Someone
thinks I should make myself more public. Apparently having my name and
phone number available on the site and my address very easy to find is not good
enough and a photo of the entire Bonkers team is required. Although I use the
term ‘team’ for convenience there is no formal agreement or constitution, we are
just half a dozen residents with a common purpose. Those who contribute most often
were pictured on one of the earlier Home pages which is
archived here.
Apart from that the best I can do is this photo of Nicholas Dowling and myself at the
Notomob event in Sidcup
on 14th May 2011.
The phone number by the way remains unavailable because it was disturbing me so
regularly. The phone is unplugged while I decide what to do with it. It isn’t my only
phone line. The other one is more sophisticated, it doesn’t ring for numbers I’ve
not programmed into it. No marketing calls for me.
Bonkers is bonkers
I had an email from a doubting Thomas. “Surely most of what you write must be
wrong. 20% right perhaps?” I was both surprised and disappointed, nobody had
said anything like that before. I go out of my way to provide documentary evidence
and links to support what is said here and the documentation allows readers to make
up their own minds as to whether my interpretation is correct. Most reports lend
themselves to being totally factual. Where the comments may be selective the full
detail is provided via links. e.g.
Yesterday’s report on recycling.
I would agree that reports of council meetings come without any back up but that
is Bexley council‘s fault for not allowing at least an audio recording to be
made. The reports are generally made in a mickey taking style but they are as
factual as I can make them from copious notes. At least I attend before making a
report, I do not rely on a council press release.
Harassment
This issue rumbles on. Tomorrow Olly Cromwell is due in court on a charge of
harassing Bexley council. I don’t fully understand why. He was warned via a
Harassment Letter (Form 9993) of criticising councillors by writing on the Bonkers blog. I wasn’t
aware that criticism was a criminal offence and in any case Olly has never even asked
to post his blogs here. He wouldn’t want to and I wouldn’t let him. The main
difference between this blog and You’ve Been Cromwelled is that the latter is
liberally peppered with expletives all of which I heard (and read on the subtitles)
in the 18 Certificate film I watched last night. Is it the criticism or the bad
language that councillors (led by Melvin Seymour according to police reports) don’t
like? If it is bad language then I doubt it is illegal to use it. Sometimes
tasteless and often over the top, but surely not illegal? And if it is criticism they
don’t like then presumably I will be next on their list.
I
shall attend Mr. Cromwell’s harassment by Bexley council.
(9 a.m. Monday at Bexleyheath magistrate’s court.) I thought long and
hard about it but I want to know exactly what goes on and be able to report it
here by Monday afternoon. Presumably everyone knows that Bexley councillors and
magistrates are to some extent synonymous?
I have not yet received any comment from Bexleyheath police about them
wrongly
circulating news that Bexley is Bonkers was to be prosecuted. If they can’t
bring themselves to say sorry for their cock-up
that will be a letter in the post to the Directorate of Professional Standards
tomorrow to join a much longer one to the IPCC about DI Keith Marshall,
Chief Inspector Tony Gowen and CS Dave Stringer.
Did you know that councillor Seymour is a painter and decorator by trade? He
must be a good one because as far as I know he is the only one endorsed by
Bexley council. They are as the Prime Minister is fond of saying, “All in it
together”. I mean the trough of course. Click the image to go to the council’s webpage.
Note: The link from the image above now shows the council’s withdrawal of their
endorsement of councillor Seymour’s business. To see how it was originally,
click here.
Notomob
Someone thought I was jumping the gun on the issue of Bexley’s CCTV certification. What you read was a small part of what came out of a long conversation with Nigel Wise who has beaten Richmond, Westminster and recently Medway (subject to any appeal) councils in the courts. Notomob’s local coordinator told me much the same story and sent a copy of what he had passed to the local press. Nigel knows his stuff on parking law, that is why he beats councils and if he tells me what is going on I tend to believe him, and in any case I erred on the side of caution, keeping most of the information back. Neither Nigel or Notomob’s local coordinator believes I went too far.
Obscene blog
On 23rd August Elwyn Bryant and I both received letters from Bexleyheath police that enquiries were exhausted but on 16th September I received another to tell me I would be informed when the enquiries were concluded. If we can believe Bexley council they almost certainly never started so I wrote to Borough Commander Stringer asking for a simple yes or no answer. Finished or not? He doesn’t know. I shall prepare another letter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
The petition
I’ve not yet received today’s report but yesterday the number of signatures passed 1800. One poor lady from the Czech Republic was worried about signing it in case the Secret Police came and took her away. She was assured that they wouldn’t but given the experience of Martin Peaple and Olly Cromwell perhaps her signature was obtained under false pretences. What I hadn’t realised until today is that the petitioners are dropping off their Craske leaflet while getting signatures in his ward.
This website
As must be obvious by now, I enjoy messing around with the technical side of
things, so I occasionally come up with a hare-brained scheme. I have
arranged that the web address
www.bexley-is-bonkers.com will always go to the latest blog. That is
because it is what most visitors come for and there have been times when the
Bonkers Home page is not very welcoming to new readers. When there is a need for
the address to be written down the .info form will always been used in preference to the .co.uk.
Rather more hare-brained perhaps is an idea to allow correspondents who insist on
remaining anonymous to participate in a two way conversation and still retain
anonymity. If a particular word on a particular page was nominated as a door
into the secure area of this website (there is one), the chances of finding the
word would be millions to one. Then the secure section
would require a user name and password to open it. So if someone identified a
page, and a single word within it, then gave a name for the secure area and chose a
user name and password, two way anonymity could be achieved via the webpage. The reply
could not identify the intended recipient because the name wouldn’t be known. All very
clandestine but do I have time for yet more correspondence? It was
just a thought by someone who likes a technical challenge…