With nothing significant to report it is trivia time again.
CPZ (Crazy Pole Zone)
I assume it is something to do with
the coming CPZ but yesterday this ridiculous
eyesore of a pole was erected right outside my house. Just why do we need an
ugly 16 foot pole to enforce a CPZ? It is not as though it is a CPZ entry point in need of a large notice.
It is not the only new pole erected nearby but it does appear to be the tallest of them.
I didn’t think I could despise Bexley Council and its Highways Department in
particular more than I did already but I have been proved wrong again.
PS. The Contractor (see image 1 at the foot of this page) said the pole is for an End of Zone
sign. For God’s sake, it is the end of a Cul-de-Sac.
Why do we need a sign to say my drive is not part of the CPZ? There is no
similar pole at the eastern end of Coptefield Drive, also a
Cul-de-Sac, nor at the end of any other Cul-de-Sac on the half of the estate
inspected.
Lesnes Abbey incident
As I walked to the Harrow Manorway flyover at 9:45 yesterday morning there was
an ambulance on the Abbey Road footpath and a police car obstructing the bus stop alongside the Abbey.
From the flyover I could see an ambulance in New Road. Then two more came
from Knee Hill and over
the flyover but U-turned and went to Abbey Road.
Ten minutes later I counted the emergency vehicles from the top of a 301 bus as
it climbed New Road. There were 15 or possibly more. Mainly police. In Long Lane the bus had
to pull over to allow more police cars with blue lights through heading in the direction of the Abbey.
I was away from home all day but periodically checked Facebook and The News
Shopper but drew a blank. I know two New Road residents reasonably well and
called on them around 4 p.m. to ask if they had been able to discover what had
happened earlier but neither did. Same in Abbey Road, that lady did not know either.
Maybe illegal immigrants are involved somehow; that would ensure a police news blackout.
Thames Water
The week long Thames Water nonsense
in Abbey Road overran a further three days to Monday and it was Tuesday
before they took all the diversion signs away.
Both Long Lane and Brampton Road, the only direct routes from the North of the
borough to Bexleyheath are both blocked by temporary lights and access to
Pickford Lane is blocked completely. From the top of a 301 I could see that once
again it was unnecessary because there was only a small excavation on one side of the road only.
Does Bexley Council never inspect what they allow to happen? They must care not
one jot for the inconvenience to residents and the effect on the local economy.
Thames Water is still accusing me of not paying their 50% increased bill but I
have. In fact due to an error on my part I have over paid by twenty two quid,
however if you don’t pay exactly as they demand it screws their accountancy
system and the money gets ‘lost’. Incompetent by every measure.
Mad Milibrain
There is tough competition among Labour Ministers to see who can be the most
stupid and the biggest danger to the economy but to my mind it has to be Ed Miliband.
He has almost single-handedly wrecked the motor industry and he thinks it is
clever to block North Sea oil wells and buy the stuff from Norway who extract it
from a well closer to Britain than Norway.
The idiocy defies belief and makes British energy prices the highest in the
industrialised world. When Britain goes completely broke Miliband will have been
a principal architect of its downfall.
There must be something horribly wrong with the energy market because on Monday
Octopus Energy gave me 24 hours notice of free electricity for an hour the
following afternoon. Free for anything in excess of normal that is. As I
normally use none during the day thanks to the house battery everything I used
was absolutely free, I put the car and the battery on timed charge and set the
immersion heater to come on too. Then I cooked some stuff in the oven. At one
time I was drawing 16 kilowatts from the grid.
Energy use picture below.
There has to be something horribly wrong with the energy market for that to make sense.
If you switch to Octopus yourself and go via this link you will earn yourself
and me £50.
hottps://share.octopus.energy/ebon-eel-467
Computers
The computer I built before I went into
hospital in March was finally brought into use last Monday. With no Photoshop
and Irfanview proving to be inadequate for my image manipulation needs, I am getting by on something which can do
the necessary albeit in a somewhat clumsy way.
The program which monitors new blogs etc. for upload was not very reliable on
Windows 10 and hopeless on 11 so I am using a substitute, the free version for
the time being. It reliably uploads new stuff but appears to be
over-eager and puts up things which aren’t quite ready.
It runs in the background by default which is a pain.
I suppose I will get used to switching that off each time. On the plus side it filters out stuff I do not
want to be uploaded so no accidental reappearance of the litigious one, the old
program ignored filters, but on the downside the new one is
horribly slow. The old program found new stuff within seconds and I was never
sure how it did it. The new program compares my local copy of BiB with the web version
every time it runs which with tens of thousands of files to check can take around ten minutes.
I fear an impact on the life of my SSDs which are only good for a certain number of accesses.
The eight year old computer now runs Windows 11
under its original activation code despite Microsoft saying it is
incompatible, No insurmountable problems. It has dual screens so initially it put
the desktop on the right hand side and the mouse and keyboard input invisibly on the left
so there was no way of installing the graphics driver to correct the displays without a visible mouse.
The second time I installed Windows with just one screen connected but on the wrong disc, but third time lucky.
I suppose a spare PC will come in useful one day.
Too much technology
After 18 years, my Siemens washing machine decided it was fun to blow the house
circuit breakers every time the motor cut in. I bought another and discovered it
can be operated via a phone App. Being a nerd, I installed it. Doing so disabled
the machine’s own buttons apart from the one that disables the Wi-Fi so
operation is via machine or App; not a mixture.
I still have to load the machine, close the door and turn the water supply tap
although it does have a small tank for liquid detergent and will take what it
thinks it needs. The App provides extra programmes but it already has twelve and
I will likely use no more than three of them.
It is all very advanced and clever although I discovered that if you change the
Quick Cycle time from 30 to 15 minutes, the Start button greys out - the machine
buttons allow it - but what is the point in standing next to
the washing machine with a phone in your hand?
Planning Issues. 16 New Road
The lower end of New Road on the Western side is a nice mix of 1930s style houses
and bungalows all of different design. A road of some character and charm. When
the resident of No. 16 died it was passed to her son who at first rented it and
inevitably it began to fall into a state of dilapidation. He sought
permission to turn it into a a block of flats with a pre-existing edifice at the
back end of the garden to become a chalet. On that latter proposal the application was turned down.
A second application was submitted and the chalet became a storage area for
bicycles and the bungalow a three storey block of nine flats. The rear
garden becomes a car park for seven vehicles. Several long established trees
have to go.
It was accepted that vehicles emerging into New Road with its 30+
buses an hour was regarded as a potential hazard but no one really cared.
The plan ran counter to planning guidance in respect of both distances and light
and as one has come to expect of Bexley officers, the planning spokesperson was
particularly unimpressive.
The Councillors present were Mrs. June Slaughter, Peter Reader, Chris Ball,
Frazer Brooks, Kurtis Christoforides, Larry Ferguson, Baljeet Gill, Howard
Jackson, Rags Sandhu, Cameron Smith and Nicola Taylor. June had several
misgivings, about parking in particular, and Nicola Taylor was rightly concerned about the
destruction of 100 years of tasteful development.
Nevertheless, everyone voted to approve the desecration of New Road and destroy
the heritage of 100 years. Why did they risk the wrath of every resident of New
Road? Because there is no way they could have won against a costly appeal. Sadiq
Khan is wrecking London in so many ways.
Illustrations
Covered CPZ restriction sign (left of 1st image) and contractor’s vehicle.
Energy use: Car, water tank, battery, solar panels, grid and house load.
16 New Road, SE2.