30 September - 30 days of rubbish

Bexley Council will resume its programme of meetings next week after its long Summer recess; meanwhile there is not a lot to report. I went to the Cost of Living Crisis meeting in Abbey Wood on Wednesday and it was nothing like what I naively thought it might be. Interesting nevertheless and lots of notes were taken a summary of which will appear here soon, probably tomorrow.

With a Sainsbury’s branded item I used to buy regularly having gone up in two stages from £2·30 less than six months ago to £4 this week there is certainly a crisis. I didn’t buy it, not because I didn’t have four quid but because at £4 it is very poor value for money.

This month has been taken up by a lot of DIY work. Until very recently I never hired a tradesman to do anything and September has seen me indulge in plumbing, electrical alterations, carpentry, bricklaying and computer fixing with another two old PCs waiting to be mended and obstructing my front door. In the past I have replaced gutters, installed kitchens and on one occasion my own double glazing.

However it gets to be increasingly difficult. I gave up building my own radios and amplifiers 30 years ago when they became controlled by microprocessors and the amateur had no access to that sort of technology. Basic electrics are to some extent going the same way. If I modify my solar panels and associated electronics various authorities have to be notified and they will only deal with registered contractors. So called professionals have to be employed.

I asked one to quote for a job nearly two months ago and it seemed to be a reasonable price at the time so I asked exactly what equipment he had in mind to fit. I was sent the maker’s name, model number and two photographs. It was entirely unsuitable equipment and I emailed to say so. For more than a week I was ignored but eventually told less than gracefully that 400 similar jobs had been completed this year so far and no one else had queried their choice of equipment. I still maintained that their plan was unviable and provided several reasons.

Much to my surprise a sub-contracted electrician turned up at my door, roll-up dangling from his mouth, and told me he had come to carry out the work. I asked him what he planned to do and was told “I am not here to talk to you, if you have questions ask Joe in the office”. I told him that I had and attempted to explain why the plan sent out by Joe was entirely unsuitable. His response was that he would not “listen to a silly old man” and went to leave. I encouraged him to do so.

Subsequently the boss of the company confirmed that I was entirely correct and the wrong equipment list had been sent to me. A pity that he ignored my immediate protestations but he is the registered MCS installer and I am the silly old man. Not a bad month, racist and electrically incompetent to boot.

Across the road SloppyStyle Recycling’s mess goes from bad to worse and this morning their collection staff thought all the road’s brown bins were mine. A good job they are numbered and could be returned to their rightful owners.

Note: The initials MCS are not explained on their website but it is the body that maintains the central database of solar installations.

 

26 September - Not a good look

The Mayor and his Councillor colleagues commemorated the death of our late Queen in Bexleyheath yesterday. A church service to which they invited their closest friends and the two Conservative MPs.

I’d guess it is the sort of event they cannot possibly avoid but why they should choose to be so closely associated with someone who chooses to flout planning law, assault in a relatively minor way a member of the public (me, with reports of a former Councillor too) and try to run me off the road to the extent that the police had to come to my rescue, not to mention a prosecution and conviction by the Health & Safety Executive, I have no idea.

I’ll have to think of something.

 

24 September - Going for broke

On days with no Bexley Council news there have been several BiB references to my concern over the effect of inflation and energy costs on the poorest members of society. I will get by but I am watching the pennies.

Fiddling around on the edge of silly economies I swapped two miniature 15 watt tungsten bulbs with 1·5 watt LEDs. They give just about enough light to read by but they are never going to save money despite being inexpensive. That is because they were only available in packs of ten.

Like all this business of not leaving things running on standby it is all relatively ineffective when it comes to saving money. The only way of making real economies will be not turning your heating on and be careful when using the oven or anything that heats water.

Whilst yesterday’s budget was welcome in several ways it did nothing to curb inflation. Energy costs, even after the new cap, will go up next month and be 75% above the cost last Winter for the average user.

Without a reduction in fuel taxes inflation will continue to increase especially so if the bank rate goes up further as it will.

Yesterday I needed some penny washers, so called because they are the size of an old penny and dashed to my least favourite DIY store because it is nearest. It would have been cheaper to drill holes in 50 pence pieces. B&Q always were rip off merchants to be avoided whenever possible but that was taking the biscuit.

Much the same is true of every little thing that needs to be bought.

Next Wednesday there is to be a meeting on the subject in the Abbey Wood Community Centre. When I found the advert on Facebook I noted that it had been organised by a socialist group but failed to note exactly who. As is the way with Facebook, there is no way the advert can be found again.

I plan to go to hear what the socialists have to say. I hope it is something more intelligent than the left wing doom-mongering trotted out by various radio commentators today.

They don’t like tax levels returned to levels last seen under Tony Blair and would prefer banks to hang on to their money and be taxed at 19% than their employees be given bonuses and be taxed at 40%.

The budget may be a gamble but it is pointless to carry on with the same old policies which demonstrably don’t work. In the 1970s I was asked to manage the least productive telephone exchange in London and close it down. I threw the management rule book out of the window and went in a different direction. In two and a half years it became the most productive handling more calls than ever. Technical changes not budgetary but I will hope that similar principles apply. Don’t press on with procedures that have failed in the past.

It still got closed down but that was because it was more than 50 years old and the equipment was totally worn out, not to mention that the building could be sold and turned into a posh hotel.

 

22 September - Transport of Delight

There has not been a Council meeting of note in Bexley since July and of the meetings that are not webcast, the Transport Users’ Sub-Committee is the most consistently interesting and I promised myself some while ago that I would honour it with my presence; but I nearly didn’t make it.

A long day had been spent plumbing and the resultant lack of meeting preparation time meant that when I eventually made it to the Civic Offices I was very much aware of the faint aroma of flux. Then there was the idiot driver of DN56 OYS who had been blocking my way on to the the King’s highway all day forcing an exit (and return) via the footpath.

On arrival at the town hall I encountered a locked front door and a doorman asleep on the job. A circumnavigation of the building found a perplexed police officer due to speak at the meeting facing the same predicament. He eventually woke the doorman by banging on the door harder than I would have dared.

Even when I got inside, the meeting room was locked. Despite the obstacles to attendance I was given a warm but maybe slightly sarcastic welcome by the two lady Councillors who had grown used to my non-attendance. The meeting officer rushed to find me an Agenda which given the recent doubling in price of A4 paper was generous of her. Later when I was overheard telling Councillor Hinkley (Labour, Belvedere) that the distributors of the new issue of the Bexley Magazine had bypassed my road another Council Officer gave me a copy. I didn’t like to tell him that his was an old issue which was delivered to me about three months ago. (Sally had not been delivered hers either. Magazine distribution across the borough is very much hit and miss.)

And so to the meeting chaired by new Councillor Cameron Smith (Conservative, St. Mary’s & St. James).

A police officer provided a whole host of statistics on bus crime and road accidents in Bexley. There had been one fatality in the past year and as one might guess, males on bikes, both motorised and of the pedal variety, are a menace.

e-scooter accidents are probably under reported because law breakers are not inclined to report them but three are known to have been seriously injured. The police officer thought that e-scooter use was declining.

In terms of road casualties across London, Bexley (1,003 casualties) ranks seventh above Bromley (14th place, 1,438 casualties) and Greenwich (18th place, 1,567). Thereby proving that despite Greenwich’s assault on drivers they put more of them into hospital.

Crime on buses is low (roughly half) compared to neighbouring Greenwich and Lewisham and peaked at 35 incidents last December with about half that number being more typical. Theft, robbery, sexual offences and criminal damage are all in low single digits per month.

Probably many residents will be pleased to hear that three youngsters have so misbehaved on buses that their free passes have been permanently withdrawn.

Car drivers are of course the lowest form of life in most boroughs and their voice is not heard at meetings but neither is that of pedestrians, bus passengers, train commuters or those who take a pony and trap out of Thistlebrook. However Bexley Council allows a cyclist to guest at every Transport meeting. Last night he was on top form clearly believing that all roads belonged to him. He wanted cycle lanes that end at borough boundaries to be extended into Bexley using wands. Magic ones presumably.

Andrew Bashford, Bexley’s road boss said he hoped to hear from TfL this week about funding for more street obstacles but in general terms roads are not wide enough and wands disappear very quickly. Maybe he is not quite as mad as I have always believed.

On rail services Southeastern announced a new timetable to be published very soon which would tailor services to the post Covid demand. Probably no fewer trains in peak hours but changes outside. A big change is a further reduction in the use of junctions notably at Lewisham. The result is that more passengers will be unable to get to their preferred destination without changing at the abomination which is London Bridge. Down the escalator, check platform for required destination. Up escalator, just miss the train, down the escalator, try again.

Railways are always intent on proving that their priority is their own convenience and to hell with that of fare paying passengers.

Councillor Smith chaired the meeting in an exemplary fashion but appears not to have fully grasped how Bexley Council is supposed to operate. A democratic streak has not yet been thrashed out of him. He allowed a question from a member of the public, unique in my experience and I suspect a summons to the Leader’s office awaits him.

Outside the meeting I learned that my Councillor Sally Hinckley had made a case to the relevant Council department about the road blocking that has followed Crossrail but received no reply. Across the borough boundary Greenwich Council has already announced the extension of their Abbey Wood Controlled Parking Zone.

My road needs a mixture of single and double yellow lines. Every single property has its own off road parking space(s).

 

21 September - SloppyStyle Recycling

Cabinet Member Craske’s favoured rubbish company continues to demonstrate that it is unable to provide an adequate service and their failures are absolutely predictable.

The cycle is to provide a bin with no lock as an invitation to the feckless to open it wide and dump anything they fancy inside. Then refuse to empty it so that everything overflows on to the ground. Then come back two weeks later to partially empty it. Then carelessly dump the bin so that their untidiness encourages the feckless to do likewise.

All the pictures below were taken within a few minutes of each other yesterday morning, both the before (Photo 1) and the after. (Photos 3 to 5).

A few minutes before collection.

Collected, dumped and not properly emptied.

 

20 September - History repeating itself

Whether it be in business or in national politics or here in Bexley it is always the cover up that causes the damage.

When Councillor Cheryl Bacon excluded every member of the public from a meeting because she objected to what just one was planning to do she committed an offence and next day a Director issued guidance to ensure the same mistake wouldn’t happen again.

The correct response would have been to go one step further and issue an apology to affected members of the public. It is not as though there was anything practical that the public could have done about their exclusion but they took a different course. The Council manufactured a lie to justify the bad advice issued to Councillor Bacon. There was a Press Release about a riot in the Council Chamber, a series of unsigned and undated witness statements were invented, some known to have been circulated without the knowledge of the so called witnesses.

One brave Conservative Councillor admitted that what the Council was saying was nonsense and probably got into trouble for it.

When Bexley Council belatedly realised that a police report into the incident did not support their version of events they persuaded the police to rewrite it.

What should have been a simple apology for a misjudgment was elevated to a file headed ‘Misconduct in Public Office’ being submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service by Greenwich Police.

Things appear to be going in a similar direction following the Council Leader writing an article for Conservative Home which claimed that she had met every Manifesto promise since 2006. A claim very easily disproved and confirmed to be largely untrue by the Deputy Director of Corporate Services in his response to a complaint.

However his conclusion was that the Leader was sincere with her claim when she wrote it to which the only response must be disbelief.

The complainant, @tonyofsidcup, appealed to the Monitoring Officer. The MO is supposed to be scrupulously honest although history shows that has not always been the case in Bexley. To be so in a dishonest borough is no doubt difficult and the last two didn’t stay in post very long.

What did the current one say?

An interesting rejection of a legitimate complaint.

We now have two senior Council Officers who cannot bring themselves to say that the Leader actually did meet her 2018 Manifesto promises but are happy to put on the public record that Councillor Teresa O’Neill is some sort of idiot who does not know or perhaps understand what is going on in the borough that she has been failing since 2009. And that the bulk of our Conservative Councillors back her constant failures.

The Monitoring Officer gleefully adds that there is no Appeal against her decision. Maybe not but it can be regurgitated and ridiculed at regular intervals.

The MO’s response in full.

 

16 September - Sharing the misery

While we are all preoccupied with you know what, life of a sort still goes on. I wasn’t accused of being a racist yesterday but of being a Conservative, which in some people’s eyes is just as bad.

That was because I said I am not in favour of windfall taxes or of nationalising energy companies nor am I worried by unrestricted bankers’ bonuses if there is evidence that it will improve the country’s competitiveness.

In 1987 I inherited half my father’s shares in Shell Oil which he bought circa 1960 - definitely before 1962. Only a few hundred of them but enough for me to be sent company accounts etc. Those who clamour for windfall taxes didn’t care when the headlines last year were that oil companies were making big losses. £20 billion for Shell alone.

Thanks to nationalisation I have a choice of tariffs for electricity. There is even a choice of Economy 7 style tariffs. Do I go for four hours at a quarter the cost of the standard rate or six hours at nearer half? Now that my own solar generation is reducing should I switch to one for charging the car? Do I do sufficient miles to make it worthwhile?

Where I do think Madam Truss has got things wrong is imposing the £2,500 energy cap. At a time when many people are struggling to make ends meet what credit will she get for raising the price by more than 25% in October? All that money for little thanks. Why didn’t she do the job properly?

The subject was Number 1 for The News Shopper on their emailed news headlines yesterday. Their tip for saving energy was to not use a tumble dryer and buy intelligent plugs to make it easier to turn off devices that would otherwise be left on standby.

They advocated buying a wi-fi activated 13 amp plug so that you can switch off the TV etc. totally and stop it using a dribble of energy when not in use. So someone who cannot afford five pence a week to run a TV on standby is asked to spend a tenner on a fancy plug and expected to own an expensive phone!

Sorry to disillusion their wonderfully named reporter but the wi-fi plug is itself on standby waiting for the radio signal to switch on or off so the savings will be negligible or worse. Added to which you double the number of electrical contacts which might possibly get warm and burn your house down.

I bought such a device ten years ago which operated via a traditional radio signal and therefore required a separate remote control. I did so because the power socket was otherwise out of reach but after a few years it simply failed and cost more money to replace.

There are such things as false economies. An intelligent plug can be very convenient but it is not a money saving device.

 

15 September - I’m in trouble again

On Saturday in connection with the death of Queen Elizabeth II, I used the words "true British". Not without some thought and hoping that would include everyone loyal to the Monarchy and the country as a whole. On reflection it should have included those from overseas who share our values and not just the foreign dignitaries mentioned.

Someone decided it was so important, or maybe outrageous, a comment that they demanded an explanation. In providing one I referred to the fact that a friend went up to The Mall on Friday and was struck by how the crowd was comprised almost entirely of white British in a very cosmopolitan city. (He listened to the languages spoken.)

His observation was in my mind when I was at Duxford (Imperial War Museum) last weekend for the Battle of Britain anniversary flying display. Not quite the same thing but another event that may attract those with an enthusiasm for British culture and history.

While there I saw a fair number of oriental appearance and some who appeared to be from the Indian sub-Continent and a few of Middle Eastern appearance.

What I didn’t see was a single black African face among the many thousands thronging the old RAF aerodrome. Maybe they are not interested in aeroplanes but the experience was exactly the same as my friend had observed the previous day in The Mall.

For mentioning these observations I was labelled a racist with some personal specifics that I will not go into here.

Since then I have watched more than three hours of YouTube videos of the Lying in State. A wide variety of people showing respect to our late Queen in various forms. Bowing, curtseying, kiss blowing, praying, crossing and crying. Once again Orientals, Indians, Arab looking but massively outnumbered by white. In hours of viewing on the biggest screen Sony ever made I saw four black ladies and three black men. One was either David Lammy MP or his double. All the black people were alone whilst the others were frequently in family groups.

This spectacle may be seen by anyone for another three days so my observations can be easily checked. I find it more than just strange but a trifle worrying that there appear to be such divisions in society.

The Reading of the Proclamation (Photo above) in Bexleyheath tells the same story.

Probably I should be more worried that people are prepared to shout racist when confronted by observations that anyone can check up on. An email address is now registered on my mail server for instant deletion. I suppose abuse will arrive via the Contact form now.

 

11 September - The Tories’ friend comes out on top again

When Kulvinder Singh built his concrete bunker in the garden of 238 Woolwich Road without planning permission he not only wrecked the garden there and part of Lesnes Abbey woods but also the lives of his neighbours at No. 240. As you might imagine I was in contact with them on several occasions both to gain access for photography but also to ensure that reports that appeared here were accurate.

In more recent times I learned a few things which were not appropriate to publish at the time or I was asked not to. One of these was that not only had Singh rendered 240 uninhabitable by the owners because their dreams of a home for life had been wrecked but also unsalable because no one else wanted to live there either.

Bexley’s planners happily abandoned a whole family in favour of their friend and Tory supporter. As such the house owners had no option but to accede to the developer who had brought ruination to their lives and agree a private sale.

This news has now leaked into the public domain by virtue of this week’s Planning Decision. Through the relative anonymity of the agent habitually used by Kulvinder Singh and his various company names permission has been granted for “a larger home extension”. Larger translates to a 20 feet deep extension into the garden of No. 240.

The Singh family, the Deputy Leader of Bexley Council, the Vice-Chairman of the Planning Committee and his wife, the Singh’s local Councillor and three Tory election candidates. They stand together.

 

10 September - Love is all around

I wouldn’t normally nick a photo that appears in several of the same day’s newspapers; for copyright reasons obviously. Old ones maybe but not brand new ones.

But I will make an exception for this one.

It was taken by my cousin’s son using the camera I bought for him.

I think I will get away with it, at least I hope so.

It sums up the huge display of affection for the Monarchy displayed by the true British population and even a couple of Presidents.

 

9 September - God Save the King

Today is obviously not a day to continue commenting on the new Government or the parlous state of the nation. Yesterday another calamity diverted everyone’s attention from such things.

I remember the day that Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne because I had had ear ache all night and still suffering when Miss Goddard came into the third year junior school class to tell us that the King had died. And then we resumed lessons.

Only once did I have a close encounter with Queen Elizabeth II. I had walked from my office in the City to Waterloo Station intending to catch the 17:39 from Platform 9 to Basingstoke.

In those days the platforms at Waterloo Station were divided by a road which allowed mail vans to park alongside the trains and exit through the central arch. Between Platforms 9 and 10 if I remember correctly.

On that day, sometime before July 1967, access was barred and no one could cross from one side of the station concourse to the other because the Queen was due in on a boat train from Southampton following an overseas tour. I and hundreds of other commuters had to stand and watch the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh go by in their limousine. We were late home that night and I was not especially pleased about it.

How do I know it was before July 1967? Well that was when the last steam hauled service ran to Waterloo and the Queen came in behind a Bulleid Pacific locomotive. Probably the same one that should have taken me home.

Pictured is Prince Charles on a Savings Stamp which children of the 1950s were encouraged to collect. Princess Anne only warranted a 6d stamp. (2·5 pence.)

 

8 September (Part 3) - Market forces

With regret it has been announced that the monthly market in Wilton Road, Abbey Wood has come to the end of the road both literally and metaphorically. The last one will be held on 1st October 2022, the victim of dwindling attendance despite the massively increased advertising throughout 2022 and the enormous effort put in by the organisers, Chris and Cat of CC Events.

 

8 September (Part 2) - A healthy start?

Now that the number of visitors to BIB has fallen in line with Bexley Council’s dishonesty level it is tempting to call it a day but on the other hand it still provokes interesting comment from readers, mainly supportive but not all.

The phenomenon that I see on Twitter is repeated via email and even by telephone. Some people are only prepared to see the very worst aspects of the news and the country as a whole. Maybe it is because I have sometimes exposed the very worst of Bexley Council and readers think that is indicative of my political views on everything. As I have said before, almost every criticism of Bexley Council has its origins in their lies. Sometimes outrageous lies. It has been the only real and continuing motivation since 2009.

The correspondents all have one thing in common. They are all Remainers relishing every Government failure to reap the Brexit Dividend. Most are Labour supporters.

More generally I remain firmly inclined to the right of politics and prefer to see the best things about UK plc.

As such I remain hopeful that the new Prime Minister is a proper Conservative and not an imposter like Boris Johnson who hasn’t done one truly Conservative thing since 2019. Botched Brexit, countless Covid mistakes, Green lunacy, open borders and crime out of control.

Liz Truss has been in post for three days and I am not universally in favour of everything I have heard so far but neither am I seriously disappointed - yet.

I think I can understand choosing a Cabinet made up mainly of loyalists because there is simply no time for argument; she has two years in which to do things. Conservative things.

When I first saw this photo I thought it was Ken Clarke who served as Health Secretary between 1988 and 1990 and thoroughly useless he was too but I do not remember being critical of his cigar and beer habit. So disgusting as this photo is I cannot reasonably hold it against the new Health Secretary. I will never meet her so I will not be made to suffer the stench of smoke, sweat and old wine stains.

It is a little worrying that someone who has made such poor life style choices may have some control over my own state of health but on the plus side we may see the end of the nanny state. A good Conservative thing to do.

Thérèse Coffey has been against proposals to further curb smoking and whilst I have never puffed even one in my entire life I am inclined to agree with her. Agree, that is, that Blair got it wrong. In my opinion he should have banned smoking in all public places - places that I cannot avoid - and not only indoors as he did. Market forces would soon have created non-smoking pubs and restaurants when smokers are a minority of the population.

In the late 1980s my own office workplace held a ballot on smoking and even some smokers voted for a ban.

The thing I really don’t like about Coffey is the need to type those bloody French accents.

 

8 September (Part 1) - Cap in hand?

My energy supply contract expired in mid-September 2021 and the best deal I could find cost 47% more. (When the August 2021 price cap of £1,277 applied.) A week after I agreed to the new rate my supplier went bust and by April 2022 the replacement supplier was asking for 224% more than I was paying in the September. (The April 2022 price cap of £1,971.)

If anyone had said that in a further six months the price would be capped at £2,500, almost exactly twice the 2021 price, I would not have been at all happy.

£2,500 is widely reported to be the limit that the new Prime Minister has in mind. Twice what it was 13 months ago and 220% more than it was 14 months ago.

And she thinks I should rejoice on the grounds that it is a lot better than an 80% price cap. Obviously it is but It is still an increase which will push some people and businesses over the edge.

I have already heard Tory ministers say that the £400 bill rebate proposed by the previous Chancellor still applies and in effect brings the cap down to £2,100. An attempt at deception worthy of @bexleynews because the £400 would have applied to the £3,459 cap too. The £400 rebate is different in the sense that low energy users will benefit proportionately more than the profligate but it is only for six months so the cap will effectively rise again in April 2023.

Making radical changes is not really practical in three days of premiership.

On a personal note, I had calculated, perhaps rather optimistically, that if I bought a home storage battery and switched to an Economy 7 style tariff it would pay for itself in a little over three years. I had assumed that prices would go up by 80% in October and a further 25% in January 2023.

Thanks to Liz Truss it looks like I will have to work it out again.

 

7 September - CountrySlop Recycling strikes again

I could go back a year or more on this one because it is a continuing saga of incompetence and lack of care by CountrySlop Recycling but instead I will refer back only to July this year. By 6th August the nearby communal paper bin contamination had attracted a red warning notice. As predicted at the time, CountrySlop returned yesterday presumably to improve the situation.

They were lucky that the access road had been opened enough to squeeze their truck through the gap but improve the situation? They did not.

The black sacks were removed from the top of the paper bin and the bin contents examined. More black sacks were removed but beneath them was coke tins and more contaminants.

Instead of dealing with the problem, CountrySlop flung the bin unceremoniously to one side and off they went to see what havoc they could wreak elsewhere.

The thickos who run the company have yet to realise that leaving bins unlocked - the paper bin doesn’t even have a lock - will simply encourage the sort of people attracted to this part of Bexley in recent years, to dump everything in any convenient bin irrespective of what each is supposed to accept.

Photographed 29th July, 6th August, 24th August and 6th September before failed collection.

Photographed 6th September after failed collection. Paper bin carelessly dumped. Unlocked. Access flap inaccessible but who cares? Just lift the unlocked lid and chuck in any old rubbish.

 

6 September (Part 2) - Crossrail woes - addendum

There was a happy ending to this morning’s road block. The police were called to an address in Coptefield Drive and encountered the traffic queue. They interrogated the DVLA database and somehow managed to get hold of the driver of NV11 UAG by phone at his workplace. Obviously they know more about some people than many would like.

However the driver was dragged out of his office and made to move his car.

Shortly afterwards CountrySlop was able to squeeze one of their trucks through the gap and made a right old mess of the big paper bin behind the nearby flats.

I would not be the slightest bit surprised if a photo or two appears here tomorrow.

 

6 September (Part 1) - Crossrail woes

I have not needed to use Crossrail for a week or two but I am looking forward to it running later at night from November.

In its testing phase it has not been totally perfect for me. I have been on a train that failed to stop at Liverpool Street and, Murphy’s Law, that was my destination. I have several times looked at the platform departure boards to see “The next train will not stop here”, and it has.

Once at Abbey Wood the departure board showed only a ten minute interval service so I cursed and sat on the 14:10. It left at 14:05. On one Abbey Wood arrival the doors wouldn’t open. It went on for four or five minutes while the lady driver issued increasingly frantic apologies.

But I jest, none of that is a problem. What is a problem is increased commuter parking.

The pictures below indicate how bad things can get although I have been shown photos showing worse blockages.

I was alerted to the latest problem by my immediate neighbour who I saw walking home - and she never walks anywhere. She explained that she had to park her car out on the main road. Hence my photographic expedition.

The lady who may just been seen in Photo 4 had phoned Bexley Council and been told “No yellow lines so nothing we can do”, which is probably true. However the police had told her the same which merely demonstrates that they are lazy liars as well as being Institutionally Corrupt.

The white van man cancelled his day’s work in Coptefield Drive and drove off saying something about having to make money elsewhere. Fortunate that no resident had a heart attack or set his house on fire while driver LD10 MGY was being an inconsiderate idiot.

I imagine that if I parked my car broadside on in Abbey Road where there is a short section free of parking restrictions they would have something to say about it. Unless of course I went equipped with Super Glue in which case I would be offered a cup of tea.

The section of road pictured has a history of blocking. I’d guess it was about 2006 when Bexley Council were especially keen on buying yellow paint that they asked all nearby residents if they would like yellow lines in this and surrounding streets. The offer was declined, by me as well. I suspect most regret that now.

A few years ago Councillor Craske said there would be no new or extended Parking Zones unless residents paid for it themselves. This was at a time when he said the same about street trees. Probably he has changed his mind by now.

I once went to a Council meeting where the Transport guru said they would not consider extending the Abbey Wood Restricted Parking Zone until Crossrail had been operational for two years. That is, there has been enough time to assess the situation.

The aforesaid lady plans to start a petition to speed things up because she is sometimes trapped into her drive when a large vehicle parks opposite. I think I will put her in touch with Councillor Hinkley who has already shown an interest in the problem.

Note: The white car was moved at around midday which allowed careful access. See addendum. The red car was still there 24 hours later.

 

5 September - Stung and stung again

Can easily sting
My wasp nest was dealt with by Rob Smith of Bexley Pest Control Ltd, 01322 308475. All very quick and effective leaving me only with dead bodies to Hoover up.

Rob said it was a very big nest and this is a photo taken today. The wasps took over my old Bexley Council recycling box so as you can see it is nearly two feet across and of unknown depth.

I was advised not to remove it until early November when there is no chance of stumbling across unwanted surprises.

Khan always stings
I am no expert in the financing of TfL but as I understand it Tory Chancellor George Osborne took away £700,000,000 of subsidy in 2015 and made passengers pay for pretty much everything. It sort of worked for a short while and then Mayor Khan came along with his promised freeze on fares just when he should have been making up for the £700 million shortfall.

As if that was not enough bad news, economically speaking at least, the pandemic caused him to reduce tube services to ensure that what few passengers there were, were packed in cheek by jowl. To encourage car use the Congestion Charge was temporarily cancelled hitting revenues even harder.

The inevitable happened. TfL ran out of money and has had to be bailed out by Government several times. Not all of it was Khan’s fault but his 2016 decisions didn’t help and he has consequently gone on a money grabbing spree.

Most people know that he whacked up the Congestion Charge and extended the hours of operation. He also introduced the 24/7 Ultra Low Emission Zone and plans to extend it throughout Greater London.

Anything to fleece the motorist as much as possible.

Yesterday without notice Khan introduced a crafty one. The Oyster Card deposit went up from £5 to £7 and you can no longer hand it it and get a refund. So it is no longer a deposit. The fare for travelling by Tube to Heathrow has gone from £3·50 to £5·50 too.

The details may be found on the Diamond Geezer website. It is not the most easily navigable site. Scroll down until you find the entry for September 4th.

 

4 September - Joseph Goebbels would be proud

You may remember that the Deputy Director of Corporate Services agreed with @tonyofsidcup that Bexley Council had not fulfilled all of its 2018 Manifesto pledges despite repeatedly claiming to have done so. What else would you expect from a lying Bexley Council?

The Director dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the Council Leader believed at the time she was acting honestly. What else would you expect from a man who is paid by the Leader? (The excuse doesn’t cover the repetition of the claim last week - see image, but nevermind. You cannot expect honesty from @bexleynews.)

@tonyofsidcup has appealed the decision to the Monitoring Officer and he awaits a reply.

Quite separately he made a second complaint, this time about the Civic Awards, who got one and the associated costs. It is not something I would be bothered about but that is not the point.

Council Leader O’Neill replied as follows…

I understand you have submit (sic) a Code of Conduct complaint to the Monitoring Officer (copied in above) & I therefore think that will cover the questions you are asking.

@tony cannot see the relevance of that response and the copied PDF is merely his own Awards complaint. It looks to be somewhat nuts to me too.

Maybe my suggestion that Council Leader must be incompetent or gullible is not far from the truth.

 

3 September - Marking time

As happens every year, Bexley Council does nothing in August leaving BiB to flounder and drift. This year there is only one meeting in September, the Transport Sub-Committee and I will try to get there to see if the new Chairman is better than the old one. Shouldn’t be difficult.

In the past I have tried pretty much going off air for the Summer months but that can provoke speculation on the state of my health but wittering on about non-Council issues is not universally welcomed. “I find your political views confusing.” Very possibly; a natural Conservative slagging off Tories. Hopefully not for being Conservative but for being liars and Labour-lite or worse. As always, if you don’t like that there is no compulsion to read it.

Personally speaking I like to read left wing views if for no other reason than to remind myself how things could be far worse than they are.

On my journey to Ramsgate last week a lot of time was taken up with discussing the dire state of almost every aspect of the country and its governance, majoring on fuel bills. When one friend asked me my opinion of the two Tory Leadership hopefuls I mentioned that I had blogged about Liz Truss in particular a few minutes before leaving home.

Among my comments then was that the blog was almost all sarcasm but that someone was bound to fall for it. Several as it happens. Surely saying “See? Running the country properly is easy isn’t it?” was fairly obvious sarcasm? Apparently not. I actually laughed out loud when one reader suggested I should read The Guardian for a more balanced opinion.

I am optimistic about Liz Truss but only because she is not Johnson, Sunak or Starmer. She does at least sound something like a Conservative should.

If running the country was easy I think we would have found a reasonably competent Prime Minister by now but this millennium has yet to see one. The more I think about it the more I am inclined to think that many of our present problems have their origins in Tony Blair and Ed Davey - but that is a topic for another day or maybe not at all.

I didn’t quite fall for Boris Johnson’s buy a kettle recommendation; he was allegedly creating a poor metaphor supporting nuclear power now to reap the benefits in years to come. Prime Minister Cameron should have done that ten years ago but the Lib Dems in coalition were getting in the way.

In similar vein I have been trying to calculate the pay back time for home storage batteries. The arithmetic gets to be very complicated because of my free solar energy which largely disappears in the Winter. For me, on my tariff and maybe no one else, the payback time may be as short as four years if I can get a good deal on the reputedly most reliable batteries. That is a lot better than three years ago when the calculation led me to believe the payback time would exceed the life of the battery.

I went through a similar dilemma in 2010 when solar panels first became in vogue but that has paid off in Spades. Will batteries be the same?

My latent socialist streak comes to the fore when I think that the very best off-peak tariffs (for battery charging) are only available to owners of electric cars who can afford to shell out four years worth of electricity bills up front. As always seems to be the case, the poor get hammered hardest. But making everyone equally poor, as I was in the socialist seventies, is not the answer.

2 September - False economies

News reports are that Boris Johnson has suggested buying new kettles to save £10 a year but I am not sure I believe them, surely even Boris Johnson isn’t that stupid.

Electricity is commonly converted into light, sound, kinetic (movement) and heat energy. Pedants might add magnetic and nuclear but they are the main ones and in the case of kettles we expect them to convert electricity to heat. If it lights up like a beacon, makes a noise or starts walking across the kitchen you have a problem but not much of one. You can deafen yourself with a couple of watts of acoustic energy efficiently converted and vibration would consume a piddling amount of energy compared to 3,000 watts of heating power.

Walking whistling or glowing kettles probably require attention but the only way a kettle is likely to really waste energy is if it is furred up. It will take longer to heat up and during the extra minute or two might lose a tiny bit more to the atmosphere while it comes to the boil. Basically an old 3,000 watt kettle will boil water at the same cost as a new one. Any differences will be immeasurable to the point of being non-existent and you will be thirty quid worse off for buying a new one.

When I installed solar panels in 2011 they were not powerful enough for a 3,000 watt kettle so I thought I would be clever and buy a 1,000 watt kettle which would run entirely off solar energy and therefore boil at no cost.

It naturally took three times as long to boil the water and when it was eight months old it failed. So it was £20 straight down the plug hole.

For the record my Smart Meter tells me that it costs about one penny to make one cup of tea or coffee. If you want to save money buy a cheaper brand.

I take the regular pleas to take things off standby with a pinch of salt too. My old plasma TV was very expensive when switched on but took only 0·4 watts in standby. Even at next January’s tariff that is under three pence a week.

Knowing my luck, flicking the off switch several times a day will result in its premature failure and an excessive repair bill.

Besides that, up market TVs go through a screen refresh cycle after you turn them off. Not every time but quite often. Not allowing them to do that will cause the screen to deteriorate more quickly. Another unwanted expense.

My sister has a bank of three phone chargers on a single power strip and permanently powered on. It always annoyed me - and not just because of the small fire risk - and eventually I did some research on how much power she might be wasting.

The answer was under £1 a year so I decided to say nothing rather than risk a sisterly nagging.

There are ways to make economies but listening to Boris Johnson is not one of them.

Note: Some kettles are 2,500 watts or similar. The same logic applies.

1 September - Things can only get better

Wasp’s nest discovered and maybe dealt with. Several dead on window ledges and one attacking this computer screen right now. Ancient gas boiler broken, inspected and hopefully replaced tomorrow. Dentist. Day trip to Ramsgate. Car serviced and passed MOT. Four new tyres on Friday afternoon. It has been a busy and expensive week.

I looked at an Air Source Heat Pump but the cost would be in the region of ten times that of an old boiler. Boris Johnson and his green revolution, inspired I suspect by his old boiler Carrie, is utterly mad isn’t he?

Storage batteries filled on an overnight so called cheap rate is beginning to look more sensible.

I feel strangely optimistic about the prospect of Bozo being replaced by Liz Truss. 15% VAT, no Inheritance Tax, National Insurance cut. The end of the war on motorists. Advisory Motorway speed limit and no more Smart M ways. A more intelligent energy strategy. Getting tough with China. Sorting out the Northern Ireland problem. Maybe fishing too. No more Covid lockdowns. Getting rid of Sadiq Khan and stamping on Nicola Sturgeon.

See? Running the country properly is easy isn’t it?

What did Boris Johnson actually achieve as Prime Minister? Botched Brexit. Ordered too many Covid vaccines and took a principled stand on Ukraine. Not missed anything have I? What a wastrel he has proved to be.