You said... we listened...

Just before Christmas, a leaflet came through our letterbox, addressed to "the  Occupier". Nothing new about this, we get about a pound and a half of waste paper a week shoved through our letterbox and it all goes into the recycling bin (or used to, more about this later).

Happening to glance at it, I noticed that it came from Peabody, the housing trust brought in to try and sort out the dismal state of Thamesmead, it's housing and infrastructure. Instead of disposing of it with the other junk, I put it away somewhere with the intention of reading it later and promptly forgot about it. 

Well, I've just found it again. It's a curious bit of origami that needs both hands to unfold and frankly, promises more than it delivers. I don't want to be a killjoy and it's probably early days yet to dismiss them altogether; it's a fact that Peabody Trust has been around for a long time and against all odds, seems to have a good reputation when it comes to turning round failed estates. Having said that, the leaflet contains nothing other than vague promises to "identify problems", "carry out comprehensive assessments", "work with partners", etc.,etc.

Given that those partners include both Greenwich and Bexley Councils, you will forgive me if I don't hold my breath. For years, Greenwich Council policy has been to stifle commercial development of Thamesmead in order to force residents to use Woolwich as a shopping and leisure hub. The Bexley Council approach to Thamesmead seems to be to cross their fingers and hope the fairies make it go away.

Here, pedestrians slip, slide and stumble along
an uneven footpath covered in the slippery
remains of dead leaves that fell last September.
The street light on the right of the picture has
never worked.

Frankly, I don't think they are going to make much headway. The problem with Thamesmead has always been that it has been developed on a piecemeal basis with responsibility for it's infrastructure belonging to various, and sometimes competing, institutions. Their programme to "improve play spaces for young people" may find itself at odds with Bexley Council's current programme of selling off it's open spaces in a desperate attempt to balance it's books.

Responsibility for the lighting of public spaces is shared between the owners of whatever land the lighting is on. While I applaud the stated aim of Peabody to make sure all the lighting they are responsible for is fit for purpose, the decision to "work with others to try and ensure lights we do not own meet the Peabody standard", is likely to be met with total indifference. The lights along the alley between Castilion School and Marlborough Court Care Home for example haven't worked in the last twenty years and I can't see Bexley council doing much about that just because Peabody say it might be a good idea.

Foot and cycle paths meander around the place, often blocked by years of vegetation growth and accumulations of uncollected litter and, as often as not, coming to a dead end at a pile of rubble or a broken down chicken wire fence left behind by the last developer who managed to flog off the homes they just built and left the site as it was. If Peabody want to do anything about that, they will almost certainly find it impossible to identify who is responsible, or if they do, get them to do anything about it.

This mass of undergrowth was never cleared
from this cycle path in the whole of 2014. It
falls over a fence from land owned by EDF.

Apart from that, there is little more than their claim that they will "work with local residents, the Royal Borough of Greenwich and Bexley Council to identify problems and make improvements in all of Thamesmead's neighbourhoods". A statement so generic as to be virtually meaningless.

In the mean time, Bexley Council continues to ignore the whole of the northern part of its borough in general and Thamesmead in particular. Greenwich Council seems to be on a mission to make driving in Thamesmead even more hazardous than ever with it's idiotic bus lane programme.

Footpath and cycle paths remain blocked by accumulations of rubbish and vegetation; the town centre bus stop remains as lethal as ever; the town centre itself is a woefully inadequate facility for the population it's meant to serve.

Good luck Peabody.

bexley council and it's recycling policy

I was going to show you another picture of our overflowing recycling bins, but honestly, what's the point?

It would be exactly the same as all the others and why would you want to look at it? I have given up phoning them to tell them to come and empty it; if they don't care, why should I? We never did get our garden waste bin back and from what I understand, Bexley Council is going to stop collecting garden waste altogether soon. Serco is the company that collects waste for recycling but the recycling itself is carried out by another company called Veolia who I understand are less than happy with Bexley Council at the moment. Perhaps someone knows more about it than me.

history? channel

I wrote a less than charitable piece the other week about some of the (so called) documentary channels you will find on Sky. 

One of them  that used to really annoy me me was the History channel with it's obsession with cretinous "fly on the wall" type documentaries and a predilection for programmes featuring barmpot conspiracy theories.

It seems I'm not the only one and I recently found this cartoon on one of my favourite Facebook pages and stole it. I am confident they won't mind as long as I give them a plug.

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

Actually, I think they may have stolen it from somewhere else so the hell with it.



I am writing this piece on Friday evening and I thought I would take a look at what I am missing.

On the History channel, it seems I am missing this

And on H2, which is it's sister channel, I could be watching this

The sacrifices I have to make to get this blog out on time.............................

Local wildlife

It wouldn't do to have a post with nothing about the local wildlife in it. Here is a small selection of pictures I have taken out and about this week.

I took this picture of some rather puzzled birds on a frozen Morrison's lake early this week. Some baffled
Coots wondering where the water went; and a couple of Lesser Black Backed Gulls.

This rather strange looking fellow seems to be a cross between a Mallard and some domesticated
variety of duck. Rather unfortunately described in the 'birding' community as a "Manky Mallard",
 it looks very like one seen last year in Mordon Hall Park and was a cross with an Indian Spotbill Duck.
Might even be the same one.

Curious Robin. Probably wondering whether I was going to try and steal any of his worms.

Lapwing in the air. You get lots of these along the river at this time of year. They can number in the hundreds.

Here is one close up. Brilliant colours in the low Winter Sun.

You would sometimes see a Peregrine Falcon flying around the area and it would perch on some high vantage point.
Recently, we have been treated to a pair roosting on the top of the incinerator chimney. If we are really lucky, they
may stay and breed. That would be a real treat.

and finally........ my latest header

What these two Mallards think of my bird photography

Bus Lane Folly

Anyone with an interest in reading local blogs will be aware of Bexley Council's strange and erratic highways policies. You can read regular reports of their goings on through Malcolm Knight's 'Bexley is Bonkers' blog and more occasionally, you will get a item courtesy of Arthur Pewty.

Today however, I want to talk to you about how Greenwich Council is fed up with being ignored in the 'let's see who can do something really daft' competition and has come up with a real corker.

Bus stop in Central Way facing West
with the new bus lane

For those of you unfamiliar with the area, this is a view of Central Way in Thamesmead facing West towards the roundabout at the junction with Bentham Road and Thamesmere Drive. In this picture, I am standing just across the road from the entrance of Linton Mead Primary School. This is not a particularly busy road although it can get a bit crowded during school time. It is the route taken by buses 401, 472, 229 and 177 from Crossway towards the main bus stop in Thamesmere Drive. I have mentioned this particular death trap in an earlier post.

Once a bus leaves the bus stop in the picture, it then pulls over to the right hand lane in order to turn right at the roundabout ahead. Courteous car driver who are familiar with the area usually pull to the left hand lane in order to allow the buses to turn right.

Buses pull into the right hand lane
so they can turn into Thamesmere Drive

Not any more. 

As you can see, in an act of extraordinary folly, Greenwich Council has decided to turn the nearside lane into a bus lane. There is no reason for any bus to actually use it and none of them do. This is just as well because if they did, we would be presented with the nightmare scenario where buses arriving at the roundabout in the left hand lane and wanting to turn right into Thamesmere Drive would need to cut across the path of the cars, forced into the outside lane and wanting to turn left into Bentham Road.

Anyone thinking that this is a mistake and they meant to put the bus lane in the right hand lane (which might at least make some sense), then take a look at the picture I have taken from the other direction.

Bus turning right into Bentham Road
avoiding the new bus lane

This is a view of Central Way facing East towards the Bentham Road/Thamesmere Drive roundabout and where you will see another bus lane, again in the nearside lane which the buses don't use. This route is used by the 472, B11 and 244. All of these buses pull into the outside lane at this point in order to turn right at the roundabout into Bentham Road.

You may be asking yourselves why anyone would be stupid enough to put a bus lane on a road that buses don't travel down. I have been asking myself this question and have yet to come up with an answer. All this bus lane does is forces cars into the right hand lane, blocking it so the buses can't get out. Smart move Greenwich. In fact, the same thing happens with the bus lane going in the opposite direction. Not only does this piece of folly not help bus movement, it actually hinders it.

You may also notice if you are travelling Eastbound, you get no warning of the approaching bus lane; by the time you see the sign, you are already on top of it. In the few minutes I was there taking pictures, I saw two very near misses caused by cars having to suddenly take evasive action to avoid drivers swerving right in order to avoid driving into the bus lane.

And Finally - 

If anyone wants to point out that cyclists are allowed to use it and shows Greenwich Council's caring attitude to the cycling community, I offer this final piece of evidence.

It's been like this for weeks

Bexley Council Recycling Policy

I will be offering this regular diary report of how Bexley Council carries out it's recycling responsibilities.

Our Recycling bin - last emptied on 22 May 2014

Sunday 3 August 2014

Sunday 27 July 2014

London, where's that?

Episode 5

Recent stories about London posted on the BBC text news page.

Bury St Emund's MP resigns

Item about house prices. No reference to London

Doctor Who musical will feature music by the National Orchestra of Wales

Problems with luggage at Gatwick Airport

Brinford Young Offender's Institute in Wolverhampton receives 'least serious concerns' report

Man stabbed in Stevenage

Recycling 

Bexley Council Style

Last emptied October 2013

Monday 12 May

Monday 19 May

Recyling

Bexley Council Style

Last emptied October 2013

All Change

The new £1 coin, shaped like an old threepenny bit as this is all it is worth now.

I used to be able to buy 2 ounces of American Hard Gums for threepence at the sweet shop on the way to school. Don't know what they would cost today and I wouldn't dare try to eat one anyway as it would certainly pull the fillings out of my few remaining teeth.

The reason for introducing the new coin is that it seems around 10% of the ones in circulation are fake. It doesn't help that there are a bewildering array of designs on the back of the current one so telling the real thing is a challenge. 

I have also found that the bank's decision to put fake coins that come into their possession back into circulation gives them an air of authenticity which is difficult to ignore.

It seems that there is going to be a public competition to design the back of the coin but as that was the method used to produce the confusing shambles we now have on the back of our present ones, I am not at all confident we are going to see anything we are going to enjoy. In any case, it is not intended to be introduced until 2017 and that gives the politicians plenty of time to make the whole exercise a waste of money by joining the Euro.

In for a Penny

In for a Pint. Hurrah for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A whole penny off a pint  of beer means that my bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale which used to cost £3.20 will now only cost £3.19. As a result, I will be necking the stuff like there is no tomorrow.

Except of course, I won't. Neither will anyone else, will they? Firstly, 1p is not a lot in the great scheme of things and it is unlikely that pubs will pass on even this meager reduction to their customers. In fact, I would be willing to bet my shiny new penny that the price goes up again some time in the near future. Any takers?

Plagiarize

Let no one else's work evade your eyes

(As the great Tom Lehrer once said)

I often like to have a trawl around to see the blogs published by other people with a local interest. Several of them add a link to mine and I would love to be able to return the courtesy but I have been unable to modify my blog page to do it. Every time I try, I finish up with a long list of single words down the side of the page and nothing I do seems to be able to change it. I know it's possible, as other blogs have shown, but so far it has managed to escape me. I have to make do with the occasional reference, like now.

One of the blogs I like to look at is A Take on Thamesmead by Max Lehman. He does what I began trying to do which was to point out the problems of neglect and under investment in Thamesmead. Unlike me however, he does it much more professionally and with a lot of obvious in depth research that I cannot be bothered with. I just happen across a mess, take a picture then have a moan. If you want a more informed account of what is going on in the neighbourhood you should read his blog.

Another blog well worth looking at comes by way of Jones the Planner. His reference to the development of Woolwich is well worth reading and also presented me with an interesting challenge when he was told by security staff that he couldn't photograph the new Greenwich Council Offices in Wellington Street, even from the outside. An opportunity for me to test my photographic skills and to stick two fingers up at officialdom is too good to resist.

For some time, I used to work in the Jobcentre in Wellington Street, across the road from the old council building which was (I thought anyway) a rather attractive red brick affair but was apparently not suitable any more. I watched it's demolition and the preparation of the new site but never got to see the new building go up so decided it was a good opportunity to go and investigate. I thought I would also have a look at the new Tesco building that he refers to in such scathing terms.

Greenwich Council Civic Offices
View from the front

View from the top of Wellington Street

I suppose the first impression when you see it is the incredible size of the building. If Greenwich Council wanted to make a statement they have succeeded in spades. It was very difficult to photograph in any way that captured the whole impression of the building and my efforts here will not win any prizes, I don't think. It seems to be three buildings in one, with most of the front taken up by a vast glass front bottom half and a red brick top. I don't know if that was intended as some sort of tribute to the building it replaced. At the far end there seems to be a much lighter stone construction which runs over the top of the building. Then there is the slice of cheesecake perched at an odd angle on top. I imagine it will be the subject of some lively debate as new buildings often are but either love it or hate it, you could never miss it or mistake it for anything else. A bit like what people say about elephants - difficult to describe but you will know when you see one.

The new Tesco Extra shouldn't cause much disagreement. A genuinely awful monstrosity. Jones the Planner points out the ghastly sight meeting anyone leaving St Peter's in Woolwich New Road.

Tesco Extra shows it's bum the St Peter's.
This is the actual view, not an artists impression.

An interesting piece of psychological warfare is going on here. Large businesses usually place the less decorative parts of their operation out of site where they won't disturb the public.

Giant advertising hoarding in General Gordon Square

By placing this part of their store in full view on the high street they are making it perfectly clear what they think of every other business in town. This is the corporate version of dropping your trousers and exposing your bottom at the enemy in order to show your contempt. Anyone who has seen the brick front ASDA presented to shoppers in Bexleyheath Broadway will be familiar with the tactic.

Peace, Love and the Town Centre

Schrodinger's Roundabout

I've been reading a number of stories about the new road layout in Bexleyheath, most of them unfavourable. 

I have little cause to ever visit the place and rarely do, so I never had any reason to take much interest but today I had to drive through the town on my way elsewhere. I joined the back of a long queue of traffic in Church Road waiting to turn into the Broadway and after about ten minutes, finally arrived at the scene of all the controversy.

Holy Moly! What a shambles.

My first impression was that I had entered a time warp back to the 1960's and been delivered into the middle of a 'happening'. I don't know what the person designing the layout of the road was smoking at the time but it must have been some seriously good shit. 

You have to drive over a pedestrian crossing that isn't a pedestrian crossing and onto a Mandala sitting in the middle of the road which may be a roundabout, but then again, may not be. While I was trying to decide whether I should be driving on it or meditating on it, other drivers were either using it as a roundabout or a junction according to personal whim. I believe it follows the principal in quantum mechanics where an object can exist it two states at the same time until it is observed, collapsing the probability wave. 

Schrodinger's Roundabout can prove the Copenhagen interpretation without being cruel to cats. It's a pretty scary thought though, that every time anyone chooses one state over the other, they create an entirely new Universe.

Even more Bonkers than Bexley

You have to laugh. It seems that other local authorities have been reading the "Bexley is Bonkers" website and decided to join in the fun. This appeared on the BBC News Website on Friday and frankly, beats anything Malcolm Knight has managed to dig up about our favourite bunch of loons. Has anyone from Bexleyheath Town Hall moved to Milton Keynes lately?

The Dagenham Blaze

I know this was last week but I've not had much time to publish much so better late than never. I saw the smoke first from Belvedere Station where I was doing my Poppy Selling bit. From there it looked like it was coming from the Church Manorway Industrial Estate. Someone told be it was in Dagenham and when I got home it was on the news so I grabbed my trusty camera and headed of down the river. I would have spent more time taking pictures but it started to rain heavily and I don't have a waterproof cover for my small lens so I had to beat a hasty retreat home. Glad the smoke wasn't blowing this way though. 

This image was taken from just beyond the Golf Course

Sorry you were out

Bexley Council, it seems, is sorry they missed me. Apparently they came to talk about our waste and recycling service, I wonder why they left again without doing so; all they did was post this card through the letter box along with some other bumph then left.

I have a few things to say about recycling in Bexley. Looking at the leaflet that came with the card, it seems I can recycle my kitchen and garden waste in a brown bin. We used to have 2 brown bins which were duly filled with garden waste and left to fester for about 2 years. When I finally complained about them, they were taken away and I was told they would not be replaced. They never were. As for the glass, paper and plastic/can bins - the paper bin only has a letter box size slot to put your paper and cardboard through; anyone trying to dispose of the box their 50 inch plasma screen came in has to tear it up into little pieces to get it through the slot or more likely, just dump in on top. The same applies to the plastic bottle bin which you can't get a six pint bottle through, although ours has the lid left unlocked so you can lift it and dump your stuff inside. That too can be left till it is overflowing, although a quick call to the right people got ours emptied in short order. The leaflet asks me to take light bulbs to the refuse and recycling centre, this is in Thames Road and is 7 miles away. The idea of doing a 14 mile round trip to recycle a light bulb seem to me to rather defeat the object. I suppose I could always walk.

Nostalgia Time

This reminds me of our living room wall when I was a child. What you are looking at is a small group of Teal flying over the river. They come to roost in the Winter in their hundreds along with many other species. Take a walk with your binoculars along the river front when the tide is going out for a real birdwatching treat. I have travelled to RSPB reserves all over the country and seen lesser spectacles than are available at the end of my garden. if you are a complete novice, there are often bird watchers around who will help you with identification. Here are some to be getting on with -

This should need little introduction to anyone living in Thamesmead. The Grey Heron used to be a common site on the canals but is seen a lot less now. Probably due to the state the water is in (as mentioned in my earlier post). There is still one who sits regularly down by the town centre but that is because the man in the chip shop feeds it.

The Great Crested Grebe, here in its less colourful winter plumage, also used to be a common site on the canals but can still be seen in the river.

This is a juvenile version of the same bird, still has its 'Tiger Stripes' down the side of its neck

Jurassic Vandals

This is the famous Ammonite Fossil Pavement at Lyme Regis dating back around 200 million years. I have just come back from a couple of days exploring there while the Wife went off on her Drawing Class holiday. It really is the most incredible sight and well worth the difficult clamber over loose rocks to get to it. Sadly, some people have been deliberately damaging it; in some cases, to try and remove the fossils which of course just destroys them and amazingly, some religionist types who believe the Earth is only 6000 years old so the fossils must have been put there by the Devil.

Here is some more of the Devil's handiwork

This next one I found all by myself. OK, so it's not the best fossil in the world but I'm very proud of it and I didn't have to take a hammer to a World Heritage Site to get it, it was just sitting there on the beach.

While researching the lunatics who destroy precious parts of our World's history for religious reasons, I came across this piece on YouTube and thought I would share it with you. Be warned, it does contain some 'adult' language

On Bush, Bible, Fossils, Evolution, and Reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcTjGs6_yhU

Speaking of madness - I have just learned that the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Does this prize have any credibility left at all? In the past it has gone to international terrorists, various politicians of dubious credentials, massive international organisations i.e. UN Peace Keeping Forces, The European Union - for protecting the human rights of terrorists, murderers and paedophile rapists and more American Presidents that can possibly be healthy. At least it didn't go to that Pakistani girl who defied the will of God by demanding girls should be educated; that has really pleased the Taliban.