Return of the Sun.

This weeks' Blog entry has a distinct nautical feel, with a good shot of Jolly Roger thrown in for good measure. Above is a shot of a freighter moored off Erith that I took earlier. A lovely day today, and the light is good for landscape photography, which is a nice bonus. Click for a larger version.

You may notice that there is a new text box to the right of the Blog text, and below the list of Blogs I read, called "Followers", well I have now enabled Blog following, so if you want to get an automatic notification of an update, or just to generally keep up to speed with developments, click on the "Followers" box and follow the instructions; don't worry - you don't need to leave any personal information, or anything dodgy. Several Maggot Sandwich readers have been asking me to add this functionality for some time - so here it is. You can always drop me a line by clicking on the "Comments" tag at the bottom of each entry should the fancy take you.

What's this whirling panorama below then? It is a little Java Applet showing a 360 degree view from the pier on the River Thames, behind Morrison's Supermarket in Erith. It is the longest structure on the whole of the river, and on a nice day it is an exceedingly pleasant place to be. The viewer may leave you feeling a little dizzy; never fear - click on it with your mouse pointer and the animation will freeze; you can then drag the scene with your mouse to the left or right at will. You can also use the "A" key on your computer keyboard to zoom in, and the "Z" key to then zoom back out. All good fun, and it does show quite nicely that not all of Erith is a blighted hell hole; just most of it.

The Java Applet has now been switched off, as it was rather flaky and unreliable - and it also annoyed the hell out of a number of people.

The publicity campaign for "The Boat that Rocked" has begun to grind into gear; there was an article in the Sun online on Friday talking about the movie featuring the fictional 1960's offshore radio station, and comparing it to the reality. There are a number of clonking errors (but, after all, we are talking about the Sun - who never let the facts get in the way of a good story). You can read the article here. I gave a talk about life on board the Ross Revenge, home of Radio Caroline in the late 80's / early 90's to the BRATS Amateur Radio Club along with Colin G6PBS on Thursday night, which seemed to go down rather well. The traditional video at the foot of this weeks' Blog entry is a report from ITV News at Ten in 1970, showing life on board one of the slightly less well known to the general public offshore radio stations - the English / Dutch / German run Radio North Sea International. The station was arguably the best run and most technically sophisticated offshore radio station until the launch of Radio Caroline's then new ship, the Ross Revenge in 1983. Have a watch and leave a comment if you wish.

I have just found out that skinflint supermarket giant, Morrison's are to start charging for their remarkably flimsy plastic carrier bags; Already I find I am forced to "double up" and use one inside another to prevent splitting. It is not going to be possible for me to carry a couple of said shopping bags within my laptop bag when travelling to and from the office, so I will be forced to pay the bag tax. Morrison's are going to catch a bad cold with this move. Most of the evening visitors to the Erith store have come straight off the train from working in London - they are not shoppers who have come from home by car and have the luxury of toting bags with them. Knowing the way senior management at the store think, they are actually cloaking a pragmatic method of cost saving / revenue generation in the economic down turn with a green and "caring for the environment" image. It is cynical and manipulative in the extreme. I am fortunate to be able to foot the bill for bags, but many will not.

I ate at the Spice Master restaurant in Upper Belvedere on Friday night. When it opened the service was slow, and the food was bland and uninspiring. The place is still quite showy with turbaned and uniformed door staff and somewhat flamboyant waiters, but the food and service have improved greatly. Prices are reasonable and I was pleasantly surprised at the general level of improvement.

The place, the pie.

A bit of unexpected colour to counter the horrible greyness of January with its short days and long, cold nights - the photo above was taken by me a little while back, whilst visiting Faversham and the excellent Shepherd Neame brewery. The shot shows one of the very old fashioned shops which are scattered though the the quaint Medieval town - in this case, a traditional sweet shop, complete with a multitude of jars containing loose sweets - just as I remember as a child. Click on the photo for a larger version.

Here is a bit of a flashback - a rather dodgy transfer from a VHS recording of an article on Sky News from way back in August 1992. It features the World's first legally licenced radio ship - the aptly named Offshore Radio. I was heavily involved in the venture, though I was not on board when the camera crew from Sky filmed the feature - I came on board a couple of days later with then girlfriend, and still good mate Sandra in tow. You can see salty old sea dog Alex Pluck in the video - he's the one that bears an uncanny resemblance to Captain Birdseye. The ship - the M.V Galexy, was and is his, though it is now up for sale. You can see details with more photographs here. It was used in the original Michael Caine movie "Get Carter" in its' original role as a Tyne ferry.

Bearing in mind the extended holiday break, you may not have seen my recently penned Maggot Sandwich year end review - if not, just scroll down the page to read it.

Another slightly embarrassing confession - I have an unlikely addiction to Fray Bentos tinned pies. I don't eat them very often, as they are very bad for the health, but once every so often my resolve wanes and I bung one in the oven - after carefully removing the lid; failure to remove the lid before baking could possibly result in the destruction of an area equivalent to a football pitch - you can read about such a situation here. I blame my time on the Ross Revenge for my predilection. Apart from frozen food, which could be difficult to transport out to the ship, tinned goods were one way the crew could be kept fed with decent grub. I also believe the Caroline organisation had some kind of promotional tie up with the makers, as we always had loads on board. Incidentally, I discovered whilst researching this weeks' Blog entry that Fray Bentos is actually the name of a city in Uruguay, South America. I do these things so you don't have to.

In my opinion, the best food related Blog on the Interweb is the one you can find by clicking here. Your milage may vary of course.

The video below is a clip from comedienne Gina Yashere, who I saw a while back one afternoon whilst I was on the train from Cannon Street to Plumstead, on the way to visit my Dad. She got on at Deptford and off again at Greenwich. Anyway, she is very funny - watch for yourself.