31 December (Part 2) - Children of the Damned

Let’s trawl through the mainly anonymous messages that have recently arrived via the Contact form.

A handful of readers (well at least one!) are unimpressed with the Leader of Bexley Council becoming a Baroness.

Will 5 jobs Tess announce she’s resigning in the New Year message to Bexley? Would be a great gift to the people of her Kingdom. Maybe she could add bin collector to all her other jobs. She’s paid over £300 a day now, plus Councillor, Council Leader.

And a week or so earlier from a different name but in reality the same source֙…

Bexley making residents poorer. Now she’s got another job, Tessa O’Neil must be quids in. She knows how to milk the system while all the time the people of Bexley suffer.
Have you noticed each time she gets a new role services get worse? Now she makes £300 a day brown nosing in parliament. 5 Jobs Tess has to go.

I can’t get too worked up about that myself. You have a thoroughly dishonest Prime Minister lavishing riches on the Leader of a thoroughly dishonest Council. What does one expect?

Did I mention the message that simply said “Did you know that Louie French has his own YouTube channel? Can’t remember. https://www.youtube.com/@louiefrenchmp. Gareth Bacon has one too. https://www.youtube.com/@GarethBaconMP.

There have been the usual complaints about Bexley Council not providing Social Housing and about Thames Water disrupting the borough and Sidcup in particular.

Finally and perhaps intriguingly another old resident of Hoblands surfaced a few days ago. Hoblands was a children’s home run by Bexley Council and notorious for the allegations of child abuse made by several of its inmates. It was first mentioned here in 2013 when Bexley Council was busy covering up its involvement - or perhaps their lack of involvement - in the death of Rhys Lawrie and again in 2021. The Minor Attracted Person, or pervert to you and me, who ran Hoblands was jailed for ten years after being accused of 41 offences against children.

Bexley Council failed to learn. In 2011 they dismissed an employee of the Thames Innovation Centre (now The Engine House) who whistle blew on its manager for various acts of naughtiness. He later pleaded guilty at Woolwich Council Court to ten charges of paedophilia. The Cabinet Member who failed to sack him following serious complaints has thankfully long since left Bexley Council but the woman who appointed him is now a Baroness.

 

31 December (Part 1) - Public Enemies

It may be appropriate to end a rubbish year with today’s image typical of Bexley’s new waste contractor.

For the whole of the 15 months since SloppyStyle took over from Serco they have encouraged the worst elements of society to take advantage of broken unlocked bins. The intellectually challenged throw anything into any easily opened bin which is then marked as contaminated and left to rot.

More rubbish then builds up in front of the broken and/or unlocked bins so that legitimate recyclers cannot gain access to them, and so the rubbish mountain increases. Some people take the easy way out and dump their rubbish into nearby neighbour’s wheelies. Both my green and brown bins have been gifted other people’s rubbish during the past week. Where am I supposed to put the contents of my garden waste bin if someone else has already filled the green one?

Thanks Bexley Council, you do little to improve the quality of residents’ lives but you sure know how to go in the other direction. But maybe not on as wide a front as the Socialist Republic of Greenwich.

 

30 December - Con Air

I once told Gareth Bacon MP, while he was a Counclllor here in Bexley and as we both went through the swing doors into the Council chamber that I usually agreed with everything he said and his response was to the effect that he didn’t believe me. I suspect that as a Bexley Conservative he was so accustomed to dealing with liars that he didn’t recognise the truth when faced with it.

On Wednesday this week Gareth was featured in the Daily Telegraph (on the web the day before) putting forward my own views on Sadiq Khan, the scourge of London. Yesterday morning he was on Talk Radio saying the same thing.

Every time I think how incredibly bad the Conservatives are in Government, Khan is on hand to demonstrate how much worse things could be.

Note: Abusing film titles will not continue into 2023, the joke is probably wearing a little thin.
The text from Gareth’s Telegraph article is also available here. (PDF.)

 

29 December - Current Wars

I have been a techno-nerd ever since I made a crystal set (primitive radio) in my first year at grammar school and spent my pocket money on a soldering iron. Skip forward nearly 70 years and I live amid too much technology and a hidden pile of obsolete ‘junk’. (My first amplifier lasted 30 years but I have had three since 2006.)

As such my electricity consumption has always been on the high side, seven or eight hundred watts of stuff simply idling away and that is not something easily afforded any more. At current prices it translates to about £200 a month.

Four years ago I looked into the economics of storage batteries to be charged by solar energy and what used to be called Economy 7. The installer told me how much money I could expect to save and I pointed out that even if my electricity bill reduced to zero it would take eleven years to get the money back and that was the end of that.

Since then the mismanagement of UK power supplies by successive idiotic governments resulted in mid-2022 forecasts that energy costs for the average household could reach £5,000 or even £7,000 a year. On that basis the battery payback period might, for me and maybe with a degree of optimism, reduce to under three years.

With a lot of people having similar ideas, batteries were not easy to source but I found a supplier who claimed to have 50 in stock. I put my requirements in writing and he quoted a price for three batteries plus installation. The installation costs were on the high side but the batteries were relatively inexpensive and actually available. Except that proved to be untrue.

One was delivered nearly four weeks after payment and another about a month after that. No one came to install a two battery system as would have been possible and boxes of new equipment stacked in the garage proved to be too much of a temptation for yours truly. I installed the system myself.

Despite the contractor claiming to have previously installed more than 400 battery systems for satisfied customers I came to believe he had never done one before. Last month the third battery was supplied and under threat of action through the Small Claims Court a fourth was provided free of charge in compensation for the failure to install them to the contracted timetable.

My handiwork has been inspected by a qualified electrician who said it was the neatest battery installation he had ever seen which will be down to me taking more than a month to do it and not rushing it through in a day as a professional would do.

However all is not entirely well. The batteries charge when they should and discharge as demanded by the household load but I do not understand all the settings available to the Inverter and it is obvious I am not getting the best out of the system.

There have been something like ten broken appointments by the company’s alleged expert including last Thursday and yesterday. I think the next move will be to offer £1,000 to anyone who can successfully set the system up properly and allow me to control it from my phone. Then go back to the Small Claims Court.

The good news (?) is that the price of batteries has jumped up since I bought mine in August and four currently retail for more money than I paid for the whole installation plus inverter.

But are they saving any money?

Definitely. All my electricity is now bought at the cheap overnight rate. My consumption so far today has been 16 kilowatt hours and it won’t go up any more because the batteries will take the load. Preceding days’ consumption has been 36, 36, 8, 7, 27, 30, 15 and 7 kilowatt hours, the wide variation being dependent on whether I charged the car or was not at home. Thanks to the foul weather the solar panels have produced almost nothing.

182 kilowatts at a little over 11 pence per kilowatt hour (overnight rate) compared with the capped rate of 34 pence translates to a £40 saving in nine days (the extent of the Smart Meter’s history) and well over £100 a month. At the price I paid for the system the payback period based on those nine days will be less than four years. In practice longer because Christmas has seen more car use.

But to a techno-nerd the outlay has provided a degree of techno-fun.

Notes: As you can see my energy supplier has been slow to recognise the economies made.
The batteries are 3·5 kilowatt hour units and four is more than enough to keep the house running all day.
I am still using my 69 year old soldering iron.
Current Wars is a 2017 movie with some scenes filmed in Belvedere’s Crossness sewage works.

 

28 December - Inside I am Dancing

I have wondered whether or not this a a suitable subject for Bonkers as we wait for Bexley Council to sober up. The only justification is that it confirms my opinion that the health services in Tory Britain are a disgraceful failure and it may just help someone, if they have enough money.

When I lived near Aldershot then ‘The Home of the British Army’ my daughter was spotted by the army while performing at a school gymnastics display. They said she was good enough to be trained for the 1988 Olympics. I spent many an afternoon at their gymnasium idling away my time on a running machine while she was doing something more demanding.

Unfortunately the training conflicted with her love of ballet because different muscles were being developed. Kirsteen used to win all the local dancing competitions and Hampshire County Council paid for her to attend the Italia Conti School of Dance and Stage etc. Those were the days!

There she trained with several well known names most of which I have forgotten; except Naomi Campbell and a much younger Martine McCutcheon who would sit on Kirsteen’s knee.

Kirsty passed all her exams and was recruited into one of the London ballet companies, performed at the Edinburgh Festival and Sadler’s Wells and in a Channel 4 film which I have on a Betamax tape somewhere. But then disaster struck. The disaster was called Multiple Sclerosis.

Her story was picked up by The Daily Mirror, The Sun and the lifestyle magazine ‘Me’ from which this picture is taken. A company based in her home town gave her an almost new car and Esther Rantzen a job on her then popular TV programme ‘That’s Life’. Except for time out to obtain a degree in journalism Kirsty has always been in full time employment.

Her job in journalism and her roots in show business has provided a wide range of contacts in politics, newspapers, film, TV and radio. Best not to mention names but if I did it might start with Boris Johnson. (Interviewed once.)

She is fairly well connected in the world of medicine too and been involved with various Multiple Sclerosis trials over the years; which brings me to the point of this holiday filler.

When I went to help her out of her car four months ago she declined some of the offered assistance and unsteadily walked to her brother’s house with minimal support. She had been prescribed a new pill by a friendly consultant in a London hospital. It is called Frampridine and has transformed Kirsteen’s life. Mobility is hugely improved and she can now walk hesitantly around her house unsupported. A variety of other things are improved too; appetite and tiredness among them.

And our bloody useless health services will not provide it.

Fortunately because of the friendly consultant and Dad’s £200 a month Kirsty continues to improve although that will plateau out. Frampridine is not a cure and according to NICE will help only a small proportion of MS sufferers. If they had an ounce of decency they would prescribe it for a short time to see if it helped that minority.

If they were not liars they would quote an 80% success rate as their counterparts in other countries do but they would rather see suffering than spend money. My understanding is that other countries quote 80% because they take account of the full spectrum of improvements but in England only mobility is considered to be important.

Multiple Sclerosis victims might be well advised to scrape together the money for at least two month’s worth of pills to see if it begins to make an improvement to their lives.

By the way, I have still not heard from Bexley Group Practice after Erith Urgent Care Centre told my GP that he should phone me urgently. That was three weeks ago.

Note: Yet another obscure film title. Sorry!

 

27 December (Part 2) - House of the Dragon

I am not a great one for making Freedom of Information Requests. In ten years fewer than five to Bexley Council and a couple to the police when Arnsberg Way harboured almost as much corruption as the Civic Offices. Covering for Council lies seems to have been consigned to the history books by the BCU system based in Lewisham. Never again am I likely to file a contemporaneous police CAD report alongside another very different one describing the same incident written a whole year later on the instructions of Bexley Council.

However at very little risk of knocking @tonyofsidcup from his unassailable position of being Bexley’s FOI King, I sent off the following earlier today.

During the week before Christmas two Bexley Councillors attempted to send me emails from their bexley.gov.uk addresses and neither arrived. Subsequent attempts from their personal accounts were delivered promptly.

Please supply me with a list of internet domains to which access is barred from Council servers and separately a second list if Council offices are served differently from those to which the public may have access. Libraries and Cinemas for example.

In both cases the date of the barring is requested along with whether the instruction to bar a domain name came from a political (i.e. elected Councillor) source or from elsewhere, and the reason given for the prohibition.

Thank you,

Malcolm Knight
[Address]

There was a typo in my address. Maybe that will prove to be a reason to reject the request?

 

27 December (Part 1) - Bad Santa

Bexley has a rubbish rubbish collection service, strike riven and poorly managed by the contractor and Bexley Council which work in unison to ensure nothing works properly for very long.

The latest excuse for more than a week of disruption was icy footpaths. Good enough, safe enough, for the unimportant people who pay the bills but not safe enough for refuse collectors to venture out.

As a result I left my bins out last Saturday, eight days after the due collection date, when I departed for Christmas elsewhere. Upon my return in the early hours of this morning I discovered that Santa had visited and deposited unwanted gifts in the green bin.

I am done with beating around the bush on this subject, the constant abuse of the nearby bins is not helped by SloppyStyle’s preference for leaving bins unlocked and facing the wrong way but the problem would not be there if it was not for cultural diversity. Someone has spent Christmas replacing a floor, chucking out the old coverings and miscellaneous furniture and filling the paper bin with plastic. The plastics bin is now completely inaccessible so things can only get worse. Any bets on how long SloppyStyle will clear the mess or better still, repair the broken and missing bin locks?

Currently I am not inclined to empty my bin (†), I will just dump my black sack on top of Santa’s paper and if it gets labelled ‘Contaminated’ there is an obvious place not far away where dumping is encouraged. Thames Road, Foot’s Cray and Coptefield Drive.

† It is not really my bin, it is the property of Bexley Council, it says so on the bin.

 

24 December - Willie Wonka

It’s not your imagination, ‘tins’ of chocolate really do get smaller every year. My old boxes get used as bird drinking bowls, storage for old drill bits and left over cement or plaster. Hence being able to photograph those from earlier years.

Over successive Christmases the net weight has come down from 698, to 629 and now 600 grammes all at the same price. If you look carefully you will see that fat and salt content is up while fibre is down.

This year Sainsbury’s dropped their price from £5 to £3·50 for one day only and I resisted the temptation to buy more. The fact that I have one left over from last year which is only two weeks past the Best By date was a factor.

Happy Christmas to everyone.

 

23 December (Part 2) - The Horse Whisperer

I have lost count of how many times the Belvedere Cob has been damaged by passing vehicles since it was installed in 2011. It may be only twice, in 2019 by an Asda lorry and earlier this year by a hit and run driver. It was not very clever of him to leave his work’s pass on the windscreen even if he did think to remove his number plates.

Since then the Cob has been missing from its highly vulnerable position in the middle of a very busy roundabout.

I had half forgotten about it but a curious reader made enquiries, to whom he didn’t say, but he reports back that it is currently the subject of a costs argument between the vehicle insurance company and the manufacturer, but the expectation is that it will be repaired and restored to its (not very) stable eventually.

 

23 December (Part 1) - La La Land

After a mild week I naively assumed that the bins would be emptied on schedule but apparently that is not so. I put all mine out yesterday evening as some of Bexley’s earliest announcements said they were not going to play catch up but then they said they would for some bins.

Whatever the case none of mine have been emptied and it would appear that situation is widespread if Twitter responses are any guide.

 

22 December - Resident Evil

Abbey Wood commuter parking and Bexley Council’s failure to prepare for it has hit the BBC news website.

Their report features my own road and resident Nicky Evans who says “complaints have been ignored” [true] and that she “cannot drive her children to school without losing her parking space”.

“People visiting vulnerable residents often could not park”. True, I have seen that one for myself.

The website comments, “She added many people had raised the problem with the local authority but nothing had been done. Everyone's been saying for months it’s going to be an issue and they just don’t take any notice. They’re not interested, she said.” True again.

My issues are rather different and every house on the estate has as a minimum of one allocated off road parking space, most houses have two and the lucky ones like me have four.

The issue is not just parking it is inconsiderate but not currently illegal (according to Bexley Council and on one occasion the police too) road blocking where drivers park pretty much opposite each other and leave vans more than 50 centimetres from the kerb.

Note: Scraping the barrel for film titles now!

 

19 December - Calling Doctor Death

It is nine days since a doctor at Erith Urgent Care Centre sent an email to my GP at Bexley Group Practice to tell him that my symptoms demanded an urgent referral to hospital. I have heard nothing since.

I would name him if I could but I have never seen a doctor since the surgery transferred from nearby Belvedere to inconvenient Welling. I would not be surprised if it was Harold Shipman.

Another Bexley resident had a similar experience to me over the weekend. In increasing pain and with the next GP appointment in 2023 he took himself to Erith Urgent Care Centre early on Sunday morning. Just as there was a week earlier, queuing outside was the order of the day.

Children were accepted but adults were turned away. The staff were doing their best but overall he came to the same conclusion as I did. The NHS locally has collapsed completely.

As for my own condition, I have become convinced that although some of the symptoms are indicative of bowel cancer it is just another gluten flare up. Things have noticeably improved over the past week and I have been extremely careful with the diet.

 

18 December (Part 2) - The Joker

As Councillor Hunt confirms here - too honest for his own good - Bexley has never bothered to clear footpaths of snow. That will be one of the Cabinet Member for Places’ decisions. Most things wrong with Bexley Council can be traced back to Peter Craske.

With temperatures hovering around zero and lower overnight since the snow fell a week ago the footpaths have been treacherous with the elderly and infirm confined to home or maybe an Accident & Emergency Department. (Photo below taken this afternoon. Bins still awaiting collection.)

They are probably neither elderly nor infirm but dustbin men and women may be particularly vulnerable to slippery conditions although for me at least the post has got through and I have literally had an Amazon delivery every day. (Up from 148 deliveries ten days ago to 160 now. Another due later today and two more tomorrow.)

You will have noticed that your bins were not emptied last week. Craske again I am afraid. CountryStyle, the company that was going to be so much better than Serco gave up on tackling Councillor Craske’s ice rink. They suspended all collections. Suspended as in Cancelled and not going to collect again until the week after next. In my own case; next year.

The hope is that next week’s collections will be as scheduled. Believe it when it happens.

Note: For readers unfamiliar with the complexities of Bexley’s bin collections, there are four differently coloured bins which are emptied, two each, on alternate weeks. So if last week’s two are still out for collection they will have to wait there until the week after next, plus the days lost to the holiday.

 

18 December (Part 1) - Live. Die. Repeat

He got away with it in 2007 so why not do it again? What? Who?

Cabinet Member Craske. He consulted on a road narrowing scheme which resulted in a section of Abbey Road, Belvedere being so narrow that to this day buses wait at each end for another to pass in the opposite direction. As the section includes a bus stop it can be quite a long wait.

Both photos from 2009 before road narrowing and conversion of the right hand cycle track to residents’ parking bays making for an even better chicane.

Not much of a consultation as it happens. Their excuses for not consulting more widely and in my road included that they only went to residents directly facing Abbey Road. This was proved to be a lie when I requested a copy of the list of addresses.

Elstree Gardens was consulted along with Tunstock Way, Blakemore Way, Bright Close but not Samson Close which is its mirror image off Carrill Way or Carrill Way itself which is closer than both. Halifield Drive but not Coptefield Drive which was particularly odd because Halifield and Coptefield are renamed continuations of each other but Halifield is further away from the narrowed section of Abbey Road than Coptefield. Residents of the latter can only exit to the narrowed section of Abbey Road, Halifield residents do not. The consultation excuses were most likely a lie to cover the incompetence.

Bexley Council always lies so nonsense has to be accepted.

Objections to making a safe road dangerous (no accidents before, lots afterwards) fell into seven different categories all of which were considered - or perhaps not - by Peter Craske who set the example since followed by Sadiq ULEZ Khan and rejected all of them.

Thus emboldened Craske is doing it again although unlike in 2007 when he was looking to solve a problem that didn’t exist, that is not true of New Road on the Belvedere, Abbey Wood border.

It is a bus route, a major bus route. Routes B11, 469 and 301. It is sometimes heavily congested and once again that is Craske’s fault. When TfL wanted to run an express service from Bexleyheath to serve the Elizabeth line station the obvious direct route was via Knee Hill but Bexley Council, and maybe Greenwich too, refuse to straighten out a couple of gentle kinks and push the kerb out a foot on each side which would transform safety considerations and allow the easy passage of a bus.

Instead the 301 has to divert on to a residential road. For the record, waiting 23 minutes for the first bus to serve the bottom end of New Road yesterday with nothing to do other than study the timetable I noted that frequencies have been reduced so the 28 buses an hour reported six weeks ago is somewhat wide of the mark. Nevertheless there is a problem which Bexley Council does its best to exacerbate by allowing parking opposite bus stops.

Maybe they are partially coming to what little senses they have. The council has proposed clearing the bus route of inconveniently parked cars. Not as beneficial as fixing Knee Hill but easier and with the bonus of revenue generation. It is perhaps the best short term solution.

Where logic flies out of the window is the assumption that commuters displaced from New Road will park even further away in Harvil Crescent, Hurst Lane, Priory Drive and Woolwich Road.

No they won’t, those roads require a 15 minute or more uphill walk on the way home whereas my own road is a third of the distance and on the level.

Andrew Bashford, who was promoted after provably lying to me about Abbey Road, has a long record of poor decisions so one should not expect a sensible response to the commuter parking problem.

Belvedere Councillors have said on Facebook that the residents of the roads beyond New Road will be consulted but those more likely to suffer the consequences of the proposal, like me, will not.

Notable quotes from those Councillors are “All comments and objections will be reported to the Cabinet Member for Places, Councillor Peter Craske for his consideration and final decision for its approval. Should there be no objections the respective TMOs will be made, and the proposals installed on site.”

That implies that if there are objections Craske will halt the plan. That would be a first, just like ULEZ Khan his decision will have been made already. Craske wrecked Abbey Road because he could. Why would one ever trust the judgment of someone who set up a blog entitled Malcolm’s Masterbations? But the Baroness does.

The Belvedere Councillors go on to say they are very disappointed that there are no plans to alleviate the commuter parking problems closer to the station.

I know that Councillor Hinkley has been pressing the case since the beginning of September but without any useful response. The electoral choice in Belvedere has been useless Conservative candidates or Labour ones who are ignored.

 

17 December - The Last House on The Left

The following illustrated review of Sidcup’s new library has been submitted by @tonyofsidcup, gearing up to replace Mick Barnbrook and Nicholas Dowling from days of yore. The text has not been edited in any way but when considering the building’s ugliness one should perhaps remember that cinema architecture cannot be relieved with windows. On the other hand Oscar Deutch built some beauties in the 1930s. (Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation. ODEON.)

As is probably apparent from the text, @tony has his roots in the old U.S.S.R. I am in awe of his command of the English language, I changed a single ‘o’ to an ‘a’. He may have meant wonder but the context suggested wander.

No school today, so in the morning my wife took our daughter to the opening of Sidcup’s new library, while I stayed at home working. A little later she sent me a photo from the cafeteria there, showing Council Leader Teresa O’Neill, Cabinet Member for Places Peter Craske and Bexley’s CEO Jackie Belton sharing a table with people who I assumed to be representatives of Really Local Group. This piqued my interest, and I had the excuse of needing to return a library book - “Bad Guys”, as it happens - so I put on my coat and headed out.

At the entrance I was courteously greeted by Cabinet Member Munur, looking positive and busy; there was a similarly upbeat Ms Belton chatting to a librarian, and Cabinet Member Craske and Sidcup Ward councillors June Slaughter and Richard Diment were socialising in the cafeteria. I handed “Bad Guys” to one of the nice librarian ladies, joined my family - my daughter was lifting a chair and demanding her superstrength be acknowledged - and we went home.

Later in the day, I returned, with my laptop, and spent three hours at one of the library’s desks, working but also looking around and listening to conversations between librarians and visitors. Maybe 30-40 people wandered in, told the librarians they were glad the library finally re-opened, and asked them when the cinema would be opening. (“Sometime next year”). After 4 pm, parents with schoolchildren started coming in, and the children’s area grew crowded. Unfortunately, cold became a problem - I had a warm jacket on, but my fingers started freezing - so I had to curtail my expedition and go home.

What are my impressions? “Mixed feelings” is an easy answer. The upside is easy to see - it’s a brand new building, with tall ceilings and fresh carpets and furniture. The new library cost millions, and of course, something good had to come for the money. But it could have been a lot better.

The new library feels cold, and this is not just about the thermostat setting. The tall ceilings create room, but make the space less snug. The big windows give you a view of a busy road, as seen from the lower-ground floor - distracting and unappealing. The ceiling is exposed concrete - with occasional rough patches and stains - and there are exposed-concrete sections of the wall as well. You can call it “modern” or “Scandinavian”, but “cosy” it ain’t.

(Speaking of a busy road. I twice saw children from the nearby CTK St. Mary’s college walk on the road, next to the fenced-off, unpaved footpath, to get to the high street. This reminded me that in 2022 a person was seriously injured at this spot when trying to cross. I blame the council staff who did not care to think about a convenient temporary road crossing. It’s Bexley Tories’ [former Councillor Alan] Downing Doctrine: “If your child gets hit by a car, it’s your fault”).

More importantly, the new library feels cramped and oddly laid out. The building looks big, but the library feels small - not a space of its own, but a partitioned-off section of a bigger space. You look around and wonder: where has the space gone? The old library was a square; the new library is a strip, with the adults’ area near the entrance, the front desk and the computer room in the middle, and the children’s area at the back. The old library had three meeting rooms; the new library has none. (Admittedly, they may be upstairs, and there is an under-construction space at the back, which may become a meeting room). I feel pretty confident saying that the overall area shrank.

As often happens in Bexley, children lose out the most. I remember my daughter’s school class going to the old library last year. The twenty 4-year-olds browsed books in the spacious children’s area - plenty of room for them and for the accompanying parents and teachers - then sat on the floor and listened to the teacher read them a story. Forget doing that in the new library; there is not enough room even if you move a couple of large, wheeled bookshelves out of the way. Never mind school trips - I would say the children’s area can accommodate two families at a time. Where do you put your buggy or scooter? Where do you put your coat and backpack? The downgrade of the children’s area is stark. A pleasant space, suitable for sitting and reading, a little running around, doing crafts has been taken away and replaced with a storage room with an IKEA sofa

…We get to decor. The new library is fitted out in an inexpensive institutional style. It’s like with everything from the exterior design, to the entrance door, to the tiles on the cafeteria floor, to the chairs, to the toilet sinks, Bexley said “Give me the second-cheapest option”. I cannot recall a single item that looked fancy or unique. A parquet section of the floor looked sort of interesting, but it did not look durable. There is some wood panelling but it appears to be soft wood: graffiti would be a disaster.

Finally, the new library has a very underwhelming cafeteria, whether you are with a kid or on your own. The prices are on the high side - £2·75 for a plain croissant - but the main problem is very limited choices: a few pastries and biscuits in a small display case.

Apart from some concrete surfaces that may be covered up or painted, the library looks finished. The building it’s in is, of course, work in progress. Back in Soviet times, woe would befall a construction boss who committed to build a house by November 7th, the anniversary of the Great October (yes, October) Socialist Revolution, and failed to meet the deadline. Bexley bosses clearly felt that they had to deliver Sidcup Storyhouse - originally advertised to open in Spring 2022 - by Christmas 2022, and moved the goalposts by opening just the library. First Secretary O’Neill got her Christmas photo op - and let “miserable rumour mongers” (to use Cllr Slaughter’s expression) grumble about construction delays and the occasional defects, including three very visible chips on the plinth adorning the Sidcup Storyteller facade.

Eventually, the cinema will open, the flats will be occupied, the footpath adjoining the ugly building’s western wall will be paved - and maybe even the chips will be fixed or covered up. Sadly, the ugly design will remain, a reminder of a missed opportunity. Sidcup Storyteller could have been something special, a genuine attraction, like Newham’s Discover Centre in Stratford, or, more modestly, Kent’s White Oak Leisure Centre in Swanley. Due to indifference and incompetence of the local Tory politicians - from big beasts like Teresa O’Neill and Peter Craske down to the useless local councillors, loath to rock the boat and lose their £10,000 p.a. sinecures - we ended up with something at best mediocre. Sidcup Storyteller: it’s better than nothing.

 

16 December (Part 2) - Street Kings. Not!

Now that my house is above 6 degrees Centigrade I could welcome my regular Friday guest from Bromley. On arrival she remarked on the state of the road. “Hasn’t anyone been out to clear it, my road (hidden beyond a warren of small residential roads) is entirely clear?”

I reminded her that she was in Bexley (the most highly taxed Conservative borough in London) which answered all the questions.

Not cleaning roads of snow has repercussions beyond filling A&E Departments, the dustmen cannot get around to empty the bins. Perhaps they have been diverted to gritting bus routes. Perhaps Councillor Craske is more interested in cans of Coke than ensuring public safety?

The lorry park which is Coptefield Drive has benefitted slightly from the rail strike but instead become impassable because of engines that refuse to start. No one could get on to the main highway for about an hour this morning.

There was a 4x4 parked on the footpath too but it is not pictured here because it may have been a genuine mistake. With all that snow and ice would the driver have known?

 

16 December (Part 1) - The Reader

Sidcup’s new library opened this morning, better late than never. There is a café for those who can afford it which will include the Baroness on £323 a day (seated left) and the CEO (in white) at over £200,000 a year but others may baulk at the cost of a can of Coke. £3·50. Transport costs from the factory a mile away must be more expensive than you might think.

Photograph by (Mrs.) @tonyofsidcup.

 

15 December - Death Wish

Last Friday a hospital doctor told me that the GP service in Bexley has totally collapsed. The circumstances were as follows from which I conclude that the National Health Service has become an absolute disgrace.

My coeliac disease (gluten allergy) is usually well controlled but it occasionally makes its presence felt with low level abdominal discomfort. If it goes on for a long time I seek medical advice as it is too easy to dismiss it as just the same old gluten problem. It might not be.

Having had problems for about six weeks I phoned Bexley Group Practice on Thursday 8th December. When I was last there a nurse whispered into my ear that the doctors had decided to avoid seeing any patient in future if they could possibly avoid it. I can well believe it, I think I have managed to see one twice in the past nine years.

I was therefore not surprised to be referred to a telephone app called AskFirst. How many 79 year olds like me are happy to download an App to a Smart Phone? Not me. However I found it worked via a web browser too.

After the usual rigmarole which included starting again because there is no Back button I was eventually told that there was only one appointment left in the whole of December, on the 22nd (two weeks) at a time that I was unable to attend. I declined the poor offer from Bexley Group Practice and the App said a perfunctory ‘Goodbye’.

I started yet again and asked for a telephone appointment. The App said they were not taking bookings and the utterly useless Bexley Group Practice once again bid me ‘Goodbye’.

Thinking the latter had to be a technical glitch I called in on Bexley Group Practice the next day and related my experience, The receptionist confirmed it, Bexley Group Practice was not doing GP appointments of any kind. When I explained that NHS England is heavily advertising the circumstances in which a GP needs to be seen urgently, the Bexley Group Practice receptionist simply shrugged.

Ever since Bexley Group Practice took over my local practice they have been utterly useless so I called in at Lakeside Health Centre which is only ten minutes walk from home to see about signing up to a new GP. What a difference, the receptionist there was lovely and very helpful. When she heard what my symptoms were she said I should get myself to Erith Urgent Care Centre as soon as possible. I drove straight there.

Not as easy as it should have been because the NHS does not think it worth their while to put up a sign on the road outside. Worse was that Urgent Care was closed.

I joined a queue of twelve hopefuls in the 0 degree Centigrade cold a minute after 2 p.m. In front of me was a lady struggling to breathe, a man unable to stand and a couple of children with minor injuries.

Someone appeared at the door to say we were not allowed to keep warm by standing in the vestibule beyond the door as a jobsworth had decreed otherwise. After about 20 minutes a parent and child was allowed in while the second parent was sent away. After 50 minutes it was my turn to be allowed inside.

After a further two hours and a bit a doctor called me in and heard my story. She felt and poked in appropriate places and found nothing of immediate concern but said I urgently needed a hospital appointment and only my own GP could refer me. I said that Bexley Group Practice is not currently offering appointments of any description and we briefly discussed the impact of useless practices like Bexley Group Practice on the National Health Service as a whole. The GP service in Bexley has collapsed I said, and she agreed it had totally.

She then emailed the useless Bexley Group Practice to tell them they must contact me without delay and I was back in the car at 5:45 precisely.

Six days later the utterly useless Bexley Group Practice has been as useless as I have come to expect; not a word from them.

I am not alone. If you Google Bexley Group Practice and check the reviews you will see that they are almost universally condemned as being uncaring, unprofessional and utterly useless. I was a little amused (not very) to see a Doctor there defending receptionists who apparently attend to telephone calls urgently. I have personally sat there while the telephone rings continuously and the receptionists discuss last night’s TV.

Index to NHS matters and the Utterly useless Bexley Group Practice.

 

14 December (Part 2) - Closely Observed Trains

I found Hugh Neal’s Maggot Sandwich particularly interesting last Sunday and he made some interesting points about Southeastern’s ludicrous decision to cut off the Elizabeth line from anyone who does not live close to Abbey Wood station and abandon the route to Charing Cross. How does any of that encourage the use of public transport?

I needed to get to Richmond via Waterloo last Saturday and assumed, perhaps wrongly, that it was the last day for that service along the Woolwich line. Checking the National Rail Journey Planner I was surprised to see it recommending the Liz line to Canary Wharf and the Jubilee line to Waterloo.

It seemed like a good idea which I hadn’t thought of. Changing at London Bridge is a horrible time wasting experience not to mention waiting ages for the half hourly service at Abbey Wood. It is wise to be there early to ensure you don’t miss it which is not nearly as attractive as a Liz line train every few minutes.

What I had not bargained for is the ten minute walk from one Canary Wharf station to the other (and just missing a Jubilee) so the journey to Waterloo took ten minutes longer than a direct Southeastern train but the longer journey time is probably better than boosting Southeastern’s revenue. (Ignore this recommendation if you are disabled or otherwise less than fit, you will just have to accept that no one cares about you. †)

Hugh’s report on the new timetable makes it very clear that Southeastern’s excuses for using Lewisham junction are total nonsense, the points are there to be used and it is a railway responsibility to maintain them. Railwaymen have been doing that since before George Stephenson was a lad. Hugh went on to suggest that North Kent line trains can get to Charing Cross via Greenwich (as they did before railway managers totally lost sight of what customer service is). However maybe Hugh has forgotten that Greenwich to Charing Cross trains ceased because of the nonsensical points excuse too. The track layout was changed and new flyovers built with the express purpose of minimising points use.

God forbid that passenger convenience is given priority.

The admission that Hugh writes the Neighbourhood Watch section of the Bexley Magazine created a wry smile hereabouts although I accept that the dates may not quite add up. When back in 2011 he used a metaphor about pitchforks and flaming torches as part of a criticism of Council Leader O’Neill it was me who was on the receiving end of a a police threat of arrest and eventually a meeting in the Borough Commander’s office where it was suggested that I was probably a violent arsonist. Favourtism?

And the totally dishonest Boris Johnson has elevated his local counterpart to the House of Lords and collect £300 a day.

God protect this country from corrupt politicians.

† Sarcasm or something. My 52 year old daughter has had MS since she was 16 years old. I think I know something about the transport difficulties and expense that a disabitiy causes.

 

14 December (Part 1) - State of Play

Bitter experience suggests that after four days without heating the internal temperature drops to 6·5 C and stabilises. I suppose it must slowly fall further but it was still at 6·5 this morning, Day 5.

At 09:55 this morning after one minor snag, the final wire was reconnected and the new boiler fired up but despite all radiators being very hot the temperature at 13:30 has only risen eight degrees. There is a lot of warming up to do.

There’s not been a word from the maintenance company who fitted the new valve and made a total mess of the electrics since I notified them of their failures last Saturday. I may blacken their name here if they continue to ignore me but for now I have changed the wrongly fitted valve and ripped out all the barely accessible (since the house was built in 1987) wiring and replaced it with something easy to inspect and maintain.

Meanwhile spare a thought for those who really can’t afford to heat their homes. Metal cutlery can be painful to hold when it comes out of the drawer at six degrees Centigrade and toothpaste is reluctant to be squeezed from its tube.

Back to normal BiB reporting very soon.

Note: Thinking up snappy titles for blogs has often been difficult but adopting film titles since reporting on Councillor Craske’s Story House cinema a week ago has introduced a bit more fun into the procedure. Can it be kept up until his three screens are belatedly opened? I have my doubts.

 

11 December (Part 2) - Bad Boys

@tonyofsidcup is still putting most of us to shame when it comes to monitoring local politics.

He has reported MP Louie French to the Parliamentary Commissioner for persistently ignoring emails and blocking various people on Facebook and Twitter.

The part of the complaint that particularly interested me was “a mischievous email with praise for Mr. French, signed with a made up name, was answered in three days”.

Like Father, like Son.

This is exactly the same trick employed by the saintly James Brokenshire.

 

11 December (Part 1) - Frozen II

Many thanks for the offers of fanheaters but the one I bought when living in a flat in Plumstead nearly 40 years ago has been retrieved from the shed and still works. How did I come to buy a new flat near the bus station which had no heating system?

I managed to awaken the maintenance company yesterday and they have admitted to sending a plumber who knew a little bit about electrics when the only sensible course was to send the one who bodged - quite reasonably at the time - the old valve wires to fit a new boiler.

In retrospect I should have changed the valve too to make the bodge unnecessary. I suspect I will spend the rest of the day poring over boiler wiring diagrams and searching the web for one for the probably not new valve. A new one would have been supplied with a diagram wouldn’t it?

Note: The display shows Lost Link because the boiler is turned off because the water tank otherwise gets too hot.

 

10 December (Part 2) - Frozen

I have learned the hard way what it means to be unable to afford to heat one’s house. Mine is currently at 11°C and it is becoming difficult to type.

About 18 months ago I succumbed to an offer from a company that offered to maintain my solar panels and all the associated equipment with new for old replacements where necessary. With an inverter approaching its predicted lifespan and the pigeon deterrents in need of repair it seemed like a good deal. I know that there are several other clients in Bexley so the following is written as a warning to them and anyone else who might be tempted by cowboy companies.

I had maintained my own gas boiler for 35 years but in the summer it developed a fault which was terminal so a new one was installed and the maintenance company agreed to add it to their cover.

The plumbing on a boiler is simple but the electrics were not in my case. 35 year old motorised valves require more wires than new ones and modern boilers do not give out the required signal. Because of that something was bodged to get the central heating working which was sort of OK as the solar panels were heating the water. However in Winter, solar generation may not be sufficient and the ‘central heating only’ bodge was overworking a noisy valve.

On 8th October I notified the maintenance company and was told an urgent visit had been scheduled for two days ahead. Nothing happened even though I offered to pay for a new valve. Several nags later culminated in a formal complaint on 2nd November and five scheduled visits came and went until two vans showed up yesterday. One plumber and one electrician. It was a little disappointing to see an unboxed valve lying in a tool box.

I reminded the electrician that a wire within the junction box would require reconnection to the right place and he said he had made the necessary change and the water would now heat up.

It did but not without problems becoming apparent after their departure.

I do not believe the junction box with the original connections inside was ever opened because when I looked later the old valve wire had been snipped off and externally connected to the new one.

The connection block was insulated with parcel tape which had instantly melted as it was lying unsecured over a hot pipe. I am seriously considering reporting the company to H&SE.

Worse is that although the water does now heat up the thermostat no longer intervenes to prevent boiling and the central heating does not work at all.

I took the lid off the valve to see if it was working. The motor is spinning constantly just like the old one, presumably because the compromise wiring has not been restored to normal. My suspicions that it was not a new valve were confirmed when I saw the earth wire had been snipped off internally. The gear wheels slip too.

So now I have no heating and no hot water either because of the danger the tank will boil while I am not looking.

Thanks in part to the threat of bad publicity the company has promised to return with a proper electrician on Monday. Meanwhile I am off to sit in the open watching a rugby match. It may be warmer there!

 

10 December (Part 1) - Revolutionary Road

Despite reducing parts of Abbey Road in Belvedere to little better than a single track with passing places, deliberately creating chaos in Penhill Road and master minding all the worst aspects of the Bexleyheath road ‘improvements’ Councillor Peter Craske is really the motorist’s friend.

Or so you might think if you read yesterday’s Daily Telegraph.

He has teamed up with Harrow and Hillingdon Councils to oppose Khan's tax on poor people and deny him the infrastructure required before motorists can be charged £12·50 a day.

Personally I think a few sharp shooters to take out the lenses is all that is required,.

 

8 December (Part 2) - Die Hard

We all know that the National Health Service is an absolute dead loss and everyone hopes to never get ill. Unfortunately I have recently exhibited symptoms for which the National Health Service has been imploring us to contact a GP without delay.

My practice has always been particularly useless and they generally don’t answer the phone preferring to switch callers to an announcement referring patients to e-Consult on the web. I found that this has now been changed to something called Ask First. I registered with it and it has clearly been designed by an imbecile. For a start there is no Back button for when you make a mistake and F5 (Refresh) logs you out. However I persevered and tried to book a Face to Face appointment because that is going to be the only way forward.

There was only one available this side of Christmas (but only just) but it wasn’t at a time I could make. I declined it and was rewarded with the word ‘Goodbye’.

I started again and asked for a telephone appointment but was told that none were available at any time - ever. Once again I was rewarded with the word ‘Goodbye’.

NHS managers and web designers are little short of murderers.

 

8 December (Part 1) - Mission Impossible?

One of the more interesting articles in the new Bexley Magazine is the contribution from Preston Benson, founder of The Really Local Group. It is about the new cinema which Bexley Council said would open in the Spring of 2022. (Preston now says Q4 2022 so he had better get a move on.)

Some have said, including me, that the building is ugly and the Council’s photo shown here does it no favours but I am much more interested in what is to be found inside.

Ever since my teenage years when I was allowed to fiddle with the local Odeon’s arc lamp and switch projectors when the 20 minute film reels ran out, I have been interested in the technology. Circa 1962 I made a film with a friend which was shown just once by the BFI on the South Bank. I am pretty sure it was crap by modern standards but I cannot check because someone stole the only copy.

I was at BAFTA on Piccadilly for the very first digital theatre presentation in the UK and before that at Ealing film studios for one of the first demonstrations of DVD where film professionals were told of the serious limitations within the format and how to make films that avoided the pitfalls. You don’t see dissolves between film shots any more.

Strangely enough I never got into DVDs myself but I backed the blu-ray format when HD-DVD discs became available and since then collected quite a lot of them. Neither do I go to the cinema very often, mainly because I find the experience disappointing, especially the audio systems.

Despite there being no direct trains to Sidcup after this coming weekend and the bus taking far too long I will be going to the Story House or whatever the name is this week as soon as I can.

Designing three screens into a relatively small building would have been an interesting project and containing the sound difficult but it can presumably be done. At home I can put my speakers in danger of burn out and still cannot hear them in the front garden.

I imagine the screen will be bigger than mine although I was once warned before entering one of the Leicester Square cinemas that the screen was very small and did I want my money back before the film started, so anything is possible.

I shall however be both surprised and disappointed if the sound is better than I achieve at home. Compared to me, cinema operators have a much bigger problem. Some people like films realistically loud and others pathetically quiet. My father once took me into the wind tunnel where he was testing a jet engine. When I show Top Gun Maverick I know what jet engines really sound like and anything less will not do.

I am very much hoping that Councillor Craske’s pet project will be a success. It’s about time he broke his duck.

  

 

7 December (Part 2) - Bah Humbug

My postal service throughout the the pandemic period and beyond has been very good but from all around me I hear very different stories.

My cousin in Chingford complains of two weekly deliveries and is inconvenienced because he does nothing on line. A friend in Bromley went a whole month without post and thereby lost her newspaper subscription tokens. My sister posted a letter first class at a Post Office in Hampshire on 26th October and it wasn’t even franked until the 5th of November, eventually being delivered four days later. A letter from Maidstone posted on 5th November eventually arrived in Bromley yesterday. The postman said he is under instructions not to deliver letters while parcels are backlogged.

I put a suitable question to my own postman this morning and he confirmed those instructions applied to the Dartford office too. What is the point of the Royal Mail any more?

Being of a somewhat rebellious nature I sent a round robin email to all my family members a couple of weeks ago. My suggestion was that the Royal Mail was hell bent on destroying itself so let’s help them on their way by not sending any Christmas cards. It won universal approval. Three addresses may get a hand delivery by me but that’s it. Curtains for the Royal Mail.

I had 15 stamps left after Christmas 2021 and they are now down to twelve. I shall use them on cards to old school and work mates who might otherwise not know if I am dead or alive but I if I can get away with it I don’t intend to buy any more stamps - ever!

Scrooge is alive and well in Belvedere.

  

 

7 December (Part 1) - Off her tiny rocker

The Headmistress of the Jubilee Primary School in Thamesmead has taken leave of her senses again; you may remember her refusal (later overturned by Trinitas Trust) to respond to a Subject Access Request.

As a taster for reports yet to come consider this…

A parent discovered that the teaching staff were in effect spying on them through the inquisition of their daughter. Her younger brother is at the same school and he had a minor accident at home and was wearing a small sticking plaster over a scratch on his forehead.

Why didn’t the Headmistress have the common decency - or even common sense - to ask the parents what had happened? The answer is that she has in the past attempted to cut them off from the school. Yes, it is the same family as was featured here just over a year ago.

The Vice Principal scolded the mother as follows…

We have been made aware by [daughter’s name] that [son’s name] injured his head on Saturday on the radiator. This injury required attention at A&E where his wound needed to be glued. We have kept a close eye on [son’s name] today as he had the plaster on his head on arrival at school this morning. In future please share any relevant information, especially regarding head injuries, via the office so that we know if there is anything specific we need to keep an eye on eg: signs of concussion.

This may seem innocuous but why was the daughter interrogated instead of the parents? The girl is the same age as her brother (but not twins) and should not have been considered a reliable source on which to base an officious letter. The mother replied as follows…

Firstly, your suggestion that [daughter’s name] volunteered this information is incorrect. She did not, [daughter’s name] was asked by a dinner lady of all people. This is unacceptable. There are far more reliable and credible ways of obtaining such personal information relating to my family. Just ask the parents. It may have prevented you from writing on such a minor issue. Thereby, saving us both, this unjustified waste of time. 

We have in the past, when the need has arisen, informed the school of all the relevant  information requiring your unequalled devotion and intervention to our son’s well being.  I take a very dim view of this turn of events and ask you not to involve our children, when soliciting any sort of information about our family. In other words, ask us, not the children. I trust it will not be necessary to communicate over such mundane and trivial matters in the future.

The Headmistress at first dismissed the letter as “inaccurate and disrespectful” and when asked where it was as described escalated the language to include “offensive and defamatory” and concludes with the words “the School will not engage in further correspondence”.

There is nothing in the correspondence that is inaccurate, disrespectful, offensive or defamatory except perhaps the implication the the medical staff at A&E may know more about the seriousness or lack thereof of the forehead scratch than a school teacher.

Yesterday I showed the correspondence to the Deputy Head of a school in North London (a quiz team member) and she said it was a clear case for reference to OFSTED as soon as possible.

Index to past blogs.

  

 

6 December - Watt are you going to do to survive this Winter?

Pages 10 and 11 of the latest Bexley Magazine aim to help residents combat the cost of living crisis which has befallen us after twelve years of Tory government, more than two years of poor Covid decisions and 22 years of a tyrannical maniac in the Kremlin.

Bexley’s advice is OK as far as it goes but it doesn’t go very far. That will be because economy decisions can get difficult.

Wash your clothes at 30°C instead of 40 will certainly save money and generally that is my chosen temperatures but it doesn’t remove stubborn stains. Take showers instead of baths although my two inches of bath water probably costs less. Personal preference obviously.

Turning down the thermostat from 20 to 19 will as claimed cut the heating bill by 10% but only if the temperature outside is 10°C. Only 5% if it is zero outside. The subject of energy saving needs to be approached intelligently, some economies can be false ones.

I turned off the pond waterfall pump in the dark and inadvertently switched on the filter bilge pump at the same time. I think I have burned it out which will take a lot of energy saving to compensate. I got rid of my ancient Pioneer plasma TV which burned through 500 watts but claimed to use only 0·25 watts when on standby; well it was dumb and only had to look out for the infra red from the remote control in order to start. The consumption was too low to measure on my meter.

The new TV uses no more than 80 watts while operating but it was several months before I thought to test its standby consumption. 32 watts! I suppose all those smart facilities have to be kept ticking over. 32 watts may not sound much but at my peak rate tariff adds up to nearly £11 a month. It’s a pain to flick the TV on at the socket every day and I may invest in another remotely controlled socket. My AV pre-amp only takes a couple of watts in standby and the disc player consumption is too low to measure. I can put up with that.

The Bexley Magazine article refers to the £40 million Warmer Homes Scheme and the grants it may be able to provide in some circumstances, basically if you live in a house with an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) rating low enough to make it unsalable and you have no money the Khan man may give you some of your ULEZ money back.

As the first image above may indicate, I have become something of an obsessive when it comes to electricity saving. The bills are under £60 a month but it may have cost me more money overall than it is worth.

However that lovely Hunt fellow is going to push up the price of electricity by another 50% next Spring so maybe not.

Why are we ruled by people we wouldn’t dream of voting for?

 

5 December - Making Bexley even Better. Yeah, right!

Page 4 of the new Bexley Magazine makes some interesting claims for the borough and the one about having 105 parks stirred a few memory cells because five years ago I submitted an FOI about the number of parks after Cabinet Member Craske had said that there were 105.

The FOI response was that there were 103 parks if you counted them in the most generous way possible. To get close to 103 (in 2017) one must count three that were in the process of being sold, another that had been closed for the past two years and 38 playgrounds. Claiming 105 now is a bit of a stretch.

Bexley Council continues to deplete the number as BexleyCo takes over the sites. A newish one is in Walnut Tree Road, Erith following a one day consultation two weeks ago which few residents knew about. According to one surprised resident who lives there, public engagement has been zero.

The plan is for seven storeys and 70 flats with 15 parking spaces.

If you wish to live next to a heavily congested roundabout put in your reservation now.

 

4 December - Shop Local

The days when the Bexley Magazine distributor would walk straight past my house - and quite a lot of others according to reports and my own observations - appear to have gone. For the past eighteen months or thereabouts I have been able to scan new issues quickly and fling them into the box under the bed without comment here. Not so this time. The copy that dropped onto the doormat yesterday has several politically correct messages as is inescapable in woke Britain but it is also stuffed with interesting and very readable articles. Some may even be helpful.

The Winter 2022 issue will help me fill in the gap before the next Council meeting report which looks like being next year, the Public Cabinet meeting scheduled for 13th December having been cancelled.

Cafer Munur’s (Cabinet Member for Growth) three page spread on Shop Local caught my eye and in particular the item tucked away at the end of Page 21.

Long term readers will know that I was appointed Secretary to the Abbey Wood Traders’ Association in February 2016. Neither of the two local Councils liked that and asked for my removal, banning me from the occasional joint meeting. The Traders stood their ground and I remained in post until the lock downs prevented their monthly meetings which never restarted.

When Boris Johnson provided the area with regeneration money six years ago Bexley Council through its partner Retail Revival set up a village website featuring most of the shops. Unfortunately it was full of errors, silly things like wrong phone numbers and wrong opening times.

Even more unfortunately Retail Revival had sub-contracted the website to a totally uncooperative company which never responded to any update request but eventually offered to hand over the site for an unaffordable sum. It therefore sat there, neglected and a total waste of taxpayers’ money until it was abandoned in 2020.

With no meetings at which the issue may have been discussed, I bought the domain name with my own money and replicated the original website which I had copied, with corrections of course.

Since then it has remained virtually unchanged because all requests for further update information has, with one exception, fallen on deaf ears. The Abbey Arms updated their pizza page which is just as well because it gets a mention in the Magazine. I was considering taking the site off line because it attracts enquiries which I am unable to answer.

If I was really mischievous I would change the code so that www.abbeywoodvillage.co.uk redirects to Bonkers. It’s about time Bexley Council gave BiB a bit of publicity.

(No, I won’t do it, but it’s tempting.)

Note. For web pedants, none of the original code was replicated but the pages looked exactly the same.

 

3 December - Zero tolerance. How’s it going?

Daily early morning inspections of surrounding residential roads have not uncovered any more blatantly illegal parking (†) but with the police being utterly useless with more serious crime short of murder it is a waste of time reporting failures to observe the Highway Code, and Bexley Council only makes excuses when it comes to trying to improve the situation.

Obstruction is a major problem on the roads opposite Lesnes Abbey. Commuters during the week and visitors to the events held in Lesnes Abbey at the weekend.

Here’s one from this morning causing congestion on Abbey Road because vehicles turning into Carrill Way were having to wait for vehicles attempting to exit on the wrong side of the road.

This inconsiderate driver thought he could do anything he liked because he had a blue badge. I didn’t hang around to see how nimbly he was able to walk up the steep hill to the Abbey.

The Highway Code says do not park opposite or within 10 metres (32 feet) of a junction except in an authorised parking space. There is no exception for a disabled driver or passenger.

For my own convenience and maybe yours the Report Bad Parking form is now directly accessible from the Democracy menu above.

† Exceptions were made for known residents who parked on the pavement as a direct consequence of Bexley Council’s failure to stop end-on parking or parking more than 50 centimetres from the kerb.

 

1 December - An inevitable change of political direction

Two months ago BiB reported on former Councillor Dave Putson’s Cost of Living crisis meeting. It wasn’t at all what I had expected and whether the pro-Putin anti-West agenda of one attendee and his mate added to the entertainment value of the meeting is debatable. Nevertheless I thought it interesting enough to go to Dave’s second meeting.

I was a little puzzled by the invitation which headlined an address by a Consultant Paediatrician. Fearing a diatribe on ULEZ I took the back row seat nearest the exit prepared to make use of it if the theme was the evils of the motorized economy which our Mayor is so keen to see killed off.

How wrong I was, Jessica, for that is the Consultant’s name never once mentioned the dreaded P word and instead delivered a devastating insight into local living conditions and the effects on children’s health.

She was very worried about children’s breathing problems and said the infamous case of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale is very far from being unique. It is all around us in Woolwich and Plumstead and Erith and Abbey Wood. All the areas served by QEH.

It is down to mould in poorly maintained rented houses that are too expensive for the occupants to heat. Half the score or so children in her care right now are there solely because of poor living conditions.

Cases of rickets are rife and scurvy is not unknown. Breastfeeding mothers are so undernourished that their children become undernourished too.

Children are taken to A&E to take advantage of the long waiting times because they get a meal and it is the best way of seeing them fed properly.

Some young people attempt suicide when their parents’ inability to buy a new uniform for a growing child results in bullying over their appearance.

Housing conditions are occasionally so poor that children requiring care cannot go home because their houses are deemed too dangerous for the health of visiting carers, and so they are forced to remain in hospital.

A patient survey in the paediatrics department showed that 38% of them were being treated because of poor housing conditions, 42% had no heating, 22% could not afford to buy nappies, 32% were eating unhealthily and 19% had missed appointments because they had not got the money for the bus or train fare.

When challenged on damp the Council’s reaction is to advise the opening of windows and less use of dryers. Nothing else. No real help. It was alleged (maybe by an audience member) that they simply don’t care.

Once again Thamesmead East Councillor Larry Ferguson showed a degree of humility and intelligence that did him credit not often seen within Bexley Council and slowly but surely the debate moved around to ULEZ. As I suspected, no one was wholly for it and most absolutely against it. The best argument was that it was another [not so] small step in the right direction which began with the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968.

No one disagreed when I suggested that an extended ULEZ was no longer needed as ‘polluting’ vehicles are disappearing at a rapid rate anyway. I also asked the medic how it was that I breathed a yellow smog as a youngster and lived opposite the gas works which consumed hundreds of tons of coal daily and suffered no ills and wouldn’t more lives be saved if Khan spent his £250 million ULEZ implementation costs on improving cold and damp homes? The latter produced only a wry smile but the smog question was answered by an erudite Dave Putson.

His highly technical response might be summarised as sulphur is a very different and relatively harmless pollutant and burning diesel fuel produces nasties that combine with something or other to produce something even worse. Well beyond my level of comprehension.

There was also talk of micro-plastics getting into everything so presumably if the discussion went on long enough someone would have brought up the subject of tyre dust, but the end of the meeting was nigh.

In a room filled with people who at one time would have been solid Labour no one suggested that that party is the answer to all our ills. In fact Tony Blair’s excessive use of PFIs was blamed for the level of interest payments currently emptying the public purse.

No one said anything to alarm this former Tory voter and whilst it is difficult to see how such a small group can change government policy or better still bring Sunak crashing down their efforts are welcomed and may grow into something bigger. Such is my discontent with Sunak and his cronies I made a five pound donation to their fighting fund. (I suspect most of it goes on hall hire.)

As you will have gathered, Boris Johnson slowly strangled my Conservative inclinations and Rishi Sunak killed them stone dead. Something to bear in mind perhaps when reading these meanderings. And while I am about it, I am no longer a Royalist either thanks to that prat who calls himself the Prince of Wails.