25 May - Care, crime and cream
Another Press Release
Bexley Council issued
another Press Release last week - aimed at me possibly.
It is entitled ‘Are you a Bexley Carer?’ and offers to provide useful information
on the borough’s care services. I think I will subscribe to their newsletters, I may learn more
about how to deal with Newham Council.
Incidentally they reneged on their offer to fund respite care for four weeks but
as we only took advantage of it for five nights I am too tired to argue.
Another break in
I was asked to go and look at an attempted break in last week, not the sort of
thing I usually do but it was in my own road.
When I moved to a house opposite Lesnes Abbey in May 1987 I discovered that the area was a hotbed of
crime, My windows had a brick through them when I had only been here for three
days. A couple of months later my fence was burned down in the middle of the
night. I was woken by the noise of a fire engine parked on my front drive and
the police refused to investigate the woman standing 50 yards away with a petrol can in her hand.
Burglars hopping over the railway line from Thamesmead was a regular event and
it was an easy escape route that no one dared to follow.
Then it all quietened down and been reasonably peaceful ever since.
The
latest evidence of a break in looked a little odd to me, it seemed like the damage an
over-enthusiastic squirrel might cause. If it was an attack by a
would-be burglar why use a chisel when a club hammer on the glass might be more effective?
I was later informed that it was the work of a maintenance man looking for wood
rot but he hadn’t bothered to warn any resident.
While there I was reminded of how close to house windows the trains run. No
privacy, no sound deflection.
It wasn’t always like that but Network Rail
removed the conifers in 2015 and
took away the residents’ own larch lap fence and replaced it with a cheap chain
link affair which offers no protection at all.
There were complaints but Network Rail simply ignored the protests.
63 Belvedere Road
Bexley Council bought the bungalow at 63 Belvedere Road
last year; it is right next door to the entrance to
the Council Leader’s own private park and the suspicion was that if
it were to be demolished the park would become a nice little building site for BexleyCo.
The suspicions were allayed just a little when the
entrance was slightly modified last January
but someone living close by who takes a keen interest on developments there says
he has seen absolutely no sign of occupation.
Maybe there are reasons for longer term concerns after all.
Milkshakes
For reasons best known to themselves, milkshakes have become the weapon of
choice for the politically illiterate. It seemed to me that the throwers were
entirely comprised of the sort of morons who are too often attracted to the
Labour Party. That is not intended to be a criticism of the Labour Party which
attracts a lot of good people, it is more commiseration than complaint. I
doubt the level headed majority approve of throwing anything at politicians,
they certainly didn’t when Jeremy Corbyn was egged.
I follow all shades of political opinion on Twitter because it is too easy to
live in a Social Media bubble but when the follower who causes my eyebrows to
shoot upwards almost every day suggested crowd funding the Farage milkshake thrower’s
legal expenses after he was charged with common assault I said something about it.
I shouldn’t have lowered myself to a debate with a supporter of a criminal but
something tipped me over the edge. He didn’t seem to get the fact that aiders
and abetters of crime are very little better than the criminals themselves and
he demanded an apology for me eventually concluding he was dim. To please him I apologised
for participating in a Twitter spat but my views haven’t changed one jot.
To prevent a recurrence I stopped following the two Labour supporters who are the worst offenders
and perhaps an embarrassment to their party.
I was pleased to see that Thamesmead East Councillor Danny Hackett was on my
side, he knows all about being attacked by the extreme left. Just the one attack
for being on the side of the law abiding was enough for me; I’m not sure how Danny survived the onslaught on him.