28 October - Facebook. How the hell did it get to be so popular?
A Facebook poster suggested I go to look at Abbey Wood station during peak hours
(Photos 88 and 89) to witness the alleged booking hall congestion but I am
out of Facebook right now, sick of the silly arguments, so I will post the
pictures here instead. I may enlarge on my Facebook discontent
next week when life will just possibly return to what passes for normal.
I didn’t see any really serious congestion at Abbey Wood this evening, it has been said that there are
not enough gates to cope but a young Service Assistant told me the problem only
arises when a gate goes out of order - and they have several times - and TfL decides to shut
that gate instead of leaving it open.
I was also told that the internal Stannah lift has been out of order at least
once every day since it was commissioned last Tuesday. No Abbey Wood resident
familiar with Sainsbury’s or the temporary station lifts will be in the slightest bit surprised at that news.
I am ‘off’ Facebook because of the fall out from posting what I hoped might be helpful information
during the station opening period. Information gleaned from attendance at all twelve Crossrail Liaison Panel
meetings and a reasonably close relationship with Network Rail managers.
Things have not always been perfect in Abbey Wood over the past four years, in fact there has been widespread
inconvenience but I have taken the view that one should not go slagging off
Network Rail right left and centre unless one can present to them a better way
of doing things. Sadly, regarding anything significant at least, there hasn’t been a viable alternative.
Several people have been busy on Facebook lamenting the fact there is no ground level access
to the platforms from Wilton Road, but there simply cannot be. There was no room to build
anything more elaborate than two island platforms.
I pointed out that the 750 volt rail was a bit of a disincentive to crossing at ground level. I also
agreed that
Network Rail had not always been perfect. The comment about the electrified rail
did not go down well and on the subject of Network Rail performance I was challenged to go through twelve
sets of meeting minutes to identify all the occasions when Network Rail may just
possibly have fallen down on the job. At least I think that is what was asked, I
didn’t read very far past the bit where I was called something I had to check out on Google.
There are too many moaners and whingers on Facebook, a minority perhaps but one
doesn’t have to put up with it, so I won’t.
And I don‘t much like the way ‘What’s New In SE2’ is administered.
I was censored
for sticking up for a local business contrary to the mood of the baying masses and I am not alone.
Amanda Denford the incredibly strong and brave mother of the teenager almost fatally stabbed
in Felixstowe Road last Saturday - he ‘died’ several time in the air ambulance
and on the operating table - was censored too.
On another local Facebook page my ward Councillor Danny Hackett has been roundly
condemned for his almost daily attempt to rid his ward of fly tipping. He is the
only representative of ‘authority’ who dares to raise his head above that
particular social media parapet and promptly has it chopped off by a bunch of
semi-literates with near zero understanding of his limited powers within Bexley’s minority party.
He has been accused of being a Tory but he isn’t. Come to think of it things
were even worse when his ward (and mine) was represented by three Tories!
Having been more than a little harsh on some citizens of Thamesmead, reading between the lines, it has the most dreadful
housing problem with depths of deprivation of which those who live to
the South of the North Kent railway line will have little or no understanding.
Social cleansing may not be an unreasonable description of what is going on in the north of our borough
but on the other hand no one should be made to live in squalor or six to a room.
It would seem that successive governments, Peabody and its predecessors and Bexley Council should all
be deeply ashamed of themselves. It is not too difficult to detect the
underlying racial tensions in local Facebook groups. Saturday’s stabbing was black on white and totally unprovoked. It could have been anyone,
I had walked the same route as the victim only an hour beforehand.
There were dozens if not hundreds of similar Facebook comments.