Cardiff to as near as Epping in Essex is recruiting shop staff locally). If this is indeed correct, them Malthouse Retail behind the Subway franchise will have an uphill battle on their hands. The White Hart building is in a poor state of repair, and the kitchens need to be completely stripped out and replaced; the structure also needs a totally new ventilation and fume extraction system (don't forget that all Subway outlets bake their own bread on the premises, and need ovens with suitable flues and smell filtering, all of which costs a lot of money).  I am unsure if any new owner would be legally obliged to undertake the remedial works mandated to the operators of Potion – who infamously ripped out the acid etched glass and green, salt glazed Erith Pattern tiles on the exterior of the old pub. Bearing in mind that the building sits in the middle of a conservation area, it may be a condition of trade that a facsimile frontage is installed. Having said that, I know the Council planning department backed away from that idea a while back. At present the whole thing is pure supposition, with only minimal evidence at present. I will publish more news as it comes to me.  I am always reliant on you the reader for my stories – even if you don't want a name check, any story you send can be published in anonymity if you so choose; alternatively I have regular guest writers, and if you have something that you feel would be of interest to people, get in contact with me and we can discuss it. I don't have many rules, but there are a few guidelines I request that guests adhere to – nothing very arduous, just common sense behaviour.

I took the above photo a while back in August when the rumour first surfaced that Electricity House was possibly going to the the subject of a redevelopment plan; thus far nothing has happened, and the story has gone cold. Nevertheless, the site is being allowed to fall slowly into rack and ruin, and no money has been invested in the building in a very long time indeed. It is only a matter of time before the property owner takes action. It would be great to see it undergoing a complete, but sympathetic restoration. Somehow I just don't see this actually happening. If any reader has heard any new stories or rumours about the future plans for Electricity House, please Email me and let me know - I rely on my informers.

Microsoft are pitching their forthcoming Windows 10 operating system heavily towards the education sector; they will be rolling out tools to enable remote administration of laptops running the new OS to make it more attractive to non – technical staff to administer. Meanwhile Google is making a dent on this lucrative market with Chromebooks. The internet giant has been promoting the use of the Linux based Chrome OS with specific tools for schools to manage the devices, their apps and users. Its Chromebooks for Education programme is helping schools deploy large numbers of devices with an easy management system. While it is possible to purchase a small Windows laptop for about the same price of a basic Chromebook, the associated management and support costs (not to mention the expense of a Windows licence for each user) are enormous in comparison. In addition,  Chromebooks are pre-loaded with apps such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, with similar functionality to Microsoft's Office suite. Schools can easily provision each Chromebook with specific educational apps, remotely wipe the entire device in seconds, and reuse the laptop for a new class without purchasing any more licenses. There is no manual setup for different users and the machines are administered throughout the school, no matter how many Chrome devices they have, or where they're being used. Google claims that there is no manual maintenance, security patching, or time-consuming support. Since Chromebooks are specifically designed to work online with cloud storage there is no risk that students could lose their work and applications. Each student receives an unique Google account and cloud drive where all documents, preferences, and apps are installed, allowing them to work on the school provided Chrome OS device or any other computer, tablet or smartphone able to run Google Drive. If a Chromebook is lost or compromised it can be wiped out remotely with the "power wash" feature. Despite this, the use of Chromebooks outside of the USA is still somewhat limited in schools; Apple have very cleverly marketed the iPad at the educational sector in the UK, and in many places it has now become the de facto standard. Apple has always been a strong player in the education market. While other PC vendors were mostly focused on the corporate and government sectors Apple was cultivating niche markets such as education, press and design. The effort is paying off, and Apple can claim leadership in the education market. Many schools offer “£10 a month” leasing schemes, which enable pupils to have a centrally managed iPad complete with technical support should it break, and full replacement insurance if it is lost or stolen for a relatively reasonable monthly fee. This generates a reliable monthly revenue stream for the specialist educational resellers who operate the schemes. Microsoft need to simplify their offering for education empowering schools and teachers to manage devices, licenses, and content easily – the tools within Windows 10 partly address this, but it may well be too little, too late. They also need to provide free development tools for educators so they can create unique content;  otherwise the current trend of schools moving to iPads and Chromebooks will continue and the professionals of tomorrow won't be used to Windows anymore. This more than any other single reason is why I feel that the once dominance Microsoft and Windows had on the PC is now coming to an end.

The ending video this week is from a relatively new YouTube channel called "Harry's Garage". It is put together by motoring journalist and former Evo Magazine publisher Harry Metcalfe. Harry is fabulously wealthy (but not in the Jay Leno league), and has a fantastic private collection of vehicles which he stores at his family pile in West Sussex. Unlike Top Gear or some of the other motoring channels on TV and online, Harry's presentation style is laid back and thoughtful - he obviously knows and cares a great deal for his vehicles. Many of the cars featured are exotic supercars from the 1980's to the present day, but Harry has a particular soft spot for his 1954 Series 1 Land Rover, which you can see in the video below. Please feel free to leave a comment or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.