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News and Comment October 2013

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31 October) - End of month trivia

I don’t propose to make a big effort today as by tomorrow October will be consigned to the relative obscurity of last month’s news; if I manage to alter the redirection code correctly.

Subject Access Request
My SAR to the police should have been answered nearly three months ago and a telephone enquiry as to its progress met with nothing but rudeness from the police. Typical!

Guido Fawkes Blog Order Order
It is a little removed from standard Bonkers’ fare but the political blog at order-order.com recently carried an article on MPs who claim rent in dubious circumstances. Local blogger John Kerlen (aka Olly Cromwell) has blogged how local MPs may be implicated. In his own inimitable style of course.

Councillor Cheryl Bacon
Bacon’s illegal exclusion of five members of the public from the Public Realm meeting last June continues to rumble on. During the month another councillor indicated dissatisfaction with Bacon and Mick Barnbrook has been invited to see Bexley council’s chief legal officer, presumably to discuss his concerns. Maybe the independent standards person thinks that continual lying and the inevitable consequence of it becoming a police matter is not worth their £2,200 fee.

Whilst this may look encouraging, it has to be said that 24 hours after Mr. Alabi issued that invitation, his side-kick wrote to tell me that Cheryl Bacon did nothing wrong because I was shouting my head off. Probably Mrs. Tyler has ensured that her name will find its way on to a police file marked ‘Misconduct in Public Office’.

Travel disruption
A personal moan if I may…

Because I can see my nearest bus stop from home plus the wonders of TfL’s on line bus times I can usually get from my front door to Bexleyheath on a 229 bus in around 30 minutes. Yesterday it took 63. This was in part because the bus was late but it certainly wasn’t helped by the fact it diverted at Erith’s stinking fish roundabout, all the way to Perry Street, more than a mile. Then it came back on the other side of the dual carriageway and cut along the chicanes of Colyers Lane, managing to totally bypass the shopping area of Northumberland Heath. The traders must be very pleased. Bexley council is messing about with the railway bridge at Queen’s Road.

Three hours later I hitched a lift with a friend from Bexleyheath to Bexley Village. Chapel Road was closed and we were diverted down a lane so small that it is not even shown on my 3·5" to the mile map. It exited on to Tower Road opposite the police station which was gridlocked because of the Broadway regeneration works in Arnsberg Way. How long is it now that Bexley council has been bringing traffic to a halt in its main shopping centre? More than a year I think.

That wasn’t the end of the matter. When we got to Bexley village that was closed too. The only good thing to report is that when I went for my return bus at nine o’clock only to find the bus stop out of use, I had to walk a quarter of a mile towards the A2. Half way there I glanced around to see a 229 about to pass me by and resigned myself to another 15 minute wait.

The bus pulled in at the stop 150 yards away and I silently cursed my luck. However it became apparent that the bus was in no hurry to leave so I half ran and half stumbled to it and clambered aboard expressing my thanks. The driver was very kind to a lady who had mislaid her Oyster Card at Clock Tower too. I think the driver of LX60DVY, who was relieved by another at the bus garage, deserves some sort of commendation. He was a black gentleman. Am I allowed to say that any more? A woman has been banned from a branch of Sainsburys for referring to a delivery driver as a nice black gentleman. Madness!

 

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